Amateur Hour

Robotics Groupie (03/06/15)

     Last Thursday a friend of mine from Guelph, Henry, was in Toronto for a robotics competition. I wasn't able to see him that day because I ended class late but I saw him Friday and Saturday. The competition was held at Maple Leaf Gardens. Henry is the current captain of my former high school's robotics team. When he told me they were over there I paid a visit to support them. Unfortunately I had just missed the actual competition of the day since I just came after school.

Beaverworx Robotics

     I was able to watch them practice for the next day's competition. I was practically the team's "groupie" (a groupie is someone who follows a group of celebrities around because they're a fan). I followed Henry, Billy, and Anh around and greeted the rest of the team members. I brought my DSLR camera because I wanted to take pictures but I ran into some difficulties with the settings. Fortunately Billy brought his DSLR so I asked for some guidance on mine. Henry cracked a joke that for someone who has a class in photography I should probably get a handle on my camera. I'm still learning.  

     Nearing the end of the day around 7 pm, they played a movie called "Spare Parts". It's a recently released robotics movie so it was relevant to the event and meant to inspire. They provided free popcorn to go along with it. It was a nice way for all the robotics team members and their mentors to wind down and relax. After the movie Henry made one of their mentors walk me home, even though I've walked alone during the night before.

"Spare Parts" movie at Maple Leaf Gardens

Another Visitor (03/07/15)

     I had woken up Saturday morning to several texts from my friend Dyan. She messaged me saying she was in Toronto and wanted to hang out. She said she notified me two weeks ago that she'd come down in two weeks. So of course I wouldn't have been able to remember. Anyways her main reason for being in Toronto was to support the robotics team. She was a part of the robotics team last year.

Me, Dyan, and Henry in his beaver mascot costume

     Dyan and I stayed to watch the robotics competitions until the end. Their robotics team, Beaverworx 2609, ended up coming in third place! What an achievement! Dyan and I congratulated Henry and the team on their hard earned win. Afterwards Henry and the team headed back to Guelph so Dyan and I just hung out until she had to leave. Out of all the places we could have gone to we ended up just going to Eaton's Centre. We weren't going to walk around outside that day anyways since it cold and raining.

     The first store we entered was the Disney store. Upon entering I mentioned that I've always wanted an Eeyore stuff toy. Seconds later I see her getting in line with a large Eeyore stuff toy in her arms. I started to debate with her the reasons why it's not necessary for me to have. She ended up purchasing a small plush toy for one of her other friends while still getting me an Eeyore stuff toy but a smaller version of the one she previously held. For the rest of the evening her and I were just walking in and out of stores while also catching up on what has been going on in each other's lives.

Cute little Eeyore keeping me company

     After we got tired from walking around most of the seating areas were occupied so we just sat on the floor where it wasn't too crowded. Two guys dropped 10 cents near me and I asked Dyan why they did that. She said it was a joke. I ended up taking it because why not? The two guys came out of the store they were in and said sorry about what they did while bowing. They must have thought we were Japanese as another "joke". Dyan wanted to throw the 10 cents back at them but I said it would be a waste of money. I also joked that they're pretty cheap for just giving us 10 cents.

Looking For My Tourist/Looking Like A Tourist (03/08/15) 

     Nothing better than a sunny Sunday. The best type of weather to go aboard a tourism bus around Toronto. Did I mention it was two hours long and during those two hours I had to find the courage to single out and interview one of the tourists on that bus? And interview the tour guide standing in front of me during it? The first one I interviewed was the tour guide. Later on, about halfway through the tour at one of the stops, I found my tourist. I'm not going into detail on purpose because my actual story will be on my school's news website as it's a part of the final assignment for my reporting class. Will link it onto my blog when it's finished and published. It took me some time and several meetings with my reporting professor to get myself prepared and actually make the first step and get out there.

Harbourfront Stop

     As I enter Eaton's Centre and got onto the escalator going down to the lower level where the subway line is, at the corner of my eye I see a familiar looking person on the other escalator going up. As soon as I approached the bottom I immediately went on the other escalator to try to catch up with this person to see if I'm actually correct. Turns out I was. And they thought I was a lost tourist. The familiar person I saw and greeted was Angelo. I met him last August when he drove my Winnipeg friend Fatima and I to Toronto and showed us around for a day. And again in December when he was the emcee at Stephanie's debut. I don't have much contacts here in Toronto that I know from Guelph. So seeing someone else who I knew was nice. He's also volunteering for the youth part of city hall and I would like to get involved with those kinds of tasks and events sometime so he will keep me updated on that. 

Photography Crew (03/08/15)

     Sunday evening and I'm exhausted. As I took the subway from Dundas to College station I stayed at College Park for a little while to rest. This past weekend had been an eventful one and I couldn't wait to get back to Lola Linda's to rest but I couldn't just yet. I had to take pictures for a photography class assignment. While I was resting I called my Mom to see how they were doing back at home in Guelph. I messaged Nicole asking what she and Wesley were up to. Turns out they weren't doing anything so I asked if they wanted to meet me, and politely requested if they didn't mind bringing along my DSLR camera. I was grateful that they brought it and I got them both two small iced cappuccino's for their assistance.

Wesley and Nicole on our walk back to Lola Linda's

     Nicole, Wesley and I walked around the College area looking for good shots for my assignment which was based of "Urban Lines and Form". I took several pictures of buildings, shops, roads, and signs. I've done this with them before, where they've helped me look for good locations and got to be in some of the pictures. My photography professor noticed that they were in my previous pictures for an assignment and said that they were a good asset to have.

  Modeling Class? (03/09/15)

     Monday morning and my first class is photography. I figured alright, this should be an easy enough class to get through. My classmate's Brian and Austin had volunteered to be our models so our entire class was taking close portrait shots all at the same time of their faces. This was so we can practice using our fast and slow shutter speeds on our camera's. It was funny because whenever someone sat in the "modeling chair", everyone would immediately jump in to take pictures of them. About three more classmates sat in that chair but for a shorter amount of time.

A quick shot I took of Trevor

     Our professor now said he wanted a model to use for the other chair, which was in front of an actual back drop and that they'll use professional lighting instead of the natural light from the window. While my professor was looking for someone to ask I actually looked away because I wasn't interested. Either way I still got asked to sit in the chair. At first I declined. But then our professor said that we needed someone with long hair, and since there was only two girls in that class, including me, and since I had the longest hair I was basically "voluntold" to (told to volunteer, i.e. not given a choice).

     At least this time it wasn't the entire class taking shots of one person at the same time. I most definitely wouldn't have participated if that was the case. Our photography professor voluntold Trevor to take the shots of me. I was fortunate to have known him from the first semester so it was fine but it was still weird for me. I was never good at posing for yearbook pictures throughout my school years. It was a different shoot from my yearbook picture shoots of course. At first he just took candid portrait shots of me, which let me tell you I'm most certainly not photogenic and especially not in the morning so I wasn't smiling for most of them.

      When I thought we were done I left the chair as soon as I possibly could. Our professor told me to sit back down again and told me to shake my head to get my hair flowing for a good movement shot. I ended up shaking my head back and forth for a couple minutes while Trevor took the shots and the whole class was just sitting and watching in the dark. Nearing the end of the class the professor even took some of the shots that Trevor took and projected it onto a slide for the whole class to see. I was amazed that out of all the shots, the hair shots actually turned out great. Looking back at the experience of taking pictures to being able to on the other side of the camera it was a memorable one. I sent some of the other shots to my friends and family and I posted the hair shots already onto my social media accounts.

I'm "photobombing" Chloe's picture with her tea pot and here's the owl I painted

     I wrote most of this blog post yesterday but I'm further adding, editing, and publishing it today. I spoke to my friend Chloe on the phone last night since she had wanted to catch up. I haven't seen her since her birthday party during our reading week break in February (02/15/15). As a part of the festivities for her birthday party she held it at a pottery place in downtown Guelph. I still haven't seen what my pottery piece looks like glazed and Chloe doesn't want to take a picture of it and send it to me because she wants me to come back to Guelph to see it. 

Until then, Fatima