slowly going the way of the buffalo

this is the collage i made for my contemporary aboriginal art class. it's done with spray paint, acrylic paint, and acrylic gel transfers. the photo at the top was taken near vermilion in 1871. it's a cree camp. the other photo is my dad and his horse trixie.






my big ipod is not working so well, and it would cost me $149 to fix it, so i bought a new ipod yesterday. it's a green 8 GB nano. i finished my homework a lot earlier than i expected yesterday, so i made myself a new ipod case.

any time i need to see your face i just close my eyes

i volunteered at the bissell from 10:00 until 1:00 on monday. i usually go earlier, but that day, i was supposed to meet with my community supervisor over her lunch break, so i got to sleep in a little later than usual. everyone seemed to be in a good mood at the bissell, i think maybe because of the sweetgrass that an elder had brought in for people to smudge with that morning. my supervisor and i went out at noon for our lunch meeting, but a couple of blocks away from the bissell, we saw one of the bissell's clients pass out on the sidewalk. he was pretty intoxicated, and was sitting in a puddle of water, so we spent 45 minutes helping him sit up, pulling him away from where he had puked in front of his crossed legs, helping him to stand up and walk across the street, and finally running to hope mission to get some of their outreach workers to help us out and call EMS. when we finally left the situation, we only had 15 minutes left for lunch, so we went to rosie's for soup and sandwiches. we actually didn't talk too much about the bissell. instead, i just wanted to hear her talk about her life. she had said earlier that she was from the pine ridge reservation, and although the name of the reservation set off bells in my head, i couldn't remember just what major event had taken place there. she reminded me (it was the wounded knee incident and massacre), and told me about lakota history and tradition. it was nice to just hear her talk.

i went to the library downtown to drop off some books, and ate a chicken and jalapeno panini at three bananas café. then i LRT'd to the university for cree class at 2:00. i came home, napped for a bit, did some homework, and then bussed to bri and bethany's house for their "wear what you wore in junior high" party. it was really low-key and fun. i wore my old blue and black airwalks, and 5 shirts (i used to wear between 6 and 13 shirts every day to high school. i'm not sure why or how. but it was a pretty big part of my identity), including a red and white striped soccer jersey with a weezer patch sewn on, a black hoodie with a TMNT patch safety pinned on, and another grey hoodie with some silkscreening i'd done in CTS class and another patch pinned on. since most of us grew up in christian circles, we listened to some newsboys, along with the entire now 3 album, some savage garden, and some spice girls. i think that all of us were past or present king's students. there were a couple of girls i didn't know, but most of us had been on the students' association together. joel's brother lewis gave me a ride home around 10:00.

i don't know your timetable; i don't know your face off by heart

on friday, i was in vermilion, but both of my parents were at work. i hung out at home for the morning. in the afternoon, i went to my mom's school and taught her grade 4 class how to make dreamcatchers. it might not have been the most accurate craft to make in central alberta, but i'm not exactly proficient at making birch bark baskets, so whatevs. my parents and i had some delicious roast beef for supper, and my dad and i went into town afterwards to visit grandma and gido again. i worked on some more homework and did some blogging and some laundry after my parents had gone to bed.

on saturday, my dad drove me to the greyhound station at 9:00. i bussed back to edmonton, and took the #111 to oliver square, where i picked up a billy collins book i had lent kevin that one time we'd hung out. i bussed/LRT'd home and napped for a long, long time. i worked on some homework until about 9:30, when joel picked me up to go see “be kind rewind” at south edmonton common. the movie was pretty much exactly what i expected it to be. not my favorite michel gondry film, but still considerably more enjoyable than most movies that are out now. there were definitely some pretty adorable parts in it.

on sunday, i worked on homework, made some mix cds for jessica, went skating at hawrelak park with emery, and took the cds to jessica at steeps.

i don't ever drive by your house to see if you're in

on wednesday the 20th, i volunteered again at the bissell for my CSL class. i got up at 6:15, made myself some oatmeal with raspberries and blueberries and brown sugar, and then bussed to the bissell so i could start by 8:00. they were a little short staffed that morning, so i worked the drop-in desk for an hour, and then i worked on the food surveys i had started the day before. everyone was really grumpy or hung over or cracked out, so i got yelled at and had food thrown at me, etc. i'm not going to rant about it on here, but i was certainly irritated by the whole thing. i came home and napped for a bit, and then i walked to whyte ave. for an eye exam at regent optical. i had ordered some glasses from there, but apparently my prescription isn't up to date, so i needed an exam. fortunately, if you buy glasses there, they do a free exam for you. whew. afterwards, i met jessie and cam at the stop for the shuttle bus to the airport, because cam was flying back to thunder bay. jessie and i LRT'd to churchill station, and we walked to city hall, where i skated and she slipped around on her shoes for a bit. we heard the bells ring at 5:00, and they sounded really nice. then we bussed/walked to the native friendship centre for cree class at 5:30. jessie's friend layne met us there. we started with half an hour of review, and then we all ate some amazing supper that was provided for us by the centre. the class was really fun, and everyone seemed really friendly. they are pretty much going through the same book that we're doing for my cree class at university, so it is nice to have some review. i'm learning some new things too, though, so it's a really nice balance.

after cree, jessie and layne went to steeps, and i waited around for emery to pick me up. he was kind of late, but it was okay, because i just stood outside and watched the eclipse. we ate supper at bacon restaurant, which is kind of in the northeast part of the city. we'd both been wanting to eat there for quite a while, and that day presented itself as a good time to go. i had a bison burger with molasses, which was not as good as i'd hoped it would be. i had texted emery earlier in the day, telling him to bring his skates, because we'd been meaning to go skating together since christmas, and i already had my skates with me since i'd gone earlier that day with jessica. on our way to hawlrelak park after supper, emery told me that his roommate had seen him heading out the door with skates in his hand, and had said, "you're totally going on a date," to which emery protested that we weren't. boo. it had seemed kind of date-ish to me. whatevs. i've been tricking him into going on semi-dates with me since we met, so i guess the only thing i can do is remain unfazed by his oblivion. anyway, we got to hawrelak park just as they were turning the lights off, and since it was dark and cold (and i was kind of bummed by feeling so rejected), we decided not to skate that night. we slipped across the ice on our shoes to check out some ice sculptures, but then emery drove me home.

on thursday morning, i walked down to whyte ave. to pick up my new glasses from regent optical. then i packed up a bag and LRT'd to the greyhound station downtown, where i caught the 1:00 bus to vermilion. i sat next to a very talkative university of saskatoon student from peace river, who was friendly but seemingly inept at reading "i'm-not-interested-in-talking-right-now" body language. with half an hour left in our trip, i realized her real intentions in continuing conversation, as she launched into a full-blown evangelization routine. yeesh. having self-identified as a christian for eight years between high school and my first degree, i had a pretty good idea of exactly what she'd try to tell me. i was relieved when the bus crossed the overpass at vermilion, and i had a legitimate and polite reason to end the conversation. my mom picked me up at 3:45, and we got some groceries and some craft supplies in town, and then came home. we watched some t.v. (i don't have t.v. in my apartment, so i like to watch the simpsons when i can), and then dad came home and he made some steak fajitas for supper. afterwards, dad and i went to visit my grandma and gido at the lodge in town. my grandparents are adorable. they will have been married 65 years this coming summer. wow! when we got to their place, they were watching the leaders' debate on t.v. my gido is this huge old ukrainian farmer, and he was sitting in his chair in bare feet, wearing a ball cap and leaning forward, pointing at the screen and saying, "yes! yes! that's right" as the leaders bickered back and forth. it was good to visit with them. i especially liked visiting at that time because my gido and i are the only ones in our family in this province who vote for the same political party (i have some cousins and an aunt and uncle in b.c. who also vote the same way). it's nice to connect with him over that. afterwards, my dad and i came home, and i did some homework until i was too tired to stay awake.

dust in the light, falling through

on monday i worked at the legislature from 11:00 until 4:30. since it was family day, we had a pretty big celebration going on at the ledge, with hot chocolate, a real owl, face painting, carnival games, balloons, ice sculptures, and tours of the ledge every couple of minutes. i spent most of the day giving tours. they were really condensed versions of the tours we gave, but still pretty exhausting because there were so many people in each group. after work, i met becky at the south ledge grounds, where we went skating for 20 minutes or so. neither of us had the energy to skate much longer, but that was the perfect amount of time. i hadn't been skating all winter, and neither had becky, but we did pretty well, i think. neither of us can stop very well, but at least we didn't fall. becky drove me to my apartment, and then went to wash her car while i packed up some craft supplies. she then picked me up and we went to her house for the evening. her roommate sarah was at home, so i made the three of us fried bannock and tea for supper. we talked about aboriginal law, because sarah is going to school to become a lawyer, and i am going to school to become aboriginal. just jokes. but honestly, i don't have any faith that any kind of law is going to make things better for aboriginal people any time soon, and talking with sarah made me realize even more how messy law is. it was really nice to talk to sarah, too, because we've known each other for a long, long time, but i don't think we've ever really considered each other friends. anyways, she is bright and compassionate, and i hope we get to be better friends. after supper, sarah did some reading, and becky worked on beading her moccasins, and i worked on crocheting my raven. becky drove me home at about 8:45, and i went to bed fairly early because i was feeling tired.

i was up at 6:15 the next morning so i could be at the bissell at 8:00, to fill in some volunteer hours for my CSL course. becky works at the bissell, so she came downstairs to give me the tea i had left at her house the night before, and just to say hello. every time i am at the bissell, clients and other staff members ask me if i have a sister who works there. they always think that becky and i are related. people have been thinking that for years and years and years. i don't think we look that similar, except for our body shape and hair color and short bangs, but i really like it when people think we're sisters. it's gotten to the point that i look forward to being at the bissell, just because i am sure that at least one person will ask me if becky's my sister. maybe it's exciting for me because i don't look a thing like my real sisters. anyway, i worked for about an hour at the drop-in, and i spent the rest of the time doing a food survey for jason, the food services manager. i had to go around to clients and ask them if i could do a six-question interview with them regarding the food the bissell serves. the questions were:
a) is 10:30 a.m. (when the bissell serves food) your first meal of the day? if not, where else do you eat?
b) do you eat anywhere else during the day?
c) does the meal at the bissell give you your only food for the day? keep you healthy? provide socializing?
d) what are your favorite kinds of food served at the bissell? do you like the food?
e) rate the service of the food (cleanliness, friendliness of staff, length of lineup).
f) how can we improve the food service? different time? healthier/more/fresher food?
it was really interesting to see how people answered. some clients told me that a lot of inner city people are missing many of their teeth, and therefore have a difficult time eating raw vegetables, which in turn leads to a dietary deficiency of nutrients. they'd prefer to have softer, cooked vegetables. other clients raised issues about the importance of snacks throughout the day for diabetics. still others reminded me of the importance that different kinds of meats play for different cultural groups. most complained about being fed sandwiches.

i LRT'd home after my shift, and took a nice long nap. emery woke me up when he texted me to ask if he could use my sewing machine for a couple of hours later that night. i cleaned up my house, which was no small job, and made some soup for myself before emery showed up. i also worked on my CSL journal.

emery came over at around 7 or so, and he brought a couple of cds for me to listen to (the whitsundays - the band we had gone to see the week earlier, but had to miss because of transit schedules; and plants and animals). i set him up at my sewing machine, and he got to work on some little wallet-esque card holders. i went to go work on my journalling on my computer, but he kept telling me things from where he was sitting and i couldn't hear him from where i was working, so i eventually just decided to chill out in my room (where he was sewing) and talk with him while he worked. it was much more enjoyable than doing homework. plus, my all-time favorite way to hang out with people is to chill and talk while we are making something. emery and i have hung out a lot, but we never just hang out and make things. so nice. he stayed until about 9:30 or so, and then went home. i spent a little bit of time working on my CSL journal, and then i went to bed. i also texted emery before i went to sleep to tell him that:
a) i had forgotten to give back his cds, and
b) i had forgotten to add my usual disclaimer when i told him my kissing-a-boy-behind-a-tree-at-the-u-of-a-last-spring story, claiming that i am not a total whore: i am just addicted to awkwardness and excitement.

i thought we could be friends

on friday morning i slept in, and then worked at the elementary school from 11:30 until 12:30. as usual, it was a ton of fun. my favorite kids, the grade 1s, gave me lots of hugs and begged me to go tobogganing with them. i did, and so i'd kneel down on my crazy carpet, and they'd all grab onto me and my sled, and then we'd inch down the top of the hill until we started sliding. there were usually about 10 of us attached together. near the end of recess, kids were just grabbing onto us and sliding down the hill on their stomachs in their snowsuits without any sleds, and some of them would just jump on my back as soon as we started sliding. so fun. i LRT'd downtown to pick up some books from the library, and since i had a little bit of time before class, i decided to have lunch by myself at three bananas cafe. it was amazing. i had been meaning to go there for quite a while, and i'm really glad i finally did. i had a life-changing chicken and jalapeno panini. then i LRT'd back to the university for my cree lab. after cree, i watched "smoke signals" by myself. that evening, i met jessie and her brother eric and her friend cam, who was visiting from thunder bay, at the u of a transit station, and we LRT'd downtown to see doug hoyer and toy singers play at the velvet underground. i keep seeing this dude around shows in edmonton, and i've recognized his face, but could never remember his name. finally, earlier this week, becky or jessie mentioned a name, and i realized that it was this boy's. i remembered that he used to play in a band called audience of one about eight years ago, and that my ex-boyfriend evan used to live with one of the dudes in that band. whew. anyway, the show was fun, and i got to hang out with jenni for a bit, and there were free cupcakes because it was toy singers' cd release, but we had to leave early to make sure we could catch the LRT back across the river and make it back home.

on saturday, i worked at the ledge. i think that two out of three of my tours went. although i like having days when i don't have to do tours, when i do have to do them, i realize that i kind of enjoy doing them. after work, i came home for a bit, and then met jessie, eric, and cam at steeps. we walked/LRT'd/walked to the treehouse, where we saw the joe, orange in the light, and illfit outfit play. the joe was extra entertaining, because:
a) he's just a good rapper,
b) he seems like a super positive, good guy, and
c) there was this one girl who knew all the words to his songs, and so she was singing them and dancing and smiling super hard. adorable.
we LRT'd back across the river after the show. i went home and jessie, eric and cam walked all the way back to jessie's.

on sunday my parents came up to visit me and my sisters for family day. they first bought emily a bunch of groceries downtown, and then they came across the river to buy some more for alyssa and me. we unpacked the groceries at home, and i showed my mom the art projects i've been working on. then we went to the cheesecake café (alyssa's choice) on the west end for lunch, and stopped at michael's so i could get some yarn and embroidery thread. then we went to west edmonton mall, so my mom could buy a bathing suit for the trip she and my dad are taking to mexico in the spring. my sister works at a bathing suit store in the mall, so she had a pretty substantial gift certificate to use up. i scammed her into buying me a cute brown dress. i also wandered around h&m, because i had never been there before and because i wanted to see if i could find a pair of cute red tennis shoes like kaylin has. the store was a total nightmare. there were a million people everywhere, and everything was shoddily made in sweatshops around the globe. ugh. the mall was pretty packed, too. finally, after about an hour, my mom picked out some things to buy, and we headed out, but not before stopping at london drugs, where dad bought alyssa and me a new phone for our apartment. i drove us back to emily's apartment to drop her off, and then mom and dad dropped alyssa and me off at our place. i took "smoke signals" to jessie at her work so that she could watch it, and then i walked to the movie studio to rent a movie. before i went, my dad called and told me i should rent young guns and young guns 2. i'd seen the first one, but not the second. anyway, because i hate shopping or picking movies, and could find nothing i'd rather watch, i rented both movies. i watched the first one and half of the second one that night. i actually like them quite a bit.

freedom from myself and from the land

on wednesday the 13th, i woke up at 9:00 so i could be at the bruce peel special collections in rutherford library south by 10:00. a couple of us from my NS 211 class met there so we could take a look at the javitch collection, which has a lot of information pertinent to native studies. we looked at a copy of treaty 6, and some old prints of photographs. after that, i stopped in SUB for a bagel, and then went to pembina for cree at noon. i LRT'd to bay station, because my CSL class was meeting at the edmonton chamber of volunteer organizations that afternoon to hear some guest speakers. i heard some crazy statistics, including one bit of research following 15 homeless people in calgary for a period of 18 months, which found that each of these people used approximately $200,000 worth of social services in that time. ho-leh! i left class a little bit early so i could LRT back across the river for an appointment with my naturopath at 4:00. we are trying to figure out what is causing my millions of allergies, and he thinks it is food, so he has proposed that i either do a cleanse, and then gradually add in more foods and see if i react to them, or do a blood test. the blood test is just a finger prick, but it costs $250. the food experimentation will cost about the same because i will have to eat very particular foods. ugh. i talked to my mom about it later that night, and she said she'd pay for half of whatever i decided to do, but only on the condition that if they found anything that i was allergic to, i'd have to commit to stop eating it. i dread that the tests will tell me i am allergic to sugar or potatoes or meat, and i don't think i can live without those things. so here comes a brand-new season of debilitating allergies! afterwards, i met becky and jessie at steeps, but we all only stayed for about an hour. becky had to go to her moccasin-making class, jessie and layne went to cree class at the native friendship centre downtown, and i went home to study.

on thursday i went to NS 211 at 9:30, where we had a really great class discussion on indigenous education. it was easily the best class of that course this year. afterwards, i skipped NS 390 and cree so that i could study for the two midterms i had later that day. i wrote my ecological anthropology midterm at 3:30, and i'm quite sure i failed. that's especially frustrating for me, because i think i have a pretty good basic understanding of the ties between culture and nature, but the prof for that class blows through all the information very quickly, and then asks really ridiculous questions about the information that she has hardly given us time to process. plus, all we are really learning about in that class are the 5 subsistence strategies (foraging, extensive agriculture, nomadic pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and industrial agriculture). boo. i finished my exam at 5:00 and, feeling pretty bummed because i had done so terribly, rushed to good earth cafe to pick up a roast beef panini and an orange poppyseed muffin to eat while i crammed for my contemporary aboriginal art midterm. i wrote that exam at 6:00, and i think i did considerably better on it than on the earlier exam. afterwards, as we handed in our exams, we showed our instructor the collages we had each made, which were worth 10% of our final grade. my instructor loved mine, and asked if i were an artist. i told her no, i wasn't, but that i made a lot of crafts. as i was walking down the hallway after class, a girl ran up to me and asked if she could see my collage, because she had seen it when i was at the front of the room and wanted to see it up close. all that made me feel really good about myself, so i bussed down to steeps to show jessie my collage and to tell her about my instructor's reaction. then i walked to safeway to buy some orange juice and multigrain bread, and then i came home and knitted my raven for a while.

i trip fast and then i lose, and i hate looking like a fool

on saturday morning i met dr. e at steeps on whyte for tea and gossip. it was really nice to hang out, because we haven't done so for a couple of months. we hung out for about an hour and a half, and then i walked home to clean up my house. a girl i know has been asking me to teach her how to make wallets, so i had planned to have a crafting day so that a bunch of us could hang out and i could show her how i do the wallets. however, she got sick that day and couldn't show, so i just had a quiet hang-out with claire and jessica. mostly i just played old-school nintendo (super mario brothers 3 on original NES) and talked with jess while claire drew and wrote an amazing postcard for her crush. i love crushing on boys in the company of those girls, because they as inclined to swoon and overanalyze and give in to a rollercoaster of emotions as i am. claire had to leave after about an hour to go to work, so jessie and i walked her to her work, and stopped at the movie studio, where we rented "in the realms of the unreal." i had been meaning to rent it for quite a while, but it seemed like one of those movies that you have to be in a very particular mood for. anyway, we watched it at my house, and i knitted my raven as we watched it, and it was super interesting. jessie left shortly afterwards to go to the hayden concert, but i stayed at home to get some studying done.

on sunday the 10th, i worked at the legislature from 11:45 until 5:15. it was totally dead, and i didn't give a single tour all day. after work, i came home, and emery texted me to ask if he could use my sewing machine for a bit before we went to a movie we'd planned on seeing. he told me he'd come over at around 7:00, but by 7:45, i still hadn't heard from him, so, feeling quite irritated, i tried to call him from my cell phone, and realized it wasn't working. i then tried my home phone, and realized that it, too, hadn't been working. i called him from my sister's cell and found out that he'd been trying to get a hold of me all that time, but, realizing he couldn't reach me, had gone to school to get a bit of work done. anyways, at 8:30, we met at the basement of my apartment, where he gave me a creme egg for the movie. nice! then he drove us (in his roommate's borrowed vehicle) downtown to the metro cinema to see "helvetica," a documentary on the typeface of the same name. the film was magical, and felt like a love letter to the font. emery drove me home afterwards and i went to bed.

on monday morning, i got up at 6:15 so i could be at the bissell at 8:00. i talked a lot with bev, the volunteer coordinator, and with angie. i went to cree class at noon, and then napped for part of the afternoon. i went to my popping and locking class from 7:35 until 8:55.

tuesday was filled with class and studying for midterms.

i spend most of my nights guessing - are we not? are we together?

i worked at the bissell on monday morning, and LRT'd back to the university for cree class at noon. i came home, napped until 4:00, and then worked on the two assignments that were due the next day (the first: a letter to the minister of indian affairs, addressing indian education; the second: a literature review for NS 390). i went to my popping and locking class in the van vliet centre from 7:35 to 8:55.

on tuesday i went to all my classes and handed in all my assignments, and then worked on some CSL homework after class. emily came over after she was done at the gym, and we went to american apparel (so i could buy more new underwear - they're having a really great sale right now) and boston pizza. then emily left to go see "juno" with one of her friends, and i stayed at home and did some reading.

on wednesday i had cree at noon, and then CSL from 1:00 until 4:00. i went to steeps afterwards, like i always do, to meet jessica and becky and claire. i also met a girl who works there, who is apparently in one of my classes, and we had a really good talk about the class. she had been feeling a lot of the things that i had been feeling regarding the class, but i think she was too shy to express them in class.

on thursday i went to all my classes except for cree, because it had been cancelled for the day. it was actually kind of a relief, even though cree is probably my favorite class. i spent that time at home, working on an art project (part one of four: a knitted raven) that i am making for my "contemporary aboriginal art" course.

on friday, i worked at the elementary school at noon. since it was so cold, we had recess indoors, and i spent the whole time playing dodgeball with the grades one through three. it was the best. i felt especially good because i was able to convince the shy little grade one girls to come and play with the big grade three boys. once they were playing, they realized that they were having a really good time.

after dodgeball, i went to the university to meet with one of my prof's, regarding some of the things i had spoken about with that girl from my class on wednesday. i think it was a really good talk, and i hope a better classroom experience will come out of it.

i didn't have cree on friday, because it was cancelled due to some of the "aboriginal health week" sessions. instead, i bussed to west edmonton mall to buy a glue gun. i am making some cute decorations for my house like the ones kelsey and i made for her house, by gluing old fabric scraps inside of wooden embroidery hoops and then adding embroidery or buttons. the ones i started this week are cut from old nokomis bags. after i bought the glue gun, i also had a gingersnap from starbucks and a cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice from booster juice in the mall, and on the way back to the bus, i stopped and watched the sea lions' show. they are pretty adorable, but i still miss mavis and howard (who, for those who are not so in tune with the goings-on of w.e.m., were the last two bottle-nosed dolphins who lived in the tank at the mall). i had a nap after i got home from the mall.

i walked to badass jack's near my house to buy a bbq chicken wrap for supper, and then i bussed to whyte to meet emery at the fringe gallery to take a look at some art, but it turned out that the show had closed an hour before we got there. boo. so we bussed back to the university, and LRT'd downtown. then we walked toooo many blocks in the freezing, windy cold to get to the ARTery for a show. it was really nice to hang out, and extra nice that we scored an awesome couch right in front of the stage for the second band. unfortunately, because of mass transit, we had to leave the show before the band we had gone to see even came on. we LRT'd back across the river, and i went home and had pleasant dreams.

oi to the world and everybody wins

on monday i volunteered at the bissell drop-in centre from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. i felt frustrated because the other volunteers and i haven't gotten any training, and therefore don't know where to refer clients when they ask for certain services. i went to cree class at 2, and then had an appointment with my naturopath at 3:30. i came home for a bit and then went to my first ever popping and locking course at the u of a. it's REALLY hard. it's mostly hard because i get so unbearably shy and nervous when people are trying to teach me dance moves, and i stiffen up so much that it hurts my muscles. i really, really like when my timidity becomes physically overwhelming. however, it doesn't really help me learn dance moves very well. it seems really strange to me, too, because i feel really free when i am dancing otherwise. whatevs.

on tuesday i had all my regular classes, as well as a cree quiz.

on wednesday i met up with a lady from the u of a administration, because she has recruited me to do something for her in the spring, when the university has a day especially for recruiting rural students. it sounds like fun. after that, i had cree, and then CSL. in CSL i had to do a short presentation on an article about white students' experiences as they become aware of their socioeconomic privilege. although i've learned a lot about my own privilege and status over the last couple of years, the article was really informative and interesting to read and present on. afterwards i met becky and claire and kaylin and jessica at steeps to craft for a couple of hours.

thursday was full, full, full of class. i was irritated when one of my professors told the class that 17 first nations people in fort simpson died in the first week of the residential school payouts, due to the government's decision to "kill off the indians" by doing the payouts in one lump sum (the actual statistic was 4 deaths in one month, and i very much doubt that the government plotted to kill off people by giving them thousands of dollars), and then told us that the government had also plotted to kill off first nations by feeding them junk food to ensure they all got diabetes. certainly some things have been done incorrectly and unfairly, but i'm PREEEETY sure that neither of those plots were any kind of priority for anyone in government. come on.

this friday i worked at the elementary school from 11:30 until 12:30. since it was so cold outside, we had noonhour recess inside. my favorite kid, taylor, was sitting on the steps leading to the office, looking pretty bummed out because he loves playing outside so much. i sat down next to him, and he told me that he really wanted to play "guess who?" but couldn't find it. we checked all the classrooms together, and then i went upstairs and found that some of the older kids were playing it. i came back down to tell taylor the bad news. he was still pretty bummed, but he asked me if i wanted to play monopoly. i said sure, so he ran to get the box. it was just junior monopoly, but since i hardly ever play board games, i didn't know how to play it. i told taylor that one of us would have to read the directions while the other sorted the money, and he exclaimed that he would deal with the directions. he just ended up making up new rules, so i got him and another boy who joined us to sort the money while i figured the game out. we played the whole noon hour, and it ended up being super fun. taylor just loves to play so much, so he's always a blast to be around, and the boy who joined us is always kind of grumpy, so it's funny being around him too. after work i went home, packed up some stuff, stopped at rutherford library to pick up some books, and LRT'd downtown (skipping my cree lab) so i could catch the greyhound to calgary at 2:00. i ended up sitting next to some girl who gabbed on her cell phone for half of the trip. yeesh. i mostly just listened to my ipod.

kelsey picked me up at the bus station at about 6:00, and we drove to some crazy steakhouse for meat and potatoes. kelsey bought. what a nice date. then we drove across the street to michael's to buy some crafting supplies, and stopped at a movie place to rent "eagle vs. shark." we watched the movie at kelsey's, and it was terrible. it just felt like a cheap, pathetic knock-off of "napoleon dynamite." we ate some corn chips and then went to bed grumpy because the movie was so bad. (i should mention that the reason that we rented it was because the shark costume on the cover was adorable).

on saturday we got up around 10 or so and went to the farmers' market so kelsey could order some custom leather boots. she had her feet measured in different ways so that the shoes would fit her exactly, and that made her ridiculously happy. we also saw some stingrays in a tank, which was nice because i have decided that they are my new favorite animal. the market wasn't as good as edmonton's, i think. then we went to some health foods store so i could buy some stevia (natural sweetener), because my naturopath put me on a 3-week no-sugar diet. boo. i am nearly going crazy. i am basically just replacing any sugary snacks with super carbohydrate-y snacks. then we went back to michael's to buy a glue gun and some glue sticks and white thread. we stopped at the movie place and rented the first season of "flight of the conchords," and then came home. we made tacos because that seems to be our thing or something. then we watched the whole first season of "flight of the conchords," and worked on making some decorations for her wall. basically, we took some of her old shirts (red with white polka dots) and cut them up so that the fabric would fit inside some little wooden embroidery hoops. we glue gunned the fabric to the hoops so that it would permanently stay. then we used yellow buttons and light yellow thread and sewed cute designs on the hoops. i made a couple with some swirls and a tall vase and some flowers made out of buttons. i think they all turned out really well, and will look super cute when kelsey hangs them on her wall. i think that saturday was also the day we tried making some sculpey creations. kaylin is amazing with that stuff, but i guess kelsey and i aren't really. kelsey made some cute trees that broke when we put them in the oven, and i made a brown duck with yellow wings and some things that look like a cross between a lollipop and a kind of seuss-esque tree. mid-crafting and mid-conchording, we drove to 17th ave. to stop at american apparel, because that's the other thing we always do when we hang out. tacos and american apparel. anyway, i bought a green t-shirt and a purple long-sleeved shirt, and 3 pairs of underwear for $25! what a good deal! i might have to go buy more underwear this week from the a.a. here. we stopped at steeps on the way home, and i bought a tin of pear green tea, while kelsey bought a tin of lemon meringue pie tea. when we came home we watched more "conchords" and shared our tea and crafted. those teas are so good! i also taught kelsey how to make bannock, so we made a couple of batches and fried them on the stove. mmm. after "conchords," i started watching "eternal sunshine of a spotless mind," but got too sleepy to finish it. i slept on the couch.

this morning i woke up at 11:00, showered, made some soup for the two of us, and made a cd from kelsey's itunes while i packed. kelsey drove me to the calgary bus stop at 10:00, and my bus left at 11:00. i got in to edmonton at about 2:30, LRT'd home, worked a bit on my NS 390 homework, went for tea with emery at leva at 4:30, and came home and worked on my NS 211 homework for the rest of the night.