C'est L'Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all! I wish that I was a little kid who could still get dressed up and go trick or treating. My little sister is going out tonight with her friends even though they're 14. I didn't get to dress up as I had wanted but I had fun admiring all the people who were brave enough to wear their costumes to school, and was wishing that I had too, although I thought it would be too cold. Mike dressed up as a wet floor sign. Yes, that's right. He made a giant cardboard painted replica that he could walk around in. Quite funny but now our balcony has yellow paint on it.

In other news, I'm having a bit of a dilemma now that I know Mike will be gone soon. The problem is that 1) I have no money to live off of (or very little) when he's not working and 2) most of my friends have left Victoria, and with Mike gone I'll be very lonely.
So, I'm considering requesting to have my practicum location changed to Port Alberni so that I could live for free and do my practicum there. That would save me my rent money in Victoria for sure. But, if I had a roommate or a way of making money to live off of, then I would stay in Victoria, because I feel that it isn't fair of me to leave my sponsor teachers stranded now that they were planning for me to be there.

On the other hand, it would be nice to be surrounded by my family while Mike is gone. I'm really not sure how I'm going to get through the 6 months that he's gone. I'm planning on visiting him over spring break, but that's not until the end of March, which is a long ways away.

So, Amanda, my lovely lovely friend. What can I do to convince you to come to Victoria for 6 months? We can have a grand old time in my cozy apartment eating too much junk and watching old movies. Neither of us will be in classes so we won't have homework and we can spend our free time doing fun things. You can play my piano. You can go in the hottub whenever you want. And, maybe you'll run into the mystery man we spotted your last day here who you never spoke to but kind of wished you had. Pretty please?

Okay, I'll stop trying to bribe you now. But seriously, if both of us are feeling blue and depressed and lonely, it just makes sense. We can force each other to spend time writing and sending stories away. It would be great. Plus, then we can plan for our trip to Greece....

Sending everyone wished for a happy halloween...don't eat to much candy. Or, if you're like me, your planning on going after halloween is over to buy the left over chocolate for 50% off. Ah, being a poor student again.

Yeah Mike!

Just wanted to let anyone whose been waiting to hear knews about Mike and the RCMP know that Mike found out today that he passed his polygraph test, which is a huge relief. The recruiting lady told him that he will probably leave in 1-2 months, and that he should be retaking his PARE test in November. So, it's getting very close to goodbye time. I just hope he's here for Christmas, and that I can afford to go and visit him a few times. If anyone hears about any good seat sales let me know!

So that's very good news for us, because it means that hopefully within the next year we will both have jobs. My Dad wants me to go on a trip with him sometime, and Amanda and I have plans to go to Greece in a couple of years, so it'll be nice to start saving.

Today was a cold day in Victoria. It was a beautiful sunny blue sky day, but felt like the first day of winter. You know the first day where you really feel like the wind is burning your nostrils and your hands feel like ice all day long. That was today. Which means that maybe soon I can justify the fact that I was listening to Christmas music the other day...

Pumpkins, Macbeth, and maybe Audrey Hepburn

Well, it's the weekend before Halloween and once again I have no costume or party plans. I always loved getting dressed up for Halloween and thought last year that I would be more organized this year. I haven't dressed up in years, so I wanted to go as Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and I still might if I can find the attire tomorrow. And, as long as it's cheap. It's a pretty simple costume, but believe it or not, I actually don't have the shoes I need! With my 30 pairs of shoes, you would think I'd have it. I do have them in brown, but I'm not sure if it would work.

Mike and I are planning on going tomorrow night to the pumpkin display at Government house. There are 4000 pumpkins lit up every night until Halloween, so it should be pretty cool. And, who knows, maybe if I can get a costume I will just dress up for school on Tuesday.

I'm also doing two other things that are sort of in the Halloween spirit. I was supposed to be going tomorrow on a ghost walk at Ross Bay cemetary with my class, but it was cancelled so we're not going until November 1st now. I am also going to see a performance of Macbeth at William Head prison, but that's on the 2nd. Both in the Halloween spirit, but unfortunately it didn't work out to see them before Halloween.

Mike and I are really missing playing board games as much as we used to. We just played Entdecker, which is the first board game we ever bought. I just beat him by a few points.

Tomorrow my field hockey game is cancelled, so I'm going to sleep in and do some studying for a midterm on Halloween. Then, on Sunday I'll go watch Mike's soccer game.

Not much else is new. Still waiting to here back about Mike's polygraph test, but the lady from Recruiting said he's next on her list. Fingers crossed.

Anyone wanna live with me while he's gone? I'm a really good roommate I promise. We could easily fit a second bed in my bedroom. Cheap rent. Available after Christmas. Although I should warn you that we did have a mouse. But his name's Gus Gus and he's really cute and nice. Just don't leave any granola bars lying around. He'll chew right through your suitcase to get them.

Goblin Market poem

By the way, this is the poem I wrote a story about. You definitely need to read it before reading my story.
http://users.crocker.com/~lwm/goblin.html

This is a link to the poem.
If you would like to read my story and give me feedback let me know.

I'll bring you plums tomorrow

While watching the news today I came across a story that I found quite silly. Apparently, the cariboo in BC are becoming endangered. And, the government's brilliant plan to increase their numbers again and avoid extinction is to go around killing the animals that prey on cariboo, like wolves and bears.

Now, is it just me, or is this kind of stupid? Let's save one animal by killing another? What happened to the whole circle of life, food chain thing. I thought we weren't supposed to interfere with wildlife in that way, however tempting it may be to help the baby sea turtles to the water without being eaten. Maybe they should consider the human factors that are effecting the cariboo's existence?

On another note, I emailed a woman in my class one of my stories today. The one about the Christina Rosetti poem called Goblin Market. She started reading it right away and sent me an email saying I definitely need to publish it. This has been the plan for several months now, but I have yet to settle on a journal to submit the story to. It's a bit of a strange one, sort of YA, sort of fantasy, and not your typical modern story at all. Lorna Jackson told me that she wasn't sure who would be brave enough to publish it, but she was sure someone would. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Hmmm...does anyone have suggestions on a good journal to send to?

Back to class

Well, today is my first day back at Uvic after my short practicum. I'm happy to be able to sleep in again, but not so happy about having to go back to all that reading and homework. I meant to get a lot done over the past couple of weeks but I've been so busy and tired from being at the school all day with teenagers that I didn't get anything done. So, now I have the task of catching up. In the next three weeks I have about 12 projects to complete, so I'm going to have to do at least one a day pretty much. My goal is just to get them done, and I don't really care what the grades are.

Nothing much new and exciting. Watched Mike's soccer game yesterday and played a great field hockey game on Saturday--my team won 5-0 which was great since the previous week we had only 9 players and no subs, so we had a loss of about 4-1.

Well, I'm off to begin my homework and then back to school this afternoon...

Bigger than Gus Gus

Blogs are strange in the sense that it's a journal, but I feel I'm always aware as I'm writing that other people are going to be reading it. It kind of makes it hard to say what you feel like writing about. Who knows what the people reading are thinking of what you are writing.

Yesterday was the strangest day. I woke up at 2am with the worst headache and could hear something chewing away at the walls or who knows what in my apartment. And I'm sure it's not Gus Gus. I got used to him. He wasn't that loud. The neighbours tell me they've complained to the landlord about rats. Apparently they are in the walls trying to get into the building. I saw someone on the roof yesterday. I think they are setting up traps or poison to kill the rats. Hopefully it works before they chew right through to my apartment.

Mike had his polygraph test yesterday. He's nervous about how it went. He didn't lie, but sometimes you can fail questions anyway if there's something else bothering you or if you are nervous. I hope he passed. But at the same time I'm not ready for him to leave yet. I hope he doesn't go until after Christmas, because neither of us are going to be working at Christmas so we won't have to leave on boxing day morning as usual.

Well, I'm off to my field hockey game. Hopefully we have a full team this time.

Back to high school

Sounds scary, doesn't it? All those nightmares about showing up without pants on, being one of the "cool kids", test anxiety, not being able to wait for lunch. It's all a distant memory. Until this week, when I re-entered the high school scene. As a teacher.

Freaky but cool. I ate in the staff room today at a big round table with other teachers eating their very teacher-like lunches: apples, bananas, home-made sandwiches in plastic containers. Ah! And me with my sandwich and snapple bought from Serious Coffee down the street. But, I think I fit in anyways. I was worried that teachers might mistake me for a student at the school (although technically I'm not a teacher until I finish my practicum May 4th) but I actually had the opposite experience. A grade eleven girl asked me if I was a prof at Uvic. I was so shocked. Do I look old enough to be a prof? I didn't think so. At least they didn't think I was 17. That would have been worse. Much worse.

So, I've been blessed with two lovely ladies as sponsor teachers. One is a bit more "out there" so people in the school keep telling me, but I just love her. She's so funny and quirky and the kids love her because of it. Then, there is my French sponsor teacher, who is super nice and helpful. They've both allowed me to participate in their classrooms, although this is supposed to be just an observation period. But, as I soon discovered, watching a classroom for two weeks would be very boring. So, I've already been marking tests for the French class, and helping students. They seem very eager to ask for help, which is great. And for the most part I've been able to answer their questions. I'm trying to plan an activity for next week for my French ten's. It has to do with nationalities and adjectives. I'm trying to think of well-known world figures that grade ten's would recognize to play a little game, where they have to name the person's nationality in French. Any ideas?

I've also realized how tiring high school is. The school had a talent night for writers to read their work, and I really wanted to go and check it out, but I didn't know about it until today, and I was so tired by the time I got home at 4:30 and made dinner and relaxed that I didn't think I could go back again. Plus, I wasn't sure if any teachers were going to it, so I didn't want to go by myself. I'm sure there will be something like it in the future though. When I finally am a teacher, I'm so signing up to be part of the travel club. My teacher is the global ed teacher, and she gets to take the students on a trip to France and Italy, and the travel club is going to Greece and Turkey. How great would that be?

Jedi Squirrels

I had to post this picture for Mike, who is a fan of squirrels.

funny website

Check out this website; it makes me think of an Irish John Stewart. Pretty funny.
www.blather.net

Turkey After all

So I got my turkey after all. Mike and I got invited to a thanksgiving dinner at the home of Wes and Christy Linde, the youth pastor and his wife at our church. It was very nice of them to invite us, and we were happy we got to have a turkey dinner with gravy and mashed potatoes and all the traditional yummy food.

I also started my first observation period at the school today. It went pretty well, although it is still very disorganized, and they don't yet have an English sponsor teacher for me, which I'm hoping they'll have organized by tomorrow. Although, it kind of scares me that they still haven't asked anyone yet. It makes me wonder why and whether there is a teacher who wants a student teacher in their class. My French sponsor is really nice, and I think I can adapt to her teaching style while I'm in her class, because she's pretty fun and new in her methods, which is nice. But, I have to say that I'm sort of looking the most forward to my English class, so I really hope that they find me an English placement!

Off to watch Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz fight match number three.

Weren't expecting me to say that, huh?

No turkey, no money

Well, another thanksgiving weekend is here and I sure wish I had some turkey. Mike has to work all weekend and the dinner we got invited to at Elissa's house is on Sunday night, but since we do our Church service and then have to teach sunday school, we won't be able to make it. I'm trying to plan something for Monday night for dinner, but I'm not sure what yet. I might just roast a chicken or something. I bought some stuffing and veggies today, so I have that, and I also have some ingredients to make a dessert, but it'll probably just be me and Mike, since I don't know who else we could invite over.

I'm really wanting to buy a plane ticket to go and visit Jenn and Matt and Bronson in California, but last night Mike and I realized that we have no money since I paid my tuition and we also have a huge VISA bill, so who knows if it'll work out or not. That and the fact that Mike is likely going to Regina soon, and while he's there he won't be working and since I'm have no time to work with my school we don't really have any money. It was much nicer back before I had to pay my tuition.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some people to host undercoverwear parties for me, and then I can make a little bit of money there. Also, I'm considering applying to be a tutor at the end of November when school is less busy, since I have a lot of time off over the Christmas holidays as well. Ahh....money.

Hopefully I'll get another bursary and then that will help me out in January. I'm sorry Jenn, if I can't come and visit you.

Maybe I should start working harder on stories to send out.

Anyone want to host an undercoverwear party?

Tanzania

Here are some pictures of where I might go next summer. That is Mount Kilimanjaro. Isn't it beautiful? I wonder if the safari we go on will be like this one?

Yoga

Got up early this morning and went to a "Wake up with yoga" class. Got to the school just after 7 am for an hour of yoga, but even though the point is to wake you up, it just doesn't work on me. I'm just not a morning person. For the third week in a row, I went home after yoga and took a 2 hour nap. I think it's the deep relaxation at the end. I fell asleep during it this time. But, I did learn how to do the Sun Salutation sequence forwards and backwards, as well as a few others. She tried to teach us one called the bull or something like that. Basically, it makes you look like a frog and it's a more advanced pose she said, but she thought we could do it. Ya right. I tried a few times and fell over like an idiot. It involves planting your hands on the mat, leaning your knees and all your weight onto your triceps and then pushing your feet off the floor so your bum is sort of in the air. The instructor made it look easy but I couldn't help laughing as I tried to do the move. Not very yoga of me.

Oh well. We also exercised our eyeballs, which I didn't even realize was possible. Kind of made my head hurt actually. My favorite pose is the child's pose, where you just get to lean forward on your folded legs with your chest on your knees and close your eyes. The best way to relax.

Well, I'm supposed to be writing my psych paper on Adolescent Volunteerism, but I'm procrastinating. Anyone got any bright ideas?

Travel Bug

I've been slacking the past few weeks when it comes to posting on my blog. I guess when life is just so busy it makes it harder to write because there's soo much to say. So here it is as short as I can make it:

On the 17th of September, I went to my friend Sarah and Fraser's wedding, and had a great time, although I was so tired driving all the way to Courtney and back, since Mike tore his calf muscle and couldn't drive.

The following weekend it was another long drive by myself to Port Alberni to say goodbye to baby Bronson and Jenn as they were heading down to California on Sunday the 24th. We had her a nice baby shower, and then it was very sad to say goodbye to them. I hope they have arrived safely in Passadena and are getting settled into their new home. But Mike and I are sure going to miss playing games with Jenn and Matthew, and seeing little Bronson grow. But, I might go and visit them during my reading break in November, if I can.

Then, this past weekend I had to go all the way to Tofino and back for ANOTHER wedding. And it's not even the last one this year. But, the wedding was beautiful, on the beach and the weather was gorgeous. I've posted a pic above of Tim and Andrea taken after the ceremony. But, Mike and I carpooled with our friends Matt and Sarah, which was nice because I didn't have to drive the whole way. The four of us had a sleepover on Mike's mom's floor, which was a lot of fun.

And, the biggest new of all is that Mike finally got his RCMP interview, and he passed it, which means he is closer to being on his way to Regina for 6 months. I don't think I'm ready for that, but we'll see when the time comes I guess.

I also found out I'm going to be doing my practicum at Oak Bay high school, which is my cousin Colby's high school, so that will be interesting as well. But, I'm looking forward to having a break from classes for two whole weeks! Yeah! It'll be very nice.

I've also been planning how my traveling might work out this year, because I might be going to california, then to Regina to visit Mike when he goes, then to Saskatchewan for our friend Kim's wedding next September, and on top of that, our church is planning a missions trip to Africa, and I've been seriously thinking about going. We would fly to Nairobie and then one group would stay in Kenya and the other would fly to Tanzania. I'm not sure which I'd want to do, but I would be able to teach English for three weeks to children if I went to Tanzania. We also would get to spend 2 days on the Indian Ocean, and one day on a Safari, which would be a really amazing experience. But, we'll see if it happens or not. I'm unsure if I would be able to handle a trip like that without Mike there with me, or if I'd want to. But, at the same time, it's probably one of the only chances I'd ever have of spending three weeks in an African village. And, we're getting the missionary rates for our flights, which saves us a lot of money.

I'll keep praying about it and hopefully it'll work out somehow.