As 2018 comes to an end, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve accomplished this year, and what I’d like to bring into/accomplish next year. And of course, being the pessimistic person that I can sometimes be, I definitely also looked at what I was missing in my year and how I can achieve it for next year.

I think I was really headed in the right direction with my spirituality and self-discovery this year—but there were definitely a couple of bumps in the road that veered me off path. I let my emotions get the best of me in situations that I predicted but couldn’t change, and I think that really threw me off. I had reached this point in my life where I felt that I was finally regaining some control in how I felt, and I felt lost and helpless when I realized that wasn’t as true as I had thought.

In hindsight, everything happened for a reason, and I think that relationship was a great wake up call and it actually ended up being the catalyst to me needing and wanting to refocus my intentions and start working towards centering myself again.

Within my morning pages practice, I discovered that something I am looking forward to doing for the rest of this year, as well as the majority of the next, is to feed my soul more. Spend less money, time, and effort doing things that give me a superficial sense of happiness, and just put all of it, and more, into feeding my soul.

I’ve somehow allowed myself to become so pessimistic in the way I look at certain aspects of my life that it started to feel like I was becoming unappreciative of all of the good and the blessings in my life.

So with my big Asia trip coming soon, I’ve decided to really consciously make the effort to appreciate all that I have planned and only pursue desires, itches, and impulses that also add to that list of positives.

Such a vague and general goal, I know. But it’s definitely something I think will make me a way happier person in 2019.

What a long lead-up to a set of photos, I know. But as a part of my trying to do things that feed my soul, I decided to kick off my Saturday morning by doing a hike rather than my usual coffee-morning pages-work combination that I’m used to. I’m really guilty of being someone who glamorizes exhaustion and “constant productivity” but I realize that it was just making me crash every other week. And was I really being all that more productive when I force myself to jump into my day earlier than everyone else, and work more days than everyone else? I’m not really sure anymore.

So here’s to making the effort to spend more time over the weekends doing things that make me happy—and less time forcing myself to sit in front of my computer aimlessly.

I haven’t gotten behind the camera in such a long time, which is SUCH a shame since I’ve spent so much time and money building my camera collection. So maybe that’s another goal of 2019. Get behind the camera more instead of being in front of it.

Until next time,

Had the most exciting Monday ever this week. Just so happened that Monday was one of my days off this week so Vern and I decided to conquer another BC hike. We wanted to do one that we’ve both never done so we decided to tackle Garibaldi Lake. The Garibaldi Lake trail is a 18 km (roundtrip) hike that leads to a beautiful glacier lake. It’s different from the Chief or Grouse Grind because it doesn’t really have man-made stairs/steps that help with the incline. Instead it is just a inclined trail, which got pretty hard on your calves and knees especially on the way down. 

About 5 km up there’s a small divide where you can choose to take a quick 100m detour to Barrier viewpoint. If you’re planning on doing this hike I DEFINITELY recommend going to check out this viewpoint. It was magnificent. You can look into a beautiful valley and see all the mountains behind it. It was breath-taking. 

Once you’ve passed the 6 km mark where you get to decide whether you want to continue on to Garibaldi lake or take on a (WAY) larger challenge, The Black Tusk (I’ve heard people cried on that one) you will reach an amazing little waterfall about 15 minutes in. There’s a bridge that lays just on top of the falls for you to cross and it is SUCH an amazing photo opportunity. Not going to lie it was a little daunting at first but the beauty of it really takes the fear away. 

And there you have it! That’s my awesome Monday hike to Garibaldi lake. Overall I definitely wouldn’t recommend this hike to you for your first hike of the summer. It was pretty intense. I’ve got to say my body has never hurt more than after walking down 9 km on a steady decline. My knees, hammies, and lower back definitely took a toll. However, it’s definitely one to tackle if you and a friend are up for a challenge. We felt AMAZING when we finally reached the lake. It was definitely well worth it. 

Hope you guys enjoyed this little adventurous post and I hope that I’ll be able to do more of these throughout the summer. 

Until next time, 

So my summer has officially started. Didn’t do that well on my last final, but I’m just glad that it’s all over. Now I’ve got the next 5 months to live it up, before I have to go into full-time at BCIT in the fall. WHICH, will be brutal. And now to mention the end of my social life.

One thing I really want to do lots of this summer is hiking. I definitely am starting to realize I do not do make nearly good enough use of beautiful British Columbia… So I am definitely going to #explorebc A LOT this summer.

Two days before my last final, I was already feeling absolutely drained from all the studying, so I decided to ask Cathleen out for a nice long walk on the Iona Trail. These photos were taken by my GoPro Hero 4, and I’m still playing around with it, so ignore the shitty exposure and quality.

How beautiful is Vancouver though?

I’ve been trying to film more vlogs lately too, so here’s one of my little walk !

Definitely expect lots of photos and vlogs of my summer ! I’ve actually got quite a couple of really exciting things planned for the summer, and I will be sharing all the memories I will be creating, here with you guys !

More soon,