Thursday 26 February 2009

Oops.

So tonight I had the irresistible urge to throw chocolate milk at Jessie`s face.

... I feel bad.

It was awful.

I`m sorry Jessie.

It was really weird.

Monday 23 February 2009

Billetting in a medium nutshell

So I spent the last week and a bit at l'écovillage Mont Radar, to work and sleep there, among other things, instead of being at the Katimavik house.

On Saturday, there was this thing called Le Jam des Neiges where about 12 musicians came up to Mont Radar to have a jam. There was an organ, a drum set, three djembes (including mine), two flutes, an electric and acoustic guitar and a couple singers.

Anyways, it was a fantastic night, the sounds and melodies we made sounded really good, and Philippe recorded the entire night! I hope I can get a copy of our little orchestra, because I`d like to hear it again.

I ended the night by getting high with a couple of the musicians, and we smoked what they described as ``le bon pot des motards de la Beauce``, which means that the pot they had was from a biker gang or something, which is supposed to mean that the pot was really good quality? Well, I did get a nice high, so that`s that. There was good music all around and so on.

The next morning, two other musicians offered me and Dan some more pot (Dan was the other Katimavik participant who was billeting at Mont Radar with me, for the record, and he was asleep the first time I smoked up...). Dan immediately refused, and gave them what I can describe as a ``shameful`` look of scorn on his face. I openly wanted to try their pot, but Dan insisted I shouldn`t because ``it was against Katimavik rules``.

I ended up refusing too, because I was afraid that Dan was going to tell on me back when we got home, which made me quite mad... Ugh...

Other than that, the week was... Pretty bad.

On Wednesday, we were told to go into the barn and shovel a shitload of horse crap from the stall. It was frozen crap, and in some places, it was knee high. The stench was awful. It took the entire day.

The very next day, I woke up with a fever, and I was bed ridden for two days. I think it was the fumes.

I still have a cold now.

And otherwise, the week was very, very boring. It didn`t feel like billeting, because there was no one around, ever, we just lived in our little hovel, and listened to internet radio, and that was about it.

Back at the Katimavik house now, and work continues.

Only three weeks of work left for me at Mont Radar before we move to Vancouver!

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

Thursday 12 February 2009

So I applied.

To Sociology & Urban Studies @ UofT, St. George Campus.

I like studying groups of people, as evidenced by my social experiments (which, despite the lack of updates, have been continuing in this house).

I love cities, especially Toronto.

Put those two together, and I get exactly what I`m looking to study at University.

Very doubtful I`ll get in this round, but when I don`t get in I`ll just work for a while and rack up some money for my tuition and upgrade all my marks so that I can get into UofT later. That`s really the only university I want to go to.

---

Because of unspeakable drama at two work places (including mine), I`m switching work placements!

I take T`s place at Mont Radar, an eco-village that was once an old military base (during the cold war).

I`m also billeting there starting tomorrow - it`s gonna be really awesome.

One of the two owners of the place has this big recording studio, a full drum kit, and the bunkers provide amazing acoustics.

Also, on Tuesday, there`s this big party happening, the Jam des neiges, which is just that, a big music jam. It`s going to be awesome.

Oh and the place has a few animals, most notably: elk, horses, chickens, roosters, goats and probably some others I don`t know about.

Because it is an eco-village, everything we do has to be environmentally responsible, obviously no wasting, and the food that we have to make ourselves for a week has to be ``eco-friendly``.

I wanted to buy 50 boxes of KD with the 100 dollars we get for the groceries for the week, but apparently that`s not very eco-friendly.

:(

Oh I won`t have much internet at all for the week, so uh, yeah.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

Tuesday 10 February 2009

48 and 4070

So I had my 48 hours off this weekend, which I spent at my eldest uncle`s apartment. I didn`t have an amazing time by any sorts, I much preferred my 48 that I spent last trimester in Toronto.

We did go to the Winter Carnival in Québec City, it was pretty cool, snow sculptures and giant ice castles and the such.

My uncle is a little -senile-, among other things.
To get to the carnival, we parked at a mall. And well, to park at this mall (with a few hundred parking spaces), there are a few signs that say you have to be a shopper at the mall. Makes sense right?

Well, my uncle took it a -bit- too seriously. We went around the mall in stores to collect business cards, which we then neatly placed on the dashboard of his car. We also put a few receipts to show that we were paying customers.

After the carnival, we returned promptly to the shopping mall, and my uncle sort of panicked when he saw a tow truck just randomly in the parking lot.

After having calmed him and buying a few more random thingies (I bought an 8 gig USB key, to keep whatever I want with me) and displaying the receipts on the dashboard, we went for dinner at Mike`s.

Then we headed home because it was starting to hail.
He offered me some non-alcoholic beer, but I stuck with my glass of water.

Strange, strange uncle.

I`m house manager this week. Because the house is so small, there isn`t much cleaning to do.
Though I have to start supper really early because, well, our stove really sucks. Out of the four electric elements, only two work, and at that, one of them only works at half capacity. The only element that works fully also happens to be the smallest one.

Cheap. Quality.

Yesterday I made a sort of middle-eastern soup-dinner, with rutabagas, parsnips, sweet potatoes, plenty of spices (curry of course!) etc.

Then I made two batches, one spicy, one not.

The spicy was too spicy for some people who thought spicy would be good. It was fun to see their faces go red. I like spicy, and so I enjoyed my dinner.

Oh, and the regional director came the other day, we`re not moving houses after all. Sigh.

On Friday I move into my billet family`s house for a week and a half, I had a blast last time in Strathroy, hope it`s going to be the same.

Hmm, I`m also applying to UofT, but the stupid OUAC website is failing again.
If I don`t get in (I doubt I will), I`m going to come back home, fix up some grades, get a job somewhere and store up some money so I can apply for next semester. I really, really want to go to UofT, maybe for the international relations program or some sort of social science, so I don`t mind waiting. And neither do my parents.

Celery rules.
4070
reppin` Loblaws.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless

Monday 2 February 2009

Deception and recondition

So it`s the first time that I`ve blogged from my work in Québec - I would rarely get the chance anyway, as I`m usually in the forest.

Saturday night wasn`t bad at all - I`m the most persistant dancer. I danced for like 3 hours straight.

I`m not terrible at dancing actually, by myself, I do just fine. Really!

Put me with another person and things just get awkward. Real fast.

Even if I wasn`t in a social mood, I managed to find my own little bubble, my own little state of trance-like dancing clarity and had a good night. As you can see from this rather embarassing snapshot of me during one of my dancing epiphanies, it mattered not who or where I was, for at that moment, I was a being in my own world.



Interesting highlights of the night:

  • A bunch of different people wanted to take pictures with me because they thought I looked like John Lennon. They were probably quite drunk.
  • Asshole at the coat check in on my way home politely said ``Ladies first!`` to me
  • Pascalou`s (Project Leader) dancing
  • Two dancers who were pretty good on stage

And then I had to escort a couple drunkies home, back to the Katimahouse.

Sunday was a relaxing day. One of my uncles who lives in Québec City took me out to dinner at a local Ste-Marie restaurant. It was a bit awkward, he`s a little senile at times... For my 48 hours off next week I`ll be at his apartment. We`ll probably go to the Carnaval.

I`m so hungry.

I was anticipating going to the only restaurant in Ste-Marguerite, but I forgot it was closed on Mondays. Raaaah. Maybe I`ll go steal food from the kitchen in the municipality building, which I`m in currently.

I just tried calling N for the hell of it on the phones here, but I can`t figure out the long distance code-thingy. She thinks I`m ignoring her on Facebook, heehee.

I want to sleep sometimes.

Karma Aspiration Linger Entity Iodine Darwin Overcast Ulysses Grievous Hawt Spectre Citron Ophilia Philharmonic Eyeless