call Nesan at

khu;fop 29> 2006 itfiw-21- “THIS PAGE IS WRITTEN BY YOUTHS FOR YOUTHS OF ALL AGES - IT’S OUR TURN
Time to Enjoy
Ruban Jesudiaharasa
ruban@vaikarai.com
After weeks of preparations and procrastinating
to write articles, the exams
are finally over! Now it is time to enjoy the
winter holidays with friends and families. I
truly hope everyone's finals and mid-terms
went very well and remember to take it
easy now. Always plan something with
your elementary school friends and high
school friends so it will become an annual
event because it would be a great way to
keep in touch, especially if they do not go
to the same university or college as you
do.
Here are some great ideas to find a
way to hang out with your friends:
· Perhaps a dinner at a good family
restaurant (no fast food places like
McDonald's because it will not have the
same special feeling to it). Besides fast
food places are not healthy for you.
· Going to the movies will be fun as
well but keep in mind to talk and have fun
afterwards or prior to the movie because
Giant ice shelf
breaks off
Immense ice shelf breaks off in Canadian
Arctic: researchers by Guillaume Lavallee
MONTREAL (AFP) - An enormous ice
shelf broke away from Ellesmere Island in
the Canadian Arctic last year, researchers
said, warning it could be another symptom
of global warming.
The 66-square-kilometer (25.5-squaremile)
ice island tore away from Ellesmere,
a huge strip of land in the Canadian Arctic
close to Greenland.
The break occurred in August 2005 and
was so violent that it caused tremors that
were detected by Canadian seismographs
250 kilometers (155 miles) away, but at
the time no one was able to pinpoint what
had happened.
The Canadian Ice Service contacted
geographer Luke Copland of the
University of Ottawa, who reconstructed
the chain of events by piecing together
data from the seismic readings and satellite
images provided by Canada and the
United States.
"This loss is the biggest in 25 years, but it
continues the loss that occurred within the
these are passive time with your friends.
· You need to be social, obviously, by
talking about random topics - exams,
movies, fashion, sports and other various
topics.
·
Running a Christmas party would be a
great idea but the downfall is that it can be
expensive and finding a proper date would
be hard. Family would be expecting you to
be home during Christmas Eve and day to
hang out with them obviously.
· Going to a specific area would be
nice too, like going to the Niagara Falls
with a friends or even playing road hockey
with bunch of friends from your elementary
school. It will certainly bring back
memories from the olden days when you
used to do the same during recesses (foot
hockey instead of road hockey).
· Keeping it simple is always a good
way to go too. Like having a snowball
fight, building a snowman with your nieces
and nephews or perhaps even make snow
angels. Make sure to dress appropriately
because from the fourteen plus years of
experience in Canada, I can truly say that
the weather can be unpredictable. One
day it can snow and the next it can be a
blizzard! So, check the weather beforehand
so your fun will not be spoiled.
Well it is time for me to go enjoy my
holiday as well before university resumes
again on the eighth of January so make
sure you enjoy the break. Merry
Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy
New Year!
last century," Copland told AFP, saying 90
percent of the the ice cover had been lost
since the area was discovered in 1906.
"What is important and interesting is that it
is sudden, quite large even," he said.
"In the past, we looked to climate change
(and) thought perhaps ice shelves ...
would just melt apart by losing a little
piece day by day, but it now seems that
when you reach some kind of threshold,
when you reach that level, the whole thing
just breaks apart."
Following the discovery, biologist Warwick
Vincent of Laval University in Quebec, visited
the icy waters of the Arctic to view the
"new island."
Vincent said he had seen nothing like it in
the past decade. "It really is incredible,"
Vincent was quoted as saying by the
newspaper National Post.
"People talk of endangered animals -well,
these are endangered landscape
features, and we are losing them," he
said.
Louis Fortier, scientific director of
ArcticNet, a Canadian Artic research network,
said the massive breakoff signaled a
rise in Arctic warming."This Ellesmere ice
shelf was sheltering unique ecosystems
on the planet; there are freshwater lakes
which were forming above and under the
ice shelf," Fortier told AFP.
Time to Party
As the darkness loomed outside, light
from inside the house illuminated the
lawn as people ran here and there trying
to get everything done on time. As one
runs out of the washroom adorning new
clothes, the next runs in, as one screams
out instruction, others sit outside in the
dark and paint the front yard with koolam
made of rice flour. I was four years old,
and we have just moved to India. My first
pongal in India; one that would stay
craved in my memory. We were woken
up at four in the morning,
asked to shower and were
handed new clothes. We
sat on the steps as the
morning dew fell on us
observing every small
movement from appa building
the fire to
amma walking in
and out of the
house following
appa's instructions.
Before we
knew it the sun rose with the
pongal and showered everyone's
face with smiles and
excitement. The day seemed
like it would never end. BUT
pongal was never the same.
As life in Canada promised
many things, we still like to
remain blind to things that have
altered our lives so much. Life
never tends to stop; rather it gets
faster and faster. At times we
don't even know when our own
festivities such as pongal come
about. Our parents wake up in
the morning, go to work, later we
go to school as if it's just another day.
When we return, there on the table sits a
pot with some pongal, and dinner is
served. One just doesn't seem to make a
connection, or feel the same feeling our
parents felt back home, or know what
these festivals symbolize not just for our
parents but for us; as this will always
remains our culture. As much as we cry
out to be Canadians, to others we will
always be the shadow of our culture. But
where has it all gone?
Life and circumstances can not be
distinguished; two sides of one coin. As
much as both sides differ they come to
be the same, to be one. Life has
changed for sure, and everyday we run
around looking for excuses. We have not
been living and learning our culture, but
rather creating a new one, that is neither
KANNI
kanni@vaikarai.com
a Tamil nor a western culture; a game of
cat and mice. For sure it could even be
our circumstance; our resources just
don't permit us to share such relations
with our culture. Pongal always seem to
fall in January, the middle of winter, when
the earth is supposed to be covered with
snow. One cannot imagine heading outside
and putting koolams on the drive
way or making pongal outside on the rich
original fire. Everything has to be compromised
with the four walls, where there
is no koolam or new clothes, just the
pongal cooking on the gas stove. But we
have compromised further.
Christmas is one celebration
we all wait for. One
because we all get two
weeks holidays in the
name of Christmas, and
two we host one party after
the other. Directly or indirectly
we all cherish
Christmas, from the decorated
Christmas tree, to
the exchange of gift
regardless of culture and
beliefs, to the memorable
snapshot with our invented
Santa Clause. It's the time of the year we
all celebrate Christmas without knowing
how much we all really have changed.
We don't throw parties for pongal or get
together with family for deepavali
(Diwali), but we will sure plan Christmas
parties weeks ahead. We have come to
celebrate the western festivities more
than our own.
Even I never thought about it. But at
times my child hood memories of pongal,
and firecrackers haunts me. And I do
miss it. But with my circumstances and
the cultures surrounding me even I might
have become westernized. Where even I
celebrate Christmas, where Christmas
parties adorns my house every year.
Where my parents have to tell me when
pongal is arriving and what is going to
As much as we cry out to be Canadians,
to others we will always be
the shadow of our culture.
But where has it all gone?
happen. It is not just the people around
me, the places around me, nor the circumstances
around that have changed,
but my life and who I am as a person.
Even though my childhood memory
haunts me, and I do wish at times of
returning to some of them, our life has
just changed so much; that at times we
might never be able to return to those
wondrous moments. Have we punished
ourselves with this, or have we just been
pushes into this black hole, no one
knows.
But as we sit here partying day after
day; at last east meets west.