March 31, 2005

illusions


judge me not
and let me be
don't go by what
you think you see

March 30, 2005

Vitamin D Love


and the sun felt so good on my skin today...

March 18, 2005

Meet Richard May

he's been my inspiration for my upcoming Digital Media projects:


Check out more of this work here

A City Full of Broken Mirrors

We as humans always want something more…something better than what we’ve been given. It’s all over the media, its in the shows we watch, and frankly, being a student at Ryerson, I couldn’t possibly escape being bombarded with billboards upon billboards of the ‘ideal’ product or look claiming to better my life.


The flashing lights, the endless pamphlets, and the people preaching the ‘word’ of God?
This is Toronto. Or is it?

Today as I walked past the giant billboard of Sarah Jessica Parker posing for a Gap ad, I couldn’t help but wonder, in a city where ‘beauty’ seems to be unattainable, why are we always chasing it?


I mean we have American shows like 'The Swan' and 'Extreme Makeover' which only reinforce the message that you're body is never good enough. My professor played us an old clip from a tv show in the late 50's called 'Queen for a Day' where different housewives would literally compete for who had the worst life and why they deserved to be pampered. It made me sick to my stomach seeing each woman trying to top the other, and today much hasn't changed. Its something within all of us, no matter how nice of a person you are; we females are ALWAYS competing with one another. And the finger of blame almost always gets pointed to the media. But what if the media, and all other messages were swiped off the earth completely... would we all of a sudden be nice to one another?
For some reason, I highly doubt it.

Sure it would be nice to have more shows out there embracing woman in a positive way, but really it all comes down to your own self confidence. As hard as it is to see yourself in a city full of broken mirrors, it comes back to how you absorb it, and what you decide to do with it. I passed another billboard today with Paris Hilton on it, I realized that you've essentially got two choices: become depressed by it, or look at it and realize you've got way more than she ever will... class and respect.
As I posted in my earlier blog,

Its not what you do to your body
but what you do to your mind that counts

March 13, 2005

photoshop


I scanned this daisy and photoshopped it for my Digital Media Class. It's amazing what you can transform with Photoshop.

Skipping the Small Talk

It seems that the theme of my conversations lately have regarded the act of ‘blogging’.  Just yesterday I had a friend ask me, “What’s so great about blogging?”

The answer is simple; there isn’t anything so ‘great’ about blogging. It is what it is. Yet, it makes so much sense for me to do it. I’m growing up today in a technologically savvy generation where literally everything is going web-based and digital. Clearly, I see nothing wrong with bringing my thoughts online.

To me blogging is like having that deep conversation with a friend where you’re past the point of small talk and dig right in to the issue.We all build up models of how we see the world around us. The more information we have, the more we refine our model one way or another. What we ultimately do, is tell ourselves a story of what the outside world is. Any information I absorb from my environment is always coloured by the experiences I’ve already had. I believe Mr. Keating put it well in Dead Poet’s Society when he said, “We don't read and write poetry because it’s cute, we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion."

To blog, to bitch, to better ones-self…whatever you want to call it, simply works for me. Now, no doubt people may disagree with what it is I have to say, but that’s the beauty of it all; it is something I can call my own. However insignificant it may seem in the web world, it’s enough to keep me satisfied simply because I am being true to myself. Beat to my own drum if you will. And right now, the beat is sounding pretty damn nice. Try it sometime.

March 09, 2005

Feist


Meet my favourite Canadian artist: Feist

http://www.listentofeist.com/

March 08, 2005

We May Have Conquered 4 Seasons, But Can We Weather The Financial Hurricane?

So today I sat myself down and really thought about things. What began as a career path question ended in a radical observation on life. As if I'm not already in a financial slump, the future outlook doesn't look quite promising either.

No doubt, times are pretty good right now when it comes to society's financial stability. Real estate is booming, corporations are expanding, and wealthy families are adding more to their pockets with each passing year. People are truely outwitting and outplaying, but doesn't only one person outlast the others in the game of survivor?

Let's be honest, the larger corporations get, the less loyalty they exhibit.
Life expectancy is shooting higher, while saving up for it is well underestimated.
The pension system can and WILL be defeated by demographics.
and society's distorted love affair with real-estate will only lead to heartbreak years from now.
Call me naive, but I can't help seeing the truth when I dissect the logistics of it all

It seems that my parents' generation have the mentality that playing by the old rules(working hard, paying your taxes, and raising your children) is the key to success. Yet, today people are getting married later, delay having children, and even with twice as many dual-income families as a generation ago, people still believe they have no job security. So I started to wonder, in a world where morality appears to be dead, isn't an old-fashioned approach to life now just a one-way ticket to failure?

The government is over 600 billion dollars in debt... it will NOT be there to help you decades from now. As the baby boom generation ages, who's going to buy all these four-bedroom suburban homes that they live in now?
So with the lack of workplace justice and plethora of empty homes that will haunt my future, (along with no doubt corporate mergers sweeping away tens of thousands of jobs without warning) Isn't the only security we have, is that which we create for ourselves?

So why today, are people still putting forth all their money into their homes, when really you have no way of knowing its going to be worth the same amount years from now. Are we on the way to another depression? and if so, does anyone else see it? I'm sure they do... but disussing it would only cause a moral panic.
It just seems like my generation is getting the shorter end of the stick...
Once this all passes, and the boomers retire, will we be left cleaning up their shitty remains?

How do you win immunity when there is none?
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