Rethink Breast Cancer's Save the Boobs Campaign

For those of you who don’t know, here’s a brief run down…basically, some time last week a message going out to girls (and some guys) went viral asking us to change our ‘status’ to the colour of our bra as a way of raising breast cancer awareness. I got the message last Thursday from a good friend of mine and yes, I most definitely changed my status. Before long, my entire news feed was filled with a fabulous array of colours. Okay, fantastic! People are participating! I thought it was a fun and clever way to generate buzz on such an important issue but of course, it had to turn sour with some women outraged by the whole concept’s sexual undertones and the supposed objectification of women. Personally, I think that’s a whole load of feminist baloney. If you ask me, this whole line of reasoning only fuels the whole image of the woman as the victim and personally, I’m tired of being portrayed as such because uh, I’m not. And I know a hell of a lot of other women who aren’t either. Have we not reached the point in time where we can quit the whining bullshit? Plus, has the brassiere not been used as a strategic tool in the past to make such important statements? Why not now? Crying foul at announcing one’s bra colour is a) so immature and b) incredibly passé.

This is not to say, of course, that the campaign is a good one. Sure, I think it’s cute, clever, simple and has the potential to accomplish some real concrete changes. But like many other cute, clever, and simple ideas out there, this one is lacking and most certainly not infallible…The problem with the whole bra colour meme for me is not the intimate details that it reveals but the whole campaign’s lack of direction. Yes, people have changed their status but what does that translate to?  Who even started this trend? Because apparently, no one knows. Was it a cancer research organization, a patient/survivor, or just some random individual? And even if we do know, does that matter? How exactly has it raised awareness about breast cancer? And in any case, how would we define and measure “awareness”? What actions are taking place because of this? Are people donating more money to cancer research? Are more women getting mammograms because of it? Have more people researched breast cancer because of this development or has this all just been a silly game of sexual innuendos?

Rebecca Leaman of the Wild Apricot Blog asks the most appropriate question in this case, “Did it work?“. So what the focus should be and the question that people should be asking is ‘what exactly has this whole thing accomplished?’. Yes, awareness is the first and most necessary step but awareness without action is worthless. We need to think impact! And when it comes down to the nitty gritty, I think that’s what really matters….that’s all that really matters.

via Pop + Shorty

Anyway, building the site reminded me of my early days working with HTML…way, way back during the time of AsianAvenue (which I have just recently discovered is now known as “AsianAve”). I know there are a number of you who still remember that site (don’t lie now!). It’s probably the first social networking website that I was ever involved with and now looking back on that, it’s easy to see the seeds of this whole social media/social networking revolution. I remember back in the late 90s to the early ’00s (yeah, it’s been that long), all my friends and I would be on this site 24/7…it was the Facebook of that time, no doubt, and that’s where I first learned the magic of markup languages. We’d all show off our “AA page” whenever we had a new layout up or any other kind of new addition. We’d write about our thoughts and about our day to day life…like an unrefined version of how we blog today. And we’d write on “guestbooks” just how we’d now write on each others “walls” or write each other a “testimonial” (remember Friendster?).

So even though I cringe at the thought of my AsianAvenue days, the truth is that I owe a lot of what I’m doing professionally to that time in my life. It’s funny looking back and tracing the path of technology at a time when it was just bursting at its seams and being in the middle of its incredible explosion right now.

…But anywho, just thought I’d share some memories with you before I shamelessly plug Cystems Inc. one last time! Check it out, check it out!

I start every year with these very words and this year is no exception. Wishing you all the best, xoxo.

Words by Pam Brown, photos by yours truly.

…And so, I just spent the last couple of hours reflecting on key moments from the past year…and damn, there have been many! There have been surprises and challenges at almost every bend of this road and it still shocks me to realize how much I’ve grown and changed in this relatively short time. I’ve experienced my first death (a conception that is still so abstract to me), my first real heart break (a place of lost and hurt that I hope never to find myself in again), and my first solo travels (a euphoric feeling of liberation and discovery like no other). This year I lost two important people in my life, one through death and the other through a break-up. But at the same time, so many new people have entered my life and in such little time, have managed to capture my heart completely. I’ve made friends who have simply swept me off my feet and reconnected with the one that I’ve missed. I’ve grieved and I’ve laughed like I never have before. I’ve been to the absolute heights of ecstasy and, on the other end of that spectrum, what seemed to be the bottomless freakin’ pit of despair. But even while in that awful aforementioned pit, the everyday heroes of my life emerged (as they often do) to listen, to talk, to sing, to dance, to drink, to hold my hand, and even to just sit in absolute silence. And let me tell you, there is nothing more humbling than to experience such acts of unconditional love and kindness.

2009 has been a defining year, no doubt. A tumultuous year, to say the least…and yet I wouldn’t have had it any other way. So here’s to 2009, my year of grief and laughter, of loss and discovery, and as for you 2010…you better watch yourself…cuz I’m gonna be bringin’ it

Flowered notepaper displays the familiar swirls and curls of a childhood best friend who moved away. One glimpse and I am 12 again, ripping open envelopes and fretting over who has replaced me.

A teenage boy’s first declaration of love is hidden in a page of scrawl, the three brave words less daunting to put on paper than utter aloud.

My father’s quirky upright script is as distinctive as his blue eyes peering from a family photo. As a kid, finally managing to decipher it was as exhilarating as winning the 25-yard dash on track and field day.

There are a colleague’s reflections in fountain pen, so handsome they could have been written by a medieval scribe. Camp letters scribbled in haste by a son who couldn’t wait to get back to his canoe. Words that slump with the homesickness of a sister living half a world away.”

– Andrea Gordon

I read this article about “The Death of Handwriting” (excerpt above) earlier today and man, did it hit me like a ton of bricks! I know it sounds silly but I was actually fighting back tears as I was reading it. As a (hand)writer myself, losing this art is like losing a loved one. Growing up, handwriting was something I tried hard to master…yet something I always detested because it was forced upon us to learn in school. “Cursive?”, our class would moan, “…why learn it when printing is sooooo much easier”. It was hard and it was ugly. But as the years went on, we had no choice but to embrace it and I remember a time in junior high when my girlfriends and I would compare our handwriting with one another. “Ohhhh I like your ‘G’…let me see if I can copy it!” And so we would try to imitate each other…picking and choosing the letters and styles that we thought were ‘pretty’…each one of us trying to find our identity through penmanship. I remember distinctly, at one point, all of our writings actually looked oddly similar. Until those days of imitation stopped and comparing with one another was no longer a priority…

…and finding our own unique style of hand writing was something, not done deliberately or consciously, but something that simply came to be. I can look back on the evolution of my penmanship and see the early years of confusion. They started off big and fat, then sharp and pointed, my ‘i’s dotted with hearts and round circles, tails on my ‘t’s extended to add that little oomph…like a teen actually trying to find her identity, trying on different masks to see which fit the best. Until of course, you realize that it’s simply best to just be yourself…and let the writing flow. Don’t think, just write. And when that happens, when it’s natural, when it’s you…it’s gorgeous as it is. When you find that, the writing…and you, are stable and confident. Sure there will be changes throughout the years but the essence remains the same. And it’s that time that cursive becomes free flowing…it’s that time that your cursive becomes an art. I’ve had many people compliment me on my hand writing, saying how it is “so me”. And that’s something I pride myself in…with no arrogance intended, I love it too. After all, it’s something I painstakingly worked for throughout the years…

So everything the article described is true, and it’s something I’ve never actually given much thought about. Because really…who thinks about cursive writing as a daily activity? But as the author notes, “handwriting, like a human face, is unique and evolving” and it tells such evocative stories, so unlike the ones we read on our computer screens or smartphones. After reading the article, I rushed to my bedroom to reach for my box of birthday cards, love letters, and postcards…all items that seem to be from the distant past. And all the emotions that I felt when I first tore up the envelope of each card or letter came rushing right back…the joy, the giddiness, the disappointment, and even the indifference.

I realize this might be ironic considering I’m blogging about this right now and the fact that I work so heavily with ICTs everyday as a part of my personal and professional life. And yet, a part of me is heart broken when I read about the supposed death of handwriting. Of course, I welcome and advocate greatly for our move towards technology…for those of you who know me, know how much of a positive force I believe it can be. But it’s also true that “no emoticon can impart as much enthusiasm as an exclamation mark dashed off by hand”. It seems we’re letting go of a certain romance that I’m not quite ready to let go of. So is this the trade-off for the worldwide connectivity and ubiquity that our generation of technology provides? Are we only left now with a nostalgia, a memory for a time long gone? Have I just written the eulogy for that old, forgotten but ever beautiful art?

Read the article here – The Death of Handwriting (via @robertoocampo)

Enough said.

Yup, it’s that time of the year my friends. And nope, I’m not talking about holidays. I’m talking about the dreaded time that comes right before then…exam season. Dun, dun, dun! The past week has been absolute madness and this week will be even worse with two papers and three finals to write. So right now, I’ve been in my own little bubble dealing with matters of sovereignty, NGOs, IOs, MNCs, inequality, globalization, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Veblen, Nietzsche, Weber, ICTs, dadadada the list never seems to end. I’ve been living in cafes all week and I’ve seriously considered moving into one and living there for the time being. It’s been brutal, I tell you. So brutal that in the past week I’ve had to line up to get into a library. A library. That’s when you know you’ve reached the peak of your cool. And I know that this struggle of mine is a plight shared by many others. Makes me question whether Hobbes was actually talking more about studentkind than all of mankind when he said that life was solitary, poor (oh so very, very poor!), nasty, brutish, and (thankfully!) short.

So for all of my fellow students out there finding themselves sleep-deprived, overly-caffeinated, and losing your mind, I feel your pain. Just gotta keep on keepin’ on and I’ll see you all on the flip side!