As I said, the blog needed an ‘about me’ section to feel complete, so I drafted a paragraph with a series of random facts about myself. That’s the best that I can do! This paragraph is in the new ‘about me’ page or down below. It ended up being useful as a blog entry in itself. :)

Here we go.

I am a Marketing graduate from Ryerson University and I fell in love with Canon back in 2007, when I bought my first Powershot; today, I work in Marketing for Canon Canada. I’ve always wished that I was born in the 60s, so that I could live and breathe life with the greatest rock band of all time, the Beatles. I take a photo a day because it’s remarkably therapeutic. I was a geek way before it was cool to be a geek. I’d rather spend my nights having meaningful conversations over dinner than go to a club. Alcohol hates me and I hate alcohol. When it comes to shopping, I don’t buy for labels; I buy because I like it, it makes me feel good, and I think it looks good. I am a Taurus, the Queen of Stubborn. I want a house with window boxes of flowers, pretty shutters, a white picket fence and a creative room. Consistent traveling year after year is my deepest, darkest desire. I am lucky because I found love at a young age and it’s here to stay. I have the kind of family that I’d wish upon everyone; the best there is, was, and ever will be. I believe in God over and over again every time I take a moment to observe the beauty of nature and the way every intricate detail is designed and calculated to perfection; the kind of perfection that could never occur by chance. When it comes to movies, I will always pick horror over any other genre. I love anything old, antique, and/or vintage and I desperately want a personal 50s pin-up model to create vintage photographs with. I see the world through a photographer’s eyes, where everything is a thousand times more beautiful. I wanted to be a graphic designer once upon a time, therefore, I am savvy with graphic design today. I get a high out of speaking in front of people. I make an effort to build and keep relationships, make time for people, and be on time. I will always step down / swallow my pride to make things okay again – I clear the air, I make peace, I don’t hold grudges because life’s too short to be a bitch. I want to help people in any way that I can, for as long as that help is within my power. My greatest weakness is crying when I am angry and I can’t articulate myself. I am an advocate of eating whatever you want to eat, healthy or unhealthy, because food is one of life’s greatest luxuries and I couldn’t stand to miss out on it. This paragraph could go on forever, so I’ve forced a stop. The rest of me is an open book through words and photographs. Thank you for reading, :).

I saw a dead raccoon on my way to the bus stop today, :(. Its mouth was wide open, as if screaming in pain or crying for help right before it died. It made me really sad. I called the Toronto Animal Services to take it away.

I think I have to put up an ‘about me’ section on this blog with something short about myself. I was never planning on it but the blog feels incomplete without it and I have a raging urge to fill the void. But the reality is that you’d get to know me better by the reading of my blog entries and the viewing of my photos than any paragraph I could ever write about myself. I don’t think anyone wants to read about you unless you are really and truly an interesting person or if you’re famous in some way. And if you find yourself forcing to sound interesting and awesome, stop. Your readers can see right through it. Don’t try to be interesting because that makes you uninteresting. I guess I’m saying be yourself. I’m starting to go off on a tangent here, so anyway, I’ll throw something quick and lame together just so the blog feels complete.

The photo below was taken in the bedroom I slept in, in Montrose, Pennsylvania. The single best part in photography is finding the most interesting things in the most ordinary things. You don’t have to have a conveniently pretty scenery, or be at the Eiffel Tower, or the Swiss Alps, or the Grand Canyon, or the Great Wall, or a studio, to take a good photo. You could be at a dump site and find absolute beauty in something. Anything. The kind of beauty that you can’t find in the most beautiful places. In fact, a dump site would be perfect for a photoshoot. It’s like wearing special glasses that reveal the beauty in all things ordinary – things that people do not normally pay attention to or are not drawn/attracted to. It’s the greatest.

It’s September and I think it’s ridiculous.

I’m back from Pennsylvania! It was a weekend of God, family, friends, and shopping and I wish it never ended. I want to delve in to the God part for a second – don’t worry, I’m not going to preach. I just want to be bold enough to ramble about him whenever I please, without care of losing people’s interest. There is such distaste attached to the word GOD and it’s really unfortunate because he is actually the most beautiful thing in life, but so completely corrupted by the religious systems of the world and misunderstood by the majority. I wish that I could change that; wipe out RELIGION, which has grown into such an emotionally-charged and negative thing/subject/word/topic/issue/whatever, and just simply show you what I see, show you God through my eyes. Because if you see what I see, I know that you’d like it.

On another note, always remember to buy travel insurance whenever you leave Canada, even if it’s just for a day (or at least be aware of your company’s coverage). It’s so easy to overlook something like this, especially for short weekend trips. I know I do. I’ve been spending weekends in the U.S. for as long as I can remember, without ever making sure that I’m insured in the event that something happens. Not to be morbid or cliché, but life is so fragile and so unpredictable and anything can happen. My uncle’s appendix ruptured during our stay in Pennsylvania and he had to go under the knife right then and there. Without insurance, you’d better be able to pay up or consider yourself screwed – welcome to the U.S.A!

Photo below is of my cousin’s little boys. :)

Another quick post! This is my cousin’s little boy – we set him up in a mini rocking chair on the sidewalk and he loved it. I love taking photos of kids – they naturally make a beautiful photo! When I have my own kids, they’re going to feel like models because it’s going to be a photoshoot every day! I’ll borrow other people’s kids in the mean time though.

I’m still in Pennsylvania but headed back home tomorrow and stopping by the shopping outlets to do some damage. I’m excited!

I found internet, :). I don’t have time to write anything right now but I wanted to quickly post this photo from Montrose, Pennsylvania just for you, :). It was taken right on the front porch of this cozy little place that I’m staying at. I’ll blog all about it on Monday. My long weekend is nothing short of fantastic so far, I hope yours is, too. It’s bed time for me and I wish you sweet dreams.

I’m going through a sun flare obsession and have been pointing my camera right at the sun and carelessly shooting away at it for twenty minutes at a time. After I finish, I see black spots and floaters all over my field of vision, at which point I realize that I’ve done something terrible to my eyes. Staring directly at the sun is very, very dangerous and can cause blindness – duh, I’m so caught up in my own little photographic world, that these simple dos and don’ts have gone way over my head. I have a nagging feeling, so I went and booked an eye appointment for next Saturday because that was the earliest time available – I hate that. I sound like an overreacting nut, but I’m especially cautious with matters of the eye because my brother has a history of retinal detachment and has permanently lost a part of his vision. Whenever I forget, he reminds me not to take my eye sight for granted. I can’t imagine losing a PART of my vision, let alone all of it.

On anther note, blindness from photography? That’s love. Photo below is the result of shooting at the sun and potentially going blind.

I am road tripping down to Montrose, Pennsylvania at 4:00AM and will be back Monday evening. I am bringing my laptop with me in case I can connect to the internet and post a photo a day. If not, I’ll catch up on Monday. Have a supercalifragilistic long weekend! They only come around once in a while.

Haven’t done Wall-E in a while, so here’s one.

I made my own favourites icon. See it? Look on your browser tab or where the website URL is, there’s a little red heart now. :)

Have you heard of the upcoming Toronto reality show Lake Shore? A Canadian version of Jersey Shore? Some Torontonian fist-pumping adventure? GTL Toronto style? HAHA, here comes another guilty pleasure show – so atrocious, yet so gripping because you just. don’t. get. it. and it’s simply satisfying to sit there and say “wtf?” and laugh your head off and then say “wtf?” again. They’re auditioning for people like this train wreck over here, so if you feel you fit the profile, then you should audition! I kid. Don’t do it! Auditions ended anyway. The point of the show is to throw eight (supposedly attractive but I’d describe them more as sleazy) twenty-somethings from diverse backgrounds, together in one camera-rigged house for some stupid but entertaining phony drama. Oh TV, the garbage you bring to our lives.

It’s Friday tomorrow. I’ve got happy tears.

I’ve become an overnight fan of Regina Spektor. The song you’re listening to (unless you’ve pressed the stop button because you hate it so much) is called The Calculation and it’s by Regina – a song with a perfect portrayal of love and how unexpected it can be and how there’s no calculation or formula and you can’t go about it with exact precision, although we often do. Ah, she’s so poetic, and fresh, and different. I love discovering music that you don’t hear on the trashy radio.

I’m going to Pennsylvania this weekend to a town called Montrose for a church retreat and some family time. I hope there are good things to take photos of.

The travel bug is biting me hard. I’m thinking Los Angeles in November or December and then throw in a little Vegas in there since it’s only 270 miles away from LA. While in Vegas, I have to see The Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show. And then next thing you know, it’s January 2011, vacation time at work refreshes, and I’m booking a Contiki tour to see more of Europe. That’s what’s going to happen, my friends. Stop planning, start making things happen.

PS. Happy September. I wish I was going to class next week to pick up my heart that I left at Ryerson University.

I find that the older I get, the less I care about what people think about me. Anyone else feel the same way? I wish this transformation started sooner because when I was younger, tripping in the hallway at school was actually the end of the world. Now it’s think what you want, say what you want, tell people what you want – doesn’t bother me much. It’s human nature to judge, to talk, to think we have the other person all figured out. Nine out of ten times, we’re probably off on a tangent. Things aren’t always what they appear to be but we’re all suckers for gossip, so that’s the crappy part. If you can walk away from gossip, raise your hand. You deserve a star. On the flip side though, if we’re all comfortable and confident enough in our own skin, we can keep doing our thing even with the whole world laughing. Kind of like the story of Noah’s Ark (lol). You know yourself better than anyone else and you please who you want to please and that’s that. Happily ever after.

Ah, and here is one of my Venetian masks from Venice, Italy. I bought two while I was there. The other one will be unveiled in the next little while. They’re so beautiful; I wish I had a masquerade party to go to. Anyway, I got SIX mosquito bites in fifteen minutes while shooting this in the woods by my house. Mosquitos dig my blood. Maybe vampires do, too. Perhaps Edward Cullen from Twilight would like my blood more than Bella’s. Just maybe.

Congratulations to this superstar for getting a big fat raise today. You deserve it, love. I’m thrilled for you. Twice baked potato at the Keg is on you!