Today was an excellent weather....so I didn't wanna waste it and went for a run with Vicky and her dog Stella to Buntzen Lake.Well,from now on I need to get in better shape (not that I'm not but stamina wise) before I go skiing on the slopes this winter. (Apparently, our school is trying to get a group deal for us students to go to Whistler!!!)yeahhh... So, from now on I'm gonna do running every weekend besides some fast walking I do on daily basis :).

Of course, I had a little thing to remember today again,lol.I got pulled by Stella so much that I fell....fortunately only with some scratches...still could finish 2 hrs of running (surprisingly, I was not that much exhausted). So this is gonna be my temporary solution before I sign up again for the dancing classes at Harbour Dance Centre .

Anyway, gotta go studying for my finals....covering everything from hotel accommodation, cruises,car rentals up to elapsed flying times and airlines- can hardly wait to spit my knowledge out!

P.S. Btw,today was also my nameday!Thanks to all who remembered :).... It was Katarina's day today,indeed!hehe (didn't celebrate it really only by eating nice dinner at Shark's yesterday)....

K.H.

Today I was supposed to go to school...couldn't make it again. It's been recently I'm feeling so weak and tired of traveling to and back from school in Surrey...and mainly very homesick. It's just this time of the season that it makes it even worse...and also for the people I live with...either not talkative much or not emotionally supportive :(. When I come back it really doesn't feel like at home. This is why I miss my family so much! I realized that it is VERY important for me to communicate on daily basis especially with people who I'm close to, in my case, it's usually my friends...

It's already 6 & half years I've been living in Vancouver and sometimes I wonder how much longer will I manage to stay. More or less, it is the longest time I've ever been away from home...Should I thank that I'm a "stubborn" streak ?

Well,what all this means is that this Christmas I won't fly home to Slovakia (have only 2 weeks off from school)...not enough time to spend with my loving family; mainly because it's very expensive for me now... ...

I better go and recover....

Kat

Today is Celebration of Lights Day - Diwali! Diwali, also known as Deepavali (a "row of lamps"), is perhaps the most important and ancient of the Indian festivals.

It is celebrated throughout India as well as in Indian communities around the world. It is colloquially known as "The Festival of Lights" - the time when families light small oil lamps (known as diyas) and candles around the home and set off firecrackers and fireworks.

The Diwali Festival of Lights is also a celebration of Indian culture with scrumptious food, non-stop free family entertainment, Bollywood dancing, traditional crafts...

Well, we celebrated it already at school by lighting all the sparklers we could get from Ann, our teacher. What I mean precisely, it was the whole college celebrating over a short break in between lectures...very entertaining. I and Rashwindar joked together that this could for sure set the whole college on fire .
I remember this tradition when I lived in Great Britain (1998-2000)with my Indian family Rawal. My employer, Anila, dressed me up in sari and decorated me with perls and other jewels . I felt like a Christmas tree but in a good way. Janka, you will remember all good times,hehe....especially when we got to dance,lol. I laughed so hard because I found it funny when all men lined up facing each other in one row and started hitting with their wooden stick the partner's ones. Gradually the rhythm of the dance took faster rotations...which was particularly funny,hahaha. We were asked by someone from the audience (because we couldn't stop laughing)to go dancing with them. Eventually we went to learn the dance technique .

P.S. I'll try to get the pictures and post it later on for good memories

Kat

O.K. Another week's already started rolling and it brings along with itself the new set of challenges to work on. Let me revise then from where it's started...

Last Sunday was quite relaxing...didn't go clubbing as planned. Instead, I went for a sleep-over at my Venezuelan friend's apartment in BBY - Ana. Since her dad went for business to Chile, we used the opportunity to get drunk,hehe....(bought some Bacardi breezers and ciders...rented movies...the rest I hardly remember). All in all I had a great time as I always do when I go to socialize with others

The Challenges

The theme of this week is more or less focused on setting up the itineraries and presentations as this week's assignment from school. I just love doing this kind of research! One of my projects is WWF - the global conservation organization (although,I wanted to pick UNESCO,"the somebody else" from the class was a way too enthusiastic ).Never mind...Next week I will try to invite a guess speaker to our college to talk about their tourist attraction - The Aquarium in Stanley Park...will see how that goes



P.S. Today I needed sudden change...I went to cut my hair!!!!! I lost some excessive weight,hehe.

When you don't make plans a day before or so the next day you can be pretty much stuck thinking...What am I goin' to do!? One of the solutions to it is having flexible friends who jump on the train with ya...but in my case, it's been not always like that...the perfect example is today (except the evening when I'm supposed to go downtown dancing! ). Another solution is to get yourself working as much as you can ...so I'm better off with other of my projects just to make myself busy to forget it's a blue day today...u must know this trick for sure . So, I'm off to work on myself... Tough job

K.H.