Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Out for a run today and thought I'd share some songs that get my legs pumping, my voice singing and my heart living eternally as a 15 year old. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and why not some of this Thank you Avril. You bring out the melancholy, indifferent, i-hate-you-guys teenager in me. That and the will to just...keep....running....

Hot Docs is this incredible festival that comes to Toronto once a year to showcase some of today's top talent when it comes to documentaries. The festival continues until Sunday and would highly recommend you check it out. There are a ton of different films, all which look interesting and inspiring, but I also want to point you to one I watch last night after the book launch as it accompanies the book. Dr. James Orbinski is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Canadian sector of Medecins Sans Frontieres . Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma is a fantastic documentary about his journey back to the war torn countries in Africa he worked as a young doctor. I highly recommend it, it makes you think about Africa and mostly humanitarianism as we know it today. So happy to be taking part in artistic, grass roots events again. Toronto has so much to offer and I'm really getting psyched about the summer festivals ahead.

I'm attending an event for this book tonight: An Imperfect Offering by James Orbinski I'm excited because A) I haven't been to a book event in almost 2 years and B) I don't have to plan anything. If you can't check out the event, check out the book.

Over the last month, I actually started watching Oprah's The Big Give. My opinions on Oprah have not really changed over the years - she's an ambitious person who I can respect for her tenacity and drive, who has contributed to society nationally and internationally in a mostly positive way and who, at the very least, should be given some sort of kudos. I just don't like her. Her show tends to be her and her celebrity friends ta ha ha-ing about all the times they were hanging out in fabulous places, too fabulous for her audience to ever dream of going there once. Then, she introduced Dr. Phil, who is just simply an advertisement for the obvious and a sad state of affairs if he is considered an 'expert' on helping people. For me, it's mostly her book club, although I have to give her credit for getting people reading. It was more the pretending to not profit from the books. I suppose you don't count having to sign movie rights over to her company as profit. C...

I've started to widen my job search according to my skill set and have added various writing gigs to to the list. I just finished a 2 hour online test which tested not only my grammar but also sentence structure, logic and reasoning. Is it 100% nerdy that I actually LIKED it? For the most part, many of my jobs have consisted of a lot of people interaction. I suppose since I'm such a chatty Kathy, I figured that's the route to go with jobs. But maybe it's not. Maybe silent words can be my friends. Maybe I can use that annoying habit I have of correcting people's grammar and actually put it to good use. Like TO MAKE MONEY or something like that. That way, I can save all my talking energy for recreation. Good idea, me thinks on this sunny Sunday.

I managed to find another blog today that I think will be a good one to follow. Seth Godin's Blo g Recently I have been feeling tapped of most of my creative energy but looking through Seth's list reminds me that it's not always about writing perfectly, it's just about writing. Another part of the blogosphere that makes me ponder a new addition - what would it be like if I recorded my voice READING my blog? Because I'm certain, that I use inflections in my head when I'm writing that doesn't always come across when you're READING. And maybe one would say that, that if you're a GOOD writer your readers will GET IT but I can't say whether or not that's true actually because I read a lot of GOOD writers and I bet I'm not always reading them the way they would like to sound like. And this type of genre is different than a book or a magazine or even a radio program. Because it can tend to get very stream of consciousness, very therapeutic for t...

Rainy days always tend to give me this infinite feeling. Like I have all the time in the world to get stuff done because hey, it's not even really NICE enough outside to do anything. I'm actually EXCITED if you can believe it that I'm going to be sitting in on a Friday night, banging away in various capacities on a computer. In a basement office. Many of you are probably picturing a dull dreary existence I'm leading, to be so excited about GREY and DARK. Perhaps it's simply the way I'm feeling. More productive with the darker things in life. I'm up and down about the job search. It's never fun for anyone but just like travelling extensively, you learn a lot about yourself and in the end, you'll probably come out a better person. Some days I want to just hurry up to the better person part. Some days I'm quite happy to just be looking around, seeing what's out there, waiting for a perfect opportunity to come my way. I've started down a path...

I was introduced to Twitter a couple of ways and finally it just hit the tipping point for me and I signed. I've also been able to add it to my blog. And this also reminds me how little I update the side bar content - doh. Enjoy for now. While I'm still interested in filling you in on the excrutiating minutia of my day.

There has been a slight slump in A) the frequency of posts and B) my ability to keep a positive outlook. I think perhaps it was a strange sort of boredom that was setting in, one that occurs when you're not being as mentally productive as you're used to being, one that was causing me a great bit of angst and annoyance. It seems to have lifted, I can see through the fog and I've got a load of new energy with which to persevere. As I have always written on this blog, any life you choose is filled with challenges. Some of those you're more prepared for. Some you didn't see coming and smack you in the face like a telephone pole as you round the corner. The latter can be a bit more difficult to bounce back from. But today, I'm flying high and just riding this wave.

This is disgusting. And it's important you read it. And write to someone about it. I'm going to. Thanks Faith. 9 steps to an eating disorder by age 12

I've been working on writing and editing projects all day today and my brain is slightly fried, although quite happy to be busy. In light of that, I've decided to share this video, as my attempt to try and write something right now would probably come out AS IF NOT LESS coherent than this and plus, I'm not cute and small nor to I have beautiful doe eyes, black curly hair and a girlie bandana ta boot. Enjoy

As I've written here probably about 10 million times, I always feel better after a bit of physical activity. I'm not sure exactly what happens in the brain (okay, I'm not even really certain on a GOOD day what's going on up there) but once I've gotten some good old activity done, I feel ready to take on the world. It's like a filing cabinet appears in my head. A nice, calm, filing cabinet. That opens and closes at appropriate times. That calmly hands me one thought after the next. That allows me to focus, work and move on. Task complete, problem solved, onto the next one. I felt today that I had a lot to get done. And I almost felt that perhaps I should not go for an hour run. But I didn't go yesterday, took a day off, and last night went to bed looking forward to the exercise. I don't think I'm a terribly vain person but it is nice to know that you can fit in your pants properly, if only so that you don't have to go and buy a totally new wardrob...

I'm a bit concerned about the way that job hunting now seems to be consumed with technology. Don't get me wrong, I love the job websites just as much as the next guy. And the ability to actually email your resume to someone has always been more advantageous than say, a mass mailout to every company in your preferred industry. But I'm wondering if perhaps some companies have taken things just a bit too far. Every weekday, I wake up, have breakfast, read the paper, head to the computer to 'work'. My day of work consists of research, writing, talking of on the phone. It feels like a full time job. It's very productive, I feel as though I'm really getting myself back to a 9-5 routine, not necessarily a bad thing. I'm reintegrating myself with the Canadian lifestyle, finding out what all the hot buttons are. Wondering if and when the snow will ever go away. This is all good. All productive. All very very hunky dory. What worries me, though, is that all the wo...

Today is the first day of spring. I have to say that I think Mother Nature is turning a bit of a corner because although the streets were sheets of ice this morning, it's turning into a glorious day. For years, I've been a fan of Scott Feschuk , dating back to his days at the National Post. Thanks to a link from Dooce, I've just read his latest 'commentary' on the winter we've been having. An Open Letter to Mother Nature Now my sides don't just hurt from all the sit ups I've been doing, they are also in pain because I can't stop picturing Mother Nature's face at being addressed as Dear Bicth. In the wise words of Homer Simpson, it's funny cause it's true. I'm not sure what it's like in Ottawa today but checking the weather outside, I think you finally got her attention Scott.

I've always enjoyed St. Patrick's Day, a day built around the celebration of everything Irish and much like Canada, a good excuse to have a pint or four. This year was quite tame. Although I went to a party on Saturday, I was driving so I didn't drink. I had an early morning meeting today so there was no way I was going to head out to a pub the night before. I find myself, only now, not only reminicing about St. Paddy's Days of years past but also of Belfast and our time there. One of my favourite memories of getting together with two very dear friends, Belfast A and Belfast G, usually on a spur of the moment, for a drink and a gab session. Garrick Bar in Belfast was the perfect wee spot: (photo courtesy of flickr account ) We would tuck ourselves away into one of these corners and next thing you know, it'd be last call. And then we'd all stumble back to our respective homes, perhaps stopping for some chinese or jacket potatoes along the way. It was great to hav...

I've had a fairly long love affair with tea. I think it may have reached the same length of time as my love affair with coffee. But I had to part with the black stuff long ago. My nose says yes but my stomach says no. My love of tea great exponentially when I moved to the UK. I mean, come on people, in the Western world, they are THE QUEEN of tea. Just ask their Queen. I know she's having tea all the time. When I moved to Asia, it became greater on a whole other level. I mean, I had read about the benefits of green tea - that it can help reduce your risk of cancer by 70%!!!! - and had dabbled a little bit in the green stuff before I arrived. But South Korea had green tea by the plentiful. Hot green tea. Cold green tea. Instant green tea. It became my companion at work, at home and more importantly, in the sauna. While I sweat out all the junk I was consuming, the green tea was there with me, offering a refreshing coolness as well as a detoxifyer. The relationship just kept grow...

I've been doing a lot of writing but not so much here. I've been doing a lot of thinking but not so much expressing. I've been doing a lot of laughing right out loud. I've been doing a lot of visiting. I have actually been DOING a lot, and yet sometimes, it feels like I've not yet done anything at all. And I couldn't feel any better about that.

Dynamic. I'm not sure how anyone can get a job if they are not dynamic. Cause every career website, job posting, corporate section of company websites, wants DYNAMIC people. Are you dynamic? If you are, I'm confident you're employed. If you not, good luck. Might as well head off to remote island, work the land and live out your days a loner. A very un-dynamic loner.

Nuff said.

We're setting off today again for our journey down to the extravaganza of the Leap Year - V Day. It's not really at all like D Day, 1) because it's not the end of a war, more like the beginning and 2) there are not nearly as many Europeans involved, although I suppose D and I count with our dual citizenship. It's a day that my parents invented, to make sure that at least once every four years, all of their children would actually come home. There's no guilt for Christmases missed or birthdays, even Mother's Day and Father's Day aren't pushed heavily. But on V Day, February 29th, if you're not with my parents, well, you might as well fly yourself to the moon. My mother, however, is not great at giving guilt, which I great for me although sometimes I feel bad for her. Isn't it her right of passage to GET to make me feel guilty? Isn't THAT what all those hours of labour was for? And since me and my siblings actually LIKE my parents, we end up ge...