catching up

So. I'm going to Bishop's in the fall in English Secondary Education. Part one of my plan to obtaining my Masters in Spec. Ed. I'm going to be living at Bishop's College School (free room and board!) in exchange for working in the library two nights a week.

back at it

I've finsished half of the first week back in Lennoxville. It feels very, very good to be back. Classes should be decent. Par for the course, type deal. I'll actually have something of a social life thanks to getting rid of theatre from my life and it being the last semester of cegep with a slew of awesome people. I have already had Triggers, a hangover and 8:30am classes, bruised knuckles and deep drunken philosophical conversations thanks to the Student Safety party. I have so far avoided falling asleep in class which is somewhat of a surprise. I had an afternoon nap today after giving up on homework for a few hours. I ate cheese and cookies. Ah, things are looking up and I am very grateful.

New Life Plan?

Best laid plans of mice and men, blah blah. Heard it all before. So, I've generally always had some sense of direction or master plan to aspire to. It changes, varies and deviates and often, surprises me. I'll find myself wondering how I got from wanting to be a newspaper food critic to a roadie (completely disregarding the fact that I can only strum three chords non-sucessively). Now, the new plan graduate from Bishop's with a double major in English and Education. Then, depending, I'll go back for a fourth year and do a BEd. Yeah. How the hell did I end up here? I need to know because time's a-tickin' and my letter of intent isn't getting any closer to be done.

"oh chem-i-cals"

A new year has started, so I suppose that now is as good a time as any to return to blogging. Not in a New Year's resolution type way. I hate that crap. I dislike anything associated with New Year's on principle.

My summer at CAM was amazing. I loved it. I am going back this summer and I hoping to get either a better bunch of Larks or the younger Sparrows cabin. Junior Girls, yeah! Working at camp made me realize that I want to become an educator (I think). I'm still debating which route I'm going to take, Elementary EDU or English (or Social Studies)/Eduation double major. I still want to go to Bishop's. I love Lennoxville. Plus, I'll have a job to go back to with Student Safety ("Student Safety: Not As Lame As It Sounds!" "Saving Your Drunk Ass!" "We'll Walk You Home." "We'll Also Bust Your Ass at the Bar for Drugs!" "Other People's Puke: It's Not That Bad!") Wow. I'd make quite the recruiter.

I have been listening to the All Songs Considered end-of-the-year Top 25 Albums of 2007 podcast almost non-stop for the last two days. I have missed a lot. Of Montreal kick ass. I should have picked up Challengers months ago in Sherbrooke. Ditto the last Modest Mouse.

I still hate Theatre Production. I got screwed. Thank God that I'm almost out of cegep. I want to get out of the system. I should be in my freshman year, but no, I get screwed out of starting a year earlier in the workforce by taking advantage of my cheap Quebec tutition. Bah. But, then again, at BU I do four years and leave with a BA & a BEd. Which is nice.

Being a home and remembering why I left the hole that is St. Jean, I have been catching up on my Weeds and my satire. My sister bought me Colbert's book for Christmas and it is the best gift that she has ever given me. NPR has been playing almost non-stop in the house which makes me very happy. It's radio that I can listen to without wanting to burst my eardrums (ie Montreal's Lite Rock Q92). I'm interested in seeing what happens when the Daily Show and the Colbert Report return with the writers' strike et al.

I love pop culture. I really do.

Seein' me of in style!

I'm off to CAM in a dozen or so hours. My friends have seen me off in style by pelting me with beer. Okay, partially my fault, as I can still type. But, still I love them to pieces. Thankyou.

CAM Love

I leave for Camp Amy Molson in a few days. Preparing to sing, dance and generally check my shame at the gate. No proper camp counsellor doesn't make a dork of themselves at camp. "If I weren't a counsellor, I wonder what I'd be. If I weren't a counsellor, I wonder what I'd be. If I weren't a counsellor, a guitarist I would be. I pluck, I strum. Playing music is such fun!" Oh boy.

CAM is a sleepaway camp for underprivillaged inner-city Montreal kids. Everything we do is to make them have the greatest time in Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, Quebec, just outside of Hawkesbury, Ontario. It's not a camp that people keep returning to for the salary (I would earn more flipping burgers - ugh), but because of the atmosphere, staff and campers. I need a place like that. It'll be one hell of a journey. My parents still don't quite understand what I feel so compelled to do this, but it feels right. Besides, it'll do me so good to get away from technology and suberbia for a while.

I'll have a new outlook once I head back to the Townships for classes in August. Lennoxville'll look like a booming place after camp. Which is a good thing. Ready to take on Le Club Video International, the Provigo, health foods store and the Lion. Oh, and Student Safety. Maybe, some classes too. Plus, not having spent money all summer, just buying groceries will seem novel and exciting again.

I'll be back in August.

Wild Safari

This was written at about 3 am after a weekend alone in my apartment and too many cupcakes. I was bitter about the crap sandwich that was my summer. Thank God that this year is different. Already, it has surpassed what happened in 2006. I'll be gone for the summer, there may be updates when I'm back in the area, but I'll probably be sleeping or livin' it up. Or not. "CAM is what? Dyn-o-mite!" Here's Wild Safari.

It’s funny how often the truth is mistaken for lies and lies are mistaken for the truth. It’s amazing how fast gossip spreads even amongst people who hate to gossip. It’s downright frightening to know that the shit you smack down could very well come back and bite you in the ass. Rather, it will come back and bite you in the ass. It won’t be long before someone is spread half-truths about you using the mascot costumes for some perverted sex game with the head of zoology. This is any so-called ordinary day working at the Wild Safari. It’s where the only the roams freer than the animals are the rumors.

There was the pothead lion trainer, with his blond asshole of a tiger training supervisor. There was the thick-accented elephant captor. The goth and emo food-court employees. There was the head boss who thought himself a kid and swore all the time. The human resources instructor with a successful television and radio career. The douche bag department heads. It was a mash of stereotypes and gross caricatures.

For someone who considers themselves average and maintains a decent level of self-respect and dignity, it is a minefield of losers and freaks out of a horrible nightmare basted in 33 degree heat in the middle of July. A summer spent working at Wild Safari is worse than going to hell in a hand basket and that’s only if the hand basket is made of rabid raccoons and killer bees. Toby figured that if she could survive the insanity and stupidity that she was assaulted with five days week, save Saturdays and Mondays, she could live through anything. Even the nuclear holocaust or any page out of the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.