Archive for October, 2007
October 31, 2007 at 10:46 am · Filed under Music
happiness: caribou
start: dual drum action. I wish I could have gotten a better picture of it. But you can imagine. I wonder how much they are in tune with the other as they sit facing each other attacking their drums.
“hello hammerheads”: incredible, really emotional. I wondered if that was an act or if the songs memories were coming to surface.
I love these guys. If I had to be a groupie, I would want to be with them.
I love their music largely because of the intense atmosphere they create during their shows.
“crayon”: they brought out the manitoba.
October 31, 2007 at 1:46 am · Filed under I am feeling...
I was in a weird mood today. Almost a little bad. Resorted to a nap.
Maybe I am wondering too much - in what way should I be happy? I am capable of being happy but, where should the happiness come from?
You can lose a root of happiness but then find it in something else. We are good at doing that. But when are the times that you shouldn’t be giving up on something that seems lost. When should you let it go?
Happiness is not in substances except for tonight when the lighting at Richard’s made my beer a great opaque blue/green colour. I felt like I was drinking emerald juice. I think it must have been good for my body - the minerals and such.
Happiness is wearing all plaid?
October 31, 2007 at 1:06 am · Filed under Experiences, Travels
To finally get to the tournament…Sunday in Campbell River at a highschool gym. I was registered to compete in women’s kata, white belt, over 18. “Kata” is a choreographed pattern of movements. In competitions you can choose to do any kata that you would like, and there are many, but I chose “kihon kata go” or “basic kata #5″. Keeping it simple for the first time. What I didn’t muster up the courage to compete in was “kumite” or sparring. Maybe next time.
Anyway, I was nervous enough already. Not so much because of concern over high scores but more because I knew there would be many formalities and this being my first time competing, I knew little. Indeed, to jump ahead, I was like that little kid who starts walking off the stage in the middle of her line. Her parents are standing at the side of the stage mouthing her next words and waving their hands “get back there!”. Well, not completely like that but, I had some things to learn and this was the chance to learn them.
And I got second place!….in a two person division : P (How can I not use that statement ordering to joke about my second place-ness?) Only competing with another girl (and a friend) from my club helped cure the nervousness but…I hope I get the chance to compete with people outside of the club soon. I imagine you can learn a lot from it.
On a note not completely related to the tournament - it was so interesting to travel in BC. I guess I have not done that so much. It’s easy to stay inside the big city walls and start to think that IT represents the province. But there is so much else around and strikingly different too. I do need to get out more.
October 30, 2007 at 1:44 pm · Filed under Travels
On the way to Nanaimo - there is a little village with pubs and coffee and giftshops called…”the village”. You park your car in line for the ferry and while waiting, can leave and go to the village.
October 28, 2007 at 11:30 pm · Filed under Sweet Finds
Just got home from the island. It was a good trip and I will write about it more later. Before leaving Vancouver we met up at UBC and while waiting, I spotted these mushrooms growing by a tree:
The first time for me to see mushrooms so large and so red and so spotted with my own eyes. For a long time I thought they were perhaps an exaggeration from storybooks and video games.
I didn’t eat them but don’t you wish we could in a non-mind/body altering way? I would love to cook and present food decorated with these guys.
October 27, 2007 at 9:18 am · Filed under Experiences
In the past week I’ve heard “where have you been?” a few times. Both in relation to physical me and computer mediated me. I guess I brought busy back with me from Japan. I guess before going, my activities tended to be solo. I could do them as I pleased and this often involved decided not to do them and staying home and surfing the Internet and feeling guilty.
In Japan I became involved in clubs and I did things organized among groups of people. To back out is to not just back out on yourself but on others involved. But I never saw this as “obligation” - more like “support”, and I really liked it.
Here, I have also become involved in activities with group participation and it has been great. But it does keep you busy. For example, this weekend I am going to the island for a karate tournament. I don’t think I would have gone if I didn’t have the elbow of one of the club members in my rib. Now I am excited!!
But that’s not what I came here to write about! I was going to talk about our babies:
Yes that’s right, last Wednesday we had a pumpkin carving night at the Kommune.
My pumpkin has a wide smile and tongue sticking out. I don’t know what I was going for totally but, I had this slanty-shaped pumpkin and there was something comical and grinning about it. I also felt that its personality was more canine than human like.
Though in the end, there was nothing really dog-like about it. The guys showed me the technique of not carving all the way through so that you can make highlights and shading. I tried this in a number of areas but I think next time, I have to carve a little deeper.
And here is our family in front of the house. They had already taken their first victim but luckily, he resurrected…maybe because he’s filled with Halloween spirit.
October 25, 2007 at 10:42 pm · Filed under On the Train / Bus, Thinking
girl on mobile: “…and she forgot to get a morning after piiilll…but, like, keep it low…”
…
…
Just a reminder to myself of the weird ways in which we reveal private information to strangers.
I also think about how sometimes we say things like this within earshot of strangers because we are really itching to say it to a lot of people but know not to blab in a close circle of friends. Well, except to that one person on the other line.
October 18, 2007 at 6:14 pm · Filed under Music
I was talking to my roommate about the upcoming Caribou show and he expressed great liking of their recent album. Today, needing some instant gratification to get a few paragraphs of thesis written, I bought it. Wow. He is right. I can’t even say the rest of the album has sunken in yet because I still feel blown away by track 1 “Melody Day”. Absolutely perfect for this gray Vancouver day. I am now doubly excited for October 30th.
October 16, 2007 at 12:37 pm · Filed under Experiences
My excitement yesterday: coming home to find a wee bird in our kitchen. It was flying from one window to another, trying to find a way out. I felt a little bad taking time to get a picture before letting it out the back door but…it was such a sweet thing. A little brown ball with shorts legs, a beak, and feathers.
Another picture, blurry, but you can better see its little legs. Gn’aww!
It’s weird how this was a really special moment for me. Late afternoon, no one else was home yet so the house was dead silent except for the humming of the fridge and the occasional frantic flapping of wings and beak tapping against the window pane. I think prior to this I might have been having a small bout of missing Japan, nothing to deep, just a few sighs walking home. Then the bird snapped me out of it and made me forget feeling sorry for myself.
Bird - I know it must have sucked being trapped for who knows how long so, thank you.
October 15, 2007 at 2:36 pm · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff, In the News, Movies&Film, Travels, 日本語
The strike is finally over and garbage collection resumes this week. We were just starting to consider alternatives to get rid of waste piled up over the three months. Hopefully this experience will lead to better recycling practices for all.
travel
I read about a place in Chile called Punta Pite and it has finally given me an definite answer to the question I always ask others: “if you could leave on a trip tomorrow anywhere in the world, where would it be?” It’s likely my next big trip will not be for another year or so but in the meantime, I will read up on Chile with a possible side of Easter Island salad.
news
日本語
From my Japanese language exchange over an ever-delicious Elysian cappuccino on Saturday: you know how we say that we want to “brush up on …”, for example, brush up on my Japanese? You can use the same expression in Japanese: 日本語を磨く (nihongo o migaku) - brush my japanese. The same verb (and kanji) is used for brushing ones teeth brushing. We also discussed 不器用 (bukiyoh) and a translation - clumsy; both the physical and mental uses of the word. Then I inquired into a Japanese version of quote / unquote fingers but my conclusion for the night was that it doesn’t quite exist. If you know other please let me know.
food
On Friday after drinks at Koerner’s a few of us went to Topanga Cafe on W 4th for some dinner. I had been inhaling cider for the few hours previous thus this was the most incredible thing to eat:
the chicken burrito. On reflection, I might have preferred beef or bean but…it was good. Can you believe that cheese and the sauce…? On further reflection, or after getting this picture of my camera, I realized that I had eaten something that spent half its plate-life staring at me.
pets
I was also cat sitting this weekend which was good given my limited interaction with pets. Seven months old, she was quite the active cat and I played with her; tossing mice around and animating string. I wondered if I was entertaining her and then I wondered how much she perceived these things in motion as being moved by my hand. Was I creating an illusion or did she need to use her own imagination? How do cats play?
movies
I saw The Darjeeling Limited last night and while it may disappoint those expecting a new favourite Wes Anderson movie, I enjoyed the faces and expressions of all the actors, with all their flaws, made beautiful.
mobile phone
I am still without mobile phone but it’s hard to want to spend the money on the ones available here when I had Orange Juice in Japan. I sort of want to wait until I have a (more) highly paying job and then I can invest in one of them fancy phones. But moments like coordinating meeting at a movie theatre and saving seats could have been made easier if I was connected. We could have made the balcony!
October 13, 2007 at 10:35 am · Filed under Photographs
The maze at the shadey vale resort; a spiritual place with no dead ends. Instead you struggle to figure out your pace through the maze and whether to walk and enjoy every path or to give into the desire for instant and make your own trails.
An old stable/farm structure. Similar colours and textures seen on any Saskatchewan road trip as well as numerous landscape paintings adorning home walls.
The town mascot standing tall, unique, and proud along the highway for all to see. This is the Watson Santa Claus. I can also remember the Davidson Teapot, the Moose Jaw Moose, and a large pumpkin somewhere. Has someone made a photo collection of these yet? How will they be analyzed 500 years from now?
Highway intersection. It is fall and everything is golden.
Of course not all is flat. There are some valleys and soft hills like this valley 30 minutes outside of Regina. I think we are all proud of it and it is a beautiful place.
October 12, 2007 at 12:29 pm · Filed under Reflection
When I was a kid I would collect rocks and pretend that they were precious gemstones. Finding myself in a gravel pit near the Shadey Vale Resort it occurred to me that I may have not been so inclined to bring home jewels if I had grown up somewhere else.
Rocks in Saskatchewan are colourful as the land is fairly high in an assortment of minerals. I’ll leave the research about what sorts of minerals to you but…I just didn’t realize this until I had the chance to spend a substantial period of time away from the province.
Speaking of small rocks, the new karate group is hard but really satisfying and I feel eager to get to the next practice. Last night after a bit of stretching the sensei started exercises by asking us, according to [insert name of famous martial arts dude here], what is the best martial art? Somebody answered, “kung fu??” No…”running”. So he took us for a run outside and around the student union building. He and some others went barefoot. I only had my flats with me but still wore them for fear of lacerating my foot. I had confidence at first because I jog regularly but this was running, not jogging. It was a little tough for me. Then on return to the SUB, we went up and down the stairs a few times…running down, hopping up. I also learned that I really don’t know how to jump/hop. I will have to practice that - I don’t know how to get my feet off the ground unless there is a horizontal plane to put the rest of my body on.
I signed up for a tournament in 2 weeks. Only for the kata (forms), not the kumite (sparring). It gives me extra motivation. This morning I have been daydreaming about the movements. Still, I need to remember that daydreaming != practice.
October 11, 2007 at 12:00 pm · Filed under Art, Technology & Effects
Infosthetics blogs the Google Vanity Ring, a project by Marcus Kison. The ring indicates the number of google hits received when the wearer’s name is queried. The wearer places the ring in a dock at nighttime to update the hit count.
Very interesting concept. How else will we present our online status in the real world? For what reasons would we want to? Online is public but we have ways to control the way we present ourselves and who can see those presentations. Did we have such direct management before? How will this organization translate to the real world? Will I have clothing that reveals some information about me at a bar, different information at a job interview, and possibly none while I am waiting for the bus?
I like some of Kison’s other work, especially “touched echo“. Invisible memorial for the Bruehlsche Terrasse (Dresden), using bone conduction to take visitors back in time. While I am not that into artworks involving participants listening to audio tracks in a place to imagine themselves in that same place but another time, I really like that people can listen using a standing pose natural to the space the work is installed in. (See pictures at above link…to listen a participant stands at a fence around a raised plaza area overlooking a river, they place their elbows on the fence, hands over the ears and can lean in and listen.)
In other news, I want my garbage picked up. Though that’s not the news and unfortunately it is hard to say when garbage pick up will resume. Though parking enforcement will be in full swing. That sounds a little too enthusiastic for me.
October 11, 2007 at 12:00 am · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff
Back in Vancouver and having a lot to do. Both things I have to do and things I want to do so overall, I am motivated to do.
And one thing I want to do is share…
…food stories. We ate good food at the stagette (I say good because it was me who decided what we would all eat). But really, I think a friend helped me think of making pizzas. Fairly simple, easy prep, little mess. She told me about the Labodega (a good restaurant in Regina) trick: lightly sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese between two soft tortilla shells, put toppings on those and bake at 3-something-something until it seems ready.
The perfect solution to my not wanting to compete with our bride-to-be’s thin crust pizza cause it is some good pizza! And the tortilla’s worked out well.
We had several kinds mixing several toppings: wild salmon, chicken, prosciutto, spinach, mushrooms, green pepper, red pepper, sun dried tomatoes, black olives, fresh basil, feta cheese, monterey jack, mozzarella, creamcheese…It think that was everything.
As an appetizer to the pizza I made peaches with serrano ham and basil. No pictures : ( but it was so delicious - I am sure I will make it again and take some then.
October 8, 2007 at 11:09 pm · Filed under Experiences
I came back to Saskatchewan for thanksgiving but for more than that. A best friend is getting married in the winter and this weekend, we threw her a stagette. I’ve wanted to mention this a few times in the past few months but the exact plans were kept as a bit of a surprise. Finally I can spill the beans! Well…I don’t want to tell all ; ) but there are a few things to share.
We nay’d hitting a club and renting a stripper, instead choosing to drive 3 hours north of Regina and staying at Shady Vale Resort for 2 nights. They have four cabins for rent and we stayed in the largest - caribou.
The weekend was cold and rainy but it was easy to keep warm…
…and perhaps it is easy not to notice when you are spending the time with such great friends.
Ok that last bit and the picture are a little corny. Sorry - but it is true. I’ve been away from my girls since last Christmas and I can’t begin to describe how refreshing it was to laugh with them. And they make me laugh like no one else can.
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