A list of things that irritate me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have decided to create a list of things that irritate me, some surprising, some obvious.

• People who insist on clinging to common small talk, especially, but not limited to:

- ``So did you sleep well?``
- ``How are you?``
-``Good morning!``
-``Goodnight.``
-``What`s up?``

I have better examples than these ones, but I can`t remember them at the moment. EDIT: I originally put the name of a dear friend of mine up here, and after careful consideration, have decided to remove the name, simply out of respect. Miss you, D.

Look, I know people mean well when they ask these questions, but they still irritate me to no end when it becomes routine and usually, they genuinely don`t care for the answer.

• Bread crumbs in peanut butter, nutella, etc. - I hate chewing on the stuff and tasting these crunchy little bits that I know were deposited by someone else when they spread whatever on their bread with a knife.
• People who ask a lot of questions, but not interesting questions, just dumb ones. This sort of relates to my first point. I just hate answering something when it doesn`t make a difference what the answer is.
• When someone wakes me up in the morning and says repetitively ``C`mon Gabe! Time to get up! You have to get up!`` So I stir a little bit in my bed, but it keeps going! ``C'mon Gabe, time to get up!``
• In relation to the above point, I am not a morning person. As such, I hate when people attempt to converse with me when I`ve just woken up. 
• When one end of my shoelace is much longer than the other, and I have to make a really big loop for one of them
• Really static hair that gets in your face
• When someone claims that ``this is my song, it totally like represents my life``. It just ruins any enjoyment I might have gotten from the song.
• When someone gains control of an iPod and speakers and skips to a new song when it`s halfway through. A certain someone does these two things in my group here.
• People who only want to communicate with me for the sole purpose of getting something from me, e.g. french help, but who otherwise would never consider talking to me
• People who struggle with the back doors of buses when all they have to do is lightly tap them. Or trying to open them when the GREEN LIGHT ISN'T ON.
• People who shoot down my well-thought ideas.
• People who slack off on doing laundry and I have to do theirs so that I can do mine

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A Dreamer's Hideaway

Get away, run away, fly away

Lead me astray

To dreamer's hideaway

Too often I find myself longing to lose myself somewhere in Vancouver.

Then I wish for fleeting contact with something or someone in my period of being lost.

From the Burrard SkyTrain station, I walked along the architecturally-perfect fountains, buildings and archways, but they looked fake to me.

I pretend to lose myself on the SkyTrain itself. I've been to every stop on both lines by now, but I always know where I am.

I once tried closing my eyes and plugging my ears to not know what stop I got off at, but I caught a glimpse from the station signs.

Buslines work too, and they're actually better for getting lost, but I don't get the same rush from being on a bus as I do from a SkyTrain.

SkyTrains take you farther, faster, higher. There are more interesting people and things surrounding the stations and the train itself.

I have never been afraid walking alone in Vancouver.

But sometimes I wished I did, to escape the monotone, the bland, the dreary.

And then in fear, maybe I'll find the dreamer's hideaway.

The Twilight Sanctuary

Hello.

Let me introduce you to my favourite spot in the Katima-house: The Twilight Sanctuary.

It's my favourite spot because no one really ever hangs out in the basement, sometimes K, but everyone is usually almost always upstairs in the living room. Technically, The Twilight Sanctuary is the second living room, but I've made it my own after seeing that no one wanted it. 

There's a black light, a lot of couches (one pullout bed!), a wonderful coffee table and walls filled with quotes written down by past Katimavik participants. I've made it my favourite hangout spot by supplying it with books, paper and pens to write, a music station, plenty of blankets, and I want to add more things soon.

Even this week, I've decided that I would move out of the guy's bedroom upstairs and sleep on the pullout-couch. It's really quite magical going to sleep with the black light on, I haven't slept so well since living in any Katimavik house. Of course, if my Project Leader found out, I wouldn't be allowed to anymore, but I fold up the bed every morning so as to not leave a trace. He rarely comes downstairs anyway. After billeting week, I hope to continue this trend till the end.

Here is The Sanctuary without the twilight. It's like a whole different place. The Twilight Sanctuary is exactly that - it provides me a sort of haven away from the group. When it's dark outside, it's the most magical place ever. Sometimes the moon shines through the little windows, too.

So, like I mentioned, I'll be spending the next week with my billet family. The family lives in Surrey (a shady part of the Lower Mainland, according to my coworkers). I think I'll have a great time!

Fairwell.

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The Workplace

I love my work.

I really do.

My coworkers are all really awesome. My "boss", Melinda is wonderfully nice. There's the hilarious IT guy, Scott, who's always walking around fixing things, he's great to talk to.

There's the Texan, Sean, who likes a huge variety of tea and who needs assistance with learning about World of Warcraft, of which Scott and I have plenty to talk about.

There's Andrea, the Mail Services Coordinator, who has a double-major in Sociology and used to be the Marketing Director for McDonald's for Western Canada. She has a lot of things to talk about!

I get a lot of free time. Okay, I guess I'm lazy. I spend a lot of time at work surfing the internet, or BLOGGING, like I am right now.

I'm also lazy at home. I have a lot of really cool pictures on my camera that would go well here on this blog, but I've just been too lazy to upload them and transfer them on here... I will though! There's a lot of neat stuff to see in Vancouver.

I will update more often, I've been slacking this week especially because it's really busy!

One night, we went to the Greenpeace office for a presentation on how our oceans are going to die because of overfishing.

The next, we had a meeting at a local coffee shop with Katimavik alumni, about our Community Involvement Project, which is going to be an "enviro-concert" centered on Sustainability.

The next night, it was a lecture at UBC about the "missing conversation" between Aboriginals and the rest of Canada. Very informative!

Tonight, we have a "semi-formal" potluck dinner with the two other katimagroups in our cluster, New Westminster and Burnaby. 

Saturday we're doing an all-day volunteer blitz for an artshow of sorts, on Kingsway.

So you see, plenty of things to keep me busy.

That is all.

Oh, and I didn't get accepted to UofT... :( 2024 edit: Ah, if only I had known what was to come... Switching to Innis might have been a mistake.

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Haircut.

So I have a lot of things to blog about, really, a lot of things, but I think what most people have been demanding are a before and after picture of the haircut...

I guess it is a pretty major thing, as I haven't cut my hair in a really, really, really long time.

Here goes:

The before...

And the after.

Oh, and the blue suit was on sale for ONE DOLLAR AT LIQUIDATION WORLD. :D

Real blogging to come very soon (with pictures! my new camera rules),

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How could this happen to me?

I've made my mistakesssss, got nowhere to run, the night goes on as I'm fading away, I'm sick of this life, I just want to screaaaaam, how could this happen to meeeeeeee.

So that was fun, cruising down Vancouver blasting this song through the windows to passersby while ridin' the Katimavan..

Today was an alright Katimaday.

Went to go see a movie on homelessness in BC.

I love my job! I'm in the process of building their facebook page, I'll be doing some web design soon, and the blogging on their website continues! www.tbvets.org/blog wooohoo!

So I finally ordered a new camera, it'll be coming in soon so that I can take sweet pictures of the best and worst that Vancouver has to offer - and who knows, maybe videoblogs (or a return of my not-so-infamous audiologs).

We'll see!

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