Cooking day

Had tons of fun cooking with my family yesterday. Nothing like homecooked food with simple ingredients to put a smile on everyone’s faces!

Coconut Baked Boston blue fish with mango salsa,  quinoa and chickpea lime salad,  and strawberry frozen yogurt.

Brown rice edamame salad and baked kale chips.

Sweet potato wedges.

Seared sesame tuna.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I know I said that I was finally back after post -exam avoidance of reading and writing,  but it turns out summer is very busy, even with the end of summer school. I will most likely be posting photos during the rest of this month and returning to responses in words when time allows!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Pencil Update: Poem

Funny and very true. Source: 9Gag

With my green pencil as a lucky charm,

Scribbling through papers in calm alarm,

Arthropods, hemoglobin, and evolution,

Ranting about post Of Mice and Men depression

The clock ticks faster when things get tricky,

Got dizzy from the little thing called stoichiometry.

Tomorrow after math will feel like I’m in heaven,

Finished (and hopefully graduated) from grade eleven!

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I haven’t written much because my mental pencil has been used up making review notes and writing exams this past week. I cannot wait to start reading the pile of books on my to-read list, and of course, to write! Just a few more days until summer!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Exam Bound

Crunch time! (Original content)

bound (adj) 1. Heading toward somewhere 2. Restricted or confined to a specific place

The end of the year is speeding along and I am feeling exhausted. It has been a marathon for the past few months with the dance festival, spring performance, and now final recital and academic exams. We get a free weekend without class, except there is a LOT to do: science reviews specifically, culminating assignments, procrastinated stuff, and extra credits squeezed in, hopefully. Our grade is in charge of an annual flower sale by tradition and many of us are catching summer colds due to bipolar weather of heavy rain (once pouring enough to collapse our church’s roof) and summer sun (we’re talking shorts and tank top weather here). It is also a personal tradition of mine to create handmade cards for my teachers, and I hope to continue it. Now I completely understand the phrase, “Time flies.”

So this is basically my excuse for my absence on WordPress; my “Drafts” category is growing drastically to the point that I doubt I could complete all these ideas in the summer. In the meantime, let’s get cracking on the notes fellow students (those of you unlucky enough to be on the same pace as my irregular school) , and exams here we come!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

A single bazaar booth

Much bigger and sunnier than what I’ve written.
Source: http://pinterest.com/pin/481111172662500062/

In the dampened smell of barbecue leaking
out the Chinese restaurant door
The little woman sits in a booth under
four oversized umbrellas
Gathering mannequin hangers as mother asks,
“How much for this shirt?”

“Usually 20, but I’m closing now, so have it for 10.”
She speaks Mandarin.
Mom nods for the purchase as the roar of clouds echoes down the street
The lady folds the elegant beaded garment, smiles, hands us a plastic bag

We say thanks and turn around
Rain pours down.

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Life is hard, I realize that regardless of our evolution into society, it will always be a survival of the fittest. We work to live and we live to work, but we musn’t forget to be generous and kind to each other because those moments are what we remember through time.

Happy birthday to my mother who never turns a year older!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Walks ’til Magic Hour

Source: photok12.org/?q=node/11

Oh glorious day!
Sunshine blazes through canopies of green, crowds filter into High Park
A blackbird calls, its red and white marks peeking through the brush
Algae foams above the pond, where breezes sweep through the gardens
Strolling a maze of hedges and wading pools
Sit with face to the sky, indulge in quenching fruit salad and gelato
Hike hidden sandy trails imagining a place without city noise
Emerge into picnics, lawn bowling games, and playground cheers
Snapping photos and laughing chats all the way
Have a mini barbecue in shady grass, with softened rays of the dying hours
Contemplating why we work so hard to seclude ourselves from nature,
When we love so much to wallow in it?

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Perfect way to end the long weekend: had an absolutely fantastic time with my family and my only regrets are that I had homework nagging the back of my mind and that I didn’t reapply sunscreen, not because of sunburn, but because it is too soon to already get this tanned. Summer feels so close but so far away, and I am feeling very unmotivated to go back to school and don’t-even-mention exams. I just have to remember to live every moment because before I know it, grade 11 will be finished.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

To Mother

Because her honest advice and singing laughter is the best thing you’ve ever heard.
Because she brought warm tea to bed when you were paralyzed with flu.
Because she knows what’s in your heart, though you say not a single word.
Because she stands beside, sword in hand, when the world has turned against you.
Because she always thinks of everyone before herself.
Because without anyone noticing, she tidies counter, closet, shelf.
Because she’s a guardian angel day after day
We say I LOVE YOU in the earnest possible way.

My mom’s favourite kind of flower.

And for smiles:

Comic by none other than Bill Watterson

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Personally, I had always thought it silly that “Mother’s Day” was a celebration. Shouldn’t we treat the people who have devoted their time to nurturing us all our lives be treated with full adoration all the time? But I guess a day of extra special treatment is always welcome. I went for brunch with my mom at Cora’s (where she got free Lindt chocolate) and tonight we went for Chinese downtown at King’s Noodles, handmade and fresh, which was really yummy. My sisters attended a church art club and made lovely drawings and bookmarks for her. It was just too bad Mother Nature did not seem in the mood to be appreciated as it was a rather cold, gusty, and rainy day. Nevertheless, there is nothing like a family movie on a Sunday. Happy Mother’s Day to mums everywhere!

Also, today’s Google Doodle was sweet. You can make your own Mother’s Day card through the animation. Here’s the one I made. Very clever idea!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Woe of May Flowers

Warm breezes gently breathe, stuck in stuffy nose
Yellow dust of unhatched life surf waves of the air flows
Soaking up the sun and green and reach for a tissue
I love spring, I only wish I didn’t have – achoo!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Poetry of Life Rewritten (NapoWriMo #30)

An opposite adaptation of Poetry of Life by Friedrich von Schiller:

“Who would himself with light reject,
Or simplify his death with darkness that dampens in modesty,
Or neglect true despairs that do but confirm the lie?–
Though with my dream my hell should be appointed–
Though the free-pinioned soul that once could depart
From the small empire of the impossible,
This vacation life with iron wings may release,
Yet thus the inexperience o’er ourselves we lose,
And boisterous treachery to our acts illicit,
Separates us thus tutored in the second of need,
With a more drunk and defiant mind!
How front desire–yet bid thy age
Welcome the mild rule of death’s rash peasant, falsehood.”

So speakest thou, nemesis, how weaker far than I;
As from experience–that indefinite port chaotic–
Thou lookest;–and bent, a warmth unwraps the sky,
The winter depression flourishes from the scene,
Encouraged by the frivolous spell; behold them fly,
The godlike images that seemed so ugly!
Noisy the serious Muse–the pale hours
Continue in their dance; and the May-breathless flowers
Ascend from the sister-graces’ still hair.
Foul-mouthed Apollo mends his golden lyre,
Hermes, the wand with expectation scarce;–
The veil, olive-woven, by the old desire
With dreams, drops from the vibrant cheeks of death.
The world seems what it is–a happy! and hatred
Lifts up the bondage wound his eyes below,
And sees!–He sees but tangible clay
Where he dreamed devils; and gasps–and plods away.
The oldness of the grotesque grows young,
And on thy lips the bride’s morbid kiss seems scorching;
And in the dispersal of sadness–upon thy stool
Thou standest in state, and meltest into air.

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I’ve finally written the last poem. I can’t believe how fast the month has passed and am now proud to say I’ve completed my first NaPoWriMo challenge attempt (sort of, since it wasn’t EXACTLY a poem a day). It’s been fun and I’m sad to announce its end. Congrats to all who participated and thank you for joining me this April 2013.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

TEAL (NaPoWriMo #28a)

Source: atoo.co.uk

Trendy piece in confident fashion
Endless skies and sparkling coasts
Anticipation brewing under cool demeanor
Lost soul floating aimlessly in blank pondering

Intermediate, like a light switch balanced between on and off
Bold yet changing with the ebbs of time
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Teal also happens to be the colour of my ballet uniform.The prompt for a colour poem was too good to resist. So now I’m two poems behind. Oh well. Maybe I will be able to post another one tonight. Congratulations to everyone who has successfully completed the NapoWriMo challenge today!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Ballad of a Phoenix (NaPoWriMo #25)

there was a phoenix young and bright
feathers shine engulfed in flame
it sparkles gold in dawn of light
waiting to be bestowed a name

take these wings and fly to the sea
i will be here when you return to me

i have a phoenix brisk and bright
blinding in rash or angry flame
proud but afraid of its intense light
wild in spirit, but in heart still tame

with those wings fly as far as the sea
don’t forget, here waiting, is me

my phoenix no longer brilliantly bright
burning slowly a serene flame
secrets of time beneath comforting light
powerful creature just the same

the wings have traversed more than one single sea
rest your tired limbs on me

i had a phoenix, in sight and mind bright
who one day extinguished its flame
vanish to leave only embers of light
darkness fell and the night came

from ashes emerges a song from the sea
those glowing wings remember me

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My attempt at a story through a ballad with an ABAB rhyme scheme. I have always loved phoenixes, beautiful, powerful, and able to be reborn from their ashes. Human life is linear, but there are physical and emotional cycles within it. One lyric resembles that of the Beatles’ song “Blackbird” in “take these broken wings and learn to fly” because I love this song and the image of flight it creates. I have associated loyalty with these magical creatures since reading about Fawkes, Dumbledore’s pet phoenix in the Harry Potter series, so that’s where that attribute came from. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll write a tune for it. Or not.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Image source: http://wiki.godvillegame.com/File:Phoenix.jpg