Left Breathless.

When you are loved, you can do anything in creation.
When you are loved,
There's no need at all to understand what's happening,
Because everything happens within you.

-- Blue Pond, Hokkaido: by Kent Shiraishi
okay, obviously i am in a National Geographic craze right now, mostly 'cause i really don't want to do work and i honestly miss going on trips to random places, sporting my awesomely huge camera and lens, just to take pictures of anything i see. i cannot wait to go to hong kong and china. 'cause i'm pretty sure there will be tons of things i can take pictures of - since i haven't been there since ..grade 1? :) ahhh, it's gonna be so interesting to finally see how different hk looks from canada! although i still don't know if i like the idea of spending Christmas there. there won't be snow or anything remotely like what's above :(.

-- Timber Wolves: by Jacqueline Crivello
loll.. reminds me of when i really wanted a wolf as a pet :). or better yet, an arctic fox! my favourite animal of all time, i must say. they remind me of snow's first fall, of innocence. and they are so dang cute! although i'd probably be scared as heck and run my life out if i actually saw one in front of me.. haha

-- Cuban Tree Frog, Florida: by James Snyder
frog ate the light! and didn't die. apparently, he took the light out of the frog after he finished taking pictures of it and it wasn't quite happy in its unlit state.. lmao.

-- Terraced Rice Field, China: by Thierry Bornier
this picture absolutely amazes me. they're rice fields! rice fields! i never knew such art could come from growing rice.. haha. maybe i'll see something like this!! *wishes*.

-- Monarch Butterflies, Mexico: by Joel Sartore
just.. wow. i'm proud of myself when i get a picture of one butterfly, lol!

-- Giraffe, Mexico: by Oscar Medina
cutest! and funniest animal ever, ahahah. it's almost cartoon-like :). okay, that's all the pictures i've got to share for now. i really gotta get at least some work done today.. :P. okay, lies. i'm just gonna start working tomorrow, just watch me.

Frozen Bubbles.

Underneath your love is where I wanna be
Oh, I never ever felt this good and I can't get enough
Oh, what'd you do to me, I can't fall asleep
You put a spell on me
And now I'm underneath your love.

-- Dew Droplets: by Will Strathmann
i absolutely love National Geographic. i remember flipping through all their magazines as a kid afterschool. my friend and i would just go through all the pictures and see which ones we found the most amazing (not that any of them aren't amazing, of course). oh, if i could only hope to take a picture as good as the ones by NG, i'd be overwhelmingly proud :). well anyways, today i just felt like looking through the editor's picks for the 2011 National Geographic photo contest. and ahh, i am just in awe by some of these. reminds me how beautiful nature truly is <3. here's some of my favourites for this year!

-- Lone Tree Yellowstone: by Anita Erdmann
this photo makes me want snow to come now!! although i doubt we'll have that much snow, haha. from what i remember of winter in Kingston last winter.. it was mostly ice and slush. no white perfection :(.

-- Antelopes: taken in Kenya by Diego Arroyo
cutest thing everr, yes? and finally.. my absolute favourite so far:

-- Frozen Bubbles: by Emmanuel Coupe
absolutely amazing! and guess what? it's taken in Canada too!! haha the bubbles are made from gas released from the lake bed and trapped in the frozen water. click http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/traveler-magazine/photo-contest/entries/43703/view/ to see the bigger version of this picture.
just plain breath-taking :).

Little Words.

There's a little truth behind every just kidding,
A little curiosity behind every just wondering,
A little knowledge behind every i don't know,
And a little emotion behind every i don't care.

had a lot of these random quote pictures saved up, so i thought i'd just share them here, lol. yes, i am procrastinating from doing any form of studying whatsoever. ah, just can't wait until i finally get to go home on wednesday and eat some real food :). and finally take some pictures, of course. i miss my camera time :(.




on an interestingly random note...
we're studying human sensation and perception at the moment in psyc, and they gave us a link to see how well off our ears are in responding to sound. during our young years, we should have a hearing range around 20 to 20,000 Hz. but as we grow older (well, our text says 'by mid adulthood'), the highest frequency we're able to hear drops to 10,000 to 15,000 Hz. so, i went on the site they gave us (http://journal.plasticmind.com/ears/mosquito-tone-or-how-to-tell-youre-a-youngun/) to try out my hearing.. i'm 20 and i can just barely hear 16,000 Hz. i swear 20 is not mid adulthood.. lmao sad, isn't it -__-. whatever, i blame it on the ear surgery i had back when i was a kid, haha.

Interesting Eats?

Part of the secret of a success in life
Is to eat what you like
And let the food fight it out inside.

went downtown a couple days ago to chill and do a couple things. of course, i lugged my dslr over there because, well, there's always something to take a picture of in downtown toronto :). and this is one of the places we went to! a small patisserie with amazingly decorated cakes and cute small pastries.


everything was behind glass - so it was kind of hard to take good photos of them :\. but anyways, the blue/brown cake was soo nice. i wannttt :O.


we bought six macarons (i.e. macaroons) to try out. the yellow one was the best - caramel flavoured. sweet and salty all at once! lmaoo.


we also went to this random pizza & pasta place: Magic Oven. it looked tiny from the outside but once you get in... it's actually preeetty big.


they had a lot of original, interesting pizzas to choose from there, one of which was the "uber sustenance": an organic pizza garnished with 24k gold leaves!


haaad to try it just to take photos of it :D. and just in case you're wondering.. gold tastes like nothing. it just absorbed the spicy taste of the sausages haha. and to my surprise, it doesn't cut you as you eat it! loll.


even though the gold pizza was really cool, the other pizza we got with sundried tomatoes, chicken, goat cheese, and portobello mushrooms on thai basil pesto tasted better :). and i loved their thin crust, yuumm.


yup, that's all for now! i am running on less than 16 hours of sleep over the last 3 days. and i think i'm gonna crash... now haha. will post up wonderland pictures sooon :)!

Dear Photograph.

Memories are a way of holding on
To the things we love,
The things we are,
The things we never want to lose.

Caption: dear photograph, thank you for everything we had.
From: jonathanstampf via dearphotograph.com

i don't know if i'm really late, but i just discovered this site through a facebook post from a friend :): dearphotograph.com. it is THE cutest thing ever! and i hope one day, when i'm all old and wrinkly, i can make some of my own amazing 'dear photographs' as well :). so, of course, before that day comes.. i guess i just have to keep collecting picture memories - most of which, hopefully, i can look back on and simply smile.

sorry, no picture (that i've taken) today. i'll need to grow up quite a bit more before the pictures i've taken can become 'dear photograph's ♥.

Chocolate Love.

Life is like a box of chocolates,
You never know what you're gonna get.

CHOCOLATES? lovee :). thank you mr. dwululu >:).


ps. dark is always more awesome than milk..or white for that matter :).


and i think the only reason why Godiva is so expensive is cause they wrap it so super nicely. but ehh, whatever. perfect for pictures :). i don't remember what flavours these are.. mint chocolate, raspberry, almond, and dark?


YUM :).

BreadBreadBread!

Enthusiasm is the yeast
That makes your hopes shine to the stars.
It is the sparkle in your eyes,
The swing in your gait.

soo, we went to j-town (near woodbine and steeles) to eat ramen since they have "the best ramen ever" ..according to denis. but sorry, no pictures of that :). it's not that cool anyways. what's cool was their different kinds of random bread! yes, they have a bakery there too, haha [and black sesame ice-cream!! but i couldn't buy that or else it would melt on the bus :(]. anyways, we bought 4 kinds.. and 2 survived for pictures :) loll.


ehm, this one was green tea bread with red bean inside :). i tried taking a picture of the inner red bean..didn't really work out haha.


and then of course they would have bread shaped like a bear! ..with chocolate inside too, obviously :). [p.s. i am not bread crazy, i swear :D]

omg, awesomeness.

this was on someone else's blog (mandaflewaway).. and it is awesome. so i just had to post it. click on the squares!

sad how this is the only post i've done in like..months. loll
and summer really needs to come NOW :(, exams really suck.

Uh-Oh.

i just tried to upload the photos i've taken from about 2 weeks ago 'til now .. and realized that my CF card reader is broken. no functional card reader, no camera USB cable = no possible way to upload my pictures :(. so, any blog-posting will have to wait until i find a new card reader .. or i go home and tell my dad that i've broken yet another tech gadget :\. oh yay.

there goes one of my ways to procrastinate :(.
but on a lighter note, here's something i found from thanksgiving:


ahah! if you've never went into a Sony store to try watching the new '3D TVs', then you definitely should! the glasses are just hilarious.. and the images were (surprisingly) better than i thought. although i still think i would get dizzy after watching it for more than a minute or two, lol!

Perseids Meteor Shower.

When you reach for the stars
You may not quite get one,
But you won't come up with a handful of mud either.

yesterday, August 12, was said to be the peak of 2010's Perseid meteor shower. being the first meteor shower i've ever seen in my life, it was pretty awesome. and we comfortably watched it, with blankets and the works, on my rooftop - seemingly away from the hustle and bustle of the city. sadly, i didn't get any pictures of actual meteors..since they come and go in a split second, but i did take some pictures of the starry sky that night :).


if anyone knows a bit about astronomy, then maybe you'll see a constellation in that picture? i tried searching things up on Google, and i believe that the five bright stars in an almost zigzag shape form the constellation Cassiopeia? :).

The Giant Bug.

ohkay, this is barely a post at all, but i just wanted to write down all the things i saw at Edwards Garden today - just to remember to take photos of them when i go back [since i didn't bring my camera along with me today :(]. i cannot believe i haven't been there before yet, seeing that it's just at Leslie and Lawrence. anyways, some friends brought me there today and there were quite a few things that were interesting to note.

first off, Edwards Garden is a botanical garden with innumerable trails all throughout the area. it's actually quite peaceful there - you can't hear the cars go by or anything, so if you just feel like jogging around or having some quiet time, it's a great place to be. we saw a few animals this time around - ducks, chipmunks [which run extremely fast], and what appeared to be a small-beaver-without-a-tail [the same animal that ruins the flowers in my mom's garden! i'm thinking maybe it's a groundhog? :\] we also saw tons of different insects - from a daddy-long-legs that was externally digesting an ant it recently caught (:|), to a purple inchworm (dangerous? perhaps. not likely. but i've never seen a purple one before), to one GIANT and i mean GIGANTIC dragonfly! omg we seriously thought it was a fake model they stuck onto the plant! it was way too saturated in colour, the eyes were so big and translucent, and it didn't move for the longest time - no twitching, nothing! so one of us touched its wings ... didn't budge. so, yah, we thought it was fake. but he touched it again - and omg did that thing fly like crazy! yes, i did scream. but in my defense, it seriously looked fake!

agh, i wish i had my camera. i could've taken a picture of that dragonfly that i will probably never see in my life again! i swear it must've eaten its entire family to become that big. but in any case, hopefully i will go there again soon! but in the meantime, all i leave you with is this sad picture-less post :(.

The Purple Goop.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song.

well, there was this small little bird peacefully sitting in our backyard. it didn't move an inch when we stepped closer and closer towards it, and when i saw its funny wizard-like grey eyebrows, i had to take a picture of it. after a while, though, it started chirping and singing - all the while standing in the exact same place we found it. then suddenly, it flew away. and what we were left with - hmm, well, it didn't really impress my mom.


yes, it's just bird droppings - but don't you think it looks like some alien's purple goop randomly splattered on the floor? haha, maybe it's just me.

The Nursery.

We all start out in kindergarten
thinking we can be anything we want to be.
And by the time we get here,
we've all lost that feeling. We've all started to believe
whatever our friends or our parents have told us
about what we can achieve in life and who we can be.
And we've completely forgotten about the possibility we had
when we were younger.

finally, i've noticed my church's newly (well, it was new a couple months ago..) painted nursery! and i thought it was the cutest room ever, so i decided to take a few not-so-good pictures of it with my little camera :) since i had to wait for my parents to finish singing or something anyways. now i just have to learn how these people painted on these walls so perfectly :(..

The Toy Guitar.

You know the words 'Once upon a time'
Make you listen, there's a reason.
And when you dream, there's a chance you'll find
A little laughter, or happy ever after.
You're harmony to the melody
That's echoing inside my head.
A single voice above the noise
Like a common thread...

so, i've known for a relatively long time that post-it notes and laundry clippers are two great inventions that serve many functions. but as a guitar capo? well, i guess there's always going to be 'interesting' people who think up innovative, 'interesting' uses for various household items... :\ haha, and oh, how he loves that little 'toy' guitar. can you believe he's actually playing it in these photos? hmm, not likely :). [thankfully, he can't see this post in china.]