linnaea_kershaw

 So, my ‘weekend’ is over and it was pretty good. Not too much excitement but some good stuff. Hung out, did some reading, some catching up with things... little bit of running. Dreaming of my bike... which came today by the way... walked down to the bus station early this AM and picked it up. The guy seemed amazed by the fact that I could pull my bike out and throw it together in five minutes. "Most people take about half an hour to get their bikes together..." Well, really, how long can putting a seat in and a pair of pedals back on take? August would probably get a kick out it because he thinks I'm sexist and therefore would expect me to bat my eyes and ask for help putting my baby back together. Yes, there's pink on the Miele but it's green, and I'm not some little yip girl that doesn't want to break a nail trying to allen key my smarty pedals back on. 

Also, have figured out the corporate response to the typical JRA (I was Just Riding Along! I swear!)... it's lame, it's ridiculous and a load of crock. "Well, sometimes these things Just Happen." Oh geez. I don't even think I could say that to someone with a straight face. Yes, sometimes tires pop, things come loose, and people can be magnets for sharp pointy objects in their tires. Doesn't really make them any more informed or any less upset. 

Hung out with Tyler, roommate from two years ago in Thunder Bay. He’s decided to move here same as me and seems to be an anomaly as well – got a job, got a place to live.

I met up with him downtown. I haven’t been down there since I got back – really no reason too and it is ridiculously busy down there. The people! The sights! The sounds! Ha ha. Just a mishmash crashbash of madness. We wandered around and ended up at Akira Sushi where we had sushi made with black rice (which is actually purple… and delicious). Then we headed down to First Beach to go on the starfish safari. The tide was low, luckily, so we were able to capture some specimens. Well, pictures of specimens. I, stupidly, didn’t want to lug my camera downtown (totally regretting it now and am never leaving the house without it… sometimes) and therefore didn’t get any shots of the starfish. But, they were also purple… and beautiful. Most hilarious thing – as we’re walking away in triumph, heading up the beach to the path and this shirtless dude gives Tyler the staredown and says, “Isn’t that the thing? Turquoise is so in this season!” I laughed my way back to False Creek where we hopped on a water ferry to Granville Island. My first time doing that and it was super cool. That may have to be my backup job. After superspy… and racecar driver… and assassin. Or a combo of all three. We wandered around a bit, had some yummy gelato, and shipped home. All this walking is making me feel less guilty about my lack of real training.

Which was promptly solved tonight… Andrea and her rowing crew invited me out to do the Grouse Grind, a mountain on the North Shore that was apparently hiked as early as 1894, when a hunting party shot a blue grouse and then promptly named the mountain in honour of it. Hmm… what a great and edumertainmental story. The actual trail was created in 1981 for mountaineers for a ‘convenient, yet challenging aerobic workout.’ It’s about 3 k up with an elevation gain of 853 metres. Every year, 100,000 people hike it and on average, it takes them an hour and a half to hike it. We did it in 39 (Andrea) to 50 (Liz) minutes. Super fun. The second half felt easier than the first and I didn’t find it nearly as difficult as last time but then time may have tempered my memory. I also wasn’t going to go 100% all out because frankly, tomorrow’s going to be a gong show at the store (weekend, sunny forecast, people being lazy all week putting stuff off, and in need of a tune-up) and I’d like to able to walk up and down the stairs. The plus side of tomorrow? Morning meeting which means Starbucks treats. :)

 

Pic Du Jour:

 
For all the HIMYM fans out there... :p 

 

Quote Du Jour:

“That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along…”

 Oookay, it’s been awhile. I know. I’ve been feeling sick for the past couple days so forced bedriddenness is my sign to sit down and write.

So, first of all in a fit of spontaneous me-ness/grad gift on my first day off, I went down to Broadway Camera and picked up a Nikon D60. And oh my GOD, so good. So amazing. I am in love. It’s so easy to take good pictures when you have an amazing camera. Honestly, I’ve wanted one for awhile and am always so jealous when I pick up Outside Magazine or National Geographic and see these shots that just (sorry for the cliché) take your breath away. You’re speechless. You’re in awe. The first thing to do to get on that path is definitely pick up a good camera. You won’t be disappointed.

The funniest reaction to my news thus far:

“I picture a bedroom door swinging open at 6am...

Becky: What the hell do you want?

**Click**

you: Check out my new camera!

**Click**

Becky: Ahhh, what the F!  I can't see now!

you: Well, that's the best part - there's 156 different settings for the flash.  How's this?

**Click**

Becky: get out.”

Ha ha. Awesome. 

My second day off was spent wandering around Kits taking pictures and fiddling with the camera.

AKA Total Amateur Hour. Ha.

I started down 7^th because every time I walk to work I wish I had a camera and the time to take pictures. I totally think that sometime in the future people should just get some sort of implant into their brains that allows them to just a take a picture of what they see… along with a music one so you can have a soundtrack to life. That would be perfect.

Got to see Granville Island… so wicked cool. Amazing colours and sights and the people! So many people – all shapes and sizes and backgrounds. It’s too bad I forgot to bring my wallet because I definitely could’ve walked out of there with bags and bags of fresh fruits and veggies and assorted random food that fall into the ‘I have no idea what it is but it seemed like a good idea at the time!’ catagory. Which seems to happen more often than you’d think.


I want to get something like this... except better. :p

I also wish I were a little less shy. I’m sure there would’ve been some sweet shots to be had. Perhaps this ‘weekend’ I’ll gather my courage and take a few…

Thursday night I went over to the fabulous House of McCarthy in the Main St. area. Very nice house although I almost needed a machete to get into the house because the lawnmover's in the shed, the landlords, who normally live upstairs, took off to Greece for an undefined time, and Tom's decided why bother buying a lawnmower just to but the grass when there's a perfectly good one in the shed under lock and key... plus, where would one store said lawnmower if the shed's locked? 

Things have been pretty chill other than that. Had a barbeque last night with a ragtag bunch of people… the bike boys from work, The McCarthy brothers, super rower/ski guide Andrea, and Ottawa old friend Cedric. Lots of fun… didn’t really pay enough attention to the veggie burgers (mmm, carcinogens…), forgot the corn again (Not pointing fingers... *cough* Ed *cough*, took some pics – haven’t quite gotten the hang of people pictures… so, go back to Facebook and check 'em out. Today, Alex comes into the store and asks me whether I slept well.
"Yes, of course I did. How 'bout you, Alex?"
"I can't sleep now. I can't sleep today." 
"What? Why?"
"Now I know where two hot girls live..." 
Ha ha.  

Pic du Jour: (It's mine this time!) 


Quote du Jour:
"I swear... I was Just Riding Along!" - the most common excuse we get when people bring bikes in for repair... yeah, like, we believe it... kinda like LOFT in downhill skiing. "There's something wrong with this..." "Yeah, your LOFT's off..." I forget what it is but it's hilarious... if only I could remember it. 

On an unrelated note... or maybe it's related... I've decided that our apartment's now going to be called the Loft... so classy. Ha ha. 

  Okay, so life is awesome, amazing, and wicked. Ha ha. I feel like I’m overusing adjectives all over the place. It’s just so much… so… I don’t even have a word for it.

Life has sort of seemed to have fallen into place. I chummed around for a day when I got here… then Wednesday AM I had an interview at a bike shop, The Bike Doctor. I got a trial day the next day for work and now I have a fulltime job there with Tuesdays and Wednesdays as a weekend. Pretty sweet, no? Although I’m fully aware that I’ve been hired as the token girl… On the first day, I went down into the repairs workshop and was greeted by Alex the Russian and Mike the kilted old guy. “There is girl in shop now… big changes for the Bike Doctor. Big!” Alex is a very, well, I don’t have any other way of saying it other than coquettish. Like, this morning, rolls into the shop… “Linnaea, how did you sleep? Good? Good.” He also refuses to let me do anything that requires real work... "No, no! You do not have to carry that! You come find me or there are lots of boys here that will do for you. Oscar, he can do it." Ha ha. To which, of course, August returns with, "No, no, you have to let her carry the heavy stuff... that's how women are in Canada. Feminism!" 

Alex is roommates with August, or Oscar, as he calls him, another guy who works at the Bike Doctor. For the past two days, August has been my partner in crime in the Great Tire Throwdown of 2009. Ha ha. We’re in charge of moving tires around, putting them in self-serving bins so we don’t even have to talk to customers – they can get their own bloody tires! Nooo… it’s so they’re more accessible. But there are way too many tires in that store and way too many different kinds of tires… really not necessary. I find that’s true for most of the inventory as far as I’ve seen (yeah, two days, congrats…sigh…). There’s a huge overkill in lock types although, fair enough, they’re one of the biggest sales for the store. I just don’t think it’s necessary to have four brands and 40 locks on the wall for each. But whatevs. Not my store.

It's nice because it's a pretty chill and laid back place. I'm pretty psyched to learn about bikes. The place carries mostly commuter bikes so it's different from what I'm used to but pretty interesting. There's a huge market here in Vancouver for them, obviously... I see at least 30 people on bikes during my walking commute and it's not exactly the most busy road. It makes me happy. But then, there's little that doesn't make me happy these days. :p 

I really enjoy work though. It’s only my second day and I’m psyched! Ha ha. And tomorrow’s my first staff meeting. Exciiiiting.

The best part of the day though? The three k walk to work. The first time I went over, I made the mistake of jumping up to Broadway and walking down it. Broadway’s a pretty busy street and it’s inevitable that you’re going to run into people trying to sell you a 50 dollar Earl’s gift certificate for 10 bucks (probably fake), and have to step around a guy yelling blue murder because he ‘fell’ in front of a store and is homeless and wants to sue them for it (both of which happened on my first day). BUT, if you don’t go up to Broadway and just walk down 7^th to get to just before the store then hop up. It’s gorgeous – green everywhere, residential but a refreshing difference from suburbia hell. The houses are all different, or if they’re not, they’re creative and interesting. And I still get blown away by the idea of plants and trees on rooftops. Just so amazing. That reminds me, Becky and I still have to go plant shopping… I'm so excited for that too. Our back deck is going to become a jungle paradise! Ha ha. I'm going to go to the market on my days off and buy a whole bunch of plants. What I really want is garden-style veggies that I can eat. That would be awesome. Also, maybe an orange tree. Or some other cool fruit-bearing tree. That would be awesome. 

 I can’t wait to get my bike too because then I can coast along and check out more of the city. I'm really going to try and make the best of my 'weekend' Tuesday and Wednesday... explore, visit, organize, plan...

Oh, and today we had some excitement. A guy cut a cable on the outside display bikes and tried to get away with one. Fortunately, some of the customers saw him and he bolted with two mechanics on his heels. The police were called and came to get him. It was crazy and a bit of an eye opener in terms of Vancouver. Not exactly all shiny happy people, I guess. But I don't care! I'm not giving the rose coloured glasses back! Never!

I still get giddy walking home and catching glimpses of the city through the gaps in the houses… and I don’t know if that’ll wear off… and I don't really want it to. 

Pic du jour: 

I'm thisclose to saying eff it and going and buying myself an SLR... there are so many times during my days that I wish I had a camera and my mini one just doesn't do it for me... maaaaaan... 

Quote du Jour: 

“It's great, he got so much going on, Gollum. Sometimes he looks old, sometime he looks young, sometimes he looks like a frog, sometimes he looks like a dog, sometimes he looks like a monkey, sometimes he looks like a bus.”

It made me laugh and laugh and laugh... oh geez... 
 

I hopped a bus Friday night in Sudbury after an awesome last couple days living it up at the Farm and loving life to head up to T-bay to pack up the rest of my stuff and to visit with people before I leave FOREVER (or at least that's how people seem to react when I tell them I'm moving to Vancouver... ha ha). My chicken pox are all pretty much cleared up except for some leftover reddish splotches that are slowly fading away.

The bus ride from Sudbury to Thunder Bay is a long, long, long, long, loooong ride. It also is a bit of a delirium trip – you try to nap, fading in and out of consciousness and wondering what is real and what it is that your mind has put into the scene. A constant soundtrack of your favourite music plays through your Ipod so you don’t have to listen to the snoring of the slight black Frenchman who’s decided to take a seat next to you because the bus is too full for people to have their own seats. You want to read but that would mean turning on the light, the only one on the bus turning on the light in the middle of the ‘night’ (and given my guilt complex, my head might explode). Don’t get me wrong. I really don’t mind the bus all that much although it is more comfortable to be able to have your own seat, especially for someone small like me that is able to curl up and sleep pretty well. The time does kind of suck. When I was at Carleton, the bus ride was 8 hours. There’s a pretty big difference between 8 and 14 hours. The North Shore is gorgeous though. Very gorgeous.

But, you know what makes a 14-hour bus ride longer? When you stop at White River waiting for your replacement bus driver to show up. Your current bus driver gets on the intercom and says, “If you want to have a smoke, go ahead but don’t move too far from the bus because he’ll be here any minute and the bus will leave without you.” You close your eyes for a second, fade out, and suddenly it’s fifteen minutes later and you’re having déjà vu – the bus driver is back on the intercom repeating the same message. Blink. Suddenly you realize you could’ve been on a two hour smoke break/gone for a night hike and would’ve still made the bus. Sigh.

So, we rolled in around 11 pm instead of 9:30 when we were supposed to. Mom picked me up and headed straight to the T-bay market. As we’re pulling into the parking lot, I spot a blond giant and realize that it’s Josh, my roommate. We totally do the running through the daisies towards each other except instead of daisies, it’s concrete and we make a pretty funny pair because Josh is a foot and a half taller than me so I have to jump a heck of a lot more than he does.

I’m glad I decided to visit T-bay before I went out to Vancouver. Saturday night Scott had a party at his place and it was perfect because I got to see everyone. Had a totally wicked time catching up and seeing people.

Sunday, I had the excitement of going to see Neety’s camp. She bought it this spring (I think?) and had it totally redone. It was gorgeous! A lot of wood finish stuff. My favourite part was the countertop in the mudroom and the frame of a mirror in the guest bathroom. I guess she got it done for the camp – glass pieces in a sort of mosaic. I wish I had a picture of it (hint, hint, Neety! Ha ha) so I could show you… or you could just show up at her place, knock on the door, and say I sent you. I will take full responsibility when she slams the door in your face with a resounding “Eff off for cat’s sake! Trolls! All of you! Trolls!” Ha ha. It’d be awesome.

Went for a run in Centennial Park – I love that place. They have amazing single track stuff going on as well as wider, more comfortable trails for those that are afraid of rustles in the bush. :p

Monday was great too – got to hang out with all sorts of people. Highlight was playing tennis with Seija and Josh – we all totally sucked and totally had fun. It was awesome. Sunny, gorgeous, hilarious. Also got to see my Education Girls – Andrea, Angie and Sarah... pretty much the only thing this year standing between me and insanity during our long Tuesdays. When I’m around then, I seem to always be laughing constantly while trying to simultaneously breathe and stammer out funny lines I remember from the year (‘Can I see your crown?’ ‘Well you can’t keep it!’ ‘I want to just see it.’ ‘No, no, you don’t get to KEEP IT.’ ‘I. Don’t. Want. To. Keep. It. I. Want. To. See. It.’ Oh god...), and feel completely comfortable. I owe a lot to those girls, in addition to other people, I know. (Yes, this is the momentary sap part... hold on! ha ha). But yeah, they made me feel like I wasn’t going completely bonkers, that how I thought about things was absolutely normal, and that it was okay to feel that you've no idea what was going on. So, yeah, shout out. Ha ha. Actually, why not just go all in... I’ve had a lot of support from a lot of people in the past little while. You know who you are... it’s greatly appreciated and I will miss you tons as I shift west. This is what I love about living in today’s tech-filled world. Although it’s a pain the ass with everyone yakking on their cell phones, texting when they might probably be paying more attention to those in the immediate area, etc, etc., it is extremely comforting knowing that moving across the country does not mean the end of a friendship.

Aaanyway, travel time. Monday night I checked my flight one more time, thinking I had a chill take off time of 9. WRONG. 6:30. Good job, Kersh. At least I didn’t sleep through it, I guess. Up in time, packed in time, all that jazz. Get to the airport knowing full well that one, if not both bags are overweight. The attendant weighs the first... it’s fine. Just gets slapped with a ‘Heavy’ sticker (probably has a complex now, poor thing). The hockey bag, well, let’s be honest, we all knew it wasn’t making the cut. She’s a heifer and she knows it. Might actually be a little proud of it. Slap it on the scale. The guy gets a little quiet, looks up at me with a calculating look as if trying to figure out of I’m going to lose it if he dares say it’s heavy. I smile back and admit that I’m aware that it’s going to be overweight and I’m going to have to pay. Yeeeah, he replies, it’s actually right on the edge of ‘It’s not even going to be able to get on the plane, it’s so heavy.’ Ha. I, of course, laugh. Of course. Look at the thing. I could fit it in. Josh could probably fit in in... well, a warmed up and limber Josh perhaps. The guy still has the ‘please don’t yell at me’ look on his face, which makes me feel sorry for him. It’s Air Canada, which already has a horrible reputation, and he’s the desk attendant. I’m sure he gets yelled at on an hourly basis. Poor guy.  
Get on the plane, no problem, fly to Toronto, have a nice chill layover. I always have that dilemma... whether to try and have no layover and have to sprint gate to gate to catch the next flight or take a layover and find ways to amuse myself for two hours... 
I love flying Air Canada across the country because they have movies and movies and movies instead of straight up television like West Jet. I watched one of the better movies I've seen in a long time called One Week starring Joshua Jackson. It's completely Canadian and has the Big Nickel in it. So good. So, drop whatever you're doing right now and go rent it. Go... I'll wait. I was pretty much done here anyway... 

Pic du jour c/o Flickr: 


Ha ha. 

Quote du Jour: 

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures." 

 So, it's been a bit mad busy as of late so I will try to catch up the past little bit... 


Last Friday I took off to get to Montreal to pick up my little fro bro, Sean. He finished his last exam at Concordia and is coming home for the summer to work... 
The drive was awesome. I really do love driving as transportation and driving with little to no traffic is even better. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, good music, relaxing drive. I did my first two years of university down at Carleton so I'm no stranger to the drive to Ottawa.
Funniest thing ever has happened to me on Hwy 17 actually. Driving many moons ago with my dad to go to university... back then we had a black, tinted windowed pathfinder that was pretty badass. Coming into Sturgeon Falls, the speed limit jumps from 90 down to 70 down to 50 in the span of about 100 m, not even. Now, if you know me well, and I think most of you do in this regard... I'm a speedy driver. I think of speed limits as more of guidelines. Don't get me wrong, I'm not reckless - I drive to the extent of my abilities, I don't go 140 down the highway ('cept to pass...), I don't do things that I am not 100% confident about. Especially if there are other people in the car. There's no messing around with that. I'm a knee driver, now (ashamedly) a cellphone user, a music play arounder. Many things. I still make my mother super nervous in the car and my dad still falls asleep. Go figure.


From a road trip two years ago... total trust!

Anyway, at this time I was coming into Sturgeon, driving, my dad in the passenger seat and of course I don't get the speed down in time. i don't think anyone does, c'mon! Anyway, lights flash, hear the whoop whoop, and pull over. Cop pulls up behind, gets out of his car, looks a littled sketched out. Comes up to the car, refuses to come past the frame of the window. So, 'freckles' rolls down the darkly tinted window and sticks her head out to smile nervously at the cop. "Hi." You can immediately see the cop deflate. Oh. A girl. A little girl. Bah. You can tell his heart's not in it anymore. Takes my license though, runs a check and gives me a warning. Shrug. Haven't run into a cop since. I've the uncanny ability to get stuck behind a ridiculously slooooow person right as a cop drives by. That, or the Egg is just white enough to throw them off. Just because it has roof racks doesn't mean it can't be a cop car! Ha. Except now that I've talked about it, it's probably jinxed me and I'm going to get pulled over tomorrow. Good thing I won't be driving for awhile soon enough. :p But more on that later... 
Anyway, good drive to Montreal. No problems. No running out of gas with this girl in charge. Nothing has fallen off the car. Nothings breaks, cept this girl at Deep River for a milk shake. Because I haven't had solid food in a week thanks to chicken pox in the mouth. Fantastic. Actually, great excuse to switch dietary meals over to ice cream for a week. Cha Ching. 


My true love... :p


Make it through Ottawa fine, make it through Montreal fine (whoever said Montreal traffic was scary is a wimp! Ha). Found Sean's place just fine. Pretty cool actually. Apartment right downtown... small but liveable. 
Montreal is great. Culture oozing out of everywhere. Music, shows, art, whatever you want you can go see. It's fantastic. I think I'd like to live there sometime. Or take an extended visit. My favourite part are the fire escapes and how everything is so compacted... apartments. I'm in love and addicted to living in apartments. Don't know why... 


How could you not want to be here?!

Pick up Mom at the airport... She's amazed we found it - "I have to remember you're not 13 anymore." Yes Mom, hence the driving to Montreal to pick Sean up... geez, give a girl some credit... We hang out for a bit, wander the streets, then meet up with my aunt and uncle who live in Westmount (the pooh pooh posh part of Montreal). They are a riot to be around. Very Euro couple - Anne and Tony. They grew up in Guelph and Midland (I think... somewhere around Huntsville area) but are very all about Europe. They even lived in Germany for something like ten years... I kind of want to hit people like that sometimes. You want to talk about it so much? Why don't you just move there? Oh, right, the education system in Canada's better... I've met a lot of people like that and they still irritate me. But they are my aunt and uncle so... and they're funny. Anne is a librarian. Well, she's in administration but she started in libraries. She does all the ordering of books for the libraries in Montreal and I think that's pretty cool. Tony is a retired physicist prof for the University of Montreal. Their kids are in their thirties, both tall (6'3" and 6'4") and have both moved back to Europe - Lesley in Amsterdam as a animal activist and Bryce as a physicist of some kind in Germany. Bryce lived in Sudbury for awhile working on the Neutrino Labs for awhile and I miss him tons. Both actually. Lesley was the first person to get me into vegetarianism and she's had a huge impact on my life in terms of animal empathy. 
We ended up going down to the Jean Talon market downtown. Very cool place. They have fruits and veggies galore and jams and spices and everything you can imagine! My favourite part was that they grow veggie and fruit plants for people to put on their decks and windowsills of their apartments so you can have tomatoes and carrots and lettuce right in the city. Such a cool idea. I'm definitely going to be looking into that... but more on that later. :p 
We also went to a very cool eatery just outside the market. Very Italiano. Cool thing about this place - they didn't have any liqueur at all. You went across the street, bought a bottle of wine, and brought it in. Super fun. So, we had some pizza, some salad, some wine, and some laughs. 
Oh, and I got to ride le Métro. So much fun! I love subways. Definitely my 'I love New York and secretly wanted to live there since I was a little kid' syndrome. The romantic... But, in truth, I am going back to a Big City. Not New York, of course. But Vancouver. I've made the decision to go and I'm taking the bus up to Thunder Bay to settle things out there then flying out Tuesday. Very different from times before where Dad and I have done the West Quest. But maybe hold off on that for the late summer when I come back to collect my winter gear... 
Anyway, looking forward to a sweet weekend in Thunder Bay - fitting all the visits and the people and the fun in! Ha ha. It's going to be an awesome ride! 

Pic Du Jour: 



Quote du Jour: 

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." - Albert Einstein

 People have been telling me about these theories about stuff happening in threes. Bad stuff tends to happen in threes - that's the theory. This weekend totally proved that to me... So, here it goes... 

First, had a PD day on Friday. Morning was at St. Benedicts, afternoon at St. Charles' across town. Spent the morning learning about Special Education, which pretty much turned into two hours of learning how to fill out an IEP (Individual Education Plan)... kind of sloooow. Their idea of a nutrition break was coffee and donuts from Tim Hortons. Hmm. At least when they had lunch, they had vegetarian in addition to pepperoni pizza. 
For the afternoon, we headed over to St. Charles. Me being brilliant and thinking green, I got a ride from one of the other student teachers. The afternoon was spent with 'Assisted Technology' a.k.a. 'How to make a new folder on your desktop.' Snore. Perhaps the worst part about it was that some of the teachers there learning had real trouble with that sort of thing. Reminds me of during teachers' college where the profs fumbled with the technology that has been placed in the classrooms for their use. They always end up calling up a student to help out. So I guess the assisted technology seminar would be good for those people that don't know how to do those things. it's amazing to watch students in my gr 5/6 class technowizard their way through things and then watch the older generation try to do the same. You can see the kids' hands twitching to get onto the computer and do the task in five seconds versus the five minutes it takes the teacher. 
Okay, keep this on the DL... I got to ride on a MOTORCYCLE! Yeehaw! It was so much fun! Very exciting. 
Went out to dinner that night at Sapporo Sushi with my very first best friend, Jess Cote, whom I have missed dearly... Haven't really seen her at all in forever but it was like we were right back where we were at 5 - giggling at the silliest things and talking a mile a minute. 
After supper we went back over to St. Ben's to get my car. Turns out St. Benedict's has gates. And those gates get locked. And it was Friday. Therefore? My car is stuck there all weekend. Luckily, I just work at the Buddha all weekend so no driving is really necessary til Monday anyway. Number one.
So, got a ride back to Dom's with Jess to wait for my friend Hannah to come over and cut my hair. Ten minutes after getting back into the apartment, I start to wonder where my car keys are. Start going through my bags, my pockets, the couch cushions. No keys. Call Jess, send her a text message. She's already on her way to Hagar to pick up her cousin who's truck has broken down. Response? 'Your keys are in my car. You left them on the seat when you got out.' Shoot. Luckily, she's driving back through for the Lively Gun Show so she has time to drop them off at the Buddha Saturday. Number two. 
Okay, rewind for a second. Friday morning. Wake up with a couple spots. No big deal right? Didn't really thing anything of it. Saturday morning I wake up with a few more. Still able to go to work on Saturday. It was pretty slow - pretty perfect first day of work. A bit itchy throughout the day. Get back to Celina's apartment and crash out. Am loopy on Benadryl and end up missing a birthday party and a friend's house party... ah well. What's more fun that chumming on a couch fading in and out of consciousness while watching, well, I don't even remember what I was watching. Oops. 
Woke up Sunday morning in full blown panic attack almost to the point where I thought I was going to die. Dramatic, I know. So, handed off my shift to Dom and went to the walk-in clinic. The doctor walks in, takes one look at me, and says, "I've never seen this sort of thing before." Hmm... Puts me on Benadryl and tells me if it doesn't get any better in the next day or two to come back in. Funny. That's exactly what Celina's mom told me and she doesn't make a hundred grand a year... Grab the drugs and get a drive home from Dad to lounge loopily in bed...
Monday I go see my family doctor, Dr. Sawkiw. He walks in, takes one look at me, and says, "You've got chickenpox, kiddo." BAH. 


"But I've already had them!" I try to explain, as if that will speak to the chickenpox and they'll realize 'Whoops, we made a mistake. This girl's already haaaad chickenpox. Let's go boys!' 
He laughs. "Well, sometimes God decides that you're going to have them again." And again. And again. And again... Then he proceeded to say over and over, "Oh, you poor kid" as he checks me over. 

So, I've been quarantined for the past couple days, no solid food (chickenpox in my mouth), no training (chickenpox on the bottoms of my feet). Number three.
Meaning? I have a bit of a leeway period before the next three come at me. Something about building character? Ugh. 
I'd better be better for Friday - that's the day I take off to Montreal to pick up my little fro bro, Sean. Then it's back to the K-Farm to chill. 

Pic du Jour: 



Quote du Jour: 

"The Past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness." 

I love commuting but I hate the drive. I like to drive but I hate the traffic. I love the music and hate when I have to turn it off. I’d really prefer a commute on a bus or a train where I could just read and listen to music. Pretty much so that I don’t have to pay attention to where I’m going. Driving from Chelmsford to Hanmer kind of sucks because most of the drive is due east and at 7:15, the sun is on it’s way up into the sky and directly in my eyes. Good thing there’s not too much wildlife around the Farm to wrap my car around. And at least my sunglasses are polarized. Good old Oakleys.

Despite being both the only driver and passenger in my carpool, I’ve made a friend in my travels. I don’t know their name, I don’t know what they look like and I don’t even know their gender. But, if I leave the Farm a little late, I get stuck behind a school bus on its way to pick up kids, which really sucks. So, when we come to a straight stretch and there’s no one coming the other way, the left blinker of the bus comes on and I’m able to fly by.

Went to see Let’s Play Munsch on Friday night. For ages 3 and up. So, at first I was a little worried because what kind of people go to this sort of thing without kids between the ages of 5-9? What kind of people go to a play that caters to only children ages 3 and up? As it turns out, very funny. Very hilarious actually. It was four first year drama students acting out six Munsch plays: Makeup Madness, Thomas’ Snowsuit, Mmm Cookies, The Fire Truck, Stephanie’s Ponytail, and Andrew’s Loose Tooth.

We got highland cattle, apparently the most docile and domestic.

The one in the background pretty much sums ours up. I know I wasn’t supposed to name them but they’ve pretty much named themselves – Larry, Curly, and Moe Houdini. Little buggers.

We get the cattle Friday night and they escaped the first paddock we put them in and wandered off down into the bush towards the river. Dad and I went out to try and find them, couldn’t, so we came back up and fixed the paddock. Pretty much along the lines of screwing 2 by 4s across spaces we figure they could make it through then standing back and clapping the dust off our hands and patting ourselves on the back for what a good job. Now all we need are cows in there...

So, old friend and partner in crime for the weekend, Matt Cote shows up and we decide to go on the hunt. Madtracker Matt checks out the trails and we take off, following them along. The commentary went something like this, “Tracks!” “Tracks!” “Tracks!” “Cows! Cows!” We stood on the trail staring at them and they stared right back, obviously unimpressed. Call dad on the cell phone and he says to leave them, they’re fine just hanging out. So, troop back in for some lunch and crash out with a movie because it’s rainy and gross outside.

About 45 mins into the movie, we get a call from the neighbour. “Your cows are on my beach.” So, gear up again and head back over to get them back over the property line fence, which was such a sad thing. They panicked when they got to the place we wanted them to go through a gate and threw themselves at the fence again and again trying to get over and away from us. It was awful to watch because you can’t do anything. You just pray they don’t hurt themselves. They bolt back up to the paddock, we follow and slam the gate. Done. Safe and sound back in the paddock. Right? 

Wake up Sunday morning. No cows. Anne is ready to get her gun. Literally. “I don’t think they’re cute. I’m not going to think they’re cute. I’m ready to butcher them now.” (This is after she woke up at 6:30 to find them gone, calmly came back inside, made coffee, waited for Dad and Lindsay to wake up, and went out with them to search for two hours, managing to find them, drive them back towards the paddock just to have them bolt at the sight of the water ditch across the bottom of the hill where the creek has flooded up into the plains... so fair enough I guess). At the end of the day, the sneaky trio won out. They don’t have to come back to the paddock; they can just wander around the bush and do whatever they want as long as they stay on our side of the fence.

Went to see Earthdancers Saturday night – pretty amazing. Impressive dancing from Lauren’s dance troupe. Live music was also amazing. Matt Foy. Miss Emily. Group 17. God, it was so beautiful. After, we busted a move over at Zig's, which I love because there are always people on the dance floor and they aren't needing 'to be drunk to go dance,' which is the silliest excuse I've ever heard. So what you think you're an awful dancer? So do I some (well, most) of the time. And if people are watching you and laughing, well, they're probably sitting on the sidelines because they're not brave enough to get up on the dancefloor to bust it because they have low self-esteem. Take a page from Dr. Seuss... 



"Be who you are because those who mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind..." 

 

Oh, and the greatest discovery of the week. Itunes has this brilliant thing called Open University that has all sorts of subjects on videos. I’m currently learning about a Community with Habituated Gorillas.

 Pic du Jour: 



Quote of the Day: 

"Real integrity is doing the right thing knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not..." 

 So, first of all, I may or may not have sent out an e-mail displaying my new contact information with an atrocious grammar mistake and now want to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment. Especially as I tend to live a lot of my life on the Grammar Soapbox spouting off rants about bad grammar and misspells to all. Ouch. I think I’m overtired. I’ve been completely horrendous lately when it comes to grammar or spelling. Or maybe it’s the epidemic that is spreading in Hanmer and you come in speaking properly and writing properly and then just slide slowly into illiteracy. Hmm... good thing I only have a week and change left. 

Last weekend was a blast – god, it felt so long ago now. I made it up to the Highway Bookshop finally and despite my father’s jokings, did not buy the entire place. It’s this really great little bookshop on the side of the highway and is just packed to the seams with books. Books on the shelves, books on the floors, books in boxes everywhere, two cats meandering around and any book on any topic that your little heart desires... so long as you’re able to find it. Ha. 

Also, went to the other best-kept secret up there – Timiskaming Nordic Ski Trails. I brought my rock skis, hoping to go snow hopping (aka the fun game of avoid the dirt patches) but upon arrival, lo and behold! SNOW! Perfect snow! Perfect tracks! Perfect weather! It was amazing. I was convinced, somehow (I don’t really know what I was thinking), to not bring ski gear but to try it out in my street clothes instead. Have you tried skiing in jeans? It’s bloody hard. No wonder those kids in high school had such a time trying to get around the course, let alone get out of my way... This is my apology, friends. I admire you getting up the courage to bust it out on the trails in denim. Anyway, back to Timiskaming – so good. The trails were hard too! They should totally hold a race. No offence Laurentian (okay, all offence LU, let’s be honest), the trails up there are at least twice the trails at the university. Wide, smooth, technical, whimsical... I am thisclose to pretty much just moving up there, take over the Highway Bookshop and just read and ski for the rest of my life. Sounds sweet, no?

Also, got the first paddle of the year in. The Vermillion River that runs next to the Farm is open upstream and down and is nice and high, which is nice. The current’s not quick enough to be a really tiring paddle upstream but it is coming back down. You don’t have to do much more than steer for a relaxing float back home. Note to self – floating piece of driftwood bumping along the riverbank is not a playful otter, no matter how adamant you are.

It’s been a busy week. I’m bumped up to teaching 75% of the day. Yet, didn’t end up teaching that much. There always seems to be something that eats away at the day’s time. Which is good and bad at the same time. You want so many things for kids – you want to keep them engaged but can’t be a three ring circus day in and day out; you want them to learn but they have to take the boring with the fun; you want them to experience but much of school these days seems dreadfully academic and then there’s how much assessment and concrete evidence of them learning you need; you want them to strive but it’s difficult to be one person guiding a 30-kid classroom; and you want them to want to be there, which is the rub, really. How many kids are pumped to go to school for more than just to hang out with their friends? How do we get back to that pure joy of learning? I don’t know and maybe that’s my problem...

It's Thursday and I think thanks to the weather, everyday feels like Friday. The unfortunate part is waking up to the disappointment that it's not the weekend and you have to go back to school where all everyone - students, teachers, everyone in the their right minds - just want to be outside enjoying it. Bah. 

Anyway, lots of changes, lots to think about but nothing to be shared just yet. Revelations are making themselves known. Dun dun dunnnnn... Maybe it’s the spring, maybe it’s the growing up (naaaaah). Who knows? And, with all this sunshine (hopefully) who cares? 

This weekend: Robert Munchisms, Earthdancers, Rasafari Music a la Common Dread, old friends meeting new Farm, perhaps some dancing?, and phone calls. Oh, and applications. The fun kind. Oh, and the move to the outbuilding - the backcountry version of a pool house. Ha. 

Don't forget your shades and sunscreen!

Picture du Jour:

 

 My next vehicle after the Egg? Hmmmm.... wonder if it would make the same Jetsons sound effects?

 

Quote du Jour: 

“How we remember, what we remember and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality...”

One of my favourite videos of all time... The guy reminds me of David Myles (Anna! ha ha) and my favourite part is at about 1:40-43 but it's all pretty good. Check it out! 

www.youtube.com/watch

Alright, I was talking to Jesse earlier today and we had a bit of a reading rant... y'know, the whole idea of kids not doing as much reading nowadays and being all plugged in, laptop loving, and Ipod hoarding... So, this is what came of it... guest starring to share his voice... Jesse Winters... the man... the legend... enjoy... 

oh, p.s. Ever seen the Rick Mercer Report? Well, when the italics come on, just picture the screen tilting 90 degrees... 


What was the last book you read?   Did you enjoy it?   Did it involve pre-pubescent wizards, or emotionally distraught vampires?   That’s ok, we here at Linnaea-kershaw.livejournal.com don’t judge.   We’re just happy that you’re reading at all.  

Personally, I love reading.   I read voraciously, everything from the latest Tom Clancy junk food (remember…we don’t judge) to those few Classics like Catch-22 that were fortunate enough to avoid being eviscerated by my high school teacher’s attempts to teach us metaphor and meaning (but hey, I still read them too).   Ah school…that giant factory of socially acceptable worker-humans, cleverly disguised as a temple of academia.   As everyone who’s come through the school system well knows, the academic skills you learn are almost secondary in importance to the social imprinting that prepares you for life in the real world.   You learn the importance of community through constant interaction with your grade, and friendly competition with kids in the other grades.   You learn the concept of reward and punishment, earning stickers and kind words from your teachers in exchange for regurgitating memorized tidbits of information.   In high school, you are subjected to the ultimate baptism by fire, being forced to figure out, largely on your own, how to navigate the hostile and often treacherous waters of pre-adulthood.   All of these lessons are difficult, but necessary in order to prepare you for life in the real world (cue cheesy suspense music).   So, if the school system is essentially a proving ground for life in the real world, why is this real world being replaced by a virtual-reality world?

I was chatting this morning with a dear friend of mine, with whom you are all well acquainted (and who’s patience in dealing with both children and the childlike is a constant source on inspiration for me).   In passing, she mentioned something about wanting to play Wii Tennis.   This struck me as an odd thing to want on a Wednesday morning while at work, until she explained that at her school, the kids are given an afternoon every week of ‘free time’, which they use to, you guessed it, play Wii sports.   Now, you might be thinking ‘Sure, that’s cool, and very progressive of the school board to allow’.   But are you still thinking that when I tell you that the kids get more of this ‘free time’ per week than either music or gym class?   Two half-hour periods of gym class a week, even less exposure to music, and yet the kids have this much time dedicated to something they can, and probably already do at home?  The discussion with Linnaea then turned quickly to her explaining all the other ways in which the virtual world has infiltrated her kids’ classroom.   Apparently it is common for the children to submit essays shot through with ‘MSN/ txt speak’.   ya no a shitty lack of punctuation gramar speling and prolly way to many phrases like ‘my bff jills tolly love that db gram’.   As you can see, I’m not a very convincing txt’r.   Still, kids using Nintendo DS’s for schoolwork, playing video games as some sort of easy-out gym class that requires zero effort on the part of the teacher?

What I find most disturbing about all of this is that one kid, who had been sent to the principal’s office, was punished by being forced to miss out on the precious ‘free time’ and sit in a hall, alone, and read…A BOOK!   Oh, the horror, the cruel and unusual punishment!  

How likely do you think it is, given how pervasive and powerful social imprinting can be in a school environment, that this kid will come to associate loneliness and punishment with reading?   Imagine that kid, a grown up twenty-something, living on his own.   Do you think his apartment will be furnished with shelves and stacks of books?   Will he have athletic equipment piled in corners and behind the door, or instruments surrounded by a worthy album collection, or is it more likely that his sound system will be dedicated only to a historical collection of every gaming system ever produced?   Which, do you think, is better for him and the society he lives in? 

Imagine if that kid had been you, if you’d been taught as a young and impressionable kid that books were bad, and that if you were bad you’d be forced to read them.   How much of a leap is it from this general concept of ‘books are bad’, to books being fodder for the Fireman’s torch?   Did Guy Montag teach us nothing?   Do you know who Guy Montag is?   Will that kid from Linnaea’s school know to whom I am referring?
Yeah, I know…I’m getting a bit carried away.   But still, screens (plasma, flat-screen, tablet…old school tube) are now so pervasive in our society that it’s hard to get away from them…I’m sitting in front of one right now, and so are you.   I have been sitting here for the last two hours and probably will continue to for another two or three.   From where I’m sitting I can see four (count ‘em) other screens, waiting, tempting me to turn them on and ‘be entertained’.   Entertainment should be a verb, not a noun; something we do for ourselves.   Books force the reader to think critically about what they’re reading, to make decisions and form opinions.   Gaming systems force you to think as well, but unless we want a generation of kids thinking in terms of flashbang, cover-fire, breach-and-clear, virtual reality isn’t the kind of thinking these kids need.

Remember my opening question?   The last book you read, did you like it?   What was it about, did you agree with everything in it?   Do you think Ron and Hermoine have a future together?   Think about how much fun it was to read those books.   Would you really want to give that up in exchange for virtual tennis with little characters who’s disembodied heads bob comically on the screen?

 

Book of the Month:

• The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists, by Neil Strauss

 

Songs of the Day:

·       My Baby Loves A Bunch Of Authors, by Moxy Früvous

·       The Battle of Evermore, by Led Zeppelin

 Monday

So, it’s snowing... not the nice fluffy flakes where you know Windy’s going to be amazing but the stinging flying flakes that are just prolonging the effects of winter. Which, of course, brings out the Thunder Bay jokes... “This must be balmy for you being from Up North!” Hardy har. The problem is that it’s not enough snow to make the trails any better so there’s not going to be really fun skiing. Well, the cold might be a blessing in disguise – the trails out at K-Farm could be cold enough to be able to take the Sash and Rosetastic out for a run since neither of them have the control or discipline to be able to go down the road with me and I’m just not fast enough to be able to hunt them down through the neighbours’ fields.

That doesn’t really matter though because I have found a new sport! A new way of expanding my athletic prowess! A new way... of embarrassing myself. The aptly named Squash.

Just the name makes me giggle in excitement. 

Went over to the Y with Dom and Kyle and while Dom cardioed it up for warm-up, Kyle took on the arduous task of teaching me to play squash. I had visions of of it – you know... the ones where you’re sailing through the air, your racquet extended, the ball’s right there, and then?

SWISH...      THUNK...


...your racquet misses the ball, glances off the wall, and somehow manages to connect with your face and you get immortalized with the nickname Racquetface for the rest of your life...

Actually, I managed to avoid any injury and only managed to hit Kyle once (it was probably almost thirty minutes in... and he was in the way...ha ha).

Wednesday,

Pretty chill day at school. Best part of the day? Sitting with Zack, one of the most hilarious kids in my class but also such a pain sometimes. A girl named Alex comes up beside me and says “Miss Kershaw?” For some reason I reply with “Yo.” Can’t figure out why I would say that? Yeah, neither can I... Maybe my associate rubbing off on me? Alex’s eyes go wide. “Why’d you say ‘Yo’?”
Zack (trying to be ultra cool, as grade 5 boys are apt to be around the girls) shrugs, “Because she’s cool.” Ha. That’s right. Cool. I’m cool. I’m not going to lie – I do enjoy being the shiny new teacher… Everything I say is cool and everything I do is cool and I’m just cool. Ha. The wonders of ego boosts from 11 year-olds.

The downside with being the new and shiny teacher is that you get latch-ons. A couple of kids that follow you around at recess, want to sit near you in the class. It’s a little bit of hero worship but also a lot of babysitting.

We were able to get some crazy games of speed math going though. They were working on their 2 and 5 times tables with flip cards. One of my boys, Cole is amazing. Just awesome. He can recite them almost faster than I can put them down, all the while standing with his arms crossed, hands coming up only to brush his shaggy hair out of his eyes. Tons of other students go up against him, some managing to snag a couple points from him but ultimately Cole is the winner. My associate, Mrs. Mazzerole has put up a challenge to the class that they can have 500 monopoly dollars if they can beat him. In this class, 500 monopoly dollars will buy you a pizza. But those 500 dollars mean so much more than just a pizza... For a gr. 5 this is pride, this is power, this is... well, you know the rest...

Wednesday night was sweet. Sadly, all the squash courts were booked but the weight room wasn’t too busy. My old boss, Matt Foy was playing at the Townehouse, which is always entertainment at its best. I walk into the Townehouse and make my way to the bar to say hi to Belgium, one of the coolest bartenders out there and all I hear from the speakers is “Leeeeennnny... Leeeeeeeenny...” in a deep, slow voice. Belgium gets this ridiculous grin on his face because Matt does this every time I come in and doesn’t let up until I acknowledge it with either a "Maaatty" or (if I'm lucky) an arm wave. And they both know it’s totally embarrassing (although kind of nice to be recognized, of course :p).

Belgium regales me with his tales of speed eating. In November, I was in visiting him and it must’ve been a Sunday night or an off-night because he’d printed out world eating records with the intention of finding something that he could beat. Well, yesterday he informed me that he was able to eat something disturbing like 36 wings in less than three minutes or something crazy... not going to lie, I don’t remember but it was quite disturbing. Although he joked that it wasn’t something he was especially proud of it, you could see the glint in his eyes and the small smile playing on his lips. I don’t think you practice that sort of thing without planning for bragging rights...

Aaanyway, super good time – listened to Matt for a bit. He sang my favourite song, called Fat Man. It’s so funny. Goes something like, “Hey Fat Man, leave my girl alo-one... hey, Fat Man, leave my girl alo-one. If you want to get a girl, go get one of your o-own...” or something of the sort. So good. I don’t know why I like it but it’s awesome. Light, whimsical, kind of reggae but not really. I dunno. Show up to the Townehouse sometime when Matt’s working and you'll know what I mean...

Thursday,
The last day of the week and the afternoon is Free Time. Free Time means chaos in the classroom. I’ve got two kids playing Wii on the Smartboard, kids with the Nintendo DS, kids plugged into Ipods, smartfood popcorn all over the place... whew.

Best part of my day? The ridiculousness that is Zack telling me about his sexy nose and Daniel telling me about his sexy lips. Yes, they’re 11. How do they know about this stuff? Also, living the love triangles – Jade has just agreed to date Trevor (um, what sort of dating is going on in grade 5 anyway?) and Brandon is jealous... Zack’s girlfriend apparently has a big bum... oh geez. The dramas of grade 5. I wonder if I were that strange... 

Pic du Jour: 



Quote du Jour: 

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe..." - H.G. Wells

Well, many things have happened in the past 24 hours (48? I dunno... who cares...)

So, Linnaea Kershaw has joined the cellphone cult...ure... yeah... I figure I need something mobile, as I am so very, ah, mobile... also, cool part about My5 is that I can call my parents for free regardless of where I end up in the country. Also, bonus, I didn’t have to deal with any smarmy business people – you order on the website and they ship you the phone. Pretty sweet. Also, the last four digits of my phone spell out TKO K. As in Total KnockOut, Kershaw! Ha ha. Yes, nerdy, I know. That’s how I roll...

My future phone... 'cept not a cool green... grey and black... 

Aaaanyway, last night was awesome. Hit up the Dark Knight at Science North’s Imax and it was totally worth the 14 dollar price tag. Dark Knight was awesome when I watched in theatres, now watching it on an Imax screen... oh my. Christian Bale in all his Batmantastic glory on a 5-storey screen? Heath Ledger sending chills up and down your spine with his unsettling cackle bouncing around you in surround sound as he offers a magic trick of making a pencil disappear? Eep.  But, yes, totally worth it, tell your friends. :) 

After the wickedness that was Batman (who never fails to impress despite being the runner-up on the Linnaea’s superhero Top Ten... ten points if you can name #1!), we went over to the Townehouse to see what was what. Not too much going on but I guess I’ve got my job back, serving at the Buddha so now I’ll have some spending coin to throw around. Also, huge bonus, I have free access to any shows going on at the Townehouse (no cover, yeah!)...

Today was supposed to be a very fun time but ended up more of an adventure you don’t even have to leave the city to experience. Celina and I were going to head up to Cobalt to check out the Highway Bookshop for some books (duh) because it’s going out of business soon and the plethora of books that they have up there is just too good of an opportunity to miss. So, wake up, got ready, hopped in the car then took off to grab some gas. The car was kind of lagging but we thought, at first, that it was just the newly fallen snow rubbing against the bottom of the car (because the Egg has a ridiculously low undercarriage)... but then, I thought something was just not right so we stopped at Chapters to check and sure enough something muffler-related (yeah, girl language) on the underside of the car and was dragging on the ground. Took the car into Speedy Auto and they put Humpty Dumpty back together again... So, the adventure ended back at Celina’s watching Lost (still confusing as all heck) and just hanging out.

Tomorrow? Onaping Falls’ AGM out at Windy Lake and we’ll see if there’s enough (any?) snow to ski. Next week? Bust out some sweet Gym lessons (really should’ve just become a gym teacher – how awesome would that be?).

Pic du jour....



I really have to get my own flogging camera... geez... 


Quote Du Jour: 

"I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are..."

"Okay my little love chunks..."

Yes, that’s how she got their attention today. I am speechless. I am disturbed. I want to run. This after she e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that she’s worried about me. About my shyness. Thinks that it’s affecting me negatively. Apparently, I’ve built up walls and I’m smart and beautiful and I “Gotta just break down those walls and let people see the real you, girl!” Sorry, I am making her sound like she’s some kind of crazy yokel. I really don’t mind her. She’s great. A little TOO enthusiastic at times and maybe doesn’t have a total grasp of English grammar but there are worst places to be.

Anyway, this morning I came in and she said, “did you get my e-mail?” Aaand then I got a hug. How does one react to a hug from a practical stranger? Cowboy up and take it, that’s how. We had a nice chat about it, and I’m not exactly a confrontational person so I let her thing she was totally right and ‘totally knew how to read me!’ I’m sorry. I don’t have a problem relating to the kids. I don’t really want to become BFFs with the other teachers. I don’t really want to spend lunch hour nattering about my husband, my superiors, etcetera, etcetera, with totally strangers. I have friends for that already. Who accept me for just being me. I’d rather read a book. I show up to the lunchroom, although I’d prefer to hang out with the kids. Isn’t that enough?

So, things are going by quickly, as they always seem to do. It’s like you wait and wait and wait for something and then it just flies past you, like it’s on pause then has to catch up on the time it’s missed. I’m heading into week three next week of my five-week placement. Teaching 50% - Social Studies (Ancient Civilizations) and Language, maybe a little Gym. Gym is easy for me, obviously, but it’s just such a letdown here. We have a half hour twice a week, which I think is embarrassing for the system. I mean, when I was in elementary school, we had an hour a day. Every day. I hate that it’s been cut at the expense of other subjects, other things that have been deemed more important. Arg. I really want to go into a rant about it but I really don’t think you want to read page after page...

So, gym class this morning was spent ‘playing’ handball. We have two periods of 30 minutes a week and this one was spent sitting on benches watching 5 people at a time play. Um, yeah... what about the other 17 people in the class? This is seriously flawed. Next week, I’m in charge of things and things are going to change.

Today’s session of kids say the strangest things... tiny, pretty quiet and shy girl named Calleigh (said Callie) and I were sitting side by side on a bench watching sixth graders chase a medium-sized red ball around the gym. Suddenly, she sighs and says in a soft voice, “I think my horse is going to have a foal.”
“Pardon?”
“A stallion got into her stall and well... you know.” Another sigh.
“Um, yeah, sure.” Yeah, I’m a little shocked. Apparently a fifth grader knows ‘the rest’...  honestly, when I was in grade five, I was still wearing stretch pants and playing with my skip-it. Which, back in my day, were not stylish.
“Mom says the stallions at the stable are scrawny.”
I didn’t know whether I was supposed to be shocked or to giggle. “Well, hope the foal gets her Mom’s genes.”
“Yeah.” Then she grinned. “Dad thought it was an April Fool’s joke.”

Ha. That was a story yesterday. Little roly poly kid named Jonathon comes up to me at recess and says, “My sister told my parents that she was pregnant and they laughed and laughed and then it wasn’t funny in August because she had the thing.” Oops. I mean, really, not exactly the smartest thing to do – April Fool’s? Really? You’re going to drop something like that on people on April Fool’s day? Some people’s kids.

Went to the YMCA yesterday with my friend Dom... which stands for the Yupptastically Meat market Crammed with Ass-hats. Ridiculous. And strange. Yeah, so I might be able to do more chin-ups than you, it’s still only six (for now, bwahaha). Not really thaaaat impressive... and yes, I am wearing spandex because I was outside running and did not bring another pair of shorts just for weights. And no, they don't match my top, that's right.Also, they're not from lululemon. What're you going to do about it? Ugh. Anyway, it's nice to be doing weights again. It's a nice change. 
I guess you could say that I'm getting back into training slowly.

It's easier when there's other people around that get you out... went running out at the Conservation Area with a friend, Kyle and it was super fun. Ran all the way down to Moonlight Beach and when we stopped to stretch, the swingset down on the beach caught my eye and I may or may not have run down towards it with my arms waving overhead in joy. Ha ha. Okay, probably not. Wouldn't have wanted to embarrass Kyle like that. It might have been muppet arms. Hmm. But serious now, have you been on a swing lately? No? Well, put down your computer, make like a tree and get the frak to a park. Because they are awesome. And the coolest thing? Now that you're bigger and stronger, when you get to the highest point of the swing, there's a little give in the tension of the chains connected to the swing and you float for a few milliseconds. So great. 



Anyway, pic du jour: 






I really need to get a nice camera and/or make the time to get my butt out the door more often to take some nice pictures... 



Quote of the day: 



"Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shuts off the burglar alarm - it was gone..."
 - reminds me of conversations I've been having lately over people's oversensitivity... how they're so worried about everything and their kids can't have jungle gyms because they'll hurt themselves. Of course they'll hurt themselves. They're kids. That's what they do. Geez. 

 

 What do you do when someone calls you into their office and hands you an agenda outlining protocol of the school then proceeds to have a very odd conversation with you concerning your nose piercing. They can’t literally ask you to take it out but they just want to make you aware of it. Aware of your position in the children in the school’s lives and how your image should reflect that control and power.

So, you give yourself a mental shake and say, “I don’t really know what you’re saying or what you’re trying to ask me…” trailing off with a slight smile.

Her hands fly up, feigning innocence. “No, no, I’m not asking you anything. I can’t ask you anything… I just want you to be awaaaare… I mean, the position you are in in these children’s lives. The authority figure. They look up to you. They think you’re amazing and want to BE you.” Fixing me with a beady stare that somehow is supposed to look like an innocent ‘hey, we’re on the same team here’ look. “It’s your choice.” Is it? Really. Then why are you looking at me like you’re trying to plant some thought in my head… I want to wave my hand… These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…

And I want to laugh because it’s true. There’s nothing they can do. Frankly, by you telling me that you want me to take it out, with the help of some weak appeal to my vanity of my skills as a teacher and my influence of the students around me, you’re just asking me to revert to my own elementary school days with a lift of the chin and a spark in the eyes screaming “Nooooooo!”

It’s funny in a generation gap kind of way… I don’t really think twice about it anymore… I might be totally out in left field but I honestly don’t think it projects the same idea that it might have before. It’s not a rebellious, damn the man sort of thing – it’s expression. Mild expression in my case but I like it. 
And, fair enough, working in a Catholic school – or perhaps any school for that matter – a person should be professional and well-groomed and all that jazz but maybe that idea, that image, is shifting. Maybe it’s time to get with the times. And maybe I don’t really take you seriously because you are trying to be too many things at a time and therefore come off as fake to me and I just can’t get behind that. Isn't it just about the kids? Isn't it better to be seen as cool and close to their age so that they will be easier to get to instead of some sort of authoritarian, lofty figure (I'm envisioning some sort of crazy strict Nun for some reason...) that's completely untouchable and therefore the respect ideal just drops and it becomes them versus you. I dunno. Or, maybe I’m completely wrong and should conform. :p  Who knows?

So, this weekend was super fun – first full weekend in Sudbury… super fun. Went out to the Buddha and Townehouse Friday night, which is always a good time – always nice to go back to the place that you worked and see familiar faces. First, I stopped at the Buddha for a drink with Dom and Danielle, two of my co-workers from last summer at the Buddha. Caught up a little before we headed over to the Townehouse for James Bond Night. Too bad no one told me… I would’ve worn my favourite Bond girl dress/cat suit/bikini. Met up with Lindsay, my ‘sister (my dad’s girlfriend Anne’s daughter)’ and friend Mike and hung out for a bit then headed back to the Buddha where I ran into my old boss Matt and old co-worker Lauren. Matt’s got some things on the go – he’s trying to get an artsy, musical, yummy food place going downtown. And, I might be more excited about it than he is... :) He’s got mad creativity, charm and drive so I think he could really get it going. So, yeah, he’s got my support if (when!) he gets it going. Lauren started up a dance troupe last summer (I think) called the LQ Dance Factory. Super cool. She’s got all sorts of ideas for it and I’m hoping to be around to see them perform.

Yesterday was fun too. Went over to Books and Beans, one of the coolest food places in town, for lunch. I love love love their food. So good. After, as it was a beautiful day, we went out and bought a kite. Unfortunately, the only kites available in our local store were Hannah Montana, Spiderman, and Ironman kites. Jake picked out Hannah Montana and headed to Sudbury Secondary High School a.k.a. a Big Open Space with no Power Lines. After a few false starts (apparently I’m horrendous at trying to fly a kite), Jake took over and despite my attempt at sabotage (one of the tail ribbons got caught around me and ripped off), was totally pro. It was the perfect day – bit chilly but gorgeous and sunny.
Came back out to the K-Farm for some quality time with Dad and Anne. Best quote of the night? Anne’s telling us a story about how when she used to live out here before, she sold flats of chicks to people for farming. We’re listening to these stories and Dad gets a mischievous look on his face and pipes up with, “So, you were a pimp?” Oh geez. Never thought I’d hear that word come out of his mouth. Anne, of course, comes back with a casual, “Yeah” because she’s cool like that.

Today we were supposed to go skiing out at Windy but when we woke up, freezing rain was slanting down, flooding the driveway and creating a slick sheen. Sure, it’d be a quick ski but maybe also a quick drive… into the ditch. So, nixed that… looks like a slow day of planning and popcorn and movies. Exciiiting. :p 

Picture du jour c/o Flickr: 


Quote du jour: 

"The biggest mistake of the man is that he thinks he doesn't deserve the good and the bad things from his life..."

 Well, I'm all over the map but I'll try to make sense... 
First, total and utter anguish/agony/insert whatever sentiment you use for emotional pain. A few days ago, my friend Sarah Sarrasin's brother was killed in a car accident in Alberta. He was 19. My brother's age. And, if you know me at all, you'll know that I don't deal well with things like this. Obviously whatever I've got going on in my head is nothing, nothing, compared to his family and really, I should just shut my mouth instead of going on and on about it but it's this weight that has settled heavily on me. I don't do well with young people dying but then who does, really? 
Coincidentally, also started my practicum this week. Needless to say, the first couple days were bumpy. I know I'm supposed to uphold a confidentiality thing in that I won't talk about teaching outside of teaching but who are we kidding? I have to get it out and what better venue than the internet where it can be spread virally and somehow get back to my associate so she can kick my butt for that as well? That's what I thought. I suppose as long as I don't name names then we should be safe...
So, Day 1 was fine. My associate, Mrs. X, is kind of interesting. She's enthusiastic and outgoing and loud and pretty not-Linnaea. Which is probably not a very good receipe... At the beginning she asked me about goals, yada yada yada... Linnaea Kershaw, goal-setter? I think not. I have a hard time doing a race plan for a ski race where all you have to do is write down what you're going to do in each part of the course. It's like pulling teeth. Also, probably the worst "teacher quality"  I have or therefore am lacking, is that I take time to adjust and get comfortable in a situation... yeah, I know. I know. I'm working on it. But, 'you can't be shy coming into a classroom! You just gotta get in there!" So, needless to say, my lack of questioning and info the whole day probably upset her because she was probably expecting some Super-Bubbly-Outgoing-Super-Teach and was disappointed instead with The-Not-So-Super Linnaea. My lack of enthusiasm and lovely uncomfortableness offended and insulted her. 
We endured another day before she couldn't handle it anymore and broke. At the end of the day, we had a talk about what I'm doing for the next few weeks and then she pretty much blindsided me with the idea that I should drop out. Of teacher's college. With five weeks to go before I get my diploma. Two days into my final teaching practicum. With no experience of me teaching. Because she asked what kind of teaching I'd like to do and I said I'd rather do more one-on-one stuff. Or maybe alternative schools. Or smaller groups. Preferred over teaching giant groups because I don't feel that formal education is doing it for kids anymore. Especially those that are either end of the spectrum - those that are having trouble and fall off the back or those that get it right away then lose all work ethic because they're bored out of their skulls. Oh, and to feel better, I looked up the Demotivational Posters... ha ha.. so good... My Top Three: 


Story of the human races' life... 



And my favourite... makes me laugh every time... and think of Mike... :p




Anyway, can't wait for the weekend. Tired, mentally and physically... I remember this feeling.... ha... I just didn't think it'd be another total emotional ass-kicking... but then, Linnaea, transitions, fair enough...

Alright, a quote to finish it all off then... I know it sounds total spiritual bogus but it's more common sense. Or I'm just a hypocrite and I'm pretty okay with that right now... 

"May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot or should not have..." 

oh, and P.S. Watched the "Where The Wild Things Are" trailer and pretty much almost cried it was so good. So nostalgically awesome... 

Well, I'm back. Sudbury feels like a comfy old pair of jeans that you can slide right back into and go. There might be a few holes and the bottoms are frayed but I kind of like them that way... I know where everything is, I have friends here, all my memories are here... it's easy, it's comfortable. But then, I totally miss the sweet pair of super dark, straight-legged, boot cuts that might've now taken up residency as my new favourite jeans... aka Vancouver. 

The last few days there were really fun. I finally figured out where The Naam was and convinced a dedicated carnivore of a friend to go with me... It was amazing! The Naam, if you haven't heard of it before, is a 24-hour, ultra vegetarian restaurant located in Kits. It's pretty small - tables packed in so close you could literally rub elbows with the people at the next table. When we went, there was live music - one guy sitting in a corner of the restaurant crooning like Trevor Hall, with a harmonica, a banjo and a guitar. I don't know if that's the norm but it wouldn't surprise me. I literally spent the whole night with a Big Stupid Grin on my face because I was so impressed. The food was awesome. I had some sort of Asian Noodle Veggie Soup and Dan had the Thai Noodle Something Dish - both very tasty. They also have organic beer - very interesting as I don't think I've ever seen that before. The place itself reminded me of where I'd worked last summer - The Laughing Buddha - very chill and very friendly staff, very chill atmosphere, very cool clientele. Anyway, two very enthusiastic thumbs up from this girl. 

Friday, my last day of Vancouver, I headed over to The Sunrise Residence in North Vancouver to visit the Nana. She's in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease so she's barely mobile, can't speak, can't communicate, but is still able to pick up the men... when we showed up, she was sitting on one of the couches clutching the hand of the nearest gentleman. Visiting Nana also allows me to catch up with the rest of the family as there are tons of albums telling the stories of what everyone’s been up to since the last visit. My cousin Lesley’s started a company in Europe that monitors animal transportation across borders and makes sure that animals are treated fairly and equally. She used to follow 18-wheelers around, making sure that they were taking care of their cargo properly. She’s now living in Amsterdam with her boyfriend Tobi. They have the coolest bicycles there! She’s got two dogs that she transports around in a giant box at the front of her bike. Kind of like this:



I totally want to go visit... Just to bike around the canals and enjoy the flowers. 
Anyway, enjoyed the day with Jane... after visiting with Nana and co. we headed down to the beach for dinner at a nice restaurant called Watermark, where we got to sit outside on an enclosed patio with cool propane heaters... She told me of the best places to orca watch, something I am definitely going to check out next time I'm out there, for sure. 
Then, it was back to the condo, to pack up the rest of my gear before Courtney and Don picked me up for a little visit to the Planetarium, which we decided that would be a totally cool place to visit. Ha. Well, it probably would've been. We showed up for a little star show called The Vanishing Stars in the actual star room - a place where you walk in and sit down in a comfy chair, the lights are a dim red so you can see in the dark, classical music playing softly in the background, the narrator's voice drones on in a soft baritone slightly monotonous. Yeah, you guessed it... five minutes into the presentation, Courtney's out. A little later, I'm gone. I woke up to the clapping of everyone at the end of the show. I did stay awake log enough to relive our science prof's idea of equinox - which just happened to be the day we were there, March 20th. Aaand then I lost it... dreamland. Shoot. Well, at least Don and Courtney had some good entertainment. After my power nap, we headed back to their very nice townehouse for dinner and a sleepover before my 7 am flight. 
The flight went well - no hiccups, no lost luggage. I know everyone hates Air Canada but I love the fact that you can watch movies on their flights instead of the TV stations on WestJet. Got picked up by Dad at the airport and swung by the school I'm going to be student teaching at for the next few weeks. 
Last night, wonder upon wonders, I slept 10 hours! I don't know if I've done that since I was a kid... must've been pretty zonked. Now, off to the next adventure - last practicum before they can certify me as a teacher. Eep. 

Well, it was weird and strange and funny and exciting.

Another exciting day in Van City… I started the day with a sweet run down the Sea Wall – one of the coolest running venues I’ve been on. I guess it’s one of the places to rollerski in Vancouver as it’s a paved 10k-ish loop, which is pretty impressive, and has some sweet views of the ocean. The coolest thing ever is out here, people have gardens on their roofs and there's this really cool one that has a whole tree up top! 


Neato gang... neat-o...
 

When I was in Ottawa for my first year of university, I met a friend while skating on the canal, Cedric. He’s now in Vancouver working in computer technologies, living in North Van and playing in the mountains on the weekends. We met up downtown and he took me for a tour of Gastown, the lower part of the downtown area and the most historic part of Vancouver. I was told that after seeing the ‘ghettos’ of Vancouver, I might not want to move here. But I agreed, wanting to see the good and the bad.

It reminds me of this whole controversy around the VanOc’s removal of the homeless people around Vancouver in order for it to look better when it’s on the world’s stage. This is something that happens everywhere – people are homeless everywhere. Maybe instead of shipping them around like cattle from places where services have been put in place for them to places they aren’t, maybe we should try to deal with the problem itself? I dunno. Just a little soapbox rant for you… little hypocritical because, really, what have I done for them lately?

Anyway, we went down to Gastown to enjoy the eccentrics on one of the most eccentric days of the year…  

I made friends with a kilt wearing, Vancouver Island dwelling, St. Patty’s Day loving guy. We also got harassed by another trying to sell me a dead lilly – promising that it would attract leprechauns (no, I didn’t take him up on the offer). We walked past a couple Irish Pubs with people already lined up drunk and singing, even though it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. But hey, it’s St. Patty’s, I guess. Fair enough?

We found a cool little pub called the Annex, which reminded me of the Buddha in Sudbury – a small eclectic pub with some of the same beers as we carried and the same kind of people working out. I checked it out later and it had kind of the same comments and reviews such as “What about some kind of staff uniform – I walked in the door and couldn’t tell the people working there from the people hanging out there…” What made me really laugh was the sign outside, proudly saying, “Now with 43 kinds of beer!” I wonder how many we carried at the Buddha at its beer diversity peak?

After catching up a bit, we decided to walk around to see the sights. We travelled down Hastings (apparently the sketchiest of the sketchy streets of Vancouver) to get to Chinatown. I’d never been in an area like that – where the dredges of a city were so openly displayed in the form of drug deals on the streets and glimpses down alleys where you could see gangs of rough looking guys in the distance waiting for a fight, ready for a fight.

Then it was back to find The Cambie, another Gastown landmark bar.

And this is where I had what could’ve been the most disturbing moment of my life, pardon the dramatics. As we were passing a group of homeless men, I noticed something on the sidewalk. Something flesh-toned and flesh-looking. As I stepped over it, it took the form of part of someone’s hand – more specifically a thumb, a pointer finger and the tissue in between, complete with muscle and blood. Okay, heart rate up, breathing up, goodbye five years of my life scared off by this image. All it needed was one of those little dogs to run up, snap it up in his jaws and shake it, then boot off into an alley with the previous owner chasing it down, blood splattering the sidewalk calling ‘Here doggy, here doggy! No! Don’t eat that! Don’t do that!’ Ack!

It took Cedric two blocks to convince me that it wasn’t real, that it was a prop and that it was funny. I still don’t know. And I'm still a little creeped. 

Anyway, got to The Cambie, which was totally packed with people in green, people of all ages, sizes, backgrounds. I felt pretty stupid as I hadn’t really planned on doing anything and ended up dressed in blue. Eep. The bar itself is set up as two sides of the same bar, with a fence through the middle. I don’t think you can take drinks across. All the tables are like picnic tables so it’s really easy to meet people because you usually end up sharing a table with at least one other group… We met a group of four who were pretty hilarious. They were fairly drunk when we sat down, even took a picture with us in it (one of those ones you look back at the next day and think, “Who the heck was that?”) Unfortunately, I only caught one name, a girl Jenny, who Cedric was totally trying to pick up and was doing pretty well until she spotted the guy she wanted to make out with and then subsequently freaked out because said guy left the bar. Maybe if she ended up Hulking out, she’d feel a little more in the spirit of the day and have enjoyed herself? Instead, they bailed for another bar. Maybe stay away from that one, Ced…

Anyway, very cool place if a little loud. I wouldn’t recommend it as a place to catch up with someone but fun if you had a big group. Or you wanted to meet a lot of new people. Some new barstar friends, perhaps… :p A la Simon in Whistler…

 

Afterwards, as we trundled back to the bus stop, we got into a discussion about Vancouver clubs – the ups, the downs… Cedric asked me if my salsa skills were up to par and we ended up dancing in front of Waterfront Station. I think I did pretty well considering… made me think of back in high school where a guy named Logan used me as his swing dance partner because he’d gotten his girlfriend lessons as a birthday gift and it was easier to practice the moves first on someone small. Go figure. Then Cedric hopped onto the water taxi home to his place in the hills of North Van and I boarded a busy bus back to the Kits.

All in all a rather chill and rather fun night.  And I was still in bed by 10. Ha. 

  

So, I’m hanging out at my good, great, and amazing friend Becky’s place here in Vancouver. I would get her to throw in a few words except she’s in Hawaii for a training camp! She asked me to go too and I considered it for a half second before shaking my head and wish I were a little more financially reckless.

Well, our last race feels a hundred years past but really it was only two days. I had a lot of fun doing. The other guides, Sarah Peters, Jamie Stirling, and I showed up early to do some wax testing as it was a chilly morning but warming up later to warm temps with a threat of snow/rain. The skis were fast but the snow a little sugary in places – not something you want to be skiing on. Things like that you try to figure out pre-race so that if there’s something you can do about it, well, you can do something about it. We were pretty psyched and it was nice to have Sarah there – she’s a super positive person and pumped about everything so she gets you going!

Well, as much as we did our anti-rain/anti-snow dance, as we were getting ready to warm by, some flakes started to fly but by the time we started, they’d lessened so it ended up a pretty clear day. The light was a bit flat though, so it made it hard for Margarita to see so we had to be extra careful. We decided to use headsets so that she would be sure to hear me and I wouldn't have to yell quite so loud. They're super fun but it also means she gets to hear all the ridiculous things that pop into my head throughout races, especially as I'm not going all out so I have time to think of said silly things like, Mika's 'Relax, Take it Easy' rolling around. Unfortunately for her, I could only remember the chorus line... 

Oh, a perfect example of Karma – We’re sitting at the tables, getting ready to go out and Courtney, one of our skiers, who is really pale – even paler than me – starts slathering on sunscreen. I look a little puzzled because it’s clearly very overcast and starting to snow. So, I jokingly ask her why she’s putting on sunscreen, if she really needs it. She nods. “Linnaea, you wouldn’t believe…” But, I’m a little overconfident and wave away my own sunscreen peeking out of my backpack. Nah, I won’t need it. What there’s going to be a single beam that’s going to filter down, bounce off all the flakes one by one and get me? Bah. Well, don’t you know it, by the end of the race the sun’s out and my face is feeling a little warm. Shoot. It wasn’t too bad but I should really just get in the habit. I put on ol’ reliable Oil of Olay every morning but that’s only a 15 and definitely not enough for a whole day’s protection. The announcer at both Callaghan and Mt. Washington kept up a steady stream of “Put on sunscreen and enjoy the snow and sun today!” throughout race days. Good advice.

Anyway, the race plan for the 15 – 4x 3.75k laps – was to take it easy the first and a half and then slowly work our way up to a blazing finish lap and I think we stuck to it pretty well. There's this huge hill near the end of the lap that's a little killer and going up with Margarita right behind, I could swear that she was dying behind me from the sounds coming out of her.

 

Luckily, there was a photographer placed just right to get a nice shot of it... 


 I’m so exciting about Vancouver that I'm going to flip to it. Ha. I drove back Saturday with Courtney and Don who were nice enough to give me a ride. The ferry was so awesome amazing and I don’t think it’ll ever lose its novelty.

Vancouver continues to make me fall in love with it. Becky and I went out for a walk in the rain down by Kits Beach when I arrived to catch up and I love the ocean. It's like standing on the edge of Lake Superior. When I was 12, we came out for a vacation and the same thing happened to me this time - I got to the beach and wanted to take all the shells home with me. Ha.

Went down to the Vancouver Art Gallery with another friend Dan, who recently moved here from Thunder Bay for an engineering job. I’d seen an ad in the paper about Western Artists and Canadian Landscapes on display and who could resist the likes of Emily Carr, Lawren Harris and A. Y. Jackson? Not this girl. So, the Vancouver Art Gallery is four floors. The first and the fourth were Legacies of Impressionism in Canada and Western Landscapes respectively and sandwiched in between were How Soon is Now and Enacting Abstraction. Well, we came up the stairs to what looked like a pile of random junk shellacked together (covered in glue). Some other highlights from the How Soon is now modernism exhibit - 1) a pile of dirt, 2) a room with four booths in which two had activities and the other two had TV screens so you could watch the other two booths, 3) a video of fireworks in fast motion, 4) what looked like a door with a dirty mop thrown over and the resulting rundown, and 5) a canvas that had had a lot of paint thrown at it and the resulting build-up at the bottom where it had all collected. My favourite was the pile of dirt because there was no explanation, nothing but a pile of dirt, not unlike the following,
 
Now imagine that, a little darker, and inside! Makes you wonder. 
The third floor was abstract stuff and minimalism. So, you know those pictures where you paint a yellow rectangle, a red circle on one end and a blue triangle on the other. That kind of stuff... my favourite out of those was a Robert Indiana inspired painting - he's the one who made the sculpture, 


Now imagine a painting like that in black and instead of L O V E, you have A I D S. It was really intense but really good. As always, the Group of Seven blew me away and Emily Carr was amazing. 
After, we went for a pre-dinner sushi snack (c'mon, go to Vancouver and not eat sushi for 50% of your meals?) at a place where you sit and the sushi comes by on boats and you pull off the plates you want. So good and so fun. There was a little kid who walked into the restaurant, went straight over and proceeded to yell to his grandmother "I want this one! I want this one!" So great. 
Anyway, more walkabouts down around Robson where the discussion of rubber boots as fashion accessory came up. My side was that while they do look a little silly, they were practical, especially in a place like Vancouver where it's always rainy and wet and weren't they 100 times better than the ballet flats that have popped up that have no support at all and have no use real practical use (sorry to those of you who love love love your ballet flats - that's something I just can't get behind)? His argument? They just look stupid. More evidence was needed so the question came up, do we interview these rubber boot wearing girls (yeah, haven't seen any boys with them yet...) with just two questions and a statement: How do you feel about walking around in those stupid boots? Do you feel stupid? Because you look stupid. See, I don't really mind them because obviously they have a practical use for a place like Vancouver but I find it hilarious to think that my Dad was ahead of the fashion brigade... he's always been all up on the rubber boots and now he's in the cool. 
After having out fill of people watching and people heckling, peanut gallery-style, we headed over to pick up Dan's Great Aunt Fleurette, one of the most impressive and amazing people I've met in awhile. She's 80 years old and still teaching university in Education, jetsetting around the world, and she's with me in this whole hating phonetic-driven ways of learning language.  She's working on a project called the Living Language Institution that is pushing teaching by oral ways - more specifically singing... check it out... It's super cool. 

www.livinglanguageinstitute.org/page0.html

She lives right downtown on a block of houses among the skyscrapers - saved as Heritage Buildings. They've got them all over the place but it's amazing to walk down from downtown and see these places with full front yards gated in by picket fences with gardens and are just so cool.  We ended up at his cousin Mandy and her wife Karine's house for dinner, which was delicious... lots of talk, some wine, it was a great time... oh, and secret easy recipe for dessert: frozen blueberries with a little real maple syrup, toss it in the microwave for a bit then serve over vanilla ice cream.... mmm yummy.
Oh, and one last thing... new guilty ear pleasure? Kelly Clarkson's new album, All I Ever Wanted. The one good thing that's ever come out of American Idol. Not going to lie, I'm loving it right now. Don't worry Jesse, I'll try to find Harry Manx and Jory Nash and then you won't be embarrassed of me anymore... well, for that at least... 
Anyway, that's pretty much it - whew. Long. Happy St. Patty's Day to everyone tomorrow - you all get to be Irish and pretend to be insulted by, in the words of a friend, "Taint the nectar of the Gods" by having a green beer. 

 
Five k’s are the devil. Seriously, the devil. It’s like asking me to run an 800 m track race. Sure, I can handle it and do alright but not my favourite and definitely not one of my shining moments. In track, I was 1500, 3000 if I were able to. In skiing, I like a nice 10k, 15 if I’m doing classic. 5ks are a sprint. An endurance sprint. And if you’ve ever seen me sprint, well, you’d understand.

I had the, uh, pleasure of doing a five k at OUs this year (skate skiing, of course) and it suuuucked. I couldn’t breath, I was too hot and I realized halfway through that I’m am completely and terribly awful at 5k, which might have been the point that I gave up. Now, I don’t have a video camera to give this rant the Rick Mercer special (or the Mike Scholte special, at that) but just imagine it. Okay, it REALLY bugs me that for women, 5k is considered middle distance. I don’t know many women or girls for that matter that want to do a 5k skiing. The guys gets to do nice 10ks, nice 15ks and we get 5. What? You think girls aren’t able to do longer than 5k? That our poor feeble limbs are going to snap off if we push it further than that? Like, at OFSAA in high school – I think I did 3k until what, grade 12, my last year? 3k? Yeech. Women are built for endurance. Proportionately, we’re stronger in our lower body. So, why aren’t we able to use that? Arg. Ah well. I guess guiding a 5k is a lot easier than racing it. Sort of.

Yes, that is me with everything rolled up.. it was freaking hot, alright? Courtney said she's working on getting me racing capris. Good idea, no? 

This time ‘round I tried to stick closer to Margarita in order to give her some help, some breaks on the uphills and the flats. I don’t know if that worked out (probably not as I’m not that experienced and we haven’t skied enough and trained enough together to be really in sync) but I tried to push her as much as I could. I don’t think she was too  impressed but in my defense, I don’t think it’s my job to take her around for a nice jaunt, especially not on a five k. There’s not enough time. You have to go out hot and maintain, if not speed up, which I know is hard. But, my guilt had gotten the better of me until about three minutes after we finished.

But, hang on. In order to explain my favourite part of the day (that still makes me giggle 24 hours later), I have to go back. So, over the past week and a bit, I’ve tried this experiment. Just like in other sports, there is a distinct separation between national team and other skiers. Here at the World Cups, there are two, well, three groups. There’s the national senior team, and the national group. Within the national group there are the people on the development squad and those that are here who are totally self-funded. And, just like in other sports, there is a huge discrepancy in the services and support between these two groups. There is also a gap in the two in terms of communication. The national team and the national group don’t really mix, they don’t really talk, which kind of sucks. We’re all here representing Canada, we’re all from the same country, we’re all pretty pumped to be here so what’s the big deal? Anyway, my experiment was that whenever I saw the team leader, Bjorn Taylor (think of Neil Patrick Harris’ twitchiness in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog but taller and with darker hair), I’d try to get him into conversation with a question. Also, I would try to talk to the other athletes and maybe try to bridge the gap. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be a magical overnight change where everyone holds hands and skips through meadows of tulips together then head over to the local Malt Shoppe for a milkshake… two straws. But it was a start. It made me happier. Especially as whenever I saw Bjorn, he’d start to get this twitch and/or deer in headlights look and bolt in the opposite direction… no, no, actually he was pretty good about it. Calm, patient. He even started talking to our national group athletes without any prodding (although I’m suspicious that he’d been given strict orders from The Powers That Be to play nice). But, like all good things, my game came to an end. He had to leave to get back to Edmonton our second day of Mt. Washington so I had to find a new victim, ah, friend. So, I turned to Kasper, the head coach of the paranordic senior team. Kasper is a Swiss German import and pretty hilarious character. He reminds me of my training centre coach from Ottawa, Pavol Skivardlo. Both are hilarious, both using very strange (but funny) examples to prove their point.

Okay, so on that fateful morning of the 5k, I asked Kasper for some pointers for our 5k and he started in on giving me advice for guiding. He said Margarita is able, she has the ability to get onto the national team, she just needed to be pushed. “You are not there to take them for a ski around the course like la di da di da. You must push. You must use language you do not use at the kitchen table. You want to finish the race, have your skier turn around and say ‘I never want to see you again.’” I’m paraphrasing but you get the picture. Just think of a Swiss German accent and a lot of hand flailing and arm/shoulder touching. Well, I decided that swearing at Margarita would get me one of two outcomes:

 

1)    she gets so angry, hulks out and proceeds to hunt me around the 5k course, we cross the finish line miles ahead of everyone else and then she proceeds to beat the stuffing out of me at the finish line, volunteers trying vainly to pull her off, she’s tossing them all over the stadium in her attempts to get at me to kill me, or

2)    she sits down in a snow bank and cries, refusing to have anything to do with skiing for the rest of her life, effectively ending her career in any sort of guided sport.  

 

Somehow I feel the outcome would probably lean a little more towards #2. So, that was out. Okay, so the new plan was to keep just head of her and keep her moving with whatever ridiculous things came to mind.


We decided to veto the headsets so I had to keep looking back and keep yelling to keep her on me... 

So anyway, it was a hard 5k, I pushed Margarita pretty hard but those were the orders given to me. It was a tough course with little rest but being a 5k, it went pretty quickly. Margarita handled herself really well considering the pace I’d set. Some of the hills I was sure she might keel over but she persevered and kicked it right to the finish line – even able to sprint the last hundred metres. We crossed the finish line and she hit the snow, not trusting herself to stay upright. It was awesome. We hung out a bit, catching our breath. I cheered Courtney into the finish with her own cool girl guide, the woman, the legend, my roommate, Sarah Peters. A couple on the side asked us where we were from because apparently they thought I was cheering in a different language? I’ve been called a mumbler before but never been mistaken for a foreigner (well, once someone thought I was a southerner… but that’s another story for another day…) . Anyway, I was starting to feel right guilty about the whole thing when Kasper strides over, pokes me in the chest and says, “Good guiding.” Whew. And yes, I’m still laughing.

The whole team ended up with a personal best in each of their races – boo ya! We celebrated this morning with Jeff Whiting’s French Toast Extraordinaire. 

 So, we biathloned today…

To biathlon – the act of skiing around a short loop, throwing yourself down onto a mat, slowing down your heart rate enough to keep the gun steady to hit a circle about a centimetre in radius, jump up, ski in smaller circles if you’ve missed some, and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to try biathlon… something about combining skiing and shooting just gets me excited. It was a really cool learning experience.

For paranordic biathlon, there are two types of biathlon guns on the range: one for the blind skiers and one for the sit skiers and LW’s – those that are physically disabled or mentally disabled. The blind skiers use rifles that are like lasers. They put on headphones and aim by sound. The closer to the target, the higher the pitch. The other rifle is a modified biathlon gun, a lightweight air rifle. I got to try shooting by sound in Callaghan and I was totally awful. The problem might have been that I was trying to line it up by sight or maybe the fact that I’ve probably never held a firearm in my life barring the fake bows we used to make at the cottage as kids. Or maybe I was just awful. ha.

All in all, I think today went pretty well… guiding is allowing me to work on my guilt complex. I know that there are things I can work on as a guide – I can try to make Margarita ski faster by yelling my face off or I could maybe try to skirt around behind her in the last two hundred metres and ride up on her skis to get her into the finish because apparently now it’s alright for B2s (her category) to ski without a guide, although I doubt there are any B2 skiers who would ski without one… But there are also things I can’t control. I guess I’m struggling with recognizing the difference. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have a HUGE guilt complex. :p It’s very difficult to race, even as a guide, and not feel a little responsible. You start to run through the what if’s… but then you stop because a) there’s nothing you can do about it now, and b) it’s a bit of a learning curve. Sure, there were things today that I felt could’ve been done better but learning from them and learning to let go of stuff that you can no longer control are two very big lessons that need to be learned in skiing, in racing, heck, even in life.

Alright, well, the race was a 2.5k loop done three times with two bouts of shooting in between. So, ski a lap, shoot, ski a lap, shoot, ski a lap and bypass the range to boot it to the finish line. I was a bit excited on the first lap and brought us into the range maybe a little too hot – high heart rate – which is a definite no-no… Margarita got down, put on her headphones and tried to calm herself down enough to shoot. We ended up skiing a few penalty laps then headed out for lap #2. The second round of shooting went much better, 4/5 – super wicked awesome. Then it was time to put the hammer down for the next two and a half k because it didn’t matter if we flew across the line hot… so, we kicked it around and came through the finish line grinning. Well, I was grinning. I found it super fun and very educating. Because that was the original point – trying out the biathlon as the last time Margarita did biathlon was two years ago on the same course.

And one more thing… why is it that people find it completely hilarious to make corny jokes over the announcements? We were standing at the start line waiting for the countdown and they’re announcing,

“And up next we have the first and only Canadian racer in the B category, Margarita Gorbounova and her guide Linnaea Kershaw… hmm, Kershaw. I wonder whether she’s any relation to Devon Kershaw (insert old man ha ha ha, ho ho ho here).” I wonder if he saw me roll my eyes from the announcing booth? I know that it comes with the territory and I’m surprised (and a little impressed) that I made it a week and a half before any comments.

Oh, and a quick story of Bill Maloney, our wax tech, and biathlon. Bill’s been a part of biathlon for a long time… he was there back in the day before women were even allowed to compete because it was considered a male-dominated Euro sport. Coolest thing ever – Calgary stuck it to the Euros by using girls as forerunners for the Olympics (girl ski jumpers, VanOc, take a lesson!). He also regaled us with tales of having to walk down a range, bullets whizzing by, to change the targets for the athletes.

So, all in all, it was a very nice time. :)