I finally finished my last exam yesterday. I am so happy to have this term over! It was quite a busy one and now I have a little time to actually post something.

Lately, I’ve been trying my best to spice up my breakfasts (there are only so many days you can handle eating plain oatmeal. Boring!) and thanks to some googling, I managed to come up with my own delicious oatmeal recipe. I’m posting it here for anyone who’s interested and also, so I have somewhere to find the recipe if I ever forget it.

Peanut Butter & Banana Oatmeal
You will need:
Half a banana (you can use a whole one if you want your oatmeal to be sweet)
1-2 heaping teaspoons of peanut butter
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Oats (any kind and how much you want to eat)
Handful of flax seeds

Next:
Boil a kettle of water. While the water is boiling peel and mash banana in your bowl. Next add in peanut butter and oats. By this time, your water should be boiled, pour in bowl and just barely cover the oats. Wait a minute or two to let the oats soak up the water then add cinnamon and flax seeds. Most of the time, this is the perfect texture for me but if it’s not, you can always add milk (vanilla almond milk would be my choice).

Hope you enjoy the recipe. I’m going to make myself a batch right now.

Wow. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been on here. School has completely sucked up my time and that lead to abandoning this site. Well I’m going to try and get back on the blogging wagon.

So much has happened in the last year or so. I ran 3 races (Victoria 8km, Shawnigan half-a-half, and the resolution run 10km) and am looking forward to the TC10k despite not running for quite some time. I’ll get back into it soon, I’m sure. Back in January, I started to climb indoors and have been going quite religiously. It’s been quite an experience! I can actually do a pullup now! First time in my life that I have some sort of upper body strength. In addition to climbing, I’ve picked up doing the daily workouts from bodyrock.tv and I feel great.

Other than exercising, I’ve been focusing on school and some side projects. About a month ago, I added a page on here named “Chemical calculator”. It’s a small little program that calculates weight of chemical formulas. It’s not perfect but I figured it was usable.

Anyways, I should get back to studying for my last two exams next week but I hope to make more of an appearance on here. I have some yummy recipes that some of my friends have requested so I may just post them here instead of writing them on paper. More environmentally friendly anyways.

Last month, I blogged about the Polaris Long List announcement and how excited I was to have a list of new music to discover. Now the Short List is going to be announced tomorrow at 11am PST. While I have not listened to the entire list of nominees, I do have some favourites that I hope to see there tomorrow such as Arcade Fire, Young Galaxy, and Stars. Good luck to all the nominees.

I’m sorry for the lack of blogging (thank you Megan for reminding me to get back on it ). I’d like to think I was too busy, but we all know that’s not the case.

My latest news is that I finally signed up for the Victoria GoodLife 8km Road Race. The other day, a friend and I wandered down to Frontrunners and signed up. I’m so excited. I’ve always wanted to run a road race but I could never muster up the courage to actually get out there and train. You might be wondering why the desire to race isn’t motivation enough. The truth is, I hate running. At least I thought I did. The last few days I’ve managed to get myself out there running. While it’s difficult, and my body sometimes panics, I can see the appeal. Today I went out for a 5.22km run and it took me 31 mins. The weird thing is that I feel great and I never thought I would say that.

I recently joined dailymile (basically twitter for fitness workouts) and it’s been great for motivation and keeping track of my training. Check out my training at http://www.dailymile.com/people/BernS#ref=tophd, although I fear I may be the only one interested in that . If my training continues this well, my friend and I have agreed that we may switch over to the Half-Marathon. I really hope we do, it would be a great accomplishment. If it doesn’t work out this time, I’d love to try next year.

I’ve had such a difficult time blogging about anything lately despite having lots of topics. I guess they’ll have to wait until my writer’s block seems to go away. For now, I’ll blog about something that is happening very soon!

In less than a half an hour the Long List for the Polaris Music Prize 2011 will be announced. For those of you unfamiliar with the Polaris Prize, it is an award for the best Canadian album of the year. There are no restrictions on the genre of music  and the popularity of the album doesn’t matter, just artistic merit. I started following this prize back in 2006 when Owen Pallett (then known as Final Fantasy) won the award for his album He Poos Clouds. This is a great opportunity for Canadians to recognize amazing talent within their country and an even better opportunity for Canadian music collections to grow.

For more information about the Prize and to see the Long List, visit http://www.polarismusicprize.ca

Happy listening!

I haven’t managed to blog lately. It was midterm week and I was busy studying. Despite the craziness, I did manage to do some fun things! Last week, I started doing yoga! My friend and I found a yoga studio (one which isn’t exclusively hot yoga which is difficult to find) nearby and we marched on up there to buy their summer deal unlimited pass. When we entered the yoga studio, we were shocked by how small yet inviting it was. Our yoga teacher was very friendly  and kind. We signed up then unrolled our yoga mats and sat down to wait for class to start. We sat in a small room that had lots of windows that let in the rays of an evening sun. There was freshly brewed tea for anyone who fancied a cup. A few more people trickled in and suddenly we were full. The instructor sat in front of 11 students and we were comfortable despite being full. After an hour long Hatha yoga class, I felt completely relaxed and like I had done something great for my body. I loved the flow of the class, I loved how at ease my body felt doing the movements, and I enjoyed how the studio got pleasantly warm during the practice. My friend and I decided to come again the following day.

The next day we showed up for a Yin class. This class was different from the Hatha class. While it did go through traditional yoga positions, we were supposed to hold these poses for a long period of time. Often 3-5 mins. I did enjoy this class but sometimes it was difficult to stay fully engaged in the practice with those huge moments of time being in the same position. Still, at the end of the class I felt relaxed and happy.

We went again the next day. This time we caught an Anusara class. This class was definitely a challenge and quite a workout. Now, I know what you all must be thinking. “Yoga can be a workout? Workouts are when you sweat and push yourself!” I know because I thought the same thing but it really was a workout. Everyone was pushing themselves and we were sweating like crazy a quarter into the class.

I’m so happy that I got the one month unlimited pass because this allows me to try a variety of different yoga styles and I’m not restricted to a particular time or day. Whenever I get stressed, I can just run over to the studio and have a relaxing practice. I’m excited to have joined yoga and I’m happy that I immediately enjoyed it. I can’t wait for this week to start so I can continue to discover yoga.

It’s bike to work week! I usually try my best to commute and run errands using my bike but this week I’ve decided to hide my car keys and really commit to biking for at least this week. This is going to be a bit of a challenge since it is forecasted to rain for the next 4 days. Luckily, I have a rain jacket, pannier covers and a pair of rain pants that I purchased earlier this year so I am physically ready for biking in the rain. All I have to do now, is mentally prepare. Hopefully the rain decides to hold off until the end of the week so this wonderful event gets a good turnout. If the rains does decide to pour down, maybe the celebration stations that are scattered throughout Victoria will be enough to get people out and biking.

For anyone commuting across the blue bridge, the Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition will be there all week with volunteer shepherds to help escort any cyclists across the busy bridge. What lovely people!

For a list of Celebration Stations, check out http://biketowork.ca/files/images/Celebration_Station_Schedule_2011.pdf

Happy biking!

Since discovering Owen Pallett after his win at the Polaris Music Prize 2006 for his album He Poos Clouds, I’ve kept an eye on the event. For those of you who don’t know what the Polaris Music Prize is, it’s a prize for best Canadian album of the year. For more information, visit the website: http://www.polarismusicprize.ca/.

Thanks to the Polaris Prize, my music collection has grown and bands such as Caribou, Arcade Fire, and The New Pornographers sometimes interrupt my stream of dance music. I am eagerly awaiting the Long List that comes out June 16th.