Earthquakes and sugar cookies

A 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit close to home today. The epicenter was less than 50 kilometers away from Ottawa, where my family and friends felt it strongly. The earthquake was even felt in Toronto and beyond, but I did not feel it here in Montreal, which I will admit I am a little disappointed about.

Quebec has always been considered one of the world's 'safe zones' as it is a good height above sea level, and no where close to the edge of the North American tectonic plate it resides on. To have an earthquake hit here, and at such a strong magnitude is unnerving, to say the least. Luckily it wasn't so strong as to cause intense structural damage and casualties.

2010 has been an atrocious year for natural disasters, and I can't help but think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It is no longer a question of if another disaster occurs, but when it'll strike. And in times of anxiety I tend to bake; when I first found out about the 2012 theory years ago, I remember baking a huge batch of cupcakes. Today, I iced my sugar cookies.

In unrelated news, Phil and I began learning ASL today. It's a lot of fun memorizing and practicing, and I hope I can stick to it. It may come in handy in the future (if not for anything other than secretly signalling to Phil, hehe).

Flying By.

Two Japanese silver-eye fledglings. Oil on wood, 10"x10".

It's my mom's birthday today, this is my gift to her.

My contract in Ottawa went by surprisingly fast. Though it was an office job, the people who work there are all really great which helped a lot. Yesterday I had a job interview for a position as a flight attendant. It went alright, but I will not hear back from them until the end of July. I find that kind of a ridiculous amount of time to wait around for an answer. In the meantime I plan to create artwork and art prints. Philippe purchased a snazzy CMYK printer, and I am hopeful I'll be able to start printing at home which will save on money and time. All I need to do is invest in some good quality paper for prints.

While I'm waiting for an answer from the airline I will also have my trip to the Dominican Republic as a distraction. I'll be there for around 10 days in the middle of July, and I cannot wait to see all my family again. I'm planning on giving my uncles, aunt, and grandfather an original piece of my artwork as a gift. I have never really been in a position to give them anything before, so this plan excites me. I also want to give my dad a few of the old maps I was able to nab from the geography library at McGill University last year when they were getting rid of them.

I'm hoping the rest of this month goes by as quickly as the last two weeks did.

Apple Pie.

Yesterday my friend Carolina came over for the day. We made banana cake and two apple pies. I had far too many black bananas, so this made great use of them. I like banana cake, but I think I prefer banana bread as it isn't so sweet. The apple pies turned out phenomenally, and I was amazed by how easy they were to make. I definitely need to make more pies in the future (especially since I have a bunch of frozen pumpkin innards stored away).

June has been a slow month to start, but I'm hoping it'll pick up. For the most part, it has been spent at home in a bit of a lazy stupor, which truly goes against my nature. It's unnerving to not have a busy schedule, whether my time is being taken up by school or by work. I have been applying to a lot of jobs, and I'm hoping that I will get hired soon. At the moment I'm actually waiting on a call for a contractual job which would take me to Ottawa for a couple of weeks. It is not what I would call a job in any of my usual fields, but it would pay me enough to cover my rent, utilities, and food for July. Since I'm visiting family in the Dominican Republic next month, this contract is as ideal as my situation can get. I don't really wish to get hired full time right now seeing how I would probably have to quit in a few weeks time to travel. I have my fingers crossed, please cross yours for me too!

p.s. I got the job!