Tag Archives: Rants

Lemonade & Lost Time

Want to drink some refreshingly easy to make lemonade while reading this? Here’s the link! Something I’ve been missing recently is childhood. I remember being around five years old and setting up a lemonade stand in my living room, because I grew up in an apartment, and having the time of my life. I spent hours taking the time to draw a sign, scout the perfect table, and set up everything just right. Now I barely have the attention span to watch something for more than twenty minutes. Despite having less and less of an attention span, I still manage to waste a large portion of my little free time doing absolutely nothing. Whenever I get a break or am taking rest I immediately pick up my phone and scroll. It almost feels beyond my control. Completely mindless. Social media has engraved itself in my life in an almost self-hating manner. Every time I spend more than ten minutes on Instagram or TikTok, I leave the experience feeling almost numb. The accessibility and ease of social media is what makes it so alluring. There’s no time for setup or cleanup like most of my hobbies, like drawing or baking. And on top of that it is catered for my shortened attention span. When I look at my phone usage and see the hours dedicated to social media, I always wonder what could that have been used for instead? Is there a hobby I might have taken on and mastered by now instead of being updated on the newest trends? My plan going into my time off is setting aside some of my free time for specifically phone free usage. I want to see if this changes my productivity or boosts my creativity in someway. Basically, I want to get my time back.

Matcha & Mental Health

Want to try a new refreshing and simple drink? Here’s the recipe! Metal health is part of everyone’s lives. We all have mental health that we should regulate and take care of, but honestly who has the time? Up until recently, this was my kind of stance on the topic. Mental health always had clear stigmatism in my household growing up. It was often slightly poked fun at, or dismissed of altogether. Coming from a mixed ethnic background, growing up in Canada, and being half-white and half-Japanese, my outlook on debated topics, like mental health, usually vastly varied from my parents. This is something that is generally pretty common from generational gaps, especially when you have parents who grew up in a different country than you. Mental health is a tricky topic, because although it is part of everyone’s lives, the effects are sometimes indescribable or imperceivable to the general public. My slightly dismissive tone towards mental health was formed due to the lack of accessibility to resources and the stigma surrounding mental health. As any university students knows the lack of sleep, food, and constant work is not the most stellar combination. Something that I have noticed recently is my ability to everything else before myself. All assignments and work dominate the hierarchy within my life to the point of where I am unable to maintain a solid structure of physical health, let alone mental. Another thing that I have also found out during this past few months is the importance of talking to others and researching the available resources. Typically there are tons of resources online that are available and easily accessible. And if you are a student, I highly encourage looking into programs offered by your school! Since you are paying tuition you might as well make the most out of it. Helpful links: National Institute of Mental Health BetterHelp (licensed online therapy)

Brownies & Burnout

Want to try out a new recipe for some gooey brownies? Here’s the recipe! Almost everyone I know has at one point, or is currently, struggling with burnout. As a student it feels almost inevitable with the amount of pressure we put on ourselves while handling an ever growing workload. I have always struggled with finding balance in my life. Adulthood responsibilities also seem to keep popping up and adding themselves to my never ending list of tasks. Little things that I never had to think about as a child, things like scheduling doctors appointments, or comparing schedules to see friends, all used to be taken for granted. The second I try to relax or take a break, suddenly all signs point to the fact that I’m falling behind. This ultimately results in me never being satisfied. I’m either over or under worked. Part of the issue is being too long-term, big-picture, goal oriented. Although all these qualities are good, and it is beneficial to look to the future, the issue is you are never able to appreciate the present. This semester was an especially difficult one, for a myriad of reasons, due to workload and personal life. In order to try and combat the difficulties faced this semester, I took on the practice of being more grateful for myself and my accomplishments. Although it sounds kind of silly, taking a moment to congratulate myself or appreciate my ability to just complete one simple task helped me feel a lot better about my progress. Often times its truly done with one assignment, immediately onto the next and the cycle just continues to repeat. Implementing a moment of acknowledgment towards yourself helps to break that ongoing work cycle, and give yourself the care you deserve. Finishing an assignment is its own accomplishment and it is important to acknowledge that! Try to reward yourself in some way. Personally, I do cope by stress baking and brownies are always a comfort food go-to for me. Take a moment, maybe an hour or two, and find some way to reward yourself. Not just to help prevent burnout, but you also deserve it.

WEEK WRECKER 4; HOLIDAYS

National Complaint Days Needs To Be a Holiday

I think everyone can appreciate a good holiday but there are also so many things that make me angry about them!

Racism

The fact that the Canadian government only gives days off for holidays that are a part of the Christian/catholic religions is just disgusting. If, as a country, we are going to claim to be a mosaic of cultures then all holidays should be observable and given days off for! I find that POC often have to make excuses for themselves wanting to celebrate their own holidays but when they don’t celebrate Christmas they’re the weird ones! It is an ingrained source of ethnocentrism that Canada could really do away with.

Food

Every time around the holiday season, there is a lot of food. This is not a problem. The issue that always makes my blood boil is that there is no end! Cookie, pumpkin pie, hot toddies, anything with cranberries, you name it and someone is making and offering it. I always end up gaining at least 5 pounds and it makes my clothes tight and my face bloat. I can’t stand myself around the holidays because all I can do it eat!

Gifts

I love gifts and I think it is an amazing way to show your love or appreciation for someone! What angers me is the people who put too much pressure on it. They push people over at the malls, complain about wrapping, and can’t seem to go a couple of minutes without mentioning the long list of people they have yet to buy for. There is a simple solution: don’t give gifts! If you complain about giving me a gift then I don’t want it! That makes me feel bad and I didn’t give you a gift to receive one. I only gave it because I wanted to. There is never an obligation and I think people create stess by thinking that there is.

Timing

I have a love-hate relationship with the timing of the holidays. Some of the best Indian and “traditionally Canadian” holidays happen at the end of the year starting in September with Rakhi and ending in December with New Year’s Eve. It leaves me desperate for something to do between those months. Although I enjoy every moment of the end of the year, I can’t help but wish that the joy could be spread out a little more!

Although I can find many things to be angry with about the holidays I think that it is fair to mention that no one can really be upset for too long around the holidays.

PROCESS POST WEEK 5; REVIEWING

This week the task was to review a peer’s blog and it was extremely difficult to refrain from saying only good things. Each student’s blog is meant to be about things that they enjoy and, therefore, to be critical about something that someone likes, felt wrong.

An extremely useful middle ground was the compliment sandwich method. Stating what was first praiseworthy and then moving onto how it could be made better, was a lot easier than pure criticism. Using the readings as suggestions on what to improve rather than me stating everything that could be fixed also made my review feel more like I was a friend giving advice rather than a critic just looking to see things as improvable.

Having a criterion for the critique also made the assignment less daunting. I realized it was not so much about what they were writing but rather the cohesiveness of that content, which was really well explained in the lecture.

This was a great way to gauge how I would critique someone’s work who I do not really know. I think I can apply this experience to my life because I have begun to volunteer for the SFU writing centre and I think learning to be more constructive and less fluffy is an important trick.

WEEK WRECKER 3; SUPERHEROES

Why Do People Love Them so Much?

It makes no sense why people love superheroes so much. There are so many problems associated with the superhero industry that people seem happy to ignore. If anything it seems as if the villain’s need more of a voice.

Misogynistic

I think the main issue for me is the fact that there is a lack of female superheroes. Although there are a few there are obvious issues with them. They are always wearing very little clothing, getting considerably less notoriety, and always being forgotten about until someone is trying to argue that superheroes do not have enough diversity.

These movies also perpetuate the idea that when a female is in distress she needs a man, but when a man is injured in a super human fight he doesn’t need a woman. To make it even worse, the women these men do save all seem to have to fall in love with them. It’s as if she is not given any sort of autonomy, and as a trope of the genre she falls into his arms.

Destructive

Not enough people talk about how much superheroes ruin when they are saving the world. The amount of cars they throw, buildings they take down, and general catastrophes they are a part of must have some civilian casualties. Many people argue that the movie is set in which superheroes exist, and therefore I cannot argue the realities of innocent lives lost. However, the issue should then fall on the creators of the genre who set these superheroes into reality. If the movie is set in a reality where civilian do not get injured, then what is the superhero even saving them from? They can’t get hurt! Therefore by saying that it is fictional and that they would not get hurt refutes the very purpose of the movie, and anything with that big of a plot hole should not be produced!

Self centred

All superheroes are cowboys of justice which is just unacceptable. As a society we work to make it clear that those that are different should no get special privileges. The rich should have to pay taxes, people with fast cars should stop at stop lights, and people with more should help those with less. Therefore it makes no sense why these random people who can do weird stuff, like shoot lasers out of their armpits, should get the privilege of policing, destroying, and assaulting others.

In Conclusion

It just doesn’t make any sense how people can blabber about these concepts when really they make no sense. Even looking at it from a linear plot driven perspective. A lot of the plots contradict each other from one series to the next! Any old producer or writer can come in and change everything and it is expected to be canon while also not getting in the way of the other supposedly canon versions of the series.

WEEK WRECKER 2; ONLINE LEARNING

The Reasons I Will Academically Underperform this Semester because of COVID-19:

The topic of Covid-19 and the effects it has had on people’s lives is a tiresome and unfortunately necessarily overdone topic. However, most posts about the virus carry a sense of hope. Asking people to look on the bright side. They get to stay at home, they get to find appreciation for things they never thought to before, university students are able to spend more time learning and less time commuting. This is what I am angry about this week Disclaimer: I understand that coronavirus is a very serious topic that deeply impacts many people’s lives. This post is only to hopefully bring some humour into a sad and often unnerving topic.

The Commute

Fall Semester is my favourite of all. You get the best mix of rainy, snowy, and chilly. The weather is ever-changing and every day brings a new surprise when you walk out the front door to head to the bus. You get a chance to drink your coffee, listen to music, maybe even catch up with a friend on the bus. This is all IMPOSSIBLE from the comfort of my own home. When I wake up for class, half the time I forget to even open the blinds. My music feels too loud in the morning when it is not trying to cover up the screeching of the Skytrain, and absolutely no one wants to wake up at 8 AM just have a pointless chat.

The Camaraderie

This is an essential part of being a student. The feeling you get as you look at all the other forlorn faces on the bus makes you feel like you’re not alone. Watching others slump over in their chairs as the night class clock strikes 8 PM is just not the same as watching blank zoom squares. The look two students who are essentially strangers give each other when a professor does something particularly weird will never happen. The only person I can make eye contact with is the reflection of myself on my laptop and if that isn’t sad, I don’t know what is.

There is also something difficult about hanging out with your friends when you have looming deadlines. However, with in-person school, meeting up to study allows for talking and getting work done. With these virtual study groups, I would rather just turn the video off and work on my own. It feels disingenuine and makes for a lot of longing for the good old days.

Recorded Lectures

Although these are great for classes that you never would have shown up to if they were in person, they really do put a damper on taking classes with professors you love. They don’t tell their usual jokes, because who would laugh? They don’t have the same passion, because the energy is not the same when you sit in a room by yourself and record. They also tend to go really fast. I find myself rewatching many portions of lectures because professors forget we are taking notes and therefore do not take the pauses they normally would. All this to say that by the end of a one hour recording I’ve spent two hours scribbling notes that will later anger me to read.

The Experience

One of the reasons many people are excited and motivated to enter into post-secondary is because of the legendary stories people tell them when they’re kids. The stories of independence, parties, friends, food, and just the pure experience of being in the building of thousands of others who are making the choice to better themselves, unlike high school where they are there by force. It is being young and getting to learn things that finally make you feel like you know something worth your time and can share it with the world. This experience that movies often try to capture, old people, talk about, and professors and administration try to facilitate is just not achievable in the online world. This September I enter into my last year and I am grateful that I got to spend a majority of my undergrad in the classic university setting. However, I am still saddened and of course, angered that this is most likely the way it will end. No grand goodbye or ceremony, just the “leave meeting” button on zoom to wave me off.