Tagged again
I was tagged again, this time by Lottie. I have to admit this is somewhat of a wimpy post, no photos today! I've had such a busy week preparing for an upcoming conference that I haven't had much/any time for photos. Suuucks. I'm away from tomorrow morning until Saturday night in the exciting city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Prairies, here I come! I'm bringing my camera (which I'm completely disgusted by, btw.. the sensor is soooo dusty!) and new lenses, so hopefully I'll get some cool shots.

Until then, here are my answers to the tag!

4 of my favourite jobs:
- Babysitting. I love watching the kids grow up, and it gives me time to express my inner child! Lol. I always feel sad when I've gone a few days without any kids around. Keeps me young and cheerful!
- Teaching Sunday school. More kids I've seen grow up.. They're all off to university now and I'm so proud of them. We're having our last dinner as a group tonight, bittersweet times!
- All my speech volunteer work. I LOVE the kids and adults that I've volunteered with over the past couple of years. This has been my main "work" for a while, 25 hours/week while I was in school. I loved it so much, and encourage everyone to volunteer!
- Hmm. Grasping at straws here. I'll post my least favourite job I think.. Grocery store clerk! I did that for one day! The customers were sooo rude, and the coworkers shunned me because I don't smoke. I'm sure it could have gotten better, but I decided to nanny for the summer instead. That was a good decision (and much better pay!)

4 favourite local places:
- The park. It's so fun with kids, and for biking on my own, and for romantic walks (not that I have anyone to go on those with, but that's a whole other post!), and other park-ish things. Love it.
- Restaurants. I can't choose one because I just love to go out to eat in general. But if anyone's ever in Toronto I can definitely help you out :)
- Downtown. I really love downtown Toronto... From Chinatown to Little Italy to Little India, from the Eaton Centre to Queen Street to Yorkville, it's all so vibrant and fun. Just walking around and enjoying it is one of the best parts of summer.
- Public transit! Ok, maybe a crazy answer. And it might not qualify as a place. But I think it does. That's where I do my thinking, and finish my assignments at the last minute. It's where I listen to music and overhear interesting conversations. It's where I wake up in the morning for real. I really love it, and I'm so glad it exists :)

4 favourite foods (it's a really really hard thing for me to choose only 4!):
- Cheese. I love flaming Greek cheese, crumbly English cheese, Canadian cheese curds, italian cheese, old cheese, fresh cheese, almost any kind of cheese. I'm not a big fan of cream cheese though!
- Anything with peanut sauce. I make a really good peanut noodle salad. It's a bit spicy, good for you, and totally yummy. I also love fresh vegetable rolls with peanut sauce. Mmmm.
- Most spicy things. Like many Indian dishes, and Thai dishes, and Chinese, and my mom's cooking...
- Pickles. There's simply no substitute for a juicy, garlicky, cold pickle.

4 favourite international places:
- Cuba. Cuba Cuba Cuba Cuba. Have I said that enough? I love it. I'm going soon and you'll see the pictures. I stay with friends in the heart of Havana, just living the life for a few weeks. It's my favourite time ever, and I'm always an emotional mess when I get back. The friendships I have there are amazing and it's a beautiful country. Enough said :)
- Spain. I've only been once, but I really loved it and would be happy to go back someday. Especially to the south of Spain.
- Costa Rica. It's such a beautiful place, so rich in nature and culture. I spent 2 summers there studying and would love to go back someday.
- Australia. I have family there and have been a few times. Even after seeing far too many snakes and spiders and SHARKS (chasing me!) I still think it's beautiful. There's nowhere like it on Earth, and the range of experiences you can have there is amazing.

I'm not going to tag anyone else at this point, I need to run and pack! Angie I'll do your tag when I get home! :)

I've been really out of it on blogs lately, so please forgive the lack of comments. I'll be back in the swing of things soon!

Tagged!
I've been triply tagged.. Thanks Jenna, Jenn, and Stacey! I'm supposed to post the top 5 reasons why I blog, then tag 5 more people to do the same.

I didn't have anything else to post today, so I made it a bit of a project. Here are my reasons!

1. I always felt stalker-ish for visiting blogs without leaving comments. But I love visiting blogs. Now that I have my own I feel much less shadowy.
2. I want to document my learning of photography. I'd definitely forget all of it otherwise!

3. All the cool kids are doing it. And I am one. So therefore I must do it too.

4. I'm way too wimpy to post my pictures on flickr or ILP for critique (most of the time). But I don't want them to sit on my hard drive unseen. Blogging is the perfect remedy!

5. The most important one of all! I love your visits and your comments and your blogs and your friendship.. And just everything. Thank you for everything x897!

Finally, one extra shot. Just loving my 85! :)
And to the following list: You're tagged. Have fun! I hope I'm the first tag for all of you.. I had trouble finding people who weren't already tagged! I don't think you all know each other though, so maybe this will expand some horizons :)

Tiarra
Katie
Meghan
Lottie
Jen

Walkin' on Sunshine
Woohooooo I'm excited. Can you tell??

Ok, cheesy title. And song. And first picture to go with it. But hey, what's life without a little cheese? Even the vegans can enjoy this type :)

So here I am, walking on sunshine.

And here's why!! I've been agonizing over lenses for a while. Macro, wide, telephoto, L, zoom, prime, it was like a synchronized swimming show in my head. I finally decided to get the best of both worlds, and went for the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 and the Canon 85mm 1.8. Together they came in under the price of the 17-55 2.8 I'd been considering before, and weren't much more than the Canon 10-22 on its own. The Sigma gets some great reviews, and I think it will be great. And the 85 speaks for itself. You all know how much I like a good shallow DOF, so the 85 is right up my alley. These are my graduation present from my mom.. So excited!! And I've never owned a brand new lens before :)

Here's the first shot off the 85.. Flower in the dining room.

And here's the same flower at 10mm:

I wanted to show you the card I made with one of the pictures from last week... Here it is, wide.


Here's a branch.. I'm so loving the 85.. So smooth to focus, lovely bokeh.. I'm in love. Of course I had to shoot wide open the whole time.

I've been jealous of all the dandelion shots I've been seeing lately, so here's my version. I think it's so pathetically cute lol.

A rake up against the wall.

Check out the airplane! Can you see it? Don't mind the power line lol.. I was just excited to be able to see it through the viewfinder, there was no chance of that with the 30. Thanks for looking! I'll hopefully have some more exciting shots with the new glass soon...

Fruit: A poem.
Thanks for the inspiration, Dr. Seuss. This is an ode to my favourite fruit when I'm late for school and need something to eat as I run out the door!

12 of 12: May
I was a 12 of 12 slacker today, hardly took any pictures for most of the day. I'm not going to link these to Chad's blog, I'd rather they didn't have so much exposure and I didn't take pictures all day anyway! But here's my pseudo 12 of 12 for you guys to enjoy :)

3pm: My new external hard drive. Not really a back up since I'll be deleting the things I put on it from my main computer, but maybe now it won't take 3 minutes to crop a photo!


4pm: Afternoon snack. Chocolate milk and cheese and crackers on a Sesame Street placemat. Life is good.

6:15pm: Happy birthday Xan!! Hope you're having an awesome day!

6:40pm: Watering can in a playhouse. I just liked it!

6:45pm: Here we go. Some actual real person pics from me! Here's C, doin' what she does best... Silly!

7pm: We went to the park and found all kinds of treasures left behind today. Like these stylin' sunglasses. S was very sad that we couldn't keep them.

7pm: Purple turtle.

7:15pm: Inspector A. I love this one!

7:30pm: Colour is weird on this, and I was sliding backwards down the slide as I took it, but I love the look on her face...

7:40pm: C being pensive on her bike.

7:45pm: Doll head!! Totally creepy. Luckily they didn't want to bring it home..

8:00pm: Climbing the web. Love her expression here.. She's a somewhat melancholy child, but when she smiles she really smiles!

8:15pm: Found some free strawberry plants and decided to take one each. We had to wheel them home on the scooter! (Click to make bigger)

If you have any specific CC, please offer it. I may post some of these on ILP, but probably not. But I'd love suggestions for improvement! Thanks for visiting guys.. I love you all!