rachel, ME and carol

actually, I got tagged by my friend tacit requiem...

So here are 16 crazy random things you might hate or like about me:

1. It was really my ambition to become an artist but my mom told me to become a doctor or an engineer instead. And so i got my degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Santo Tomas! Oh yes, i'm your fellow Tomasino *wink*

2. i love to dance. i was the president of Engineering Dance Troupe during SY 2001-2002. Had lots of fun joining contests representing the Faculty of Engineering.. Got invited to perform at SM Manila, it was like a front act at one of the shows. Received free supply of shirts and jeans from DICKIES! hahaha.. My mom even got worried that i'll end up a dancer and not an engineer.. lol..

3. Oh yes, i became a cheerleader too and until now i couldn't really imagine how that had happened coz i'm kinda a boyish-type of girl.. i'm not into skirts and dresses.. i'm more of a blue-jeans lover.

4. i love MATH.. it’s obviously my fave subject.. kind of explains why i ended up taking an Engineering course (only to find out it's not just all about MATH... aaaaargh!) oh, and i hate Engineering Eco. That subject sucks.. big time!

5. I used to drive a Ford Mustang, but I had an accident just after 2 weeks of driving it.. and so i had to sell it.. and now, i leave all the driving to my husband! =)

6. I got married when i was 26 and now i'm 28, we're hoping to have a baby next year.. i'm married to an artist -- a musician actually! But aside from being a musician, I think my husband is more of a comedian! that makes me love him more and more every time he makes me laugh =D

7. I have this fixation to cell phones.. I think (not really sure) have had 15 different types of cell phones already. I’m a compulsive buyer, if I want something, I’ll buy it immediately!

8. I’ve had only two jobs after i graduated. I first worked as an Operations, Planning and Control Analyst only for a year and then decided to work abroad where my family is. I am now a Quality Assurance Evaluator (quite a tough job but i manage to survive)

9. My family migrated to Canada, leaving me here in Bahrain. I’m not alone though coz I’m with my husband. I plan to go there too but probably after 2-3 years.

10. I once became a Chief Lay-out Artist for our school paper in Sacred Heart Academy during high school days. Not really sure why I got that position, I think I am really an artist but it’s not pretty obvious!

11. I love my friends. My mom gets jealous and she feels that I love my friends more than I love her coz I will usually step out of my comfort zone just to make sure that my friends are alright.

12. I can be a very good friend but and I can also be your worst enemy so DON’T MESS UP WITH ME! You’ll be in trouble! Bwahahaha =P

13. The very first laptop I had was an APPLE iBOOK that looks like a clam shell and its color is GREEN. I had it when I was still on college. Now I got an HP Pavilion, dv2800t, Artist Edition.

14. I’ve gained weight after marriage and I find it really hard to trim out my fat coz I’m one big lazy woman. And plus I don’t dance anymore.. I bought a Wii Fit, but I’m not using it everyday..

15. I am one of the couple coordinators of Youth for Christ (YFC) Bahrain.

16. My first digital camera was a Fuji old school model.. really couldn’t remember the model. I’ve had a Nikon D70s, sold it and now I’m using a Nikon D90 and a Canon Powershot DigiCam.

Baba Harnek Singh of Damdami Taksal, Chowk Mehta imparts Santhya to youngsters of Chananwal village in the lawns of Gurdwara Guptsar. Santhya is the process of ensuring correct understanding of Guru Granth Sahib. Goal is to promote grammatically correct reading, understanding the literal meaning and appreciating the true import of the Guru's word.

Chananwal or Chananwaal is a village in the Barnala district of Punjab, India. Located about 15 km from Barnala via Thikriwal and Raisar. People coming from Ludhiana can drop off at Mahal Kalan and catch a minibus to Chananwal via village Chinniwal. People coming from Moga can drop off at the Tallewal Canal and catch the minibus to Chananwal via village Bihla and Bhilli.

The residents of Chananwal are mostly Sikhs from the Jat community. They are divided in 5 pattis. '"Patti" is a punjabi word which means a group of people from a particular village or area namely Jangi ki, Jattanae, Bath, Biring, and Bassi. For example, Jangi ke folks have come from Jangiana. Chananwal is approximately 400 yrs old. In the Jangi ki patti, there is a small qila (fort). People from various religions and communities live in the village. There are two Gurdwaras, a Hindu temple, and a Mosque. There is a government school and a small hospital.

Most of the residents are farmers by occupation. The denizens are known to be competitive and progressive....many have migrated to Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. Two past Sarpanch (village headmen) of Chananwal are Balwant Singh Gill and Jaspal Singh Gill. Jagsir Singh is the present Sarpanch.

© 2010 Gurbir Singh Brar, all rights reserved.

This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.

Sig made his money the old fashion way. he earned every penny as he came from a poor German family who migrated to Canada. A TRUE oilman and brilliant speculator.

Details best viewed in Original Size.

Jan Nagalski and I had been terribly disappointed with the birding at Everglades National Park, and we decided to check and see what else was available in the area. Jan found the Castellow Hammock Preserve on his cell phone and in desperation we decided to give it a try. I was very pleasantly surprised. After being in the park for a few minutes I saw a couple with camera and binoculars inspecting a large clump of shrubs that I think were bougainvillea. A cursory inspection of the clump showed about a half dozen Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds working the shrubs. So, with a large telephoto I began to shoot the hummingbirds. I have shot hummingbirds before, but always at feeders and I was not ready for the difficulties associated with photographing the tiny, fast and unpredictably moving birds as they bussed from one flower to another. Thanks to technology for digital cameras, auto-focus and burst shooting. Even these technological wonders made it only barely possible to accomplish the job. The other part of the job is plowing through hundreds of photographs to glean from them a tiny number of acceptable images from those destined for the scrap pile.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021.

This hummingbird is from 2.8 to 3.5 inches (7 to 9 cm) long and has a 3.1 to 4.3 inches (8 to 11 cm) wingspan. Weight can range from 0.071 to 0.212 ounces (2 to 6 g), with males averaging 0.12 ounces (3.4 g) against the slightly larger female which averages 0.13 ounces (3.8 g). Adults are metallic green above and grayish white below, with near-black wings. Their bill, at up to 0.79 inches (2 cm), is long, straight, and slender. Close-up of toe arrangement in a ruby-throated hummingbird foot, showing three claw-like toes forward and one backward. Hummingbird legs are short with no knees and have feet with three toes pointing forward and one backward. The toes are formed as claws with ridged inner surfaces to aid gripping onto flower stems or petals. The ruby-throated hummingbird can only shuffle to move along a branch, though it can scratch its head and neck with its feet. The species is sexually dimorphic. The adult male has a throat patch of iridescent ruby red bordered narrowly with velvety black on the upper margin and a forked black tail with a faint violet sheen. The red iridescence is highly directional and appears dull black from many angles. The female has a notched tail with outer feathers banded in green, black, and white and a white throat that may be plain or lightly marked with dusky streaks or stipples. Males are smaller than females and have slightly shorter bills. Juvenile males resemble adult females, though usually with heavier throat markings. The plumage is molted once a year on the wintering grounds, beginning in early fall and ending by late winter.

Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

Details best viewed in Original Size.

Jan Nagalski and I had been terribly disappointed with the birding at Everglades National Park, and we decided to check and see what else was available in the area. Jan found the Castellow Hammock Preserve on his cell phone and in desperation we decided to give it a try. I was very pleasantly surprised. After being in the park for a few minutes I saw a couple with camera and binoculars inspecting a large clump of shrubs that I think were bougainvillea. A cursory inspection of the clump showed about a half dozen Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds working the shrubs. So, with a large telephoto I began to shoot the hummingbirds. I have shot hummingbirds before, but always at feeders and I was not ready for the difficulties associated with photographing the tiny, fast and unpredictably moving birds as they bussed from one flower to another. Thanks to technology for digital cameras, auto-focus and burst shooting. Even these technological wonders made it only barely possible to accomplish the job. The other part of the job is plowing through hundreds of photographs to glean from them a tiny number of acceptable images from those destined for the scrap pile.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021.

This hummingbird is from 2.8 to 3.5 inches (7 to 9 cm) long and has a 3.1 to 4.3 inches (8 to 11 cm) wingspan. Weight can range from 0.071 to 0.212 ounces (2 to 6 g), with males averaging 0.12 ounces (3.4 g) against the slightly larger female which averages 0.13 ounces (3.8 g). Adults are metallic green above and grayish white below, with near-black wings. Their bill, at up to 0.79 inches (2 cm), is long, straight, and slender. Close-up of toe arrangement in a ruby-throated hummingbird foot, showing three claw-like toes forward and one backward. Hummingbird legs are short with no knees and have feet with three toes pointing forward and one backward. The toes are formed as claws with ridged inner surfaces to aid gripping onto flower stems or petals. The ruby-throated hummingbird can only shuffle to move along a branch, though it can scratch its head and neck with its feet. The species is sexually dimorphic. The adult male has a throat patch of iridescent ruby red bordered narrowly with velvety black on the upper margin and a forked black tail with a faint violet sheen. The red iridescence is highly directional and appears dull black from many angles. The female has a notched tail with outer feathers banded in green, black, and white and a white throat that may be plain or lightly marked with dusky streaks or stipples. Males are smaller than females and have slightly shorter bills. Juvenile males resemble adult females, though usually with heavier throat markings. The plumage is molted once a year on the wintering grounds, beginning in early fall and ending by late winter.

Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

Details best viewed in Original Size.

Jan Nagalski and I had been terribly disappointed with the birding at Everglades National Park, and we decided to check and see what else was available in the area. Jan found the Castellow Hammock Preserve on his cell phone and in desperation we decided to give it a try. I was very pleasantly surprised. After being in the park for a few minutes I saw a couple with camera and binoculars inspecting a large clump of shrubs that I think were bougainvillea. A cursory inspection of the clump showed about a half dozen Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds working the shrubs. So, with a large telephoto I began to shoot the hummingbirds. I have shot hummingbirds before, but always at feeders and I was not ready for the difficulties associated with photographing the tiny, fast and unpredictably moving birds as they bussed from one flower to another. Thanks to technology for digital cameras, auto-focus and burst shooting. Even these technological wonders made it only barely possible to accomplish the job. The other part of the job is plowing through hundreds of photographs to glean from them a tiny number of acceptable images from those destined for the scrap pile.

The ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021.

This hummingbird is from 2.8 to 3.5 inches (7 to 9 cm) long and has a 3.1 to 4.3 inches (8 to 11 cm) wingspan. Weight can range from 0.071 to 0.212 ounces (2 to 6 g), with males averaging 0.12 ounces (3.4 g) against the slightly larger female which averages 0.13 ounces (3.8 g). Adults are metallic green above and grayish white below, with near-black wings. Their bill, at up to 0.79 inches (2 cm), is long, straight, and slender. Close-up of toe arrangement in a ruby-throated hummingbird foot, showing three claw-like toes forward and one backward. Hummingbird legs are short with no knees and have feet with three toes pointing forward and one backward. The toes are formed as claws with ridged inner surfaces to aid gripping onto flower stems or petals. The ruby-throated hummingbird can only shuffle to move along a branch, though it can scratch its head and neck with its feet. The species is sexually dimorphic. The adult male has a throat patch of iridescent ruby red bordered narrowly with velvety black on the upper margin and a forked black tail with a faint violet sheen. The red iridescence is highly directional and appears dull black from many angles. The female has a notched tail with outer feathers banded in green, black, and white and a white throat that may be plain or lightly marked with dusky streaks or stipples. Males are smaller than females and have slightly shorter bills. Juvenile males resemble adult females, though usually with heavier throat markings. The plumage is molted once a year on the wintering grounds, beginning in early fall and ending by late winter.

Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

This sparrow winters in the Southern half of the US and is now migrating to Canada for the summer.

The architecture is stunning, but what The Getty Center does best is presenting exhibits. This was a powerful exhibit. There was no way a single photograph I might take of this Exhibit could convey the depth and power of what these photographers have accomplished. I just gazed and marvelled. I don't know if the description of the exhibit will stay on the Getty website, so I've appended most of it here for my future reference.

Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties.

www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/engaged_observers/

In the decades following World War II, an independently minded and critically engaged form of photography began to gather momentum. Its practitioners have combined their skills as artists and reporters, creating extended photographic essays that delve deeply into topics of social concern and present distinct personal visions of the world.

Engaged Observers looks in depth at projects by a selection of the most vital photographers who have contributed to the development of this approach. Passionately committed to their subjects, they have authored evocative bodies of work that are often published extensively as books and transcend the realm of traditional photojournalism.

Philip Jones Griffiths

Philip Jones Griffiths described the scene he photographed in this image:

"Limits of friendship. A Marine introduces a peasant girl to king-sized filter-tips. Of all the U.S. forces in Vietnam, it was the Marines that approached 'Civic Action' with gusto. From their barrage of handouts, one discovers that, in the month of January 1967 alone, they gave away to the Vietnamese 101,535 pounds of food, 4,810 pounds of soap, 14,662 books and magazines, 106 pounds of candy, 1,215 toys, and 1 midwifery kit. In the same month they gave the Vietnamese 530 free haircuts."

Vietnam Inc., Philip Jones Griffiths' 1971 critical account of America's armed intervention in Southeast Asia, is one of the most detailed photographic stories of a war published by a single photographer. The project's exploration of the war's failures and its focus on civilians made it a particularly engaging and ambitious work of advocacy journalism. Griffiths put the conflict in the context of Vietnam's history and culture, showing how Capitalist values that America promoted in its efforts to contain the spread of Communism were out of sync with Vietnam's communal and agrarian way of life

Leonard Freed

While in Germany in 1962, Leonard Freed saw a black American soldier guarding the divide between East and West Berlin. He was haunted by the idea of a man standing in defense of a country in which his own rights were in question. The experience ignited Freed's interest in the American civil rights movement. In June 1963 he embarked on a multiyear documentary project, published in about 1968 as Black in White America, which would become the signature work of his career.

The series is a visual diary with a moralizing purpose. Freed quickly found that his interests lay in exploring the diverse, everyday lives of a community that had been marginalized for so long. Penetrating the fabric of daily existence, his work portrays the common humanity of a people persevering in unjust circumstances. This empathetic approach sought not to stimulate outrage but to foster understanding and bridge cultural divides as a way of transcending racial antipathy.

W. Eugene and Aileen M. Smith

In 1971 W. Eugene and Aileen M. Smith were told of a controversy over industrial pollution in the Japanese fishing village of Minamata. Beginning in the 1950s, thousands of people were severely affected by mercury poisoning, brought about by eating fish contaminated with chemical waste dumped in the bay by the Chisso Corporation. The ailment, which became known as Minamata Disease, caused irreversible brain damage, paralysis, and convulsions.

Susan Meiselas

In 1978 Susan Meiselas traveled to Nicaragua where she witnessed the eruption of a full-scale revolution against the country's repressive, hard-line government. Meiselas was taken by the bravery of those willing to risk their lives against the dictatorship for the promise of a better future. The record of her movements around the country formed a narrative about the insurrection's progress. Meiselas made a decision—at the time, unusual in serious war reportage—to record the revolution on color film, because it seemed appropriate for capturing the vibrancy and optimism of the resistance.

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark has reported on the state of our social environment for more than four decades. In 1983 she traveled to Seattle to do an article for Life magazine on runaway children. She built trust with the community of runaways living in the downtown area, and created pictures that show teenagers who survived on tough streets through petty crime, prostitution, foraging in dumpsters, and panhandling. Mark's compositions are striking and uncomfortable, emphasizing her subjects' youth while capturing them engaged in activities beyond their years.

After publishing the article in Life, Mark continued to develop the story as both a documentary film and still photography book with her husband, filmmaker Martin Bell, and reporter Cheryl McCall. The Streetwise project gave individuality and visibility to the problem of runaway children and called for greater social and political commitment to addressing America's epidemic of broken families.

Lauren Greenfield

Photographer and documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield has built her reputation as a chronicler of mainstream American culture. In 2002 she published Girl Culture, a photographic project that delves into the ways consumer society affects the lives of women in America. Of central concern to Greenfield was the exhibitionist tendencies of contemporary American femininity.

Larry Towell

In 1989 Larry Towell came into contact with members of a Mennonite community (a Protestant sect related to the Amish) near his home in Canada. The Mennonites Towell befriended had migrated to Canada from Mexico in search of seasonal work. Due to shrinking water tables in Mexico, the effects of international trade, and a rising population in the colonies, many Mennonites have found themselves landless and economically marginalized, forced to compromise their beliefs in order to survive. Towell eventually joined them in their treks back to Mexico for the winter and spent 10 years photographing their activities. He had unique access to capture their struggle to preserve a lifestyle incongruent with the world they depend upon

Sebastião Salgado

Trained in economics before taking up photography, Sebastião Salgado has used his camera to raise awareness of the world's economic disparities and provoke discussion about the state of our international social environment. Between 1994 and 1999 Salgado pursued an enormous project to document migrant populations around the world. Published in 2000 as Migrations: Humanity in Transition, this epic work documents people across 43 countries who have been uprooted by globalization, persecution, or war.

Salgado's work is marked by an aesthetic grace that endows his subjects with dignity even as it communicates the discomfort of their circumstances. His photographs are constructed with careful attention to dramatic lighting, elegant contours, and striking visual impact. Ultimately, Salgado sees himself as a storyteller and a communicator, a bridge between the fortunate and the unfortunate, the developed and the undeveloped, the stable and the uprooted.

James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey has dedicated himself to delivering an antiwar message by documenting those around the world affected by conflict. In 2006 he traveled with emergency medical units in Iraq for a photo essay, The Sacrifice, that depicts helicopter transfers from battle sites to treatment centers, emergency rooms where lives hang in the balance, and the difficult process of recovery.

In anticipation of exhibiting the series, Nachtwey created a monumental installation print of 60 individual trauma-center images, tightly framed and digitally collaged into a grid. The object's sheer size—in which one picture gives way to the next in a seemingly endless stream of torn flesh, metal instruments, snaking tubes, and bloodied hands—conveys a sense of the controlled chaos that permeates these medical centers as well as the overwhelming volume of casualties flowing through the medics' hands on a daily basis.

Nachtwey's intentionally unsettling work demands that we reconcile the goals and achievements of armed conflict with its human costs, that we be prepared to acknowledge in particular visual terms the sacrifice it entails and the valiant work of those who do their best to mend its path of destruction.

This is one of two snowy owls that live at Banham Zoo in Norfolk.

The snowy owl has a vast range, its breading area is the Arctic region, but they migrate to Canada, the northern United States, Europe and Asia.

The males have upper parts that are plain white with a few dusky spots at the tips of the primary and secondary feathers. The tail is mainly white with some faint terminal bars. Females have more brown barring on the crown and upper parts, the under parts are white with brown spotting and barring.

The snowy owl is a very large owl. They are the largest avian predator of the High Arctic and one of the largest owls in the world. These owls measure between 20 to 28 in. (52 to 71 cm) in length and they have a wingspan ranging from 49 to 59 in. (125 to 150 cm). The bird weighs between 3.5 to 6.6 lbs. (1.6 to 3 kg).

Most owls sleep during the day and hunt at night, but snowy owls are active during the day, especially in the summertime. They are primarily a hunter of small mammals such as voles and mice and most especially the northerly lemming. Some of their larger mammal prey includes hares, muskrats, marmots, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, prairie dogs, rats and moles. Birds are preyed upon as well and include ptarmigan, ducks, geese, shorebirds, pheasants, grouse, coots, grebes, gulls, songbirds, and even other raptors, including other owl species. Sometimes they will eat beetles, crustaceans and occasionally amphibians and fish. In total more than 200 prey species have been known to be taken by snowy owls. Most of their hunting is done in the 'sit and wait' style. Prey may be captured on the ground or in the air, or fish may be snatched off the surface of bodies of water using their sharp talons.

Snowy owls have few predators. The adults are watchful and equipped to defend themselves, their offspring and nest against Arctic foxes, dogs, grey wolves and avian predators. Like all raptors, they are protected from shooting and trapping, and this should protect them in populated areas.

Snowy owls are generally monogamous and often mate for life. The breeding season is usually from May to June. They nest on the ground, building a scrape on top of a mound or boulder. They choose a site with good visibility, such as the top of a mound with ready access to hunting areas and a lack of snow. Depending on the amount of prey available, clutch size ranges from 3 to 11 eggs, which are laid singly, approximately every other day over the course of several days. Hatching takes place approximately 5 weeks after laying, and the pure white helpless owlets are cared for by both parents. Owlets begin to leave the nest and crawl around the area 14 to 26 days after hatching and fledge 7 to 8 weeks later. In the wild the owlets can expect to have a lifespan of approximately 9 years. In captivity snowy owls can live up to 35 years.

Snowy owls may face threats from climate change as temperature changes affect both their habitat and prey. Other threats they face are collisions with traffic and power lines and gunshot wounds from illegal shooting.

According to the IUCN Red List, the total snowy owl population size is around 28,000 mature individuals. Snowy owl numbers are decreasing, and their conservation status is rated as 'Vulnerable'.

Baba Harnek Singh of Damdami Taksal, Chowk Mehta imparts Santhya to ladies of Chananwal village in Barnala, Punjab. Santhya is the process of ensuring correct understanding of Guru Granth Sahib. Goal is to promote grammatically correct reading, understanding the literal meaning and appreciating the true import of the Guru's word.

Chananwal or Chananwaal is a village in the Barnala district of Punjab, India. Located about 15 km from Barnala via Thikriwal and Raisar. People coming from Ludhiana can drop off at Mahal Kalan and catch a minibus to Chananwal via village Chinniwal. People coming from Moga can drop off at the Tallewal Canal and catch the minibus to Chananwal via village Bihla and Bhilli.

The residents of Chananwal are mostly Sikhs from the Jat community. They are divided in 5 pattis. '"Patti" is a punjabi word which means a group of people from a particular village or area viz Jangi ki, Jattanae, Bath, Biring, and Bassi. for example, Jangi ke folks have come from Jangiana. Chananwal is approximately 400 yrs old. In the Jangi ki patti, there is a small qila (fort). People from various religions and communities live in the village. There are two Gurdwaras, a Hindu temple, and a Mosque. There is a government school and a small hospital.

Most of the residents are farmers by occupation. The denizens are known to be competitive and progressive....many have migrated to Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. Two past Sarpanch (village headmen) of Chananwal are Balwant Singh Gill and Jaspal Singh Gill. Jagsir Singh is the present Sarpanch.

© Gurbir Singh Brar 2009 all rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction for any reason is prohibited.

Details best viewed in Original Size.

Jan Nagalski and I had been terribly disappointed with the birding at Everglades National Park, and we decided to check and see what else was available in the area. Jan found the Castellow Hammock Preserve on his cell phone and in desperation we decided to give it a try. I was very pleasantly surprised. After being in the park for a few minutes I saw a couple with camera and binoculars inspecting a large clump of shrubs that I think were bougainvillea. A cursory inspection of the clump showed about a half dozen Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds working the shrubs. So, with a large telephoto I began to shoot the hummingbirds. I have shot hummingbirds before, but always at feeders and I was not ready for the difficulties associated with photographing the tiny, fast and unpredictably moving birds as they bussed from one flower to another. Thanks to technology for digital cameras, auto-focus and burst shooting. Even these technological wonders made it only barely possible to accomplish the job. The other part of the job is plowing through hundreds of photographs to glean from them a tiny number of acceptable images from those destined for the scrap pile.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021.

This hummingbird is from 2.8 to 3.5 inches (7 to 9 cm) long and has a 3.1 to 4.3 inches (8 to 11 cm) wingspan. Weight can range from 0.071 to 0.212 ounces (2 to 6 g), with males averaging 0.12 ounces (3.4 g) against the slightly larger female which averages 0.13 ounces (3.8 g). Adults are metallic green above and grayish white below, with near-black wings. Their bill, at up to 0.79 inches (2 cm), is long, straight, and slender. Close-up of toe arrangement in a ruby-throated hummingbird foot, showing three claw-like toes forward and one backward. Hummingbird legs are short with no knees and have feet with three toes pointing forward and one backward. The toes are formed as claws with ridged inner surfaces to aid gripping onto flower stems or petals. The ruby-throated hummingbird can only shuffle to move along a branch, though it can scratch its head and neck with its feet. The species is sexually dimorphic. The adult male has a throat patch of iridescent ruby red bordered narrowly with velvety black on the upper margin and a forked black tail with a faint violet sheen. The red iridescence is highly directional and appears dull black from many angles. The female has a notched tail with outer feathers banded in green, black, and white and a white throat that may be plain or lightly marked with dusky streaks or stipples. Males are smaller than females and have slightly shorter bills. Juvenile males resemble adult females, though usually with heavier throat markings. The plumage is molted once a year on the wintering grounds, beginning in early fall and ending by late winter.

Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

On 24 August 2012, the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society, announced that they had joined forces to begin a search for the remains of King Richard.

Led by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), experts set out to locate the Greyfriars site and discover whether his remains were still interred. The search appeared to locate the Church of the Grey Friars, where Richard's body had been buried, beneath a modern-day city centre council car park.

In parallel, British historian John Ashdown-Hill tracked down Richard's maternal bloodline, which had survived into the 21st century, via genealogical research. A British-born woman who migrated to Canada after the Second World War, Joy Ibsen, was found to be a 16th-generation grandniece of the king. Although Ibsen died in 2008, her son Michael gave a mouth-swab sample to the research team on 24 August 2012. His mtDNA, passed down on the maternal side, can be used to compare samples from any human remains from the excavation site, and potentially to identify King Richard.

On 5 September 2012 the excavators announced that they had identified the Greyfriars church, and two days later that they had identified the location of Robert Herrick's garden where the memorial to Richard III stood in the early 17th century. Human bones have since been found beneath the church's choir. On 12 September 2012 it was announced that a skeleton discovered during the search could have been that of Richard III. Five reasons were given: the body was of an adult male; it was buried beneath the choir of the church; there was scoliosis of the spine, possibly making one shoulder higher than the other (to what extent would depend on the severity of the condition). In addition, there was an arrowhead embedded in the spine; and there were perimortem injuries to the skull. Dr. Jo Appleby, the archaeologist who discovered the skeleton, described the latter as "a mortal battlefield wound in the back of the skull".

On 4 February 2013, the University of Leicester confirmed that the skeleton was beyond reasonable doubt that of King Richard III. This conclusion was based on mitochondrial DNA evidence, soil analysis, and dental tests, as well as physical characteristics of the skeleton which are highly consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard's appearance. The team announced that the "arrowhead" discovered with the body was a Roman-era nail, probably disturbed when the body was first interred. However, there were numerous perimortem wounds on the body, and part of the skull had been sliced off with a bladed weapon; this would have caused rapid death. The team concluded that it is unlikely that the king was wearing a helmet in his last moments. The Mayor of Leicester announced that the king's skeleton would be re-interred at Leicester Cathedral in early 2014, and by the same date a museum to Richard III will be opened in the Victorian school buildings next to the grave site.

The proposal to have King Richard buried in Leicester has attracted some controversy. Those who have challenged the decision include five members of his family and the Plantagenet Alliance, who believe that the body should be reburied in York, as they claim the king wished. In August 2013, they filed a court case in order to contest Leicester's claim to re-inter the body within its cathedral, and propose the body be buried in York instead. However, Michael Ibsen, who gave the DNA sample that identified the king, gave his support to Leicester's claim to re-inter the body in their cathedral. On 20 August, a judge ruled that the opponents had the legal standing to contest his burial in Leicester Cathedral, despite a clause in the contract which had authorized the excavations requiring his burial there. He urged the parties, though, to settle out of court in order to avoid embarking on the Wars of the Roses, Part Two.

On 5 February, Professor Caroline Wilkinson of the University of Dundee conducted a forensic facial reconstruction of Richard III, commissioned by the Richard III Society, based on 3D mappings of his skull. The face is described as "warm, young, earnest and rather serious".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England

The dishes at Jambo Grill are Khoja style cooking, followers of the Ismaili branch of the Shia sect of Islam. Their forefathers in India were converted to Islam by the Dais from Iran. Thus there is a strong Persian and Gujarati influence evident in the cooking. The tandoor, a deep clay oven is of the key elements in cooking these dishes, like Chicken Tikka, Kebabs, and Naan Bread. In the 1920’s their ancestors settled in East Africa before migrating to Canada in the 1970’s. Bringing the African style dishes such as Cassava & Tilapia Fish.

We found ourselves an interesting place that served bubble tea.

This was the first time I had experienced this drink. I've had it again here at home, but it wasn't the same. =(

Bubble tea, also called boba tea, is a tea beverage containing gelatinous tapioca pearls. It originated in Taiwan in the 1980s, spread to nearby East Asian countries, and migrated to Canada before spreading to Chinatown in New York City, then to various spots throughout the West Coast of the United States[1]. The literal translation from Chinese is pearl milk tea (traditional Chinese: 珍珠奶茶; Tongyong Pinyin: jhenjhu nǎichá; Hanyu Pinyin: zhēnzhū nǎichá). The word "bubble" refers to "bubbling", the process by which certain types of bubble tea are made, and not the actual tapioca balls. The balls are often called "pearls." Drinks with large pearls are consumed along with the beverage through wide straws; while drinks with small pearls are consumed through normal straws. Bubble tea is especially popular in many East Asian and Southeast Asian regions such as Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and more recently popularized in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Perú.

Sherborne School Collections, Sherborne School, Abbey Road, Sherborne, Dorset, UK, DT9 3AP oldshirburnian.org.uk/school-archives/

Portrait of the Rev. Hugo Daniel Harper, M.A., n.d. Headmaster of Sherborne School 1850-1877. Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, 1878-1895.

English School.

Oil on canvas.

Size 110 x 85 cm.

Gilt composition frame, glazed.

The portrait was given to Sherborne School in 1933 by W.J. Bensly and appears to be a copy [made by Miss Constance Maurice?] of a portrait of H.D. Harper made by Franklin Tuttle (1866-1919) in July 1884, now in the Principal’s Lodgings at Jesus College, Oxford. The cicada in the foreground may be a symbol of prayer, sanctuary and hope, or it may be a pun on Harper's surname with the sound of a Cicada and of a harp both known by the same word in Greek. A copy of this portrait is also held at Jesus College, Oxford: www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/hugo-daniel-ha...

Hugo Daniel Harper was born on 3 May 1821 in Tamworth, Staffordshire, the son of Thomas Harper (1793-1844) and Anne Isabella Roby (1791-1845). He was educated as Founder's Kin at Christ's Hospital and was admitted sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, on 25 May 1840. He matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford on 19 June 1840 and was awarded a BA in 1844, an MA in 1847. He was a Fellow of Jesus College from 1845 to 1851. In 1847, Harper was appointed Headmaster of Cowbridge Grammar School in Glamorgan where in 3 short years he transformed the failing school and increasing the roll from 12 to 80. Possibly encouraged by a Glamorgan landowner John Bruce-Pryce (1784-1872), himself an old boy of Sherborne School, Harper applied for the Headmastership of Sherborne School when the post became vacant in December 1849. He was elected Headmaster of Sherborne School on 19 March 1850, aged just 28.

H.D. Harper was one Sherborne School’s longest-serving headmasters, Hugo Harper ran the School for 27 years during which time he oversaw its complete transformation. When Harper arrived in Sherborne in 1850 the School buildings were dilapidated and cramped and numbers low with only 40 boys attending the School, only two of which were boarders. When Harper left in November 1877 the number of school buildings had increased tenfold, with the building of new classrooms, Fives courts, a music room, swimming bath, laboratory, and the Big School Room, and the numbers of boys attending the school had increased to 278, 248 of whom were boarders. Harper’s achievements at the School are commemorated in the naming of one of the school’s boarding houses, Harper House in Hound Street oldshirburnian.org.uk/harper-house/. After leaving Sherborne, Harper went on to become Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, then Rector of Clynnog Fawr in Gwynedd and later of Besselsleigh in Oxfordshire. He died on 8 January 1895.

On 19 December 1850, Harper married Mary (Mollie) Charlotte Harness (1829-1908), daughter of Captain Henry Drury Harness, R.E. (later General Sir Harness KCB) of Cowbridge. They had 7 children:

1. Caroline Elizabeth (Birdie) (1854-1898). Married Stanley Buchanan-Wollaston in Sherborne Abbey in 1877. The wedding breakfast was held in the Old School Dining Hall with a covered way from the School House over to the Abbey. A report of the wedding appeared in the Dorset County Chronicle after a tribute to Harper.

2. Mary (May) (1856-1934). Married Ernest Stewart Roberts in 1886. Author of Sherborne, Oxford & Cambridge: Recollections of Mrs Ernest Stewart Roberts (London, Martin Hopkinson Ltd., 1934).

3. Henry Roby (1858-1926), attended Sherborne School 1868-1877; Trinity College, Oxford; Assistant Master at Clifton 1883-1895; migrated to Canada; died in Calgary c.1927.

4. Margaret Annie (Maggie) (1860-1944).

5. Walter Hugo (1863-1929), attended Sherborne School 1874-1881; University College, Oxford; ordained 1887; Vicar of Tilehurst St George, Reading, 1897-1922; Rector of Monk’s Risborough, Buckinghamshire, 1922-1929. Died 1929. (His son, Hugo Daniel Harper (1901-1970), attended Sherborne School 1914-1920).

6. William Jevon (1864-1881), attended Sherborne School 1874-1881, XI 1880, XV 1879, 1880 (capt). Died 18 December 1881 at Jesus College Oxford from injuries received during the Three Cock www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/15192582093...

7. Arthur (1866-1871), born 3 April 1866. Died 3 January 1871, buried in Sherborne Cemetery.

See also:

Sherborne School chapel has a memorial window to H.D. Harper's son, William Jevon Harper (1864-1881): www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/15192582093...

Memorial window for H.D. Harper in Sherborne School Chapel: www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/15812032985...

H.D. Harper's crest in the Old School Room: www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/15626630828...

Cartoon sketch of H.D. Harper that appeared in 'Our Public Schools' c.1877, www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/30386236453...

H.D. Harper's Ultimatum carpenter's brace: www.flickr.com/photos/sherborneschoolarchives/26035717273...

If you have any additional information about this image or if you would like to use one of our images then we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or contact us via the Sherborne School Archives website: oldshirburnian.org.uk/school-archives/contact-the-school-...

This image was among the collection of the late Mavis Corker(1921-2018) who lived all her life at Carpenter's Cottage, Main Street, Winster, Derbyshire. Mavis' maiden name was Wilson. Before her family moved to Carpenter's Cottage they lived at Wilson's Row (now known as The Flat), Winster.

I had been given permission to view and copy this image and other images from Mavis' collection with a number of other people. I hurridly copied the image with my mobile camera from an image which was mounted and below which was printed:

"Sarah Ann Turner (nee Fawley) Family Portrait

John Turner (son of Henry Turner, Sarah Ann Hardy (daughter of Joseph Hardy and their mother, Sarah Ann

Taken in Winster?, Derbyshire about 1891."

I copied the printed material too but have not reproduced it with the image itself.

A brief glance at the Winster public records for people named Fawley , Hardy, Turner and Wilson indicate them living at Wilson's Row and a number of marriages resulting in issue (children).

If the image was taken c1891 then the people may have been:

John Turner b 1874 who migrated to Canada in 1914. In 1891 he would have been aged about 17.

Sarah Jane Hardy b 1882. In 1891 she would have been aged about 9. The girl looks older than 9 so it may have been another female child of Sarah Ann Hardy (nee Fawley) b 1852. In 1891 she would have been aged about 39 and the Mother of John and the female child.

This image is reproduced by kind permission of Rodney Watts.

www.flickr.com/photos/wiless/4666133043/

www.flickr.com/photos/wiless/4407684080/

For 173 long history-studded years, the Orange Order has played a prominent role in the political and social life in Canada. Brockville witnessed the birth of Orangeism in Canada, for in 1830 Loyal Orange Lodge #1 was established here. The founder, was a fighting Irishman, from Wexford in old Ireland.

Ogle Robert Gowan was born in Wexford in 1796 and joined the Order at a young age. He was assistant secretary of the Orange Lodge of Ireland, at the age of 18. At 21, he was publishing the Dublin Advocate in Dublin. Gowan was 33 when he migrated to Canada, settling in Brockville. Energetic and ambitious, Gowan joined the Leeds Militia here, founded a newspaper, The Brockville Antidote, and became involved in local politics. The Antidote, sometimes known as The Gazette, ran in opposition to the Brockville Recorder, forerunner of the Recorder & Times.

The Recorder, founded in 1821, forced the Antidote out of business in 1832. Gowan couldn't match the drawing power and advertising success of The Recorder. Though his paper failed, Gowan continued his political sparing with The Recorder's publisher, William Buell Jr., and his brother, Andrew Norton, for many years.

From his arrival, Gowan worked to establish the Orange Order of Canada. In 1830, he established

L.O.L.#1. Today, 173 years later, the Brockville Lodge is still the No.1 Branch of the Orange Order in Canada. At the same time, Gowan created the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America. He Became the first Grand Master, a post he held for 19 terms, 16 of them consecutively.

The first master of L.O.L #1 was Robert Stewart, and the Lodge met at the tavern of John Craft, located on a side road North of Brockville. The road today is known as Victoria Rd. and the tavern was probably located west of the site of Windsor Public School. Regarded as 'The father of the Orange Order in the new world' Gowan spent a lifetime setting up new lodges everywhere. One of his triumphs was the establishment of L.O.L #8 in Crystal, a community east of Frankville, which is still going strong today.

The Grand Lodge alternated it's meetings between Brockville and Toronto for 14 years, until 1844 when Hamilton was chosen. Since then the Grand Lodge has met in various Canadian cities. In 1930, the centennial of the Order, the Grand Lodge met here. In 1980, in it's 150th year, the Lodge gathered in Regina. Gowan ran successfully for the Upper Canada Legislature in 1830, and tried again in 1834. He and his partner Robert Jameson, then Attorney General for the province, where opposed by William Buell Jr. & Mathew Howard. In a riotous open-air election in Beverly, now Delta, Gowan & Jameson won the rioting, by the legislature on the grounds that Orange followers of Gowan, had intimated and beaten supporters of Buell and Howard.

A by-election was ordered for early March in 1836. This time Buell and Howard won. The victors celebrated by barbecuing an ox on Main St, Brockville, in front of Luther's Hotel. Buell staged a victory banquet for invited guests in the hotel, while his supporters carved up the barbecued ox and distributed the beef to the poor of the village. 3 months later, a general election was held, and after a campaign marked by violence, Buell and Howard withdrew and allowed Gowan and Jonas Jones to win unopposed. Gowan was elected to the Brockville board of police in 1844. As Reeve of Brockville, he was chosen as warden of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville. He Was elected warden again in 1846 and in the 4 succeeding years when Brockville was elected to the status of a town in 1949, Gowan was elected Alderman for the west ward. He lost a bid for a seat in the first Canadian Parliament of 1841, after the union of Upper and Lower Canada, but won the rioting in 1844. His last term as member for Leeds cam in 1845. Militarily, Gowan distinguished himself as commander of the relief force marching on windmill east of Prescott after the old fort had been captured by an American invading force.

Gowan was slightly wounded in the battle, which led to the recapture of the windmill in 1948. Overseas he was a veteran of Napoleonic wars, ending in 1815, and join the Leeds militia in 1829. He subsequently arose to be become officer commanding the 9th provisional battalion of Upper Canada, with rank of colonel. In 1840 he was named colonel of the Leeds militia.

Ogel R. Gowan died in Toronto in 1875 and in buried in that city, Gowan's grave is located in Toronto's St. James cemetery and is marked by a special memorial stone erected by the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada. He was also a member of the L.O.L #137, Toronto, which is still in operation.

On 24 August 2012, the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society, announced that they had joined forces to begin a search for the remains of King Richard.

Led by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), experts set out to locate the Greyfriars site and discover whether his remains were still interred. The search appeared to locate the Church of the Grey Friars, where Richard's body had been buried, beneath a modern-day city centre council car park.

In parallel, British historian John Ashdown-Hill tracked down Richard's maternal bloodline, which had survived into the 21st century, via genealogical research. A British-born woman who migrated to Canada after the Second World War, Joy Ibsen, was found to be a 16th-generation grandniece of the king. Although Ibsen died in 2008, her son Michael gave a mouth-swab sample to the research team on 24 August 2012. His mtDNA, passed down on the maternal side, can be used to compare samples from any human remains from the excavation site, and potentially to identify King Richard.

On 5 September 2012 the excavators announced that they had identified the Greyfriars church, and two days later that they had identified the location of Robert Herrick's garden where the memorial to Richard III stood in the early 17th century. Human bones have since been found beneath the church's choir. On 12 September 2012 it was announced that a skeleton discovered during the search could have been that of Richard III. Five reasons were given: the body was of an adult male; it was buried beneath the choir of the church; there was scoliosis of the spine, possibly making one shoulder higher than the other (to what extent would depend on the severity of the condition). In addition, there was an arrowhead embedded in the spine; and there were perimortem injuries to the skull. Dr. Jo Appleby, the archaeologist who discovered the skeleton, described the latter as "a mortal battlefield wound in the back of the skull"

On December 15, 2012 the Daily Telegraph reported that further laboratory tests, including DNA comparisons, undertaken to verify the identification, and other evidence found at the site, had indeed confirmed the remains as the king's; a formal announcement was to be made in January 2013. Later the same day, however, the University of Leicester insisted that the results of tests were not yet known.

British historian and MP Chris Skidmore has called for the late King (if the remains are confirmed to be his) to be reburied with a full state funeral. The government has confirmed that the remains, if confirmed as those of the 15th Century king, will be interred in Leicester. Leicester Cathedral, across the road from the grave, is being considered.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England

First Batch of Biotechnology 2002-2005 class

Greater Yellowlegs, Shark River, Shark River Hills, NJ

Short Video of the Yellowlegs feeding on the bank of the Shark River. I am not a great video person so forgive the camera shake. On the other hand, this bird was doing its best to cooperate. This is the first Yellowlegs I have seen in the Shark River. I guess it is migrating to Canada and stopped by for a snack.

"Francis Lidington Aldous was born November 4, 1891 at Brackley, Northamptonshire, England, son of Robert Everett Aldous and Selina Annie Aldous.

Prior to the start of the war, Frank migrated to Canada and was living in Victoria, British Columbia working as a dairyman. Frank enlisted into the 103rd Battalion at Victoria on December 8, 1915 being assigned regimental number 706137. Pte. Aldous embarked from Halifax, Nova Scotia aboard the S.S. Olympic on July 23, 1916 and disembarked at Liverpool on the 31st.

Pte. Aldous was posted to the 16th Canadian Reserve Battalion on January 9, 1917 prior to proceeding to France on the 20th and being taken on strength with the 54th Battalion on February 17, 1917.

During actions April 9, 1917 at Vimy Ridge, Pte. Aldous was awarded the Military Medal (London Gazette 30172, July 9, 1917) "in the attack by the 54th Canadian Infantry Battalion against VIMY RIDGE (BERTHONVAL SECTOR) on April 9th, 1917 assisted Pte. SHECK throughout to save his Lewis Gun in the most advanced outpost position reached by the Battalion. He kept the gun in action until only two of them were left, then assisted in withdrawing the gun to the line that was being consolidated and formed one of the crew to serve one of the guns as above mentioned. He proved of great assistance to Pte. SHECK."

On April 18, 1917, Pte. Aldous was sentenced to 7 days Field Punishment No. 1 for Committing a Nuisance. He was subsequently seriously wounded by a gas shell while in the Vimy-Angres Line on June 11, 1917 and was evacuated to Boulogne not rejoining the Battalion until September 15, 1917.

Frank was promoted to Lance Corporal on August 13, 1918; to Corporal (to complete establishment) October 1, 1918; and, again to complete establishment, to Lance Sergeant the same day.

Frank must have led a charmed life as he went the remainder of the fighting without requiring medical treatment although he was involved in actions with the Battalion until the end of the war.

Alas, all was not well with Frank and, while awaiting repatriation, he was reported absent without leave on April 7, 1919 while the Battalion was at Hoeylaert, Belgium. He was last seen by a fellow Sergeant on April 8 who provided a statement to a Court of Inquiry indicating "Sgt. Aldous.....said he was going to Brussels.....and would return on Thursday morning, 10th instant. He had been drinking heavily for two weeks before the 8th April and while speaking to me he was trembling violently. He was in very poor shape indeed."

At 09.00 hours April 15, Frank's bunkmate noted Frank's rifle was missing but thought nothing of it. At 13.45 hours Frank Aldous was found in the Foret de Soignes, deceased from a single gunshot wound to his right temple. A note in his pocket read To whoever finds me, I am Sergeant F. Aldous, 54th Battn., Canadians, Hoeylaert, Adieu.

He was 27 years old."

From the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group website

Yousuf Karsh CC was an Armenian-Canadian photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. An Armenian genocide survivor, Karsh migrated to Canada as a refugee

Exhibition Dates: October 26 – November 12, 2020

To Be Me

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti

The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present MFA candidate Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti’s thesis exhibition, “To Be Me”.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.”

-Rumi

There is something inside each one of us that, sometimes, is impossible to explain and define in precise words. However, this ambiguous something exists and acts. Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti, an Iranian woman who grew to adulthood in Iran and who now resides between Canada and the United States, has experienced deep feelings of ambiguity in her encounters with different cultural and social expectations.

Not all diasporas are the same. Not all female experiences of oppression are the same. Dashti’s experience as an Iranian diasporic woman is fragmented along ethnic, religious, social, political, and class lines. These fragments pose challenges to her attempts to bind with others and find solidarity based in multiculturalism and ethnicity. Dashti establishes her body as an integral material in her art practices to make the explanation of her experiences and challenges possible. She seeks to claim her body across multiple media of performance, video, and installation. Dashti focuses on traumas that underscore both personal experience and engagement with larger sociopolitical structures of the phallocentric systems that exist in both her homeland and her host countries.

Representation is a crucial location of the struggle for any exploited and oppressed bodies asserting subjectivity. Dashti insists on reminding us to work against the silence and erasure of traumatic experience. “To Be Me” features contemporary representations of Dashti’s Iranian and immigrant identity formation. Works within this MFA thesis exhibition relay the immense struggles of living between places and cultures. Dashti explores her identity in the hope of calling oppressive authorities into question. Perhaps there is not much hope for a bright future where differences are recognized without eliminating the voices of others. But striving to make this future fosters hope—both to endure and to continue.

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti is currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University in London, Ontario. She migrated to Canada in 2011 from Iran, and has lived in the USA since August 2019. Her artistic practice involves exploring her body through performance, video, and installation. Her work reflects concerns about the unjust and tyrannical politics of her homeland. Dashti is always rediscovering, reinventing, and reinterpreting her Iranian identity through multiple discourses and contexts, in multiple and heterogeneous ways. She earned her BFA, Fine Arts Studio Practice-Intensive Studio Specialization, with an Honours Digital Arts Communication Minor, at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, making the Dean’s Honours List. She is also a recipient of various awards such as the Lynn Holmes Memorial Award and Curator’s Choice Award during her BFA. Dashti received the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship in Social Sciences and Humanities Research in 2019. Her work has been showcased nationally and internationally.

Due to COVID-19 safety measures, the Artlab Gallery and Cohen Commons will be operating virtually. In-person visits are not permitted at this time. We will be posting exhibition documentation, videos, and virtual walk-throughs on the Artlab’s website.

Artlab Gallery

JL Visual Arts Centre

Western University

London, Ontario, Canada

© 2020; Department of Visual Arts; Western University

- In the 1990s, it migrated to Canada, awaiting for the skilled artisans at Twisted Log to breathe a new purpose into the ancient wood. +

Greater Yellowlegs, Shark River, Shark River Hills, NJ

A Yellowlegs feeding on the bank of the Shark River. This is the first Yellowlegs I have seen in the Shark River. I guess it is migrating to Canada and stopped by for a snack.

A Chennai Metroblog reader Michelle from USA gave me the landmarks near her ancestral residence in Chennai and requested to send the photos of the house. This happened a year back. I sent the photographs also. Her family migrated to Canada after independence during the 1950s. Her mother identified the house as their ancestral residence and sent some B & W photographs taken during that time . Today we crossed that house and this is the house, diagonally opposite to the Police Commissioner's Office at Egmore, Chennai. A Board in the premises say that the house is the property of Radha Soami Satsangh, Beas

About Grunthal History

1. First Settlement

Grunthal was first settled in 1876 by Russian Mennonites who had come to Canada in what is referred to as the first major wave of Russian immigration. James Urry, in his book None But Saints, defines the three big immigration movements of Mennonites from Russia to America. The first was in the 1870's when Alexander II (then Czar) voided the charters that provided Russian Mennonites from Religious Freedoms and self-determination of their communities. From 1873 to 1884 about 8,000 Mennonites migrated to Manitoba, with another 13,000 settling in the mid-western United States. The second major wave of Russian Mennonites migrated to Canada soon after the Russian Revolution in 1919. A third wave of Mennonite immigrants came to Canada immediately after World War II. In all three waves of immigration, the Mennonites were seeking reprieve from the persecution and fight for religious freedoms.

The village of Gruenthal (just west of the present site of Grunthal) was first established by six families: Johann Klassen, Peter Sawatzky, Jakob Hiebert, Klaas Peters and two brothers, Abraham and Johann Kauenhowen, as part of the first wave of Mennonite immigration. This formed the base of the community, with more immigrants moving into the area from subsequent waves of immigration. The Russian Mennonites had a reputation for being both excellent farmers and prosperous. This trend continues today as we look around our community prospering from its agricultural roots.

www.grunthal.ca/about.php

Our Daily Challenge - "All Wrapped Up"

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Living in Canada and having attended a multicultural school, I've had many opportunities to observe the customs, traditions, religions, and points of view held by various groups and cultures that have migrated to Canada from around the world. It's incredibly interesting to see how groups that were once isolated from each other have all created the same basic facilities; we all have a language; we all have some sort of beliefs, whether they be religious in nature or not; we all form groups of close friends/family; we all celebrate certain times or occasions throughout our lives.

These facets of human existence are intrinsic, and they develop without any conscious intervention. Then when they are allowed to entangle and permeate other variations of these same attributes, they blend. Over the past centuries, a seemingly infinite combination of traditions, languages, customs, values, beliefs, and any other traits that distinguish groups of people, have formed. Canada is home to one of the most diverse populations in this regard, and I'm glad to be involved. Every day is an eye-opening experience, and provides a little peek into the way billions of others live around the world.

Christmas is one time where a whole bunch of the distinguishing features of each of these cultures are revealed as people celebrate the holidays in whatever ways they've been raised to know and love. I hope everyone's enjoying the holidays. Soak it all in while it lasts :)

Exhibition Dates: October 26 – November 12, 2020

To Be Me

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti

The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present MFA candidate Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti’s thesis exhibition, “To Be Me”.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.”

-Rumi

There is something inside each one of us that, sometimes, is impossible to explain and define in precise words. However, this ambiguous something exists and acts. Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti, an Iranian woman who grew to adulthood in Iran and who now resides between Canada and the United States, has experienced deep feelings of ambiguity in her encounters with different cultural and social expectations.

Not all diasporas are the same. Not all female experiences of oppression are the same. Dashti’s experience as an Iranian diasporic woman is fragmented along ethnic, religious, social, political, and class lines. These fragments pose challenges to her attempts to bind with others and find solidarity based in multiculturalism and ethnicity. Dashti establishes her body as an integral material in her art practices to make the explanation of her experiences and challenges possible. She seeks to claim her body across multiple media of performance, video, and installation. Dashti focuses on traumas that underscore both personal experience and engagement with larger sociopolitical structures of the phallocentric systems that exist in both her homeland and her host countries.

Representation is a crucial location of the struggle for any exploited and oppressed bodies asserting subjectivity. Dashti insists on reminding us to work against the silence and erasure of traumatic experience. “To Be Me” features contemporary representations of Dashti’s Iranian and immigrant identity formation. Works within this MFA thesis exhibition relay the immense struggles of living between places and cultures. Dashti explores her identity in the hope of calling oppressive authorities into question. Perhaps there is not much hope for a bright future where differences are recognized without eliminating the voices of others. But striving to make this future fosters hope—both to endure and to continue.

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti is currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University in London, Ontario. She migrated to Canada in 2011 from Iran, and has lived in the USA since August 2019. Her artistic practice involves exploring her body through performance, video, and installation. Her work reflects concerns about the unjust and tyrannical politics of her homeland. Dashti is always rediscovering, reinventing, and reinterpreting her Iranian identity through multiple discourses and contexts, in multiple and heterogeneous ways. She earned her BFA, Fine Arts Studio Practice-Intensive Studio Specialization, with an Honours Digital Arts Communication Minor, at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, making the Dean’s Honours List. She is also a recipient of various awards such as the Lynn Holmes Memorial Award and Curator’s Choice Award during her BFA. Dashti received the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship in Social Sciences and Humanities Research in 2019. Her work has been showcased nationally and internationally.

Due to COVID-19 safety measures, the Artlab Gallery and Cohen Commons will be operating virtually. In-person visits are not permitted at this time. We will be posting exhibition documentation, videos, and virtual walk-throughs on the Artlab’s website.

Artlab Gallery

JL Visual Arts Centre

Western University

London, Ontario, Canada

© 2020; Department of Visual Arts; Western University

Yousuf Karsh CC RCA FRPS (December 23, 1908 – July 13, 2002) was an Armenian–Canadian photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.

An Armenian genocide survivor, Karsh migrated to Canada as a refugee. By the 1930s he established himself as a significant photographer in Ottawa, where he lived most of his adult life, though he traveled extensively for work. His iconic 1941 photograph of Winston Churchill was a breakthrough point in his career, through which he took numerous photos of known political leaders, men and women of arts and sciences. More than 20 photos by Karsh appeared on the cover of Life magazine, until he retired in 1993.

On June 9, 2017, a bust of Karsh by Canadian-Armenian sculptor Megerditch Tarakdjian was unveiled before Château Laurier, Ottawa. It depicts Karsh with his famous camera and is a gift to Canada from the people of Armenia on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the 150th anniversary of Canada……Source Wikipedia.

At the turn of the century (from 19th to 20th), many Scandinavians migrated to Canada. Those who came to Toronto settled in what was then the northern suburbs of Toronto along the Yonge Street corridor up to Steeles Avenue. Today, most of the Scandinavians have moved further away from the city, and have integrated into the larger Canadian society. But on Eglinton Avenue East, a Finnish Credit Union (co-operative bank) called Osuuspankki is still in business. The word pankki is Finnish for bank.

Going to Africa involved chartering ships and was a more difficult endeavor than migrating to Canada or Mexico. It could only be achieved through the assistance of well-funded organizations. Sponsored primarily by the American Colonization Society, the movement grew in the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth. Henry Bonds, who was born in Mississippi in 1865 and settled in Oklahoma in 1890, tried repeatedly to migrate to Liberia between 1912 and 1919 with his wife, Mary, a teacher, and three of their children.

Barney Ford was born a slave in Virginia. At the age of twenty-fire, he escaped and began a successful career in a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. In the hope of discovering gold in California, Ford purchased ship passage for himself and his wife, Julia, by way of Nicaragua. Central America proved lucrative and Ford decided to stay. In 1851, he opened the United States Hotel and Restaurant, which hosted many American dignitaries. However, Nicaragua's reinstatement of slavery forced him to return to the United States. He and his wife opened a livery stable in Chicago, which doubled as a station for fugitives migrating to Canada. By 1860, he was living in Denver and became a prosperous tycoon in the hotel, restaurant, and barbershop businesses, earning the nickname the "Black Baron of Colorado." Throughout the Civil War, he gave financial assistance, food, and jobs to escaped and free African Americans.

Astoria Vintage Hardware, Astoria, Oregon.

In the early 2000s we were eligible to migrate to Canada. The road not taken . . .

"The ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021." (Wikipedia)

I keep track annually of when the first RTHB arrives to our garden in the spring and leaves in the fall. Last year the first one arrived on May 3, 2022 and the last one present was on September 29, 2022.

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Henry Walton Bibb (Cantalonia, Kentucky, May 10, 1815–1854) was an American author and abolitionist who was born a slave. After escaping from slavery to Canada, he founded an abolitionist newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive. He returned to the US and lectured against slavery.

He died young, at the age of 39.

Summary of Narrative

He left his wife and child without their knowledge and crossed the Ohio River into the free state of Indiana. From there he took a steamboat to Cincinnati, all the while hiding his identity from those onboard.

Bibb finishes his narrative with the earnest hope that "this little volume will bear some humble part in lighting up the path of freedom and revolutionizing public opinion upon this great subject"

The site of the Milford Hutterite Colony lies just North East of Lake Byron, Beadle County, South Dakota. This site was established as a daughter colony of Lake Byron Colony in 1913 but was never actually established as a working, settled colony. The site was abandoned in 1918 when the Hutterite Colony migrated to Canada. The Milford Hutterite Colony was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

His world has become smaller and smaller

Corrupt politicians cum builder lobby on his land

Build towers taller and taller.. His daughter has migrated to Canada he misses her tries to call her

Once she was Evelyn Pereira now she is happily

Married Mrs Waller

#eastindians

Late December saw me becoming a wedding sponsor for the first time, for our colleague Mike who is migrating to Canada. Photo by Riza. Tagbilaran Cathedral, Bohol.

With global warming, these penguins seemed to have migrated to Canada via Erin/Ireland!

"The ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a species of hummingbird that generally spends the winter in Central America, Mexico, and Florida, and migrates to Canada and other parts of Eastern North America for the summer to breed. It is the most common hummingbird in eastern North America, having population estimates of about 35 million in 2021." (Wikipedia)

I keep track annually of when the first RTHB arrives to our garden in the spring and leaves in the fall. Last year the first one arrived on May 3, 2022, and the last one present was on September 29, 2022.

At the turn of the century (from 19th to 20th), many Scandinavians migrated to Canada. Those who came to Toronto settled in what was then the northern suburbs of Toronto along the Yonge Street corridor up to Steeles Avenue. Today, most of the Scandinavians have moved further away from the city, and have integrated into the larger Canadian society. But on Eglinton Avenue East, a Finnish Credit Union (co-operative bank) called Osuuspankki is still in business. The word pankki is Finnish for bank.

Her Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks is the oldest building in Ontario and the first Protestant Church in Upper Canada. It is one of six Chapels Royal outside of the United Kingdom, one of two in Canada, the other being Christ Church Royal Chapel in Deseronto, Ontario. In 1981 the chapel was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.

Constructed near Brantford, Ontario in 1785 by the British Crown, the chapel was given to the Mohawk Indians led by Joseph Brant, for their support of the Crown during the American Revolution. They had migrated to Canada after Britain lost the Thirteen Colonies and were awarded land for resettlement. Originally called St. Paul's, the church is commonly referred to as the Mohawk Chapel. It is part of the Anglican Diocese of Huron and has a chaplain appointed by the Bishop of Huron in consultation with the congregation.

In 1850, the remains of Joseph Brant were moved from the original burial site in Burlington, to a tomb at the Mohawk Chapel. His son John Brant was also interred in the tomb. Next to Brant's tomb is a boulder memorializing the writer Pauline Johnson, who was born in the nearby Six Nations Reserve and attended services in the Chapel. The site was elevated in 1904 to a Chapel Royal by Edward VII.

The Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site commemorates the Battle of Oriskany, which was fought on August 6, 1777 and was one of the bloodiest battles in the American Revolutionary War and a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign. A party of Loyalists and several Indian allies ambushed an American military party that was trying to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which almost all of the participants were Americans; Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois in the absence of British regular soldiers.

The Patriot relief force came from the Mohawk Valley under General Nicholas Herkimer and numbered around 800 men of the Tryon County militia plus a party of Oneida warriors. British commander Barry St. Leger authorized an intercepting force consisting of a Hanau Jäger (light infantry) detachment, Sir John Johnson's King's Royal Regiment of New York, Indian allies from the Six Nations, particularly Mohawks and Senecas and other tribes to the north and west, and Indian Department Rangers, totaling at least 450 men.

The Loyalist and Indian force ambushed Herkimer's force in a small valley about six miles (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, near the village of Oriskany, New York. Herkimer was mortally wounded, and the battle cost the Patriots approximately 450 casualties, while the Loyalists and Indians lost approximately 150 dead and wounded. The result of the battle remains ambiguous. The apparent Loyalist victory was significantly affected by a sortie from Fort Stanwix in which the Loyalist camps were sacked, damaging morale among the allied Indians.

The battle also marked the beginning of a war among the Iroquois, as Oneida warriors under Colonel Louis and Han Yerry allied with the American cause. Most of the other Iroquois tribes allied with the British, especially the Mohawks and Senecas. Each tribe was highly decentralized, and there were internal divisions among bands of the Oneida, some of whom also migrated to Canada as allies of the British. The site is known in Iroquois oral histories as "A Place of Great Sadness. The obelisk on the site was dedicated in 1884.

The Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site commemorates the Battle of Oriskany, which was fought on August 6, 1777 and was one of the bloodiest battles in the American Revolutionary War and a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign. A party of Loyalists and several Indian allies ambushed an American military party that was trying to relieve the siege of Fort Stanwix. This was one of the few battles in which almost all of the participants were Americans; Patriots and allied Oneidas fought against Loyalists and allied Iroquois in the absence of British regular soldiers.

The Patriot relief force came from the Mohawk Valley under General Nicholas Herkimer and numbered around 800 men of the Tryon County militia plus a party of Oneida warriors. British commander Barry St. Leger authorized an intercepting force consisting of a Hanau Jäger (light infantry) detachment, Sir John Johnson's King's Royal Regiment of New York, Indian allies from the Six Nations, particularly Mohawks and Senecas and other tribes to the north and west, and Indian Department Rangers, totaling at least 450 men.

The Loyalist and Indian force ambushed Herkimer's force in a small valley about six miles (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, near the village of Oriskany, New York. Herkimer was mortally wounded, and the battle cost the Patriots approximately 450 casualties, while the Loyalists and Indians lost approximately 150 dead and wounded. The result of the battle remains ambiguous. The apparent Loyalist victory was significantly affected by a sortie from Fort Stanwix in which the Loyalist camps were sacked, damaging morale among the allied Indians.

The battle also marked the beginning of a war among the Iroquois, as Oneida warriors under Colonel Louis and Han Yerry allied with the American cause. Most of the other Iroquois tribes allied with the British, especially the Mohawks and Senecas. Each tribe was highly decentralized, and there were internal divisions among bands of the Oneida, some of whom also migrated to Canada as allies of the British. The site is known in Iroquois oral histories as "A Place of Great Sadness. The obelisk on the site was dedicated in 1884.

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My grandmas brothers & sisters migrated to Canada from the city Gävle, in Sweden around 1920s. This is a postcard received a lot of years ago.

Exhibition Dates: October 26 – November 12, 2020

To Be Me

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti

The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present MFA candidate Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti’s thesis exhibition, “To Be Me”.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.”

-Rumi

There is something inside each one of us that, sometimes, is impossible to explain and define in precise words. However, this ambiguous something exists and acts. Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti, an Iranian woman who grew to adulthood in Iran and who now resides between Canada and the United States, has experienced deep feelings of ambiguity in her encounters with different cultural and social expectations.

Not all diasporas are the same. Not all female experiences of oppression are the same. Dashti’s experience as an Iranian diasporic woman is fragmented along ethnic, religious, social, political, and class lines. These fragments pose challenges to her attempts to bind with others and find solidarity based in multiculturalism and ethnicity. Dashti establishes her body as an integral material in her art practices to make the explanation of her experiences and challenges possible. She seeks to claim her body across multiple media of performance, video, and installation. Dashti focuses on traumas that underscore both personal experience and engagement with larger sociopolitical structures of the phallocentric systems that exist in both her homeland and her host countries.

Representation is a crucial location of the struggle for any exploited and oppressed bodies asserting subjectivity. Dashti insists on reminding us to work against the silence and erasure of traumatic experience. “To Be Me” features contemporary representations of Dashti’s Iranian and immigrant identity formation. Works within this MFA thesis exhibition relay the immense struggles of living between places and cultures. Dashti explores her identity in the hope of calling oppressive authorities into question. Perhaps there is not much hope for a bright future where differences are recognized without eliminating the voices of others. But striving to make this future fosters hope—both to endure and to continue.

Sepideh Tajalizadeh Dashti is currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University in London, Ontario. She migrated to Canada in 2011 from Iran, and has lived in the USA since August 2019. Her artistic practice involves exploring her body through performance, video, and installation. Her work reflects concerns about the unjust and tyrannical politics of her homeland. Dashti is always rediscovering, reinventing, and reinterpreting her Iranian identity through multiple discourses and contexts, in multiple and heterogeneous ways. She earned her BFA, Fine Arts Studio Practice-Intensive Studio Specialization, with an Honours Digital Arts Communication Minor, at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, making the Dean’s Honours List. She is also a recipient of various awards such as the Lynn Holmes Memorial Award and Curator’s Choice Award during her BFA. Dashti received the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship in Social Sciences and Humanities Research in 2019. Her work has been showcased nationally and internationally.

Due to COVID-19 safety measures, the Artlab Gallery and Cohen Commons will be operating virtually. In-person visits are not permitted at this time. We will be posting exhibition documentation, videos, and virtual walk-throughs on the Artlab’s website.

Artlab Gallery

JL Visual Arts Centre

Western University

London, Ontario, Canada

© 2020; Department of Visual Arts; Western University