Archive for September, 2007
September 29, 2007 at 12:49 pm · Filed under Reflection
Thursday evening I was on my way to the student union building and I saw what looked like the remnants of a demonstration around the old bus loop.
I think it is a campaign by the Students for a Democratic Society group at UBC.
From their site:
This campaign seeks to safeguard public spaces on campus, and to liberate corporate/privatized space so that it may be accessible to all. A huge component of this campaign is to oppose the University Blvd Development Plan in its entirety and essence (since its purpose is to make the centre of campus a corporate/private space to which students only have access as customers or condo owners/renters), and to replace this plan with one that maximizes public space and green space (keeps the grassy knoll), emphasizes student controlled space, makes the centre of campus car-free, and actually increases bus-ridership across the campus community.
I like the concept of free space and I agree that the feeling of student as customer is becoming stronger and stronger.
But from a non-political / activist perspective - I wondered why there were no people using the free space. Yes, it was a bit rainy outside and I imagine that couch being too wet to sit on but still…only information about the campaign was posted on the free speech board.
I took pictures and I felt a little awkward, like people were maybe watching or noticing me and I did not want to be noticed. It made me think about the personal barriers one would need to overcome to enjoy the free space.
Then I walked into the SUB and thought about the comfort people find in being a consumer. Spending money and receiving consumables and the right to be somewhere gives one purpose. To use free spaces, you need to make your own purpose. It will not be sold to you.
Members of groups like the one who organized this have their purpose - how can that purpose be distributed to everyone? Who will accept it if it means giving up comforts.
I imagine these groups face this problem all the time. I guess I am doing some inner reflection - why have I never gotten involved? Because it means giving up my comfort…
September 28, 2007 at 1:43 pm · Filed under 日本語
Yes! “Just a few words a day”…so I’ve been busy and will continue to be busy until (…?…) but, 出来るだけ! As much as possible!
ガリガリ, garigari
According to my ds, it is onomatopoeia for grinding or gnawing but, according to rikaichan it means selfish person or selfishness. Are they related? 心をガリガリかじる.
虫,むしば, mushiba
“cavity”, “decayed tooth”, the first kanji, 虫 (mushi), means “insect” and the second, 歯 (ha –> ba) means “tooth”. I wonder if the origin is from 虫 being used in compound words expressing things rotten or having gone bad or, was it once believed that a cavity or bad tooth was caused by a bug living inside?
September 28, 2007 at 12:43 pm · Filed under Things Found Online
I am learning that if you search Flickr for pictures tagged “couch”, it is very difficult to find a vacant couch. They are all occupied with pets, children or naked women.
September 27, 2007 at 5:54 am · Filed under Thinking
I have too much crap!
Today I emptied my storage container. After a year and a half I was reunited with my Vancouver possessions. Below is what was my container, a picture taken when about 65% of my things had already been packed into a minivan.
Everything completely filled the back (seats taken out). Thank you Hendrik, thank you so much! He had the genius to angle a folding table into an “L”-shape so that it could fit together. I was tetris-impressed.
Now I have boxes and boxes of things and not much place to put them. Some of it I am very happy to see again. Like my blanket, my housecoat, towels, my table…all the really functional things. Things that keep me warm or let me put stuff on/in them.
Then there is all the random crap I’ve picked up along the way. I see it and I just feel buuuuuuurdened. “I was fine without you. I am independent now.”
I will probably warm up to somethings. Other things…well, a garage sale is in order. Also, from now on…well…in Japan I did a pretty good job at keeping purchases low, not buying room decorations and things like, no matter how kawaii. I think I will be able to continue that here. Right now I feel value in owning as little as possible.
Except for clothes…
September 26, 2007 at 3:46 am · Filed under Social Technology, Things Found Online
The other night at supper A reminded me of craigslist missed connections. I had forgotten about them! Not so interesting when in another country and there is 0% chance of surprise…1% chance and I am sucked in!
I wrote about them before and this time, I’m thinking about the different types of posts. Some of the characteristics or variables are:
- frequency of encounters with the sought person: one to multiple times (possibly in daily routine)
- deepness of relationship: total stranger to someone very close
- location scope: specified (I saw you), guessing (I think you might live in…now), where??
- types of locations: transportation, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, shows, in the street, class etc.
- identifiers: physical descriptions, description of event or place, names
- interactions: nothing, phone/email exchange, dancing, smile, conversation, being serviced (e.g. waiter), etc.
- seeker’s expectation: just throwing this out there to I must find you
- time: recent encounter to distant past
- (…)
The one thing I am not liking is this one dude pouring his heart out over an ex (I assume) that he misses deeply. Now I know, missed connections can be a good emotional outlet for broken-hearted people and there is that word “miss”(ed) in there. However, when somebody posts they are doing so for their own benefit - the small possibility that the person they seek will read the post and they can reconnect or connect again. At the same time, they are benefiting the community of missed connection readers by adding to perceived chance, arousing curiosity and satisfying some voyeurism. I feel like the sob letter posts do not provide the same benefit and enjoyment to the community and they add noise to the information I am interested in. Not that this is a service for my enjoyment, its purpose is missed connections, and maybe some people do enjoy reading about the heartbreak of others but…I wonder if a separate craigslist category would be more suitable? One between missed connections and rants and raves.
I was also wondering, if I was an Asian woman and I saw “Asian girl on the skytrain” how would I identify with that? Like…especially living in Vancouver. Maybe I wouldn’t even think about it. It is a physical description. I am “Tall girl on the 25″. But I wonder if the difference is that “Tall girl on the 25″ could be posted by any man but, I am going to guess that the guy who posted “Asian girl on the skytrain” is not Asian. Tell me if I am wrong but, if this is the case then it is interesting how, while specifying filter information, the man implicitly includes information about himself.
Finally, I have never written a missed connection myself and I wonder, if the occasion comes about in the future, will I be reflecting on the saucy man I saw in the soup aisle at the supermarket (sorry about that) and think - I should missed connect! Or, will I be composing the classified the moment I see him walk away with a can of Campbell’s tomato?
(Actually when I think about it, the soup aisle might have the lowest flow of male customers but I have no evidence to back that up. Though I am sure someone has researched male versus female flow through the grocery store and if I can’t fall asleep in the next 15 minutes I might just have to look that up.)
September 25, 2007 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Photographs
Had my first day back at UBC on Friday. There was hardly anybody there. Went yesterday and today and…well I am back.
I was going to take some pictures around the lab to prove it. But everything is gray and cement. They did paint floor numbers on the walls in the stairwells. I will have to photograph those sometime. Also black and white but I like the design. Instead, some snippets of UBC’s colour.
Summer flowers are still in bloom, leaves are green but starting to turn.
I have no clue what the plant below is but now I know what inspired those hair clips girls wear with their yukatas.
Finally, I’ve been totally enjoying these blue/gray hued plants…because I am getting used to the concrete?
September 23, 2007 at 11:25 am · Filed under 日本語
After some time of not studying to learn anything new, I feel renewed motivation to pick up more and more Japanese - below helped. Unfortunately I do not have too much time to study now but if I can try for even just a few words a day…
…and I think it will help to post them here. For archival purposes and also for the chance that I do have some Japanese readers who can tell me “Meghan…you don’t need to remember that”. Without further ado…
鼻の穴, はなのあな, hana no ana
“nostril”, more literally translates to “nose’s hole”, nose being 鼻(hana) and hole being 穴(ana), I like that it rhymes (鼻の穴にバナナを突っ込む).
いびき, ibiki
“snoring”, this is harder for me to remember because the word, ibiki, sounds more like a sneeze to me, perhaps the sneeze of a small dog.
苦しい, くるしい, kurushii
“painful”, “difficult”, “laborious” in the context of work or more physical things like breathing. I think I remember hearing this word a lot so it might have broad usage.
チョコまみれ, choco mamire
“covered in chocolate”, my translator says that mamire (まみれ) is a stain or smear but I think it can maybe also be used as a suffix - xxxまみれ meaning “covered in xxx”, comes from the verb mamireru (まみれる) meaning to be smeared, covered.
By now you might be wondering where I am getting these words from. I pick stories from the book I bought at the airport and try to read them. They seem to be written in a natural speaking style so I hope I can pick up on some Japanese that you don’t learn studying grammatical patterns. The current story involves chocoballs inserted into the nose of a sleeping boy.
次の瞬間, つぎのしゅんかん, tsugi no shunkan
“the next instant”, an important expression if I am going to be telling suspenseful stories.
ぴくぴく, pikupiku
onomatopoeia for twitching or wiggling.
全身, ぜんしん, zenshin
“the whole body”, as in his whole body began to convulse. It is good to remember that the kanji 全 (zen) has means of “all”, “whole”, “entire”, “complete” and so on.
Now do I dare try to use all the words in a sentence or two?
September 22, 2007 at 11:14 pm · Filed under Experiences, Learning
今晩英語と日本語を交換するためにバンクバーに住んでいる日本人に会いました．彼は北海道からですけど，カナダへ来る前に東京に住んでいました．今までカナダに５ヶ月ぐらいいて，子供たちに日本語を教えています．たぶんそれですから，彼はしんせつだし，ゆっくり日本語で話してくれました．私は日本語でしゃべられて，うれしいです. ２週間で１回会ってもいいと思います．忘れないように．．.
明日もっと年を取る人に会うつもりです．水曜日にそのお祖父さんは私にカフェで話しました．「私に手紙を書いてくれるか？」と言いました．私は「いいえ，論文です．手紙だったら，もっとうれしそうかも知れない」と返事しました．５分後，お祖父さんはエメールアドレスが書いてある紙を渡して，「じゃあ，手紙を書いて送ってください」と言いました．帰りながら，どうしようかを考えていました．子供の時いつも「知らない人に話すのは危ないよ！」を聞きましてが，私の研究の興味は知らない人の中にコミュニケーションが出来るようにな研究です．その興味を否定したくない．(Can I say that? I don’t want to contradict myself.) 金曜日にエメールを送って，返事をまらいました．「もう一回A.S.A.P.に会いたいです！」そして，明日２時にカフェで会う予定が出来ました．面白そうと思います．
ああ，英語のバージョンを書いた方がいいですが，疲れた！ 明日…
tomorrow (technically):
Tonight I met with a guy from Japan for English and Japanese language exchange. He has been in Vancouver for 5 months, teaching English to young children so he is sensitive to use words that I can understand and to speak slowly and clearly. At first I was scared to speak in Japanese because I have not had the experience in Vancouver and I thought that most of our meeting would be in English. But actually we talked a lot in Japanese. Even though he can say a lot with his English, I think that he appreciated being able to switch to Japanese at times.
I hope that we can meet for language exchange again. In the meantime, I feel more motivated to continue my studies, or at least maintain my current level until after my thesis is finished. I think that trying to write (my blog) in Japanese might help. I will probably have many mistakes and use words in the wrong context but…it’s fun. No really, if you understand Japanese, please correct me in the comments.
September 22, 2007 at 5:44 am · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff, Sweet Finds
There used to be an old bakery on Dunbar street. The kind containing, compared to chain bakeries pumping out the buns, a sparse amount of plain, homemade looking breaks and some pies, with white walls and no signs and a single older woman behind the counter, running the show. When she takes holidays so does the bakery.
Or this is what I imagined the bakery to be like. I never went inside - just walked by. But the other day I took my first walk down Dunbar since April to find a new Bakery front:
Well, it is possible that I missed this in April but - needless to say, it has the most amazing, perfect bakery feel - and name! I am not the only one who thinks so. Googling led to this article on the Dunbar area in the Straight just published this week. “Butter Baked Goods” is under the section of “Best name for a bakery”. The writer mentions that the bakery opened the same day that the schools did…I am assuming he means the neighborhood schools which opened…a long time ago. So I am guessing that the bakery is still owned by the same people, but it has been renovated.
I guess the best way to find out would be to go inside and ask. The problem is, this would likely involve buying something and my expectations for their goods, given the name and decor, are extremely high. Not only that but, part of me enjoys just the concept or fantasy or the perfect bakery and if I were to eat its baking, the bakery would land in the mundane, in reality, and become something under-appreciated.
But…if someone came to visit me and told me we were going…I might not be able to say no * wink * *wink *.
September 21, 2007 at 9:57 pm · Filed under Photographs
of octopus. In the window of a fish shop near my home.
September 21, 2007 at 11:41 am · Filed under Thinking
Yesterday I moved into my new room and now I feel a bit more settled into Vancouver life. I actually slept through the night, nine sweet hours and no scary dreams. My body is also thanking me for bringing it back to a dryer climate. My hair and skin feel softer, not clammy and greasy.
Remembering the little things like cheap apples, good coffee, and a forest to jog through help me better accept and be happy with my return to Canada.
But there are still memories. How long will they last? In what way will I stay connected? The above picture is of the window in my new room. You can’t see but the walls are blue. I love it. The glass vase and the paper crab are both from girls trips I took (Hakone and Shibu onsen). I put them there for now - want to remember to, in a few weeks, write a letter to the girls I worked with.
September 20, 2007 at 5:40 am · Filed under Dreams, Evil Things
Woke up from my 3 hours of sleep with a small cry. Did you guys in the house hear it? It may not have been loud, maybe only a voiced gasp. It was that kind of cry that, in your dream cannot escape and only begins to leak out as you being to gain consciousness. Then, when your eyes fixate on something in the darkness of your real room and your brain imagines that as the thing in your dream you are (waking up) (running away) from, the scream receives a sudden final push from your mouth.
In my dream I was hanging out by rivers in Japan. Initially there were people. Later the river seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but surrounded by cement. The stage of my dream was in front of a large cement wall - an area that could be under a bridge but I don’t recall there being a full bridge built over the river. Maybe only the wall and an overhanging slab, the rest of the bridge broken off. I had knowledge that there was a city in the not so far distance. I had to make this my home and hide that from the authorities of the city.
A structure was built on the cement bank in front of the cement wall, dividing a large square area into two with a frame running diagonally to join the enclosing frames and from these frames (I don’t know what else to call them) sheets and panels were hung, gaps between them. I made my resting grounds in one area and an old homeless man was in the other.
(Possibly my first night sleeping there) I awoke with an uneasy feeling. I looked to the “doorway” of my area. I could see the upper left corner of a pair of glasses frames peeking from the doorway wall. I moved forward and caught a glimpse of the side of a face which then retreated backwards. I threw something at the doorway and tried to scream but could not. A pair of legs stepped through the doorway, moving a body towards the right side of my “bed”. Half my mind tried to scream again and the other half went for safety but as my eyes opened in the real world it saw a jacket and towels hanging in front of me, creating shadows like those of a body standing over me. A dream figure jumped from those shadows and landed besides the mattress I was sleeping on (which is on the floor). Then I woke up completely.
For a long time afterwards I felt really uneasy and even now if I remember the image of those glasses peeking in the doorway I get freaked out. I think I’ve already had dreams like this one - ones where I am being watched and often by someone who is peering through a doorway. Are these dreams an effect of any specific mental state?
September 20, 2007 at 1:41 am · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff
Tonight I went to a farewell dinner for Abhi, one of the Kommunist who is moving away from Vancouver tomorrow. We went to a Japanese izakaya, Kingyo (goldfish) on Denman and tried many different things. Overall I like the place. The decor is like many modern or chain izakayas in Japan but in a typical Vancouver shop space so large window stop you from getting that feeling of being cut off from the outside world. Yes that feeling can be really great but I also sometimes like the openness of seeing other people in the restaurant and who is walking by outside.
We ordered a number of different dishes, all very tasty but definitely Vancouver-ized. I liked the Mentaiko Kimchi Udon a lot - things I ate in Japan but not ever together. The things I did not like did not have to do much with tastiness but just preference.
Many of the dishes were garnished with or contained spring mix. I think I somewhat really don’t like spring mix. Not that it tastes bad but it is just…everywhere; restaurants and homes. I eat it and it is like I am eating it straight from the plastic rectangular spring mix box with the purple label. A box that contains too much spring mix to finish before it starts to wilt so there is a high chance that the spring mix on your plate has been salvaged from a batch about to go bad.
Then the only other thing was the sukiyaki we ordered. I think it is probably very good for someone who has not eaten sukiyaki in Japan but for me, the experience was not the same. They placed a pot already containing all ingredients (broth, vegetables, meat) on a burner at our table. Often in Japan, at first the pot only contains broth. Once the broth is heated you yourself get to put food inside. Also, the meat was cut more thickly and there were no mushrooms.
But still - it was all pretty good and a finishing touch was the after dinner treat (not dessert…but is there a name for this part of the meal?) - a beautiful arrangement of frozen grapes on skewers in a vase.
While looking for a Kingyo website to link to, I came across a post about the restaurant in a blog written by a Japanese woman - Good things in Vancouver. Oh I love it! She writes a lot about restaurants and food in Vancouver, as well as movies she has seen and places she has gone to. Posts are often in Japanese and English and her pictures are great! It is so very interesting to read about what interests someone from Japan in Canada - particularly food-wise. And, reading through her posts some more I learned about Japandog. I so have to taste those!! Check out the Japandog website or go to the corner of Burrard and Haro to try. But not tomorrow. According to their site they are taking September 16th to 20th off as “…we are very tired, we need day-off.” Oh…so cute!!
September 19, 2007 at 5:40 pm · Filed under Addictions, Random Thoughts
In the cafe closest to my home an 8(?)-year-old girl repeatedly asks her mother ordering at the counter “mom can I have a vanilla latte, can I have a vanilla latte? …” I am a little shocked - is this her regular order? The mother, done handing money over to the cashier, begins to pay attention and says laughing “no! what are you thinking?!”
Coffee is an “adult drink” by social standards but not by law. It is only somewhat…unacceptable (?) for children to drink, maybe because it changes body chemistry and has addictive properties. Luckily the flavour is not very agreeable with a typical child’s tastes…a built in protection mechanism. But still, there are a number of coffee-based beverages masking the bitterness with sugar and milk products and other flavours - how much do these appeal to children and which children get to drink them? If their parents deny a request for a vanilla latte, are they allowed to have other drinks containing caffeine? If denying a child coffee is not based on health concerns but simply because coffee is an “adult drink” what does this say about adult perceptions of drinking it?
I consider my own. My morning cup of coffee is a daily sign of independence and self-support. I am drinking my coffee to start a day in which I will take on life responsibilities. I also drink coffee as a reward for responsibilities taken. On a day off I might indulge in a late morning breakfast out…accompanied with coffee.
Today I drink a rare cup of afternoon coffee to give me a thesis-working boost. It helped get me started and it helped me notice the shape of these buds on the walk home. I saw them and was able to picture graphics inspired by their shape but before today, I never connected the graphics to a plant that actually existed. They seem so wonderfully cartoonish.
Coffee is not helping me now. My body is sore and tired. I want to sleep. I think I might have a short nap…need to get functional soon.
September 19, 2007 at 7:30 am · Filed under Thinking
Culture shock. I am back. People are…different. They are playing Bob Dylan in this cafe and when trying to staple my receipts together with an empty stapler the cashier laughed “it’s dead”. Personal space boundaries are so different.
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