Home for the Holidays with Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber had an exclusive acoustic concert at Massey Hall in Toronto on December 21, 2011.

Hands down one of the best concerts I've ever been to. The venue only seats over 2700 people which meant the concert was very intimate and personal. Me and my three friends originally had seats at the absolute last row on the top balcony but out of sheer luck we saw Justin's manager, Scooter Braun, handing out tickets to people so we asked him for upgrades and he gave them to us! We gave our old seats to other kids and parents that weren't able to buy or get tickets. The new tickets made us even more excited for Justin's performance.

      Right after we got to out seats my friend noticed Justin's dad and sister were close to stage ready for Justin's performance as well.

The stage was beautifully decorated for the event and it made it seem like we were outside. The red piano definitely stood out in all the white snow. 

Justin's performance was no surprise, a success. It was just him and his guitar man the entire time and he even brought his sister up for a while. I hope he does one of these again but I really doubt he would have it in Toronto again. 

Movie Night

     Last night my school hosted its first ever movie night. We all went into the auditorium and watched Pitch Perfect and can I just say I LOVED this movie. It was funny, entertainment, had good music and some romance. All the traits I would want to see in a movie.

     For those of you who haven't heard about Pitch Perfect yet, here's a synopsis of the movie from IMDb.

"Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition."

     The movie is rated 7.2/10 which I think is too low for this movie. I would give it a 8/10 hands down. If you want to see the trailer for it, click the link below....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siEHekc-1oE

     I also have some pictures of the event below.

Me and my two friends at our school for movie night. 

Fat Amy gets "shot" by a burrito

New York, New York

   Last August I went to New York with my family to go sightseeing and shopping. I have to say it is one of my favourite places ever. There are so many things happening at once and all different types of characters that walked past me. Central Park was my favourite stop out of all the places I went. I would just love to go, find a huge tree to lean on and read for hours. Unfortunately, I was only there for 2 days but I did pack a lot of stuff in. I went to the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, SoHo, Wall Street, Central Park and more. 

Statue of Liberty

     The second day I was in New York, it was forecasted to rain but my family still decided to visit the Statue of Liberty. While on the ferry, it started pouring rain and I was soaked. I ended up buying those plastic covers to put on me so I look ridiculous in all the pictures.

In Central Park

A very patriotic picture

In the elevator going up the Empire State Building

     The view from the Empire State was incredible. I felt like I was on top of the world. I even saw a wedding happening on the top of an apartment. We stayed there until the sunset came and it was such a beautiful sight. 

     Overall, I would give this trip an 8 out of 10. It would have been perfect if we stayed longer and maybe went to Central Park more often.

We Day 2012

     Last year I had the most amazing opportunity to volunteer at Toronto's We Day as a seat filler. Me and my two friends had the job to fill seats in the stadium and out of luck we were put on the floor right beside the stage! I have wanted to go to We Day since grade 8 and I never had the opportunity until last year. You can't buy tickets to We Day, you have to earn it by completing one local and one global action through Free the Children or Me to We.

     For those of you who don't know what We Day is, it is a an event that happens once a year. It helps educate and initiates a year long movement to lead local and global change. The link below is a video of We Day. Just watching it gives me chills. No emotion can describe how I felt when I was in that stadium with 20 000 others wanting to make a difference in the world just like I want to. 

We Day- The Movement of Our Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gDvDs5hxzg&feature=player_embedded

     There were many speakers and performers during We Day. 

- Craig and Marc Kielburger

- Jennifer Hudson

- Hedley

- Al Gore

- Hedley

- The Tenors

- Molly Burke

- Jake Zeldin

- Shawn Desman

- Nelly Furtado

- Spencer West

- Jesse Giddings

- K'naan

- and many more...

Here are some pictures from the event.

 We were so close to the stage. My friends and I were freaking out after every performs or speech. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience (unless I volunteer again next year). 

The Tenors

Craig and Marc Kielburger

Shawn Desman's performance

Nelly Furtado

Jake Zeldin

     I would like to encourage you to visit Free the Children's website as well as Me to We's website. They are worth looking at and might encourage you to take action as well. The links will be below. Also if you have any questions you can comment below or tweet me @ceciletasci. 

http://www.freethechildren.com
http://www.metowe.com

Quinoa Salad

     Hey everyone! Last night I made some tasty quinoa salad and I thought I would share it with you. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the ingredients I would normally use so I made a modified version of it. It still tasted delicious nonetheless.

     I first started with boiling 2 cups of water in a pot and pouring 1 cup of quinoa into the pot. Usually, there are instructions at the back of the bag of quinoa so you can choose to follow those directions as well.

     While the quinoa is cooking, you can prepare the vegetables you want to put into the salad. Last night, I used corn, red beans and black olives. I was lazy and used the can versions to save the trouble of preparing them.

 Once the quinoa in the pot is fluffy and has absorbed all the water, let it cool on a plate.

 While the quinoa is cooling down, put all the vegetables into a bowl. I would usually also add cucumber, red or green peppers and sometimes broccoli but I had limited resources. In the bowl also add some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and I pour a bit of white balsamic vinegar but thats optional.

 When the quinoa has finally cooled down, mix it in with the vegetables and sauce and then eat.

Thrift Shop by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes

     Thrift Shop is one of my favourite songs I have listened to last January. It is so catchy and the beat rocks. Every time it's played on the radio or it comes up on my iPod, I feel like dancing no matter where I am. The fact that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis aren't signed either make me respect them a bit more as well and appreciate their hard work to becoming successful and making in onto the radio. This song is actually meant for us to see how obsessed we are with our fashion and keeping up to date with it. During the song he even explains how we buy overpriced shirts at a brand name store and we end up seeing a bunch of other people wearing it as well. Our society lacks a difference in fashion and Macklemore wrote a song about it to bring it to attention by using an irresistible backing track and I think that is pure genius. 

     

Glee Concert

     I really enjoyed writing about the Usher concert recently because it reminded me of the good time I had there so I decided to write about another concert I've been too. This time I decided to write about the Glee concert that happened June 12, 2011. At that time my cousin was really into Glee so she persuaded me and another cousin to go with her. I thought it was really good and the cast members sang some of the well known songs from the show such as Don't Stop Believing, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Born This Way, Jessie's Girl and Empire State of Mind.

My Glee concert ticket

Sadly one of the best quality pictures I got since I was using an iPhone and the zoom wasn't too great  but this is the whole cast in Glee performing one of their songs. 

      We had a side view of the concert so it might not have been the best view to see all the actors / singers but I think since I knew all the lyrics and I was singing along, it made up for it. One pro to having a side view is that I was able to see the cast behind the stage and Chris Colfer even waved at me when I was closer to the stage.
     Overall, it may not have been one of my favourites or bests concerts I've been to but I did have a good time and I did enjoy singing along with them.

Travelling

     I absolutely love the idea of travelling around the world. Just the thought of it makes my heart skip a beat. I have been to many places around the world before but never for more than 3 weeks. This summer my plan is to go to a few European countries with my cousin to visit family and see some sites I've never been too but nothing is official until we buy those plane tickets :(

Places I've been to so far includes: California, New York, Armenia, Paris, and Cuba

Places I want to go includes: Germany, Australia, Brazil, Bahamas and many more

I am going to upload more post soon of the places I've been and hopefully if my summer vacay happens, I'll post pics during my trip!

Rugby

 The only sport I really play or enjoy is rugby. Rugby has been introduced in my life at the beginning of grade 9 but I never tried out until grade 10. I'm not an athletic person whatsoever so it was a huge shock when I made the cut to the team.

I'm the one in the middle of the picture trying to tackle one of the girls in the green striped uniform.

     We had a very successful year. We won championships even though we are only in tier 2 but that is a huge accomplishment for us. In the finals we were up against a very high end sports school but with our determination and the advice from our amazing coach we beat them by one point!

     During our season, we also had an amazing opportunity to go on a overnight trip to play some games with other teams in different regions. 

Here we are rolling down a field before getting ready for a game. We thought it would be a good idea to get our nerves out of us and focus on doing our best. 

Some of the team members in a group hug after winning championship 

This year's tryouts have just begun. They will be going on for another two weeks and I'm so excited to be back on the team. I'm also looking forward to all the new players that will be joining us. 

I predict this year we will definitely go to the finals again :)

My First Concert

     My first concert EVER was just two years ago in May of 2011. It was Usher's OMG Tour featuring DEV and the Cataracts as well as Akon. I absolutely loved every second of this concert. It was upbeat and energetic and I was dancing the whole time. The first act was of course The Cataracts with DEV. Some of the songs they performed were Bass Down Low, Top of the World and Sunrise. I have the shortest video ever of them. It's only six seconds but I thought some of you might want to see it.

The clip is very shaky cause I was too excited to see them and it doesn't do justice to how they actually performed. 

Next up was Akon and his performance was amazing! The whole venue was up and dancing. He was so energetic and pumped when performing that he passed on the energy to us. 

A shirtless Akon opened up for Usher after DEV and the Cataracts

Once again, it's very shaky and unstable but you can somewhat see how he got everyone singing with him. Once I stopped recording, I was belting the lyrics with him. No surprise the next day my voice was gone.

Usher on top of the crowd

Usher performance was obviously amusing and entertaining. He definitely knows how to put on a show. His dancing skills were amazing and he sang non stop for almost two hours. His encore was "OMG" and he had the crowd singing along with him.

If you liked this post of my first concert experience, I'll definitely post some more. Let me know by commenting, sending me feedback or tweeting me at @CecileTasci.