Life In Limbo

Feminism 101

July 8, 2014

I haven’t talked about this much on the blog, but I am wholeheartedly a feminist and believe very deeply in learning and talking about feminist issues, as well as the issues of race, class and privilege that go hand in hand with feminism. I believe everyone should be a feminist, despite how scary that word and its connotations can be, and despite all the misconceptions about what feminism is and isn’t. It can be a very polarizing issue and sometimes talking about these issues can get tensions high and people’s backs up. Unfortunately, there are too many disadvantaged groups of people and too many awful occurrences to not have these discussions.

I remember when I had my “feminist awakening” – when I woke up to the fact that there did exist real inequalities and issues that I previously hadn’t even considered before. I was in my second year, taking a course on the sociology of gender with one of my best friends, and I think that I can safely say: that semester opened our eyes to everything from the pay gap to rape culture to chore division to domestic violence to beauty standards and more. Not long after, I was so interested in learning more that I changed my minor from Sociology to Women’s Studies and took summer courses in feminist theory to make up the credits I needed.

I think that feminism is both important and fascinating. More importantly, I think it’s necessary since we collectively still have so much work that needs to be done. Recently, I’ve tried not to annoy my friends and family with my observations and conversations, since I know that I get very passionate and sometimes cynical about this stuff. The last thing I want to do is scare even more people away from feminism. Nowadays, I try to engage people in friendly debate and point out things I find troubling, while trying not to be too pushy or overbearing (with varying degrees of success, of course).

This week on the podcast, Laura and I are talking about feminism 101. We tried to make our conversation as approachable and helpful as we could without being overwhelming or alarmist. Our podcast is billed as a health and wellness show, and so we know that this topic is a little different from what we usually cover. At the same time, we think an awareness of feminist issues is important for any well-rounded adult, regardless of what you ultimately choose to believe in or fight for. Not to mention the fact that many feminist issues are about the health and wellness of women and other disadvantaged minority groups. To Laura and I, it makes sense to cover this topic on our show.

You can find this week’s episode and show notes right here. In the show notes, we mention some really approachable writers, vloggers and podcasters who can break it down even further and help to make feminism more accessible to you if you’d like to learn more about it. As always, thank you for your respect, and for reading and/or listening to what I have to say.

If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, I’ve written more about the Who Needs Feminism? campaign here and two great feminist documentaries here and here.

Jeju Island, Korea

July 7, 2014

Our weekend on Jeju island wasn’t what we had expected, but it was still magical in its own way. July is the rainy season in Korea, but I didn’t know that when we booked our flights. We also had no way of knowing that Korea was going to be getting the tail end of a monsoon this weekend. All this is to say that we were completely soaked for most of our time on the island, but the gorgeous scenery more than made up for it.

The fact that it’s an island makes it seem like it would be small, but in fact it’s quite big and spread out. Jeju is a very popular tourist destination for Koreans, and it’s actually laughable how many attractions and museums there are on the island. Gorgeous scenery and natural wonders of the world aside, you can also visit museums about sex, teddy bears, chocolate, seashells – there are over a hundred on the island. We didn’t visit any of them, preferring to experience the stunning natural beauty of the island, despite the pouring rain and long bus rides.

It seemed like everywhere we looked on Jeju, we saw something beautiful. The whole island is so lush and green, full of tropical plant life and huge cliffs and deep blue water. The highlight for me was definitely Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak, which formed from an underwater volcanic eruption. It is absolutely majestic and otherworldly because of its size and greenery, and the fog hanging over it while we were there. While we were doing the tough hike (steps pretty much straight up to the top of the crater), it was also coincidentally raining the hardest it had on our whole trip. It was a good exercise in patience and staying present and reminding myself to look around and take in all the beauty. When we got to the top, we just kind of surrendered to the pouring rain because, well, we didn’t have much of a choice! Our umbrellas and rain ponchos weren’t doing much of anything, so we stripped them off and embraced it, fooling around and even taking some yoga photos because we’re crazy. It ended up being a lot of fun.

Our last stop was the Samyang black sand beach where the sun finally broke through the clouds and gave us a little warmth. The beach itself was small but beautiful, and the black sand was pretty awesome. We rounded out the weekend with drinks and snacks and even got a gift of some delicious treats from a Korean family sitting nearby.

All in all, it was a great weekend. We were lucky enough to see some very beautiful places and have a little vacation, which was much needed after a pretty stressful week. It wasn’t perfect, but I was proud of our attitudes and our ability to stay positive despite the weather.

Inspiration | July 4

July 4, 2014

Create and Explore is a new project that mashes up audio and photo/video, and the results are pretty stunning. There are only two so far, this one is my favourite.

I really loved Elise’s podcast this week on thinking productively about your passions with the photographer and yogi Cortnee Loren Brown. They offered some really solid advice and I found the whole talk very inspiring. Cortnee’s accompanying blog post is also great, if you aren’t a fan of the podcast medium.

I needed some instant stress relief last night, so I did what I was told in this video (very simple legs up the wall pose) and it was actually really helpful.

This girl paid Photoshop experts in different countries to “make her beautiful” and I found the results really fascinating. Primarily because they are all such different images and such differing interpretations of beauty. Really cool.

I liked this round-up of interesting, easy blog post ideas.

An Instagram account I’ve been liking lately: @citysage.

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It was my first week at my new job and boy, was it a stressful one. I was really thrown into the deep end (I’m learning that’s typical of all hagwons) and felt like I was just making it all up as I went along. After three days I have a little more of a handle on things but I still have a long way to go. This weekend, we are headed to the beautiful Jeju island (this trip really snuck up on me!) and I’m hoping to see a lot of beautiful sights and do a lot of relaxing. Happy weekend, everyone!

Book Club | May & June

July 3, 2014

I’m now 8 books behind on my reading goal for the year, and sadly over the last few weeks I’ve only been slowing down! What with all the big changes happening in my life, reading has taken a major backseat. Reading is one of the things that makes me happiest, and always makes me feel like I have all the time in the world (even if I can only read for 15 minutes), but it’s always the thing that’s the first to go when things get stressful. Really, it should be the other way around, and I’m going to try to work on that going forward.

This year, in the spirit of my reading goal, I’m sharing my favourite books every month or so here on the blog. You can see my favourites from the first four months of the year right here.

Daring Greatly / This Spring, I really fell in love with Brené Brown’s ideas and writing. Her TED talks on shame and vulnerability piqued my interest, and I immediately wanted to read this book, which is her most recent. Her talks touch on many of the book’s main points, but the amount of details, quotes and funny and touching anecdotes she includes makes it more than worth a read. I resonate so strongly with her perspectives on things, they feel intuitive and just strike a chord with me. Plus, while her writing style is funny and self-deprecating, it’s also serious and passionate when she’s discussing important ideas. I highlighted a bunch of quotes while reading, but one of my favourites that really sums it up is:

“Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”

The Promise of a Pencil / I decided to read this book after watching Marie Forleo’s interview with the author Adam Braun. I found the story of his journey inspiring, and his approach very accessible and down-to-earth. Braun is the founder of the global education charity Pencils of Promise, which builds schools and trains teachers by working with local communities all around the world. He builds each chapter around a mantra he’s developed or adopted that guides him in living his life. I liked all of the mantras, but some of my favourites were: “why be normal”, “do the small things that make others feel big”, “stay guided by your values, not your necessities”, and “make your life a story worth telling”. The book is Braun’s autobiography, but it includes a lot of wonderful ideas and perspectives, and I personally found it incredibly inspiring. The whole time I was reading it, I felt like I had all this pent-up energy that I wanted to use to go out and do good in the world.

Thrive / I absolutely adored this book, and highlighted something on almost every page. It’s chock full of meaningful quotes, ideas, and reminders about what it means to live a good life. Arianna Huffington’s big idea is that we need a third metric (the first two being money and power) to define success. She suggests that the third metric is made up of wisdom, wellness, wonder, and giving, and the book explores each of those ideas. To make her points, she includes several personal anecdotes and brings in a lot of ideas from other big thinkers. I resonated really strongly with the book and it gave me a lot of food for thought. As I’m sort of in the process of designing my own life, it helps to have a resource like this one for the other metrics I should be striving towards as I seek out a happy and successful life. I highly, highly recommend. There were at least a hundred awesome quotes in this book, but here are just two:

“Why do we spend so much of our limited time on this earth focusing on all the things our eulogy will never cover?”
“Well-being can’t be measured by money or traded in markets. It’s about the beauty of our surroundings, the quality of our culture, and, above all, the strength of our relationships.” -David Cameron

One other note: it was fascinating how much overlap there was between these first three books – they all mentioned vulnerability, synchronicity, the importance of giving and doing good for others, and they all discussed how human connection is so important for happiness. It was great to see so much cohesion across three fairly different books.

Lost Lake / Sarah Addison Allen is one of my very favourite authors, but it took me a while to get around to reading this, her latest book. I think part of me was nervous to read it, since I’ve read all her others at least 3 times each, and I had worries that Lost Lake wouldn’t be as good. Fortunately, I was wrong, and Allen is as wonderful a writer as ever. She wrote a short story called Waking Kate to accompany Lost Lake, which I read first and it sucked me right back into the magical world that all her books create for the reader. If you want to see whether you’d like her style, Waking Kate is available for free as a Kindle single right here. Lost Lake is set at a beautiful old summer resort in the South with a wonderful cast of eccentric characters, a charming little town nearby, and it’s full of breezy, lovely, summery plans and adventures. It’s a bit of a light read, but for me it was so enjoyable.

Paper Towns / Slowly but surely I’m reading all of John Green’s novels, and I’ve been loving them all. This one is set in the suburbs of Florida, and it’s about a boy who loves a girl. All of Green’s books make me feel nostalgic about different times in my life, this one reminded me of when I was in high school in the suburbs, driving around in my mom’s minivan with my friends, sitting out on rooftops, hanging out in basements, and instant messaging my friends all hours of the day and night. I never pulled as many pranks as they do in the book, but I loved it and could relate to it all the same. I can’t say too much about the plot without giving away spoilers, but I loved how Green kind of attacks the 2-dimensional “manic pixie dream girl” idea by forcing his main character to confront the fact that he didn’t know the girl he “loved” almost at all, he just loved the idea of her and what she looked and acted like.

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As always, you can see all the books I’ve read and plan to read on GoodReads. Also, if you have any great book recommendations for me, I’d love to hear them! Let me know in the comments below.

You can see my favourite books so far this year here, and my favourite books of 2013 here.