Haute Comme 3 Pommes

If there's something I learned from yesterday, salmon in burgers = pure genius. I finally got to see one of my closest high school friends K, and treated to her to a (really)late birthday lunch since I couldn't make to her actual birthday. We headed to a lovely restaurant near the water, and feasted on delicious burgers - an Angus beef burger for her, a salmon burger for me.

Honesty time, I usually don't eat salmon burgers. Ever. Mainly because I'm a bit of a burger purist - beef only please (exception: veggie burgers). But man, that salmon burger was SO GOOD - it consisted of a  juicy grilled piece of salmon with pickled vegetables and pea tendrils, tartar sauce, nestled in a toasted kaiser bun. I was worried that the pickled vegetables would make the burger sour, but it added a nice tangy touch to the salmon. The only thing I wasn't too pleased about was the pea tendril aspect. Trying to eat them was like a tug-of-war because of the stalks. Other than that, it was delicious! Be warned, that thing oozes tartar sauce as you eat it.

And because I'm trying to be (minimally) healthier, I went for the salad. Go yesterday me!

Also, went to an amazing indie rock concert with A. Good food, good concert? I'm a happy girl.

Peel the skins off, and then squeeze the seeds out. I chose not to squeeze the seeds out (a waste of tomato, in my opinion), but crushed the tomatoes by hand into a large bowl with their juices.

Finally, summer has begun! Well, I've been off for a week now, so I'm a bit late in my rejoicing.
In light of that, I'm excited to say that this summer is going to be a crazy one in the fact I'll be taking a full summer school course load, while working my two jobs. And maybe volunteering too. Did I ever tell you I'm  a workaholic?

Fear not, as this blog will be far from neglected! I do have an announcement, though. This blog has been a big mix of many things, such as photography, food, art, life and personal style. I've decided to make this more of a visual diary (combining photography, food, and life into one category) and art (illustrations and personal style) oriented blog. The diary will be labeled as "life journal", and the art tag will be the same. I'll be sure to keep the "eye eat" and "what i wore" tag though. :)

But back on topic. I'm currently planning out my summer and want to get back into many things I fell out of sync with this year - such as running, reading, and art.

My summer goals are to:

-Run 15 km by the end of August
-Start a webcomic (I've been thinking about it for so long)
-Write and illustrate a short story
-Improve my cooking skills
-Read one book a week

And this last one isn't a goal per say, but an exercise. Being an artist gives me an identity outside my studies in science, and I want to keep it with me forever. But keeping it is not enough, I want to get better. So I vow to spend one and half hours each day this summer doing something art-related  (it'll vary from small things like paintings to theory) to better myself and maintain my love of all things art-related.

Okay, enough of me blubbering around. Time to get started!

Hello again! It's been awhile (and I mean a very long time... a month now?) since I last posted here. A lot has happened since then, but it's safe to say that I'm alive and well. Or at least I think so - I've been neglecting rest for the past 2 weeks and it's finally taking its toll on my body. Not cool. Anyways, I just wanted to share what I've been up to since then! Here it goes:

 The Good:
-I'm improving in school! Lets hope I don't jinx this.
-I'm somehow managing to pull off work, my internship (I'm now on payroll yippee!), and school.
-I've been hired as a Residence Advisor - a dorm mother in other words- for next year!
-I've started running again - it took a month and a half to do so, but hey, I'm transitioning back. I hope to run my first 10k race in April!

The Bad:
-My New Year's Resolutions were cut by more than half, haha. And even so, the ones I've supposed to focus on are kind of "eh"- ex. staying up until 3 for no apparent reason, still procrastinating (hypem/tumblr is my obsession), etc.

So overall, 4 to 1 for good things. Except the 1 is a big one (oh look, a pun), so I guess it's more of a 4 to 2 for good things.

Hopefully, I'll post soon - and with pictures because blocks of text aren't so hot. 'Til then! :)

Happy birthday M! :) I had the pleasure of celebrating a friend's birthday yesterday and had a fantastic time talking to new people, whom I would love to be friends with. Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been living life on the run - I work and intern on top of my studies(eep, should probably catch some shut eye since I struggled to study yesterday haha). I'm being pulled out of my comfort zone with these activities, but believe it or not, I think I might be able to make it out alive and with okay(?) marks. Watch me take that back when midterms come along - but keep your chin up Jennifer. P.S. I'm working on doing a weekly (we'll see) comic, think I should post it here or keep it anonymous?

These are my goals for this year, and I hope to be able to accomplish them all - there's quite a lot, but who doesn't like a challenge?

P.S. I just thought of a 7th one: get out of my comfort zone in art.

Wow, there's less than hour to go before 2012 ends. I'm struggling to write a post that can express my thoughts coherently about this past year, so please bear with me! I`ll start with the top 3 highs and lows.

Lows:-Horrible grades despite my efforts and time spent on them
-A lot of self-hate for not being able to do well
-An emotionally draining friendship - to the point which I was ready to call it quits

Highs-Got an internship under a professor at my university
-Finding out what I love to study
-Making friends that I can laugh, cry, and spend time with for years to come

2012 was a rollercoaster year for me. There were times like I felt like the luckiest kid ever, other times I'd feel like a big ball of failure. This was the year I was supposed to do things right (academically) but I wasn't able to do it. There was a lot of pressure (all self-induced) to do well, and I'm sure that led to my academic epic fails. I wasn't happy, no sirree.In all honesty, I don't think I've felt so bad about myself until the last few months of this year. There was also a friend who, in my opinion, was asking for more than what I could offer. This did not help. I haven't been so angry at a friend before, and it was frightening to see that side of me come out. It would have been wiser to end that friendship (my other friends were for it), but I didn't. I'm glad I made that choice.

Although those events happened, I figured out a lot of things about myself. One, that I don't do well under pressure, so that has to go. Two, I'm the luckiest child in the world to have parents and friends who accept me for not my GPA, but for myself; they have been supportive and helpful in my times of need. In fact, my friends helped me find a back-up plan (since my Plan" A" went up in flames) that sounds just as good as Plan "A". Three, today might be bad, but there's always a tomorrow. And tomorrow will be different.

This post is getting too long, and there's less than 1 minute to midnight...

To 2012,
Thank you for allowing me to spend time with my beloved family.
Thank you for giving me friends that I treasure dearly
Thank you for showing me that in times of despair, there will be light

After 3 weeks of problem sets, note reviewing, and little sleep, I have finished finals. And how do I celebrate? Good pub food, Starbucks, and some window shopping with my close friend. Two thumbs up. I'm excited to go home and spend time with family and friends! But first, gotta clean the apocalyptic mess of papers in my room.

To-do list:
-Clean room (wow I don't even)
-Reset sleep schedule
-Spend time with friends and family
-Buy Christmas gifts
-Draw. Draw. Draw.
-Cook some goodies at home
-Watch my shows!
-Run (and invest in some good winter running gear)

Woooo, bad quality phone pictures!

A small peek at what I do outside of school no I don't pig out I promise. In order from top to bottom:
1) Smoked salmon eggs benedict (my friend's) when we celebrated my other friend's birthday.
2)Various tacos : fish, beef cheeks (sounds weird but it tastes really good), chorizo, pork(?)
3)Various macarons: lemon, cranberry, pumpkin, salted caramel, apple spice.

Time to roll my sleeves up and dive into finals. Best of luck to anyone who's writing them! :)

A quick study done once I was done drawing out "what i wore". Only took about 15-20 minutes (aw yeah)! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, this is a small bit of encouragement to play around in Photoshop.

P.S. Don't be hating on the crow skull.

[what i wore]
mint green cardigan, Forever 21
colour block sweater, Forever 21
collared shirt, unbranded
jeans, American Eagle
heart necklace
rain boots, some durable Canadian brand 

I've kind of been neglecting the "style" portion of the blog, figured I'd start now. The idea comes from VM-Bui, one of my favourite artists! :)

Lately I've fallen into a sort of fall uniform that consists of the following: collared shirt, sweater, cardigan (for that extra warmth), jeans, and rain boots (for the trek through puddles). Very simple, doesn't make me look like a complete slob, and it's appropriate for work! If only I had the the guts to don the skirts and dresses...maybe indoors.

*start motivational talk*
It's been two weeks since I've posted, and oh boy, has my life gone up and down in that time. I won't whine,   I have to admit that I was subconsciously setting myself up for the crappy bits. In spite of it all ( oh look at me, using the English skills I paid for at university), I won't let the bad stop me from getting to the place I need to be.
*end motivational talk*

In other news, I got a small wage raise at work and became a big blob of burnt-out student today. And I don't care...YET. Big emphasis on the yet as finals month is rearing its head.
Today's big decisions:
-Get out of bed? Nope.
-Get out of my comfy pajamas? Nope. Okay I did, but it was hard. :(
-Read the wonders of cell junctions for the 3rd time? Nope.
-Solve lots of organic chemistry problems? Nope. okay I do this everyday but i gotta work on efficiency
-Speak like a sane person? Nope. Just kidding (?).

Okay, it's time to either get to bed, or try to review my Stats notes for online homework. I think sleep's gonna win this one.

RIP Toph, Aang, and Earth Kingdom pumpkin.
The good die young. I miss you guys.
----
I finally got out of the dungeon I call my room to celebrate Halloween with some classmates! This included a haunted house (which I didn't go in but I probably would have hit someone bahaha) and pumpkin carving. I made a good Earth Kingdom pumpkin, and a messy Toph pumpkin.
The best part of the night? Throwing the pumpkins from the balcony of a building (don't worry we weren't causing shenanigans). Such good therapy.

Hope y'all had a fantastic Halloween!

A small recap of the night. It was my dad's 50th birthday (he's turning into a geezer.. my sister's words not mine) and we celebrated with dinner at a nice golf club and cake!

Here's to: reaching the halfway point to 100,
being a year closer to playing golf every day,
being happy and healthy each day,
and being the definition of "success".

Con yêu bố/ I love you dad. :)

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of posting these days. I can sum up the last few weeks with a conversation with my aunt:

Aunt: "You look so tired, what happened?"
Me: "Life happened."

That's right, I've been busy at school. As a Bio major, my life revolves around reading, reading, and more reading. It's hard, but I love my bacterial cells! If I can keep being a shut-in this up, I'll reach my goal for next year. :)

And there's some work too. And some volunteering (I love frosh). And then my internship is getting started as well. My first year English courses have led to terrible sentence structure (I don't even think these are sentences), money well-spent. Brb, mastering the art of organic chem.

http://hypetrak.com/2012/09/ms-mr-hurricane-twin-shadow-remix/
[Hurriane - Twin Shadows remix]

One of my favourite songs right now.

I'm seriously debating whether I should sleep at all.
On ne devrait pas essayer de faire trop d'activites a la fois. Ca cause une multitude de problemes.
Si je survis cette semaine, je serai une fille contente.