Trumon thought it'd be important to let Peter, a nurse, know about grandpa's excessive MSG consumption. Peter replied that, you know what, your grandpa probably has only a couple years, maybe days left. Take him out and let him do whatever he wants. If he wants ice cream, let him have it, you know? Let him die happy. 

I had been teary a second before but when I'm angry things always snap into focus. Peter had already given up - not on grandpa's lifespan - but on the possibility of treating people right. Here was a healthcare worker who had given up on health. We do harm to our kids, to our families when we give them anything but healthful food, and if we can make a difference now then we should make it. Monsanto and MSG manufacturers have no right to be in our lives, and the very thought of it makes me want to stab a CEO. Once we accept them as an inevitable part of life, they will have won.

My other grandfather has already died from cancer, and that side of the family continues to drink Coca Cola to this day. Sometimes I'm very scared...

I'm always amazed by how heartfelt Remembrance day presentations are from secondary school students who have never personally experienced war. They feel more honest somehow, though they are just as routine as the ones from the municipal. 

But Remembrance ceremonies are too much about soldiers' deaths and individual veterans. There is no question that we must honour their sacrifice, but wars involve more than just soldiers. It's about politics and corruption, and the misunderstandings that cause people to die. Why are we so fixated on those who died that we never look at how and why they did? How many universities have official military ties? How does our reliance on oil affect the international warscape? How many assassinations have been paid for by Goldcorp? Remembrance ceremonies in their current format externalize war - as if war belonged only to soldiers and to the past - when in reality, war belongs to all of us in the here and now. 

I already know they gave their lives for me. They gave their lives so that I could have healthy food, freedom of speech, clean air and democracy. But everything about the American Dream is being threatened once more, and if those valiant souls were here now they would rally us to fight for our lives. Instead we are content simply to reminisce - as if war were a thing of the past. It's not. 

How can we stand to simply remember the dead when more still are falling? How can I appreciate the life they fought for me to have when every moment it is slipping through our fingers? We are never so emotionally united as we are on Remembrance day, making it our biggest hope for education and action. They died for us. Don't let it be for nothing.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw

I went to see grandpa in North Wing Room 301 today. He's finally started to bald from malnutrition. Because he refuses to eat actual food, my family think it's a good idea to give him canned fortified milk.

I grabbed the colorfully packaged, plastic-wrap can from my aunt before she could give it to him and read the ingredients. I don't know much about anything, but I'm sure the makers of that "health product" don't give a shit about me or my grandpa. I told my aunt not to give him food with artificial flavours and colours and whatever modified ingredients, and she waved me off and said it was okay.

I don't know when my grandparents will die. This could be his deathbed or it might not. Wherever it will be, Monsanto will be there with us. And when we're buried we will carry Monsanto with us in our hearts, into our graves. 

found this lying around the station
 

I've been CJSF's PR coordinator for two months now, and I realized yesterday that I'm damn good at my job. I'm not the best at what I do and I have plenty of weak points. But I believe in grassroots non-profits and self-education. I believe in local artistry and student voices, and so I do all I can for independent radio. 

People are impressed when I say I have two assistants, but it's more democratic than it sounds because they get paid more than I do. The problem is, they aren't very good. [MIA] is always MIA (it's up to assistants how much they want to work). [Candy] is very eager, but she can't write well enough for me to trust her with the press releases, and although she can use Adobe design programs, she doesn't have enough grasp of design principles to create usable promotional materials. 

What's particularly infuriating is when people sigh when you give them work. Either people don't know you shouldn't let your boss hear your sighs, or I don't seem particularly boss-like to them. 

I wasn't the one who hired them, and I don't want to fire people (I can't anyway). And I'm as leftist as they come, but I imagine that in private company I'd immediately be able to get competent replacements. I've never been in a union but I'm guessing that they'd be problematic in a similar situation. 

There are things I can do better too of course. I could be more charismatic, bring out the best in others by finding and working to their strengths. I'm not yet that talented of a people person. 

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I met Talvani last year while he was a visiting scholar at SFU. He's since gone back to Brazil. He emailed me last week saying that he's moving to Sao Paulo, and that I could make good money there as an English and piano teacher. It was strange to think that I could possibly be valued and wanted in a place other than home.

Because I honestly don't know if I'm capable enough of supporting myself in the environment where I am now. What are my skills? In my studies I'm a cultural analyst. Outside of that I'm a closet blogger and a wannabe musician. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Academia is a passion, certainly, but for now it's also as a refuge against the inevitable real world. 

And I love my work at CJSF, but basically I don't make anything from it. It didn't help, for example, when dad looked at my paycheque and scoffed at how he could make that in a second. Thank you parents, that's exactly what I need you for. 

A panelist at the Media Democracy Day event today asked the audience, "Raise your hands if you would prefer survival of the fittest over sustainability. How about unlimited growth over sustainability?" He was suggesting, among other things, that in order for democracy to work, we might have to start working for art and culture - we might have to start working for one another instead of working for money. 

And in that room full of ideas, media activists and alternative, minority voices united against big business, I felt like maybe I could be worth more than just my bank account. I have value to give back to the world. 

i miss your Madrid eyes
and mermaid airs
how you spill over yourself when you're quiet
like the time we walked through the burlesque snow
and a single snowflake kiss
lit up your smile

but blue moon veins run only further and farther
i smoke these shaking cigarettes and they smoke me
and ever since, these mornings bring no rest
to these heavy charcoal skies. i miss your eyes. 

"Shut your face!"

Sometimes when I go out with a guy they'll open the door for me. Whenever I get the chance, I'll open the door back. It has nothing to do with our roles as guy and girl, because considerate is what we are for one another. 

This one time I was out walking with Lime, and my bag somehow ended up in his hands. When he realized he was still holding it he scoffed, "Oh what? What am I doing with this?" And he shoved it back.

Turnoff, much? Conversely, there is nothing so irresistible as a guy who can handle himself while having a girl on one arm, and her bag on his other. It shows that he's strong and sturdy enough to keep a girl. He'd take her books if she had her hands full, so why is it not okay to take her bag? I wouldn't hesitate to help you with yours, and it's only fair to return the favour. 

So why does consideration stop with homophobia? If you're afraid that these little displays of care will have effeminating effects then maybe you're not man enough for a relationship. After all, what do real men have to be afraid of?

Just came back from volunteering at a salmonaresacred.org event, a night of music, art and fundraising in an effort to raise awareness about our depleting Fraser River salmon stock.

Somebody was selling canned salmon at one of the tables. Sometimes activists make me wanna cough up a liver and scratch out my eyes.

I think too many activist initiatives right now are focused on awareness and fundraising. How come we get more information about how to self-check for breast cancer than we get about avoiding carcinogens? Why don't they teach us how to eat healthier at the Terry Fox run each year? How come Save the Children canvassers will take my money but they won't tell me to stop buying shit made in China? Belief without action is called being lazy. Awareness and fundraising must come with tangible forms of empowerment, else we perpetuate a democratic impotence. 

[R2D2] told me "I'm glad that you're not becoming one of those angry/mean activists, and just staying inspiring! :0)"

I corrected her immediately because I am angry and proud. Why should anger be wrong and stigmatized? A society that is happy with itself is one that will never change. Every feel-good-happy Glee episode sets you up for the advertisers. We are too comfortable with our leather seats and our seedless oranges to be angry. Somehow pacifism has become synonymous with slacktivism.  

The faces of the revolution are many

and somehow I don't think this is one of them

I hate eating out at Chinese places. I always come back feeling shitty from the MSG, but having dim sum with my grandparents is nonetheless one of our favourite rituals. During the breakfast I am attentive to their every word, feeling useful and purposed as I dutifully fill and refill their teacups. With them I can still pretend I'm every bit the gwai granddaughter the family wanted and raised. I don't get along with my parents or any of the aunts and uncles, so aside from the cousins, my grandparents are the only reason I'm proud of being from this family. 

The purity of my increasingly vegan diet is causing me to become more sensitive to the chemical MSG effects, but that's not why I now avoid ethic round table foods. The picture above was taken when Trumon was in kindergarten. That's seven years ago. And while Trumon's been getting bigger and stronger, I can't say the same of the others in the photo.

Grandma's a fighter - no one will deny that after she raised four children and then another four of theirs. Even after winning her battle with cancer she is no less diminished; grandma speaks with the same force and violence required by our language with a voice that only ever chides the people she loves. Never does she give hint about the pills or the pain, and it's easy for me to pretend that things are as they have always been.

But grandpa no longer stands as straight, and he's the one practically being carried everywhere now. Ever since his stroke, his eyes have taken on a blue hue I don't dare ask anyone about, and they don't focus as quickly or as securely when he's talking to people. Grandpa escaped the Communists when he was my age, found a job and carried rice sacks back to his family across the border. It makes no sense why we now treat him like a child when we say things slowly and too cheerfully, how we now walk at accommodating speeds for him on the way back to the car. 

I feel like how I felt when Trumon was in the hospital; I didn't want to visit for fear of what I'd find. I don't think of my grandparents as weak and fragile and I don't want reality to change my mind. Grandma and grandpa are actually doing well for people of their age; they're hospital-free for the moment at least. I should be grateful, I should be making the most of the time we have. I shouldn't cry over people who aren't dead. But it scares me when I don't recognize the people I call my own, and I hesitate more and more to pick up the phone. 

The Downtown East Side (DTES) is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada. When I was younger my mom would tell me to avoid the "bad" part of town, but now I go through it daily on the bus for school and I've been around a couple times on foot. It's a misconception among conservatives that bad people go to the DTES, but people only go there because they have to. The area isn't all that dangerous to walk through, but their way of life is different, and that's what's threatening to people.

I was on the bus today when I heard two female voices behind me speaking in Cantonese:

"That's so gross."

"I bet they don't bathe."

"They stay on the streets all day and do drugs."

"It's disgusting."

They were silent for a moment as they stared unabashadly at the clusters of people on the streets. I glanced behind me to do some judging of my own and saw the speakers were dolled-up in flats and tights and dresses. One was wearing fake lashes. I was glad nobody else on the bus could understand them, and I felt ashamed of even this small connection to these foolish girls.

But then I'm just as prejudiced as they. I believe in equal rights and democracy and everything self-righteous from the left, but I also think that one must self-actualize through education before they can contribute to society. With a lack of education comes racism, environmental damage, homophobia, xenophobia and a whole host of other social disasters. A lot of my family is uneducated, and it saddens me when they fail to realize their potential because they refuse to open themselves up to the world.

I was on the bus once with [Biologist] and a ratty middle-aged guy who was getting off at the heart of the DTES turned and told my friend loudly to "Hey, lose your accent," before walking out the doors (Biologist has a Mandarin accent). I don't want to marginalize these people, but they have little hope of becoming educated and I don't know how to fit them into my worldview.

------------------------------------------------------------

700lbs sold between 11am - 2pm

I went to to the community garden apple festival last week. These organic applies, cultivated by volunteers not 2 km from my house, were priced at $5 for 2lbs. I picked out just three apples, and they were exactly 2lbs. I'm constantly terrified by the fact that I won't stay healthy forever, but what scares me more is how people can eat Tim Bits for lunch when the price of health keeps rising and rising.

I bought a dwarf tree at the festival, so when it arrives next spring we will have a total of five fruit trees (lemon, plum, cherry, orange and apple). So excite!

There's plenty of environmental talk going around, but it's only sometimes that I see actual action. The University of Victoria has managed to eco-friendly its campus ("To eco-friendly", hows that for a verb?), there are kids saying they want to be farmers and communal gardens keep popping up around the city.

I still think it's still too little too late, but our efforts will be worth it even if we can only have these crispy, sweet, local, organic apples to enjoy just for now.