Let’s step it up, boys

Via Twitter (@thatwhichmatters), I recently saw this video featuring a poem by Taylor Mali:

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

It made me think of the youth leaders that I work with in a leadership program. Individually, each young person is impressive, generating ideas that my aging mind would never come up with. I am in awe of their collective potential. When the occasion calls for it, they manage to speak eloquently. However, when they’re just, like, hanging out and stuff, some of them can be… bratty little punks. Sometimes.

Recently, I noticed a disturbing trend. While there are strong leaders from both genders, it is the girls that are more consistently professional, rarely lapsing into moments that cause me to cringe and long for the good ole days. Too often, the male leaders that our organization depends on become a little goofy, opting to prioritize making the cheap joke or getting the laughs over getting the job done or strengthening our community. (This is clearly not a scientific study and crunching the numbers might prove these occurences to be statistically insignificant, but just go with me on this for now.)

See what I mean?

The easy explanation would be that the boys aren’t as mature as the girls. They grow differently and girls are biologically supposed to start earlier. I haven’t seen the data myself and The Female Brain is still collecting dust on my shelf. (Delving into some works by Dave Eggers right now.) I doubt that’s the whole picture because you run into girls that, for lack of better description, do stupid things. Instead of getting attention through the comedy, they spend vast amounts of time trying to look pretty. I have no frame of reference in being a young woman, but in the context of serving our leadership program, certain things seem frivolous. So it would be really difficult to say that it’s just biology.

(I realize at this point that, especially for young people, there are many ways to enjoy life. Very few of these have to do with volunteering with a leadership program and doing what some old(er) guy thinks is good for the community. But in this part of their lives, I just see the potential to do better.)

My question is this: How much of it has to do with the fact that there are so few leaders whose examples we can follow? (I see many role models on The West Wing, but imitating fictituous characters can prove to be problematic.) Do my own poor speaking habits (and off-colour, ill-timed humour) make matters worse?

In any case, the boys need to keep up with the girls in this regard. I’m glad that we are in a position to allow our young women to contribute to the causes of their choosing in the manners of their choosing, but caliber of our young men is sometimes a little embarassing. Let’s remember to lead in a way that we can make our organization proud.

Act as if ye hath faith…

I’m reluctant to say that I’m going to start using this blog to brand myself because I never really saw myself as someone who would use the word “brand” as a verb. But this is exactly what I am doing from now on.

Instead of using this space to just write about funny little things, I’m going to start writing to bring out the parts of me that I like, the parts I want to cultivate, the parts I want to flourish. I am hopeful that it will start moving my life towards the subjects that you will read about right here. What can you expect?

1. Supporting our youth

I hate the reputation that youth have to carry. Just like any other group, they’re burdened by stereotypes perpetuated by the few. There are many young people who do great things in our communities and it behooves us to learn about them and help them do their good works.

Assuming that no one considers me a youth anymore.

Oh, and I hate bullies too.

2. Health care

As a health care professional, I have lots to say about what goes on in actual practice and how it differs from what we read about in the papers, hear about on the radio, and see on TV. It concerns me when misinformation spreads faster than H1N1 through a kindergarten class where the parents have opted to avoid vaccinating their children after hearing about vague, unproven “risks”.

Photo from Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Seriously.

Oh, and I think everyone should be able to receive health care fairly, regardless of how much money she or he has.

3. I’m no better than you are. (Now your turn!)

Speaking of treating each other fairly, I am a big fan of diversity, pluralism, multiculturalism, or whatever they are calling it these days where we are the same but we’re different and that’s good.

Oh, and I think race, religion, and age are sometimes inappropriate ways to differentiate people. But it depends. Sometimes they are the best way. Let’s be human beings about it.

4. Democracy is not a spectator sport

Being involved with politics these days is often seen as a negative thing. There is too much association with the mud-slinging, trying to get elected at any cost, and winning for the sake of winning. Why don’t we hear our leaders talk about how they are making our lives better anymore? Is it because they are too busy feeding us (mis)information that will make us less likely to vote for the other people?

I feel very strongly that we should learn about what our government services do for us and what we can do to support them. Because it’s not them; it’s us. We should be engaged and follow what is happening to our governing bodies, especially when the issues are not the ones we see on TV (i.e. American issues relating to American governments on American channels). And that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to follow the news produced by political parties. 85% of Canadians have never been a member of those parties anyway, but all of us have been Canadians.

—

So that’s what it’ll be from now on. I have to give these things room in my life to grow because they should be bigger in my life than they are right now.

Afraid that I won’t have interesting things to write about or my writing style will be boring? Don’t worry. I’ll still be making fun of things and talking about drunken exploits on Twitter (@tonytung) and in my notes on Facebook (reachtony@gmail.com). (Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be talking about movies, my hobbies, and fun things rather than actual drunken exploits.)

A fresh new start…

I’ve been putting off writing (and reading) for a while. It’s easy to say I’ve been busy but maybe I just haven’t been deciding that it’s important enough. Same thing.

So thanks to Fran for the reminder that i need to be doing this more. In the spirit of “That which gets measured gets done”, I’ve been setting goals and keeping records of habits lately:

• Entertainment budget – With a goal of about $10 per week until the end of the year, I have $16 remaining. Whoops.
• Exercise – After being told I got fat during my sister’s wedding tour, I’ve created an exercise schedule for myself. Up until this week, I’ve managed to follow it. (Feeling crappy after the flu shot made it necessary to sleep more rather than exercise.)
• Fast food – Tried to limit myself to one fast food meal per week. And the dream lives on.

So this is just one more thing I’m going to be doing  in pursuit of being the kind of person I want to be. What is more, I’m going to be changing what I do here too. More to follow about that, so please keep up with the now (at least) weekly writing.

Lady, get a bigger ring.

So I finished four exams this morning and realized that it was my sister’s fiance’s birthday today. I hadn’t gotten him anything and was going to visit the two of them at their home next weekend. I’d better make use of this opportunity to shop for a gift.

Wait. I’m coming out of UBC Robson. I could just get him a jacket with UBC logos on it and hope he doesn’t notice it was a last minute gift. Oh, too bad. He got one of those last year. (Sorry, Mom, but he probably already knew.)

Across the street from school is a Chapters and I recently got an iRewards card, so it was a logical choice. Who doesn’t read these days?

After about five seconds of browsing, I thought of a book by someone Isb-something about something to do with Canada. He’d probably like that. So I decided to seek it out. I didn’t find it immediately (or ever), but I *did* find a cute salesgirl who I decided was making eye contact with me because she thought I was something special to look at too. But I was on a mission and could not be bothered.

About another five seconds later, I asked her for a recommendation. And she was awesome. We spent somewhere between 5 – 10 minutes going between a few sections, talking about the books that she likes (some selections involving zombies, some graphic novels), the kind of guy that my sister’s fiance is so that we could continue to (obstensibly) look for a great gift, and something about how her dad is a big fan of Conan the Barbarian comics. She was awesome.

Near the end of that, VERY near the end of that, she was talking about a book, a book that I was holding in my very hands, when she said something along the lines of, “… my husband really liked that book too”.

“Y’Goddamnit!” was what went through my head as I noticed that she was (subtly) wearing a ring.

And that, ladies, is how you get some guy to buy four books from you at Chapters.

Plugged

My blog (yes, this one right here!) was recently given a plug by a martial arts blog.

I shall return the favour. Check out http://blog.francislau.org/ if you ever want to know how to win or run away. (And click on the ads! I think it to helps support a drinking habit.)

Ahhh! The Government is taking it down!

On the PharmaNet system this morning:

“The government will be taking down Pharmanet”

Holy shit! They’re getting ride of Pharmanet!

“…from midnight Wednesday June 3 to approximately 6 AM Thursday morning”

I guess I don’t usually check med profiles during that time. But still.

“…to make some hardware repairs.”

Oh. That actually sounds pretty good.

Putting together IKEA furniture does not elevate you to Master Carpenter status…

… but it does elevate your sleeping position off the carpet.

Unlike most things I do (maybe?), I never read through the instructions and plan my IKEA assemblies before I start getting to work. I like it when I get to play out the story as I go along. It’s like the furniture is coming to life as I read it.

The leftover pieces are always concerning though. Fourteen screws and two brackety things is a new record.

Things I’m going to eat (when I can eat again)

About three or four days ago, I got two of my wisdom teeth taken out. Not a big deal as far as surgeries go (I had to take part in a teleconference using Skype chat instead of Skype voice that night and I took a day off work after to rest and heal), so I’d like to think I’m handling it okay.

But I could do without the swelling. Looking like I’m storing nuts in my cheek for the winter is fine. I don’t really need to speak clearly since I mumble frequently anyway. But I would really like to start eating solid foods again.

For instance, any of the following would suffice:

1) Any fast food burger and fries

We watched the full thing in marketing yesterday and I was jonesing for some flame-broil for about 4 hours after.

2) Mashed potatoes and gravy

Steak or chicken would be bonus. And I’ve never been a huge fan of asparagus, but it would work too.

3) Dim sum (i.e. Shrimp dumplings, BBQ pork bun, and chicken sticky rice in the leaf are classics)

Chewing required for most of the above.

4) One of those greasy pizzas from a large chain

5) Peanut butter sandwich made after the bread has been microwaved so that it is soft and warm and melts the PB

Not that my prescription for T#3’s doesn’t keep my spirits up…

Tell your parents you fell on a doorknob…

I have had a terrible record of unintentionally making children cry or closing industrial refrigerator doors on their small fragile hands. (Both of those happened to a small child who shares his name with a god of war and thunder.)

Today’s incident was just a freak accident. At band practice, the drummer and bassist’s niece was there as well. As she was leaving, she was giving everyone hugs as any small child, not yet jaded by the cruel world is apt to do.

When it was time for mine, she was walking over and she tripped over someone else’s shoe. As she fell, I held out my hands to catch her. Unfortunately, she fell so that her face smacked right into my open palm.

I inadvertantly slapped your kid in the face. Sorry, K and S.

Honesty.

“On the other side you cannot say to your wife, I love you more than my life. She saw! You cannot say that anymore! And when you try to restick this thing together it is like putting glue on broken glass.”

- Blia Yao Moua, on what Hmong familes had to go through to escape war-torn Laos, as told to A. Fadiman in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down