stuff
Tact is for those who haven't mastered the art of sarcasm.
Monday, June 30, 2003 :::
Oh dear. I really do have lots to update here. Damn my laziness!
Ok, so where do I begin... I think it would be Wednesday of last week, when EX, HS2, HM and I went to Kingston. The original plan was for EX and HS2 to go indoor rockclimbing and me and HM (I'm thinking there will be quite a few codes in this post!) to go shopping or something, but there was a hitch. The rockclimbing centre was closed. So instead we went to Fort Henry, a historic fort built on a hill overlooking Kingston. It was really interesting (the fort was built to defend against an attack from America in the 1800s that never actually came), and luckily we didn't have to spend much time outside in the 36 degree heat!! EX also fell in love with our tour guide, but I think it had more to do with the uniform than with the guy himself...
On Thursday the 4 of us headed off to Ottawa again. This time the whole process was much more stress free, due mainly to the map that was used and the fact that there was only 1 of my host sister's in the car, and not 3! The main purpose of the trip was to watch the changing of the guard in front of the Parliament Buildings - Canada has the full blown, Buckingham Palace-style guard thing, which was very cool. Well, kind of - it was about 36 degrees in the city, and two of the guards collapsed of heat stroke in the middle of the performance! Pretty understandable really: they all had 100% wool uniforms on, and those big fur hats that most weigh a ton. I mean, I felt like fainting from the sun, and I was only wearing a skirt and a t-shirt.
After watching the guards we had some lunch (it was 11am, but that's an appropriate time to eat lunch in Canada apparently...), and then headed off to the main Parliament Buildings for our lovely guided tour. The building is very gothic and dramatic and very beautiful, and a complete and utter contrast to our federal parliament in Canberra. We also went up the 'Peace Tower', where we got a really panoramic view of the entire city.
By this time we were all dying from the heat, so we ran (ok, melted) to the van, cranked up the air-con and made our way back to good ol' Brockville.
Friday... not much happened on Friday, except for the EX leaving for 2 weeks to go travelling with her mother. Oh, and I also got the coolest new hat at Roots, a word that has completely different meaning in Canada that it does in Australia. Anyway, I love my new hat! (it is possible that I wore it around the house all Friday night, but we won't tell anyone that...)
Saturday. Saturday I went to Montreal for the day with my area coordinator and some other exchange students to see the 'Festival International de Jazz de Montreal'. It was really fun, but... I honestly can't be bothered writing about it now, and well, I should probably get dressed seeing as it's 11.39am! But I will tell all later in the day, I promise. And if I don't, well, feel free to leave a comment telling me I should!
Wednesday, June 25, 2003 :::
Lots to update, but I really haven't been all that bothered the last few days. It's stinking hot over here - temperatures in the mid-thirties all week! Definitely not something that you associate with Canadian weather...
On Sunday night we went over to the house of my HS2's kind-of boyfriend (I really have no idea what's going on there, but I think the EX might have something to do with the 'kind-of'!) for a campfire, barbie thing. Managed to only drop one hot-dog into the fire, which I thought was quite an achievement. Learnt how to make 'smores', which is basically a toasted marshmallow between two bran crackers with pieces of chocolate in there too. They're good, but I think I would find something different to use than bran crackers - not really a dessert food! Ended the night with about 10 more mosquito bites to add to my rapidly growing collection, which of course I was thrilled about.
I swear the mosquitoes over here are genetically modified or something, they're that huge. And they carry 'West Nile Virus', this thing that's arrived in this area in the last few years and caused people to buy insect repellent in enormous quantities. I went to buy some insect repellent yesterday, and was planning on getting the 'DEET' stuff that the health department recommends. But then I read the label, got freaked out about the "definitely not for daily use" and 10 other warnings, and decided on one with good old natural citronella in it!
Anyway, back to the story. On Monday we went up to Ottawa - the EX leaves on Friday so the family is basically trying to cram 6 months of stuff into a week. We got off to a pretty late start, which was made even worse when we got completely lost on the highways leading into the city. There was then the inevitable fight that always happens when more than 2 of my host sisters are together in a confined space. But we got there in the end after buying a map that wasn't in German (we'd been using the EX's guidebook) and utilising my fantastic navigation skills, :p, we finally made it to the Museum of Civilisation.
It was definitely worth the wait. There was this fantastic exhibition called 'The Mysterious Bog People', with these kind of freaky, well, bog people! The Canada Hall was also very impressive, with a recreation of over 1000 years of Canadian history that you could walk through. Anyway, it was all very cool. I think we're going up again tomorrow to see the Parliament Buildings (including the changing of the guard) and a few other museums.
Yesterday just ran errands and stuff with HS2 and the EX, who sent her third very large package of stuff home! Had a very nice lunch at the New York Restaurant, a chinese place that I spent a few days researching at the museum. Last night we all went to my little host sister's 'commencement service', which was basically a graduation service from Elementary School (grades 7 and 8). They were all wearing 'prom dresses' because there was a dance thing afterwards. I was expecting a very long and boring ceremony, but it was actually very nice - and only went for an hour.
I think we're going to Kingston this afternoon, but you never quite know what's happening in this family until you're actually in the van and driving away!
I think that's basically everything that's happened in the last few days, but if I've forgotten something (which I'm sure I have) I suppose I'll just post again!
Sunday, June 22, 2003 :::
It's been a... strange sort of day. I often find myself thinking during the course of the day of different things that I should write in this, but when the time comes to put it down I can never seem to come up with the right words. So let me see if I can struggle through this description (it is almost midnight and I'm exhausted, so apologies if this makes no sense or is particularly dramatic!)...
Last night one of the exchange students had some of the other exchange students, plus HS2 and EX's kind-of-boyfriend (I don't quite understand what's going on there) over for a barbie at her house, and I ended up staying the night on her couch. I did have fun (my 'favourite' exchange student, a girl from Germany, was there, so that was good), but I sometimes feel a bit left out with this group. I know they don't do it on purpose, but I think it's because of 2 things: all the other students are from Europe, and whether they realise it or not, there are frequent Europe 'moments' that can make other people feel dumb/extremely unsophisticated/and generally very uncool - comments like "oh, but don't you just love the beaches in Italy?" "Oh, my favourite is in the south of France" are not infrequent. The second reason is I think due mainly to the fact that I really don't know them very well at all. I arrived to the group 'late' after spending a month in the hell of Iroquois, and this combined with the amount of time I spend away from school at the museum means that I don't actually spend a lot of time with them all. I have fun, but I don't always feel like I belong.
But anyway, it was a good night.
I got home at about 8.30 in the morning (the host father effectively kicked us out of the house) and basically walked straight into a warzone. I love them very dearly, but the policy with my host family definitely seems to be Shout first, ask questions later. Now I know I'm not the most rational, controlled person when I get into an argument, but I like Spock himself (go the sci-fi references!) compared to this family. The fight this morning was about the allocation of vehicles and organising transport and such to a pool party that was this afternoon for all of the exchange students. It was the biggest fight that I've witnessed in this house, but it was close - much screaming, shouting and slamming of doors. Things were eventually organised but tensions were running pretty high when EX, HS2, HS3, a girl from Germany and I left the house.
The pool party was at the house of another of the German girls (I swear this program is dominated by girls from Germany) in Merricksville, which is about 45 minutes away. It was sort of a farewell party for most of the other students, who all leave in the next month or so. I had a really good time, and even got to take a canoe out on the Rideau Canal, the same canal that I went skating on in February. Well, I was having a good time until I got a migraine, a small hitch that put me out of action for about an hour and half, and pretty much out of it for the rest of the party (another reason why this entry may not be all that coherent!). Anyway, because of that I didn't go on with the rest of my host family to a 'stag and doe' for one of the members of my host mother's extremely large family, but instead got a ride home with my lovely area coordinator. I was very proud of myself: I was actually civil and friendly to him the entire afternoon. He is taking a group of us to Montreal on Saturday for a day trip to see the International Jazz Festival and other stuff, so maybe that was the reason. At any rate, I didn't find him quite as annoying as usual!
It's weird to think that people are actually going home, in some cases, in just a few weeks. To me it still feels somewhat like my exchange is just beginning, even though I've been here for almost 5 months. God, 5 months - that's such a long time! It certainly doesn't feel like that long. But then again, sometimes it feels like 5 years. Yes, I know, I'm not making a lot of sense.
So anyway, right now I'm sitting in an empty house, listening to some kind of piano music that's playing on a radio station on the tv (another bonus of having satellite tv over here: you can get commercial-free radio, a very, very rare thing in Canada), and thinking about my exchange and realising that I've only got about 2 months to go. I know I will be glad to go home, but I also know that I'm going to miss some people/things/places terribly. So far this exchange has been hard (much harder than I thought it was going to be I admit), and not what I expected, but has definitely been worth it. Now I just have to work out how to make my last 2 months better than the first 5 put together!
I think that's almost enough depressing introspection for one night, but I have one more thing to say. I was talking to a certain friend on msn this morning, and he said that from reading my blog he gets the impression that I'm not having a good time. Let me say right now that I am. It's been difficult, but it's been fantastic. I think my problem is that I only ever write in my journal if (1) something interesting happened in my day that I want to record, or (2) I want to complain about something. I've never been very successful at keeping journals in the past because I find that I only ever write in them when I'm pissed off about something, which results in a very depressing, and not at all accurate record of my daily life! So please believe me when I say that I am having a good time and I am not deeply depressed and ready to throw myself on the next plane home (which is not to say that I'm not missing home terribly!)!
In recognition of this fact, herewith (an aside: my mum used that word in a fax to me a few weeks ago - what kind of person still uses the word 'herewith' in normal, day-to-day activities?! I love my mum, but I mean really! :p) is my top ten list, a la David Letterman, of things I love about Canada, in no particular order.
1. I love that it is acceptable to put maple syrup on everything! (hey, I never said that this list was going to be extremely deep and meaningful!)
2. I love the way that Canadians put their flag on everything - their drink bottles, their cars, their t-shirts etc - and that this is actually cool to do. The only time you see an Australian flag on a t-shirt in Australia is when it's worn by a tourist. Probably a Canadian tourist who thinks that it's cool.
3. I love how there is government funding for absolutely everything! Summer jobs for students, healthcare, tourism... I'm sure that there are some things that are underfunded or whatever over here, and I'm sure that there is big controversy over government spending, but it all looks very cool to me.
4. After initially having my doubts, I now love Canadian highways! They're so fast, so efficient, so, well, good!
5. I love frozen Canadian waffles. So, so good...
6. Squirrels. I'm sure they're a pest to people, but I just think they are cute. And they are everywhere: I see at least 4 a day at the moment.
7. I love the way that they treat Americans. It's an irresistable combination of politeness and and continual mocking. Love it, love it.
8. Mini-vans. The country seems to be obsessed with them, and while they may not be the 'coolest' type of car available, they sure are comfortable.
9. I love the way that Canadians think that Tasmanians are exotic. It's the first, and probably last, time I've been called exotic in my life.
10. And finally, I love the way that Canadians will make all the time in the world for a poor Australian exchange student who is a long way from home, and will try to find something other than Steve Irwin, kanagaroos and Tasmanian devils to talk about (not that I haven't had my fair share of conversations about those topics either...).
So there you have it, the top 10 things that I love about Canada, a list that I know will be altered, added to, and eventually completely replaced as time goes by!
Saturday, June 21, 2003 :::
Did my history exam yesterday morning, which was of course thrilling. My history teacher seems to adore really, really open-ended essay questions, such as Develop a thesis, supported by argument, that addresses the general topic of war in Western society in the past up until the end of the twentieth century. Well, you know, where the hell do you begin?!? Finally got it finished, but had to practically run to the museum to get there on time for lunch.
Had a very nice lunch with the staff of the museum (paid for by the museum director, which was even nicer). They gave me a really sweet card (with messages such as "You really don't want to leave - just stay here!" and "Don't leave me!") and a box from the museum gift shop and a pack of cards with pictures of Brockville on each one. Well, it's the thought that counts anyway... :p
I still haven't finished half of the work that I needed to at the museum, and there is a huge mess on my desk there, so I'm thinking it's very possible that I'm going to go back in next week sometime. I mean, it's not as if I've got absolutely anything planned: the most exciting thing that has happened in my life lately is signing up to the Brockville library... (I got a laminated card and everything!)
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 :::
Had my final official day at the museum this afternoon, which was a bit sad. I did, however, leave a job half-finished and stuff in piles all over the place, which means that I'll probably be going back in either tomorrow or Friday. I'm also going out to lunch with everyone from the museum on Friday, which will be cool, so it's definitely doesn't look like today was my last day ever at the Brockville Museum!
Watched the Canadian version of 'What the world thinks of America' last night, which I think also aired in Australia sometime this week (I still don't quite understand the complexities of time zones). It was really interesting, but the results of the poll that they did was just depressing - apparently Australians love the US and George Bush. Good to see though that we don't actually want to live there, and that we think we're more cultured than Americans. They had a break-down of the results from Canada province-by-province, which basically showed that if you live in Quebec you hate America, while if you live in Ontario, you love 'em. Anyway, it was an interesting thing to watch, although the guy from Brazil in a hideous suit went on for waaaay too long!
Tuesday, June 17, 2003 :::
Did my english exam this morning, which of course was thrilling. I'm pretty sure the stuff I wrote made no sense whatsoever, but I wrote it with a certain pen that makes me writing illegible, so it's not as if he'll be able to read it anyway...
Got one exam on Friday (history) and then I'm all done with high school forever! (again) Might actually do some revision for this one, only because I'm determined to put up a bit of a fight against the power that is Liz, who is determined to beat me into submission in history!
I have been in considerable pain since Sunday, and it's all F. Scott Fitzgerald's fault.
Being the dutiful, good student that I am, after I wrote in this journal I went out, sat on the deck and started reading The Great Gatsby. Ony problem being, it's such a painfully boring book that I fell asleep in the sun, waking up about an hour later with very painful sunburn on my legs and arms. The tan marks are particularly bad, with a lovely diagonal line across my left leg where I had my right leg crossed over it, and marks just below my elbows where my stupid t-shirt came to. Damn you F. Scott Fitzgerald and your stupid, boring book!
I told my english teacher the story on Monday, but he just laughed. I don't think he comprehends the extent of my hatred of that stupid, stupid book!
Sunday, June 15, 2003 :::
And just to lighten the mood from the rather depressing message that I just posted, here's the result from a quiz I just did that I thought you might all enjoy:
obsessive compulsive
Which Personality Disorder Do You Have? brought to you by Quizilla I tell you, it is very important to have the books on your shelves aligned just the right way!!!! Do you have a problem with that?!?
The last few days or so I've found myself getting kind of restless over here. I keep on getting emails from various friends spread across the world detailing the latest adventure that they've had, and I look at what I've been doing over here, and, well, it just seems sometimes that I'm not actually doing anything at all during my exchange. I know the point of an exchange is not to go gallavanting all over the country and have numerous dangerous adventures (I'm thinking of one girl and a particular incident in an egg-carton car here!) The point is to instead experience 'normal' life with a different family in another part of the world. But then I look at a calendar and realise that school's almost over, I've only actually got about 2 months to go and that most of the other exchange students will be gone in about 3, and it kind of hits home that I haven't got much time to do all the things I want to do.
My host family are not big I don't think on taking the EX and me to see different places, which is perfectly understandable when you consider how many people actually live in this house and that getting them all organised, in the same place at the same time in order to go somewhere is a pretty big task. But it does make it hard for me to try to organise to go anywhere. 'Independent travel' isn't allowed under the exchange rules which means that I can't just go to Ottawa for example on my own and have a look around. Hopefully when school finishes they might be able to take me to Ottawa or something for the day, but I don't know. Maybe I'll have to break down and ask the dreaded area coordinator for help: he was supposed to take me and another student to Montreal a few weeks ago, but that fell through and I haven't heard anything yet about it being rescheduled...
Anyway, that's just my moan for the week. I'm sure it'll all pass by tomorrow when this little problem is surpassed by my sheer annoyance at the ridiculousness of The Great Gatsby!
Did the house and garden tour thing yesterday for the museum. The house that I was volunteering at was absolutely amazing: the house itself was not really anything special, but what the owners had done with it was. The front hallway was burnt-orange, the sitting/dining room was bright yellow, the kitchen was rasberry red with dark green benchtops, the bathroom was bright orange, and the family room was pistachio. It sounds like it would clash horribly, but everything worked so well together and 'flowed' really well. In the dining room, front hall and kitchen, the owner (who is an artist) actually used the left over paint from the walls to create paintings to hang in those rooms, which meant that the canvases matched the rooms perfectly. It was just a really cool house.
I have the entire house to myself right now, an extremely uncommon thing. EX is scuba diving and the rest of the family has gone to mass. I went with them to mass twice over Easter, but this time I politely, but firmly, simply said that I wasn't going. I had 6 years of sitting through chapel services, and I really don't fancy the idea of sitting through more church services now. Especially Catholic ones, that (no offence to any Catholics out there!) make very little sense to me. It's also kind of embarrassing sitting there on your own in the middle of the church while everyone else goes up for communion...
Have to read The Great Gatsby today. I read it in grade 10, hated it then, and now that I've started rereading it, I'm redisovering all over again what it is that I loathed about it 3 years ago. Personally, I have no idea how it become to be known as a 'classic' - it's a silly little book with silly little characters and a writing style that drives me crazy with the descriptions go on for pages and pages and pages and that don't actually describe anything very well at all!!!
Now that I've got that out of my system...
I have to read it so that I can do my english exam on Tuesday. I wasn't at St Mary when they studied the book in class, and when I arrived my teacher said that I didn't have to worry about reading it or doing any of the work for it. Except that when he was telling us about the exam on Thursday, I discovered that two thirds of the exam actually involves The Great Gatsby. I told my teacher that I wasn't here for the book, and while he said that he would "keep that in mind" I should read the book anyway over the weekend. "You'll do fine" he says. If I don't get it finished (which I'm pretty sure I won't: every 5 minutes I throw the thing down in disgust!) I think I'll just try and weasel my way out of doing those parts of the exam on Monday. Hey, I'm an exchange student, I'm allowed to do that!
Saturday, June 14, 2003 :::
I've been having huge problems with blogger the last few days, so apologies to anyone who has been struggling like me - I seriously think it's time I thought about moving this thing to another site, because right now this just isn't working...
It was the 'grad' last night, the Canadian equivalent of the American prom. I didn't go for various reasons (none of which I care to tell you about at this moment!), but I heard about the after-party this morning from EX and HS2, who also went. From what they were saying, it didn't really sound much like my thing: dogs being hit by cars, exchange students throwing up left right and centre, police, breathalysers...
In about half an hour I'm off to the house I'm volunteering at for the house and garden tour for the museum. Should be interesting, although I know absolutely nothing about the house or the garden, so who knows what I'm going to say...
Yesterday I spent all day at the museum because they needed help serving tea to a bus tour in the afternoon. I got there at about 10 (meant to arrive much earlier but kinda overslept...), and then at 11.45 the museum director announces that she's taking me to her house to give me lunch, which was very nice. It rained all yesterday though, and I got soaked just running from the museum to the car and from the car to the house. Parts of the museum were actually flooding (not seriously) yesterday afternoon when I left the rain was so heavy. Lucky the museum now has a disaster plan for situations like this! :p
Talked to my parents on the phone last night which was nice, although I'm sure Dad actually hung up on me while I was talking. He says the connection was broken, but I'm not going to believe that... The other exchange student in the house gets something like 3 phone calls a week from home, which I think is a bit strange. My exchange organisation told us that you should only talk to home on the phone about once a month, but at the moment I think that once a fortnight is about right... but 2 or 3 times a week, which it is for the 'other one' seems to be a bit excessive for me!
Anyway, gotta go and get ready for this house tour, but I'll try and update later...
Wednesday, June 11, 2003 :::
Just read the most amazing book by Agatha Christie, And then there were none (Apparently it was originally called Ten little niggers, but understandably the title was changed). Basically the idea is that there are these 10 people stranded on this island and they slowly get killed off one by one, and you only find out who did it on the very last page. Suspense until the very end...
Tuesday, June 10, 2003 :::
The kids that I babysat on Saturday? Well their mother wanted me to babysit them for the next three Saturdays. Um...no. Today, I found an excuse - the director of the museum wants me to help with this House and Garden Tour that's happening all-day Saturday, which means that I can get out of babysitting those 3 brats. Yippee!
Sunday, June 08, 2003 :::
Once again, I forget something. Lovely pictures of my trip to Upper Canada will soon be arriving in your inboxes!! Yay! says everybody. Or not.
It's been a long, and quite a surprisingly enjoyable, weekend. On Friday night I went and did the dinner thing with the exchange students which was fun. Unfortunately there were no lamingtons in sight, due to (1) no time to buy a sponge cake (yes mum, I was going to buy a sponge cake) and (2) no money whatsoever to buy a sponge cake with. We got home on Friday night at about 12, to a house without a kitchen. As I mentioned a few posts ago, my HM is furiously redoing the entire house in anticipation of the arrival of various relatives from across the world, with this redoing spreading to the kitchen. My loyal (and long suffering!) HF has therefore ripped out the entire kitchen and is currently in the process of putting new cabinets in. This means that the kitchen is currently spread across several rooms and that all meals have to be cooked in the microwave. I'm thinking that it's soup for a while this week...
On Saturday I babysat 3 kids for about 5 hours, which naturally was extremely thrilling. We went to Macca's for lunch (where I'm pretty sure every kid in Brockville under the age of 8 was also eating) and then I had to watch them at their house. The highlight of the day? Discovering that the youngest boy's favourite place to hide was in the laundry. In the dryer. With the door closed.
Didn't do anything much on Saturday night - basically just watched tv with my host parents and helped my HM hang more pictures in the freshly-painted basement. I am now an expert at hanging pictures! I can even put the wires on the back, thanks to a lesson at the museum a few weeks ago...
Today I went to Upper Canada Village, recreation of a village from 1860s Canada, with a group of other exchange students. It was a really cool day - the village is really interesting, and we even got free cake and lemonade at the Christening!
Over the last few days I've been rereading for possibly the 300th time my all time favourite books, The Beekeeper's Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R King. These books are so, so good, and definitely fit my definition of a 'comfort read'. Some passages I know pretty much off by heart, but it's still so good to read them all again! There are 4 other books in the series, so it should keep me busy for a while!
Friday, June 06, 2003 :::
Was up until 1am last night condensing the history of Russia from 1894 to 1953 into a 15 minute presentation. Failure apparent this morning when I went 15 minutes over time. My teacher sat up the back and every few minutes would nervously, and very unsubtly, look at his watch. Ah well...
Am about to go and make lamingtons for a group of exchange students. I was going to make the sponge cake from scratch (mainly just to prove my mother wrong and show her that I could do it!) but lack of sleep combined with lack of time has resulted in me giving in and getting a ready-made cake. Although I'm not sure what I'm going to buy it with: I have about a total of $6.73 to my name right now after a particularly expensive trip to the chemist!
A final note for you all to think about: is it normal for an English teacher to never have heard of The B.F.G. by Roald Dahl? Because I'm not sure it's quite right...
Tuesday, June 03, 2003 :::
Home from school today - not feeling all that crash hot, although at least it's not because I've injured myself. I've got the house to myelf, which is an absolute rarity over here, so that's pretty cool. There is also food in the house, which is even better!
I just noticed that the dates for the archives are in American format. Have absolutely no idea how to change that, so I think we'll all just have to suffer with it for a while!
So, how do you all like the new look? I was sick of the last one - the background colour never worked (for me anyway) and well, I thought it was damn hard to read. Hopefully this one will be a bit better. I've also limited the number of posts that appear on the front page to try to speed up the loading times - I know it always took me ages to load the stupid page. Everyone please also notice the pretty pictures and links on the right hand side. Took me forever and the sites are probably only interesting to me, but what the heck.
I didn't know what to put for the message at the top, so I just whacked that quote in. Expect it to change in the near future!
Monday, June 02, 2003 :::
Managed to escape the weekend I think almost injury-free, which was quite a feat considering my record of last week. Didn't do much at all really - went 'garage saling' on Saturday morning with my host mum; tried, and promptly failed, to do some homework, due mainly to the appearance of two nieces of the family at about 3pm. They're cute, but noisy! My host dad painted the dining room on Saturday night (the official colour - "Garlic Bud") so I spent Sunday morning helping HM hang all the pictures back up. A long, frustrating and at times very, very complicated process! But at least I now know that the buffet, table and china-cabinet are all exactly in line and in the centre of the room!
I thought I had a big english presentation on Tuesday, so spent a considerable amount of time on Sunday writing, ok... procrastinating, on this thing. Then I get to school this morning and discover that I don't have to present until Wednesday! I got the dates completely mixed up, due mainly to my crappy watch. I've been in Canada for 4 months now (almost exactly - it'll be 4 tomorrow!) and the date on my watch still hasn't caught up: it's correct for only half of the day!
Talked to my uncle in Edmonton on Saturday night on the phone, and then Davo and mum on msn, which was pretty cool. My uncle is coming to visit early in July, which'll be tops, although my host mum is stressing out because he's just one more visitor from out of town that's coming in the next few months - hence almost all the rooms in the house being rapidly painted and the kitchen being redone! Apparently they're just not good enough for visitors to see...
Because I've finished all my projects at the museum, the last week or so I've been given pretty boring, and well, crappy jobs to do. Today? Type up letters and then put $4.00 price stickers on keychains. 263 keychains. You have no idea how sick I am of keychains!
