toronto: the good & the bad.

the GOOD.
starting around thursday night, we got 15cm of snow. it was a white out! we're expecting another storm starting tonight at midnight. yay!

the GOOD.
toronto police are now the best paid in the province. by 2010 a first-class constable will earn $81,249. good for them. in my opinion, they put their lives on the line day in and day out and are deserving of every penny. if david miller wants to talk about not having enough money in the budget, we can start looking at cutting his $163,040 salary.

the GOOD.
last night went to go see toronto symphony orchestra's rendition of Handel's Messiah. i enjoyed it very much. it was made sweeter by the fact that through tsoundcheck i got $79 tickets for $24 each!

the GOOD.
after the concert, i drove my date home. the roads were a mess, but that just meant that i had an excuse to drive slowly. :) just as we got to her place, the car in front of me got stuck on the mini off-ramp. so i grabbed my shovel and gave him a hand. he was stuck pretty good, but while we were digging out, 2 other cars stopped to give a hand. it wasn't even their exit, just good samaritans that stopped to help out.

the BAD.
besides the 2 cars that stopped to help out, another guy in a black gmc jimmy (i should've taken a mental note of his license plate) stopped and offered to pull out the stuck driver... for $40. come on! what a jackass. if you want to help someone out of the goodness of your heart, that's great. if not, just keep driving. just keep driving man.

rugby? who needs rugby?!?!

so on saturday, the leafs held a news conference to announce their new general manager and president Brian Burke.

i gotta say, so far, i'm impressed. i was particularly impressed with his 3 "mission points".
1. exciting & entertaining brand of hockey
2. financial prudence - it's not his money that he's spending, so he'll be careful when spending it.
3. community service - Burke says that his players will be more involved in the community than ever before and if any player is unwilling to fulfill his "civic duties" he can find another place to play. i especially like this one.

bottom line is that regardless of how exciting the leafs are, how much he spends on the payroll or how much his players give back to the community, UNFORTUNATELY brian burke's time here will be evaluated based on only one thing: the number of wins - and ultimately a stanley cup win.

*****

went to church with my friend jenn today and then chilled with my cousin justin in the afternoon. we decided to go check out a marlies game. had a great time. it was an entertaining game with the marlies winning in a shootout after the 7th shooter 4-3 over the rochester americans.

you know what the BEST part was though??? captain crunch was in the house!!! by complete chance, wendel clark was at the game signing autographs. what what!!!

best idea justin's come up with in about 6 years i think.

turandot.

opera last night was quite good.

a quick rundown of the plot:
there is a princess by the name of Turandot. she is unmarried. there are many suitors but she is not interested in getting married to any of them. in order to avoid marriage, she poses 3 questions to the eligible bachelor. if and only if he answers all 3 questions correctly can the bachelor marry. if he answers any of the questions incorrectly he is beheaded.

we are introduced to Calaf (the male lead) just as the prince of Persia is about to be decapitated. Calaf is a prince in exile from Tartary. despite warnings from everyone around him including his father (Timur) and his father's salve (Liu) - who has a crush on Calaf, he proceeds to strike the gong 3 times to signal that he is a willing contestant.

he answers the three questions correctly:
1. what is born each night and dies each dawn? hope.
2. what flickers red and warm like a flame, yet is not fire? blood.
3. what is like ice but burns? Turandot!
surprised, Turandot begs her father not to give her away to this stranger. Calaf in hopes of winning her over offers her a question of his own - what is his name? if she answers correctly, then no marriage and Calaf is beheaded. if her answer is incorrect, they get married.

many try to bribe Calaf but to no avail. eventually they capture Timur and Liu. as they are about to torture Timur for the answers, Liu cries out that she is the only one that knows this "stranger's" identity. but that she won't reveal it. she then commits suicide to keep the secret.

everyone else goes to bury Liu. but Turandot stays to comfort Calaf. they embrace and Turandot feels emotion for the first time. Calaf confident that he won't be beheaded, tells her his identity and gives her the power to decide what to do with him. when the time comes to announce the identity of the stranger, despite knowing his real name she says... "his name is... LOVE!" (pretty cheesy i know!)

so he lives and they live happily ever after. :)

*****
overall the production was good. i really enjoyed it. but i gotta say that the male lead and female lead were overshadow by a great performance by Hye Seoung Kwon as Liu. Marian Talaba's (Calaf) rendition of Nessum Dorma was unimpressive at best. :( and i swear, i'm not being biased because she was korean. she was actually VERY good. and it was clear by the audience reaction when the performers were out for their curtain call. had a good time. much better than miss saigon last year.

16 days, 14 hours, 3 minutes.

solid study week. clocked in at 42 hours total. :) but there's still so much more do to!!!
next week's goal: 45 hours.

off to watch turandot at qpac tonight. doesn't ring a bell? maybe this'll help.


and if THAT doesn't help, surely this must...

house of god.

this week is my mid-semester break. after this week, it's lockdown mode. 9 more weeks of class and then FINALS!!!
what do i have planned? not much actually. i'm actually going to try and get some work in, tie up some housekeeping stuff (sign up for USMLEs, do my taxes) and just stick around the city to take in some of the brissy culture (picasso exhibition at the art gallery, rock climbing, a brisbane broncos rugby league game). that's the plan.

i do plan on doing some reading though. some non-med-related reading. sort of. today i finished off this book called "the house of god" by samuel shem (pseudonym for stephen bergman). it's this ancient book, and by ancient i mean from the late 70s... about the life of an intern. i read it cause it kept coming up... my clinical coach mentioned it, ifinding mentions it, older med students have mentioned it... i guess you could liken it to vincent lam's "bloodletting and miraculous cures". that book - although, in my opinion was not very good and unworthy of the giller prize - is unofficially considered to be a must-read for all life sci/"pre-med" students at UofT.
i'm told "house of god" is mandatory reading for all med students and interns. it starts off quite cynical and vulgar but in the end i can see what all the hype is about. in the end it's sort of romantic. a little bit of a love story. i enjoyed it.

on an unrelated note... the NFL season starts this week. and many are predicting the dallas cowboys to win it all. romo-owens-barber. are these the new "triplets" that'll take us back to the good ol' days of the early-mid 90s? maybe.

good tacky fun.

as mentioned, yesterday was a holiday. if i don't say so myself, we used it quite well... we started off with some spring cleaning. we gave the kitchen & bathroom a good cleaning, vacuumed everywhere and even cleared our driveway of all the leaves.

after that we headed out to the ekka. it was basically like the CNE in toronto and exactly what we had expected. tacky and expensive. but still silly fun.

cheese!

we ate deep fried foods...

rode carnie rides...

and stuck around for the fireworks.

it was good. but like the Ex, it's really not something worth going more than a few times in your life. every so often the tackiness is fun but after awhile, the tackiness gets, well... tacky!

good laughs.

just got home from jeff green's show. it was good. he flippin' killed it. went on for about an hour and forty minutes. he joked about all sorts of stuff - just to name a few... adelaide, queensland's drought last year, tubas, fatherhood, marriage, extreme sports, queen elizabeth, posh spice... were all poked at.
as "homework" i had watched some of his stuff on YouTube. but then, i was a little worried that I'd ruined my night and that i'd end up listening to the same material. but to my very pleasant surprise, he had a lot of new stuff. i was not disappointed at all.

it was at this venue called the "powerhouse". it used to be an old power station that's now been converted into a cultural centre with theatres and restaurants. the theatre itself reminded me of the panasonic theatre in toronto. it was a neat little place.

***
didn't get nearly as much studying done this week as i would've like to. am no where near my goal of 20 hours for the week. now i'm not here to make excuses but in my defense, i wasn't feeling so hot this week. i had the sniffles, a slight chill & a bit of a headache.
next week. will get there next week.

may? is it may already?

so this saturday is the May Ball. May Ball is a formal for med students. however, some of my friends and i decided that instead of paying $90 for bad food & an excuse to get hammered while all dolled up, we'd do something a little more... sensible & affordable.

we're gonna go check out this comedian by the name of jeff green who happens to be in town for a tour. never heard of him? neither have i. but of course like any good student, i did some research on my trusty & 'reliable' resource of YouTube.

it seems like he'll be pretty funny.
not quite as funny as say dylan moran or tommy tiernan but funny nonetheless.
should be good!

miss saigon...

went out to see miss saigon at the queensland performing arts centre (QPAC) today. it was a sad little story. did i cry? nah. do i look like a softee? don't answer that.
it was good. i enjoyed the show. had a good time, met a few second years...
but i was a little disappointed with the theatre and the turnout. we went to a sunday matinee show (cause it's cheaper!). we were in the first row of the 3rd deck. but seriously, 95% of the seats in the upper deck were empty. that was a little disappointing.
also you know how back home, you get a little free program? with pics and background info about the cast? here? nothing. we got nothing. i don't even know the name of the actress who played kim (the female lead).
also the QPAC has a really small stage. probably seats like 2000+ but the stage was TINY! and it had no character. kind of like the Toronto Centre for the Arts (the one in North York, used to be called the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts - i think). it was really just a lot of concrete and really mundane. nothing like royal alexandra theatre or even the canon theatre.

went out for some korean food and gelato afterwards. mm... mm... MMM!