Too Cute

(Or Watch it Here)

Santa? Is That You?

I went to my very first Torontonian Santa Clause parade last weekend. Seriously, I have never seen that many children in Toronto before. I thought they didn't exist here. Thanks to my friend Chantelle, though, who brought a girl she babysits. We fit right in.

The differences between this parade and the Woodstock parade were many. Mostly, though, the clowns were scarier. I saw ones with piercings, without teeth, beer bellies, and little bits of white trash stuck to them. Well, I'm exaggerating with the last inference.

Despite the scary clowns, the parade was quite a spirit lifter and - presumably the whole point of the parade - a real kick in the butt to start my Christmas shopping. I already have two gifts bought!

Life in a Book

Reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac has been an interesting experience. I'm reading the infamous original scroll. Legend has it that Kerouac sat down at a type writer and purged this entire story in one go, and it came out on one long sheet of paper. No paragraphs. Bad punctuation.

It's interesting reading this version because I find that I am frequently editing the piece in my head. A comma should go here, I could make a new paragraph here. This isn't even a word.

Nevertheless, it has been an enthralling journey, one that I will be done with in about 20 pages, or about an hour.

What struck me a few days ago, and has been scrawled in my agenda ever since, is that amidst this text that is very outside my own experience I found a direct parallel to my life. This is something I used to do on the school bus or on the yearly 2 day road trip to Cape Breton:

I told Neal that when I was a kid and rode in cars I used to imagine I held a big scynthe in my hand and cut down all the trees and posts and even sliced every hill that zoomed past the window. (305)

Common experience. I guess we're all not as different as we seem.

Spot Me!

I've always wondered why people in Toronto dress up every day. I go through phases where I try to look my best every day and actually wear make-up to school, but they never last long. It seemed trivial to me to try to impress strangers.

Now I know why people do it.

I had no idea I was being filmed, but there is a full shot of me on MTV Canada news. Check it out here. Hint: I'm wearing a black, corduroy jacket.

It's funny that I'm in the background of a segment that deals with privacy being impeded on by the internet.

Microbiotics

I've been dabbling in a vegetarian lifestyle for a few years now, but always seem to waver back and forth. Some people have criticized this as being undisciplined, but just like I've had moral qualms about the meat industry, I've also had problems with placing blanket restrictions on my diet.

I'm watching Spain...On the Road Again right now, the show that follows Gwyneth Paltrow and friends around as they try different foods. There was this scene where Gwyneth was saying that eating lamb was cruel and she had a disagreement with Mario Batali about soy milk. Yet, at the same time she was eating cheese and fish. I was curious about her diet. Is she a vegan? Vegetarian? Crazy?

What I found out is that she follows a microbiotic diet. It's a diet that reduces meat intake, or restricts it all together, and promotes whole grains, beans, fruit and fish. It seems like a diet that I could follow. Or, sorry, lifestyle change.

Drop Fees!

On November 5th students across Toronto gathered to march against tuition fees. Sure, we sent out a mixed message about the correlation between tuition and poverty. And we had a blatant cheer about Dalton McGuinty being a liar. I still would like tuition fees to be reduced.

Here's a video I made about the march. Enjoy!

Melski

I had one of those weekends that feel as long as the Titanic movie. Going home is supposed to be a relaxing experience, but almost never is. Not in a bad way, I suppose, it can just be full.

I'm a sometimes involved, wish-I-was-more-involved, family member to my two parents, one sister and three brothers. So going home always means trying to spend one-on-one time with each one of them, making sure I give them some words of wisdom from Toronto (which often was less wise and more dom) and eating as much expensive food from the fridge as possible. Inevitably, this leaves little room for homework.

What I don't realize most of the time is how much these visits can mean. I was there when my older brother needed to tell someone he is moving out next week before he broke the news to our parents. I got to see my little brother Nathan win two soccer games in a row, and see my other brother Curtis coach one of those games. I found out that on my Dad's new diet all he was eating was soup, so I found recipes for him that had some substance. Meat, Dad, you can still eat it.

What was most amazing about my time spent with my family is the realization we all came to: every one of us is called Melski by certain people. I guess there's too many of us to remember first names.