Textile Museum of Canada

The Textile Museum of Canada is located in downtown Toronto and has over 10,000 items in their collection. Their current exhibition was Beads, They’re Sewn so Tight. Check out their online projects and collection.

Visiting the museum makes you appreciate where clothing comes from, who made them, and for what purpose.

Below are pictures I took while visiting:

 

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Toronto Tea Festival (#teafestTO)

The Toronto Reference Library is host to many interesting events. The Toronto Tea Festival took place on Feb 1-3, 2019. It featured traditional tea ceremonies, talks, vendors, free samplings, among other things.

Attendees were given a small glass cup to drink samples. I personally liked the sweet Oolong tea by T By Daniel. I also had Japanese tea treats and watched two traditional tea ceremonies.

Below are photos and videos I took while in attendance:





Microsoft Ignite Toronto

Microsoft Ignite is a conference focused on IT and Microsoft products. Its main conference is hosted in Orlando, Florida and it tours around different countries and cities throughout the year.

In Toronto, the event was hosted in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, free to the public, and provided breakfast and lunch to attendees.

Ignite had a wide array of topics and learning opportunities. You can attend hour long panels to 15 minute demos. I learned about setting up workflows, the versatility of Teams, using SharePoint to enhance the employee experience, upcoming new features, Office 365 Groups, building a bot in Teams, among other things.

For information professionals, attending Ignite is an opportunity to learn about the latest developments coming from Microsoft and how it may affect how our users interact with new technology. We can learn about design principles into out intranets to improve user experience, deploy bots into our chats, manage information, enhance communication and collaboration, streamline administrative procedures, and organization adoption.

Check out Microsoft Ignite | The Tour to learn about an event happening near you and how to register. Content from Microsoft Ignite is posted online, which include slides and recordings for some presentations.

Publication: “Unearthing History” in “Over the Rainbow” Anthology

“Unearthing History”, my short story, has been published in Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins. My work will appear along side stories by authors such as Fiona Patton and Karin Lowachee.

This anthology aimed to “play with traditional fairy tale tropes in unconventional ways” and “explore new family dynamics and relationships, fairy tales that explore different bodies, and fairy tales that push boundaries into the strange and otherworldly.”

I’m proud to be included in a diverse anthology that aims to be unconventional and challenge the status quo.

“Unearthing History” was set in Toronto, where some humans are descended from mythical creatures. Others have supernatural abilities. How does society manage to maintain order with fantasy abound? The short story, with its fantastical roots, is bound to earthly issues that impact people of colour.

The setting was specifically in North York, Toronto. It’s an area with great differences in wealth among residents. The richest part, known as Bridle Path, was where my main characters Cindy and Rochelle attended the party.

Cindy, the main character, is descended from the sanzuwu (aka. three-legged crow). I used Google maps to describe what she sees as she flies across the city.

Rochelle, the second main character, is a vodou priestess. Despite what you may have seen in media, vodou is a religion centered around healing. The ideas of zombie and wax dolls are misconceptions. Readings I would recommend to learn about Haiti and vodou are:

  • Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn
  • Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture: Invisible Powers
  • A Skin for Dancing In: Possession, Witchcraft and Voodoo in Film
  • Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915- 1940