The best part? Pregnant friend! She is due one day before my birthday. I told her she has to have her baby on my birthday. Also if it's a girl, name it after me. It's just logical. *Note-Matt is not pregnant.
What kind of things do my friends do on the weekend? Well, not everyone has seen the Star Wars movies so Steve is hosting a marathon. I'm not even a huge fan but I do like popcorn. Oh, and my friends. I think we're only doing the original ones- I can't handle Pinocchio's, I mean, Hayden Christenson's, acting. So wooden and unnatural, if you didn't get that.
I went to a U of A volleyball game with Steph and Bryn. Bryn saved my bacon with her quick thinking- it was $15 for an adult to go! Students paid only $5. Bryn bought me a ticket. Otherwise I probably would have just gone home. Since when was college volleyball exciting enough to warrant spending more than a movie ticket price?
I spent most of my time trying to ignore the Golden Bear mascot. He was seriously irritating! I think it has to do with his eyes. Also, part of me wants to be annoyed that the girls' and boys' have separate mascots. Why is this necessary if they represent the same school? Doesn't that confuse things? The only saving grace is that the girls' mascot is way cooler and fiercer. It turned out that this was the case for the games too- girls won, boys lost. It's strange attending sporting events at the U of A considering I never watched them at my own university. It was fun though.
Friday was a long, busy, fantastic day. I worked from 7-3 and got a lot accomplished. Then I immediately went shopping and bought some things I really needed (like pants since it is getting pretty cold). I went home and picked up Bryn on the way. We hung out while Matt cooked us an epic Indian feast from scratch (Steph ended up over and had some too). With the kitchen in shambles we rushed out to the Princess Theatre and caught the late showing of the Invention of Lying (Hilarious! Love!) and then came home, cleaned up and fell fast asleep.
Saturday we got the burnt out headlight fixed on the Kiester before heading over to the Farmer's Market to meet up with Carole and Severin. I can't even remember the last time I saw Carole. She's doing fabulous and I really missed her. I loved all of the fall colors and foods at the market. We bought some amazing spanakopita, butter tarts, blackberries, gimchi and kettlecorn. There was a craft show going on so we explored that and I picked up a pretty, new necklace. We checked out an open house for a new wellness clinic and enjoyed some free juice and snacks. Finally we had a bite to eat at the Artisan's Resto-cafe. Excellent!
After saying goodbye to Carole, I decided to bake some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Donna came by for a visit and offered some moral support. The cookie dough was insanely amazing but the cookies ended up burnt, despite all my efforts. I have a few theories as to why this happened- I used natural peanut butter (which is a lot more oily), the temperature/time instructions for the recipe may have been off or maybe my oven is insanely hot? I don't know. The last couple pans were less burnt so I did try to fix the problem. I seriously baked one pan of them for 5 minutes! Insanity!!!
Tuesday nights at Room at the Top (a bar at the U of A) they have a Name that Tune contest. Steph has created a team and has been going pretty consistently. I work a lot of Tuesday evenings so I'm not usually available but I was this week! She had really talked me up which turned out to be an epic fail but it was a lot of fun. I did contribute (a lot more than Matt or Sev did!) but I learned that my musical knowledge is pretty selective. I know a lot of music but most of it isn't mainstream and therefore probably won't turn up as a question. Hahah! I did get the Hawksley Workman song right away though! Our team put up an admirable fight, however, we were thwarted with a few terrible categories and ended up in 4th place (out of 7). The saddest part was that we lost to our rivals! Curses! I vow to brush up on Top 40 stuff and redeem myself after Thanksgiving weekend (when I have another Tuesday night free). We're always looking for new team members (even on a casual basis) so if you're interested let me know!
My supper date with Steph and her friends was a lot of fun. We met at Maki Maki and ordered a lot of sushi! Everything and everyone wasn't photographed but here's a little peak at a few of the delicious dishes! I would go there again since the prices were okay and the sushi was yummy! I think I need a plate of tuna sashimi all to myself though. I miss the sushi place we went to in Korea with it's included miso soup and cheaper prices. Maki Maki does have a better menu than that place though. Does anyone else love sushi like I do? What's your favorite kind?
After working a 12 hour shift I was greeted by these silly boys. Sev decided to enter the 24 Hour Film Contest this year and recruited Matt to help him. They entered a few years ago but had been unable to finish their film in time. They decided to use a stop animation tableau style since it cut down on budget expenses, made reshooting scenes easier and they didn't have to worry about giving recognition to actors or getting permission to shoot at various locations.
The theme was "romantic western" so they had some sort of space cowboys thing going on. They also had to include some chocolate coins as props and have the words "reel" and "fabulous" somewhere in the dialogue. I'm not sure when they find out if they won anything but it's an accomplishment that they actually managed to make the whole thing (and not stay up all night doing so). I haven't seen the film yet but I'm looking forward to it!
Before I went to Korea I was struggling at a job that didn't make me happy. In fact, most of the time it made me pretty miserable. One of the few things I loved about that job was getting to work with my friend Diane. It's been too long since I've seen her but we finally managed to meet up. It was so refreshing to hang out with someone who understands my sense of humor and holds so many of the same interests as I do.
I'm not so sure of this season of sytycd canada. I've been pretty underwhelmed so far. Can it be that the first season spoiled me? Or that they are playing too many dance shows back to back? Maybe. I do enjoy Emanuel (they fixed his hair... hmm... no surprised) and I love Melanie Mah. I'm not really attached to any of the contestants like last year and what is with all of the falls and mistakes!? Sloppy stuff. I keep hoping that it will pick up or maybe the new American one will be better?
Hope everyone is having a good Labour Day weekend. I wish I had tomorrow off but I am working. It's okay though since I will get paid overtime and get a day off in lieu (that hopefully I can use to get this Friday off since it's my Dad's birthday). Last night Matt and I hung out at Steph's house and played some fun games with her and a couple of her friends. It was a good time. Matt drank too much Grog (literally, he was drinking something called Grog) and ended up falling asleep at 11pm. Classy! Steph, Bryn and I went out though (Justin also wasn't feeling up to it) and had a nice time chatting away at O'Byrne's Pub.
While unpacking I found a lot of interesting things. There was a lot of crazy stuff from my university days that brought back some fun memories. Here's an old birthday present from my awesome friend Dylan. Ten victories!! In case you can't read what the coupons say- "This ticket hereby grants the holder 1 victory. The holder has the right to run up and down the halls whilst yelling, "I win, I win". Note: This voucher does not guarantee the right to a celebratory dance." I love my friends. I still have all ten waiting to be redeemed (there is no expiration date) so watch out people!
It was Miracle Day at Dairy Queen. Of course we had to take time out of our busy day to support it. Charity never tasted so good!
Now that I am back in the real world (aka full time employment) I definitely savor my time off. On the weekend we went grocery shopping and it was fantastic. It's one of those errands I've always liked and as a result we had tons of delicious food options. We decided to make a huge supper filled with East Indian goodness. We had naan, aloo gobi, palak paneer, butter chicken and salad. We invited Steph and Alisse over and somehow managed to finish all the food. I kind of wish I didn't work so many evenings so I could do this sort of thing more often. Get a load of the massive cauliflower that we bought!
