Well besides Trump winning, Brexit happening and the year wrapping up with some devastating celebrity deaths, 2016 had some decent moments for me.

I did a lot more traveling this year than I have in the past years, mostly for work though.

In June, our department’s annual Opti-con happened in Sunnyvale/San Francisco so our team went there and stayed an extra few days where we got to go to In-n-Out Burger and ride bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge.

In August, I went to Portland, Oregon to help train some new hires. I got to experience all the cool things that make Portland such a great city, eat delicious food, explore the very pedestrian/bike/public transportation friendly city.

In late October was my much anticipated Peru trip. I had been planning to visit Machu Picchu for quite awhile and wanted to do the Inca Trail (post to come on this experience! I am so behind on getting my photos and videos organized). I did it and it was an unforgettable experience.

Lastly, right when 2016 was about to wrap up, I booked a last minute cheap airfare trip to St Lucia. A buddy of mine was staying there for awhile and I thought, “why not? YOLO!”. So I booked it with a lot of encouragement from coworkers nearby me as I was hesitating and got all my shit together to leave the next week. I’ve never been that impulsive but it turned out to be a great decision — had a fantastic time that I wouldn’t have had if I just kept humming and hawing over life plans.

I participated in the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in October. Just the 5K because let’s be real here, I am not much of a runner and I only really run when I’m late or running away from imminent danger. I had planned to at least try to run portions of it but with those I was doing the 5K with, we just basically walked it. Plus it was raining so enthusiasm quickly waned.

I went back to school for the Business Communications certificate program at the University of Toronto, with the first class completed in Business Writing. I have always wanted to go back to school because for some reason, I miss it — of course, back when I was university, I probably wouldn’t have said the same thing. Maybe it’s my competitive nature but I loved trying to do my best on the assignments and just embrace the keener that I am. I met some cool people in the first course and the instructor was great, so looking forward on the rest of the classes in the program (next one starts in a few weeks!).

Work-wise, I was promoted in October (yay!) and feeling well-situated in my role and responsibilities. It started a bit rough in the early part of the year with a “D-Day” of company wide layoffs, cutting 15% of the workforce, and we lost many wonderful coworkers that day, but this seems to be the nature of the industry and having been in that predicament in the past, I can only say that it sometimes these unexpected things can be a blessing in disguise. I also think compared to 2015 with the crazy workload and the different team dynamic, this year has been a lot better in both having a more manageable workload in order to take on additional work that helps me grow professionally and also with growing the strong team dynamic. There’s some anticipated changes coming with the acquisition in 2017 so there is the unknown on the horizon but if anything previous years has taught me, is to embrace changes and make opportunities out of the unexpected. 

I got a Fitbit in early 2016 so I became, at least temporarily, obsessed with competing for step challenges with friends/coworkers and thus kept me motivated for going to the gym. I think that, and my renewed obsession with Bodycombat, helped me do the hike on the Inca Trail because the 1 day hike portion of it, it included a lot of very steep steps and hiking up a steep incline. Had I been out of shape, I would’ve had more difficulty doing it especially with the higher altitude (but not as high altitude as Cusco, Peru). There was also a somewhat short-lived obsession with dancing starting from playing Just Dance on the XBox at work to Bodyjam classes (body rollssssss!) to trying to learn the choreography to Sorry but it might’ve just been a phase because I haven’t gone to a dance class in months now. I also bought a new (but used) bike on Kijiji and then brought it to a bike shop to fix up, now I’ve got a pretty cool Raleigh hybrid bike that is much better than my clunky old Canadian Tire bike.

Went to a Blue Jays game, a Raptors game, Pursuit OCR (p.s. the course is a lot harder than it looks) and summer of service at CAMH with work this year — fun times.

My family and dog are all doing great. Penny, my dog who lives with my parents because she can’t deal with the separation anxiety and sounds from me living in a condo, hasn’t been staying with me as often this year but I hope to change that for 2017. She is now 8 years old!!!! 

My goals for 2016 from that post were to write more in this blog (clearly I failed that) and to visit a new continent (which I did, thanks to my Peru trip!). For 2017, I will keep those goals in play but also throw in trying to be more zen and just live in the moment. I tend to think too far ahead and over-think things, which I always get slack for from my friends. But it’s my nature to worry and hum and haw over things. But yes, after this spontaneous St Lucia trip, I think I will try to worry less and just be more chill. At least try.

And while these were activities that made me all nervous and scared to do at first, I have no regrets and I’d even say this was one of my best trips I’ve been on.

More pics, videos and review on the activities below.

San Jose

I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica two days before my tour started and decided to stay at a different hotel than the joining hotel. Let me tell you I am glad I did because the joining hotel was not at all great. So if you somehow come across this post from Googling about Costa Rica Quest, I highly suggest you book the Apartotel La Sabana hotel (see my in-depth review here) which is about a 10 minute walk away from the joining hotel, Hotel Autentico (my review of that abysmal hotel is here).

First night we met up with our tour group. I really liked the mix of people in my group, which skewed closer to my age than previously when I was in Contiki groups as a mid-late 20s traveler and everyone else was late teens/early 20s — and I felt old. There was a good vibe and felt like we would get along from the start. Our CEO/tour leader, Edgardo, also seemed like a great guy right off the bat.

La Fortuna

Next morning, we departed bright and early on a private van to head to La Fortuna. On the way, we saw a sloth in the tree! Alas, I only had my iPhone with me which sucked for zooming in.

There was an opportunity to go white water rafting early in the morning and then join up with the rest of the group later on but no one ended up going. The other optional activity available for the day included canyoneering/canyoning in the “Lost Canyon Adventure“. This included repelling down waterfalls, down climbing and river tracing in a deep, tropic canyon. Unfortunately though, as we were told is typical of La Fortuna, the weather was not on our side as it was raining pretty hard and grey skies.

And with the rain, it made it much more difficult to navigate the terrain, as it made water levels higher and more muddy, ultimately causing me to fall directly into the rocks and scrape up my elbow and knee pretty badly. But it was SO fun. There were 4 waterfall repels, my favourite part, where you bounce down and then when the guide screams “let go”, you zip line down the rest of the way.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

We stayed at Monte Real Hotel while in La Fortuna, a pretty nice and central hotel.

The next morning, we had to be ready to go at 7 am to go on the Cerro Chato extreme hike (another optional activity, which not everyone in our group went for. Some went kayaking, paddle boarding and horseback riding instead). Our group was reading the description of the activity and it described it in terms such as “intense 5-6 hour hike” and “recommended for people in good shape and willing to hike in extreme conditions”, and hell, the name of the activity itself had the word “extreme” in it. But we were like, BUT IS IT REALLY EXTREMEEEE? And we somehow convinced ourselves that it was just to discourage the elderly and extremely out of shape people from going on it, but nope, it includes people like me too. I am in decent shape, I go to the gym about 3 times a week and I was pooped even when we were trekking over inclined terrain to GET to the forest part of the hike.

It was really difficult and pretty much the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life. I have never sweat that much before either. Here’s a quick 10 second clip I accidentally recorded as I was climbing up the very steep, very muddy terrain, to give you an idea that this wasn’t some regular hiking path.

And since we had started at 7 am, with no breakfast, I really thought I would faint (if it’s one thing Full House has taught me, it’s that you should not do physical activities on an empty stomach or you’ll end up like DJ Tanner at the gym!) and then roll down into a ditch to my death. Luckily, I made it out alive. Though at the top, it was really foggy and since it was so muddy that day, we were unable to go down to the emerald-green lagoon at the top as it was too dangerous.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

After hiking back down (which was actually more difficult than going up because now you’re also fighting with gravity), we ate lunch and then went to the La Fortuna waterfalls. We climbed almost 500 steps down to go swim at the bottom of the waterfalls (it was really chilly, but refreshing after that strenuous hike). Then the fun part came, climbed up about 500 steps to go back up.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

Later that night, we went to Los Lagos Hotel for their hot springs (part of the tour’s included activities). OMG, it was such a welcomed, relaxing post-extreme hike activity to do afterwards. The place had many different types of pools; some were hot, some warm, some cold. There were a few slides too. It was a great night.

Monteverde

The next morning we boarded a boat to go over to Monteverde.

First thing we did in Monteverde was a coffee plantation tour that was in the included activities. It was the El Trapiche tour (my review on Trip Advisor) and came with a delicious lunch. It was actually quite an interesting tour to learn more about the coffee process and also about chocolate making with cacao beans.

Our tour group at the El Trapiche tour

Afterwards, we went to the hotel we stayed at while in Monteverde, Hotel Cipreses (see my review on Trip Advisor) to drop off our things before heading out to a restaurant called Tree House Restaurant and Cafe. And you might’ve guessed it, it was a restaurant… with a tree growing through it.

Tree House Restaurant

After dinner, I signed up for the optional activity, the night walk. It seemed to be highly recommended by previous people who had done the tour, but I heard that we would see snakes, bugs, spiders, etc on this night walk — while we are enveloped in darkness — so it made me apprehensive. But you know, YOLO, just putting aside my fears and worries and just doing it and so I did it.

Yes, I did see snakes and creepy bugs. And a tarantula. We had a moment of panic while screaming in the dense forest when someone felt and saw a giant spider on their leg. But I did get to see a giant sloth in the tree (love sloths!), sleeping birds and bats.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

We also saw a lot of ants carrying leaves and had to be careful not to step on them.

Next morning we went to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve, one of the other included activities, again led by the same fantastic guide we had the night before on the night walk. Beautiful place with all sorts of wildlife (including, yes, creepy bugs).

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

There was also a look-out point we could climb up to the top, with some ladders (I have a fear of heights so it required the “don’t think, just do” approach again), and get a fantastic view overlooking the cloud forest below.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

Here’s a video from doing a 360 at the top.

Then came one of my most anticipated activities for my Costa Rica trip: ZIPLINING!!!

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

We went to 100% Adventura Adventure Park where their course includes a mix of 14 cables of regular, sitting down ziplines and Superman ziplines (lying horizontally below the zipline, one of the two Superman ziplines being the longest zipline in Latin America at 1590 meters in length!). There was also a repel and the well-known Super Tarzan Swing. I originally wasn’t planning to do the Tarzan Swing but I guess I bowed down to peer pressure. The Superman zipline I was also iffy about because the guides there had told me that people who weigh under 120 lbs will get stuck on the longest zipline when in the Superman position. Let’s just say I am around 120 lbs, give or take, and I could probably get stuck. And I did, needing to be rescued a.k.a. pulled rest of the way by a guide somewhat nearish to the end of the line (thankfully, though being stuck like that did not feel great on my ribs and was scary to look down).

I also did the Tarzan Swing which included just being “gently nudged” off a plank way up high and then free falling for about 5 seconds, then swinging back and forth. Another just DO IT and DON’T think situations.

Below are some videos of the Tarzan Swing, the superman ziplines and the regular old sitting down ziplining.

After a day of ziplining, we went to the hanging bridges in Selvatura Park — a 1.9 mile (about 3 km) trail that crosses the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The hanging bridges were of varying lengths (150 feet to 510 feet) and varying altitudes (from 36 feet up to 180 feet). We saw some monkeys down below in the forest too!

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

Video of the walk over one of the 8 hanging bridges in the park.

Manuel Antonio/Quepos

Next day, we headed to Manuel Antonio/Quepos (our hotel was in between both towns). There was a dramatic weather shift, going from warm days and chilly evenings to just hot and humid. Just standing outside waiting for the bus for a couple minutes resulted in being drenched in sweat.

The hotel we stayed at, Hotel California, was up a really steep hill but it was worth the walk up. There was a beautiful view of the Pacific ocean.

And there were adorable titi monkeys galore on the hotel grounds!

Manuel Antonio beach was a 10-15 minute bus ride from the hotel, though waiting for the bus and the bus schedule being unpredictable, made that much lengthier. Having the beach and relaxation portion at the end of the trip definitely was nice as it helped me get both a taste of the adrenaline racing activities and the relaxation needed before heading back to work.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

There were some huge waves at the beach as well!

The next day we went kayaking in the mangrove. I thought it’d be really relaxing but since we were always trying to catch up with the group, it was less chill and slowly paddling sort of activity than it was paddling strenuously. Luckily, while I originally had thought it was going to be a person per kayak, we had to pair up so that helped with sharing the paddling/steering duty.

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

After kayaking, we went to visit the Manuel Antonio National Park. LOTS of wildlife here, including my favourite, sloths!

[See image gallery at awesomeness.net]

Also spent most of the afternoon on the beach accessed through the national park so it was less crowded and much nicer than the public beach we went to the day earlier. But you had to be careful with your belongings because there were monkeys and raccoons (the latter of which looked a lot different than the raccoons I’m used to as they were thinner than the fluffy, pudgy North American ones) with sticky fingers. I saw them take some bags of food from people and they actually were pretty smart, even managing to steal from a bag hanging from a tree branch.

Then at dinner we went to the most amazing charcoal BBQ place ever.

On the last day, though technically not the last day as they count the morning departing day as the last day, some of us who didn’t go on the party boat optional activity just chilled out at the beach one last time. Then the few hours van ride back to San Jose.

If you are considering this trip, DON’T THINK. JUST GO!!

There was a lot of trips.

Work was nuts.

And it went by kinda quickly.

I got to do a fair amount of traveling, mostly for work.

In April 2015, I visited San Francisco for a work event and got to visit Silicon Valley where my company has their headquarters. I also made it out to visit Alcatraz Island and the Full House house!

In September 2015, I went to New York City –again for work– but I got to see the Ed Sullivan Theater all changed from the old David Letterman signage to the new Late Show with Stephen Colbert signage. (I love Stephen Colbert!) I also managed to get tickets to the show, twice, once for the first month of being on air, but didn’t end up going. :\

It was kind of a bummer of a NYC trip, on the personal non-work related level, in that I didn’t manage to get any rush tickets for any broadway shows when I usually luck out in that department. Failed miserably to get into Fun Home (which had great buzz), Wicked, and Aladdin.

In November 2015, I was chosen at work to go on a Global Exchange to the APAC region so I got to work out of the Taipei and Singapore office for a week each.

With the Singapore team

At Din Tai Fung (a famous dumpling restaurant that originated in Taiwan) with the Taipei team

More pictures and posts on my Tumblr.

And in late November 2015 (with only a week in-between trips), I went to Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Quest (with G Adventures) – PURA VIDA!

Professionally, it was a tumultuous year. It was my first full year in that role but there were many, many changes. Three plus-ish quarters of almost drowning in workload due to these changes. But overall, work culture has improved and it’s starting to feel a bit more like my old job where I really felt part of close-knit work environment.

I got to volunteer in October for the Big City Improv Festival. Got to see some amazing improv troupes do their craft and also made me realize I need to get back into improv.

Family and friends were good. Some friends I’ve somewhat lost touch with. I got to help out with one of my friend’s proposal to his girlfriend which involved a lot of pugs. I met new buddies on my G Adventures trip and on my work exchange trip. My dog is still healthy and much more behaved now, well at least where it comes to the secret pooping.

I discovered more of a passion for fitness this year, after I realized that going to just mainly Bodyflow classes actually made me gain weight. So I got back into cardio classes like Bodycombat and weight-training classes like Bodypump, throwing in Bodyflow here and there.

I also discovered I really enjoy video-making. On my Costa Rica trip, I was filming a lot more of my activities and I think moving forward, I will try to do that more on fun activities and improve on my video-editing skills.

I got back into biking and biked to a lot more places (while still being scared about getting hit by a car). Rode my bike to High Park a few times, Bloor/Spadina and around my hood. Still haven’t gotten the nerve to ride to work yet.

Goals for 2016

I rarely keep up with my resolutions when it’s stuff like “go to the gym 3x a week” but I’ll just throw out a goal for this year.

• Remember I have this blog and write more in it. I realized that when my domain expired and I needed to renew it, I hadn’t written in this thing for about 2 years! Yikes!
• Visit another new continent. I’ve visited North America (duh), Central America (though often it’s recognized as just part of North America), Asia, and Europe. Thus I still need to visit Africa, Australia, South America and Antarctica. Australia requires quite a commitment of time off work for the flight down there and the impending jet lag so I am thinking that will be a trip for when I get a sabbatical. Antarctica requires quite a financial commitment. So I’m thinking South America or Africa this year?

As a current job seeker and having numerous friends and colleagues who themselves have recently had to deal with the strenuous, uphill battle of job hunting, I know that on everyone’s list of considerations are salary, vacation time and benefits. And those are legitimate concerns, they are important things to take into account when you make that next career move. However, numbers can be attractive and cloud your judgement. But at the end of the day, these factors are really, really minor. You have to look at it from a macro perspective before jumping in with your feet first.

Address your current skills and future-proof for down the road

We’re talking about the skills and knowledge you currently have and want to build on. I’m sure everyone has administrative skills but that may not be an area you necessarily want to build on. And from there, will the job’s day to day duties allow you the time and opportunity to acquire or expand on other relevant skills or knowledge?

In this day and age, people often go from one employer to another but that company in that moment in time may seem like the one you choose to become a “lifer” in. But, let’s be honest, things change: there may be layoffs, restructuring, acquisitions, change in culture, etc. So while it’s nice to consider the right here, right now mindset, you also have to think about down the road. Will the opportunity give you the tools, knowledge and skills to go in the right general direction, down a chosen career path or even towards a vague idea of what success 10 years from now looks like to you? Or will it be considered a hindrance later on?

In my personal experience, I moved from an executing digital strategies role to a passive spectator of digital strategies. I got to learn about all the new happenings and being on the ground floor in implementing guidelines and standards for this industry I love to adopt, but that was basically it. I watched and other people did. In that regard, I feel like that opportunity did not let me use my current skill set nor future-proof me for jobs down the road and perhaps even hindered me for that time period.

Culture, culture, culture! Aack!

That’s a reference to Liz Lemon’s Cathy impression, by the way.

Here’s an anecdote about the work culture I was just in. My friend tells me her boss plays Eye of the Tiger as their team’s “pump up” song. I tell her, “oh, you know what our pump up song is? SILENCE!”

And it’s a true story, all of it. (Though, luckily, I had two buddies there who helped keep me from going insane from the silence but otherwise, it was silence 98% of the time)

Work culture is EVERYTHING and even though that lamenting post about leaving my old job for this one mentioned that I was bummed to leave my awesome team and friends there, I didn’t really notice how important culture is until I was left with zero work culture. If anything, I now know that culture is as important, if not more so, than money when considering an opportunity. If you thrive in bland, 9-5er and quiet environments, then you’ve considered the work culture and that was a positive for you. Great. But if you thrive in collaborative, team-building, work-hard-play-hard sorta environments, don’t try to settle or talk yourself into an opportunity where it will be the complete opposite.

After all, your job and what you do at it is just a part of the equation. The other part is what you’re surrounded by while you’re doing your job and at first, I thought it was going to be no big deal. I’m an only child. I’m used to loneliness (*playing myself a tiny violin*). But no, I’d say you need some feeling of belonging, of community, of camaraderie other than seeing your coworkers as pieces of a chess game to move around to reach your own objectives.

Inspiration *jazz hands*

Relevant to the two prior points but you should be looking at opportunities as a whole, the whole which includes not just the culture but what the culture is the product of: the people! We’re talking top down, from the CEO, the VP, the managers, to the team of people doing the daily grind.

Do they inspire you to do more, learn more, take on different challenges? Or are they just coming to work, getting a pay cheque and going home? Who is your potential boss (or boss’ boss and so on?) and are they genuinely excited about what they are doing and inspiring those underneath/around them to get excited too?

Are these people going to push you to be harder, better, faster, stronger (thanks Kanye!)? You know, not in a having-a-nervous-breakdown-at-work kind of way but a personal growth kind of way?

Seriously, the worst career move you can ever make is going somewhere where you become so complacent that you actually feel like you’re even digressing. Your colleagues and management can be a fantastic source of inspiration with knowledge sharing and job shadowing but at the same time, they can also be a huge detriment.

Lastly, go with your gut

As my spirit animal, Oprah, has taught me:

Learning to trust your instincts, using your intuitive sense of what’s best for you, is paramount for any lasting success. I’ve trusted the still, small voice of intuition my entire life. And the only time I’ve made mistakes is when I didn’t listen.

Preach it, girlfriend!

I usually get a good sense of the vibe from every job opportunity I apply and interview for. You just kind of know if it’s a right fit for you. You may have a neutral feeling about something and that’s fine as well. But when you get a sense in your intuition that something isn’t the right opportunity, or whathaveyou, for yourself at that moment in time (maybe in the future it will be a better fit), listen to that small voice. Don’t ignore it!

It can help you avoid mistakes and regrets, just ask Oprah.

If it excites you and it feels right, then you know your answer.

Thoughts? What are your deciding factors for weighing job opportunities?

Now I have adjusted and I do enjoy it.

There’s no one to judge my impromptu dance parties

Sometimes, I will blast Robyn’s Dancing On My Own and pretend I’m on Girls, pulling out the ridiculous dance moves that had anyone seen me doing would probably die of laughter. But who cares? No one can see me! I actually started doing this because my upstairs neighbour is apparently an elephant who does Irish jigs and I’m not sure if they are stomping or just have an incredibly heavy tread, but I discovered that the only way to drown out their sounds is to have dance parties. Their stomping even supersedes the sound coming from the TV.

I recommend you dance like an idiot to your favourite song, even if you do live with people. Dancing should be a judgement free zone anyway.

I’m totally a culinary genius… or so I’d like to think

I never cooked for myself before, really, other than really simple quickie meals. I already had a bunch of cookbooks, a Pinterest board devoted to “foodie inspirations” and a yearning for a KitchenAid mixer but I never really put too much effort or time into preparing the meals and often opting to get take-out instead. Now that my subsistence requires me to feed myself daily and unfortunately my financial situation doesn’t really allot me the funds to eat out every day, I have found domestic pursuits like cooking somewhat more enjoyable. Dare I say, even an interest. I bought a slow cooker, a cast iron grill, a crepe pan and have gotten more adventurous with my meal ideas. It is kind of embarrassing but sometimes I can’t wait to get home to make myself dinner or prepare a big brunch. Then I will try to plate it carefully and take a picture of my masterpiece, before devouring my meal.

Speaking of which, I was not really into “healthy food” (I am a burger, fries, burritos kind of girl) but now, I will put more conscious effort into food considerations on what to buy and cook. I haven’t completely cut out buying unhealthy things like chips or candy but I’ll try to balance that out by throwing in more avocados, baby spinach, asparagus, kale, Greek yogurt, etc.

I’m like Danny Tanner

Anyone who’s seen my place knows that I am a bit messy (still need to buy the organizational storage) but cleanliness is different than messiness. I used to smirk and mock people who’d say that they love cleaning, totally not understanding this foreign concept. However, with a place of my own and the results of cleaning being mainly appreciated by me (I’m pretty sure my guests don’t give two shits either way on how Lysol’d my counter tops are and how mildew free my bathtub is), I get it now. I will sometimes get obsessive compulsive about cleanliness and it’s not unheard of to hear me vacuuming late at night, probably much to the chagrin of my neighbours (hey, I have to deal with Stompy McGhee all the time so trade off!).

It could also be because I moved into a new condo so it’s not like I’m cleaning someone else’s grossness that was left behind.

Wants and needs

Because I now have to pay the bills and mortgage on my own, I’ve now finally comprehended the need to budget. Don’t get me wrong, I was always money-conscious and definitely not “making it rain” and popping bottles of champaign like some lady of leisure, but I just didn’t really pay attention to where my money went. Often, I was a victim to my whims and would be like “I want a frappuccino” and so I go get one. Now I’ll always think before I buy something frivolous, do I really want it? Is it a weekly treat that I can justify?

Another thing is that moving into a small space makes me have to halt my hoarding tendencies and just get what I need. Space is now a finite resource and everything from home decor items to clothes, I only have so much space to put everything. I do have a locker but it’s really creepy to go down there so I will avoid it as much as I can. Not to mention, when I was packing to move to my place, I noticed I had a whole load of clothes I never wore and while I always thought “but maybe I’ll wear it”, maybe need to reign that in.

It’s also strange but my clothes shopping habit has been suppressed and overtaken by a new obsession with home decor. The joy I used to get from browsing through my favourite clothing stores has now been replaced by looking at cool organizational storage solutions or decorative items for the home. I guess that is a good thing too because I don’t think I can afford to keep up both habits.

Ultimately, I feel a greater sense of independence and it feels fantastic. I do really miss my dog though who has major separation anxiety issues when she is here with me (as in, I can’t even go to the bathroom or shower without her having to keep an eye on me and leaving her alone means yelping sounds continuously!) but other than that, it’s been a good adjustment.

I also really get what Tina Fey refers to as improv as kind of a cult. Ever since I started taking classes, my mindset has become “I LOVE IMPROV!! I MUST SHOW THE WORLD MY LOVE OF IMPROV” and people who don’t get it, I don’t really get them. There’s something about being surrounded by people who have the same mindset, who appreciate comedy as much as I do that they will use their time and money to immerse themselves in this world.

Some thoughts on improv classes:

I’m in a glass case of emotion!

Few of the classes focused on emotions. When you really think about it, there are a huge amount of emotions on the spectrum besides the typical happy, sad, angry, surprised, excited, etc. The difference between “bitchy” and “annoyed” is just some small nuances. One of the games we played was an emotion orchestra where half the class stood up and the other half gave each person an emotion and a word. My word was pineapple and my emotion was bitchy. Based on our teacher’s hand cues, we would say the word with escalating or deescalating emotion. Now, I would think I could do bitchy pretty well but in reality, it was really difficult. Highly escalated bitchiness blends into rage so I ended up doing ragey bitchiness as I screamed out “pineapple!”.

We also had an “emotion party”, my favourite game, where there was an environment painted and starting with the host having one emotion, one by one we would enter the scene with a different emotion that all those at the party would adopt as well – without knowing what emotion they would do so you’d have to listen and watch carefully to adopt that emotion. Then in the same order starting with the last, each person would make up an excuse to leave the party and then the group would adopt the emotion that everyone adopted before the last person entered. I came into the “pool party” and stated in a monotone voice that it was very difficult for me being at a pool right now because my cat died… in a pool, in fact. My emotion was…. depressed emo/sad cat lady! (Oddly, crazy cat lady became my go-to character)

Work with your environment

Another class was about how your environment is like another person in the scene. It has its own characteristics that you can work off of and when you’re stuck, you can go off to engage in the environment.

One game we played was when we started with a premise, i.e. haunted house, and each of us played an object in that place. Then someone came in, for example in our case, a realtor and a buyer, to engage with us as the “objects”. I was a huge cobweb and KitchenAid mixer (separate times, obviously).

“In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful, happy accidents” – Tina Fey, Bossypants

I know I said in my previous post to stop overthinking and just go with it. But alas, this is easier said than done.

We were asked to do fairy tales in one minute. I was a disastuhhhh! We went into groups of four people and then without any time to think or talk it out, we were given a fairy tale to act out in one minute on the spot. We got The Princess and the Pea, which I wasn’t really familiar with prior but if you’re like me and unfamiliar with it, it is about a princess who couldn’t sleep because there was a pea in her mattress. Or something. Since we had three girls and one guy, while the premise of the fairy tale was being described, the guy automatically lay down on the ground to be the princess. Haha, this is going to be funny, I thought. In my head, I came up with the idea of coming in as Christine Magee from Sleep Country Canada and talk about how you need a Serta mattress, perhaps singing the jingle while I was at it. It was going to be HILARIOUS!!!!! The other two girls went into the scene as servants and I stood on the side, anticipating my grand entrance with the hilarity.

But then the guy playing the princess answered, to the girl who asked if “the princess” slept alright, that she/he slept fine.

Uhhhh.

She asked again, “are you sure, princess?”

He again said, in a high pitched voice, “yes I slept really well!”.

My brain exploded and here I was, standing on the side ready to go in with my lines and suddenly, I had nothing. Since we had one minute, I just went in as another servant and mumbled something about the mattress being too firm. And because the guy speaking in a high pitched voice was so distracting to my inner dialogue, I started talking in a high pitched voice too, completely forgetting that I already was female so there was no need to. Blergh.

I just wanted to die. I wish I could re-do that moment in my life.

Create a character

One of the more complex games we played that lasted for about half a class was to create a character. We first did the “honey walk” where we would walk around in a circle doing things like having one part of your body lead you, walking as an animal, with a different posture, acting how you think a character would act if they had that body part leading, posture or a particular animal, etc. Then we lay down on the ground with the lights out and either picked a person we knew well or that we did from the honey walk. I had recently been on a Netflix binge and watched a documentary about people on LA’s skidrow and this elderly lady with a huge humpback (which was my different posture pose) who walked around with a shopping cart with all her belongings, feeding all the stray cats in the area, really got seared into my brain. So I chose to be her, or at least a bastardized version of her. We were then asked to pretend to be in a speed-dating event as the chosen character, as we went around the class talking to all sorts of strange characters. I don’t know this lady’s life, other than what I knew of her from the documentary, but I imagined her being on the streets now because her asshole ex-husband left her for a floozy over thirty years ago. My character’s name was Henrietta Finklestein. She had a hard knocks life and was blaming the government, and ex-husband of course, for her hardships.

When you have some time to think over a character’s development, it really does make it easier to play them because you have context and the back story for how they’d react in certain situations.

I really, really enjoyed my first attempt at improv. It makes me really appreciate things like Whose Line is it Anyway a lot more. If you are near a Second City training center, I highly recommend you to take a class!

So far, I’m two lessons in and I will try to blog in a series my experience as a newbie in improv.

Lesson #1: stop hesitating and over thinking

So here’s the thing: I’m a pretty funny person –or so I’ve been told– so I want to make the witty jokes and get the laughs when I’m doing the improv thing. But I found myself always thinking so far ahead in things and hesitating when it required performers to take the initiative to join the scene and by thinking so much, I missed out because then someone had thrown a curveball into the story and my idea was now moot.

Just step up and go with your first thought, who cares if it isn’t funny. Don’t live in your head when you should just be listening to what’s going around you at that very moment.

How can I use this in the workplace? Well, it boils down to being more assertive, confident and as my old French boss would colloquially say to me, “take up space”. Not everything that comes out of your mouth will be a gold nugget of wisdom, in fact, I’m sure a lot of people who get into senior roles just talk a lot of crap. But they say… things and aren’t sitting on the sidelines. If you hesitate and worry too much about looking like an idiot, then you will likely just be looked over. This is something I struggle with because similar to how I want to make every thing I say and do in improv to get the big laughs, I also strive to ask the smart questions or make the intelligent points which sometimes ends up with me getting stuck inside my head.

Lesson #2: Yes and…

This is the epitome of improv and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Improv is all about building upon what was presented to you, accepting it and adding to it. That also means that the storyline can turn on a dime and that really awesome thing you just thought of to say is now no longer relevant (see: lesson #1).

It doesn’t matter whether someone else in the scene with you totally misconstrued your ~acting~ and went in a whole different direction.  THINK ON YOUR FEET and just go with it. Thinking on your feet is sometimes hard but I think it’s like a muscle that can be trained over time (at least, I hope so).

How can I use this in the workplace? As Tina Fey says, it helps to promote collaboration and teamwork. Automatic “no-ers” are such downers and such hindrances to creativity and success. “Yes and” just means to look for alternative solutions to a roadblock that may exist.

This also is great for public speaking, presentations, etc, things that I could use some work on. It’s about flying by the seat-of-the-pants in every high pressure or nerve-wracking situation. I sometimes get nervous and stressed out in those situations but improv is really forcing me to work on getting comfortable in that sort of panic mode.

Lesson #3: Listen and be in the moment

When you’re doing improv, and in order to do it well, you really have to listen. If you miss out on a key point in the story, you don’t know how to add on to it. Not only that, but if you keep adding on randomness to it then the story becomes kind of convoluted. The key is to link back to the what has already been established in the story and so you have to really know what’s going on around you.

But luckily, in improv, as long as you’re going with it and adding to the story, there really is no “wrong” mistakes. Which links back to lesson #1, all about doing whatever without stressing out over things.

How can I use this in the workplace? Listening to your colleagues is an imperative for a good workplace. I’d even say it’s imperative in life because nothing is worse than a friend or acquaintance who just talks about themselves and never listens to what you have to say.

Lesson #4: Improv is really, really fun

Not really a lesson per se but let it be known, it’s fun.

Even if you’re apprehensive or anxious about the whole ordeal, you’ll have a good time. Once you just stop worrying about being stupid in front of people, you will really enjoy yourself in the games. Plus it’s also fun to just watch (granted, the students in our class were pretty fun/funny) and see the mess ups. Messing up is funny too! The warm up games, like Bippity Boppity Boo and focus games, were silly but I had a good time.

Embrace the stupidity!

Read part two: More thoughts from an improv novice

But, the stars must have aligned because on April 13th, 2013, I did end up meeting Oprah-freakin’-Winfrey. Alas, this meeting didn’t result in her asking if she could adopt me or inviting me to a sleepover where we would braid each other’s hair and chat about cute boys (then eventually offering me a show on OWN to try out cupcakes, burgers and pizza all over the world). It was still a remarkable experience, one that I cannot put into words how awesome it was, but I will try to in this post. Weeks later, I am still in disbelief.

It all started after hearing on Twitter (gosh, how I love thee) on the Breakfast Television feed that they were doing a contest to win VIP tickets to see Oprah at her An Evening with Oprah event in Hamilton, Ontario. At least two people had been nice enough to send me a heads up on the contest, knowing what a rabid Oprah fan I was, but little did they know that I was already “on it”. Specifics were vague but from what I gathered, to enter, you had to tweet a question you’d ask Ms. Winfrey with the hashtag #BTOprah. I never really win contests but why not give it a shot, I thought. So I tried to tweet at least one question every day, including many ridiculous ones like “who’s your favourite Muppet” and “what’s your favourite dog breed other than cocker spaniels“. My creative spurt had dissipated and it was getting to desperate times.

One day, I got an @ reply from a Breakfast Television producer. Oh god, I thought, I hope they don’t want to have a segment on TV for Oprah fans to fight it out for the VIP tickets. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s seeing myself on TV. Cringeworthy to the max.  That wasn’t it, luckily, I had just won the contest!

What. I WON THE CONTEST???

HELL YA! I was going to get to go to the event and meet her at a little VIP soiree prior to it, getting a picture with her as a keepsake.

I didn’t really tell anyone after I heard the news because I was still pessimistic and expecting to have this dream yanked away from me. Shit happens and they could be like, “your ridiculous questions about Muppets has disqualified you from winning” for all I know.

Fast-forward to the day of the event – April 13th

My friend and I drove to Hamilton and checked in at our hotel. Since the event was happening at night, it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about late night driving afterwards.

At Copps Coliseum, we waited with other people, mostly women who were dressed in fancy outfits (some even in cocktail dresses), who were also participating in the VIP meet and greet. The check in process required confirming your identity with photo ID and passing through security, I’m surprised there wasn’t also a pat down! As we were brought inside, I kept exclaiming, I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING! Good lord, it was happening.

We were brought into a cornered off area in the arena where we had open bar, hors d’oeuvres, and a pastry table. These are things I love: open bar and pastries. However, because the washroom situation was an unknown and I didn’t want to end up meeting Oprah with powdered sugar all over my face and clothes, I opted out of over-indulging in either. It was very difficult.

After chatting with some people, and after what felt like forever, we started lining up and the anticipation for her arrival was palpable.

She finally came in and gave a little speech about how she was going to take a picture with everyone in the room and not to tell her your life story.

There’s also a funny story to go with my meeting with THE OPRAH: she puts her arm around my waist for the photo and the photographer took the photo. Then after the shot, Oprah pulls me in at the waist and she says in a stern voice, “stand up straight”. I was yelled at like a schoolmarm by Oprah. She was saying it like my mother says to me all the time. I was pretty sure my second picture attempt with her would turn out with me with this look on my face D:

But it turned out alright!

We accidentally ended up matching.

Now, whenever I feel myself slouching, I hear in my head Oprah’s stern voice telling me to stand up straight and I make it a mental note to stand up straight.

An Evening with Oprah

What she spoke of covered everything from her tumultuous childhood to her rise to becoming one of the most well-known media personalities in the world to inspirational nuggets of wisdom that she’s learned along the way. There were many “a-ha” moments, as she calls them.

Shift your paradigm to service

One interesting point she was driving home is that one’s life should be bigger than one’s self. She said, “whatever your job is, shift the paradigm to service”. That really struck a chord with me because in my career and in my life, I feel like I should be doing something that matters. I enjoy the industry I work in and constantly want to learn more about this field, but am I doing something that truly will shape the world for the better? Not quite. And I often wish I had that feeling (while still being able to afford things and have proper sanitation).

Do I matter?

Another theme she spoke of was about how at the crux of what all humans want is acknowledgement: do you hear me? Do you see me? Does what I say matter? And it’s true, nothing is more frustrating than feeling ignored, unappreciated, unacknowledged. I think that then leads to disgruntlement or apathy, both of which are not good qualities. Trust me, I know.

Go with your gut

Last aspect of what she spoke of that resonated with me was the importance of trusting yourself/your gut.

She said that we should only do what we intend to do because intention → cause → effect. If you want to say no, say no – if you say yes while really wanting to say no, it leads to an outcome reflective of that. Not only that, but your gut or in the back of your head, you’ll often hear a whisper. A whisper that says “hmm, that’s odd” and that whisper will keep nudging at you until you get the message. So listen to that voice.

You are still here, you are co-creating your life

The truth is: you are still here.

Later, when we got back to the hotel, there was a mob in the lobby. Turns out Oprah was staying in the same hotel as us and I ended up seeing her walk past me, as I was in the scuffle with 500 older ladies shoving me to get closer.

I want to try taking into account the Oprah wisdom. I’m inspired yes, but some of these things are good reminders and some really require some commitment. The stuff like dedicating my life more to service, I want to do. I just need to commit to it.

Anyway, it was definitely a great, memorable, spectacular experience. Oprah (and Stephen Colbert) really are national treasures.

Video of Oprah talking about boobs (and drowning in her grandmother’s boobs)

Photos from the day

After many group exercise classes, purchases of various gym accessories (like weight-lifting gloves and an armband for my iPod), weights lifted and more than a bajillion spritz from the antibacterial spray to wipe down all the gym equipment used, I think I am seeing results.

When I first entertained the idea of joining a gym, it was in the summer of 2011. I had a body composition analysis done back at Extreme Fitness and I got my results, as shown below:

Looking at the results, and I didn’t really know what I was looking at back then, I thought it was pretty good. Fat percentage was lower than the desired range but nothing really cause for concern. At this point in my life, though lean, I was completely out of shape and not going to the gym prior to this assessment. I never exercised, never biked or ran, never did high-intensity dancing, not even lifted a weight. I was usually out of breath when I ran to the bus stop.

Afterwards, in around first quarter of 2012, I weighed myself again on this scale. This was after I had become a member at Goodlife Fitness and had somewhat regularly started going to the gym for a few months.

The results were somewhat alarming to me. I had accidentally lost about 3 lbs, my fat percentage dropped but so did my fat free body mass (FFM). I didn’t want to lose weight and I wanted to gain muscle so my weight should have gone up and my FFM weight more specifically. I realized that my enjoyment and obsession with all those cardio-centric group exercise classes along with my time on the elipticial machine were likely causing this, alongside my lack of enthusiasm for lifting weights. So from that day forward, I put more of a conscious effort to add weight training to my routine, even bought some weight-lifting gloves because you know, it’s all about accessorizing for the part.

I was rather “bleh” about weight-training because firstly, I lack upper-body strength and doing light weights seem like it’s doing nothing and anything more heavy is sometimes a struggle. Plus the day after pain, not cool. Not to mention, it’s not upbeat and fun like a cardio class is, you’re basically doing reps/sets and counting in your head the entire time.

I got more motivated in my pursuit for abs of steel and “less weak arms”. I even bought a can of protein powder even though historically, the idea of PROTEIN SHAKES seemed like a joke to me. But now, I thought, if it helps me towards my goals and I can gain more muscle mass with it (or at least help with next day recovery), I’ll try it.

Now, in 2013 (holy crap, look at the age progression on these things), I did another try on the scale to see how things have progressed.

So at first glance, it looked like the same exact numbers from my first print-out when I NEVER WORKED OUT.  What the frak? Pretty much the same overall weight, FFM, fat percentage. What does look different on closer inspection is that the overall weight and the fat free mass is slightly higher, while the fat percentage slightly lower. I may be completely pulling this out of thin air, but it looks like what a personal trainer I once talked to told me, which is that when you are working out to build muscle, you’ll gain weight because that weight is muscle.

I’d like to keep the fat percentage the same and just keep raising my FFM number and likely, in turn, raise my overall weight.

On the surface, it does seem like I am back at square one. But I do feel a bit healthier and at least a bit less stressed than when I was sans exercise. And in my quest for abs of steel? I am definitely not Ms Olympia or anything close but in certain lights, I can see it. So all in all, this fitness journey has been quite a success.