Declan's blog

I find myself reflecting better at night when I'm calm and tired from school work.

Oh how I miss the summer that I'm revisiting its last Friday. Sept 3rd, 2010.

"..would you like to bike around Stanley Park later today?" A text from Erica. We had known each other in

our third year LFS series but have drifted away since then. I knew her to be an intelligent and nice

person, but my non-confident self was always more cautious than I had needed to be. We started

talking again this past summer when we found ourselves working in the same office. I am in awe

how friendly and warm Erica is to the people around her. In contrast, I often create an awkward atmosphere when I interact with people, like the air has frozen and its molecules become stagnant and suffocating. I'd

not befriend with my kind of person. But somehow Erica was able find ways to come to the rescue

and continue with the conversations. Perhaps that's why, among other reasons, that she's was

accepted to the program of Dietetics and I was not? I mean there's probably no use of a dietitian like

myself who would freeze  up someone's artery with conversation when they're on the brink of having

a stroke or heart attack.

My good friend told me that I should start living a life and appreciating the people around me more

instead of taking the easy way out by turning back from my situation. It was a good excuse when I was

living 2 hours away from the campus, but UBC shouldn't just be a place where I get my credits. I haven't

lived like a student, and large part of it was my own doing. So I've decided to try to become a student

again and experience college life as it could be experienced (note that I put "could be" than "should

be" as I don't like to encourage a thought of a stereotypical life of a college male student).

Getting the textbooks before the start of a term is always a good idea. Not only would you avoid

missing classes because you were in the middle of a line-up, but also you would not want to risk

having the book sold out and falling behind - this is happening to many of my classmates for one of

the psychology courses, and it's already been three weeks since the school begun. What's odd is that

there were more books than the number of students registered for the course, and somehow half a dozen

of the students couldn't get them.

So we were supposed to meet up at my place at 4:30ish. When it was 4:45 and Erica was not here, I tried contacting her, thinking if she had gone to the same address on Marine Drive instead of SW Marine Drive.That would have been on the eastside of Vancouver and who knows where. It turned out that she was on her auto-mode heading home from campus but had realized her appointment with me before she got home. Erica started bike riding since May and has been fond of it, and I don't think among the female friends/aquaintences that I know that any of them could be as fit as Erica. I used to run before I started biking this past summer, but when I started biking, I had a hard time keeping up with her when we went to our first Critical Mass in July. It was then that we begun to talk more, that I realized that we could become friends.

As we approached Sweet Obsession, we decided to have ourselves some

treat for energy before our next activities: badminton for her and continuing

with the bike ride for me. I was glad to know a sweet enthusiast as myself.

Chocolate ganache: layers of chocolate chiffon and ganache with a hint of dark rum.

Toffee cake: layers of moist toffee infused cake smothered in toffee sause.

I had the chocolate ganache at the French Pastry on Davie street before, and I wanted

to compare the cake between the two stores. Erica ordered the toffee cake, which

she hadn't tried before. It's nice to have more people when having desserts,

as you get to try different kinds and not have to skip your dinner because you had

too much desserts. I think Erica thought that toffee cake was a little too sweet, but I was fine

with it. It was not soggy when eaten quickly when served, and it was warm too.

I personally liked it better than the Chocolate gonache, which I found was better than the one I had

at the French pastry. The pastry was more delicate and fluffy, and it made the difference in texture

from the ganache more salient. The cake at the French bakery was more dense, and the gonache

was thicker and less creamy, rich nonetheless. The chocolateness between the two were comparable,

though there was a price difference.

I only wished that the interior of Sweet Obsession was upgraded.

So I went on with my planned trip around Stanley Park. It was a fine day with the trip ended

in sunset and good-bye to summer, 2010.

All the photos belong to me.