your mum luvs me ...even though I left her for katimavik.

woah.

2010-06-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

Dolbeau house just called to say the bus left, meaning we have about 45 minutes before we leave.

I'm shaking.

murder, mystery, and plant life.

2010-06-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

Haha the captions for this one are going to be short and sweet as well, because 1)I can't be arsed, 2)we moved most of the stuff out of our house yesterday and cleaned it from top to bottom so I feel lazy. Tomorrow morning we're going camping on an island for debriefing till the following tuesday, and wednesday morning at 1:45 am we leave on the bus for QC airport. (I go QC-Toronto-Calgary-Abbotsford, arriving at about 4 pm, meaning I get a full day of travel money beeyatches!)

Yesterday my job was to clean two of the bathrooms and then LA and Jess helped me clean the creepy serial killer basement. It is COVERED in spider webs and dead bugs and, most sinister of all, dryer lint (all of this with uneven rock walls and floors and dim lighting). I used R2D2 (the weird vintage vacuum we have after I broke the shopvac trying to suck up spiders during my last house managing week) to suck up a lot of crap, including some water. It was in this hole in the ground that some pipes go into, and I didn't realize the reflection was a reflection. Luckily, I was able to pull out before R2 got too wet.

We also found a door we'd never noticed before, with a creepy french message that said:

SMILE

THE LIGHT

IS COMING

After some dithering, I finally inched forward, Fred's video camera trained on me as I unlatched the hook holding the door closed, and pushed it open. GAH! The light switched on by itself, and there was one of those creepy real fake fur monkeys with plastic hands and feet staring at us from the top shelf. But other than that, it was a forgotten pantry. Jessica found a couple cans of rotten grease, but when she tried to put one of them in the garbage can I was holding, I dropped the garbage can because I rock, spilling old grease all over the floor. It Stank. So I poured about half a cup of straight bleach onto it to mask the smell and definitively disinfect the area.

Anyway.

murder mystery night in french.

Clovis, resident magician in the travelling circus where our story takes place.

The clown I cannot remember the name of haha.

Abdul the snake charmer, who turned out to actually be named Morris. What a fake.

The bearded lady, who ended up being the murderer, because the circus owner had stolen her novels and published them, keeping all the profits for himself. I know, I look great.

The wife of the magician, assistant to the dead boss. Hair, makeup, wardrobe done by the girls of the house. Also Jordan's first time in drag. His breasts are apples.

jardin scullion.

I went with my work on a fieldtrip type thing for the moms and their kids.

This picture makes me sad, because the focus and colours are so cool, but the composition is not what I wanted.

Buttercup.

Goat.

Aphid. Took. So. Long. to Focus. Properly. Now I know why people buy SLRs, where they can control the focus, instead of just putting it on macro, and refocusing until your camera does what you want. Or maybe I just need to read the users manual.

Upstairs in the main building, they also have a GIANT fresco. They call it la fresque geante. Go figure.

Oh, and then we went back to the petting zoo area and the kids did a scavenger hunt where you had to find all 10 flowers that were the same colour as the one glued to your envelope. We had extras so I did it too. SO. HARD. I was the last one to finish, and I only found 9.
HUMILIATING.

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I WAS THE ONE WHO HID THE FLOWERS.

Anyway, this is a picture of some cows.

4 DAYS.

veel duh kebek.

2010-06-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we went to Quebec City, which was awesome possum. We stayed at the YWCA, where the showers are so high-pressure they could blast your nipples off even if the water wasn't scalding hot and there was no knob to adjust them. I ended up standing to the side of the stream and splashing water onto myself with my hands. We went to La Musee de l'Amerique francaise, La Musee Naval, La Citadelle, La Chute Montmorency, Les Plaines d'Abraham, and then spent a lot of free time shopping and watching street performers. I also tried a beavertail, which was absolutely disgusting, but people who'd had them before said they weren't real beavertails, which is a bummer. It was a really hot weekend, and therefore I sweat my proverbial male reproductive organs right off. And that's about all I have to say, so the captions will now be really short, haha. A picture is worth 1000 words anyway.

This is us in QC, walking.

This is a group of tourists with a fountain.

This is us at the Citadel, with a gigantic cannon.

This is me at the Citadel, with a stuffed goat.

This is me at the Gov. Gen. residence in the Citadel, guarding.

This is a street performer swallowing a balloon. Not a compromising photo at all.

This is a woman balancing things. She started playing the accordion too.

This was a super skinny man after he laid on a pile of crushed glass, and had a big guy stand on his back for a bit.

La chute de Montmorency.

Us and the chute.

The only way to get to the bottom/return to the top without paying for the gondola on a sunday.

Champed it. At a run. My body had no idea what was going on. "Exercise?! What the poo is that?!?!"

Regard the base of the mountain to the left of the viewing area, and you shall find Tom, Fred, and Andreanne's handiwork.

Yeah, I can't see that well, so here's a closeup.

6 DAYS.

the first picture shows nipple.

2010-06-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

I am writing this to you from the floor of the computer room. I have the keyboard on my lap and the mouse on the floor beside me, while I have pulled the monitor to the edge of the desk so I can see it. I feel very much in touch with my asian ancestors.

I can't believe I am so close to coming home! We move almost everything out of our house this friday, since this is the last rotation in Alma, and right after that, we leave for debriefing on an ISLAND! It will be so cool. Apparently it's like the size of a football field, and the cabin we'll be kind of using (we're still bringing tents) is the only house on it! Reminds me of Charis' grandparents' cabin, where those present went traipsing through the garden of eden, as it were. (however, I shant be doing any of that this weekend)

ANYWAY. Day two of Chicoutimi!

We sooooo went through a carwash put on by a hockey team. Gives me a much greater appreciation for the sport, I must say.

The beach in la Baie des Ha! Ha! We were out there, and then the water started coming in REALLY fast, so we left, because we had stuff to do other than be trapped because I didn't want to take my shoes off. (too many laces. they need to sell cool-looking velcro shoes for adults.)

La musée de fjord, or something. They had an owl.

Sweet magician guy who put on a show at the museum. Me and LA got his autograph. It was a show meant for children, but we still had a lot of fun. There was one part where I was laughing really loudly when other people weren't (you know how I am), and he looks at me and goes "C'est ma soeur." (That's my sister). Made my day.

Giuseppe blowin a beluga.

I could word that better, but I shant.

Picnic in the same park as the day before, and the same park as BEACHBOYSBOHFGJDFHG.

In the parking lot, some old guy with hunchback and cane asked LA which way the Beach Boys concert was. At that point, we knew it was really going to be an all ages show hahah.

Pruuuuuunnneeeee.

Cool tambourine man from The Mockingbirds, who opened. He also played the piano, and grooved the whole time, which was quite agreeable to me.

This is me, frighteningly excited to see the Beach Boys.

Mike Love! He sang pretty darn well for a 69 year old hahah.

Bruce Johnston! He looks so suave in that baseball cap.

Hahaha, okay. You see that woman in the tight blue micro-mini? She was SO drunk. Like, screaming and flailing and falling off the railing, which was quite amusing, but then we see THIS:

That, my sons, is toilet paper. It hung there for a good five minutes before security escorted her out for first being in the wrong section, and then trying to get back into the section after they'd walked away. It wasn't just the TP we saw either--count yourself lucky that you aren't going to see her pubes.

I personally don't find butts all that exciting, so when LA and Jordan were fawning over the guy we called Blink-182, for reasons which are probably not at all clear to you, I had them teach me what a good butt looked like. I spent the majority of the night then comparing the butts of everyone around us to this guy.

Despite the fact that this Beach Boys band only contains two of the original members. and I honestly thought all of them were dead before Emilie told us about the concert, the sound was still good and I had a great time! Who says old people can't rock! I feel that this was an excellent way to lose my concert virginity. Speaking of bands I thought were gone, Hanson is coming to Vancouver on Sept 25, which is 2 days after my 19th birthday, and it's a 19+ show. IT IS A SIGN.

Even better, I actually really like their new album, so I won't be going just because I like them from their mmmbop days haha.

Unfortunately, they all will have reduced sperm count because of the tightness of their pants, but they make up for it with cool dance moves.

LEGGY BLOOONDE, GOOD BYE, GOOD BYYYYEEE.

comment, or I'll think you don't love me.

a diva is a female version of a hustler.

2010-06-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

OF A HUSTLER, OF A OF A HUSTLER.

Oh, how Beyoncé has brightened my life.

Can you believe I am blogging about things that happened only a week ago? Such a strange feeling--I find myself disoriented.

We leave for a weekend in Quebec City tomorrow after work, and I am STOKED. I will have to pack reeeeaaalllly quickly after work tomorrow, though.

We had a grape dinner! Evidently, none of us really know what grapes look like, but it was a lot of fun anyway. After dinner, LA put all of the balloons she could on herself, and then went outside to take pictures. On the way out the door, she tripped off the step and fell on the ground, popping a few. It still left enough for us to pop for quite a long time. If you're interested in the video, you can find it here, on Jordan's blog.

kite festival set-up.

Me and LA split off from the group because one of the organizers needed two people, but in the end, she didn't really need us, so we lounged a bit and took some pictures. The rest of the group had nothing to do for the first hour either, haha, but I'm trying not to think about the sleep I missed out on.

Some of us worked on pounding stakes into the ground on the airfield where the festival is taking place, to create a track for people kite surfing, if I remember correctly. Jess and I were originally on a team, and were using a small mallet, as it was the only one left. Two females with a sub-standard hammer was apparently not acceptable to the man we nicknamed "Interceptor", as he, nearly without fail, would walk up to us just as we were raising the hammer, smile at us, and then start hammering it in himself. It took something like 10 stakes to shake him off, and with 3 or 4 other groups doing it was well, we had to cover a lot of distance to have the freedom to pound our own sticks.

Jessica, after we had crossed two streams and hidden in various shrubs to shake off the Interceptor.

After the work was over, we got to tour the air traffic control tower! This guy kind of reminds me of Mantracker.

picnic in the park.

After the our out-of-town volunteering at the kite festival, we headed to a park in Chicoutimi to have dinner (the same park where I would later see The Beach Boys!). Somehow, gravity was reversed, and I managed to get my lard self onto the monkey bars. I was impressed that the young girl could do a handstand so effortlessly.

When the gravitational pull went back to normal, I decided to try the slide. Not too shabby.

You have no idea how many pictures Jessica and I took on the swings to get a picture where a) both of us were in it, and b) neither of us looked like your mum.

On the way back from the playground, we found Andreanne, who was feeling a tad out of sorts, asleep on the grass. Meaning to gently wake her form her peaceful slumber, we tip-toed over to her and spooned her on both sides. She was sleeping quite heavily, however, and so we had no choice but to take pictures and then creep away.

Then we actually ate supper, which was a very agreeable taco salad.

chicoutimi group's collective project.

After supper, we drove to the church where the Chicoutimi Katimagroup was putting on a fundraiser dance for the Cancer Society. We arrived veeerrryyy early, and rather than going in and possibly having to help set up, we crossed the road, hopped a fence, and went down to the beach.

JK + SO = <3

Me and Jessica's butt are great friends.

One of about 30 pictures Jess and I took together while waiting. We were practicing how to smile attractively at a camera while simultaneously reducing double chin danger.

Todd shaved his beard! And started running, apparently. Good little anecdote about Todd, actually:

We met the kite festival people at the Chicoutimi house that morning, and Todd comes out to say hi, and tells us how he was searching on google images for 'katimavik chicoutimi' since their group had had a picture taken of them for the news or something.

Todd: And then I saw a picture of my back hair, so I clicked on it, and it was Jordan's blog and it started talking about zoophilia and sexual orientation!

As you all know, that was my blog he found. In a way, it reminded me of how female authors used to publish under a man's name to hide their gender. Although, if I had a choice, my pseudonym would be something like "Count Reginald Burlington", rather than "Jordan Baldweiner", or whatever his name is. Such is the life of a female.

The dance. Don't worry, this was before people showed up haha.

ChaseJaceTyler! Jessica actually took this picture, and I am so grateful to her, but at the same time, this picture brings me so much pain. You see, Jordan and I decided we would hit on ChaseJaceTyler as much as we could that evening, and see who won. I didn't feel like I had much hope, as we were both quite sure he was gay, but you never know until you try. I did everything I could; I talked about anime, fursuits, Hamilton, techno; I used the word "sexy" more often that ever before in such a timeframe; I waggled my eyebrows suggestively on every second word! And yet, in the end, he refused me. He refused Jordan, too. He even refused Jessica, who had been talking to him quite a bit, probably so he could have a normal conversation where he wasn't being objectified. In the end, he chose Alex Wallace. (to refresh your memory, she was in PG group in BC, now in Dolbeau-Mistassini, and I slept on top of her at Mass-O and at Rotation Camp 1. I thought she liked me. D: ) His explanation was thus:

"Well, we live really close, so we're definitely going to see each other again. She lives like ten minutes from my dentist's office!"

Best reason to date. Ever.

But really, I wish them luck.

And a hint of things to come....

Have a good weekend, guys!

latinos, hugs, and diy sushi (billeting, part two)

2010-06-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go a little blog heavy this week (ie... more than one) as I realized yesterday that I am coming home REALLY SOON, and with all the business of moving and debriefing and spending a weekend in Quebec City, I need to step it up if I don't want to be super backlogged when I get home!

During billeting, Valerie and I went to a Latino night, which was quite cool.

Valerie: Do you want anything to drink?
Me: Nah, just water.
Her: You sure?
Me: Yes.
Her: Really?
Me: Yes.
Her: How about a non-alcoholic beer?
Me: That's quite alright.
Her: But there's no alcohol in it!
Me: No kidding. I'd still like water.
Her: What about a lemonade?
Me: Nope, water's great.
Her: Really? For sure?
Me: Yes, definitely.
Her: Okay, fine.
Me: Wait.
Her: What?
Me: I'd like a lemonade.

We had almost this exact conversation about 4 times that night, with the outcome alternating between water and lemonade.

That woman was a master of hipshaking. And that man was her apprentice.

Some peeps we met while there. Mexican, Bulgarian, Columbian, and... me slouching. Bulgarian chick and Mexican guy are a hot item.

Hahah, so on Friday, I helped sell cheese curds (you know... le fromage squich squich?) at the mall to raise money for my work, and during a slow bit, I asked Valerie if taking my top off and dancing would help sales (yeah, I haven't changed much). And then there was this old woman who didn't buy any cheese, but came back 3 times to talk to us about whatever. Then Valerie said something about scrapbooking, and this woman went home to get her scrapbooking and show it to us. And this was really lame scrapbooking too. It was like, pictures of herself standing in stores, and then a page about Elvis. But I shouldn't judge, as I have never scrapbooked for real. We also met this guy wearing denim short shorts, black tights (through which you could see his lovely leg hair), and 4 inch platform heels, who also talked for a really long time without buy cheese. Good times.

This is me being eaten by clams.

LOVE ME.

I was trying to get Molly to give me a hug, but we ended up holding hands instead. I guess it was her way of saying "We're not there yet; sorry."

This is a white man cringing over a very small amount of weak wasabi. Pitiful.

This is me eating one of my fat-o-maki. As you can see, sushi-making is in my genes. Eating is also something I'm good at, but I think that's a gift everyone shares. Well, not really anorexics, but they can't help that either.

You need to squeeze the sushi like THIS.

Wearing matching shirts. Even better, though you can't see it, her pants are blue and mine are red, which unlike the shirts, was unplanned. I am definitely the fatter twin. D;

We were dancing so fast the camera couldn't catch it. AND FOR ONCE I'M NOT THE MAN. I am almost always the man when it comes to dancing with another girl. Must be my inner lesbian.

The end! (of billeting. I still have a lot of photos of this last week to show you, haha)

Pirates or ninjas?

val-jalbert (billeting, part uno)

2010-06-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

So, I just finished watching whatever that new Mel Gibson suspense movie is where his daughter gets shot and then he has to uncover why, and in the end everyone dies, mostly by bullets, and I just feel empty. I like comedies, romances, romantic comedies; the kinds of movies that make you feel warm and fuzzy afterwards. So now I'm writing a blog post to try to bring some sunshine back into my life. Mostly because blogging caters to my narcissism, especially when people leave lots of comments. So, if you could comment, that would be excellent.

By the way, to those of you who don't know, I went to a Beach Boys concert last night in Chicoutimi. AWESOME. But more about that in a later blog post. For now, we're billeting.

Val-Jalbert is a ghost town that's been turned into a tourist spot. The Saguenay-Lac St Jean area has a pretty impressive history in pulp-making (ooh, I know) and VJ was a pulp-mill town. After people decided they liked their orange juice to go down more smoothly, Val-Jalbert got quiet.

This picture is Valerie, my billet/work partner, behind a tree. She is wearing a cool hat cause it was kind of spitting all day and she can't get her hearing aid wet. The rain also made my hair really frizzy, which made it hard for me to hear, as my hair can get impressively fat.
(like your mum.)

Sign: It's dangerous down there; go away.
Valerie: Let's go take pictures.

It wasn't dangerous though.

This is me and a river. Also, I kind of look like a prat.

I have major issues painting my nails properly. And then after I've done all I possibly can to make them kind of look good, I chip them the same day. I don't get how people make them look so good/last so long. Even right now, I have four nails on my left hand painted, and none on my right, because I painted my left hand, did a really bad job on the middle finger, had to go run some of the bottles and cans we collected to the depot, and then later scratched off my middle nail's polish during a particularly riveting part of our KCC meeting today. One day I'll figure it out. Or maybe I'll just pay someone to do it for me.

You know how I am when I get hungry. And also, cannabalism isn't really a new thing for me. (placenta, anyone?)

Valerie's last name is Mouton, which means sheep in french. Even cooler, her mother's maiden name is Petit, so when she married Valerie's dad, she hyphenated it, making her last name Petit-Mouton, or little sheep.

Also notice her bandaged thumb: at something like 12:30 in the morning, she runs to me after having reeeeaallly cut into herself while trying to watch TV and mince herbs with an ulu knife at the same time, because her boyfriend vomits at the sight of blood. A real man, he is.

Me and a waterfall. I thought this picture was sort of cool until I realized my eyes are closed. Now I think it is the bee's knees.

Ooh, look how artistic I am with my diagonal nature shots.

Picnic lunch involving watermelon and glamour shots by Shoshana, just $29.99--A great gift for any loved one. Specifically loved ones you'd like to sever contact with.

While we were doing the train ride tour thing, we went past a bunch of the old houses that were all messed like this one. I, however, being the clever one that I am, was so focused on trying to take a a non-blurry picture that I totally missed why they were like this, and forgot to ask Valerie afterwards. However, I did get my non-blurry picture.

This is me in the cable car, going up to the top of the falls.

Valerie: So, do you have any fears or phobias?
Me: Yeah. Heights.
Her: Oops.

But it's more of a falling from heights thing, and the car was enclosed, so I managed haha, as you can see.

Total enclosure of the cable car aside, I was continuously imagining falling as I took this picture.

To get back down, we took the big wooden stairs. This is me pretending I'm Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet simultaneously. I feel like this picture says: I'm the hermaphrodite ruler of the world!

I thought it was weird how much Valerie and I look alike here! Both of us show enough gum when smiling to give Miley Cyrus a run for her money.

VJ (haha, for some reason I giggle every time I type that) was sooooo green and lovely. Made me want to eat lettuce like crazy.

We wandered back to where the destroyed houses were. At least in their present condition, it'd be really easy to see if someone was at the door.

Valerie: Don't smile, this is sad. Look sad.

So now I look like an overweight hussy who just got evicted from the slums.

Not as far from the truth as you might think.

This is us and Benoit. He plays the superintendent at the mill.

We stayed right till the end of the day, so we saw him in his normal clothes too. It was like when you see your teachers at the supermarket or something.

This is me and the sexy singing and guitar-playing mayor. As you can see, he employs the same technique as the slam poet in the Vancouver 2010 opening cermemonies: Grow a beard to hide your massive double chin. And I thought your mum was the only one that did that.

And now to bed.

72h.

2010-06-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Our 72 hours off on May long weekend started out with a loverly sunset. This stimulated the creative energies of those of us staying at home (Jess, Jordan, LA, and myself), and so we began to to design a futuristic piece for Jordan to wear that evening.

Comprised of stickers we found in the computer room, and then a protective coating of saran wrap over top, Jordan looked very fashion-forward. But it made him walk like Forrest Gump before his leg braces come off.

Feel the emotion. The juxtaposition of the beauty of nature, and the man-made cartoon-y stickers seem to underline the conflict we face in north american society in our generation. I am quite overwhelmed.

After cruising downtown Alma (on foot) to showcase Jordan's outfit of sorts, we ripped it off him (see the video at the end of Jordan's blog post). After that 9 minute long ordeal, we were famished, and set about making muffins. That however, was put on hold for a food fight, where the ammunition consisted of white flour, kiwis, and this vile yam and avocado mush that Tom and Mik had attempted to trick us into eating during their house managing week.

The aftermath. We washed the floor once that night, and then again the next day, because the flour settled overnight. We also had to scrub down the walls and cupboards, cause there was all sorts of dried mush on them. Awesome. (my first real food fight too, I think!)

The intrepid warriors, after their victory.

BACK TO THE MUFFINS, MEN.

Model Jessica, here wearing a Fall 08 kiwi, with makeup by no name brand all-purpose flour. We love this colour for summer, and it's been all over the runways! Choose an outfit in a colour that contrasts with your makeup for the ultimate effect.

Ladies, (and men) if you'd like the mimic the contouring technique we've done here on our model, Leigh-Amber, mix one part yam and one part avocado and gently apply it to the hollows of your cheeks, building up until you get the desired amount of definition.

Model Shoshana, here showing a new fabric treatment technique called "flouring". We love the colour gradient it gives to her top, and also the way the stylists integrated the same texture into her hair and makeup. Truly an inspired shoot.

Model Jordan, our token male, is showing the new flour-based earplugs. Both fashionable and functional, Jordan will be shutting out the screams of his fans in style. Flour can also be used as a temporary way to dye your eyebrows white, which will put all the focus on your eyes. Add a couple coats of mascara, and you're set!

After that, we put on our bathing suits and showered, although I somehow completely missed the back of my head when washing my hair, so when I got up the next morning, my pillow looked like it had been attacked by the worst dandruff evar. Gross.

Obvs, I showered again, haha.

What kind of shenanigans do you like to get into?

the zoo, and some other stuff.

2010-06-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

I cannot tell you much I really don't feel like working today, which is why it is 9:03 and I am still doing non-work things. I may push it to 9:05, as I'm feeling particularly rebellious today.

And now for some animals!

It just tickles me how its tongue is hanging out.

A bear butt! I'm so punny, I know.

Tigeerrrrrrrrsssssssss.

That was one huge spider.

Oh noes! The polar bear's got Marie-Eve!

Fat raccoons!

GAAHHH SO MUCH FATNESS. SO MUCH CUTENESS.

Seals!

CAMELS YAAAAHH.

Jordan: Why did you take that picture?
Me: Dude. It's cameltoe.

Then we found a very small camel, and it sat on Jordan's shoulder.

and YAKS!

ROCKSTAR NIGHT.

Me and LA are too busy being famous to take non-blurry pictures.

It's times like that when I wonder if Jordan is just pretending he's gay.

Haha, Fred, the creative child that she is, clipped Andreanne's extentions to her freshly shaved head. I admire her ingenuity.

Jessica went for the trashy-hot look, haha.

Andreanne's leather 'n' feathers interpretation. (sounds sooo much worse than it is)

And me. I went for an 80's big hair dealio. Mostly because my hair had just dried really dang poofy after my shower, haha.

VENTE DE GARAGE.

We helped out with a fundraising garage sale at Jordan's work. It was pretty sweet, I scored some headphones for 2 bucks, an anatomically correct male pig toy for 25 cents, and Jordan and I went halfsies on a 2 dollar lamp with a rotating panorama of New York. Awkward bit: it still has the twin towers in it, and there are tons of planes that fly by them.

This is the principal's office. Obviously, she is a balla. Notice the bust in the back corner.

It was really cold, and I forgot to bring a sweater, so I grabbed an emergency rain poncho out of the van. It was working quite well, all fashion-related concerns aside(other peoples' fashion concerns, guys. you know how I dress.), but then one of the teachers came up to me and said, in very good English: "I assume you're wearing that because you're cold, but I couldn't stand to see you in plastic, so I went home and got this sweater for you!" and then lends me a hoodie! Awesome!

PS you can kind of see the headphones in this.

Fred and some deer. If you look in the back, the bleach-blonde with the all-cream outfit is the principal. I really wish I could be one of the children at this school.

Now, generally speaking, I have found that middle-aged women dress a lot more stylishly in Quebec, and are also waaay more comfortable dying their hair crazy colours etc, and I think that's really cool. This woman's hair however, just makes me uncomfortable. And I've actually seen at least 4 other women here with the same hairstyle. I don't get it.

Almost caught up!

ALMUHHHHH.

2010-05-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

[two blog posts in one week! stupendous!]

We are getting closer and closer to the present day!

We be rollin on the rivaahhh.

French stop signs!

Fred and I were house managers first, and we had a tribal theme dinner. I'm thinking I'd really like to do theme dinners with my family when I get home.

FACEPAINT.

We went to the beach later that week, which was super fun. I built a sandcastle, but forgot to take pictures of it. Everybody else kept making penis jokes. It made me sad.

We also buried Thony.

It was windy.

Beach day was also our 200th day of Katimavik [Emilie, the PL: "Twohundredth?! English makes no sense! Why would you put a D a T and an H all together?"], so Emilie and Jordan baked us a cake!

We went on excursion that took us through La Baie des Ha! Ha!

And then right across the street from the pyramid, someone had a Jesus effigy on their lawn.

Obvs we took pictures with the pyramid.

That night, we went to the Chicoutimi house for a visit. This is Emilie with the Chicoutimi PL, Todd. This is him with his shirt on.

This is him sans shirt, showing off his hairy back. Without thinking, I was like "Can I touch it?" and he let me. Good bonding moment. Apparently we were then close enough for him to ask me what my sexual orientation was later, haha. WHY ARE PEOPLE UNSURE? It like that time Marissa and I went skating with our gym class in gr 12, and because I skate like someone who is not good at skating, I was clinging to her hand or the boards for most of it. When we get back to the bus, the girl sitting in front of us turns around...

Her: Can I ask you something? It's kind of awkward, I don't really know how to say it.
Me: Uhh, go for it.
Her: Do you like... penis?
Marissa: Please tell me you said peanuts.

Jeez.

Anyway, later on in the evening, some of us went for a walk, including Emilie, Todd, and JaceChaseTyler.

You remember him, right? PS we call him JaceChaseTyler because we weren't really sure what his name was at first, but now that we've been calling him that for so long, we have no interest in his real name.

Now, JaceChaseTyler, the enterprising young man that he is, was making paw gloves out of faux fur he found in the house for a wolf fursuit he is going to wear to an anime convention. This led to a lengthy conversation, covering topics including, and not restricted to:
-why people wear fur suits
-if people actually do it in the fur suits like that episode of CSI
-if JaceChaseTyler did it in fursuits (no, but he knows people who do)
-what the difference between beastiality and zoophilia was

As I learned that night, zoophilia is where you have a hankering for one specific species.

Me: But what if you like, giraffes or something? Would you go to school to become a zookeeper and then party after-hours?
JaceChaseTyler: I dunno, I guess you could.
Todd: So someone would spend years getting training so that they could be with a certain animal? That's kind of hot.
Me: UHHHH.

I have decided I think Todd is weird.

Jord and Fred decided to shave their heads for cancer while we were at a Rase-a-Thon volunteering.

This is Jordan, after he broke the mirror with his good looks.

This is Fred, who I think pulls off the shaved head quite well for a girl. If I shaved my head, people would just ask me if I was lesbian. Not that I have anything against lesbians, but it's difficult to find a man if people think you'd rather date a lady.

Mummy night.

Ooh and I forgotted a picture from rotation camp. This is LA's head in Fred's butt, if you couldn't tell.

rotation camp, the second.

2010-05-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

[HAY GUYS, JUST TO LET YA KNOW, FROM THIS FRIDAY UNTIL LIKE THE 7 JUNE, I PROLLY WON'T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS BECAUSE MY BILLETS, WHILE VERY KIND, LIVE IN THE DARK AGES. SO JUST KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU.]

It was time. Notice the bathroom scale we borrow from the lady across the road because most Katimavik houses don't have one because they promote eating disorders. I would argue that not having one also promotes overeating in some adolescents (read: me) because they are unable to gauge their weight gain. It is a sad life I live.

There's not much of a story behind this; I just like looking at pictures of myself.

At rotation camp, we found a GEOCACHE. Now, for the uninitiated, a geocache is like a treasure hunt of the future. People post GPS coordinates online, and then people look for the hidden box or whatever. There's usually something in it, and then you can leave something too for the next person. I went geocaching once with Alex's family at a church picnic. We were on this horse trail, so obviously there were little chocolate treats everywhere. We were looking and looking and the mosquitoes were biting and me and Alex were only in our swimsuits, and then Alex's dad bends over to pick something brown and oval shaped up. Yeah, gross, I know. Next thing I know, said poo is HURTLING TOWARDS ME AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT WHILE BROTHER LOEWEN IS GRINNING AND I AM SCREAMING AND AAAAHHHHH. Oh, it's just a stick. That's embarrassing.

We never found the geocache either.

I can't think of a witty caption for this one, but I already uploaded it and resized it, so the ox is in the mire, as it were.

We made a pretty collage that expressed our feelings and hopes and dreams and made the unicorns happy.

This is our group taking our turn as the meal clean-up crew. I am obviously helping lots by taking pictures and holding Denver.

This is me reaching out to a loner kid who I can't quite remember the name of.

Oh wait, that's Jordan.

[hopefully it's visible, but the clock says 2:18]
In the proud tradition of rotation camp, many stayed up all night. LA, Jessica, and my fine self found a secluded room where we could wait out the wee hours with each other. ...Not like that.

We had a bit of a dance party. I kind of look like a chipmunk.

*pant pant*
Note to self: dance more. you are unfit.

At the airport at 6 in the morning. We followed the two groups going to Labrador downstairs to group check-in cause we thought that was what we were supposed to do, turned out it wasn't, so Mik freaked out on Tom, who was in charge of the tickets, being like "Hey, why did't you check, I am so tired and I had to get up really early and you should have checked this is stupid", which made me REALLY irritated, because EFF I JUST STAYED UP ALL NIGHT AND YOU DON'T SEE ME COMPLAINING GO BACK TO FRANCE AND SCRATCH YOURSELF IN PUBLIC FAR FAR AWAY FROM ME.

Phew.

Partying at Timmy Ho's. Toasted Everything bagel with Herb & Garlic cream cheese, anyone?
Oh also, remember the boy on the left. That is ChaseJaceTyler, and there is a nice story about him coming in the future.

So, we're making our descent towards the Quebec City airport, and Fred and Andreanne just start bawling. Very funny. Like, yes, I love my province, too... now get ahold of yourselves!

After making fun of Fred and Andreanne, I looked and my window and saw this.
SO. MANY. PISCINES.
And it was like that almost the whole way to Alma. Me and Jessica were aghast haha.

This is me drinking french milk. That didn't end up killing the 4 hours we had to wait for the PG and Quesnel groups to be reunited with us, so LA, Jess, and myself took a nap. I went the whole hog and whipped out my sleeping bag and pillow. Tres cool. Except when the bus got there and Mik jumped on my sleeping bag and was therefore lying on top of me and it was all I could do not to vomit. The only person allowed to lie on top of me is your mum.

YAY ALMA HOUSE.

Next time I fly, it'll be back home to all of you!

sweat falls.

2010-05-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

And so I continue my catching-you-up series of really picture-heavy, badly written blog posts.

SWEATLODGE.

For those of you who don't know, a sweatlodge is an aboriginal ritual where you sit in a pitch-black tent sweating like a beast while chanting and praying. It was kind of cool, but mostly I just felt really sweaty and claustrophobic and I figure I already pray in more favourable climates, so I'll probably just stick with that.

Anyway, the inside of the lodge is covered in cedar to soak up all the toxic juice your pores squeeze out during the ritual. We went and gathered it ourselves beforehand, and then Nicole, Fred and LA had to put it in the lodge cause they were the oldest women, haha. In the middle of the tent, there's a little pit to put the hot rocks, and you don't put the cedar in that part 'cause then it'll catch on fire and that's no good 'cause then the tent won't be dark enough.

While waiting for the rocks to heat up in the fire, the guy told us some stories about other sweatlodges he did, etc. He also told me to take lots of pictures, as he'd forgotten the batteries for his SLR, and he wanted pictures for his website. I took a lot of pictures that day, but I have yet to send him any.

The rocks still weren't hot enough, so he told us to walk through the forest to the river.

The group had many different opinions on where the river was, and eventually split up. I was trying to follow someone, but ended up alone. But I found the river, cause I am a champ.

Then I was like, kay, I'm lonely, where are the people.

I couldn't find people, but I found a field.

And then, being alone, I hid in the grass and took pictures of my huge head.

After a tearful reunion with Fred, Tom, and Nicole, I then stood waaaaay behind them and photographed their butts.

It became evident that Mik and Andreanne were missing. We ended up yelling Andreanne's name once for every 10 times we yelled Mik's because her name is too long.

"Blaahhhh where are they, this is so inconvenient for us."

They showed up after a looooong time. Apparently they'd gotten onto the road and walked the wrong way. Andreanne kept being like "Wait, I think I hear something" but Mik wouldn't listen. He's French.

NIAGARA FALLS.

The bald guy is Jordan's dad. Jordan's mum came too, but you can only see her glove and ear in this picture. She's really adorable though.

That boat for maids. A lot of my asian brethren were upon it.

We went to a Buddhist temple where they had 10, 000 Buddha statuettes, but we have no idea why, because the lady there only spoke Chinese and the sentence "Do not touch anything".

BUTTERFLY CONSERVATORY YAY.

Next time I go to a butterfly conservatory, I shall dress as a middle-aged Sikh man with good bone structure, because apparently they like that.

I like oranges too.

This was where Jessica and I paused to think about the ethics of keeping butterflies in captivity. It sure makes them a lot easier to photograph.

Jessica, despite all appearances, is actually a middle-aged Sikh man.

I don't know these people. They look nice, though.

Okay, now I would like to know why everyone complained about me not posting and then when I did, that post received the least amount of comments in 8 blog posts.

WHY MUST YOU HURT ME SO?

That said, all will be forgiven if you simply comment on this one.

this is where I violate your bandwidth.

2010-05-15T06:38:00.000-07:00

Just to make it official:

INDEED, I AM AMONG THE FRENCH CANADIANS.

THE POUTINE IS GREAT.

But the reason I thought I should announce that is because I didn't really blog towards the end of Newmarket, so you guys didn't really know. So this is the post where I catch you up. I'm pretty sure all of these pictures are from a two week period, ending in Easter weekend.

We finished the 1998 piece puzzle. But there were pieces missing, and we never found them. Yin and Yang, I guess.

This is one of my billet dogs, Buddy. He is a decrepit old man, but I love him so. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the days me and LA were billeted with Peggy and Kevin, so you only get to see John and Pat. But I love them all.

This is John. This is also the picture I sent in for Canada's Next Top Model auditions.

Pat! Peggy and Pat were both LA's work partners at Community Living, which is a day program for adults with mental and physical disabilities. And guess what? Now she's going to go to school to work in that field. Katimavik strikes again!

Rest stop.

Nicole's forehead mole. (Yeah, I'm getting back on topic.)

So during billeting, LA and I slipped and revealed that we had mural painting skills. So Peggy was all like "HEY. YOU COULD DO ONE FOR COMMUNITY LIVING WOULDN'T THAT BE SO COOL??!?!? IT WOULD." And of course, LA and I love to please, so we agreed to do a painting to hang in the entrance. This is it after the finishing touches!

HAHAH I LIED I'M SO FUNNY.

LA and I were house managers together the week we did most of the painting, but we're SO creative, it even spilled over to our meals. You can almost hear that strawberry meowing.

So I actually didn't take any pictures of the finished product.... LA's got some, so I guess I'll have to steal them later. See if you can find me and LA! She's a ginger in bright pants, and I'm wearing my green sweater. The goose got painted on it later, I think.

Suckage, thy name is Newmarket dryer, its faulty venting that led into the boys bathroom instead of outdoors, and all the people who didn't clean out the lint catcher, causing it to wheeze its last.

We went camping on Georgina Island Easter weekend. There is really nothing on that island. Not even a corner store. But seeing as we intrepid explorers brought everything we needed anyway, it didn't matter. HARR.

This is Paul Bigcanoe. Not even joking, So you understand why I zoomed to 9.5x to get this picture from the second last seat in the van.

LA and I did raw vegan cooking all that week until we went camping, so everyone was really stoked for cooked food again. I actually liked eating raw vegan, but the supper on friday was not my thing. It was supposed to be like mashed potatoes, but raw blended cauliflower does not in any way taste like mashed taters. We also had shredded cabbage on the side, which was also not that great.

We all went to the little diner on the campground for second supper, where Jordan and I watched the Young & the Restless.

The friday night, Nicole ran into a tree during capture the flag, injuring her foot. The next morning, she announced that she needed to see a doctor, and drove off, leaving us to our own devices. We then proceeded to get get crunk (HAY LOOK NEW TERM I LEARNED FROM JORDAN LAST NIGHT. IT MEANS CRAZY DRUNK) and reeaaally baked. Kidding, on Saturday, we went for walks and did a polar bear swim. Anyway, Nicole phones us later that day and say her foot is too bad to come back for us, and so our PSL was going to pick us up on Sunday. This after driving an hour to her family`s house in Barrie, but we're letting bygones be bygones haha. She also warned us that there was a bad storm in Barrie and it was moving towards us, so we could rent cabins if we wanted to.

We decided to be cool instead. The girls moved their tent under the picnic shelter, and the guys decided to challenge the elements by staying on the beach. Their tent ripped from all the wind, and Jordan decided to come in the girls' tent hahah.

After all this shuffling, we went to the campfire and waited.

All the wind causes me to compulsively take pictures, especially of myself looking creepy.

It got darker.

Mik and Thony, chilled by the gales and overcome by their non-platonic love for each other, huddled together for warmth.

Please see caption for other windy picture of myself and Jessica.

Yeah.

And then Jordan's all "HAI GUYS. DID YOU KNOW I HAVE A BLOG?" I've read it by the way; utter rubbish.

The sky was so angry.

Did I mention that it never rained? It spat a little after we gave up and went to bed.

If you've made it to the bottom of this page without giving up, I commend you. I would now warn you to brace yourself, because I'm still not caught up to Quebec. But I'm splitting the posts because I'm nice.

How's this for a blog, guys? I'm going to have you whimpering in pain, begging me to stop blogging your faces off. Or maybe just one a week. Either way.

What are you doing this weekend?

HAY DIS IZ A TITEL.

2010-05-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

So, I've received numerous remarks to the tune of "Why don't you post a blog, you foul and pestilent congregation of vapors?", or, as us ACS grads of '09 would say "Frailty, thy name is Shoshana".

I was contemplating the cause of such abrasive and hurtful comments, and I believe I have identified it to be the growing unemployment epidemic, giving my readers and housemates more time to criticize me. In my defense, I am employed, ~~and although I stayed home sick 3.75 days out of 5 last week, I am still VERY busy watching Glee episodes I have already seen and reading the Twilight series which I have already read~~, so respect my right to post less often, thanks.

I am quite sorry though. There's no real excuse.

So this post, while short, marks my return to regular blogging. I'm going to start slow--one blog a week, unless I'm feeling utterly inspired and verbose.

(And don't worry, this doesn't count as my blog this week.)

Tell me, what have all you unemployed people been doing?

simple logic.

2010-04-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

I do have rather a lot to say to all of you, but I have no idea where my camera cord is, and I want to eat breakfast as well, so for now, just contemplate deeply who you are, and whether you truly love where you are in life, darlings.

ur so gay.

2010-04-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, Katy Perry has this song called 'ur so gay'--I'm sure you've all heard it (and promptly thought 'I have better things to do with my time')--and I guess it was playing on Andreanne's ipod this morning before we left for work.

Haha, I know I said you've probably heard it, but the videos has BARBIES.

She was singing as we were getting ready, and LA hadn't heard it before, so Fred and I joined in singing it to see if it would jog her memory. No dice.

As we were putting our shoes on, she started singing it again, and was met with less enthusiasm.

Then again.

And a little bit more.

Finally, we're walking down the hill by our house, and she's singing it again, and Fred goes:

"ANDRE. shut up!"

"AHH! JE L'AI DANS TETE!"

She's so funny, haha, and I can't really blame her for singing the song, because oftentimes, lame music is the catchiest.

And that's a problem for me. There is a lot of very lame, very catchy music out there. I think Katimavik really made me realize that. Made me embrace it, really. And now I can say that while I have gigabytes and gigabytes of respectable music on my ipod, I also have things like:

Whataya Want From Me by Adam Lambert, which is actually really fun to sing along to and I will never give it up.
Blah Blah Blah by Ke$hia, which has me wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy.
3 Lady Gaga songs, although, I technically have 3--Just Dance shows up twice, and it's annoying the poo out of me.
Baby by Justin Bieber, in all the glory of its under-ten-word chorus.
Love Story by Taylor Swift, because Shakespeare had no idea what he was doing when he made R&J a tragedy anyway.
Don't Talk to Strangers by Hedley, because I can relate it to the way I feel about your mum.
and like 6 Jonas Brothers songs, which I enjoy immensely, even if they aren't hot.

HOW CAN IT BE SO WRONG WHEN IT FEELS SO RIGHT? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

What is it that makes those songs unacceptable, when I have other artists like Hilary Duff, Fergie, and Hanson and people think that's cool BECAUSE it's lame? WHY MUST I BE JUDGED? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? *sob*

I'd like to hear your take on this, and also any guilty pleasures you have, my little potatoes.

split-pea spilt.

2010-03-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hello darlings, before I get to the main event, I would like to thank you all for your love and devotion and comments. They make Shoshana quite tickled. Quite tickled indeed. (Not literally, of course, as I often read your comments while at work, and tickling in the workplace is not very professional.) Please never go away--while my self confidence is not entirely dependent on the number of comments I get on any given post, it is almost entirely dependent. So keep commenting.

And if you have not been commenting, start. You non-commenters are the reason I have not yet gathered the courage to become the world's first scientist to splice a llama with a watermelon, creating a refreshing summer snack that spits the seeds out for you.

Anyway.

One would think 10 young people would eat quite a lot,and one would be thinking correctly, but only under ideal circumstances. For instance, a delicious pot of split-pea soup would normally be finished at the end of supper, but when the soup is not actually as delicious as some would like, being heavily burnt on the bottom, and the individual who made it is lying nauseous, pale, and sniffling on the sofa, the potential soup-eaters rethink their game plans somewhat. The pot of soup would stay largely full, all evening. Eventually it would be shuffled down into the garage, as in it's largeness, it would not cohabit happily with everything else in the fridge. And there, potentially, it would lie for a little over a month.

The following is a dramatization of what might have happened if someone later remembered that soup and decided to do their civic duty, had such a scenario ever occurred. But it did not occur, which is why we have dramatized it.

This is an occasion where a video might have been more à propos, but you can just imagine the soup having coagulated and refuse to exit the pot until it had the privilege of free-falling from high altitudes onto the metal grate. Not that it actually happened.

Finally, the soup gave-in. However, it was so solid that even stepping on it did not do much but spread it out.

Water, the universal solvent, was applied to for aid.

The water method was found to be successful in softening the plop, leaving us the pleasant job of dramatizing what it would have been like to poke the sludge into the sewers using found objects (like artists).

After much poking and further application of water, the foe was vanquished. We have done our best to reflect that in the dramatization.

I am so very glad that this scenario never actually occurred.

Tell me some of your old food stories, children.

spigots, lasers, and geeks.

2010-03-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

So last weekend, me and Jessica went down to the mall to get some glamour shots done on her birthday.

We left without paying.

Turns out, the mall was actually a maple syrup festival, and I shouldn't become a photographer. On the bright side, we got to go on a wagon ride, learn about how maple syrup is made, and build FYAR.

Every festival should have a wilderness survival station.

We also did some laser tag which was pretty much awesome. My first round, I came 26th out of 29 people. No honour brought to the family there. In round 2, I came second out of 32 people! That is what I call a marked improvement.

Funhouse mirrors make you all leg.

I can't quite figure out what holiday these hats were for, but they were kind of fun.

And we also had a theme-dinner revival.

Geek night ftw. (It occurs to me that Tom is actually a six-eyes in this picture)

What did you all do this weekend?

heart-rending rejection.

2010-03-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, this post is a cry for comfort, so please don't bring me down with your usual positive comments, like "Hahaha, Shoshana, your so funny", and "Hahah, Shoshana, you're so funny". To which I would normally reply "My funny is what?" and "You flatter me", respectively. But not today. Today I would cry.

Something horrible has happened to me. It is humiliating and discouraging.

I need support.

My grade 11 math teacher has rejected my advances, time and time again. When I proposed marriage to her after a particularly good lesson on polynomials, she just laughed in my face. And then sneered, because she realized I had made her laugh, and Cathy is a very serious person.

Judging from her status updates (yeah, I creeped. Don't judge ME; focus on her status updates), if I were Winnipeg, hockey, or Bon Jovi, she would have added me in a second, but it was not to be.

...At least I have a box full of free corn pops to comfort me.

P.S. Whitman, if you happen to read this, don't tell anyone. The pain is still too near.

Tell me your rejection stories in the comments.

oooh boy.

2010-03-08T20:02:00.000-08:00

This has very little immediate relevance to Katima-life, but I feel like I should share with you a phase in my life where I was very much into all things nerdy/cool/largely embarrassing to me now. And so, in the interest of embracing my past, I thought it might nice to walk you all down memory lane. (on like, a date. so make sure you brush your teeth.)

Here we go!

Oh, Naruto. And Bleach and D Grayman and One Piece and Deathnote and Hikaru No Go and Tsubasa Chronicle and Chobits and Pita Ten and I think you get the idea. Anime and manga took up a lot of time in my middle school/early highschool years, leading to...

Drawing. And yeah, I am embarrassed that I drew something like this, but I have decided to bare all, so to speak. (tee hee.) And INMYDEFENSE, I didn't design the character; it was for a contest on...

Gaiaonline.com, which was essentially my lifeblood for a few years. You get fake money to buy fake clothes for your fake people by posting on the forum. I had a lot of fake clothes. It made me happy. I think I subconciously wanted to be a little pixellated person back then, which might explain...

Ragnarok Online. MMORPG that I was biiig into for a while. In a nutshell, you run around and kill things to get levels (I know, it's a very original idea). Because I liked it so much, I decided to draw fanart...

Look that those booby-licious outfits haha. But don't worry, I didn't want to dress like that. I wanted to dress like I was going to a tea party all the time...

But like, a cool, asian tea party. The style is called elegant gothic lolita (but not lolita like you're thinking haha). I never actually wore it cause I couldn't really sew at that point, I didn't want to sell my firstborn to buy the expensive Japanese brands, and really, how practical would it really be haha. But I still have a penchant for poofy skirts.

...I can't think of a way to transition into this next one...

I listened to Japanese music almost exclusively for a while... Even though I couldn't understand it, and a lot of the bands I liked were male cross-dressers. Anyway, I knew all the words to this song for a while. And speaking of words...

(yeah, these transitions are really forced >;D)

I read books non-stop (that's a bit hyperbolic. but not much). The Abhorsen series was good times. I should re-read them someday.

And finally, something else I should revisit...

I'll post up something more substantial one day. But it is not this day.

reluctant asian.

2010-02-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

HAHAHAHAHA.

PRAY OUT THE ASIAN?

Edit: Hahah, I guess I should clarify that I found this on the internet. Newmarket is (hopefully) above this haha.

on fait rien. (mais pas vraiment)

2010-02-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

it's just kind of felt that way lately.

Our group's just gotten kind of lazy haha, now that we're in the big city with so many options. (we're so backwards haha) As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it do a group activity. I sort of paraphrased that, but you know, whatever.

I think it feels like even less because I've stopped taken so many pictures. This is no good! I want lots of pictures of my Katima-adventure, so when I'm old, I can turn on my holographic, 3D, telepathically-controlled picture viewer and relive the glory days.

Here is 50% of the pictures I took during my 72 hours:

Yeah. and the other 50% is Fred in front of it.

That's the Elliott Lake Katimahouse! We were driving past it and decided to drop in. Despite the possible creepiness, they gave us a house tour and one of the guys let me have his frilly pink bloomers! (which you can sort of see in the picture)

Me and Fred tagged along with LA during 72, so we got to meet her famjam, stay in a house with 3 dogs and 4 cats (you never wake up alone, hahaha), and eat a loooot of food. And then her aunt sent us home with goodies we're still trying to finish, even a week later. That is one sexy woman, I'm telling you.

this last weekend, we went to toronto.

The second tallest building in the world. Resenting Dubai a bit for taking away from my tourist moment.

Essentially what we did that day was tour parts of downtown Toronto with a guy who used to be a homeless drug addict and he explained about homelessness and related things in Toronto. It almost made me feel like I had street cred. After that, we got changed, had dindin, and went to Roy Thompson Hall to listen to the TSO do Verdi's Requiem. I love opera, oh man. And it only cost us 12 dollars each!

Outside of the Hockey Hall of Fame, being cool.

In the skywalk. We got free samples of Dove for Men!

peanut butter men.

I was house manager last week, and while making scalloped potatoes one day, I decided that I wanted to take the sticker off the oven door. My grandma always puts peanut butter on to take stickers off, so I thought I'd try it. Apparently I needed a creative outlet, haha.

And it worked, too!

bronchoconstriction.

2010-02-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's ever seen me run/weightlift/do pilates with Mary Windsor (...so, Marissa) can attest that while I may look largely pathetic and sweaty, I'm (most likely) not the least fit person out there. Or at least, that is what I like to tell myself. Therefore, I found it mildly strange that while putting on my socks Wednesday morning, I began to breathe heavily. I had to rest in between sock # 3 and sock #4.

When I finally got that last sock on and started walking to work with Fred, I felt that somehow, overnight, the route had become much steeper, and far longer. Panting like a dog (which, obviously, is unhealthy, because where dogs have no sweat glands, and I, well, do have sweat glands), I did my best to keep up conversation, but I was becoming increasingly focused on the fact that my lungs seemed to have the capacity of a water balloon. Had I gained 400 pounds without noticing, while everyone else was too polite/horrified to say anything? I thought of asking Fred, but then remembered the politeness/horrification (that is quite possibly not a word) factor.

I thought it would quiet down once I got to work and sat in a comfy chair. Not so. I was still hyperventilating 10 minutes later. This unsettled my bosses, so after cancelling my appointments for the day and calling the PC, I was whisked off to the walk-in clinic.

Turns out I left my health card back in BC, so my boss had to pay for it. Oops. Katimavik should reimburse her though. I think.

The doctor stuck things in various orifices (all above my shoulders, guys.), listened to my breathing (which had calmed down a fair bit by this point), and decided I was probably having an allergic reaction to ...something. He prescribed me a puffer. (I did't show it, but I was like 'YEAHHHHHH.' Always wanted to try a puffer, but without asthma, it's hard)

The pharmacist's name was Khalid Butt (NOT KIDDING AT ALL. I took one of his business cards on the sly as proof), and he was bald, with a long pointy beard. I interpreted these things as a good omen. At the register, he explained how to use the puffer, and answered some of my boss' questions, but all I could think was 'his last name is butt. this is so cool.'

By 11-ish, I'd been dropped off at home with orders to rest, a reminder to inhale my drugs when I was supposed to, and Khalid Butt's business card. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good morning.

PS. I'm fine now, haha.

weed world, weed world, party time, excellent.

2010-02-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

To state the utterly obvious: Newmarket is not Vanderhoof.

I can no longer walk in the middle of the road because there are actual cars on it (Fred does it anyway, but I'm not quite as badbum as she is). Fifteen minutes of leisurely walking only gets you to the main drag, and there is no 7/11. The replacements: non-franchise convenience marts. They carry weird magazines:

It was our first night in Newmarket, and after Nicole dropped the bomb that there was no sev in our area (oh, how my heart ached), she offered to guide us towards a 'mart'. With some trepidation, but also the conflicting desire to buy candy/vitamin water/magazines, we followed our new leader into the dark. (We all complained about the distance, our perceptions still skewed by the fact that Vanderhoof could have fit into Newmarket's left shirt pocket, haha)

When we fiiiinally arrived at 'CONVENIENT FOOD MART'(ooh, creative), I beelined it for the magazine rack (I've been trying to cut down on the amount of candy I buy haha). A title poking out from behind Maxim caught my eye.

WEED WORLD: THE MAGAZINE FOR MEDICINAL MARIJUANA USERS.

Yeah.

I reached up and pulled it out of the rack so I could look at it. The cover stories were:

Everyone Loves To Harvest!
Essential Med Grow Kit!
Can Cannabis Cure Cancer?
and
Grow Your Own Medicine Using Hydroponics!

Having always wanted to grow my own using hydroponics, I began flipping through it, (this drew Fred over as well; apparently hydroponics are a hot topic) but I was soon interrupted by the tall asian storeowner, who happened to be sporting an intense bowlcut.

Him: HEY. YOU AYTEEN?
In my surprise at having been hailed from across the store in a thick accent, I forgot how old I was.
Me: Uhh... uhm, no?
LA, Jazmin, and Fred: YES YOU ARE.
Me: Oh, uh, YEAH! YEAH I AM.
Not. Suspicious. At. All.
Him, staring into my soul: You need be ayteen to read this magazine.
Me: I am, really, I am. I just... forgot...
It was becoming more and more difficult to talk as my foot shoved itself further into my mouth.
Me: I can show you some ID? 'Cause I really am eighteen, and I have--
Him: BRING HERE.
This guy didn't mess around.

I handed him my (expired) BC Driver's License and watched what I imagine was exquisite disappointment wash over his face as he read my birth date.

I'm not sure what made the magazine 18+, although there was a page with a picture of a woman in naught but her panties and thigh-high fishnets. Her nipples were covered by the guns she was holding. Kind of old school, classic woman. Like Audrey Hepburn, or something.

I ended up getting Glamour instead.

P.S. I didn't realize how many different types of marijuana plants there were! There were so many in that magazine, and with weird names too. I guess I would know if I did drugs?

P.P.S. I have a sneaking suspicion that the magazine wasn't really targeted at medicinal users only, haha.

travel day[s]

2010-02-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

leaving. (kind of.)
At 5 am, we packed up our stuff, cleaned up the camp, and loaded up the bus. We got the the PG airport around 7, with our flight scheduled for 10-ish. It turned out that our flight had been cancelled and the plane sent to Hawaii, and that the next flight wasn't until 4 PM. This sounded cool, cause we'd get to hang out with the other groups a little more, especially the WL group, who was on the same flight as us up to Calgary, but that didn't work out either, haha. There was only room for the WL group on the 4 o'clock flight, so we had to wait until the 7 am flight the next morning.

Naturally, I was shocked.

Because of all the flight plan adjustments/confusion people in the group were getting pretty stressed out, but it all faded away as WestJet employees handed us hotel, food, and taxi vouchers. We bid a tearful (well, not really) farewell to everybody, grabbed our stuff, realized that there wasn't room for everybody in the taxis that had arrived, waited, called another taxi, said goodbye again to a couple people who had come outside to wait for the taxi with us (now we know who our true friends are hahah), and drove off into the ~~sunset~~ sunrise. Which, incidentally, was really cool that morning:

Now, let me just say that I hereby swear allegiance to the flag of WestJet. A ton of hotel rooms (we even had one extra! we went in it for about 30 minutes just so it didn't go unused). Something like $330 dollars to eat at Denny's. And the opportunity to be in a town with a bus system! The very thought tickles me immensely. My day went like this:

Eat breakfast at Denny's.
Feel sad with LA about leaving everybody in our cluster.
Both of us leave early to feel sad in cushy hotel room.
Turn on nice hotel TV, sing along to Bad Romance on MMM.
Fall asleep in nice hotel bed.
Wake up.
Eat lunch at Denny's.
Go back to sleep.
Go swimming in nice hotel pool.
Feel too cold in nice hotel pool.
Switch to nice hotel steam room.
Sing Bad Romance in nice echo-y hotel steam room with the other girls.
Wonder how I ended up liking Lady Gaga so much.
Shrug.
Shower in nice hotel bathroom.
Take the bus to the movie theatre.
Buy huge food combo.
Watch Avatar.
Walk back to nice hotel.
Eat late dinner at Denny's.
Sleep.

Denver's first bus ride, I think.

Ooh, look, a Denny's fry.

the real travel day.

woke up, dragged luggage down stairs (no elevator haha), go to airport, fly. Get to Vancouver, wait, fly. Get to Toronto, get luggage, experience some confusion over how we are getting to Newmarket. Get picked up by LIMO SHUTTLE BUS. It was pretty fly. The driver even stopped at Tim Horton's on the way.

Side note: on the flight to Toronto, I had to use the bathroom. (first airplane bathroom usage!) I forgot to put my shoes back on beforehand, so when I stepped into the bathroom (slightly less than a square inch of floorspace), I stepped in some liquid, which soaked through my sock. I continue to pray that it was water.

The pictures I took inside the limo bus turned out really blurry, but I thought Denver might want to see this when he grows up.

we got to the Newmarket house at about 6pm, unpacked, chatted with our new PL, Nicole, for a bit (she read us the book 'Everyone Poos'. I interpret this as a good omen), visited a 'mart', then went to bed.

And so I found myself on the other side of Canada, still sleeping on top of Jessica, but now sharing a room with LA as well.

rotating campers.

2010-02-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

now, because of a preoccupation with more pertinent things (eating, sleeping, moving across canada, working on a "2000-piece" puzzle which, in fact, only contains 1998 pieces due to "technical issues"), I have not blogged in a long time. but I am going to catch up. oh yes.

so, rotation camp.

actually, first we had to leave tristan.

IS THAT NOT THE MOST DEPRESSING IMAGE EVER?? I took it with massive zoom from inside the bus, haha. I miss him. D;

Anyway, we shoved all our stuff on the bus with the Quesnel and WL groups, sat down, and drove off as Scott put 300 into the DVD player. That is one weird movie. (At the same time though, I often wish I was a muscular man, walking around in naught but a loincloth, cape, and fierce patriotism.) There was a slight confusion with the pick-up schedule, so we ended up driving to where the pilot thought Camp Friendship (yeah. not joking about the name at all.) was, only to get lost and then realize we were supposed to pick up the Prince George group. We drove back into PG, crammed yet another team into the vehicle, and then drove back out to get the camp.

Hahah, It looks like Ryan (the one eating Denver) is really muscular, but it's LA's hand.

I can't really remember what happened after we got there, other than the fact that we had dinner and that I was on top of Alex Wallace in the cabin bunks again, entirely unintentionally. (but what can I say? you can't fight destiny.) Some of the cabins, including ours, were heated by wood stove, so that made for some fun as we had to re-light the fire every time we came back to the cabin. Eventually Maude, with all her skills, got it going for realz, and we were so warm that I got kind of sweaty in my sleeping bag that night haha. Well done, Maude.

the day.

Notice Denver's drag queen-esque plumage.

In the morning, we did a 'Goodbye PL' activity, where we made collages/memory books/whatever to send to our PLs as a wistful memento of days gone by (I am a poet, y'all). Our group did a big collage on a piece of chart paper, with a little addition on the side done by Anthony. See, what happened was we wanted to put pictures on the collage of things that had to do with memories we had of Tristan, but Thony just wanted to cut out pictures of girls with big boobs, haha. Now, as huge as Tristan's knockers were, not everyone wanted reminders of them on the collage, so he was given his own sheet of paper upon which to release his pent-up creative energy. This was working quite well until the end of the activity, when Amy told us that we had to have everything on the same collage, so we glued Thony's ode to breasts onto the edge of our big collage; a small, but provocative pimple on the side of our visual farewell. Oh man, I love Katimavik.

The afternoon to late evening is a bit of a blur, but in that blur I can make out:
• the pinata party that took the life of one of the camp brooms
• teaching Jessica and Michael how to knit (Jessica got the hang of it, hahah)
• bumming almonds off of the regional representatives

the night.

After supper, we shuffled into the Fir Room (all through camp, I thought it was the FUR room, haha) for the final presentations of our final presentations. William's Lake's was about 39 hours long, give or take; Quesnel brought a fancy-schmancy iMovie slideshow to the table; PG also had a loverly slideshow, and some excellent sock puppetry on the side; Vanderhoof started out a little shaky, with a lot of technical difficulties, but Jordan's singing and our video tour of downtown Hoofville and the Katimahouse went over pretty well. (especially the part where LA and I find a racy calendar in Tristan's room. Anthony gave it to him for Christmas)

I also told a joke to fill an awkward silence that occurred as the computers were choosing to be difficult:

A baby seal walks into a club.

Da-dum chh.

(that was supposed to be drums, if it was unclear, haha)

After those were over, we had the pleasure of hearing about a newly created Katimavik policy! Apparently, Sam was the first participant to ever sign his departure papers, board the plane, sit down, realize he didn't actually want to leave, run off the plane, and return in glory to his house--Katimavik had to create whole new rules for that situation. So, FYI, if you progress to a point in your departure where Katimavik cannot recoup their Benjamins and then have a change of heart, you and yo' fine self have got to pay for the plane ticket. So be sure. Unfortunately, Sam left for real the next day. D;

It looks like I have a unibrow, hahah.

Some people went to bed after that; some people stayed up. I figured that since it was the last time I would see the cluster in a long time (or just the last time, in the case of WL), I would stay up, haha. I learned some jiu jitsu from David, played my first game of poker, watched part of Role Models, then ended up talking to Wee in the bathroom (haha. wee in the bathroom) until 4:30, when it was decided that we should each get 30 minutes of sleep before travelling.

Oddly, it is was really easy to wake up after only half an hour of sleep. I did later experience the side effect of not being able to hold on to the broom as I tried to sweep the bathrooms (dropped it like 3 times haha), though.

You can't read Fred's poker face.

Oh, and a little bit more Vanderhoof:

We painted the dining room table in the Hoof! Each rotation gets a third of the table.

Close-up of my part.

and that's all for rotation camp!

goinggoinggone.

2010-01-17T23:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, this trimester has gone by so. freaking. quickly. (although the morning sickness made it drag a bit at first)

It seems like only yesterday (haha) that we were at Mass-O, listening to the behavioural standards, playing icebreaker games, and writing our group mission statements.

I can't really remember all of our mission statement, haha, but I do recall that we wanted to leave a legacy in Vanderhoof, since we were the first Katimavik group there in about 20 years. I think we did pretty well. Tristan said he's heard nothing but good feedback, and I feel like I did my best to make a good impression. AND, LA and I painted a mural in D-Pod to camoflage the door so that certain residents would stop trying to escape (HAHA, NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS). I don't think it actually works, 'cause as soon as Alice (Steve McQueen of D-pod) sees someone going out or coming in, she accelerates to a hasty shuffle to try to slip through the door into the main hallway. She'll shove sometimes too, and I know it's hard to take violent old women seriously, but she's pretty strong, haha.

Bow to our mural skills.

I'm going to miss Vanderhoof, Tristan (best PL I've had so far.), and my work placemeeennnnttttt but I'm so stoked for Newmarket at the same time. Tomorrow we leave for rotation camp at 1 PM! Wednesday, we fly out of Prince George to Calgary, then to Toronto, and bus to our house with the Collingwood group (new people to alienate with my placenta story!)

Wish me luck!

(and start mailing things to my new address!)

mice at the manor.

2010-01-13T00:10:00.000-08:00

Today at work, I walked over to an old lady in a wheel chair who was looking a bit agitated as she tried to wheel away from her spot at the table.

Me: Hey, how's it going?
Her: There's a-a-a mouse, down over there.
Me: Really?

I went to look where she had been sitting, crouched down to look under the table, and resurfaced holding... a bit of raisin toast.

Me: Honey, this is raisin toast.
Her: Oh. It looked like a mouse.

I am going to miss my job so much it's not funny.

smithers in 3D on ice.

2010-01-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

This last weekend, we ventured outside our little town of ~~Bethlehem~~ Vanderhoof.

Our mission: Traverse the 3-hour distance to Smithers for a family-fun-filled weekend of cross-country skiing, hiking, foreign films, non-foreign films, and nut-awareness.

Shazam.

saturday:
I broke my fast in the van because of poor time management. It consisted of two really good banana muffins, courtesy of Jessica. Those were amazing muffins. I still dream about them. As far as I know the drive there was uneventful, but as I was busy counting moutons on Anthony's shoulder (arm, really. I would have to be significantly taller to actually dormir on his epaule). I woke up as we were passing through Houston, and therefore passing THE WORLD'S LARGEST FLY FISHING POLE. "SAAJSFHSDJPULLOVERPULLOVEROHMAN!" we cried. Tristan said we'd stop on the way back. Relative silence resumed within the Katimabus once more.

Our accomodations in Smithers were this: PE mats on the gym floor of St. Joseph's catholic school. I have always dreamed of sleeping over in a school. Thusly, I was stoked. My stoked-ness was somewhat lessened yesterday, when LA enlightened me that things like hockey teams stayed there all the time, and so there was probably all manner of undesireable bodily fluids steeped into what had been my mattress. Oh well. We got settled, had lunch, synchronized all 6 oven clocks in the home ec room, and headed for Bulkey Valley Nordic Center for some skiing of the cross-country variety.

Gearin' uuuuuuuppp.

I had been expecting to spend most of my x-country time kissing neige, but it was not so: We were on an extremely easy trail (one for dogs, actually), and I ended up only falling 4 times in my entire 11km. The count was only 3 all the way until we were on our way back to the van:

Jordan: I only fell four times!
Me: Awesome! ...But I only fell three times.

And then I fell.

Having successfully humbled me, God then went back to ruling the universe. We went back to the school to change, vegetate, re-synchronize the oven clocks, and snack a bit. Now, we had brought a huge bag of trailmix with us to eat, but when we arrived, we discovered that the walls of the school were plastered in posters reading "WE ARE A NUT-FREE SCHOOL" and "BE NUT-AWARE"; to eat our nuts, dried fruit, and m&ms, Jordan and I had to stand outside the front doors like francophones smoking.

The gravity inside the gym was reversed for a more engaging workout.

The school had multiple TVs we were allowed to use, so we made a quick stop at Movie Gallery. The group rented Amelie and The Hangover, and Jordan and I bought Stranger Than Fiction (HAHAHA DAD YOU CAN'T CONFISCATE IT NOWWWWW.), Dreamgirls, and Atonement to take advantage of their 3 for $15 deal on previously viewed DVDs. We are so money-savvy. After that, we raced to Masayama, that is to say, I GOT TO EAT JAPANESE FOOD.

Udon-saaaan~ Ohisashiburi desu neeeeee~

It was a bit of a let down, 'cause there was like, one asian in the whole staff. and they didn't have ikura on the menu, but it was still okay for this far north haha. I miss japanese food so dang much haha. They don't sell much in the way of ingredients up here, so it's hard to even make it. We stuffed ourselves at dinner, then went back to St. Joseph's for movies! I hung with the francophones/Jordan/Tristan and watched Amelie, while Jazmin, LA and Jessica watched The Hangover on the other side of the gym. Amelie was really cute, but I wish I could understand french well enough to dispense with subtitles, since I know captions suck at communicating anything but basic meaning. ONE DAY. BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY. THIS DAY, WE FIGHT! (I miss watching LotR with your mum.)

sunday:
After another sexily muffin-filled breakfast and some more creative oven clock synchronization, we headed over to Malkow Lookout for some hiking (sans Jazmin, cause she said she was sick).

On the way, we saw MEESE. This is only a picture of one of them, but trust me, there were two.

While hiking, our fearless leader took the wrong trail and we ended up at the bottom of the hill instead of at the lookout. Thanks, Tristan. Some peeps decided they would run up the hill to get to the top, and convinced me to come, even though it was steep and covered in untouched, powdery snow. I started last, and definitely finished last too, but I made it, beeyatches! (6 km of hiking in total. take that, sedentary north american lifestyle.)

Photographic proof that I can roll with the cool kids.

We returned to the school to lunch, pack-up, and pick up Jazmin haha. And we did stop at Houston to document the fishing pole.

Tristan thinks that things like The World's Biggest Fly-Fishing Pole (I almost typed 'flying-fish pole' haha) should have to be functional, but who the eff is big enough to go fishing with that thing?

"It was THIS big!" That's what she said.

It was a good weekend.

i love my ant. (and grandma.) (and uncle.)

2010-01-12T18:10:00.000-08:00

I remember writing in my journal at, like, age 4, that my 'ant and uncle' were coming to visit.

My aunt acted hurt that I couldn't spell 'aunt', whilst 'uncle' was no problem, but in hindsight, I'm pretty sure she just found it cute. Four-year-old me felt pretty bad about it though.

Anyway, this 'ant' of mine has been sending me care packages in my time away. I was going to take some pictures and do a blog about the one I got right before billeting, but I ate everything before I got around to it.She sent me another one after Christmas, which I received last week, stuffed full of edible lovin' from my ant, uncle, and extremely sexy grandma (love you guys!). So uh, just be jealous that I am so loved.

Soooo much goodnesssss.....

a long video of two people eating.

2010-01-06T20:50:00.000-08:00

So, LA and I filmed ourselves trying to eat a pack of melba toast each as fast as we could. It felt so epic while we were eating, but the video is kind of uneventful, haha. Trust me though, my mouth is ripped to shreds on the inside. If you're pressed for time, skip to like 2:20. Watch for when LA sneakily throws half a melba toast at me, and I think it's mine, so I eat it.

GYAHADSFGR. also entitled: shoshana goes skiing.

2010-01-05T00:10:00.000-08:00

This tragesty (for the uninitiated: tragesty is a mash-up of travesty and tragedy that some of my friends started using in high school) took place on December 30, 2009. This is a true story.

A mini snowman I made for the scavenger hunt-esque thing PG had us do during New Years. The snow was SO powdery, so I had to do creepy phone breathing on it before it would stick. I thought I'd insert something happy before you read my story, haha.

We set out early in the morning. I was immensely excited at the prospect of my first day of downhill skiing, and danced to my ipod in the back seat nearly the entire way there. Our early departure time found us at the ski hill just as the lodge doors were opening. The sun was shining brightly on the groomed snow; the crisp air was refreshing; the day looked promising.

After setting down our gear and food inside, we were led into the rentals room, where our boots, skiis, and snowboards had been set aside for us. I grabbed my stuff, walked over to our table, and shoved my feet into my ski boots. It took a couple tries to tighten them properly, but I welcomed this opportunity to expand my horizons, and eventually I worked it out. With the rest of the group, I carried my skiis over to the bunny hill, put them on with LA's help, and grabbed hold of the lift that took me up to the top of the hill.

I surveyed my surroundings, hungry for adventure. The bunny hill would only be the first of my many conquests to be made that day. Jessica was my elected instructor, and with her help, I began to snowplow my way down the hill. Under her watchful eye, I practiced this technique until it felt natural; until Jessica felt I was ready to try an easy run that began partway up the hill.

Getting to that run involved using the T-Bar lift, which was mildly terrifying, but as I had remembered to wear my Depends, I had courage enough to ascend the mountain of snow. While I didn't actually fall off the lift, I more collapsed into the snow at the correct exit point than anything else. It is all part of the experience, I thought, dusting myself off and shakily rising from the ground.

Yeah, yeah, I can't talk like that anymore. It all went downhill from there (punny, I know). On my first run, I wiped out once, and screamed the rest of the way to the bottom, completely unable to control my speed or direction (luckily it just went straight). The second time, I fell twice, then did the uncontrolled speeding/screaming. After that, I went into the lodge for a break, and when I came back out, returned to the bunny hill. I practiced for a long time there, not really getting any better, until LA suggested that I go up to the very top with her:

"Shoshana, you wanna?"
"Unghh, okay..."

The path up Mt. Doom. I swear I passed Frodo on the way up, and I think he yelled at me to turn around.

It took like, 15 minutes to get to the top, and by that time, I was super cold and regretting my decision not a little. I also forgot to wear a hat, and I think I got a bit of frostbite in the top of my left ear, because even now, almost a week later, I still can't feel it. Anyway, back to our story. I convinced LA that we should do the very easiest run, internally wishing that there was just a T-Bar that went back down the hill. It started off okay: flat enough that I couldn't pick up any speed. Then it actually started. I fell. LA grabbed my ski, helped me get it on, stand up, and off I went again. Biffed it. LA found my ski again, helped me get back to my feet, and I tried again. I made it a bit farther this time, screaming my lungs out as I picked up speed, lost all control/ability to think, went over a bump, and flipped. LA came over the horizon laughing, holding both my skiis, and we repeated our new ritual. I fell again. And again. And again. It was funny at first, but then I started falling harder and harder, culminating in pro-skiier me hitting my head twice in a row. (I also managed to knock LA over once by accidentally sliding into her as I was kissing the powder. That was the only time she fell, haha) At this point, I was a little disoriented, and my neck and head hurt. LA suggested I take off my skiis and walk down. I liked that idea.

I was tottering down the hill when Tristan and Fred caught up with us on their snowboards. Curious as to why I was walking down a ski hill, they stopped, and after finding out what happened, made me sit down and rest. While we were waiting there, the ski patrol showed up. They offered to call a ski-doo for me, which I refused, but after asking me a few questions, they radioed for one anyway. The guy who was running them was about to go home, so one of them was going to have to go get it themselves, and I was going to have to sit in the snow for half an hour.

"It's cool; seriously. I can just walk down." I insisted.
"You can walk? Really. Show me." The one with the moustache sounded dubious.

At this point, I thought I got up and walked in an admirably straight line, but according to LA, Tristan, and Fred, I was veering right off into the trees like a boss. I guess it was good enough for the ski patrol guy though, 'cause he decided it would be okay to just teach me how to ski properly so I could get back to civilization. Moustache guy introduced himself as Alex, Level II Ski Instructor. I told him my name repeatedly, but prolonged exposure to the cold mountain air must have screwed up his hearing; he was still calling me 'Joshana' when he left me at the bottom of the hill. He had me do something he called 'the falling leaf', which was just zig-zagging back and forth without having to turn at all, and when he thought I'd gotten the hang of that, he started teaching me how to turn. Apparently, I'd been putting my weight on the wrong foot every time I turned, and that was why I kept falling. Thanks, Jessica. (kidding, haha) Anyway, I made it down the hill without any further mishaps, and even got to see wolf tracks and pee.

When I finally got back to the lodge (LA and I were on that hill for 1.5 hours), I was covered in snow. My bangs were sticking out all over the place because of all the ice in them. My black fleece wasn't black anymore. A woman in the rentals room asked me if I had left any snow back on the hill. I told her I wasn't sure. I hurt all over, and taking off my boots was like pulling your mom off of a box of doughnuts. Most of my clothing was soaked, and LA had to lend me some of hers, which was really awesome, cause cold, wet clothes suck.

I can't wait to go skiing again.

Me after I thawed a bit.

In other news:

My sexy hat. It's sooooo big, haha, but I love it. Even if it does make me look like a deranged milkmaid.

long time, no steamy internet rendez-vous.

2010-01-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

Stuff has been busy lately, with Christmas and New Years and other plausible excuses I cannot bring to mind at the moment, and so I have a lot to catch up on. To warn you, this is probably going to be longer than IB History Paper 3 (ie: long, though not Extended Essay long). In my humble opinion, I believe that this presents us with an excellent opportunity to use--and deeply appreciate--sub-headings. Ahem.

so, christmas.
I just realized that I've been telling people this was my first Christmas away from home, but it's actually my second--my first was spent in foster care when I was 8, but I guess because it's not something I think about a whole lot, I forget. However, Noel '09 is what we're here to talk about, biznatches. Hmmm, the use of subheadings makes me want to use bullets as well.

how katima-christmas is different:
• people listen to Billy Talent instead of Bing Crosby. (however, Devil at a Midnight Mass could be construed as a Christmas reference) This threw me off a bit, but the thoughts of how much I enjoyed Try Honesty in grade 7 melted away any hard feelings I may have had.
• we watched The Hulk (yeah, the one with Eric Bana and the killer poodle), instead of It's A Wonderful Life, which the video store here doesn't even have.
• our tree looked like the Charlie Brown tree's tall, gangly cousin who doesn't talk much at parties. in its defense though, it was super cute, real, and allowed for us to see through it into the computer room (and, as every good driver knows: visibility is key).

how katima-christmas is awesome:
• see 'how katima-christmas is different'
• butt-tons of food. we had a 25 lb turkey, meat pies, meat balls, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, brussel sprouts, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, ~~and your mum (that was just me, about an hour after dinner, when i had digested a bit)~~.
• getting M&M (the candy, not the frozen food store) earbuds, among manymanymany other cool things from Andreanne for Secret Santa. My ipod is now so much sexier. But, as the headphone packaging stated repeatedly, still not edible.
• recieving sweet gifts from Alex's Mom, the Santiagos, and my work partner. (dear family, I guess know where your allegiances lie.) (no, I'm kidding; dad sent me money.)
• being able to wear nothing but a sprig of holly and tassles without being reprimanded my my parents.
• ...hahaha....

I did feel homesick, but only on days containing the letter 'Q'.

popping my (downhill) skiing cherry.
On the 30th, we went skiing/snowboarding at Murray Ridge. For free, of course, thanks to our formidable powers of negotiation--we were supposed to work for them all day on the 27th, but they had so little for us to do, we were gone within 2 hours. shazam. I actually have a fairly dramatic story to tell about my first time doing a double black diamond run, so I'll do another post about that after this one is finished.

bringing in the new year with hypnotism, exploding kneecaps, and a full house.
Through the hard work and careful-ish planning of many others (c'est-a-dire, pas moi), our entire Katimavik district was able to meet in the Hoof for some most excellent New Years festivities.

day one (31st) :
Quesnel showed up first, while we were eating lunch. Having not taken the time to mentally prepare for the massive amounts of human set to pour in that day, we began panicking and screaming 'LOCK THE DOOR OHMANOHMANOHMAN'. We had to let them in eventually though, and so it began. Prince George arrived a bit later, followed by William's Lake (and Robbie came! yeaahhhh~). At one point, LA and I hid in the bathroom and commiserated about the overcrowding, haha. Bill's Puddle had planned some 'team-building exercises' for us to do, like the Human Knot, and afterwards, Jordan and I passed out on the basement floor--he was sick, I was just too lazy to walk back upstairs.

I awoke to Maude asking me if I thought her outfit for the dance was good. I groggily looked up, mumbled 'mmyeahhmghmmm' and closed my eyes again, but after reevaluating my situtation, I decided to get up so I could eat and get ready for the dance. Normally, I am not the type of girl to change my outfit 4 million times before a dance, but I believe the upcoming meteor shower threw off my inner body mechanics, and so LA and Ryan's snuggling sesh was frequently interrupted by me showing them a different ensemble. I settled on this really unattractive Amish-looking dress I found in a bag of clothes we picked up at Murray Ridge while cleaning the storage room (no offence to the Amish--they've got some sick style), that I pinned and belted into something that looked kind of cute (I hope).

The dance was preceded by a hypnotist, and I, along with a lot of other Katimesclaves, ran up to be volunteers. Now, I was a bit skeptical before the show, and I still am. For me, it was like doing improv with my eyes closed while forcing myself to look stoned, because I didn't want the hypnotist to realize I was faking and send me off the stage like he did some of the others. Talking to some of the other peeps who went up, some had done the same thing as me, while others felt that they were there sometimes, and gone others. I will say, however, that it was a bit surreal, consciously doing crazy things in front of a bunch of people who thought I was hypnotized. I mean, I'm fairly outgoing anyways, but this was a bit different. After that, we busted a move on the dance floor to such hits as the Cha Cha Slide, hugged everyone and their mother at midnight, kept dancing, and then I watched Anders, Michael and Anthony suck helium out of the decorations. Overall, a pretty decent night.

day two:
We did a lil blitz clean in the late morning, then went to the arena to skate. I was super pro that day, skating for what probably amounted to 20 minutes, since I kept falling on my knees (hence the kneecap explosion) and I was too wimpy to keep going, haha. After that, we trickled up to the mezzanine to play cards and board games, and then have lunch, which was a spicy, but quite nice, chili. In the Hoof, we don't eat spicy food, so I found myself frequently running to the kitchen to drink water out of the tap. I did, however, champ that sucker in the end.

The evening featured a most prime talent show. Andreanne and I opened with a moving arrangement of the Pokemon themesong in both official languages, while wearing large cardboard Pokeballs we taped to our stomachs. The whole show was awesome, but as my memory is not what it used to be, and I can't find the list of who performed, I'll just give you some highlights:

• Jordan singing Springtime For Hitler, from The Producers, with blonde hair he dyed especially for the performance.
• The Quesnel boys' reading/dramatic interpretation of The Journey of the Noble Gnarble. Never have I found fictional sea creatures so accessible.
• The Quesnel girls' dance to Deceptacon by Le Tigre, continuing even after Saki's face contorted, exclaiming 'CALF CRAMP' mid-dance. That sentence is awkward, because it sounds like Saki's face is what got the calf cramp.
• Micheal and Scott's rendition of Light My Candle, from Rent. The song was funny on its own, but somehow, two guys--one of them in drag--makes it that much better.
• Robbie's many improv games. One of my favourite parts was when Harry ran in, replacing one of two people carrying another like they were dead, and asked "Do you think we'll get a Final Warning for this?".
• Eric singing a song that I can't remember the name of, but it was really cute, and ended the show with much warm fuzziness.

day three:
PG and WL left during the course of the morning, leaving the house feeling very empty and quiet, even though we still had Q-town with us. I know I felt uncomfortable on the first day, but after the dance I was used having everybody around, and it was really fun. Uber bummer = our group is about 7 hours away from the rest of our District when we get to Ontario.

Epic tobogganing followed the exodus, and then we went to a local church to play some sports. Athletics, especially competitive sports, are my forte, so this was quite fun, and not embarrassing at all. Actually, it was fun, but I often get the feeling that the people I am playing with would rather I sat on the side, though they are too nice to say it, haha.

day four:
The four house managers put out a sweet butt-ton pancakes and waffles for brunch, we cleaned house, and Quesnel packed up and left. All quiet on the northern front.

I regret the lack of pictures, but I've gotten lazy. Once people upload some to facebook, I steal some.

You may un-glaze your eyes now.

What did you guys do for New Year's?

houses of pain d'épice.

2009-12-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

MY MASTERY. Jessica and Andreanne built the house with me, but this wall is all me. In my narcissism, this was the only wall I took a photo of. D;

So, way back before Christmas, Mikael's billets had our whole group over for gingerbread house making! They provided the oodles of candy and icing, and certain of our group (pas moi, bien sur) went the extra mile to handmake our gingerbread! It was a fun night!

The house that Fred, Jazmin, and LA built was the biggest, and very heavy, with a very steep roof. After trying to get the house to stay together using conventional methods for what was a long, long time, Mik's billet dad had a great idea. They drilled holes in the house, and stuck toothpicks in the holes to support the structure. Awesome.

Tristan and Mik's house was the most detailed, and also very tiny. This is a christmas tree they made out of two party mints and those weird, cheap, candy-covered chocolate nuggets. In the background, you can kind of see their house, complete with tiny icicles and detailed roof.

Here's a shot of the snowman they made out of shaved-down white party mints, and real branches for arms.

And lastly, Wendy's. Taken during the fleeting moments hwere it was actually sticking together.

oh, dementia.

2009-12-19T01:54:00.000-08:00

There's this woman at work who has 5-6 stuffed animals that she often takes with her in her walker, and she thinks that they're real animals. In fact, a lot of the toys have stains on their faces from times when she's attempted to feed them. Today, it seemed that she had found a new one. I walked up behind her to see her clutching something close to her chest.

Me: Hey, what do you have there?
Her: I would like... would like for you to take me to the front.
Me: Yeah? Why?
Her: Well... I would like to be where there are people who might want to care for this.
*looks down at whatever is hidden in her arms*
Me: Really; what is it you have?
Her: I rescued it, saved it. It needs a home.
Me: Here, let me see what you have there.
*I reach in between her arms, and pull out something soft*

Mittens.

Me: These are mittens.

Her: Go away.

I did.

makin' coffee, not love.

2009-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

Sooo.... Apparently there is no end to the amount of awkward-yet-entertaining things that the residents at work can do/say.

Old Dude: Can I get a coffee?
Me: If you say please.
Old Dude: Okay.

*He looks at me expectantly, but says nothing*

Me: ...Say please.
Old Dude: I did. You just weren't listening.
Me: Then say it again.
Old Dude: Fiiinnnee. Please get me a coffee.
Me: Alright.

*I get coffee, come right back*

Old Dude: What took you so long?
Me: Dude, it took me like, two seconds.
Old Dude: You were probably making love to some guy. ...You should have been making love to me.

Me: ... I'm gonna go.

He was so nonchalant about it too.

hebergement ftw. take two.

2009-12-14T01:11:00.001-08:00

My billets, Richard and Mary Burkholder, ROCK. They are awesome. They are super cute (that one's for you, Jordan, haha).

Us with Denver!

Richard and Mary are huge into cross-country skiing, and they took me out twice! Which is quite the test of patience, since I do more falling and getting up than actual skiing. Actually, I think what I did was go out for two rounds of intense fisticuffs with the snow, intermigled with some pitiful attempts at skiiing, but hey, it was FUN.

Attempt one. This was when I tried skate-skiing. Not so good.

Attempt two, with classic skiing. Worked only marginally better. That's Richard and Jessie the superchill dog in the background. You can see by the snow on my sleeves that the ground and I had already made out a few times.

Hahah, Mary took this without my knowledge. Bow to my intense concentration.

During billeting, there was a big night parade with lots of lights here in Vanderhoof, oddly and inexplicably called The Parade of Lights.

LA, Jordan, and I were all in the float for the Nechako Waste Reduction Initiative, since our billets were involved. We got to wear sandwichboards covered in recyclables, and hold a banner! I was feeling rather muscular that evening. My millions of crunches are starting to pay off.

Mary also taught me how to knit, which pleased me to the extent that words temporarily escape me, and even after they come running back, having seen the evils of the world, it is only so that I can type a very long sentence about not having the words.

I started off with a lovely light tan rectangle (my favourite colour is light tan. My favourite animal is poopies.), and then when Mary felt I was ready, she took me to get all the ingredients I needed for the lovely red toque I am working on now!

And so, I have become OBSESSED with knitting. While at the Burkholders', I would stay up into the wee hours knitting while watching things like BBC Pride and Prejudice, and Bridget Jones' Diary.

We went to see a UNBC basketball game, and look who was coaching the Quest team (who lost). Another of my future husbands. 12x zoom, thanks.

On the last night of billeting, the Burkholders' daughter and her girlfriend came over for dinner to celebrate the girlfriend's birthday (a little off topic, but these are the CUTEST girls ever, and their daughter brought over a bunch of knitting patterns for me to peruse). We ate like kings, and more specifically kings that have told their chef to make bread, teriyaki chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, and a really rich chocolate cake that Richard cut REALLY big, haha. Yummmmmm.

Billeting rocks.

hebergement ftw.

2009-12-14T01:10:00.001-08:00

The long awaited (or not) billeting posts!

The day we were set to leave for billeting, Mikael and I cleaned like mad to get it ready. Actually, all we did was vacuum for the first time that week (apologies to any housemates reading this), wash the bathrooms, and clear the fridge out a bit. It was probably the most work we did all week.

Going back to the vacuuming thing, when we were talking about what we needed to do that day, Mikael thought that vacuuming was unecessary, even though we had not done it all week (truly, we were the laziest house managers so far, hahah). When I argued this point, he countered that in the 3 years he had lived in his own place in France, he had vacuumed his room only once. This both impressed and horrified me.

That night, we all hung around in the kitchen, saying tearful goodbyes as our family dispersed, one by one. I could barely function for the tears and unelegant mucous abdicating my every orifice. I couldn't believe that I was going to be torn away from my newfound family. The pain was too much. I broke down.

I think the lighting was weird, 'cause I don't look upset.

Fred didn't want Jordan to go. In fact, she tried to hide Jordan under the sink when his billets came:

When I got to my billet house, I was even more stoked than before. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. ...With the aid of captions.

YEAAHHHHH. LOOK AT THAT SEXY QUEEN BED.

Spent some good time chilling with the Burkholders here. Lots of reading and knitting, as we were all party animals.

Stairway to awesome. Also, lots of cool books. Jane Austen, FTW.

I love windows. But not cleaning them. That sucks.

The Kitchen where all the food magic happened. Ate soooo well there.

The TV room in the attic. Spent hours there knitting while watching BBC Pride and Prejudice. Win.

JESSIIEEEEEE. Love this dog.

pre-billeting.

2009-12-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

It was so long ago that I forgot it existed, but apparently there was life before billeting, so I'll catch you up on that first:

Mik and I were House Managers the week before the group ventured forth. I found that after a long stint of chopping veggies, it is best to sit back, relax, and build a terrarium for your pet dinosaur, complete with celery and lettuce trees.

Dress-Up As Another Group Member Night! I got to be Tristan, and that beard made for some good lulz.

Mik as me. I think he might be more feminine.

Me as Tristan and Tristan as LA. Those are some very pas smat spandex shorts.

This was the only time I've used that eyeliner in a long while.

Tree decorating at Riverside!

We went downstairs to get some fake gifts out of storage, and the storage area went on and on and on! (I hate when people wrap empty boxes for decoration. I get so pumped because I see a huge pile of cadeaux, and when they turn out to be empty I feel like life is no longer worth living)

Practising the sleeve sneeze to combat H1N1. I don't think we read the instructions right.

On to billeting!

chacarron macarron.

2009-12-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

Enjoy.

sexual harrassment in the workplace.

2009-12-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

I know I said I'd do billeting posts, but uploading photos takes time.

Anyway, yesterday I was sexually harrassed at work. Not by a co-worker, either; it was a 71 year old man in a wheelchair.

It started with him asking one of the nurses if she was pregnant, and her laughingly replying that she was just fat. Discomfited by this slightly awkward moment, I attempted to downplay it:

Me: Haha, oh no, if you wanna get girls, you've gotta be more a sweet-talker! Be more complimentary!
Him (in mumbling old man voice): I'm 71 years old! What do I need women for!?
Me: Oh, fine then, haha.
I start to walk away.
Him: *grabs my butt as I pass*

In my shock, I turned around and smacked him in the head. Right in front of the nurses station. I am an elder abuser.

Let's share awkward moments so I don't feel so bad.

the cake of sex.

2009-12-09T20:05:00.000-08:00

Today, during my lunchbreak, a cake was brought in. It had been sent by the family of a guy who recently passed away, thanking the staff for all their hard work. It sat there untouched for about 15 minutes, until another nurse came in and was all: "Cake?! I am so there. Time to get fat."

She quickly cut a piece out of the corner, put it on a little disposable plate (saucer, really), and took a bite. She closed her eyes and moaned in ectasy.

"So much better than sex," she said, after a moment's pause.

While doubting that it was quite as awesome as she said it was, I was at least convinced that eating a piece would not be a complete letdown. I picked my lard self up, walked to the other side of the table, obtained said gateau, and put some in my mouth.

If that cake is better than sex, then my wedding night is going to be a gigantic letdown.

Posts about billeting to come.

What are your guilty pleasures?

self defense hurts

2009-11-24T13:49:00.001-08:00

SUPER SORE. We went to PG on Sunday to hang out with the PG and Quesnel groups at a really crazy awesome self-defense workshop. It hurt to exist yesterday. Today, it just hurts when I move. Awesome.

Mik catching some Zs on the way to PG. He made me and Tom (us 3 were rocking the back of the van) laugh so hard later on in the ride:

Mik: Hey, Shoshana, I just noticed. This is like America, when black people had to sit in the back of the bus. Look, French (him), Japanese (me), and Mexican (Tom).
Me: Woah, good point.
Mik: And look who is driving. (pointing at Tristan) Blond hair, blue eyes.

HAHAHAH.

PGs salon was full to the maxxxxxx. And some people were downstairs, hahah.

OH YEAH. This is Anthony! Our newest and youngest group membaaaahh. He rocks.

Stretchin' OUUUTTTTTT.

Ryan and LA gettin' their freak on.

This is me looking unimposing.

Lion pose crew reunited.

AZN INVASION. Karina (newest PG recruit) doesn't look asian, but I think her soul is asian. BTW, in case it's unclear, we're spelling AZN with our hands.

QUEBECCC POWWEERRRRR.

After hanging at the Peej house for a while and planning the New Years' rendez-vous in the Hoof, we went to pick up Wendy at the airport, since she'd flown home earlier that week for funeral. The flight was delayed by about 45 min, so we had to kill time. I decided to expose myself in public. We were also rockin to Beach Boys on my ipod speakers (BOSS airport musique), and doing that thing where you jump and click your heels. I managed to do it properly about 7.234% of the time.

Full, full day. Everyone was pretty tired on the way home, and quite non-plussed when we realized that Jordan had lost his wallet in the A&W parking lot in PG, and we had to go back to get it, haha. That's Katimavik for you though!

Good weekends for you guys?

my boss won't let me come to work.

2009-11-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

So, I guess I got the flu or something, therefore I stayed home yesterday 'cause I felt like a big pile of steaming, feverish poo with a headache and nausea, who happened to be wearing 400 layers. It was probably the most exciting day of my life:
Every few hours, I would get up, pee, drink buttloads more water, and go back to bed. Also, I cured cancer. But that's no big.

I feel much better today, albeit I ache all over. Anyway, I didn't think that muscle pain was contagious, so I phoned my boss to ask if I could come in to work. Shut. Me. Down. I suppose it's in the best interest of the residents, but I am SO BORED. Not entirely inclined to spend another day sleeping/half-drowning myself/having conversations with Tom--as... eye-opening as they were--about wiping phlegm on the back of bus seats and Two Girls, One Cup (which I haven't seen and neeeeevvvvvveeeerrrrr plan to).

The night before I got all diseased, we went to an open mike at a little pizza joint downtown. Pretty sweet. Jordan and Tom were rocking out with the other people there, while the rest of us ate stuff. I like eating stuff.

Also, WE HAVE NEIGE. And not that, play-with-your-emotions-and-make-you-think-it's-going-to-stay-but-no kind of snow. I think it's here to stay, and I'm stoked.

Huuuuu, also, I'd love some ideas for stuff I could do at open mike! So far we were thinking the Pokemon themesong, but that's just one thing. DROP A COMMENT, BROS.

multilingual card games.

2009-11-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

Playing Go Fish:

(in which, apparently, you are supposed to take the leftover cards and make them into a 'lake', in which you may 'fish', instead of just leaving them in the regular, neatly stacked formation. This blew my mind. Also, the name 'Go Fish' makes a lot more sense now.)

Anyway. This was a good chance to practice simple french like: As-tu un six? And of course, vice versa for francophones...

Wendy: Shoshana, as-tu un valet?
Me: Non... Go fish. (my french still needs some work)
Wendy: Okay, Andreanne, your turn.
Andreanne: Shoshana... Have you an ass?
Me: ...Yes?

Turns out, she was trying to say 'ace'.

just a little excerpt.

2009-11-15T01:25:00.000-08:00

Mikael was skyping his mum this evening, and I walked up behind him, and tried out one of my french pickup lines on her. (Tu me fait fondre comme du chocolat.) She, of course, didn't understand it until Mik said it with the correct pronunciation, but whatevs. Anyway, later in the kitchen, Mik was trying to tell me that his mom had recognized me from pictures on facebook:

Mik: So, then, when you--you came--you came on my back, my mother--
Tom: When she came on your back?
Mik: What?!
Me: Oh dear.

This is what comes of putting many teenagers in the same house. I feel kind of dirty, haha.

graveyard surpriser is a serial offender.

2009-11-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

I thought you might like an update on Monsieur Deathstick.

They've been trying to find things to occupy him so his OCD doesn't take over, and he starts stealing mass amounts of furniture again. He used to really like walking and smoking, so they were getting him to go up and down the hallway while pushing a wheelchair to occupy his hands, rather than use a cigarette. It seemed to work really well for the first 15 minutes, but when my boss went to check on him, he had his little friend out, shooting a stream of all-too-familiar amber liquid onto the wall. After she'd gotten him back to his room, she went to mop up the mess. After mopping, she accidentally tipped the bucket over, spreading diluted plague juice all over the floor. I didn't know this until I started working at the Manor, but urine makes floors sticky. I walked right through that section of hallway, and my shoes made disturbing crackling sounds every time I lifted my shoes up for the next couple of minutes. Delish.

That was Tuesday. Today, he struck again. They had sent him down with the wheelchair to get a coffee in A Pod, when much to the amusement of one of the female residents who witnessed the travesty, "He just whipped it out and started going at it!". More mopping, but not by me. ;D He's just too quick.

In other news, there was a little bit of knife-brandishing going on today as well. It's actually kind of depressing, because it was the wife of a resident who has gone downhill really quickly in the last few days, and the staff are so busy that they haven't been able to start fully meeting all of the new needs he has, and the wife is mentally ill, but either way, she freaked out and started waving a knife around. Lucky for the nurses, it was a butterknife, but they always say it's the thought that counts.

It is so dark when I walk home now. It's even darker when I fail to read my watch correctly, think that it is 3:30 instead of 4:30, work for another hour and fifteen, and then realize my mistake. For the record, 45 minutes of unpaid accidental overtime is not something I want to make a habit of, especially when I have important things to do at home. Like eat, and check my Facebook page.

je suis une hunkess

2009-11-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

Hunkess isn't an actual french mot; it's one of those security words you have to type in to comment. I just got it when I commented on one of Alex's posts. I'm thinking I'll start working it into regular conversation. But to make it official, let's write a dictionary definition for it:

hunkess [hungkISS]
–noun
1. Slang.
a. a beautiful woman with a well-developed physique. What a hunkess! I'd tap that.
b. a large or fat woman.What a hunkess! I would not tap that.

As you can see, there is a danger of people misunderstanding you, as with phat shorty, but I believe that as it becomes more widely used, people will begin to pick up on the subtle nuances of this word.

bridge over troubled waters

2009-11-12T02:06:00.002-08:00

Hahah, Simon and Garfunkel reference for your mum.

Yesterday, when Robbie was at our house, he got us to do a visualization activity where we build a metaphorical bridge from where we are now to a point of our choice in the future. Sound cheesy? Well, it was, but I also found it interesting to do some introspection and see where I`m at, as it were. (and to see where my housemates felt they were, as well!)

My bridge isn't a bridge at all; it's a path of stepping stones dotting a lazy river. The river is quiet, a line of demarcation between the trees on either side. The sun is shining, casting a warm yellow-ish hue over everything it touches. With the sun come the inevitable shadows, darkening the scene here and there, but it is not a solemn thing: It is a reminder that the cheerful sunlight is always there, if you but crane your head to seek it out. The surrounding forest is lush and dense, and though you cannot see far enough to make them out, this river is not the first to have been crossed, nor will it be the last. And it does not matter. The joy is in crossing the water; hopping from stone to stone. Some are close together, and so moving on is simple. Others claim more effort, as they are smaller, taller, or farther away. These small challenges are all part of your journey; a journey you almost feel that you have made before, were it not for the gentle pangs of uncertainty felt as you negotiate the crossing. Were you to fall, it would not be painful, though perhaps the snap of the cool water would disrupt your calm for a moment. But you will not fall. This is where you are meant to be; each step a natural continuation of its predecessor, leading you onward. To where? Who knows.

Hahah, you can see why I only got a 5 in IB English. But really, I think my time in Katimavik will be awesome, if the last month has been any indication of what is to come. If you haven't heard the news already, we are getting a new participant this Monday! I am excited to see how he will fit into the group, and if it will change our dynamics at all. We, the seniors, are planning some light hazing (think creepy stroking of the face), so hopefully he's up to the challenge!

stuff I did in the last week

2009-11-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

That title is soooo begging for a 'your mum' crack, but I'm exercising huge amounts of restraint right now.

Anyway, on to the main event!

House manager:

Every week, two sexy people stay home from work and do the cooking and cleaning for the group. Wendy and I were the lucky couple last week, and created mouth-watering temptations like the oh, so exotic PIZZA.

Plasma Car driver:

At home, we have this toy called a plasma car, and it's amazing. It's like those little cars you had when you were younger, where you propelled yourself by pulling the vehicle along with your feet, but BETTER. You turn the handlebars back and forth, propelling yourself through simple physics! However, they are not so simple that I would be able to explain them to you without an appeal to google, and that is far too demeaning. So, ask your mum, or something.

Epic Excursion to Prince George:

Photo cred: Jazmin. Notice me writing Alex's letter with extreme levels of concentration.

Last Saturday, we braved the cold waters of the highway to visit faraway Prince George, for a family fun-filled day of swimming, yoga, and shopping. Oh, but first, we got lost:

This is LA's back asking a policeman how to get to the pool. He gave us directions to place place we had google map'd, followed us there, and told us there was another pool. Dad phoned Jennica, and sure enough, we had to go there instead.

Pool was epic sauce! Robbie (our awesome PSL, who we said good bye to earlier today; he's going to be a PL elsewhere. miss him already!) and his adorable girlfriend came to the party as well. Lots of hot tubbing, short (REALLY SHORT) stints in the suffocating steam room, diving off the 5 meter board, and a tad bit of regular natation. I think I mentioned Mikael's resemblance to Rapunzel, and now I have photographic proof! Photo cred goes to Jazmin again.

MERMAID MAN. The hair flip enchanted us all. We got him to do it over and over, hahah.

After the Pool we went to the PG Katimavik House for lunch, then jetted off to yoga!

Super relaxing, but no Lion Pose! Marissa and my Katimavik group know about the Lion Pose, but here's a photo off google:

After that, we went to my mothership/Value Village!

Tom and I found the childrens' sunglasses quite intriguing.

We were pretty beat on the way home (notice me still writing Alex's letter). Photo stoled from Jazmin again.

Tell your mum I would have enjoyed it all so much more if she had been there. That said, life is good.

bowling with big spoons

2009-11-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

Not that our made-with-love dinner of Chicken Caesar Salad and Yam & Potato fries wasn't epic on its own, but Wendy and I thought we'd kick things up a notch (BAM! Emeril reference for your mum) by having everyone eat with big serving utensils. I had it pretty easy with my spatula, while people like Andreanne and Jessica were challenged a bit more. By ice cream scoops and whisks (respectively).

Mmmmmm.

Tom had a spaghetti-mathinger.

After dinner, we went bowling! It was more of a challenge than normal, because not only did I have to pretend to have motor skills, but I had to write down scores manually on a sheet of paper, after doing the math IN MY HEAD. My cerebellum almost exploded with the exertion. Apparently I also had to hit the reset button after my turn to set up the lane for the next person, but I didn't figure that out until we were about to leave. (win) Anyway, I also saw the man I will one day marry, have children with, divorce messily, and extract alimony and child support from for years.

I apologize for the poor picture quality; my hands were shaking with passion, and I couldn't use flash without being too obvious.

AND GUESS WHAT. I WON THE FIVE PIN GAME WE PLAYED. PRETTY MUCH JACKED ABOUT THAT.

i love the internet.

2009-11-04T00:52:00.000-08:00

nuff said.

today i etted buffalo.

2009-11-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

Me and that tree had a bit of a falling out when it ruined my composition by being too tall. We're working through it.

Instead of going to work today, our group helped out for 12-ish hours at a sustainablility workshop/forum and dinner (or in mine and Wendy's case, instead of staying home to cook and clean, we did more intense cooking and cleaning somewhere else). It was fun for the first couple of hours, but by about 7:40 PM, the world could have a giant whole in its ozone layer, and hugely nasty landfills, and I wouldn't care. (oh wait)

Me and Mik had elected to do plate scraping, which I thought would be fun because of when I volunteered at a soup kitchen with my youth group, but when you're scraping plates for 60-something people having a 4 course dinner, plus the prep dishes, etc, it makes you vow never to eat again. And when I say that it makes you vow, I mean it makes me vow. For all of 5 seconds, but wiser men than I have said it's the thought that counts. We ended up washing and drying a lot of them too, which was n'importe quoi, except I managed to break two glasses without realizing, and when I did realize, I was too lazy to do anything about it. It didn't seem like a problem until I stopped washing dishes and other people took over. I remembered to tell Jessica, but when Tristan started washing, he seemed to find it unsettling that there was broken glass hidden in the cloudy dishwater, a proceeded to drain the industrial size sink to look for it. Lightweight.

This was where it all went down.

One of the things on the menu was teeny hors d'oeuvres-sized hamburgers made with buffalo meat. Tasted awesome, if you happened to be wondering. I guess it would have made more sense to take a picture of the actual finished product, but my brain only realizes these things afterwards. Screw you, hindsight.

Mains du viaaannnnndddddd.

I never really thought of culture shock applying to exercise equipment, but apparently they don't have elliptical trainers in France:

Anyway, I think the bottom line today is that people who work in the food service industry are masochistic, and I love them for all the work they do to make it easy for me to stuff my face. Huzzah. Also, put stacks of plates in the sink gently.

I mock that chair in my head whenever I look at this picture. I don't get out much.

awkward as heck.

2009-10-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

So, I had a really... odd day at work today.

First, I had a conversation with a guy about an ex-fiancee who, before the wedding, stole the car he bought for their honeymoon, and went off to become a prositute (or already was a prostitute; it was unclear). Then he told me that she was one of 'the worst kind' and had even done "such a thing as a blowjob". Then he asked me if I knew what a blowjob was. I said I'd heard of it.

Second, I took another guy on a walk to the graveyard behind the old folk's home (nice view) to visit his mother's grave. I was having major issues finding the grave (turns out I mixed up the row and plot numbers, but never you mind). When I found the right row, I thought I'd get him to wait behind me so I could find the grave first instead of dragging him all over (...again). I looked around, and when I turned my head back to see if he was still doing okay, he had his... cheerleading baton... out and was peeing. In the graveyard. He narrowly missed some woman's grave who, whatever she may have done in life, did not deserve to be whizzed on. I feel like I'm going to be punished by the cosmos for letting this happen. I was so shocked that I was unable to speak/stop the horrific act taking place right in front of me. I settled for looking the other way. When I turned back, the deathstick was gone, but the image still cannot be erased from my mind.

I think I'll just cry myself to sleep tonight.

I leave you with this picture I took of the river, that your mind may be cleansed of bad mental pictures I may have caused you to have.

so, i'm embarrassed.

2009-10-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

We had just finished eating dinner and laughing at Jordan as he ate his dinner without hands, as punishment for not changing the empty toilet roll in the bathroom. I put my dishes in the lave-vaiselle, put the greek salad into a (somewhat) smaller container (turns out I leave much to be desired when it comes to estimating volume), and decided I would make a quick trip to the salle de bain to faire du pipi, if you know what I mean.

On my way there, I passed Mikael, who was carrying a mop, apparently to clean the kitchen. I stepped into the bathroom, closed the door, and noticed that the floor was wet.

"Hmmph", I thought, because I am just as eloquent in my head as I am when speaking. I did what I had to do, flushed, and got up to wash my hands.

"Uuuhh, Shoshana?", said Mikael in his ever charming french accent through the door. "You should not be in there. The floor... I need to clean it. It is dirty."

"It's a little late", I said back, drying my hands on the towel.

"Uhhh, Shoshana, there is something you should know..." Mikael's voice grew more apprehensive. I opened the door the see him waiting in the doorway, mop and bucket in hand, and looking a little uncomfortable, but also like he was laughing at some private joke.

"What? What's the matter?" Whatever it was, it couldn't be that bad... Right?

"Uhh... the floor, it is covered in pee. That is why it is dirty."

...

Apparently the toilet had overflowed.

Mikael was carrying the mop to the kitchen to fill the bucket.

I had to walk on my knees to the bedroom to keep my pieds du pipi from sullying the carpet.

FML.

walking home.

2009-10-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Let it be known, I LOVE overcast days. Well, at least the ones that don't make me feel lame and lazy.

Those poles made me feel short.

What midgets see when they look at the Nechako River.

What averagely-heighted people see.

What midgets' feet see when they go to this person's house.

Puddlefront property.

What tall stalkers see when they look at our house from across the street.

What your mum sees.

the manor.

2009-10-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

The gang on the way to our speed dating-esque job interviews. Five minutes with each person, Tristan yelling "TIME'S UP; SWITCH". Good times. Oh, by the way, I am not in this picture because our photographer that we hired got H1N1 like, THAT DAY, and I had to fill in.

---------

We started work placements on Monday Oct 19. I am working at the local old folks home.

CHA-FREAKIN-CHING.

My duties are essentially to have conversations, make posters, and fetch the seniors their hot chocolate. YEAH.

Day One:
-Tour of the Manor to refresh my memory.
-Stroke Club, where I played bingo, ate cake, and won a bottle of hand sanitizer (YEAH I KNOW). Oh, and they gave me a T-shirt. SNAP.
-Cardmaking using scrapbooking materials. Me and the CUTEST OLD MAN pretty much made the most boss card ever made (...by us. my fault.)
-Adding up numbers in the stat book (they keep track of what activities the residents are involved in, how many minutes are spent one-on-one, etc). The most math I have done in what feels like a century. But ended up being relaxing.
-Forgot the mirror that Mah boss gave me after she heard about the dearth of reflective objects for us girls to get ready in front of.

Day Two:
-Fitness Club, where you kick a big exercise ball around the circle, lift 1 lb weights, and play ring toss... FOR POINTS. The lady beside me won. 'Cause I was sitting by her, je pense.
-Lunch (okay, so I had this yesterday too, but today I had DELICIOUS VEGETARIAN LASAGNA. Thank-you, Fred and Mikael)
-Chatted with some ladies while they ate. One has five stuffed animals that she has named and likes to keep with her. Pretty dang fly.
-Portered peeps across the hallway to listen to a guy play piano. There was this one guy who kept doing those sweet cowboy holler things they do in squaredance. I wish I had his guts (You have NO IDEA how often I want to do that, but chicken out).
-Made posters of some pictures they took around the Manor and on an outing. Used a buttload of tape.
-Got people their hot chocolate and coffee. Made me REALLY crave hot chocolate.
-Chatted with a lady over her hot chocolate (without even telling her, I gave her the sugar-free hot chocolate for diabetics because she wasn't on the list of resident dietary needs on the fridge, just to err on the side of caution. Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? actually, I think it's because she's in the day program that comes in for activities, rather than an actuall resident, haha)
-Remembered the mirror.

ALSO. Almost every door has a keypad that you have to type a code into for it to open, so that residents with bad dementia can't wander off, for example. I forget to type in the code a LOT, so I've been setting off alarms all over the place. Vair vair smooth.

This picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing about, but it was REALLY windy on the way to the interviews, so we tried to take a model shot. I look kind of like I eat babies.

---------

Anywho, the only issue I have with my job is that sitting in the break room is SO BORING. Everyone is nice, but our conversation topics of choice are SO different. They talk about property tax, and switching shifts. I'm only good if you bring up the theory of relativity, or rocket science. Also, fart jokes. Oh well, it's not a big deal, since I'm not there for sparkling conversation--I'm there to PARRRTY EVERY DAY. Y'all are gonna need some hip replacements all up in there quick-like. (EG: I SPEND TOMORROW AFTERNOON TEACHING PARKER HOW TO USE WII BOXING)

In other news, we went to community volleyball at the highschool tonight, from 8-10 PM. SO FUN. Don't get me wrong, I still play like I did in highschool (at this point, groans can be heard from the audience), but GOSH DARN IT, I am going to be able to play sports decently by the end of Katimavik if it kills me! Most of us wore our Katimavik shirtS (REPRESENT), and we all played on the same team for the most part, which was too bad for the my group, 'cause we kept losing (I am so skilled), haha, but they were really, ridiculously nice about it, so that took a lot fo the pressure off. 8D The program runs weekly, and I am STOKED to go again! My goal for the time leading up to next tuesday is to learn how to serve... I got one serve over the net tonight. My goal is at least 3 next time, haha.

See that arena? WE SKATE THERE FOR FREE, AND FREE INCLUDES SKATE RENTALS.

I. Love. Vanderhoof.

picture heavy

2009-10-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Hoof House.

Fellow asian from Mass-O. Saki-chaaannnn~

Tomas the Angry Mexican

Marley, the girl I told my placenta story to.

Scott: probably the most popular guy at Mass-O. Also my wife.

The Merry [Wo]men of Katimavik, clad in matching green. [I am Robin Hood, btw]

I bought blue coveralls for ONE DOLLAR. I love Vanderhoof.

You aren't allowed to get drunk during Katimavik, but we thought we'd act like it anyway. The best alcohol is the one you thought you drank, but didn't.

The park near our house. I went down the slide there, but I think I am too fat, because the slide made a lot of scary noises, and then I wet myself (just a squirt).

the first days

2009-10-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

KATIMAVIK IS AWESOMESJFHRIUTGJDFJGNJFVJ.

Seriously, so much fun.

My brothers, dad, grandma, and two aunts saw me off at Vancouver airport on Wednesday oct 7. Much bawling was involved on the end of my female relatives, haha. They're so cute. My flight was only an hour, so that was cool. I got to sit by a girl from Chiliwack who's in the Prince George group (I think). She was really nice, and didn't look entirely uncomfortable when I told her my placenta story, so that's good.

All the Northern BC Katimagroups met at the Prince George Airport, and went to Ness Lake Bible Camp from there for Mass-O (doesn't sound as epic when you say "orientation with all the groups from our cluster", but I have to explain what it is somehow.) Mass-O was good times: essentially we sat through a bunch of workshops on rules and guidelines, etc, with pauses for food, washroom breaks, and truly inspirational icebreaker games (after we broke the proverbial ice on thursday morning, friday had no choice but to settle for "energizers" in lieu of get-to-know you-games, but that meant that we got to do this cool East Coast jig thinger. It is best done drunk, according to the Nova Scotian guy I was talking to, haha.

Everyone was really friendly, and it made me sad that I couldn't have everyone that I made friends with at Mass-O in my group, but truly, Vanderhoof team is awesome (RAISE THE HOOF!). Our PL's a pretty cool guy too, so I have high hopes for my first trimester abroad.

For future reference:

LA - girl from N Ont, she, the aforementioned Nova Scotian dude, and I got into doing the "lion pose" (thank-you, Rodney Yee yoga cards), or at least the part where you cross your eyes, stick out your tongue and roar like a lion. We were doing it lots during a panel workshop where the PL's got asked questions about their personal Katimavik experiences (most were past participants, and one of them had signs like "APPLAUSE", "SILENCE", "LAUGHTER", and "AWWW". Well, we three thought It would be funny to do the lion roar instead of one of the "AWWW"s, but as I have poor coordination, I roared waaay too loud. And it is not an attractive, sexy roar; it is a deep, mannish, gutteral roar. The whole next day, I had people being like "That was you?!" when they heard about it. I am sooo suave; admit it.

Jazmin - Hailin' from the B-TOBE! We were in the same cabin at Mass-O, and she is really awesome as well. Brigham: she really likes Owl City, haha, so we listened to the album I put on my ipod at your prompting!

Jessica - Fellow BCer! She and I are bonding over our mutual ability of speaking English waaay better than French (really diplomatic way of saying we don't parle the francais very bien).

Jordan - Dude's got some crazy music skills! He was wowing us at Mass-O by singing the songs from his part in Grease, and when we got to the Vanderhoof house on Saturday afternoon, we found out he plays violin and he's really good at that too. Background music hasn't been a problem either, since his laptop is loaded with songs from musicals. (FTW) Very funny guy.

Tom - Apparently he used to have a ponytail down to his butt, haha. He plays the djembe really well, so we often get cool beats going on in the background when we're hanging out in the living room. If he doesn't have his drum, he plays on his chest and leg, haha. Very entertaining guy, and has the great power of eating tons and being very fit at the same time. Jealous, haha.

Andreanne - Cute francophone girl! She has been super patient with me and lets me practice my french (POUSSE EN L'AIR!). So, so nice, and really good english! (I am kind of worried I won't learn much french, because all the francophones in our group speak english tres tres bien!)

Wendy - Totally jealous of her bilingual SKILLS, also, she's lived all over Canada. Majorly useful as a translator, haha. We had an awesome time playing MAD GAB this afternoon (dang, I love that game), and she is so so nice as well (sensing a pattern?)!

Mikael - Francophone from FRANCE! Dude has seriously long hair, haha, so he works this epic bun most of the time. The girls want to straighten it sometime, haha, to see how long it will get! Really funny, even with the language barrier.

Fred (girl) - We have two Fred's in our team, so we call them Fred (girl) and Fred (boy). Fred (girl) has got some seriously cool style; definitely love her clothes. The security alarm in the Vanderhoof house doesn't actually work, but it's hardwired into the house so whenever you open the door it says "Side Door" in a computer voice and beeps. It bugged her so much in the beginning, haha, but we named it Gertrude, and put eyes and a moustache on the alarm, and she seems to have inegrated well into the Hoof now, haha.

Fred (boy) - Such a funny, nice guy. He raps really well too; like a french Vanilla Ice or something, haha. Unfortunately, he decided Katimavik wasn't for him, and that someone else would enjoy it more, so he's leaving us tomorrow morning! Sad, but Katimavik definitely isn't for everyone. We will miss him!

Alriighhttt. On to the house! We live in what is said to be the second largest house in Vanderhoof, and there is a fair bit of room. Our PL keeps telling us not to get used to it, since it's quite a bit larger than average, but I'll enjoy it while I can! We are in desperate need of coathangers and a mirror in the room I'm in (with 4 other girls), but really, no one has any coathangers right now. I'm currently using 3, and then the rest is at the foot of my bunk (top! right by a window with a bullet hole in it! bullethole number 1 of 3, if you were wondering). In the basement, it used to be a daycare, and in one of the back rooms there's a HUGE red stain on the wall, with smaller stains in the main daycare room outside of it, so this is the theory:

We live in an ex-drughouse, that just happened to be running a daycare in the basement (maybe to throw cops off their trail?), and one of the toddlers saw something he shouldn't have seen. They tried to silence him in the back room, but he managed to crawl out into the main daycare room, leaving the stains along the baseboard and lower part of the wall. I'm not sure what happens after that, but if I recover any more forensic evidence, I will update you.

In the dark, you cannot see the peeling paint, haha.

Hmmm, other than that, we do interviews for our work placements this friday, so I'll get to start work on Monday!

AND IT SNOWED YESTERDAY. Not a lot, but some. I am excited.

This is Denver, the house pet. He is asexual, as you can see in the picture. This inspired me to write a few short stories about him and his failed love life. Clothes in toilet paper, by Andreanne and I.

BTW, I work out.

Love you all!

spray-on lungs

2009-10-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

So, I'm essentially packed, except for some 71% wool socks and "High Performance Base Layer" things I got today. That just leaves waterproofing my outerwear (I feel like a tool typing the word "outerwear"). I sprayed (somehow, I just don't like that conjugation. I feel like it should be "I sprew on the first coat", or something) on the first coat this morning, but I think I inhaled some of the silicone, cause my chest hurt for a while afterwards.

(This was where I remember that I haven't sprayed the second coat yet, and go out to do it)

I inhaled more of the spray I think. Maybe it will make it harder for me to drown because my lungs are semi-waterproofed. Huzzah. Just imagine:

Through some catastrophic equipment malfunction, the door of the plane violently detaches from the aircraft, creating a vaccuum that threatens to suck away the passengers like tapioca pearls from the bottom of a large bubble tea. Women and children scream in fear, men assume the fetal position and sob quietly (because all the sound is being sucked out of the cabin). Shoshana Okano, undercover agent, is the only one with a cool enough head to save the 317 people aboard WestJest flight 109.
"Attention, everyone!" Agent Okano bellows, her voice far too powerful to fall prey to something so proletariat as suction. "Hold tightly to your seats. I will come and lash you down using strips of cloth from my Armani suit and authentic pashmina that I made myself from the wool of the changthangi goat indigenous to the Himelayas."
Agent Okano went to work immediately, so immediately that she might have been lashing down screaming passengers as the door was detaching from the airplane. As she got to the final row, Shoshana finshed the complicated equation she had been doing in her head.
"This plane is 54.4 kg too heavy to arrive safely at Prince George airport. I will jump off of the plane with my carry-on so that these people can live." With that, Agent Shoshana Okano tied the last strip of her authentic changthangi wool pashmina around a young child, saluted no one in particular, and flung herself out of the open hatch.
As she fell the through the air, she answered a message on her Blackberry. So many people these days let distractions get in the way of their work.
She hit Lake Ness like a moose charging a rabbit in a hurricane--hard. The blow knocked her unconscious (where it would have killed a lesser human), and ripped her Luis Vuitton carry-on bag in half, sending her personal effects into the deep. She sank slowly, all the way to bottom of the lake. She awoke with a start, her empty lungs sucking in roughly 640 ml of lakewater. The sharp pain caused her to convulse, but she knew what was happening; the same thing had occurred in the secret testing tank at the secret facility at the secret location secreted in the most secrete part of a secret place. She had been part of a secret experiment involving secret chemicals, such as silicone, in an attempt to enable agents to breathe underwater in the event that they fell out of a plane during a 1.2 hour-long flight into a small lake. The experiment had been a success.

See what I mean? I'm set. Except for the part where I mix tenses in my writing and don't care enough to fix it. That sucks.

UR THE SKANK

2009-10-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

read tihs gurls lame post : lamelamelamestupiddum

TIHS IZ REEL BEUTY:

SHEZ SUHC A HORE. i H8 HER!11!!!!! i'M NOT ORNGE iM TANNN. aN i dID NOT PHOTOSOHP TIS BAERLY AT ALL.

alriite, gosip gurlz on noaw, bibi

asylum blue!

2009-10-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

Now, despite the fact that Roger said it was a 12-year-old thing to do, I loved my vogue+elle-plastered walls. They made me feel safe from the creepy baby blue that was hidden underneath them. But since my Mom wants to paint after I leave, they all had to come down.

Oddly, I felt far more comfortable having Sasha and Coco staring at me while I slept than with a colour most people feel safe leaving their babies with overnight. Blue on walls can just be so... weird.

Tomorrow, WestJet will take me to the center of our province.

FML

2009-09-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

When Marissa (meandyourmum.blogspot.com) and I were in gym class together, we complained a lot (despite the obvious benefits of regular exercise, I, for one, would rather become obese, lonely, and more susceptible to Coronary Heart Disease), thereby giving rise to certain phrases derivative of FML. Like Free My Llama and Fun My Life (since swearing is bad and your mum told me not to do it). Now, I was reading one of Ashleigh's (mytofuchicken.blogspot.com) recent posts, where she shares a writing piece she did, and it reminded me of this really odd--emphasis on the odd--short I did a long time ago that had a sort of FML theme. And now, because I am a genius and kept it on my computer, you (as in, the two or three people who might possibly read my blog) get to enjoy/scroll down to skip my cutting examination of self-aware stationery (who, in fact, are not stationary, but become so by the end).

(drumroll, please.)

Once upon a time, there was a bright yellow sticky note. It enjoyed frolicking amongst fresh blooms—although it had never actually done so, having been trapped in a fourth-floor office building most of its life—and holding deep, philosophical and politics-related discussions with groups of equally profound adhesive-backed stationery, despite the fact that it hadn’t the tiniest inkling of what was going on in politics, nor did it really like philosophy.

“Hey, look, a paperclip,” noticed the sunny sticky note.
“’Hey’, yourself, you don’t even have eyes; how do you know I’m not a rooster with bad intentions and a bowler hat?” replied a mysterious voice, that, in all honesty, didn’t sound much like a paperclip: paperclips tend to have a bit of a southern drawl, and this voice sounded like it was busy eating a lukewarm tomato whilst brushing its teeth.
“I…errr…because roosters don’t wear bowler hats?” the sticky note really hoped that roosters did, in fact, not wear bowler hats, because it was still feeling quite muddled after being informed that it couldn’t see. Already the world looked less bright.
“Nonsense. I’m wearing one right now.”
“Oh!” Alarmed, the sticky note made up a rather unconvincing prior engagement that it happened to be exceedingly late for, and began to walk away.
“You can’t walk, you know.” The sticky note froze, and fell over. It had never thought of that.
“Well how’ve I been getting around all these years? What else could I do? Stick myself to a coconut being gripped by an African swallow?” The sticky note no longer felt the need for politeness or decorum, having been seemingly robbed of both sight and mobility in the blink of an—oh, never mind.
“Not another bird migration joke. I’m really going to lose it,” the lukewarm tomato voice turned icy, and therefore even less easy to understand, as an icy tomato is much harder to chew. “Bloody inanimate objects, making cracks about airborne tropical groceries; don’t know the damage they’re causing.”
The sticky note, feeling quite affected by now, let loose its tongue, flinging terribly rude and hurtful insults at the voice with reckless abandon:
“You stink! I hate roosters AND bowler hats, and you sound like you’re choking on a mouldy tomato!”
Silence followed for what seemed like an eternity, as the normally agreeable post-it began to feel quite remorseful, but on the other hand, still very perturbed.
“Sticky notes can’t talk, either.” The voice dealt its last card.
The silence returned, and as the sticky note lay prostrate and speechless upon something it could not see nor move off of, it felt a lot like the Helen Keller of office supplies.
Fun my life, it thought. Fun my life.

THE END.

Weird, I know. I don't know how I think of these things, nor how I can employ that many big words when I sound like a toootal idiot when I'm, like, talking and stuff, 'cause, you know, it's all like, whatever. Haha, anyway, I hope you at least mildly enjoyed that. If not, just be grateful that it was short.

blueish bodies of water and your mum - part two

2009-09-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

The only real point to this post is to rave about my future husband:

[this is where the picture goes when I find my camera cable. use your imagination for now]

His name is Chance, but it was no chance that we met. We were made for each other, like strawberry jam was made for alfalfa sprouts. The very mention of his name would send me into raptures about his beauty, his elegance, his perfection. He had come camping with his family (soon to be MY family), and the distance from his campsite to my bed in the cabin loft (I left the tent after Alanna showed up) was something I often thought about while I couldn't sleep for the lovesickness I was feeling.

Now, to details:

He's 15, exquisitely rude, and should have pictures taken of him from the back put on posters to warn children against the dangers of buying pants that fit poorly, consequently exposing completely indecent amounts of your excretory system aka, PLUMBER'S CRACK. And he kept cheating when we, the cousins, invited him to play kick-the-can with us one night. That pretty much sealed the deal, haha.

Chance and I shall be mailing wedding invitations shortly, and would prefer if you would RSVP before the end of september.

blue lake and your mum - part one

2009-08-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

SO, Blue Lake! We left on wed, aug. 12, and got back at about 1 am on the 29th = 16-ish days abroad.
Mom and Dad dropped us kids and Mum off, then headed out the next morning for mah cousin's wedding in Alberta. (Note: Mom = Melaney, Mum = Joanne; this gets more confusing when I'm speaking, because I don't enunciate well at all... Also, for those of you unaware of my family situation, I am not actually the child of a lesbian couple--as interesting as that might have been. No, no, I am but the child of parents who divorced, and a father who remarried. So Mum= loverly biological mother, and Mom= loverly step mother.)

We spent about a week and a half being the only family at the lake other than Grandpa Mattie (everybody else went to the wedding). After much over-hyping by Mom and Justin that we were going to have to work so hard that asian children trapped in sweatshops would make fun of us for being slaves, it turned out to be a really easy gig: The weather wasn't great, so veeeery few people showed up. We sat around watching the original Star Trek series on the portable DVD player while waiting for campers to show up, and when we got bored of Star Trek, we'd go swimming or canoeing. Oh, and we did garbage duty twice. Truly, it was the stuff of horror stories, haha.

AND NOW, THE GREAT EXPEDITION OF FAIL.

During that time, Paul and I had seen what we thought was a cave at the end of the lake, so we thought we'd go investigate it. Baaaad idea. On out first attempt, we misjudged its location, meaning we climbed all the way up a freaking steep hill, and then hiked through dense forest (dodging so much animal poo, you wouldn't believe me if I described it to you, no less), only to realize we had no idea where the cave was. We ended up half-hiking, half-skidding back down to the lakeshore and following the shoreline backwards until we found our canoe.

Paul had been wearing shorts, so his legs looked like they'd been attacked by a version Catwoman who had both dwarfism and PMS (yeah... I'll never look at plant life the same way either), and huge bag of nacho chips we had brought along with us was mostly crushed because I think I slipped somewhere amongst the mêlée and the chips had broken my fall.

Also, to satiate our curiosity as to how close we had come to the cave of legend, we paddled our canoe further down the lake. Not. Even. Close. (apart from the fact that we had the right lake) Oh well.

Status of Cave-claiming Attempt #1: ALL ABOARD THE FAILBOAT.

We made our second attempt at ascent two days later. Paul wore the same shorts. I admire his determination not to learn from his mistakes. This time, we parked the canoe right below the cave (well, not RIGHT below, as there was still the hill of death separating us from our quarry... HAHA. QUARRY! CAVE! GET IT!?!?! My unintentional puns amaze even me sometimes.).

After a long, sweaty climb, we reached the cave. I was in awe, unable to take in the magnitude of the scene. It was so different than what I had expected, even in all my wildest dreams. Dumbstruck, I glanced over at Paul, only to see that he wore the same expression of fantastic disbelief.

It wasn't a cave at all. It was a lame dent in a rock. And this stupid rock was COVERED in animal crap.

Not effing pleased.

We took some pictures and videos, attempting to tone down the anti-climactic-ness of the anti-climax to end all anti-climaxes, but in the end, we were left with no alternative but to begin our descent of shame and defeat. Paul took a video of himself climbing down the hill while giving a really epic play-by-play:

"Alright, now, I've got to jump from this treestump to the next. I might fall--this is pretty dangerous, BUT THAT'S A CHANCE I'LL HAVE TO TAKE."
"Okay, I made it, but now I have to get from here down the that rock. It's pretty far. It's pretty dangerous, BUT THAT'S A CHANCE I'LL HAVE TO TAKE."

And so on, until he dropped the camera down the hill and out of sight, because of all the shrubs and fallen trees. When I finally found it, we didn't even have the video to show for it, because the camera had turned off automatically when Paul dropped it, erasing the video.

Status of Attempt #2: Free thy llamas, for thou doth fail. In other words: I don't think I'm going to take up orienteering as a hobby.

it's hard out here for a wangsta.

2009-08-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

I realized that I had somehow lapsed into wannabe gangsta-speak in my first post, but upon further consideration, I've decided that it's not necessarily a bad thing. To that end, I have decided to begin enhancing my vocabulary with choice slang so as to give myself less of an air of aloof, unattainable awesomeness (ditto to my unmatchable humility), therefore enabling me to mingle more easily with the proletariat. Indeed. So, here's my first 6:

187 - v. murder. Derived from the police call sign.
"I was fo' reals gonna 187 that boy if he did not stop singing to his Kelly Clarkson CD".

all up in the kool-aid - v. in someone's business.
"Tina is always all up in my kool-aid, telling me I'm a poser for making a conscious effort to incorporate colloquial phrases into my vernacular...dude."

bitin' - v. to copy, or an attempt to replicate the way another person does something.
"Girl, I wore those go-go boots yesterday, on the real; why you gotta be bitin' on me?"

blingin' - v. Shining because you are wearing so much jewelry.
"Shoot son, you blingin' so tight, nobody gonna notice you dance like Urkel."

bobo - adj. Something that is fake/not genuine or is bootleg.
"See that girl over there? Yeah, I think her name's Shoshana. Bobo gangsta. And she's fat."

brizoke - adj. broke; no money.
"I'm so brizoke, I can't even buy a real slang dictionary; I copped this sucka off the internet."

Other than that, I've just been running Spybot and its friends to get rid of what I'm assuming was a virus. My google sites like gmail and blogger would pretend to be "Redirecting..." but I would never be redirected anywhere, which hurt my feelings and made me feel like less of a person, but things seem to be running alright now.

hello, children.

2009-08-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

The bandwagon of Katimavik blogging looked inviting (your mum suggested it), and I thought it would be a most excellent way to keep my minions and screaming fans acquainted with the inner machinations of my mind whilst I am abroad. So, I'll give you the rundown of what I know so far.

(printscreened from my katimaroute page, full on legit)

Now, check out my criminal record. I have subtly highlighted the areas I would care to draw attention to.

Whatev's! First off, I'm a straight-up G, but I ain't no Okara. I have no idea what that is. Second error is the 'CLEAR'. Maybe I haven't committed anything termed a crime by the Canadian gov't, but they don't seem to realize what they're are doing to my street cred, you know what I'm sayin'? At least put something more mysterious, like "CLEAR...SO FAR" or "CLEAR...BUT ONLY CAUSE WE CAN'T PIN ANYTHING DOWN ON HER. DANG, SHE'S GOOD", you know? I'm not gonna pretend I don't need respect like a fat kid needs a doughnut.

Other than that, they're supposed to contact me with travel info closer to departure, and I'm going to be up at Blue Lake until the 24th, helping to run the campground (and maybe slangin' some black market picnic supplies under the table, but you didn't hear it from me). Yeah.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to keep this going through my adventure-type outing, and return safely home to my family, friends, and your mum.

Lots of love (especially to your maternal parent figure woman thing),
Shoshana