still love the white stuff.

my aunt & uncle are away for another week or so for my cousin's graduation (stella's a doctor now!!!).

so after yesterday's snow storm my brother and i went over to their house to shovel their snow. before...

and after...

:)

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.

mount st louis moonstone...

mi hermano finished his exams on monday so we decided to hit the slopes. had a great time, took some great pictures. the weather was perfect, and best of all, it was SO EMPTY!

you can't see the ground, but i assure you that i got some air in this pic!

bitin' the bullet.

so i'm at the library at UofT. yes you heard me. i'm at the UofT LIBRARY. gerstein to be exact.

why??? well, cause i booked my USMLE test date yesterday and it's time to get my butt back to the books. :(
it's weird being back though. seems like nothing has changed since i was here for undergrad. i might start keeping a tally again. for the record it's going to be 9-5 study days to start and then i'll slot in week nights and weekends once pat starts his exam study. if you're on campus come find me. i'll most likely be at robarts or gerstein.

we got our first major snow fall last night. little parkette by my house...


UofT king's circle with university college in the background.

isn't it beautiful??? :)

feels good to be home!

after about 33+ hours of travel, i am HOME. it's so good to be home. weather is cold. thermometer in the car was reading -6 degrees. there was also some light snow. nowhere near enough to accumulate but just enough to bring a smirk to my face. i know toronto is a big city but it seems humongous compared to brisbane. there seems to be more cars, more people, more skyscrapers, more everything.

my house is completely different from when i left last january. most noticeably, the gray carpets have been replaced with shiny new hardwood. i love it. there's also a huge 47" lcd tv in the living room and my brother has a sparkling new desktop with a huge 20" flat screen - which i'm on right now. i suspect that my parents may have had some sort of cash infusion of which i am unaware of. hm... ??? maybe it's from not having to feed their eldest!
:)
the last leg of my flight was long. really long. like 15 hours long. but i was incredibly lucky and got a seat in the emergency row. if you're ever flying in an airbus 340-600, ask for seats in row 20 - so much leg room it's not even funny.

it snowed!

toronto had its first major snowstorm of the year.
our car got stuck in the driveway, my socks got wet from stepping into huge mounds of snow and traffic slowed down to a crawl... but i loved every moment of it.

and i'm pretty sure this guy was happy to see some snow too.

on saturday night, went out to this exquisite french restaurant called gamelle. it's on college just west of bathurst. it's this tiny little place where you can see right into the kitchen. the whole restaurant seats maybe 30 people at most. it had so much character. so much charm.
we started off with some calamari. then she had the risotto and i had the lamb. we topped things off with a "gateau chocolat". it's nice to have some upscale cuisine every now and then. back in brissy, splurging on food meant a trip to the local vietnamese restaurant for pho! haha.

speaking of my eating habits lately... my mother tells me that she's had to do her costco shopping twice as often lately because of all the food i've been eating. kekeke.

in other news. i've been listening to a lot of ol' school lauryn hill lately. released almost 10 years ago and it's still hot.

my apologies.

to those of you that had a miserable time commuting in the snow/slush today, i'm sorry.
you see, i have been secretly hoping for snow in toronto before i even left brisbane. and today i got my wish.