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

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

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

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

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

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

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

on monday night i worked on my anthropology essay.

you can always do your homework on the morning bus

on tuesday i got up at 7:00 so that i could shower and collect a bunch of craft supplies and meet emery in fab at 8:00. we did this portrait-y thing in the photo lab, but the girl who was supposed to unlock the room got there late, so we only had 45 minutes to do it in. i felt pretty awkward the whole time, and i still feel bad because i am terribly unphotogenic and i'm pretty sure every shot he took of me will not be very flattering (my fault, not his), but it was still really enjoyable. i am kind of living vicariously through all my friends who are taking art or design in school. also, emery said he wanted the portrait to have to do with my creativity or something, and it felt really, really nice to be recognized in that way. a lot of times i am really insecure about my creativity and technical ability to do creative things, i think probably because i've been led to understand that there's a division between art and craft, and that craft is seen as being far less prestigious. anyway, tuesday was filled with excitement, so i will continue with the play by play.

in my intro native studies course, we were given a 5-day extension on our term papers. hooray!

in my anthro 474 class, i did a really really ridiculously awesome class presentation that i am still feeling good about. basically, we were all supposed to come up with a class presentation to share information from the term papers we had each written. i really hate powerpoint presentations and slide shows, and i kind of have a penchant for creative presentations (past projects of mine have included a diorama of the garden in hamlet made entirely of pipecleaners; an 18-page essay on literary theory done in iambic pentametre and rhyming couplets; and a comparison of two arthurian legend characters, demonstrated with a pair of gingerbread cookies - one decorated in black icing, and one in white - for every person in my class), so i decided to do what i love doing best. since my essay was on northwest coast ceremonial button robes ("button blankets"), i decided to sew blank miniature button blankets for all my classmates out of navy and red craft felt. then i made little packages for each person, which included some pieces of red felt, some white plastic beads, and a needle and thread. during the presentation, i had my classmates work on their "robes" while i told them about the construction, validation, and use of the button robes. i should make note that this, like all of my "creative" presentations, was not just an easy-out. i had specifically chosen this form of presentation for a few reasons: firstly, the main function of the button robe is to serve as a reminder to its wearer and the community of names, rights, priviledges, lineages, and laws. the northwest coast traditionally did not use a written language to record laws; instead, they recognize button blankets as a symbol and reminder of those laws. therefore, in keeping with that spirit, i didn't want my classmates to be writing down the information i was telling them. instead, i wanted them to be reminded of what they'd learned by the physical object they were working with. secondly, i've been taught that it is easier to speak and easier to listen when you have something in your hands. it gives both the speaker and listener something to focus on. i wanted that both for myself and for my classmates. instead of serving as a distraction, the craft actually served to focus the listening and the learning. thirdly, i wanted my classmates to have a miniature so that they could make something that represented themselves, and then hopefully keep it as a conversation piece or pass it on to a neice or nephew, thereby continuing that process of teaching, informing, and reminding. fourthly, because of my own love for craft, i know that working with your hands in any media is relaxing and rewarding, and i wanted to give my classmates and myself a chance to chill out during a really stressful time in the school year. i think i met all my objectives. everyone seemed to really enjoy the presentation and the chance to just make stuff. this is the stuff i am really passionate about: accessible experiential education, especially regarding canadian culture and history. i hope i can make a career out of it somehow.

my last big exciting thing on tuesday was going to watch "hairspray" and "high school musical" in sub with claire. she is so, so fun. we cuddled (i.e. sat about 12" from each other but shared a blanket on a couch) and talked about our crushes and ate popcorn and subway cookies and didn't feel guilty at all about not doing schoolwork like we should have. by the way, "high school musical" was terrible, but i still maintain that "hairspray" is a really ridiculously fun movie.

count on us all stepping on our own toes tonight

i worked at the ledge on sunday from noon until 5 p.m. as usual, it was pretty enjoyable. i watched some degrassi episodes after work, because the dvd was due back at the library on monday. i did some reading for essays, but not nearly as much as i should have.

on monday i had to skip out on working at the elementary school because i had to move some of my classes around so i could attend a study session for the archaeology lab exam i have on friday. i went to the 12:00 cree class instead of my 2:00 one, and then went to the study session at 2:00. everything worked out pretty well. plus, i had an hour in there to lrt to the library to take back some cds and dvds and get some more. i chilled at home for a while after class until about 4:30. then i walked to rutherford to meet emery so he could do an interview with me for a class project. we sat between the stacks on the fourth floor on a couple of step stools, with our backs to each other, and he asked me a bunch of questions like, "circles or triangles?"; "cityscape or countryscape?"; "are art and design the same thing?" some of the questions were really hard to answer, but it was still fun and interesting to think about. afterwards i walked back home and worked on my essays. later that night emery texted me to ask if he had "pushed any wrong buttons" with the questions he had asked. funny. i hope i hadn't, like, given him the impression that i was irritated or offended by his questions or anything. yikes. like i said, they were just really interesting to think about and sometimes hard to answer.

take it to the bridge

on saturday emiline and i went to a beginner watercolor workshop at the paint spot on whyte ave. it was so, so good. infinitely better than the mixed media course i had taken at grant macewan. i think we had fun. hopefully i will get some time over christmas to practice my painting. i am sure it will never be any good, but at least i've learned to do something other than washes. we ate some lunch at opa on whyte, and then continued on with our class until 4:30. we got some hot chocolate at second cup, and then i drove us back to my house (i had driven to the paint spot in the morning, because i had planned to meet emily at my house at 9:30 that morning, but by 9:35 she had not shown up, so i called her and discovered that she had not woken up yet. to avoid being late myself, i drove down to whyte. eek).

after the workshop, i got ready for the rowing banquet. it actually ended up being pretty fun. i mostly hung out with claire, who is just becoming more and more awesome every day. we talked about our crushes, enjoyed some meat and potatoes and orange juice, and danced a lot. i have gone to two dance parties in two weeks. that is pretty amazing. plus i am hopefully going to one this weekend. i rule.

today i worked at the ledge from noon until 5. i started working on my native studies essay, but didn't get too far. mostly i worked on a presentation i am doing on button blankets on tuesday. i will write more about it after i present it. also i watched some degrassi, and talked to erica on the phone about crushes and to kelsey about mix tapes and this weekend.

exacting stare, appropriate frown

on thursday i went to all my classes, and then did some reading after class. jenni came over around 6, because we haven't hung out for a long time and we miss jus' talkin'. she was kind of headachy so she didn't hang out for very long. i walked her to the corner of 112th and 87th around 7:00 so she could catch her bus. then i walked to FAB, where i met emery. he is a handsome, handsome boy. arg. distraction. anyways. we hung out in FAB, where there was an art auction happening to support the design grads or something. it was really nice to just wander around and look at things that people had made. afterwards we bussed to whyte ave for wings. we got there a little bit early, so we walked to strathcona hotel because emery had to take a picture of something there. he had to document it all in this little scribbler. funny. then we walked back to the funky buddha, where we met up with bri, bethany, claire, and eventually adam (moby) and some other peeps. it was really nice to do wings again like old times. soooo tasty. plus, there was no cigarette smoke, like there used to be when we used to go. i left around 9:45 and walked home. i've missed walking home from whyte on winter nights. it's nice time to be by myself.

on friday morning i didn't have class, so i finished up an archaeology lab and did some reading. i went to all my labs from noon until 3, and then i came home. i did some reading, and then decided i really needed to go for a walk by myself. i've hardly gone on any good walks by myself since school started this year, so i walked across the high level bridge on the west side, and sat up on the train tracks on top of the bridge for a while. then i walked back over the east side of the bridge. i listened to a bunch of songs from the sufjan stevens christmas albums. i've been missing sufjan recently. i'm glad to have him back in my life. i spent the next couple of hours pestering emery with a flurry of text messages, trying to convince him to come see illfit outfit with me. i succeeded. i picked him up at FAB and we drove across the river to teddy's. i thought we might be late and miss some of jenni's band's set, but the bands started late, so we got there about halfway through the first band's set. the venue was shockingly enjoyable, mostly because it was really brown and not really crowded. illfit outfit played a not very good set. i could sense jenni's frustrations mounting. meh. whatevs. i still love them. emery and i decided not to stay for the last band, so we drove to the legislature because he had never been there before. we walked around a bit and, in my typically geeky fashion, i told him a ton of barely interesting facts about the ledge. afterwards i drove him home, and then i went home. a thrilling friday night.

girl who's in love with the world

on monday night i studied all night for my anthro 474 midterm. well, it was less "studying" and more "reading notes for the first time that i should have read months ago," and less of a "midterm" than an "essentially 'final' exam worth 30% of the final class mark." ugh. i wrote the exam on tuesday. i really have no idea how i did. interweb, i will keep you posted.

on tuesday after class i did some reading for an essay i have due next week. i'm doing an essay on romanticized versions of "indianness" in film, and basically talking about how, although most portrayals are total stereotypes, and there are a lot of errors regarding culture and place and stuff, the films are, as a whole, pretty beneficial because they create dialogue and also show a pretty extreme change in what the general public is willing to pay for when they go to see a show. i haven't actually started writing the essay yet, and i'm sure it'll end up being a bunch of b.s., but whatevs.

on wednesday i had class and work at the elementary school. then i bussed over to w.e.m. on the #4, a.k.a. my favorite edmonton bus route, for a haircut. first i stopped at cinnzeo for a cinnamon bun. then i got my hair cut at rain, because i had a gift certificate for there left over from last christmas, and it was almost about to expire. my bangs are short again. party on. after my haircut i walked to lewiscraft in the mall to buy some needles, and found that it wasn't there anymore! boo! i think there's an optician there or something. so then i tried shopping for some clothes because my mom said she'd pay for some christmas clothes if i bought some, but i hate shopping, so i bussed home right away. claire came over to my house and we went to the grocery store for some fruit/milk/smoothies/chocolate bars, and then drove back to w.e.m. for the stars/miracle fortress show at ed's. ugh. the tickets said doors were at 7, so we waited outside in line in the freezing cold for 45 minutes until they opened the doors at 7:45. by that time, we were totally frozen, so we wanted to keep our coats to help us warm up, but security said that there was a mandatory coat check, and THEN ed's had the nerve to CHARGE us for the coat check. red's/ed's has always been the worst edmonton venue ever, but this just made it drop to a new low. the show was pretty good, but it was really crowded and a sucky venue, so i didn't have as good a time as i potentially could have. on the plus side, though, i saw some people i really like, including robin and a girl i hope he dates soon, bri, bethany, joel, and that boy who is my not-crush-but-is-for-some-intents-and-purposes (who, like me, was evidently skipping ballroom dancing). i had thought the boy who is my REAL crush might be there, but he wasn't. boo. claire and i left just before the show ended because we are introverts who were tired and had sore backs from standing and didn't want to stand in line waiting for our coats at the lame-ass coat check.

i've made a truce with my fascinations

just now, i was doing a bit of reading just outside the u of a library, when i saw six little sticky notes stuck to the window. the first five spelled "marta," and the last was a little note that said, "we went to the rm. CALL -------." i was pretty sure i recognized the number, so i called it, and it turned out to be kaylin's! she had left these cute little notes for her group-mate, and i found them in a place that i have never ever sat before! i like us. we are both busy, so we couldn't talk long, but we made plans to leave cute sticky notes all over the city once exams are done. some will be notes to the finder, and some will be pretend notes between pretend people that have hopefully interesting stories or words in them. then people can imagine what is happening. i would like that if i found one of those notes.

also of notable mention:
-a while ago, i was on the bus and the sound of the signal light on the bus blinked IN EXACT TIME with the countdown of the blinking light at the crosswalk. i am ALWAYS hoping for that in traffic, and it never happens. my heart was so satisfied.
-when i hung out with emery last week, we were talking about magpies and how many there are in edmonton, and RIGHT THEN we saw a GREY MAGPIE. i did some internet research, and it turns out that edmonton is the only place that has really made note of any grey magpies, and that about 6 of them live in edmonton, and they are all thought to be decendants of one imperfect-albino magpie. i felt really special to be able to see one of them! he was so pretty! i am maybe going to make a stencil of a grey magpie. i mean, a stencil of a normal magpie, but paint it grey.

i'm going down down baby, yo' street in a range rover

on friday i slept in because my classes don't start until noon that day. i went to all three of my labs, and made enemies with my entire socio-cultural anthro class when i said we needed to extend a little bit of grace to the police officers involved in the robert dziekanski incident, because i'm sure none of us would have done much of a better job if we had been the ones involved. i think my classmates think i am hitler or something. whatever.

after class i came home and chilled for a bit. then i drove across the river to pick up emily from her work. i stopped at the library to pick up the miracle fortress cd i had put on hold, so i could listen to it before i see them at the stars show on wednesday. it took us AN HOUR to get back across the river. yeesh. i am glad that i rarely drive. we went to safeway to pick up some groceries (more on that later), and then drove to whyte ave. i bought some cookies and a muffin and a happy planet smoothie at planet organic; a cd at megatunes; and some supper at opa. then we went to this girl claire's house. claire is this really rad girl who i know because she coxed the novice boys' rowing crew. we were going to have a rowing party at her house that night, and even though i usually dread parties and go out of my way to avoid them, for some reason i decided not only to go, but also to go early and help prepare snacks. emily came with me because she had just broken up with her boyfriend the night before and didn't want to be alone. i sure know that feeling. anyway. i wanted to make some really ridiculously elementary-school-esque snacks, so claire and i made "ants on a log," a.k.a. the best snack food of all time. then i wanted something even more ridiculous, so i made some peanut butter and jam sandwiches and used some cookie cutters to make differently-shaped sandwiches. i put them on a platter and claire covered them with saran wrap, but the bread went hard really quickly anyway. when people started arriving, everybody thought they were sugar cookies. my whole intention was that people would pick up the sandwich and take a bite and then make a kind of scrunchy face and be grossed out by it, but would not want to be rude so they would try to hide the uneaten part of the sandwich somewhere (under a cushion, behind a book on the shelf, etc.). this turned out even better than i thought it would because they sandwiches had gotten extra gross when they dried up, but soon people caught on that they were not sugar cookies and my entertainment in that department was kind of over. but it's okay. i had a really shockingly good time, probably because i just danced a whole friggin' lot. the boys who made the playlist on their itunes kept trying to put on shitty dance mixes, but i had requested earlier that they add some other stuff, so i made sure a pretty good selection of sean-a paul, shakira, beyoncé, backstreet boys, corey hart, mims, jamiroquai, and j.t. was played. sometimes, there is just nothing that can fill my heart the way that super-manufactured pop and hip-hop can. sigh. i went home a disgustingly sweaty but blissfully happy girl.

also, that claire girl is also becoming one of my favorite new people. i found the book "the introvert advantage" on her bookself. we had some good conversation regarding our introvertedness. we talked about art and craft and design. i like her a lot. i wish she was not moving away next year.

wait! they don't love you like i love you

on wednesday night i went to ballroom dancing class, but i only stayed for about 45 minutes. i danced with a boy i have a kind-of crush on. it is not an actual crush, it's more like just something to pass time and get excited about when i see him in the hallways at school. like my josh hartnett crush. not a real crush, just something to keep my mind busy. i went home early to do something. read, maybe? yeah, i think that was it. i need to read a big book for an essay exam on tuesday. no, wait, i remember. i went home early because i had to go work at the casino again for rowing. again, my shift was 9:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. i knew from the night before that bringing homework was useless, because it was hard to concentrate in the volunteer room, so instead i brought a bunch of crafting supplies (glue stick, scissors, masking AND scotch tape, old maps and sewing patterns, thread, needles, yarn, crochet hooks, and wool felt). this girl erica from my rowing team, who is really crafty and is quickly becoming one of my favorite new people, and i made a big mess when we spread out all my crafting stuff over the volunteer room floor and started crafting. i made a really bitchin' postcard out of a map and a sewing pattern and its instructions. i wrote some letters to some boys. i was going to make some patches out of wool felt, but i couldn't decide what to do. i've been kind of hung up on bison and moose(s?) and mammoths and ducks lately, and so i feel like i need to break away from that. working that night was good, and i'm really glad to have those volunteer hours dealt with so i don't have to worry about them next semester.

on thursday i went to all my classes and slept in between. i got my NS 210 exam back, and my prof had written something like, "instead of leaving questions blank, make sure to answer them next time, because i don't subtract wrong from right answers." i didn't really get what he was talking about, because i NEVER leave questions blank on exams, but then i figured it out. the exam booklet that i received to write the test was missing a whole page of questions. i told him what had happened, so he agreed that it was only fair to readjust my grade so it was more accurate. i ended up with a 94% instead of a 90%! woo!

on thursday i skipped my final mixed media course, because it has turned out to be sucky and i needed to get some reading done. it turns out that only one person in the entire class showed up that night. yikes. a pretty good indicator that the class was no good. boo. i had been so excited about it.

my country owns weapons of mass susception

on tuesday i had a hang out date with a boy named emery. we planned to meet at 10. at about 9:30, he texted me to ask if we could meet at 10:20. then he texted me to see if we could meet at 10:30. i got to the sugarbowl at 10:35, and he showed up at 10:55. he said he was late because a) he took a different bus than he normally does, and bussing from his house took longer than he thought it would, and b) he was working on adding some cover art to a mix cd he had made for me. i really, really appreciate that he recognizes that you can't give a mix cd (or tape, or book, or whatever) to somebody without adding artwork (or, in the case of books, at least a little note written inside). to his credit, i know that the busses are sometimes a hassle, and the typography he did on the cd cover is seriously BITCHIN'. whatevs. he paid for my breakfast to make up for his lateness. nice. i have a crush on the cd cover because it reminds me of jason schwartzman's character in "shopgirl," who has an adorable affinity for creating typefaces. anyways. i didn't talk much because i didn't feel like talking that day, and he is an interesting boy who says interesting things and is good to listen to, but i think he thinks i am boring. oh, well. after breakfast we came to my apartment to get my longboard, and then we went to saskatchewan drive, where we tied my longboard to his bicycle with my hammock rope. i rode his bicycle and towed him as he laid on his stomach on my longboard, taking pictures of the bicycle in motion for a photography project for school or something. i think the longboard ran over his fingers once, because after we stopped, his glove was all ripped up and his fingers were bloody. also, his jacket had some holes burned in it by the friction of the ground, i think. i felt bad, but it also made me laugh because it was so sad and cute. anyway, that was the end of our hanging out.

i should have worked on my essay that day, but i LRT'd to the downtown library, where i picked up some cds and THE FIRST SEASON OF DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH on dvd! i watched a few episodes, and then tried to nap. i couldn't fall asleep, so i went and visited this boy nathanial downtown, where he was silkscreening shirts in his shop. it made me miss CTS with kelseydawn like mad. then i picked up this neat girl claire (who coxed the boys' rowing crew this season) and we went for some AMAZING bread at this place on whyte where one of the novice boy rowers works. kate (another rower) met us there, and the three of us went to work at the argyll casino from 9:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. i kind of dreaded doing it, but it turned out to be really easy, so i am doing it again tonight to get my "volunteer" hours for rowing out of the way. we only have to do about 1.5 hours of work during the 6 hours we are there, and we get some pretty awesome food for free, so it's an okay deal.

i also got a letter from dustan in the mail yesterday, which has (hopefully) spurred a renaissance of letter-writing for me tonight. i also got an e-mail from him, saying, "did you get my letter in the mail? are you going to write me back? you f*cking better." that's a good strategy, i think. i need to be more forceful in demanding replies for the letters i send. anyway, also, he sent me an e-mail that said that he had found a poem he had written about me once, but couldn't show me, because, "you would fall in love with me, and we can't have that. With our lives in such an opposing state. No that wouldn't be good for anybody. just know it exsists. That my country owns weapons of mass suseption." i liked the mass susception bit. i'm sure he stole it from somewhere. whatevs.

today i internet-stalked two cute boys with two of my best friends. i won't incriminate you, girls. don't worry. i'm glad that my trashiness at least had good company.

another notable moment of today includes seeing a girl in the campus suite hotel tower (the apartment across from my window) take off her shirt in front of the window and dance around. i didn't even realize what was happening until after it happened. i thought that kind of shit only happened on lame 1990s sitcoms.

on sunday i worked at the ledge from noon until 5. it was the first time i ever did tours by myself there. it is less stressful that way, as opposed to having someone else who knows the history and details of the place present when you're giving part of a tour. i think i will like working at the ledge. emily came and visited me at 2:00, and stayed for a tour. that was nice. thanks, sister.

i can't remember what i did on sunday night. i should have worked on my anthro essay. i think i watched arrested development and crocheted.

on monday i slept in and then worked at the elementary school at noon. the highlights of that shift were:
-talking to my favorite kid, taylor. he is in grade 1. he told me that he has one older brother and 3 older sisters. i asked him if his brother taught him anything. i expected him to say things like, "yeah, he teaches me how to throw a football" or how to climb trees or something, but taylor told me, very seriously, that, "yeah, he teaches me... how to be nice... and to not say bad words. i think he's pretty much done teaching me those things, though." adorable!!!
-one kid was watching the sky and asked me, "birds go south for the winter, right?" which was almost EXACTLY what i had just put on that thing i made for robin.
-this cute little girl very politely asked me to help her pin a dress onto her plastic cat. while i was crouched down and doing this, i asked her what her name was. she told me, and i introduced myself. when i was done, i said, "here you go! it was nice meeting you!" and she said, "thank you. it was very nice meeting you too." that doesn't sound like a very exciting story, but she was just so small and cute and gentle and adorable and i had never heard someone that little say, "nice to meet you."

on monday night i was going to watch emily's boyfriend's band play at filthy's on whyte, but when i got there, there was a lineup full of little scenesters, and i didn't want to be waiting around in that, so i left. also, it was cold. meh.

birds fly south for the winter

On Saturday I hung out with my "favorite new person," as of this summer. Robin is this boy who I played soccer with in High Prairie this summer, and he quickly became one of my most favorite people, thanks to numerous arts and craftsing dates and Tuesday night trivia. Anyway, I haven't seen Robin since the summer, because he's been teaching art in Red Deer since then, but we got a chance to hang out this weekend. We met for breakfast at Café Mosaics on Whyte Ave. I had some really delicious fruit and yogurt and granola, and we talked about the show he went to at Latitude 53 the night before, and I gave him a sad little picture I made for him. It was a acrylic gel transferred picture of me and him and his brother sewing some little pouches onto postcards at the North Country Fair this summer. Then I also stencilled on some white flying birds and the words "birds fly south for the winter" - both stencils I had made in 2005 - because we both lived up in mid-northern Alberta for the summer, and came down south a bit for the fall and winter. It looked cute, but, like I said, kind of sad. Especially because Robin is an artist. Oh, well. It was the thought that counts. Afterwards we went to the Strathcona library so I could drop off some cds, and then we went to the Farmers' Market. I bought some carrots and potatoes, and Robin bought us each two honey sticks. I got cinnamon and green apple; Robin chose sour grape and plain honey. Cute. Then we drove to the Reuse Centre downtown. I bought some envelopes and old maps and old sewing patterns for future arts and crafts projects. The best part of our visit there, though, was going through a bunch of old cards and reading what people said (or didn't say) to each other. My favorite was a Father's Day card in which an apparently middle-aged son informed his father that he had "met someone special" named Shannon. Shannon's name had, like, little sun rays coming out of it. Adorable!!! After Robin and I had our fill of other people's emotions, we went back to my house and watched Arrested Development episodes. All in all, it was a good time, and I wish Robin lived in my area code. Maybe one day...

After Robin left, my sister Emily and I got ready for the Shumka fundraising gala at the Jubilee Auditorium. Our sister Alyssa dances for Shumka, and so our parents kind of forcefully encouraged us to attend. Mom and Dad and our Auntie Lorraine drove up from home, and we all went together. The whole affair was pretty long and painful. I liked watching my sister dance, but that only took up about 5% of the time that we were there. The rest of the time was just spent waiting around, listening to speeches, and hearing how hopeful people were that they would be the ones to win the raffle prize, which was $2000 worth of holiday liquor. Huzzah. I was just not built for formal events.

and THAT'S why you always leave a note

I think I forgot to mention on my last entry that the intermission "show" at the CFR on Wednesday was a demonstration by the RCMP canine unit. They had this really adorable high school-esque video that they showed on the big screen of some "robbers" breaking into a bank near on the west end (in daylight) and then of a helicopter and some police cars following them, and then the same car and some police cars drove into Rexall Place. The cars all stopped and the police dogs chased the robbers around and dragged them over to the police. It was so tough and adorable! Anyway...

On Friday, I went to the rodeo again with my sister Emily, Emily's friend Terry, and my friends Meghan, Jenni, and Jessica. I really, really love going to rodeos with Meghan. We are both so small-town but irreverant about them. We decided that next year we are going to dress up like rodeo queens for Halloween. I have to start looking now if I want to find a sweet pair of lime green Wranglers for next year. The intermission show this time was cowboy poker, which was over in a matter of seconds. I like when it lasts a bit longer. Meghan and I had some shockingly delicious hamburgers at Rexall Place, which may have been the highlight of the night. After the rodeo, Emily, Terry, Meghan and I came back to my house and planned to go out, but were too tired and indecisive to get anywhere. They left around 11:30, and an hour and a half later, my sister's VERY drunk boyfriend showed up and proceeded to "impress" the two of us with his "hilarious" antics. Ugh. And that's why I never hang out with drunk people.

we are bound by symmetry

i had kind of a yucky day. all the research i am doing for papers for my classes is making me feel really yucky about myself. basically, everything i read has some part about how "whites" were and continue to be the most horrible people on the planet, and that there can only be goodness again when all "white" thought and culture is wiped out. ugh. i cried once today already because it all makes me feel like a really terrible, terrible person. also, i had really bad cramps that kept me awake for two hours in the middle of the night last night. but i will not dwell on my yuckiness. I will write about the things I liked about today:
-i stood with a couple of strangers and watched a squirrel in one of the trees near pembina hall pick hundreds of pinecones from the top branches and throw them down into a pile/at passersby. cute!!!
-a man selling "The Voice" magazine near Planet Organic on Whyte was very kind and understanding when all I could offer him was a smile.
-my very favorite tea, Tetley Vanilla Earl Grey, was available at Save-On-Foods - it's really hard to find sometimes.
-in between Planet Organic/The Voice vendor/Save-On, I saw this neat chalk drawing someone had done. All it was was an outline of a bicycle's shadow, and it must have been done sometime in the early afternoon. It was really skinny and long and angled. It was so simple, but it made me feel a lot better about things.

i bought a new jar of peanut butter today. i am excited for tomorrow morning when i can have the first swipe through it. i hope alyssa doesn't get to it first. maybe i will hide it until tomorrow morning.

tomorrow evening i am going with my dad to the canadian finals rodeo. then i am going again on friday with jen and jessica and meghan and emily and emily's friend terry. i am excited. is liking rodeos the thing that makes me a bad person?

here comes pride in the backstretch

I was in Victoria this weekend with the University of Alberta Novice Rowing Team. We bussed from Edmonton to Victoria on Friday, leaving at 4:30 a.m. (when it was SNOWING!) and arriving around 9:30 p.m. B.C. time. The bus ride wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. I think I kind of got accustomed to 17-hour bus rides when I was in Guyana, where it took that amount of time to travel the 450 km through the rainforest from the area I lived to Georgetown on the coast. Unlike the Guyanese bus, this one had a DVD player, climate control, and regular stops for food and washroom breaks. The bus ride was pretty uneventful. I slept in some uncomfortable positions, watched "Remember the Titans" and "Pride and Prejudice," avoided watching "300," neglected to study for my Cree quiz, and got to know people through osmosis, which is hands-down my favorite way of getting to know people. I rode the ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay for the first time, and was roomed with some of my favorite people from the rowing team. All in all, it was a good day.

Following our 17-hour bus ride on Friday, we woke up at the hotel at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday. We bussed over to the Gorge for 7 a.m. The rest of the Edmonton Rowing Club wasn't there yet, so we waited around with our bags for a bit and discovered that one of the boats on the trailer had been smashed up beyond repair. It was a private eight, owned by the "Tall Old Guys" from the ERC. Apparently a guy in an R.V. had driven into the boat while it was still sitting on the top of the trailer. Needless to say, that caused a lot of tension amongst our clubs. We unloaded and rigged the boats, and then the boys headed out in the eight while us girls walked to "the Narrows" to watch the boats try to manoevre their way through a narrow channel under a bridge, which apparently was experiencing the most intense current since 1991. Thrilling! After we watched the boys, we walked back so we could get changed and get into the boat for our launch. We launched pretty early, but ended up being one of the last boats to go through the narrows (everyone has to row upriver 5 km to the start of the race in the harbour, and then the race itself is from the harbour back), after waiting in line on the water for about an hour. By the time we were going through the narrows, the current had become incredibly strong, and the man giving directions to the boats through a megaphone on the shore was getting pretty worked up and stressed out. However, we somehow managed to go through the narrows almost flawlessly, which was later commented on by a couple of spectators. The race itself was kind of garbagey. Early on, we were passed by the Vancouver crew, and after that, we all became really down on ourselves and catty with each other. I did not consider it a very enjoyable race. I think we came in third out of about 4 boats. After the race we de-rigged and re-loaded the boats onto the trailer, went back to the hotel to shower and change, and went for supper at Red Robin (I know... Red Robin? It was the only place we could find that could serve a group of 25 of us). At supper I was talking to this boy Taylor about my education and the reason I'm in Native Studies, and soon the whole table was listening to me talk and contributing their ideas and stuff. I liked it because:
a) it made me feel more interesting and intelligent than I usually feel, and
b) I really am passionate about this stuff, and I think other people are really interested in it too, but there's not a lot of dialogue or understanding of it going on right now.
After supper, we all pretty much just went to sleep right away. We were beat.

Victoria: Sunday
We got to sleep in on Sunday! We didn't have to be on the bus for Elk Lake until 8 a.m., which came as a huge relief to all of us. Again, we unloaded and rigged the boats, which went a lot more smoothly than the day before. The boys rowed in the morning, and we rowed in the afternoon. This race was 8 km, making it 3 km longer than any course we had raced so far this year. The day was really cold, but we were determined to do better, or at least FEEL better, than we had in our previous race. Although certainly less than perfect - we were passed by TWO boats, and we ran into one double consisting of an old couple TWICE, forcing us to completely stop rowing on one occasion - I think we had a better row because there was a better energy in the boat. After we ran into that other boat, we felt ourselves feeling pretty disheartened. Rowing etiquette and rules state that only the coxwain is allowed to speak during a race, and because we had had problems with that the day before, we had all agreed to stay silent this race. Therefore, it seemed like there was no possible way to encourage each other. BUT... there's this amazing noise that happens when a crew is rowing in synch. It's basically two "clunks," made when the oar is feathered and then squared on a stroke. A few of us recognized that by making our "clunks" really loud and kind of exaggerated, the rest of the crew would recognize the sound and fall in line with it. It worked! Pretty soon, all eight of us were in perfect time, and really motivated by the rhythym and our impressive form as a team. I'm not sure about the other girls, but it is definitely what got me through the race.

After the race, we de-rigged and loaded the boats, and watched as Claire, the coxie for the men's eight, was thrown in the water by the boys because they won their race. We bussed back to the hotel and showered, and then split off into smaller groups to find some snacks. I went with a girl named Erica to a nearby organic food store, where we bought yogurt and granola and some grapes, one of which was enormous and really pumpkin-shaped.

We went out for supper as a team to The White Spot (again... what?) and then most of us went for a walk downtown, visiting the harbour and the Legislature (which British Columbians insist on calling "Parliament"). Afterwards everyone hung out in the boys' room and drank/team cuddled, which in most circumstances I would have avoided, but for some reason I hung out there too and actually had a really fun time. I didn't drink/cuddle at all, by the way. Just hung out, which is still way out of character for me.

We were back on the bus at 5:30 the next morning for our 17-hour ride back home. I studied some Cree on the ferry and during supper at Jasper. On the bus, we watched three of my favorite movies - "Rushmore," "High Fidelity," and "Rocky Horror Picture Show" - all of which got numerous complaints. This seemed to highlight why I don't relate with most people, or at least with some of the people on the rowing team. If you don't get "Rushmore," I think it's pretty safe to say that you won't get me. We also watched "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Monsters, Inc." We were a little scared that we'd be stuck in Jasper for the night because of a big accident on the highway that had caused traffic to be stopped for over two hours, but by the time we got there, everything had been cleaned up. Whew. We got back at about 1 a.m.

I ended up having a really good time this weekend. I was kind of dreading it all last week, but I got to know some people on my team a little bit better and it turns out that I really really like them. That is good.

What's This? What's This? There's Color Everywhere

(these next couple of posts are just directly copied and pasted from my NS blog. sorry. i am tired, and you are interested in my life. i can't disappoint.)

I still plan on doing an entry on the rest of my Victoria trip, but for the time being, I'm just going to write about a few highlights/lowlights this week:
-Today, a boy in my Anthro class was wearing the EXACT same burgundy American Apparel hoodie and all-brown Chuck Taylors as me. I went over to him before class started and said, "Excuse me, but I think it's really hilarious that we are wearing the exact same outfit today." Then I awkwardly walked away. That boy and the boy next to him gave me strange looks for a few minutes afterwards. I didn't have a costume planned for today but I guess that boy and I ended up going as twins.
-I used to be friends with this one guy a long time ago, until he told me that "God [didn't] want us to be friends anymore." We haven't talked for years, but I tried to patch things up over Facebook last month. Anyways, I saw him this morning on campus and we made eye contact and I smiled and waved. He waved back, but he made this cringey kind of face - the kind that people make when they eat something yucky or something. I guess our friendship is still pretty non-existent.
-I really, really love my Cree class. Today our teacher Dorothy was dressed up as a cute little witch. Her face was painted and she had funny little black boots on. I think she is my favorite member of the entire university population. She read us a children's Halloween story in Cree, but since we are just learning and don't know many of the words, she had to act it out. It was ADORABLE!!! These are some new Cree words I learned today: "cîpay tipiskâw" (literally, "ghost night," a.k.a. "Halloween), "kostâci" (to be scared), "maskihkîsa" (candy), and apâhkwâcis (bat). Some other good Halloween words are "minôs" (cat) and ôhô (owl). I also learned today that the Native Friendship Centre has Cree lessons every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. I might start going, if I can switch into a different ballroom dancing class (I go on Wednesdays from 6:45-8:15).
-I hung out with Kaylin today at Muddy Waters and she interviewed me about my favorite book as part of an assignment of hers. We talked about "I Heard the Owl Call My Name" and I almost cried a few times. I love that book so much.

with friends like you, who needs friends?

as you may know if you've talked to me at all lately, i am once again meeting my usual quota of crushes. it feels good to be out of the depths of asexuality again. i have had three real crushes in the last two weeks, and tons of other celebrity/historical crushes. unfortunately, none of them are turning out to be even remote possibilities. my latest crush is a boy who i work with at the school. he is dark haired and dreamy and really good with kids. my mom told me about a whole bunch of playground games i could play with kids, so i could trick him into thinking i actually like being around children.

i forgot to write about two things from my calgary trip:
1. i saw some big black squirrels. i didn't think that big black squirrels existed.
2. kelsey and i hung out with some turtles. we love turtles. a few years ago we were each going to buy a $600 red-footed tortoise for ourselves, and then we planned on kind of having shared custody over both of them. it never happened, which is probably a good thing, but we both still wish we had something shy and rock-hard to cuddle up to at night.

yesterday there was an explosion outside my window. the early afternoon had been REALLY mild, but around 3:30, a big wind picked up and it looked like it was going to rain. i was doing an assignment on my computer, and all of a sudden there was a huge bang and my lights and computer went off, and there was a big flash like lightning outside my window. i looked directly out my window at that exact second and saw a big fireworks-like explosion from a nearby power pole. exciting!!!

yesterday at rowing we derigged the boats and pulled the dock in. i left early for ballroom dancing. i love ballroom dance class so much because there are so many boys that i can pick a different one each time and pretend to be really focussed on what the instructors are saying, so i don't have to engage in too much small talk. i just "look left" and go into robot-mode. i love it. i finished my native studies article critique yesterday. what a relief.

too tired to smile today

on wednesday night i ended up going to the black dog on whyte to see illfit outfit play for CJSR's fundrive. i hung out with jessica, which was nice, because i'd really like to get to know her better. the set was okay, but the sound wasn't all that good and i was tired because they didn't get on until, like, 1 a.m. boo.

on thursday i went to all my classes, did some anthro homework, and went to my mixed media class at grant macewan. we worked on self-portraits in pastels. I've never really used pastels before, but I think I could grow to like them. I'm not sure how to describe how it turned out, but I liked it. it's really stencil-y, with obvious, blocked-in contours. i've done quite a bit of stencilling, but usually i just keep to one or two colors. i think that because of this class, i'll be more adventurous in doing multi-layer stencils.

on friday i worked at the legislature. i forgot to mention that last week's "work" consisted of a 2-hour group scavenger hunt around the ledge grounds. i seriously have the best jobs. this week i just opened the gift shop and tagged along with a school tour. afterwards i had three labs, and then i went to rowing practice. after rowing, I met my mom (who is staying at west ed. for teachers' convention or something) and my sisters at the mall, and we went out for supper and watched the movie "hairspray." i am embarrassed to say that i really liked the movie, mostly because all I ever want to do is go to dance parties, and i think i lived vicariously through all the characters in the movie. also, that particular movie was enjoyable simply because there are so few movies that i can actually see with my family, because we all have pretty different tastes. i also bought a brown coat from costa blanca, which has already made me a happy, happy girl.

on saturday i worked at the ledge for a couple of hours. i walked there, and on the way picked up a mix tape that i knew had been hidden in the area a couple of days ago. last week, a boy found one that i had hidden in august, and he replaced it with one that he'd made, which is the one i have now. i've only listened to the first side so far, but it's good. i don't think i'm going to keep it, though: i'll either give it a listen and then put it back in the same place for someone else to find, or i'll pass it on to a friend. i just feel like i need to start practicing letting things go, which is a lesson i've known about for a long time but have a difficult time actually doing.

after working at the ledge, i LRT'd to the downtown library, where i took out 17 cds that i had placed on hold. i put them all on my iTunes this weekend. exciting!!!

instead of studying all saturday night for my archaeology midterm, i took some time off to go see "the darjeeling limited" at the princess by myself. i sure do like going to movies by myself. apparently kelsey also went to see it in calgary the same night. bff! anyway, i didn't like it as much as other wes anderson stuff, but it was still pretty enjoyable. the crowd was a lot different than i expected it to be, though: it consisted mostly of middle-aged couples. since most of my good friends really love wes anderson movies, so i think i kind of expected more potential friends to be there. nope. i studied a little bit more when i got home, but maybe not as much as i should have.

On Sunday morning I slept in, did some studying, and then LRT'd to the Ledge. to work for the afternoon. There weren't a lot of visitors, so work was pretty slack. I feel like working at the Ledge. will be a good opportunity for me to have a bunch of new historical crushes. My number one historical Legislature crush so far is Sir Frederick Haultain, who was the first and only Premier of the NWT. He wanted the territories of Alberta and Saskatchewan to combine as one province, which he wanted to be called "Buffalo," and over which he wanted to become Premier. Neither happened, and now people say that his ghost haunts the third floor of the Legislature, coming out at about 7 p.m. and tilting all the portraits on that floor out of bitterness. I don't think I really believe in ghosts, but if I did, I would definitely have a crush on his. For the record, my other major historical crushes include John Milton, John Donne, Geoffrey Chaucer, and E.E. Cummings. Obviously my leanings are towards literary figures, thanks to my English degree, but I'm pretty sure that Alexander Rutherford, Ralph Steinhauer, Grant MacEwan, and others will soon join the ranks.

today i had my anthro 206 midterm, and i got back my 207 midterm. i got an 81% in 207, but the average was 80% and the class is graded on a curve, so i don't think that's very good news for me. boo.

i worked outside supervision at the elementary school today. the most entertaining part of the noon hour was talking with this grade 6 kid who had a weakerthans shirt on. i asked him if he had gone to their recent show, and to my surprise, he said yes. He proceeded to tell me, as he walked circles around me, avoiding eye contact, that he had actually interviewed them at the show. I immediately assumed that he was maybe writing for a school publication, so I asked him about it. Instead, he informed me that the interview was done for a newsletter he sends out to his family. adorable!!! apparently he asked them why they have so many songs about virtute the cat ("it's a metaphor"), and whether the song "tournament of hearts" is also a metaphor. i'm impressed that a kid that young even knows what a metaphor is. i hope that if i ever have kids, they make and send out family newsletters including rad interviews with hip bands. so awesome.

tonight i had rowing. we are going to victoria this weekend to row in two regattas. we leave at 4 a.m. on friday and come back at 11 p.m. on monday. i am already dreading the whole extroverted-athletes-in-hotels experience. you know how it is. you dread it too. just not as much as i do.

i need to work on an article critique for my native studies class. i am worried about it. ugh.

i got letters from jonathan and kelsey this week. jon's letter was rad and included a wicked bible tract, and kelsey's was an old magazine article on jason schwartzman/phantom planet. thanks, friends!

my lips not only mumble

today at work (supervising at the elementary school during noon hour), i overheard one of the grade 4 girls talking to her friends, who apparently have this "secret club" called "the webkinz" (kaylin told me about what "webkinz" actually are this afternoon, and if you go here, you can learn about them too: http://www.webkinz.com/). anyway, the kids (3 girls, one boy) were gathered at the tires, and the one girl said, "okay, guys, if i say, 'last one there is a rotten egg,' it doesn't ACTUALLY mean that you're a rotten egg. it just means that the webkinz are having a secret meeting, so you have to get there fast. but, like, if someone is always the one that is the last one there, we can call them 'turtle.' we can say things like, 'hey, turtle. just joking!' does anyone mind being called a turtle? because i don't, as long as you're just joking." hi-larious. i watched another little girl spend the ENTIRE noon hour on the swing by herself, and i think she was the happiest kid on the playground. at times, she was smiling really hard to herself. some other little girls came up to me to complain that she wasn't sharing the swing, but i was too enchanted by her to make her get off. i am realizing more and more that my approach to disciplining kids is maybe a little more laissez-faire than it should be. good thing i don't have kids.

i went to kaylin's after school for some tea and hang-out time. i cuddled with her cats and we talked a bit about art and world war III. she showed me some pictures of bats she drew in her journal. she is so neat. this is a poem by billy collins that has always made me think about kaylin:

Vade Mecum
I want the scissors to be sharp
and the table to be perfectly level
when you cut me out of my life
and paste me in that book you always carry.

i wish i could cut kaylin out of her life and paste her into a book that i could carry around. i wish kaylin would have a life filled abundantly with deep pocketfulls of sharp scissors, glue sticks, and books that are 1/3 lined, 1/3 graphed, and 1/3 blank.

i have a lot of homework and studying to do and i am not very good at getting it done. here is a fun new cree word for you to learn: cîscayisîpwâkanis. it is pronounced kind of like this: tsee-stsai-iss-eep-waag-an-is. it means "fork." another neat one is "amiskwacîwâskahikan," which literally translates as "beaver mountain house," but is the word for "edmonton." what an interesting fact!

i know you might roll your eyes at this

i was down in calgary this weekend with the rowing team for the Head of the Weasel regatta on the glenmore reservoir. on saturday (the day we rowed), we found out that the boat i was rowing in didn't win, but i think all the other u of a boats won in their categories. i was not really bummed at all. all i was really concerned about was how beautiful the day turned out to be, and how amazingly smooth the boat was. usually, we practice on old, stiff boats, but for regattas, we're allowed to use this awesome new eight. so nice.

BUT... yesterday we found out that we weren't actually registered in the right category. we had been racing against boats which were made up of four men and four women, instead of all women. if we had been registered in the right category, we would have won - we apparently beat the university of manitoba's crew by at least 5 minutes!

i didn't drive back to edmonton saturday night with the rest of the crew. instead, i stayed at kelsey's. we hung out on 17th ave. and watched TMNT II: the secret of the ooze and a couple of old, cartoon t.v. versions of the series. i was pretty exhausted, having woken up at 4 a.m. that day for the early-morning drive to calgary, so i went to bed pretty early. kelsey also told me this adorable story about how she met this boy on the c-train a few weeks ago, and he gave her a little drawing he made on a scrap piece of paper. she asked him why he had given it to her, and he said, "because you're aesthetically pleasing." cute!!! but then she had to get off the train, and they never exchanged numbers or anything. boo. i hope they see each other again. that's the kind of boy i would want my best friend dating/the kind of boy i would like to steal from my best friend.

on sunday kelsey and i hung out in downtown calgary for a bit. i got the new weakerthans and iron & wine albums, some sweaters from american apparel, and ghostworld on DVD (i have it on VHS, but i think it's time to convert). later in the afternoon, kate, one of the girls from the rowing team, and i drove back to edmonton. when i got home, dustan called and told me that he had gone to see a show last week, and the band played this one song that he has always thought of as "a song [dustan] wrote for [me] at some point in our friendship," but he's never told me about it. before he told me what it was, i guessed in my head that it was the weakerthans' "the reasons." then he played and sang the song for me over the phone, and it WAS that song! good guess, self! most of the time, dustan makes me totally crazy, but then he goes and does stuff like that and i remember why we're friends.

i wrote my anthro midterm yesterday. i had to skip work at the school to study for it. i'm not sure how i did on it.

last week i was talking to this girl in my cree class, and i realized that we had met, like, 10 or more years ago at a 4-H camp. crazy. it's even crazier that i remember that far back, because it's not like we had been good friends then or anything. anyway, i have cree class from 2:00 until 3:00 every day. i get so excited when we get homework. when i was little, i used to love those colored spelling books we had to do every year in elementary. i've always loved spelling and grammar in english, but i didn't think i'd love them so much in another language. good news, though: i do! today we got a whole sheet of english sentences that we had to translate into cree. translating from english to cree is way more difficult to do than the other way around. it's a good thing it's all so thrilling to me.

at rowing practice yesterday we unloaded the boats from the trailer and put all the rigging back on. afterwards we got to row in the good boat - the one we raced in calgary - and it was AMAZING. the other boats are so creaky and stiff and old, but this one is smooth and quiet. we realized this weekend that the boys are too big for that boat, so hopefully we girls will always be able to row it. it certainly makes practice infinitely more enjoyable.

last night i watched "hotel chevalier," the prologue for "the darjeeling limited," which is supposed to come out fairly soon if it hasn't already. i am so excited for it.

such an enormous thing, to walk and to listen

(i stole some of this entry from my native studies blog, so that's why there are some capitals. sorry if you read both blogs and this is mostly a repeat.)

last night i went with bri, bethany, and joel to see the weakerthans play at the myer horowitz. i'm not a huge fan of the band, but the show was pretty enjoyable. before the show, i hung out with kaylin at muddy waters on whyte. i showed her some of my quilt squares and encouraged her to submit some of her journal entries to "notebook". kaylin has this amazing collection of journals that she's kept for years, and collectively they are my all-time favorite piece of art. i haven't seen many of them, but the ones i have seen are great. i wished that she could go to the weakerthans instead of me, because she loves them, but she had too much work to do.

i had ballroom dancing class at dinwoodie again last night. I'm so surprised at how much I'm enjoying it. Usually I get really overwhelmed by having that many people in one place all at once. have i written about that blonde haired boy that is there, who i saw play in a band at one of jenni's shows a few weeks ago? i asked him to dance once. it was not too awkward. When I got back to my apartment after dance and the show, davina (the girl i worked with during the first summer i was on sucker creek) was waiting for someone in the lobby of my apartment. It was really strange to see her there, because even though we had lived with each other up north, she didn't know where I live in the city. also, she has been living in ottawa since that summer. hmm...

I think I did better on that one midterm than I thought I did. we got them back on tuesday, but they weren't completely marked yet. It looks like I might have gotten somewhere between 80-90%. that's a relief. I'm still not a fan of the trickery on it, though. also on tuesday I had lunch with alyssa at this amazing fresh pasta place in HUB, and I had rowing practice in the evening. I am so not ready for our regatta in calgary this weekend. I hate racing. I hate athletic competition. I just can't force my brain to care about it. but I do love being on the water, which is why I'm still rowing.

i had another midterm today. i am pretty sure i bombed it. it was so hard! it was for my northwest coast society class, but it mostly just had to do with memorizing language groups. boo.

old men sit and talk about the weather

last week becky came over after school one day to hang out and eat chips, because she was in my neighbourhood. nice. she talked a lot about her crush/new boyfriend. i like becky talking about crushes almost as much as i like having crushes. one thing i had forgotten about becky is that she loves the theme song from the 1988 winter olympics, and has had plans for years to have it played at her wedding. she is so interesting and funny and i am sad that she left for thailand/china/hawaii for two months yesterday. i am excited for when she gets back.

um... i had my first ballroom dancing class last wednesday, and it was a million times more enjoyable than i thought it was going to be. there were about 200 people there, which made me feel way less nervous (i had thought there were only going to be 20-30 of us, and that my every wrong move would be under close scrutiny). also, i was really entertained because there was this indie rocker boy with long blonde hair who i recognized because he played a show with jenni's band a few weeks ago. what!? those kind of boys don't come to ballroom dancing classes! at least not without some hot trendy girlfriend! but he was there by himself. adorable. i hope he becomes a really good dancer and sweeps girls off their feet.

on thursday i had my second art class. ugh. we continued sketching portraits in charcoal, but this time they were self portraits. i got there a little late, so i had to use a desk lamp that had no base. i had to hold it in place by setting it on a little bench and then holding it in place by piling my cowichan and sweaters on top of it. therefore, the light illuminating my face (we were using mirrors to see ourselves) was coming from below me. ugh. when we were done, we put our drawings up on the wall so we could critique each other's. mine didn't look SO bad up close, but when it was posted up, it looked like i was a little mexican man with a moustache. boo. i will make sure to get better lighting next time. after art class, jenni and i tried to go for our formerly ritual thursday night wings at the funky buddha on whyte. to our dismay, we got there at 9:58 and discovered the kitchen closed at 10. boo. so, we tried to go to the hudson's under my apartment, but found a huge line of rowdy undergrads, so we decided to order pizza at my house. brad, emily, alyssa, and jenni's band-mate doug joined us. we hung out and watched arrested development and doug told us about how he thinks that aliens are just people from the future who are visiting us now, and he also drew us some replicas of the drawings he used to do in grade 8 - drawings of fuzzy, smiley aliens in bands. funny.

on friday i worked at the legislature from 8:15-11:15; had class from 12-3; had rowing from 5:15-7; and then drove back to vermilion. i taught my dad how to post pictures on facebook - he had gotten a facebook account when i was in guyana so he could see all my pictures from there, and now he wants to post his own pictures of his horses and his yard. funny. also, he edited his profile, and in the "about me" section, he wrote, "I'm o.k." that's really, really funny to me for some reason.

on saturday morning my parents left vermilion to drive to calgary via edmonton for my cousin nick's wedding. i, on the other hand, stayed in vermilion to get ready for joel and esther's wedding. dustan and i had planned to go to the wedding together, so he picked me up at the mall and we went to the church. the wedding was really, really nice, and joel and esther are pretty adorable. after the ceremony britt and jeremy and nicole and dustan and some prairie peeps and i went to sammy's for ice cream/screamers. our screamers made dustan and me shiver, so we went to a & w for a bag full of baby burgers. then dustan and i hung out at my house for a bit, and then he left for family pictures and i drove to clandonald for the wedding reception/dance. i sat with becky and sarah and justina and some other peeps for the dinner. as soon as the dinner was finished, becky and i worked really hard to stack up the chairs and tables and to sweep the dance floor while everyone else stood around.

after i danced to about 5 songs (during which, at one point, joel came up to me and said, "is this an A-lister dance party or what!?" you said it, joel! actually, I said it), i went to my car to change into jeans and flat shoes and a t-shirt. when i came back, there wasn't a good song on, so i had two bites of a brownie and some pieces of fruit and some water. then my face starting itching. then my neck started itching. then my palms started itching, and i knew something was wrong. i went to the bathroom and saw that my face was all red and swelling, especially on my eyelids and chin. ew! so i hid in a stall with a piece of damp paper towel, trying to get the swelling down. i just got sicker and sicker, and ended up puking - my first time in 12 years - that's officially half of my life! my tongue even swelled up, which i hadn't noticed until nicole came into the bathroom and recognized my shoes and i tried to tell her, "i'm really sick - can you go get my sweater and camera and car keys and maybe some help?" nicole's mom drove me back to vermilion in my car, and we stopped at the hospital so i could get some benadryl and something for nausea. the whole episode was so tragic that it was, and continues to be, hilarious to me. i had been so excited about this dance party for the last 7 months, hyping it as "the best dance party of my life." ha. the only thing that kind of sucks is that i now have this new, extreme food allergy, but no one knows what exactly it is that i'm allergic to. yikes! if i go on dates from now on i will have to stick to white bread and water so that my face and tongue don't swell up in front of cute boys.

also, you should check out/submit to notebook magazine.

hiding in the dining room, knees drawn up to my chest

ugh. my stolen-ualbertawireless-internet in my apartment is really really ridiculously slow, so i haven't been able to blog as much as i'd like to. so here is a really condensed version of the last week:

-my foot still hurts from when i hurt it at my kickball party. so much so that i couldn't even practice when the lakeland girls had their soccer tryouts on sunday. i am excited to play with those girls again. i love doing sports with people who know what they're doing, and do it reasonably well, but don't care too much about winning or strength or speed or whatever.
-i've been rowing most weeknights, but i got a little frustrated because the girls i was boated with are pretty athletic and competitive. i'm not. i've asked to be in the women's novice 8, which is significantly less competitive. hopefully i will be able to row with them this week at the edmonton regatta.
-i had supper with bri, dawn, lewis, and joel at joel's house on friday. joel made some very delicious roast beef and cut up potatoes. there were some other things, but i don't remember what they were because i didn't eat them. i am a meat and potatoes kind of girl.
-after joel's meat extravaganza, i picked up kaylin and we went to becky's for a becky's-leaving-soon/colin-is-back-in-edmonton/michelle-is-getting-married party. kaylin and i were too intimidated to talk to anyone unless they walked past us and initiated conversation, so we kind of just stood in the kitchen and ate concord grapes. i wanted to talk to colin but he was surrounded by people in the living room and i couldn't exactly just walk up to him and sit down with all those people and say, "hey, we haven't talked for 5 years, but i guess we're friends now. what's new?" so. we are still not quite friends again yet. however, i did thoroughly enjoy my first semi-drunk-becky experience. she's one of only about two people i enjoy being around when they are drinking.
-(saturday:) i spent a lot of money on "jasons." i bought the first two seasons of arrested development (jason bateman), shopgirl, and rushmore (jason schwartzman). i already had rushmore, but that was on VHS, and... you know.... also, on the very same day, my coconut records (jason schwartzman, remember?) album came in the mail! AND it had a cute polaroid of him included, because he wanted to include a "special gift" for everyone who bought a hard copy of his disk. adorable.
-i dragged emily and brad to michael's so i could buy some art supplies for the mixed media class i am going to be taking at grant macewan starting this thursday.
-i got the job at the legislature! i think i start training on friday.
-i ran into courtney on whyte ave today and hung out with her while she shopped; i hung out with michelle on campus; i watched some movies with emily; i went for a walk and to the farmers' market with a boy named emery; i talked to kelseydawn on the phone for a long time
-i got 98% on the cree quiz i wrote on monday! i thought i would fail it!
-some of my teeth hurt and i think i might have cavities. owie.
-today, one of the little girls at the school i work at at noon hours ran across the field in her brown sweater with her arms wide open, yelling, "i love fall!!!" a-greed.
-becky started dating her crush. she is really excitable and adorable about crushes. i am glad she is dating that boy, but i hope she doesn't marry him because i never want her to stop having new crushes. i live vicariously through her intense, intense crushing.

coming events:
-illfit outfit is playing tomorrow, and i am going to go... after my first art class!
-the north saskatchewan regatta is on saturday
-emily's birthday is on sunday, and she is having birthday parties on both friday and saturday.
-joel and esther's wedding, a.k.a. the greatest dance party of my life, next weekend

i broke down and wrote you back before you had a chance to forget

saturday was my birthday. i started out the morning by rowing in an eight with some other novices. i got to row stroke, which meant i got to set the pace and therefore did not have to row any faster than i wanted to. the morning was beautiful. then i went home and got some things ready for my kickball party. i bought some food and picked up kaylin and we went to hawrelak park. a bunch of people who i really love came to my mix tape/kickball party. it was nice to see them all, but my party was a bit mediocre. we mostly just sat around for an hour and ate WAY too much food, including the delicious dairy queen ice cream cake bri and karen bought for me (thanks, friends!). then we exchanged our mix tapes/cds and some of us played a few innings of kickball. i busted up my foot on one of my kicks, and it has been swollen ever since. it is definitely getting better, though. then jenni and liam and doug came, so we re-exchanged our mix tapes so they could take part. then everybody left except me and kelsey and jenni and her boys, so we went to the lake at the park to feed the birds. feeding the birds at hawrelak is one of my favorite things to do. liam threw a whole bun out to the seagulls, and they were fun to watch because they each wanted to hoarde it for themselves, but it was too heavy to pick up and carry alone. once it had been pecked at a bit, the seagulls took turns trying to fly away with it. then the rest of the group would take off after them. funny.

kelsey and i watched a terrible movie ("the ex" - only rented because she's seen every other movie ever, and we like jason bateman and zach braff) and got full on movie studio popcorn and tandoori chicken.

too many things happened this week for me to be writing in paragraphs anymore. here goes:
-kelsey and i hung out on whyte on sunday, and then came back to my house to exchange music from each other's cd/itunes collections.
-kelsey went back to calgary, and i hung out with kaylin at hawrelak park. we fed the birds and walked around the lake.
-on monday i had class; met emma (from king's) at the good earth cafe; went to the nearby elementary school to see if they could use any volunteer help, and was promptly offered a part-time position as a "lunchroom aide." basically, the school just hires university students to do lunch supervision so the teachers have a chance to eat. and it's $14/hour! they were so desperate that the lady in charge asked if i could start on wednesday. i did, in fact, start today, and it was pretty sweet. we just take attendance of the kids and supervise them while they eat, and then take them outside for noon hour recess. we're even allowed to play with the kids. today, one of the male supervisors played soccer with some boys; another male supervisor played on the jungle gym with a bunch of girls who have obvious crushes on him; and i hung out on the ropes with some dude whose name i already forget. i think i'll like working there, because (a) i've lived in this area for 5 years, and it's time i started giving back to my community, and (b) i like working with kids, but i can't spend too much time with them because they exhaust me. two hours a week is a good time commitment, and it's sweet that i'll get to know a whole school full of local kids over the course of the year.
-(still monday): i rowed in a quad with two other experienced girls and a boy. i have never rowed with boys before, but i've been hearing lately that they are hard to row with because they are so focused on strength that they neglect to balance the boat, which is a very important first step. anyway, the four of us had a fantastic row, which was shockingly balanced and enjoyable.
-tuesday: i met joel and bethany at the high level diner for breakfast. i had a multigrain bagel because my stomach can't handle much food in the morning. then i had two classes. then i met with a lady from native studies, who told me i had been awarded the native studies' "student blogger" position. basically, i will be paid fairly handsomely to do the same thing i am doing right now. i think i just have to write a minimum of three times a week, and attempt to convey "the student experience" from a native studies student's perspective. i had more class, and then i had rowing. rowing was lame on tuesday, because my stomach hurt and it was ridiculously windy and cold, and we were in this huge mother of a boat. no good. afterwards i picked up emily and we went to the blackspot cafe for the open mic thing. we couldn't stay very long, but it was nice to be there. i had a good talk with jenni, and i heard some good music, and there were considerably more people there this week compared with last week.
-this morning, i LRT'd to the legislature so i could get a security check done. if all goes well, i might have a job there soon! and who loves the legislature more than i do!? i had some class, and then worked my first shift at the elementary school, and then had some more class. during the first class after lunch, the entire university had a fire drill. my second class after lunch (cree) was cancelled because there was a pipe ceremony going on outside and our instructor was taking part in it.
-now i am waiting for my dad. he was supposed to be here an hour ago. i want him to take me out for soup. tonight i do not have rowing or anything else. i am excited.

today i had an interview to be a tour guide at the legislature. i think it went fairly well, except for when they asked me if i knew who my m.l.a. was. i said, "yeesh. i'm really bad with remembering this stuff. well, i'm from vermilion, and i think ours is... benoit? like, the vegreville-vermilion area?" and the ladies kind of smiled and said, "well, no, i think your m.l.a. would be ed stelmach, our premier. that's a big one!" then, the minute i walked out of my interview, i realized that we were both wrong, and that i DID know the name of my m.l.a. (as well as my former and possibly still current member of parliament, leon benoit), and that he's my best friend's uncle. thanks for being up on that one, memory retrieval system!

later on, i went rowing. it was a beautiful day, and this girl sarah and i got to row in a double. a double is different from a pair: in the former, each person rows with two oars; in the latter, each person uses only one oar. anyway, i was excited, because i like sculling (two oars each) more that sweeping (one oar each). however:
1. i hadn't been out in a rowing boat for two years, so i was pretty rusty;
2. sarah and i had never rowed on the water together, so we ought to have taken most of the practice just doing super simple balance drills and stuff like that; and
3. our "coach" didn't really give us any drills at all or anything to work on. in fact, he left us when we had just gone downriver from the hawrelak footbridge, and took his motorboat around a bend in the river where he could no longer see us. at that exact time, sarah and i both caught massive crabs (crabs are basically when you mean to "feather" your blade, (feather = to rotate it so it sits horizontally and you can then pull it back over the water for your next stroke), and for whatever reason the water catches the blade and pulls it, making it extremely difficult to regain control and balance) on our starboard side, started tipping, realized we were going over, and flipped our boat. it was my first flip ever, and it was awesome. the water wasn't super cold, but it was still really shocking to my system. in rowing, your feet are tied in to the footplate, so as we went over, my upper body went in, and the boat went over my body, but my feet were still tied in. luckily, the shoes i was in were WAY too big, so it was easy to slip my feet out. anyway, after kind of getting our bearings and coughing a lot, sarah and i grabbed onto our upside-down boat (which, like the oars, is a certified flotation device), and waited for a few minutes to see if our coach was coming back to help us out or at least tell us what to do. he didn't, and the river's current was carrying us fairly quickly towards one of the huge pillars holding up the hawrelak footbridge. we held onto opposite ends of the boat and swam, spinning the boat around to avoid the pillar. after we'd passed it, a men's quad came by and yelled out instructions to us so we could flip our boat upright and get back in. it felt pretty rad and rewarding to just be two girls on the river, flipping our boat and nearly smashing it on the pillar and then getting our shit together and righting the boat and actually getting back in and rowing back. luckily, by the time the boys started instructing us, our feet could touch the ground, so we were only chest-deep in water when we reflipped the boat and balanced it and got back in. i've learned to do canoe rescues and flips and stuff, but i don't know if anyone really teaches actual lessons on how to right rowing shells. i learned a lot from it (about rowing; about the river...), and i'm very glad it happened on such a warm day.

you laughed, enchanted by my intellect. or maybe, you didn't

yesterday dustan called me after i had already fallen asleep to tell me that michael cera and i were meant for each other because there was an article about him in spin saying how his favorite album is pinkerton and his favorite movie is rushmore.  thanks for thinking about me, dustan.  thanks for being such a dreamboat, michael cera.  

i've been sick lately.  i think it's because of rowing.  it might be because of my millions of environmental allergies, which are in full swing when i walk through the river valley to the edmonton rowing club.  it might also be because i am working all the toxins out of my body with all that exercise, but not drinking enough water to flush them out.  boo.  i haven't been on the water yet.  we've just been erging (using the ergometers/rowing machines) and in the tank (which is essentially an indoor boat that doesn't move - if you're curious, ask me about it).  i was supposed to be on the water with this other girl yesterday, but there were whitecaps on the river and i haven't been in a boat for 2 years, so we decided to stay in the tank.  i think on friday we'll be going out.  i bought some superwarm tights, which aren't really all that aesthetically exciting, but man, they will be so awesome in october.  

i went to the blackspot cafe on tuesday, after a cute supper with my sisters at chianti's.  jenni and the boys in her band were having some sort of jam session/open mic thing every tuesday, and there were only 6 of us there, but it was fun and super funny.  

class is really interesting.  we talked about northwest coast social relationships with regard to salmon today.  so neat!  in my native issues and insights class, we are talking about definitions for words like metis, indian, inuit, treaty, status, first nation, etc., and not really coming up with anything concrete.  in cree we are learning about animate intransitive paradigms and conjunct mode and i don't even know what those things are in english.  my favorite new cree words are "oho" (which has a macron above each of the 'o's, but i don't know how to write that on here), and "sisip," (which also has macrons above the 'i's).  "oho," pronounced "oo-hoo," means "owl," and "sisip," pronounced "see-seep," means "duck."  i think i am getting familiar with a lot of the cree sounds, but i still have trouble with emphasis.

he made me a tape of bootlegs and b-sides

wednesday was my first day of classes. exciting! the classes i have this term are: archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, native issues and insights I, northwest coast societies from an anthropological perspective, and introductory cree. woo! later on, meghan and i ate at julio's barrio (because no one we worked with at the museum had ever been there, and they wanted to go. unfortunately, none of the rest of them showed up) and then walked home and painted watercolors and watched "high fidelity." (as a side note: i really do apologize for not citing my sources in MLA style. i know i don't capitalize, but citing sources correctly is a bigger deal to me. anyway, my screen on this new computer won't let me make italics, etc., and i don't know html. sorry.)

on thursday joel alexander and i met at 8 for a free pancake breakfast put on by the u of a students' association. i thought we would have to wait in line much longer than we did. we only waited for about 5 minutes. then we ate our breakfast in the native studies' tipi and then we hung out in the chem building and played with dry ice. i had some more classes. no crushes in them. later on i went for hot chocolate downtown with kaylin and we had a good talk. i think we always have good talks. then we went to see blake's band play at the starlight room with another band called "art brut." they were pretty amazing. i think i would have enjoyed the show if i hadn't been so tired/hungry, but i think blake enjoyed it enough to cover everyone. i don't know if i've ever seen someone so happy.

on friday i woke up really late, which was okay. i only had one class - my cree lab - but i will have more labs starting next week. i went to the doctor and she things i have asthma. another great quality i can add to my nerd list. later on i went to a meeting for the u of a rowing club. tryouts start tomorrow, and i am pretty nervous, because i can't really jog or do work-out-y things. i'm pretty decent at rowing, but i hope i don't get cut because i suck at push-ups. ugh.

on saturday i had soccer practice with a women's intramural team i might play with this fall. they seem neat and right at my level, which is nice. a lot of the girls are mexicans, and they give cute cheek-kisses to each other and yell in spanish a lot. cute. afterwards my parents and my sisters and my sisters' boyfriends and i went out for lunch at chianti's to celebrate my birthday. my mom and my dad gave me a rotary mat and a rotary cutter and a big clear plastic ruler (quilting/sewing supplies) for my birthday. woo! now i just need a flat, uncarpeted surface to cut my fabric on. later on, kaylin and i went to the sleeping bag drive-in at the u of a. it was supposed to be outside at QUAD, which would have been unassailably cute, but since it had rained all day, the movie was inside. it was still kind of cute anyway. kaylin and i brought lawn chairs and each cuddled up under blankets we had sewn ourselves. the movie they showed was "blades of glory." meh.

today emily and i hung out. i got some pictures developed so i could hang some new ones on my walls. we also went to michael's and then checked out the open house at the city arts centre. there are lots of neat programs on there this fall. you should check them out. afterwards we made multigrain chocolate chip cookies together. later on, i went to dr. e's because she was having a little party for a neat lady she knows. i saw linda and matt and dr. zinck, all of whom i haven't seen recently. i mostly hung out with bri, who, as always, was really great to talk with. then i finished collaging my scribblers, and now i am going to sleep.

oh! also, colin and i might be friends again. i can't say for sure, but it looks promising. that might be my most exciting news.

heyyy brother

so... i drove to calgary on friday. kelseydawn and i met up with a girl who worked for ghost river rediscovery, and who gave me a letter from the guyanese girl who wrote me a letter just before i left guyana (i wrote about it a while ago - if you're a new stalker or just a friend with a bad memory, go back a few months and read it). we spent the rest of the day hanging out on kensington and 17th ave., watching arrested development episodes on dvd, watercoloring, and eating tacos. the next morning we got up early and drove to canmore to go caving at "rat's nest cave." apparently, the cave has pack rats, which was surprising to us because we had believed alberta to be "rat free." also, "dutch elm disease" free. these beliefs, i suppose, developed over years of driving west out of lloydminster and seeing the "prevent dutch elm disease" signs. also, a boy in my high school class used to call saskatchewanites (?) "ratlanders," supposedly because WE didn't have rats. anyways. a surprise.

i had been caving before, and kelsey hadn't, but this time was pretty different from the last time i went. a couple of times we had to clip onto ropes to avoid falling into 50-foot holes, and we also did a 60-foot rappell at one spot. we crawled through some pretty tight spaces, but this cave had more tight vertical crawls, whereas the other cave i've been in had a really tight long horizontal crawl. kelsey and i tried to photograph ourselves enjoying the activity, but the combination of:
1. terrible lighting,
2. terrible photography skills, and
3. terribly unphotogenic girls
made for some pretty terrible pictures. we had a really good time, though, and it's really nice to have someone to do pseudo-"adventurous" outdoorsy activities with. we think our next activity might be dog-sledding in canmore.

after caving, i drove back to edmonton and hung out with joel alexander kelly. i sure do like that boy. we ordered pizza and watched "the life aquatic," which seems like a pretty mediocre night but after almost a year in relative isolation, it was really nice to do city-ish things with a real friend. later on we went to see jenni play at the velvet underground. i really like illfit outfit's new stuff, i've decided.

on sunday emily moved out of the apartment to a new place, and i actually got furniture and a place to call home for the first time in a year. new brown bed! new brown sheets! new brown curtains! thrilling.

on monday i had orientation. i am so excited for school. i signed up for a bunch of clubs and got a bunch of cute boys' phone numbers. part of that sentence is a lie. later on i collaged the front of some of my scribblers.

today i got my hair cut. i also saw richard, my favorite homeless man, waiting for the bus outside the movie studio. i talked to him for a bit, which was pretty exciting because i haven't seen him in over a year. i've been working on mix tapes for the last few days. also, i finished handsewing the 4 pink moose onto the outside of one of my grey bags.

tonight i think i'll be staying here

after this weekend, i was pretty much convinced that life couldn't get any better, when it threw me A WHOLE BAND MADE OUT OF JASON SCHWARTZMAN. i'd rather italicize that, but my computer doesn't let me and i don't know HTML. anyway. kelsey made me a mix cd this weekend, and it had some coconut records songs on it, and i fell in love with them without knowing the band is almost entirely jason schwartzman. swoon. i will write more on my magical weekend later.