get down, girl, go 'head, get down

sunday, march 30: i set my alarm clock for 9:00, but i woke up at 8:00 because of excitement/nervousness. this is a ridiculous story, and you've probably heard it from me already, but if not, here goes: last week, kelsey told me about this dating website that she had joined, and after feeling particularly rejected one day, i joined. i talked to a boy and we made plans to meet on the coming sunday. i have the lowest self-esteem of all time, so i was pretty sure he was going to stand me up. he didn't! we met at good earth café at 10:15. he seems pretty dreamy. english major!? historical interpreter at fort edmonton park!? swoon! hanging out was fun and awesome. i was nervous at first, but then it was just comfortable. at first i was really embarrassed about the whole dating website thing, but now i've figured out that it is the most awesome form of entertainment ever. it's free, and you'll always either end up with: (a) a ridiculous message from some douchebag that you can laugh at, (b) a super awkward e-interaction or real date, or (c) an awesome hang out with a dreamy boy. why didn't i get into this earlier!? anyways, this boy drove me to the ledge at 11:15 so i could go to work. it was nice. i'ma try to hang out with him again. we'll see if it actually happens. anyway, i worked from noon until 5, and came home to nap and do homework. alyssa and i drove my parents' car to the airport at 11:00 to pick my parents and emily up from their mexico trip. they stopped at our apartment to pick up their cat (thank God!), and then drove back to vermilion that night.

monday, march 31: i thought about going to volunteer at the bissell this morning, but i was too tired from being at the airport last night, and wanted to get some more homework done. i went to school at 1:30. i ran into emery near his locker and chatted for a bit. my crush is officially over, which is pretty rad. high fives, self! i'm excited about just being normal friends with him from now on. then i went to joel's office to pick up a typewriter he had gotten for me at a thrift shop or something. it's amazing, and it was only $5! try not to be too jealous of me! i also borrowed a USB drive from him, for my cree presentation. i had cree at 2:00. we're all doing oral autobiographies of ourselves this week. they're pretty brutal, but cute. i'm doing mine tomorrow. i spent the rest of the day doing homework/napping/making supper/hanging out with emily.

always going two directions: once ahead, and the second is backwards

thursday, march 27: i skipped my ecological anthro class. i didn't intend to, but i got there 5 minutes late, and realized that: a) i didn't want to be there, and b) who cares if i go, because we don't have a final exam for that class. so i walked back home and did some homework.

friday, march 28: i met shannon and beth at good earth café at 10:00. it was super nice to hang out with them. i like connecting all the loose threads of friendship in my life. it just seems like there are a lot of people (shannon, beth, jessica, etc.) who have been NEAR my life for a long time but not IN it, and not in each other's lives. but we are starting to hang out. and my friends are starting to hang out with each other, which is super rad. i think that becky and claire and angie went to a concert on thursday night together. that's perfect! anyway, shannon and beth and i talked about being "post-christians," and it was good to have more people to talk to about that. i hope i can integrate those girls into my life more. after that, i walked to lister hall, because i had agreed to help out with this "rural discovery day" the university was having. i ate lunch with this high school girl from saskatchewan. she was really cute and had braces, and we talked a little about french and how we had both applied for the "explore" program. we found out that we had applied for the exact same first- and second-choice locations (church point, nova scotia and moncton, new brunswick)! she wrote me on facebook later that day to tell me that her mom had just received her acceptance package for church point in the mail that day. i have my fingers crossed that early this week i will find out whether i got in or not. anyway, it was nice to get free food (and a u of a t-shirt, and a clipboard thing) for just talking about myself and my experiences at the u of a. after that was done, i went to cree class, and then came home. i thought about going with becky and jessica to see a show, or with emery to see another show, but in the end i decided to stay at home and do homework. i also watched all (and only) the jason schwartzman scenes in shopgirl. dreamboat.

saturday, march 29: i worked on some homework in the morning. i also talked to kelseydawn about boys and my newest, cheapest, awesomest form of entertainment. well, one cheap, awesome, form of entertainment. claire came over at noon, and after advising me on appropriate strategies regarding attire, she and i went to good earth café for some orange poppyseed muffins. then we drove my parents' car to whyte so we could try to take advantage of american apparel's BFF sale. claire didn't end up buying anything, but i bought a red crew-neck sweater. i think all i want to wear from now on are small crew-neck sweaters. i also bought some more all-black chucks from decadence, because mine are wearing out pretty badly. i drove claire home, got some gas, and came home to work on some homework. i napped a bit too. at 6:30, i went to badass jack's for supper, and drove to the far west side of the city to adam and nicole's place for a baby shower shannon was throwing for barb. notable attendees included barb, brett, becky, jihye, shannon, jeremy, nathan g., colin p., and a bunch of other people i met, like, 7 years ago. it seems weird that they still exist. i spent most of the time apparently being awkward with becky, jihye, and jeremy at the end of the dinner table. i think i forgot how funny and awesome jeremy is to be around. i'm glad he and shannon are back in my circle. i went home around 8:45 and spent the rest of the night on homework.

press my rec and play, 'cause i want to save this moment

monday, march 24: worked at the ledge from noon until 5. called j.j. to ask if she wanted to go for vanilla cokes at dadeo. i have my parents' car for the week while they're in mexico, so i picked her up. dadeo was closed, so we went for plain cokes at fatburger and also stopped at home depot for hardboard (for collaging) and a staple gun.

tuesday, march 25: listened to i'm from barcelona's "rec and play" on repeat on my ipod all day. it's so happy! class class class.

wednesday, march 26: talked to my CSL prof about my final project. i think i'm gonna write about communal trauma. it seems to really sum up my experiences in native studies this semester. had cree and CSL class. some dude brought in watermelon, and between that and a warm classroom and happy music on repeat, i feel like it's time for summer. j.j. and becky and claire and i hung out at steeps and exchanged boy stories. i think i would rather have stories than have boys. good thing i'm an english/native studies major. hel-looo, oral tradition and an overemphasis on narrative! i also finished doing a ledger drawing for my aboriginal art class. it's about my most awkward moment. you know what it is.

stuck between rewind and forward

thursday, march 20: mad cramps.

friday, march 21: jessica and i met at whyte ave. at 1:30 and walked to the muttart conservatory, because this was the last day it will be open for 10 months because of renovation. we got there early so we sat on a hill and played cat's cradle with some string i had brought. then we went inside the tropical pyramid to wait for emery and stephanie and doug. i totally got stood up by emery, which was inarguably lame, but jessica and doug and i had a really fun time. we got some free daffodils on our way out. jessica and i walked and doug biked up the hill to 99th and saskatchewan drive, and then they kept going while i waited for the #6. it didn't come and i got restless, so i took off my shoes and walked home in my bare feet. my sisters came over later on and we watched half of "amélie" together.

saturday, march 22: i LRT'd to the downtown library to take back a book, and then i walked to the reuse centre to drop off a few things. i waited for the #6 at the CN building, and bussed to the farmers' market, where i bought potato/bacon and potato/jalapeño perogies, ginger snaps, bison burgers, and whole wheat pita bread. i walked home, and bought ketchup and barbecue sauce and apples on the way back. i made myself a bison burger in pita bread for lunch, and claire came over for a bit to work on her homework and hang out. we talked a little about possibly hanging out in newfoundland for a couple of weeks at the end of august, if everything works out. exciting! then she went to work, and my parents and emily arrived at my apartment. i took their car to whyte ave. to drop off a birthday present (a vivid print gift card) for becky. i went back to the apartment, and then my fam and i went to century grill for supper. we were going to go bowling at gateway lanes, but we got there and it was d-bag city, and we were told there was an hour-long wait or something, so we just went home. i finished watching amélie.

sunday, march 23: i drove my parents and emily to the airport at 7:00 so they could catch their flight to mexico. i came home and napped. then i talked to kelsey on the phone and was... inspired? i also went for hot chocolate with erica on whyte ave. we wanted to go for vanilla cokes, but dadeo was closed for easter. i spent the evening falling madly in love with "i'm from barcelona," a swedish 29-piece band. you should listen to them. it will change your life.

but when we wake it's all been erased

on tuesday becky and barb and i got our hair cut at vance's. becky's friend ji-hye came with us. i like short bangs, but mine are WAY too short now. i don't really mind, though, because they feel really good. i love having my hair off my face. and i don't have to look at myself, so it's no big deal.

yesterday i had to interview a girl in my community-based research methods about her diet, as part of a class assignment. it was a 20-minute interview, but i spent about three hours transcribing it last night. however, some of my classmates said it took them seven hours to transcribe their 20-minute interviews, so my self-esteem was boosted by my mad typing skills. i skipped cree yesterday, which was a good choice, because we had a swedish substitute teacher. i hung out with becky, claire, jessica, and jenni at steeps from 4:00 until about 7:00. i had a london fog and a green granola-ish bar (with no granola - mostly just sesame seeds, etc.) and a mazillion of claire's miniature reese's peanut butter cups. i worked on crocheting some brown mittens; becky worked on a pair of moccasins, and everyone else just hung out. afterwards i had to meet a different classmate so i could be the interviewee for his project. i came home and transcribed my interview, talked to jon k. on the phone, and kev came over so i could give him a pair of red and off-white mittens i had made for him.

oh, and i've been having nice dreams lately. swoon.

this shit is bananas

stelmach announced his new cabinet last week. tt consists of 4 or 5 more ministers than his last cabinet, and two new ministries of particular interest to me: aboriginal relations, and housing and urban affairs. my inner jury is still out on how i feel about these.

since this post is about politics anyway, and in case you've been living under a rock, I think it is important that everyone know that voter turnout in the recent provincial election was 41% of eligible voters, and the progressive conservatives won 87% of the seats in the assembly (72 out of 83 seats) with only 53% of the vote. if you didn't vote: SHAME.

and a non-sequitur update for the hell of it: i bought a new aluminum water bottle on the weekend. goodbye, carcinogenic type-7 plastic water bottle!

dance your cares away

thursday, march 13: one of my professors totally freaked out at the end of class. i like when people freak out, so i mostly just laughed. chill out, dude. class class class class class. i texted kev to see if i could watch a CBC documentary on oil at his house at 9, because i don't have cable and he is my geographically closest friend, but he said that there was a hockey game on then and that his roommates would not allow a documentary to take precedence over the game. but he DID invited me to help him out with a very exciting secret project the next day, which maybe i should not blog about but i can tell you about it if you ask.

friday, march 14: i went to good earth café at 10 to meet shannon, but she didn't show up. i wasn't really expecting her to because we hadn't confirmed, and i didn't really mind because i needed to do some things (ie. nap, study) at my house anyway. i worked at the elementary school at noon, where i played tag and hide and seek with my favorite kids from grade 1. i came home and studied for cree, and at 2:00, i had a cree quiz. i came home and waited for kelsey to show up. she finally got in from calgary at around 5. kev came and picked us up, and drove us to whyte ave. so we could pick up vanilla cokes from dadeo. then we went to rexall place for our exciting secret project. it was pretty rad. it was super interesting and we ended up being really tired, and kelsey and i had some weird reactions to some weird things. are you curious yet? kev dropped us off at home around 11, and we watched some arrested development and went to bed.

saturday, march 15: i worked at the ledge from 9:30 until 4:30. i am normally scheduled to work from about noon until 5, but there was an ESL tour scheduled for that day at 10, so this guy brent and i had to come in early. the tour was supposed to be for 40 people, and brent and i were each supposed to take 20, but only 10 showed up. brent said he'd take them, so i just stayed in the back and worked on homework. high fives! then during my actual work time, i only ended up having to give one tour. aside from that, i worked in the gift shop, worked on some homework, and watched some episodes of "fraggle rock" on the internet. i met kelsey at my apartment at 5 (she had spent the morning at an information session for women working in the trades, and the afternoon at the farmers' market. and probably snooping.), and we drove her car to dadeo for supper (we would have walked, but as we were walking by her car along this one street, we saw the parking enforcement people giving out tickets, so we decided to move it). she didn't like what she ordered. i always feel bad for people when that happens. on the bright side, we had more vanilla cokes. we came back to my house and drank vanilla earl grey tea and watched arrested development. at about 8:00 we drove to becky's for her birthday party. we saw a ton of people there, including angie, joel and esther, barb and brett, shannon and jeremy, sarah, michelle and mark, and jen. becky sang us a cute song she wrote. i talked too much about myself. we left around 11:00, and came home to more tea and arrested development. kelsey fell asleep on the couch and was rewarded with a sore neck the next day.

sunday, march 16: i woke up at 9:00. kelsey and i sat around my house for a bit, then made jalapeño perogies and tomato soup. kelsey saw a picture of herself with cotton candy on my wall, so we decided to go to west edmonton mall to get some. we forgot to actually get any. instead, we mostly looked for spring coats and shoes. she got a booster juice and i got a cinnamon bun. she dropped me off at the university, and she left for calgary. i met emery at the university transit centre, and we LRT'd to churchill station. we went for coffee/hot chocolate at three bananas café, and then LRT'd back to the u of a. we made plans to visit the muttart conservatory with his friend stephanie on friday, because that is the last day it will be open for the next 10 months. thrilling. i came home and did some homework and watched more arrested development and fraggle rock. i did some homework too. i am going to go to bed early, because tomorrow is the last day i need to go to the bissell for my CSL requirement. i haven't decided whether i'll keep going after this.

i don't ever make up stuff about us - that would be classed as insanity

friday, march 7: i met shannon at good earth café for breakfast. aside from our run-in on the street the week before, we hadn't seen each other in years. it was nice to hang out and catch up. i mostly just talked about what i've been doing since king's. at 11:15, i went home so i could put the muffin i had bought into a plastic container, and then i went to the elementary school to work. after that, i went to the tory building on campus to meet my ecological anthropology prof and talk to her about the research essay i want to write for that class. i'm going to do it on guyana's "iwokrama international centre for rain forest conservation and development." it's a pretty rad topic, and one that i learned quite a bit about when i was down there. plus, i think there's a lot of information that can be gleaned from it that could be applied to northern alberta. maybe i'll write a post all about it later. i had cree at 2:00, and then i came home and played nintendo by myself for a few hours. emery came over around 5:00, and we re-shot the pictures of the mobiles that we had done earlier in the week, i guess because the other ones didn't turn out. i hung around at home by myself all night, and it was pretty enjoyable. i also talked to jonathan on the phone that day.

saturday, march 8: i met emily at three bananas café at 10:00 for hot chocolate and cinnamon buns. the bun wasn't as good as i had hoped. emily and i LRT'd/bussed to whyte, where we met jessica and walked around the farmers' market. emily left, and i bought some jalapeño perogies, garlic and potato perogies, orange fudge honey, and bison burgers. jessica and i walked back to my house, stopping at safeway to buy some buns. i made us some bison burgers and jalapeño perogies, and we just sat around and crafted for a while. claire came over for a while, too. both girls left around 3:30, and i spent the rest of the night working on homework at home.

sunday, march 9: i hung out at home all day long and did homework. it's nice to be antisocial sometimes.

monday, march 10: i worked at the bissell centre from 10:00 until 1:00. i was supposed to meet with my supervisor lina, but i guess she forgot. i watched two fights break out. exciting. becky and i talked about our crushes. i went to cree at 2:00. i worked on some homework after class. jenni came over at 8:00 to drop off her tape recorder, which she is lending me for an interview i need to do for my community-based research methods class. we talked for a bit, but she didn't stay for long. it was a really nice night out, so i went longboarding by myself along saskatchewan drive. nice.

tuesday, march 11: i called vivid print for an estimate on an art piece i need to have stretched. i got a cute postcard from emery in the mail. after class, i watched a bunch of episodes of arrested development with emily, while we ate take-out from wendy's, i didn't do any homework. it felt good.

wednesday, march 12: after my cree and CSL classes, i bussed to steeps, where becky and i crafted and drank tea. then she drove the two of us downtown, where we picked up jessica and went for cree lessons at the native friendship centre. this was my least favorite lesson there so far. it felt like everyone was pretty racist (it seems like every person who has "native" blood denies any existence of "white" blood in them, and continues to be outrageously angry towards "white" people. arg!), and the teacher kept telling me that my cree teacher at university was no good. what a jerk! my cree instructor is this amazing, beautiful woman who is easily one of the best teachers i have ever had. i left the place fuming. becky drove the three of us back to steeps, where becky and i stayed to watch jessica play a couple of songs to start open mic. so nice. i walked home and found my mom and emily waiting for me. we walked to high level diner for supper. emily and i both felt pretty bummed, mostly because of boys. also that night, i got a facebook invite to be friends with a girl in one of my classes, who had told me earlier that day that she and some friends had seen emery and me together at a show, and her friends wanted her to find out from me "what his name is, where he works, and if [he and i] are together." what the hell? but she said that's not why she wanted to be friends. meh. i hope not, because other than that, she's pretty neat.

i want you to sew a button on my shirt

wednesday, march 5: i skipped going to steeps and cree with jessica so that i could meet emily and my mom for supper at three bananas café. actually, i went to steeps, but jessica called me to say she couldn't make it on time, so i went home before i went downtown. it was nice to hang out with emily and mom. i got some hot chocolate there, and it was especially exciting because it was the first time i had ever had latte art done on a drink of mine (i don't drink coffee - only tea and hot chocolate - so i usually never get it done on my drinks). afterwards, the three of us went to south edmonton common so that i could buy some yarn and embroidery thread at michael's, and some board and a paint roller (all for my contemporary aboriginal art class project) at home depot. i dropped emily off at her place, and then mom and i came back to my house. she was staying over because she had teachers' convention or something in the city from wednesday until friday. afterwards, i worked on an assignment for ecological anthropology (i wrote a fake letter to alberta's minister of education, trying to persuade him to develop a program to teach aboriginal high school students in northern alberta to use GIS/GPS (geographic information system/global positioning system).

thursday, march 6: i skipped out of my ecological anthropology class half an hour early, because we had just watched an hour-long video for the class and i was feeling antsy and didn't really want to break into small groups to discuss it. plus, the university had just released the class list for next semester, so i was excited to check it out and figure out all of my new classes. on the way back home, i ran into emery at his locker, which was fortuitous because we had planned to meet an hour later at the exact same spot, but this time was even more convenient. i had just wanted him to show me some of the prints he had donated for the SDA's show/fundraiser or whatever. they were pretty neat, and made me insanely jealous that he gets to get a degree in MAKING THINGS. emery also gave me a mix cd that he had apparently started making for me a little while ago but had never gotten around to giving me. high fives. i went home and looked at all the new courses and then went to my aboriginal art class from 6:00 until 9:00.

thinking outrageously, i write in cursive

sunday, march 2: i worked at the legislature from 11:45 until 5:15.

monday, march 3: i volunteered at the bissell from 8:00 until 11:00. it was pretty uneventful. i like seeing becky and angie every time i'm there, though. i went to cree class for 15 minutes so that my instructor could check over my cree autobiography (Tân’si. Caylie nit’siyihkâson. Vermilion ohci niya sâkastenohk. Nititahtopiponân nîstanaw newosâp. Nîyânanosâp ehakimiht ekînihtâwikiyân onôcihitowipîsimohk. Lawrence nohtâwiy isîyihkâsow. Mawasakopayihewew mostoswak. Maxine nikâwiy isîyihkâsow. Okiskinohamâkew. Nitayâwâwak nîso nisîmisak. Nisîmisak isîyihkâsowak Emily ekwa Alyssa.), and then i went home. emery texted me to ask if the sun set off my balcony, and asked if we could do an art project involving the sun the next day. i gave him an enthusiastic "yes!" i bummed around and worked on homework. i went to my popping and locking class for 15 minutes, but i decided i don't want to go anymore, so i left and came home and made art.

tuesday, march 4: in between classes, i cleaned my house. i also got a letter from kelsey. it was less of a letter, and more just the lyrics to the degrassi theme song. who needs a real letter with that kind of message? emery came over at 5:00 or so, and i helped him with an ADORABLE project for class. i guess he's doing some thing where he needs to make a brochure about a social issue, but it can be a made-up social issue, so he decided he wanted to pretend that people were trying to have geometry taken out of the schools, and he was trying to save it. so, in an adorably science of sleep-esque fashion, we set to constructing a mobile made out of pink, blue, and clear pieces from geometry sets; thread; and 11 wooden skewers. we sat on my floor and taped/sewed (a more accurate term would be "lashed") the skewers into a rectangular frame, and then tied the geometry pieces onto the skewers so they sat at varying lengths. i'm even jealous of myself for experiencing such a cute moment. then i held our hideously adorable mobile out on my balcony in front of the sun, and emery took pictures of the geometry pieces floating in the air. it was really windy that day, though, so the threads got all tangly, and emery decided not to take the mobile home that day because it was big and would be awkward to carry on the bus and in the wind. after he left, i hung it up because it had just been sitting on the floor, and it made me feel really inspired to make some more mobiles. they are beautiful things! i e-mailed him to say so, and he said i could keep the mobile we made if i wanted it. heck yes i want it! it is so sad and funny and cute. i was also going through my photographs on my computer that night to find some pictures for my cree autobiography presentation, and i found this one. mobiles in the forest! wow!

later that night, kev picked me up at my apartment, and we went to west edmonton mall to watch "into the wild" at the cheap theatres. i hadn't seen it before, but he had. it was a pretty interesting movie, but i didn't like the main character at all. plus, he reminded me of somebody, and that didn't make me feel very good, so i cried. it felt good to cry. i've hardly cried at all in the last year. i LOVE crying. this wasn't a very good cry, but it was at least something. it's also nice to be hanging out with kev again. he's a good guy. he let me adopt him as a big brother, because sometimes i just feel like i need one.

come on, star! come on, snow! come on, car!

kelsey's sick of filler, so i have to start getting to the point.

wednesday, february 27: jessie and i hung out at steeps from 4:00 until 5:00, then bussed downtown for cree at the native friendship centre. i had mad cramps, so i left at 7:00 and walked to jasper ave. and bussed home. i laid in bed with a hot water bottle but couldn't sleep. when i felt a little better, i had some chicken and bannock that alyssa had made for us for supper.

thursday, february 28: class all day. i went to vivid print and then a framing place in HUB to see if they could stretch my knitted raven. i ended up just buying a piece of foam core and binding my raven onto that.

friday, february 29: went to the elementary school, but it was p.d. day for them, so they were closed. i ran into shannon m. on the street - i hadn't seen her in YEARS - so we made plans to go to good earth café for coffee next friday. walked to the paint spot to buy some canvas. bussed to earthly goods to buy some black wool felt. had cree class. went to see "famous puppet death scenes" with becky, sarah d., and beth t., on jonathan k.'s advice. i wasn't sure what to expect. i'm usually not all that into theatre, and i didn't think i'd be into puppets at all. the show was AMAZING. i couldn't believe it. everything was so beautiful and incredibly creative and well done. go see it if you ever get a chance. afterwards becky and sarah and i went to steeps because jessica was working (she had to miss seeing the puppet show to work) because there was a show going on. i ended up seeing a ton of people i know: jessica, jenni, bethany, joel, bethany's sister kaeli, marney, marney's boyfriend simon, liam, liam's girlfriend mel, doug, lisa, and hahn. i ended up seeing twenty people i know that day, excluding classmates. that's a lot! it makes me feel like i am experiencing good community in edmonton.

saturday, march 1: hung out with my friend kev. we met at my house, and stopped at remedy to see davina (we are all former AFLers), and also saw bri and karen, who were hanging up bri's photography for her show opening. then we walked to the farmers' market and hung out there for a while. we walked to the legislature, stopping at remedy on the way for some complimentary tea and chicken that davina had promised us. at the legislature, we stood around in support for the gathering for the people in fort chipewyan. they were calling for a moratorium on new development in the oil sands, and pleading for people to think about these issues when they go to the polls. kev and i LRT'd back to my house (we would have walked, but it was SUPER cold), and then he drove me to whyte ave. so i could pick up some paint from the paint spot. i bussed home. at about 8:00, i met jessie at remedy so we could check out bri's show. there were a lot of people i really like there, but i wasn't feeling very sociable, so jessie and her brother eric and i went to the movie studio to rent some movies. they went to their place, and i watched "edward scissorhands" by myself at my apartment. it was really nice, especially since it was so cold and snowy out.