flowers – Imaginary Sunshine

For just one night

Michelle — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:45:18 +0000

I just felt like showing off what my family’s been going on about since Thursday (that’s not related to death or travel plans… because that’s depressing. And I don’t need any help feeling down at the moment.)…

The plant above is a Nightblooming cereus. It’s a type of cactus and my mom obtained it via a cutting she took from one of her friends’ plants. It spends most of the year indoors, except for summer when it soaks up a lot of sun outdoors. It’s one of my favourite plants because once it starts having buds, they form very quickly (from just a hint of a bud to several inches long within 2-3 weeks). It only blooms at night and the flower is only around for one night. It’s incredibly fragrant and smells quite nice, there’s a lot of different variations of it (white petals, pink petals). The plant itself kind is green and yellow-green, the area around the flower itself is a really nice pink colour. My parents will make a huge deal about it every year because it only flowers one a year (and for only one night). So, needless to say, they had my uncle and aunt who live close by over on Thursday night, and some of my other relatives were watching the progress of the flower via the webcams.

This is how it looked at around 6am the next day (when I was about to leave the house for school on Friday). By the time I got home after volunteering, the flower had completely wilted. There were 3 flowers on the plant this year and all three were 9-11 inches in diameter. It’s a really gorgeous plant, and I’m not sure how easy it is to obtain it (via cutting or a whole pot). It seems to thrive fairly well in a pot (not as big as others I’ve seen online, but then again… it’s my mom’s plant and she needs to be able to actually move it from points A to B with something resembling ease).

Questions:

What is your favourite plant (flowering, non-flowering, doesn’t really matter)?
How much gardening do you do, if any?
What kind of camera do you use? (Somewhat random, I realize.)

My answers:

Daisies! The ones with white petals and yellow centres. I also like some lilies and some types of roses.
Not very much, I’m afraid. I have some seeds that still need to be planted, but I’m waiting for it to be right after winter first.
Sony Cybershot W150 (have been looking into a DSLR though… again)

Hey there, sunshine!

Michelle — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:33:24 +0000

On April 1st, I woke up to snow and the fact that there was snow flakes falling from the sky. Today? I woke up to this:

Yeah, that’s sunshine! It’s amazing how much the weather changes in less than a week, eh? It was such nice weather today, I spent most of my time (when not seated in classes) carrying my jacket and having my sunglasses clipped on (they’re the easy-clip… it’s magnetic and just stays right over my regular prescription lenses – very handy!).

Today’s been pretty awesome, as far as Mondays go. I went to my very last psychology lecture for the term, it was a review session and only about a dozen students ended up showing up for it (out of a few hundred…). I thought it was pretty useful. She went over main topics, told us how the questions would be organized, according to chapters, how it was going to look on the test, and we had several sample example problems to do and she hinted that of the 10 example problems, 5 would be showing up exactly identical on the exam itself. Awesome, of course!

English lit went well today, as always, I’ve really enjoyed that class and the professor is such a great teacher. Plus, you know, making pop cultural references in regards to how pre-18th century English literature can be more easily understood is always a plus!

It’s been a pretty good term, even though it’s not technically over quite just yet. Just a few more days and a handful of exams and then it’ll all be over.

And then I can go and wallow in self pity over my state of unemployment while sending out resumes as fast as I can press the send button and draft up cover letters… This whole ‘feeling of dread over not being about to afford anything next year’ is kinda shitty. Just saying.

I thought I’d include a few other photos: daffodils and crocuses, both right by my front steps! And plus, they make me feel a lot better. Hope you all had a wonderful Monday!

Daisies, daisies everywhere…

Michelle — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:45:28 +0000

Well, I’d rather that there be daisies everywhere rather than fog and snow and rain and mist and oh my gosh, the slush. I hate the slush. And getting splashed with slush. And rude people on public transit and weird people who stare at me (when I’m sitting next to them, not across from them, ughh). But umm.. Yeah. Other than that, there’s a new theme up. I was actually going to go for a red, white, pink, lace, hearts and rainbows and all other cheery things that are related to Valentine’s Day (which is happening in twelve days – still haven’t settled on a cookie recipe, I’ll probably end up baking on the Friday before hand, go me!). But then… I remembered that I’m not really into red, white and pink. Or hearts, for that matter. I do like rainbows, but only in moderation and half the time they’re not very spectacularly photographed. Which leaves me with things that I do like. Teddy bears, baked goods and daisies. And since none of my teddies were feeling photogenic today (and trust me, I tried! Poor things, I probably accidentally kicked them in my sleep or something, they were positively sulky-looking in the photos that I took of them) and I couldn’t find any photos of baked goods that I liked, I ‘settled’ (… erm, more like ‘jumped straight to’) on daisies. Which make me happy. Plus it’s green, which makes me even more happy! So it’s just a happy-happy theme all around, eh?

Watch me hate it within a few days. Just watch. Karma will come around and kick my butt or something. In a “You shouldn’t have said that you liked it, damn you!” fashion. I should really stop personifying my cosmic fate like it’s destined since I don’t believe in that crap.

Anyways… How has your Monday been? I attended my classes… Found out that my English lit prof (the one with the lovely, lovely New Zealand accent) is basically a blessing in disguise. By the time the midterm exam rolls around, we will have read several different texts and he’s taking roughly half of them out so we’ll only be getting tested on half of the material that we’ve done. That basically means that I don’t need to reread/study 200+ pages of Old English and Middle English texts. I love him, I swear I do.

My psych prof is MIA this week. Which is basically really bad considering she’s canceled next Monday’s lecture so that we can study for the midterm but the midterm’s on the following Wednesday so as a class, we’re unable to email her questions and whatnot as she’s currently in a remote area of Africa helping a team of psychologists from one of the Ivy League schools do a study (she’s apparently a big name…? I’m not well-versed in modern-day psychologists to know how well-known she is, I’m afraid). Ugh…

My biology lab tomorrow morning has been canceled due to the fact that he doesn’t want us all the wake up super early for no reason if we don’t feel the need to attend. All we need to do is hand in our lab report and study for the quiz the following week. I really have no issues with this at all! More sleep for me! Actually, I’m not really going to be sleeping in tomorrow morning. I’m going to be waking up early and reviewing my psychology notes and probably my chem notes and I’m going to be getting to school ahead of time so that I can get some study time in at the library since I just cannot study in the mornings when my dad’s still home as he just starts talking to me and asks if I’ve eaten anything for breakfast and if I’m going to be eating lunch before I go and if I want to help him with some assorted task or why is television ‘acting up’ again.

Flowers in bloom at winter

Michelle — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:03:56 +0000

I’m a huge fan of Christmas. Unfortunately, my family is kind of lacking in that department because the last few years have been more about ‘Well… We get a day off?’ rather than more focused on spending time together or doing family activities. Like setting up the tree, decorating it, looking at the more awesome houses in my neighbourhood with their front yards completely plastered in Santas and reindeer and lights everywhere. Is it wrong that I was always jealous of the other houses because their families actually wanted to celebrate Christmas and wanted to show that Christmas spirit off? Then again, my family isn’t really into any major holiday that’s widely celebrated by the rest of North America. Go figure. But we still do have our own traditions. And they’re kind of cool, albeit a bit different.

For instance, every year my mom somehow gets a poinsettia. I have no clue why, but there’s always someone who gets her one. Or two. I think last year she got four…? Luckily they were all different colours so it wasn’t like too much of the same type of flower, all in a row. Poinsettias are really great, I think, because they’re so just resilient. Like you can do anything to them and they’ll still be cheery and Christmasy even way past December. We still have two poinsettia plants in the house from last year. They’re only green now, instead of green and red or green and pink, I think the other one was. But they’re still pretty.

This year I’m kind of hoping that the people that get poinsettias for my mom changes it up a bit. I was checking out 1-800-Flowers and they have some of the most beautiful arrangements ever. They deliver to the recipient of your choice and the photos of some of their Christmas arrangements are gorgeous. I’m really liking the Winter’s Rose Plant that they have because my mom’s a huge fan of roses and I think she’d really like that. Plus, they would look really nice in my front yard next to the rose plants that we already have.

Daisy chains

Michelle — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:34:19 +0000

What my garden grows

Michelle — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:56:08 +0000

I got my first midterm back! I got 86% on it and the first midterm was 15% of my grade. My midterm on Friday is worth 20%. It’s going to be primarily on natural selection on evolution and the like, so it should be okay. Plus we’re allowed a ‘cheat sheet’. Tomorrow morning I’m going to be attending a workshop/study/survey for biology and I get compensated for my time, so it shall be interesting. I’m going to be up at 7am (it’s been a nearly three weeks since I’ve had to wake up earlier than 10am…) and get my butt on the bus by 8am so I can get to it on time. It be shall be interesting. And to give you all a glance at what my garden grows [red roses this time, and my daily daisy photo]:

Things to come

Michelle — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:50:49 +0000

So I’ve been a busy little bee lately. I’ve been studying and reading novels (Well, a few anyways. I’ve been rereading a lot of classic novels.) I’m planning on getting some movie reviews up soon and the reviews that I plan on getting done (once I get a chance to write them) include:

Troy
Alexander
27 Dresses
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
P.S. I Love You
Ocean’s 12
300
Knocked Up

Thrift Store Hunting

Michelle — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:16:49 +0000

My daisies near my front door are growing quite nicely. Daisies are one of my favourite flowers and it always cheers me up to see the flowers in bloom by my door.

Skirt number one from the thrift store, originally from Mariposa.

Skirt number two from the thrift store, originally from American Eagle.

Other things that I bought today included a $4 bag of 26 double-pointed knitting needles. My sister was absolutely gleeful when she saw them and immediately began checking what sizes I got her for her once I handed it over.

Little bits of sunshine

Michelle — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:03:56 +0000