sweet weekend

it's the weekend! sweeeet. it's even sweeter because of the fact that it's a four day weekend for me (we switched out friday tutorial to thursday this week so we could have another day off). and it's the sweetest because of what happened back in 2009.

it's pretty crazy to think that in the span of 3 days (friday-sunday) this time last year, my life took a huge turn. i got into graduate school and, after taking a trip south of the border, came home to the perfect proposal, becoming engaged to my most favourite guy in the world.

plus, who doesn't love long weekends?

ahhh may 2-4 weekend, i heart you so much. :)

i heart dragon music

i love how music is so powerful. for example, i haven't listened to this soundtrack for at least 15 years, but it's just as intense for me now as it was back then. it's the kind of music that makes you stop what you're doing so you can just be in it. that's the power, and beauty, of music i guess. :)



see what i mean? so epic. so good.

randy edelman, you are a musical genius - there is nothing that could have been more perfect for this movie. i mean, there is no other piece of music that makes me want to reflect on life and learn kung fu, haha. i love soundtracks. :)

i heart sara

sara bareilles released her new single off her upcoming album this past monday and i love it! i love everything about it - the lyrics, the instrumentation, the overall feel...in fact, i don't even mind that the melody has been stuck in my head for the past two days.

here's what she had to say about it (taken from popeater.com):
"'King of Anything' is sort of a 'f**k you' song," jokes Bareilles. "I've had more unsolicited advice on my life than I care to mention, and this was how I dealt with it. It felt empowering to turn that frustration into music, especially a song that doesn't even sound angry. That's sort of what 'Love Song' was as well. Apparently, I don't get over things very quickly."

bahaha, how could you not love her?

anyway, i think she is great. i saw her in toronto two years ago but nothing really happened since then, so i'm excited that she released this single. plus, if this song is indicative of what's to come, i think her new album is going to be awesome. :)

click here to listen to "king of anything" - enjoy!

t h r e e

in exactly three months from now our wedding will be over and we'll be married! :) but until we get there, i can't believe how much more still needs to be done. o_O
...
for more details and updates, check out our wedding page.

the day a fire hydrant waved at me

generally speaking, the people in my neighbourhood are really friendly - they smile, make eye-contact, and some of them even say "hello" when you pass them on the sidewalk.

...and sometimes, if you're lucky, fire hydrants will say "hello" too. :)

brad doggett | v i v a . l a . v i d a (coldplay cover)

i blogged about this guy a while back, but then i went and forgot about him until this past weekend, haha. turns out he's actually posted some really great stuff since 2008 and has apparently recorded and released an EP too.

anyway, here's one of his covers that i particularly liked. enjoy!

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. :)