Winterpegger

        Oh boy is it cold today. BRRRR. Went home at around 7pm today and it was -26 degrees outside without wind chill, -33 with. Both my buses were late. The first one was 2 minutes late, which made me miss my second bus. So I had to wait for the next one...which of course never came. I was waiting at the bus stop - without a shelter - for about 30 minutes. argh.

        To add to that, I wasn't wearing my mittens because I didn't think that I'd have to wait at the bus stop long. So I just stuffed my hands in my pockets. I was too cold to get my mitts from my back pack. I didn't want to move much hihi.

        5 minutes, no bus. 10 minutes, no bus. 20 minutes, no bus. My fingers and toes were already starting to hurt, and my thighs felt like pins and needles. So I had to keep on pacing and moving my fingers and toes.

        Good thing I wore my down jacket today and put on an extra pleather jacket under that. (pleather jackets are really good insulators BTW...or at least mine is.) So I was still warm...it was only my fingers, toes and face that were frooozen.

        My legs were getting so tingly that I was already thinking up a plan in my head of what to do if my legs give way. hahaha.

        Such a relief when my bus finally came after 30 minutes.

        Tomorrow is going to be colder.

        Therefore, I conclude: Winnipeg is cold. So bundle up.

ciao! ;p

DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT: weight, that is. ;p

I love food. I just can’t stay away from food. No matter what I do. FOOD FOOD FOOD.


        Ever since school started, my exercise routine has practically stopped. And now I’m a couple pounds over my regular weight (and still getting heavier.) Actually, I don't even remember when I last went to the gym....or even if I ever did. .......Oh, you know what, I did. I went to the Wellness Institute a couple times to play badminton with my friends. But still, that isn't really gyming. When I gym...I gym...the whole shebang.

        Anyhoo, all I know is that since September, I’ve been having a hard time fitting going to the gym in my schedule. I always plan to go...but I never do. So by November, I decided to cancel my membership at the Y. Oh how I miss the Y. I figured that if I ever get any time to gym, I can gym at the school gym - for free.

        And so now, I always have my trainers and a change of gym clothes collecting dust in my locker just in case I feel like gyming. I repeat - just. in. case. hahaha. I always do feel like gyming. It’s just that after class, I turn into a lazy bum. When I sit down and look at all the homework I have to do, I sigh and say to myself that “There is no way that I’ll be able to gym.” THEN I log into Facebook. HAHAHA. kidding. But yea...it can take me a few hours to get my homework done, even if its just to write a little paragraph about, say, my IPP. (ok that’s a bit exaggerated.)

        Every time I’m connected to the internet - by laptop or iPod - I almost always somehow end up being on Facebook! Even though I don’t mean to. I’ll be working on a paper, then I’ll get a bit of downtime when I’m thinking of something to write. Then as if my hand’s on auto pilot, it clicks on Facebook. And before I know it, I’ve already ‘liked’ a ton of stuff already, commented on my friends' posts, commented on THEIR comments and posted pictures of myself and whatnot. Argh. LOOK, now I’m talking about Facebook hahahahaha. Perfect example? =)) Ok, I digress.

        Back to the gym. I always plan to go to the gym, *fiddles with her thumbs* but I just never get around to do it. So I just keep packing on the pounds.

        Now to make it even harder is the HOLIDAYS!! ARGH the holidays! *raises fists* Already I don't exercise, and eat so much more than my body can burn, and then there's all that food during the holidays that no way can anybody avoid!! I can almost curse the yummy mouth-watering spread of food on buffet tables...............!$^%$^#@^ WHY DOES FOOD HAVE TO BE SOOO GOOD???? *then takes a couple cupcakes* hahahaha. =))

        I just haven’t been this um.... “meaty” in a long time.

        So, since I know that I’m not the only one with this problem - cause I noticed that some people seem to be chubbier in the Winter than in the Summer (MWAHAHAHAHA!) - I wanna share some tips on how you can drop some weight.

1. EAT, EAT, EAT. then GYM, GYM, GYM. This is one thing you can do if you don’t wanna lessen the food you eat. I highly recommend this but you have to be DISCIPLINED. And you need to have a REGULAR SCHEDULE of exercise in order to make this work.
2. Eat in small portions. My sister used to do this because she wanted to lose a few pounds for her grad ball...and she did. She used to only eat from a little bowl maybe about 3.5 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches deep. Everything would be in there, rice and a viand. She’ll only eat one of those bowls per meal. Whatever she could fit in there. I tried that once, but I had to get seconds, thirds, and fourths. hahaha. =))
3. DON’T EAT. yea right.

        OK, that's all I got. Basically, what I’m saying is that NOT EATING is not an option, so it’s either eat less, or eat AND exercise.

        You have to work for it. I don’t really believe in liposuction or those diets. Because they’re only temporary. And they cost money. What if you can’t afford to pay for those anymore? Whacha gonna do huh? Whacha gonna do???

        So what of these do I do? I do #1 hihihi. But then again, since September, I’ve only been able to do half of it...which is to EAT EAT EEEEEAT. hahaha. Oh well. That’s life. Imma really start THINKING about gyming fo’realz.

        Remember, the key is DISCIPLINE. Another key is SELF-CONTROL. (Question: if there’re keys, where’re the locks? BWAHAHAHAHAHA)

        And finally, remember: NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

Kbye. ;p

Happy Holidays!! ;p

Happy Holidays from my family to you and yours! :)

The Yellow :)

        I think I need one of those take-me-out-of-reality-for-a-while moments like the one in The Yellow, by Samantha Hunt. Well, not exactly like THAT one. Not that I have a family, a house and a vacuum cleaner, but sometimes I also want out of my life. Not really “out” as in "bye bye world," but “out” in a way that I want "out" of my situation. So yeah, I need one of those moments or an exciting happening that would temporarily take me out of my own shoes.

        The story is about a man, Roy, who runs over someone's family dog while he's absent mindedly driving. Having a conscience and not wanting to leave the dog, he retrieves it from under his car. With the dog - who he later finds out is called, Curtains - in his arms, he starts going house to house trying to find the owner. He finds the owner, Suzanne, and they go on a naughty little adventure of their own.

        Suzanne is a wife and a mother of 3 who at that moment, was home alone. She needed time alone to relieve herself of all the pent up feelings she had, so her husband took their children to the movies while she stayed at home.

        Of course Roy had some issues of his own too. Like, he's 42 years old, is jobless, and had just moved back into his parents' house. And one night decides to paint the walls of his basement chateau yellow, as a symbol of change.

        I just hope that the author played around with "yellow" more. He only mentioned it in the story in the beginning and in the end, wasn’t really a theme in the story.

        There wasn’t much dialogue in the story, which I liked. If I was there in the scenes, I’d imagine everything to be quiet and sensual: no words, all action. The author described the scenes really well, together with imagery such as: “he could smell the dust still in the rug—salt and sand and dried skin from her kids, her husband, her now dead dog.” I also liked that the story 

        Samanthat Hunt is 39 years old and lives in New York City. She has written numerous short stories, as well as books. Her debut book “The Seas”, won the National Book Foundation’s award for writers under 35. And her most recent book “The Invention of Everything Else,” was in the running for the Orange Prize in 2009.

        The Yellow by Samantha Hunt. From The New Yorker, November 29, 2010. [OK, that’s weird. I swear I read the story over the weekend and the date on it was November 22. Now it says November 29.]

Nanabosho and the Butterflies :)

        Went to the book launch and reading of "Nanabosho and the Butterflies" written by Joe McLellan and Matrine McLellan. Only Joe was there though. Oh, and with me was my CreComm partner in crime...Kalaya! :) It was held in the sunlit Atrium of the McNally Robinson Bookstore in Grant Park Mall. (Boy that mall is far! and did I miss McNally's!) There were probably about 20 seats set up, and we, the audience filled up about 2/3rds of that.

        Nanabosho and the Butterflies is one of eleven children's books centred on the character, Nanabosho (all authored by McLellan.) Nanabosho is the "teacher and protector of the Anishinabe people" as described in McLellan's website. The Anishinabe  is the third largest Indian tribe in North America.

        Before reading the book, Joe started off by giving us a little bit of a background about his Nanabosho book series. He said that he started writing books about the tribe 25 years ago, when most of the ladies in the audience weren't born yet. (hehe) His main purpose of writing the books is to hopefully help the new generations of the Anishinabe tribe to learn their native language.

        "Well it's not the same when you tell this story in english, but that's what our children speak now," Joe said, relating to us what an elder of the tribe told him. "But maybe if you tell the stories, they'll be interested in finding more stories, they'll be interested in the language."

        The children's book is a heartfelt story about a young Nanabosho helping a mother teach her children the important lesson of being independent. The book is illustrated with rich coloured paintings by a former student of his, Jackie Travis. He also incorporated a lot of native words into the story by substituting the english words for grandmother, butterflies, and thank you, etc. I hope and believe that his books will help those new Anishinabe generations learn more about their language and culture.

        In the Philippines, I know that some dialects are also dying. So I know how important it is to keep language alive. When I moved here to Canada, I found some parents struggling to teach their children the Filipino language. So far most Filipinos I know that were raised here, do understand the language, but only a few can speak it. Language becomes part of the identity of a people, and so when this is lost, a part of the people's culture is also lost.