Winter Time Is Here

On Saturday morning for just a brief few hours snow fell on city of Toronto. Throughout the day the ground was dusted in white. It provide for some nice pictures in Grange Park. Later in the day we also took some pictures in the beautiful Distillery District.

Russell Peters Entertains The Grads

Here’s a portrait of your standard graduation ceremony:

Pomp and Circumstance.
Boring introductions.
Boring academic charging of the graduates.
Bad public address by the honourary graduate.
Awards that I never win.
The granting of the degrees/diplomas/certificate.
Joyous relief that you can leave the room.

Simply put 2-3 hours of torture so you can spend two seconds walking across the stage and take a million photographs of yourself in an unflattering cap in gown.

A few months ago I received an email with a date of the ceremony and one other small minor detail.

Lots of very talented performers come from the Greater Toronto Area so it should not have been a surprise that one of them was chosen to receive an honourary degree at my graduation from Humber College.

Russell Peters would be there.

At first I thought he wouldn’t come. I was sure that my professional fandom luck wasn’t that good.

But there he was on the stage providing the comic relief as only he could.

Being from Brampton and getting kicked out of college after a month, I guess it was quiet a special thing for him to receive a degree for doing absolutely no academic work.

His message to us was stereotypical yet inspiring in its unique delivery.

“Never do anything only to make money, do it because you love it.”

And as the graduates of the Comedic Performance Program received there diplomas Russell stood and shook the hand of every one of them.

Some random other graduates stopped to greet him as they walked across the stage and I had planned to do the same.

I do describe myself as a professional crazed fan. How could I pass up this golden opportunity to be meet a celebrity without being a total creeper?

Well, the truth of the matter is I chickened out. As the girl before me walked across the stage a voice from the audience yelled “THAT’S MY SISTER” and under his breath Russell said “why don’t you get your sisters name then” in a annoyed tone.

My nerve was gone. He was probably itching to get off that stage, and we were only half way through the graduates.

I settled for some solid eye contact and a smile from Russell. I made my way across the stage and back to my seat just thankful that the comic didn’t find something to make fun of me about.

I regretted my decision as soon as every one of the PR grads got a hug from him. A HUG. Suddenly, a handshake didn’t seem like such an inconvenience.

I made the right decision. He was on stage with 20 other people who I felt no need to interact with. Russell Peters may be a world famous comedian, but for those few hours he was just another Humber graduate. I’m glad that I treated him as such.

Welcome To Graduation

I'm not so good at this blogging thing.

Alright Blog, I admit it, I suck.

I've outright failed at my attempt to blog on a consistent basis.

but when one fails you must pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again.

So here I ago. with an attempt to blog more often.

In September I nabbed a six month internship funded by the CCCO (otherwise known as Work in Culture).

Little did I know that another Intern at Canada's National Ballet School would have the bright idea to host a little conference to get all us interns and mentors together.

Yesterday we all gathered at the beautiful NBS on Jarvis and I was fortunate to meet some pretty cool people.

One being Karen Whaley, who inspired me to start blogging again by talking about her own blogs http://www.sayitwithpie.com/ and http://www.bemoreblog.com/ the latter which is about her personal training journey. I will be reading it with interest since I've also recently started on that journey. I'm sure we'll share some laughs.

To networking and forming meaningful connections (Margaret would be proud).

Learn Fundraising with 30 Rock.

Fundraising lessons can be seen everywhere... apparently, and slightly to my dismay.

Anyways, I stupidly set myself a goal to read Keep Your Donors, which is a 400 page text book on good donor relationship building, before Tuesday. This is definitely an unreasonable goal.

Realizing that it's impossible I decided to slack off and watch 30 rock with my room mate. WELL, this particular episode of 30 rock featured a charity golf tournament and a great example of how not to ask a group of people for money followed by a good example of how to ask a group of people for money.

If only my actual classes were as entertaining as this. Maybe I would have paid more attention.

The scene of reference starts at the 14:30 mark, but you should really just watch the whole episode because it's awesome.

MUTEMATH for Music Monday

If it's good enough for twitter it's good enough for Defining Smaller. I hereby declare all Mondays to be Music Mondays. I promise I will try to keep the U2 down. I do have other musical interest, although so far they haven't come out much.

Do you listen to New Rock or Alt Rock? Have you heard of MUTEMATH? If you haven't, check them out.

I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing them preform at VFEST Ontario last year. They were on the same bill as Nine Inch Nails and played a short mid afternoon set. In fact, I think that they only played four songs. I'd never heard of them before that day, but that set ended up being on of my favourite performances of the whole festival. 20 minutes was enough to convince me to buy both their self titled debut album and their follow up Armistice.

Of course, I listened to the albums a few times and never really got into either of them. Plus, the new rock station in Toronto doesn't play their music so I kind of forgot about them. (Yo, Alan Cross - I know you know who they are. Play them on The Edge).

Fast forward a few months. My father purchases a new car and with that comes a free subscription to satellite radio - What's this? MUTEMATH is all over the alternative stations. I guess they are kind of popular. And they should be.

I started listening to Armistice again. Articulated on it is the anger and devastation that all New Oreleans residents are feeling post Katrina.  It's a beautiful, interesting and engaging album that leaves you wanting to replay it over and over again. If you a twihard you'll recognize Spotlight from the first twilight soundtrack.

Tracks by them you should check out include: Spotlight,  Typical and The Nerve.

Getting Into The Spirt

I'm not going to lie. I'm not feeling the world cup this time around. I don't have cable and I'm just not into soccer enough to put up with a buffering live stream or drink at 10am in the morning.

However, I might be able to get more into the spirt with the help of some creative advertising on behalf of ESPN. In 2006, ESPN used the music of U2 to create different ads which featured the members of the band narrating a short story. In 2010 ESPN is again using the music of U2 in their advertising campaign. However, If you missed the originals I can't think of a better time to take trip down memory lane:

Bono on the Ivory Coast:


Adam Clayton on the Tartan Army


Edge on sick days - I think this one screams the truth!!

A Rant about the G20 Summit

Last time I checked over 3 million people lived in Toronto. However, During the last weekend in June the thoughts, feelings and plans of these people matter less to the City of Toronto and the Canadian Government then the bug Steven Harper squashed as he walked into work this morning.

Why, why, why would any city choose to host the G20 Summit? It feels more like a punishment then a privilege.

• Those who live downtown need security passes just to get into their homes. 
• $2 million spent on security fences.
• Cell phone jammers.
• We can't fly kites.
• The Art Gallery of Ontario is shutting down for the weekend.
• The CN Tower is closing.
• Traveling out of Union station will be a nightmare.
• The lack of insurance coverage for riot damage.
• The Bluejays had to move their games to the opposing team field denying fans the chance to see Roy Halladay pitch in the SkyDome again.
• The $57,000.00 fake lake. ummmm will the real Lake Ontario please stand up?

Can't you world leaders just meet on Skype and save everyone a lot of time and money?

I would protest, but the delegates won't notice. However, the rest of the world will see Toronto look more like a war zone than the city I love. No marketing pavilion will fix that.

My Personal Brand is U2

One of the first people learn about me is my deep love for U2. The music created by Adam, Bono, Edge and Larry inspires, comforts and defines my life on a daily basis.

Defining Smaller is a perfect example. The main picture of the CN Tower was taken at the U2 concert on September 16th 2009. You can see the edge of stage on the left hand side of the picture. Moreover, I've already mentioned Bono a bunch of time and this is only my tenth post. 

I'm proud of my wealth of knowledge about the band and the things I've accomplished because of their inspiration. It's easy for me to talk about and allows for easy conversation when talking with relative strangers.

When a new connection finds out about U2 and I it sparks a range of questions that allow for easy engagement:

Why U2?

Honestly I don't know. It started in high school because I loved the songs Beautiful Day and Elevation. I stole my sisters Best of 1990-2000 and The Joshua Tree and the rest is history

Favourite song?

In A Little While 

Favourite Album?

Achtung Baby!

Favourite member?

Adam Clayton

How many times have you seen them live? twice in 2005 and twice in 2009.

Even if the person I'm talking to hate U2 or hates Bono it allows me to 

engage in easy and interesting conversation. Normally, I ask why and listen to them with interest. I don't expect everyone to love what I do and respect their opinions (unless they Bono bash without a decent reason).

Most of the time people I talk to have the same passion for another artist. If that passion is there, it's easy to make a meangiful and memorable connect with someone that could transform into a great friendship. 

Dream Out Loud: Setting Goals

Today as I made my morning commute to class I picked up a copy of the Toronto Metro. Sitting at the back the bus I browsed my way through the paper. I glanced at my horoscope and couldn’t help but smile.

Under Sagittarius it read:

By all means set yourself new goals. By all means aim high. But don’t aim for perfection. For that can never be reached.

 

As I previously mentioned I am an extremely goal oriented person and I’ve always met my goals. 

For example: When I was 12 years old I decided I wanted to go to Queen’s University in Kingston, ON. I graduated from Queen’s in 2009 with a BA in Global Development Studies. During my second year of university I decided I wanted to be a Fundraiser.  Now I am just a few weeks away from completing my Post Graduate Certificate in Fundraising and Volunteer Management.

For the first time in my life I lack clear goals. That is aside from the obvious vague goals that most of society has: find a job, keep a job and maybe find a significant other. And my goal block couldn’t come at a worst time.

I’ve been reading many books about networking. Currently I’m reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. In chapter three of his book Ferrazzi describes the importance of having clear goals and understanding how to meet them by using a three-year matrix in which you outline your goals and sub goals and the people you will network with to help you accomplish all these goals.

He states the importance of sharing your goals with others. Apparently this will help you stay more focused on the task at hand. I can’t help but believe this to be true. I was very vocal with my friends and family about my earlier mentioned goals and accomplished them with little difficulty.

So blog readers (if you are out there) here are 4 personal goals I have to share with you.

 

  1: To gain at least 5 followers of this blog by the end of June.

  2: To find a house to live in that I love for reasonable rent by August.

  3: Find away to attend Toronto Raptors games for free or pay by October.

  4: To dance on stage with Bono in the summer of 2011.

Notice how all my goals have dates attached to them. Ferrazzi argues without a deadline a goal is only a dream. Dreams are often expendable, while my last two goals may seem like I’m living on dream land, they are very important to me and by giving them deadlines I am more likely to stay focused on meeting my goal.