"arts degrees are awesome... they help you find meaning where there is none."

often i wake up, and when i'm having a particularly difficult time getting out of bed, i listen to a convocation speech. or an occasional address. or something involving someone receiving an honorary degree. it always makes me smile, cry, and get my ass up out of bed. 
(this may sound corny, or mostly just ridiculous that i need a motivational speaker to get out of bed, but at least i'm HONEST. i literally watched this twice before i got out of bed monday. plus, it made me feel better about my 18 'side projects' i have on the go. thanks tim!)
perhaps one of my most favourite - one i've been watching and listening to since it was posted - is this one, given my tim munchin at the university of western australia. a brilliant man, and while people may see him as being negative and dream-bashing (which i guess is sort of true, since he literally does say 'don't have a dream' in his address), but he's incredibly intelligent, strongly astute, and makes points that we all need to hear time and time again. you may take some of this in stride - alongside the things you feel and 'dream' and have always thought. or you may take away from this how strongly we all need to re-evaluate life, and what we've been told, and how we need to learn to live our own lives. 

a few of my favourite moments.

"...the software guy’s not going to get it, is he? Cos he didn’t do an arts degree, did he? He should have. Arts degrees are awesome. And they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none. Don’t go looking for it. Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook: you won’t find it and you’ll bugger up your soufflé.”

"I never really had one of these big dreams. And so I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious. Put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you… you never know where you might end up. Just be aware that the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery. Which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams. If you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out the corner of your eye."

"Remember, It’s All Luck. Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate. Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually."

"By the way, while I have science and arts grads in front of me: please don’t make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don’t have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things. If you need proof: Twain, Adams, Vonnegut, McEwen, Sagan, Shakespeare, Dickens. For a start. You don’t need to be superstitious to be a poet. You don’t need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the planet. You don’t have to claim a soul to promote compassion. Science is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief; it is just a term which describes humankind’s incremental acquisition of understanding through observation. Science is awesome. The arts and sciences need to work together to improve how knowledge is communicated."

"We have tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff; as a comedian, I make a living out of it. But try to also express your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank-you cards and give standing ovations. Be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff."

"You will soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it’s tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you’ll be old. And then you’ll be dead. There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is: fill it. Not fillet. Fill. It. And in my opinion (until I change it), life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever you’re doing, having compassion, sharing ideas, running(!), being enthusiastic. And then there’s love, and travel, and wine, and sex, and art, and kids, and giving, and mountain climbing … but you know all that stuff already. It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours."

and perhaps my favourite:

"Be a teacher. Please? Please be a teacher. Teachers are the most admirable and important people in the world. You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re in doubt about what to do, be an amazing teacher. Just for your twenties. Be a primary school teacher. Especially if you’re a bloke – we need male primary school teachers. Even if you’re not a Teacher, be a teacher. Share your ideas. Don’t take for granted your education. Rejoice in what you learn, and spray it."

you can read the entire address here. and i encourage you to watch. and rewatch. and think. and rethink. it will do you good. 

and watch again. 

when all you need is to be you.

i've been feeling a bit like figuring out how to be 'me' lately, is becoming a primary motive. when moving across the country, it's easy to lose a sense of who you are, as you leave everything you've used to identify yourself behind. when i came upon this video, done by one of my favourite internet 'people' (what on EARTH do you call people who are just professionals at interneting??), it said what needed to be said.

we all just need to be a little more... us. 

check out more zefrank on his website.

things i'm in love with

it's friday. for me, fridays bring a day off, they usually bring two days off. they bring a chance to sleep in, to catch up on 'paperwork' (if you can believe someone like me has paperwork), and a chance to clean, organize, be active, and try to get things together a bit. 

and TODAY, friday brings me a friend all the way from asia - a friend moving home, who is making a pit stop in vancouver for almost a week to hang out. so, while i'm working lots while she's here, i'm also giddy with excitement to see her, and hang out with her for the first time in a year. 

other things that make me giddy today and this week.... for weekend perusal. 

(via)

i've already written about it, but THIS essay from rob delaney on why he supports human rights, in a woman's rights to choose. and, in somewhat related related, but heartwrenching news, dr. henry morgentaler died. a man who made safe something that women have never wanted, but have needed to find in safe and hygenic circumstances. read this article - it's perfect.

and, because we're talking about mysogyny - dustin hoffman on playing a woman in Tootsie (1982)
“If I was going to be a woman, I would want to be as beautiful as possible. And they said to me, ‘Uh, that’s as beautiful as we can get you.’ And I went home and started crying to my wife, and I said, ‘I have to make this picture.’ And she said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because I think I’m an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn’t fulfill, physically, the demands that we’re brought up to think that women have to have in order for us to ask them out.’ She says, ‘What are you saying?’ and I said, ‘There’s too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.’ It was not what it felt like to be a woman. It was what it felt like to be someone that people didn’t respect, for the wrong reasons. I know it’s a comedy. But comedy’s a serious business.”

things that are inspiring me lately - earthy rocks and gems, middle fingers, a bit of 35mm greatness, and some planetary sarcasm.

i'm in love with will ferrell. and sandwiches. and this skit with jimmy fallon who i don't actually like, but like this.

and on that note - the sandwiches, middle finger, and dustin hoffman note, happy weekend!

inspiration in the living room

the living room. oh, the living room. i have this issue with living rooms. i want every room in my house to be one.
i grew up in a home where there was a family room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a living room. and the living room did not have much living done in it. it had the most uncomfortable sofas, the least amount of 'fun things' (in the eyes of a child), and was furthest from the kitchen. not ideal. i always promised myself that every room of my apartment or house would be fully lived in... and so a living room would be a gathering space.
a capture of books, comfortable things like blankets and pillows, and a museum of art and other loved things, a living room should be a centre point. and that's how i would organize mine to be.

keeping the mess to a minimum, in a room that's truly 'lived' in? that's the hard part.

mismatchy, filled with books, art and memories on the walls, and lots of comfortable things... my perfect living room. throw pillows that can serve as seats. chairs that people aren't afraid to sit in. blankets for cozy movie watching. mirrors and paintings; books and plants. everything about my daily life that can be captured in one place. shouldn't the room named for life, be the one that indicates how you do your living?

really, any way to display things that mean something to me, are perfect. i keep a lot of things - tickets from shows, postcards and letters from friends, and paintings or drawing i'm given. and i'm SO lucky to be surrounded by many many talented people. so i make a point of displaying everything i'm given. in frames, on the fridge,  in easels... whatever it needs to be shown to every visitor in my home. bits and pieces pulled together in actual curated collections on the walls and shelves.

shelving... the cornerstone of a living room. to avoid having 'things' all over, shelving provides spaces and galleries for goodies. making them somehow neat and organized (even if you've just thrown them on a shelf). even if art is temporarily stuck on the wall, in patterns with other recent finds... it all means something (AND gets it off the counter). next time, i'm building my own shelving... that perfectly suits my space, and me.

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inspiration in the kitchen

if there are two place in my home that i insist are clean and sanitary, it is my washroom, and my kitchen. i'm obsessive. i frequently take my gas stove apart, and clean it down to the gas burners. i organize all of my dried goods in glass jars and old classico pasta screw top containers (which are the best - for cups also). i de-box granola bars, and isolate them into baskets; i organize tea by bagged or loose leaf, into ikea containers; i lazy susan the shit out of my spices. it's all relative to the amount of time i need to spend in there (lots - when your main food group is tofu, you need to utilize those seasonings friends), and i want the space that i prepare my food to be spick and span.
about a year ago, the house where i rent my apartment was all of a sudden home to a ton of mice. i'm talking hear them in the cielings type infestation. it was no one's fault - construction men left the doors wide open for almost a full year, which meant lovely little tiny fuzzy creatures wandered their way into the warm gates of heaven. my landlords and i waged full on mouse warfare, including the apolocalypse of mice - when the exterminator came. let's just say, i was the happiest woman on earth when all of my dried goods - all trapped nicely in glass containers - came out unschathed. it was like a pat on the back. i'll never change.
confession: i clean my kitchen floor with all purpose cleaner mixed with vinegar and lemon. on my hands and knees. with a rag. it's a process, and i will also never change that. but man... it's so worth it.
so, i take my decorating (but really, organizing) of my kitchen so seriously, it's not even funny. really - this is not a laughing matter. and i'm always looking for inspiration. here you have my faves.

remember what i said about glass jars folks? and remember what i said about it not being a laughing matter? this is serious business. save your dry things. mine are even colour coordinated (because i eat boring food) which makes for nice counter top decoration. popcorn, rice crispies, quinoa, oatmeal, lentils (brown - of course), quinoa pasta and rice flour. all comprise this beautifully boring spectrum of beige-y goodness on my counter. 

but seriously. everything in glass jars, a better world does make. 

i'm all about the shelving. after living somewhere with see through cupboards, you realize how important the aesthetic of matching dishes, and coordinated dinnerware is. doesn't need to be a matching set, just needs to be coordinated from the 'colour palette' perspective (sorry... we're getting too interior design-y here). 

and, i love that pig. 

OH! and rugs in kitchens. win.

all stacking, all the time. cartons on cartons on cartons. as long as you stick with what you like, you can never go wrong. i always joke that my boring taste in colours (think moss green and pale blue on white and/or beige) makes for easy peasy moving... i never have to worry that things in different rooms won't match. when you buy what you like, things will always go together. plus, when you wash your dishes, and you have a green spatula, green frying pan, green curly straw (i have no shame), and a green knife, drying on your green drying pad... you look like you have your life so planned out it's intimidating. 

(i don't).

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