Well, after a mostly disappointing June, summer has finally arrived in Vancouver! It has been hot hot hot for the last few days, which I have taken as a glorious change. To make matters even better, I just had a lovely four-day weekend as a result of Canada’s birthday (the first one I’ve been at home for in a while!). I spent it sweating it out in hot yoga (it seems redundant, somehow, to go to hot yoga in the heat), shopping, cooking and eating, and then belatedly realizing I need to do more homework…six more weeks until this ball and chain I call my undergraduate career finally ends.

I think one of the highlights of my weekend – other than the three pairs of shoes I unexpectedly purchased on Saturday – was taking a macaron class. I love these scrumptious  and wickedly expensive cookies, so it was really interesting to see how they’re made. It turns out it’s this complicated procedure of whipping for a million years and then squishing with great care, and includes buying a bunch of equipment I don’t have, but I think I’m going to have a go this upcoming weekend. Mine will probably look like malformed blobs, but that’s okay. I’ll just close my eyes as I eat them.

That evening, I went for dinner with my sister at Banana Leaf, where we devoured a nine-course tasting menu and then took a walk along beautiful English Bay.

I live in such a beautiful city. I celebrated my favourite country’s birthday yesterday by wandering around a very crowded downtown, eating gelato and a smoked salmon taco and laughing madly at the huge amount of pot-dealing vendors in front of the art gallery. Only in Vancouver could you find multiple varieties of pot cookie all in the same place.

It’s back to the grind this week, unfortunately, but perhaps the sun will make it a bit more bearable. I’m currently in the midst of a 30-day incredibly sweaty hot yoga challenge that’s simultaneously making me feel super healthy and giving me spaghetti legs. Day 12, here I come!

Oh, and I had to write poems for an English class. I thought I’d publish my feeble attempt at a sonnet. I have so much more respect for Petrarch and Shakespeare now – sonnets are bloody hard.

Summer (I know, so inventive)

At last the summer days are here: the heat
Caresses cheeks, warms rain-chilled hearts, the days
Stretch long, slow and languid: yet still they beat
Their breasts and moan for dark to keep at bay
The sweat upon their skin. Always they sigh
For cold, forgetting summer will soon leave.
Forget instead your sunburned face: pass by
The sand tracked in: embrace the short reprieve
From dark. Trail watermelon down your chin,
Abandon raincoats for the touch of sea,
Count freckles on your lover’s nose, let in
The calm of blue and cloudless skies, and be.
Summer is the sun’s kiss, who loves you well –
So peace, hush now – and melt into her spell.