Counting down!

That's right everyone! I've been looking at my planner and although I'm in the middle of crunch time right now, there is an end in sight! Only about 3 more weeks until my undergrad university experience is over!

It also occurred to me that since I currently don't have a job, and won't be finding one before I leave for Europe in June, that once school is done I'm going to have free time! I plan to catch up on much needed reading-for-pleasure and doing some major spring cleaning. I'm one of those strange people that actually enjoy cleaning. I know its wierd right? I just love the mindlessness of it, I put my iPod on and tune out the world.

Does anyone else like cleaning or have cleaning rituals?

My fellow roomate (also known as my mother) is a pack-rat and keeps everything. I do mean everything. Especially papers. So there is often a struggle when I want to clean and get rid of things and she wants to hold on to that magazine from the early 90's. Hrmm.

Also, the essay-from-hell has offically been handed in! You have no idea how much this relieved me! Just in time for me to start essay # 45829 (or so it seems) for next week.

I hope everyone around the world is having a good week, and good weather!

Ma mère est de retour

** Thank you Bluefish for the correction on my title!

..I'm not even positive that this title is gramatically correct in french. Anyone?

Anyway, my mom arrived home from a very fun-filled week in Paris yesterday, and we spent most yesterday catching up. She told me all about her trip, and made me miss Paris just that little bit more.

On the bright side, she brought me back a very unexpected present! I love Longchamp bags, and if you've ever been to Paris, or anywhere in europe really, you've probably seen them. I have a small one in navy that I use as a purse quite often, but my mom brought me back a tote-sized one similar to the bottom photo in a beautiful cream colour. Its big enough to fit my laptop and assorted school books, and I have to admit I'm in love with it! Its perfect for school, work and travelling.

Longchamp Bag

Things in my household seem to have resumed back to normal, The Cat went back to sleeping with my mom, and I have to admit I felt a little lonely last night not having 16lbs of fur waking me up intermitently throughout the night. Go figure. I spent the majority of last week b*tching about The Cat, and now I miss her.

The weather here is absolutely amazing today. 27degrees C with a HUMIDEX of 30! I'm living it up today as much as I can. I broke out my jean skirt and flip flops for the first time this year.

I hope everyone around the world is having good weather today too! I especially hope for my fellow Bloggers from the Netherlands that you guys have good weather for Queen's Day this week! Its not a celebration I'm familiar with, but it sounds very exciting.

Sunshine and short sleeves!

I love love love this time of year when the weather begins to warm up. Everyone seems so happy and is smiling all the time. I've stated numerous times before that sunshine makes me happy, and it really is true.

I'm currently on Ella alone day 7, and I have to admit I've gotten used to being alone. It may actually be a slight adjustment for me when my mom comes home in a few days. The infamous cat and I have learned to cope with each other, although I am still being woken up at 6:30 each morning.

The downside to this beautiful weather is that I don't have time to enjoy it this weekend. The paper from hell, otherwise known as my German Detective Fiction essay, is due on wednesday and I am currently only on page 7 of 15-20. I figure that roughly half way through isn't *too* bad. I find that I get distracted very easily when I am writing a paper. I'll be motivated for about an hour and a half, and then I'll lose it again for about 3 hours. My goal was to get to 10 pages today, and seeing as it is currently only 3:20pm, that might still happen. I find I work best late at night for some reason.

Some friends are coming over this evening to play Wii, so presuming that I am not worn out from bowling and mario kart, I will probably plant myself at the table and work for a few hours after they leave.

50 Random Things

I promised myself that once I got to 10 followers, I would post some information about myself. Thanks to Sarah yesterday, I have 10! So here goes. I compiled a list of 50 random things about me, you don't have to read them all, but the information is there. I find it fascinating to read other people's random things, it's especially interesting to see what they pick to share with the world.

1. I've never lived in a house with a garage
2. I've lived in 3 different countries on 2 continents
3. I love doing laundry and the smell of detergent and have a bunch of "clean linen" scented candles/sprays
4. The same goes for lavender. It makes me feel calm
5. I have a love/hate relationship with the smell of aviation fuel
6. The same goes for facebook, I'm on it everyday, but I'm convinced it ruins relationships and makes people miserable
7. I hate egg yolks
8. I would love to take trapeze lessons some day
9. I generally don't like candy or sweets
10. Pizza is my comfort food
11. I love high heels but rarely wear them
12. I wish I had a job that forced me to dress up and wear heels
13. I love to colour and consider it stress relief
14. My favourite movies of all time are Dirty Dancing and Eurotrip
15. I can't wait to be an expat one day
16. I'm left handed, and funnily enough so are most of my close friends
17. I speak 2 languages fluently, but would love to learn more
18. I wasn't too impressed with the Twilight series until I got to "Breaking Dawn", now that's one of my favourite books of all time
19. I love the entire Harry Potter series and I'm not ashamed to admit it
20. I was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys when I was a teenager, and their music still makes me happy
21. I had front row tickets to the last show of the Millennium Tour, and will never forget it
22. I love the smell of rain
23. My feet, hands and nose are always cold, but I rarely feel it
24. Sunshine makes me happy
25. I trust people very easily, it tends to get me hurt but yet I never learn
26. I have 5 very close girlfriends that mean the world to me
27. I'm an only child
28. I talk fast and stumble over my words occasionally, especially when I'm excited or nervous
29. Flying still makes me nervous and I have nightmares about it about once a month
30. Those nerves have never once kept me at home
31. I actually enjoy camping and cottage life in small doses
32. I'm a big city girl and hate living in the suburbs
33. My mom is my best friend. We have a Gilmore-Girls style relationship
34. I loved My Little Pony as a kid and had over 100 of them
35. To date I've only broken one bone in my body, but I broke it twice
36. I love cereal and milk as a snack but not for breakfast
37. Smells trigger memories in my mind all the time
38. I'm very superstitious
39. I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in signs
40. I look for meaning in random, everyday things
41. For example, the random shuffle on my Ipod, I believe it picks songs for a reason
42. I love my blue eyes, no matter what colour I wear, they're always the same blue
43. I'm a touch OCD and love boxes and lables
44. I have a really good memory and rarely forget a name
45. Scrambled eggs and toast is my hangover food
46. I keep the paper shopping bags from expensive stores and have a hard time throwing them out
47. I have a cat who I love to death and think she is the most beautiful animal in the world 48. A close second are Canada geese. I love them and think they are adorable
49. I clean when I'm upset or angry
50. I love trivia, board games and quizz shows.

Ella alone day 5

..the aforementioned cat has developed a new habit. This morning I woke up to her "lightly" scratching the side of my arm with her paw. It would have been adorable if it wasn't 6am once again. I ignored it for a good 40 minutes. She in turn I suppose got more frustrated at me and swiped the side of my cheek with said paw. Needless to say that woke me up. I now have a red war wound on the side of my face in the shape of a scratch.

This photo is actually her (when she's peacefully sleeping) although after this morning I'm thinking the first is more appropriate. I love her to death, just maybe not before 8am.

I know a lot of you are also cat lovers, does anyone have any funny/annoying cat stories?

Ella alone Day 3

I woke up this morning to find that we have no running water. Which of course never happens when my mom is home. So I've been on the phone with the property management company and water company and talking to my neighbours. No one knows why we have no water at the moment. Which made getting dressed this morning extra fun. Has anyone else had the pleasure of brushing their teeth with a water bottle?


Also, I was so preoccupied with the water situation, I managed to burn a poptart! Who does that?




Hrmm, so that's my sunday so far. Now I'm off to the library for most of the day, and hopefully coming back to a nice shower.


Also, my beloved cat has developed the habit of wanting food at 6am. I managed to ignore her until abut quarter to 7, and then gave up and got up to feed her.

Bon voyage ma mere!

..after 7 years of french, that is pretty much my extent of the language. Sad but true. My mom should be taking off right about now for 8 fun filled days in PARIS. Needless to say I'm very jealous. I also have the house to myself for the next week. I've never lived on my own before, so this is always an interesting scenario for me. I am still sharing various couches, beds and chairs with the cat, and I'm finding myself talking to her quite often. Is this normal when you live alone?

Wow, I'm feeling isolated already and its only been roughly 2 hours, stay tuned to my posts later on in the week.

I'm spending my friday night with the company of my beloved laptop watching "The English Patient" and "Casalanca" for an essay assignment.

Ireland (Pt. 2)

I'm still in the planning stages, but I'm already so excited and I have a list of things I want to see. Mainly: Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christchurch Cathedral, Temple Bar, the Guiness Brewery and there's an old market street full of antique dealers.

I found out today that a friend of mine just booked her ticket to Dublin last night to visit some family there for a couple of weeks, and it turns out we're going to be there at the same time! Its a very random coincidence, but it will be very cool if we meet up for a drink or dinner or something.

My father was in town for the long weekend, so I met him for lunch yesterday and we discussed our trip to Romania which I'm also very excited for. All in all I really can't wait for summer this year.

I'm going to Ireland!!

Its official! I have the booking confirmations in my hand (well email actually) but either way, its booked. My mom and I tossed around the idea of flying to Dublin about a month ago, but then before we booked the tickets, Air Canada raised their prices by over $400! So we gave up on that idea and continued reseraching other websites and airlines trying to find an affordable alternative to flying directly to Frankfurt. For some reason Frankfurt seems to be the most expensive destination in Europe.

On saturday I was browsing the internet and some little voice in my head told me to go to the Air Canada website and check out the Dublin fares again, and OMG they were low again! About $60 more than originally, but I'm not complaining!

So in the end we're flying to Dublin for less then half the price of a ticket to Frankfurt. I've never been to Ireland so needless to say I'm very excited. If anyone has any specific recomendations on Dublin, I'd love to hear them!

Happy Easter!

I love holidays, except that stores (and the library!) are closed, which doesn't give me much to do during the day. But I have lots of chores around the house and school work to keep me occupied. Tomorrow I'm spending the day with my mom; we're visiting an old Amish village not too far from here. Its pretty and I love the market and all the old fashioned crafts. If I remember I'll take some pics to show you all.

Also, for any and all Jewish bloggers out there, Happy Holidays as well. I know Passover is one of the high holy holidays, but that's pretty much where my knowledge of it ends. I do find it fascinating though, so I would love to know more.

My new addiction

I hate to admit this, but I've found a new addiction. Before I tell you all what it is, I should inform everyone that up until about a month and a half ago I had dial-up internet. Which meant it took about 25 minutes to download one song, forget watching youtube or videos online or anything. Since I now have wireless highspeed, I've really discovered the internet. Worse then that, I've finally caved and discovered "The Hills" on MTV.

The cast of The Hills

I fought against watching this show for years even though all my girl friends were obsessed with it. When I was sick last week, I figured out that I could watch full episodes on mtv.com, and the rest is unfortunate history. The new season premiered last night, and I'm ashamed to admit I watched the whole episode. Even worse than that, I'm interested in seeing what happens next now. This is a very un-welcome distraction when I should really be bucking down and doing my school work.

At the library on a sunday

I think I've officially handed my life over to the library gods. Looking at my day planner, the next few weeks (or months rather) are looking quite busy, so you may find me in this position at this library quite often from now on.

I've been here for about 3 hours now, and have about 3 hours to go before heading home for the night. I don't mind writing papers, I just despise the amount of research and reading that goes into it before hand. My mind is bogged down with articles on revolutionary politics and World War II mixed in with chapters of "Oliver Twist" here and there for a different class.

I'm beginning to seriously dislike reading, which is a real shame because I actually love(d) reading! I don't feel as though I can read for pleasure because each hour spent doing that is one more hour I could be spending reading for school.

On the bright side, every hour is one hour closer to me finally graduating with my B.A.

Alright, back to the books I go!

Feeling better! (and other stuff..)

Thank you everyone for your well wishes, I've officially crawled out of bed and on the mend. The cold is pretty much gone, just in time for me to spend the majority of my sunday tomorrow at the library working. I find I never get work done at home, there are too many distractions and I've learned that I tend to use ANY excuse to stall my work. We're talking laundry, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms or re-organizing my closet.

So going to the library forces me to focus in a quiet environment. I'm beginning to panic just a little bit about the amount of school work that is piling up. My graduate school applications are also due this week and next, so that is another source of stress. I'm still crossing my fingers that I get into my first choice. It occured to me last night that I have no idea what I'm going to do next year if I don't get in anywhere...

I'm still very much considering getting my TESSOL (teaching english overseas) certificate and possibly doing a year or 6 months abroad somewhere. My dilema with that is that I would prefer someplace in Europe, or maybe Russia, but most of the teaching courses are in places like China or Korea. I'm not sure I'm ready for such a culture shock.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on this?

Siiiiiickkkk

That's my attempt at whining over the internet. Yes its true, I'm sick. My mom was sick last week with a nasty cold, and although I did everything I could to stay healthy, I guess the germs finally caught up with me. It always makes me wonder, you never get sick on weeks when you can afford to take it easy do you? Why is that? Last week would have worked for me, next week too. But no, it has to happen this week with presentations and assignments due. GO FIGURE! So of course I haven't been able to take any time off school, and had to give a presentation this morning all the while sniffing and coughing, which is very attractive I must say. Haha.

So that is the extent of my updates for today.

Take it easy!