One order of metrosexual, comin up!

So apparently the whole myth of women preferring men with masculine features is only true when it applies to a fling - when it comes to a partner in life, women tend to choose men with more delicate, less masculine (read: feminine) features. Which I could have told you a long time ago - we all know those hot angled jawlines are highly likely to be jutting around in other women's bedrooms. This is one of the top 5 rules in the women's dating handbook. Duh.

Still an interesting article with how they approached the whole study though. Read it here .

August long weekend - I've converted

So I've become a cottager. Never thought I'd say those words, but it actually is fun!! Especially when it's your cottage. And it's new. And you bring up a bunch of awesome people. Which, by coincidence, is exactly what happened this weekend.

Jake and I joined Peter, Theresa and Adam on Saturday afternoon (after BRUTAL traffic) but as soon as we got there I felt a sense of relief. We tanned on the dock and the patio for the rest of the day, made delicious food and despite great attempts, I fell asleep before midnight while watching a movie on Saturday night. But it was worth it, cause Sunday we were all very well rested and ready to celebrate Adam's birthday - the big guy turned 22! We surprised him with some very fun "fiesta" decorations and he was sincerely touched. Proud moment for hig big sis.

We lost our dignity (Jess's awesome quote from Friday night) on Sunday night - we bought a deck of cards and decided to play Kings. It's been a long time since I've laughed so hard and also been so drunk after drinking a measly small portion of vodka. There were some gems that night, some of which I have quoted on FB and others that cannot be divulged.

In other unrelated news, the 5 of us woke up very grumpy the next morning (note: grumpy could mean hungover). It was cloudy, which was fine with us after a full day of tanning the day before, so we watched some movies and ate some more and chilled to have some great talks. I had to leave a bit earlier to go home and pack for Montreal again (booo) but it was a great end to a fantastic weekend.

On a side note, Adam bought the Amy Winehouse CD and I have another item to add to my addictions list! She is an amazing singer, so soulful and I love her lyrics... I don't even care that she is an alcoholic/cokehead, cause her talent far outweighs any judgment I could make about her.

That's what friends are for

On Wednesday I was feeling kinda lonesome in Montreal and didn't want to be a target for middle-aged men with peanuts again, so I decided to do a little blast from the not-so-distant past and have dinner with a floormate and fellow Ivey chick, Stef. She's in Montreal working at L'Oreal and doing amazingly (job is a dream one) and she's engaged! Finally got to see the ring - lovely. It's so surreal when your friends start to get married and think about kids - I found out a girl from our graduating class already had a baby and got married - practically one year after grad!! Everyone has their own path I guess...

Then yesterday I flew home 1/2 hour earlier than usual to see my parents before they left for the 25th wedding anniversary Europe trip. All I have to say is my parents are really becoming one of the cutest couples I know. They are totally a cohesive unit and the huge differences in their personalities have become less extreme recently to the point where they compliment each other well. I'm excited for them!

After that, Adam and I drove for coffee and met up with this weekend's cottage crew: Theresa, Peter, Jake, Adam and I. It looks like it's going to be an awesome time with nearly perfect weather - gonna make an effort not to fry myself this time and actually keep my tanned skin. SUPER PUMPED for it if you can't tell!

After that Jess and Jamie came over and we stayed up til almost 2 talking and reminiscing and catching up. They are seriously like family, I feel warm and cozy whenever they're around.

In a nutshell, that's it. Trying to enjoy Toronto while I'm here on weekends, and getting excited to help Adam celebrate the big birthday and his first day at work! The great gift is slowly coming around, it's gonna be good...

BURN!

Muahahaha.

Reason #66 - "I wanted to get a raise"

Sly little devils! I think this is one of the best articles I have read in the Globe and Mail. I love that top on the men's list is "had a desirable body" while women's was "I realized I was inlove".

"To change the topic of conversation" should really be "I wanted to shut her up". Note: we all know that one, boys.

Cruelest: "To give that person an STD" - what the deuce!!!

Saddest: "Help me fall asleep". Ouch.

Most succinct: "Wanted to feel good". Hey, it beats eating a pound of chocolate.

Read more about them here.

A serious decision

After a very intense discussion with my coworker Fred, I have decided my ultimate meal (assuming my budget and ‘dietary restrictions’): it would consist of a medium done sirloin steak, a (few) glass(es) of red wine and a nutella jar with a spoon for dessert.

Yes, that sounds either too simple or gross, but for me, it’s heaven. And it’s not even that bad for you. Yes, a little fatty, but what else would someone want after a tough day at work then to sit down for a nice steak. My parents are the most surprised at this choice, since I was (mostly) vegetarian since the age of 4. It seems my body is making up for lost time – my dad and brother, the carnivores, are finally allowed to eat meat guilt-free too.

P.S. I might have to add French onion soup as an appetizer to that list. Sooooo goooood….

Joseph the Beatboxer on Nouvelle Star

Um.... DAYUM!!

Cry Me A River (Acapella)

Awesome!!!

Hmmm...

Life is not fair sometimes. And that's all I have to say about that.

Isn't it ironic?

It's funny, I had a little moment today while in a meeting with my client - we were discussing how exactly we envision the customers and how best to suit their needs. Which sounds dandy and of course is an interesting project, but when we starting categorizing the customers into groups, it made me realize that this is how corporations see us: "young spender", "middle-aged mortgage owner" or "retiree". I realize this is the only way to make marketing effective - to group similar people into one group and create a strategy/campaign that they will all likely respond to in the same way.

It just seems ironic that we spend our lives trying to stand out, be original and unique, when in the end we are labeled anyway, especially so concisely as a "young spender" in my case. Especially since my recent motto is that "boring is boring" - I'm always worried about people who might judge me, but really the tragedy is to be forgotten! I'd take a little judgment than be lumped into that grey mass that no one knows and labels using just a few words. We don't deserve to be dumped into one category, but you have to fight to make your individuality apparent - that's definitely a goal I can work towards.

What the deuce is this!??!

1,500 Philippino prisoners choreographed and dance the Thriller - whaaaaat?

Another jam-packed weekend

So the past few days have been pretty hectic… after flying back home from Montreal on Thursday night, I had a few hours to get ready for the United Way event organized at our Markham location and to pack for the cottage so that I could leave straight after work. The United Way event was a HUGE success, and left such a good feeling except for the people who ruined it for me after. I don’t even want to get into the rage-inducing details, but all I have to say is that office politics far surpass people’s desire to do any greater good, and that I have much more faith in students doing a good job at these kinds of events than I do in adults. They seem to be more concerned with outward appearances and credit than with the actual purpose of the event, and maintaining monopolistic control over whatever they can. I don’t get it, and I have a growing distaste for these kinds of people. But really, to conclude, double the amount of projected people showed up and everyone had a great time - we raised about $1200!!

Anyway, after the exhausting BBQ, I met up with Eva and Sanjay at Finch station and we drove to Jim’s cottage. It ended up being on a small island on Lake Joe (which neighbours Lake Rosso) with Kenny G in the cottage next door! Which yes, is kinda lame but still kinda cool? Anyway, point being I’ve rarely seen such a nice cottage with nice toys and amazing food. We got spoiled in every way possible. Saturday was a flip cup competition and ended off with a hung-over 2 hour ride on the kayak for moi and swimming and chillin for others. The only bad part was my stupidity in not putting any sunscreen on and therefore still hardly being able to sit comfortably. We ended off at Eva’s boss’ cottage, which was one of the nicest cottages I’ve ever seen. DAMN.

Once we got back into Etobs, Eves and I went for a little golf action in Centennial for about ½ hour. I (surprisingly) didn’t get any rage and even (gasp!) enjoyed myself. We are playing a tournament in mid-August, so we are trying hard to really not suck and embarrass ourselves. As much.

P.S. The picture above is from a dance party from Saturday night, which was epic and consisted mostly of Eva and myself. Kudos to the Polaks.

Montreal week 3

So this week was my 3rd week traveling on this project to Montreal... I have to admit it's wearing on me a bit, but I really can't complain. I've got my groove down with what to pack, where to stay, where to eat etc.... I have yet to meet any local people, but I'm sure that will come with time.
Every week Trish leaves after work on Wednesday, so when it comes to dinnertime it's up to me to decide what I wanna do alone. The past few weeks I've gone on walks around the city, which is nice cause it's the only chance I have to do that, but this time I stopped for some pesto pasta on Rue Crescent, which seems to be a pretty happenin place in Montreal. I chatted with people and read my magazine while at dinner, and when I was done these 2 older men approached me. One tried to offer me peanuts, and the other told me he owned a very high-end clothing store. Both men were Lebanese, and the peanut one told me about his stories as a pilot and current travel agency. Usually I would dismiss these fools for being too old, but it was a social and funny break in my solitary evening. The only bad part came when my friend Wassim, who recommended the place, realized later that it's often frequented by EE (Easter European ladies) and the older ME (Middle Eastern) men that want them. How nice.

Otherwise, I'm feeling my lack of time in Toronto this week - I literally got home after 9, chilled and packed for the cottage this weekend, and organized stuff for the United Way event we're throwing. I am leaving right after work to go to Jim's cottage, then come back, pack for Montreal and leave Monday morning. Did I mention I'm traveling with my dad this time?? Iiiiiiinteresting...

And so it begins

Friday night we went to a lovely dinner at Saint-Tropez in Toronto. The goal: to see Maha and celebrate her last weekend before she starts the intense chemo process, which starts today and if all goes well, ends in the beginning October. It was the first time I'd seen Maha since her operation, and all I have to say is that I've rarely been so impressed by someone. She talked about the cancer openly: buying a wig, where to live during her treatment, what her plans are after the cancer and so on. I had never considered the 'everyday' parts of dealing with the disease, other than the big picture of actually fighting it, beating it and living a long full life. She talked about the more serious impact the cancer is having on her too - how to rebuild her body after the mastectomy she had, the effect of the chemo on her ability to have children, which I never knew was an issue.

Point being, this has been a sobering experience for all her friends, especially the women in our group. We are all thinking of and praying for Maha, since her attitude is really an inspiration for everyone of us.

Woo woo

Now this is the kind of news I like reading.

Not only are more teens completing high school, but the rate of teen pregnancy and those having sex is decreasing. It's pretty refreshing that all the effort that has gone into campaigns for safe sex and the importance of education is actually working.

On another note, the Globe and Mail published an article today about the fact that Canada is really high on the list of countries whose citizens smoke a lot of pot. I have to say, given even my group of friends from high school/university, I am not surprised at this stat at all. It seems that people have a pretty easygoing view on smoking weed, although funnily enough we tend to judge people who smoke cigarettes or drink & drive pretty harshly... the stat shows the rate of smokers at about 18.6% in the past 3 months, which is about 1 in 5 people. Which means at least 2 peeps on my team are statistically potheads... figuring out which ones they are will make for an interesting day today.

Esmee Denters singing ``Unwritten`` by Natasha Bedingfield

I am really starting to love this girl...

Sister, sister

So I had a nice (read: extremely delicious, expensive and wineful) dinner last night with a few colleagues from work (T and Wymond), and we inevitably dicussed relationships and Wymond's relationship with his 3 daughters (no sons). He talked about how much more fun but complicated it is to raise girls, because of all the extra ‘drama’ that can happen to them, but that he felt better equipped to handle them because he grew up with 3 sisters himself.

That got me thinking about this theory that I have that men who have at least one sister are a lot more prepared to deal with relationships with women (or at least have a very dominant mother, female cousin, you get the idea). However, the theme of the “man with a sister” is so powerful that I find that every guy I have a close relationship with has at least one sister, and often times an older one.

I can say with confidence that I think my brother is an excellent person (among other factors) because he has an older sister. That sounds extremely cocky, and it’s not meant to because I am not crediting myself with his upbringing, but simply the fact that as a child, he had a female to analyze and understand as I was going through the different phases in my life. Now that I am slightly less crazy and more mature, he seems to “get” me and what I’m going through without me having to say much about it. Although now he’s at a disadvantage because he is just TOO mature for his age (hahaha, poor Adam).

Anyway, on that note, I have to say that despite my being brought up with excellent male figures in my life (note: grandpa, dad, Adam and more ‘uncles’ than I could count), I don’t have an easy time understanding guys at all. In fact, I think I am usually attracted to guys that are the exact opposite in some ways to my role models (although they are always nice guys at least). I really find the whole concept of dating extremely difficult, and stay on a plateau of “this is not for me” which is interrupted by very rare moments where I meet someone I have a connection with (which has happened maaaybe 4-5 times in my life), I wear my heart on my sleeve and then get it broken, and then the plateau continues at an even lower level than before. Plus I feel like men have this evil radar that as soon as they sense a girl is finally over them, they renew contact and bring up all sorts of emotion. It’s exhausting. So on that note, as of today (along with my friend Eves), I am making a conscious decision to think much less about all those shenanigans and really focus on ourselves, so that our love lives become secondary concerns.

On a separate note, I just found out that I added something called sitemeter to my profile, which tracks and categorizes the people that visit your blog! Pretty cool - although I expect most of my leads to be Google searches like “young, 20-something cynical traveler”.

Robots have feelings..? But Western people don't.

An interesting weekend - Friday was a reunion party for Western kids, which was an interesting event. I started off the evening with drinks and food at Ki, which I am really starting to get addicted to (especially those lychee martinis, you don’t even see those coming and all of a sudden you’re a very happy tipsy girl). The night then progressed to dinner with the girls at Monsoon for Summerlicious, which I couldn’t enjoy because of too much edamame at Ki. Anyway, the 2 bottles of wine were enjoyable and made going to the Phoenix that much more bearable.

We girls were dressed to the nines in our high heels and freakum dresses, and arriving at the Phoenix was kind of a shock. I had been there before, but some girls’ first impressed was the dingy alternative music room, which I’m sure freaked the Western out of them. Thankfully, they were comforted with $2.50 drinks and the more Western crowd that arrived pretty late into the night. By 1am I was done (as were my feet) and I took good old faithful (a.k.a. the subway) back home. The Western crowd didn’t disappoint, in that they are just as hot and generic as they ever were, and not much has changed since I left.

Saturday evening I went to see Transformers, which was surprisingly good considering the crap reviews it got. I have come to expect that I get emotional at movies (the whole separating film from reality doesn’t work for me), but I didn’t expect Transformers would evoke any kind of feeling. They totally worked the girly angle, and gave the Transformers human sounds and practically made them cry when they got hurt, including puppy dog eyes etc. Of course I didn’t cry, but that whole scene tugged at the heartstrings a little. Pathetic isn’t it??

I ended off the weekend with a chill day of TV, shopping, work and taking it easy with Eves. And some late night packing because I couldn’t get to sleep. Sometimes I’m glad I live at home because I wouldn’t want to subject a boyfriend to seeing me wake-up at 5am in a rotten and tired mood (poor Adam, he deals with a lot).

Montreal week 2 underway! We shall see how this one rolls out… no skunking yet; the boys are actually really sweet here. Although I may be proven wrong when Trish and I go out on the town…

Mon becomes Monique

So today was my first day in Montreal... I must say, traveling for work feels a little odd and I actually felt like the whole day was a little surreal. I couldn't sleep last night after a little drama with Jake and a Facebook relationship (who knew that writing on someone's wall was public information??) and got up this morning on minimal sleep.

Up at 5, out of the house at 6, leaving Toronto on a jet plane by 7, in Montreal by 8. Unfortunately the nice flow of the morning (including a nice nap on the plane) was ruined by our crazy mofo of a cab driver who literally almost killed us 5 times in 20 minutes. I am on the more aggressive side of driving, but DAMN - I didn't even look as we were driving and instead focused on Trish so that I wouldn't see the truck almost smash us or people giving our cabbie, and indirectly us, some crazy French insulting gesticulation.

I spent all day with no internet, in my cubicle with all the information one could want about segmentation and trying to finish off work from Toronto. I was on no food til 2pm (which is rare for me), after which a huge meal of pad thai polished me off for the rest of the day. The group of guys working on the project with Trish and I are a very interesting assortment of people - I was fascinated with just "people watching" our group dynamics - really fun.

Anyway, as I am writing this I am sitting in my Hilton bathrobe in my exec suite after taking a bath in my huuuuge bathroom, eating a chocolate covered strawberry for dessert and choosing which side of my king sized bed to sleep on. Hard knock life? Perhaps not. I have to say, I could really get used to this... although I have a funny feeling that I only got this sweet room becuase my dad booked it with his sweet, sweet exec card which I don't own. But we'll see if I can work my magic tomorrow and try and book this room for the rest of my 2 months here.

Between work and sitting in my yummy white bathrobe, Trish and I went for dinner at Otto, the restaurant in the W hotel. We had the best meal - basically split an appetizer, entree, dessert and bottle of wine - delicious! We then took a wine-y walk down Sainte Catherine and watched the jazz festival from the sidelines and then stopped at PharmaPrix (which is Shoppers Drug Mart in disguise. We had the best talk and laughs, and then headed back to our hotels to get to bed... but I couldn't help appreciating my second last night in my sweet hotel room (which is really my first night).

God bless Montreal!! and Hilton Hotels!!

Mon the artist

After a tough weekend and Monday, my friend Ashley decided to help me relax by inviting me over for a delicious dinner and to paint. And by paint I don’t mean her house, I mean on real canvas and requiring skill and inspiration as an ‘artist’. I frequently bailed out of or avoided art class when it came to drawing or painting, because, in short, I SUCK at it. Even Van Gogh, who looks kinda easier it actually really hard to imitate. I tried another strategy, and as Ashley put it, did a lot of blending and hitting the canvas with a paper towel full of paint. It sounds kindergarten, but it actually turned out well for a first effort. Ashley rocked her painting, and then serenaded me with “Girl, put your record on” which I now can’t get out of my head. Thanks Assley.

On a separate note, I just wanted to comment on how waiting to find something out or ‘not knowing’ is really, really getting to me. I think, like most people, I can be ok with receiving information and getting closure, and that will help me move on. But I can’t stand the wait for that information, because it involves me overanalyzing different scenarios (and usually worst case) while the other person has no idea what’s going on. GAH! I hate it. I will feel much better when I just know what’s going on. This little rant is obviously about me waiting for ...something... it's happening across multiple areas of my life right now and I despise the wait!

Update (on one part of the wait): the surgery went well and it hasn’t spread to the right breast, which is one piece of good news.