Check out my video entry for Flight Centre's Best Travel Job ever!
<3 VOTE HERE <3
Preview on Youtube:
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Best Travel Job EVER!!!
I'm so happy I learned how to edit videos:)
Check out my video entry for Flight Centre's Best Travel Job ever!
<3 VOTE HERE <3
Preview on Youtube:
Check out my video entry for Flight Centre's Best Travel Job ever!
<3 VOTE HERE <3
Preview on Youtube:
Thursday, April 15, 2010
PMS Party - New Eco-friendly Product
Have you ever thought about your vajayjay's eco-crotchprint?
That's right, I'm going there!
Lunapads have created a new line of Lunapanties, and I could not be more excited to order some! The 20% off sale ends tomorrow so get yours now.
Lunapanties are a wonderful hybrid of underwear and Lunapads that have a fleece gusset panel permanently sewn in, making them an all-in-one replacement for disposable Pads and Pantyliners.
Way back in the Riot Grrl Toronto craftshow days, there was a small company promoting re-usable menstrual products. Believe me ladies - our initial reactions are all the same. If you haven't already, GET OVER IT! Every 28 days, every single woman on the planet menstruates. It's normal, it's natural. But think about how much waste this creates. Not to mention how absurd I find it to suffocate your lady bits with bleached plastic for 5 days.
The first thing I can tell you about reusable pads is they are SO comfortable! It doesn't feel like you are wearing a pad, but rather sitting on a comfy little pillow. At home this is totally manageable, so if you want to use disposable pads when you're out you can at least cut down 50% of your lifelong menstrual eco-footprint.
You can find fabric pads at Grassroots and most women's health shops. You can try making your own, or purchase them from various sellers on Etsy who use fun fabrics. Another option you can find at Wholefoods and Grassroots are organic cotton tampons and pads. It is SO important to avoid commercial chlorine-bleached tampons! This area on your body is super absorbent and takes in toxins every minute you use tampons.
Since research has shown that using tampons with a higher absorbency can increase the risk of TSS, tampon manufacturers have also changed the absorbency levels in their tampons.
However, the connection between tampons and toxic shock syndrome has yet to be fully understood. It is assumed, though, that the Staphylococcus bacteria thrives and proliferates in warm, moist areas thereby making a high absorbency tampon the ideal breeding ground for the bacteria. The bacteria may enter your blood stream if the tampon causes a laceration in your vaginal lining. In the case of super absorbency tampons, the tampon may expand to such an extent that it sticks to the vaginal wall. Upon removal, the tampon pulls at your skin causing some of the lining to come off and the bacteria to get in. Read more.
Do yourself a favor - make yourself more comfortable during lady time.
Join the Girly Girl Army mailing list to get great promos like today's 10% off Lunapanties!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
DIY Sunglass Bling
A how to glamerize plain shades tutorial!
My sister gave me a pair of sunglasses from H&M. I love the faux studded sides, but they were too plain in the front. I couldn't find a sweet blinged-out pair that suited my face shape, and decided to make my own using cellphone rhinestone gems my bestie brought me from Hong Kong.
What you will need:
Rhinestone Sheets - Any place with cute cellphone charms may have these. Check out your neighbourhood China Town or Claire's. They are much easier to work with than gluing individual stones.
Sunglasses - Make sure the frame width matches the size of your bling.
Nail Scissors - This is very important! These small scissors have rounded edges that let you cut around the rhinestones. If you use a regular pair or large pair the edges of the stones get chipped.
Instructions:
1. Measure out the strips of stones you need.
2. Carefully cut the paper.
3. Peel the left side of the rhinestone strip and place it onto the glasses.
4. Pull away the paper backing slowly as you place down the strip and make sure it's straight.
And that's it! Fun DIY sunglasses in ten minutes.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Inspiring Humans
On Saturday I helped my pal Vegan Chef Doug serve his creations at David Wolfe's Spring Cleansing and Renewal event. It was fun reppin' Raw Aura, and I could not stop snacking on Doug's sour cream & onion kale chips - they are AMAZING! In the few years I've known him Doug has come a long way, and his energy and determination is truly inspiring. Check out Doug's interview on Toronto Vegetarian to learn more about him & visit his site for recipes!
The event started off with live music from motivational speaker & songwriter Sara Westbrook. Sara created the term UPower - our own personal power to choose. She radiates sunshine and positivity and I'm so glad the world has someone like her to help young girls believe in themselves! Sara has inspired me to create UPower boards with some of her words of wisdom I wrote down during our chat:
*EXHALE!*. Ahh, delicious. What a wonderful world we live in where you can make your dreams into your career! Now I feel like Parker from the Friends re-run I watched earlier, haha. I wouldn't mind being more like Parker, honestly.
I'd like to start using David Wolfe's Best Day Ever way of thinking and make everything just keep elevating to the top levels of amazing:)
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Yom HaShoah - April 12
Yom HaShoah is the international Holocaust Remembrance Day. It has been over 60 years since the Holocaust which is important for me to keep in mind when I'm flabbergasted by present day antisemitism. As a young girl I was almost obsessed with this historic tragedy after reading The Diary of Anne Frank. I read books about young people during the Holocaust and one shook me to the core. It was Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, a book about a 10 year old blond girl in Denmark who hides in her neighbors home to save herself from being taken away by nazis (I will not capitalize that word). She takes off her Star of David necklace and keeps it hidden in her sock as it is the only part of her physical identity that appears Jewish.
This book made me afraid to be Jewish. I wondered what people thought of when they looked at my features and if they would judge me by the necklaces I wore around my neck. Growing up I faced a couple incidents that attributed to this. In grade 1 a classmate asked me about my background, I told her Russian and Jewish. The next day she approached me and I winced waiting for her words. To my surprise, she told me "My mother said Russians are bad people, I can't be your friend anymore". Never spoke to me again. Grade 1-3 in public school was 3 years of having challah bread and hearing "Ewww you're eating pee-pee bread!". In retrospect it's pretty funny. There were other small things that escaped my memory.
In grade 4 I switched to a private school with about 50 students and two classes per grade. I was one of the only Jews in a predominantly Christian school. Choir was mandatory and I had to get written permission to sing songs like 'Air Jordan' and perform in choir competitions held in churches. When I didn't feel like standing, I would pretend to be offended so I could sit down to sing. Most of the kids had never heard of any holidays and there was often a lot of explaining to do. I bonded over this with the other 1.5 Jewish students.
The next year I would go back to Hebrew school to prepare for my Bat Mitzvah. I can sum up that experience by saying I was far behind everyone and they didn't help me catch up. But I did enjoy crayon fights between my best friend and I vs. the boys, and Kosher animal crackers and cola at snack time. There was one comment by my teacher that would once again scar me for life. We were walking to a park in partners to play sports. We were told to stay in line because "People don't like Jews, and if they see us misbehaving it will give them another reason to hate us". I was shocked and could not believe that people still didn't like Jews, years after learning about history. I once again became afraid. I hid my necklaces and only wore them on holidays around family.
In high school I started dating a boy I thought was funny and confident. After about a year I realized he was just cocky and obnoxious. He would make jokes about Jewish people and I pointed out that dating a Jewish girl doesn't create an exception for this. He laughed it off and said he's not racist, it's just joking. This argument drives me insane! "Hey I'm not racist, I just tell racist jokes all the time and find it funny. Because I'm in denial!". I couldn't handle it, along with the new phrase people were saying at my best friend's private school. "That's so Jew" somehow became an insult amongst privileged white kids from northern Ontario. They said this often around my bestie who is half Chinese and Jewish, someone they didn't suspect to be a Jew. Slowly after many corrections by my friend, she got them to realize the error of their ways.
During high school I was all about punk rock and going to shows. I was often weary of people's clothing choices. I can't remember exactly, but there was something about wearing one red shoe lace to show you were against white supremacy, and the skinheads wore two red laces or red suspenders. I was a kid trying to look cool, taking secondhand clothes and trying to portray the punk image and make sense of the trends. I never came across anyone I recognized as a skinhead and embraced Punks Against Racism, wearing all their patches I got at shows. My mother would not let me wear my patch with a big foot stomping out a swastika on our vacation in Atlantic city, where she claimed there were lots of anti-semites. I began to question things and decided I don't like the use of the swastika at all, even on shirts or patches where it's crossed out. I just don't think the nazi version of the symbol needs to be used anymore.
A couple years back I was walking through Parkdale and saw a man with a shaved head and tribal tattoos with a swastika in the middle. Panic washed over me. My first reminder of antisemitism in what seemed like ages. The first thought I had was to hide. Thoughts swirled in my head such as "What if he looks at me, at my nose, my face and sees I am Jewish? What if he crosses the street to kick my ass?". I couldn't handle the fear and walked in another direction. I don't think its fair for any human to feel this way because of who they are. Why do people have to live in fear because of their appearance, culture or sexual orientation? I ran home shaking, once again reminded that skin heads still exist.
From my visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
The entire layout is spectacular - one an art student could write millions of metaphoric essays about. The center photos are from the children's memorial section at the end, and the last photo is a sculpture about fertility. Nazis experimented on pregnant women and tortured them under the guise of research. Needless research, useless cruelty. Much like 99% of animal testing.
The way the gas chambers were set up for mass execution made me think of factory farming. In 2004 PETA launched their Holocaust On Your Plate campaign which I was initially offended by, and also having been through high school law class I was tired of every argument being compared to the Holocaust. But seeing the small models at Yad Vashem the connection was spot on. I was so upset by these displays, knowing I was one of the only people at the museum who was making this connection.
One of the last rooms was a large hall of glass and mirrors with lit candles in the dark to represent all the children who's lives were lost.
The photos of starving children in the ghetto brought me to tears. Women and children were restricted to having a maximum of 400 calories a day. In North America, there are young girls and women who choose to do this to themselves. It pains me when people fail to recognize how privileged they are. Members of my family died in camps, and at times in Russia had nothing to eat. Food is amazing, food gives you life, (vegan) food is the best!
The last hall in Yad Vashem, the most well designed memorial anyone could have thought of. You can see photos of victims all around the top and shelves of books around this full of names, with a large section left empty for those names who could not be recorded. If you look down there is a deep well with water which reflects the faces above. It's incredibly powerful.
Nowadays I see a new type of nazi sympathizer - the kind that hides under the guise of a fetishist. My personal opinion is that if you are into uniforms or discipline, that's nice. But once you go as far as wearing the swastika with your get up, you're just an insensitive creep. There is no argument I will accept because when any Jew, myself included, see this symbol it hurts. It brings back painful memories, reminds of you family you lost, and makes you sick to your stomach. If I want to go to a Halloween party I shouldn't have to see this kind of BS. Plain and simple, evolve. Once in a while I get requests from models on Model Mayhem wanting to work with me. Then I find nazi-themed photos in their portfolios. Working on my clothing line and photo shoots is another completely inappropriate time for me to have to deal with this! When I point out how these photos affect Jewish people and say I am a Jewish designer who will NEVER work with them, the girls often get the point fast. Many of them are apologetic and take down these photos. Others use the excuse that it was the photographer's idea, and they just went with it. Hmmm... so it goes something like "Turn left a little, yes great great! Now open up a button. No that's not working, take off your clothes and spread 'em. Great great! Now just put on this military cap and stand in front of my swastika poster" and the girl says "Okay! I'll do anything to get free photos for my online portfolio, who needs morals?". *grumble*
When I returned home from my Israel trip this winter I had dinner with some family friends. I told them about my thoughts, and how I am still too scared to openly be Jewish and wear the necklaces I bought in Jerusalem. One of the men said "Screw it, just wear it. The skinheads these days are in University writing essays against Jews, they're not out in the open. Who cares about them?". He had a good point but I was not convinced. I can't tell you what lead me to change my mind, but here I am two months later.
These are the necklaces I wear today.
A hamsa, my favourite symbol. I also like it because of the hand in other cultures symbolizing peace, or surrender in Buddhism. The bottom necklace is a Chai meaning Life, also a symbol for good luck.
Both of these symbols are common in Judaism, but not ones I believe to be religious. Perhaps one day I will find a Star of David that suits me.
This book made me afraid to be Jewish. I wondered what people thought of when they looked at my features and if they would judge me by the necklaces I wore around my neck. Growing up I faced a couple incidents that attributed to this. In grade 1 a classmate asked me about my background, I told her Russian and Jewish. The next day she approached me and I winced waiting for her words. To my surprise, she told me "My mother said Russians are bad people, I can't be your friend anymore". Never spoke to me again. Grade 1-3 in public school was 3 years of having challah bread and hearing "Ewww you're eating pee-pee bread!". In retrospect it's pretty funny. There were other small things that escaped my memory.
In grade 4 I switched to a private school with about 50 students and two classes per grade. I was one of the only Jews in a predominantly Christian school. Choir was mandatory and I had to get written permission to sing songs like 'Air Jordan' and perform in choir competitions held in churches. When I didn't feel like standing, I would pretend to be offended so I could sit down to sing. Most of the kids had never heard of any holidays and there was often a lot of explaining to do. I bonded over this with the other 1.5 Jewish students.
The next year I would go back to Hebrew school to prepare for my Bat Mitzvah. I can sum up that experience by saying I was far behind everyone and they didn't help me catch up. But I did enjoy crayon fights between my best friend and I vs. the boys, and Kosher animal crackers and cola at snack time. There was one comment by my teacher that would once again scar me for life. We were walking to a park in partners to play sports. We were told to stay in line because "People don't like Jews, and if they see us misbehaving it will give them another reason to hate us". I was shocked and could not believe that people still didn't like Jews, years after learning about history. I once again became afraid. I hid my necklaces and only wore them on holidays around family.
In high school I started dating a boy I thought was funny and confident. After about a year I realized he was just cocky and obnoxious. He would make jokes about Jewish people and I pointed out that dating a Jewish girl doesn't create an exception for this. He laughed it off and said he's not racist, it's just joking. This argument drives me insane! "Hey I'm not racist, I just tell racist jokes all the time and find it funny. Because I'm in denial!". I couldn't handle it, along with the new phrase people were saying at my best friend's private school. "That's so Jew" somehow became an insult amongst privileged white kids from northern Ontario. They said this often around my bestie who is half Chinese and Jewish, someone they didn't suspect to be a Jew. Slowly after many corrections by my friend, she got them to realize the error of their ways.
During high school I was all about punk rock and going to shows. I was often weary of people's clothing choices. I can't remember exactly, but there was something about wearing one red shoe lace to show you were against white supremacy, and the skinheads wore two red laces or red suspenders. I was a kid trying to look cool, taking secondhand clothes and trying to portray the punk image and make sense of the trends. I never came across anyone I recognized as a skinhead and embraced Punks Against Racism, wearing all their patches I got at shows. My mother would not let me wear my patch with a big foot stomping out a swastika on our vacation in Atlantic city, where she claimed there were lots of anti-semites. I began to question things and decided I don't like the use of the swastika at all, even on shirts or patches where it's crossed out. I just don't think the nazi version of the symbol needs to be used anymore.
A couple years back I was walking through Parkdale and saw a man with a shaved head and tribal tattoos with a swastika in the middle. Panic washed over me. My first reminder of antisemitism in what seemed like ages. The first thought I had was to hide. Thoughts swirled in my head such as "What if he looks at me, at my nose, my face and sees I am Jewish? What if he crosses the street to kick my ass?". I couldn't handle the fear and walked in another direction. I don't think its fair for any human to feel this way because of who they are. Why do people have to live in fear because of their appearance, culture or sexual orientation? I ran home shaking, once again reminded that skin heads still exist.
From my visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
The entire layout is spectacular - one an art student could write millions of metaphoric essays about. The center photos are from the children's memorial section at the end, and the last photo is a sculpture about fertility. Nazis experimented on pregnant women and tortured them under the guise of research. Needless research, useless cruelty. Much like 99% of animal testing.
The way the gas chambers were set up for mass execution made me think of factory farming. In 2004 PETA launched their Holocaust On Your Plate campaign which I was initially offended by, and also having been through high school law class I was tired of every argument being compared to the Holocaust. But seeing the small models at Yad Vashem the connection was spot on. I was so upset by these displays, knowing I was one of the only people at the museum who was making this connection.
One of the last rooms was a large hall of glass and mirrors with lit candles in the dark to represent all the children who's lives were lost.
The photos of starving children in the ghetto brought me to tears. Women and children were restricted to having a maximum of 400 calories a day. In North America, there are young girls and women who choose to do this to themselves. It pains me when people fail to recognize how privileged they are. Members of my family died in camps, and at times in Russia had nothing to eat. Food is amazing, food gives you life, (vegan) food is the best!
The last hall in Yad Vashem, the most well designed memorial anyone could have thought of. You can see photos of victims all around the top and shelves of books around this full of names, with a large section left empty for those names who could not be recorded. If you look down there is a deep well with water which reflects the faces above. It's incredibly powerful.
Nowadays I see a new type of nazi sympathizer - the kind that hides under the guise of a fetishist. My personal opinion is that if you are into uniforms or discipline, that's nice. But once you go as far as wearing the swastika with your get up, you're just an insensitive creep. There is no argument I will accept because when any Jew, myself included, see this symbol it hurts. It brings back painful memories, reminds of you family you lost, and makes you sick to your stomach. If I want to go to a Halloween party I shouldn't have to see this kind of BS. Plain and simple, evolve. Once in a while I get requests from models on Model Mayhem wanting to work with me. Then I find nazi-themed photos in their portfolios. Working on my clothing line and photo shoots is another completely inappropriate time for me to have to deal with this! When I point out how these photos affect Jewish people and say I am a Jewish designer who will NEVER work with them, the girls often get the point fast. Many of them are apologetic and take down these photos. Others use the excuse that it was the photographer's idea, and they just went with it. Hmmm... so it goes something like "Turn left a little, yes great great! Now open up a button. No that's not working, take off your clothes and spread 'em. Great great! Now just put on this military cap and stand in front of my swastika poster" and the girl says "Okay! I'll do anything to get free photos for my online portfolio, who needs morals?". *grumble*
When I returned home from my Israel trip this winter I had dinner with some family friends. I told them about my thoughts, and how I am still too scared to openly be Jewish and wear the necklaces I bought in Jerusalem. One of the men said "Screw it, just wear it. The skinheads these days are in University writing essays against Jews, they're not out in the open. Who cares about them?". He had a good point but I was not convinced. I can't tell you what lead me to change my mind, but here I am two months later.
These are the necklaces I wear today.
A hamsa, my favourite symbol. I also like it because of the hand in other cultures symbolizing peace, or surrender in Buddhism. The bottom necklace is a Chai meaning Life, also a symbol for good luck.
Both of these symbols are common in Judaism, but not ones I believe to be religious. Perhaps one day I will find a Star of David that suits me.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Hoops For Israel
H4I hosts their 4th annual charity basketball tournament this Saturday! The tournament raises funds to improve the lives of at-risk youth in Israel's most vulnerable Ethiopian communities.
On the last day of our Birthright trip we visited a school in Bat Yam and had fun with the kids. Imagine being completely tired from 10 non-stop days of sight seeing, late nights and early mornings and never wanting to go home. Then on the last day in Israel, maybe you're a little hungover from dancing the night away in Tel Aviv. Maybe you can't handle another group program and long bus ride, and for the first time you are thinking it would be okay to go home. You read "Hoops for Israel" on the itinerary and have no idea what to make of it. Then the group gets off the bus, put on BRI shirts and get to play with kids while feeling completely blessed! It was the best pick-me-up and an amazing experience to have on the last day.
I've always wanted to be part of a large mural, so this was double awesome.
The finished mural of Toronto!
My friend Vanessa wrote a great blog post about her experience in Bat Yam. Read her words here & become a fan of Hoops 4 Israel on Facebook!
<3
On the last day of our Birthright trip we visited a school in Bat Yam and had fun with the kids. Imagine being completely tired from 10 non-stop days of sight seeing, late nights and early mornings and never wanting to go home. Then on the last day in Israel, maybe you're a little hungover from dancing the night away in Tel Aviv. Maybe you can't handle another group program and long bus ride, and for the first time you are thinking it would be okay to go home. You read "Hoops for Israel" on the itinerary and have no idea what to make of it. Then the group gets off the bus, put on BRI shirts and get to play with kids while feeling completely blessed! It was the best pick-me-up and an amazing experience to have on the last day.
I've always wanted to be part of a large mural, so this was double awesome.
The finished mural of Toronto!
My friend Vanessa wrote a great blog post about her experience in Bat Yam. Read her words here & become a fan of Hoops 4 Israel on Facebook!
<3
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