December 10, 2016 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: December 10, 2016

saturday-blogsHere is this week’s list of rants, short stories, healthy living advice, and other stuff from my favourite corners of the web.

Uncontainable. I was hooked on this story before I finished reading the first sentence in it.

 

Running Protects Your Brain For The Long Haul. It’s not just running, either. Physical fitness in general helps to prevent your brain from shrinking as you age. How interesting.

Do Not Touch Baby’s Face via  Honest_Father. This entire post horrified me. I have no doubt that some people do all of those things, though.

The Last Unknown Man. What a fascinating tale. I can’t say much about it without giving away spoilers, but I never would have guessed that it was still possible for people to completely disappear from the public record at this point in history.

Is It Going to Rain? The only purpose of this site is to tell you if it’s going to rain in your city over the next couple of days. I don’t know how accurate it is, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

From Here Come the Holiday Wars Again via ReenieDiva:

It’s that time of year again. The snow falls gently, beautiful twinkling lights decorate trees and homes……and everyone seems to have an opinion and a list of rules on how everyone else should celebrate ‘the’ holiday. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m quite over this.

From A Compassionate Take on Why Misery Loves Company via ChristyBarongan:

In self-compassion speak, this is called common humanity. It’s one of the things that comforts us in the midst of our pain in suffering. To know that getting your heart broken is an inevitable part of experiencing love. It sucks for everyone.

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December 8, 2016 · 1:00 am

What Shows Are You Looking Forward To?

We are quickly sliding into the winter season here in Toronto, and that means a lot of time spent watching TV for my family.

My excitement levels are quickly rising for them, so today I wanted to talk about some of my favourite shows.

Glitch

I gushed over this show on my old site last month:

Glitch is an Australian sci-fi show about a small-town cop named James Hayes who is trying to figure out why six people have risen from the dead in the local cemetery. None of the dead remembers their previous identities, and all of them have come back in perfect health.

The link to my blog post is spoiler-free for anyone who hasn’t tried this show yet, but the link to the Wikipedia article about it discusses all of the episodes in a lot of detail.

My desire to know what is going on with these characters has only grown stronger in the last month or so since I finished the season one finale.

I can’t count how many times I’ve asked my spouse for theories about what is happening with this community. He had a fascinating theory about part of the mystery, but I think I’ll wait to share it until season 2 is released. I have a funny feeling that he is right.

He’s amazing at figuring out where show writers are going with certain clues, so I don’t want to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of the first season.

fuller-houseFuller House

Raise your hand if you were fan of Full House in the 1990s!

What I liked the most about the first season of Fuller House was that it embraced its cheesy origins. There were definitely a few scenes in season one whose syrupy sweetness made me cringe a little, but sometimes fluff is a good thing.

It’s nice to watch something lighthearted that doesn’t require you to think about the difficult things in life. A lot of the other programs I watch are serious and dark, so I appreciate the break I get from this one.

I will say that the creators did excellent job at bringing these characters to the twenty-first century, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone gets up to in season two.

star_trek_discovery_logo-svgStar Trek: Discovery

Anyone who follows me here or elsewhere online has no doubt figured out by now how much I like the Star Trek universe.

It’s been a long time since we had a new Star Trek series, so I’m excited to see what will stay the same as well as how it’s been adapted to fit a 2017 audience. There were certain things that were done in the original series that weren’t repeated later on because of how society changed between the 1960s and later eras.

For example, none of the other captains were quite as, er, popular with the ladies they met on various planets as Kirk was back in the 1960s. I’ve joked about how many kids he probably fathered during his career with Starfleet, although I’ll leave it up to the hardcore Trekkies to come up with actual figures there. Ha!

On a more serious note, every captain has seemed to have a quiet and mysterious streak to their personality. That’s something I really hope will be continued in Discovery as it makes getting to know the person in charge a little more challenging than it would otherwise be.

I was disappointed to learn that Discovery has been pushed back to a May 2017 release date, but I have been keeping an eye on this fan site for new developments. Hopefully we’ll know something more about it soon.

Fair warning: the guy who runs it shares all of the new information he uncovers even if it wanders into mild spoiler territory. I don’t mind reading them in this case, but I know that some of my followers don’t feel the same way.

call_the_midwife_titlecardCall the Midwife

I originally started watching this British drama because I’d read all of the memoirs it was based on and couldn’t wait to see how certain stories would be translated to the small screen.

Jennifer Worth, the main character of the first few seasons as we’ll as the author of the books, saw a lot of terribly sad things during the years she worked in the East End of London. It was a time in modern history when birth control was basically non-existent, healthcare was only just beginning to become available to everyone, and many different kinds of people were forced to hide huge secrets in order to survive.

Later seasons start telling fictional stories instead of true ones, but that hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for this series at all. The nuns and midwives have such interesting lives that I’d watch them even if people stop having so many babies in the East End.

I’ll be talking about all of these shows on Twitter in 2016 and 2017. I hope to hear from you over there if you’re a fan of any of them!

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December 5, 2016 · 1:00 am

A Day in the Life of a Non-Enterprise Star Trek Captain

monday-blogs-1The other day my husband wondered out loud what it would be like to run any ship in the Federation other than the Enterprise.

Let’s think this through.

Your ship would quietly begin to catalogue two galaxies that had started to run into each other while Captain Kirk discovered yet another earth-like planet that shared the same wildlife, history, topography, language, and culture as our planet.

When Captain Archer’s crew suddenly became extremely ill from a mysterious disease that humans have no immunity to, you’d be trying to figure out how to spread out what was often fairly limited shore leave among your crew members in the most equitable way possible.

The most exciting part of your day would be figuring out what kind of protein the cook was serving that day. While the food was always excellent, sometimes you couldn’t tell if you were eating chicken, tofu, or something else entirely.

Their stories would make you shake your head when you met crew members from this ship at Starfleet Academy reunions or other celebrations. Sometimes you wondered if they were exaggerating when they talked about the things they’d seen out there. The known universe is a mostly empty place. You’ve known captains who spent years between one anomaly and the next one.

None of the other ships in the entire fleet run into gods, time loops, or the Borg even 5% as much as the Enterprise crew somehow manages to. The whole thing is incredibly bizarre. What is it about that specific ship that draws such strange circumstances to them?

With that being said, people who transferred from the Enterprise to other places sometimes talk about missing the monday-blogs-3adrenaline rush of a crisis. Mapping new parts of space is important, but it’s quite rare to run into any hostile, or even sentient, species. Mostly you’d find the occasion planet that had developed simple forms of life. The exobiologists always found them exciting, but they generally looked quite similar to Earth amoebas or slugs to anyone else who happened to take a look at the petri dish or aquarium.

Of course, no other ship had such high death rates, either. It was both a blessing and a curse to be assigned to that crew. A lot of people wrote out their wills and settled their affairs beforehand in case they were part of the unlucky percentage who didn’t survive their stay. Their excitement at being assigned to such a prestigious ship was always dulled by the threat that this transfer could also be the thing that lead to their death.
Yes, between 80 and 95% of the people who served on the original Enterprise survived over the longterm depending which role they held there. In a time when people almost always lived to a ripe, old age, though, these statistics were alarming. You would probably get through a few years on the Enterprise without any permanent injuries before being transferred elsewhere in the fleet, but the chances of losing at least one of the friends you made while working there ranged from possible to fairly high.

Is it possible to feel jealously and relief at the same time?

You ask yourself these questions every time a new position becomes available on the Enterprise and your transfer request for it is turned down.

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December 3, 2016 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: December 3, 2016

saturday-blogsHere is this week’s list of comic strips, quotes, and other links to my favourite corners of the web.

Broccoli Is Bad For You. This is one of those things that I can’t tell you anything about in advance. Go read it for yourself! The humorous potato picture on the left reminded me of the tone of this piece in a good way.

Probably a Canadian. I couldn’t stop chuckling at this.

Small Annoyances at the Grocery Store via GretaCribbs. Who else has had something like this happen to them?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Critical Analysis via LoriLSchafer. What a perfect way to start gearing up for Christmas.

The Mutual Admiration Society via MichaelTMiyoshi. This is such a smart idea.

Coughs and Sneezes. I had no idea that vintage public health announcements could be so snarky. This was cringe-worthy at times, but so are sneezing and coughing fits when people don’t cover their mouth. Luckily, I don’t see this happen very often these days. Most people are pretty polite about it.

One final thought:

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. ― Oscar Wilde

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December 1, 2016 · 1:00 am

When Exercise Is a Bad Idea

injured-toy-bear

One of the hardest things for me to deal with when it comes to my exercise routine is to step away from it when I’m sick or injured.

Why is that, you ask?

Well, I don’t want to lose the gains in muscle mass or endurance that I’ve worked so hard for. Logically speaking, I know that a few days or even a week or two off isn’t going to make that much of a difference for anyone’s fitness.

It still isn’t fun to be stuck on the sidelines, though.

What Workouts Do

Sitting still all day makes me feel jumpy. I’m not used to all of those hours of sticking to the same few positions. Normally I use stuff like weightlifting or dance videos on Youtube to burn off that extra energy, but there are times when that simply isn’t possible.

All of this quiet gives my thoughts too many chances to get jumbled up as well, and that’s a problem.

My favourite thing about exercise is how effective it is at clearing my head. Not only does it brush away worries, it gives both your mind and your body a chance to set a goal and achieve it in a short amount of time.

Whether the goal was to lift a specific amount of weight or take a brisk walk for half an hour, that sense of accomplishment is delicious. There aren’t many other areas in life where this can happen so quickly.

Rest Is Needed

With that being said, rest is an extremely important part of the healing process. How much rest time is needed depends on what kind of problem you’re having, of course.

When I had a lung infection a few years ago, I slept a full eight hours each night and still needed long naps in the afternoon in order to have enough energy to stay awake in the morning and evening.

(Note to self: don’t get that sick again anytime soon!)

Even the most gentle exercise was out of the question for me then until the antibiotics started working and I stopped coughing so much. Not every injury or illness is like this, of course, which brings me to the meat of this post.

The Walking Solution

Walking is by far my favourite way to stay at least minimally active when I’m healing as long as it’s not anything as draining as that lung infection. What I like most about walking is that it’s low-impact, doesn’t require any special equipment, and can be customized to what your body can actually handle as its healing.

A quiet stroll counts even if it doesn’t make you break a sweat or raise your heart rate much at all. Staying or getting back into the swing of things is a completely acceptable and worthwhile goal. There will be plenty of time later on to actually try something challenging again.

Even a leisurely walk helps me to clear my mind. Toronto is a such a large city that there’s almost always someone or something interesting to see as you stroll. Figuring out funny or interesting backstories for them is a wonderful distraction along with the gentle exercise.

I’ve also found that symptoms ranging from mild pain to nasal congestion become a little less bothersome after a walk. While I don’t know if this is psychosomatic or if there’s something about getting up and moving around that actually helps people feel better, it’s nice to have the edge taken off of certain symptoms for a while.

I hope that this idea works for you, too, the next time you’re too unwell to finish your normal workout.

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November 28, 2016 · 1:00 am

Why You Should Be Following the Mystery of Tom Thomson’s Death

Tom Thomson

Tom Thomson was a famous Canadian painter who died nearly a century ago. His landscapes influenced the Group of Seven. Had he lived longer, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have become an official member and they would have been called the Group of Eight instead.

If you haven’t heard of this artist or the kinds of paintings he and his friends became famous for, the links above will tell you all about them.

For the past few years, he has been tweeting through the last eight months of his life. His tweets are heavily researched and include references to his diary entries, conversations that others remembered having with him, and many other sources.

What I want to talk about right now, though, is why you should be following Tom Thomson on Twitter. He also has a blog, although he is much more active on the former. His tweets about his final months are beginning again today, so now is the perfect time to get to know Tom and his art.

Tom’s paintings are beautiful in an understated way. My favourite one from him is included below, although there is something I like about every piece of art I’ve seen from him so far. They remind me of what it feels like to stand outside on a freezing January morning, or a breezy May afternoon, or a hot and muggy August evening and feel everything that nature has in store for me on that particular day. The weather can’t always be tied up into neat packages, and neither can Tom’s work.

There are many things we know about the ordinary fabric of this artist’s daily life. His tweets discuss everything from what he ate for specific meals to how he liked to spend his free time to what sketches he was working on in the last few weeks and months before he died. More than once I was impressed last year by his descriptions of the small details of his life. One day, for example, he mentioned eating boiled potatoes and stew. I barely remember what I ate for dinner last week, so have those details of someone’s life from a hundred years ago is surprising and fascinating.

In the last nine months or so that I’ve spent getting to know him online, Tom has been kind, funny, and personable. There are times when he seems unsure of himself or when he doesn’t know what he should do next. Yet he still picks himself up the next day and tries again. These are the tweets I’ve come to appreciate from him the most because of how much they reveal about his personality and character. He’s the Monday Blogs Painting Picturetype of person I’d invite out to dinner if we were living in the same century.

Exactly how he died is a matter of debate. We know he was alone at Canoe Lake and that his empty canoe surfaced days before anyone found his body in the water.

Did he have some kind of medical emergency that lead to him falling into the lake and drowning? Did his canoe accidentally tip over or bump into something submerged in the water, leaving him to drown before he could be saved? Did he stumble across someone who was doing something illegal and who didn’t want any witnesses of their crime? Did someone else murder him for another reason?

There are so many different possibilities, and he’ll tell you about all of them as the date of his death grows closer.

I have my own theory about what probably happened to him, but I’ll keep the details of that to myself until we get closer to the end of his saga. The urge to write short, speculative stories about his fate is growing stronger. I don’t know if I’ll give into it, but it is something I’ve been thinking about doing as he gears up to once again chronicle the end of his life.

Which theory you end up believing will be up to you, but I hope you’ll start following Tom and learn a few things about him and Canadian history along the way over the next eight months. I’ve been finding a lot of writing inspiration in his tweets. Who knows? Maybe you will as well!

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November 26, 2016 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: November 26, 2016

Pumpkin_PieHappy Thanksgiving weekend to my American readers! I hope you all get to eat your favourite holiday foods this weekend.

Here is this week’s list of poems, comic strips, reviews, and other stuff from my favourite corners of the web.

Broken World, A Poem for My Daughter via nzstelter. The final stanza was my favourite one.

How to Tell if the Weather Is Going to be a Really Big Deal. This is something to keep in mind as winter approaches.

Small Cities in the US – Vermilion, Ohio via tayonthemove. This post is a review of a small town that the blogger recently passed through. I’ve never been to Vermilion as far as I can recall, so it was fun to see what this community is like.

Netflix and Ch-Ch-Chilly. Most of the towns I grew up in were nowhere near this small or isolated, but I was still reminded of my childhood a little. The Internet introduced a whole new world to me. I was so happy to have a wider social circle once my parents bought a family computer and signed up for it.

How Pokémon Go Can Improve Your Travels via AngeMichelle021. What an interesting idea.
From The Interloper

My in-laws are white and mostly Midwestern, so the pumpkin pie I baked is considered standard, as is the apple, though my mother-in-law will later say that my use of brown sugar instead of white makes it taste “like mincemeat.” To them, my sweet potato pie is the interloper, a bright-orange-colored alien to be ogled and commented upon and perhaps eaten, but not right away.

What have you been reading?

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November 24, 2016 · 1:00 am

An End and a Beginning

This is the final post of On the Other Hand. The last six years have been wonderful, but it’s time for me to move on to a new website and a different approach to blogging.

Effective today, I will be blogging at lydiaschoch.com. There’s a post there explaining why I made the move and what you can expect to see from me next.

I hope to see all of you over there!

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November 23, 2016 · 1:00 am

Guest Post: Why Your Next Move Should Be to Orange County

Why Your Next Move Should Be to Orange County

Orange County, CA is best known for its many tourist attractions. It is home to Disneyland, Downtown Disney, Huntington Beach, and Laguna Beach. Some would consider it a surfing mecca while others come to see the cities themselves.

Whale watching, sunbathing, hiking, shopping, and events are all awaiting every tourist that enters Orange County. However, OC might just be your next home if you’re an active, social person with a love of events, mild climates, and beautiful natural scenery. Here are a few reasons you should make your next move Orange County.

The Local Culture is Diverse and Vibrant

Orange County is home to a wonderfully diverse community of people. The internationality of the area is celebrated by its many festivals and events, the largest of which being Orange County International Street Fair, the Tet Festival, and the Irvine Global Festival. While both the Irvine Global Festival and the International Street Fair celebrate all of the cultures found in Orange County, the Tet Festival is the largest Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival in the U.S. and is well worth a visit.

The Climate is Perfect 

The mild climate of Orange County offers plenty of sunshine without the excess heat of other sunny queen-mary-2-171869_1280locations. These lovely temperatures allow year-round dwellers to enjoy outdoor activities all year long, including sunbathing, swimming, surfing, boating, and hiking.

Of course, this also means beaches. Orange County falls on a coastline with 45 miles of beach along its edge. Living this close to the ocean would give you an excuse to spend day after day soaking up the sun, catching some waves, exploring tidal pools, and even building bonfires in the shoreline coves.

Natural Beauty Combined with City Life

While Orange County may be full of cities, city amenities, and city populations, there is also a component of natural beauty for the nature lovers. A Californian version of the Grand Canyon called Red Rock Canyon, can be found just down a leisurely trail while the county’s highest peak, Santiago Peak, is always available for the more rugged climbers. State parks and wildlife reserves are plentiful, featuring the native plants of both the shoreline and forested areas.

Meanwhile, in the cities, you continue to enjoy things like aquariums, museums, events, and even tourist attractions such as Disneyland. Things such as First Thursday Art Walk in Laguna Beach or the Elvis Festival can be on the agenda for one day with a full day of hiking the next.

Moving to Orange County may seem a little preposterous at first with its famed tourist population. But Orange County is a bright, colorful place to live that permits the city dwellers their activities and comforts while simultaneously satiating the needs of the avid outdoors-lover. Between state parks, wildlife reserves, hiking trails, festivals, museums, and the famed Disneyland, even a quick vacation to Orange County may end with you never wanting to leave. So take the leap. Move to the bustling Orange County and experience life in a way you may have never thought possible.

Image via Pixabay by larsen9236

Vee Cecil is a wellness coach, personal trainer, and bootcamp instructor. Vee is passionate about studying and sharing her findings in wellness through mynewwell.com. 

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November 21, 2016 · 1:00 am

Why the World Needs More Science Fiction

monday-blogs-31. It gives you a hopeful vision of the future.

As I’ve mentioned on Twitter, my spouse and I have been slowly watching Star Trek: The Original Series over the past few months.

One of the things I appreciate the most about this show is its unbridled optimism. The characters live in a time and place where no humans go without the stuff they need to survive.

Everyone always has enough food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education. Regardless of who you are, you have a chance to explore the deepest galaxies. Nothing will hold you back from fulfilling your potential if you’re willing to work for it.

To run a society otherwise is completely unthinkable to them.

If anything is possible for Captain Kirk and his fearless crew, the same might be said for us as well one day.

2. It warns about darker times ahead.

Not all science fiction series are cheerful or hopeful, of course. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The world Offred lived in before the Sons of Jacob took over was nothing at all like the quietly terrifying life she lead a few years later as a citizen of Gilead. She’s lost her partner, her only child, her name, her identity, and her ability to make even the smallest decisions about how her life turns out.

I like the fact that this genre switches between warning us of the dangers of fundamentalism in any form and giving us tantalizing glimpses of what could be in store for humanity if we uncouple work from money and learn to stop discriminating against people for things that should have no influence how they contribute to society.

We’ll need both the lure of the carrot and the rightful fear of the stick to have any chance of creating a better world.

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3. It defies your expectations.

Not everything in life is always as it seems.

Think about the opening scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where late one night a teenage girl is followed into a deserted alley by a menacing stranger.

In most shows, this would end with her being attacked or killed.

Buffy isn’t like other teens, though. Without giving away too many spoilers about a nearly 20-year-old show, she isn’t the one who should be worried about what could happen when no one else is watching.

As soon as I saw this scene, I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen to her next. I’d never seen a female character like her before, and I was thrilled to imagine a world where a girl doesn’t have to worry about who might be following her or what their intentions were.

4. It teaches skepticism.

One of my favourite things about watching The X-Files episodes back in the day was trying to monday-blogs-1figure out what would happen to the victim of the week when he or she ran into something or someone that defied explanation.

You had to be pretty intelligent and resourceful to survive one of these encounters. There was little room for self-doubt or for going back to get a second glimpse of whatever it was that sent a shiver down your spine.

The mainstream media wasn’t necessarily something to count on, either. How it described a situation after the fact was almost never correct.

You had to rely on your own observations instead of what they wanted you to believe. While this isn’t always the best way of figuring out the truth, I’d much rather have people think critically about what they’re told than swallow everything hook, line, and sinker.

In Conclusion

Science fiction is such an important and unique genre.

It pulls us away from the dangers of fanaticism.

It pushes us to imagine brighter futures for everyone, not just a select few.

It challenges our preconceptions about what life should or could be like.

Humanity will need more of all of these things in the coming years. I, for one, will be reading a lot of science fiction and dreaming about all of the futures that could be in store for us. Only time will tell if it will be closer to Gilead or to the Federation.

Do you have a favourite sci-fi show that wasn’t mentioned in this post? Tell me about it in the comment section below! I’d love to hear from you.

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