TORONTO GIRL CHRONICLES

I told you it was a Jay-Z type of retirement!

At the insistence of my lovely friends and family, I am back to blogging and writing.

This time around, my blog will be a little bit more personal. So allow me to re-introduce myself:

My name is Patricia, and I am a lover of literature, a writer-in-the-rough, a food aficionado, a "business, man," among many things. I started this blog last year to tell you about the things that I learned that I wish someone had been kind enough to tell me. It was also my excuse to speak to women that inspire me, and figure out the secret to having the guts to do what they loved. Because finding love (and not necessarily the romantic type), my friends, is the secret to life.

Since then, I have finished my pre-requisites for university and I've been accepted! So an even more exciting
journey is about to begin. In the mean time, I will continue learning about money matters, matters of the heart, food (oh, how I love food!) and, of course, this beautiful city in which I live!

So without further ado...

Oh, hey! follow me on twitter: @patriciaTO or like Toronto Girl Chronicles on facebook.

I had been dying to get away this summer, but all of a sudden work got crazy busy and then there was the move, minor renovations, endless Ikea trips...and I've you have been to Ikea you know that's enough to drive you crazy!




So my best friend and I made a deal. We would take a couple of days off this week and conquer the open road. We are going to a very special place with incredible architecture,deep dish pizza and the worlds biggest baseball stadium. Am I giving away too much? I hope not because I want to keep you intrigued...
Hey, if you guess what city I'm going to I'll bring you a souvenir! Write your guess in the comment section. You have until Wednesday, September 22, 2010 (midnight).




NOTE - MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY OR CLOSE FRIENDS ARE NOT ELIGIBLE TO WIN (SINCE YOU ALREADY KNOW WHERE I AM GOING). YOU MUST RESIDE IN THE GTA TO WIN.

I woke up to this question on my Blackberry screen: Does anyone actually love their jobs? In my Monday morning state of mind I answered:


Jobs are like men. You date a few (or a lot) assholes, you learn your lessons and then you find the man you truly love. And you’re so good with him (or the job) because 1- you truly appreciate them (the man or the job) and 2 – you have experience.

Oh, that tricky little thing called experience. What a concept. You truly cannot get to point B without going through point A. In my 26 years of life, this is what I have learned. You might hate your job, dating, doing triple spins or whatever you hate, but you should do it anyways. Eventually you get better and it prepares you for something better. Maybe we focus too much in why we hate our jobs/guys/school to actually see things for what they are: A stepping stone (take advantage!).

Only in my Monday morning daze I can appreciate all of these things. The jerks I dated taught me not to settle, the bad jobs have given me great experience and those triple spins? They taught me how to trust myself and let go.

A truly insightful guy once told me that life, like photography, is all about perspective. A great photographer can make the ugliest subject look amazing. It's all about looking at things from the right angle and appreciating the beauty in the most unexpected places. So how skillful are you at looking at your life from the right angle?

I think this is the harderst thing to do! Sometimes you just want to feel miserable, but is it really helping you? Are you moving forward by mooping? I'm guessing not, because at the end of it all you're still there.  A friend of mine taught me 2 little tricks that I use everytime I feel blah...

1) On a piece of paper write down 5 things that make you feel grateful/ happy
2) Do one of those things that make you feel grateful/happy a day. (My joyful activity for today: Eating Gelato)

Oh! And it's Madonna's birthday! Happy birthday Madge!

This song cheers me up :)

I hope you take this day to re-group and recover from the weekend festivities.

My brother and I had lunch at a park last weekend. Afterwards, I set up a tent and proceeded to nap, as many sleepless nights in Toronto induce me to fall asleep everywhere else. I was about 10 minutes into my nap when a dog, a wet dog, came in the tent and started splashing all around! As you can imagine, I was not impressed. So I got out of the tent and asked the owners to control their dog. Okay, I might have yelled, but only because they were far away. To this my brother said: “Wow, Toronto people are so aggressive.” I knew he meant rude. He’s just too polite to say so.


I’ve always thought I was polite, so this came as a shock to me. Could my four years as a Toronto Girl have turned my small town sweetness into raw aggression? I started to reflect upon actions and the actions of Torontonians in general. For example, when a pregnant woman/elderly person needs a seat, do we offer it? When we’re driving and someone cuts us off, do we honk? When service at a restaurant takes a little bit too long, do we snap? In my opinion, we are polite. We are also assertive; if something is wrong we speak on it. Nothing wrong with that…but maybe I’m just too used to being rude to notice it. Maybe the norm in this city (as in every major city) is to be aggressive, and anything else is just plain wimpy. What do you think? Are we too rude/aggressive?

There are many things that scare me, but if there’s something that I have learned in these past years, is that those things that scare me the most hold the biggest rewards. Maybe life is like investments, after all, the bigger the risk, the bigger the dividends. Or better yet, life is like a dance show. The bigger the audience, the bigger the pressure.


You work hard, you prepare as much as you can and when the opportunity to perform arises, you have a choice: Do you step in, or do you dare not touch the stage? You’re behind that curtain, ready to take that big leap of faith. You feel as though your heart could not possibly beat any faster. Then again, if you don’t feel those palpitations, is it really worth it? So you go, take a deep breath and step into the spotlight. You know that everything you need for that moment you have already learnt. Life happens when you’re ready to let it happen. Everything happens for a reason. You might give the performance of a life time, or you might not...but you will never know until you defeat your fears and start dancing.

I was walking on my way home from my interview with Aline Morales, when I decided to stop by and get a small cookie from my favourite bakery. I only go there once in a full moon, so this is a really cherished treat. On my way home again, as I am happily eating my cookie, this young “gentleman” approaches me and screams loudly “Oh my god! Oh my god! YOU HAVE A FAT ASS BUT I WOULD STILL HIT THAT!” I didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment (a fat ass is not necessarily a bad thing), or be humiliated. I walked in disbelief for about 5 minutes, experiencing a roller coaster of extreme emotions. Confused and shocked that someone would dare be so rude, until I came up with the following (super lame) come backs:


1 – Like I would let you hit that (kind of lame).

2- Well you have a skinny ass, so there’s no way I would let you hit that, m*f. (kind of bitter)

3 – How dare you be so rude? (I’m just not good at giving out insults...)

It was then that I decided to just let it roll. I was not going to let a 15 year old idiot tell me how to feel about my body. Just like I was not going to let a fashion magazine, or a movie star, or a diet product tell me who I was, or if I was worthy of my own acceptance. I decided right then and there that I love my gorgeous fat ass, and I would proudly sway it with every step I took, on my way back home.

And because its Monday and we all need a little laugh...

A year ago when I was laid off my friend gave me this book called Five, Where will you be five years from now? It is an amazing book with lots of quotes and goal setting exercises. This is one of my favorire quotes:


THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANOTHER YOU.  YOU ARE A ONCE-IN-ALL-HISTORY EVENT. YOU ARE NEW TO NATURE. YOU ARE ONE OF A KIND; THEREFORE NO ONE CAN REALLY PREDICT TO WHAT HEIGHTS YOU MIGHT SOAR.  EVEN YOU WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL YOU SPREAD YOUR WINGS.  YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR UNDER DEVELOPED POTENTIAL,  BUT IT IS THERE - AND ITS ENORMOUS!

Since the ice age, vast numbers of your ancestors have been smart enough, fast enough, strong enough and corageous enough to survive several thousand years of famine, plague, predators and the worst natural disasters. Though you may think yourself as merely "average", you are actually the latest in a long line of human success stories...and the hidden strenghts you've inherited are no doubt trying their best to emerge. Let them out!

HAPPY MONDAY!

HAPPY MONDAY!

It is on the toughest days that you get the toughest wake up calls. On Friday I was having a pretty shitty day, I was so sad that I went out at lunch and started bawling my eyes out. Then when I got home I came across this amazing story about cancer survival. This is the journey of Meghan, a young girl like you and I, that is diagnosed with breast cancer and starts a blog about her experiences. She also writes a bucket list of the things that she wants to accomplish before she dies. That is the most heart breaking part of the story. I think there’s nothing more defining in life than when you become aware of your mortality. I can not imagine what it must have been like to know that your deadline is approaching. We think we have all this time, but its really not guaranteed. We take things for granted, its the downfall, the foolishness, of our youth.


The blog is now written by her husband who is completing her bucket list in her honour.

“Her cancer was the least important part of her life. How she lived it is what's important. Meghan dying is not what defines me. It is our life together thats more important, it's who she made me and how I am living now because of her influence”

I had never really thought about creating a bucket list, and I hesitate because it feels kinda morbid, but I don’t want to miss out on any opportunities just because I didn’t give it enough thought. At the end of the day its not our circumstances that define us, its how we live through them that really does. That’s worth putting some thought into.

To read Meghan’s blog click here.

Your life is great! You can do anything good! Isn't this the best youtube video that you ever did see? I wonder what happens to us when we grow up, why do we loose our enthusiasm as we get older? I guess the real battle in life is to keep smiling and to always remember that, really, our life is GREAT.

Happy Monday!

       

When I moved to Toronto I felt at home. Growing up in Small Town Canada where I was notoriously part of the minority was...interesting. Coming to Toronto and seeing more of “my people" and "other's peoples" made me feel at home. I moved to the neighbourhood with the highest concentration of "my peeps" and enrolled in salsa lessons. I wore big hoop earrings, enunciated my accent and to this day I still hold J.Lo to be the ideal beauty. I know it all sounds so funny but it was so amazing to not feel weird because I didn't have blue eyes or couldn't pronounce the word shampoo.

So what happens when you are forced to get out of your segregated cultural bubble and co-exist with the rest of the minorities that beautify Toronto? Understanding other cultures is not just about eating their delicious (and sometimes not so delicious) food nor having polite conversations while shopping in Chinatown. How do you react when you really need to mix and mingle?

This is why this city is such a fantastic place to grow up! Every day we have an opportunity to go out of our shell and learn how to communicate with other cultures. This is our competitive advantage. We get to learn that if a new comer, who is not fluent in English, is having problems understanding us, the best way of communicating is not to yell but to slow down and simplify our ideas. We get to learn that when someone is being harsh (or what you consider rude) is never personal. These are just a few examples among many others, but my point is: cherish these opportunities, learn, really learn, about different cultures and get past the stereotypes. At the end of the day I think you'll be surprised as to how much we have in common.

About last Wednesday I had a bit of a melt-down, just a tiny one. I went to the Schulich School of Business' website . It is one of the best business schools in North America, and well, you practically have to be a genius to be accepted. The average, even for mature students is low 90's in all courses, not to mention Calculus is a prerequisite.  I had never even thought about applying there, but you know when someone tells you "you can't do" something and you start wanting it? Until you read the word Calculus...

 At this point I have put so much sweat, blood and tears (not literally) into this going back to school project, and Math has been an uphill battle, that on Wednesday I was ready to quit. Last Wednesday I started to think that I would never be the best at anything. Lucky for me, the phone rang and my sweet 19-year-old sister, who surprises me with her wisdom every now and then, said something very true. She told me that being the best was in the eye of the beholder. We all have to find our own definition of what "being the best is". For example, our mother is THE BEST. We don't know all the mothers in the world, but we know that to us, she is THE BEST.Do you see what I am getting at? 

So I spoke with my tutor (who happens to be the best at Math) and we had a little heart to heart where she pointed out that it was too early to quit, having only completed 25% of the course, and that I didn't have to be the best at math, I just had to be good. And I am good. So I will continue to pursue my dream and work on my stuff and still hope that one day I'll be the best...to myself.

Last night Kathryn Bigelow became the first ever woman to pick up the coveted Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker. I haven't had a chance to check that movie out, but now I have to.
Congratulations!!!

So my Monday notes are supposed to be a bit of a pep-talk to get you all inspired into kicking some ass this week. Here's my confession, they are more of a pep-talk to myself as well. Because the truth is, whether you are at the beginning of your journey or towards the middle or towards the end, it is never easy pursing what you love. Yes, you do it out of love, which is what keeps you going, but also because of this you put everything on the line. You work long hours, you study hard, you sacrifice sleep, family time, you name it. You know what you want so you go and get it.

Well, today happens to be Women's Day, and I would like to acknowledge all the women that have given me pep-talks before, and the women that have led by examples.  These have taught me about kindness, perseverance, hard work and  pusuing your dreams. We all have women in our lifes that have accomplished something that has inspired us, whether they raised 5 kids, or got a Phd,  so go out there and celebrate these great great women! and in the process celebrate yourself, yes you. You great woman you.

xoxo

Toronto Girl

P.S - Who inspires you? what inspires you about them? What makes a woman a great woman?

Mistakes. We are not robots, we are humans, I'm human. As much as I hate to admit it...I make mistakes. Unfortunately, sooner or later they all come back to bite me in the ass. What can I say, I've never been a "learn-from-other's-mistakes" type of gal. Always need to have my way and fall on my ass.

I've heard that making mistakes and getting yourself back up is what builds character. Well, I've got some character. And I could sit here and list all of my mistakes but the more a think about it the more I fail to see them as mistakes (okay some of them). I say this because (and I guess this is the building I've learned how to recognize good people and keep them in my life, how to save money, that great things cost a great deal of effort and that yellow is not the best colour on my complexion. But all jokes aside, I think the most important thing that I've learned from my mistakes is to smarten up and pay attention. We are bound to repeat our mistakes when we just brush them off and not learn from them. So the sooner you learn they more you grow and the more room you make to make new mistakes and grow some more.