Halloween

is coming up real soon, eh?

Last year, our university approved having a fall break, just as other universities have a fall reading week. When I first heard of this, I thought, "dang, why do good things always happen after I graduate?!" but then when I decided I was coming back, one of the first thoughts was, "Aww yissss, I'm gonna get to experiemce FALL READING WEEK!"

And then the university was like, "no, you only get two days, suckers!"

So our fall break is only two days long, but it adds on to the weekend, so we get an extra long weekend, which isn't too shabby if you put it that way. Plus it's an extra long weekend for me, since my Wednesday lab is cancelled for that day!

It also isn't shabby because one of the days we get off is Halloween! I have never been to a Halloween party at university. Nor will I this year... most likely. I think I might be going home for the break, so I'll still be able to join my siblings' and little cousins' Halloween festivities; this means free candy, and I finally have an opportunity to dress up! I haven't dressed up in the LONGEST time. The last costume I ever wore for Halloween was a stupid one - partly because it was really last-minute as we were asked to accompany our little brother and cousins trick-or-treating a few hours before they planned to head out: my sisters and I went as a bunch of tourists. We had t-shirts that we had from different cities (I had a "I <3 NY" t-shirt on), sunglasses, hats, backpacks and fanny packs; and asked for candy in foreign accents. Yeah, it was pretty lame...

This year, though - I am so so sooooo excited because this is the best costume idea ever - I'm going to be a character from one of my most favourite movies ever. I thought about using this costume years before, but I never really had the opportunity to dress up as I was never invited to any parties, nor did I have anyone to trick-or-treat with...

Without further ado, I'll be dressing up as:

... Violet from the Incredibles! At the time when the movie came out, she was a character I related to in a few aspects: she's the eldest child in the family (with a very annoying sibling - though I have three); and not very confident in herself and pretty shy at the beginning of the movie. Watching her transformation/maturation during the movie was a bit inspiring for 13-year-old me... though I haven't really cracked my shell or upped my self-confidence too much since then.

One of my favourite parts - I'm sure every girl has done this at least once in her life, haha.

Oh, and we have pretty similar hair.

Here is what I have so far for my costume... I have two versions:

Version 1:

• Team Canada shirsey - I don't own any plain, solid, vivid red tees, other than this and my Blackhawks tee... so I turned it inside out - and you can still kinda see the Team Canada logo, but I'll be taping the Incredibles logo that I drew over that.
• Black long-sleeve tee from Forever 21
• Red opaque tights from Target - I got these today and they are SO red and SO opaque. I really, really like them.
• Black shorts which were my mom's

 

Version 2: is pretty much the same, except I swapped out the shorts for a black swimsuit bottom, which I think works better because it's tight and looks more like all the skin-tight superhero outfits you see; but it's a bit short... so we'll see what I decide when Halloween comes.

I might also try to find an orange belt of some sort, but if I don't, then it's a detail I don't really mind missing... I'll also have to find my black gloves...

As for footwear, Violet wears thigh-high boots, which would be pretty insane in reality. So I'll be opting for knee-high socks with my Converses.

And up on my head and face will be an orange headband, and of course, the mask - both of which I will probably have to make on my own... not that it's a big problem. I'm just really surprised that the dollar store and Target I went to did NOT have any black masks! Actually, Target did have them... but in packs (of 18, or some other ridiculous number) as part of a mask-making kit. But the dollar store is supposed to have everything! Sigh...

Anyhow. That's it for today's post. I have an essay to write...

Have I mentioned how excited I am to wear this!?!

Edit: I procrastinated on my essay, made a prototype mask instead.

This has been a shameless self-promo. Check out my Instagram!

Music Monday ft. Hey Ocean!

Haven't done this in a while. But I was motivated to make this post because I have just found a new band to obsess over. Like, literally, just found this band.

Okay maybe not just found. The first time I heard a song by Hey Ocean! was last year - when this song popped up on the 8tracks playlist I was listening to:

Islands
(Here is the playlist by the way - one of my favourites.)

It immediately caught my attention because firstly, it was completely different from the pop-rock/punk tracks that most of the playlist had already been; and secondly, it was a male/female duet! And, goodness, have I ever expressed my love for duets? I mean, it's not a duet in the sense that it's one voice singing to another; but it is, in the sense that two voice are performing together, I suppose.

I remember looking them up after that and adding a few tracks to my Grooveshark collection. I learned that they are a Canadian band (woohoo!) from Vancouver, BC. Oh, and that the female vocalist is a voice actress who does the voice of some My Little Pony character. Her singing voice is oh-so-sweet and light though.

Anyhow, after that, I didn't really delve into their music any further. I rediscovered them yesterday afternoon when I pulled up their album on my phone's playlist that I forgot I had downloaded a while ago (from NoiseTrade - a great site to discover and download new music).

Alley Ways

It was this song that kinda sparked my interest in them again. Oh, and I love songs in 6/8 time.

I went through a whole bunch of songs last night, and here are some more awesome songs (and the videos themselves are great too).

Big Blue Wave

I am a Heart

Make A New Dance Up

This song has been on the radio these days, and I always get so excited when it comes on. It just has that reggae-ish groove that makes you wanna dance. Ugh, it's such a happy, happy song as are the other two. But this is definitely one you'd find me dancing around the house to when no one else is at home.

Fifteen Words

A bit more somber than the last videos. I love the vocalizing parts. Those harmonies make me melt. Oh and speaking of harmonies:

Jolene (acoustic)

What's that dripping noise? OH SHIT, I'M MELTING.

I guess this has been a Hey Ocean! post. But here's an extra song if you didn't like any of those...

Still Into You - Paramore

I don't know why it took me so long to get into this song. But I think I was frightened by Hayley's haircut...

Anyhow, that is it for this edition of Music Monday. If you didn't like any of it, that's too bad... Happy listening!

First week wrap-up

I seriously cannot believe that only one week has passed since classes started. ONE. It feels like it's been MONTHS! Holy moly. Well, I guess going into your fifth year of university does that to you. I mean, you'd think 19 years of being in school would be enough, eh?

Nineteen years. That's counting from junior kindergarten 'til now. By the end of this year, 86% of my life will have been spent in school. Wow.

My classes all seem really, really great. I think my favourite class at the moment (even though it is pretty soon to tell) is Classical Mythology. Ever since I was in grade 3, when my mom bought us an encyclopedia which happened to have an index of Greek/Roman gods, I've been absolutely interested in mythology. Enchanted by it even; like how little girls are into fairy tale stories about princesses and princes. I read the tiny "biographies" of every single god and titan or nymph; and in my spare time, I did my own research and looked up some of their back-stories. Now, I get to learn about them all, and you do not understand how excited I am for the rest of this course (despite the truck-load of readings I have to do each week...)!

My least favourite - or at least the class that I least look forward to next week, is the English course I'm taking. It's called "Reading Pop Culture" and it was recommended to me by my friend as a course she took to fulfill the English course prerequisite for medical school. The first lecture wasn't too bad, but generally, English has never been an enjoyable class for me, nor have I ever done well it in; so I am a bit nervous for it. Despite this, we get to watch a lot of video clips from TV shows, so I guess that is an upside to the course!

I am a bit nervous for this semester because I am overloading - i.e. I have six courses this semester as opposed to the usual five, and it has to do with my physiology lab course counting as a half-course, despite running the full year. Part of me is begging me to drop the lab course, but the main reason for taking this course is so that I have a chance at getting to interact with some professors, and hopefully get some references from them when it comes time to apply to other schools.

Moving onto something not quite school-related... we saw some craaaaaaaazy weather on Wednesday evening! Actually, the weather for this entire week has been quite bizarre (welcome to Canada!). Summer reasserted her presence on Monday and Tuesday - it was HOT. My sweat glands were more active in those two days alone than during the summer break. We're talking 30's feeling like 40's. It was brutal!

Then, Wednesday rolled around... and it was warm and sunny during the day too, but by approximately 4:30 (I know that was the time, because that's when we were dismissed from class), the sky was dark and we could already hear thunder. Rain started coming down lightly while I waited from the bus, but held off until I got home (thankfully). At some time after, our school's tornado alarm apparently went off - I didn't hear it, but the weather network website and our school's Twitter account told us we were on tornado watch! Students were told to stay indoors, and in some buildings where there were basements, students were moved down there. At the same time, rain had already started coming down hard, and there was more thunder, preceded by the brightest lightning I have ever seen.

If you didn't know, I love thunderstorms. I love listening to the thunder. I love watching lightning. I generally like when it's rainy. (all this is true when I'm indoors). The lightning show that mother nature put on that day was spectacular. Ten out of 10.

Anyhow, the tornado warning was off a few hours later, but the thunder and lightning continued until around 11 p.m. Luckily, throughout the storm, our neighbourhood didn't experience any blackouts, though I know other areas in the city did. I overheard one guy in my histology class telling his friend that he and his friend's laptops and a few other appliances had short-circuited during the storm and how he had to get an entirely new laptop now. I am so thankful that didn't happen to us!

It cooled down on Thursday, and even more so today (I mean Friday, so I should say yesterday). It wasn't cold enough to see our breath in the air or anything, but it was still quite a contrast from Monday's weather!

I've got a boat-load of readings to do now...

Backpack essentials

This is the first time I'm writing something like this... I had thought about making a video instead... buuuuuut my camera is currently packed away, just waiting for anyone in the family to bring it to Canon for cleaning. Anyhow, backpack essentials.

I started carrying around my backpack from class to class in high school, probably midway through grade 9. Between classes, I took out whatever books and binders I didn't need, and threw whatever books and binders I needed for the next class (or the next two classes, if the one after was too far away for me to visit my locker); and carried along whatever else I had lying around in my backpack. Over the years, the amount of stuff that stays in my backpack has increased - but it's not like I'm carrying around six tonnes of necessities. No, I'd hire a butler for that.

1) An extra snack. By the way, this list isn't in order of importance, but you know, food is kind of important. I usually throw a granola bar, or one of those individually wrapped Ms. Field's cookies in my backpack in addition to the other snacks I pack with my lunch. The emergency snack often comes in handy on days where I'm running late and can't grab breakfast before lunch, days where I end up staying out later than normal, or whenever the munchies kick in.

2) A mirror. Actually, this has sorta been weeded out ever since the discovery that my cell phone's screen could act like a mirror; but it wasn't great. Prior to that, I did carry around either a tiny mirror that someone bought me from the dollar store (it broke a week ago, boo - the mirror itself didn't crack, so no seven years of bad luck!), or a tiny eyeshadow compact that had a mirror in it. Having a mirror may seem a little vain, but everyone has their insecurities, and it doesn't hurt to check if you look okay. Just don't do it too often.

3) Bobby pins! I always have at least one bobby pin with me, clamped on my bus pass holder. If bobby pins aren't your thing, then tiny hair clips are a good substitute. I usually walk around with a clip clipped onto the lapel of my cardigans, or on my lanyard with my keys (but beware! They fall easily like that, so I have unfortunately learned). P.S. Paper clips also work as hair clips. I've done it before, but the trend hasn't seem to have caught on, so...

4) An extra pen, pencil, writing utensil. I mean, having one in one of the pockets of your backpack, outside of the ones you keep in your pencil case; so on days when you might forget your pencil case at home, you'll at least have something to take notes with!

5) Tissues. A lot of my lecture halls are extreeeeeeeeemely cold, even in the winter, which is cool (haha) with me, because that'll force my body to undergo more metabolism to produce heat, and hence use up my fat stores. But my nose often ends up a little runny. If you're like me, you don't want to be that person without a tissue who sniffs loudly every few minutes during the lecture to keep your snot from running down your face. Oh! And you could also offer a tissue to any snifflers around you.

6) A pad. Or tampon. Whatever you use. Even if it's not your time of month, keep one in your backpack. You'll thank yourself later when your time of month DOES show up while you're on campus away from any sources of sanitary napkins. It's also nice to have in case another girl is in need. Help a sister out!

7) Chapstick, or lip balm. I have to have my lip balm with me all the time (currently using the green EOS one), because my lips get dry pretty often; and out of habit, I would always lick them, which I have learned is NOT good for the state of hydration of your lips (plus, it hasn't proven to be a turn-on for guys, hmmm)! So. Yeah. Lip balm.

8) Extra change. I usually keep a toonie (that's two dollars for you Americans) and a few quarters in one of the small pockets in my backpack. This is usually for buying snacks from vending machines, on days when I don't have any food on me at all (or after I've eaten all of it - I eat a lot...); but it's also nice for times when I'm paying for something from whatever's in my wallet (which isn't a lot), and then I realize I'm short a few cents. Quarters are especially handy for payphones, in case your phone runs out of battery.

9) Tylenol, or Advil. Nice for days after all-nighters.

So those are my essentials! I also have a few other items that may be more specific for me - oil blotting paper (because my skin is stupidly oily), some Halls (not like I cough all the time, but just in case), and a USB key, for example. Other people might have more items, or fewer items. It just depends on how you are and what you find important. I've listed the things I think are the basic of the basic essentials, so go ahead and add onto the list.

Hopefully this was helpful to someone. Stay in school, don't do drugs,

New Year's Resolutions (but really, they're just reminders)

Since high school, it never feels like a new year starts on January 1st. My "new year" always starts on the first day of school - it makes a lot more sense. I mean, you're going into a new grade; getting a new schedule and homeroom; cracking open the pages of a fresh, blank, new agenda; dumping your things in a new (old) locker (I say old, because my high school was old, and the lockers were not in good shape); donning new clothes; and sometimes, sporting a new haircut. It always feels like I'm getting a fresh start from the previous school year.

I will be returning to my alma mater to do another year of undergrad. I'm calling this my "make it or break it" year because in the year after, I'm aiming to be at a point where I'm confident with my resume and experience to apply to medical schools. And, since I was pretty much living in a cave for the past four years (i.e. not doing anything to really give my credentials a boost), this is the year that I hope I can make up for the past four years of inactivity.

Resolutions and reminders:

• Do NOT be lazy. Speaks for itself.
• Do NOT be afraid - to ask questions or for help, to volunteer, to try new things, etc. This also applies to my, uh, fizzled and lackluster social life.
• Keep fit! For me, it says a lot about a person when he/she is committed to something, and being committed to health and fitness is my goal. Luckily, my housemates are pretty gung ho about waking up at 6 a.m. every morning to hit the gym, so I'll have some friends to help me out.
• Hit the hay before 11 p.m. I made this resolution on January 1st a couple years ago, and kept up with it until summer time (because when it's summer time, sleep schedules do not exist). Eleven p.m. sounds kind of early, but I'm pretty sure "in real life", that's when I'll have to go to sleep in order to wake up and survive the day without being groggy and grumpy.
• Spend less money! A necessary resolution because I am in soooooooo much debt right now.

I'll add to the list as I think of them.

Happy returning to school! And if you aren't going back, have fun in the real world!

Road trip round-up!

Our road trip came to an end early Friday morning as we pulled into our driveway at a little past 5 in the morn. I typed this up the day after I know, when I post it, it'll have that date, but I'm saying now that it wasn't posted for a while because a) I wanted to edit my pictures first before uploading them, but then my computer mouse broke and doing things with a trackpad is tres annoying; b) there were a few other pictures I wanted to take, for example, of my souvenirs, but laziness dropped by for a visit and hasn't left yet; and c) I don't know, I kinda wanted to keep this as a draft until I felt like it was... post-worthy. It's stupidly and poorly written because I didn't want to go into detail in the entire trip because it was LONG; and in a couple of years when I look back at all my posts before deleting this blog (like I did to my old one), I'll be thinking to myself "yo, why wuz i so stoopid" (which is also what I thought to myself as I scrolled through my old blog before taking it off the webs for good).

But anyhow. Take it or leave it.

Here's the tl;dr in advance: I GO ON TRIP. TRIP FUN. SAW THINGS. CANADA GOOD.

________________________________________________________________

EPIPHANIES - things I discovered, learned, or realized:

1. Sitting for a long time actually really hurts your ass. I hadn't believed this before because I thought sitting for three hours was a long time and that didn't hurt. Nope, try six.
2. Mosquitoes and black flies love me. Eleven bites all over.
3. I should really re-learn French because French dudes are handsome (among other reasons).
4. Asians are rare out in the Maritimes and so we often caught people staring at us like we were aliens.
5. Crabs have strong grip. This being said, the hermit crabs we played with attempted to pinch, but they couldn't, so it was cute to watch them scuttle around in our palms.
6. Humpback whales are teases. We went on a whale watch and saw two, and everyone on the ship was waiting for one of them to flip its tail up as it dove to get a "tail" picture... and it never did.
   

   

   They came pretty close to the boat. It was magical.

   
   

   

   Tail!

7.  How lobster is supposed to taste: NOT like the stuff we get here.
   

   

   *Emma Stone eye roll* YUM.

8. Maritime traffic is awesome because there is none. This being said, it felt awfully lonely and kinda scary driving down empty highways at night... Felt like I was in a horror movie.
9. My neck is extremely ticklish and so sleeping with my hair down doesn't work well when I'm in a car because it keeps tickling it.
10. I knew this already, but seeing the Maritimes really confirmed it more: CANADA IS AMAZING!

NUMBERS - or estimates, to highlight the extra random events of our trip:

1. Rocks collected: maybe up to 8 pounds. Our family has a thing for collecting rocks - it stems from my dad. He likes to collect them for our fish tank. We went all-out during a stop at a shore along the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.
   

   

   This was one of the rocks I collected. My sister calls it the "Poo rock"...

2. Times my hair got caught in a hair dryer: 2. Times it was pleasant: 0.
3. Pictures taken: over 3500. The Canon itself took 3457 pictures, but then we also had a second camera that my brother and sister used sometimes, my dad's phone's camera, and my mom's iPad - actually, she probably took more than five hundred snaps herself so I'd be willing to say we took almost up to 4000 pictures in total!
4. Moose seen: 3! All during our hike along the Skyline Trail. The first one was about 10 feet away from us as he was chowing down on plants; the second and third ones were a greater distance away and were both napping at the time we spotted them.
   

   

   Sister took this shot. It's pretty zoomed in, so in reality we were about 10 feet away from it. We named him Jiles, after the butler on the show "Whodunnit".

5. Hours playing Pokemon: 16. Both of my sisters have portable Nintendo devices and were playing their own Pokemon games for the trip. Midway through the trip, I caved and downloaded a version to my laptop to play during car rides.
6. Distance hiked: 7 km (Skyline Trail).
   

   

   Started from the bottom, now we here.

7. Souvenirs purchased for myself: 3. A funny postcard from the Hopewell Rocks, a poster from Cows, and a mug from NEAQ.
   

   

   Best ice cream, and best merch.

   

   If you ever wondered how they got the names of each individual rock...

   
   

   
   

   
   

8. Number of bug bites: 11. Four on my left leg, one on my left wrist, two on my face, two on my right leg, one on my right arm, and one on my right pinky toe.
9. Approximate distance traveled (not including local driving): 5020 km as calculated by Google Maps.
10. Approximate time on the road (not including local driving): 50 hours as calculated by Google Maps.

All in all, it was good fun. But my family won't be ready for another trip for a while... I, on the other hand, am excited about where I could go next!

Musicmusicmusic Monday!

QUICK! BEFORE MONDAY ENDS!

1. Wake Me Up - Avicii ft. Aloe Blacc

2. What I Wouldn't Do - Serena Ryder

3. Clarity - Zedd ft. Foxes

You rock, don't ever change,
Y

Eh?

If you're out of the loop, today was Canada day.

Can I just take a moment to explain how proud I am to be Canadian? Just kidding. It is utterly inexplicable how proud I am to be a Canuck! Hooray for free health care! Hooray for maple syrup! Hooray for saying "sorry" and "excuse me" more than five times a day!

We went to Wonderland in the morning. The place was more packed than the last time I had gone (which was on a weekday, while most kids were still in school), but we still got to ride the Behemoth twice in a row because for some reason, the line up there was really short.

We left after a while for lunch at home, and also to tackled a few chores. Then in the evening, two of my siblings and I went out to a park somewhere in the city to watch These Kids Wear Crowns! We missed the three other acts that came before them, which was fine, because I really wanted to see TKWC only.

(Low Q photo courtesy of my cell phone, because I didn't want to risk the bazooka getting damaged. )

I haven't been a hardcore fan of TKWC, but I do quite enjoy their music (did you read that in a British accent? Because that's what it sounded like in my head). To this date, Jumpstart is still the most played song on my phone!

The verdict is, they are AWESOME live. The small talk in between was entertaining. Their harmonies and pitch were in tact, and the energy was very, very high. My other sister had actually told me that they got too excited when they performed at her Orientation Week concert, but, nope, I think they were decently enthusiastic (of course, this might have been because I was too excited? Hah).

At the end of the concert, we got their autographs!~~~

Yes, they all have red eyes because the drummer thought it would be funny to draw everyone with red eyes. He drew one of the guys as a zombie on my sister's poster...

I also took a picture with the bassist Alan. He's my favourite.

I had to edit this because I was ridiculously flustered. HE'S SO HANDSOME. AND HE PUT HIS HAND ON MY BACK. AND I JUST LOOK RIDICULOUSLY UGLY BUT IT'S OKAY. Oh, and you can kinda see my little brother attempting to photobomb us.

During the concert, they were talking about hockey, and asked whether anyone wanted Luongo to be traded to Toronto and after a period of silence (during which I shouted GO LEAFS GO), they were like "Yeah, that was more of a joke for the dads in the audience". At the signing session, after saying hi, he pointed to my shirt to say that he liked it and when I turned around to show him that I was wearing my Luongo (Team Canada) t-shirt, and he (and the rest of them) cheered; and he asked me if I was a Luongo fan. I told him I bought the t-shirt to celebrate the win at the 2010 Olympics and that I wasn't quite a fan of him since he's been slumping. He concurred, but then added "But Luongo's still the best!"

After that, we went home, had dinner, then went back to Wonderland to catch some fireworks, because in my life, it ain't Canada day without fireworks!

Still in the process of learning how to use the new camera. These were probably the best of the night.

Hope you had an awesome Canada d'eh!

Started from the bottom now we... still at the bottom... sorta.

CONVOCATION! was two days ago, but I've finally gotten around to sit down and blab about it.

My day started at 5:45 a.m. to give myself a little more than two hours to have breakfast, dress, do my make-up, and calm my nerves before heading off to campus to pick up my regalia and report to the location we were supposed to report to. In actuality, I finished preparing in less than the two hours I had set out (it's a thing I do - giving myself way more time than I need!), and ended up leaving the house later than I had planned, but I was still on time for everything.

The weather was pretty dreary when I stepped out - it was cold, dark, and rainy; but by the time the ceremony was over, the sun was out and it was definitely warmer (maybe it was because I was baking underneath my black gown)!

My school is better than yours. ;)

It was also pretty windy, which was bad news for my hair, but yielded cool hair flip shots.

Dress from Winners; shoes from the Bay; Allegro bracelet from Joseph Nogucci;
crystal beaded bracelet from F21; birthstone earrings and matching bracelet from some Chinese jewelry store at Pacific Mall.

Here's a question: what do you do with your diploma? My mom bought a frame for it, so my diploma is currently framed... but where on earth is it supposed to go? I know my doctor, dentist, and optometrist all have their diplomas hanging in their offices, but does anyone ever put up their diploma at home?


One last thing to say.

After stepping out of the bookstore with my regalia, it suddenly hit me why part of me had dreaded convocation: as I stopped to look around for a familiar face, the loneliness I had felt during my entire university career came back. I had forgotten about it when I came home for the summer, but seeing how each person was with at least one other person congratulating each other and making post-ceremony plans, or talking about how they had all made it to whatever schools they had been hoping to get into just reminded me how pathetic I was at making friends and everything over the past four years.

Which is why I am so, so, SO grateful for the friends that I did happen to come by and I can't thank them enough. I don't know if they'll ever read this, but VL, BL, JL, MC, RL, BS, CK, ES, WS, GW, JW, SJ, and anyone else I may have missed who was kind enough to give me the time of day: thank you all for taking a chance on me and being awesome.

Congrats, class of 2013!

 

For a free tassel that didn't even come with a cap. Preposterous!

Forever a Mustang,
Yours truly.

#teamcanon

My dad and I have been on the hunt for a DSLR at a really good price for a while now; and search was becoming a bit more urgent because my convocation is next month (and my parents want nice photos, instead of the blurry ones that our point-and-shoot always takes).

So, drum roll please... *drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* We bought one yesterday!

Taken by my 3.0 megapixel cell phone camera.

The Canon EOS Rebel T4i! We got it for a decent price, and it came with an 18-135 mm lens, the camera bag picture above, and a monopod (which... I'm sure will come into good use at some point in my life).

I took it out for a test drive today when we went to the Jays-Orioles game this afternoon. I am not as enthusiastic about baseball as I am about hockey; and I don't know a lot about it except for what I learned from playing in elementary school gym class and Wii Sports. But I went to a Jays vs. Red Sox game a few years ago with my little brother and his second grade class (it my second game ever - I went to my first baseball game when I was 7 or 8), and I found that baseball wasn't as boring as I thought it was. So now, when the opportunity to catch a Jays game becomes available, I'm all for it. I just really like the atmosphere of being at a sports game. (It was part of the reason for why I always wanted to go downtown to watch the Leafs playoff games... sigh.)

Besides, the weather was absolutely amazing!

KAWASAKIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Bautista's batting again!

Sassy Brett Lawrie taking a walk after the pitcher hit him. I don't know if there's a technical term for this...

Shout out to the brave souls who did the CN Tower edge walk.

Here's why this game was awesome though: when we arrived (late, as always), the Orioles were up 2-0. Slowly, the Jays got back up within one, but by the bottom 9th, they were down 5-2. To the people who left the stadium then, SUCKS TO BE THEM because they missed the epic comeback.

BASES LOADED!

RUN RUN RUN! I believe that's Adam Lind running home and Mark DeRosa running to first.

Audience on their feet for potentially the last hit of the game...

KA-WA-SA-KI *clap clap clapclapclap*

#lovethisteam

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MY NAME IS MUNENORI KAWASAKI. I GREW UP IN JAPAN. I AM JAPANEEEEEEEEEESE! *gets shaving-creamed/Gatoraded*

If you haven't seen Kawasaki's post-game interview, you should. It is the best.

What was this post about? Oh yeah, the new camera, photos, etc. Upon my first review of all of them, I was a bit disappointed by the image quality - the pictures didn't look spectacular and frankly, some of them looked like they could have been taken by our crappy Sony point-and-shoot on its better days. Then I remembered that I had set it to "medium - 8.0 MP" on the camera because I am currently using a 512 MB SD card... So hopefully after I get an SD card with more space on it, and ramp the image quality back up, my pictures will look better. That, and after I get some reading and practice done!

Cheers!

Summer jams

May 2-4 weekend! ... even though, you know, May 24th isn't until Friday. I heard that the last time Victoria day was actually on the 24th of May was in 2010.

With the weather looking beautiful and feeling like summer already, I've been compiling a list of songs for summer on my Grooveshark. I might be one of a handful of people who use that site, but it's because I'm too cheap to download music (the actual reason is that my parents think it's pointless to buy music and so they never let me buy iTunes cards or anything).

Anyhow, as one of them came on the radio, I thought I'd just share some of my summer songs, if anyone was curious. I was told once by a close friend that, despite being close friends, he didn't know what on earth my taste in music was (the irony is that we met in band, too). And another one of my friends is under the impression that all I listen to is McFly. This list doesn't represent the scope of my music taste; nevertheless, here are some tunes that I've really liked and that I think are suitable for summer. I'll post three:


1. One in a Million - Down With Webster

This is my anthem for the summer. The extra sunlight and heat make me feel spectacular on most days, and this song just matches that feeling.

2. The Way - Ariana Grande

Not a hardcore fan of Ariana, but I am so happy for her. She is so, so, so much more talented than Victoria Justice... (LISTEN TO THOSE WHISTLE TONES!).

3. Can't Hold Us - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

I like this one much more than Thrift Shop, which, what a surprise, just came on the radio as I type this.


Oh, and here's one more!
Get Lucky - Daft Punk ft. Pharell

The only song I've ever heard by Daft Punk was One More Time, so I was expecting this to sound like it. But, it doesn't. And that's okay.

Have an enjoyable, fun, and safe long weekend!

Move along, move along...

So.

It's been three days since the Leafs were eliminated from the playoffs in what has to be the most devastating loss in all of history (or, at least in all of the hockey games I've watched, which, honestly, isn't that much since I got into hockey only about two years ago). But, I'm not gonna dwell on it. Sadly, it's over, but on the bright side, they went so much farther than they did last year, and I could not be more proud of my team!

This was a short post. Back to studying... which, I have to convince myself, is so much fun~!...

...Yeah, no.

Have a good day!

My feet hate me right now.

A week ago, during a little get-together at my friend's house, we all decided to tackle the challenge of walking down to 1 Yonge St on Toronto from the library in Richmond Hill. According to Google Maps, the route we were going to take (which was just straight down Yonge) is a total of 26.2 km with an estimated travel time of 5 hours and 32 minutes.

Selfies

Why:

• what else do you do after the Leafs lose an awesome game in OT
• #yolo #swag
• no one takes pictures of me (and I know, sometimes it's because I don't let anyone take pictures of me - insecurity), so I have to do it myself 
• in case you haven't seen me in a while, wellp now you know what I look like nowadays
• I thought I looked decent today

Hope y'all are swell.

Mmmmmmm, cat. And cookies.

Look what the UPS guy dropped off this morning:

That is right folks, I've jumped on the med school train. A few years late, yes... but better late than never right? Besides, what else can you do (that isn't research) with a science degree? (rhetorical question). I'm looking at applying in 2014, and (if by some miraculous miracle) I am accepted, that'll be the class of 2019. Holy crap, I'll be going on twenty-eight by then. HOLY CRAP. HOLY.

So that will be the fun-sucker of my summer. Also, I'm waiting to hear back from the clinic I worked in last summer to see if they can hire me again; if that works out, boo work, but YAY MONEY! that will be used to pay off OSAP loans booooo...

Sigh, trade-offs.

But! I do have a (mental) list of things I hope to tackle during the summer. One of them is to do some baking, and so I baked some cookies today...

Pillsbury. I know, it's cheating. But it was simple, which was ideal since most of my attention was focused towards the TV anyway (SENS BEAT THE HABS HAHAHA - normally I wouldn't be rooting for them, but I have the Sens taking the series in 7).

Another item on my mental list is to perfect my covers and finally share them with the world! They aren't great, but then again, a lot of covers on YouTube aren't either, so yolo why not just throw it out there and see what happens?


Peace out!
(AND GO LEAFS GO)