There's a lot of things I love about Montreal and McGill. I love the Bounjour-Hi greeting that you receive when you walk into any store in the city, I love how fast and effective the metro is, I love how diverse McGill is and I generally like my courses. However, it gets dark here at like 4 P.M., my courses are difficult and I haven't been home since I got here. Seeing snaps of all my friends going home for the holidays, snapping halal carts and the Union Square Christmas Market makes me really miss the city.
McGill's mental health service is notoriously bad, with the wait list being 3 months long during some parts of the year. The administration also doesn't seem to care about the mental well-being of students. The vast majority of universities in Canada have a fall reading week so there's a break in between the end of classes and the start of exams. McGill does not have that so classes go straight into finals. I'm lucky enough to have time to study for my finals, but I have friends who have classes on the 7th and finals on the 8th. I think even a two day break would suffice, it wouldn't disrupt the schedule that much and it would decrease the stress that students have immensely. However, when this was proposed to the administration, the dean of students, Olliver Dyens, said that students did not need administrative change but better "hygiene de vie". This sparked a lot of backlash, including this hilarious article from The McGill Tribune. Oh yes, a good sleep schedule, exercise, and yoga will help students with their crippling anxiety, depression, and exam stress. Honestly, what a fucking joke.
I'm trying to get an appointment with McGill Mental Health Services, but until then I'll just continue practicing good hygiene de vie by like doing pilates, meditating on top of Mont Royal, and adding a shot of rum to my coffee every morning (it's actually pretty delicious).
Spring Romance
Spring Romance By Karen Tarlton
Monday, December 4, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
NSLI-Y Seoul, Korea 2017
Something that makes me nostalgic is seeing inactive blogs that were once frequently used. It shows that the writer at one point in their lives used to be really passionate about that topic, but time went on. They grew up. They moved the fuck on. They may not have realized it, but as a piece of themselves, a more youthful version of them, fell into the vast world of the interweb, the gaping hole was quickly filled with other hobbies and interests. And that piece of themselves, their blogs, are still waiting, welcoming the occasional visitor who stumbles upon them.
As someone who originally made this blog when we were just tiny 8th graders, I am 1) very much amazed that we still use this middle school antique 2) a part of me wants this middle school tragedy to die but also that goes back to my nostalgia point 3) I am so amazed and proud of the growth we all have undergone and a part of me never wants this to die. I don't think I really understood the meaning of "lifelong friend" till I recently hit my 7th year friendship anniversary right before going to college with some of these folks. I am so #blessed to have y'all in my lives.
Besides a sappy note to all the other authors on this blog and to other middle school friends I'm still in contact with, this is also a shameless self-promo about what I've done this summer right before being shipped off to college. Through a scholarship program called NSLI-Y which provides high schoolers the opportunity to study critical languages abroad, I spent my summer in Seoul, South Korea studying Korean. To learn more about my experience, check out my travel blog! It's still in the works as I'm still struggling to catch up on all the posts I've missed amidst all this college anxiety (writing about all the adventures in a foreign land is much more work than someone would expect) but everything will be up soon!
Wellesley College here I come!
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Beach Day and Off to College! | Update Post
A few days ago, the gang (the bloggers and a couple of friends) set out on an outing to Coney Island boardwalk and beach. The long train ride to Coney Island's trashy beach has become not only an annual journey for us but also as an indicator of the end of summer. The beach trip is like out Stand By Me, but every year and fewer leeches on dicks and more plastic bags from the dirty water around my ankle. This year especially. We are all going to our respective colleges across the Northeast and in Canada. Everyone always seems to be impressed that I managed to stay close friends with people I met in middle school. I still talk to people I met on the very first day of middle school. Maybe our close middle school (wow I'm going to say middle school many a time) has something to do with that, but I don't think that's it. There are people I haven't talked to since our graduation. There are people I haven't talked to since the 9th grade. However, here are these people that I am so lucky to have in my life, that I've known for what seems like ever. You know a friendship is real when you talk every day and never get bored. I have this with six people and we talk almost non-stop every day. I get an update of every minute of these people's lives but I still learn new things about them. Anyway, I suck at sappy stuff. The point is that I love my friends and can't see my life without them. I know we are all going to do well in college and hope we can balance the fun with the work part of it. Okay now that that's over, time for some beach pics! |
| Inside the Wonder Wheel swinging cart, danger indeed |
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| What Coney Island looks like on a random Thursday |
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| Walking from the beach to "Cafe at your Mother in Laws" which we didn't even go into |
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| Us digging out the umbrella pole for about 15 minutes |
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| Weirdly lit pictures of some artsy af polaroids |
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The Wonder Wheel where we were given the choice between Swinging or Stable carts and we regrettably decided to be risky |
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Goodbye Pastel Hair + Hair Dye Review
I first dyed my hair lilac during my freshman year of highschool. After that, I rarely went an entire year without dying my hair. In the span of four years my hair has gone through eight home bleaching and has gone through almost every color on the color chart. It was lilac, it was blonde, it was silver, it was pink, it was mint. The sad thing about colored hair is that it's hard to maintain. My lilac hair required bi weekly coloring sessions and I only washed it once every three days. Since I'm going to university next year, I decided to dye my hair a more mature and darker color. So on one fateful night I went from this pastel mint. Please ignore my roots. I know they're horrendous, I'm growing my hair out.
To this dark purple
The hair dye that I used was the Garnier Nutrisse Nourishing Hair Creme in #42 Dark Burgundy.
The color looked fine the first few days. The dye was easy to apply, although very messy. The dye has that kind of ammonia smell most hair dyes have and it kind of makes my eyes water. My hair, however, did not feel damaged at all after I dyed it and it actually felt quite healthy. The biggest downside is that this hair dye does not last long at all. I wash my hair every other day now, since it's not as damaged, and the hair dye has faded significantly after about two weeks.
I like the faded look too, but it's not something I really wanted. I'll probably let it fade out a little bit more and then try out another hair dye.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Misconceptions People Have About Developing Countries
Ever since I decided to major in international development, I've gotten a lot of shit from a lot of ignorant people. I've gotten everything from "Developing counties? Is that like Ghana? Why would you want to go there" to "OH MY GOD YOU"RE GOING TO DIE FROM AIDS/ EBOLA/ MALARIA.! YOU"RE GOING TO GET RAPED/ ROBBED/ MURDERED! YOU"RE GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH!!!!!!!". Today I'm here to tell you that developing countries are not a real life version of 100 Ways to Die and share videos on how to be less ignorant when it comes to global development.
One of the problems that people in so called "developed countries" have is that they still see the world in an us vs them kind of way. Us being the developed countries and them being the developing countries. People think that the populations of developed countries are rich, have long life spans, and have fewer children. People in developing countries on the other hand are thought to be poor, have shorter life spans, and have more children. What people fail to recognize is that more and more developing countries are becoming wealthier. If we think of the countries in the world in terms of socioeconomic status, most of the world is actually middle class. Another thing that people fail to recognize is that most developing countries have implemented family planning in some way to reduce the number of children people are having.
Bangladesh used the Grameen Bank to empower women. These women who were able to take out small loans from the bank were able to work and earn money and thus decided to have less children. In Thailand in the 1980s there was a massive population problem. Most women were having 6+ children and the population was growing at a staggering 3% a year. That means that if Thailand had not implemented family planning, the country's population would have doubled in 23.3 years. Thailand was also facing an AIDS and HIV epidemic at the time. So Mechai Viravaidya, affectionately known as "Mr. Condom" launched a nationwide campaign in support of safe sex. They got nurses, midwifes, taxi drivers, and restaurant owners to distribute condoms. They got teachers to teach about safe sex and since Thailand is mostly Buddhist, they got monks to bless the condoms. The result? The total fertility rate of Thailand went from 6+ to about 3 and the number of HIV/AIDS infections has steadily declined.
People seem to not realize that developing countries are indeed improving. Many developing countries have started to realize that better health seems to precede money. Healthcare in many places has gotten better and people are living longer. Even having gone through war, Vietnam's life expectancy is 75.61 years. I would also life to applaud India on it's healthcare system. Since India has a large population and is about one-third of the size of the United States, the government builds hospitals in places with high population densities and then subsidizes them. The result is that much more people have access to good and affordable healthcare.
Look at the picture above. That's a picture of a highway in Lagos, Nigeria. Pretty developed looking right? Most cities in developing countries look like the cities we live in, however, because of what we are shown in the media, people think of Africa as people living in straw huts.
This is what Kigali, Rwanda looks like today. When people think of Rwanda, they think of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in which 500 thousand to 1.3 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed. Since then, Rwanda has recovered immensely. Rwanda is the 55th cleanest country in the world, and the fifth cleanest in Sub-Saharan Africa and about 74% of the population has access to clean drinking water, and the country is considered to be very safe.
One of the reasons why people may perceive developing countries to be worse off than they are is because they think very pessimistically. People tend to think that things have gotten worse when they have actually improved. The media also has a large role in dictating the way we think. We only ever hear news about the worst things in the worst places. That isn't to say that these problems aren't important, they certainly are, but people tend to generalize when they shouldn't. Yes there are places in the world where many people still go hungry. East Africa is in the middle of a great famine caused by a drought, which could be due to climate change. This is definitely an important crisis, but it would be wrong to say that there is no food in Africa at all. People will tell you that there are the same number of starving people today than there were in the 1960s. However there were only 3 billion people in the 1960s. So there were 1 billion starving people in the 1960s when there were only 3 billion people and today there are also 1 billion starving people, but there are 7 billion people in the world. It's a great improvement. That isn't to say that more improvement isn't necessary as 1 in 7 people still go hungry in the world, which is quite a lot. I'm merely trying to say that things have gotten better despite all the wars and the natural disasters. Another example id that girls and boys now go to school for about the same amount of time. The average boy goes to school for 8 years and the average girl goes to school for 7 years. Now, again, this isn't to say there cannot be improvement. 8 years of schooling is equivalent to someone graduating from middle school, ideally this will increase to 12 years in the upcoming future.
Now here are some great videos you should watch
One of the problems that people in so called "developed countries" have is that they still see the world in an us vs them kind of way. Us being the developed countries and them being the developing countries. People think that the populations of developed countries are rich, have long life spans, and have fewer children. People in developing countries on the other hand are thought to be poor, have shorter life spans, and have more children. What people fail to recognize is that more and more developing countries are becoming wealthier. If we think of the countries in the world in terms of socioeconomic status, most of the world is actually middle class. Another thing that people fail to recognize is that most developing countries have implemented family planning in some way to reduce the number of children people are having.
Bangladesh used the Grameen Bank to empower women. These women who were able to take out small loans from the bank were able to work and earn money and thus decided to have less children. In Thailand in the 1980s there was a massive population problem. Most women were having 6+ children and the population was growing at a staggering 3% a year. That means that if Thailand had not implemented family planning, the country's population would have doubled in 23.3 years. Thailand was also facing an AIDS and HIV epidemic at the time. So Mechai Viravaidya, affectionately known as "Mr. Condom" launched a nationwide campaign in support of safe sex. They got nurses, midwifes, taxi drivers, and restaurant owners to distribute condoms. They got teachers to teach about safe sex and since Thailand is mostly Buddhist, they got monks to bless the condoms. The result? The total fertility rate of Thailand went from 6+ to about 3 and the number of HIV/AIDS infections has steadily declined.
People seem to not realize that developing countries are indeed improving. Many developing countries have started to realize that better health seems to precede money. Healthcare in many places has gotten better and people are living longer. Even having gone through war, Vietnam's life expectancy is 75.61 years. I would also life to applaud India on it's healthcare system. Since India has a large population and is about one-third of the size of the United States, the government builds hospitals in places with high population densities and then subsidizes them. The result is that much more people have access to good and affordable healthcare.
Look at the picture above. That's a picture of a highway in Lagos, Nigeria. Pretty developed looking right? Most cities in developing countries look like the cities we live in, however, because of what we are shown in the media, people think of Africa as people living in straw huts.
This is what Kigali, Rwanda looks like today. When people think of Rwanda, they think of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in which 500 thousand to 1.3 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed. Since then, Rwanda has recovered immensely. Rwanda is the 55th cleanest country in the world, and the fifth cleanest in Sub-Saharan Africa and about 74% of the population has access to clean drinking water, and the country is considered to be very safe.
One of the reasons why people may perceive developing countries to be worse off than they are is because they think very pessimistically. People tend to think that things have gotten worse when they have actually improved. The media also has a large role in dictating the way we think. We only ever hear news about the worst things in the worst places. That isn't to say that these problems aren't important, they certainly are, but people tend to generalize when they shouldn't. Yes there are places in the world where many people still go hungry. East Africa is in the middle of a great famine caused by a drought, which could be due to climate change. This is definitely an important crisis, but it would be wrong to say that there is no food in Africa at all. People will tell you that there are the same number of starving people today than there were in the 1960s. However there were only 3 billion people in the 1960s. So there were 1 billion starving people in the 1960s when there were only 3 billion people and today there are also 1 billion starving people, but there are 7 billion people in the world. It's a great improvement. That isn't to say that more improvement isn't necessary as 1 in 7 people still go hungry in the world, which is quite a lot. I'm merely trying to say that things have gotten better despite all the wars and the natural disasters. Another example id that girls and boys now go to school for about the same amount of time. The average boy goes to school for 8 years and the average girl goes to school for 7 years. Now, again, this isn't to say there cannot be improvement. 8 years of schooling is equivalent to someone graduating from middle school, ideally this will increase to 12 years in the upcoming future.
Now here are some great videos you should watch
"How Mr. Condom Made Thailand a Better Place"
"The Best Stats You've Ever Seen" - Hans Rosling on how the world has changed
"How Not to Be Ignorant" - Hans Rosling and his son, Ola Rosling will show you how little you may actually know about the world.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Black Tap | Review
Yesterday, a couple of friends and I went to Black Tap in SOHO. You know. Crazy Milkshake Black Tap. For those who don't, however, Black Tap is a burger place that, according to their site has been "modernized for the Instagram age." It is run by chef Joe Isidori whose goal from the start was to create a classic luncheonette, kind of a more casual diner but only for lunch, and create the perfect burger. There are three locations in New York, two in SOHO and one in the meatpacking district. I went to the one on Broome Street. I'm not sure if that was the original one but a waitress said something about the top floor being the original building and the downstairs being an addition.
Okay, so the wait was about 30 minutes. Yup. I mean I guess that wasn't bad, someone said they waited for 4 hours in February. While waiting. we looked at the brick wall behind us and realized it had been turned into a Black Tap waiting mural with everything from twitter handles to Staten Island pride to Montana pride (a true American hero added Hannah before that) to "MEOW" to random pig doodles to "SEND NUDES". Of course, I wrote my name on there (several times and with a gel ink pen).
I didn't buy actual food, I mean I had the fries which were amazing with ketchup and truffle butter, but no burger. Two of my friends and I got the Brooklyn Blackout milkshake and the Cookie milkshake together. My thoughts? Excessive but amazing. At one point I just looked at the huge oreo shaped ice cream cookie on the Cookie milkshake and was overwhelmed. It was the best milkshake I've had in New York for sure. And the whole vibe of the place was cool and relax, especially with the chill and accommodating waiters/waitresses. 10/10 will go again.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Highlight | Beast is Back!!
With K-pop on the rise internationally, how can I not talk about my favorite groups of all time? Beast!! Now Highlight :)
03.20.17 - The official debut of Highlight, the long awaited independent return of the K-pop group formerly known as Beast.
They came back with a mini-album "Can You Feel It?" and their title song is "Plz Don't Be Sad", a song telling people to smile because they're prettier when they smile.
They also had a pre-release track the week before their debut, "It's Still Beautiful."
(you can check out their schedule on the Around Us website here)
But wait... Who the hell is Highlight? Let's simply go through the 5 Ws
WHO: Highlight is a five member group consisting of Yoon Doojoon, Yong Junhyung, Yang Yoseob, Lee Gikwang, and Son Dongwoon.
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| Left to Right: Son Dongwoon, Lee Gikwang, Yang Yoseob, Yoon Doojoon, Yong Junhyung |
WHAT: They came back less than a year after their last album with Cube, "Highlight" (Beast's third full album, and their first album as a five member group. Remember, Hyunseung had left three months prior.)
Their mini-album "Can You Feel It" has five tracks.
02. It's Still Beautiful (Pre-release Track) (Youtube Video: 1thek / Highlight Official)
03. Start
04. Dangerous
05. CAN YOU FEEL IT
06. Plz Don't Be Sad (instrumental)
WHEN: 03.20.17 is their official debut date as the group Highlight. But if you watch any of the variety shows they have been on, the running gag is that they are "9th-year rookies".
WHERE: This one is pretty self-explanatory. South Korea. They officially debutted with their title song, "Plz Don't Be Sad", releasing it on their Youtube channel (here) and on 1thek (here).
WHY: ...Should you give them a listen? Hey, K-pop is literally dominating the world music industry. There's also almost always at least one K-pop album on the World Album Billboard charts. I'm serious. Check right now, right here. (When I checked on 3.28 @11:50pm EST there were 5 K-Pop albums of the top 10. Highlight's "Can You Feel it?" being #9 :D)
So, support Beast, now HIGHLIGHT!!
Only one week into their promotions and they've already gotten a win on The Show! (Youtube videos: Performance / Win)
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