Playing

So it's after school and I'm on my way home from the store. I walk by the school playground on my way home from the store. There were a bunch of kids playing and Andrew was supervising. I went over to say hi. I noticed the kids were having lots of fun on this thing that slides on a rail. See pictures for illustration. The kids use momentum to swing back to a platform. So the kids (and I and anyone under about 5' 11") are too short to reach the slidey-thing from the ground so if the kid doesn't make it back to the platform ,they usually need a push. This is a complicated playground apparatus, but I'm not going to sit here and write about the whole thing because it detracts from my blog.




Anyway, the kids are having lots of fun. So I want to try. As I'm standing in line, some of the kids are making small talk with me and ask me my name. I tell them.

"Oh, I've heard of you!" One kid says.

"I hope it was good what you heard about me," I reply.

"Oh yeah!"

That made me feel good.

So I go on the slidey thing. I make it to the other end fine, but I didn't bounce off the other end well enough and I didn't have enough momentum to make it to the platform again. So I had to let go. But I've seen some kids have to do this and they manage to throw the handle back. I didn't even manage to do that!!!

And to add insult to injury, my arms are killing me. So I've come up with a new workout for adults. It's called "playing". You do the monkey bars and the flips and do the slidey thing. You are bound to get great upper body strength. And its fun too! I'm going to start my new workout tomorrow!

Fame Whore

One of the perks about being is a teacher is claiming fame through a student. My newest "claim to fame" is that one of my students hacked into one of Coldplay's websites.



He did it so he could hack their site counter and put it on his site. I usually don't condone such behavior because it is generally illegal and the kid could get into trouble. I asked him how he did it, thinking he cracked some serious Java Script or some other code. He did it by guessing that their password was 1234. This is just another reason why NO ONE should use 1234 as their password! I thought it was pretty funny. He even got props as being "some bratty kid in Canada" that hacked their site. We all got a good laugh when there were 68 posts on how my student should "die" or "burn in hell" for hacking into the site. My favorite is someone called my student a "fucktard". He's not, he's just a kid trying to have some fun and lucked out. All I can say is SWEET!(That's an inside joke I have with one of my classes).

Hard Week

It was a hard week this week. Not so much for me because I'm unfamiliar with all the circumstances, but it was hard to be amongst all those who felt so much pain.

Of course, there was the death of a community member. She is the mother of two of the students at the school. The school staff were asked to make refreshments for one of the four memorials before the funeral. I didn't know the deceased at all. I never met her before. I didn't even know her name before she died. I could only identify her children in the school. I decided to stay for the memorial that I made sandwiches for since I've never been to one before and because I felt it would be almost rude to drop off food and leave.

It was a hard thing to sit through. I almost cried a few times. It was hard to see people I know stand up and just breakdown when they tried to say something about her.

This may seem cold, but being at this memorial made me realize something. I never want a Christian memorial. Why? Some of the stuff the pastor said pissed me off. Here are the three children that are left behind, one in his early 20s, one who is around 14 and another who is around 12. They just lost their mom. Their birth father died 2 years ago (they have their step dad though). And the pastor is saying stuff like, you may think you know the pain of missing your mom now, but you don't. You can't begin to know what it's like to not have her touch you anymore, hug you anymore, tell you she's proud of you, etc. She went on like this for like two or three minutes. Her point is that "God" will help them get through the pain. I'm thinking, screw you lady. How dare you say things like this to them now. Their mother just died and these kids are devastated. If you ever looked in the eyes of a young person who just lost their beloved mother, you will see what real pain is. I almost wanted to stand up and tell her to shut up. Did she honestly think these were comforting words to the children right now?

I don't know. Maybe it was just an insensitive pastor. Or maybe this is the Christian way. Either way, I sure don't want anyone saying things like that at my memorial. In fact, I don't want a memorial ... let alone 4. I'd want a brief funeral where people can be as fucking sad as they want. Then, I want a party to celebrate my life. People can be sad here too, if they want, but I want people to tell crazy-assed stories about me and celebrate all the good moments they had with me. Death is just the tiniest, briefest moment of life. I don't want people dwelling on that one little aspect of my "life".

The funeral itself was on Thursday. This was the last day of the semester for the kids and the last day of my health class with this set of students. Well, since this is such a tight knit community, almost the entire town went to the funeral. Out of ten students in my last class, only one showed up. We finished the movie we started the day before. The next group I get is a grade 9 group. I'm a bit scared. This group happens to have the kid who's mom just died.

The settlement feast was also on Thursday. I attended this. This was my second settlement feast. Basically, a settlement feast is where the community gathers to witness gifts being given to the family and gifts the family wants to give. I stayed for the first three hours, but I couldn't stand to be there anymore so I left. This may have been frowned upon, I'm not sure. I hope I didn't piss off too many community members, but I guess I'll see in the future. But, hey, I can't please everyone.

The other hard part of the week was the pro-d day we had yesterday. The topic was residential schools. If you don't know what one is, I highly recommend you find out. Basically, in the mid 1800s the Canadian Government had this brilliant plan to deal with their "Indian Problem" of trying to gain land and assimilate the First Nation population. They made it law that they would forcibly take the people's children and ship them off to a far away schools and force them to learn the dominant, Euro-centric "culture". And the things they did to these children to get them to do this were atrocities. We only got a brief synopses of the things done to these children. They were not allowed to speak their native languages. Punishments included getting your mouth washed out with soap and needles through the tongue. The kids were forbidden to interact with their siblings. And then there were all the other things done to the children. The intense labour, the strict rules, the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of the children. The inadequate food. I could go on and on. This was all a form of genocide. In fact, when Canada adopted the Genocide Convention in 2000 , it left out 60% of it so that it would not be accused of committing genocide here.



Anyway, the main focus of out pro-d, way to discuss the impacts these school have had on us now. I was shocked to see how this strongly effects the entire community today. Besides the loss of language and culture that this community is trying so hard to gain back, the loss of basic humanness still impacts this community. Very few of the aboriginal school staff attended residential schools, but most of them had had parents, siblings, grandparents, aunties, and uncles who attended them. And the scars felt by these people are amazing. The loss of trust and the fear of love impacted the families. The ingrained fear of using the language has left these future generations mute. We now see the youth feeling awkward to practice their culture because their parents were too scared or forgot and were unable to teach them. The biggest obstacle is that no one wants to talk about it. It's almost taboo. I mentioned it to M's mom, and she said that the topic should just be left alone – that it opens to many wounds. But that was the whole point of our pro-d ... that it needs to b talked about to be healed.

I'm only hinting at what on yesterday, but it was very tough. People broke down, we were all quite somber. There is hope though. My biggest thought was that I wish the student's were there to see this. Some of my students have never heard of a residential school. They have no idea what happened to their relatives. Yet, I don't know if I'm someone who should be teaching them about it.

Busy

I feel like I've neglected my blog, and I want to give a quick update.

The first semester ends after this week. This doesn't effect me too much, except, I'll be teaching grade 9 health and career planning. And math 12 in about two and a half weeks (when my two- person math 11 class will become a three-person math 12 class).

I got evaluated last week. It went well. The class was a bit chaotic though. The day before, there was a fish farm forum in the school library that the kids attended. They got quite riled up about it, so I thought I could use that interest in my math class. We were study survey design, so I thought we could do an example with this. I planned it, and it turned out smooth as gold. So that went well. The surprises came at the beginning of class. The class was first thing in the morning. I ran into a new teacher that just got hired last week and he's a biologist and he was quite interested in the fish farm debate. I mentioned we were going to look at it from a survey design aspect. He seemed quite interested so I invited him to my class. Hey, what's one more person, right! Now, sometimes one kid is late. It's not always the same kid. So class starts and over half my class is not there! I was floored. They knew we were being observed. I laughed nervously, and then started the class. So the kids start showing up after about ten minutes ... and they all show us with no pencil. Grrr! I handled it well. And the observer said I did well in general. Phew! Only one more observation to go after spring break.

The power went out today. Fun, fun, fun. I freaked out because my stove beeped at me about 2 minutes after the power went out, and I get a little scared when I'm in the dark. Anyway, I got out the candles and lit them. All the time I was cursing myself that I procrastinated all day, and all the stuff I really needed to do, needed to be done on the computer. Anyway, I'm reading a script for my drama club (I started a drama club for the school) and the power comes on. So I go to blow out the candles. I blew really hard on them so that they'd totally extinguish so that the residual smoke wouldn't set the smoke alarm off. Well, I must of put my face too close to the candle because the next thing I know, I have wax all in my bangs, my forehead and my glasses. I was lucky to be wearing glasses. I went to the bathroom to get the wax off my face and my bangs were sticking straight up with wax on them. It was pretty funny. I wish I had taken a picture.

Sad news this weekend: one of the high school student's mom died from AIDS. I feel kinda bad. I don't teach the kid (but I will starting in two weeks), but all the teachers know him because he is quite mischievous. I can't imagine losing my mom. This affects me because my buddy, Andrew, feels like he foresaw it. He has a dream that he had big lice in his hair (I think because he just got dreads and his head is a bit itchy because he can only wash his hair once a week for the first little bit until the dreads become more dreadlocked) and one of the village elders told him that the dream means that someone close to him will die if he doesn't tell four people about his dream. He didn't think too much about it until he found out the news. The woman was his next door neighbour. I talked to Andrew about it and he's doing alright. He's a bit torn about not following the superstition. I tried to comfort him in saying that that is all it was and he certainly couldn't have prevented this death from happening. It will be a real interesting day at school tomorrow. I think my hugging muscle will get a good workout.

Success

I saw this poem at school and it really spoke to me.

What is Success?

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Over Christmas, I asked a friend if he died today, would he have been happy with his life? He said no. I thought about it, and I feel I would. Not that I want to die any time soon. But I feel like I've lived a good life that has been fulfilling. I hope to live my life like this poem, and I think I've done a pretty good job so far.

Practical Jokes

At M's mom's birthday party, I got a little gift. This gift had come up at the last party I was at with M's family. At first when I saw it, I wasn't sure what it was when I saw it from the back. I noticed people laughing when they saw it from the front and I noticed M was dying in her seat. And then I was shown what the big deal is.


I made some comment that M should not bring that to school because I'd be forced to confiscate it and take it to the VP's office. Of course we all laughed because we don't know who'd be more embarrassed, me or the VP.

The teacher's I hang with at school have sick senses of humor. They've been able to make sly jokes that the students don't catch. For example, there is a married couple that teach at the school. The husband stood outside his wife's classroom and made the "open the box" gesture from Dick in a Box. I don't think I can pull this off because I'm not subtle enough.

So now I'm stuck with this bull and I don't know what to do with it. I am determined to pass it on as a joke ... but I'm thinking school may not be the place to do it!!!

The Set-up

Let’s start from the beginning. I have a student, M, and she’s pretty cool. In fact, we’ve become friends, well, as close to a friend that I feel comfortable with with a student. This is pretty funny because I’ve been telling myself that I am not my students’ friend, I am their teacher.

I’m a bit hesitant to be friends with students because of their maturity level, not exactly up to par with people my age. Also, it will always have that power undertone where I am their “superior”. There is also the safety factor. The teaching governing body is very clear about the power relationship between student and teacher and how impressionable students are with that. I know most of this is based around teachers dating students (which is not ok in my books) but I still want to be careful to protect myself. There’s also the issue of “teacher’s pet”. In all fairness, M is in my class of two students and I have a great student/teacher relationship with the other student.

I’ve thought a lot about not encouraging a friendship with a student, but I decided I should just go for it. It’s not like we are going to hang-out all the time, or discuss our love lives. The culture around here also doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Teachers fit in better here when they make the effort to be a part of the community. One way to do this is to be into basketball. I’m not. Some of the more established white teachers have actually been adopted by families in the community. So, I honestly think a friendship with a student and their family is a good thing.

But again, that gain for me is definitely not why I’m friends with M. She reminds me a little of myself when I was her age. She helped me dye my hair with Andrew, where I gave her my MSN info to get ahold of me. We’ve chatted on line about things, like Christmas news, and I’ll MSN her when she’s not in class to get the scoop. I like her and I think we will be “real” friends when she graduates from high school.

Anyway, M found me on MSN while I was still in the big city and started chatting with me. I let her know I was returning to the village the next day. It happened to be her birthday and she was having a family party and invited me. I was quite happy to attend because it would be neat to spend an evening with her to meet her family. Plus, a free meal when returning home to an empty fridge is also a plus!

The party was pretty fun. The family and I got alone very well and we were joking around with each other. M and I chatted afterward and she was a little apologetic for her “crazy” family. This made me laugh because every teenager thinks that their family is crazy. Come on, my step-dad alone mortified me enough as a teenager to make me empathize with any teenager. The rest of my family have their quirks as well (but I love them all to death). Her family was great, they liked to embarrass her a little, since it was her birthday and all. Afterward, she told me her family enjoyed having me. I reciprocated the compliment. I got along well best with M’s mom and her “brothers”. M is technically an only child, but she was raised with her two cousins whom she considers her brothers. Her mom reminds me a little of my mom. They’re both strong, little mamas, with wicked senses of humor.

A couple days later, M’s family was going to the restaurant in the neighboring village (accessible by boat) and she invited me along with the insistence of her mom. I was feeling crappy that day, so I declined. Well, last night was M’s mom’s birthday and I was invited to that. I was quite honored to be thought of for an invite, so I accepted.

We were chatting a little on-line about who was going to be there, and I was asking a million questions like the names of family members. I remember what they all look like but I could only remember some of their names. I felt more confident knowing everyone’s name.

The party was at one of M’s brother’s house. He lives with his lovely wife, Dawn, and her daughter. Dawn made delicious pizza for dinner. During pizza we were all chatting and normal conversation, and M’s mom turned to me and told me M’s other brother, Ian, would be coming later. I thought it a bit strange that she directed this particular comment to me, when really, the conversation wasn’t really on him. It then it dawned on me. Was I being set-up? Hmmm.

The culture here has a particular sense of humor where you kinda pick on someone and joke around that way. I’ve caught on quickly to this type of humor. I think this has definitely helped me succeed in winning the students over in the classroom. So Ian gets there, and starts in on me, giving me a hard time, and seeing if I’d roll with the punches. He even started calling me his girlfriend, to try to rile me up. Of course I can sense M is just dying in her seat from all this, but I handled it well. I know the family was testing me to see if I had a sense of humor and also poking fun at my outsiderness to see if I’m a fake person. I’m not expressing quite what I want to here, but I think you all know what I mean. I passed that test with flying colors.

After a while, Ian let up and started talking with me normally. The family were asking me questions about my life and were trying to get to know me. That was quite nice, because there’s only so much I can say about teaching without boring them all to death. It was also nice they were warming up to me on not such a superficial level. I even think Ian was flirting with me a little, patting my arm every time he talked to me, etc.

Anyway, it was time to come home and Ian walked M and I home. I live across the field from M so they walked me home. At this point, I was starting to get Ian back for giving me such a hard time. It was a good evening.

So I get home, and check my email, etc. and M comes online. I thanked her for the invite etc. and we’re talking about her family a bit and how great I think they are and then she drops the bomb I was waiting for.

“So, what do you think of Ian?”

I had to think about this one, and quick. I don’t want to say anything bad about a person’s brother because that’s just mean. Not that I had anything bad to say about him. I said he seems nice (I didn’t want to use the word guy). Also, I don’t want to play games with M in the middle, so I asked her why she asked.

Her response: “Ah, no reason.”

Ok, I don’t know how I feel being set-up with my student’s brother, by my student. There are a couple of issues here. The first being the situation where she’s playing matchmaker. I don’t know if this is the case and I really hope not. It’s one thing if he has an interest and is asking her for information. It’s another, if she wants to set us up from he own volition. That could be very disastrous if she has her heart set on us being together and we don’t go for it. I would hate for personal stuff to get in the way of our teacher/student relationship because I still have to be her teacher until June. Just another reason why you shouldn’t be friends with your teacher.
The other big issue is not having her in the middle. That being Ian or I playing games with each other through M. That can be very confusing for her and I’d never want to put her in that position.

Anyone have any advice here? My main strategy in this situation is to make it clear that I don’t want M in the middle if she brings up the subject again. I’ll tell her that Ian knows where to find me if he wants to talk to me and I don’t want M to be the messenger.

New Boundaries

Ok, I said I'd never do this but I'm going to. Post a full on picture of myself. It's way too identifying. But what the hell, I guess I can live it down if people in the community find out.

So here it is. It was "bad Hair Day" at school. About once a month, the leadership class plans a theme day. I usually participate because I like to show I have school spirit. Here is what I did.



I felt a bit foolish at first because none of the other staff did their hair "badly". Some wore hats because that is what you'd do to hide said bad hair, and some just put their hair in a pony tail because, again, that's what one does when one has bad hair. A couple of kids (mostly in the elementary school) had crazy hair like mine.

The best part was, surprisingly, I got a lot of respect from staff and students for doing my hair like this. And the strangest part of all was that I got respect from people being able to laugh at me.

My New Years

Ok, I know it was almost two weeks ago, but I finally got around to blogging about it.

I had one of the most perfect New Year's Eves in my life. It definitely ranks among the top 3. What I find interesting, is that it wasn't anything too special or out-of-the-ordinary. Maybe that's why I liked it so much.

It started off pretty good. I was my second day in the Big City and Matt and I decided to go for a jog. I had bought some new jogging clothes in my home town and I was dying to try them out ... you know ... to see if that wicking technology actually worked. He kept telling me that he didn't really run on the track. I kept telling him that I jog pretty slow and I'm sure he'd keep up. Well, he did so well, he lapped me! I found that quite funny. The clothes were quite effective. They passed my grueling inspection and are way better than a pair of hand me down stretch pants and a long sleeved t-shirt.

We got back to his place and I was fussing with my suitcase, shuffling things about and thinking about what I'd do that day. Matt's friends invited us to play poker. I had never played poker. I was in, it sounded like fun. There was a $20 buy in. Hmmm, I got nervous about that, but Matt convinced me it was all good. He then told me I had 30 minutes to get ready. I just laughed. Yeah, right, half an hour to shower, dress, do my hair, etc. for New Year's Eve. He must be kidding. He wasn't. I did it. I didn't get to really do my hair. But that was OK.

I think I looked pretty hot that night. I had on this royal blue, satin shirt with my hot jeans. I remember feeling soft and flirty.

We went and played poker. I, of course, did terribly. It was almost embarrassing. I was first out. But I had lots of fun. I got to sit in this really sweet chair. It was leather and it rocked (as in moved).

From there we went to a house party. I had such a great time at the house party. It was a total sausage party, so that made things interesting. I was the new girl that nobody knew so I had some great conversations. The other three girls at the party were super nice. We engaged in some fun small talk. I guess the party was nothing so special, per say, but I just had a lot of fun. Some of the highlights include, playing foozeball and losing harshly (I was not having a good game winning day!), drinking more than one drink and being able to function well, the Christmas tree fight, getting caught in a slightly compromising position and being able to laugh about it, and the crazy cleany-magnet thing on the fish tank.

I remember being hungry all day because all had that day was coffee and a bowl of cereal until we were on our way to the party ... where I got a sandwich at a 24-hour convenience store. Pizza was ordered at the party and someone made a face made of toppings.



So the party's wrapping up, and Matt and I need to catch a bus or a taxi. Well, we managed to miss the last bus and trying to get through to a taxi company was difficult. We finally got through only to be told that we'd have to wait about and hour for a taxi. The operator told Matt that if we saw an empty taxi, we should just jump in the window! About 10 seconds later, this taxi was driving by and Matt just walks into the street trying to flag it. We got the taxi ... my hero!

I just remember being in the taxi, feeling great that I had such a good night. Matt was being super sweet too. I'll remember that moment as me being so peaceful and happy.

It was great to have such a lovely night, because other parts of my vacation were quite difficult.

Coffee with Toccata

Toccata and I managed to get into better touch because of blogging. Awwwwe, isn’t that nice? Anyway, we decided to get together since I was going to be in her neighbourhood over the holidays ... literally.
I got to see her place (I hope she doesn’t mind me writing about it) finally. We’ve only known each other for like ... my good, around 9 years now (we attended the same community college in ’97, but I don’t think we really met until about ’98) and I haven’t seen her place ever. Now, I’m off topic with our knowing each other so long, but I forget, Toccata, did you have Norm for 101? Were you in that class with me?
Anyway, I loved her place. It’s so neat and tidy for one. She had it all decorated festive with her tiny, little tree and her Christmas lights on the banister and in her sitting room. She has the awesomest cookware too. It’s so retro ... and orange. I love it! We even discussed how we “inherited” our cast iron pans.
We initially wanted to meet up with our university four, but E was out of town. Luckily, K was able to come. We went on a scenic walk to Starbucks in the village, complete with a walk-by of the cemetery. I didn’t get any pictures of all the trees down, opps.
We went to Starbucks. My god, I miss Starbucks! I know it’s a giant corporation and their coffee is bitter, etc. but man, three words: Egg Nog Latte. Mmm, mm. It was almost as good as a caramel frappichino on a hot summer day. Toccata likes her tall coffee in a grande cup.



Us being girls, we managed to talk, talk, talk for hours on end. We got together at 11:00 and we were still gabbing away when we parted at 3:30. We had a good time. I don’t know about you, but nothing beats getting together with old friends and catching up.

Still Waiting ...

I can't get inspired to write until the stories in my head are out. And those stories are dependent on the pictures I have on my camera. And those can't get posted until I get my camera cord.

But to appease my readers, I am posting this song. Sorry, you can only listen to it if you have itunes (I think).

The line of this song, "Don't be so cold when you kiss me" keeps running though my head. Don't ask why because I can't tell you.

I'm getting use to being back in school. My next evaluation is next week and I'm getting anxious. I want to be observed in my math 10 class, but this week they've been really off task. I'm scared they will behave this was next week, which may reflect bad on me ... because maybe I'm "letting" them act off task. My plan is to crack the whip on them Thursday and let them know how I feel and what the situation is. Hopefully, they'll be really good because they like me and they've been saying how much they look forward to being in my class next year.

New Year's Resolutions

Ok, I know. I'm like 6 days late. But I wanted to come up with something good... and accomplishable. Here's what I came up with.

1. Get my teeth fixed. This has always been a dream of mine. And now that I have dental coverage and money for cosmetic stuff, I'm going to get them done. There is no dentist up here so I have to wait for the summer. The big thing now, is that one of my front teeth died a couple of years ago, and it's starting to show. The tooth has gotten more noticeable yellow, and in black lights (and the light reflected off my computer) the tooth is black. Eww! I'm also going to get braces. That means I'll start to get IDed more in bars and liquor stores. It will be a sacrifice I'm willing to take.

2. Stop being jealous. I've never thought of myself being jealous before. I'm a loyal friend and I am always happy for my friends when good things happen to them. But this only applies to friends. People I don't know, or hardly know... all bets are off. I am one green-eyed monster. I've realized this is a deterrent to me making friends. I've made friends over the last few years (and months) but only with people I'm not in competition (or what I believe to be competition) with. This is a lesson I learned from F. I don't like blaming others for my problems, because I believe my choices and my destiny are my own and I choose how they turn out. But, I think this jealously came from my relationship with Asshole. He was very possessive of me, and his influence wore off on me. It's strange because I was never jealous of other woman around him, but after him, I was a jealous person. I think jealously stems from insecurity, which is a hard thing from me to admit about myself. Maybe the underlining goal should be to be more secure.

3. Not everyone is my student ... so don't treat everyone that way. Enough said.

4. Don't be such a homebody. I need to get out more. It's a bit more of a challenge here, but I can try to practice for my summer back in the city.

That's all I can think of now. I think this will give me plenty to work with this year.

What to start with ...

I'm back in the small town ... three days early. But that's OK. I have a ton of stories that I don't know here to start.

I managed to only forget three things in my voyages all over mid-sized towns and big cities. One being the cable to connect my camera to my computer. So at least three blog entries will have to b postponed while I wait for that to be shipped up. Another thing I forgot was that I'm trying to cut down on swearing. That has happened.

Christmas was lovely. I got some pretty nice things, which made me feel all the worse because only one of my presents was present on Christmas morning. Oh, well. Everyone got a cool present. My mom's present was going to a super nice french restaurant. My sister's present was us going for a bikini wax. To each their own.

Next it was to go to the big city to visit my friends. I had been looking forward to this time since I left the city in late August. I had such an enchanted time there this summer with everything going my way, I was hoping that the magic would continue. It didn't. This was hard. I kind of think of it as how Odysseus felt when he returned back to Ithica after the crusades. It just wasn't the same.

By no means do I want to complain because I had a really good time in Vancouver ... most of the time. I stayed with Matt. He was a great host. I enjoyed my time with him immensely. But some of the magic was gone from this summer. I know he had a rough semester in school and I had a life-movement change, so that factored in. I feel we had some great times and conversations, but I thought all my time spent with him would be like that. That's a no brainer, I was setting myself up for disappointment, in that aspect. I don't want this to discount the fact that I enjoyed his company tremendously.

I got to spend the first part of my last evening with Brilliant. We went to a local pub, watch some hockey and had some beer. It was great to see him doing well. After the pub, we dropped in on a guy we met this summer who still lives in dorms.

I didn't get to see any of my education buddies, which was disappointing. Actually, I didn't get to see many of my friends there. It just reinforced the theme that this summer was truly enchanted and I won't get to relive it again. I'm fine with that now. But on January 1st, I was extremely frustrated about it ... as you could tell in my previous entry.

All the fun stories will be developed more over the next few days when i get time to record them, and when I get my camera cord back... because I took specific pictures for the blog!

So with that I'll start with some stories as separate entries ....

In 2007 ...

Just a quick blog to say I'm still alive. I'm in the BIG city right now... visiting. There have been many ups and downs ... which I will blog about in the coming days.

I've done some good thinking too. Every moment here, I'm confused on what my next move should be. I'm having a very poker time here.

Wish me luck for the next few days. I may return to home a more broken or more fixed. We'll see.