where is the love

date: 1073009478

mood: just happy
listening to:black eyed peas – where is the love

new year is over, holidays are done, and now i have pretty much a whole empty, giftless year to look forward to. ;-)

this holiday season was by far the best gift wise. it is amazing how bang on everyone were. i’ll finish cleaning my room and post pictures of all the gifts i’ve gotten. i’m really lucky to have such amazing parents, friends, relatives.

this new years i stayed at home with my parents, and had a few friends of my own come over as well to join my parents 20-people-large get together. it was a lot of fun. we played charades, i successfully got very buzzed, dance and … *gasp* sung! and it was very nice overall.

judging by the state of my room right now it seems i was taking photographs last night. uhoh.. ;) after i’m done with cleaning i’ll see what i have. =)

hope your new years was a fun, pleasant, friendly, warm, fuzzy, happy as mine, and i hope all of your new years are amazing.

I never look back, darling. It distracts from the

date: 1118812807

mood: exauhsted
listening to:the sound of my huge external fan cooling the computer! it finally doesn’t crash.

today, i present a visual guide to my life.

i saw

yesterday.

it was

and then i finished watching

this morning.

i loved loved loved loved

and was fascinated with the way

moved.

during lunch, i bought

along other small pleasantries. i’m addicted to the smell. apparently it goes like this: “Fresh, crushed raspberry leaves, this innocent bouquet of freesia, jasmine, apple blossom, lily-of-the-valley and wild cyclamen rests on a medley of summer melons, drenched with cool morning dew. It is further enhanced by a final abundance of velvety amber and precious woods, entwined with transparent musk.” but i think the smell is just really really light, flowery and awesome and yeah. and the transparent plastic thingie outside is ridiculous. i thought i’m supposed to take it off! and the thing itself is for blondes. on the cover of the box it has a small sticker-booklet that has a stop sign with the words “stop and read” in it. what’s inside the booklet? 3 pictures warning of dangers of perfume. but no words. so, nothing to read.

and then i emailed the owner of a canadian branch that sells laptop accessories and began the ordering process for:

Edna: You need a new suit, that much is certain.
Bob: A new suit? Well, where the heck am I gonna get a new suit?
Edna: You can’t! It’s impossible! I’m far too busy, so ask me now before I again become sane.
Bob: Wait? you want to make me a suit?
Edna: You push too hard, darling! But I accept!

and tomorrow i’m getting a and packing my

week of STUDY (no classes). right.

date: 1113374647

mood: entirely unbalancedly great
listening to:freestylers – push up, deep dish – flashdance (NICE song), armand van helden – my my my, junior jack – stupid disco

so, yeah.
i burned my hand today with steam from the kettle. genious.

life is crazy.
photoshoot planned and cancelled
double booked 2 people this week. like, 2 seperate things. i’m nuts. i have a freaking palm pilot and i still screw it up. ugh!
went to chapters and almost got a book. then ate sushi. with scarf.
monday went out dancing to the dance cave with linguistics group. was fun, retro music, awesome people, good times. returned home by subway, at 1:30am… i was the only one to get off the subway at the last station, downsview.
cleaned out so many “bad” photos from the stuff i shot in the past few months to free up space. it worked. 2.5 gigs free (from 1.5 megs). i should do this cleaning up stuff more often.
downloade (w00t i learned how to) some european music. memories!
my dog got sprayed by a skunk. i love her enough to still sleep in the same room as her, although door was wide open the whole night.
got my russian passport today. i am now officially a dual citizen. hah.
what else.. hm. studying done: 0%. fun had: 100%


shady. *heart*


me and grandad, russia, age ~6
.

week-after-the-week- afterreading-week

date: 1109799340

mood: anticipation and exhibliration at the same time
listening to:linguistics prof

its hard to believe 2 weeks since reading week have passed. i finished drinking the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed, so now i’m officially healthy.

i’m really getting into this whole photo posting thing. i should make this more efficient somehow.

so, all exams are finished as of 53 minutes ago. i wrote my programming languages exam and then ran to lecture, where i was successfully late by about 10 minutes. however we are covering reading which isn’t a big deal.

today is a Good Day, despite Bad News last night, which were followed by Good Meetings and more Good Meetings will occur.

no interesitng links. go read slashdot. it looks good today.

picture from swizterland. people LIVE there.


Robin: You can’t get away from Batman that easy!
Batman: Easily.
Robin: Easily.
Batman: Good grammar is essential, Robin.
Robin: Thank you.
Batman: You’re welcome.

oh yeah. SCARFETTE! larger laptops is boorns, it should beSMALLER. what does my closest SCARFETTE CERTIFIED™ consultant say about that? (although i really do like your plan)

languages. wo3 dong3!

date: 1102970292

mood:
listening to:

monday was spent in study of chinese, slacking off from study of chinese, and for about 1/2 hour helping julien prepare his paper for submition (setting fonts, formatting, explaining how to do foot notes). and eating, a few times.

but the highlight of the day is of course my chinese exam. yes, i had it tonight.

the written part was EASY. i easily gotten 80% on it, i believe. at very least 70, likely 95 (only one 2 mark question out of 50 points that i didnt know! and it was an unfair one too, he said we dont need to remember city name’s characters, and it was a city name). so, i definitely passed, and probably with a high mark too.

i can’t WAIT until i get back home and my nice “mark-self-esteem” is going to get blown to shreds by u of t.

tomorrow evening i have french exam. so right now as practice for it, i shall watch the godfather… in french! :)

photography and future

date: 1096292757

mood: pensive
listening to:crystal method – bad stone (live)

“Photographers start as ‘assistants’, who do anything that needs doing, carrying gear, painting walls, sweeping floors, making tea, chasing up deliveries, fetching sandwiches – and they may occasionally touch a camera, if only to load or unload film. As they gain experience they can expect to do more of the actual lighting and photography.

As well as making everything run smoothly, assistants are also learning in a practical manner how the job is done. Permanent assistants are often allowed (if not expected) to make use of the facilities to develop their own skills and build their own portfolios when not working on a job, and eventually may be able to take on small jobs themselves using the studio facilities before they branch out as photographers in their own right.

Assistants are usually poorly paid, the hours are long and unpredictable, and work is generally hard to find. Most hirings are on a short term basis and if you don’t fit in and pull your weight you will not get work again. Until you have experience it is hard to get work at all – you may have to start with unpaid ‘work experience’. A good ‘book’ (portfolio of work), a good interview manner and tons of persistence are needed.”

all the showing of my photographs to people who i’ve never met before (and who therefore have no preconceptions of who i am and what i do) made me think of photography and my future.

i’ve gotten the question of “you study this, right?” from each person.

i’ve gotten the question of “so why don’t you work in this” from at least 2 people.

i don’t know.

obviously i want and will finish my higher degree first.

but i also want to do masters.

and i also really, really, REALLY like photography, as much as i am disappointed by what i’m doing lately. is it good to not like what you do and push yourself further? or perhaps i’ve exauhsted what i can do and now i’m running over the same track – and that’s why i don’t like what i do, as i’m not doing anything creative and new?

blah.

i selected images for an updated portfolio. i have around 160 images + what i already have up online. the selection doesn’t include many photographs that i’d like to have there but can’t find originals on harddrive and too lazy to dig through cds (i don’t think i even have the cds with me). regardless, 168 is too much, but the photographs that are there i feel well represent the diversity of what i have done (and where i have been) over the past 2 years.
its beside the fact i only REALLY like, like, 4 photos. i can’t have just 4 photos online. i want my portfolio to promote me well.

the hard part is organizing these images into categories.

which brings me back to the original paragraph, taken from How to become a photographer. do i really want to seperate my photographs into art and commercial? because according to that link it wouldn’t be even art and commercial, but like art and advertising, since all my “commercial” work is for advertising (humane society, soil products, dance teams).

and if i don’t (or even if i do) make that seperation, what do i do next? should i stick with my “themes” of visuality (reflections, structure), or switch to dates (like seasons?) or … what? subject matter ala deviantart?

most photographs can be stuffed into folders like “denver”, “cuba”, “toronto”, “london”, “paris”, “amsterdam”. does that mean that’s what i should go with? but it doesn’t accurately reflect the purpose of each photograph.

what does then?

i don’t know.

if you want to see the (roughly, plus minus 10 images) selection please click view this folder. damn,i just realized paris, denver, and amsterdam aren’t there. well, add another 100 images to that (denver has like 70 photographs that i like!)

day 6, september 01

date: 1094545407

mood:
listening to:

woke up at 8 (4.5 hours sleep)
went to another lecture. did the mandatory reading and then fell asleep right on the desk (i wisely sat in the last row) by putting my head on my folded arms. they were talking about things completely irrelevant to the exchange students! blah.

then we had some stupid participation class, where everyone felt like we were in kinder garden. “you can only talk when you’re standing up!” … ugh… yeaaaah….

then we went to get coffee and wraps at this cheap, awesome place VERY close to all my classes (woohoo!). it was awesome, we were all talking about different cultures, canadian versus dutch and all that. one guy lived in hong kong for a year, so he compared that too.

then we went to the last pbl class, which was very fun. my highly productive (sarcasm, eh) reading in the morning helped me out a bit as i could honestly said that i read (he asked! hehe) the material. my discussion was mostly bullshit though. aah well.

after the last pbl class, i was at the end of hte last series of lectures, but it was so informal that i just left. they didnt take attendance in the start, and it was all so spread out that… meh, screw it, i suppose. instead i went upstairs, replied/wrote emails, and realized that i’m GOING TO PARIS!! (i also got my schedule).

too tired to type things now as it is 1am, and i have to wake up at 8. fucking hell… i was going to sleep well tonight! ah well, 7 hours better than 4.

i’ll paste info from emails to parents.

after internet, went home, got francesca, immedeately left, went to central station, bought bike.

buying bike:

we approached this moroccan guy, evil looking person. “you sell bikes?” “yeah, how much?”

me: “uhm, 10 euros”
him: “noo, NOOO, 10 euros is insane!! 30 euros!”
us (me and f): “30?!@! you must be insane! 15 euros!!”
him: “15? you will NEVER find 15!!”
f: “my friends got bikes for 15, and other friends got for 10!”
him: “nono, that was before, but not anymore”
me: “we want 2 bikes, do you have another one?” (he was displaying a bike to us, old, brown, *shrug*, nothing special).
him: “yes, yes, lets start walking. so 25?”
us: “25?! nononoooo (f with italian accent “non! non!”), 15 euros”
him + his assistant: (while walking) “15 euros, no, you are crazy, no way. 20, maybe.”
us: “nono, 20 impossible. we are getting 2 bikes!”
them: “okay, 35 for 2 bikes?”
we look at eachother. we walk for a while just thinking. then we kinda nod at eachother at when we reach their little bike corner we go “okay, okay, 35 for two bikes”.

i honestly expected 15 euros, so 17.5 is pretty good.

after testing bikes and figuring out which one is better for our height, we took em and rode home. very nice, fast, easy. bike lanes are nice.

except we didn’t go home. we went to internet, first francesca went for 30 minutes while i sat with the bikes, then i went for 20 minutes while she sat with the bikes. htis is like 7:30 at this point. we ride home, then she says “i need milk, lets go the supermarket”. i go “okay, but it closes soon (at 8), so lets ride fast”. so we ride fast (careful, dont worry, just pushing ourselves on the hills and all. i felt strong! my legs at least. i guess from all the walking…). came to supermarket at 7:50. she got milk, bacon, cheese.

we ride home, make dinner.

i meet estonian girl, miriam, on our floor.
simon, switzerland guy.
they are both shy, but seem to get along with eachother well.

2 french guys who also will live on our floor.

during the evening (we ate pasta, other people nothing, they didnt want), i practiced french with french guys (they said i speak well!!! except i forgot all the vocab. but my grammar is apprently perfect, even though i dont remember it one bit! WOOHOO!), estonian girl was practicing russian with me, french guys, francesca and switzerland guy were praciting english with me, and i was explaining russian to estonian girl and english to everyone else.
yeaah… my brain is fried from all the languages.
but it was really cool to talk french to real french people.
they are from south of france, by the way.

anyway, francesca and pieter went out, mirian and simon went out too, i stayed up a little with the french guys and went to room. cleaned up a bit, prepared stuff i’ll want to pack tomorrow for the paris trip, entered my schedule into the palm, and then retyped entries for past 3 days in case i can email them tomorrow from the laptop.

moral of the story: i had no time alone in my room at all in 3 days. which is what i need to type entries.

w00t wed

date: 1092830785

mood: in pain but excited
listening to:

omg wednedsday! okay that looks like it has too many d’s in it.

yay i’m getting a haircut today!

aaand possible a movie afterwards! woohoo!

aand free bbq today at work!

now i’mgoing to go take some advils and the world will become a bettah place.

last night was hilarious. scarf can’t tell time but he can paint within the lines. b6, stop hitting on him already! we all know the truth…

and the truth shall be revealed..

oh shit, there’s my alarm clock, i’m late.

oh well, no truth for you today.

OMGOMGOMG OMG day!

date: 1085528489

mood: high on life and happiness
listening to:candy music (aka dance) rainbow

i had the BEST day ever! well not EVERever but its absolutely superbly great! its one of those rare days when everything goes great!

okay, so the image that you see on the left IS as special as i thought and it got sold for design use for a humane society. and i didn’t even pitch it, they just loved it from seeing it!

and work is going great. i’m like a real person. i’m working on their website – which, get this – has nearly a 1000 files, most of them webpages and documents, and they are all connected in a MASS of confusion – and i’m going to be making it neat.

there is NOTHING more perfect for me than making things neat!

yay!!