i'll write more tomorrow (hopefully), but the biggest, bestest recent news is that i officially found out yesterday that i was awarded a pretty substantial scholarship by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (SSHRC). i was ALSO told that i would get to keep the money that UVic has already offered me. together, it's more than enough to cover my tuition, accommodation, food, and travel (including a few trips back home to edmonton) for the next year. PLUS... i think i'ma treat myself to a brand new bike with some of the leftover cash. i haven't picked one out yet, but i'm dreaming of having a super light road bike frame, about 10 speeds (leila recently scoped out victoria for me, and said that's how many speeds she would like on a bike if she lived there), hybrid-style tires, hybrid-style handlebars, and a back rack with panniers. i think that would pretty much cover all of my biking needs for commutes to school and possible weekend trips on paved trails. i guess i'll have to figure out if all those things are doable/practical/desirable. is there anything that you have or do not have on your bike that you wish you did (or didn't) have?

so... DC is awesome. it's better than i remembered it, and as you may recall, i had some pretty strong feelings for it when i left last time. but my experience this time is a LOT different. i'm living in a neighbourhood called friendship heights in the far northwest quadrant of DC. it's the furthest neighbourhood you can go in the NW before crossing DC's border into maryland. i'm working at a place that writes testing materials for second language assessment, and the project i'm working with has to do with developing an oral test for speakers of the lakota language. the lady i'm living with (i'm renting a room in her house) has very graciously offered to let me use her 21-speed bike for free while i'm living with her, which is AMAZING. i have been biking like crazy. seriously. i bike to and from work every day, which is a little over 25 kms, round trip. then, on the weekends, i usually bike around 40 kms (20 kms into downtown DC, along the georgetown branch bike path, and 20 kms back) every day. today i'm not going downtown, though, because i went on friday and yesterday, and i just want to stick around home and knit. so that equals around 175-200 kms a week! my thighs are hard proof of that. it feels really good to get out and see the city and use my body so much. however, using my body so much means i have to eat a lot more, so my pants are feeling a bit tight around the waist. eek. i've gotten pretty good at riding without my hands, a skill i had developed when i was young but lost during that period of 10 years or so when i wasn't biking. i've also developed a few bad habits, namely, listening to my ipod with earphones and eating tortilla chips out of my back basket. also, i've been finding that DC drivers are crazy/assholes. i almost got hit once when i woman was pulling out into an intersection (i had the right of way), and another time, i accidentally ended up on a parkway that i couldn't get off of, and so i was trying to pedal as fast as i could, but the drivers behind me still got agitated, and one lady leaned out her window and yelled "bitch!" at me as she passed me. yeesh. people sure don't like anyone slowing them down, even for a second.

other than biking, i spend a lot of time knitting. i'm finishing up yet another icelandic-style sweater for myself. i made a ton in the fall/winter (maybe 5? that feels like a ton), but they were all out of really bulky wool. i mostly prefer the look of the very first one i did, with much thinner yarn and smaller needles, so that's the kind that i'm making now. i'll post pictures when it's done. this one is taking a lot less time than that reddish one i made, because last fall i got really good at knitting without looking at what i'm doing. now i can go into a movie theatre and knit in the dark, which is a pretty handy skill.

every saturday, i've been going to the museum i used to intern at to visit my former coworkers there. man, i love that place.

i've been watching more movies than normal. i went to see greenberg, oscar-nominated animated shorts, and toe-to-toe (shot in DC!) at various nearby theatres; wayne's world at the rosslyn film festival (they'll be playing movies from the 90s every friday night all summer, on an outdoor inflatable screen, for free!); and i just watched the blind side on my computer. i've also gone through all the episodes of glee. i don't even like it all that much, but it's nice to have something familiar to watch.

my work has been... frustrating. everybody's pretty nice at my work, but a lot of what i am doing involves reading articles and writing abstracts and an introduction/description of methodology for an annotated bibliography and literature review. we're in an early part of the project, so this is sort of foundational work that needs to be done before they move on to the stuff that i am really interested in. the topic (aboriginal languages) is interesting to me, but when i agreed to the position, i guess i hadn't been under the impression that i would be doing so much academic writing for such little pay, and without much direction. i guess that's the way internships always are, though. i should know that by now. i'm really excited about the possibility of HOW this project could turn out, but i'm not entirely convinced that it will turn out the way i envision it. i mean, it's exciting to have an opportunity to actually put my native studies degree to use, and try to do things that have historically been done in a bad way, in a good way. i'm just grumpy because i'm so sick of writing. i hate writing. i would much rather be editing. (and yes, i know that this blog makes it seem like i would be a terrible editor. i'm not. i just write the way that i would talk on here.) once in a while, i get to do some editing, and i am a happy little clam.

it's mostly sunny here, and two weekends in a row i have gotten little sunburns. it's nice to be outside so much. i think this is the first summer than i have been outside so much.

hmm. what else. i've been taking advantage of the multitude of frozen yogurt places in DC. i've said it before, and i'll say it again: frozen yogurt is the new cupcake. so hip. so good. (there are lots of cupcake places in DC too, and luckily, my favourite one is in my new neighbourhood.) i would split yogurt places up into three categories: "normal" places (like dairy queen or yogen fruz) that sell standard frozen yogurt, sometimes with frozen fruits blended into the yogurt; european-style places (which serve tart/tangy yogurt - which is apparently european (?) - with a choice of fresh fruit or candy toppings, for a fixed price for each topping); and self-serve pay-by-weight places (which usually have between 6 and 20 different flavours of yogurt (vanilla, birthday cake, tiramisu, red velvet...), plus about 20 kinds of toppings to choose from (fresh fruit, oreo pieces, nuts, candy, fruit loops...)), which are pretty self-explanatory. the latter kind is my favourite, and luckily, there's a really good place that sells yogurt that way right in my neighbourhood. i like to load up on a bunch of different fruits with some vanilla yogurt.

on a related note, companies in DC sure know how to market to the hipster crowd:

(this is a "company bike" (like a company car, i guess - you can see the name on the frame) parked outside the company's salad/frozen yogurt place in dupont circle.)

that's enough detail for now, yeah?

hey friends.

i should post about my last few days in edmonton before i tell you about DC.

well, in the last days of march, i spent most of my time sewing. nathan came over to the studio a couple of times to keep me company, and on one of those days, we went over to the downtown theatre afterwards to catch the late showing of tim burton's alice in wonderland. i love tim burton, and i love alice in wonderland in general, and i loved johnny depp, so it was mostly pretty good. there were a few things i didn't like though, like all the jabberwocky business. come on. i just wish all movies would cut out action scenes. they're a boring waste of time, and i like my movies to go no longer than an hour and a half. although nathan and i just biked to remedy to pick up wraps and ate our wraps on the northwest side of the high level bridge overlooking the river valley and hung out at the studio and then watched that movie and then biked home separately, it felt like a really, really fun/nice night.

on april 1st, sid (the designer i had been sewing for) showed his collection at western canada fashion week. i was more than a little bummed that absolutely none of my friends bothered to come (but thankful to bri, who sent me a nice little note at least mentioning that she would have liked to have been there, but couldn't), but my sister came with me, and her company was good. it was pretty exciting but mostly surreal to see the things that i had made up on the runway. i will miss working for sid. we didn't work together much in the studio, because he was gone on his internship in NY most of the time, but when we were working together, it was really silly and fun. we laughed a lot, and laughed really hard. he's just such a good, humble guy. plus, he taught me how to put in a zip fly! i will forever be indebted. oh, anyway, after his show, emily and emily's best friend aidan and i went to some bar in northern edmonton to watch christian hansen and the autistics, largely because at the last show i had seen them play, they played an amazing cover of r. kelly's ignition. seriously. it was so good. they played it again at this show, and i danced my face off.

i spent the next week working on stuff for my faculty's cree language project. on the saturday of that week, i drove my mom and my littlest sister to the airport for their weeklong vacation in turks and caicos. then i met up with kaylin at café mosaics for breakfast, and then we wandered around the provincial museum, thanks to the free passes i had for there. we had some really great talks, and i love that she thinks really similarly to me on some pretty controversial/heavy issues. robin came over in the evening and we hung out. it was nice to have his company.

i spent the week after that helping the boy i tutor with his human ecology final (it was a take-home essay - we wrote about gangs/warrior societies). i also did a lot of visiting and packing, and i drove to vermilion and back with emily to drop off some of my stuff at my parents', since i had my mom's car while she was on vacation.

i wrote my FINAL undergraduate exam (for advanced cree) on friday the 9th, and i'm pretty sure i aced it. kelsey bussed to edmonton from calgary the next day, on a greyhound bus with a broken window next to her. she also got sick and puked on the bus on the way back to calgary. thanks for coming, KDS. on saturday we went to the handmade mafia, and then went for lunch at block 1912 (which is really a great place, and i've known that for years, but i hardly ever go there for some reason. i'ma try to go more often when i'm back in edmonton in august). then we went to united cycle so i could try out a bike i had had ordered in for me (but i didn't buy it, because i'm not living in edmonton anymore). we also stopped at EBC so i could show kelsey around. she wasn't all that impressed (she's a mechanic at a bike shop in calgary, which is apparently much bigger). then we were both tired, so we went home, and had the longest talk i have had with anyone for probably... ever, maybe. we just sat on my couches and i knitted and we talked for six hours straight. it was nice. then we walked around and tried to find somewhere to eat, but it was 10:00 and everywhere had just closed, so we settled for delicious/stomachache-inducing wendy's. the next day we went to café mosaics, and then i bought some cuuute short shorts at bamboo ballroom, and some coloured tights to go with them. i think that short shorts with coloured tights are one of my favourite looks, coming in just behind jumpsuits. now i just have to gather up the confidence to actually pull those looks off. oh, we also drove to the airport to pick up my mom and sister from their trip. maybe we did something else, but i forget. kelsey got on the bus at 4:00, and then apparently puked a bunch. i'm not sure why her experiences on greyhound are always so bad. mine never are. soon kelsey is leaving on a biking/wwoofing trip around alberta/b.c. i hope she packs warm socks and isn't too cool to wear a helmet when she's on the highway and doesn't freeze when she's camping in the mountains and doesn't get too sweaty when she's going uphill.

between kelsey leaving and me boarding my plane to DC, i tutored cree a couple more times, packed up my place, cancelled my kickball party because of the gloomy weather but was still fortunate to have many of my favourite people (in order of appearance: jordan, emily, aidan, jessica, bri, joel, bethany, leila, kim, nathan, patrick, and rob) join me at remedy for wraps, borrowed a sweet camera from my friend kevin so i would have one while i'm in DC, and... that's about it. so that brings me up to my first days in DC, which i will write about next time.

sorry this is so long and not very interesting. this really is a journal for me, though, so i'm more concerned about keeping a record for myself of what i did than entertaining you. sorry.

we must evolve towards each other

the top highlights of these last couple weeks have been the conversations i've been having with people. these sorts of things are one of the top most nourishing things for my spirit. in no particular order, here are some of my favourites:

-talking with nathan, becky, and "the car boys" at natasha's about christianity and "being jesus to people." i mean, that's kind of what it was about. (some backstory: i've been attending this thing that natasha and nathan host weekly, which is basically a small group affiliated with their church, and although i definitely don't identify as christian anymore, i like having conversations about the sorts of things that come up in christian small group settings, and i like hanging out with natasha and nathan.) anyway, the conversation made me angry in the way that i love being angry, when my whole body shakes and my voice gets really low and quiet and shaky but calm. i think it was a particularly hard conversation for nathan and me (we didn't get in a fight, that's not how it went at all - it was just really difficult, i think, for both of us for different reasons), but it felt really good to talk things out. and i especially loved being able to talk/think critically with nathan about ways that we (as christians (although i'm not identifying myself as one here), as allies, as whatever) can positively affect change in our communities without being colonial about it. one of the reasons i got sort of emotional about it is that, like i mentioned before, there's sort of been some shit going down in one of my social circles concerning this sort of thing, and i think we (again, as allies/christians/whatever) need to be really conscious about our motivations and assumptions and methods in the things we do. that's sort of vague. ask me about it in person and we'll talk about it. i like talking about things like this.

-talking with bri, bethany, karen, nathan, and kim p. (in separate conversations) about church and community. bri and i talked about how king's became our church/community when we went there, and how we both felt sort of lost once we graduated from there and lost our "communities." however, we've both since built up some really nourishing, healthy communities around ourselves with really lovely people. later, when i was talking with bethany and karen, i think they both agreed that the same had happened for them. but then a few days later, when i was talking with kim, she pointed out the difference between church communities and the communities we build up by ourselves. although it's really nice to have the "community" that i feel like i have, with all these amazing, politically/socially/environmentally sensitive people, the communities that we build up on our own are sort of flawed because they consist of hand-picked community members. by contrast, church communities consist of people that we may not necessarily get along with, or have very little in common with, but the one thing that ties us together is a commitment to working through tough shit together, presumably through a broadly agreed-upon perspective or set of assumptions. which, i think, is pretty neat. and which brings me to nathan, because i think he is a pretty shining example of someone who tries really hard to work through tough shit with people.

-talking with leila about gender, ethics, and polyamory. you can ask me about this one in person, because it's the internet and i just don't want to get into on here or misspeak, but i'll let you know that it was informed by a lecturer (janet hardy) we both heard speak (although not at the same time) and a film (red without blue) we both saw (again, not at the same time). anyways, one of the highlights for both of us, i think, was recognizing that leila's self-proclaimed "immature" masculinity (marked by curiosity and a need for adventure and mischief) is balanced in a really healthy way by incredibly mature femininity (marked, i think, by pretty overwhelmingly nurturing, loving, and graceful qualities). i'm also learning a lot about my own fear of/contempt for more... how should i say... advanced?... forms of masculinity. at least, masculinity as i understand it.

-talking with leila about how we both feel the 40-hour work week is bullshit, and our shared impatience for people who work jobs they hate.

-talking with some of my classmates about reconciliation. i want to be part of communities that recognize that people hurt each other, and commit to working through that shit together in a good way.

-talking with kaylin about a mazillion things, from the wonder of evolution to healthcare to the ways that we love people. man, she's incredible.

so, in conclusion: this is what i'm going to miss most about edmonton. these kinds of conversations with these kinds of people. i know there are probably neat people who live outside of edmonton. but i'm not sure if they're THIS neat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

highlights from february 14-20:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

highlights from february 7-13:

-warm granola with bri at my crush's work

-sketchy jesus with nathan and natasha

-hot chocolate with kim

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

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

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

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

-lunch with bethany at my crush's work

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

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

highlights from the week of february 1st-6th:

-delicious warm granola with bri on monday morning.

-my crush asked me out for tea on monday.

-walking around with kim and putting up posters on monday evening.

-doing tons of different kinds of work (editing, sewing, tutoring, data entry for the cree language project) that i really enjoy and get paid well for.

-hanging out with natasha, nathan, and some silly boys at natasha's on tuesday.

-buying a super cute coat from cinder + smoke, on sale! (mine's navy, although i would have preferred the green pictured here.)

-my pattern drafting class, where i continue learning neat things about how to fit fabric on bodies.

-a 3.5-hour-long tea date with my handsome crush at steeps on whyte on thursday.

-butter chicken with bethany on friday.

-tea and cookies at jenni and shamira's (although the date was cut short because i felt very very sick because of the jerk chicken salad from "the greenhouse" that i had eaten beforehand). those girls have moved, and now it takes just 6 minutes to walk from their door to mine!

-a 6-hour-long hangout with my handsome crush on saturday. we went to the farmers' market, bought vegetables, and went to his house. he made us some pretty incredible curry with chicken, and afterwards, we walked around his neighbourhood, came inside, drank tea, listened to records, talked about travelling, and confessed our massive crushes on each other.

conclusion: it was a good week.

highlights from the last week:

-i learned his name.

-the boy from the train told me that he started sewing a pair of pants for himself, and that he drafted the pattern for himself using the 3D software at his work. (he's a mechanical engineer who builds trains.) so awesome.

-i finished knitting a sweater for myself. i don't love the neckline, though, so i might change it.

-i finished my editing course, which means from now on i will have real weekends, rather than saturdays taken up by class. yahoo!

-i learned in my editing class that it's totally legitimate for editors to charge $45-$80/hour for their work. helloooo, fallback plan.

-i got two new part-time jobs. one is through my own faculty, and the other is through the department of civil engineering and involves editing. i am not charging $45/hour. not even close. BUT both jobs can be done from home, or from cafés with wireless internet where handsome boys work...

-my mom brought me my duvet. now my nest on the dining room floor is considerably more cozy and warm.

-i started building a bike for myself, with a lot of help from my new-ish, wonderful-ish friend leila at the edmonton bicycle commuters' society.

-i had nice hang outs with nathan, natasha, becky, jessy-j, and leila. they looked like this: (nathan, natasha, & becky), (jessy-j & leila), (leila), & (jessy-j).

-i went to a round dance at the u of a and saw some neat peeps i was in native studies classes with last year. it was good to see them.

-a phone call from my longest-distance friend.

not so great things about the week:

-racial tensions within my faculty. quelle surprise.

world, i have a new crush. it's sort of a relief to find i can still be physically/emotionally attracted to boys. i don't know his name yet, but he works at my new favourite restaurant in edmonton (favourite because it packages its take-out meals in biodegradable corn-based plastic containers; uses only hormone-free, free-range meat; is super close to my work; and is well-lit - i hate eating in dimly lit places). and last week, when i went to pick up some supper & some frozen yogurt, the frozen yogurt machine stopped working right when it started to grind up the fruit together with the yogurt. so this boy checked the breaker and pulled out this big moveable counter to try to plug the machine in, but it still didn't work. then he gave me a refund. then, as i was walking down the street past second cup on jasper ave., i heard footsteps running behind me. i turned, and it was that boy, running through the snow in his t-shirt, with a cup of frozen yogurt in his hand. "it started working right after you left!" haha. i told him i'd come pay for it, but he said it was no problem. ha. so maybe it is their great customer service that has prompted me to go there six times in the last week. maybe it's not the handsome dark-haired boy who works there. who really knows? anyway, i think it's entirely possible to start a relationship through frequent, "casual" drop-ins to someone's place of employment. right? it worked for some people.

see also: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/good_looking_one_not_working_today

the latest excitements in my life are that i sewed my first denim garment (a men's jumpsuit - ha!) and have fallen in love with how easy denim is to sew, AND i put my first fly zipper into my first pair of real pants (ie. not sweatpants/pyjamas): some surprisingly hot purple-red silk jeans-style pants. sounds gross, right? no. they are so rad. i'll post pictures or a link when i'm allowed to (they're both for work, and part of my boss' summer 2010 collection, which will be shown in april at edmonton fashion week).

because i've become so enamored with denim, and increasingly conscious of how bad non-organic cotton is for the environment*, i've been trying to find organic cotton denim but can hardly find it ANYWHERE. but i contacted a few girls on etsy who use organic denim, and they recommend a few places to buy online. whew. seriously, if you can avoid buying non-organic cotton, do it. there are quite a few places that sell organic cotton t-shirts and denim jeans and stuff. and make sure you're paying fair prices for the labour too. being paid a fair wage for sewing garments myself makes me feel pretty strongly about this. so no more h&m or urban outfitters (or their affiliates), okay?

*"Cotton is considered the world's 'dirtiest' crop due to its heavy use of insecticides, the most hazardous pesticide to human and animal health. Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other single major crop.
Aldicarb, cotton's second best selling insecticide and most acutely poisonous to humans, can kill a man with just one drop absorbed through the skin, yet it is still used in 25 countries and the US, where 16 states have reported it in their groundwater." (taken from http://www.ota.com/organic/environment/cotton_environment.html, which paraphrases the EJF article linked above)

i haven't posted for two months because what comes next chronologically was the best, followed by the worst time i had in DC. both are, embarrassingly, boy-related. but i'll skip over them for now and write about them later. now i will write about christmas until the present.

for christmas my fam and i went to jasper for a few days, largely because my mom hates cooking and looks for excuses every second year to not cook christmas dinner for my immediate family and my dad's parents. for two of those days, my dad, emily, and i went to marmot basin to ski, snowblade, and snowboard, respectively. my dad's a pretty good skier, and emily and i improved a lot compared with how we started out, but we're still not very good. i've always been too scared to go on my toe edge because i don't want to catch my heel edge and break open my head, but i made myself practice those two days and now i can turn both ways onto my toe edge and back, although i can't go very fast when i do it. hooray, self.

i spent the days after christmas at my parents', finishing up the quilt i've been working on for myself for the last two years, knitting a sweater for kelsey (kels, e-mail me a picture of you wearing it so i can replace this one of me wearing it), visiting my lovely grandparents, and helping my dad make me some room divider screens for my new place in edmonton. also, kelsey and paul and i hung out at sammy's (a sort of sketchy ice cream/burger place in vermilion) and then at my house for a bit, and watched "tokyo!"

my parents drove me up to edmonton on the 30th with a truckload of stuff to make a comfortable living space for me. they convinced me to live with my sisters in the condo my parents bought a year or two ago, so that they wouldn't have to find someone new to live there when alyssa moves out in mid-february to do her practicum at home. so... i've been living in the dining room and sleeping on the floor since then. BUT i have my brand-new quilt to keep me warm, and all my craft and sewing supplies close by, and it's accessible so that the people i love can drop by easily, so i am happy.

i spent the last day of 2009 making CD sleeves with landon at my place for the four songs he just recorded. it was an unexpected hangout, but pretty great. nathan also came over in the afternoon and we played nintendo and talked. i spent new year's eve alone in my apartment (the third time i've done so on a new year's eve in four years), writing letters and crafting. it was perfect.

i spent the first day of 2010 drinking tea with darcy, and continuing the CD assembly line with jessy, landon, and jonathan.

the rest of 2010 so far has included lots of crafting (with jessica, kim, natasha, and nathan, mostly), a little bit of other sorts of hanging out (skating with nathan and alex, farmers' market-ing with nathan, movie-watching with alex, blueberry crumble at the high level diner with dr. e, ), crushing on tegan & sara with my sister at their concert, a little bit of computer work (on my cree books, on my application for grad school), wishing my gido bill a happy 90th birthday (!), and a lot of work. i'm working at a couple of different places:
1. i spend most of my working hours in a studio on jasper ave. and 104th, sewing for a young designer who won the emerging designer competition at the last edmonton fashion week. it's sort of a dream job, since i'm learning a ton and get to spend most of my work hours alone. the designer is really kind and unpretentious and great to work for.
2. i'm back at the elementary school again this year, gettin' paid for tobogganing with kids and microwavin' their lunches. the kids are really rad and adorable, and i'm glad to be able to spend more time with them.
3. i'm still tutoring. in addition to cree, i'm also tutoring one human ecology class, and the mother of the student i tutor is paying me handsomely to help her navigate the internet. she knows i need money, and her generous heart always finds sort-of legitimate ways to keep me "employed."
4. i'm editing civil engineering master's students' papers. well, i did one while i was in new york, and although i haven't done any since then, i am supposed to start one next week. it pays well and i really enjoy it. in fact, that leads into one of two classes i'm starting this week:
1. an editing class! the faculty of extension is offering an 18-hour course on copy and substantial editing. i am starting it on saturday, and i am REALLY looking forward to it.
2. a pattern drafting class! this one is offered by central sewing. that starts tomorrow. i am really looking forward to it too.

this post has been brought to you by the prodding and the internet access of natasha.

seventh week in DC

on sunday i bummed around DC and went to see "to fly" at the imax theatre at air & space.

i didn't do much during the evenings that week. i had to tutor cree every night because i wouldn't be around to do it on the weekend.

work was fun. one day, some visitor from the north brought down a ton of reindeer sausage, ice cream made from fish, and muktuk (whale skin & blubber). because of my dislike for food from the sea, i only tried the reindeer sausage. it was good, but mostly just tasted like every other kind of sausage. for some reason, this was all coupled with an option of mango juice or piña coladas. i chose the latter. good choice.

another day at work, my coworker ben and i played hacky sack in the office. it's hard to focus on anything else in that last hour of the day. ben also recently got an ipod touch, and he has been downloading silly applications and playing with them at work. his favourite this week has been a collection of 6 different kinds of guns. he loads up the revolver with one bullet and then makes a sad face and pulls the trigger. guns and suicide are not funny. but russian roulette with an ipod is pretty funny.

sixth week in DC

on monday the 26th, one of the curators of my museum gave a talk to us interns. afterwards the interns all went for tea (minus my intern crush, who has a habit of forgetting our appointments) at starbucks. it is nice to hang out with those girls. i biked home after work, ate supper, and biked to stitch DC where i bought some pricey orange yarn & brown yarn to hopefully make into a yoked sweater for myself. on the way home I tried to find a place that sold puzzles, but to no avail. i watched the most recent episode of "the office" online when i got home. i liked the first two seasons and now i hardly like the show (i HATE steve carrell), but i'm sucked into it for some reason and have been making sure to watch every episode as it comes out. as i watched it, i sewed the hot pink fringe i bought at mood onto my black silk western shirt (for my halloween costume). afterwards i tutored cree and then skyped with my parents.

i didn't do much during the week. that's okay, isn't it? i'm sure i wrote a bunch of letters and tutored cree or something.

i spent most of thursday night working on one of my cree books. i have hardly done any work on them for a long time. eek. but i like how that one is coming along.

on friday night i stayed in my room and wrote letters and watched the new episode of "the office" (it comes out on thursday nights).

on saturday (halloween), i woke up early and watched "boys don't cry" on my laptop. i hadn't known about the movie until i saw previews for "amelia," which reminded me how much i have a celebrity-girl-crush on hilary swank, so i imdb'd and wikipedia'd her and read up on some of her other movies, and decided i had to see this one. it was tough to watch, but good. i watched "monster" a few months ago and now i feel like i have a thing for difficult/devastating white trash lesbian/queer relationships (i'm not sure how to term the relationship in "boys don't cry," sorry). afterwards i took my bike to bikestation at union station to try to get my gears fixed, but the guy there said i would have to replace this entire part that would cost more than what i paid for my bike, and since i didn't want to do that, he just put my bike in an easier gear to ride (i know i should know how to do that, but i haven't ridden a bike for YEARS - my dad wouldn't let me because he thought i'd get killed). i biked to the american history museum and fell in love with arthur ganson and his "machine with 23 scraps of paper." i came home and ate supper and went for a bike ride around capitol hill with my letter-writing friend joe. then i came home again to get ready for the halloween party at my supervisor's house. i pretty much hate parties but i like my coworkers, and i was sure this would be one of my only chances to hang out with them, so i went. i dressed up as a barrel racer, with hot pink wranglers and the black silk and pink fringed button-up shirt i mentioned earlier. it was hideous. it was nice to see everyone, but as usual, i left pretty early.

i want to be a part of it

at the end of my fifth week in DC, on the saturday, i caught a bus from DC to NY. i woke up around 6:30 to catch the 8:30 bus, which left from a stop conveniently only about 4 blocks from my residence. the ride was comfortable (i had the row to myself), cheap ($25 one-way - by comparison, a one-way greyhound ticket from my parents' to edmonton is usually about $32, and that's only a 2-hour trip), relatively short (4 hours), and offered some pretty lovely autumn scenery. i arrived at the stop near penn station in NY shortly after noon, and walked a few blocks over to mood (the fabric store featured on project runway) so i could check it out and pick up some hot pink fringe for my halloween costume before meeting david (the boy i met on the viarail train in september) and his friends (well, younger cousin, younger cousin's boyfriend, and friend's younger sister).

the five of us took the subway to the southeast corner of central park and walked through the park up to the met. since it was raining pretty hard, i took off my shoes (my soft-soled moccasins) and replaced them with flip-flops - a smart move as far as keeping my feet comfortable and easy to dry off whenever we went indoors, but a very poor move in terms of my hangnail that quickly got infected by all of the dirty NY puddle water running all over it (it's preeeetty much healed now, though). at the met we got a sweet discount because of my smithsonian badge, and we toured (amongst other things) a fun exhibition on knights' armor. after the met we went for (a mediocre) supper in little italy, made a quick stop at times square to check out the lights, then went back to the hostel we were all conveniently staying at because we were all wet and cold and tired. david and i stayed up late talking in the lounge, which was nice.

the next day we took the staten island ferry over to staten island. we saw the statue of liberty as we passed by, but it wasn't that impressive. afterwards we went for pizza (which was overpriced and not very good), then walked about 70 blocks from the staten island ferry terminal to rockefeller center. david's friends went up to the viewing site there, but it cost almost $20 and i wasn't in the mood for paying that kind of money for that kind of experience, so he and i took the subway over to burgers and cupcakes (which i wanted to visit because it seemed to be natasha's dream restaurant) for... burgers & cupcakes. then we walked over to my bus stop and said goodbye. my bus ride back to DC was slightly less enjoyable than the one to NY - i had to share my aisle, and since it was dark out i couldn't see all the autumnal goodness, but it was still nice to sit by myself and have nothing to do but listen to my ipod.

fifth week in DC

on sunday i went on a tour of the white house gardens (they're only open to the public once a year). it was neat to see the place up close. after that, i went to the solar decathlon on the mall. i had been wanting to see it since it opened, but it was always too rainy to go. i ended up just being able to see the alberta entry, which was pretty neat. i ate lunch by myself at the smithsonian castle, and then went to stitch DC to look at yarn. i didn't buy any because i didn't have any needles.

on tuesday three of the other interns (including my sort-of crush) and i skipped out on work to see "where the wild things are." i didn't ever read the book when i was young, so i am not drawn to the movie in the way that some other people are. i didn't love it, but there were definitely some beautiful parts. right after that i went to another theatre to watch "a serious man" with one of my letter-writing friends. i never like coen brothers' films, so i'm not sure why i keep seeing them.

on wednesday i had a 4-hour hangout with my intern crush. it was super enjoyable and satisfying. hanging out with crushes is the best. we biked to jefferson memorial and talked and looked out over the tidal basin at the city, and then we went for supper at qdoba downtown. yesss.

on friday night after work i helped out at a teacher workshop at the natural history museum. it was exhausting but there was good free food.

saturday: bussed to NYC; mood; central park; met; supper in little italy; spent evening at hostel

fourth week in DC

on sunday i stayed at home and napped most of the day because i had super bad cramps. i also worked on my sshrc application.

on monday i bought a bike and took it to get front brake fixed & tires filled. it was cheap and it creaks but it was the first one i could get off of craigslist.

on tuesday i made frybread in the morning at my supervisor's house with her and two other coworkers for the frybread fundraiser. then i took the smithsonian shuttle to suitland, maryland, where i met up with the other interns for a little presentation on repatriation. i rode the shuttle back with my sort-of crush, who is another intern at my museum. i skipped out on the rest of work and biked home, where i napped. i waited for the boy i tutor to call me but he didn't, so i went to union station for some steak & mashed potatoes.

on thursday i went to see "coco before chanel" with some of the other interns. it was so so so good.

on friday i went for tea after work with a boy i have been writing letters with. after that, we went to the brian jungen talk at the hirshhorn. my intern crush also showed up and sat with us. BUT i couldn't sit with EITHER of those boys because my bladder is too small and the tea was too big and i spent the WHOLE talk standing at the back and running to the washroom every 10 minutes. after the talk the letter-writing boy and i went to union station and ate sbarro and he grilled me on why i don't want to get married. ugh. it's a conversation i don't like having, and a conviction i stand by firmly.

on saturday morning i went for cupcakes with another letter-writing friend, and she and i walked around afterwards and went for coffee and had the same conversation that i had had the night before (except that she understood where i was coming from).i worked on my sshrc application in the evening, and ordered two pairs of simple shoes online (it had been raining in DC for a week straight, and i was desperate for anything but my moccasins, which get wet super quickly. i couldn't bring myself to order rubber boots, even though i had scoured DC looking for a pair, so i ended up ordering these and these).

third week in DC

on sunday i went with my edmontonian friend mary to her friend lydia's apartment near U street. we had a really fantastic conversation about native studies (lydia did her master's on aboriginal incarcerations in canada, and mary's mom is a prof in native studies), with a pretty great view of the city from lydia's balcony. i had to leave early, though, so i could meet some of the other interns at the eastern market. from there i walked to the air and space museum to see if any good imax shows were playing (since interns get in free), but none were, so i took the metro back to union station where i bought a strawberry smoothie. i came home and napped before tutoring cree and going to an all-house meeting with all the girls and managers at my residence. hot topics included internet connections, flushing etiquette, and hand sanitizing procedures for when flu season starts. yeesh.

on monday at work brian jungen gave my department a tour of his new exhibit. neat. in the evening i met another edmonton intern at ben's chili bowl for a brief hangout before she went back to canada.

on tuesday the interns had a tour of african art museum & the smithsonian castle, led by the man who does the mounts for artifacts. it was pretty adorable how passionately he talked about displaying things in the best way and least invasive way possible. i skipped out on the rest of the afternoon and went to the natural history museum, where i watched an IMAX called wild oceans. it wasn't as good as the dinosaurs one i saw a few weeks before.

on thursday i ran over to the hirshhorn right after work and waited in line for an hour (passing the time by eating my ham sandwich and banana supper) to get tickets to the talk tim gunn was going to be moderating on anne truitt's work. i was surprised when i got in (the line in front of me was pretty long), and even more surprised that my coworker/co-interns (who had all left work before me) did not get tickets. oh well. i basked in tim gunn's glory for the hour and a half that the talk lasted, although even he could not convince me that truitt's work was "genius" or "all about life" or even worth giving a second thought to. i get pretty irritated when art world people insist that "the art should speak for itself." that works fine for people who know the whole history of art and movements and theory and stuff, and who therefore understand where a piece fits into that chronology and how it works with or against other pieces. but for the rest of us, we need a little bit of context to understand why anyone in their right mind would think painted rectangular columns are "genius." all of the panelists at the talk refused to talk about the meaning or processes or inspiration behind the art. they offered some anecdotes from truitt's life, but as far as making the art accessible to the general museum-going public, they did a pretty shitty job.

on saturday i went to dupont circle at 10:30 for cupcakes with one of my letter-writing friends, but she didn't show up. boo. the place IS hard to find because its signage is virtually non-existent, and she was running way later that day than she intended, so... no hangout. i came back to the neighbourhood later in the day with another letter-writing friend, and we walked around and went for italian food for lunch. i spent the evening with a third letter-writing friend: we got ice cream on E street, walked around, & watched "capitalism: a love story.

second week in DC

to start off my second week in DC, i ate breakfast with mary and a few other girls from the dorm. then i went for a long walk by myself around to the big touristy spots in DC: i walked down pennsylvania ave., walked past the white house, went to the lincoln memorial, walked by the washington monument, went to the museum of natural history and saw an awesome exhibit on ants (they're incredible!), watched a 3D imax on dinosaurs, and walked home in the rain. the maps and the movies make that distance seem really short. it's not. i finished the day by talking to my mom & dad on skype.

during the week i tutored cree online, visited the natural history museum's collections with the other interns, saw an exhibit on an amtrak train at union station about disney's "a christmas carol" (which included some of charles dickens' belongings, as well as neat videos on the process of making the movie. and all on a train! fun!), met up with brian jungen a couple of times so we (ie. the cultural interpreters and education department) could learn about his work for when the exhibit opens up and people want tours, went to see the pains of being pure at heart and the depreciation guild at the black cat with two of the other interns at my museum, watched "night at the museum: battle of the smithsonian" AT the smithsonian in imax (come on. how could i not?), and tried to make responsible dietary decisions (ie. choosing strawberry smoothies over cupcakes or giant pretzels. luckily, there's a good smoothie place at union station, which is just 4 blocks from where i live).