Geocaching

A few days ago I went Geocaching for the first time ever! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Geocaching, its basically a big outdoor treasure hunt where you use GPS coordinates to find containers stashed with little trinkets and paper where you and your group of friends can sign your names and the date that you found the cache. The tradition is that you bring little trinkets or toys that belong to you and take an item that someone else left and leave your own. And caches are everywhere, seriously! It's so easy to find caches in your area, and there are winter friendly ones too! Here are a few pictures that I snapped on our hunt for caches in the Ganaraska forest (we found 3!)

Long Time No Blog

It's been a good few weeks since I've updated le blog. I've taken an unintentional blog break the past little while, mostly do to the lack of inspiration of things to post about. I'm trying to think of a recap to make about the things that I've been up to, but all the days are blurring together and I'm having a hard time remembering everything that has happened the past little while. Here's a few things that have been on my mind though:

1. Finishing university and moving

I'm so close to finishing my undergrad degree and its just starting to sink in that I have 4 more days of classes to complete before the end of an era. It's going to be weird not being in school because that's all I've known so far. I think the everyday stuff is going to be an adjustment, with not walking through campus, being a bus ride away from seeing friends and walking down the street-lamp lit street en route to the entertainment in the Market. 

I'm moving home and it's definitely going to be strange from living in a city for 4 1/2 years to the country. It's going to be so quiet outside. I'm so used to hearing sirens, having the street lamps giving a soft orange glow in my bedroom at night and being surrounded by tall buildings.

When I do move home, I have a few things that I want to focus on. As soon as I move home, I'm going to apply to H&M for a job. It would be so amazing working there, surrounded by amazing clothes and people with style. I also want to commit to a regular fitness regime. School has kind of been a pain-in-the-butt with that.

2. Changing up the hair

I always gets so fidgety with my hair and I'm craving for a change again. I absolutely adore my bangs, I'm so glad I decided to go back to them. I have a teensy bit of a grey patch growing in, it's not super visable, but its there. I kinda want to go dark with my hair! Nothing too dark, but something darker than what I have. I've thought about testing out a demi-permanent colour to see if I like it, but chickened out when I was in the store isle. I also really like the trend of clip-in feather extensions. Nothing too crazy on the colour, but maybe a white and brown patterned feather. 

3. This blog

I've also been thinking about this blog and what I want to do with it in the future. I think once school is done, I'm going to commit to posting on a regular basis and integrating more of my own content, especially with pictures. I also kind of want to turn this into a style blog! I think I'm starting to become more aware of my personal style, and with this blog helping along the way could help me discover and chip away at it more (although the thought of taking an outfit shot is kind of intimidating!).

Well, that's about it for now! I have class in the morning and tomorrow is going to be one of my last homework days as a student! I'm going to be writing some blog posts for my New Media class tomorrow, listening to music and putting on a coconut and shea butter mask that I got from Forever 21 for $1! 

Romantic Star Projector

I have been coveting star projectors for the past year and I've been trying to find a company that sells them. I gave up for a while, but the other day while I was browsing Pinterest, I saw some pictures from the online shop INFMETRY that sells them!

Wouldn't this be so romantic to have in your bedroom or your kitchen while having dinner? Just imagine, a guy invites you over to make you dinner and he surprises you with a delicious meal, some wine, and some Bon Iver playing in the background. I want this projector sooo bad! If someone buys it for me, you'll be my favourite person forever! ;)

Stay Young, Go Dancing

Eeek! The new 2012 IKEA catalogue came out recently and I found myself drooling over the entire online magazine and picking out everything that I love. It got me to thinking about how it's so strange that our tastes change as we get older, whether it be music, food, fashion, decor or our taste in who we're attracted to. I often find myself thinking about how much my tastes have evolved and how they're staying relatively constant at this time.

When I was a teenager (doesn't that sound awful?) my taste in music hovered around bands like Yellowcard, My Chemical Romance and The Used, anything that sang to the closet angsty teen that was inside of me. I was about 16 or 17 during this time and its strange to think that I don't actively listen to these bands anymore. Right now, my musical taste has evolved to a genre of alternative/electronic, which if you're interested in checking out, hit up my posts labeled "music" in my sidebar. In my Audience Research class that I took this summer, we read an article that discussed our musical tastes as we grow up. I found it super interesting that our musical tastes are defined between the ages of 18-22 and we tend to lock into that for the rest of our lives. My professor mentioned that the same thing goes for our creative ideas and opinions/views. Neat, huh?

As for food tastes, I would have to say that my palate has both changed and stayed the same. I still have a strong aversion towards sea food, red meat of any kind and the crusts on sandwiches (weird, right?). Then again, I've grown accustomed to foods like olives and red peppers.

Fashion wise, I think my personal style has changed remarkably. In high school I didn't have much of a fashion sense, I remember wearing things like flared jeans and baggy t-shirts and not caring what I wore didn't phase me at all. I don't think it was until I was 17 that I started being more conscious of what I wore. I've definitely committed some fashion crimes during my time at university, but I'm definitely more picky about what I wear and I often have times when I look in  my closet and drawers and can't find a single thing to wear. 

As for my taste in boys, I think I've fallen all over the place in the past 6 or 7 years. Through high school I had a little thing for punk guys, I loved the black hair, the skinny jeans and the lip piercings, all of which I think were tied to my musical tastes. At this moment, I think I'm really picky. I haven't really noticed anyone that has piqued my interests; a guy that shares my love for beautiful film, who loves sarcasm as much as I do and who I'm actually interested in talking to for more than 5 minutes without any awkward silence.

Eeeps, I've gotten way off track than what I was initially going to post about. Here are a few pictures of the IKEA rooms that I'm loving right now. 

ps: How has your taste changed up until now and in what ways? I'm eager to hear!

Happy Valentine's Day

Just a little something for all of you out there...

        Rachel  xo

1.1.11.

It's 2011! I hope this year will be filled with amazing things. The one thing I'm really looking forward to this year is graduating from university at the end of July/early August. That day cannot come soon enough! I'm soooo ready to be done university and to start something else. I have no idea what my plans are after that, but I'm definitely moving out of Ottawa. It's time to move on to bigger and better things. Speaking of bigger and better things, join me while I dream about moving and living abroad! One day, hopefully. <3

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New Year, New Opportunities

I know some of you may think the whole concept of New Years Resolutions to be lame and pointless, but I've thought about it and think its a good idea for implementing new habits in 2011. I never really made solid resolutions before, so I might as well try it out, right? After some careful thought, I've narrowed down my resolutions to:

1. Get fit: I know this resolution has been beaten to death and a lot of people have never succeeded in achieving this goal, but I kind of made this resolution last year and it worked out pretty well actually (I started including the gym as an activity 2 or 3 times a week. I might not have stuck very closely with this, but improvement was made!) This year I'm going to make it a habit to go to the gym at least 3x a week, make healthier food choices and to opt for walking instead of taking the bus.

2. Stay positive: It can be so easy to go into worst case scenario mode, but keeping a positive state of mind will do wonders for my mood. 

3. Stop caring what others think: I fall into this habit sooooo often that I need to remind myself that other people's thoughts and opinions shouldn't and will not affect me.

4. Develop a sense of personal style: I fell victim to a few, okay, a lot of fashion faux pas in 2010, so I want/need to start thinking critically in terms of what I'm wearing and what I want to express to the world.

5. Get a job: Any job that will garner an income. Bonus points if I enjoy it!

Well, that's about all I can think of. I kept it pretty short because I find that if people make a lot of resolutions, it can be overwhelming and have a higher risk of failure. 2011 will be my year, I have a good feeling about this. Eeek, New Years Eve is tomorrow, I need to find something to wear! :)

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Sigh No More

I hope each and every one of you had a great Christmas! Yesterday I made the mistake of going Boxing Day shopping at the mall and got to witness all the deal-grubbing people first hand. I ended up finding a good pair of winter boots, but I'm not sure if I'm completely in love with them, so I might return them, we'll see. For Christmas, I received a bunch of stuff that I had asked for, and a few gag gifts as well:

1. Knit Sweater Boots from Old Navy.
2. A Starbucks gift basket with a mug, coffee, hot chocolate and tea (from my bro).
3. Subway giftcard.
4. A leather Pandora bracelet with two charms.
5. A Sony Reader.
6. Clothes from H&M.
7. Giftcards for H&M that I have yet to use (!)
8. Diamond hoop earrings.
9. Curling/Waving Wand.
10. Money.

And the gag gifts that I received included a pack of 3 Bumpits and a Shake Weight, hahaha. I'm kind of intruiged by the Shake Weight, so we'll see if it actually works come spring and summer time. I'm hoping to go shopping tomorrow to use my H&M giftcards so I will share what gems I (hopefully) find.

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We Gonna Party Like It's Your Birthday

Today is my 22nd birthday! It's so surreal and it just feels like a regular day! I ended up going out for dinner the night before with family, and it was a bundle of fun. I got the new 4th generation iPod Touch which was a great surprise. I'm still in the stage of drooling over it and squealing at all the fun things it can do. It turns out that I can blog from my iPod, and can take pictures and video on it, which will be a new added feature on the blog. Get excited! I'm off to bed, to begin my birthday with sleeping in :)

Subterranean Homesick Alien

I can't believe that it's already December 10th! This  month is just flying by. Classes ended and I just had my first exam on the 9th, which wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It's weird to think that this is my last fall semester in school. I kind of don't want it to end, because the next little while is kind of unknown territory!

On another note, I want to learn to speak German. It's such an awesome language and sounds amazing. I'm going to see what German summer classes are offered at the school, and if there are any available, I'm going to take one or two just for the heck of it. 

Also, here's a little sneak peak of what I looked like this week in preparation for my exams:

Just the Way You Are

I've had a fairly low-key weekend so far. I went Christmas shopping today and I am now watching Bridget Jones Diary and Love Actually (as well as studying for German) to get in tune with the holiday season. I now want to watch one of my favourite Christmas films The Holiday. Watching these movies makes me want to take a long vacation across the pond, but in the meantime I can just swoon over these beautiful pictures.

November Was White, December Was Grey

Even though I've been looking forward to it for months it seems as though December creeped out of nowhere. November went by so fast. It doesn't even feel like December though, which is a little sad, because I was picturing at least a few inches of snow staying around, and instead it was 10 degrees outside, humid and raining. Ick. 

This week has honestly been the worst for homework, my stress levels climbed up, and after today, they're slowly going down again. This weekend is going to be filled with study notes, coffee, and on Sunday, all things filled with Christmas!

In the meantime, I feel like doing a snow dance.

1983

I'm going to be so glad when this semester is over. I'm enjoying my film classes tremendously, but am not completely loving my public relations class. It's so hard to find motivation to work on projects when I don't enjoy what I'm learning. I thought I would really enjoy this class and thought about exploring it as a career after graduation, but it turns out that the field is definitely not for me. It's all about creating a positive image for a company and strategies to help achieve that, but the bottom line is basically how to cover the company's corporate butt and how to make more money. Ick, not for me thank you very much! On a lighter note, the class will be finished in about a week's time. Fingers crossed everything goes okay!

Finals are just around the corner and I can already feel the stress accompanied with it. I'm probably going to start hibernating in the library soon getting everything prepared for my written and take-home exams. I just know that I'm going to be hyped on caffiene, and getting my daily jo fix at the local Starbucks. I'm going to need it for the all-nighters I forsee in the near future!

Apologies for the long rant. As a gift, here are some pretty pictures to pick you back up again.

The Diamond Sea

The weirdest thing happened to me last night. My computer died on me! At first I thought it shut down because it needed to install some updates, but I couldn't restart it. I checked to see if it was plugged in properly and it was, so I concluded that it went to computer heaven. I guess I could see about getting it fixed, but there are so many other things wrong with it that I don't think it's worth it. Lucky for me, I have my little Dell net book to use until I get a new one. 

Ideally, I would love to get a mac, but the mac world is uncharted territory for me. Don't get me wrong, I know the general ways of using a mac, but as a potential buyer, I'm lost. If I did get a mac, it would probably be the regular white macbook. Is mac really better than PC? Are there any mac users out there that could share their experiences with Apple? Please let me know :)

*I also created a Formspring account, so feel free to check that out in the right column of my blog!

Prospekt's March

Only one post this week? Terrible! School has been really stressful this week, I had a major essay to write that was due yesterday. I ended up getting it done in good time, but I hated having to do it all last minute. Unfortunately, school takes precedence over this blog, so my posts this week have had to wait. I have a lot to catch up on for the 30 day challenge! I'll probably end up doing a huge post to get caught up. I also need to blog about my recent shopping expedition and what I purchased from my favourite store H&M! 

I'm back in the city and the weather has been pretty dreary, cold and wet. I'm not really loving it. I really would like a long and drapy sweater to bundle under. Can we just fast forward to winter plz?

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Happy Days Are Here Again

So this week has been a bit of a blur. I've been thinking a lot about my life and where I want myself to be. I've kind of had a change of heart just recently. I guess it all started with my Italian Cinema class. We were watching a really sad movie called Facing Windows. It was a really fantastic film, but it's one of those films where a woman is married with children and is up to her knees in regrets, not having followed her dreams or the things she loved. She's not in love with her husband and ends up having a short affair with her charming neighbour next door. The ending is pretty strange, but it really makes you think about how we're living right now and how we need to do things that make us happy, not settling for a satisfactory job or a satisfactory partner. 

Anyways, after giving it some careful thought, I decided that after school, I'm going to work abroad. I'm not sure where yet, but I need to do it. I'm so tired about hearing adventurous stories from other people about where they've traveled to, and the crazy things that have happened to them on the way. I'm going to a seminar this week about learning how to work abroad, so hopefully I'll get some more information about it. More posts to come, pinky swear.

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Vesuvius

I swear, in a past life I was an astronomer. I love all things related to the solar system, planets, stars, space gases, etc. Space is so strange. I could watch the night sky for hours if I could, but only get to steal a few glimpses when I'm walking outside when the sun goes down.

It's so funny to think that wherever you are in the world, you can see the same canopy of stars and constellations you see at home. It's comforting in a way, you could be worlds apart from someone special, but still get to share the same night sky. 

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Flume

Thanksgiving is this weekend! I'm kind of excited to go home for a bit, but I also have to study for my midterm in German Cinema class that's next week. I've been so bad at posting this past week, but school is really starting to shift into full gear. 


This picture kind of reminds me of that stage between Fall and Winter. It's definitely starting to get more chilly now, which I love, but I'm unable to go sans-coat anymore. Time to bundle up with scarves!

I saw this picture on A Cup of Jo and swooned over this cute neck warmer from Pipsqueak Chapeau. It's so adorable and looks like it would be nice and warm during winter. The only problem? It's $120. I could probably make one for $3. 

This Modern Love

Today was such a nice day. I cozied up in a cardigan and scarf and went to class feeling pretty good. I don't know what it was about today, it could have been that I aced one of my assignments, my delicious Pumpkin Spice Latte or seeing one of my darling bff's, but I felt so good today! That was, until it started to rain heavily and I was stuck walking home in the rain with soaked feet. So, I really need to get a new pair of fall boots, ones that don't suck! I'll probably buy some new ones this week, I don't think the ones I have right now will last another week, eep! Well, that's a short update from today, I'm sleepy so time to cozy up under my duvet and listen to the rain outside.

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*I've decided that I'm going to start integrating more of my own photos into my posts. I don't like not having anything to show that's actually from me. I think it'll personalize my little blog a bit more. Also, I love this picture, I don't know why.

I'm Good, I'm Gone

Well, tomorrow is almost upon us. It's time to make the trip back to Ottawa for the new school year. One more year and then I'll be done. Done. Urgh, it's time to go back to packing. For some reason, I find it hard to believe that I'll be leaving at 10:00am, I barely have anything packed. Time to put my headphones in and get to work. With my room in Ottawa striped bare of clothing and items, I'll be able to make it all nice and tidy and maybe even post pictures of it. Until then, here's a pretty picture.

Photographer Jeff Wall. I love this photo, it's magic.