Some of the Interests that I Enjoy Are:
Be sure to click on sections of the image below to take you directly to one of my interests.
Birding
Birding is the activity of bird-watching. This is a fairly new interest of mine. Some of my favorite places to go birding are Edmonds Marsh and the area around Thorton A. Sullivan Park at Silver Lake. I am always looking for new places to go bird-watching. Below are some websites I like to visit as resources for learning about birds.
- Washington Audubon
- Edmonds Marsh
- Cornell University's Ornithology Department
- Burke Museum - Ornithology
Baking and Cooking
The idea of making my own food is very rewarding to me. Not only do I get to learn new cooking and baking techniques, but I get to share what I learn with my family and friends. In my opinion, baking is more difficult than cooking because more work has to be done to ensure the product is correct. Below are some cool links which I find useful when I bake or cook.
Tea
I find tea relaxing. Also, I grew up having tea in the afternoon after school with my family. I enjoy a variety of teas and don't shy away from trying new ones. There are many tea shops in the Seattle-area that I would like to visit. Additionally, there are a few that I enjoy visiting whenever I am in the area. Below is an excerpt from The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura. Okakura writes about the relationship between the philosophical aspects of teaism and Japanese tea culture. In the excerpt, the reading describes the art of making tea very similarly to painting. It details how tea and art are similar in that it takes a skilled hand to bring out the qualities in tea that make it good. Below is an audio clip from Chapter 2, which describes the similarities between tea and art.
Additionally, here is a list of external links to some tea related websites for your enjoyment. The Book of Tea is in the public domain.
Painting
Similar to tea, I enjoy painting because it is relaxing and I can express my creativity through various mediums in any environment. I mainly paint using heavy body acrylic and water paint. By no means am I a professional painter. This is mainly a hobby of mine I like to do when I want creative output and relaxation. Many of my paintings involve nature, animals, and whimsy. Some of my favorite artists are: Gustav Klimt, Rene Magritte, and Mark Rothko to name a few. If you click the images, it will take you to a related site.
(Klimt,The Kiss,1907).
(Magritte, The Treachery of Images, 1928).
(Rothko, No.3/No.13, 1949).
Some of my favorite museums that I have been to are: