Jenn Taylor

2012-01-28T13:03:00.000-08:00

February is just around the corner! So, first month back in 'normal life'. How is it going? For the most part, pretty well. I love my job, it has been a ton of fun and I've met some cool new people. I'm taking transit because I haven't saved up for a car yet, which is basically going fine as well. It's a little annoying that my 10 minute drive to work has turned into a 45 min. commute but at least I get a good 20+ minute walk every morning and evening. Fingers crossed the weather stays as dry as it has been, I think I've only used my umbrella 3 or 4 days this month.

As for working out, well I was on the ball for the first two weeks and then took a little bit of spill off course. I'm planning to be back on again now... as of today. No I will not eat that cookie.

My co-workers are apparently huge on baking treats for us daily; fudge, lemon squares, cookies, boxes of chocolates. What are they trying to do to me?!? Thankfully my willpower is decent and I've avoided 99% of this. My lead bought me a box of Poky on my first day (as he did the other animators) and I vowed not to open it at least through January. Box remains closed. I did have to hide it behind my monitor though. Chocolate is my weak spot.

I've been trying to spend a few hours on Sunday organizing a weekly meal plan and bringing lunches and snacks to work. It's been going well so far. Teen gets home a few hours before me so she can usually start dinner, and we've been saving a lot more money (and I'm sure calories) than if we ate out as much as before.

I just weighed myself, and am down 5 pounds since the start of the month! I didn't expect that, but I guess the healthier eating and 45 minutes of walking plus P90X has made a difference. Take that Singapore!

So, back to animation... God do I ever shut up about animation? No. I don't. I don't know how Teen has put up with me this long. Anyway, so I had a thought that if 2d animation came back in a big way, I'd be out of a job. You see, I understand all the fun parts of animation, timing, spacing, squash and blah blah. But I can't draw. Like, at all. My stickmen suck. I can pose a 3d character and it will look all pretty. See my thumbnails? I can't even make out what I was trying to portray. So I decided to practice. I have this 2d program called Flipbook, and last night I whipped out a quick little jump animation to try it out. This isn't by any means kick ass, but with my limited drawing abilities and useless wacom skills... I'd give it an 'ok'.

Animation:

I'd like to try and do a weekly quick animation in flipbook for the next 3 or 4 weeks to see if my drawing can improve or maybe even my animation!

Sitting, Health and the Pedometer:

Someone linked an article this week at work about how sitting is severely damaging to your health. Apparently, even if you work out a lot (1 or more hours a day) but sit for an extended period, like 8 hours at work, and 4 hours on the couch, your body is paying the price. The article recommended getting up every hour for at least 30 seconds and taking a little wander or stretching and touching your toes etc. It was funny to see how many people started getting up all day long. Me included. I think I went to the bathroom and kitchen 10 times that day. I also downloaded a pedometer on my iPhone (as suggested) to see how many steps you take a day. I really had no idea. I now know now that I take about 100 steps a minute (or 6,000 an hour). There was this whole 'walk 10,000 steps to health' campaign I've on and off heard about, but wow that's a lot of walking! Yesterday, just out of curiosity I kept the pedometer on. Not counting the little wanders around the house or office, I walked 7238 steps. That's actually pretty good. To and from work, out for a lunch break walk, and then up the road to grab an afternoon coffee; 1 hour and 13 minutes of walking!

Finances:

I was reading another article which suggested a challenge of making an infographic of a breakdown of your weekly expenditures. Am I a nerd? Anyway, I don't have time for infographics, but I am a huge fan of lists so here is my breakdown (not counting the usual mortgage and bills):

Rockclimbing: $20.16
Groceries: $34.14
Restaurants: $23.63
Coffee: $7.28
Car2Go: $23.13
-----------------------
Total: 108.34

Not bad actually. Usually I try to limit my weekly spending to $200 after bills; so all entertainment and food. Woot!

Puppy:

And to wrap up, I have officially ordered Puppy McPupperson. Not sure of exact take home date and she isn't born yet, but around July/August. Exciting!

That's all for now, take care kiddos!

New Year Part 2

2012-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

I just started up my new job at Image Engine, very exciting! The New Year also brings back an exercise regime. I started P90X 2 this week, having completed the first four days. So far it's been a lot of fun; not necessarily harder than the first but a bit different so nice to switch things up. I am gearing up training for Tough Mudder. I'll be entering this at the end of June with a few friends (unless we all back out)...

I also did my yearly review and set up my goals for 2012. I managed to complete a lot last year; most notably living and working overseas, and traveling Asia for 3 months. What an amazing experience. Though, even with the rain, I sure am happy to be back in Vancouver. I hearts Vancouver.

Goals for January!

- Get my finances back in order! Being out of the country for a year and a half and having to become a non-resident kinda screwed with a lot of that so... back on track.
- Start P90X 2. This is 3 months, and I plan to following it properly if I can. Thankfully this program is 5 days a week instead of 6, so it's a little more manageable time wise.
- 30 Day Challenge: No added sugar. I'm cutting out chocolate, sweets, and adding sugar to my coffee/tea for the month. I think I had enough in December for a few lifetimes.

We'll start with that... that'll be good.

New Year

2012-01-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

2012 OMGZ! Well the Christmas glutton fest has officially ended! We had some fun times in Victoria playing with little Audrey, and a super New Years in Langley. Some photos from the holidays:

Meg and Audrey

Playing with little Audrey

Our Tropical theme, with two warriors...

New Years

There were also boys at New Years, but apparently we only took a few pictures... Teen and I also did our first Polar Bear swim in English Bay this past weekend. It was cold, but I think all the adrenaline makes it not as bad as you'd think. GT's all around! I didn't get any pics but I'm sure Durka will be able to post some soon.

Bull

2011-12-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

This video actually pisses me off. I do believe that guys and girls who are friends will sometimes have feelings for one another that goes above just friendship, but to state that under no circumstances can guys and girls ever be 'just friends' is absolute bullshit. I've had loads of guy friends in my life who I considered purely friends, and though some may have had feelings for me at one point, certainly not all have.

Thoughts?

Cool Video

2011-12-17T23:18:00.001-08:00

For those who may not have seen:

PROTEIGON from BURAYAN on Vimeo.

Interesting Websites

2011-12-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

Since I'm unemployed, I have more time to browse random sites for interesting information. Most people have probably heard of stumbleupon already, and it can occupy a lot of my time. I am pretty happy with the suggested sites it turns up for me as well. Lately, however, I came across another site; thefancy.com. It's great for looking at awesome photos of things I think are cool, but probably can't afford, such as watches or travel locations or trinkets. I then 'fancy' the items I like, and can look at the in the future, when I still can't afford them. Thanks, fancy.

Some cool photos that have turned up on my stumbleupon recently:

I'm Back!

2011-12-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, almost a year since I posted? Someone's sure lazy (me). I've been thinking I might use this for smaller entries as well so I don't feel I have to say anything exciting... we'll see.

So, what's happened this year? I finished out my contract in Singapore. Overall working there was great, Clone Wars was a blast and I think I will have some nice shots for my reel once it all airs, woot! Teen and I then went on a kick-ass trip through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, India, Nepal, China and Japan for around 11 weeks. That was the coolest adventure of my lifetime. It's hard to sum it up, or say what was best, because so much happened and there were so many amazing moments. I did realize that the over hyped 'wonders of the world' weren't as impressive as the unknown experiences we had. Something about seeing a picture so many times takes away from seeing it in person, such as with the Taj Mahal. Also, thousands of tourists ruins things for me as well, so I much more enjoyed Myanmar and Laos where I knew next to nothing about and it was all brand new!

One of the best things of the whole year and a bit away, was that I've realized I feel differently about things now. I used to be (and still am in many ways) very black and white about my opinions. Part of it was probably my youth and lack of experience, but the more I saw and the more I talked to people with different world views than me, the more I opened up some grey to my thoughts. I may still not agree, but now at least I understand.

So I've been home about 2 weeks now. It's been great to catch up with everyone, see Shane and Meg's new baby Audrey, and settle back into a place that actually feels like home, which Singapore never did. My condo feels cozy, and I can't wait to set up our new art we got overseas! There is something weird about coming back as well.

How do you pick up the threads of an old
life? How do you go on, when in your heart
you begin to understand. There is no going
back.

Too much Lord of the Rings for me...

I guess it feels like things should be different, because so much has happened to me while I was gone. That was the reason I wanted to leave in the first place though. I felt that, all though I love my life here, the years were going by and they were so similar to one another. I did the same things and saw the same friends, and time sort of blended together. This trip was a huge sidestep, which felt like each month was a new year, and it was awesome. Not to say I could do it forever. There were downsides, a lot of stress, finding a place to sleep and eat and how to get places. I guess it just felt like I lived more. I do want to do it again, but for now, I'm happy to be home with my buddies, in my little house, and my awesome new job. Adventures will come again :)

Weekend #25

2011-01-30T04:10:00.000-08:00

Another lazy weekend comes and goes. Today it poured all day, Vancouver style. I was also cold from A/C much of the day, so it did sorta feel like winter. I am gonna be crunching at work these next two weeks, of course, so school was left for the weekend.

Speaking of, AM has just announced a new master class program! Animals & Creatures. It's a 6 month program aimed at creating realistic creature animation for VFX animation. It looks awesome, I'm hoping to take it sometime after I finish my current program. There's a link here.

Otherwise, I had my cheat day yesterday. I ate a looot of food I shouldn't normally have, including an awesome dinner with Teen at Yellow Light Thai (I LOVE PAD THAI) followed by a trip to our favorite dessert place, Awfully Chocolate Noms!

Mmm cold poached chocolate. This is the best dessert I've ever had.

Chinese New Year is coming up, so the studio is closed Thursday and Friday. Since I am no longer going on holiday, I'll probably still be at work... at least being productive is something!

Nat Geo Ultimate Bucket List

2011-01-27T05:53:00.001-08:00

Things like this probably aren't good for me. Soon I'll be attempting to ride a camel to the moon, because no one has done it before. But Nat Geo put together 20 crazy bucket list ideas. Thankfully they pair each with a more realistic adventure, because honestly, who's gonna spend 2 years hiking the three longest US trails combined (over 12,000km)? Check it out here.

A taste:

Hi guys!

2011-01-26T06:25:00.000-08:00

Hi friends. I have no specific subject for this blog post, but thought I'd write for random subjects. I just had a cold, it sucked. I had to stay inside all weekend, like a baby. Teen took very good care of me. Thanks sweetie!

Saturday was my 'cheat day' where I can eat whatever I want. Since I felt the most sick that day, I didn't really make the most of it. Teen made us some deeelicious risotto for dinner though.

We have been back from Bangkok for just over a week now. It feels like it's been longer because I've been super busy since then. First - Bangkok. It was a fun but pretty relaxing trip. We were both bummed that my Dad and Step-Mom couldn't make it, we were supposed to meet them there, but we decided to go and make the most of it anyway. Thailand won't always be a two hour flight away! We stayed in a pretty nice hotel in Chinatown, very convenient location for walking around. I was extremely excited to get my first of many tuk-tuk rides. Though basically just a motorbike with a cart on the back, they were awesome. You can semi-bargain with them, and once we got an idea of how much it cost to get around we were feeling less ripped off. It was cheap-ish... but not extremely. Beer was around $2 and most meals $5 or so. I'm assuming because it's a big city.

Highlights of the trip were a trip to the floating market (very much a tourist trap, but still fun to float around in... until the guide demanded a tip so we jumped out and ran away.)

This old man was awesome. Look at his face!

We also visited the zoo, which was all right... mostly because we saw a baby monkey walking around with a zoo keeper and it came very close to us. Adorable. We then went to the aquarium, which was awesome. We got to see a 4d movie about cute little animated turtles making their way in a world being destroyed by humans. The animation was surprisingly very good, though the 4th dimension was more terrifying than enjoyable. It sprayed us in the face with... something, poked our bums in the seat, and whipped our legs (which I, of course, always thought was someone stabbing me with a needle). It would've been better 2d, old school like the old school.

A visit to Koh San road was also a requirement. This is a small street cut off from traffic in the evening, selling many cheap items (clothes etc.) and quite a few bars and restaurants. We had an awesome Thai dinner here, the best of the trip, then had a mediocre drink at one of the bars before heading back to the hotel.

We found an awesome coffee shop, Black Canyon Coffee, which had the hugest selection of awesome coffee's I've ever seen. I think I was just in love with the menu. We went there the first day, and I basically talked about it the whole time, until I'm sure Teen was tired of it, and we got to go to another one on the last day. Woo hoo! Teen got her coffee in a boot. A glass boot of course.

We got a late flight home, arriving around 1:30am, where I received a text asking me to come in at 8am for a meeting. Since I'm a very reliable, excellent employee, I agreed. Super tired, I showed up on time, then Rob and I had to entertain our Animation Director who had arrive in Asia for the first time from California, visiting us for a couple days. We actually had a really good time. We got a lot of shop talk taken care of, got to know each other better than through the video cam, and went for a nice dinner downtown by the water.

Otherwise not to much has been going on, sans me being sick, previously mentioned, and us having to cancel our Sri Lanka trip. We basically can't go anywhere for Chinese New Year now because all flights out of Singapore are booked. Guess it'll be a chill few days off!

And, because I want to, a plug for my show! This is the first of a trilogy we did, I started working here on the third one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDsmgahRJ94

That's about it folks! Oh, and diet update... I faltered yesterday and ate ice cream, but am back on the wagon! I lost almost 5 pounds this week, so I figure I should stick it out for a few more. Down to 136 from 141. Woots. Two and a bit more days to go, can't wait for cheat day!

Sri Lanka no more!

2011-01-19T06:38:00.000-08:00

We had booked a trip to Sri Lanka for next weekend, but then it flooded. Thanks a lot La Nina. Now there are uncovered landmines, rushing swiftly into the towns of the innocent Sri Lankans, and elephants getting thrown up into trees. I definitely don't have a quality umbrella to handle this nonsense.

So my dreams of vising this:

And this:

Will have to wait. In all seriousness though, this was a pretty devastating flood. Over 300,000 people were out of their homes, and most of the country is requiring massive food and supply aid. I hope things get back to normal quickly!

Back on the beans...

2011-01-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

I am on day 3 of my bean diet. It's difficult. Apparently beans aren't in very many things. Imagine that.

Part of the '4-Hour Body - Slow Carb Diet' means I have to replace my 'white' carbohydrates with beans, peas and lentils. I am still eating the same amount of carbs, but they are broken down more slowly, releasing sugar throughout the day, instead of the quick ups and downs caused by rice, bread, pasta and potatoes. I have actually felt a more even energy level through the day. I am just struggling with finding ways to actually eat the beans, especially at work when eating out. It's easy enough to eat enough vegetables and meat.

So basically the 30 day diet (that is supposed to help you lose 20lbs. in a month, yeah right) is this:

1. Avoid white carbs (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes). Replace all of these with the above mentioned beans, lentils and peas.

2. No fruit or fruit juice. These contain huge amounts of sugar. Fruit juice (aside from protein shakes) is rarely recommended as a healthy drink as it is. If you want fruit, eat it, because at least your body has to break it down first.

3. Once a week have a cheat day. You can eat whatever you want this day, even junk. The idea is to spike your caloric intake so your metabolism doesn't just start to get used to the new way of eating and slow down. I won't be going insane as suggested in the book (KFC, chocolate bars, candy, ice cream) but will just use this day to eat what I've been missing all week. Like Pad Thai.

4. There is no calorie counting, so eat until you're full. You will need to up your vegetables to make up for the lack of white carbs.

5. If you do heavy exercise (a run, P90x) etc. you can eat regular carbs in the hour after to keep your energy up. This has actually encouraged me to workout, so I can have a peanut butter toast!

That's about it.

And in case you're wondering, it hasn't negatively affected me... ya know...

Exercise!

2011-01-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

As with every new year, I tell myself I will get in shape. Each year goes by where I sorta do for a bit... I hope this year will be different.

I started doing my P90x/Insanity workouts in the morning (5x a week, not 6x) and have been eating properly for... well 3 days now. I should probably actually weigh myself to see if I make changes. Waking up early has never been my favorite, but I'll keep at it for now. I can't seem to get time in the evenings.

This new 'radical' book was just released with I'm sure some of you have seen "The 4-Hour Body". Tim Ferriss is at it again, after his success of the 4 hour work week (which I never read, because, come on, no animator gets awesome on 4 hours a week). In this book he claims you can become superhuman and run 100 miles, and lose 20lbs in 30 days. I can't wait to read it and be a superhero like Buffy and save the world, a lot.

Though it's ideas are a little out there, a little extreme, and potentially not the right way to do things, I am nonetheless curious. I think I'll pick up a copy and give it a read. His 30 day diet actually makes sense, cutting out all 'white' carbs (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta) and replacing them with beans and lentils, and completely cutting out juice and fruit. The idea, I'm assuming, is to cut all the sugar, so your body actually burns the fat. I don't know if I could do 30 days of beans, but maybe a few days here and there could help. I'll let ya know how it goes.

This seems like something Kevin would be into - as it also has that strange sleep pattern idea (a series of 20 minute naps through the day). That is something I'm not willing to try, I love sleeping.

2011 - Time to Resolute

2011-01-02T04:47:00.000-08:00

As I did last year, I will compare my January goals to achievements. As this year had some unexpected changes, I didn't quite get them all, let's take a look:

Goals:

1. Continue doing Animation Mentor and keep in contact with my mentors.
2. Hike Garibaldi
3. Try outdoor rock climbing - scary!
4. Learn to paint! Our club will certainly help this.
5. Go to Japan and China.
6. Don't buy anything I don't need, unless it's travel related.
7. Work on getting my OCD under control.
8. Spend New Years with my friends this year :)

And reality:

1. Success. Though I had to take one term off for the move, and struggled though the last one, I successfully made it through. Half-way done, and on to my first acting class starting tomorrow.
2. Fail. I have been wanting to do this for years and I still haven't! I guess it's gonna have to wait for 2012 now...
3. Success. I went outdoor climbing this past week in Thailand, and it was awesome!
4. Half check. Though we did start the 'we can't paint' club, we only successfully completed one painting. Trying is something.
5. I didn't, in fact go to China or Japan, but I did go to Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand, so I consider that a fair trade-off. Success.
6. Half check. I had to buy quite a few things when moving to Singapore, but I've been pretty good and most of my purchases have been trips.
7. Half check. I try, it's hard. I could put more effort in, undoubtedly, but I only have so much time, and most of that is taken up with work and school right now.
8. Fail. This made me sad, I really wanted to spend New Years with my buds. Although we had a wicked time in Thailand with some old dude, some french dude, and some British girl, it wasn't the same.

Total 4.5/8. Doesn't quite match up to last years 75% but I still had some awesome experiences and crossed quite a few things off my bucket list. Here are some of the top.

I moved to another country.

I got to travel to 5 new countries.

I am working at a sweet animation company.

I became a dual-citizen, and got my British Passport.

I went on a wicked road trip to Utah.

I got Teen to finally like Buffy!

So as for this year, here are a few of my goals!

1. Travel to at least 5 new countries.
2. Finish Animation Mentor.
3. Spend New Years with my buddies in Vancouver (really this time).
4. Play more guitar.

I'm gonna leave it at that so I don't overwhelm myself. Hope you all had a great holiday!

Awesome Biking

2010-12-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

Teen posted this to me on facebook a while ago, but I thought I'd share it here. This guy is an awesome trials biker, in a really cool short with cute music. I gotta get one of these bikes, AWESOME! Dad if you're reading, I think you'd like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw&

Pre-Krabi Plan

2010-12-23T18:38:00.001-08:00

It's Christmas Eve! I'm at work! Most of my animators are mingling and I'm worrying about taxes. Ok enough of that. Off to Krabi tomorrow, our flight is just before noon so we should be in our hotel relaxin' by 2pm.

Ideally I will do the following:

Rock Climb like this chick.

Ride elephants into a river and beyond.

Take a Thai cooking class!

Eat a lot of pad thai, and whatever that coconut thing behind is... that looks allllright.

Hike through jungles like this one.

Dive and/or snorkel with Teen's new underwater camera, woo hoo!

Kayak under caves. I love caves.

So that might be a little ambitious, or maybe not. At least there are a lot of options. Yippee! Getting out of the city for 8 days will be awesome. Hope you all have a great holiday!

Workout Pain

2010-12-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

I started working out again for the first time in 4 months. I can't take a break like that again. I decided to mix up Insanity and P90X to form Pinsanity X, a grueling 5 day a week beat down. I've decided to be realistic and not make it 6 or 7 days, because I just won't do it. I took my favorite exercises from the two programs to make my own. So far I've done 2 days, and my body is killing me! It hurts to lift my arms, it hurts to lift my legs. I might have to make today my break day. I've decided I want a new 'style' and to wear this style of clothes, I need to be skinnier. So the quest begins.

In other news, I have a boyfriend. That might be a stretch. A boy who works near my building has decided he enjoys my company. He likes to follow me to work. Also, he occasionally runs after me and asks me to go on a date. I politely decline. Today he tried to find out where I live, so I lied about it. I stretched this lie to include telling him I have a big strong boyfriend already. "He's a vampire,: I said. "So don't be comin' round these parts at night." He doesn't seem to get the hint, maybe the vampire thing came off as a joke. I'm going to change my route to work in hopes of avoiding him in the future, or possible set him up with a she-pire to fill his lonely nights.

Singapore Night Out

2010-12-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

I just experienced a nerdy animator's dream last night - I went out and had drinks with Shawn Kelly. If anyone doesn't know who that is... he is a senior animator at ILM California, and a co-founder of Animation Mentor.

Left to right; Shawn, Carlos and Bobby, Animation Mentor founders.

So Shawn was doing a talk in Malaysia, and decided to pop over to Singapore and visit ILM while he's here. I noticed hoards of animators follow him downstairs after work, where we usually have a few beers on Friday. They surrounded him and took turns taking pictures. I played it cool and sat to the side. He's friends with some of my work buddies (Ullas - the lead animator I took over for and Cedric - ILM animation lead). After the hype died down, Ullas, Cedric, Shawn and I (along with Neil and Paul and a couple others) decided to head downtown to Blue Jaz for some dinner and a few drinks. I normally never go out, but hey... ya don't get to meet Shawn Kelly every day. He introduced himself and we chatted about Clone Wars (he trained the original crew (Ullas) 5 years ago here), Animation Mentor and random other stuff. He was super friendly and cool. I don't have a photo of us, see above mentioned 'playing it cool', but overall it was a super fun night. I got home after 1 and then was woken up at 8:30 for some men to fix a leak in the ceiling. I'm pretty sure these fumes are making me high as I sit here typing. Hopefully they finish up soon.

In other news, 5 more days until Christmas Holiday YAAAAAAAAAY! I can't say how excited I am for a break right now. Work = super stressful. I love it... but yes, stress. Teen took off to Malaysia for the week, so she'll be back Thursday and then we fly out again Saturday.

Also, I just got linked by Shane to this iPhone app which looks pretty sweet. Once they work out a few kinks and add more languages, and I get an iPhone again... I reckon I'll get it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7AJ7FWRWk

Well, I've got the weekend to myself. Time to fill it with updating my demo reel and starting my solid workout routine... for a week until holiday. I bought some weights, finally, the other night. Wow are they overpriced here. I'm used to the Canadian Tire $1/pound. Here, no such luck. A pair of 10lbs. was $60! Wtf? I managed, with the help of Janette and Teen, to find some at $30 for the pair, still overpriced but I guess the best I'll find. Late nights, overtime dinners, and no exercise are starting to get to me. Also the fumes, don't forget the fumes.

Comic Con (and other stuff)

2010-12-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

Phew, been a while again. Brief update on the past couple of weeks:

1. I turned 27. I had no party and would like never to speak of this again. I will commence birthday parties next year, when I refill my shoes in the birthday trifecta, which takes attention off me, and Jay is always way older anyway ;) Thanks Ellery for filling in this year, you looked great in that wig.

2. I'm ALMOST done this term at school. Today my last assignment is due, then I have three weeks off for Christmas. Thank GOD. I barely made it through this term. Way too much to do at work. I hope to balance things better next term (acting) so I can get something out of it.

3. I had a leadership retreat day at work. I learned about my personality type (and color). Basically it boils down to this:

Red - Confident, sometimes controlling, driven
Blue - Organized, scheduled, likes meeting deadlines
Yellow - Outgoing, people oriented, fun
Green - Emotionally driven, caring, understanding

Basically that was the order I ended up with haha. I was a similar level of blue, red and yellow, and had very little green. That doesn't surprise me. Emotional people irritate me.

4. I lied about number 1. I was bombarded with a surprise party last night. I went to Rob and Janette's to meet them and Teen after staying at work until 8:30 on a Friday night (how red/blue of me) and decided to yellow it up for a bit before bed. I showed up to a pile of balloons, signs, and a required birthday hat for me to enter. I put it on. Then we ate pizza, drank some wine (and eggnog, for those weirdos... not together), played wii fit and had a good ol' time.

5. SINGAPORE TOY, GAMES AND COMIC CONVENTION!

How nerdy. Lucasfilm had a presentation on Clone Wars, of which Rob (my fellow animation lead) and Josh (assets lead) were speaking. I thankfully was not required to talk, but got a front row seat to the show, along with Teen and Janette. I must say it made me very excited and proud to work on. PHOTOS!

Hanging out before the talk. The head of the studio, left, Rob, Josh, and Lee (CG supervisor) on the right.

Rob, clearly excited to present as Josh was speaking, and Meiting, one of our recruiters.

Josh explaining about scale and how they develop assets for the show.

Rob's turn to talk!

Vader and a storm trooper showed up. Lee had to get a hand in there...

A still from one of the animation segments they showed. Grievous and Ventress!

A shot of the crowd.

Teen wanted to discuss the rest of the convention, as I went back to work shortly after the talk. That about sums up the last two weeks folks!

Books!

2010-11-28T03:30:00.000-08:00

Teen and I went out today to find a bookstore that carried more than a few top sellers mixed in with school textbooks. We found one! We took the MRT about 40 minutes to Orchard, which is a fancier area of town where all the high end shops are. I was on the search for this book of knowledge, and Teen wanted some comics.

Before the big browse, we decided to check out this brunch place we'd heard many good things about, Wild Honey. Though we waited a good hour and a half (at least there were some interesting shops in the mall to browse) it was well worth the wait. There are breakfast options broken into countries, which was very interesting, and many of them looked amazing, though as I have been in eggs benny withdrawl for closing in on four months, what option did I have but to choose the European breakfast. A benny with mushrooms, prosciutto, and delicious hollandaise served on brioche. I can safely say this was one of the best bennies I've ever had, delicious!

We headed to the bookstore and I ended up with two sweet books (running me $90 as the prices here are close to double what they should be).

National Geographic's "The Knowledge Book"

I'm very excited about this one. It is broken into categories on astronomy, geology, history, biology, the arts etc. It's filled with photos and a ton of useful information that isn't super dry or difficult to read. WIN!

Lonely Planet's Traveler's Guide to "Planet Earth".

This one I just came across while browsing. Lonely Planet's guide to the BBC's "Planet Earth" series, from a traveler's perspective. It has some amazing destinations around the world in the different Planet Earth categories such as Caves, Deserts and Mountains.

Yay excited!

PS - Saw Scott Pilgrim last night FINALLY! I actually thought it was pretty cool. Some things were left out, as with all book to movies, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

TTFN!

Christmas in Singapore

2010-11-22T17:32:00.001-08:00

This feels weird. Singaporeans are obsessed with Christmas. Decorations are up in all the stores, banners hanging in the hawkers stalls. It's hot, sunny, non-November feeling pre-Christmas. Though I'm not the biggest supporter of 'Christmas', I miss the feeling that time of year brings. 60 days of rain, leaves piling up, wet soppy puddles, jeans soaked to the knee... or... er, well the other things. Cookies and get togethers and nom nom dinners. Also it's secretly cute when other people like Christmas, even though I'm not into that kinda thing. Not sure if we will be doing much Christmas-y celebrations here, I barely noticed it's my birthday in two weeks. We are in massive crunch at work and the weeks are flying by. Good and bad I suppose.

Speaking of birthdays... 27! When the hell did that happen! Why life, why must you whiz by so hastily? I probably do it to myself. Too much work makes years go bye bye. Maybe it's time I revert back to my old idea of tying a handkerchief to a stick and putting something in that handkerchief, and walking around with it, looking at stuff and stuff. Balance is the consistent goal that I struggle to attain, and struggle even harder to keep if by some miracle I'm in it for a brief moment. Before I realize it, I'm working so hard at being balanced that the scales have tipped again. Maybe I should go to Tibet and hang out with the Buddhists for a while. How did they get so wise, so accepting, forgiving and peaceful? Maybe it's the altitude.

If I don't find my balance, if my 20's continue to fly by as fast as the rest of them, well hey, 30 can't be so bad.

Brunei

2010-11-18T07:41:00.001-08:00

New photo post on do the world. Check it out!

Trips Ahoy

2010-11-10T02:05:00.001-08:00

What a cheesy title, who chose that? With Brunei coming up on Saturday, we of course decided to plot out some more trips to take on our Asian Adventure. With quite a few holidays per year, and my 6 remaining holiday days, we have come up with a sweet, yet tentative list.

November 2010 - Brunei

December 2010 - Krabi, Thailand

January 2011 - Koh Chang, Thailand (when my Dad and Jennifer come to visit)

February 2011 - Sri Lanka

April 2011 - Bali, Indonesia (when my sisters come to visit)

May 2011 - Hong Kong

We have 1 more holiday after wards which we haven't decided upon. Possibly back to Cambodia since I haven't checked it out yet. We are also planning a 2 month trip up through China and Japan before we come home. YAY TRAVELING!

Risotto

2010-10-31T20:15:00.001-07:00

Teen and I have been watching this awesome new show from Jamie Oliver - Food Escapes. He travels around (mostly Europe) and learns about local cooking techniques, demonstrates a few of his own twists on their recipes, and shows a bit of the local culture. It's also shot very nicely which adds to it's appeal. There are some really cool shows here that I don't think we get back home, this being one of them.

Anyhow, when he traveled to Venice he cooked some amazing risottos and we had to try. I have never made risotto, nor had Teen, and we've heard from all the cooking shows that it's easy to mess up so I was a little nervous about how we'd do. We managed to pull it off (well Teen did most of the tending to it while I cooked the chicken and the toppings). The main thing about risotto is that it requires a lot of attention, almost constant stirring and adding stock every minute for about 17 minutes. It turned out great, we added it to the tomato and basil I cooked, then added the rest to the artichokes. Two delicious risottos and some chicken, yum yum!

We didn't take pictures because we were starving and scarfed it all down. I recommend!

Rainforest Photos

2010-10-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you not on facebook, here are the photos from the rainforest hike.

Two Years

2010-10-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday marked the two year anniversary for Teen and I! Who would've thought we'd be spending it trudging through a rain forest in Singapore. But we did. And it was amazing.

In the Northern Central area of Singapore is a rainforest. As with most places in Singapore it's clean, well maintained and pretty safe. It is part of a reservoir/water conservation plan to restore and improve waterways for Singaporeans and it's various species. We started off at a very nice 'stretching zone', a covered wooden courtyard filled with yogis, drink stands, bathrooms and information about the area.

We bought some well needed water and headed out for the 11km hike, which was estimated to take 4-5 hours. At first we were passing through a man-made lake, which was pretty cool because a ton of kayakers and long boat paddlers were practicing through the center of it. We walked around the side of the lake and entered the rain forest.

Though the hike wasn't especially hard (absolutely no comparison to the Chief or the Grind, this was mild incline/decline only). At the start of the trail head, we were suddenly approached by a monkey, who was quite curious of Teen's pop. Moments later about 5 others emerged. I'm not gonna lie, I was worried. The big one came close to Teen and followed her as she threw away the pop, after which it settled down. I took some video and photos which I'll add in soon (I'm at work, because I can't seem to find any time to post and decided to just do it now).

There was an adorable baby that sat directly in front of a woman, staring up at her. This was amazing, I'd never been so close to wild monkeys before. The other hikers told us they were safe, but not to feed them. We continued on. At first we heard a lot of thunder and considered heading back, but it blew over and the day remained comfortably overcast. At first trail runners were passing us frequently, making us feel very out of shape, but once we got further in they decreased in numbers and we were, for the most part, alone.

We saw a flying squirrel jump out of a tree and glide towards us. Later we reached a suspension bridge on the canopy level of the forest and got to see out with an amazing view. Much of the hike turned into wooden boardwalks and up/down stairs as we continued to see wildlife. A large monitor lizard was devouring a dead monkey. We aren't sure if he killed the monkey or not, but I like to think he did. I almost stepped on a snake of unknown variety. Teen insists it didn't bite me, and since I'm still around days later, she is probably right. We also saw a family of turtles swimming by the lake shore nearing the end of our journey, as well as another adorable family of monkeys, with EXTRA babies this time. We were both quite tired after the 3.5 hours that it ended up taking us, but it was an awesome experience. If anyone tries to tell you there's nothing to do in Singapore, by golly, they'd be wrong.

11 weeks down, 45 to go! Maybe I shouldn't count so often, it'll feel like longer...

Friday Night Lights

2010-10-15T21:08:00.001-07:00

Phew, another long week goes by. Fridays arrive more quickly each week, and I'm always looking forward to them! I had to work late/do schoolwork almost every night this week, so I was very happy to leave work on time and go check out more of Singapore.

We went downtown with Rob, Janette and Janette's mom (who likes to prod and tease me in typical Aussie fashion, calling me 'hungry Jenn' because apparently I'm always eating... but I can tell she really likes me, especially when I ousted her of a cheers session because she didn't have the green beer we all had). All in good fun!

We went downtown to check out iLight, a light show in the harbour. It ended up not being especially amazing light show wise, but was a beautiful night and the city looked awesome. We had a nice meal before heading out to the show in a yaletown-esque part of town, filled with a ton of expats, it actually felt like home.

This photo by Teen.

I've started a new game I like to call kick the cockroach. Teen is very fearful of them, so yesterday on the train platform when she screamed and hopped away from one, I kicked it swiftly onto the tracks, much to my satisfaction.

Later in the evening, while on the pier, Rob noticed a cockroach down the platform. I ran at it full speed, kicking mightily, and the cockroach flew astray and landed on a man's foot, quickly speeding up his leg. While everyone else watched with their jaws dropped, I proceeded to turn and run away as fast as possible.

This game is getting better every day.

So it was all in all a successful Friday night! Today Teen is off for her working interview as an event planner, GOOD LUCK TEEN! I will be doing some homework for a few hours before meeting up with Bradley for an ice-skating break at the arena a few MRT stops away. I have been told the ice is terrible, bumpy, and has a layer of water on it. I really hope I don't fall down.

The pier where I kicked the cockroach.

Best Video Ever

2010-10-14T02:44:00.001-07:00

This rivals the cuteness of the sloth sanctuary. Thanks, Durka, for showing me this video. I introduce, the slow loris:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9f-6jygRJk

Palau Ubin

2010-10-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

For your viewing pleasure:

*The video quality was better, then I tried to make it small enough to fit on vimeo and this happened... I'm terrible at video conversion.

Palau Ubin - Singapore from teen chan on Vimeo.

Return of the Blogi

2010-10-10T04:23:00.000-07:00

I'm back! Sorry for my hiatus, I was very busy the past couple weeks due to SCHOOL starting back up. Sigh. Sometimes I don't know why I do this to myself. I love school, and I love work, but work + school = less free time for other fun times. I will really try to be more diligent, even if it's a short post.

This weekend, however, I got my schoolwork done on Saturday so I had last night and today to play! This weekend has been quite full, in fact. On Friday, we went downstairs to the local pub after work for a few beers with the crew. Teen joined, as per usual. Janette's mom has been in town the last week, so Rob, Teen and I went and joined them for some infamous Singapore Chili Crab.

We went to a local seafood establishment to chow down, for a more expensive dinner than I had expected. We ended up paying about $45 each but at least we had some delicious chili crab AND black pepper crab.

We then wandered around and found the wake board park, which is open at night as well. It's basically a large man-made lake with a pulley system attached to ropes which you hang on to and they drag you around. There are some sweet jumps on it as well; watch out for future entries of me bailing hard at the wake board park.

After I finished my school yesterday, we met up with Rob, Janette and mom yet again! This time for some delicious Laksa, chocolate cupcake deliciousness, and to top it all off, a viewing of Eat Pray Love (which only just now opened in Singapore). I did enjoy the movie, but not as much as the book as is usually the case. I probably enjoyed it slightly less than the chocolate... but it was gooood chocolate.

I intended on having a bunch of photos to go along with this, but as usual technology has thwarted my plans. I decided to shoot on my photos raw this weekend, and then of course we didn't have a codec we needed for photoshop to open the files. Then Teen's computer decided that it has extreme protection and wouldn't let us download winrar which we needed to download the codec. The end result is that I'm now downloading photoshop on my computer, but it isn't done yet.

The GOOD news; I edited a very dramatic cut of our trip to Palau Ubin, a nearby island we went bike riding on today, which will be available for your viewing pleasure shortly!

Happy Thanksgiving to you guys, hope you had a turkey-blast with a side of ladled goodness.

Missing Home

2010-09-26T06:36:00.001-07:00

I'm really missing Vancouver today for some reason. It's been another long week. I have a shot that is taking way longer than I expected so it's been calling for some late nights and weekend workdays. Teen took off for Cambodia at 3:30am today; we got very little sleep.

Yesterday Teen and I went on an excursion through Singapore to visit Little India. We decided to take the opportunity while we're here to check out everything Singapore has to offer; which is surprisingly more than I thought. It's kind of known for 'shopping and eating' and that's about it. There is a rain forest park in the center of the country (about a 1/2 hour MRT ride) that you can go on hikes up to 5 hours. Many interesting locations around to experience both in terms of nature and culture, so over the months we will be checking them out, recording them with my new Canon T2i, and posting videos on "Do the World". I started editing "Little India" today :)

Last night we met up with Rob, Janette, James and Vic and went for a little night adventure of our own. We went to Aljunied, the hooker MRT stop, not to check them out but to try an interesting dish of frogs legs. We arrived at the restaurant, passing crates full of live frogs, where they seated us at stained patio furniture in an alley occupied by a rabid cat. Rabies is my new 'obsession' since I pet a stray kitten the other day and have been concerned about the consequences ever since.

Rob and Janette ordered a pot of chilli frog legs, and we all sampled them. They were a cross between fish and chicken, the taste of chicken but with a more delicate texture. They were nothing to write home about, and I wanted to save my appetite for the Thai food that we were heading to for our full meal. A few pad thai's later, we headed out for some beers, squashing a few lounging cockroaches on the way.

We ended the night at James and Vic's, where I was poaching a copy of Maya, watching Departures on their new projector, aimed at the wall. Oh what a night.

We caught the extended MRT train home (due to F1 weekend) by around 1:30 where Teen proceeded to pack for her 6am flight. Neither of us managed to get much sleep before she got up at 3am to head out in search of a taxi. I got about 4 or 5 hours before I got up and headed to work for a long and fairly stressful day. I'm now indulging in two 750ml beers, watching old Departures episodes and thinking of home.

It's funny that just the other day I was thinking how interesting it is that you can travel half way around the world, plop yourself down and try to make a little life, and amazingly, despite all the differences, you just carry on. You hang out with friends, go to work, grab some beers and life isn't all that different. Then other days, I'll see pictures from home and just wish I could be there, watching the seasons change with you all, chatting on the couch til midnight. A year goes by fast, and a year goes by slowly... it all depends on the day.

Tennis Team

2010-09-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

I have been recruited onto the LucasFilm tennis team, YEEHAW! Well, in actuality this was our first outing. We went to one of the girls' place closeby and had a super time, but it was very hot even after the sun went down. I hadn't played tennis in a few years, and I haven't played competitively since highschool, but I wasn't as rusty as I expected. I'm looking forward to continuing with Monday Night Tennis!

Last night was the second installment of White Night! We had a nummy shrimp dip, cheese plate, KD, Green Curry and a loooot of cookies. Below are some photos. The last one, where I look terrible, I had to post because I think my face looks like a cookie. Cookie face from eating 5 cookies.

Also this week I bought a laptop. I was planning on getting a Mac but in the end it lost and PC won. $2700 vs $999. Apple, get with the program duuude.

Love Your Ride

2010-09-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

The last week or so I noticed that when trains arrived at the MRT stops, a song would come on that reminded me of a SUPER old school Micky Mouse cartoon or something "The train is coming, the train is coming, the train is comiiiiiing!"

I found out later it was part of a Singaporean MRT announcement encouraging people to be polite on transit (which they very much aren't). Check this number out: Love Your Ride by the Dim Sum Dolly's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5eY43Ewh9A

Muffin Man

2010-09-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

What's better way to spend a lazy Sunday than having a fresh-baked durian muffin with a side of barley drink?

Let me tell you... anything.

There is a muffin man in the local mall, which I'd picked up a couple delicious banana and blueberry muffins from earlier this week. Today, while browsing the mall again, I decided to take him up on his deal of buy 5 get 1 free. An assortment of lovely choices... and a durian muffin for my freebie, just because I had to.

For those of you who don't know, the durian is an offensive fruit, which is both loved and feared openly in Asia.

Singaporeans even built a building in it's honour, right in the main harbour area!

Signs like these frequent the city.

The fruit's pungent odor can be detected from close to a block away, hence the city wide warnings. The smell itself isn't too offensive, until you've tasted the fruit. The smell is then a reminder of the feeling that ensues after consumption, similar to smelling orange juice after a long night of screw drivers.

We picked up the half dozen and headed back home for a snack. I decided to wash it down with this strange barley drink I'd noticed a week or so ago.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and I just don't have that much time, so have a look below to experience along with us.

Enough said.

To finish on a high note, this adorable puppy we saw in the pet store.

Chores are boring

2010-09-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

This last week has been very busy, very stressful, and very annoying. This is why I have not blogged! I had/have irritating tasks to accomplish outside of work, during work hours, and many of them didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked. I had to go set up automatic withdrawal for my landlady, so I took the almost 2 hour lunch, the two trains and a walk in the rain to the bank, the 30 minute wait, for them to tell me they couldn't process the papers because they couldn't decipher the branch code from the account number. Really? Thanks bankers. So I had to go back to work, find out from my agent that it was in fact the first three numbers of the account, and waste another 2 hour lunch, along with missing a meeting at work that I should've attended, to finally get that set up. Then I called to get the gas tank filled at home so we could cook. The lady barely spoke English, and then told me she couldn't send a guy unless I knew what size the tank was. Apparently me saying "like a BBQ propane size" wasn't good enough. Once I called back again and finally got her to understand the address, a guy came and filled it up while Teen was there. She left with him, and her and I met for dinner before going to pick up Ed from the airport. I decided to go back home and drop off my bag before we went to the airport, and when we arrived the whole place smelled like gas. The guy had left the burner knob on full and just left. So we had to open all the windows and doors and sit outside for 1/2 hour to air it out. Thankfully no one lit a match. I still have to find a post office to pay my $110 TV license fee, which you need to pay whether or not you have cable, but none are close to work and I'm tired of stressing out running around all day. Fuck you, TV license.

Sigh.

That is the end of my rant, it has been a stressful week. I also started my new episode at work so I'm getting used to the semi-rushed work atmosphere, which probably wasn't helping. I do really, really like my job though. I like it much more than chores. Needless to say, the last two nights have been beer-nights.

Tonight, we go to Bintan, Indonesia! I hope to relax there, have fun with Ed and Teen, and come back Monday with less anger.

Wow, what a bitter post. I'll talk to Yoda later and see what he has to say. Very wise he is.

The New Place

2010-09-05T01:30:00.001-07:00

We moved! No longer are we in the service apartment. I found a place closer to work (about a 20 minute walk) and near Rob & Janette's place. Teen's aunt Dina gave us a bunch of stuff yesterday, since the place doesn't come with cookware etc., and drove us with all our stuff from Chinatown to our new place. We took a stop by Ikea on the way as well. This will be an expensive couple of weeks.

I'll still need to pick up a few things, a chair for the livingroom, a lamp, a side table etc. but we have the bulk of what we need. Here are some photos! It's very messy because we just dropped everything in here. Enjoy heh.

Here's the living room. We're on the main floor, which is nice, because we get a little grassy area and the rest of the units have no balconies. In fact, we came home today to have someone's laundry drying on our lawn. A guy came by later saying he had a deal with the previous tenant to dry his clothes there on Sunday's. I was a good guy and said that was ok. If anyone else tries pulling that though... fist shake!

I had to open all the cupboards and air the place out. I'll show it again once it's all fixed up!

Here is the bedroom.

This is the half bath.

The master bath.

This is where I found a gecko, got scared, and threw a bucket at it. I haven't been back in there since yestday.

Do the World

2010-09-02T18:43:00.001-07:00

We have now opened a new blog (linked on the right) "Do the World". This will be where Teen and I talk about our travels from here on. This blog I'll talk more about other life stuff :) Woot!

Bintan

2010-08-31T04:31:00.001-07:00

I officially booked my first holiday, yippee!! Ed, Teen and I are going to a small Indonesian Island for the September long weekend (which here is September 10th). I had to do a strange online payment, or hold, or something, since they never gave me an amount but did get my 'nets' card number. Banking is different here. I haven't got an actual credit card yet, but when you get assigned a debit card (called NETS) it says VISA on it, and has an expiry date. I was confused. Apparently you can use your card AS a credit card, yet it has no credit. Basically, it pulls the money directly from your account like debit, but you can use it for online purchases. Which is actually quite a brilliant idea. If you have money.

We will be taking a ferry from Singapore that takes about 45 minutes to the island of Bintan.

Chug-along-chug-along. Then we arrive! I booked the shadiest place I could find cause it was cheaper and stuff. Indonesian islands on a long weekend ain't a bargain. We managed to get two bedrooms, so it says.

I hope it'll be fun. James and Victoria went and had a good time. There are monkeys so it can't be all bad.

I'm going trip crazy right now! The November Brunei trip will be booked today or tomorrow, and I'm extremely stoked about this one. Probably more than anywhere else. Partly because I know nothing about Brunei, and hadn't even really heard of it before now, so it will be super exciting AND we're sleeping in tents IN A RAINFOREST! OMGZ.

For Christmas I'm planning on going to Krabi, Thailand. It has a million billion outdoor activities, climbing, hiking, scuba, kayaking, elephant bathing (this will be sweet), the full moon party and the island from "The Beach". I'm trying to book a place on Railay Beach in this place.

Awesome. Plus it has this epic guarantee:

"Refunds are provided for natural disasters. If a natural disaster occurs and your cancellation notice has expired, we will provide a refund of 75% of the booking, or reschedule your booking. Natural disasters are limited to Tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, comet strikes and the end of the world."

At LEAST if the world ends, I'll get 75% of my money back, cause I'm totes gonna need it.

Updates

2010-08-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

The last few days haven't been anything epic. Work, work, work. I realized I've become a little rusty on my full body character animation and acting. Boo! That's what two years of talking dogs will do to you. Note to self: Don't do that again. I went into work on Saturday to get some good animation time in. Usually my days have been consisting of an hour of work, an hour of meeting, half hour work, lunch, two hours of meeting, one hour work, one hour meeting... you get the idea. Lots of meetings, hard to find your flow. Saturday was great and I got a lot done.

When doing shot assignments last week, I kept finding more fun stuff *I* wanted to animate, so I kept taking it (as lead, I get to choose whatever I want hah). However, I technically have no quota, yet I took a full quota of work. I am having reservations about this now... I think I'll have to hand some back. No need to overload myself when I can just focus on making a few really nice pieces.

I'm heading over to James and Victoria's tonight, with about 6 others, for a dinner party! Vic is making lasagna so I said I'd make ceasar salad. This is tough, however, finding all the things I need (I want to make the dressing from scratch). When I went to my local little grocery store they only had one romaine lettuce and not enough of everything else I need. I'll have to do some exploring and find a bigger store. In fact, I better get on that asap as I have to leave in about two hours for the party.

We (James, Vic, Teen and I) are also going on a trip in November so we have to sort out those details and book. I think the plan right now is to go to Borneo (Malaysia). Or Brunei which is a tiny country right between. Ah here's a map.

So the area is sweet, and has weird things like this:

Interesting architecture.

Charming residents.

Unique flora.

Strange fauna.

It will no doubt be a magical experience.

I Heart Sandwiches

2010-08-23T05:29:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went over to James and Vic's place for a little hangout. Their place is super sweet and posh (but they pay for it...). We had a nice swim in the pool for a while, which was refreshing cause it was a really hot day, and then decided to go downtown for some Thai food. We found a place that said it was Thai, but in fact didn't have pad thai. They convinced us something else on the menu was it, but they lied. At least the green curry and veggies were delicious!

We then wandered around in search for ice cream sandwiches (as if we hadn't eaten enough already). In Singapore the ice cream sandwiches are strange. There are carts around the city like hot dog stands. They basically pull a block of icecream out of the freezer (it's suuuper cold) and wrap it in a piece of strange pink and green dyed bread. You can choose from many flavors of ice cream, but it all goes in this weird bread. You then hold and eat it like any other sandwich. The ice cream was good, but I must say the bread scared me and wasn't my favorite, but it was worth a try.

Also, James, Vic and I came up with an amazing idea. "White Night" where we will get together and make white food to make us feel more at home. Certain foods here are harder to find, like beef, north american type food, greek or italian food etc. We will be making the foods that are harder to find around here to help keep us from getting too bored with this food. I'm very excited. First on the list is Lasagna with garlic bread and ceasar salad, mmmmm!

I went home and brushed up on my Star Wars, re-watching episode 2 and 3. I love Natalie Portman.

Clone Wars Sketches

2010-08-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

Right before I left, Peanut and Ellery got me this awesome book. How to sketch Clone Wars! Great, now I will impress everyone with my sweet skills at work. No problem, right?

Here is an example of how good I will be after using this book.

So now I draw Yoda. Wow. That's magical all right. What's with ol' wonky eye?

Now I try Anakin. It may not be the worst drawing ever, but I had to stare at the book in order to even make it look like this. Clearly drawing faces is not my fortay. Well, that was day one. Hopefully in a while I will be able to create my own poses!

Apartment go good?

2010-08-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

So I just met with my agent and signed a letter of intent for renting an apartment I just looked at. I really like it so I hope it goes through! Renting here is almost as much of a hassle as buying in Canada, minus the banking. The paperwork through the agents is pretty weird though. My agent, Sean, put up the deposit for me until I get my bank sorted out next week. Very nice!

If this link works, there are some pictures here of the building:

I don't know what that random pink building is, but it's all the other photos. Ignore the pink. For the price it costs at least it has like 3 pools, tennis court, gym, ping pong, pool table, BBQ pits etc.

For Ellery, here is where we are in relation to the world:

Also here is a photo of the Clone Wars figures when you enter the doors of work. This was the only thing in the studio we are allowed to take pictures of, but since I don't have the cord to my camera, I just found one online with this random guy who I don't know. Replace him with me, and that was my intention for this photo!

Yay!

Weekend!

2010-08-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry my blog posts have been so wordy and not picturey enough. Teen accidentally took the wrong camera cord to Vietnam with her so I can't upload anything!! I did a little (terrible) drawing session with my Clone Wars book so I'll have to update ya on that later. El - no matter how bad you think you are, remember I'll always be worse ;)

So I made it through my first week! And I sent in my first shot! Despite only really getting 3/4 of a day of animation time in, I got my 8 second shot submitted. Granted it wasn't very difficult, but I was proud nonethless. Also, I was told I can approve my own work haha. I got the other lead to look anyway until I'm more comfortable with the show style, it's always good for someone to check out your stuff with an objective eye. Rob and I decided to run some of our stuff past each other for that reason. Anyway, shot submitted. I also had to interview someone already, yikes! The interviews are kinda nerve racking for everyone cause there were four of 'us' (Rob, myself, a recruiter (Meiting) and our associate producer Tim, interviewing one guy. I got a few questions in but mostly just observed how the whole thing went to get more comfortable with it. Interviewing can be almost as scary as being interviewed. I would've tried to prep a bit more but we had 2 hours notice for it and we were in another meeting right before!

After work a bunch of us headed down to Chinatown (right by where I'm staying) to have dinner and some beers. I'll give you a short rundown on the guys cause I'll probably mention them throughout the year.

This is Paul. He's a senior animator on my team. An Aussie.

This is Brad. He's on a different project at work, also an animator, also an Aussie. Him, Paul and Neil (below) worked with Rob in Australia. Brad is funny and hairy.

This is Neil and his girlfriend Alaine. He is an animator on Rob's team. Also Aussie. Very nice guy. He's actually buddies with one of my AM bud's as well.

You guys probably know James and Victoria. They're from Vancouver. Oddly enough, Victoria is actually from Trail, BC where Bryan's girlfriend Kailey is from, and of course they know each other. Small world! James is the FX lead on our show, and Victoria works downtown near Chinatown.

And of course you guys know Rob and Janette!

There, now the pictures are taken care of! So we all went down to Chinatown last night. Had some gt's, some laughs, some food, and some creepy guy went into a bathroom stall with James and tried to hit on him. Later we saw the guy sitting in a corner alone. I went home around 10:30 cause I'm lame and they no doubt partied it up later!

Today I got up to get my employment pass! My alarm didn't go off (because I hadn't set it properly) so I was scuttling around this morning to get out in time. I struggled with finding a taxi because I forgot they mostly just pick you up from Taxi stands which are littered about the city. Once I got to one I found a guy right away. What a ride that was. He was telling me how there are no God's and that people just made it up. Then later he talked about going to heaven and all you have to do is love. All that matters is love, hope and... something else, and without love you are... hopeless (looks at me in the rearview mirror) "hahahahahahahahahahah!" People here are weird sometimes. Then he proceeded to show me a two page laminate of a newspaper article where he hit a bad guy with his car and held him down for the police. Apparently this bad guy was hired to chop chop people up, and God went within the taxi driver to give him superman strength and stop the bad guy. After all, I probably could've walked to the e-pass office faster than we drove, but it was an interesting experience anyway. I got some photos taken, had 18 attemps by a trainee to take my fingerprints, and went off on my way, approved by the ministry of manpower to work and live in Singapore!

I was supposed to then find a certain bank, the DBS Bank, to open an account so I can proceed to the other tasks of getting an apartment etc. I looked and looked and found EVERY other bank, even the obscure ones, but couldn't find DBS. I came home, checked online, and went back out. Again, no DBS. I did find a subway and a nice coffee shop so I got some nom noms and came back home, defeated again by my poor direction sense, and had my subway. I'll have to go to another branch on my way to work Monday.

I finally spoke to my apartment agent, he lined up a few places for me to look at and we're heading out in an hour or so. I'm excited, and hope I find one I like! Unfortunately, since I didn't open a bank account (they're only open from 9-1 on Saturdays) I might not be able to put down a deposit as soon as I'd like. We'll see. At least I'm getting out there!

That's it for now, I'll keep ya posted on how the house hunt goes!

Likes and Dislikes

2010-08-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

So according to my relocation guide I should be in the 'honeymoon' stage of culture shock. It is described as: "Everything is new and exciting. You are excited about being in a new place where there are new sights and sounds, new smells and tastes. You feel ready to take on new challenges!"

I feel like I'm moreso in pre-honeymoon stage (which apparently doesn't exist in my guide). I'm partially excited about the new place, and partially feeling homesick, missing people, a little panicky that I'm actually here for a whole year etc. I'm adjusting quite well, but when I think about it I feel slightly trapped (also since I found out if you leave early you have to pay back your relocation fee, first month housing fee, and airline ticket... so I'm totes here for a year).

Work is great, I love it. I made friends quickly, am settling slowly and easily into my role and enjoying it a lot. There are some things that are a little more difficult outside of work however. Here is my first week analysis of the transition period.

Likes

1. I am not hot inside anymore. My house at home was very, very warm at night and sometimes hard to sleep.

2. Food is extremely cheap and very accessable.

3. Transit is also cheap and convenient.

4. We are so central in Asia. There are cheap and easy flights, trains, busses and ferries to countries nearby. Go travel!

5. I already have a couple buddies here, so I don't feel as lonely as I might otherwise.

6. For some reason my shoulder pain went away as soon as I got here. I guestimated that it was due to humidity, but Teen mocked me. I really have no idea, but they went from daily bothering pain to none at all.

7. The maid cleans 3 times a week, she makes the bed and does the dishes. Nice maid.

Dislikes

1. Renting an apartment is insane. It took me all week for an agent (required) to get back to me. It will apparently cost me at least $2,500/month for a place, plus a 1 month rent security deposit, plus the agent fee which is also equivalent to 1 month's rent. There is also some other random fee which I forget... but basically it costs at least $8,000 to move into a place. No wonder they gave such a big reloaction allowance!

2. Them not accepting Teen and I as a couple is really screwing up our plans as far as she's concerned. It's stressful for her to have to come in and out of the country, so we'll have to figure something out there...

3. Amazingly I'm already missing 'white' food. The white food here isn't actually cheap, it's around the price at home, but once you pay $2.50 for lunch then $15 seems insane. I miss salad, Whole Foods, sandwiches and home cookin'!

4. I miss my bed! I love my bed at home, it's so comfy. Here the bed is a lot harder and the sheets aren't very soft.

5. Not that I'm planning on getting one, but cars (an average, honda civic type) cost $80,000!! Plus insane registration and licensing fees. Good luck with that one. MRT it is.

Interesting Tidbits

1. Apparently to 'alight' means to get off/out of a vehicle. On the MRT they say 'please alight at the next station'. I'd never heard this phrase before, but dictionary knows best.

2. It doesn't appear that the rules I was scared about have much affect on the general population. I even chewed gum here (inside the studio). As I mentioned previously there is j-walking everywhere and people smoke on the street. There are barely any police (I've only seen 1). I don't dispute that these rules exist, but I don't know how strictly they are enforced.

3. People say 'la' at the end of many sentences randomly. I don't think it has a particular meaning, but is likely something along the lines of 'eh'. "This is pretty cool la?" or "Look over here la." It doesn't have to be a question. Odd la?

4. On that same note, people also say "blah, blah, blah" after sentences often. Even in semi-professional situations like work meetings, they'll partially read something 'If you require medical reimbursement blah blah blah...' Come to think of it this might be a problem...

5. A GECKO ALMOST FELL ON MY HEAD TODAY! While walking home to the MRT, along a treed sidewalk, a loud thud occured on my right. I looked down to see a stunned gecko beside me. I then looked up, got worried, and hurried along. I will not look up again, in case it falls in my eye. If one does land on me however, I will name him la la and he will be mine *forever.

*remainder of contract

I'm sure there's more but it's 10pm now and way past my bedtime. I think over the next month once I have all my employment pass, banking, new home set up I will be able to settle down and relax a bit more. I'm gonna get planning my September long weekend trip with Ed and Teen this weekend, where oh where to go...

Settling In

2010-08-18T06:12:00.000-07:00

Things have been getting a little more routine, well... today. I finally made it to and from work without getting even the slightest bit lost! Very impressive to me. I am still waking up early, so I got to work at 8:30 this morning before most of the animation team. I'm gearing up into my lead duties, and got a taste of it today. Meeting, meeting... dailies, quality control, meeting, 1 hour of animation time. Phew! Rob bought a little electronic light that he's gonna click on, shining at the post behind him, which indicates he's available to review work. I'll probably do something similar, because having a line-up of people sporatically through the day really hinders your workflow. I had a big rundown on the pipe and Maya tools, which actually is fairly straight forward so I should get the hang of it shortly. My biggest fear is dailies, where I have to stand in front of 15 animators (my team) and watch their work on the big screen while giving them notes. Public speaking is not my friend, guess I have to get used to it!

The day actually went by really quickly, and it's nice to break it up with different tasks. The morning meeting I had was cool, and I got to give some input into tool development which was nice. I kinda missed that about being a lead, getting a little more say into how things are run. I met all the leads on the team today as well, lighting, fx, comp etc. Overall, good day. I started on a shot as well but it took me a while with interruptions this afternoon. Still nice to get animating again!

At lunch it POURED! I mean, really came down. The stairs in the courtyard were literally a waterfall, and the entire area down there flooded. They have these trap doors in the ground which they open up to take in the water. I had some Mexican for lunch today just to mix it up, and they gave me salad! Oh how I love salad. Even though it was basically just lettuce with vinegar, it was the best salad ever. There is a dude at the food court who collects the dishes after we've used them who everyone calls the 'take take' man. He's this old Chinese guy, who basically budges into your table to take your plate. "Take, take... you eat, I take, mmmmmmmmm hahahaha!"

It was hilarious.

Anywhoo I think that's about it for today. Oh, Ed called last night at 1am. He woke me up. I barely remembered the next morning, but then received an email from him stating that it was in fact 10pm. I'm always asleep by 8:30 so I guess I was mistaken. He's gonna come visit in the next few weeks so hopefully we take take a little trip to Indonesia or something. Excited! Teen is off to Vietnam tomorrow for 10 days, so I guess I'm on my own! I've made some new buddies though, so I'm not too concerned. Three guys from Australia, and of course Rob and James. Us whities are going out Friday night to have some beers near my place.

Next update soon!
*hearts*

First Day!

2010-08-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

I had my first day at LucasFilm yesterday. Information overload! We had an intensive orientation, that continues over to the first half of today (I'm writing this at 6:30am... we've been passing out by 8:30pm and waking up around 5am due to jetlag). We learned all about the history of the company, got to watch some sweet videos, then the run down on all our medical plans/vision plans/dental plans, how the company runs, all the department heads, a cool tour and meet & greet. It's amazingly well run, I'm very impressed. They have cleaning staff basically non-stop keeping the place perfect. They have free photography/sculpting/life drawing classes every Wednesday nights which I'll try to take advantage of from time to time. My desk (which I haven't really been able to work at yet) is in a corner of our glass building and I can see planes taking off and landing. I sit beside Robby! We went for lunch across the street where they have a food court and a few restaurants. I had a huge Indian meal that I couldn't finish for $5. Overall it was a very good first day, everyone was super friendly and accommodating. It was nice meeting Meiting, the recruiter I'd been speaking with for weeks. She was very friendly and cute.

We are staying in Chinatown, as I think I've mentioned, and work is by the airport. It's about 55 minutes on the MRT (mass rapid transit) which is basically exactly like the skytrain. It's very well run, very cheap, and goes all over the city on about 7 different lines. I bought a pre-paid card so I just tap it at the gates upon entry to the station and again upon exit and it charges based on the distance. Teen walked me to work because I'm horrible with directions. We made it fine, the only semi-confusing part is about a 15 minute walk from our apartment to the skytrain station. It's in the middle of downtown, quite busy, and the streets aren't laid out in perfect grids like Vancouver. They wind around, and it can be difficult to find places to cross. On the way home I got completely lost. I had no map, no cell phone. It was like the olden days. I started to have a semi-panic, but then managed to find a place to get a map. With about 20 minutes of wandering around trying to find a place to cross a street, I finally got onto a road I recognized and back to Chinatown. Le sigh.

Teen and I went for dinner down the street from work, we had this yummy mutton curry with rice and... sort of vegetables. Also a cheese roti, which was delicious. One thing that's hard about Singapore is they DON'T EAT VEGETABLES. I love vegetables. I see them in the market, oh yes, but never do they make it to the plate. They give you like three tiny pieces of pickled zucchini or something. Then about 90% more carbs than you need, and the rest meat. Everything has been really tasty though. I got Teen to get some carrots and tomatoes so I'm gobbling them at home. I'm gonna try to find a more western place today, it's been a lot of Asian soups and curries so far.

Other things I've noticed:

- People DO j-walk. A lot. Probably because there is no where to cross the street!
- I saw two sets of lesbians on the train home yesterday. One looked at me and I got uncomfortable.
- It's way nicer when the clouds cover the sun.
- People are obsessed with the merlion.

I dunno.

So I'm gonna head off to work! I'll keep you guys updated on the strange land of Singapore. I miss you :(

PS - I changed the BG Ellery! I agree, it was hard to read.

Singapore!

2010-08-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

Phew. That was a long day... or days. With the time change, and the way we flew, it was actually daylight the entire time. We left around 3:30pm Vancouver time, and arrived at 7pm Hong Kong time. That flight was fairly good for the most part. We were on a giant double decker plane, with nice seats near the back. I got the window, which always makes me feel safer somehow. If I can see the wing, and it's not on fire, success. Around the 6 hour mark I started to get a little anxious and antsy. Too long sitting in one place, and we were only around halfway to HK. I had to take a few deep breaths and try to relax. Then around the 9 hour mark, some fairly rough turbulence started, and was on and off for the remaining 3 hours. That really freaked me out, it was the worst turbulence I've had, but I'm sure there is much worse. I'm clearly not the best flyer. Teen didn't even seem to notice it, except the tightening grip on her knee. We played multiplayer pong on the plane, watched 3 or 4 movies, a few TV shows, and had some decent meals. Overall, a pretty good flight. Then we had a quick change over in the Hong Kong airport to fly to Singapore. This was a smaller plane, and luckily our 4 hour flight had a tailwind so ended up being 3 hours 20 minutes! AND it was fairly empty, so Teen and I moved from our separated seats we were assigned to, to another pair of window/aisle seats. This flight was fast, smooth and easy. We were both so exhausted by this point it was a struggle to sit, and Teen ended up passing out, mouth open, twisted awkwardly with her face in the seat.

Customs and immigration was a breeze, and a nice Singaporian man, Bobby Lim, picked us up and drove us to our housing. PS - I saw the bill, this place is over $5,000 a month. Wtf.

Here are some photos of our nice place! Thanks Lucas Animation!

This morning we woke up before 7am (which is around 4pm home time) which was still a little early after our 24 hours of being up the day before. We were really excited to check our the neighbourhood. Being a Sunday morning, it was pretty quiet around here at 7:30am. We are in Chinatown currently, so I'm sure it's a little different to the other areas of town. We walked up a few blocks of 'Hawkers Stalls' which are basically just little food carts, with some restaurants. We had breakfast at a cute little restaurant nearby. I had a pork bun, Teen had some little dumplings, and we had some nice little Kopi's (coffee). It was $4.20 Singapore, which is around $3.75 for both of us. We then went to a market, full of fruits and veggies, meats and other goods. We just bought a few things, 5 bananas for $1, 5 eggs for 90 cents. Singapore dollars are about $1.30 to our dollar, so we basically just consider 75% of the Singapore price is Canadian dollars. These things were pretty cheap. Milk, bread, butter etc. are more equivalent to the prices at home. Also, surprisingly, meat is pretty expensive. Produce, however, very cheap.

Well, it's 10am, I'm gonna call Rob now and hopefully meet him and Janette for lunch!

Miss you guys, hugsies and kissies!

Gearing up for the Big Move

2010-08-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is a strange process. One I've never really experienced before; especially of this magnitude. Sure, I've MOVED before, almost as many times as my years but not like this. I'm packing my life literally into a backpack, and it's not even full. The house feels weird now, all the art is gone and almost everything left is the plain, personality-less furniture and items I have to leave. It semi doesn't feel like home anymore, and I haven't even left.

Of *course* the washer/dryer had to break 3 days before we go. It's very convenient bussing my wet dirty clothes around the city to finish the loads. Last night was spent, from 11pm until 1am, waiting for the LG service line to respond so we could get someone out here before we take off. To no avail. This morning we set the alarm for 6am to try again. Teen attempted first and they convinced her it was some random maintenance we had to deal with, so I called back, with an unwillingness to accept this. "FUCK YOU!" I said. In my mind. They should be arriving Thursday...

Today was spent searching for the perfect laundromat. One so incredible Kings would pledge allegence to it. One with pink decor, perhaps a swan as a mascot. And by George did I find such a place, only blocks away. And I called it, and it was $50, and I said "so be it, this laundry hath no place on my bathroom floor". I was instructed that the Queen would return my peasant-like request at her convenience. I received her response an hour later, with a myriad of very necessary and rational questions like "What is the quality of the building you live in? The exact address is needed so the staff can examine it's history of potential bed bugs or disease." It must of course be a certain level of prestige for my common folk laundry to intermingle with royalty. Her CHILDREN work there, for God's sake. Her 27 year old CHILD. Just a wee babe, prone to contracting potentially fatal diseases from this strange laundry from a foreign land.

What a psycho. When I obviously withdrew my request due to her insanity, she told me "Hun, sweetie, I'm only looking out for you and your best interest, I don't want you to come crying to me, like so many before, when your clothes get bed bugs if I'm not careful with them. DOCTORS use my services. I hope you understand. If you need to talk, I'm telling you as a mother, you can call anytime."

Wow.

Anyway, there's an even better, cheaper, less insane laundromat at the corner of Denman and Barclay. Please go there instead.

50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind

2010-08-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

I got this from one of my favorite blogs; Marc and Angel Hack Life.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
22. Why are you, you?
23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
25. What are you most grateful for?
26. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
27. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
28. Has your greatest fear ever come true?
29. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now?
30. What is your happiest childhood memory? What makes it so special?
31. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
32. If not now, then when?
33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
48. What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? What about the day before that? Or the day before that?
50. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?

Unofficial Burger Review

2010-08-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have been on a search for the best burger in Vancouver, since I was disappointed that Fat Burger reigned as my favorite. Surely some local establishment can out beat a chain! I had the idea of making score cards and doing a weekly burger outing to rate the contenders in best burger. Though I haven't had the time for that, I have spent a few lunches trying recommended burger places nearby. Here are my unofficial results (unofficial due to lack of score cards and too few rated burgers).

Splitz Burger

This Main Street location was set up pretty neat, lots of options (buffalo, turkey etc.) with a large selection of sauces and condiments. I went for the buffalo. I would say this was a very decent burger, but it didn't question my 'best burger' title. I believe I gave it an 8. My friends Mel and Bus Pass agreed, with similar rankings of 8 or 8.5.

Market Grill

This was highly recommended to me by Megz. It is situated in the back corner of the Granville Island Market near the water. Just a burger stand in a food court-like area. It was, however, the successful overtaker of Fat Burger, when it beat out all other past contenders for the best burger title. Mel, Bus Pass, Teen and I agree - so far this is the best burger.

Romer's Burger Bar

This is a new place at near 4th and Burrard. It has some cool burger selections, great fries with different types of mayo dips, and comes with an olive and hot pepper on the side. The burger itself was pretty good, thick, interesting toppings, but again not in the running as 'top burger' for me or the others I went with. I would probably rate this around 7.5-8, but the fries were a 10, probably some of the best fries I've ever had.

So there you have it folks. Please continue the burger search while I'm away, but check out Market Grill if you get a chance. Delicious is it's first name.

The Buried Life

2010-07-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I was just introduced to the most incredible thing on Earth. "The Buried Life". I've heard the name before but never knew what it was or looked into it. These four Canadian guys have created a website and webisode show (I believe it's now on MTV) where they attempt to complete their bucket list.

If you aren't aware, I'm basically obsessed with bucket lists. The fact that they made a show out of it is inspiring, yet I'm disappointed that I didn't come up with it first. Sigh. It's still amazing. I'm jealous.

http://www.theburiedlife.com/thelist/

Awkward Celebrity Encounters

2010-07-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most of you have heard my ridiculous Sara Quin encounter, where I hopped out of a car in the street and ran up to her, awkwardly attempting to start a conversation. Well, my friends, I've done it again.

At the movie theater last night, I turned the corner from the bathroom only to see:

Although in reality it was more like:

I bumbled for a moment before retreating back to the safety of the darkened theater.

Celebrity encounters are strange. We have a feeling of comfort and familiarity with those we see on screen, yet seeing them in person is an entirely alien experience. They have no clue who we are, and we know so much of them. It leaves you with a desire to speak to them, but difficulty in deciding what to say, especially since it's usually a random situation where you have but a moment to make a decision.

I rely on the following steps to create the perfect awkward celebrity encounter.

1. Shock

In this first step, I usually have a quick realization that a celebrity is near. If it's someone I care little about, like Moka Only, the process will stop at this step and I will go on with my day. If it's one I respect/admire, let the awkwardness commence.

2. Get their attention

This will be a sudden, jarring move. Either a blurted out comment, with little cognitive intelligence behind it, or an unexpected physical movement. Either way, be sure to get the celebrity's attention and catch them off guard. Often at this stage, their eyes widen and their mouths open.

3. Embarrassment

Here is where I make contact with the celebrity. Approach them quickly, don't anticipate your steps but rather let them come as they wish, weave to and fro if necessary, it adds to the excitement. Attempt to touch them if possible, or speak whatever comes to your mind, regardless of whether it's logical or not. Treat them as if they are an old friend, and when they seem dumbfounded, become flushed and move to the last step.

4. Escape

Here I often turn and run away from the subject. They are usually still stunned by the entire experience, so will likely be less aware of your actions. You will be free shortly after this step.

5. Storytime

Now you will return to your safety zone with family or friends, and explain to them in great detail, over and over again, the encounter you just had. Be sure to speak quickly, and if possible tap your leg as you speak. The anxiety is normal, and will lessen over the following hour or two.

Congratulations, you have successfully had an awkward celebrity encounter. Please feel free to comment on your own as they undoubtedly come up.

The times they are a changin'

2010-07-08T15:53:00.001-07:00

Well here I am again, weeks without a blog post. I'm ever so sorry loyal hordes of followers. To start with the excuse train, I've been pretty distracted the last month or so with potential life changes on the horizon. Yes, you guessed it. I'm becoming a boy.

PSYCH! (Buffy said that to Faith once in a mastermind scheme)

Although I cannot release an official disclosure of information at this point, I am hoping to start a great adventure later this year! My pining for changing things up and 'really living' may actually come to fruition and not just be additions to a list taped on my refrigerator.

In other news: Dog sitting.

Teen and I have been dog sitting two Shelties which look marginally like this:

Only with less jumping and more drooling. What I have discovered during this week and a half is that Teen is not the pet tolerant mothering-type I so envisioned. This led us to a discussion of further post-poning my baby Kobie until we are more suitable parents. I would like to re-assess the situation, and give an approximate adoption date for perhaps a year or two down the road. I will want to travel the world, after all.

Recently, Teen and I had a magical adventure in Mormon-wonderland. I'm sure her intensive description of it will be enough for the both of us here.

I will leave off with this entirely irrelevant picture for you to enjoy.

Jenn :)

The Chickadee

2010-06-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

Once upon a morning early, while I rested, peaceful, surely,
Dreaming of adventure, splendor, and of far off places to explore,
While I nodded, lightly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently smacking, nails perhaps into a floor.
"'Tis a hammer," I suggested, "tapping near my patio door -
Only this, and nothing more."

I was wrong, however. After weeks, if not months of morning tapping, Teen discovered the source of the problem.

This family of chickadees is going down.

Mumford and Sons

2010-05-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

Last night Teen and I attended the much praised, sold out in minutes concert of London group "Mumford and Sons" and I can say with fair certainty it was the best concert I've ever been to. And I've been to Tegan and Sara many times.

Despite the show starting later than we expected, and there being an opener, and an extremely long sound check, it was still an amazing show. The energy was crazy. I think the venue helped with that. We were at 560 Club on Seymour, a new club which was really cool. Small-ish venue, and we were really close to the stage.

We took pictures! They all turned out fuzzy.

We took video! It had no sound.

You'll just have to trust me on how amazing it was. *Believe*
A couple videos so you get at least a taste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay1z1Z0p6Xg&feature=related

EAT! Vancouver

2010-05-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend Teen and I attended a food and cooking festival at the Convention Center. http://www.eat-vancouver.com/

It was a fun day with samples and large crowds (crowds not my favorite). We checked out a lot of stands of local products, bought some chocolate (I got sugar free, totes Insanity), tried some beer and tequila and watched our buddy Colman compete in the Chef off!

It was a half-hour competition similar to something like 'Chopped' on the Food Network. The two contestants receive a protein, vegetable, as well as a secret ingredient and have 30 minutes to complete it. Colman had a boneless pork chop, sausage, jicima and he brought Kraft Dinner (which we didn't really agree with... but whatever!) He finished on time, everything looked great, but he did however lose, by 1 measly point. Boo!

Pictures to come later :)

PS - We got free bags of kettle corn. Noms.

Whistler!

2010-05-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

I went up to the Whistler Bike Park this weekend for the first time of the year! It was the last weekend for snowboading as well, so Teen came up and boarded and I biked. It was pouring down on our way up and I was a little unsure how it was gonna go. I also noticed as I loaded up that I had broken my derailer cable, it was frayed almost entirely off. I must've hit it into some branches or a rock earlier and not noticed. It ended up being a fairly simple fix that I got done up there before the ride, phew!

We had 8 of us biking, so it was a fun crew. I got to ride my favorite trail 'Crank it Up' about 5 or 6 times. It's a very flowey, jump track very similar to a motocross track. Probably why I love it so much. Yay getting air! I missed that riding the local hills, which don't have the big jumps that Whistler has. I mixed it up with a couple runs on the tight technical trails, but since it was wet a lot of the wooden platforms, rocks and roots were extremely slippery. Despite the slidey, muddy conditions, I managed to stay upright through the day. Two of our buddies didn't have so much luck. One girl flipped over down a jump and semi-dislocated her shoulder, putting her out earlier in the day. Denny also overshot a drop, fell off, slid off the trail and hit a tree, compressing his ankle. He spent a couple hours in the Whistler medical center getting x-rays and bandaged up.

I managed to ride the whole day out until the lifts stopped, and had a wicked time. My hands were fairly cramped at the end after a day of death-grip to hold on, but didn't give out like they had the year before when I first started. My friend Vicki and I also had a close encounter with three bears. We were riding down a technical trail, when she suddenly stopped and started pushing the bike back up the trail. I did the same, as she mentioned there were 3 bears right ahead of us. We pushed up a minute or so and looked back down. Two bears were play fighting while another stood a few feet from them, right on the edge of the trail. We didn't quite know what to do, and about 5 other bikers had gathered by us.

Finally one guy just blasted through and the bears got startled and moved a little off to the side. We figured we might as well just go, so we zipped by as far as we could get from them, but safely made it past. Phew! It's a dangerous world up there! Looking forward to the next weekend up :)

Insanity Downfalls

2010-05-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

So this morning I came in to work, and Mel (a work friend who is doing Insanity with Bus Pass and I) had dropped out due to a calf injury she got in the workout. Bus Pass also is on the fence, since her brother (a personal trainer) thought she wasn't eating enough for the amount of cardio we're doing, without enough strength training, and she was losing even more muscle mass. I had noticed when I was biking that I had a lot more endurance than before, but my lower back was a bit sore. I think it's from some of the exercises where you have to go into a plank position like a pushup, and jump your feet up to your chest and back out again. Sometimes when I do this, especially at the end when I'm tired, jumping back out to plank hurts my back. It isn't severe, but I was noticing it and wondering if it might not be a good idea.

I set up a combination workout from a couple insanity videos, a couple P90's mixed in with running/biking and climbing. I think that will be a better overall workout for the longer term. I do think Insanity is good for a short period to really work on cardio/endurance but it is pretty extreme and maybe hard on the body in certain areas. I'm gonna finish off my final three weeks, but maybe make some adjustments on the jumping plank one so I don't hurt myself. I'm looking forward to this being done and getting to do some strength training though, too much cardio can get kinda boring.

Art Gallery vs. Science World

2010-05-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Daily blog post is proving difficult... sorry for the delay. Now for another exciting installment!

Saturday was learning day. Teen and I played 'tourist' and went to the art gallery and Science World! I must say, the art gallery can be extremely boring. There were only 2 floors open, the first one occupied by one artist who made short films, and some of her storyboards and sketches related to the films. The drawings were hardly anything I couldn't do, and the films were far from entertaining. Ayden gallery far surpasses the interesting/talented artists as far as I'm concerned. It was good to check it out, but overall I wouldn't go again unless an exhibit that interested me was coming to town.

Science World on the other hand, was awesome. Just the usual things that are always there, with an additional 'Treasure' area, but it's fun to do the puzzles downstairs and the games/experiments upstairs. Teen and I measured our ability to relax with a mind game where we each placed a band around our heads, and a small ping-pong like ball on a path was placed between us. The one who could think less, relax more, would push the ball towards the other. Not surprisingly I lost in about 4 seconds. My brainwaves don't like to chill, apparently.

So as for fun Vancouver tourist-y things go, Science World wins out by a landslide.

Omg cute!

2010-05-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

I had to share, I've watched this three times this morning.

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Insanity, you are aptly named.

2010-05-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

I just started the last 4 weeks of Insanity... holy shit. The first month of this program consisted on 30-40 minute intense workouts, which were definitely a great workout but do-able. Yesterday, however, kicked my ass. I had to take many more breaks than were scheduled hah, but if I can last the 23 remaining days I will be victorious! Then I can form my own workout with parts of Insanity, P90x, running, biking and hiking.

Super shape? Maybe. Binge eating? Possibility. Only time will tell.

Climbing and Workout Results

2010-05-16T19:25:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Pony, Teen and I went climbing at the Main St. gym. We had a fun filled time, with very few other climbers taking up the ropes. I climbed my personal best, a 5.10c. When I attempted a 5.10d, I failed miserably. Hard-style.

Teen did very well on her first time out in many years! Here are a few pictures of Pony climbing a crack (heh) and me belaying.

In other news, I measured myself after 5 weeks of Insanity. To be honest, I have had quite a few cheat days, and replaced some workouts with climbing, running or biking, but nonetheless, I got results!

Waist has gone down from 30 to 27.25
Hips have gone down from 37.5 to 35.25

Those were the only two with higher results, a little off legs and arms. It gives me a bit more motivation to do the last 4 weeks!

ORU - Delicious!

2010-05-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

Last night Teen and I met my Dad and Step-mom for dinner in Coal Harbour. We tried a new restaurant my Dad found on Yelp; ORU. It is a blend of many Asian styles and foods, and despite the steep price tag provided a great meal.

Teen and I decided to share about 6 appetizers instead of going for full entrees. We chose wonton soup, summer rolls, tuna tataki, sablefish, Korean BBQ shortrib and lamb chops. Each dish was around $10. The sablefish was by far the best fish I've ever had, and I was least stoked about ordering it. The lamb was also amazing. Really, the only let down was the wonton soup, which we could've had for 1/3 of the price and much tastier at Hons.

To finish off we had these delicious banana fritters, like a deep fried banana with a coconut batter. Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, dipped in a vanilla bean custard. NOMS!

The only thing that bugged me was that we were charged $8 for water... apparently it was some fancy mineral water or something, but boo.

Overall, a 4.5/5. I would very much recommend it for a special occasion, just drink water before you get there!

http://www.orucuisine.com/menus/dinner/

OCD Progress!

2010-05-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I've been practicing my OCD steps. This week I was doing the 'post-pone and worry time'. Thankfully for some reason, I've had many less worries than usual. I have post-poned some of them, and it's been working fairly well. I'll still freak if I get in a bad situation, but small steps are good. Today I let Bus Pass drink out of my straw, and then I drank out of it. I KNOW!

No, she doesn't get cold sores, but I wanted to start my practicing somewhere.

:)

A few cool links

2010-05-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Firstly, Teen forwarded me a vimeo link to an animated explanation of the Greek Crisis. Though I wish it were longer (there are 2 episodes) I found the style cool. Take a look:

http://vimeo.com/11435503

Secondly, I just found out that Microsoft has something called a SkyDrive. You can upload up to 25GB of backed up files for *free*! Just sign in with your windows live ID.

http://cid-9cbd735d32fa9a58.skydrive.live.com/summary.aspx?sa=769002737

Cool style.

Simple Strategies to Achieve Goals

2010-05-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

Achieving goals can be tough. We can overload ourselves with 'things to do' and end up sitting in front of the TV, too exhausted to deal with them. Here are a few things I've realized (and put to use) to help me achieve my goals, whether it's a large life goal, or something small like getting groceries on the way home (more of a task, than a goal really).

We can easily become overwhelmed, which destroys motivation. We need simple, clear plans of what we want or need to do. So to start:

1. Set Realistic Goals

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds in a month, it's not very likely you will achieve it (not that it's impossible, but it's not very likely). This will result in frustration, and eventually dropping the goal all together. Instead, choose something realistic, such as losing 3 pounds. When your goal is more likely to be achieved, you will be more motivated to get there. Smaller successes (the first pound) will feel like larger leaps towards success. If your goal is still to lose 10 pounds, you will be more motivated to continue your second month after seeing the loss in month 1.

2. Have a plan

Don't just say "I'm gonna lose 10 pounds". This is an abstract idea, that you won't be able to achieve as easily as setting up steps towards success. Set simpler, mini goals, to help you achieve these goals, and don't go overboard. The more drastic the change from regular life, or the more difficult the task, the more likely you are to stop it all together. Make it a part of your daily life. For instance:
- I will stop taking cream and sugar in my coffee
- I will do at least 3 serious workouts per week (again, make sure it's achievable)
- I will eat a healthy breakfast every day

3. Write your goals down and put them somewhere you see them often

The fridge is often a good place. You will likely be reminded of your goals every day, a little guilt never hurt motivation ;) I have set my goals into areas of my life such as career, personal development, financial, health, relationships etc. Each of my goals has it's mini sub goals, and I can keep an eye on my progress. Sometimes I can't work on all of my goals at once (usually always the case) so I'll focus on certain areas at different times. Having a timeline also helps, such as 'My 2010 Goals'.

4. Have a Most Important Task (MIT)

This can work for large or small goals. If you have a list of things to accomplish (fix the squeaky door hinge, do laundry, get light bulbs, re-do my budget etc.) choose only ONE thing that is your most important task of the day. In the morning, decide which task you are going to do this day, such as get light bulbs. Sure, the other things still need to get done, but you have been living in the dark for a week and these light bulbs need to be got! No matter what you do or don't do this day, you need to accomplish this task.

5. Do it before you sit down

I find with a lot of tasks or goals, as soon as I sit down and get distracted, or glaze over in front of the computer screen, I lose all motivation for getting back up and doing my task. I usually get the most done right when I get home from work, or right when I get to work (if I have little tasks like internet related things). When I get home from work, before I sit down or turn anything on, I will usually tidy the whole place. All dishes will get done, clothes put away, papers tidied, and then I'll do my workout. If I come in, take of my coat and switch on the TV, immediately the likelihood of those things getting done diminishes. Do it *now*. Same goes for longer term goals. Tell yourself all that matters is right now, and that right now all you have to do is this one thing. Saying "I'll do it tomorrow" will set a bad habit for yourself, and you will accomplish far less.

6. Reward your efforts

Sometimes if I'm feeling lazy, or not motivated to do something, I'll tell myself I can have a reward afterwards. Right now, my reward has been watching an episode of Dexter. If I come home and do my workout before I do anything else, I can watch Dexter that day. It also gives you something to look forward to, and a way to unwind and reward your achievements.

7. Don't rush

Don't quickly get your tasks out of the way by half-assing them. Remember, this is something you want or need. When you do something, do it 100%. It will help you get into the habit of doing things properly, will reduce the chance of you having to go back to it later and fix it up, and you will likely get more results out of it.

These are a few of my methods to keeping motivation up and achieving goals, I hope some of them work for you guys!

Life of Pie

2010-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Every few months I like to take a look at my life. How happy am I in each area? Is my life balanced? What do I need to work on most? I think of this as my pie chart of life. I usually come back to this reflection time when I feel out of balance (sadly this happens quite often).

I'm a huge list maker. I've been known to set way too many goals and then get overwhelmed by them all, which results in getting less done. Lately I've been trying to slow down and focus on the most important things first, so to help me figure that out I need to see where my life needs the most attention.

I recently found this 'life report card' on a blog and found it a helpful way to examine my life. Sometimes it will help you see things you need to work on that you may not have realized. It divides each area into sections, each taking up 10% of your total (personally I weighted some of these differently, but for simplicity this was the base):

Learning/Personal Development – 10%
Vocation/Career/Contribution – 10%
Romance – 10%
Social/Community – 10%
Home – 10%
Spiritual – 10%
Finances – 10%
Fitness/Health – 10%
Travel/Adventure/Fun – 10%
Possessions – 10%

The following questions will help you 'grade' each area of your life! Certain sections that are out of 10 don't have 10 questions, so just divide it by the questions amount to find your percentage. My total was 68/100. From there I can move forward and create my goals (I'll discuss this more another day).

Finances

Do you have a budget or a spending plan? (0-10)
How good are you at sticking to it? (0-10)
Do you have an emergency fund in case of the unexpected? (0-10)
Are you free of credit card debt? (0-10)
How much is your current income? (0-10)
How much are your current expenses? (0-10)
Are you investing part of your income into income generating assets? (0-10)
Are you saving for retirement? (0-10)
Do you have adequate insurance? (0-10)
What’s your net worth? (0-10)

Score - /10

Learning/Personal Development

Have you set short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals? If so, are you taking steps in order to achieve your goals? (0-10)
Do you treat yourself well? (0-10)
What’s your overall happiness level? (0-10)
Do you have a positive attitude? (0-10)
Do you venture outside of your comfort zone? (0-10)
Are you taking steps to improve skills that are important to you? (0-10)
Do you have high levels of confidence and self-esteem? (0-10)
Do you release negative feelings and emotions? (0-10)
How long does it take you to bounce back after a disappointment? (0-10)

Score - /10

Vocation/Career/Contribution

Are you doing work you love? Are you passionate about your work? (0-10)
Do you feel like you’re making a contribution, or are you just working for a paycheck? (0-10)
Do you get along with your colleagues and supervisors? (0-10)
Do you have a long-term career plan? (0-10)
Are you working toward leaving a legacy? (0-10)
Are you expressing your creativity at work? (0-10)
How productive are you? (0-10)
Do you feel adequately compensated for your work? (0-10)
Do you like your work environment? (0-10)
Do you experience the state of flow when you’re working? (0-10)

Score - /10

Romance

Are you involved in an intimate relationship? (0-10)
Do you let your partner know what you want? (0-10)
Do you listen to your partner? Do you feel listened to? (0-10)
Are you good at resolving conflicts with your partner? (0-10)
Do you spend quality time with your partner? (0-10)
Do you respect each other? (0-10)
Are you both evolving separately and as a couple? (0-10)

Score - /10

Social/Community

Do you have a few, close friends you know you can always count on? (0-10)
Do you make time for your friends? (0-10)
Are you surrounded by positive, life affirming people, or by toxic energy-suckers? (0-10)
Do you make time or money donations to a cause you believe in? (0-10)
Are you involved in your community? Are you helping to make your community a better place to live? (0-10)

Score - /10

Home

How would you rate your home environment? (0-10)
Do you have routines to keep your home neat and organized? (0-10)
Do you own or rent? Do you have a mortgage? (0-10)
Do you make necessary repairs around your home? (0-10)
Do you need to de-clutter? (0-10)
Score - /10

Spiritual

Do you feel connected to something larger than yourself? (0-10)
How good are you at forgiving? (0-10)
Do you engage in some sort of spiritual practice, whether it’s prayer, meditation, or attending religious services? (0-10)
Do you feel that there’s more love in your life than negative emotions? (0-10)
Do you feel inner peace? (0-10)
Do you feel that life has a purpose? (0-10)
Are you mindful? Do you live in “the now”? (0-10)
Are you generating positive karma? (0-10)
Do you practice compassion toward others? (0-10)
Do you feel a general sense of kinship with those around you? (0-10)

Score - /10

Fitness/Health

Do you get regular physical/dental check-ups? Do you have any current health concerns? (0-10)
Do you get enough cardio exercise? (0-10)
Do you lift weights? (0-10)
Do you eat nutritiously? (0-10)
Do you get enough sleep? (0-10)
Is your weight “normal” for your sex and age group? How about your percentage of body fat? (0-10)
Do you enjoy your fitness routine? (0-10)
Do you have ways to reduce stress? (0-10)
How is your overall energy level? (0-10)
Do you smoke or drink too much alcohol? (0-10)

Score - /10

Travel/Adventure/Fun

Do you have any hobbies? Do you practice your hobbies? (0-10)
Have you done anything “adventurous” lately (bungee jumping, taking up a new sport, tried a new cuisine)? (0-10)
Have you taken a vacation to a place you’ve never been to before this year? (0-10)
Do you spend enough time on leisure activities? (0-10)
Have you been on any creative excursions lately? (0-10)

Score - /10

Possessions

Do you take proper care of you possessions? Are your clothes/shoes clean and ready to be worn? (0-10)
Are you satisfied with what you have? (0-10)
Score - /10

Total Score /100

Painting Poem

2010-05-10T11:40:00.001-07:00

I managed to incorporate nerdy evolutionary theory into my childish painting plan. For some reason after I sketched it out, this poem came out. I'm hoping it will distract from my horrible painting ability...

So he jumped with full might,
But no candy would fall,
For this short necked giraffe,
Laughing stock of them all.

Though he wished and he wished,
He could make his neck grow,
Lamarck's theory was wrong,
As Darwin's would show.

He was destined to loom,
In the shadows below.

Don't feel badly if you don't understand...

Sunday Photo Shoot

2010-05-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day, and we found a new hat that fit us, so Teen and I headed to English Bay for a photo shoot! Here are some of the pictures:

Fries or Salad… or baked potato? Can too many options be a bad thing?

2010-05-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

Since yesterday I wrote how I was grateful for my options (which I very much am!) but I also realize how they can be somewhat of a burden. Over the past few months, I have been coming to Teen on a weekly basis with grand ideas of what I want to do with my life. It always starts with “All I’ve *ever* wanted is to: ‘insert idea of the week here.’”

She started writing down everything I said, because it was driving her crazy, and the list looked something like this:

All I’ve *ever* wanted is to:

- Live in Copenhagen
- Have a farm with a goat
- Wrap my belongings in a handkerchief, tie it to a stick and wander the world
- Trek in Nepal
- Climb Kilimanjaro
- Work on farms around Europe
- Drive across Canada and visit Newfoundland
- Race the Mongol Rally

I won’t bore you with any more since I’m sure you get the gist. After I realized how often I’ve been doing this (which I believe is partly due to an overpowering feeling of being tied down right now, which I can’t stand) I started thinking about how having so many options can actually be a bad thing.

If you think about people throughout history, until the last couple hundred years or so, we were quite limited. Even 50 years ago most people would get married and pop out kids as soon as they were done high school. Dad goes to work. Mom plays house, white picket fence and all that jazz. Now, especially in Canada and other 1st world countries, we have almost endless options. Career and lifestyle possibilities are incredibly diverse, and most of us are capable of living whichever way we choose. Now I don’t know about you, but for me this can be very overwhelming.

There are so many options; I just don’t know what to choose. I scatter around from one idea to the other, meanwhile not accomplishing any of them! It is clear, however, that I need to get the fuck outta dodge for a while before I lose my mind; which led me to my next question:

Why don’t we do what we love?

We spend an unbelievable amount of time doing things we don’t enjoy. Sure, there are a number of obligations that come with life; laundry, dishes, bills etc. but in the big picture so many of us lead our lives in mediocrity. What makes us hold back from what we *really* want? For instance, when you’re on your death bed and you think back to your life, what would you like it to have looked like? What would you like those around you to remember you for? If there were nothing standing in your way (no time/money/obligatory restrictions) what would you do? Who are a couple of your heroes? Why? And why can’t you be like them?

I believe the answer is in the ever competing fear vs. love. These are two of the core human emotions that we will base our decisions on. For instance, to answer some of the questions above:

I would like people to remember me for being hard-working, fun, adventurous, reliable, well-traveled and someone who achieves their goals. If I had nothing holding me back, no obligations, I would take off and backpack the world. So why don’t I? A never ending list of “I have a good paying job, I don’t want to burn a bridge, I’m in school right now, I have to pay my mortgage…” Basically, I haven’t gone after my dream because of fear. Fear that I will potentially damage my working relationships or be in financial trouble. I’m not living my life fully for the things I love, and I believe this is the obstacle that comes between people and their own happiness.

There are certain precautions we can take to fit our dreams into our routine lives. I could spend all year saving (I actually am) and when my contract ends, take off. I am planning on it.

This is just one example I’m currently struggling with. We only have so many years to live and I don’t want to remember my life and regret never trying because it was easier to keep doing what I’m doing. I guess you just gotta take that risk, do what your heart tells you and don’t look back.

Daily Challenge

Word of the day: Equipoise - A counter-balance.

I am grateful that I get to be an animator for a living.

OCD

2010-05-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

So, since I've been strugging with stupid OCD forever, and lately it's gotten so bad I can't stand it, I've started working through my cognitive behavioral therapy. I got this great book called "Stop Obsessing" which is supposed to be the best book on OCD, and costs much less than the $160/hour psychologist sessions.

There are multiple categories of OCD, such as hoarders, checkers, washers, orderers, worriers etc. I fall mostly into the washing and worrying categories. The book gives multiple options of treatment methods for each category to help gain control over the obsessions.

For my first phase, I chose the options of post-poing obsessions, creating 'worry time' and writing down the obsessions. This week I've been writing down every obsession I have when I have it. The idea is partially to make obsessing a chore, so it's less likely to be something I want to do, as well as being able to get it out. Somehow looking at a piece of paper saying "If I don't put two markers standing up against my coffee mug when I leave the room, someone might drink out of it and I might get cold sores" make it seem more ridiculous than it sounds when I think/do it.

Next week I will start the post-poning/creating worry time. This method tries to take the power from the obsession, and help you gain control. When I get an obsession "What if the cup I drank out of had a virus on it? *worry, worry, worry*" I have to say to myself, "Ok, I will take time to worry about this later, but not right now, 10 minutes from now I will worry". I will try to distract myself with work or something else, then when 10 minutes comes up, I have to either post-pone the worry again if I think I can, or else sit there and spend as much time worrying about it as possible. When you *force* yourself to worry at a time it doesn't pop into your head, you control the worrying, and it has less power over you. Also, in the time I did try this, I found that I didn't feel like worrying when it came to worry time, which is hopeful! Sort of like putting off having a cigarette for a few minutes, and the urge dissipates.

It gets into more difficult exercises later, such as creating distressing situations for myself and breathing through the anxiety, but I'm not there yet. I tried last week to get a coffee from the guy up the street who had 2 cold sores on his mouth. I ordered and bought the coffee, but it ended up in the garbage without me taking a sip.

One step at a time.

Daily Challenge:

New word: Assiduous - another word for continuous or persistent.

I am grateful for the ability I have to choose how I want to live my life.

Accomplishing goals? Let's see shall we...

2010-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Last year, in January 2009, I posted about what I learned the previous year and what my goals are for this year. To re-hash old news, these were my 2009 goals:

Goals for the year:

1. Grow the fuck up! Steps I've taken so far include finally contributing to RRSP's, talking to a mortgage broker on Tuesday (yipes!), attempting to pay off my debt and filling out those adoption papers *kidding* (Clearly I attribute maturity to being financially responsible... boooring).
2. Take more risks (calculated of course, I'm not gonna go make out with people covered in herpes.)
3. Play an open mic.
4. Buy a condo.
5. Travel somewhere I haven't been (outside of BC).
6. USE the gym membership I just purchased.
7. Try yoga.
8. Be Robin Sparkles.
9. Get wicked at snowboarding (or, less not wicked).
10. Write the sweetest 'best man' speech ever! *Holy pressure! I better get over my stage fright, thank you tequila*

How much of this did I achieve? Broken down point by point.

1. I actually did all of this. I am debt free (minus my mortgage), have RRSP's and investment savings.
2. Did I take more risks... not sure. I took some financial risks, and did some things that scared me (but most things scare me). I give this one an undefined response.
3. I did *not* do this. In fact, I've hardly played at all lately. This is something I will work and taking up again once school is done.
4. I did buy a condo!
5. I traveled somewhere new, Cuba!
6. Let's not talk about this one...
7. Tried and disliked yoga. I gave it about 4 chances. Sorry yoga.
8. If this was referring to the 'Let's Go to the Mall' video, then yes, I was.
9. I got slightly better at snowboarding, but definitely not wicked. Since 'less not wicked' was also there, then yes I achieved my goal. (Less not wicked, wtf).
10. I wrote quite a good speech, and managed to say it in a semi-sober voice despite how wasted I was. Goal achieved.

Overall I got 7.5/10, not too shabby!

I suppose I should make some goals for this year. I already have my list on my fridge, but to break it down into a shorter more manageable list, here we go.

1. Continue doing Animation Mentor and keep in contact with my mentors.
2. Hike Garibaldi
3. Try outdoor rock climbing - scary!
4. Learn to paint! Our club will certainly help this.
5. Go to Japan and China.
6. Don't buy anything I don't need, unless it's travel related.
7. Work on getting my OCD under control.
8. Spend New Years with my friends this year :)

2010 Daily Challenges
9. Write in my blog every day (except when I'm traveling and can't get to a computer)
10. Put $1 a day into my change jar.
11. Write down 1 thing I'm thankful for each day.
12. Learn a new word every day.

So to start of my Daily Challenge:

New word: Perpend - It means to ponder.

I am grateful that I live in a Country where I don't have to fear for bombs hitting us on a regular basis. (A new guy at work is from Israel and explained the regular attacks from snipers and missiles).

Blogger, out.

Pendulum

2010-02-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

More Bouncing Balls!

2010-02-03T23:54:00.000-08:00

Last week of this... ball stuff. At least I got to have some fun and play with squash and stretch!

OMG I'm blogging again - Week 3 Animation Mentor

2010-01-18T22:17:00.001-08:00

Soooo... I think I learned some things or something. Clear lines of action. That is what I learned. So this week my drawings were based first upon a nice line of action, all (hopefully) conveying the emotion "excitement!". That was my mission, that was my intention, it's up to you to decide if that was the result. I never learned much posing, and never did 2d so I'm definitely taking in a lot right now, but it's all for the better.

My mentor is awesome, his name is Aaron Hartline. You can check him out here: http://www.aaronhartline.blogspot.com/

He worked at Blue Sky for 8 years, working up to a Supervisor, and then moved over to Pixar to work on "Up" and now just finished on "Toy Story 3". He's been giving us good feedback.

Anyway, here are this week's poses. EXCITING!

Also this week, I need to animate a bouncing ball between 50 and 100 frames long. I also have to plan each assignment before I animate it. Here is my plan!

And here is the final product! There may be changes through the week, we upload all our assignments and then the other students can look and give feedback. By Sunday at noon we need to have our 'final' uploads for our mentor to look at. Then he reviews our stuff and gives us a video critique. Funz!

Bouncing Ball from Jenn Taylor on Vimeo.

Animation Mentor

2010-01-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

Blog back from the dead (maybe)!

So I started Animation Mentor a couple weeks ago and thought I would post my assignments as I go. First week I had none. Automatic A. Sweet, now I can cruise through the rest of the term.

This week we had to draw a few poses and then take one of them and pose it in 3d. Let's take a look shall we?

Hahahahahaha! I can't draw :( Number 7 is me trying to capture Little Grey. Maybe after a weekly drawing assignment, I'll be able to pass for decent after a year. Or not.

Here is my final pose! SOCCER TIME EVERYONE! I'll let you know how my critique goes...

Holy shit Mt. Seymour is big... when you walk it.

2009-07-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

I just took my new bike for a little ride on the ol' mountain, and then of course had to ride back UP the road to get back to my car. Worst 45 minutes ever. I had a bunch of gear on, most of it black, in 31 degree weather, pushing/riding my heavy ass bike up the mountain. I almost barfed. Srsly. Glad I'm home with water.

Next, I'm researching puppy breeders and found the best one ever! I was recommended to them by Alissa Staples, apparently their dogs are non-aggressive (like Shiba's can be) and are socialized from birth. I contacted her to see if there would be any litters in about six months. Can't wait! I decided to spell her name Kobie. There is also a Shiba Inu dog group Alissa directed me to, where they have play dates at an off leash park in Burnaby. They have a meet tomorrow... I may go. Is anything cuter than this little pumpkin? I just wanna squeeze him (in a safe, friendly way)!

Vanderhoof

2009-07-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

That's where I currently am. What a long drive to get here, uggh. I left around 8am yesterday, and didn't arrive until 7pm. Longer than a flight to England! I can usually make this drive in around 9 hours, but I came across some obstacles. One included an hour wait just before Prince George because some huge camper seemed to have found its way into the ditch. They blocked off both lanes of traffic, and once we FINALLY moved through the RV didn't even seem to have much damage. There was a massive thunderstorm as I was waiting, which I failed to capture on camera because apparently lightning is faster than I am... it was cool none the less. On one part of the drive, there was a passing lane and I was determined to pass a large logging truck, but it was POURING down so hard that I could barely see, and as I got to the front of the truck, the spray off of it covered my windshield so bad I was blind. I was freaked out cause another logging truck was coming at me and I couldn't tell if I was in my lane. I finally passed it and breathed a sigh of relief. *Sigh* I'll do another one now. Head on collisions suck.

At one point, a huge bald eagle flew out of the forest right in front of my car, and had to swoop up to avoid being hit. It was the closest I've ever been to one. Pretty. I'm glad I didn't kill it. I think that's illegal or something.

THEN when I was close to reaching my destination, which is a small dirt road off the main highway, I had just passed another large transport truck. These guys are notorious around here for being 'bullies' on the road, and not slowing down when vehicles slow to turn off the highway. So naturally, after my long day and near-death encounter, I was nervous being in front of this bully right before I had to turn off the highway. I passed it, and looked in the rear view, to find that the driver (or someone) had painted huge bloody fangs on the grill of the truck. So now I'm coming to my turn off, watching this huge toothed monster on my tail. Needless to say I went about 40 over the speed limit to give myself enough distance from him, and I turned off safely and he roared by. *Another sigh*.

But now I'm here. And it's pretty. And I got two mosquito bites. And this morning a spider was stringing itself down from the ceiling above my head. I've killed a few bugs... and more to come.

I just took a boot around the property (some 80 odd acres) on the ol' dirtbike. It was pretty fun, I hadn't ridden in a while. I'm hoping the rain will stay away because we're heading out on a three day camping/rafting trip this evening at some point. My Uncle has led canoe and rafting trips all over the world, scouted some 'uncharted' rivers for National Geographic, and was on the Canadian World Canoe team for white water canoeing. I feel safe with him as our guide haha. So it should be a fun weekend! I think I'll be heading home on Tuesday, and I'll upload some pictures.

Ta ta!

New Summer Plans

2009-07-06T14:58:00.001-07:00

So... apparently I didn't go to Europe. That frees up a bit of time so I'm trying to re-plan my summer off. At least I can collect EI now! Friday (around the time when I was supposed to take off) I found a last minute ticket to Tegan and Sara, and drove down to Seattle for their show. They played at 'The Showbox' right by Pike Place Market and it was a really sweet venue. It reminded me a lot of the Commodore, but not as big. They played a wicked show, were very cute and funny, and surprisingly didn't mess up, despite a disclaimer from Tegan that she felt it was very likely she would.

Otherwise, I just blew all my travel money on a new downhill mountain bike. I better use it lots! At least I have some time now. I went up today and picked it up, then it started pouring and I thought maybe going solo into the wet, dark, forest-y mountain alone might not be a good idea. So I shall wait for better days. Here are some pics!

No Specific Title

2009-06-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

All right what has happened since my last post... I read the first of the Dark Tower series "The Gunslinger". I powered through it, since I heard it wasn't the strongest of the series, but felt I should read it regardless just to get the full experience. I have to say it wasn't as bad a read as I expected. Perhaps my opinion will change when compared to the rest, but I enjoyed it. Who doesn't find jawbones in their back pocket appealing? I know I do. So now I'm on to book two. "The Drawing of the Three". LOBSTROSITY!

I was accepted to Langara College in the Arts & Sciences University Transfer Program. Woot! Five of my previously taken classes from College six years ago actually transfer to UBC, so there's one semester out of the way! I had to take my math assessment last Friday, to place me in the correct course (since I hadn't taken math in over three years, this is a requirement). I studied and studied and got 92% on my assessment! I was very happy. Since the highest math I've done is grade 11, they technically were supposed to put me in Math 1150, which was still 2 courses away from my first year university level math! I was upset. I expressed this. Then the nice counsellor lady pulled some strings, and pushed me into Math 1152. Pre-calculus algebra. I don't know what that means either, but it's knocks one more math course out of my path so I was happies :) Teen has to register my courses for me since I'll be in Europe, but I'll be taking Math (on Monday and Wednesday mornings) and an Anthropology course on Thursday nights. YAY! Back to school, back to school.

I'm going to Europe, as I previously mentioned. Leaving July 3rd, excited! I'm all ready to go, minus getting my secret passport security device that I will hide under my shirt. And a travel towel. I will purchase those items today.

Oh and I want a puppy. A Shiba Inu. They're cute. I'll worry about that when I get home from Europe, and try to persuade my landlord that I'm a very responsible pet owner. We'll see how that flies...

Love Jenn

Home

2009-06-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

It's about time I became one of those annoying, environmental types. At least for one blog entry. We all know there are a ton of environmental films out there, reporting varying degrees of accuracy about how much we're fucking up our world, and here is another. "Home" A film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. I threw that name out with no expectations of you knowing who he is, because I don't either. Yann could even be a woman.

*Time out*
...
*Time in*

I took that time to research Yann, and his brief outline will be thus:

1. Older French man (-1 point ;))
2. Is a photographer, journalist, reporter and environmentalist. (not lazy, +1 point)
3. He lived amongst a Massai tribe for 3 years to study the behavior of a lions’ family and took daily pictures of them during those years. (I like lions)
4. He founded the Altitude Agency, the world’s first press agency and images bank specialised in aerial photography. (Pretty cool)
5. Founded the international environmental organization "GoodPlanet", and set up the program Action Carbone to offset his own greenhouse gas emissions generated by his helicopter transports. Since then this program has evolved to help people and companies to reduce and offset their climate impact by funding projects on renewable energies, energy efficiency and reforestation.

Overall, I like this Yann guy. Better than David Suzuki. Let the verbal attacks begin.

Anyway I'd recommend this film: http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject

It can be viewed on youtube until June 14th, so get on it! If nothing else, it has some pretty cool high def aerial shots of our planet and all is dwindling glory. It did, however, inspire me to make a few simple changes in my own life that (if we all banded together to work towards) could make a large impact on our planet. Some easy things we can do:

1. Avoid drinking/buying bottled water.
2. Drive as little as possible. (I think getting rid of trucky helped the world live an extra year.)
3. Replace all the bulbs in your house with low energy bulbs. (I read on a conservation site that if every home in the USA replaced just ONE bulb with these lower energy bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road... so fuckin' do it.)
4. Don't use plastic bags at the grocery store. (I just switched to cloth.)
5. Recycle. (I would hope we all do this...)
6. Wash your laundry in cold water. (I already do.)
7. Have shorter, less hot showers. Replace your shower nozzle with a lower pressure one. (I'll work on that... I like showers.)
8. Turn off lights/electric items as much as possible.

I would hope that the governments would implement some larger impact regulations such as solar panels on roofs, more efficient cars etc. Even if the coffee companies removed all paper/plastic cups and forced us to bring our reusable mugs in it would make a huge difference in the long run. For now, we do what we can.
I don't want to run out of fresh water. I don't want to melt the ices. I don't want to make Earth a large scale Easter Island fiasco. I like living by the beach, and not having the water flood my lobby by raising 21 feet in the next 20 or so years. Do your part. Only you can prevent ruining the world...

Tegan and Sara's new website

2009-06-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

This is blog-worthy. Tegan and Sara revamped their site to a fairly simple, white design. Which isn't the part that needed to be told. They are currently recording their newest album, and have promised to update us daily with blog/video/photo news. Yesterday Tegan dressed up a bat, and called herself Bategan. Incredible achievements.

http://teganandsara.com/

Crazy outdoor adventure weekend!

2009-06-08T12:04:00.001-07:00

What a rad, outdoor adventure weekend! I spent Saturday up at Whistler doing my first day of downhill mountain biking. It was sweet. My favorite run was called 'crank it up' because it had a ton of jumps and reminded me of the ol' motocross days. I was too afraid to bring my camera, but here are a few pics I found online of that run. There were about 15 or so jumps on it, and I believe I cleared all but 2 of them. FUN!

A jump I *did* do.
I was afraid of this box the first time, but I hit it the second. Hell yeah. (Scarier when you're on it than it appears).
Just some cool bridges through the runs. Some parts were fuckin' intense. Very narrow paths full of drops, roots and rocks, with trees only slightly wider than handlebar width. I managed to survive without falling but I had a few scares haha.

Then Sunday we hit up The Chief and had a wicked time. There were 8 of us, and we went up to second peak. I didn't have a hard time of it this year, like last when I almost barfed. My legs were burning already from the biking the day before, but it was still really fun. Chains and ladders! Then we had some dinner in Squamish and headed to Sam's for some hot tubbing/swimming good times. My body is super tired right now but it was worth it.

The Wedding - Pro Style

2009-06-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

Meg and Shane just got their wedding photos in, so I thought I'd post a few for you all to see. You all being Peanut, Durka and Ellery. Without further ado:

Meg getting ready.Putting on the dress!Shane and Teen - preparation stages.

Helping Shane with his cufflinks.

Final cheers before the big event!

We had to jump around like retards while the girls watched.

The end!

Climbing and Europe and Math, Oh My!

2009-05-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the boring stuff first. I applied to Langara College to take some courses until stupid UBC lets me apply in October. I think UBC and I got off on the wrong foot. I remain angered. So my best friend Langara has told me I can challenge my Math 11 so I can do Math 12 with them, yay! They only acknowledge math you have taken in the past three years, and it's been... oh, about 9 since I've done it. Here is one of the sample questions they gave me to prep for my test (June 19th).

Examine the graph. What is the equation of the line?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? I sent it to Teen and she laughed at me. She's all "y = mx + b" and like "m is the slope, found by rise/run" and this other babble I tried to understand. I feel stupid.

So I'm gonna go to Europe! WOOT! I'm planning on leaving at the beginning of July and going for about 4-5 weeks. I'm trying to find a good deal right now. I'm gonna fly out with Shane and Meg and meet up with Sharon-y Pony in Italy. Our route is going to be driving from:

Rome - Venice - Munich - Amsterdam - Brussels - Paris - London

Pretty awesome-o eh? I think so.

And lastly, I've decided to try climbing again. I'm very afraid of heights, but I'm hoping to get over that. Ed and I are going to the climbing gym tonight and he's gonna help me learn to belay and do some climbs. My new friend Sara Jane climbs a lot, as does Pony, and Ed of course so I figure if I climb, I'll be cool too.

That about wraps it up!
*hugs*

Water for Elephants

2009-05-25T15:39:00.001-07:00

Peanut said my blog was getting stale. That stung... but I realize that it's true. My life has been boring and not worth an update. I did, however, achieve a twice-a-year max accomplishment. I finished a book! This book above. Water for Elephants. It was awesome. So awesome in fact, that I only took 6ish months to read. So I highly recommend it, as does Sara Quin, who recommended it to me.

In other news. I'm trying to go back to school. I talked to UBC last Friday, but apparently I missed the application deadline for this year (it's from October - Feburary) so I can't take classes until Summer 2010! Thanks a lot, UBC. I can take distance ed. courses, but after looking at the catalogue, very few if any of them will be of benefit to me. I'm now trying to find somewhere to upgrade my math, because I slacked in high school and never took Math 12, which I will obviously need. Also, what I realized is that after three years, they no longer accept your math courses. Probably because who the fuck remembers math after that long? Not I. So I probably have to re-do Math 11 too. Boo-urns. Looks like I'll be having a lot of fun in my spare time over the next few months!

Love Jenn

Taking pictures

2009-02-15T19:58:00.000-08:00

So I tried to spend some of my day being creative and taking some pics with my new camera. I went out slightly too late and only caught 5 minutes of the sunset which was what I wanted to shoot. So I played around more inside with shutter speeds and depth of field etc. Here are a few of my shots.

Below I increased the shutter speed to be open for 10 seconds. Then I blew on the flames while it was taking the picture, to create the different flame shapes.

I put my glasses in front of the camera, and magically all the blurriness went away! (Ok... I adjusted that in photoshop.)

Soon I hope to have something more interesting haha. With time I will learn.

Tegan and Sara

2009-02-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

While waiting for my laundry to finish, I decided to browse some Tegan and Sara fan sites, because I'm a nerd. I came across some cute new photos and thought I'd share :)

I think this is the most recent, during practicing for their new album. Sadly on their latest myspace blog post they said they'll be doing less behind the scenes action as they did on 'The Con'. There will still be some, but not the whole call in TV show stuff. I still hope they change their minds!

They just look adorable here.

A few things...

2009-02-13T10:41:00.000-08:00

Today is a very special day. So special in fact, because world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air...

Ok that was nerdy. But what I'm referring to is the series premiere of Joss Whedon's new show "Dollhouse"! JOSS IS BACK! It has been far too long, my friend. I look forward to our Sunday night geek out fest at Ellery's when we celebrate this momentous occasion. Grr. Arrgh.

In other news, this weekend I'm going SNOWSHOEING! In the beautiful snow, up on Cypress. Where coincidentally they are hosting the world snowboarding championships. Hopefully I can catch a peek. Our excursion this year consists of myself, Ed Wou, Pally, Saskia and Bus Pass. To give you a glimpse of the glory, this was last years photo of choice:

I hope this years' will be just as magical. And I plan to capture it with... my new camera! I splurged and got a digital SLR. A Canon Rebel. It's cute.

See? Aww. Once I learn how to use it, the world will be my oyster! Or my muse. Or something.

Other than that, I've been working out a LOT at Fitness World. I haven't lost any weight yet, but I definitely feel stronger and my legs feel musclier. That's not a word, apparently. I'm keeping it anyway. It's been about three weeks now, and coupled with my nutrition guide I hope to make some progress over the next few months. Woot!

Also I crossed off the first item on my bucket list and sent my mom a Valentine's card today. Awe.

Ta ta for now!

My Bucket List

2009-02-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

There have been a myriad of lists floating around facebook recently, and one of them made me decide to make my 'bucket list'. My list of things I want to do/see/accomplish before I die. I found some lists on the internet, edited them and added some of my own. I'm sure this will be ever changing, and all though there are probably a hundred more things I'd like to do, I'll stick with this neatly compiled list for now. Let's all try shall we?

- Give my mom flowers and a card, and tell her I love her. (This may seem out of place for me, but I'd rather do it now than wait til it's too late.)
- Hike/Camp Garibaldi! This summer!
- Visit all the continents (except Antarctica... who cares about that one anyway ;))
- Attend at least one major sporting event. (Olympics/U.S. Open (Tennis) for example.)
- Swim with a dolphin.
- Go skinny-dipping again, as an adult.
- Learn how to take a compliment.
- Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away. (Or something to this affect).
- Send a message in a bottle. (Would this be considered littering?)
- Plant a tree.
- Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
- Shower in a waterfall.
- Drive across Canada/USA. (The path will probably be wobbly, but I gotta see Newfoundland!)
- Sleep under the stars.
- Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
- Forgive my parents.
- Buy my own place.
- Grow a garden.
- Spend three months getting in shape.
- Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
- Kiss the Blarney Stone. (As long as it doesn't have herpes.)
- Go on a safari.
- Walk Inca trail to Machu Picchu, Peru.
- Walk Great Wall of China.
- Go bungee jumping.
- Hike grand canyon.
- Try cowboy ranching. (A weekend would do.)
- Ride a camel to the pyramids.
- Drive a dog sled. (Visiting Alaska or the Yukon will go hand in hand with this one!)
- Visit Vegas. (Gotta do it once, though I don't think I'll love it.)

I'll stick with that for now. Here I go!

Make it Sparkle

2009-02-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

So as I've mentioned briefly before, I'm working on doing an acoustic version of "Let's Go to the Mall" by Robin Sparkles. The music video/song performed by Robin on "How I Met Your Mother". For the sake of non-fans, Robin (a fairly straight edge, news anchor, Canadian born girl living in New York) had it outed that she was once a Canadian pop star, with this hit which she had to tour across Canada performing in malls. A youtube link is justified:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdD0j6wmMNc

... amazing I know. I'm breathless too. Well this was Ellery's idea, so I 'quickly' got to work on tabbing this out and performing it with just me and my guitar. It turned out to be pretty simple. I haven't been able to practice as much as I'd like because when I sing it my girlfriend gets mad. Apparently she doesn't like spoof 80's pop hits. She's going away for week, finally I can get some work done ;) (Just kidding pumpkin). Tonight I'm going to show my first version to Ellery for notes, since I'll let him co-direct. It was his idea after all. And I stole his non-hobby of doing photography today, I gotta give him something.

I can't wait to do the rap.

JT - out.

To buy or not to buy...

2009-01-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

So if there's anything we can thank George Bush over it's the economic crash. And the thanks comes solely because quarter-aged kids like myself are back on the eligibility list of mortgage applications... potentially. I had basically ruled out the idea of owning property in the next ten years, but with the recent real estate crash, I thought I may as well look into it. So I did! I got myself my own little Realtor, and a mortgage broker! I feel so growed up. On top of that, I actually got pre-approved for a ridiculously high mortgage, with monthly and interest payments that I'd never want to spend! So I'm looking more around the $250,000 range. To my shock, there are quite a few, some of which even blocks from where I live now, in the West End!! So I'm meeting with my Realtor, Travis, tonight to go over my options.

Where-in lies the problem? You may ask. Or you may not care at all. But I'm going to tell you because you've read this far... well my friends, I have no 'cash'. Apparently the days of 0% down are out the window. So now I have to sneak and lie my way around it because my family also has no 'cash'. Cash doesn't really need to be in quotes, I'm being literal. I make strange grammatical choices. So my dad's idea was this:

Dad: "Listen up, kid. You don't need a down-payment. We can just make a fictional one, and you can pay the sellers your fictional 5%, and be on your way."

Me: "But daddy, I don't understand."

Dad proceeds to draw me a simple diagram. Say the house costs $250,000. Say I get approved for $250,000 (which I have been) but the lender still requires that I come up with my 5% (about $12,500) just to prove I'm responsible and capable of handling and saving money or some shit. So I tell the bank the property I want to purchase is $262,500, but I've already come up with the down payment, and I only need the remaining $250,000. I get my loan, the people get their money, the bank gets my interest payments, and I got a place! The only finagling is the incorrect sale price on the documents, and the increased sales tax I'll have to pay on the higher price. But hey, it's better than nothing. Now I just have to consult lawyers to see how illegal this is...

Me: "Ooooooooooooh. I get it. Sweet!"

That was my dad's way of not helping me with a down payment ;)

If some of you thought that post was boring and required too much math, just think of what it'll do for your brain age! Other brief life updates:

1. Tried to buy new jeans, found none I liked. Buying jeans sucks. I got two new bras instead. Boooring.
2. This weekend is my first and likely only "Stag-Style Whistler!" falling conveniently during winter Pride. Hehe. (Actually was a coincidence). Also I'm bringing twister. 10 dudes and 2 dykes. What a stag it will be!
3. I'm applying to complete my Associates Degree so I have a better chance of attaining work Visa's in other countries, particularly the US. I have about 3/4 of my required courses done from the random 2 years of college I did after high school. I'm gonna learn about stuff and stuff!
4. Durka attained a new nickname "Boots". The origin is still undetermined (as far as I'm aware).
5. Ellery ate off a random dude's chopsticks at lunch today.
6. My "Let's go to the Mall" Robin Sparkles cover will roll into production starting tonight.
7. I tried to hook up in the truck on the ferry. It was awkward and failed. Ferry guys walk around the decks way too often.

Love Jenn!

Unintentional but funny...

2009-01-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

My good friend Ellery (www.houseoften.blogspot.com) and I have the same blog layout. What a shock! In my defense, I had the same layout previously on my other blog... polka dots = cool style!

Bloggity New Year

2009-01-15T17:28:00.001-08:00

Using the word blog (or variations of) as the title in your blog post is always funny and original. I can tell because it's the first thing that came to my mind as well as Peanut, I now see. So I guess since everyone's blogging it up and I'm a sheep... or... a lemming, I'll follow suit. Or well, ditch the old blog and start a new one with the same design because these dots are cute and I still like them.

Considering how closely intertwined some of my friends lives are with my own, I suspect some multi-posts of similar topics going on, but it's all good. Maybe I'll start off with a list. Or multiple lists. Creating these make the reader more inclined to continue, I find, because when I see mass blocks of text I get intimidated and walk away. So here we go!

Things I learned last year:

1. The way your year ends can be drastically different to how it began...
2. You don't really know who you are until you're 25 (Peanut, you're always right).
3. Buying joined property sucks, things should remain separate until you're married... even then...
4. I think I'm kinda gay.
5. My proposals don't really mean that much.
6. Being unemployed is fun, but hard on the pocketbook... yikes.
7. Christmas can be kinda fun, I guess.
8. When I tell you I'll paint you a picture, I will, but you'll get it at the last possible moment.
9. "How I Met Your Mother" is awesome.
10. Narwhals totes get the girl.

Goals for the year:

1. Grow the fuck up! Steps I've taken so far include finally contributing to RRSP's, talking to a mortgage broker on Tuesday (yipes!), attempting to pay off my debt and filling out those adoption papers *kidding* (Clearly I attribute maturity to being financially responsible... boooring).
2. Take more risks (calculated of course, I'm not gonna go make out with people covered in herpes.)
3. Play an open mic.
4. Buy a condo.
5. Travel somewhere I haven't been (outside of BC).
6. USE the gym membership I just purchased.
7. Try yoga.
8. Be Robin Sparkles.
9. Get wicked at snowboarding (or, less not wicked).
10. Write the sweetest 'best man' speech ever! *Holy pressure! I better get over my stagefright, thank you tequila*

I was attempting to stealthily write this at work, and now it appears to be go time. So that's it for now. Today I bought a travel mug in an attempt to conserve the environment and uhh... save money on coffee. It's pretty and green.

Love Jenn

PS - Tegan and Sara are recording a new album soon. My life feels better now.