Chris and I spent the day in Toronto yesterday and ended up having lunch at Chippy’s Fish & Chips on Queen West. I’m not a big fan of fish and chips because I’ve had terrible experiences with it for the most part, even when I tried it in London, but this place was pretty darn good. So good that it has mildly impacted my impression of fish and chip meals.

Today I had intended on getting my bike ride on in the countryside but decided to be a good girl and buckle down to get a head start for my first class tomorrow. I cracked my Accounting book open and have been reading all day. It is surprisingly interesting so far. I hope it stays interesting like this even down to the assignments, then we’ll get along just fine I’m sure.

The weeks are flying by faster than ever. It’s a tad bit troubling. This is my last weekend of freedom for a little while, so I’m going to try and enjoy it. And by that I mean I’ll try not to start studying (lol). Course syllabuses along with class powerpoints are already up in the student portal. I think I’m going to feel guilty if I don’t read through them this weekend… so guess what? We’ll make that an exciting Sunday night task. Not a dreaded one. It’s all about the right mindset.

Anyway, my new business cards are all done. Super pretty in pink. What’s for dinner for you? Dinner for me is Kentucky Fried Chicken. Nice and healthy. That’s how we do.

I updated fonts again. That’s the last time for a little while, I promise. My post titles look cute, don’t they? :) I’m trying really hard to get into Spartacus but I’m now going into Season 1, Episode 4 and I’m still not captivated. I’ll give it some more time, I guess. I’m also trying to get into House of Cards. That has more of a shot than Spartacus, I think. I also hear people harping about Game of Thrones quite extensively, so I might give that a shot, too.

Oh by the way, is this not the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?

A message to the skies: rain all you want now, as long as you come through with sunshine this weekend.

I’ve made a few aesthetic changes to the blog (minor to you, major to me) in the last few days and want to make sure that they are all showing up properly for you, so just to be safe, can you hit the refresh button? :) Thank you! My fonts have changed along with my header graphic. Same goes for charleneprecious.com. Updates have been made there, too, so hit refresh whenever you pay a visit!

This was taken in Madrid, Spain. My heart suddenly aches for travel. I can’t wait to get on a plane to Jamaica for some fresh travel photography. There is nothing better in life than love and travel. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If I had all the money in the world, the only thing I would buy is travel. Nothing else brings more joy and nothing else is more inspiring.

God bless font creators. I’m way in love with typography. Notice the new font?? It’s a Google web font. Do you like it? I love it. It makes me want to keep typing. Oh the things that inspire me. It doesn’t look amazing on IE because IE is helpless, so it doesn’t really matter. Please – if you use IE, just stop. Do yourself a gigantic favour and switch to Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.

We had a barbecue at Chris’ mom’s yesterday afternoon and I stole this little cutie for a 5-minute photoshoot. She’s quite the firecracker. Kids are a long way down the road for me but I can’t wait to photograph them when they come around. In the mean time, I’ll continue to steal other people’s adorable kids.

Just when you think tuition has robbed you of almost everything you have, the textbook monster comes and robs you of all the remnants. I have to buy textbooks this week :(.

If all of my lectures in Schulich’s MBA program are going to be as engaging and insightful as this one, then this blog may soon transform into a series of learnings and golden nuggets of wisdom derived from these lectures (coupled with photography, of course, whether relevant or irrelevant). Top school, top professors. I was at Schulich’s Smart Start orientation event yesterday and I am as excited as I am nervous to embark on this journey. I’ll be spreading myself quite thin across all of my commitments so we’ll see what this girl is made of.

I learned about the “Yes and…” tool in yesterday’s mini lecture with Stephen Friedman and would like to make a conscious effort to incorporate this tool into my daily conversations with people going forward. Instead of saying, “That’s a good idea but…” or “That makes sense but…”, you should form a habit to say,

“Yes, that’s a good idea and…”
“Yes, that makes sense and…”

“But” is a Buzz Killington and “However” is “But” in a tuxedo (I can’t take credit for the tuxedo bit – that was Friedman’s). Both words essentially suck when it comes to encouraging a thought / idea because they are actually a “No” and “I don’t like your idea” in disguise. You’ll notice that when we use the word “but”, the receiver of the message goes into defence mode. It’s just not the right word.

“I dare you” to use the “Yes and…” tool, he says. “And see how your conversations change; see how it changes the way you think; how you argue with people; how you relate to other people; how you resolve things.”

I second what this man has to say. I just love those who can articulate emotion so eloquently – this man did just that. I love the description of ‘human insects and poisonous mass of broken sociopaths’ as the cause of this mayhem – just simply lost and disturbed souls. I also love the last line, “The good outnumber you, and we always will”, because it reminds me of one of my favourite biblical scriptures, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” I don’t have anything useful to say about the explosions other than the fact that my heart is sinking for the victims and I genuinely hope that they find the strength they need to get through this.

I also caught the New York Times carelessly fondling with the number of casualties in their article yesterday as if getting a thrill out of making matters sound worse than it already is and purposely exaggerating the terror. I refreshed the page every minute or so and the number of deaths and injuries reported went back and forth from this to that, not with the intention of reporting accurate and correct numbers but rather to cause as much alarm and panic as possible. I could be wrong but knowing the nature of the media and their tendencies to exaggerate and be largely insensitive, I’m probably closer to right than wrong. It went from “23 killed”, to “dozens killed”, to “many killed”, all of which were completely false claims. The choice of words just kill me. I wish I had taken screen captures. They eventually got it right but the bottom line is that this isn’t a joke so get your facts straight before publishing them. The media annoys the hell out of me sometimes.

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Back to photography. I know this isn’t the most appropriate photo for this post but it’s a good one from Vegas anyways. Enjoy.

I’ve finally gotten around to photographing this pink rotary phone that I got for Christmas from Chris’ mom. Available at my Etsy Shop. By the way, I love my Apple keyboard. I just want to keep typing and typing and typing.

I was at the The Vintage Marketplace at Hamilton today. It was cute but there wasn’t enough to see to keep you around for more than an hour. I did pocket a few business cards from vendors that were of interest, though not necessarily relevant to me right at this moment. These were mostly vendors that can support the decor of a vintage-inspired wedding. :) Here’s a quick list:

Donna’s Vintage Emporium – antique rental boutique. Handy for photoshoots and themed weddings. By far my favourite vendor at the marketplace.
All That’s Lovely – wedding invitations
She’s So Beautiful – wedding dresses
The Ruby Rose Wedding Company – couture floral work and wedding cakes
Sweet Avenue Cakery – cakes and cupcakes
Cake & Loaf Bakery – breads, pastry, and cakes

After an insane week of rain, I’m hoping for some love from the sun this week.