Chinese Head Tax

So on this Easter Sunday, as my family and I were getting ready to go out for some lunch, my dad was asking me whether or not my sister or myself had come across my maternal great grandfather's head tax certificate. Of course we only managed to get a hold of all of her old photo albums-- black and white pictures dating back to days where she worked in Newfoundland for Joey Smallwood, pictures of her and my great grandfather on what used to be McCaul back in the 50's, but no certificate. My aunt had been calling around seeing if we had it. I think my great grandmother probably threw it away. Luckily, my paternal great grandfather's certificate is safely stowed away with my family in Ottawa.

I've spent much of my day reading up on it because it dawned on me that I really didn't know that much about my family's history. I knew that we came to Canada a really long time ago, way back in the 40's and possibly earlier (from both sides of my family). I also knew a documentary was done on one of my Great Uncles who came to Newfoundland in search of my Great Grandfather when he was only 18 years old. I have distant family members relating stories in a video shown at the Museum for Civilization in Ottawa sharing what it was like to live in Newfoundland as a minority. Call me slow and stupid (which I often am), but I honestly never realized that we were also a part of that shameful period where the Canadian Government were ignorant and racist towards the Chinese, and where the Chinese people endured the shame in hopes of making a better life in Canada.

The CBC has a great indepth section about Chinese immigration to Canada and is a quick overview of the Chinese in Canada dating from 1788 to the present day. The Chinese Canadian National Association has been pressuring the government for a formal apology and compensation for the descendants of people who had to pay the fee to get into Canada.

Resolution #10. Broken.

That's right. Resolution #10 has been broken over and over again.

Resolution #10: Will Learn how to say no.

I think in my personal life I've done much better at being able to stop myself, to say no to other people, but at work I find that it's impossible. I can't stop agreeing to do everything because I want to do my part in making the company better, and most time I'm naive in thinking that I can fit absolutely everything into my schedule. I've worked on this one project for too long. And as much as I want to help them it's been one of those things where information keeps on going back and forth, and new things get revealed with every pass at the solution. Quite honestly I thought I was going to go crazy (well more crazy than I already am).

How does a person learn to say no in the work environment? I feel like I still need to bust my ass off to show everyone I'm a capable female engineer. But at what point do you tactfully say, no because I really can't handle it? And without the fear that someone will go berserk on you?

For the Love of God. Someone Help Our Prime Minister

Now I'm not a big fan our our new Conservative government. I tried to convince everyone I knew to vote anything but Conservative, but somehow, out in Western Canada, they believed that Stephen Harper was meant to be our next Prime Minister.

About 2 months have passed. Besides his occasional semi-retarded comments, the robot who we call PM has done a tolerable job (if you exclude the fact that he's completely fucked up childcare in this country, could potentially screw up our healthcare, and has broken about a half dozen other promises he made in his platform) probably because it doesn't seem like he has much to do except travel and mingle with other leaders in the world. Which leads me to my beef... the way Stephen Harper looks when he's meeting with other world leaders.

I've seen him wear this retarded vest twice already! Once while in Afghanistan, and the second while meeting with Mexico and the US. The man has admitted to packing on a few pounds, which is fine, but his publicists and wardrobe assistants haven't seemed to get the message. Overall the man doesn't dress poorly, but his stupid vest:

1. Makes his stomach look 2 times the size, and makes his body severely out of proportion. Perhaps the brains of the robot and power source are in the vest?
2. Reminds you of some sport fisherman who's about to take off for a weekend at the cottage to do a little fishing... can you take him seriously? Or it could pass as a vest you might wear in the military. Yeah boys let's play war!! I'm the soldier and you're the bad guy! Bang bang!
3. goddamn lacks professionalism. That hick Bush has more decency to wear a nice light summer dress shirt.

Note the following images:

Exhibit A: Not sooo bad...

Exhibit B: ugh. Make note of really short arms

Exhibit C: 10th trimester

I know there are more important issues in the country, but do we really want the world to think of us Canadians as frumpy? That we're such mean people, we force our PM to wear nasty suits from 1989 because we won't give him a little money to purchase a new one?