I Have Read the Internet

In my incessant attempts to avoid any type of school work, house work, or social life, it would appear as though I've watched everything there is to watch, read everything there is to read, and pinned everything there is to pin. Anybody have any ideas? Because otherwise I'm going to have to get down to the dirty business of being a student. 

But until then, I'll share one of my favourite songs lately. Doesn't it just make you feel nostalgic? 

Jump for Joy!

  Came across this photo series on My Modern Met called 'Dancers Among Us"  and absolutely fell in love. I completely agree with the premise that dancers combine art and athleticism in this increadibly difficult way of life. I mean, have you ever looked at a ballerina's toes? I'm always so jealous of dancers, (I mean, who wouldn't be?) but my admiration is even greater! I especially love the expressions on bystanders faces.   Full gallery here, Met article here.

Some Things

Some things are just too good to keep to yourself. I mean seriously, if you ask me where the best chocolate in town is, I will tell you. If you ask me what average people look like, I will tell you. I will also tell you that National Geographic is awesome for many reasons. One is that my Grandmother gave a subscription to Nat Geo Kids for my 10th birthday, another is that they made Steve McCurry famous, and the latest in a long line that I can't possibly explain now is this video.

Songs I Just Can`t Get Enough Of

So last week was a pretty good week, which I finished off by watching the latest Bones episode and making these scones.  I`m not even kidding, I made a double batch and my roomies have eaten them all. But this is all about music that I can`t seem to get enough of (only a very small sample) 

If you have a chance to see the Civil Wars on their current tour, Milo Greene is opening for them and they are absolutely AMAZING. That is not a label I give to music often, but they just give you pure joy.

Nats

Look at this! Suren Manvelyan

So, I've come across many a photographer's work, but somehow Manvelyan is one that always makes me stop and stare. My sister first introduced me to his "Beautiful Eyes" series, and when he was featured on My Modern Met a while ago, you know you've got a good thing. I love his attention the little things and the softness he evokes.  Here's his website if you like these awesome photographs!

Ain't Fall Grand?

So, I know its early, but it's already positively Fall here in Montreal. The weather's increadibly bipolar, the squirrels are squirreling away, the leaves are starting to fall, and the farmers' markets are in full swing. My favourite season! now, if only it wouldn't end in a month! This is just a taste.

What I've Learned from Working: Part 1

As if I could look that good

As all once-upon-a-time full time students know full well, an education is expensive. And stressful. And did I mention expensive. And I'm in Canada, nothing like what there is in the States, but for the first time in my life, I'm in debt, and that's a terrifying thought for anyone who grew up with relatively little money. 

So I have done what many are expected to do: get a job. 

Say what? Nats, you're not even 20 yet, and you want to enter the workforce and have to file income tax forms? 

Honestly no, but who does? 

So my first year I worked cleaning empty apartments. Now I know I will get a bit repetitive of my use of the words 'pig,' but it is an apt term. So I now share with you the bits of wisdom I learned from cleaning apartments for a year.

1. Garbage should be taken out at least once a week. I'm not kidding, if you've moved out and I find a pile of garbage under the sink, I can tell that you were a socially irresponsible, never got laid dirty pig who left their mess for someone else to clean up. 
2. People in tight financial situations are not necessarily the smartest. In a particularly messy apartment, I found two items of interest: an empty Ipod touch box with the receipt* and a letter from the building saying that they were way over due on their rent and owed over $3000.
3. Guys cannot aim. 'Nuff said. 
4. Mold will grow everywhere. Including vents, sinks, ovens, fridges, freezers, and bathrooms, and that is just gross. Use bleach, and you might live a bit longer.
5. Pipes can't be allowed anywhere near cold. In my time in a single building, we had three floods that spread to multiple floors causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage to the building and personal effects. So please, close your windows when you go out of town.
6. Your landlord will judge you. Or at least the workmen will. Constantly talking to them when they are trying to work doesn't, unfortunately make you endearing unless you're a size two ex-model with a degree in biomedical engineering. It's unfair, but we tend to be a very judgmental species.
7. Just because you move out doesn't mean the contents of your fridge magically follow you.  Fridges were by far the grossest part of cleaning an apartment. Please don't assume that someone will be in to clean immediately after you vacate the premises. It could be up to two weeks, and things just don't keep that long, not even fruit.
8. We appreciate neat people. Landlords, cleaning staff, and workmen all appreciate it if you leave a place as neat as you found it. We treat you with respect and expect at least you can do the same for our apartment. There is nothing nicer than walking into a place and thinking that the previous tenant was a nice enough person to take care of their shit.
9. Just because you are a good person, bad things can still happen to you. This may be self evident, but for me, it wasn't. I'd been working at this building for almost a year when the summer came and I desperately needed to see my family. I'd arranged to take off the month they were the least busy three months in advance, and provided them with two candidates to fill in for me while I was gone. They told me that they probably didn't need anyone, and I went on a well deserved vacation. When I got back, I found out that they had hired else for my job two weeks into my absence and still owed me my pay. I felt so betrayed because I  had done everything I could have and still got screwed. See, people are pigs.

*In case you didn't store that info as something necessary to know, an Ipod Touch goes for around $230




Photos courtesy of The Idea Girls Says and My Modern Met

Ain't Books Great?

I'm pleased to say I've finally gotten back into reading! I must preface this I suppose by explaining that as a child I did not particularly like reading. I'd read books, but they were all far below my age level. All that changed when I went to England when I was 7. A friend of the family, who's name I cannot even remember gave me a copy of Happy Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which we took along. The first night my Dad and I were there, we simply could not sleep, so he read me the first two chapters of the book until his eyes started to droop. But I just couldn't stop, and I devoured it and ever book within a day of its release.

Now, that passion was not solely reserved for the young Mr. Potter, but extended to just about everything until late in my stay in Thailand. I'd been reading books like I'd been popping candy, and then I just couldn't. At home with my family I'd spend my time on the couch watching mindless television, a trend that has sadly continued for the past year. Perhaps its simply because I've had so much reading to do for classes I simply had no energy to read for pleasure, but now, it the final month of the summer holiday, I've finished three books in the space of a week. True, one was a 24 hour reread of the adrenaline filled Hunger Games (Which if you haven't done so already, read it before the movie comes out and ruins it), but whatever it takes! 
But any recommendations, my few friends? Every time I wander into a bookstore I'm overwhelmed by choice, and fear that what I pick up will simply be bad. Is it just me, or are the shelves full of vampires, cheap horror/crime, and lack-luster confessions?

Use the Unclean!

Hi Guys, I'm in the middle of moving into my first apartment and it just hit 45 degrees (that's celsius for all you who like to think of Canada as a permanently frozen wasteland!). So we've been cleaning and agonizing about what to do with this apartment which, on her first veiwing reduced my generally cool mother to tears, but perhaps we should have simply done this. A group of South African graffiti artists got together and decided to use the dirt to their advantage. Full article is here , but I kind of wish I had thought of it before putting my awesome sister to scrubbing the shower to bits. Pictures will, hopefully and eventually make their way onto the internet.

Home

No, I will not apologize. Yes, I know its been a while, but it seems lik all my favourite bloggers have been taking a break, so I'm just following the trend. No excuses, just peer pressure. I'll get better.

 

One of the great things about the way I grew up is that I always got to travel, and this summer I spent a month 'at home', this time home means Korea and China, and I having been gifted with an old DSLR for my birthday, I am sharing some of my pictures!

Going home always brings up questions of where you belong, and where you're comfortable. We are born with a desire to leave the familiar, to leave home but when you do, we miss it. When I live in a place, even for a matter of months, it becomes part of my 'home,' as much for the people and memories it contains as the physical place itself. Because without memories, what makes a location a place?
I love going home for a feeling perfectly explained by the wonderful Nelson Mandela,

  

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Read: The Book Thief

Ok, so I haven't read this in a really long time (I'm in college, we don't read!), but I highly recommend it. It has it's own sparknotes page, that means it has to be good.
First of all, it's narrated by Death. Yes, Death, but this is Death like you've never seen him before. He views the world in terms of colours, and I'll just leave it at that. Second, it's a book about books and the love thereof. Duh. Third, the main character is wonderfully rendered and fascinating in terms of motivation.
I won't go into it more, but read it : Marcus Zusack The Book Thief.

Good Stuff

If you haven't tried these yet. . . DON'T!!


More for me ^^





Nats

Goals!

So I've always been dreadful with setting goals for myself. "I'll finish that novel in two months": two years later, no more words have been added (that's partially because I was traumatised. . . yes, my own novel). "I'm going to go see that Shakespeare tomorrow. .  ." While in the realm of possibility, my goals never seem to reach fruition. So, inspired by Ms. Sarah Von over at yes and yes (which is one of those things you should be reading), my friend L and I have made a list, which I will share as motivation for myself to actually do them: 
20 Things To Do Before We Turn 20

1. Take a Dance Class
2. Hike to the top of the mountain and have a picnic
3. Spend a day doing 'snow architecture' (at least one of which must be a snowman)
4. See a musical/play
5. Go see a rock group in concert
6. Play volleyball on the beach
7. Sit in on a cool class that you're not taking
8. Stay up all night watching chick flicks
9. Get a mani/pedi/facial
10. Spend a day eating only red things
11. Get ice cream from Ben & Jerry's
12. Bake something your mum used to make for you
13. Buy 50 bagels from Fairmount in one go
14. Spend a day on a Bixi bike
15. Steal H's milk and photograph the theft (a reference to another incident with his milk)
16. Spend a week testing out new recipes 
17. Have a photoshoot 
18. Try Hot Yoga
19. Go to a restaurant and pretend not to speak either English or French
20. Start scrapbooking college

Timbit!

I think its time for another bite, don't you?
Train of thought for the day: Quebec.
It hit minus 30 degrees celsius last week, and I hope I don't need to tell you that that is utterly ridiculous. I tried the throw-boiling-water-in-the-air-and-see-if-it-freezes. . . It did. Why did I ever leave balmy Thailand again?

Did you know that in Quebec the drinking age is 18, meaning McGill, the largest English uni in the province is also on Playboy magazines Top 10 Party School List? Not a nice claim to fame, but an interesting one.

What do you think about the drinking age? At the age of 18 you're allowed to drive, vote, have sex, get married, and go to war, but not drink. In the rest of Canada it's 19, but in the States it's 21. And as far as I know, there is no drinking age in China.

Photo Courtesy of HC Photography

Question for the curious: Who on earth though, way back in time that it was a good idea to try rotten grape juice? I mean, if they hadn't, we wouldn't have wine, but what made them do it? And in a similar vein, who thought it would be a good idea to snort anything? Imagine the scence: " Hey guys, lets see what we can stuff up our noses!" *grabs banana*

Nats ^^

Pins and Needles

Have you ever had your foot go to sleep but not get pins-and-needles? Feels like your foot's turned to jelly and you can't control any of the muscles in it. A dead weight you just have to pull around that constantly gets in the way . . . I don't recommend it.

Also:  falling asleep cross legged with your forehead on the floor. . . for an hour. Testament to exhaustion, yes. Smart use of contortionist techniques, no.
Cutting blood flow to entire leg = painful paralysis for 15 minutes.

Nats ^^

Read: xkcd

I really hope you guys read of have read or about to read xkcd. Comic topics range from quantum physics to love to politics and back. No joke, this stuff would make me laugh in the middle of lecture. . . If I misused the internet in that way.

Enjoy! 

Nats

Quotes - Gloria Steinem

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off

Quotes -George Bernard Shaw

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Quotes -Malcolm Forbes

Men who never get carried away should be.