5 Passions

Since I'm trying to play catch up and as sure by now must have a devoted following of millions, I'm going to swing right into my newest post: 5 Passions in my life. I'm probably really too passionate about everything and my opinions are super strong about everything even when mundane. But I'll take a shot at the 5 most important to me.

1) FEMINISM
''I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat, and I will be heard.''
William Lloyd Garrison, 1832, in defense of women's rights

This one is obvious. Nothing can make me more alive with impassioned energy than any challenge to feminism or the rights of women. Not sure where this comes from, but think I was pretty much born a feminist as I was harassing my Catholic school religion teacher about abortion by the time I was 10. I must have been a suffrage activist in a previous life, or Margaret Sanger's apprentice. 
Some of my feminist heroes: Empress Maria-Theresa, Libuše, Naomi Wolf, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Susan Faludi. ...And Bridget Jones, obviously.

2) QUÉBEC and its SOVEREIGNTY
 ''Est québécois qui veut l'être.'' 
René Lévesque, defining Québec as a place where those who want to be Québécois simply are.

Québec had my heart from the moment I first crossed the border, and it still has it to this day, but I was interested in sovereignty from the first time I heard about it in Mr. Wozniak's class in high school. I wanted to know why they wanted to separate, what had happened in their history to make them feel so strongly nationalistic. When I learned, and later when I moved there, I totally understood why. Québec truly is its own place, with its own culture, its own language, its own story to tell, completely separate from that of Canada. I spent two years working for the Bloc Québécois and it still feels like the most valuable thing I ever did. It's a cause I believe in, and I still imagine myself someday in Chicoutimi, growing old with that frontier town. Included in this category is my lifelong passionate love for the French language... but only in a Québec accent with a bit of joual thrown in.
Some of my québécois heroes: René Lévesque, Jacques Parizeau, Pauline Marois, Gilles Vigneault, Thérèse Casgrain, Gilles Duceppe

3) FAMILY
''We are a??''   ''FAMILY!!''  ''And we??''   ''LOVE EACH OTHER!''
My family's battle cry, coined by my parents and drilled into our heads

My first two passions were based on my own personal pursuits, but this passion is who I am, it's what I feel in my blood and what means more to me than anything in the world. I was blessed, as previously mentioned, with two amazing parents and two fantastic sisters, and without them, I'd be nothing. Not to mention my aunts, my grandma, and all my friends who comprise my second family. 

4) GIRL BANDS
''I've seen life burn bright, I've seen it shimmer... then fade like starlight into a glimmer
I've seen life flow by like a river, so full of twilight, dreams that glitter''
Girls Aloud, Call the Shots

Some of my students like to make fun of me because I am basically physically incapable of creating a music lesson without the use of one or more girl bands. By now they are familiar with half of the Sugababes discography. One in particular dryly observed that they are all the same, but I beg to differ. They are varied goddesses of the highest degree. Even Holki, the Czech girlband that my students side-eye me for loving. I only know one person who shares my passionate love for them, and that is Matthew... it is a bond that has us inextricably linked.
Some of my girlbands: Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Monrose, Little Mix, TLC, En Vogue, Nonstop, Holki, the Saturdays, No Angels, 2NE1, SNSD, Miss A... and Fifth Harmony?

5) K-POP
''I love you every day in every way, neul saranghae!''
2NE1, I Love You

My other musical obsession, as all my friends know, is Korean pop. There's a piece of my heart somewhere in Seoul. No music makes me dance more, or feel better, than a good K-pop tune. I know everyone's in love with Gangnam Style, but if they would only delve deeper into this wonderful world of music, they would discover the endless pool and perfectly crafted pop and love it as much as I, and now some of my friends, do.
Some of my K-pop artists: SHINee, 2NE1, Big Bang, Miss A, Suzy, Sistar, Kim Soohyun, BoA, SNSD