Catching up - again

Hey, how are you???? I know it’s been a while … yeah, I am hard to get a hold of, I guess … but life is too short to sit around, ya know? :)

So here are a few highlights:

I neglected to mention that I went to see Bon Cop Bad Cop last week with Andrea. Cute movie, a lot of fun. Of course, Andrea says she had twice the fun because she got to watch me watch the movie, and let’s just say I get into a story. LOL Afterwards Andrea and I went out for dinner and later met her boyfriend Joseph. They are such great people.

Thursday, I went with some friends to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which was offering one of three concerts of its "Russian Festival". The first piece, which thankfully was only 12 minutes long, was a composition by a modern Russian composer. It had no melody that I could make out. And despite there being a relatively enormous percussion section for this piece, there didn't seem to be any rhythm. Actually, the variety of instruments used for this composition was astonishing - including an organ, a harpiscord, chimes, strings, three sets of huge drums, etc. The only instruments that were lacking were the piano and a harmonica! LOL

The concert, however, went distinctly uphill after this, first with Schumann's piano concerto and then with the breathtaking Sheherazade, composed by Rimsky-Korsakov. There are no words to express how wonderful the latter piece is. I was particularly lucky that evening to have tickets for much better seats than I normally budget for, as a co-worker was feeling under the weather and gave me his tickets.

Yesterday, my photography class went to Kensington Market. I’m quite happy with some of the shots that I got there. The focus of the class is on light, and the instructor is terrific. With just a little bit of explanation from him yesterday morning, and a huge lightbulb went off above my head about how to use light even in street shots for people portraiture. I will post some of the pictures later on.

Last night, I met up with some of the other volunteer supervisors I had trained with for the AIDS conference this past summer. It was the first time that I had seen them since August, and it was wonderful. They are such smart, informed, fun people to hang out with! Literally, the conversation ranged from work to family to Brazilian waxes to love to prostitution in Toronto to “how does somebody become an arms dealer???” Nishi is actually starting a new job tomorrow – for the Canadian Olympic Committee!!!! Very exciting – I am so thrilled and happy for her.

Today I met up with my friend Leslie-Ann after a long hiatus. (Where did all the time go???) It was great to catch up and to hear her encouragement about how my photography has grown, as she is very discriminating and much more knowledgeable about art than I am.

Okay … tons of things to do tonight, none of them very blogworthy. Stay tuned for the pics!