I'm not bossy. I simply make suggestions without options.

LOVE this quote from a presentation 'Oldest Child Syndrome' at Winnie's Yonge-Eglinton Toastmasters last night! Yes, I visited this Toastmasters again last night, especially to see and hear Winnie's presentation on the Hadza community, close to Tanzania, where she's from.

No, I'm not even ashamed to be promoting her Toastmasters nor feeling guilty about not attending my former Toastmasters (MSIT). I haven't been to MSIT in so long that I don't even think I would fit in anymore. Although, I am still part of the MSIT group message only because I had originally thought I would be returning. NOW I am very unsure. To the point that I haven't paid to renew my membership and am thinking of asking to be taken off the group message system.

HOWEVER, I'm tentatively planning on attending the MSIT Christmas party that'll be occurring in about three weeks time. I hope to attend (perhaps with Winnie as my sidekick) as a refresher, to scope out my situation and how I feel about the possibility of returning (or not).

Until then, I'm resigned to job searching and catching up on too many taped television shows...

The Finale!!! (DWTS)

So who showed up on the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Finale?!?!?!??!!!?

PITBULL (MR. 305) & NEYO!!! as well as LIONEL RITCHIE!!!! & CHER!!!!

Oh yes...the dancing was phenomenal!!!

“Good night, sweet prince”

- Shakespeare

Began the weekend having lunch with Grace & Alice at Moto Sushi on Friday. We had such a wonderful meetup that is nice to have once in awhile! During our get-together, we touched upon some discussion regarding our family health involving a relative. Little did we know that this would come back by the end of the week...

There were potential plans to see Louie this weekend, however this was put off due to last minute family plans to head to Niagara Falls (casino :p) after my massage Saturday morning. I'm happy to report that there was enough winnings to cover dinner (at an Italian restaurant called Vittoti's where we split a penne with vodka & prosciutto) and Sunday's brunch!

Unfortunately, during our brunch, we found out the sad news about said previously discussed family health with Felix. I cannot say that I remember ever meeting said cousin as he lived in Hong Kong.

"Goodnite, Dr. Death"

Alright, Children
The lights are out and the party's over
It's time for me: Doctor D
To start running and say goodbye for a little while
And I know you're gonna miss me
So I'll leave you with this
You know that big ball of radiation we call...

After returning back to the tdot, we stopped by Ames to watch the new Frozen II movie by her fabulous theater that has really nice seat that can recline back with very roomy seats! Thumbs up, you cannot go wrong with anything Frozen!!!

Then to end this weird weekend, I caught Keith Urban's Grey Cup halftime show as well as the American music awards hosted by Ciara. Highlights for me involved Halsey's acceptance speech, her performance 'graveyard', watching Green Day, Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera and Great Big World's fall on me and Shania Twain's closing performance!!!

ebs & flos

Today, I spent the day in a purple shirt...the color purple representing World Pancreatic Day and this brings to my mind the name, Alex Trebek.

An incredibly busy day...beginning with the fact that our building parking garage was going through maintenance repairs so cars that had to not be in the garage had to be out between 9-5pm.

Therefore, Mom and I began our day leaving the garage just after 8:30am to go to Yonge and Davisville where the TTC head office is so that I could update my wheel-trans support companion card. There we encountered an employee, Trevor, who suggested I look into opportunities within the TTC. We thanked him for his help after completing our transactions and as we were making out way out to the car, he came running out to give me several sheets of paper with the current job ops (26) with the ttc that he printed out for me. A lot of aren't relevant for me but I've since applied for the General Clerk, Accounts Payable role. As I was fashioning my cover letter, it brought back Minto flashbacks!

This was only our first stop of the day. Along the way, I stopped by the Art Inn @ Runway in Pacific mall to have my bangs trimmed by a guy named Benson, who added side bangs with the initial trimming of the bangs. Yay, I have a facial structure again!!!

Afterwards, on our way home, I was surprised by messages from Louie, wanting to catch up some time this weekend. However, after receiving the flu shot on Monday, I happen to be suffering from a cold that's recently begun. As well, he's been battling an on/off cold that began at the beginning of the cold season.Not wanting to bring his hopes up (or dash it), I've currently left my response up in the air. TBD for Sunday morning...

Making it home just after 5pm, the day didn't happen to wrap up like work...a CIBC representative that my family deals with helped with a potential networking job opportunity with a contact to this place called Moohan Taekwondo.

And THEN almost like a cherry on top, my job counsellor to the ODSP agency that I work with contacted me regarding a receptionist position with a company right at the corner to where I live. Unfortunately, as she's going to be MIA until the new year (due to a family emergency), I wasn't sure she would be able to follow up. SURPRISINGLY, a job developer called me a little later to give me more details about the position so I plan to send him all my information for tomorrow morning!

You'd think I'd be exhausted....I AM but something I've failed to mention is that I've had two cups of coffee too late in the day...and now I'm definitely paying for it!!!

JUDGMENT DAY...

Grey's Anatomy's 350th episode

WOW...

This past Thursday was Grey's 350th episode of the series. It was kind of emotional in both the plot of the series (Meredith's faced the medial board to see if her medical license is revoked or not) and also brought back many flashbacks of many late characters who had been a part of the show by giving nods to the likes of the late Lexie, Derek, and Denny Duquette. Alex showed the board letters of support from Addison Montgomery, Callie Torres, Arizona Robbins, and April Kepner.

Even though she didn't make an appearance, she'd sent a letter of support for her 'Person' that Alex read at the hearing:

"Dear medical commission: People who know me would describe me as selfish to a fault. After that, they'd say, 'honest.' I can honestly tell you that if I were dying and a surgery stood between me and death, Dr. Grey's hands are the only ones that I'd want inside my body. "Taking away her license is signing the death certificates of countless future patients. She is a light in a broken system that she will fix, whether you want her to or not. She is the sun and she is unstoppable. Sincerely, Dr. Cristina Yang."

BRILLIANT!!! and sooooooo Yang-like!!!

I'm watching the Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and it's brought really nostalgic memories of the days when I used to watch Sesame Street growing up...at the same time, seeing how it's been updated with the times!

The best part is seeing all the guest cameo's including: Busy Phillips, Whoopi Goldberg, Meghan Trainor, Sterling K. Brown, Alessia Cara, Lucy Liu and Terry Crews to name a few...woooooooaaahh!!!!

Karen's birthday was on Tuesday and I wished her a happy birthday online as she and Patrick are Honeymooning in Hawaii.

I'd gone to my in person interview at Sick Kids for a recommended position from HR (to another in person job interview position from last week) on Wednesday and even though I thought it would be a good fit, I'm not putting all my cards on this opportunity. Life and job opps work weird for me like that...

Thursday was a super busy day spending it at Roy Thompson Hall for the Global Summit 2019, an annual diversity and inclusion event like no other. The globally recognized Summit brings together thought leaders, partners and amazing humans of all identities to connect, learn and grow. I was extremely lucky to be able to attend this event for free as the testing company that I've worked for previously, Fable Tech Labs, had invited me. It was a great opportunity to come out and hear so many speakers like Randi Zuckerberg (sister to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook), Kat Holmes (Google), Angelica Ross (Actor), Erin & Sara Foster (Bumble cofounders), Colleen Ward & Norie Campbell (TD bank), Leagh Turner (Ceridian), Heather Clark and Salim Teja (SickKids Foundation) to name a few! #movethedial

After resting up on Friday, I spent the morning going for dim sum with Aunt Teresa but because I had an unfortunate tumble, I had to bail on Henry's bday party this evening. Instead, I tried out a restaurant, Jollibee with amazingly juicy chicken and great spaghetti!

Now I'm trying to take advantage of missing the party by catching up on many episodes of tv. It's a challenge...

Remembrance Day musings

A quick update as to what I've been up to last week:

Monday was Winnie's birthday and we'd already celebrated in advance when we'd had a sushi dinner before visiting her Toastmasters last Thursday.

Tuesday was spent doing something I'm not particularly fond of...going to job fairs. Unfortunate part of life yet I still attended a CAA job fair that my job developer had sent my way (in his defense, not like he needs it... but I had mentioned interest in looking into the potential CAA market). Sadly, it seems that even going all the way to Scarborough wasn't really worth it as the HR lady viewed my resume and suggested I 'add' her on LinkedIn and go to a website with job postings. Which, in my mind, is really saying that it's really slim pickings...ah well...

It seemed to brightened up a little on Wednesday as after I had applied to a position at 'Sick Kids', I'd received an invitation for a telephone interview, which led to a panel interview that morning. I'm happy that I made enough of an impression that even though I was unable to score THAT particular job (through follow up email correspondence), that HR lady actually suggested that I apply for another similar position through her HR network AND I now have another in person interview this upcoming Wednesday (fingers crossed!).

The rest of the week's main activities included grabbing a Thursday dinner with Louie at Max's (this Filipino reso seemed to be the safest choice for us at this time due to Louie's own health battle) before coffee at Starbucks in my old neighborhood in the Dufferin and Steeles area. As well, I was able to enjoy a Saturday lunch date with Jordan at a particularly long ago haunt, Bonjour Brioche, downtown off of Queen St E. The food and atmosphere was the same joyous was that we remembered it and we ended up spending quite some time there taking in the familiarity!

Topping this off involved beginning Sunday with visiting Alicia, Steve and Rosemary! During the visit, Alicia and I went off to grab a coffee at Jimmy's Coffee and then a lunch at San Remo's bakery...yum!

A highlight to this week on television was sesame street on the latelateshow!!!

It's been a busy weekend beginning with attending Malcolm's first birthday on Saturday at Ames' condo's party room in the early afternoon and then going to mom and dad's friend's (Uncle Norman and Aunt Susan) 50th anniversary party in the evening!

This morning I met up with Karen for brunch at Eggsmart! Afterwards, went to visit Ames' again with the rents for a take-out sushi dinner.

Luckily this is the weekend where we gained an extra hour so it mostly (mainly because due to the overlapping events that were occurring, unfortunately, I missed out on the Mon Sheong Cathay Ball, boo...) worked out! ;p

Caught up with Winnie yesterday! I miss our work lunch dates but such is life...at least we can still randomly catch up when we make dates!

We had originally planned on meeting up for dinner at Tio's Urban Taco. UNFORTUNATELY, when my ride dropped me off at the restaurant, I was sad to find out that the reso had ACTUALLY shut down (unpaid bills) not two weeks ago!! *tragedy*

No biggie as Winnie and I decided to have dinner at 'Sushi Shop' where we had tuna sushi tacos and split a dragon roll, salmon sushi burger (WHAT?!?!?! a sushi burger!?!?!? But it was DELISH!!!) and a lobster poke bowl. Good times!!!

Afterwards we went to her Toastmasters (shhhhhhh, no need to mention to my own toastmasters group...;p) where I enjoyed listening to the two speeches given as well as joining in on the table topics! The word of the evening was gregarious which I found complimentary to myself. ;p There were several guests (other than myself) that also included two girls visiting from Korea and Japan!

So THAT was my evening out!!! Of course after I got home, I caught The Good Place before calling it a night!

Tried a wonderful Thai reso called 'Khmer Thai' off of St. Clair W Thursday evening with Jordan. Jordan ordered the yellow curry chicken with sweet potato & eggplant, I ordered a pad thai that we both split (but the curry had a bit of a kick to it) and we also shared two spring rolls (vegetarian and chicken).

Saturday was busy beginning with checking in with a massage master (who I hadn't gone in to see in over a year and half due to health issues) in the morning before heading to a Cathay Ball Orientation at Mon Sheong Foundation from 1:30-4pm. The Cathay Ball is one of the biggest events of the year for the Foundation! It's one of my favorites as everyone, even the volunteers dress up to the nines. The tickets cost like a fortune and everyone gets amazing performances and food. The volunteers also get a fabulous buffet dinner (just not in a sit down meal like the paid guests). If I had the choice, I would attend the Cathay Ball...however, I've two other events happening this upcoming weekend.

After being picked up from the orientation, I was dropped off for dinner at Paisano's with my parents and dad's bridge buddies. There we had a wonderful dinner (I split a penne vodka with sautéed mushrooms, penne pasta with vodka rose sauce with mom) before the group headed back to our place where as the bridge commenced, I caught up on some of my MANY television shows! Once the game was finished, we all had some amazing dessert and coffee before the guests went home and I conked out!

Sunday was a lazy day where after sleeping in, had a hardcore workout that proceeded a fabulous brunch with Romz and Fayewood at the Sunset Grill. Considering neither of the girlies had ever tried the Grill, we had a nice relaxing time with fabulous dishes! Romz was sweet enough to be my ride to and from the Grill!

There was no relaxing right afterwards as Ames had come back from a trip to Jamaica Sunday morning so the rents and I went downtown later in the afternoon to hang out with her and Mr. Trudeau, hear how the trip was and then a family dinner to finish off the weekend! :)

And we're still on the train with Trudeau...

With all the pre-election drama with the party candidates, liberal still came out triumphant even though it's a minority win.

I was working the election as a poll clerk and even though it was a super loooooong day (from 8:30am-11:30pm with a couple of 15 min breaks), it was worth the excitement! There were a couple of really busy periods but overall there was a pretty regular tide of voters. Other than the approximately half our 'lights out' in the gym (however, the lights in the hallways were still on and we all pulled out our cellphone lights (haha) before they were turned on again), it was pretty smooth sailing.

Luckily, this wasn't the first election I've worked. It's the first big (for the PM) one but I've worked as information and registration clerk in a couple of smaller election ridings.

Therefore, Mr. Trudeau is still very relevant which is good for our Mr. (cat) Trudeau!

I've been re-reading my posts from when I first started my blog from back in the day and I noticed how fun and care-free my writing and life was from back over ten years ago! I miss those school days where my numero uno priority was to finish my schooling, get a good job that in something that I wanted to do AND maybe be in a relationship or family.

How things change...

BUT I miss writing how life was from over a decade ago and this will be my new GOAL...bring back the writing from back in the day, just less activity from back in school days.

"That'll do, pig. That'll do."

Farmer Arthur H. Hoggett (James Cromwell) in "Babe" (1995)

My definition of travelling while on holiday (this Canadian Thanksgiving) is going to places and 'visiting' the area.

How interesting that it is so different from my parent's definition as we 'travelled' to Finger Lakes in New York State, to literally eat at a diner named Magee County Diner and go to Costco, where the tragedy of all tragedies occurred...the cafeteria had NO FRENCH FRIES!!!!!!! VERY tragic...

There WAS, however, churros...whatever, done deal.

We also stopped by the Niagara Casino on our way back to Toronto. C'est la vie.

Patience is what is indispensable to make a dream come true...

Otherwise known as 'patience is a virtue'.

Even though I'm in the midst of crazy job and life changes still...I've been slowly closing up shop on hopefully the end of my health battle in the chapter of life (fingers-crossed). In regards to the job front, there's been activity on that end so there's also something to look forward to...

While at the same time, I've spent two days this week lunching with past co-workers from my last job in preparation to a fellow co-worker's last day (today) from the company as well. Tuesday's lunch was spent with my actual past 'child operations' co-worker's team at the 'Granite Brewery' with a granite burger; where today's lunch was spent with past 'contract' co-worker's team at 'Churrasco Villa' with a chicken wrap and fries. I must also take an opportunity to thank my friend, Efren for the Portuguese tart dessert!!!

As well, I enjoyed a nice lunch with my cousin's, Alice and Grace at Sushi Moto on Wednesday. Our table was given a free tofu dish along with my own meal of beef enoki roll (enoki mushroom and beef wrap, teriyaki sauce) and a salmon sushi pizza (salmon, crunch, mayo on crispy rice patty)...yum!

Finishing off with a farewell dinner with Tanaks, Kristy, Karina, Faye, Marc, Karina's brother/sister & partners at El Mariachi Tacos and Churros in Mississauga! This was crazy fun as it brought back soooooo many memories of high school days but in the present! It was the best farewell dinner for Tanaks before she, Kristy and Karina leave for Oz by the end of the year for their own new chapters in their lives over there!

Excellent incentive to visit oz again!!!

Crazy little thing called love...

- Queen

Amongst other songs such as 'Another one bites the dust'/'Radio Gaga'/'Bohemian Rhapsody'/'We will rock you'/'We are the champions' sung by Queen and Adam Lambert that included a nice tribute to Freddy Mercury as well as performances by Pharrell, Alicia Keyes (including Empire State of Mind) and appearances by Chris Martin and Rami Malek.

This was my highlight from yesterday, watching the Global Citizen Festival on MSNBC...one of the few things I will stay up a little later for!

As for today, I look forward to catching J. Lo's 'Hustlers'!

People say nothing is impossible; But I do nothing everyday

- Pooh from Christopher Robin

This is the state that I am in right now.

However, my main struggle is to work with my new normal in the act of re-wired plumbing (literally). Sadly, this is quite stressful and challenging. Unfortunately, this is all up to only myself. Therefore, as I understand, just give it time.

BUT...time is a-ticking...which is very unfortunate for a person that likes to remain occupied with something or another.

I must give it time.

On the bright side, now that I can sleep through the night like a normal human being again...I’m happy to be sleeping soundly again and am now back on my caffeine-kick! And thanks to Jordan, I have a small supply of drip coffee for my mornings now, yay! Something to do while I do nothing...

The Show Must Go On

The Queen + Adam Lambert Story #QueenxAdamLambert

I've just finished watching the ABC story about Queen and Adam Lambert that I taped back at the end of April...such a great performance! I guess something that I hadn't realized was that Freddy Mercury had passed from HIV back in the day and it was nice that they did such a thorough explanation on the back story to both the band Queen and how Lambert became famous from the first American Idol as the runner up. Personally, I think he did pretty well with filling in with the team of Queen. Go Adam!

Anyway, another way to look at this story title is to bring it back to myself (hence my own blog, duh!)...a week after the end of another chapter of my life, I feel like I'm doing pretty well! I'm not going to lie, I do NOT miss counting hours etc and am totally relishing in the fact that I can now literally sleep through the night without waking up every two hours! (yay!!!)

Something not to take for granted until you realize that you were...it's part of the first world culture etc that a person NEVER has to think about until they do....but details... :)

As I'm still going through my recordings (I'm doing well as my family's recordings are down to 58%, I'm now watching 'the 2019 Met Gala' E! Live From the Red Carpet from back at the beginning of May now. It's 4 hours long so hopefully afterwards the % will be even lower! Most important to go through all the recordings now as new seasons start in the next two weeks!!!

Oh how I've missed my Tim Horton's fix!!!

Yesterday, I had my first small French Vanilla Cappuccino is over a year and a half...and it was SOOOOOO worth it!

Altho….I'm still waiting for my taste buds to come back...

The END.

"Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."

said by Neo (Keanu Reeves) in "The Matrix" (1999)

This is a good quote to describe my long weekend spent with the abbey girls at Maija's place in Guelph! It's also special that we'd all met up... 'We' including Dr. Tanaks who'd flown in from NYC, Kristy, Karina, Faye, Maija and myself!

Why?

As it turns out...we had all known that the K squared were going to be moving to Oz back where Kristy originally came from. However, the that we all learnt Saturday is that Dr. Dune has accepted a job in Oz as well! Mind you, it makes sense as her whole family lives in Sydney...even though the best surprise (like they'd all arranged it...but hadn't) is that all three of them will be living in Melbourne, the wonderfully artsy city. Similar to our Toronto and Montreal is what Sydney and Melbourne is to Australia!

CRAY-CRAY?!?!?!? I think so!!!

Regardless, all five of us arrived at Maija's with two chocolate cakes as presents because we had run later (involving stops at Karina's brother's and sister's place for Tanaka's 'farewell tour'). Interesting side note was that while we were getting the cake, T also bought a couple of cheeses (including my fav, Brie). One of the cheeses, smelled bad, so T immediately chucked it into Maija's garbage can. Luckily, Maija insisted that she take it out of the garbage to return to the store (as it was bought NEW)...and as she was investigating T's receipt, turns out that this 'BAD' cheese was charged $60!!!! :O

Maija made T go with Kristy back to the store to return this bad cheese and get her rightful $60's back!

While they went to the store, the rest of us helped Maija with setting up lunch (with cake as dessert!). After a fantastic and laid back lunch, because the weather was so beautiful, the six of us went out to the backyard where Maija has a pool!!! T, Kristy and Maija had a fantastic time frolicking around the pool while Karina, Fayewood and I dangled our legs off the side. We had SUCH a great time, we even saw a rabbit off the side of the pool!

After a fantastically relaxing time, we went into town for dinner at 'La Reina', a Mexican-type restaurant where we had a couple of tacos and sopas while sitting outdoors.

Needless to say, we all stayed up very late chatting together like we haven't done this in much too long!!!

The wonderful thing about staying at Maija's was that while she has three children with Jonathan, they had other plans so that it was just us ladies Saturday. Even better was that we all had great sleeping arrangements involving beds for all of us!

Sleeping in until around 7-8am, we had a lovely brunch Sunday morning before Maija went to bring home Jonathan and their darlings, James, Ruuben and Emmi!

Emmi, Maija's youngest, had drawn little artistic presents for all of us to enjoy. Tanaka was so ingenious to ask Emmi to sign and date her art projects so that we can have them for safe-keeping for the future! (Plus we all graciously let T have all of Emmi's drawings to take to Oz!)

We all ended our great weekend with a nice drive home from the K squared. :)

Come holiday Monday, as Jordan lives in my hood, he walked over to pick me up at my residence and we walked over to Sheppard Centre to try out 'Blaze pizza' (we each ordered one personal pizza). He ordered the BBQ chicken pizza that had chicken, mozzarella, onion, gorgonzola, bbq drizzle and banana peppers (he asked for half of his pizza without the peppers for me) and I ordered the Art Lover with artichokes, mozzarella, ricotta pork and red sauce dollops. Then we had them halve the pizzas so we each had half of the other....so the best of both worlds! The best was that we even split a s'more pie for a pre-dessert...

Luckily, the pizza's are thin crusted and the s'more pie very small so that after dining and chatting for awhile, we popped next door to 'Sweet Jesus' for ice cream dessert! There, I had my favorite, a small 'red rapture' while Jordan had a small 'hella hazelnut'.

Needless to say, a FANTASTIC labour day weekend! My scale also let me know that it was fantastic... :/ Ah well, you only live once. This is MY choice!