Winter Time Is Here

On Saturday morning for just a brief few hours snow fell on city of Toronto. Throughout the day the ground was dusted in white. It provide for some nice pictures in Grange Park. Later in the day we also took some pictures in the beautiful Distillery District.

The One Thing Tim Horton's Does Right

It's not fancy like Starbucks or Second Cup and sometimes the coffee tastes like cigarette buds, but there is one thing Tim Horton's does right.

They still follow the long forgotten tradition of putting lids on their hot beverages before handing them to the customer. What a simple yet ingenious thought. How many times have a been burnt by extremely hot water as I carry my cup of tea over to the "milk/sugar/lid station."

I'm paying $2.50 for a tea\you could at least put the milk in for me.

Russell Peters Entertains The Grads

Here’s a portrait of your standard graduation ceremony:

Pomp and Circumstance.
Boring introductions.
Boring academic charging of the graduates.
Bad public address by the honourary graduate.
Awards that I never win.
The granting of the degrees/diplomas/certificate.
Joyous relief that you can leave the room.

Simply put 2-3 hours of torture so you can spend two seconds walking across the stage and take a million photographs of yourself in an unflattering cap in gown.

A few months ago I received an email with a date of the ceremony and one other small minor detail.

Lots of very talented performers come from the Greater Toronto Area so it should not have been a surprise that one of them was chosen to receive an honourary degree at my graduation from Humber College.

Russell Peters would be there.

At first I thought he wouldn’t come. I was sure that my professional fandom luck wasn’t that good.

But there he was on the stage providing the comic relief as only he could.

Being from Brampton and getting kicked out of college after a month, I guess it was quiet a special thing for him to receive a degree for doing absolutely no academic work.

His message to us was stereotypical yet inspiring in its unique delivery.

“Never do anything only to make money, do it because you love it.”

And as the graduates of the Comedic Performance Program received there diplomas Russell stood and shook the hand of every one of them.

Some random other graduates stopped to greet him as they walked across the stage and I had planned to do the same.

I do describe myself as a professional crazed fan. How could I pass up this golden opportunity to be meet a celebrity without being a total creeper?

Well, the truth of the matter is I chickened out. As the girl before me walked across the stage a voice from the audience yelled “THAT’S MY SISTER” and under his breath Russell said “why don’t you get your sisters name then” in a annoyed tone.

My nerve was gone. He was probably itching to get off that stage, and we were only half way through the graduates.

I settled for some solid eye contact and a smile from Russell. I made my way across the stage and back to my seat just thankful that the comic didn’t find something to make fun of me about.

I regretted my decision as soon as every one of the PR grads got a hug from him. A HUG. Suddenly, a handshake didn’t seem like such an inconvenience.

I made the right decision. He was on stage with 20 other people who I felt no need to interact with. Russell Peters may be a world famous comedian, but for those few hours he was just another Humber graduate. I’m glad that I treated him as such.

Welcome To Graduation

Training Torture.

"Good job," he said to me with a smirk and a slight laugh.

I'm hunched over trying to catch my breath and resisting the temptation to collapse on the floor. I've just lunged the length of the gym and back with 70 lbs on my back. I want to die. I hate lunges. He knows it and he takes great satisfaction in making me do them.

I think you have to be slightly sadistic to be a personal trainer. How many other careers can you think of where the sign of a good job is your clients pain filled groans as they push their bodies to move large amounts of weight?

I also think you have to be a slight masochist to want a personal trainer. While there are great payoffs to working out this way that hour can feel like absolute torture at times. Especially when the words "drop set" are mentioned in the first five minutes of the session.

I've committed to do this for a year. The goal - "dream body." Whatever that means. I better look hot and toned, but not scary toned like Madonna.

The first six weeks were a warm up. The foundation stage , as it was called, was composed of exercises that followed "primal movements." Last session we entered a build period. Let the real training begin. Heavier weight and less reps will start to build my muscles and I should start to see results.

I might overdose on protein getting there though.

The New Work Out Plan

a sign you spend to much time at the gym.

when walking home from the lcbo with a six pack in each hand you must resist the temptation to do lunges down Spadina Avenue. 

Growing as a Professional

So there is a school of thought out there by the "corporate professionals" That you should censor your online presence to make you appear responsible.

By this I mean no posting party photos on facebook and having limited profiles and only using linkedin for work connections.

I completely reject that notion.

I don't want to feel like I have to hide anything from anybody, including my boss and potential employers. Yes, I like electronic music, raving, concert going, dancing, drinking and general night life things that apparently make me look "unprofessional." However, I challenge someone to show me how my love of night life makes a bad employee?

Clearly, I have the capacity to make rational decisions.

For example.


Deadmau5 (or Dead Mau5 as the promoter called him) is playing in Kingston on Nov. 19th. My graduation is on November 20th. Now, as much as I love Deadmau5 and am dying to visit Kingston I made the responsible decision to attend grad. I'm not really happy about it but I suppose there are plenty of Deadmau5 shows in my future.

Steph is still going so at least I'll be represented in spirit.

I feel like I've failed as a professional crazed fan and excelled as a professional.

I'm not so good at this blogging thing.

Alright Blog, I admit it, I suck.

I've outright failed at my attempt to blog on a consistent basis.

but when one fails you must pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again.

So here I ago. with an attempt to blog more often.

In September I nabbed a six month internship funded by the CCCO (otherwise known as Work in Culture).

Little did I know that another Intern at Canada's National Ballet School would have the bright idea to host a little conference to get all us interns and mentors together.

Yesterday we all gathered at the beautiful NBS on Jarvis and I was fortunate to meet some pretty cool people.

One being Karen Whaley, who inspired me to start blogging again by talking about her own blogs http://www.sayitwithpie.com/ and http://www.bemoreblog.com/ the latter which is about her personal training journey. I will be reading it with interest since I've also recently started on that journey. I'm sure we'll share some laughs.

To networking and forming meaningful connections (Margaret would be proud).