It Smells Like Thursday Afternoon

Thursday is the only day of the week I go to the Bedford exit of the St. George subway station. Outside the Tim Horton’s above the subway station, a huge supply truck unloads its precious cargo and the air smells like a mixture of breakfast meat and pastry. Then, as I pass the new varsity stadium, the sun hits the pavement just right and I can smell the rubber in the blue running truck. This is all that it takes to make me relive countless Sunday brunches with my family and opening new toys in India (which almost always smells like rubber). Today, the breakfast meat and the rubber was drowned out by pure unadulterated cold. I was a bit disappointed.

Just to ensure that you all see my slow descent into North American consumerism, I have a favourite commercial. I’m aware that Nestle has officially ruined “Everyday People” (the song in the ad) but what could be better than a catchy song performed by Canadian talent?

New York New York, It’s a Hell of a Town

I was going to put off writing this till I was done all my reading for the week, but since I’m making such excellent use of my day thus far, I figure I can spend a little time satisfying my huge and demanding readership (I heart all one of you!).

So I’m back from an impromptu three day trip to New York so generously funded by the younger of my older brothers. I may be a Canadian (and a patriotic one at that) but I really loved that city. It didn’t hit me till I was sitting in the first row of Carnegie Hall watching the players warm up. Just hours before that, I was wondering around in the Temple of Dendur (or the temple of doo-doo as I affectionately called it) and looking at the works of Monet, Van Gogh and the like. I really loved the city life. I enjoyed the grittiness of public transportation, the cold unfeeling faces of the people walking by and even the confusing mess that is the New York subway system!

Ice and Life Lessons

I took this picture standing in front of the Premiere Dance Theatre just before I was going in to get ready for show number 3. It never struck me before to really look at Lake Ontario. Usually, walking by the lake induces sarcastic comments about drinking water and fecal matter but yesterday was different. Instead of seeing Toronto’s toilet/water fountain, I was taken in by the sight of the sun low in the sky, lighting the little ice floes that dotted the surface of the water. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen the lake frozen over, and I wondered if it always looked the way it did. Luckily I had my camera with me so I took a picture to make sure I don’t forget that parts of Lake Ontario do in fact freeze over in the winter. But it made me think.

I must have passed by that exact same spot a million times and never once thought about actually looking at the water. If I saw the same sight somewhere else in the world though, I know I would have been “oo-ing and ah-ing” over it the first time I saw it. Why is it that I need to be a thousand miles away from home to see how beautiful that is? I’ll save you all a weepy post about how we should all appreciate what we have in front of us but…I should REALLY appreciate what’s in front of me. Photo worthy vistas are all around me without $2200 worth of airplane tickets.

The Ultimate Buzz Kill

I just got home after our third and final dance show for the weekend. What a weekend! Hours of rehearsal before every show and on-stage coaching paid off. I was even happier because I had my own audience this time! People I know and love! I came home feeling more satisfied than I’ve felt in a long time. This was short lived however, as I realized that some random lady had taken the tickets I had kept aside for people I had invited. I am now livid…and I thought I would share that with the internet at large.

A Cry For Help

Happy Hallmark Day to those of you that help feed the consumerism that is February 14th. (Now that I’m done looking down my nose at you…)

Today is our first and last run through for a show that’s supposed to premiere tommorow night. I have never felt the pressure for a show. At the back of my mind I always believed that we could still pull it together and be the best Canadian Indian company in Toronto. Now, I have lost all faith. We’re not done choreographing, we’re yet to have one rehearsal with the full cast and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m getting an ulcer just writing about it. If you’re reading this, you’re either coming to see the show, dancing in it with me or you’re out of the country and laughing it up about what a snobby dancer I am. Whatever you’re doing, send us some good vibes…we’re in need.

If You’re Leaving Will You Take Me With You?

Today while I was riding the subway down to school, I had my nose buried in a book to put the final touches on my preparation for a quiz I had to write today. I happened to look out the window just as the train came out of the tunnel and to my delight it was snowing! It was this beautiful floating snow, not the viscious kind that comes down specifically to bring cities to a standstill, but the nice floaty kind that doesn’t seem to know exactly where it’s going. Although the snowfall is responsible for cancelling rehearsal tonight (much to my annoyance) and for making me spend hours shovelling the driveway, I still enjoy it. So I just thought I’d say thanks for the snow.

Kids These Days

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching two lovely little goblins how to dance for the past couple of weeks. For the last year and a half I have been the nicest teacher I can be. I don’t yell, I don’t get angry and I definitely do not lose my patience, but these hobbits are testing me. They can’t seem to stay in one place for longer than 6 seconds nor do they want to stand more than 2 feet apart from each other. Worse yet, it’s like their first class every week…nothing stays in! It’s not that this is the first time I’ve been challenged while teaching dance. My most recent failure was a little girl who quit dance because the class was too quick for her, I had too little time to give her the attention she needed and her mother wasn’t happy with the progress she was making. In this case, however, the parent is willing to trust me enough with her charges to allow me to teach them (using whatever means necessary). What I’ve always loved about teaching is being able to sit back after a few months and watch my kids dance, knowing that they only learnt it from me. Being wholly responsible for what they know is just so gratifying especially because I can see the impact I’ve had on them. Just as I take responsibility for what they know, I also take responsiblity for what they don’t know. In fact, I take it personally. It follows that with these two munsters, I want so much for them to learn something. I always try to find something good about the kids I teach. The only thing I can come up with for this brother-sister team is that the little boy really wants to learn and if that girl could stand still she could dance really well. So this thought keeps me going during this class which is the last half hour of my eight and a half hour day (six of which I spend dancing myself) even though it is pull out my hair aggravating.

On a side note, I realize that most of my posts end up being about me being annoyed with something so just to lighten the mood here’s a picture I took just outside of Chandhni Chowk in Dehli that I found so very entertaining.

Decision Tree Branches

On the chopping block today are two issues that are rather close to my heart. I read an article recently about women choosing to stay at home with the kids. I would butcher the argument if i tried to give you an overview of it so I’ll just refer you to the page: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-real-freedom-is-being-able-to-do-as-you-please-777703.html

The Clichéd and the Useless

I’ve come across some questions that I had to answer recently and they really made me think. The most intriguing was: name 2 people who have made a historical difference in international relations in the last 100 years. My answers? Winston Churchill and Lester Pearson. Do I really think they actually made such huge differences in the world? That’s when it hit me. I don’t care! I don’t care about the creation of the UN, Churchill’s unwaivering support of the Allies’ efforts in the face of defeat during World War Two or even Pearson’s peacekeeping forces.

Six-Day-a-Versary

I was going to apologize for not having been on the blog in such a long time, so long in fact that the blog jockeys (all one of you) were clamouring for more. As I opened the blog this morning however, I realized it’s just been a day, which made me realize how sad my life really is. Anyway, good things are afoot this morning, two of them in fact!

1. A snowstorm is brewing, threatening to dump 15cms of snow on southern Ontario! Perhaps 6 months ago I wouldn’t have been so excited at the prospect, but this gives me a chance to make Pratap’s little brother (Pratap 2? feel free to suggest some names!). We made Pratap in December and he melted while I was on my sojourn to India. I returned to a soggy bit of lawn in front of my house. It killed me a little bit on the inside.

2. This is my first February blog so I have two months of archives. This is quite an achievement considering my attention span and blogging history. I once had an ill-fated “secret” blog that no one ever visited. But I figure that wouldn’t have lasted anyway, it was a judiciously angst filled teenage diatribe about how much life sucks and I’d like to think I’ve grown a little since then (yes literally too, hardy har). Oh to be fifteen.