flowers make me happy

realization of the day: i am very happy when i have fresh flowers that i can cut and arrange. i had my G test this morning (passed, from the first time! wooo!), and then worked until 7, so i was pretty stressed out and tired. upon coming home to a clean apartment i decided that instead of vegetating in front of the computer/the tv/the book i should do something that would take my stress away.

turns out pruning flowers is one of the many things that work very well to make me feel calmer, happier and relieve my stress. after spending around an hour cutting and trying to arrange all the various flowers that my mom gave me (it was her birthday, and she basically gave me some she didn’t really care for, plus some pretty ones – like the sunflowers) into the vases that i had on hand. after that i decided to take photographs, and turns out that i took like 38 photographs that i liked. so, there you go! diny, enjoy the chairs.

here are my favourite ones, you can see all of them here. (i culled the vignettes into this set)

kitchen

kitchen close up

vignette - roses and a tiny carnation

vignette kinda

vignette - bathroom basket

vignette - more carnation

vignette - roses

vignette - more sunflowers

coffee table

couch

now about my g test.

well, let me tell you, i was worried. most people (as in 20 except for 2) that i asked didn’t pass it from the first time. i don’t take failure well, despite knowing that its stupid to stress out about a test that DOESNT EVEN AFFECT YOUR GPA OMG. (and you can retake endlessly for just some small amounts of money). and yet, there was, sitting in the parking lot and trying really hard to calm down. i borrowed the russian translation of dale carnegie’s book (compilation of all 3 of his most famous ones) from my parents, so i tried to read it.

the guy who was testing me (i think his name is randy – thank you, randy!) was a friendly looking young guy, unlike the person who did my g2 test. he asked me how i am, and i honestly replied “nervous as usual”. i think this confused him, as he asked “this IS the first time you’re taking this test, right?” (it already said this on my form). i replied in the affirmative.

the test itself went nicely, with some awesome happenings. i pulled out of the parking lot with no problems (went really slow as there was a young kid who i saw running around before, so i informed the guy that the reason i’m going this slowly is because there’s a kid behind us, and i’m worried about him). fast forward to driving on the highway, and no problems. (i did apparently make some errors on the way there, but all minor things). so we’re going on the highway, and he says “please change lanes left and then right whenever its safe to do so”. i check stuff, see that its safe, and change lanes. obviously i’m going 100km/hr on the dot, so is the person in front of me. and then i see in my rear view mirror a pick up truck with a flat bed trailer (like the small one) speeding toward me. my first though – “ok, change lanes to the right so that you get out of his way”. except, the crazy pick up truck swerves to the lane to the right of me, without dropping speed. at this point i’m thinking “shit, he’s gonna pass me on the right and i’m very screwed, especially if he honks or breaks badly”. what he did was worse (or better? since i passed?). he passed on me on the right alright, but he did it without dropping speed, signaling lane change, and with his flat bed trailer SWINGING WILDLY, missing my car by maybe a meter. i actually said “holy shit” outloud, because that was some horrible driving there. randy didn’t say anything, so we continued on our merry way, while i’m kinda going “oh shit did i just fail?” inside.

what was remarkable is that he didn’t ask me to do any kind of parking. at least now i’m a pro at this parallel stuff, thanks to our wonderful street. anyway, we park and right away he goes “congratulations, you’ve passed!” (let me remark, this is BAJILLIONS YEARS OF LIGHT BETTER than my g2 test, where the guy just sat there for like a minute silent and writing stuff on his paper, until i couldn’t stand the pressure and asked with a shaking voice “so did i fail?” and he was like “oh no”. turns out i had 2 mistakes out of 15. but that was g2). i’m not sure how many “points” i lost on this test – i still have the paper, but it doesn’t say which errors are more crucial.

anyway, randy, wherever he is, i’m hoping he’s having a good one, because turns out that exams/tests still make me crazy. great! :P

4 thoughts on “flowers make me happy”

  1. Wow it wasnt until towards the end of the entry that I realized what test you were talking about. “What the hell is a g test? Doesnt affect your gpa? Didnt she graduate already? what the hell is going on?”

    You’re gonna have to ESSPLAIN all this. G? G2? No parking test?

  2. in canada there are 3 levels of tests:
    G1 license – written test, gives you ability to drive with an experienced drive (who holds a G license). you can try the next test after holding G1 for 8 months.

    G2 license – needs to be renewed every 5 years (retested, that is). can’t have any alcohol in your blood. simpler test, no driving on the highway.

    G license – never needs to be renewed, can have 0.08 level of alcohol (or 0.03? either way i don’t plan to drink and drive), test includes G2 + driving on the highway. test is famous for requiring things like “check your mirrors every 3-5 seconds when on the highway”. both mirrors.

    c’est tout.

    except whats funny is that the test to get *g2* is called “g1 test”, and the test to get *g* is called “g2 test”. it makes little sense, really.

  3. oh yeah, and parking – it is usually part of the test, to do a parallel parking thing. the only thing that was worrying me about this is that i park on the left side of our one way street; and normal streets you park on the right (as they are two way). i’m not good with it, so yeah. i was relieved and surprised he didn’t ask me for it.

  4. Gotcha. The alcohol limit is 0.08 here, so I can’t imagine it being 0.03 in Canada. But like you said, no plans for drinking and driving.

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