Why is my blog sitting so narrowly in the middle of the screen? I've played with the "edit HTML" settings to see if I can make the margins a bit wider but it ended up looking weird. I think it would be nice if I could use more of the page, I just need to figure out what dimensions work best I guess.

Time slips from my hands...Wow, I cannot believe it's been so long since I last blogged. Can I not stick with anything? I don't understand why I have to be so overwhelmed all the time that I abandon everything and suddenly all's about work and there's no room for play. OK, I exaggerate, there's room for play, but some things are much more fun than sitting on a desk typing away (which is something I do a lot of during the day anyway), especially now that it's summer and hot outside, and, well, Montreal has too much going on.

On a different note, an MRI last week revealed thinning cartilage under my kneecap, the reason for the debilitating chronic pain I've had to endure for a very long time now. I'm on prescription anti-inflammatory/pain killer meds and started physical therapy. So far so good, pain is under control, knee is still "clicking and catching" but will hopefully improve. Apparently cartilage does not grow back, so this will be a lifelong battle between me and the cartilage, one that I'm hoping not to lose at least before...Well I don't know, an old age when I won't need my knee anymore...120 maybe?

Good things are bound to happen before the end of the year. Exciting plans for the next few months are on the table. I cannot believe it's already July, and we're more than halfway through 2011. Gotta make every day count! Leaving you with beautiful Montreal type summery delicious pictures for now...I will be back...

Wow, I was doing so well for a while there writing, not every day maybe but regularly...Well, what's happened since May? I got a job...I can't believe it's been 6 months since I last wrote! That's half a year, I almost forgot I even had a blog (almost).

Well, nothing's new with me really, except that I have no time to myself at all let alone to sit and write. But I'll start trying again because I feel like it. There probably won't be long posts, but there will be posts. The only thing that's sort of exciting in my life right now is the new addition to our family...Ladies and gentlemen, I have the utmost pleasure of introduciiiiing...P, our cat!
P is like a big grey dust mop, and she's the friendliest cat I've seen in my life. She loves kneading the comforter, the living room sofa, the knitted blanket on the chair, me, M....Actually she's a bit obsessive compulsive about the kneading thing. It's like she cannot help it, when she jumps onto something soft it's automatic, which makes her funnier and cuter (in fact she's going at the blanket right now). We're still trying to figure out what kind of a house she was in before, she's crazy about yarn in a "I know what this is and I can chew the end off of it in seconds" kind of way, she knows when we're opening canned food for her, she knows to climb on our laps when we pat our legs, and she gives funny cat kisses on our noses (chins, cheeks, sometimes foreheads, where ever she can plant her sandpapery tongue really) . She's not scared of humans at all, and she's quite vocal. And her paws are beautifully shiny...Really, I've never seen hair that shines like that on a cat before, she's got satin paws (and she even lets us hold them)!

A Quick Update

I didn't mean to be away from my blog this long...Things have happened within the last month that threw me completely off balance and caught me off guard. A month ago my dad had to have an emergency surgery...The c-word was uttered and some really scary moments were endured, but as of now, he's an official survivor. We're hoping for it to stay that way, although he'll need to be checked every 3 months to make sure there isn't anything else to worry about. It's a weird and scary thought, having to live with that frightening anticipation on a periodic basis, not just for him but for all of us. It's a hard spot to be in, but thankfully I have some wonderful people who saw me through it all and continue to be my support...I feel somewhat better now than I did a few weeks back.

Other news...And this is a good one---I finally have a job! And one that I could never dream of having. I'm starting to do research, in an area that I absolutely love, at the top-notch R1 university here. So that part of my life seems to have somewhat been figured out, and I actually feel much calmer. I am so grateful to the person who gave me the chance, as I know there was no way I could ever have made it into this institution...I know this because I tried before. So now the possibilities seem endless from here on, as I'll be working with people from the academia and industry at the same time. And it just feels really good to be able to say I have an affiliation, and one that people regard very highly. Such a wonderful change for me after all these months...

I once again realize how so many things can change in one's life so quickly and how we should never take anything for granted or fret anything all too freaking much. A part of me says "Well, if you want to have a good life and be happy, you need to plan ahead and know where you're headed...You should have goals and ideals in mind and strive for those ideals, because if you don't, then you have nothing to look forward to"...Another part of me is going "Everyday is a gift, don't plan far into the future, because anything could happen, just live your life and see where it takes you." I think the best approach is to find the middle road, not living just for the day recklessly, but not making plans five years into the future and stressing to achieve those, either...And that's the hard part, finding that perfect balance that gives you peace of mind, keeps you driven, and also happy.

This post I read on the Chronicle today made me think...Why are academicians so obsessed with trying to make their writing as confusing and complicated as possible? This is not so common in my own field as we're a bunch of engineers who don't know how to write eloquent prose anyway, but sometimes I try to read articles in other fields and get a headache...It's not that I don't understand what they're saying, it's just that they're so heavily and unnecessarily worded that it becomes absurd...It's almost like the author knows the only way he can save the article is by making it sound as "academic" as possible lest people realize he's BSing. Surely someone who uses big words like that knows what he's talking about?!? People who have something original to say need not use big words to get the message through, they will be heard just on the basis that they have something important to say. I believe the pressure to "publish" in academia is one of the many reasons why it is like this, you have to put something out there even if you yourself have no clue what you're talking about. Other reasons I can think of are "traditions" in certain fields (which the article neatly summarizes), and there being too many academicians out there as compared to years ago-only so many of those people can actually be doing something that would be considered an outstanding breakthrough in their field and thus need not embellish their writing with big words trying to make it look important.

When I was writing the introduction chapter for my dissertation, I used a lighter, not-so-technical style in order to put my research in context with everyday life and describe what the problem was. I wanted to stay away from the passive voice which is the standard when writing a technical/scientific paper. This was done, so and so were placed here, it was observed that, etc. were not what I wanted to go with, because dammit, I actively led this research and did not want to feel like an outsider when it was my past 6 years I was talking about...But no, I got the chapter feedback saying I needed to make it more technical, like "academic" writing, like it wasn't my research and I was reporting on somebody else's thoughts and findings. In the end, I compromised a bit, maybe took out the references to everybody liking colorful cake decorations or something, but I managed to keep the wording fairly simple, at least in the beginning. I don't know what difference that made, but that sure was the only part of my dissertation that I enjoyed writing...That part was the "voice" that came from me...

Macabre awakenings

Well...For the last few days I've been waking up with Danse Macabre playing in my head. I have no clue why, or what goes on in my brain while I sleep. It is hauntingly beautiful for sure, and funny, too, if you relate it to the poem by Henri Cazalis, but it's not Halloween, so what's up???

A few days of summer in spring

The past two days, the weather has been unusually warm here in Montreal. And when I say warm, I don't mean warm like switch from winter boots to regular boots and leave home the scarf and gloves kind of warm, it was wear your bikini and go out kind of warm. I guess the proper way of saying this is: it was (and still is) hot! Yesterday I had to take that French test which dragged on the whole day, and I was a bit bummed out that it was so great outside and I had to be in a gloomy testing center dealing with the butterflies in my stomach. But between the two parts of the test, M came over and we got to walk around a bit, buy tickets for the Iron Maiden concert in July, and eat crepes at Cafe Paris. All in all it turned out to be a good day (would be a great day sans the exam but oh well...). All the restaurants, cafes, and bars had already put the tables and chairs on the patio, so at night we went to Pub Saint-Ciboire where we could sit outside in short sleeves and drink. I guess that was a rare moment in the history of Montreal for the month of April.

And today we actually were able to sunbathe in the park, after which I got to drink a great Margarita, and then swim in the pool upstairs. Now I want to go out and eat ice cream and walk back towards the park where I can hear people playing the tam tams, but M is so beat he wants to stay in. Maybe we'll catch them tomorrow, it looks like the weather will still be nice then.

Somewhere between the end of my second exam and going to Pub Saint-Ciboire yesterday, M and I rearranged our living room furniture so that I can have my "work station" in a relatively "secluded" spot. That's where I am writing from right now, and I absolutely love this new arrangement.

Bad timing

Tomorrow, M is not working...Had I known this last week, I wouldn't have arranged to take the TEFaQ test tomorrow instead of April 17th. I thought the sooner the better, and when they called last week and said there would be an extra test on the 2nd and asked if I wanted to take it then, I said yes, why not. Ugh, now they e-mail me the schedule and tell me that I'm taking the listening portion (which lasts 40 minutes) at 10:30 in the morning, and the speaking portion at 2:30 in the afternoon. Grrrr, talk about a whole day wasted...I don't know why I'm so upset, I guess it's just that I was hoping it would be over quickly, regardless of M's schedule. Now it's going to drag on the whole day, and although technically there's no pass or fail, it still makes me nervous that it's a "test". And now I have no clue what to do between those two tests, maybe M will come out and have lunch with me.

Last night, as I was reading the cooking blog that I became a member of, M. saw the picture on the screen and said "ohhhh I looove creme caramel/flan (insert your word of choice here)" and asked me if I was going to make it. I've never been a big fan of creme caramel, for me it's always been a strange kind of dessert, somewhere between the consistency of jello and pudding with a weird eggy aftertaste. But since he said he loved it, I couldn't resist. Also, I'd never cooked anything in a Bain-Marie (waterbath) before, and the whole waterbath concept seemed like an interesting thing to try-- very microbiology laboratory-like where you try to keep the agar warm and in liquid form until you're ready to pour it out into a petri dish..Then you pour it out and swirl the plate around and ohh the pleasure of seeing a perfectly even agar surface that's so smooth and shiny and ready to be streaked...but I digress...So, yeah, I decided to give it a try...The flan I mean, not the microbiology stuff. Given that this was my first try, it came out pretty good. The recipe called for a single medium-sized oven-safe bowl, but I didn't have that, so I improvised (old lab habits die hard you know) and used single-serving size ceramic mugs. This decision was made on a gut-feeling that told me the mugs would be safe since they were, as it read at the bottom, "high fired stoneware"...So basically they'd been in an oven before, and I was going to put them in a waterbath anyway, so I decided to give it a go (please do not take my advice on this for your own mugs, I can't guarantee yours won't crack).


Reversing them was so much fun and M really liked the taste (in his words "I can't believe you made this from scratch"), so I am happy (and they're so easy to make, too!). It came out with the holes on it even though I took care not to let the water boil...Maybe I let it stay in the oven a little too long, but the taste was OK so now I can be worried about the cosmetics next time. But I realized last night as I was making this that for me, trying all these new things in the kitchen has nothing to do with the anticipation of eating them later (because I wasn't dying to eat this), it's more like a curiosity, kind of like "I wonder how they make that and if I can make that at home"...That's the fun part...It's all the more rewarding if you've got someone anxiously waiting to eat it (assuming it is edible) of course.

On a slightly different note, tomorrow night I'll go to McDonald's to have a BigMac before we go to catch a movie. I think this will be the third time in the last 13 months that I've gone to a McD's, I know it's unhealthy blah blah, but give me a break, once every 4 months is as good as it gets, I really am looking forward to it!

Alice Somewhere...Not Quite Wonderland...

I was disappointed that after all the advertising, excitement, and anticipation, Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland failed to deliver on so many grounds...I don't even know what the purpose of releasing an IMAX 3-D version was, since there was nothing that impressive about the graphics. The Hatter and the Red Queen (who actually was more like the Queen of Hearts) were of course wonderful, and the Cheshire Cat might be the only cool "graphical wonder" in the whole thing, but it felt like a mediocre children's movie, rather than a fantasy masterpiece coming alive under the direction of someone from whom we have come to expect so much.

So they mixed and matched the two books, which is OK...But something was not there...I understand they wanted to do something different and not stay ultimately true to the original versions, but a grown up Alice just didn't cut it for me. There was not much of that "wonderment" and confusion one would expect from Alice. She's in "Wonderland" (or Underland) for crying out loud, couldn't she at least show some kind of emotion? She talked like she was made of stone...And where the hell did the riddles and rhymes and philosophical ponderings that make Alice, Alice, go? I think half the problem was that the running time was too short to get too deep on the theme. But then the whole thing lost its essence. This was Alice in Wonderland minus the soul. And don't even get me started on the "scenery"...I expected something much more...It wasn't as "quirky" and dark as one would expect from Tim Burton.

For me, this is certainly not the best adaptation of Alice and definitely not the best one of Burton's brilliantly dark and fascinating movies. But then again maybe I should be glad I saw it at the movie theater because I doubt I would have watched it to the end at home...

It's been some time...

From time to time, I just drift off into another world and start neglecting my poor blog. I've been doing a lot of "free writing" and reading lately about possible research interests that don't require a laboratory...Which is all good for me, but that takes all my writing energy and time, and leaves me not wanting to write anything here on the blog. I have a lot of pictures to share from way back when but I need to re-size them and upload them, and that requires some amount of effort. Posting pictures on a public blog is not something to be taken lightly, so I have to sort through them to find ones that are not too revealing, re-size them, re-save them as something else, and then try to find them again and upload them. It's OK if it's just one or two pictures, but you really got to want to share the pics to go through with all that for anything more than two. To top it all, I was pretty sick for a while last week that I just didn't have the brain juice to come up with anything all that interesting. "I've been coughing like crazy and have green snot coming out of all orifices" is hardly anything worth writing about. So that's why things have been quiet here in blogland, but I thought I'd check in today and start writing with the hope that inspiration hits me at some point during the mindless typing. Unfortunately, so far, it's not working. For me to come up with something that I feel comfortable posting for the whole world to read, I need to feel good about what I've written. What I'm looking for, of course, is not the kind of good feeling I'd get if I'd created a masterpiece (having produced no real masterpieces in my life, I wouldn't know what that feels like, but I can guess it doesn't feel the same as finishing a half-assed blog post), but I aim for at least a decent attempt at proper spelling, and some amount of coherence rather than just blabbering. And as I am writing right now and waiting for that inspiration that is nowhere to be seen, I realize I AM blabbering...So, without further senseless rubbish, I am going to post some pictures while I have the time and shut up. These pictures are all from February, when we had the "High Lights Festival", Nuit Blanche (an all-night arts/fun festival), and M's birthday. When I took them, I had stories for all of them in my head, and each was going to be a separate post, but of course now that all of that seems to have disappeared in the vacuum that my brain creates every now and then, it's just a bunch of pictures...Blabbering in picture format if you will...

Blabber # 1: During the festival period, we had some cute bus stops and ad posts that were wearing hats...Here's the bus stop down the road from our place wearing a cute pink cap...


And here's an ad post in Old Montreal:

Blabber #2: There were also these around:



In case you haven't guessed, those are for cooking marshmallows and hot dogs (and also keeping warm I think)! Here's us roasting marshmallows (and someone a hot dog) on Nuit Blanche/M's birthday:


Blabber #3: One of the things I really like about Montreal is the fact that there's always something fun to do, and the city is very colorful and lively, even when it's freezing cold outside. There seems to be some kind of festival going on all the time.

Here's a picture I took at the "Place des Festivals" which lucky for us in only 2 blocks down the road from where we live...They were projecting the pictures of people who came here for the Jazz Festival on the windows of the building, which I thought was pretty neat.

Blabber #4: Finally, during my absence from the blog, I got to taste some cupcakes, although not at the place I was talking about before. The chocolate one on the left was pretty tasty, almost to the point that I changed my mind about frosting, but the carrot one on the right was too sweet and spicy for my taste...M really liked it though...

Blabber #5: It's quite possible to wonder if you've suddenly been transported back in time when you're walking around in Old Town one night and come across a shop window that looks like this...

You can also see here that not only have I not been inspired to write lately, but also my photographing skills haven't improved and are still as crappy as they've always been. For further justification, see pictures in Blabber #6...

Blabber #6: We finally went inside the Notre-Dame Basilica, watched the light show and got some pictures...Apparently, the basilica has a special place in the history of Montreal. From what I understood, the reason France sent the missionaries to Montreal when it was established as a city in the first place was to convert the natives as well as serve the community.

It is an impressive basilica, especially by "New World" standards...


OK, I think I will stop here for now and save some blabber material for later. I've also been realizing lately that I have some things that I'd like to write about but dare not, because "they" might be watching...Nothing too serious, or out there, just regular rant stuff, like me not being able to understand why people are so against the health care reform in the U.S., and why I can't see anything that groundbreaking about the health bill anyway, how much I dislike the idea of having to go through a full body scan at an airport (and not because I don't want people to see my body), etc. etc...But I find myself changing my mind and opting against writing all these things, because that's what it's come to, that we're not really that free to say what we think, and we're never as anonymous as we think we are. So, I write about things that are "safer", like my own life, no mundane how that might be for others. I feel comfortable critiquing things that are under my immediate control...That's all...

March 8th

Today is International Women's Day...Something that M said this morning made me think...He said: "If we declare today a day for women, does that mean the rest of the year is for men? Isn't that saying/acknowledging women get only one day a year as opposed to every day as equals?"


Happy Women's Day to all my sisters around the world.

Just ranting

News like the one I posted below disturb me to no end. I am not a genetic engineer, medical researcher with a specialization in genetically modified organisms (GMO), or a doctor, therefore, I have no clue whether GMOs are bad for your health, and as such, cannot make any claims saying they are. Whenever GMOs are mentioned, the debate seems to get to :Is this harmful for my health if I eat it? And the answer, based on research funded by the companies that produce GMOs is: No, they are perfectly safe to consume.

If you live in the U.S. or Canada, chances are you have already ingested a lot of food that's genetically modified, whether you were aware of it or not. Upwards of 70% of all corn and soy beans produced in these countries are genetically modified. And if you have not noticed, those two ingredients are in everything that we buy, from popcorn to corn-fed-cow-meat aka beef. Corn syrup seems to make its way into everything replacing other forms of sugar. Example: sodas are sweetened with corn syrup, which is probably made with genetically modified corn. But I, like many other people, enjoy my soda and would rather not think about the tiny genes that have been replaced with genes from bacteria, or in the case of the pork, with genes from mice. Everything in moderation is my motto about almost everything in life...

Although I am not qualified to talk about the health consequences, I do feel I am qualified to talk about the ecological consequences, of which I believe there are many. I cannot even begin to talk about it all in one mere blog post, so I'll just ramble instead as usual.

I understand the need to come up with species that are more resistant to environmental factors, so that we can grow more of them with greater ease, to be able to accomodate an ever growing human population. It seems that we have accomplished that goal right now with corn and soy beans, yet somehow world hunger is still a great issue. All that corn that we produce in such volume, I want to see how much of it actually goes to filling the bellies of starving people in the developing world. And why there is such an abundance of corn that we're trying to get rid of it by modifying and putting it into every kind of food we can think of. Let's face it: companies want to make money...I am totally OK with that, I have taken many economy courses and understand how that market works. But for some reason, putting patent on human food seems a bit...I don't know...Unethical?

When you genetically modify foods, and come up with something successful, it's only fair that you get a patent for it...And of course, since it's understandable that companies need to make money to stay in the market, it's also understandable that they would make the seeds "sterile" or put rules on how they can be used i.e. one cannot save and plant the seeds from these plants, they have to be "rebought" after every harvest season. Long gone are the days where farmers, who owned their own land and worked for "themselves", planted their crops, saved their seeds to plant come next planting season, thus profiting from the natural "fertility" mother nature provides for us.

Fiddling with crops in such manner creates a disturbance in the ecological balance. First of all, if a genetically modified crop is not well contained (which I assume is very hard to do in open air fields), bugs will do what they're supposed to do, and carry the pollens from plant to plant, causing 1) a potential patent infringement if the pollenized crop is on someone's property, and 2) a potential spur of modified crops on natural, unowned land. If the modified crop is exceptionally hardy, then chances are it will overtake entire fields over long periods of time, causing loss of "unmodified" species, which are apprently weak and not worthy of our consumption because they happen to be not resistant to the strong chemicals we like to douse them with. (One could say, I believe, that the need for genetically modified food comes from our bad industrial agriculture practices...We try to undo our impact on the environment, and this is the solution...)

Whether we appreciate it or not, there is some kind of balance in nature that is more delicate than meets the eye. Everything tips to one side to accomodate for a "disturbance" that comes from the outside. There is research out there claiming this (GMO) is better for the environment and ecological systems than growing regular crops with industrial agriculture as is, which may as well be the case...The research examining the impacts goes back (and can only go back) about 10 years, because this is relatively a new area of research (and development if you can call it that). 10 years of history...I wonder if that's really enough amount of time to come to a conclusion of any sort, be it on human health or the environment. Kind of reminds me of the margarine craze of my childhood, where butter was shunned from houses because it clogged arteries and made you die young. What could be more brilliant than taking "liquid" oils (which were much better for your health), and "hydrogenate" them and voila! Wonderful butter like fat that is not animal fat, and therefore was healthy...Except now we run from margarine like it's the plague because it contains cancer causing "transfats" and also raises your bad cholestrol much worse than butter does. And butter, it seems, is good for you after all because it contains all those good things, like Omega-3s and vitamin A, etc. It turns out eggs aren't that bad after all, either...So how can we be so quick to judge something that is relatively "young" as healthy and good for the environment, when it has only been around for a decade...It takes much longer than that for any obvious effects to come into daylight, at which point if there seems to be negative consequences, I hope we will have the proper resources to fix it "i.e. unmodified crops?"...If not, we will probably try to engineer our way through that, too...

I just don't understand...Nature works beautifully, there is nothing wrong with it...So why can we not try to make our processes more like it, rather than try to modify it?

Enviropig?!?

I do not see anything "enviro" about these pigs... This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin....

So much to write, so little time...

Whew, the past few days have been busy, and although I wanted to write, and had so many things to share, I just couldn't find the time. I probably forgot half of the things I wanted to share by now. I've mostly been busy tweaking my resume or CV, depending on the situation, to apply for jobs (that I'll never hear back from), and to some degree with just regular "house" stuff...M's workload is lighter these days and he gets home earlier, around 5:30 pm, which gives me less time to get through everything I want to do before he gets home. Once he gets home, we usually don't want to talk about work, do work, or see work (which doesn't apply to all things that include the word "work" as someone has to do some "house work" around here after dinner, like load the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen, etc.). For the sake of being fair though, M does help with those things, but he claims I have very "strict" codes as to how things should be done, so I end up doing more. Anyway, if I keep writing about this matter, this post might turn into a full blown rant, so I'll just stop here.

Saturday afternoon we went out for a stroll (well actually we had to go out to take M's guitar to the shop because it was in need of some adjustment), and ended up walking around afterwards. We passed by the Notre-Dame Basilica , and in front were these horse carriages:


Some of the carriages were decorated for V day, although I don't think any of them are visible in the picture. Then we decided to go in...It is pretty impressive inside, too, and I believe it is one of the popular choices in Montreal for a wedding ceremony. Then we moved on, and passed by a cupcake store, which kind of surprised me because I had never realized there was a cupcake store there (crappy picture taken by yours truly once again):

I've read that cupcakes are not that big in Montreal, and Montrealers have a hard time grasping the whole "boutique" cupcake craze (that I heard was made famous by Sex and the City and Magnolia Bakery in New York), mostly because it's so easy to come across delicious bakery products here at every corner, and cupcakes in comparison seem like something you would buy at a baking sale...But of course it has caught up in the last few years, and I'm planning to check them out here because from the reviews I read, that store has the best ones. It's not a cupcake boutique, but a general cake boutique. I'm not a big fan of icing, but the reviews are so good, one has to go and try them.

We stopped on the way so that I could listen to these ladies gossiping:

And later we had dinner at this small joint where the hamburger, to my surprise, kicked ass...I think it was the patty that was seasoned with garlic, and it tasted like it was cooked on fire, and the bread was so crunchy my mouth is watering just thinking about it right now. During dinner, M's brother called and said they decided to have a V day party, and asked if we would stop by, and we did...There were heart shaped cookies, and cupcakes (not boutique ones though, hahaha), and decorations. It was nice in a red and pink sprinkles on white icing kind of way.

There are some other pictures and things I want to post, but for now I think I'll stop here, because I have a graphical design program I need to familiarize myself with, and a CV to send. I sometimes wonder if I should be writing about more serious stuff, rather than my mundane life, but I guess right now I am in that kind of phase, where I need to write about mundane things, because everything else is so "busy"...This is my escape from the hectic world, where I get to slow down and remember/appreciate the good moments I had, and to remind myself of the things that really matter-the things that make me happy. Speaking of things that make me happy, here's a bean chili that I made this week:


Maybe you can take the girl out of the south, but you can't take the south out of the girl...Next week, it'll be exactly 1 year since I moved to Montreal, and although things haven't been that great on the job search front, I do not regret for one second that I made this move. And maybe the whole job search thing and the frustration over it are what have made me consider new options, and made me start something I would never think I could do...But I sure do miss real "ice tea", and the great conversations that could be had over a great cup of chili.

Random stuff

• I'm still alive (as you can see/read). I stayed away from roe, eel, and sake last night, and ate about 1/3 the sushi I would normally eat...The result? A slightly itchy throat, a big red allergy spot under my right eye, and a slight GI symptom, but nothing compared to the horrible reactions I had before. So, I guess every once in a while, I can eat sushi. I'm just wondering if there will come a time when I'll just swell up and not be able to breathe, and if I'll still insist on eating sushi then, too...
  
• M. and I discovered this TV show called Dexter...It's pretty good.
• My friend N. is coming to take my picture(s) tomorrow. This red bump under my eye is not very sightly and this is not how I want to be photographed. I must have thought my timing through. It will be a VERY natural photo shoot after all he he.
• My scarf/belt/accessory thing is doomed. I keep trying to knit, but due to the bulky and inconsistent nature of the yarn, none of the patterns I try look like what I want it to look like. I might have been right about the tea cozy/sock theory after all.
• I found out that choosing/finding a business name is very hard. There's the image I want the name to project, and then there's the fact that all the cool names are already taken. I might put a poll here once I have a few eligible names, in a few months.
  
• I find it amusing that a post I made about an old song is what is referring people to my page...Apparently, I'm not the only one confused about the lyrics...
• Sometimes I go back and read my older posts, and then find typos in them...Argh...
• As I was walking back home after having coffee with a friend today, I started thinking about "personal life" choices and "career" choices, and at what point one becomes more important than the other, and at what point we can try to reconcile the two...Tough decision that one...
  

Dear Readers,
I've been trying to convince M. to take me out to eat sushi, and up until now he wouldn't hear of it...Given my latest track record with eating fish, I agree that this is probably a very, very bad idea. However, I got just the slightest hint of hesitation this morning as he was leaving for work (yup...I ask him morning and night and every other chance I get in between), so I am determined to get my way tonight. For starters, I haven't prepared anything for dinner. I think that's a pretty good place to start. M. will not be able to cook anything either, unless he wants to go grocery shopping when he gets home, as I made sure to clean out the fridge today (actually, the fridge made sure I cleaned the fridge out, long story, but we had our fridge replaced today, for a short period of time, since ours died on us, leaving us with nothing but apples, lettuce, milk, and condiments...I will hail the man who can whip something up from that...)

You might wonder why I am waiting for him to take me out when I am perfectly capable of going alone myself for lunch or something. Well, I think the consequences will be easier to handle if I can somehow get him to go with me, and it is good to have someone at home when I get sick and feel like passing out. Besides, it will definitely be easier to handle later if he knows I'm going. I don't want to have to deal with the whole "I told you this was a bad idea but you did it anyway and you had to sneak behind my back" drama...

I am armed with Benadryl, and I will eat my sushi tonight even if it means being sick for the next 48 hours. Just giving you a heads up if you don't hear from me for some time. I'll be sick, but at least I'll be happy...

Vous désirez la perfection

This was what was in my fortune cookie last week at the Chinese restaurant...You desire perfection...Well yes I do thank you very much! That was hard to miss, what with all the complaining, the non-satisfaction, the procrastinating tendencies...What should have come out of that cookie is "Cut the crap, perfection is an illusion, you cannot have what doesn't exist, and if you continue down this path, be happy you will not" (imagine for a second that Yoda said that last part). Doesn't that sound more like a "fortune"? What I got was a "stating the obvious cookie". I wanted to see something like "Weather will be nice(ish) this week. Your lucky numbers are 06 13 37 55 93" or "You'll need to buy a new pair of socks. Your lucky numbers are 09 44 45 76 80" (there's no pattern to those numbers so don't look for one). My cookie was not perfect, it didn't even have my numbers! ;) I taped it onto my laptop nonetheless, but the tape job wasn't perfect so I was upset about that...for about 30 seconds. I didn't want to redo it because I know it will not be any better, so I'm still procrastinating on that.

Had a very nice weekend overall. Saturday night I went out for drinks with 2 girlfriends for about 2.5 hours, after which I met M. to go to Bistro à Jojo, a blues bar where a band we really like, Unkle Groove, was performing.


This band has only 3 people, a drummer who also does the lead vocals, a guitarist, and a bassist...They play what could be categorized as "classic rock" I guess, and they must love Pink Floyd, because they do some awesome covers. They are very good at what they do...

One of the greatest things about Montreal is that the whole music and arts scene here is very old, strong, and evolved, which gives it a very bohemian feeling while ensuring that you'll never be disappointed when you go out to listen to some live music. In one of my French classes, we had to find words for describing Montreal, and every single person in the classroom picked "artistic" as one word of choice. Others were "joie de vivre", cosmopolitan, unique, energetic, lively, dramatic, romantic, animated, free, beautiful, historical, European, delicious, and contradictory. I think those words sum up my feelings about this city completely and with accuracy.

This one

I got together with my friend N. today for some quality girl time and wonderful tea at Camellia Sinensis. I met N. at my French classes here at the university, and it was so nice to see her again after 1.5 months. We really didn't practice our French that much, as we had a lot to talk about and only so much time. Talking in English was a lot easier and faster :) .

N. is a professional photographer, and hence she's "self-employed"...She's also Canadian so I got to pick her brain a little about setting up your own business here in Canada. She gave me a lot of good ideas about how to get started. The more I talk to people about my plans, the more encouraged I feel. I guess I am expecting people to reply back "Why, have you gone off your mind? That's ridiculous, what are you talking about?!?You cannot do that!" when I tell them about what I think will make me happy and what I want to pursue. But there hasn't been one person who said something even remotely negative (and that includes my dad!), so maybe I really am onto something good here and the whole environmental/eco-conscious market is just starting to pick up here, so it might just be the right time to get started. Only time will tell...

Anyway, N. said she wants to get back to doing something a little more "artistic" than what she's currently doing, so she asked me if sometime in a few weeks she could photograph me...I, of course, said yes, and I didn't forget to warn her I'm a terrible poser. But she said I just have to be "natural" so it won't be one of those fancy photo shoots with nice clothes and make-up, but something else, where I get to be just...me...at home. She said she would give me the ones that I like to keep. YAY! And she would I guess use some of them for her own portfolio. So that gives me something exciting to look forward to in a few weeks...

It's the little things like this, or running into M. at the grocery store at 5 pm on a weekday (because he decided to surprise me) that make me happy...My heart even did the whole "skip a beat" thing. I've been watching Sex and the City episodes again after a looong time, and have been thinking about what "the one", "soul mate", etc. etc. mean to me...I believe M. is all those things (and more) but I don't really care about "THE ONE", I am just glad that THIS ONE has picked me.

Could it be?!?

Well...It turns out that maybe (just maybe) my self employment fantasies might come true...I met some wonderful people today who gave me much encouragement and made me feel excited about my business plan (I might even have found my first client haha). Now I need to start drafting an actual business plan and conduct some market research to see how I might be able to market my services and I guess I'll take it from there. I know that this is not something to be taken lightly, and that I need to proceed with caution, so I will take this slow and not rush anything, but I want to lay the foundation and start it up maybe in 1-2 years...It seems that the right "tools" are there for young professionals (or "entrepreneurs") like me if one wants to pursue the "self employed" career path. In the mean time, I will keep looking (and hopefully find) an "in the meantime" job that I may or may not quit once I really get going. I would definitely like to/want to be able to teach while I am pursuing this path...But the good thing is what I want to do is:
-related to my field of study...well, actually it IS my field of study
-a Ph.D. might very well come in handy
-I don't need huge amounts of capital to get going, I can probably start it from my "home office" and so I wouldn't really be taking a huge risk if nobody was interested in what I'm offering...

On the other hand:
-I need to be really able to "sell" my services which means a lot of PR stuff, some or all of which I might not be able to do myself
-I need to create a really solid business plan and be able to handle all the financial and legal aspects, or be able to afford those who would be able to take care of said aspects for me
-Preferably, I would have to get some official certification(s) at some point (maybe after I make some money, if I can) to further my business and services, and the certification processes can be complicated and costly...

So, we'll see how it goes, but like I said, this is not something that will happen anytime soon, as it needs to be well-planned. M. is very supportive, and I'm thinking, if I can get another "in the meantime" job and make an actual living, then why not? After all, I think I've established for myself lately (after some deep introspection) that what I ultimately want is to own my own business and do what I like doing in my own field of study...Not academic research that involves laboratory work and definitely not designing sewer pipes for the rest of my life (but in the near future I might have no other option but to do those things to get me closer to my dream).

I feel so relieved...I have a dream, I have a plan, I feel like I solved a great mystery that was hanging over my head for so long...And I have no clue how or when the light bulb went on.