UVic offered me admission into their master's program in anthropology, and a little bit of money to go along with it. i've accepted. i'm moving to victoria in the fall! i plan on being back in alberta for at least three weeks in august, in between DC and BC, to hang out and rest and craft and get my fill of prairie thunderstorms.

usually i like continuing my blog chronologically, without gaps, but last week was sorta noteworthy so i thought i'd update you all on my goings-on.

1. if you have been living under a rock (i.e., if you don't have facebook or something), you might not have heard that i am moving back to DC. well, i am. i got an internship at a second language testing place, doing work with an indigenous language. i'm being a little vague just because i don't want to write keywords that would make this blog come up if people were looking for that project or kind of work. ask me about it and i'll tell you all about it. yeah, i know i should stop doing internships. i know i have been in university for 7 years and have a pretty fantastic résumé and should start getting jobs that actually pay me for the work i am capable of doing. but i can't stay in one place for long and i like learning new things all the time, so internships are pretty much perfect for me. the internship is paid (although not fantastically well), and it lasts for at least 3 months, with the possibility of extending longer as an internship or even as a full-time paid position. there are a few things that will factor into what i decide to do. but first, onto point 2:

2. i found out that i didn't get accepted into the master's program i had applied to at UBC. it was an M.A. in museum studies, and i would have been perfect for the program, but they had 130 applicants and only 22 spots, and there weren't any professors there who were qualified to supervise the research i had proposed. oh well. i'm not too bummed. i would have liked living near caitlan but i didn't like the thought of committing to vancouver for two years. i'm still waiting to hear from UVic, but... i'm not really expecting/hoping to get in. before i knew that i didn't get in, i thought that i would spend my three months in DC, come back in mid-july, stay in edmonton until the end of august to do fun summery things with friends, and then move to vancouver. but now that's not an option, so what i may do is extend my stay in DC for the whole summer (if i really like the work and the company really likes me, and if i can handle the heat down there) and then come back to work in edmonton. IF i can find a job. or i might stay in DC. or i might move anywhere. the world is my oyster.

3. but what about that handsome boy you were always talking about, caylie? oh, turns out he's not that interested in me, and doesn't really want to bother continuing anything with me, even for the next four weeks i'll still be around in edmonton. par for the course. i'll save further self-indulgent grumblings for face-to-face conversations with friends, only because i know the dangers of posting slanderous words about ex-...semi-intimate partners?... on the internet. but i will have you know i have been feeling quite deflated lately as a result of all of this.

4. i mailed a $300 deposit to someone in DC for a room in a house in a neighbourhood called "friendship heights." cute, huh? i hope i didn't get duped. from there, i can take a 15-minute metro ride to my work, or a 50-minute bike ride along a trolley-line-turned-bicycle-trail. i won't be as silly as i was the last time i was in DC - i plan on buying a bike the first weekend i'm there this time. i can't wait for bike rides and weather warm enough to wear dresses every day and good frozen yogurt and weekend trips to NY.

so. i'm moving away on april 15th. i'll be back, but i don't know when. you should consider coming to DC or NY to visit me.

highlights from february 14-20:

-getting some work done on my bike (i.e., front brakes (i would have done back breaks first, but the boy helping me at the bike shop thought it would be a good idea to do front brakes first if they were the only ones i had. hmm...), handlebars (although apparently the stem is for a bmx bike, which will apparently eff up the headset if i leave it on there too long, so i've got to change the stem soon), and a seat) to make it rideable.

-drove to vermilion and back to visit my parents and grandparents and to pick up my mom's car for the week.

-met robin for breakfast at café mosaics on monday, and then went for cupcakes at fuss. after that, we went to west ed., where we bought frozen yogurt and robin purchased himself a desktop computer from apple. when we were there, the salesman assumed we were a couple. it was nice to pretend things like that for a while. robin said that when we were talking, it sounded like we were quite affluent and well-established artists or designers (well, he really is) because we were mentioning how we each have our own laptop and desktop with adobe creative suites on all of them. ha. afterwards robin let me nap for a bit, and then we went and watched crazy heart at garneau. we went to remedy afterwards before robin headed back to red deer. he had never been there before and apparently he fell in love with it.

-picked up caitlan from the viarail station late on monday night.

-had breakfast at my crush's work with caitlan on tuesday.

-went to elk island park with caitlan and jessica on tuesday. we walked around for maybe an hour and then sat on a picnic table in the sun for nearly an hour. i usually have an immensely hard time sitting and doing nothing, especially outside (i don't like wind touching my face), but the conversation was so good that i didn't mind it one bit.

-ate supper at the southside curry fix with caitlan on tuesday.

-on wednesday, caitlan and i walked to café mosaics for breakfast, thinking that it opened at 9, but apparently in the winter it doesn't open until 11. boo. we checked out upper crust, but they didn't open until 11 either, so we ended up eating at high level diner. i love their blueberry crumble, but there's not a lot else there i really like. we walked back across the river and one of my former coworkers from the legislature gave us a tour there. afterwards, we sat in on question period. it was neat! i've sat in on it before, but i don't think i've ever bothered staying the full hour. plus, that day the MLA from my riding introduced a bunch of drag queens who came to visit. fun. caitlan and i came home afterwards for quiet time because we are both extreme introverts and we need it. in the evening, caitlan went over to jessica's so the two of them and becky could play music together. while they were doing that, i went for hot chocolate with my crush and then we went for a walk around the legislature grounds, during which he asked if he could kiss me. heck yes! but i don't like kissin' in public that much, so we went back to my apartment for a little bit. you know. after a little while i went to kim's house to meet up with caitlan, who had been dropped off there by becky. leila came a little while later, and there were some other peeps too who i don't know very well. we crafted and it was cosy and lovely.

-on thursday, caitlan and i ate breakfast at café mosaics, and then drove to vermilion and back to pick up emily. sometimes my family does things really inefficiently, and so rather than having emily take the bus, everyone insisted that she be driven back to edmonton. that task fell to me. anyway, i liked showing caitlan the prairies, but i was starting to get tired of driving. the three of us ate supper at remedy, and then caitlan and i rented amelia and crocheted mittens for our loved ones.

-on friday, jessica, caitlan, and i drove to athabasca to visit the boreal forest at the camp jessy used to work at. it was pretty lovely. when we got back, we visited the bug room at the royal alberta museum, because: (a) bugs are awesome, and (b) i have a free yearly pass for 2 people for any of the provincial historic sites in alberta - let me know if you wanna go to one! then we went to the muttart conservatory because kim said she would give us a tour there if we got there in the last half hour before it closed (kim used to be a tour guide there, and the conservatory is FREE every day for the last half hour), but it turned out the hours had changed and we were too late. boo. we went to my crush's work to pick up supper, and then we went to the northside steeps, where jessica played a lovely set and caitlan accompanied her on a few songs. in addition to jessica and caitlan, becky, jenni, shamira, kim, leila, my crush, and several other lovely people filled the room. it was pretty perfect to have so many people that i love in one place. we were exhausted and i was sort of tired-grumpy from driving all day, so we went straight to bed afterwards.

-on saturday caitlan and i LRT'd/walked to joel & nathan's house, because the two of them were hosting a cool runnings brunch. i notably and mistakenly misspoke, and told nathan to "be less nathan," which is NOT what i meant but it came out that way. sorry, pal. it should be obvious by now that i like you just the way you are. anyway, joel, nathan, leanne, caitlan, bethany, natasha, my crush, and i ate delicious waffles and bacon and even more delicious fruit and yogurt. and we kissed the lucky egg and let the jamaicans steal our hearts. my crush had to go to work afterwards, so caitlan and i left around 2:00 and stopped at the new frozen yogurt place in city centre mall (frozen yogurt is so the new cupcakes, FYI). then we stopped for a few groceries and came home for our requisite introvert-naps. supper was at dadeo (with caitlan commenting that edmonton has a lot of great places to eat - which it does!), and then we went to hawrelak park for their silver skate and aboriginal winter camp festival thing. it was cute and fun. we came home and crafted and watched julie and julia.

-i drove caitlan to the train station on sunday morning for her 7:45 a.m. train. thanks for visiting, friend.

highlights from february 7-13:

-warm granola with bri at my crush's work

-sketchy jesus with nathan and natasha

-hot chocolate with kim

-pizza and cake with my sisters for alyssa's birthday

-a much-anticipated but short walk with my crush across high level bridge and back (short because he came after work, at 9:30 p.m., and could only hang out for an hour because he was getting up to drive to vancouver the next morning at 4 a.m. or something)

-lots of various work: editing a civil engineering master's student's thesis, tutoring cree and human ecology, sewing, supervising kids at the elementary school, stuff for the cree language project

-a meeting for the cree language project, where the staff in charge of the project in my faculty made me feel really good about the work i've done so far and the work i will be doing for them

-lunch with bethany at my crush's work

-supper with becky at my crush's work (on the same day as lunch with bethany there. eek.)

-come-over-and-draw-party-turned-come-over-and-gossip-and-eat-all-this-food-party at natasha's, featuring natasha, bethany, leanne, and joel