Dreaming.

Seattle-Iceland-Faroe Islands-Denmark-Cologne-Budapest with C.

Budapest-Ulaanbatar.

Ulaanbatar pony trek with Mom
Ulaanbatar-Moscow via Trans-Siberan Railway (99.5 hours of chugga chugga choo choo) with Mom.

Home (via A-dam, London?)

May-July 2011. Amazing!

So, those punks on the beach I met a few months ago? They certainly did become a part of my life, especially B, who is suddenly one of my best friends and--if we get our act together--going to be my roommate in September along with his awesome girl T and maybe another one of B's friends. Plus his awesome pitbull.

Strangely, in a lot of ways we have very little in common, though we often balance each other out, but he's the kind of friend who can hear me say 'I'm so lonely but I can't be around people right now,' know exactly what I mean, and invite me over to just be around someone that loves me without needing to interact at all with him. It's a weird thing, but something I love. I don't have to be anything around them, and the more I feel it from them, the more I realise how sort of rare that is.

And partly--OK largely--because of them, and the people and places (and music!) they're introducing me to, Vancouver is, for the first time, OK. I'm maybe even enjoying it. Bizarre! So...I'm taking advantage of not feeling a burning desire to run away and staying here--moving in with my friends, and trying to get a little bit more school done. It's a bit of a race against time to get tuition and registration in place, but I'm hoping to do another independent design class as well as another anthro requirement or two. We shall see.

xx
D

Facebook and twitter are simultaneously hooped--site maintenance and sad whales, respectively. I find myself compulsed to update the world on this ridiculous state of affairs, so here we are. Oh dear.

I've been loving the Ataris a ridiculous amount recently (thanks to the beach boys for letting me know about them), especially Saddest Song and In This Diary, which have some amazing lyrics, and took half an hour to chill in a playground, swinging and singing recently. It was so much fun! Swinging is AT LEAST as much fun at 23 as it was at 3, and when you're belting out (badly) lyrics as great as these:

"Here in this diary,
I write you visions of my summer.
It was the best I ever had.
There were choruses and sing-alongs,
and that unspoken feeling
of knowing that right now is all that matters."

(In This Diary)

"Only two more days, until your birthday
Yesterday was mine
You'll be turning five
I know what it's like, growing up without your father in your life
So I pretend, I'm doing all I can
And I hope someday you'll find it in your heart

To understand
Why I'm not around
And forgive me for not being in your life"

(Saddest Song)

and

""We Are the Champions" playing out on the radio station
Everyone sing along with these anthems of our generation.
Cruisin' down Pacific Coast Highway,
Put the top down, crawl into the back seat.
Let's create anthems of our own tonight."

(Summer '79)

It's probably even better. Though a guy turned up with his dogs halfway through my private concert and, though I don't think he could hear me from where he was (for his sake, I REALLY hope not), he kept staring at me. I reckon he was jealous. I would have been.

xx
D

PS. Ataris in Vancouver August 1. I'll be there. can't wait for the epic!

I have more time on my hands these days since I can remember. The summer between grade 12 and York, probably. It's...weird. On the one hand, I love that I can go to the studio with the beach boys, or the beach, or out for coffee, or to a movie (SATC2 was every bit the amazing ridiculousness it was meant to be), or whatever, whenever...on the other hand, I hate being bored, and not being 110% booked up is a good way to become bored. Especially when the weather is shiiiite as it has been recently.

I've had more time to read and watch documentaries and stuff though recently, which has been nice! I recently saw No Impact Man, which is about a family of three in NYC who decide (well he decides and she goes along with it; the 2-yr-old doesn't really care) to live for a year without making a net negative impact on the environment. This includes 6 months of living without power, not using paper (including toilet paper), shopping for unwrapped food so as to not create any garbage, only using foot and pedal power...pretty intense and interesting. She works for Business Week and he's not a *total* hippy, so it was interesting to see them asking the questions around what we 'actually' need to use/consume/etc. Of course, they blogged about it all once he borrowed a solar panel to power his laptop (but not his fridge), this man has his priorties straight!

I also saw 'RiP: A remix Manifesto', which was almost as interesting for the fact that the director grew up on Gabriola of all places! It looks at the development of copyright and its current state, and how we need to move on to copyleft. Interestingly, it looks in pretty great detail at one of my favourite DJs, Girltalk, who samples and remixes dozens of songs into each track. To do it legally, he would have to pay some $284,000 per song to buy the licensing rights, even though he only uses a second or two of each track. Crazy. In contrast, the whole documentary is copyleft/CC and open to remixing. [film homepage]

Reading-wise, I finally decided to get to Siddartha, given to me by a dear friend before I left Japan, who told me that I was 'on a journey and needed to read it.' I know I'll be re-reading it soon, but I'm glad I did. There were some great things about loving and listening in there.

Continuing a strangely Indian theme, I'm also working my way through Shantaram right now, which is a 900+ page memoir-style novel about a semi-fictionalised decade in India. Written by ex criminal/drug dealer/arms dealer/prison escape artist/etc. etc., Gregory David Roberts, it's well worth the time. Apparently he's working on two other books to make it a trilogy and the movie rights have been bought, though there's no way a film could do the rich description of this novel justice, so I don't think I'd go see it. (Plus I think it would be at turns depressing, gruesome, scary, and stunningly gorgeous and I'm not sure I can handle all of that plus Johnny Depp all in one sitting). I have 650 pages, or roughly a week, to go, and I'm already mourning the end of this book. Here's hoping the sequels don't take the 13 years this one was rumored to take to write.

Happy reading!
D

[post 400!]

Today's topic: How I spent my summer vacation. Or: How Grampa and I turned a pigeon coop into a house.

One of those 'has potential' places TLC so loves to cover on Saturday afternoon specials.

It's defining feature was 14 years (and wheelbarrow loads) of crap. Which we hauled away to find a very structurally-sound place, luckily! Even some torn ligaments weren't enough to stop construction.

This was BY FAR the crappiest part of the whole reno. If you can avoid it, I highly suggest you NEVER insulate a ceiling. In the end, though, it was totally worth it!! I'll find some other pictures later, including some of the other end, which features a teeny tiny kitchenette and a little bitty desk.

Semester over. GPA helped. yay!! luckily my teacher loves mobiles, so that worked out rather nicely indeed. Huge project though. Besides the mobile (which is actually a giveaway self-promotional piece), there was a 20 page booklet, box, mailer, and small poster to do.

I'm in Starbucks, doing a bit of work and listening to the conversation beside me, where a woman is talking the ear off a poor guy about how her whole life changed when she started to ride her bike everywhere (good for her), and then another pivotal moment where some acquaintance invited her to a movie at an environmental film festival (not as a date, from what I can gather, but a shared interest in water conservation), and she goes.

"Well OF COURSE, this is WAY out of my comfort zone! I mean it was at 9 pm on a FRIDAY. I don't go out at night, never mind to movies across town."

I started to mentally scoff at the ridiculousness of that statement, as it wasn't like he invited her to a rave or something, but then I realised there are plenty of things I don't do either, like strike up conversations with interesting looking strangers or go out for drinks if someone I've just met randomly invites me. I'm far more likely to protect myself (from who knows what) and make up excuses not to go, no matter the situation.


So I'm glad I didn't last week, when I went to Kits Beach and took some photos. Of the sunset, the logs, the washed-up boats, and a couple of guys having a couple of drinks and playing their guitars. Sure, I snarkily tweeted about them on my phone along the lines of: "stoners, beer, and indie music, ahh kits beach." But then one of them came up to me and asked me to email him my photos, and then they invited me out for dinner across the street, and I went. And had a great time. Until nearly 3am. And now I have two friends that I've only met once but feel like will be a part of my life for awhile, if only for lazy afternoons spent on the beach this summer (another thing I don't usually partake in, for who knows what lame reason).

There's no particular point to this, except that I guess it's kind of cool to expand your horizons, in whatever little way. Movies at 9pm, impromptu, incredibly emotional jam sessions in parking lots, moving away. Whatever.

Back to work.
xx
D

I got my camera! I am very much in love but have been far too busy to take any pictures that don't involve Elliot in bed at midnight. Hopefully soooon!

In the meantime, I've been working on a school project to redesign a newsletter into a magazine. I'm really enjoying it (this whole course, actually), though I find I'm constantly behind it in. I think what happens is that I decide to do all of the stuff I don't like first, because it feels like too much of a treat to be doing design, and then it's suddenly a week (or a weekend) away from being due! And this is a 6cr. 400-level course, so good marks would be nice in order to help out my poor GPA a bit!

Anyway, all that to ramble that it's been really interesting to see just how DIFFERENT every page of a magazine is. BAB is so set on a template that I'm totally used to that, and the other magazines I read regularly/semi-regularly (WIRED, Esquire, Dwell, print, Communication Arts, T+L, Conde Naste, etc.,) are all, I'm finding, actually very unique page to page. It's been an interesting challenge to work out what makes a magazine hold together when it's so different. Wired has a general style around their design (I do love them!), and used many illustrations in a similar vein, so that helps there. But some (many) use a variety of typefaces, two/three/four column grid layouts, colours, and who knows what else over the course of the mag. Granted most have 65+ pages to work with (compared to my 16), which might help? They certainly get more space! I'm jealous of the 5 pages of contents/masthead many seem to have. I'm giving myself 1 and a quarter, with the quarter already feeling a bit cheeky.

I do love magazines, though! It's been a challenge not to read every single one I've picked up for inspiration over the last several days.

Back to it...
D

I'm blaming the roughly 150F my room reached last night before I realised there was a heat vent above my bed, the landlords were cranking the central heating, and that for someone who keeps the heat on the 'don't freeze the pipes/3C setting' it was basically a desert.

But as I was falling asleep I had a minor 'wtf am I thinking?' panic attack regarding my trip. I think it had something to do with reading a 'how to live in Pakistan blog' full of all sorts of warnings just before bed (not that Pakistan is on my to-do list), and deciding at 4am in that weird semi-sleep state, that I was going to get raped and pillaged, not make any friends, get bored (!?), and all sorts of things while away. Even as I was falling back asleep, I knew I wouldn't feel the same in the morning--and I didn't--but I anticipate a fair few more 'uhhhh WHAT am I doing?!' moments between now and my ETD of September 10.

In other news, I sold a camera lens today--for my asking price :)--and between that, a bit of an unexpected check (gotta love them!), and the toonies I've been saving, I can *almost* buy a new camera! Hopefully I can trade in or sell my old body for the difference and get a new one soon. Like next weekend? Ohhh tempted!

I'm going to be getting a micro 4:3 camera. They're a new type of camera that fits somewhere between the dSLRs (great, but big, heavy, and bulky) and compact digital cameras (good for snapshots, can't interchange lenses, no real control, limited zoom). They also shoot HD. They're still relatively new, so there are only two major models--one from Olympus that came out in early '09 and one from Panasonic/Lumix (not sure when this one hit the market).

I'm leaning towards the Olympus with the 14-42mm kit lens (think 28-84mm) for a few reasons--it's cheaper, about $400 so, than the GF! and for me, the only difference that is a difference is the lack of a built-in flash for the Olympus (I know, right?) That said, I was thinking about it today, and I'm reticent to use my flash as it is--it's always a distraction/annoyance somewhere like a museum, you don't need them outside in anything approaching decent light (and a fill flash isn't going to fix a big lack of light on something far away anyway), you can't use them at sporting events, they're not useful at concerts, etc. I end up turning off the flash ALL THE TIME. It's not like I'm going to be setting up a studio shot that often, either, and there are other cameras in the house I could borrow for that if needs be. The one time I can see using a built-in fill flash--at a party/dinner party/club, I'd still probably have my pocket Olympus on me 80% of the time instead, since if that camera gets beer splashed on it or is broken or stolen it's a massive annoyance more than a $700 loss.

You can also buy an external flash for about $150, which still means your net savings isn't negligible.

It also has a WAY more awesome design. I'm in love with the retro look (there's a silver and black body, as opposed to the one in the link above, that I'd be getting).

It's pretty hard--there's no clear winner I don't think. I'd love to be patient enough to wait a year or so and see what emerges as the leader, but...!

mata ne!

d

I seem to have itchy feet again. Travelling feet. Drop out of school, buy a ticket to Iceland, and see what happens feet. So that's what I'm going to do--I hope--come September. It's exciting and terrifying, and at the same time a huge list of things to do, and nothing at all (buy a ticket and go, what could be easier/harder?)

The weird thing about me is that I've always hated change with a passion (as any good Capricorn should) yet I'm never satisfied with staying put. In 23 years I've gone to 2 or 3 preschools, french immersion, 2 different montessori schools, private elementary and high school, home schooled (twice), unschooled (briefly), checked out an alternative high school, graduated from public high school, and then promptly went to three universities in 4 years of school. I've lived in eight cities in three countries, some of them more than once, and tomorrow I move into my 23rd place of residence in as many years. Not exactly the model of stability!

Currently, I'm living in Vancouver, spending weekends in Victoria, and working in Japan. Supposedly, I'm finishing my degree at SFU, but it's really not doing it for me at the moment. I'm spending a relatively large amount of money to go to classes that aren't interesting me, and with no real motivation to finish. I don't feel like I'm getting smarter by going to school, and with a job that I love now, no plans to have kids or settle down any time soon, and a laundry list of places I'd love to see, it seems a bit ridiculous to keep on keeping on, just because I'm "supposed to."

So with a great Herculean effort I'm forgetting everything I ever learned at GNS about being a successful human being, applying for a British passport, and in May, if things go according to plan, buying a one-way ticket to Iceland.

The plan, so-far, is to go after Saanich Fair (priorities, priorities!) and fly one-way from Seattle to Iceland to join a two-week volunteer trip, spending a week in Reykjavik and a week around the rest of the country, photographing and plotting the GPS coordinates of ocean debris too large to be removed by humans alone. On September 29th, I'll be getting on a ferry to Denmark (via the Faeroes) and then...I have no idea! Probably figure out a way to Holland to hang out with Hoka for a bit, and then hopefully volunteering at the World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam at the end of October. After that, I really have no idea.

Christmas comes up pretty soon after that, which is a bit of a wrench in it as I CAN NOT/WILL NOT miss Xmas with my mum and gramps. Maybe I can convince them to come to Europe for Christmas there!

I'm planning to keep my job, as I have the BEST BOSS EVER, who supports me completely in running away from school and jumping in with two feet to an adventure of random detail. I could potentially live off that, but probably not too easily, if I also want to be travelling and whatnot, so I'm hoping to do some www.workaway.info placements, pick up shifts in youth hostels, or even pull pints. Work off half my board on average, or something like that. Who knows? Half my family doesn't, haha.

Anyway, back to work now, but good to be blogging about an adventure again.

xx

D

Open publication - Free publishing - More women

Open publication - Free publishing - More women

Open publication - Free publishing - More boudoir

Open publication - Free publishing - More women

Most fantastically pompous ad ever:

"Aesthete, bibliophile, castle-builder, chronicler, collector, cosmopolite, epicure, optimistic pessimist, pacifist, pedant, philomath, not-quite-polyglot but contemplating fixing that. Incorrigible dreamer. Denizen of museums, art-house cinemas, libraries, concert halls, universities, cities of exceptional grandeur and antiquity, prodigious landscapes of uncommon splendor. Indefatigably curious, active cultivator of mind and body. Impelled by overwhelming internal compulsions: to muse abundantly, to render other-worldly imaginations, to voyage and wander hither and yon. Engrossed in the study of sciences, languages, history, philosophy, and the arts. Repelled by any bondslave of dogmas, superstition, religion, material anxiety, resignation or despair. Reckless, sometimes careless, never uncaring. Disciple of a crowded pantheon: exempli gratia, JS Bach, D Shostakovich, W Furtwängler, T Beecham, S Lem, L Tolstoy, A Kurosawa, I Bergman, A Tarkovksy, L Bunuel, B Keaton, G Marx, K Hamsun, T Bernhard, P O'Brian, A Damasio, D Dennett, C Darwin, M Holub, W Shakespeare, H Melville, A Akhmatova, TE Lawrence, M de Montaigne, K Issa, H Zinn, P Casals. Afflicted by Unamuno's sentimiento tragico de la vida. Dressed in order not to stand out in the Boulevard St-Michel or the Staré Mesto. Inclined to subject all things in life to a process of aesthetic refinement: dress, cuisine, speech, deportment, and every inhabited space, among others. Most fond of the light that arrives shortly after dawn and in the hours before dusk, when shadows are long. Enchanted by mysteries. Invigorated by rains."

Hey, I've had over 10,000 hits. That's pretty cool, especially given all of the ignoring of this blog I've done over this past year or year-and-a-half!

Recently, Jordon, Yo-chan, their friend Ed, and potentially some others have come together on flickr. Each day, we have to upload a picture of something that makes us happy. We started on March 1, so it's been about eight photos each so far. You can see what makes us tick here. My poor camera phone doesn't live up to the iphone-iness of the others, but so far I can't find anyone who wants to take over an iphone in August, so I'm waiting till I move home. That's how I'm bribing myself to go back. (and seeing you all, of course). Anyway...back to the topic. Finding things that make you happy when work is 8-16 hours of unfortunate-ness these days (not BAB, other work), is a challenge. I've noticed that many of my posts revolve around food. Well, what can you say, you all know me. Check out the ahmazing veggie lasagne though. That was the weekend's project (along with white/chocolate chunk cookies, which, incidentally, also made the official happy list). The lasagne involved roasted red and green peppers, onions, shallots, zucchinis, egg plant, and probably some other stuff, plus fresh tomatoes in the sauce, and lots of other yummy stuff--cheese, eggs, etc. Yum :)

I'm hoping to make a carrot cake tomorrow to complete a week of living with an oven and taking full advantage of that. (Peter and Hitomi are in Hawaii these days so I'm house sitting until thursday).

Speaking of Thursday, this weekend I should have plenty of things to make the happy list--Amy and I are flying to Hokkaido to go to Niseko to go snowboarding for a couple of days. Here's hoping I don't break anything! Niseko should be interesting--there are loads of Aussies up there and from all reports it feels very foreign. Yay accents!

School starts again in a couple of weeks (oh god) which is stressful beyond belief. I barely have time to cook twice a week or run that much (all about the small, achievable goals these days), nevermind go to school full time. The only good thing is that I'm only going to be taking the same level of Japanese as I did last semester. That is a bit of a cop out but on the other hand, hopefully I won't be as stressed and I'll actually better learn some of the content. I'm studying as much as I can (or, well, like an hour a week) these days and I've forgotten sooo much. It sucks!

Anyway, not much of a report, but I need to get back to work, of course.

oxo
d

A random collection of happenings from between October and February (oy how the overzealous bloggers have fallen!)

1. I took on way, way too much. Two magazines and full time school, and too-hard Japanese, and a long commute=crappy. However, I have fab friends who either cooked for me, distracted me, studied with me, taught me how to conjugate adjectives, or spirited me away to America for concentrated work sessions with Chili's or cheap movies or cookies to look forward to. A big big hug to Jac, Hoka, and Amy!

2. Weekender got sold, and completely revamped. Marie moved back to the UK to start the next stage of her life, and Ulara came on as editor. Lots and lots and lots of changes. We all know how much I love change. In January, we had a party @ SDLX.

3. I officially don't know what I would do without Amy. (())

4. I was Juno for Halloween. Meanwhile, Jac was an '80s fitness instructor, rocking my awesome vaulting spandies, and Hoka was (an increasingly convincing as the night went on) Lily Allen. Highlights included a sock in Hoka's hair, a large pillow up my shirt, and people giving me their seat on the train as I looked pregnant enough. Most people didn't know the movie and seemed to mostly think I was just preggers. However, I will def. be re-using this costume in N. America so I can say things like 'hang on, i'm on my hamburger phone' and 'honest to blog?' and people will know what I mean.

5. Jac, Hoka, Hoka's friend Nadine, Jensen, and I headed to Kyoto for a weekend after school finished. It was lots of fun and we stayed in a great hostel that was convenient and cheap. We did the touristy things--Gion (geisha stalking!!!), the golden temple, a couple of castles, etc. As well as karaoke (where I fell fast asleep!). We did the trip the uni way. Ie: cheap and took 8 hours to get there on local (or rapid local) trains. Unfortunately, Jac and I (who were coming back up alone) managed to miss our first train from Kyoto on the way back, causing a chain reaction leading to sleeping in a station somewhere outside Atami and vaguely lying our way back through the ticket gates in Tokyo as technically we had one-day tickets but weren't about to pay for the trip that we didn't get to use the day before. Good times. We discovered that there are many freight trains at night, 1/2 a granola bar goes a long way, and corn soup in a can isn't so bad.

6. I went home for Christmas, which was great! There was tons of snow, my first real white Christmas, a proper break, and a new cousin (Zoe). It was fairly quiet as Williams family Christmases go, but so nice to be back and see everyone. And have Tim Hortons.

7. I took my mom to (bible) horse camp for Christmas. We went for 4 days after boxing day. It was quite the experience. It all started when I got the plague (due, no doubt, to my burning loins getting over worked [though I would debate that point at the moment, sadly]) and literally couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. Unfortunate when the camp schedule ran full-on from 7am-after midnight (on New Years). Despite being ridick sick and freeezing in the snow while outside, it was lots of fun with trail riding, vaulting (in an ice rink, basically), archery, ping pong, hanging out with Julie/perspy, mounted games, an awesome private lesson, etc. We'll have to go back!

8. Helen came to visit. Love! So good to see her looking soooo happy :)

9. Amy and Zach and I went to the opening of ZED, Cirque's permanent show in Maihama/Disney. It was amazing!!! After the show, I went to the opening party in Shin Kiba. Also loads of fun! I want to join the circus!

9a) I got circus lessons for Christmas!

10) Amy and I got to go to Corteo, Cirque's traveling show in Yoyogi Koen. I got to live out a dream and go backstage, conduct interviews, and eat in the artist caf. I'm not sure who I would chose to interview over Cirque...Maybe Coldplay but it would be close. I was fairly close to hyperventiliation, but throughouly enjoyed myself and the show. I want to join the circus!

11) In an effort to do something (anything) involving mats and chalk, I seem to have taken up bouldering. I've only gone twice, but so far its been lots of fun, if frustrating when I can't finish the pink (kiddy) routes, and painful...my forearms are seriously protesting! However, its lots of fun and as a bonus I'm sure the arm workout will help my mounts in vaulting and the rough grippy things will suitably abuse my hands so I don't rip so much when I finally get back into gymnastics. Good things all around.

12. I moved today. Again. All the girls moved today, all the boys move tomorrow. This is pretty communal-style dorm living, which will take some getting used to. I'd so far managed to avoid the '21 girls and 4 shower stalls in the basement when the rooms are on the 3rd floor' thing, but we'll see how this goes. On the major plus side, no more curfew, and we live in civilisation again. In a ku! in a good ku at that (setagaya). we're near jiyugaoka and ookayama, which puts me only one train away from work (instead of three) and a 10 minute walk to a proper shotengai. yay! Pics to come cos the cable is at work. boo!

AFAIK, this is house number 17 or so for me, but I'm kind of losing track (is this right, anyone?). (Saltspring, Victoria, Johnathon Harbor, Myrtle Beach, Ft. Lauderdale x2, Chaucer, Myrtle, Sidney, Hampshire, Dowler, Wellsview, York, Oyama-cho, Vancouver, Higashi-Kanagawa, and now Setagaya). This was def. the easiest move, as though I'd packed about 1/2 my stuff, the moving company packed/unpacked everything else for us, and loaded/unloaded the truck, etc. No lifting of boxes or anything. V. easy!

However, a long day so def. time for bed...back to work tomorrow. meh.
xo
d

In my last, very very long ago post (maybe I can do some kind of highlights post or something to recap in a list form...?) I mentioned how I was just starting sumi-e class and afterwards we were going to have 'an exhibition of sorts' well here it is--second floor of the shokudou (caf)--and and exhibition by everyone in the two classes. In the picture above, on the very left is ms. hoka's super-cute penguin, that ended up looking very suica-ish :)
This is my peacock. The kanji for peacock is 'many colors bird' and I stamped the first half of it onto the piece. (Basically: many colors)
Ms. Jac's Tiny Dancer. I love the tutu/skirt :)