OK, my turn

Hey guys. I really don't have much of an excuse for not posting. I'm usually dead tired by the end of the day and go straight to bed to watch sports highlights instead of the compy. But I start camp tomorrow and I know I'll be even more prone to sleeping when I get home so I figure I better post something. So here it is...

I don't get it...my days are filled with doing random things and yet I feel I have no stories to tell. It seems you are all doing pretty well with the whole getting your life started thing. I'm kinda stagnant right now, but that's fine. Actually, I have a really big decision to make right now: I think I'm going to work this year before going back to graduate. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I have my reasons. The most important reason is that I need to go and speak with a therapist or some sort of specialist to help me deal with this intense anxiety I've been feeling for about the past year and a half. I don't want to make this too upsetting of a post so I won't get too into this, but I really have been battling a lot of inner crap for a long time and it's hindered any chance I have at being successful in school. That's the most concise way I can word it. I contacted someone today and I'm going to have an appointment in the near future. I'll be fine eventually, but right now my head is not where it should be! The silver lining of the cloud is that it gives me a chance to work for the year and save up nearly every penny to finance my trip to England when I finish school where I'll want to work and live for at least a year. Adam works for a company called Softchoice (electronics distributor) and they're hiring people for the year at a nice salary which would easily get me to England.

Anyhoo, I know I haven't provided much detail, but I really have a hard time talking about this stuff so I'm going to move onto other fun topics now!

I have spent the past couple of weeks fixing up a lot of stuff around the house: painting, plastering, sawing, moving boxes, digging up areas of the garden, organizing the basement, taking apart the kitchen...I think that's all. Someone is coming in tomorrow to take apart the rest of our kitchen, then someone is digging up our floor, then someone is taking out the radiator. This will leave us with no sink, no floor, and pretty much nowhere to cook! Luckily pre-camp starts tomorrow and they feed us. We still don't have a shower, but that should be fixed soon...although that's what my mom said ages ago. Basically, our house looks worse than when you were here a couple of months ago. Wow, it's almost been two months.

Otherwise, I have spent a lot of time with my friends. We went to see a two-man band called the Sunparlour Players at a little bar in the Annex. Played by two men, there is a combination of a bass guitar, two bass drums, a glokenspiel, tambourine, cowbell, banjo, acoustic guitar, cymbal, drum, another silver guitar, and I'm sure one or two more instruments. The bass guitar player plays with one arm/hand while druming and singing and pounding on the foot-pedal attatched to the bass drum. They sound like Arcade Fire, only it's two people instead of a dozen. Very cool sound.

Nothing much to report on the women front. I've taken quite the shine for one of my friends named Sarah, but our group dynamics are so strong and we all joke around with each other that I'm worried of ruining something that's so good. She even requested that we watch Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. That pretty much seals it for me :) Apart from that, nothin' a doin'.

My sister is getting married in just over two months now and everything is starting to come together. I was fitted for my tux last week and received my invitation yesterday. That's right, my sister sent me an invitation :) She does things right by the book. I'm so excited for her to get married. Her and Jonathan are the coolest couple who have pretty much the exact same taste in everything as me. Many of my relatives from England are making the trip here, which adds so much more to the wedding. I love walking around Toronto with people who have never been or haven't been for a while.

That's about all. Considering everyone is posting pictures, I'm going to leave you with some silly pics of me and my friends because I don't think any of you have seen what kind of people I hang out with. Enjoy!

Hmmm...I can't post any pictures right now. That's odd. I will next time.

Dave

Just a few pics from EER

I was only able upload a few pictures from my camera. Something about me not having the right cable and only a few on the memory card, I don't know. So, I have others, but you'll have to wait to see them. Anywho, here's some:

This is the Hilton on the left . Too many hours were spent in there. That's my supervisor, Christina, walking out. And you can see the outhouse on the right. This was taken from where my tent was.

Ahhhh, it's a giant laughing gull attacking a sailboat!!! Well, not really, but I think it looks like that. You can just barely see Pemaquid Neck on the horizon.


Home sweet home, gulls and all. This is where they would sit at 4:30 in the morning creating a racket and pooping all over it. You can see an observation blind in the background and another island just beyond it.


A tide pool, near where we would go to get sample water to measure the sea surface temperature. Never saw more than tiny shrimp.

A sweet little thing called beach pea. I couldn't help myself from grabbing a pic of it in the morning sun.

And finally, the black guillemot. Look at those feet! Who couldn't love a clumsy little foot high bird with bright reddish orange feet? And when they open their mouth, the inside is the same color! I'm smitten.

So, there's a brief overview of what I saw out at Eastern Egg Rock. Ironically, all of my pictures of puffins are unavailable at the moment, so like I said before, you're gonna have to wait. But, it's also fitting that I would have a picture of a guillemot, because June 27 is Guillemot Appreciation Day! Horray!

The poofers and guilleys stole my heart

Okay, so here I am, finally. It turns out that my consistant roomie and fellow education intern, Mila, has a laptop and graciously allowed me to use it. Our connection is decent enough, it's just the computer available for us is at least 9-years-old and can't handle it. Now, I haven't had a chance to download any pictures from my camera, but once I do, I will make sure you all can have a look-see. In the meantime, I will use pics from the internet.

So, from the beginning, which was a lot longer ago than I think it should be, I drove to St. Cat's and hung out with Manda, Nick, and the kitties for a couple days. It was unbelievably hot, but worth every minute. Manda outdid herself and gave me my birthday present of(Remi, take note) the dvd set of The Life of Mammals. And in order to do it up right, we smoked a little and watched the herbivores episode. OMG, I have never been so into animals. I am now convinced that they have attitudes and feelings just like us. Either that, or they did some damn fine editing. Manda also got me onto Facebook, which I think the rest of you should join the cool kids too and create another thing for you to forget to update.

From there, I drove to Boston and stayed with a friend of mine from high school and her boyfriend. I got lost on the way in to town and it took about a half hour to get to where I was supposed to be. We did a whirlwind walking tour of Beantown and saw a good portion of the historical highlights. It wasn't really what I expected it to be. It had a more small-townish appeal to it than I ever would have imagined. I really liked it and would recommend visiting it if you ever get the chance. The area that they live in is so typical Boston: the brick, 5-story buildings split into apartments. Anyway, I was impressed. And we ate in Cambridge and I saw Hahvahd and MIT. Not that special, but the restaurants were good. For you Dave, I want to mention that we passed some people that were sitting in front of an appliance store with a TV in the window and speakers under the awning watching, what else, the Red Sox game. Even a cruiser was pulled up and the cops were out watching it. Yeah, that's Boston.

From there, I drove the 3 or so hours up to Maine, stopping at LL Bean, wiping out my birthday certificate from Sue in one expensive raincoat, but it was very much appreciated. I plan on going back soon, since I was only there for an hour. And really, Freeport is just a bunch of outlet malls, so obviously, more time has to be spent there. Then I fairly easily found my way to the Audubon base camp. It's right on the water in Muscongus Bay. I actually spent the first few nights on Hog Island, just a 1/4 mile across the water, where an Audubon camp has been for the past 70 years. People like Roger Tory Peterson have been there, so it was kind of awe-inspiring. We spent the first few days doing orientation-type stuff and getting to know everyone. Then the rain came. Our departure to the islands was delayed a day, but we were able to get out on a day without too much rain or wind. I went to Eastern Egg Rock. It's a 7 acre island with a cabin for cooking and relaxing, a composting outhouse which really wasn't too bad once you got used to it and realized that nothing was going to bite you in the ass when you sat down, and wooden platforms for our tents. Better than some of the other islands. But what we have is made up for the silence that we lacked. It is freakin' noisy all the time, cause the birds live right next to your tent and do not shut up at any time of day. It's really the laughing gulls that do it all. They are loud and obnoxious and like to sit on top your tent at 4:30am reestablishing their territory with a racket that makes you want to kick them. And horny! I have never seen an animal get it on as much as those gulls. Anyway, I'm glad I had a cd player with me.

It rained most of the first week we were out there and we really couldn't do much of anything because of that. I read a lot (thank you Sarah and Remi for A Primate's Memoir - laugh out loud funny), drank a lot of tea, and slept. When it finally stopped raining, we were able to do some research. We would spend 3 hours out in the blind, either watching puffins or terns and snacking a lot. It was amazing how close the birds would get. And I'm totally in love with just about all of them now. Especially the puffins, guillemots, and cormorants. The puffins, obviously, the guillemots because they are so clumsy and make these high pitched squealing noises, and the cormorants because they are so ugly. So, I got really dirty and didn't bathe for over two weeks except for a babywipe bath. A lot of my clothes had bird shit all over them. And I'm kinda sad I had to leave. Yeah, really. But, I also appreciate my position now, because I don't have to wait to shower or only eat beans when the supplies are low.

So, I'm now living at what's called the VCA. I've spent a few days working at the Visitor Center in Rockland and tomorrow will go out on my first puffin cruise. The weather has been beautiful of late and I've enjoyed driving around seeing new places and meeting new people. I'm still waiting to do some serious hiking, but really just about everywhere I go is picturesque. So, I think I've written my piece for now. I'm hungry and am going to make dinner. Stay tuned for more updates and pictures to come. And even though I'm having a pretty great time, I still miss all of you. Latah.

HOLY CRAP

Blog people!! Where the H is everyone?? This is a short two-liner or so to let everyone know that I got an interview at UBC for pharmacy. It's going to be the last week of June sometime. I'll keep you posted :)

sarah

More fun at Jack Point

Sarah forgot to point out that I (nearly) fatally wounded myself at Jack Point on Monday. Luckilly, She took pictures of the whole event for posterity. I'll let you piece the story together with the pictured. By the way, I still hurt.






Testing
























Trying


















Fallen!

It's time for a beam sale!

So, there's not much new to speak of out here. I'm sick *cough*sniffle*honk(blowing my nose)*repeat*. It's awful. Remi's fault. And I'm starting to FREAK out about pharmacy. I should hear next week at the latest about an interview for UBC and the last week of June about U of T, so the waiting game is on. Unfortunately, however, my back-up plan is a wash because I am not in the Nutrition college at UBC and therefore am not eligible for any of the courses for the Dietetics program. *shoot me*

In other news, we're going camping this weekend!! Remi is thrilled because it: (a) is near a beach, and (b) invovles hiking (we've booked a site for Friday night and then will be hiking to our next destination for Saturday night's camp. Ooh, and (c) we have to cross a suspension bridge. (pictures to come)

Here's where we'll be camping (China Beach):
















And here's a cool picture of me from last night's trip to Jack Point:


Bye for now :)

Breaking the silence

I saw a tumbleweed roll by my screen when I visited the blog tonight, so I figured it was a sign that I should post something.

What's new in my life...well, maybe I'll make a list of things and then write a blurb about each one.

1. Pearl Jam
2. My house
3. My job as a nark
4. My job as a.....snark......
5. The Blue Jays
6. X-Men 3
7. The Da Vinci Code movie
8. 2 minute rice
9. The weather and the lack of air conditioning
10. Music
11. Alfred Hitchcock
12. Assorted matters

It took me about ten minutes to think of 'assorted matters' because I really can't think of what else is going on in my life.

1. I went to two Pearl Jam shows at the beginning of May (9th and 10th). I bought their new album a week earlier and listened to it about fifteen times in seven days. I've listened to it at least 20+ times since then...a few songs I've listened to a good 30 times. Such a great album. Nothing spectacular, but just solid music the whole way through. They took sounds from each of their albums and incorporated them throughout the album. Anyhoo, the two shows were fantastic, although the second night was much better. They played a song called State of Love and Trust (my all-time second favourite song...yeah, I have lists for everything) and, when I realized what they were playing, I absolutely flipped out and totally rocked out for the full four minutes. I've always wanted to hear Breath (my favourite song), but they didn't play it and haven't at all this tour. SOLATrust is from the same soundtrack as Breath so at least I got a fix of that album. I was sitting next to a woman who must have been in her fifties and she was dancing along to all of the songs and has clearly been a PJ fan since 1992. It was pretty cool to see something that age get so into the songs. When they played Black I could see her kind of tilt her head back, close her eyes, and sing along. Good stuff. I'm sure she wasn't to pleased with me singing at the top of my lungs for the whole 2+ hours! The merchandise kicked ass, but the prices did not. $88 for a hooded sweater that was actually the coolest sweater I have laid eyes on. In conclusion, Pearl Jam has been rocking my ears for just over a month.

2. Holy crap there's so much work still to be done on my house. I've been rearranging rooms multiple times, unpacking boxes, moving boxes, throwing out boxes, dropping boxes, gardening, and moving boxes. Our bathroom should be finished by the end of the week; our kitchen should be done by August; and the front of our house should be done within a month or so. I'm going to stop there because just thinking about what needs to be done is getting my flustered.

3. My job as a nark...so basically I've been following a guy named Mark around his office and marking down everything he does with a palm pilot. Picture those 'Hands in my pocket' ads and that's me, only replace 'Hands in my pocket' with 'Dave with a palm pilot'. If you haven't seen those ads, just laugh anyway...it's funny. Mark works for a company (TCCAC) who provides services and placements for people who have been discharged from hospital and need services (walkers, nurses, therapy, special baths, etc.) or people who need placement in nursing/retirement homes. Mark assesses the clients at their houses and then decides if they qualify for what they request. Some of the client's we visited had the saddest stories and some were in high spirits. It makes for a very bi-polar day. I don't know how Mark handles talking to some of these people. I'm talking about very very sick, elderly people who are just down in the dumps. Anyhoo, the purpose of my job is to mark down the length of every process: how long it takes to download client info, walk to get their chart, walk back, make notes, fill out the necessary forms, and email the info to the assistant. Tedious job, but it pays and that's all that matters. Camp starts in 24 days :) Oh, funny side-note...I listen to music on random and when I got off the subway to go to work, Don't Stop Believing by Journey began the moment my foot hit the ground...if you can hear the beginning of that song in your head you can see how it would sound funny while walking. At least I found it freaking funny.

4. Snark isn't even a word.

5. The Blue Jays...even though we lost today, they keep me very happy. I f'n love this team. That's all I'll say.

6. X-Men 3: WTF'nF?! (spoilers follow so don't read if you're going to see the movie) There was no point to this movie other than to bring Beast to the big screen and to show Magneto start to regain his powers at the end so they can make a Magneto movie. The best part of the night was when Adam and I saw Natalie Portman at the Chapters next to the theatre and followed her up two escalators so we could be in her presence :) Stalkers 'R Us.

...I took a long break to play cards with my mom and now I am le tired so I'll finish this up tomorrow.

Dave