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...