note:

posting will be less frequent for the last week of my visit because my internet access is not as convenient as it once was. so i apologize for that.
today we did our first show run. it was long and a bit crazy but im sure it will all come together by friday.
well... that's it for now. one of the other dancers arrived today (the daughter of our host family) so she's living in the computer room which is why i can't use it very much. and then we move on tuesday to a house with no internet. so... perhaps this is it.
if so, all my love and i'll see most of you in seven sleeps!

november the twelfth. two thousand and seven.

today was our last day off here in graz.
actually that was a lie
we have another one the day after the show.
but our show is on friday and we leave here first thing sunday morning.
i must say, i'm pretty excited to come home. there are definately things about graz that i will miss. but im ready to come home.
i would really like to come back someday. due to the circumstances surrounding this visit i feel like there are so many things i never got the chance to see and experience. i have experienced a lot of really great things and i have learned a lot and grown as a person and as a dancer. but i think i would fall more in love with europe if i came again with more money and more time and perhaps with less rehearsals and maybe with a husband..... right now im so grateful for this experience, but my heart is still at home.
today was cloudy and cold. feels like winter is on it's way. i slept in and had a nice slow morning. the most exciting part of the morning was that they just opened a new tram line close to our house so we no longer have to walk half an hour to get to and from the tram. just in time for us to move out... good timing. (we move out tuesday night because annette and bernt have people coming in from out of town to see the show, so they need the space to host their guests)
i wandered around downtown for the afternoon. got lost a bit. as i usually do on my days off...
bought a couple things
met lise and pam
went for dinner
went to the english movie theatre
saw hairspray
much better than the heartbreak kid
john travolta makes a hideous woman
met up with silke, one of the dancers from austria and went for punsch - another traditional drink here. they have seasons of drinks (i guess like how we only have eggnog at christmas) sturm season is just ending and punsch season is beginning. it was quite delicious. it's like a warm, christmassy sangria.
well... goodnight
8 more sleeps!

smiles

Well. Yesterday and today were both just rehearsal days so not a whole lot to fill you in on. The show's coming up soon and things are starting to come together but we definately have our work cut out for us.

I seem to have strained a muscle in the front of my neck today, which was unfortunate... Everyone told me I needed to ice it and we ended rehearsal early because I couldn't run things anymore. So I stopped at the grocery store to buy a package of frozen peas to ice my neck on my way home (which already sounded like hell to me. who wants ice on their neck as they walk home in the cold? Not me, I'll tell you that much...) However, as it turns out, they don't sell small bags of frozen peas in Europe. They sell small boxes of frozen peas or they sell 2 kilogram bags. There was no way I was about to put a 2 kilo bag of peas on my neck and hop on the tram so I bought the smallest bag of frozen things I could find:
McCain Smiles.
(Actually to be honest, there was a smaller package of something that looked like spinach slime pellets, but I wasn't willing to purchase them)

I waited until I got out of the store to tuck the smiles into my scarf (thick necks look suspicious in stores...) and I took the tram home. It was horribly uncomfortable and cold and strangley but my neck does feel a bit better now...

shopping and a hilarious joke

today was another lovely day off in graz. pam and i had planned to get an early start on shopping and whatnot but annette invited us to have lunch with her so we went into town to do some grocery shopping and then had a german lesson and some lunch.

after lunch we went shopping for gifts and for annette's birthday which is tomorrow. we bought her a present and then were trying to pick out a card for her but it was hard because they were all german and then we amused ourselves with the idea of picking a card that we secretly knew was an anniversary card or something and pretending we thought it was a birthday card. for some reason we thought this would be hilarious because annette is always trying to teach us german. hilarious.

we had a nice day shopping. i bought some cheap boots cuz mine are falling apart and some legwarmers because the dance studio is so flipping cold all the time.
and later on we met up with lise and had dinner (a strange but delightful little place called mangolds where there's a buffet and you take what you want and then they weigh your plate and charge you accordingly.) and then we went to the english movie theatre and saw the heartbreak kid, or whatever the new ben stiller movie is called. it was utterly terrible but nice to hear people speaking english. pam and lise were excited to buy beer from the concession stand.

we only have one more day off before coming home. all the rest is spent rehearsing... kind of too bad. i do like days off...

one day i'll post pictures...

so. what do i have to tell you today.
well... yesterday we had a nice little day off. pam woke me up to tell me that bernd (our house papa) had made us breakfast so the three of us (anette wasn't there cuz she is visiting her daughter in germany) had a lovely little breakfast and bernd showed us how to properly eat an egg out of an egg cup. good little life lesson. i'll be showing off next easter.
after breakfast we got dressed and bernd took us on a little tourist adventure. we went to schloß eggenberg which is a big castle built by a neurotic man. unfortunately it was closed to tourists for the winter as of october 31st. so that was crappy timing. but we saw some pictures of it and it looked pretty incredible. but we did get to go through the art gallery there and wander through the park and hang out with many peacocks (including an albino one, like the one the malfoy's have at their house...) it was a beautiful day and it was an incredibly beautiful place. i had a bunch of postcards picked out to buy but when i went to buy them, we were told we weren't allowed to because the lady who worked in the gift shop was on her lunch break... so sorry to all for the lack of postcards.
after wandering around there for a while bernd bought us sturm and maroni (apparently austria has seasonal drink specials... we happen to be here in sturm season) and we sat out on a patio and watched the peacocks.
after schloß eggenberg, we went for a little walking tour of some of the places bernd thought we would enjoy. we saw a huge old cathedral and a school for priests in training (i'm sure there's a better word for it than that) and after wandering for a while we went and he treated us all to delicious sushi.
it was such a nice little trip and we were so touched by his generosity.
and today we just rehearsed all day. sunday is the day we have almost the whole cast together and it's always a little more scattered and hard to organize. i feel like we have a lot of work to do in the next twelve days.

two other things i like about austria:
the autumn leaves stay on the trees so much longer than they do at home. it's very pretty.
i like hearing the church bells ring. they ring a lot, especially on sunday.

in two weeks and a couple of hours i'll be home. crazy.

even more boring than yesterday!

another busy day of rehearsals over without any incidents to report.
after rehearsal the whole crew (well, treasure, christina, thomas, lise, pam and i) went for sturm and maroni (basically sweet wine and roasted chestnuts. they were quite good actually. i was surprised by chestnuts yesterday - they were softer and pastier and less nutty than i expected, the caught me off guard and i couldnt decide what i felt about them but today i appreciated them. i was prepared...)
tomorrow we have the day off and we have plans to go to schloss eggenberg. i don't know much about it but we're going there.
well. my eyes are having a hard time staying open... so goodnight!

this post is pretty boring.

nothing much to report today. rehearsal went well. we felt a little on edge in the morning, it seemed as though the lady could have turned on us at any second but the afternoon went well and it was sunny for the second day in a row. and the studio we dance in has big windows so the room warmed up so much better than normal.

after dance we didn't really have many options of things to do because it was another holiday and everything was closed (they have a lot of holidays here...) but we found a little pizzaria open and had pizza for dinner and that's about all there was to my day. nothing overly memorable. oh except for a man sleeping at the tram stop today. he was a normal looking man dressed relatively well. a golf shirt and a pea coat... he looked fake. pam and i wondered if we should be concerned and try to help but then we realized it would probably make things worse if we tried to wake him up and then didn't have a phone and couldnt speak the language and basically couldnt communicate or do anything. we thought that might be confusing for him. and he was breathing...

and there was also an old lady who wouldnt stop talking to us and asking us questions no matter how many times i told her we couldnt speak german. a man who looked like bryan adams tried to explain it to her but it didn't work. i think she might have escaped from the seniorumzentrum...

crazy that my time here is just about half over. i am having a good time but im so excited to come home.
sorry about the boring post...
lots of love to everyone.

survival

well. i seem to have survived my little episode yesterday. thank you all for your support. it meant a lot to me to have people's encouragement and love. last night after writing my post i went and had sourkraut and sausages with pam and bernd (the owner of the house we're staying at). he gave me wine to make everything better. and after dinner pam and i debriefed a bit about the day and i cried and expressed my frustrations and struggles and then i felt better. and then i went and had a shower and got ready for bed and watched ratatouille in bed on kyle's ipod. and i fell asleep rather peacefully.

today we had a bit of a later start so i was able to read some emails and prepare myself for the day and i made myself a promise that i was going to rise to the challenge and learn and take corrections but i wasn't going to allow myself to be injured by negative attitudes or mean people. i decided to make myself proud today instead of sad and self-pitying.

and it was a good day. i felt way more on top of things and i was able to dance much more freely without my own doubts in the way. plus i think christina knew that she went a little bit far yesterday. and i think she needs a day off... she's been working 7 days a week and so yesterday she was short tempered and today she was slow moving and less motivated (which was much easier to deal with...) i'm a little bit worried what's going to happen as her stress rises though. i think we're in for a stressful couple weeks. the show opens in just barely over 2 weeks and we have a lot of work to do...

so, i don't think i'm quite out of the woods yet but i am feeling better today and i feel confident that i can get through this and i will be so grateful for the lessons i'm learning while i'm here.

today...

Today was a truly horrible day. Last night and this morning I found myself feeling very small in a big world and far away from people who care about me. A losing combination of homesick, lonely, defeated and insecure. I tried to give myself peptalks all morning to try and get on top of things and swallow my emotions and I got a bit of a handle on it. But I think Christina could smell my insecurities and basically she tore me apart for 8 hours today. I know I deserved some of it. My heart wasn't in it. I let my emotions affect me too much and I wasn't dancing at 100%. But I don't really think I deserved all of it. And it was hard too, because she was yelling at me for (among other things) doubting myself, which is exactly how I'm feeling. I am doubting myself. I'm doubting wether or not I'm good enough to be here or strong enough to be away. She was really hard on me today and it took a lot of mind power to not break down.

This week (and this is no longer just about rehearsal today) I'm struggling with a number of things. I think I have some hard lessons to learn while I'm here in Austria. I'm struggling to not rely on other people for comfort, to find confidence on my own, to find the line between being meek and humble and being shattered and weak. to know when to address issues and when to swallow hurt feelings. to deal with issues but not dwell on them. to not let other people affect the way you think about yourself. to move on and do a job when you don't feel you have the strength. to navigate a big world on my own without the luxury of being able to run into someone's arms and have them make me feel better and help me fix my problems.

sigh...
19 more sleeps.

day off number two

today we saw the sun for the first time since we got here. it's amazing how much that can affect your mood. especially when you have the day off and are free to do as you please. we decided to split up and do our own things today and meet up for dinner later on so i slept in and read in bed for a while and then put on my new little sweater dress and went for a long walk around the neighborhood (it was long half because i was enjoying it and half because i got lost and had to backtrack all the way back so i knew where i was...)
After my long walk i took the tram downtown and went to the dom im berg which is the theatre we'll be performing in. I didn't go into the theatre because they dont let you just walk in there but it's really neat because it's inside a cave in the side of a big hill and then there's paths and stairs all the way to the top of the hill where you can see the whole city and there's an old clock tower and bells and a fortress from world war I. It was really beautiful (although there were lots of couples making out... one looked like they were both about 14, laying in the grass in front of everyone...) and I had a great time wandering about and taking pictures (i didn't take any of people making out). It was nice to just relax in the sun and not have a schedule or anything and feel like I was actually experiencing something about the country I find myself in. So that was nice.
And then I wandered off to the call centre and had a nice little chat with kyle before meeting up with the others for dinner. We went to a little place called Kuba (or Cuba) which had pictures of fidel castro and che guevera up but it sold mostly hamburgers so, who knows... but the hamburger was good and it was nice to have some familiar food to eat.
I took lots of pictures today so once I figure out how to upload them onto this German speaking computer, or find an english speaking one, I will post some to show you all.

a not so lazy but still uninteresting sunday

nothing much to report today. i had a long rehearsal and that's about it. it's true that nothing is open on sundays here, except for one little japanese restaurant we found close to the studio. so fortunately we had lunch. the only other place we found was a little tiny fruit stand where i bought some little red things that turned out to be dried marashino cherries. pretty gross, actually...
we had our first rehearsal with (almost) the whole cast there today. usually when we rehearse it's only the 4 of us 'canuks' (as they call us) so it was kind of nice to meet and work with all of the austrian girls too, although it was a much slower process and it therefore felt like a very long day.
tomorrow is another day off, which is exciting... i'll keep you posted on the adventures that are bound to occur...
oh, and add one more thing to the list of things i miss about home (actually 2 more things):
dryers and fabric softener (towels get scratchy)
oh. and also, soft toilet paper

to leave this post on a positive note, here are some things i greatly appreciate about austria:
1. chocolate
2. specialty coffees
3. yogurt
4. cheap cheese
5. i had a good sandwich today that i bought at the shell station (it was open too)
6. pretty architecture
7. cute boutiques
8. i love that all of the doors and cupboards have little keys sitting in the holes all the time to lock them
9. a lot of the rehearsals are actually pretty fun
10. i have a cozy little bed
11. i love my luggage that my parents bought me for my birthday
12. i'm very thankful to have internet access at the house i'm currently staying (although the computer is quite slow)
13. i like that most of the trees here still have their leaves (even though it is quite cold)
14. i like that the trams are on time and they have little signs at each stop that tells you how many more minutes until another one comes
15. i like that when i travel i realize how much i love my life at home and how much i love the people that i share it with. i hate being away from my family, friends and fiancé but it makes me so excited to see them again.

list to be continued...

first day off

Today was our first day off here in Austria. I slept in which was quite nice and then we got ready and headed off to meet lise in Hauptplatz, one of the downtown squares. We got cappuccinos and nutella crepes and started walking around to various stores we'd had our eyes on. We ended up only having time to get the big stores out of the way and we'll definately return to check out the smaller boutiques. It was fun to browse around although always a little funny to shop with people who have different style than you. They tell you to buy the things you don't really like and say they suit you and then say the things you do like are unflattering... makes the decision making process a little more challenging - and we all know how good i am at making decisions to begin with...
After some shopping (which was a little exhausting - the stores were packed, I guess because nothing's open on Sunday and stores are only open until 5 so Saturday is people's only chance to shop) we went home and had dinner with Annette, the lady of the house we're staying in. She's a really nice lady and keeps trying to teach us german even though deep down she knows we're hopeless... She made us wienerschnitzel. It was pretty good, actually.
And then we all went to see the Graz ballet's show. It was a 'modern ballet' and it was the most bizarre piece of work I have ever seen. It was called bad animals and the choreography was, well... convaluded maybe... it included a lot of good old modern dance clichés like the dancer in the fabric tube, text for no good reason, video projection for no reason, a watery and impossible to follow story line, smooching for no good reason, obnoxious and incredibly loud music, lots of undulating bodies and zebra striped pants... it was super weird. But I must say, the dancers were great. They were all ballet dancers so they weren't entirely in tune with the ways of the modern but they were still quite impressive (although some of them were horrible actors).
After the show we went out for drinks and when we arrived at the restaurant our table wasn't quite ready yet so they asked us to wait in the cellar. It was a big stone wine cellar and we ended up hanging out there all night. We sat on wine crates and ate oysters. It was pretty fun. The cellar was a little cold but I was okay with it because no one was allowed to smoke down there and we were with a couple of chain smokers and I've already been nearly suffocated a couple of times this week.
And now I'm home and ready for bed. Rehearsal again tomorrow and then another day off.

one other thing I've learned in Graz:
it's very difficult to call or take a taxi when your address is zveinundviersig peterstalstraße.

adventures in a foreign land

know what's weird about being here? I'm halfway accross the world and my life is more or less exactly the same. I wake up. I go to rehearsal. I go home. That's pretty much it. You'd think I'd be seeing the sights and shopping and doing all kinds of fun things, but the reality of it is that everything here closes by 6:00 and we usually rehearse until 6. We buy groceries on our lunch break. Not a lot seems to happen here after 6, which is funny cuz i read on the internet that graz is supposed to have great night life. although it also said october was one of the best times to travel because it would be pleasantly warm (it's not).

Last night, Pam, Lise and I did take a gamble and went out for dinner. It is rather difficult to find a restaurant and order successfully in a foreign land. and my german-english dictionery doesn't seem to keep up very well. We ended up in a little underground restaurant for which we were underdressed and couldn't understand the menu very well. They did happen to have one that had some english on it (but only one so we all sat on one side of the table to read over eachother's shoulders). I ended up having some weird potatoey dumplings and a mound of saurkraut.
After dinner we went back to the tram station only to find out that our tram stops running sometime before 8:00. So we decided to get dessert. We wandered more or less aimelessly through the rain, one of my companions with a sad and hilariously broken umbrella and the other walking with the type gait only found in a person who has severely sore legs and is still somewhat constipated...
We ended up in the diveyest, smokiest little restaurant - full of fake palm trees and paintings of fish. And our dessert ended up being really quite terrible. But we laughed a lot (partially because they give you a shot of schnapps after every meal to aid in digestion) so I guess it was all worth it in the end.

things i miss about home

1. the obvious: kyle, friends, family
2. sunshine
3. warmth
4. heating you're allowed to leave on all day (the dance studio was freeeezing today. it was a like a horrible horrible dream)
5. showers you're allowed to leave on even when you don't technically need the water... like when lathering.
6. heated bathrooms (especially bad when standing wet and naked when lathering)
7. heated computer rooms
8. water pressure
9. english menus at restaurants
10. english altogether
11. no smoking zones (i have a stuffed up nose from smoke inhalation and my scarf stinks)
12. english kezboards

do you like how almost all of the things i miss are wasteful things we do that are causing our world to destruct? pathetic, isn't it. saving the earth looks good on paper but i haven't quite gotten used to the practicality of it all... sigh. it's rather bothersome that we can't save the world and stay warm at the same time.

but i am having fun. just felt like making a list... there might be things added as time progresses. but in the meantime, i'm off to my drizzley cold shower.

day one

today was our first day of rehearsals. and we had a great time, actually. the studio that we were working in today is really beautiful, big windows, hardwood floors... it was a long day and we worked hard but i think we were all feeling excited and motivated and we had fun and got a lot accomplished so that was good. will most likely have bruises and sore muscles tomorrow but that's just the life of a dancer, really.

Other than that my day wasn't terribly eventful other than a funny and perhaps inappropriate event involving an anonymous canadian companion of mine finding herself constapated after traveling and another of my companions giving her a pill to help take care of it only to realize that the pill was actually to cure traveller's diarrhea. oops. so then we had to go to the apotheque (drugstore) and to spare the ailing one further embarassment she stayed outside while the other one and i tried to explain our predicament by miming and stumbling through the german-english dictionery. so today's german word of the day is verstopfung - constapation. i feel i am allowed to tell this story because they don't know about my blog, so they won't know... i'm a bad friend...

we also went grocery shopping. brie cheese is way cheaper here than at home.

learning how to count in german. i've got up to 9 pretty good but 10 is hard to pronounce.

I'm worried that the dog here is going to die any second.

apparently austrian guys make horrible screeching rooster noises at girls when they drive past sometimes. this has only happened once so far but it was startling and therefore memorable.

long day tomorrow. time for bed.

enshuldegung

today is my birthday. i wanted to write happy birthday in german as my title but the only german word i currently know is enshuldegung and i don't even know how to spell it. it means sorry. i'm not sure why whoever invented the german language insisted on making all the words so long. it makes them terribly difficult to remember them. i'm also not sure who invented the german keyboard and mixed up all the letters on me. not impressed.
in any case, i am in austria. so far i'm having a good time. not a whole lot to report yet as most of my time since leaving has been spent traveling and sleeping. the flight was long but safe and i think my no jet lag pills worked. i was rather tired but mostly due to the fact that i'd hardly slept in 30 hours. so after a good 13 hour night i felt pretty good today. pam and i have spent some time wandering the streets here and downtown graz is very beautiful and european looking but nothing is open on sundays so we havent been able to do any shopping or anything - but we've definately made plans to. there are lots of really cute stores and an h&m on every other corner. The house we're staying in is just outside of the city in a beautiful little area. It's not very european looking but the house is huge (it has an elevator in it) and it has a big natural pond with lilly pads that the house goes out over and it has a glass floor in a place so you can look in the pond - apparently you can even swim in it in summer. The couple who owns it is very sweet. They found out it was my birthday today and they sent pam down with a little almond loaf with a candle in it and a gift - a dvd of an austrian ballet. so that was really sweet, especially since nothing is open on sundays so it wouldn't have been easy to find things.
In any case, I should go to bed. Tomorrow's the first day of rehearsals so I need to be fresh as a daisy. Auf Wiedersehen!

wedding photos

I got an lovely little email from my christie friend the other day. it didn't say a whole lot but it included all of these funny little weddingy photos and i liked them.



i love this picture. i think she's so cute. i've been trying to find a little veil like this one everywhere. unfortunately the days of millinary art are over.



if i knew this girl, she could be my flower girl. i like her free spirited ways.



aaw. who doesn't love a couple on a tandem bike. kyle and i will have to recreate this picture one day. although i'm unwilling to put myself into those knee socks and ugly shoes and i'm pretty sure kyle's unable to grow a beard even remotely like this man's work of art.



we want to have an old type writer for our guestbook table. we'll have to find ramona a dress like this one.



and this last one is of my three bridesmaids. aren't they lovely? obviously the blonde one is lindsey. the one in the middle looks guilty of something... i think she's tami because the other one looks more like christie.
hopefully they'll look happier at my actual wedding...

the outrage

so kyle and i decided to design and make our own invitations... actually that is a total misrepresentation... let me start again:

so kyle and i have decided that kyle will design and make our invitations (with the help of our lovely print studio friend jeanette) i don't really have all that much to do with it except for approving the designs and wording and offering emotional support and addressing envelopes. but one of my jobs was to find envelopes and paper for the invitations so after a careful search i found the right ones online. they were the right colour and paper and a pretty good price. it seemed like a great find - until...

the shipping cost... we got charged $25 for shipping. $25 seemed steep but we sucked it up and didn't complain. i'm sure the paper's really heavy or something. it's probably fair...

but then... when kyle got home today he found a notice in his mailbox saying that we couldn't get our package until we paid the $40 duty fee. 40 dollars!! 250 envelopes and 250 sheets of paper were only $80 and we paid $65 just to get them to us! 60 dollars for a package worth 80!!
that is what my friend lindsey would call
highway robbery

seriously. the nerve.

getting older...

I turn 24 in a month, i'm about to become a wife, i spend my saturday nights knitting and drinking tea and today i found...
my first gray hair.
i've been eased into the whole aging this because last year i thought i had a gray hair too but it turned out to be a blonde hair. i get those every once in a while but i think today's gray hair was the real deal. when i thought i'd found one last year i taped it into my journal to commemorate the event so now i can go back and compare to see if this one is my real first one. it will go into my journal as well. my kids will probably want to see it one day.
well... i'd better get back to my knitting...

when in doubt - knit!

well. i've been having a combination lazy-productive week. i'm only dancing from 9:30-11 every morning (except when I skip class like yesterday) so i've had some time to get stuff done. except that I can't always figure out what I should be doing when I have the time. It's kind of an annoying thing - especially since I just realized that this week (which is almost over) is my last week off before the wedding but I don't totally know what all I should be doing to prepare. so usually that means i knit. but i do have some knitting to do so it's not entirely irresponsible... plus it makes me feel better because i can actually see my progress. it's almost as satisfying as checking things off a list.
In other wedding news, Kyle and I finally decided on a venue for our wedding which is a huge relief for us and we're pretty excited to move on with plans. We're having the ceremony at Broadway First Baptist Church and the reception at the Fort Garry Hotel. I think it'll be really pretty.
And today Kyle and I met with a friend who is going to help us make our invitations (Kyle's going to design them and then him and Jeanette are going to screen print them. I think they'll be beautiful) and then I wandered the streets looking for pretty envelopes - which I didn't find.
I also was recently offered $1000 to change my wedding date by my uncle who wants very badly to be at the wedding but feels it would be irresponsible to take the time off work to come (he owns a petstore in calgary and apparently christmas time is an important time for retail). As tempting as it was and as much as I felt bad for his situation, I don't think Kyle and I want to dely the process any further. We've been waiting a long time for this.
And now I'm at work and thinking I should do some knitting to keep my mind off of some of the cute new fall things that I can't afford but keep staring at me while I sit here...

hello blog

it's been a while since i've found myself here, in blog world. It's been a busy month, what with planning a wedding and being in a show and other exciting things. Here are some of the things I have recently learned:
1. I have very expensive taste. I do not have any desire to have a rediculously expensive wedding. I just want a pretty wedding. As it turns out, the things I think are pretty are usually out of my price range. But sometimes I buy them anyways...
2. Wedding cakes cost a lot more than you might think...
3. My fiance has fallen madly in love with a vacuum cleaner at Home Outfitters

In other news, after my show last weekend (which went very well, thanks to everyone who came to see it!) Kyle and I went to the cottage to relax and for my show bruises to heal. Kyle was trying out a new camera. These pictures are nice:





While I was at the cottage, I also decided that I might like to be a tea maker. My mom has a big herb garden and with it getting colder these days, I would like to dry them all and make tea. But whether or not I actually will is a whole other thing... In my head I'm rather domestic but unfortunately, my life doesn't seem to always agree.

A Belated Announcement

Well. It's been a week and a half and a mass email since I had news to share so I'm sure anyone who checks this knows already that Kyle and I are engaged. But it's still exciting, well at least for us it is.
Here are some pictures of our big day



This one makes me laugh. We decided should take the traditional engagement picture with the hand on the chest -casual yet definately posed- and then Kyle spruced it up.



We got ice cream and it was delicious.



Then we had a surprise picnic. Everything was perfectly planned out and lovely.



And then we were engaged.
It was all very exciting and beautiful and we are very much looking forward to being married.

baby

here's my fake nephew, tara and jacko's baby Manuk:





he's pretty cute... kyle's mom made that blankey for him. she taught me how to crochet many years ago.

my days are fairly uneventful. not working as much which means trying to occupy myself without spending money. i'm bad at that... but, i am working on a latch hook project that i started last night. kyle bought it for me at value village. it's an incredibly ugly old kit from probably the 60s or 70s to latch hook (using their afro technique) to get a nice frizzy baby owl named hoohoo junior. i'll be sure to post pictures when he's more completed.

7 things.

so... apparently i've been tagged and i got in trouble last time i dropped the ball so here it goes: 7 random things about me:

1. When I was little I had huge ears and I refused to wear anything other than pink sweatsuits.

2. I hate the words nostril and tabernacle

3. I secretly love McDonalds french fries

4. I dream of one day having a little house of my own with window boxes, a bedroom closet and a craft room with windows.

5. I would love to open a yarn store one day

6. If I had more time, I would design and hook rugs. I would love to be a rug hooker... but not a regular hooker...

7. My left big toe cracks with every step I take. My brother says he can always tell when I'm in the next peice in a show because in the blackout he can hear my toe cracking as I walk on stage. I was recently told by a choreographer not to feel self-conscious about it because it was just another way for me to communicate with my audience.

I only know one other blogger so I guess Lindsey is now tagged...
these are the rules:
* I must post 7 random things about me.
* Tag 7 other Bloggers to do the same.
* Post the rules and the Bloggers I tagged here.
* Leave Tagged Bloggers a comment on their blog so they know they have been tagged.

in other gross news

i just removed a sliver from my hand with a stitch ripper and mini tweezers from a manicure set.

grossie grosserson

So. Another slow day at works leads me to read my sister's blog which leads me to a gross story telling contest at www.adventuresinbabywearing.blogspot.com in which you can win a fancy little dustbuster. Now, I do not have kids and after reading the stories in the contest, I might never have kids. But it wasn't specified that the story had to involve children and so I thought I would include this nice little tale:

As many of you know, my boyfriend, Kyle, runs the youth program at a downtown church. We are usually there until fairly late on a Sunday night and on one particular winter evening, as the kids were leaving a homeless man, looking a little worse for wear, managed to slip through the open doors. How he managed to do this is beyond me as once he was in the building he was the most slow moving individual I have ever witnessed. Kyle was very friendly towards him and offered to call him a cab so Kyle and the homeless man walked to the back of the church to make phone calls. Meanwhile I was waiting in the entrance with CJ, another of the leaders. We were talking and the phone calling was taking some time and I was getting tired so I decided to sit on the chair by the door. So I sat. And I thought: man, that is a bad smell that that guy left behind. And I sat. And then I thought: do my pants feel wet? Slowly I put the pieces together...

What happened next was a flurry of motion and panicked dialogue between CJ and I - me yelling that I'd just sat in homeless man pee and him wondering why I had sat there when the man's pants had clearly been wet and me thinking this was not a helpful comment and then him remembering that he had a pair of extra pants in his car and him sprinting out the door to get them. All throughout this transaction I was standing in the oddest position ever as I tried to keep my thighs away from the back of my tight skinny-legged pants (very difficult and awkward). Maintaining this contorted stance I did a crazy looking run to the bathroom and whipped off my pants and tried to wash my bum in the church sink (also diffucult and awkward). CJ returned and threw his pants in through the door. After my horribly inelegant sponge bath I put on pants that were a number of sizes too big for me and returned to the lobby to wait for Kyle.

That's more or less where the dramatic part of my story ends.Kyle returned finally and ushered the man out the door and into a cab. We stood there for a moment before he noticed my pants.
Where did those pants come from?
CJ's car.
Why are you wearing them?
I sat in homeless man pee.
...oh...

After that we had to try and figure out what to do with the chair. We ended up making a big sign that said "this chair has been peed on, please dispose of it accordingly". My friend Luke's favourite part of the story was when, after we wrote the sign, I wandered towards the chair and the boys had to stop me from sitting down again. Clearly I have very poor judgement and memory when I'm tired and in shock...

new developments

I'm feeling very independent and domestic today. I'm house sitting for friends of Kyle's parents and I rather enjoyed my morning of laundry, plant watering and tidying. I can't wait to have my own house. I also got my legs waxed and met Kyle for a lovely lunch at the Don Deli. And then I heard it was going to be 37 degrees on Sunday so I decided it was time to get over certain insecurities I feel and buy myself a pair of shorts. I do not like showing my legs due to paleness and dark hairness. But I did it. I bought a pair of shorts and I'm wearing them right now and feeling rather empowered. If I can wear shorts comfortably, what could possibly stand in my way?

In other news, last night I became a pretend aunt for the first time. I've been a real aunt for years but never a pretend aunt. Last night Kyle's sister had her argentinian baby. His name is Manuk (manOOK) and he lives in argentina for now and Kyle and I have a hard time picturing him without a long goatee like his dad. But everything went well (except for the unplanned cesaerian) and the family is happy and healthy. He weighed 9.5 lbs and was 21 inches. (i think) hooray for pretend nephews!

post.

so.. friday night i went to melissa's birthday party. it was a girls only party because nils was out of town. i think it's weird that my spell check underlined melissa and friday but not nils... it was fun although kyle was sad about being left out.

saturday we drove out to the lake. it was my dad's 50th birthday. it was a happy day.

sunday i came home and had a rehearsal. and then lindsey and i tried to come up with a good hanging out plan but as usual we just ended up sitting and talking anyways so i don't even know why we try

today i switched things up a bit and worked at the fringe festival setting up old market square and bringing chairs to the venues.

and now i'm tired and deciding between foraging for food, having a bath or reading. i know i could do all of them but i'm not sure i have the energy so i might have to choose.

and because this post is kind of boring and i haven't posted pictures for a while, here's a random assortment:



this one is canada day at the lake



this one is kyle and i at cj and erin's wedding. kyle was a groomsman. i was late cuz i was in a show.



and this last one is from when a house right by my house was on fire. it made me nervous when kyle and i were walking home cuz we turned towards my street and it was filled with smoke everywhere and knowing my family, i wouldn't be overly surprised if it had been my house... but i'm very glad it wasn't.

hooray for days off!

i had a rather lovely day yesterday. i had the day off and christie, lindsey and i went out for breakfast and for a little shopping trip. it was more of a window shopping and trying on day and we had a good time looking around and being girls. We ended up at Lindsey's house where we had a lovely avacado salad and spinach and cheese ravioli and revels for dessert. aaaand.. we went to see the fifth harry potter movie. even though we had bad seats (who knew people would be so punctual on opening night...) it was quite enjoyable. For those of you who read lindsey's blog, this will be a repeat but the fifth book was not overly wonderful. It was wonderful in the sense that it was Harry Potter but it just lacked the happiness and whimsy that the earlier ones have. It was kind of depressing. Nothing good happens to him. But the movie did not leave me feeling glum. They kept lightness in the way the characters interact and added some quirky little touches that didn't take away from the plot. All in all, I must say that I was impressed. I haven't been a huge fan of the movies up to now, but this one was really well done. hooray for harry potter!

long post but very interesting and well-written so you'd better read it all.

I've had another series of busy weeks that don't translate into interesting posts.
I've been working regularly at my little flower shop and about once a week at poppie. and I'm in a show this weekend so rehearsals tend to occupy my evenings. it's an interesting piece in which the choreographer is collaborating with the poor tree typewriter band so while we're dancing there are typewriters typing and then at the end they read what they've been writing - sort of spoken word poetry-ish. it's neat. except that we haven't had much time to put the piece together and it feels a little less than ready to be performed. we tried a run in the theatre yesterday and it was slightly disastrous. but it will come together I'm sure... i hope...

top five other things worth mentioning:

1. THE GRAD:
Christie and I had our graduation ceremony from continuing education's apparel design I. It was primarily/almost entirely middle aged people graduating and all the speeches were talking about how brave we were for going back to school and balancing our careers and family and going for it, even though we're older. so that was nice... the best part of the grad was that i found a corsage in the fridge at work that was too old to sell (and in my opinion, too hideous to sell -ooh speaking of ugly corsages... I've another good story to tell in a second...) so i made Christie wear the ugly corsage the whole night to celebrate our graduation. it was huge and full or daisies and wax flower (current day baby's breath) and big organza bows. it was quite lovely on her skinny little wrist.

2. THE UGLY CORSAGE:
The other day I got a call from this lady who wanted to order a corsage for I guess her daughter's grad. And she wanted something unique so she decided she wanted 3 big orchids (we usually put 2 which is already too huge for my liking, so 3 is mammoth) and then she wanted a vine attached to it that could wrap all the way up her arm... plus a big chocolate brown bow at the base and two strands of chocolate brown ribbon at the top that could criss cross all the way up the arm like a ballet slipper. PLUS she wanted us to add rhinestones all throughout the corsage... and then when she came to pick it up she decided it wasn't big enough and added a fourth orchid and more rhinestones. it was rather challenging to respond to this lady and keep my voice at a friendly and helpful tone. hopefully the poor grad wasn't too surprised by this not-so-subtle addition to her outfit...

3. I HAVE CONQUERED MY FEAR OF BICYCLES:
I have been riding my bike to work recently. for those of you who know me I have a not-entirely-secret fear of bicycles, which is funny considering my boyfriend is on a bike more often that he isn't these days. I like riding the tandem bike because I don't have to steer (or pedal if I don't want to) because I tend to run into things like trees and curbs. But I have conquered and it turns out it isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. I think I had a couple of bad experiences lined up and it turned into a bit of a complex. As it turns out, trees aren't that hard to avoid after all...

4. MONDAY MALL MARATHON MADNESS AND MIDNIGHT MEETING
On Monday Christie and I went out for breakfast and then went to the mall for the first time in ages. (we tend to not be mall shoppers) But we had a lot of fun and got a lot of cheap things. The mall is a bit of a strange culture. There are many hilarious people there that make me glad I'm not a teenager anymore. After the mall had tired us out I had a rehearsal but then I picked up Christie again and we eventually ended up at the airport to meet Lindsey's flight. We had this whole plan figured out where we would give Lindsey's parents a card that told her to follow balloons and then we attached a trail of balloons around the airport that lead her up the stairs to one of the last black and white photo booths that remains in the city. and one of us would be holding the last balloon sticking out of the booth. but we didn't want to sit there forever with our arm out at a 90 degree angle so I was trying to spy over the balcony so I could see when she was coming but there were a bunch of things blocking my view. And Christie was taking pictures of the balloons when she noticed a girl coming up the stairs and kind of running. She thought that she was just trying to get out of the picture but then she realized it was Lindsey and screamed NOOOOO and Christie and I jumped up and sprinted down the hallway and launched ourselves into the photo booth and jabbed out the balloon. So it didn't end up being very smooth in the end but it was still a fun memory. And we got good reunion photos...

5. AND IN RECENT NEWS....
I was at work yesterday cutting rose stems when my dad called and said that there was a message saying to call Faye at the studio and it was urgent. Faye is the co-director of my program so after I finished my roses I called her and she told me I had been offered a professional job working on a duet with a choreographer named Christina Medina. It takes place from mid October until mid November... in Austria. My airfare and accommodation is taken care of plus I get a fairly reasonable honorarium and I get to go to Austria for a month and perform in a show there. So that was overwhelming and exciting news. I had from yesterday afternoon until this morning to make my decision, but really, how do you say no to an experience like that? Made me feel a little crazy afterwards though. Rosie was worried I was going to break all the Gerber stems because I was a little spaced out and they break easily when you put those little tubes on them... But I didn't break any because I'm a good little florist.

didn't nail it...

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

nailed it for lindsey, but i don't feel i relate to any of these things, really. maybe a little bit... i think it was the question about the woods that lost me.

description of a haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday. As I don't have a camera, I cannot show you what it looks like. So this post probably isn't all that interesting... But I'll tell you some history about my haircut because I'm sure you're interested and, frankly, I have nothing better to do right now... So here is is: I was in a big dilemma for quite some time about how to cut it. For a long time I was determined it was time to chop it all off. It hasn't been cut since October and it was looking bad. But my hairdresser moved to India so I kept putting it off because I didn't know who to go to. And then the salon called me to say that my hairdresser was coming back and wanted to know if I wanted to make an appointment. And so I did. But right before my haircut, my hair started looking good again so I had second thoughts. But they got cut off anyways. It's not as short as I had thought about doing it, because as it turns out, my hairdresser is back for good (I thought she was just visiting) so now I have the option of going back to her if I want a bigger change. But I did lose a lot of hair. It doesn't look super different except for my pony tail. it's a wee little tail. just a spriglet, really.

a rather boring post summarizing a rather busy week

So... what can I tell you about this week? For my first week off, I've managed to keep myself rather occupied. I won't bother giving you all the details, as they are rather boring when listed off. it mostly involved rehearsals and trying to get my room into a liveable state again. It's been an embarassingly long time since it was last cleaned. Thursday my sister and I had a nice date involving yummy turkey wraps and buying cheap clothes. Friday night was the last senior high youth event of the year. It was pretty fun. It was called the Hot El'eventé which obviously means we stayed in a hotel for the night. We got there and hung out for a while and then went accross the street to value village for a fashion competition including a walk off in the breakfast room and then we played in the pool (which was surprisingly small) and went on the waterslide (i have a lot of bruises from that) and after the pool we went to the drive-in movie theatre and saw ocean's thirteen which didn't end until about 3:30 and we went to a salsbury house after for latenight breakfast. So we didn't get back to the hotel until closer to 5. the sun was already coming up. It made me a little stressed because I had to work at 10. But it was a fun evening the kids had a great time. and then I worked from 10-5 and had a reahearsal from 6-10. so that sucked after having 3 1/2 hours of sleep. that's not how i normally function. but today i got to sleep in. i slept like a rock for over 12 hours. it was lovely. And that's about all I have to tell you. except for this: I am in two shows this summer and I have two weddings to go to. Is it odd that they both are at exactly the same time? especially because one of the weddings is on a thursday (and I think it's going to be a super weird wedding so I'm disappointed I have to miss it). that's definately all i have to say for now.

birthday photographs

So, as you know it was Kyle's birthday this weekend. And as I think you know, his aunts and uncles happened to be in town so we had a birthday feast. Here are some pictures of it:

This is the birthday boy with his cake. (and me in my new favourite hoodie. i know it doesn't look like much, but it's soft.) Kyle likes to make unhappy faces in pictures because he thinks when he smiles it makes him look bulbous and chubby...


Something about Kyle's hair in this picture makes him look less like Kyle... In any case, Kyle's sister Tara sent him a soccer jersey all the way from Argentina. She's going to have a baby soon. An Argentinian Gaucho Boy...


This is him... and her... this picture looks different from the others because it wasn't taken at the feast. Because they weren't there. Because they're in Argentina having babies.


I have no explanation for this one... actually I do: Kyle and I were seriously tired. We can't keep up with the old folks anymore... they're wild.

Group photo minus Kyle's dad. From left to right we have Terry (Randy's brother) and his wife Jan (Darlene's sister) - they're from BC - and then Darlene and then Kyle and I ( I was being sneaky because Randy was concerned with fitting us all in the picture and I wanted to see if he noticed that he couldn't see me even though I was in the centre... he didn't... ) and then from Regina we have Lorraine (another of Darlene's sisters) and her husband Elwood (he likes ropes but hates snooze buttons).


And this final picture is of all of us after they came to see me dance. I was incredibly sweaty but they hugged me anyways because they liked the show...

a lovely disaster of a birthday

Last night Kyle and I went on a Birthday Date. It was a bit of a hectic day for me because I had a lot of shopping and things to do in preparation but I had no car so I was running around and getting shin splints most of the day trying to find the perfect presents. I ended up getting a car for about an hour and was able to get everything ready after all. And then I had a rehearsal from 4:30 - 6:00 and Kyle had a job interview at 5:45 just accross the street so we arranged to meet when we were both finished.

So we did. And as we walked to my car we noticed it had been mispaced. So then I had to make a whole bunch of phone calls to try and find it while we stood outside. A good thing about us standing outside figuring stuff out is that one of the guys who interviewed Kyle came out and asked him if he could start tomorrow (today). So Kyle is now a Bicycle Courier which is exciting and pretty much perfect for him as long as he doesn't get hit by anymore cars. So then Kyle and I went on a romatic birthday stroll to Higgens and Main to find my car in the Dr. Hook lot. There seems to be no reason why they towed it. Unless my meter broke after I parked there because I did pay for enough parking and they towed me half an hour after I got there when I paid for 2 hours... Oh well.

So when Kyle and I got home we decided to go to the Dandelion Eatery for dinner and we walked over there to find it closed. So we decided to go to Mise and it also was closed. So we ended up at Fude wich was delicious in the end and they gave us free dessert because it was Kyle's birthday. So the disasters ended there and we had a lovely evening and he loved his presents. And fortunately Kyle doesn't mind disasters. He says they just make things more memorable.

finally....

It's already been a week since my last post. This week has been hectic and full and it's finally over. Kyle and I both finished our craziness within 16 hours of eachother. Friday at 4:30 we had a showing of the piece we've been working on with Bill Evans from New Mexico. It was kind of fun, actually. We were all exhausted and didn't want to do it but we had our showing in the theatre upstairs with lights and we showed our piece and the level 1s and 2s showed their piece and Bill Evans (who I believe is in his 70s) tap danced between each piece. He was amazing. Kyle and his parents came with his aunts and uncles from out of town. It was nice to have them there. And then Saturday Kyle had his last exam of all time at 9:00 in the morning and it was his birthday yesterday too. So after his exam him and I went out for brunch at the Falafel Place and wandered the city together looking at antiques and loctite (which was particularily exciting... kyle needed it for building wheels for his bike. I bought an antique locket and a big cameo ring). It was a nice relaxing afternoon. And then we went to his parent's house for a birthday feast.

I slept in this morning and it was wonderful. I have a 4 hour rehersal this afternoon, though and I'm not super excited about that. But at least it has nothing to do with school so it'll be okay.

Other highlights of the past week include our grad dinner. One of the co-directors of our program hosts it and cooks for days before the meal. It was amazing. We had about 6 courses and all of it was fantastic Italian food. It was a nice evening. I'm going to miss all my fellow 4th years next year. We managed to bond in a special way over the past 4 years and it's sad to see us all disperse. Only 4 out of 10 of us are staying in town. Actually that's a lie. 2 more will be in town next year, but right now they're in Africa and Israel. I'm sure we'll all see eachother but it's still sad to say goodbye after spending virtually every day together for 4 years.

Other than the grad dinner my week didn't really have any highlights... It was stressful and busy and exhausting and sweaty. And I had a grant proposal due on Friday which didn't help matters at all. But I'm done! It's all done! woot!

this post does not deserve a title... it's not really about anything.

our house is cold.
my dad says the furnace is broken
i think he's trying to cool down the cat.
the cat is in heat.
she's driving me crazy.
she won't leave me alone
she sounds like she's dying.
it makes me stressed.
last night she slept with me and kept trying to lie on my face.
she was all squirmy and making her weird trumpeting noises.
she licked my nose.
this very instant she is rubbing her head between my hands as i type.
i'm counting down the days until she gets fixed
5 more sleeps

i didn't do a whole lot today. i worked. it was busy in spurts. lots of serious shoppers though, not a lot of window shoppers. then i went home and wanted to eat eggs. but we didn't have any so i went to visit christie at f&q and then i went to see a show at wcd. the guy was a really good dancer. there was lots of rice... then i came home and had eggs. i bought them at 7-11 but once i got home i realized we did have eggs all along. then i talked to christie on the phone. and now i'm going to read for a while. how's that for a wild saturday night?

the stagette

alright. well so far the camera is winning by a landslide, although it seems like my 2 voters know something i don't...

so last night after dancing all day, i went to my friend darby's stagette. it was pretty fun. we met at massawa for dinner (ethiopian food) at 5:45 (i was a little stressed about getting there on time. but as it turned out i was the 4th person of 8 to get there. i was pretty proud of myself). We had dinner and then we were picked up by a limo. darby was really excited about the limo. she was really surprised. nicole had a pretty veil for her to wear and a little sash that said 'one night only'. she looked pretty cute. she said she felt beautiful.

the limo took us to the bdi for ice cream (darby had never been there) and she had to find a guy to buy ice cream for her. there was hardly anyone there because it was pretty cold. there was an older guy there - bald with a big white moustache and i told her that he was the guy. turns out he was very sweet and bought her a hot fudge sundae. he was there with a younger couple (his daughter) who was tami's friend katie and mike (except i didn't recognize them at first... i didn't know she was pregnant. she warned darby that she got married and then look what happened...) and then we drove around and played silly games in the limo and arrived at our final destination...

the oc. formerly the beach. formerly scandals. one of the trashiest teenage barstar clubs. darby had never been to one of those, either. i was told i wasn't allowed to wear my jeans and my friend alia pulled out what she called a 'carpet skirt' which was miniature and fuzzy... so i had to wear that and we all went dancing in our little skirts with all the little made-up teenagers. more of our friends from dance joined us and we had a lot of fun. darby had a number of tasks she needed to perform at the bar and succeeded at almost all of them by the time i left. she seemed to be having a good time.

kyle was out of town and was terribly worried that i was going to see strippers for the stagette.

and now i'm at work. it's rainy and slow, which is kind of nice after my busy week. i can just sit around and read all day...

the polls are open

today is my little brother's birthday. he's 20 years old. this marks the end of teenagerdom in my household. momentus. happy birthday daniel.


on another note, i think we shall have a quick vote:

here's the situation. my grandparents generously gave me some money for my graduation. what sound i buy with it? here are my two thoughts. i'll lay them out for you and you can vote. it'll be very democratic and fair. except that i only know of 2 people who read my blog so if they vote for different things i don't know what i'll do...

option 1: i've always wished i had some kind of birthday or something in the summer because i would love to have a pretty silky summer house coat. sounds lame, i know but i love putting on my house coat in the morning and having a cup of coffee and writing in my journal or reading a book. the house coat i have now is thick and fleecy and hot and i miss the tradition in summer. especially because i typically have more time to sit around in the summer. but it's never really a priority to buy something like that for yourself, seems like you should get it as a gift. but i have no gifting occasions in summer time and october is too late. so i was thinking about getting a pretty one with my money and maybe i'd have some left over to buy this perfume i found in the states at victoria's secret when christie and i were there. we both fell in love with different perfumes and debated the whole trip about getting them but when it came down to it, it was too expensive. but i still have my little smelly card and i smell it all the time and think about asking for it for my birthday or something. so potentially i could get both. i don't have any perfume. it seems fun and lady-like.

option 2: i don't really know if i could afford it, i'd have to do some shopping around but i'd like to have a camera. just a little one that i could use and post exciting things for my 2 blog readers to see... it seems like it could be a good thing to have... for example. i have been wanting to use my blog to record different projects i'm working on - knitting things and other crafts. i knitted a sweater after christmas that i was pretty proud of and i still haven't posted a picture because i always forget to make kyle take a picture of it for me. plus i've been putting off writing a post about how we have a new cat because it seemed like i should have a picture of her on it to make it complete but, same deal. so i'd kind of like to have a camera so i can take my own pictures when i want them... (she's a nice cat, by the way.)

so there you have it. voting begins now.

kyle finally put more photos up on his flickr so i can finally add them to my posts...

today was another exhaustifying day. although fortunately i didn't have anything to do this evening so i had a nice long bath and read a cheezy francine rivers book and then sat in my housecoat and ate ice cream. and now i think i might head up to bed. i didn't sleep well last night despite my determination to go to bed early. my whole body hurts and i'm stuffed up. so i'll leave you with some pictures from my recent past. here they are:


These two are ones kyle took at our dress rehearsal. i think they're nice.


And the following two are from Mother's Day:

This is me trying to frantically finish my homework - a sweater for kyle. he was keeping me company and being my model and photographer...

And this is Solomon on the tree swing my grandpa put up at the cottage for the kids. they love it. this picture makes me excited for relaxing summer days...

exhaustified

so after one lonely yet lovely day off, i'm back at dance. and let me tell you how it went today:
9:30-11:00 class with Bill Evans from New Mexico. It was hard but fun and very sweaty.
11:00-1:00 somewhat useless performance workshop with Stephanie Ballard. we're learning a new solo for no reason in particular except to fill time.
1:00 - 1:30 eat lunch as quickly as possible without getting sick
1:30 - 2:30 body mechanics with Bill Evans. We learned about and paractised the 6 patterns of total body organization
2:30 - 5:00 rep with Bill Evans. We're learning a new piece for the show in December. It's fun but hard so far. It's very classical with lots of balancing and whatnot. Long dresses with sleeves. There's also a fairly lengthy solo part so the rehearsal almost felt a little bit like an audition too. So that was a little stressful and tiring since we were giving it our all the whole time. and the studio was hotter and humider than ever before. i don't think i've ever been so sweaty in my life as i was all day today.
5:00 - 5:30 Somehow in this time i need to go home, shower, find an black and white outfit, look fancy and lovely and get to a graduation cocktail party. Everyone else was done at 2 so they had lots of time to get ready. i ended up getting there closer to 7 and wearing a black and red outfit because in my haste to dress i stuck my foot through my black tights. red was the only other option (although to be honest, the red looked better anyways so i guess it was okay. an elderly lady told me i looked smashing as i frantically showed up at the building).
5:30 - 9:30 graduation cocktail party. Avoid getting drunk due to severe dehydration, shakiness from rushing and empty stomach.
9:30 - present whine about being tired to everyone who will listed (or read) and drink echinacea tea because my throat hurts and my nose is stuffy. I can't get sick - my schedule is the same for the next two weeks (minus the cocktail party, add another formal grad dinner and a stagette) and it's not an option to miss anything. So i might not survive if i'm not in prime form. Once I'm done whining I'm going straight to bed to finally put an end to my non-stop day. sigh. I guess I'm done whining now.

I suppose I've kept you in suspense long enough

It's been a week since my last class so it might be hard for me to remember everything, but if I have a hard time, I did take notes... So my class has always been a source of hilarity to me. It's such an ecclectic group of people and it might be hard to explain in a typed fashion but I'll try.

This week (or I guess last week) we presented Men's Wear garments that we designed, drafted and sewed. It was a very interesting look into the lives of these women and what they seemed to like in a man. I'll try to keep it down to a couple best of the best so this post doesn't go on forever.

First off we have Bonita who has the most bizarre and hilarious voice I have ever heard. Her garment wasn't particularily hilarious. She made shorts for her husband but he wouldn't try them on because he was working night shifts and wanted to sleep. What made this one funny to me was that she added no shaping at all to the shorts because she said her husband was really fat and then she announced that she split her pants. This is not nearly as funny as it should be because you can't hear her voice.

Then we have Shona, a larger girl who sleeps through every class and snores. She got her boyfriend to come in and model the little cloak she made for him. The funny part of this was that they looked exactly the same. (man. this post is not doing justice to the hilarity. I need to show you the little face they both make which I can only describe as the chubby person frown but it's hard to describe things in a way that doesn't make me feel mean or worried that people will somehow find this on the internet...) Anyways he had a long black pony tail and looked pretty sweet in his cloak.

And then there's Aline who is the overacheiver of the group. Her homework is always perfectly neat and tidy and she has this funny little nasal voice. She's super anal about everything, she kind of reminds Christie and I of Angela from the american office but smilier. She started making jokes during the class while the teacher was talking about putting a piece of fabric behind the zipper in men's pants - a fly guard. She thought it was really funny imagining what types of things might get stuck in the zipper... Which was funny to us considering her character. For the presentation she made a men's flowy, billowy, peasant blouse. One of those ones that laces up at the top. She hand braided the cord for the lace up part and put in the gromets at 2 in the morning and smashed her thumb in the process. Her pattern was perfectly laid out and she had printed out pictures of stars wearing similar tops. I think one of the pictures was of Nick Lache. And... she told us that "her guy loves it and didn't want to take it off".

One of the girls also made what she dubbed 'the mullet shirt' which a lot of the ladies thought was a hilarious name. (older people still love mullet jokes). But the shirt was actually really funny. It was a dress shirt that had a mandarin collar and a panel in the front made out of stripey dress shirt material and the rest of it was this crazy hawaiian print. It looked insane. The girl said she made it for her fiance who does a lot of performing (we didn't ask what kind) and he wears a suit jacket while he's performing so when the jacket is on, the shirt looks like a regular dress shirt but when the jacket is off, it's a party shirt for the after party... ingenious...

And perhaps the most hilarious garment of the evening came from our very own Christie Martens who sometimes has a hard time with proportions in drafting. She made a zip up sweatshirt for a very oddly sized man. It was super long and kind of wide in the body... probably about mid to lower thigh and then the arms were ultra skinny (imagine that they're tight on Christie's little arms) and long. Plus to top it off, Christie didn't have time to go shopping for fabric so she had to make it out of scraps that she had at home. So... the main part of the sweater was made out of this horrible feeling bright purple scratchy polyester material and the design of the sweater included 4 panels in the front out of contrasting fabric. So for two of these panels she used a nice mint green valour, and 1 of them was mint green and white striped cotton and the last one was the purple again except she didn't have enough fabric so she had to cut it out of the back of her sweater and replace it with more mint and white stripes. Then the cuffs on the wrist were also stripey and wider than the rest of the sleeve. It really was something to behold. It was incredibly garish and hilariously shaped. She was rather embarassed to show it but the best part was that this one lady (Shona's mom) was like "ooh. I love the colours" and Shona (see earlier paragraph if you forget who she is) woke up and started taking pictures of it with her camera phone. Once Christie was done with her presentation she went up and asked her if she could take more and took close ups and from every angle on the mannequin.

I am disappointed at how poorly the most hilarious class translates in internet blog form. If you didn't find it funny, I can fill in details in person to accentuate the experience. I am also disappointed that I can't seem to think of another word for hilarious and it is thus overused in this post.

On another note, and to make this post as long as possible, last night was my last show. I am now a graduate of the Senior Professionaly program of the School of Contemporary Dancers. Even though I'll still be there next year, I have a certificate and a rose to prove it. Our last show was... memorable. There were some collisions and tripping and I did a somersaulty thing and popped the big hair clip that was holding my french roll in place and then had to dance very stiffly to try to avoid the inevitable avalanche. Close to the end of the piece the clip fell out altogether and I said to my partner 'oh no, my hair' and then she lifted me and when she put me down I very smoothly picked up the barette so no one would step on it and danced the rest of the piece with it in my hand. And then at the very end I keep having to grab hands with my partner and it was the one holding the clip and I lost it. My hair was everywhere and I couldn't stop laughing. I ended in a nice high release and I was visibly shaking with laughter. And that's how we closed our last show in the program.

prologue

last class completed
hilarious post to follow

the end is near

Tonight is my last class at the U of M for the year (my apparel design program). And after staying up until 1:00 last night sewing a men's wear garment, I'm excited to see the end. I'm excited this past couple weeks are over altogether, actually. It's been such a scramble to get everything done and to get from one place to the next. I haven't had a free evening in quite some time...

The most redeeming part of last week was that, since Christie and I had failed to complete our homework for our class, we decided as we pulled in to the parking lot at U of M that we had better things to do. So we left and had mini-cupcakes and milk in tea cups (we just happened to have them along) by the river. It was lovely. Other than that my week was a whirlwind of working and rehearsals and performances and sad family news and mother's day events and getting stabbed by fern thorns (by the way, taping a penny over a fern wound to extract the thorn does not work...)

And this week it's finally show week. It's always such a scramble leading up to performances and you're always wondering if you're ready and what not and when it comes it's almost a relief to perform. It brings a whole new enjoyment and passion to dancing that always surprises me a little bit. There's nothing quite like creating a new world on stage and living in it for a few short minutes. Even after all the stressful weeks and months of rehearsals (it's almost depressing to think of how many hours we spend preparing for a show), it feels fresh and exciting and fun. So on that cheesy note, you should all come to our show. Unless you find yourself a quarter to half way accross the world... then you don't have to.

scholarly celebrations and one long website address

i don't really have a lot to report but thought it was probably time i reported something. my life has been a lot of the same. dance is busy, our show opens 3 weeks today and i think this caught a number of people by surprise so now all of a sudden the rehearsal schedule has been turbo-charged. and my apparel design class is still going strong. we have 3 weeks left of that too. last week we had to design and create some kind of children's wear garment. i made a little pink quilted vest with hearts on it and a hood. it was pretty cute actually. i liked it. it's a shame i don't know how to do nice finishing things, cuz it looks nice on the outside but it looks like a trainwreck on the inside... weird things are happening in this post. for some reason the pictures are different sizes and all of a sudden my text is blue and underlined. like one big website address... hmm. i'm choosing to ignore it. speaking of sewing that little love vest, I was a busy little bee this weekend. Friday night we had a youth event. it was an iron chef event and it was pretty fun. It was made much more fun by my nephew lending me his spiderman apron and chef's hat. so even though our food didn't taste very good, i at least looked the part.

saturday (ooh the blue is gone) i worked at the flower shop. i actually really enjoyed it. I was given complete creative freedom to make foam arrangements (where the flowers are stuck in the foam block, not arranging foam). I was happy with the way they turned out and my boss seemed pretty impressed. I would have liked to have taken pictures of them but, alas, i have no camera. anyways, i worked until 5 and then kyle and his parents picked me up and i had to fancy it up in a hurry for kyle's grad dinner at prov which started at 6. we were cutting it a little close. the dinner was goodish. the food was good but the atmosphere was crappy. it was in their gym and they didn't decorate it at all and the food was cafeteria style and the speeches were bad. kyle and i kind of went into it expecting it to be lame and it was, but we also realized it was actually a pretty significant weekend in his life and we were glad to celebrate it, even if the event was poorly planned... here we are: (we kept getting in trouble for ruining the grad photos. this is one of the better ones...)

after the dinner we went out for gelato. i had raspberry and passionfruit sorbeto after much deliberation. why is it that little decisions (like what kind of gelati to have) are the hardest ones to make? i had to test out a number of kinds before i settled. (and by settled i mean i pulled one of my usual tricks... i made the person working there decide for me - lindsey, you're familiar with this trick...) but in any case, it was delicious. and big. (note: i did not wear this big blue thing to the grad... i was cold. i'm wearing kyle's jogger)
Kyle got presents. He got a watch from his parents and money to buy new rims for his bycicle (woot). and he got an argentinian soccerball from his sister who's in argentina. he was pumped.

after the grad dinner and gelato excursion, we had to go way out to charleswood for my dance social. which was a hoot. which means it wasn't really and we only stayed for 20 minutes to see if we won any of the prizes. we didn't.

and then there was sunday, which saw us at the providence college convocation. it was also long and boring. and many people complained that it was hot. but i thought it was nice... look at kyle in his funny suit. the hood was the funniest part. although there were some other outfits that were much funnier. all the faculty were wearing different mideval suits. it entertained me.

hooray for graduating.

indelible strength top-coat

it's a beautiful sunny day today. the first really warm day we've had this year. so warm, in fact, that i wore open toed shoes to work this morning, which in itself was exciting, although i had to say goodbye to an old friend of mine. On January 13th, Lindsey and I went to get pedicures before she left for the Phillipines. We got to sit in massage chairs and they did cheesy little designs on our toes. This isn't all that exciting, really, except that the little vietnemese women had a pedicure secret weapon. they have super powered nail polish. The design and the polish was still perfectly intact on my toes this morning except that they were half grown out so the top of the design has been cut away. i realize this sounds disgusting. but i was impressed. especially because i'm really hard on my feet. i've never had a pedicure that doesn't chip away within a week. i don't just sit around all day wearing shoes and socks. i'm always bare foot and jumping and sliding around which makes it almost futile to paint your toenails. so i was kind of wanting to see how long this pedicure would last. but sandals were more important to me this morning so that's the end of my little experiment. but i should note that it took me a very long time and a lot of cotton balls to get the little buggers off my toes...

a brief synopsis of my week

nothing new to report really... let's think...

monday i had my class. it's a good idea to design a raincoat with no seams on the shoulders to prevent rain from seeping in.

tuesday kyle and i went on a coffee date. we've never been on a coffee date before. it was fun. i even got a present. he bought me lullabies for little criminals by heather o'neill. i think i would use the word bittersweet to describe this book. it's about a little girl who ends up more or less a street person in montreal. it's sad but not crying sad and beautiful too... it's really well done... that was a poor description of the book, but in all fairness, i haven't finished it yet so i can't be expected to have all my thoughts figured out just yet.

wednesday i drove kyle out to a little school off talbot because he's filming a promotional video for samson's (part of YFC). i ended up staying there with him which was kind of hilarious. he was filming a jr high girls volleyball recreational league game and everyone seemed to be getting flustered by his being there... including kyle. i don't think the girls realized his microphone is much better at hearing things than normal human ears and they kept saying stuff like 'do my legs look fat?' to which another girl would reply 'i don't know, why don't you ask him' and then they'd giggle and keep staring at kyle. it was fun to watch. kyle was all uncomfortable and flustered and cute and the girls were all goofy and giggly but trying to be cool and good at volleyball at the same time. everytime they screwed up they would be like oh no i hope he didn't see that. or ugh of course i screwed up when he was looking. it made me laugh...

and last night i worked. it was slow. my boss at the flower shop bought the cute trenchcoat i liked. so that was a little sad but for the best since i can't afford it anyways.

and tonight kyle and i are going to see a dance show. and my brother's coming home from thailand 75 days earlier than planned. turns out solo traveling is not his cup of tea. he misses his friends and family so it'll be good for him to be home.

and this is the bay. i've included this picture for no reason other than i like it and thought my post needed a picture. kyle took it when we went to the cannes liones at the art gallery with his parents. it's pretty.


and that's that...

I've been informed that it's time for a new post

So. To summarize my last two weeks or post-free activity, last week was spring break which was lovely but, as always, too short. Christie and I had a homework and laundry slumber party, which is slightly less fun than normal slumber parties but slightly more fun than laundry and homework on their own. And on monday night we had our class and on Tuesday morning Kyle and I hit the road for the good old city of Saskatoon. I knitted the whole way and we listened to a lot of radio shows that Kyle had downloaded for the trip. It was a nice little journey. We got there on Tuesday night and met up with Kyle's cousins Erik and Yuriko. Had dinner, went to a movie. This is their place and them (sorry, the picture's a little dark on my computer):


And this is their rather energetic dog Chaco. She tried to eat my slippers. And Kyle's hand. She looks like a bat in this picture but she usually looks like a chocolate lab.


Some highlights of our trip included the zoo (ducks are more fun to watch than you'd initially think, and swans are huge),

the Great Lake Swimmers concert (we were excited about this because we were disappointed about missing them in Winnipeg because we'd be in Saskatoon, but the funny thing about bands on tour is that they play in more than one city, and it just so happened that after Winnipeg, they went to Saskatoon. They were amazing. We love them now more than ever. Especially because they now have a song about modern dancers),

Tim Tam Slams (which is an incredibly delicious snack involving hot chocolate or coffee, and Tim Tams - a variety of australian (i think) cookie. So good. Can you put brackets inside other brackets?)

and the art gallery, which had a really neat exibit called containment and a conservatory in which we saw these crazy looking tulipy flowers. I liked them.


On the way home we stopped in a miniscule town and met my sister and her family at the Chicken Chef (mmm) for lunch. She was on her way to Midale, Saskatchewan to visit her birth father and his family. This is Solomon. I think it might be my fault he crosses his eyes all the time. Jack has learned all my tongue tricks and Solomon is on his way to having active eyeballs like his aunt...


On the way home we also saw this weird UFO-like light in the sky. We have no idea what it is but Kyle had to stop and take a bunch of pictures of it.


And since we've been home, I started dance again. It's been nice because we started off easy. I've been done early all week. Although I realized that we only have 5 weeks left until our show and we've hardly done any work on our piece so I'm anticipating a sudden stressfull push to get everything done in the next little while.

And I have a new job. I still work at Poppie every Thursday night and every other Saturday but now I also work at the little flower shop next door to Poppie on the alternating Saturdays. So that's fun. I had my first day today and had to make arrangements and corsages and I even got to take home some orchids that are beautiful but are getting a little too old to sell. So it's a fun little job and I think it'll work out well because both places are small and can't afford to give out a lot of hours so they get to share me and I get to work more consistently and try to pay off my visa after christie's birthday pilgramage.

And yesterday we went to church for good friday and then Kyle's great aunt took us out to the Royal Fork buffet to celebrate her 90th birthday. She loves birthdays. She had a big birthday helium balloon tied to her walker so everyone could see it and would stop to wish her happy birthday all through our lunch.

And tonight we're having dinner with Kyle's parents... for which I am late...

And tomorrow I think we're going to go out to my cottage to see my grandparents who just got home from texas and have a little easter fiesta.

And i think now we're all caught up on my various activities...
my posts always end up being way longer than i mean for them to be. i'm sorry if they're really boring to read...