Lost In Katimavik

2007-07-18T17:08:00.000-05:00

I have decided to keep this blog titleless, just because I don't feel like thinking of one after sitting at the computer for a couple of hours working on my Creston day trip excursion protocol that Alex (PL) was supposed to have sent to Christine (PC) 2 weeks ago. Sigh...

Oh yes as you have noticed, once again I am at my billet family, healing from my injuries. This blog will be dedicated to the billet "drama" that has happened. Since I don't feel like sitting in front of the computer (perhaps switching to sitting in front of the TV instead) any longer, I am going to keep this short and simple (yeah I know, that's so unlike me).

1) Stephen - ever since 72 hours off, Stephen has developed something on his legs which is believed to be a very, very bad case of poison ivy reaction. It is pretty disgusting looking, all pus-sy like and comparable to a tree bark. He went into his billet family with that condition (although it seemed like he was getting better) but apparently Friday night he puked in his billet family and had to go to the hospital and stay there for a couple of days...

2) Maxime - she is billeting with one of her co-workers, and things were supposedly going well...until Christine got a phone call from Maxime's billeting family saying that they no longer want to billet Maxime. This is confusing because apparently Maxime didn't think there were problems, and didn't see it coming. Nevertheless, she is still living with her billet family...I think this is rather awkward, especially when Maxime and her billet mom are co-workers...let's see how that goes.

3) Cheryl - this has nothing to do with her billet family, instead it's about her work placements. So right now Cheryl works in BEAKS, a shelter where people send in injured birds and volunteers take care of them until they get better...then the volunteers release them. Sounds like an interesting job and a good cause and all, but Cheryl had trouble with that job ever since day 1...and it's all because of her boss Carol. Anyways apparently Carol is someone who is super-obsessed with her job...she would pretty much wake up, take care of her birds for the whole day, then go to bed. In other words, BEAKS is her life...and according to Cheryl she is extremely hard to deal with, super stubborn, high stressed (sounds like she has some mental issues) etc. Also BEAKS is highly unsanitary (there are dead bird carcasses/animals/worms/dirt everywhere)...with a combination of these things, plus the fact that Carol pretty much told Cheryl off (she indirectly "fired" Cheryl, if you know what I mean), Cheryl kind of lost her work placement. Which actually for Cheryl, isn't a big deal...she hated working there. So right now she is working in Blueberry Elementary School with Maxime for a week, and something will be decided once Alex returns. I personally think it would only be natural that Cheryl will take over Mike's positions, since...

4)...Mike is gone - Yes, you read right. Mike is officially kicked off the program. After months of edging towards that path, but never quite reaching it...and then gone but returning like cancer, Mike is forever gone in our group. So what exactly happened that brought on to this? Well on top of the 2 final warnings that he accumulated in the program (one for respect, one for participation), he did something during billeting that ticked off his billet family: apparently he went "snooping" in one of the daughter's bedrooms (if you guys kept up with all the blog entries then you would know that Mike knows no boundaries) and broke a cabinet door (well the week he was billeting with Stephen's boss he broke the shower handle, but she didn't complain). Anyways the family called Christine and told her they want Mike to get out of their house, so Christine spent her Saturday morning calling all the billet families and asked if they could take Mike in temporarily...and Mike got the boot officially on Monday (Irony - when I asked Mike what he did that got his billet family upset, he was very vague and muttered something quick like "oh I don't know I guess we don't get along...yeah I broke their door". Then he adds...and this is the golden part: "oh I am sure I won't be kicked off because of this, or else Christine wouldn't have called all the billet families to look for a place for me to stay". And boom, within a couple of hours he got the news that he is going home...
I am not going talk about my thoughts and feelings on this incident because a) I don't quite have time right now, I am quite sick of being in front of the computer for so long and b) Mike is a subject that is over-discussed ever since the beginning of the program. Perhaps another time.

5) And who can forget about me, my ordeal, my drama? Yes it has to be about me, as always...=)

TV time.

Blogging After My Accident

2007-07-17T16:04:00.000-05:00

So I am now blogging in the afternoon...wow I haven't done that since in Alma. Since I can't do that at my museum job right now, this obviously means I am at "home" (billeting house to be exact). I am staying in for the day because of a "dramatic" event that happened to me yesterday...and since I have quite a bit of time right now I have decided to tell the story in the long format, for you unlucky people, hehe. And well, also because I haven't properly blogged for such a long time...I really should be more diligent with that, especially with all the stuff that has happened since our arrival in Castlegar, BC

So the story (long format). This goes back to Friday, after I wrote my blahgins blog. As per usual, I rode my borrowed bike to work, and as I was changing the gear while climbing uphill, the gear locked but so did the pedals..so I couldn't pedal. Luckily I wasn't that far away from the house, so I walked back, and called my boss. He offered to drive me to work but since I lived in a location that was relatively difficult to find, I told him to find me at the old Schoolhouse Restaurant (a known landmark in the area). But I didn't see him there, so I decided to continue walking on the highway and hopefully see him driving up. Well I must have walked 30 minutes (in muggy 30 something degrees, no less) on the highway before I see his car driving on the other side. He honked, I got into the air conditioned car, and all was well...except for the bus ride back home. Castlegar has only 1 bus route available and it takes an hour to do the whole route...and unfortunately the bus did not stop where I needed to get off (the bus driver told me I missed the last one that did) so I had to walk from downtown back to the little suburb in hot interior heat (ok it wasn't that bad...they only lived a 20 minute walk from downtown).

That night Jim (my billet dad) fixed my bike, and he noticed that my front tire was flat (which I was confused about since people pumped it for me during my bike-a-thon from Nelson to Castlegar only 2 weeks ago) so he added air for me. But it got flat again the next day so Karina (my billet mom) pumped it again and added a cover for the airhole (since my tire didn't have a cover for the hole). And yesterday we found out the tire got flat again so Karina decided that I should borrow Arija (my 11 year-old billet sister who is about my height ;P)'s bike instead, so I did that...here's where the story gets interesting.

Arija has a really good bike, with brakes that stop immediately after you press them...too good to be true. And that's was what happened to me after I got off work yesterday...I was biking on the highway in a bike owned my an 11 year old (I was pretty close to the house) and I was going downhill...I braked and it stopped immediately. Well if you can imagine those old cartoons, it looked exactly like that...I flew out of my bike and fell on to the pavement. I will give you a couple of seconds to imagine that...

...so I was on the pavement and I don't know...I was in shock at what just happened and I just started gasping. And before I know it, I see 2 ladies' faces asking me if I was ok, what my name is...then more faces appeared. Most of them were men who just got off work, and a good number asked me what happened and all that stuff...someone called 911 (I was thinking, oh no...the police will fine me for not wearing a helmet), while another person (who worked for construction or paramedics or something like that) had walkie-talkies and tried diverging traffic...everything felt so surreal, with all these people hurrying around me and me just lying on the ground...oh yes then out of nowhere Cheryl shows up with her billet family (they drove past and saw me) and she was like "Angel oh my god...". I got her to take the bike away and bring it back to the house, though, which was good...
Popular question amongst the crowd - Where's your helmet?

Then the ambulance shows up and the paramedics did the whole first-aid drill...one guy was pretty cute with blond hair and blue eyes, it was too bad I looked pretty disgusting at that point...then they put me in this stretcher bed and pushed me into the ambulance car...as they do that I saw blood on the concrete...man the surreal factor just goes up so much more...
During the ride the cute paramedic asked me a bunch of questions, ranging from where I was from and what happened and all that stuff...fortunately I felt fine enough that when he asked where my home is, I answered with "where the heart is, haha". And the question of the day, no less..."Where's your helmet?"

So the rest of the time was kind of anti-climatic, in my opinion. The nurse comes in, checks on me and asks a bunch of questions. Then the paramedic comes in, says goodbye (not before warning me to wear my helmet next time)...and I was alone for a little bit. Suddenly...

...the police shows up. I was thinking "darn is he going to fine me for not wearing my helmet" but it turns out he just needed to do a file on me since someone called 911. So he asks me a bunch of questions on where I am from and what happened. And finally he ends the whole thing by saying "wear your helmet next time". Haha apparently he handles around 100 cases of this on a daily basis...he must be so jaded about it.

Then Karina shows up (she looked rather worried) with Cheryl (which was quite a surprise). While I got bandaged by the nurse, Karina and Cheryl and I chatted and shared "katimavik-gossip"...quite a load of drama happened this week during billeting, it seems. Maybe I will talk about them at another time.
Finally I got driven home by Karina...Cheryl apparently contacted Christine (my PC) who contacted Karina so that's how she found out. Oh yes the nurse reminded me to wear my helmet. And that night, instead of watching Harry Potter with Arija and her little buddy and Karina, I indulged the evening vegging out in front of the TV, half dead from the medication while informing my mother very lightly what happened to me (she freaked out nevertheless).
So today I don't have to work...in a way it was good because I haven't been in an empty house free from work ever since...katimavik started? So that is why I can write all this stuff right now.
Yay silver lining!

Ok that's not it with the silver lining...the fact that I didn't sustain any head injury or break anything was really quite something (even my glasses weren't crushed). Plus I wasn't fined by the police, which is just great. Now I just need to check if my CD player is broken too (someone laughed when they find out that not only was I not wearing my helmet, I was also listening to music too...)

Moral of the story - Wear a helmet. And don't ride a bike owned by an 11 year old with glue-like tractions.

Injuries sustained - mildly scraped knees (good thing I was wearing jeans), scrape on right shoulder, various cuts and torn skins on both hands (especially right one), and a giant red gash on right cheekbone which needs icing. Plus I bit the inside of my mouth too. And who can forget my very tender left wrist...

Something interesting - 1) This is actually not the first bike accident I had in Castlegar. Last last Friday (the Friday before my 72 hours off) I fell of my bike at Kinnaird Bridge. But that's more with skills, and I just scrapped my right palm and my knees.
2) However, this is the first time in my life that I got into an ambulance, with the whole 911 and people crowding drama included. Katimavik makes a first for everything, doesn't it?

Bitching about UBC

2007-07-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just finished registering for my courses in UBC...1 measly psychology course, haha. May I just add that planning and registering for courses is absolutely a pain in the butt; not until 5 minutes prior to my alloted time in UBC did I find out I needed to pay for non-refundable deposit (doesn't this smell like a scam to you?) and therefore my account was blocked from registration...what??

Good thing for credit cards and quick wit ;)...fixed everything and I was able to register for my course...now I owe UBC $716.55. Next thing they will tell me that I also owe them my future first-born.

The whole school situation this year is kind of tricky, because I have decided to study at 2 schools at once (UBC, good old Cap) and therefore had to balance my schedule between both places, as well as allotting time for navy training and a potential 2nd part-time job (which will happen, I guarantee it!)...certain courses had to be sacrificed (ie. Japanese) and in the end I could only take 4 courses, which was not what I had intended but things worked out for now...I had other schemes in my head to balance everything out...

Now that I finished my "breakfast" (two sausages...mmm haven't had that for a looong time), I will leave to bike to work...conquer the great big mountain on my 6 speed old-school bike...hopefully more later.

A Quick Blah

2007-07-05T01:42:00.000-05:00

Hey, long time no blog...will try to write something good, very soon...lots of interesting stuff happened to me since I last wrote...

- Relay for Life
- St. Jean-Baptiste Day (drama, drama)
- Changes in work
- 72 hours off (fun fun fun)
- My week of house managing with Zach
- Billeting (this Friday!)

'Kay Night!

Meh (New Update)

2007-06-16T01:50:00.000-05:00

Hello

It is now 11:50 pm, and I was on the computer for an hour with the purpose of blogging, but 1 hour later and some mindless surfing...and I still haven't anything proper. Shame on me.

A good number of stuff happened that I would like to share about, but I think it's time for my for bed...crazy day tomorrow...

...will write more on what's on my mind.

Good night

(Next day, at 2:54 pm)

Let's continue on where I left off last night. A couple things that happened this week:

1) Sock Assasin - it is this new game that Alex/Stephen introduced during last week's house meeting. Each person draws out a name from a hat (in this case Stephen's "new" cowboy hat that he wears everywhere...what a loser :P) and the name which we get is the person we must "assasinate" for the next week. To kill a person, we simply get a sock (which we carry everywhere with us) and simply hit them with it. And if the kill is successful, the assasinated one gives the assasinater the name of the person the killed person is supposed to kill, and now the assasinater must kill the new person. This keeps going until the assasinater gets their own name, and then becomes the winner.

The game and me - I personally think it's kind of funny that I was the first person to get killed...by Mike. Originally I got Maxime, and I was thinking that it would be pretty easy for me to do the job since I share a room with her. Then the insomnia night happened, and by 9 o'clock my brain was totally fried (I ended up going to bed at 7 and sleep for almost 2 hours) and I actually considered not going to work...so I went to the computer room (still half asleep) and asked Mike if he could tell Larry (my boss) that I am feeling sick and therefore cannot go to work. He simply said "well if you do that, can you call Larry so instead of me biking there by myself, he can come and drive me to work?" As I grumbled at that and falling asleep on the window, he just whacked me with his sock (dirty) and yelled "GOTCHA!" I wasn't even fully awake and I was just like "wwwhaatt?" And of course, Stephen and Zach heard the whole thing and made fun of me because it was Mike who killed me.
I think it's highly unjust that I was murdered at that state of mind. If only I was more conscious...

Throughout the whole day (and the next day and day after), people were freaking out whenever they are alone with someone else...some people made alliances to protect themselves...it was quite interesting to see. So what eventually happened at the end with the game:
(A chart created by Zach and Cynthia deciding who is still in the game...I had to dig through the recycling bin to find it and post it here...sigh the things I do for making a good blog)

Angel - (killed by) Mike - (killed by) Alex - (killed by) Zach
Cheryl - (killed by) Charles - (killed by) Zach (I think)
Stephen - (killed by) Maxime - (killed by) Alex
Cynthia - (killed by) Rebecca. Cynthia was supposed to kill Rebecca
Stephanie -???
Through logic and process of elimination, Zach and Cynthia concluded that Stephanie got her own name, and chose not to drop her name back into the hat...this is probably because she does not like games and uses this to get away with things (although she did not confirm whether this is true...the sly little thing).

Monday - Bear Aware Workshop...very appropriate after finding bear scat in our backyard. Overall interesting, but I was falling asleep in the workshop due to the lack of sleep from the night before. After workshop -> SLEEEEEPZZZZZZ

CIP/Community Involvement Project - apparently in BC (or 3rd trimester or even 2nd one also, but we never did it in Alma) every group must do a Community Involvement Project which promotes Katimavik/work with the community. This time we kind of took an opportunity that landed on our door (BC Cancer Society's Relay for Life asked us to do some volunteer work - set up, running our own games) and made it our CIP. After all, we are working with the community. The interesting twist - the lady in charge asked us to volunteer from 8 pm - 8 am, which means we are staying up the whole night and camping out there...this is happening tonight, and that should be interesting. This is probably the craziness demand I got as a volunteer ever, and I will let you guys know more about it later on. We are going to be so fried...

Work - It started out slow in the beginning, but I am starting to like it more and more...it's quite a zen like place to work, full of nature...I work with beautiful scenaries around me, flowers and coolbirds and a bit of wilderness combined. The other day I saw a bald eagle circling in the sky...really cool, when do I ever get to see that in Vancouver? I also like the fact that my job is dynamic. I can choose to work by myself (cleaning, gardening) or talk to people (tourists that come in...and it's getting busier and busier). Yesterday I even did 2 tours (an acadian couple from Fredericton and another from Whitehorse) and it was fun, and great practice and confidence booster for me. Plus Larry and Ron are pretty cool, even though with Larry you can't tell when he is serious or joking even when he made a joke. I think things are going to be better and better there.

Potential Fundraiser - Remember I said I thought of the idea of creating a Talent Show to raise money for the Doukhobor Museum? Well I finally met Dean (who Larry referred me to because he was interested to do this too) and after 45 minutes of talking with him and sharing vision and task, I am feeling a whole lot better...he knows lots of people and connections and he said he can easily fill in the first hour of the talent show (we are aiming for 2 hours). So right now we agreed to make posters (we are meeting on Tuesday night to compare posters) to scout more talent, and hopefully we will have a good variety to present...this is probably the hardest step, but if it works out I think the show is going to be big, fun, and a great event for the summer!
Fingers crossed...for this and for no rain tonight during the 12 hour crazy volunteer fest...

Time to make my poster...I don't know where to start with my artistically challenged skills...

Update...

2007-06-11T03:16:00.000-05:00

...because I can't sleep, and it is 1:17 am PST...my first insomnia in Katimavik. Let's remember this night.

So a bunch of stuff happened over the course of the week, and I don't even know where to begin...so I think I will look at each day and talk about what happened:

Monday - first day of work. I think I wrote a blog about that, so that's done.

Tuesday - Rally for Change...this rally thing where a bunch of people met up in Millenium Park and rallied against global warming. I think they were going to do a demonstration on the streets plus an open mike, but we missed the demonstration and instead got there for the open mike. It was pretty cool to hear the ideas and how they see things could be done to decrease polluation/global warming...the only thing that sucked was that it was cold and pouring, and no one had an umbrella except for me, because a lady took pity and lent it to me...a couple of the people started crowding in (hello BC rain, long time no see...). During the open mike, 2 young people came up to us and asked if we want to join them the next day to do another demonstration in Nelson, BC, but of course we couldn't because we had to work...a shame, really. Oh yes it was also Charles's birthday...we bought him a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake and had a very small party. Knowing him he would have wanted to go to the bar, but since we now live in the middle of nowhere, that didn't happen.

Wednesday - Free time...I skipped group dinner (a good thing, as I found out, because apparently Stephen made a barely edible dinner) and rode the bike out...did a bunch of errands and then treated myself to dinner in a restaurant, which was serving all-you-can-eat shrimps...wooyah! In total I had 48, and brought another 12 home. Oh yes I also rented the first 4 episodes of The L Word, so I watched that on Stephen's laptop.

Thursday - Committee Planning Day. An overall productive time, in my opinion. This time Cheryl and I are in the environment committee, and we have a bunch of ideas on what we are going to do...and it seems like that for everyone else too...I am pretty happy that people are more eager on planning things than the past two trimesters. After that Zach/Rebecca/Stephen/Alex/I played Clue...I found out the answer by luck and accident, although I didn't win...perhaps you guys can figure out why.

Friday - BBQ at Station Museum (the Welcome Party)...overall an enjoyable time...a couple of you may be amused to know that an 11 year old girl (daughter of a work partner) came up to me and said "wow I am almost as tall as you"...the same sassy thing later played with Stephen and chased him around. The PC (Christine, man this is the first time we see our PC so much so soon) joined us because...

...to check up on Mike and his progress in the group. So after the BBQ, we drove to a hill off the museum where we can watch the sunset and the valley, and we had a little meeting on Mike there. Overall, he improved a bit...let's see what things bring later on.

Friday night brings a slew of mindless activities...while Stephen/Cheryl/Charles went out for a bike ride (to BCL and then drinking in the park...Cheryl and Charles are lucky that Alex and Christine didn't see them since it's a small town and they were out that night also), Cynthia/Zach/Rebecca/I (plus a bit of Mike) were mindlessly surfing the web and doing personality quizzes and stuff like that...we came across this quiz (I am not going into details on what it is right now, perhaps another time) which led to Zach/me/Stephen hotly debating (more like me, with them laughing at me and saying things to provoke me) on our choices. The theme of this, I would say, is feminism/male and female gender roles.

Saturday - Cluster Day at Nelson. I really could talk about this more, but that could take a while (it is now 2:31 am and I should sleep even though I am buzzed). In point form:
- Nelson is one cool city/town...the whole town has a hippie/laid-back vibe to it...a good number of the citizens have dreads, and their downtown is rather funky and eclectic. And of course who can forget the official fragrance of BC? Apparently Cheryl said there is a certain spot/store where people can smoke pot, and Charles checked it out (hehehehe Charles you, what a surprise ;). But my thoughts: Why bother? People do it everywhere there.
I can totally see Emilie in Nelson, chilling out...and getting along really well with the PL (Renaud, who is a French hippie). Maybe I should go there for my 72 off?
- After seeing all the houses in the cluster, my favorite one is the one in Nelson...it has personality like the one in Blind River, except more...I don't know how to describe, but more like the old yet charming houses in the residental area in downtown Vancouver. Plus their neighbourhood (downtown Nelson) is pretty cool...a bit jealous right now.
- What we did: a) saw a waterfall b) went to a farmer's market (hippie central) c) played soccer in barefeet and mild rain (that was fun...I was goalie but my team was really good with all the PLs and Christine on the team, not to mention Zach who runs like the wind) d) the whole cluster suckered a tram (think Vancouver trolleys in Stanley Park) conductor into giving us a giant discount for riding on the tram...I got in for free, and it was pretty nice seeing the Kootney River and other scenic points along the way.
A good day overall...but our group had to leave right after, which was just as well because everyone was pretty much in zombie form when we returned home.
- That night: Alex/Mike/Rebecca/Zach/Stephen/I watched The Lady in Water...I fell asleep halfway because I was tired but I was still able to understand the story more than Mike did, who was awake the whole time and kept asking ridiculous questions about the movie. Pretty amusing.

- Sunday: Breakfast with Jack Johnson twist (think about it...), then ultimate frisbee at the field by the community center (fun...the only downfall was that everyone played barefeet except for Cynthia, who absolutely refused to take off her shoes...and me not being very good at the sport and not being in shape). Hung out by the river with Cheryl, and then Mike/Alex/I biked to the museum, since Alex was supposed to show us the route to there. A nice picnic supper, and loooong house meeting (our usual, but longest Alex has ever done), and here I am, writing this.

Currents thoughts in my mind/drama in house:

1) I LOVE YOU DRAFT AUTOSAVE! I thought I lost my blog because the computer froze, but yeah you came through! No bitching blog!
2) With house-meeting tonight, it is now decided that 72 hours off will be happening over Canada Day long weekend. Now that my mom and my sister can't come see me during that time, I am now contemplating whether I should go back to Vancouver, or go to Nelson, or stay in Castlegar, or go somewhere totally different (Kelowna)...each has its pros and cons, I don't know yet...
3) Obvious drama (but not really drama) - differences with people wanting 72 hours off in Canada Day long weekend, with Maxime really insisting it because her parents are coming up during that time and they have booked tickets/campsites/everything. Others prefer the August weekend because on that same weekend, Wheels for Life are happening and people would like to participate in it, plus various other things. So some "conflict" happened there
Not-obvious drama (actual drama, 34102 style) - Rebecca and Cheryl's room has this tiny shelf for storage that is really only meant for 1 person to use...while our room (Maxime and I) has 2 storage shelves, with Maxime using one that is suitable for 2. Cheryl and Maxime had a slight conflict over this (with Cheryl wanting Maxime's drawer and Maxime not wanting that, of course...I don't know what quite happened but next thing I know, Cheryl and Rebecca are moving the shelf upstairs to their room...and when I went downstairs, Maxime's stuff was everywhere on the floor in our room. I imagine that Cheryl and Rebecca confronted Maxime about it, and Maxime was like "fine take it" and threw all her stuff out and left the house to chill out.
Later on I offered to switch with her (because I don't have much stuff) but she just said "no don't worry about it" and just furiously shoved all her stuff into her bags/suitcase...and later on when I wanted to go into the living room (the door was closed) I heard her on the phone, crying to someone...
Summary: I sympathize with her for the fact that both shitty things happened to her on the same day, but really she must learn to stop shoving problems within herself and talk to people.
4) I have this crazy idea that I would love to do, but it's lots and lots of work...plus luck and timing is required...I would like to do a fundraiser for the museum...a talent show, in fact...with different talents from town. I would like to make it big, publicize it...but I don't know, with the schedules and demands of Katimavik...we will see...
5) Thing that Annoys Me about the Group These Days - People Who Ding Others For Not Following Rules But Does The Same Thing When Rule Does Not Suit To Their Liking...I am not going to elaborate quite yet because again, it can take awhile and it's getting late...

...so I will stop here. But I think I will pull an all-nighter because it is already 4:12 am, and I am not tired...if I sleep I am afraid I won't get up for work tomorrow.

First Day of Work

2007-06-05T01:50:00.000-05:00

So I was contemplating whether I should really write this email or not since my first day of work was rather uneventful. However I am trying to maintain my schedule of blogging/emailing (well I can't blog right now, Cheryl and Stephen are in the room) so here goes...shouldn't be that long.

So my job (and Mike's also for Mon/Tues/Wed, but he is house managers with Stephen this week) starts at 10:00 am, and my boss Larry picks me up from the Katima-house. Anyways if you guys are curious, I wasn't able to wake up at 7 to go for a run and study Japanese, but at least I did my situps and pushups, woohoo! But anyhow I am supposed to start biking to work by next week, which should be interesting because a) it is a bit of a drive itself and b) a majority of it may be uphill. We will see how things go...

So work today...things I did/people I met
1) got a tour of the museum (the museum itself is pretty cool, it is in a faux Doukhobor village with pretty gardens and orchards, and 10 minute walk to the river).
2) spent an hour/2 hours reading and learning about the Doukhobor people.
3) made a flower bouquet
4) pruned the roses
5) swept the concrete floor and cleared out pine needles
6) cut away any long grasses around the trees (because Larry can't get them with his lawn mower)
7) met Ron (an interesting guy with an interesting background), the 2 ladies that work in the bistro, and the cats (Duncan and another cat whose name is in Russian...Larry said it's the dolls that has one within another and another)
8) met 3 German visitors, had to pull something out of my ass about the Doukhobors (luckily I read the information!)
9) spent 20 minutes going down the river to dump the plant waste, and climbing back up...then finding out that I didn't need to go down to the river.
10) divided a small library of books in Russian and English...I have been told I will be alphabetizing them soon...I can't wait to do that for the Russian books, it should be interesting. As well, many of the books are so old and fragile that I am afraid of touching them.
11) Chilled - that's the philosophy of working there
12) Relaxed - my boss told me to do that, and I did

So that is it for work. And not much happened tonight other than a house meeting, an unplanned frisbee game (alex/stephen/cheryl/zach/rebecca/me/later mike)...oh yes Alex found bear scat (pooh) in our backyard, so there may have been a bear that came by during last night? Who knows.

More to follow...

Plant Eating + Mike Chewing

2007-06-04T03:11:00.000-05:00

So I said today (Sunday) our whole group will be joined by our PC (project coordinator) Christine for a hiking tour in the Slocan Valley about edible plants in the region. So at 11 am, we set out in the Katimavan and headed to the tour. Midway there, we picked up our PC...wow that was the first time the van contained 12 people in total, so it was a bit tight. But anyways I always enjoyed road trips in Katima-vans, and in BC it is especially great because the scenaries were absolutely gorgeous, with the mountains and rivers...in fact we saw 2 deers running in a field when we drove back.

So the edible plant tour...it was led by these two guys (Michael and Tyler) who were ethnobotanist (professionals who study plants and human interactions with it) and they brought us to 2 different logging sites and see how different logging practices changed the ecosystem of the forest. It was quite interesting, and I think what I was most amazed by was that in a small area there could be so many plants that is useful, and how nature always finds a way to adapt despite human destruction. And we can eat the plants, which is right up my alley. I guess my only complaint about the tour - the weather was a little too hot, which made people a bit impatient (because the tour was from 12-3), and the Frenchies were somewhat bored because the whole thing was in English, with many technical terms. At the end they just kind of sat around while the rest of the English kids listened to the tour. By the way I learnt about a good number of interesting plants...let's see if I can remember them (this is only what I can remember):

- thimbleberry, stalk is edible
- huckleberry
- a mini version of pacific dogwood, only in grass form
- wild ginger (root tasted like ginger)
- cow parsley, edible seed and root (tastes like carrot)
- this plant where, if rubbed on body, gives the worst sunburn (but edible still!)
- aspens (apparently the powder on the bark is equivalent to sunscreen)
- soapberry (very popular within the aboriginal people in the region, but it tastes bitter!)
Much much more...and who can forget about dandelions?
Ooh and it rained a bit during the tour, and that was refreshing on our overheated bodies...that was the first time I saw rain while it was perfectly sunny.
After the tour was over, we stopped for ice-cream in a roadside convenient store...but I forgot my wallet...just as well, I need to save money.

Part 2 - Big Meeting on Mike
One of the reasons our PC joined us was because of this pre-planned meeting on Mike. I am not going into details, but pretty much for almost 3 hours the group (I didn't say much) gave our complaints, with Christine (PC) trying to find solutions. In the end, everyone created a couple of contracts listing a whole bunch of rules that Mike has to follow in order to stay in the program. I don't know how effective this will actually be...but Mike is pretty much walking on thin ice right now.

2 things I want to mention:
1) I think I worked out a schedule for me to do everything I want (blogging/email + exercising + studying Japanese and Navy)
Morning before work - exercise for 30 minutes, shower, breakfast, study until 9:30 am?
Night - Chill, hang with people (working to be more social)
11:00 something - blog time
Let's see how things go...
2) Speaking of blogs, the blogs I have to work on to finish (self reminder)
- Montreal
- Quebec City excursion (quite interesting, actually)
- My work in Alma
- Quebec (thoughts, feelings, opinions...incorporate with Quebec discussion)

Ok I am out...let's see if I can get up at 7 am tomorrow (today)

Angel

First Weekend in Castlegar, BC

2007-06-03T03:34:00.000-05:00

LAST BLOG BEFORE I GO TO BED! GO ANGEL GO!

So because I had a wonderful day today, I should share it...

This morning (Saturday) everyone dressed up in their funny costumes that we found in Salvation Army, did a bit of face painting (I didn't because I was breaking out in "hives" due to my allergies...not many though), and we went to the Castlegar Sunfest for a parade (Alex entered us into the parade, for fun and for PR, haha). We were joined by Tracy the '84 alumni (she was a ball of energy and had crazy stories about her Katimadays) and Beth the future participant (her dad did Katimavik and she just got accepted for the September one). Yes that is one thing I forgot - we decorated our van, made water balloons, and katimavik badannas for the parade.
Despite the 2 hour wait time (we left at 9 am, parade starts at 11 am), we had a really good time. The Frenchies were carrying the Quebecois flag, 2 other people (Zach and Cheryl) carried the Katima-flag, and a couple of us threw water balloons at the crowd (to their delight). Tracy/Rebecca/I were hard-core distributing our pamphlets and billeting information...we played Abba music and danced a bit to it, even though the group in front of us were a bunch of Scottish Highlander band who were playing loud bagpipe music, so our music was covered. Dancing/candy throwing/music/costumes/goals met...what could be better?

Came home, tired so got a nap...the allergy pills makes me tired...

Then saw a doctor (at ER because the walk-in clinic was not available...Alex dropped me off while she and Mike and Cynthia went for groceries...man the trouble I had to go through to enter into the hospital), who wrote prescriptions for me for medication and informed me that the "hives" I got were not hives...they were merely mosquito bites (man did I feel so stupid when she told me that).

At 8 pm the Trail/Jonquiere/Sault Ste. Marie group arrived and we hung out a little bit...and at 9:30 pm we left to go to Selkirk College to watch a live band (the band was all right) and at 10:00 pm the fireworks started...for a small town of 7000 the fireworks sure was gorgeous...there were some that I haven't seen before, and everyone just kept ooohing and ahhhing. A fabulous day, overall...

So I am almost done with the blog...
Tomorrow we are going for a hike...but not just any hike...we are getting a guided tour by a botanist on edible plants on the trails...and there will be tasting....we will meet the PC for the first time, and she will join us for group meeting to figure out the Mike situation...
BC is so far so good...
I am getting good at summaries eh?

YEAH I AM DONE!
HIP HIP HOORAY!

Work Site Tours + Interview

2007-06-03T02:30:00.000-05:00

Argh it's getting late now, but I have 2 more blogs I want to write before I head off to bed. Let's see if I can still make them short yet informative and entertaining.

So here is a list of work placements for 10 people in Castlegar:
1) Friends of Parks and Trails - trail-building/maintenance, manual labour, 7-2, hard work but seems fun...they get to do canoeing to sites and swim in lakes during breaks. 2 positions
2) Doukobhour (wrong spelling I think but you get the idea) Cultural Museum - working in the museum, but work ranging from gardening (they have a nice garden and lawn) to cleaning displays to working in the bistro to giving tours to other things. 10-5.
3) Station Museum/Zuckerberg Island - similar to the first museum, except more interesting and more fun...they are redoing the displays in the museum, as well as other things. The island is pretty gorgeous. 10-5. 2 positions.
4) Salvation Army - thrift store, cleaning/sorting out clothing, cash/customer service. Seemingly awesome staff. 9:30 - 5.
5) Bear Aware - something by BC Parks Board on raising awareness on bears and environment. Pretty much door to door education on bears, and presentations in school. (2 days only)
6) Kootney Society Care Living - working with people with disabilities, there will be a summer camp for kids with mental disabilities that the participant will work in. 8-4?
7) Blueberry Elementary School - summer camp with kids. 8-4?
8) Birds Emergency and Kare Society/BEAKS - taking care of birds 8-4?

My top 5 choices/interviews (and I did well in my interviews, I must say)
1) Station Museum
2) Salvation Army
3) Dokhobour Museum
4) Bear Aware
5) Blueberry Camp

In reality
Rebecca - Trails (apparently her first choice)
Stephanie - KSCL (1st choice)
Zach - Station Museum (1st choice...jerk...)
Cynthia - Station Museum (1st choice)
Stephen - Bear Aware + Salvation Army (both were his first choice)
Charles - Trail (1st choice)
Maxime - Blueberry Camp (1st choice)
Mike - Salvation Army + mystery job (either trails or Dokoubour)
Cheryl - BEAKS (was not her first/second/third choice...got pissed off when she found out)
Me - Doukoubour (3rd choice, but whatever...I had a really eerie feeling that I was going to work there when I saw the work placement, no joke)

1 thing I realized - having great interviews does not mean you will get the job. It all comes down to PL deciding and making everyone happy. So being good in interviews is only a bonus...we are at the mercy of our PLs...

Things we also did Wed/Thurs/Fri - Calendar set-up/House tour/Scavengar Hut/Group introduction (this one is interesting...the group introduces each person (many of the stuff they said about me made me crack up laughing...like me being a hard-core feminist and being the most naive in the group)/visiting Tulip Falls and swimming in Lower Arrows Lake...really would like to tell you guys more about them but I think this is good enough...I am tired.

By the way one bad thing about being back in BC...attack of the allergies...my nose is stuffing up as I am writing this, arrrggghh

One more blog!

From Rotation Camp to Castlegar

2007-06-01T01:10:00.000-05:00

So...I am officially back to Pacific Time Zone...and back to an English keyboard...

There is quite a lot to say about what happened between Rotation Camp to Castlegar, but because it is quite late (11:13 pm) and there are job interviews tomorrow (yes they are moving fast!), I am going to see if I can summarize, focus on the important things, etc (yeah right)

Before I start, I just want to mention that I am slightly worried about the blogging/computer situation here in Castlegar, because Alex (our new PL) seem to have strict rules about computer usage (no MSN/hogging the computer), so blogging/emails may become difficult. As well, I am keen on starting my navy package/Japanese learning (remember my 2007 resolution?). But we will see...where there's a will, there is a way...

So rotation camp...it was located in Mount Lac-Vert, in Hebertville (30 minutes away from Alma, and also where the awesome fromagerie is located at). We had supper, and at 7:00 pm drove to Mount Lac-Vert...so long, Alma and Valerie...but I was eager and ready for a new change. Overall there is really not that much to say about rotation camp, other than these points:
1) This time camp was shorter (good), but all the girls in the cluster (18) share one big room (bad). Last time camp was nicer looking and almost all the girls got their own room. The boys had to share room too but there are only 6 of them now (not including Mike because he wasn't there).
2) Things we did - reshowing our final presentation/farewell to PL/expectations of next PL/Rhythm exercise/gift to PL...overall the experience was relatively relaxed. Veronique (Quebec PC and a cool lady, I must add) and Cara (old ex-PC in Ontario) have quite different styles of doing things.
3) Got to know some people a bit better from the other clusters, and got to hang out with Robbie (whose grandfather passed away, so he left for a week to return home to the funeral), so that was cool. By this point cliques are forming in the cluster (and
me/Cynthia/Robbie/Devon..ish are kind of in a group...the nerdy under-the-stairs kids, haha).
4) Got confirmation from Veronique that Mike is indeed coming back...and he will be (he did) join us in the Kelowna airport. Unsurprising thing - people were disappointed. Surprising thing - Veronique indirectly encouraged us to find ways to get rid of him. She said we (especially Zach and Rebecca) know valuable information that is useful to the head office, and with enough of this information things can be done. We will see...

Travelling...man that was crrrraaaaazzzzy
Itinerary - bus arrives 11:00 pm, Tuesday night (the bus came at 10:20 pm)
- bus arrives at 5:30 am in Montreal (WHAT? but anyways the bus was earlier and fast...we got there at 4:00 am, and waited for an hour before the counters were open).
- plane leaves at 7:00 am, flies to Toronto and arrives at 8:05 am
- catch a connecting flight at 9:20 am, arrive Kelowna at 10:56 am (PST - which means 1:56 pm in CST = 4 hours)
- bus picks us up at 12 something, and drives us off from Kelowna to Trail/Castlegar/Nelson, respectively (4+ hour drive). I swear, Katimavik always tries to find a way to make the travel arrangements as difficult as possible...I don't know if anyone can beat this...
Important things to mention here:
- Things went relatively smoothly, but Stephanie's baggage got broken on the flight. Luckily, Westjet was willing to fix it and the lady who helped us had a spare suitcase, so we took that and she said Stephanie's old suitcase will be fixed and returned to her after a couple of weeks. In any case, things worked out...I am pretty impressed with Westjet's service.
- We saw Mike in the Kelowna airport. What can I say...he was the same old Mike, sans the colored mohawk (his grandmother cut it for him). Perhaps there are slight changes, because he was relatively distant to the group, especially Zach and Rebecca (apparently Rebecca waved hi to him, but he didn't wave back). Zach thinks someone in the head office talked to him about this and advised him to watch his behaviour if he still want to stay in the program. We will see how things fold out.

Bus ride - 5 hours long, and was spectacular. I always knew BC was gorgeous, but I did not realize the true meaning of the phrase "Beautiful British Columbia" until that bus ride. Luckily for us, our bus driver was a tour guide so pretty much he spent half of the trip talking about different things in the region and its history (Japanese concentration camps, Gold Rush, Doukhobours)...with pretty Okanagan farms and stunning mountains and rivers to boot. Needless to say I enjoyed my bus ride, despite the fact that a) I didn't really sleep well even though I would love some sleep from the long travelling b) in the airport I spilled iced tea on my new CD player, and it was acting funny on me...=( Anyhow seeing BC in its full splendor made me realize how lucky our group was to do our last 3 months in BC, with the stuff it offers.
So after a good couple of hours we arrived to Trail, which is where Sault Ste. Marie/Jonquiere is staying...they have the nicest house I have seen from Katimavik with lots of rooms and design a bit like an IKEA house...plus it's right by the river, and close to downtown...
Their PL is a guy (something I want just to mix things up) and apparently he is a replacement for the last PL who quit. That should be interesting.

Next - our house. Unfortunately, our house is not quite like theirs (back to Katimavik standards), and it is far from anything...the closest things (7-11, Dairy Queen) is a 25 minute walk, and downtown is like 1.5 hour walk...so you pretty much have to bike everywhere. Despite all this things are pretty cool still. The girls get to have 2 in one room (Maxime + me were assigned to one...the best room in the house) but the boys still had to stay in one room together. And our background is pretty sweet...a gorgeous view of the mountains and Columbia River, and nice and big with flowers and fruit trees and stuff that was planted previously. And our new PL Alex seems very nice, easygoing and sweet...more about her in the future.

Things are moving fast...Thursday is work tours, Friday is interview, work starts Monday.

Last Blog in Alma

2007-05-28T11:24:00.000-05:00

Ok I really don't have much to say (well yes I do but that will take forever...), but one certain thing...big big thing...

We just got a phone call from Mike that he is officially coming back to Katimavik...and he will be joining us in Castlegar, BC. Which means we will see him by Wednesday...

(creepy music playing in the background)

So most of the people (especially Zach and Rebecca) are not happy that he is coming back...and I understand how they feel...2 short weeks of freedom and now that is taken away...back to Mike harassing them everyday. Zach already said that he is going to convince Mike to hang out with me 24/7, because I am almost the only one in the group who does not mind having him back.

Let's see how the drama unfolds...I can tell that life after Mike will already be very different...he may even be sorry that he is back, perhaps...

Ciao Alma

(Update) Valerie just said Mike is probably BSing, because she did not receive anything from Katimavik head office...so pretty much people are sitting on the edge of the cliff, tilting back and forth, back and forth for comfort (not literally but you know what I mean)...Mike is like the bad cancer that threatens to haunt the group...and only a few people have immunity (me) for it.

My Thoughts on Work

2007-05-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

Ok I have 40 minutes before we (as in Café Sofa) call it a day...let's start...

But before I talk about work let me just say something very cool will happen tomorrow/Sunday/Monday, and I just cannot believe it is happening tomorrow...excursion to Quebec City, à la belle province de Quebec! I am going to see my sister (who is doing a geography exchange program in Sherbrooke and they are having an excursion there also) there too, woohoo! Hopefully I have time to write a blog about it, but we will see...

So our group is leaving Alma very soon (May 28), and I feel I should dedicate a blog on my work before I leave, as a reminder to myself (and perhaps to the "lucky" person who will work here after me...but maybe not). Anyways what can I say about it? I guess I should explain what it is: Café Sofa is opened by La Boite à Bleuets, an organization with a team of dedicated people from all walks of life (doctors, politicians, students) that works hard to attract young people from the Lac St-Jean region to stay in the region. The profits from the cafe then goes to projects and other developement plans that La Boite à Bleuets have. As well, the café itself is pretty cool: it serves as a venue for meetings/entertainment, and it sells fair-trade coffee and other items for third-world aid. The café is one of those totally hip/chill places that is anti-starbucks, where people go there to chill because of its atmosphere and stuff, and they can enjoy the chillax music they play (yay, I even got to play my choice of stuff one day when I worked with Aurelie) and the art/photo exhibits the café has going on (right now it is Aurelie's art...very cool). Unfortunately, because the café is in a small town, not much people go there. But I can guarantee that if it was in Vancouver/Montreal/Toronto, the place would be buzzing...which is a bit unfortunate (but if it is too busy then it would lose that intimacy). And another crappy thing about the cafe - everything is pretty pricey...

...Aw shucks...not enough time due to distractions from my friends. To be continued...after Quebec City...

Blogging Rant

2007-05-17T23:01:00.000-05:00

Yahoo...the Carnival is in town...so instead of doing our healthy lifestyle (water aerobics in the community center), we got to use our hobbies budget and blow it all on the carnival...$12 per person. Anyways I used that and bought myself 12 tickets ($1 per ticket) and went on 2 rides with Billy/Sabrina (who were just coincidentally there) while others bought more (they had to subsidize anything over $12) or brought the all-you-can-ride $25 bracelet. It was all right, and though I enjoyed it, it just made me realize that I am getting too old for rides because my body cannot handle it like I used it...after Music Ride (a medium-mild spinning ride), I had to find a seat and calm down the tornado in my head...

Here`s just a little something I thought about these days about blogging. Blogging, I found out, is actually hard business, especially in Katimavik and the way I am doing it...days pass by everyday, with something going on everyday and it is hard to capture that. Even when one can capture that, there are still thoughts/comments/intimate feelings, which are more important to capture. The balance between both things is what makes a blog interesting to do, and I hope I have been doing that in them...however there are so much things happening, and so much subtle emotions conveyed in them that it is pretty much impossible for me to record everything. There are still a number of blogs that I would like to write about, that are still in my head...especially The Big Group One (tickling Charles`s curiousity). Anyways despite all the words I write, I haven`t even covered many of the things/dynamics happening in the house. And the days just grow longer and longer, with more to write about...I feel like a poor gardener battling in a land of dandelions...as soon as you finish weeding some, more pops up.

Another thing that occurred to me is the old saying about living life versus reading about it. I think one of the reasons I am not able to capture all the subtle emotions between people is because I am so busy occupied with the idea of trying to write/catch up with blogs, instead of sitting down and just enjoy doing stupid yet crucial (crucial in a sense that it promotes closeness) things with the group. In a way, I am like the hardworking parent that works all the time to make ends meet and make sure everyone in the family is financially stable, but really have no idea who the children are and what they are like. I feel like an outsider...something to think about.

Finally, the thought of Charles reading my blog means I should watch what I say, haha...read the comments if you do not know what I mean. Although if I do that, I really shouldn`t be writing this blog anymore. However reading Charles`s comments today made me realize that I am only getting a narrow vision of what is happening, and many times my vision may not be true (again referring to the "feeling like an outsider" comment). And I guess in a more philosophical level, what is the truth? What I see/say versus what others in the group see/say will definitely be different, despite the situation being the same. I think a great example is putting a bunch of artists in front of an apple and telling them to draw it...and you would get everything from your classic apple picture, to abstract, or even a sculpture of it made from paper. Who is to say there is one definitive picture/truth? Alright I think I am ranting too much right now, but my point is with this blog I am telling what I think is right, and even though others may disagree or even feel offended, I am going to continue doing what I do (in order words, too bad..:P).

Mike update - not that Mike told us anything...but now the group enjoys the house without him enough that people like Maxime are planning to put a stop to it if Mike comes back...ouch.

Things That Irk Me

2007-05-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday 2 things happened that bugged me (for those of you that know me, you guys know that there isn't much that bug me, so this should be interesting eh?):

1) I don't know if you guys know, but Café Sofa does not do recycling. The reason for that is because the recycling system here in Alma sees the Café as a business, and therefore charges them money. This is incredibly stupid, in my opinion because a) both Le Coderr (recycling center) and La Boite à Bleuets are both non-profit organizations and therefore should help each other out, especially when the money made in the café goes to projects in La Boite à Bleuets to attract young people to stay and thrive in town...so therefore they really have no extra money to spare b) shouldn't recycling be something that is free, because everyone has a social responsibility to recycle? But anyways, because of that, I am now in charge of bringing recyclables back to the house pretty much everyday.
So yesterday I had 2 boxes of recyclable materials to bring home, and as I was walking home I realized 2 boxes together were too heavy for me...if I continued on with them my arms would snap...so I decided to leave one box of materials by the bridge, and walk home with one. After I am done with that, I would return, fetch the other box, and bring that back to the house. So I walked back to the bridge, and as I was walking towards my recyclables I saw 3 punks/teenage boys goofing around the box...then suddenly one of those idiots PICKED UP MY BOX AND THREW IT INTO THE RIVER...oh my lord...
Why are people so stupid and ignorant?
I wish I said something to them (I didn't, due to me feeling a tad intimidated and/or lack of French, especially when I am obviously an anglophone)...Stephen was right, when I told him the story...we must fight for what we believe in.

2) Ok this is more complicated to explain...remember when I mentioned that I wanted to invite Alexandre Cloutier (current MLA in Lac St-Jean) or Stephan Tremblay (previous MLA and Alexandre Cloutier's "boss") to come into the house and talk about Quebec culture (differences, why it is the way it is, separation, etc.)...because Alexandre did not respond and Stephane was waaaay too busy, and since there was only 2 weeks left I decided to give up...until Lucie (my lovely French teacher) told me on Monday that she found a great person (a history teacher, Lucie promised me she is very dynamic and interesting) to do this...because all the English kids and Lucie and Valerie really want this workshop, I decided to go ahead and arrange for meetings...the only catch - Valerie wants the Frenchies to participate, but they don't...
Why don't they? That is a good question indeed (and just to be safe, I am not talking about every single Frenchie in the group), and it pretty much boiled down to them believing that we would never understand, because we are not Quebecois. Therefore, efforts to try are worthless and would only lead to frustrations and arguments (Charles if I am incorrect at what I said here, feel free to correct me). This frustrates us English kids (well not all, and different degrees with me probably feeling the strongest because it is my event, after all) because it is like we try and we are curious about their culture, and we work hard to learn about it and intergrate into it, but it seems like they are defensive and overprotective about the whole situation...not willing to allow us to enter into the Quebecois world. In order for the situation (English/French division) to improve, both sides must communicate and share knowledge...be open-minded. If this is the current situation just between us, how is it like in a bigger picture/level? How could things improve?
On a brighter note, a date has been set (next Wednesday) and I am now just hoping the teacher is great enough that even the Frenchies will be sold and everyone is happy and well-knowledged at the end of this...

Quick little something - Mike just informed Charles on msn that his family doctor is A-OK with him returning to Katimavik...as soon as May 28. However, the Katimavik medical team did not decide whether he is allowed, so we shall wait...and I hate to disappoint but majority of the people in the house were disappointed about this news...

More in the future...

Katima-dramas

2007-05-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

Since I last blogged, a lot of things has happened. A lot of these things have to do with "dramatic" events that happened in the group (which is relatively rare because our group, compared to the other groups - Elliot Lake/Chicoutimi and Sault Ste. Marie/Jonquiere in our cluster - we have almost no drama), and what I am going to do is dedicate this one blog to the drama that has been happening in our house, as well as other groups (only because if you read what happened to them versus what happened to us, you would laugh at our "dramas"...

Just to get your attentions, I will tell you what I heard from other groups. Although I must admit I do not know the whole story, but whatever...
Jonquiere/Sault Ste. Marie - 2 guys (Thom and Rob) from their group got kicked out and sent home, because they were caught drinking in the park. I know this sounds like a relatively minor thing to get kicked out, but apparently both Rob and Thom had final warnings back in Sault. Ste Marie for getting pissed drunk at a Motley Crue concert and coming home and puking all over the PL's computer, plus other things. The drama part - it was Melissa (a girl who is in their group) that saw them and told the PL that they were drinking in the park. And this was not the first time that Melissa told on the participants to the PL. She was also the one that busted Jon and Katrina back in Sault Ste. Marie about their pot usage in the house. Now I am not going to comment whether Melissa did the right thing or not, but I absolutely would not want to live with someone like Melissa for 9 months just because she is obviously someone people can't trust. And I do not know why Melissa did not hesitate in telling the PL...if I were her, I would be afraid of backlash from the group, retaliation...and obviously I would not want to live in a house where everyone hates me. As well, I feel bad for Thom and Rob in a sense that they pretty much didn't see it coming (they were told last Sunday that they would be sent home on Tuesday/Wednesday...man if I was Melissa, I would not be able to handle the hostility from them during Monday/Tuesday).

Elliot Lake/Chicoutimi - This group is really like a reality TV series, in my opinion...pretty girls/boy-girl relationships/alcohol...their drama is rather complicated:
- Originally there were 11 people...4 guys and 7 girls (3 English, 4 French). Now they are down to 9 (perhaps there may be more leaving in the future)...
1) Niki (one of the guys) apparently was in a "love triangle" with Kelly and Marie Eve...although he and Kelly (who has a boyfriend back home) were much more serious and Marie Eve was apparently a "drunk-fling". One day he got a concussion due to something, got sent to the hospital and during his concession, he decided to go home because of his mom freaking out and stuff like that...apparently he is now trying to appeal to come back to the group, using the reason that "he was not thinking clearly during the concession and made a bad decision"...good luck buddy.
2) Travis (an angry looking skinhead with anger issues) had problems in the group and therefore became one of the scapegoats of the group (another guy, Devon, was another one)...he especially had problems with Kelly and eventually got sent home because of an incident with Kelly (no no he didn't hit her or verbally assault her, from what I heard, but Kelly feels threatened enough that she went and talked to her PL...and in fact it was Robbie who was buddies with Travis that totally bitched at her which caused her to talk to the PL). On the other hand, Travis in Elliot Lake had final warnings for attempting to burn his hand (no joke) and throwing Marie Pier (a girl he had relations with) into the snow, which ended up being hard concrete...you get the story
3) Girls and Drinking - apparently all 3 English girls (Bonnie Jean, Kelly, and Nina) had final warnings back in Elliot Lake with drinking (being drunk, underage drinking, etc.)...and there was an incident last Saturday when all 3 groups went to the Chicoutimi group to hang out (which I don't think I mentioned about...perhaps when I have time to write another blog) and Bonnie Jean/Kelly/Charles (yes the Charles in my group) were in the house drinking before they went to the bar. Now there is a rule in Katimavik that says we are not allowed to drink in the house, and lo and behold Valerie drinks from a cup the next morning and she tasted beer...more later.
4) Girls and Drinking II - the French girls also went to the bar that night and Tania (who was 17) decided to join them, as well as Maxime (17)...more later.
5) Convergence of both stories - the next day during their house meeting, Jonathan (Chicoutimi PL) brought up the story of Valerie finding beer in a cup...therefore Kelly and Bonnie Jean confessed that it was them, and they both got final warnings for that. Then Kelly said it wasn't fair that there were double standards with rules, and the French girls, thinking that Kelly was going to mention Charles in the conversation too, urged Kelly to spill the beans (despite Kelly saying that she will go directly to the person and talk to them)...little do the French girls know that Kelly was talking about the underage people going to the bar and so she spilled the beans about that. So now Tania got a CTI (commitment to improve) on underage drinking, and others (Maryz, etc.) either got final warning or CTI for drinking with a minor...and apparently they also brought up Maxime in the story, saying that she was underage and if she is not punished, then that would not be fair...

As you can tell, there is a pretty obvious division between the English girls and the French girls...
One more thing I would like to add - Charles if you are reading this, you are lucky that Kelly didn`t squeal on you...be a little more careful next time.

Now that you guys know about the other groups` drama, here`s what has been happening with us in regards to drama:
- Friday (volunteering): Charles/Maxime/Rebecca did the presentation (on Canada) for Wednesday/Thursday, and on Thursday night Maxime and Charles said they no longer want to do it and asked if others want to take their place...unfortunately, no one did so they did it again on Friday (Rebecca had no problems doing it again and again...). However Charles wanted to back out on Friday morning and Valerie kind of pressured him to stay, which probably made Charles dissatisfied, as well as Maxime.
- For our presentation on Canadian food, Charles and I decided to serve Nanaimo bars (which are really from Nanaimo, gasp!) and so we made enough to last us for 3 days. To "protect" the bars from being eaten, Charles taped a "DO NOT TOUCH" thing across the container, and therefore was pissed off (I can guarantee you that almost never happens with Charles) when he found out that a strip of the Nanaimo bars were gone and no one confessed to it. And this is the part I don`t really understand...he went to Valerie and started venting his anger on her. And really, it was me =P...ok in my defense when I first saw the Nanaimo bars, there was already a bite mark on it, and therefore I decided to cut enough so the bite mark would be gone, and gave it to Cynthia and Stephen. Little did I know there will be another bite mark, and I thought that was what Charles was referring to...
- Friday volunteering again: After lunch, majority of us were given the choice of a) staying behind to help with volunteering b) go home. Either way, someone has to stay, and someone gets to go. So Charles/Maxime pushed to go home, and brought along Rebecca because they believe they should go home after 3 days of hard work. This leads to 2 problems. 1) Small problem - one of our volunteering activities consist of leading fun activities/games for 30 to 60 minutes to 20 - 30 french kids, and guess who ended up leading it? The English kids (Stephen/Zach/Cynthia/me). Very interesting...
- Cheryl and Stephanie were judging the exhibitions all the way until 1:00 pm (even though all of the English kids minus Rebecca thought they left with Charles/Maxime/Rebecca), and when they finished and found out Valerie/Rebecca/Charles/Maxime left, Cheryl and Stephanie got mad that they weren't asked for this option (Cheryl in a bad mood is not a good thing)...and this kind of affected group morale during volunteering which the lady in charge of the volunteering program picked up (she told this to Valerie). Eventually Cheryl and Stephanie called Valerie and asked to be picked up, since there wasn't really anything to do anymore...tensions were everywhere, with Cheryl and Stephanie mad about that, plus that Charles and Maxime were "complaining" about their work too much, while Charles and Maxime were disatisfied with working too much through the presentations and no one really willing to help them.
So what does one do in this situation? Group meeting specificially on this situation...and eventually everything worked out.
- Cheryl and Cynthia: they were house-managers last week and there were tensions between them (this happened way before house managing week), and finally on Saturday afternoon (I wasn't there, but I heard enough) Cheryl snapped at Cynthia, feeling that Cynthia did not throw in her share of work and was always on the computer (apparently on Saturday Cynthia was on the house computer for 3+ hours, which annoyed everyone). I was not there to witness the event, but I can imagine Cheryl venting...ooooooohhhhhh...and Cynthia....aaaaahhhhh
- Maxime got a CTI/Final Warning because of underage drinking/going to a bar during the Chicoutimi weekend...actually a couple of weeks ago (Stephanie's birthday) Maxime/Charles/Stephanie/Rebecca were going out to the bar and as Maxime almost entered Le Crapaud, Valerie was walking down the street and saw Maxime....hahaha she walked Maxime home.
- Maxime again: on Saturday night, Maxime went to the Dooly's (a pool hall in town) with me/Stephen/Mike/Charles (which is a risk for her because of Valerie and her warning), so when Stephen wanted to leave at 10 pm ish, she snapped at him and put him and Cheryl together, saying that he just wants to be with Cheryl and that he changed...Stephen was just like "what the hell, this isn't any of your business" but eventually things settled down and Maxime bought (more like bribed) Stephen a drink to stay longer. If you can read between the lines things between Cheryl and Maxime aren't going great...
- Maxime III: Later on in the night, Maxime and Charles were just in the living room, chilling...I walked in, and Maxime was shaking incontrollably...Charles was laughing and so I think it was all a joke. After a shower I came downstairs, and Maxime was crying and not speaking, while Cheryl/Stephen/Charles were like "Maxime are you okay? What is happening?"...so apparently Maxime had a seizure, which scared everyone and we were all hesitant to tell Valerie because Maxime drank beforehand and we didn't want to get her in trouble (others may have other reasons also)...here's the drama/mystery
1) (From Cynthia) Apparently Stephen found a bottle of pills under Maxime's pillow while everyone transported Maxime back upstairs into the room and Stephen asked Maxime (who was already feeling better) what the pills are for, thinking it could help her. Apparently she immediately grabbed it from him and didn't say it...does she have something to hide?
2) When Stephanie and Cheryl decided to wake Valerie up (this happened around 1:00 pm), Charles immediately tried stopping them and said "no"...does he know something that no one else does?
Charles feel free to spill, although I doubt you will. That's cool.
- Probably the biggest thing of all: Mike...is now gone. We cannot believe it. After months of him constantly around and being himself, we would think his activities would kick him out for good...well he left on Sunday, but it is not because he was kicked out...it is quite a shock, actually, with what happened...
So on Friday afternoon, when we had our bitch-fest (oops group meeting on volunteering I mean), Valerie dropped the bomb: Mike has ADD (which was something we knew previously) and stopped taking medication that he has been taking since he was young (and is still supposed to) around the 2nd week into the program. No one knew about this until Valerie herself found out, so she made me take it again because according to his Katimavik file, he cannot do the program unless he is on medication. Because of that, Valerie was obliged to write a report on this and send it to the Katimavik medical team to help Mike. Medical team's decision - send Mike home, have his family doctor decide whether he is suitable for the program based on his conditions, and either come back into the group or not.
This is complete bullshit, in my opinion...how does that help Mike? And it is not something Mike can control, in fact it was pretty much dropped onto him like a surprise that came from nowhere...I feel very bad for Mike because that was probably the first time I have seen him very upset. Not even when he got a final warning was he this upset...
So Mike has a 50/50 chance of coming back...and we got our first (and hopefully only) hit with the group...down to 9 right now.

As well, this reminds me of a conversation I had with Cynthia and Robbie about scapegoats in human groups. Cynthia feels that once Mike is gone, Cynthia will be the new scapegoat in our group. I absolutely hope this is not going to happen, because if it does, what does it say about people in our group and human nature (by the way, that would totally be like "Lord of the Flies" if that happens, it just occurred to me)?

More "drama" in the future, I am sure...stay tuned. Oh no, don't yawn...we are pretty tame compared to the other groups eh?

The Blog with No Title

2007-05-04T11:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, I am that creative with headings.

Madames/Monsieurs/Sirs/Mams:

I do not have much to report with the latest events of our Katima-lives, other than:

1) We are finally starting to work on our presentations (no not our final presentation at the end of the month, although that we will have to worry about too later on). What it is for is actually for our volunteer work next Friday at Odyssée des Batisseurs for the whole day because they are holding a special event, and there will be a bunch of kids from elementary schools going to it. Our job: to introduce Canada (more specifically Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, BC, Nova Scotia) in different aspects (geography/music/dance/food) in a presentation format...we have 45 minutes. Our groups are divided this way:
- Cheryl/Mike/Valerie (I think Valerie is only helping because of Mike) - Geography
- Stephen/Cynthia/Stephanie - Music
- Rebecca/Zach/Maxime - Dance
- Angel/Charles - Food (naturally)

So far Charles and I are doing fine...we have decided to incoporate pictures and a puzzle (as in guessing puzzle) of the food, plus its origins. Mix it with a bit of verbal descriptions, and in the end we are serving Nanaimo bars to the kids, haha. But we donèt really have a lot of time, and there is a lot of work involved. However I am excited about this type of volunteer work, as it beats the usual type of volunteer work we have been doing for the last 5 months (serving seniors food) and it is relatively challenging...the deadlines and work make it feel like school, though...school, not too far away from the horizon. After this I better start working on it.

2) Cynthia - It seems like Cynthia and majority of the house have problems with each other. For example, Cynthia would give a comment that was considered ignorant/stereotypical, and certain people would...not so much as snap on her but respond back with a strong contradiction. Case in point - During current events last night, Zach presented a newspaper article about NDP politicians and how they want to pass a bill to create some form of national renewable resources sharing...and somehow I asked a question which lead to Cynthia saying "most politicians treat this event as a drinking party"...I laughed, but Zach immediately contradicted Cynthia by saying that she was stereotyping and he was sure there are politicians who take their job seriously. As well, Cynthiaès ugly monster of horror came out yesterday again when Maxime said she never received the Cynthiaès game plan, which got her very irritated and she spent a couple of minutes furiously looking for it in the lost and found box...I will elaborate on that subject at a later date.

Gotta work, ciao

Last Weekend

2007-05-03T12:37:00.000-05:00

Haha, so I didnèt wake up early to work on this blog. But hey, I am now working on it in the cafe. No loss, eh? By the way the café looks cooler than ever with the new art that Aurelie created and put on the walls...she is putting an exhibit in the cafe, and selling her art at the same time. Rather talented, even though her art is quite pricey (cheapest one starts at $60)

Anyways details are fading from me, so I am going to try and summarize in order to get the big picture...hopefully this blog is not too long, for your sakes

1) House-managing week with Rebecca - overall a good experience, she always seems to have ideas (current events night, etc...although she didnèt go gung ho with the games this time around compared with the time she was house-managing with Charles, because everyday there would be something happening during dinnertime when they were house managers). We were going to do Zachès superhero night, but that didnèt happen...oh well Zach can do it again when he becomes a housemanager with Mike for the 2nd time (poor, poor boy). I got to talk to Rebecca quite a bit, and she was pleasant to work with...like me, she has the feel-guilty-if-someone-does-my-work syndrome, and she also likes to feed me back the same things I said to her before...quite amusing. Rebecca is also a good cook-in-training, with the same sense of adventure in cuisine that I have, which is fun. It helps both of us enjoy being a house manager, unlike other people in the house. After house-managing with Rebecca and Stephen, I am now officially done with house-managing until the next trimester (coming very soon...end of May).

2) Saturday/Cabane à Sucre - At 9:00 am, the whole house left and headed to Laterriere (a bit off of Chicoutimi, and where Valerie is from) to the sugar shack. I have linked it so you guys can find out what cabane a sucre is without me explaining what it is. After an hour, we arrived at the sugar shack/erables dèor, and only then did I realize we were also doing this with the Jonquiere/Sault Ste. Marie group. This is one of the things that frustrates me about this trimester compared with the last one - I never seem to know what is going on (and I know I am not the only person in the group with this problem). But hey, the more the merrier, eh? So everyone goes to the sugar shack, and the first thing we do is go inside the giant dining hall and have their classic sugar shack breakfast (I donèt know whether I have mentioned this before, but I actually went to this sugar shack before with my billeting family)...pancakes, ham, deep fried pork rinds, sausages, beans...all topped with maple syrup of course. This surprised me because I didnèt think we had enough money to get breakfast for everyone, but hey I am not complaining. After a hour of food chow-down and enjoying the music by the same performer that I saw last time/perhaps the sugar-shack owner/Johnny...many of us went outside to have a good tasting of maple lollipop, which consisted of pouring maple syrup onto blocks of snow, have it harden, and slowly roll it onto a popsicle stick. Personally, I am not a dessert/sweets fan, and I was done after 2 of them. However, everyone else (especially the French kids) had one after another after another, and Maxime claims that one time she ate 15 when she visited a sugar shack. People pretty much spent the whole time socializing by the maple lollipop snowpile, or going back inside the dining hall and dancing/waiting for the clown to do face painting for them, or take walks around the property...I did all 3 things, minus the face painting plus the quick tour of syrup making room, which I didnèt get to go last time (but I got to go dog-sledding!) By the way, no one got face painting at the end because the clown shuts down her business at 12:30 pm, and the last person she worked on was a kid who got there earlier than any of the katima-kids). We stayed there until almost 2 oèclock (we got a scare when rumours started that we were supposed to stay until 4:00 pm, and inactivity started around 11 something), and I think everyone was relieved when we were told that we were leaving. Overall, it was all right for me, because I have done it before and the freshness wasnèt there...but the amount of inactivity was what bored me...in fact upon arriving back to our katima-van we found Stephanie and Maxime in the van, sleeping...which annoyed Valerie but she didnèt really show it (we only found out about it during the next meeting).
Oh yes one funny story - Rebecca and a bunch of us were around the maple lollipop snowpile, chatting...and Rebecca dropped her lollipop to the ground. Just as she bent down to pick it up, she accidentally kicked the lollipop...and the lollipop landed on the pants of a lady that walked by. The funniest part - the lady didnèt know about it and just kept walking...
NO...we didnèt wait for the lady to leave and start laughing our ass off. Everyone was shocked, and we started bawling with laughter, while looking at each other with the same thought "what are we going to do now? Let the lady go, or do something?" In the end, the good Samaritian in Rebecca got out and Rebecca and I ran to the lady and told her what happened, and apologized. Luckily, after some paper towels/cloth/snow, the lady was extremely humored about it and everyone enjoyed themselves. Although I feel a tad bad for Rebecca because after that, the lady told the story to her friends and they were all pointing at her and laughing...

After - We actually went and visited Valerieès parents. Her dad was a bit non-descript for me (just because I didnèt get to talk to him personally) but her mom was very sociable and friendly. She handed chips and drinks all around and asked us questions (well more targeted to the French kids, but whatever). We got to see photos of Valerie when she was younger (not that much different from now but her eyebrows were much bushier back then), and heard some stories (again I couldnèt understand everything, because the conversations were mainly in French). All in all it was all right, I think the French kids enjoyed it more than the English kids...it certainly didnèt help that many of us were getting a sugar crash...Cynthia was nodding off on the couch.

Saturday night - As I had promised Stephanie for her birthday, she and I went to a folk music concert held in Cafe Sofa (Sylvie Jean redemption, haha). It was free for me since I work there, but for Stephanie it costs $10 (well duh I paid, itès her birthday!). By the way Stephanie got a sweeeet laptop for her birthday (to be more precise she bought it but her parents sent it to her at her birthday)...itès the newest ACER with cool speakers, webcam, windows vista...not to mention that her laptop is able to pick up wireless better than Maximeès or Stephenès and can splice it so that all laptops can go online at the same time. But back to the concert...it was pretty good, despite that the genre was more suitable for someone like my mom and most of the audiences were middle-aged adults. Went home around 10:30 pm, and just chilled on the computer (havenèt done that on the house computer for a loooooong time) while Valerie/Stephen/Charles were outside, having a bonfire and playing guitar/tam-tams/spoons

Sunday - relatively uneventful in the morning, the afternoon a lady from an arts association in Sag-Lac area came in and talked about her beadwork. This lady (also an English teacher/photographer/graphics designer) made jewelery using beads and she showed us what she did...Maxime and the majority of girls were "oooohahhhh" over many of her pieces. Best part - we got to make our own! After 2 - 3 hours of labour, most of us (except for Charles and Cynthia, who gave up making jewelery after an hour) made different pieces, and everyoneès jewelery kind of reflected their personality, in my opinion. Rebeccaès simple 2 strand necklace got many appraisals, as did Cherylès bracelet. My choker was a fancier version of what I used to make when I was little - daisy chains (Ady this will be your birthday present ;). Another perk - originally the lady was going to charge us extra with using fancier crystals and giant beads, but I think she just omitted that at the end, which was very nice of her as Swarovski crystals are expensive.

Later in the evening - House meeting: What was supposed to be your average house meeting turned out to be the revealing event of our group tensions. I know I didnèt really talk about the group dynamics in our group during Alma (or even in Blind River I think), but in my opinion this is probably the most interesting and important thing about the whole Katimavik adventure...and I am sorry that I didnèt quite have time to describe whatès going on in terms of relationships between people. To summarize, our group was once a good group of kids that got along relatively well in Blind River, with the loving encouragement of Emilie. There were differences, yes, but it wasnèt as apparent as when we arrived to Alma. Once we got to Alma, and I donèt know why...but the differences became more apparent and soon enough, little tensions started forming. The French kids and the English kids divided themselves and everyone became more cliquey, and less communicative with each other. I can go into this further, but due to time and now that Charles reads this, I have to watch what I say ;P...nah I will write another blog about this another time.
Pretty much everyone in the group knew and saw these problems, but no one really tried solving the problems or even bother acknowledging them...which was really sad because once upon a time the strength of our group lies onto the fact that we were relatively open communicators. But the last meeting kind of changed that...in Maximeès positive and negative comments, she mentioned that there is tension in the group and she was being more reclusive. Cynthia agreed with her, which brought Valerie to create a giant discussion on what is going on in the group and have everyone say what they felt was the problem in our group...I am not going into details but different people have different thoughts on what the problem is (Cynthia and I are the most similar in thoughts in this department), with the Stephen/Rebecca complaining about the language barriers. Valerie chipped in with her thoughts, saying that many of us are still clinging on to Blind River and our memories with it and not giving Alma a chance...and our little tensions are normal because we are in 2nd trimester and this trimester is usually the most difficult to deal with (and I think our group got the worst because a. the English have to deal with the language barriers and b. the French have the temptation of going home), with the most amount of people quitting during the 2nd trimester. Because Maxime was the one who brought it up, she was kind of put on the spotlight on the group dynamics, which was slightly unfair (how ironic, though...I was kind of the person who was pushing it), but she did the best she can, and I could tell it wasnèt easy for her.

My 2 biggest thoughts on this:
- I donèt think everyone in the group was being honest and truthful. Maxime is the perfect example, just because when it was her turn to tell her part, she would say something, then hesitate and not want to talk about it...we had to encourage her to keep going and this went on for a couple of times. Why is it so difficult for her? When Zach just shrugged and said "I donèt know" in this certain tone, I thought that was total bullshit, being the fact that this was Zach and not someone else. As well, Cheryl, who is opinionated, vocal, and acknowledged the fact that there is tension, did not really comment or say anything. That again disappointed me. And because of this...
- Even though it seems like we "acknowledged" the problems, I doubt things will improve because certain people seem to have things to hide (ok that may be a bit strong) and are not really willing to take the first step...perhaps I am being cynical though, and honestly slight improvements are starting to happen...but we will see what the future unfolds.
- Maybe I canèt blame the people for not opening up though...probably some of the tensions come from individuals with other individuals. Again I will not go into details right now.

Welcome To Storming...so this is how it feels like...

I think I am done blogging for the day. My back is starting to hurt.

Life/Six Degrees of Separation/Telepathy

2007-05-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

Haha I know I said I was going to bed, but I really want to share something before I do that...

First of all, it seems like my blog may be about something deep (judging from the title), but it isn`t. But life is such a mysterious and strange thing...let me explain:

Because of what happened to Charles and the blog, I have decided to set it in private mode (read THE VERY VERY FIRST BLOG for more information on why I do it). So today at work I was just putting up more emails telling people about this, katima-victims included. And as I was looking at Aisling`s blog, I started wonder whether Aisling and Cynthia may know each other. After all, they were both from Calgary, and Aisling was bilingual...which probably meant that she went to an immersion school like Cynthia, and judging from the culture of Alberta there aren`t many immersion schools in Alberta, haha. I was going to ask Aisling, but I forgot...

Tonight during dinner, Cynthia and I had a good conversation...and she was telling me how a girl from her school (Sara Evans) is doing Katimavik at the moment...and then she brought up the name Aisling Brock. And immediately I said "oh my god, I know her! She is one of the katima-victims in my blog!" (It`s kind of good that I can talk about my blog with her)...we totally had a good laugh over that, because a) what are the chances? and b) once upon a time Cynthia and I (along with Zach and Rebecca I think) talked about six degrees of separation...TADA!!

Thirdly, I was just reading my emails and Aisling sent me an email...and she mentioned that she just found out that Cynthia and her knew each other...so strange...this is where the power of thought comes in because at the same day 1) I thought about the possibility 2) Aisling came up in our conversation 3) Aisling recognized it too...craziness...

Aisling what do you think? (If you are reading this) Comment...

Oh yes speaking of comments - my friends...if you read my blog, you may as well comment, damn it!!!! You silent speakers are driving me nuts =P

An Interesting Change

2007-05-02T12:07:00.000-05:00

As you guys may have all known by now, my blog is now in private mode. This is a bit unfortunate, because I like the idea that anyone can do a random search and accidentally stumble upon my blog, and enjoy it at the moment. However it is this exact trait that made me decide to privatize my blog...I will get into the story later. But right now, sorry about the extra step.

Before I start, let us get accustomed to one thing. This - è - is now an apostrophe. I am now using another computer in the cafe that is less important (with all the allo stop stuff and other cafe/organization documents), because I donèt feel like getting kicked off anymore while I write. Caprish? I was going to add in quotations also, but I actually found it in this keyboard. My goal today - 2 blogs.

So let us start...I now must contemplate whether I tell everything in a ¨what happened today¨ point-of-view, or just go to the main events. Main events it is.

Mondayès main event (man the ¨apostrophe¨ cracks me up) - first day of going back to work after house manager week, and I found one part of the cafe flooded. Water was all over the floor at that part and my job for half an hour or so was to dry up the water. Apparently the ceiling of that area of the cafe had holes, and Monday happened to be raining. Rain + holes = you get the drill. Other than the part with me mopping the floor (which I actually didnèt mind that much), it was rather amusing, and slightly nostalgic in a way because the rain pitter-pattering into the buckets reminded me of Vancouver and the rain/rainforest/etc. In fact, if the cafe is in Vancouver, they could name it the ¨Rainforest Cafe¨, haha...yes I am lame :P. The whole day, Marie Pilote (director of La Boite à Bleuets) plus Claudie had to deal with the landlord and stuff like that, and for me that was the amusing part because it kind of felt like watching 2 chickens running around with their heads chopped off (not in a mean way, of course :P)

Mondayès Mike Moment: All of us English kids were in Lucieès French class, and we were discussing about holidays. Lucie told us about Quebecès provincial holiday - St. Jean Baptiste Day, to which I asked who he is and why he was chosen over other saints. She explained that St Jean Baptiste (John the Baptist) was the one who baptisted Jesus, and he was the cousin of Jesus...with that, Mike created a classic moment for himself...although Stephen and Zach saw it coming:
¨So does that mean Jesus is French, because of his cousin?¨

Tuesday/Yesterday - 3 to 4 main things happened, and all in all an interesting day of events.

1) Quebec discussion - I donèt know whether you guys still remember, but I said I wanted to invite Alexandre Cloutier (the MLA of the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean area) to come in to the Katimavik house and talk about issues in Quebec (culture, differences, separation, you get the drift). After 1 email and letter later (I sent it on Monday), I decided (along with the suggestion of Lucie) to look for other possible candidates. A very good candidate for me was a man by the name of Stephan Tremblay, an ex-politican who Alexandre Cloutier actually worked for before becoming a politician himself. And luckily for me, Stephan Tremblay is actually the vice-president of La Boite à Bleuets himself.
Originally I got Claudie to ask Marie-Pier about this to Stephan Tremblay, and Marie-Pier said she will ask. Now with my experience in asking people for favours, I knew the chances of her asking are relatively slim, just because it doesnèt concern her. Perhaps it was fate or whatever, but yesterday Stephen Tremblay showed up for a meeting and although I had seen him a couple of times in the cafe, I had no idea that he was Stephan Tremblay until Marie-Pierès dad (who is also part of the La Boite à Bleuets organizations) called him ¨Stephan¨. Everything immediately clicked and I thought ¨itès now or never, Angel...hereès the giant ham sitting there waiting for you...you donèt need to go through people or find him in other methods...go ask him!¨ So despite myself being a bit nervous (because the opportunity was unexpected and I had never talked to him previously) and feeling that what I was doing was a bit inappropriate (because Marie-Pier said she would ask him), I went up to him and with my bad French introduced myself and explained what I wanted...the result:
He said yes (I think), but he will have to check when he is free, and he will get back to me. I immediately gave him my phone number and Valerieès contact information...now I just have to wait. But I am not going to get my hopes up because you know how it is, men with womenès phone numbers (oh snap).

2) Mid-Trimester Reflection: This is something that the Project Coordinator does with each group in her cluster. In Blind River, Cara (our PC in Ontario, who quit after we left Ontario) was the one that does this, and the whole thing pretty much is about how the group is doing, and the PL, etc...when Cara did it, all of us were doing billeting and the whole thing took around 3 hours, since she included meditation, painting, all that fun stuff. The PC in Quebec (Veronique Frigon) was much more practical and to the point than Cara (not that I have anything against Cara), although it was ¨interesting¨ to have Veronique doing the mid-trimester reflection because previously to this, many of us have never talked or even met her before. However, she was one cool lady, and she only took an hour to do our mid-trimester reflection. That is because she focused all her questions about Valerie, and we didnèt have to answer questions about our group dynamics and etc. That one hour was interesting, but not in the sense of ¨wow this is mentally stimulating¨ but more like ¨I am learning things that I never really knew because I was in obliviation¨...I am not going into great details, but the meeting pretty much consisted of all of us sitting in the living room, and Veronique interrogating us (well not that bad, but you know what I mean) about Valerie. And a good half of the meeting consisted of the Frenchies answering majority of the questions and the English kids staring into space/trying to understand because a good part of the meeting was in French. Only when we demanded for translation (which was often) do we get one. But it is not that bad, and soon we were given an explanation of what they said after the French part was said. And in my opinion the meeting got to be more about the ¨English group¨ when I mentioned that Valerie wasnèt close to the English speakers the way she was with the French speakers...that got interesting...and some stuff I discovered that I never really knew (or kind of had an idea but only until yesterday did I truly understand because of the group dynamics):
- Valerie apparently was relatively moody, and the French kids had to guess when she was in a good mood in order to get a good advantage with things (as in you canèt really talk to her if she was in a bad mood)...this I didnèt really know about.
- Valerie doesnèt really have great patience like Emilie did. If anything she was usually the first one to want housemeetings to end (this I saw but I guess the Frenchies got the brunt of it), plus other things.
- The French kids felt she didnèt really know the dynamics of the group because she never really knew there were little tensions in the group until last Sunday in the group meeting (will talk about that in another blog), and could realy afford to spend more time with the group instead of working in her room/computer room.
- Stephanie (and Cheryl I think) thought she complained a lot. This I didnèt know.
- (The biggest problem, in my opinion)...Valerie pretty much planned majority of the events for us. In the words of Cynthia ¨when we first got here, we donèt really know what is going on because we were new and therefore didnèt really plan activities...Valerie helped us out by showing us around and filling the calendar..but that continued and no one really planned anything in the group...and therefore no one really know what is going on half of the time¨ (only though she said it shorter and sweeter). Well to be more precise, because Valerie is from the area (Laiterrie), she knew all the things around here and had all these ideas...and delegated to only the French kids for work, while the English kids didnèt really do anything. (There was a slight bitterness in the voices of the lovely Frenchies as they explained this) Veronique thought this may be one of the reasons all these little tensions started happening in the group. Honestly, I never really knew the Frenchies have been doing all the work, but it was obvious that Valerie planned many, many activities for us.
Rebecca also pointed out that when she tried to plan an activity (Ecological Village, Alma Big Clean Up, under environment committee), Valerie would say it is a really good idea, but would add in her input and eventually turn it into something different (Alma Big Clean Up = Backyard Big Clean Up, haha).

However, on a more positive note, we did discuss the positive things about Valerie (energetic, driven, very organized, an overall nice person), and the meeting ended with us telling Veronique not to give Valerie a hard time, and then Veronique explained why she was absent for so long and why we never got to meet her. Apparently she went through a bad time during March/April, plus she had to deal with the irresponsibilities of Cara (who was supposed to give Veronique information packages about us but never did)...she apologized and promised she is now reachable 24 hours a day (I must say Cara wasnèt like that at all). All in all she seemed pretty cool, and she said we get to go to Quebec in 2 weeks!!!
This meeting made me realize that a) the English group do not really have a close relationship with Valerie (but do we really want to with the stuff the Frenchies said?¨and b) differences/boundaries caused by language, plus responsibilites (whose responsibility is it to bridge the gap? Although she didnèt talk to us like she does with the Frenchies, but donèt the English kids have a responsibility to close that gap too?) . Things to reflect on...

3) THE BIG DEAL - MY BLOG...(sorry I will write about that later in the night/next morning...it is now 5:00 pm and I gotta go home for dinner...I canèt be late or I will get bitched at by the group and/or get a CTI...pah...damn I did not reach my goal. My new goal - have both blogs up by tomorrow morning)
*A couple of hours later*
Hello I am now using the Katima-computer...I have decided that since tonight is free time, I will most definitely finish this blog, and wake up early tomorrow to write the other blog I promised. So where was I? Yes MY BLOG
When I got off work yesterday, I saw Charles hanging out in the kitchen with Maxime and Stephanie...very normal until he said "Angel I saw your blog today"...only he said it like "Angel I saw your block today" with his heavy French accent, so no one really got him, including me...but everything clicked in for me, and in my head I was like "uh oh...I need to talk to him". So after the meeting with Veronique, I immediately followed him into the computer room and asked him about it. So he told me that during his inactive period of work, he was bored and was simply searching in google using words such as katimavik and blind river...then he stumbled upon my blog and spent a good 2 hours reading my entries, looking at photos, watching videos, etc.
His thoughts - very interesting, wants to read more...and no he was not offended about me uploading his pictures and videos without his permission...and when I talked about him.
My thoughts - Hooooooooly Shhhhiiiiiiittttt (chill in body)

But now thinking back, I think it was fate that he found the blog...it definitely opened up many conversations that we don`t usually have, and it allowed us to really sit down and discuss about things (if you can read between the lines Charles and I don`t really socialize with each other), group dynamics, etc. So I got to hear some of his thoughts, and it was definitely a bonding moment...yes I am kind of glad that he found the blog, ironically enough. But with both Cynthia and Charles knowing about the blog (even though Cynthia still haven`t found it), I have decided to set it to private, very unfortunate...but ironically enough I am allowing Charles to read my blog, haha.
Since Charles I know you are reading this right now, here goes: I know you promised you wouldn`t tell anyone, but if I find out you did...[insert your worst nightmare here]...=)

4) So because Charles and I were looking at the blog and looking at photos and stuff, there is now evidence of my blog...so I was clearing the history on the computer and chatting to my friends about what happened when suddenly I felt a pair of hands slapping on my shoulders...normally I am not that jittery, but it was just the idea of getting caught and the surprise element that scared me...and I screamed my head off, which made Zach laughed his ass off (he now likes to scare me every now and then). Then Zach noticed that I was clearing the history, which he began interrogating what I was doing...and I got all flustered and started frantically closing all the windows and stuff. Yes I know, how smooth of me...it just made him so much more suspicious and he was like "you know I could easily find out where you went"...I was just like "ahh you are annoying"...closed my conversations abruptly without any goodbyes and just left the room. Zach (always the one to have his last words) said "ha, you never say that...something must be going on".
Why am I such a bad liar? Why does Zach have to be so damn sharp?

Ok I think that`s all I have to say for this blog. I really need to go to bed early tonight because I am working at 7:30 am tomorrow, and I want to wake up early tomorrow to write the other blog. Plus I have rejected Maxime`s plea of me going to the bar with everyone (minus Cynthia and Mike, I think) because of this so I really need to go to bed, or else Maxime will shatter me to pieces (and she can because she is 6 feet tall, and I...let`s just say I am not).

More Updates

2007-04-26T23:43:00.000-05:00

It`s 12:48 am right now...finally got time to update this, even though I should since I am a house manager right now with Rebecca (going well, yes). Anyways I should go to bed, so point forms on what happened prior to this (yes I am getting lazy, too bad...)

- went to a fashion show (Rebecca`s work, recycled clothing), had a very good conversation with Cynthia regarding group dynamics and other things...that`s when I learnt 1) Maxime is leaving the group (more on that) 2) Cynthia, upon casual web surfing, found my blog a long time ago (February)...but she doesn`t remember the address anymore. Shocked? Most definitely. But much more impressed with her. Oh Christ that means others may know too.
- Zach got a haircut (with Stephanie/Maxime/Rebecca) doing the cutting...slightly surprised because he likes his hair a lot, but being in Katimavik means you are broke and experimental...speaking of that
- Cheryl and Charles got a tattoo (they both got the same one - Chinese character "raw"...look at Lindsay Lohan`s CD cover if you don`t know the character). Cheryl has a small one on her neck, while Charles has it on his arm. Talk about spontaneity, man...and I think Maxime is upset about that because apparently Charles and Maxime were supposed to get it together, not Cheryl...hmmm
- Mike did dye his hair...it was supposed to be blue but it turned green, haha. Now he is trying to get people to redo his hair (make it blue)
- I "technically" got a verbal warning (one level below a CTI) for...get ready...not coming home on time for dinner (rolls eyes)
- Mike is back on his Ritalin (a medication that he had to take throughout his whole life but he stopped 2 weeks after he started Katimavik)...I am against him taking this medication because a) I think it does nothing for him and b) he may have a dependency towards it. But hey, I am not the doctor, and at this point I think Valerie is using that as a last resort...how sad.
- Saturday: Volunteering at Cynthia`s workplace, outside clean-up...the weather was fabulous. Afternoon we went to Chicoutimi and all the groups (Alma/Jonquiere/Chicoutimi) were there...there was supposed to be a Capture the Flag/80s party...none of those happened, and people just hung out and did nothing...I got to chat with Robbie from Elliot Lake/Chicoutimi and got along with him really really well (he was the guy that cleaned up Cynthia`s barf on the first day, and I have always wanted to get to know him). Found out some drama (2 guys left in their group..."violence" and "love triangle" involved) in his group and realized our group is super tame...Maxime didn`t come with us because her grandmother was sick in Quebec and she requested permission to visit her (hence the "leave"...not the group for good, just temporary...whew!)
- Sunday: Group went back to Alma early to attend this volunteering appreciation thing...boring because I couldn`t understand what was going on, plus I was sitting at the back. Free lunch, and we went back home to celebrate Earth Day - cleaning up the yard (yes you guys can stop laughing now). Long group meeting (we ended at 10 pm, haha), and other fun stuff.
- I had to write 2 letters in French, one to invite Alexandre Cloutier, another to get recycling for my workplace. After Lucie`s editing, I sent the first one out already...no replies so far (grrrr). Recycling one...man the email address doesn`t even work, which means I got to call...merde.
- Tuesday night I hung out with everyone except for Mike and Cynthia in the shack outside the house, having a beer (I still don`t see how people like that crap)...got to talk to Maxime about her views of Quebec, and find out lots of interesting things about Charles...if I have the opportunity perhaps I will share them...good time, although the beer was totally unnecessary on my part.
- Went to work today because my boss needed help and wanted me to make tips...a horrible 3 hours time...everything that could go bad at work went really, really bad. I am not going into the details, ask me if you want to know.
- 2 "epidemics" spreading in the house, I find...one good one bad. The good - vegetarianism. Now there is 5 vegetarians - Zach/Rebecca/Cheryl/Charles/Maxime. The bad - smoking. Charles/Cheryl/Maxime are now full-fledged smokers. And apparently Valerie does it a bit too (rare, but the fact that she does....hmm hmm hmm). It must be a Quebec thing.
- And last but not least, it`s Stephanie`s birthday tomorrow. We will see what unfolds...

*And this has been your midnight news. Good night/morning...*

(Additional Updates)
- During Zach and Mike`s week as house manager, Zach came up with the idea of dressing up as another person in the house for one night during dinner. That was hilarious, as there was some hilarious combinations (Mike as Rebecca...actually that was more disgusting with him wearing Rebecca`s tight fitting clothes plus his mohawk...). Zach as Maxime was super funny, as he wore her mini jean skirt/tank top/bra/leather boots...and he kept posing in skanky positions, which irked Maxime quite a bit =). Maxime was very much into being Stephen, saying his phrases such as Howdy and Take`er Easy, plus declaring that he/she loves country music (Maxime hates country music, how ironic). But the most funny thing is that Maxime pretty much pretended that she was a pervert and kept staring at Zach`s boobs and saying how hot Zach/Maxime was. As well, she later moved on to Cynthia (being Cheryl) and kept snuggling against her and saying that he cannot ever leave her...quite funny to say Stephen`s reaction to Maxime`s behaviour...overall it was fun, and perhaps if I can upload the pictures...I was Valerie, and Valerie was me, by the way.
- There was this night where the whole house was awoken by someone screaming in the house and running around around 1 am ish...when I got woken up by that my first thought was What the Hell...and then I concluded that it was either Maxime or Cheryl goofing off so I went back to bed. But apparently the next morning Cheryl asked everyone whether they heard the noise...Cheryl and Stephanie got woken up by it and they both went downstairs to check what was going on, as did Stephen, who did not find the person. Everyone pretty much got a bit freaked out (depending on the person the freaked-out factor increases/decreases)...until Zach found out from an email from Bonnie Jean in the Chicoutimi group that their group did that (So Zach, did you get woken up by a girl screaming and running around in your house?). I think the funniest thing is that the majority of the people th0ught it was Maxime or Cheryl that screamed and therefore ignored it...Cheryl was slightly annoyed about that.

Notable Things of the Week Until Now...

2007-04-17T14:07:00.000-05:00

Hello hello... I have approximately 50 minutes before my work day ends...I was going to write about the second day of my Montreal adventure, but I think I don`t really have time for that. (Edit - I didn`t even have time to finish this blog before that...I am now working on it 2 days later). Let`s save that for next time, and I will just summarize what happened on the weekend and other notable things.

1) Saturday - Recruitment Day
Apparently for 2nd and 3rd trimesters, each group must go out and promote Katimavik, in order to attract potential people who may be interested to join the program in the future. In other words, we are pretty much playing the role of Jehovah`s Witnesses, promising people everything under the sky if they do Katimavik...nah not really.
So Valerie splits us up into different groups and at different blocks of time, we were supposed to go to the local mall (Carrefour Alma) and sit at a little table, looking friendly and giving out information/pamphlets at the same time. I was in the same group as Valerie/Mike, and we were supposed to be there at 2 - 5 pm (every group had to do 3 hours slots). So everyone left around 1:30 ish and we all wore our Katimavik T-shirts (except Cynthia because she lost hers) and walked uphill to the mall. Saturday was incredibly gorgeous, the sun was out (I haven`t seen the sun/blue skies in Alma in forever), and it was warm...like a typical spring day. Put much of us in a good mood. The recruitment - not much about it, other than that a) it consists of 2 to 3 of us just sitting there, staring at people passing by with what we hope were friendly gazes and saying bonjour every now and then, while other groups walked around the mall, handing out pamphlets. Honestly, this is absolutely not a good way to do this (in my opinion) because not only are we not targeting the right people, but we are also wasting time, handing out pamphlets to people that are merely going to throw them away (Valerie/Mike/I found one lying on the concrete with footsteps all over it). I would imagine that we would target schools, work employment centers, etc, but Valerie assures me that we will be going to those places at another time, and we are covering more ground this way.
It was all right...met some nice people, met some ignorant people (Stephanie asked this old man whether he knows Katimavik, and he replied with "I do not need to know, I am not Indian"....??? Rebecca and Maxime had fun with it and went to the dollarama to get 2 pairs of underwear and giant sunglasses and dressed themselves up...and attracted some cute boys, haha.
Fun stuff...we are doing this on Friday night again.

Small things of that day:
-Cheryl gave herself a haircut and created some nice bangs. Oh speaking of that...that night Cheryl and Maxime were doing some highlighting in their hair and Valerie saw them. Apparently there is this stupid rule (with many others) that you are not allowed to dye your hair in the house. So Valerie said she will figure something out to "punish" them. We will see about that.
-The Day before...Maxime was shaving Charles`s hair, but left the middle part thus creating a mohawk-like haircut (he got rid of it on Sunday though)
-It was so nice out we had supper on the porch...it`s nice to have the view of the river and downtown as you eat, with the wind gently blowing on your bare feet...
-Had my first good conversation with Valerie about being Chinese, the cultural aspect and how it mingles with the western culture

2) Sylvie Jean - she is this folk singer that I thought was going to give a free show in Cafe Sofa that night. Because it is always nice to have free entertainment, I told people in the house about it (apparently Valerie really likes her) plus Annie at work. Unfortunately, I was given wrong information and when I got there a bit earlier I found out that there was no show, and instead there was a private party going on. So feeling a tad embarrassed, I had to muster up courage and tell Cheryl/Valerie that there was no show. I found out from Annie next day that she actually brought a friend and Aurelie along, only to find out there was no show...and the poster we both saw in the washrooms of the cafe was actually from last year...how utterly stupid of me. Time to laugh at myself. Hahahahaha

Sunday - Hiking in Val-Jalbert
So we left the house at around 10 pm (we actually had the option of either going during the morning or the afternoon, and a good number of people chose to go during the morning. This was a bit disappointing for me, because I would have liked to volunteer in the cafe that Sunday since they have this show with violin performance and breakfast combined...I wouldn`t mind a free performance (the show apparently costs $10) and potential tips, haha. But all is well, and we drove for 45 minutes to Val-Jalbert...I am not going to describe it because I have linked it to Wikipedia. Read it if you want to know more...it`s a pretty cool place, with waterfalls and old mills and other things. The hike is mostly uphill, with the cart stop (I can`t seem to think of the word for those carts that bring you uphill) marking as the middle of the hike. It may sound like that the hike is hard, but it really isn`t...it took around 15 minutes to get to the stop, and another 15-20 minutes to reach to the "top". And it`s mostly stairways. Oddly enough, the view in the middle was more spectacular than from the top, as from the middle we could see more of the town and the waterfall than from the top. Overall the hike was pleasant, even though the stairs were slippery from the snow and ice...many of us were sliding as we go up and down, and it doesn`t help that we have to duck each other`s snowball attacks too.

Let me talk about 2 Mike moments here:
1) American Idol/Amazing Race - when everyone except for Cynthia got to the top of the hike, we waited for Cynthia while we relaxed. And when Cynthia almost got to the top, we cheered her on to hurry a bit...and that`s when I made a comment about this similar to Amazing Race Finale, where everyone cheers at the winners as they run to the mat...and we kind of started a conversation on that note, with me saying that Mike would be highly entertaining in Amazing Race. That`s when Mike (or someone) asked who was the guy that went on American Idol and got a record deal because of his bad singing (William Hung, if you guys can still remember)...and after 2 seconds of waiting he answered with "wait I know, it`s Wai Han Tang!!!" Cynthia/Stephen were like "oh my godddddd" while Zach burst out laughing in this "oh no you didn`t" tone...and I was shocked, and then I just laughed loud enough that it echoes off the hills at his answer...Wai Han Tang is my Chinese name, for those of you that do not know.
2) This one is not something he did...while we were up there everyone took pictures, and Rebecca somehow captured this AWESOME photo (totally natural, no one really posed) of Maxime/Charles/Valerie standing on one side, with different degrees of disgust on their face as they all stare at one direction...and in the other side/direction there is Mike, staring back at them. I first found this picture as I looked at Rebecca`s photos, and honestly I can`t marvel at it enough...so I showed it to Rebecca, who pretty much reacted the same way I did and the cycle continues...I am going to see if I can put the picture up here another time.

What else happened that day? I hung out in the cafe for a little bit (man what a loser, I am still there even when I am not working) and Annie showed me her trailer, which is very cool looking...all hippie, full of her personality, and she drove me home (really not necessary and not allowed, as she didn`t sign the driving permission form, but who really cares?). Afterwards I walked to Zellers and gave in...actually bought a CD player since my stupid MP3 broke (I will have to send in the warranty soon)...meanwhile I am going to hunt for a better CD player on Ebay since the one I bought (Sony, almost $40 bucks) keeps skipping with my new Kylie Minogue CD but nothing else...very strange...and I will return the one I bought. Thank god for 30 day refunds.

New things:
1) Charles shaved his mohawk off, but Mike requested for a mohawk. So Cheryl did it for him and now...hmmm...let`s just say good thing his mother is not here. Mike is also thinking of dying his mohawk, and probably as I am typing this in the cafe Cheryl or someone else is dying it for him. This should be interesting.
2) After 2 months, Stephen has finally shaved his beard off. This was done with persuaision (is this how you spell it?) from Cheryl (cough cough) and now Stephen looks clean-cut and a couple of years younger. Stephen claims it`s his choice to do it but...cough cough...=)
3) How to put this kindly...I almost got into a car accident one day after work, and could have died. As I was about to cross the street a car stopped to allow me to do so (this is rare in Quebec, let me tell you)...so I do...and out of the middle of nowhere a van drives out and quickly heads to me...then the driver sees me and swivels to the other side of the road, and kind of goes around me and swivels back to where he should be...holy shit...crisse de merde? ;)
4) Oh yes...I actually donated blood yesterday. I was walking on the streets to do my usual grocery shopping and I saw that there was a blood donation thing going on in the town hotel on Apr 17/18. Since I have never given blood before but have always wanted to (this was one of my "to do things in life"), I decided to do so. It was ok...the French makes the situation rather interesting, and people kept saying "wow you are from so far away"...and it didn`t really hurt (pain with needles is 6 shots plus a blood test...oh yeah that was me)...and there were cookies and juice at the end, which is always cool. And no, no fainting or anything! I actually carried my bag and jacket with my left arm (the arm that they took blood out of). I am trying to push others in my house to do it too, but I doubt that`s happening (somehow many of them said they are afraid of needles...and I love Stephen`s reply: "I am not giving them blood because it`s my blood". And when I told him that his blood will eventually be broken down and excreted, his reply: "well that`s even better because like time, my blood is for me to waste..." What a dick =P.
PS. Ady if you get mail about my blood test, can you decipher the French and tell me what blood type I have? Thanks.

Last thing - I have an idea. I am thinking of inviting Alexandre Cloutier (the Bloc Quebecois representative in Saguenay Lac St-Jean, and winner of the provincial seat here. I don`t know if you guys remember me talking about him, but he is the super charismatic and "good looking" politician that wowed the ladies and others during the debate in Cafe Sofa in the election period) to the house and have a discussion on Quebec separation and politicis and stuff. And this guy hangs out in the cafe. However 1) I don`t think he will say yes because he is probably very busy and he is slightly of a celebrity (he reminds me a bit of JFK). 2) Quebec Separation is a bit of a touchy subject, I think. A lot of people actually do not like talking about it, I find. But wouldn`t that be cool? And we could understand the Quebec culture so much more...I am going to give it a try. Fingers crossed.

Montreal Part 1

2007-04-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

So Montreal...here goes

The day before we left...
1) I bought my Allo Stop membership from Aurelie, who after selling the card to me, found out that the best option from Allo Stop is me going to Chicoutimi (1 hour away from Alma) and taking a car ride from there to Montreal...which meant I would arrive around 9-10 pm. Because that is way too late, I chose to wait for a better option from Allo Stop and if not, I would buy a bus ticket. Which kind of meant I wasted $6 (non-refundable). Oh well...
2) Last day of billeting - Went back to the billeting house, had spaghetti for dinner (a big plateful for me, and my appetite astonishes Billy each time..."Angel you eat like...fuck..."), and after a bit of last minute packing, I returned to Katima-house at 7:30. So I gave Billy/Sabrina/Noah-Kim a tour of the house, and bidded goodbyes. By then pretty much everyone was home except for Rebecca (Stephanie already left for her 72 hours with special permission). The rest of the night, most of the people went to Cafe Sofa to chill, while Cynthia/Mike/I went to the bus terminal to buy bus tickets (Cynthia`s credit card, which is an American Express, unfortunately was not accepted in the bus terminal so I lent her my card), and Cynthia joined them in Cafe Sofa later on...I had things to do.
3) Later in the night I realized I left my whole CD collection at Billy/Sabrina`s place...yikes! Next Day...at 8 am Maxime`s dad came and picked up Maxime. Rebecca/Charles/Cheryl/Stephen went along...at 9:20 am
Cynthia/Mike/me went to the bus terminal to catch the 9:40 am bus to Montreal. Here`s what everyone is doing for 72 hours

Mike - Woodstock (bus to Quebec, train)
Cynthia - Montreal (bus to Quebec, train)
Angel - Montreal (bus)
Cheryl - Montreal (Maxime, bus)
Stephen - Montreal (Maxime, bus)
Rebecca - Toronto (Maxime, train)
Charles - St. Celestin (Maxime, rent a car/bus?)
Stephanie - Malartic (bus, family pick-up)
Zach - family coming over, stay in Alma

So the bus ride was ok...at the beginning the bus was extremely crowded and Cynthia/Mike/me sat in different seats, but once a good number of people got off at Hebertville-Station, we all took our window seats, and then Cynthia decided to join me. We ended up talking for the whole trip to Quebec City, as the bus rolls through the Laurentian mountain range (both of our ears popped, fun)...it was nice talking to Cynthia about our jobs, the group, what she is going to do after Katimavik (she is not going to school and she is thinking of doing something like of like Katimavik but she isn`t sure yet). And before you know it we arrived at Quebec around 12:30 something. Cynthia and Mike and I parted ways, and I boarded on another bus to Montreal...slept quite a bit and at almost 4, I was in Montreal. By the way, as I was on the bus from Longueil (a part of Montreal), I saw the famous La Ronde and the roller coasters and rides they have...it`s really quite something, and I absolutely cannot imagine people riding on them, because they were so big and high up. La Ronde is really quite impressive from the bridge I was on.

So once I got off the bus, I walked to the hostel, which was around a 10-15 minute walk. My hostel is called Le Sous-Bois, and it`s a really good hostel...in fact named one of the top ten hostels by hostels.com. It`s right in Old Montreal, and the decorations and set-up gives it a lot of personality. Not to mention that they offer free wireless, computers (2), free breakfast, and free laundry...all for less than $20 bucks. However the place isn`t perfect...they have 1) slooooooow computers (windows 98, come on), 2) free breakfast pretty much consists of bagels and jam, 3) the laundry soap is nowhere to be found...even though maybe i am supposed to ask the people to work there for some but if the laundry is free, I don`t see why it isn`t by the machine 4) the showers took a while to heat up...imagine my surprise when cold water hit my body at 12:30 am when I wanted a hot shower...as well some stalls didn`t seem to work. 5) The location was a bit confusing...the hostel is right inside the Le Guillert (or something to that spelling) Hotel, but when I tried entering the hostel/hotel I couldn`t open the door because it was locked (perhaps upon security reasons, but that`s not very welcoming eh?)...after 5 minutes of wondering around I rang the buzzer, then a bit of waiting...a girl opened the door and checked me in, and gave me instructions in French on where my bed is, how I go to the actual hostel, etc. It`s pretty cool, actually....I had to enter a little alleyway at the side of the building, where there is a wooden door with one of those press number locks...314. But once you enter it`s like another world. Look at the pictures, they are worth a thousand words (and I already used hundreds, haha). 6) Oh yes, I had to make my own bed...first time ever to do that in a hostel, but this I don`t mind...7) Not the hostel, more like me...I lost my debit card.

On the first day. In the hostel. My stupidity, and it was never found...oh well
So anyways as soon as I got settled in the hostel, I decided to go venture out a little bit before I head to my friend`s house. Since I haven`t eaten ever since 9 in the morning, I was famished and thirsty for some famous Montreal smoked meat that people were talking about, plus a nice fruit smoothie. Plus I wanted to walk around the area I was in (Old Montreal) to get a feel of it. After a slight confusion (I got a bit lost trying to find the big underground mall, which I never found on my own) and 40 minutes later, I got the fruit smoothie and Montreal smoked meat that I wanted. The smoked meat (thin shaven beef in a sandwich with mustard) was all right...something tells me I didn`t get the best version of the smoked meat, so I will not judge whether I really like smoked meat or not. After I downed my food, I decided that it was high time to take the metro to find my friend...I was going to call my friend, but because the phone was free for US/Canada calls, naturally people would be hogging the phone. So I sent a quick message to my friend through msn, and left...and that`s when I realized I couldn`t take the metro because I didn`t have enough money (less than $1 in coins) to take the subway, and I lost my debit card. So I had to go back to the hostel and tell my friend to come find me instead...and we decided to meet at the Champs de Mars (the metro station closest to me) ticketing place instead.

After 30 minutes of waiting (yes I was actually not late this time, haha), Kyle and I finally met for the first time.It`s kind of something for me to meet my internet buddy for the first time, especially when Kyle and I knew each other for at least 6-7 years (I met him on ICQ when I was grade 9). The expectation was there but at the same time I wasn`t really expecting anything special, because I knew him for so long. It`s hard to describe...but overall our first meeting with each other was not at all awkward and if anything it was as if we were just old friends that haven`t seen each other in a long, long time. By then it was 8 pm, and we decided to go for dinner and I requested Vietnamese food, which Kyle never really had. So we went to Chinatown and just picked out a random vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown...on the way we chatted a whole bunch, but it was more with me complaining about my lost debit card and discovering that he was actually deaf on one ear (right if I am correct). Oh Vietnamese food, how I miss thee...we had a giant beef noodle soup with every beef something, plus salad rolls and vermecelli salad. Man I am already salivating as I write.So afterwards we wanted to catch an IMAX film (I forgot the name of the movie, but I will find out for Montreal Part 2), but since it was getting late (film starts at 10 pm, and we didn`t leave the restaurant until 9:40 pm...and the last metro runs at 12:30 pm), we decided to go back to the hostel for a little bit and then perhaps find a cafe to hang out for a little bit. So we went back to the hostel and I showed him around, and hung out a little bit there...Kyle found the place to be very cool, and then we left and began looking for a cafe in Old Montreal to chill. However it seems that only bars are open and nothing else on a Friday night (what a surprise, especially in Quebec), so after 40 minutes of searching around, we decided to go to a bar instead. The bar we went to was called 3 Brassauds (I will check if it`s correct), and it is this chain of bars that is famous for their choices of different house-brewed beers. We hung out there for around 1 hour or so, before Kyle has to catch the last metro. And yes, of course we drank...things ordered:

1) Peach Snapps (me, and let`s just say it tastes like gasoline laced with peach essence, to put it kindly...the name was totally misleading because I thought it would ressemble something like a Peach Snapple, haha), 2) Orgasm (Kyle, a mix of Baileys/vodka/something else that I can`t remember...not horrible but meh), 3) Bay Breeze (me, very nice, pineapple and cranberry juice with a bit of vodka), 4) B7 (Kyle, something that liked just like the Orgasm one...we both were like "what the heck did you do an re-order" when we saw it), 4) Apple Dessert with Rum Flambe...pretty yummy too. Overall, we had a good time, I tried speaking French (even though everyone spoke to me in English because I was an obvious anglophone), and there was lots of good luck French guys in the bar, hahaha...and no I was not drunk, not even tipsy! Anyways that`s about it...went back to the hostel, showered (my shower issues started then), and went to bed...

...To Be Continued...

First Taste of Bar Drinking

2007-04-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

Many of you (friends who know me well enough) would be happy to know that something unordinary for me happened last night, around 10:00 pm.

Yes, judging from the title, I went to the bar with Rebecca/Charles/Cheryl/Zach/Stephanie (who came later). For you Castlegar/Blind River kids who will be coming to Alma in the summer, take note (although that special may not exist by the time you guys arrive, haha): Apparently every Wednesday night Le Bar Crapaud (well-named, in my opinion, since the beer they served was disgusting) sell small glasses of beer for 75 cents each (with tip it would be around a buck). But it is not just a simple go-to-the bar trip...

So the crowd of us went for the cheap beer and slight naughty behaviour since Valerie wasn`t home (she is often not home due to things...I don`t exactly know). Why I went - I haven`t went to a bar with the kids since I started Katimavik...and it`s Quebec, one must immerse in their boozing culture and go to the bar. Life is short, we gotta live a little, eh? Plus I thought it was time that I start hanging out with people more, and as they (some wise people) say, "a couple of drinks and everyone becomes friends".

Rebecca/Zach/I went to the bar first, and after paying for cover (2 dollars), we got a seat and ordered. I ordered 1 beer (they were small glasses), while Zach and Rebecca each ordered 3. We chatted (trying to carry a conversation in French), and Zach and Rebecca had a bit of a drinking-chugging thing going on (I didn`t because I intended to only have that one beer since I didn`t want to pay more). Well I didn`t need to pay more but that one beer thing didn`t happen, because as soon as Cheryl and Charles arrived (after their cigarette purchase at the depanneur and Cheryl forgetting her ID and had to return home to get it), they started buying 10/20 dollars worth of beer and coaxing me to drink some. Again, because it`s free beer and my attitude of "live a little" (even though most people would dub me as slightly uptight), I accepted...and chugged them down as quickly as I could because I hate the taste of beer. Perhaps of this, plus the fact that I don`t drink much ever, but around 4 glasses later (again they are small glasses) I started getting tipsy...and another 2-4 more (I don`t know, I didn`t count) I think I got drunk. Yes, guys, drunk...(gasps from my friends)

Crazy things that happened while I was in that state:
1) got photos of me looking red and stupid taken by Zach (usually that would never happen)
2) me acting hyper and funny (as if I am not like that in a sober state)...amused everyone
3) danced with a random French guy after Zach dared me (why is Zach involved in more than 1 of these things?)
4) kissed Charles on the cheek. A good couple of times
5) puked on the table after n cup of beer (more like 5-6)...we had to move to another table...and puked in the bar washroom. How classy.

Around 12 or so, I started crashing. My head was pretty much glued to the table, and the guys kept asking me if I felt sick...I just went "mmm-hmm, uh-huh"...Cheryl decided that I was done and walked me home, in my state of sick-giddiness (I learnt something new about myself - I am a happy drunk, yay). Then Cheryl and Stephen (who was hanging out at home with his laptop) worked together to bring me to my room, after I told Stephen loudly that he missed out some fun stuff of me at the bar and went straight to the washroom in preparation for another puking (that didn`t happen, and I ended up just lying on the washroom floor). I went to bed, my mouth full of sourness from my vomit...yum

Here`s what I am wondering. I personally don`t think I was drunk, because I could remember every single thing that happened last night, even now. I was relatively coherent during the whole thing. Plus when I woke up, I felt fine...no horrible hangovers or anything. However I puked, and according to Cheryl and others when you puke, you are officially drunk. And my behaviours seemed like drunken behaviour, haha. Since I am no expert on this area, I will just say I got drunk. Which means this is the first time in my life that I got drunk and puked...so that`s how it feels like - a surreal feeling like you are there, but not really...I don`t see why people enjoy it so much. I will take controlled drinking from now on, thank you very much...and no beer.

Now what should I do about those ransom photos that Zach has?

Self-Reflection...

2007-04-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

...for a little bit, with something that happened last night.

So exactly what happened last night? There was an activity by Valerie`s friend/roommate Katherine, who is also studying or an actual social worker...she did something called "reconnaisance de soi", or knowing oneself in English. It was all right, and she pretty much did it in the format similar to personality tests and questions such as "what do you want people to say about you when you die?". Some of the answers were quite interesting, and I really like Stephanie`s response to the previous question: Bon Voyage. It really says a lot about her personality, and how a line so simple can have such a deep meaning to it. And I also love (rolling eyes) Mike`s answer to the question "What would you bring with you if your house is on fire?": his luggage (with his clothes inside), his MP3, his cell phone...all material things. (I teased him by asking him if he is expecting a fire to happen because he has all his clothes in his luggage bag)

You guys may think the test brought some form of light or epiphany moment for me, but no, it was something else. With one part of the test, Katherine wanted us to pick a person we know least about in the group and share results, and Maxime immediately turned to me to do that. I was game, but I was surprised that she chose me to do this. After the test, I asked Maxime why she chose me, and if she really thought she knew me the least from the group. She said yes, she knew me the least and that we hardly talk to each other...she felt like she knew Mike (who she dislikes) more than me. I told her that I was surprised, and although I don`t know her background enough, I thought I knew her as a person really well. Then she asked me who I knew the least from the group (Charles or Stephanie), and pretty much summed it up to me never hanging out with them and stuff...

What she said got me thinking about how I fit in in the group and what role I play there. And honestly, I am not exactly in a group with anyone, and that`s because I kind of choose to drift myself outside of "cliques" (Stephen at one point called me "borderline anti-social", which I was slightly shocked and miffed about because people would not call me anti-social in normal circumstances). And this has been happening since February, when a couple of people said they don`t think I ever talk about myself and I am often off on my own doing something else. Now, I enjoy my independence, and every now and then everyone needs their space, but what Maxime said really got me thinking. How much do I know everyone that I live with? Everyone in the house is unique and interesting, and why am I not putting enough energy to discover that? Cliques are pretty much apparent in this stage of Katimavik...if I don`t do anything where would I be in the group the next couple of months?

I think I should make some changes to my behaviour...things to think about...

On the upside, work was good today...I discussed my Katimavik Learning Plan with Claudie (KLP is one of the stupid things about Katimavik; I don`t need a couple sheets of paper to improve myself and become a better person), and talked to her about what I want to achieve in my job and stuff. She whole-heartedly agreed with everything I said, and added that she wants me to be happy at work and other stuff like that. With that, I told her that actually I have some dissatisfaction at work recently, despite the fact that I enjoy working at the cafe. I told her that working with her gives me pressure, because working with her is like working with myself at my prime (when I love what I do and am super-duper good at it), and many times I felt like I couldn`t keep up with her and instead was in her way. Although she was never mean about things, she would kind of take over the task I had difficulty with and then I would pretty much feel like an imbecile after...plus often she would say things in French to me and I get lost (not that I am complaining, but I just wish it`s easier for me to pick up). I told her all this stuff and pretty much she laughed and said I am the perfect employee, and I need to learn to relax. And she definitely agreed that we need to communicate more...very happy about that.

One up + one down = neutral day

A bientot, Montreal...

2007-04-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

So this is my very last day in Montreal. In a couple of hours I will be boarding on to the bus back to Alma...a 6+ hour bus ride. I am now just sitting in the hang-out/dining area of my hostel, typing this and eating my leftover dim sum.

This 72 hours has been great. Lots of (mis)adventures, and that is what makes traveling so fun and interesting...Montreal is truly a beautiful city, with its old architecture , and good looking French guys no less ;). And honestly, I have only uncovered probably 1/10 of the treasures offered in this place. So many things, so little time...details of the trip will come very soon, I promise.

Kyle, thanks for everything, you are truly an awesome host...I don't think I could ask for a better person to hang out with in Montreal. It was also pretty cool that we both felt we knew each other for a long, long time (I know we actually do online, but like with each other...you know what I mean =)

Montreal, je reviendrai...

Music

2007-04-05T14:54:00.000-05:00

Grrr....a bit annoyed right now, because the service I want to use to go to Montreal (called Allo Stop) requires permission from my "guardian of the moment" (aka PL). Actually to be precise it is a Katimavik rule, and knowing Katimavik and Valerie I would not be allowed to use Allo Stop because I would be riding in a vehicle that is not registered by Katimavik, and therefore deemed "unsafe"...and that really irks me because now I would have to spend almost 100 dollars more on my transportation. Anyways I will not talk about that right now, because I only have 20 minutes or less to do this before I return to billeting...which by the way today is my last evening there.
http://www.allostop.com/english/default.htm

One of the good things about doing Katimavik is that it broadens horizons. And music is definitely one of things. From working in the cafe and living with the kids, I picked up quite a number of new music. The list and people include:
Rebecca - Regina Spektro, Ben Harper (Rebecca and I happen to have same taste in a lot of music, so we both listen to Jack Johnson a lot)
Zach - Imogen Heap, Scissor Sisters, Paper Moon (I am definitely going to buy their CD when I get back to Vancouver)
Charles - Not exactly one particular band, but the music he listens to are really chill, so I like a lot of random songs from him. He is really into Bob Marley, if you get the picture.
Cheryl - (Gateway to great Quebecois music) Les Cowboys Frigants, Corneille (LOVE THIS GUY!)...and a couple more although I cannot recall in my head

From the cafe...there is lots of good music there, and everyone has good taste in music there, especially Annie...I picked up some good stuff from her: Bia, Carla Bruni, Ariane Moffatt, Putamayo (Coffee House Music)...more to discover in the future.

One of the things I discovered in Quebec is that there is lots and lots of great talent and music. It must be a cultural thing, because although the English has a good number of talents (and famous because they are English), there is a certain flavour and distinction with Quebecois music...and I am digging it very much. Although everyone seems to like this guy named Pierre Lapointe...and yes his music is rather creative and whimsical, but I dunno, I am not digging it very much at the moment (maybe in another month).

Since I am going to Montreal in 2 days (YAY!), I am going to do some CD shopping
Corneille (2 CDs - Parce qu'on vient de loin, Les Marchands de rêves)
Les Cowboys Frigants (1 CD- Break Syndical...I picked up La Grande Messe in Alma for a very cheap price!)
Bia (1 CD - Carmin)
Ariane Moffatt (1 CD - Le cœur dans la tête)
Carla Bruni (1 CD - Quelqu'un m'a dit )

Gotta go...tata...Sometimes people are just destined to do what they do...that's what it is....now everybody dance.( JT)

(Shrugs)

2007-03-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry, can`t think of a title for this blog...

Work is really, really chill without Claudie here...I have been using the computer quite a bit, which is very nice since there`s no computer at Billy`s house. As well, I am getting to know Annie and Aurelie better, and learnt some cool things about them (i.e. Annie has some form of sixth sense, according to her...and she said so does Claudie).

Not much happening yesterday, other than the fact that I had an interesting discussion with Billy about Quebec separation. This is something I am always curious about because of the lack of understanding of the situation. As well, this is one of the good things about doing billeting - learning about different cultures and stuff. Although Billy was extremely hesitant on talking about it, because he thinks talking about things like this does nothing (typical male behaviour - no discussion unless something worthwhile comes out or something gets fixed). This is why he thinks talking about politics is a complete waste of time. However, he eventually came out and we spent more than an hour discussing about it. He based a lot of his reasons on history and how the English society have been mistreating the French population, and therefore creating differences that are too great for union. As well, he believes Quebec has enough resources to hold itself up as a nation, and if anything Canada is the one that needs Quebec and therefore doesn`t want Quebec to separate (these points were said after I pointed out that I believe the economy of Quebec will collapse if Quebec was to separate from Canada since Canada gives a lot of money to Quebec). But he said the biggest reason for separation is because virtually no Quebecois sees themselves as a Canadian - they would pretty much tell you that they are from Quebec, and not from Canada. So already it is its own nation.

Um...our discussion was interesting, but I feel like he doesn`t want things to improve or for the gap to close up. But I guess it is as he says "I will not change my opinion because I am speaking from feelings. And you can`t change feelings from the heart or analyze them". But come on, if every single Quebecois acts like this, the situation will never improve...

I think I will have to talk to more Quebecois about this and get a bigger picture...

Attack of the "Gastro"

2007-03-29T13:34:00.000-05:00

Hey all...

Remember when I said I threw up in the middle of the night on Friday/Saturday and pretty much stayed in bed for the rest of the Saturday? Well some news flash...

I went to Stephen`s house on Tuesday night for a little bit (more on that later) and found out some striking news: Apparently I wasn`t the only person who got sick too. In pretty much the same night, both Stephen and Zach had the same problems that I had and threw up in their billeting families, and had to have bed rest for the whole next day and more. Actually in Stephen`s case, his sickness extended into Monday/Tuesday. And how does Stephen know that Zach was sick too? Because apparently he didn`t go to work on Tuesday and had to go to a clinic to treat for dehydration...and he went back to the Katima-house (there`s a key to enter into the house) and saw Zach there...so Zach told him the story where he and his billeting family went out to a bar and had some beer...that`s when Zach got really sick and went to the washroom in the bar and threw up. However, he didn`t want his family to think he was sick from the bar, so he held out and pretended nothing happened...and pretty much the moment he entered into the house he just started to puke his face out. That really sucks for him.

So how is it possible that all 3 of us got gastro (en francais)/stomach flu at the same time? This pretty much goes back to Cheryl, who got sick from one of the kids in the nursery place and we got it from her. And get this: Before I went to my billeting family, Noah-Kim got gastro from his nursery a week before that, and then the whole family got it too. Once they recover, I came into the picture and I got sick. Two days later, Noah-Kim got sick, then the whole family gets sick again. They recover the next day but Billy`s dad, who lives next door, got gastro too...the whole situation is messed. And Aurelie yesterday thought she was getting gastro, but thank god it turns out she just needed rest from a lack of sleep. Apparently there`s an epidemic going on in the region with this disease, just like when Elliot Lake had head lice and pretty much all the guys in that group (now Chicoutimi group) shaved their hair. Hey, I will talk stomach flu over head lice any day, but I seriously hope I do not get it again in my billeting family for the next week or I will be seriously annoyed...my 72 hours off is in the next weekend and I am going to Montreal to visit my friend (Kyle if you are reading this right now, hollah!).

So a quick recap of what happened since I last updated:
Monday - Baby Noah-Kim got sick, had to go to work late. That night after dinner just out of curiousity and for a nice walk, I went to check out where Stephen lives. The street he lives on (Rang 9) is just a couple of walks away from me...shouldn`t be that far right? Little do I know. His house number is 1345, and I started off from 35 something...50 minutes later I was at 23 something...because of darkness and time factor I had to turn back. So I got home at 8:30 pm ish and found out from Sabrina that Billy actually went out and looked for me in his car, because I didn`t return an hour later (I said it was either 1 to 1.5 hours, if not less). Aiyah...I hate it when this happens, feeling bad and then annoyed that I feel bad about it.

Tuesday - Whole family got sick, and they couldn`t drive me to work because of that. So I called Claudie and told her that...pretty much she said if I get sick the next day, I have to call her as soon as possible, and if I get sick I absolutely cannot come to work. So pretty much I stayed in the house the whole day, except when I went to the local grocery store (which may I add is very expensive) to pick up some stuff and made everyone chicken noodle soup. And at night after 6 pm something I decided to give walking to Stephen`s house another shot...took a long long long time and in the end because it was getting dark and I was at the 14 something ranges, I actually went to someone`s house and asked for directions...apparently I was just 5 minutes away, so I kept pushing...I was almost there when a car drove past me, then backed up and stopped. The guy rolled down the window and immediately I recognized the man as Billy`s dad...I was thinking "goddammit why is he so protective even when he is sick?"...so he drove me to Stephen`s house, which was pretty much the last house on the road before wilderness. Saw Stephen, his billeting family (a middle-aged man), and the house...reminds me of Paul and Baryl`s place, only much smaller. Then he drove me home and on the way back we tried having a conversation, despite the fact that he knows no english and my french is so broken and accented...quite interesting.
When I got home, I found out that Billy actually didn`t call his dad to find me...his dad just happened to find me by luck (apparently his father likes to drive around a lot). So the fact that he saw me in the dark and picked me up is just bizarre...

Wednesday - Everyone got better, Billy`s dad got sick. Went to work, and there was this conference thing with many many many people...I made tips, don`t know how much because Claudie didn`t give it to me (and I probably won`t get it until I am back from Montreal because she went to New York for a one-week vacation today). After work Billy/Sabrina/Noah-Kim/me went to Sabrina`s family for dinner...a jolly family, grandparents and uncle included. It was all right, and although the family was cordial they didn`t really ask me any questions, which I thought was unfortunate. Sabrina sure has a good looking family...her brother is very easy on the eyes and her sister is attractive too, although her boyfriend isn`t very...which leads me to the golden question I have been asking myself since billeting:

Why does average looking men usually have girlfriends who are better looking than them, but almost never the other way around?

This is a phenomenon that is right in front of my face ever since I started doing billeting. The best example is Billy and Sabrina themselves...Sabrina is young and way too pretty to be settled down right now, in my opinion. Billy...is Billy. As well, there is James (Billy`s brother) and his girlfriend...same thing. If anyone has an opinon or insight on that, let me know.

Um...gotta go!

A Quick and Dirty Summary from Thursday Til` Now...

2007-03-26T11:37:00.000-05:00

...which is a bit sad, because a lot of stuff happened...

so Thursday, woke up at 6:30 ish to get ready for work. Yes I know I am a house manager, and I am not supposed to work, but Claudie told me about this giant event in the cafe where there is a debate/discussion between the candidates of the election in the Lac St. Jean area and they would need help. Not wanting to miss out on this cultural discovery event I got my ass up and worked from 7 to 10. Didn`t need to work too hard, the event was interesting even though I don`t really understand all the French (by the way the most charistmatic candidate there, Alexandre Cloutier, is unfortunately from Parti Quebecois and is leading in the polls...this should be interesting), and in fact I made TIPS! Yes tips...$7.50 I think. Even though I am not supposed to and Claudie knows this.

Went home, asked Valerie for money to buy groceries to make food to freeze in the freezer so when we all came back from billeting, we won`t need to panic for having no food like last time (although I put a stop to this in Blind River before it happened). After 3 hours of chaotic work between me/Stephen/later on Cheryl (she stayed home because she caught something from the kids at work and threw up Wednesday night) plus a slight panic attack on my part because I haven`t packed by 3 pm and my billeting family comes to pick me up at 4. But all worked out and at 4 pm a car with a man smoking inside comes driving in. Everyone panicked because no one is really ready and they all thought the man is here to pick them up. Me...smoking man? no....but turns out the man is here to pick me up. A quick bye bye, and off I go.

The man - a 25 year old man named Billy Lemieux who has a beautiful girlfriend, a young child (1 year old) named Noah-Kim (very funky name even for French, in my opinion), and a cute dog named Paul He works as an insurance seller. Unfortunately, he lives relatively far from Alma...in a small village/town named Labrecque, 20 minutes outside of Alma. The closest person to me is Stephen, who probably lives a 15 minutes walk from my house right now. Billy reminds me of my uncle, goofy and good-natured, good sense of humor.
This should be an interesting experience...the family is really nice and full of love at the moment, but they have 3 things that I don`t like in life - 1) kids (and my room is next door to the baby`s room, and I have been told he wails at night, as I have tasted on Friday morning) 2) dogs (although the dog is cute, he climbs onto me all the time) 3) smoking - both Billy and Sabrina are heavy smokers, yuck.

That night after supper they brought me to their friends who leaves nearby...another young and unmarried couple with a baby, plus the guy`s sister. Hung out a bit, tried to understand the French conversations, they offered me beer, I declined, then went home because baby needs to sleep. That`s when I found out Billy knows Alexandre Cloutier and dislikes him as a person...and therefore would not vote for him despite the fact that Billy is a separatist.

Watched A Good Year with Sabrina...really a good movie. Went to bed, baby woke me up at 5 am Friday morning. Got out of bed at 6 am.

Friday - Went to work and found the cafe much busier than usual...damn and I was thinking of playing hooky since Claudie thought I was still doing house-managing. So after 3-4 hours of working (with me sometimes being in the way of Claudie, in my opinion), all was done...and man I made tips again???? $5.00. Claudie said if I wasn`t there, she couldn`t have served all the people by herself (I disagree). I think I am going to save my tips and see how much I earned at the end. Right now it`s $12 something. Billy came in and had coffee...apparently he was a regular and Claudie was extremely surprised to find out that I was doing billeting with him.

Returned to billeting after work...oh yes wait Sabrina picked up me from work with Noah-Kim, and on the way she saw a hitch-hiker...and picked her up! Yes. First time in my life where I saw that happening, I guess it`s a small town thing. The lady Sabrina picked up thought I was Sabrina`s daughter....?!?!?!?!?! Um...let`s see...she is 24 (and looks like that), I am 20, she is white, and I am Chinese...hello????? But it was quite funny...and in the evening we went to another one of Billy and Sabrina`s young and unmarried friends with babies (Jonathan and Majorie)...and had dinner there....raquette (kind of like fondue, very fun and yummy), red wine (had some, mixed it with 7 Up)...it was fun despite that I can`t really understand all the French plus lots of drinking and smoking. The red wine made me very very sleepy and lethargic...so I had to ask Sabrina to drive me home at 11:40 pm (more like a convenience ride since she and Majorie were doing their routine smoking drive). A bit of Jay Leno in the house, didn`t bother to brush my teeth and shower, went to bed...

...and got woken up by the biggest stomachache. Ran into the washroom, ended up puking, took a shower, brushed my teeth, felt better...and found Billy outside with a questioning look..."are you ok?" "Yup, bonne nuit.." Went back to bed.

Saturday...woke up at 11 pm, thought I felt better. Was going to go shopping with Sabrina but my stomachache came back. Had to cancel dinner and slept for 12 hours. At the end I ended up loafing on the couch and watching The Simpsons in French.

Sunday...did feel better, wrote a bit in my journal and in the afternoon Billy`s brother brought me to do ski-dooing (like snowmobiling)...a lot of fun, went through a couple of villages around, hung out in this ski-doo bar and chatted with him (both using franglais) and got to drove for a bit at the end. Went out for dinner to eat poutine in Alma with family, learnt a bit about real poutine, and spent the whole night watching TV. Fun stuff...

Now...gotta go back to work! Tata! Elections today...fun stuff.

House Managing so far

2007-03-21T10:26:00.000-05:00

So...so far house managing with Stephen has been interesting...

Monday - did grocery shopping at 12 something with Valerie. 1 hour later - $216 for 3 -4 days worth of groceries. Valerie had different ideas on how to shop, and personally I would have gone to Maxi (like Superstore, but bulk) to buy things because it`s cheaper...but whatever. She also tried to convince us not to buy the cheapest margarine, saying 100% soya-based margarine is bad...
Came home at 1:30 pm, still had to clean the house/bake bread/cook dinner...everything was done by 6:00, with dessert in the freezer too (orange jello)

Tuesday - 3 interesting/funny things happened because of bread-making.
1) Our house has 2 stoves/kitchens, and I was letting the bread rise in the other kitchen. After that was done, I flung the towel that covered the bread onto the stove and brought the dough into the actual kitchen. Ten minutes later, I walk back in and saw that the kitchen was kind of smoky...I thought "why is the kitchen kind of foggy? Or is it just my glasses getting dirty...then I saw the towel turning kind of black on one corner...immediately I shouted "oh my god Stephen come here", and opened the door to let the smoke out...I lifted the towel and I must have fanned it a bit because the towel started going up in flames...I freaked out, ran out of the door and flung the towel into the snow. At the same time, the fire detectors started ringing and so did the phone...it was chaotic.
Stephen`s theory - whoever last used the stove (which he believed was Cheryl and Charles making beans a couple of days ago) did not turn it off, and I was just unlucky to have the towel on there to find out that they didn`t turn it off. I find it a bit far-fetched that no one knew the element was on for so long, but whatever.

2) The bread I made (new recipe, trying out whole wheat bread), after an hour of baking (recipes calls for half an hour) was disgusting...centre was uncooked. I love the faces of people as they tasted a bit of it...and I found this out at 9 pm. Because there`s no more bread (even though Stephen and I made some on Monday) I had to make more...and on average bread takes 2 - 3 hours to rise and bake...I didn`t get to go to bed until 12 -1 pm.

3) Later in the night I realized why my bread was screwed up...I thought the oven was in celsius rather than fahrenheit...pretty much I didn`t cook the bread, I was heating it instead...uuggghhhhh...
Stephen was highly amused by all 3 events and kept making fun of me for them...

Gotta go...time to do dishes and clean the house...it`s almost 12 pm.

Side note: Why does people in the house keep inhaling bread and cheese like there`s no tomorrow? The 2 loaves I made yesterday are almost all gone already...frick I have to make more (must talk to Stephen about this). Damn white people and their bread (KIDDING KIDDING)

Quick Summary of Sunday

2007-03-20T00:33:00.000-05:00

It`s 1:43 am here...I should go to bed but I think I will write a blog before I do that. After all, the competition for the computer here is fierce...

So Sunday - I left the cafe around 12:30 pm, because there seems to be an activity going on at the afternoon...plus I don`t want to do another walk-in to the house and see everyone eating without me...fortunately that didn`t happen, but apparently the cheese factory tour (which was cancelled earlier) was back on, so at 1:30 we left the house and drove 30 minutes or so to this town/township called Hebertville...there`s this cheese factory/farm there which specializes in 3 different types of regional cheese - Valbert, Pikouka, and Kegaomi (pardon my mis-spellings). Except for Kegaomi (sharper and more interesting in taste), the other two are sweet and mild - the Pikouka won prizes before. Pretty much everyone went crazy with the cheese tasting except for Zach (and Mike kind of), since they don`t really like cheese that much.

Next we were shown their barn, which had lots of cows in there, plus some pigs, chicken, 1 lamb, some kittens...plus who can forget the barn dog? The cows were all female, different ages, and very gentle and curious...they pretty much follow you with their eyes whenever you go, and lick your hands if you held it out (I didn`t do it). Pretty much all the girls had a good time oohing and ahhing at the animals, plus taking pictures. During the time we were there, I got to see the process of cows urinating, farting, and excremating (misspelt properly, excuses-moi)...as well see Cheryl walking in when a cow was swishing its tail (needless to say it was laced with excrement and hit Cheryl straight on the head). Anyways we ended that with a couple of people buying cheese from the farm. Then we drove on, and I thought we were going home but nope, we went to another cheese factory (en francais - la fromagerie)...this time tasting 5 to 6 different cheeses. My favorites - this one that smells like feet but is extremely creamy and sweet, another one that resembles a cross between sour cream/yogurt/cream cheese, mixed with a bit of honey, and mozeralla cheese curds...yes it`s quite something, it feels like chewing on rubber styrofoam but the flavor is good enough that I had it again and again...

Finally we started heading home...but not before Cheryl coxed Valerie to drive us to Lac-St. Jean (which was on the way anyways) for a view...and what a view...it`s all white and frozen...it would have much more gorgeous in the summer. But by then we would be in BC, and the lakes are much more beautiful anyways, hahaha.

Prep for dinner/dinner/house meeting ran by Cheryl (Valerie would like us to run our house meetings now)/free time/bed

Oh yes before I end this, I finally talked to Maxime about her weird behaviour during the week (she has been crying all of a sudden every now and then, and leaves the house to be alone). Summary of that - she didn`t want to talk about it, but she is feeling much better (although the fact that I brought it up made her think about whatever made her unhappy, which was bad) and (I hope) she is glad that I was concerned. So my lesson here - when Maxime is upset, stay away from her.

Yesterday`s Events

2007-03-18T05:44:00.001-05:00

So what happened on Saturday, March 18 - St. Patrick`s Day?

Overall, it was a pretty good day. We had an excursion to both Chicoutimi and Jonquiere (because both places are so close to each other) and we didn`t even need write an excursion plan because it was within our pentagon, according to Katimavik conduct. Anyways we were all supposed to leave at 9 am, but most of us (Zach, Rebecca, Cynthia, Rebecca, Cheryl, Charles, me) were a tad late with various reasons and when we got out of the house...that`s when we found out she drove away with Mike, Maxime, and Stephanie. We all waited for approximately 25 minutes before she came back and during the time we all thought she drove away to prove a point to us, because she is a stickler for punctuality and we thought she was doing that to give us a taste of our own medicine. Personally I thought she just went out to pick up some stuff...and if she really was then she is not using the right method, haha...because I didn`t feel punished in any way shape or form. But she came back...and we drove off into the distance, with gentle snow softly cascading the surroundings around the van...oh yes I found Maxime`s fake ID and bank card (she lost her wallet last Saturday) tucked in a pack of gum when I crawled into the back seat...I was like "Who the heck is Alexandria Cynthia Fortier?" loudly in the van, and Cheryl who was sitting next to me said "Psst, that`s Maxime`s fake ID" and immediately told Maxime that we found her ID, which made her happy (something she needs a lot of these days)...and I took 2 pieces of gum from her since I didn`t brush my teeth that morning, hahahaha

1 hour later - we arrived in Chicoutimi, and we first went to the look-out point where we can see a good part of the city. On this viewpoint there`s this giant white cross with a red heart in the center...kind of creepy in my opinion but the view itself was pretty cool. It`s basically trees, then houses, then buildings and churchs and other things plus a river and bridges...plus it was snowing which made it look like winter wonderland, although the cloud factor kind of ruined it.

We then went to La Pulperie de Chicoutimi, which is this old mechanical pulp factory back in the day turned into a museum of the city and region. It was pretty cool, and they featured things about the history of the city (the forestry and pulp industry), to architecture in Quebec (such as the Montreal City library, which I have been told is extremely cool looking), to artists in town (apparently this famous Canadian artist named Arthur Villenvue lived there...and he painted his whole house with his art...his whole house is in the museum and they showed how they transported his house into the museum, which was pretty cool. Although honestly, I am not a big fan of his art...I much prefer his son Michel Villenvue, which was also displayed there. We must have spent almost 3 hours there before we left, and I personally could spend another hour there (only because I really take my time when I go to museums).

After that we drove to La Petite Maison Blanche, the only house that survived a flood with pressure as strong as the Niagra Falls back in the day...so that pretty much made in the oldest house in the city. Unfortunately we couldn`t go in because it`s not open to the public in the winter, so we just took some photos and left.

We drove to the Jonquiere Katima-house for lunch, but we didn`t lunch with them because they were off in an excursion to Quebec City (which Maxime is working on, thank you very much!). So lunch happened...chickpea salad and one slice of bread (sometimes I feel like we are the orphaned kids in Oliver Twist with free labour and limited food)...but Valerie/Cheryl/Cynthia came back with pizza...yay! Then after I was done lunch (I was the last one as per usual) I offered to shovel the driveway in order for us to be able to clear out. I did that but I had to go back out again and shovel the driveway wider because Valerie doesn`t think she could get out...finally that was done and then we all left the house to go to our next destination...but not before Valerie had trouble backing out and we all had to get out and push the van out of the driveway...Katima-effort, I tell you!

So next we went to this art gallery with this exposition by a lady named Helene Roy...the art was interesting, abstract, a bit dark and mysterious...left a lot of space for us to question things. Zach/Rebecca/Me/Stephen kept trying to guess what we saw in the pictures and what it means. After half an hour, we left the exposition and originally we were supposed to go on a small hike at this park but because we were running late (it was already 5 pm when we left the exposition and we were supposed to head out at 5), we decided to skip that and go to a cafe in downtown Jonquiere instead. The cafe we went too was really cool, and although the ambiance is not like Cafe Sofa (it doesn't quite feel like a place you want to lounge in), their selection and prices are better and greater, plus the music was rather electic (they actually played a chinese pop song, hahaha). Everybody got tea (one tea selection for 3 people...the anglos chose Chocolate spice and St. Petersburg), and played games offered in the coffee shop (first it was UNO, then Dominos which Stephen taught me at home before...Zach picked up the game very quickly and now can kick Stephen's ass). And yay, the tea is covered by Katima-budget!

We left the cafe at 6 pm and drove him...while in the van in downtown Jonquiere we kept waving to random pedestrians, who were pleasantly surprised (for the most part, there are some that give us weird looks) and waved back. We got home around almost 7, and then we had tacos for dinner that night (courtesy of Rebecca and Charles). Originally I planned on tagging along with whoever had plans that night (watch some form of music performace, bar, dancing, whatever) since it's St. Patrick's day, and I really should party more and stay home less. But after finding out the cafe that usually has performances didn't have anything happening that night, plus rejecting Cheryl's invitation to the bar (I was planning to tag along with Rebecca/Cynthia/Mike/Zach to a bar/dance place) and after no one ended up going to the bar/dance...I just chilled at home and read a National Geographic, took a shower, and went to bed at 11 something...yes I know I am so boring, but might as well because I intended on waking up early...and I did! 6:30 pm...

So there...and now it's free time and I am just chilling in Cafe Sofa

1) Starting tomorrow, Stephen and I are house managers...should be fun and interesting, since we get along really well and we have different work styles
2) I can't believe it, starting this Thursday we are doing billeting. It's so early! And I think Valerie found a family for all of us already. So 2 weeks of billeting, then right after we take our 72 hours...I plan on going to Montreal to visit a friend of mine and just enjoy the city...ethnic foods...can't wait!
3) Oh yes, I have uploaded more pictures and even created a video account in Google Videos...I am not sure when you can see the videos but check them out! I probably need to do some clean up on them though...

Later days!

Work and Other Fun Stuff

2007-03-15T10:04:00.000-05:00

Anyways I am on "break" right now at work, so I figure I should work on this a bit...

Nothing much worth mentioning so far, except:
a) A "bad" incident happened at work on Tuesday, which I felt turned out for the better. Claudine was doing some admin work and after 2 hours of sheer boredom on her part, she asked me to help her fill up the rest with postal codes (she was working on labels to paste on envelopes). So anyways I did one page of that, and as I tried to continue on with the next page, I couldn`t find the next page anywhere. So I saved the work and closed the window, thinking perhaps if I reopen the file everything will be there, plus the work I saved. However it didn`t work and instead windows popped up (in French, no less) asking me if I was the admin and I need permission for things. Because the logical part of me is convinced that since I saved the work, it has to be somewhere within the computer. So I kept looking and Claudine pops by, asking how I was doing. I then explained to her what happened, and she immediately tried looking for the file, with no luck...so pretty much the files were lost (although I am still convinced it`s somewhere within the computer) and she was frustrated. This is totally understandable and I felt bad (because come on, we all know how it`s like losing an essay we worked on for hours) but this is where I felt the problem is. Instead of venting her frustrations to me in a healthy manner, she simply said, "ok Angel I will take care of it" and after half an hour or so she comes back to me and said everything is fine now. I know it sounds like I am thinking about this too much and I am complaining for nothing (which Rebecca/Stephen/Cynthia said I am) but it feels like Claudine is being overly polite and patient with me...as if she is not very comfortable with showing herself with me. And I don`t want that to happen with people I work with constantly.

So despite Rebecca/Stephen/Cynthia`s idea of ignoring the situation, I decided to talk to Claudine about it the next day as I was doing dishes. I explained to her what I felt, and she actually said that no, she was not being overly polite or patient with me at work, and she is very happy with the way I worked (some days I think otherwise). She just didn`t direct her frustrations with me because there was an obvious solution and there is no need for me to get those frustrations. On top of that, she said she is impressed enough with my work ability that she is trying to train me as "one of them" so when there are opportunities to serve 50+ meetings, she doesn`t need to get someone to come in and instead it could just be me and her...and at the end the tips will be split. This is quite a big deal and honor, so I was quite happy to hear that...although I am actually not allowed to take tips due to volunteering...but would that day of me taking tips ever come?

Oh speaking of work, today was a bit of an interesting day. 3 things happened:
1) I come in at 8 am, and I see a crowd of women (about 8) chatting. Then I say Claudine, who was feverishly preparing food...she was like "Angel I need your help, now...can you give me 6 fruit plates?" So for the next 15 minutes or so we were just working straight. After we were done she told me that she came in at almost 7 and unfortunately couldn`t open the door because it was frozen shut. So she had to go next door to Cafe du Clocher and ask for help (unfortunately no one was there). And then she drove to Annie`s house which was 8 minutes away, and they both had to go back and try to unfreeze the door, which they did by blowing water to the hinges...by that time the ladies were waiting outside the cafe and the rest is history...quite a little adventure she had.

2) Poor poor Aurelie...she came into work and I asked her how she was doing...she then told me that on Sunday, she was cleaning the toaster oven and a small piece of metal entered into her eye...first she was fine but Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday she had terrible headaches and she thinks the thing entered her optic nerve...and looking at light kills her (throughout the hour I was with her, she kept pulling down her tuque so it covered almost all of her eyes...it`s funny in a tragic way). And she finally decided to go home...hopefully she will feel better.

3) At the end of the day I was sent to do my usual grocery trips. This time it`s to La Maison du Pain (The House of Bread) and instead of having Annie call them in advance for food, I decided to go there and ask for items myself (Annie wrote me a list). I wanted to challenge myself and speak more French, and I was pumped to do it...however within 30 seconds of my talking the lady behind noticed I had a list and wanted to see it...and she starts packing me food based on the list. A bit disappointed...

4) One of my ideas for this blog/emails is to dedicate something especially for Mike, a "Mike moment" kind of thing where I talk about something he said that day that's extremely bizarre. Anyways...Yesterday night the group and I were in the cafe...they were doing a film event and we were watching a documentary by National Film Board called "Histoire de Sable"...anyways there's this scene where a bunch of African men are working hard...Rebecca told me that Mike turned to Rebecca at that moment and asked if those guys were slaves...just because they are "black and working"....oh my god...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

5) Oh yes before I forgot...I think I got invited by Aurelie to her art exposition. She says she is going to have a party for her art at Cafe du Clocher...should be fun. I saw some of her stuff and it's pretty cool.

A Chinese Girl in a Foreign Land

2007-03-10T09:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes being Chinese outside of populated cities brings some interesting "adventures". Here`s 2 stories that happened to me recently in Alma that I would like to share...

1) This happened on the first Saturday I was here (which was just last week, haha). I was walking down a street in downtown, trying to find the mall. I walked past a building where the entrance kind of dips inside, and it provided a little shelter for smokers to hang out (believe me when I say there are lots of smokers in Quebec...). There was this middle-aged man smoking, and as I walked past him he looked at me and started asking me something in French...I couldn`t fully understand what he is saying but I caught fragments such as "chinois" and "koreanne"...which I summed up to "What kind of asian are you? Chinese? Korean?" So I just quickly answered him "Je suis Chinois" and continued walking...he laughed and said something like "ah chinois! Le Chine!"...or something like that...he could have also said "la chienne" which pretty much means bitch, I cannot decide. But the idea of people stopping you and asking that is just strange...which brings me to my second story...

2) This happened yesterday after I got off work. Again I went to the mall and entered into a store called "Potpourri" which is like this kitcheware store that sells lots of funky kitchen gizmos (I am into stuff like that, haha). So I go in, and the lady was like (in French), "hello, how are you, can I help you with anything?" And I said, "no, I am good, I am just looking"...and she goes, "ok". But this is where it gets interesting (everything is pretty much said in French):

Lady: Just wondering, are you Chinese?
Me: Um, yes...
Lady: Excellent, can you help me with something?
Me: Um...sure...
(Lady drags me to almost the back of the store, which there is a bunch of cheap Chinese knives hanging. She pulls one out and flips to the back, which there is Chinese writing on what the knife is for)
Lady: Can you read this? And can you tell me what it means?
Me: Ok...(starts reading...I was done in 30 seconds)
(Me at this point is thinking how I can tell her the information with my lack of French)
Me: Can you speak English?
Lady: No, not at all...
Me: Ok that`s fine, I will try to explain...(whips out a English/French dictionary. Lady starts laughing)
Me: Yeah, I have to...(thinking how to say "stainless steel" in French)
Lady: (perhaps getting a bit impatient) Can you just tell me what this part of the knife does? (points to a funky blade on the knife)
Me: It`s for scaling fish (only I don`t know how to say "fish scales" in French, so I summed it up to fish skin instead)
Lady: Grubwejrk?
Me:....oui....(I have no idea what she said but it sounds about right, so yeah...then for verification I looked it up in the dictionary and showed her)
Lady: Oui, grubwejrk
Me: oui..
Lady: Ok, what about this? (points to something else)
Me: That`s for opening wine
Lady: This?
Me: For cutting open the chicken`s stomach (l`estomac de poulet, hahaha)
Lady: l`estomac de poulet???
Me: Oui (giggling)
Lady: And this?
Me: It`s for vegetables, fruits...
Lady: (Finally satisfied) Thank you very much
Me: Your welcome, it was...interesting...

- Fin - (for now, let`s see what happens in the future...)

Mar/8

2007-03-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

Just want to share a short little something on today...

Work today was quiet...man this job really reminds me of IHOP...I was sent for groceries almost 3 times today (the only reason I didn`t need to go was because one of the places did not have what we want until tomorrow morning, which means I will have to brave the cold again tomorrow...-22, and including windchill -33). By the time I finished groceries my thighs are pretty much all rashed up from the cold...I have to start wearing 2 pairs of pants.

Today I met:
-Annie, one of the 3 people who works in cafe sofa. Therefore I met all the cafe sofa employees (not including the office people, which I am sure I will eventually). Like Aurelie, she pretty much only spoke to me in French.

Today I learnt:
-How to make cafe au lait, chocolate chaude, cafe viennoise, plus le croissant dore...

Learnt some French along the way...

Oh and I got off work and decided to deposit 2 cheques which I haven`t had the opportunity to do because there is no Bank of Montreal in Blind River...so went there today and prayed that either my French is good enough to do the job or someone there can speak some form of English...well neither of that happened and even though the money went into my account, the lady tried to explain in French that I will not get my money until March 19...which I understood no word of and after 3 minutes of blind confusion I figured out what`s going on...she gave me a bit of a scare...French + Bank = not good. Don`t you just love language barriers?

Oh yes last night the anglos finally got the first French class. The lady (Lucie Duval is her name) came over (thank god) and we had to write a multiple choice exam...I understood most of the exam but the last page on reading kind of stumped me...and after that Lucie got to know us in French (meaning we had to introduce ourselves in French). She is a really nice lady, and I think French class will be fun.

A bientot...Stephen is in the cafe right now with his laptop and he said dinner is at 5:30...it`s now 5:26 and we have meeting later.

New Job

2007-03-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

Drum rolls, please...

I got the job in Cafe Sofa! So cool! Quite happy about that, since they strike me as a place that needs good French. But Valerie said the last girl who worked there was anglophone, and it worked out fine...as well I was one of their top choices during the interview, and they were rather impressed with my French, haha. I really am quite lucky, because a good number of people want to work there, including the frenchies...I seriously thought Cheryl would get the job...

Here`s the list of people and their jobs.

Zach - Youth Employment Center/Theatre
Rebecca - Thrift store
Mike - Farm
Stephen - Farm (I feel for him man)
Cynthia - Women`s Centre (grrrrrr....haha)
Maxime - Elementary school
Cheryl - Daycare (very surprised about that, I think there`s something going on there that I don`t know about)
Stephanie - Child/Pregnancy Place
Charles - CSI

In general, I think people got their first or second choice, which is good. Cheryl in a daycare still puzzles me...but whatever, this week Maxime and Cheryl are house managers because of their jobs. With the results of this I am going to take back what I said previously, that only the French kids can get the best jobs, because that`s not really true. And I am happy about that because that means we will learn French very quickly, yay. This gives hope to our existance here in Quebec...

So today was my first day at work, and it`s good...your typical barista/bartista job...reminds me a lot of IHOP, back in the good old days when I was a hostess. I met ma patronne Claudine...a nice lady who can speak English but we converse in a combination of franglais. As well, I actually got to work with the vraiment nice girl who gave me extra smoothie...her name is Aurelie and she pretty much only speak to me in French (even though she can speak English) which was tellement excellent pour moi, je prefere comme ca...she is an artist and some of her art is displayed in the cafe. She said perhaps I can visit her studio later on...tres fabuleux! Plus the job is quite chill...other than slight first-day mistakes (not cutting a croissant properly, ugly presentation of bananas), Claudine was tres impressionee avec moi, yay...I learnt how to make the arabian coffee and espresso today.

Oops it`s 17:24 now, and I am still in the cafe using the internet...I should go home now because they may be having dinner...plus it`s freaking cold outside.

Minor Frustrations

2007-03-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

Little things that I learnt which is irking my quite a bit:

1) What do you say when Maxime tells you that she is going to use her $1000 from Katimavik to get a nosejob? For god`s sake she is not even 18.
2) Apparently Charles picked up smoking again...how sad.
3) I think Stephen is going to start drinking coffee again soon...but this I don`t blame him, it`s ridiculous for him to go from 9 cups a day to cold turkey forever...

Sigh...why are people so foolish?

Work Tours

2007-03-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

Anyways I should talk a bit about the work placements here in Alma. Selection-wise, it`s better than Blind River, in my opinion, just because the organizations are better aimed at "making the world a better place". However, the anglophones (myself included) are frustrated at the situation because the good work placements (the ones I am interested in) pretty much said they want French speakers...at the end of the day we kind of felt like shit for being English speakers.

So the work placements...
1) La nichee - a centre which provides services for newborns and pregnant mothers. May have some childcare involvement. They want French speaker
2) Cafe Sofa - the very hip fair trade coffee shop where I got my smoothie. English speaker allowed (although the boss would pretty much talk to you in English if you are an English speaker, which I don`t want)
3) CPE Les Picassas de ile - Child daycare centre, enough said (English speaker allowed, although I think it`s rather difficult)
4) CSI (Centre de solidarite internationale) - an organization that promotes fair trade and developement of 3rd world countries. A combination of office work and project developments (French Speaker)
5) Ecole Maria - an elementary school that promotes environmental issues and non-violence (English speaker allowed, but I don`t see how it`s possible)
6) Ferme du Couteau - an animal farm. Lots of dogs, chickens, ducks, horses...
7) A second-hand/recycling center/thrift store
8) Youth Employment Centre/Drama theater - data work, plus working in the theater (imagine high school plays)...French speaker
9) Women`s Center - a mix of many types of work. They have this really cool house that I want to work at...unfortunately they prefer French speaker.

So Valerie asked us for our top 5 choices...here`s mine:
1) Women`s Center 2) Cafe Sofa 3) CSI 4) Thrift store 5) Youth Employment Centre

Problem - most of the jobs I want require good French, plus I don`t fully understand what the job is like (try listening to 15-30 minutes of French, and you see what I mean)...plus everyone who knows me knows that I don`t like kids and animals...yikes

Well we just did the interviews this morning at Cafe Sofa, and although I really like how Valerie set up the interviews (she put a french person with an english person - eg. Me/Stephanie/Rebecca, plus we do rotations so we meet every employer), I don`t think I impressed the lady from the women`s center well enough with my mediocore French. On the other hand, I may have conveyed some incorrect information to the daycare lady and the school principal...goddamnit I don`t want to work there...oh well I did what I could with the amount of French I have, so hopefully things will work out.

We will see for tomorrow, because we start working tomorrow...

By the way, it`s Stephen and Cheryl`s birthday today! Happy 20. I made them a chocolate cheesecake and strawberry cheesecake last night, and I took the chocolate cheesecake out from the oven for cooling and specifically told Stephen not to let Cheryl have any, which also meant Stephen couldn`t have any. Well lo and behold this morning I found the cheesecake almost finished with a note next to it from Stephen, saying the cheesecake was awesome...that dick.
I should have known...this is like asking a fox to guard the chickens.

To or not...

2007-03-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Just came back from a rap performance...a bunch of kids (old Sault Ste Marie group and Zach and Rebecca) are going to the bar later...

To go or not to go...I should eh? But I don`t quite feel like it...
I have 15 minutes to decide...

To go or not...that`s the question.

Random quickie blog

2007-03-03T16:13:00.000-05:00

Hey all

This is just a quickie (I promise!). I am now sitting in Cafe Sofa, an awesome free trade coffee shop by my house (I live in downtown Alma now) having a nice fruit smoothie (the girl behind the counter is so nice, she made extra and gave it to me in a tall tall glass) and using their free internet (and I am not talking about laptop, but actual computer)! This place is actually one of our work placements, and it would be awesome working here, although I doubt I would get the job because of my lack of French. Although the girl and I conversed in French, despite the fact that I don`t fully understand her and she can`t fully understand me, haha.

I think I gotta go...I suspect the cafe may have closed already but the girl just didn`t kick me out. Plus I gotta dash to the mall (MALL!) because I found this awesome CD store with a closing sale...going to buy the original Phantom of the Opera CD set for $12.99!!! What a steal!!!

[Edit] Apparently the CDs were an additional 50% off, so Phantom of the Opera costs me only $7 (not including tax of course). I went crazy and searched for CD for the next 30 minutes or so...at the end I bought:

Jewel - Spirit, The Phantom of the Opera - Original Cast, The Cranberries - Bury the Hatchet, Alicia Keys - The Diary of Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Aqua - Aquarius, Mariah Carey - Music Box, Sarah Brightman - Time to Say Goodbye...all in the cost of $28!!!!!! There were more CDs that I wanted to buy, but I didn`t like them enough, I guess, and it`s hard to pack all these CDs...

Lisa the Sarah Brightman and Cranberries are for you...watch for it!

A bientot!

The Long Journey to Alma

2007-03-02T18:15:00.000-05:00

Hmm...long or short? Let`s opt for short (the apostrophes just make me laugh).

So everyone had to wake up at 5:30 am for the 6:45 am charter bus which drives us to Sudbury (2 hours east of Blind River). From there, all 30 kids are split into 3 groups, and each group has a different way to get to Quebec City. After that we all meet in the airport of Quebec City, and a charter bus is supposed to pick us up at 5:45 pm and drop us off at Chicoutimi, then Jonquiere, then finally Alma...

My group: Stephen, Rebecca, Zach, Cynthia, Cheryl, Niki (Elliot Lake), Devon, (Elliot Lake)
My route: Blind River - Sudbury - Toronto - Montreal - Quebec City (Sudbury Toronto Montreal Quebec City via airplane...this is the first time in my life I took 3 plane rides on the same day)

Things went relatively smoothly, except for 2 things:
1) The first flight from Sudbury to Toronto was more than an hour late, which meant it caused another group to miss their next connecting flight. Fortunately our group`s flight from Toronto to Montreal is later than the other group, so that didn`t affect me. What affected me though:
2) Montreal - Quebec City. I didn`t get my 1 luggage (I head 2 plus one backpack). And guess what...that`s my luggage with all my clothes in it. Now the people in charge of luggages gave me a claim form, and promised that my bag will show up in Alma within 3 days...we will see about that. Meanwhile, I did something incredibly stupid that kind of bit me in the ass in this situation...let this be a lesson for you all.
- I did not put my new address on my bag. Instead it still has the old Blind River address on the Katimavik tag.
- I threw all my boarding passes away after I arrived in Quebec City. The boarding passes had a code plus information that I needed to track my bag down.

However, there is an upside to all this craziness, though. A couple of other people lost their baggages, too, ahnd Cheryl is in the same situation as I am. Only she isn`t so dumb and gave the people all the information. I merely told the people that I am in the same situation as her and Cheryl and I share the same information. Yes, how pathetic of me...but one has to find every silver lining possible, right?

The 5:45 pm charter bus was late by 20 minutes...what a surprise.
4 hours later - Alma, Quebec...super hungry, I was determined not to spend my $17 travel money given...I brought a huge bag of bread and pizza from camp but everyone kept snacking on it (I was left with 5 slices of bread and one slice of pizza). Good thing Valerie (my new PL) made a huge veggie platter and baked muffins.

Stephanie needs to talk to her hubby Ali online so I gotta dash...later!

Rotation Camp

2007-03-01T08:53:00.000-05:00

So, here I am...in Alma, Quebec
Changes are already occuring. For example, the keyboard I am using has a bunch of weird buttons and French accents. But hey, I am managing so far...apart from the fact that I can`t make apostrophes, haha.
On the plus side, the computer is now actually in a computer room, which means I don`t need peer over my shoulders everytime I write a blog.
However, the house in Alma still has the stupid CPU that the Blind River has...hopefully this computer doesn`t crash as easily as the other one...some things never change.

But before I indulge in my life in Alma (which hasn`t really started yet) I am going to try and quickly summarize the 2 days of Rotation Camp (by that I mean write 3-4 pages of things, haha).

The camp we went to (called Galiean Bible Camp, haha) is in the bushes of Blind River, which was convenient for us (hence the whole Blind River group decide to arrive late and sang our homemade Katimavik songs with Emilie as our last goodbye...

...Somthing on top of my head: that same day I was sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine. Maxime was sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine. Maxime came in and was like, "Angel why are you reading this old magazine? There are new magazines there. In fact she was so insistent with me reading the new magazines that I pretty much went with it just to please her...and I found a "Global Warming" magazine (a Playgirl magazine). Maxime had a great time looking for asian guys inside and asked me whether I was turned on by them...ew. So for you Castlegar (now the Blind River) kids, if you guys found that magazine this would explain why.

So anyways we get there, and we settle down. Originally I shared a room with Stephanie and Rebecca, but I decided to get a room all by myself (once I found out there are lots of empty frooms) because really, how often can I get a room to myself in Katimavik? Then Emilie had to leave for good, so we gathered around her and each of us gave her a long hug, then a group hug...we sang some more, and then we carried Emilie out to the van. Well to be precise we threw her into the snow, and then she got up and climbed into the van...we then form a human chain and blocked her from driving away...but eventually we let her go and she drove away...It was a bittersweet moment, and many of us had different degrees of sadness with the situation. Maxime and Cheryl were tearing for a little bit (although Maxime was more obvious about it). Which brings me to another event in the night...

The Elliot Lake group got lost coming to camp and their van broke down, so Beth (the PL from Sault Ste Marie) had to rescue them...this delayed dinner to around 7:00 pm, when everyone finally settled down for dinner (Pizza, pasta salad, bread, and assorted fruit juice by Blind River crew...I must say we did a great job). Beth and Brie (the two other PLs) stayed around for dinner, which is technically not allowed and our group were wondering "why are they allowed here when Emilie isn`t"...Maxime and Cheryl got rather upset and summoned Cara (the PC who was in charge of rotation camp) for explanation, which ended up with them venting their frustration with her (at one point Cara tried to explain something, and she said something like "do you understand what I am saying?"...and Cheryl was like, "yes I understand English perfectly fine" which I was kind of shocked by. Zach ended up going to Cara later and apologizing for Maxime and Cheryl and saying he understood that what happened was just bad luck and that both Brie and Bethany are tired and they need to eat something and say their goodbyes before they leave their groups for good. I think Cheryl and Maxime (Cheryl more so) were irritated that Zach did that, but deep down and later on they probably felt bad about what they did.

Hmm let me try to recap the major events that happened over the 2 days:
1) On the first night, each group had to present their final presentation and perform a skit on their PL. For our final presentation, because Maxime lost a lot of files and her moviemaker (which she made her slideshow) didn`t work properly, she ended up showing clips the kids doing the polar dip and whatever she had of the actual slideshow. Then we sang our song. I am going to type up the lyrics and post it here when I have time. We also made a skit on the way we see Emilie, and I must say it`s pretty good even though we only have 15 minutes to plan it. We jazzed ours up with props we found in a storage room...in my opinion (although I could be biased) our performances were the best, haha. Although I am slightly annoyed that Cara made us do so much performance while she just sit and relax and laugh...

Day 2: Each group had to lead a debriefing activity - something that makes us reflect on our experiences in the past 3 months. I liked the one Sault Ste. Marie had, although it was really simple (by the way I think Cara is rather harsh to the SSM group, she kept talking to them in a slightly fustrated tone when the kids have questions for her): each person has a sheet of paper where they write their name on top, and everyone in the group has to write a nice comment about the person. In the end, there will be a sheet of positive comments from everyone in the group (I will see if I have time to post mine up). The Elliot Lake one was ok...they gave each of us a sheet of questions which consists of things such as "How has Katimavik change you?", plus a ball of yarn which we were supposed to tie one end to a tree and bring it with us as we contemplate the answers of the questions. Meh. Our activity was probably the coolest of all, as we did it after dark and supper. What we did: a bonfire where we did meditation (in honor of Emilie), and then each person wrote something negative about their experience, and they threw the note into the fire. We end the night with roasted marshmallows and singing (although that was a bit difficult because there is the division between the French and English, and people weren`t very energetic about it).

The whole camp experience was ok...but I did re-learn an old lesson from this. You really can`t judge a book by its cover. What do I mean by that? I will take Thom (from Sault Ste. Marie) and Travis (from Elliot Lake) as examples. At the beginning, Thom strikes me as a pothead who isn`t very responsible, while Travis looks like a skinhead who could kill you if you do something wrong to him. However I kind of got to know them, and they are not really like that...they are quite interesting and easy to approach. If anything they could be nicer than some of the "normal" guys and girls there (i.e. Nina from Elliot Lake, very cute looking girl but carry a bitch vibe to her).

Moving on to the long journey to Alma, Quebec...

Emilie where are you? Leave some comments!

Dear Emilie

2007-02-26T14:31:00.000-05:00

Dear Emilie

Man it's kind of strange writing this to you when all of us will say our goodbyes to you very soon. Hopefully I can finish this before we leave, so here goes.

Emilie, you really are one of the most interesting and unique people I have ever come across (which doesn't say much because as you know, I lived in a box for most of my life). I don't know about you, but I do think we had a bond/connection despite the fact that I don't always talk to you. Whenever we talk, I feel like I learn and see quite a bit of new things, yet at the same time we can really relate to each other. Sometimes we would talk and although I don't explain things clearly enough, I can tell you understood me perfectly fine. I really believe that is not something that people can come across everyday...I guess we are kindred spirits.

Man this is sounding very cheesy now. I will end this by thanking you like the others for a great experience in Blind River. You are many reasons why our group developed for the better, and without you our group definitely will not be the same. Dare I say it...you are an inspiration to many of us. And please don't be sad about us leaving, because it isn't the end. Remember when you asked me whether I am sad that I am leaving the Sisters and I said no? The same reason applies with you: we crossed paths and made impressionable footprints and even though our paths will diverge in different directions, the memories made all of us better in the future.

Emilie you shall be missed for a while, but we will definitely remember you almost forever...

Lots of love, Angel

Thoughts on Blind River

2007-02-26T14:01:00.000-05:00

I am leaving Blind River very soon, but before I go I think I should talk about Blind River and what it is about. So here goes...Let's start with the house. The address - 40 Michigan Street, Blind River, ON P0R 1B0The house is located in a nice area. It's right across from a Catholic elementary school, and it's on a street where there are at least 3 to 4 churches (more on that) In fact it's next door to one. And we have a beautiful view of Lake Huron/Gerogian Bay, with Manitoulin Island (the largest freshwater island in the world) in the distance. One thing I love to do when the weather is beautiful is to go by the lake (2 blocks away) and take pictures and enjoy the sunrise/sunset, because there's a lot of incredible sunrise/sunsets over the lake. The house is also a 5 minute walk away from the arena/community centre.The house itself: The house is almost 100 years old, but despite that plus renovations, it's a nice house with quite a bit of history. Apparently many people in town have some form of connections to the house, ranging from "I lived in it before" to "I had a sleepover party there". There are 4 levels to the house - basement/main floor/upstairs/attic. The basement is cold, old and scary, and the landlord instructed us not to use it. All we do there is store eggs (given free by the community, woohoo!) and other miscellaneous things. The main floor consists of living room/office/dining room/kitchen/laundry room/tiny storage room which became the "Alone Zone" because of Zach. As well, outside the house (but not quite outside because it's boxed in) there's a coat and shoe storage...there must be a name for it but I don't know what it is. Upstairs - there are 3 bedrooms plus a bathroom. One is Emilie's (her room also has this extension to the balcony), one is for the guys, and one for the girls. Both guy and girl room has 2 bunk beds/4 beds (although the closet in the girl's room is rather dinky, compared to the guys). Then we have the attic, which has a walk-in closet, one bathroom, and 2 bunk beds with much more room. If there are 4 guys in one group (like mine) I think they should be put in the attic instead of the boy's room downstairs because the living situation for Zach/Stephen/Charles/Mike was quite bad since they didn't really have enough storage, plus the fact that Mike is so messy that all his crap are thrown across to the other guys' stuff. So for you Castlegar kids - if Emilie arranges for 3 girls to stay in the attic again and there are 4 guys, you gotta speak up.Little quirks of the house: the sink faucets are incorrectly screwed on. The red is actually cold water, and the blue is hot water - a lesson I pay dearly each time I wash my hands- Because the pipes are old and a bunch of other things, there isn't a constant even flow of water for the whole house. Which means when someone is washing dishes or doing laundry, the person showering will have freaking cold water, but that can change quickly too. I once showered in hot/cold/hot/cold in a span of 10 minutes.- Emilie may impose the "if it's yellow let it mellow" flushing policy. Flushing takes around 6 litres of water each time, so that's her way of saving water (a policy I never got the hang of due to good habits, haha).- We practice a "2 loads a week" laundry schedule, which means each person is allowed to do laundry 2 times a week only. This happened after the laundry machine and the dryer broke down...very very bad (again, our washer now does not do spin cycle...nice thing to happen before we leave, haha)- Umm that's it I think? Overall I like where I live in town, it's walking distance to almost everything (but then again that's like anywhere to anywhere in town, haha). Our group really is blessed in a sense that a) free eggs! and b) our house is the result of complaints from previous Katimavik groups when they lived in a tiny house with problems and rats, etc. For that I am thankful (although I recently found out from Zach and Cynthia that they saw a mouse running from the kitchen in a hole in the dining room, haha)
- The pipes are old and rusty, so sometimes the water turns orange. Mmmmm, orange water (and we drink water straight from the tap, haha)
- Apparently Rebecca and Cheryl wrote a small note for the next group and hid it in the table in the kitchen...so go find it, haha
So now, the town itself...I am not going into the basic introduction of it, so you can find out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_River,_Ontario
Before I started Katimavik and went into the town, I thought it's your average little little town where everyone is extremely friendly but unknowledgable about the world. As well, there would be no one of another race other than caucasian people (which conjures up images of people approaching me and saying in a slow drawl,"can you...speak...english. Eeeennnglish...") The first one has somewhat of a truth to it, as people in general are relatively friendly and open, especially when they find out you are doing Katimavik. Unknowledgable? Nah...apparently Blind River has one of the greatest number of post secondary graduates in small towns of Canada. Unfortunately, because work is scarce here (ever since they closed down the white pine mill and now only Cameco - an uranium mine in town), the majority of young people move out of town. Which leaves mostly seniors in this town.
The thing about having only caucasian people in town is false. There are actually a couple of Chinese families living in town (2 of them have Chinese restaurants, I think, haha) plus 2 indian families also (one person is a doctor, another owns Old Mill Motel)...which does surprise me, but it's a good thing. Hmm, what else can I tell you...the town is situated along highway 17 (the trans-canada highway) and CPR so often you will see trains and trucks going through. The town is so small, it takes only an hour to walk from one end to another (as Cheryl and I demonstrated one night). There are 2 convenience stores (the 24 hour one is close by the house), 1 grocery store (Valu-mart, expensive deals), 2 banks (RBC, Scotia), 1 hospital, 1 police station, 1 fire department, 1 community centre, a couple of schools (divided between public and religions, English and French), 1 library, 1 LCBO, 1 Beer Store, 2-3 bars...Tim Hortons serves as the hip hangout in town (it's 24 hours), and Greyhound buses are parked at CountryStyles (30 minute walk from the house). What else...man there are so many churches here it isn't funny...I find it so odd that in a town that's the size of my high school, there is a need for so many churches. The street I live on already has 3-4, and there are a couple more scattered across the town. Is there a need for that? Or am I just cynical? Because of that, a good number of people you will meet in this town are either "fathers" or "sisters", or have some affliation with church.
Yes, because the town is small, technically there isn't much to do, unless you know people in town. Saturday nights there are hockey games in the arena, where people support the local team (Blind River beavers). Sometimes dances occur in different venues. But people in town have different ways to entertain themselves.
Random ideas/facts of town
According to Ed Ritchie (also the unknown encyclopedia of Blind River):
- Cameco had 2 explosions in the past, and there may have been spillage...leaking into the water. Mmmmm, radioactive water.
- Before they built Eckat High School, that plot of land used to be an animal farm. Animals would die there and they would be buried there. Now behind the school there are water houses (or something like that) that takes care of the water. Old animal cementary + Blind River = potable water....???? All this talk about the water here makes me miss the water in Vancouver.
- The amount of smokers in town is atrocious. It's probably 1:4 people who are smokers. Because of that, Blind River actually has one of the highest rates of cancer in Canada (according to another local).
- Blind River is quite a bilingual town. A good number of people can speak French, which was quite a surprise.
I don't really know what else I can say, so I will talk about the important people in town:
Paul and Baryl - a lovely elderly-ish couple who lives out in the bushes. They are probably some of the most giving and helpful people in town, and probably in life. They helped us out a lot during our time here, and Baryl has lots and lots of influence in town.
Lorraine Serre - the main power player/owner of Dorca's House, a local thrift store in town. Again, very giving and nice, and has lots and lots of influence in town.
Denis - Lorraine's grandson, likes to hang out with Katimavik kids. A pretty nice kid, although some may find him annoying. He had a crush on Maxime and when they went to the high school dance together, he showed him in a nice suit/tux and brought corsage. Awkwardness ensued and now...you get the picture.
Matt and Aaron - if you read the long story, you know what they are about.
Hmmm this is really long now....and I am going to rotation camp very very soon (2 hours time) and leaving Blind River once and for all, so I will stop. Overall, I enjoyed my stay in Blind River, and people overall are friendly. It may be a bit boring at days with the lack of things going on (it's a small town, after all) but it really does allow bonding time. If you know how to make the best out of the town, you would really enjoy yourself here.

Good Bye, Blind River

Final Presentation

2007-02-22T02:00:00.000-05:00

It's 2:00 am right now...I really should go to bed but I think I will quickly summarize what happened tonight - the Final Presentation

Anyways for that, everyone invited their work partners, their billeting families, and/or anyone they made a connection in town. I invited Ed Ritchie and his wife, the Sisters, plus Sally Hagman and Betty Ann, but Betty Ann couldn't come because of vacation. Our final presentation was held in the marina, and around 30 people showed up for a potluck (I made chicken corn soup/hot and sour soup/stir-fried rice with Stephanie). Things went well, I sat with the Sisters and Ed and his wife. Everyone chatted. Then we had the slideshow presentation, but due to technical difficulties it cannot project onto the screen. So instead everyone had to crowd around Maxime's laptop...quite interesting.

After that, we performed our song, which was pretty much the same one Emilie and Stephen wrote for the talent show, with minor adjustments. That was fun. Then Emilie pulled a surprise on us and performed a song for us (the Katimavik group). When that was done, Maxime and Cheryl got teary (Maxime was worse though) and that was pretty much the presentation. People mingled and socialized, while others started leaving and we started washing dishes (to save the environment, we decided to use our dishes instead). By 8 something everyone started leaving, and the gang (Emilie/Rebecca/Charles) started goofing around and having a cake fight. Then we cleaned up the mess.

Overall the night went really well, and it kind of "bonded" us once again...everyone having a good time.

I really want to write the blog I have in mind, but I will stop now...good night

My shortest blog yet eh?

A Weird Little Story

2007-02-22T00:50:00.000-05:00

Here's a story that I promised a while ago that I would tell...it's about what happened to Emilie when she was in Blind River.

(Hahaha, this format will be a headache to read)

Once upon a time there was a girl named Emilie Desrosiers. She became a project leader and was posted to Blind River, Ontario, a tiny town with no more than 4000 people. Late into the fall (October 2006) she moved into a nice old house with nothing inside. She was expected to live there by herself for a month before her "children" arrive. Emilie knew she must find a way to get furniture and other things in the house for her and her children, so one night she went to the church next door and asked the people there if they can spare furniture and other things. And that's how she met Matt/Aaron/Alex/Wesley.When people in the church found out that Emilie was a Katimavik project leader in Blind River, they became very enthusiastic and helpful with Emilie's needs. People came by and renovated the house. They donated furnitures, dishes, plus a bunch of other things so when the Katima-children arrive, they would feel welcomed. Through this experience, Emilie got to know Matt/Aaron/Alex/Wesley and they all became friends. You may think it's a sweet little story where everyone is happy with each other's company, but every story has its twists. The twist (not the only one, just to warn you now) came when Matt (a 19 year old guy who is the youth leader of the church next door) apparently made a move on Emilie and asked her to be his girlfriend. Emilie refused, and although they remain friends, Emilie knew things between her and Matt aren't the way they used to be. However, Emilie was still fine with Alex/Aaron/Wesley...The Katima-children arrived at the end of November, and Emilie and the Katima-children lived together and had adventures. Meanwhile, Matt and Aaron dropped by the house every now and then to hang out with Emilie and the Katima-children, so things were good. In fact, Emilie came up with the idea of having a talent night/coffee house where everyone would demonstrate a talent of some form and create a night of entertainment before year 2007 starts. So that's what happened, and there are photos to prove, haha...everyone had a good time, and 20 minutes before the year started, Emilie and the Katima-children hopped into their katima-van and with the guidance of Wesley and Matt, they went into the woods outside of town to light up some fireworks. And that's what they did by the lake. After that everyone went back to the house and had fake fruit wine, and continued partying. And this is where the trouble began...During the party, Wesley complained to Emilie about a headache, and he probably asked Emilie if she had any tylenol. Emilie didn't, but she knows how to perform riqqi (not sure how to spell it), a form of native healing using the hands, so she offered this suggestion to him. Wesley agreed, and so they went to her room and she tried that on him. Matt was just chilling downstairs when he found out she was doing that. He immediately freaked out, went to Emilie's room and told Wesley that they needed to go home immediately. So Weasley followed Matt out, leaving a confused Emilie behind. However, Emilie no longer was confused the next day, because Alex came by the house and told Emilie what happened. Brace yourselves...When Matt heard Emilie was practicing riqqi on Weasley, he thought Emilie was possessed by the devil and she was practicing the devil's way and performing "devil tricks" on Weasley. And of course, Matt must rescue Weasley from the evil wraths of Emilie and her devil ways before it was too late. The next day, Matt rounded up all his Christian brothers (Aaron/Weasley/Alex), told them his views, and said that they must all go to Elliot Lake and pray for Emilie and ask God for his forgiveness towards Emilie, as well as try and get rid of the devil inside Emilie through prayers. And that's what they did the day after.When Emilie heard the story, she was immediately aghast and shocked that Matt could have such a ridiculous idea. Then she was worried that Aaron/Wesley/Alex actually thought like Matt, because Matt is technically their ringleader. On top of that, Emilie was going through a tough time with her boyfriend and was seriously considering breaking up with her boyfriend. With all these things, the poor girl is just overwhelmed. So Emilie decided to confront Matt about this. She went to his house and wanted to talk to him about it, but he was not very communicative. In the end, they decided to avoid each other whenever possible (because Emilie absolutely despises people who are not open-minded and think they have the absolute truth, and Matt had both of those traits).Even though Matt was dealt with, there was still Alex/Aaron/Wesley. Emilie wondered whether they are still willing to be friends with her after this. And for the next week or so, she heard nothing from them until Wesley approached her and said that he would like to talk to her. Emilie was happy about this, and that's what they did. Things seemed fine until Wesley started trying to convert her by imposing his religious views on her during their conversation. And that again made Emilie really annoyed, because she felt like Wesley was no different than Matt. The kicker - he gave Emilie a bible at the end of their conversation. On top of that, even though Wesley went back to art school (he was no longer in Blind River), Emilie started receiving emails from him which greatly hinted that he was interested in a relationship...Emilie then decided to cut him out of her life.2 down...because it was Alex that originally approached Emilie about the night, he had no problems with Emilie. Although truthfully I don't see him around the house anymore, but that could be because he is in university (who knows?). Emilie really wanted to contact Aaron, but she felt she was in no position to do that because a) she doesn't know Aaron's number and b) Aaron has a jealous girlfriend. Fortunately, Aaron came by and told Emilie that he did not believe that Emilie was "possessed by the devil" and he is absolutely cool with her. And to this day Aaron and Emilie are happily hanging out and doing karate together.

- The End -

So why exactly did I tell this story? I don't know, because I personally could not believe someone could come up with such a ridiculous idea that a person is the "devil", etc. Things like this makes me think that religions sometimes has too much effect on people. But then again, having a faith does not mean you stop thinking with your brain. And the funny thing is that even though Matt agreed to not come by the house, he actually broke that rule approximately a month later...which I think is absolutely uncool. Although I just heard that Matt apologized to Emilie for his behaviour, so...hmm...On top of that, the story is quite entertaining, wouldn't you say?(For Castlegar kids - Matt and Aaron will probably be regular fixtures of the house, and even though I said what I said here, I hope you guys don't use that as a biase against him. Get to know him and decide whether he is fine by you or not. Without hearing these stories, I personally think he is a relatively cool guy to talk to. However there was one night where I went to Tim Hortons and Matt saw me, so we chatted for about half an hour. When he left, a kid came up to me and asked if I was hanging out with Matt, and then warned me to watch out for him - "he is a bit of an idiot"...hmmm...)

An Off Night

2007-02-21T01:09:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a bit of an off night, I thought. First of all, Denis (Lorraine's grandson) came over and told us that Lorraine got a couple of seizures today and she had to stay in the hospital. It was quite unexpected for me because Lorraine always seems so alive and full of positive energy; not someone who would get random seizures. Apparently this one was rather serious, and it got her family pretty worried. Maxime cried quite a bit after hearing the news, and most of us are just in a state of solemness. For me, it reminds me of a story that a classmate told me in high school. Her dad worked in a styrofoam factory and his job is to cut giant blocks of styrofoam at anywhere from 20 feet to 50 feet tall. One day her dad went to work as per usual, and that night he never returned home again. He had an accident while working and he fell 30 something feet from above. His head landed first and it was pretty much instant death. Now I know Lorraine's case is nothing pessismistic like my classmate's tragic story, but both are similar in a sense that no one knows what tomorrow brings. Because really, who would have thought that my classmate's dad would be gone just like that, or Lorraine would have a serious seizure when she was fine the day before? Oh well, at least Lorraine will recover, but I guess it's a bit of a wakeup call for life, isn't it?

Another thing - Stephen tonight just confronted me about something. He thought that I was being abrasive in the way I talked to him (and other people too I think), but more importantly I was distancing myself from the group and not participanting or mingling with the group (although I think that line was more from Cynthia, who joined in with Stephen's confrontation, haha). Honestly, I don't know what he meant by me being abrasive, except maybe perhaps I am feeling very comfortable with him. But I agree with the distance thing, because that is something I have been doing. But that's only because I have always been independent, and my need for personal space increases as I grew up. I like doing things on my own, and I find when living in a group situation like this, personal space is especially important in order for you to claim your sanity (not that things are super insane in the group, but you know what I mean). It does suck when pretty much every little thing you do here is picked up in a snap. I guess these are things that I will sleep on tonight

CTI/Final Warning

2007-02-20T00:14:00.000-05:00

On Friday night, after I went home from "work", I was enjoying the leftover supper by myself while Cheryl/Zach/Stephen were helping with the sheperd's pie for Saturday night's dinner (Cheryl and Mike are the house managers, but because Mike is entirely undependalbe, Cheryl got Stephen and Zach to help her out instead). So anyways everyone was chatting, and somehow Mike came up into the conversation (I think it's because Zach or me were mentioning the fact that Mike should be there making the Shepherd's Pie with Cheryl). More talking, and it led to Stephen spilling a "secret" that I didn't know about - Mike got a final warning last week.

For those of you that dod not know about Katimavik punishments, there are 3 forms (if I remember correctly):
CTI - commitment to improve - it's given by PLs, and reasons can range from bad hygiene which affected everyone's well-being, to exclusive relationships or failure to commitment to activities. Mike has already gotten at least one, if not more for not cleaning his section of the room (his mess pretty much spills to Zach/Stephen/Charles's stuff). The thing with CTI is that it's actually not a huge deal to get a CTI, because once you move to another region for your next trimester, that cancels off. Although getting a couple of CTI will lead to final warning, if I am correct.
Final warning - that's given by the PC under the suggestion of PL. A final warning is, of course, a serious matter because not only is it for something serious (one kid in Sault Ste. Marie got a final warning for getting fired in his job) but it stays with you and acts as a hindrance. If someone does something wrong again after a final warning, he/she is pretty much kicked out of the program.
Being booted out - Need me to explain that?

Anyways apparently Emilie got very fed up with us bitching about him in front of him to him (weird phrasing) in our group meetings, whether with him not helping out with chores, with his rude comments, and other things. She decided to call Cara and ask her to actually give him 2 final warnings: one for lack of respect to group living, and another for his job. Apparently his work supervisor is very unsatisfied with Mike's performance (I don't blame him, because how is it possible to take one whole day to shovel a driveway?) and it's getting to a point where he may close off Mike's job placement in the hospital permanently (there are 3 in the hospital, and I am not sure whether all job placements will be closed off because of that). That's a big deal. But Cara decided to give him one final warning for lack of respect instead. She personally came from Sudbury to Blind River (a 2 hour drive) to see Mike and discuss to him about the final warning. What puzzles me about this whole situation is Mike's reaction (or his reaction to anyone criticizing him, for that matter). He just seems so nonchalant and unmoved about the situation. Throughout the week, he just acted like nothing happened to him, as if everything is "same old same old". That is why I was shocked when I heard that Mike got a final warning..."What, did you just say Mike got a final warning?" Stephen: "Oh shit"). It always amazes me that people can say things that sometimes borders on being mean, and he would not seem upset/angry/hur. This can be summarized with Stephen's thought on Mike: He is unaware/has no self-awareness. I don't know about you, but if I get a final warning I would definitely start freaking out, because I am prett much close to going hime. And that's what everyone in the
group is predicting will happen, when Mike is in Quebec (man Mike + Quebec = interesting...)

I think I have explained the story enough. Here's my thought on this. When I found out about Mike's final warning, I kind of led everyone into a debate, with me feeling sorry for him and Zach saying he deserved what he got and he is dragging down everyone's development whether individually or as a group (I agree). The reason I feel sympathetic towards Mike is simply because he can't help it. To me, Mike is like a child that doesn't know better (as least that's how he presents himself). Everyone pretty much agrees that he has some sort of mental illness that we don't know about (perhaps not even himself). And when that happens, isn't it a good enough excuse for his behaviour? To me, it's like an adult yelling at a boy for not tying his shoes properly when the boy never even learnt how to tie his shoes. As well, Mike is not a bad hearted person...he is probably the only one in the group that does not put things to his heart if someone is mean to him (Zach and Mike) and I am absolutely the type that wants underdogs to succeed. Despite everything I don't think a "nice" person like him deserves to get sent home. But on the other hand I see what Zach is saying; having Mike here is pretty much a deadweight to the group, because he is not on par with rest of the world and it's pretty unfair for the group dynamics and development. Besides, if he can't do simple tasks such as keeping his room clean or wash dishes, then is Katimavik right for him? Which leads me to a pet peeve of mine that I have developed in these 2 years: Parents should never ever send their kids to certain organizations (i.e. Katimavik, military) to get disciplined or whatever, just because the parents cannot raise their kids properly. Because it freaking backfires, like Mike's situation.

Anyways I think I am done with this topic. The only thing I want to add is that although Zach has his points in our "argument", it just scares me that he can seem so cold with the way he sees things. This came up when he said "well if Mike is gone, the room definitely will be cleaner and there will be an extra space for us to put things"...it's like he merely associate Mike as a being that takes up space rather than a person that he experienced things with. Now in his defense, I know this is not what he means, but...I don't know...yeah...(slightly confused).

I do hope Mike pulls through, despite the fact that he is driving everyone insane.

This week I am house-managing with Stephanie. So far it's pretty good. I have so many entries of blogs that I want to write, and I hope they will be done before I leave for Quebec (next wednesday!). Add oil!

My Job

2007-02-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

Wow, I didn't intend "be back later" to be 5-6 hours later, haha...my 2 projects took longer than I wanted...

But anyways before I go back for dinner, I would like to talk about my job here in Blind River. But even before that, I got news from the advisor in Capilano College saying that they may drop the Math 12 requirement for PSYC 213...yah! One catch - I think they want Math 11 with "B" average, which I don't have (yes that's how bad I am at Math). I have done pretty much everything for school, now I just need to wait...

So my job in Blind River (the lucky Castlegar kid who plans to work in my position, listen up):

I work for Blind River Chamber of Commerce, as the office assistant to Betty Ann Dunbar, the director of Chamber of Commerce/office assistant of Blind River Development Co-operation. My job is to pretty much man the travel center, which is half an hour walk from the Katima-house. Haha, don't worry, you won't be walking to and back from work. Betty Ann drives me to work 8 in the morning, and originally she drives me back home at 4 also (yes it's a 8 hour job, 8 -4) but now because Sally works here in the afternoon and she lives pretty close to the house, she drives me back home (which reminds me, I must get her to photocopy her driver's license and give it to Emilie). So pretty much you have to get to the Blind River Development Co-operation by 8 am (very easy, it's less than a 5 minute walk) to get to Betty Ann, who will drive you to work. Once you are there, then you hang out there for 8 hours. Lunch is an hour, from 12-1.

The travel center is pretty, but very quiet. You pretty much don't see people coming in, although for you guys there may be a slow increase as summer comes. And most of the people who do come in are here for the public washroom (hahahaha), and you wouldn't even see them...you just hear them. So pretty much you are at the office all by yourself, with internet/computer with speakers/phone...does that give you guys any ideas? ;););););) Although now Sally works in the afternoon from 1-4, so you do have company (whether you think it's a good thing or bad is another matter). My job consists of:
- greeting visitors (almost none)
- answering phone calls/dealing with phone messages (again almost none)
- reading/emailing/forward Chamber emails (Emails I have deleted in total: 2736. 50% consists of emails about viagara 40% about stock exchange 9% miscellaneous nothings 1% actual things)
- filing
- administrative work (using excel/word). I have written minutes, made graphs, letters, etc.
- speaking of minutes...attending monthly Chamber meetings and act as the secretary as they blabber on about the matters of the Chamber (write frantically my friend)
- relaxing after my job is done...which means msning/emailing/working on this blog/surfing the net
The workload is ridiculously light. It's not that there's nothing to do, but Betty Ann is so busy with her job as an office admin in BRDC that she can't even properly slough off work for me. The lazy part in me is like "yay free time with the computer", but the curious learning part in me is a bit disapppointed, because the job isn't really challenging. Although I believe one can make the situation better no matter where he/she is. For instance, much of the files need cleaning up, because nothing seems to be alphabetized properly and I almost never find something that Betty Ann wants within those files. The brochures can afford an update (I think there are brochures from 2005). There's a display case outside the center, and that can use some decorating (Sally brought in some cross country skis and winter decorations which she is just waiting for an opportunity to put them up). Read about the history of Blind River...one can be creative with the job.

My verdict on the job: Believe it or not, I actually like this job. I am technically a replacement for the previous office manager (who quit a month before I arrive), except at a much more junior level. As far as I know, he got paid really well (anywhere from $15 to $20 an hour) so that kind of makes me feel important. I like the freedom and independence I get here. Although there really isn't much to do most of the time I am occupied with lots of other things so time goes by for me very quickly. One thing I do regret about is the fact that I didn't give my 100% to my job...I didn't really do any of things I suggested earlier, and I could have used it to challenge myself (i.e. master excel spreadsheet). But I am not going to complain that much...it's really quite plush here, with alone time/computer/phone. Stephen and Charles came in before and they were both slightly jealous that I have such a nice set-up...Stephen said I should have bought some beer and chips and put them in the fridge, pop in a DVD, and just chill...
As well, Betty Ann and Sally are both very nice people, and I got along very well with Ed Ritchie. However while I am describing how chillaxed this job is, things are changing...because of me :P I told Betty Ann what I thought should be improved in the job, so the next person may have more work to do, and projects to follow. As well, I told Sally to ask Betty Ann if she can use my office instead (the nice set-up) instead of the computer outside (no speakers and other things) because she needs it more...sorry?

Characters in Blind River Chamber of Commerce
- Betty Ann Dunbar: Director, nice and pleasant lady in her 50s, very career oriented...like Lynette from Desperate Housewives.
- Sally Hagman: lady who got contracted to work in the Chamber. Friendly, easy to talk to...does not bug you unless she needs things printed out.
- Ed Ritchie: one of the board directors, I have a connection with him and we talked about quite a bit of stuff, ranging from his life to God and etc. Intelligent and interesting. He comes to fix the computer so if the computer breaks down on you, call him.
-Stoney Burton: Boss of Betty Ann in BRDC. Fun guy, goofy
-Tony and Brad: Two people who work in the office with Betty Ann. Your interaction with them will be slight to none.
-Janitor guy named Woody or something like that: the caretaker of the travel center. A nice enough guy, but nags me for not turning on the taps to prevent freezing ("You have to leave the tap on! If you don't the pipes will freeze and it will take a whole bunch of money to fix and if that happens, the town will shut down the Travel Center....")
-Other Board Directors: Susan Zaiser/Kelly Brandon/Janine Timmermans/Jack Richardson. You will probably see more of Jack in the future because his company (Vision North) got the bid to put his office in the travel center. Oh yes, there will be an intern too...in April I think.
-Ross MacDonald: the previous office manager. You will never meet him but there will be talks about him.

Random things:
- there's a fridge/kettle/toaster oven. Sorry to tell you but the toaster oven is broken.
- Betty Ann may or may not let you keep the key to open to travel center. If she does, don't lose the key! But let me know if you do because I made a spare
- Betty Ann likes punctuality. Impress her by showing up at work 5 minutes early (which I didn't)

It's 6:13 pm right now...time for dinner (do I hear the dinner bells ringing?)

Events of last night

2007-02-16T11:33:00.000-05:00

Hahaha, I said I would be back later...now I am back, on the next day.

Anyways today I intend to write a bunch of emails/blogs that I promised I would (and believe me, I have tooooooons to say), plus I have 2 side projects of my own (school/Chinese dinner). I am going to write this before I go ahead with my 2 side projects, so here goes.

So yesterday was my last day of work...Betty Ann drove me home and we bided each other good luck, have fun, etc. etc...it feels kind of weird that yesterday was my last day at work, as if it's not suppose to happen. But anyways enough of that. I decided to finally work on my applications to UBC/Capilano College, since I knew the deadline to apply in UBC is the end of February. This shouldn't be such a difficult task, but here's the problem: I am majoring in psychology, with a minor in both Japanese and French. To get a psychology degree, you must have a psychology statistic course in order to do 3rd year studies (PSYC 213 in Cap, PSYC 217-218 in UBC). I wanted to stay in Capilano College for my 2nd year studies, but unfortunately their 213 requires Math 12, which I don't have (my math sucks like hell, which is almost unheard of in the Chinese society). Apparently UBC does not have a requirement for their statistics courses (not positive yet, I wrote them an email), and since I plan on going to UBC for the 3rd year anyways, I may as well do it earlier. However I really, really like Cap and I feel it will train me better for university life, and I don't want to leave. As well, I am not positive that I can get into UBC (although if I got in in grade 12, and last year, I don't see why I won't get in again, my GPA right now is 3.23). Plus, I have to deal with my transcripts and stuff (which I am not exactly sure how I am going to do that...plus they may need my high school transcript, which just makes the process so much more interesting). Then I started thinking about what the courses I have to take, my schedules (how to balance school/work/training), whether I should take 4 or 5 courses, etc. etc...I think you got the idea that my head pretty much exploded. So after dinner I decided to go to the local gym to work out my frustrations - the one and only time in Blind River.

Unfortunately, that was quite an interesting trip itself. To get into the gym, you need a 3 digit password. I almost got there and realized I don't know what it is. So I had to walk back home and ask someone in the house what it is (press 2 and 4 together, then 3) in order for me to get into the gym. Went back, tried again...only it didn't work. I must have stood there in the cold (around -15C) for 10 minutes, trying to click open the thing before I gave up and went back home. I saw Zach getting ready for a run outside the house, and told him my woes...he made fun of me, but he thought the password was 5 and 3 together, then 2, so I went inside and asked again, only this time I made them describe in detail how to open the door. Believe me I felt like an imbecile when I kept playing with the door because no one in the house seemed to have a problem with it...I went back, and lo and behold it didn't work! This was the 3rd time, and with the saying "3 strikes and you are out", I gave up and walked to lake and stargazed for 45 minutes with my music...it was really nice if not cold. Then I went back home, soaked myself in a nice bubblebath in the bathroom at the attic...I could hear the Frenchies (Maxime/Cheryl/Charles) giggling in the walk-in closet next door, but I tuned them out with some Christina Aguilera, read "Freakonomics" (the book with an apple/orange at the cover) for an hour, then went to bed. Another quiet night...

However, it's very very different for a bunch of other people. Brace yourselves...

During my frustrations with school, Charles and Stephen decided to go to LCBO and buy booze. Obviously they intended to have some form of drinking party in the house (duh duh duh that's prohibited, but Emilie wasn't there) with a couple of other people, and in the midst of my frustrations they summoned me to the kitchen and asked me what they should do (as in drinking in house or somewhere else) because they don't want Mike (the sometimes brainless blabbermouth) to say anything. I don't really remember what I said, only that Emilie trusts us and I am not going to stop them if they drink in the house, because we all know that despite all this, none of us are crazy/bad. So their solution (which I didn't find out until I was in the attic bathing) was to hide in the walk-in closet and have their party there (they know I am not into drinking), while Rebecca and Stephen joined them later on. Aaron sort of went in and out of it too, when he was over with Matt and Melissa (Aaron's girlfriend). Honestly, I don't know much about what happened, but to summarize:

-Everyone pretty much knows what's going on, even Mike (though I don't know if he knew it was a drinking party), despite them hiding in the attic.
-No one really got drunk (shows you our tameness) except for Charles (personally I think it's because his tolerance for alcohol is lower, but who knows) and perhaps Cheryl, because apparently she went puking in the toilet.
-Cheryl/Maxime/Stephen went to bed earlier than Zach/Rebecca/Charles (though I must state that Zach wasn't in the drinking party, he is not a fan of drinking/breaking rules), and Zach/Rebecca/Charles apparently chatted/fooled around until 3:30 am. They first have a garlic butter fight, because they were making garlic bread. And then dip fight (we had vegetable dip for dinner as a side that night). And then whipped cream, which was Charles's idea..."oh we bought whipped cream but we don't need it". And in the end the kitchen and the dining hall was a mess, with traces of everything on walls, stove, floor...but they cleaned it up and then went to bed.

This for me brings up a bigger issue - Trust
Our PL Emilie really do have a lot of trust in us. It seems like compared to the 2 other groups (Elliot Lake/Sault Ste. Marie) we are very well behaved. Cara almost never came to our house to babysit us while Emilie gets her time off. The Sault Ste. Marie group originally had 11 people, and right now they are at 8. One girl left, while 2 other ones got kicked out because they are caught doing pot (not sure whether it was in the house or not). The Elliot group seemed fine though. But anyways our group and our PL have a rather unique relationship, which may be different from the 2 other groups...it's hard to explain right now but to sum it up, she is like a good friend. Therefore it makes sense why she has all this trust in us. My question - By us (well not really me) having that drinking party in the house and breaking a bunch of rules along the line, is it a betrayl of her trust? And is it right to do so? Well, duh, of course not, and Maxime and I discussed about this yesterday prior to the Frenchies summoning me to the kitchen. Maxime is quite attached to Emilie and she doesn't want to do anything to hurt Emilie, therefore she was iffy about drinking in the house. But there's more to that.

I think the reason Emilie trusts us a lot because she knows us. She knows our personalities and how we react/deal with things...she knows that the group overall is smart and responsible, and we would never do anything horribly stupid (or else why would Rebecca/Charles who was drunk/Zach cleaned their mess in the middle of the night?). She also knows we are young and we just want to have a good time, let things loose, etc. etc. Heck, she was young once (probably still am) and adventurous, so she can relate to the stuff we do and why we do it. In fact I was talking to Rebecca this morning about her wild night and she told me that Emilie actually knows everything...the fact that Maxime goes to bars to drink even though she is 17(Rebecca/Zach/even Cynthia went to the bar too even though they are 18, the only people who didn't go is Mike and me...ahahaha and I am 20, what the heck?), plus a bunch of other things. Apparently she talks to Aaron about these issues but she was just like "I am glad they are bonding well" However she never confronted anyone about them, and it's definitely not because she is a pushover. It goes back to what I was saying earlier...her knowing us and understanding us. Emilie is and probably will be one of the best PLs our group will have, because of these qualities. I do hope the next group coming in (holla, Castlegar) will have the same relatioship with Emilie that we have right now...and please do not take advantage of it (although we did that but we cleaned up real good and behaved).

I like how our group has all these silent understandings and agreements...we know things but we don't acknowledge it out loud...interestingly complicated/complicatedly interesting.

Hmm...time for me to work on the 2 projects...be back later. Wow wasn't that long..

Valentine's Day/Last Day at Work

2007-02-15T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hey kids

As per usual, I am at work right now. I have some stuff I want to do at work (yes actual work) before moving on to my personal things (such as this blog). But I want to quickly talk about the dinner last night before I move on to work:

St. Valentine's Day Dinner/Speed-dating: That actually got canceled. Well not the dinner because everyone had to eat (by the way it's parmesan chicken and creamy rice and veggies on the side...Charles and I were drooling at the chicken) but the speed-dating itself. I wasn't disappointed but I did want to see how it would be done. Cheryl and Charles (the two people who organized it) were just pooped and didn't want to do it anymore. Actually I thought everyone that night were pretty inactive...the house just didn't have to same energy that it usually has (although I talked about this with Zach and he disagrees). So instead of a "romantic" night of "dating", the Frenchies (minus Stephanie) went out to the bar/Tim Hortons while the English kids stayed home and did a French activity (Zach and Stephanie were in charge of that) where we learnt body parts...god I need to improve my pronounciation. So it was a rather quiet and "loveless" evening. Lucky Emilie, she left at 9:00 pm for her 72 hours...she is going to Ottawa :P

A couple of news from last night:
- Our Katima-van/coquette-mobile is broken in Sault Ste. Marie. According to Emilie (who on Tuesday went to Sault Ste. Marie for her PL meeting) the transmission is broken...it happened when she was driving towards the Sault and apparently she can't do reverse backup...eek dangerous. Now the van is in a Ford dealership in the Sault and the guy who can fix it is sick...so no one knows when we can get our van back. Poor Emilie, she had to take the greyhound to get back to Blind River.
- Because the van is broken, we can't do our planned weekend activities, which sucks quite a bit. On Saturday we wanted to go to Elliot Lake and go bowling/swimming/hiking with the Elliot Lake kids and have dinner at their place, but that's canceled (well it doesn't help that the Elliot kids have head lice, so we can't go see them anyway...apparently there's a outbreak of that in Ontario and a couple of them got head lice from work...that really sucks for them). Then on Sunday we were going to go to Paul and Baryl's for another scavenger hunt with the Elliot group, and have dinner at their place. Now none of those activities are happening, so pretty much the weekend is free, and Emilie is not back until Saturday night.
- According to Emilie, Cara McQueen (our project coordinator) is quitting. So for you Castlegar kids, that means there will be another PC coming in for you. Man you guys don't ever seem to have a steady PC...I heard your PC in Castlegar quit in the middle too.

Well as you guys can tell by the title, today is my last day at work. Betty Ann is going to Los Cabos (Mexico) tomorrow morning for a week, while Stephanie and I will be house-managers for the next week. I have decided to clean up the office (it's quite messy) as a final note to my job here. So I shall put on my special MP3 mix - Jack Johnson/John Mayer/Norah Jones/The Corrs/Christina Aguilera/Hey Ocean! and work away...

Be back later

PS. Kind of funny...Cheryl modeled a swimming cap (Maxime's) for the group yesterday, and we had a laugh over it. Maxime said that she bought it to protect herself from the Elliot kids' head lice during our rotation camp, and Rebecca made a joke and said we should all wear one plus googles and show up in camp...we all laughed except for Maxime, who said "No I am not kidding...let me know if you guys want a swimming cap so I can buy more"...is it such a big deal? Or am I just too relaxed?

Random Animosity?

2007-02-14T16:06:00.000-05:00

Is it just me? These 2 weeks I have felt some form of silent dissatisfaction from 2 people in the house. You know what I mean...they don't say mean things to you, but there's something odd about their body language towards you that make you feel uncomfortable around them...? The 2 people are:

Cynthia - oddly enough, Cynthia and I got along really really well at the beginning. Technically, I still have nothing against her despite certain qualities in her personality (will be discussed in the future) but for some strange reasons, she seems to be verbally attacking me these days. And the way she does it is very casual and off-handed, so no one seems to notice it but me (or they do but they don't think that much about it). Oddly enough, I can actually pinpoint a moment where she started doing it. It was the day before the Sault Ste. Marie excursion, and at 11:00 pm ish I went up the attic (where Cynthia/Cheryl/Maxime sleeps) to grab my sleeping bag plus other things...I didn't know she was sleeping so I turned on the light...and instantly she yelled at me (I don't blame her, I disturbed her in her sleep). But since then comments just fly out every now and then.
I don't mind when her criticism is true ("Your snoring kept me up all night") but when she seem to say things out of nowhere ("Yeah Angel sings quite a lot...it doesn't help she is off key")/("I find your view of the world to be limited") then I am just merely confused, because I don't know what her intentions are. One would think I am pissed off, but honestly I am more baffled as to what's going on and why she is behaving this way. I don't think I have pissed her off that she should start disliking me. If I must draw an analogy she is just like a mosquito that keeps flying around me...irritating but easy to deal with, nevertheless. My plan with her - I am going to wait a bit longer and see if her behaviour changes. If not I shall confront her, because who needs BS like this for another 7 months?

Second person - Stephanie. She is even harder to read because she never actually said anything mean to me (except for a couple of days ago where she and I are in the room alone and she told me I was snoring so loud last night that she almost had to wake me up, but that I could understand...man my snoring is a huge problem isn't it?) but I can feel her body language around me being different, especially compared to before. Again I really don't know what went wrong, and this one really could be my imagination...but I find my intuition for stuff like this to be pretty accurate. Again, I am going to observe the situation and if things are still weird I am going to talk to her...oh how convenient we both are house managers next week!

Really...if people have a problem with me they should just tell it to my face, rather than play mind games like this. Now why can't we all just get along?

Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T15:43:00.000-05:00

<3 So it is Valentine's Day <3 (what ugly hearts)

Honestly, this day really means nothing to me. I do the usual things that I do, and that's that. However Charles came up with this crazy idea that's similar to speed-dating...he created 2 questionnaires, one for the guys and one for the girls. Somehow the guys get to do their questionnaire first, and they have questions such as "What's your favorite color", "What's your idea of a romantic evening", "What do you find physically attractive in a girl", etc. My favorite one - "Do you have a special request within the group"....HA (Zach, being the wise-ass he is, came up with "a girl with a penis"...)

After that, the girls get to fill in their version of the questionnaire, which is pretty much the same, but instead of getting to answer straight, we had the multiple choices of the guys' responses. Because I saw the answers the three guys (Zach/Mike/Stephen...Charles is serving dinner, the rat) had, I pretty much recognized the whole quiz. So instead I circled the answers, but I wrote my actual response on the side too, which Charles and Stephen made fun of me for (Stephen: "Tom Welling from Smallville...you can't be anymore specific..."). Hey I believe in gender equality and feminism, so there.
And today there will be a romantic dinner with it...we will see how that goes.

Now if my math is correct, with 3 guys and 6 girls...that means 1 guy will have an average of 2 girls, eh? PPPPPFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT (pardon the cynic in me :P)

No-Electricity Week

2007-02-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

It is time for me to talk about the eventful "No-Electricity Week"

It all happened on the afternoon of February 5th. I came home from work and took a shower. When I was in the washroom I went to turn on the light, and as I did I saw that the light switch was taped. My thoughts were "what the hell?" but I simply peeled away the tape and turned on the light. When I came out there was Mike and Rebecca, who were working on cleaning up the old dresser someone donated from the hospital (typical Katimavik fashion). Mike saw the light on and said, "we are not allowed to use the light". I immediately gave him an odd look and ask "What do you mean I can't use the light?" Rebecca immediately said, "Oh you haven't heard? Emilie and a bunch of other people agreed that there will be no electricity in this house for one week to save energy and make us think about the people who cannot afford electricity". All good causes, but how come no one told me anything about this???? In total disbelief I replied, "Well I am not formally informed by Emilie, so until I do I will savour the last moments of electricity". And the first thing I did when I went into my room was to frantically dig for my mini flashlight, which disappeared (what a surprise).

That night as we have dinner by the candle light, Emilie did her usual dinner thanks, and then turned to Charles and said "I believe you have an announcement?" Charles immediately pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and began reading "do you know why we are not using electricity..." which we had a good laugh out of, since he sounded like a bad commercial. But anyways to summarize, we are not to use electricity for one whole week. With the exemption of the stove (god I cannot imagine us cooking without a stove), the fridge, and the washer, everything else is off limits (list include light/clothing dryer/music players/computers/anything that you need to plug into an electric outlet). Phone conversations are limited to half an hour max.

So let me summarize how it was for me:
- the dark makes me sleepy, and everyone went to bed at around 9 to 10 pm because they are tired and they have nothing to do
- writing and reading using candlelight is a bitch to the eyes. I tried writing postcards using candlelight and gave up after the five or six postcard (I had at least 20 something of them to write). Because of that I resorted to asking Sally from work (yes there's actually a new lady who works with me in the afternoon now!) to borrow her flashlight (a good solid red one that became rather popular in the house, since I couldn't find my flashlight until the end of the week) just so I can read and write at night.
- Charles wanted this "no-electricity" thing to be a group bonding thing where people would talk to each other more...and it did for certain people (see blog about me/Cheryl/Stephen in the near future), but it also made people more independent and more into their own personal space, such as Zach...which I think is actually a very good thing.
- The whole washer with no dryer was rather weird...clothes were pretty much hung everywhere and I had lots of clothes from the Sault Ste. Marie excursion plus billeting, so I decided to use my resources and networking skills from town...I resorted to asking the Sisters if I can use their laundry machine and dryer, and they were kind enough to pick me up from the house and drop me off, and they even allowed Stephen (the nice Catholic boy) to come along. The kids were slightly miffed that we did that, and while we did laundry at their house we had ice-cream and watched House (both prohibited in Katimavik, haha).
- The dark did bring out some creativity in our activities...on Tuesday/Wednesday night we had a snowball fight (with a bunch of them piling up on me like football) which ended up as a star-gazing night also. As well, they did this truth or dare thing (I was writing postcards) and a bunch of the answered questions such as "what's the funkiest thing you have sticked in your butthole" (question directed to Zach who wouldn't answer, and he instead did a dare) and dares such as running outside in their boxers (Zach again). I am sure that was fun...they should be so lucky that I wasn't really there or else all their darkest secrets would have been revealed here, muhahahaha
- According to Zach and Cheryl, some people have broken the rule and used electricity. They especially mention Maxime, who is very gung-ho about this (she questioned me when I called my mom) but according to them she actually uses the hair dryer. I of course accidently broke the rule sometimes, when I turn on the light by habit or when I listen to Rebecca's CD player (my damn MP3 is broken), although the personal music thing is a gray area in this event.

Overall, I think the intentions of "no-electricity" for a week was very good, and except for some inconvenience it caused, it was tolerable. However I don't think it should be stretched on further, as some people suggested it should (Thank god it didn't). Because in my opinion, having no electricity in our house does not solve any actual problem with the environment or whatever. If anything we should learn to be more conscious about how we use energy and learn not to waste it. But it is quite an experience...and I think Emilie likes it so much that she just might do it each trimester, haha. And it did teach me that we take things for granted. Lights, hallelujah!

Vegetarianism and no electricity...what a week...

Vegetarianism

2007-02-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

Anyways I have told you guys (friends) that the week of February 5 - 11 was an interesting one for me, because of two things - me being a vegetarian and the "no-electricity" thing happening in the house. I shall explain:Vegetarianism - This actually came about during billeting for me. One day at work I was chatting with my friend Hugo on msn (I know, how professional of me) and we were talking about vegetarianism (Hugo is a vegetarian himself). I usually find that vegetarians have a story as to why they are, so he told me his story and we began talking about the effects of food production in the world, with me telling him about what I saw in documentaries such as "Our Daily Bread" and "We Feed the World" - both excellent documentaries. Then I said vegetarianism is a very good idea and concept, and I will probably make more conscious decisions about my food in the future. However, he objected me and said if I know what I know right now, I should start right now. I then objected by saying a) I like eating meat b) I do not have the right economic resources to shop wisely, because of my lifestyle. Besides if I tell my mom that I will become a vegetarian, she would be very, very concerned (my mom is those type of people that think vegetarians are not well-fed). He kind of pointed out that I was being ignorant and hypocriticial between my ideas and actions, and the way he persuaded me made me want to prove myself. So I declared to him right then and there that I would try being a vegetarian for a week, just to have him eat his words. Hugo was very happy about that.For the week, I practiced "Pesco-vegetarianism" (someone who eats plants, dairy products, eggs, and seafood). Ever since I declared this to the house, Charles and Cheryl decided to join me - only they are actually doing it for a month. I would not be able to do that, but because of them I decided to extend it for another week. Maxime was doing it too, but she eventually dropped out (I don't exactly know when though). So far the experience is actually easier than I thought, although I had 3 occasions where I was greatly challenged due to circumstances:

1) Volunteering for the spaghetti dinner on Friday - We were all given free spaghetti meals as volunteers, but since the sauce had meat I couldn't have any. Cheryl and Charles ignored the rule and ate up. I toughed it out and had orange salmon leftovers that night (pat on shoulder)
2) Saturday morning - Free pancake breakfast. Well technically it's not free, since Lorraine paid for us. But they were serving all you can eat pancakes and SAUSAGES! SAUSAGES! I LOVE SAUSAGES! And the serving ladies were so cruel...one of them emptied a fresh batch of sausages right in front of me...damn that was harsh.
3) Sunday night dinner - Pineapple and ham. The one good thing about the whole situation is that I didn't actually have dinner with them (I was in the Travel Center using the computer with Stephen) so I missed dinner. But when I had dinner I saw the ham right at the kitchen, calling out for me...it didn't help that Mike and Maxime ate the ham and taunted me as they do it :P

Anyways one more week to go...

Actual Reference Letter

2007-02-12T14:59:00.000-05:00

Betty Ann just dropped by with more things for me to update, and she gave me the final copy of my reference letter. I haven't read it yet, so I will read it as I type it...man I am actually a bit nervous, probably because she told me she made quite a bit of changes...

February 12, 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter of reference is being provided for Angel Tang, a Katimavik participant who worked for the Blind River Chamber of Commerce from December 2006 through to February 2007 as my office assistant. It has been a rewarding experience working with Angel thse past few months.

Angel has good communication skills and presents herself well. She is keen to learn and is not afraid to provide interesting insights to the job at hand.

Angel works very well on her own. This was an important skill for the position with the Chamber as she spent most of her time at the Travel Centre on her own. Angel is organized and uses her time wisely as was evident in the work that was completed on various projects she was involved with. Angel takes instructions and suggestions well whether they be in person, email, or over the phone.

Overall, Angel was an asset for the chamber during the time we had with her. She possesses many traits that would be beneficial to any company. I would highly recommend her to any future employers.

Yours truly,

Betty Ann Dunbar
President
Blind River Chamber of Commerece

Well...that's wasn't so bad at all. However she just made me realize how bad my English grammar is...yikes...

Personality/Sex Quiz

2007-02-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

Remember during New Year's Eve party/Coffee House, I said my performance was doing a quiz on everyone? Well I thought you guys may be interested to have it on the blog...here it is:

Dream House

Read the following questions, imagining the scenes in your mind, and write down the FIRST thing that you visualize. Do not think about the questions excessively. This is a relational psychology test and the answers given to the questions have been shown to have a relevance to values and ideals that we hold in our personal lives.

1. You are walking in the woods. Who are you walking with?
2. You are walking in the woods. You see an animal. What kind of animal is it?
3. What interaction takes place between you and the animal?
4. You walk deeper into the woods. You enter a clearing and before you is your dream house. Describe its size.
5. Is your dream house surrounded by a fence?
6. You enter the house. You walk to the dining area and see the dining room table. Describe what you see on and around the table.
7. You exit the house through the back door. Lying in the grass is a cup. What material is the cup made of (ceramic, glass, paper, etc.)?
8. What do you do with the cup?
9. You walk to the edge of the property, where you find yourself standing at the edge of body of water. What type of body of water is it (creek, river, ocean, etc...)
10. How will you cross the water?

Analysis

1. The person who you are walking with is the most important person in your life.
2. The size of the animal is representative of your perception of the size of your problems.
3. The severity of the interaction you have with the animal is representative of how you deal with your problems (passive, aggressive).
4. The size of your dream home is representative of the size of your ambition to resolve your problems.
5. No fence is indicative of an open personality. People are welcome at all times. The presence of a fence is more indicative of a closed personality. You'd prefer people to not drop by unannounced.
6. If your answer did not include food, people, or flowers then you are generally unhappy.
7. The durability of the material with which the cup is made is representative of the perceived durability of your relationship with, the person from number 1. For example, Styrofoam, plastic, and paper are disposable; Styrofoam, paper, and glass (ceramics) are not durable; and metal and plastic are durable.
8. Your disposition of the cup is representative of your attitude toward the person in number 1.
9. The size of the body of water is representative of the size of your sexual desire.
10. How wet you get in crossing the water is indicative of the relative importance of your sex life.

Reference letter

2007-02-12T14:10:00.000-05:00

So anyways after the letter/lunch/photo maintenance I am back for more blogging...

Here's the reference I wrote for myself (what a strange concept):

February 12, 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

This reference letter is provided at the request by Angel Tang, a Katimavik participant who worked for me from December 2006 – February 2007 as my office assistant in Chamber of Commerce. My experience with her for these three months has been an interesting one, as I supervise her and learn about her personality and work habits.

At the beginning, Angel presented herself as a person with a good amount of work experience. She had good communication skills and was able to present herself well in the interview. As well, she seemed keen on learning and had interesting insights on her work position.

Through working with Angel, I found her to be someone who can work very well on her own. This is an important skill for her work position, for Angel was in charge of the Blind River Travel Center and she was alone most of the time there. As well, Angel is organized and efficient, as she helped me with several projects and these traits were inevitable in her work performance. Moreover, Angel handles my instructions and suggestions proficiently, despite the fact that I am not always with her in the office. This makes my role as a supervisor easier and simpler.

Overall, Angel was an asset for the Chamber during the time she was working for me. She possesses many traits that would be beneficial to other companies. I therefore would recommend her to future employments.

Yours truly,

Betty Ann Dunbar
PresidentBlind River Chamber of Commerce

I sent the letter to Betty Ann, and now I am just waiting for edits. Hopefully I achieved that fine balance between being a glowing letter for myself and not sounding too cocky, haha.

Random Stuff

2007-02-12T10:44:00.000-05:00

So...it's another day of "work"...

I am actually happy about all this freedom and free time I get at work. It really is a sweet deal, me getting to use the computer for 8 hours on almost whatever I want - emailing/msning/working on this blog. In fact if it is not for what I am doing right now, the blog would not be set up so quickly. Anyways not until today does it really hit me that I have only 4 days of work to go; my last day of work is this Thursday, since Betty Ann is going on vacation to Los Cabos (Mexico) next week, and Stephanie and I are the house managers next week. I also can't believe we are almost leaving Blind River. Two more weeks...time really does fly.

When each Katimavik participant finishes their work placement, they are supposed to get a letter of recommendation/reference from their employers. However because this is Betty Ann's first year in actually dealing with Katimavik kids directly (previously it was Ross MacDonald, who was the office manager of the Travel Center plus Betty Ann's assistant who dealt with stuff like this), she doesn't really have an idea of the Katimavik paperwork that she needs to do. Because I suspected that I will not get a letter if I don't say anything, I reminded her today about the letter plus the work portfolio that we have to work on, and I suggested that if she didn't have a letter ready for me, then I would write one and she can edit it. Hahaha, my suspicions were correct - she took my suggestion and asked me to write my own reference letter. So this is what I am going to do right now...and tomorrow morning we will talk about my work portfolio (again it's my idea).

How exactly should I write a reference letter so that I don't sound biased on my account, but still give me an excellent advantage? Moreover how strange it is to write my own reference letter to begin with...

I shall google for ideas...be back later.

First Day of Billeting - Jan 19

2007-02-08T12:24:00.001-05:00

Hey guys...

Don't you just hate it when you finish writing an email, and as you are about to send it or do something with it, you just accidentally closes it? Well, that's what happened to me and the Jan 19 email yesterday (Jan 29). Guess I will have to start over...

Jan 19

Well, as far as I can remember, not much happened in the morning time and work, so I will just jump straight into the exciting part of the day, which was for me around 4 pm and everyone pretty much was feverishly packing and preparing themselves for the billeting family, which arrives to pick us all up at 5 pm. So pretty much I only have an hour to pack for 2 weeks, but it wasn't as bad as it seems. In fact, I put all the things I needed into a medium sized suitcase, and I was pretty much done in 30 minutes...although I thought I packed too much though. After I was done, I went to the living room where people who were done hung out, and chillaxed a bit before my billeting family comes to pick me up. Pretty soon the families started arriving...first it was Maxime's family, so she was the first one to go. Before she left, she gave everyone goodbye hugs and when she got to me, she started tearing up...I absolutely could not believe it. I was like "Maxime, why are you crying? It's only 2 weeks!" And Aaron (who is actually Stephen's billeting family) comforted her by saying that because the town is so small, pretty much she will see everyone everyday...

Next it was Zach's family, and then Mike's family and my family came at the same time. It was only Sister Dianne who came to pick me up, and she is this dumpy 60 something year old lady. I said my goodbyes, and off we go to her house...Sister Dianne and Sister Trina live in this nice 3 level house which is too big for them by the travel center (where I work, in case you guys don't remember ;), which is the biggest reason why I was chosen to live with them. When we enter the house, I was greeted by Sister Trina, Dianne's older sister (equally dumpy) who was cooking in the kitchen. And a little farther I could see the cat, a fat black-and-white thing hovering in the distance. (For your interest - the cat actually has no real name. Dianne calls him whatever she wants depending on her mood - aka "fur baby" to "CAT!!" Trina calls him "Maui" majority of the time).

So anyways Dianne shows me my bedroom, which is also Trina's office. It looked strangely like a bed-and-breakfast type of room. I dropped off my things and Dianne continues giving me a tour of the house. Here's what the house consists of:
- Basement: An open area with some old furniture, a laundry machine and dryer, and lots and lots and lots of old Christmas decorations which the ladies hasn't finished packing away yet. As well, this is where the cat sleeps, so there is also a litter box and food.
- Main floor: A big living room with 3 comfortable couch-chairs (think granny chairs), a big TV, fireplace, plus lots of plants
A small/medium kitchen, fully functional
A nice dining room plus another living room
A tiny washroom
Trina's office/my room
- Top floor: A bathroom
Two big bedrooms, one for Trina and one for Dianne
An actual prayer room, complete with bible, pedestal/lecture stand, and statue of Jesus. This room made me slightly queasy and iffy about the Sisters. But then again, they are nuns, so what can I say?

After the tour, I had some time to unpack, and pretty soon dinner was ready. As we ate our meat tarts, the Sisters grilled me with questions...which is different that what I am used to because it's usually me that asks the question instead of the other way around. As well, they told me about this concert that's happening in the French Catholic high school around 7 pm, and they had bought a ticket for me to go with them. So after dinner, that's where we went.

When we got to the concert, Trina and Dianne led me to this row close by the stage where all their friends were sitting (later I found out this row was affectionately dubbed "the nuns' row") and they introduced me to their friends, whom most were senior-aged nuns. As well, Dianne introduced me as the Katimavik student that they got in for billeting...I always find it so funny that people's eyes light up when they find out that I am doing Katimavik and I am from Vancouver...and it doesn't help that Dianne presented me as if I was the newest toy in the market and she is lucky enough to have it in possession. In the concert, I saw Cynthia, who is living with another nun named Sister Bernadette...unfortunately they sat pretty far away from us so the only thing I could do was wave to her. Apparently this concert is a "nuns' event", because the performers are regular church-goers and they are there to support them. The concert that night was to raise money for the Rotary Club, which apparently is an organization that is similar to Katimavik, except it's worldwide and the person is doing it for a year (I am going to look into it when I have time). The whole performance revolves around a band which is a knock-off of the Dixie Chicks, and the performers looks eerily creepy to the Dixie Chicks, except they are much older...in fact this is probably how the Dixie Chicks will look like in 15 years time (No I am not kidding either, there's so much resemblance). Of course, they have a band that plays drums/bango/harmonica at the background, and they are all men (hahaha). For the next 3 hours, the band played mostly country music, especially songs by the Dixie Chicks. Surprisingly, the concert was really really good, even though I don't listen to country music all that much. a) The ladies can really sing and perform b) Who would think this tiny town would have talent, especially from 3 middle-aged ladies? I also really appreciate the fact that the lead singer (Louis) told many many jokes throughout the whole evening. Let's see what I can remember:

1) When God created the first man (aka Adam), God told Adam to spread the human species. Since Adam didn't know how to do that, God gave him a set of instructions - walk through the forest, swim through the river, go down the valley, climb up the mountain, find the cave, enter into the cave, find the woman, and reproduce. Again, because Adam has never done any of these things, God had to explain everything to him, step by step. Finally, Adam was ready to go, and he walks through the forest, swims through the river, goes down the valleu, climbs up the mountain, finds the cave, enters into the cave, and finds the woman. However, something happens, and he turns around and returns to God. When God saw him, he was confused and asks Adam, "why did you return?" Adam then asks God, "What's a headache?"

2) Once there were two sisters/nuns (and Louis adds, "No, they are not Sister Dianne and Sister Trina, hahaha") who were doing grocery shopping. They saw the beer was on sale, and they very much wanted to buy it and drink it up. However, they are nuns, so this makes the situation complicated. "What should we do?" asks nun #1. Nun #2 thinks about the situation, then says, "don't worry about it, let me handle the situation." So she picks up a case of beer and walks to the cash aisle, where the cashier gave her a very weird look but still rang it in. The nun laughs and says, "no no, we are not going to drink the beer, God forbid...it's for washing our hair!" As soon as she finishes saying that, nun#1 comes in and tosses a bag of pretzels next to the beer. "And don't forget our hair curlers," declares nun#1.

3) There was a man who went on a business trip, and he wondered how his home was doing. So he calls home and an obedient servant answers the phone. "How is the house? And how's my wife?" asks the man. "The house is good, sir", answers the servant, "and your wife is good too...she is sleeping with another man upstairs." The man instantly got very furious. "What?? How dare she sleeps with another man other than me...why they both must die!" So the man told the servant to go get his gun and kill both of them, and then report back to him. The obedient servant obediently did exactly what she heard. "Sir, I did what you told me," said the servant. "Good, good...what did you do with the gun?" asks the man. "I got rid of it," said the servant. "Excellent, and what did you do with the bodies?" asks the man. "I threw both of them into the swimming pool," answered the servant. "Good...wait, I have no swimming pool in my house though!" exclaims the man. Then he realized that he did something very, very terrible..."Is this 543-27...???"

So overall, I had an excellent evening, and when the concert ended and we got home, it was around 10:20 ish. Pretty much we wounded down and just watched TV for a bit (20/20: Credit card debts and frauds), while the Sisters continued to grill me with their questions and made comments about the shows. Around 11:30 I started getting sleepy, so I bided the sisters goodnight, took a shower, and went to bed.

Almost Billeting - Jan 18

2007-02-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

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...

After the "Storm" - Jan 17

2007-02-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

Jan 17

As per usual, there's not much worth talking about in the morning time or work. So I will just quickly fast-forward to after work...
(sound of tape being fast-forwarded)

After work, I came home and the first thing I did was try and finish writing all my postcards so I can send them out before the post office closes/the truck to send them out leaves. So anyways, I did that, then kind of walked around town a little bit before I returned home. Once I went home the first thing I did (other than refolding my laundry) was to brush my teeth since I didn't do that in the morning because I was so rushed to go to work and the washroom was occupied by someone else showering (yes, the joys of living with 10 other people with only one washroom, haha). So anyways things were fine and dandy until I turned on the tap...that's when I noticed the water was a very murky shade of red/orange/yellow...quite disgusting I know. I filled up a cup of it and went downstairs, and firsted asked Zach about the water, who was in the kitchen doing some kind of great surprise meal for dinner that night and even found a giant cloth to cover the doorway so no one can get in...he said, "yeah the water was like that in the kitchen earlier...but it's better now...and that's the water we are drinking tonight, haHa!" With that, he disappeared behind the curtain and continued with his surprise dinner. I then went to the living room to look for Emilie, who was jamming with Stephen. I showed her the water, and told her that when I flushed the toilet upstairs, the water is the same murky shade of color. She makes a face and then said she will go out to get water for us. As for me, I decided to run the tap a bit longer to let the water clear up a bit, and then brushed my teeth in the same water. That's when I started thinking about Vancouver, because the water there is relatively clean.

Supper rolls around, and it's really quite an affair. Zach and Maxime designed this thing where it's like we are eating in a restaurant, but there's a huge twist. Let me explain this clearly...

So we enter into the "dining hall" (which really consists of a long plain table with two beaches and chairs), which was dark and lit with candles...like a restaurant. Music was played (this celtic flute thing that Cynthia owns and she bought the CD from a museum in Calgary), and then Rebecca turned on the overhead fan and silver strings of graffiti foil started flying around the room from the fan...well more like they dropped from the fan and a huge clump of them fell into my lap...it was quite funny, and Rebecca was like "oops, it was much cooler in my mind"...

Anyways dinner finally happens, and Zach and Maxime comes along with individual menus. The menus however are not your average menus, as there are 16 items and each of them have strange names such as "baked wolf's heart" or "cucumber ice-cream". They told us that we have to order all 16 items, but 4 items will come out per course and our job is to number off what 4 items we want per course. Well because I don't know and I can't even guess what is what, plus since I am so adventurous...I decided to do 1/1/1/1/2/2/2/2/3/3/3/3/4/4/4/4, as did Emilie, who accused me of copying her :P

So after 5 to 10 minutes, our first course arrives...different people have different combinations of different things, ranging from bread/cake/spoon/toothpick to salad/knife/butter/water. This makes things very, very interesting because people may only have a knife to drink their soup, so we see creative ways of eating such was scooping the vegetables with a knife or whatever. For me, first course was such a tease, because I got knife/spoon/fork/teaspoon with no food. Zach and Maxime said everyone has 10 to 15 minutes for a course, so for me it's 15 minutes of watching people eat or trying to eat with their methods...some people speared their food with a knife, while others were rubbing their bread on the amount of margarine they were given. The way Cynthia ate her spaghetti cracked me up, because she would kind of dunk her whole head into the plate of spaghetti and slurp up the spaghetti into her mouth. Mike had a bowl of soup, plus a knife/a cup of juice/toothpick (or something like that). Unfortunately, he wasn't very creative or willing to try eating differently, despite the fact that we were urging him and giving up tips on how he should have his soup. After some "attempts", he just gave up and declared that he had enough...(shakes head)...what a waste of food.

So anyways 2nd course rolls around, but before they came with my 2nd course they took away everyone's 1st course. My 2nd course consists of salad/juice/toothpick/candy...which was cool, except the fact that I had no utensils to eat with, since all my utensils came out on 1st course!! But nothing can stop me from eating my food, so I just ate my salad with my hand, and so did Emilie.

3rd course for me was spaghetti/bread/butter/water...I secretly hid the water under my table because I knew the drinks were done for the 3rd course and I would have nothing to drink for dessert...not something I like.

4th course was carrot cake/extra icing sauce/something/something. This is when I silently pulled out my water from underneath my table and sipped some. People around me were like "where did that water came from?"...they figured that I hid the water and freaking told Zach and Maxime what happened. So they came back and fought with me for my water, with the guys around me helping them...grrrrrr...damn them. And for the rest of my dessert my mouth was filled with a heavy and sickly lingering of sweet taste...yuck. But all in all, the dinner they planned was very good and very creative...(applause)

So after supper we did dishes and house chores (well not everyone) and Aaron comes along with Matt to see Stephen...Emile got really mad that Matt came by when he wasn't supposed to (there's a good story to that which I will tell you all another time) and Aaron talked to her about it. They brought House DVDs to watch on Stephen's laptop, and that's what most of the people did for the evening activity. Me, I went to the convenience store to buy candy chocolates after realizing there were no more chocolate chips in the house (Maxime used them all up for the carrot cake) and I wanted to bake a batch of cookies for my friend who was "malnourished", haha. So anyways I did that, and for a while it was just me in the kitchen baking...and then Zach comes along because he had to make us lunch for the next day. So the two of us were in the kitchen working and casually chatting together for a while...and that's when I decided to ask him "So Zach, are you feeling better now? Is everything ok?"

He started by saying that no, Cheryl and him are not really talking right now, but he doesn't have the anger that he had yesterday...and then he just started talking about his thoughts, his behaviour, how he is with people and in the group, etc. etc. Our conversation lasted almost 3 hours, with him doing most of the talking and me listening to him...I don't really remember everything he said but here are things we talked about:
- his up and down mood swings
- his life in high school...trying to fit in and how he hates high school
- why most his friends are girls rather than guys
- his commitment and trust issues (that's when i was analyzing him)
- him having no personal space in the house (he is not the only one with this problem)
- his relationships (that's when I found out his first boyfriend cheated on him...is that why he has trouble being close to people?)
- how he gets along with certain people in our house more than others...this is where it was really interesting because we talked about a "what if" situation where if the program was to end the next day, he said he probably would lose touch with people within a month...
- Charles...he told me how he and Charles don't really talk in the house and he found out why...Charles wrote him a letter on how he feels uncomfortable around him because of his humour/sarcasm, plus he just doesn't feel like he can click with him (this is one of the ways people in the house communicate with others if they are unhappy with them). He was kind of degrading himself about it (at least that's what I felt), so I argued with him that Charles doesn't mean that, and I can back myself up on that because I actually read the letter (Charles asked me to read it and check the grammar before handing it to Zach, haha)...somehow about discussing this some more, Zach started crying...and to tell you the truth I was glad he cried because he is finally unleashing his emotions in a more helpful way rather than lashing it out negatively
- so so so so much more...i can't remember anymore

Summary: I am sooooo glad Zach and I had this talk, because a) Zach is someone who puts out this showy, happy-go-lucky personality most of the time, but would not really let people get close to him and learn about his "secrets"...pretty much his personality, plus his sarcasm is his defense mechanism to prevent people from getting to know the real him. But he was willing to tell me all these things that even his best friend doesn't really know about, which makes me really sad because he doesn't have an actual friend he can or he is willing to connect to...it must be so lonely.
b) Because he doesn't open himself to people, when it happens...it's like watching a shooting star fly across the sky...a rare event.
c) With this conversation, everything becomes crystal-clear about him...his mood swings, his "talk-behind-people" ways, etc, etc. Cheesily enough, I am going to quote Tyra Banks with her saying "There's no bitch in the world, only people with hurt souls"...Zach is the perfect example of that because beneath his sarcasm and dramatic personality, he is just an insecure person who wants acceptance and change for the better, but it is just unfortunate for him that the one thing our group focus on the most - communication - is his worst problem. So this 9 months will be very interesting and challenging for him.

- The End -....?

The "Storm" - Jan 16

2007-02-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

Jan 16

Wow, I am writing an email that happened 10 days ago...let's see if I can still remember the details...

Nothing much happened in the morning and at work, the only thing I can remember about work is spending half a day working on the minute about the meeting last night...this is where being a college student is useful because I was given a template on how it is written, and the whole thing pretty much consists of me paraphrasing the template and adding what happened last night into it. After I was done, I sent it to Betty Ann, who was very very happy about it. So it was a success.

After dinner we all went to the local community center for aerobics class; it's a mandatory activity for us under "healthy lifestyle learning", so for the next hour we did different kicks/steps/punches/etc. I personally like the classes and can think of much less pleasant methods of exercising, but many other in the group (Stephen, Stephanie, Cheryl kind of, Charles) dislikes/hates it and usually acts grouchy and non-responsive when we had to do aerobics. Well for some strange reason, that night was crowded with lots of women, so there wasn't enough step blocks/dumbbells to use. The non-responsive people and I decided to go to the back of the class to do the moves and because without a step block, the moves looked so ridiculous that I was just laughing my head off as I was doing them, which in turn made the non-responsive crew laugh and mimic the same moves. Basically, the class for me that night was just a huge goof-off, which may have made other more dedicated people at the front annoyed...but whatever, I had fun :P...especially when we had to go do stretching exercises in partners and I did a "Superman fly-off" on Stephen's back, hahahahahaha

Anyways we went back home after aerobics, and pretty much everybody did their own thing. Zach was in the kitchen making sugar cookies as an accompaniment for tomorrow's lunch, while I was in the laundry room doing my laundry. And I guess this is where everything happened. Stephen came into the laundry room and wanted to do the laundry after me, which I was fine with. Then Cheryl comes in also to do her laundry, and she wanted to go after me, which was actually what was supposed to happen, since according to the laundry schedule (yes, we set up a laundry schedule to solve problems with everyone doing the laundry at the same time) it was her turn after me. So Stephen said, "ok fine I will just do the laundry after you". In a normal circumstance that may have been fine, but in our household the laundry machine is supposed to be only used twice a day to conserve energy/time, plus to prolong the life of the laundry machine and balance the usage of water in the house. Because there are 11 people in the house and the house is very old, water is not evenly distributed around the house so there would be instances where someone is washing the dishes and another person is showering. The shower would be cold while the water going through the taps would become less...you guys get the drift. Because of this, I am a firm believer and follower of the laundry schedule, because previous to this schedule everyone would just do their laundry whenever they want, which eventually made the machine break down and no one could do their laundry for at least 3 days until it was fixed. Cheryl pointed this out to Stephen and told him that he should follow the schedule and do his laundry when he is supposed to, while Stephen was trying to reason with her in his own way. And this is when trouble really started boiling up....

(This part of the conversation is reworded from my memory, so not everything is precise.)
Zach came in from the kitchen and started saying that yes, although people should follow the schedule, they shouldn't act like they are so self-righteous with rules and stuff, because even though they are following rules here, they are not following rules in other areas. He started ranting on how certain people do not actually do the exercise when they are in aerobics, which is actually equivalent to breaking rules in being committed to mandatory activities. It was quite obvious that the comment was targeted at Cheryl, and Cheryl just left the laundry room and the kitchen. We all left the laundry room too and Zach continue on bitching to Stephen about this...I (or Stephen) asked why he didn't talk to Cheryl about this, and Zach said/shouted "Cheryl is pretty angry these days", which Stephen agreed and they continued talking while I just sat and listened, becoming more and more confused. At one point, Cheryl comes into the kitchen and Zach stopped talking and both Cheryl and Zach just seethed with anger, while Stephen just turned to Cheryl and coxed her for a walk so they can straighten things out...he said that Cheryl was being hostile to him these days and he had no idea why...finally Cheryl agreed and they both left.

When they left the kitchen, I immediately turned to Zach and asked "Ok exactly what's going on?" Zach started telling me that he and Cheryl previously got into a disagreement where he/Cheryl/Rebecca/Stephanie were supposed to share a room in the hotel during their Sault Ste. Marie 48 hours off, while Stephen/Maxime/Charles were sharing another room (originally those guys were supposed to go to Sudbury for their 48 hours, but they had a change of plans and decided to go to Sault Ste. Marie instead). I was going to Toronto, Mike wanted to hang out with Rebecca and the crew but they flat-out told him they don't want to hang out with him during their time-off, so after a bunch of shuffling he decided to go home to Woodstock instead. Cynthia was still undecided where she should go (plus she was kind of being outcasted so no one really made plans with her), so Cheryl decided to invite her to stay with them in their hotel room, and then move out and went to Maxime's room instead. This was all done without consulting Zach/Rebecca/Stephanie, so Zach was upset about that. However he said they talked about the problem before they left for the trip so things were fine...up until yesterday night, when Zach heard the Frenchies (Cheryl/Charles/Maxime) upstairs in the attic talking about people...especially him and me. This got him really ticked off, because in the meeting last night Maxime said everyone in the group should be more communicative and tell the person who upsets them about it, rather than being silent about it and hating the person inside...but in reserve they are saying things about people in French, which he thought was highly hyprocritical...I pretty much just sat there trying to absorb this information...because that's what I do when people get upset, I stay quiet.

As Zach continued to rant and bitch, Rebecca comes in and asks what's going on, and Zach told her. Rebecca started reasoning with Zach and told him that he should talk to Cheryl about his dissatisfaction, and that perhaps they weren't saying things about him or me...Zach got even more upset and insistent that they were saying things about him and he hates doing the confrontation...he doesn't see why he should be the one doing the talking. Whether he gets upset with someone or something, he puts it inside him and let it boil until he snaps, and that's when he bitches and bitches and bitches, or uses other mechanisms to deal with it (ie. talking behind people's backs). While he was making this speech, Stephanie and Mike comes in and stays...and by this point Zach was really upset, almos on the verge of crying. He said that he doesn't want to keep talking about himself right now, and he feels like he is on a display with everyone observing him like a circus act. Rebecca was like "Zach we are just trying to help...you are making me feel bad because of your attitude"...that was when I wanted to leave because it's getting to be too much for me, but funny enough he said "well I don't feel like being examined by all these people...I feel like being alone right now, now why can't people take the hint?" and that's when I stood up and left the kitchen, and went to the living room where Charles and Maxime heard the general idea of what went on, and asked me what he said. I just shook my head and didn't feel like commenting, and instead I finished my postcards.

It is so strange how when everyone lives in such close quarters, one person's unhappiness can bring down everyone around them...and that's what happened.

More tomorrow...

The Calm Before the Storm?

2007-02-08T12:17:00.000-05:00

Hey guys...

Hmm...many of you commented that the emails stopped...yes I am working on them right now, and believe me I have a lot of typing to do. But anyways I am hoping I will get all the emails done, plus create a blog and put all my emails there before billeting ends (which would be Friday, February 2nd...we will see how that goes.

I am quite hesitant on creating a blog, due to a couple of reasons which I am not going to mention here but instead in another email. However many many of you wanted me to create a blog to post up my adventures of Katimavik, and it was my friend Josh who sealed the deal with highly convincing reasons (hence why he is a poli-sci major). So I guess I will do it, since there's a supply/demand thing going on in this tiny cyber community. However the blog thing may take a while for me, because it's not the most important thing on my agenda right now. So hang on...

Jan/15

After approximately 5 to 6 hours of sleep, I woke up around 7 ish to find the house looking slightly different...the crew who went to Sault Ste. Marie brought a whole bunch of disney decoration crap...all the light switches have cover plates with pictures of Ariel the mermaid and Toy story, etc on them. The washroom has to be the funniest, since someone (probably Maxime) took the cover of a children book, and pasted it onto the wall so we have something to do while we do our business...

Hustle/Bustle, went to work after a week of house managing. Work at the travel center was same old, same old...except there was some work today because Betty Ann planned out what I need to do during my week off at the travel center. Oh yes, she also "asked" me to be her secretary for the Chamber meeting that night at 6:30 pm...which means I will be working OT. Nice...

Because I had a meeting that night, that meant I had to deal with dinner by myself. So after work consisted of unpacking my goodies from Toronto/preparing my own dinner/eating/more hustle bustle...then I left the house around 6:20 pm for the meeting. Oh yes, Zach liked the scarf and toque set, plus the sweater I got him in H & M...he said he was just joking and I was too nice to people...well whatever they went 50% off the red ticket price, so I was really happy about that. Funny enough, I don't really like shopping for myself...

While everyone else was in the warm Katimavik house laughing and joking while having dinner, I was braving out the windy cold (must have been -10C) to go to the meeting, which was held in a local restaurants called the Mustang's Grill (Rebecca and Zach made fun of me for going to the meeting because it seemed that I had other agendas other than the meeting, haha). While I do not disagree with them, I had already ate before I left so it didn't matter either way. And for the next 1.5 hour, all I did in that restaurant was taking notes to what everyone said, since I was supposed to write a report/minute on what was discussed in the meeting. After that I had to rush home, because there was another meeting happening in the house that night - the weekly group meeting. Man, all these meetings...I feel sooooooo important...

Quick change/jumped into meeting. Meeting went ok and it was shorter than our other meetings, which can go up to 3 hours because of our vocalness (if that's a word). We focused a lot on the house managing week and how it went, with me doing a lot of bitching towards myself and Mike. Then we had our usual positive/negative comments in the jar, and then the candlelight moment, which brought the meeting to a closing. Since it was almost 10 o'clock (which meant I had an hour before I need to go to bed), I worked on writing my postcards, then took a shower and went to bed at 11 pm. However, the Frenchies minus Stephanie seemed to have a lot of energy, as they were upstairs in the attic talking and talking...

Stay tuned guys..."drama" is coming...

Hey that wasn't that long eh?

The Great Hikes - Jan 6

2007-02-08T12:15:00.002-05:00

Jan/6

Hello folks. I am slowly developing this style of writing emails where I am working backwards (as in I am writing the most recent entry and then going backwards) because I am losing details of the days very quickly. If that's the case then I may as well write about the most recent happenings because the email will probably be more interesting that way, and maybe by then details of the last days will come back to me. Hopefully....so let's start.

Yesterday as per usual, I woke up early (around 7:30-8?) to the idea of either writing some emails or work on the Sault Ste. Marie excursion. I ended up doing the Sault Ste. Marie excursion, because a) it's more important than the emails at the moment and b) Rebecca actually woke up early like me to work on the Sault Ste. Marie excursion (which reminds me of a slightly funny story where I took a morning shower right after I woke up, and when I enter into the room I walked right into Rebecca because I couldn't see her but she was pretty much just standing by the door waiting for me. Because I couldn't see her yet I could feel her presence the surprise there just stunned me...and then I screamed. Rebecca was just like "SHHHHHH" and trying to cover my mouth at the same time....

....ok maybe the story isn't so funny anymore).

So where was I? Oh yes we both ended up working on the excursion, me on the trashy computer (which I don't know whether I mentioned it, but it crashed again and luckily it got fixed Friday night) and Rebecca on Stephen's laptop. It was nice, just me and her in the office area in the quiet house with our Jack Johnson music and cups of lemon and green tea (mine with lots of honey), and this happened until around 10ish, because everyone started waking up so Stephen (who was up by then) and Rebecca made pancakes for breakfast, while I showed Emilie how our plan is looking. Then we had our pancake breakfast (I ended up eating 5 pancakes plus the leftover pizza that we had for dinner the night before), cleanup/dishes, and then people did a bit of their own thing before we headed off to Paul and Baryl's place for the scavenger hunt that they planned for us on their lovely property. We left the house around 12:40 pm ish.

After almost 30 minutes of car ride, we got to their house and after a tad more of fidgeting around (going to washroom, water break), Paul and Baryl finally split us up into teams of 3 (well there is a team of 2, because there is only 11 people) for the scavenger hunt. Here are the teams:

Emilie and Zach
Stephanie/Charles/Cheryl
Cynthia/Mike/Me
Rebecca/Stephen/Maxime

So anyways Paul gave us a map of their property and trails, a list of what we are supposed to look for, and off we went. Our group were the last to leave (just because everyone rushed out of the house) and because of that, we found absolutely nothing on the list. It's kind of funny to see groups in front of us (Zach, Stephen, etc.) easily pluck off stuff from the tree and then staring at us and laughing about it, despite the fact that we are probably the group that walked the most out of everyone and still did not find one single item on the list. Even funnier was that after an hour later, Emilie spoke to us over the radio and told us to count our items and report back to her because she thinks everyone got everything on the list. Imagine how it was like when we told her "we got nothing..." But anyways after a bit of calculation, Emilie concluded that we are missing one item - a red bulb ornament, and off we went hunting for that item again. So for the next 20 minutes, Cynthia/Mike/me walked another "thousand miles" hoping to at least find that thing so we wouldn't look so stupid. But after 20 minutes, no luck happened, and the weather kept changing on us (during that single 1.5 hour it was cloudy/slight snow/cloudy/traces of sun) so I decided to radio message the rest of the crew and ask them how they are doing. Well goddamn them, they all went back to the house because they didn't find that item and were in the house drinking hot chocolate, while the 3 of us are very far away from the house (around 15 minute walk). So we decided to head back, but really it wasn't such a big deal to me (and Cynthia) because once we started heading back, the sun came out after the rain and made everything all glowy and sparkling...it was quite a sight, and we just slowly absorbed everything in (well Cynthia was more practical and took pictures along the way). Because of that we took almost 30 minutes to head back to the house, where people made fun of us :P

Anyways we chillaxed a bit, and then we decided to choose between playing Killer (this fun card game) and Scategories. We chose Scategories and for the next 45 minutes, that's what we did...and then finally Emilie asked if we want to go with Paul to saw more of his property and trails. Finally it ended up being me/Cynthia/Mike/Stephen/Cheryl/Emilie going out for more walks, while the rest stayed behind in the house.

The walk was really nice, since I saw some pretty cool things and Paul explained to us about them. Some stuff we saw:
- a clearing not far away from the house where there used to be another house but it was cleared out by a lumber company that used to occupy the area (before Paul bought the property). We can still see the cellar.
- two fur piles (apparently it was the fur of two deers which the wolves ate up and that was the stuff that was leftover)
- one hind leg of a deer, which Shadow found and was gnawing on (there was still fur and hoof on, ewwwww)
- a beaver pile (not sure of the actual name, but that's where the beavers live at)
- Old Homestead (a pile of broken down wood which used to be a rough shack from the 30s...people would live there in the Depression times because it's much cheaper to live out in the bush)
- Paul's hunting house (which was pretty much destroyed on the inside because his neighbour used his hunting shack but forgot to take out his bait...the bear smelled it and went into the house to get food, but because the bear was so big he trapped himself inside and freaked out and broke out and escaped through the roof...of course his neighbour wouldn't admit it's his fault...i would have been so pissed off).
- Paul's lake where we watched the sun setting on the lake. The whole lake froze over and Cheryl and I really wanted to walk on the lake, but Emilie wouldn't let anyone do it. Cheryl and I gave each other a look that said "once Emilie is in the house we are doing this together ;) ".

Unfortunately right after we went back to the house, Emilie decided to go home (because it was 4:45 - 5, and we needed to go back and prepare for supper), so we left with Cheryl and I disappointedly staring at the lake as we were driven away from it....

We got home/Rebecca and Stephen made dinner/everyone chillaxed/had dinner...

Dinner was kind of interesting, because previously when Rebecca and Stephen made lunch,
they also gave people house forks which not everyone brought back. Because there wasn't enough forks for everyone, Emilie decided that no one shall use a fork for dinner and use spoons instead to eat. I commented to her that it's such a military-like punishment (the whole idea that if one person messed up, everyone pays) and then I washed my hands and chose to eat with my hands that night (something that Cheryl did also and Rebecca too, although she only did it with the green beans).

Dishes/cleanup

After that I contemplated what I should do in this quiet Saturday evening (this was the first Saturday evening we had since arriving to Blind River). Either I can work on emails/replies/SSM excursion, or I could take the walk that I have always wanted to do - calculate how long it takes to walk from one end of the town to another. I opted for the second option, although I asked Cheryl (only because she was sitting next to me during dinner) if I should do that. She immediately jumped to the opportunity and offered to go with me. So with one cd player (with my special mix of MP3 cd inside), one flashlight, one map of Blind River, plus my wallet, we headed off into the darkness of Blind River...

So here's what we did. We walked out into Highway 17, turned left (West) and walked to the end of the town (where Northern Lights Motel Inn was located) and 10 minutes beyond that (there's nothing there except the river on the right side and cars/trucks zooming back and forth...pretty creepy, and I am glad Cheryl was with me there). After that we turned back and walked all the way to the Hospital, and then a bit more (5 minutes, to a green sign that says "Woodward (not sure) Dr. 1 km"). Then we turned back and headed back into town, to the hippest, most happening place of the town - Tim Hortons.

So I would say that not including the walk towards Northern Lights Motel and beyond, walking from one end of the end to other took us a little bit over an hour, which is quite short
for a town, wouldn't you say? So calculation of our walk - left at 8:30 pm ish, walked beyond Northern Lights, turned back and got back to Northern Lights (9:00 pm ish)...got to the hospital at 10:00 pm ish, walked to the green sign and turned back, and got to Tim Hortons at 10:20 ish (which meant Cheryl won the bet between us because Cheryl said it would take us around 10 minutes to get Timmys, while I doubled the time).

Because of that, I ended up buying her a XL cafe mocha (thank god for Tim Horton coupons from Christmas) and myself one also, but she bought us 20 timbits to share. So for the next 2.5 hours, we just sat down and chatted and chatted and chatted. We talked about a lot of different things, but we focused 70% of our conversation on people in our group (particularly Zach/Stephen/Maxime - I shall dedicate one email on the drama/scandal/dynamics of the Blind River crew), as well as her piercings, her thoughts and my thoughts, etc. Through this conversation, I realized that Cheryl and I have pretty similar ways of seeing things, mentality, etc, despite the fact that we both come from such different backgrounds. As well, it was so odd that in our 4 to 5 hours of being alone, we probably only spent half an hour max talking about ourselves. It is always a bit aweing (not sure if that's a word) to find someone who thinks like you, especially if your thoughts are very unique (I am constantly reminded of that, haha)

So overall Cheryl and I had an excellent night together, and we got home at 1:30 am (Timmys in Blind River is 24/7)...by then I decided to go to bed. Good night!

So things I "owe" to you guys:
- one email of drama/scandal/dynamics of the group
- one email of Blind River quirks
- something about blogs (very short)
- (maybe) photos of people and sceneries
- emails from Jan 2/3/4/5/7
- (maybe) summaries of December holidays
- email replies
- postcards

Since Mike and I (hahahahahaha) will be house managers on Monday, I should have time to deal with these matters. We shall see...

The First Day of the Year

2007-02-08T12:15:00.001-05:00

Jan/1/2007

After a good night of partying, most of us are too tired to wake up early and slept through the first half of the day. Well, everyone except for me, who woke up around 8:30 am to write my emails and possibly work more on the sault ste. marie excursion. It was really nice, having the whole house by myself, in my little island of sanity amongst the insanity around me (the house was a huge mess). By 12 ish everyone had woken up from their drunken stupor and began eating breakfast that Stephan and Rebecca had prepared (scrambled eggs with buttered toast). Well, everyone except for Mike, who came down later than others and did not have because people had cleared it out (well, specifically it was me, who was clearing out the last scrambled eggs straight from the skillet and knowing Mike, he did not have the abilty to fend for himself in the kitchen). However, I think Stephen quickly whipped something out for him, so all was well (or was it?)

Since Stephen and Rebecca cannot clean the whole house by themselves (to do that would take them the whole day, and longer since everyone is in the house), each of us were assigned different tasks within the house. My job was to clean the living room area and the office area, and it took me a while (since the task include removing props such as the 1000 ton brick that Aaron attempted to "break"). After everyone was done, we had lunch/dishes/cleanup, then we did our autobiographies (one of the essential activities that we have to do in Katimavik, and I already did my during the Christmas holidays) to the group (specifically Stephanie/Emilie/Charles/Cheryl) in either the dining area or the living room, depending whether you want to speak in English or French. To explain that, the second languages committee (Zach and Stephanie) created French zones, areas where we can only speak French for that whole day, and each day the area changes to somewhere else. That day was in the living room, so Cheryl and Emilie chose to do theirs in the dining area whereas Charles and Stephanie did theirs in the living room. Overall everyone had interesting things to say, but I really wish I could fully understand what Stephanie and Charles said in the living room...sigh

After that it was pretty much free time until dinner, and after dinner Zach and Mike did their autobiographies in the living room. Zach did his autobiography in French (previously Cheryl helped him to write in French) which was pretty cool because he only had grade 9 French at the most. Mike...well he did his in English, and he really didn't have much to say so for the next 15 minutes we played the role of Mike and kept nailing him with questions. Once we are done with the autobiographies, we had the rest of the night to ourselves. Not much really happened, some people went out for a walk, while others tried to play Scrabble in French (after an hour pretty much everyone gave up). While this was happening, I was using Stephen's laptop to continue working on the email. The night ended with Rebecca/Cheryl/Zach doing portraits of each other, than myself on the laptop. These "beautiful" pieces of "art" are now hung on the wall by the door, so when people come into the house they can see 3 versions of me in full glory ;)

I went to bed at 11 pm ish, because work starts next morning.

New Year - A New Beginning?

2007-02-08T12:13:00.001-05:00

Hello hello

It's now 10:19 am, January 1st, 2007...and I am using Stephen's laptop (because the house computer is a piece of trash and cuts out words in emails) to write this email to you guys. The house is really quiet, and even though I am not the only one up in the house (Rebecca and Cynthia are in the living room, but they both fell asleep on the couches after they came downstairs), I feel like I am the only one in the house which is really really nice since there is constantly people everywhere in this house. I chose to wake up a tad earlier that others to write this email to you, so enjoy :)

Dec/31/2006

Yesterday was technically a big day, because it's the last day of the year but we have big plans later that evening. Originally I wanted to wake up early (like around 6-7?) to finish up the emails that I promised myself to do, but instead I woke up around 9 something and remembered that I still need to work on my talent for the talent show (which happens after dinner with everyone plus guests/emilie's friends)...and since you all know I am merely an ordinary folk with no talents, I decided to do something that I was interested in but people won't be bored with while I am doing it...a psychology test. Pretty easy, I found a test online and copied it down, then translated it in French since I want the French folks to understand it. That took me around 3 hours because I had to manually copy everything down and translate it to French the old fashion way, plus I was in and out quite a bit. Zach woke up a bit later than I did and after a bit of figeting, he made everyone French toast for breakfast (not because he is a kind person, but because he is the house manager for that week). Anyways after I finally finish my "talent", I had the rest of Zach's French toasts (by then most of the people had woken up and trailed into the kitchen so much of his toasts are cleared out) with strawberry jam...pretty good I must say but the whole wheat toasts takes a bit to enjoy, I guess

I helped Rebecca do the dishes (specifically I dried the dishes), and taught Stephen and Charles how to play Chip's Challenge (a game I highly enjoyed when I was in elementary school and still do, so I downloaded it into Stephen's laptop without his permission, but he didn't yell at me...a good man he is =)...god they learn the game so quickly, it must in the male genes to play video/computer games. Afterwards I wanted to write emails, but people kept using the internet so instead I read a bit, and then Zach and Stephanie (the house managers that week) made us lunch...pasta salad. I personally don't know why they bother, because everyone had breakfast already. But yeah, I had some...and more dishes and cleaning.

During lunch I told the crew that there will be a meeting on the excursion to Sault Ste. Marie that I was planning, so that's what happened. The meeting took around an hour, and we all hung out in the living room and I explained to them what's going to happen with the trip, and everyone was delegated something to do for the trip, be it phoning people or planning something else. We have a really tight deadline to meet (January 5th) but I really hope everything will fall into the right places...apparently if this goes through, we would be the first group ever in ontario to go on an excursion during the first trimester, so that's pretty cool. Afterwards I did some clean up with the excursion plan, printed out some stuff for people to look at while they plan, and chillaxed a bit. By that time it was around 4 o'clock and rebecca started the food for the talent show/party later while zach and stephanie worked on dinner (homemade burritos). Rebecca forgot to buy the condensed milk for her dessert dip so I volunteered to go to Valumart to buy it for her...the whole trip took around half an hour, and during the trip I saw Emilie 3 times in different locations in town...it's ridiculous.

So that's that, and after I came home I relaxed a bit...read a bit, chatted with Emilie's friends Matt and Aaron (they dropped by and performed during the talent show), and before you know it dinner was ready. Aaron and Matt stayed over for dinner. but unfortunately Aaron did not like the burrito
dinner and it was really funny watching him trying to scarf down his food. Finally he gave up after eating 2/3 of the burrito and decided to throw it into the garbage…what a waste.

After dishes and cleanup, everyone rearranged the furniture and made a makeshift stage for the talent show (actually known as “coffee house”, because that’s what Emilie called it), and the coffee house started around 6:30 pm. Initially we were supposed to wait for this girl called Kelly (who did Katimavik last year in Blind River) and her boyfriend Alex (who she met here while doing Katimavik) to come, since Kelly was going to do a mini-workshop and tell us about her experiences in Katimavik…however they were 15 minutes late and Matt told Emilie that he has a tendency to be late…very late. So Emilie just went ahead and started the talent show/coffee house

Here are the performances:

Stephanie/Cheryl/Rebecca – they did a magic performance (which was really Rebecca’s idea, but Cheryl and Stephanie jumped in to help) where they did 3 or 4 magic performances. I did not fully comprehend how these tricks were performed but it was kind of cool. I really like their entrance to the show where they were doing this funky dance while covering themselves in tablecloth and finally unveiling themselves and saying their name at the same time…it’s pretty cute

As soon as Stephanie/Cheryl/Rebecca finished their performance, Alex and Kelly came in and Kelly talked a bit around her Katimavik experiences…there were some interesting stories but she ended up talking much much more about juicy things when I started asking her questions (yes lots of questions, you know me). Apparently in her group there were 4 people who ended up with dating (2 couples) throughout the 9 months. One couple started dating in the first trimester while the other began dating in the second trimester. She said that often these occur during the 48/72 hours (see end of email for details) and after the 48/72 hours, people would find out. Kelly said that conflicts occur within their group because of these exclusive relationships, but oddly enough both couples are still dating according to her – one pair may even be getting married in the future. I probably told you guys that exclusive relationships are not allowed in any group, but apparently all project leaders knew about the relationships and did not do anything about them, which I thought was unfair because it was affecting the group dynamics. This situation just reminds me of BMQ and all the scandalous relationships there, but honestly I really believe no one in our group will end up hooking up with each other, because that would be really really weird, like dating your own brother or sister.

Anyways after Kelly finished her presentation, we continued on with the coffee house, this time with her boyfriend Alex. Alex did a magic trick too, but it’s a stupid funny one. What he did: he got a volunteer (Maxime) to sit on a chair, then he ripped a sheet of toilet paper and rolled it into a ball. He showed it to Maxime and told Maxime that he can make it disappear. The way he made it disappear – when Maxime wasn’t looking, he tossed the tissue ball to the back, and showed Maxime that he doesn’t have it, but he can make a bigger tissue ball and make it disappear again. This happened for 3 tries until Maxime finally stood up and looked around her, where she found 3 balls of tissue rolled up 5 feet away from her. It’s pretty funny, everyone was laughing.

Next was Aaron, and he had us thinking that he was going to split a giant brick in half because a) he knows martial arts b) he got out a giant break and acted like he was going to break it in half with his two forefingers. But instead he did something so incredibly stupid that it’s super funny, especially because of the way he led us to believe that he was going to break the brick in half with his forefingers. Instead of doing that, he pretended his forefingers were fighting each other on the brick…his left hand beat out his right hand, and yeah…hmm…

Emilie and Stephen did a jam session, and performed a song which they wrote about the Katimavik group and everyone there. It was pretty cool the way the song was done, because it was quite random and not at the same time (at one point Emilie sang about Rebecca in Spanish)…I like what she said about me (miam, miam, miam...6.5, 6.75, 7.5 out of 10, it’s Angel with her food, her food, her foooooood….) and especially what she sang about Mike (who what when where how can it be Mike? Can it be Mike?). I will see if it’s possible for me to get the song and show you guys to lyrics, because it’s kind of cool.

Maxime and Zach performed a song from Moulin Rouge (the one where Ewan McGregor convinced Nicole Kidman to be his lover) and they dressed up for their roles. Things were going well until our shitty CD player started skipping and they had to stop…but Zach instead on performing so they ended up doing it a capella…it’s a good thing they both can sing and perform…

Matt (oddly enough, he used to be in army rank force until he left after SQ) did some tunes on the guitar, and when he did “Dust in the Wind”, both Alex and Aaron did screechy female background vocals. It was fun, but Matt really needs more practice.

Emilie and Maxime did a French rap song, and not only did they dressed up for it, they also made shadow puppets and had a storyline which goes with the song…seeing Emilie as a hippie to a gangsta-rapper was quite funny.

With Maxime’s help, Charles pretended to be a talking potato who told jokes. Unfortunately most of them are in French so I could not fully comprehend, but what he does physically kind was funny enough already.

Finally, it was my turn. I did the psychology test to everyone in the show, and I guess everything went ok. There were some very interesting answers (Zach’s answer #1 – Mike, #2 Elephant, #3 Ride on it….Cynthia’s answer for the body of water and what she does with the water – she was walking and she wasn’t even looking for water…she never came across any water but decided to head back to find water…she found a creek, but did not cross over it because she sees no point in crossing the creek). Anyways I am probably confusing you with these response, so I am going to send you the quiz...so you guys can do it and have fun with it.

Cynthia read one of her diary entries which was not exactly her diary entry, but more like visual essay…it was pretty good, and very fitting for Katimavik.

Wes (another guest who came in later the evening) is going to art school and he chose to do a quick portrait for his talent. We all choose Emilie to do that and he used 10 minutes to do a portrait of her using entirely of scribbles. The results were really good, and I kind of wished it was a portrait of me so it becomes my Blind River souvenir.

Rebecca and Mike did a dance to “Save a horse, Ride a cowboy” and dressed as a cowboy and cowgirl. Mike was awkward but it was kind of okay…actually better than people had thought he would do. Rebecca reminded me of Mary Kate and Ashley when they were little and did the film “How the West Was Fun”, she was so cute, haha…and when I told her she gave me a dirty look and smacked me on my back.

The coffee house ended with Cheryl and Stephanie sending us to do a scavenger hunt around the house. We figured everything out after 10 minutes, but by then people were getting tired and only Zach and Cynthia really tried to do scavenger hunt. Afterwards it was around 11:15, so everyone pretty much chillaxed and danced…some people left and at 11:50 Emilie told us to bring our blowers and fake wine, and go into the Katima-van/coquette mobile…Matt and Wes were in another car, and we followed them. We drove to a forest just a little bit off the hospital, and then Emilie told us to get off and follow her. Walking in the dark with our shoes covered in muck (I was wearing runners, it was a bad idea), we talked to the shore of the lake and we celebrated the new year by lighting up fireworks which Emilie gave each of us (it was a surprise, since technically we were not allowed them in Katimavik)…unfortunately it was raining outside, so not all of the fireworks worked but nevertheless it was still very cool. Finally, we headed back home and enjoyed more snacks and the fake wine we bought.

After a couple of games of Spoon plus the group’s analyzation of my love life, I went to bed around 2:30 ish. Honestly, this was one of the best New Year’s celebrations that I ever had, very satisfied about it.

What else can I say? Happy New Year? Yes Happy New Year everyone…unfortunately I did not finish my emails, so I guess we shall start from scratch ;)

48/72 hours – it’s a block of free time that we can use to do anything. It’s equivalent to getting time off at work and for you military folks it’s like time-off/weekend, when we get leave. For the first trimester, the group decided to go on January 13/14…with various people going different places. I am thinking of going to Toronto, just because I really need to buy groceries there…did I mention I am going to cook a Chinese New Year Dinner for my group during the Chinese New Year? Yeah I have to do shopping for that….should be fun…and I can finally eat out and have Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese/etc. food! Yay

Epiphany

2007-02-08T12:11:00.000-05:00

Wow...

It's hard ot describe the emotions I am feeling at this moment. It was very, very intense, but everything kind of settled down and I am glad I have this moment to myself, just writing everything down. I don't want this to be something I have to recall, rather I want to capture it right now, before it escapes from my memory. Because what just happened was one of those moments that flies by like shooting stars - full of magic at the moment, but once it's gone, that's it. And then you wish you had paid more attention to it.

I guess what I should talk about is what just happened to cause all my emotions like this. 2 to 3 hours ago we had our group meeting. Pretty much group meetings are used for living improvements, such as what will happen within the next week or two (in this case it would be parties and all that fun jazz), as well as this thing suggested by Emilie where we put one positive and negative comment into a jar, and then Emilie would open the jar after weekly issues were discussed and read the comments, and we would talk about them some more. I am not going to lie, but many of the negative comments are about Mike, ranging from his hygiene of himself and his room (very funny, all his roommates complained about their room in their negative comments - and now Emilie gave him a "Commitment To Improve", which is kind of like a Katimavik punishment) to his behaviour around people. But my emotions were not caused by that, though. It was caused by another invention created by Emilie - a candlelight moment. Pretty much what happens with that is after all the issues are addressed, Emilie passes each of us a tealight candle, and then she would turn off all the lights and give us a couple of minutes to think about what we want to discuss during the candle lighting moment. When we are ready, one of us would light up the candle in our hand, say whatever we want to say, and then lend our candle to the person next to us to let them use the flame off the candle, and the circle continues. This is the event that I really want to talk about right now, because this is where the magic came in tonight. Usually when people hear about these candlelight moments I imagine (or at least I would think like that) that it is these cheesy/awkward moments used for "bonding" but really people are just putting up with expectations and nothing real actually happens. But I guess it's because we are all living together under the same roof that there really is nowhere to hide, so we all just come out with what we are feeling at the moment. And this is when the truth comes out.

Tonight, after we are done with all the house issues and positive/negative comments, Emilie gets us to turn off all the lights in the meeting area and passes off the tealight candles to everyone. In the darkness, everyone thought about waht they want to say, and then Emilie asked who was ready. I offered to go because Cheryl and I had a conversation last night, and she suggested that I should tell everyone what I was discussing with her. So she passes the lighter to me, and here's the funny part - I almost burnt my thumb because I couldn't control the lighter properly, and everyone laughed at me when I shrieked from the heat. So the circle of candlelight moment went like this:

Me: I talked about being thankful for being here for Christmas, because I do not celebrate Christmas in real life and there is no Christmas tree/turkey/all the Christmas jazz happening. So yeah, this is a cultural experience for me and I am excited about it.

Cynthia: She also talks a bit about Christmas, but more about missing her family but learning to enjou her experience with the crew...plus something about reaching a period of time where we are over missing our family and now it is just about being together for Christmas

Rebecca: Christmas is a very special for her because it symbolizes unity/family/etc, which is very important for her but now she is away from these things, so for her this year will be hard. But she cannot imagine not being here and be with us of Christmas, so it should be unique for her.

Emilie: She told all of us that she and Pierre (her 40 soemthing year old boyfriend) had just broken up and she is going through a very rough time, which is affecting her mood and good work performance - thus she hides in her room all the time. But she will learn to deal with it live on.

Mike: He had a really good time at the semi-formal in the high school, since he never went to his.

Maxime: (Everything was in French, which Emilie had to translate to us) Apparently she talked to her mother, who reported to her news about her grandfather in Europe, who is very sick at the moment and his conditions are unstable, always going up and down. This up and down thing is torturing her, and she wishes it would stop. As she was telling us this, she kepting crying (because she feels sad about the situation) and laughing (because she feels embarrassed about her behaviour).

Stephen: He claims that he doesn't know know what to say in situations like this, but he blurted out lots of stuff, though. He first thanked Charles for putting up with his inorganization (Charles and Stephen were house managers that week) in grocery shopping...he talked a bit about me and thanked me for getting used to his style of humor. Finally, he said some stuff which pretty much sums up to loving the whole group and willing to do anything for them.

Stephanie: Similar to Cynthia and Rebecca, Christmas is very special for her and it will be hard being away from home for Christmas.

Charles: (In French, so I don't fully understand) What he said sounds something like being excited for Christmas, even though he is away from home, which is hard for him.

Cheryl: She talked about being impatient by nature, which was something she tried to hide in Katimavik and therefore it doesn't always show through. But she was tested by different events which causes her to snap at certain times. She ended up apologizing to Mike about her impatience to his behaviour.

Zach (and this is where all my emotions started welling up inside me): He started saying that what he is going to talk about has nothing to do with Christmas, but he had to get it off his chest. He told us that there had been commentsd flying around him about being gay, such as "this is fucking gay" or other things like that. He feels very offended about them because he would never use any of us as a punchline, so why should he be used as a punchline? Then he comes out admitting/declaring that he is gay, and that it was not a choice of his to wake up one day and decides to like boys instead girls (this is where it really got me). He still feels vulnerable towards it, so comments like this are hurtful to him. After he was done, he got choked up a bit about it, admitted that it's hard for him to confess this, and cried a little bit.

After he finishes his speech, there was a great silence settling down amongst us, and I think this is when the magic began. Emilie looks at Zach and says, "Thank you Zach...thank you." The silence continues, and finally each of us, one by one, blow off our candles and bask in the darkness silently.

Slowly, people started getting up - Zach walked away to the kitchen, while Emilie and Maxime embraced each other, with Maxime crying into Emilie's shoulders (I imagine Emilie to be crying a bit, too). It is quite touching to see 2 people who "lost" something personal to them to bond together through their pain. A good majority of the people stayed where they were, just enjoying the magic of emotion sharing and just being (at least I was). Finally, Rebecca and Cheryl got up and went to the kitchen (probably to give Zach support), and that's when people started leaving to get on with their businesses. I finished my leftover dinner and then I decided to capture this moment, as I was engulfed with a great mixture of emotions.

I have been writing for 2 hours now, and everything is back to normal. Maxime is being herself, doing her thing, while Zach and Emilie went back to their laughing, bubbly selves, joking around with people. However we all know that the candlelight moment changed the dynamics of the group, probably for the better. Because now we are able to see people's vulnerabilities, and it tells us that it's safe to show our vulnerabilities too, with safe and perhaps even rewarding consequences. Because what happened tonight...not only did we know people better, but...I don't even know how to describe it, but perhaps you guys know what I mean.

While I write this, I was pondering whether I should a) tell you guys about it b) put what I wrote in the Katimavik journal. I have doubts about this because this has to do with people's personal affairs, and I am sure no one want their preferences announced to the public. But I think I will because what happened tonight teaches us about so much things...tolerance...acceptance...openness...bonding...and perhaps if I tell this story to you guys, you may be able to get a sense of how I felt tonight (although that's highly unlikely because what I felt was very complex), and perhaps just be a bit touched/open about things in life.

As for the Katimavik journal, the reason I am doing it is because as I started writing, I realized this was the epiphany to the group, as well as a changing point. We need to remember about tonight and its magic which captured us, or else we would forget what happened. Since I know people would read this, I may as well address this to Zach and Maxime:

Maxime - Thank you for telling us what was bothering you. You always had a demeanor of toughness around you, as if you should suck up all the bad things and just learn to deal with if. But what you did tonight not only helped you, it helped us too

Zach - Man, I am very happy you did what you did - it showed a lot of guts that I don't think I have. To be honest, I had a suspicion that you were gay, but it was not by instinct/analyzation. I knew you would come out eventually, but just not so soon and not like this. I admire the fact that you did not point out who made these comments, although some of us could guess who it is. So continue on being you, Zach...you are a better person than you think.

I am working on emails (trying to at least)...stay tuned...

Christmas Presents

2007-02-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

My Christmas Loots this year...

Pretty bountiful, I must say, since I am now with a bunch of generous white people instead of stingy Chinese people (joking, joking...) Here is the breakdown, as I slowly take each gift out from my shopping bag with a picture of an angel on there (how clever of Cheryl, haha):

1 Christmas stocking, with stocking stuffers inside:
- a can of cashews (unfortunately I am not a fan of nuts)
- a tiny wire candle holder, decorated with purple flowers with a purple candle inside
- 5 lavender scent cards (the ones people hang on their cars)...maybe I will put some in Mike's room so it doesn't smell like his socks
- an Avon compact, which opens up to be a mirror, pen, and notepad (refills of notepad and pen included)
- 2 pink face towels
- a tiny pen and calculator set
- 1 giant candy cane
- 1 fruit and nut bar
- various yucky candies (I am not a fan of candy)
- 10 dollars worth of Tim Horton coupons
- another candy cane, this time red and white with a pretty snowman gummy inside a tiny stocking attached to it

Cheryl - Secret Santa
- an assortment of tea leaves in pretty packages

Betty Ann
- a Christmas mug (what a typical Christmas present for people you don't know well, haha)

Paul and Baryl (I found out the correct spelling, haha)
- a pen
- a headband
- a set of green knitted gloves

Don't know from who, maybe Emilie?
- more Tim Horton's coupons

It's pretty obvious which present I prefer, eh? ;)

Hopefully you guys had a really good Christmas, along with awesome gifts

New Year

2007-02-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

So guys...

The end of the year is quickly coming to an end, and it's time for me to think about this year and set some goals for next year....

Before the year ends (which is only 2 days away), I must be caught up with my emails. That probably means my emails are going to be summaries instead for my past days, because I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo behind with my emailing. And if worst comes to worst, I will just omit all my previous events and start from scratch ;)

3 goals for 2007:
1) Do not use msn on the Katimavik house computer. Emilie has been doing the "i see it but i don't see it" thing about it, but I should challenge myself on that. As well, I shall limit my use on that computer for 30 minutes or less per usage.

2) Master Japanese 101 so once I return to Vancouver, I can take the challenge exam and jump straight to Japanese 200, therefore saving time and money.

3) Do and finish navy training package on my own.

The year awaits...

Party Hardy - Dec 13

2007-02-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

Dec 13

After a good sleep the night before, I woke up at around 8 am and had breakfast...slowly people started drifting into the kitchen for food, since there was a workshop on sex education at 9 am. As per usual, because I am such a slowpoke, I couldn't finish my breakfast despite the fact that I was the first to wake up and had to bring my breakfast to the sex ed workshop...which was happening in our living room. It had to be the first time ever that I got a sex ed with everyone (myself included) in our PJs on a Saturday morning, but it was good in an odd kind of way.

Anyways the person who did the workshop was a biology teacher in Eckat High, and I really like the way the workshop was done, because the angle they are taking with sex ed and the information they have are different from the ones in high school...remember the good old days of sticking a condom on a piece of wood, hehehe? But most of all the sex ed workshop does not promote sex unlike the ones in high school, hahaha...2.5 hours of interesting information.

So after the sex-ed, technically it was free time...but Maxime came up with the idea of doing aerobics in the house, to fill up the "exercise time" we didn't commit to on Tuesday because of interviews (more on exercise times and other fun things in the near future). So she starts bugging everyone to get up and do it, which everyone was kind of like "argh..." but we got up and obeyed her because she was very enthusiastic about it and well, she is Maxime...but she got to Cynthia and she was kind of massaging (or digging in, depending who was talking) her shoulder and bugging her to get up and start exercising, Cynthia completely snapped on Maxime and shook her away. All of us were just like "Ok..." and Maxime was in shock because she didn't expect this explosion of negative reaction. The bottom line was that Cynthia was NOT HAPPY doing aerobics, and she wasn't going to do it...or so she thought. Because Emilie thought it was a good idea and pretty much everyone was up and running by that point, it actually became an official activity and that means Cynthia has to participate (but it doesn't mean Cynthia has to be enthusiastic about it, which she wasn't throughout the aerobics). Anyways we pushed away the furniture out to have a clear area for exercising (which is still not that big, with 11 people in there) and we started doing aerobics with Maxime leading them (she is a swimming instructors and super-fit). It was fun, because we weren't doing things hardcore (although Maxime keeps making people jump up and down) and the music got us going. However, the downside was the space, because some of the stuff that Maxime had us doing was very awkward without the extra space (such up doggy-style leg-ups), but they did create humorous situations. So we exercised (more like danced) for an hour, and then some of the crew went outside to roll into the snow just for the heck of it (of course I wasn't one of them) while the rest of us rearranged the furniture. And finally, we ended the whole thing with 4 rounds of limbo:
King of Limbo - Charles (Zach may be able to beat him, but he went into the showers instead)
Queen/Princesses of Limbo - (Emilie, Maxime, Rebecca, Me - but only because I am short)

So afterwards it's lunch, which on a Saturday pretty much means fend for yourself. I just eat the leftovers of whatever, and looked for cheesecake recipes (I promised Cynthia that I would make her a cherry cheesecake for her birthday, which was this day). Since it was free time until 5:00, I decided to a) go to the hospital b) buy groceries for Cynthia's cheesecake c) make Cynthia's cheesecake.

Before I go on, most of you are probably wondering why I am going to the hospital...so here it is. The weekend before I left Vancouver for Katimavik, I developed a strange thing where the left side of my face was kind of paralyzed. My left eye couldn't shut as tight as my right eye, and I could not fully mobilize my left cheek to form a smile. As a result, whenever I smile or laugh I would look like I have a sneer on my face or some poor child with Down Syndrome when I laugh...not a good way to make a first impression eh? Before I left Vancouver, I went to a walk-in clinic and the doctor told me that I got a virus on one of my nerves that control my face, and hence I cannot move it. Because it's a virus, medication wouldn't really take effect so there's nothing I can do. However he said it should be gone in a week or 2 and if not I should go seek medical help. Well it's been 2 weeks now and there are no signs of improvement...and because all the doctors are in the one and only hospital in Blind River, I have to walk there (45 minutes from the Katimavik house) for treatment of any kind...so pretty much if you are sick, you walk to the hospital.

After a bunch of messing around at the Katimavik home, I left at almost 2 and walked along the Causley Street/Highway 17 westward to the hospital. So I got there around 2:30 ish? and there are several things I have to do before I get to see a doctor:
1) Rub hand sanitizer on my hands
2) See the receptionist
3) Tell her I am in the Katimavik program and I am from outside of Ontario...which means I have to do a bunch of paperwork
4) Do a bunch of paperwork
5) Create a hospital card for me (amount of Blind River cards to date - 2)
6) That's it
This whole thing took around 30 minutes to do, so by the time I got to see the doctor it was almost 3. I was sent to the actual clinic where there is this nurse who asked me about my symptoms and stuff, to which I explained what happened to me to her. After I finished, she (and the receptionist/nurse outside) both agreed that my previous doctor was right that I got Bell's Palsy. So I asked, "well is there any medication I can take or things I can do?" and then they started giving me all these tips and remedies on what to do (the reception/nurse said that her husband had it before and he used heat and massage to get better). So I thought that's it, but then the nurse said, "well, the actual doctor won't be ready to see you quite yet...but he will be with you in an hour." An hour? It already took me 45 minutes to walk here, and I still have to wait an hour? (Times when I wish I was in Vancouver)

But I guess this is Blind River, so an hour I will have to wait. So I told the nurse I will come back later, and then started heading back...no not back home, but to ValueMart (20 minutes) for Cynthia's cheesecake. It is so odd how the town is so small that you keep seeing the same people everywhere. On the way to ValueMart and at ValueMart I saw Emilie's friends (Matt and Alex), and some other people...I can't remember anymore. Anyways I bought what I need (came out about $25?) and started heading back. Just when I almost got back to the hospital I saw a black car on the highway heading towards me...with Emilie inside. I was thinking why Emilie is in a black car with a bunch of people in there when Emilie told the driver to stop and drop her off here, and then walked to me. Turns out she was all over town trying to look for me to see whether I am done with the doctor, because at 5 we have to leave the house to go volunteering in a dinner party held by a bunch of business people. So I explained to her my situation, and she said, "well just take whatever amount of time you need, and just go to the community centre (5 minute walk from the house) after you are done." With that, she grabbed my groceries and walked home.
What's the point of this story? It goes to show you how small the town is. She didn't have to try very hard to look for me.

Let's continue on with my adventures. So I walked back to the hospital and went to the doctor...again I waited in the clinic for another 10 minutes before a man shows up and claims he is the doctor (I don't know because he wasn't dressed like a doctor or carried the tools of a doctor). Pretty much it was the same as what the nurse did...he asked about my symptoms, and then told me to do some things with my face (smile, close my eyes, grimace, etc.) After a couple of minutes of that he pretty much just said..
"Well, looks like the doctor in Vancouver is right. You have Bell's Palsy. The good news is that you don't have complete Bell's Palsy, because you can still kind of smile and close your left eye, even though it's not tight. But because you came in much later than you should there's nothing I can do now. If you had come to me 2 to 3 days after you had it then maybe I can give you some steroids which may help you...or not...but now there's nothing I can do because you are too late. I don't know how long it will take you to recover, it can be anywhere between 2 weeks/1 month/3 months/half a year/year...or you may never recover. Jean Chretien had this disease and he never recovered. It may happen to you too."

Wow, the doctor really have a way to put words delicately. So I said, "wow you are scaring me here..."
All he did after that was giving me a pat on the shoulder, said, "try facial exercises", and left the room for me to deal with the news. And when I left the room, the receptionist nurse yelled again, "remember, heat and massages! Heat and massages..."

So...there is a possibilty that I won't recover...and I may look like the female version of Jean Chretien...how should I deal with this?

Well when I left the hospital, it was almost 5...and the sun was slowing setting. Good thing I brought a camera...so pretty much the whole trip back home consisted of me taking scenic photos along Highway 17, and you lucky people...the photos will be used for your postcards ;) So I got home at 5:30 ish...everyone had left the house already, and I was kind of tired from the constant walking I did during the trip. So I had a piece of cake to curb my hunger and called the nurses in the hospital (because I promised them that I would give them the number of the Katimavik house since I forgot what it is and my hospital card has "no number" for the phone number section)...it was nice to have the whole house by myself, but I eventually have to get dressed (black-and-white) for volunteering tonight. So after almost an hour of dilly-dallying I left the house (doors are never unlocked) and walked to the community centre to volunteer for a party filled with business people.

At the party: When I got there I saw Maxime in the coats section with 2 guys. I hung my coat up and chatted with Maxim about my hospital trip. Then I got a choice of either a) working in the kitchen b) working outside as a cheese-and cracker person (the waiter who holds a platter of cheese and crackers for rich stiffs to enjoy). Hahaha I choose the second choice, since the first choice consists of washing dishes 3 hours straight. And we all have to wear stupid hairnets since we are dealing with food, so pretty much we look like Princess Leia? (Natalie Portman from the Star Wars) in our black and white clothing (And this is why Zach chose to hide in the kitchen despite the fact that he loves dealing with people instead of dishes, haha), except for Maxime, because she was working with coats. Lucky Maxime, she always gets to look pretty. So nothing much was happening during the cheese-and-cracker part of the party and all the Katimavik kids just used that time to grill me on my hospital trip. However when they started serving the main courses, things went crazy...it's exactly like an episode of those restaurant tv shows where everything is chaotic and all the servers are yelling "table __ needs more chicken! More chicken!". It reminds me of the days when I was working in IHOP, so I didn't mind it that much. Pretty much all the kids are just running back and forth from the kitchen to the food table for different things, and finally when it calmed down, we were allowed to eat...in the kitchen. Because I ate cake, I wasn't horribly hungry but apparently the other kids didn't eat before they left the house so they were starving while they work, and of course they weren't allowed to eat until their job was done. So finally at 7:30pm, when things calmed down a bit, Emilie was like "ok, let's stop and eat..." and that's what we did. And when 8:00 pm comes around, we left the party...or so we thought. As per usual, because I am a slowpoke at eating and because Charles really loved his job as the dishwasher, we didn't get up to go as quickly as we wanted. When everyone left the kitchen, the cooks were like "why are they leaving? They are not supposed to leave yet...they still have to help us" and Charles and I were like..."iono huh?"...it was quite confusing and the head waiter ran out of the building to stop Emilie from leaving. A little later Emilie came back with the rest of the crew, but apparently things worked out...in fact we got some free food (ham, vegetables, and something else to be exact).

Before I left though, I went to grab my coat and that's where I had a chat with Cameron and Dennis, the two teenage guys who were doing coat check with Maxime. I had an interesting conversation with Cameron:
C: So the girl with dreads, who is she?
A: That's Emilie...she is our project leader
C: Really. Where is she from?
A: Um...Grand Falls, New Brunswick
C: Wow, these Project Leaders come from places so far away now...
A: (At this point I am curious to know what he wants) I don't know. What about her?
C: (Smiles) She is hot! How old is she?
A: (At that point I just laughed) Well, she may be in her 20s, but not only is she too old for you, but her boyfriend is really old...possibly in his 40s to 50s...
Both guys: Oooooooh!

So the crew headed home in the "coquette mobile", and meanwhile Emilie was explaining to us that she had previously agreed with the person in-charge that we would only stay until 8 pm, and she kind of felt that we were not treated very well by them (ie. we had to work despite the fact that everyone was hungry)...I personally thought things were ok (you guys shall find out that my opinion changes on next day's entry) but I do think that there was no real purpose as to why we were volunteering there - does it actually help out the community in a beneficial way when we acted as servers/puppets there? The only thing I felt that we helped out were the business people who were there...and honestly do they really need us there? That was one thing I wasn't very satisfied about.

Anyways after we got home, we had a choice of a) staying at home b) going to the hospital party in the royal legion. Except for Cythnia/Stephanie/Mike/Emilie/me, everyone chose to stay home for the evening. So to the party we go...

The party: When we got there, the party was pretty much in swing...there was a live band there but they were on a break when we arrived so people were just dancing to recorded music. Anyways Emilie only wanted to be there to look for a person and after she talked to him, she left the party. What was funny - when we walked in Emilie walked straight into the party without anyone stopping her. But with me and the other people, they stopped us and asked if we were going into the dance and if so, we need to buy tickets. In a flash of wit, I just said pointed to Emilie and said, "we are with her" and then quickly followed Emilie.

Before Emilie left, she gave us money for drinks, and so we did that (non-alcoholic though...don't feel like it/don't want news to get back to Emilie) and we danced quite a bit for the next hour and a half...Cynthia and me, Cynthia and Stephanie and me, Cynthia and Stephanie and Mike and me, Stephanie and me (fast), Stephanie and me (slow)...the slow dances that Stephanie and I had were funny...because I am so short and Stephanie was quite tall, my head pretty much snuggled against her boobs...Stephanie was like "Angel you are too short for me...", to which I replied, "I don't see any problems with this right now"....;)
Cynthia left half an hour earlier because she got a huge migraine
Mike is not a good dancer at all...but at least he is trying (and I am trying not to laugh, haha)
Another funny thing - whenever I was dancing there would be this old lady who would dance with me...which was ok, but she would keep bumping into me and grind on me...it was kind of weird...and she would keep grabbing my face and say "you are too young for me"...I was like "haha...ha...ha...ha" each time she does that. She must be drunk, so I forgive her.
We left the party at 11:15 pm ish, before Mike ate too much cheesecake (before we left he went back to grab more food to take back home, haha)

When the three of us got back, Zach/Stephen/Rebecca were having a crazy time, discussing about their Secret Plan (which was dressing up in ornamental decorations - as a disguise, haha, and going to the convenience store to buy lemonade). Because I left my scarf in the community centre, Stephanie and I decided to go to the community to pick it up, and then go to the marina (very close to the community centre) and look at stars. However, when we got to the community centre (where the business folks were still partying at), we found Cheryl/Maxime/Charles there dancing also, and drinking coolers. When Charles first saw me, he immediately came to me, picked me up in the air, and said something like, "Angel so glad you are here, hahaha"...he was obviously a bit drunk. Cheryl/Maxime/Charles insisted that we stay to party with them (and of course Stephanie jumped in because she wanted to drink) and since I am not a party pooper, I joined them. The first thing Maxime did was to drag both of us to the bar and bought each of us a Smirnoff Ice. Things were fine and dandy until one of the ladies who was helping with the party looked at Maxime and said, "are you sure she is of age of drinking?" to which Maxime said, "yes, she is 20..." The lady just gave us a doubtful look and shuts up.
What's unfair - That. Plus the fact that Maxime is 17 and Stephanie is 18 but they do not get questioned. Moments like this irks me greatly...

So anyways we got our coolers, and we started dancing...it was fun, and Maxime and Charles are unbelievably good dancers...you could tell they go partying all the time. Even though the 5 of us were having fun, the weird thing is that everyone else there are at least 30 and over...so it feels kind of sad and unhip that we are partying with the semi-seniors (same thing in the legion). But I guess this is the problem with small towns. I was pleasantly surprised with the Smirnoff Ice...it was tastier than I imagined (although I would take juice any day) and through dancing and stuff, I finished it in 20 minutes. And as we were dancing this guy who was friends with the host of the party (Maxime and Charles' boss) bought all of us another cooler - Barcardi Breezer or something like that. Because I drank one already and I did not feel like testing my limits, I passed the offer but the rest of the Frenchees took it up, however Stephanie did not finish her Smirnoff Ice or the breezer. After a while, the alcohol effects started hitting me, and I decided to stop and take a break. I must clarify that I wasn't drunk or getting drunk, but my head was starting to get that slight dizziness that I am guessing was the "buzz"...however I did not enjoy that buzz and really do not see the point of achieving the "buzz" through drinking. I wanted to go home, but Stephanie asked me to stay a bit longer and wait for her to go home together, so...

... went and sat by the coat check, where Cameron and Dennis was. I chatted with them for some more, and Cameron was telling me more about his thoughts on Emilie...which I found pretty cute. I told him to feel free to drop by our house and chat with her, and he said, "well, I already have a girlfriend..."
I gave him my "What?" expression and said, "you have a girlfriend? Then why were you saying all those stuff about Emilie?" His reponse: "Well just because I have a girlfriend doesn't mean I can't look. I will look but I just won't touch." God, men are such creeps.

Finally, Stephanie did her thing and we went home together. On the way home, I told her that I thought it was so unfair that I got questioned just because I look young but Maxime and her did not have that problem. And then she told me that she was worried about our partying situation because a) we are from Katimavik which means people know who we are b) it's a small town and because it's obvious that some of us were underage so people would talk and this may eventually go back to Emilie. (Stephanie is from a small small town so she knows the deal). Because of that she did not finish her coolers. However, Maxime was partying it up pretty hard so there may be problems. And then we vow (more like she made me promise) that this will not be mentioned in the house.

When we got home, it was around 1 (Cheryl/Maxime/Charles weren't back yet). I was super popped, buzzed and really wanted to go to bed. So I dragged myself into the showers/brushed my teeth and hit the sacks...ah sweet dreams.

Thanks for hanging on for so long, guys...it's a loooooong email I know.

The biggest lesson that day - I am not the partying type, even if I try. One cooler and I already buzzed (7% alcohol)...honestly this is the most I have ever drank in my life. It's sad =)

Angel

PS. If you want to know more about my disease, here's the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_Palsy

And here's a picture of Jean Chertien, just for kicks

The Hilltop - Dec 8

2007-02-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

I realized the one I sent to you guys wasn't that good...the words were cut off. Let's try this version instead..

So anyways...Dec/8

Well, to be honest, nothing much happened during the 8-4 part of the day...Betty Ann was busy organizing the Annual General Meeting, so she didn't have the time or patience to give work for me to do...so pretty much it's back to emailing/msning/listening to music for almost 7 hours straight. Hence you guys got 3-4 emails that day (don't exactly remember the actual number).

What I want to focus on is what happened after I got off work, because that's where the interesting things are. The Katimavik crew was invited to a barbecue held by Paul and Barel/Barrel/Borel (Paul's wife), who were prominent figures in Blind River (especially Barel - I am going to stick to that) and associated with Katimavik...and somehow Emilie's friend. So around 5:30, we all dressed warmly (Emilie told us to wear snowboots and winter pants, because we may be playing in the snow...I wore sweatpants and hiking boots ;P), hopped into the Katima-truck (Co-Co mobile for Maxime, Katima-van for Zach...yeah it's more like a van than a truck), and drove north of town for 45 minutes into middle-of-nowhere/deep deep forest...this is where Paul and Barel lives, in a cabin in the forest, far away from town...

So anyways we parked our truck/van/coco into a drivewaylike path and got off...when I was about to get off a huge hunting dog (the black and brown one) just leaped on top of me and started barking...my first instinct was to scream my head off, which everyone laughed because they are all dog lovers except for me. The dog kept leaping in/out of the car 3 times barking at me which just made me scream again and again...finally Paul had to pull him away (the dog's name is Shadow) and then I was able to finally get out of the vehicle and enter into the cabin.

Paul and Barel's cabin has to be one of the coolest houses I have ever seen in my life. Inside is like your typical in-the-woods cabin, with cozy sofas/chairs, rugs, furnace, and animal showpieces (deer heads, antlers of different shapes and sizes...apparently he also has one of a bear, which was in his room because he had no place for it...I didn't go and see it) along the wall. They also have eclectic decorations all over the house, mostly consisting of dogs (in honor of Shadow and their past dogs) and Christmas things (such as dancing and singing santas, snowmans, etc...my favorite one is a medium sized decoration piece where you press a button and then Santa starts singing and mooning his butt to Frosty, to which Frosty goes "Oh Santa you are sooooo bad!"....no joke! Oh yes speaking of singing Santas, Shadow is a singing dog...this may be the first time I actually met a singing dog. It's the funniest thing...Paul was just talking to us about the house when all of a sudden the giant Santa starts singing and dancing (it was on a timer) and Shadow immediately ran to the Santa and started barking...then howling...we all laughed our heads off, and for the rest of our stay Maxime would try and get Shadow to sing by turning on different singing decorations or howling to him. According to Barel Shadow has been on radio shows doing singing dog contests and even once in a while they would play the audio clip of him singing...quite cute.

Anyways back to describing the house...Paul kind of gave us a tour, which includes the washroom and bathroom (both look like Swedish saunas) and the upstairs (which I didn't look at). Overall the architecture of the house is cool, but there are 3 things about their house that I really find cool:
1) Their cabin is on a pretty big area of land, which is all theirs...they have part of a lake which freezes in the winter (unfortunately not when we were there) and they would invite people (us included) to skate on...during the summer it's summer/water sports
2) Because their cabin is deep in the forest, animals would come by throughout the season, so they get to pretty much view nature outside their window...Barel told me stories and showed me photos of the animals that came by their house...pretty cool. As well, since they have a big area of land and need access to it, Paul is building hiking trails throughout their property which he is mapping (yes, he even has a map of his property...like a national park, haha). If it wasn't snowy outside, he would have showed us the trails
3) My absolute favorite thing about the house - It is solar powered! Yes...it's quite hard to imagine this to exist in a cabin from middle-of-nowhere, but they actually have solar panels outside the house - Paul flashed his flashlight outside the window to show them to us. And that's where they get their electricity, hot water, etc...Paul started explaining to me/Emilie/Stephen/Cynthia that when there's sun, the panels would collect the energy and bring it back to the house, where the adaptor is (or something like that) located in a room (I dubbed it the "energy room"). Next the energy is converted into electricity, then stored into giant batteries for usage (Barel and Paul gave each other batteries for Christmas presents, haha)...because of this system, they only pay $100-$200 dollars each year for electricity bills, although the whole system cost around $10000 ish?). I love how the house is able to mix savvy technology with their original ways.

So after the tours and stuff, we got down with the barbecue...I had 2 burgers, 1 hot dog and 1.5 sausage, and again the crew made fun of me for eating so much. After the barbecue, because Paul and Barel has a karaoke machine, we decided to sing karaoke...we must have done that for an hour and a half, and it was quite fun. Most of the songs were old (reflecting on Paul and Barel's age, haha) but classics...in general the crew (except for me) knew the songs and would sing along (somehow "The Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash is very popular in Blind River). Cynthia probably sang the most songs out of everyone (5-6 i think?), while I rocked the mike, haha (3-4 songs, everyone cheered after I finished). Oddly enough, although most of the crew are really loud at home, singing and dancing all the time, people in general are pretty mike-shy (especially Mike - pardon the pun, since he was the only one who sang no songs despite the fact that everyone pushed him to sing) and most people would not sing unless they are doing it with someone else. So pairing wise...

Zach/Rebecca, Cynthia/Me, Rebecca/Me, Maxime/Me (notice there is a lot of me going around) the Frenchees, Charles/Emilie, Emilie, Stephen (the brave one), Cynthia
I am really surprised that Zach wouldn't sing karaoke by himself, since he is the one that's always starting the dance/singing parties at home during cooking/dishwashing...but he said he hates hearing his own voice...sure...
Mike is a party pooper

So after karaoke...Paul or other people came up with the idea of going out into the woods and play hide and seek, which half of the crew were excited/less enthused about...but pretty much everyone went out and played in the snow except for Cynthia, who chose to stay inside. I was going to go outside with everyone, but because I only wore sweatpants and hiking boots instead of what Emilie told us to wear, and because the snow was shin-deep out in the woods, I had to return to the house...which was a shame because Paul was showing me his night-vision binoculars, and when I looked through the binoculars I can see everyone running away, haha. This is the price I pay for listening to Emilie, I guess :P

So I returned into the house and had a nice chat with Emilie and Barel...she was telling us about the community, the cabin, her family, etc. etc...while showing us her scrapbook with photos of the cabin, her family, etc. It was really interesting, and she knows a lot about the community and is well-connected. Here are some information about the cabin:

Name of cabin - Hilltop (because it's on a hill)
Age - 111 years old (100 years as a barn, converted into a cabin 11 years ago)
(There are more things, but I can no longer recall anything...)

Anyways the crew returned a while after...they all had a good time, even though they only played one round of hide-and-seek because it was way too dark (plus they couldn't go too far because there are wild animals)...so Paul took them on their snowmobile/4 wheeler...not quite sure what it was and they had a lot of fun from that...damn! They settled in and had hot chocolate...I got tired and fell asleep...people kept bugging me from my sleep...stupid kids.

At around 10:30 pm Emilie decided that we needed to go home...so away we go...I got into the car and immediately fell asleep next to Stephanie. The next thing I know, we arrived to the house.

Shower/Bed....the crew decorated the house all Christmas-y

Angel

FYI/POI - If you guys want to know why Maxime calls the Katima-truck "Co-co mobile", here is the reason. According to Cheryl, the term is "Cocotte-mobile", which in literal English is "Pine-cone mobile"...but apparently the French thinks it's cute to call their honeybunnies "cocotte/pine cone"...why I wouldn't know. So cocotte=darling/sweetie/love...which in term makes the Katima-truck the "love truck"....hahahaha, only Maxime can think of something like that...

Tomorrow (not actually tomorrow, but Dec 9) is a drama-packed day, stay tuned