Blogging and etc

Good news everyone!
I finally reached 200 followers on Flickr. Yay! I'm kind of surprised because I hardly EVER post there anymore, which I feel bad about so I should start doing that more. Anyway. Today's post comes to you in three parts.

Part one: What have I been doing.

This past weekend I worked at the Women's Show at the convention centre as part of my internship with RfR. There were a surprising number of men there. Basically I stood at our booth and handed out cards and told people who walked by what we do ("Heeyyy ladies! Got any events coming up? We rent out designer dresses at a fraction of the retail cost!") It was a little exhausting and I had to smile a lot but I really like RfR so it was okay. I also helped backstage for the little fashiony runway show we did each day, helping models not fall down stairs and stuff.

I cut my Smoke's shift hours down to one night a week so I could have more time for other things, like school and blogging, and it's been a lot better. Usually I work Friday or Saturday night, but this week I'm working overnight on Thursday. This probably has something to do with my boss firing everyone all the time, so we get a lot of new people in with different schedules and I have to train them and they drop giant things of gravy on the floor.

Part two: Tea education yaayyy

You may know that I have become fully obsessed with tea. So I'm gonna talk about tea for a while.

GATHER ROUND, CLASS.

Today's topic is...

WHITE TEA! Because that's what I'm drinking right now.

So, as you may already know, all types of "true" tea come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. What a fantastic plant! Basically, the tea is picked, withered, oxidized, and dried. Sometimes people refer to the oxidation process as "fermentation," but that's not really what it is. As far as I know, oxidation is just when something absorbs oxygen and then the oxygen changes shit up. Like when you leave an apple slice out and it gets all gross and brown, that's oxidation too. Okay. Bringing it back to WHITE TEA now.

White tea uses the youngest shoots of this awesome plant, before the buds even open. The buds are covered in this silvery hair, which gives the white tea its name. It's allowed to wither for a short amount of time and the oxidation process just begins. Then it's heated to stop oxidation and dried.

Since it's close to its natural state and is often shaded for awhile during growth to reduce chlorophyll, white tea contains mucho antioxidants and is super good for you! It generally has a delicate, sweet taste and it's super smooth. For ultimate white tea happiness, steep it in well-below-boiling-temperature water. People say different things about whether it should be steeped for a short time or a long time, but I think it depends on the tea and on what you like. Generally I think flavoured white teas (that contain other things besides just tea leaves) should be steeped for a shorter time than straight teas. I have a flavoured white tea called buttercream from my favorite tea place, David's Tea (yay Canadian tea company) and it said to steep it for like 5 minutes or something, so I did, and I haaaated it and thought it was super super gross. So I came back to it a little later and tried steeping for just over a minute, and it was completely different and tasted awesome. So yeah I'm a fan of short steeping times for white teas.

White teas are one of the most expensive kinds of tea, probably because they require more hand processing and can only be picked for a little bit of time out of the year. They're also made in smaller batches I think. Apparently white tea is one of the least popular teas in the west, maybe because of the price? But tea really isn't that expensive. Silver Needle is the highest quality white tea, it's made with only buds (no leaves) and is produced only in the Fujian province in China and even buying this tea comes out to well under a dollar per cup.

Okaay, I really tried to keep this short hahah, sorry I kind of failed, thanks for reading all of it, I think this shit is super interesting. So yeah white tea, really nice, sweet, kind of young and delicate tea. If tea was music I think white tea would be Kimya Dawson or maybe like, Regina Spektor or something.

Part three: Zombies

I'm super into the graphic novel series "The Walking Dead" right now.  I was always kind of freaked out by zombies and I don't really like zombie movies or anything, so I don't know why I started reading it. But it's awesome. I think they started making a tv series out of it, but I heard it wasn't very good. The books are about the characters a lot more than the zombies, obviously. It's more of a "what people would do in a dangerous, post apocalyptic world" story than a "totally laying waste to hoardes of zombies" story, although there are moments of that too. There are a lot of books and he's still writing more, I'm up to #6 now. In the intro to the first one he writes about how he's fascinated with zombies because of what they say about our place in society, and our society's place in the world, and how they're basically our own death personified which is generally what we fear the most. But they're also slow and stupid, and easily taken down by just about anybody whether they're an awesome fighter or a normal person and it's nice in a way to think about being superior to death. Anyway it made me think about zombies differently. The art is good too. So yeah check it out because it's awesome.

Okay, that is all, thanks for reading. Bye!

Important Hair Update

Hi! I'll probably do a normal post soon. But I re-dyed my hair yesterday or the day before or something and I really like how it turned out.
Recall, if you will....
Original blue hair:

 

Which faded in a month and a half or so to this:

 

Which I liked but was getting a bit too green. Also my roots were starting to come in more. The blue-green was confusing to me because some people thought it was blue and some people thought it was green. On the same day a homeless guy yelled at me, "I like your SMURF HAIR!!!" and an old woman on the elevator told me I was all ready for St Patrick's day.
I didn't want to bleach again yet, so I decided to just go over it with blue but mix in some purple dye so that the red would cancel out the green. COLOURS!
Apparently blue dye + purple dye = purple dye. But since it went over already-blue hair, it turned out this awesome dark blue/purple/indigo colour. And it's super shiny yaayyyy

Awkward photobooth picture:

It's less dark and more purple in person. I very much like it.

Creative Title

I dyed my hair blue! There's also some greenish parts, it looks kind of oceany. I am pleased.

Yay!

Suspicious package

Hi! Okay so, it's fall now as I'm sure you're aware. The temperature here in Toronto has been hovering around 20 at the hottest, and as I walked through Queen's Park today a gust of wind came through and suddenly the air was filled with yellow leaves. It looked like a scene from a music video, it was awesome. Here are some pictures I found from last fall, when Kara and I went to the Brickworks.








So today, this happened and it was totally my train in the station when they made everyone evacuate! We pulled in and after a few minutes an announcement came on saying something about a delay and then "please leave the train..... please leave the station." The place I was going was only a couple stops away so it wasn't a big deal or anything. As I walked north up Yonge street, firetrucks and police cars sped by sirening. There were tons of them! Of course it turned out to be nothing... but the subway was shut down for an hour so I ended up having to walk home. Some people talked to me as we were leaving the station and then walking outside. I met one lady who said she never took the subway and the one time she does, some hooligans try and blow it up. There was one guy who was telling everyone not to worry, if it was a fire we would all be dead by now. That was my mild excitement of the day.







According to my blogger stats, someone found my blog recently by googling giant b'loonies! This makes me incredibly happy.

Mehhhhh

I have a ton of photos to post, here are the last from that roll from the Golden Half. These are basically all the ones that were kind of mehh but I didn't want to just leave them to rot in my lightroom library. Except the one with the chandelier, I liked that one. But most people seem to not like it so much. I'm forcing you to look at it anyway.

I don't have to work at Smoke's today and I don't have to go to my internship thing and classes haven't started yet. And I don't feel like doing much of anything today except staying in and going through photos. I also have to finish this makeup tutorial thing that Kristy wanted me to do for the Rent Frock Repeat blog so I'll do that too.





I have nothing very interesting to post today, I really just want to get some more photos posted so I have more motivation to take my camera out. I don't know why I post all these pictures on here. I'm thinking about starting a tumblr or something like that.

Airplanes and updates

Hi! I'm back from my family reunion in Burford. We went rafting and the Grand River tore apart my $6 flip flops. It was humid and fun and now I'm back in the city. It's nice and cool this week and it didn't even get above 25 degrees today. It rained a little and now it's really foggy. But when I ask people if they think the hottest days of the summer are behind us everyone's like "probably not, Toronto weather is weird." One person said "it all depends on the pressure fronts..." and started giving me an in-depth explanation of how weather works even though I was just trying to make light conversation.




I've started going to the gym with my friend Jose every weekday morning. We try to get to Hart House by 7am. At first it seemed unnatural and like it was still supposed to be nighttime but now we're into our fourth week and I'm kind of getting used to it. We usually stay for an hour and half or so and by the time I get back it's not even a double-digits hour yet. I also started drinking tons and tons of water everyday which has really improved my skin! The downside is that I have to pee like all the time. But it's worth it. I'm also eating lots of vegetables and taking vitamins. But don't worry, I'm still getting very little sleep. One of my favorite things to eat now is pieces of cucumber wrapped in nori and dipped in shoyu. One of the characters was eating it in a Murakami book and it sounded really good. And it is really good!




I signed up for fall classes and I got into the first year Japanese course! I couldn't get in for the last two years so I'm very happy. The book I was reading at Indigo that disappeared a month or two ago is back and I'm about 40 pages from the end. I wish it was longer because I really like it and once I finish it I'll have to find a new Indigo book to read and it probably won't be as good.

Reunion

Hi! The Vermeulen family reunion is coming up soon, so here are some photos from last year's reunion in BC.











That was nice. I think I will start blogging again cause I have a lot of photos that I haven't put on flickr or done anything with. Yesterday I made boeterkoek, peanut butter cookies, salmon, and dulce de leche. So I'm going to go eat.

Victoria Day

Hello, I've been back from Corvallis for about a week now. Toronto is getting warmer.



Since I dyed my hair from bleached blonde to jet black it started turning dark green in patches. It was really bugging me so I dyed it dark again on Friday. I used a dark brown instead of black and it covered up the ugly parts nicely. I managed to not wreck the bathroom or my hair but I now have dye marks all over my arms.



I have class Tuesdays and Thursdays now from 10-2, a three hour lecture followed by a one hour tutorial. I like the long lectures because I can settle in and concentrate and not have to think about anything else, but I don't like the tutorials because my TA kind of sucks. But at least she has a cool British accent. My professor is cool in a weird sort of way, he seems a bit run down but still very positive.



These pictures are from the fair forever ago, I just never posted them. I just scanned in like six new rolls of film and I have a lot that I want to put up, so I'll probably be doing a lot of little posts. But I like these pictures.



Today is Victoria Day here in Canada. Last night there were fireworks being set off in Queen's Park and I had a good view of them out my window. Basically Victoria Day is a joint birthday party for Queen Victoria and the current queen, but according to Wikipedia it also informally marks the beginning of Canada's summer season. Happy Victoria Day!

I'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin

Oh, hello. These pictures were taken in Ithaca, at Cornell.
I moved to a new place and the school term is over. The past week has been a blur of cleaning, unpacking, organizing, allergic reactions, generally getting shit together, and much, much more cleaning.



As promised I have been baking and cooking my ass off and a few things have actually come out pretty well. I am pleased. On the 8th I'm going back to Corvallis. This is a mini post because I'm tired so I'm going to bed but I wanted to post so this is a mini post.

Pictures from Nova Scotia, thoughts from Toronto

Hi! It was 70 degrees the other day so here are some celebratory photos from the summer, taken with the golden half in Nova Scotia.
I don't feel like these are strong as a set, so I'm going to type a bit between them as I sometimes do. This allows me to separate the photos and also lets me hear the rattle of the keyboard keys, which is one of my favorite sounds. It sounds productive and makes me think of rain. So this is really an everybody-wins kind of situation, except that only I win.


So a few of my things have gone missing from the kitchen in the past couple months. My roommates and I all have our own labeled cupboards where we keep our stuff, so it's not like it's just lying around. First it was one of my two Holga-print tea towels I got from Mom for Christmas. Then my tiny cutting board disappeared. This was distressing because it was what I always used to cut up the oranges I smuggled out of the dining hall. It was so little and easy to wash and practically brand new. My baking sheet was next to go, which was infuriating because in my quest to learn how to cook (which has taken a bit of a dive but once I move I assure you it will be back with a vengeance, I mean I will literally live upstairs from a grocery store), I discovered that baking can be tremendously therapeutic and something that I very much enjoy. I even made a baking mix on 8tracks. So the loss of my baking sheet was inconvenient. Soon after this incident, my bigger cutting board vanished, and then some of my tupperware.


Recently things started reappearing mysteriously. I wandered into the kitchen one afternoon to find my tea towel next to the sink, all dirty and folded up. The cutting boards materialized hanging from a hook on the wall. One of my tupperware containers appeared right back in my cupboard. My baking sheet, however, is still gone. I've looked everywhere it could be in my suite and it is for sure not here, unless it's in one of my roommate's rooms or something. Why would someone steal a baking sheet? That's such a weird thing to steal from a dorm kitchen. Now I have to go back to Canadian Tire to buy a new one, but that's alright because I like going to Canadian Tire. I like all those giant stores with really high ceilings and bright lighting. I usually like the walk there too, but recently someone got stabbed right along where I walk and now I'm afraid to go there.


I dyed my hair black a couple weeks ago and I'm still getting used to it. I wanted to try jet black instead of just going back to my natural colour. I don't think the roots will be noticeable so this way I can just let it grow out too. So far only one person has actually told me it looks good. My other friends say:
"It makes you look really goth..."
"You look so PALE"
"Why did you do that?"
"At least it matches your eyebrows now"
They say I should have gone back to my natural colour instead of jet black. Even though I did not ask for their opinions, obviously this is very valuable and constructive criticism of my important hair choices and their remarks will come in handy for cutting me down when I start to get too full of myself.


An unexpected dilemma came up a little while ago. I often hang out at Indigo (Canadian version of Borders) (although I heard Borders is going out of business, wtf?) and there's a book there that I read a little of every time I go in. I'm about 60% of the way through it now. But a few weeks ago I went up to the fiction section only to find that the very last copy had been taken. I stood and stared at the shelf for a good two minutes or so feeling lost. I thought they would restock it, but it's been a few weeks now and it's still gone. So. Guess I'll just start a different Indigo book or something.


Do you know what's really noisy? Toronto. Toronto is so fucking noisy all the time, ALL THE TIME. Especially when you live right next to like four different construction sites. Besides the construction it's mostly car noises. Douchebags like to drive down my side street really fast, revving up their engine like hell just so they can make sure that everyone knows that they own a car and they are driving it pretty fast right now, so the world can just step aside and make way for them and their loud, loud car. There's always sirens and car horns and people yelling and the occasional swearing hobo making his rounds. Garbage trucks and street sweepers and airplanes. But the other day I woke up in the morning and the intrusive, obnoxious racket was fuzzy background noise to a much nicer sound. Right outside my window I could actually hear birds chirping. And that's why I'm happy it's spring.


These are my last four days of being a teenager. Being 19 was pretty fun. Once I'm 20 I'll no longer be among the youngest people at pubs or 19+ concerts or liquor stores. I'll be closer to 30 than 10. Dear god, I'll be halfway to 40. In a week I'll be moving into an apartment where I won't have a meal plan or a floor don (RA for you Americans), where I'll write rent checks and have a room where my bed doesn't take up half the space. I won't be surrounded by only students and I won't unpack all my things knowing that I'll be packing them up again in less than a year. I'll be a person in her 20's and it will be weird but also maybe kind of cool.


That's all, sorry this post was so long and rambling. Bye!