Goodbye Katimavik...

I made up my mind for good yesterday... I'm gonna go home. 

This was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but it's done now. I'm already having a few doubts about if I know what I'm doing... but I keep reminding myself that a decision is just a decision. It isn't right or wrong, it's just different. 

I'm not going to lie though, I'm freaking out.

I don't know when I'll be home... sometime this week. Maybe not until Thursday, but hopefully before that. So, this would be the end of the Katima-Blog. Six months earlier than expected, though.

I'll find some new adventure to embark on, hopefully. Then maybe I'll blog about that.

The end.

Picture Update!

Finally! Phew. Ok, here goes.

This is from the very first snow of winter here! It was really pretty...

On the last weekend of November, we went to Halifax. One place we went was the Discovery Center, which had a pretty sweet display about bubbles. We weren't exactly the target audience of the Center, but we enjoyed ourselves all the same.

On Saturday night in Halifax, Melina and Krista and I went to an adorable little Japanese restaurant that we found. I tried sushi for the first time! (No fish in it...but it's a start at least.)

Here's the group, just before leaving on Sunday morning, on Mat's back deck. He's from Halifax so we stayed with his family while we were there.

The following weekend was our 48 hour break. Like I wrote about earlier, Cynthia and I went to get some piercings while waiting for the bus in Summerside. This is the first one I got...

...And the second (it's called a rook piercing...and I have never experienced pain like that before. Shiiiza.)

We spent our 48 hours off in Charlottetown...this was taken on Saturday afternoon while I was waiting impatiently for my mom's flight to get in.

Christmas time! We cut down a tree a few weeks ago and some people gave us decorations for it...

This is the group picture that one of the local newspapers published with a story about us. I look like a giant tool. Alberton must think I am avery unattractive person. In all the pictures we've had taken of our group, something goes wrong with my face....

This is Mariah, one of the students at the French school that I worked with, and I on one of the last days at the school before Christmas break.

Myself, Mariah and Cynthia...

This is the grade 1 and 2 class that I spent part of my mornings with. They were an awesome group of kids!

On the 20th, we had our Santa's Workshop Fundraiser. We were raising money for Oxfam, partly with a bake sale that I did most of the baking for...

And that's all! I hope everyone had a good Christmas! Also, I hope someone actually looks at this. Ahaha. That would make me happy.

Merry Katima-Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! Holy cow I can't believe that today is december 26th.

I can't sleep so I thought I'd put up some pictures that I finally uploaded, and do some online boxing day shopping. Well...online window-shopping if there is such a thing.

Actually, I'll write about this week and Christmas first then I'll do the pictures. So, this week, Cynthia and I are house managers. On Monday, we were supposed to go to Summerside to do the groceries but there was a storm and a TON of snow so we didn't. I got up and went to the gym at like 6. It was open, but the guy who owns it was about to lock the doors and keep it closed for the day because of the snow. I beat him to it and he let me stay :). Krista had gone to work but there was no one there, so she came by the gym thinking I would be there (which I was, obviously) and kept me company for a while. After that, we went to t he bakery where I had to meet Melina and Cyn for breakfast to go over our menu for the week and things like that. We got a bit of our groceries, just what we needed for Monday, at the Save Easy here in Alberton. One of the great responsibilities of being house manager is shoveling if necessary. There was absolutely NO way i was going to shovel the massive amount of snow occupying our driveway. Outside the Save Easy, there was a guy in a big truck with a plow on it shoveling out the parking lot. I dragged Cyn and Melina with me to the truck, and the guy saw us and stopped. "Excuse me? Hi! Do you think I could ask you a really, really, really, really big favor? Could you possibly plow our driveway?" Haha. The guy asked us where our house was, so we told him 409 Church Street and he was like "Ohh the Katimavik house!" He wasn't sure if his plow would be to wide and rip up our lawn, but he said there was another plow going around town and he'd talk to the guy driving that one and see what they could do. Later in the afternoon, our driveway was clear! Yeaaaaaah. They were probably think Katimavik kids are super lazy, but whatever. It would have taken the two of us like 5 hours to shovel the whole driveway, and it took a truck like thirty seconds.

It was Mat's 19th birthday that day too, so I made a blueberry cake for him. It wasn't that exciting... there isn't a lot we can make cake-wise here because we don't have cake pans. And I put the candles in and the wax melted on them. I couldn't understand why all the candles fell over when I went to get a match, but I guess the cake was way too hot on the inside for them. Oh, and Cyn and I made some pretty much totally fantastic chicken pizza that night. It was good. Later that night, we tried to make a gingerbread house. It was an epic fail. First of all, Mat put too much salt or something in the dough so it wasn't edible. And the icing wasn't strong enough to hold it all together. We just put icing on the pieces and decorated them with smarties and sprinkles...then ate the icing and candies. Icing should be banned. Seriously... all it is is butter and icing sugar. It probably contributes to like 40% of obesity in North America just on it's own. I almost went into a sugar-induced coma that night. It was bad.

On Tuesday, we went to Summerside at 8:00. Well that was the plan. We probably left closer to 8:30. So, 8:00 PEI time. We stopped in Wellington to pick up the group there, and then picked up the Summerside group too because their PL was on time off. Grocery trips to Summerside always turn into full-day epic journeys. We didn't get back to Alberton until 4. Yeaaaaah eight hours of grocery shopping! Sweet.

Alberton had a Christmas Light contest this year (maybe it's an annual thing...I'm not sure) and the mayor asked us to judge it. The nine of us (err 8 actually because Tyler was at a party at his work placement) drove around the town looking at all the lights. Some places were cute, but overall, none were all that exciting. I didn't think so anyways. Everyone in Alberton must think that Katimavik is a big bunch of creepers. People were probably looking out their windows as we were driving past (multiple times at some places) really slowly, wondering what the hell we were doing. A few of us went to Tim Hortons after that. Yeaaaah Timmy Hoes.

On Christmas Eve, we did a Power-Clean in the afternoon. There were a few of us working on the kitchen, and we pulled everything out of the cupboards and drawers and fridge, washed them out and put everything back as organized-ly as possible. I like cleaning the kitchen, actually. Whenever we clean the house, I always sign up for it. I'd rather do that then clean toilets, that's for sure. I just like being in the kitchen, in general.

That evening, Cynthia and I made my mom's hamburger soup (but with TVP...ohhh yeah!) and cheese bread. It was yummy. We did our "Texas Swap" gift exchange that evening. Everyone bought a gift that could be given to anyone, kind of spoofey, and then each person got a few turns to choose one or steal one from someone else. It kind of turned into a weird version of Sociables... which resulted in Melina dancing to Backstreet Boys on the couch. Definitely the funniest thing any of us have seen in... ever. Our PL is a champion.

Most of us went to church at 10.30 that night, at the Catholic Church in Alberton. I was totally wiped and was fighting not to fall asleep pretty much the whole time. The priest was weiiiiiird. And the way he spoke was bizarre... it was as if he punctuated his sentences in the wrong places. The two guys in my group who came with us were checking out girls the whole time (not that us girls weren't scoping the guys, I suppose...). It finished just before midnight, and the seven of us who went walked home afterwards. Outside, it was snowing lightly. Beautifully, actually. Then the snow turned into icy rain which attacked my eyes, but it was pretty while it lasted. Back at the house, everyone started opening presents. I opened my stocking with everyone and then went to bed at about 1.30. I got some tea (Numi Bergamot Black tea... my favorite kind EVER), a bag of mixed nuts from Community, an organic spritzer drink thing (also from Community, probably), a BEAUTIFUL silver necklace that I love, some moneh, and yeah. Santa's a pretty smart guy. Amy made these amazing cookies earlier in the day, they're like gingerbread kind of with butterscotch chips in them, and I ate like 8 of those coming home so I felt really sick when I went to bed. Again. I've cut myself off junk food now. Again (haha). Seriously though.... my body hates me this week.

On Christmas morning, I got up at like...8.30. I have issues sleeping in. I got all my recipes together and then started making brunch. I found a recipe for oatmeal pancakes which I added molasses, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to so they'd be a bit more festive, and then made 2 quiches (hehe), and some peanut butter, too. Cynthia got up at like 10:00 or 10:30 and made a huge fruit salad. My dad had sent me some Christmas-themed pancake molds (Santa, reindeer and a snowman) from Williams-Sonoma, which I tried to use at first but it was taking too long and they were getting kind of messy so I gave up. My pancake-making skills have improved greatly. The first dozen or so used to always turn out more or less scrambled...but not this time!! Overshot the quantity though...our freezer's newest tenants are three bags of leftover pancakes. The quiches were SO GOOD. Not gonna lie....easiest thing to make ever. And yummy as hell. Also, a ton of fun to have in this house becuase no one can say quiche without laughting. In french, to say "lâcher un quiche" means you farted. The phrase "Auuuugh who lâché-d that quiche??" is said at least ten times a day here.

After brunch, we did our other gift exchange. This one was a secret santa type deal. Instead of each person guessing who they though their secret Santa was, each person described who they had picked without saying their name. It was nice...everyone said a few nice things about the person they had bought a gift for before giving it to them. Krista had chosen me, and her gift was quite honestly the one of the most sincere, thoughtful presents I have ever recieved. First, there was a mug from Tim Hortons. A) I love Timmys and B) I'm always complaining about not having big enough mugs here. Inside, there was a little chocolate-scented body wash and some pieces of paper that I didn't really understand at first. Krista explained that they went together to make a Christmas tree...there were two green triangles for the tree, a brown piece for the stump and then a star to go on top. The other day when we were cleaning, Krista had asked to borrow my phone to play music off it (it's a walkman phone), but she had actually taken it and called my mom with it. My mom thought something was wrong at first, I think, but she assured her everything was fine. Krista asked my mom about what she would wish for me at Christmas... and kind of in life in general. So, on one side of the tree, there's a really sweet note from Krista, and on the other side there's little things that my mom said. I started to cry, because the sentences from my mom were exact phrases that I can hear my mom saying. It was such a sweet gift. Krista is a sweetheart :).

I had an awesome chat with Courtney in the afternoon, and we both opened our gifts from each other while we were on the phone which was fun. She sent me the new Killers CD (so so SO good!), a CD that she burned me (also great), the cutest little book of Sudoku puzzles I've ever seen, some tea and almonds to make almond butter with :). Court's pretty much my favorite person ever, if you didn't already know that. 

My family got back from church in Calgary just before 4:00 PEI time, so I called them after talking to Courtney. My dad put me on speaker phone on his cell so they read the letter and opened the gifts I sent them while I pretended to be there. They all liked their presents, so I'm happy! My sister and brother sent me an apron and pot holder thingy which are really nice and my parents sent me a really cute scarf. 

Wow this blog is never ending. Ok so after that we went to dinner at a lady named Maria's house. A bunch of her family was there...probably 12 or so plus the 9 of us. It was really nice to have a meal out of the house, and to meet a few new people. We stayed until just before 10, and then came back here. 

Now it's boxing day. I've been up for 3 hours, with nothing to do. That would be why I just wrote this novel of a blog entry. Ugh. I want to go to the gym but it isn't open until 1...and we have to do a power clean or something in half an hour so I probably won't even GET to go. Eff. I'm going to go start cleaning now, then. Maybe then I can get out of doing some later. I hate my inability to sleep in. 

I'm sick of typing and being on the computer so I'll put up pictures later. Yeeeeh. 

Oh and also LESS THAN TWO WEEKS ON THE ISLAND WHHAAAT. Time flies, eh?

...

OH MY GOD ONE WEEK.

fa-la-la-la-la-la-ck.

So, the Christmas c0untdown begins. Eight days! The weather here has been pretty decent so far, although it's snowing right now and there is supposedly a storm coming in.



Last week, (I forget which day...) we had a workshop on "Interpersonal Relationships". It was actually really, really interesting. I don't really feel like going into details about it...but it was fun. For the most part. Apparently I'm a power-hungry control freak, more or less. Fabulous.



Tomorrow, we have our Farewell lunch party thing with all of our work supervisors and billet families. It's going to be at the school here, for a few hours in the afternoon. I think only my billet-dad can come, but it's better than nothing. After school, the four of us that work here will stay to do a staff gift exchange/ Pce-Out Katimavik get-together for a bit. And that evening is the Winter Solstice that Krista has organized at the Clubhouse, for the members. On Friday, we're going to Charlottetown at about 4 to go out for dinner then go volunteer at a concert fundraiser. In each rotation, we have a "Food for Learning" budget, which we can use to go out for lunch or dinner as a group to experience the local cuisine. We're going to an organic café in CHarlottetown. Afterwards, we'll go to help out at a place called the Guild which is holding a "Food and Warmth" concert, as a fundraiser for a local food bank. It's a show featuring a bunch of local East Coast musicians.



On Saturday, we've organized a "Santa's Workshop" fundraiser for the community. We're having a bake sale and raffle to raise money for Oxfam, as well as taking donations of non-perishable food items for the Caring Cuboard, a local food bank, as well as Gingerbread Men decorating and other crafts for kids. It should be a gong show. I've tried to get the baking underway, but not much else has gotten done. I think the crafts that are happening are organized...i hope. It's all really last minute and I'm scared to hell that a huge amount of people are going to show up, we'll run out of baking and craft supplies and it'll be a giant disaster. I sure am optimistic sometimes.



Funny baking story... So far I've made banana-chocolate chip muffins, brownies (which I'll ice on Saturday morning), oatmeal-peanut butter-raisin cookies, almond bark and my Mom's shortbread cookies. Shortbread cookies might just be the easiest recipe ever. Butter. Icing sugar. Salt. Flour. Corn meal.



Wait, wait, wait. Corn MEAL? No...corn STARCH. Oops. I guess I copied the recipe down wrong last year from Mom's recipe cards...

The cookies are a little grainy, which is why I realized the possiblity of a mix-up. They taste fine otherwise...so I need to decide whether or not they're good enough to sell at the bake sale.



Our freezer isn't big enough to hold all this stuff...so I'm going to be up late Friday night and early Saturday morning making more.



Yesterday, I pretty much had the worst day ever. Well, maybe not ever, but it was pretty damn shitty. First of all, the principal wasn't at the school, and he's the one that teaches 2 of the 3 classes that I help out in. Most of the students weren't there either so nothing much happened all day. I hate days like that. Whenever I feel like I don't do anything in this program, I always have work to fall back on. I can justify being here because of the working aspect...so when I have a completely useless day, it makes it a lot harder to be optimistic about staying. A reporter for a local newspaper was supposed to come at 4:30 yesterday afternoon to take our picture and talk to us about the Workshop for an article tro advertise it. So, I rushed to the gym after school and left early to make it back in time for this guy. I was at the house at 4:30, only to find out he wouldn't actually be there till 5:15. Frustrated, I went to take a shower. I was shaving my legs and cut my knee quite badly. It wouldn't stop bleeding and the blood was soaking through like 4 layers of band-aids. It took me a good twenty minutes to get it taken care o.
The reporter guy finally came, took a few pictures and talked to us about the Santa's Workshop that we have planned. I was already totally wound up, and then this man starts asking about how we feel about missing Christmas at home and everything. How do you THINK we feel about it? Eff. When he was asking about that, i got a little teary. Talking about not being home for Christmas was something that I just didn't need at that particular moment. I ended up leaving the living room discussion and hiding out in the bathroom for a while, and then went and cried in my room. Yeah, that's right...I'm on top of things.

48 Hours

Holla ballas.

So since my last post...I'm finding myself less often in a constant state of mental breakdown. That's good, right? Hope so. I decided to give myself until the 19th of December to think about what I want to do. I think that I'll end up staying until Port Colborne, and re-evaluate there, unless the next two weeks are completely insufferable.

This past weekend was FANTASTIC. On friday, Melina drove us to Summerside so we could catch the bus from there to Charlottetown. We got there at about 5.30 and grabbed some dinner at Timmy Hoes. Our bus didn't leave till 10.30 that night, so Cynthia and I took advantage of the couple hours we had to kill to go get some piercings we had been talking about for a while. The piercing studio was really nice - clean and everything. The piercer had 8 years of experience too, which made us both feel really comfortable. AND they had a buy one, get one half off deal! So for $60 i got the upper, outer ridge of my right ear pierced as well as the rook of my left ear. The first one didn't hurt too much, but the second one killed. If you don't know what those are, then google them.





We got to Charlottetown just after 11pm and took a cab to our hotel. A few people went out, but since I'm 18 and the legal age here is 19, there wasn't much for the rest of us to do. I had the worst sleep of my life that night, thanks to the fact that it hurt to sleep on both sides of my head. At 9.00 Saturday morning, Krista, Cyn, Frede, Amy and I had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to walk to the Farmer's Market. People on this island have an issue with walking, i think. It was like a mile and a half to the market but the few people we asked about which way to go were all like ''Do you have a car?'', ''You know that's like half an hour away, right?''. Big freaking deal. It took 20 minutes to get there. Anyways, enough about islanders being lazy.





At the Farmer's Market, we found ''Postman Pat" who we met last time we were there, quite a few weeks back with the whole group. Krista and I had spent quite a long time talking with him and then he sent us awayu with 2 bags of these huge Cowboy Cookies (so so so good, oh lord). So this time, we wanted to bring him something to thank him. Last week, I made half a dozen jars of beets and Krista suggested we bring him one. The jar got as far as the hotel...but then Krista forgot it there that morning. Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right? We visited with him some more that morning and also ran into the Wellington group. After lunch, we walked downtown. There was a band playing at a little music store, I forget their name but they're from O'Leary which is super close to Alberton. We hung out there for a bit, then checked out another vinyl and vintage store before settling down at a café called Beanz. It was kind of cold outside so we just killed quite a bit of time at the café. I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my mom, who's flight came in at 5.30 that evening. At about 4.30, i took a cab to the airport. Once she got there, the two of us took a taxi to the Delta, stopping by the EconoLodge to pick up my stuff from friday night. We hung out in the room while we unpacked; she had my Christmas presents, new running shoes and some food from my dad (Kudos on the granola, poopsie. It's amazing. And almost all eaten already...) and I had all the gifts that I wanted to send home with her for the whole family, as well as some clothes I don't think I'll be needing.


We had a really nice dinner together at the Delta's restaurant. I ordered their "Vegetable Tower", which was black rice, these dumpling things, vegetables and tofu all layered together with this amazing curry sauce. The only part i wasn't a huge fan of was the tofu, because it was really soft and the texture kind of sketched me out. The waiter came by to see how we were doing and was like "Oh, so you're not a huge fan of the tofu?". I said that I just didn't really like the texture..but i kind of mumbled it. I didn't want to be rude...the rest was phenomenal, I just, well, didn't really like the texture. A minute or so later, the head waitress lady came out to see how everything was. I told her it was wonderful, as did my mom (because her chicken was also fantastic). Then, a few minutes after that, the CHEF comes out to see how everything is. I swear it's because I didn't eat the tofu. It was like it was this huge offense or something. Whatever. I found the degree of concern they showed quite entertaining.



I was ridiculously tired after that...we went back to the room and chilled. Our TV didn't work for a while, so someone came to fix that. (All he did was turn it off and back on again...) And Mom ordered a $14 glass of wine which was funny. I crashed pretty early, as did she.


On Sunday, we slept in (according to our definition of "sleeping in", of course) and then had breakfast downstairs again. After that, we went out to meet up with Amy, Krista, Cyn and Frede for coffee at Beanz, so my mom could meet them. Then, we just wandered around the area for a while, checked out some shops and stuff and then had a late lunch at the cutest little restaurant ever, that was hidden in a little side street. If you ever go to Charlottetown (which i wouldn't necessarily reccomend, especially in the winter), go find the restaurant "Off Broadway". It's this cute little place, with maybe half a dozen tables in an old, brick building. The inside is all dark and ambiance-ey and private, and the food was fabulous.

By the time we were done there, it was time to go back to the Delta, get all my stuff and take a cab to the bus station, so I could go back to Summerside. It kind of sucked that my mom and I barely got any time together, but I really enjoyed it (based on my state of mind recently, the timing was perfect). And hey, a short visit is better than no visit at all. If you're reading this, Mom, thanks for coming down. I'm ridiculously happy that I got to see you before Christmas. Phew.

When we got to Summerside, we waited for Melina to pick us up at the bus station then since the weather was kind of bad, we all went to the Sumemrside house and waited there for the PL's to decide if it was safe enough to drive back to Alberton that night. We probably could have gotten halfway there in the amount of time they spent deliberating about it. In the end, we went, leaving behind our two house managers, Mat and PM, sice they would have had to come back to Summerside yesterday anyways to do the grocery shopping.


So! Christmas is in 16 days and we have less than a month left in Alberton. Hmm. I'm not gonna lie...I'm not especially looking forward to Christmas...it's going to be really tough not being at home with my family and friends. Oh well... it's only one year and I have a lifetime's worth of Christmases ahead of me to be at home for.

Right?

whaaaaaaaaa.

I'm very much lost right now.

I need to make my mind up about my uh... future in this program ASAP. It's hard because I can't even take advice from anyone because they aren't in my situation, and it's an effing hard situation to be in. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO.

I found this horoscope today though. It's quite insightful, I think and it's creepily relevant.

Aries Horoscope for week of November 27, 2008

Have you ever arrived at a mountaintop on a clear day? Do you remember what you felt like? Can you re-imagine the sparkling purity of the air as it sweetened your lungs, the shimmering light that washed through you in lush waves, the exaltation of the sweeping vista as it lifted you to a deeper understanding of where your place is in this life? That's the kind of peak experience you need and deserve in the coming days, Aries. If you can't actually get to the top of a mountain, find the next best thing.

My timing sucks. Christmas being so close is making this decision a lot harder to make. Sorry for being vague.