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.

post script to last night's post:
1. one of the things becky said that i really enjoyed/identified with: "but i e-mailed him back, because i enjoy adventure and excitement." this was an e-mail to a boy she maybe shouldn't have e-mailed. i know how it is, becky. we both have pretty extreme emotions and i think we both like to play with them, with the same enjoyment that most people get out of extreme physical activities.
2. michelle told me some more adorableness about reece: "we were marking kids together for Mission Impossible and he was talking about how "manly" his Sr. was "he hunts, rock climbs, fishes...he's like the manliest guy ever. And me? I read books." he's so awesome!!!

there was a time when all i wanted was my ice cream a little colder, and a little cream soda

i should be in bed but i wanted to write about the awesomeness of my day before it leaves me. my awesome day didn't really start until 3:00. also, this may have to be in point form.

1. i drove to the south side of the city, and stopped at michael's (the craft store, not a handsome boy's) to buy a spool holder and some paintbrushes
2. then i picked up kaylin from her work, and we drove to
3. pick up becky from HER work, and we ALL drove to
4. camp nakamun! it's the first time i've been there in about 5 years! we visited:
5. michelle powles, who was as delightful and irreverent as ever and is like having a built-in MST3K robot in one's life; and
6. reece c., who has been my and michelle's long-time favorite "nakakid" ever since we discovered he had the same first name as my camp name.
7. kaylin, becky and i got to camp just as the best night of the week, TALENT SHOW NIGHT, was starting.
8. we also managed to get there on DONUT NIGHT! how lucky! we had some terrible camp juice: a fun memory but a taste which still lingers in the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth.
9. reece remembered me AND gave me a hug, and i told him to find me on facebook and he said, "i don't use facebook. i don't have many... 'personal' friends." a-dorable. i would have a for-real crush on him, if only he wasn't 17.
10. on the way back from camp, we saw a moose running through the field and across the road, as well as a porcupine!
11. driving and just generally spending time with becky and kaylin was great. great great great. they are some of my favorite people AND they are two of my oldest friends. that maybe seems short, since i didn't go to school with either of them, but becky and i have been friends for 8 years, and kaylin and i have been friends for just a little bit less. that's a long time.
12. kaylin and michelle and i have plans to collage our scribblers together before school starts.
13. we dropped kaylin off at home, and then bexxx and i went to see jenni/illfit outfit play. we were pleasantly surprised to see jon and scott kobewka there. i didn't dance at all, which was a little disappointing, but being at a show again with becky was really nice, and jon is rad and i am glad we got another chance to hang out this summer. we are supposed to be friends now but he is a boy so i don't know how good he'll be at that. anyway, i am excited for potential mix tape exchanges with him.

it's not the milk you seek; it's the sun you need

remember that pair of brown chucks that was missing one shoe? the peeps at foot locker called around all over canada, and they found ONE full pair in my size and they ordered it for me. so, this post will hopefully be short, because i have to go pick them up. woo!

more good news is that my credit card insurance company sent me a cheque in the mail for the amount of my stolen red ipod. but here's the deal: i bought my ipod when i bought my new mac, and it was on this deal where you could get a new ipod (below the value of $229) for free. so, the ipod i got was about $315, so i ended up paying $70 for the ipod after they sent me the rebate. but now, i have a $315 cheque, and i don't really NEED another ipod, because i still have my big one. hmm. decisions. should i buy a new little ipod for little trips? should i buy books? should i drive as far as i can on $157 worth of gas, and then drive back? the world is my oyster!

i'm back in edmonton, but here's a little summation of the remainder of my v-town trip:
-i cut out a LOT of fabric
-i sewed some of said fabric into log cabin squares for a quilt i am making for myself. some of my favorite fabrics include 2 pinecone fabrics, a brown fabric with cattails all over it, and some pretty japanese flowers.
-i sewed some more fabric into bags and wallets. i had to do it all then because i wanted to use my mom's serger. i still have to do the fronts of the bags and wallets, though, and that will take a long time. the one i am working on right now is for a grey corduroy bag, and i am hand-sewing four bright pink moose (mooses?) onto it with a blanket stitch. it's pretty ridiculous. i think i'll put a duck and some cattails on a brown bag, and a bison on the plaid bag, and then who knows what else. world = still my oyster.

i went longboarding with dustan one night. it was really, really nice. sometimes i like having new friends, because it's nice to learn about people, but sometimes i like having friends like dustan, where new stuff isn't all that important but memories are what keeps the friendship alive. we played a game that i have been wanting to play with a different boy recently: we would just drive around and alternately point out a memory. i always feel like vermilion isn't really my home, but it turns out i have a lot of memories there. also, i wanted to hang out with brina, but i didn't get a chance to, because her sister just had a baby. i didn't even know she was pregnant.

emily and brad came over on monday. for some reason, emily was thinking about these old computer games we used to have, and then she found them, so i spent a night playing "ecoquest." this was partially because my dad but a ban on me sewing after he's gone to bed, because my machine makes too much noise and keeps him awake. i think it speaks volumens to my nerdiness that my family's computer games are limited to "ecoquest," "spelling blizzard," and "the island of dr. brain." yeesh.

yesterday evening i met up with karen, bri, bethany, joel, lisa, and marney to watch this boy who used to play in illfit outfit play a couple sets at a church. i like hanging out with those peeps. i like that my summer's been bookended by one of his shows and two illfit outfit shows. hearts for symmetry!

i can feel so boring for someone so interesting

today i was cutting fabric and my mom told me, "i like this one. it's not pretty but it's interesting... like you." ouch.

when i got back to edmonton, the first thing i did was go to see "superbad" with emily and meghan and meg's boyfriend nick. it was supercrude, but michael cera is adorable. "samesies"? how could i not love it? the next day, emily and brad and i went to see "the simpsons movie" at city centre. not terrific, but i'm glad i watched it with those two peeps.

at karen's on sunday, i somehow rolled my ankle really bad. i think the ground was a bit uneven because there must have been a large planter or something sitting there a while ago. anyway, i kind of fell out of nowhere and looked really ridiculous doing it, but it really really hurt and still does. i have bad ankles because of dance/soccer, and they haven't been so bad lately because i haven't really played much soccer for the last two years, but now they're totally messed up again. ugh. so, i've been in vermilion for a couple of days now, but haven't gone longboarding yet because of my dumb ankle. however, i have been keeping busy. i bought some fabric to make myself a quilt, and i visited my grandma and gido at their new place at the lodge. i should be working on my bags and wallets for nokomis, but i don't really feel like it. i couldn't find any more of the lining fabric i really like, and it's hard to start on those projects without the lining fabric. boo.

i talked to trent and dustan. trent was same old new trent, so we didn't talk long, but i had a good talk with dustan. we might hang out tomorrow. he asked me to be his date for esther and joel's wedding in october, which is nice, because i didn't get invited. i told him i would go, on the conditions that: 1) he didn't have a beard, and 2) he wore matching socks with no holes in them. then he said i could have 5 conditions, but i didn't have to list them all at once. that's pretty generous of him. most of the time that boy makes me crazy, but about 10% of the time, he's one of the best friends i've got.

then mom just rolls her eyes. she says, "you'll find that special guy," but to herself she cannot lie...

i got back to edmonton on friday. i've mostly been unpacking and reclaiming the apartment. also, i bought some watercolor stuff and have been painting every night with my sisters. i am really, really terrible, but it is nice to do. today was karen's birthday party, and i bought her some watercolor paints and a few brushes and cheap paper and a little paint tray, and then i sewed a little red corduroy pouch to fit everything (except the paper) into. i was pretty happy with it, for something that was done 2 hours before the party. it has some brush pockets all the way across the front, and then the tray fits in a big pocket across the back, and the tube paints fit in their tray inside the pouch. also, i cut some of the paper into postcard-sized pieces so karen could paint and send postcards, because that's what i've been doing and i like it.

but the big news in my life is not watercolors. it is that in the span of ONE HOUR today, i found out that two girls i am pretty good friends with are getting married, and another from my king's soccer team got married already (to another girl - is that legal in alberta? i don't know...). one of the girls getting married is mischa, who i hung out with after i got back from guyana and who did not have a boyfriend at that time. i will have to find out more about this. but i bet this boy is good, because mischa is smart and good with making decisions. then again, i do recall mischa once handing in a rough draft of a sociology essay we worked on together, with one of the sentences have SIX "not"s in it. yikes. the other marriage is andrea, one of my best friends since high school and with whom i had an enormous fight in university, and did not talk to for over a year. now we are good good friends again, and tonight she asked me to be in her wedding party. in new brunswick! wow! exciting. and a really special honor. i like that some of the people i am closest with are the people who i've gone at least a year without talking to because of anger/hurt. so. weddings. exciting, because they mean dance parties. not exciting, because i am an old maid.

i thought i should probably write about a few semi-exciting things that happened this week:
1. i saw a black bear, a marten or a fisher, and a coyote.
2. i picked blueberries and raspberries with meghan, and we even got some yellow raspberries! they are just like red raspberries, only kind of peach colored, and a little bit sweeter and less tart. neat!
3. i am done work in one hour, and then i am driving back to edmonton!
4. i cried today, and i am glad. i haven't had a good cry for a long time.
5. jen showed us just how slippery a banana peel on the floor can be. i never thought it could really be that slippery. i thought that was just a made-up fact for cartoons. nope.