i'm writing poems about you, and they're not very nice

here's a suuuper brief snapshot of my christmas vacation:

after i got home from rosebud on friday the 21st, i was exhausted and so i had a little nap. then i walked down to steeps on whyte ave to meet emery and his friend stephanie for tea and a christmas present exchange before the two of them flew home for the holidays. he gave me two really amazing books on knitting, which was mega rad because i had just started picking up knitting. i'm fairly proficient in crocheting, but have felt that it's time to take the plunge from hooks to needles. yikes. good choice, emery. i gave him some green and red mittens i had made. i hope he likes them. after tea, i said goodbye to jessica (who was working there that night, and who i had just dropped off at home hours earlier when we got back from rosebud) and stopped at funky pickle to get some pizza for supper. then i walked to the university LRT station and rode the train to grandin station, so i could work from 5:30 until 9:30. i came home after work and went right to bed.

on saturday i worked at the ledge. from noon until 5:00. then i hung out at home until kaylin got off work, and then she came over around 8:30 and we hung out for a few hours and just talked. i sure do like her a lot. last semester we started hanging out together every wednesday afternoon at muddy waters, but then school got a little overwhelming so we quit for a while. hopefully we will start our weekly hang-outs again this semester, maybe doing it at steeps so we can hang out with jessica too.

on sunday i packed up some things from my apartment, drove to the library to drop off some books, and then drove myself to my parents' place in vermilion for christmas holidays.

on monday, i made crafts (mostly crocheted mittens), watched "march of the penguins" with my family, and my sisters and i decorated gingerbread cookies, which is our yearly christmas eve tradition.

tuesday was christmas! i got some good and useful presents: an iron (which is imperative to have for sewing), a flat iron for my hair, one of those things to clean the snow and ice off your car (which was very thoughtful, but a little useless, since i've parked my car at my parents' and don't plan on driving it for another 8 months or so), some money, some amazing "wigwam" brand socks, all of "degrassi high" on dvd, some hot chocolate, and some sharpie markers. my dad gave my mom a week long trip to mexico for april to celebrate their 25th anniversary. quite honestly, i was just as happy with my great socks and "degrassi." my grandparents on my dad's side, as well as my dad's twin lorraine and her husband, joined us for christmas dinner at our house at about 1:00. my sister's boyfriend ate with us too. my mom puts on a really great christmas dinner, but she hates cooking so much that every second year, we usually go to a tropical resort over christmas holidays because she remembers how much she hates cooking that dinner. funny. afterwards, we sat around and ate gingerbread cookies and cleaned up. later that evening, kelsey called me and told me to come into town to her brother's house so i could see the turtle he was giving her. since we're from a small town, no one ever gives street numbers for addresses - they just say, "turn at the lights by the bank, take a right, and it's three houses down" or stuff like that. kelsey gave me directions like that, and said, "my brother's truck is always running - just look for it. it's really huge." i think i didn't believe her, or i thought it was a joke or something, but when i got there half an hour later, there really was this giant truck just left running outside of her brother's house. her brother says he doesn't turn it off all day, he just keeps it running, because the company he works for pays his gas. what!?! that seriously blows my mind. he said that he once left his truck running for three days straight without driving it anywhere. apparently all the guys that he works with do that kind of stuff all the time. once kelsey and i pressured him a bit, he kind of tried to justify it, saying, "well, i don't want to go outside just to turn it off," and "it's a diesel, so it actually uses less gas by running all day than if you start it three times in a day." yikes. i don't know much about vehicles, but i'm preeeeetty sure that that's not true. with ordinary gasoline, you only need to idle them for 30 seconds in order for the vehicles to be properly warmed up. it's so crazy to me that such ignorance and wastefulness is being perpetuated out on the rigs. i usually love alberta, but man, i hate that oil industry. anyways, i marched outside and took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the kitchen table. i'm sure it didn't help the environment all that much, but it sure made my stomach feel better. anyways, at kelsey's brother's, we put his turtle in the bathtub and watched it swim around for a bit. mostly it just liked to sit under the running water. we also watched it walk around on the floor. i really love turtles a lot, but i don't feel so good about keeping animals as pets. but kelsey is taking that turtle back to calgary with her, and i am excited for her. kelsey and i stopped at mac's to get some coke and chips and dip, and then we went back to her parents' house and sat on a super comfortable bed in her basement and crocheted and watched the first four episodes of degrassi high.

on wednesday my parents and kelsey and i went to lloydminster. kelsey was a bit of a grump. it's okay; i still like her. we walked around the lloyd mall and i bought some coconut earrings at a girly store. i haven't worn earrings for about 10 years, partly because i am super allergic to metal earrings and because i had assumed that my holes had grown in. they hadn't. i've wanted to wear coconut earrings for years because they are so hip and cute, and now that i know i still have earring holes, i'm'a wear them all the time. kelsey and i ate lunch at a & w in the mall, and it was shockingly good. i had a kid's pack, and it was awesome because: a) it was just enough to fill me up, and b) it came with "gushers." gushers! i haven't had those since, like, grade 6! oh, also, while we were talking in line about dreading seeing people we know, some kid turned around towards us and said, “expect the unexpected!” ew. we laughed pretty hard. after the mall, we went to wal-mart. i've been trying not to shop there lately, but kelsey and i needed to get some things for a baby shower we were going to the next day, and didn't know where else to look. kelsey bought some little cloths and some receiving blankets with lions and giraffes on them, and a little plastic turtle that measures the temperature of the bath water. i bought, like, a travel pack of liquids that you're supposed to use on babies (obviously, i totally don't know anything about babies - i think they are kind of gross) and some reusable cloth diapers and some diaper pins. it's kind of a jerkish gift to give to someone who i know would rather use disposables, but i guess i am kind of an environmentalist jerk. plus, people have lived for millennia without disposable diapers, so i think that using a slightly less convenient but also less, um, landfill-y...(?) product is definitely doable. when we got home from lloyd, i watched the third "pirates of the caribbean" movie with emily. then i went over to kelsey's, and andrea met us there (wearing the exact same winter jacket as me - strange, since we'd been best friends in high school but don't talk or see each other very often nowadays) and the three of us sat on the comfortable bed and taught each other to knit and watched "degrassi" episodes. fun.

on thursday (the 27th?), i went to sammy's (an ice cream/fast food place in vermilion) for brittany's baby shower. in addition to kelsey and brittany and andrea, my three best high school friends, there were a number of other girls i went to high school with. i don't really want to talk about the shower. mostly, kelsey and i just made eye contact across the table and laughed a lot. then kelsey showed me a cute cd and cover art that her crush had made for her - jealous!!! - and we drove to craig's so kelsey could get some knitting needles and yarn and stuff. i think i bought some muslin and buttons and stuff. then i went to the bank to deposit a couple of cheques, and to vhq to return emily's "pirates of the caribbean" rentals. before i went home, i washed my car so it would be clean when i parked it for the winter. i went home and crocheted some mittens and made myself a knitting needle/crochet hook holder.

the way shadows colonize snow

on thursday (december 20th) i woke up around 8:00. i showered and then LRT'd downtown so i could drop off a few books (i had read "the old man and the sea" over the previous couple of days) and take out a couple more. then i LRT'd/walked down to 109th, where picked up a few groceries (a happy planet smoothie, an apple, some rosebuds) from save-on-foods and then walked to pura vida on 112th to get a gift certificate for emily for christmas. then i walked to the grandin LRT station and LRT'd home. i finished packing up some things, and met landon downstairs at my apartment. devotees of my blog will remember landon as the last boy i kissed. we’ve barely communicated since then, but that all changed when landon needed a ride down to southern alberta to watch jonathan k. in a play. so, we made plans to go visit jon together. i had hoped that seeing each other again would either result in:
a) more awkwardness than we had ever experienced, which, given our history, is a lot to ask, or
b) becoming good friends like we should have years ago.
so, given my hopes for awkwardness or friendship, my calculations were significantly thrown off when landon announced at my doorstep that he had invited his friend jessica to come along. he kind of said it, like, “oh, you didn’t know?” how could i POSSIBLY know? it was supposed to be a surprise for jonathan that jessica was coming, so jon didn’t know and therefore couldn’t tell me, and landon hadn’t told me earlier, so…? ugh. boys. anyways, even though it was a surprise, i was glad that jessica was there, firstly because i think her presence helped to diffuse any potential awkwardness, and secondly BECAUSE SHE IS AMAZING. i will write more about her radness in future blogs.

anyway, i drove the three of us to rosebud, alberta (a magical little tim burton-esque town of 100 people near drumheller) so we could watch jonathan perform in a play. jonathan's play was neat, and we all had a good time hanging out and talking and eating spaghetti. then we went to a "kitchen party" at jonathan's neighbour's house, where a ton of people from town came over and had tea and then played christmas music. it was really nice, but i can't deal with a lot of people, so i went out for a walk for myself in the moonlight. it was so, so quiet and beautiful. i love the moon and i love the quiet. when i came back, jonathan and landon and jessica went out for a walk, and i started to go with them, but realized i was mega tired, so i went back to the house to go to bed.

the next morning i got up at 8:30, showered, and went over to jonathan's (because i had slept over at his neighbour's, because it's a majorly christian town, and girls aren't allowed to sleep over at boys' houses). we ate some breakfast and hung out for a bit, but jon had class at 10:30, so we decided to leave for home then. we stopped in red deer for some hot chocolate. i think jessica mostly slept in the back of my car on the way home, and landon and i talked a lot. he is going to school right now in ottawa, and he's really on about eastern orthodox christianity lately. it was really great talking to him then, i think mostly because it seems like we are doing the exact opposite things in school right now: i am learning about culture and ritual and worldviews without learning about spirituality, and he is learning all about spirituality without focusing much on culture and ritual and worldviews. i wish i could get an education where all those things are combined. it really made me appreciate going to king’s, where all the students and profs just assumed that the spiritual side of life is real and unavoidable. granted, that assumption was with a christian slant, but it was still nice to have. i had one really great prof this semester, dr. palmer, who always spoke with the assumption that the beliefs of the people she works with are true. i just found that, particularly in my intro anthro classes, people spoke really dismissively of the beliefs of people from other cultures, and maybe without recognizing it, consistently used a generally middle-class, white north american agnostic (or even atheistic?) set of assumptions as the standard by which all other beliefs were measured. yeesh. dr. palmer even said that some academics are accused of "going indian" (or whatever culture they are working with) if they get involved spiritually with the beliefs of that culture. apparently it is seen as a pretty negative thing in the academic world. yikes. anyways, i hate the word "spirituality" in the first place, because i don't really think that there's a difference between things that are "spiritual" and "non-spiritual," but whatever. sorry i've even given that word weight by using it in this post, but i wasn't sure how to convey what was happening in those discussions without using it. anyway. landon and i had some really interesting talks. i dropped jessica off at her house when we got to edmonton. before she got out of my car, she asked for my phone number so that she could pay me some gas money for the trip sometime. i said something like, “phew, i’m really glad you asked, because i was trying to figure out how to trick you into giving me your phone number so we could hang out, but i was too nervous to do it.” landon told me to grow some balls. anyways, it turns out that both jessica and i wanted each other’s numbers so that we could be hang out friends. there was not even any trickery involved. more about that later. anyway, landon's mom picked him up from my apartment building. right away i went inside and had a nap.

somehow i’ll find my way home

on tuesday the 18th i took 'er easy. i had no school and no work, but a ton of errands to do, but they were enjoyable enough that i can still classify the day as "easy." i took a "change in circumstance" form into student finance in sub so that the government would know about the bursary i got from the u of a; i got my passport photos taken at a place in hub, where i talked with the shop worker and an asian customer about native studies (the asian customer didn't know much about native culture or history in canada, so the shop worker talked a lot, often making errors or vast, but... kind?... generalizations - "they're all such spiritual people" and "if you got involved with them, you might be the first asian person ever to get involved with the north american natives" - and saying, "well, she's [ie. me] the one you should be talking to about this stuff." i didn't really want to talk because i really like listening to other people talk about native issues, because it is usually funny and sometimes shocking to hear what people think. then i feel really arrogant and proud that i know things that they don't, which is totally ridiculous because i really don't know very much about issues or culture at all. meh... anyway, i wrote down the names of a couple of organizations that the asian guy could contact so he could maybe volunteer with them and learn about native culture and history himself. after the passport photos, i LRT'd to the downtown public library to pick up some books and dvds and cds, and then i LRT'd/walked to 109th to get a few groceries (ham, garlic cloves, small foccacia breads, and cayenne pepper) from save-on-foods. i also thought there was a spa on that block, where i needed to pick up a gift certificate for emily, but it turned out not to be where i thought it was. i LRT'd home. emily came over when she was done work, and we drove to the south side of the city, where i bought a lamp from value village (to spraypaint black to match the other one i painted last week) and some yarn from michael's. we also ate supper at fatburger, which actually just opened that day in south edmonton common. i drove emily back to her apartment, where we watched "scrubs" episodes in her room and i started knitting a grey and green cowl (ie. neckwarmer) for kelsey. i drove home around 11:00.

some highlights of wednesday include driving with emily to crankpots on whyte ave., where we met up with alyssa and painted ceramics with the gift certificates jenni had given us all as birthday presents. alyssa made a starfish jewellery holder, emily made a snowman dessert tray for my mom, and i made a pair of brown and yellow mugs. robin met me there because he was driving through edmonton his way home for the holidays, and i needed to give him a pair of mittens i had made for his mom. he gave me a christmas present: 5 ceramic buttons he had made himself! wow! what a neat present! i am excited to think of new projects to use them on. when i was done painting my ceramics, i drove back home and waited for becky and angie to come over so we could watch the greatest made-for-canadian-televison-movie of all time, "the challengers." i knitted by myself after the movie was done.

if you rescue me, i’ll be your friend forever

wednesday (the 12th) was busy! i worked at the elementary school at noon. it was a really cold and windy day, but there was enough snow that the kids could go sledding on the hill. they were so excited! my favorite kid told me, first, "look! i got a black sled! they're the fastest!" i asked him how he knew, and he said his friend told him. cute. then later he told me, "dude, check this out," and he tried to snowboard down the hill on his crazy carpet. i really like being called "dude" by grade 1ers. another grade 1 kid i really like kept asking me to push him down the hill, and we talked a little bit and i asked his name, and he told it to me, but said, "i know. it's really com-pili-cated." those kids are so great! after lunch i drove to whyte ave. so my car could get an oil change at southpark. while i waited, i took my work pants to whyte avenue tailors to get hemmed, and then i tried some clothes on at american apparel and ended up at second cup. when i went to get my car i found out that there's a leak with both the coolant and the oil, and that i should probably get 4 new tires. yeesh. it's a good thing i'm parking my car after christmas! after all that bizzz-ness i went home and... crocheted, probably? i don't remember. but i DO remember that i went to bethany's/bri's/natasha's at around 9:00 to watch "home alone" with them and joel. they had all gone out tobogganing, so when i got to their house, they weren't there, but a couple of girls i recognized were. one of them asked me, "hey, did you ever dress up as a dinosaur?" in fact, i had. at the last king's halloween dance i went to, i wore a children's dinosaur costume that i had essentially reconstructed into a short, tight green bodysuit with a tail and a bonnet-shaped green headpiece with spikes. nobody dance parties like i do. anyway, it was really really nice to hang out with old friends and reunite with mccauley caulkin and be inspired by the craftiness that goes on in that house. i drove myself home after the movie.

on thursday my anthro 474 class used our scheduled final exam time to go through the last batch of class presentations. since i had done mine earlier, my day was pretty stress-free, so i basically just went to listen and support my classmates. i skipped out on one presentation, though, because i needed to eat breakfast (which consisted of granola, apples, grapes, and strawberry yogurt, eaten in the 14th floor lounge of tory building). in that same area, i saw a poster that may or may not change my academic career. there was an advertisement for a class called CSL 300: theory and practice of community service learning. i did some internet research when i got back to my house that day, and found that the u of a offers a community service learning certificate to students who take a couple of specific courses in their academic careers. it seems like a really amazing interdisciplinary academic approach to community development, so i wrote a few e-mails and managed to switch a couple of courses around so that i could take csl 300 in addition to the other five courses i've already registered in for next semester. i can't wait!

anyway... inspired by bethany's newest spraypainting craze, i bussed to the whyte ave. value village to look for old table lamps to paint. i found a perfect one and bussed back home, stopping at sub (to pick up a "change in circumstance" form for student loans - i was, for some reason, sent a pretty significant "institutional opportunities bursary" from the u of a... yay!) and rutherford library (to pay a $22 fine i had garnered when i mixed up some dates in early december - ugh). after that, i drove down to south edmonton common, where i picked up a couple of matching lampshades and some high-efficiency lightbulbs from ikea and some black spray paint and plastic drop cloth from home depot. deserving notable mention is the fact that there is a new "fatburger" in south edmonton common, which will be opening tomorrow (december 18th)! what a thrill. anyway, i was disappointed to learn that fatburger was not actually open when i was there, but that feeling wore off quickly when i got home and got to work on my lamp. i snuck into the back garbage area inside of my apartment building, laid down my drop cloth, and spraypainted the base of my lamp black. that seems pretty simple and boring, but lemmetellya, it was pure awesomeness. i need to work a little on my spraying technique, but the lamp seriously looks sooo hot now, and it's really good to finally have a little bit of illumination in the far corner of my living room. now i am assessing everything in my apartment based on its spraypaintability. i spent the rest of the night reading at home alone, mostly because i wanted to bask in the awesomeness/light of my new lamp. i also found out that day that i had gotten 94% on the archaeology final i had written on tuesday. genius!!!

on friday i got a text from emery pretty early in the morning. he asked me if i could help him move some boxes from his old place on the west end to the new place he was moving into, like i had offered earlier in the week. i said sure, because i had nothing else to do all day and because i know how much moving sucks, especially when no one's around to help you and you don't have a vehicle. anyway, we moved his stuff and were done by about 1:00, so i dropped him off at the bus stop and then went to safeway so i could buy some orange juice and fruit and bread and soup. i came home but then decided to go to latitude 53 to see some of the work that visual communication design/industrial design students, including emery and a few other people i know, had on display. the gallery was nearly empty, which made the experience infinitely more enjoyable for me than it would have been had a lot of people been around. after latitude 53, i stayed at home all night and ate chicken noodle soup and read my anthropology textbook.

on saturday morning i studied anthro a bit more, and then went to work at the ledge from 11:45 until 5:15. when i came back to my apartment after work, i ran into my ex-boyfriend/sometimes good friend/sometimes bad friend trent. it was really good to see him this time. we hung out at my place for a little bit, and then walked to subway for supper. then he walked me to lister hall, where i met up with joel and bethany at joel's chemistry grad students' christmas party. joel had made promises of a good dance party, so i came. the night provided good food, great company, and mediocre to lame DJing. as a combined result of the playlist and my need to study for my two finals coming up on monday, i left early. but not without feeling appreciation for the invitation.

on sunday (the 16th) i studied all day for my native issues and insights final, and then i had to work at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. luckily, i was allowed to work in the gift shop all night, which meant that i could spend most of my time studying and typing up study notes. i got home around 10:00, and right away got a phone call from my friend jonathan, who i am going to visit in rosebud, alberta on thursday. we had what i would consider to be the most enjoyable phone conversation i've had in months. i'm excited to go visit him. he is one of the most positive people i know, and really creative and bright and unpretentious. i feel like we have a really old friendship, but we totally don't. we worked at camp together six years ago, but never talked then, and were kind of reintroduced last new year's. we've only hung out twice since then, but we've sent each other some letters, which seems like a solid foundation for a friendship. anyways. i am ready. friendship, here we come.

on monday the 17th i wrote my native studies final, and i don't think i did very well on it. afterwards i walked to the tory building to pick up a paper, only to find that it hasn't been graded yet. it's frustrating that i don't really have any idea what any of my marks are. i walked home and studied a bit for my anthropology final, in between watching trailers of "the science of sleep" to make me feel good. i wrote my anthro final at 2:00, and at the end, received the graded paper i had written for the class. the t.a. who had marked my paper said, "you did a very good job" when she handed it back to me. i expected an 80%-90% range for my mark. when i opened my paper, i saw that i had gotten 100%! an a+! what a good end to my semester. i bussed down whyte to pick my work pants up from the tailor's, and then walked home. i got ready for work, and worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. for the first half of my shift, i worked in the gift shop and crocheted a mitten for my mom. for the second half of my shift, i served hot chocolate to members of the public who were listening to a choir sing. highlights of that time include:
-hearing "carol of the bells" sung twice;
-serving hot chocolate to a boy i kind of have a celebrity crush on; and
-being allowed to take home two potted poinsettia plants from the legislature. what a day!
after work, i tried to calm my sister down about the comparative lit. final she is writing tomorrow. we talked a little bit about milton and blake and frye, and it made me really miss those guys. as a result, i spent the rest of the evening reading the songs of innocence/experience instead of watching "the science of sleep" and crocheting mittens, as i had originally planned.

this is a long, long post. sorry!

i have a lot of blogging to make up for! i'll start with saturday the 8th:

my mom drove up from home in the morning, so she came to our apartment around 9:30 to pick up my sister to go shopping for christmas clothes. i drove to michael's on the west end to buy lots more yarn to crochet mittens. then i drove down 103rd so i could pick up some breakfast at booster juice, adn then i dropped my car off at home and lrt'd back to the legislature, where i worked from 11:45 until 5:15. as usual, it was pretty enjoyable, and i got to study and crochet a bit in between tours. afterwards i went to the ramada inn, where my friend meghan's aunt was having a work party (her work is a small machinery company based in edmonton). meghan's aunt had told us that she worked with a really handsome young man, and wanted us to come to the party so we could meet him and dance. so we were all dressed up, and sitting at a table with meg's aunt and a couple of boys our age. first of all, the boys were not handsome, and really beefy, which is so totally not my type at all. secondly, they went for a lot of cigarette breaks and drank a ton and were shockingly crude. throughout the buffet line and the rest of dinner, the one boy made the most inappropriate, sexual "jokes" i have ever heard at a semi-formal affair. usually meghan and i really like being around trashiness because it is so entertaining, but this was a little extreme. fortunately, megs and i were able to dance, although the dj was the worst i have ever heard and everyone was grumpy about the music and heckling him. i think they just needed to make really clear requests to him. you can't exactly tell a dj who is playing bad music to "play something good" and expect that he will. yeesh. anyway, i left the party around midnight, thouroughly pleased that i had gotten in some quality dance time.

on sunday my mom left to go back home, and i spend most of the day studying cree. claire came over in the afternoon to bring me a christmas present: two of her favorite children's books. cute! i also worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. my co-workers knew that i had an exam the next day, so they allowed me to work in the gift shop all night, which meant that i had a lot of free time to study. i crocheted a bit, too, but to make sure that i was still "studying," i counted my stitches in cree.

on monday i studied some more cree, met claire in sub to give her her christmas present (some black and bright red mittens i had crocheted for her), got my winter 2008 u-pass sticker (without having to wait in line!), and finally wrote my cree midterm (it's a full year course) at 2 p.m. i feel pretty good about the midterm, mostly because it is out of 248 marks, so even if i got 50 things wrong, i still will manage an 80% on the exam. i am glad cree continues on next semester. i think it is my favorite class. after cree, i came home and procrastinated (watched degrassi, crocheted, made a few cups of tea...) and finally started studying for my archaeology final.

i woke up around 7:30 on tuesday to finish studying for archaeology. my exam was at 9:00. it was 50 multiple choice questions, and i was done in half an hour. i love exams like that! i really had no idea how i did, but i didn't worry about it too much. i can't remember what i did that day, but i think it included napping after my exam, crocheting, and watching a few more degrassi episodes and then lrting downtown to take the dvd and some cds back. i worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30, where i helped serve hot chocolate for about an hour and then worked the rest of the night in the gift shop.

everybody can succeed, all you need is to believe

on tuesday i went to all my classes, and spent the entire rest of the day working on my anthro essay. it's an essay comparing saami (who are the only recognized indigenous population in europe) reindeer herding with dene caribou hunting. i finished the paper at around 11:00 and went to bed after watching a bit of degrassi.

on wednesday i had my last classes of the semester. i also worked at the elementary school. the kids were mega-adorable. the grade 6s were having a bake sale, so all the kids were able to buy treats when they were done their lunches. the littlest kids were the cutest, maybe because i know them the best and they are my favorites. i asked some of them what they were getting, and they showed me their ziplog bags of change and asked, "how much is this?" so i helped them figure out how much money their parents had sent with them. they were pretty adorable and generous, sharing with kids who hadn't brought any money. some of the kids were total gluttons (as i'm sure i would have been in their position), spending $5 or $10 on baked goods, walking away with an armload of candy. yeeks. anyway, i think the grade 6s raised over 400 to buy gifts (clean water, a goat for a family, etc.) for people in developing countries.

after class on wednesday, i drove to michael's on the west end, where i bought a ton of yarn and some good acrylic paint. after my watercolor class a few weekends ago, i have decided to try to practice getting better with color theory and mixing. i am going to try to quit buying crappy fake paints to make my arts and crafts, and instead learn how to mix better quality stuff to get the colors i want. the yarn i bought was for mittens. i have already made one pair for robin's mom, because she asked me to this summer when i went to their house to drop off some mittens i had made for robin. they are really awesome. i mean that sentence in reference to the mittens. but robin and his mom are really awesome too. i spent the night crocheting and watching degrassi.

on thursday i was mega busy. i got up at 9 and LRT'd to the downtown library, where i took back some dvds and cds and got a few new ones. then i walked to royal bank to close out an account that i had opened when i moved to guyana but haven't used since. then i LRT'd over to the legislature, where i checked out the craft sale in the pedway for 45 minutes. then i LRT'd back to the university, and spent most of the afternoon volunteering with the students' union, preparing for the "kids' christmas party." mostly i just sorted stuff and helped prepare some crafts. i took a break at 2:00 to go over to pembina hall for tea and bannock. there weren't a lot of people there, but one guy struck up conversation with me and proceeded to evangelize me. i love being evangelized!!! it's so funny. i like seeing what kind of questions i can come up with to evoke certain reactions. i especially like being told, "Jesus told me to tell you...." i went back to dinwoodie after that little episode to help out some more with the craft prep. at 4:00 i left, and LRT'd back to the legislature to watch claire sing in the u of a mixed chorus before ed stelmach officially turned the christmas lights on. becky met me there. it was really nice to see her. i wish we would both have some good, intense new crushes soon. she is a very busy girl. she has THREE jobs now. wow. after the light-up ceremony, the legislative assembly office had an employee recognition party in the pedway, where i enjoyed some mashed potatoes and ham and received a christmas ornament from ken kowalski (the current speaker). thrilling. i LRT'd back home before the night was over so i could crochet and watch more degrassi.

hang your stockings and say your prayers, ‘cause santa clause comes tonight

on friday, december 7th, i woke up around 8:30, and walked over to SUB at around 9:15 to buy some breakfast (fruit and yogurt) before heading to dinwoodie lounge for the volunteer orientation for the students' union kids christmas party. i was put in a group with three other girl volunteers, and the class we were in charge of was a grade 1/2/3 split class. the kids arrived at about 11:15. we took them to the myer horowitz to take off their coats and mittens, and then we led them back to dinwoodie. first, we fed everyone funky pickle pizza and juice. then our group did cookie decorating. each kid got a big cookie, a few smarties, and more icing than they knew what to do with. most of the kids decided to decorate their cookies as santas. after cookie decorating, our group decorated "christmas tambourines" (two paper plates stapled together, with some split peas inside). my group was very, very noisy, so i got them to shake their tambourines as hard as they could, and then be totally quiet, and then shake like crazy, and then be quiet. they were pretty entertained by it. there were some possession issues surrounding the glitter glue, but nothing too serious. finally, we went to the myer horowitz theatre to sing christmas carols with some of the u of a mixed chorus. in my opinion, christmas carols are always kind of a disaster, mainly because nobody actually ever knows all of the words, and when you find out the words they are pretty ridiculous (for example, "let's give thanks to the lord above that santa claus comes tonight." what!?!). anyways, my kids were too young to read the words on the screen for most of the songs, but i got them to sing extra loud for the chorus of "jingle bells," which they all claimed was their favorite christmas song. during the last song, "here comes santa claus," santa jingled some handbells offstage, and all the kids saw his hand and got really ridiculously excited. at the end of the song, he came onstage and the kids were allowed to line up and talk to him and get a rad treat bag. all the kids were pretty excited, but one boy in particular kept saying, "he's here. he's actually here. i get to talk to him. i know just what i'll say," and his eyes were really big and bright. a-dorable. we got the kids their coats and mittens and saw them off to their buses, and then helped clean up a bit. i walked home and crocheted/napped for a bit. at about 5:30 i drove to bonnie doon mall so i could buy a big fat needle for working in the ends of my crocheting. then i went to claire's house and had a really, really nice hangout with her and a girl named jenna. claire and i made chocolate-dipped pretzels while jenna made origami. then claire made shortbread cookies while jenna made some book art and i crocheted mittens, and we all watched "a charlie brown christmas." it was so low-key and warm and cozy and nice. claire is such a little hostess. she lives for that kind of stuff. what a funny girl. i was delighted to learn that jenna is as introverted and crafty as claire and i are, and that she plans on being in edmonton for the next couple of years. new crafting friend!!! i drove home at around 11, and dropped jenna off at her place on the way back.

i ain't guilty, it's a musical transaction

on saturday kelsey and i drove to whyte ave. and met erica at the royal bison craft fair at 10:00. the fair was pretty neat, but a lot of the stuff was really similar and predictable (for example, there were tons of retro-esque magnets), and i think a lot of the sewing was not very good quality. i bought "alphabet boys" from jeff kulak, because robin and emery had been at the opening for it and i had taken a look at robin's copy and really liked it. another thing i liked was some art some boys did, where they used gaudy old landscape pictures, like the kind found in everybody's basement in the 80s, and added cute things into the foreground, like robots shooting lasers out of their eyes. entertaining. kelsey and erica and i also went to the farmers' market, where i bought some strawberry hazelnut granola and kelsey bought "sassy apple" cotton candy.

afterwards kelsey drove me to the legislature. she went and hung out with her friend sam for the rest of the afternoon, and i worked from noon until 5. the day was pretty slack because hardly anyone came in, and i only ended up having to do one tour. after work i LRT'd home and waited around for kelsey to come back. kelsey and claire and emery all came over around 7:00, and claire and i watched degrassi junior high episodes while emery and kelsey worked on their mix tapes (kelsey re-burned a new cd from the one she originally had, plus a few more songs, while emery transferred his burned cds onto cassette using my machine). when they were done, we went to wendy's/tim horton's for supper, and then went over to this boy jay's house for a mix tape party. none of us had ever met anyone else who was going to be there, so we were all a little apprehensive about being dorks, but the party was actually really fantastic. everyone there was really chill, and friendly, and creative, and just nice. claire and i made ants on a log - which, i feel inclined to share, is THE new trend in party favours - and we all watched some slides that jay had found at the reuse centre. the highlight of the party was spending time with claire and kelsey, because i really, really, really like those girls; and finding out that one of the girls there loves the movie "the challengers" (a made-for-canadian-t.v. movie from the early 90s starring felicity from road to avonlea) as much as kelsey and i do. the lowlights were the facts that the party didn't really turn into a dance party like i had hoped, and kind of getting into a fight with emery because of my mix tape. in truth, my tape WAS a little jerkish - i made one side of it entirely super top-40-radio-friendly pop and hip-hop that i think is fun to dance to, and titled that side "don't tell your friends it's not indie," which i think maybe ruffled some of emery's feathers because he's pretty into the indie music scene. i did it because i know what happens with mix tapes: people make judgements on your character based on your song selection, and i don't being made to feel like i'm a loser because i like dancing to shakira as much as, and sometimes even more than, i like listening to local indie stuff (also, this shakira/sean paul is a fairly recent attraction, which never would have happened if i hadn't lived in the caribbean for 6 months last year). anyway, after he looked at my tape, his body really tensed up, and he said, "well, i guess we can never talk anymore." yikes! i thought we had kind of made up after that, but we haven't really talked since then. i hope we don't stay enemies. anyways, i drove emery home that night because i know what it's like to bus/walk home at night in the middle of winter in edmonton, but i came back to the party and the three of us girls just hung out there and talked for a while longer. the other people there were really refreshing to be around. i think we went home around 2:00 or 3:00.

on sunday, kelsey and i drove to whyte, where i bought some new jeans at decadence (because the last pair i had bought have a massive new hole in the inside upper leg) and some tights, corduroy pants, and a striped cardigan at american apparel. i pretty much live in american apparel. anyways, we were craving cinnamon buns, so kelsey drove us to west edmonton mall, with which we both have a huge love/hate affair, and we got some cinnamon buns at cinnzeo and some smoothies at booster juice. we walked around a bit, trying to find some boots for me, but shopping is pretty overwhelming, so we didn't stay long. kelsey drove me back home, and then she left to drive back to calgary.

i hung out at home for a bit, and then my dad and emily picked me up from my apartment to take me out to supper at mongolie grill. emily was at home for the weekend, so dad was driving her back, plus he had a conference or something in edmonton this week, so he had to be up in the city anyway. emily re-broke up with brad, which is pretty sucky/sad for her, but i think it was probably a pretty good decision. i am kind of jealous. i think i might be addicted to heartbreak. maybe it's because i grew up on country songs in rural alberta. i haven't really had a good cry over a boy in, like, a year and a half. i feel like i need to date a boy just so i can break up with him and feel sad about it. i have some prospective heartbreakers in line, so i'm sure i can get a pretty good cry out before the end of december. i just have to get my hopes up unrealistically high, which is usually no problem for me

i think i did a bit of work on my final essay on sunday night, but not nearly as much as i should have.

on monday i went to my classes and worked at the elementary school over lunch. there's a little boy at the school who is kind of overweight, and always brings a HUGE lunch, but only eats the cookies in it. i told him that he couldn't play any games (it was inside recess because of the cold) until he had eaten most (or really, even ANY) of the noodles and meatballs his mom had packed in his lunch. he sulked at his table by himself for 20 minutes, and then complained to another supervisor, and then packed up his lunch and put it away. i knew he hadn't eaten much "healthy" food, so again i went over and told him that he needed to eat something remotely nutritious. first, he ran away from me, but he can't run very fast or very far, so i caught up to him. then he whined to me that he didn't have to eat nutritious food, because his mom lets him "eat chips and candy all the time." that information was already pretty apparent to me. i ended up talking to his teacher about it, and i think she's going to talk to the boy's mom about it. it's tough to know whose responsibilty this is. i can already see the health problems associated with this kid's school lunch. am i in any position to make sure he eats right? ugh. i just hope his mom stops packing junk food in his lunch entirely. he is given so many sugary options in his lunch that he really has no reason to eat healthy stuff. yeek.

on monday night i worked on my anthropology essay.