Cramming Summer into 3 Weeks

I can't believe summer's already almost drawing to a close. I feel like I still haven't done many summery activities still — it was only over the last few weeks that I've been trying to pack it all in.

There was one week where Christian, my youngest sister, and my cousin visiting from HK all had their birthdays that same week, so it became a whole week of family dinners and pigging out at b-day dinners: all-you-can-eat Japanese, 3-course "Bunaglicious" meal at Bungalow Café, and a huge family BBQ dinner complete with Baskin ice cream cake. To work it all off Christian and I set off on a 20km rollerblading ride from Queen/Ossington all the way to the beaches and back. It took about 3 hours in total with a 1/2 hour break in the middle. I already developed blisters on each foot only halfway to the beach, but I still managed to truck along, but by the end I was in so much pain that Christian had to help push/pull me along. I fared much better though the weekend after when we rollerbladed around all the islands from Hanlan's Point to Ward's Island and back to Centre Island, where we played on the kiddie rides at Centreville. I can never tire of bumper cars or the ferris wheel! :)

Last week there was the Toronto Fashion & Design Festival, so on Thursday evening I headed down to Yonge-Dundas Square to check out the Highlight Toronto fashion show featuring Toronto designers and set to a live performance by King Sunshine, who were absolutely fabulous. It so was my first time seeing a real fashion show with a catwalk and everything I thought it was pretty cool. I was able to slide my way through the crowd to the very end of the catwalk, where I had an unobstructed view to snap away on my camera. It was too bad I missed the I Heart Kyoto: Ethical Fashion Show earlier that evening because from the photos I saw later on, it was wild: mohawks with punk/rock glam.

The next evening I went to High Park to catch the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream. The set was like a steel jungle gym, which didn't really make sense to me in the context of the play, but the fairy costumes were colourful, bright and whimsical. The costume styles were set in the 80's and during the play some characters broke out into hilarious rap while still reciting Shakespeare's prose. Despite the rain that resulted in a 30 minute pause of the play, it was a highly enjoying evening.

I went to Buskerfest on Sunday with Christian and Lilly but we couldn't see any of the performers over the mass of heads crowding around. Instead we scoured the area for food stalls and picked up some scrumptious fried dumplings and 3 huge bags of kettle corn, which I'm now obsessed about. It's the perfect combination of salty and sweet. I only first discovered it this year at the Waterloo dragon boat festival, and I craved it when I saw it again at the London regatta but that time they closed up shop before I had the chance to pick up a bag.

On the subject of dragon boat, our team won gold in Division B at London! I actually thought we we were going to lose our gold medal because although we came in first in the final race, we received a 1 sec. penalty before the race even started, which would have put us 0.4 seconds behind the 2nd place team. At the start our boat came so close to the one in the next lane so we were trying to adjust our position, but since we were at the furthest lane the officials didn't know what was going on so he penalized us for wasting time. When we contested the call after the race, they changed their story and said we were trying to get a huge running start ahead of the other boats and were set on the decision. To officially contest the decision would have costed $50 so we didn't bother. However, during the medal ceremony, to everyone's surprise they announced Banana Boat as the first place team. We got our gold medal after all!

Siren Sounds

Last night I was a photographer for the Siren Sounds benefit concert to raise money and awareness for Interval House, a shelter for abused women. The lineup featured Fefe Dobson and Melissa O'Neil along with a few local acts, but my favourite performance of the evening was by Goodbye Glory, who were so energetic and totally rockin' it with their awesome songs (although I don't know what songs they actually sang, boo). Not only was it great to be doing this for a good cause, but It was a pretty cool experience to get to shoot people doing makeup, performing sound checks, doing media interviews, and of course shooting the concert itself. It was a pretty long day for me though as I had biked out to the Beaches earlier in the afternoon, then to the Opera House where I was there from 4:30pm to 1am... my arm was so tired from holding up my camera that whole time! Thanks to Steve for hooking me up, and for making all those super awesome Viet spring rolls :P Here's a pic of Fefe Dobson- more to come!

A few days ago I tried making my first loaf of banana bread. It turned out pretty nice, but not as moist as I would have liked. Maybe it needed a bit more banana? Not too sure. But it was yummy enough that it disappeared in less than 2 days.

Continue reading for the recipe:

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Banana Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (5 medium)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil or melted butter or margarine
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Grease bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of one 9 x 5 x 3-inch or two 7 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 2-inch loaf pans; set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl combine eggs, bananas, sugar, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in nuts (if desired). Spoon batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 55 to 60 minutes for 9 x 5 x 3-inch pan, or 40 to 45 minutes for 7 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 2-inch pans, or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean (if necessary, cover loosely with foil the 15 minutes of baking to prevent overbrowning). Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing.

Makes: 1 loaf (16 servings)

Judging an Album By Its Cover

One of my favourite things to do in Montreal, apart from pigging out on gastronomical delights, is exploring the used CD shops along St-Denis and Mont Royal. I find when I don't have a particular album I'm looking for I just browse through the cover art and pick up anything that catches my eye. I reason that if the artists' taste for visual design appeals to me, then so must their music.

My first foray into this musical adventuring was in San Francisco when I found the cutest album cover and bought the album solely for the art. It was by a group called Transporter and the sound turned out to be some mellow acid jazz, which was totally up my alley.

Most recently I picked up a Sybris CD, which had a simple line drawing that I thought was quite cute. And for $2.99, how could I go wrong? The first track on the album made me wonder what the heck I had bought — it sounded like some weird space-agey bleeps. Fortunately, the rest of the album was like... the indie band kind of reminds me of a blend between Metric and Bloc Party, and it's pretty darn good.

Other good finds I picked up were Future's Burning, which turned out to be a compilation of British bands like Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, and a white covered-album with only the title The Sound of Music, which when I turned over I found it to be the music of Pizzicato Five (score!) The only bust was an album that had b&w images of a girl surrounded with yellow pattered swirls around her. It looked like a house or electronica album to me, so I tried it out. Popping it in the CD player revealed it to be full of French songs ala Céline Dion, but much more mellow and cheesy. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

Opening Night

Last Saturday was the opening reception of my group exhibition You Are Here: The Emotional Geography of Place. It was my first reception in a gallery, so it was pretty exciting. I was surprised by how many people were actually there. The type of works varied in both media and subjects, and there were a few pieces that really intrigued me. I got to meet with some of the artists and chat with them for a while. I met another photographer who, it turns out, works at Toronto Image Works and had actually printed my photographs in the exhibition. What a small world.

Yesterday was my third Winterlicious lunch &mdash this time at Monsoon with the office. I was pretty happy with each of the dishes I ordered: confit duck and vegetable roll with Korean barbeque sauce, szechuan marinated beef (oh so tender!) with saffron rice served with wok fried greens and hoisin jus, and ginger infused crème brulée with green tea meringue. I loved the crème brulée and I must say, that touch of ginger really makes all the difference! That evening I went to my very first opera, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. It was hella long, but the music was fantastic &mdash really dramatic and emotional. The set design was pretty interesting, as it created a 2-tiered stage that used the entire height of the set. I actually expected more from the actual story... it wasn't as soap opera-ish as I thought it would be. And I totally agree with Christina that the ending was pretty anti-climatic. I expected more deaths!

WinterCity

It's been a long while since I last wrote a post- I've barely been home this entire week >_< Now for a little recap.

Last Friday was the start of the WinterCity festival so I had a Winterlicious lunch with Sandra and Christina at Vertical. My 3-course meal consisted of seared & cured scallops with fregola & sweet peppers for the appetizer (which turned out to be one gigantic scallop), then butternut squash gnocchi with oyster mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts and brown butter, and finished off with a chocolate & expresso mousse cake. Overall the food was quite good. My gnocchi tasted great, but it just became too cheesy and oily for me near the end. I also wish I had gotten the passion fruit gelato that San and Kris ordered because it was fantastic... my cake was just a bit too heavy for me, especially after all that pasta.

That evening was the opening celebration at Nathan Phillips where the Italian group Kitonb performed Carillon, a theatrical piece involving dance and acrobatics. The performance was so-so; I now tend to compare all the public performances to Malaya, which was so spectacular- I haven't seen anything like that since. Later in the evening, the Philosopher Kings came on for a great show. Even though it was freezing out they managed to draw in a huge crowd and got everyone in a dancing mood. Unfortunately for me, after having stood outside for 2 hours in snow and slush, my toes completely froze over and I was left limping to a warm retreat.

The next day I had my second Winterlicious lunch at Drake Hotel with Christina, Jon and Faye. I've been to the Drake a few times for some lounging and art happenings, but this was my first time eating there. I must say, the food was amazing: I had mixed green salad with toasted pumpkin seeds, pecorino & pears for the appetizer, then red wine braised beef with soft polenta & fennel roasted carrots, and for dessert, milk chocolate & lemon pot de crème with whipped cream and pumpkin seed gingersnaps. I was pleasantly surprised the food was actually that good- I'll definitely be eating there again.

C'est l'Halloween, c'est l'Halloween, hey!

Does anybody remember that French Halloween song? I used to sing that each year from grades 4 to 6... oh, the nostalgia.

This evening I baked some Halloween sugar cookies, and my are they sweet (the frosting and sprinkles didn't help either). They were quick and easy to make. Well, I don't know if you can even call it real baking. I took a Betty Crocker package of cookie mix and mixed it in with some margarine and egg and popped it in the oven. Oh well, they're delicious nonetheless.

Did everyone have a fun Halloween weekend? I went to a party Saturday night, but didn't even have a costume until the very last minute. During the day on Saturday I had a floor hockey tournament and I was pretty beat and headache-y when I got home so I had to take a nap. Well, by the time I woke up it was time to head to the party... so I just went in my PJs. Cheesy? Yes. Was I comfortable and warm on that cold, blustery evening? You betcha!

Series of Unfortunate Events

It's been a long week and I'm glad that it's over. It was packed with some fun activities, but sprinkled with suckiness.

Last Friday I went to the Mod Club with Kerry to see Tokyo Police Club perform with a bunch of other artists under the Paperbag Records label. They were great live and I loved all the energy they brought onto the stage. The next two bands were a waste of my time: Cities in Smoke were absolutely horrible and ear splitting, and Uncut was nothing remarkable. Magneta Lane finally came just before midnight and they totally rocked out. I'm not a big fan of their music except for one song, but they are one talented bunch of chicks. The final band was controller.controller - I love their songs but I was quite disappointed by their live performance the last time I saw them - but I didn't stay to watch because I felt like I was going to pass out from tiredness.

The next morning I went to the Goethe-Institut to watch the film 108 - Walking through Tokyo as part of the soundaXis festival. The sound collage by the soundscape artist was really nicely done as it seamlessly weaved the sounds of various places throughout Tokyo. The images, however, left me unsatisfied. Out of a huge collection of photographs that could have been selected, only a handful were chosen to match with the sounds, and many of those were repeated throughout the film. I was left either looking at the same photo for either minutes on end, or staring into darkness.

Sunday afternoon was my dragonboat/dodgeball team's BBQ party at Ashbridge's Bay. I wanted to bring my Lomo Smena 8m, but realized it was still not fully fixed when the lens popped off last year. So I took the whole thing apart and tried constructing it part by part. I had everything put back together except the very last thing to control the depth of field. I just cannot screw the lens back on without getting it stuck when I try to adjust the DOF- quite annoying. Grrrr. So I left home without it. I ended up playing volleyball all afternoon which gave my nasty purple spots on my forearms... ouch. That evening I went out for Viet food with Cass, Angela and a couple of their friends.

Monday night was our dodgeball team's first playoff game against the top ranked team. Even though our first game against them a few weeks back was sooo close, we were creamed this time around (and physically too). I was beamed in the eye with the ball while sitting on the bench, and one of my teammates was attacked by so many balls at once that he fell badly on a ball and broke his foot/ankle so I had to help drive his car back home. Later that night I went on Amazon.com to order the Rolleiflex MiniDigi. What should have been a 5 minute process turned into 45-minutes of pure aggravation when my wireless signal kept dying on me and I had to restart my order over and over. When I finally pushed the submit button, it was taking forever to process and finally I a message saying that the order didn't go through. OMG was I mad *huff* Then I went down to the basement to order on the other computer and shipped it to the states since they don't ship to Canada. Fine, done. On Wednesady I got a call from Saba saying she already received the camera. Yay. But that night when I checked my e-mail, I got 2 e-mails from Amazon saying I had ordered the same product twice, as well as 2 seperate invoices from the third party vendor for my 2 orders. WTH?! I was freaking out but I couldn't send e-mails or check my orders page on Amazon because my stupid wireless connect was going down again and would only come back up for a few seconds before dying again. In my fury I started banging my mouse - hard - before that died on me too. What can I say, I hate computers and computers hate me.

Thursday I had planned to go see the TSO performance with Ben Heppner, but the tickets were already sold out. According to Christina, it was fabulous. I'll just have wait until it's aired on CBC radio, bah.

Friday evening I went to the patio of Peter Pan for dinner with Chris, Christina, and Wen San before Kris and I headed over to the brand new Four Seasons Centre for a night of the opera. Although the building is pretty nice, as a piece of modern architecture that's supposed to house spectacular and extravagant performances I was pretty disappointed by the plainness of the space. It's one thing to be minimalist (and be able to make a bold statement), but quite another to be bland. Nonetheless, the actual show itself was amazing. I was completely blown away by Aline Kutan's breathtaking performance of Der Hölle Rache where it seemed like she hit the highest note on a piano. Seriously. The celebratory show ended at 9:20 so I tried to rush to Union to catch the 9:40 GO bus back to Richmond Hill. Unfortunately I missed it by 2 minutes. The ride would have been super quick :( And when I started walking to the TTC to catch the subway, I realized I had left my beloved water bottle at the opera house, noooooo. Man, double whammy.

Doors Open 2006: Day 1

This weekend was a super busy one for me. It started Friday evening when Cass begged/forced me to go to the Blue Jays games that night. I had never been to a baseball game and didn't really care to, and even though I was feeling exhausted after work and was so ready to go home, Cass somehow managed to get me to go to the game. Our seats were actually really really good, but we were mostly chatting throughout the game. Christian made me believe there were such things as "sin bins", where the players go if they were bad during the game-- when, in actuality, they were really the pitchers' practicing area (why must he torment me so?!?!), so he and Cass had a great laugh at my expense, HMPH. I left early with Cass because my stomach was still feeling icky, and missed being part of an awesome wave that went around the stadium twice :(

Saturday and Sunday was the annual Doors Open Toronto event. I arrived downtown Saturday morning at 9:30 and biked with Chris to the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre for the 10am tour. It's the last operating double decker theatre in the world- I didn't really know what that meant, until I realized that they're 2 completely seperate theatres stacked upon one another. It was my first time in the Winter Garden Theatre, which is the top-most theatre. It was absolutely gorgeous with real oak leaves hanging from the ceilings and soft-coloured detailing in the balconies and ceiling - it really gave the impression of being in a moonlit garden.

The tour lasted an hour after which we headed into the Eaton Centre for a quick breakfast at McD's, then walked to the Toronto-Dominion Centre. We did a tour of the 54th floor walking through the Canoe restaurant, various offices, and the boardroom. Mies van der Rohe's building is considered the pinnacle of Modernist architecture in Canada, and being able to do a walk-through made me feel like I had stepped right into the 60s. They even have his iconic Barcelona and Brno chairs too dotted all throughout the space. I couldn't get enough of them, they were so cool! Oh yeah, the panoramic views of the city weren't too shabby either :P

Next we biked down to the waterfront to visit the Redpath Sugar Refinery, where we learned about the whole sugar refining process, visited the museum, and walked into the raw sugar "shed". The shed's actually a warehouse the length of 2 football fields filled with mountains of raw sugar. We got to see a huge tractor pushing all the sugar, it was some wild stuff.

Afterwards, we went to Queen Street to have a late lunch at Hosu. We should have just grabbed a quick bite to eat though, since we ended up biking like mad to get to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory before last admittance at 3:30. We got there are 3:20, but they already cut the line, which was a total disappointment :( So we biked down Gladstone and along Queen to head back to Chris' place, during which we stumbled in front of the new Westside Lofts sales building located just across from the Drake Hotel. It's a funky little building with colourful amoeba-shaped windows and designed by, not surprisingly, Will Alsop (the OCAD guy). We spent a while inside checking out the model loft and floorplans. Forget about the Chocolate Lofts, I'm moving here!

Later in the evening I met up with Christina, Justine and Brad for the TSO Sonic Bloom 4 concert with Jacksoul and Collective Soul at Roy Thompson Hall. Simply put, they were amazing performances. There was an after-party after the show that had fancy catered desserts (yum!!), and a band playing fun oldies music. We also got to take home the pretty colourful flowers that were used to decorate the lobby, but a mean old crab took away our test tubes of water for them!

Food Poisoned :X

On Wednesday evening I went out to dinner at East before heading to the TSO's Salute to the Tonys performance. Our seats were on the main floor so they were pretty close to the stage. The show was great and the conductor turned out to be a hilarious character who played along with the singers' antics. I'm not sure if I was a big fan of all the vocals though... sometimes they seemed to take away from the orchestra. The soprano singer was absolutely awful, and none of the singers or the choir could sing in sync (but I must say, the baritone and tenor were amazing singers on their own).

In the middle of the night, I woke up feeling reeeaaallly sick. At first I thought I was terribly dehydrated so I had some sips of water. But no. This was something bad. I ended up having to run to the bathroom throughout the night and morning until my stomach completely emptied itself out. It left me so exhausted I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon away. And what did I have for dinner? Just a simple dish of satay tofu and veggies... not even meat. I'm never going back to East again (and neither should you)!

Tonight I attended my very first baseball game. The game was... *yawn*, but I had a good time just chatting with Cass and attempting to be part of a wave. The Jays were actually winning, but I needed to leave early because my stomach was still in a bit of pain. On a day where I couldn't eat anything, I was surrounded by food stalls selling fries, pizza, ice cream... *drool* Waaaaah :( I ended up just eating half a sandwich consisting of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber but my grinding stomach later made me realize that raw veggies are much harder to digest than meat (which I was trying to avoid).

From the New World

Just came back from watching the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's performance called From the New World with Christina. It featured string pieces by Brahms, Joachim, and Dvorak. Although I wasn't familiar with most of the pieces, I was still impressed by all the intricate details coming together as a whole. It's truly remarkable to think how a composer can create a musical piece for *every single* instrument.

Before the symphony I had Indian dinner with Christian and Christina at Babur. Oh man, put those two together and you've got a recipe for giggles and hi-jinx and... making Michelle play victim, as usual. o_O

My latest time-wasting obsession is My Heritage. You basically upload a picture of yourself and they run a face recognition algorithm to match you with a bunch of celebrities that look like you. And yours truly's top matches were GUYS. WTH!! First of all... what's up with the dudes, and second, there were barely any Asians. Here are my top matches: Aki Hakala (some Finnish drummer?), a Bee Gee, the lead singer of Linkin Park, Larry King, Elton John, Eddie Murphy....?!?! Someone please tell me they're as baffled as I am!

New Music

Right now I'm totally digging Sia, especially her creative Breathe Me video composed using a series of flashing polaroid stills.

Then there's the Tokyo Police Club who are performing tomorrow evening. Unfortunately I won't be able to go, but hopefully I can catch them next month at the Drake.

The Return Of The Boy Bands

After a successful showing at last year's Fringe Festival, Boygoove is coming for a long-term run in Toronto. For anyone who didn't catch it the first time, you HAVE to see it. It's a musical spoof of the whole boy band fad and is just LOL hilarious!

Some random food for thought: Ketchup was created in China and was originally a mixture of anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, and kidney beans. Yeeeuck.

I Heart Coldplay

And I heart Christina too for taking me to see them, thanks babe!

So Thursday evening was the big night. We dined for two hours at Monte Cristo. The restaurant was so nice and stylish, but I can't say that my meal was amazing (I should have ordered what Kris got!). We were ALL OVER the bread and vinegar; you should have seen the look on Kris' face when she was in the middle of finishing her piece of bread and the waiter took away our vinegar... big wide eyes full of shock following the dish being lifted up from our table out of sight and a a big puppy dog frown, AWWW!

Anyway, attention back to the most important part of the evening... Coldplay! We were stuck back in the rafters, and although it's definitely not the same feeling as being right up at the stage where you can see Chris Martin's sweat, I still had a great time. The show started off with an amazing setup where Chris and the band were silhouetted against a white screen of counting numbers that reminded us exactly of Tatsuo Miyajima's Counter Void in Tokyo's Roppongi area. The rest of the show was just as spectacular and we were singing with their songs until our voices cracked. We each bought a Coldplay t-shirt, mine being brown and pink with a cute puzzle piece logo. It was only when I was admiring it in the mirror at home when I realized that the pieces actually spelled X Y! Hahaha, I'm so blind... after that discovery I love my tee even more!

I took a whole bunch of pictures: a few with colour film and the rest with black and white. I'm still trying to finish my B&W roll, but my colour roll will be back on Tuesday! Stay tuned for pics!

Baby It Hurts To Love You

The Philosopher Kings gave a small concert at noon yesterday inside the First Canadian Place. Conveniently I work just a hop, skip and a jump from there and I was able to catch them during my lunch break. I was so blown away by their live performance- Gerald Eaton is so energetic and charismatic on stage. And when he sings.... oh my gosh, it's sweet music! In the end he brought up a girl on stage and serenaded her, awww, so cute!

The Edge Sucks!

Coldplay dropped by at The Edge radio station this afternoon at 6:30. I, being the silly girl that I am and who had not been able to get tickets for the Koolhaus show, wanted to see Coldplay really bad so I stood in line at 1:15 to see them. Fortunately, I got Chris to come wait with me for the company :P I would have never wasted so much time to wait in line if I didn't think I had a chance to go inside to see them... being the 84th/85th people out of the possible 200 that can go in, I thought the standing, the sore legs/feet, and coldness was justified. But no. By the later part of the afternoon, a new line had formed on the other side of the door going in the opposite direction to see the band from outside through the windows. That entire line was let in by the security guards to go in, while people in our line were outraged. Even people who were waiting since 7am didn't get to go in. How retarded is that?? In the end, we could barely hear what was being said over the speakers from outside, and they even cut out the speakers at the beginning of Yellow. GRRRRR.

The Arcade Fiiiiiiire

Last night was The Arcade Fire concert at Danforth Music Hall Theatre. One of the openers was Final Fantasy, which is basically a solo violinist who creates loops of musical patterns that are layered to create his own little orchestra background. Impressive stuff. The Arcade Fire was simply amazing and the whole crowd got into the groove... except me :/ I just couldn't get into the mood... I was tired, sleepy, and my legs were aching (I guess an afternoon of inhaling darkroom chemicals, then going to kickboxing class didn't really help the matter). But lately, I've found myself feeling quite unhappy sometimes; it's kind of like my early high school phase all over again. It's like this wave of moodiness that washes over me for no apparent reason- and it just hits me by surprise. But I digress. The band was so energetic and great... they ended up doing 3 encores.

In other news...... the CSSU Yearbook is *finally* done!!! It feels so good to have this huge elephant off my back. Now my summer can officially start. First few orders of business: houseclean & find new glasses.

Here's the rest of my summer to-do list:

• :: *build online portfolio*
• :: Japan trip scrapbook (yes, stiiiill!)
• :: job search (for both summer and European work)
• :: organize photographs from the past couple of years (and labelled of course!)
• :: photography projects
• :: make stuffed toy
• :: take a summer course/workshop
• :: trips to NYC, Ottawa and Montreal
• :: start California trip scrapbook (am I being too optimistic?)
• :: catch up on reading

If you all know me, you might think I'm being a bit over-ambitious here like how I was during Christmas break. But I'm gonna be good this time! I've got 4+ months! Just wish me luck! :P

It's Time!

Oooooh Michael Bublé's coming out with a new album. I love him... he's like a young Frank Sinatra with a smooth swingin' voice. Can't wait can't wait! *drool*

Tonight was the first time I played dodge ball since frosh week of 1st year. Super fun, so tiring, massive injuries (Christian's beating me up afterwards didn't help! :P), and a dodge ball nazi who was soooo hardcore. Jeez, it was as if she was training us for dodge ball in the military. Yelling at us for either not playing fast enough or not going to fight for the ball and getting us to shush up whenever we were laughing!! Was is too much to ask to just have a little fun when we play a GAME?

i love metric

Metric concert last night at the Mod Club was awesome! There was so much enegry on the stage what with Emily Haines' funky dancing and all! They had some technical difficulties with the synthesizer during the show so they started throwing water bottles into the audience while we waited for them to fix it. They played Dead Disco as the last song during which Emily crowd surfed then brought up a bunch of people to dance around on the stage. Wanna see them again, again and again!

I Wub John Mayer

Saturday was a pretty busy day for me. I woke up at 6:45 am, had breakfast, and then went to Pearson's Terminal 1 to say goodbye to my grandmother. Coming back from the airport I headed to IKEA with my parents at 9am. I bought a new bed, wavy full-length mirror, and desk lamp. I had IKEA's $1 (!!!) breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs, potato cutlets, 2 breakfast sausages, and a mini croissant. What a deal! Everything tasted yummy except for the eggs... I don't even know if they were "real" eggs. After transporting everything home I went for a jog before heading downtown for the Taste of the Danforth with Michelle, Justine, Stacy, Brad, Christian, Yit and Mel. Despite the double breakfast, my jog had worked up my appetite for some pigging out at the festival. From 3-6pm we walked up and down the street savouring the delicious food. I had pork souvlaki, gyro, roasted corn, cashew baklava, and washed it all down with homemade lemonade.

That night was the night of the John Mayer concert. I met up with Tony, Mike, and Dennis at the Molson Amphitheatre at 7pm. Maroon 5 played from 8-8:40. I was quite excited for Maroon 5; they were pretty good, but I guess I was overexcited for them that the performance didn't blow me away. John Mayer was a different story. He played from 9pm to almost 11 pm and started off the night with "Clarity". Every song he played was amazing live and he showcased some impressive guitar playing. I couldn't stop humming the tunes after the concert; I was on such a high! After the concert Mike, Dennis, Tony and I met up with Chris to grab a bit to eat at Einstein's, where I yet another mosquito bite :(

My Last Course Enrolement Ever

I enrolled in my courses on Tuesday. I only have 3 more half courses in art that I need to take in order to finish my visual studies major. I've already finished my comp sci major last year but I'm going to take a few more CS courses out of interest. The toughest part about enrolement this year was trying to select electives that will fit in nicely with my schedule. I have some courses that I really want to take, but it will make my schedule soooo ugly. For example, class at 9am-noon, then my next class from 6-9pm. How brutal is that? I know for a fact that I will develop at hatred for Tuesdays if I keep this scheduling. I considered a lot of different electives to take for this year: Biological Rhythms, Intro to Classical Mythology, Music in the 1960's, Global Cities, Chinese Migration, History of Espionnage, Architecture, Media and Technology, and Modern Standard Japanese. So many fun courses, so little time :(
So here are the courses that I'm enrolled in or trying to get into:

• :: Introduction to Databases
• :: Database System Technology
• :: Capstone Design Project
• :: Computer Science Project
• :: Collage
• :: Integrated Photobased Explorations
• :: Visual Studies Internship
• :: French Language Practice I
• :: Global Cities

Tuesday afternoon I went to Aldo and bought these adorable kitty shoes on sale. How cute are they? And so cheap! $25 bucks man. :)

That night I went to the Harbourfront with Vanessa, Chris, Cass and her friend Elaine to watch the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's "Symphony Under the Stars". I quite enjoyed it; they played the crowd pleaser pieces. I only wish we got to sit in the seats rather than on the ground in the back. I couldn't see anything but peoples backs who were standing in front of me.
This weekend was a pretty fun weekend. Friday night I met my clubbing quota for the year by going to Distrikt for Kel's birthday. The club was alright; I just wished it wasn't just r&b and hip-hop music. I like more variety... we had like 5 minutes of house and then it reverted back to the same old. Saturday afternoon I went shopping with Cass around Yorkville and Eaton Center. That night I went out for a 12-course dinner with my family and relatives. I took the subway to Leslie station and my dad told me it was 1100 Sheppard, east of Leslie. So I started walking east, yet it was barren! I started jogging since I figured it would be a long way to go and I was going to be late. I passed by a building and the number said 1300. I was thinking, jeez, how long will I have to jog for? But I got a phone call from my family asking where I was... it turned out that it was actually *west* of Leslie. So I totally exited through the opposite end of the station and missed all the stores I was supposed to have seen. Today I just chilled out at home and went to the gym. Tomorrow, the start of another work week. *Sigh*

World Idol

Anyone see World Idol last night? It was a surprising victory for Kurt Nilsen of Norway, who scored the maximum number of points in every country except one. I really liked his performance the week before and I was rooting for him, but the fact that he did that well was unexpected. I'm sure Kelly was in disbelief too from the look on her face! LOL! She's a great singer and all, but the hosts kept talking about Kelly this and Kelly that - it was so arrogant - so it was cool to see her be beaten by what one judge referred to as a "hobbit".

And I don't understand why Ryan scored so low in practically every country! I honestly thought his performace was really good. He only did really well in the Pan-Arabic region. But the results in that region were totally messed up- clearly politically driven. I mean, the German guy came in first place for heaven's sake! He was terrible! And guess which idols were at the bottom? The American and British.

Speaking of which, I went skating at Nathan Phillips Square this afternoon and Zack Werner was skating there as well with his family. He doesn't look so mean in real life... :/

Happy Winter!

First day of winter! 'Tis the season of snow and peppermint hot chocolate! Saturday night I went out to Nathan Phillips Square with friends to see the Strange Fruit performance and to skate. Strange Fruit did their Spheres performance (which is only performed at night) with big bubbles... I enjoyed this one better than The Field one that I saw two summers ago. I took a few pictures of them- I hope they turn out because there were some really spectacular colours.

I'm about halfway done my Christmas shopping... I'll be doing some more today and tomorrow. Hopefully I won't be running around doing last minute shopping on Christmas Eve like I normally do, LOL!

Last night I watched Swimfan. That movie was absurdly ridiculous... I couldn't believe I wasted 85 min. watching something like that! The plot was unbelievable and the acting was terrible. I don't understand why Erika Christensen would ever be in this movie after doing Traffic. Terrible... don't watch the movie! Another movie I watched was Waking Life. Now that's a really interesting movie. The animation style changes from scene to scene, and even though it's really stylized and trippy, there's a sense of realism. I think they filmed the actors and coloured them in to create an animated feeling to it. Not only was it visually captivating, but the things being discussed in the movie were pretty interesting- mostly about philosophy and dreams. I'm not a big fan of philosophy, but a lot of it really made me think.

At the moment I'm obsessed with Michael Bublé! Who is he, you ask? He's a 25 year old swing/jazz/blues singer from Vancouver who's got a smooth Sinatra-like voice. I love the songs Down With Love (which is a really cute movie, BTW!), Fever, Moondance, and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. I can't stop listening to his album, it's soooo good! :P

Brandy & Coldplay??

[Mood] Tired (still!)
[Music] Radiohead- 2+2=5

Brandy is coming out with a single titled "Colplay" about how she likes Coldplay. How bizarre is that?!

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Ryan Is My Canadian Idol

Go Ryan! I already put in my vote :P
If Gary wins, I'll be very dissapointed in Canada.

Jason Mraz

I went to see Jason Mraz in concert last week and all I can say is WOW. He's an amazing live performer and so talented. So, I've been listening to all his songs this past weekend. The one's I especially love are You And I Both * Absolutely Zero * No Stopping Us * Tonight, Not Again * 1000 Things * The Remedy.

Dazed and Confused

What the heck happened on Canadian Idol last night?? I don't get it- how could Mikey be gone already (and with the lowest number of votes to boot)? I voted for him 3 times *grin*! I was totally floored when Mikey and Billy were called up on stage. Meanwhile, Gary, who was undoubtedly the worst singer this week (one word: abysmal), wasn't even in the bottom 3. What is wrong with the Canadian voters??!

OMIGOD

Last night I went to see Mariah Carey in concert at the ACC. It was just alright- definitely not worth $100 to see. It was prolly the least enjoyable concert I've been to so far. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad concert... I just wasn't really into it. Mariah sang really well but there was nothing really special about watching her live.

Anyway, the real highlight of my evening was meeting the Canadian Idol contestants before the concert! AAAHHH! They were just standing around outside the gates with people swarming around them. I was freaking out! I saw all of the top 8 contestants but I only asked Audrey and Ryan to sign my ticket stub. Ryan was so nice- he was talking to me and asking me questions! *grin* And then I saw Mikey... what can I say? He's such a cutie! And up close his eyes look like blue crystal... they were mesmerizing. I wanted Mikey to sign my ticket as well, but there were a bunch of girls hovering around him and then he had to leave :( I was so giddy, yet so bitter that I didn't have a camera to bring with me for pictures!!!!!!!! *scrunches up face and grrrrs*

Blue Man Group: The Complex Tour

Wow, the Blue Man Group performance last night was incredible! Justine, Brad, and I had second row center seats. They were technically row 4 seats, but the first and second rows were actually at the sides of the stage so there was only one row between us and the stage.

Here are some of Brad's pics from the show.

The first opening act was Tracy Bonham, who's an extremely talented singer, violinist and guitarist. The next act was Venus Hum, who had a really weird lead singer! She wore a big flower in her hair, red plastic glasses, purple dress with white, orange and green flower prints, large bright green bracelet, and no shoes. She danced around like a 5-year old kid and had a Björk style of singing in a few songs. Her first song sounded pretty bad, but it turned out that she was a really good singer and had a few pretty enjoyable songs.

While waiting for Blue Man Group to come out, there were two LED marquee signs on either end of the stage displaying messages that opposed each other. The left sign was the fun, laid-back sign ("Now is the time to go pee Or to buy some overpriced beverages"), while the right one was the serious boring sign dispensing facts about the internet. Both were bickering with each other ("The sign on the left is bitter because it did not make it into the show") and got the audience memebers to say things like "The sign on the right sucks". It was pretty cute!

The Blue Man Group performance was based on the idea of becoming a rock star. The show was an instruction manual teaching one how to be a rock star by following guidelines. Throughout the show the audience would be introduced to a rock movement:

Rock movement #1: The Head Bob
Rock movement #2: The One-Armed Fist Pump
Rock movement #3: The Jump
Rock movement #8: The Blackout
Rock movement #9: The Show
Rock movement #54: Bringing out the Guest Vocalist

There were many other rock movements including Saying Hello to the People in the Cheap Seats, The Fake Ending, and Getting Closer to the Audience, where the group had a camera look down a man's throat. At one point of the show they started playing their drums that splattered paint upwards. To create the music they used a creative variety of instruments like air poles, pvc tubes, and even a grand piano laid on its side for banging the strings. At the end of the show they were playing a backpack tubulum that allowed them to move around the stage and play and had rockets attatched to the sides. They later used those rockets to fire a mass long strings of confetti into the audience, which was really cool.

Coldplay Concert

These are a couple of pictures taken during the June 11 Coldplay concert at the Molson Amphitheatre. They are so good at performing live! My favourite performances were: Politik, God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, Yellow, Clocks, In My Place, and Amsterdam.