A Little Ish

All we need to do to combat obesity is to make the world into a playground.

During the school year, I allow myself to become completely engulfed in university life. For the eight months that I live “in the bubble”, my computer screen functions as my window to the ‘real world’. On a particularly unproductive day last week, I found myself wandering the endless viral videos on Youtube and ended up browsing movie trailers. To my surprise, Hollywood was still thriving despite the fact that I no longer had time to frequent my local AMC.

As I browsed through the online trailers, I found the Technicolor, mock-indy movie Whip It; the newest ‘alternative’ comedy soon to be cult film. The movie is further proof that the ageless Ellen Page can popularize anything. She did it with teen pregnancy and now she is doing it with the underground world of roller derby.



Though the movie cited the formulaic layout of Juno, it has once again summed up to a great movie. The script is packed with quotables from every character, small town quaintness, retro rock references, and unattractive male leads that awkwardly smile their way into your heart despite their minimal dialogue. Like its counterpart, Whip It boasts a phenomenal soundtrack that highlights Indy artists teetering on the edge of mainstream music. The twenty-one songs that make up the soundtrack are the original reason that I wanted to go see the movie and I have since played them on constant repeat.

The trailer gives away the overarching story but the movie does save a few punches for moviegoers. In her directorial debut, Drew Barrymore achieves a balance between beauty and brutality. The intertwined love, family, maturity, friendship, and sports sagas that make up Whip It all work together without overpowering each other. I walked out of the movie wanting to hug my mother, support my best friend, and put on a pair of skates and take out anyone who got in my way.

Giving students suggested readings but no assignments in the first few weeks of school is like telling kids to eat their vegetables and then turning around so they can run out the door. The keen kids will chow down on broccoli, but the majority will wind up escaping to the playground. After weeks of gallivanting through campus bars, local restaurants, bike rides, weddings, and anything else that would keep me from my work, I was finally hit with a deadline.

My gallivanting came to a slowed trudge as I entered the doors of Mills Library. I buckled down and after a solid four hours Facebook avoidance; I managed to punch out my paper. I emerged from the dark study rooms high on pride. I walked over to the overstuffed bike racks and maneuvered my way through the tangle of wheels and spokes only to find that a bird managed to specifically target my bike seat. Since I had nothing to wipe the nasty green present off with, I was forced to use my jacket sleeve. I put the Styrofoam box containing my tasty Chinese leftovers on the ground behind my bike and began to wipe the bird poop off my seat when I heard a crunch. I turned around just in time to see some guy ride his bike over my lunch leftovers. In forty seconds my happiness was literally shit on and run over.

Lesson Learned: Don’t smile on your way out of the library. You’re just asking for it.

Putting forth your opinion in a class of over eighty upper years students can be daunting to say the least, but add in the conversation topic of racism and things get as uncomfortable as naked family dinner with your in laws. This past week in my Critical Race Studies class, the conversation was getting heated. People of all colors and ethnic backgrounds were passionately discussing prejudice and its various forms. Looking to contribute, a female student baring a vague resemblance to Drew Carey raised her hand. When she was called upon she shared a story about her girlfriend’s racial profiling experience. At the first mention of her ‘girlfriend’, the buzzing of excited whispering erupted amongst the rest of the class. Was the tomboy referring to her friend that is a girl or was she in fact revealing her sexual orientation by sharing a personal story about her female partner? The class quickly abandoned their critical examination of prejudice in order to gossip about our classmates potential orientation based her stereotypical appearance.

Lesson Learned: Actions speak louder than words.

Forgive me readers for I have sinned, it has been far too long since my last post.

In a drastic attempt ensure that I didn’t return to school looking whiter than the actual white kids; I packed up my friends, packed up my family, and packed up my acceptable tan line outfits and headed off to Jamaica. Usually, my family vacations don’t include much relaxation. For as long as I can remember, our trips have been filled with daily excursions, early mornings, sight seeing, and an overload of obnoxious picture taking. Jamaica; however, is an island devoted to taking it easy and we decided to take that to heart. Our travel clan camped out at one of the zillions of all inclusive resorts that lines the shores of Montego Bay and spent a week sipping on free rum and eating seven meals a day. Watching vacationing Americans go from leathery to lobster red while munching on fresh jerk chicken has never been so satisfying.

I have never been one for proper etiquette. Growing up in an Indian household taught me that the best utensils are your hands and that eating does not have to be pretty. Having ventured out into the world of forks and small bites, I have learned a few things about being polite at the table.

Yesterday was my last day at the office and a few of my coworkers took me out for lunch to celebrate. I was literally grinning from ear to ear for the duration of the meal because I was so excited to start my vacation. I was starving and therefore vacuumed up my meal fairly quickly. I spent the next half an hour animatedly telling my coworkers about my upcoming travel plans. At the end of my story, one of the girls leaned across the table and told me that I had a something black stuck in between my two front teeth. Mortified I tried to use my nail as a toothpick to get it out. After countless “Is it gone yet?” checks, I finally freed the speck from its toothy cage.

I turned back towards the rest of the table only to have one of the other girls say, “Oh good, someone told you”. I turned to my other colleagues and they smiled to acknowledge that yes, I had been grinning like a hillbilly for the past half hour. Apparently I had had a fleck the size of Montana stuck in between my teeth but the rest of the crew had been too ‘polite’ to point it out.

Lesson Learned: Since you should do unto others as you would have done to you, I shall hence forth always tell people if they have something stuck in their teeth, hanging out of their nose, or smeared on their chin. Not half an hour after it has camped out on your face, but as soon as I notice it.

When I’m bored, I doodle. Sometimes these doodles translate into full on drawings and in very rare occasions, these drawings end up on a canvas. At the request of a friend, I intentionally initiated this chain of events last week. She needed a painting for her new bachelorette pad and I needed a weekend project. Though majority of the paint ended up on me, the few drops that landed on the canvas came together to make the painting below.

I am freakishly proud of how the canvas turned out and almost want to keep it, but hey, a promise is a promise.

Whether it is to escape the heat, seek shelter from the rain, or merely to battle boredom; I have been spending a lot of time in Ottawa theatres this summer. This past weekend, I indulged my addiction with two new flicks.

First on the silver screen was the newest installment of Judd Apatow’s awkward hilarity: Funny People. The film was not at all what I was expecting. It was like going into a candy store and randomly finding a guns and ammo section of the store. I went in ready for non-stop laughs, similar to Apatow’s previous films, but was instead treated to the fully loaded emo aspects of the comedy business. Apparently, when the laughter ends you’re left with some pretty twisted comics. The dramedy brought back the demure Sandler from Spanglish and gave us the skinny on Seth Rogen’s more serious side. With all the comedic actors handling the darker material, Eric Bana really stepped into the comedic spotlight. It figures that in a movie filled with average looking comedic geniuses, the tall glass of Aussie hotness would steal the focus.

After coming out of the theatre, my eyes refused to readjust to outside light. To save my pupils from the harassment of the sun, I went to see another movie.

I’d been looking forward to 500 Days of Summer ever since I first saw its apple trailer way back in May. This movie doesn’t follow the classic chick flick mold. There is no freakishly beautiful man or life revolutionizing makeover involved and the ending is far from the clean cut wrap up that audiences have come to expect. The main character wasn’t the traditional self empowered woman, but instead a puppy dog faced young man of questionable ethnic origin. The narrator even starts off the movie by saying that though this is a story of boy meets girl, it is not a love story. Despite this disclaimer, I still expected the two main characters to cast off their differences and run to each other across a field of daisies. Then I remembered that it wasn’t a Bollywood film. The inventive first time director, Marc Webb, uses a hipster artsy approach to the romantic comedy. There are dance numbers, animated birds, split screen, narration, and so much more that make this movie truly a comedy about romance rather just your average ‘romantic comedy’.