Shopping day

It was a big shopping day today!

I went to the mall to buy my favourite face toner at L'OCCITANE.

This is the best!

And then, I stopped at Lululemon to check out what they have on sale.

I found Commute Chino Pants for $39!!! (used to be $128) They were for men but they fit me well and I really liked the cute-geeky look so they are mine now!!






Finally, I went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and got Dog biscuits. As you could imagine, it's a bag of bone-shaped biscuits with white chocolate for dogs!

When I purchased this, the cashier woman said "Your dog is a very lucky dog!" I think so too!

I couldn't find a photo of it so I'm going to put a photo of my dog instead.

The lucky dog



CHANEL?!

I had a very nice day off today.

The weather was nicer (I can't say "nice" because it was still cold), I got the tickets for the flights to Japan, I picked up the book I ordered at the library and also borrowed some ballet DVDs to show to my students, and finished the tote bag that I was talking about earlier.

Just for fun :)

Can you read it? It says "This isn't CHANEL" because without it, people might think this bag is CHANEL.


Don't forget to reverse it at customs just in case they think it's a real CHANEL and charge you very expensive tax.

Inside

One more week to go 'til Japan!!

A bag for men

Another big bag order, but this time it's for a man!

I made the non-pocket side the main side so it's not flashy for cool guys.



Outside


But anytime he feels like showing off, he can reverse it.

Inside

I'm making another type of totebag. It's going to be cute :)

Coming soon!!

Tutu

Finally a post about ballet... Well, sort of.

A tutu bag!!!

I thought gathering tulle would be more difficult so I put off making this bag for a long time after I bought the pattern and materials.

But I realized that it's already December! I better hurry if I want to make this as a Christmas gift for someone!! So I did it :)

My new tool, "ball point needle" worked very well to make the tutu part.

Big bag marathon

My journey of making big bags volume 2 is now finished.

The great thing about these big bags is that you will never see the same combination of fabrics (because that way, I won't get bored).

My new favourite

New arrival today.

The purses I made before were just for me to have fun and I was just hoping that someone would buy them.

But this new big shopping bag was officially ordered.

I really like the combination of these colours. The fabrics are from Dragonfly fabric. It's a Canadian online fabric store so shipping wasn't expensive and the owner seems very nice. The fabrics I ordered came with a nice handwritten card.

I have 2 more big bags, one apron and a set of organizers to go! I'm in business :)

Chichi label

Another new arrival this month!

It's very special because it's got my "Chi Chi" label for the first time!!

I put the label on the wrong side (oops!) but I'm not going to sell it or give it away. It's a "special edition" just for me ;)

Organizer (M size)

Chi Chi label!!!

Fabrics are already cut and waiting to be sewn into S size and L size organizers! Coming soon!!

New arrival of the month

A purse with a magnetic snap. (There is a divider inside!)

front

and back

There are more coming. Stay tuned ;)

 

キャリアカウンセリング2

今日はキャリアカウンセリングの第2回目でした。

バレエ教師の仕事が夜なので、昼間何か好きなことをして、それがさらにお金になれば言うことないなーと思い始めたこと、

前々から大学に行きたいと思っていたので、それならただの"大卒"というだけでなく、将来的に本当に役に立つものを修得するにこしたことは無い、

ということから、友達が紹介してくれたキャリアカウンセリングを受けることに決めました。


第1回目は、自分の得意、不得意を見つけ出す作業だったのですが、これが意外に難しくてかなり手こずりました。

今日はその2回目、いろんなテストから最終的にでた結果は、私のパーソナリティーが、

Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging (内向的、直観的、考えて審判する)

 そしてモットーは、 "Competence + Independence = Perfection" (能力 + 独立 = 完璧) だそうです。

向いてそうな仕事をいくつかカウンセラーが割り出してくれたので、次のカウンセリングまでにそれを6つまでに絞り込むというのが今回の宿題です。





キャリアカウンセリングセンターは、Osborne Village という日本でいうアメ村のような所(?) の中にあるので、帰りはKawaii Crape で昼食を取り、散歩がてらウィンドウショッピングをしていると。。。

ワンピースを発見!

少し前の Louis Vuitton のコレクションで、いいなーと思って見ていた物に雰囲気が少し似ていて、試着してみるとピッタリだったので即購入!!

ルイヴィトンもどき

ほくほくで帰ってきました。



おまけ写真。 アボカド2度目の引越し。これ以上大きくなったらどうしようかなー。。。

アボカド

My friend

Today's Radish II.
He always has a nap right in front of the entrance door of my apartment.






イングリッシュ

久しぶりに日本語での投稿です。

テレビドラマ "クリミナルマインド" を見ていて、全部聞き取れている! ということにふと気付きました。

カナダに来てすぐは、"フレンズ" という30分のコメディドラマを英語で、さらに英語の字幕付で勉強のために見始めたのですが、いつの間にか字幕が必要なくなり(見過ぎてストーリーを覚えているという指摘もありますが) 、

最近になって "ビッグバンセオリー" というのを見始め、これもコメディーなのですが、メインのキャラクターたちが天才という設定なのでフレンズよりはかなり難しいはずですが難なくクリア。

そして、夏に日本に帰った時に見始めたクリミナルマインドが、こちらでも見られる事が判明し今ハマり中なのですが、こちらは1時間のシリアスなFBI捜査官たちのドラマなので、きっと5年前の私が見ていたら意味不明で3分で飽きていたはず。。。

読めるけど書けない漢字のように、はっきりとは知らない単語でも聞き取れるようになった(事に気付いた)今日この頃。

こちらで大学に行くことも検討中なので、英語力はもっともっと伸ばしていきたいです。

今でも苦手なのは、ラジオのニュースとティーンエイジャーの早口です。頑張ります。

New project

My new project, coin purse!

It's from the book "amy butler's style stitches".




I cut the fabric into pieces last night and I went to bed very excited about starting to sew in the morning but I realized that I needed a 7" zipper!

So I went to Mitchell fabrics and got the zipper, and magnetic snaps for the next project (I'm thinking about making a purse next).

And then...

2 hours after I came home



This little coin purse has been born!!

Weekend

If I had nothing to do on Sunday, it would be literally a day of doing nothing.

So I decided to go out to a beach with Patrick and his camera friends for photo shooting of sunset.

They are real camera people but I am not.

I just brought my little digital camera, had a nap in the car when we got there, and read a sewing book and had a snack before I started my photo shooting.

I have no artistry or creativity for photos so I was just walking around, getting a little bored...

Then...

Look what I found!

A fossil!!

I'm going to introduce you to the people around me.



Real camera guy, Patrick



My neighbor, Radish II
He is a rabbit.

Even though I was done photo shooting after 20 minutes, I had a nice weekend.

New arrival

I have been writing this ballet/life in Canada blog for more than 5 years.

Being a teacher is all about continual studying and I should always be hungry for new things to learn.

But sometimes I run out of things I want to write about, especially right after I did the biggest ballet exam, Cecchetti diploma!!

So for a while this is going to be about my new interest, sewing.

New arrival (the dog is not included)

I bought a lot of fabric at fabric.com.
They were having a huge sale (ends on October 15th if you are interested) and somehow I got an extra 15% off!

To be honest, I didn't think I was going to get this much use out of my sewing machine when I bought it ;)

Sewing

Even though I'm very (?) busy dancing and teaching ballet, I have another job, sewing!

I'm still at intermediate level but I succeeded sewing zippers on!!

These are new arrivals.



little bags with ZIPPER!!!



Tote bag with a big pocket

The tote bag (reversible!) was too big to fit the dinosaur theme background but you are only missing the handles in this photo.


Another reversible bag.

Outside

and inside

Please email me or leave a comment to order.
Thank you :)

Career Counseling

I have been looking for my daytime, part-time job for two years (not very hard).

Because I have so much focus on my ballet job, I want something easy and stress free.

I'm not trying to make much money out of my part-time job so I just need a few hours for a few days/a week to make my life just a little more colourful.

But I have NO idea what to do!

So I'm going to get a Career Counseling at Osborne Village Resource Centre tomorrow.

Very exciting :)

October

The first week of October.

It already snowed on Thursday here, Winnipeg.

I usually give  my students a class of the month, make them memorize it, keep the class for maybe 2 weeks (4 classes) and slowly develop the exercises more advanced after 2 weeks.

I also have goals of the month for each class.

In my Intermediate II class, we are focusing on coordination of arms and heads. But it's a real challenge for them and for me!!

Even though I want to focus on artistry I still can't ignore their basic techniques, which are turn-out, pointing toes, positions of the arms, etc...

To me, artistry and technique come together because you can't have artistry without correct techniques. But to them, those two things are completely different. When they think about arms and heads, they forget about the other things :(

Anyway, coordination is very important and I think they should have it before their Grade 5 exam. S I'm going to take time to teach it and see if they can get used to it.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Moving soon!

My blog will be moving here very soon!

If you are interested in my old blog "BALLET DIARY IN CANADA" or my current one "BALLET DIARY IN CANADA 2", click the titles!

Thank you :)