MARTIN L

Category: Listening to Life

  • It’s the end of the year!

    Well no, it’s December 8th as I write this, but 2026 is almost around the corner. This however, is terrifying for a number of reasons:

    1. I am getting older. My stamina is weaker, sometimes I get back pain? No one told me getting older sucked 🙁
    2. I am still pretty young. My aunt and uncle thought I was like two years younger because I still get acne, so is life really that bad?
    3. I am still not living life that much. FOMO? I’ve heard of her and I still have it while simultaneously doing nothing. I stayed at home all day doing stuff and I think cooking and cleaning took up four hours of that. Kinda crazy!

    Overall, 2025 was not a great year for me, but 2026 will be amazing! I can’t say for sure but I will work on that. I also didn’t even go fall hiking this fall, kind of a flop if you ask me.

    This December, I hope to finish my series: MBTA thoughts before I forget them all, but I appreciate you for reading my words on text. If the sentences seem pretty rambly, it’s because I don’t read my paragraphs back and fix sentence structures.

  • It’s okay to like Benson Boone.

    In a world full of weenies, I’m a Benson Booner. I love Benson Boone because he can do backflips and he lives life. IDK why y’all are hating when you don’t even have the arm strength or flexibility to do a back flip. Get back to me when you come up with a incredible ability to sing as a soprano.

    That being said, I’m not saying his discography isn’t bad. There’s some hidden gems, but most of his songs are bad. This doesn’t mean that HE should be disliked because he has done some amazing covers.

    At the end of the day, I am telling everyone to stop hating people because their discography sucks. Have a great day!

  • Two months later: Embracing the silly life

    Around two months ago, I decided to embrace the silly life by creating silly goals for myself. Today, I am here to provide a update to this article, and reflect on whether or not these goals had an impact on how I live my life.

    For May, I chose goals that were a bit easier to accomplish to ease me in (for example, talking to a stranger, which I do all the time). It was a great way to ease me into this experience as it did remind me to put more of my focus onto searching for these types of experiences. Unfortunately for me, it was also a bit too easy to accomplish these goals, as I finished all of my goals by early May, and the mindset flew out of the window after I no longer needed to look at a list of goals.

    In June, emboldened by May’s progress, I created six goals in a variety of topic areas. These included things like: “Have a picnic with friends” and “Stay off social media for twelve hours”. I only accomplished two out of the six goals this month, mainly due to a very busy schedule that took these goals out of my mind. Overall, I will say that June was not very successful for this reason alone, as I didn’t encompass the silly mindset.

    Lessons

    1. Create goals that don’t depend on other people to accomplish: your goals cannot be contingent on the existence of other people helping you accomplish your goals. The goal of these goals are to embrace creativity
    2. Make it easy, make it hard: your goals should challenge you, but also be approachable in steps. Don’t force yourself to climb up a floor without building the staircase first.
    3. Keep the silly top of mind: It can be hard to embrace the silly energy without prioritizing it. Since it’s a mindset, keeping it in focus by incorporating it into your life is a must.

    Overall, I am still continuing this experiment throughout the summer, and as always, I am inviting y’all to join into the adventure! My goal for July and August is to incorporate this reflection into my life, and get a bit sillier for once!

  • Bike Share – What I’ve Learned to Love

    If you didn’t know, I’m a proud Toronto Bike Share member! Thanks to a plethora of great discounts, I’ve been able to maintain a membership for about two years. Biking is such a great way to get around, and throughout the two years I’ve learned a lot about biking in Toronto.

    • Biking is the fastest way to get around the inner city

    Bike Share is the easiest way to get around the city! Biking is just as flexible as a car, but never stuck in traffic. There’s a decent amount of bike lanes downtown, and if you have a good mental map you’ll find it really easy to get around. I especially love it getting to and from subway stations because the streetcars are so slow by comparison!

    Here’s an example: from Rosedale Station to Little Italy, Bike Share is the fastest way!

    • Bike Share gives you options

    I love that Bike Share now exists as an option. It’s no longer just between taking transit and walking, there’s a new sweaty way to get to my destination. If my TTC transfer is expired, I can just use my “free” bike share pass! It’s especially useful to combine transit and bike share to get around, which is way faster than walking! It truly is a great last mile solution.

    • Bike Infrastructure was better than I thought

    Toronto has a surprisingly decent amount of bike infrastructure. Within the inner city, there’s plenty of bike lanes that create a grid (although it doesn’t connect the entire inner core yet). Many of these bike lanes have been upgraded over the past few years, adding protected infrastructure, signage, dedicated traffic lights, etc. I especially like the new College Street and University Avenue bike lanes, which are very wide and segregated from the rest of traffic. Well done!

    If I have to summarize my experience using Bike Share in Toronto, this quote from Ray Delahanty, the creator behind the YouTube Channel CityNerd: “I’ve never seen so much biking in a place that was so obviously hostile towards it.”.

  • I kinda love Oakville!

    • No traffic during the weekends. I can always excuse traffic on weekdays, but ON A WEEKEND? Oakville could never.
    • The best trail system in the GTA. Such a great combination of lakefront trails, suburban greenway trails, and deep river valleys. It’s so underrated that these gems exist in the GTA, and Oakville is the only suburb that preserved most of them. 200+ kilometers of trails. Probably the main reason I would live here.
    • Downtowns with character (Oakville, Bronte)
    • Frequent GO Train service to Downtown Toronto
    • Close to Hamilton and Buffalo
    • Lake Ontario is actually very underrated. It’s a great place to enjoy the water and hang out.
    • Restaurants are decent (for most cuisines)… and for any other cuisine it’s not even far from the rest of the GTA.
    • It’s actually QUIET for a suburb. Children actually play on the street, and it’s full of suburban amenities you would like for a young family.
    • Oakville has loads of cool people 🙂
    • This isn’t actually a pro but there’s no proper mall in Halton Region? Mapleview is the closest to one but it’s also terrible. Square One is close enough so it’s not the end of the world.