Monthly Archives: September 2010

Who said late night snacks had to be healthy?

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Obviously, it wasn’t me.

Because honestly, there must be at least 400 calories in this thing. My delicious chocolatey chip left over banana bread I just bought like 10 minutes ago. It doesn’t matter. I’m not one of those chicks who are all “Oh em gee, that must be sooooo unhealthy for you” and constantly look at Nutritional Information on the side of boxes. In fact, I practically make fun of anyone who dares to reach for the 0% fat free “yogurt” stuff at the grocery store. I mean 0% milk fat yogurt? What do you think yogurt is supposed to be. Give me that 4% Balkan Style with Honey! That’s what I’m talking about. Or Greek yogurt. Greeeeeeeeeek yoguuuuurrrrttttt again with honey. Mmmmmm. Excuse while I salivate in my thoughts.

You know what, maybe I’m just a hypocrite because I do recall pouring in skim milk into my coffee at Ike’s yesterday. But in my defence I just picked up the first one and it wasn’t until afterwards as some other girl meticulously regarded the labels that I realized they weren’t all the same. Big deal.

Point of this blog was to say that I have a new goal for myself.

Please hear my declaration: I, Ned, am challenging myself to be able to run all the way up the Wreck beach stairs without stopping by the end of the year. If I want to get really ambitious I might even say the end of the term. But that’s like Christmas. And… considering how lightning speed fast this first half of the term has gone by I don’t think that would be very realistic. So Internet, fellow bloggers, blog readers, this is my declaration. I challenge the rest of you to join me or make your own fitness challenge.

I am quite proud of myself though. The first day of classes my goal was to just make it up to Buchanan 3rd floor without panting. You see!? I’m already improving. Yes I would like my little gold star. Because my gold stars are very Rachel Berry-esque gold stars. Maybe not, but if you gave me a gold star I would surely keep it and stick it up on my corkboard.

Anyways, my friend did the math and Wreck Beach is equivalent to living on the 30th floor of residence. 16 steps per floor. 480 steps. 30 floors. So think of that next time you visit.

Say it with me people, we are going to get fit! None of this elevator laziness bogus. Let’s get pumped and do it! Because then you feel so good about yourself you go to Magda’s (the late night convenience store at Totem) and buy yourself a 400 calorie chocolate chip banana bread square that tastes like pure butter delight amazingness. You eat it and then you have to go to Wreck and burn it all off. You see, everything once again comes full circle.

It is pretty funny how this happens though. I remember all my teachers in high school telling me that once I move to the West Coast I was going to become a Hippie. And now look, here I am visiting nudist beach, signing up for a Yoga class and eating a lot of vegetarian dishes, if only because they look way more appealing than whatever is going down at the Asian Station for the most part. I guess this means I succumb to the Vancouverite life style. What did I expect?

Before I sign off, I just want to say that I did it – I dipped my feet in the Strait of Georgia. BASICALLY, the Pacific Ocean. Close enough. Yada yada yada. And it was amazing. I literally dashed down the last 50 steps and ran towards the water. As you can see I’m still wearing shorts, which for any of you reading this from back home is not surprising at all. I have always been, and will continue to be Miss. In De Nile of the weather gradually getting colder. And at least until Thanksgiving hits I will continue putting on my skirts and shorts as long as I can. Got to get that Vitamin D somehow, right?

On that happy thought, I love how this picture make it look like I’m the only person on the beach. Reminds me of these song lyrics from some cheesy grade six choir I used to sing in (in grade six…): There is a place I call my own. Where I can stand by the sea.

I think I just found it…

Veni, vidi, vici y’all.

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And somehow we came in tied for second?

But it’s okay because this war was not just out of two teams. This was COLOUR WARS at Totem Park.

Fast forward. Ned here on Sunday night and I can safely say I survived the non-stop weekend of activity.

The weeks here at UBC are falling into routine as are the leaves on the few deciduous trees around TePee (Totem Park – Haha I make myself laugh sometimes). Hence, I am focusing more on the weekend activity on campus. Besides the fact that campus looks completely dead [insert another stupid lame joke about crumpled dried dead leaves on the ground here] on Saturday and Sunday between the hours of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Before, you know, the booze comes out…

So this weekend was the famous Colour Wars event at Totem. Sure, you Vanier kids can have the Olympics and do whatever you want but Totem was where it was at Saturday morning. I’m in Haida [hi-dah] House and I think we were getting pretty intense with our black warrior face paint. We were playing dodgeball on the tennis courts. Tug-of-War on the field. Oh yeah – shout out to all the Haida ladies because we owned the girls only Tug-of-War match. Just saying. Won’t say against who. And also the wacko shaving cream relay.

But as my friend mentioned the morning was all about house bonding and Totem pride. All these events just make me feel like First Week all over again. I kind of wonder how long this feeling lasts, because just when you think “Alright I’m settled in now, the school year is starting, like my Prof actually mentioned something about mid-term today, all the crazy events are over…” They pull out something like this and we’re back at summer camp.

Has any one felt that? The summer camp syndrome? That we’re all stuck in this (slightly dreary because it rains) summer camp. That soon we’re all going to be packing up our stuff, hug each other good bye and lie to ourselves saying stuff like we’ll write and keep in touch. Sorry this is the twenty-first century now. Saying stuff like we’ll Skype and text.

But Colour Wars was so much fun. You really have to get into it and just go out and be hardcore and show your pride. If you don’t try and get pumped up, you’re not going to get pumped up. Which goes back to the whole idea of uni is what you make of it. So come on and carpe diem guys! I feel a little bad for all the commuter students I meet in class because I feel as though being in rez has been incredible and I don’t know what to say to people who don’t live on campus.

So, yeah Haida came in second. YES, that’s right. Second. There was so mix up, but I assure you these results are totally legit. We tied with our long rival Shuswap.

There’s lots more to come on this but right after the Colour Wars I literally raced off to Granville Island to something very cool and not secret but I know a future post is coming about it in the near future so I will expand upon this there…

Next was the G.L.O.W. Dance. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy a ticket soon enough so I got a little left out of the dance. BUT, I totally enjoyed Saturday night with some awesome dorm-baked cinnamon buns a la toaster oven. If only I could bottle that smell and keep it with me. Seriously, tips on how to attract girls into your dorm: bake cookies. It’s that simple. Screw the stomach being the way to a man‘s heart. Us women (and my fellow floormates agree) are all about the digestive track too! Food is good. End of story.

Continuing with the play-by-play of my weekend, Day of the Longboat Clinic was this morning. Totally pumped for next week. Day of the Longboat = Largest Longboat event in North America. Longboat = (in layman’s terms) glorified canoe. As well, more information to come. What makes things even more super is that I get to be our team’s runner and hit the gong. Yeah! A gong? A gong! I mean any event that has a gong ranks ten times higher on any scale/league of awesomeness. I mean – it’s going to be a flipping gong show!

Then this afternoon, I took a ride on the SkyTrain to visit my relatives and while I was on the train there was this moment where I thought to myself “Hey, my Mom has no idea where I am right now.” Right at that instant. And it just felt a little strange to me thinking about where I am. Like where the heck was I? I was moving on a train. Sure, Sheldon Cooper could’ve given me a long explanation about frames of reference. Then, part of me wants to get all deep and philosophical and say this whole train was some metaphor for my life, moving at 90 km/h (albeit no where close 340.29 m/s).

But still, how has it already been a month? Time’s a flying.

Sheesh y’all feels like it’s a dream.

“Hey Papa! Whut choo looking fo? You lookin foor some flowarhs?”

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This quote is probably the reason why you should, again, probably not spend longer than 50 seconds on the same street corner debating where to go next with your friend at East Hastings, if it is your first time in Vancouver and you are unsure of your bearings.

[Edited note: I’d like to make it clear that this post in no way reflects my views towards the homeless. In fact, I feel quite strongly about domestic poverty and have volunteered with innercity underprivileged youth before. My only intention was to describe my first impressions during my first trip to the downtown core. Continuing on…]

How did we get to E.Hastings?

Well, my friend and I decided to be adventurous and take our first trip downtown a few days ago. After spending some time on the Translink website (Oh, Translink trip planner, how my heart beats for you) we figured out a route to get to Chinatown.

So, we’re in Chinatown, passing all these typical asian markets, some small restaurants, lots of red signs. Of course it smells like roast duck, which I hope isn’t too gross since it seems everybody out here on the West Coast is uber health and/or environmentally-friendly conscious and eating roast duck contributes to my eco-foot print. Dammit. Okay, I try to help out in other ways… I’ll get back to that later.

Anyways, we decided to wander a little bit more and find ourselves on the aforementioned street. As my friend stops to take a picture of… a picture on the ground. This man begins to talk to us. That will definitely stay on my list of priceless Vancouver moments. But this post isn’t just about this infamous rue (I know you love my random french words that just slip in. For those of you that don’t “rue” = “street”.) This post is about Vancouver! Or as my french prof likes to say “Van-coo-vere”. Vancity. Whatever you like to call it.

Like I mentioned though, that incident was a few days ago. I’ve been downtown now three times and funny enough, each of these times I’ve mainly been eating.

What have I been eating, you may ask? Welll…

Anyone heard of Japadog!

Japadog [jap–uh-dawg]: A glorified hot dog stand located at the corner of Smithe and Burrad St. in Vancouver that sells “Japanese” hot dogs, which consists of your basic hot dog with Japanese flavouring, spices and/or sauces. Wasabi!

P.S. I’m totally adding this definition to urbandictionary.com because Japadog is apparently NOT defined there. I was kind of surprised and yes I looked it up then made my own definition.

My friend told me to get the #6 which includes onions, mayo and dried seaweed. It was good. But I was really hungry at the time, so I was totally bias. Definitely one of those things you have to try. Even though it was a little pricey for the poor-broke-student budget. I mean $7.65 for a hot dog? C’mon here. But I tried it. Would probably eat again. But why is this place so famous? I’m not too sure. I’m guessing it’s a real one of the kind but a whole load of sort of famous celebrities have been there. The only one coming to mind right now is Chris Columbus, the director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. So yeah. Try it if you’re brave enough. That’s to all you folk who think seaweed is spicy. (Seriously? I don’t understand you people. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Just don’t understand you.)

The Old Spaghetti Factory! Brother-sister floor dinner in Gastown. Wooot. We’re so cool we play broken telephone and bond. I think the best part was when our table started pulling the books off the wall. Yeah that’s right. The OSF has really nice vintage decor with all these old books and stuff, like you’re in a library. And well being the curious bunch we are, we wanted to see if there was actually real books. Now that sounds kind of stupid, but these books could totally sell on EBay! At least they looked old enough (hence why they’re in an old spaghetti factory) to have some kind of monetary value. Back to the food, the spaghetti with clam sauce was what I ordered and I quite enjoyed it. I’m not really a food critic, I just love to eat good food. Honestly, like which culture doesn’t? But the OSF is a chain that I’ve been to before so although it was nice. Nothing real one of a kind. However, going to Gastown at night was really pretty because it’s the touristy section and they have all these lights in the trees.

Tomato! Brunch place at Broadway & Bayswater with The blogsquad met up and it was deeee-lish. It was nice having something other than Vector and a banana for breakfast (which has become my typical morning meal these days). The hot chocolate was really nice since it was such a miserable raining day too. Belgian waffles were quite tasty and most things (if not everything) is local, homemade and fresh! Definitely recommend this place for a nice brunch if you’re feeling to go out for a semi-special occassion in the morning.

So those have been my food adventures so far. If you find any good eats, be sure to let me know! Next time downtown, I’m definitely hitting the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Mmmmm candy apples here I come!