Firework

It's complete....my application to grad school!

I drove over to the University today and personally handed it in to the receptionist desk. It wasn't as satisfying as handing it directly to the Program Manager, but to have my CV and my Letter of Intent out of my hands and into the hands that be felt pretty dang good! Or so I thought...

I gathered myself together as I left the building, trying to sum up what I was feeling. Kinda like taking a deep breath and letting it all out slowly, wondering if I'll be able to breathe deep again. I thought I'd be quite celebratory afterwards, but the pessimistic side of me got to thinking, "Hey, you only got your application in! You still have to compete with all the other applications that are sitting there! Maybe you really should've smacked a proper Avery label on the envelope rather than handwriting the addressee on there like a kindergartener! It's not in the bag yet!"

Yep, anti-climactic me.

And it kinda kills me that Katy Perry's Firework keeps blaring out on the radio. It used to get me kinda hyped about doing something crazy like going to school again, and, like on cue, I heard it again on my drive home and I could only tap my fingers to the music rather than grandstand ridiculously in that dreamworld head of mine and belt it out.

I get a nice warm feeling inside, though, thinking, what if....

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep, six feet under screams, but no one seems to hear a thing?
Do you know that there's still a chance for you, 'cause there's a spark in you?

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine, just own the night like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby you're a firework, come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" as you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework, come on let your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" , you're gonna leave 'em fallin' down-own-own.

You don't have to feel like a waste of space ; you're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds: after a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe your reason why all the doors are closed, so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow, and when it's time, you'll know

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine, just own the night like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby you're a firework, come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" , as you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework, come on let your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" , you're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe

Boom, boom, boom, even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you , and now it's time to let it through
'Cause baby you're a firework , come on show 'em what your worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" as you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby you're a firework, come on let your colors burst
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" , you're gonna leave 'em all in awe-awe-awe

A Red, Pink and Blonde Valentine's

I've never been much into Valentine's Day. Just another commercial day to force you to acknowledge those who love you. Ok, to remind you might be a more diplomatic term. (Did I mention I got a paper shredder one year from my husband? I try not to read between the lines if I can help it).

Yesterday, while I didn't do anything to acknowledge the day (I wore black , coincidentally), my two little men each gave me a long-stemmed rose that they picked out themselves...red and pink.

And Hubby surprised me with tickets to Legally Blonde: The Musical!

I love this musical....the music is catchy, and I've been wanting to see this for a while. I DID have to go online and pick out the seats I wanted. AND because I'm an email subscriber to Broadway Across Canada, I had a promo code for $45 Orchestra seats ($30 off!). He was going to pay $122US/ticket but thought I should pick the seats I want so I had to go online and buy them first, and good thing: he was on the venue's ticketing site, and not Ticketmaster (who DOESN'T go through Ticketmaster?)

So, I saved him a bundle, I get to Go Pink, and life just became peachy again!

Blogging On The Go

Just testing this out...apparently I CAN blog-on-the-fly because I set up my blog for updates via email.

I think I used this service once!

I only bought my Blackberry Bold 9700 last March and I'm sure I haven't updated my blog via BB before. Prior to my smartphone, I would have had to be at a computer to email anything, and why I set my blog up to accept email updates when I could write directly in it is beyond me!

So, *whistle,whistle*...is this mic on? Testing...

Sent from my BlackBerry

Kindergarten, Update!

It turns out that I have a lot of drafts on my Blogger dashboard (reaffirming my commitment to try and blog more rather than tweet), so I'll give a quick update on my Kindergarten Registration and Parlons Francais! posts on how my son is doing in school.

Yes, I applied to Early French Immersion, and we won the lottery (literally, the french immersion entrance lottery). The Kid's now been in school for over 5 months now, and he appears to be soaking it in. Although this kid isn't particularly shy, he's not a "singer and dancer", my term for his lack of artistic expressiveness. So determining if he has learned anything at all (remembering that a lot of kindergarten learning is done by rote and involves a lot of imitation through song), it was difficult to get him to sing anything, always given a "I forgot!" response.

Well, today, was one of the few times he actually offered to sing me a song, and a french song at that. Quite a feat, considering he doesn't even know many English songs (so much for beating Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star into him as a baby!). I had him repeat it several times on the ride over to my parents today, as all songs he does sing seem to begin from the back seat, and even though I couldn't understand most of it, it was very gratifying.

It's too bad they all can't stay kindergarteners forever.

I Tweet Too Much

That's my problem.


I've largely ignored my blog due to Twitter. For those who are on Twitter, you know what I'm talking about. There's no commitment to the tweets you make: they're random, tangent, in-the-moment, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of comments. And I'm very random.

I'm sort of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to my writing. That's where this blog takes an exit: my life right now is far from being perfect and I'm constantly trying to find this balance I'm yearning for, and I'm not there yet. Writing should be comforting for me, and it is, but I'm finding I do not have the time to commit to such a project. I prefer to write than to blog, and I'm thinking my definition of the two should be more similar than I let on.

So that being said, I'm going to try and blog more than tweet. Ok, a half-baked lie, since tweeting on a Blackberry is way more easier than blogging, but I'm going to try.

Here's ANOTHER update to complement my latest tweets....


1. Grad school

Yes, I'm apparently going through an early mid-life crisis and have decided that it's time to go back to school. Frankly, I'm fed up with the sh!t I put up with at work and figured there's a lot more to life than staring down a microscope and listening to my coworkers bitch about the bureaucracy and each other. And the only way I'm going to make more money than my current salary is if I move into management of some kind.

Enter grad school.

I was considering an MBA but instead of giving up the "wealth" (haha!) of knowledge I've learned from being in the health care sector, I'm going to try my hand at getting in the MHA program instead (Master of Health Administration). It's also cheaper, by about half ($30K!). This is an executive-style program, meaning I can still work full-time, pay for my mortgage, and still study my way out of my current job.

So far, I've put in my online application, created my CV, and told my three referees about sending in their Letters of Reference. All I've really got to work on for the next week is my Letter of Intent, where I outline why I should be allowed into the program and how I see it fit in my career goals.

I haven't started yet simply because "making more money and getting the hell out" of working in a laboratory doesn't seem to be convincing enough. I'm working on more tangible reasons. :)

And, in the meantime, I also have to start studying for this GMAT exam that I may have to challenge. I've bought all the books I need to study, yet, hoping against hope, that I'll be given a waiver to not write (long story, but there's a stipulation in the admissions policy that could be in my favour).

So, in true procrastination, the following has occupied my past few days...


2. MAC and Other Lemmings

I've always been in makeup, being gifted my first Cover Girl lipstick in Frosted Rose when I was 14. But, lately, past few years, I've been practically obsessed with it! I have some posts in this blog under the tagline "makeup" you can search for, if you're interested.

So I won't go into great detail, as this blog is not a true beauty blog (there are many out there that do a FANTASTIC job at this) but I'm been wanting, begging, pleading for some decent eye brushes. I just picked up a 224, a tapered blending brush, but really wanted the discontinued 226 for creasework. My wish list: 217, 219, 239, 208, 249. I'd march right down to my local MAC counter and buy these all if it weren't for the awesome Canadian dollar...If I bought all these on the US website and have them shipped to just across the border my fave US-parcel-pickup, I'd save enough money to get another brush free! I paid $35 CAD for the 224 and it only cost about $25 US! Gah!

And I "lucked" out going to MAC yesterday for the launch of the Wonder Woman collection (I say lucked tongue-in-cheek because it's not so lucky how much I ended up spending!). I didn't think I'd like any of the product, purposeful avoiding all the online reviews, but I ended up testing Marquise'D (lipstick), Emancipation (Lip Glass), and Mighty Aphrodite (duo blush). I ended up liking Mighty Aphrodite so much by the end of the day, I called my MAC counter 10 minutes before closing and asked them to put it on hold for me until my makeover consult (*sigh*) next Saturday. I'm a sucker for LE's (Limited Editions). Kinda rethinking my purchase on Marquise'D, though, as my pigmented lips find it a bit chalky. It looked good with Emancipation, though (hmmm.....).


3. Baby #3

Hold your horses! This ain't a sealed deal yet! Along with my mid-life crisis comes along my ridiculous notion to plan out my life. And life, as I figured it, always included three kids. I don't know when I'm really gonna fit this in, with school and work, so call me Crazy.....

....if I get into grad school for September 2011, I plan to defer admission until 2012, allowing me time to have a baby prior to school. Then I can go to school from 2012 to 2014. By the time I've graduated, the kids will be 9, almost 6, and (if I'm lucky), almost 3 (or just turned 2).

I'll be 40 when I graduate.

Gad! I hadn't realized that! I'm gonna need therapy too....pencil-ling that into the schedule...!

So, if I can have my last kid before the rest of my life pans out, I can ditch the maternity clothes I've got! LOL All kidding aside, the true test is wrapping my head around perhaps having another boy and not getting the girl I'd like to have. Yes, even if God told me right now that my third child will definitely be a boy, I can honestly say that that's ok with me. After all, the two boys I already have brighten my day, who's to say that another boy would be so terrible?

4. House Hunting

For those that don't live in Vancouver, the real estate market here is INSANE! All homes have move than doubled their value in the past in 9 years, making Vancouver one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. The average price of a Vancouver home has reached $1 million.

Our tiny, 4-bdr, 2000 sq ft house averages $700K. In order to upgrade, we're looking at million-dollar homes.

Case-in-point: we recently put in an offer at the asking price of $1.050 million with one little Subject-To-Inspection clause in the contract, and we were outbid, by only $10K though, but no subjects. There are MANY homes that are being sold at $40K to even $120K over-asking. INSANE!

I may never own my dream home here in Vancouver, but maybe I will one day after I get that higher-paying job after grad school, after the baby #3, after.....

...I stop procrastinating.

Signing off Twitter and the blog tonight, to get some rest and start my Letter of Intent!