1. Where does this find you? Tell the story of how you got here.

Well, I am a French speaking Canadian from Quebec currently living in Anglophone Vancouver for the last 3 years in an attempt to complete a Ph.D. in Medical Genetics. At this point in time, I think I can no longer speak properly French or English and my Ph.D. project doesn’t involve anything medical or genetic (but still have hopes to complete). So we can conclude that I’m currently in the gray area of the foreigner living in its own country.


2. Why do you Moblog? How do you use the site?

As hinted in the first question, I live 5000 km away from my family and friends. I first heard about Moblog from a friend (RareAquaticBadger) who visited the website regularly during work hours (hum…). I saw it as a great way to share little stories that are not necessarily possible to convey with words with the people I love and who are far away. And with time, I guess I started to enjoy having a peek at stranger’s lives and personality through the images they snapped and chose to share.


3. What makes you smile? What makes you frown?

It’s hard to pinpoint one thing in particular that make me smile. We can say I smile very easily. If I have to go with just one thing, I could safely say (and this will make people who know me laugh) food. And here, I am speaking about the whole concept of food. Of course, I quite enjoy eating, but it’s the whole process of it that fascinates me. I like planning ahead what I could make, buying ingredients and then just change my mind and improvise. I love cooking for hours in my tiny kitchen, with a glass of red wine, loud music and the sounds and smells of multiple things being prepared at the same time. And my favorite food thing would be to share it with people I love.

As for the thing that makes me frown, I would have to say people who expect others to make them happy. Because then, without being asked for permission, you become responsible for someone else’s happiness and it unavailingly ends up in deception and bitterness for everyone. I think that happiness is something that you owe to yourself. Once your needs are replenished, you can distribute it around as you may please. But joy doesn’t keep and becomes sour when it’s imprisoned.


4. Choose one CD, one book and one film to be stranded with on a desert island

Stranded on a desert island, I could listen to Mozart’s Requiem day after day while reading Eiji Yoshikawa’s Miyamoto Musashi. I fell in love with the Requiem when I was 12 and it can still make me cry many more years later. As for the book, it was found at a random used bookstore and I had no idea what it was about. I don’t think that I would have bought it if I had known it was the story of a Japanese warrior who seeks perfection. But it transformed me a bit, in some way. I made me believe that we have the responsibility to become as good (as a whole) as we can and this self-completion is unique and different for everyone.

And for a movie, I would say that I was very touched my My Life Without Me, where the very hard subject of the imminent death of a young mother is treated with the most beautiful simplicity. As the title hints, life and happiness have to go on, whether we are there or not. It de-dramatizes what we call “the worst case scenario”. The worst is not so bad after all.


5. If you were to write an autobiography of your life, what would its title be?

Jumping cliffs


6. If you could take a year off, what would you do with it?

As “original” as it might be, I would travel the world on my own. Yes, I would visit my friends scattered all around, but mostly, I would spend a few weeks in different cities and just get lost amongst strangers. I already had a taste of it on a much smaller scale, but doing it for a year would allow me to really get lost, I think.


7. Which food could you not live without?

Le pain baguette, definitely.


8. If you could be a superhero what powers would you have? How would you use them?

If I were a superhero, I would be able to foresee the near future (a few days maximum). It’s just enough to satisfy my curiosity and it would enable me to help people around me avoid making horrible and avoidable mistakes or stress out about things for no good reason. But no long term knowledge, because then it would be sad to no longer have any surprises…


9. What was your childhood obsession? What happened to it?

As a child, I did everything with obsession. It was all-or-nothing. And it has not changed. My main current obsession would be sewing (which I learned at ~5-6 years old). What can I say? I’m a girl, I like clothes and it’s insanely satisfying to be able to create something (for myself or someone else) that really reflects the wearer’s personality. It’s like making a custom made frame to enhance what is best. And it’s not something you can find on a sales rack in a store.


10. What is the most important thing that is going to happen in your world in 2009?

I will do my best at everything I am doing and let the rest of life happen to me rather that try to control what I can’t.

Posted by TiliaAmericana