Wednesday 5 December 2012

Catching up.

Hey all. Man, it's been a while since I wrote anything. It's been, like, over a month now. There's just been a lot happening in my life lately. I still walked around the town though, whenever possible, but's it's been really difficult to find the time between dodgeball games and those awkward yoga classes that I've been taking.

I received a 5 courses package as a gift and the studio is located in an apartment in Verdun. I live close to the Olympic stadium so it's quite a long distance from home, but I went anyways because I had nothing better to do of my time. I went there on Wednesday because that was the only day where they had evening classes late enough for me to attend after work. And, it totally wasn't what I expected. The instructor made us build these sets with a bunch of blocks and cushions and chairs and make us strap our legs together and then we had to lie down on the whole thing that we had built. It just felt so freakin' awkward and I eventually ended up with my legs all numb and cramped up and with a really bad back pain. The worst part was when he made us use the chairs. They're basically foldable metal chairs, you know like the ones wrestlers use in the WWF. We had to put our legs through them and lie backwards with our head down with our back curved over the edge of the seat. Anyway, it's hard to explain, but it was really fucking painful. It was so bad that other people in the class complained as well and started asking questions about what the fuck we were doing because this shit was not the kind of yoga we were used to do in other studios. I had my last yoga class yesterday and I am not going back there again.

Dodgeball has been awesome. I signed up as an individual player and the organization who takes care of the whole thing, the Montreal Sports Social Club, paired me with other individuals who signed up by themselves. I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I used to play back when I lived in Ottawa with a group of friends and friends of friends who eventually became my friends. Now, I was starting all over with a bunch of strangers and I didn't know if I was going to have as much fun. Of course the Ottawa team, Shanarnia (it's a long story) was a group of crazy people who were out to make fools of themselves and the chemistry was just there from the start. This new team, now called team Thunderballs, was a bit awkward at first. But, after hanging out a couple of times we really warmed up to each other and we're having a blast every time we play. The best part though is that recently we started to go for drinks after the games and lately we've been playing around NDG near that Korean-Japanese grocery store. There's a tiny little Irish pub in that area called Honey Martin that I spotted when I was walking around that place. It's a dark little hole in the wall with a really cozy atmosphere. The people that hang out there seem super cool. I actually spotted Big James there the first night we went. (He's a YouTube "celebrity" I guess...) For three weeks now, every Tuesday night we've been going there and it so happens to be trivia night as well! And we've been pretty good! So far we've been able to tie with another team and lost the tie breaker every time, but the last time we went we actually won! We got small beers as prizes which was pretty cool. Some of these questions are tough and require some deep pop culture knowledge. It's a lot of fun and I will try to go back there again for the next few weeks until the dodgeball season starts again.

Also, I went back to the Asian grocery store again and got this:

Yes, that is a big-ass box of big-ass Pocky. I mean, check out the size of that thing!!

It's big and long and chocolatey brown, 
just the way I like 'em!

I also got some Dragonball Z soda pop cans. I got those to share with a couple of friends of mine with whom we used to share a passion for those comic books back when we were kids. Also, I bought every flavour of Ramune they had in stock. Sadly, they didn't have any funky flavours like curry or shrimp or some other fucked up Japanese flavour. Speaking of curry, if you've never had Japanese curry, you have got to try it. I recommend going to the restaurant Ramen-Ya on Saint-Laurent as their curry is very good. I got myself a few pouches of 3min curry to make on the fly when I get tired of Ramen. (Hahahahaha, as if I would ever get tired of ramen, lol!) Finally, I got myself some Japanese mochi balls which are sweet soft gelatinous rice gelatin balls stuffed with all sorts of cream or jellies. It's pretty good.

I also switched jobs recently. That was really hard. Not so much on the effort it took and the stress and all that, but rather difficult of leaving some really good friends behind. I really had made some good friends at my other job and I miss them. But, I think this was for the best. I have gone through some rough times this year and that left a pretty bad impression with my previous employer. I feel like they lost confidence in me and my abilities and I felt like I had lost some pretty good opportunities because of my personal problems. So, this new job that was offered, not only was it more in line with my career objectives, it was also a way for me to get a fresh start. But yeah, I lost the company of some really good friends and that sucks. In exchange I got this amazing view of downtown Montreal though, which is pretty fucking awesome.



This new job is going to be a challenge. I'm working on an application for digital advertisement signs such as those large multi-screen advertisement panels we find in the metro or giant screens in Time Square. The programming language is one of the hardest to master in the industry and it's taking me a lot of concentration to be able to work, but I think I'm doing pretty good for myself as long as I don't get distracted. I hope I'll be able to perform in that new job this time and really shine. I think I deserve it after all the crap I've been through since I graduated.

Other than that, I've been keeping busy walking around, even though I haven't posted anything in a while. It's been super cold too lately, so it has been very difficult to motivate myself to go out in sub-zero temperatures.  It's also difficult to take pictures when your hands are frozen or you're wearing gloves. Additionally, I felt that some shoes I had were inadequate for this kind of weather. Namely, my small Converse shoes. So, I went and got myself a pair of warm ones like I had found earlier this year. They have done the job quite well and kept my feet nice and warm during cold days. Plus, they look fantastic. As long as there's no snow storms I think I should be fine with those shoes. Otherwise, I might have to get myself some new boots.


This is all I have to say for now. There's more stuff to talk about, but that'll be for another post. I should have more stuff to write about now that my yoga classes and dodgeball season are over. Can you believe we went all the way to the finals?!?! We fought against the #1 team in the entire league! And lost miserably, but at least we made 5 points! (And they made 15, but whatever.)

Until next time.

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