Loooong month

So I've forgotten the fact that I had a blog to write on. Yes, it's been way too long as my last entry was July. I read my last entry and I remember now it was around the time where I had a bit of time as I was finished with all the wedding craziness that I was involved in.

Since then, what have I been up to?

Well, around that time we had a few people leave the company I work for - and so I was super busy trying to keep up. We hired more people, and they've finally settled after 4 months or so. I guess it takes about 3-4 months to completely train a programmer. During the summer it was rather slow as the programmers were taking a long time to complete a bug... but now they're going superfast, so I'm having a hard time keeping up.

After the personnel changes, things are better for me, in terms of state of sanity I think. I was so stressed before, and now I'm less so... but I've been finding it harder and harder to keep my spirits up, with too many things I have to do... having a hard time enjoying anything lately. Just keep on going day by day, I guess.

I've taken a week off at the end of October as I'm usually burnt out by November. Took a small road trip to Québec City which was so nice. It started off stressful and rough (as it was raining the whole way) but after that, it was quite relaxing. Spending some time at an Art Gallery is a good thing - I should try to do that more often here also - it's a great way to get away to a quiet space.

This month was rather difficult as we had a bad news coming our way from Japan. My hubby's grandmother had passed last week. I was fortunate enough to have met her last year a few times during our trip to Japan. Even though I really didn't know her, I felt so sad after hearing the news... not fun not fun. I think we'll be having a very quiet christmas this year.

Ugh... end of July already...

It's end of July already. Where has my days gone? This year is flying by like a jet plane. It's been so busy as of late, I can't seem to keep up with anything.

In the past 3 months, I've attended:

• 3 weddings (1 of which I was in the bridal party, 1 I was heavily involved with as my hubby was the best man)
• 1 jack and jill
• 2 bonboniere making parties
• 2 wedding rehearsal / dinners
• 2 baby showers (both for one person lol)
• Spent lots of time wrapping presents
• Spent lots of time staying up late working on things for weddings

Atleast I can see where my weekends have gone. I feel very drained lately. It doesn't help that work is going haywire right now also with more personnel changes.

A few things I did fit in during all these chaos...

• had a nice lunch with a friend I haven't seen in ages and I haven't sat down to talk with for even longer
• had taken a few days off to show Toronto to relatives in May
• had taken a day off just for me last week (though it was a friday before a wedding so it wasn't too restful... not to mention I should take more than 1 day off!)

Hopefully I'll have some more time off soon... because I don't know how long I can last...

CSI - nooooo!

So yesterday I was watching the season finale of CSI (Vegas) by myself... I'm usually quiet when I'm watching tv by myself but yesterday's episode I couldn't help but gasp... nooo!


(The rest is my rant ... and if you haven't seen the episode yet, please stop reading here or else you'll see what happened. I tried to choose a colour that is hard to read - please highlight if you're interested)


Nooo! Warrick! He can't be dead, can he???
I could not believe the writers actually did that to him. I mean, the original cast... killed off like that?! Damn that sheriff guy! When I saw the diner scene where they were having breakfast, I thought, phew, I'm glad Warrick got off this ok - but since he's demoted, where is he going to go? More changes coming? Who's going to fill in his shoes??? But then everybody left one by one, and I see Warrick getting into his car in some dark alley, I thought, wait a minute... this is scary... And then, a knock on the car window - I thought, no Warrick, don't open that window, regardless of who it is! I saw it was the sheriff guy and I thought, okay, why is he there? Why does he have to be so creepy and knock on the door to congratulate him? And then... pow! Ugh! Warrick got shot in the neck! GASP!!!! There's a hole on his neck... oh no, is he dead?! Then the bastard shot him again just to make sure, wiped the gun clean and threw it in the car... nooo...

I couldn't believe what had just happened and stared at the TV for a bit... and then got online and checked the CSI boards just to realize that I watched it before it is on in the States. (CTV airs it an hour early) *sigh* Why do they have to get rid of all my favourites this way?! Speed died too on CSI:Miami... oh well. I have to wait until next season to find out the reactions of the cast... but I hope Gris and all are gonna catch that SoB!

OK, I had to vent... I'm so sad. Yes, I know it's only a tv show ... but it's one of the shows I've watched for a long time and this truly sux.

Little notes on April so far...

• April is my birthday month. Yay to me! ;) Actually, I've been feeling rather old and young at the same time lately... not sure how that's possible, but it's true. Thinking about my age makes me feel old... and how easy I get tired / sore lately makes me feel old.. but I am rather naive (and so I feel immature / young)
  
• In the lines of feeling old - my wrist is sore... and I don't remember what I did yesterday to make them sore! The only thing I remember doing is shaking a pen to see if it will write better ... and I did play some Wii... if either of those were the cause, I am old. (-_-;;;
  
• I'm addicted to Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)... I'm playing it when I get the chance. I suck at specialty worlds - like the ghost mansions, frozen worlds, sandy deserts, bee worlds... *sigh*
• It's finally getting warm~! I found this winter harder than any other winters - getting buried in snow to catch a streetcar (because they don't shovel snow around the stops), walking in crazy snowstorms / wind / sidewalks that are not plowed yet (I get that around where I live) etc. etc. etc... I'm sooo glad snow is finally gone.
• Baseball season started - woo, I can smell summer! Yes, my hubby is glued to the tv for the NHL playoffs...but every now and then I get to check the baseball scores!
  

April couldn't have come any sooner

Finally, it's end of March. Boy, it was a loooong March. I am so looking forward to April and hoping that it would be a better month. I mean, don't get me wrong, there were some good things that happened in March... but it's been such an expensive month I am so glad it will be over soon.

It all started with me losing my Metropass. I've always thought it would suck big if I ever lost it or misplaced it, but never thought too hard on not losing it... well, I placed it in my jacket pocket on the morning of March 6th after I got on the streetcar to get to the office - and by the time I tried to get onto a streetcar at the end of the day to get home, I realized it was gone. Well, I don't know if I dropped it or somebody easily just took it out of my pocket in the short crowded ride on the streetcar that morning - but I hope whoever took it or picked it up made a good use of it, because I felt sooo bad after that. Since it was so early in the month (I used it all of 3.5 days) I feel like I lost a good $100. *sigh*

Then we had a problem with our car. It was parked on a street and somebody backed into the front tires, making the surrounding area damaged. Atleast this time the people who backed into the car left a note, but it's still inconvenience we had to deal with...

We did get our car back after a long week and a half (it felt longer as there was a holiday inbetween) but there's still problems with it so we had to take it back... and it's going to cost us money again to fix it as it's apparently not going to be covered by insurance. Great.

We had whole bunch of other costly things piling up this month - I am sooo hoping April would be better... and the income tax returns will come quickly (we still have to file it, but we still have time)

Come on spring... come on April...

Happy birthday ...

Happy birthday love!
Today is the day that you were born... many years ago.
Feeling old yet? ;)
Coincidentally, it's Chinese new year.
I don't remember if this happened ever before, I don't think I remember the time it did.
Whatever the case, I'm happy that you were born... and found me. :)

Happy birthday!
I hope things would turn out better this year than the last.
And many more years to come.

Satoshi Kamiya Origami seminar

I went to the Satoshi Kamiya Origami seminar this past week. I think I first saw him on TV in a video my grandmother sent over, a Japanese program called TV Champion. It's a show about competing to find the ultimate in the field - and this episode was about origami. I was amazed to see this guy making all sorts of things during the show. I don't remember the show much, but I just remember I was quite amazed as he won through the competition easily.

Well, he came to Toronto to give a seminar. The one I attended was a beginner seminar that was open to the public. They apparently had an advanced seminar which would've been great to attend, but it was only open to insiders like the people at the Origami society and other Japanese groups.

Regardless, the beginner seminar was a lot of fun. It was a 1 hour slide presentation, followed by a hands-on portion where he would actually show how to make some things using origami. In the slide show, he introduced himself, how origami originated, and what kind of things he's been working on. He even took the time (about 10-15 min) to fold a bear that he created. During the time he was folding, he was doing question / answer session - and from the way he was just folding and answering questions - it seemed like his hands had a mind of its own. This guy lives and breathes origami... very smart.

The folding session was interesting. It made me feel out of touch with the origami community - there was a time when I was actively folding paper and learning... He didn't teach anything that was hard, but I didn't know any of the ones he showed, so I learned something :)

What was great was the samples of his work that he brought with him. It was displayed all around the room - and they were so crazy intricate. The dragon that he's known for... wow. Just sheer amazement. I took several photos of it but it's just amazing how he made all these - legs, claws, many many scales on the dragon from one piece of paper. I'm glad I went to see him... maybe I'll start folding something again :)