Over a month ago, a family friend, 47 years old, was with his family and calmly asked his parents for some money. They gave him $60. He told everyone he was going to the cottage. That was the last time anyone saw Bob.

Every time I ride the subway, another face is flashed across the screens installed in the stations. Today, it’s sadly the same kid who I saw on the screen last year. The people on these bulletins have usually been missing for five years or more. Is there even a point of searching for them anymore?

I always wondered how the police could not find a missing person. Perhaps they did not wish to be found, but many of the faces I saw were only kids. They could have at least sent a letter saying they were okay.

Being so close to this investigation gave me a grim look into the search for a missing person. With no transactions on bank accounts and no sightings since leaving Toronto, there were no leads for police to follow. After a month of investigation, police divers searching the waters close to the cottage and countless friends searching surrounding areas and camp areas, everyone came up empty.

The question begs: Where is his silver Honda? Where is Bob? And why can no one find him?

Current mood: calm


the sun is shining

tendering soft skins of young dog walkers

massaging wrinkles of aging lovers

walking across the bridge

lifting myself on the top of my toes with short nails

painted blue inside wool socks

watching water breaking ice

invisibly

the striking force of softness

shattering pieces by pieces that strong icy glass

wandering what's hiding under melting ice

maybe dead green crococile defrosting

maybe jelly balls falling out from tiny grey toad's belly

broken open into tadpoles into the world of tiny grey toads

maybe tiny fishes bleeding their silver tails inside big ones' estomagos

or swept into fisherman's net at the end of their journey

where Ontanabee river run into some blue sea

reincarnated into sushi

maybe a world's sleeping

maybe a world's cracking under the ice so cristalline

I am

in my time on my toes

one foot gave in to the law of gravity

one foot rabelled to flow with serenity

busy watching the beauty

busy wandering the unknown

too busy to hear the cracking, the withering, the blooming, the tide raising, the river flowing inside

me.

delicious red apple of that suckass cafe
Current mood: calm


I don't like the word "hurt" cuz it is so abstract yet so simplified. I can't neither touch nor comprehend sometimes what that word means.It can't neither touch nor express all that messy surreal orginal labrynth of human feelings either. I ate a delicious red apple today. Sweet and crispy to the point of perfection in my simple standard. Everything's turning. I watched water breaking ice. Sky was grey. I punched a hole and threw a piece of circle from my lifescape. It hurt. Metaphorically so, but just like that insane movie eternal sunshine in the spotless mind, i will be missing this piece and it will chase my memory on and off. Season always changes. So do lovers and friends. So do I. Sad and beautiful simultaneously, my life isn't the red apple. But i guess that's ok.

Delicious like red apple we were. I bite into the sweetness. Ate slowly. No matter how you tried to keep munching, i wanted to finish eating the damn apple. It's not that apple isn't perfect. It is just I' m not red apple, not even close to perfection. I keep escaping to... where... I don't even know. But I do it anyway.

Apple's gone, only seed left. I threw the seed. You tasted bitterness. Some sweetness still lingered on my tongue.But soon would be gone. Seed would grow into something beautiful even without me seeing it.

I am writing an exciting essay with wonderful company of mocha and bagels on a not so exciting reality of women and war.

Poetry is good though. Like this one..

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon ,"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will standin the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

I was thinking about this the other day. Similar to MySpace, a social networking site that many North Americans will likely be familiar with is a site called Facebook. Facebook was originally created specifically for university students to network, send messages and share photos, among other things. At one time, it was only open to university students and you could only signup using your registered school email account.

While not all of my friends have Facebook, those who don't login using other user's accounts to check what is happening regularly -- without doing it, you find yourself out of the loop on friend's lives. This just goes to prove that right now, Facebook is essential to most student's social lives.

Today, anyone can join -- students at any age level, adults, teens and even those who are not attending school. I find now that more than ever, my life revolves around Facebook. Want to know what everyone is up to this weekend? Check Facebook. Want to see photos from the other night? Check Facebook. Need to message your friend who isn't online? GO TO FACEBOOK.

I find that increasingly, it becomes a central place for friends to meet online and share what is going on. Without it, those who are not already insanely social miss out.

Similar to checking email and phone messages, most students today seem to login to Facebook at least once per day -- and that's just the start. More and more frequently now, people will reply faster on Facebook than to emails, especially when it comes to social interaction and with that, people are on MSN less often.

What I wonder is this: Will there be a day when online social networks such as Facebook, MySpace or even TIG will become a manditory part of your day? Let me know what you think!

Yesterday I mentioned that a woman had lost her purse to a motorcycle thief.

All day, I was extra careful with my camera bag with all my new toys in it (new leses, etc)

When we sat down for lunch, you ordered and then sat down and they would bring your food. I sat down after ordering to let my mum go order and I put my bag down and basically looked out the window. While I was waiting, I suddenly felt my spidey senses tingling and turned around to notice a man leaving with a bag similar to mine. I quickly looked down quickly to check on the satus of my bag and put it together -- he had MY bag. I immediately got up and ran after him as he was quickly making his exit out of the restaurant. As he got to the door, I grabbed the bag and him, and told him that he had my bag as well as adding a few choice words in Spanish that I learned from Yaz (thanks!!) and walked back into the restaurant to the surprise of some Spanish citizens who had figured out what had happened.

Had I lost it, my camera and money would have been gone. NOT FUN.

So, lesson # 2 learned. Don't detatch my bag from my body -- ever.

Spain is an exciting city!

Things that are great:

- It's warm!
- It's a really livable city. Lots of boulevards and walking space for people. I have also never seen so many people in the streets in any city before that I have visited. It seems that people very much enjoy walking with friends and going to large street cafés.
- People are friendly and generally helpful
- Taxi's are really inexpensive compared to Canada
- Lunch is super cheap! (Self made salad, rice with meat and then a drink all for $10!!)
- The city it super clean

Things that aren't so great

- Few tourist places actually have English interpretation. Often they have Spanish, Catalin (local Spanish variant) Italian and German, but rarely English even though staff only speak Spanish and English.
- Tourist things are expensive ($20+ to enter, each)
- Taxis are near to impossible to actually get
- Restaurants have absolutely awful customer service


We went to a number of places today and I especially enjoyed a building which had no flat walls. ie. they were all curvy. This included doors, windows, everything. The builders must have gone absolutely insane building it.

We went to a restaurant and it had some absolutely hilarious translations and scary practices.

We were waiting for a table and watched a waiter place salad on a plate with his hands. Clearly not sanitary. Not so bad until he got the asperagus out of a can and placed those on a plate as well. Needless to say, we didn't order any salad.

On the menu, I first noticed the homely haddock (as in ugly) but it got better!
Another one of their specialities were appearantly roasted kid. Frightening.
Next came the grilled or roasted angler. I guess they weren't a good fisherman.

On the wall we previous notable people who had visited the restaurant. Next to us were Charleston Heston (without a gun amazingly!!) and Robery Di Nero. DIrectly next to me was OJ Simpson sans esposa. :|

Tricky robbers!!

When leaving the hotel before dinner, some American's in front of us in the taxi line (who were more than happy to directly remind everyone that they were first, who were also dressed in hokey teeshirts and hats) had had a nice little incident. One of the women had appearantly been standing on the corner when someone on a motorcycle drove by, slowed down, and grabbed her purse. Lucky for her, only her glasses were in it, but lesson learned for us -- safe guard our things like a hawk!

So I'm off to Barcelona for my cousin's wedding. However, before I could get there, I had to fly to Montreal, then Munich and then finally Barcelona. Since I had an 8 hour layover in Montreal, I decided to go downtown. The girl at the airport told me to get off at the bus station. I'm not sure what she was thinking, but it seems the station is in a semi-ghetto as far as Canadian cities go.

So here was my first and last adventure to the bus station in Montreal.

1. I decided to grab a map and see if I could figure out where to go, so after not having any idea where I was, I went outside and found a big pole with directions, but couldn't figure out where I was on the map. Shortly after, a homeless man approached me with a whole speach about how he was $4.76 short of getting his student ticket (clearly was NOT a student) and if I could help him out, he could tell me where things were. For $2 I thought it was worth it and he helped me out and went off finding 3 more "victims" before I left the area.

2: I decided to walk towards a nice Church and take some photos but noticed a number of unsavoury characters including one woman who wouldn't stop hitting herself so I left that area.

3: Next I found a nice looking street and decided to check it out. Half way down, another homeless woman approached me and said something about God and a nice day. Turns out she went on and on and before long was asking me for $20 for crack or coke. She kept saying F this S on that and kept tying Jesus and God into crack and asking for that $20. Weird.

4: To make me feel better about my experience so far, I decided to go to Zing, which was awful with their new TINY bowls and expensive good. Zing was also graced by my crack lady again. *sigh*

5: I walked uptown (or something) into a nicer area which was boring so I walked back downtown which went from nice to ghettoized quickly. First came the homeless man with at least 7 dogs all attached to leashes and to him. Not sure how that all worked.

6: Next came the nice gentleman across the street who turned out to be a crack dealer. Best dressed crack dealer I have certainly ever seen. First he sold some to random people and then to a quite unattractive hooker.

7: I get to the airport and the airline people are finally there. As I'm waiting, a guy who wanted to fly with Czech airines 10 minutes before his flight with 1 suitcase and 2 tires for a car, one which is sealed and one appears open and used is denied boarding. Then he can’t understand why he can’t get on the flight, as there aren’t even agents from the right airline there anymore!!

Oh well, hopefully the flight is better :D

is mail.takingitglobal.org still working?

Today was a significant day for dignitaries to visit the Youth Pavilion. With so many influential people on the list, hopefully youth can gain significant ground on the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Some of the highlights of the past two days are:

Stephen Lewis - Stephen Lewis Foundation
William Blair- Toronto Chief of Police
Tony Clement - Federal Health Minister of Canada
Dr Anders Nordström - Acting Director General of WHO
Mark Richmond - UNESCO Global Coordinator for HIV/AIDS


Yesterday, there were also some very influential people such as:

Dr. Peter Piot - Executive Director and Under-Secretary General of UNAIDS
Mark Wainberg - Co-Chair of the XVI International AIDS Conference
Matilde Maddaleno - Regional Advisor Adolescent Health, WHO
Mariam Claeson - Coordinator of South Asia, World Bank


To check out the commitments themselves, take a look over here!

The final post of the day with the celebs who drop by plus something funny that happened. Will try to post one each day!


We had what I would call three "celebrities" today at the youth hub.

First we had Mayor David Miller, who was actually really nice and said some great things about TIG (see my other post)

Then we had Bill Gates swoon by with his entourage of people (no less than 10) with his wife Melinda who also signed an Adult-Youth Commitment

And finally we had Mary Robinson the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who was also super cool and spoke with us for quite a while.



Funny moment of the day: When a woman tried to plug her USB key into a monitor port on the computer. It took me a while before I could figure out what the problem was -- we both seemed equally confused.

Stories from youth who have gone to Malawi, Burkino Faso and Botswana with the World University Services of Canada.

Posted on behalf of other Podcast Composers.

Stories from youth who have gone to Malawi, Burkino Faso and Botswana with the World University Services of Canada.

Posted on behalf of other Podcast Composers.

Stories from youth who have gone to Malawi, Burkino Faso and Botswana with the World University Services of Canada.

Posted on behalf of other Podcast Composers.

Stories from youth who have gone to Malawi, Burkino Faso and Botswana with the World University Services of Canada.

Posted on behalf of other Podcast Composers.

Stories from youth who have gone to Malawi, Burkino Faso and Botswana with the World University Services of Canada.

Posted on behalf of other Podcast Composers.