I was taking a look at my most listened to tracks for 2016 and decided to post the top 5. Interestingly, there's a lot of Kpop!
5. Beyoncé - Hold Up
Come on, there HAD to be at least one track from Lemonade up in here. Hard to sing but worth it.
4. Stellar - Sting
The first Kpop entry; this group/song came out of nowhere and rapidly won my heart.
3. Purity Ring - heartsigh
Technically released end of 2015 but I didn't hear it until January. Purity Ring hits another one out of the park.
2. Red Velvet - Ice Cream Cake
I consider this my favourite song of 2016, can't get enough of it!
1. Ariana Grande - Into You
I am... fairly shocked that this is my most listened track for 2016. But I love singing along to it.
Dec 31, 2016
Sep 12, 2016
Recurrence
I've had this dream before, that I had to save a bunch of civilians from a mafioso style attack coming in from the streets into some kind of scientific/technical building with grand staircases and boiler rooms and silos. I was supposed to take them to the furthest point away from the gunfire, some dark room with a heavy steel door, and just as the bad guys open it up, backup arrives and the cops save the day.
It was supposed to be the same dream, but this time before I can take the civilians to the dark room to hide, the bad guy finds us early and corrals everyone into a large auditorium. I'm trying to negotiate that they let the hostages go. I can't fight because I'm outnumbered, and I don't want innocents caught in the crossfire. The second in command henchman is using some kind of high tech scanner to figure out where the ladychief of police is, whether she's gotten into the building yet. The scanner pings, she's nearby. Very nearby. In front of us. She's been under a cloaking device masquerading as the head of the mafia. He smiles and it's not his smile, it's the smile of righteous victory. The illusion is revealed and all the cops under her watch drop their cloaks as well, taking on the bad guys. They are in disarray and shock, can't cohesively fight back against us. I'm fighting too. I chase. I web-sling. I capture. Whipping through yellow-gold corridors and balconies, backwards on the path I took to hide the civilians. I'm a masked superhero. I'm Spider-girl. I keep fighting long into the night and quietly slip away when I know the cops have things under control. I swing on webs to a hotel room where my husband is staying. It's the middle of the night and he's been up worried where I am. I have to shower and sleep and get up in 5 hours for my regular day job. I take the mask off and realize that someone has followed me, now my family is in danger...
I'm walking next to what once was a field. Now it's being excavated for land development. An office building, a condo, whatever. I keep walking. Forests. Thin trees that offer a multitude of paths to weave through. I keep walking. A beach, a lake. A boardwalk with quaint jewelry and art shops. I know exactly where to go if I want to find the most beautiful turquoise necklace. I've had this dream before. I've always had this dream before.
Jul 7, 2016
Dreams I've Had Recently
Lots of travelling. Sneaking through high tech facilities. Just... walking on my own.
Once it was summer, then it turned into winter, a sort of nuclear winter, as war erupted across the earth thanks to some kind of supernatural threat that had only been alluded to in an indie viral podcast. I remember embers, tanks, creeping through ashy burnt buildings. Then I was on the moon, on a research facility, and they had turned James Franco into a lethal lizard-monster determined to wipe out humanity.
Not everything is so fantastical. I've been dreaming about being downtown a lot lately. It's not Toronto, never quite Toronto, more like Toronto of the future. The shops are bigger, the traffic is busier, the subways are more complicated (more like The Tube), the PATH is even grander than before. But there's still endless construction that drives us all nuts, and the street meat tastes just as delicious.
Reality affects my dreams. Right after Pride weekend, I dreamed that my straight BFF had decided to date a girl instead. I was judgey, not for the obvious reason one would suspect, but because this other girl was an interloper to our circle and quite frankly not good enough for my BFF.
I still dream about going back to school, but after so many years and due to unflappable logic, my brain has realized that I can't seriously buy into being in high school when I am 35+ years old. So I've started dreaming that I am a teacher at the school, or a teacher's aide. I'm wandering halls keeping the peace, or I'm helping the school band, or I'm coaching the kids in the school play. Sometimes I go back to university, which is a lot more reasonable, except for the part that in reality I wouldn't physically go to the school, not when we've got online classes and continuing ed.
Sometimes it's just fragments of scenes. I'm getting dressed for a party, shoved into a tiny little stall. I'm trawling through white wedding gowns, hoping no one notices my nostalgia. I'm trying to navigate of maze of escalators in a building that's on fire.
It's harder for me to remember my dreams as I get older, they fade away faster, the details aren't as bold and bright when I wake up. But just trying helps, being aware helps. Here's to hoping there's more compelling tales to come.
Once it was summer, then it turned into winter, a sort of nuclear winter, as war erupted across the earth thanks to some kind of supernatural threat that had only been alluded to in an indie viral podcast. I remember embers, tanks, creeping through ashy burnt buildings. Then I was on the moon, on a research facility, and they had turned James Franco into a lethal lizard-monster determined to wipe out humanity.
Not everything is so fantastical. I've been dreaming about being downtown a lot lately. It's not Toronto, never quite Toronto, more like Toronto of the future. The shops are bigger, the traffic is busier, the subways are more complicated (more like The Tube), the PATH is even grander than before. But there's still endless construction that drives us all nuts, and the street meat tastes just as delicious.
Reality affects my dreams. Right after Pride weekend, I dreamed that my straight BFF had decided to date a girl instead. I was judgey, not for the obvious reason one would suspect, but because this other girl was an interloper to our circle and quite frankly not good enough for my BFF.
I still dream about going back to school, but after so many years and due to unflappable logic, my brain has realized that I can't seriously buy into being in high school when I am 35+ years old. So I've started dreaming that I am a teacher at the school, or a teacher's aide. I'm wandering halls keeping the peace, or I'm helping the school band, or I'm coaching the kids in the school play. Sometimes I go back to university, which is a lot more reasonable, except for the part that in reality I wouldn't physically go to the school, not when we've got online classes and continuing ed.
Sometimes it's just fragments of scenes. I'm getting dressed for a party, shoved into a tiny little stall. I'm trawling through white wedding gowns, hoping no one notices my nostalgia. I'm trying to navigate of maze of escalators in a building that's on fire.
It's harder for me to remember my dreams as I get older, they fade away faster, the details aren't as bold and bright when I wake up. But just trying helps, being aware helps. Here's to hoping there's more compelling tales to come.
Jun 15, 2016
The Importance of Being Kind
When I was in grade 8, a new family moved into the house around the corner. They had three girls, one a grade younger than me, one two grades younger than me, and one in grade 4. The oldest daughter was super nice and fun to be around, and quickly became a good friend of mine. Not only did we hang out on our street, we hung out at school as well, when we could. At school, her middle sister had her own friends and social life so I didn’t interact with her much. But the youngest sister, for some reason, fixated on me in a not-very-nice kind of way.
In some ways, this child bullied me, replete with physical attacks, stealing my stuff, and generally a disrespectful attitude. But she was just a child, my friend’s little sister, and I was older than her, so calling it bullying doesn’t feel entirely accurate because there was still a power differential between us. She picked on me because she saw that I wouldn’t retaliate. I didn’t retaliate because you can’t roundhouse kick a nine year old in the face. But mostly, I didn’t retaliate because she didn’t really have any power over me. Her actions were cruel, but she was more like an awful little sister than a bully.
All that changed about 3 months after being subjected to her tiny tyrannical nonsense. It was the end of the school day, we were all lined up in our respective bus lines waiting to go home. I was talking to the oldest sister when the youngest sister came up to me and started her usual routine, giving me glares, kicking my schoolbag. At one point she ran at me and shoved me out of the line, causing me to nearly tumble to the pavement. She’d done this before, but for the first time she’d made the mistake of doing it right in front of a teacher. The teacher (who knew me for the quiet, mild-mannered A+ student I was) immediately started yelling at the youngest sister, but before she could carry on for too long I got back in line and said “no no, it’s alright, she’s my friend.”
The moment I said those words... I can still remember the look on that kid’s face. It was shock and shame and realization all at the same time. The teacher didn’t exactly stop, but eased her tone to something less angry. But regardless, the lesson had been learned. I could see exactly on her face what that little girl was thinking, I’ve been relentlessly mean to her and she’s saving me from being punished... I have done her wrong.
From that day forward, I had nothing but that child’s cheer and kindness, she was all smiles and boisterous sweetness whenever she saw me. And I remember thinking, this is why niceness matters, this is why you don’t fight fire with fire.
It’s only recently that I remembered this incident (it happened 20 years ago after all) and realized that it’s been a huge factor in shaping my personality. When I eventually went to high school later I employed the same tactic against legitimate bullies with... less effectiveness. But I employed it all the same. You don’t fight fire with fire. And sure, none of my high school bullies ever had a moment of awareness like that little girl did, where they realized that I deserved better from them. But they did mature, gradually, out of their juvenile predilections. It wasn’t that they realized I deserved better, it’s that they realized everyone deserves better.
There's been a spike of hate and anger in the world lately, between the rise of Trump and the Orlando shooting and all the fallout in between. We can all agree that there's too much negativity and hate in the world, and not enough love and kindness. I remember Jack Layton's final message about hope, I remember all the truth that the Dalai Lama speaks upon, I remember teaching a kid about kindness, and I hope that I can show the world we can do better...
In some ways, this child bullied me, replete with physical attacks, stealing my stuff, and generally a disrespectful attitude. But she was just a child, my friend’s little sister, and I was older than her, so calling it bullying doesn’t feel entirely accurate because there was still a power differential between us. She picked on me because she saw that I wouldn’t retaliate. I didn’t retaliate because you can’t roundhouse kick a nine year old in the face. But mostly, I didn’t retaliate because she didn’t really have any power over me. Her actions were cruel, but she was more like an awful little sister than a bully.
All that changed about 3 months after being subjected to her tiny tyrannical nonsense. It was the end of the school day, we were all lined up in our respective bus lines waiting to go home. I was talking to the oldest sister when the youngest sister came up to me and started her usual routine, giving me glares, kicking my schoolbag. At one point she ran at me and shoved me out of the line, causing me to nearly tumble to the pavement. She’d done this before, but for the first time she’d made the mistake of doing it right in front of a teacher. The teacher (who knew me for the quiet, mild-mannered A+ student I was) immediately started yelling at the youngest sister, but before she could carry on for too long I got back in line and said “no no, it’s alright, she’s my friend.”
The moment I said those words... I can still remember the look on that kid’s face. It was shock and shame and realization all at the same time. The teacher didn’t exactly stop, but eased her tone to something less angry. But regardless, the lesson had been learned. I could see exactly on her face what that little girl was thinking, I’ve been relentlessly mean to her and she’s saving me from being punished... I have done her wrong.
From that day forward, I had nothing but that child’s cheer and kindness, she was all smiles and boisterous sweetness whenever she saw me. And I remember thinking, this is why niceness matters, this is why you don’t fight fire with fire.
It’s only recently that I remembered this incident (it happened 20 years ago after all) and realized that it’s been a huge factor in shaping my personality. When I eventually went to high school later I employed the same tactic against legitimate bullies with... less effectiveness. But I employed it all the same. You don’t fight fire with fire. And sure, none of my high school bullies ever had a moment of awareness like that little girl did, where they realized that I deserved better from them. But they did mature, gradually, out of their juvenile predilections. It wasn’t that they realized I deserved better, it’s that they realized everyone deserves better.
There's been a spike of hate and anger in the world lately, between the rise of Trump and the Orlando shooting and all the fallout in between. We can all agree that there's too much negativity and hate in the world, and not enough love and kindness. I remember Jack Layton's final message about hope, I remember all the truth that the Dalai Lama speaks upon, I remember teaching a kid about kindness, and I hope that I can show the world we can do better...
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