Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. ~ Robert Fulghum

after 2 weeks of hell, im finally back to my blog and i can tell u that it feels so good to be back here, writing anything i want to..

so here's the update:

remember I told you guys how I had italian presentation , megan's band show on saturday downtown, work + rehearsal on sunday, eco200 test on tuesday, eco220, french, and italian composition due next friday??

yeah it sounds sooo bad and honestly i can't believe im done with all those and managed to get out of it still with my complete body parts.

so i did my italian presentation it was so much fun, i got to dress up as a tourist in a fancy italian restaurant and my other group members are the waiter and waitresses. all the dialogues were conducted in full italian and we also had a little quiz and gave out pastries to our classmates. there was also another group who did the same topic which is Italian Cuisine and they handed out coldcuts and pizza. it was def a fun class! at the end of the day, we got 82.5 as our group and individual mark :) not a 4.0 but im still happy with that mark.

ensuite, i submitted my italian scrittura a week earlier than the due date. im telling you guys, when you are forced to work your hardest, you can seriously surprise yourselves with the amount of work you get done with the amount of time you were given. because I knew the upcoming week would be hectic, I literally typed down my scrittura in 2 hours and i got an 80 for it. not 4.0, not my best effort, but given the amount of time and work I had to do, 80 is a pretty decent mark. 

my eco200....

i got it, im always so stressful about eco200 and the mark that I got was again dissatisfying and revolting. seriously, i never felt so incapable in my life before. seems like whatever I did was never enough. so now my mark is 60% for that class, i seriously thought of dropping that course because I don't want a bad GPA but after having consulted my sisters and mom, and they all said I shouldnt dropped it, so I decided to just keep swimming against the current here and try my best to keep my head above the water.

about megan's band show...

ah it was such a disappointing day.. I had been waiting for megan's band performance since forever and I can't believe I didn't go. I bought the ticket, set up a time n place to meet up with my friend and suddenly the weather turned into an ice age blizzard. the wind was so strong and the roads were icy. I waited 50 mins for my bus and couldnt feel my toes! im being very explicit right here, i couldnt feel my toes at all and the bus didn't come and i thought might as well went back home because i wouldve missed my second bus anyway.. so by the time I got to the venue, the show wouldve ended.

so then i pounded my way back home. shortly after, my sister and our friends came over and we spent the night playing board game called Shadow Hunter til late then I slept rightaway. the next day I worked 7 hours as usual and went for bollywood rehearsal at 6.

my eco220 test went very well, i got 8.25 as my mark then after the test, me julie mizuki and ana went downtown rightaway. we went to Tryst to celebrate the end of hell week and i also met up with patrick and apologized for flopping the week bfore. me and mizuki stayed at julie's place for the night and we had lunch together after surviving more than 12 hours without any food in our stomach. we gulped all the food down and i went home to rest. the next day i worked as usual and went to rehearsal.

this is the weekend of february 11th and next week is the last week bfore reading week. today I stayed home for the afternoon, finishing up with eco202 homework and did some eco200 practice. tonight i'm going downtown with my sister and friends to try a new burger place. tomorrow is work all over again, and rehearsal. 

i'm just glad that my marks aren't too bad considering the amount of things i had to do + rehearsal + work. i'm still in the 80s if i calculated correctly and although im not a 4.0er anymore, im just happy to have a social life and above average mark and i am not sleep deprived. i guess this is what they called as a balanced life.

this image is not true!

p.s.: my mom's coming next month!!

stress level at its peak, too early for a january. 

i looked at my schedule for next week and literally, theres not even one day to breath.

i have italian presentation this friday, megan's band show on saturday downtown, work + rehearsal on sunday, eco200 test on tuesday, eco220, french, and italian composition due next friday.

yeah its soooo packed. i usually study the whole week for one test. and now I have 3 standing proudly with their mocking smile next week and i gotta beat them somehow. my eco200 test got another 1/5 and i dont want that ever again. 

btw I applied for summer abroad program already and I really really hope I can go this summer. in order for everything to go smoothly, first, i need to not fail any course I have now. i desperately need not to fail! so yeah I gotta study extra hard. been spending the past 3 days in the silent study area in the library, a section I never get accustomed of because of the extreme silence, but today I actually took advantage of it. its so peaceful up to a point where my brain can focus to its maximum capacity and I actually finished up with eco220 and started eco200 tutorial qs. overachiever much? yes i need to be.

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? - Friedrich Nietzsche

i've managed to get through the first week of january just fine. assignments piling up already, i have italian scrittura due next week, a missed lecture i have to catch up on, a french quiz tomorrow, an eco202 test this thursday, an eco200 test next tuesday and i have to write up some dialogues for ita 200 presentation cause my group wanna do some kind of skit for it and we need to prepare the dialogues. 

today I went to a Resume Workshop, which is exactly the reason why i missed ita200 lecture. the workshop was 2 hour-long and it basically broke down what we did wrong with our resumes and what we should or shouldnt put in the resume. the session was presented by UEC and career centre and around 40 people were there. we were put into groups and we analyzed other people's resumes. most of the students who came are in 3rd or 4th year, in fact i was the only second year in my group. I looked at their resumes and my jaw almost dropped. their resumes look so professional, with lots of work experiences, volunteers, and various club activities. I felt so disabled rightaway, its as if I'm a grade 1 student but got into a grade 10 class.

there was this guy, he's a korean and he had 4 years of military service, he had an internship at a bank in Korea, a job in Finance Learning Centre at UTM, various clubs, and skills. his resume is exactly the same sized paper as what mine is, but his looks waaaaaay above my league. okay he's a fourth year and probably hes panicking looking for a job after graduation, but still! its an amazing resume. another one that i remembered is this girl. shes from Bahrain and she had a 4 pages resume. I know its not an effective resume nor it is a kind of resume that would get you an internship. but her resume told all about her awards, volunteer activities, and work experiences and it added up to 4 pages! that's crazy! i glanced at them and it seemed like this girl had somehow participate in all campus activities and most clubs. 

then we reviewed a job opportunity at TD Canada Trust bank as a summer internship. it listed a complete job requirement, it asked for cover letter and to whom it is addressed to, what skills we need, and etc. i remember that the career centre representative said that if we didn't addressed the cover letter to that certain person, that's an automatic rejection. cause it tells the employer how we failed to process one simple instruction. other thing that i remember is just because the required skills seem so intense, that shouldnt make us back down. the employers don't expect us to have ALL the skills but they wanna get as close as possible to that kind of candidate.

it's such a new experience for me and I don't mind missing one hour italian for that workshop.it's like tasting what fourth year would be like. 

but..

somehow

it made me realized more that I don't wanna work at a financial institution.

why?

i dont know. 

anywayssss

last friday was julie's 19th birthday! we went to Alice Fazooli's and she had her first legal drink using her own ID. I went there rightaway after 5 hour shift at the bakery and we stayed there til 11.30 pm. got home at 12.30 am and i went to bed rightaway. the next day i lazed around a bit but then i went to the library and studied in the library til around 6 pm. i'm so jealous of my sisters and my friends, they all went snowboarding while i'm stuck at the library, studying for the stupid eco202 test! =(

yesterday, sunday january 8th 2012, i did my first Bollywood dance rehearsal for Style and Profyle performance in March and i LOVE it! the only downside is that im exhausted after 7 hour shift at the bakery from 8-3. but i can proudly say i can make espresso, cappuccino, and macchiatto now! yayy! still need more practice before scratching my goal so early in the year though. 

then i went to south common and got a haircut and got to UTM at 5 pm. my rehearsal starts at 6 so i have an hour of nothing. i just chilled in the presentation room and watched julie practiced her disney modelling scene. then at 6 i went to the assigned room and met everyone who gonna do the dance with me. theres Cindy, Nerissa, Sydnee, Eliza, me, and a girl named Amy but she didnt come yesterday. Ani is one of the exec and shes our teacher for the bollywood dance. the dance will be around 3 minutes long and we use Jai Ho as our song. not the pussycat dolls one, but the actual Jai Ho which is like 5 mins long and with full indian and some spanish. the dance has a lot of feet thumping and hands movement and everything happens so fasttt! but i love it. absolutely love it.

after the rehearsal, i have to wait an hour before my sister picked me up at south common then all of us had dinner together. i got home at 11, showered, checked FB and slept rightaway. today woke up at 8.30 and even now i'm still tired. im supposed to stay at school for eco202 tutorial but I had this odd feeling of just wanting to go home and bury my head in my pillow and cry because im exhausted. i planned on goin to erin mills to buy a new gym clothes but that was a fail too, i just sat in the bus and let the bus took me home.

so i better rest properly today so tomorrow i can wake up extra early for eco200 lecture, french quiz, goin to the gym, and go to eco202 tutorial and of course, fit studying eco202 somewhere tomorrow.

i remember shan once asked me "why are your days so packed?" and i don't know the answer to that honestly. 

my life has been a jumbled up story lately.

I begin to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.
My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl

I wanted to be a certain kind of a woman. I became that kind of a woman.” - Diane von Furstenberg

FIRST POST OF 2012!!

here we go..

today is january 2nd and officially the first day of second semester. after a whole month off, it's really really hard to get back to the school routine, wake up in the morning, express breakfast, and dress up like eskimo. my brain was somehow splitted during lectures, one inside the class half-listening to the profs, another half on my comfy cozy warm bed which is waiting for me patiently at home and i cant wait to be reunited with it.

im sure you dont wanna read how my day went anyway coz its gonna be boring. but here's the thing.. i just saw Diane von Furstenberg's quotes: "I wanted to be a certain kind of a woman. I became that woman"

it makes me think.. 

okay i know that your mind is the starting point of everything. thoughts become actions, actions become habit, habit become character. and now i'm asking myself. what kind of woman do i want to be? 

last time I asked myself this question was 2010 and here was my answer:

i wanna be a smart girl, i wanna be smart without having to isolate myself to study. i wanna be pretty. not just the pretty by looks, i wanna be prettier inside than outside. i wanna have courage to speak up my mind without hurting others. i wanna be a girl who can be a role model. i dont know role model in what way, thats just a wishful thinking. i dont wanna be the girl who dress like what she sees in magazines just because of the fact that it's on magazines.

i dont wanna be the girl who complaints but never fixes anything.

i wanna be the girl who learns everyday. i wanna be the girl who doesnt depend on money to boost her self-esteem. i wanna be the girl who doesnt think that partying is a way to seem cooler, it's just a way to let loose and its NOT BAD for God's sake. i dont wanna be judgmental. i dont wanna be the girl who loses her identity just because shes trying to be more western-like. i wanna be the girl who reads. i wanna be the girl who never depends her happiness on anyone other than herself. i dont wanna be the girl who thinks that swearing is alright.it is not alright but it does feel good. i wanna the girl who dances anytime she wants to, wherever, whenever.

i wrote that last year in March. and now its january 2012 and i have to say i pretty much becoming that girl i wanted to be. but now point 1 is impossible. I can't get good grades without sacrificing my time to study my ass off. and I have absolutely no time to dress up like how I want to, i usually just wear jeans, tshirt, cardigan, tanktops, and jacket. 

I dont depend on money to boost my self-esteem and I party like crazy last year. yesterday I was trying to count how many times I went partying and I lost count here and there but for sure more than 10 times. 2 times house parties, 3 times salsa club, halloween clubbing, beginning of the year party, first pub, mizuki's birthday, margaret's birthday, my sis's birthday, karaoke bar, clubbing for my birthday, thats all i can remember now. and each one of those parties has at least 1 memorable thing which makes me laugh when i think about them. parties aren't bad but too much of parties won't help your grades. just sayin.

but now after becoming that girl i wanted to be, i have to reformulate the kind of woman i want to be..

so here it goes:

I want to be the kind of woman who knows her responsibilities and consequences and handle them well. the kind of woman who is passionate about what she loves and works extra hard to get what she wants. she will fixes things instead of complaining. she will not be satisfied being the "second" because she is born to be the first. the kind of woman who has a mind set that appearances are just outer layer of a person, and everyone, doesnt matter their skin colors, hair shape, heights, or intelligence, has their own life and problems. i wanna be the kind of woman who reads and writes . i want to be the kind of woman that's attractive because she is herself, who is demanded by girls to be their bestfriends and at the same time made guys turn their head because they questioned with awe in their head "Gosh, who is that girl?!". the kind of woman who has that sensibility to bring herself to the outer world and is able to balance fun and work. the kind of woman who smiles because she knows her smile if the prettiest there is. should there be a gentleman out there for her, she will not hesitate to fall in love and should there be jerks who want to play around, she shouldnt hold grudges, attractions are undeniable and its nobody's faults.most important of all: she travels and never stops travelling.

and that's the kind of woman i want to be.