too long for a tweet, too short for a blog post...
I have posted a blog post recap of my recent cross-Canada road trip, complete with pictures taken on my Nikon D5000, on my new photography website, photography.renjie.ca/blog
The full gallery of photos and accompanying blog post can be found at http://photography.renjie.ca/2010/08/photos-of-the-canadian-landscape/
Vancouver in September 2010
As for what my tentative plans are now moving forward, it looks like I will be making my way to Vancouver at the beginning of September for a period of two/three weeks to see what’s going on. There are no definite plans as of yet, I’m hoping to confirm some dates in the next couple of days as well. During this time in September, I’m hoping to meet with some really cool people involved with the social entrepreneurship/social innovation community, and to see where I could possibly fit in.
So if you are in Vancouver in September and would like to grab a coffee or a drink or two, please let me know by getting in touch via email (renjiebutalid at gmail dot com) or hit me up on Twitter/Facebook. Would love to hear from you!
Looking forward to the next step in this adventure.
Your friend,
Renjie
As I wait for my flight to Bahawalpur (the closest dry city to the flood stricken areas), I just wanted to share the extent of the devastation that has happened in Pakistan. Close to 14 million people have been affected according to the latest reports, compared to the 11 million odd people if you put together the Tsunami, Haiti and Pakistan Earthquake all combined:Will update after I am back in Karachi inshallah (God willing).Regards,
Looking forward to spending some quality time with my parents and two sisters over the next couple of weeks.
Look out for a wrap-up blog post of this trip across Canada within the next couple of days, as well as the photos from my Nikon D5000 once Ive gone through them and uploaded them onto my Flickr. Huge thanks to everyone who hosted my stay at all my stopovers, and many thanks to everyone for your kind words of encouragement as I made my way from Toronto to Cranbrook.
Calling it an early night tonight, looks like I'll be needing a vacation from this vacation.
Cheers,
Renjie
Stunning photo of the UK covered in snow taken on January 7, 2010, courtesy of NASA
Snow blanketed Great Britain on January 7, 2010, as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this image. Snow covers most of England, from the east to the west coast. (The large image shows snow cover over the entire island of Great Britain.) The cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and London form ghostly gray shapes against the white land surface. Immediately east of London, clouds swirl over the island, casting blue-gray shadows toward the north.
Frigid temperatures followed snowfall, leaving roads and sidewalks treacherously icy, according to news reports. As of January 7, overnight temperatures had plunged to -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in isolated spots, with more widespread temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). The heavy snowfall downed power lines, leaving several thousand homes in southern England without electricity.
Ongoing blog post of photos taken on my iPhone while I am out west visiting family for the Christmas holidays, December 23, 2009 - January 3, 2010
Updated with the PicPosterous iPhone app
Location: Calgary, AB and Cranbrook, BC
Updated December 28, 2009
Ive been in Cranbrook for almost a week now, and judging from my tweet on Christmas day, it seems that country music is really getting to me. This song by Blake Shelton has been stuck in my head the whole day.
(I took these photos in the following cities: Banff, Elora, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Waterloo)
The question of what it means to be Canadian has always been intriguing to me, given my background as a person born in the Philippines to Filipino parents, raised in the UAE from the age of five to high school graduation at seventeen, and who decided to come to Canada by myself (with the financial help of parents of course) on the basis that tuition fees for international students was much cheaper in Canada compared to the United States.
That was a number of years ago, and I am glad to have obtained my Canadian citizenship earlier this year. Early in our relationship, I used to tell Monika that the only reason I was dating her was to expedite the process of getting my Canadian papers. Jokingly of course.
It certainly makes a difference having a Canadian passport especially when traveling. Even more so when going across the border into the US. I remember having to wait hours at the border to get my fingerprints taken and eyes scanned, simply by virtue of traveling on a Filipino passport and a 10 year multiple-entry US visa. When traveling elsewhere, the reaction has almost always been positive when I mention that I am from Canada.
Copenhagen 2009
That is why when it comes to the issue of the environment, it saddens me to see that Canada is now to climate change, what Japan is to whaling.
WIth the Copenhagen talks set to take place next week, the impression that the current Canadian government will do everything in its power to wreck the talks reflects very poorly on Canadians, especially since this is incongruent with the movement building and gaining momentum in Canada right now, especially among young people.
Although the minority Harper government has used stalling tactics to delay a vote on Bill C-311 (Climate Change Accountability Act), an act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change, parliament passed a motion last week that was supported by all three opposition parties, that Canada adopt the first target from the delayed Bill C-311 as its position in Copenhagen.
That, in the opinion of the House, Canada should commit to propose at the Copenhagen conference on climate change
- reducing, through absolute reduction targets, greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries to 25% lower than 1990 levels, by 2020;
- the necessity of limiting the rise in global temperatures to less than 2oC higher than in the preindustrial era; and
- supporting the developing countries in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and adapt to climate change.
Unlike Bill C-311, this motion is not legally binding. However, this does send a powerful message to other countries and world leaders involved with the Copenhagen talks, that the current Canadian government's position on climate change does not represent the majority view of the Canadian people.
To end on a lighter note, below is an email forward that I received from a friend this morning, that helped to spark this blog post, along with the accompanying photos taken in various Canadian cities over the years, that I feel helps to capture the diversity of the Canadian landscape (or at least the places in Canada that I have visited). I am also looking forward to attending the Guelph Lecture on Being Canadian next week, featuring John Ralston Saul, considered to be one of Canada's foremost political and economic thinkers. This lecture will certainly help to put what it means to be Canadian into perspective.
An Australian’s Definition of a Canadian
You probably missed it in the local news, but there was a report that someone in Pakistan had advertised in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed a Canadian - any Canadian.
An Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define what a Canadian is, so they would know one when they found one:
“A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan.
A Canadian may also be a Cree, Métis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians.
A Canadian’s religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.
A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.
Canadians welcome the best of everything: the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least - the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.
These are the people who built Canada .
You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried, but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbor. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian.”
