...but what makes me happy?

Coming home to homemade Japanese curry on brown rice, really big blackberries, ginger ale, and Goldfish crackers.

And jasmine green tea after a nice shower.




There is noone like your mother and no place like your home.

I'm a sad person

This morning on the bus I realized that I am a pretty sad person, or I at least go for really sad things. Sad in the emotional sense and now I guess also in the lame sense for thinking of myself this way.
Some of my favourite songs are sad, slow, and/or morose. A lot of the movies I like are usually dramatic, have sad endings, maybe dark, but more than often dramatic with heavy emotions and plots.  If I were to choose all the TV shows I watch (and I don't watch a lot of it), a lot of it will probably be dramatic, and the most powerful episodes will be the sad ones.  Something about watching the characters when they break down, and seeing their vulnerability makes me appreciate it a lot more.  I do also love comedy on television though, that I really do enjoy! The plays that I choose for my costume assignments are more often than not dramas or tragedies. I did paper projects for Death of a Salesman (how much more sad can you get?), The Cunning Little Vixen, The Merchant of Venice (really a "tragicomedy", but things don't end well for Shylock), Antigone, and my next one I'm choosing to do the famous opera La Boheme. All but one of those plays involve dying protagonists. And I had the freedom to choose a play for each of these projects.

Also this week for me has been daunting and I cannot wait for it to end. Today I feel like there is a full moon, as everything appears a bit shifted and unsettling for me, and today I felt really unstable and unsure of myself.  

The full moon is up and the wolves are out after the world and me.

Here is a sad song for you.

New glasses!

My friend Crystal recommended the $38 Clearly Contacts promotion. I was seeing the signs everywhere, but you know how sometimes it takes a person who's actually ventured for the deals to motivate you to do it too.  Alexis kept telling me about how great Clearly Contacts were too, and they actually had a free glasses promotion awhile back but I somehow didn't jump at it :|
So I got these! They're men's glasses of course, because my head is so big I can't fit women's glasses very well. My last pair were men's glasses too. I also realized that I got those in grade 11, so it's been awhile for sure. $38 for frames is definitely not shabby! All together it came to about $92, including lightweight lenses, and UV protection and anti-glare. Anyway, I like them a lot!

Shoes shoes

The other day I got these awesome lime green Reeboks at Urban Outfitters on sale for a really good price!

Then today before heading to work at the Queen Elizabeth, I went to do some shopping for working at the Chan Centre (I just got hired), and found these awesome black beauties at Aldo - also on sale of course. I could definitely wear these to work.

 Ok so I have a shoe problem - but I have to do a major purge and then maybe host some sort of "Steffi is having a giant clothing and shoes giveaway" event at my house where people can come and take stuff I don't wear! Maybe they can bring their own and we could all do a stuff swap, but hopefully me giving more than taking stuff.

Then it was time to go work at the QE Theatre, just for three nights, selling merchandise for Alberta Ballet's "Love Lies Bleeding", essentially a whole show devoted to Elton John and his music. Here is an example of things we sold:

 

Haha. We all wore feather boas while we were selling too. 

Yay!

Thanksgiving Weekend

To start off, at my Saturday job, one of our managers baked us a pumpkin pie!! With whip cream that she made in the kitchen at work! Amazing! Pumpkin pie is sooo good. Our receptionist made the awesome turkey sitting on the pie, and the little "Happy Thanksgiving!" sign.

 

That night was the closing night of a show I was doing concessions for "The Trial of Judith K." and I started doing some little caricature doodles of the awesome people in the theatre department, starting with Megan Kennedy, who is my friend and was the front of house manager for the show.  Then I moved onto Tony who works our box office... and it grew from there. Kennedy has the final product, I don't remember who I drew in the end, but there are quite a few people. Kennedy drew me on the bottom right.

 

The next day, I meet my wonderful friends, because our best friend ALEXIS is in town for a week from Montreal!! We went to Bon's, an amazing restaurant with amazing prices - an all day breakfast special is $2.95. HAPPINESS ALL AROUND.

That night I went to check out a documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival, called "The British Guide to Showing Off", which is about Andrew Logan, an amazing artist, performer, sculptor, designer, and everything in between.  He hosts these "Alternative Miss World" competitions and they are essentially an alternative beauty pageant that is more about expressiveness and art than it is really a competition.  It was absolutely fabulous! AND Andrew Logan himself was the special guest and came here all the way from London for the screenings! Amazing! After the film there was Q&A and he graciously answered all curiosities. 

I kind of like lip balm a lot. Though I don't remember ever fully finishing one. Anyway. I bought this from Shoppers and I really like it! It's from eos, a natural and organic brand that boasts how moisturizing, and smooth this lip balm is! What I really like about it is its fun shape and the taste! Flavour? It's "summer fruit" I think. It smells and tastes sooooo nice! 

 

Monday night was when I had Thanksgiving dinner with my family at my aunt's house. She made enough to feed maybe about 15+ people.. though we were only 7. It was delicious! We didn't have pumpkin pie, but instead carrot cake. Her potatoes and gravy were amazing. Then again I love all potatoes and gravy.  

  

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not! 

This year, I guess I am thankful for how lucky I am to still live with my parents (thus live for free) and to be alive.  These days I realize how mad and upside-down the world is, and I'm just happy to be here and have the ability to pursue my interests and live a happy life. My mom also recently got my dad and herself an iPad, and me a MacBook Pro, and also helped me out a lot financially during my trip to Europe this past summer. I am definitely very privileged this year!

Sunday Night

I met with my friend Thao and we went to see "Under Control" from the Vancouver International Film Festival at Empire Theatres. It was a documentary on nuclear power and the various plants in Southern Germany and in Austria. It was pretty interesting, it takes you through the various plants and how they function, almost as if the present was taking care of what was started in the 50s and 60s. I read about this in the Georgia Straight and thought it would be interesting - since it observes how they run a nuclear power plant, and near the end, discusses the future of nuclear technology, and also some footage of plants that have been shut down and eventually abandoned or used for other purposes, like an amusement park.

Afterwards, we were going to watch another film at Pacifique Cinematheque, but we were stopped in front of Joe's Apartment for a free salsa lesson. Thao had never done any salsa and we seemed pretty much up for anything and decided to go in! It ended up being pretty fun! We learned cumbia, Colombian salsa, chachacha, merengue, bachata, and basic salsa. I'd already learned most of the basics for these dances, but I had never done Colombian salsa. The instructor used Thao to demonstrate - and flipped her!! Thao really had an experience for her first time!