Promise me

you will not spend
so much time
treading water
and trying to keep your
head above the waves 
that you forget,
truly forget,
how much you have always
loved to swim.
- tyler knott gregson

Hell no, I'm not that girl
I still wanna be the leader of the fucking free world
Yeah I'm a big dreamer
I'm a believer
Just try to tell me no, I'm a go full steamer
No, can't slow me down
I built this house from the inside out
Block by block from the bottom to the top
I know just who I is
And I know just who I'm not

Keep Your Head Up

And since we all came from a woman,

Got our name from a woman,

And our game from a woman,

I wonder why we take from our women?

Why we rape our women?

Do we hate our women?

I think it's time to kill for our women,

Time to heal our women,

Be real to our women.

And if we don't we'll have a race of babies,

That will hate the ladies, that make the babies.

And since a man can't make one,

He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one.

So will the real men get up?

I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up.

Seventy-Three!

Düsseldorf

It made me miss my Moscow muttdom,

It made me miss my New York nothing. 

Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

In June of 2008, what feels like a lifetime ago, I was graduating high school. A good friend of mine, in honour of the occasion, made me two mixed CD's called Songs of Encouragement Pt. I & II. In my foolish exuberance of feeling liberated and not at all concerned about needing encouragement, I gave them a listen, but nothing struck me as applicable to my situation.

When over a year later the novelty of being a new graduate, and a University freshman, had long worn off, the idea of encouragement was much more welcomed. I popped the discs back into the CD player of my Daewoo, and this is what I heard:

Wear sunscreen.

What I was hearing was director Baz Luhrmann's studio adaptation of an article written by Mary Schmich in The Chicago Tribune in 1997. Her article, which was set to the tune of Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) by Zimbabwean songstress Rozalla, outlines a series of common (and not-so-common) advice we should apply to ourselves in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives. Obviously if you know me, you are familiar with my set of beliefs, and that I believe there are much greater resources and relationships from which to derive happiness and fulfillment, however her article is relevant nonetheless. Besides, what can pick you up faster than sound advice in the form of a pop song.

Now, years later, I still listen to this track from time to time, whenever I need to be reminded to -- pause, reset -- get out of my comfort zone, continue challenging myself, re-establish my priorities in life, and just provide myself with a little re-orientation. Even still will I get the occasional tear in my eye at some of the more sentimental points in the verse (embarrassing!)

Just in case you are the one person on the planet who isn't familiar with this article-turned-pop song, I have included it below for you to also love and learn from.

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

When I get out of sorts, I look at the calendar.

  




There's usually something significant on the horizon.






          
            

Sunday Afternoon Playlist

Fake Empire | the National

Punching in a Dream | the Naked and Famous

Shake It Out | Florence + the Machine

Cameras/Good Ones Go | Drake

A Real Hero | College

Barcelona | Paco De Lucía Giulia y Los Tellarini

Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) | Beirut

Back Down South | Kings of Leon

Blue Light (Engineers Anti Gravity Mix) | Bloc Party

Fab Ciraolo's Pop Culture Playground

FRIDA KAHLO, SALVADOR DALI, CHE GUEVARA, MARILYN MONROE, ELIZABETH TAYLOR, DALAI LAMA

"Based in Santiago, Chile, illustrator Fab Ciraolo creates beautiful illustrations/collages incorporating different elements of pop culture and fashion. In his works he combines things that usually would not go together, disney characters, girls, skulls, bears and nudity, but in his works it looks like they belonged together all along.''

READ MORE

She's a mess of gorgeous chaos, and you can see it in her eyes.

I am the left. I am the right.

I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. 

I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. 

A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. 

I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. 

I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. 

I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. 

I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. 

I am everything I wanted to be. 

Revenge

my god

he doesn't see me any differently than he sees you,
despite what you've tried to have me believe.

you love me just the same. i am not intrinsically less valuable than my male counterparts.


that night i cried, because the god i had always known didn't exist.
or so i thought.
but it only lasted a moment until he was there, reminding me that who he was, he still is and will be.

the god you know must not be the god i know.

Snakes & Lace

She's scared to death of cobra snakes, just like Indiana Jones (and yet she drapes them around her finger)...

365 Days

THIS

or...

THIS?

Hmmm... decisions, decisions...

The Way I Was Made

It feels so good, to have your blood in my veins.

The song "The Way I Was Made" by Griffin House never fails to fill me with pride about my family every time I hear it. From the resilient Ukrainian farmers on my dad's side to the brave, and often stubborn, European immigrants on my mom's side, the stories of my heritage remind me where I came from and who I am. Anyone who really knows me will know that I AM my family, for better or for worse. My passion, my drive, my stubbornness, and my temper can all be traced generations back in time. Eventually I am going to write a post about the stories of my mom's family, and the generation that brought that side of my family to Canada, but for now I'd like to talk about my dad's family.

My dad's parents, my Baba and Gido, were both a perfect match and polar opposites. My Gido was determined, strong-willed, and obstinate, while my Baba was peaceful, peace-loving, and compassionate. I am incredibly proud of both of their characters. I'm also proud to say that I inherited many of my Gido's personality traits (again: for better or for worse). 

Unfortunately, they both passed away (my Gido in August 2009 and my Baba on New Year's Day, 2011), but the legacies they both left on our family is everlasting. 

For someone who has always been far closer to my Gido than my Baba in personality traits, it was both surprising and comforting, not to mention a source of pride, to hear the comparisons made between myself and her at her funeral. 

Also unfortunate is the fact that I was able to learn so much more about what made my Baba so incredible at her funeral, and I thought it a shame for me to learn it upon her passing. One phrase that kept being mentioned was that my Baba was a "prayer warrior"; she was a woman who the people in her town would call upon in the direst of situations, and her and her prayer group saw many miracles. She was a faithful servant of God, and I can't remember a time that we entered their home without seeing her flipping through the pages of her well-worn Bible. 

My Baba prayed for me everyday, she would always tell me on the phone. It was also such a comfort to me, and I always thought if God hears anyone's prayers, he hears my Baba's. 

For my family of four specifically, my Baba's legacy is one of a faithful servant and a woman who truly knew how to love everyone, including her enemies. As a result, we've been trying to follow her example. I am my Gido through and through, and so learning to forgive, and to step down or back (even when I am right) to show compassion and mercy is something I am working on. Don't misunderstand, I am so proud of my Gido's personality, he didn't put up with anything from anyone, stood up for himself and his family, and was also an incredible man of God, but I know that it's important to strive to be both strong-willed and loving, determined and forgiving. 

It was incredibly hard for my entire family to lose them, but I know that my Gido and my Baba, more than anyone I know, looked forward to the day when they met their saviour. 

Also, both were so generous, and always gave all that they could to serve God, as well as to take care of their family. I remember something my dad said at their 50th wedding anniversary (that I saw on tape, I was only a baby!). The MC of the anniversary had been going on and on about how little my Baba and Gido had, and it had frustrated my dad that he was focusing on what little in life they had instead of celebrating them. So when my dad got up to make a speech, he said, "My parents may have not had much while I was growing up, but I never would have known it." Needless to say, I have incredible pride for my family, and I strive to become even a quarter of the person that my Gido and Baba were. 

Xira, my Gido's aunt.

My Baba, the beautiful bride, and her brothers and sisters

My handsome Gido (left), and a friend

Baba and Gido

Baba, Gido and my young dad at their anniversary

My dad the troublemaker (right) with a friend

My dad (right) and his brother (notice the worn down pants and mischievous look!)

Always in love

My Baba and me

Me and my Gido

На мій баба і моя Гідо: Думаючи про Вас сьогодні.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Year of the Dragon

Expect the unexpected.

I will!

The Arrivals Gate

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. 

And it begins again

You know you're an International Relations major when...

1. You argue in class about the merits of the Democratic Peace Theory and the true meaning of liberalism.
2. There’s at least one map hanging up in your room.
3. Inside, you just really want to be one of these people: Adelaide Stevenson, Albert Schweitzer, Madaleine Albright, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Robert Hanssen, Sydney Bristow (from “Alias”), Christiane Amanpour, your favourite professor, or just anyone but someone in the Bush administration.
4. You pride yourself on how well you can label a map. 5. It’s all about the obscure countries.
6. Yes, Kazakhstan’s a real country!

7. Being called/considered arrogant comes with the turf.
8. You’ll fight it to the bitter end, but deep down, you know that yeah, sometimes you can be a little arrogant/pretentious/obnoxious/over-bearting/too opinionated/stuck-up.
9. You prefer the term “cultured.”

10. You like to play Devil’s Advocate, whether or not you believe in the argument.
11. You question everything. 

12. Once you’ve been abroad, you try to outnumber a person’s country count.
13. Or if you haven’t, you try to out-obscure a person’s country wishlist.

14. You could’ve been a history major, but what the hell do you do with that?!
15. Entertainment news is not news, no matter what.
16. Every time you see a city sky line, you try and guess which one it is. And whether or not you have or plan to visit it. 17. You’re either overly politically correct, or not at all.
18. Espionage kinda…sorta…really has an appeal to you. 19. Utopia bothers you. Either for being completely unobtainable or for being the most ridiculous idea conceived.

20. You have goals that you know sound beyond ridiculous when you speak them, but deep down you really believe them.
21. But at the same time, you know they’re probably unobtainable.
22. So?

23. Pondering Karzai and the development post-Taleban (-Taliban) is a normal past time.
24. Peaceful revolutions are pillowtalk.
25. You daydream about how you would run your own country. 26. Who wants to go to Punta Cana on Spring Break when there’s Beirut, Kabul, Jammu-Kashmir, Sarajevo, the Hague, Geneva, Zurich, Nuremburg…
27. Contemplating turning points in history turn you on.
28. Your dream job is Carmen Sandiego’s. You just don’t know what it was…
29. You seem to be the only one to see through Putin's political judo moves.
30. You wonder, did Hitler ever play Risk as a kid?
31. You know you're an IR major if you start speaking in acronyms. Case in point.
32. You get irritated when you hear someone pronounce the word "nuclear" wrong.
33. You unconsciously speak in IR language outside of the classroom, and are confused when people have no idea what you're talking about. 34. You know how to pronounce Iran, you know that it's not an Arab country.
35. You hate it when people say nation when they really mean state. 36. You love applying prisoner's dilemma to real life situations.
37. You're dying to know what's going to happen next in terms of the new world order.
38. You know that a state doesn't need a state to be recognised as a state.
39. You are subscribed to the Economist. You read it religiously every week, and start doing so on Thursday afternoon, as soon as it's accessible, so that, before going to sleep, you've at least read "The World This Week" and the most important articles. ;)

40. When you would spend hours trying to convince people that international relations is one of the most important majors ever, and end up getting irritated by how they undermine the major.
41. If you ever get into a conversation with an engineering major student they start complaining about how hard their courses are, how their major is the best major ever and how easy our courses are. (they actually think our courses could be passed without opening a book!)

42. When you carry around 10 books for a research paper.
43. When you apply political theories and other concepts you have learned in your politics courses to you everyday life. 44. When your handwriting is unreadable because you want to make sure you make note of everything said in the lecture.
45. When the words "liberal" and "realist" have completely different meanings for you than for anyone else.

46. When you discriminate against other IR majors depending on whether they take anthro/sociology classes or hist/pol sci classes.
47. You know why diplomatic immunity exists, and plan to work for the DoS to take advantage of it.. 48. When you know game theory, but have never taken an economics class.
49. When you try to explain that game theory has nothing to do with hopscotch to other majors.

50. Each time something happens in Manila, Tashkent, Taiwan, or other parts of the world you get overwhelmingly excited (and serious) following the events...but everyone else thinks you're wasting your time!
51. Your general knowledge of history only goes as far back as the Treaty of Westphalia, but you know as much as any specialist about world history since the begining of World War One. 52. You define time periods as periods between wars, wars by their peace treaties, and peace treaties by their consequences. Thus, you the Cold War only occured because of the situation at the end of WW2, which in turn only occured because the Treaty of Versailles sucked so much butt.
53. You know IR is only way to go.