Almost Billeting - Jan 18

Jan 18

Hmm...as per usual, I can't really think of what to say about the morning and work...same old same old I guess. So let us jump to after work...

The first thing I did as soon as I went home was to package my cookies that I baked the night before and try and hurry to the post office to send it out before the delivery truck leaves. Just as I thought...Mike and Charles ate a good number of my cookies, but good thing there are still a good number of them. As I was packing my cookies, Emilie was in the dining room preparing 10 packages of paperwork for us and our billeting family

(Ok guys here's a piece of information that you guys probably want to know about. In each trimester of the program, everyone in the group is assigned to a billeting family, whom he/she will live with for 2 weeks. The purpose of this is to allow us to know the local community and assimilate ourselves better, plus it is the only time where we are away from our group = privacy and alone time. This usually happens during the middle of each trimester, so for us it's from January 19 - February 2).

Emilie asked us to sign the paperwork that she prepared, and that's when I found out who my billeting family is - Sister Dianne and Trina, who are this pair of nuns and biological sisters, and they also have a fat cat in their house. I had actually met them a while ago in a party (I probably will write an email about that day, because surprisingly I still remember about it) and they seemed like pretty cool people. I am just not crazy about the fact that they have a cat and hopefully they are not going to try and convert me...

I went into "downtown" (cough cough) and into the post office...mailed the cookies (man, $8.24 for cookies which will take a week to arrive...or $18 something for 2-3 days...that's some expensive cookies), and went back home because apparently dinner will be early tonight since we have a workshop on leadership at Eckat High school. I can't remember much about dinner other than the fact that Zach actually made dessert and it was this chocolate mudslide thing that looks sickeningly sweet but everyone devoured it like there's no end to it...
Emilie couldn't come with us because she had to meet the billeting families for last minute details, so after dinner we ditched our dishes and walked to the high school, which was a 15-20 minute walk. As we walked, it was snowing and it was quite nice walking in the snow at night. Charles and Stephen were as per usual being their usual dickhead selves (haha)and pushed me around during the walk. So pretty much the walk there for me consisted of avoiding them and thinking of ways to revenge...I settled for powder face wash (throwing snow in their face) for both of them inside the building...needless to say I made myself a bigger target for them, but at least I was safe for now.

The person who was doing our workshop was this guy who used to be the principal of the high school, but is now retired. If I remember correctly his name was Jim. Well, let's call him Jim here, whatever...anyways he started off by having us play this game where we choose what animal (unfortunately we can only choose to be mammals, which I have no idea why) we want to be, and what animal we would not want to be. I chose to be the Sasquatch (because I like the privacy and the idea that I am a mystery), which everyone laughed at. Jim finds it interesting that I chose that answer, and that I chose to sit all the way at the back of the classroom. I told him that it's only because I have Stephen and Charles hunting me down (they both located themselves in the row next to me) and I must watch over them, haha. I chose the chicken as an animal I wouldn't want to be (I know that's not a mammal, but Maxime chose the rooster, so I felt I have a right to choose what I want too), because chickens are the most abused animal on earth right now. After he got everyone's answers, he asked "Why do you think I am doing this game and what does this have to do with leadership?"...which lead to his lecture on leadership.
So for the next hour (more like 45 minutes), he talked about what being a leader is about, and he told stories/drew diagrams/asked us questions/etc. I wasn't bored from his lecture, just because he is a charismatic speaker and had a lot of control with his words. As well, he analyzed certain people in the room (he said he bet Maxime is someone who gets going very easily in the morning, which we all laughed at because it's true), which was interesting. In a way, he reminded me a lot of Mr. Mackenzie, my old socials studies teacher in high school whom I had for 3 years and who is very popular in school. The only thing that I didn't agree with him was that a) he was a bit too Christian for me (in the lecture, he said that Jesus Christ is his leader and he is merely a follower, but he uses his power given from Christ to guide others) b) he thought Stephen Harper and Stephan Dion were excellent leaders (COUGH COUGH). But overall it was quite interesting. At the end, he wanted to do an activity of character analysis with us, but since we didn't have enough time (we were only supposed to be there until 8), he gave Rebecca the activity and told us to do it at home. And that's what we did. (The walk back home for me was interesting, because I walked all the way at the back of the group to avoid Stephen and Charles...but they didn't do anything to me, which may be the best revenge because the suspense kills, haha).
So anyways, back to the character analysis test. Pretty much the test is a questionnaire, with 11 questions and we have to pick one person in our group for each question. Now if I can remember what my test looks like (Unfortunately we can only choose one answer per question, no repeats...that sucks):

1) Who would you go to a party with - Zach
2) Who would you bring to your parents? - Rebecca
3) Who would you stay on a deserted island with - Stephanie
4) Who would you do hard work with - Charles
5) Who would you bring to a hospital - Maxime
6) Who would you choose as your best friend - Cheryl
7) Who would you study with - Cynthia
8) Who would you bring to a prison - Mike
9) Who would you have as a parent - Stephen
10) Who would you travel with - Me/Angel
11) Who would you have to teach you things - Emilie
Anyways, we all did that, and majority of the people chose Cheryl and Rebecca as "best friend", Maxime to "party", me and Stephen as "parent" (what???????), Cynthia as "study", Emilie to "teach you things", and me and someone else as "travel" (although that may not count on my part because I chose myself and apparently we are not allowed to do that, haha). Interesting test.

After that Emilie came back from the meeting and we had a little meeting about the billeting period. Pretty much the message is "have fun" and our code word if we were in danger/the family is "jeans" (eg. "How are you doing in the family?"..."My jeans are torn" - they are locking me up in the cellar). As soon as the meeting is done, I took a shower, and then had a loooooong phone conversation with a friend of mine. During the phone conversation Zach/Rebecca/Stephanie bugged me by dancing around me and chanting stupid things over the phone. As well, Cheryl/Charles/Maxime used Stephen's head to create a paper-maiche mohawk cap while I was talking on the phone...it was pretty funny to watch the creation of that as I was chatting, and poor Stephen...he is always used for projects like this. I remember the night where Charles/Stephen/Mike got haircuts and everyone had fun cutting his hair, haha (I didn't join in). Mike ended up getting it buzzed, haha.

I pretty much talked on the phone until almost everyone went to bed (it was 1:00 am?). I hung up the phone and saw Cheryl and Stephen are still in the living room. They must have been chatting and Cheryl ended up falling asleep on Stephen's lap, which was cute. I bided Stephen good night and went to bed.

My adventures with my billeting family starts tomorrow...