Subway Etiquette

Public transportation is designed to be an affordable and convenient way to get around the city, but that does not mean that riding the subway in Toronto is always a pleasant experience. Subway cars are often packed like sardines, the plush seats are covered with stains, and strange smells that you can’t quite make out, linger in the stale air.

Crowding during rush hour and occasional delays are unavoidable, but other factors that contribute to the experience are largely controlled by the riders. Whether on your way to work, school or an appointment, your actions impact other peoples' experiences on the subway. This is why good subway etiquette is essential.

Here are a few suggestions that may make the daily commute a little easier for everyone to handle:

1. Move away from the door when the subway stops if you are not exiting. People will be able to come and go much quicker if the doorway is not congested with passengers that don’t blink an eye when the doors open.
2. Don’t put your chewed, stale gum on the seat. No one wants to unknowingly walk around with gum stuck to their butt all day.
3. Never push people out of the way to get to a recently vacated seat.
4. When you have a cold or the flu keep extra Kleenex in your pocket- don’t wipe your runny nose with your hand and then proceed to hang onto handle bar (note: always wash your hands after you’ve been on the subway).
5. Don’t throw your copy of the morning paper or half-empty coffee cup on the floor; hang onto your garbage for the extra minute or two before you pass by a garbage or recycling bin.
6. Make sure your dog is house broken before bringing them on the subway- no one likes to walk through puddles in the subway or the smell of urine.
7. Don’t stare at the person who is sitting a few inches away from you. This makes for an incredibly tense and uncomfortable subway ride.
8. When you are going up or down the escalator obey the simple principle of stand right, walk left.

Although these suggestions seem simple they could be the difference between having a good or bad day for a commuter.

Of Alien Abductions and Sleep Paralysis

Photo by Luz A. Villa

You wake up in the middle of a night. There are unusual flashes of light and a buzzing or a humming sound. Feelings of anxiety and fear take over you as you sense the presence of an unexplained being in the room. All of a sudden your chest feels heavy and you start having trouble breathing. You try to move, but you find yourself completely paralyzed except for your eyes. Your body starts to levitate … How would you respond?

If you have been exposed to enough popular media, you would probably think that you were experiencing a paranormal phenomenon; out-of-body experiences, ghosts, demonic encounters, poltergeists, and aliens… But in fact there is another, more plausible, explanation. Scientist point out the similarities between such enigmatic incidents and sleep paralysis.

During a typical sleep paralysis episode, a person wakes up fully conscious but without the ability to move for a few minutes, which can cause an intense feeling of fear, even terror. The person also experiences hypnagogic hallucinations, generally vivid and unpleasant, which occur at the onset of sleep or before awakening. In this paralyzed state between sleep and consciousness, the imagined aliens and demons will seem extremely real. This experience alone may be enough to create the feeling of having been abducted or possessed. Hypnosis, guided imagery, regression, and relaxation therapies could all make the memories of this real experience (but not real abduction) completely convincing, by lulling the “abductee” into a suggestive state.

It is not clear when sleep paralysis was first noted as a sleeping disorder, but the phenomenon seems to underlie common myths such as witch or hag riding in England, the Old Hag of Newfoundland, Kanashibari (literally meaning: "bound or fastened in metal") in Japan, and Karabasan in Turkey, among others. During the Medieval times, women who were pregnant, but not married, would often accuse an incubus, a demon which supposedly would lie upon sleepers in order to have sexual intercourse with them. This feeling of being smothered whilst sleeping has been known since the ancient times as a nightmare. While in our modern age, we choose not to believe in such fairy tales anymore, there are nearly four million Americans who claim that they have had certain indicator experiences and therefore had probably been abducted by aliens. According to a Gallup poll done at the end of the twentieth century, about one-third of Americans believe aliens have visited us, an increase of 5% over the previous decade. It seems that alien abductions are the contemporary sleep paralysis myths.

Of course just because people believe that they are being visited by aliens doesn’t mean that they are mentally ill. In fact, a study done in 1993, which compared forty-nine UFO reporters with two control groups, found that they were no less intelligent, no more fantasy prone, and no more hypnotizable than the controls. So why are people so susceptible to believing in something incongruous with reason, such as alien abductions? The answer is simple. William J. Cromie from Harward News Office explains, “Some people become so absorbed by what happened and seek an explanation of it. That can lead them into a grab of different techniques well known to those with a rich fantasy life and a distaste for scientific explanations.”


On a side note: If aliens actually arrived on earth to abduct our most successful inhabitant they would look to bacteria. By any criteria which you can judge a successful inhabitant bacteria would win hands down in terms of profusion, diversity, and the ability to live under extraordinary circumstances; even we entirely depend upon them to survive.

Tall, extra hot, sugar-free, vanilla, soy latte...

Photo by Janine

For many people their day doesn’t officially begin until they’ve had their morning cup of Joe. It provides that jump start they need to get them going in the morning and face the day’s challenges head-on.

My coffee vendor of choice is Starbucks- after seven years I can finally admit that I am a full blown Starbucks addict. If I don’t have my regular coffee in the morning I crave it and find myself having two coffees later that afternoon to make up for it.

For some people coffee tastes best in its simplest form, free of milk and sugar, but I have acquired a taste for a much more complicated drink. Something that only the staff at Starbucks can seem to make just the way I like it. Every morning when I ask for a tall, extra hot, sugar-free, vanilla, soy latte I know that it is going to be just what I need to take the morning edge off.

I have tried to cut my Starbucks habit down to once or twice a week, but I find myself making excuses as to why I need one: I’m tired, it’s cold outside, I deserve just one last coffee. Their staff knows how to get you hooked- they become friendly acquaintances, occasionally slipping you a free drink coupon or they increase your drink size to grande to keep you coming back- I always do.

My family and friends are enablers giving me Starbucks cards for birthdays, Christmas and even Easter. It would be an insult if I didn’t use their gift, and I wouldn’t want to be rude. I promise myself that I’ll quit once I’ve used up all of my gift cards but I just need one more tall, extra hot, sugar-free, vanilla, soy latte to get me through the day.

How much should you weigh?

Photo by Nelson Minar

I’ve been dieting for 41 years. I can safely say that I’ve never weighed the correct amount. And what is correct?

There are two popular sources for determining your correct weight, or perhaps more accurately stated, your healthy weight.

BMI – The Body Mass Index table uses a formula to calculate how much you should weigh depending on your height and gender. For the “average” adult this is a reasonable measure of ideal weight. The table also shows at which point you are considered overweight, obese and morbidly obese.

Insurance tables – These were first developed by Met Life in 1943. The tables are also based on height and gender, and also look at your frame size. The size of your frame is determined by the width of your elbow. The bigger your frame, the higher the average weight for your height.

The whimsically named “Happy Weight” chart from Self magazine uses a combination of these parameters. It uses a formula based on your height, a BMI of 22, your frame size (based on your wrist size), age, and a few questions about your parents and your lifestyle. It’s also only for women and perhaps lacks some of the scientific rigor of the BMI chart.

If I plug my measurements into each of these tools, I get roughly the same healthy weight suggestion. A l-o-o-o-n-g way from my current weight.

The best place to help determine your ideal weight is a visit to your doctor. Get weighed. Get your blood pressure measured. Get your cholesterol measured. Your doctor can provide guidance on what your healthy weight should be.

If you’re not at a healthy weight, the doctor can make suggestions on how to reach this weight. Of course, there’s always Dr. Google to help find articles on how to change your habits to reach your healthy weight. Just remember that if you make any changes, you should check with your doctor first especially if embarking on an exercise regimen or changes to what you eat.

Did I tell you I’m big boned?

To the Girl in the Photograph

You haven't met me yet, but I have known you for quite a while now - a little over a decade to be exact. You were my favorite age. Even as a ten-year-old you knew exactly who you were. Don't worry, you haven't exactly changed through all these years, but you did have to grow up, perhaps sometimes a little unwillingly.

• Dance! Dance even when you think you look like an idiot. The chances are you probably do look like an idiot, but you will never feel freer.

• Read. Read anything you can get your hands on because there are no limits to knowledge. As Oscar Wilde once said; "There are no moral or immoral books. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all".

• And while on the subject of Oscar Wilde, know that he died in 1900 and that he isn't the same person as Stephen Fry, although there is an uncanny resemblance. I'm sorry that Madame Tussauds 1997 catalog with Fry posing next to the Wilde wax figure had you fooled, which brings me to my next point:

• If only your English had been good enough to translate the short paragraph under that image you would have figured it out by yourself. Trust me and study the language because you're going to want to read everything Stephen Fry will ever write.

• You will know what it feels to have heroes.

• I don't want to alarm you but you will be moving to another country. And although you won't even be able to locate this country on a map right now (it's right here), know that you will consider it your second home for seven extraordinary years. When you feel like you would give anything to be somewhere else, remember, this is a unique experience that will make you a cultured, understanding, and all together, a better human being.

• You don't have to believe in God. And that's ok. Now can you please tell that to your Religions teacher in sixth grade?

• You will soon learn that mothers are often right, except for the times when they are not (although don't ever let her know that).

• You don't actually want to be in International Relations - just a warning.
  

• Don't stop kissing your parents goodnight.

• On the morning of August 29, 2001, call your grandmother and tell her she will always be your favorite person in the world. Later in the afternoon when you ring her doorbell and she doesn't answer, do not enter the house.

Hang in there ten-year-old self, you're going to be ok.
And don't worry about the future, I'll do that for the both of us.

Room 221B

It is known as "Room 221B" in the library - a small, cluttered room on the fifth floor, furnished in the Victorian style, and named after an address on Baker Street in London, an address that does not actually exist. After circling every floor in the building, I finally spotted the well known silhouette above a door in the far end corner. With a calabash pipe and a deerstalker hat, he is one of the most universally recognizable fictional characters in history. This is the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection in the Toronto Reference Library, a celebration of the author and his works and, of course, Sherlock Holmes.

Photo by Jose Maria Mateos

Perhaps I would have never discovered the ACD Collection if I wasn't given a research assignment on the Toronto Reference Library a few months ago. Until this point I had never been inside a public library. I'm also ashamed to admit that although I am familiar with his stories (thank you ITV!), I had never actually read a Doyle novel.

I was greeted inside by the curator of the collection, Peggy Perdue. A petite woman with glasses, she spoke in a calm voice as if not to disturb the atmosphere of the room. "Let me know if you need any help," she said. I was curious to know why Arthur Conan Doyle? Peggy explained to me that the idea of a special Doyle collection was born in 1969 when the library acquired a collection of fiction by the author and expanded it from there. "And there has always been a great interest in his work," she added. (In fact there are three new Sherlock Holmes projects coming up in the next year; Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., a so far untitled comedy co-produced by Judd Apatow and starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the master detective, and BBC's contemporary remake simply titled Sherlock.)

I was surprised to be the only visitor in the room but Peggy told me I had just missed a group of eight. A man in his fifties entered the room shortly after and Peggy introduced him to me as "Bob", better known as Robert Coghill, a Sherlockian who serves the board of directors of the Friends of the ACD Collection. Upon learning of my interest in the room he took me around to tell me about each object personally. The allusions to the Holmesian world spread all around the room were not meant for a novice like me, but Bob, an aficionado, told me all about the references to the Persian slipper lying on the mantel, the six Napoleon busts lined up on a shelf, and the porcelain boot given as a present to the collection.

The library collects different editions of Doyle's works, along with rare editions and translations in 40 to 50 different languages (which testifies to his world-wide popularity), adaptations, parodies, pastiches, as well as critical and biographical studies. Only a few people come into this room to read, for research or for pleasure, and most of the collection's visitors regard it as nothing more than a museum to be quickly browsed and admired. I wondered how many people who visit this room are even aware that it holds a copy of the first Sherlock Holmes story ever published (in Beeton's Christmas Annual of 1887, one of thirty copies in the world). "A private copy was sold last year for $156000," Bob informed me, before storing the 121-year-old magazine back away in its box and locking it in a cabinet. "It is kept under three different locks so it's safe here," he smiled.

I found it difficult not to become an enthusiast as I was fascinated by the artifacts surrounding me. I promised myself to come back and pull up a comfortable chair by the illuminated stained glass window depicting the character who just two hours before I barely knew anything about. Unfortunately I was soon sucked back into the reality of my modern life and was never able to visit the room again.

At least I know now that the Room 221B exists, somewhere.



The Collection is open from 2:00pm to 4:00pm on Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays and by appointment. Toronto Reference Library is located on 789 Yonge St.

To Be, Or Not To Be....Uncool

Flickr photo by tatu43

I am officially uncool.

This moment of revelation came while I visiting an old teenage haunt, The Dungeon. I spent almost every weekend at the basement all-ages club from the age of 15 to the end of high school. Some of my fondest memories happened there, though I would never repeat most of them to my parents even now.

I found myself there again to hear a friend’s band play. Walking in those doors again was surreal because the place had literally not changed from the time I was there, but my group and I did not fit in. We were the oldest people in the room, save for the band we were there to see and the parents of some of the other bands (who we later found ourselves hanging out with in the 19+ section). Our clothes were not skin tight, our hair was not cut asymmetrically, and some of us were even wearing colours.

This wasn’t the moment of revelation though – that came when the band started and the youngsters started “dancing”. At first I thought medical attention was needed due to what looked to be a group seizure, but I was informed by somebody cooler than myself that what these kids were doing was actually a new trend called throwdown.

Noun
Throwdown
(slang, hardcore punk music) A type of hardcore dance in which a person violently clears a space for himself and appears to be ready to fight those around him, while making violent and erratic movements with his body.

- Wikipedia

I grew up during the nu metal period when weird looking people were the norm and I could safely navigate my way through a mosh pit, but I had a sense that night of what my parents must have thought as I was running off to concerts as a teen. That is when it dawned on me, for as much as I thought I was cool back then, I am just completely uncool now.

A Renewed Appreciation or How I Learned to Deal with the Economic Crisis

The weight of it is balanced between thumbs below, and fingertips above. It must be held in the most particular way, not sacrifice its contents. At first bite, it’s soft, then biting further through the layers – saucy, crispy, juicy – its all brought together in perfect combination, to be chewed…savoured…devoured. I nod and release a sound acknowledging my satisfaction. I never knew before just how much I love burgers.

Step aside MacDonald's and M&M Meats Shops. During the past six months, indulgent burger dine-ins and take-outs have been expanding their reach across the city. Founded on the principals of quality meats, unique toppings (rosemary mayo?) and freshness, made-to-order. A $9-$17 comfort meal is the best way splurge during tough economic times. Eating your emotions never tasted so good.

Earliest claim to the burger creation is Charlie Nagreen who dished-up the first “hamburger” between two slices of bread at the Outagamie County Fair of 1885 by flattening a meatball. Seymour, Wisconsin, has declared their town of 3,000 to be “home of the hamburger” and holds an annual celebration of the bun’d beef.

"Hamburger" now shortened to "burger" has, according to Wikipedia, become a generic term:

...[it] may refer to sandwiches that have ground meat, chicken, fish (or even vegetarian) fillings other than a beef patty, but share the characteristic round bun.

Toronto has many great vegetarian options and I recently enjoyed a delicious “Redemption Burger” – a stacking of Portobello mushrooms on a whole wheat bun – served-up at Sin & Redemption (136 McCaul Street).

Yet is a burger a burger without beef?

Acme Burger at 500 Bloor St. W, is sandwiched in the sushi war-zone of the Annex. It's open late enough to feed the post last-call crowd pouring out of Lee’s Palace and the Ye Olde Brunswick House until 4 a.m. The company opened its first location at Queensway & Royal York in 2006 and serves-up 100% certified angus beef.

Burger Shoppe opened its second location Burger Shoppe Quality Meats (which includes an expanded menu) at 210 Ossington. Burger Shoppe owner, Saeed Mohamed, was "tired of the corporate fast food chains,” (aren't we all?) sparking the idea for a burger venture that uses local ingredients and recyclable, biodegradable utensils and packaging.

Former Burger Shoppe partner, Mustafa Yusuf, left to open Craft Burger (573 King St. W) and in January, opened its second at 830 Yonge St. Their organic beef option is sourced from The Healthy Butcher. The "Craft Blue" (pictured top left) is a 6 oz. fresh - never frozen - patty topped with gorgonzola cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and rosemary mayo...sided with fries and an old-style root beer by Boylan. Priced at $16.50 for the combo, you would never know there's a recession by the full tables and the endless queue of customers.

On Queen West near Bathurst, a papered store-front window declares a new burger business, Oh Boy! Burger Market (flippin' good), is scheduled to open soon. The patrons of Tattoo Rock Parlour and others will have an alternate option to Pizza Pizza.

Summer weekends in northern Ontario are filled with memories of my father; platter stacked and ready, basting brush in hand, barbecue sauce bottle precariously balanced on the edge of the tray. The grill ready to go. Soon it would be time to sit outside in the summer sun and eat.

Stepping outside my Toronto apartment, on a cold March day, a summer taste experience isn’t too far away...no matter the balance in my bank account.

All photos by Nina H.

Privatization: The Big Bad Wolf of Health-Care In Canada

Photo by Vangelis Thomaidis

I love our health-care system in Canada.

I love that I am one of the fortunate ones who has a family doctor, and who can always get an appointment same day. I love that I don’t have to worry about whether I have enough money in the bank to get treatment when I am sick.

But there are problems, of course, as nothing is perfect. When I had my first seizure two years ago I had to wait two months before I could even get an initial appointment with a neurologist. As a result I had another seizure. So what, right? Well it is a big deal when the Ministry of Transportation says you can have an isolated seizure and have your driver’s license suspended for a month, but more than one seizure and your license is suspended for at least 6 months.

So I lost my license for 6 months, which caused a huge strain on my job, my relationship, my family, and my budget. Thank god I am lucky to have supportive friends and family around me, but I wonder what would have happened had I been able to see my neurologist that first week and get on the right medication right away to control the seizures. Considering the fact that I have been seizure free since starting on treatment I would wager a guess that I could have had my independence back far sooner than the almost eight months it took to have my license reinstated. Would I have paid for this privilege? In a heartbeat.

I don’t have all the answers to make a two-tier system work, but I believe it could with the right regulations (I realize that I am probably one of a small majority of Canadians who believe this). I don’t want to take anything away from our public system, again I love our health-care system in Canada - I just want more choice. As I see it, in a perfect world the word “privatization” would be a term worth considering, rather than a curse word meant to be shot down the moment it is uttered.