Day 162

Ava went back to school after the holidays in her summer uniform. I love the knee high socks and when I declared that I wanted a pair, she told me that I could borrow hers.....


It's Earth Day today! The things that I do to reduce my environmental impact:
-I hardly ever say yes to plastic bags in stores (the other day I was walking back to Samantha's house with a bag of onions in my hand...got a few strange looks).
-I RECYCLE! I recycle everything that I can (unfortunately in London what you can/can't recycle is very different than in Toronto...this saddens me).
-I turn off the tap whenever I'm not using it (even turning it off while you're brushing your teeth makes a difference!)
-I bike ride/walk/take the subway wherever I can (not that I have a car or anything/can even fully drive yet...)
-I unplug my phone charger as soon as my phone is done charging.
-I try to avoid buying bottled water at all costs (I've been rubbish at this during my time in London but in Toronto I have a re-usable water bottle that I take with me everywhere).
-I turn off lights when they don't need to be on (my mother continuously telling me to turn off my bedroom light is the reason I switch off lights wherever I go).

There are definitely so many more things I could be doing: taking shorter showers, putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat, bringing my own mug to Starbucks, hanging my clothes up instead of using the dryer...I'm working on it.

South Bank, Day 158

When I visited the Bankside area a few years back with my family, I fell in love with it and exclaimed that I would be living there while attending university in London after high school (my parents laughed at me, oh the big dreams I had...). I went back today and my feelings for the area haven't changed one bit! Shame that housing costs around a million pounds........

Bankside is on the edge of the River Thames filled with chic restaurants, cafes, markets and cobblestoned streets (I mean just look at this Starbucks...pretending for a moment of course that they don't serve rubbish coffee).


Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (a reconstruction of the theatre made by Shakespeare's company on the same site) is right along the river's edge. Walking along the river and watching all the boats pass is just beautiful. You can even see St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance.





Since the weather has been absolutely wonderful (I want to say it's summer here but don't want to jinx it) it felt like the whole of London was outdoors!

Day 157

All the way back in November, I became a photography volunteer for an organization- I was meant to take photos of certain events taking place in my area to be used in magazines and such. I thought this would be a good way to start getting my work out there but nothing really came of it until they asked a bunch of us to apply for a workshop. I was excited to be accepted but was a bit unclear as to what it was all about. Turns out that we are now the official photographers for the organization (too bad I'm leaving England in just over a month...) and the photos we took today are going to be displayed at a show hosted by the organization in May.

Documentary photographer Bryce Bennett led the eight of us through what it means to be a documentary photographer, what to look for and how to tell a story through our work. I have never been one to get into people's faces on the street with my camera so when we were sent out to practice what we had learned that morning, it was a bit nerve racking. But since we only had half an hour to get three photos which we then had to share with the rest of the group, I had to get over this pronto. Ah!

We walked around beautiful Covent Garden and I ended up with these:








I'm so not familiar with documentary photography so I kind of failed at the "telling of a story" aspect of it but I do feel more comfortable approaching people on the street with my camera.

We then went out again, this time over the Waterloo Bridge.

This man was quite excited to pose for me:

while this woman clearly was not:

Not sure I have my heart set out on becoming a documentary photographer any time soon, but all in all I learned a lot!

Afternoon 156

This morning I told Maude that it was time for her to get dressed.
She looked at me and said, "I'm not interested Andra".
She's two.

The Pursuit of Happyness, Day 155

A friend of mine really wanted us to watch The Pursuit of Happyness before I left for England but we only ended up watching the first little bit. I finally sat down to watch it with my aunts last week and was so moved.

I loved it so much because one of the messages that I took from it was that you can achieve anything if you work hard, even if there are (and there will be) obstacles along the way. I could relate to this message because I approach life with this same attitude.

But does the pursuit of happiness ever end? We live in a world where the subconscious definition of happiness that we are fed everyday can never really be achieved: we cannot all be famous, we cannot all be millionaires, we will never look or have bodies like the airbrushed models in magazines, our lives will never be as perfect as they are in the movies.

The Pursuit of Happyness got me thinking about what being happy means to me. If for a moment we could tare ourselves away from the materialistic, unattainable things that we are led to believe will make us happy, I think that we'd all realize it's the simple things in life that make us feel more fulfilled than the things society tell us will. The sad thing is, this is more easily said than done.

The simple things that make me happy
(sorry, it's long. I get a bit carried away with these sorts of lists):

summer days, the sound of my camera's shutter, spending hours lying on a beach doing nothing, passing a Starbucks, the smell of honeysuckle, hugs, the sound of cicadas, avocados, when a complete stranger smiles at me on the subway, the name Lola, my bed, Harriet, Olivia making me laugh until my stomach hurts, summertime thunderstorms, watching John Mayer/Adele perform live, my high school darkroom, Nylon Magazine, white sheets, the colour purple, serendipitous moments, The Notebook, packing a suitcase, Lola's Cupcakes, salad from "Lettuce", bike rides, tea, new bottles of shampoo, finding beauty somewhere I'd least expect to find it, white t-shirts, dancing in my kitchen, books that make me cry......the list goes on and on.