I spy with my DSLR eye...

It's a given that I already have a hobby (*coughs* hockey), however I've been wanting to expand into the world of photography for ages. My first love of snapping pictures started well before I hit double digits. My mom had an artistic streak in which I inherited (tho my analytical side apparently won the career direction). Where she played piano/organ, painted, drew, and crafted, I found myself behind her old Kodak flashcube or Canonet 19 cameras. Of course she never let me use actual film back in those days, but I went about my summer days with an unloaded camera in hand snapping pictures that were forever developed in my mind.

Fast forward to my 8th birthday when I received my very first camera to call my own: the Kodak disc 4000. Yessiree, a disc film camera - the future of cameras! Just like 8-track cassettes, BetaMax VCRs, and New Coke! Needless to say I was unimpressed, but made the most of that camera and its flower-like negative discs that were cumbersome and clunky to store. The cost of photography lessons and owning a decent camera (plus film developing) was never in my budget, so I was stuck on relying on crappy birthday cameras (all of which came from my father, go figure). The next camera I received launched me into the digital world with a Canon Powershot S50. It spent more of its time eating batteries than taking pictures. I was able to "upgrade" to a Powershot SX100, which I enjoyed its extra features to play with. But unPhotoshoppable grainy stills and blurred action shots plagued me and I found myself yearning a "real" camera.

After much window shopping and rubbing pennies together to make nickels, I recently took the plunge into DSLR world. The first debate was which name brand to invest in. I was able to narrow things down between Nikon vs. Olympus. Nikon cameras are incredible but scare the hell out of me with their bulkiness and "oh-there's-another-button-for-that" features. Plus, I didn't want to be toting around a small child on walkabouts. Olympus cameras offered "back to basics" models, with their retro style and their Micro Four Thirds lenses which compacted the camera size. Though my photography friends chanted Nikon is god, I listened to my inner child summer days of wandering aimlessly in the fields and down the back alleys and bought an Olympus E-PL1 camera (with the promise that my 5th year anniversary of "real"camera ownership, I'll bow to the Nikon peer pressure).  Of course buying the camera was just the first step. Lens filters, cleaners, cases, shoulder straps soon followed, but I felt giddy taking my first set of pictures just as I did as a kid in those lost summer days.


I'm far far faaaar from being a professional with Ollie (yep, I named him), but I've been having a great time already. I'm committing that each week (mostly weekends), I'll wander somewhere and snap up my surroundings. I'll also be taking a few classes over this summer to learn the finer points of using available light and fun with apertures. I have a few photo projects already in mind that I've started on my flickr account.


Two projects already underway:


Sign Language
No, this isn't what you think it is regarding the world silence, but rather the world of advertising. I appreciate a good ad slogan/campaign. The creativity behind the ad is often amazing or quirky to get the message across. Other signs are just: why did you waste the ink? If it turns my head or makes me smile/smirk/cringe/groan, Ollie shall capture it.


Tombstones Talk
This taps into my morbid side a bit. Although graveyards are probably the last place for most people to wander around, I find them fascinating. So much history and art laid before you. Every tombstone tells a story. For example, in my wanderings in Banff, one tombstone had 4 names inscribed with all deaths occurring in the year 1918 only months apart. Since car crashes weren't *that* common back then, one could surmise the Spanish Flu was the culprit. 


I have some other projects in my head, but unsure whether they will take flight. For one I need to review the laws of photography in public. I know the general rules regarding individuals and private property, but the line becomes fuzzy for other areas. Time shall tell. Maybe my next blog entry will be from my lawyer.


Moooooosic. As one big on Canadian music bands, I don't think I've posted anything yet from Barenaked Ladies (le gasp!). This group was one of the pivotal groups of my highschool days. Today I found myself humming to Brian Wilson on the bench. I need to go to a concert of theirs again real soon. Enjoy peeps.

A Charlie Brown Blind Date

One fateful evening whilst talking to my mom about the upcoming plans to my trip homeward for the holidays, my mother suddenly says, "I think I should warn you about this..."

My mom isn't an overly dramatic person, so when she starts a sentence like this, I'm expecting something bad, "Oh? What's up?"

"You remember Dianne?"

I think for a second and go down the very large list of people my mother knows (which is about 1/4 of my hometown), "Your house keeper?"

"No."

Thinking more, "Oh that lady whom I met this past thanksgiving?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Well, she REALLY likes you."

"I'm a likable person... what's up?"

"Well she has this 35 yr old UNMARRIED son that you're going to go have coffee with when you're here visiting."

(Silence for 20 some seconds...)

"You did WHAT?!!"

"I have nothing to do with this. It's Dianne, she loves you and feels that you just HAVE to meet her son."

"Because....? I mean asides the fact that we're similar aged and unattached, why would this be a match? What's his name? What does he do?"

"Uhhh, Steve? Stephen? And he may work at Safeway (a grocery mart)? I'm not sure."

".... You haven't even MET him?"

Grrrreat. I felt so betrayed. Granted it's been awhile on the dating scene. I don't mind the chance to meet someone new, especially if a common friend believes that we may hit it off. However admitting that she hasn't even MET the guy, that doesn't sit well in my book. My mom is single and should know, like every other single girl on the planet, that this scenario is a taboo.

Sensing my utter dislike of the situation my mom played the guilt card, "Well I really like Dianne as a friend and it would be impolite for you to say no."

I don't protest knowing that there's nothing that I can do to stop not one, but TWO mothers with an agenda, and hung up the phone to ponder my fate.

Of course this becomes a hot topic among my friends upon hearing the news. I debated letting people know of this blind date, but figured that it would be at the very least a funny story to relay. My thoughts first rounded the prospect that Steve works at a grocery. My fear was that he was a cart boy in which translated to "low ambitions". It's not that I'd only date professionals, but guys whom I'm interested in usually have some sort of ambition. The next is looks of course...why hasn't my mother seen this treasure of the human males? I was not expecting the Hugh Jackman or George Clooney type. But still, if his mom is pimping for him ... what does THAT say? Someone mentioned, "Well he could be absolutely RIPPED!"

"How you figure that?"

"If he is a 35 yr old cart boy, think of all the years he spent pushing long lines of carts through snowy parking lots?"

Ha ha.

So I go home and while eating the first family meal, "Oh the date is set for next Tuesday."

"I see. He'll come pick me up for dinner?"

"Well, not exactly," my mom says nervously.

Uh oh. What now?

"They are coming over with Chinese food."

"Wha? They?"

"Yeah, Dianne is coming over bringing Chinese food and you'll meet Steve then."

Ok, I lost it right there and threw a laughing fit. WTF?!

"Since when is it called a blind date with BOTH mothers are present? Aren't we going to have the pastor over that week too? Why not ask him to come Tuesday? We'll make it an arranged marriage package deal!"

This whole scenario was passing the stratosphere of being surreal.

Tuesday night arrives. Apparently Steve had some smarts and talked himself out of the dinner afterall. He would pick me up for coffee later on in the evening. The dinner with his mom was still on tho. She arrived on time with food in hand. The tension was sooooo thick, you'd could stand a spoon in the air. After some pleasantries, Dianne said to me, "I hope you don't think this is weird."

Me deciding to be just me as always, I put my arm around her and chirped back, "Dianne dear, we're waaay past the point of being weird."

Forced laughter.

Later on, while I'm serving the table, Dianne gushed, "Oh my, you're just like Cinderella."

She's flirting with me? I looked around the table seeing uncomfortable faces everywhere. Oh well, I said in full glee, "Why? Is Steve picking me up in a pumpkin?"

More forced laughter.

Not even 10 minutes into eating - ding dong. Steve made an early appearance. He entered the room as I'm mid mouthful of chow mein. My mom decided to introduce him as if she's known him for years and he looked blankly at me. I swallowed and smiled. Ok... now what? I asked him whether he'd like to join us. He said "no". There's little conversation, as if everyone was waiting for me to start the date. AWKWARD much? So I resigned to quickly finishing my food and getting my coat while Steve watched a bunch of women talk about crafts.

Just before we leave, "Oh where are you guys going?" quipped Dianne.

"Why? Would you like to join us there too?" I answered back.

At this point we were all experts on forced laughter.

We get into the car. Steve has said nothing other than "Hi" to the to dinner group. I turned to him and said, "Well, I must admit. Usually I wait til' date 8 or 12 before having dinner with the mother."

Forced laughter is a familial trait in Dianne's family.

So onto the date itself. In which was (as I predicted) anti-climatic. To my relief, Steve wasn't missing a body part or sported a clubbed foot, however no sparks flew for physical attraction on my side. Steve was just average in my sights. That's not a turn off - I'm not a model myself. He had a kind face, but no weak knees effect (again, as expected).

He took me to the nearest coffee place - a sign to me that he didn't want to go all out to impress for this epic date. We ordered our drinks and the "fun" began. I took the mostly-silent-car-ride as an indicator that I would have to be the initiator of the conversation, so I started in with the general questions. No cart boy, but cashier... for almost 18 years. I tried to put a positive spin on this: Steady job FTW? But in the back of my mind: we don't like challenging ourselves do we? 

His mom told me in that 10 minute supper that he LOVES science. Shows promise, let's move to that. He asked me about my job and was really really really interested that I used to wrangle worms for my Masters. Bacteria were dull, but worms - WOW (and I'm the opposite). His love of science really was from reading Popular Science magazine. I have read a few issues in my day. For me the mag is about hyped science gadgets and far out theoretical ideas. Kinda like reading a magazine from the 1950s that everyone in 2010 will drive flying cars. Possible, but waaaay out there. I tried to chat about the latest buzz of NASA (in)famous recent release of arsenic life. He hadn't heard of it. Back to goats being able to milk spider silk. Riiiight. 

Onto hobbies, which he had none (and didn't want to add to that fact). Oooook, I volunteered my own hobby: hockey, natch. "Oh, I hate hockey." (BUZZZER) It's not that my Person Right requires a DIE HARD passion of hockey. He doesn't have to like it. But "hate"? And no follow up about why? How long? Not an inkling of interest that he wanted to get to know my sport. So I soon asked, "Well do you like any sports?"

"I'm not a sports person."

"So I take it that you're not a Rider fan either." (see my last blog entry)

He shook his head in disgust, as if the mere idea to support the Green n' White was laughable. (BUZZ BUZZ BUZZZZZZZZZER)

I was waiting for him to ask me more about myself, my family, anything that remotely would show that he was interested in getting to know me. He was interested with how long my folks were divorced (great date question!), but I understood the inquiry as "unhealed wounds" with prior knowledge that his own folks recently divorced... 5 years ago. Nearing the end of the date, I found myself listening to him complain about the 101 ways to piss a cashier off. Even my jokes about servicing crazy customers fell flat. At the end of 112 minutes (yes, I was the counting minutes!) I was grasping for straws on topics regarding all-about-Steve. If this date showed me anything, it's reaffirming that deaf people make fantastic listeners.

Finally the shoppe was closing and Steve asked me "When are you in town next?" with the tone like he had to ask. I mentioned that the next visit I would busy due to my granny's surgery, to which he only said, "Ok." No phone number, no email, no facebook friend request. He took me back and I chalked the date as all hype and no finish. One for my books.

Five days later, my mom nods to her computer screen. An email! From Dianne! (of course):

I finally got to talk to Steve about his date with Nancy. He said that she was nice but far too "with it" for him. Please tell Nancy that I'm so sorry for putting her through this ordeal. She's such a nice, funny, smart, good looking girl. Steve is just stuck in his ways and won't see the forrest for its trees.

A nice rejection letter - FROM HIS MOM. 

One for my books indeed.

Edit: One of the BEST comments prior to the fateful night was: So he's your blind date and you are his deaf one? LAWL! Thanks Tiki!

Sky of Blue, Sea of GREEN

Green is the colour
Football is the game
We're all together
And winning is the aim
So cheer us on through the sun & rain
Saskatchewan Roughriders... that's our name!

Above is a chant I learned along with "itsy bitsy spider" and the alphabet song.  Often the word "sun" would be appropriately replaced with "snow".

Whilst hockey is a dear sport of mine, I am a bigger fan of Canadian football. Specifically, a fan of my home province's team: the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Any Canadian would tell you that the biggest, most hardiest team fanbase of any Canadian sport (yes, shockingly this includes hockey teams) is Rider fans.

An example of the pockets of Roughrider green among
the hosting team crowd (Calgary).
Yes, this isn't a home game.

The evidence is in the stands. No matter where Saskatchewan plays their away games, almost half of the stands are the team colours: Green n' White. I thought this was untrue until I first moved to Vancouver. When the Roughriders were visiting the first time I was there, I hesitantly put on my Green n' White jersey and went to the stadium, thinking that I'd be outnumbered. To my surprise, I found myself sitting with a pocket of other Rider fans which riddled the entire stadium evenly between the Orange n' White (BC Lions colours).

I wondered and asked the people sitting around me, "Are you visiting from Saskatchewan?"

General answer: Oh no, we've lived here for the past 5 (10, 20, 30, etc...) years. Once a Rider fan, always a Rider fan.

The huge fan base is very ironic considering that Saskatchewan is a large (600K km²) small (population lingers around 1 million) province. However, due to the continuous emigration from the province (myself included), the RiderNation population is probably 5x that. We breed Rider fans. I don't know where my future husband's home roots are, but our children will bleed green (sorry, dear).

This past weekend, "my boys" (as I tend to call them) were in the Western Final. Another nail biter game, but we emerged victorious! Onto the Grey Cup final (for my American friends, that's the SuperBowl of Canadian football)! Where? Right here in Edmonton! Although I don't have tickets to the game (they go for $500/pop now, it's sold out, plus it's -35oC outside), I'll gather all my RiderNation fans around the TV to scream "GO GREEN".  Win or lose - I'm still proud of my team. It's Grey Cup week in the city. Awesome place to be!

Wow, you're so smart...

I met someone new the other day.

No, this isn't going to be an account that I met a significant other and for the next few paragraphs will be of gushing, sunshine on a cloudy day, and bluebirds singing. Besides, this new person isn't of the opposite sex. So alas, my hunt for Mr. (doesn't have to be) Right continues.

I became newly acquainted with a nice 20-something young woman who was intrigued that I was a molecular microbiologist. She had some insightful and intelligent questions about my profession. And on the turnabout, I was delighted to hear about her own experiences with being a test subject for the latest vaccine for HIV. Wow, she's braver than me!

During the conversation, once again I heard the words: "Wow! A scientist! It must be nice to be so smart!"

I've learned to kindly accept this compliment that comes with having a Ph.D. or being in the science profession. I have protested the exact opposite, in which people think I'm joking.

"No... SERIOUSLY, I'm not as smart as you think I am."

"Ha ha... you're smart and funny too!"

Le sigh.

Yes, I was an A-average student. But low A average. Most of my science classmates scored 97% on their exams, while I was happy with a nice 84%. I had this idea that if I hung out with incredibly smart people, their smartness would rub off onto me, or maybe an osmosis effect. My chances of nabbing scholarship awards/grants were next to nil. I was competing with 99.9% averages. There's no way that I'd win over those folks. I just accepted that I wasn't brilliant, but it didn't deter me from pursuing a career in science. Just made things that much harder.

My first job in science is the shining example of this fact. Actually it wasn't a job... more like a volunteer position. The last year of my undergrad, to get an Honours nod you had to do a research project. From my tiny university, there were only two choices: protein biochemistry or nucleotide biochemistry. My friend Dana (one of my brilliant friends) had her eyes set on cancer research, so the protein biochemistry lab was the logical choice. That left me with the nucleotide research lab headed by a professor whom had previously told me to my face that I was "an idiot". I wasn't overly eager to join his lab, but there was no other choice. And I kinda like DNA. So I attempted to muster courage to ask him if he'd be willing to be my Honours research advisor. It took me 3 days standing outside his closed door, panicking about the prospect of knocking on his door. It wasn't until Dana stood beside me and forced me to knock on his door...

Eying me ruefully, "What do you want?"

"Uh, hi. I've been seriously considering doing an honours project next fall in your lab. I'm wondering if you'd accept me."

"I only accept people on scholarship. Are you on one?"

"Well not a science one..." (I was on a scholarship for Deaf and Hard of Hearing folks, apparently I was a smart Deaf person)

"I thought as much, you don't have enough brights for my lab," while he started to close the door.

"Wait! That may be true. But how about I volunteer to work in your lab over this summer? If you're still convinced that I don't have what it takes, fair enough. But I'm hoping you'd give me a chance to prove myself."

"Wha? You're telling me that you'll work in my lab for free all summer?"

"I'm only asking for a chance to work in a lab to see whether it's really for me. I'll do anything, even wash test tubes."

Which was exactly what I did for the first month. I wasn't "allowed" to do any type of experiment or touch any scientific devices like a simple PCR machine or micropipettor. Just brunt work: washing test tubes, making agar plates, autoclaving waste, washing more test tubes. But I made the most of the experience, observing anyone doing an experiment or procedure. Apparently my curiousity permitted me one day to actually isolate DNA. I was so proud! I think I still have that agarose gel picture of it too. 4 months of working 40h/week without pay (I did night shifts and weekend work at my regular job) apparently impressed the prof and I was accepted to be his Honours project student. The project itself wasn't all exciting, just testing the efficiency of something, but I learned a lot from my first science job and the prof later told me that he learned that not all scientists are good on paper alone (aka transcripts).

Years later, while I prodded onto a Masters project, doctoral project, and now even a post-doc position, my IQ hasn't improved much. Experience, definitely. But I'm still not smart enough on paper.  Even the science that I do today, some of the concepts, I can't get my head around them. But being industrious, at least I have that. So while appearances may be that I'm brilliant - like developing a vaccine brilliant - honestly I'm just like the normal person in an everyday job. The trick remains to convince a dinner party of that...

Music today - I'm purifying proteins this week which means loong looong loooong painful days of spinning and watching things drip. Thank goodness for my mp3 player. The Shout Out Out Out Out's "Dude you feel electrical" is one of my new faves to techno groove.

Mi familia

This weekend started off with a huge surprise from my extended family. Where I currently live, I have about 20 cousins. The sad part is that I rarely see them and I hate inviting myself over for tea. But a week ago I decided - hell, I'm going to ring a doorbell no matter what. I kindly let my cousin Tara know that I was coming over for a "tea-cap" and when I arrived I was greeted by her entire clan from 3 different cities/2 different provinces. It just worked out that everyone was visiting this weekend. While hanging out with your cousins may scare the bejeezus out of some folks, this side of my family rocks. There's a lot of history between us while I was growing up. Some of my best memories come from the homestead farm & family motel during the seasonal and summer holidays. I felt so blessed to be able to spend some time with them while we laughed our arses off around the kitchen table.

In this blog, I've chatted a few times about my "adoptive" Greek family. They are a great bunch of folks, have supported me throughout my life, and I'm always proud to be apart of their lives. This is not to suggest that my biological family isn't equally cool - they are awesomely cool. This weekend was just another example of their coolness. What is weird is that these cousins who I feel so close to aren't really so close to me on the family tree measuring stick. I don't have any immediate uncles/aunts. I barely have great uncle/aunts. These set of cousins come from my maternal grandparents side. Yes... for family I must go *that* far back.

My immediate family is very small - like 3 people small, one for each generation: me, my mom, and my granny. It wasn't planned this way. My grandmother did plan to have a large family, but fate would intervene and she contracted polio during the epidemic outbreak in the early 1950s (yeah, this was a factor of why I'm a microbiologist today). My mom was only 3 at the time and the resulting paralysis usurped any logical reason to have more children.


Fast forward things to my mom and her dreams of a nice nuclear family. But once again life circumstances would intervene - one night, her and I ended up on our own when I was 4 months and have been so ever since. I get a lot jokes about my tiny family plus the fact that I'm an only child, but I believe that my mom did her best and if anyone argues, I own several goalie sticks and know how to use them.

This brings things to me, I'm in my 30s and hear the biological clock ticking. I love kids and sincerely would like to have a couple. I have found a lot of people are shocked to hear/see that I'm a "baby-person". This has kinda irked me as it shows that many don't know who I really am. Maybe it's to do with being so "career-orientated" and my academic studies. While that has been a huge focus of my 20s, it doesn't mean that it's my only life focus. I think having kids are important - not just to continue the family line (well within my family, it is all on me), but having kids puts everything in a different perspective. I love the magicalness (yes, new word in the dictionary) of a child's world. Everything is a discovery, everything is an adventure. Those are two things you relearn with having kids. My mom has expressed a profound want of having grandkids. So far I've just pacified her with  a grandcat. I've joked that it would be *too* easy to give her one. She kindly replies, "Thanks, but I'll wait for a son-in-law first." So yes, kids are on my list, can't wait to meet them.


Off to errand land. Cowboy Junkies have been re-appearing on my playlist this week. "Sweet Jane" is one of my favourite mellow tracks. The repeating chords gets you mesmerized. Ciao!