perfect day

more thunderstorm and rain. I love the smell of the air: electric. I'm in a bohemian mood lately. I want to run away to some small village in the countryside and lie down on the grass in the field looking at the passing by clouds. Savoring the warmth of the sun against my skin. Just jump in a bus to destination unknown to the country side with roads that look endless, a bit like my trip to Maggog. 

The clouds were magnificient and it was a show of light and sound with lightning zigzaging through the sky. I could not help myself from counting the time lapse between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. If my memory is right, the shorter the time, the closer lightning strikes to where you are. Jeez I really want to travel.

This trip to Montreal was too short..The most enjoyable was Mont Royal cemetery. I had no time to go to Mont Royal itself. I <3 the peace and quietness of cemeteries and in general cemetaries in Canada are like parks: green with silent old trees , birds and random chipmunks. I spotted a raccoon and I was SO excited. I started trailing it and it was like playing 1,2,3 soleil aka statues in english (I used to play that as a kid)

Each time the racoon would stop, I stopped too and it would turn back and look at me with its tiny masked eyes. Aaaaww. It made me think of Miyazki anime "Pom Ponko" . It look so cuddly. I wanted to lie down and sleep in the cemetery because the quietness was so nice and the shade of trees so inviting. Unfortunately I could not spot any interesting tombstones since i did not have the map with me. It'll be for next time. self reminder: to go to mt pleasant cemetery as well.

I don't find cemeteries macabre and some are gorgeous, like Pere La Chaise in Paris. I enjoy reading some tombs "listings" and you could spin endless stories about the people buried there. One tomb stone had a pilot and his family. what suprised me is that the wife stayed a widow for 49 or 39 years-can't recall exactly..At least this is what I deduced from the reading as it said pilot x and his beloved wife .I need to upload that picture later one. Wow..this is what I call devotion unless she did remarry but wanted to be buried with her first husband and the guy was really young when he passed away. devotion, love, loss, grief are things you can read from the tomb stones. sometimes i wonder if some of the dead don't feel lonely especially those who've been there for 100 years and who no longer have any living relatives to visit them..

I just finished "Les yeux jaunes des crocodiles" by Katherine Pancol. She reminds me of Anna Galvada in some ways. Her characters are attaching and her writings is very humane although i did skip some parts which were not needed in the book IMHO. There were some parts I did not like and found overdone-stereotyped-"are you kidding me"-could/should be removed- but I enjoyed the evolution of the characters. Josephine, it's a bit of me: insecure, naive and "gauche" but smart and yet so unsure of her capabilities. The parts where she spoke to the stars made me smile because I used to do it a lot as well although unlike her I don't pray to God via the stars.

I knew and still know their names, when to find them and where. Back home I would lie down on my balcony ramp (with a high risk of falling into my neighbour's garden) and watch the milky way and the constellations. I would wake up at 5 am to watch venus at dawn. I still love the stars . I believe that where ever you are, as long as you can see the same constellations as your love ones, it means that they are never far away. For me now, this constellation is Orion which can be seen in both the Southern and Northern hemispheres.

Each time we went to Flic en Flac for dinner, I would lie back in the car and stargaze through the back window. We had to go through an area surrounded by both sides with sugarcane and this was the best place to stargaze as it is darker.  It was like saying hello to old friends and it's weird to realize that the stars we see now are actually from the past and might no longer exist.

I miss watching the milky way because there is too much light in the Canadian sky but I can still see the Orion belt and the planets. I also thank whoever invented googlesky because it is my favourite app. Back home I used sky maps and would use well known constellation as my landmarks like sagittarius, scorpio, taurus, orion, the pleaides-7 sisters etc. Which reminds me I miss the trajectory of venus infront of the sun which happened a few days ago. Apparently it sort gave the sun a beauty mark. zut alors.

Jeez I'm craving for some serious stargazing and let myself fall into the hands of eternity while looking at a sky of twinkling diamonds.

montreal here i come

My bus tickets are printed and hotel booking. All I need to do is pack. I have also booked my tickets for a one day trip in Ottawa to see the much coveted Van Gogh up close. The ottawa portion is  a "coup de tete" as we say it in french. I love Van Gogh and the post impressionism so this exhibition timing is perfect. After visiting Giverny in France where Monet had his paintings, then Musee D'Orsay, Van Gogh here I come. I never forgave myself for missing the William Waterhouse exhibit in Toronto in 2010?? and I missed the Tim Burton one as well..booo :(

I'm stuck in a rut lately to the point where it is scaring me. Even with my stressful job at the MCB I could create daily, here nada. I just read blogs and dream in colour while hoarding craft supplies. I better start using them SOON.

I'm not sure where I'll go in Montreal, I guess I'll let my bohemian side take over: walk into random streets, enjoying the day although the weather forecast is cloudy and rainy :( I'm definitely going to Mont Royal cemetery bird watching and to enjoy the silence. Laugh at me but old cemeteries are awesome, the Canadian tombstones are less impressive than Parisian ones-Pere La Chaise..awesomeness!!!- but it's like being in a park (at least for Mount Pleasant, St James and Mont Royal) . I know some streets are reputed for vintage and old books so I'll walk along these as well and hit the Salvation Army store on Notre Dame for quirky vintage finds.

Most probably I'll return with my carry on full of food, french books and what nots. then back to bleh mississauga. At least I am taking my fuji instax with me for polaroid pictures and I am doing a travel scrapbooklet. Need to get that right brain work hard.

I wish I had someone to talk about art or literature with me..Well there's always monologues... or soliloquys.

"To be or not to be, that is the question.."

Some people at work says I am VERY quiet but funny when I talk (...) I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.. *shrug*

my brain hurts and my tolerance for human stupidity rubbed thin... the corporate world is making me resent every minute of my life..

i need to run away..i need to find solace far away from this capitalist world.

what those past days taught me: humans fall mainly into one category., the "me" category where it's all about getting attention, being popular/liked, and about hypocrisy (a few literally stink of it, like some pungent odor that clings to their skin and cannot be get rid of how often they wash themselves) and it's nothing new

i have to get out of here fast. it's either that or my sanity. i have done a decent job of disconnecting myself from these toxic factors but there are days where i am like how can people be like that?? and their game is one i don't want to play.

the girl with her you-have-to-get-married argument made a come back. at one point i was wondering if she was trying to insult me with "ask your parents to find a boy for you. now it's a good time to get married because you know you are not.."

i am not what?? (don't get me started on that) and it all started when i told her my sister in law is getting her pr visa. i have no issues that my younger brothers are married before me. it's not a rat race. funny thing is that she is single too so she should worry about herself first than the stranger that i am..ah people...they're weird...

i knew i was never meant to be a social creature. god have you forsaken me?? *note the sarcasm please..

maya expo at the rom

So on last last thursday I went to the ROM to see the Maya expo. I did not want to miss it and the week-end was the last day. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed :( Getting out of museum station I saw this (see pic below) and I was like "gawd don't tell me...again???"

school buses lined up!!

I did drop by the ROM during March break for the Maya expo and this was the BIGGEST mistake ever as this is THE time when all kids head to the museum w/ their grand parents and what not. The lineup was huge so I went shopping instead.

This time I was determined to wait and see the expo despite the hoard of kids as it was the last week it was being shown and I would not be free to do it later as I work on week-ends. Thanks god all the kids were already in and it was a short queue for admission.

 where am i?

It was an interesting expo and the clay works by the Mayans are so intricate and lovely. Something that got me wondering is the common theme in all ethnicities/religions world wide about how the creation of the world is a violent process. In addition, the mayan believed that night and day were a daily event of destruction and creation. There was also a section about the famous end of the world in 2012 which is when the Mayan calendar ends.

To be honest when I first saw the paintings by the Mayans, it added to my belief that they were a violent culture: torture/sacrifice of war prisoners, scarification as beauty marks, cutting their tongues to draw blood for sacrifice etc. I was reminded of a comic I read when I was younger about Spaniards who traveled in the mexican jungles and were killed by the aztechs/mayan or sacrificed and how they came to a temple where there was a mountain of sacrificed corpse missing vital organs like the heart. Don't ask me how a kid like me got her hands on that type of comic. It was in "Le petit Spirou" album.

Upon deeper thinking, I realized that it is in human nature to be violent as past wars, holocaust, rape of nankin etc have showed us. It's just some cultural violence are more mediatized in books, tv etc so the Mayan "violence" was in fact no more violent than the vikings etc.. It also showed the Mayan nowadays and it's awesome to see how some managed to keep their ancestral language and culture.
After the Mayan show, I headed to my favorite hall in the ROM: the dinosaurs!!

I am never bored of watching the skeletons resurrected from the past. My only complaint is that at the ROM, the skeletons are not arranged in a way to give you the right "impression" of their sizes. The skeletons are too close to one another, giving a feeling of crowdness when in fact some skeletons are really more impressive in size and structure on their own. 

Also saw the weird specimens from the Burgess shale and unfortunately some of the lights shinning on the rocks were off so I could not really see all the details of their structures. I don't know if the burgess shale specimens are temporary or permanent as I would love to go back and see them again. Paleobiology is sooo coooll. Need to go to redpath museum in Montreal as well. I would love one day to go to Nova Scotia and walk along the Joggins cliffs where they have fossils. It's just too cool, like jumping into the past..just like when i saw fossilized plants at the Don Valley brickworks and yeah the dinosaur provincial park is on my list as well.

Now I just need to find a traveling companion and money :P...

blood on the floor

there's a lot of blood in the street next to my condo. car accident? A driver from a black? car was taken by the police and there's a pool of blood infront of a white car..ouch..

just checked the news: a woman was hit infront of the building..how could they not have seen her?? i wonder if they'll wash away the blood...

It makes me think of the day when i witnessed 2 cars crashing infront of my bus. Give it only 1 minute and we would have been in it as well. I saw the car bumpers flying, the oil tank in the air, the car motor covers getting compressed and the drivers' expressions..At least no one was hurt.

It was impressive on the moment: like watching something from tv. Maybe it was the wrong feeling to have but i was in awe..

i have decided to be a good girl: i'll add pictures of china soon..and doc my trip