Shirin Delsooz

My Life Adventures and Thoughts

Annual resolution as of Nov. 3

I need to kick some bad habits.

So far, I’ve won a few challenging battles. When I was six I taught myself to stop stuttering. A few years ago I completely quit minesweeper.

I know what I want to do, but minor time management issues gets in the way. I make the conscious effort to time myself, look at the watch here and there, but it’s not enough. Inefficiency must be clear and gone for good.

The only way it will be solved is to make it official, write it out somewhere, on my walls and on a public blog so people can remind me of these self-promises. I won’t wait until new years or birthdays to make radical changes to my life!

From now on…

1. I promise to sleep not a minute more or less than than 8 hours a night

2. I will never put a second into spacing out and/or daydreaming

3. Log onto the internet and check e-mails only once a day

4. I will put a full hearted effort into all my endeavors

5. 8 hours a day towards the projects… no exceptions. ever.

A friend of mine who recently became a millionaire in the recent years once told me, “if you fail to plan, then plan to fail”

A good deed for the day.

A foreign Asian lady sat in the bus, scrutinizing a paper she had handwritten of various English words with their Chinese translation. She bravely went as far as asking the lady in front of her to pronounce a word… she did, but very nonchalantly… a one word answer and then back to listening to her Ipod. Is this how we welcome our new and eager Canadians?

I could see from my seat just how many spelling errors there were, not to mention the letters in themselves were drawn out incorrectly!

My sense of moral and civic duty prompted me to get up from my seat and help the foreigner! I smiled and pointed at the paper with my pen handy.

She smiled back and nodded as I gently tugged the paper away and began to correct each word… slowlyy.. showing her each of the changes.

She then tried to pronounce the word. Barkcolkei. No! BBbbbbrrrroooooCCCCCoooollliiiii, I said, with a sincere smile. I helped her with each word until we reached the subway station. She said “Thank you”.

I’m glad I made myself useful as opposed to vegetating in a bus with my ipod on. Why didn’t that other lady have the same sense of duty? What was she doing that was so important? What songs were on her ipod that she hasn’t heard before?

The bus is the most boring place to be,I’d go as far as saying dehumanizing. There’s no stimulation for the mind! I could try reading, but I easily get car-sick, so I listen to some podcasts, but those are hard to hear with the blaring bus driving sounds.

Then I got an idea- teaching English in the bus… decently intelligent minds during their daily long commutes to downtown will be made useful by pairing up with an eager learner to impart their knowledge in basic English. And it will be the best way to integrate new people and involve our citizens in our community! Sounds simple- why not!?

Who’s reading this?

Although I have older posts from years ago, technically this blog started a few weeks back, and since then I’ve been getting a steady increase of hits. The first few days it was at 0, then it slowly increased by 1, then 2, then sometimes 4, and today its around 5. That may be a small number to you, but it’s big considering that this blog is not being advertised at all.

Well, I’m lying, I only made a mention of it on my facebook profile, but I doubt anyone visits that. I only told 2 people about this blog.

So who are the other 3 people? Maybe those 2 people I told don’t visit everyday or at all, so it could be really 5 unknown people. The hits do not come from a search on google, if it has, the statistics info would have made me aware. So fess up! Who are you? Reveal yourself!

Or at least message me a riddle of clues indicating your identity!

Are you a friend? Are you a friend of a friend? Friend of an enemy?Just an enemy? Do I even know you?

Please feed my curiosity! I’m just dying to know!

Asbestosis and Political Apathy

Asbestos, being the lethal substance that it is, is banned in Canada yet still remains to this day a heavily exported item. One member of parliament, being the one in my riding, has no problem making this clear with me.

The issue first came to my attention from a piece done by the CBC that insightfully explained the plight of the millions of Indians currently dying a excruciatingly painfully slow death because asbestosis.

Canada exports 4 millions tonnes of asbestos each year, a third of it goes to India, and the rest goes to Russia, Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe.

It goes without saying, this is very criminal and highly uncharacteristic of what the Canadian government is supposed to stand for.

There’s a few glimmers of hope though, a few NDP MP’s have brought the issue up, and even Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff voiced his concern in parliament.

I wanted my MP to join the movement, but he made it no secret that he fully supports the exports of asbestos!

To my utter dismay, Jim Karygiannis (who is a ‘liberal’) tells me that we need to be mindful of the jobs in Quebec (where asbestos is mined), and Canadian businesses have to stay competitive. If we ban the exports, then India will buy asbestos from another country, and Canada will lose money. oh no.

I told him these are the low morales of a used car salesman, not the Canadian government!

He went on to use analogies such as guns being banned in Canada but we still produce and export them to other countries. In fact there is a factory in Scarborough that produces guns! Should we close it down in light of the fact that 200 families will be without food on the table?

Could he at least be more convincing in his arguing? Did I have to tell him this short sighted view doesn’t consider that those guns kills way more than 200 people, if not a lot more people around the world!

Then he gave me some silly shpeel of how the money makes the world go round, and we gotta create jobs. So why stop human trafficking? Where does ethics come to play?

But he seemed to have more insight in that regard, “I saw suffering. I was in Iraq last week,” So?

For him, money is the bottom line. The mission in Afghanistan was just to give soldiers jobs he said.

I don’t mind an opinion, but I do mind an ill-informed one. Then I checked his credentials, which was engineering. That might explain why he thinks in numbers, but that’s not an excuse.

If you live in the Scarborough/Agincourt riding, please let him know that some Canadians care about others, even if they are Indian.

jim@karygiannismp.com
(416) 321 5454

To Better Days!

I woke up earlier than usual, with a calm and clearer head, my IQ shot up by 10 points and I looked forward to the day. I felt as light as a feather, the heavy burden that’s plagued my existence suddenly gone .

Without realizing, I started to clean my room, tidying every nook and cranny. I wear nicer clothes, I comb my hair. My mother and I get along a whole lot better.

I sing more often, with more ease, with more control, like I’m flying with my voice. A burst of energy radiated from within and I am charged with motivation in my craft.

The Problem was gone for good. When I pushed The Problem away at first, it stubbornly stayed, implanting itself with promises and smiles… and even piquing my pity.

It all wore away with the mental tornado it was brewing within that would harm me, and even my family and my friends. That was the breaking point. I couldn’t fall into it anymore.  It was more harm and no good.  Then I had to make it ugly, I had to make it official. Now The Problem is really gone, leaving the orbit of my world. It’s residues stay though, serving as reminders of the haunting past and the lessons with it.

Troubled souls are best left alone. Don’t try to be a hero. There’s better things to do. I learned the hard way.