October 2007 posts

October 31

Happy Barkoween

Yesterday, my mom and I noticed a place on Whyte Ave called the Urban Dog, where apparently you can buy glasses for your dog. What kind of glasses, I'm not sure. And somehow, I get the feeling that the transient canine population would be just as unwelcome in that store as human transients would be in a regular Lenscrafters. In any case, we got into a conversation about the silly things people buy for their dogs, and as it turned out, the news showed the types of Halloween costumes you can buy at this particular store for their dogs. The store claims to have sold about 500 dog costumes already! Apparently, some people are buying more than one costume because they have several functions to go to, and of course, you wouldn't want your pooch to be spotted wearing the same outfit at all the functions. How the neighbours would talk! In fact, such a person with the same dog costume would probably be run out of the city.

I guess what sickens me about it is that the dog really could care less--and probably would happier not to be sporting an embarrassing outfit, or any outfit at all--and that the money could go to so many better causes. If you really love dogs that much, donate it to the SPCA or a Humane Society. Take care of people: donate it to any local charity, for that matter. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that this dog costume business is just a telling example of the increasing materialism in our society?

4:55 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink

October 25

It's OK to be Single

During this year, for some reason, I've had various conversations with single girlfriends about the problem of being single. But it's probably not what you think. As much as we would like to be in a good relationship, we are not lying around all day sulking about singlehood and lamenting that we haven't met anyone yet. No, our frustration lies in other people's ideas about how we should live our lives or feel about being single or even the patronising attitudes people have just because we're not married.

For example.

One of my friends states that many people don't take her seriously and even treat her like a child because she is single. Apparently, not being married causes her to be less knowledgeable about life and to lack any wisdom. Instead--at least I have found this in my case, being alone, I have frequently been able to observe many things and learn much through these vicarious instances of life. While a single person may not personally know the experience of being married, it doesn't prevent that person from having all sorts of other experiences that could provide wisdom in life.

However, that brings me to my next point, which is that just because a person is single, doesn't mean they can't know anything about relationships. Certainly marriage relationships have distinguishing features from other relationships, but there are many ways in which they are the same. A single person could figure out the differences, although not all single people may be inclined to do so, but it doesn't mean it is unachievable.

Another friend of mine stated that people frequently pity her and feel the need to invite her to things all the time because they think she must be bored and lonely spending so much time by herself. In her case, she really enjoys being alone, and she is able to go to a museum or out for coffee by herself without any qualms. Some of us are not blessed with that comfort level spending time with ourselves, but I must admit I got used to going to the movies with myself when I lived in Mexico, and sometimes, it wasn't that bad just to curl up in the back of a theatre and be left to your own thoughts about the movie. In any case, while many people, single or no, feel the need to engage in activities with at least one companion, there are many of us that are able to occupy our alone time rather well and feel ok about it. We don't have to have a date to go to a wedding or a company party.

I am not on a feminist rant, believe me. I don't think that I am exactly the same as a man, and I'm not trying to encourage anyone to stay single and be proud to be a strong woman. If you do want to do that, I'm not here to stop you. But I know I can function independently if I need to and that I don't need a man to complete my life.

It is not to say that people's acts of kindness and friendship are unwelcome, but at least as women, we often find that we are patronised, pitied, and not taken seriously. We value our friendships and our relationships and enjoy spending time with others, but I guess the point is that we still have brains, and you don't have to feel sorry for us. In fact, it may be our very good sense that keeps us single so far!

8:54 PM | Read comments (2) | Permalink

October 18

Carrots

I like carrots a lot, but I pretty much only like them raw. The only time I want to eat a cooked carrot is if it's in carrot cake. This is one annoying thing about living in Canada. People love to put cooked carrots in practically everything here. I went to a restaurant near work for lunch today, and 3/4 of their soups had carrots. The only one that didn't have carrots was the French onion soup, and if they had put carrots in that, I would have lost all hope for our nation's tastebuds.

What I've learned about my own tastebuds is that I don't like vegetables that become sweet when they're cooked. This means carrots, parsnips, turnips/rutabegas, and any kind of sweet potato substance. The first time I went to India, which was when I was 5, everyone was raving about these red carrots that this guy would come by in a cart with every day to sell. My brother went nuts over them. I tried one, and even though it was raw, it was sweet! So I see that this trend began when I was little, and I've only just recently identified the reason I don't like these vegetables cooked other than just thinking I didn't like how they taste. The reason I don't like their taste is because they're sweet. It's strange that I should dislike them so much when I love sweet things in general, but for some reason, I really dislike these veggies. Raw, however, I can eat them forever.

Anyways, what I don't get is why carrots in particular are such a popular addition to foods here. People put them in a lot of soups and stews, and you always see them in bags of frozen vegetables, or people will add them to their dish of cooked vegetables if making them from fresh ones. It's just annoying, and there are so many times when you can't just pick them out because it would be rude. I almost wish I had an allergy to them, just so I wouldn't appear rude, but I'm thankful that I don't have any food allergies. I know some people who have them, and it's not fun. Still, I'm left with my cooked carrot problem. Can anyone tell me why the novelty of cooked carrots doesn't wear out?

8:51 PM | Read comments (2) | Permalink

October 07

Fall 2007 Album

Just wanted to add that I've added an album with some pics I've taken around Edmonton. Hope y'all like 'em!

7:41 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink

October 06

All Natural Ingredients Go Too Far

I was in Save-On Foods today picking up a few groceries, and I headed into the Cosmetics/Skin and Hair Care section looking for hair colour. I like to just peruse these sections quite often just to see what is there, and I did a double-take when I read the following label: Henna 'n' Placenta Hair Treatment. I've recently tried to become more aware of my own ecological footprint; I buy fair trade, organic products when I can, and do my bit to reduce, reuse, and recycle. I try to buy flavoured yogurts that are naturally sweetened or contain real vanilla beans for the vanilla flavoured ones, not artificial flavourings. But I draw the line at placenta. This is just disgusting. I think the only more disgusting thing is the rumours I have heard about somewhere in the world where apparently you can eat the placentas (placentae?) of certain animals, and this is considered a delicacy. Can anyone's hair be dull and lifeless enough to justify the use of placenta in it? By that point, your best bet is to get a good hair cut and try an overnight treatment of warm coconut oil in your hair. Furthermore, you can use plain yogurt in your hair, leaving it on as a hair mask for about 5 minutes and then rinsing out. Both work really well to bring heavy moisture and shine back to your hair--without having to resort to leftovers from the birthing process, expelled by some poor woman, whom we can only hope was given a fair dosage of demerol to reduce the pain she was going through. It must be all worth it, though, to know that your placenta has not only nourished your newborn, but nourished someone else's head of hair somewhere in the world. It would certainly make going through labour that much more worth it for me. Granted, I don't know that this placenta is derived from humans. A quick search in Google suggests that maybe it comes from sheep. Either way, it's still gross, and I'll stick to my traditional Indian remedies of coconut oil or yogurt!

9:49 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink | Health and wellness

September 2007 posts

September 27

A Kindred Spirit

Aside from Lynn Truss, who wrote one of my favourite books about punctuation, I've learned recently that I have another kindred spirit. I don't know this girl personally, but I read about her on some Internet page the other day, so I thought I would post her blog here. I'm thinking I should start a site like this myself, but for another punctuation error that really bugs me. I'll have to think about it :o)

8:28 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink | English Language

September 21

Where am I?

I can't believe how time passes. It has been about 2 weeks since my last entry. Crazy! Well, I've just been darn busy. I've had a couple of shifts at the hospital and then I got a new part-time job as well, so I've been quite busy between the 3 jobs. I barely have time to write emails to people, and then I've also finally given in to Facebook, so that's been taking up some of my time. I was hoping to hold out, but once I found out there were announcements about salsa parties exclusively on Facebook, I couldn't resist. What can I say? I'm a salsera!

I have to say that my life really revolves around work, though. It's almost all I do and think about. It's very bad, but it's what you have to do sometimes. And I'm saving up to buy a place next year and have to work a lot to save up money for this. It isn't easy to qualify for a mortgage anymore. Such is life! Makes me want to move back to Mexico, but I wouldn't be doing well there anymore either because the loonie is now so high. I use to make about 1/3 more in Canadian funds when I converted it from US, which was great while I was down there. It wouldn't get me as far now. How things change.

Well, that's all for now. It's not exciting, but neither is my life. By the way, is anyone really sick of hearing about Britney news? And what about this OJ guy? They might as well have shown the footage of white Jeep driving down the road the day they arrested him. Was that really breaking news for CNN? Well, the quality of CNN is a whole 'nother discussion, but really people. Who cares!

4:53 PM | Permalink

September 07

That Strange Alberta Weather

Yesterday was one of those typical strange weather days in Edmonton. We had cloud and then sun, rain and then just cloud, back to more sun and cloud and rain and sun. There was a partial rainbow in the northwestern sky in the morning and then another partial one in the southwestern sky in the evening, which was even brighter than the morning one. By the time night fell, the whole sky had cleared up, revealing some beautiful sparkling stars on the chilly fall night, and one look north, and the first Northern Lights I've seen all year were dancing up in the sky. Either they weren't too active that night, or I just caught the tail end of them, because I didn't see them for long, but there they were. It was such a strange day with all the variation in activity, but each had its own beauty. Did anyone else notice all these things yesterday?

6:05 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink

September 03

Creepy Crawlies

I am normally not faint of heart, but on occasion I get creeped out by some bugs. For example, when I was painting the fence back in July, I had to clear away a number of spider webs. This wasn't really problematic until one day, when I was clearing one, I thought there was a bunch of pollen seeds caught in it, and when I touched it, hundreds of tiny baby spiders suddenly awoke and were moving about. Then I screamed. It was so gross. The tiny ones are spooky because they just crawl all over, and there were some on my legs and arms. I was most afraid they'd get caught in my hair, which is a recurring nightmare I have that bugs will get caught in my thick hair. Yuck! I had the heebiejeebies for a few days after that. Anyways, the bigger ones are cool, however. This Jewel Spider appeared in my back yard, and I just noticed it yesterday. Looks like he has lots of food to keep him going for a while, too! If you want to read about Jewel Spiders in more detail, you can check out the Royal Alberta Museum's little quip about them. It lets you know they're not poisonous and that you're not going to die if you get bitten :o) That would always be my fear. Of course, I know we don't have lethal spiders in Alberta, so I wasn't really worried about that, but you never know. I wasn't aware we had spiders that were actually this large in Alberta, though. Apparently they are native to here, not brought over accidentally on some crate of imported stuff. I'm glad my photos were able to capture the hairs on it, though. That's super cool.

Not much else is new at the moment. I've just been working as usual, taking extra hours in on the weekend, and now that the hospital has called me for shifts again, I'll probably be working on Sunday evenings in addition to my full time job and trying to put in extra hours over my lunch hour and what not. What can you do when you need the money?

12:53 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink

August 2007 posts

August 30

Some Answers I've Been Seeking

So I was reading some stuff on Wikipedia the other day because I came across a reference to logical positivism in a book I was reading for work, and I couldn't remember what that was, although I know I've learned about it before. I normally don't trust Wikipedia as the most accurate or reliable site for information; however, when I just need to get the main idea for something or the gist, it's often a quick way to get that information. Anyways, after reading about logical positivism and its reference to Hegelian historicism, it has provided some of the answers to the questions I had before about truth and knowledge, and especially the question asking if anyone knew which philosophers had already written on this topic before. I'm not going to write about it all here, but if you're really interested in reading about it, you can click on the link above.

5:00 PM | Permalink | Philosophy

August 27

Que Vive la Salsa!

Strangely, the Kleenex box entry is the one that generated the most comments I've had on a single entry. Who knew that a banal and inane observation would generate the most discussion? Well, on a more interesting note--at least maybe only for me again--I went to one of the best salsa parties I've been to in a long time. It was a farewell party for an acquaintance, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to go because I figured I wouldn't know anyone. But I found out a friend was going, so we arrived together, and it turned out to be one smokin' salsa party! I think I must have danced for at least an hour straight in total. I can't remember the last time there were actually so many guys to dance with that could actually dance salsa. Any given night in the salsa clubs, when they existed, there were lots of guys, but most were there to pick up women. For those of us there to dance, well, many of you already know that I don't give the time of day to those guys that can't dance. Anyways, it was a super fun night, definitely worth the dark circles under my eyes that won't go away because I haven't slept enough! Someone definitely needs to open up a club again.

Outside of that, I have been contracted to work at the university for another 2 months with a promise of 2 months more beyond that. This is a good thing for mortgage approval. It will also give me some time to stimulate some discussion about one of the topics I'm working on, for which I've already co-written one article that we have submitted for publication. It's kind of exciting. Unfortunately, this field won't allow me to coin the word I'd like to get added to the dictionary, which I can't tell you here because this is not a copyright site, and I don't want anyone to steal my word! OK, I realise that if I stated it here, someone else might start using it, and that's how it could get coined, but then maybe that person will get the credit, and I'm selfish in this case! In any case, it's still a publication, and it's a great privilege to have the opportunity to publish.

Also, for any of you reading this that are interested in seeing some statistics about the world around us, see this video by Sarah Mclachlan. It's pretty cool.

7:55 PM | Permalink

August 21

Kleenex in the Car

I've noticed a lot lately that people often put their Kleenex boxes in the back of their cars. This makes sense if you're usually driving around with a lot of passengers, but I've seen people with no one in the car and a Kleenex box in the back. If you're the only one driving, how can you reach it from there? Maybe I've just seen these people the odd time there's no one in their car, but I do wonder. I know that people probably don't want to leave it on the seats for those times they do have passengers because then it's in the way--and clearly way too heavy to lift to get it out of the way. I just find it funny.

Outside of that, nothing much else happening. Just working. It's not that exciting, well, I guess probably not that exciting to the majority of the population, so no sense in putting it here. Of course, not like most of what I write is probably interesting to my readership, but such is life :o) Anyways, I can't think of another thing to update you on, so you'll just have to wait for some good stuff to happen.

5:35 PM | Read comments (3) | Permalink

August 13

Response to Comments

Thanks to people for actually leaving comments on my last entry. I love getting comments! Anyways, I did want to respond to my cousin Chris's comment.

After I wrote my last entry, I was thinking I should have maybe referred to my entry way back when on Pluto, where I did distinguish between truth and knowledge with no dictionary required. It is probably a good exercise to read that as a background to my last entry, because I was kind of thinking along the same lines at the time.

I do believe, though, that despite whatever the dictionary may say, people do equate knowledge and truth. And despite dictionary definitions, there are sometimes meanings that are more commonly accepted in people's minds than actually exist in the dictionary. For example, people would tell you that a moron is a stupid person. They would claim they know what moron means, and they would say "it's true because everyone knows that moron means stupid person, that's why so many people call a stupid person a moron." The logic doesn't follow in this statement, but people do believe this to be the case. Originally, a moron was a person with the mentality of a 12 year old. If I were only 6 years old, and someone called me a moron in that context, it would be quite the compliment. As an adult, of course, this would certainly be insulting. But 12 year-olds aren't necessarily stupid, so morons being defined as stupid people doesn't follow here either. I'm sure the dictionary would add this newer definition just based on common usage of the term, but this knowledge that people claimed to have only became true when it was documented officially by a dictionary. I'm sure there are better examples than this one, but this is the only one that pops into my head at the moment. My point is that the dictionary doesn't always give me the answer I need. No offence intended to Oxford!

In any case, knowledge and truth are often at odds with other. If I remember right, it was Plato that differentiated between "truth" and "Truth." He claimed that Truth was absolute, whereas truth was relative. Perhaps knowledge is true, then, but not True. I certainly would question Knowledge and knowledge.

6:52 PM | Permalink | Philosophy

August 07

Knowledge Question

Normally when I put these questions out there, no one responds in the comment section, but I'll give it a go again anyways. I was thinking about the nature of knowledge again today, its impermanence. Then this thought popped into my head: Knowledge is not absolute. It is a set of assumptions based on a body of scientific (and sometimes not-so-scientific) findings, which itself is based on sociocultural and economic norms. OK, any philosophers out there who can tell me which other philosopher(s) wrote about this? I have no idea, but whenever I think I've discovered a new thought or idea, I always find out that not only is it just an old idea, but a very old idea, at least by hundreds of years. This also means that other people have thought these thoughts before and since, but the issues remain curious to my mind. Would anyone like to comment? Please?

8:37 PM | Read comments (2) | Permalink | Philosophy

August 05

Of Marriage Proposals and Job Talk

What a surprise. I've had 7 marriage proposals in my life. They were offered in a period of about 8 years from the time I was 16 until I was 24. Hadn't had one in years. Suddenly I turn 30. The bags under my eyes don't seem to go away very quickly, even 2 weeks after the party I stayed at until all hours of the morning. I used to go out 3 or 4 nights of the week! I'm more concerned with saving money to buy a property, wondering how my jobs are going to turn into a career, concerning myself about all kinds of things other than being proposed to.

People used to tell me they thought I was lucky having been proposed to so many times. But I always reply by asking, "What's the point having of 7 marriage proposals you can't use?" And only the one--well, kind of two--were flattering. A cute little old Chinese guy that owned and cooked in a restaurant he and his wife used to have tried to arrange a marriage with my parents for me and either one of his two sons, whom he claimed were very tall and very good-looking. It was flattering because it was only after several months of us going to eat there, which we did frequently because the food was outstanding, did he approach my parents. It made me think that he had been observing me over a period of time, and then decided that I was appropriate for his sons.

And then it happened. A similar thing to that cute Chinese guy. A guy at the Bosnian pavilion at Heritage Days tried to set me up with one of his two sons as well. He thought it would be the best way for my dad to get to eat their yummy roast lamb every weekend is if he had a Bosnian son-in-law. The difference is that this guy just met me, but it was still kind of cute. Only thing is that I feel for the sons, who would probably be mortified if they knew what their dad was doing. As for Heritage Days itself, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow to upload.

In other news, I remember back to another blog entry I wrote much earlier when I was talking about how I wished employers would value a person with a moral standard and is willing to stick up for it rather than seeing it as a detriment to the work site. Well, another thing I had always been frustrated about is that I also found many employers to think that because I don't have a number of years of experience in one area, that meant I would be as qualified for a job, rather than recognising the number of skills I have as being a versatile person. Then I met these profs from Occupational Therapy, and they really think I have a number of useful skills that are valuable to their work and the work of several people in the department. They are recommending me for jobs to colleagues and even for other jobs--which I won't talk about just yet in case it doesn't happen. But for now, I'm so thankful to be where I am and happy to be working for people that actually believe in me. Last year was harder on my self-confidence than I originally thought, and I really appreciate how much these profs value my contribution. It makes me feel like maybe I do have skills that are worthwhile. But I also stood up for my morals last year and ruffled feathers because of it, and here God has blessed me by giving me more job offers than I can keep up with. It's just amazing and wonderful.

8:54 PM | Permalink