Girl Power

Why is it that males lead the way in competitive sports?

In snowboarding, if a female gets some big air, you will hear the announcer say: “Wow. You usually only see that kind of air with the men.”

Gretchen Bleiler, the 2006 Olympic silver medallist in the women’s halfpipe said:

“Men and women are built differently, and in the end, men are generally more powerful and technical than women.”

She goes on to contradict herself by saying there are some women who can hit the same tricks as men.

Women are always able to hit the same tricks as men. It just takes women longer to get to that level.

It is men who revolutionize the sport and women eventually follow in those footsteps.

Men have been landing the quad in figure skating for years. Men are required to do the jump. Women are required only to do triples. But when Miki Ando, a Japanese figure skater, landed the quad in international competition the door opened up. In the next 10 years, women doing quads will become commonplace. It would be nice to take these women and transport them back in time to compete in an era where men weren’t yet attempting quads. That way these women would be revolutionizing the sport instead of men.

It would be nice to take professional skateboarders Vanessa Torres and Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins and transport them to compete before the Z-Boys ever tore up the scene back in the 70s. Then it would be two women who revolutionized the sport instead of three guys.

In my experience doing karate, women are timid and afraid to try. They need time to build up their courage. Where as beginner men are almost suicidal – they’ll go at it full-tilt even if they have wrong technique. But when a woman realizes she is fully capable, she becomes equal and sometimes better than her male competitors. I’ve seen it happen more than once.

Still water runs deep.

I am not an emotional person. Actually, I take that back. I’m very emotional. It’s just I’m a “crying-on-the-inside” girl.

All my emotions are contained in a stainless steel cylinder. Occasionally, I surprise myself when a single tear falls down my cheek.

Think Warf from Star Trek Enterprise, or better yet Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. It’s just the way I am. If I was capable of expressing my emotions publicly, I would, but it’s too awkward for me.

As a result, people treat me like I’m not human. They assume I’m hardened and callous, which is not true at all. It’s a misunderstanding.

I cry during the sad parts of movies. It’s just on the inside. Just because I don’t show the hurt, doesn’t mean there isn’t pain.

People often don’t get me gifts, because they think I don’t appreciate them. But I do. I just don’t gush. No matter how grateful I am, no matter how cute I think something is, I won’t show it.

My lack of visible emotion is a disability. It keeps me distant from others.

I’ve come to believe the people who seem the hardest on the outside are probably the people who feel emotion the most.

Anger

Anger can be a weird beast.

It can sneak up on you when you least expect it. And you can explode over the silliest things.

Anger can be like living on a fault line. Mostly you experience little rumblings over the years. But occasionally there are large scale earthquakes that bring about disaster.

Spring can really hang you up the most...

Spring snuck up on me this year.

It feels like it should still be winter. I was wearing my heavy winter coat a few days into April when my co-workers pointed out that it was no longer winter. It was going up to 20 degrees Celsius (69 degrees Fahrenheit). And I was like "Oh. Really?"

Somehow, I was still living in March. I'm amazed it's warm out.

I've been in the cold for so long, I'm having a tough time adapting. And that's weird, because it was a fairly mild winter.

All blogged out...

Blogs are a lot of work, especially when you start getting regular readers that you have to entertain.

Regular readers can't possibly know when you're busy, when you're in a rut or when you've just plain old fallen off the band wagon, even if only for a week or two.

But a blogger should persevere and keep going, even when it gets tough. Because there is nothing worse than seeing a blogger commit blog suicide - deleting thier blog all together.

You gotta keep on blogging in the free world.

Fate

Does fate exist?

Do you ever notice that when you get on the wrong track, life seems to auto-correct itself? It eventually seems you end up being where you need to be.

But is it possible to get so far off track that life can't correct itself?

Are there really wrong decisions to be made in life? Everything is a learning experience. And learning is important.

C'est vrai?

The Frontier

"The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you." - Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

It's the unknown that makes the future scary, which is why I wish I had a crystal ball. It would make tough decisions easier.

Getting there

Whenever I talk to high school kids going into university who say they are going to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, I tell them: "Wait and see."

It's not that I want to discourage them from their career goals. It's just life has a funny way of taking over, leading you to where you least expected to be.

If you look back over your last 10 years did things turn out how you expected them to for better or for worse?

There is no way of knowing where you'll end up next. Try as you may.

Sure you can plan, but things might not turn out to be what you expected.

Life is funny.

A Greater Message

I've always believe that the universe is trying to tell you something when you keeping running into an acquaintance you wouldn't normally see regularly.

Unfortunately, I've never been able to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me. Putting my run ins with people together, it seems nothing more than a strange coincidence.

Fast Food Nation

We were raised to crave the foods we crave.

What kind of sadistic society do we live in that raises us to crave chocolate and pop instead of carrots and eggplant.

We are continually being sold things that are bad for us - Big Macs and cigarettes.

Let's make a buck well we can. Who cares if the product gives people lung cancer and heart problems.

It's a sick, sick world.

Oh Canada!

I am always amazed at how Canadians have an identity and culture unique to Americans.

You would think being neighbours to the U.S.A., we would be completely absorbed. But yet we have our own issues.

Our politics are completely different. And we have our own TV shows that make fun of our politics and current events - like the Rick Mercer Report. Although Lorne Michaels, one of the masterminds behind Saturday Night Live, is Canadian.

When it comes to Canadian culture we have Tim Horton's and "Roll up the Rim." Tonight I caught myself counting my Canadian Tire money and contemplating what I would buy with it.

A lot of our popular music is often a part of the underground scene in the U.S.A.

The Bare Naked Ladies have been successful in Canada for over 14 years. But it took a long time for them to catch on in the U.S. The Bare Naked Ladies were first listened to by American college students before hitting it big on the American airways. The Bare Naked Ladies maybe only have been popular in America for half their career - but they were huge in Canada long before that.

Canadian television is often weird and I think it's starting to rub off on Americans. Was the American TV show Arrested Development really that new and innovative or had its creator watched a little too much CBC in his day.

Any Canadian can name any Canadian actor or actress that has made it big in the States.

I don't know maybe Canada influences the States as much as they influence Canada. It's just neither country really realizes it.

Although, then again my spellcheck tried to replace the CBC for CBS.

Forgiveness

"The things that people in love do to each other they remember, and if they stay together it's not because they forget, it's because they forgive." - Indecent Proposal

But the question is what is forgivable and what isn't?

Even if the two of you are deeply in love, one of you could still commit an unforgivable act.

Or can people that deeply in love really hurt each other? When in love, you are more likely concerned about what your loved one is feeling.

Or are you?

Ice and Rubber

Why is it when you are small you can fall to the ground with little injury?

Yeah, as a kid you might cry about it, but in terms of actual injury, you're fine.

I guess kids are closer to the ground.

As an adult, if you fall on the ice, you get more scrapes and bruises. Your back aches for four days and you've thrown out your shoulder.

As you get even older, the probability of breaking something becomes even higher.

As we age, we go from rubber to glass.

Single Notes

Ian McNeice wrote that being single is a constant battle with optimism.

How true.

When single we always wonder: Will I be single forever? Will the next guy be the one? Or will the next guy be another miserable drama?

A bad day...

A recent bad day started off by dropping cantaloupe guts on my foot and then, later, slipping on ice outside of work in front of my boss.

The Perfect Date

Often the best dates are simple, like a walk on the beach.

The best dates occur when you and your date are yourselves and just click. Everything happens naturally.

During a good date nothing is forced. The conversation isn't awkard and the kiss just feels right.

The best way to doom a date is to plan it and plan it and plan it. With all that planning, there is too much pressure. It is expected to be perfect. And what is "perfect" anyway?

Perhaps spontaneous dates are best.

The Oscars

A war could break out the same night as the Oscars and sadly not many would care about the war.

Why are the Oscars so widely watched? Why do we care what the celebrities are wearing?

The speeches are the most pretentious ever. Let me paraphrase what was said Sunday night: "The movies are so important. What we do is so important."

But in actuality it's like: "Dude you're an actor who makes way too much money. You're not the prime minister. You make movies - not cause wars."

And then there was Reese Witherspoon's speech about how she tries to make serious movies that make a difference. Her career has largely consisted of movies like Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama and Election.

All she did was die her hair brown and play the girlfriend of a singer. It was no Syriana or Crash. It didn't really try to teach the world of its own inhumanities.

Brutal.

There should be more mirrors out there. That way when you run into a cute guy, and smile at him, you don't have to feel embarrassed.

Because, an hour later, you realize your hair was a wind blown mess with a piece of straw stuck in it.

Not only did the cute guy see you this way, but so did everyone else in the free world who you encountered in the last hour.

Brutal.

There should be more mirrors out there. That way when you run into a cute guy, and smile at him, you don't have to feel embarrassed.

Because, an hour later, you realize your hair was a wind blown mess with a piece of straw stuck in it.

Not only did the cute guy see you this way, but so did everyone else in the free world who you encountered in the last hour.

The more you suffer...

"I wrote her off for the tenth time today . . . But she came over. I lost my nerve. I took her back and made her dessert. Now I know I'm being used . . . I know she's playing with me . . . That happens more than I'd like to admit." - The Offspring

Why do we find ourselves in such situations? Are we just suckers with no self-esteem?

Sometimes we put up with people's crap just so we can be in a relationship. We say it's because we love them, but we don't. Because our right person would never treat us that way.

Yet we can get so "I need to be in a relationship" obsessed that we can find ourselves putting up with anything.