Of Self and Society

Working at a parliamentary bureau during one of the biggest political blow-ups in recent Canadian times means I literally get hundreds of emails each day

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:23:20 -0400

Day Thirty-Five—31 March 2013 The Boat Race. A renowned and...

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:37:24 -0400

Day Thirty-Five—
31 March 2013

The Boat Race. A renowned and delightfully prestigious sporting event (maybe the oldest in Britain? Somebody fact-check that) featuring Oxford and Cambridge boys flexing their muscles and ripping through the River Thames to outpace each other on rowboats. That’s the only draw, really.

Oxford won this year, after a devastating loss to Cambridge last year (though they blame their loss on a protester who jumped in the water mid-race and messed them up).

Day Thirty-Three, continued—29 March 2013 A literary walk around...

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:24:00 -0400

Day Thirty-Three, continued—
29 March 2013

A literary walk around the charming neighbourhood of Bloomsbury (and, if you recall my last London post, to where I fled in escaping the tourists at the British Museum).

1. Looking into Bedford Square on a beautiful Friday morning

2. Two ladies sit on benches by that same square

3. Strolling past the imposing Senate House, which served as the Ministry of Information during WWII but more importantly was the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984.

4. Welcome to Gordon Square Garden, a favourite among such authors as Virginia Woolf

5. As an economics enthusiast, I was superbly delighted to find out that John Keynes lived here

6. The plaque honouring the Bloomsbury Group. It reads, “Here and in neighbouring houses during the first half of the 20th century there lived several members of the Bloomsbury Group including Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell and the Stracheys.”

7. T.S. Eliot was here when it was Faber & Faber, the independent publishing house. Now, it’s a School of Oriental and African Studies (“SOAS”), within the greater University of London.

8. Nothing to see here, folks

Not bragging. Just legitimately astounded. I haven’t even...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:57:56 -0400

Not bragging. Just legitimately astounded. I haven’t even clicked on it yet because the red has me so bewildered.

Day Thirty-Three—29 March 2013 - Good Friday I thought today, as...

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:01:11 -0400

Day Thirty-Three—
29 March 2013 - Good Friday

I thought today, as in my day off from work, would prove to be a sensible one to visit the British Museum. Apparently, so did all tourists in London. There was barely any breathing, let alone walking, room at the magnificent bastion of worldly goods, and my claustrophobic self could only bare to stay long enough to squeeze amongst the throngs of click-clack clamouring tourists to snap a few photos of the historic Rosetta Stone before giving up and leaving.

Who is Nigel Wright, the man who bailed out Mike Duffy?

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:41:55 -0400

Who is Nigel Wright, the man who bailed out Mike Duffy?:

Until this week, Nigel Wright was barely on the public’s radar. But paying a senator’s debt out of his own pocket has landed him at the centre of a national scandal

A thorough profile of an incredibly powerful and elusive man in Canadian politics, published on his birthday, as well as the day before he was forced to resign.

In response to the latest Rob Ford scandal...

Sat, 18 May 2013 01:19:28 -0400

I pull up one of my tweets from last year…

I just want Rob Ford to create positive publicity for once.
— Trinh Theresa Do (@TTDDOO) May 14, 2012

Is that so hard, though? I’ve been asking for this for over a year!

"The rare individuals who have recognized the necessity of violating such morality, acted..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:49:16 -0400

“The rare individuals who have recognized the necessity of violating such morality, acted accordingly, and taken responsibility for their actions are among the most necessary leaders for their countries, even as they have caused great unease among generations of well-meaning intellectuals who, free of the burden of real-world bureaucratic responsibility, make choices in the abstract and treat morality as an inflexible absolute.”

- Robert D. Kaplan, in defense of Henry Kissinger

Another instance of Theresa being totally behind with world news...

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:24:16 -0400

I remember in my second- or third-year global politics class, defending Keynesian economics against these austerity measures imposed by/forced upon EU governments. I was like, the answer to boosting the global economy is so simple—just look to Keynes, just look to how America got out of the Great Depression (well, shy of that whole WWII thing). And everyone was like, No, the Keynesian model won’t work in today’s world. Neoliberalism changed all that. Fiscal policy emphasizes deficit-cutting rather than government-spending. Blah, blah, blah.

And then the Excel error.

I’m just saying. And I don’t even know anything about economics.

The Bill Gates Handshake: Offensive, or Just Weird? A Photo Investigation

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:05:54 -0400

The Bill Gates Handshake: Offensive, or Just Weird? A Photo Investigation:

Instapaper is great at making sure you keep up with news that happened months ago. Like this gem. Still funny though.

We didn’t notice Bill Gates’s one-armed, one-hand-in-his-pocket salutation until South Korean media brought the apparently “rude” gesture to our attention . Turns out it’s downright offensive in some parts of the world. It also turns out Gates has been doing the pocket shake for years.

Home bittersweet home

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:42:55 -0400

Left London earlier today from Heathrow, sent off by a handful of great friends whom I only met a couple months ago, but feel like I’ve known a lifetime.

It’s terrifying to try to make sense of how quickly bonds form between people and how strong human relationships can become in the shortest of times. Maybe, honestly, it’s more terrifying to think of how utterly decimated one can still feel when such bonds are forced to be torn apart, despite its short-term (and therefore what was thought to be only a superficial) existence.

Though I had wanted to, I didn’t expect to make such incredible friends. And though I wanted to live and breathe London, to have it quiver in my bones and carry my spirit, I didn’t prepare for the emotional impact it would have on me.

Landing at Pearson Airport today was the first time in which I was disappointed to be at home, to see the clear blue skies above Toronto. I heard a woman on the PA system and it actually startled me that she didn’t speak with a British accent. Walking down the carpeted airport terminal, I could only feel despair as I knew that each step meant I was going farther and farther away from London.

I am home. And I am moving/have to move immediately onto the next adventure.

But I left a part of myself in London. That is a void not easily ignored. And each day, I will feel this pain acutely.

Day Twenty-Two—18 March 2013 Doing streeters (aka vox pops, aka...

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:09:24 -0400

Day Twenty-Two—
18 March 2013

Doing streeters (aka vox pops, aka man-on-the-streets) for CBC News in rainy central London

Day Twenty-One, continued—17 March 2013 - Dean Street Townhouse...

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:03:07 -0400

Day Twenty-One, continued—
17 March 2013 - Dean Street Townhouse in Soho

My first London afternoon tea with the roomie! Decadent scones with clotted cream and an array of fruit jams, finger sandwiches, French macarons, biscuits and chocolate… oh, it was to die for!

We also saw Richard Bacon. (And by we, I mean my roommate, Thorrun, because I still have no idea who he is.

Just Googled. He is a broadcaster on BBC. Righteous)

Budget bill gives Harper Cabinet new powers over CBC

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:57:57 -0400

Budget bill gives Harper Cabinet new powers over CBC:

The federal government’s latest budget bill would give Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Cabinet the power to dictate collective bargaining and terms for other salaries and working conditions at the CBC and three other cultural or scientific Crown corporations.

What the fuck.

"People [who] are intellectual leftists, they say I am expensive and horrible, ‘How can you..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:16:38 -0400

“People [who] are intellectual leftists, they say I am expensive and horrible, ‘How can you sell clothes at the price?’ Simply, it’s the cost. If you pay people to do everything with the right system, things are expensive. And the same people that criticize the [dangerous production environments], when it comes to cost, they liked the inexpensive pieces because they think it’s more democratic. This is an example of hypocrisy.”

- Quoting Miuccia Prada in a National Post article about how fast fashion claims lives and the factory collapse in Bangladesh

I went to a social event at the stunning Kensington Roof Gardens...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:32:00 -0400

I went to a social event at the stunning Kensington Roof Gardens this past Friday (Day Sixty-One), whereupon I met a few very interesting people. As I shook hands with and introduced myself to one of them, a man who works in finance, he was taken aback and stammered in the middle of telling me his own name.

“Sorry, I’m caught a bit off guard by your handshake. I’m Farzad.”

I laugh. “That’s OK,” I said.

His friend, who I had met earlier, interrupts us to tell him to guess what I do.

Farzad scrutinizes me for a few seconds.

“Judging by your handshake, you work in business. In a male-dominated environment.”

I say nothing, with just a slight smile on my face. He continues.

“You work with money. You probably make a lot of money.”

And then I burst with laughter.

“Haha! That is about the opposite of what I do. I’m a journalist. Although my mother does work in finance, so I suppose you’re close enough.”

To which he responds jokingly, “Oh, you’re a journalist? Ah, it’s nice meeting you—I’m just going to make my exit now.”

At least, I think he was joking. Our conversation went on a bit a longer, but he mentioned a few times his negative impression of journalists.

Our reputation certainly precedes us.

Call it the effect of globalization, but it’s oddly...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:21:23 -0400

Call it the effect of globalization, but it’s oddly comforting to sit at a Starbucks a few thousand kilometres away from home.

Listless in London

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:23:02 -0400

"In the media’s megaphone, these conversations become a kind of blanket commentary on the..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:11:58 -0400

“In the media’s megaphone, these conversations become a kind of blanket commentary on the banality of evil. The idiosyncrasies get erased. The circumstances blur. The humanity gets whitewashed. The terrorist — the person with a lifetime’s worth of unique circumstance — becomes A Terrorist, and we load him with the freight of our own frustration.”

- Megan Garber’s article in The Atlantic magazine on why, in times of crisis, it is ever the more important to remember the humanity and understand there exists the subtle nuances of individual lives, that labelling and categorization is the worst thing to do

"Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:55:59 -0400

“Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

- Nick Carraway in “The Great Gatsby”