SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Posts Tagged ‘toronto’

After a long day on Friday, I went to Vecchio Frak on College for an Italian Meet Up. Now, before you go thinking I participated in some sort of Speed Dating (although, I am planning on attending one of those and blogging about it) event, it wasn’t. Instead, it was a meet up for lovers of the Italian language who wanted to meet other people with a love of Italian. Seeing as how I can manage with my meagre Italian on most days, provided I have my co-conversationalists speak very slowly and I’m allowed ample time to conjugate verbs in my mind before speaking, I wasn’t too worried about holding my own at the meet up.

Unfortunately, my nerves kicked in and I felt largely unprepared for what felt like a big test. Simple words I’ve known my whole life escaped me and I was left sitting there, my mind blank, nervous. However, unlike other Italian outings my heritage finds myself in – where I am called out by old Italian men at my lack of knowledge on the language, despite my father being so heavily involved in the promotion of Italy in general – I was encouraged, assisted and complimented on the fact that I was even there. It definitely created a sense of relief at in my attendance. The feelings didn’t help my lack of knowledge on the language, though. You see, when you’re meeting people for the first time and tell them stories about things that have happened in your life – you use a lot of past tense. Oh the past tense, a lovely new set of verbs, conjugation (or as I like to call them – “word endings”) and irregular verbs that have to be memorized in addition to everything else. Past tense wasn’t a unit I excelled in in my Italian classes. Mostly because I didn’t take Italian classes long enough throughout university to even get to them. Every two words, it felt like, I had to stop and ask what a word meant in Italian and how to conjugate it and then figure out if it was a dialect or proper Italian. Prompting me to hardly remember what the story I was telling was about in the first place.

At around ten, my friend and I left and ended up taking in Hemingways in Yorkville for a drink and ended up sharing life stories – which can seem pretty amazing and crazy when you’re summing them up in five minute intervals. We patrolled the surroundings to judge whether there were cute boys or not (yes and no) and dared each other to create random conversations with the ones who proved to be the most endearing at first glance.

We failed. Mostly, though, because of laziness. Getting into our old age, we were both afraid of sparking conversations with cute boys because my Heineken was making me yawn and her boyfriend kept texting to ask what time she was coming over. It proved to be a different night than most of the ones I’ve had lately – and for that I was grateful.

Grateful to be included in such an evening that didn’t feel adolescent, drama filled or weird. It was random, but randomly planned.

And it was nice.

Is it almost Thursday already? Where has the week flown off to? Summer is coming, I can feel it (despite the odd weather changes that have gone this week) and it’s making me more excited by the minute. The thing that sucks? Weddings that I’m committed to going (and WANT to go to) have me booked on what so far seem to be the best weekends in the city thus far, among the predicament of having a personality and lifestyle that includes wanting to attend every outing that’s possible no matter how much it’ll probably kill me.

For instance, the night of Thursday, May 27th has sequestered itself among three events I want to attend:

1) Strut for a Cure

A night promised to make everybody speak out against Cancer while listening to Dragonette and meeting others in the industry. Plus, the swag bag you get once you leave isn’t bad either. Mostly, it’s just the type of thing I’m loving about living in Toronto. Being able to go to these fundraisers and parties and network my butt off. Problem: I may be dumb, but I scoured that website and could not for the life of me find out when the event starts that Thursday. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem but for someone attempting to plan “a night of a million stops” it is.

2) Carassauga: Mississauga’s Festival of Culture

Of course it has to be the first night my father’s extracurricular activity, FCAM, actually does something that will interact with the community by promoting the integration of the Molise culture in Canada and I have this prior commitment and urge to attend Strut for a Cure instead. Which leaves me feeling guilty. I did, however, design this snazzy advertisement to be included in Carassauga’s 25th Anniversary special edition commemorative magazine they’ll be handing out at the show. The AD itself was inspired by the work my friend and sometimes partner, Emily Bachor of Whylime Design does at Where Calgary magazine.

She’s made me a big fan of the opacity button:

You may think this is no big deal, not being able to attend the opening ceremonies of the Carassauga weekend, as it’s just that – a weekend event. However, this brings me to the dear old commitment number three.

3) Bridal Shower in Windsor, Ontario

My dear, dear friend is getting married. Yay (it’s a sincere yay). But instead of taking up one of my weekends that consist of me waking up at noon and reading PostSecret all day, I will be sitting at a table with other twentysomething friends becoming misty eyed at the thought of my friend getting her happy beginning and me wondering if I’ll have a date by the time her wedding comes around in August – or if I’ll even want one. Problem: It’s basically an entire weekend of visiting and busyness that I’ll have absolutely no time for …

4) Sex and the City 2 Premiere

Now, I know this may sound crazy, with all the fantastic prior engagements I’ve just listed to end off with my disappointment that I will not be able to watch the continuation of the best show ever made followed by the best movie sequel to a TV series ever made but I am. I am disappointed. Mostly, however, because of spoilers. I won’t be able to take it. In addition to reading PostSecret every Sunday, I have this odd, unnatural habit of checking out TheMovieSpoiler.com to see what happens at the end of the latest blockbusters just released. It sort of reminds me of Billy Crystal’s monologue in When Harry Met Sally about being so dark that he reads the end of novels before he starts in case he dies so he’ll always know how it ends.

Problem: even if I successfully remove myself from being tempted to log on, I know it’ll be all around me. When will the next opportunity come that I can see the movie before I read about what happens in the tabloids? In 2008, when the first movie came out, I had to block my sister from my MSN list because she had gotten home from watching the big premiere (she lives in the United Kingdom and had the pleasure of seeing it a full eight hours before I did) and wanted to gush about how amazing it was. She’s like that.

All in all, I think I may just be whining about unnecessary things. But I can’t help it – I want to do it ALL!!!!

Which, in case you don’t know me personally, is exactly what I’ll end up doing.

Social Media.

Two words, many, different enormous meanings. I’ve always been a fan the latest social media trend and always interested in the amazing ways it’s utilized within our society. I sporadically become fascinated with learning about them and figuring out how it changes the way people communicate with each other. It’s like I’m writing an essay every time I do this, but I can’t help it.

I used to be told this made me “creepy”. What was the point? What does it matter – you’re not living your life. Okay, so it never really got to intervention status, but my knowledge of computers, technology and love for social networking has definitely put me in hot water with friends, family and boyfriends in the past.

Recently, I’ve been in touch with so many people from my past, in my line of work, or just – random, interesting people. I find it invigorating. This connection I’m able to sustain with them when I don’t have time to breathe throughout the day. I’m busy. I’m working. I’m building websites. I’m researching businesses. I’m calling businesses. I’m calling people. I’m making PowerPoints. I’m grabbing my fifth coffee of the day – whatever. All the while communicating with all these people, the city I live in, the city I used to live in, potential clients, new clients, old friends, new friends, you get the idea.

I feel as though I’ve been awakened recently, however. As I discovered a world in which other people don’t find it creepy. In fact, if you were to use the term to describe their actions – they’d be ten hundred times creepier than I could ever hope to achieve! It’s great!

Where have I been, honestly, with fighting twitter for so long? Why did I bother? I know the answer to this; it was because I was told it was wrong. Weird. Impersonal. Secretly, I knew the answer – it’s not. It’s evolution of communication. I learned all about it. Personally, I’m kind of pissed off that I’m not in school while all of these changes are going on because I feel as though I’d rock it on my essays on communication in the new media world. I would rock them. Then again, I get to experience it now – and not feel guilty that I’m wasting my time on “useless” sites instead of studying for my upcoming exam.

I’ve been trained to feel guilty about these sites – that’s really it. It begins with the notion that social media is a waste of time, this notion that stems from people who are afraid of change. Afraid of these 24 year old kids bored on a Friday night getting these ridiculous ideas that work out and five years later have books written about them calling them “The Accidental Billionaires”.

Maybe social media is a waste of time for some people, but not for me. It’s bringing me back from a bit of a down spell and opening my eyes to all the different opportunities there are out there. All the people there are to meet. All the things there are to learn.

And who doesn’t love a twitter mention every now and again? It makes my heart flutter, just a tiny bit. So maybe that’s a bit creepy. I’m okay with that.