The great Cereal Dilemma

Being in my Mid-Twenties is something that just seemed to happen to me (no seriously).

Five minutes ago I was starting my first year of University and then WHAM, nope. I’m almost 25.

Where does the time go? College was over in an instant and whoops, it’s actually been two and a half years since I graduated. I’ve lived out of home for 7 years and our 10 year High School reunion is in 3….What is this madness?

Sometimes I wake up and feel like I’ve been in a coma. I look around and I’m surprised by where I am in my life and how old I actually am versus how old I actually feel.

But aren’t I a fully functioning member of society?

I do my taxes (late) and manage to dress myself daily (sometimes) and supposedly I’ve mastered enough cooking techniques to keep myself alive up until this point.

So why do I still want to play on the swings every time I walk past the park? Why am I still sniggering at the same old dumb jokes. Why don’t I care about Politics or Savings accounts or depreciating housing loanes?

Today I went to the supermarket for the first time since I got back to Canada about 5 days ago. I’ve been battling Jet-Lag and the desire to only eat pizza every single day at weird times like 1am.

I wrote a list (which I didn’t stick to) and headed into the first aisle where I was confronted by yet another challenge of Adulthood.

Shredded Wheat & Bran vs Krave Double Chocolate (with extra chocolate inside)

The great cereal dilemma.

Now. What is girl to do?

On the one hand, Shredded Wheat & Bran is probably totally BLAND and totally healthy (I don’t know if that is a fact… it’s not like I actually checked the box) but then look at Krave! It’s got curved font and the milk is sparkling in between the delicious bites of chocolatey goodness! And it’s DOUBLE the chocolate.

Decisions, decisions. A or B?

Well… I had to go with…

Option C

The compromise

This cereal could literally be worse for me than KRAVE. But I don’t care. It has both wheat coloured and chocolate coloured/flavoured things.

So it must be good.

For more insight into how I feel: Check out Jenna Marbles Video ‘I hate being a grownup’.

 

Top 3 Things to do in the Top 3 Cities I have lived in

When Thinking about the Top 3 things to do in the Top 3 Cities I have lived in, it is interesting to note that mostly the pattern seems to be enjoying the natural beauty of the places I have lived, shopping… and eating! I guess that probably says more about me than what the top 3 things actually are!

Sydney:

Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney has one of the most amazing harbours in the world (in my humble opinion) and walking across the bridge (i’m talking about at road level, not even climbing over it as you can do) at any time of the year is amazing and makes you realize how beautiful the world really is. I once walked over it with my brother in the spring, and the whole North Shore side was purple with blooming Jacaranda flowers. I’ve walked across it when the weather was foul and rainy (I felt like I was in a music video the whole time) and I’ve walked across it at sunrise and sunset. If you’re in Sydney, do yourself a favour this week and do this.

Paddington Markets

I miss the Paddington Area with it’s cute cafes and funky restaurants, sun-dappled side streets and big glorious townhouses. But what I miss the most is Paddington Markets with their blend of laid-back boho style clothing, intermingled with weird art and cool foods. I would spend many a luxurious day wandering around this market, sipping hot chocolate, enjoying the sunshine.

Bondi Beach

Since moving to Canada, the one thing I can TRULY say that I miss (aside from friends and family of course) is the Ocean and the beach. There is something so cleansing and cathartic about walking along a strip of sand, staring out into the vastness of sky beyond the curve of the coast. Bondi beach is supposed to be all touristy now, and there are pictures of the sand covered end to end in white pasty bodies, but regardless, Bondi is the beach I love. It is close to the city and the suburb of Bondi has a great feel.

Toronto

Queen Street West

Whenever I’m feeling down, I like to walk through Trinity Bellwoods park and along Queen Street West. This happening hood has treats and gorgeous stores galore. Simply getting out amongst these trendy stores makes you feel like your life is cooler than it is. Grab yourself a Macaroon, pick a table at one of the many adorable cafes and take the time to watch the world go by. I’m never disappointed by the plethora of interesting characters strolling by, ripe fodder for creative stimulation.

Toronto Island

Toronto Island is possibly one of the most luscious gorgeous places I have ever been to. It is located in the lake Toronto borders and is a short ferry ride away. I’ll never forget jetting over there for the first time with my two friends both named Alex. It was a hot, fresh Toronto summer day and as we pulled away from the city we got a wonderful view of the whole Toronto skyline (a visually interesting city). When we got to the island we biked, we paddled our feet in the water and ate ice cream on the long cool grass. Definitely a must-do for picnics in Toronto.

Kensington Market

Kensington Market

Kensington Market is smack bang beside Chinatown (so I obviously found it pretty quickly). It is a hodgepodge of cheese stores, cafes, vintage clothing sellers, art stores, random ethnic spice stores and little tiny tucked away bars. At night the scene can be a little bit dodgy, but during the day and on the weekends, this place is hopping with music and creativity. Plenty of places to chill out and enjoy so more people watching.

Hong Kong

The Peak

Hong Kong is a highly populated city that certainly knows how to cram a lot of people into a small space. Despite this fact, there are places you can go to get some peace and quiet and Victoria Peak is one of them. Sure, there are often plenty of tourists stuffed into the mall that the Peak Tram drops you off at, but when you walk around the top of the Peak, you are treated to spectacular views of this island metropolis. Like the photo I have chosen, I like to go at night to see all the buildings light up. Truly a stunning sight to see.

The Markets

The Markets

Hong Kong is synonymous with shopping and by-god there is shopping to be had. Whether you head to the Mong Kok Markets, Temple Street Markets at Yau Ma Tai, Bird Market at Prince Edward, Sneaker street, The Lanes in Central, Wanchai markets… I could go on. Pretty much in every district is a side street where wheeling and dealing is taking place. Food, electronics, clothing, jewellery, you name it, it is there and it is overwhelming. Hold onto your wallet!

Dim Sum/Yum Cha

For those that know me at all, the knowledge that I LOVE Dim Sum is something so totally obvious as to be startlingly stupid. I could eat Dim Sum evert weekend (and pretty much have since moving to Toronto I think!) If you ask me if I want to do brunch on Sunday, this is probably where I want to go. And Dim Sum in Hong Kong is obviously the best in the world. Fresh, delicious and totally cheap, I’m probably going to turn INTO a dim sum dish because of how much I eat it. My Dim Sum recommendations for Hong Kong are pretty general because I will eat it anywhere and everywhere. Sorry I can’t be more specific!

And there you have it, my Top 3 things to do in my top 3 cities (so far!)

Sydney, Toronto and Hong Kong. Three pretty diverse places to live, but all offering awesome ways to spend this precious time we have called life.

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well at least life is interesting

Sometimes I forget that not everyone travels around and lives in different places as easily as I do. I don’t feel particularly different from the people I meet, and I try to live in the moment as much as possible. I have been living in Toronto for almost 2 years (June 12 is my 2 year Anniversary with Canada) and I guess at this point I’m surprised when people think its neat that I am from Australia.

Oh yeaaaah, I’m from Australia. Right.

People is People, as they say (in the muppets 1984) and to be honest, I forget you are all Canadian.

Buuuuut…eesh…awkward…I’m not really from Australia, because I’ve now lived more years overseas than I ever did in the land of my Parents and Grandparents (cheers for the sweet passport). There are days when I miss Sydney like crazy, but I realize it’s the people and the time that it represented that I miss the most (Uni days with the best girlfriends and guyfriends in the world). Okay I miss the Harbour Bridge and King street Newtown, the Beaches and Paddington, but the great thing about my little Navy Passport with the Kangaroo and Emu on it, is that I can go back any time.

And I honestly feel like I COULD just slot back in there. Familiar streets, familiar faces.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I secretly FREAK out when it comes to change, but they also know that I am constantly making myself do weird things and change-it-up because I am like two people sharing the same personality. One, a quiet homebody type who doesn’t really want to rock the boat and wants to live a quiet, friendly, calm, stable life, and the other a crazy, Adventurous, eccentric type who says “f^%$ you, I do what WANT!” And moves to the otherside of the world with no warning.

Like on April 3rd 2013.

On April 3rd 2013 I’m going home to Hong Kong for 7 weeks to work as an Assistant Stage Manager on a rather huge production, home to the land of my High School friends, my mother, and our Irritating but adorable Cat Guinness.

Guinness the Cat

The homebody me at first dismissed the idea of going:

Homebody Me: What about the opportunities here you may miss out on? What about your room, you’ll have to find a sublet, what about…what about…what about…

But luckily for me, my eccentric side listened to the many naggings on my mother, and simply decided, “screw this, I’m going”…and booked a ticket, confident that the rest would just fall into place. (Which it always does)

And with each day that passes since I simply made up my mind to go, I’m getting more and more excited. Because the Adventurous me gets nervous when things are a bit too quiet, and what seems more fun? Temping and doing Volunteer TV stuff, or going to Asia and working on a West End like production? If the universe unfolds as it should, and with the Job market such a dogs breakfast over here…maybe I was meant to take this opportunity all along?

With my new 2 year Canadian work visa up for renewal, and the idea that I will continue to live in Toronto for the next two years, the homebody part of me is somewhat satisfied that there is stability on the horizon.

And the adventurous part of me is PSYCHED to learn some new things, meet some new people, reconnect with old friends, and generally spend some time deviating from the norm some more.

I am an Australian born, Asia Bred girl of 24 who lives in Canada.

Got all that? Good.

My quest for Fame and the disintergration of ethics in Social Media

I wouldn’t usually use the word “Whore’ to describe myself, (let alone anyone else unless I was EXCEPTIONALLY pissed off), but there is no denying that for the last 3 days I am been whoring myself on all forms of social media for one reason only.

*Gasp* I have entered a reality tv show type competition.

AND oh MAN do I want it.

Twitter (which I haven’t ever fully appreciated and use mostly for posting stuff about the volunteer TV interviews I do)

Facebook (which I over-use for sharing photos and funny stuff with friends and family overseas)

and Instagram (which is mainly just pictures of snow, cut off “artsy” pictures of my face and the Canuck boyfriends dogs)

I am HATING myself all over Facebook and twitter because I am being so annoying and inundating friends and family with ME ME ME-ness.

VOTE FOR ME! I tell them, and I start thinking it is totally normal to start harassing people I haven’t spoken to in a year (umm…hi….i know we haven’t spoken in a while… and we probably don’t have anything in common any more… but would you be a dear and click this link and rate me even though this is a thing you don’t even care about….)

I have turned into one of those spamming douches that people right-click, hide, on their news feeds.

What have I become?

The truth of the matter is that I cringe to ask people to do this. Not because I am afraid of failure (oh no, I’ve taken quite a few knock-backs in my life and I am FINALLY FINALLY learning to dust myself off and pick myself back up) but because social media has etiquette, and begging for votes or views goes against that etiquette. I am like the prim old lady of Social Media.

But it’s not just me and my well-to-do online profile. There are many articles and sources to look for the way one minds their online manners, and you better not fuck too hard with them because a rain of hate will fall down on you. Delete, dust hands of person. Perhaps in real life you will begin to think less of them.

There have been people who I have been close to deleting because of their online spamming. And now I have morphed into one of those people!

BUT whats a girl to do?

I have been fighting for my bit of the TV/FILM pie for a while now and the one thing I do know is that you have to be in it to win it. You have to say “Hi, I’m here and I’m keen”.

There is a high likelihood that I will not make it into the top forty of this comepetition (No! What am I saying – positive thinking/vibes/ooooooohhhhhmmmmmmm – (thats me meditating to the spirit world of reality tv competitions)) but the fact that I made a video, put myself out there and went for it…well who knows who will see it and think, “that girl is cool.”

There is a saying I heard here in Canada which I love and I think about it all the time.

the saying goes:

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

So here it is, my first shot at goal for Much Music…. but who knows?!! At least I’m up for the game.

 

 

Things that I hate that are actually really good for me

Celery

Celery is one of those ingredients that is in everything. Oh you wanted to make a stock? Celery. Oh you’re making a delicious soup? Celery. Cooking something that doesn’t seem like it would contain Celery? Celery. When it’s hidden in things like soups and stock, fine, but don’t go putting Celery in my Chicken Cashew nut. I can see it! It’s sitting right there! And I am not a fan. My dad used to cut up celery and put peanut butter on it. I feel like he called them Peanut butter floats or something like that. And even with a cute nickname I still wasn’t buying it (but then, I’m pretty sure my favourite word was just NO as a child, straight off the bat.) It’s a shame I haven’t made friends with this vegetable that tastes and feels like eating crunchy green snails because Celery is rich in Vitamin C and contains Potassium and Folic acid. It’s also rumoured to burn more calories eating celery than the beast vegetable actually contains itself.

Chamomile Tea

I associate the taste of Chamomile Tea with throwing up, thanks to a nasty experience in High School when I had a 24 hour puking virus and I slept at my friend Annies place and her mum offered me Chamomile tea in the morning to settle my stomach and I threw it up five minutes after I ingested it. It is a shame that I hate this because Chamomile tea seems to have antibacterial properties (probably why people think to drink it when they are sick) and also seems to help with menstrual cramps. One study found that drinking chamomile tea raised urine levels of glycine, a compound that calms muscle spasms. Researchers believe this is why chamomile tea helps menstrual cramps.

Milk

I’ll drink Chocolate milk by the gallon but I am SO not drinking plain milk. Plain milk on some kind of sugary cereal, fine. Milk in Earl Gray Tea, duh, what am I? A barbarian? Milk in recipes, yes yes of course. But not by itself. Yuck yuck yuckity yick. NOthankyouverymuch. Saying Milk is good for you is a bit like saying that cigarettes are bad for you. Everybody knows that Milk and dairy products are providers of calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and protein which are all essential for healthy bone growth and development. But what you maybe didn’t know is that studies have linked milk and dairy consumption with a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, and other studies (who are these people studying Milk, don’t they have lives to get on with? Perfect Milk free lives?!?) suggest that regular consumption of low fat dairy products can help to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Onion

I hate this vegetable. When I was in year 12 and it was the night before my first HSC exam, my Mum took me to a steak restaurant and I ordered a steak which sounded delicious. It came topped with a huge pile of onions. I merely put my head down on the table and started to sob. I thought it was a sign my life was over and I would fail my exams. Thats how much I hate these. Which is a shame because Onions have many healthy properties. Raw onion encourages the production of good cholestoral which helps your heart and A powerful compound called quercetin in onions is known to play a significant role in preventing cancer.

Lamb

This is pretty blasphemous to admit as an Australian, but I don’t like lamb (to be fair, growing up in Asia, I didn’t have so much access to this meat, we mostly had pork and chicken). Some people slobber over the idea of Lamb Shank or cutlets, but I’d rather not. I wouldn’t order it for myself and it’s very rare that I eat it now in my grown up life. That is not to say that I’ve had all bad experiences, but for the most part Meh. Apparently Lamb is good for health conscious people, as it is a source of ‘good fat’ in the body and has less saturated fat than other meat products. Nah. I’ll just take my fatty fat thanks.

Temping, Prositution of the Corporate world

Temping:

temp [tɛmp] Informal
n
a person, esp a typist or other office worker, employed on a temporary basis
vb (intr)
to work as a temp

Turns out Temping is better paid than retail (not by much, but enough for me to go buy those Croc boots which I swear aren’t ugly, just give me a chance to show you) and because I continue to be ignored by the world of Full Time work in an industry that I am dying to work in, I decided to give Temping a go. Since the beginning of the month I have taken on four different assignments, 2 x 1 day assignments, 2 x 1 week assignments, and learned about a whole new world that I never knew existed.

The world of the Temp.

Let me give you a little run down.

The world of the Temp is a place ungoverned by your average 9-5. You wake up at 7.30am with the hope that at 8am, someone (Pimp) will call you and tell you they need you at XYZ location, and the dress code is *blank*. You slap on some make-up, make sure you vaugely know where you are going and sprint out the door. On the train you wonder again what you are doing with your life, but the other part of your brain says “this is the last job, I promise you. We’ll get the money and then move to Florida.” You get to the destination, you make small talk, find out what the client (John) likes and what they need. You settle down, close your eyes, and daydream you are somewhere else (like at a real job). When it’s all over, they thank you plenty of times, and you shuffle out clutching your time sheet. You buy yourself a couple of drinks to try to forget the disappointment in your mothers eyes.

Temping is the Prostitution of the corporate world.

But you know what? I don’t hate it.

My first two assignments were in Film and Television production companies, and you bet your Chihuahua’s left nut that I worked it like I was on the sinking Titanic and had to get my third-class ass on a lifeboat. The one day gig was a bit of a bust, it was a monday and quiet as hell, but the week long gig yielded fun, a bit of professional networking with an awesome Aussie guy who took my resume and some new surprising friendships with girls my own age who worked in the company. Turns out some of them had been in the same boat as me and some of them even got their jobs after temping first.

Actually, when I started to look into it, Temping seemed to be one of the ways a bunch of people I know got their full-time jobs. They’d go for an assignment and the company would say, you know what, why don’t you stay on, or, why don’t you give us your resume to take a look at. It was kind of like a pre-interview. And hell with the number of resumes and cover letters I have sent off, any chance of getting into ANY company as more than just a name on a piece of paper is a big bonus.

So why did I always think there was such a stigma attached to Temping? I couldn’t even tell you. Maybe there is, but now that I’ve joined the ranks I just don’t care. The job market is so tough out there, and lots of people who want to do what I want to do are stuck in menial jobs, frittering away their youth and talent.

I’d rather wake up each day with the fresh and exciting opportunity of meeting someone that may assist with opening a career door for me, than be marking down sweaters for the third time this week.

End Rant

Reddit and the Internet at large

A lot Most of my knowledge comes from the internet. It’s just a sad fact that we are all going to have to deal with. The days of looking up information in books are coming to an end.

I have  a small amount of sadness in relation to this, but it is small. Things change, technologies advance and the world turns again and again on it’s axis until the day the sun explodes and engulfs us, or we blow ourselves up through modern warfare (details…details).

I’m glad that my silly undergraduate days are behind me. The assignments we were set often required multiple sources from books to include in our citations and in our bibliography. Realistically, most information was nabbed from the internet or from others, or from sheer fear and ideas that came into my brain as the 6pm deadline loomed closer and closer and I had begun the essay at 6am. Often I would run to the library, look through a few books that sounded like they vaguely had something to do with the topic, scribble some idea down somewhere relevant and then hope like hell I wasn’t going to fail the unit.

Oh you didn’t actually think I was going to read that book did you?

Why would I? I have the internet.

I wonder if University essays were better back in the day, or worse. I mean, it’s true, you have to be discerning when it comes to things you read online, but the wealth of information out there is incredible.

Lets pretend for a moment that I use the internet for more than my own vanity (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkdIn, Pintrest, Youtube) and am actually using it as the amazing tool that it is. WOW knowledge.

I do spend a lot of time on a site called Reddit.com which you may have heard of. It is a place where people can gather and contribute interesting things to one another. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend the majority of my time in a part of it called “Funny” which is basically pictures of cats, memes, or gifs of people hurting themselves. But recently I have ventured into other sub-reddits (that is what they are called, accept it and enjoy that feeling of being “in-the-know”).

There are fabulous parts on there like the TIL – Today I learned, where users can post interesting things that they learned, usually with links to articles old or new.

or AMA – a section where users can share personal stories and others can AMA – “Ask me Anything”.

Oh did I forget to mention that there is a system of up-voting links people like and there is such a thing as Reddit Karma and Karma Gold which can be won? Oh I did? So I guess it has elements of vanity and competition just like my favourite networking sites.

Shucks. It is the internet after all people! A place where you can be anyone or anything, hidden comfortably behind closed doors and in the comfort of your living room.

If you haven’t been to reddit…Get there. Or get off your ass and go outside. It’s -15 today so I think I’m just going to stay inside and learn if that’s okay with you…

Bullshit Express

I realize that a lot of my blog posts contain wisdom from my Mum. Every time I do it I feel like singing Mama Say’s from Footloose.

I can’t help it. My Mama is a smart lady who pontificates wisdom even from afar. And one thing she has begun to say in recent years, as I have languished and moaned and sighed and swooned about why my career hasn’t taken off RIGHT NOW WHEN I STAMPED MY FOOT AND SHOOK MY FISTS…

 

 

 

Is:

“Fake it til you make it.”

Now, she wasn’t talking in the bedroom, get your minds out of the gutter, she was speaking more I think about life and careers and such. I think. Sometimes her wisdom is loose and malleable to many and all (sometimes contradictory) instances.

But anyway.

Recently I’ve been interning at a place called Rogers TV over here in Toronto. It’s like Foxtel in Australia or Star TV in Hong Kong. They are a cable provider, but they also have their community channels and local programming. As a result of being a big personality, blonde, Australian anomaly (and not half bad at public speaking I suppose) and being around the studio two days a week, I was offered the opportunity to audition for a role as community reporter.

So I went along to the audition, finding it hard to take the whole thing seriously as I was being screened by the Producer and Director of the morning show I intern on and had to fake interview another Producer I was chummy with and pretend we were at an Oktoberfest thing.

The whole thing was a trip into randomness. But it was fun. And they chose me and another girl out of six female audition participants to get our reporter on. So woooh us.

Since then I have probably shot 7 or 8 segments for Daytime Toronto and two Segments for Toronto Speaks. I never know when they are going to air (I honestly think the Producer kind of figures it out last minute) and it is always fun when someone mentions they saw me, or when I go in to work on Daytime and realize they are rolling something I shot.

Keep in mind that I do all of this UNPAID in the hopes that it will lead to that amazing J-bomb of a word…

A Job.

I’m just like the rest of the underpaid (read: Not Paid) over worked, underfed (pahhhhahaha if only) interns out there.

The difference is on occasion I get to hold a Red microphone (which is usually scratched up to shit) and plaster on my biggest ditzy smile and have a cameraperson (usually a big burly dude named Ken who I secretly adore) follow me around to different local community events.

And wow you should see how people react.

Nobody has ever heard of me.

Nobody recognizes me.

Everybody loves me.

It’s amazing what an aura of pretend control, a microphone and a clipboard full of realease forms can do.

Mostly I just pretend that I’ve done this reporting thing a million times. I throw words like “shoot” and “Mike check” around and people are putty in my hands. The first time I ever went on a Rogers shoot (because the way it works over at Rogers TV is they are like: “Oh you’ve never actually interviewed anyone on camera before? That’s okay, go do it right now) Ken asked me if I’d done this sort of thing before, and I snorted and was like DUH. Ken. God. Get with the program. But my hands were shaking like I had had 15 cups of coffee. And I messed up 2 takes. AND it is possibly one of the worst/most awkward interviews you have ever seen in your life.

Fake it til you make it.

But if anyone every asked, I would come straight out and say it. I do this for FREE because it’s great experience and also it’s FUN and also sometimes there are free sandwiches (once. once there were free sandwiches. And it was glorious. And I ate loads. And Ken and I got to take some home.)

Yes. I tweet and Instagram and Facebook a lot of shit about the TV thing. I’m trying to build something like an online persona. But I’m open about all of the things above.

So it’s pretty interesting (in the way horrifying things are) to me when people aren’t honest about themselves and the bullshit castle they’ve built. Theres faking it til you make it, and then there is delusion and believing your own bullshit.

We all bullshit, it’s part of life and its DEFINITELY a part of social media.

But it doesn’t have to be a part of the voices in the back of your head. It doesn’t have to nourish you.

Today on the show we had a guest who was SO into her own bullshit, it was hysterical.

I was behind Camera Two today (the easiest Camera, because…well I’m not that great at Camera and it is a live show) and this guest was preparing herself for her segment, lounging around having had her makeup done by the professional make up artist (also a volunteer) and she starts telling a story, to no one in particular but I guess KINDOF the publicist for the company she represents, and kind of to the crew standing around in the calm before the storm (all unpaid and learning just like me, I should add) and she starts name dropping like we give a fuck.

Nope. Sorry. Never heard of this supposedly famous columnist you know over at some online magazine I’ve never heard of.

Ironically she mentioned that her other famous blogger friend who lives in NEW YORK (ooooohhh my god you know someone living in New York?! It’s JUST like Sex and the City!) was blogging about her and her relationship and BASICALLY wrote an open letter to her and it was SCANDALOUS.

Cue dramatic pause.

Cue all of us shrugging like…whaaaaa the crazy guest talking about?

TV will do weird things to people.

This lady was on the show to talk about hand creams. And maybe if I google her, she will turn out to be a big deal.

Buuuuuuuut. I didn’t really care.

I just wanted to check my focus and find out what the chef was cooking to see if we’d get yum free food after the show.

You know.

The important stuff.

 

 

Winterizing my Life

Living through a Canadian winter changes everything you thought you knew about winter.

Trust me.

It’s fucked.

Not only have you never been so cold in your life, but you’ve also never felt like such a pussy about never having been so cold in your life. The first time the temperature dropped into the minus digits, I literally put on every piece of long covering clothing I possessed. I was more layered up than seven fruit roll ups and I was STILL shivering.

What did my Canadian boyfriend wear that day?

A t-shirt, jeans and a light jacket.

It was -5 degrees and I thought I was going to die. My skin ached in the exposed bits, and I was so cold I felt like my bone marrow was freezing. And then it went down to -15.

Now, people from further North, or Montreal, will tell you that -15 aint nothing to write home about. It’s when it gets to -30 that you got to start worrying.

MINUS….30 Degrees…CELSIUS…

Doesn’t the thermometer stop working at -20!? How is -30 a thing? How can we go negative times 30 of the freezing temperature of things??!

CANada Can.

I’ll never forget having a chat to the Mother of a friend of mine. Lovely Mrs Deck from Red Deer, Alberta, an all Canadian little place that looks a little something like this:

Mrs Deck is an avid running enthusiast, and when I began asking her if she continued to run outside during the winter she replied, “Oh yes. You have to wear a balaclava and gloves, but it certainly is nice to get oot and aboot.”

Okay fine she didn’t really say oot and aboot, she said it was nice to get OUTSIDE. But the point is the same. They’re nuts. The whole country.

And you start to become more nuts the more winter days you live through.

For example, last week when it was 1 degree, I asked myself, “do I really need a scarf?”

You start to think it’s normal to walk past huge piles of white (or dirty brown depending on how many days its been there) snow and not scream with delight and jump in it.

You think it’s normal to bring an extra pair of shoes with you to work (you know, snow shoes for the outside and nice clean dry shoes for the inside.)

It takes you 5 minutes to get up from a meal before you exit the establishment (because you have to put on hats, gloves, scarf, winter jacket…)

You minimize any and all walking outside unless it is strictly necessary and all activities move indoors.

When it’s above zero, you start referring to the weather as “warm”.

I’m not going to lie, I love the snow (always have always will) and after building two snowmen over the weekend, going sledding in a park, and having my very first snowball fight, I can safely say there are some perks to living in the “great white north”…

But I will never accept that -30 is a temperature in which humans are supposed to live.

Except Eskimo’s…

Those guys are CRAY

Airport thoughts

Off to Hong Kong to spend some time with my Mama and Brothers.

Non-stop party mode in the lead up. Christmas party the night before. No worries I think. I’ll just have some drinks and then not really sleep and start trying to turn my body clock around early (there is a 13 hour time difference.)

Great Idea Paris. But now I look like this:

 

I am 100% attractiveness. And the next 24 hours is going to see me in Chicago with a 5 hour layover, and then a middle seat in the middle row for my delightful 15 hour stint to Hongkers. I continue to win at being 24 and semi-grown up.

But sitting in the Toronto Pearson’s airport, awaiting this ordeal, I’m taking some time to reflect on 2012 and the year I have spent in Canada.

It has been a weird one. I went from an Admin job, to Camp in the summer, to an internship at a TV station (which has led to on air stuff) and a crappy minimum wage retail job. Through out the year, I have maintained a relationship with my great all Canadian guy, and spent a lot of time wondering WTH I am doing with my life, but kind of going with it a bit more. I am lucky that I have been in good health (as have my loved ones) and that my family has been happy and moving to their goals also.

I feel loved from every corner of the globe, where I am fortunate to know people. I am even more comfortable in Toronto than I was before, and it feels like home more and more (especially my little island of an apartment with my two great roomies and our Hedgehog).

Life is made up of the little things, and when you add them up, and you take a step back, you realize that the bigger picture you have been creating is bigger and brighter than you originally thought.

I land back in Canada on the 1st of January (if all goes according to plan) and I hope that 2013 throws some more challenges but also more great stuff my way. Even though I’m so tired my eyeballs are itchy, I’m feeling full of happiness and optimism for the year ahead.

XXX