Archive for June, 2006

I am going to take you on a journey

Thanks to Alicja, Ben, Jackie and Sandra, I went to a spa for the first time this Wednesday. I thought it was a little funny at first, but in the end, I think it was a really beneficial experience. I learned more about my skin and how to treat it properly, so it was definitely a good thing.

When I arrived at the spa, my server asked me to take a short quiz first. It was a little odd because half of the questions were about my skin and half were about my personality. I basically said that I have oily skin and answered things about myself. It turns out that I have a partial fire nature and a partial water nature which is bad because it apparently means that my body and spirit are “out of balance”. She promised that my treatment would help balance my spirits. Which I don’t think worked, but that’s okay.

Then, we entered this dimly lit room with soft music playing and she said she was going to take me on a “sensory journey”. She asked me to close my eyes and breathe deeply whenever she tapped my shoulder. Each time, she put a different scent near my nose. In the end, I picked vanilla! I wasn’t too surprised by my choice.

Then, the facial actually began. At first, it was a little strange having somebody else touch my face, but I got used to it pretty quickly. It was nice and relaxing to just lie there for an hour while she worked on my skin. When she examined my face, she said that I actually have dry skin, not oily. I was a bit surprised because my skin always seems shiny and oily. But Alicia later told me that the dryness causes excess oil secretions to compensate, which is why I thought I had oily skin. It was good to find this out because I’d been using a toner that contained alcohol, which was drying out my already-dehydrated skin even more. I picked up some alcohol-free toner from London Drugs yesterday to replace it.

The day after my facial, I swung by the Sauder office to drop off my timesheets and my boss was all, “!! You look so tanned! Did you go on a trip!” But I hadn’t. I hope my face isn’t incredibly dark now and I just don’t realize it. It definitely has a smoother texture after all the exfoliation. I was a little surprised that the exfoliant they used didn’t have any scrubbing particles in it though. My skin tone is a little more even (but possibly darker?) and my pore size has decreased. Thanks you guys, again - it was an awesome gift!

I wish I brought my camera

So, Teddy Geiger was really good in concert. I was cranky after waiting for two torturous hours in this sea of rude, annoying, pushy high school girls, but once he came on stage, it was all worth it.

The opening act was this local singer-songwriter, who just sang along with her guitar. She had a really nice voice, but her material was way over the heads of the audience. Both Miranda and I liked her music though. She ended up annoying me though, because she yelled out, “Teddy Geiger!” in between each and every song, just because she knew that all the Pavlovian teenage girls would scream at the mention of his name.

I think Teddy is a lot better-looking in person. But his nose looks a lot bigger in person too, so I guess it kinda evens out.

When I first listened to his CD, I wasn’t really all that impressed. The songs are pretty listenable, but I didn’t find anything particularly stand-out. But after listening to it a few more times, it grew on me. His first single, For You I Will (Confidence) (7.0MB, MP3) is SO cute. I love the lyric, because I can totally identify with it.

In concert, he was really surprisingly good. I never really cared for his title track, Underage Thinking, but that ended up being one of my favourite songs of the night. I think what made his performance so good was how he connected emotionally with the songs, since he wrote them all.

Also, triple encores are always nice! When he introduced his final song as “an angry song”, I thought he was joking because his music is fairly light pop/rock. But he surprised us with this non-album harder rock song, which was another of my favourites of the night. I really regret not bringing my camera!

Afterwards, Miranda and I went to some bar on Commercial to grab a bite while our ears rang from all the estrogen-induced screeching we had to endure.

And now, I’ve got some matrices to row-reduce and bases to orthogonalize.

Tired

So this is what a 60-hour work week feels like. I think my soul might be, like, broken or something now.

In addition to the 40 hours I worked at my co-op job, I spent an additional 20 hours working on various things for Sauder. Isn’t that insane? Today, I spent 10 hours working on this conference CD they need done by tomorrow morning. And it’s not even like I spent all that time coming up with some sort of ultra-creative, innovative presentation. I spent most of it changing the properties on all these PDFs because the author and title tags were not properly set.

Somebody make me go out and do something fun.

… But not ’til after I’m finished my Math homework. Which I haven’t started. Which is due on Tuesday. Crap.

So caffeinated

My little Gaggia Carezza has been out of commission for the past while because I’d been putting off buying espresso beans for several weeks now. To be honest, I was actually a bit disappointed after the initial excitement surrounding the purchase of my espresso machine because it didn’t seem to create the quality coffee that I was expecting. It was alright, but even the least-skilled barista could make better espresso on a Starbucks super-automatic Saeco. So, I dragged my feet when I ran out of espresso and didn’t bother to get more.

But today, getting bored of drinking tea all the time, I decided to go out and get some nice espresso. Intelligentsia espresso. It was a bit expensive, going for $8.95/half pound, where most brands are $6-$7 per half pound. But oh my God, it was worth it. Their support for fair trade organic coffee has really paid off because their coffee farmers have a definite commitment to quality. You can seriously taste the difference. At first, I thought that my problems were due mostly to my machine, but it’s clear that the beans are making a huge difference too. Or perhaps the grind was better this around. Who knows. Either way, I’m sticking with my black cat.

I shouldn’t have had that double latte just now though … I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep for a while.

Oh, teenagers

Overheard on the bus ride home:

Girl 1: You know, in Iraq, they pronounce it “I-raqi”, not “Ih-raqi”.
Girl 2: Like, I-raqi?
Girl 1: Yeah.
Girl 3: What the hell’s an Iraqi?
Girl 4: Yo mama’s an Iraqi!