Some of the Barefoot Evidence

This video explains very basically what my new obsession is about.

Thank you G20

Apparently $1 billion in security isn't enough. Most of Toronto's downtown core will be shut down this week in preparation for the ensuing protests that many are assuming will become riots. With destruction. And terrorism. And to the fear mongers I owe gratitude. Gratitude that I get to study for, what now will be, take-home exams in the comfort of my parents' living room, go on a shopping trip for new shoes with my mommy and sister, eat chocolate, visit friends and, when it stops raining, enjoy the beautiful summer weather. My second exam is tomorrow (the first was in class yesterday, I guess they can't all be take-home). It is 1130 am and in preparation of said exam I have slept in, watched Criminal Minds (creepy!), blogged, helped my now-an-adult little brother make felt stars and moons. Thanks again G20!

Holding Me Back

As usual, I'm the only one holding me back. In this instance I'm talking specifically about running. To keep you posted on the fivefingers: still great. The soles are quite thin but surprisingly comfortable and protective. I keep expecting to blow out my knee or have sudden, sharp heel pain since they offer no support at all while I run on concrete but all continues well (*knocks on wood*).

Now that I have the shoes and the gear (new shorts, sweat-wicking t-shirts, a special belt for waterbottle/key transportation) the only thing holding me back is my choices when I'm not running: my diet. For the past few months I've been eating basically what I want when I want it. My body seems to have reached a happy plateau where that works if I run 5 times a week. I could be more in shape if I made a great effort to eat properly and drink more water. So my diet impacts my overall fitness and it impacts the quality of my running. After an evening of salads and veggies I feel rejuvenated and spry during my morning run. After an evening of pie/chips/KD/you choose I feel sluggish, tired and sometimes physically ill on my jaunt around the neighbourhood. You would think I would learn.

On to phase two: adapting eating habits and lifestyle to fit my hobby.

Workout log: Ran 3.5 km to meet JPD. We 'promptly' ran the stairs at Casa Loma 5 times (and were shown up by people much our senior). Ran 2.5km home (ie. I walked the last 1km...so weak!). 6km total and some stairs: good day!

Paper Plate Awards

Yesterday I was torn from my studies by a plea from the lovely Sharon to help her with her (overly?) ambitious project. What project? To create a paper-plate-award for every member of our 45-strong program (plus 3 profs) to commemorate the end of the semester. I was glad to participate and 5 hours later (6 or more for the truly dedicated) we completed them. Each was was a unique piece of art that highlighted some special attribute about each person. I'll post photos when A?CB posts them on facebook (ie. when I can steal them).

A few examples:

The Luscious Locks Award
The Sultry, Scholarly Scowl Award
The Triple Threat Award (she's pretty, friendly AND smart)
The One Master's Isn't Enough Award

Sharon and JPD included everything (glitter, roses, pipecleaners, stars....) as requested on my "(former) Hot Tub Diva" award since I used to lure people to be my friend by promising them a dip in the hot tub. I was also up for the "Most Improved Wardrobe" Award but sadly I didn't get it ;) They thought I might be insulted but I would have taken it happily. I've gone from frumpy to fabulous these last few months. Most of the improvement has been Hi-C's influence (I have to give credit where credit is due). She is still classier though, since she isn't as cheap as I am.

Hay que hacer mi tarea

Someone should do my homework....I guess that someone is probably me. A friend and I (ok, it's Hi-C...this blog makes it sound like she is my only friend!), we have been taking a Spanish class on Wednesday nights. It is so refreshing to be (at least minimally) interacting in el español. This lesson brought up a very useful expression. The "hint hint, nudge nudge"expression. Basically equivalent to the English "boy, someone should probably wash the dishes...."

Useful ones:
Hay que limpiar el piso (the elusive someone should wash the floor).
Hay que sacar la basura (boy, that garbage can is getting full....it would be great if someone took out the garbage)
Hay que ayudarlo (someone should help him but it isn't gonna be me).

Now you are proficient. The other fun tense is the "it's not my fault" tense/expression. Similar to the English "I was using your new hair straightener and, oh no, it broke....all on it's own...nothing I did...." So we have this handy expression in English but it isn't as versatile or acceptable. For example: Se chocó el carro! "You wouldn't believe what happened, I was driving and the car just crashed (itself)".

And, should we continue the linguistic theme of this post or no? Am I the only one who has started noticing this odd question structure more and more or no? Where is it from? It drives me insane, yet I find myself using this peculiar construction sometimes. I believe it should be "not" in place of "no". Could it possibly be another language influencing the structure of English in present-age? Or is this not a fairly new development and it just all of a sudden started bothering me.....I need an answer and googling "or no?" has been fairly ineffective.

Romilly

I don't have any babies to name so I'll name my projects. I finally finished a lovely pink baby blanket in a new pattern, we'll call her Lucy. This meant that I could finally explore the little yarn store on Nasau Street (Lettuce Knit). The plan was to create a cream and green blanket (as per request...*Hi-C*...cough) but they didn't have those colours in affordable wool. Did you know it also has to be washable? So I got creative and picked out my current favourite colour combo.

Meet Romilly:
A little unconventional for a baby blanket but I think it would be perfect for a funky little girl. Why baby blankets? Simply because, as my friends approach that stage of their lives, I want to be able to give them something meaningful as a gift. And each blanket takes a pretty long time so I'm stocking up!

Preliminary Update (and 500th Post!)

This is my 500th post, I *think*. It may be my 499th published post as I have a draft that is just a bit too personal waiting the ranks, unlikely to be published. I'm unsure if blogger counts my lack-of-ovaries (read: cajones, balls, etc.) as a post.

The preliminary update, however, is not about my blog*: it is about my wonky shoes (aka the Vibram's Fivefingers that I purchased in Boston). For the first few days I both ran in the shoes and wore them for general walking purposes throughout the day. I know that I had been warned to "take it easy at first" but they were/are comfortable. Then I paid for a bout 3 days with very stiff calves. Now, while I think I could wear them all the time without issue, I use them faithfully for morning runs (Shout out to the G half of Ball&G for picking me up in the morning and setting a good pace for me). Guess what? They feel amazing!!!! At first there was some wariness since we run on concrete and not lovely trails. They feel even better on soft dirt but they are fine on concrete too.

When I run in them I definitely find that I put very little pressure on my heel. Most pressure is concentrated along the outer side of my foot and on the balls of my feet. When I remember to concentrate on my form and make an effort to spring off my toes I'm able to increase my speed without any real increase in exertion. Today we did 4.25km in about 26 minutes. I think it is time to increase the route to 5km and see how fast we** can go!

*Should this have been a semi-colon? My punctuation senses were tingling but not specifically enough. Will someone please teach me to use punctuation properly???

**Miss G is already routinely runs more than 5km but I am fortunate enough to run part of her route in the mornings.

In Training

I was in a card games mood so I took it upon myself at lunch the other day to train a few new Dutch Blitz minions. Even with my game savvy friends I've found that good ol' DB is not well known outside of Christian circles. It can be easily purchased at any reasonably well-stocked Christian bookstore. I now have 7 more people to call upon for a rousing, fight-to-the-death game. It doesn't take long before the cursing comes out either. Even fairly mild mannered people begin to take it quite seriously.

They should change their slogan from Dutch Blitz: A Vonderful Goot Game! to
Dutch Blitz: Brings out de vurst in people.

I Feel a bit like Exaggerating

Hi-C and I trekked (ok, walked 2 blocks) down to Queen West after school today to try a few things on at Lavish&Squalor. It is an adorable store with friendly staff, cute vintage-style (is 80s vintage now too???) clothing and HORRIBLE DRESSING ROOMS. More specifically the lighting. It may just be the angle that the lights glare down on your imperfections but nothing would look flattering and no one would feel good about themselves in there. If you venture out into the little foyer to see the clothes in the open air you will likely be pleasantly surprised since they seem to transform immediately under new lighting. The lighting is so awful that the full-length mirror doesn't just highlight but magnifies all flaws. I think it even finds imperfections of the soul and bares them for all to see (luckily you'll probably be the only one in the change room). I imagine it was like being Dorian Grey except you didn't deserve the horrible torture.

To summarize: cute store, don't try things on if you aren't feel absolutely stellar about yourself (maybe take some laxatives first too).

Friday Night

Hi-C and I spent Friday Night with the older couple who bestowed our international placement scholarships on us. We check in every once in a while and this time we made dinner (the ol' fall back pesto-onion-pear-goat cheese pizza). For a couple around 70 they are about as fiesty and active as you can get. We caught them between teaching English in Panama and a camping/canoeing weekend. After a filling meal we headed out for a 20km bike ride....on one of these babies:You got it: a tandem. Two people. Hi-C bravely took shotgun since she had briefly ridden one before. Let's just say it takes some teamwork, coordination and persistence to stay upright. By the end, though, we were turning corners and racing up hills like pros. It drew some attention: stares, people yelling from their cars "Hey, that's really cool!", comments from other bikers. PS. The Toronto skyline from the shore paths near High Park is exquisite.

Good Times, not Bad

I've found my favourite place to spend a night out in TO: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. The name is sneaky because it is also a club and that's what it is on Saturday nights. The dance for is packed and the stage is covered in people. Since the majority of patrons are gay men there is no pressure! They were all so friendly, everyone wanted to just dance like crazy and have a good time. There is even a mini drag show thrown in for good measure just after 1am. She was fabulous!

We're All Still Friends

Left to Right: Sharon, JPD, Hi-C & Me. Our images etched temporarily in the sands on the eastern shoreline of Massachusets. My likeness clearly has the largest hair, as it should be. The four of us packed up and hauled rental car through New York, Vermont and New Hampshire to finally settle for a few days in Boston. Good thing we are good at entertaining ourselves because we were locked together in a tiny car for many hours. Our favourite game involved speculating about the likelihood that anyone actually inhabited some of the ramshackle structures in small town America.

In terms of beauty I would have to say that few places can offer as lovely countryside as backwoods Vermont. JPD found us a barn-turned-hostel in nowhere Vermont. That was the life. We had wooden swings , a pingpong table, a full kitchen and an adorable country store just down the road. The man (John) who ran the hostel had the life: hostel operator, teacher of handmaking canoes, raiser of chickens, harvester of maple syrup, roaster of nuts....er, cashews. If you're ever passing through Vermont by the back roads I recommend paying him and his dog Sunny a visit.

Once in Boston we crashed at the YMCA hostel and explored during the day. Everyone humoured me and visited the New England Aquarium to see jelly fish, squid, crazy-looking fish, adorable penguins and everything great under the ocean. We were determined that each of us would have a 'moment' at least once during the trip. Mine was Vibram's Fivefingers (I mentioned them here). In an adorable shopping district in the cool evening we stumbled on a small workout boutique carrying the odd-looking foot covers. They were surprisingly comfortable and I was soon sold (or the shoes were)....so yes, if you were wondering: I bought them, I'll post more later about wearing them.

Sharon's Moment: she bought a va-va-va-voom dress at a stylish shop near Harvard campus.
JPD's Moment: acting as a keen navigatress in the horrendously designed city of Boston. We bow down to her sense of direction.
Hi-C's Moment: finding her coveted shower curtain in a NY Target.

Hi-C's traveling friend met us on Saturday evening after a full day of shopping, aquarium, local food, and a carousel ride. She took us on a tour of Cambridge (passing through Hahvahd Yahd...or Square) which sits just across a short bridge from Boston. While eating at a local pub she taught us how to eat our food British-style with all kinds of manners. I now have the ability to be a dainty eater.

Sunday was ocean and witch day. We cruised out of the city on scenic country roads to be tourists in Salem, MA. You know, the place where they hung witches for fun times. We saw a reenactment of a witch trial with two live actresses and 5 creepy wax figures (not full figures: the judge was a wax head on a podium). By the time we hit the beach it was a bit foggy but it was great to feel the breeze and smell the ocean air (even if it was a little eau-de-rotting-fish). We combed the tide pools for friendly little hermit crabs and snails. If I'm being totally honest: it was the piece of coastline I've seen so far. But I still enjoyed it and was so glad to be at the sea.

While we had fun there is a caveat: having 4 opinionated women with somewhat different ideas of what should be seen/done is not as easy as it sounds (does it sound easy?). We worked on compromise: sometimes we performed spectacularly and sometimes slightly less so.

Tea Time!

Remember when I was trying to decide between DC, Boston or Chicago? I'm unsure if I ever updated but the decision was Boston. Reasons: it is smaller and better for driving (we're chicken s**ts when it comes to city driving). It is right on the coast and next to cape Cod (we can listen to Vampire Weekend as we leave the cape). It is supposed to be pretty.

We have the car booked (9am tomorrow morning baby!) and our accomodations set (go cheap and skeezy hostels) and...that is about it. From there we plan to mostly wing it. At some point we will see the ocean.

Right now most of the anticipation is around the road trip itself. 4 awesome ladies in a compact car for many, many hours. Each of us has a playlist for the ride. I anticipate some overlap but also some tolerance of differing tastes. I'm using much of my time controlling the music to introduce the glory of emo-punk (try: Mariana's Trench, Ludo, The Spill Canvas, etc.). We plan to harmonize. Possibly make horrible translations of English songs into Spanish (and possibly back again). Trivia cards. 20 Questions (I'm the master of selecting random objects that no one can guess....'accordian' took the last group almost an hour).

I don't anticipate much sleep tonight....

Every Party has Pooper

And that's me right now. So, I've been have a pretty successful pity-party for myself (so I guess I'm not a party-pooper in this respect but the LIFE of the party) over the last few weeks. It basically looks like me watching too much TV, not getting much school work done, eating too much junk food (luckily I have a running buddy so I'm not getting sad and fat) and general lethargy. The internet didn't really need to know about my shame but I thought I'd use it at a motivating factor. I theorize that some of my general discontent has been with my own self and not....other reasons. There are so many things I want to do and learn but I don't pursue them to the fullest and find myself wasting time.

These are the things that I would like to invest my time in:
1. Improving my Spanish (check! Hi-C and I have signed up for lessons starting next week....now to pay the credit card bill)
2. Volunteer. I still haven't figured out where to do this. The excuse I've been using since I got to the city was that I'm always moving (alternating semesters of placement an class) and most places are looking for more of a commitment.
3. Learn a musical instrument. I've wished my whole life that I could play something, ANYTHING! But wishing doesn't get you very far with musical instruments so I have to commit. Right now I'm leaning towards the flute (they have those handy finger-holes that show you where the notes are which is key...haha). Problem: I live in an apartment building and my neighbours might hate me.
4. SCUBA dive. Open water scares the poop outta me but give me a coral reef and I'm in heaven. The certification is fairly expensive but everyone needs a hobby, right? Plus, if I do it now I'll be all set for next summer when I'm in Kenya/India/Who knows.

There, those are my goals. Now maybe I'll feel a hint of motivation to actually work towards them instead of thinking/talking about them.

The Story of my Blog

I've been wanting to blog more often but have also been reluctant; I don't want my blog to become sad and pathetic sounding. Because, let's be honest, that's kind of how I spend most of my time feeling. And that is ok right now. While I try to be light-hearted, there is a season for every emotion and right now some of my emotions really suck. I'm starting to take advice from others: set aside time to think about the person/grieve (15 minutes a day). I can't say I stick to it but I'm working on it. School should be my focus now but it isn't motivating me.

In fact: I started this post planning to talk about my classes with a focus on our very interesting voice disorders class. But I've distracted myself. I'll be back!

Elevated

For the first time in my life I'm really living the city-life: an apartment building! I'm on the 8th floor which I've justified as high enough up that I can take the elevator on a regular basis without feeling guilty. It could, of course, be an opportunity for exercise but I've chosen it as an opportunity for awkwardness. People truly are at their most awkward in elevators. I look forward to the next few months.

In addition to having my very first elevator, my housemate is a real grown-up with a job. She has real furniture, a lovely flat screen TV, a wii (!) and even digital cable. THERE ARE OVER 500 CHANNELS! I have never had cable at school before; this could be bad. Oh, and blue-ray. Planet Earth really is more amazing this way (as opposed to my burned copy on a 3-yr old laptop, who would have guessed?).

Sola

One of the greatest duos in the past decade has split and are exploring solo careers. The future SLP (fSLP) is without her LibrariMan and vice versa. I'm not going to get into the reasons because is between us. But I will say that I've created my own little slice of hell (yes, I'm taking dramatic liberties because, in my mind, it's true). This weekend was the big move: back to Toronto for yet another semester. If there were anyone out there still reading this then these are the things I would tell you if I could:

--We made it in safely last night. I decided to crash with my mom and sis last night instead of stay in the unfamiliar apartment.
--The apartment is swanky and my temporary housemate seems very sweet (she even has the board games that I didn't bring).
--Traffic through downtown was nothing to write home about until we reached Queens Park. Every square foot of turf was covered in young people sporting dreads &/or tie-dye &/or .... marijuana leis. Yep, we drove right into weedfest.
--The Harry Potter Exhibit was basically a fancy way to get people into the gift shop. But it was fun to go with my mom and sister.
--I think we have our own ugly-naked-guy.
--I guess it doesn't sound that interesting after all....

9 Hours Radius

Hi-C and I have been travel-restless lately. To scratch the itch (or at least apply a mild salve to raging poison ivy) we had decided on flying to Halifax for a long weekend. Some brainstorming and sticker-shock later and we've narrowed it down to a road trip to a major American city within an 8-10 hour radius of Toronto. Our options are (from West to East): Chicago, Washington DC, Boston. What would you do?

One major criterion I was using has become obsolete: all three cities have world-class aquariums (although the one in DC is only $9 compared to over $20 in the other destinations). LibrariMan tried to help by breaking down the city by baseball team and their respective parks. Needless to say: we're still stumped. Plus we're hoping to couch surf for money-saving reasons but groups of 4 are hard to place for a long weekend. Did you know that many of the Smithsonian museums in DC are free? Did you know that Boston was founded in 1630? Did you know that the first ever American blood bank was started in Chicago in 1937?

ETA: The Chicago Public Library is the world's largest public library!

Treasure Therapy

Last week I picked myself up the game Cariboo Island. It is for 4 yr olds and it rocks at targeting so many different speech goals. Basically, you put plastic coins into the game and then you look for them by opening these little doors with a 'key'. (Sorry, that makes no sense, but trust me). The grand finale is, once all of the coins have been found, they go in the 'sand' and the treasure POPs open! Except...woi woi.....mine didn't open. So I returned it. Woohoo....oh, wait, this one doesn't open either.

But I have to give props to Hasbro (yep, Cariboo Island is made by Cranium which is owned by Hasbro...). I used their online chat customer service and within 5 minutes they were shipping me a new game to my door, no questions asked. This next treasure had better OPEN! So now I'll have two cariboo games but I still need Pop Up Pirate!

You are built to run for 4 Hours at a time

I've read more of my fascinating book (See below) and this should have been the title of my last post. Why can't I make it more than 25 without quitting?