Momentous Occasions are Momentous

I bring tidings of great joy, and I come bearing gifts! No, it's not Christmas all over again (although there's still snow on the ground in Banff), it's the return of my blog!

Well, sort of.

I won't promise on making regular posts again, but so much has happened in the last little while that an appearance became necessary. We're gonna do this in numbered format to make things more interesting and easy to follow, savvy?

1. I've been accepted to McGill University's Urban Planning programme for 2013! I'll be moving to Montreal at the end of August, where I'll be living for about two years. After that I want to head back to British Columbia, but two years ago I would have laughed at you had you told me I'd be living in Banff in the near future, so we'll see what happens.

2. I actually finished something accomplished a predetermined goal on Protagonize! Over the last few days I've posted both a new chapter and the epilogue to the rough draft of my story Red King Chronicles. It is by no means a finished story, though, hence I amended my above statement to say I reached a goal. Close to the beginning of the year I decided that I needed to do a complete rewrite of the story: new intro, new back story for Jason, new sequence of events, new a lot of things. However, I told myself that I wouldn't start the editing process until after I brought the current draft full circle to the prologue. I have now done that and am looking for critique. So, have at 'er!

3. After a year and a half of collection dust, there's finally a new chapter in Elsie! I had to reread the entire story myself before continuing on, but my the fires of my inspiration have been stoked. I drafted a chapter outline for the latest chapter and the following chapter, possibly two following chapters. I've got the conflict sorted out, so now I just need to figure out how to resolve said conflict and eventually bring the story to a close. I'm being optimistic about this one, for once.

4. Caramel Tim Tams were in stock at the grocery store so I'm doing Caramel Tim Tam Slams! Be excited for me.

5. I still feel that lists should contain multiples of five, so...

And that's all!

photo by me

Not just a Coffee Shop

I learned something thing week. This shouldn't really come as a surprise, since I'm currently attending university, but I learned an important thing this week. At least, important to me.

What did I learn? There's a geographic term for places such as public parks, coffee shops, and lounges. They're called "third places." I'll explain. It's really quite simple.

The first place is where you live. The second place is where you work. And the third place is where you gather. They're seen as increasing important places as the world urbanizes, with one product of urbanization being the shrinking of so-called first places, and the fluidity between the first and second places. In plain terms, apartment-dwellers tend to lack suburban luxuries, such as large rooms for entertaining and back yards, and with telecommunications people can work from home. It's why coffee shops are so successful in the city.

The big characteristic of third places is that they are venues for social interaction. They're a place to hang out, to have a chat, to meet and mingle. If you've ever attended a write-in, you likely met in one of these places.

So that's basically my big revelation of the week. Can you tell I'm looking at doing urban and community planning?

Now that we've established what a third place is, have you got one? Mine is Blenz downtown, as I've said in a previous post.

photos by Billie Hara, me

Poco Loco

I am a crazy person. This has been confirmed by my behaviour the last week, and especially what went down today. More on that later, though, when my mind has some time to catch up with what exactly is going on.

Anywho, you might have noticed that I missed Music Monday. Oops, my bad. But, there is a reason, a perfectly valid reason! Y'see, I spent the weekend in Vancouver pretending I was in Singapore. I ate all my favourites, namely Hainanese chicken rice, Singapore laksa, sambal ayam, prata, milk tea, and kopi. And shaved ice cream. Oh, and sour mango cake. I think that's it? I also went out for Peking duck and sushi (on different nights, people!).

But those aren't the reasons I missed Music Monday, nosirree. I missed my Monday post 'cause I was on a boat. Sunday night I attended the Asteroids Galaxy Tour tour's final show in Vancouver before heading home to Denmark. Danish people are from Denmark, right? I know I'm a Geo minor, but I sometimes forget these things. Anyway, mad rad concert, had a great time, and was too busy singing along to the Safety Dance to blog about it. And yes, I know it's a cover. Men Without Hats did it better, frankly, and I even have a shirt with part of the song written on it. Seriously. I'm that cool.

Now if you'd excuse me, I have a very important meeting with Mr Boss Man tomorrow afternoon. G'night!

photo by moffoys

Caffeine Creativity

It's that time of year again, where I hunker down and work tirelessly on term papers and research projects. Except that this year I only have one research project on the go, so the only hunkering down I gotta do is the sort that forces me to be productive.

Luckily, I have found the source of many creative juices: Blenz!

Yes, it's a coffee shop. It's my new locale of productivity, as it is impossible for me to get anything done while at home. Why? Because when I'm at home I procrastinate, most often through the internet and cleaning. At Blenz, the free WiFi requires a new password every hour or so from the barista people, and even though I am friends with a barista person there it is enough of a hassle for me to not both with WiFi. I also cannot clean while I'm there, although I am sure my aforementioned barista friend would love me to. Not happening, sorry.

So I get stuff done. I read through articles and take notes while sipping on a maple latte macchiato. And when I feel I've done enough work, I figure out plans for Protagonize. That's right, Declan's coffee shop habits are totally based on my own. We even sit in the same spot. His coffee preference was identical to mine at the time of writing, but I have since embraced my love of dairy products in coffee. Future personal assistants take note.

Those of you who follow my writing on Protagonize, I should have a chapter in RKC up sometime this evening, and by the end of the week I want to have one other chapter posted in something else. I totally know what it is, and I have a chapter premise, but I don't know what else will happen in it. That's for me to figure out and you to find out later, 'cause mystery chapter is a surprise! I'm not gonna tell you what story it will be for, but it will be posted in one of my existing stories without a doubt. Be intrigued!

photo by mag3737

Singaporean in the Snow

I miss Singapore. Really, this should come as no surprise, as anyone who doesn't miss his temporary tropical home on return to a frosty Canadian winter is clearly a lunatic. And let it be known that I am no lunatic.

Luckily, I brought a few things back to make the transition a little easier. Two of those things: kopi and kaya. Kopi is the southeast Asian coffee, simply. I'm not so sure how to properly describe it, other than mouth-watering. In Singapore (and most of the region, for that matter), kopi is accompanied by condensed milk rather than cream, which gives it a distinct sweetness. I brought the instant variety home, though I am swiftly running out. To counter this, I've started mixing it with hocho powder, creating what is probably my new favourite hot beverage, kopicho. I may or may not be drooling right meow.

As to kaya, it's a jam-like spread for toast. Now, this might sound a little bit gross, but it's made from a combination of coconut milk, eggs, sugar, and pandan (not pandas). In all honesty, it's nothing much to call home about by itself, but mixed with peanut butter it is on the same level as kopicho. In fact, kaya-peanut toast (that's what they call it in S'pore, I actually didn't come up with the combination myself) goes really well with a hot mug of kopicho. Especially in the chill of winter!

Think I might throw on the kettle and plug in the toaster, actually.

photo by xcode

on (My) Writing

I'm sitting here in a coffee shop, on a stool looking out the window. Not the same window that Declan looks out, or even the same city he looks at (that would be my hometown of Victoria, beeteedubs). But it's an identical set-up, really: laptop on the counter in front of me, bag on the stool to my right, big cup of coffee on my left. The only difference? I'm drinking a caramel macchiato, not a black double.

Oh, and I'm not writing. Technically speaking. Yes, I'm writing this blog post. I don't really count that. I mean writing writing. Like, Elsie or Red King or Oracle. I'm not doing that kind of writing.

It isn't that surprising, though. If you're a fellow Protagonizer, you probably know already that I like to start things. My profile says I've posted 38 stories. I can think of three off the top of my head that are finished: Crown'd, Errands, and Human no Longer. That's a terrible track record. But it's my style.

Now, I don't want to say that I'm never going to finish any of those stories you might have liked. Somehow I managed to wrap up Errands in seven months or so, whereas I've been coming back to Elsie for over three years now. By comparison, then, Red King is just a little baby! There's still plenty of time for me to write chapters in it, right? Right.

Write?

Right. I should get on that. And as a closing question, have you got any writing tips? Not, like, "make yourself a better writer" tips, but "progress at a pace you're satisfied with but still actually progressing" type tips. Or whatever, I'll take what I can get, hahah.

photo by ....Tim

Rescuing the Milo

I love my Milo. A lot. I've blogged about it before, even. So it makes me sad when the Milo in our dining hall is pathetically sub-par. Luckily, I have come up with a very mathematically and chemically precise way of rectifying this hot drink deficiency:

• 3/4ish cup full of poorly proportioned Milo
• 1/4ish cup full of Vietnamese coffee (known here as kopi-o)
• 1/2ish tbsp of sugar
• 1/2ish tbsp of coffee whitener

Voila, the Milo has been salvaged and made delicious once more. Post-meal beverage time is saved! It's the little things in life, people.

photo by elena's pantry (whose gallery is making me drool)

a Few More of those Favourite Things

Haven't posted any "real" blog stuff in a while, so I might as well do a list post. Here's what's keeping me going right meow:

Tim Horton's coffee and donuts are a Canadian staple. I love my double-doubles, sour cream glazed, chocolate glazed, maple dips, and turkey clubs. Unfortunately I can't get those in Singapore. I'm trying to do the math on how many Tim Bits (donut holes) I'll need to buy in Vancouver for my flight to Shanghai.

McDonald's Dollar Drink Days are one of the first signs of summer. As terrible as it may be, I love going into the drive-thru and coming out with a large Diet Coke for a little bit of spare change. I'm in at least four times a week. I may have an addiction.

Adele, particularly her song Rolling in the Deep, is one of my go-to summer playlist favourites. Even better are the amount of great covers of her material, so I can have multiples of the same song on my playlist and sing to each one. Also, I finally figured out what all the background singers' lines are. Victory!

Roller Coaster Tycoon became one of my favourite games the moment I started playing it. I recently reinstalled it on my family PC and have been glued to that machine ever since. My only problem is that I tend to make the rides "too intense" so no-one will go on them. Boo on you, wussy AI.

Living on an island and being able to hit the beach and the fact that it is finally hot outside. I love beach combing, suntanning, swimming, having bonfires, and all that good outdoor summer seaside stuff. Thankfully my next move will be to a tropical island. I might have plotted this in advance.



images by flamster2468, StayProud, jprice325, Mike Overall, and me