giving it up for free

volunteering is not something i can say i am usually all that enticed by, but since i have found myself with more than the average amount of free time on my hands i decided it might be a good idea to invest a few hours exploring my various interests through the offering of my free labor. so this past friday i was posted at toronto's interior design show at the convention centre.

i spent 4 hours standing at the top of the elevator forcing these brightly colored reusable bags upon every person who arrived. i didnt have a problem with the lack of brain capacity the job entailed. what i did have a problem with was that the bags had an odor that was a mix between permanent markers and a fatal toxic explosion, i swear i got high off the fumes. all in a good days work.

i wandered around the show afterwards and enjoyed the creativity that our great city has to offer. some things i liked more than others...im not into the uber modern look. its too cold. a home needs to be cozy, lived in not sterile and boring like some lysol ad.

i did love the liana chair because of its cool caribbean vibe and the montauk sofa which are some of the comfiest couches i have ever rested on. they are also being produced in an environmentally sustainable way which is always awesome. there was a lot of drift wood pieces, standard muskoka and northernly designers which i totally back.

after this experience i felt a little more charged. inspired through the energy and talent of others i decided to make an executive decision and try my hand in the fashion industry.

i know its every girls dream but what if its actually my reality. i know i can do it. i have drive and i most certainly am persistent. so heres to a new chapter in life, perhaps a more chic one.

oh, and dont worry, i havent given up on volunteering so quickly! there will be much more of it in my improvised future.

lazy sumday

trekked down to china town this afternoon to fill my belly with a variety of dumplings, steamed dishes and deep fried delicacies. nothing could be more enjoyable than the hours spent sipping tea, feasting on an innumerable assortment of chinese parcels of deliciousness and having some good laughs with great company.

i am generally more inclined to indulge in a brunch of eggs the morning after a wild night out but after today i maybe open to taking on a new tradition. although i am still a dim sum novice im trying to learn the names so that maybe one day i will be the official orderer. just throwing around words like har gau or shu mai would make me feel so legit.

turns out that dim sum when translated means, 'to touch your heart'. how perfect is that. amazing food, dispensed via cart system with the efficiency of a hybrid car. what could be better? it really has found a place in my heart and my daily food cravings.

my brain has turned to mush

along the lines of how i felt after 7 hours of class today. i am totally ready for this weekend and about 5 vodka sodas...make them doubles please.

shout outs to my brother, hbd.

math is not my forte

so in my effort to find myself and become focused in an area that perhaps could bring me a level of enjoyment i enrolled in a continuing education course at george brown with my brother. construction estimating 1. this is not a joke.

i have spent the past three saturdays in a room filled with 84 other students who know i dont really belong in the classroom. i try to blend in but there are certain factors that impede on my doing so.

1. i am not a man. out of the 85 students in the class there are maybe 5 other women, one being the teacher.
2. i am a little, blonde, girl. i am aware that this is just an increasingly descriptive version of my first point but i feel it needs to be emphasized. i dont have much in common with the burly men who wear plaid (with a lack of knowledge that it is currently a la mode), drive pick-up trucks and know how to handle a jackhammer. it would be different if i were some kind of butch chick who threw shot-put and hacked butts but alas i am not this type of lady.
3. and lastly, i look completely perplexed 90% of the time. i havent studied math since first year and it wasnt even proper math, it was statistics. looking at a blueprint is like looking at an x-ray of your teeth at the dentist. you kind of understand what its trying to be but you cant really read between the lines, or shading...

moving on. tomorrow is my midterm.

surprisingly enough i am not shitting my pants. its multiple choice which means that one of four options is correct, so if i have to guess a few my chances are better than usual. to me having a 25% chance of being right is wayyy better then when you get to an essay question thats worth 30% of your final exam and you dont have a clue what its even referring to. thats what i like to call winging it.

this math thing should be easy as pi(e).

todays the day

its taken me 4 months to write this. i dont know why really, everyones doing it...blogging that is. but to me the idea of shooting my overly honest opinions and countless grammatical errors into cyberspace was a bit daunting.

i had the idea of starting a blog when i first took off to london this past october. i thought 'wouldnt it be lovely to write about my trip, lack of focus and general confusion with life and my impending future'. i dont know if its going to be lovely per se, but last night as i got into bed i thought to myself, i finally know what im going to write. finallllly.

six years ago i stood on the stage of massey hall alongside 56 other bright eyed ladies, dressed all in white, holding a dozen red roses, ready to graduate from our little all girls high school. from there i moved to university where everything was shiny and new. this past may i graduated with an honors ba in global studies. i wore my regalia with pride and took the standard photo shoot throwing my mortarboard into the air as a sign of my achievement.

i am 23 years old. i have lived in three different cities, travelled to well over a dozen countries, completed university and after all these fantastic life experiences the most recent employer i have on my resume is, jack astors bar and grill.

im not saying that i have anything against being a waitress. i have made all the money i have ever needed to travel and live working the late night shifts and sweet talking old men. i just think that after countless hours of greater education, how is it that i have fallen into this cycle of working as an under appreciated service industry grunt. this is finally going to end.

my moto for the greater majority of my life has been, 'i do what i want'. this will probably stick around but now it will coincide with my new goal, to pursue a path that i actually find interesting. 2011 is a year made for changes.

today i read a quote by thomas edison that i loved. he said 'if we all did the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves.' im ready to be electrified.