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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

every new day seems so new

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

so here are the details from christmas:

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

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

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

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

vancouver

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sad that you think that we're all just scenesters

hi friends.

i've been avoiding posting because SO MUCH has happened in the past few weeks. but i've got to get back into it sometime, right? here is a semi-chronological listing of some things that have happened since my last post:

-i had an interview with city hall for a tour guide position. they loved me and were ready to hire me, but i didn't have enough availability because of all my classes. boo. i would have loved that job.
-i had my third annual kickball party at hawrelak park on saturday, september 13th. some of my most-loved people were there, including emily, jessica, becky, jordan, stephanie, julia, and some of julia's friends. sorry that some of you missed it because you were in lake louise.
-made bannock at liam's house for a bunch of scenesters when i went over there to visit jessica and say goodbye to jenni (who was leaving on a 6-week band tour). is that mean to say that about the scenesters? maybe. it was shitty bannock and i was embarrassed of it. i really feel like i have to prove my bannock-making skills to jessica. i feel like as a result of that night, she doubts my awesome bannock-making abilities.
-jordan and i continued to hang out in much the same way we had before we "broke up"
-i irregularly started attended faculty of native studies students' association meetings. i really like the people on the association and would like to get more involved, but the meeting times are kind of inconvenient for me.
-had another interview, this time for doing presentations to high school students on their post-secondary options. it would have been a great job, and paid well, and it was the most fun interview i have ever done, but they ended up not hiring me because i didn't have a car. boo.
-in cree class one day, my teacher told our class that someone in the beginner cree class needed a tutor, and asked us if any of us would be willing to tutor. we were all really reluctant, and i think we all thought it would be volunteer, but i eventually stuck up my hand because no one else was, and i knew i had a pretty good grasp of beginner cree and would likely be able to help the student somewhat. it turns out it is a paying gig, so i get paid $25 an hour to tutor someone the most beautiful language i've ever heard! AND i ended up taking on two other students, although i meet with them slightly less and get paid slightly less than with the first student.
-i went for a walk in hawrelak park with my mom, and told her how much my dad was stressing me out by always trying to get me to get my life all planned out. it was a nice walk.
-after walking with my mom, i met jessica and becky and doug at my house, and doug drove us all in his van to calgary, where we stayed at kelsey's for the night. i brought my longboard, and in the evening all of us girls went longboarding/bike riding along the river. it felt sooo good. i really want to move to calgary some summer just to longboard. the next day, the four of us from edmonton plus kelsey drove to canmore to go caving at rat's nest cave. it was super fun. kelsey and i had been there together before, but the other three had never been caving. they had a good time, i think. the best was that doug's eyes were so sparkly and happy and awefilled or something whenever we turned around to look at him with our headlamps. cute. also, i had been sick all weekend with a cold, so i took some neocitran in the morning before we left, not realizing that it induced drowsiness. i ended up feeling incredibly sick to my stomach by the time we got to canmore, and wasn't sure i was going to be able to cave at all. luckily, i felt better after about half an hour. our tour guide operates a dog sledding operation in canmore, so i want to try to get a bunch of people together to do that this winter. on the way home from canmore, we stopped in calgary to drop kelsey off and to get doug a hot dog from tubby dog. i do not like hot dogs, but these grossed me out even more than i thought possible. becky ate her hot dog with crushed potato chips all on top of it. kelsey's veggie dog had peanut butter and jam and cap'n crunch cereal. doug's hot dog was wrapped in bacon and then deep fried, and topped off with a fried egg and some sauteed onions and i think maybe even some other gross things. ew.
-i went to my friend meghan's birthday party at the kingsway moxie's, and had a good time talking with her and our friend kevin.
-i gave an oral presentation to my values/ethics/sustainability graduate-level course on traditional ecological knowledge, and i felt really really good about it. i really like giving oral presentations. some of my classmates hate it. i can't understand why. easy marks!
-at the end of the month, i felt irritated towards jordan for ditching me on a number of fun activities we had planned, and that i had really looked forward to.

that's it for september. i'll try to give a more detailed overview of october sometime in the near future.

love cdg

put your circuits in the sea

i post whenever i am asked to. natasha asked. here is my post.

i am back in edmonton. i have been since august 20th. so, almost 3 weeks. here's a little rundown:
-jordan surprised me at the airport with flowers as my parents looked on, beaming and snapping pictures. i was embarrassed.
-i only hung out very briefly with a few friends for the week after i got back. that included hanging at becky's, running errands with jonathan in st. albert, meeting julia at good earth café, going to see "pineapple express" (which was TERRIBLE - we wanted to go see "dark knight" but arrived too late) with kevin, and then lots and lots of time with jordan.
-i drove to athabasca to pick jessica up from camp there, where she had worked for the last month. seeing her felt like the opposite of leaving caitlan. like, all the same feelings, but backwards. it was, i think, my happiest day all summer. we had a very beautiful time in the woods and sleeping in her cabin, and talking and talking and talking. i am very glad to have her. on the way back to edmonton the next day, we stopped at a sketchy hotel restaurant in legal for lunch, and had some INCREDIBLE burgers and fries. seriously. incredible. stop there if you are ever headed up that way.
-i reluctantly got my first injection of gardasil, after being assured by my dad's insurance company that they would pay for all three doses. gardasil is that semi-controversial drug they've been giving to grade 5 girls - controversial because christian parents think it will make their elementary-aged kids start having sex - to protect against 2 types of cervical cancer and 2 types of genital warts caused by HPV. each injection costs $150, and you need 3. i didn't want to get it, but the pharmacist very correctly pointed out that we generally pay more than that in car insurance every year, and you would definitely rather have insurance than have to deal with something if it came about. so, if you are reading this and have not gotten your gardasil shots, i would recommend looking into it. then you can make your own decision.
-i continued to feel that i didn't get enough alone time this summer, and that manifested itself in me being irritable and even shaky when i was around my friends and jordan.
-jordan came to my parents' house for the weekend, and my parents totally fell in love with him. that freaked me out and made me crave space even more.
-school started, and the workload is already stressing me out. i realized i would need to devote a significantly larger amount of time to schoolwork than i ever have before. that means less social time.
-jordan and i mutually and amicably decided that a "relationship" would be too difficult and frustrating to navigate/maintain right now, given my need for space and stress over school. i don't think much has REALLY changed, but things feel more fluid and less stressful.
-i am doing this non-profit board internship through the university of alberta at the nina haggerty centre for the arts, and i went to my first board meeting tonight. i am excited about the organization and about helping out with their major annual fundraiser, cakewalk.
-i went for afternoon tea at rutherford house yesterday with jessica, julia, julia's friend anna, stephanie, and my sisters. becky and shannon were both too sick to come. the rest of us had a really nice time, and will probably make it a monthly thing. let me know if you want to join us. we would likely love to have you.
-went to bri and bethany's for a party last night. as usual, i dreaded going to a party, so i mostly stayed in the shadows and just talked to the people i knew fairly well, which included, chronologically, bri, dave, natasha, joel, bethany, lewis, and karen. dave made a sauna out of a tent and a pail of hot rocks, and i am now committed to trying to do it at my parents' sometime.

now i have to get back to my article summaries. gah. i have to read and summarize 9 articles this week, and then read another 6 without summarizing them. ugh. i used to be able to get away with not cracking a textbook for an entire semester. i guess 5 years of doing that is catching up with me.

the 'fax of life

okayyy...

i've been away from church point for just over a week now, but it feels like it was eons ago. here's a brief summary of my last little bit there:
-i spoke a lot of english. i didn't even try to hide it. i spoke it in the cafeteria, in the petit bois, on the beach, in my room, everywhere. and not one avertissement. woo!
-i ended up with 98% as my final mark in the course, which wasn't very satisfying because the course was so simple and just a repetition of what i learned a long time ago. i decided i WOULD like to continue on with french, though, because... i don't know. it's a good thing to have, and i like learning.
-a grammy-nominated creole fiddler almost kissed me, but i avoided it by delicately telling him i have a boyfriend.
-i loved someone faster than i have ever loved before, i think. her name is caitlan and she is lovely. our spirits like each other a lot. i think we broke my jessica-loving record, but maybe not. i sure loved jessie j. pretty quickly.
-i cried when caitlan left (she had to head out a few days early for a wedding in PEI). i have hardly cried at all in the last two years, and i used to do it all the time. i miss it. it felt really satisfying.
-i wrote a lot of letters. i sent at least 50 to friends and family. a lot of those were to jordan.
-i learned more than i used to know about mardi gras. it is neat, and i'd like to go sometime.
-i didn't end up loving the land as much as i thought i would, and won't be too sad if i never return there.
-i am confused. i don't know if it is good or bad. probably both. this summer has been quite a different experience than my usual summers up north. i feel like i still haven't had my much-needed alone time to decompress from the rest of the year and the summer itself.

now i am in halifax. i am staying with my friend erica, who just moved here from edmonton last month. we rowed together on the u of a team last fall, and now she's coming here for design school. before halifax, i was in PEI, where i absolutely fell in love. PEI is the first place outside alberta where i really feel i could live. i think that's probably because it is very similar to alberta, with its rolling farmland and quiet and unpretentiousness. charlottetown is beautiful and i hope that one day i can grow up and be quiet and make sweaters and crafts there. the hostel i stayed at was incredible, and my stay was made even better by the presence of caitlan, who stayed at her relatives' house during the night but came into town to hang out with me every day i was there. we ate some amazing meals, visited some small shops, saw the legislature and some amazing old churches, visited green gables in cavendish and hung out on the beach. so nice. i joined a tour group on wednesday the 13th, and we revisited cavendish, biked along the beach, drove across confederation bridge (which is incredible!) and stopped for pictures, visited some small towns and farmers' markets in nova scotia, saw the "bluenose II," camped overnight in a tipi in the rain, went for a wine tasting at a little winery, rode inner tubes down a beautiful river, and played in the mud flats along the bay of fundy. now i have just 2 more sleeps until i go home. i can't wait to be back home, but i wish i could have spent more time in PEI. (in case you're wondering, halifax is pretty great too. my qualms with PEI and halifax are these: PEI has no forests, and i need forests; halifax is a little too young and a little to art-scene for me. but both are definitely live-able for me. maybe i will move here sometime.)

semaine 3

okay. i should update. there's a lot to say.

first off: i never really liked french. i thought maybe 7 years away from it would change things, but nope. i still don't like it. that makes it really hard for me to learn it. i LOVE learning cree, so i am excited to do assignments and practice and let the words roll off my tongue. it is not so with french. on top of not liking the language, i am also getting confused, because my brain wants to say an english sentence, then it translates it into broken cree, and then realizes that cree isn't the language i wanted, so it re-translates it into broken french. i am just sick of having my conversations limited to, "il fait froid," and "j'ai faim," and "est-ce que tu veux aller à la chateau avec moi?" i end up cheating and having a lot of secret whispered english conversations.

it is weird not having most of my thoughts consumed by "native issues." this is really the first time since king's that i haven't worked with/lived with/studied aboriginal people and/or issues. i kind of forgot that other realities existed.

canada post is doing a great job of delivering the letters i've written (which numbers about 25 so far), but is doing a shit job of delivering any to me. i am feeling very forgotten about, even thought i KNOW some of my friends have sent stuff in the mail within the last week.

school here is kind of a drag. the stuff we are learning is stuff i already know, but have forgotten since high school. it is frustrating that most of the exercises my class does are very childish. i wish that they taught french here the way dorothy teaches cree at the u of a. i think i might be a little more excited about it. also, my workshops sometimes tend to get a little childish. BUT...

there are some great things about being here. first, i am learning a ton about acadian history. i have always been really bad at understanding history, because i never really had something solid to anchor all those dates to. but now that i have a decent understanding of the western treaties in canada, and some of the things that led up to them (the royal proclamation of 1763, for instance), i can understand our history a little better. i guess i forgot whatever i had been taught about the acadians, but they have a pretty fascinating history. a lot of the students here are cajun from louisiana, so we've had a few louisianaise parties (mardi gras, some cajun music, etc.). i have always always always wanted to go to the deep south, and this makes me want to go even more. learning about the acadians is good for me within the context of native studies, because it kind of shows the kind of assimilation tactics/fear that was happening BETWEEN EUROPEAN GROUPS.

i can't wait to get back to edmonton! i readjusted my courses for the fall and winter terms, and i am stoked! i will be taking the second level of cree, alberta archaeology, northwest coast archaeology, aboriginal cultural foundations, native economic development, natural resource management for aboriginal communities, social and economic impact assessments, a second level of research methods in native studies, and... one more course. i haven't decided which yet. it will probably be a community-service learning one so i can get my CSL certification. i love love love love love school! i am also hoping to apply for a master's program at the u of a, for a start date of september 2009. the department of rural economy hopes to introduce a master of science program in risk and community resilience. whoa! awesome! so i am trying to get all my prerequisites in order, which is no problem, because they all seem interesting. also, when i get back, i am gonna go up north and pick jessie up from long lake camp. i think after that we MIGHT go to sucker creek/high prairie to say hi to some peeps/some land. my momma and i (and i really hope jordan) are planning to go to métis crossing for a festival there on august 23-24. i also wanna visit robin in red deer, and see kelsey when she gets back from amsterdam and go skating with her in calgary, and go spelunking in canmore or jasper with lots of people i love. before all that, though, i am going to have a nice solo vacation in charlottetown and halifax for 10 days. i am gonna go to avonlea, so if you want me to give gus pike a kiss for you, you'd better let me know now. or if you want some anne of green gables shit. woo!

tonight is christmas. i made some mittens for the person whose name i pulled, but i don't even know who she is. joyeux noel!

here, we get 3 warnings if we speak english (or get caught on english websites). i haven't gotten any yet, but i should really have a million. i kind of feel like i am mario. i need to find some boxes with question marks on them to get some more free lives.

semaine deux

this week was kinda sucky for a few reasons: 1. i hate the workshop that my group is in this week. it is just dumb icebreaker-type games in a classroom. boring. childish. 2. i am pms-ing. 3. i haven't gotten any mail from jordan (or anyone else) yet. 4. my name hasn't been drawn for any of the little field trips this week. 5. my class is too easy for me, i think. but it is okay. i think this week will be the worst. after it, the mail will start flowing in, and my workshops will change to better ones, and my pms will be over, and hopefully class will start to get a little more challenging. tomorrow we are going on a boat trip to hopefully see whales (les baleines) and seals (les foques). tonight we are having a tex-mex party, and tomorrow we are having a louisiannaise/mardi gras party, because a lot of the students here are from louisianna. i like that i am learning a tiny bit of history about the acadians/cajuns/french/british, because it definitely will help me understand history for native people here and west of mississippi better. i didn't do a whole lot this week because my name wasn't drawn for any of the field trips. i mostly just napped, typed letters, and crocheted. i DID manage to get some old favorites (in english!) out from the bilingual library here, so i've been chillin in my room with edward estlin, john donne, milty, ondaatje, and huck finn and tom sawyer. i think i'd go crazy without those boys.

je ne comprends pas

so. i am in nova scotia - "nouvelle écosse." i`m doing a 5-week french immersion program at université sainte-anne in church point, nova scotia (pointe-de-l`église, nouvelle-écosse). i left edmonton at 1:00 a.m. on sunday morning, when my parents and jordan saw me off. i will interrupt this post on nova scotia to give an update on jordan:

he is a dreamboat and i like him a lot. on saturday we went to his opa`s in beaumont and weeded a row of carrots. his opa is a gardener by trade. afterwards we went inside, and on the way, jordan`s opa presented me with a bouquet of freshly-picked flowers from his garden. adorable. he invited us inside for some "cool watermelon," and then jordan and i had to leave to make it to hobbema in time to catch the end of the afternoon session of the powwow there. jordan had never been to a powwow, and so it was super, super nice to bring him and have him enjoy it as much as he did. we liked the dancing, but especially liked the powwow food. i had an "indian taco" (a regular taco, but ON TOP OF FRIED BANNOCK!!!) and he had some amazing fresh corn on the cob. we drove home and i finished packing, and he came over so we could watch the final star wars together. then my parents came over (calling half an hour before they arrived to say, "get your clothes back on!" ha.), and all four of us drove out to the airport. they saw me off, and my parents told me later that my mom had asked jordan on the way home what he planned on doing for the rest of the summer, to which he replied, "you mean aside from pining for your daughter?" cute. i think that`s a good sign. anyways. we are not e-mailing or calling each other while i am gone, but plan on writing and sending letters frequently. like we`re in 1908. cute.

anyway. now i am in church point. look it up on google maps, or mapquest if you prefer. on sunday we settled into our rooms - i have my own room in the "beaulieu" residence. i am relieved to have my own room. most of the people here are a lot younger than me - some are 13 or 14! - but everyone in my residence is my age or older. whew. the reason i chose this university for the program is because it is so isolated, and i really need to go somewhere rural and quiet every summer to recuperate from being in the city. as a result, i am remaining kind of antisocial. i just need some space for my own mental/emotional/spiritual well-being. luckily, the person i like hanging out with most is my next door neighbour. she is a girl named andrea who is 24 and from regina, and she is taking international studies. we are at about the same level in french, so it is nice to be able to talk (or not talk) with her.

on monday night we signed contracts saying we would not speak english until the last night of our stay here (august 8th). if we get caught speaking it 3 times, we get sent home. eeks! it is mostly hard for me to remember to speak french when i just get up from a nap. my brain is not working yet even in english, so to make it think in french is next to impossible. after that, we had a "vin et fromage" party, but andrea and i didn`t stay long because we were so tired.

on tuesday we started classes. i am in "débutant 1," because i have forgotten most of the french i learned in the 7 years leading up to my last french class, which was 7 years ago. it is definitely the most appropriate class for me, though. we have just done simple sentences and the verbs "avoir" and "être" yesterday and today, and they are good refreshers. i have class from 8:00 a.m. until 9:30, and then we have a half hour "session dìnformation," where we find out what activities are happening later that day. then i have class again from 10:00 until 11:30, and then lunch, and then free time until 2, when we have some activities. because i am a beginner, i am in the "conversation" class, which means that my group rotates around through the other activities and gets a taste of each of them. this week i am working in "le petit bois" - the little woods/forest. there are a series of pathways that the first missionaries here built, and we are helping to maintain them and some other little gardens. today we helped weed some flowerbeds, which i usually hate doing but found surprisingly enjoyable, probably because it wasn`t boiling hot out and there were a lot of us helping out to make the job go quickly.

this is getting very long. i will write more later. here is a reminder to myself of what to write about: "les olympiques comiques," "balle-molle," english-cree-french.

the hardest button to button

kelseydawn is hassling me for not writing, and i've been meaning to for a while, so here goes:

important updates since last time:
-the internet says that i have a boyfriend. you can add him as a friend and facebook stalk him if you wanna. he likes eating his vegetables. he has nice teeth and is an acceptably good speller. he has good intentions and is well-versed in the ways of apple (ie. mac) navigation. swoon.
-i talked to a professor in rural economy about doing a master of science in risk and community resilience at the u of a. hopefully the program will be offered by next fall.
-my grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. wow!
-i finished my fort mcmurray class, and how! i got an A on my final essay on aboriginal education, and samesies on my presentations and stuff. let's hope it can help nudge this year's 3.8 GPA up a couple more notches...
-work work work at the legislature. i like it a lot. i don't like the suit that i have to wear, though. the arms are too short.
-went to jordan's grandma's for a barbecue, and he INTRODUCED me as his GIRLFRIEND. whoa! i mean, i am, but usually i tend to beat around that word.
-planned on going to sucker creek/joussard/grouard/high prairie with meaghan and jessie, but those plans got squashed because: a) i had to work, b) we had nowhere to stay, c) i kept trying to get a hold of lee (the elder i've lived with up there), but never managed to, and d) the power steering in the car i was going to take went less than 24 hours before i was going to use it. eff. i had a fun week anyway.
-watched jessie play at hulberts' open mic (she starts at about 59 minutes into the podcast).
-went to elk island park - my first time ever! - with meghan. we sat in the sun and watched a lonely bison graze only a few metres away from us. then we went for a nice walk but were attacked by mosquitos. then we drove back to e-town and went for screamers near the legislature. then i went to the mall to kill time before i had to return the jeep to emily. i visited emery at urban outfitters and bought three pairs of tennis shoes (white, mint, and yellow). aritzia flooded all the way over to forever 21. i love mall drama.
-watched the first four stars wars episodes with my new internet boyfriend (i have never, ever seen them before in my life).
-dropped jordan off at the airport for his trip to new york.
-watched my sister alyssa perform with shumka at the jubilee.
-went to "body worlds" at telus world of science with kelsey, kaylin, and kelsey's friend dan. it made me feel pretty uneasy and nauseated. and also hungry. ew. afterwards we all went for screamers at the legislature, and kelsey and i decided we'd drive back to calgary that night to see if we could catch jenni and jessica and this girl megan at the neighbourhood council ep release. we did! but we only caught the last song. kelsey went home to clean while the rest of us wandered around downtown. we tried to drive to kelsey's but calgary is the worst city ever and every street is a one-way street that only leads out of the city. eventually we got to kelsey's, but were super tired, so we went right to bed.
-the girls had to leave at around 6:00 the next morning, and i thought that i'd get up and kind of see them off and then go back to bed, but kelsey wouldn't let me. we laid around in bed (well, i laid around in couch) for a while and then longboarded/walked to good earth café for breakfast. then we took the c-train to the marlborough wal-mart to buy some fabric. we trained/bussed home, stopping at safeway to get some taco stuff. tacos are our tradition. i was really really really grumpy and exhausted. at her house, we watched clueless and we each worked on our own sewing projects. we each made a wall-hanging kind of thing, and i also started working on a cute apron with the same fabric. then we watched the peanut butter solution, which might have been a good decision if i were in the right mood. then we went longboarding again in this amazing neighbourhood just down the hill from her house, and then along the elbow river on some really sweet paved paths. it was probably the best longboarding of my life. i can understand why kelsey goes so much more often than i do. it actually made me like calgary infinitely more, and made me consider moving there temporarily sometime in the indefinite future. we came home and made tacos and watched big fish while sewing. then we went longboarding again along the same place because it is so effing awesome. then we came home and ate snacks and finished sewing and watched shaun of the dead. then we went to bed.
-i bussed home from calgary this morning. before coming back to my apartment, i stopped at the nina haggerty centre for the arts, which is the organization i've been placed with for my non-profit board student internship next year. they seem super rad, and i can't wait to get really involved.

this coming week seems pretty stellar. i've got a BBQ with my classmates from my fort mcmurray course, potentially some free shakespeare in the park, an illfit outfit show, and a devon-to-edmonton canoe trip with a solid collection of A-listers. woo!

crude thoughts: part 2

on saturday meaghan and i woke up at 8:30 to catch the free continental breakfast offered by our hotel before it ended at 9:00. i had fruit, toast with peanut butter and jam, and some orange juice, and i stole a muffin and some fruit loops for later. after breakfast i showered and meaghan and i met our instructor sara and our classmates julia and lisa in the lobby to go grocery shopping for the entire group. we first made a big list of groceries to get, and then we each took a food group list and went to work. i had the breads/pastas list, a.k.a. "the party list." meaghan was stuck with meats. ha. we had 4 shopping carts at the end, but it all only ended up costing $372. we are good shoppers, i guess. afterwards i met zane, julia, lisa, and leah, and we walked down to the salvation army, where we had been offered volunteer positions for serving coffee to the homeless population. i wasn't too interested in sticking around, because a) i didn't think i'd learn a whole lot that i didn't know already, and b) i knew it would be crowded with "volunteers" and i'd end up feeling useless. i had only gone because i wanted to check out what the homeless demography was made up of, but when we got there, no one was there yet. i took off for a walk mymyself to the post office to buy some stamps, but it was saturday, so of course it was closed. i came back to the hotel and napped, and then meaghan and i walked to wendy's for lunch.

at 2:00 sara drove meaghan, julia, karen, leah, lisa, david, niahl, and i to the oil sands discovery centre. i'd been there a few years ago when i was at some kind of leadership conference, but all i had remembered about it was drinking from juiceboxes in a back room somewhere. it was a really interesting place, especially because i am so into interpretive educational centres and also fascinated by oil history. i liked being there because it really made me appreciate the industry from a perspective that i don't really endorse. i mean, the technology in this industry is really quite amazing, and i can understand a little more why some people get so excited about the magnitude of the projects and the machinery and stuff.

after the discovery centre, we came back to the hotel. my roommate laura made some pasta for supper, but i had been snacking on peanuts and rice crackers all day, so all i really wanted were a couple of dinner buns. i think i went to bed pretty early.

crude thoughts: part 1

i have to do some journal writing for my oil class, but i'm bad at journaling, so i'm just gonna blog about it all, and then copy and paste it for my class. here goes:

i'm in fort mcmurray. my CSL 350 class ("oil and community: struggles over labour and learning") is here for a 9-day field trip, during which we will be "participant observers" and learn about the oil industry. another major part of our week will be participating in volunteer projects. the 12 people in the class are divided into partnerships of 2 people each, with the last two people working individually. my partner is a lady named jill, who works as a teacher in northwestern alberta. our project involves attending and working with the aboriginal studies 10/20/30 class at a local high school. i'm pretty stoked about the project. i'll write about it later, though.

we drove up to fort mac yesterday morning. we met at CSL house on saskatchewan drive at 8:00, and loaded up into a 15 passenger van. one of our instructors drove the van, while the two other instructors drove up in a car. jill also chose to take her own car. i think that that was a really good decision, because it means that we can easily get to our placement (it would have been pretty difficult to get to without a vehicle). the ride took about 5 hours. when we started the trip, we realized that the van had a cd player, but none of us had brought cds. i was going to joke to my friend meaghan that we didn't need to worry, because we could totally pick up a used copy of alan jackson's greatest hits or something from some sketchy small-town gas station along the way. two hours later, we stopped in grassland at a sketchy gas station, and there was TOTALLY a rack of used cds, INCLUDING an alan jackson's greatest hits album. i rule! i SO know this scene. this scene = rural northern alberta. anyways... i spent most of the trip listening to weezer and dave matthews band on my ipod, and crocheting some lime green/forest green striped mittens. my lunch consisted of some hawkins cheezies and a big bag o' m'n'ms. we passed through a big area of burned forest that looked a lot like the burned forest that's just outside of slave lake. i wonder if it was part of the same forest fire. i really love the way that burned forest looks, a few years after the fire. there's so much new growth. it's just a really beautiful reminder of the importance of cycles and death and dependence and beginnings.

i've been to fort mac about five times before, but every time, i really love coming into the city. it's set in the river valley, and there is boreal forest surrounding the city, so coming into the treed valley is pretty beautiful. unfortunately, the deciduous trees up here are still like the ones in edmonton were last week - no leaves or blossoms yet. hopefully they'll get a little greener over the next week while we're here. a lot of people complain about fort mac, but quite honestly, i've always liked it. i think that the trees and the river valley have a lot to do with it, but maybe it's the isolation and the distance too. i know it's a small city, but it still feels like a small town to me. it feels a lot like the south side of lesser slave lake, where all the little communities along that side of the lake (high prairie, east prairie, sucker creek, grouard, driftpile, joussard, slave lake, etc.) make up one big community of rurally/industrially-minded people. my classmates keep commenting on the number of pick-up trucks around the city, but it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary to me.

the reasons for me coming to fort mac in the past have been for ukrainian dance, soccer, and high school and university leadership conferences. therefore, i think i have been able to see the sustainable community side of the city that many people don't get to see or don't believe exists. i'd like to learn more about developing community here, partly because i love the idea of developing community anywhere, and partly because i love northern alberta and want to contribute to keeping its people and land healthy.

when we got into the city, most of my classmates went to meet with their community partners, but my and jill's partner was busy, so i got to nap/unpack during that time. our hotel is pretty swank. we each get our own beds (or, in my case, a hide-a-bed), each room has a kitchenette, there are laundry facilities in each suite, and the free junk you get in the bathroom is bath and body works stuff. exciting! for real. and INCREDIBLY expensive. thankfully, the university got some kind of grant for us to go on this trip, so everything is basically paid for my that grant. good deal. after my nap, people started coming back, and we all walked over to a nearby church, where we met the deputy mayor of the city and ate pizza for supper. the meeting was so interesting! the thing i found most interesting was that only 17% of eligible voters voted in the last municipal election, and 21% voted in the last provincial election. eek! the deputy mayor told us that his friend once told him, "i pay more for my cell phone coverage than for my municipal tax," and as a result, people really don't care what is going in politics. the population is so transient that it doesn't really matter to them how decisions impacting the future turn out. yikes! i was also really fascinated that we met in a church. i guess the deputy mayor is quite christian. i wanted to ask him what role the churches played in creating community for permanent and temporary residents, but i didn't get a chance because our meeting ended after only an hour. i am thinking about going to their youth group next friday to just see what happens. church life is just so fascinating to me.

after our meeting with the deputy mayor, meaghan, julia and i went to zellers (which is right next to our hotel) and bought some crochet hooks and yarn. we got back to the hotel and went to our instructors' room to celebrate one instructor's birthday. then meaghan, julia and i came back to my and meaghan's room, and i taught them how to crochet. they are both working on making a crocheted shoulder bag. adorable! we crocheted and watched t.v. and talked about boys, and then went to bed around 10:30.

right in front of my face and i just cannot hide it

rad things about the last couple o'days:
-hanging out at steeps and visiting with jessica while she's working (sometimes also in the company of meaghan)
-mailing crafts to people i like
-my dad taking me out for lunch at mongolie grill on wednesday, where we talked about the dreamy boy i've kind of been making out with lately. we laughed a lot and it was really fun.
-getting my grace and cello jacket replaced (the lining tore FIVE different holes within a month of buying it) and my cinder & smoke shirt resewn (there were some holes in the seams of one that i had bought at the royal bison craft show)
-going for a long long walk with emily along the hawrelak park paths, and then eating pizza and watching scrubs
-gelato after work on thursday with aforementioned dreamy boy
-losing one of the mittens i had made for myself earlier this week, and then FINDING it on my walk home from work today!
-becoming friends with the new workers at the legislature
-the legislature has put water in its pools!
-hanging out by myself with my ipod on the grass at the ledge in the sun, enjoying a screamer
-friday night supper with my sisters at dadeo, enjoying vanilla coke
-introvert sleepover party with claire at her house, where we talked about boys and overanalyzing and other things... and ate popcorn and golden oreos and watched o brother, where art thou?. in the morning, she made us delicious tea biscuits.
-being able to walk to and from work in the sunshine
-seeing so many people i know everywhere. i saw meaghan this morning when i was walking back from claire's, this other boy i know this evening, joel kelly on thursday, becky and sarah riding their bikes on saskatchewan drive this afternoon, and others. nice. i love community!
-a really nice facebook message from dustan
-listening/singing to late 80s and early 90s country in the car with alyssa
-seeing my parents tonight at a dinner/dance thing for emily's ukrainian dance group
-talking with my mom about dreamy boys

not rad things:
-overanalyzing
-overworking
-missing kelsey

'twas in my salad days, when i was green, not ripe in judgement

yesterday i sold my car, and today i signed up for bullfrog power. you should consider doing the same.

also: on monday, i took an MLA and his guests up for a VIP tour to the palm room at the legislature, and since we were all feeling pretty adventurous, i unlocked some of the locks and we first walked around on the legislature's roof, and then climbed a bunch of stairs in the dark all the way up to the top of the dome. pretty thrilling, and the whole ordeal made me slightly more sympathetic towards the conservatives (the member was a conservative from calgary).

also: i am feeling socially exhausted lately, so i've been cancelling hangouts to be by myself. it is nice.

also: i have five out of six of my marks back from this semester, and i have: A-, A-, A, A+, A+. genius!

remember the grade 6 kid from this post? well, i found his "newsletter", and if you look back on the posts of october 2007, you'll find the ones where he interviewed the weakerthans, like i wrote about. his blog is crazy! and he's 11 years old!

i will post more about my life soon. a lot and nothing is happening. don't worry.

i haven't got a licence but i've got a lot to say

Sunday, April 6: Emily met me at Three Bananas Café at about 12:20 for lunch. I had wanted their pesto chicken panini, but they didn't have any that day, so I had to settle for a chicken pizzette. I like pizza, but it's kind of a hassle for me to eat, because I don't like cheese and I always have to pick it all off before I eat it. Not a date food. After our hangout, Emily headed to the south side of the city for some modeling thing. Ugh. I don't know how my sisters and I can be related. Both of them are vain and love modeling and stuff like that. I hate hate hate having my photo taken.

So, I asked the boy that I met at Good Earth Café last week if he wanted to meet me for a haiku-writing match. He said yes (in a haiku), so things looked promising. In my mind, this was a date. And a pretty good idea for one, at that! I thought it was a good blend of our interests (both former English majors), as well as something creative, as well as something where awkward silences were not only okay but actually INVITED as a form of creative reflection. I should write a date book or something. We met at the downtown library, and I brought my typewriter because typewriters are awesome and typing haikus on typewriters is even awesomer. So we walked over to the Citadel to sit by the little man-made waterfall amongst the trees, and started writing haikus. Disastrous things included: his decision to complement the nicest jeans I have ever seen a boy wear with the most giant, hideous green winter/rubber boots. What was he thinking? Also, his writing style was NOT my style, and I don't think we really got each other. Oh well. Talking at Second Cup was nice, though. I went home afterwards and worked on my NS 211 critical bibliography all night. It ended up being 19 pages long, but I finished it, which was really all that mattered.

Monday, April 7: I had good intentions of volunteering at the Bissell in the morning, but my brain felt really fried after writing that critical bibliography all night, so I decided to stay at home and mentally recuperate for a few hours before I began my Ecological Anthropology essay. I also walked over to CSL House to drop off my application for the Non-Profit Board Student Internship. I went there later on to talk to my CSL instructor about my final essay for her class. I had Cree at 2:00, where I found out I had gotten 97% on my oral autobiography presentation from last week! I spent the rest of the night working on my Ecological Anthro essay. It's actually a really exciting essay, because I am talking about the Iwokrama rain forest , which I learned a lot about firsthand when I lived in Guyana last year. A lot of their practices would be really beneficial to Alberta, I think. They use partnerships between government, private sector businesses and Indigenous communities to sustainably manage and protect 1 million acres of pristine rain forest, while also creating ecologically and culturally sustainable economic development. Sounds like a good idea? It is.

Tuesday, April 8: My NS 211 class had a little research colloquium where we all got to talk a little bit about our research projects. I really love doing things like that, and I've only been in one or two other classes that have done it before. It's neat to hear what other people are working on, and to share what I've put a lot of time and effort into. Afterwards we met with one or two other people who were working on topics relating to ours, and had a little bit more in-depth discussion with them. Neat. In NS 390, we talked a little bit about needs assessments for communities. In Cree we just did some review, and in Ecological Anthropology, we did the same thing as we did in NS 211, meeting with other people in the class to talk about our papers, and then doing a larger, informal presentation to the whole class about what we'd been working on. Fun. I spent the rest of the night working on my Ecological Anthro essay.