i thought we could be friends

on friday morning i slept in, and then worked at the elementary school from 11:30 until 12:30. as usual, it was a ton of fun. my favorite kids, the grade 1s, gave me lots of hugs and begged me to go tobogganing with them. i did, and so i'd kneel down on my crazy carpet, and they'd all grab onto me and my sled, and then we'd inch down the top of the hill until we started sliding. there were usually about 10 of us attached together. near the end of recess, kids were just grabbing onto us and sliding down the hill on their stomachs in their snowsuits without any sleds, and some of them would just jump on my back as soon as we started sliding. so fun. i LRT'd downtown to pick up some books from the library, and since i had a little bit of time before class, i decided to have lunch by myself at three bananas cafe. it was amazing. i had been meaning to go there for quite a while, and i'm really glad i finally did. i had a life-changing chicken and jalapeno panini. then i LRT'd back to the university for my cree lab. after cree, i watched "smoke signals" by myself. that evening, i met jessie and her brother eric and her friend cam, who was visiting from thunder bay, at the u of a transit station, and we LRT'd downtown to see doug hoyer and toy singers play at the velvet underground. i keep seeing this dude around shows in edmonton, and i've recognized his face, but could never remember his name. finally, earlier this week, becky or jessie mentioned a name, and i realized that it was this boy's. i remembered that he used to play in a band called audience of one about eight years ago, and that my ex-boyfriend evan used to live with one of the dudes in that band. whew. anyway, the show was fun, and i got to hang out with jenni for a bit, and there were free cupcakes because it was toy singers' cd release, but we had to leave early to make sure we could catch the LRT back across the river and make it back home.

on saturday, i worked at the ledge. i think that two out of three of my tours went. although i like having days when i don't have to do tours, when i do have to do them, i realize that i kind of enjoy doing them. after work, i came home for a bit, and then met jessie, eric, and cam at steeps. we walked/LRT'd/walked to the treehouse, where we saw the joe, orange in the light, and illfit outfit play. the joe was extra entertaining, because:
a) he's just a good rapper,
b) he seems like a super positive, good guy, and
c) there was this one girl who knew all the words to his songs, and so she was singing them and dancing and smiling super hard. adorable.
we LRT'd back across the river after the show. i went home and jessie, eric and cam walked all the way back to jessie's.

on sunday my parents came up to visit me and my sisters for family day. they first bought emily a bunch of groceries downtown, and then they came across the river to buy some more for alyssa and me. we unpacked the groceries at home, and i showed my mom the art projects i've been working on. then we went to the cheesecake café (alyssa's choice) on the west end for lunch, and stopped at michael's so i could get some yarn and embroidery thread. then we went to west edmonton mall, so my mom could buy a bathing suit for the trip she and my dad are taking to mexico in the spring. my sister works at a bathing suit store in the mall, so she had a pretty substantial gift certificate to use up. i scammed her into buying me a cute brown dress. i also wandered around h&m, because i had never been there before and because i wanted to see if i could find a pair of cute red tennis shoes like kaylin has. the store was a total nightmare. there were a million people everywhere, and everything was shoddily made in sweatshops around the globe. ugh. the mall was pretty packed, too. finally, after about an hour, my mom picked out some things to buy, and we headed out, but not before stopping at london drugs, where dad bought alyssa and me a new phone for our apartment. i drove us back to emily's apartment to drop her off, and then mom and dad dropped alyssa and me off at our place. i took "smoke signals" to jessie at her work so that she could watch it, and then i walked to the movie studio to rent a movie. before i went, my dad called and told me i should rent young guns and young guns 2. i'd seen the first one, but not the second. anyway, because i hate shopping or picking movies, and could find nothing i'd rather watch, i rented both movies. i watched the first one and half of the second one that night. i actually like them quite a bit.

freedom from myself and from the land

on wednesday the 13th, i woke up at 9:00 so i could be at the bruce peel special collections in rutherford library south by 10:00. a couple of us from my NS 211 class met there so we could take a look at the javitch collection, which has a lot of information pertinent to native studies. we looked at a copy of treaty 6, and some old prints of photographs. after that, i stopped in SUB for a bagel, and then went to pembina for cree at noon. i LRT'd to bay station, because my CSL class was meeting at the edmonton chamber of volunteer organizations that afternoon to hear some guest speakers. i heard some crazy statistics, including one bit of research following 15 homeless people in calgary for a period of 18 months, which found that each of these people used approximately $200,000 worth of social services in that time. ho-leh! i left class a little bit early so i could LRT back across the river for an appointment with my naturopath at 4:00. we are trying to figure out what is causing my millions of allergies, and he thinks it is food, so he has proposed that i either do a cleanse, and then gradually add in more foods and see if i react to them, or do a blood test. the blood test is just a finger prick, but it costs $250. the food experimentation will cost about the same because i will have to eat very particular foods. ugh. i talked to my mom about it later that night, and she said she'd pay for half of whatever i decided to do, but only on the condition that if they found anything that i was allergic to, i'd have to commit to stop eating it. i dread that the tests will tell me i am allergic to sugar or potatoes or meat, and i don't think i can live without those things. so here comes a brand-new season of debilitating allergies! afterwards, i met becky and jessie at steeps, but we all only stayed for about an hour. becky had to go to her moccasin-making class, jessie and layne went to cree class at the native friendship centre downtown, and i went home to study.

on thursday i went to NS 211 at 9:30, where we had a really great class discussion on indigenous education. it was easily the best class of that course this year. afterwards, i skipped NS 390 and cree so that i could study for the two midterms i had later that day. i wrote my ecological anthropology midterm at 3:30, and i'm quite sure i failed. that's especially frustrating for me, because i think i have a pretty good basic understanding of the ties between culture and nature, but the prof for that class blows through all the information very quickly, and then asks really ridiculous questions about the information that she has hardly given us time to process. plus, all we are really learning about in that class are the 5 subsistence strategies (foraging, extensive agriculture, nomadic pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and industrial agriculture). boo. i finished my exam at 5:00 and, feeling pretty bummed because i had done so terribly, rushed to good earth cafe to pick up a roast beef panini and an orange poppyseed muffin to eat while i crammed for my contemporary aboriginal art midterm. i wrote that exam at 6:00, and i think i did considerably better on it than on the earlier exam. afterwards, as we handed in our exams, we showed our instructor the collages we had each made, which were worth 10% of our final grade. my instructor loved mine, and asked if i were an artist. i told her no, i wasn't, but that i made a lot of crafts. as i was walking down the hallway after class, a girl ran up to me and asked if she could see my collage, because she had seen it when i was at the front of the room and wanted to see it up close. all that made me feel really good about myself, so i bussed down to steeps to show jessie my collage and to tell her about my instructor's reaction. then i walked to safeway to buy some orange juice and multigrain bread, and then i came home and knitted my raven for a while.

i trip fast and then i lose, and i hate looking like a fool

on saturday morning i met dr. e at steeps on whyte for tea and gossip. it was really nice to hang out, because we haven't done so for a couple of months. we hung out for about an hour and a half, and then i walked home to clean up my house. a girl i know has been asking me to teach her how to make wallets, so i had planned to have a crafting day so that a bunch of us could hang out and i could show her how i do the wallets. however, she got sick that day and couldn't show, so i just had a quiet hang-out with claire and jessica. mostly i just played old-school nintendo (super mario brothers 3 on original NES) and talked with jess while claire drew and wrote an amazing postcard for her crush. i love crushing on boys in the company of those girls, because they as inclined to swoon and overanalyze and give in to a rollercoaster of emotions as i am. claire had to leave after about an hour to go to work, so jessie and i walked her to her work, and stopped at the movie studio, where we rented "in the realms of the unreal." i had been meaning to rent it for quite a while, but it seemed like one of those movies that you have to be in a very particular mood for. anyway, we watched it at my house, and i knitted my raven as we watched it, and it was super interesting. jessie left shortly afterwards to go to the hayden concert, but i stayed at home to get some studying done.

on sunday the 10th, i worked at the legislature from 11:45 until 5:15. it was totally dead, and i didn't give a single tour all day. after work, i came home, and emery texted me to ask if he could use my sewing machine for a bit before we went to a movie we'd planned on seeing. he told me he'd come over at around 7:00, but by 7:45, i still hadn't heard from him, so, feeling quite irritated, i tried to call him from my cell phone, and realized it wasn't working. i then tried my home phone, and realized that it, too, hadn't been working. i called him from my sister's cell and found out that he'd been trying to get a hold of me all that time, but, realizing he couldn't reach me, had gone to school to get a bit of work done. anyways, at 8:30, we met at the basement of my apartment, where he gave me a creme egg for the movie. nice! then he drove us (in his roommate's borrowed vehicle) downtown to the metro cinema to see "helvetica," a documentary on the typeface of the same name. the film was magical, and felt like a love letter to the font. emery drove me home afterwards and i went to bed.

on monday morning, i got up at 6:15 so i could be at the bissell at 8:00. i talked a lot with bev, the volunteer coordinator, and with angie. i went to cree class at noon, and then napped for part of the afternoon. i went to my popping and locking class from 7:35 until 8:55.

tuesday was filled with class and studying for midterms.

i spend most of my nights guessing - are we not? are we together?

i worked at the bissell on monday morning, and LRT'd back to the university for cree class at noon. i came home, napped until 4:00, and then worked on the two assignments that were due the next day (the first: a letter to the minister of indian affairs, addressing indian education; the second: a literature review for NS 390). i went to my popping and locking class in the van vliet centre from 7:35 to 8:55.

on tuesday i went to all my classes and handed in all my assignments, and then worked on some CSL homework after class. emily came over after she was done at the gym, and we went to american apparel (so i could buy more new underwear - they're having a really great sale right now) and boston pizza. then emily left to go see "juno" with one of her friends, and i stayed at home and did some reading.

on wednesday i had cree at noon, and then CSL from 1:00 until 4:00. i went to steeps afterwards, like i always do, to meet jessica and becky and claire. i also met a girl who works there, who is apparently in one of my classes, and we had a really good talk about the class. she had been feeling a lot of the things that i had been feeling regarding the class, but i think she was too shy to express them in class.

on thursday i went to all my classes except for cree, because it had been cancelled for the day. it was actually kind of a relief, even though cree is probably my favorite class. i spent that time at home, working on an art project (part one of four: a knitted raven) that i am making for my "contemporary aboriginal art" course.

on friday, i worked at the elementary school at noon. since it was so cold, we had recess indoors, and i spent the whole time playing dodgeball with the grades one through three. it was the best. i felt especially good because i was able to convince the shy little grade one girls to come and play with the big grade three boys. once they were playing, they realized that they were having a really good time.

after dodgeball, i went to the university to meet with one of my prof's, regarding some of the things i had spoken about with that girl from my class on wednesday. i think it was a really good talk, and i hope a better classroom experience will come out of it.

i didn't have cree on friday, because it was cancelled due to some of the "aboriginal health week" sessions. instead, i bussed to west edmonton mall to buy a glue gun. i am making some cute decorations for my house like the ones kelsey and i made for her house, by gluing old fabric scraps inside of wooden embroidery hoops and then adding embroidery or buttons. the ones i started this week are cut from old nokomis bags. after i bought the glue gun, i also had a gingersnap from starbucks and a cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice from booster juice in the mall, and on the way back to the bus, i stopped and watched the sea lions' show. they are pretty adorable, but i still miss mavis and howard (who, for those who are not so in tune with the goings-on of w.e.m., were the last two bottle-nosed dolphins who lived in the tank at the mall). i had a nap after i got home from the mall.

i walked to badass jack's near my house to buy a bbq chicken wrap for supper, and then i bussed to whyte to meet emery at the fringe gallery to take a look at some art, but it turned out that the show had closed an hour before we got there. boo. so we bussed back to the university, and LRT'd downtown. then we walked toooo many blocks in the freezing, windy cold to get to the ARTery for a show. it was really nice to hang out, and extra nice that we scored an awesome couch right in front of the stage for the second band. unfortunately, because of mass transit, we had to leave the show before the band we had gone to see even came on. we LRT'd back across the river, and i went home and had pleasant dreams.

oi to the world and everybody wins

on monday i volunteered at the bissell drop-in centre from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. i felt frustrated because the other volunteers and i haven't gotten any training, and therefore don't know where to refer clients when they ask for certain services. i went to cree class at 2, and then had an appointment with my naturopath at 3:30. i came home for a bit and then went to my first ever popping and locking course at the u of a. it's REALLY hard. it's mostly hard because i get so unbearably shy and nervous when people are trying to teach me dance moves, and i stiffen up so much that it hurts my muscles. i really, really like when my timidity becomes physically overwhelming. however, it doesn't really help me learn dance moves very well. it seems really strange to me, too, because i feel really free when i am dancing otherwise. whatevs.

on tuesday i had all my regular classes, as well as a cree quiz.

on wednesday i met up with a lady from the u of a administration, because she has recruited me to do something for her in the spring, when the university has a day especially for recruiting rural students. it sounds like fun. after that, i had cree, and then CSL. in CSL i had to do a short presentation on an article about white students' experiences as they become aware of their socioeconomic privilege. although i've learned a lot about my own privilege and status over the last couple of years, the article was really informative and interesting to read and present on. afterwards i met becky and claire and kaylin and jessica at steeps to craft for a couple of hours.

thursday was full, full, full of class. i was irritated when one of my professors told the class that 17 first nations people in fort simpson died in the first week of the residential school payouts, due to the government's decision to "kill off the indians" by doing the payouts in one lump sum (the actual statistic was 4 deaths in one month, and i very much doubt that the government plotted to kill off people by giving them thousands of dollars), and then told us that the government had also plotted to kill off first nations by feeding them junk food to ensure they all got diabetes. certainly some things have been done incorrectly and unfairly, but i'm PREEEETY sure that neither of those plots were any kind of priority for anyone in government. come on.

this friday i worked at the elementary school from 11:30 until 12:30. since it was so cold outside, we had noonhour recess inside. my favorite kid, taylor, was sitting on the steps leading to the office, looking pretty bummed out because he loves playing outside so much. i sat down next to him, and he told me that he really wanted to play "guess who?" but couldn't find it. we checked all the classrooms together, and then i went upstairs and found that some of the older kids were playing it. i came back down to tell taylor the bad news. he was still pretty bummed, but he asked me if i wanted to play monopoly. i said sure, so he ran to get the box. it was just junior monopoly, but since i hardly ever play board games, i didn't know how to play it. i told taylor that one of us would have to read the directions while the other sorted the money, and he exclaimed that he would deal with the directions. he just ended up making up new rules, so i got him and another boy who joined us to sort the money while i figured the game out. we played the whole noon hour, and it ended up being super fun. taylor just loves to play so much, so he's always a blast to be around, and the boy who joined us is always kind of grumpy, so it's funny being around him too. after work i went home, packed up some stuff, stopped at rutherford library to pick up some books, and LRT'd downtown (skipping my cree lab) so i could catch the greyhound to calgary at 2:00. i ended up sitting next to some girl who gabbed on her cell phone for half of the trip. yeesh. i mostly just listened to my ipod.

kelsey picked me up at the bus station at about 6:00, and we drove to some crazy steakhouse for meat and potatoes. kelsey bought. what a nice date. then we drove across the street to michael's to buy some crafting supplies, and stopped at a movie place to rent "eagle vs. shark." we watched the movie at kelsey's, and it was terrible. it just felt like a cheap, pathetic knock-off of "napoleon dynamite." we ate some corn chips and then went to bed grumpy because the movie was so bad. (i should mention that the reason that we rented it was because the shark costume on the cover was adorable).

on saturday we got up around 10 or so and went to the farmers' market so kelsey could order some custom leather boots. she had her feet measured in different ways so that the shoes would fit her exactly, and that made her ridiculously happy. we also saw some stingrays in a tank, which was nice because i have decided that they are my new favorite animal. the market wasn't as good as edmonton's, i think. then we went to some health foods store so i could buy some stevia (natural sweetener), because my naturopath put me on a 3-week no-sugar diet. boo. i am nearly going crazy. i am basically just replacing any sugary snacks with super carbohydrate-y snacks. then we went back to michael's to buy a glue gun and some glue sticks and white thread. we stopped at the movie place and rented the first season of "flight of the conchords," and then came home. we made tacos because that seems to be our thing or something. then we watched the whole first season of "flight of the conchords," and worked on making some decorations for her wall. basically, we took some of her old shirts (red with white polka dots) and cut them up so that the fabric would fit inside some little wooden embroidery hoops. we glue gunned the fabric to the hoops so that it would permanently stay. then we used yellow buttons and light yellow thread and sewed cute designs on the hoops. i made a couple with some swirls and a tall vase and some flowers made out of buttons. i think they all turned out really well, and will look super cute when kelsey hangs them on her wall. i think that saturday was also the day we tried making some sculpey creations. kaylin is amazing with that stuff, but i guess kelsey and i aren't really. kelsey made some cute trees that broke when we put them in the oven, and i made a brown duck with yellow wings and some things that look like a cross between a lollipop and a kind of seuss-esque tree. mid-crafting and mid-conchording, we drove to 17th ave. to stop at american apparel, because that's the other thing we always do when we hang out. tacos and american apparel. anyway, i bought a green t-shirt and a purple long-sleeved shirt, and 3 pairs of underwear for $25! what a good deal! i might have to go buy more underwear this week from the a.a. here. we stopped at steeps on the way home, and i bought a tin of pear green tea, while kelsey bought a tin of lemon meringue pie tea. when we came home we watched more "conchords" and shared our tea and crafted. those teas are so good! i also taught kelsey how to make bannock, so we made a couple of batches and fried them on the stove. mmm. after "conchords," i started watching "eternal sunshine of a spotless mind," but got too sleepy to finish it. i slept on the couch.

this morning i woke up at 11:00, showered, made some soup for the two of us, and made a cd from kelsey's itunes while i packed. kelsey drove me to the calgary bus stop at 10:00, and my bus left at 11:00. i got in to edmonton at about 2:30, LRT'd home, worked a bit on my NS 390 homework, went for tea with emery at leva at 4:30, and came home and worked on my NS 211 homework for the rest of the night.

all the other girls here are stars

thursday i had class all day. ns 211, ns 390, ns 152, anthr 323, and ns 260. by the end of the day i was quite irritated, but i don't want to get in trouble so i won't write about it on here. I'll tell you about it if you ask. i spent the night doing some reading, i think.

on friday morning i bussed down to whyte ave. so i could buy some gesso and tar gel from the paint spot. i ran into davina, and we chatted for a bit. then i stopped at badass jack's for a wrap for lunch. i walked to the elementary school for work, but all the lights were off inside and no one answered the buzzer, so i guess there was no school that day. i LRT'd downtown to the library to drop off a book, and walked to a quilting store near latitude 53 so i could buy some thread for appliquéing some of my felt animals. i LRT'd back to the u of a, and sat around and crocheted in one of the lounges in HUB until it was time for my cree lab. the lab was from 2:00 until 3:00. then i came home and did some laundry, read "lullabies for little criminals," and worked on my collage. i think i might have done a little bit of writing in my CSL journal, too.

on saturday i thought i worked at the legislature, so i got all ready and lrt'd over there at 11:45, only to find out that i'd mixed up the days and i was actually scheduled to work today. i was a little bit concerned, because i had made plans to meet my semi-friend kevin at the ledge after work so i could give him a tour without having to wear my dorky tour guide clothes. since we are only semi-friends, i didn't have his phone number, so i facebook-messaged him to say that i wasn't working, but we could meet that day anyway, but that he should call me so we could figure things out. he never did get the message. anyway, since i had a free day, i decided to lrt all the way to clareview to try to exchange some earphones at future shop (i had gotten a pair two weeks ago, and already the speakers have blown. yeesh. but... i didn't have a receipt, because i tear up all my receipts before i put them in the recycle bin, so the girl wouldn't let me exchange them), and to stop at michael's to get some supplies for a project i am going to do for ns 260. i bought a bunch of yarn, plus a bunch of embroidery hoops, in which i am going to put pretty fabrics and then hang them on my wall as decorations. i came home and read some more of "lullabies...." at 4:00 i lrt'd back downtown, walking to future shop to exchange my earphones (i had dug through my recycle bin to find the pieces of my receipt, and then pieced them together with tape), and then walked to the ledge pedway, where i waited around for that boy kevin to meet me. i sat on the floor and waited until 5:15. he didn't show. he didn't call. i got mad and, swearing off boys forever, i walked across the high level bridge back towards home. to make myself feel better, i went to high level diner, and waited in line to get a table for myself for some blueberry crisp. while i was waiting, i got a call from kevin. it was 5:39. he said he was at the ledge, waiting for me. i told him i was across the river, but that i'd meet him on the ledge steps in 10 minutes. i walked back across the river, feeling significantly better than i had on my last crossing. when i got to the steps, i asked him what time i had told him to meet me, and he said 5:30. i was pretty sure i had said 5:00 (and i checked later - i had), but it was no big deal. we knocked on the door of the ledge, and the security guys recognized me and let us in. kevin had never been in the ledge before, so we went on a quick tour and i even got to show him the palm room. i put my hand in the soil in one of the huge pots that each of the palm trees are planted in. it felt so good to touch and smell moist dirt. afterwards we went for a long walk around the ledge grounds because it was so super nice out. then i asked him if he wanted to go for blueberry crisp with me at the high level diner, since i had already created a craving for it earlier. we walked across the high level bridge one more time and had our dessert. we talked a lot about travelling (he had recently gotten back from a 3-month trip through asia). he bought our desserts, which was really, really nice. by that time, it was about 8:30, and i wanted to get home because my sister emily was planning to pick up a key from me there at 9:00. i invited him to come with me. we had a really fun time hanging out and talking and going through my books and dvds. we ended up watching amélie, because he had never seen it but had wanted to, and i had been meaning to watch it this weekend anyway. all in all, it was a really nice hangout. he left at about 12:30, and i promptly went to bed, exhausted by all the day's walking.

today i worked at the ledge from noon until 5:00. i didn't give a single tour, probably because it was so yucky outside that no one wanted to leave their homes. it was nice, though. i finished reading "lullabies for little criminals" and did some work on my art project. when i got home after work, i worked on my csl journal.

she smoked in her room, and colored her hair

yesterday i went to all of my tuesday classes: native issues and insights, community-based research methods, cree, and ecological anthropology. in between i came home for some breakfast; asked a couple of staff members in native studies if i could use them as references for a course i want to take; ate a really delicious raspberry bagel in sub; and took some papers to csl house, only to find out that they couldn't take cash for the deposit i needed to give for a course. i came home and did some dishes, started watching a documentary called "poisoning paradise" (which i had seen before in a sociology class - it's about the swan hills toxic waste treatment plant, and how the toxic waste is affecting individuals and communities in the lesser slave lake indian regional council), but the copy i had from the u of a library was really bad quality, and kept cutting out. i stopped the video and did some reading for my csl class. then i knitted and crocheted a bit, and read a bit of "lullabies for little criminals." it is a good book, but i am taking a long time to get through it.

this morning my sister woke me up at 8:30 by being loud. boo. i had a shower and then waited around for the shaw guy to come and change our phone over to shaw. apparently you get some sort of deal if you get shaw internet and telephone together. i'm pretty sure the deal isn't that great, but my sister and i were tired of our old telephone provider, so we decided to try shaw out. they neglected to mention that they use the t.v. cable for your phone line, so now we only have one phone in our apartment, and it's in a really awkward location. boo. i was too lazy to protest, though. after the shaw guy left, my dad came up and dropped off a few things, because he was in the city for the day. i got a couple of cheques (gst & tax rebates; money from my mom for food), some snowshoes, and this amazing letter my gido wrote in 1943 to my grandma, just a few months before they were married. it's all written in a spiral. gido bill wrote, "i'm sorry if this letter makes you dizzy, but that's the way i feel." a-dorable. i gave my dad a picture i had had enlarged of him as a teenager, riding his first horse, trixie. trixie is rearing up, and my dad looks totally in control. it's such a rad picture. my dad was pretty pleased, i think. i got him to sign my copy of the picture, because, hey, why not? after dad left, i went to csl house to drop my forms off for the course, along with my $100 deposit in the form of a cheque my mom had sent. thanks, mom! then i went to cree, and then CSL 300. CSL 300 is a 3-hour course i have every wednesday from 1:00 until 4:00. i was good for the first half of the class, but after 2:30, i must have low blood sugar or something, because i didn't say a word for the second half of the seminar. oops. after class i bussed down to steeps on whyte, where jessica, becky, claire and i met for crafting and tea. usually i work on crocheting or knitting when i'm there, but today i cut out stencils of animals that i will use on the bags and wallets that i sew. the stencils look adorable. becky had to leave at 6:30, and claire had to leave at 7:00, but i stuck around until jessica played a couple of songs (including a sufjan song!) to start off open mic night at 8:30 at steeps. she is so great. i walked home and have been working on my CSL journal ever since.

a stranger to the concept of reciprocity

a brief overview of my weekend of january 18-20, because i like to have all this stuff written down:

friday, january 18th
-went to CSL office to get a security check, but i didn't need one, because i had one done recently.
-worked at the elementary school at noon hour
-went to my cree lab
-bought sugar/degradable plastic garbage bags/hot chocolate at earth's general store
-hung out at home
-got some strange text messages from my sister's friend, hassling me to hang out with him.
-went with claire and her mom to a community hall for “Rachel’s Round-Up,” a gathering in support of the Edmonton-Strathcona NDP candidate Rachel Notley.

saturday, january 19th, 2008
-wrote entries for my csl journal
-went to the paint spot to buy masking fluid
-met jessica and claire at steeps at 5:30 - after a bit of tea, we all helped jessica put up some posters around garneau, advertising her open mic night at steeps on wednesdays.
-the three of us bussed to mcdougall united church to see doug hoyer and hills like white elephants play. we got there a little early, so we stopped at starbucks, and claire and i shared an amazing ginger snap.

sunday, january 20, 2008
-stayed home for most of the day
-went for a little walk
-made enemies with landon, because i told him that the religion he is very heavily investing himself in right now sounds a little "effed up."

monday, january 21, 2008
-volunteered at the bissell centre drop-in from 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.
-LRT'd back to the university with john, a boy from my csl class who also volunteers at the bissell
-ate lunch in the pembina student lounge with matt and joel – king’s reunion!
-went to cree class
-bought some carpet cleaning solution from earth's general store, and cleaned some messy spots on my carpet.
-ate some delicious bread at pizza boys with claire. we worried about jessica, because she was supposed to meet us there and we couldn't get a hold of her, but it turned out that she was just having a bad day and didn't have the energy to come hang out.

she makes things... with her hands. it's as if her fingers were married to her synapsis. like this... in this way.

on monday i bussed to the bissell centre for 9:00 for a meeting with bev, the volunteer coordinator. we talked for about 45 minutes, and i filled out some papers, and then i headed home. i'm pretty excited about volunteering there. i need to do 30-35 hours there for my CSL (community-service learning) class. becky and angie both work there, so it'll be good to see them more often and to work in that community. i went to cree from 2:00 until 3:00. in the evening, claire and jessica came over, and jenni joined us later, to watch "the science of sleep." jessica's never seen it, but the rest of us have, and totally love it. i guess it's kind of predictable that crafty, introverted girls would love it, but whatevs.

on tuesday i had NS 211 at 9:30. at 11:00, i had NS 390, where we gave group presentations on our groups' research proposals. the girls in my group are kind of shy, i think, so i did most of the presentation. it was really good, actually, because they are really good at researching and organizing stuff, and i'm pretty comfortable with oral presentations but not so good at those other things, so i think we're a really good group. afterwards a girl in my class said she was really impressed with my presenting skills, which made me feel really good about myself. when i was in guyana, a lot of the work my organization was focused on doing was helping the indigenous youth develop public speaking skills, so they would have the ability and the confidence to speak up for what was happening to their lands and their lifestyles. i wonder if that is a big issue for aboriginal people in canada. i know that most people in general have a major fear of public speaking, and that the only reason i am comfortable in speaking positions is because of years of 4-h. also, a couple of summers ago, the elder that i live with up on the reserve told me, "we need someone who will fight for us. no, we need someone who will speak for us." anyway, i am just curious if that is an issue for aboriginal communities, and if so, i wonder if i could help out some way to help people feel more comfortable public speaking. after NS 390, i went to sit in the little oasis in the agro-forestry building. it's amazing! it's this tiny little rainforest with cute birds and humid air. so nice. then i had cree and ecological anthropology. in between those classes i hung out with my friend courtney in hub. i also stopped at the library to pick up this video called "poisoning paradise," which i can hopefully use for my NS 390 class. that night, i did some spraypainting on my collage for ns 260 (contemporary aboriginal art).

i slept in on wednesday until about 10:30, which is fine, because i don't have any commitments on wednesday mornings. at noon i had cree, and then i had csl 300 from 1:00 until 4:00. then i bussed to whyte ave., and i stopped at the well of health naturopathic clinic to pick up a prescription before i met becky, jessica, and kaylin at steeps for crafting and hanging out. those girls are so great. i worked on knitting a mitten all evening. becky worked on knitting a sock, jessica was crocheting a scarf, and kaylin drew in her journal. at 8:30 jessica hosted an open mic. she opened it with a couple of songs. she is seriously amazing. i am mostly annoyed with musicians, but she is so... something. unpretentious, maybe? and her songs are so sweet. i told her that a few months ago, before we knew who each other was, and she told me recently that she was a little put off because "a trendy girl" (ie. me) had told her her songs were "cute." i felt the same way about being called "trendy." she didn't want to make "cute" music, as described by seemingly "trendy" girls, and i certainly didn't want to be called "trendy." but now that we know each other we understand what was happening. her songs weren't "cute" in the way that so many artists are making cute music right now (ie. the irritatingly predictable unpredictable anecdotes accompanied by a ukelele), but really sweet and understated. i never would have called her songs "cute" if they resembled that genre i just mentioned. hers are great. anyway, the next artist was a cute-songs-on-a-ukelele kind of girl, so kaylin and i left after her set. we walked to the lrt together, and kaylin said that the hangout had been really refreshing, like "an emotional bath." that's so good to hear. our hangouts do feel really healthy.

thursday nearly killed me. i had 8.5 hours of classes (NS 211, NS 390, cree, ecological anthropology (which i left early because i had a hard time keeping up with writing down the instructor's slides), and NS 260). i finished class at 9:00, and at 9:30, a guy named bob picked me up so we could go volunteer at argyll casino for the elementary school i sometimes work at. i worked in the countroom, like i had when i had to do volunteer hours for the rowing club. it's a pretty good deal, as far as volunteer hours go. you get to hang out in a warm room and eat whatever you want for free (i had a couple of chocolate bars and a bison stew), and you only have to do about 1.5 hours of work the whole time you're there. the downside is that you have to be there until at least 2:30 a.m. however, i used my free time to work on knitting my mitten. i got home around 2:45 a.m., and promptly went to bed.

the white line's getting longer and the saddle's getting cold

I didn't end up going to Steeps on Tuesday night. I was too sick and too tired. I just stayed at home and slept.

On Wednesday I went to Vivid Print to pick up some prints I had gotten done. Then I had Cree at noon. Usually I am in the 2:00 class, but my instructor gave me permission to go to the noon class on Wednesdays so I could go to CSL 300 from 1:00 until 4:00. I am really excited about the CSL class. Its full title is, "Theory and Practice of Community Service-Learning: Communities, Knowledges, and Health." It is basically about developing healthy communities through volunteerism. We had some representatives from non-profit organizations come visit our class and talk about volunteer opportunities, because there is a course requirement that we complete 30-35 volunteer hours with an organization. I decided that I wanted to do my work with the Bissell Centre, because I've worked in inner city Edmonton before, and enjoyed the clients but ended up emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. I have a couple of friends who work at the Bissell, including one girl who worked for the same organization I had and had left feeling the same way I did, and they all really seem to love it there, so I'd like to find out more about how the Bissell takes care of its staff and volunteers. I am going there on Monday morning to get all my paperwork done and hopefully to start working at the drop-in. After class I bussed to Whyte Ave to meet Jessica and Kaylin at Steeps. Kaylin stayed until about 6:30, and Jessica and I stayed until 8:30. We just drank tea and talked and made crafts. I taught Jessica how to crochet. She was supposed to host an open mic there at 8:00, but no other performers really showed up that night, and she was feeling as sick as I was, so she decided to cancel it. I got some pizza and a cream soda from The Funky Pickle for supper. I walked home and crafted and read for the rest of the night.

Thursdays are going to be riDICulous for me this semester. I have 8.5 hours of class every Thursday. It starts out with NS 211 in the Education building. Then I have an hour before my NS 390, Community-Based Research Methods, starts in the General Services Building. Then I have another half hour to kill before Cree in Pembina Hall. This week, I spent that time buying earphones from the university bookstore and coconut earrings from a vendor in SUB. Then I have half an hour before ANTHR 323, Ecological Anthropology, in Tory. I ran into my friend Courtney, who I hardly ever see unless it is in a totally random run-in, so we talked for a bit before class. After anthro, I have one more free hour before NS 260, Contemporary Aboriginal Art, in the Ed building. I was really excited to learn over the Christmas holidays that my instructor for that class would be Jane Ash Poitras. I've never had an instructor whose name and work I've recognized before the class, so this is pretty exciting stuff. From what I know about her, she's pretty eccentric, and I wasn't sure whether I would totally love her or totally hate her. Based on last Thursday's class, I think I can safely say that I totally love her. She's funny and irreverent and bright, and best of all, she's getting us to do COLLAGES for class assignments. Could I possibly love this class any more? I've already started my collage. It's not due until mid-February, but I couldn't resist. Maybe I'll post a photo of it on here when it is finished. So far I've covered part of it with acrylic paint to make it kind of texture-y, and I've done one acrylic gel transfer of a photo and am halfway through another gel transfer. Exciting!!!

On Friday I kind of bummed around all morning. I was feeling garbagey because of cramps. I went to work at the elementary school, but they had a lot of people on, and I was feeling yucky, so I asked if I could go home. They said yes. I walked to the grocery store to get some soup to make myself feel better. Then I walked to SUB so I could get a few pictures photocopied for the acrylic gel transfer thing for my collage. At 2:00 I had my Cree lab in the Arts building. After Cree I went home and napped. At about 6:00, I took the LRT over to Kaylin's apartment, where we wrote junior high-esque letters to each other and watched R. Kelly's ridiculous rap opera. Then we walked over to the downtown library so I could drop off some books and get some new cds. Kaylin asked the librarian how much she would have to pay in late fees in order to be able to use the library again. She was told $30. What a relief! Kaylin once had a $400 library fine, but they forgave it. She is the worst book-loser ever. After we walked around downtown for a bit, I LRT'd back home for some crafting time.

On Saturday I worked at the Legislature from noon until 5. I finished reading "Catcher in the Rye" while I was working in the gift shop. Then I LRT'd all the way to Clareview, and bussed/walked around over there to get to Home Depot, where I bought some yellow, apple green, and "espresso" brown spray paint and some sandpaper. I ate supper by myself at Wendy's, which made my guts hurt. Then I walked over to Future Shop to buy some better earphones for my Ipod (the ones I bought from SUB are no good, so I am going to return them tomorrow), and I finished off my trip to the northeast side with a visit to Michael's, where I bought some bamboo double-ended knitting needles, some other knitting paraphernalia, and some burnt and raw umber paints for my collage. I was also pretty happy to hear a collection of Garth Brooks hits being played over the store's stereo. Meghan and her boyfriend Nick picked me up from Michael's, and drove me to my apartment. Meghan and I walked from there to Café Select, where we met Jessica for the Notebook Magazine Issue 4 release party. Mostly we just sat on the floor and talked and thumbed through the magazine. It was a pretty swanky place and a pretty swanky party. We left at about 9:00 to walk Jessica back to her work, so we could meet her crush, who works there. He is definitely pretty dreamy. Then Megs and I walked back to my apartment to drop off some stuff and then head out dancing. But when we got to my place, I realized that I didn't have my wallet! I tried calling Café Select, but they said they were too busy to look for it then. Meghan and I retraced our steps around Garneau, and ended back up at Café Select, where the woman at the merch table immediately asked if I was "Caylie." Whew. Meghan and I were relieved when we realized that someone had turned my wallet in a few minutes earlier. We LRT'd downtown, because we wanted to go dancing at Oil City Roadhouse (which is TOTALLY not my style, and INCREDIBLY trashy, but we had wanted to go because we had heard from Kaylin that it was so disgusting and lame and unpretentious that you could just dance hard and not worry what anybody was thinking). Anyway, when we got there, there was a huge lineup of jerkish-looking boys and girls with too much makeup, so we left. We were both ridiculously tired anyway. We ended up just watching "Take the Lead" - one of my sister's movies - and eating junk food and going to bed. It was actually pretty enjoyable.

Meghan slept over last night, and she left at around 11 this morning. I left then, too, to go to work at the Ledge. I worked until 5:15. I did some knitting and some homework while I worked in the gift shop. When I was finished work, I called Emery to see if I could come to his house to pick up some sheet metal that his roommate had gotten me so that I could make some magnet boards. It turned out that Emery was just driving by the Legislature when I called, so he picked me up and gave me a ride to his place, where we got the metal. He gave me a tour around his house. I am pretty jealous of people who live in houses. I'm getting pretty tired of this apartment living. I just want to DO something with my living space. Commit to a painted wall or something. Also, I am jealous of Emery because he has a bedroom AND a making-stuff room. I need a craft room/sewing room/studio. Soon. Emery dropped me and my metal sheets off at home. Since then, I've worked on my collage (rubbing the paper off the back of the gel transfer), read a chapter in my ecological anthro textbook, knitted, done my laundry, and washed the floor in the back hall. Now I think I am going to bed.

intelligent input, darling

(stolen from my NS blog.)

Monday was the first day back at classes. The only class I have on Mondays is Cree, so it was really nice to kind of slip back into school with a whole classroom of familiar faces (the class is a continuation from last semester). Before class, though, I went to the "Well of Health Naturopathic Clinic" on Whyte Ave. for my first appointment with a naturopathic doctor. I have this low-grade asthma and some seemingly debilitating allergies, and I haven't been happy with the medical doctors I've seen, but I've heard from a couple of friends that they've been really happy with their naturopathic doctors. It was a 90-minute session, which is the most time ANY doctor has ever spent paying attention to me. I have a follow-up appointment in three weeks, so we'll see how these prescriptions and suggestions are working out.

After class yesterday I bussed to Safeway to get some groceries, and then I came home and cooked Jamaican jerk chicken and fried rice for my sister and myself for supper. I only cook about once every four months, so this was quite an occasion. I think it turned out pretty well. I became fanatic about jerk chicken and fried rice when I lived in Guyana, but I'm not really aware of any places in Edmonton that you can buy it. Hmm. I stayed home for the rest of the night and crocheted, knitted, read, and watched Degrassi. I've been pretty sick with a cold, and yesterday was probably the worst day for it.

This morning I had my NS 211 class at 9:30. To be honest, I was kind of dreading the class, but now I'm really excited about it. I feel like I really get where the instructor is coming from, and I really dig his language and teaching philosophy. Plus, we don't have to write any major essays in that class, which is a BIG plus for me.

I am just at home eating lunch right now, but at noon, I have NS 390 (Community-Based Research Methods), then I have Cree at 2:00, and then Ecological Anthropology at 3:30. I'm really excited about that last one. I hope I'm not disappointed.

Apparently "Steeps" on Whyte Ave. screens films every Tuesday at 7:00. I really want to go tonight to watch "The End of Suburbia," but I don't know if I'll feel well enough to go. Maybe I'll just nap after my classes and see how I feel around 6:30.

jan 3

soon, this will be a really, really cute post about the events that occurred on the weekend of January 4-6. keep checking back. it'll be worth it. i promise. maybe.

the blood that we're made of

(i stole this from my NS blog.)

I haven't posted for, like, a week or something. I'm really sorry. I started writing posts over the holidays, but I was suuuuper busy, and so writing posts about all those things is a little bit daunting. In the meantime, I'm going to skip right over to today and write about more recent happenings.

Today was a day of errands. I woke up semi-late (10:00), showered, and began my trip around the city. It included:
-Walking to Tory building, where I picked up my Anthro 474 essay from the department's main office so I could read the prof's comments and see my mark. I didn't do so well on the essay (B-), but I got an A+ on my presentation, so that helped to even the mark out a little.
-Walking to the University LRT station to catch the train to Churchill station. I worked on crocheting a green and brown mitten on the train. When I got off, I went to the Stanley A. Milner library to drop off some DVDs and get some new CDs and a book.
-Walking to Canada Place, where I dropped off my passport application. What a good day to go! The line was super short, and I should be getting my new passport in a couple of weeks. Woo!
-Walking to the bus stop across from Hotel Macdonald, where I waited for 15 minutes to catch the number 6, which took me down Whyte Ave.
-Stopping at two optical places to check out glasses (I want to get new ones this year, since it's the last year I qualify for reimbursement under my parents' insurance policy).
-Stopping at "Crankpots" to pick up the mugs I had painted a few weeks ago.
-Stopping at my insurance place to change my car insurance to just "fire and theft" - I've parked my car for the winter because I don't really need it.
-Stopping at "Vivid Print" to have some 12" x 12" prints made of a ridiculously rad photo I found last week.
-Walking to Pembina Hall to meet with my friend/academic advisor (? I'm not really sure what his title is) Matt, who is helping me get some stuff figured out regarding all the classes I want to take. It's all pretty frustrating, because I want to take a course overload (6 courses next semester) AND take a class that has a time conflict with another class I am taking (but it's really not a problem, because I can take the class in a different section at a different time on that day), but the computers won't let me or Matt or the lady in the CSL department do anything about it.
-Picking up an M&Ms brownie from "Cookies By George" in HUB
-Being sent by Matt to the CSL office, where the lady apparently couldn't sign the slip that I needed her to sign. Apparently she is going to see what she can do tomorrow and get back to me then. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Either that, or just start showing up in the class I want to attend but have not been able to register in.
-Going home to have vanilla earl grey tea and watch "My Name is Earl" episodes on my computer while crocheting and knitting.
-Walking to Steeps on Whyte (which is only about 5 blocks from my house) to see if my new friend Jessica was working. When we hung out on Sunday, she told me that she works every Wednesday until about 4:00, and then just hangs around there until 8:00, when she hosts an open mic night. Anyways, it turned out that she hadn't worked that day, so I walked to Safeway to buy some groceries, and text messaged her on the way, saying that I had gone to see her and that she wasn't there and that I wanted to hang out. I got a message from her about half an hour later, saying that even though she hadn't worked that day, she was on the bus at 4:00 on her way to Steeps, just in case I had decided to come there. Awesome!!! We didn't end up hanging out, but I think I might go to her house on Friday for a potluck, and I think we might both go see Illfit Outfit on Saturday. I am excited about our new friendship. She is sooo rad. Plus, we have the exact same favorite book: "I Heard the Owl Call My Name." She even has a TATTOO of the owl image that is on the inside of all the books. Wow. This friendship is sooo meant to be.
-Walking home from Safeway, I passively stalked my celebrity crush - the one I had served hot chocolate to at the Legislature a few weeks ago. When I say "passively stalked," I mean that I looked through the window of the coffee shop where I know he works (information I found out purely by accident, when a friend and I were talking about how dreamy he is and she mentioned where he works), which is, conveniently, half a block away from my house and conveniently en route from Safeway to home, and saw that he was working. Sigh. What a dreamboat. Every girl I know has a celebrity crush on him.
-Calling my friend Dr. E to see if she could go for blueberry crumble with me at the High Level Diner, only to find that she is sick with pneumonia. Yikes! I hope she gets better soon!
-Watching more "My Name is Earl" and eating pizza and crocheting until my sister Emily came over after work. We walked to the Wendy's/Tim Horton's on 112th to buy supper, and then came home to watch some more "My Name is Earl" and "Degrassi High." I probably sound like a total t.v. addict, but rest assured, I am really not. I think I am more of a crafting addict, and I like to have background noise when I am making things. Today, I worked on crocheting a pair of striped mittens, knitting an argyle scarf, and finishing a handful of garment tags for the mittens, bags and wallets that I make and hope to sell.
-Talking to my friend Jonathan on the phone. I don't talk on the phone very much to anyone, but we've had two really great phone conversations in the last month. It is nice to have that. When we were talking, I was multitasking (working on making the garment tags), and I said something about "A.D.D.," and he said, "Oh, I have that, for real." It's just funny because my sister did the EXACT same thing when she was talking to our friend Nathaniel last month. Yeesh. Learn some tact, girls.

Now I am blogging/drinking more tea/reading about cabling in knitting. I am such an old lady.

forgot, and never brought to mind

i hung out in v-town on the 28th and crafted. on saturday the 29th, my dad drove me back to edmonton in the morning so that i could be at work at the ledge for 11:45. i worked until 5:15.

on the 30th, i hung out with jenni for a bit at my house, and then crafted with becky, kaylin, and jessica for four hours. it was really nice. after they left my house, i met jenni and her jessica at the garneau theatre, where we watched "juno." i really liked the movie, but i got annoyed at how know-it-all-y juno was about music. i just get annoyed by people like that in general.

on december 31st, i woke up at 6:00 and couldn't fall back asleep. i worked at the legislature from 8:15 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. i LRT'd home and then had a nap. joel called me at about 8:00 and told me to come over to bethany's, so i took the 6 toward her house and walked the rest of the way. we had a really really nice new year's party, filled with king's A-listers (including joel, bethany, lisa, and theresa) and a bitchin' dance party. i bussed home shortly after midnight. i sent my mom a new year's text because she had asked me to, and found that my super-drunk sister had also left me a voice message, wishing me all the best. woo.

i don't remember what happened on january 1st. sorry.

i'm writing poems about you, and they're not very nice

here's a suuuper brief snapshot of my christmas vacation:

after i got home from rosebud on friday the 21st, i was exhausted and so i had a little nap. then i walked down to steeps on whyte ave to meet emery and his friend stephanie for tea and a christmas present exchange before the two of them flew home for the holidays. he gave me two really amazing books on knitting, which was mega rad because i had just started picking up knitting. i'm fairly proficient in crocheting, but have felt that it's time to take the plunge from hooks to needles. yikes. good choice, emery. i gave him some green and red mittens i had made. i hope he likes them. after tea, i said goodbye to jessica (who was working there that night, and who i had just dropped off at home hours earlier when we got back from rosebud) and stopped at funky pickle to get some pizza for supper. then i walked to the university LRT station and rode the train to grandin station, so i could work from 5:30 until 9:30. i came home after work and went right to bed.

on saturday i worked at the ledge. from noon until 5:00. then i hung out at home until kaylin got off work, and then she came over around 8:30 and we hung out for a few hours and just talked. i sure do like her a lot. last semester we started hanging out together every wednesday afternoon at muddy waters, but then school got a little overwhelming so we quit for a while. hopefully we will start our weekly hang-outs again this semester, maybe doing it at steeps so we can hang out with jessica too.

on sunday i packed up some things from my apartment, drove to the library to drop off some books, and then drove myself to my parents' place in vermilion for christmas holidays.

on monday, i made crafts (mostly crocheted mittens), watched "march of the penguins" with my family, and my sisters and i decorated gingerbread cookies, which is our yearly christmas eve tradition.

tuesday was christmas! i got some good and useful presents: an iron (which is imperative to have for sewing), a flat iron for my hair, one of those things to clean the snow and ice off your car (which was very thoughtful, but a little useless, since i've parked my car at my parents' and don't plan on driving it for another 8 months or so), some money, some amazing "wigwam" brand socks, all of "degrassi high" on dvd, some hot chocolate, and some sharpie markers. my dad gave my mom a week long trip to mexico for april to celebrate their 25th anniversary. quite honestly, i was just as happy with my great socks and "degrassi." my grandparents on my dad's side, as well as my dad's twin lorraine and her husband, joined us for christmas dinner at our house at about 1:00. my sister's boyfriend ate with us too. my mom puts on a really great christmas dinner, but she hates cooking so much that every second year, we usually go to a tropical resort over christmas holidays because she remembers how much she hates cooking that dinner. funny. afterwards, we sat around and ate gingerbread cookies and cleaned up. later that evening, kelsey called me and told me to come into town to her brother's house so i could see the turtle he was giving her. since we're from a small town, no one ever gives street numbers for addresses - they just say, "turn at the lights by the bank, take a right, and it's three houses down" or stuff like that. kelsey gave me directions like that, and said, "my brother's truck is always running - just look for it. it's really huge." i think i didn't believe her, or i thought it was a joke or something, but when i got there half an hour later, there really was this giant truck just left running outside of her brother's house. her brother says he doesn't turn it off all day, he just keeps it running, because the company he works for pays his gas. what!?! that seriously blows my mind. he said that he once left his truck running for three days straight without driving it anywhere. apparently all the guys that he works with do that kind of stuff all the time. once kelsey and i pressured him a bit, he kind of tried to justify it, saying, "well, i don't want to go outside just to turn it off," and "it's a diesel, so it actually uses less gas by running all day than if you start it three times in a day." yikes. i don't know much about vehicles, but i'm preeeeetty sure that that's not true. with ordinary gasoline, you only need to idle them for 30 seconds in order for the vehicles to be properly warmed up. it's so crazy to me that such ignorance and wastefulness is being perpetuated out on the rigs. i usually love alberta, but man, i hate that oil industry. anyways, i marched outside and took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the kitchen table. i'm sure it didn't help the environment all that much, but it sure made my stomach feel better. anyways, at kelsey's brother's, we put his turtle in the bathtub and watched it swim around for a bit. mostly it just liked to sit under the running water. we also watched it walk around on the floor. i really love turtles a lot, but i don't feel so good about keeping animals as pets. but kelsey is taking that turtle back to calgary with her, and i am excited for her. kelsey and i stopped at mac's to get some coke and chips and dip, and then we went back to her parents' house and sat on a super comfortable bed in her basement and crocheted and watched the first four episodes of degrassi high.

on wednesday my parents and kelsey and i went to lloydminster. kelsey was a bit of a grump. it's okay; i still like her. we walked around the lloyd mall and i bought some coconut earrings at a girly store. i haven't worn earrings for about 10 years, partly because i am super allergic to metal earrings and because i had assumed that my holes had grown in. they hadn't. i've wanted to wear coconut earrings for years because they are so hip and cute, and now that i know i still have earring holes, i'm'a wear them all the time. kelsey and i ate lunch at a & w in the mall, and it was shockingly good. i had a kid's pack, and it was awesome because: a) it was just enough to fill me up, and b) it came with "gushers." gushers! i haven't had those since, like, grade 6! oh, also, while we were talking in line about dreading seeing people we know, some kid turned around towards us and said, “expect the unexpected!” ew. we laughed pretty hard. after the mall, we went to wal-mart. i've been trying not to shop there lately, but kelsey and i needed to get some things for a baby shower we were going to the next day, and didn't know where else to look. kelsey bought some little cloths and some receiving blankets with lions and giraffes on them, and a little plastic turtle that measures the temperature of the bath water. i bought, like, a travel pack of liquids that you're supposed to use on babies (obviously, i totally don't know anything about babies - i think they are kind of gross) and some reusable cloth diapers and some diaper pins. it's kind of a jerkish gift to give to someone who i know would rather use disposables, but i guess i am kind of an environmentalist jerk. plus, people have lived for millennia without disposable diapers, so i think that using a slightly less convenient but also less, um, landfill-y...(?) product is definitely doable. when we got home from lloyd, i watched the third "pirates of the caribbean" movie with emily. then i went over to kelsey's, and andrea met us there (wearing the exact same winter jacket as me - strange, since we'd been best friends in high school but don't talk or see each other very often nowadays) and the three of us sat on the comfortable bed and taught each other to knit and watched "degrassi" episodes. fun.

on thursday (the 27th?), i went to sammy's (an ice cream/fast food place in vermilion) for brittany's baby shower. in addition to kelsey and brittany and andrea, my three best high school friends, there were a number of other girls i went to high school with. i don't really want to talk about the shower. mostly, kelsey and i just made eye contact across the table and laughed a lot. then kelsey showed me a cute cd and cover art that her crush had made for her - jealous!!! - and we drove to craig's so kelsey could get some knitting needles and yarn and stuff. i think i bought some muslin and buttons and stuff. then i went to the bank to deposit a couple of cheques, and to vhq to return emily's "pirates of the caribbean" rentals. before i went home, i washed my car so it would be clean when i parked it for the winter. i went home and crocheted some mittens and made myself a knitting needle/crochet hook holder.

the way shadows colonize snow

on thursday (december 20th) i woke up around 8:00. i showered and then LRT'd downtown so i could drop off a few books (i had read "the old man and the sea" over the previous couple of days) and take out a couple more. then i LRT'd/walked down to 109th, where picked up a few groceries (a happy planet smoothie, an apple, some rosebuds) from save-on-foods and then walked to pura vida on 112th to get a gift certificate for emily for christmas. then i walked to the grandin LRT station and LRT'd home. i finished packing up some things, and met landon downstairs at my apartment. devotees of my blog will remember landon as the last boy i kissed. we’ve barely communicated since then, but that all changed when landon needed a ride down to southern alberta to watch jonathan k. in a play. so, we made plans to go visit jon together. i had hoped that seeing each other again would either result in:
a) more awkwardness than we had ever experienced, which, given our history, is a lot to ask, or
b) becoming good friends like we should have years ago.
so, given my hopes for awkwardness or friendship, my calculations were significantly thrown off when landon announced at my doorstep that he had invited his friend jessica to come along. he kind of said it, like, “oh, you didn’t know?” how could i POSSIBLY know? it was supposed to be a surprise for jonathan that jessica was coming, so jon didn’t know and therefore couldn’t tell me, and landon hadn’t told me earlier, so…? ugh. boys. anyways, even though it was a surprise, i was glad that jessica was there, firstly because i think her presence helped to diffuse any potential awkwardness, and secondly BECAUSE SHE IS AMAZING. i will write more about her radness in future blogs.

anyway, i drove the three of us to rosebud, alberta (a magical little tim burton-esque town of 100 people near drumheller) so we could watch jonathan perform in a play. jonathan's play was neat, and we all had a good time hanging out and talking and eating spaghetti. then we went to a "kitchen party" at jonathan's neighbour's house, where a ton of people from town came over and had tea and then played christmas music. it was really nice, but i can't deal with a lot of people, so i went out for a walk for myself in the moonlight. it was so, so quiet and beautiful. i love the moon and i love the quiet. when i came back, jonathan and landon and jessica went out for a walk, and i started to go with them, but realized i was mega tired, so i went back to the house to go to bed.

the next morning i got up at 8:30, showered, and went over to jonathan's (because i had slept over at his neighbour's, because it's a majorly christian town, and girls aren't allowed to sleep over at boys' houses). we ate some breakfast and hung out for a bit, but jon had class at 10:30, so we decided to leave for home then. we stopped in red deer for some hot chocolate. i think jessica mostly slept in the back of my car on the way home, and landon and i talked a lot. he is going to school right now in ottawa, and he's really on about eastern orthodox christianity lately. it was really great talking to him then, i think mostly because it seems like we are doing the exact opposite things in school right now: i am learning about culture and ritual and worldviews without learning about spirituality, and he is learning all about spirituality without focusing much on culture and ritual and worldviews. i wish i could get an education where all those things are combined. it really made me appreciate going to king’s, where all the students and profs just assumed that the spiritual side of life is real and unavoidable. granted, that assumption was with a christian slant, but it was still nice to have. i had one really great prof this semester, dr. palmer, who always spoke with the assumption that the beliefs of the people she works with are true. i just found that, particularly in my intro anthro classes, people spoke really dismissively of the beliefs of people from other cultures, and maybe without recognizing it, consistently used a generally middle-class, white north american agnostic (or even atheistic?) set of assumptions as the standard by which all other beliefs were measured. yeesh. dr. palmer even said that some academics are accused of "going indian" (or whatever culture they are working with) if they get involved spiritually with the beliefs of that culture. apparently it is seen as a pretty negative thing in the academic world. yikes. anyways, i hate the word "spirituality" in the first place, because i don't really think that there's a difference between things that are "spiritual" and "non-spiritual," but whatever. sorry i've even given that word weight by using it in this post, but i wasn't sure how to convey what was happening in those discussions without using it. anyway. landon and i had some really interesting talks. i dropped jessica off at her house when we got to edmonton. before she got out of my car, she asked for my phone number so that she could pay me some gas money for the trip sometime. i said something like, “phew, i’m really glad you asked, because i was trying to figure out how to trick you into giving me your phone number so we could hang out, but i was too nervous to do it.” landon told me to grow some balls. anyways, it turns out that both jessica and i wanted each other’s numbers so that we could be hang out friends. there was not even any trickery involved. more about that later. anyway, landon's mom picked him up from my apartment building. right away i went inside and had a nap.

somehow i’ll find my way home

on tuesday the 18th i took 'er easy. i had no school and no work, but a ton of errands to do, but they were enjoyable enough that i can still classify the day as "easy." i took a "change in circumstance" form into student finance in sub so that the government would know about the bursary i got from the u of a; i got my passport photos taken at a place in hub, where i talked with the shop worker and an asian customer about native studies (the asian customer didn't know much about native culture or history in canada, so the shop worker talked a lot, often making errors or vast, but... kind?... generalizations - "they're all such spiritual people" and "if you got involved with them, you might be the first asian person ever to get involved with the north american natives" - and saying, "well, she's [ie. me] the one you should be talking to about this stuff." i didn't really want to talk because i really like listening to other people talk about native issues, because it is usually funny and sometimes shocking to hear what people think. then i feel really arrogant and proud that i know things that they don't, which is totally ridiculous because i really don't know very much about issues or culture at all. meh... anyway, i wrote down the names of a couple of organizations that the asian guy could contact so he could maybe volunteer with them and learn about native culture and history himself. after the passport photos, i LRT'd to the downtown public library to pick up some books and dvds and cds, and then i LRT'd/walked to 109th to get a few groceries (ham, garlic cloves, small foccacia breads, and cayenne pepper) from save-on-foods. i also thought there was a spa on that block, where i needed to pick up a gift certificate for emily, but it turned out not to be where i thought it was. i LRT'd home. emily came over when she was done work, and we drove to the south side of the city, where i bought a lamp from value village (to spraypaint black to match the other one i painted last week) and some yarn from michael's. we also ate supper at fatburger, which actually just opened that day in south edmonton common. i drove emily back to her apartment, where we watched "scrubs" episodes in her room and i started knitting a grey and green cowl (ie. neckwarmer) for kelsey. i drove home around 11:00.

some highlights of wednesday include driving with emily to crankpots on whyte ave., where we met up with alyssa and painted ceramics with the gift certificates jenni had given us all as birthday presents. alyssa made a starfish jewellery holder, emily made a snowman dessert tray for my mom, and i made a pair of brown and yellow mugs. robin met me there because he was driving through edmonton his way home for the holidays, and i needed to give him a pair of mittens i had made for his mom. he gave me a christmas present: 5 ceramic buttons he had made himself! wow! what a neat present! i am excited to think of new projects to use them on. when i was done painting my ceramics, i drove back home and waited for becky and angie to come over so we could watch the greatest made-for-canadian-televison-movie of all time, "the challengers." i knitted by myself after the movie was done.

if you rescue me, i’ll be your friend forever

wednesday (the 12th) was busy! i worked at the elementary school at noon. it was a really cold and windy day, but there was enough snow that the kids could go sledding on the hill. they were so excited! my favorite kid told me, first, "look! i got a black sled! they're the fastest!" i asked him how he knew, and he said his friend told him. cute. then later he told me, "dude, check this out," and he tried to snowboard down the hill on his crazy carpet. i really like being called "dude" by grade 1ers. another grade 1 kid i really like kept asking me to push him down the hill, and we talked a little bit and i asked his name, and he told it to me, but said, "i know. it's really com-pili-cated." those kids are so great! after lunch i drove to whyte ave. so my car could get an oil change at southpark. while i waited, i took my work pants to whyte avenue tailors to get hemmed, and then i tried some clothes on at american apparel and ended up at second cup. when i went to get my car i found out that there's a leak with both the coolant and the oil, and that i should probably get 4 new tires. yeesh. it's a good thing i'm parking my car after christmas! after all that bizzz-ness i went home and... crocheted, probably? i don't remember. but i DO remember that i went to bethany's/bri's/natasha's at around 9:00 to watch "home alone" with them and joel. they had all gone out tobogganing, so when i got to their house, they weren't there, but a couple of girls i recognized were. one of them asked me, "hey, did you ever dress up as a dinosaur?" in fact, i had. at the last king's halloween dance i went to, i wore a children's dinosaur costume that i had essentially reconstructed into a short, tight green bodysuit with a tail and a bonnet-shaped green headpiece with spikes. nobody dance parties like i do. anyway, it was really really nice to hang out with old friends and reunite with mccauley caulkin and be inspired by the craftiness that goes on in that house. i drove myself home after the movie.

on thursday my anthro 474 class used our scheduled final exam time to go through the last batch of class presentations. since i had done mine earlier, my day was pretty stress-free, so i basically just went to listen and support my classmates. i skipped out on one presentation, though, because i needed to eat breakfast (which consisted of granola, apples, grapes, and strawberry yogurt, eaten in the 14th floor lounge of tory building). in that same area, i saw a poster that may or may not change my academic career. there was an advertisement for a class called CSL 300: theory and practice of community service learning. i did some internet research when i got back to my house that day, and found that the u of a offers a community service learning certificate to students who take a couple of specific courses in their academic careers. it seems like a really amazing interdisciplinary academic approach to community development, so i wrote a few e-mails and managed to switch a couple of courses around so that i could take csl 300 in addition to the other five courses i've already registered in for next semester. i can't wait!

anyway... inspired by bethany's newest spraypainting craze, i bussed to the whyte ave. value village to look for old table lamps to paint. i found a perfect one and bussed back home, stopping at sub (to pick up a "change in circumstance" form for student loans - i was, for some reason, sent a pretty significant "institutional opportunities bursary" from the u of a... yay!) and rutherford library (to pay a $22 fine i had garnered when i mixed up some dates in early december - ugh). after that, i drove down to south edmonton common, where i picked up a couple of matching lampshades and some high-efficiency lightbulbs from ikea and some black spray paint and plastic drop cloth from home depot. deserving notable mention is the fact that there is a new "fatburger" in south edmonton common, which will be opening tomorrow (december 18th)! what a thrill. anyway, i was disappointed to learn that fatburger was not actually open when i was there, but that feeling wore off quickly when i got home and got to work on my lamp. i snuck into the back garbage area inside of my apartment building, laid down my drop cloth, and spraypainted the base of my lamp black. that seems pretty simple and boring, but lemmetellya, it was pure awesomeness. i need to work a little on my spraying technique, but the lamp seriously looks sooo hot now, and it's really good to finally have a little bit of illumination in the far corner of my living room. now i am assessing everything in my apartment based on its spraypaintability. i spent the rest of the night reading at home alone, mostly because i wanted to bask in the awesomeness/light of my new lamp. i also found out that day that i had gotten 94% on the archaeology final i had written on tuesday. genius!!!

on friday i got a text from emery pretty early in the morning. he asked me if i could help him move some boxes from his old place on the west end to the new place he was moving into, like i had offered earlier in the week. i said sure, because i had nothing else to do all day and because i know how much moving sucks, especially when no one's around to help you and you don't have a vehicle. anyway, we moved his stuff and were done by about 1:00, so i dropped him off at the bus stop and then went to safeway so i could buy some orange juice and fruit and bread and soup. i came home but then decided to go to latitude 53 to see some of the work that visual communication design/industrial design students, including emery and a few other people i know, had on display. the gallery was nearly empty, which made the experience infinitely more enjoyable for me than it would have been had a lot of people been around. after latitude 53, i stayed at home all night and ate chicken noodle soup and read my anthropology textbook.

on saturday morning i studied anthro a bit more, and then went to work at the ledge from 11:45 until 5:15. when i came back to my apartment after work, i ran into my ex-boyfriend/sometimes good friend/sometimes bad friend trent. it was really good to see him this time. we hung out at my place for a little bit, and then walked to subway for supper. then he walked me to lister hall, where i met up with joel and bethany at joel's chemistry grad students' christmas party. joel had made promises of a good dance party, so i came. the night provided good food, great company, and mediocre to lame DJing. as a combined result of the playlist and my need to study for my two finals coming up on monday, i left early. but not without feeling appreciation for the invitation.

on sunday (the 16th) i studied all day for my native issues and insights final, and then i had to work at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. luckily, i was allowed to work in the gift shop all night, which meant that i could spend most of my time studying and typing up study notes. i got home around 10:00, and right away got a phone call from my friend jonathan, who i am going to visit in rosebud, alberta on thursday. we had what i would consider to be the most enjoyable phone conversation i've had in months. i'm excited to go visit him. he is one of the most positive people i know, and really creative and bright and unpretentious. i feel like we have a really old friendship, but we totally don't. we worked at camp together six years ago, but never talked then, and were kind of reintroduced last new year's. we've only hung out twice since then, but we've sent each other some letters, which seems like a solid foundation for a friendship. anyways. i am ready. friendship, here we come.

on monday the 17th i wrote my native studies final, and i don't think i did very well on it. afterwards i walked to the tory building to pick up a paper, only to find that it hasn't been graded yet. it's frustrating that i don't really have any idea what any of my marks are. i walked home and studied a bit for my anthropology final, in between watching trailers of "the science of sleep" to make me feel good. i wrote my anthro final at 2:00, and at the end, received the graded paper i had written for the class. the t.a. who had marked my paper said, "you did a very good job" when she handed it back to me. i expected an 80%-90% range for my mark. when i opened my paper, i saw that i had gotten 100%! an a+! what a good end to my semester. i bussed down whyte to pick my work pants up from the tailor's, and then walked home. i got ready for work, and worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. for the first half of my shift, i worked in the gift shop and crocheted a mitten for my mom. for the second half of my shift, i served hot chocolate to members of the public who were listening to a choir sing. highlights of that time include:
-hearing "carol of the bells" sung twice;
-serving hot chocolate to a boy i kind of have a celebrity crush on; and
-being allowed to take home two potted poinsettia plants from the legislature. what a day!
after work, i tried to calm my sister down about the comparative lit. final she is writing tomorrow. we talked a little bit about milton and blake and frye, and it made me really miss those guys. as a result, i spent the rest of the evening reading the songs of innocence/experience instead of watching "the science of sleep" and crocheting mittens, as i had originally planned.

this is a long, long post. sorry!

i have a lot of blogging to make up for! i'll start with saturday the 8th:

my mom drove up from home in the morning, so she came to our apartment around 9:30 to pick up my sister to go shopping for christmas clothes. i drove to michael's on the west end to buy lots more yarn to crochet mittens. then i drove down 103rd so i could pick up some breakfast at booster juice, adn then i dropped my car off at home and lrt'd back to the legislature, where i worked from 11:45 until 5:15. as usual, it was pretty enjoyable, and i got to study and crochet a bit in between tours. afterwards i went to the ramada inn, where my friend meghan's aunt was having a work party (her work is a small machinery company based in edmonton). meghan's aunt had told us that she worked with a really handsome young man, and wanted us to come to the party so we could meet him and dance. so we were all dressed up, and sitting at a table with meg's aunt and a couple of boys our age. first of all, the boys were not handsome, and really beefy, which is so totally not my type at all. secondly, they went for a lot of cigarette breaks and drank a ton and were shockingly crude. throughout the buffet line and the rest of dinner, the one boy made the most inappropriate, sexual "jokes" i have ever heard at a semi-formal affair. usually meghan and i really like being around trashiness because it is so entertaining, but this was a little extreme. fortunately, megs and i were able to dance, although the dj was the worst i have ever heard and everyone was grumpy about the music and heckling him. i think they just needed to make really clear requests to him. you can't exactly tell a dj who is playing bad music to "play something good" and expect that he will. yeesh. anyway, i left the party around midnight, thouroughly pleased that i had gotten in some quality dance time.

on sunday my mom left to go back home, and i spend most of the day studying cree. claire came over in the afternoon to bring me a christmas present: two of her favorite children's books. cute! i also worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30. my co-workers knew that i had an exam the next day, so they allowed me to work in the gift shop all night, which meant that i had a lot of free time to study. i crocheted a bit, too, but to make sure that i was still "studying," i counted my stitches in cree.

on monday i studied some more cree, met claire in sub to give her her christmas present (some black and bright red mittens i had crocheted for her), got my winter 2008 u-pass sticker (without having to wait in line!), and finally wrote my cree midterm (it's a full year course) at 2 p.m. i feel pretty good about the midterm, mostly because it is out of 248 marks, so even if i got 50 things wrong, i still will manage an 80% on the exam. i am glad cree continues on next semester. i think it is my favorite class. after cree, i came home and procrastinated (watched degrassi, crocheted, made a few cups of tea...) and finally started studying for my archaeology final.

i woke up around 7:30 on tuesday to finish studying for archaeology. my exam was at 9:00. it was 50 multiple choice questions, and i was done in half an hour. i love exams like that! i really had no idea how i did, but i didn't worry about it too much. i can't remember what i did that day, but i think it included napping after my exam, crocheting, and watching a few more degrassi episodes and then lrting downtown to take the dvd and some cds back. i worked at the legislature from 5:30 until 9:30, where i helped serve hot chocolate for about an hour and then worked the rest of the night in the gift shop.

everybody can succeed, all you need is to believe

on tuesday i went to all my classes, and spent the entire rest of the day working on my anthro essay. it's an essay comparing saami (who are the only recognized indigenous population in europe) reindeer herding with dene caribou hunting. i finished the paper at around 11:00 and went to bed after watching a bit of degrassi.

on wednesday i had my last classes of the semester. i also worked at the elementary school. the kids were mega-adorable. the grade 6s were having a bake sale, so all the kids were able to buy treats when they were done their lunches. the littlest kids were the cutest, maybe because i know them the best and they are my favorites. i asked some of them what they were getting, and they showed me their ziplog bags of change and asked, "how much is this?" so i helped them figure out how much money their parents had sent with them. they were pretty adorable and generous, sharing with kids who hadn't brought any money. some of the kids were total gluttons (as i'm sure i would have been in their position), spending $5 or $10 on baked goods, walking away with an armload of candy. yeeks. anyway, i think the grade 6s raised over 400 to buy gifts (clean water, a goat for a family, etc.) for people in developing countries.

after class on wednesday, i drove to michael's on the west end, where i bought a ton of yarn and some good acrylic paint. after my watercolor class a few weekends ago, i have decided to try to practice getting better with color theory and mixing. i am going to try to quit buying crappy fake paints to make my arts and crafts, and instead learn how to mix better quality stuff to get the colors i want. the yarn i bought was for mittens. i have already made one pair for robin's mom, because she asked me to this summer when i went to their house to drop off some mittens i had made for robin. they are really awesome. i mean that sentence in reference to the mittens. but robin and his mom are really awesome too. i spent the night crocheting and watching degrassi.

on thursday i was mega busy. i got up at 9 and LRT'd to the downtown library, where i took back some dvds and cds and got a few new ones. then i walked to royal bank to close out an account that i had opened when i moved to guyana but haven't used since. then i LRT'd over to the legislature, where i checked out the craft sale in the pedway for 45 minutes. then i LRT'd back to the university, and spent most of the afternoon volunteering with the students' union, preparing for the "kids' christmas party." mostly i just sorted stuff and helped prepare some crafts. i took a break at 2:00 to go over to pembina hall for tea and bannock. there weren't a lot of people there, but one guy struck up conversation with me and proceeded to evangelize me. i love being evangelized!!! it's so funny. i like seeing what kind of questions i can come up with to evoke certain reactions. i especially like being told, "Jesus told me to tell you...." i went back to dinwoodie after that little episode to help out some more with the craft prep. at 4:00 i left, and LRT'd back to the legislature to watch claire sing in the u of a mixed chorus before ed stelmach officially turned the christmas lights on. becky met me there. it was really nice to see her. i wish we would both have some good, intense new crushes soon. she is a very busy girl. she has THREE jobs now. wow. after the light-up ceremony, the legislative assembly office had an employee recognition party in the pedway, where i enjoyed some mashed potatoes and ham and received a christmas ornament from ken kowalski (the current speaker). thrilling. i LRT'd back home before the night was over so i could crochet and watch more degrassi.