Summer of the Blog

2006-12-09T09:23:00.001-08:00

Someone set up an art installation in the empty lot kitty corner to our apartment. It's actually quite funny, and slightly brilliant. The lot is surrounded by one of those wood barriers covered with advertisements they put around construction sites. It gives the impression that they are going to build something there, but really this site has been empty for a few years. People can't see inside very well from the street level, but we have a great view from our balcony, which makes me think that the art piece was created for our pleasure alone.

The chairs are growing out of the sand! Chairs can't be on stilts! That's just crazy!
I don't really know what it means, but does art have to have meaning for it to be significant?
Thank you whoever made it.

2006-12-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

So apparently I haven't updated this blog in almost 4 months, I no longer live in Edmonton, and it is now Winter of the Blog, not Summer, but I don't think I'm able to change that title. I didn’t think too hard about that when I created this blog, now did I?
Everything in my life now is pretty much different, besides the fact that I am still reading the same book that's posted on the side, "At Home in the World", by Jennifer Welsh. Reading for pleasure unfortunately gets swiped to the side when I'm at university, but I hope to finish it during the Christmas break just to get the thing off my nightstand. I didn't really even attempt to update this thing throughout the semester, and god knows why I think I have time to do it now that I am in the middle of exam period, but here it goes...
I’ll post again soon but here are some updates in bullet form because it makes me feel efficient:
• I love my roommates! There are six of us with one bathroom and one fridge but I wouldn’t get rid of any one of them for more space and shelf room.
• I practically live at the architecture library cause I have a new goal to be a Super-Student and get a fancy American university to pay me to study at their institution for grad school.
• I eat a zatar pita EVERY day because it’s yummy and only sets me back $2.50.
• I went to a Liberal party last weekend in a pretentious loft in Old Montreal, met Bob Rae (before he lost the Liberal leadership campaign), and drank copious amounts of expensive white wine for free.
• I’m not a Liberal; I was there for the free wine.

2006-08-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Go and watch “Little Miss Sunshine” right now! It is the best movie I have seen all year, and one of the best I have ever seen. There is something incredibly honest about this family’s dysfunction. Somehow they manage to make the movie both hilarious and tragic and the little girl is a brilliant actress. She brought a tear to my eye no less than 4 times in the movie, which has never happened to me before. One minute I cried, and the next I was laughing so hard it hurt. Granted, yesterday was a really emotional day. Sando’s moving to Toronto tomorrow and we’ve spent the past few days crying sporadically. It’s funny how certain people can come into your life out of nowhere and influence it so significantly.

It’s my last week in Alberta too. I fly back to Montreal on Sunday and while it’s sad to leave friends and family, Alberta doesn’t feel like home to me anymore. I’m ready to leave and I feel a bit guilty admitting that, but it’s true. I won’t just miss the people though; there are things about Alberta that I will miss as well: Old Strathcona, saskatoons, wild roses, big blue Alberta sky, pedestrian rights, and people yelling “fag” as they drive by in their pickups (one time it happened twice in the same day, that really made me feel great). I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I think it’s time for friends to start visiting me in Montreal. Apply soon: Meagan has reserved Christmas break.

I think this might be the last blog entry before I move. Thanks to all the Alberta peeps for making the past 8 months awesome. I couldn’t have done it without you… really… I couldn’t.

2006-08-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well it’s official, I loved Vancouver! I had a great time, it’s a beautiful city and I definitely could see myself living and working there in the future. The city is much more relaxed than Montreal or Toronto, and at times we were wondering where the hell all the people were, but overall, Vancouver has plenty of things going on. I have to say that I didn’t love the university all that much. It’s pretty far from downtown and I think I’d get tired of making the trip out there everyday, but it’s pretty and I’d probably prefer that to Montreal’s winter. So overall, Vancouver lived up to its great reputation. Go see it!
Oh yeah, I meant to take lots of pictures, but I didn’t. All I really have is a picture of a porn theatre advertising discounts for seniors (gross) and for couples on dates (weird).
"Hey baby, what say I take you and Grandpa to the porn palace later for a cheap night out?..."

I'll post the picture later.

The mayor wrote me back an incredibly vague response about the Falun Gong issue I mentioned last week. Here was his response:
"By no means did we, as a City, want to infringe on anyone's right, including the Falun Gong, to freedom of speech. What you and others are not aware of are the many communications we had previous to August 2nd with a representative of this group and our attempts to work with them and inform that there was perhaps a better venue and way for them to hold their demonstration. Unfortunately, all of our attempts failed as they were insistent on doing it their way without any regard for some of our questions."
Besides the fact that “their way” is how its done millions of times over in other cities across the world, I think this is all bullshit and the only reason why they think there is a “better venue” is because they know this group can’t pay for a private venue or petition businesses to endorse them, and therefore won’t be able to have a protest. I wrote the mayor again and I may have offended him, cause he has yet to respond.
Sando told me that he thinks I work in the town from “Edward Scissorhands”… I think he’s right.

2006-08-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

While at work today I overheard a discussion between city co-workers about the group Falun Gong wanting to hand out pamphlets in the City to raise awareness about human rights issues in China. For those who don’t know, Falun Gong is a religious group that has been persecuted in China and they allege that the Chinese Government is currently harvesting organs from prisoners and religious practitioners for surgeries. Someone at City Hall quickly made the decision to deny them permission to hold their demonstration before their representative even made it to our office to fill out the request form. This immediately struck me as odd. I didn’t even think groups needed permits to hold demonstrations. I understand that the City would want to have formal documentation of protests, but how can a municipality bar a group altogether from holding one on public land? There is absolutely no reasoning behind the decision. This is an infringement on one of the most fundamental democratic rights: the right to freedom of speech. If we deny access to this particular group, does that mean that all groups are never allowed to have a protest off of privately owned land? No group is ever allowed to hand out pamphlets in our city? I know that this most certainly is not the case, as many groups have handed out pamphlets in the past. Access to public land is fundamental for any group wanting to raise awareness for any cause, especially if that group does not have access to private land. Citizens in democracies hold protests outside of their City Halls every day. This doesn't mean that the City is endorsing what the group is saying. It says that the City values discourse and public debate. It doesn’t even matter if this group is correct in their allegations against the Chinese State. It shouldn't matter what the group is saying as long as it is not hurting other people. City Hall has no right to ‘filter’ what information the public has access. This is exactly the definition of freedom of expression and the purpose for public land. Needless to say, I sent an email to the mayor (with whom I am on first name basis) and I’m anxious to hear his response. I even showed restraint in my letter, deleting phrases like “quasi-fascism”, in the hopes that it would get a more productive response. As a young person concerned about our democratic process it is alarming to see a city staffmember searching for the "Denied" stamp even before the lady from Falun Gong finished filling out the form. Are citizens in this city so focused on living in their manicured suburban bubbles of ignorance that they are willing to infringe on the rights of others so they don’t have to hear about the problems of people on the other side of the world? I’ll let you know what the Mayor says in his reply.

2006-08-01T14:50:00.000-07:00

I love the City of Montreal more than any other place I have ever lived. Most of my friends have either a) already heard my rant about why I love this place, b) equally share my passion for this city cause they love it too, or c) wish they could live there or at least visit so they could witness first hand what everyone seems to be talking about.

Somehow Montreal has managed to mould together a flattering combination of characteristics that gives it a clear distinction from other cities that I’ve seen. Bilingualism and multiculturalism are two qualities quintessentially linked to the Canadian identity, yet Montreal is pretty much the only place in Canada where one sees the two together (Ottawa does this to a much lesser extent), arguably making Montreal the ‘most Canadian’ city in the country. Streets regularly shut down for festivals and the city itself is a cultural magnet. It’s chock-full of history and old architecture, yet it is cosmopolitan and modern at the same time.

Montreal has attitude, which I think is derived from Quebec culture in general, and this attitude is perhaps my favourite thing about the city. It’s almost like Montreal doesn’t care what other people think about it. The people there do whatever the hell they want, they take risks, stand up for what they believe, and aren’t willing to be pushed around. You can find evidence of this all the time. Students in Quebec fight to keep tuition affordable. Quebec plans to implement Kyoto without the federal government. Montreal even decided to get rid of the Gay games and invent its own improved “OutGames” when the International Gay Games Committee got too pushy. Best of all, Montreal manages to pull it all off without trying to impress everyone in an attempt to be New York (a city that rhymes with Moronto comes to mind).

I’m bringing all this up because I’m going to Vancouver this weekend. While I’ve never been to Vancouver before, in a way I’m hoping that I will be able to love it as much as I love Montreal. I’ve heard and read incredible things about this city, I’ve met tons of great people from BC and I am interested in BC politics as well. Vancouver recently passed Manhattan as the downtown with the highest density in North America. It is well on its way to producing one of the most liveable communities in the world, and I somehow trust Vancouver politicians when they use words like sustainable. There is also the natural setting to consider. Everyone raves about how it is tucked between the mountains and the ocean and who couldn’t love that?

The University of British Columbia is high on my list of places to see considering I might go there after McGill. We also plan to check out Vancouver’s Pride Festival since it is on this weekend. I’m sure that I will have tons of fun, but I’m worried that I won’t LOVE it. I’m a bit nervous out about the whole trip because I have very high expectations for Vancouver. Somehow I feel that this weekend will not only determine where I will go to school (assuming I have a choice) but where I will eventually settle down and get a real job… and thinking about that is even scarier.

2006-07-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve noticed that the media, businesses, politicians and even city planners have certain words that they like to throw around to make their ideas and projects sound more appealing to the public. While working in a city planning office this summer two of these euphemisms in particular are starting to drive me mad.

The first and my least favourite of the two words is “Sustainable”. People love hearing that projects and developments are sustainable. It somehow relieves everyone’s conscience so they can drive home their SUV’s and get to sleep at night. Be careful anytime you hear this word, especially if you hear that X makes Y ‘more’ sustainable. Sustainability is meeting your needs and expressing your greatest potential without compromising the needs of future generations. You can’t be ‘more’ or ‘less’ sustainable. Either you are compromising your kid’s future or you aren’t. That’s what we call sustainabullshit. People throw around this word to make others think that we are doing great things, when really we could be doing more. Just because you recycle doesn’t mean that you can say you leading a sustainable lifestyle. It means that you have less garbage. There’s a difference so tell it like it is.

The second word that I encounter almost everyday here is “Revitalization”. Everyone seems to talk about how the downtown should get ‘revitalized’. The city is planning ‘revitalization efforts’. Council really wants the centre to be ‘revitalized’. Wouldn’t it be great if there was widespread ‘revitalization’? It’s as if they think that by using the word a lot, then it will happen by itself. The planning department is either detached from the neighbourhood and doesn’t care what happens to it, they believe it is already dead and doesn’t merit the attention to try to save it, they don’t realize that the actions they take everyday in other parts of the city are directly hurting the downtown (encouraging highway big box development), or they are so busy and caught up with suburban growth to give this project the attention it deserves. I think the answer is a bit of all of these things. Council decided to pay thousands of dollars to attach the name of a prestigious university professor to the ‘revitalization’ project, and while I have gained a lot of respect for this particular Prof, I don’t think his ideas will be put to their full potential. I’ve become a bit jaded about the whole project because I don’t think this city is willing to make some sacrifices and change old habits. They aren’t going to save anything unless they get more people living downtown and make it less convenient to live on the fringe. Yet they are doing the opposite by facilitating development along the highway, not increasing densities and marketing the downtown, and not wanting to pay for things like underground parking.

I just reread all that I wrote and I sound particularly negative today. I shouldn’t publish this post because I could get fired if they read it. But I’m done with this job in a month, and I think they are too busy helping developers pour concrete over prime farmland to check what I’m doing with my time. I don’t claim to be all-knowing, or even that my lifestyle is ‘sustainable’, but a friend of mine said something to me last summer that has stuck in my mind over the past year and has certainly changed my behaviour. People have this idea in their head that living in a democracy is about going to vote every four years for some distant representative who may, or may not, understand your values and the kind of society that you want. But what most of us don’t realize is that we vote everyday with the money we spend. We invest everyday with our consumer dollars and that shapes the system that we have. Just like elections, every vote can count for something, and every dollar that we spend we should think of it as a vote representing our values. If you think factory farming is cruel and pumping cows full of hormones is wrong, then change your habits, buy from a farmer’s market, or reduce your consumption. Whether you realize it or not, you are casting a vote.

2006-07-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

Every Canadian in their lifetime should get to see the Rocky Mountains. I went camping and hiking there this past weekend with my older brother in Banff National Park. It was absolutely beautiful. On Saturday we hiked up Johnston Canyon past two waterfalls and up 6 km to an open valley. At the top there were a bunch of small pools of water called Inkpots. Water and air seeps up through the ground and collects in round pools. Some are blue and others are green. We were going to hike further but the trail narrowed to a point where you couldn’t see behind the bushes two feet in front of you, there were no more people around, and quite honestly, we were scared of bears. I have no desire to encounter a grizzly standing 2 metres tall. After that hike, we drove up to Lake Louise which, despite the beauty, was stocked full of tourists. We went for an impromptu hike around the lake and up the mountain in the back towards the glaciers. Although we didn’t quite make it to the glaciers, I did get a taste of glacier water (I’m not sick yet). The water trickled down some rocks in a small waterfall. It tasted like nothing, which is how water should taste I suppose. 23 km of hiking up and down mountains works up an appetite and we cooked some great steaks over the campfire. I’m glad I got to visit the mountains before heading back east to Montreal for school.

2006-07-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

Don't ever get my spit on your clothes, cause apparently it stains things. Today at work I yawned while looking down at my keyboard and a surprisingly large quantity of spit fell out onto my chair. I rarely ever drool (sleeping on my stomach being the exception) and I was slightly shocked when it happened, but thankfully no one in the office saw me. Now there is a big drool stain on my chair and I felt a desire to share that with everyone.
Today I'm going to my hometown of Vegreville for the annual Pysanka Festival. Veg's claim to fame is having the world's largest Easter Egg (called the Pysanka, pictured left) - a feat of considerable prestige. The best part, get this, the egg rotates in the wind! Genius! It was made for Queen Elizabeth when she came to visit our sweet village in the 70's and has been famous ever since. I've seen it in textbooks, brochures and most recently, yesterday in a GM commercial, no joke. This egg is practically worshipped by Vegrevillians, so don't ever make fun of it. Needless to say, my high school friends and I will be at the festival for the beer gardens, Ukrainian dancing, food, and of course to pay tribute to the MightyEgg herself.

2006-06-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

5.5 Reasons (this week) to dislike the Conservative Party

1. Does increasing the military's budget across the board by $15 Billion make you feel any safer as a Canadian? Honestly, it makes me feel more unsafe now that we are falling obediently in line behind America's endless 'War of Terror'. You can't fight an abstract idea like terrorism, this war is creating more terrorists. The world would be a much safer place if we invested billions in fighting global poverty, disease and invested in education. You need to build bridges and relieve desperation to increase human security. Yes Canada's military has been starving, but it's unrealistic for us to support widespread military investment in everything to try 'catch up' to other powers. Canada needs to find an international security niche. There's no point in building boats and aircrafts that everyone already has. It would be more beneficial to NATO/Peacekeeping/Disaster response efforts if we had skills that are in demand in a few selected areas. Of course if you're in the Conservative Party it's more important to show the US that we support whatever they do rather than actually increasing international security.

2. That ties right in with the next complaint of this week. During the Live 8 concerts a year ago everyone talked big and Canada pledged to relieve foreign debt for the poorest countries and increase its spending on international aid. Year after year Canada breaks this promise and it makes me ashamed. Instead Harper wants to count his military spending as international aid to artificially make it appear like we are doing something.

3. This week Canada was one of only two countries in the United Nations Human Rights Council that voted against sending the Declaration of Indigenous Peoples Rights to the UN General Assembly for review and a vote. This goes to show that the Conservative government has no intention to meet its obligations to our aboriginals, nor commiting to the elimination of widespread human rights violations suffered by indigenous people around the world.

4. Conservative Environment Minister Rona Ambrose continues to hide from environmental committees. I can accept if some people think that Kyoto is unrealistic, and even that they want to work with the US to negotiate another agreement, but I can't accept that the "Made in Canada" solution, thus far, amounts to doing nothing at all. Countries are meeting their Kyoto targets, hell, Quebec decided to meet its Kyoto targets without Ottawa by implementing carbon taxes and investment in public transit. Even if it's impossible for Canada to meet the requirements (which I don't believe) the least we could do is make an honest effort. Harper's government is talking about new air quality requirements. The problem is not that we don't have adequate laws, but rather we don't enforece them. Our politicians like to talk big about the environment, but instead we choose to invest billions in the oil and gas industry.

5. Did you guess corruption would be in this list? It is. Apparently the Conservative Party has accepted up to $2 million dollars at their election convention and didn't record the money as donations. They say nothing illegal was done and fees to attend the convention aren't considered a donation. If it's not a donation what is it then? Conventions cost hundreds of dollars to attend for the purpose of fundraising. It's the same as paying hundreds of dollars to go to a charity dinner... to donate... to the charity. People give lots of money to go to an event in support of a cause. It's a donation. Or maybe I'm wrong and they spent 2 million dollars on balloons.

5.5 HAPPY CANADA DAY!
Well this one is half complaint/half celebration. The Conservatives increased federal funding for Quebec's celebration of Canada Day by $500 000 (more than Alberta gets total). It's disheartening thinking about Ottawa's attempt to buy Quebecer's into Canada time and again, but its also kind of funny that they actually think this will work.
Enjoy the long weekend!

2006-06-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

So I took a test to see what kind of flirt I am...

You Are a Coy Flirt

You may not seem like you're flirting, but you know exactly what you're doing. You draw people in, very calculatingly, without them even knowing. Subtle and understated, you know how to best leverage your sex appeal. A sexy enigma, you easily become an object of obsession.

Is calculating just a nicer way of saying manipulative?

Me?

Never :P

Though I always exit swimming pools like that.

What Kind of Flirt Are You?

2006-06-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend I gained an appreciation for the grasslands of Southern Alberta. It seems strange to me now, but until this weekend I always considered the prairies to be that place down south where all the trees were cut down in order to build farms and raise cows. Having spent my childhood in the Yukon and the extreme north of Alberta, farmland to me was the random squares of land carved out of forests. As you go farther south, you see less and less trees until eventually (somewhere before Calgary) the only ones you see are the few planted in every other farmyard. It didn't really occur to me that farmland in the south is in an area that didn't really have trees to begin with, let alone forests. I had never considered what wild plains looked like without the sweeping fields of wheat or future hamburgers everywhere you look.
Friday night we went on a roadtrip down south. Sando's family was having a eco-house warming/Solstice party for his cousin who just built a beautiful (and completely sustainable) home east of Lethbridge. The land was flatter than anything I've seen before, and for the first time in my life, I saw treeless land that wasn't invaded by farms or desert. You might assume that a landscape without trees, shrubs or much water would be barren. Honestly though, to me it seemed almost more diverse than the forests from the north, or maybe you pay more attention to detail when nature is less obvious. I've never seen so many kinds of grasses, wild flowers and other plants. This is the region of Alberta where modern windmills are popping up everywhere and buffalo used to roam free. I vaguely knew this part of Alberta existed, but I didn't spend time thinking about it. Across the lake other homes have already planted green lawns everywhere, which I think is a shame, and I'm happy that in this case they plan to leave it natural.
It was my first Neo-Pagan celebration and there were good times everywhere. Everyone was drunk, we burned a willow man to get rid of negative things in our lives, and I had a good long chat about life and the Goddess. The next day we hung out by the lake, nursing hangovers, swimming, and cooking in the sun. It was definitely worth the long drive down there and I'm glad I could see this part of Alberta before I move back out east.

Today at work a woman dropped off her application for a business permit to run a hair cutting operation out of her home. She wants to name her business "Back Door Hair." I can already imagine what people are going to say about the poor old lady who just wants to make sure everyone knows what entrance to use.

2006-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

The Oilers lost last night and the world is still turning. At least I will never have to know what would have happened to Whyte Ave had they won the Stanley Cup.

In World Cup News: Sweden managed to fend off England today in a 2-2 draw. I was worried there for awhile when England scored their second goal. They haven't beaten Sweden in almost 40 years and I didn't want to see them do it today. Then Larsson tied it up again with only a few minutes left. I think it will be difficult for Sweden in the next round when they play Germany, but I'm starting to think I may have initially over-estimated the Germans. Keep an eye on Argentina though. If they beat the Netherlands tomorrow then I wouldn't be surprised to see them make it all the way to the final to play against Brazil. I would love to see the two South American Giants battle it out in the end. Anything can happen after the first round though, we'll see.

Last weekend was Edmonton's Gay Pride. Although it was nothing compared to Madrid's Pride last summer in Spain where two million people waded through the streets, I was with a really fun group of people in Edmonton and I got to drink beer outside in the afternoon. There was a beer garden (queer garden?) in Churchil Square and a few thousand people showed up. I guess that's admirable for conservative Edmonton, and at least the Mayor actually recognized it this year.

Best and Worst Moment of Edmonton Pride 2006: Witnessing the ugliest drag queen in history wearing pink lingerie with furry boots sprawl on a picnic table, legs opened, while yelling "Cotton Candy! uuuuuugh!" in a raspy, masculine voice.
And to think... homos want rights :P

2006-06-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

So far I've been mum on the prospect of the Oilers winning the Stanley Cup, but with game 7 tonight against the Hurricanes I feel obligated to make some sort of comment. This is the moment of truth and I have to be honest, I was tired of all the hoop-la over a month ago. I didn't think they would make it this far, or rather, I tried my best not to think about it in the hopes that it would all be over quickly and we could finally get on with summer.
Then came the rioting fans. People came in droves every game night to drink, break windows and burn shit on Whyte Avenue in celebratory stupor. People hung from lamp posts and danced in crowd surfing shopping carts. Bottles were thrown at firefighters attempting to put out the bonfires in the street and everything seemed to be interspersed with fireworks shot at girls in miniskirts followed by the occasional stabbing. It was hockey ritual sacrifice. What was almost more disturbing in all of this chaos was the sloth response from the police force to do anything earlier in the season. It's alarming that such violence was allowed to occur in a city where cops nearly tackle you if you jaywalk. There doesn't seem to be an issue arresting drunken homeless men in the afternoon or stamping out left wing protesters, but they need a few weeks to decide whether to intervene with tens of thousands of rabid hockey fans costing the city millions of dollars in damages and cleanup costs. It blows my mind. And the saddest thing is that it's the residents of Strathcona who lose the most in the whole ordeal. Not only do they feel the need to avoid their own neighbourhood on game night but there is the constant threat of having their proverbial backyard burned down as well.
I do really hope the Oilers win tonight. Edmonton definitely wants it more than Raleigh, where one is hard pressed to find people who understand the basic premise of the game. I'm even willing to put up with another month of flag waving and hockey dominated evening news. I just wish I could see a bit more police brutality and stupid mofo's in prison.

2006-06-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is Fredrik Ljungberg. You might think he's just another talented but regular soccer player at the World Cup representing his homeland in Germany. But in reality, he is so much more than that. Not only did he just score the goal that gave Sweden the victory over Paraguay (look how happy he is), but he's also a Calvin Klein underwear model, and the current object of my desire. Thanks to him, Sweden has pretty much secured it's place in the next round. However, they can still get kicked out if Trinidad and Tobago beats Paraguay next week by scoring at least two goals and if Sweden loses to England without scoring any goals. The chances that both of these outcomes will happen simultaneously are slim and so it looks like I'll get to see more of Fredrik. Awhile ago there were rumours that he was gay, which he vehemently denied (much to my dismay), but I still like to look. Some might think he's past his prime and, oh look, he has a receeding hairline, to which I reply, "Fuck off, I'll soon have one too."

2006-06-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I had the pleasure to experience, for the first time, the sensation of being flipped over the handlebars of my bicycle. I was riding to work, happy as can be, listening to my Ipod. The Offspring were crooning in my ears... "I'm on a roll, with all the girls I know. I know you wanna hit that, I know you wanna hit that, hit that," and I did. I was turning to go around a flower planter, overcompensated with my turn, and my pedal caught on the leg of a park bench on the other side. Needless to say, my bike stopped moving forward, but I didn't. I ended up landing on my hip and elbow, both of which are are cut up a bit. It was surprisingly painfull to ride a bike thereafter with a sore hipbone, but other than that, I'm alright. I'm more concerned about whether I'll be able to get the blood out of my white shirt.

2006-06-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of June I moved into my Aunt's house for the month. She went to travel in Europe with her husband and kids, and since her house was going to be empty, she offered me to stay there on the condition that I mow the lawn and water her flowers. It's a pretty sweet deal, my Baba gets a break from me, and I have some privacy. Her house is deep in the suburbs and it takes me half an hour to ride my bike to work as opposed to the 10 minutes it took from my Baba's home Downtown, but I don't really mind cause I'm getting uber buff riding my bike everywhere. Plus the time goes by fast when I'm listening to my NEEEW Ipod! Though I may regret buying it come spring when I have no money for rent, for now it's fantastic. I feel like I have a soundtrack to my life! I was going to buy a raincoat since I have to ride my bike regardless of the weather, but decided I needed the Ipod more.
It rained the whole next week...
but my music pleased me so much that by the time I neared home I was aiming for the puddles. Now the new question is, Do I buy the raincoat or the running shoes?

Last week I went to Edmonton with one of my bosses for a breakfast and to hear some speeches on Eco-Industrialism. Basically it was a big mix of government and petro-chemical bigwigs mingling to pretend they are doing something beneficial for the environment (at least the seminar nametags were recycled). I was rather disappointed with it all. I was half expecting some passionate words about how Alberta needs to be at the forefront of Green energy and technology and how we can make steps to ensure that "Alberta's Industrial Heartland" will become an environmental steward and a model for sustainability. With the exception of one speaker, they barely talked about anything 'eco' related at all, and when they did it was about how one industry's wastes are another's resources and one can make a profit selling their wastes. A side-effect of this is a more efficient use of resources that happens to benefit the environment, but the selling point is that it saves businesses money. Anything that is environmentally friendly is potentially good, but why the fuck can't industry make decisions because it's the right thing to do? Why are industry and business devoid of ethics unless it benefits them? There are massive, billion dollar projects coming into the Heartland with existing plants gearing up for expansion, and no one seems to be concerned about the environmental implications of these changes, or at least no one is willing to increase standards already in place. It's going to be one of the biggest concentrations of industry in the world, all feeding off the same river, and no one seems to be talking about whether it is sustainable, let alone how we can reduce green house gasses in the process. It's frustrating because I know that Alberta can do so much better. There's no reason why there shouldn't be a high speed train between Edmonton and Calgary, why we don't have widespread composting facilities in our communities, or why Alberta can't be leading the whole world in green technology. We already dominate in other forms of energy that it can't be all that hard to include green energy as well.
Having said all that, Alberta is doing some things right. Alberta is leading the country in wind power production and Calgary is the first City in North American to have it's public transit train (C-Train) run on wind power. I'll bet you didn't know that North America's first solar powered subdivision is in Okotoks, Alberta. There are other innovative projects in the works as well. Nevertheless, much more needs to be done.
That's my environment rant. Stay tuned for my post on trashy television...

2006-06-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

FIFA World Cup 2006 starts this week, so I thought I'd throw out my predictions. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert or anything, but I've been learning slowly over the past few years. I can name more soccer than hockey players, despite living in Canada, so this makes me feel entitled to an opinion. Soccer players are arguably the best looking athletes out there, and while I will resist the temptation of selecting teams based on how beautiful their players are, I don't guarantee anything.
I'll jump right to the quarter finals cause, let's be honest, no one is interested in hearing me tell them that Togo isn't going to make it past the first round. We'll see groups A-D whittled down to Argentina, Germany, Netherlands and England, while Italy, Brazil, France and Spain will proceed from groups E-H. I'll cheer my best for Sweden for little else besides the fact that I'm attracted to them (Fredrik Ljunberg, Olof Mellberg, need I list more?), but I don't think they will make it past the Round of 16. Who knows? They have been known to upset England more than once, maybe they will do it again. Barring that outcome, Germany will face England in the semi-final. While England talks big and gets themselves worked up for winning, I don't think they'll make it to the final. Out of groups E-H, Brazil will play France or Italy in the semi-final, probably France but that doesn't really matter cause Brazil is going to win regardless which one they play. That means we will have Germany and Brazil vying for the World Cup, exactly what we had last year. Everyone seems to think that Brazil has the strongest team, and they won in 2002, but Germany is playing on home turf this time, and hosts of the WC have a history of winning. Needless to say, it will be exciting. I really like Brazil and I think they'll probably win, but I almost want to cheer for Germany cause Brazil is almost too obvious of a choice to pick.

I'll probably bring up the World Cup a few times over the next month, and I'll update my prediction after the first round is done and there are only 16 teams left. I doubt many reading this follow soccer religiously (I don't) but that's alright, cause then no one can judge me if I am completely wrong. OK Freeman, maybe you will still judge me. If you couldn't care less about soccer, bare with me, I'll still talk about the rest of my life - and that is always fascinating.

2006-05-26T15:04:00.002-07:00

The long weekend turned out rather well. Sara’s baby is really cute and has fat cheeks. It was great to spend time with them. I helped plant a garden for my parents: strawberries, peas, flowers, edging. It was nice to get my hands in some dirt. I’ve realized that doing garden work is the one thing from the country that I could really miss while living in big cities for the rest of my life. When I can afford my own place I’ll have to get an apartment with a roof terrace for planting or something like that.
A change of plans for long weekend Monday brought us to Gull Lake to the family farm an hour outside of Edmonton. My grandfather bought some farming land on the edge of the lake years and years ago and now the whole extended family uses it in the summer to get away. I hadn’t been back there since the summer of grade 12 three years ago. It was great to relax and see cousins, aunts and uncles, see how the place has changed, and how it hasn’t. I’ve never gone swimming outside in May before, and it wasn’t as cold as I expected it to be. We planted another garden, rode motorbikes, ate hotdogs… all the good stuff. Then Sando came to pick me up to bring me back to Edmonton. I was a bit nervous for him to meet my family but things went really well.
The shortened week has gone by really quickly. I found a website outlining all of Vancouver’s major city developments over the past 15 years and plans for the future, and that kept me busy reading at work for two days. This is the slackest job ever. I basically just pretend to be busy and no one even notices that I’m here. Watch… I’ll get fired as soon as someone checks my internet history file and sees how much time I waste.
Tonight I’m going to a wine tasting party with my Edmonton roommate Meg. That should be fun, and she doesn’t judge me for getting drunk. It’s not needless intoxication if it’s a wine party, it’s a classy event! At least that’s what we tell ourselves…

2006-05-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's Friday again, and payday, and the last day of work before the long weekend. Yes, once again I am not working while at work, but this time, I slacking cause I feel that I have authority. The planners are all gone early for the the long weekend, and I'm left here with the secretaries. I finished the dull project (for now), but I have a feeling I haven't seen the last of it. At least I'm not the summer engineering student, her job for the next month or so involves registering each of the 800 road signs in the city and placing a tiny x on the computer road map.
What would you do if you got your first paystub and the wage they paid you was $1.30 more an hour than what was written on the contract you just signed? Well, it doesnt really matter what you would do, cause it already happened to me and I did nothing. That's an extra $750 of taxpayers money I can potentially put in my pocket for school. I'm worth at least that much.

Things are going well living with my Baba (Grandma). We take turns cooking for each other and I've introduced her to foods like tofu and pesto chicken(next week couscous). At first I was a bit worried about moving in with an old catholic lady who might freak out when I tell her I'm gay, but I really underestimated her. She keeps surprising me with her progressiveness. Yesterday, we had a whole conversation about how we both think prostitution should be legal, cause really, its never going to disappear, and it would be way easier to help sexually abused, or drug addicted, or anyone wanting to get out of the profession if they weren't pushed behind closed doors an villified.
But thinking back, I really shouldn't have been worried. When I was 14 or so we saw "There's Something about Mary" together in the theatre, at 16 - "The Sunday night Sex Show" on tv, and "Puppetry of the Penis" when I was 18. Most people probably haven't watched those types of shows with their Grandma.
Possibly the best thing about living with my Baba is that I have someone to discuss politics with everday... yeah you can all roll your eyes cause things like that excite me.

I'm getting uber excited about living with my new roomies next fall in Montreal. I'll be in the Quartier Latin close to everything, including the fabulous Biblioteque Nationale du Quebec. I know I'll be spending many, many hours there. Nys, Linds, Judith, Francie, it's going to be awesome! It will be a lot different living with 5 people in the same house, but I'm looking forward to it. I should be in Montreal by Aug 26th. I need to book flights, check when classes start, all that good stuff.

Sando's coming today, seeing Sara and the baby tomorrow... it's going to be a great long weekend.
But for the next hour or so, I'll be pretending to work...

2006-05-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

My older sister had a baby! That makes me an uncle! It's an exciting time and I am super stoked cause they are coming for a visit next weekend. It's a bit hard to believe that she has a kid. It doesn't seem all that long ago when we were making forts and choreographed dances to the Beachboys together. Although I still like to choreograph dances from time to time, its not the same since she grew up.
Welcome to the world Taylor Dawn.
Happy Mother's Day to all Mothers!

Speaking of arrivals from Ontario, Sando is coming back from Toronto next weekend as well. Although he's not as cute as this baby, I'm real excited cause I miss him a lot. I didn't expect to find anyone ultra dateable in Edmonton, but I did, and he's made the past three months memorable. I'm getting attached.

2006-05-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post some random pics from the past year.

This is me in Spain with Meg. After a month of English summercamp with hellraising kids the real fun began. We got drunk every night drinking red wine and Fanta. As you can see, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I've never been more tanned than I was in Spain. Of course, Kara, Victoria and I did have a tanning contest for most of the month, so that helped. It wasn't the healthiest competition I've ever had.

So I was walking down the street in Barcelona and all of a sudden I heard my name. I turned around and there was Gida and Lily, two crazy floorfellow friends from McGill. Needless to say we partied that night. Green headband girl is Kara, she's just about the greatest person alive.

This is Teotihuacan in central Mexico. It was amazing! No one knows much about the people who built these pyramids but the Aztecs thought the city was built by gods. Its not too hard to see why they would think that.

In the first picture Im standing at the top of the pyramid of the sun and looking at the pyramid of the moon. The second picture is the opposite.

This is taken on a weekend trip I made to the beautiful city of Valle de Bravo. I hiked up the mountain in the middle of the city overlooking the lake.

Possibly my most favourite thing about Mexico was going to the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. It took me so long to get there, 3 buses, a taxi and a long hike up a mountain, but it was well worth it. Each winter, all the Monarchs in North America go to Mexico and congregate on 5 mountaintops in the middle of the country.
There were so many butterflies you could hear the humming of them all flying. It was surreal and almost spiritual. So normally butterflies only live for a few weeks, but every fall a super generation of monarchs are born that have the energy to fly to Mexico, live there all winter and then fly back. Its really bizarre because once they get back north their normal lifecycles come back. No one knows how the butterflies know to come back to the same mountaintops every winter. Its not like birds who remember where they migrated last year cause its a new generation altogether.

Anyways, thats your bio lesson about butterflies. It was probably one of the greatest experiences I have ever had.

I havent taken any pictures since coming to Edmonton. I'll have to get on that at some point, especially now that things are getting green.

2006-05-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and I have an hour left of work before it's the weekend. What better way to kill the hour and still rake in my 16$ an hour wage than to recreate a blog I half-heartedly began last summer in Spain, but then got sick of after only two entries?
I admit, I stole the idea of reviving my blog from Sando. After reading his blog front to back (well, back to front since I started with the present day) I figured I could do at least as good a job, maybe help some long distance friendships that need some nourishment, dazzle eveyone with my wit and charm, and still get paid to do it.
Thinking back over the past year I have lived in 6 different homes, in 5 different cities, in three different countries and I can't possibly write all the awesome/crazy/stressfull moments I've had since finishing last year's exams in Montreal. Most of you know the significant stuff, and if you don't, it's probably cause your life has been equally exciting over the past 12 months and we haven't had time to write and catch up. If you live a life of void AND don't know what I've been up to, then you are all expected to get yourself up-to-date on your own time, cause I'm starting with the past week.

I've started a new job as an Assistant City Planner (the very job at which I am currently wasting time and costing the economy tens of dollars) in one of Edmonton's bedroom cities. It's supposed to be my dream summer job allowing me to get a foot in the door of my eventual career in City Planning, but so far its rather dull and uneventful. My bosses are all really busy and unorganized and dont have any work planned for me, which isnt all that great considering they are urban PLANners. They've handed over a really dry assignment of updating the Municipal District Plan for the City. I have a feeling I'll be getting all the bitch tasks all summer. It was exciting for the first day or so, but I thrive on variety and 5 days straight of editing and typing has eaten a bit of my soul.
But anyways, my boss just walked by and just about caught me, so I guess I should end this entry here.