monday, january 19th:
i met with my cree teacher for about an hour to talk about making a few small changes to the first- and second-year cree program. then i worked at the elementary school for an hour, tutored cree for an hour, and had my social impact assessment class for three hours. i rounded out the evening by watching recent "scrubs" episodes on my computer and downloading the arrested development soundtrack. that last part made me especially happy.

tuesday, january 20th:
i woke up to find that the fine leather rope that i have worn twisted around my left wrist since summer 2003 had broken for the very first time ever. a pretty monumental start to a pretty monumental day, i guess. i undid one wrap of the rope and re-tied it, so now there are only 9 wraps instead of 10. i seriously feel like a little part of me is gone. i had class all day between 9:30 and 6:30, interspersed with tutoring cree, working at the school, and meeting with the director of the aboriginal teacher education program (atep). i have applied for this program for next year, and it seems like it will be a really incredible program. basically, it is the 3rd and 4th years of an elementary ed. degree, but all the courses are taught from an aboriginal perspective. also, it is a cohort model, so students take ALL their courses together over the 2 years of the program. it's so perfect! the only problem is that it isn't going to run if less than 25 students register. boo. i don't think they are going to get that many. therefore, the reason i met with the director that day was to gather some materials to take over to king's to advertise the program during their winter semester i.s. conference.

wednesday, january 21st:
i skipped class, work at the school, and tutoring to take in the first day of king's i.s. conference on the truth and reconciliation commission and residential schools. i sat with matt, angela, naomi, and dan, all of whom i know through a combination of native studies at the u of a and english/students' association at king's. i also saw karen and dr. z., as well as a couple of girls from vermilion who now attend king's. i left the conference a little earlier so i could catch the #80 (it only comes every half hour, i think), and then met julia at good earth café for tea. later, i bussed down to whyte to meet natasha and bethany at the chapters starbucks for crafting and cupcakes. it was good to see bethany, especially because i don't get to see her as much as i'd like to. she is very crafty and creative and i am often very inspired by her. it was also, of course, good to see natasha. i like being around her because i think we share the same addiction to creating and dislike for most social situations.

thursday, january 22nd:
class allllll day. elementary school at lunch; tutoring cree in the afternoon. jenni came over around 8:00 for a visit. it was good to see her and hear about how she spends her time and energy.

friday, january 23rd:
i tutored cree for an hour, and then took the LRT downtown, where i met darcy for lunch at the curry fix. oh, i guess i didn't write much in november, so you may or may not know that darcy and i, after a disastrous break-up and 2 years of not speaking, are friends again. and it is great. he is interesting and irreverent about things that people should be irreverent about, and reverent towards things that should be revered, and i am grateful to be able to converse with him again. more importantly, i am grateful to have someone accompany me to the curry fix, which is conveniently located but INCONVENIENTLY only open from 11-3 on weekdays. after lunch, i met meghan at the bus stop, and we took the #5 to bearclaw gallery, which she needed to review for an art education class. we visited MEC afterwards and stopped for vanilla bean hot chocolates at second cup, and then went home. i spent the rest of the night crafting.

on monday, i tutored cree for an hour after working at the elementary school. then i had my 3-hour social impact assessment class. i rushed out of class at 4:50, and caught the LRT and then the #151 to the nina haggerty centre for the arts for our board meeting. when the meeting ended at 7:30, i LRT'd to emily's condo because she had invited me for supper. i am never one to turn down a free meal. she made some pretty impressive lemon chicken and potatoes and steamed vegetables, and i watched CSI: miami on her couch and ate handfulls of bailey's chocolates (i don't like the bailey's, but i am also not one to skip on free chocolate).

on tuesday i had cree, then the elementary school, then alberta archaeology. my northwest coast archaeology class was cancelled that week because our professor was in japan, so i took advantage of the free time and LRT'd to the north-end michael's, where i spent too much money on yarn. i bought a couple of different kinds: one was 100% wool in cognac heather, the others were 70% bamboo and 30% silk, in moss and bark. i'll be making two sweaters for myself from these. exciting! i've already started on the moss-colored bamboo and silk one. after michael's, i had my educational information technology class from 5:00 until 6:30. ugh.

on wednesday i had cree at 9, my 3-hour IT lab at 10 (although i finished my assignment as was out by 10:45), the elementary school at 11:25, and tutoring at 1. i spent the afternoon crafting at home, and then walked to natasha's (i missed the bus by SECONDS, and it was beautiful out anyway) for some royal bison crafting time. on the way home, i missed the bus again, so it was a solid 50-block round trip. i didn't mind at all, though. i like long walks by myself, as long as the weather is not windy and warmer than -15.

thursday was the same as tuesday, although my michael's excursion was substituted by a tutoring session at good earth café with a new student named nate. i think it went reasonably well. oh, i also ran into my friend meghan that day, who invited me to some bar opening on friday. i haven't seen her in a long time, so i decided to go.


on fridays, the only thing i REALLY have to do is work at the school over noon hour. it was really nice and sunny out, so i decided to put on my snowpants so i could go tobogganing with the kids, or at least not get wet knees when i pushed them. i ended up sledding the whole time, and it was ridiculously awesome. i'ma wear my snowpants there more often. after that, i came home and changed and then went to rutherford house for afternoon tea by myself. it is really hard to get a reservation there for the weekend, and everyone i talk to isn't free to go when i am during the week, so i decided to just go alone. i didn't mind one bit. after that, i went to go talk to the lady in charge of our non-profit board placements. i have been having trouble picking a project, but after a long, thoroughly enjoyable discussion, we decided my project would just be researching various potential fundraisers. i think it is a very fitting project. later in the evening, i took the #7 to meet meghan and some of our mutual friends at that bar, but i didn't stay long. i wanted to walk home, since it was another beautiful evening. i crafted, of course, when i got home. i also booked a bus ticket to go visit my incredible friend robin in red deer in two weekends from now. exciting!

i also crafted all morning on saturday. i tutored cree for an hour at 2:30, and then came home for a bit. then i walked to megatunes to visit jessica for a little bit, and stopped at american apparel on my way home. i also went to the movie studio and rented three movies. i watched "the delicate art of parking" and "the piano teacher" that night while crafting, and then watched "the page turner" this morning while crafting. they were all okay, but not really great. today i took the movies back, went to earth's general store to refill my shampoo and conditioner bottles, and bought some bread and juice at safeway. i have been trying to do some reading for class since then, but my brain is entirely disinterested.

the pictures here are of bison, moose, and mammoth wall hangings i have made for the royal bison. i have a couple more coming - the animals are cut out of a dark brown pinecone fabric. i really like the way the brown swirly fabric accentuates the bisonness, mooseness, and mammothness of each of the figures.

this is the sweater i've been knitting for myself - my very first knitted sweater that i've ever made! i slightly modified some patterns i found on ravelry. the yarn is 70% wool and 30% soy, and the buttons are brown, burgundy, and beige.

on friday, i worked at the elementary school at noon, and then spent the early afternoon internetting. i've been considering making a website for my crafting stuff, but i'm not sure i want to invest money into it, especially since i can't get the domain name i want.

jessica came over at 3:00, and we both crocheted and drank tea and talked. we haven't crafted together for a long time, so it was really nice. i made some spaghetti for myself for supper, and then got on the LRT. kaylin met me at central station, and she looked INCREDIBLY cute. she is pretty cute in general, but her hair is pretty short now and she has started to curl it in a really pretty way. we LRT'd to belvedere, and then took a bus to londonderry mall. there, we went to "the laugh shop" for shannon's birthday party, which started at 7:00. the comedians were mediocre to terrible, but it was nice to see old friends, including jeremy, chris, and evan, and of course shannon. afterwards we went to a sketchy bar in the mall because everyone else wanted to karaoke, but i hate karaoke and bars, so i mostly just knitted my sweater. i also knitted it during the comedians. i'm glad i did it, too, because i got a lot of work done. at about 11:30, kaylin and i walked out to the bus stop and headed home. it was so good to hang out with her. she is so bright and creative and bitter and sarcastic and funny and cute and irreverent. i wish we could hang out more often.

monday, january 5th was the first day of the winter semester of school. this semester, i don't have class on any day between 11:25 and 12:25, so have been working as a noonhour supervisor at the elementary school i worked at last year. it is pretty enjoyable. i mostly just toboggan or play dodgeball or floor hockey or watch movies with the kids. on friday i taught one of the new little girls how to toboggan, because her family originated in the middle east, then moved to ireland, and finally moved here, and she has never been tobogganing before. cute.

after supervising during the lunch hour on monday, i was supposed to tutor cree, but the boy i tutor and i were both busy with beginning-of-term stuff. i had my first class at 2 p.m. it is AREC 550: social and economic impact assessments. the downsides about the class are that it is a 3-hour long class every monday afternoon, and it seems like it will be a lot of work. the upside is that we get to do a REAL social impact assessment on a community about an hour southeast of edmonton. neat! i am pretty excited about that part. after class, jessica and i went to see slumdog millionaire. it is pretty incredible, and you should see it if you get a chance.

on tuesday, i had cree at 9:30, the elementary school at 11:25, alberta archaeology at 12:30, northwest coast archaeology at 2:00, and educational information technology at 5:00. i also bussed down to "earthly goods" (a quilting store) to buy iron-on applique stuff. earlier that day, natasha had invited me to share her table at the next royal bison. exciting! so i had to go to the quilting store to get some materials for the appliqué wallhangings i was planning on making for the royal bison. i also managed to snag my sister's car after my last class, and i bought a ton of groceries at both sunterra and safeway, and also went to michael's to buy some embroidery hoops for the aforementioned wall hangings. in addition to all this crafting, i am also trying to make myself cook nutritious, full meals more often, so that is why i stopped at the grocery stores three different times that night.

on wednesday i had my cree lab at 9:00. my computer lab was cancelled that day, but i worked the noonhour supervision thing (we played dodgeball) and then i tutored cree at 1:00. i crafted all afternoon, and then made some spicy chicken pizza for my sister and myself for supper. my sister drove me to natasha's at 7. we crafted and drank tea and strategized for the royal bison and listened to memorable songs from high school. she also lent me the 3rd season of "the office."

thursday was pretty much the same as tuesday, with an absence of shopping and a pizza reprise.

every new day seems so new

my mom drove me back to edmonton on december 30th. she slept over because she wasn't sure if the roads were good, and alyssa's bed was free because alyssa was in cuba for a vacation. while she was here, my mom cleaned my whole kitchen, and now i am trying really hard to keep it clean and do my dishes every day instead of letting them pile up. i have been pretty good at doing so, but alyssa isn't. inspired by my mom, i decided to clean up more of my house. i borrowed emily's carpet cleaner and good vacuum, and set to work cleaning, vacuuming, and sorting out/purging all my piles of papers and junk. i spent the rest of my christmas holidays doing that and crafting, but if you came and visited i doubt you'd even be able to tell that i cleaned much. but i did! i am really trying to do all that cleaning because alyssa is moving out in april, and i am either stuck with having to pay the entire amount of rent myself, or find a roommate. there's a possibility that jessica might move in with me in the spring, but i think that kind of depends on where she is working at that time. she often goes up north to work at a camp, so i'm not sure if she'll be around. i hope we do eventually get to live together, though, and i hope it goes well. i know i can be pretty hard to live with.

anyway. the rest of my christmas holidays went like this:

i spent new year's eve at what used to be the velvet underground, watching illfit outfit play. jenni, jessica, jonathan, and landon were all there, and it was really nice to see all of them. however, i hate bars and i hate new year's and i hate being out after dark, so jessica, jon, landon and i left as soon as illfit was done at 11:15. they dropped me off at home, where i spent the next few hours working on a sweater i had started knitting for myself. it is my first knitted sweater, and i will post pictures when it is done.

on new year's day, i spent the morning working on my sweater some more. in the afternoon, i took the LRT and then the #5 (i think) to government house (just south of the royal alberta museum) for the lieutenant governor's new year's levee. i've never been before, and i'm glad i went. i mostly just stood in line for a long time, but i got to see the inside of government house (which was built in 1913 for the first lieutenant governor, but hasn't been used as a residence since the 1930s or so), signed the LG's guestbook, shook hands with the LG and his wife, and (this is the best part) had some really incredible little cakes and roast beef sandwiches. a historical tour and some great free food? this year is off to a good start.

the next day, i met my cree student at rutherford library for a tutoring session. later that evening, i bid on this on ebay. i have been wanting to re-line my blue winter jacket ever since i bought it, and this year it is dirty and ripped enough for me to actually get started on that. my mom is going to give me her mom's old brown mink coat to cut up and line my coat with, but i want some white or grey fur to line the hood and bottom and sleeves. don't think i'm a terrible person, okay? these coats are all second-hand, and fur is warm and edmonton is freezing. also, it turned out that someone outbid me at the last second, so i am still looking for old white fur coats to cut up for it. rabbit is easy to find, but it is not very good to wear because the hairs fall out really easily. are you appalled by me yet?

on saturday, the mom of the boy i tutor came over to drop off my pay for december, and then drove me to the farmers' market. i got potatoes, carrots, fudge, onion, garlic, and raspberry jam. i bussed home and worked on my sweater some more.

on sunday, i went for a late lunch with my friend erica. we rowed together at the u of a last year, and then i stayed at her place in halifax when she moved there this summer. we went to dadeo, and had a perfect perfect hangout. it was just long enough to catch up and have a really great conversation. she is so creative, and i love hearing what she has been up to (she is taking jewelry design craft at NSCAD in halifax). i spent the evening printing out hundreds of pages of notes for my northwest coast archaeology class, which was kind of a pain in the ass but nice that we didn't have to buy a textbook. our professor actually scanned every page that we will need, and made them available through e-class. impressive.

natasha's right - i AM trying to blog more often this year.

so here are the details from christmas:

i drove from edmonton to my parents' on the afternoon of christmas eve. my sisters and dad and i all went into town to visit my grandparents at the lodge. then we came home and did our traditional christmas eve gingerbread cookie decorating. we also ate perogies for supper. we aren't really all that traditional, but because of my dad's ukrainianness, we aren't allowed to eat any meat on christmas eve. so although i had been looking forward to a big, meaty meal after all that travelling, i was stuck with just perogies. boo.

we opened our presents on christmas morning (i thought i'd point that out, because other people do it other times, you know?). i mostly got money, but i also got two things of second cup vanilla bean hot chocolate mix (my favourite!) from emily, a $25 gift card to chapters from alyssa, and - here's the best one - the gift from my parents was to have the quilt i've been working on for the last year and and a half quilted (if that doesn't make sense, here's an explanation: i sewed all the pieces together to make the pattern on top and the backing, but someone with an industrial-sized machine is going to quilt the top, batting, and backing together. once i get it back, i'll have to hand-sew the binding around the edges). here is a sneak peek. when i took this picture, i still hadn't sewed on the two borders around the main part. so, this is called a log cabin quilt. mine has 64 squares, and each square is made up of 17 strips of fabric. apparently, "quilters are told that [each square] represents log cabins on the prairie with red center squares for the hearth, light values on one side for the sunny side of the house and dark values on the opposite side for the shady side of the house." neat, huh? so that's pretty much what i worked on for the week i was home during christmas. i didn't see any of my friends at all, but i talked briefly on the phone to jessica, dustan, and andrea. i also watched the entire 4th season of "the office," as well as "the dark knight" (which i didn't really like at all).

on christmas day, my grandma and gido and auntie lorraine and uncle pete came over to my parents' house, and we all had dinner at 1:00. the nicest thing from christmas was when i showed my gido bill my quilt after he had seen me cross-stitching (which i was doing partly because i don't like being in a room with a lot of people, even when it is my own family at christmas, and partly because i know my mom will never finish the stocking she started cross-stitching for alyssa), and he remarked, "boy, you are really something, caylie." it was a really simple sentence but felt really, really nice. i like to think that he likes that i am crafty and always busy, like my grandma. i sure do love my gido.

anyway... back to quilting. since i had a reasonable amount of fabric left from my quilt, and most of it was cut into 1.5" strips, i decided to try to make a star-blanket wallhanging with the scraps. it's about 20" x 20", and my mom is going to put it up in her living room. i did the quilting of the layers on this one myself. i still have to handsew the binding onto three of the sides, and that's what you can partially see in the corner of this one. i really like it overall, and think that the next quilt i do will be in this pattern.

vancouver

i'ma try to write more often. there's just so much catching up to do... i'll have to just write about the last couple of weeks, for now.

classes finished on december 3, and i had three finals scheduled plus one 10-page take-home final essay to do. the essay really stressed me out, but i finished it early so i could focus on studying. i wrote my native economic development final at 9:00 on thursday, december 11th, and then wrote my management of aboriginal natural resources final at 2:00 that same day. later that night i went to this girl alisha's house. i didn't really know her, but she used to be in native studies, and two of the girls i know from the faculty invited me to come, so i did, albeit reluctantly. i'm so glad i did! it was just the four of us there, and we just had a nice quiet night of talking about native studies stuff. it was really, really, really nice, especially because i don't often hang out with other NS majors. and those girls are all so bright and funny and aware and caring. i hope that i get to hang out with them more often this year, especially before one of them moves to yellowknife for a job with the government.

i spent most of that weekend inside because it was so freezing outside. also, i like crafting by myself.

on tuesday i wrote my cree midterm (it's a full-year course) at 9:00 a.m., and then came home and packed. i took the sky shuttle to the airport at 3:45, and then got on my plane to vancouver at 5:15. my friend caitlan, who i met this summer at the french immersion program, met me at the airport and we took the busses and skytrain back to her parents' house in burnaby. i was pretty tired, so we didn't do too much that evening except for talk. i also started teaching her how to crochet.

the next day, it started snowing like crazy. we went to the art gallery in burnaby, and in the evening we rented and watched "the diving bell and the butterfly." the next day, we took the train/bus to stanley park so i could see the totem poles there (although i don't feel very comfortable about them being there...), and then went back to burnaby to watch "milk" (which is incredible, and i highly recommend seeing!) at the theatre, and then went back to downtown vancouver to check out the art gallery. we also stopped at uncle fatih's pizza twice, and had the most incredible, cheapest pizza of all time (ie. two slices of spicy chicken pizza and a water bottle for $4). on our way out of the pizza place the second time, i ran into "math dave," who is the ONLY other person i really know who lives in vancouver. weird.

on friday the 19th, caitlan and i woke up at 5:30 (well, i woke up at 4:30 and couldn't fall back asleep because i was so excited) so that we could bus/train to the horseshoe bay ferry terminal to catch the 8:30 ferry to nanaimo. we also met up with three of caitlan's friends along the way. all of her friends were really bright and funny, and i was glad to spend time with them. within 15 minutes of nanaimo, huge, puffy snow started falling. ugh. so when we got to nanaimo, we decided to bus rather than walk to national car rental, where i had reserved a rental car for us. i impressed myself with my driving skills as i drove us up along highway 19, first to coombs (where we stopped at the old country market and the world parrot refuge. i had been to the market a few years ago when i went to visit my aunt and uncle in campbell river, but it was cute so i was glad to be back. i also enjoyed TWO pretty great butter chicken wraps, albeit somewhat self-consciously because of my all-vegetarian company. i had really been looking forward to the parrot refuge, but it turned out to be really really strange. first of all, because of all the snow, there was about 2 feet of snow surrounding the building, and only a little trail of one set of footprints that even showed where the entrance was. so first we walked into this one small building, which had about 70 birds squawking incredibly loudly, so we left that building in a hurry. we went into the larger building, and we could not see any humans anywhere, even though the building was open and the gift shop was unattended and hundreds of birds were flying around in their large cages. we didn't have time to take the self-guided tour of the refuge, and even if we had, none of us really felt like paying the $12-per-person entrance fee, so we left. we then drove to the incredible cathedral grove. i've been there once in the summer before, but never in winter, and neither caitlan nor her friends had ever been. it is really something else, and if you've never been, you should try to go at least once. i think it feels like one of the most sacred places i have ever been. it's an old-growth forest, and some of its trees are 800 years old! after walking around the grove, we headed back to nanaimo. we knew we had missed the 5:00 ferry, so we took our time returning the rental car and walking back down to the ferry terminal for the 7:00 ferry. we got home at around 10:30, feeling exhausted but happy.

caitlan worked the next day (at cobs bread), and i was so tired that i just stayed at her place and watched most of season 1 and 2 of "the office" while knitting sweaters for parrots. it's a good way to use up little bits of yarn, okay? when caitlan came back from work, she and her boyfriend and i watched some pink panther movie her boyfriend had rented. it was a little weird.

on my "last" day in vancouver, i packed up all my things and caitlan and i left her house at about 11:00. we trained/bussed to stanley park to see the aquarium. it was great! unfortunately, we had to go at 5, both because the place was closing and i had to get to the airport to catch my 8:50 flight. caitlan bussed with me to the airport and then we said goodbye and she headed home. i checked in for my flight, and saw that it had been delayed 4 hours. while i waited in the airport, the snow started falling harder and harder. the airport started shutting down runways and cancelling flights, and finally, at about 10:30, my flight was cancelled too. by that time, several flights had already been cancelled and there were more than 1000 angry, tired people who were waiting for the airlines to find hotels and new flights for them. i just called a hostel downtown and found out they had tons of room, so i took a couple of busses there and ended up staying for two nights. it was actually pretty enjoyable. my favourite part of travelling is the inconveniences that sometimes come up. i like problem solving, i guess. plus it gave me time to do some of the things i couldn't do earlier: visit the granville island market, walk around downtown, eat at a really incredible indian restaurant, and be by myself. i LOVE travelling by myself (although i also loved visiting with caitlan). i ended up getting a flight back to edmonton on the 23rd, two days after my original flight. i was lucky, too, because i think that people who got flights later than that ended up getting those cancelled as well on account of the weather. while i was waiting for my flight, the airport's fire alarm started going off very loudly, and didn't stop for about 25 minutes. i think i would count vancouver airport as my least favourite airport experience. i did get home safe and sound, though, and i drove to my parents' place the next day.

that is enough for one post, yeah? more later.