I had a support appointment in Newmarket. As I pulled out of the parking lot at the end of the appointment I noticed that I was a few notches away from empty on the fuel gauge. Sitting there at the red light I was flanked on both sides of the road by a gas station. Going against my better judgement I decided to wait until I hit the 400 to find an Esso just so I could rack up more aeroplan points. Little did I know...
As I drove further away from Newmarket and closer to the highway the roads became darker and darker as there were less street lights and less buildings. There were no gas stations. By the time I hit the 400 the fuel gauge was nearly empty, but I calmed myself with the fact that the fuel light didn't go on yet. I still had time. As I was gunning it down the highway I was trying to decide whether I should go slower to save more gas or go faster to try to get to the next gas station on time. I turned off at nearly every exit to try to find a gas station, but each exit was as dark as the night with no blinding white lights nearby to signal that there was gas nearby.
I was starting to get nervous. I drove around a bit at one exit only to use what little I had left to find a closed gas station. The fuel light went on, I started praying like mad, and at the same time started scolding myself for, one: stubbornly wanting those aeroplan points and two: never calling CAA to get a membership for the past four years. As if that would help matters.
I went back on the highway praying that the next exit would bring a gas station, but the darkness just seemed to loom on forever. Who knew that such a major highway would be so deserted?
Finally a sign announcing the existence of a service station relieved my fears and answered my prayers. It was an Esso to boot as well. In the end I didn't get stranded, got my gas, AND my aeroplan points. Oh God is good.
I should get on that CAA membership.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Family
My whole extended family on my step dad's side came up to Canada to celebrate my convocation and my grandparent's 50th anniversary along with my maternal grandma and some of my mom's cousins. To make things easier I always referred to them as either the "white" side of the family or the "yellow" side. It was a good system.
It was a great time of family bonding; the joking and teasing from the uncles, the bantering, being spoiled by the aunts, the antics with the cousins, and just the unconditional warm family love that you could feel emanating from everyone. It was beautiful. It made me treasure my family more. I absolutely looooved it.
With the family I finally got to hit up Niagara Falls as a bona fide tourist. Did the whole boat tour thing and we took THE funniest group photo. Everyone has just got the wonkiest expressions on their faces.
We also went to this sleepy town east of Kingston and chilled at a B& B there called Sleepy Hollow. That was a first as well. I loved it. It was so quaint and cozy with a delightful country feel. It reminded me of my Stillwater, Oklahoma days. My oldest cousin, who's my age and I got to share a room with a massive king size bed. We could've fit another one of our itty bitty cousins in between us or two.
One of the funniest memories from that trip was when we went across the border to New York state to see this old castle a la Casa Loma. I was a bit nervous since the last time I tried crossing the border without my passport we hit some troubled waters. This time I was driving with my cousin and we were blasting the music. The customs officer asked us a bunch of questions, but the best one was "how do you know each other?" We gave each other a look thinking...would this guy actually buy the fact that we are indeed related? It was plain from appearances that there's no way we can be biologically related. She's blonde and blue eyed with a pale complexion, and I've got black hair and brown eyes. So we threw it out there tacking on "BY MARRIAGE," at the very end hoping for the very best. In the end he believed us to our great relief, and we went on our merry way.
The castle on Heart Island was beautiful, but a bit disappointing on the inside since it was never finished. As we toured the islands we found out that some people bought some of the islands for as low as $24 way back in the day. Now they go for about oh... a few million. Dang! What an investment. I should be buying myself real estate like that. What with global warming and everything I should buy some dinky little island in the Arctic Circle or something. Maybe that'll pay off.
On the way back to the Great White North we stopped by a go-kart track and roared around the track. It was great fun although I will never will wear a skirt to go go-karting in the future. We also hit up the batting cages where I got whacked by a 70mph fast ball. That put me out of commission, and I didn't even get a war bruise to show for it.
Oh fun times with the family.
It was a great time of family bonding; the joking and teasing from the uncles, the bantering, being spoiled by the aunts, the antics with the cousins, and just the unconditional warm family love that you could feel emanating from everyone. It was beautiful. It made me treasure my family more. I absolutely looooved it.
With the family I finally got to hit up Niagara Falls as a bona fide tourist. Did the whole boat tour thing and we took THE funniest group photo. Everyone has just got the wonkiest expressions on their faces.
We also went to this sleepy town east of Kingston and chilled at a B& B there called Sleepy Hollow. That was a first as well. I loved it. It was so quaint and cozy with a delightful country feel. It reminded me of my Stillwater, Oklahoma days. My oldest cousin, who's my age and I got to share a room with a massive king size bed. We could've fit another one of our itty bitty cousins in between us or two.
One of the funniest memories from that trip was when we went across the border to New York state to see this old castle a la Casa Loma. I was a bit nervous since the last time I tried crossing the border without my passport we hit some troubled waters. This time I was driving with my cousin and we were blasting the music. The customs officer asked us a bunch of questions, but the best one was "how do you know each other?" We gave each other a look thinking...would this guy actually buy the fact that we are indeed related? It was plain from appearances that there's no way we can be biologically related. She's blonde and blue eyed with a pale complexion, and I've got black hair and brown eyes. So we threw it out there tacking on "BY MARRIAGE," at the very end hoping for the very best. In the end he believed us to our great relief, and we went on our merry way.
The castle on Heart Island was beautiful, but a bit disappointing on the inside since it was never finished. As we toured the islands we found out that some people bought some of the islands for as low as $24 way back in the day. Now they go for about oh... a few million. Dang! What an investment. I should be buying myself real estate like that. What with global warming and everything I should buy some dinky little island in the Arctic Circle or something. Maybe that'll pay off.
On the way back to the Great White North we stopped by a go-kart track and roared around the track. It was great fun although I will never will wear a skirt to go go-karting in the future. We also hit up the batting cages where I got whacked by a 70mph fast ball. That put me out of commission, and I didn't even get a war bruise to show for it.
Oh fun times with the family.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
My Very First Wedding Present
I know a few years ago I posted an entry about how my mom bought me a gift during Christmas vacation, but she wouldn't give it to me because she meant it for my wedding. I can't find the post anymore, but...
This weekend she brought it with her in honour of my convocation and so that I can wear it to Ashley and Ryan's wedding. It was a Swarvoski necklace and earring set. It was beautiful, and I can see why she initially bought it for my possible future wedding. I joked that she gave up on the hope that I would ever get married, but who knows? :P Only the Lord. :D
This weekend she brought it with her in honour of my convocation and so that I can wear it to Ashley and Ryan's wedding. It was a Swarvoski necklace and earring set. It was beautiful, and I can see why she initially bought it for my possible future wedding. I joked that she gave up on the hope that I would ever get married, but who knows? :P Only the Lord. :D
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Iron Foot
Be Aggressive, Be, Be, Aggressive
You'd think the last thing your mom would tell you is that you're not aggressive enough when it comes to driving or at least when it comes to switching lanes. But that's what mine did. When my mom was here this past reading week she was getting annoyed with the cowardice that I displayed when I was attempting to get to the other side of those dotted lines. I guess compared to the way New Yorkers drive, anything less is cowardly. Plus Guelph took whatever edge I had out of my driving skills these past four years.
But I am a wimp no more!
After four weeks of MPD, weekly trips into Toronto, and more than 1000km on the highway, coupled with mom's New York way of switching lanes, I am a confident, bona-fide lane switcher, and city driver. (But not a jerk.) I no longer balk at the thought of switching lanes multiple times to get to an exit, nor am I doomed to drive as slow as a turtle if I have the misfortune to be stuck behind a slowpoke. Nor do I wait until there's absolutely no oncoming traffic or wait until the traffic's 10 km away before I switch.
This girl's got her city driving groove back! YEAH! Now I fully enjoy driving. I think before I gave off the idea that I didn't enjoy driving, which was somewhat true. I didn't enjoy driving only when I was driving under circumstances that scared me. i.e. snowstorm, rainstorm, heavy traffic. But now I fully enjoy it because I have so much more control over my car. The only downside is coming back to Guelph puts a cramp in my style because of the sudden increased numbers of police cruisers coming out of the woodworks. I remember thinking to myself that I needed to go online to familiarize myself with the Impala logo so I can identify police cruisers easily. Sigh.
I need to obey the speed limits.
I need to obey the speed limits.
I need to obey the speed limits.
You'd think the last thing your mom would tell you is that you're not aggressive enough when it comes to driving or at least when it comes to switching lanes. But that's what mine did. When my mom was here this past reading week she was getting annoyed with the cowardice that I displayed when I was attempting to get to the other side of those dotted lines. I guess compared to the way New Yorkers drive, anything less is cowardly. Plus Guelph took whatever edge I had out of my driving skills these past four years.
But I am a wimp no more!
After four weeks of MPD, weekly trips into Toronto, and more than 1000km on the highway, coupled with mom's New York way of switching lanes, I am a confident, bona-fide lane switcher, and city driver. (But not a jerk.) I no longer balk at the thought of switching lanes multiple times to get to an exit, nor am I doomed to drive as slow as a turtle if I have the misfortune to be stuck behind a slowpoke. Nor do I wait until there's absolutely no oncoming traffic or wait until the traffic's 10 km away before I switch.
This girl's got her city driving groove back! YEAH! Now I fully enjoy driving. I think before I gave off the idea that I didn't enjoy driving, which was somewhat true. I didn't enjoy driving only when I was driving under circumstances that scared me. i.e. snowstorm, rainstorm, heavy traffic. But now I fully enjoy it because I have so much more control over my car. The only downside is coming back to Guelph puts a cramp in my style because of the sudden increased numbers of police cruisers coming out of the woodworks. I remember thinking to myself that I needed to go online to familiarize myself with the Impala logo so I can identify police cruisers easily. Sigh.
I need to obey the speed limits.
I need to obey the speed limits.
I need to obey the speed limits.
Hillsong United
Last Saturday I took the night off and went to the Hillsong United concert with Becky, Hannah, Amanda W. , Shona, and we met up with Selina, Aban, and Amac at the Molson Amphitheatre.
It was...uplifting to be there praising the Lord with 12,000~ other people. It's the one "concert" in my memory besides Passion where I actually came away feeling full instead of empty. There's something about the lyrics to Hillsong songs. I was praying them as I was singing them. My favourite song of the night was "I Stand". I think it was the other girls' as well. "Take it all" was a close second for me.
Aside from the spiritual aspect it was uber fun to hang with the girls. There's just something about them that even if we were just bumming around the couch it would be tons of fun, but throw in the concert and the fun factor just skyrockets through the roof.
Highlights
~ the awkward moment with the random teenage boys from NY. Awkward, but funny so it's a highlight. Besides I've had worse.
~ getting free CDs
~ getting V.I.P. seating courtesy of Miss Wong
~ headbanging in the car and showing those high school girls in the car next to us just how cool university grads can be.
~ blasting "Mighty to Save" at the loudest volume that my little Honda's speakers can play because sadly it's not a "United" song. *tear*
~ afterwards we went to Korean BBQ at Commerce Gate where we had all you can eat for $8.99. What a steal! It was really delicious and I had unlimited plum juice. Yum. The best part was when at the end when the waiter was clearing our table Becky started to sing "take, take, take it all." Hahahaha
Lowlights
There was just one lowlight. Very frustrating. On the way down to Ontario Place we were guessing the price of the parking for this massive event. We speculated that it couldn't possibly go higher than $15. That would just be ridiculous.
When we got to Ontario place we drove around looking for parking close to the entrance, but we eventually had to turn back to the parking lot farthest from the entrance. As we inched up to the ticket attendant to pay for our parking, we saw the sign say $12. We rejoiced because that was $3 lower than what we had expected. BUT! Just as we were one car away, the attendant came out of the booth with a big magnet sign, took off the $12 sign, and replaced it with the magnet that said $20. Booooooooooooooooooooo! So in the end we had to pay $20!
It was...uplifting to be there praising the Lord with 12,000~ other people. It's the one "concert" in my memory besides Passion where I actually came away feeling full instead of empty. There's something about the lyrics to Hillsong songs. I was praying them as I was singing them. My favourite song of the night was "I Stand". I think it was the other girls' as well. "Take it all" was a close second for me.
Aside from the spiritual aspect it was uber fun to hang with the girls. There's just something about them that even if we were just bumming around the couch it would be tons of fun, but throw in the concert and the fun factor just skyrockets through the roof.
Highlights
~ the awkward moment with the random teenage boys from NY. Awkward, but funny so it's a highlight. Besides I've had worse.
~ getting free CDs
~ getting V.I.P. seating courtesy of Miss Wong
~ headbanging in the car and showing those high school girls in the car next to us just how cool university grads can be.
~ blasting "Mighty to Save" at the loudest volume that my little Honda's speakers can play because sadly it's not a "United" song. *tear*
~ afterwards we went to Korean BBQ at Commerce Gate where we had all you can eat for $8.99. What a steal! It was really delicious and I had unlimited plum juice. Yum. The best part was when at the end when the waiter was clearing our table Becky started to sing "take, take, take it all." Hahahaha
Lowlights
There was just one lowlight. Very frustrating. On the way down to Ontario Place we were guessing the price of the parking for this massive event. We speculated that it couldn't possibly go higher than $15. That would just be ridiculous.
When we got to Ontario place we drove around looking for parking close to the entrance, but we eventually had to turn back to the parking lot farthest from the entrance. As we inched up to the ticket attendant to pay for our parking, we saw the sign say $12. We rejoiced because that was $3 lower than what we had expected. BUT! Just as we were one car away, the attendant came out of the booth with a big magnet sign, took off the $12 sign, and replaced it with the magnet that said $20. Booooooooooooooooooooo! So in the end we had to pay $20!
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