If anyone else has been following the BC election, I’m guessing you’re sitting here in a similar position as me (as well as much of the rest of BC) which is – put quite simply – shocked. The night started off surprisingly and as it continued the trends only strengthened. It became clear as the night went on that this election did not belong to the NDP as everyone had thought, but rather to the Liberals who have managed to snag a majority government against all odds.

In what is not the first upset Canadian elections have seen recently. Let us all remember our very own Albertan election back in 2012. The whole province seemed to accept the likelihood of a Wildrose victory and for the first time in quite awhile it looked as though the Conservatives long reign might finally be coming to a close. However, election night brought a flip as the Conservatives secured their spot for yet another term, and the Wildrose were left with fewer seats than expected.

For those of you who haven’t been following what’s happening in BC right now, you can pretty much just place a mirror in the center of the political spectrum and you’ll get an idea of what’s going on. Seemingly against all odds, the Liberals have pulled through and will remain in power with a majority government, defying the expectations and stealing many seats away that were thought to go to the NDP.

So now I’m sitting here asking myself the same questions I did after the Wildrose were not nearly as big as a threat as everyone anticipated – what changed? And beyond that, how come we didn’t know? While what happened in Alberta last year and what happened in BC last night are on opposite sides of the political field, there does seem to be one glaring, common element between the situations: the stark contrast between what the polls expected and what actually happened. Nearly every poll across BC (telephone polls, online polls, etc) throughout the election placed the NDP in the lead ahead of the Liberals. Yes, the most recent ones did show the Liberals closing the gap, but nonetheless there was still a gap, and the NDP had the lead.

I can’t help but draw my attention to the polls themselves, which have proved to be a relatively unreliable source of information. Are people not answering honestly? Are the polls not collecting an accurate enough sample of data?

Or maybe there’s a last minute fear that sets in once peopleactually go to vote. Adrian Dix’s campaign for the NDP was all about change – breaking away from the status quo and making a difference for the better. But are people perhaps afraid of change? It does seem to be another common element between these two situations where the polls have lied to us. In the end, people chose to stick with what they know. They returned to their old governments despite someone offering change. I don’t think there is a clear cut answer right now. But I do feel confident saying that I’m not going to be taking any pre-election polls too seriously anytime soon. (And it wouldn’t surprise me if others in western Canada are feeling the same way).

Despite the crazy turnout in Vancouver there are still unanswered questions. Right now the biggest of which comes down to the Vancouver Point-Grey riding. David Eby and Christy Clark are still battling it out in the last riding to be determined. Througout the entire course of the night the counts flipped back and forth, with the leader seeming to change every time a new poll was brought in.

If Clark can claim this seat then it will be the final note in what can only be called a booming success of an election for the liberals. If Eby does manage to squeeze through, there will be some interesting decisions to be made. It’s nearly impossible to imagine the Liberals leaving Clark at this point, meaning that someone else will likely step aside essentially giving their seat to her.

Despite the crazy turnout in Vancouver there are still unanswered questions. Right now the biggest of which comes down to the Vancouver Point-Grey riding. David Eby and Christy Clark are still battling it out in the last riding to be determined. Througout the entire course of the night the counts flipped back and forth, with the leader seeming to change every time the votes from a new poll were brought in.

Regardless of what is yet to happen, it’s clear that BC’s election is one that can be added to the ranks as one of the most surprising elections Canada’s seen in awhile.

When people first think of food art, they think of those fancy fruit baskets with all the skewers that you can order for parties . Though I suppose this could be considered art, what I’m talking about here is actual art – made out of food. My first experience with food art was with baking. When I was younger, I got obsessed with those TLC shows about the ridiculous cakes that weighed tons but were unbelievable 3-D images. (What 12 year old wouldn’t think that was cool?). I started making cakes that I could decorate similarly, and being an avid painter, I was fairly good at mixing different colors of icing and making pictures. That was about as far as the world of food art got for me.

But recently, a new and weird idea was introduced to me by a friend: art made out of real food – not sweets – but your everyday vegetables, pasta, etc. This seemed like such a ridiculous and obsolete idea to me when I first came across it. Nonetheless, the idea interested me and so I looked into it a little and was amazed at what I found. There are literally people whose career is arranging food into pieces of art. Kind of weird, but definitely pretty cool. Below are some pictures of this – some pieces are as simple as arranging the food into a picture on a plate or surface, others make entire portraits out of one substance, and some arrange a 3D montage that it photographed. Though I would never be able to (or really want to) do this, it’s just pretty incredible to see what some people come up with.

Arranged on a surface: First is a woman’s face made out of vegetables, and second is an owl made out of onions.

This is a portrait of Rachel Ray – made entirely of pasta and beans!

These are more 3-D examples: A sculpted watermelon, and a 3-D Montage of the London skyline. If you look closely, you can see the all of the different food making up the buildings and canal – crazy!

Greetings EVERYONE!

So today I felt like discussing something that revolves around each and every one of our lives, that being The Law of Attraction. It’s something that is usually disregarded by the individual on a day-to-day basis which probably shouldn’t be because it’s something that affects us all and which can have quite the dramatic effect on us. People nowadays can be so negative about life and expect the worst to come out of any situation. And as long they keep that mindset, it’s just a time bomb ticking away. I recently took a trip to Calgary and was surrounded by people on the street who were so negative about life:

“Nice weather. Too bad it’s gonna be gone soon.”

“Yeah, I’m probably not going to get that promotion…”

The list goes on…

But the point is, if you constantly surround yourself with such negative thoughts, you ultimately become a negative person overall, with the habit of only being able to process negative thoughts and images all the while ignoring all the positive things that your life entails. They say you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it, and this is without-a-doubt completely and utterly true! Like with studying, if you have it ingrained into your mind that you will achieve honors by the end of the year, and you think about that thought on a day-to-day basis, you will achieve your goal. Obviously there are somethings you cannot get done. Such as, the ability to spontaneously combust into a plethora of pixies and rainbow vomiting unicorns; other than the desire to transform into something truly outrageous, the sky is truly the limit. Surrounding your life with positive people, thoughts and goals begins to transform who you are and although life does throw you curve balls, you begin to see that these problems that arrive have a definite solution and are not all bad; that they have a silver lining.

Let’s rewind back to when I was in elementary school. I was involved with the wrong crowd of people and couldn’t care less about grades. My parents saw this and transferred me to a private school, known as Tempo School. To this day, I remember coming home and balling my eyes out. Having to go to a school with uniforms?! Where it’s ACADEMICALLY focused?! At the time, it killed me. I only realize it now what exactly this transformation had done. What I saw, was a problem. I saw the negativity in it. But I guess that is just immaturity and ignorance at its finest. Who knew that this would be one of the most eventful situations in my life that transformed my mindset of education and its importance as well as fueling my previously non-existent determination and perseverance. To this day, I thank my parents for making that choice for me. For who knows where I’d be right now. Certainly not on the path towards being educated but much rather on the path towards failure and the constant image of negativity circumventing throughout my thoughts. And today I find myself, much taller than I used to be but also, much more positive. My life isn’t perfect but I like to think so, focusing on the positives and leaving little to none of my energy for those negatives.

Cheers,

Nick

If you’ve been on the wonderful world wide web recently, chances are that you’ve seen at least 15 seconds (darn YouTube  I just want to watch some uninterrupted Jenna Marbles!) of that new “Dove Real Beauty Sketch” video. If you haven’t seen it, it’s posted at the bottom of this blog, check it out. If you don’t feel like doing so or are unable to, I will give you to cliff notes version. Basically, the Dove Company conducted a “social experiment” of sorts. In it, a professional forensic artist is in a room and several different women and one man enter into the room (which is more like a warehouse actually) and sit in a chair and are unaware of what they signed up for exactly because they weren’t briefed on anything prior to entering the warehouse or given any information at all.  So over melancholy music each participant is asked a series of questions by the forensic artist and after a short while, the participants realize that he is drawing them by how they describe themselves. Keep in mind that neither the artist nor participant can see each other.  Sounds exciting, right? Well, things get shaken up a bit when the artist then asks a different participant to describe another participant (that he previously drew and that the new participant has spent time with). The participant who describe the other person is being honest in their description although when the two drawings are compared, it is evident that the one described by a stranger is “more beautiful” than the one described by the original participant. And to finish it all off, the words “You are more beautiful than you think” flash across the screen. Sweet, isn’t it? Ya…. I don’t know about that.

I hope Dove truly had good intentions behind this whole campaign, but a few elements in the video irked me the wrong way. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for supporting inner beauty and what Dove promotes… for the most part. I won’t rant a whole lot, but I do want to bring up a few things that I questioned in the video and hopefully you will in turn question more of the things that you watch on a daily basis because it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the popularity of it all and overlook key elements.

So first thing’s first, why was there only one man featured? Not a huge deal, because usually it’s women who get down on themselves about their physical looks so I guess I should be saying good on Dove for even having the one man, right? Hmm… not so much. Let’s quickly touch up on the fact that the majority of the video had the main focus on young, thin, Caucasian women. Don’t get me wrong, they did include a couple African America women as well as an Asian woman, but as far as diversity goes, Dove could have done a lot better. The Caucasian women were show cased significantly more and were also described in a more positive way compared to the other women. Maybe I’m looking into that too much, but as a company that prides themselves in diversity, they could have tried a little harder.

The last and most important aspect I would like to bring up is when the one woman states “I should be more grateful of my natural beauty.  It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, the way we treat our children, it impacts everything. It couldn’t be more critical to your happiness.”  Pardon me. “It couldn’t be more critical to your happiness?!?” Keep in mind that the “it” she’s referring to is edited in a way that strongly suggests she’s referring to physical beauty. What!?! I don’t agree with that whatsoever, and neither should anyone. Take a second and think about some of the most influential people in world who’ve made a huge positive difference in the world. Were they only successful because of how physically “beautiful” they were? The answer is no. At least it always should be. I’m not going to go all mother goose here and give a whole speech about how people should love you for who you are on the inside, but the people we surround ourselves with should be people who see beyond the superficial and love us regardless of our physical beauty.

Personally, one of my favorite kinds of beauty is found in words.
“Whatever you consistently attach to the words ‘I am,’ you will become.”- Zig Ziglar

Alright, so if you’re in university congrats! You probably just finished your last week of exams and you are free to do whatever you please! However, if you’re anything like me you’re finishing up highschool and you honestly can’t wait for summer and the everything that it brings with it! Probably some of the big ones being the heat, free time, friends, parties, and of course the movies. Movies have always been something that I love, but recently I have been walking out of some films feeling pretty dissapointed. I feel like I have walked out of some pretty terrible movies. This got me thinking. What makes a good movie today? It is kind of a weird thought thinking that what might have made an Oscar winning movie twenty years ago could possibly not even make it to theaters today. So I made a list! A list of everything I find is essential in the making of a great movie today!

1) The Actors: Alright this one is a little bit of a no brain’-er, because let’s be honest here, there is a reason why people are suddenly interested in movies staring well liked actors such as Robert Downey Junior and Morgan Freeman. (Im gonna be totally honest here and say that those choices might have been a little biased.) Or on the other hand, turned away by movies starring actors with poor reputations, and I’m not giving any names here… But one of them might rhyme with Shmicolas Shmage. Just saying.

2) Originality: What I mean by this is that so many movies today are just the same story underneath different circumstances. We have all heard the one about the knight in shining armor who rescues the princess and they all live happily ever after. The story doesn’t change if you make the knight into a farm boy, or a high school dropout or a police officer, it’s still the same story! What I am trying to get at here is that sometimes the best stories don’t have happy endings. The situation changes, not everything works out, and nothing quite happens like you expected it to go. That”s life, and sometimes the best stories are just brutal tastes of reality, and I’m sorry to break it to everyone who loves a good fairy tale but in real life sometimes there isn’t a happy ending. This is something that I think all the best stories are founded upon. They are founded upon the principle that sometimes things just don`t turn out exactly the way you want them to, and the ending is never for certain like in your average fairy tale because just like life you should not be able to know the ending before it starts!

3) Passion: This one is just so evident for me while watching a movie. The passion I am talking about here is the one shown by the director and the rest of staff making a movie. Sure you can`t see the director exactly while you`re watching it but whether or not the director is really into his film and truly believes that it will succeed is clear as mud.

4) The Music: I almost feel like I don`t even need to explain this one. The music in a movie can be the difference between it being absolutely terrible or completely amazing! Like let`s have a test! I want you to yell at the top of your lungs if you don’t know the words to a single Disney song?… Did you hear anything? Yeah me neither. Disney has done an absolutely amazing job with the music in their films and they are praised for it! Another good example of a great movie with an awesome soundtrack is the newly released Django Unchained! They somehow managed to fit old western tunes and Kanye West in the same film and they did it like a boss! It’s a great movie and I suggest you guys check it out if not only for the soundtrack!

Alright well those are my main criteria for judging an amazing movie! Now I can only hope this summer will be filled with some awesome films! Ill see you guys at the movies!

- Luke