favourite things project

I could not do mine Friday so here're two:

4. Shoes I own

Like most women, I am a sucker for shoes, more specifically high heels shoes (although wearing them is another story). Here're shoes I have bought so far since my arrival to Canada. I came to the country with 2 pairs of high heels and 2 pairs of Birkis (I've a third pair not shown):

i love my yellow birkis although they were painful to break especially the thingy between the toes

I got the marc fisher and guess shoes on sales at 50% off. A steal! I buy brand shoes only on sales as I'm not that crazy to pay over 100 for a pair unless I REALLY want it

I do look forward to the day where I'll be able to walk with high heels everywhere although for now birkis are my best friends! I guess I'll keep the heels for work :)

5. People in my life

People in my life I'll say my bf JG and my family especially my first brother. I don't consider myself to be family oriented but as I am getting older I realized that people I've always taken for granted won't always be there so it's best to enjoy the present time despite our differences and conflicting views. At 29, I no longer want to be the rebel I was at 17 yrs old. No pictures on this one as I'm quite private :)

I went to the World Biggest Bookstore on Friday and there was some damage :( I highly recommend the Lynda Barry book "What it is" as it's very inspiring. I'm also loving the diaries of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend-I swear it's so funny :)

Work starts on Tuesday at 8:30. Wish me luck :) Training week so it should not be that bad.

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.