Tag: personal experience

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Student Life

A collision on the path of life

Archive graphic by Zeze Le Lin

I woke up for my 10:45 class and hurriedly started making breakfast — an egg-salad sandwich, an unusual breakfast that started off a truly unusual day.   

I left my house with around 20 minutes to arrive to class; I had a 25-minute bike ride to go. Gaining momentum as I went downhill, the wind blew in my face and I felt like a man on a mission who was not going to stop at anything to arrive punctually. I felt invincible and nothing mattered more than arriving to class on time. How wrong and delusional I was!

I completed half the ride in a very short amount of time and I was on schedule. On Victoria St. and Lacombe St., I blasted through a couple of stop signs in a row since there were no cars on the street. After all, I was invincible. As I sped down the street, I noticed a car approaching me on my right. I assumed it would slow down so I could gracefully maneuver around it and be on my way. Nothing deplorable or dangerous could happen to me!

Suddenly, I realized this car and I had a perpendicular collision: it directly hit the side of my bike and I flew into the air. I flung my arms out wide as they smashed against the ground with my legs hitting right after. How simultaneously ephemeral and timeless was that moment when I was suspended in the air with my fate uncertain and my mind bewildered.

It all happened so fast. As soon as I was on the ground, I was already up off the pavement — there was no reason to pity myself or wait to see if I was injured. Immediately, a woman got out of the car and asked if I was alright. I looked at my body, felt my limbs, assessed for pain, and replied: “Yes, I’m okay. That was my fault — my responsibility. That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t call the police.”

She asked if the bike was okay, and I assured her there were no damages apart from the chain falling off. Almost as if a divine entity possessed this strange woman, she placed both of her arms on my shoulders and said “may the blood of Christ protect this young man on his journey and may he be offered a safe passage through the world.” I said thank you, and I meant it.

She got back in the car and slowly pulled off. I fixed my chain and kept going, shaken up yet grateful beyond belief that I survived a major collision unscathed — that was the closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever experienced. The only injuries I sustained from it were a sore left hand and a wholly unremarkable scratch on the underside of my left leg.

I arrived at Loyola three minutes late for my class. I locked my bike, walked up to my class, arrived at the door — the room was empty. My heart sunk as a feeling of pitiable ecstasy flushed through my being. I arrived a full hour early for my class.

Ridiculed by the universe, I started laughing hysterically. What a great comedic game that the universe orchestrates — these forces above me, the gods of old, who had been betrayed by the ignorance of modern man, were revived and active forces in my psyche! I then realized my priorities had been gravely mistaken. Why had I felt that the approval of my teachers and classmates trumped my own safety? Upon arrival at the empty classroom, my actions were put in perspective.

As I walked through the hallways, I overheard classes taking place. I briefly listened to a man speaking with passion and conviction to a receptive audience. Glancing into the classroom windows, I was humbled and grateful by the fact that we live in a free society with the opportunity to learn with ease and privilege.

I went outside and sat on a bench, looking at people walking to and from their classes, all with a place to go, a path to follow. For everything, small and large, I felt appreciative and accepting, grateful for all things as they are. People’s responses to what happened were often that I was stupid to arrive an hour early, but in life, you aren’t often given chances of death and rebirth without pain. I learned a valuable lesson without dying! They say that cats have nine lives. Maybe humans have three — and I have one remaining. How I lost the first one? That’s for another story.

 

Archive graphic by Zeze Le Lin

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Student Life

Ayurveda: A spiritual and physical journey to health and recovery

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Ayurveda is an ancient Indian holistic medical practice encouraging self-healing through the mind, body and soul; and it helped me heal.

In his book Ayurveda: The Science of Self-Healing, medical practitioner and professor of Ayurvedic Medicine Dr. Vasant Lad writes that Ayurveda is concerned with eight branches of medicine: pediatrics, gynecology (female health), obstetrics (childbirth), ophthalmology (eyes), geriatrics (elder health), otolaryngology (ear, throat and nose), general medicine, and surgery. 

According to Lad, each branch is addressed according to theories of the five elements (ether, air, fire, water and earth), the tridosha, and the trinity of life (body, mind and spiritual awareness). The tridosha are three energies that define a person’s makeup: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (water and earth). 

An ayurvedic practitioner will determine your constitution through tests like observing the tongue, nail health, taking your pulse, etc. They ask questions about your health in detail, from your bowel movements to how you sleep. Your makeup is then determined and you’ll receive a plan to help you heal and balance your doshas.

My experience 

My symptoms of nausea, bloating, indigestion, etc. worsened and hadn’t faded after over five years of visiting various doctors. My family doctor dismissed my symptoms and blamed them on my anxiety. My gastroenterologist (without testing me) dismissed me by concluding I had a “sensitive stomach” and recommended I remove meat from my diet (which I already had). I was fed up and lost hope when I noticed additional complications like iron deficiency, among other things.

After visiting Bita Bitajian, an ayurvedic practitioner at the Transformation Ayurvedic Center in St-Lambert, I was told my makeup is Pitta-Kapha: I am full of fire and warmth, making me intelligent, sharp, emotional but tolerant, calm and loving. I gain weight easily and have trouble turning my mind off to sleep. 

With my symptoms, I was diagnosed with aggravated Vata, which can throw my doshas off balance. I had to drastically change my diet for more than a month: no carbs and gluten, fermentation or processed sugar, limited starch and dairy intake, and I had to avoid bananas. I basically ate grass for a month because I don’t eat meat and usually only eat carbs. I also had strict rules to follow: eat before 1 p.m. and not after 8 p.m., drink rose tea twice daily, go to sleep before midnight, go to the gym three times a week and practice yoga and meditation almost daily. 

I didn’t realize how much the food I ate actually impacted how I felt. Since I was so often dismissed by my family doctor, food intolerances didn’t really cross my mind; I didn’t think my symptoms were as severe as they actually were. 

After one week, I felt lighter; I wasn’t bloated or nauseous, nor was I running to the bathroom every hour. Despite the difficult diet, the initial results were enough for me to stick with it. I was very strict with my diet, I tried to go to the gym as much as I could and I focused on breathing exercises every night to help with my insomnia and anxiety. I felt incredible after two weeks.

Now

Seven weeks in, I’m fed up with the diet but incredibly grateful for the results. I occasionally get indigestion and get bloated, but not like before. This journey has taught me to be mindful of what, how, when, and why I eat. I learned it’s important to listen to your body and provide the proper nutrients to function at its maximum potential. I even started slowly integrating some things back into my diet and am now looking to get tested for gluten intolerance.

I would recommend Ayurveda to anyone who feels stuck and needs to change their lifestyle and habits. If you need physical and spiritual healing, this could be a great option for you.

 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

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Student Life

My personal experience with counselling

Graphic by Thom Bell

How one Concordian got through anxiety and self-confidence issues with the help of a psychologist

I guess I would say it started about halfway through secondary three.  I always seemed to be plagued by this idea that no one really liked me. It wasn’t the unsettling feeling of having an off day or not being my usual self—it was an ongoing feeling of anxiety based on this worry that no one in my circle of friends really wanted anything to do with me.

In fact, they all probably hated me. And why not, right? I was annoying, I always complained, I never did anything fun, I never laughed enough, I never went out enough—or so I thought.

I went on living this way for almost a year, and the bad thoughts and insecurities got perpetually worse.

To add to my rapidly depleting self-confidence, one of my classmates decided to make me the target of her bullying. I hated every day I had to get out of bed, because I had to face the people my anxieties and behaviour had ultimately pushed away: my best friends.

It got so bad that I couldn’t say anything to them without feeling this intense wave of anxiety and self-hatred. I would start telling myself, “Shut up Gab, nobody cares about what you have to say. You’re ugly, you’re stupid, you’re dumb and you have no friends. They all just hang out with you because they feel bad that you’re such a fucking loser.”

I knew I couldn’t go on like this. I will always remember the day when—in the midst of silent car ride with my mother, without even looking at her, I told her I needed to see a psychologist.

She handled it beautifully and gave me the card of a psychologist she’d heard many good things about.

Today, I can say without a doubt that seeing a psychologist changed my life. I am not the same person who walked into that office four years ago. Seeing a psychologist helped me face my demons, become confident in the person I am and believe that I am worth all the love and respect in the world.

It’s definitely not easy to overcome self-hatred. Taking control of your life, when you’ve been so used to sitting back and letting it take control of you, is extremely difficult. You are forced to dig up aspects of your life you buried ages ago because they were just too hard to deal with. I promise you though, it’s worth it.

Thanks to counselling, I was able to tell my bully I wouldn’t stand for how she was treating me anymore. I was able to have an open, honest dialogue with my friends about my anxieties.

This is why  I’m writing this—to encourage you to seek help if you think you need it. Self-love is hard, and I still have a long way to go before I can fully appreciate my uniqueness.  But now I know how to disassociate my hateful thoughts from the person I actually am.

I now know how to take a step back before becoming overwhelmed by anxiety and self-deprecation.  I analyze the situation that is making me feel this way and determine how I can resolve it.

Counselling gave me the tools to work on self-love, a little bit at a time.

Categories
Student Life

My experience with learning disabilities

Graphic by Thom Bell

One Concordia student’s experience dealing with dyslexia and learning disabilities

It is without question that the greatest thing dyslexia has taught me is patience.

In elementary school, I didn’t start out on the same even playing field as the rest of the kids when it came to reading.  It was obvious to everyone. As a kid, being dyslexic and having memory problems felt like I was trying to join in on a game that, not only did I not know the rules to, but that I wasn’t allowed to play. It was incredibly alienating.

While my friends were reading Magic Tree House books, I couldn’t even read street signs. I knew I was different. At the time, the only logical conclusion I could come to was that I must not be very smart. When you’re nine years old and you think you’re dumb because you can’t read, spell, do math or really participate in school… well it almost shut me down.

Fortunately, I was lucky.  My parents decided to remove me from the French immersion program I was in at the time, and transferred me to a school with a special education program.  I know this was a delicate and serious decision for my parents to make.  Transferring schools meant uprooting the entire social life of a child who was already dealing with severe emotional anxiety.

Obviously, I think they worried that I had trouble making friends. After all, I was a rash-covered, highly nervous little kid who spent the majority of the day in a separate special education class. I only recently found out that my dad was so worried about me during this time that, after dropping me off at school in the mornings, he would sometimes sit in the car and just cry before driving away to work.

I say that I am incredibly lucky because I had a good support system and hard work on my part eventually made things easier.  Also, lots of educational testing, being given the resources I needed in my special education program and having amazing teachers who were thoughtful, kind, passionate, patient and incredibly dedicated made a huge difference. I was given the time and opportunity to come into my own, in a protected bubble where my results on educational testing didn’t matter.

At Concordia, I am still benefiting from the same kinds of resources I had back in elementary school, thanks in large part to the Access Centre for Students with Disabilities and some of the amazing and accommodating professors I have had during my time at Concordia.

My only piece of advice for those with learning disabilities, or for their family members, is to be patient. It can be a very long road when you have a learning disability, so it’s important to celebrate the small victories and remain determined. This patience and hard work will hopefully bring you closer to your goals and to success in school and life, as it did for me.

Graphic by Thom Bell

Categories
Student Life

My experience with name discrimination

Graphic by Thom Bell

Last year, my roommate invited me to go back home with her to Vermont for the weekend.

As a Canadian citizen, I did not expect any problems at the border. When we got there, the border patrol agent took our passports in order to identify us. The officer breezed through my roommate’s passport. He read her Western name aloud, calmly. With my passport in his hand, he paused. His demeanour changed.

It is important to note that, although I identify with the name Jenny, my legal name is Jihan.  Ironically, Jenny is not a nickname to appeal to western preferences. My mother and father had differing ideas of what they wanted to name me, so they compromised. One would be my legal name and one would be the name they would call me. Thus, although I have a traditional eastern name as well as a traditional western name, I did not choose either nor did I choose which one would I would identify with.

The agent looked at the name on my passport with what I can only describe as a hybrid look of disgust and frustration. Finally, he looked at me and asked, “What’s your name?” as if he would not even allow himself to say it aloud. Sheepishly, I replied “Jihan… sorry.” He gave me one last look of distaste and stamped my passport.

As we drove off, my roommate was incredulous.  She couldn’t believe how rude the agent had been, but she also couldn’t believe I had apologized.

Apologizing for my own name to that agent was the result of 21 years worth of microaggressions that I have had to silently endure as a minority raised in Canada.

That instance of discrimination was not the first, nor would it be the last. My name would go on to cause more unpleasant reactions from people attempting to pronounce it.

When I was younger, I hated when a substitute teacher would come to class because I knew what would happen during attendance. This stranger would do what every other stranger did to my name: they would stumble on it and proceed to get frustrated or embarrassed.

To be clear, I don’t believe the problem lies in the mispronunciation of my name or any other non-Western name. The problem occurs when my name is perceived as an inconvenience to those unfamiliar with it.

In my experience, this feeling of inconvenience usually leads to a feeling of aversion.

It is in every face that is scrunched up, not in confusion but in frustration. It is in every careless pronunciation of a name, butchered, with no apology. It is in every shortening or changing of a non-Western name to make it sound more Western. For example, some people legally change their names because it is a commonly accepted fact that it will be easier for minorities to get a job this way.

These are all microaggressions that may not be noticeable to those doing it, but the “othering” that occurs through them has real impacts on the self esteem and self identification of those receiving them.

It is through these types of microaggressions that we see larger, more overt results of discrimination and racial stereotyping such as categorizing typical African American names, and thus the people with those names, as “ghetto”, or traditional Arab names (and people) as “dangerous”.

Unfortunately, this demonstrates that discrimination can occur in far more insidious ways than we actively know about.

Graphic by Thom Bell

Categories
Student Life

What to do when you don’t know what to do

Photo provided by Candice Yee

I first fell head over heels for Montreal during a sweltering hot summer. The narrow streets, public art, the French-buzz and of course, the lower drinking age, convinced me—Little Miss West Coast—to go to Montreal for university.

Photo provided by Candice Yee

In reality, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was raised in the land of sushi, beaches, and Lululemon pants. My French was horrible, and I didn’t foresee the Canada Goose jacket trend for months to come.

Prior to Concordia, I worked hard in high school for my grades. I wanted to leap into post-secondary school, confident in my abilities and my future. My grandparents’ plan was for me to stay in Vancouver and become a doctor or a lawyer. My plan was to get the hell out of there, and study something that I loved.

The problem was, someone needed to remind me of my passions and aspirations. Truthfully, I had no idea what they were. I attended a mini arts program for visual arts in high school, so I chose the safest route from there.

I applied to the Studio Arts program at Concordia, where the Journalism program was my second choice; just for kicks. However, the extent of my journalism experience was writing flimsy fashion articles for my high school newspaper.

After going through extensive (and expensive) application procedures, I received acceptance letters to both programs. I accepted my offer to studio arts. Then, upon the daunting prospect of being a jobless hipster working at Starbucks, I switched to journalism.

Yet, since entering the program, I understand that news writing guarantees little financial security.

Here I am—a journalism major at Concordia—and I’m not happy. I have not fallen in love with journalism. I waited to plunge into the world of style blogs and the world of Vogue and Elle magazines, but alas, I face the realities of writing and reading about politics and drab human-interest stories.

I didn’t want to admit to my parents that journalism wasn’t a good fit. If I were to switch programs, personally, I would feel like a failure. The major would be left unfinished and I would have wasted time and money. But then, I met a guy named Eric. Someone who once battled the same dilemma that I’m facing now.

My random conversation with Eric made me rethink my choice to jump straight into a major. Taking a six-year break between studies, Eric found his place at Concordia’s Liberal Arts College. I had no idea what I would be doing in six years, but I hopefully would not still be in school.

I told him about my quest to find my “true passion,” and then he asked me a question that really got me thinking. “Why are you so concerned about finding out what you want right away?”

He was right. What was the rush? The urgency I felt was rooted in pressure from my high school counsellors, parents, and most importantly, myself. But truthfully, I feel like I’m running out of time.

I don’t want to be the 27-year-old in an undergraduate program. Nor do I want to be the travelling “taking time off” student, wasting away my parent’s cash while attempting to find my inner-self.

I’ve decided next fall, I will take it easy.

I need an open-ended program to allow me to breathe, and see where my interests lie. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll find it here at Concordia, or even in Montreal. Home is where the heart is they say — until I feel like I’m going to strangle my parents, that is.

The memory of my eagerness and excitement to start the first semester is such a contrast from where I stand now: unsure, afraid, and homesick. However, I realize I can’t continue my first-year experience looking forward to the end. My independence has been tested. The only thing left to do is make the best of the present.

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