Thanks Philippine Pulp and Paper Industry!

I'm waiting for the cable tech to swing by my condo before I can leave for the office this lovely sunny but very crispy cold Friday morning.  Come to mama faster internet and Smithsonian channel!  This waiting may take a while and may throw my schedule off but hey, at least I get to sit in a sunny living room and sit down and eat a warm breakfast :)

And peruse Facebook a.k.a crackbook.

Which brings me to the photo above.  My mom has gotten in touch with some of her former coworkers and friends from back in the day when she was in her twenties and working in Mindanao.  I've only been able to imagine what her workplace was like until now.  One of her friends posted up this pic of the building she worked in.  That's where she met my dad :)  My dad is from the north, near the capital.  There is no way he would've met my mom if he didn't apply for a job all the way in the south.  She was handing out entrance exams for engineers and he was one of the applicants.  My dad the smooth yet subtle gentleman called her later on to check on his results.  She loved that he was humble about it and had a "nice voice," not to mention a high IQ.  And the rest is history!  So if it wasn't for this company, then no Angel. So weird to think of it that way.

Mind Farts
-Canada rocked the winter olympics :) yeah!
-new late night restaurant discovery: Steel Wheels.  a bluish room filled with grafitti, non-diffused lighting, a sweet Korean man with a bucket of chopsticks.  and what do they serve?  Korean food and pizza of course!  the veggie rice dish is delish - i could eat a bucket of that seasoned broccoli
-axolotls are cute little buggers
-dipping a blueberry bagel in tomato soup may sound gross but it's actually quite good.  yes, my fridge stores are running low
-apparently the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... all to infinity will equal -1/12.  -0.833333333!  i can't handle this new piece of info
-secret guilty tv pleasure: house hunters international

Boing!

Bounce back time.  It took 4 days of bedrest to recover and now it's back to work and dance.  Work, practice, perform ... rinse and repeat.  The sky is blue - yadda yadda yadda!

But what's this? *gasp* Another break!  Just spent the long weekend in the mountains with dancer girlfriends who don't dance as much anymore.  Another rapid transition to a slower pace, but at least it wasn't because I was sick.  It's much more fun to relax because you planned a trip with girlfriends. Not because a brutal virus confines to your bed.  Triple treat: weather, scenery, company.  Ohhh to wake up naturally (no alarms!!) and to relax with drinks and good food with constant Olympics updates in the background where ever there's a TV screen.

Spending a good chunk of time with people who aren't dancing enormous amounts (anymore) gives me a broader perspective and a gentle reminder: If I wasn't spending so much time dancing, I would have more sleep, have a cleaner condo, have more food in the fridge,  have more chances to rekindle other hobbies, have more free weekends to spend with family and friends, have more trips that are purely vacation-related as opposed to dance-related ... the list goes on and on.  Look at how relaxed we all look!

But as I've said before, I think that if you do something and you keep doing it and you are not sure why ... then all the more reason to do it!  Maybe it's something instinctual and natural that draws you.  Maybe a temporary surge of incredible energy has hit me and I should dissipate it in dance before it runs out.  Maybe I am diving too hard and too deep and will finally get stopped by burnout.  Or maybe I'll adapt instead and keep getting stronger until I eventually decide to move on to other things, with a greater sense of discipline and "oomph" in me.

At the end of these internal discussions that I have with myself, I conclude that it's ultimately my choice in the end.  Which is comforting.  It is a luxury after all to be able to make choices like this.  And the nice thing is, it seems like either way I win!  If I keep pushing myself in dance I'll just keep getting better.  If  I tone down the dancing, I'll be able to enrich the rest of my life even more.  One of the former-dancer girlfriends brought along her adorable and extremely intelligent little girl and watching them interact was pretty damn beautiful :) Also, I love toddler logic.

Mind Farts
-cross country skiing is much cheaper than downhill. talk about a good cardio session! and it's toddler-friendly too.  pulling a sled containing a toddler even adds strength training to the mix
-sometimes there is that one routine that feels sooo good to perform.  the music and the movement feel like such a good fit ... even lifts become effortless!
-or maybe acro-yoga is just helping my core strength and balance ;)
-new vegan trait i've discovered:  i get horrified when people don't finish their veggies/bread and i often offer to eat their leftovers. like when i attacked some red onions that were going to be thrown away and stashed them in my veggie sandwich instead
-hard liquor is easier on my morning-after stomach than beer.  helloo Havana Club!
-costco rice crackers = crack cocaine

-Lemony Snicket children's book: first word to learn is "bird." next is "despondent."  haha i love it. I will have to read A Series Of Unfortunate Events now

Mom 2.0

I get a lot from my mom - we both love to perform, befriend and wear hot pink. We both empathize with animals and personify objects. We don't understand dill pickles and licorice. We are capable of playing video games and watching movies until our eyelids droop and the sun begins to rise.

Turns out I kind of look like her too. After getting my new passport pic done, I added an Instagram filter which pretty much recreates my mom in the 70s:

I love it! This has got to be my favourite McBain Camera portrait so far.

Now it's time to be run-down and sick in bed. It's not even officially February yet!  But the sore throat and accompanying achy snotty lethargy don't lie - 10 hour work days, dancing 20 hours a week and lack of sleep are getting to me.

I need to do better with the sleeping.  Because everything else was sure hard to avoid!

Like

-17 workshops in 6 days with one of my favouritest dancers in the world
-performing Afro Cuban and getting a thumbs up from our hip, smart and progressive young new mayor
-trying acro yoga for the first time and balancing a 200lb big blond man on my legs
-working on cutting edge new stuff at the office (well in North America anyway) and learning non-stop

Aughh! I want ALL the things!  Good thing practice was cancelled tonight. I took it as a sign. Time to catch up on dreams and unconsciousness!

Unconsciousness will be prompted by generic Neo Citran, courtesy of the big blond I balanced on my legs :)

Bam, Bam and BAM!

Oh, you fabulous day, you. Got a great performance review at work and then today was the first evening of Alien's week-long workshops :) AND she gave me a compliment! 

Body exhausted yet mind still excited. What's a gal to do? (Answer to this question is usually reading or YouTube).

Anxiety and Teriyaki

One nice thing about being an engineer is having a good number of male coworkers who will willingly help push your car when it is stuck in the snow :)  Not that a woman couldn't do it but myself and the other females were in heels that night.

Poor parking decision on my part but I may have still been high on adrenalin at the time.  I was coming from my first performance ever which I only had two days to learn.  I don't think I've ever been that anxious before a performance - I actually felt nauseated the day before.  But it went fine and I was just so happy I made it through.  It helps to have amazing Cuban dancers on either side of you to take away the pressure.  Two elegant bookends make almost any book look extra good ;)

Speaking of books, I finished devouring MaddAddam and am currently rereading the rest of the Oryx and Crake trilogy.  I couldn't resist!  Margaret Atwood has such a knack not just for speculative fiction, but even for brand/product names and company names in the speculative future.  Maybe she should be copyrighting that stuff even though it doesn't really exist yet.

Oh double practice Sundays ... How you challenge my body so.  I really should get up and make my work lunches for the week.  I need to make sure food is accessible all week, since I will be rushing between work and dance even more than usual.  One of my favourite dancers is coming to do workshops for seven days.  It's none other than Alien Ramirez (the one I was thrilled to be mistaken for in Miami ... even if it was very very brief).   Okay my hunger is beating out my beaten body ... must go cook! I am on a stir fry kick right now.  I didn't realize there were so many ready-made sauces out there to make life easier.  

Asian Fail.

Happy New Year!  I just discovered the hard way that Korean soybean paste (doenjang) does NOT equal miso paste.  It is not even close.  My first lesson of 2014.

I was craving vegetables and rice and excitedly found a vegan recipe for fried rice in order to have my work lunches lined up for the week.  The recipe called for miso paste and so I went to TNT to pick some up.  TNT surprisingly didn't have it and I was in a rush so I ended up grabbing a tub of the nearest brown soybean paste, assuming all would be well.

When I started cooking, I noticed the paste had a pretty pungent smell but proceeded to succumb to the urge to add a tablespoon more than the recipe called for anyway.  I've never cooked with any type of soybean paste before and "soybean paste" just sounds so harmless.  Like a white sock or a pencil eraser.

This tendency to eyeball ingredients has resulted in almost ruining my big batch of vegan fried rice.

I tasted the result and it was WAY STRONGER than I expected.  A powerfully pungent punch to the taste buds.  A quick google revealed that doenjang is something like ten times more potent than miso!  Yikes.  I ended up going out for lunch today instead.

I am currently trying to dilute my overpowering fried rice with some plain old jasmine rice and more veggies before I go to dance practice.  It seems to be working.  Now my batch of fried rice will be even bigger, but at least it won't feel like a thousand soybeans died in my mouth every time I eat lunch at work.

Where'd 2013 Go?

My first NFL game was a very good time - I think I like football.  Tailgate partying which included a lot of beer and tipsy salsa dancing in the morning ... people watching while buzzed in the stands ... a suspenseful game to the end ... basically all the ingredients required for a great experience. Even as a neutral Canadian.  Okay maybe I was a bit biased - I was in Dolphins territory after all.

The next day I burrowed through the travel wormhole, which took me from plus 30 degrees to minus 30 degrees and PLOP! I'm back in real life Edmonton.  I slid gracefully back into scarves and gloves, brushing snow off my car, piles of drawings and spreadsheets at work and even finishing up my Christmas shopping.  A magical trick: avoid the craziness of the big malls and stick to City Centre.  A measly 3 bucks for parking on the weekends and there's a Jugo Juice to keep you going while you shop (I prefer Mighty Kale smoothies).  Added bonus: since it's not so chaotic, the salespeople are pleasant and stress-free.

Time is crazy.  I can't believe 2013 is ending already (hey, that rhymed).  And what a jam-packed and fulfilling year this was!  New travels.  Accomplishments in work and dance.  The last half of the year got so busy that I didn't have much of a "life"... but I sure did feel alive :) Now that my schedule is winding down, it's a treat to be able to catch up and spend quality time with folks.  I am lucky to have patient and supportive loved ones.  Including a big strong handyman who puts up with my schedule.

I am incredibly blessed period.

My heart goes out to those who are suffering so much at this time.  Haiyan victims ... refugees fleeing Syria and Sudan ... the list is too long.  If only every being right now could be clean, well-fed, safe and warm.  That's what I would ask for if Santa crashed through my window right now.

That and changing the length of a day to 40 hours instead of a piddly 24 :)