But tomorrow is my friday! I can't wait.
My goal these days is to be a better person, namely to put myself into other peoples' shoes more. I always catch myself being short with people who are short with me, for example, but that doesn't accomplish anything. A little more effort on my part to be cheerful will not only improve my general mood and outlook, but the people I interact with as well. It's pretty hard, actually. When you're tired and cranky and serving people all day and someone comes in 5 minutes to close and asks for a drink and I sometimes catch myself being a little impolite. It's not their fault they're mean and come in when they know I'm closing. They've had a long day too and just want to treat themselves a little, and I need to be friendly no matter what time of day it is. When I order my food and someone messes it up completely by putting cilantro in it, I need to understand that some people actually like that crap and not be shocked, but just take it in stride. I guess it's just hard sometimes when you interact with 300 people in a 8.5 hour shift 4-5 days a week to be nice to everybody you encounter in your life. But that's not an excuse to not be nice to everybody I encounter. I know I never will be. Never have I met anyone who is friendly all the time. But I want to try harder to be. I want to look back at the end of each day and say to myself, "I did my best, and I was at my best." That way no matter where I end up in life, I can feel fulfilled.
My back is KILLING me lately. I also need to make sure I'm lifting things properly and strain it less. I'm getting to that age where you can't abuse your body anymore without feeling it later. A sore back today means throwing out completely 5 years from now, so I have to be careful with myself. On my self improvement phase, I am also exercising more (might be part of the soreness as well). I find that when you work out more you have more energy and are generally in a better mood, so to improve my mind I am striving to improve my body as well. It is a pain in my asshole. Exercise is my kryptonite. Hopefully I will be better though!
29 July 2014
22 July 2014
Le Sigh
I really freakin miss Italy. I miss Siena, where I felt like I was transported to the early Renaissance. I miss Florence where I saw La Primavera and realized he painted so much gold into it and how massive it is, and the Birth of Venus has so much more detail than I realized. I miss Rome and the history and energy of it. I miss the cathedrals, the grandeur, the over-the-topness of everything. I miss walking on cool marble and tile mosaics. I miss the food. I almost miss the smell of sharp tobacco and too much perfume lol. I feel like I belong there, or at least I belong there part-time. I'm so grateful to my folks for putting down the money for me to be able to go there, and my mum for putting up with me dragging her about and talking about painting and sculpture and architecture by era.
Yet here I go to the beach at night with Eric and his friends and drink a beer and light a fire and sing along with a guitar while I listen to the conversation and the waves playing on the shore. I sit in the sun in the sand and see snow capped mountains in the distance and seals and otters dancing in the waves. I have so much and am so lucky, but still want more. I suppose that's good. School starts again in September and wanting is the best motivation to succeed; but I need to focus more on what I have now and how wonderful it all is.
Julie's AC is working. I don't have AC in my house. Random fact.
School is an exciting prospect but daunting. It's always hard to balance time and money and work and studies. Better check those lotto tickets I've got. I'm at a point where I'm okay as things are, but would be in trouble if anything happened like my work burned down or my house did.
Oh shit I just jinxed myself. KNOCK ON WOOD ok safe.
I need to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer but damn it's going by so quickly. I need to go to SFU and talk to them about transferring there in January. I hope it will work out, but the transition to uni will also mean harder to get the A's and more moolah. Gotta trudge through it though. I hope to get into grad school a few years from now with enough scholarship to not have to work while I study, so I really have to work hard. But for now, I still have a month to relax and only worry about work, which is going well I think. I have my six month review coming soon as starbucks supervisor so we will see what he tells me, and until then all I can do is try my best. But I feel like if he had problems with anything he would have told me already so I'm expecting an average to positive review. Although saying that now means I may have jinxed that, too. So my house will burn down and I will get a bad review. Where's that wood table..stretch..wood has been knocked upon.
Some of the regulars at work are really nice and lend me books to read. The guy likes historical setting murder mysteries. The latest is "A Leonardo da Vinci Mystery" series by Diane A.S. Stuckart. A young girl in renaissance Italy runs away from home so she doesn't get forced into marriage. In order to study under Leonardo she disguises herself like a boy. They discover a body and the mystery takes hold. It's light and lots of fun to read.
Downloaded a beer app. Untappd. You can add me, Gremlin11 is my username. I don't drink much so I don't have much but you take a photo of your beer and rate it and then you can see what your friends are drinking and what they like or don't like. Kinda neat I guess.
Starbucks has a seasonal limited time coconut mocha frappuccino. It's disgusting (full of syrup as is everything) but delicious as all hell. Try it but just one time so you don't have a heart attack or get diabetes. Then go back to drinking the iced unsweetened green tea which is good for you.
Welp I need a shower, I'm covered in sweat and syrup and coffee (probably smell great though, sweet and coffeelike) so off I go.
Yet here I go to the beach at night with Eric and his friends and drink a beer and light a fire and sing along with a guitar while I listen to the conversation and the waves playing on the shore. I sit in the sun in the sand and see snow capped mountains in the distance and seals and otters dancing in the waves. I have so much and am so lucky, but still want more. I suppose that's good. School starts again in September and wanting is the best motivation to succeed; but I need to focus more on what I have now and how wonderful it all is.
Julie's AC is working. I don't have AC in my house. Random fact.
School is an exciting prospect but daunting. It's always hard to balance time and money and work and studies. Better check those lotto tickets I've got. I'm at a point where I'm okay as things are, but would be in trouble if anything happened like my work burned down or my house did.
Oh shit I just jinxed myself. KNOCK ON WOOD ok safe.
I need to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer but damn it's going by so quickly. I need to go to SFU and talk to them about transferring there in January. I hope it will work out, but the transition to uni will also mean harder to get the A's and more moolah. Gotta trudge through it though. I hope to get into grad school a few years from now with enough scholarship to not have to work while I study, so I really have to work hard. But for now, I still have a month to relax and only worry about work, which is going well I think. I have my six month review coming soon as starbucks supervisor so we will see what he tells me, and until then all I can do is try my best. But I feel like if he had problems with anything he would have told me already so I'm expecting an average to positive review. Although saying that now means I may have jinxed that, too. So my house will burn down and I will get a bad review. Where's that wood table..stretch..wood has been knocked upon.
Some of the regulars at work are really nice and lend me books to read. The guy likes historical setting murder mysteries. The latest is "A Leonardo da Vinci Mystery" series by Diane A.S. Stuckart. A young girl in renaissance Italy runs away from home so she doesn't get forced into marriage. In order to study under Leonardo she disguises herself like a boy. They discover a body and the mystery takes hold. It's light and lots of fun to read.
Downloaded a beer app. Untappd. You can add me, Gremlin11 is my username. I don't drink much so I don't have much but you take a photo of your beer and rate it and then you can see what your friends are drinking and what they like or don't like. Kinda neat I guess.
Starbucks has a seasonal limited time coconut mocha frappuccino. It's disgusting (full of syrup as is everything) but delicious as all hell. Try it but just one time so you don't have a heart attack or get diabetes. Then go back to drinking the iced unsweetened green tea which is good for you.
Welp I need a shower, I'm covered in sweat and syrup and coffee (probably smell great though, sweet and coffeelike) so off I go.
02 June 2014
Italia!
Italy was fan-freakin-tastic. I want to go back. Never before have I stood on one spot and seen 2000years of architecture all at once. Super cool. I saw Bernini's, Bronzo's, Botticelli's, and Bruneleschi's. I saw the Ninja turtles' work at it's finest. I saw the spot the senate met and walked on the oldest road. And now I'm back in Vancouver, a city that is sadly lacking any nice architecture and only likes contemporary art (I do not). I was in awe the entire time. Luckily, I threw a quarter into the Trevy so I know that I will go back one day.
09 April 2014
It's an Earth Thing
I think it's kind of neat how liquid moves sometimes. I have a nice hot chocolate going. The microwave is on one end of the kitchen so I need to turn around the opposite direction to leave the kitchen again. I do my 180 quickly but carefully so as not to spill the liquid, executing my turn around the mug rather than moving the mug around me, and watching it in case I spill. I move, the mug moves, but the hot chocolate stayed facing the same direction, at least the top half of it. Like when I turned, the mug moved around it without disturbing the contents. Cool stuff. Yup I just wasted a minute of your life.
31 March 2014
In case you're bored or something
An excerpt from my article review homework. In case you're wondering why I hardly blog these days. So busy with work and skool!!!
The main idea of this article is that radiocarbon-dating shows that the period of overlap between early Neolithic and late Mesolithic was a brief one and not drawn out (in England and Wales) as previously thought.
The latest Mesolithic sites date to 5400-5500 Before Present. The Neolithic appears in southern Britain between 5400-5200 BP. The Neolithic brings new innovations in material culture such as pottery and monument building, but the biggest difference between Mesolithic and Neolithic sites is, of course, the domestication of plants/edible grains and animal husbandry. It was previously believed that this process was a timely one, and that domesticated plants and animals were gradually introduced into the diet. Red deer and hazelnuts are examples of wild foods characteristically found at Mesolithic sites, whereas Neolithic sites feature refuse from domesticated fauna and cattle. Furthermore, coastal shell middens, which were essentially Mesolithic garbage dumps, show evidence of a great amount of marine remains. These appear to have been abandoned by the Neolithic revolution, implying that diet had shifted from marine to farmed food. On top of this evidence, we have stable isotope analysis of human bones. This provides direct evidence of diet over a person’s lifetime. The carbon from the food we eat makes its way into our bones and is stored in bone collagen. This will reflect the protein of a diet in the last 5-15 years of a person’s life. Richards and Hedges analyze the data from the stable isotope analysis to determine whether their diets were composed mainly of marine or terrestrial protein. They found that from the early Neolithic sites there was a lack of marine food, even though the sites were coastal ones. The Mesolithic sites, however, had people who ate primarily marine diets. The fact that the Neolithic sites do not have people with significant marine protein in their diet proves that this adjustment occurred rapidly and not over a longer period of time.
The main idea of this article is that radiocarbon-dating shows that the period of overlap between early Neolithic and late Mesolithic was a brief one and not drawn out (in England and Wales) as previously thought.
The latest Mesolithic sites date to 5400-5500 Before Present. The Neolithic appears in southern Britain between 5400-5200 BP. The Neolithic brings new innovations in material culture such as pottery and monument building, but the biggest difference between Mesolithic and Neolithic sites is, of course, the domestication of plants/edible grains and animal husbandry. It was previously believed that this process was a timely one, and that domesticated plants and animals were gradually introduced into the diet. Red deer and hazelnuts are examples of wild foods characteristically found at Mesolithic sites, whereas Neolithic sites feature refuse from domesticated fauna and cattle. Furthermore, coastal shell middens, which were essentially Mesolithic garbage dumps, show evidence of a great amount of marine remains. These appear to have been abandoned by the Neolithic revolution, implying that diet had shifted from marine to farmed food. On top of this evidence, we have stable isotope analysis of human bones. This provides direct evidence of diet over a person’s lifetime. The carbon from the food we eat makes its way into our bones and is stored in bone collagen. This will reflect the protein of a diet in the last 5-15 years of a person’s life. Richards and Hedges analyze the data from the stable isotope analysis to determine whether their diets were composed mainly of marine or terrestrial protein. They found that from the early Neolithic sites there was a lack of marine food, even though the sites were coastal ones. The Mesolithic sites, however, had people who ate primarily marine diets. The fact that the Neolithic sites do not have people with significant marine protein in their diet proves that this adjustment occurred rapidly and not over a longer period of time.
27 March 2014
Italy? Me?
So since my dad came to see me and we did the ski trip, and we did a ski day in Vermont this Xmas, my mom was gonna visit me in Vancouver too. I was looking forward to it, show her around my hang out spots, make her come watch my karate class, lol. So when she said there was another option, I was thinking I dunno, I was hoping to still work a couple days that week, might have a couple classes, hem haw. Then she launches into how she's got another business trip coming up in Siena and how if I wanted to and could get time off I might go with her and spend a few days in Rome and then go to Siena with her where she'll be in meetings the whole time but we'd have one dinner together anyway, and I could take a train to Florence for a day and etc. And my jaw is on the floor. And she's like: "hello? hello? are you there?" and I: oh I should probably pick my jaw up and try to formulate a coherent speech pattern. "yah yah I can get time off yup no problem I will MAKE it work!
So as long as everything goes as planned with her meeting and stuff, I'LL BE GOING TO ITALY IN MAY! WOOP WOOP!
Time to dig up my old art class notes and classics books lol
yippee!
In other news, it's raining. Yup, who'd have thought, rain in Van. But things are blooming (sorry mum, you'll be missing the cherry blossoms I guess) and starting to look really nice and springy. Unfortunately that means the spidey's are making their resurgence and my allergies and unstoppable.
School is winding down, one week left before examinations. Also have to sign up for summer classes next week. Time is moving way too fast! I can't keep up! My civ's class skipped all the Greek/Roman stuff which is irritating. I get if there's not time to cover everything, but then cut out one of the Peru lectures and one of the Mesoamerica! There's only 1000 years to cover anyway! Other than gypping me of my passion lol I have enjoyed all my classes this year. College is so easy, guys. I'm popping out 90's and still able to work 32-35 hours/week. It'll be a small struggle probably once I transfer to uni. We'll see how things go. I need to go talk to people about how to transfer too, maybe I can apply to grad school sooner, who knows. Otherwise I'll keep doing the second degree thing until then.
Last night was supposed to be a study night but I was asked to work, and I need some brownie points that new people need so that I'm well liked and people owe me favours when I need time off. But seriously, this girl I covered for called in sick at 115 for a 230 shift. Nicole, the other supervisor, calls me all frantic like "please please you can start at 4!" she had already tried everyone else, and I was like okay I guess I can not study. So that was a good shift but still a pain in my plans. At least I spent my morning talking to my grandma and mum.
Welp, Gotta go write a quiz and an article comparison. (For the latter, it really helps to have a PhD roomie in the same field. "Eric I need articles." "OOOH! Okay! Where do we start!" and it takes him 20 mins to find something he likes and that will work for me when it would have taken me an hour or more. Then he sits down and gives me a run through on them. "This is this guys argument. This is why he's right. This is the counter argument article. This is why this guy's a moron. This article explains why the second guy is a moron and the first article holds up." etc. So then I sit down and read them until the science stuff makes some sense to me and write a small paper on the arguments presented. I link it to some of the units in class. Nice and easy! So he essentially saves me like 3 hours of work. I should buy him dinner.)
Miss you all!
So as long as everything goes as planned with her meeting and stuff, I'LL BE GOING TO ITALY IN MAY! WOOP WOOP!
Time to dig up my old art class notes and classics books lol
yippee!
In other news, it's raining. Yup, who'd have thought, rain in Van. But things are blooming (sorry mum, you'll be missing the cherry blossoms I guess) and starting to look really nice and springy. Unfortunately that means the spidey's are making their resurgence and my allergies and unstoppable.
School is winding down, one week left before examinations. Also have to sign up for summer classes next week. Time is moving way too fast! I can't keep up! My civ's class skipped all the Greek/Roman stuff which is irritating. I get if there's not time to cover everything, but then cut out one of the Peru lectures and one of the Mesoamerica! There's only 1000 years to cover anyway! Other than gypping me of my passion lol I have enjoyed all my classes this year. College is so easy, guys. I'm popping out 90's and still able to work 32-35 hours/week. It'll be a small struggle probably once I transfer to uni. We'll see how things go. I need to go talk to people about how to transfer too, maybe I can apply to grad school sooner, who knows. Otherwise I'll keep doing the second degree thing until then.
Last night was supposed to be a study night but I was asked to work, and I need some brownie points that new people need so that I'm well liked and people owe me favours when I need time off. But seriously, this girl I covered for called in sick at 115 for a 230 shift. Nicole, the other supervisor, calls me all frantic like "please please you can start at 4!" she had already tried everyone else, and I was like okay I guess I can not study. So that was a good shift but still a pain in my plans. At least I spent my morning talking to my grandma and mum.
Welp, Gotta go write a quiz and an article comparison. (For the latter, it really helps to have a PhD roomie in the same field. "Eric I need articles." "OOOH! Okay! Where do we start!" and it takes him 20 mins to find something he likes and that will work for me when it would have taken me an hour or more. Then he sits down and gives me a run through on them. "This is this guys argument. This is why he's right. This is the counter argument article. This is why this guy's a moron. This article explains why the second guy is a moron and the first article holds up." etc. So then I sit down and read them until the science stuff makes some sense to me and write a small paper on the arguments presented. I link it to some of the units in class. Nice and easy! So he essentially saves me like 3 hours of work. I should buy him dinner.)
Miss you all!
20 March 2014
Pat on My Back
SO today in martial arts class my Instructor said to pull out the mats. I'm like aw geez, this guy never does tumbling that's why I like his classes lol so I pulled out the mats as the coloured belts are doing their cool moves with the bow staff. Of course it was tumble time for Jackie. So he gets a black belt to come and help me. She says I have everything down for my Roll Routine 1, let's work on cleaning it up a bit. I said that's great let's do it. We start with my front right side roll. She challenges me to start it from standing straight up and walking right into it, nice and smooth instead of bending into it from the start. Okay, check. Next, break falls. Work on my hand positions a bit. Great I'll try and improve; it went on like this. I've got down what's expected of a white belt, time to spruce it up so it's cleaner and more controlled. I think dancing gives me a leg up on this one, it's easier to remember sequences and you know what to look for when someone shows you a move so you can try to imitate it better. SO anyway, instructor comes over to see what's going on after getting the other people going on their things and check out my break falls too. Then the whole class has to rolls (haha!) so they go and do theirs and then I do mine, and as I start it, the instructor says "that is a really good right side roll. Like, really good. I'm actually kind of upset that a white belt can do it that well!" in a joking way. Later he asked if I'm in gymnastics, or was. I said no as it's been 15 years and I can't even do a cartwheel. He's like so you're just naturally good at it? and I'm like well...I drill these most classes so maybe that's it. BUt still feels nice to be told you rock at something. Win!
I like this instructor, his classes are good. He pushes you like he knows how hard you can go. Some people push you too hard, and some not enough. But he seems to know everyones limits. He also explains things really well and shows me everything. Like I was trying a hook kick today and most instructors keep showing you how to do it, but he has me punch him and he hook kicks my arm away. So now I know how I can use it to defend myself, and how to do it properly. Sometimes I've learned a move without being sure how to apply it in a real situation but he always explains that which is helpful. Last week he was smelly tho, a skunk somehow got into his house and sprayed everywhere. hheehehehehehehehe. You always LOL when it's not your house.
School is going well, doing well in it, have to decide really soon if I'm taking summer school or not though, like in the next few days. I probably should, but it would be nice to have time to bum around. Thing is I'm more productive in the summer than the winter so school might be easier. It's easier to motivate myself when it's sunny to get things done.
I'll post more of my story soon too!
That's all folks!
I like this instructor, his classes are good. He pushes you like he knows how hard you can go. Some people push you too hard, and some not enough. But he seems to know everyones limits. He also explains things really well and shows me everything. Like I was trying a hook kick today and most instructors keep showing you how to do it, but he has me punch him and he hook kicks my arm away. So now I know how I can use it to defend myself, and how to do it properly. Sometimes I've learned a move without being sure how to apply it in a real situation but he always explains that which is helpful. Last week he was smelly tho, a skunk somehow got into his house and sprayed everywhere. hheehehehehehehehe. You always LOL when it's not your house.
School is going well, doing well in it, have to decide really soon if I'm taking summer school or not though, like in the next few days. I probably should, but it would be nice to have time to bum around. Thing is I'm more productive in the summer than the winter so school might be easier. It's easier to motivate myself when it's sunny to get things done.
I'll post more of my story soon too!
That's all folks!
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