Personal

Note: The following is a reading response that I wrote for my Mass Communications class, earlier this year. I’ve added photos, links, and formatting to make the content a little more readable online, but other than that, it is identical to the version I submitted. In “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism,” author Anderson (1991) explores the idea of a nation being both a political and sociological construct. In the first three chapters, he starts by defining nationalism in abstract terms, then proceeds to analyze its cultural roots, and finally, he reviews the changes in society that made a national consciousness possible. While reading the text, the concept of nationalism being “imagined” interested me. “It is imagined because the members of … Read more

One of the clients that I work for, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, recently posted the following notice on their blog (emphasis added): Champlain College Saint-Lambert will become a smoke and tobacco-free campus for all for employees, students, and visitors effective July 1st 2017. The use of all tobacco products is prohibited on campus properties, both indoor and outdoor, of the College including all buildings and grounds owned by the College. This policy applies to the parking lot as well as the front and side walkways. Tobacco is defined as any type of tobacco product including, but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, electronic cigarettes, smokeless or spit tobacco or snuff. For those who are interested in stopping their use of tobacco products please … Read more

So it was the day of my final exam in Law & Society, and there were only a few mins left before I’d have to leave. And yet, casually, I launched Rust on my computer, logged into a server, and stepped away from my machine while the world loaded. As I was cleaning my apartment to pass the time, I noticed in the distance that the game had finished loading. In Rust, when you connect to a server for the first time, you’re placed in a random location, and you have a first person view of your character laying on his side, just having woken up. When you join the world in this manner, you’re known as a “naked” by … Read more

Credits Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Transcription Matt: Hi this is Matt Refghi at Toronto Comicon, I’m here with Ace Ventura, who for some reason was not on the celebrity list, but he should have been. Ace: Yeah, what’s the problem with that? Matt: I don’t know, we gotta talk to management. But are you here on business by any chance, are you looking for somebody’s lost pet, or kidnapped pet? Ace: No, not right now, I just came down to the comiccon. Matt: Okay, came dwon to the comic con. Ace: Yeah, I was there actually, I saw you, but there was some problem with the mic, I guess. Matt: Yes, it seems like we have somewhat of a curse. The microphone doesn’t want to … Read more

On August 1st, 2016, I decided it was time to continue challenging myself just like I did with my two 30-day challenges in 2013. The third challenge turned out simpler than the previous two: I would bike at least 20 km (~12.4 miles) per day for thirty consecutive days. Unlike 2013, there were no other rules – no photos, no mandatory checkpoints. And, for some reason, I also decided to keep the challenge completely under the radar until I completed it. The only people that could see my progress were those that followed me on Strava, since I named my rides incrementally (Day 1, 2, etc) as I went along. And so the challenge began, and progressed without fault for two weeks. Then came day 16, a … Read more

On the night of April 9th, 2015, I collapsed onto my couch, having finished a second day of working at a job fair that took place at the Palais des Congres de Montreal. On my face, despite my fatigue, was a smile – I greatly enjoyed working at fairs. At the time, I would occasionally work job fairs for one of my corporation’s clients, Champlain College Saint-Lambert. I even wrote a blog post about what they do. For those that didn’t read that post, here’s a quick run-down: I worked primarily with the Recognition of Acquired Competencies (RAC) department, which fits within the realm of Continuing Education, for adults. RAC is a process that people can use to have their life and … Read more

Over the years, I’ve had a decent amount of time to reflect on my own psychology. I’ve always been very big on the idea of doing no harm… put simply, I aim to have a damn good time while I’m alive, while being as kind as possible to everyone around me. Though this sounds good on paper, in the past, this mentality has caused me a significant amount of grief. The root of the problem lay within my own psychology… I cared too much (bear with me, you’ll see what I mean). In the past, at the end of each day, my brain would systematically review the social interactions that had occurred, and it would identify the areas where I felt I had made mistakes… moments where I seemed to … Read more

In a recent blog post, I shed a bit of light on some difficulties I faced in my personal life: “2015 hit me like a semi. My life changed drastically, and I quickly found myself in a world where I could not find that feeling of peace that I had learned to use as my compass. Changes happened too quickly, without enough thought and comfort, and, as a result, my stress skyrocketed.” 2015 was indeed a very rough year, but back in 2014, I had major conflicts with my family, my girlfriend, and even my mentor. As the year came to a close, I had no choice but to laugh at how unbelievably dark things had become. If asked to total up the problems I … Read more

As you may know from some of my prior blog posts, I sometimes push myself to extremes when it comes to which foods I eat, how I approach weight loss, and how I approach exercise. Somehow, extremes seems to work better with my brain, rather than slowly progressing towards an ideal change. So, I was intrigued when I randomly encountered a video on YouTube featuring Penn Jillette, one half of the magician duo Penn & Teller. In the video, Penn describes how he lost 100 pounds… while still being able to eat whatever he wants. Now, don’t get me wrong – I fully understand how much the Internet is plagued by gimmicky weight loss headlines, but take it from me… there’s an interesting message embedded here. If you … Read more