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...
Thursday, February 8, 2007
The Calm Before the Storm?
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?
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
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...
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
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.
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?
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
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
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...
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
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
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
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