Housemanaaaagers.

Hi! So today is Friday, and I have a lot to catch up on. Even though I'm pretty sure like two people read this. WHATEVER.

On Saturday, we drove to Charlottetown. We went to the Farmer's Market first, and spent a few hours there. I'm not sure how... considering it's about the size of the produce section at Safeway. Krista and I were trying to discover two things: the three most common vegetables of PEI (not that we didn't already know the first...) and the coolest thing we could buy for a toonie. There was a friendly-looking guy working at a farm's produce stand who we went to talk to. He was actually really interesting. He told us about giant "Cowboy Cookies" that we could get for a dollar, how the market was more of a weekly social gathering for locals than anything else and sent us on our way. With hugs. A little later on, after wandering around the rest of the market, we ran into him again. Krista and I decided to buy some little mini pumpkin-things ("gourds", technically) as our under $2 item. He gave us four for a dollar! AND THEN he bought us a dozen Cowboy Cookies!! 

The group had lunch in the van after that, and while Melina went back to the market to buy a few things, Krista, Lisa, Amy, Kyla and I wandered around the uPEI campus for a few minutes which is right across the road from the Farmer's Market. Then everyone drove downtown together in the van, and we had about an hour and a half of free time. Krista and I found a little vintage clothing and vinyl shop, and then wandered into a café for a bit. After that, we all went to an art gallery for two hours or so. We had dinner that night at the cabin of one of the guys in my group.His family had a barbecue there for us which was really night. The cabin was right on the ocean with a really nice view of the Confederation Bridge.

Sunday morning, we had free time like usual. In the afternoon we read french books (weekly french activity) and played street hockey (weekly healthy lifestyle activity). After dinner was the weekly House Meeting. It was definitely a little less painful than last weeks meeting. All in all though, Sunday was very routine.

Monday was the first day of the Krista/Erica-House-Manager-Power-Team! Melina took the two of us for breakfast at the Bakery/Café, and went through all our house manager duties with us, as well as the menu we had planned for the week. Then, we drove to Summerside to go grocery shopping. We stopped to pick up the Wellington group on the way, and spent most of the rest of the day with their PL and their two house managers. The six of us hit up a produce stand for apples and carrots and a few other things, then the Summerside Bulk Barn, Superstore and finally Salvation Army (to buy a bunch of blankets for the house). Melina, Krista and I didn't make it home until about 5pm, so dinner was a little late.

That night, we made potato latkas (or latkes? im not sure). Potato Pancakes. They were really good! It just took FOREVER to cook them. We have a griddle, which was cooking them fairly well, and we tried to cook some on the stove too but that didn't work. Maybe if more than 2 of the elements worked, and we had some real frying pans it would have been easier. Alas. We also made pumpkin-applesauce muffins which are flipping FANTASTIC. I love googling recipes.

Monday pretty much drained me. Grocery shopping for 12 people is intense, and since we have a pretty tight budget, it takes a lot of time and effort. It's quite stressful.

On Tuesday, we cleaned the house. We do that a lot. After lunch, Amy, Krista and I went with Melina to a local junior high school to do a presentation about Katimavik to a Grade 9 class. It was pretty fun, actually. You know how Grade 9's are...they think they own the world, but it went well, I thought. We can't actually "recruit" for next year since the funding is uncertain, but we can still let people know about the program, regardless. For dinner that night, Krista and I made Tandoori chicken, Naan bread (kind of) and a chickpea curry. I thought it was all fantastic, as did most of our group. It was. Actually, it was phenomenal. I'll make it for you sometime. 

Wednesday was pretty chill. We cleaned again in the morning, picked up some more groceries in the afternoon and did a hell of a lot of laundry. There were everyone's sheets to be washed (everyone does their own laundry with the exception of bed-sheets, which house managers do on a weekly basis) as well as the mountain of blankets that Melina bought on Monday. The previous night's dinner was spaghetti. Simple? Not if you're the Krista&Erica-House-Managing-Power-Team! We made my mom's world-renowned tomato sauce, and attempted to make homemade pasta too.
Everything turned out preeeeetty well. Keep in mind that we don't have a pasta machine (one of those things that stretches out the dough and cuts it) so we couldn't get it as thin as would be ideal. Plus, when we were cutting it and putting it on to trays, we didn't put enough flour on the noodles so a lot of them stuck together. It didn't help that our pot of water took AN HOUR to boil. Have I mentioned that our stove is a total piece? 

The finished product looked...interesting. But tasted good! I'm not gonna lie...the noodles weren't as aesthetically pleasing as my dad's, but they tasted the same! Krista and I were very proud of ourselves. 

Yesterday morning, I went for a run and right at the start, I ran into a guy named David, who lives across the street from us. He and his wife had brought us some baking when we first moved in, and a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. We brought them some muffins to thank them and Lisa and I run into David every once and a while on our runs. Like yesterday. Melina went over to their house on tuesday night to ask if they would be able to billet one of us (and they can't, but that isn'r the point) and either offered or agreed to a few of us coming by Wednesday night to visit with them. David plays the accordion and a few other instruments that i've never heard of, and the idea was for Krista and Tyler to bring their guitars and we could all have a little ...jam session of sorts. The problem was...Melina didn't tell us. So David and his wife were waiting around for us to come over that evening and well...we didn't. His wife even made us a cake!! He told me that they waited until about 8.30 and then decided we probably weren't going to show up. I felt absolutely awful, and when I told everyone else, they did too. 

Since we had free time last night too, six of us went over to their place. It was nice...David and his wife (who's name i never caught) are really friendly. Krista and Tyler played their guitars, David played his variety of instruments and the rest of us sang. Halfheartedly on my part, i'll admit, but still. After an hour and a half, a few of us were pretty tired and i tried to instigate us leaving but it failed. I said I wanted to call my mom and I only could until 9 our time (which was entirely true) but then David's wife was like "But you';; miss cake and ice cream!". I tried to politely say there would be other times but it didn't work and I ended up getting roped into calling my mom from their house to tell her i wouldn't be able to call. 

Mom: "I hear hymns in the background... You can explain later." 

Oh, I will. Don't even worry about it.

Yesterday, Krista and I were pretty much in the kitchen all day. We cleaned, as per usual, in the morning and then after lunch we made brownies, apple crisp, chili and cheese bread. The brownies are a little on the dry side because our oven SUCKS and cooked them too quickly. The apple crisp (apple and pear actually) turned out well. We had this left-over caramel sauce from this cake we had that is just pretty much butter and brown sugar so we mixed that with some oats and that was the crumble on top. Our chili was vegetarian, which apparently was a big issue. In Katimavik, we have a food budget which doesn't allow for meat every day. Most of us are ok with that, or even really happy about it. Other people aren't. This week, Krista and I planned for chicken twice and beef once. Last night was not one of those occasions. Personally, I thought the chili was pretty good. For a few though, it wasn't good enough. There's kind of an unwritten rule that if you really don't like what is  being cooked, then eat some cereal or toast or something, and no one will be offended. 

Note: this rule doesn't apply AFTER you've given the pot a dirty once-over, a look like you're going to be sick and then made some comment about how sick you are of not having meat. 

I'm not gonna lie...I took it really offensively. Krista and I put a lot of effort into making the chili, and there was a couple individuals who wouldn't even try it. Know what? I wouldn't have even minded if they hadn't been so blatantly rude about it. It sucked, because those few looks and comments sucked all the fun I had had yesterday right out. 

P.S the cheese buns turned out well :)

That's all for now. There won't be much happening today, until tonight. We're volunteering at the arena at their Haunted House, and then tomorrow from 8 to 2, we'll be helping out with their Children's Halloween Festival.

But who's counting?

HAPPY KATIMAMONTHAVERSARY!

That's quite a mouthful. If you didn't catch what I mean by that...sound it out.

Today is exactly one month since I left C-town for Katimavik. I can't decide if it feels like more or less than that...so I've decided that it quite simply feels like what it is: a month. 

This week FLEW by. Holiday Mondays always make the following four days evaporate. We've almost got the library set up at the school, finally. The lady from Charlottetown who was supposed to come fix some stuff in the computer system didn't show, which is unfortunate. On the bright side though, today I figured out how to get all the students information into the system so they can check out books. And we also figured out how to check out books. 

In more exciting news, I am dead broke. It's quite shocking, considering there isn't ANYWHERE to buy anything here. Except gum, I buy a lot of that. And caramel rice cakes. (Don't knock them 'till you try them.) I have a bunch of money in the bank, but I put all of it into my Savings account (except $100 in Chequing) at the beginning of the program so that I still have money to contribute to university next year. It's also my Emergency-Running-Away-To-France Fund. ERATW. Eat Rotten Apples 'Till Wednesday? Don't ask.

Also, I had $60 in my wallet from Katima-allowance. STOP BEING ALL OVER THE PLACE, ERICA! WHERE DID YOU SPEND IT?

Ten Thousand Villages! Not that Alberton is big enough to have it's own store, but they come through here once a year or something, and set up in the United Church for two-ish days. Since we live on CHURCH street and the United one is about 16.3 seconds away from our house, a few of us went to help set up all the merchandise last night, and they let us do any shopping we wanted to do when everything was done. Anyways, i did all my Christmas shopping last night! Considering my lack of income this year, I'm only getting things for my family and Courtney (who is family). I now have $30 left between my Chequing account and my wallet. We're going to Charlottetown tomorrow and I won't be buying ANYTHING apparently. Well...knowing me, I probably will even though I'm broke. Whatever. It isn't like I really need money for much here anyways. 

PLUS everything from Ten Thousand Villages is fair-trade and wonderful, and I know that everything I bought will be thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated by my fam. I wish Christmas was NOW so I could give it to them. =) I'm excited!

Also, I'm tired and I want to try to run tomorrow morning. I'm going slightly stir-crazy.

Bonne Nuit!

windmills and turkey pictures.

So on Thanksgiving Monday, we spent the afternoon at North Cape. There are a lot of windmills on the island, and North Cape is where they opened the first test site - a place where various companies could test their technology and make sure it met all the standards necessary to be used for power generation. It was pretty exciting. Also exciting was learning about how much a lot of the people who live here hate them. First of all, only 5% of the energy produced by them stays on the island. The windmills are owned by a company called Irving, who sells most of the power to companies in the states and in New Brunswick. Secondly, the power has to be transported somehow; and that just happens to be in big power lines that apparently let off a ton of radiation. Yaaay cancer! Not. Finally, the only reason Irving makes windmills is to get "Green Points". The more green points they get - for doing environmentally friendly things, the more environmentally unfriendly things they can do. In this case... build an oil refinery.

We got back to the house at about 4.00, and Kyla and I started right away on dinner. Most things we had either made or prepped as much as possible on Sunday, which made things a lot simpler. Our turkey was in the oven by 4.15, and for the next three and a bit hours while it cooked, we tried to organize the cooking of all the other dishes using the only two (although sometimes three...) stove elements that work. I hate our oven, by the way. Everything turned out great! Voici some pictures...

Weekly update...

Last week kind of sucked, a bit. Pourquoi?

First of all, it was the first week that we really started to settle into a routine, and it finally hit me that I was going to be away from home, in this program and with this group of people, until June. That in itself instilled a bit of homesickness in me, which was magnified as Thanksgiving loomed. Certain conflicts within the group, mostly just small personality clashes, seemed much more serious and stressed a few of us waaaaaaaaaaay out.

Secondly, Alberton must think that I'm a giant homesick mess. (And they aren't necessarily wrong). I guess that's what I get for walking down the street crying, after getting off the phone with my mom, and then continuing the water works on the lawn of the post office. Whatever...Alberton can think what it likes. I was a little wound up, and after calling my mom to ask for recipes, and impatiently jumping at her for who knows what reason, I felt like the big jerk that I am...and that made me even more homesick.

On Sunday, we had a bit of free time in the morning so that everyone who wanted to go to Church could do so. I didn't go, so I used the time to call Courtney and have yet another giant bawl-fest. Have I mentioned that I'm a mess? I'm ridiculously grateful for my best friend. And for long distance phone plans. Quite honestly, I don't know if I would be able to handle all this without knowing I had her to talk to about it.

It isn't that I'm not enjoying myself. I am! It's just that being a participant in this program is a lifestyle that, in certain aspects, is extremely different from the one I've had over the past few years. Living in the same house with eleven other people isn't the worst thing ever...it's just now that everyone is more comfortable with each other, certain personality traits have started to show that not everyone necessarily gets along with. I know - you can't get along with everyone, all the time. Easier said than done. The situation is different when you're at work, for example, becuase you get to leave at 4 or 5 and get away from the people that you find frustrating. But here in Katimavik, you spend all your time that isn't at work with those people.

Free time is one of the things I'm having the hardest time dealing with. We get about 4 blocks of it every week...but theres always more than that. I get home from working at the school at 3.30, and then theres two to three hours before dinner where I have nothing to do. After dinner, if we have something scheduled, it usually only takes an hour or two, leaving another few hours free before bed time. And on nights when there is free time scheduled, then from 3.30 to 10.30 or 11 (with the exception of mayyybe an hour for dinner), there's nothing to do. This wouldn't be a problem if we were living in a bigger town, but quite honestly, there is nothing to do in Alberton. A few nights a week, there's the aerobics class which some of us go to. For the most part though, free time is spent all the same way - sitting in the living room reading or using the computers. Compared to how busy I kept myself the past few years, this feels really slow. All of grade 12, I would go straight to dance from school every day, sometimes with an hour or so at Second Cup to do homework in between, then go home afterwards, have dinner, do more homework and go to bed. On the weekends, I worked 8 hour shifts at the Bean both days, so the only real free time I had was on Friday and Saturday nights. I find that there is just too much sitting around here. And I miss dancing like nothing else. Until last week, I was running almost every day, for an hour on average. But now my left knee is giving me grief (again) and I haven't been able to for the past few days. I think I'm going to give it a few more days off, so that I don't end up not being able to run for two months or something like that. I get really stressed out when I can't do any physical activity, though. There isn't any other means of me getting exercise here besides running and if I can't do even THAT, i'll honestly go crazy.

IT ISNT ALL BAD THOUGH. I have exciting things to write about too! *Ahem!*
Kyla and I made the most fantastic Thanksgiving dinner on Monday night. We cooked a turkey! It wasn't burned, or frozen on the inside or ANYTHING! It was awesome! We had mashed potatoes, carrots, a broccoli/cauliflower/green bean casserole (with a sauce that Melina made...so props to her), stuffing (my mom's recipe...<3), gravy, and buns. Since Melina and Lisa are vegetarians, and Krista and I are toeing the line, we made stuffed peppers for ourselves; with rice, lentils and diced bell peppers inside. For dessert, we had made three pies; one pumpkin, one chocolate and one apple. Also, our very sweet neighbors from accross the street brought us another pumpkin pie!! Everyone really enjoyed it, even though we had to eat pretty late that evening. It was really exciting, because all the people in my group from Quebec had never had Thanksgiving dinner before. I guess no one celebrates it there, so for them Thanksgiving is just another three-day weekend. They thought it was great. We had lots of left overs for lunches yesterday, which were all delicious. Cooking is pretty much the best thing in the world. I find it really relaxing and calming, and it definitly helped keep my mind off of the fact that I didn't get to be at home with my fam-jam. PICTURES WILL BE UP SOOOON!

MORE EXCITING NEWS THOUGH! On November 21st to 23rd, my group is going on an excuuuuuuuuuuursion! Our original plan was to go to Cape Breton for that weekend, but apparently that's too far away and too much mileage to put on the Katima-van. Instead, we're going to Halifax and Moncton!! Personally, i think they'll be way more fun than Cape Breton, as beautiful of an island as it is. So, on Friday the 21st, we'll drive to Halifax. One of the guys in my group, Mat, is from Halifax and hopefully, we'll be able to stay at his house. On Saturday morning, we're going to go to Farmer's Market there; it is supposed to be PHENOMENAL! Visiting the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, the "Tree to Tree" high ropes/zip line course, and the Discovery Centre are the other activities we're looking into doing while we're there. On Saturday night, it just so happens to be the official Christmas Tree Lighting! It's kind of a festival-y thing that happens there. We'll have some free time after that, and a bunch of us want to check out the local indie music scene. On sunday morning, we'll drive back towards P.E.I., detouring through Moncton on the way. There is a historical village we might go see there, or an Acadian museum. We'll leave sometime after dinner to go back to Alberton.

I'M SO STOKED THOUGH!

Well, enough of me pretening to work while blogging. I have the 11/12 Math class to go help out in now.
(Just so you don't think I was actually slacking...there really was nothing for me to do this morning)

Work it ouuuuut!

My hamstrings HURT!

On tuesday night, a few of us, Kyla, Lisa, Krista, Fréd, Mat and myself, found out about an aerobics class that happens a few times a week here and decided to go check it out.

Of course, it was aerobics Alberton style which means a Biggest Loser video in the boxing ring in the basement of the courthouse. It was pretty intense actually...we're all still sore and it's been two days since we went.

One of the girls in my group, Krista, is working at the CMHC's clubhouse and they were hosting a thanksgiving dinner for the members and their families. So, as Krista's Katima-family, we all went. It was awesome - $2 for a full thanksgiving dinner. We stayed after to help clean up, and then came home and...didn't do anything.

We've had a lot of free time lately. Tonight, we were supposed to go to the Phillips Residence (a senior's center) to do Halloween crafts with them, but it was moved to tomorrow night. Therefore...more free time! Tomorrow, I think some people will go to that, and some of us are going to aerobics again.

I'm starting to get a little bummed that I won't be going home for Thanksgiving, when so many of my friends will be. I haven't been homesick at all really so far, but I think this weekend might be a little bit tough. I figure if I can make it through until Tuesday, i'll be ok. At least until Christmas...

List of Excellent Things!

1. Yesterday, we drove to Summerside. It's about an hour or so from Alberton, and we went there to vote at their Elections Canada office and get groceries. There were only a few of us needing to vote, so while we figured out our mail-in ballots with the more-or-less incompetent Elections Canada staff, the rest of the group headed to Superstore to start the groceries. We met them there when we were done voting, finished up most of the groceries and then went to Bulk Barn to get the last few things.
2. Bulk Barn is exciting. I've never been in a bulk store before, and man, was I impressed. You can buy anything there, and that was a relatively small store. Dried strawberries and differently-flavored dried cranberries, and chocolate covered ANYTHING. I didn't actually buy myself anything, as I thought I would, because I had already bought some things at Superstore. I'm trying not to touch the money I've got saved in the bank, and to only use the $21/week allowance we get from the program. It's hard.
3. The parcel my parents sent came! THANKS GUYS! I now have my sweatpants, the wool sweater my grandma just sent me, my almond butter, tea and coffee...and my high school diploma? Can’t say I necessarily want to have that out here with me right now. I suppose it’s a good reminder of how I’M DONE HIGH SCHOOL FOREVVVVVVVER! Yes please!
4. The teacher that teaches the grade 11 Chem class over teleconference to the students at the school that I'm working at said I was a "miracle worker" and that she was really glad I was there to help them as she's teaching. I have to say, I really appreciated hearing it. Yee!

I’ll write soon...as long as Blogspot stops locking and unlocking my blog like craaaaazy.


Ericaaaaah. =)

Let's Learn About Potatoes! Yeah!

There's actually a lot to know. Like, did you know that waayyyy back when, people thought that potatoes caused leprosy - because of their uneven, sometimes scabby peel? And they originated in South America. Bet you didn't. 

When potatoes were first introduced to Europe from South America, they were very unpopular. But then Marie-Antoinette wore potato flowers in her hair and everyone fell in love with them.  They're high in fiber, potassium and vitamins B and C. Not to mention, you can pretty much cook them any possible way you want. We have a list going in the house actually.... Mat and I spent an entire afternoon thinking up different ways to eat potatoes.

After the Potato museum, we drove up to West Point to walk at the beach for a bit. On the way, we passed tons and tons of windmills. There are a lot of them here, but the Islanders, or so we've heard, aren't happy about it because all the energy from the windmills goes to New Brunswick. Either way...it looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie, which was cool.

Again, the beach had really nice red sand with tons of seashells and rocks that were perfect for skipping. We walked up and down picking up ones to make necklaces with. If we actually do, I'll be surprised; but in the meantime I've got a lovely pile of pebbles in my room. The West Point lighthouse was there too, which is Canada's only functional lighthouse in an Inn. (Quite the uh... accomplishment, I must say). Here are some pictures from our stroll...

That's all for ce soir. Tomorrow is another day of work at the school, which I must say, I am very much looking forward to! =)

Cartier, Red Sand and Bagel-Making!

Yesterday afternoon, we drove to the Jacques Cartier Provincial Park. It's where Cartier landed on the island, apparently. We wandered up and down the beach for a while, talking about ... bilingual communication or something. Yeah.

The ocean was beautiful, as you can probably see. There's a campground here, it's closed for the season but I can imagine it's quite a popular place to stay during the summer. The beach is sandy and wonderful.

We found a dead sting ray...it was pretty exciting. Katima-kids make their own fun...in this case it involved writing in the sand. It was intoxicatingly entertaining.

Oh, and this morning, I made bagels! We had a bread-making workshop last week, but I hadn't had the chance to make any yet. Since I haven't had a bagel since I left home and I was craving them, I decided to skip bread and go straight to bagels. It definitely took a lot longer than I thought, but it was a lot of fun!! Especially the boiling part. There's a lot of room for improvement...but I've got lots of time to work on my bagel-making skills. They're good though!
I'm very proud of myself, if you didn't notice.

Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes

Yesterday was a PD day at the school, so there were no students. The four of us, Pier Marc, Cynthia, Frédérique and myself went anyways, to set up for a wedding that is happening today. They have a really nice "Multi-Purpose Room" there that is used quite often for weddings and other special events. We started out just placing chairs at all the tables that were set up already, and then Fred and Cynthia continued with table settings and things like that while Pier Marc and I went to help in the kitchen. I have never seen so many potatoes in my life. We had two 50-lb bags of huge, dirty potatoes to peel. We only ended up having to do about 75 lbs of them, but still; that's a LOT of potatoes. I guess it's been really rainy here this year, because a ton of the potatoes had these rotten spots in the middles that we had to cut out, which come from when the growing season is really wet.

Today, we've got the morning free. I went for a run and now I'm working on this. I've been running on the Confederation trail, which is a pathway that goes all across Prince Edward Island. It's really quite boring and monotonous. I mentioned to some of the students that I've been helping out that I run there in the mornings and they just kind of looked at me, adn then one of them told me that people have been killed and gone missing while walking alone on it. Pfft. Whatever.

At 1 we're all meeting up to do some kind of contract-ey thing...I can't remember what it's about though. Tonight, we're going to all have a game of soccer together then, as our weekly "second-language" activity, we're gonna translate songs from english to french and vice-versa.

Tomorrow morning, we've got free time again and in the afternoon we're going to a POTATO MUSEUM!!! And a wool museum or farm or something. It's pretty exciting, I'm not gonna lie.

The first two weeks of Katimavik...

I am far too unmotivated to keep an updated blog, but I'm going to try. It's been just over two weeks since I left Calgary, although it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. I wouldn't say thats a bad thing; we've been so busy and our schedule has been so full that it seems as though we've done two months worth of things in the seventeen days since we all left home.

Upon arriving in Charlottetown on Wednesday the 17th, the eleven participants (myself included) of my group along with two other Katimavik groups took a bus to Camp Kildare, a Scout camp just outside of Alberton. We were there until Sunday, doing Mass-O (don't worry, it's just short for Mass Orientation, it wasn't some crazy religious thing). We had all kinds of workshops, all three groups together, about things like group living, the Katimavik learning programs, rules and expectations and budgets. After cleaning the camp up a bit Sunday morning, the three groups parted ways. My group is living in Alberton, so we didn't have far to go from the camp, and the other two groups are in Wellington (population 400-ish) and Summerside (17,000).

Sunday afternoon, we moved into our first Katima-house. It's a cute little four bedroom house on Church Street, with a huge backyard. Upstairs, there are all the bedrooms and a bathroom. Melina, our Project Leader has one of the rooms, the four guys in my group have another one, five of the seven girls have the largest one and myself and the seventh girl are sharing the last one. It's definitely small, but we've got bunk-beds so the rooms don't feel too squished.

Downstairs, there's a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom/laundry room. Amazingly enough, it doesn't feel like there are twelve of us living in the house. There's only one shower that works, but even working out schedules for that hasn't created any conflict within the group, which is nice.

Speaking of the group...I should maybe elaborate on them. Katimavik groups are made based on where the applicants are from: over half of each group is from Ontario and Québec, and the rest is composed of one or two people from the other parts of Canada. So, going from west to east...

There's Lisa from Langley, BC. She's 20 and has done two years of university already. Then there's me, from Calgary (duhhr), and then Kyla, from Winnipeg. She's 17, close to 18, and my roommate this rotation. From Ontario, there's Tyler (17, from Parry Sound), Amy (17, from Kempville) and Krista (also 20, from near Toronto). Tyler and Amy also graduate from high school in the spring, and Krista has done two years of university at Wilfred Laurier. Then there's four from Québec; Cynthia from St-Jérome, Fréderique from Drummondville, Pier-Marc from a town five or six hours north of Montréal and then Eric, from Montreal. They're all 17, with the exception of Cynthia who just turned 19. The last member of my group is Mat, who is 18 and from Halifax. We all get along really, really well.

From the Sunday we moved in until just this past Monday, we were doing House Orientation. So we were getting to know the town and each other for a week, working on schedules and getting tours of all the work sites that we'd be volunteering at. Some of the more exciting things that we've done so far are wander to the Alberton Harbor in Northport, go bowling and label everything in the house with bilingual labels. The labelling of the house turned into labelling ourselves though. It was quite a good time.

Monday morning, we all started at our volunteer placements. I'm working at a french school near Alberton. It's only been open for two years, and it goes all the way from a preschool/nursery to grade 12. There are three other people from my group also working there: Cynthia at the community center that runs out of the school, Fredérique at the nursery, and Pier-Marc at the high school. I'm also working at the high school, and we're both helping get their library set up. I'm really enjoying it so far. In the mornings, I help out with a grade 11 math class, of 5 students and in the afternoon I'm with the grade 11 chem class, of 3.  The principal of the school is teaching math, because the original teacher was fired after the first week. The problem is that the principal is a Phys Ed and English teacher and doesn't know a whole lot about math. As for chem, the three students have their class via teleconference. A teacher at a different francophone school teaches and they watch on a TV. They can ask questions and everything, but for the most part - they don't. So having me there has helped out a fair bit, since they can ask me and I can explain things more easily than the teacher on the TV can. 

I think that will have to be all for tonight; I'm exhausted and I've been sitting for far too long doing this tonight. Fingers crossed that I'll keep it updated faaaaairly often. 

Erica.