One Red Hot Country Mama!

I am not sure if I have written about this before, but I am a total caffeine wimp. Although I was completely hooked on coffee and lattes for my 20s, I found out that it lead to a lot of anxiety and stress. I had it all – racing heart, hurried speech, super-fast thoughts. And, some of those feelings, I kinda liked (ha). But, the other stuff especially the ruminating and anxiety I could do without.

People that drink cups of coffee every day without effect laugh at me (in fact, about 50% of people can quit caffeine cold turkey with no problems) . They can’t believe that I can be so sensitive. That if I miss one day of black tea that I get headaches and dizzy spells. But hey – that is just how it is. Trust me, I sure didn’t choose it that way!

Now, I stick to green tea, since even black tea is too much. I sincerely think that there are several people out there who have this caffeine sensitivity, and I wanted to post a site that helped me learn more about it. It is here, at Coffee FAQ. Basically, it was a coffee site that posted an article about the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. There are then 100s of posts by people who suffered from it, and from people that talk about having caffeine sensitivity. I read this a few years ago, and a lot clicked for me. Although some of it is extreme (as is any anonymous board) but others are quite sincere. Here is a typical post:

Kicking caffeine has been quite a journey!! This is day 50 for me. I still have some withdrawal symptoms(lightheadedness, some digestive problems, some fatigue, etc.) but overall I feel great. This site has been such a great help for me. The first month was horrible!! There were points in this process where I thought I was going crazy and at one point I thought I was dying. But reading everyone else’s experiences made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Patience is definitely needed to get through. Hang in there guys it gets better.

Anyway – I hope this helped you out, and have a great New Year!

I am nearing the 2-year anniversary of my business, and getting ready to send my clients their anniversary gifts. I saw this interesting article about entreprenurship. Whenever people say that they are getting ready to start their own business I say that it is all about being able to stay motivated. Here is what author Ivy Chuang says about staying motivated by having passion to combat it:

I don’t wake up every morning with a great feeling–I explained in the previous post–mood swings are wide and frequent. No matter the mood, I now know the meaning of passion. It’s innate; you have to have it to continue. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to experience passion–people are often passionate about their hobbies. However, if you experience passion through your work, you achieve a different level of envelopment; you get to do something you truly believe in and have it be a focal point for you every single day. If that zest ever loses its luster, then its time to move on, but at least you’ll know what it is.

I was pretty excited to see the new Star Trek come out. As a kid, I used to watch the show in syndicate after school. I enjoyed watching them discover new worlds and cultures, reflecting my own interest in different cultures and places. I liked the way that in the Star Trek world, Kirk was rewarded for not following the rules – very different from the suburban, Canadian, rule-following, governmental environment I grew up in.

At the time, I don’t remember thinking much about the female characters, other than some of the “weird” female aliens Kirk had romantic entanglements with. I also had a sense of feeling “left out” somehow of the game, but I didn’t quite reason why.

As an adult, I realize that that feeling was due to the fact that the rebel characters that I related to the most were almost always male, and when there was a female character, she would simply be someone sexy, someone to love, or someone to give birth to the guys. All of these roles are simply showing the women as revolving around the guys. And, unfortunately, so many movies still follow the exact same formula.

Take the new Star Trek movie for example, recently released by J. J. Abrams. Lt. Uhura, the leading woman, certainly has some cred. She is a linguistics specialist and is said to be one of the smartest in her class. And, she even uses her skills during a brief scene in the movie (I am trying not to give spoilers here). Unfortunatly, her prime role is to be in the middle of a love triangle. Her actual skills fade into the background, and her “someone to love” role is central to the movie. Actually, you probably see more footage of her in her underwear than her actually using her skills.

Although there are many other characters who have skills that contribute to the mission, there are no other women. The guys get to have character development, where they evolve and change, but Uhura only reflects her development by which guy she chooses. There is the character of Spock’s Mom as well played by Winona Rider, but of course she is in the role of “someone to give birth to the guys”. Again, showing the women as just being little moons revolving around the important planets of men.

The pilot of the original Star Trek is said to have had more strong female roles, but the network would only accept the show if they marginalized the females. At the same time, the show was rather groundbreaking for the time, with Lt. Uhura as an officer, and it also showed TV’s first interracial kiss (between Uhura and Kirk). The annoying part is that movies have fallen so short of evolving with the time. They are just following the same formula as the 60s, with a few minor twists but amounting to the same thing (Uhura having skills for example, but still being marginalized.)

I was also surprised at the quote in the Trivia section of IMDB:

To develop the female characters, the wives of J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were consulted. In fact it was Katie Abrams‘s approval of the strong female characters that convinced her husband J.J. to sign on to direct.

What happened, similar to the original, did the “strong female characters” get cut?

So – I still watched the movie, and went back to my child-habit of relating to my habit of relating to the male characters instead of the female. You would just think a movie made so recently would be a bit more refreshing. J.J. Abrams is known for his “Mystery Box”. I just wish that for the sake of the young girls watching this that there was something more suprising.

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We just finished our (pretend) Christmas (we don’t celebrate, but we get a tree and do stuff with family), and we have been settling in to the new apartment. Basically, we live a 20-second walk away from lake Ontario, in an area of Toronto called “The Beach”. It is really beautiful here, and we have been going on walks every day, sometimes twice!

Last night we went on a walk together, to see the lake steaming and the snow steaming. It was about 10 degrees celcius out, and it was beautiful. It looked all mysterious and full of magic. We looked up and saw a full starry sky – much more brilliant than the usual for the city. We were out with our camera, and saw a few other couples doing the same, but mostly it was deserted.

I wondered – where the heck are all the people? This beauty should not be part of a secret night. People should be out enjoying it too. Yeah, I realize that this sounds no fun and good for you, but it is just such a loss. I remember around the time Nintendo came out, the first really fun game console (I think those who have played Atari and Intellivision agree that it was not nearly as fun) – that was when the kids on my street stopped playing outside.

Have the rest of us done the same? Are we not playing outside anymore? Are we too busy with our glowing screens to see the world outside? I hope not!