A most enjoyable visit to Sickkids

Today, I took my son Derek to Sickkids to job shadow my high school friend, Dr. Michael Tropak. He is a Research Associate developing new drug treatments for various childhood diseases at Sickkids Hospital. I'm so happy that Michael took the time out to show Derek what his job is really like. Mike is one of the few people I know who loves his job and is really passionate about his work. He is so dedicated that he happily puts in more than his regular 36 hour work week. When not at his lab, he is constantly updating his skills and keeping up with the latest medical developments by reading all the latest medical journals relevant to his field. His wife can attest to the many extra hours he will spend at the lab, in the evenings and on weekends. But dedicated as he is to his career of choice, he is also a dedicated father who takes time to attend his childrens' extra curricular events without fail and takes time to cook for his family as well. What a guy!

So on this chilly morning we were supposed to meet, I underestimated the time it would take us to get downtown from Richmond Hill. I know the drive from our place to Finch subway is usually 20 minutes long, if we were to start out at 7am. It in fact took an hour when we started the trip at 8am. I don't know if it's because we hit prime time rush hour or because the roads were extra icy and slippery, but the ride to Finch subway was excruiatingly slow. It reminded me of the movie "Office Space" where the featured office worker was commuting in stop & go traffic and an old man pushing a walker on the sidewalk was making faster progress than he was in his car. I just don't know how people can stand doing this kind of a commute day after day. This would definitely drive me crazy.

Alright, enough with my ranting, when we finally made it to Sickkids, apparently a fire alarm went off and none of the escalators were in operation. So, we ended up walking up 9, that's nine flights of steps up to Mike's office. Well, that took care of my exercise for the day. I introduced Derek to Mike and he immediately showed Derek all kinds of interesting things like skin cells under a microscope and heart cells from mice they were growing from a culture. That was cool, because you can actually see the cells beating just like a heart. I didn't stay to see everything that Mike had lined up for Derek, but I'm sure Derek learned alot. Derek was always interested in the Sciences and after job shadowing Mike, Derek is now even more interested in pursuing a career in the sciences.

So I want to say Thank You so much Mike for taking time out to present a career choice to Derek in such a fun and entertaining way (These are Derek's words).

I really had a great time catching up with Mike and obviously Derek gained some good insights into what a Researcher does and to top it all off, the Viva bus people gave out Holiday Treats to all their riders today. Yum!

I had to remove some pictures because I didn't get pre-approval from the hospital to post certain pictures due to privacy reasons. I sincerely apologize for this.

We met him at the Sickkids Atrium

He made us climb up 9 flights to get to his office at the top

Taking a tour of Sickkids

One of the waiting areas

One of the seating areas

Viva Transit gave out treats to their faithful customers

The Wonders of Christmas

Christmas always brings back childhood memories for me. Here's a little story from when my kids were wee ones. I remeber when Derek's cousin came by to visit. She was really excited about a new dress her mom had just bought for her and she couldn't wait to show it off. But, Derek was off in his own thoughts, quite oblivious to his cousin, much less her new outfit. I have no idea what was running through his head, but I couldn't help but giggle silently about his cousin's vain attempts at trying to get his attention. She was actually a good sport about it and walked away after a few moments of trying to get his attention.


This is my version of what may go through a little boy's head while a little girl tries her best to get his attention. Come to think of it, I believe this can even apply for boys (men?) of any age, not just childhood. (Just replace the boy's thought bubbles with the latest high tech gadget that's selling on the market). Ask any guy if he enjoys shopping for clothes with his girlfriend or wife, and you'll know what I mean.

Trimming the Christmas tree

It is snowing lightly today and that put our family in the mood for starting the Christmas season. We pulled out the tree from storage and got to work decorating it. Of course Christmas was always an exciting time of year for them when they were much younger. But decorating the tree just wasn't cool when they first became teenagers. Surprisingly, Colin & Derek didn't mind helping out this year. They even recalled some of the earlier ornaments they had made from their pre-school days. They were hung on the tree with fond memories. Of course they had to laugh at each other's homemade ornaments first before hanging them on the tree. Over the years, we have added to our collection of home-made ornaments and now the tree is covered with mostly home-made ones.

Getting into the spirit of Christmas

Colin & Derek join in the fun

The tallest member of the family gets to place the star on the treetop

The tree in all its glory

Hand made ornaments from Christmas' past

Colin & Derek had a lot of fun decorating the tree

It's starting to feel alot like Christmas

Stockings are hung on the fireplace with care

Market Downturn Comic

Yes, this market downturn has got everyone down, except for maybe the brave speculators with available cash to dive right in, hoping to buy some stocks for deeply discounted prices, or so we think... Well, nobody really knows, not even the experts know for sure where the bottom is or when the markets are going to turn around.

One thing I have noticed is that management is trying to make our department feel better about it all by putting a spin on things. For instance, even though management keeps telling us that due to the market downturn, there will be less market activity, thus our workload should be lighter, that is in fact not true. Our workload has not become lighter, it has become HEAVIER. The reality is that since most companies don't have any cash on hand, there is increased complexity to the restructuring of many companies, resulting in more complicated deals being worked out. In fact, our department will now have MORE work, because we have to sift thru ever more complicated documents to sort out all the mess the highly leveraged companies have put themselves into, not to mention the increase in Bankruptcy cases and Class Action cases we must deal with.

The sad part is that since management have made the decision that our workload is becoming lighter, they now have an excuse to start laying off people and the remaining employees will have to take on an EVEN HEAVIER WORKLOAD. Sigh...

OK, I will stop dwelling on negativity. I should be thankful and I am. I am thankful that I live in a peaceful country (keeping my fingers crossed) and I live in a warm and comfortable home and I'm surrounded by loving friends and family. I hope and pray for peace around the world.

Holiday Crafts

So my 2 weeks of holidays just ended. No more sleeping in(sob). I thoroughly enjoyed my time off. I got to do most of what I wanted to do. There were more things I could have done, but my "to do" list is always longer than my "done" list.

One of the reasons why I didn't get more done was because the sewing machine broke down on me right after I completed only one set of oven mitts. Either the motor is dying or the sewing machine needed oiling, I'm not sure which, but I didn't feel much like trying to figure that out. Instead, I decided to create some Christmas ornaments by hand sewing and glue gunning. Forget the sewing machine. It took me longer and the hand stitching wasn't as neat as machine sewing, but I was still quite happy with the results.

So I had to close my Craft workshop on Wednesday as I dedicated most of Thursday to cleaning up the house before Dick's Thursday night return. After that, I just mostly relaxed and visited my parents. Well, it's back to work for me tomorrow. Can't wait til my next holidays, coming up in December.

Here's my sunny workbench

The oven mitts I managed to hand sew after my sewing machine broke down

A row of Santa ornaments

Mrs Claus & Santa

Welcome Home Dick

Dick and his parents came back from their China trip last night. Dick came back just in time to help shovel snow. Heh heh heh.

They came back in good spirits and happy to be Home Sweet Home. Dick picked out a very silky smooth jacket and some beautiful leaf paintings for me. The boys got yet more Nintendo games and some Nintendo plushies. I'm thinking we should buy some shares in Nintendo now. Dick's mom bought for me and the boys some really cool signature stamps with our astrological signs engraved on the sides. We got some other assorted gifts to bring to my parents.

I felt I already re-lived their trip through postings from Dick's blog, but now we get to listen to some fill-ins of what cannot be published publicly. Those stories are always more entertaining to listen to, but unfortunately, not in mixed company.


Dick and his parents return to a Winter Wonderland in Canada

Grandma waves hi to us

The three amigos are happy to be home

The boys welcome dad back with star confetti

Joan shows off her new jacket and leaf paintings from Dick

Toys for the boys

Assorted gifts from China & Hong Kong

Dick's mom bought signature stamps for Derek, Joan & Colin

Derek is a Rooster, Joan is a Rat and Colin is a Lamb

Why too much plastic will be the death of us.

What's worse than Global warming? TOO MUCH PLASTIC!!! It's downright scary. I know we live in a world surrounded by plastics these days and really we can't get away from it. BUT, we CAN certainly reduce the use of it. If you can spare 5 minutes of your time and watch the video below on Garbage Island, you will understand why Plastic will end up killing us before Climate Change does.

So, I'm doing my part first, by refusing to buy bottled water. Our municipal water is just fine. In fact, I wish the government would ban the product. Second, I also try to reuse plastic bags as much as possible. These are two very easy ways to control our addiction to plastic. The next step would be to avoid buying anything new which is plastic. That would be a whole lot harder, but at least be more aware of it when it comes to buying something new. Can you buy something similar which will have as long a life, if not longer which isn't made of plastic? We all have choices. Some are easy, some aren't so easy. Just think about it the next time you encounter plastic choices.

I know we all have reusable bags lying all over the house, but how many times do we end up using them? Well, to make it easier, I made myself a reusable cloth bag from the pile of fabric which I have collected over the years. I made the bag foldable into a very compact size which can then be easily placed in my purse. That way, it is always there ready to be used, instead of lying around somewhere forgotten at home. One thing I've noticed about plastic bags is that the sharp corners of facial tissue boxes always immediately renders the plastic bags useless by poking holes into them. So, using a reusable cloth bag makes more sense.

For grocery shopping, I place a whole bunch of bags (plastic or not) into one large reusable shopping bag which I hang onto a kitchen chair. So, by habit, I always grab these bags first before I go out grocery shopping.

Any plastic bags which are still in good shape, including plastic packaging of econo size bathroom tissue rolls, can always be reused for lining waste baskets. I always try to reuse plastic bread bags for packaging sandwiches instead of grabbing a sheet of plastic wrap, or worse, using a ziplock baggie only once.

Does anyone else have good suggestions on how to reduce our use of and/or dependency on plastic?

Using 2 pieces of fabric (2 large hankies), one button and a piece of sturdy string...

I made this compact size reusable cloth bag.

It unfolds into a full size bag (I call it my Maryjane Bag)

On a recent trip to PharmaPlus, I easily stuffed the contents shown below into this bag.

4 boxes of facial tissue, 3 bottles of shampoo and 2 packages of a 6-pack soap

Please watch this video on "Garbage Island". It is very informative.