Photo of the Week: Sky Bound

This picture was taken a few weeks ago (i.e when I still had hair) but I feel it is epic enough to make it my photo of the week. I am sorry I don't have more time to write some stuff, but a more substantial post is on the way!

Chicken Hearts, Facial Hair and Taylor Lautner...

What do those three things have in common? Well they are all subjects in this weeks video blog! What is this blog post be about then? Even I can't fully answer that question! It was extremely late (I was tired) and I tried to do a video blog. I am putting this up against my better judgement. I am doing this because I don't want all my "hard work" go to waste, so please be nice and don't make too much fun of me...

13 Audition

I have decided to audition of the musical 13 which is being presented by the Noisy Mime theatre company. The quality is not the best but it gets the main point across. The song is from the musical.



...I will come back on later tonight and write some commentary about this blog but I must go make supper so it has to wait for now.

Rase-a-Thon

A long long time ago B.K (before Katimavik), I once asked my friend Erika SchramWOWsky about what my coolest attribute was. I don't even know if she remembers this conversation but the answer she gave me was one I wouldn't forget! She told me that it was my hair which made me who I was and said it was always perfectly placed. Hair is something so materialistic and shallow that it couldn't be what made me cool, does no one care about my caring personality, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made.

I had friends in High School but it wasn't until near the end of grade 10 that my real social life actually started. What was the drastic change that gave me more self confidence to actually make friends and then hang out with them. Well it could have been the years of therapy I went through to feel more empowered about who I am but it is probably more accurate to say that the change coincided when I started to get decent hair cuts instead of the dreaded buzz or bowl cut I got from my lovely mother. There is nothing wrong with getting a family member of friend to cut your hair, infact in Katimavik it is an common occurrence. It is easier on the pocket book and it can even be a good bonding experience for both people. High School is a different world however where looks mean everything. People will judge you in an instant and dismiss you like last years fashion if you are not on your game. When I started getting nice haircuts I all of a sudden didn't feel like people were watching or judging me so I was way more free to just be myself. It may be stupid and petty reasoning but sometimes it is the little things that make the difference.

Anyways let us fast forward to present time. I like to think the hair plays an important role in who I am. I mean I have dyed it twice in the last six months and once again I have changed my look. This time however I decided to completely shave of all my hair. My Katimavik group went to go volunteer at a head shaving fundraiser for cancer. Ten years ago Marie-Helene Cote started this fundraiser with the help of her friends and family. At the time she was battling cancer and she was only in her late teens. She wanted to raise money for people in her situation to get an opportunity to travel and visit remote and beautiful places in the world. A physical experience to motivate individuals battling cancer and give them the extra boost they need in life. Marie-Helene herself went to Kenya with the foundation "On the Tip of the Toes" and got to climb one of the tallest mountains in the region. Marie-Helene unfortunately passed away the following year but her memory lives on. The "Rase-a-thon" has now raised over 1 million dollars for the foundation which has brought numerous smiles to individuals and families navigating through troubling times. It was a no brainer to shed my materialistic guard and help out for a good cause.



...I may have potentially just ruined the one thing that made me decently cool in my life, but hair will grow back and I might find the whole egg head look kind of cool....

A Week of Sand Castles and House Forts

In my last blog post I wrote about the fact that we had no internet due since we were downloading way too much and we had hit our limit. I found it way more time consuming trying to run around the house and find a wireless signal, so I let bygones and bygones and I just waited until May 1st to get back to blog writing. If I was thinking ahead I would have just written something in a Word document and just stored it until I could post it but that would have been to logical. Either way I am here on a Saturday morning, listening to Adam Lambert play on iTunes, trying to figure out what to write about.

It has been a great so far in Alma. I haven't even been here for two weeks but I have already found my groove and feel extremely comfortable here in Quebec. I work at an elementary school called École Maria where I am basically a teachers assistant helping out where I am needed, which so far have been in the music and art classes. Speaking in French has actually been working out fairly well. I find the younger the kids are the more brutally honest they are especially about my grammatical mistakes. There was even this one kid in grade one who inquired if all xylophones spoke French like me. I could not help but smile thinking, sure I can't say "seahorse" in French but at least I know the difference between a language and an instrument.

The warmer weather is coming and I am pretty sure my whole group is excited about the change in temperature. I even ran home from work the other day in shorts (well spandex) and a T-shirt and I wasn't even cold. The school is 15.2 kilometers away but the run along the river is well worth it. Our group is has already gone to the beach twice where we have built sand castles, found treasure and buried me and fellow Katimaviker Anthony in massive sand holes. I know it is only May first but if we think summery thoughts maybe it will come sooner.

Anyways my we are heading into Chicoutimi, home of our former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (I think), today for a fun filled day of museums and and glass blowing demonstration so I better go and get ready. I am quite content to be here right now (but miss everyone very much) I am going to make the most of my time here since my whole Katimavik adventure will come to end in two months and I will never get an experience quite like this ever again.

P.S Shoshana, Fred, Émilie and me turned our common room into a giant fort made of cushions, couches and blankets!...that was kinda fly. (I realized it was in my title so I had to write about.)



Fred, Andréanne and Shoshana at the beach :)



My head...



We started digging when we found the start of a chain...and it kept going!!!

The Myspace Effect

First of all I need to apologize for not posting a video blog this week but we had some technical difficulties. I now have my laptop, thanks to a my aunts in Guelph and I was ready to start blogging but unfortunately in my first week here our group maxed out are downloading capacity that our internet provider (damn you BELL) allows. People were playing too may games and watching too many films so our internet has been cut until the first of May. Thus I find myself in Jessica's and Shoshana's room on the right side of the couch (because the signal is weaker on the left side) trying to steal an wireless internet connection from our neighbor. A video blog is in the works and will be up shortly.

Anyways onto the picture of the week. On Thursday our house managers decided to have a theme dinner. I suggested (half jokingly) that we have a tribal dinner and the idea stuck. Shoshana and Fred decorated our eating room with snakes, trees and a colorful jungle-esque background. Our job was to come up with our costumes. My costume consisted of body paint,sting, home made paper and saran wrap.....that is all! I couldn't just pick one picture so I selected a few for this weeks viewing. Enjoy :)



This was the centerpiece to our madness!



Group shot one (Not everyone was in the picture...or looking the right way)



Group shot two! The whole gang in action!



If you were wondering why I called this blog the Myspace effect well I feel that pictures become more epic if they are take from an above angle....even if it means one can see my extremely skinny arms, random air vent and our bathroom floor that desperately needs some attention...

P.S Today is our 200th day in the program! I made a Chocolate cake with my Project Leadr Émilie...it was kinda special!

Chip & Dale

C'est la première fois que j'essaie d'écrire un blog en français donc soyez patients. Si vous ne pouvez pas comprendre.........APPRENEZ COMMENT LIRE LE FRANÇAIS. Néanmoins, aujourd'hui j'ai envie de parler d’une famille qui est proche de notre cœur, ici dans notre maison Katimavik. À Vanderhoof, nous avons rencontré Denver. Sans parents et tout seul, nous l’avons accepté dans notre maison et nos vies comme un membre de notre famille. Nous ne l’avons pas jugé quand il nous avons dit qu'il était asexuel ni quand ses deux pères sont arrivés à notre porte à Newmarket. Comme Denver, Chip et Dale étaient l’fun et gentils. C’était mignon de voir Chip et Dale vraiment en amour, mais c'était un peu étrange d’entendre les sons qu’ils faisaient quand ils étaient ensemble.

Récemment, j'ai passé du temps seul avec Dale quand j'ai pris un congé du programme. Il est venu avec moi à London pour visiter ma famille et il a voyagé avec moi à Québec. Quand la femme de la sécurité a pris mon sac pour être sûre que je n’avais pas de choses illégales, Dale n’a pas pu rester silencieux et il a crié. (C'était la première fois que Dale voyageait en avion donc il était excité). La femme était étonnée parce que ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’un sac crie. Avec précaution, elle a ouvert mon sac et Dale était là, en pleine face. La femme n’a pas trouvé ça aussi drôle que moi parce qu’elle a tout vidé mon sac à dos. Mon voyage s’est bien passé et Chip, Dale et Denver sont tous réunis et heureux.

*Note: For all you anglophones this blog post was basically about a family of stuffed dinosaurs we have at our house here in Alma. Chip and Dale are the two dads of Denver, an asexual Dinosaur from Vanderhoof. (Ellen DeGeneres was their surrogate mother but that is another story.)*