Oops.

So it is clear that I have neglected the blog lately. Unfortunately school got very busy and I was finishing grad school applications. But I will now be making an effort to post atleast once a week.

Some of things I am hoping to look at this week are: the cost of post secondary education, my experience as a mentally ill student, and (maybe) my thoughts about my journey towards veganism.

I will also be posting some more pet pictures, since its my blog and I can do that (and I really love my pets)!

Life Changes!!!

I am going vegan.

I am a bit overwhelmed.

I have been a vegetarian for a long time now, and have always had a firm committment to animal rights. I never understood why anyone could treat a cow or chicken differently than their cat or dog, or the cute pandas on Animal Planet. I believed that not eating meat was the best thing I could do to do my part in limiting the unnecessary suffering of the other animals on the earth. Then everything changed.

I began to read some political economy and political theory literature on animal rights. I attended veg festivals and listened to speakers. And I learned the horrendous truth about what really happens to animals. Then I did MORE reading, and I learned about all the terrible things that go into our foods…the antibiotics, the hormones, the chemicals. And I decided enough was enough.

And so…I am going vegan. My partner ( who is not going vegan, but who is also on a quest to make more ethical food choices, and who is cutting out Coke and Pepsi products, and perhaps chocolate) and I did a one week vegan diet a few months ago during the summer. It was….difficult. I found the whole situation very overwhelming at the time, and also very discouraging. So I have resolved to do it a bit slower now. I have set a date, January 1st, and on that day I will cut milk out of my life. I will then add other things in increments, with the goal to be eating a complete vegan diet within one year.

Tomorrow I am off to buy a vegan cookbook I have read a ton of rave reviews about, and continue the reading I need to do in order to make a smooth transition as possible. It is a major change, that is both exciting and sad. I am saying goodbye to foods that I love (goodbye, cheese), and moving towards a healthier mind-body connection that makes me feel confident and happy that I am contributing to something good.

I am looking forward to the challenges ahead, and sharing the lessons I learn from these upcoming changes.

Charity Shout Out: World Wildlife Fund Canada

Today I want to give a shout out to World Wildlife Fund Canada, and highlight a contest they are running right now.
I have been a supported of WWF for most of my life. I remember being young and getting pictures of the animals my family had adopted. WWF is a great organization that shows continued dedication to the environment, and they deserve some love!

They are also running a contest right now, where you can enter to win an adoption kit by naming your favourite animal that is offered for symbolic adoption.

Mine is the black footed ferret!

Sunday Pet Blogging

Because we all need something cute to look at, I have decided to start a weekly animal post! My partner and I share our home and our lives with 4 furry friends: two rats, and two cats. Today, I am going to introduce Cookies and Cream (you should be able to tell which is which!).

Cookies and Cream joined our family in February. We had lost our previous little rattie Kismet over the holidays in December, and we were looking for some tiny furry joy. Unfortunately, I fell in love with these darlings at a pet store (and I will state now, that I am very opposed to most pet stores), but it was love at first sight, and we had to bring them home. Not suprisingly, we soon discovered they were very sick, and we had to take them to the vets almost every week, as well as make time to give them medicine three times a day. Now, giving rats medicine is not the easiest thing in the world to do, especially when they are just getting used to you. Despite all our efforts, Cream developped a serious ear infection which resulted in a permanent head tilt. I am happy to say both our girls are doing great now, especially considering we thought they might have had to be on medicine permanently!
So there is the story of Cookies and Cream. Cookies, although you can’t tell in the picture, is quite fat but wonderfully happy, and Cream sees the world from her own unique angle!

Drop Fees, Not Rights!

Tomorrow, November 5th, is Ontario student’s province wide call to the government to lower tuition fees.

Tuition fees in Ontario are the second highest in all of Canada, running about 1000$ more than the national average, and the government assistance program (OSAP) needs some serious retooling. As Ontario universities and colleges are being allowed to increase the cost of tuition fees more each year, fewer students have the financial means to attend post-secondary education. Personally, my attendance at university has been entirely based on receipt of OSAP and the debt I have accumulated this young is truly astronomical.

And so we protest. Here in Ottawa, all of the schools will get together for a city-wide march downtown, with a rally at the Human Rights Monument. The government’s response has been clear however; last year, the government had even locked the gates to parliament hill, preventing students from protesting at the government buildings as they walked by.

I hope to see everyone who is in Ontario out in solidarity. Education is a right.

But We’re In Canada…Where is the Canadian Content?

Okay, full disclosure: I am a Canadian. I study in a Canadian university. I have a degree in Political Science, my specialization? Canadian Politics. I have always lived in Canada. In fact, I have never been outside of the country. Ever. I have only ever had Canadian beer. I am REALLY Canadian.

Today’s rant? Not studying Canadian issues in a Canadian university.

Having graduated from Political Science, I was unsure of exactly what I wanted to study in grad school, so I opted for a second undergraduate degree, this time in Human Rights. I moved myself and my pets and all my Canadian politics books from a tiny university in Northern Ontario to the big bad National Capital to attend a big Red and White university that sells itself as “Canada’s Capital University.” So you see…. I expect it to be a very Canadian school. And yet, almost NONE of my classes discuss human rights issues in Canada. Now, having pinpointed my research interests down to issues of National Security (from a leftist perspective!), I find that the majority of classes are talking about the United States and National Security.

Okay, so I am not so ridiculous as to miss the fact that the US government walks around like they own the world. And US policy has a big influence on the Canadian state. However, last I checked Canada is in fact its OWN state, with its own interests and its own challenges. Contrary to what some may think, Canada is pretty different from the US. ESPECIALLY politically. So, when I take a class about Terror and Human Rights at a Canadian university, I’m kind of expecting to learn about those issues in the Canadian context. Apparently I was wrong.

Someone told me it was because these issues are dealt with more in the US. That National Security is treated as more of a priority there. That the Canadian government has not invested a lot of time or money is programs related to National Security. This kind of lack of knowledge about Canada’s national security doctorine and our role in the so-called War on Terror truly flabbergasted me. Like most nation-states, Canada has a long and rather sordid history with issues related to national security, including a rather upsetting history related to surveillance and profiling. But here was a student…in human rights…who’s understanding of Canada’s role in that “Global War on Terror” was so limited it was laughable (if it wasn’t so upsetting).

So I’m left here, as I search through academic articles for my paper on Canada’s security certificate program, to wonder when we are going to start to care about Canadian issues at the academic level. There are 33 million people in this country and we matter. How the government treats us MATTERS. Canada is a big country, with a unique history and a unique government, that like any state has a not so great history and some terrible contemporary national security policies. If leftist professors in Canadian universities aren’t even paying attention, who will?

So I put it out there to my fellow Canadians on the interwebs, am I the only one who wants to know about Canada’s role in all this stuff? What kind of concerns do you have about Canadian national security discourse? What information do you think is lacking from the public knowledge?

Smiling: I Have to Because I’m a Woman

Today I took a series of self portraits, because portrait photography is not my strong suit and I need the practice.

I was frusterated with each shot because I couldn’t figure out where all the ‘essence of Alicia’ was. I spent 45 minutes blaming my terrible photography skills and considering just giving up. As I reviewed the photos to try and pinpoint where I was going wrong I noticed I was smiling (or attempting to) in each photo. Now, I am not a smiler. I am usually angry, and even when I’m not angry I suffer from anxiety and depression…and I’m generally just moody and sullen all the time. So why was I smiling in the pictures?

Many of the portraits of women I’ve seen feature them smiling. It could be argued I suppose that everyone smiles in portraits, but I believe we can also look to the patriarchy for this one! Personally, I was smiling because I thought it would make my photo more appealing to other people…a happy smiling woman. That’s what we expect to see, right? So I tried shooting again, and this time I found that I was still a little unhappy…I still felt as though I should be smiling. Although I settled into it, and came out with some photos I think are more representative of me it was a struggle the whole time. It really was an exercise in living the tensions in feminism…it is an inner battle that I obviously have to keep working on.

Canadian Government Shows True Colours…Again.

The government has taken yet another step in its war against Arab-Canadian families with the case of Quebec woman Nathalie Morin, and her 3 children. Morin is a Canadian citizen, married to a Saudi Arabian man who she met in Montreal when she was 17. Since moving to the Middle East with her husband, Morin has been unable to return to Canada, as Saudi law allows a husband to prevent his wife from leaving the country. According to an article on CBC, consular officials have been working on the case since 2003, after Morin’t mother contact the Department of Foreign Affairs led then by Maxime Bernier.
A recent trip to Saudi Arabia by the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon does not look good for Morin’s case. He has stated that he believes that the issue is a private matter that should be dealt with by Saudi Officials. A statement by Cannon’s press secretary further states :

“It is important to remember that when Canadians leave Canadian territory, they are subject to the laws and conventions governing the country where they are.”

What needs to be asked is, would this have happened to Nathalie Morin had she married a white European man? The racism against Arab people in Canadian society is paramount to understanding this case. In short, despite being born here AND being white (still very much a priviledge in Canada) Nathalie Morin is no longer a “real Canadian”  by virtue of her Arab husband. Her status as a Canadian was not only dependent on her legal classification, but the background of her spouse. The game is changing in terms of defining citizenship in Canada. Whereas POC* have always been othered and stripped of the benefits of Canadian citizenship when it suited the government (see the case of Ben Johnson), it appears as though the dominant group is upping the ante and beginning to define Canadians in terms of ‘good’ whites and ‘bad’ whites based on their association with POC. The Government of Canada has defacto renounced her citizenship by refusing to protect her AND her children (one of who is a Canadian  citizen who was born in Montreal), and resorting to victim-blaming to remove themselves from their responsibility to protect. As the Government continues its war on Arab-Canadians and their families, the nature of identity politics and citizenship in Canada is becoming more convoluted. The Canadian Government MUST take steps to remedy that racism that continues to affect hundreds of thousands of Canadians and their families.

I urge all Canadians to write to our government and demand that Canada push for the return of Nathalie Morin, her children, and all other Canadian citizens who find themselves stuck somewhere, back home.

*This is not to minimize or deminish the pain that POC have experienced with this othering and stripping of citizenship, but to a show a shifting dynamic in the relationship between race and politics in Canada.

Hello Vast Interwebs World!

Okay. Here’s the deal…I like blogs. I read them. I’ve been reading blogs for a while. Occasionally I entertained the thought of starting a blog, but ultimately I always decided that I was too terrible of a writer to have my own blog.  However, I have a lot of strong opinions. A lot a lot. It turns out, I drive all my friends and my partner crazy with my constant ranting about things. So I made a blog and here we are.

I believe this occasion calls for a brief introduction. I am a Queer, Canadian, Cis-gendered, Fat, Vegetarian (on the road to vegan), Socialist, Feminist, Mentally ill, White Woman with a degree in Political Science. I am in a long term relationship with a Latino, Cis-gendered, Straight, Feminist, Marxist-Socialist, Vegetarian Man who is patient enough to listen to my nearly hourly complaints about all that is wrong with the world. I am a student, and quite happy to continue in the world of academia for now. My background is primarily in Political Science, although my other academic interests include Women’s Studies, Human Rights, Law and Cultural Anthropology. All this to say that every other week I have a new academic interest, and that trying to select a grad school program has me all turned upside down.

My desire to start my own blog, as opposed to solely commenting on others, was about issues of intersectionality. I wanted a place where I could investigate all of my interests in relation to one another. Broadly it’s about social justice issues: feminism, queer theory, fat acceptance, human rights, animal rights, Canadian politics, disability rights and mental health  are some of the key issues that get me all fired up these days and influence my worldview, and thusly this blog.

So there you have it. A brief intro to me, and my self indulgent reasons for blogging!