mac ot o-week: day three

wow, this week has gone by fast! i can't believe i'm almost finished my first week at mac - one more day to go! :O so far things have been going well, so i really can't complain. my classmates seem really nice so it's been great meeting them and getting to know some of them better. actually, despite thinking that i probably wouldn't attend a lot of the optional o-week events, i ended up going to all of them sans tonight's program on account of my tired and weary legs.

oh my legs. let me tell you about my poor legs.

so this past week i've been doing sooooo much walking which has resulted in achy and exhausted legs. mcmaster is about 30mins away from my apartment walking at a good pace and i, on average, have been going back and forth from school about twice a day in addition to walking around campus and all that other stuff. why? because apparently i have terrible planning skills, haha. so after walking about 12km today, 15km yesterday, and 14km the day before, i just did not have the confidence in my legs to go back to school tonight even though i was planning to go to. (tonight's event was going to boston pizza for dinner with the PT students.)

oh well, it worked out for the best and i managed to be productive even though i have no work to do (for now). i ended up having dinner with my housemate (which was really nice, i like her), and then i cleaned up my room and swept the floor, swept the floor of the bathroom and kitchen, and took out the garbage. oh yah, then when i went upstairs to return the dustpan, i had a conversation with the babysitter looking after my landlord's kids since they were out tonight. it would have been good to go out with the OTs and PTs tonight, but having this time to chit-chat and relax, as well as giving my legs a chance to recover was nice too. :)

in hamilton

so today was the "big move" from toronto to hamilton. (i say "big move", because i'll be going back to toronto pretty much every weekend, haha.) so far it, meaning everything, is nice. my housemates are nice. the landlords are nice. even the neighbourhood is nice and everyone has been really friendly so far.

not too shabby.

anyway, can't believe that the summer is over with the coming (and going) of labour day. school starts tomorrow (well, at least o-week does) and it will be the official beginning of my journey towards becoming an OT! craziness, pure craziness.

sting | f i e l d s . o f . g o l d

there's something about this time of year (end of summer, beginning of fall) that always brings me back to this song. i'm have no idea why, but i'm not complaining by any means - fields of gold is definitely one of my all-time favourites. sting rocks. :)

i'm not quite as sold on the music video though, but i guess it's to be expected from the early nineties. :P

yep, all in a day's work

after a lull of not really doing anything or getting any wedding planning done, yesterday was a super productive one on the wedding planning front - we got confirmation on our church, booked our restaurant, and i bought my dress!! we still have a lot more to do and think about, but at least the three big things done now, phew!

seems like things are starting to come together...feels good. :)

seven years going on forever... :)

^ photo taken by james on a patch of grass somewhere in the distillery district

p.s. the whole matching t-shirt thing was completely unplanned, honest.

september = back to school, once again.

i can't believe september has rolled around again. it's been three years since i've been a full-time student, but the time has come for me to trade in my guitar and musical instruments for pencils/pens, textbooks, and paper. it's both exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

to me, going back to school is about more than just being a student again - it's about leaving the field of music therapy and venturing out into a new field and career path. it's funny because i feel like i've waited for this fresh start for such a long time now, but now that it's really here, i can feel my feet getting a little cold. don't get me wrong, i'm positive that everything happens for a reason and i really do believe that i'm making the right decision to go back to school...i'm just a little nervous. i'm sure everything will be fine though and will work out for the best. :)

now i just need to start packing up my stuff and getting everything i need together for my move out to the hammer. o_O

book nook: what i did for love

what i did for love
susan elizabeth phillips

yep, it's yet another book review.

i've been trying to burn through the pile of books i borrowed from the library since i figure in a week, when i go back to school, leisure reading will have to take a back seat to anatomy textbooks, ot journals, and other school related things. ughh. (where did summer go?)

this one centres around the protagonist, georgie york - a washed up actress, recently dumped by her first husband, with a string of bad movies behind her name. basically her life isn't the greatest at the moment, and with the paparazzi coming at her from every direction now that her first husband is remarried and is having a baby with his new wife, it's at an all-time level of suck. anyway, the story is about how her and one of her past co-stars whom she hates, bramwell shepard, basically try to use each other after a stint in vegas until things eventually...um...change.

all in all this book was quite an quick and easy read although it was a little predictable which, i guess, was kind of to be expected. this book definitely doesn't make it to my list of favourites, but it's still pretty enjoyable all the same. :)

book nook: the other bolelyn girl

the other bolelyn girl
phillipa gregory

the other bolelyn girl was on my list of books i wanted to read for a while, so i was pretty thrilled when i was finally able to track down a copy.

this novel is considered to be part of the sub-genre of fiction, historical fiction, and is based on the lives of anne and mary bolelyn, the second wife and the mistress of king henry VIII. gregory creates a world rich in descriptions and good story-telling - i could visualize scenes playing out in my head while i was reading, so that was a plus. the story is set in historic england, centred around the two bolelyn girls, and written from the viewpoint of mary bolelyn (anne's younger sister in the book, but according to historians she's actually older than anne.)

it became pretty clear why hollywood chose to do a movie based on this novel; it's full of everything hollywood loves - drama, betrayal, sex, more drama, royalty, scandals, and even more drama. who would have thought people could be so incredibly sneaky, conniving, and power hungry? at times i couldn't help but put the book down briefly because there was just so much drama it became a little overwhelming sometimes, haha. at times i had to remind myself that this book (while based on historic facts) was, at it's very core, fiction.

i began reading it during a weekend away at a friend's cottage, and finished this book sometime within the next week. despite some unnecessarily graphic scenes, it was actually pretty addictive once you got into its pages. for my first venture out into historical fiction, it was quite a good read. :)

lightning, lightning, and more lightning

^ image taken from daily dose of imagery
(click the link for more awesome lightning shots.)

yesterday toronto got caught in the middle of a massive thunderstorm and, as luck would have it, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of that storm driving home after visiting family out in the west-end. needless to say, the drive home from sauga was chaotic - lane markers were next to impossible to see, hazard lights were blinking everywhere, the road was one big puddle, and sheets of rain were pouring down so hard it felt (and looked) like someone was throwing massive buckets of water at us from all sides.

it was crazy.

the craziest part of the storm though, was the lightning. there were literally lightning bolts going off every 5 seconds which came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and i couldn't help but be mesmerized by all of them. some were streaks of light that resembled harry potter's scar, and others crawled across the sky like a network of veins, while others were just bright flashes that illuminated everything in their path and burned my retinas.

i'm sure the thunder was just as impressive and frequent as the lightning (one just doesn't happen without the other), but i think it was drowned out for the most part by the sound of the rain...and the random screaming, haha. :)

summer conference 2009: one ekklesia

this past weekend i found myself back at laurier not as a student, but as a participant of my church's summer conference. for the first time in years this conference housed members from all three congregations at our church (canto, mando, and english) and i actually really enjoyed the fact that we were all there together. the speakers were good and while i generally enjoyed their messages (despite some kinks in the method of translation), my favourite part was hearing the members of our other congregations share about their testimonies and what their congregations are doing - it was a great opportunity for me to have a more holistic view of my church and hear what about going-ons beyond the walls of the inner court. what really struck me though, was how through hearing these sharings i gained a much more realistic view of where our congregation is at...

i think my heart broke a little this weekend.