[P's 1st Indian Wedding Experience]

There's always a first for everything and my first time going to an Indian wedding proved to be a very interesting experience. Yesterday, I attended as my dad's guest to one of his coworker's wedding banquet so being an occasionally adventurous soul, I went along with an open mind. I'm usually not a big fan of Indian cuisine, but I found most of the dishes to be quite yummy. The butter chicken was to die for and the entertainment was sensational. Never before have I seen a rowdier group of middle aged people, especially the men. Those Indian guys really know how to bust a move! After being persuaded by a coworker (and a couple of beers), even daddy started getting funk-kay on the dancefloor. =P Overall, a great experience but here's a tip that we were lucky enough to get ahold of. The next time you're invited to an Indian wedding banquet, keep in mind the concept of "Indian time". Apparently, arriving 1.5 hours past the time stated on the invitation is THE perfect time to get there. Otherwise, you'll be sitting alone waiting for the first guests to arrive, wishing you had stopped by at the nearby McDonald's for a snack.

Here comes the bride and groom!

Indian performers consisting of dancers and musicians.

The groom joining in on the fun.

The Indian women coming out for their dance.

Reckitt Benckiser employees getting their groove on! =)

[Estuary Camping '06]

Camping '06 was a blast! It was definitely one of the most fun and memorable of them all...the other being when I first met my little P-hong. That time, we chatted to so late in the night, telling ghost stories in the woods, that one of the older guys in the group almost wanted to pummel poor Phong for "taking advantage" of me. =P What made this year's trip so special was the presence of my beloved housemate, Emily! I was so nervous before the trip and worried that she would feel alienated or be overwhelmed by the spiritual content but it all turned out well and everyone had an amazing time. Just check out the photos for yourself!

After our campsite was finally set up, the program began with a few ice breaker games. There were a few logistical difficulties but that all turned around when we ended up playing a few very entertaining rounds of charades/broken telephone of recent movies. Here's Mook See trying to give his best interpretation of the movie "Descent".


The girls got it a little easier with "Superman" but along the way it somehow ended up being confused for "Hercules".


The best had to have been the boy's acting out of "The March of the Penguins". =P


Shenanigans ensued the next day on the beach. Em and I ended up spending most of our time napping/tanning on the beach while the others frollicked in the nasty algae-infested waters. There was about a foot of the stuff to thread through to get to the water!! There was just no way either of us were going to play in that filty stuff. After a while, we decided it would be fun to bury Phong under the sand. At first, there was a lot of complaining as he tried to get out of it but after a while he just let us do our thing like a good boy. Secretly, I think he liked it under there. Minus the boobs, that was a pretty rockin' body we gave him. Just look at that smokin' 6-pack. =P


Like in every year's camping trip, we again attempted the human pyramid. I think we get better and better with each year. After an unsuccessful attempt at a 5-person base, we succeed with a 4-person one. Pretty good don't you think?


Finally it was time to pack things up and say goodbye to a fabulous weekend of fun, good weather and most of all good company. Here is me and my fellow "tent-ies" with our masterpiece of a tent, which took quite an effort to set up. Good job girlies!


Thanks for the memories! I can't wait until next year. =)

For more pictures, go to http://perlywhirly.shutterfly.com/action/

[My summer thus far...]

Summer is more than 3/4 done and I suppose now is a good time to reflect. This summer felt...short. Darn you summer school! I shake my fist at you! What a bust...in the end, taking summer school or not didn't make that big of a difference in terms of easing the course load for next year. Silly me decided to take one extra credit on top of the ones I need to graduate just because Bioremediation sounds like a "fun" course - man I'm such a nerd - and most probably will be useful for getting into environmental engineering.

This summer also happened to be my first summer in a long time being umemployed although it wasn't by choice. I must really suck to have high schoolers being picked over me for unskilled jobs. What a bummer. So instead, I spent most of the past month doing volunteer work over at Sherwood Park (in the Mt. Pleasant/Eglinton area) and as an ambassador for the Conservation Council of Ontario's Doors Closed campaign. Despite not getting paid and the sometimes grueling hard work, I'm quite enjoying myself at both of these very different environments. At Sherwood, it's 2 hours a day of cutting out very nasty weeds (sometimes needing to wade through a forest of thistles to get to them!) or hauling giant pails of mulch around while being baked under the hot sun. It's physically demanding work but the appreciation you get from passerbys and the sense of accomplishment after chopping up an 8ft burdock makes it all worthwhile. =) Janice, our supervisor and the rest of the volunteers are all so great and because I'm the youngest, it feels like I'm the baby. =P

I've just started work with the Conservation Council yesterday and already I'm enjoying myself so much. It's a bit like last summer's work in that we have to go around door-to-door in the Chinatown area to encourage stores and restaurants to keep their doors closed when their a/c is running. Some people are mean and pretend they don't understand English so that you'll go away but for the most part, people are quite cooperative, some even showing genuine concern about the environment. My team members, Brian and Corinna and I heard the funniest thing today. It was around 3pm when we went inside a bar type restaurant to give our little schpiel when this drunk man interrupts to ask what we were doing. So we tell him we're going around trying to spread word about our energy-saving iniative and he starts asking us why we aren't doing anything about the bad weather that's been going on lately. Umm...does it look like we control the weather?? So we just ignored him for a bit, knowing that the dude was probably already plastered. Poor guy was sitting alone with a pitcher full of beer at 3 in the afternoon. As we were about to leave after having talked to the owner, drunk dude says to us "Your efforts against Mother Nature are futile." like it was something out of Star Trek. We managed to keep a straight face on until we got outside where we burst out laughing. Toronto's got too many crazies I tell ya. My fellow CCO teammates are just so cool. =D

And that's all I've got to say. Camping tomorrow!! I'm excited!!