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.