April 2006 – my personal timeline

bad strings continue

well, it seems fate’s not giving me too many breaks lately. all the important ones are there – my watch got found, tim’s coming here in only 2 weeks!!!, and the picture above is of a super cute and stylish journal i got from lesley ann. she has one identical to it that i’ve been awesomed by, and she uses it as a recipe book and i’m really tempted to do the same. anyone has other ideas?

except, i caught my friend smita’s cold/flu, which started yesterday with sore throat and merged into a headache and sore throat today and will continue by her experience for the next week. yikes!

nothing much has been happening. i’ve had tests (yuck), and that’s all really.

here’s another photo from the races:

LA and i bet split our bets, and we lost in the end. but it was really fun! and we all got to dress up and look really pretty. in case you didn’t know, you’re supposed to dress up majorly for big races, including hats and such – actually, as far as i can think its one of the few occasions nowadays you can wear a fancy hat to without looking silly. alas, none of us had hats, but we all did something special to our hair.

LA curled mine.

CURLS.

i had a head full of curls.

its an awesome look, and i’ll post a photo when i figure out how to do it without going through flickr :P

also, in order to have something to wear for the races i went shopping and bought 2 dresses, a skirt and a shirt. and then yesterday i bought a journal to get 20% off for a hair place thingie and got a free scarf. and i bought a shirt and another dress before that. i’m like all outfitted!

i still need 2 things: jeans, and .. okay i need one thing. i want 2 things; one is a good pair of jeans. in a nice dark color. crisp and dark. that fit. very properly. and the other is a bag that i don’t really need.

yeah, i think i’ll end up sending stuff back with hesi and tim. that way i don’t need to count on fate and post to actually deliver anything.

did i mention being sick gives me a 30 second attention span?

i want. (this time, its a wallet)

i want this.

in pink.

now.

*throws a mini tantrum*

i think that wallet to me, is like my watch.

on that note, i can’t find my watch. my room is perfectly clean (including all of my closet), but i can’t find my watch. i feel like a limb has been lost.

(the reason i misplaced it is cause i had a bad oil burn on my left wrist, where i usually wear it, and so i put it away – i’m sure to my top desk drawer – to let my burn heal – but now i can’t find it).

and while i like this, the colors all suck. (its also available in coral and olive, and its unpretty).

too lazy? spring break (fall break?)

i’m having a week break and am too lazy to blog.

i have one important thing to write about: going to the races.

instead i will tell you how i made some rosemary and thyme bread with hummus. and it was good.

and then we went dancing. and it was awesome.

(i promise i’ll write when i finish my philosophy paper. im 300/2000 there!)

sudden craving

i really really miss the incredible coffee downstairs from where i worked last summer. they had the most fantastic flavours. damn.

assignment end, break begin

she-crab soup made from this recipe (its awesome)

today was definitely a good day. first off, last night after making triply sure that the assignment works (thank you, dad!), it was handed in with no problems, and i went out to have some drinks – for the first time evah! (the drinking out that is). that was fantabulous fun, and i came home and crashed to sleep.

the morning of thursday was excellent. first off, dad confirmed everything is fine. thus this huge, terrible weight of that unbearable assignment fell off my shoulders. the linguistics assignment was almost done, so i spent my morning cleaning it up. (i also made scrambled eggs. yum!)

the constant question of where to print if you’re not really in possession of a printer can drive a student to do odd things, especially if they have to hand in the assignment by 2pm and its 1:50. i tried printing at the library (which smelled like smoke, and later i found out that it was evacuated!), but ended up crashing their computers. so, on kinda vagueish instructions from LA and Kevin i found the place where all the american students get their sponsored labs – its a gleaming, white, clean room, with lots of big macs with flat screens and pretty mice and fast computers and fast printers. i printed and was outta there under 1 minute. yay!

next problem was finding the drop off box. i got confused between two buildings, both of which intials begin with MB, so i ended up being at the hand in place at 2:10 or so. but they still took it on time!

i also spoke the prof, and wished him a good holiday. yay!

random memories on the walk home, when the world suddenly became bright and assignment free:

a bearded, white, curly haired professor at his desk going “hmmm” in a serious tone to a young naive first year student cowering in front of him.

“but i did everything i could!” “well my grandad was in the navy you know!” (as part of one conversation, very loud argument)

a guy eating a watermelon (like 1/4 of it) on the run.

the feeling joy surrounding the campus despite the rain as this was the last day of classes before the break (actually i felt the joy but didn’t know that second bit).

upon arrival home i found out i have no classes tomorrow, and that elin will be going to the gym 2 hours later, so i snacked, chatted, relaxed, and then went to the gym for a hard core workout!

this was my 4th time. i biked for 20 mins @ lv 5, elliptical for 20 mins @ lv 5, and for the first time, ran all 20 mins at 7kph (before i was 14 mins run and 6 walk, and then 16 mins run and 4 walk). then elin showed me some weights training, so i did about 40 sit ups on the big ball, some leg excersizes with the ball, some back excersizes with the ball, weight training for back and arms and legs, and stretched. it was good!

came home, made the she crab soup, and that’s where the day ended, basically.

i wont count the evening because i washed all of the dishes in the kitchen again for the 2nd time (not a single. clean. cup. 2nd. time. in. the. day. i washed almost all of them before the gym.) (so before sleep i went in and did a major clean up – washed majority of dishes that were “anonymos” – like not from LA’s baking – and finally cleaned off counters. yay!), and watched wolf creek which was scary. but that’s okay. it doesn’t count.

i want to be a food photographer! so much fun!

choice is what moves us

i recently finished 2 books: one is “woman in the dunes”, by kobo abe, and second is “my sister’s keeper”, by jodi picoult.

moral of the story, in both, as coincidental as it was, is that people care about having their personal freedom of choice. while their actions might be the same at the end (staying or leaving, donating a kidney or not), the moral, the intent behind the action is far more important to them – but rarely to those who surround them.

its almost like art. it is the intent that makes a piece meaningful to the artist – even if the public never cares.

i’d highly recommend both books, even though they are completely different in style, they make an excellent match in story. woman in the dunes is rough, gritty, pressing on you from every angle, and drives its point hard:

“I have a one way ticket to the blues, woo woo”. If you’d like to sing – please, go ahead. In reality, the last thing that a man who has been given a one way ticket will do, is sing like that. The shoe lining of the people, who have a one way ticket, is really thing, and they scream if have stepped on the smallest pebble, and won’t move further. They would like to sing of a ticket to the blues that goes both ways. Only a man, holding a return ticket, can hum to himself a sort of sad song about a one way ticket. It is because he is afraid – afraid that he will lose it, or it will be stolen…

(rough translation to english from russian which was translated from japanese. some ommissions.)

i can’t think of an equally poignant quote from my sisters keeper, it felt far more gentle, if still very painful, just on a different level – here, everyone suffers, and most realize their suffering, but like abe’s characters they keep on digging themselves out.

i guess this comparison makes no sense if you haven’t read one, or even both of these books, but i really hope that one of you will pick it up. here is the russian version of woman in the dunes.

i’m going to go sleep, so that tomorrow i can dig sand of assignments again.

can’t move my neck

this entire day has been a small nightmare as i’ve had a headache, and an incredible neck pain that basically means that i spent the whole day in bed. LA gave me tigerbalm which i’m rubbing every so often to burn away the muscle pain but i still can’t really move or do anything. i’m tired. i want to be healthy, and not tired, and i’ve been sleeping poorly lately. whats up with all that? is it the season change or something?

feeling good (or not)

the past few days have been riddled with mixed feelings. on one hand, i was wearing a very cute “feeling” shirt (it says “FEELING” on it, and the shirt is light, cute, baby blue), on the other, i was feeling sick and tired and very very unwell the entire of friday. i even skipped class, for the first time, as i couldn’t concentrate on something like an email, let alone a hard math class.

i have a big assignment due on ~~sunday~~ wednesday thanks to the extention, in AI. i can’t wait to be done with CS courses. no clue how i ended up being so far into the degree, but i’m glad i’m almost done. at least i did learn some useful things i’ll be able to apply in the facianating field of web management! haha.

i took pretty pictures today as first i made breakfast, and then lesley ann. my favourite one is the butter uptop there. i really really love it, even though its just butter.

i can’t wait to be done with the assignment.

also, i ate sushi take out today. it sucked, compared to toronto’s sushi that i love, but it was not as bad as bad sushi could be. appreciate your luck, people, i’d kill for a nice salmon piece right now. yuuummmm….

hunter valley and recipes

today i have cooked these pretzels. the only thing i changed is that i glazed them with egg white instead of baking soda. they looked and tasted delicious, but i’m getting bored!

lately i’ve been making bread quite often. it started with this recipe, and then i was changing it around quite a bit, until i’ve tried pita breads, and other pretzels, and general experimentation. i AM improving – the kneading of my dough definitely has risen (and speaking of rising, when my dough rises, like today, it looks GREAT. just yummy.)

lesley ann has been asking me quite a lot lately to make this carrot cake, thus i shall do that tomorrow (after gym, heh). last night she made these awesome coconut/chocolate squares which were SO awesome. i can’t wait till she does them again, and i’ll be stealing the recipe.

i’ve also posted some photos on flickr from my recent hunter valley trip, on saturday. it’s been fun! i think the fun is reflected by that i had to fix the horizon on all the photos in the last half of the day – its crooked everywhere! (and i remember trying so hard to keep it straight…)

all hail kevin

for setting up my blog. COMMENT AWAY PEOPLE.