What I'll Miss About Toronto: #22 - Cottage Country

As immigrants to this country, my family had no clue what the hell a cottage was. In fact, I wasn't exposed to what a cottage was until I was in grade 11 and a bunch of us went to Sarah Curtis' cottage up north. I had a great time - thank God Sarah was a good swimmer/diver as there was a terrible moment where my glasses sank to the bottom of the lake (and I needed them to drive everyone back home). We were fortunate enough to visit the cottage again the following year - awesome lake, we slept outside on the trampoline, and played nothing but board games for the entire time we were up there. A peaceful and relaxing time.

I've been fortunate enough to go up to my friends' cottages ever since - and this past weekend, I had a great time at my friend Jesse's family cottage up north. An amazing snowfall allowed us to go trekking around in snowshoes and experience "Earthing" as Brandon called it, where you just lay on the snow and stared up into the sky. No city noise to distract you - just one with nature.

One amazing cottage to call out is my friends Kasia and Jordan's getaway. I've been able to go up for the summer and the winter - the latter wasn't the greatest experience, but the company was great fun. Many thanks to all of those who have invited me to their amazing places up north - they were some great memories.

What I'll Miss About Toronto: #23 - TIFF and Awards Show Season

Okay, so my last post was a bit emo. I've decided to lighten things up a bit and go back to my list of things that I'll miss. This post started off as a blog about how I am going to miss all my favourite awards shows while I'm away from North America, but I realized it didn't follow my "What I'll miss about Toronto" theme.

So I had to throw in TIFF - or the Toronto International Film Festival - one of my must go to events every year here in our lovely city. Ever since being introduced to the festival in 2006 by my friend Erin, I've been an avid attendee and for the last three years, I've been responsible for organizing tickets for my friends. In fact, I am so in love with TIFF that I thought I would come back for September and volunteer for the festival (that's still TBD - depending on how much money I have left).

Some of the best movies I've seen at TIFF were the likes of Slumdog Millionaire (People's Choice Winner in 2008), Waiting for Superman (on of my favourite docs from 2010 on the American education system) and People with Kids from this year - which is expected to be released in April 2012. I highly recommend it. It's great how the city becomes electric in the first two weeks of September. Film junkies filled into theatres, stars from all over the world come and party, and we get a peek into movies that might never get released or we get the first chance to see the upcoming award season's nominees.

Which leads me to Awards Season - my version of March Madness. At work, I've run the Oscar pool for the last 5 years in a row, which makes me sad as I retire the crown this Oscar season. I will get to see the Oscars before I leave for Asia - thanks Kim Hunter for hosting this year, which I am thankful for. You better believe I'll be live blogging and Facebooking.

But here to help you out with your Oscar picks for your Oscar pools - here are my picks:

Best Picture - The Help

Best Director - Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

Best Actor - Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress - Viola Davis (The Help)

Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Writing (Original) - Bridesmaids

Best Writing (Adapted) - The Descendants

Best Animated Film - Rango

Best Foreign Film - In Darkness

Best Doc Feature - Undefeated

Best Doc Short - The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Best Live Action Short - Raju

Best Animated Short - Dimanche

Best Original Score - Hugo

Best Original Song - Man or Muppet

Best Sound Mixing - Transformers

Best Sound Editing - Transformers

Best Art Direction - Midnight in Paris

Best Cinematography - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Makeup - Albert Nobbs

Best Costume - Hugo

Best Film Editing - The Artist

Best Visual Effects - Harry Potter

What I'll Miss About Toronto: #24 - Snow

I have a day off today. It's pretty sweet. What was even more great was the fact that it was snowing outside (the nice photo on the right shows the fluffy snowflakes raining from the sky). I'm going to miss the snow when I'm in Asia - the only chance I'll be able to see it again is if I climb Everest (which might happen, who knows).

We've missed out on snow this past winter (and last winter for that matter). Our mild temperatures have made for a less than white landscape. Some of my favourite memories have been from the great winters in Canada. From my first winter with my family here and I threw my first snowball to snowboarding in Whistler with my friends during the Olympics in 2010 - snow was a key player in those fun occasions.

There were some great moments that come to mind - let me highlight the top three that come to mind:

#3 - 1st Winter in London, Ontario and tobogganing down UC Hill.

During my first year at Western (yes, now know as simply Western University), I was very lucky to have an incredible floor in residence. London, being in the snowbelt of Southwestern Ontario, was bound to get a big snowfall once November started, and all of us were just waiting. During the week before exams, it happened. We threw aside our books and grabbed lunch trays and headed to University Hill. It was an event to remember (probably because I wasn't drunk) and it was only ruined by my sudden stomach issues due to eating something at dinner that didn't sit well. I literally ran back to rez and well, let's just say my roommate Jag wasn't impressed by the smell of the washroom afterwards. Too much information? Most definitely.

#2 - Skiing for the first time

Any child in Canada has been taken to the slopes by their school. This exposure to winter sports was likely due to tired teachers who were looking for any excuse to get out of the classroom and not have to teach for one day. My first experience with skiing was in Grade 7. We were all made to do a skiing test at the hill in order to determine our skill level. Having never been on skis, I was expecting to be given the green sticker, marking me for the bunny hills. What I didn't expect was my disastrous test results. As I started on the hill, I couldn't remember how to stop, even though the instructor told us just moments earlier. I could only think of the moment where he told us to stick our poles into the ground, but had misinterpreted that as the way to stop. In my panic to try to stop, I just kept on trying to stick the ski poles into the snow and I picked up more and more speed, I almost sideswiped the instructor and started heading straight towards the parking lot. It wasn't until I closed my eyes and forced a fall that the ordeal came to an end. I ended up with a green sticker - no way I was graduating to Orange that day.

#1 - Snowball forts and fights

In elementary school, recess was my favourite time of school day - I think all kids would say that. I remember being in grade 1 and the biggest snowfall happened. Some people stayed home, but for those people that made it in, our teachers decided, it wasn't worth teaching a lesson today and let us outside to play. We spent hours building huge forts and by lunchtime, we amassed an arsenal of perfectly formed white cannonballs to launch at each other. By the time the fights were over, there were bruises, red faces and running noses. All the teachers could do was stand on the sidelines and laugh. The parents loved it - we were all exhausted and went right to bed once we got home. I wish kids these days got that opportunity to have that fun. I think today, they'll need a permission form just to go out for recess. Lame.

Going to a warm climate will be great. But nothing will ever replace the fun and memories of Canadian winters.

What I'll Miss About Toronto: #25 - The Industry Parties

In my last couple of weeks here in Toronto, I've obviously started thinking about what I'll miss and all of the fear of missing out (FOMO - thanks Vanessa Ewen for that amazing acronym) moments when I'm away in Asia.

So to help me cope, like it always does, I've made a list and from now until I leave, I'll reveal a new item on my list of "What I'll Miss About Toronto" along with other posts.

Sitting at #25, are the incredibly fun industry parties that agencies and their suppliers hold every year. I've been fortunate enough that throughout my five years in advertising, I've attended my fair share of industry parties - many good, some, well, let's just say I didn't RSVP the following year.

These past two months had been crammed full of parties - most recently was Yahoo! Canada last night (not impressed that I had to wait in a line, to go into another line to get in so that I can line up for coat check, but nonetheless, it was still a good time) and AdBall that happened tonight (a bit of a snore - the only saving grace was the company of Rebecca Ho and Kim Hunter and the poker tables).

Coupled along with the industry parties are the many fun agency internal parties we have had at the various agencies I've had the privilege of working for. Most notable was my appearance at the 2007 TBWA\Toronto party where I danced so much that somehow I ripped my pants in the back all the way down my butt crack. From there, a lovely coworker who I shared my embarrassing moment with decided to make the tear even bigger by ripping it open (see side photo) and by that point, there was no going back. Go big or go home. So I went big (thankfully, I had black boxers that night under my black pants, so it wasn't that obvious that I've just ripped my pants open.

I'll miss these fun drunken times. Thankfully, there are a couple of going away parties along with my own - scheduled Feb 9th at the Pilot Tavern - so I can still hold onto one last chance of partying like a Mad Man.