The World of Angy Wong

It’s 2011 and I am feeling great about it! It’s such a different feeling than 2010 which I absolutely dreaded but that may have been influenced by my anxiety issues and the fact that 2010 was pretty much planned out from the beginning. I knew in January 2010 that I was going to have to do a 3-month internship in the summer, see Aaron go off to law school in Edmonton, and then finish my MA in the fall. What was unexpected was developing extreme anxiety over the fear of dying, etc. Despite the amazing experience in Singapore working with migrant domestic workers (and making an awesome new friend!), I think 2010 was pretty much a wash. It tried to redeem itself near the end of it (with the news of Leoma getting engaged(YAY!) and the awesome NYE weekend getaway with my boyfriend), but sadly, overall, it was a crap year. (Yet, I did learn a lot despite the crap so 2010 was not a complete waste of a year…)

2011 however is going to be different! So far, one of my cousins is pregnant and having a baby in June. Before her, however, a couple (who I just think so highly of!) is having a baby in May. Needless to say, I am excited to buy baby stuff and play with their babies! This does not mean I want my own babies anytime soon because the idea freaks me out. Plus, the best part about friends having babies is that I get to be the fun auntie (all the playing, none of the cleaning!). Also, my dearest friend, Leoma is marrying the love of her life in August and I am the Maid of Honour. I could not be happier for them. Then I recently learned that my cousin got engaged over the holidays so there is another wedding in September. All this good news about people I care about already make 2011 victorious over 2010!

I have also started my descent into vegetarianism and I am really enjoying it! The best part is finding yummy recipes and trying them out at home. I have found a love for cooking and every meal tastes more satisfying when I know I’ve made it. Also, I am contemplating doing a 30-day Yoga challenge in February… it’s a bit intense but I find that yoga really helps with my anxiety and it keeps me grounded. I have until end of this month to decide whether or not to do it, but I think I may. As for a finding a job… well, I will keep looking and applying, maintain a positive attitude, and wait and see. I just have to keep a positive perspective and live every day to the fullest (as cliche as that sounds, I think there is wisdom in that)! So, here’s a toast to 2011 and an adieu to 2010.

For New Year’s Eve, Aaron and I decided that we should go away for the weekend. We chose Seattle since it was close enough that we can drive there, and I had wanted to see the fireworks at the Space Needle. After some research, we decided that we would have a fancy dinner at French restaurant in Pike Place Market called Maximilien. It was the most wonderful NYE to date with the best food, best atmosphere and of course, the best companion. Our four-course dining event was simply divine, and there was an amazing French Cabaret group called Rouge Music performing at the restaurant too! Seriously, the food was divine and yes, I know in my last post I said I was slowly converting to vegetarianism (or at least reducing my meat consumption by 80-90%) but reservations were made before I decided that…

Our menu included:

Les Huitres Fraiche (fresh oysters on the half shell with Champagne Mignonette)

Fois Gras au Truffe (house cured Hudson Valley foie gras with black truffle, butter brioche and balsamic reduction)

Homard Thermidor (roasted demi lobster tail, topped with shallots, Dijon and Gruyere. Zucchini cake and wild mushrooms.

Cote de Chevreuil Grand Veneur (roasted venison chop with a red wine and gooseberry demi glace, chestnut potato puree)

Napoleon de mousses au chocolat (layered dark chocolate Grand Marnier mousse and white chocolate coconut rum mousse)

And we totally missed the fireworks because this dining event took 3+ hours! Our order must also have been lost because by the end of it, we were 1-2 courses behind the people around us even though we all were seated at the same time. Aaron thinks they made up for it when he got an extra lobster tail and zucchini cake with his venison, so he had surf and turf for his main course!

And here’s a song dedicated to my love – La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf:

So, I’ve began a new blog called Living without Meat: an omnivore’s attempt in becoming vegetarian. Yes, that’s right. In the new year, I plan to slowly become a vegetarian and will document my journey on (http://livingwithoutmeat.blogspot.com/). Below is my first post on why I have chosen to do this even with all the odds sort-of stacked against me. Every so often, I will post some of the blog entries from Living without Meat on this website if I find it relevant, but mostly, all food entries will be in my blog instead.

“Dipping My Toes in Vegetarianism”

2010 was somewhat of a life-changing year for me. In the beginning of the year, I dealt with some major anxiety issues that sprouted from a dream I had in which I had died. Frightening, isn’t it? Well, to say the least, I have spent most of the year worrying about time passing by too quickly and becoming hypersensitive to the notion of death – the ultimate conclusion for all life. To combat my anxiety, I have learned to let go of the idea that I can “plan” my future completely and stop thinking about my life as a series of events – always waiting for the next event or goal to be accomplished, and thus, spending a large part of my life waiting. Instead, I try to ground myself in the present and enjoy each day – this doesn’t necessarily work all the time, but when I am completely overwhelmed by the “future” or “death”, I try to go to a yoga class which always seems to bring me back to the present. What does this all have to do with vegetarianism? It’s simple. I have come to realize that I am very uncomfortable with the idea of killing animals for human consumption. Don’t get me wrong though, I am entirely aware that it is very difficult to become a vegetarian overnight. There are so many things that need to be considered.

First, I grew up with the idea that a meal is not complete without a meat portion and it is this social condition that is most difficult to change. It also doesn’t help that I absolutely love seafood of all kinds! Second, living with a family that has two deep freezers full of meat is going to prove especially difficult since it’s even harder for them to change their concept of a complete meal – thus, there will be pressure to consume meat at home. Third, dining out with friends or dining at friends’ houses will also be challenging as they are all omnivores, which will make it especially tempting for me to consume what they consume. With all these issues, I bet you’re wondering why I am even bothering with this?

When it comes down to it, I still feel sick to my stomach thinking that a life is ending when it doesn’t have to, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate “beef” from “cow” or “poultry” from “chicken”. Yes, there is the argument that these lives would not exist without humans being active in their reproduction, but a life is still a life. Moreover, livestock produces 18% of all CO2 emissions in the world (3% more than cars), and perhaps I should do my part in lowering my carbon footprint by consuming less meat since I prefer driving over eating meat. So, this blog will be my journey as I attempt to become a vegetarian. I know that it’s not going to be an easy journey and I am sure I will cheat from time to time, but I still want to try this and if I can even lower my meat consumption by 80% or 90%, well, isn’t that still better than nothing?

Every year, I host a Christmas Eve dinner. I make all the food (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc.) and invite all my closest friends over for a holiday feast. I love Christmas simply because it’s an excuse to get everyone together in the same room at the same time. It’s just absolute joy for me. However, after getting inspired to raise $1000 for Paper Kite Children’s Foundations , I thought that for this year’s party, I would encourage my guests to help out with a couple of causes.

The first was inspired by an old friend’s experience with living off food bank rations; Chris Fraser (who was a terrific photo mentor to me when I was 16, and is an awesome writing coach!) did the Eat the Math challenge in November in which she lived on a typical food bank ration. She managed to do it for about five days and she blogged about it at http://www.fireflycreativewriting.com/math/. Reading about her experience inspired me to think about contributing to my own food bank but contributing more nutritious items as opposed to the typical canned goods like Chef Boyardees or other sodium-rich processed “meals” (why would we give food to people that we don’t want to eat ourselves?) Thus, I looked at the “most needed items list” for the Vancouver Food Bank and encouraged my guest to bring items that were on that list. I picked up two boxes from the Food Bank and as you can tell from the picture, we were able to fill both boxes as well as a smaller third box! Not bad for a party of 15 people! Anyway, I hope to do more food drives for any upcoming parties that I plan to host in the future as I think this is a great initiative even if it is a small one, but like I say, “every little bit counts!”

The second initiative was that I encouraged friends to donate any clothes or shoes that were in good condition but they no longer wanted anymore. We collected two giant bags of shoes and four giant bags of clothes in which I hope to sort through them and then donate them to various charities in Vancouver. As you can imagine, my house is currently a mess but hopefully, I will be productive today and get started on sorting! Thank you to all my wonderful friends for helping out this Christmas Eve!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as I certainly did and so did my cute Brownie! (Thanks George for the awesome picture!)

When I began my goal of raising $1000 for Paper Kite Children’s Foundation by Christmas, to be perfectly honest, I was anticipating that I would at most raise about $500. Thus, I was so incredibly happy and overwhelmed by all the positive responses that I received from friends, family members, and even people I have not spoken to in a long while! The donations came from all over the world too – from Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, United Kingdom, Singapore, and even Melbourne!

On this Christmas day, my grand total is $1,040 which is going to be incredibly helpful for the team that is going to Bihar in February. So, I just want to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who donated and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Much love goes out to:
Anily Chia
Aaron Stelmach
Grace Ao
Ludovica Price
Tracy Tan
Stewart Yu
Leoma Kwong
Joanne Vuong
Jeanie Vuong
Patrick Vuong
Lisa Chan
Nora Vuong
Teresa Au-Yeung
Amy Lee
Jennifer Wong
Danny Fung
Irene Phan
Mily Phan
Nancy Lum
Lisa Tuyen
Jennifer Lee
James Quach
Teresa Chow
Martin Lee
Elizabeth Molnar
Selena Yee
Wendy Beer
Miranda Sam
Priya Singh
Victor Eric Design Group
Bobby Sam
George Kamiya
Marie Kim
Lois and Alyssa Dunn

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,—
Nature’s observatory—whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refined,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

- John Keats (1795-1821)

Since April 2010, I have been actively involved with Paper Kite Children’s Foundation and this volunteer-based organization truly has the heart, determination and dedication in giving hope to children in a very neglected part of the world. Since everyone working in Paper Kite are non-paid volunteers (even the President), administrative costs are low which also means more money go directly to the children  in Bihar, India. In actuality, allocating as much of our funds as possible to the direct funding of several orphanages in Bihar is one of the main objectives of our Foundation. Thus, marketing costs are also minimal as we are a grassroots organization that rely on word of mouth to fund raise. Bihar was chosen due to its current state of poverty and lack of social services (education, health care, etc.) especially for children born into impoverishment.

Bihar is one of India’s poorest and most neglected states. It is quite deplorable that the literacy rate of the state is only 33% for girls and 60% for boys when the country itself has the fourth strongest economy in the world. Government funding is minimal in Bihar and although other parts of India has developed greatly in the past two decades, Bihar remains largely impoverished and neglected by the national government as well as the rest of the world. The caste tensions and the lack of public infrastructure including health care and education often results in children being born into a life of poverty and sadly, hopelessness. Thus, Paper Kite Children’s Foundation hopes to alleviate the pressures relating to poverty for children residing in several orphanages that we fund directly.

A team of Paper Kite volunteers will be heading to Bihar in February for a month-long journey to distribute the funds. I write this post in hopes that you will help us in our cause and help me in my goal of raising $1000 for this charity that I believe in so passionately. If you would like to donate (however much you want!), please follow the link: http://www.canadahelps.org/gp/9971

Recently, I’ve been trying really hard not to stress myself out about the future. It’s difficult to do especially since I am feeling incredibly insecure about my career prospects. The economy is still not doing well and job opportunities that interests me come few and far between. There are jobs that I could potentially be qualified for but they usually have the word “Coordinator” in the title, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be a coordinator. A coordinator is usually someone who is extremely good at administrative organization and although I recognize those positions are important, I do not necessarily want a career in administrative work. Heck, I’m already doing an administrative position part-time with UBC right now and I may as well just stay here if this is the career I want. When I think about what I want to do, I keep going back to my passion in learning about issues dealing with migrants, migrant workers, immigrants, refugees, and their human rights. So, I know the area I want to go into but just unsure of which path to take.

There is policy and my MA is in policy, but to be perfectly honest, I have become quite disillusioned with policy in many ways. Policy often requires a lot of paper-pushing and meetings with people who talk about making changes but usually take quite a while to implement changes. The results may affect a lot of people but the policy-maker may not necessarily see it. Not to mention, to actually be a policy-maker with some power to make changes, it can take years and even decades in climbing that political and bureaucratic ladder. Also, policy jobs come few and far between and to-date, I have only found one job opportunity with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. With huge spending cuts across the board and the incredibly slow hiring process of the federal government, a career in policy is most likely not my best bet.

Then there is the option of working with non-governmental organizations which I enjoy volunteering with but I do recognize that the culture of many NGOs is not necessarily a healthy work environment. NGOs may be great at advocating for change, but often runs itself quite ineffectively and inefficiently. This is due to the fact that many leaders of NGOs are great advocates but not necessarily the best managers of the administrative structuring of the NGO. Plus, most of the jobs I come across in Canadian NGOs usually have the word “Coordinator” in it and like I’ve already mentioned, I don’t necessarily want to be a coordinator.

There are also international human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. I would definitely love working with these organizations and I do apply – though I apply knowing that my chances are highly unlikely. The reason is that there is always people who are more educated than me or have had more opportunities working in the Global South or even have very unique backgrounds that make them more qualified than I. Plus, those job opportunities are so minimal as well. So, although I would love to work for these organizations, I do recognize that the chance of it happening is very small.

The private sector may offer more opportunities, but then again, it may not. Frankly, I do not know how to navigate the private sector and somehow convince a company that my interest in human rights and migrants is something they need. Not to mention, most companies are interested in making a profit and not necessarily protecting the labour force they exploit so I highly doubt they would want to hire me. I probably would cause more problems for them than actually help them.

Lastly, there is the idea of more schooling. I actually would not mind going for more schooling and even going all the way to getting a PhD. It would definitely give me the freedom to study what I want and maybe I can eventually become an educator on my area of expertise. The idea of actually going for more schooling however is rather daunting since I’m already 25 and going for a PhD, law degree, or another MA can take anywhere between 2-5 years. I keep thinking I would feel too old by the time I get out but yet on the other hand, I’ve been hearing way too many stories of mature women (40+) going back to school to get a MA that they were unable to do so while younger since they were raising their kids. Usually the stories have some regret in them as these women do find it hard to compete with younger people. I completely respect them for going back though but I just don’t want to be in their position at that age, so I try to tell myself that going for more schooling now just means I won’t have to do so later. The question for school however is what would I continue with? That I’m still quite unsure and I’m definitely not sure that this is the best route either.

So these are all the roadblocks I’m facing. I haven’t shut the door on any of these options and am actively looking for opportunities in all these sectors. I just find it daunting at times and even disappointing as I realize that the perfect job is most likely not going to come along the minute I complete my MA. Yet, I tell myself that I can’t expect to plan my entire future as plans don’t usually go as planned. So, I should stop stressing myself out about the unknown, focus on what I can do in the present, and recognize that happiness can be found in all aspects of life and not just wholly dependent on work.

My oldest friend, Lisa, is leaving for Australia for a year and a mix of emotions have overcome me these past few days. Sadness is evident as I am definitely going to miss her. Excitement for her is also present as I cannot wait to hear about the adventures that are awaiting her in Australia, and I know that this is what she really needs – an opportunity to grow and learn more about herself. Discomfort is there as well since I am used to being the one that takes off and leaves (though never more than for a few months at a time) and I suppose I take it for granted that Lisa is always there when I come home. This time, she will be the one gone and I will be the one waiting for her return. That idea is foreign but definitely expected and even desired on my part since I am truly happy that she decided to go. However, her being physically absent from my life for a whole year has definitely render me reflective as I have been thinking about how much her friendship means to me over these past few days.

We have been friends since we were five years-old though like every friendship we went through our ups and downs. I will never forget those summers where we spent all our time learning to do cartwheels on the strip of grass outside our front doors, making up games such as the “night game”, playing tag and jump rope, and even having our fights that usually involved slinging our own made-up curse words such as “cowhead” which was particularly hurtful to our seven year-old selves. We went through that awkward preteen phase where we were sworn enemies, which we then regretted and renounced during our teenage years. It is however within the last five years that we have come full-circle and recognized that our friendship will stand the test of time.

The thing about our friendship is we understand each other without needing to say so many words. I never feel as though I have to justify my desires and wants to her as she always seems to understand and support my decisions or aspirations. She questions me but not in a way where she is attempting to dissuade me. Instead, she is merely asking for confirmation on what she already knows. With Lisa, I can share my thoughts knowing that she never judges me for them. She knows I do the same for her. Another aspect of our friendship which is so hard to find is the deep loyalty we have for each other. I know that no matter the distance or time, she will go out of her way to help me if I was ever in need. In this friendship, we get as much as we give. Thus, there has never been any resentment of the other person for lack of commitment or time to this friendship. We make the time regardless of how busy our schedules since we both know that we cannot go too long without seeing each other. Even if time has gotten the best of us, there is always something gnawing inside of us reminding us that something is missing which is usually a visit with the other person.

Understandably, I am feeling quite despondent about her leaving. As I watched her do some last-minute packing last night, I felt so happy for her and yet sad for our friendship which will be on hold for awhile. Don’t get me wrong – email and Skype definitely cuts the distance but it does not erase the distance. Plus, she will be off on a journey that doesn’t include me – as it shouldn’t. Yet, not being physically present in each other’s lives will take some time to get used to but in a way, I’m looking forward to it as well since the trade-off is that Lisa finally gets to fly. When it all comes down to it, Lisa is more than a friend, she is part of my family. I will miss you, my dear friend, but have a wonderful life-changing experience and know that I will be here for you when you come home.