6 years of university, 50+ applications later to various planning companies and municipalities, many bottled up tears of frustration later…still gainfully unemployed.

If it weren’t for the fact that I have not much savings – I would have already done my yoga teacher training and be submitting my audition videos to the National School of Circus in Montreal and the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne.

You know what I admire? People who can make a decent living doing arts, blogging, fashion, etc. How do they do it? I really don’t know.

All this time I thought that a university education was something to be prized and would give you an upper hand in the working world. It’s not like I have an underwater basket-weaving degree either. I have a sought after, professional degree up there with the likes of nursing, accounting and engineering.

But, I’ve a big believer in that things happen for a reason. Just some days are harder than others in seeing that reason. But we have to remember to keep our chins up high and hope for the best!

I left my heart in…San Francisco? No, more like in Todos Santos. But not really, my heart is with me wherever I go – I finally realized that I hold the key to my own heart and I am okay with that. After spending a week on a yoga retreat in beautiful Mexico I have to terms with myself, being single and being awesome.

Ajna chakra, or the third eye, is the chakra related to the eye of intuition. During the week long yoga retreat, this was the chakra that spoke the most to me. Ahinsa and satya, non-violence and truth. I can finally admit that within the last 2 years of my life I was not practicing ahimsa or satya. I spent 2 years of my life doing harm to myself by staying in a relationship that I knew was unhealthy but I lied to myself and convinced myself that it was okay and that I was happy.

I read this piece today about “Living Single” and I must say, power to the single people! Today, and for the rest of my days, I am challenging the (heternormative) social constructions that being coupled is the normal and healthy way to be. I have never been in a relationship where I was truly happy except for the relationship that I have with myself.

Being in a relationship isn’t a bad thing. But forcing yourself into a relationship because you feel lonely or because you feel like it’s the right thing to do is only going to do harm to yourself. I wonder, would we ever feel lonely because we aren’t in relationships if it weren’t for the social norms that dictate that being single if abnormal? When I look at my life, I see love all around me from my friends and from my family. Loving another person is not anything to be discounted and true love is real and beautiful.

But I have decided that this is the point in my life where I want to be single, awesome and enjoy and live my life for myself and not for anybody else.

So happy Valentine’s day to my single and non single comrades in arms. We all have love in our lives, we just have to look for it and recognize that non-traditional forms of love between a man and a woman is love and maybe even a greater love. And most importantly, we have to recognize the love of ourselves and the relationship that we have with ourselves because it is the most important one in our lives.

I know this is old and reposted to death by all of my urban like-minded friends. But this video never gets old! So many urban, suburban and global elements and who doesn’t love an entire video that looks like it was made by Sketchup and 3D StudioMax?

The song is pretty good too, I guess. Haha. Just kidding, I love me some Royksopp.

After a 4 year hiatus from my life in Calgary, I have since returned. Not necessarily my ideal situation, but I hope I can take the time that I will spend here to find out who I am and what I want in life.

I couldn’t help but feel pangs of nostalgia today as I go through my childhood room, cleaning the junk that I have accumulated over the last 23 years of my life. I went through a bag of old stuffed animals and I’m horrified to find that my Mommy Doll is missing. That’s right, I had a Mommy Doll. It was a simple oval shaped doll with little arms and legs, and a flap that if you flipped it on one side it was a yellow girl with braided pigtails and freckles on the design and on the other side it was a purple girl with unbraided pigtails, but no freckles.

Funny story about this Mommy doll of mine. When I was growing up, my sister would sometimes beat me me with the doll by holding onto it’s legs and flailing its body at me. My mom had to sew those legs back onto the body of the doll more than once. That’s right, my sister used to beat me with my Mommy Doll.

Also, whilst cleaning out my closet I found a shoe box and inside the shoe box was a bunch of empty picture frames and……old packaging of some sex toys. My mother put this box in my closet. The same mother who I named my doll after.

I sure do have one weird ass family don’t I?

Also, did you know that if you image google “cloth flip doll” there are some images of really racist dolls come up? Also, this gem of a picture comes up and is sure to give you nightmares for days to come:

Signing off,

Renbot

Okay so we weren’t married but same idea…

The simple things in life are the things that we always overlook and forget. Life is complex and chaotic, it’s easy to forget the things that can bring a smile to your face.

Today, on my way home from a lovely dinner with the folk of Princess Street I walked home from Charles Street Terminal. I took my time slowly, through Victoria Park and enjoyed the delightful combination of my music through my headphones, the cheerful holiday lights decorating the park and the crisp bite of a snowy December night. On my way home, I saw that somebody’s snowman was knocked over so I reconstructed him. Then about 20 paces later, hung my bags on a bench, laid myself down on a blanket of untouched white snow and made myself a snow angel. It was childishly exhilarating, reconstructing snowmen and making snow angels at midnight on my own in the park.

As I sit and reflect on my time in Waterloo, I can’t help but feel melancholy. I guess that’s only normal, anybody would feel melancholy leaving the life that they have built for themselves over the last 4 years. While I do need to return to my hometown, which in my mind is not ideal, I am trying to take it as time that I can take to myself and discover who I am, what I want and where I am going with my life.

At 23, my whole life is ahead of me. I have no idea where it’s going to take me, but I’ll always try to remember to take things day by day and remember the simple things in life.

‎’You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went- you could swear, curse the fates- but when it comes to the end, you have to let go’

I stole this from Jeff’s facebook, and it turns out that it’s a quote from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Truer words could not be said at the moment. In the end, being angry does nothing but emotionally drain you and in the end, is it worth it? It is better to let bygones be bygones, not particularly forgive, but let go, forget and move on. The world is bigger than 1 person and I intend to see it all.

We have to step over these broken hearts and feel the pain over and over again with every step, but eventually we will reach our destination.

Chest stand needs a more flexible back, which I can work on with time. But I can’t figure out what to do with my womanly chest for mayurasana. Feedtheyogi.com suggests that “some rearranging and humor is required” hahaha. Not sure how to rearrange – inwards, outwards? Strap them down ala when I was forced into my mother’s Chinese opera shows to play a male soldier?

I recently joined Contortionists Unite, an online community for contortionists. Am I a contortionist? No, not yet at least. One day I hope to get to that point. Some people would say that I’m too old to start training for the circus and for contortion. My body is too old, stiff and unable to change. I am a believer that age does not matter. As Sri Phattabi Jois said:

Do your practice and all is coming

If we let age limit us, we are hurting ourselves. This might take me longer than when I was 12 years old with the flexibility of a rubber band, but nothing in life ever came easy. To those who persevere, we will (eventually) come out on top.

One day, I will be a strong advocate for social change and perform in the circus at the same time. Maybe one day, when I am good enough, I will join Circus Without Borders. It’ll add to my repertoire of being a part of Students Without Borders. =D

Taking a break from reading some very dry planning policies for a mock Ontario Municipal Board project that I could care less about because in abhor policy planning. Yes, I realize that without policy nothing ever gets done but it doesn’t stop reading it from being mind-numbingly boring.

I graduate in 2.5 months and I haven’t had much time to reflect on my time in university or even think about what I want to do in the future. What I know is that I don’t think that being a planner is in the cards for me. Interesting, since I’ve spent the last 6 years studying urban planning and even went through the hassle of switching schools for it.

Three and a half months ago I started learning static trapeze and about one and a half months ago I added both hula hoop and aerial hoop to my repertoire. I also added acrobatics but seeing as I am terrible at it with no foreseeable future of improving, I don’t think that I am cut out to be a ground acrobatic.

I look at my sister’s life and about how happy she is now and passionate about what she does. She spent years working in science research, had a brief stint teaching English in Japan only to return to scientific research. Finally, she took a giant leap of faith and courage and quit, becoming a yoga teacher. I am inspired by her courage to do something unconventional and potentially unstable all in the environment of a first-general Asian immigrant family where having a child that is a doctor, lawyer, accountant or nurse is the ultimate aspiration.

I think about the circus training that I have been doing and how passionate I am about it. I have not had so much fun in a long time and have not picked up something new that I really feel like I can fall in love with. This is something that I am beginning to seriously consider as a career path but I wonder if I have the courage to drop my pretty conventional life to do something that is so unstable, even more unstable than being a yoga teacher. Circus performers are not known to make buckets of money.

In the midst of correspondence with my father where he tells me that making money is the priority in life, I can’t help but feel so jaded and disillusioned with life in general. Are we, as human beings really so absorbed with money that we cannot see past it and see what really makes us happy?

At the same time, I feel really guilty and terrible that my father was never really given the opportunity to chase his dreams. He had a family to take care of.

I feel torn between my parents who have sacrificed so much of their own happiness to give their children a good life and something that I really love doing. I know that it has only been 3.5 months but I know myself well and I can tell that circus is something that I will fall in love with. Well, I’ve always been in love with the circus, but I’ve never considered trying it out myself until this year and I only wish that I had started earlier.

Anyway, odd post, completely unrelated to urban issues but I just wanted to express some things going through my head as of late.

Back to the project!
R