Beauty and pain

2011-02-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

my heart bends. I'm lucky like that. there's always a huge distance between me and emotions. but once in a while i realize one thing...or another that narrows my path. like the necessity of money or the uselessness of certain struggles. and that's when it breaks. knowledge is beautiful, but it's punctuated by pain

2011-01-26T02:05:00.000-05:00

we put our ambitions carefully in boxes every time it crosses our minds that we are too old/fat/late/tall and their antonyms. and we store those boxes so deep we can't even see the dust on them.

and then we're not.

It might just become easier to breathe

2011-01-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

Solitude (not to be confused with loneliness) serves as an agent for creativity. Temporary isolation from people and society allows me to answer questions I'm sometimes too busy to ask. No question is too big or too stupid to ask, and most of them require research rather than inspiration, but I know that sometimes...I just need to settle that tornado in my brain. That's when I pick up my gear and hit a hidden trail and let colour (or lack thereof) speak to me. This blog is the result of that mental exercise.

Reflections of a 24-year old social scientist

2009-02-04T02:22:00.000-05:00

Today’s international arena is dominated by complex debates about globalization. Ranging from conceptualizing the term, to assessing its tools, to judging its outcomes, these debates have shifted our attention from solving practical issues to merely discussing the theory behind it. To avoid confusion and the trap of reiterating the theoretical assumptions about globalization, I will refer to globalization as the multidimensional process through which social, political, and economic relations intensify, surpass borders and become interdependent in a global network. To limit the discussion, I will only look at the insight I have gained from observing the processes and shifts in social interconnectedness.

The globalization of feelings.

I park at Lester B. Pearson airport (YYZ) at least 25 times a year, on average. The draught beer in the waiting room is probably the best one in town. Whether I’m in the arrivals or departures section, I see the airport as a hub of emotions. Along with oversized bags, we pack ideas, fears, regrets and an enormous cultural baggage. It is this baggage that I’m particularly interested in, in my attempt to demonstrate the complexity of human interactions as they are shaped by our environment (please read the sum of all factors influencing our feelings: e.g. humidity, pollution, traffic, friends, foes, bars, academic programs in which one may or may not be enrolled, etc.).

I know for a fact that I make a better sweet and sour chicken than the “Great Chinese Wall” restaurant in Timisoara (TSR). I know you can eat great Pad See Ew in Vinzenzhouse, Zurich, Switzerland, provided the cook isn’t in Berlin, or Arad, or Hong Kong for that matter. I know you can’t eat shit all in Paris, because you may just be too nauseous from the lies and disappointments you had to deal with as your cultural baggage clashed with…the air non-tourists get to breathe in France. I know 6 months in Singapore make you fall in love with Asia, as expensive, and as humid, and as sick as the plane trip makes you feel. I know it determines you to move to China for a year. I know it stinks in Amsterdam and that it may surprise you to find friendly people all around while your MA is paid for by hard-earned Glendon College marks. I know a College de l’Europe MA is the better choice over the expensive LSE and I know it will train you to do an amazing job at the Commission. I know first hand it rains a lot in Brugge…and in Antwerp, and in Bruxelles. I know how the police deals with human trafficking in Belgium and in the Netherlands (and I know bodies should not be for sale by anyone else but their owner), where to file a “my life was stolen during happy hour” in Bruxelles, and that Kriek is "beer" for cool Quebecois separatists (and it is about the heart). I know why it’s hard to teach English to “espanish kids” who’s father yells “tonta del culo” to their mother who dared punish the offspring for calling her “tonta de los cojones”. I know there’s a “Roadkill Museum” in PEI (google it) and I can dance barefoot to flamenco at an International “MISHTO” Romani Art Festival. I know there comes a time in life when you wish the unborn inside you is a boy because everyone tells you it will be so. I know you might not want to do a “hora” in front of your building just because it’s your wedding day.

I know the slight difference between “home” and “back home”, and the gray area in-between them, in which you may find yourself suspended for an indefinite amount of time. I know of culture shock and its reverse and I’m still trying to figure out which one’s worse.

I know all this and so much more because of those “emphatic neurons” Al Gore was describing. I absorb the facts, the filters through which they are perceived, the reactions of the “hapenees”, and I dissect my own reactions to those.

And due to this globalizing world of feelings, I can KNOW all this without getting out of my bed should i choose to.

I’d like to thank all my insiders, for this is how i GROW.

Pandora's daughter

Beauty and pain

It might just become easier to breathe

Reflections of a 24-year old social scientist