This date is significant to many people, especially the Chinese. Eight is supposed to be a lucky number, for some religions as well. The Summer Olympics in Beijing starts today. My friend, Arliin, told me on several occasions that her 30th anniversary with her employer (a major Canadian bank) would be August 8, 2008. She was looking forward to it, and we joked on New Year’s Day — our last time together — that it was now her lucky year. But she never made it to 08/08/08, she died of unknown causes sometime in the early hours of January 3, 2008. Whether you’re superstitious or not, don’t put off living or wait for your ship to come in or hold out for your day in the sun. [Stop buying lottery tickets!] There is beauty and life even under clouds. Make each day count, even the grey ones.
‘Life Lessons’ Category
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08/08/08
August 8, 2008 by Gail
Posted in Life Lessons, Loss | 8 Comments
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A Critical Eye
August 1, 2008 by Gail
original Neesa
twilight Neesa
There was a time when I would have been happy with the top photo and uploaded it right away, but that time has come and gone. Now I look at my photos differently, and look for things to improve on. Part of developing a critical eye is learning what Photoshop can do, but also learning what it can’t. You can’t perform miracles with it, but you can do wonderful things.
That said, I don’t want to take photos with the idea of fixing them after, because — let’s face it — Photoshopping is onerous work. From a purely creative standpoint it’s exciting, but the work itself is nothing short of painstaking, even with shortcuts such as actions (basically macros, or a series of tasks/commands played back/automated). There are people who shoot only in RAW format, but I’m not one of them — that kind of workflow would mean I’d sleep even less than I do now.
If I had a choice between pre- and post-processing, I’ll take photography any day. But cameras, no matter how sophisticated and expensive, will NEVER ever match the ability of a human eye to focus, find the perfect exposure, white balance, or replicate colour. That’s where Photoshop comes in.
Posted in Life Lessons, Photography | | 5 Comments
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Lessons in Patience
July 31, 2007 by Gail
Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík
Been a little too busy lately to indulge much in extracurricula, so this entry’s going to be brief. I wanted to post this picture of Hallgrímskirkja — Iceland’s most photographed church — a while ago as an example of patience.
Hallgrímskirkja took 38 years to build. 38 years! I haven’t even been on the planet that long, so it’s hard to fathom tackling a project for that length of time. As you can see, Hallgrímskirkja is an unusual structure. I imagine when it was commissioned in 1937 that this particularly stark design raised a bit of a ruckus, but at least the architect’s vision eventually came to fruition.
As I get older, I have a greater appreciation for architecture because there is an underlying conflict in that we expect things to stand the test of time… but scramble to build them in the least amount of time. If you live in a city, the most visible example of this is the glut of condominiums. Both Toronto and Vancouver are cities of cranes erecting a soul-less condo building every 15 minutes.
I reckon the best way to restore your faith in engineering is to get yourself to a place where old and new co-exist, but the aesthetics of the new don’t eclipse the old and vice versa. An example? Say, Valencia, Spain.
Posted in Iceland, Life Lessons | | 3 Comments
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The Chronic Revisionist
March 14, 2007 by Gail
How I wanted to end a long day: at a cafe with a big mug of latte, a Toblerone shortbread cookie, and some music in the background. My brain was still echoing with work when I drove to ground school, it was that sort of day. I decided to postpone my PSTAR exam, but attended the preamble so I would have more information with which to prepare. I drove back home two hours earlier than usual to park myself at a cafe and unwind enough to write a poem.
I haven’t written a poem since high school English, when I got graded on it. (That’s not counting the silly limericks with David online.)
It took me a long time to write it, simply because I’m so out of practice (although truthfully I was never in practice) and the fact that I’m a chronic revisionist who can never achieve an acceptable degree of satisfaction without rounds and rounds of editing. I blame my old boss for passing along this nasty habit (Mister M knows who I’m kidding about). But in the past few months or so, I’ve been willing myself to embark in new directions without the comfort of previous firsthand experience because I want to feel personal growth. Where I feel progress is best charted is not in the territory I’ve already explored but in the execution of new ideas. Because I think now is as good a time as any; I definitely wasn’t ready last year.
Every day I come home feeling spent because everything is new and my job takes a lot out of me. I’m not complaining, I know it comes with the territory, the new territory.
The poem took me more than two hours to write. At one point I was ready to throw in the towel and ask Socar to help me, because she’s a wordsmith. She did me a huge favour by writing a poem for David, a favour I asked the day he was transferred to hospice. But I plodded on, wincing now and then. See, my problem is that my vocabulary goes out the flaming window when it comes to poetry. Seriously, I have to mentally cycle through the alphabet and it makes me feel like a grade schooler. Phooey. I can’t tell you how many drafts I made.
Anyway, I emailed off the latest version, hoping for some overnight inspiration. Maybe it’ll come to me in my sleep. My plan is to read it out loud tomorrow at my bereavement group. My hope is that if I read it out loud to them, it will give the poem a sound. And if the sound rings true, I will know it is finished.
The poem is for a daughter who lost her father. I know one day that will be me.
Posted in Life Lessons | 1 Comment
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Ramon Stoppelenburg, a Lifetime Ago
November 5, 2006 by Gail
July 22, 2003
Chez Gail, Beach Avenue, VancouverSomething bizarre happened when I was in New York City at the end of September. I was enjoying a Magners with JimmyOK and LarimdaME at an Irish pub in SoHo when Jimmy turned to me and said, “I met you years ago.”
“Really?” I said. I mentally scanned back to early trips to NYC in 2000 and 2002, and I couldn’t recall meeting him. My facial recognition skills have always been above par, but maybe the last year has taken its toll on my faculties.
I was flummoxed. Could it have been abroad? He has family living in Europe, did we meet in Amsterdam? I’ve been there four times. Finally I broke down and asked, “Where???”
“Through Ramon Stoppelenburg,” he said. “I’d been following Ramon’s travels and when I saw your photo on Flickr, I said, ‘I know her!’ Ramon stayed at your place, and I’d invited him to stay at mine, but he never came to the U.S.”
The backstory is that a Dutch guy named Ramon Stoppelenburg travelled the world for free from May 2001 – July 2003 through his website called LetMeStayForaDay.com. (The website is still active as of this writing.) I don’t remember how I found his site, but I sent him an invitation and he stayed with me for a few days in February (by that time the “a Day” part was found to be rather unsustainable) at the beginning of his Canadian tour and passed through in July at the end of the trip.
February 21, 2003
February 22, 2003
February 23, 2003
July 22, 2003Steve Savage of TheSavageFiles.com also stayed at my place in 2003, and between their websites, I gave up the idea of anonymity on the internet. My name was out there. (Nearly four years later, I can tell you it didn’t matter. You know what’s worse? Putting your name in a prize draw at the shopping mall and getting junk mail and telemarketing calls forever. At least on the internet there are spam filters.)
When I found this mock interview video clip to upload to YouTube (it was previously hosted on my SFU webspace, which is now defunct), I remembered some of my conversation with Ramon that day and how he felt about reaching the end of his travels through the website. It’s been several years now since that afternoon, but for some reason his words stuck with me. Ramon write a bit about it on his homepage:
I know some people can be very happy with one job in a lifetime, but I didn’t see me travel the way I did for a very long time. I am even surprised that it took me so long!
When I just finished this project in August 2003 I was very bitter about it all. I did not want to think about it and for once not care about a website.
Fortunately things went better with me. Nowadays I look back much more happier about the amazing feat I have accomplished.
- Ramon Stoppelenburg, LetMeStayForADay.com
Interesting how perspectives change, given enough time.
I told Jimmy that I had one other connection to Ramon, that is he invited me to Orkut.com back in January 2004, and that was where I met David. In a huge twist of irony, David was invited to Orkut by his first girlfriend from high school. (The ironic part is a whole other story.)
The point of all this, other than the need for some kind of flowchart for my life, is that the intersection of lives and experiences is
- accompanied with varying degrees of risk (i.e., fear of strangers), and
- resultant in outcomes we won’t know for years, or maybe will never fully realise.
Last week someone asked me about when I met David, which later led me to admit, “If I had not bought that plane ticket and met David when I did, I’d… never have met him at all.”
While I edited this videoclip I thought, “Thanks, Ramon.”
Technorati tags: gailontheweb, gailatlarge, Ramon Stoppelenburg, videoclip, interview, worldwideweb, travel, life, Flickr, LetMeStayForADay.com Posted in Chez Gail (Vancouver), Life Lessons, Linkage, Raconteurism | 1 Comment
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The Thunderstorm
July 5, 2006 by Gail
There’s a story David told me early on, before we’d actually met, about a turning point in his life. It was after a thunderstorm he experienced while flying to Ohio in 2001, a storm so intense he worried he might not make it through. David told the story to a few people, but I managed to find one instance where he’d written it down, in an e-mail, in June 2004.
I was flying from my home ‘port in the Poconos to Cincinnati, Ohio for a conference. I was going to receive an award I had been given, for education. Two other pilots were going to go with me, but they cancelled the morning of the trip. I decided to go anyway, even though it would mean flying alone in instrument weather, which is a heavier workload. I was flying a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172, a little four-seat plane about the size and weight of a Volkswagen.
Across Pennsylvania as far as Pittsburgh was all grey clouds and light rain, I never once saw the ground after taking off. As I crossed into Ohio the clouds began to get darker, and the rain fell harder. The Cleveland center controller gave me some headings to steer to keep me out of the worst of the rain and lightning.
Fairly quickly the clouds went to a deep grey, and the rain even more intense. The windscreen was totally obsured by water, like being in a carwash, and the sound of the rain was like sizzling bacon – louder than the engine. The turbulence was so bad that the simple autopilot couldn’t keep me level, so I clicked it off and hand-flew the plane, trying to stay upright. I was thrown up and down hundreds of feet; the engine howled and sighed, as my airspeed went wildly up and down.
Posted in Aviation, David, David's Writing, Fave, Flying, Life Lessons | 5 Comments
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Words
June 22, 2006 by Gail
When we commit words to a page, we leave something of ourselves to others. Our mortality gives way to a certain immortality, in the words that we use to describe our experiences, words that may be found long after we are gone. Words that may move, enlighten, shift attitudes, or affect others in some way.
I recently discovered the blog of a 33-year old woman who had cancer. By the time I made the discovery, she had just passed away. But her words remained. I read a few entries and was compelled to read more, but I didn’t have time and I forgot to bookmark it. I happened to come across the URL again by typing in the Canadian Cancer Society’s URL and Safari attempted to autofill it, which brought me to her site again. Her family says she requested that the blog be deleted on July 15, so I tried to find a way to archive it so I could read all her entries — the posts that I read were very absorbing. Thankfully, someone took the time to archive the whole thing, and I downloaded it to read later.
I randomly picked a post to read in the meantime, and it was this one:
Elegy for E. Smith, Two Years Too Late (link won’t work after July 15/06)
Posted in David, Fave, Life Lessons, Linkage | 3 Comments
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Pilot in Command
January 11, 2006 by Gail
Since we met, David had been teaching me aviation concepts, principals of flying, airplane maintenance, and safety. He showed me the transponder and told me which codes to input for various scenarios, how to notify Air Traffic Control. My official “ground schooling” was planned, but he fell ill and we concentrated on flying purely for enjoyment and sparing any energy he would’ve otherwise spent on instruction. As it was, we always erred on the side of caution when flying while he was in treatment, and — armed only with a very limited knowledge of flying — I helped him the best I could, to monitor gauges and watch for other aircraft.
We loved to fly together, but we knew in this situation there could only be one Pilot-in-Command. When there is more than one pilot present, a PIC must be chosen beforehand to make the ultimate decision at the controls, but it goes without saying it’s always good to have more than one pilot. For this reason, David was keen on teaching me as soon as possible, even just after we’d met.
Posted in Fave, Flying, Life Lessons | 3 Comments
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Words to Live By
September 24, 2005 by Gail
As seen on the front of a church in New York City.
I slept in today. I really needed it. Saturdays are good days for us, as I’ve mentioned before, because it’s a break from radiation. David’s suffering from chronic fatigue because of his therapies, while I’m feeling fatigued from domestic activity and wedding preparations. Houseguests are arriving in the next week or so, and it feels like I’ve been cleaning this house since I arrived on August 6. Seriously, looking after two levels of house plus an attic and basement and yard on all sides, an ill person and an incontinent cat is more than one healthy person can handle. When I see the older people at the radiation clinic every day, I wonder how they do it. But I suppose after all, when you’ve passed your 60′s and are finished raising kids and seen your share of trials and tribulations, you know what it’s like to carry on, despite everything. For younger people who lack this type of life experience, we’re (relatively speaking) more easily fazed by crises to our well-being.
Boy, is my dad in for some work when he gets here. I’ve even made a list, and tried to save the work he might find ‘fun’ for when he gets here, i.e, yard work. If I had a choice between yard work and housework, I’d choose yardwork EVERY TIME. Compared to David, I’m a clean freak, but the truth is I like the results, not the actual process of cleaning.
Returning to the quotation, it’s a small reminder for me to shut up now, get showered and take David to Cherry Ridge Airport, where the Tri-Pacer is stored. I suggested to him that we head to the airport and hang out at the restaurant, see if any of his flying buddies are there, and see if David feels up for a spin. He hasn’t flown for nearly three months, which is a record since he first learned to fly many moons ago. I’m hoping the airport atmosphere alone (if he doesn’t fly) will be a nice break from all this fatigue.
Posted in Life Lessons, Living with Cancer | 2 Comments
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New Year’s Resolutions
January 30, 2004 by Gail
We all make ‘em. We all break ‘em. It’s nearly the end of January and — surprise surprise — 2004 is bearing a stinky resemblance to the undisciplined ways of 2003, at least here at The Balcony. I didn’t make any resolutions this year, not just because it is perennially futile, but also because there’s nothing more fun than a weekend of debauchery, say, and having all those resolutions go to pot in one fell swoop.
At some point over the holidays, I even considered making up some mock resolutions to be more uncouth, self-indulgent, and adopt a more devil-may-care attitude than in 2003:
** SWEAR MORE **… not that I’m self-censorious on my blog — this is the way I talk normally — but in a recent spate of nostalgia I cast my mind back to my Australia days in the early ’90s, when I was swearing like a sailor, living communally on a campground, sharing a tent with this wacky French guy named Bruno (with the wildest dreadlocks and teeth that threatened to fall out of his mouth when he spoke his very limited Aussie slang bastardized English), laying around swimming pools and the beach all day to escape the heat and playing pool all night to win free beer. At that juncture in our relatively carefree lives Berit and Jez were picking tobacco in Mareeba during the week and would hitchike into Cairns on Saturdays to meet me and play volleyball so we could get a free BBQ… Those were the days!!! I would phone home occasionally, and after six months I had this bizarre broad northern Queensland accent and it was all I could do to spit out a sentence without danger of offending my parents. Not that swearing more today would evoke a magical nostalgia and miraculously draw me out of my current funk, but sometimes a little swearing goes a long way to making one feel better. In those days the phone calls home would usually end with either party hanging up angrily, so swearing became not only habitual but as natural as breathing. After 13 months in Australia, my speech was so deep in the gutter it was in danger of never seeing the light of day again. (Then I went to Scotland for two years… ha! ha! — where it got even worse at one point.)
As far as the usual resolutions go, there are certain items that appear on every New Year’s Resolutions list because self-improvement is drummed into us from birth (especially those of us who are the children of the ’80s):
LIVE HEALTHIER, i.e.
* exercise more
* eat more fruit and veg–blah blah... — for others, that might include ‘watch less TV’, ‘read more’, ‘drink less’, ‘shop less’, ‘save more money,’ what-have-you. However, these are behaviours that wouldn’t necessarily impact our lives in a major way if we didn’t follow them. We could just carry on as is. Then, there are the things that bear influence on work ethic and our ability to self-finance or advance ourselves vocationally:
WORK HARDER, i.e.
* be more disciplined
* stop procrastinating
* put more effort and energy into work/school/etc.Then there’s the stuff that pertains specifically to me, and anyone who knows me will recognize my bad habits and tendency to self-neglect:
* go to bed earlier, get up earlier (or, go to bed at all!)
* don’t be late for appointments of any kind
* spend less time on the computer and go out more (believe you me, this wasn’t the case until I started working from home then going to uni)
* be a bit more girly, like maybe get my hair done professionally more than once per year
* look after my feet (when boyfriends lodge complaints, it’s time to get out the pumice stone)I mean, I pride myself on being low-maintenance, but sometimes I take things a bit too far…
So, here I am, tomorrow is the last day of January, and I am one day behind on my first assignment of the term. There’s no REAL excuse for it. In fact, I was discussing this with a colleague today, how hard it seems to get my act together on a paper similar to one I wrote a year ago with perceptually less difficulty. Here I am, typing into my blog, NOT doing the paper. She suggested to me that I’ve got a case of the 3rd-year-unmotivated blues. I think she’s right, but for different reasons — it’s not that I’m down on getting this degree, it’s not that I don’t think it’s worth it, or that I’m even wondering what I’ll do at the end of it… I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m still mentally burnt out from the end of 2003. I thought the Christmas break would cure me, would revitalize me, would give me a renewed sense of resolve. I was hoping it would recharge me, and I did show a glimmer of promise when I did cover some of the assigned reading a couple of weeks ago, but then — POOF! — it was gone, and I’m back in my bad old procrastinating ways. My brain just doesn’t seem to want to co-operate. I procrastinated plenty before, but I always managed to get the assignments done ON TIME. I never handed in anything late, and by the marks I received, I kept the calibre of the writing consistently decent. But now…
NOW…
Do I need to check myself into an ashram or something? Go to a spa? What?? (I’m not going to a spa, though, that’s too far a leap into high-maintenance territory.) Maybe when I hit 40. Am I going through some kind of pre-mid-life-oh-no-I’m-past-30-crisis??
Posted in Gail at Large, Life Lessons | 1 Comment
