spectacular by nature

The cruise tours I did on the weekend were awesome. The weather turned out beautifully with 32 passengers on the first tour, and 24 on the second. The first day, we saw two large stellar sea lions - one was swimming in the water, the other was sunning itself on a barge. They were huge!! We also passed by some log booms and saw about 35-40 (at least!) harbour seals lounging on the logs!! What a sight!! The touring should be easy enough to handle but it's a lot of standing around...I could feel my back starting to ache today. I'm going to try to take Mondays off so I can at least have one day off each week. Or maybe every other Monday...

Tim met me after the tour and we went to the aquarium for my birthday and also as our annual tradition (except for last year when he took his girlfriend instead). The aquarium is just not the same without the killer whales! Then it was off to dinner at Balthazar Lounge and Restaurant. Since it was fairly early, we were the only ones in the restaurant for a while! We had a kilo of PEI mussels to start and then I had a halibut dish in some sort of orange-ginger sauce and he chose the wild salmon with a honey mustard sauce.

Last night, my cousin's baby girl was a month old so we went to Kirin's downtown to have a 10 course meal. I was absolutely stuffed! I haven't eaten like that in ages! It's a good thing I've decided to put off my real birthday dinner! :)

Today was spectacular - warm, sunny weather up to 18 degrees and the cruise ship Holland America's Amsterdam was in port. The season is just heating up. I can't wait!

stepping stone

I'm so excited!! Even though the rain has started again (we really only had a one day reprieve - yesterday), I'm alright. I heard back from one of the local Harbour Cruise companies and they offered me a position!! So I'll be working the weekend shifts throughout the summer and narrating from my post aboard one of their boats. This will hopefully lead to a dream job later on. But for now, this will suffice. I don't know how I'm going to handle working 7 days a week but am probably going to take some Mondays off to count as my "weekend." It's gonna be a busy summer!

saying goodbye

I had such a good weekend - 4 days off - to do almost nothing but eat and relax that it was very hard for me to go in to work today. On top of that, H. is leaving today for Qing Dao, China. Yes, even with the SARS threat. As I write this, he should be arriving at the airport and waiting for his flight which will connect him through San Francisco, Seoul, and finally Qing Dao. He'll get there some time tomorrow evening, my time.

It was very hard to say goodbye. I know we'll probably see each other again, but I have always hated saying goodbye, especially when I don't know when I'm going to see someone again. I won't be able to just pick up the phone and call whenever I feel like it. He's excited - it's a great career opportunity for him, but I'm going to miss him and it will take some time adjusting.

passover

Finally. The long weekend is here. This is the first true holiday since New Year's (4 month long anticipation) and I've been ready for this for a long time coming. H. will be arriving tomorrow and it'll be a busy weekend but a great break from work. I'm so tired out though from this week that passing out is more the feeling than passover. Will be seeing my physio tonight to fix up my legs and lower back. I believe all that strutting about on stage has ruined my posture. :( But no regrets! The experience was definitely worth it. I was still getting some comments today about my hair. :)

the new me

Let's start with today. I showed up at work and everyone on my floor was curious to see how my hair looked. Many of them asked why I did what I did, or at least how I got involved. It was kind of cool really. People told me they loved the colour, or that I looked cute or that they loved it. A secretary apologized to me this morning saying that she was sorry that she hadn't recognized me yesterday. There were probably 5 or 6 people at least who didn't recognize me at all. The receptionist asked if this was something that I do regularly. It was so hilarious. I'm quite glad I did this. :)


boob tubes and mistaken identities

There were a few things that happened during the show that makes me wonder if I should even be doing this sort of thing. First, I lost the catalog/glossy brochure that I asked for with all of the hair styles. I was walking to the phone with it, put it down to make the call and I guess when I left, I forgot to pick it up. When I realized it and went back in less than 10 minutes, it was already gone! I just feel really bad thinking that a competitor may have picked it up...Second, I brought my camera to the show and opened it to take some photos and it got stuck! The battery had died and there had been no warning previously! So I ran off to buy a new battery at the closest photography place but of course they were just setting up the store so the time weren't steady and the place was closed. While I ran by the food court in my office tower, one Asian guy manning his food stall called out: Hi! I glanced over quickly and he yelled: "Run like the wind!" Okay. Whatever buddy. I know I was wearing a lot of makeup and my hair was done but puleeze.

Running back to our staging area, I got ready. The dresses were just as bad as yesterday but I got a different one that seemed to fit better. Daniel wanted it shorter (as he did most of the others) but I said no, I liked it the way it was! We called them boob tubes because of the worry that our chest would hang out. There was also worry on the other end. Right after the first segment, I ran out to the shop again and managed to get the battery. Went up to the office to say hello and to read the paper and rest up as the show area was quite cold after sitting around so long. My coworkers didn't recognize me. In fact, Nancy thought I was a friend of myself looking for me. She was going to tell me that I wasn't in today. How hilarious. A lot of other people didn't recognize me either.

Back to the staging area to eat lunch and then off to the second segment. The last two segments went off fine. My hair got put up into an updo and I looked like a punk. Everyone else loved the colours that showed from the back of my head; I wasn't too partial to the look but hey, I wouldn't pay someone to get this done, so to have it done for free is kinda cool. :) I went to the office again after the show was done to say hello to my boss. She just laughed and was shocked, saying she wouldn't have hired me if I had looked like this! [I wouldn't have hired myself either.] Everyone was pretty shocked and surprised. A lot of people gave me blank looks. I said hi to someone and he looked back at me as in: Do I know you? Just pure fun to see their speechless faces and the incredible disbelief in their eyes.

Of course, I got looks on the way home too but that comes with the territory. I'd do this again!

True Gothic
I'm home now and have eaten dinner and had a nice shower, removing all the products from my hair and face. The show was pretty cool and much larger than I expected. It was held in the exhibit hall and just like you would expect at a conference, tons and tons of booths selling nail and hair products. L'Oreal had a big stage set up and basically we had to stand on stage for 3 segments. The first started at 10:15am and was supposed to go til 11 but the 5 girls (including me) were on stage for an hour! Then we had to sit around in the staging area until they brought in sandwiches for lunch and we were on again at 1:15pm for another 45 min. and one last time at 4:15pm for a short wrap up. I'll tell you, modelling isn't all about the glamour - it's really hard work. Sometimes I do wonder if people just look at you and judge you for that, rather than thinking about who you really are.

I must say the dresses were hideous. If you can call them dresses. They were tube tops with a lot of straggly cloth hanging from them. In fact, one of the girls didn't even know what it was or how to put it on until she was told!) Mine was black because of my hair. The others were gold (sand dune) and white/grey-silver (mineral). They wanted my makeup done very bright - with dark lipcolour almost plum brown and eyes a dark orangey-red. I couldn't recognize myself, and neither did the girl who coloured my hair yesterday!! I called her name and asked her to put the hanger up for me and she paused for a moment because she didn't know how I knew her name (she told me later). Pretty funny - my mom didn't recognize me either when she picked me up; neither did the salon owner though he was stunned and said I looked fabulous.

I'm wiped. Gonna go to sleep as tomorrow will be another long day.

Ms. Terracotta?

I've done it...gotten a makeover. Well, actually, I got one because I'm going to be a model for the ABA show which runs tomorrow and Monday. So they've given me this haircut and dyed my hair earthy-tones - brick red and expresso brown, hence the name terracotta. I think I look like a different person. In a good way. :) It took me all morning - about 4 hours!! because my "virgin hair" wouldn't take the colour and it had to be done over and over. I'm thinking that all that bleach/lightening/whatever they want to call it, can't be that good for my hair but at least it will grow out over time. I do like the look though but must attend 2 full days which I anticipate to be quite tiring honestly. We'll see.

After I booted it out of the salon, I ran and caught the bus back to downtown to catch Burn the Floor, a fantastic show that displays the talent of various ballroom dancers from around the world. (Funny that it was put out by Australians and there were no Americans performing!) Time just melted away. I couldn't believe an hour had passed by so quickly before the lights came up for intermission. The first act was definitely better than the second. Then it was to dinner out at Hamilton St. Grill - food could have been better but it was nice to go out; it's been a long while.

I'm exhausted...was up late on Friday for the model call and then up at the crack of dawn, leaving the house before 7am to make it to the salon by 8:30am. Tomorrow will be another trying day. I'll be catching the train which is doing a special trip for the Sun Run. I'm hoping it won't be packed but fear it may well be. Tomorrow's the day I get to strut my stuff. :)