Flickr Album "Spider-Man Adventures in Australia" is up

One hundred and forty eight pictures! This is the biggest Spider album yet!

Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaa!

I need new hobbies.....

Pointless Post #100 - Wii Drake edition

I think I like "Hotline Bling" by Drake because it reminds me of the Wii Shop Channel music and I could listen to that loop for hours.


Australia was fun! Will post pictures in the next few days.  Here is a teaser:

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Before leaving, gas was about 120.9¢/litre.  It's been in the low 120s since I've been back.

Sorrow and Joy

I'm writing this on my phone as I ride the Canada Line to YVR, as I prepare to embark on my first vacation in three loooooong years (i.e. Romania - London 2012). I stayed up late packing last night/this morning and my eyes are incredibly heavy, but that should give my internal clock a nice headstart when I'm in Guangzhou for a "cute" 15 hour layover (thanks China Southern). I remember a teacher in highschool telling us that you learn a lot about yourself when you travel alone and I've been looking forward to having this personal reflection time and not having to be concerned about anyone except myself. It sounds selfish, but its true and I'm exhausted and have a huge sleep debt to pay off. I like sleep.

Sorrow

I should clarify that this is about physical sorrow.

This past Tuesday I was folding up a letter to fit into an envelope. I pressed the last fold firmly with both hands in the center and pushed outwards to make an even crease, but I forgot about a staple at one corner and my hands have been increasingly super dry because of the weather/eczema.

By the time I was aware of the staple, it was too late as I was already internally screaming and squeezing the tip of my finger to stop the bleeding. I had pushed outwards so fast that my dry skin caught the underside of the staple and wedged into my flesh. The force from my impeccable folding skills forced one side of the staple to completely un-staple. Long story short, my finger wound is finally closing up after many days of agony each time I wash my hands.

Oh and later that day, I tried a colleague's IO Hawk (aka what the media calls "hoverboards" or mini-Segways) and my body ate the cement sidewalk in front of our office building because overcompensated for the robotic movement and panicked. While trying to bail, I must have leaned forward which caused the thingy to accelerate and yadda yadda yadda, the road rash on my left arm and hand is also finally healing too. Yay me.

Joy

I already mentioned it at the top, but I'm on vacation! After meeting my old Bible study leader in Guangzhou for dinner (yo, Bobby!), the second leg of my journey will take me to Melbourne, Australia to visit my grandmother and other super cool relatives.

I'm so glad.... dare I say it, joyful that I'm finally getting time off work and won't have any responsibilities anywhere! Sure I'll be missing my little brothers and sisters at church for GRAVITY on Friday nights as well as the Whitecaps FC's first ever home playoff game, but I still feel relieved. Did I mention I like sleep? I like sleep.

I'm finishing writing this post at the departure gate at YVR. The dream is real. God is so merciful to me and I don't deserve it.

I probably won't be posting much here, but stay tuned to Twitter if you want to know if I'm still alive down undah. XD

[shrieking] "Someone cover Glasses!"

Who was "Glasses?" Me, I was "Glasses."

Backstory:

Last week the Urban Rec team I was playing for in outdoor soccer was in our first "playoff" match, but only five players for our team showed up.  The rules stipulate for there to be seven players maximum on the pitch (including goalkeeper) so we were at an obvious disadvantage with two less players playing out.  The opposing team fielded seven against us, plus they had three substitute players ready at all times.  Those keeners.

To no surprise, we were outplayed just because of the numbers disadvantage, but we did make them work for the ball so I'm proud of our team for that.  I was slightly annoyed (yet amused) at one of the girls on the opposing team because the way she yelled instruction to her teammates was borderline shameful.  The way she was barking orders at them and telling them to hustle, you would have thought that our game was for some rec-league championship, but no um.... hey listen, you're up 2 -0 and we're just trying to stay afloat and play for fun, good grief.  Her teammates were all very aware of the situation and much more sportsmanlike and non-verbally aggressive (I would have given them 5 Fun Points).

Anyways, I switched with a teammate to play out as I had been playing in net for the most of the game and that's when the girl really got on my nerves and I started to chirp back at her when she was yelling at her team.

"So-and-so, watch Glasses!"

"Glasses is moving up, come on Defense!"

I always try to make mental notes of the names of my opponents (I find it helpful to keep track of who's who so that I can call for a pass from them by name if they're not paying attention), and while running by her, we had this exchange:

"Someone cover Glasses!"

"Emily, my name is Tim! Call me Tim!"

[without skipping a beat] "Someone cover Tim!"

I could hear teammates from both sides and onlookers around the park chuckling.
Mission accomplished; I humanized myself.  At least she hadn't been calling me "Ponytail" or "Asian."

I scored for our team last, but we lost 7 - 3.  Oh well.

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On a related note, I was with some friends and family at the Hamburger $2.85 food cart downtown a few months ago and upon receiving my order (which was near identical to my brother-in-law's), I noticed this on my burger wrapper:

The server drew glasses on my wrapper to differentiate between us! Absolutely HILARIOUS! XD

Oh yeah and last week I finally got new glasses after six years. I can see again!

And here are some soccer related pictures:

Me being a ham with my cousin Nic at the FIFA Women's World Cup (WWC) at some meaningless match with teams that no one can remember (June 8, 2015)

 

FIFA WWC - Nigeria vs USA. June 16, 2015

FIFA WWC - Canada vs Switzerland. June 21, 2015.
Canadian Women's National Team making the rounds thanking supporters.

Voyageur's Cup Final - Vancouver Whitecaps defeating Montreal Impact, August 26, 2015

 

Still alive, just busy. Sigh.

I know, I hardly blog anymore. I'm sorry to my one and a half faithful readers out there in Internet-land.  I'm just too physically and perhaps mentally exhausted to sit down and write after a full day's work plus other life duties (eg. church).  More sighing.

If you need proof of my continued existence, I update my Flickr almost every weekday with doodles on my chalkboard mug.  The last time I mentioned it, I had 53 pictures. Now I have 319 (or is it 317?). Yay.

And my Twitter feed is still going strong and that gets updated daily. DAILY!
This month's theme was to tweet in different languages.  Here are the translations for the month of May, still responding to my very important question: Have my bowels moved today?

May 1 – Yes (English)

May 2 – Oui (French)

May 3 – Si (Spanish)

May 4 - Ja (Danish)

May 5 – Shi (Mandarin Chinese)

May 6 – Sim (Portuguese)

May 7 – Ken (Hebrew)

May 8 – Ndiyo (Swahili)

May 9 – Na’am (Arabic)

May 10 – Han (Hindustani)

May 11 – Ye (Korean)

May 12 – Nai (Greek)

May 13 – Ano (Czech)

May 14 – Hai (Japanese)

May 15 – Baleh (Pashto)

May 16 – Yebo (Zulu)

May 17 - Bai (Basque)

May 18 - Ne (Greek again, oops)

May 19 - Aa (Inuktitut)

May 20 - Haw (Lakhota)

May 21 - Taip (Lithuanian)

May 22 - Hajur (Nepali)

May 23 - Va (Romani)

May 24 - Ioe (Samoan)

May 25 - Ae (Maori)

May 26 - Tak (Polish)

May 27 – Óo (Tagalog)

May 28 – Vâng (Vietnamese)

May 29 – Awo (Amharic)

May 30 – Da (Russian)

May 31 - E'he' (Cree)

They all translate to "yes."

History Maker 2015 in Chilliwack during Victoria Day long weekend was a blast and a success since no kids were left behind, haha.  But in addition to that, many heard from God and made life-impacting decisions to follow Jesus. I am completely blown away that I get to witness and journey along with my little (well, some are much bigger than me) brothers and sisters at my church. I am so unworthy and yet God still let's me do stuff for Him. It doesn't make sense. Only by His grace and mercy does it start to make sense though.  The City Harmonic and Omega Levine were really cool too.  The two videos linked above were a labour of love by David and are just a glimpse of how MMMPPPHHH the weekend was.

Chelsea FC were awarded the Barclay's Premiere League trophy last week, Whitecaps FC are doing really well this year, and the Women's World Cup, of which Vancouver is a host city, is a week away.

And most importantly, I have a niece now! Almost three weeks old! And a moustache! Crazy!

I'm googling instructions on how to hold a baby properly.

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Gas has been in the 129.9 - 134.9¢/litre range the past few weeks. Those buggers.

Scott Summers ain't got nuthin' on me

It's been almost six years since I've had a new pair of glasses and about two years since I've had my eyes properly checked by an optometrist.

....so I did the most reasonable thing possible and today I bought a Groupon for lasik eye surgery! YEAH! Booked my appointment for April 15.

Yay me! \o/

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Gas has been on the up since I've posted and hovering around the 120s, but I just saw it for 119.9¢/litre.

#stormchips

Maritime Canada, I stand with you as you brace for round two of more wintry, stormy weather this weekend.  I love how this is a thing ("thing" being a hashtag on Twitter) and makes me proud to be Canadian.  Stormchips!!! A Mari usque ad Mare!

Read this now if you're confused: 
Nova Scotia's first big storm of 2015 brings panic for #stormchips

ALL MINE! MUAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA!!!!

no name Club Pack regular ripple cut potato chips, aka 1.65lbs of deep fried starchy joy ($4.18 before tax)

These are my current all time favourite because lightly salted.
no name lightly salted ripple cut potato chips (50% less sodium than the above)

I too have my #STORMCHIPS! Now grant me my honourary Nova Scotian citizenship!

....however, here in Vancouver, we've been breaking double digit temperatures this week and had some really nice, sunny days to boot. And the electricity hasn't gone out once.

The best part about this is even though I paid at time of purchase:

$4.18 (750g)

$5.00 (4 x 250g bags)

plus GST ($0.46)

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for a total of $9.64,  

I earned 3600 PC Points (my man, Galen Weston, Jr.!) for the purchase, which if I apply the future savings now, these five bags only cost me a little over $6.00

COME ON STORM, BRING IT ON! I'M READY!

Lip Balm Love and Headband Help

I was initially going to title this post "Chapstick Celebration," until I just did some googling and found out that ChapStick is actually a brand and that "lip balm" is the generic term for lip specific moisturizing products.

So in some recent Tim-news, I finished my roll of lip balm (is it a roll? a stick? a container?) which almost never happens to me! It was kind of exciting.  Usually I'll lose it, or have it melt in my pocket, or the dog will find and eat it.  It feels like an accomplishment.  Actually it IS an accomplishment. I used a whole stick of lip balm all by myself without any of it going to waste! Actually that's a lie. There's about 1mm stuck to the bottom of the cap where some of it melted and stuck and I can't get it out. No matter, I bought a 3-pack and I'm onto the next one!

Old one looks disgusting. New one looks like a work of art!

Also while walking outside the downtown library a couple weeks ago, a brown dude with really nice hair stopped me suddenly and I thought he was going to ask for directions, but instead he pointed at my head and asked, "Excuse me, where did you get that?" He was referring to my headband.

Hello old friend :-)

I pointed in the direction of London Drugs up the street and explained that he could find them in almost any big box store.

"What do you call this thing?" he continued asking, as he made a horseshoe outline in the air with his fingers.

"It's called a headband.  If you go to the store and can't find it, ask for a plastic headband," I replied.

"Plastic headband.  Ok!"  he said, as we parted ways.

He had a huge grin on his face, as if I'd just given him some magical beans and told him they'd grow overnight

I felt like I had just done some good in the world.  Headbands are so underrated. Gotta love 'em.

I don't know how to take selfies. I also don't know how to use my pinky finger.

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I've seen gas as low as 97.9 over a week ago. It's been hovering around 100.9 and was 104.9¢/litre today.