New Job

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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!