Creative Central

As expected, the Christmas break is flying by. I can't believe it's just a week till Christmas. I, however, am not as stressed about that fact as my parents are. I imagine this weekend will be spent writing cards and delivering presents. I designed and wrote a few Christmas cards myself this year. I've been working on a faux calligraphy, which is featured heavily throughout the cards. The cards are just done with some fine tip markers, as apposed to with crafting supplies, but I really like how they turned out. But since I've been home and have access to my scrapbooking supplies, I've made some other cards that are a little more intricate. I think making cards is going to be my new hobby. Ever since I had my new years resolution to write a letter and deliver it through snail mail every week, I've been a fan of sending snail mail (not every week though). Now I'm just adding making the cards to that. Although stationary areas in stores are still my weak spot.
The other thing I've been occupying my time with is wrapping Christmas gifts. I try and up my game each year. This year every gift has ribbon and a bow. I also try and wrap parts of gifts individually, because why open one gift when you can open 3? I made a gift basket of which I'm very pleased with. 
The 2016 gingerbread creation has been designed (here's a sneak peak: it's not a house). I'm going to make it next week, show it off for a couple days to the relatives, and then it can be consumed. I may have designed a bigger creation that I thought, but we'll see how it turns out. It's never exactly the size it's meant to be.
I went through my photos from when I was abroad and have selected a highlight reel to print off and hopefully scrapbook. It still ended up being over 70 photos. But I guess considering I took over 2000, that's not bad.
And in case you hadn't noticed the trend of crafty and creative things, the other project occupying my time is a t-shirt quilt I'm doing for a friend. It's coming along nicely, although there was a bit of a pause while I waited for the last two shirts to arrive. I'm hoping that I can have it finished within the next week. The deadline is unofficially when I go back to Stratford, so that I can give my friend the quilt the next time I see her. If I happen to have time during the craze of the week surrounding Christmas, I'll start working on another quilt that I said I would do for a family friend. Its been about 5 years, so I figured I should probably get going on that. I just wish that I had room to sew at my apartment. I can't wait till I retire and have unlimited time to do crafty things.

Cooper District

Today GBDA X01 officially ended. After 8 weeks, a group of 20 of us came up with a proposal for the Cooper Site behind the campus. We have a website, video, branding, physical models and blueprints (which I've mentioned before), and perhaps my favourite, a book, to represent what we are now calling the Cooper District. We were assembling the books today. It's a accordion style book, with actual front and back covers. They're obviously handmade, but I think they turned out really well. Each one is just a tad unique, and that goes along well with the branding we came up with - rustic and a bit edgy. I wasn't a part of designing the book, but a couple of pictures I took as well as the blueprints made it into the book. So that's my little claim to fame on that aspect of the project. If I can find the motivation to photograph the book properly, I'd like to add it to my portfolio. I really enjoyed the whole thing and I'm happy to be able to say that this is something I did because I wanted to, not because I needed to for a mark or school. I'm really looking forward to what we do next term.

Speaking of making the book, we were using bone folding tools to crease and fold the pages, and I now want one for myself. It would be really helpful for origami folding.
In other news, last night the SSC had their last event of the term, a holiday dessert potluck. We had 10 people, which was just about perfect for the space (and chairs) we have. There was lots of delicious dessert, one of my favourites being peanut butter and corn flake munchies. They were very good and I ate (too) many. We built the gingerbread house without any structural difficulties and one guest even made a cat out of candy. I ate the chimney today and the gingerbread is rock hard. I'm wondering if this kit might be leftover from last year? Or maybe I'm just so used to the softer homemade ginger bread that this is a rude reminder of what I used to enjoy eating as a child.

Let it Be Christmas Already

Here I am again, not as stressed as everyone else. I'm just about done my ePortfolio, just waiting to hear back from some people for feedback. You can take a look too if you like: heatherwoo.com.
The SSC will be hosting another potluck on Thursday, this one is a dessert potluck. I'm very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, two of my closer friends won't be around to come, but we had to go with the date that worked for the most people overall. I bought a gingerbread house for people to decorate, since that was something that people liked last year when it happened on campus (although I died a little inside, since I haven't bought/used a store bought gingerbread house in 4 years). Right now it looks like we're going to have a good turn out. It's a fine line though. Obviously we want as many people to come as possible, but we also don't have a ton of space in our apartment. And we can't really use our 'sunroom' off the back this time because it is not insulated. So we'll see how it goes. Might have to do some rearranging of the furniture.
Thanks to Black Friday and the magic of the internet, I've completed all of my Christmas shopping except for one gift. This is definitely a record for me, having it done so early. My mom messages me on a semi-regular basis saying "Another package arrived today," since I'm having them sent to London. Although I think they've all arrived by now. I am very excited to wrap the gifts. I love gift wrapping. (If you want me to come over and wrap your gifts for you, I'd love to. Seriously).
Not a whole lot else going on. I only have one more week of classes, and then I'm free! I've been making Christmas cards and I have to say I'm quite happy with how they are turning out. I'm really looking forward to being at home over December. I can't wait to do Christmas-y things. I'm also excited to get back into sewing.
I made dinner tonight for Marissa and Michelle. I made dill meatballs, which is one of my favourite meals. I made it for them at some point last year, and they both really enjoyed it as well. So now I try and invite them over to eat with me whenever I have it. Michelle and I played Mario Kart after. It was fun to just hang out with her for a while; she's often very busy and is never around on the weekends.

RedonDONE

I am often significantly less stressed the 48hrs leading up to a due date than my peers. Most of the time, this is because I complete my work before hand and apparently everyone I go to school with is an expert procrastinator. However, I thought this weekend might be different. We're on the third and final iteration of our Redondo prototype project (due on Monday), and my group was struggling to solidify our idea. This meant I couldn't start working on my part of the write up ahead of time. Finally, on Thursday we came to an agreement only because we argued that we literally didn't have anymore time to discuss ideas, and had to start working on the write-up and physical prototype. Filip and I were assigned the physical prototype because we were going to be the only ones in Stratford over the weekend. Filip didn't seem too happy about having the physical prototype, but I would take crafting over writing any day. Over the past two days, it took us 8 hours to complete the prototype out of cardboard, and that was on top of 2 hours the group had spent together building the shell of the Redondo. We went through 3 cans of spray paint trying to make this thing look half decent. But on the plus side, I am now done my contribution to the project, and thus have the weekend to myself. Which is where I started this narrative. Still done my work ahead of time :)

My other task for the weekend is 3D printing a bunch of mini pieces of furniture. This is for the GBDA X project, where we're redesigning the Cooper Site. As a part of the 3D model team, I created a blueprint of the building that will eventually printed at 24"x62". The mini furniture pieces will sit on this blueprint. The group became a bit pressed for time because the book/brand team wants pictures of the miniatures for their book. So we suddenly needed our models finished earlier than anticipated. I took one for the team and offered to print them over the weekend. It will be cutting it close. I started one today (a desk and bed) and it's going to take 9hrs to print. I'm just hoping that everything goes smoothly, because I left after about an hour. I will find out tomorrow, fingers crossed. 

Other than hoping the 3D printer doesn't break down from continuous operation over the next 48hrs, I don't have anything going on this weekend. All of the M&Ms are away for the weekend. I made chocolate chip cookies this evening. I used to bake because I wanted baked goods. Now I bake to occupy time, and have the added bonus of getting baked goods out of it. I finished The Crown on Netflix today. I really enjoyed it and hope they continue to make episodes (there's some controversy as to whether there will be another season due to comments from the Royal Family). Might do some reading, since I haven't done that in a while. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the weather is going to be great. Although today it was lovely. I was walking around in a t-shirt. 

Another Weekend Gone

This weekend was incredibly lazy, interspersed with moments of activity. I baked some cupcakes, which I had intended to send some home with my family when they came up on Saturday, but found out that they had made cupcakes themselves as well. So I have all the cupcakes now. I'll probably take them into school tomorrow. I've been doing a lot of baking and giving it away recently. Not necessarily because I set out to be generous, but because I'm bored, so I bake. And then I have tons of baked goods that I can't consume on my own, so I give them away. Rice Krispies have been made multiple times already this year.
As I mentioned before, my family (minus my dad) came up to Stratford on Saturday to see a showing of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was well done; I especially liked how they did Aslan. The legs had a very realistic movement, which I appreciated.

While at the theatre, I ran into the Dyck family, which is the family I lived with over the summer. Boy was I surprised to see them. I ended up hanging out with them after the show and getting dinner with them. We went to about 6 restaurants before giving up and getting Wendy's. A rookie mistake: if you want to eat a meal immediately before or after a show in Stratford, you need to have a reservation. Even Swiss Chalet didn't have room for us. 

This morning a group of us when to an arts and crafts show at the Rotary Complex. It took us about 40mins to walk there because it's way out on the edge of Stratford. It was fun to go though. There was over 100 vendors. There was a raffle to win this massive gingerbread house. It was like the ones you see on TV in the competitions. My favourite part was that they had left the back corner open so you could see inside the house, where they had done the entire interior as well, complete with mini gingerbread people. I was freaking out over it, and somebody from the Stratford Gazette asked if they could use my picture. I said yes, obviously, so now I'll have to keep an eye out for my picture in the paper. I managed to get some things, including a butter alternative that is primarily composed of garlic. It's basically garlic butter but healthier. I'm going to start making myself garlic bread all the time. And might even put it on my sandwiches. We decided to get a cab back, since we didn't fancy walking all the way back. 

I had trouble falling asleep last night, so spent the afternoon in bed lounging around. I watched an episode of The Crown on Netflix. It's about Queen Elizabeth II, starting with her marriage to Prince Philip. I'm loving this series. And it's also surprisingly accurate in terms of what actually happened. I've been doing lots of research into the Royal Family because of it. I'm also starting to manage wrapping my head around the Royal Family tree. I've tried to do that before, and struggled. It's basically a history lesson that's also entertaining. 

This evening I went out skating again, and set a new record with my Misfit (and officially this time, since there was no time change nonsense). 2030 points :D The skate costs $5, which is a bit much to go skating for an hour and a half, but I'm calling it an investment in my health, since the Wii Fit, while motivating, I'm not exactly sure can be called a 'workout'. 

In other news, I'm counting down the days till the term is done. Not even particularly because I'm desperate for school to be over, but because I have so many ideas planned for what I can do during my break. I'm especially excited to be able to sew again. I'm going to try and pump out two quilts in one month, which I've never done before. Heck, I haven't done one quilt in a month before. And of course, Christmas baking. Big plans :)

QOTD

371. Have you ever looked down on someone because you thought your religious views were superior?

Not knowingly, although I'm sure I've done it subconsciously. I know that when people mention that they don't believe in God that I make note of it and generally try and steer conversation away from religion, but I don't look down on them. 

BFFLAATs Take TO: Take 4

The yearly tradition of me going to visit Emily (and now Alison) in Toronto for a weekend continues. I was able to stay for a little longer this year because I don't have school on Fridays. I arrived Thursday evening and we went to see Mariah Carey perform at the unveiling of The Bay holiday windows. There was a large crowd filling the street and we weren't sure where Mariah would be performing. We did manage to eventually worm our way further into the crowd, but we still couldn't see a stage. Mariah eventually came on stage after the Mayor of Toronto and CEO of Hudson's Bay Company spoke for a few minutes. We couldn't see her at all, but there was a screen that was projecting the whole thing. I did see her at one point when I jumped above the rest of the crowd and I caught a glimpse of her in her predictably red dress. Add Mariah Carey to the list of famous people I've seen with my own eyes.

On Friday we went to Snakes and Lattes Board Game Cafe. It took us a while to walk there, but it was worth it. They have so many different games. We played one called Sushi Go Party, which once we got the hang of it, was a lot of fun. It's a card based game by Gamewright, whose games I've played before and enjoyed. We played a number of games and ended up staying at the cafe for the whole afternoon. We headed home and made dinner (pasta with a rose meat sauce - very delicious) with our friend Justine. It was really good to be able to see her again.
Saturday morning I took on the role of model for Emily's roommate, Nicola. She was doing a photography assignment on lighting and needed a model, so I was assigned to the role. It was a lot of fun, and also something I'm not keen to do again. It feels great to have your photo taken and to have the fancy lights and reflectors, but staying in the same pose for an hour at a time or trying to recreate a pose multiple times get tiring. For one position, I was leaning all of my weight on my crossed leg and I promptly lost all feeling in my lower leg. I could touch my foot and I didn't feel anything. When we were done it took me 5mins to try and get feeling back in my foot again. I can't wait to see the photos though. I'm sure Nicola made me look much better than I usually do.
After the photoshoot was done, we headed to a cafe that made #freakshakes, which are these milkshakes that have entire desserts perched on top of them. I got a surprise version, which came with a chocolate milkshake topped with Nutella, whip cream, a mini cupcake, two powdered donuts and lots of sprinkles. They also offered a version which came with a full size donut and a fudgsicle on top. On the way to the cafe we stopped in this store that has a bunch of random props everywhere, including these absolutely massive picture frames. It was a really neat store to look around in.

For dinner we went to a pub type restaurant across from the movie theatre, where we each got poutine. Alison got a popcorn chicken poutine, Emily got a smoked brisket poutine, and I got the poutine sampler which came with the standard poutine, the popcorn chicken poutine, and a pulled pork poutine. It was delicious.
Of course, the tradition of the visit to Toronto is to see the next Hunger Games movie. Unfortunately those are finished now, so we found another movie with a November premiere date that we all wanted to see. Thus, after we finished dinner we crossed the road to the theatre to see Doctor Strange. It was a really good movie, and pretty different from other Marvel movies. But they still managed to tie it into the MCU. And I'm very happy to hear that Doctor Strange will be making appearances in future Marvel movies.
I had to leave fairly early on Sunday morning to come back to Stratford, so Emily made pancakes for breakfast and I was off. I got a ride with my friend Mara, so the ride was much more enjoyable than riding public transit. I ended up going skating at one of the Stratford arenas in the evening with a couple of guys from GBDA. It cost $5 which might be a bit much for skating, but it was enjoyable. I'm not quite at the level of skating as the guys I was skating with (they both play hockey), so at the beginning we were spread out on the rink. After a while we were starting to tire, so we just started doing laps together and chatting. There were only 6 other people on the ice, so there was lots of space. It was an adults only skate as well, so there wasn't any kids which was nice. It was good exercise. I set a new record on my Misfit (fitness tracker). The way the misfit works is you get points based on how much you move. It's approximately one point for 100 steps, but if you're doing something more intense than walking, you get more points. Unfortunately, I think some things got mixed up with the time change, so things aren't registering correctly. But I reached my daily goal of 600 points with just the skating.
A very busy and enjoyable weekend!

219,000

This morning, my family went to Forest City Community Church. I don't think any of us had been before, but Alison had gone to the youth group there for a bit during high school. The one thing that really stood out to me from the service was when the pastor talked about 'sin counters'. Obviously these don't exist, but he made the following point: let's say that we sin 10 times a day. That's a generous number, but we'll be nice. That means 3650 sins a year. 36500 sins a decade. Now lets say you live to be 70. We'll take off the first 10 years of your life because you aren't really aware of things quite yet. That leaves you with 219,000. When you die, you'll be standing before Jesus and God with 219,000 sins. And that just hit me a bit. Thankfully, God doesn't keep record of that. But the idea of sinning so much (and 219,000 is a generous number) got me.

Black Mirror

It has been a very slow, motivation-lacking weekend. Luckily, there wasn't much that I needed to get done. That being said, I'm not a fan of having unproductive days. I like to be able to say that I did something. Hence why I'm blogging.
Everybody has been frantically working on their work term report that is due on Tuesday. I had mine done about 3 weeks ago, so I've been doing my own thing. I actually submitted the report, so I officially don't have to worry about it any more. Did some laundry, went grocery shopping, 3D printed a couple more hexes for Settlers of Catan, baked some snickerdoodle blondie bars. Sill slowly hacking away at the list of things I need to do to my website.
This afternoon I went to the Perth Pop-Up market. It was disappointing. The space was very crowded and it was very dark, both of which made it difficult to see what the vendors were actually selling. I doubt I would have wanted much of it anyways. Since walking around the 'market' only took me about 5mins, I decided to pop into a couple of the stores along Ontario St. Again, didn't really want anything they were selling, but it occupied the time and it was nice to be outside. It actually wasn't that bad out today. This cold weather feels like it's come out of nowhere because we had that one weird patch where it was 25C.

On Friday, 6 new episodes of Black Mirror came out on Netflix. It's a great show. I found out about it a couple years ago from a classmate but never looked into it. It's all about technology in the future, in a grim, sci-fi kind of way. It's not hover-boards and time travel; it's eye contacts that film everything you see and implants in the brain that control digital selves. Each episode is a stand alone story, so you don't have to watch all of them or in any particular order.
It came up again in one of our lectures this term and I decided to watch it. At the time, they only had one episode - a Christmas special - on Netflix. Marissa and I watched that one, and we had our minds blown. It was very well done. I then looked into the actual seasons and was surprised to see that it's like Sherlock: there are only three episodes a season. I watched the first season, and while the stories were good, they didn't compare to the Christmas special we had watched. I have yet to watch season 2. Apparently the show was dropped or put on pause, then Netflix brought it back for a third season with 6 episodes. I was very happy to see that these new episodes are on the same level as the Christmas special. The episodes are about an hour long, give or take 10mins. I highly recommend it. Oh, and it's by the BBC!
Fun fact: it's called Black Mirror because when the screen of our electronic devices are off, they become a black mirror. I thought that was clever :)

QOTD
370. Ever been on a plane?
Yup. Lots, in fact. At least 18 (wow).

Catan > Bowling

It is with mixed feelings that I let you know that the SSC event for tonight - bowling - has been cancelled, after my last post boasted of the success of the club. We had 6 people sign up, but then two backed out, so we decided to cancel it. Hopefully our event next week will do better. I think bowling was a bit of a stretch for people anyways. People would rather watch movies or go to pubs together.
The upside of bowling being cancelled, on the other hand, is that Mara, Marissa and I are now going to play Settlers of Catan instead. I'd choose Catan over bowling any day. I'm especially excited because I've 3D printed two resource hexes (rock and wood), so I'll finally be able to put them to use.
We might be co-hosting an event with the GBDA Society next week for a horror movie night. Only, Mara, Marissa and I are not interested in watching horror movies. So basically, we're just going to help promote the event and then not watch the movie.
Our professor asked us today to bring half a dozen cardboard boxes to class tomorrow. He didn't elaborate at all. Where the heck am I going to get cardboard boxes? I might go to the LCBO across the road and see if they have any I can use. He also asked us to bring tape "or anything that sticks". I ain't bringing my tape and having it all wasted on what I'm sure will ultimately be a useless exercise.
Speaking of which, I should tell you about our guest lecture with Jordan. First of all, Jordan is my favourite Stratford Campus staff member. I was very excited when I heard that he would be guest lecturing in our class. The class consisted entirely of us playing with Little Bits and Makey Makey parts, both of which are electrical circuit toys for kids. He was using them as a representation of the Internet of Things and how all the parts interact. It was basically 2hrs of goofing off. Perhaps the more entertaining thing was everybody's snapchat stories. Just about every snapchat story I looked at that day was of people showing the Little Bits and saying things like "what even is university" "Engineering at UW" "#GBD4". But it was actually kind of cool because you could connect it to your laptop and play one-button games by interacting with the Little Bits.
I'm currently working on updating my personal website for a e-Portfolio project I have this term. And no, I won't tell you what the URL to my site is. Not until I'm done with it at least. It looks fine, but I'm thinking of changing the layout, or at least the colour scheme. It's also horribly outdated.
One last thing: I'm very excited for the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie, not just because the first one was awesome, and not just because I'd watch Chris Pratt in just about anything, but because of tiny Groot! He's way at the bottom of the poster, by Starlord's feet :) I'm going to be freaking out the entire movie purely about Groot *he's so cute*

The SSC

The Stratford Student Community, otherwise known as the SSC, is a club started by my friend Mara and run by Mara, Marissa, and myself. Basically, we plan events for university students living in Stratford since there's no university extra curriculars provided at the Stratford campus (well...there are, but they are few and far between). We do one event a week; things like pub night, potlucks, bowling, movie night, etc. Our events have been fairly successful so far, given the number of students living in Stratford (there can't be more than 40). 

We had a Thanksgiving Potluck last week and it was a lot of fun. There was a ton of food and a surprisingly good balance between sweet and savoury things (some students held a potluck last year and apparently it was about 95% dessert). Marissa and I hosted it at our apartment since nobody else volunteered to host. It was a bit squishy, but people really enjoyed it and asked us to do another one in the future. I also really enjoyed hosting. I keep thinking of ways we can have more people over. A handful of us have decided to have dinner together once a week, but just the way things have worked out, it hasn't actually happened yet. But this Monday! It will happen! We're having lasagna :)

Christmas Countdown

In case you don't follow me on other social media, I recently discovered that there are exactly 100 days between my birthday and Christmas. As I have a fondness of counting down the days to Christmas, I was A) happily surprised by the coincidence and B) shocked that it took me 21 years to figure that little connection out. (In case you were wondering, there are 71 days till Christmas.)
I don't have any exams this term, so I'm going to be done school on December 5th. I'll have almost exactly a month off, and I'm quite looking forward to it. I have many plans, most of which involve some form of creativity. I'm hoping to work on two quilts. My friend asked me to make a quilt out of t-shirts she doesn't want to throw out, but doesn't want to wear. The other is a quilt that I've been putting off for about 5 years, for a lady at church. That quilt will be much more time consuming and difficult than the t-shirt quilt (hence why I've been putting it off).
And of course, I'll continue my tradition of making a gingerbread house from scratch. I'm thinking of doing a gingerbread train this year. I feel like there's a lot of potential with things that you can put in the carriages of the train.
Back to reality, I had 6hrs of class today. This was particularly harsh because I usually have Fridays off. The timetable this week was messed up because of two 'reading week days'. I'm not feeling too stressed about schoolwork this term so far. It definitely helps that I'm only taking two courses. One course is worth 4 credits, so I have the workload of 5 courses. But only having to worry about assignments, groups, and due dates for two courses instead of five is making it easier.
I am hoping to get some 3D printing done this weekend. I'm currently printing 3D tiles for the board game Settlers of Catan. I've done one so far and it turned out really well, so I'm hoping to print one for each resource by the end of the term. I'm also tweaking a keychain I made last year. Interestingly enough, a friend asked if I would print some #GBDA keychains for her this weekend - she wants 6! I'm happy to do it, but you can only print one thing at a time and 3D printing is a long process (a Settlers of Catan tile takes ~3hrs). So we'll see how it goes. At least once you've started the printing, you don't have to do anything till it's done. I might be spending a lot of time on campus this weekend. But to be honest, I don't mind it. There's hardly ever anyone there on the weekend, so you basically have the building to yourself. And now that they have massive beanbag chairs, it can even be comfortable :) I'll set my laptop up and watch the last couple episodes of Stranger Things.
Until next time!

369. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Ever since Emily went to New Zealand, I've been wanting to go! So New Zealand. #screwschool

GBDA X

Summer's Over?!

This marks the beginning of my last week as a User Experience Design Intern at D+H. I originally had a 12 week contract, but that was extended to 15 weeks (it could have been 16, but I asked for a week off so I could go up to camp for a week). I can’t really tell you about the projects I worked on, but I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve been doing, and I’ll be sad to leave. Although, there is speak of me potentially working part time through the school year, which would be awesome (not to mention a foot in the door for when I’m looking for a job when I graduate).

This week may be a slow one. It’s hard to start working on projects when you only have 5 days left. Usually the things I work on don’t take too long, but I often follow projects along and help out when they need it. Hopefully I’m not sitting idle (and yet here I am, writing a blog post).

One thing that I am definitely going to miss is the desk set up I have here at D+H. I only ever sit in a hoteling station, but I’ve claimed this one as my own. I have two monitors (one being the laptop monitor), a keyboard, and a mouse. It’s great. I plug my laptop into a docking station and boom; I’m hooked up to everything. I am definitely going to want a desktop monitor for this upcoming school year now. My laptop screen just seems so small on its own.

I’m excited to be going back to Stratford and seeing all of my school friends again. However, I’ve definitely become used to the work-stays-at-work life, and going back to having to do work outside of class will be an adjustment. I think the fall will be a very busy time. I have classes, I might be working part-time, I have to write a work report about my internship, and a professor at the Stratford campus is running an optional course called GBDA X. The idea is that it’s a course where we can decide what we’ll learn to an extent, he’ll give us projects and things to work on, and at the end of it, we’ll have something to add to our portfolio. It won’t count for marks or credits, but the hope is that it utilizes a bunch of the technology and resources that the Stratford campus has, like the 3D printer and Oculus Rift. I’m really interested in seeing what the professor comes up with.

I’m going to be commuting to Stratford for the first couple weeks of class. At first, I was really excited, because I love driving. Now, I’m thinking that this is not going to be the blue skies and sunshine I was imagining. Aaron and I will be spending some quality time together I’m sure. Him sitting in the basement playing video games, and me sitting at the kitchen counter doing homework and watching Netflix. But it should be good. We’re hoping to go see the London Airshow when it comes to town. And we’ll probably go out for dinner for my birthday, because the rest of the family won’t be around. This will be the first time I’ve been home for my birthday in a while. And then Mom and Dad decided to peace out. Alison will be in Toronto, so it’ll be me and Aaron.  

Hello Hello

Long time no see, my friends. Although I'm sure a lot of you followed my travel blog. As of right now, I'm in Mississauga for an internship with D+H. I've completed two weeks already, out of a 12 week contract. I have a feeling it will go by very quickly. I'm staying with the family of one of my friends from high school for the time that I'll be in Mississauga. I'm really grateful for that. I was thinking the other day that coming home to a family that is glad to have me staying with them is so much better than living in a basement apartment by myself. So that's a real blessing. And it's working out well. I'm getting the feel of how their family works and runs, and slotting myself in. I'm now vying for the spot of favourite child ;) I've helped garden, gone grocery shopping with them, and I hung out with Grandma which apparently wins me big points. It's a bit of a running joke now.
I don't know what I'm allowed to say about the work that I'm doing for D+H, but I'm sure it would be boring to write about regardless. But in general, I'm doing User Experience Design for them. What I will do, however, is tell you about some funny moments with my manager. He's a good guy, and seems interested in helping me learn and grow in my abilities. Let's call him G. G's going to be on 'vacation' next week (he's actually moving and renovating his house, so it's not really a vacation).

G: You know you can dress casual, right? Wear jeans or something.
Me: Yea, but I figured I'd keep appearances up for the first couple weeks. *pause* But next week when you're gone, it will all fall apart.

He laughed at that, so now I know I can make jokes like that. I've kind of been testing and observing to see what's acceptable. The people that I'm working with seem pretty laid back and friendly. Then later as he was leaving for the day, he popped his head into my cubicle and said "Dress casual tomorrow would ya? It's a Friday." Not one to disobey the boss, I wore jeans the next day. As G walks by my cubicle he says "Good morn- JEANS!" and continues to walk by. Never a dull moment with G.

Now that I've written it out, that's not actually that funny. I suppose the office just isn't a super exciting place to begin with that the little things seem funnier than they actually are. Oh well. I would talk more about what I'm up to, but I need to go to bed. More on another day.

ADVENTUREOVERTHERE

Hello fellow readers (all 3 of you). From now until further notice, I will be blogging at ADVENTUREOVERTHERE. So stop checking this blog and go check that one out.

I wished you the best of all this world could give

title from 'Jealous' by Labrinth 

I realize it's been a while, and I've probably lost most of you because of my own lack of posts. But better late than never.
I can't believe it's 2016 already. December flew by and in just 2 weeks I'll be off to England for my term abroad. I'll be starting a new blog to use during the time I'm away. I want lots of people to be able to read about my travels but not be able to see everything I've posted over the last several years. Once I get that started, I'll write all about my worries and panics that I'm having right now about moving across the world for 4 months. Maybe I'll make myself a hashtag.
Not much else going on here. I was successful in my 2015 New Years resolution of writing and mailing a letter each week. My last letter was a letter I wrote to future 50 year-old me. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to mail that to myself... I haven't set a specific resolution for this year. I'd like to in general live more spontaneously (which will probably happen most while I'm abroad). I have a 5 year question journal that I fill out every day, so that will also be something that I'm doing this year (and the next 4 after that).
My brother currently has a friend over and is watching the new Sherlock special that aired yesterday. I haven't watched it yet because my parents and I are going to see it in theatres next week. I have to avoid tumblr until then because I really don't want anything to be spoiled. I've been watching Once Upon A Time this fall and had a pretty big plot line revealed on tumblr so I'm very cautious now about not having anything spoiled. (I kid you not as I was typing this out I heard my brother and his friend both go "Wait, what? Wait, WHAT?!" and I freaked out a bit).
Once I've got my new blog up and running, I'll post a link to it here. Then this blog will be silent for 4 months (not that it's been shouting or anything over the past year).