10 Things

Making lists are good - especially those ones that come in 5 or 10 - the exact amount of digits you have on one hand or two. No brainy for counting off your listed items. Unless of course you forget you have 5 digits and end off sounding three items rather than 5. But thats just embarrassing and besides its probably nothing Id be willing to share anyway. Lists are lovely. But not in an offish pretentious way - ahem my top 5 besties (no I'm not giving you a rank). Lists are lovely because, although quite reductionist, they are a mirror of who you are and what priorities you've set - that's what I think.

Cheaper than a drivers license (plus subsequent orders of beer)

My list:

Library Card - Sure beats having to buy books and its much cheaper! Although it would be nice to have a nice library of my own...except for those pesky overdue fines.

Elevate: heeled shoes

Internet - When there is nothing on TV - there's sure to be something on here. Plus life starts and ends here nowadays. Theres no escape. I blame facebook.

Tweezer - Keep those bushes I call my eyebrows in order.

Water - Its just good for you.

Credit Card - Try to travel around the world without it. Good back up incase of...well an emergency (read: bargain deal on designer wear). I do believe I wouldn't have the pretty nice shoes I have now if it weren't for Mr. Credit Card. Bless

Phone - Insurance for when you've got no money. Its your 'call a friend' option :) Also to inform friends of said bargain deal on designer wear. But only when you've got there first.

Tights

Good shoes - Many shoes for many different occasions.  Its like when, in the realllll old days, you used to have a morning dress, day dress, evening dress, etc. Plus its not practical to hike up a hill in heels. Believe me on that.

Camera - Not being able to read a bit of Chinese, this is the how I found my way back to my bus (real handy to leave a digital trail). Also it helps catching TTC drivers doing stuff they shouldn't.

Epilator - For those days when you do bother. This gets it done faster.

(opaque) Tights - There are days when you just can't bother. Tights are there for those days :) And because they come in so many colors :) (just waiting until I can find a replacement for my red jeans RIP)

We interrupt your regular scheduled program with this special news -

TTC: Take The Car

Really? What? A portion of of the subway (and mind you the important part - the one that brings you to the city centre where all the fun is) is scheduled to close and remain close from 6 am Sat Jan 29 until 6 am Mon Jan 31 to undergo track installation.  If you can count you will realise that this is TWO full days.  Although ''frequent bus service'' (read: no service or freeze your ass in the cold for 45 minutes waiting for the next delayed bus to arrive) will be available all along the routes shut down by the maintenance.  Comes at a perfect time too - come this evening, temperatures are forecast to fall between -15 to -17 for the next two days.

Texting 'n driving: work benefits?

For its complex size, Toronto amazingly still retains a quite decrepit subway system.  And while some metro systems are complex and large enough to accommodate for track re-routing because they have other lines passing similar stations (check: New York, Paris, London), Toronto has a sad total of 4 routes. The main exchange stations are few and far between: Sheppard-Yonge, Bloor-Yonge, St-George and Spadina.  For us lucky Torontonians, this means delays can be a real bitch.  We simply cannot hop out to take another route but maybe fall back on the reliability of bus service.  Which, if its anything like the no. 97 (runs up and down THE main street of Toronto) is like no bus at all.

Good night

Yet another complaint surfaced recently in an article in the Toronto Star.  The article responds to pictures of a TTC driver apparently texting while driving.  If your like me - Id be on my toes if I had to take those substitute buses over the weekend.  And the TTC just continues receiving bad flack. Whomever covers the PR sure has it cut out for them.  TTC spokesman Brad Ross even asks that ''people do not take pictures...I’m not saying we wouldn’t use photographs sent to us (for an internal investigation), just that we don’t require it.'' But I do think you need it Mr. Ross. I'm sure the matter would be investigated nevertheless but pictures do speak thousands.  And pictures SHOULD keep coming in until these things stop happening. A report can be typed up and filed and never seen again. But a picture - well that, in the right hands, can become your worst PR nightmare :)

Toronto. Password: Creativity

Painful to watch: The Bilbao Effect

You could whisper it, shout it, breath it out, or, more appropriately, do it in a lovely drawl all the while with the smallest hint of a sneer that only a true blue-blooded Torontonians could do.  Creativity.  It may be the shiniest button out there - but it doesn't mean its the only thing that holds up the jacket.  And cue in Bilbao Effect or, in layman terms, the utter fallacy of 'build it (something shiny and glamorous) and they will come'.  I refer, ofcourse, to the majestic Guggenheim Museum in the city of Bilbao - its beautiful, its new (ish), and it says something (probably).  Bilbao was just another decaying Spanish industrial city before - but, for the Museum, it was just the luck of being there at the right time - the City started to turn around just at the time the Museum took up residence in the city. Economy and infrastructure improvements were already on its way but the Museum inevitably remained the superstar and took home the credit.  Reproductions of this archi-porn has sprung up around the world (ahem ROM and AGO) - but have not received the level of success achieved before by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao - but small wonder as the context was completely different!

Gentrification: Thanks white people

So, then I beg to ask why have we allowed ourselves to be sold hold, line, and sinker, that creativity is such a good thing?  I love art and I love culture. But these two are not synonymous with making a city identifiable with its citizens.  Art and culture are innately programmed to engage people without and within their environment.  ''What good does it do to do to build cultural temples if the pilgrims have shuttle back home to edge cities, intent on what they think the real business of life is--to make money, to stay afloat, to get quickly onto the lucky side of the gulf between the rich and the poor.''  We've been sucked into creativity as a way of live.  Its completely reorganised the way we see things as they are and the way we think that they should look like.  Maybe Toronto should stop trying so hard and just try to be, you know, a city - not for the idea but the people.

The wonderful marvels of Morocco

Friendly yet mildly aggressive stall-owners, blue walls, history, rich food, colourful houses, and brilliant mosaics. That is the Morocco that is sold to you. And largely, these images could be true. But, perhaps from an unfortunate series of events, I got to appreciate a wholly different side of Morocco but one, in my experience, gives a fuller appreciation of the city and to what 'luxuries' I have been gifted with in Canada.

Work

Morocco for sale

A few months ago, and a few weeks before completing my traineeship in Germany, I decided to travel to Morocco - to see everything that I was convinced I'd see coming off the awfully nice travel websites.  Already full swing into my European travels, I ended taking a plane on Ryanair from Bergamo, Italy to Fes, Morocco.  And because I did very little research into how I was getting from the airport to the Medina, I ended up waiting for atleast one hour in the burning sun - along with other backpackers - for the bus on the side of the dusty road. Since I really hadn't had any real summer (apart from those sweltering few weeks in May when I everyday became a fight not to suffocate underneath the blanket of heat that had settled itself onto Freiburg), I was amazingly still gung ho about the heat. Imagine seeing palm trees in October! AMMMMAAAZING :)

Market

Like any airport with Ryanair - this one was located quite far from the city. Finally, I took up residence within the walls of the old city - but closer to the border than the centre.  There is no comparison with any other cities than I have seen.  Shanghai, China perhaps comes close but that would be a different story. The city literally seems to implode on itself. The streets are a mish-mash of alleys and alleys mixed with false streets mixed with side paths leading to a market. Sometimes, if you look towards the sky you could see just enough of a sliver to tell you what time of the day it was. In those parts, the roads narrow and are not paved well or even at all.  Every step is in precarious danger of stepping over someone's (quite frequently), being run over by the half-dozen human powered carts barrelling down the maze of alleys, stepping into something unsavoury, or twisting your ankle on some jutting rock.  Some paths are literally strewn with refuse. There is some logic, I suppose, to the maze of paths - I've been told that you could easily walk to the centre within 15 minutes IF you knew which paths to take.

All dried up

From my window: Good-bye Fes

Fes must have been a lovely place - before the water started running out.  There are many public fountains (looking just like in the picture to the left) scattered all over the city from where locals draw their water - often their only source of water.  There is only one to serve every so blocks - so when one dries out then you'd need to walk to the next for water.  During my stay, I saw alot of dried up wells and, I suspect, this sight would be quite common in the city.  At least the people have jobs. And this obvious fact is true - shops seem to teem with activity of man and children busying themselves with tools and the tricks of their trades. But the work that they do is misleading. There is often no other choice - pursuing higher education stands no chance against poverty. So they work.

The entire trip to Morocco has given me more food for thought than I'd imagined it would. Maybe it was tourist syndrome or that, for once, I held onto my camera (actually for safety reasons - stuff gets stolen if your not careful) and actually saw my surroundings instead of snapping away everywhere I went.  In summary, my trip has left me with the feeling that I, like looking in from behind a window, have barely glimpsed at what the real Morocco is and what conditions are really like for the people who live there everyday.

I now am supremely appreciative of running hot water.

Death of a City; Goodbye Toronto

Dear Toronto,

Architectural rendition: Frank Gehry's design for AGO

I love you but I think we should go our separate ways. We had a good run while it lasted. But it's you and not me. I feel you have changed so much in the last few years - and maybe not in such a good way - we've just grown apart and want different things. You don't look at me the same way no more - your eyes are more set on things like that shiny trove Queens West and their never-ending stream of cool hipster quips, the opulent chicness of Yorkville, bright-eyed optimism and media whoredom of Dundas Square, and the newness and swagger of King Street to name a few.

Up in flames: The Royal Ontario Museum

You've tried to give me nicely wrapped packages (only with the same thing inside but with new outside), proclaimed that a famous designer made it to make it sound cooler, and put a higher selling point on it to distract me from the real quality of the gift. But I don't need this shiny new-old toys. I ask you to fix my transportation so that I can see you more often. But it's still in the same repair as before - dirty, slow, and unfriendly.

I know you've made other newer hipper, cultured, and wealthy friends - but have you forgotten your roots? We were so happy before you started building and buying things that you thought we needed but you have ignored the things that we already have but require repair.  Its New York isn't it? They changed so you decided it was time for you to do the same!  I have to tell you its not the same. But we can still be friends and I will still visit you. Goodbye Toronto.

My dinner, made in...

Dinner is served: what is the concoction that makes up yours?

Made in Taiwan: my computer. Made in Bangladesh: my oh-so-soft pullover. Made in China: desk table and so on and so forth.  And still, I find myself bewildered by the huge inventory of places my stuff has travelled to and from before arriving into my life.  And though I would claim myself to be a vegetarian (no not a vegan), I have never really questioned the origin of my food. It was never for the ethical treatment of animals - although it is one of the reasons to turn your back on flesh. I just decided against it.  But now - even after reading just 1/3 of Pollan's ''Omnivore's Dilemma'', I'm pretty confident I've made a good decision.  The book sources American research which then reflects the relationship between agribusiness and subsidisation - but it still discusses issues that are parallel to our feeding habits north of the border.

Bon apetit

Corn and its constituent by-products help provide Americans with affordable calorie-rich food (ahem fast food nation anyone?). You'd be amazed at how many things are made with corn. Its like MSG in a ''chinese restaurant'' - its in EVERYTHING. Its even in soda (they use corn syrup - whilst we Canadians still get the 'real' stuff - but these are all manufactured in such a way that their tastes are rather similar = economics of substitution). In America, as in Canada, this corn is grown in huge monoculture farms. They are huge and usually grow only one or two crops (or animals) usually because of one thing = profit (although there are probably farms out there that are not huge monoculture agribusinesses but these I suspect are few and far between). What is then used to help these crops grow are dumped onto them as fertilisers. These plant crops which have had these wonderful chemicals bestowed upon them are then feed to the animals who themselves are hardened with more things to help them grow (up against the horrible living conditions we have provided them mind you) and then all this is cut, sliced, and packaged for our convenient consumption.

If I were eating meat, I'd consider how the animal is slaughtered (sanitary conditions in American slaughterhouses - those especially near the Mexican border - are not really regulated) - imagine discovering that the faeces in the mud that the cattle had trampled on made its dandy way somehow to the butcher table, what they put in the cow (you know cows are ruminants - meaning they eat grass - but now they are fed more than just that), how much energy it takes to process the animal through the food system (water to crops, feed the cow, wash the meat - actually now its looking that vegetarians have the upper hand in this :P), and where does the waste go?  It is a bit disheartening to consider how much of our food is probably not food - but its what we are sold hook, line and sinker.  Although its not going to make me stop eating altogether - Im probably going to be more likely to stop and think about where my food comes from and how much it really costs to put it on my dinner table.