springtime in hamilton

i've been loving the weather lately! with the warm breezes, sunshine, and flowers that have started popping up all over the place, it's almost as if you can see and feel life everywhere. i like it.

anyway, i took advantage of the sunny days and walked to and from school everyday this past week! it was so nice being outside and outside looked so nice, so i decided to take my camera along too. :) here are some pics of what i saw:


^my shoes in the grass at the park near my place.


^magnolias - 'love pink'.
(wow i totally thought these were cherry blossoms...guess not, oops.)


^falling leaves - i thought these looked so cool.
(a bee kept harassing me while i was taking these so i guess it liked them too.)


^yellow flowers that spilled over a backyard fence.
(i liked how they looked against the wooden fence.)


^pink, purple, green, yellow, orange, white - i'm loving all this colour!

term three of six

today was the first day of term three.
oh me oh my, i think it's gonna be a doozy. o_O

OT practicum: term two

today i finished up the last day of my second term placement! it was a 5-week placement at a centre for geriatric care and it went by super quick. i have a week off and then it's back to hamilton for another couple months of school. ughh, i'm not ready.

here's to hoping my next placement will also be in toronto! *crosses fingers*

book nook: still alice

still alice
lisa genova

until recently, i hadn't read any books other than the ones for school (which, for the record, just isn't the same) so i told myself, at the start of my placement, that things would change. i started rereading my harry potters (teehee, they still get me everytime), but i also wanted to read something i hadn't read before, so i read two other one as well. the first one was a teen fiction book i found on my shelf (my cousin gave me a few to read the last time she was in town) which was pretty terrible and didn't deserve a review, haha.

luckily the second one, this book, was so much better. it had been on my list of books to read for quite some time now, but i never got around to reading it before this week.

still alice is a fictional novel about a woman (alice howland), a linguistics professor and research scientist who is diagnosed with early-onset alzheimer's. the book basically takes you on alice's journey of living with dementia and her gradual cognitive decline. the story is told from her point of view, which i thought was a really interesting approach.

for a first novel genova did such a great job, but i guess that's what you get from someone who has Ph.D in neuroscience from harvard. :P this book was insightful, well-written, and full of so many moments that made my eyes water and tears pop out. (yah, it totally made me cry on more than one occasion.) i brought it to my placement to read over lunch and was really tempted to just close my office door and read it for the rest of the afternoon, but i didn't(although i kept thinking about it the rest of the day, haha). other than the heartwrenching moments that cropped up every now and then, i found it to be a pretty easy read and i finished it in about two days.

overall i thought still alice was fantastic - i totally recommend it! just remember to have a box of tissues handy, just in case. :)

cooking corner: macaroni and cheese

i have yet to find the macaroni and cheese recipe.

i stopped using kraft dinner ever since graduating from undergrad and have since tried numerous attempts to make it from scratch. unfortunately, it's been hard since i still have the taste of KD in my head and my own attempts just haven't measured up on the taste-front. (this is probably because i don't put massive amounts of salt or preservatives into my mac and cheese, but still. there must be a way to get the flavour without the crap, there must!)

anyway, i made it for dinner tonight and even though my housemates were stuffed because they had seconds and thirds, to me it still tasted like it was still missing something. during the cooking process i threw in different things like more salt, oregano, basil, and chili powder but while they helped, none of these things 'did it'. (i think at one point i even contemplated putting in a couple shakes of worcestershire sauce, but i held myself back, haha.) hmm, maybe it was the cheese? i used mozzarella again tonight because it's the healthiest cheese to use, but maybe i needed to have used one with a stronger flavour. who knows. i have no idea what it is about this dish, but something's missing. *cue john mayer music*

oh well. at least i was completely satisfied with my french onion soup tonight.
thank you, knorr. :)

goodbye vancouver, goodbye world

i can't believe the olympics is over - it went by so fast! i think this was one of the most exciting games for me to watch. not only were the sporting events exciting, but the crowds just made everything that much more interesting. spontaneously singing the canadian national anthem during curling matches? check. bringing down the house via cheering? check. ridiculous amount of screaming and partying in the streets? check. we really had it all in terms of enthusiasm this time around. you could really feel the excitement and national pride permeating throughout canada during these past two weeks which was really awesome to be a part of. and while these games had their share of obstacles and tragedies, i feel that the olympic spirit was alive and kickin' throughout everything that happened through everyone coming together and supporting everyone else.

i'll admit, at the halfway mark i wasn't sure what to think with canada's low medal count, but somehow our country rallied alongside our athletes and they, in turn, did us proud winning gold after gold all the way to the end (literally). 26 medals with 14 of them gold! :O well done athletes!!

once again, the olympics have made a sports-watching monster out of me but it's all over until the next games come in 2012. canada is a little quieter now that the world has left, and my days are now emptier without all the sports and excitement that came with the olympic games, but we can be sure that when the world meets up again in london, canadians will be loud once again. we may not be wearing our little red olympics come 2012 (since it will be summer, duh), but that won't mean we won't be just as loud as we were this time around! we'll show the world.

(G)O CANADA!!!!

cooking corner: monterey beans and cheese

tonight i made monterey beans and cheese for dinner and oh me oh my was it ever good! it was actually the first meal that i ate here in hamilton back in the fall when my housemate made our first communal dinner. it was soooo good back then and i've wanted to make it ever since, but never got around to actually cooking it until this week.

i forgot to add a little bit of chili and i used mozzarella instead of cheddar (healthier for you) so it wasn't quite the same as i remembered, but it was still good. and so easy to make! i'll definitely need to make it at home sometime. :)

on a completely different note, olympic fever continues - (G)O CANADA!!!!

we love gold

^ image taken from www.zimbio.com

canada scored its first gold medal today! the men's freestyle moguls final was nothing short of spectacular - alexandre bolideau completed a great run and won the gold!! it's our first olympic gold ever won on canadian soil and damn, is victory ever sweet.

kristina groves also won a medal today too - a bronze in the women's 3000m!

what a great night for canada - well done bolideau & groves! our country is definitely celebrating, pumped, and ready for day 4. bring it.

go canada go! :)

one, two, three

1 day, 2 holidays, day 3 of the olympics

chinese new year 2010
happy chinese new year from me and my favourite tiger.


valentines day 2010
happy valentine's day everyone. (bah hah, calvin.)


vancouver 2010: day 3
last night's women's moguls final was crazy and so awesome to watch! we got our first medal of the games and even though it wasn't gold, i thought heil did a great job. go canada go! :) p.s. i love watching freestyle skiing - can't wait for men's moguls and all the aerial stuff!

hello world, welcome to canada

today marks the opening day of the vancouver 2010 winter olympic games and i am psyched! i'm definitely not an athlete nor a sports-addict by any means, but even i get excited and watch sport after sport during the olympics - and that's saying a lot.

go canada go! :)

p.s. i love how quatchi has a tattoo of the olympic logo on his right arm, haha.