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

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Wow, it certainly has been a while since I wrote anything for the ol' blog, eh? Let me tell you what my days have been filled with the past few weeks.

Snow has fallen in Banff, and it's definitely winter here. That has brought a few changes to my routine. The biggest? I've traded by bike for hiking boots, spiffy looking North Face ones. I walk everywhere now, and even with the hiking boots I still have moments of arm-flailing terror occasionally.

The winter weather has also brought an increased dependence on hot beverages. Recently (alright, a couple hours ago) I discovered the blissful combination that is apple juice and tea. Seriously. Instead of water, boil a mixture of apple juice and water - I use an equal amount. Obviously this won't work well for every kind of tea, but I've tried it with lemon ginger, and am contemplating a chai trial next. I'll keep you posted!

The third change has been in music. I try to make a new playlist each month, and October's list was very acoustic. This is usually the case. When the weather turns cold, I'm drawn to a different sort of music than in the summer: I want jazz, acoustics, vocals. Suffice to say, I've been listening to a lot of KT Tunstall, Amy Winehouse, the Delgados, Jamie Cullum, Feist, and all the other autumn standbys. Soon I'll be breaking out the Christmas jazz, I guess.

Until next time!

Photo (cc) me

a Photoblog - Elk in Banff

all photos (cc) me

Past, Present, Future

I'm still not quite accustomed to the fact I live in Banff. The other day I said the words, "Here in British Columbia." Nope, this ain't BC. I'm an Alberta boy now.

If you told me a year ago I would be living in Banff, doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't have believed you. I probably would have laughed. A year before that, the idea of living in Singapore would have brought forth the same reaction.

But here I am, living in the Rocky Mountains, working as a manager at the Gap, volunteering as an intern with planning and development in Banff.

Oh, right, I don't think I've mentioned that. I volunteer for the town of Banff! Basically I'm an assistant in the planning department. A few days ago I finished up some policy research, now I'll be compiling said research into various "best practices" case studies, and then the next step is to present this to the stakeholders and engage in constructive discussion. Our timeline ends in November, when the policy is presented to council for approval. Hey, look, I'm involved in the planning world!

All these recent developments make me chuckle when remembering posts like "Done Done Done," in which I mused the abysmal future Canada's number-crunched had forecast, and "Angsty Unemployment Cycle," where I ranted about my lack of gainful employment and workplace challenges. Well, I've got both in plenty, now!

I couldn't be happier with the way things have turned out. Moving was a gamble, and an impulsive decision at that, but I've been dealt a good hand. The social life could be improved, but now that I'm in the groove of my two jobs I'll have some time to dedicate to social pursuits. And it's only been the first month of twelve! Count me excited for the future.

photo (cc) me

One of these Things is Not Like the Others

Click photos to enlarge

Originally I was planning on writing a post about how different my present location is from my location one year ago, but then I started thinking about all the other places I've lived. The photos above are arranged in the order of date lived in: Victoria, BC; Kelowna, BC; Singapore; Banff, AB. I'm not gonna say anything more, let's let the pictures do the talking this time around, eh?

photos (cc) me

a Photoblog - Views of Mount Rundle

click photos to enlarge

photos (cc) me

Favourite Cat is my Favourite

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything, eh? To tell the truth I haven't really done much of note in the last while, aside from all this getting ready to move stuff. Basically, my downtime is spent in the backyard with Favourite Cat. Yup, that's about it!

 photos by me

a Photoblog - Victoria, a Bit of Old England

photos by me

Chillin' with the Ogopogo

It's summer! And, oddly enough, summer always tends to be a busy time of year for me. True, I do have plenty of time to fall asleep on the beach and become sunburnt, but I never fail to fill my schedule with other things. This time around? Work, beach volleyball league, blogging for the Grid, scoping out jobs for the fall and winter, and then whatever it is I do over on Protagonize. That will include the Summer Poetry Tournament, and then if I can get the Prose Competition off the ground that will be yet another hat to wear.

Definitely not complaining, though. I enjoy being busy, and being busy with work means the bills will get paid. Whoo! This whole "being an adult" thing isn't too different than what I was doing before, really. The only major difference I can identify so far is that I can't claim student benefits on anything. No student bus pass, no student price rate, no student bank account, no student internships. I'm just a regular person now. Whoo?

One thing will never change, though: I'll still ride any noble steeds I come across in my travels. Such as my buddy the Ogopogo up there. We talk on Twitter sometimes, we're cool like that.

a Photoblog - Peacocks in the Park

photos by me

a Photoblog: Views from Knox Mountain Park

 photos by me

Discovery, Publicity

Just dropping a note to say that two of my photos have been featured in an article on Treehugger, which is a site owned and maintained by Discovery Communications. You know, those guys who run the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet (among many others)? Yah. Them.

Suffice to say, this makes me happy, excited, and just a little bit proud.

You can read the article here. It's on the supertrees being built in Singapore's Marina Bay Gardens, an area of the city I had the pleasure of visiting during the Singapore World Orchid Show 2011. All of my photos from that are up on Flickr. Enjoy!

photo by me

on Graduations

Something about my "Downtempo" playlist gets me all emotional and nostalgic every time. This time 'round, I'm reminiscing on the long lost days of high school, which I was also considering back in Singapore. I'm not just missing some of those old friendships (and wishing I had done a better job at maintaining them), but the lifestyle high school offered. Carefree certainty. You always knew what to expect, always knew what you would be doing a year from now.

Life was simple: do well, get the grades, next year you'll move up a number.

Come to think of it, university has been somewhat the same. You go through much the same motions, moving from year to year until BAM. You've graduated. And then what?

It's been odd, though. "Real life" hasn't hit me the way that I expected it would. Maybe it's because my degree is still pending, maybe it's because I only finished up on Tuesday... maybe the truck full of bricks needs some time to arrive.

But back to high school and that other graduation. I really screwed up there, and I've learned a lot since then. I coasted through my first year at UVic as if it were grade thirteen, but slowly started cutting off the ties to my high school friends. Upon moving to Kelowna and UBCO I cut nearly all connections to my hometown, and have been continually pruning my list of friends with each passing year. It's at the point where every time I go home to the Island I can visit pretty much every friend I still have, even when I'm only back for a few days. It's convenient for sure, but a little disheartening at the same time.

Maybe it's time to pull at some threads and see what unravels.

Photo by me

a Sandwich to be Shared

At the beginning of the week I dedicated Music Monday to a sandwich (which I affectionately call "sammiches" in real life, but will refrain from doing here; Monday's post was very, erm, impassioned). I had a second go at it today, and followed my own advice to try Nutella.

Suffice to say, the combination was mouthwatering. Chocolate and peanutbutter are the perfect power couple. So here's the "recipe," a little bit more sensical than the last one.

You will need:
- two slices of bread
- one banana
- peanutbutter
- Nutella (optional)
-one tablespoon butter or margerine (optional)

 Spread peanutbutter on one slice of bread, and Nutella on the other. If desired, fruit jam can be substituted for Nutella. Raspberry or strawberry would probably be really good.

Chop banana into slices and layer onto the peanutbutter. I prefer thin slices, around a centimetre. Use as much or as little as the banana as you would like.

Place second slice of bread Nutella-side down over the bananas and peanutbutter.

Bring a frying pan to medium heat. Grill both sides of sandwich to desired level of browning. If you're using butter or margerine, melt this in the pan before grilling. This will help with even and crisp browning, but the sandwich will be fine with or without.

And that's it! Serve warm, and I'd suggest a glass of milk and orange slices. The peanutbutter and Nutella combo is quite sweet, so you'll want something tart to balance the flavours. While looking for photos, I also came across some variations that used strawberries in addition to bananas, and marshmallow cream in place of peanutbutter for a s'more taste. They all sound good, eh?

photos by, 24oranges, Greatist, cuttlefish, and me

a Photoblog: Singapore, Dithered

all photos by me

a Photoblog: Victorian Water Fowl

all photos 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

Bees on the Blog

So I mentioned in my last post that it's finally starting to feel a little like spring here in the Valley. Meaning that it's generally sunny and above zero, but my standards have changed drastically over the winter. With the arrival of what I consider spring-ish temperatures and weather, I've done a little bit of cleaning on the interweb. Yup, I've been busy.

The most dramatic change is probably to this blog. I know I just redid it over the summer before leaving to Singapore, but the plain black and gray was starting to feel drab. That, and I broke the layout and formatting while "previewing" new Dynamic Blogger templates. Yah, I may or may not have hit the "apply to blog" button by accident. Oops.

Really, only the background and some of the colours have changed. I switched to the Picturesque template and added a photo of mine from Cambodia as the background, and I also cleaned out most of the sidebar junk that was still on the old yellow colour scheme. Cleaned out as in deleted. So if you want to stalk my Last.fm, Flickr, or Hype Machine you'll have to make one extra click to the About Me page. Oh, the humanity, woe is you.

I also changed my Tumblr microblog. It once claimed to be "the microblog companion to my main blog," but it was starting to feel redundant. So I've remotivated that space to be a showcase of one of my interests, urban and architectural photography. Just call it me gathering inspiration for my career one day.

Oh, one last thing: I'd love some feedback on this blog layout. So, how's it look?

photos by me

Flickr Opinion

I take a lot of photos when I travel, and I have travelled a lot. All those photos are sitting pretty on my hard drive, but should I get them onto Flickr? Obviously there are a tonne, so I wouldn't be putting everything up right from the get-go. I just sort of want a general opinion, 'cause I'm not sure if I want to put in that kind of effort, hahah. I'm very lazy by nature. So yah, to Flickr or not to Flickr? That is the question.

Oh, and that photo to the left is one of mine from Santorini in Greece. If you ever get the chance to visit that island, do it.

Does this make me... Published?

A funny thing happened last night. I got an email (that wasn't the funny thing). It was from an advertising agency based in Barcelona (that's the funny thing). The woman wanted to know if they could use one of my travel photos for an ad campaign in Spain. Seriously.

I've heard the horror stories of artists having their work show up on logos and shirts without their permission, which is why I was so surprised to be reading the email. In the age of SOPA and PIPA, who asks for permission these days? So of course I thought it was some sort of scam at first, but I wasn't being asked for any personal information, just a "Yay" or "Nay." So I yayed.

This morning I woke up to another email, from the same woman representing the same company. It had an attachment. What kind of attachment? A legal document for me to review, sign, and email back to them. I guess it's to ensure that I don't turn around and try to sue these nice people for using my photo.

So, yah. That's it. Apparently my photo (and name, in the small print of course) will be the subject of some sort of Spanish ad. I'm really fuzzy on details, but I've been assured that I'll be able to see the final product. Huzzah! Oh, and for those of you interested. this is the photo being used:

I'm not quite sure why they chose it, but that's probably 'cause I have no clue what the ad will be for. And if the photo looks familiar, you might have seen it on my Flickr account or as part of a Photoblog.