Brush strokes and spit

Posted on by under Books, Chronicled Adventures, Travel

Looking upon Vincent van Gogh’s paintings for the first time, I found myself incredibly moved. In a gallery of paintings and portraits featuring naked babies or figures from myth and legend, I was so drawn—perhaps inexplicably—to van Gogh’s Long Grass with Butterflies, Van Gogh’s Chair, or (my favourite) Sunflowers.

In Nottingham, I watched my new friend (a visual artist) peer closely at the paintings in the museums at Oxford. When I asked her why, she explained that she was interested in the brush strokes and how smooth they were. With that being said, and upon closer inspection, I realized that what I was looking at was actually manufactured light and shadow, that brush strokes should be evident, though they weren’t unless you looked closely.

Among other reasons, perhaps exceptionally thick brush strokes were why I was so drawn to van Gogh’s paintings. My first thought, almost exactly, was “Like a child.” Looking at van Gogh’s art, I found myself thinking of children finger painting with reckless abandon. I felt like the paintings evoked a sense of desperate aliveness, in contrast to what I knew about van Gogh’s life. (Thanks, Doctor Who.) More than that, van Gogh’s attention to colour was nothing else like I’d seen: I tired of the chiaroscuro style I saw in the previous gallery with Rembrandt, where I couldn’t see certain parts of the painting depending on the gallery light and where I was standing (and I liked to stand close to paintings now, to see brushstrokes, as you know). With van Gogh, everything is bright no matter where you stand… even the darkness, somehow.

I truly appreciated that everyone was drawn to Sunflowers. For a man with such a turbulent life to be remembered for the sunniest of paintings… I was so moved, so grateful that I got to be one of those people drawn to the simple vase of flora, to look so closely that I can see his brush strokes.

I wasn’t expecting to love Shakespeare’s Globe as much as I do. Watching Twelfth Night was not as I expected—for one thing, the show was quite a diversion from the original text—but I was delighted nonetheless, and watching the play was certainly worth standing for hours. (Although I might splurge on a ticket with a seat next time.)

The experience was a marriage of my top interests during my grade 12 year of high school, which was composed of late nights at the theatre and taking as many English courses as my school allowed. Because of this, my younger self was having a grand ol’ time at the Globe, although my current self certainly was, too. The Globe’s production of Twelfth Night turns the play into somewhat of a triple threat exhibition, and I was happy to be able to marvel at the amazing dance and song as much as their acting.

Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite thing, in general, comes in any form of top-notch storytelling, which Twelfth Night certainly was. You don’t have to understand Elizabethan or Shakespearean English to laugh at the jokes, to cry when the characters cry, to feel the sense of dramatic urgency or irony that the play creates. So the production was a success in my books.

I’ve discovered that the experience of art at its best is necessarily intimate. Leaning against the Globe stage, I could look into Orsino’s eyes, see Malvolio’s feet shuffle with every stressed syllable, hear Maria’s voice from her mouth rather than the speakers, even see Feste spit out his words on every bilabial stop. (Thanks, ENGL 330, for teaching me about bilabial stops.) These moments were when I forgot how tired I was, how much I wanted to sit down. Being so close to see eyeliner, or nylon stockings, for only £5!

Although I can’t believe I come across toilets that cost (only 20p, but still!) to use, or that some restaurants charge more for sitting down at one of their tables, I love London for the culture it shares so generously. I didn’t have to pay a penny to see van Gogh, and I’ve paid more for some meals than I did to see such an excellent production of a Shakespeare play on the very site where Shakespeare himself once stood. And for that, I may have to forgive London for charging to use toilets or eat in at restaurants.

All of these towns I’ve never heard of, racing past

Posted on by under Books, Observations and Reflections, Travel

Inside the train, up through the glass
My finger tracing
All of these towns I’ve never heard of racing past

– Amelie, “Times Are Hard for Dreamers”

Sitting alone, waiting for my train at Nottingham Station to depart for London St. Pancras, I find myself feeling rather anxious again. The comfort that I found in Nottingham with family friends, while reassuring when I was there, now produces an opposing effect as I leave them behind. I am finding that the freedom of travel—which I longed for so much a month ago while my mom was planning the family trip to Los Angeles—is overwhelming and frightening.

If home is found in the crevices of human experience, homesickness is most certainly found in the expanses of suitcase living: sharing a room, having to take toiletries with you to the bathroom and back, not being able to leave your belongings lying about. (Mommy, if you’re reading this: I leave my room messy because that’s just part of the experience of being at home!) I am excited to be able to leave my toothbrush on the bathroom counter, to unpack my clothes from my suitcase. (Maybe long-term solo travel isn’t for me after all. How distressing.)

For the first time since landing in England, it is dark and gloomy today, which reminds me of home and certainly helps me feel less anxious. With the greenery of the English countryside dampened by rainfall, England looks more and more familiar to my beloved Pacific Northwest.

Speaking of the English countryside, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’ve never really felt like calling Vancouver the big city before, but having spent some time in Nottingham, I suddenly feel like quite a city girl. I love the outdoors, the open sky, seeing farm animals, and narrow, winding dirt roads, but I am excited to be in the city again—thus confirming for me once again that Vancouver, a city in between city and country, is truly the most perfect place for me.

Having said that, though, I don’t think I can stress enough how much the English midlands and the English countryside felt like home to me. As we drove back from Chatsworth House, widely believed to be the inspiration for Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (one of my favourite books), I looked around at the grids of farmland separated by stone walls and hedges and I found myself thinking about Dr. Dalziel’s Honours seminar on storytelling, and Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

When I visited New York City, I was in the middle of reading Edward Rutherfurd’s monster book New York, and I felt familiar with NYC because of that book (and, of course, all of the movies and clichés), but what I feel in England is a truly different level. So many of the works that I’ve loved for so long, or have studied intensely—Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Far from the Madding Crowd, Shakespeare’s plays and poetry—were set in England. British authors seem to have truly taken the advice “write what you know” to heart, and with this beautiful place, they had good reason to.

What I’ve found in the crevices of human experience

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

Before I left, whenever I told people I was worried about possibly feeling homesick, almost every single person told me that I would be having way too much fun to be homesick.

I am not writing to say that those people are wrong, exactly… though I’ve been quite busy exploring, and having fun doing so, there are still other moments. When I am visiting tourist attractions, I am certainly not homesick, but during other moments, I still find myself at home, quite unexpectedly.

I have found home here, on the other side of the world, within the crevices of human experience. I have tasted home and the cooking of mom at home in the familiar Filipino dishes of Tita Ma’an’s making. While waiting for buses at bus stops on the wrong side of the street or standing on moving trains, I am transported to Lougheed Town Centre, to a moving sky train on the Millennium Line. Walking into Waterstones, even with my allergies (or “hay fever”) stuffing my nose, I find that all bookstores manage to smell exactly the same. At a public session at an ice rink, there is always that one guy on hockey skates going recklessly fast, cutting me off.

There are moments when I think about the comfort of my own bed at home, of the freedom to waste time or to watch Netflix or wander into a pantry and eat whatever’s in there, and during those moments I feel a little sad. Still, I find that I am reassured by the commonalities of living; I am so grateful for these commonalities, and to Tita Ma’an and her family for making me feel at home here in Britain, and I think it will help me through my own adventures, by making Britain feel far less foreign to me.

This must be what Tinder dating feels like

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections, Travel

Being in England for me is like coming across a creature you’ve only seen in dreams, or perhaps only online. Everything feels vaguely familiar. The hills and plant life look like those of home, so when I don’t look far into the distance as we roll along the motorways of the English countryside, I feel like I am home. I’ve also lived certain aspects of British living from books I’ve read, as many of us probably have: “loos” and “lifts”, great halls, double decker buses, trains rolling across British fields.

But of course, “visions are seldom all they seem”. I think that when visions manifest themselves in reality, the small details reveal themselves—even the ugly details. Much like how I imagine Tinder dating is like, places, like people, are rarely encapsulated sufficiently in photos and lines of text.

I came to the motherland of my academic discipline and my strongest language fully aware of the men (and, I suppose, women) who left this very land to conquer, collect, and colonize lands like the home from which I came. From my first glimpse at English land from above, as my plane landed at Gatwick airport, I looked down at the parcelled grid of farmland, remembering instantly that British colonizers forced that method of farming upon the Indigenous peoples of North America, whose method of farming the settlers ignored or disregarded.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling excited about finally being in the Old World. I was excited to touchdown on a continent I’d never been to, to get to know a country and culture I’ve only known secondhand, represented with purpose (à la Tinder). With the nagging thought that I was arriving in the region of the world from which North America’s original colonizers came, I continued on my British adventures anyway.

This feeling of dissonance didn’t go away; in fact, as we explored the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (already a problematic label on its own) and the Pitt Rivers Museum within it, I found myself and my experiences at odds with my values. Spanning all floors of the Pitt Rivers Museum—a large room with upper level floors overlooking the main floor below—was a Haida Gwaii totem pole, overlooking the maze of glass cases housing all kinds of archaeological artifacts, including masks, clothing, toys, weapons, and so on, of the Haida Gwaii people.

I wondered at a sign overlooking the room describing the totem pole as something that was “discouraged” by the missionaries who settled in North America, and sent totem poles and other similar meaningful pieces to be ogled at in the Old World—as I myself was doing at that moment—where the impression of Indigenous peoples becomes that of the Dead or Vanishing Indian. As I admired cases of various dolls, coins, or bows and arrows, I felt distinctly uncomfortable at the placement of cultural artifacts from the distant past beside the cultural treasures of the strong, living peoples of today.

At this point in the Tinder date, England seems to be saying somewhat problematic things, but not so offensive that it ruins the whole date; given the fact that England is so aesthetically pleasing, some potentially dubious comments can be disregarded at this point.

But then, England doesn’t hold the door open. As my awed eyes looked up at buildings from the past, admiring the unique architecture, my tired legs strolled along Oxford’s narrow walkways and unevenly paved streets, climbed up and down stairs or superfluous steps. All this difficulty, for those in wheelchairs and such, for the purpose of preserving old beauty.

Despite all this, I am captivated by the old beauty. This world is resilient, built by brick and stone and weathered by time. I am intrigued by its longevity, tradition, and I hunger for the thoughts born into people who walked these streets.

Despite its faults, England is still beautiful. England is very human. Stunning, awe inspiring, but equally fallible, and simultaneously so… containing multitudes, as humans do, and in more ways than one.

The most compelling argument for Mr. Cook’s Shakespeare conspiracy

Posted on by under Books, Chronicled Adventures, Observations and Reflections, Travel

In my final year of high school, I took Literature 12 with Mr. Cook, who was a firm believer of a Shakespeare conspiracy. When I say “firm believer,” I mean firm believer: he introduced the idea simply as though it was fact, as if it were common knowledge that “Shakespeare” was actually Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. One of Mr. Cook’s biggest qualms with the idea of William Shakespeare having penned “Shakespeare’s” plays and poems was the (alleged) unlikelihood that some small town boy from Stratford-upon-Avon could dream up the politics of the aristocracy or royalty, of foreign countries, far-off places.

Today, I visited Stratford-upon-Avon, supposedly the most convincing piece of evidence that William Shakespeare couldn’t be the father of British English literature, the literary genius that the discipline holds him up to be. You understand how the idea dismantles a great bulk of my academic field: though I am not the most familiar with Shakespeare’s works as far as an English major goes, and I am skeptical of the British white male canon in general, I was eager to make a pilgrimage to Shakespeare’s home.

Although it is quite a bustling tourist destination now, with shops and cafes and big tour buses rolling through it, the market town’s medieval grid pattern of streets is still preserved, for the most part, meaning that Shakespeare would have little trouble navigating the town if he were to walk through it today.

Far from high street and the Shakespeare Centre, however, it is different. “I like it here… it’s quiet,” my incredibly hospitable host, Tita Ma’an, commented as we walked to Holy Trinity Church and the site of Shakespeare’s grave.

Its oozing Englishness and quiet streets hardly suggest to me an inability to write about royalty or Verona. As we walked back to the Shakespeare Centre, I looked about me at Stratford-upon-Avon and thought: If I grew up in this town, I would enjoy nothing more than imagining thrilling worlds.

This is not to say that I feel like Shakespeare felt stifled in Stratford-on-Avon. When we visited Sherwood Forest later in the day, there was no signal, and all I wanted to do was write; I imagine Shakespeare felt far freer to focus on his writing in his small town than he did in London. More to that point, the houses of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (Shakespeare’s birthplace, the garden now planted where his last house once stood, and the home of his eldest daughter) impressed upon me the value of family to William Shakespeare. The immense love, care, and heartbreak of Shakespeare’s family life show themselves in his work. From passionate sonnets to despairing parents who have lost their children, it is clear that life at home inspired Shakespeare as much as imagining Venice and Rome did.

Sitting in a cold Coquitlam classroom, the idea of alternative Shakespeares seemed almost possible. But walking through the streets and homes of Shakespeare’s life, you realize that the man did not need to live his plays to write them, and that beauty does not discriminate. Beauty—even of the simple kind—can beget wondrous beauty.

Dazed first days in England

Posted on by under Chronicled Adventures, Observations and Reflections, Travel

Fear, I am finding, is a matter of being afraid, but doing anyway. Of course, at the highest point of my terror (a gradual building up until the moment I had to say goodbye to Nate at airport security), by which time I had already paid for a plane ticket, summer school in Edinburgh, hostel accommodations, etc., I had little choice but to go, but the point stands, I think!

I was so incredibly sad to leave home, a note which might surprise many of you, as it did for me; after talking about these plans for so long (beyond a year!) it seems almost silly that I was so deeply affected by saying goodbye to my beloved Vancouver.

Beyond sad, I was also fearful (as I’ve already established) of all the things I can’t plan or don’t know, but of the things I do know, I know that I am so lucky. To be a young woman of colour, able to be on my own on the other side of the world so long as I am armed with common sense and constant vigilance, my family and friends still so accessible thanks to modern convenience… I am so lucky, so privileged, to be able to do what I am doing now (i.e., as I type this out from written journal entries, sitting on a train rolling across the English countryside). Frankly, it seems almost disrespectful not to go, fear and sadness notwithstanding.

Once I landed, I encountered a few unexpected hurdles… the cashier at the ticket office in Gatwick was impatient and incredibly unhelpful and did not seem to understand that I couldn’t understand how my train ticket worked. I got on the train, though I wasn’t even sure it was the one I was supposed to be on (my heart dropped into my stomach when an attendant came by to check tickets, but thankfully, I was on the right train).

I also didn’t realize that you had to press a button to open the doors on the Gatwick Express. I could feel the disdain of the man next to me as he reached around to press the button for the crowd of us trying to get off the train.

When I arrived in London from Gatwick (a half hour train ride), I was dismayed to discover that I had more than four hours until my train departed to Nottingham from London St. Pancras. After a desperate respite at the ever-familiar Starbucks (save for the fact that they didn’t have wi-fi… what’s up with that?), delighting in the fact that Buckingham Palace was only a ten minute walk away from my very spot and that the theatres of Hamilton (previews) and Wicked were even closer, I set out to King’s Cross/St. Pancras.

Once I got off the tube there, I still had time to kill, so I figured I would visit Platform 9¾. I am familiar with King’s Cross and Harry Potter, of course, but in my jetlagged state I wondered where I would find the “Harry Potter trolley thing” (which is how I was conceptualizing it). I saw a sign for Platforms 0-8 and promptly realized that I’d probably find the “Harry Potter trolley thing” by Platform 9. The line was long, as expected, so I left and headed to St. Pancras, where I spent some time wandering the shops, chewing gum, and walking to keep awake.

I relish in the thrill and accomplishment of getting around a new city successfully and with relative ease. So far, despite its bustling metropolitan-ness, London has been simple enough to navigate.

I think much of my comfort in London has to do with the fact that London feels so much like home, although I couldn’t tell you why I think so. Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Orlando, and the cities I visited in between—these cities all feel distinctly un-Vancouver-like to me.  I’d say it’s the trains, but NYC had trains, too, so…

It was warm and pleasant in London today, although it would have felt far more pleasant if I wasn’t dressed for colder weather. Dressing in layers isn’t a particularly useful technique when you’re alone, carrying a lot of things, thus not really having hands or arms to easily carry outer layers that you’ve shed.

The trouble with today—other than exhaustion—was being lonely. Not alone, because I’ve felt capable enough on my own, but lonely: by this time, all of my friends and family at home are asleep (even nocturnal Mom), and I truly have only myself for company. I’m used to being alone for the most part, but with so much waiting to do (downsides of being early and prepared), I’m bored and longing for company, even if it’s only virtual.

But at this point, I am far, far too tired to be sad and scared and lonely. I just want to take a long shower and get into bed!

Fear, or that drum in my chest

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections

Anyone who’s talked to me about this upcoming Europe trip knows that I feel pretty scared about it. It’s starting to dawn on me that the weeks spent outside of my summer school in Edinburgh (which are already structured for me, and so less scary) gallivanting across the United Kingdom and France will be me, a young, solo female traveller in countries and a continent she’s never step foot in before: that’s pretty insane. My dad likes to joke that I have been to Paris before, since my mom was pregnant with me already when she and my dad visited, so I will take that joke seriously for some reassurance that Europe isn’t so alien to me.

I had a (childless, male) teacher in high school whose lessons we filled with anecdotes about his experience travelling the world. I spoke with him once about wanting to travel like he did, alone, make your own adventure style. I can’t remember if it was him or me who brought up the fact that travelling as he did–as a white man–will not be the same as travelling as I will–as a woman of colour. All I can really remember from that conversation is him telling me how he kept his passport close to him at all times–worthy advice to remember as I go forward, I think.

I’ve been planning for this trip for so long that I hardly know when the planning started. I told a friend that I was scared and he assured me by saying that I am one of the most “together” people he knows, and I think it’s fair to say that this is the case for many of my friends. I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of girl, in any sense of the phrase. I plan. I colour-code. I anticipate. I prepare. I mean, I’m adaptable to change, but I operate like everything’s going to go according to plan until it doesn’t, which works for me.

But it doesn’t work when planning for this trip. Because when I’m planning for projects or planning my day, there are only so many variables. I can account for possibilities here in my safety net. Travelling alone, there are too many possibilities, and it drives me to panic considering ways to avoid potential problems.

Even as I reflected on the irrationality of my problems to Nate last night–

“What if I run out of money before my trip ends?”

“We know that it’s easy enough to transfer money to you.”

“What if the Internet breaks?!”

“Yes. Yes. That is definitely a possibility.”

–I still felt that beat in my chest. It’s probably one of those big stand-up drums that has to be hit with mallets, just past my rib cage, someone pounding at it relentlessly.

I don’t think I can talk myself out of being afraid of this. (See: above, conversation with Nate.) I will not be able to consider all the variables. I know that there is a life past this–I’ve already planned for it, as I do–and I know that there is only so much I can do right now to be ready for this trip. One of the things that I can do right now is to accept that fear, to feel it whole-heartedly (I don’t have opportunities to be afraid very often, luckily), and know that on the other side of this fear, there is bliss.

Falling from the city of the angels

Posted on by under Chronicled Adventures, Travel

This past trip to Los Angeles has been my fifth (!!!), but it had been two summers since I last visited; before that, I visited three summers in a row and also came in the spring one year, and I often stayed for a month. I didn’t love Los Angeles when I spent so much time there, sleeping on a pull-out bed, sharing a room with my cousins. (As an only child, that’s a lot to ask for!)

This spring, it was a reunion, with family coming from all over: us from Vancouver, and family from Toronto, New York City, and even the Philippines. I would be seeing my grandparents for the first time in a long time, and Nate would be coming with me. It was new this time, and it had been awhile: I was ready to go back to California.

It seemed the break was what I needed to see Los Angeles in a new light. The break, and maybe also the fact that it was the first time I went on a hike in Los Angeles, and so the first time I could behold the city from within it, admire Los Angeles in all its freshly watered glory. The palette of Los Angeles has always been sunny yellow and burnt orange in my mind, and this summer was the first summer (for me) that Los Angeles has been any shade of green.

Much like how I imagine heaven to be, looking at the city of Los Angeles from above, it seems to go on forever. Sitting on the snow on Mount Seymour in Vancouver, you look out onto farmland and know that the city of Vancouver ends somewhere, but from the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles you cannot even see the water. All you can see are a cluster of tall buildings in the distance, glittering freeways, and houses and civilization leaking over the edge of the world.

Despite sharing a room with four other people, at least two of whom snored, despite sharing a single family home with four other families, despite the amount of sleep I got (not much), despite not having much of a budget to spend on anything, it was the first summer that I could see Los Angeles as beautiful.

It was also the first summer that I could see myself living in Los Angeles. I spend almost 15 hours a week on transit at home, so I could hardly imagine living in a city that is mobilized mostly by privately owned vehicles, where “30 minutes away” means 30 minutes away by the freeway. I visited UCLA this trip and it felt, oddly, like coming home; outside of spending time with my family, it was the first place in Los Angeles that felt even somewhat familiar, or close to my life in Vancouver.

Vancouver’s palette for me contains blues, grays, and greens, but if you paint my school in warmer colours, I believe you’d be painting UCLA—we share school colours, after all, cool blue and warm gold. Being among books, like in the gorgeous Powell Library, or talking about Shakespeare with an academic, that feels like home. That feels like my normal.

Despite the fact that a university is, as UBC calls itself, “a place of mind,” both UBC and UCLA are beautiful places to be, and their beauty—what I think of as the physical manifestation of excellence of thinking and knowledge—reminds me that the health and success of the mind is vitally related to the health and success of the body. Kind of related to that, I find it interesting that my favourite beautiful manmade places are quite often schools.

I have always been grateful to return home to Vancouver, and every trip affirms for me that there is no place more beautiful and that Vancouver is without a doubt my home, but for the first time, I returned to Vancouver from Los Angeles feeling a little bit… just slightly… just the tiniest bit… disenchanted. As I write this, it is sunny with a friendly breeze in Vancouver, and the sun is setting behind perfectly cottony clouds, so I have been reminded why I love Vancouver so much, but just days ago I was feeling stagnant and restless at the same time, like I had returned to reality from a place of transcendence. Like I had fallen from heaven, or like I had fallen from—as much as I had fallen for—a city of the angels.

Snow, and slowness

Posted on by under Observations and Reflections

As somebody who plans to the hour and makes sure I am being productive every moment, you would think that I hate the snow, for all the reasons everyone else in Vancouver seems to hate snow. We can’t get anywhere, we’re late to wherever we need to be, we’re trapped inside. I do feel impatience when (like tonight) I was waiting for the bus for half an hour. I do find myself frustrated from time to time, when my workplace or school doesn’t call for a snow day–especially since I am far from walking distance for either of those places–but whenever I find myself in the snow, I cannot stop smiling.

I was running to the bus this morning, and generally the fastest way to get to my closest stop is to go through a school. The school is private, so in the snow, it’s closed, and they don’t bother clearing the snow. So I was shin-deep in snow in some areas, and I had forgotten to zip up my ankle-high snow boots, so I had snow in my shoes, and I was possibly going to miss my bus, but I found myself laughing, because I’m clearly ridiculous. I couldn’t tell you why–I think the clumsiness of it all just fills me with delight.

N. will tell you that it’s because I was born in a snow-deprived country. This is probably at least part of the reason. (For half my life I had no idea what snow was like! Amazing.)

But I think it is also the fact that, as someone who is always planning to the hour and ensuring every moment has its purpose, I relish the opportunity to slow down.

I appreciate these rare chances when I have no choice but to take my time, to use my own two feet, to clear my own path, and to go slowly. I am always on my way somewhere, and almost always I am in a rush, but when it snows, I am slow for once.

Of course, it’s hard to fully appreciate these forced walks, because they inevitably bring me somewhere warm. Tonight, it brought me to a bed and a heated blanket, within four walls and a roof, and I can’t neglect the fact that while the snow slows me down but never stops me, it brings others to a complete stop: I am privileged to have warmth when I need it. I’m also aware that some folks’ livelihood depends on the ability of their vehicles to have access to navigable roads, and when it snows, they themselves are not only slowed but their incomes are, as well.

But I am grateful for the snow for making me think about this, for making me confront my warmth and making me consider ways to take action.

I am grateful for shared laughter that emerges out of shared inconveniences; I am grateful for anything that enhances and strengthens the human connection.

If that’s what it takes, then–let it snow.

CWILA: my Arts Internship Program experience

Posted on by under Books, Career, UBC

Technically, my Arts Internship Program placement was supposed to end in August. It went so well that this ended up not happening, but I’ll get to that part of the story later. I wanted to reflect on my official Arts Internship Program experience, because I’m actually very grateful for it.

I applied for the Arts Internship Program in fall of 2015. (You have to apply first to the program and then into an actual internship placement.) I actually got waitlisted at first—I never found out why, but my theory at the time was that my interests were not exactly non-profit-related, so maybe the program didn’t really fit my goals. (Spoiler alert: I was wrong.)

After the program’s applying-to-internships workshop, I applied to five different internships, as recommended by the program coordinator. I kept the following things in mind: the causes I cared about, the time commitment (I was going to keep working part-time), and I also wanted to get an office position instead of a remote one, since I had done a remote internship the summer before.

Despite that last criteria, Canadian Women in the Literary Arts (CWILA) and their remote Communications Assistant position was my first choice. How perfect could it be? I, a self-described Canadian woman in the literary arts, in an office-y type communications position.

I also interviewed for West Coast LEAF, and although I still love their cause and remain interested in the organization, I didn’t get offered a position. (All for the better, I think.)

My interview with Judith Scholes, a CWILA board member, and Sheila Giffen, at the time the Executive Director and my would-be direct supervisor, went very well. Having had my fair share of interviews at this point, I now know that you sometimes just get feelings about certain employers, and I got that feeling with them. I was still a little green in the employment business at the time, so I was a little nervous, but I could sense that CWILA was the organization for me.

As a minority among minorities—a girl growing up in the Philippines who loved books—I understand what it means to be underrepresented in a field that you love. When I grew up dreaming about writing my own book, I thought about the fact that I had never seen a Filipino man (let alone a Filipina) publish a mainstream fiction work. Would it be weird, I thought, when I do that?

I told this to my future employers, and it’s one of the few parts of my interview that I remember. The other part is that I was curious about social media: I had checked out CWILA’s social media feeds, and was astounded I’d never heard of them before. I wanted to help CWILA spread their reach, and I wanted to keep them active online, where social justice thrives.

Although accounting for race still remains a difficult issue, CWILA allowed me to develop professional social media skills, and they did it with enthusiasm and encouragement. Sheila gave me the personal project of developing a social media policy while managing the organization’s social media feeds. I also had the opportunity to read and share the various interviews and essays that CWILA published, which, as a student of English literature, were incredibly exciting, especially when the interviews and essays were by people who I thought belonged only in textbooks.

Something that is frustrating about CWILA is that the many amazing people involved with it are so far spread out: from us here in Vancouver to my new direct supervisor and CWILA Chair in Halifax. Not only are we in different timezones, but we also have lives outside of the non-profit. Many of CWILA are academics, writers, editors, critics, etc. It is hard to stay on top of things, or get in touch, or stay on one page.

But this is also what I love about CWILA. When Erin Wunker asked me in July if I was preparing to move out of my position, I told her I would love to stay if they needed me. I’m so excited to be part of this organization while it is still growing. There is so much work left to do, and I am so excited to be part of it.

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