Citizen of the World

Today I was applying for a job and for the very first time in my 20 years in Canada I came across a form that recognizes that different cultures have different name formats and didn’t force me to assimilate my name to English standards. 

I nearly cried. 

I started screaming and made my mom come see.

Respecting people’s culture matters. 

It’s often the little subtle actions that mean the most.

#RIP Benedict Bridgerton you would’ve loved Challengers

#RIP Benedict Bridgerton you would’ve loved Challengers

Bridgerton 3x04 | 3x08 insp:

I read and watch a lot of stories about idealized love stories and I often enjoy them too! I spent my entire childhood believing that the teenagers who got together in the media I consumed would stay together forever. And then as I got older, I was naturally introduced to more stories about romances that didn’t work out. Still, it’s hard for me to think about those as pragmatic, most of them have this desire for sadness in them. They would make me feel as though the devastation was the point, that the narrative was forcefully bent toward the saddest outcome.

Past Lives doesn’t make me feel this way. Nora doesn’t stop talking to Hae Sung because of an unforeseen tragic circumstance. She makes a choice and goes through with it. Hae Sung puts it best during their conversation at the end of the film. She is the kind of person to leave. And he loves her because she is that kind of person. The “what-if” isn’t in wondering about if circumstances were different. No matter what, she would have chosen her plays over anything else. Her husband even notes that so much of how their relationship happened is because he fit so well into the life she wanted. The whole reason this film is called “Past Lives” is because that’s the only way to ponder about whether Nora and Hae Sung could be together.

PAST LIVES (2023) dir. Celine Song