Canadian girl out and aboot

My last day was uneventful. I actually did have some work to do, cleaned out my desk and said goodbye to a lot of people. I told the receptionist I was going and she said, "Oh, shit, honey", which made me laugh. I felt really and truly appreciated at this job, and will miss a lot of the people. I organized my own going away party and will be drinking on a patio this evening. One of my coworkers wasn't working today, but came in specifically to say goodbye to me, which was incredibly sweet. My Filipina coworker told me that I should "Have a good life and get married", which is very stereotypically Filipino, and sweet.
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Yesterday I drove out to Worsley, to do a story on a historical barn. The barn was built in the 1930s. Some members of the Historical Society were there, as well as the original owner of the barn. The original owner is a man named George. He is still running 40 head of cattle and operates a mixed farm, even though he is 88-years-old. He was in incredibly good shape, and drove me out to the barn. Afterward, he took me to meet his wife, and the three of us went for lunch. They were incredibly nice people, and we sat and chatted about their history, and growing old, and travelling, and all sorts of things. It was a lot of fun.

Later that evening, I biked over to the Vietnamese restaurant. I ended up meeting some people I knew and I got to have dinner with them and their children, which was a lot of fun. That's one of the things that I'm going to really miss about GP. I'm going to miss running into people I know and interacting with them all the time. Still, I feel incredibly positive and happy, and very excited for the future.

My friend Jeff, who is an animator, made this brilliant film about animation, cartooning and how his life has changed.

Watch it here

It's quite beautiful.

1. Had a great weekend. Went to see the Dark Knight, which I loved, did a bunch of errands, went to a barbecue, hung out with friends, and wandered around the Street Performers festival.

2. Got to drive a sportscar for the first time. Darrell needed me to drive a Mazda valued at $40,000 back to a dealership because it was a stick. The car was a prize in a raffle. It definitely had some kick to it, and I can see why people enjoy driving sports cars. It never really made sense to me before, but now I get it.

3. Made a deal with my boss. I'm going to continue writing my weekly book column as a freelancer. I've also connected via facebook with a lot of people in Edmonton, so that I'll have more people to meet when I land.

4. I already have two friends that are planning to visit me in August. I phoned and got my power hooked up today, and should get phone and Internet done by tomorrow.

5. I move in less than 10 days. It still seems surreal.

Yes, I am going to see the movie tonight. My coworkers already bought tickets so that a group of us can go.

Last night I was watching the DVDs of Movies 101 . I watched episodes with Sigourney Weaver, and George Clooney.


George Clooney: Yes, I know Batman and Robin was bad. And the batsuit had nipples. I never understood that. I mean, what child is going to suckle on Batman?


(I laughed for about a minute after I watched that)

I spent a lot of time this winter thinking about potential moves and the space I'd like to be living in. If I had planned to stay in GP, I would have moved apartments, because my current space is just too small, cramped and noisy.

The apartment therapy book really socked it to me. I started thinking about how I never have people over. Living in a bachelor makes it almost impossible to entertain, because you're basically hanging out in a person's bedroom. If I was to have people over, they'd basically have to be on the bed. (which could be advantageous, I suppose, but doesn't generally work well with the average friendship.)

I also wanted to have a space where I could have people over for food or tea. One of my priorities is to have a spare futon/couch, so that people can stay with me when they come to Edmonton.

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The apartment therapy book also made me think my chosen and preferred style and decor. I have basically chosen my style which (surprise!) is Asian and modern. I'm sure that this is shocking to everyone. This means that I prefer dark woods, and plan to have Asian accents and a lot of red and black.

I'm kind of excited to furnish my new apartment. First thing to buy.... A bed.

This week, I am laying out three newspapers, as my boss took the week off to stay home and work in her garden and such. This was one of the reasons why I am taking so long to move; I really wanted her to be able to take a bit of time off. My last move was so rushed, and this one is downright leisurely.

I am a bit stressed this week, because I don't do layout often, and because I also have to continue working on stories for next week's paper. This, to me, is the most challenging part. If my coworker and I let things slip, we'll suffer next week.

My replacement has already been hired, which makes me happy.

I'm going to miss the newsroom. Even though my coworkers annoy me sometimes, I do admit that they make me laugh a lot. It's going to be weird to be working alone.

All in all, this move was a tremendous success. My life turned around, and I have moved up in the world. I am saying goodbye to lots of people in the community and I keep telling them that Grande Prairie was very good to me, and that I just needed to get back to a larger centre. All of this is true. Grande Prairie was very good to me, even though I did find living here difficult. At times, I was very lonely and felt isolated from my friends in other centres. I missed the variety and choice in larger cities. But I did discover new passions and facets of myself.

All that said, I'm excited to be moving into a bigger apartment. I've gone to living with people, to living in a tiny bachelor, to living in a much larger one bedroom. With that comes furniture, incluging a big girl bed instead of a futon.

I'm thinking that I might celebrate my first day at work at my new job by wearing silk pyjamas. Since I'm going to be working from home, I think I want to wear something outrageous for my first day. I might buy myself a lounging kimono, or some silk pjs a la Hugh Hefner. We'll see. It's all very exciting.

A lot because I'm in packing limbo....

1. I finished Season 3 of Lost, which I liked A LOT better than Season 2. I'm looking forward to Season 4, because I hear it is just fabulous. (I also watched a small featurette on the DVD called "The LOST bookclub, which described many of the literary allusions and themes in Lost.)

2. Movies 101- the first disk- Richard Brown is a NYU professor who teaches a class on American movies. In this series, he interviews many players in American film. The first disk continued an interview with Martin Scorsese (who I love), Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon and Cuba Gooding Jr. I skipped the Gooding interview, but the rest of them were fabulous. The second disk arrived in my mailbox today.

3. Funny Face- starring Audrey Hepburn. This is a fabulous movie in which a photographer played by Fred Astaire discovers Audrey Hepburn as a bookseller. He turns her into a model after the character Maggie Prescott (who is played by Kay Thompson, writer of the Eloise books) says that a woman can be an intellectual and be beautiful at the same time. (I agree) It's set in Paris, Edith Head designs the costumes and Kay Thompson, Astaire and Hepburn dance and sing and look wonderfully cute. Why watch new crap when you can watch a great classic like this one? A fun movie.

4. Charlie Bartlett- I was intrigued by the premise. A nerdy kid becomes a psychiatrist to the rest of the students at his high school. Then he begins to prescribe them medication, and falls in love with a cool, indie girl played by Kat Dennings. The girl's dad is the high school principal, who has a very obvious drinking problem. This part is played by Robert Downey Jr. (hmmm, maybe he favours method acting) Anyway, there were some interesting parts, but ultimately this movie paled in comparison to a similar film made in the 1990s. That film was called "Pump up the Volume" and it was far superior to "Charlie Bartlett." (There were some things that I did really like though. The movie was shot in Toronto and features four Degrassi Next Generation actors. In one scene, Charlie wears a t-shirt that says, "People like you are the reason why people like me need medication.") I'm definitely in love with that shirt. (Oh, and I like Kat Dennings.)

5. Blade Runner- I know this is supposed to be one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time, but I don't get the hype. I found it to be rather dull. Sure, some parts of it looked cool, but I don't feel compelled to ever watch it again. If you love this movie and can tell me why you think it's great, I'm all ears. I'll admit to missing things.

Really, that's about it. That's why I have not been updating. This week, I am in charge of three newspapers and am packing more boxes.

This Saturday, I watched "Bladerunner", read Stephen King's "The Mist" and then got sucked into "Intervention" and watched about three episodes. If you have never watched this tv show, please stay far away from it. It's a reality tv show, and it's extremely disturbing. Family members intervene in order to stop their friends or loved ones from drinking, or abusing drugs and then the addict gets the opportunity to accept help and go to rehab or continue using. Never before have I watched a heroin addict shoot up in the ass with water he used from a toilet bowl.

I could not look away and basically needed an intervention to stop watching. In fact, I had a hard time falling asleep after all the horror (real-life and fictional) that I ingested Saturday. And last night, I woke myself up during a dream in which I was yelling, "You have a drinking problem!"

I should talk about the books I've been reading and the movies I've been watching. Both are more interesting than anything I've been doing lately.

Here's what I do every day- work, pack boxes, watch some tv, go for a bike ride and read.
I haven't been writing because of the upcoming move and it's driving me a bit nutty. Life seems so mundane without writing. Last night I was writing a novel in my dreams, plotting out characters and so on. In another part of the dream, I went watersliding with mirabillia.

My GP place has a new tenant, which means I don't have to show it any more and can strew boxes everywhere with abandon. I had to prepare it for showing last weekend, which meant that I was cleaning the night before I drove to Edmonton.
*****

I wrote an article for the Association of Cooperative Educators about my trip to the Philippines. The article came out today, and it's been translated into French and Spanish, which is pretty darn cool.

I've been doing some interesting stuff at work. One of the stories that I'm working on is about female bodybuilders. I learned that if you're over 124 pounds, you're a heavyweight, which means that I am officially in the gargantuan class. I also learned that you basically have to starve yourself before the competition. You can't drink anything for two days before competition, and you are only allowed to eat something dry, like a rice cake. When women stop training after a body building event, you can gain up to 20 pounds. I found all of this info rather frightening.

I put a damage deposit on an apartment in Edmonton, three blocks from Whyte Avenue. It has big windows and has been completely repainted, with new carpet and new linoleum.

I drove to Edmonton all by myself on Friday. I was very nervous about navigating the city, but thanks to my friend Darrell, I managed to do it. Darrell's directions took me around the perimeter. I calmed myself down by breathing deeply and trying to pretend that I was in Vancouver, because I know Vancouver and would feel more confident driving there.

Anyway, I managed to find my friend Amanda's house and arrived in one piece. Major triumph.

I immediately started calling places, and then took a cab to one place that ended up being in cracktown. When my cabby dropped me off he said, "This would be a good place to live if you wanted to buy drugs." I didn't even go into the apartment. Instead, I saw a cab, and asked a man standing nearby if he was the owner of the cab. He said he wasn't, but that I should go into a nearby African restaurant and ask for the driver. I did this, and a table of four recent immigrants from the Sudan invited me to eat injera (Ethiopian flat bread) with them. Then one of them gave me a ride to my next appointment, which was in an area of town called Oliver. He didn't charge me anything for the ride, but wanted my phone number. I told him I didn't have a phone, and thanked him profusely because he refused to accept any money. I then looked at the apartment, and was surprised by how huge it was. I was impressed enough to fill out an application, but then felt that I should keep looking because the apartment was on a very busy street, and its windows were small. As I walked around Oliver, I thought that I might still prefer living near Whyte Ave. I can see why people like Oliver, but I think I prefer Whyte.

The next day, Amanda and I went to the Old Strathcona Farmer's market, where we ran into my friend Andrea. We then walked around Old Strathcona, ringing doorbells on buildings and looking at places. It seems that people in the Whyte Ave area don't have to advertise on the Internet, because everyone wants to live in the area. Finally, I called about one place, and the landlord said that that place had been rented, but he had another apartment available in the area. So I walked over there, and saw it, and liked it, and the landlord drove me to his office in his Smart car so I could sign a bunch of forms.

My new place is within walking distance from the two independent movie theatres, countless restaurants, the library, the farmer's market, yoga studios and every amenity you could wish for.

Later that day I went for a pedicure, and then went to see "Mongol", which I enjoyed.

I did a story about a dance group today and was watching the practice, and taking photos. The teacher started giving critiques to the girls, "More energy. Smile! Point those toes."

I explained to the teacher that I danced for 16 years, and that I was having a hard time not critiquing as well.

I started yelling some of the classic comments to make the teachers and parents laugh. "Your arms are not noodles. Smile! Make it look fun! Make me excited"

The girls were dancing to Footloose. This made me feel ancient because I did dance routines to the "Footloose" soundtrack when it first came out, when I was eight years old.

It's reassuring to know that I could make a good dance teacher, if all my other careers fail. I might not be able to teach the girls to dance, but I can sure shout out the directions

Some day I have to learn to post photos in an entry. Unfortunately, today is not that day.

Last week I did a story about a hinny. Hinnies are the opposite of mules; they are the offspring of a female donkey and a male horse. There's only a 20% chance of conception occurring when a female donkey and a male horse breed. (The more common pairing is known as a mule which is a male donkey and female horse)

Hinnies have more horse-like faces. This one had a more horse like gait and was fairly skittish. In all cases but one, hinnies were sterile like mules.

Female hinnies are also more rare than male hinnies.
All of this means Heidi the hinny is a bit of a wonder

They seriously posed like that for the shot. I don't know how they could have been any cuter.

(This breeding happened because Mabel, a 10-year-old donkey was in a pen with a miniature horse stud. The family that owned her had had her for 5 years, and she had never bred during this time. So they were surprised when she got pregnant. I'm not sure how the miniature horse managed to knock Mabel up. He must have been hung like a horse)

A while ago, I read this very interesting article about waste disposal in the city of Edmonton. It turns out that Edmonton has one of the most innovative waste management centres in the world. At present, 4,600 Edmonton homes are powered by bio-gas.

I've really been engaging my passion for science since I left Vancouver. At one point, I thought I was developing some new interests, but now I've realized that I was very into science as a child. I read a lot of scientific books, did science experiments and wanted to be a wildlife zoologist. That's one of the reasons why I like writing about agriculture so much; it allows me to delve into science and often contains components of biology and chemistry.

( Read more... )

My apartment is on the Canada Day parade route. I went outside to join the throngs of people who came out to see the very long parade, and ended up chatting with a woman, her sister and their two kids. Candy throwing is a big thing at Grande Prairie parades, and the woman kindly positioned her daughter near me so that I would end up with some free candy too. In return, I helped the kids get candy that was thrown into the streets.

I don't have a lot to say. I'm packing, reading and watching Lost on DVD. On Friday, I'm going to Edmonton to find a new apartment.

That's about all for now.

This week, The Globe and Mail is running a really fantastic series on mental health and mental health problems. I started reading the series yesterday and feel compelled to rave about it. There's are a lot of good information and the reporters are really working to put human faces to mental health.

One of the quotes really struck me, "There's no one, no family in Canada, that can say that they don't have mental illness in some form in their family....

Other quotes that struck me..... "you see so many obits that mention cancer, but few that mention mental illness, while mental illness kills a large number of people...."

Read the series here this week.