...when you're having fun!

Time is flying by at an alarming rate. Juggling uni, three orchestras, dance, cooking, cleaning, exercise, seeing friends, premed study and soon-to-come volunteer work means that most nights, blogging won’t even make it out of the fridge, let alone onto the back burner. And this is only my second week back. Who knows what life will be like once concert and exam season kick in... 

AMAZING, that’s what. Because why live life if it’s not to the full? I need to feel like there are never enough hours in a day; that I cannot physically achieve anything more with my time. And one of my favourite – albeit morbid – things to say: I can sleep when I’m dead! At least this will be good practice for my future 80-hour doctoring weeks. I'll just have to make sure not to tell that to my patients...

So, this week's smiles, in snapshots (how appropriate):

600 photos. Printed. Albumed. Treasured.

New perfume. Or rather, a new bottle of old perfume.

A pot of steaming chai. A caramel slice. A driving lesson. A quest for otherworldly things. Old friends, new lives.

Incredible posters. A wall of postcards from around the world.

Feeling a Beethoven Symphony under my fingertips. His 7^th, to be exact.

My first durian experience. Too long overdue.

Sharing the joy of salsa. Dancing. Though the edible variety makes me happy too.

Well, that’s all for now, I’m afraid. My physical exhaustion is currently trumping my motto... but I promise to return soon with some Italian treats!

Till then, my dear reader, buona notte.

Patience is a Virtue (I don't possess)

I am not a very patient person. Well, in a ‘time’ sense anyway. 

You see, I don’t like waiting for the kettle to boil or watching as the pan heats up. I do, however, like to take my time making a cup of tea or cooking a nice meal. At uni, I detest waiting for exam results, but I love learning, studying and working on assignments. The same goes for teaching. Waiting for a late violin student drives me crazy, but helping them to master a single technique over many weeks feels incredibly rewarding.

So I guess you could say that my ‘impatience’ is really just my need to fill in every breathing moment with doing. 

Oh, and I multitask. Compulsively. Surprise surprise. 

Like right now, the only thing keeping me sane while waiting for my photos to upload on Facebook is using the time I would otherwise waste staring at a snail-paced blue progress bar to update my blog.

The other day, I rediscovered this charming trait of mine while camera shopping with the boy. While I was ready to buy the first camera within budget that I laid my eyes on, he insisted on checking out all the options before making a decision. And in a complex devoted to electronics stores, there were a LOT of options. But we did – him being the patient, mature adult asking about picture quality and processing speed while I tagged along, whining that they all looked the same to me.

Of course, in the end, although I did ironically decide to buy that first camera I saw, the boy’s patience paid off by finding it in a different store for a good $50 cheaper.

I do hope I won’t be so hasty in buying bigger items in the future...

But with my family's track record (both car and house signed for within a few hours of shopping), I really shouldn’t be too hopeful.