And now for something completely different

This week, my week "off" in between school semesters, has been about catching up. Sleep, weeding, cooking, organizing my new shoe closet (stay tuned for an upcoming tour), friends, laundry, blog posting and reading etc. It's been a week to just catch up on life.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching fashion. The Paris runway shows are in full swing, creating just as much drama and viewing pleasure as the World Cup. While I will never own designer duds, I tune in to see what new and exciting things have been dreamed and created. Beauty, feathers, fabrics, and creativity aside, there are always some items that defy description. I was crushed this year to see one particular horror march down the runway at Valentino- a designer label known for classic fashion mastery. If I was ever going to the Academy Awards, I would want to a dress from these folks.... or so I thought until tonight.

For the First Ever Un-Way Readers Sweepstakes contest, we invite an answer to the following question:Besides Halloween, Mardi-Gras or tending the bee hive in your backyard, where exactly could you (or any other human, for that matter) wear this outfit... and fit in?

The most entertaining response wins.... dinner at our house. And don't worry- we won't make you wear a birdcage. Not even a Valentino one.

The difference a day makes

This was my all-day view on July 2:

After a good sleep and a leisurely breakfast, July 3 looked colourful but in a much better way:

Thank goodness tough semesters actually come to an end.

Home Sweet Home

Here are some of the sights that welcomed me home this weekend. After a very grueling (but worthwhile) three weeks of non-stop activity, I can't tell you how happy I was to just be home.

Missed photo opps

The campus of Royal Roads University really is beautiful... or so I heard. During my 20 day stay, there were only two or three days when it did not pour rain and those days were inevitably ones when I was busy working on big school projects. Besides two quick shots of Hatley Castle,

my only other shots were of a cruise ship passing by at night (taken from my desk where I was still working on those big projects), my humble dorm room and those blasted peacocks! You'll have to stay tuned for a better tour next year.

Life has transitioned back home... where I spend most not-at-work waking hours in the basement working on two more even bigger projects. I expect to come up for air in early July- see you then!

Clockwork

Dorm life has been a big adjustment for me and I dearly miss the autonomy and comfort of my own kitchen, bathroom and living space. Along with communal fridges and showers comes with the very noisy trek of campus wildlife as they also return here to my dorm (where they seem to live as well) around 8:30pm in preparation for bed. Here is the conversation that occurs.... EVERY night.


Cacophony from S Unger on Vimeo.

Then, between 8:56 PM and 9:08 PM, this happens:

Fly-by neighbour from S Unger on Vimeo.


He seems to be the Big Kahuna on campus... and I'm quite thankful he stops screeching around 9:40pm. Am I the only one who didn't realize that peacocks can actually fly and sleep in tall trees?!

School stuff

Since that first view outside my new window, I had great intentions of taking my camera around on a campus tour and sharing my walk past that castle every morning. Alas, my 18 hour days of learning and writing (and more writing, and more writing!) along with a week of rain have postponed that tour for a few days.

While I won't go into all that I've learned about good intentions (TONS on that topic alone!), I will share a video that was used in a lesson about organizational structures. I was inspired how the combination of something untraditional (a flash mob), something traditional (an iconic song and the voice of Julie Andrews) within a simple organizational structure could create something completely joyful and unexpected. Even if you don't see it as a symbol of organizational potential, it's just plain fun to watch.

New View

The three loyal readers of this humble blog (!) might remember a post from last fall when I talked about the view out my kitchen window. My much dreaded return to dorm life occurred this afternoon when Jeff loaded me, my school stuff, a whole lot of shoes and groceries for the next week into our trusty Echo and headed down the Malahat Highway. It was a tough day and I had a few melt downs along the way. After orientation this evening, I came back to my room and looked out my window (not my kitchen window but my ONLY window!) and replaced the nervous butterflies with a sense of amazement of how lucky I am to be here.Yup- that's a REAL castle and it's where I had my dinner tonight. And right behind it- that's the ocean. I now live ocean front beside a castle. This is real estate I NEVER have a hope of repeating for myself! I'm thinking this three weeks is going to be OK... and that's even before the learning starts.

The Wet Coast

This week, coastal rains perpetuated the nickname most easterners refer to this area of the country. That being said... our garden is a very happy these days, weeds and all.