Commuting sucks part 1

The events in this blog post take place over the period of sunday through monday.

I was in Toronto Reference Library when I got a call from Doni. (What I was doing there is another blog post in itself) He said he was planning to go grocery shopping today. I told him I'd leave here and be in etobicoke by the time. As I was leaving from bloor station, I got a call from Rajat saying that he is on his way to toronto now and that he'll see me at my place. I guided him on how to get there and was on my way to kipling.

Transit disaster #1: 
There was a little incident around our locality.. some violence or maybe some bullets were fired as the worst case scenario. And the police had blocked the route not allowing the bus to pass through there. So the 112 bus was running off scheduled route and time. And it seemed as if there was only one such bus running. So I waited at the kipling station for about 20 minutes for the bus to take me to the cloverdale mall.

Rajat had arrived at kipling station by then, and he got the 112 bus so he was on his way to my place, while I was still finishing my shopping at Metro. After we were finished, we were waiting at the bus stop and Rajat called to say he was already there. GREAT! The damned 112 bus finally came and I met up with Rajat, showed him my place, and had something to eat.

Next we left for Rajat's friend Ankita's place around coxwell. She had just had a baby girl and Rajat had bought some kids clothes for the baby. She made tea and bhel for us. I don't generally drink tea.. well.. I didn't at all drink hot tea but she had made awesome tea! (And I was rather thirsty and too polite to say "no I don't drink tea!") Ankita was very nice. She was communicating very well, even with the canadian neighbour. She even invited us to stay for dinner, (I wouldn't have objected at all. Judging by the bhel, it would have been an awesome treat!) but Rajat said we should leave. And leave we did. At 8 pm, we waited to catch the streetcar that would take us to queen subway station.

Transit disaster#2
As we were approaching the queen station, I suggested we stay on the ttc and go with the streetcar all the way to long branch and catch the go train from there! We were sure we missed the 8:30 train from union, so we should be able to catch the 9:30 train at long branch if we reach there by 10. Rajat agreed and we thought now we just enjoy the ride.

But there was so much traffic on queen street that we were moving at snail's pace. As the clock sped closer to 10 and we inched ever so slowly towards long branch, we realized that we won't make the next train. And sure enough, I got to long branch only after the train had just passed. To make matters worse, the station had closed down, and both of us needed to take a leak! So we found a spot where the security cameras couldn't see us, and relieved ourselves.

Finally, after waiting for an hour in the surprisingly cold weather(for early may) we got on the bus and were in oakville in no time. And since the oakville transit buses had stopped running, we had to walk all the way to Rajat's house. Luckily, there was a 24 hour tim hortons about halfway there and we stopped to take a break, and get a drink and some snack to refuel ourselves.

Late night ice cream run

Donnie was in a really bad mood almost all day today. So he decided to go take a walk outside at about 11 pm in the night. In talking to him, trying to cheer him up, I said hey, do you wanna go get an ice cream?

And so we headed out to the store barely 5 minute walk away from the apartment. I saw a bus and suddenly said, "hey, wanna go for a random bus ride to nowhere in particular?" (I watched yes man not too long ago) He said he didn't bring his wallet (That has the TTC card). So I ended up buying him an ice cream. And we went on a walk towards the flyover over highway 427.

He told me he has an option to study for gmat and apply for York U if he doesn't make it into Ryerson. But he is not ready to do it because GMAT is too hard and he won't be able to do it. I stayed quiet for a moment, as I wanted to look back at what I've done before telling him he shouldn't think like that and not give up before he's even tried.

"Do you know how hard GMAT is?" he asked.
"I do", I replied.

Since I didn't want to make it about 'me', I briefly told him how I tried 3 times for getting into the animation program and worked harder than I have ever had for anything else in my life.
I was telling him once you start doing it, you might actually get into it and perform better than you think.

Soon we reached the flyover and I wished I had my camera with me. I did make a mental note to come back here next time with my camera and tripod. Doni and I started talking about timelapses and long exposure photography. (got to get my camera sensor cleaned!)

And even as we were returning, and he said, "shit! I didn't bought the coke" I said to myself, calm down yash, not tonight...

Evening timelapse

So I spent pretty much all of the day today working with my camera and timelapse. Dragon being my software of choice. I had to charge both the batteries, and make sure they had enough juice to hold up to shooting upto 500 shots. Tried out different locations. First out the window of my room. But Dragon crashed and I had wasted a lot of time.

Next, I put the camera in the balcony. Doni and I had discussions about whether we should point the camera towards the highway or the west. The trees though were a bummer as we couldn't see the cars on the highway or much of the lights after the sun went down. We were both debating how long can we make the timelapse before it gets boring. Finally, I kept the framerate at 24 and the timelapse came to about 21 seconds.

Another thing I am disappointed with is dust appearing on the picture because my sensor is dirty. Gotta spend some bucks to get a good sensor cleaning swab.

Finally Finished Kungfu Panda

Yeah, there's supposed to be a 27th april and 28th april Page. But I didn't find time to finish what I started on the 27th while waiting by the road side, waiting for the bus to go to Doni's place. It was a nice and sunny day, and I took my small sketchbook with me. I sketched some cars driving by, and wanted to paint them in watercolor style. However, when I got back home on 28th, Corel painter 11 refused to cooperate.

As for drawings from 28th, I was sketching briefly in the Missisauga transit bus, but it was too shaky for me to continue. And I don't feel like posting those drawings. so here's something from the archives, did this during reading week, when I was going to Ohio to visit naniji. There was this really cute kid at the airport dressed in layers of loose clothing. 'very gangsta' I thought to myself. LOL

Anyways, Staying at Doni's was fun. I finished kungfu panda game on his xbox 360, and I guess I might be playing more games more often now. LOL.

April 26th inspiration

Today's inspiration is artist Alberto Ruiz . I have his sketchbook 4 Straight curves. And I decided to attempt at copying the first drawing in the book. His original drawings are pretty big. but I didn't do the full figure. And I am very scared that I don't end up getting slapped with a lawsuit or something. So let me clear this out again, this original design is by Alberto Ruiz, this is just a fan art or something. I'm not making any money off of it, so please leave me be.

April 25

A few weeks ago I was talking to Adam David, an old classmate, and we talked about drawing something for oneself every day during the vacations. And since saturday today was the first day, if I hadn't done this, I would have felt like I gave up even before I tried. Besides, I am getting rid of so much paper lying around my room that I know I won't be able to take with me. So this drawing, after I have scanned it, is going in the garbage. 

The top left guy is the jelly alien character I've had in my mind since sometime in fall 2008. I did so many versions of this, it was almost going to be my portfolio character. But I scrapped it for Frank. Then Monsters vs Aliens movie comes along and B.O.B. played by seth rogen is pretty much exactly what I had drawn so many times before! Uncanny! My inspiration had come from art of wall-E book and Mike from Monster's Inc. But I also draw him with two eyes sometimes..

The other drawings.. Nicole had her friends over. They had a little baby girl and a huge dog. a Boxer.. his name slips my mind right now.. but he was a very adorable friendly little.. no not little.. HUGE dog. The sketches are from memory.

Wow Mickey!

This is all you. Thisblog post hasbeen provoked by: Mickey.


I skipped going to the pub night and the house party downstairs, because I wanted to stay at home tonight. Rest. I had a tiring squash game today; After a break of a few weeks, and I have a class to go to tomorrow.

As I was finishing laundry, Mickey starts chatting with me. And he said something that made me a little furious. But he wasn't wrong. His point: that, I am a good friend when it comes to asking for monery or a place to stay but I'm never there for emotional support.

I recalled all these instances of us both sitting together and talking, both before and after I had been denied admission in Sheridan college animation program. We were at Laurice(the restaurant) or at my place, his place, in the go train, at chapters.. We talked about 'the human condition' in every possible way. At times, both were troubled. More often, it was just Mickey. The Mickey I know, didn't like talking about himself.. He wouldn't even want me to tell my parents I'm hanging out with him, what he's studying, where he's from, etc. (Is Mickey racist or does he think my parents are? LOL j/k) Actually, I can understand that. I've had my own reasons for doing the same thing in the past. I remember having such low self esteem that I didn't want anybody talking about or knowing what I'm doing.

And since mickey has, on more than one occasion, refused to share with me about what's going on with him, I FINALLY picked up on that blatantly obvious hint that he doesn't want to talk and stopped asking him. I just believe in my head that like all those times he was troubled and was talking to me, he'll come and talk to me about things when he's ready. (and I guess he did that today.)

I have never been the motivational speaker that mickey is. Nor the probing psychiatrist like suju. In trying to cheer me up as I was leaving canada in summer 2008, Mickey told me, "you'll come back to Canada." And I did. Suju's thing might have worked on others, but She tried to do that routine on me and it led to irrepreble damage to our relationship.(or so I thought for.. I dunno about 4 days?)

I am the one who never knows what to say. I'd be lying if I claim I have ever said anything profound to Doni when he told me things are not going well relationship or career wise. But I could sense that in just telling those things to someone, he was feeling a little better. And I was feeling better that I'm not the only one on this side of the planet who has things on one's mind. That time, never for one second I thought to myself, "Oh god, shut up I'm not really interested, I just asked because it's the formal thing to do." (That happened when I was talking to someone else on the phone once.) Kinda became a back and forth thing between Doni and I. Next time up, I didn't hesitate to tell him what's bothering me. And he retaliates. This wasn't limited to the sad times. I force him to get off his ass and come play squash sometime, he forces me to come play other times. Like I drag him out of his room in the cold to go to bk. Next time it's his turn to ask me to come to bk, I have to go.

I don't know where I'm going with this. If you do, well and good. If not, let's just say I'm putting it out there. This was just what my mind was musing as I tried to fall asleep...
I had to write this, as I couldn't go to sleep and this thing was going round and round in my head as I lay in bed resting my neck.

So if your decision is to stop talking to me because I don't go "there there"...

..

...

I'm fine with that.