at last

above pic: of course that's not me!

After procrastinating for so long, I finally obtained my G1 after passing the theory test. My card is coming by post in the incoming 2-3 weeks. Had a cute guy who corrected my test ;P It was about time and I nearly died waiting 4-5 hours just to have my application processed. On the other hand, look what I discovered:

photo credit: food for thought

One more reason why I should live in Asia :P

Favourite things project

So I decided to jump on the band wagon and participate in Tazim's favourite things project. I'll try to update every Friday although for this time, I am condensing 3 posts in one! Yay. So here you go:

1. Iconic things about my country

Although I'm a Canadian landed immigrant, I'll write about Mauritius since I've been in Canada for only 4 months-excluding my uni years. (I'm being nice, if you don't know about my island, just click on the link).

I'll say that the iconic things about Mauritius are the beaches and sugarcane:

Taken during my stay at Le Tousserok Hotel

Mark Twain even described Mauritius as "paradise on earth" although I wonder if it's still the case now. Unfortunately I'll be honest and say that the sandy beaches are enjoyed more by the tourists than us locals :/

Sugar cane is also something very representative of the country. Whether you go North, South, East or West, once you leave the populated urban areas, you'll find yourself surrounded by sugar cane fields on both sides of the road. Once the main foreign revenue for the country, sugar cane has become secondary in generating money due to competition from other countries. Currently (if I remember well), we're exporting mainly special sugar than white sugar. The recent years have seen the closing down of several sugar cane factories and even of the Bulk Sugar Terminal.

I love sugar cane blooming and harvest seasons. During harvesting, the fields are burned and the air will be loaded with black flakes of soot (a nuisance when drying clothes outside) you'll also smell sugar in the air which is quite nice. I have fond memories of chewing sugar cane in my childhood as they grew next to my grand parents' house (before everything was cleared for apartments). I'm sad when I see so many fields being cleared to build malls and condos. I guess that's evolution?

image from this site Travel Tourism Mauritius

2. Modes of communication

I guess my favourite mode of communication is writing. I am more comfortable writing down my thoughts although nothing can beat talking to someone face to face. It's just I'm shy and when I've nothing to say I ramble and when I do have something to say, I'm quiet (with people I don't know well). I'm proud to say that I've known some of my penpals for over ten years and I do hope that the friendship will go on even when we'll be old and wrinkly.

photo credit: AmoraSong

3. Things to drink

Bubble tea!! That's the asian in me. I LOVE taro bubble tea with tapioca pearls. So yummy. The BEST bubble tea I had so far is from this food court in Dixie: Taro, ice cream, litchi jelly and tapioca pearls. One large size for 4 bucks I think. Pure Bliss. Picture below is not from teh Dixie food court.

photo from http://fruitealicious.com

I'm also a green tea junky and have 4 boxes in Canada. When I came back from China, I brought like 2 kilos of tea. Chinese tea are so yummy and I love oolong, green, sencha, meccha and jasmine pearls. I also love bottled teas especially honey green tea and chrysantenum (spelling?).

Taken during my trip- 7 eleven in Hong-Kong

Coffee is another weakness of mine I used to be a fan of Starbucks but since they swapped their yummy frappucinos for this stupid "However you want it", well frappucinos have become less fun. Maybe some people do bother about their skimmed/soy or what not milk but even in the choices they have, you no longer get those yummy brownie chocolate frappucinos. It's like frappucinos on a diet. Else I need my daily dose of caffeine!!

I do need to organize my photo folders. Seeing pictures from my trips in Asia makes me long to go there and live. Sometimes I do miss being surrounded by Asian stuffs and food, maybe move to vacouver??? I do wonder where I belong: I want to live in France, Asia and then what next? Maybe I need to try each country until I find somewhere I can call home? But time is running out baby like Muse would sing.

Coming next: Shoes I own and people in my life :)

Concentrate on Being than Having

things you don't have

Time flies and what have I done during those past days? Nothing. I missed the gym for a week, did some art here and there and I am still going to do my G1. *sigh* I'm such a procrastinator. I'm watching too much "One piece', pigging on junk food and dozing. I swear it's time to go back on track. I've been doing some thinking (at last! Those past months have made me lazy. I can't recall when I last pick up a good to read or did some critical thinking) and realized that the reason why I've been missing on the good things of life is due to my low self esteem and jealousy/envy. I should stop focusing on what I don't have and enjoy what I do have. I am an introvert, I hate socializing and yet I envy people who've a great social circle. Maybe now the effort has to come from me, if I want to meet people, I have to go to them because no one is a mind reader and they won't know "oh that girl she wants to befriend me" etc.. I need to let go of the fears of rejection or that I am too boring etc..if people worse than I have it, so why not me?

I'm smart and I am the only one sabotaging myself by trying to be perfect all the time. I'll always remember how I made an excuse not to do calligraphy for my ex-supervisor's card because I thought my calligraphy was not good enough despite practising several times. In the end another girl did it, it was crappy but people were happy which led me to think that either their standards were too low or mine too high. I'm obsessed about perfection when it comes to other people, i can easily spend hours trying to find the perfect gift etc. I guess it's time to stop wasting precious minutes on finding perfection and concentrate more on what matters. I am not perfect, I need to learn to embrace my imperfections and start living. Life is too short not to be enjoyed. Breathe, Enjoy and Live.

It's hard but I don't want at 40 to feel the same as I was at 17 or 30.

We had a very orange sunset last Friday. This picture was taken in normal light and not retouched (I'm too lazy to manipulate any of my pictures besides rotating or resizing). I rushed outside to take pictures when I saw this colour from my window.

bothered

Today I realized that I forgot a set of pictures back home. Basically it's pictures of me and my brother plus cousins when we were kids. These pictures have a sentimental value for me and it sucks to have to wait until I get home to look for them. Jeez I'm so disappointed in myself. I managed to bring all kind of junks that can be re-bought but forgot those pictures..Hmm oh well. I'm planning to do some blurb books, one on Mauritius and I guess I'll have to keep my family pictures for later as they're back home. I think I had them in an envelope with postcards and left the whole thing behind when my luggages were overweight.

I found them in my other journal! yay

missing things

Sometimes I can't help thinking of the things I am missing back home like family gatherings (I'm not a fan of all my relatives but it's still good to get together for dinner and chit chat), the birth of my puppies (first time mom Lulu), my dogs (do they even know that I am no longer there?), the market smell, the sugar cane blooming seasons, trips to Asia and the sea. Next time I'll go home, I'm sure the country will have changed beyond recognition as they were already changing the landscapes with malls and such. Last week, I was reading a description of the sugar cane blooms and an author described it as feathery. For me it has always looked like a silver lining, soft, and beautiful under the morning sun. Unfortunately I never took any pictures as it was on my way to work that I saw this beautiful scene. Imagine the same picture below but with a silvery feathery tapestry that extends to the horizon.

photo credit Khoi Huynh-Dinh

I guess missing home is something normal just as missing Toronto when I came back to Mauritius 4 years ago. I do feel like I've been living in Canada for years though..as if there has been no gap from 2005 to now and I am learning to like Mississauga. On Thursday, I was craving samoussas, and walked for some 45 mins or so to Britannia street as my aunt told me there was an Indian store there. Ok first I missed the store and went to a different one: the Curry Hill (samoussas and bhajees are not so great but their bryani is YUMMY: nuts mixed with spices, chicken and raisin-give me another portion anytime! yes sir!), then I decided to be "smart" and instead of walking down Queen St again, I wanted to find the street Vista which goes straight to the corner of the street where I live. Instead I ended getting lost.

It was a strange adventure as I thought the streets were parallel but some were not, so swearing at the heat, I went on walking, ended in a street called Brah..something, passed by a park and ended in a very Canadian area (white). This area is definitely older than where I live and so much nicer with trees on both sides of the streets (The street I live has trees but young ones and not tall enough to give shade), lots of green/gardens and feel more comfy/homely than the new neighbourhood although the houses are smaller. It felt like this movie big fish when the main actor stumbled in this village where the shoes are hanging on the electricity lines. I don't know this area felt different, then I ended in a "cul en sac". I went back on my steps, and took another street which led to a newer area. From far away I could spot a police car and was like:hurray now I can ask for directions and the traffic indicated clearly that there was a main road ahead. Arrived to the police car level to discover than I was right in front of the street leading to my aunt's house. Hahahaha the whole thing felt so weird and I definitely want to go back to this street to explore more. Well sure there are only houses there but I love looking at people's gardens and if I could I would have loved to own a house there. Newer residential areas feels too sterile and the vegetation will look good only in 20 years or so as the trees grow very slowly.

Hmm I succumbed and bought the moomin mugs. Also discovered this shop in Toronto: The Finish place and they sell moomin mugs but it's more expensive than from ebay (shipping included). Heh what can't you get in Toronto..

My folks are in Asia and I so want to go! I guess next time they'll go, I will as well but this time with a plane ticket paid by me!

random things

my random journal pages (inspired from Dina W classes and Journal Spilling book)

I am employed which is a relief after 4 months of doing nothing. I will use my first salary to spoil myself and then I'll have to get serious by saving and other priorities. It feels good to know that money will be coming in at the end of August and that since I'll be in banking I'll get discounts on many products..Hehehe oh joy! I've one week left to enjoy before training starts and my plan is to use it to complete my swaps. So far I've only one swap for Malin to complete. I also want to participate in the zines swap but I've no clue what to write although I do have an idea what my zine will be about. heh. I've been feeling lethargic lately with the heat and skipping gym classes because it tires me too much to walk under the sun..ok maybe it's just an excuse for my laziness.

Been working on several journal pages although I like to see them as work in progress than complete. Most of my pages are 4x6 inches and I've been wondering if I should not move to something bigger as too often my pages feel crowded and I still want to add stuffs! Today I spotted a woodpecker. This is a nice change from the usual American robins and sparrows. I do wish we had a bird feeder as I am sure there are more birds out there but they're not that active during the day due to the heat. Speaking of birds, I received my fly away chunky book back and here are some lovely sample pages (sorry the first is inverted-will correct it once I've installed Adobe CS5) :

I bought a new Hard Drive today, 1TB since I realized that 640 GB is not enough for me (oh yeah..I've an external 320 GB drive and my Macbook is 320 GB as well I think). I'll store all my downloaded movies and anime there. It'll be easier to organize and less of a hassle as I won't have to burn DVDs for a while. I am not much of a movie person and dislike DVDs because I need to find space to store them. I've realized that I need to cut down on my clutter as "each new possession loads us with new weariness". Sometimes it feels like hell to remember where I've put x or y item although I am usually an organized person. I'm de-stashing some of my craft supplies on ebay too, especially items I've bought for a project, never started the project and now keeping the supplies "just in case".

I'm craving for some moomins mugs..Should I, should I not? I left all my moomin DVDs back home but brought the books with me. At 22 USD each excluding shipping, these mugs are pricey..The limited editions ones are over 50 USD. Phew..The three below are in my wish list, including one with moomin mama and another with moomin/his gf . Here I am hoarding more items when my wish is to de-clutter but who can resist..aren't just they too cute???? Maybe I should buy one each month from ebay since they don't do combined shipping so I'm not losing anything.

persistence

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On” has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race.”
Calvin Coolidge
(1872-1933); 30th Us President

I'm sad to see that many things are just one way but well the best is to ignore those kind of people, even if these are people I thought as friends. Just did Bodycombat classes and it feels good to get rid of your frustration. Bodyattack tomorrow! Hah.

provence

1. Village of Gorbio, Maritime Alps, Provence, 2. Sault, Provence, France, 3. Senanque Abbey, Provence, 4. Aix en Provence, 5. Dusk on the Gapeau river, 6. little laundry in aix-en-provence, 7. Aix en Provence - Cours Mirabeau, 8. Maisonette en Provence pas loin de Draguignan, 9. Roquebrune Village, 10. The sky of Valensole-en-Provence, 11. Provence colors, 12. Montagne Sainte-Victoire from Les Lauves, Terrain des Peintures, Aix en Provence, 13. lavande en Provence, 14. Provence sunset, 15. Provence road, 16. Provence

Dreaming of Provence and the soft warm sun against my skin in the afternoon and the soft breeze blowing in the olive trees. Can't say this is the case in Toronto as it's cloudy and rain is expected. I wonder if lavender can be planted in Canada. I saw something that looks like lavender in my neighbour's garden but they're so sparse. I guess I watched too many Marcel Pagnol movies for my own good. What I miss from the french side: good cheese, bread, wine, culture (spare me all this mainstream influence we get from across the border), french tv and above all books/movies. I rewatched Odette tout le monde last time and it made me smile although I skipped the boring parts. I still need to watch "ensemble c'est tout" and download more french movies.

It's funny how once you're far from something you used to take for granted, you miss it more. I'm also CRAVING cassoulet..I can't wait for the day I'll be living in the french part of Canada. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right move by coming to Toronto instead of staying in Montreal. Montreal might be old, smaller, and poorer but it has its charm of its own and most streets are like Queen street West with its own typical flavour. Bah I'm in Toronto for now and will try to do the best I can. I only want to be able to save and travel to France, Uk and other places and connect with the people than be a mere tourist.

lonely?

Lately I've been having random convos with my relatives or bugging some people on msn. I guess I've come to the point where I feel lonely and wish for a two way conversation. hah. I want a dog and guess the way to go is adopt from rescues. it's a shame though how many owners buy dogs and then get rid of them in less than a year or when the dog becomes old.

do you think

if God is listening...

Originally uploaded by photografeel

somewhere Someone is listening?

Coincidences are strange..

je t'attendrai

March 2010

Je t'attendrai

secret garden

1. Come into the Secret Garden....EXPLORE 9th OCTOBER 2009 #486, 2. Japanese Garden, 3. kitchen garden, 4. Olbrich Gardens Spring Afternoon, 5. European garden spider, 6. In the Garden, 7. Bordeaux: In the flower garden...., 8. Clean blueness at the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, 9. Sun Flower, 10. Secret Gardens 2004 II, 11. Magical garden, 12. Peony in bloom, 13. White Flower, 14. Dogwood flowers, getting ready to open, 15. Hoverfly on helenium flower * Журчалка на цветке гелениума, 16. Lotus Flower IMGP0689

I have been dreaming in hues of green, red and yellow lately with the smell of freshly turned soil and rain. Each time I go to Streetsville, I walk by by this house with this really lovely garden. Imagine sunflowers, lilies, daisies etc bordering the pedestrian pavement. Then a winding path that goes to the house, partly hidden by trees, more flowers and in between you spot a wooden fawn and a bird feeder. The house is partly covered with ivys and has white windows. There're no fences except the wooden one that face the street made of 4 pieces of wood nailed together and that's it. Often I want to go by this winding path and ask the owner how she/he made this garden. It's definitely a product of love and much effort and sets it apart from other houses. This garden is so inviting and all is missing is a mat to do yoga or read. There's the perfect balance of shade and sunlight. Until I find a place to call my own, I'll dream through pictures on flickr.

It's weird how my soul has been crying for a place to call home since I was at university. I've been working in my visual journal as well. I think I'll start a book of healing in order to fight back my inner demons and fears who whisper in my ears every night.

CONCENTRATE ON BEING THAN HAVING -stephen covey

lack of job feedback

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. ”
George Bernard Shaw

“If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.”
Stephen R. Covey

I have a new skin to protect my macbook pro keyboard and I must say it feels weird but that's better than not covering it since i'm always getting the keys dirty or there're dangerous spills opportunities. I might remove it when I want to type faster or is not creating. The lack of interview feedback is making me depressed. I am seriously thinking of starting to sell my art and cross fingers since I need some revenue. An acquaintance of mine managed to get a job in a call centre, a few weeks after his arrival. JGuy said that it's because he's a guy. Well guy or not, he has a job even if it's odd hours (from 22:00 to 7:00), and is still getting interviews (he was in sales back in Mauritius and I guess this is a BIG plus because everywhere they ask you to sell here). For me? nada, dead, nil, rien. I had a few relatives who took my CV but it's a dead link. One is literally ignoring my questions for feedback and she's in a call centre in a bank I am interested in. Oh well *shrug* In the mean while I am running out of money.I feel embarrassed each time people ask me about my job quest because it feels like I am not making enough efforts or something is wrong with me. I've changed my resume so many times that I've stopped counting so what's wrong?????

Tomorrow I am going to do step classes. So far I tried bodycombat, bodyattack (high cardio and I love it), zumba, and bodyflow. It's not so bad and I definitely love combat and attack the most because they're high in energy. Zumba is more dance and free flowing but I'm not a latin dance person. At least I've these gym classes to keep me out of the house and think of something else than brood/feel helpless. I am just a little bit lost and has even to force myself to do art. I wonder how it'll be when I retire. I'm someone who always need to know what's up ahead in order to feel peaceful and this time, I see nothing to the point that it's scary. Some people think I am always whining, others think I am lucky because I'm not working, but I doubt they know what it is to live with fear in your stomach, to see time ticking by and not know why nobody wants to hire you. I am trying to be more proactive than reactive but sometimes I can't help thinking that living in the suburbs is killing opportunities for me as well as I did get feedback that I live too far (WTF) despite being only 1 hour-45 mins from downtown Toronto. This is insane.

I saw the silliest reply in the TIMES to the story about a soldier who spent $5000 on his tattoo and the ban of tattoos visibility in the police/military. A doctor was like how this guy should have donated this 5k to charities instead of spending it on a tattoo. I dislike the charity excuse. If you look around you, how many people spend zillions on superfluous things( I bet even that doctor does) than give to people who need it. I do support charity causes but to use charity as an excuse in order to justify your opinion of someone else behaviour sucks. Maybe this doctor, next time he wants to buy a new car or something, should instead give this money to charity huh? Stop the hypocrisy people.