Tuesday, March 24, 2009

3rd leg

Almost three weeks since my last post.
It has been rather exciting I must say. We head to Labrador in about 6 days.

After all this time its hard to believe that the last leg of this adventure has already come.
My last day of work was on Thursday, nothing too exciting, I just sat around all day.
We had an open house, lots of people came which is a surprise for a katimavik house.

Felixe and myself are House managers this week. Its pretty chill, we have alot of cleaning to do so we can leave it in good order for the next group coming in. We also presented to the CEGEP today. It was a class of 60 kids whom were very attentive but didnt ask any questions. Sort of a bummer sometimes. Our last presentation went a little better then this one. But it was only have the people and entirely in French.

My coloring book has recently had more success. It has been chosen to be showcased on 3 of the websites for the 2010 olympics! I was really happy when I heard this news. It means that my book will eventually be promoted internationally.

Mother sent me a package today containing: a new pair of jeans, her old mp3 player with my brothers music, my favorite book THE LORAX, a bottle of tylenol, deodarant, body wash, gum, reese pieces and an earth that grows in water. I was very i mpressed with the gifts! thanks mom.

off to labrador maybe talk soon

Thursday, March 5, 2009

winding down

Well its been a long time since I have written here. I really dislike how i dont really get the time to write a blog entry lately. So last week I was laying in my bed and thoughts and ideas were just cruising through my mind so I had to write them all down. Basically it was all stuff that Ive done in the past couple of weeks that i dont want to forget.

So this list I have is pretty random I guess the best way i can record them is explain about each.
Well we are suppose to do a volunteer activity as a group every monday morning. That hasnt really happened much except for the one time when we all went to a hostel and cleaned it with the creepiest guy ever. Not sure if he was all there. The week before billetting (I'll get to that) we were to each draw a name from a hat. A name of one of the other house....people? Anyways our duty was to treat this person nicely for the next week. It was a fun little event. Breakfast's and lunches were made for eachother. poems were written etc. Somebody went even as far as to purchase a fish for her special friend! All in all it was an ...interesting.. week.

OoO. While i was house manager with Andrew we did some crazy different things at dinner time. We made people eat with random utensils. like a whisk. It was fun. We had a "anything but clothes" party. and on the Saturday it was Valentines Day so we had a formal dinner. table cloth, candles, chicken, WINE....jk no wine, that would be against Katimavik rules. BUT we had fun which is all that matters. And since we were all so excited from this evening we had our french lesson from the francophones which went pretty well and after we had a foosball tournament organized by Jonathan. I came in second place. Veronique defeated me, yet again. But for the record I HAVE beaten her TWICE!!

My coloring book was sent to me last week sometime but i finally recieved it on tuesday. I was so excited to finally see the final copy. There was a few things changed from when i last saw it. But they were changed for the better. I handed one out to everyone is my house and my mom recieved a bunch at home. Maybe I will have to color it one day. Back In BC i guess big things are happening with the book. For national volunteer week they using the inspiration of the day for their theme "Colour Your Community" is the theme, which is also the title of the book. They plan to have a huge chalk festival. Im really excited to see how it turns out.

Alright and now for billetting. It ended last Sunday where I was pretty excited to get home. The family that was chosen to host my were from a town called St. Gerard just outside of Shawi on a farm. Dominique and Pierre were really nice people and they had a crazy old house. The house included an indoor pool, which i didnt swim in, and the heating was supplied by a huge stove outside which had to be fed every couple of hours. At times the house was freezing. The first weekend they took me skiing which was pretty cool, as well, the family of Pierre has alot of pilots so I was able to go in a little plane to check out the area. I also visited the church where their son Laurent was attending a religion class. Their children are also involved with Scouts so i watched some sort of ceremony. It was their oldest sons birthday on the weekend. Yacinthe was turning 17. I cooked a few pizzas for the occasion. It was interesting trying to communicate in half french half english. I also helped cook a few other meals throughout the week.
Other activites we did included travelling to trois riviere to have an interview. Where i saw a guy that had given us a workshop in the past. I found it strange. We visited their friends who own a dairy farm. Dominique took me to a local micro-brewery called la troududiable. which means the Devils Hole. They had really good beer. We also visited Dominiques high school where they had put together a fantastic show of all of their local talent. I was impressed even though I didnt know what was going on half the time. But it was cool! Over all I give my billeting experience a 5/8. maybe a few extra points for getting out of the house.

So i only have 6 more days of work left here in Quebec!!! Because i have today off of work and I have two weeks of house manager before the end of this trimester. In between my house manager tasks I am working for 5 days. Its coming really quick. Next week I have a presentation to give at CEGEP along side Jon and Vero. So i will have to prepare that today.
Thats just about everything I have to report.

You may hear from me again soon.