t-dotting
First: The Good Wife.
THIS SHOW IS AMAZING. AAAHHHH. I love that it was utterly heartbreaking and gutwrenching and yet ended with a spit-take. It was just perfect. I love how cleverly they expressed the feelings of the whole situation, with the WEIGHT of time it's had to develop. It was something film just can't do, and I love that they realised that. I loved like everything about it. The final reveal was amazing. (My theory: that was a joke, or something else that is not what it sounds.) The Jackie-vs-Veronica thing was great and I loved Eli and of course, the central Alicia-vs-Will. That the whole thing was about his imaginary version of her, what he wanted from her, and contrast with the reality of her KICKING ALL THE ASS IN THE WORLD was just BEAUTIFUL.
I am also very excited that we had actual Kalinda! Being useful! Not as useful as I would like, but it was more than they've done with her in a while. But she got to shag lady cops! I approve of that. And I have more hope for this plotline now. There's got to be more than just the mob connections!
And also, a meme question from
tellitslant. The topic was: I want you to tell me about your Toronto, now that I've been there!
My Toronto was really shaped by the reason I was there. (Anyone reading this who doesn't know: my time living in Toronto was as a student, so just for an academic year.) My university was quite far out, literally the last stop on the TTC. And omg, in retrospect, I did NOT know what I was doing! I basically turned up at the airport with more baggage than I could carry, a student visa, and a dream. I knew I was jumping into the deep end, but I did not get in advance what that meant. (This is a good thing as it turns out, cause if I had known, I might not have gone. That would have sucked. I had a great time, and it's probably the single most useful thing I've ever done for myself.) Anyway, the combo of British me thinking 40 minutes is a long time and also being kind of overwhelmed a lot meant that I spent way more of my time on campus than in downtown Toronto. Even for going out - there was a bar that did cheap cocktails and quesadillas, so my fellow transplanted Brit and I spent a LOT of time in there on Friday and Saturday nights, or talking to people in their dorm rooms or whatever. Campus felt pretty insular, generally.
Campus was totally weird to me for ages. I went to a campus uni in England, but that did not prepare me for the surrealness of ALL THE ORANGE EVERYWHERE (North American universities take their Uni Pride way more seriously than most Brits do, I think) and the CAFETERIA. My uni in England barely had a cafeteria. It certainly didn't have a Tim Horton's, or a Wendy's, or a frozen yoghurt place or a bagel place! There was a shop where you could buy stuff like cereal or ingredients, but since students HAD to buy a food card, I bought food on campus ALL the time. It was weird. I ate SO MANY bagels that year because most of the other options were, like, burgers and fries. Oh, and the area around the campus is all just-about-middle-class-suburb, with nothing much interesting except the new-to-me-at-the-time knowledge that in Ontario you can only buy booze from official LCBO shops, so it was either campus, the nearby mall (which was... a regular North American mall, big and shiny but not that exciting), or downtown Toronto.
When I left campus, I was totally impressed by the integrated transit - the bus takes you from the uni to the TTC, and you use the same ticket for everything. It was way easier than the equivalent journey here would have been. (All heated, too, so the -25 in winter was no problem at all. I really liked the winter, actually, all snow and high, pale sunshine... until, like, March, by which point I was Tired Of It omg.) And downtown Toronto is awesome. I loved Kensington Market, even though the name made me laugh. A lot of the people I was at uni with in Canada were locals, so I spent some time at people's houses. The best was a guy I'm still in touch with: I went to stay at his family home with him, and his mum showed me milk in a bag and cooked me Korean food. It was great.
Oh, that is one big thing! There were WAY more East Asian people in Toronto than I'd ever seen before. I grew up in a big city with a lot of immigration - second highest immigration in the UK outside of London. So I was not at all expecting to be surprised by Toronto's racial makeup. But I totally was! There were very few Indian or Pakistani people, or West Africans, but suddenly LOADS of East Asians. And Mexicans. I had never even eaten Mexican food before, and yo, suddenly, Mexican people and culture were everywhere. I really liked that - I had a brilliant sense of the world opening up, of seeing the stuff that I wouldn't see if I was just at home. I think that was helped by spending time working on the international politics programme of the uni community radio, but it was also definitely the people in Toronto. Also? GREAT SUSHI PLATTERS FOR $4 CDN COME BACK TO ME OMG I MISS YOU.
I think that's also partly why Toronto seemed so much more metropolitan - glamorous! - than I was expecting. It feels like A Place Where Important Things Happen. Most places in Britain don't really feel like that. London does, and Edinburgh does kind of, but Toronto is the only place like that where I've lived. I can't even describe why it feels that way, actually - I think it's something to do with the height of the buildings, something to do with the money and effort kept maintaining it, something to do with the volume of people in a small area? But it's all those things and none of them.
I am trying to think of what else! Um, the whole place seemed very clean. I liked that the escalators on the TTC thanked me kindly for standing on the left. I liked the way that the open paths in summer had clear plastic walls put up to turn them sheltered for winter. I was constantly astonished at how much FREE SPACE Canada had, even in its largest city. I liked living there. I'd totally move back if the opportunity arose.
Aw, nostalgia. And hey, I am still taking questions/topics, if anyone has anything else to ask: just comment and I will do my best. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/123110.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
THIS SHOW IS AMAZING. AAAHHHH. I love that it was utterly heartbreaking and gutwrenching and yet ended with a spit-take. It was just perfect. I love how cleverly they expressed the feelings of the whole situation, with the WEIGHT of time it's had to develop. It was something film just can't do, and I love that they realised that. I loved like everything about it. The final reveal was amazing. (My theory: that was a joke, or something else that is not what it sounds.) The Jackie-vs-Veronica thing was great and I loved Eli and of course, the central Alicia-vs-Will. That the whole thing was about his imaginary version of her, what he wanted from her, and contrast with the reality of her KICKING ALL THE ASS IN THE WORLD was just BEAUTIFUL.
I am also very excited that we had actual Kalinda! Being useful! Not as useful as I would like, but it was more than they've done with her in a while. But she got to shag lady cops! I approve of that. And I have more hope for this plotline now. There's got to be more than just the mob connections!
And also, a meme question from
tellitslant. The topic was: I want you to tell me about your Toronto, now that I've been there!
My Toronto was really shaped by the reason I was there. (Anyone reading this who doesn't know: my time living in Toronto was as a student, so just for an academic year.) My university was quite far out, literally the last stop on the TTC. And omg, in retrospect, I did NOT know what I was doing! I basically turned up at the airport with more baggage than I could carry, a student visa, and a dream. I knew I was jumping into the deep end, but I did not get in advance what that meant. (This is a good thing as it turns out, cause if I had known, I might not have gone. That would have sucked. I had a great time, and it's probably the single most useful thing I've ever done for myself.) Anyway, the combo of British me thinking 40 minutes is a long time and also being kind of overwhelmed a lot meant that I spent way more of my time on campus than in downtown Toronto. Even for going out - there was a bar that did cheap cocktails and quesadillas, so my fellow transplanted Brit and I spent a LOT of time in there on Friday and Saturday nights, or talking to people in their dorm rooms or whatever. Campus felt pretty insular, generally.
Campus was totally weird to me for ages. I went to a campus uni in England, but that did not prepare me for the surrealness of ALL THE ORANGE EVERYWHERE (North American universities take their Uni Pride way more seriously than most Brits do, I think) and the CAFETERIA. My uni in England barely had a cafeteria. It certainly didn't have a Tim Horton's, or a Wendy's, or a frozen yoghurt place or a bagel place! There was a shop where you could buy stuff like cereal or ingredients, but since students HAD to buy a food card, I bought food on campus ALL the time. It was weird. I ate SO MANY bagels that year because most of the other options were, like, burgers and fries. Oh, and the area around the campus is all just-about-middle-class-suburb, with nothing much interesting except the new-to-me-at-the-time knowledge that in Ontario you can only buy booze from official LCBO shops, so it was either campus, the nearby mall (which was... a regular North American mall, big and shiny but not that exciting), or downtown Toronto.
When I left campus, I was totally impressed by the integrated transit - the bus takes you from the uni to the TTC, and you use the same ticket for everything. It was way easier than the equivalent journey here would have been. (All heated, too, so the -25 in winter was no problem at all. I really liked the winter, actually, all snow and high, pale sunshine... until, like, March, by which point I was Tired Of It omg.) And downtown Toronto is awesome. I loved Kensington Market, even though the name made me laugh. A lot of the people I was at uni with in Canada were locals, so I spent some time at people's houses. The best was a guy I'm still in touch with: I went to stay at his family home with him, and his mum showed me milk in a bag and cooked me Korean food. It was great.
Oh, that is one big thing! There were WAY more East Asian people in Toronto than I'd ever seen before. I grew up in a big city with a lot of immigration - second highest immigration in the UK outside of London. So I was not at all expecting to be surprised by Toronto's racial makeup. But I totally was! There were very few Indian or Pakistani people, or West Africans, but suddenly LOADS of East Asians. And Mexicans. I had never even eaten Mexican food before, and yo, suddenly, Mexican people and culture were everywhere. I really liked that - I had a brilliant sense of the world opening up, of seeing the stuff that I wouldn't see if I was just at home. I think that was helped by spending time working on the international politics programme of the uni community radio, but it was also definitely the people in Toronto. Also? GREAT SUSHI PLATTERS FOR $4 CDN COME BACK TO ME OMG I MISS YOU.
I think that's also partly why Toronto seemed so much more metropolitan - glamorous! - than I was expecting. It feels like A Place Where Important Things Happen. Most places in Britain don't really feel like that. London does, and Edinburgh does kind of, but Toronto is the only place like that where I've lived. I can't even describe why it feels that way, actually - I think it's something to do with the height of the buildings, something to do with the money and effort kept maintaining it, something to do with the volume of people in a small area? But it's all those things and none of them.
I am trying to think of what else! Um, the whole place seemed very clean. I liked that the escalators on the TTC thanked me kindly for standing on the left. I liked the way that the open paths in summer had clear plastic walls put up to turn them sheltered for winter. I was constantly astonished at how much FREE SPACE Canada had, even in its largest city. I liked living there. I'd totally move back if the opportunity arose.
Aw, nostalgia. And hey, I am still taking questions/topics, if anyone has anything else to ask: just comment and I will do my best. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/123110.html. Please comment there using OpenID.