Who needs diamonds?

Or chocolate or hot water or all you can eat vegetarian food or constant electricity or constant internet or Japanese food or bike tours or poetry slams or. . .


When you've got a SWEET GUITAR!!!!

Job Searching. . .

I'm looking for a position that:

Pays at least moderately well.  You know, so I could say. . .rent an apartment and pay the necessary living expenses involved, have meals 3 times a day, travel home (or to another destination) on occasion, make bike repairs as needed, be able to go out with friends a couple times a week and save some for the future.

I desire to work in every day that I am required to work (or at the very least the majority of days I am required to work).  If work is going to require a large portion of my time, it follows that I should enjoy that work and certainly, will perform better if I do.

Doesn't require all of my time and energy.  Although I would like to be invested and feel a purpose for working in whatever position I may find (that satisfies my conditions, of course), what's the point of working to make money to work to make money to work to make money to work to make money etc. repeat until death or retirement?

Helps me to develop my skills and interests simultaneously, both personal and professional, whatever they may be.  In this category I would accept anything related to Japanese/English language, International experience and relations, cycling, reading, cooking delicious vegetarian/vegan food, organic farming. . .etc.

Doesn't directly OR indirectly harm people (be they in my country of employment or otherwise) OR the environment.  This can include a pension plan that is invested in companys/coorporations who are scrutinized for destroying the homelands/environment/living conditions of people and violating their basic human rights (even if they are not in the country in which I am working), extracting resources that are polluting the environment in the extraction process, following a long transportation, and thus CO2 emitting, line, not paying workers in the country of extraction fair wages or working to develop their local economy (and if the amount being paid to the country for their resources could be called "fair" but it is being eaten be government officials and/or their sons/daughters, it doesn't count).

Is committed to developing and investing in a sustainable future for all of the 7 billion people living on this earth.  A position that doesn't only exist because of the number of people it can exploit or have under it's finger or the forests and water tables that it's destroying.  A position that isn't just going along with "the way that it's always been" because "the way that it's always been" clearly does NOT work for the majority of 7 billion people nor will it work when natural resources (LIKE WATER!) which are already scarce for many, become non-existent/unusable for everyone.

Is fun and restores my faith in humanity and the world. . .

is that so much to ask?

We made it to Drayton!

Hello from Drayton!

Start: Hidden Acres Farm

Sorry for the lack of correspondence thus far! Our first 3-ish weeks have been jam-packed (haha Otesha inside-joke) with training, performances, biking, meetings, sharing feelings circles, and not a lot of time. . .especially time combined with internet! Hopefully that trend will not continue for the rest of the tour!
My new Otesha team (family) of 14 and I just rolled in to Ploughshare farms in Drayton yesterday evening. Today we are at Drayton Heights Public School where they are talking about "The Power of Positive Choices" and are trying to fight bullying. We did our Otesha play in the morning and are doing 3 workshops this afternoon. After that we're heading back to the farm for a few days for a workshare (we'll be exchanging farm work for a place to stay) and our next rest day! Hurray!

 The last 3 weeks have been pretty amazing and inspiring but also quite challenging and busy. We met in Kitchener on May 1st and cycled 30k to New Hamburg where we stayed for the first week at Hidden Acres Camp getting to know each other and training with Katrina and Matt from the Otesha Office. We had a full week of wonderful workshops on such wonderful themes as bike maintenance, media kung-fu, safety, consensus decision making and of course the play! We also developed a "food mandate" that we are trying to follow so that we are all more conscious of our food choices and eating in an environmentally sustainable way as well.

The 2011 Otesha Phenomenal Food Tour!

We decided collectively to adopt a vegan diet for our communal cooking with vegetarian options (eggs and milk products) when we are relatively certain that the animal products are being procured by ethical and sustainable methods. So far we've had eggs from Plan B Organic Farm and we're excited to check out Mapleton's Organic Dairy later today for ice cream!! It has been difficult to suddenly switch to a vegan diet for some of the team members and the group has been trying out different things to make the food mandate work for everyone. Everyone is free to buy whatever they want with their own money but we are mainly trying to be more conscious of our decisions with respect to food. We've decided that no one is to be a "judgement jaguar", so everyone has been very accepting, supportive and accommodating to personal needs as well. Another difficulty we have encountered is accepting food from some of the wonderful hosts we've had. Some of our hosts have been planning events for us for months and we only just developed our food mandate 3 weeks ago so it is sometimes hard for us to get the message clearly to hosts that want to provide us with food. We are still working out the details of how we handle food that doesn't fit into our mandate that has been generously donated to us by our hosts. Although, personally, I think it's most important that we have the opportunity to open up discussion about our food choices and why we've chosen the food mandate that we have.
Last week was our first week on the road and we covered about 350km! We went first to Plan B farm, then to Ancaster Highschool for a few performances and to the Boys and Girls club for the night. The next day we had 2 performances at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School which went great! Afterwards though, we're still not sure why but a number of team members got sick and were unable to ride the 65km to Acton. We decided to rent a car to transport the 3 of us (Elise, Alyssa and I with Sam driving) to the next location while the rest of the team rode. By the time we all got to the destination another 3 or 4 team members had also become ill. Fortunately though, most of us were better by the next day where we went to Acton Highschool to participate in their water symposium. Then we had a couple of days of riding to Balidifad and then Toronto for a much needed rest day before the Organic Affair!

Outside of the house bus

Inside of Plan B's house bus!

friends forever

The Organic affair was at the Brickworks in Toronto which is an amazing space! We went on a tour where we learned about all of the amazing things they're doing with the old Brick factory and put on a 15 minute of our performance for the first ever time where an Otesha tour has actually been able to attend the Organic Affair (a bi-annual Otesha fund-raising event). The Organic Affair was great with lots of great people, speeches, and delicious brownies!!! We also met up with the Mammalian Diving Reflex, which is an organization very hard to define but are doing really interesting things with art as a tool for social change. One thing they do is called "Social Acupuncture"; they find contradicting ideas in normal society and making them happen (?) like haircuts by children! Check out the link above for more information, they have some super cool ideas!
After leaving Toronto we headed towards Etobicoke to Thistletown Collegiate Institute for a performance and then back in the direction of Waterloo (!?!?! haha). We went through Guelph to Ignatius Farm where we camped on the lawn for the night and had some delicious tea with the interns working there for the season. The next day we headed off to the University of Waterloo for a dry night in the residence and the next day, a 3 hour CanBike training session and another performance and workshop with the amazing Waterloo Unlimited Grade 10 students in the evening. We did 2 performances the next morning at Waterloo Collegiate Institute and then cycled a beautiful 60k to Drayton where we are now!

So I think that sums up our busy schedule so far. We've also had various rotating roles that we've had to fulfil in our group (some examples: meeting facilitator, time wolf, waste management, gratitude giver, etc.) and rotating cooking groups that are responsible for our food during the day.In all, we're getting to know each other a LOT better, getting better and stronger on our bikes, becoming more efficient working as a team and learning a lot through our collective experiences and tour stops about food, sustainability and the power of positive choices! Now all we need is SUN!!

Weeding at Ploughshare

Memory Dump

Yesterday I was having a great conversation with Sifu. I had done my testing (first test ever in Kung Fu) and went to watch the Habs game at the local bar after with my friends. I was really hungry but I'm not a big fan of bar food. I'm mostly vegetarian and have an affinity towards healthy food. . .not because I'm overly concerned with my diet, just because fried, unbalanced, cheesy, greasy food makes me feel shitty. . .generally. But that was all there was. . .and despite my hunger I mostly ended up drinking a lot of beer (contradictory to my health pitch above, I realize). Anyway, Sifu came to the bar into the second period of the game and we started talking about what we usually end up talking about: Taoism, philosophy, consciousness, chakras, the great one, all those kinds of things that can't really be articulated well, pretty interesting conversations!

The Kung Fu school also asked me to do a demonstration tomorrow of the form that I learned. I've only been learning the form for 4 weeks. Usually people don't pick up forms so quickly I guess and mine is not great, but they were impressed by the fact that I was able to go through the moves confidently despite my lack of training. As I understand it, Kung Fu takes a lifetime to master. . .perfection is not possible, because you need to be open-minded and always eager to learn more. You should always be willing to question everything you know and always accept that everything you know is wrong. It's the Kung Fu way of learning. . .it's also very hard for most people to really let go of everything they've learned, because eventually it requires you to let go of your ego and separation and. . .well, ya, literally everything. Not an easy task.

I noticed, during testing many of the female students had a lot of difficulty when their test was being done. When I worked with the same students during class, they were mostly fine. . .at least much better, but during testing they would lose much of their confidence and make a lot of errors. As a confident woman, I recognize that confident women are quite hard to come by. Women are put down all the time by lots of sources and if that's all you know, it's easy to be consumed by it. Everywhere you look there are ads, commercials, "friends", family, boyfriends, books, etc, telling you that you're not good enough and to be happy or attractive or whatever, you need to fit a certain image or mould that doesn't really exist. It's very hard to be a woman and be free of insecurities about your image, your self-worth, your actions, etc. There are very few positive role models who sincerely convey the message that it's ok to be exactly who you are and that loving yourself is key. I guess really the same argument can be made for any oppressed group and eventually it is important for the oppressed to free themselves mentally from these ideas and concepts. They only have as much power as you give them.

But a little push in the right direction never hurt anybody right?
So my demonstration tomorrow is to give a boost of confidence to a lot of the ladies that will be in attendance. Sifu thought it would help and be encouraging and I am absolutely on board if that is the reason (I normally wouldn't want to show-off but I have no problem doing it if he thinks it will influence others to have more confidence in themselves).

Another conversation that I had in my head yesterday and today as a result of yesterday was also somewhat of the feminist persuasion.
I try to be myself most of the time. I don't like putting on airs or pretending to be something I'm not. I also would ideally like to talk openly about sex but I feel that in some situations it's dangerous to do so as a woman (ok yes, obviously). I like to talk about sexuality to my female friends and male friends that I know and trust. . .but even then, they sometimes get the wrong idea and think that I'm talking about sex because I'm interested in them, or else why would I be bringing it up? The thing is, I like to challenge common ideas of sexuality. I get offended when words like "slut" and "whore" are used to describe women, for obvious reasons, but just in case it's not obvious to some people: I don't understand why there is such a negative connotation for females that enjoy having sex! Why must we be punished with this word that obviously has a very negative connotation for having multiple partners or not wanting to settle down or not being sure really what we want? Guys are the same way, but escape the name calling. It's the good old double standard that's been around since forever. It's stupid and unfair AND unrealistic.

I think it's necessary to call people out on this. I think it's necessary to push the envelope and say what may be considered outrageous or controversial or inappropriate. . .sometimes. If I'm not open about how I really feel when my guy friends are talking about how much they hate girls that don't shave 'down there' or question their word choices when they call a woman a "slut" or talk openly about how much I enjoy sex. . .then they will never know that they're being offensive. Their views, which I believe to be at least part of the reason that women are so insecure in the first place, need to be challenged. However, when I am open in my opinion of these things, I risk getting tagged as "a tease" or "easy" or maybe a "bitch". . .I dunno. Not that I really care what they think. I'm just trying to be free. I don't want to impress or manipulate or even sleep with them I just want to speak the truth. I'd appreciate it if it could be taken for just that instead of like a juicy steak being waved in front of a dog's face.
I think that's most of my rant. I'm starting Otesha in 3 days!