I don’t know if you knew this already, but I love traveling by train. I used to do it quite a lot as a kid (fares were cheap!), and now do it whenever possible… Living in Ontario has given me many more opportunities to do it in the last 4 years than I have in my lifetime. There’s just something about it that strikes a chord with me… maybe because it’s such an old-fashioned way to travel, maybe because it takes time, maybe because it’s something different… maybe because it doesn’t have the hassles of plane travel (yet, anyway). In some respects, it has quite a few advantages over planes; take this post, for example– I’m writing it and posting it from a train at the moment (somewhere between Ottawa and Toronto, just past Kingston).

If there’s one trip I’ve always wanted to do (and I actually looked at the logistics of it earlier on this trip), it’s to travel from coast-to-coast (in Canada) on a train, Vancouver to Halifax. Or Halifax to Vancouver, whichever (this is more likely if I start from Ottawa, anyway). It’d take three different train journeys (Halifax -> Montreal, Montreal -> Toronto, Toronto -> Vancouver), and would take quite a long time, but it’d be time well-spent, in my opinion.

It’s going on my bucket list.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to pitch in towards a Canrailpass (between $872 – $1003 for a high-season coast-to-coast pass), which will allow me to do this, let me know .

Dear Suzy Shier,

Please look up the definitions of the words ‘peek’ and ‘peak’ before using one prominently in an email newsletter. Or read on:

peak /pik/ noun
- The pointed top of a mountain or ridge
- A mountain with a pointed summit
- The pointed top of anything
- The highest or most important point or level
- the maximum point, degree, or volume of anything

peek /pik/ verb
- To look or glance quickly or furtively, especially through a small opening or from a concealed location
- A quick or furtive look or glance; peep
[dictionary.com] 

I’m pretty sure only one of those can be used to describe getting a first look at clothing. It really bothers me when large companies with large audiences can’t be bothered to proofread– or their proofreaders aren’t doing their jobs. Both ways lead to pointing and laughing, and potential public humiliation (and irritated blog posts), none of which are good for a brand. Just saying.

First I should explain that this school semester has been the busiest, most stressful one I have ever had, and it shows no signs of letting up. It also happens to be a semester where I am juggling numerous personal issues and situations, as well as my oh-so-wise decision to take on a part-time internship. While I know I can do it all, I am not sure what state I am going to be in, mentally, at the end of this semester…

Which brings me to the quote I read today when I was reading a chapter of Linchpin (Seth Godin)… well, re-reading, actually. I do take breaks occasionally, and in those breaks, I occasionally read. It just seemed so timely, so here it is:

“Everyday is a new chance to choose.

Choose to change your perspective.
Choose to flip the switch in your mind. Turn on the light and stop fretting about with insecurity and doubt.
Choose to do your work and be free of distraction.
Choose to see the best in someone, or choose to bring out the worst in them.
Choose to be a laser beam, with focused intention, or a scattered ray of light that doesn’t do any good.”
- Ishita Gupta

Obviously I’d rather be the laser beam. It just remains for me to decide on what my intention is…

This other charity’s cause is also something you’d like to help out with, so you fork over money to buy their merch, delighting in the t-shirt that arrives at your door two weeks later. And then you see it: the “Made in China” tag staring you in the face. Did you just support a sweatshop in one part of the world, to benefit people in another part? Was it worth it?

I’ve definitely sent emails to charities like the one I described above; asking whether or not their merchandise is fair trade. Most of the time, it isn’t. Robbing the poor to feed the poor? It doesn’t really work. And I’ve tried to justify it before by saying that the people being helped by the charity would die without that help (malaria pills, or clean water, or HIV medication), whereas the people in sweatshops will live regardless (albeit, not at the best quality of life possible). But people are people are people, no matter where they are in the world or what they are doing. The 9-year-old girl in the sweatshop deserves to have a happier childhood as much as the HIV-positive baby. So what do you do?

It’s a tough decision. My personal stance has been that I will first write to the charity offering the merchandise, and ask them about the manufacturing cycle of their products. If they are unable to tell me, or try to reassure me that their manufacturing facilities are “quality-checked”, then I will not buy their products. Or if a commercial retail store is selling merchandise to raise money for a cause (may or may not be through a charity), I will first check the label. Location information like “Made in China”, “Made in Bangladesh”, and “Made in Mexico” are fairly reliable indicators of sweatshop labour (as well, “Made in India” is a rather reliable indicator of child labour). Not only that, but merchandise made under such conditions tends to be cheaply constructed, using the cheapest materials possible (think of Stitches/Bluenotes), and is not worth my money anyway if I will have to replace it soon after buying it.

I’m not here to preach. But being mindful of the conditions around the world, and taking into account the entire supply chain when buying a product is something small that can affect things in a big way. For example, if one of the charities you write to is intrigued by the fact that people care where their merchandise comes from, they might look into fair trade and/or local options. If a commercial chain notices that their “Made in Canada” shirts are selling faster than their “Made in China” ones, they will take notice (especially because locally-made merch tends to be more expensive, due to the higher wages and cost of living), and then they might start bringing more of their manufacturing back to North America. It is possible to still be profitable without cutting costs on production– people’s perception of higher-priced products is that they are better quality and will last longer than their cheaper substitutes.

An interesting resource to check out on this topic is the Free2Work Database– they give corporations a grade based on how they treat their workers. Just something to think about.

Short post today on three things which have got me thinking.

1) Passion. What am I passionate about? It would be much easier to narrow down a lot of things in my life to something more definite (job, hobbies, etc.) if I nailed down my passions first. What makes me mad? What makes me happy? I can tell you right away that the state of women’s rights in many countries is something that makes me very mad, and that good typography makes me very happy. Also, bad grammar makes me mad, and hugs make me very happy. It’s easy to think about one’s passions, but applying them in “real life” is quite another story…

2) Effective writing. I came across this post by Jason Fried today, and I really like his idea for a writing course which makes you hand in five versions of every assignment: three pages, one page, three paragraphs, one paragraph, one sentence. If university writing courses had a component like this (along with strict grammar/spelling/composition guidelines), I suspect the overall quality of writing would improve by leaps and bounds!

3) Listening. I submitted an order yesterday in person at a certain Copy&Print Centre, and asked for 8×10 prints. Noticing that the girl hadn’t written this down, or checked anything off to this effect, I asked her again: “those are for 8×10 prints, right?” She replied in the affirmative. Today when I got my prints back, they were definitely not 8×10. I measured. (There were other things which went wrong with my order too, one being that despite the fact that I asked for two sets of prints, they only gave me one (and charged me for two!)). So now I have to make a third trip to that store on Tuesday (everything is closed tomorrow), and it’s pretty inconvenient to get to. Sigh. As an old IKEA commercial once said, “listen better, please!”

Just some food for thought. Have a great Sunday, everyone! =]

Another post so quickly! Amazing, I know. Well, the reason is because I’m trying to stay awake right now (it is 3:55pm in the afternoon), because whenever I nap, it ends up being 3 hours or longer, which is much too long. So I’m keeping myself occupied, and hopefully I can keep awake until a reasonable bedtime (10pm?).

My topic today is kaizen, which is a Japanese word used to represent the principle of continuous improvement. This concept is not a new one, but it was brought to my attention today through a blog post by Sacha Greif of “Attack of Design” (here).  He explains it like this: “it simply means not resting on your laurels, and making everything even a tiny bit better each day.” Kaizen is a concept practiced in many companies today, and it can also be applied to one’s personal life in many ways. There are many accepted “definitions” of what it means to practice kaizen (you can see some in the Wikipedia article, here), but it is an open-ended concept. So here’s my interpretation:

Instead of coasting on your previous success, spend time on making those successes better. There’s always room for improvement. Fight the Law of Diminishing Returns, and finish your projects as strong as you started them. Don’t give up if you don’t see results right away. It takes time and hard work to see great results.

This is pretty vague, but as you can see, it could be applied to anything– relationships, fitness, homework, client work, personal projects… the list goes on. I think that I am going to ask myself at the end of every day– “what have I done today to make myself/my life better?” Now, this could include such things as: exercising, finishing a project, working on a project, actually finishing my daily to-do list, eating healthy all day, getting enough sleep the night before, drinking enough water, relaxing to get rid of stress, learning new concepts, keeping in touch with old friends, etc.

How could you apply kaizen in your life? Leave a comment .

Current Portfolio Layout (as of February 12)

If you’re not the least bit interested in web design and development, you can probably skip this post. It’s basically going to be a jumping point for the redesign of my portfolio site (the main site on this domain).

So, it’s that time of the year again– the time where I start applying for jobs and spending hours writing cover letters and tweaking my resume (this may change too… more on that later). Although there are some interesting prospects on the horizon already, one major step for any multimedia student applying for jobs is to re-do or revamp their portfolio for submission. Last year, I was actually late (I re-did my site while I was employed at the time, not before getting the job), but it ended up not mattering too much for that job anyway. This year, if I want any sort of design or multimedia job which is actually relevant to my program, the renovation of my portfolio is of the utmost importance.

Now, web standards have been changing a LOT over the last few years. HTML5 finally appeared, jQuery has become commonplace, the CCS3 spec has been steadily advancing towards full cross-browser adoption, mobile internet devices have taken over the world, social media is everywhere. So what does this mean for my redesign? It means I have to finally change my method of working on websites. It was all nice and easy when most people had 1024×768 desktop or laptop computers on which they did most of their internet browsing. Nowadays, if your website takes longer than 2.1 seconds to load completely on an iPhone’s tiny display, you’re screwed (I made that number up, by the way). So, keeping this in mind, here are the problems with my current website:

1. Horizontal scrolling below 800px. This is especially annoying when I’ve “snapped” my window to the left or right on my Windows 7 laptop, and have to scroll sideways. For years, and perhaps even decades, one of the top rules of web design has always been- “never make your visitor scroll sideways!” Not only is it annoying, but the layout also breaks rather badly when one does scroll sideways. Whoops.

2. Plain. There’s no personality in the design, really. There’s plenty of personality in the content, because I tried for that deliberately, but for some reason, the design looks very uninspired. Mind you, it is quite nice and neat and clean, but it can be those without being bland.

3. No mobile optimization. This is a direct result of my not owning a smartphone, but that’s really no excuse. Now that it is fairly easy to customize one’s layout for mobile devices and netbooks, there’s no reason I can’t do that and save people a lot of scrolling on mobile devices.

4. Weird PHP page structure. I do try and minimize my URLs as much as possible, but they are neither memorable nor nicely linked.

5. Social media “dabbling”. I have links to my LinkedIn, Flickr, etc., but they are afterthoughts, not design features.

6. Layout disconnect between the main site and the blog (this site). They don’t even look like they belong to the same person.

7. No room for additional information about my bigger projects (or ones I am very proud of).

I’m sure there’s more, but this is what’s currently coming to mind. How am I going to fix these in the redesign? Like this:

- Main layout and navigation 650px or less (or whatever doesn’t make me scroll sideways when I’ve got my window “snapped”)
- Better design– more colour, better typography, no more Courier New as a body font– but still preserving the simplicity and clarity
- Mobile stylesheet(s)
- URL rewriting to make them shorter and memorable **I just tried this out on the existing site, and it worked! Excellent
- Feeds from one or more social media sources (I’m thinking Flickr)– or at least, have them featured more prominently
- Redesign of the blog layout to match the portfolio layout
- “Featured Projects” section or area

This is what I’d like to accomplish. I know that given enough time, I can make it work– the key is, can I make it work given that I really don’t have much time at all? We’ll see.

Firstly, I logged into Facebook today and was faced with a news feed made up of condolences. I don’t have details (and I would prefer not to go into them here anyway), but basically it looks like a girl I went to high school with just lost two close family relatives in a freak accident. I can’t even imagine what her and her family are going through right now. Just trying to imagine the sheer magnitude of that pain and loss managed to smack me upside the head quite forcefully earlier. Something like this really forces you to take a step back from your life and regain some perspective. Even just this morning, I was stressing about all of the assignments which are coming up, but really? They’re not that important. School isn’t that big, in the grand scheme of things. Relationships are important. People are important. This annoying programming assignment, or that quiz? Not so important. Anyway. It was a good wake-up call. One of those every once in a while is something I find extremely helpful.

Secondly, an opportunity is available right now for me to apply for (and potentially get) a job at a cutting-edge multimedia company in Ottawa, starting in the summer. This is pretty much every B. IT’er’s dream job. The question is, do I have the drive, skills, and motivation to (a) land and (b) excel at this job? There are so many reasons I can think of why I’m unsuited for this job– the job description requires all applicants to have a strong portfolio– I don’t believe mine is up to this standard quite yet. I can only hold the job for 4 months, not longer. I haven’t got the best grades in my year. There are other people more creative than me. Etc. Etc.

And yet… it feels like it will be the right thing to apply. I will, of course, have to overhaul my portfolio rather drastically, come up with new pieces, and upgrade my skills in a few things I’m not very good at currently. This will take time, which is already at a premium for me. And, even after all of that, I may not get the job. So why should I bother? But when I look at it from the other side, it can’t possibly be anything but beneficial to me to try. Even if I don’t make it, (a) my portfolio will be polished, (b) I’ll have plenty of new pieces, (c) my application will be on record with this company, increasing my chances of a job with them in the future, (d) my skill set will be up to par, and (e) I’ll have learned plenty of new things, including what can/can’t land me a job at a company like this. Also, by the end of that process, I may have successfully defeated the school-year creative block which tends to settle in from September to April.

Lesson learned from today? New perspectives can come from both tragedies and opportunities– you just have to be ready for them to creep into your mind when the time comes.

In my opinion, being reactive is simply just reacting to every problem or thing which goes wrong with some disproportionately strong emotion, whether it’s anger, annoyance, loud frustration, or even over-the-top happiness. I try not to be this way myself, since it would go against my view that things will unfold the way that they are meant to, but the more I am around reactive people, the more reactive I become. It becomes difficult to accept things the way they are, minute by minute, if everything suddenly strikes me as an interruption, disruption, or unexpected occurrence. And then, due to that interruption, it becomes very easy to be petty, because suddenly it’s justified. Irritation begets irritation, anger begets anger. Grudges appear out of nowhere, small annoyances which could just have slid past suddenly become mountains, a rift opens up between people. Negative feelings abound. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if people were much less reactive and more forgiving? Less petty and more laid back? Less angry and more happy (happier)? Of course, I’m not perfect myself, but when I see things like this happen between other people, I take one more mental step away from reactivity and one more towards positivity.

Maybe it’s good, then, that some people around me are reactive. How else would I be motivated to improve my own mental outlook?

It’s been an odd day.

P.S.: Slightly more than a year ago today, I posted the lyrics to “Say (All I Need)” by OneRepublic. It’s in my head right now. Check it out with the sound up loud and your eyes closed:

Some examples of useful things which I can do every day: work out (I can do this at home, it’s just a matter of making time), work on my portfolio site overhaul, read through the slides from that day (during the week) and take notes, clean my room/declutter, read through recommended readings for school, learn vocab and pronunciation for another spoken language, learn syntax and conventions for another programming language, make meals/meal plans for the week, take pictures with DSLR camera as practice for school, make a portfolio piece, etc. There are so many useful things I could accomplish in any given day, that it’s actually quite a miracle that some days I don’t manage to do any of them.

Is it too late to make a pseudo-resolution that I will accomplish something useful every day?

(P.S.: I got 212 unique visitors today O.O. To put that in perspective, I got 29 yesterday. I haven’t figured out yet what was responsible for the spike, but that’s pretty awesome any way you look at it).