damnit. i actually look younger on 3 year old photos. that’s not cool. i didn’t think i’d age.
anyway, i’d like to officially lodge a protest. that’s all.
and now:
Category: photography
goose bay photos
here.
(superkev, i’d never forget about “here”. …
…
…
well never forget about posting photos!
..
….
OK, well not ones as pretty as these!)
mike and maya
tonight my cousin, mike, and his girlfriend, maya, came over for dinner (with appetizers! and a pasta! and a desert! aren’t we wonderful grown ups.), a lot of drinks, wonderful conversation and an impromptu (are there better ones?) photoshoot.
maya reminds me of scarlett johansson so strongly. every time i see her i need to take photographs of her.
(corny, i know, but i think they’ll like it.)
italy – second day, evening.
leftovers from verona:
the drive from verona to venice was remarkable only because we found a really cute soft cooler(tim really wanted one for some reason – i think we ended up using it, but mostly i’m happy that i have an awesome lunch bag).
the evening in venice was strange. we found the hotel easily; they upgraded our hotel room to the best one when i mentioned we were honeymooning. (it was a small b&b place). the view from the window was gorgeous:
and while tim was ok with drinking some wine and figuring out where we’ll eat, i went outside to take some photographs:
and right as i was taking those last few, the rain started pouring down. i ran back in (i was only like 3 minutes away from the hotel), and looked at the grey skies and lamented not taking a single jacket. damn.
after the rain ended it became better:
and we went out for dinner:
the dinner itself was the least tasty dinner; perhaps we did not appreciate the wine sauce enough.
after the dinner we messed up which boat we need to take back, froze a little bit, and got home. the end of day two!
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)
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
italy – first day
this is slightly late, but why not.
our departure to our honeymoon was the day after the wedding, in the evening. thankfully we found a hotel that let us do a late check out – like 4pm. we seriously needed that time to sleep, so that was excellent.
walking out of the hotel holding my wedding dress in my hands felt somewhat surreal. i mean, that’s when it hits you that it really IS a non resuable-packaging :-)
the packing was easy. i knew what i wanted to take fairly in advance – i actually ended up under packing for the first time ever, as i didn’t take a rain jacket (and to spoil the surprise shocking ending, of course it rained for like 3 days). with our two small suitcase, dad, my aunt, zhen (tim’s friend from cali who was here for the wedding) and ourselves we headed to the airport. zhen went first – his flight was at 9. our was at 10, and we arrived pretty late. we actually were taken out of the line and ushered to the front because we were cutting it so close to our plane’s departure. :S but, it was all good – we got 2 seats next to eachother!
as it turned out, the 3rd seat was taken by the self proclaimed “congratulations, you’re sitting next to the biggest geek in the world” guy, who exclaimed that after seeing our wired magazine. he was flying to germany (the plane was to munich) for some conference on how computers affect daily life. except he couldn’t. stop. talking. for the entire flight. it would be hilarious and entertaining to watch such stupidity if it wasn’t so painful. (and he seriously wasn’t the biggest geek, i’m pretty positive i know at least 500 people geekier than him – and that’s u of t alone.)
anyway, that aside, the flight was easy. i slept some, tim – not really. our arrival was at 8am, and right away we saw the wonderful efficiency of the germans. NOT. the line into customs was a funnel of our entire plane to 2 agents. it was a free for all, more or less. one nice thing about the airport is that they gave our luggage back quickly (we packed for carryon but for some reason they said we can’t check them), and that you could smoke inside. go europe!
our car rental was upgraded for free (yay), the coffee in the airport was delicious, and soon we were on our way out of munich and into italy.
the drive was around 7 hours long, and i think i slept through most of it.
i need to run so i guess i’ll stop here. quickly: we arrived to verona, got lost, got found after an awesome conversation at a gas station in french and spanish and his italian, and tim slept. i went to the supermarket, which deserves some talking too. here are some snaps from prior to verona.
church on the way out
first view of our car (we expected a crapbox!)
self portrait on the way out
tim messing with the radio
the radio he was messing with 
first evening in verona
no speed limit! (we had fun.)
tilt shift for sports
this is so freaking genius. although during his voice over he does seem to be rubbing his geniousness in. “i shot this from the same perspective as the fans that surrounded me” (okay, not verbatim quote, but approximately what he said).
still, very, very smart.
life after graduation
well, time was spent outside. and now i’m working from home 8-4, and given how we’re in a basement, i see less light than i would if i work on location. at least i only need to trek to missisauga once a week.
this is a temporary arrangement.
this week all the parties celebrating end of school are.
i got myself a new backpack as a graduation present. i’m sure that at some point i’ll decide i need more graduation presents! :P
omg, pictures of meeeeeee?
holy crap that was fun.
there’s at least 30 that i will show.
in like 20 minutes cause i have no patience.
TELL ME THAT I LOOK ADULT AND GRADUATED! LOOK! I AM AN ADULT! yes. right. (see, i’m happy, people. and lucky too, judging by everyone’s understanding, including mine, of “man, it sucks university ended”.)
(also, diny, sorry, no pictures of karmun…. for now … hehehe)
so close to being done…
… that i just had to post more photos. especially given your positive feedback. haha!
which one is your favourite?