You’re supposed to breathe deep when you stretch. I was in a stretch class last Sunday, my legs hovering over the ground in a split position as I silently preached this to myself. “Breathe into it, Vivienne, relax….” the mantra so counter to all that […]

“You just feel stuck.” The words sunk in my heart like stones. “Stuck,” she pushed around the soggy quinoa on the plate with her fork, “you know, when you don’t know where to go from here.” I had added too much water to the quinoa, […]

I realized it’s been a bit more than two months since I posted one of these – and when people started to ask me what I’ve been reading these days, it was a sign for me to share what is now long overdue. Here is […]

Saying goodbye to my parents never got easier. We always made it into an event – driving into Toronto always meant a scrumptious Korean lunch out, a brief perusal of the fruit stands in Chinatown for any mangos on sale. “You have the granola right?” […]

Hello from my dark hostel room located somewhere in the Iceland countryside! My sister and I arrived this morning and after a full day of on/off sleeping in the car, floating in a hot spring on pool noodles, and splayed out on soft Icelandic grass, […]

For many, summer means long, lazy days. We stretch our sunscreen-lathered bodies out on pool deck chairs, soaking up as much sun-baked warmth as we can. The days stretch similarly, expanding to accommodate as much goodness as we try to squeeze it with. For me, […]

First off, Happy Canada Day! The day we became a country (albeit still a British colony but with a greater degree of autonomy) 😛 It is blistering hot due to the heatwave that Montreal got hit with over the week-end (feels like 42 degrees C). […]

We need to do a better job of intentionally putting ourselves at interfaces. A simple example from this past weekend. I’m in Boston with my sister, partly to celebrate her 23rd birthday with her (tomorrow!) and partly to be her moral support as she speaks […]

During my time in Princeton, I didn’t understand reunions. To me, it just meant that fences were erected in the most inconvenient places, and our beautiful campus was now rank with beer-soaked grass. The year I graduated, reunions was simply a long runway of parties […]

I realize I have quite a hard time sitting still simply listening to lectures on end. My need for multi-stimulatory information, or to be productive either creating/thinking or using something other than my ears is a bit debilitating. I’m at this conference in Toronto and […]