30DC22: 3 Things I'm Proud of

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Gosh, I guess I’m just supposed to brag about myself in this post, aren’t I? Here goes!

30DC8: Places I've Lived

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Hong Kong – I was born and spent the first 8 months of my life here, where my family is from. Aptly described by Michael Kors as "Beverly Hills on steroids," Hong Kong is a vibrant and exciting place that requires a certain level of street-smartness to survive in.  In fact, months before I visited Hong Kong for the first (and so far, only) time when I was 10, my mom and aunts prepped me for weeks about how to navigate through dense crowds, how to find a seat on the subway, how not to mess my clothes up eating street food, etc.!  It's also where Cantonese is widely spoken - a dialect that is not pretty to listen to at all but is very close to my heart, because it's very colloquial and cheeky. :) Being from Hong Kong also creates a unique cultural identity in me, because my entire family (with the exception of my younger cousins) were born there when it was a British colony.  I've found that it's nearly impossible to describe to people who don't share a similar situation what it means to be bicultural - especially, I've personally found, if they're from Europe.  And for me, my situation is even more complicated because I grew up in Canada!  Which brings me to my next place...

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Toronto – I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, which are safe and peaceful. I’m very proud of being from Toronto, and I self-identify first and foremost as a Canadian. In fact, I've been known to raise my hackles when people sh*t on Canadians. :P I’m now back living in my hometown after stints in the following places:

Target Canada Haul & First Impressions!

My first Target Canada Haul! :D

At laaaaaaaast!
My looove has come along...
My lonely days are overrr...
And life is liiike a sooong!!!

I am, of course, referring to Target’s arrival in Canada! This is proof-positive that every once in a while, the Retail Fairies answer our prayers*. Those of us who have Target on our US Must Go Lists have been hotly anticipating their debut here in the homeland ever since it was first announced.

On the day of their debut (Tuesday, March 19th),

Love Letter to All My "Not Skinny" Chinese Sisters

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I came across this discussion thread in a healthy lifestyle forum, from a young girl.  Normally, I wouldn't really have the patience to reply to posts like this but it hit too close to home, so I answered her.  Since this posting, her identity's been suspicious because "her" new blog has totally different statistics from those detailed in the profile of the writer of this note.  The only thing in common is that both the person who started this thread and the person who writes on that blog are obsessive about their weight and have very unhealthy attitudes about their body image.  Regardless of whether or not it's the same person, if I could just help one person - her or a passerby who reads this - have a healthier and more positive attitude about themselves, I would be really grateful.  Here it is:

What's Wrong with My Face

A photo of me, warts and all - but this was on a good day. You wouldn't think someone as vain as I am would put a truly hideous picture of myself on my blog, would you?

“What’s wrong with your face?” a middle-aged, rotund, rough-looking server asked me at a restaurant – the kind that’s sort of the Chinese version of a greasy spoon diner. “Do you have allergies? What have you been eating? My God, it is serious. You must

The Great Equalizer

Remember my epically amazing job interview? (If you haven't read that entry before, I highly encourage you to do so - it was like an out of body experience for me!) An article I read on HuffPo recently reminded me of my own, very humbling job hunt experience.

As a recent grad just breaking into the work force, my heart sinks a little every time I read an article like this. According to the girl in the article, it's been increasingly difficult for young people to find work (even seasonal positions) because many employers are demanding experience. To me, that just means there's a lot of competition - a lot of people are looking for work because the job market is bad, so the bar is raised higher. Last year I had a temporary telemarketing gig that required three interviews!

When I was looking for my Big Girl Job earlier this year, I remember the helplessness I felt every time I was told that I didn't have enough experience for a position. How was I to acquire any if I couldn't get started anywhere? I wondered. No one cared that I speak five languages and my international experience seemed to count for nothing. If only someone would just give me a chance, I thought.

Eventually someone did, thank goodness, and right in the nick of time too, because it was right before my student loan payments were to start. And fortunately, it was also in one of my chosen fields. Many of my postgrad classmates ended up doing generic administrative ot reception jobs because they couldn't break into the industry. I even know some people with degrees doing retail and restaurant jobs.

I've also come across several articles about Ivy League graduates who have been paying off their loans forever and can't see a light at the end of the tunnel - many of whom are graduates of professional programs like law and medicine.

It's so ironic because many (if not most) people go to school to get that piece of paper that will enable them to find a job and make money later on in life. But that piece of paper can become an enormous and often lifelong burden.

And that's when I realized how lucky and grateful I am to be Canadian, because in Canada, postsecondary education is The Great Equalizer. Unlike the States and many European countries, there are no private universities in Canada. I went to public elementary and high schools and then I attended university with both people like me as well as people who went to the most expensive, exclusive private schools in the country. We all end up in the same place.

I have a cousin my age in the States who went to Boston University, which is a decent school, but not really an Ivy League - it's not some of the first schools that pop in mind when people talk about The Best American Universities, you know? But a year of undergraduate tuition at her school costs more than all the money I had to borrow from the government to finance my undergraduate degree (so the price of my education minus my scholarships, grants, bursaries and RESPs). In other words, a year of tuition for her costs almost as much as three years of all my university expenses put together. If I grew up in the States, I wouldn't be able to afford to go to a top tier school, and I'd hate to feel like I couldn't have the same opportunities as other people because of my family's financial situation.

So while Canada's education system isn't perfect (especially since it's so expensive to go to university!) I'll take what I have.

Don't Sh*t On Canadians!

“Did you know that in Canada they’re so ugly they don’t have mirrors in their elevators?”


“Did you know that the word ‘HUMILITY’ doesn’t exist in Canadian English? They should include it!”

Who wrote these things on his Facebook status?

Entitled to Happiness

Something finally managed to kick my butt out of my self-pitying jag.

Livin' Large 2011

Hello, everybody!  Happy New Year!!! 

My internship contract ended on the last day of 2010 and I've been home in Toronto as of Tuesday.  I had two flight transfers, which really, really sucked, but I sat beside a really nice, German-born, LA-resident Jake Gyllenhaal look-alike on my last fight, so that made the situation a little better. :D

I've been experiencing a bit of reverse culture shock...

El Día conmemorativo

It's so strange to be living somewhere where no one is wearing poppies.  In Canada, poppies grace many, many coat lapels and breastpockets right after Halloween.

The Chocolate Rhythm

When most people say that they are addicted to chocolate, other people just think that they just must really, really like to eat it.  It's goes further than that with me...I think I might really have a problem.  I'm surprised that I haven't written about it more here, actually.  I'd inject Nutella if I could, although I suppose that would defeat the purpose of tasting it. 

Just like at home, Commercial Land is kind of hyperactive here.  Several days after Todos los Santos (November 1st, which is a holiday here), stores start getting stocked with Christmas things.  Now that December is getting closer and closer, all the supermarkets here are getting filled to bursting with chocolate sweets, most notably an absolute ton of turrón, which is basically nougat, and all kinds of chocolates.

All kinds!  And it's all the good stuff from Europe that I love to eat at home, but it's cheaper because Spain is closer to Belgium and Switzerland and Germany and Italy than Canada is.  I just bought a 16-piece box of Ferrero Rocher for 3.90 €, which would retail at home between $6-8.  ¡Olé!

But that was when I started missing the Chocolate Rhythm at home.  Did you know that chocolate has a rhythm in Canada?  Because there is.  And it's a beautiful one, with its graceful ebbs and flows of brown, creamy deliciousness.

Being A Bicultural Baby

Is it true that people can only have one child in China?

I think so, yes.

What happens if your family has more than one child?

I've heard that you have to pay a fine.

How much is the fine?

Er...I don't know. It can't be cheap, I'd imagine, if it's supposed to be effective.

So how much is that?

I really have no idea...I grew up in Canada, you know.

Oh...okay. But really, how much is the fine?


I've had many conversations like this, living in Europe, first as an exchange student and now as an intern. Being a bicultural kid is a big job, because not only do you have to represent the country you came from and grew up in when you're abroad, but you also have to represent your "original" culture.

Whenever people ask me where I'm from, "Canada" doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer because I'm not Caucasian - but really, if they're going to assume anything, shouldn't they assume that all Canadians should look like Natives, who were here before any of us?

"No, REALLY, where are you from?" they press on. Many people have trouble wrapping their minds around the fact that Canadians (and Americans, as well as many Australians, for example) come in many colours.

I never know what to do or say when I get asked about Chinese government policies and foreign policies. I can go on about culture and food and even maybe a bit on history, but I'm totally clueless about how it's like to live there.

So now that I have Chinese-from-China classmates in my Spanish course, I decided to do some investigating and to find out the answers to those questions myself.

My classmate Gu told me today that apparently the tax for having a second child in China is a one-time lump sum equivalent to about 100,000€. A third sets a family back about 150,000€, and prices escalate for each subsequent child, so usually only very rich businesspeople have multiple children. If a civil servant has more than one child, their employment is automatically terminated. But being a civil servant is a sweet deal in China because you make a really good living, you have tons (as in TOOONS) of benefits and privileges the plebs don't...so people deal with it.

Someone else told me that the rule only applies to Han Chinese people who live in urban areas - so many people will hide their kids with relatives who live in rural regions. And then maybe emigrate.

Speaking of which, Chinese-from-China/Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan people see us bicultural babies as totally different and separate entities from themselves as well, so I kind of feel like we're in a category of our own.

I have another classmate from China who was utterly fascinated to learn that I grew up in Canada.

"You speak English?" he asked me in his most American accent and I explained to him that, yes, because I grew up in Toronto.

He seemed absolutely delighted at the sound of me speaking my strongest language, told me he loved my accent, and from then on has since spoken to me in as much English as he could in order to get me to answer in kind. It seemed to rock his world that a Chinese person could speak another language more intuitively than they speak Chinese.

So they're kind of like a variation of Yellow Fever Creepers, except for some reason I find them less offensive...I wonder why?

Cupcake Chronicles: The Cupcake Shoppe

When I was living in Nowheresville Nice, France, I was very deprived of good food, and I had this masochistic habit of torturing myself by watching Hong Kong food shows and cooking tutorials on Youtube, as well as reading colourful food blogs. My brother would encourage me by sending me food pictures he took himself and links to Toronto food blogs, so that I could keep a list of all the things I could eat and restaurants I could visit when I came home (and had no access to at the time).

One day, I was suffering from a particularly violent bout of cupcake craving, so I decided to look for cupcake bakeries in Toronto, to add to my list. I found this link, which is an excellent place to start, except none of the bakeries have particularly high ratings, so either there are no excellent cupcake places in Toronto or we’re just really hard raters. Unfortunately, all the bakeries with the highest ratings are kind of far from me – in the beaches area – so I set my sights on going to The Cupcake Shoppe first. It’s closest to me, I’ve been past it a couple times, and I’ve always wanted to go in, because their branding is so well done. They definitely have the nicest website and cutest illustrations/signs out of all the local cupcake bakeries I’ve seen. Everything about this place seems so attractive, and I was going to go with an open mind, regardless of the paltry, barely-passing 2.7/5 stars it’s rated.

Well, I wish I’d paid more attention to the reviews, because they were pretty accurate; there are good and bad ones, but there’s a pronounced trend towards the negative. The store was adorable, but the products themselves were nothing to write home about – not that cute, not that tasty, and just not all that exciting. I bought six different flavours, and if I were blindfolded, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between any of them besides chocolate or vanilla cake. They were dry, stale, hard and completely disappointing. My mum remarked that mine taste way better, and my cupcakes all come out of a box. She also said that the ones we buy in six-packs from the supermarket are better.

She has a point, because supermarket cupcakes really are good. My super serious, super distinguished ER surgeon Uncle Alex would know; he proves that anyone can have a soft spot for cupcakes. Even he couldn’t resist the ones I had sitting on my dinner table when he was visiting once and asked me if he could have one. Of course he could, I told him, and after he demolished it in the most dignified way I’ve ever seen anyone eat a cupcake, he dabbed his mouth gently with his napkin, set it down and said to me in his very refined New Zealand accent, “Well, those are very nice and moist, aren’t they?”

But you know what? At least 50% of the cupcake experience isn’t even about how it tastes. The quality is just as important as the appearance, the childhood memories, and, in the realm of cupcake houses, the whole shopping experience. A big reason why all these people (including myself) have such a bad opinion of The Cupcake Shoppe is because the service is so awful. When I was there, the staff barely acknowledged my existence and they acted as if they would rather be anywhere else in the world. They didn’t say hi or even speak to me except to tell me how much I had to pay. According to reviews, I wasn’t the only one. The store had all the makings of a spectacular shopping experience – cute décor, cute displays, inherently cute (albeit only passable quality) product – but the service ruined it all.

So if idiot-proof cake mixes and generic supermarket bakeries produce better quality cupcakes than specialized, boutique cupcakes houses, what does that say about the Toronto Cupcakescape? But I’m not going to let this unsatisfactory first outing deter me. I won’t lose faith. I’m going to continue on in my search of a slammin’ cupcake in Toronto, and I’ll document every step in my Cupcake Chronicles. :)

Happy Canada Day!

Photo credit: Sebastian White Online

I'm Home!

I am a changed woman after living in Nice for a year.

It was pleasantly disorienting to see all of the people and things and places that are very familiar to me, that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was also strange eating all the things I’ve missed – after pining for my favourite foods for a year, they are somehow less delicious to me just because I know I’ll have access to them for a good while from now on.

Also, the first night I was home, I stepped into the washroom to take a shower before going to bed and nearly wept; I could hardly believe that I wouldn’t have to worry about not having hot water anymore! Not getting to take a hot shower in the dead of winter in an apartment where the central heat isn’t on yet is something else. I’ve also made the following discoveries:

*European boys are generally more smooth, polished, charming, interesting, cosmopolitan, multilingual and better-dressed than their North American counterparts, but

*I have a renewed appreciation for the relative conservativeness for my homeboys because I don’t have to worry about getting harassed every day when I go out

*the contrast between Major Brand Name Schools and public schools in France (and in the States too, I’d imagine) is so stark; more than ever, I’m grateful for the fact that all higher education institutions in Canada are public – I can’t imagine the despair I’d feel if I were at a disadvantage simply because I couldn’t afford to go to a good school

*“art deco” is apparently code for “old, disintegrating piece of crap” in terms of describing apartment buildings

*renting property in France is super, super sketchy and one must never rent a place with out-of-country landlords

*BNP Paribas is officially The Worst Bank in the World if their branches in Nice are fair representation

*Niçois post offices are the best places to learn how to swear in French, because even if you only have two or three people before you in line, the wait could be up to 45 minutes

*you learn to develop a sense of humour and an elevated state of patience from French bureaucracy – the other choices are to go mad or to move

*many French people – especially old ones – are charmingly honest and therefore politically incorrect

*growing up in Canada makes us a super aware and appreciative of different cultures – I’m super grateful for that as well

*Yellow Fever is a Very, Very Serious Problem in Europe

*Dutch people are very tall; my eye-level in the Netherlands is chest-level of all the locals

*the cultural atmosphere of Germany is very similar to that of Canada in that people are very laid-back and down-to-earth – but they are more punctual and their beer is better :P

*when there are Ferraris zooming around everywhere, a dime a dozen like in Monaco, they aren’t nearly as impressive

*living right on the Mediterranean with palm trees everywhere is just intoxicating

*I’m not done with Europe yet; I’m going to go back there to live temporarily again

It was an indescribably wonderful year – what a way to end off my undergraduate career! Now I’m home spending quality time with my mama, studying my tail off in the hopes of going through another four years of school. Wish me luck!

XOXOXO

Politics, "Owning School," Culture and the Commercialization of Education

I have a professor who loves to predict the death of many of my classmates whenever they tell her about their travel plans, particularly if they are going to places she deems unsafe, like Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

I’m not a brave person. With the exception of Prague, I don’t have a very keen interest in going anywhere that might fall in those three regions. But when I signed up to come here to France on exchange, I never imagined that I would be in the thick of political unrest.

Many people here are very upset with the government because of a set of proposed reforms. The universities in Nice have been on strike for three weeks and counting; I hear that the momentum is still going strong, and that the strike will even continue beyond our reading week (the last week of February). As a result, I’m freaking out because I got conditional acceptance into a postgraduate program, and I need to have a degree before it starts in September.

My friends in this program are completely confident that I’ll get all the credits I need. “We PAID TUITION, so the school owes us marks. It’s not our fault that they’re on strike here. There’s nothing we can do about it. They can’t deny us our marks or our credits because we paid for them and we were prepared to do all the work necessary to earn them,” I’ve been told.

However, I’m not used to of feeling like anyone owes me anything. I’m entitled to nothing. While I appreciate their efforts to comfort me, I still think that it’s up to our school. We don’t really call the shots here. So I’m still really worried and am hoping, hoping, hoping for the best.

But this conversation really made me wonder: What kind of relationship am I in with my school? The way my classmates see it, it’s almost like they view themselves as the patrons, and the school as their employee. They paid for the academic institution to provide them with the service of teaching them, grading them and awarding them degrees. So they’re the ones who are in charge. They (we?) call the shots.

This is completely at odds with the attitude about school that was instilled in me. Modern Chinese culture is still pretty Confucian. Even as non-traditional as my family is, I was raised with many of those values. We’re all about filial piety and respecting our elders...sometimes to a point I don’t agree with, but regardless of the divergence of opinion that exists in me because I grew up in Canada, this is still The Right Way to Be in the back of my mind.

School is supposed to be where a person’s mind is cultivated, so teachers deserve our utmost respect, and we don’t question them. Consequently, the Chinese values of pedagogy are also very serious. Teachers have almost an equal responsibility to their students as their parents do because they play a vital part in how they turn out. Teachers were traditionally called 師父 (“sifu”), which is comprised of the words “si” (師), meaning teacher, and “fu” (父), meaning father – because, of course, back in the day all teachers were men. You’re supposed to respect your teachers as much as you respect the knowledge or the art they pass on to you.

Now, this would work very nicely if we were living in a Confucian utopia, where the lowest common denominator for every teacher in the world is, virtually (and impossibly), perfection - completely fair, super qualified, super intelligent, super ethical, very accomplished, etc. In that case, of course we wouldn’t ever question our teachers.

Unfortunately for us, it’s not the situation we’re in, or even a realistic one, so I think that to maintain this viewpoint about school and teachers requires a lot of faith on the part of everyone who has ever been a student, or who has entrusted the intellectual development of their child to an instructor. For those who are raised to have this attitude, they respect their teachers as much as they do because they trust that they will be completely fair, that they are qualified, intelligent, ethical and accomplished enough (that is to say, way more so than the average person) to merit their utmost respect. But the fact of the matter is, while there must be plenty of teachers who are this amazing and deserving, there are also lots of crummy teachers out there because, well, we can, essentially, purchase our qualifications, and we all do. Just like I’m doing right now. And I’m lucky to be Canadian, but there are countries in the world, like our neighbour down south, where the credibility, status and usefulness of our qualifications depend on how much money we can shell out.

So what happened to the noble pursuit of knowledge known as education? How did it become all about money?

Photo of the Carlone Campus (Fac de Lettres) of the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, taken by the lovely Ms. Lesley Oosterman

Smut of Choice - Lainey Gossip

Someone once asked me who I admire most. Apart from a couple family members, I think the people who have inspired me most are those who were from where I'm from and have succeeded. Examples include Bonnie Fuller (I don't care what people say about her; she's a genius at increasing circulation), Jay Manuel (who is beautiful and went to my high school!) and Elaine "Lainey" Lui of Lainey Gossip.

Like me, Lainey is a Chinese girl from Toronto, and she also studied French like I do, at my university. She, too, grew up watching Miss Hong Kong pageants and has a mother with, um, strong opinions and a penetrating voice. Love her. Love her writing.

I first heard of her maybe two years or so ago when my mom read me a profile on Lainey in one of the Chinese newspapers. My mom absolutely loves to read the news to me - she would read articles to me about kidnapped children to scare me from running from away from her in public when I was small, and now she likes to read articles to me about successful people who were in a similar situation to me.

That was when I started reading Lainey regularly, and of course, I loved her column instantly. I got hoooked and had to have my daily fix right away. Then later, I realized that a couple other friends read her too, and my friend/roommate Sabrina and I loved to discuss the celeb gossip we read on Lainey Gossip together. Now, we've progressed onto reading the guesses for the blind items on the Lainey Lurv Facebook group. It's so much fun!

If you're interested in celebrity gossip written in a unique voice with really insightful analysis, along with a generous helping of "mom anecdotes" (any Margaret Cho fans out there?), definitely go check her out.

http://www.laineygossip.com/

Québécois Fashion Bibles

Okay, I admit it - I'm one of those. Cancon is not the first thing I reach for, flip to or click on at the magazine stand, bookstore, on TV or on the Internet. I love foreign media products. Hong Kong cinema and gossip rags, American TV shows and European magazines just make my day.

The only exceptions to the Cancon rule are Fashion Canada, Lainey Gossip (not sure if it counts as Cancon at all, but Lainey is Canadian) and Québec fashion magazines. In fact, every time I go to Québec, I absolutely have to pick up the latest issues on the stands.

I've always loved Québécois fashion because it's sort of inspired by European style (like how Toronto fashion is influenced by New York style and Vancouver by LA). And okay, superficially, I have to admit that I feel cool just for being able to read these mags - I've worked really hard since grade four to be able to! Additionally, I appreciate that Québec has its own vibrant culture.

During my trip last weekend I realized that the Québec fashion publications scene has evolved quite a bit since the summer of 2005, when I spent 5 weeks in Rivière-du-Loup doing the Summer Language Bursary Program (now called Explore). Apart from Clin d'oeil, my French-Canadian fashion bible then, now there is also Elle Québec and Filles Clin d'oeil (FCD).

Let me break it down for you.

Elle Québec is more artsy and very fashion-heavy - full of Fashionland news, beauty spreads, great fashion spreads, all the Major Shows condensed stylishly onto the pages, with a touch of literature/film/art/culture info. Clin d'oeil, while also technically a fashion magazine, is just slightly more lifestyle-oriented, because of the genre of the articles, and more about clothes you can actually buy. I love both, but I must admit, I was a little disappointed with Clin d'oeil's fashion spreads this issue because I wouldn't buy anything on those pages. I don't know if it's the clothes themselves or the art direction - but I do believe that tie-dye is supremely tacky 90% of the time.

And FCD is clearly geared towards the younger set. The graphics design and layout are very hip, and I find the clothes generally way more wearable. Or at least, they're more like what I would buy. And even though I don't love the beauty section (the glittery smoky eye looks more "battered woman" than "rock star" to me) the features are more fun and relevant to my age group - the cover proudly exclaims, "PARTYS, BEAUX GARS, STARS, CRÈMES GLACÉES"). I like this one best (although Elle comes a close second!) probably because I'm firmly in the target sector of this publication, and I'm glad that the younger demographic of Québécois fashion girls is finally taken care of in the print arena.

The only issue is the age-old problem of wanting what you can't have. While it's great that everything is attainable domestically in these magazines, I think part of the appeal of spreads in foreign mags is the fact that I can't have what I see. I can only stare and admire. I know - it sounds so sick, right? I clearly have a problem. But I think that kind of appeal is akin to that of many expensive things and luxury items, don't you?

A Weekend in Val-David

My bosom is burnt to a glowing crisp. So are my face, arms, back and feet. I also got a heat rash, which was gracious enough to manifest itself on my face.

But it was totally worth it because I had a great time this weekend at Val-David, Québec, and the annual 1001 Pots ceramics exposition (the largest of its kind in Canada) is a definite must-go for all pottery aficionados/as - or good daughters of of pottery aficionadas, who also happen to need a relaxing getaway! It featured over 100 pottery masters from all over the country, and the amount of ceramic pieces there was just mind-boggling.

But for a die-hard city girl who isn't a potter herself, what is there to occupy me in a little town an hour north of Montréal? All the free food, of course!

On Opening Night of the expo, there were a lot of hors d'oeuvres floating around, courtesy of local restaurant sponsors, as well as all-you-can-drink free wine. It was pretty good - as good as massified food can be anyway (by that I mean food made for a large group of people, like in cafeterias and even at weddings and banquets). I had seared tuna with caviar, crispy wonton shells with salmon sashimi salad, all sorts of canapés...I wanted to take pictures of everything I had, but I was too busy eating!

But what takes the cake in Val-David is their organic farmer's market (where I got fried). It takes place every Saturday/Sunday morning until noon on the main street, and there you can find a huge variety of excellent quality organic foods, like veggies, baked goods (mm...chocolate croissants!), waffles, meats, honey, jams, fair trade coffee, teas...and the best part is, there are samples for virtually everything!

We bought some pâté and baguettes to go with our 12-year single malt scotch whiskey later that night, when we roasted marshmallows. That was the life!

Enjoy the pictures!