Another Voyage

So my life is set up into different chunks of time and focus.  While I was traveling, this blog was about travel.  While in grad school, I focused on it (but I have not caught up with all that I want to say so more to come).  Now that I am a leader or boss of a small organization (I prefer leader), this blog may get a bit theoretical as I attempt to learn how to become a good leader rather than devolve into a horrible one.  This will take active practice and work and I am already staring at six book on leadership from the library taunting me from my kitchen table.  The topic?  LEADERSHIP.  This may mean I lose a few of my eleven or so readers but hey, I write for myself and the process as much as for you (but I really like you a lot so please stay!).

While attempting to finish the thesis that will never end, I read the following quote from an article about economic or extrinsic rewards in business, versus social or intrinsic rewards in business.  Essentially, should organizations create elaborate reward programs to light a fire underneath their employees butts to encourage them to share their knowledge (which apparently people don't do naturally, as we hoard knowledge, much like the show...I wonder if my brian on the inside looks like some of those living rooms...).  Well, as it turns out, people are more apt to share knowledge if they are able to identify intrinsic reasons to do so:

"Employees who think knowledge sharing would increase the scope and depth of associations among organizational members tend to have a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing.  Their positive attitudes toward knowledge sharing are formed by the expectations of reciprocation on knowledge sharing.  Moreover, employees who believe in their ability to contribute to improvements of organizational performance have a positive attitude toward knowledge sharing. Therefore, we should pay more attention to enhancing the positive mood state for social associations which precedes knowledge sharing behaviours and should provide useful feedback to improve the individual's self-efficacy instead of designing an elaborate evaluation and incentive system."
- Bock. G. W., & Kim, Y-G. (2002). Breaking the Myths of Rewards: An exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge sharing. In Information Resources Management Journal, 15(2), 14-21.

Self-efficacy in this study is defined as "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances", a definition which was stole borrowed from Bandura (1996).

Essentially what this says is that my decision to provide an employee this week, who has been invited to participant in...let's say...'turf management', was a good choice.  This may foster a greater desire to contribute to our small but impressive organization, because he will have developed social associations that will motivate him to contribute for intrinsic reasons, which always last longer than extrinsic motivations.  This is why when I was at that crazy school and the administration pretended to listen to the teachers' ideas but really didn't, they did not get feedback when they asked us questions during staff meetings because we had no intrinsic reasons to share our knowledge with them, the leaders of a school, as we knew our organization would not improve without a change in management.  Sharing would have been a waste of our marvellous contributions.  This makes sense now.

I hope 'turf management' does not make anyone lazy.  :)  

Crunch Time 3

So I did it.  I handed in my thesis to my professor earlier this week.  Now begins several months of re-writes.  I wonder how sick I will be of my thesis before it even goes to my committee?  While I await the first set of re-writes I am hearing horror stories of both the length of time other grads have experienced for re-writes and how many people cry either during or after their thesis defence.  Despite some harsh criticism of two parts of my thesis, I did not cry during or after the proposal, but I was in shock for about a week.  Walking around thinking about how I could have made the proposal better to have avoided the criticism, as well, wondering where a university's responsibility begins in teaching about their students how to complete research, and where the individual grad student's responsibility begins.  Besides, open verbal group feedback is a very difficult experience and chilled me a bit to the bone.  Then again, that is the whole point of a thesis committee, the group that gives you ideas about how to improve your work, your abilities as a researcher, and your writing.  A bit of a double-edged sword, pointing out the weaknesses while at the same time helping the individual to improve through little tiny repetitive cuts to the top layer of skin.  Hopefully I can handle what comes.  The end is near, I just have to sustain my level of progress until the very end.

Towards the end I looked like every other crazy student's space: papers everywhere, books piled in each other, pens, pencils and highlighters all over the place, cups of leftover beverages strewn about, piles of dishes in the sink, semi-rotten food in the fridge, running out of clothes to wear, few clean towels left, and a dirty apartment that scared me.  The picture below is the cleaned up version of my study space (you will not be seeing the rest of the apartment).  Should have taken a shot before I organized.  It was a hilarious, academic mess.    

Worry, not, I was not bored after I handed in my thesis as my student political career winds down at the end of this month as well.  What a strange and eclectic ride that has been.  Full of the interesting, bizarre, and overwhelming experiences that can crush one's soul or bend you in ways you thought you were not flexible.  I had to have a long conversation around January with a colleague about the sacrifices I was making to complete this political work and the tole it was taking on my academic progress.  At the time I was being steam rolled by a colleague and it was exhausting and disappointing, but not worth delaying my academic progress.  From this and other experiences I have learned that democracy is illusive and hard to work through as a process.  I am willing to interpret rules in order to serve people and ensure their needs are met, but there are multiple interpretations of rules and critical thinking is always necessary.  We serve people, not words on a piece of paper, but the ideas attached to those words are important and subject to interpretation.  This makes democracy challenging and formidable.  It has been an interesting few years.  

As these two main pieces of my life come to a close, work that has occupied my life for three years, I wonder about the next steps.  I am lucky as I have already had several job interviews for work in both the tourism and recreation fields.  This weekend I am spending time thinking about what I want from life, and I wonder what the future holds for me and what choices I will be asked to make.  All unfolding uncertainties.  Exciting and a bit scary at the same time.

Off to create a poster and re-read my thesis just for improvement sake...again.
I'll keep you posted.

Crunch Time 2

Update on how thesis is going.
Well.  Quite well.
Then I had a colleague that came to the grad student office sick.
Sick people should stay home.
Then I got sick.  For a whole week.
I stayed home.  Still recovering.
Still managed to get some work done in front of my computer.  Productivity down however.
Will persevere.

A few years ago a good friend introduced me to this blog:

Crazy Aunt Purl

She is a hilarious blogger who is living a different sort of life than she had planned.  I read her blog in early January and she had decided not to make any New Year's resolutions.  Instead she was creating monthly goals that she wanted to try to achieve.  Well, some were daily, some weekly, and some monthly.  Purl even made herself a beautiful (and tacky in a fun way) Kindergarten version of a star chart on a piece of large clipboard paper.  Turns out it worked for her and she remembered her goals all month, plus she now has an almost fully decorated chart full of shiny, red, happy stars.

I am in.
I made my list.
I made it twice.
Here it is:

Daily Goals:

1.) 1 hour of exercise

2.) 5 servings of veg & fruit 

(called 5 A Day in the UK; picked this up while traveling)

3.) 3-4 hours of work on thesis

4.) to bed before 11 PM

Weekly Goals:

6.) 1 shopping/grocery trip

7.) 2 healthy dishes made

8.) do 1 large cleaning job

9.) 1 fun night out planned 

One of my awesome sisters (I have a few) made family calendars and every day I write down the number of the goals I achieved in the day's respective calendar box.  

You might wonder about the simplicity of some of these goals.  I am in grad school and basic self cleaning, eating and care takes a back seat to many other projects.  You've been there.  You know what it's like to wonder if you neeeeeed to shower one day, or if you haaaave to buy healthy food this week, because it takes time and that time could be used on one of those projects.  You've been there.  This is to keep me clean, healthy, happier, and keep my energy hustle level up to get my thesis done.  February went well.  Very well.  March has slowed down because I am sick.  Once I am over this, I am back.  Full force.  

If this is your thing, give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Thank you Purl!

Canadian Geographic Nod

We take a break during this regularly scheduled thesis writing time to make an important announcement.  About one month ago I was re-introduced to Instagram, one of the big 2012 website explosions.  This website is a photo sharing site on which those who post retain the rights to their own photos (unlike Facebook and others sites), can use quick filters to alter shots, and look at other people's creative talents.  I only have about 52 pictures up so far but I am finding a great place to post current pictures and past travel pictures that are sitting on my hard drive but deserve to be seen.  Here is my Instagram feed: toniavoyage (pics also on the right hand side of this blog).

Like all social media there are tricks and tips on how to increase traffic to your pictures and connect with other photographers.  By photographers, I mean people who actually take interesting shots with creative perspectives and interesting compositions, not people who take selfies (pictures of themselves) or food pics (just eat it, don't capture it every single day).  So I have been connecting with people, making comments, learning what hashtags connect with the type of people I am trying to connect with, etc.

This week I received a nod from a magazine that I look at on a regular basis and have a goal to be published in some day, Canadian Geographic, one of the premier photo magazines in Canada.  They liked the following picture that I took back in early December:

Art Books Architecture

The photo is a combination of a new art installation on campus near the University Centre, winter and architecture.  In the foreground on the left, the art installation includes old brown and black books encased in decorative plexiglass or plastic, suspended in a larger decorative rectangular prism also made from plexiglass.  The gold, dark yellow and brown leafing and designs set around the books and prism enhance the artwork's details and compliment the colours of the books.  The middle ground leads the eye down a lightly snowed on path, lined with planter boxes and trees, until the eye extends into the background, the Administration building enveloped in a sunset, the most iconic structure on campus.

This small but significant nod made my week.  Approximately 80 million photos are uploaded onto Instagram on a regular basis, and I was LIKED by Canadian Geographic.   Go me!

Back to thesis work I go.  More photography later!

Crunch Time

So it is crunch time for me and my thesis.  I have nine weeks to complete the document and can't afford to take any longer, not professionally, not financially, and not personally.  The number of participants I have is great, if I get a few more, then fantastic.  The data has been organized and now I will sit at a computer for nine weeks and try to find themes, relationships, patterns and create categories to organize all the information.  I hope this part goes well and I complete a thesis of which I am very proud.

Since I take on too much and stretch myself a bit thin, mostly because life is worth experiencing and living, I have had to remove everything from life that would be a distraction.  No work for my faculty, no favours available for friends, and some time away from other responsibilities so I can get this done.  It is interesting to me the number of people I have met in the past three years who have said they started a Master's degree but never finished.  Now I know why.  It is all on the individual in the end.  No one can make you do this work.  There are no due dates, they are self imposed.  You forgo an existence of participating in the world around you.  No one really cares as much as you about finishing.  It is not relevant to others if you have money or not to finish.  And in the end, you have to want to finish this document and move forward with your life.

Hence, I will not be blogging as much in next few months.  I have to save all my good thoughts, words and ideas for my thesis, as there are only so many that go around ;), so all 10 readers, bear with me.  And if you are travel blogger who has participated in this research, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Financial Irony and Toolkits

This week I received mail from my Member of Parliament (MP) Joyce Bateman.  She is letting me know that the "our government wants to strengthen financial literacy across the country".  This sudden need for the population of Canada to become more financially literate is in part due to the increasingly large individual non-mortgage related debt load we are accruing each year.  So there is this new nifty website that you and I can use to assess our financial literacy and then decrease our individual debt load.  It appears to be well organized and have some sound advice and fun ways to determine the users financial literacy.

May I suggest an additional step to decrease the debt load for some Canadians would be for the government to offer more grants and scholarships (not based on GPA as a mark of those who are deserving), rather than hand me out more students loans (which I do appreciate), then charge me interest (which is hogwash).  Not sure how me paying interest back to the government on student loans is helpful for recent post-secondary grads and our financial debt load, but at least my financial literacy will increase in having to adjust my payments for such financial intricacies.   But, as usual, I digress.

Here is the website and I will look it over to see if my financial literacy is high enough to get out from under the load of debt I have accrued doing my master's degree:

Financial Toolkit

In other, but related news, the federal government has hired a private company to help them increase their financial literacy.  The company has been hired by the federal government to find ways for the government to decrease its spending and save money, and for these services the company is being paid $90,000 per day, $20 million in total for the entire contract.  In response I just want to say...let me introduce you to a little tool kit of which I am aware ;)......


Here is Rick Mercer's response:

Grad School Lazy = RUN

It is time to get in shape using my shapely form.  Going from teaching all day and moving around for 6 hours organizing children, teaching lectures, providing supplies, starting projects and the general mayhem of teaching elementary school, grad school has left me lazy.  Yes, I blame grad school.  Other than the research I completed this summer at festivals and interpretive centres, grad school required my brain, fingers and wrists to function on overload, but not my other body parts.  Hence I am less healthy and fit than I have ever been in my life.  A once former athlete, I have been a casual participant in sports and other activities over many years, and several years ago was so frustrated in a crazy job that I began working out 1.5 hours a day, just to deal with the daily stress and bur-ha-ha.  I was tighter after that job but the insanity lead me to other paths in my life.  I moved to London and started to travel, during which I walked and moved for hours every day, and tried every delicious looking European snack possible (have you been to an authentic patisserie lately?).  Then I transitioned to grad school and lost it all, my sleek calves, my Carnival shaped butt, my tighter abs, and my single chin.  I want these back and in order for this to happen, and under the pressure of great friends, I joined a running club.

This means I have joined the Running Room for a 10 week Learn How To Run clinic.  Now those who know me know I am an athletic person and many of the sports I participate in include running.  My shins have always cried out in pain after a long workout, so I am learning how to run properly and will ease into running with this clinic.  Perhaps I will share interesting wipe-outs and other such nonsense on this blog.  Be prepared for shenanigans!

So far one of the runners this evening told me that there is a new basketball team starting up in Manitoba for women aged 40-49.  I have not found the link yet.  I will keep looking and share because I would really like to get back into basketball.

That would be awesome....must finish thesis first!

My new New Balance shoes:

Love New Balance, always have.

My new ICEtrekkers:

So I don't fall down and go boom!

My new underoos care of Costco and Paradox:

Note: my legs are far more luscious and curvy :)

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping by Elisabeth Eaves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Somewhere behind my desire to be both a reporter and a stripper lay an impulse to conceal.  Stripping - in competition with acting and espionage - is the ultimate job for someone who's instinct is to present different facades of who she might be.  There is nothing more illusory than a woman pretending to be a sexual fantasy for money." - p. 5

This book was on the wrong shelf when I entered a university library about a year ago.  It has been reminding me it is there waiting to be read for many months and I decided to pick it up over the holiday season.  It was on the apartment shelf as a classmate, during my first year of my Master's degree, announced in class one day that she was completing a PhD about women, their bodies and stripping because she stripped to pay her way through her bachelor's degree several years earlier.  I work hard to be an open person and I easily delight in meeting people whose lives are vastly different than mine and who are willing to share their stories of their life experience.  This book was perfect after I had spent several hours talking with my classmate to begin to build a healthier and more realistic perspective of stripping, the why, who, for what reasons, etc.

"I learned that no one is neutral about female bodies.  If they aren't sex objects used to sell every conceivable good, they are political objects, causing bitter debate on how to manage their fecundity.  And where not sexual or political, they are imbued with society's ideals with fears, turned into Miss Liberties, Virgin Mary's, and Wicked Witches.  Everyone had an opinion on what to do about female bodies, and sometimes it feels as if the only people who get in trouble for holding such opinions are young women themselves.  Some of us, though, have to live in them, and we each get by in our own way." - p. 6-7

Eaves explains how she first became involved in stripping and we meet several of her colleagues, who become friends, and their work as strippers, what purpose is serves in various lives, for some the cycle of dependence that is created in this industry, and the rules of safety that are continuously broken by purchasers and strippers alike.  Eaves teaches the reader that every woman had a line that she has drawn about the sexual work she is willing to perform, and sees many women move and bend this line under pressure from others and due to economic circumstances.

"And I was tempted to see sex work as more of a symptom of social illness than a cause.  The sex biz was nothing more that a sophisticated arbitrage operation, dealing in morals rather than financial instruments...At some point women had become artificially divided into two types - the good and the childbearing ones, carefully trained to disdain sex so that they wouldn't stray, and a separate, pro-sex class.  The second group were despised and disparaged so that the good women wouldn't want to join them.  One group of women ended up with respect but no freedom, and the other with freedom but no respect.  But economics abhors a vacuum, and the whore class...rushed in to fill the chasm between men's actual desires and the social structure that they, with women, had built.  I don't think the divide between the two types of women would go away until all the girls were raised to be free, responsible and unashamed of sex.  And until society had bridged the sex-ed gap - porn for boys and religion and romance for girls - there would always be Lusty Ladies [the stripper club Eaves worked at]." -. p. 138-139

A book that was telling and a strong mixture of social and political commentary shaken together with the lives of women and how their work infiltrates all aspects of their lives.  Give it a read!


View all my reviews

Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book I could not put down and spent several nights in a row during my Christmas holidays staying up far too late to finish it.  Every morning I would wake up and wonder what it would be like to not remember anything, the panic, the fear, the attempts at reconciling information others gave about who I might be and how I came to have no memory of such a person.  The main character suffers from such a plight as has no memory of her life or who she may be.  As the book moved on, Watson, the author, shocks the reader with a few surprises and as the reader, I could not help but try to find a part in the book when the heroine understands her life through the journal she is keeping.  Read this book for the excitement and nervousness that will seep through your imagination.


View all my reviews

A Little More Understanding and Equality

May we spend 2013 spending more time learning more about people, analyze and improve how we treat each other, and see the ways that we can improve relationships with each other to coexist with more understanding and equality.

Here are two examples of ways in which people are changing the world to create a more positive, considerate and thoughtful sphere on which we live.

Idle No More:

Religion and Homosexuality:

A BYU's student review of the new LDS Church website about homosexuality.

May your holidays be merry and bright!

Remembering

As I posted several years ago, I took the opportunity to go on a tour of the Normandy Beaches in northern France while I was living in London.  As November 11 is commemorated today, here are a few more pictures and stories of this experience.

This shadowed plaque reminds the reader that it took several years for the D-Day plan to come to fruition.  The amount of tanks, guns, vehicles, food and people that had to be amassed in order to cross the English channel to create an artificial port in order to defeat the Nazis is incredible.

Fifty years later the pieces of the port still rest in the sand, slowly being eroded or encrusted with ocean creatures.

An encrusted container on the beach with more of the port structures behind out in the ocean.  The sea claiming what used to be claimed by people.

Arromanches-les-Bains the heart of the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.

Pointe du Hoc at which soldiers who landed did not find a beach to run across as they dodged bullets and grenades, but who found rock cliffs they were required to climb as they were shot at and bombed.  Such an incredible series of tasks in order to defeat the occupiers.  

Another portion of the Point du Hoc cliffs ready to be climbed by the soldiers.  

A sculpture called Les Braves, which was erected on Omaha Beach near St. Laurent sur Mer.

Moving to the US Cemetery in St. Laurent it is a peaceful place replete with memorials, reminders, crosses, starts and many art pieces reminding the visitor how many Americans died as the country joined in the final chapter of World War II.  This also reminded me how many more people had died from countries who had participated in the war since its beginning.  

The names of those who lost their lives during World War II.

 A water sculpture with a submerged map of the Normandy Beaches connected to a flat, extended pool of water that reaches out, visually, into the ocean from which the soldiers appeared.

A single cross in the US Cemetery.  Note the lack of a name.  A reminder of so many of the unknown soldiers, those who died but who were never identified.

Leaving a rock on a Jewish grave.  Symbolic of remembrance, God as the rock of Israel, acknowledge recent visitors, and adding their piece of rock to the ancient mound of a grave.

A copy of an old picture in one of the Normandy museums.  I love this picture as it juxtaposes the old with the young, the daily tasks of life with the task of unique events, the lack of acknowledgement by each of the main characters toward each other....just doing what needed to be done for survival.  Side by side.

Keep Shining

While I plaster my blog with videos....here is one a cousin shared with me.  She was able to see Shad in London.  You and I get to enjoy his video and powerful music through YouTube.  Thank you to all the women who have taught me so much.  Keep shining.

Pulse Doing Overtime

Fringe Fest in Winnipeg has been good for me.
This one is for you Trevor.
Thanks.

I Love Jezebel!

For all those people who were disgusted at the type, amount, bizarreness, and uneducated number of rape comments made during the American election, this article is for you and me!

Team Rape Lost Big Last Night

Summer 2012: Mermaid Camp

As some of you may know, I have 12 (going on 13) nieces and nephews.  They are a constant source of entertainment, joy and hilarity for their aunts and uncles.  One of my sisters, Marcia, was talking with her two boys at the beginning of this summer about camps they may want to join.  Their younger sister, a three year old, was listening in and piped up, "I want to go to Mermaid Camp".  Uh?  My sister did not know what to do as she had never heard of such a thing.  Upon telling us the story, we family members joked that we could tie the kids legs together and throw them in Shuswap Lake, in amongst other sassy comments.

As we gathered at Shuswap for a family gathering, Marcia decided she was going to give her daughter a Mermaid Camp.  She went to the dollar store to make a few purchased, we gathered our make-up, nail polish and other assorted elements that could be included in our first ever, Mermaid Camp.

Marcia gathered the nieces and made fin-like invitations to distribute to the family.  We were all invited to Mermaid Camp at 2:30 PM on the porch.  Be prepared to be done up!

The adults began to put make-up on the girls, paint nails, coif hair and have an all round good time.  Sadly I could not find any ocean, sear or Little Mermaid music for the event but as you can see, we were having a great time.

Audra, the little girl who started Mermaid Camp,
having her nails done by Aunt Lurene.
(One of the best pics I took.)

Not aware her hair is on end.

Strike a pose!

We kept decorating each other.  Laughing at the feather eyelashes, the sparkled rings, and the fun colours of make-up.

Audra, in the rapture of Mermaid Camp

Our neighbour, Autumn, came to join us. 

Finishing touches

A late-comer just getting started.

Three little mermaids from school are we....

...even the adults got into it...

Well hello Cheri!

Adult nail time, care of Sabrina

Funny thing happened on the way to Mermaid Camp, the nephews showed up.  With trepidation, at first, they began putting on rings....

....then they let the Aunts start doing their hair.....they did not realize that this was only the beginning....

Stunning smile

With a lovely red flower 

With lovely red lips

....next came those crazy feather eyelashes....

Then the Aunts went wild with a no-holds-bar approach to Mermaid Camp.  Anyone on the deck was either getting done-up, was doing the work of decorating another person, taking pictures (like moi), or posing for a picture. 

Work is kids!

Work it Andrew!
(One of the best pictures from Mermaid Camp.)

....then Ozzy Osbourne Mermaid Camp started....

Group shots were next on the list of things to do at Mermaid Camp.

Love the smiles and other assorted facial expressions.

Pose it children!

Then it was treat time: banana vanilla ice cream milk shakes in fancy glasses.  

Thank you to all who made the delish milkshakes!

We had a great time and it was really fun seeing my nieces and nephews participate in some gender bending and enjoying every minute of it.  I was even more impressed by my siblings who just watched it happen, provided the space for their girls and boys enjoy doing something new for fun, for family bonding and for a great time.  

This may become a tradition.

A decorated child

Phew!  Mermaid Camp is exhausting!