Katimavik Day 24

This morning I'm thinking about how my group members perceive myself and my relationship with Wrecking Ball. There is only one other person in the group that has a significant other, and that's Polo. But he's a little more secretive about it. I don't mean that he denies having a girlfriend or something. I just mean that everyone knew I had a boyfriend by the second or third day and I'm rather public about our interactions, but Polo is a lot more private and I only learned he has a girlfriend a few days ago.

When I say I'm public about our interactions I don't mean that I broadcast every detail. I mean that when I'm writing him a letter I'll do it in the dining room instead of in my bedroom, and if I get a letter from him I announce it at dinner during our "Rose and Thorn" game, in which we share the best and worst moments of our days. A letter from Wrecking Ball is always the Rose of my day :)

The other members of the group tease me a little about him, but it's in a nice way. For example, sometimes when we Skype we have a mug of tea together using specific mugs I bought us for that purpose (you can laugh at that if you want, I know it sounds kind of corny). A few nights ago I was boiling water on the kettle and I went to get my mug from my bedroom (the safest place for it!) and when Dog saw that I was holding it he said, "aw, Horchata's got a Skype date!" and Fox chimed in with "that's so cuuuute!" Last week at dinner Roo was telling us about an elderly woman nearby who would love to have us over for a games night. She described her as happily married with no kids but several cats and very lonely, and said she would appreciate it if we went over once or twice. As the whole group knows I miss my cat dearly, they instantly jumped on that: "That's going to be Horchata in 40 years, she already has one cat and her true love!"

I like that they acknowledge his presence in my life. I don't think I could find the words to explain why, but something about the way they ask about how we met or ask how he's doing makes me feel really good. But sometimes they also make me feel silly. I do whatever I can to keep Wrecking Ball involved in my experience. Every Monday night we go to a local school for a meeting of CinéClub Chicoutimi to watch a French film. I picked up an extra brochure about the CinéClub last week and translated the summaries of the movies for him so he would know what I'm going to be watching and, if one of them interests him, potentially find a way to watch it himself so we could talk about it. But Fox came home while I was sitting at the table with a dictionary and the brochure, working on it, and she said, "God, I'm glad I don't have a boyfriend right now, look at what she's doing, that would drive me insane." I felt rather embarassed but also defensive. I don't know if anyone reading this knows what it's like to be in a long-distance relationship but it sucks. It's hard, and more than a little lonely. When you're not interacting with them you miss them but somehow, when you are interacting with them, you miss them a little more, because it's as though it highlights what you can't have. If I'm on the phone with him before bed and I'm falling asleep it really hurts because I think about how if I wasn't here, we wouldn't be on the phone, we could actually be in bed together. So when Fox implied that I was crazy to be working to keep Wrecking Ball close to me I really wanted to say something nasty to her, because she really doesn't understand this. Instead, I just smiled and kept working.

Sometimes when you live with people it's easier to just not say anything when they piss you off. But only sometimes.

The other thing about which I'm thinking this morning (yay for long entries!) is my own life goals. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about them lately and I feel as though it is in my best interests to postpone (not abandon!) my dream of nursing. I feel as though the shift work would really hinder my stability and as I'd like to have kids as soon as I can, I feel I should pursue something else now and then go into nursing a little later in life, when my kids have grown up.

Sharing that reminds me of a conversation I had this morning. Cuisiner and I were awake before anyone because I went to bed early and he woke himself up with his coughing (he came down with something that sounds brutal a few days ago... I kind of want to bleach the whole house and drown myself in Vitamin C to prevent catching it myself) and after making him take some echinacea tablets for his throat I went back to the writing I started Thursday morning. He asked what I was working on and I explained that I had started making a list of every career I could come up with that fit my personal criteria as a way of brainstorming my choices in the coming years. Of course I then had to let him know my priorities, but I started with "I'd like to have kids as soon as I-" and he interrupted me to say I'm insane for wanting kids because we've both been kids and we know they're "bratty little monsters". For the record, I think he's insane for never wanting kids, but I didn't want to start that debate. I told him I didn't share that opinion and that I am very eager to have children. While we were talking about this, he was getting ready to go to the store for some bread (as people have found the loophole: if they buy their own bread it's not against the rules, they just can't put it on the grocery list... I don't intend to buy bread myself though. If there's homemade bread in the house why would I spend my own money on the store-bought stuff?). I told him to put a scarf around his throat to prevent worsening his cough. He has a hood thing that could potentially cover most of his face but he moved towards the door without having done so. I scolded him, "cover your face, do you want to get sicker?" and he tightened the hood to cover himself properly, and left the house saying, "thanks, MOM!" Sitting alone in the dining room, I had to smile to myself. I know it will be several years yet before I can take care of my own kids, but in the mean time, I can force my maternal urges on the people around me. Haha. That was said as at least 75% of a joke.

Katimavik Day 13

So, I have now worked for four days at the women's shelter. I absolutely love it! My mornings are mostly spent cleaning and preparing lunch. After lunch, I do a little more cleaning and then I just do whatever. I usually do some reading (the local newspaper or one of the books I got from the library last week) and talk with the residents. They all seemed quite intimidating when we did the tours of the work placements, but they all seem very nice now. There are often scheduled activities in the afternoons and next week I'll be running my own little drawing/imagination workshop. I'm really excited to do it and I hope they enjoy it.

There is a lot of cleaning to do at the shelter, but it is all done very regularly, so it's not gross or even hard work. Imagine a world in which cleaning a toilet feels no different from cleaning a mirror. It's actually quite enjoyable! I've never considered myself a neat freak at all. In fact, I was actually very messy up until the week before I left for Katimavik - I was able to throw out more than 3 garbage bags worth of junk (when I say "more than three" I really mean "I'm too embarassed to say the real number") during The Great Room Purge Of 2012. In my defense (and I may have said this before), I was messy but not dirty. There was nothing gross about the things all over my floor, no food or cat turds, it was all just papers and books, and often clothes and art supplies. I'm starting to get off topic...

I really, really enjoy all the cleaning I've been doing. It feels so good to be in such a clean environment. There isn't even dust in all the places dust usually lurks! It's just absolutely wonderful and I can't say that enough. I fully intend to run my own place that way when I come back. I also fully intend to move out of my parents' house for good when I get back, because I could not stand going back to that level of dependancy (not to mention, I don't want to feel the need to clean my parents' house because it is, put nicely, not pristine). So, anyone looking for a roommate around August? Haha. I don't mean that to sound confusing, I get back in June. I just need to work for a few weeks first so I can actually do that whole rent-paying thing that people seem to require from their roommates. Haha.

I don't know if my writing is reflecting it, but I am in a fantastic mood right now. I didn't oversleep this morning (I kind of did yesterday. And Friday...) and there was cake after lunch because two of the women at the shelter have their birthdays today, and the absolute best part was that in the hour before I left, two women and I discussed some of my favourite topics: marriage and kids. They shared with me the milestones they had passed, and at what age, and told me about their birth stories, and I shared with them my goals, hopes, and fears for the future. Our language barrier is easily ignored with the aid of weird phrases like "that person who isn't the mother or the aunt or not even necessarily related but kind of like a guardian sometimes?" (answer = godmother) and lots of miming. So much miming.

Loving this adventure! But still missing everyone at home, of course <3

Katimavik Day 7

Yesterday we finished touring our potential work placements. When we went to the SPCA, there was a cat that was a Himalayan just like mine but she had different colouring: seal point instead of flame point, which means she was grey where my cat is orange but they both have blue eyes and sweet squishy faces. Petting the cat made me miss mine a little less, so part of me started to hope that I would get placed there, but at the same time the SPCA placement was shared with a book recycling center that looked really boring so I kept the women's shelter as my top choice. When we got home, I went to the library with Rose (yes, I've now picked nicknames for my group members!) and I found two books that really excited me. One is an easy children's book that I read back in grade 12 and the other is a novel for ages 9-12 that will take me a little longer but I'll still enjoy it because it's a translation of a novel by Neil Gaiman called "The Graveyard Book" which I have been meaning to read for a while.

Today we had our group interview. It was really interesting. We had a representative from each work placement there and each volunteer in turn said a bit about themselves including French competency level, work experience, interests, and top placement choices. It was a little daunting to talk in front of so many people, but I was confident in what I had written and I was in the middle of the group so that made it easier.

I got the job at the women's shelter! I'm very, very excited to start there tomorrow! I'm going to have to speak a lot of French there and it's going to be hard, but I think it will be very rewarding.

In the van on the way back to our Katimahouse, B.C. cracked a joke about how I could introduce myself to the women at the shelter: "I was raped too!" I looked at him in shock. "Sorry," he said, "my gender likes rape jokes." Then I said, quite frankly, "It's really only funny until it happens to you." There. I said it to my group members, and I'm saying it here. I'm moving on from the experience, but it happened, and it bothered me a lot. I was raped this summer when Love and I went to Halifax for Canada Day. That's why I never wrote an entry about that trip; I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to admit that it had happened, I wanted to forget. But now I'm really moving on from the trauma. I think my antidepressants are helping a lot with that; the psychiatrist that prescribed them said that I was exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder because of it, and one of the effects of the drug is to lessen those symptoms. It's true that when I really think about it, when I remember that night, I still get quite upset. I'm starting to feel a little panicky as I type this, being so frank about it. But it happened, and I know it wasn't my fault. I also don't think it was his fault. Everyone involved was drunk, and while that's no excuse, it makes it easier to accept, in a way. He wasn't intentionally trying to hurt me and in fact I believe that he thought I was consenting.  He should have stopped when I made it clear that I wanted him to stop, but he seemed to think I was only worried about Love noticing what was going on. As B.C. said, when both parties are intoxicated the lines of consent get somewhat blurry. It doesn't remove blame, but it could be worse. It's not as though he drugged me and brought me home with him. I see it as a misunderstanding and yes, it did bother me a lot, I'm not trying to downplay that. I guess I'm just trying to say that I know a lot of people have had much worse experiences than mine so it's getting easier to think about over time.

Rose and B.C. commented that I seemed to be handling it well, and I joked, "it's the happy pills!" And with that we discovered that all three of us take the same antidepressant. We thought it was pretty awesome. I'm very proud to take them, B.C. has been on them for a few years and thinks he doesn't need them any more but sees no need to stop taking them, and Rose is a little embarrassed; from what I understand she doesn't know a lot of people that understand depression, so I can see how that would make it hard for her to talk about it. So we all have a different relationship with the drug but we all agree that it's a very helpful thing.

I'm really looking forward to starting at my work placement tomorrow morning! Just in case y'all forgot that I said that a few paragraphs ago. Whee!

Katimavik Day 5

We've been given so much information in the past few days! There are a lot of rules to follow but most of them are straightforward and easy to remember. One big bonus in all of this is that because I'm bilingual, I hear the information in French and then again when it is translated for the Anglophones. So I have a bit of an advantage as far as absorbing all this information.

We eat so healthy here! It's really exciting. Yesterday we were told about how we will be expected to plan menus when it is our turn to be house manager for a week. The house manager will stay home from their work placement and clean the house and cook dinner for everyone. It sounded like it would be hard to make a menu that is diverse and meets our guidelines but it was very easy. We can cook whatever we want as long as it contains all the food groups with an emphasis on vegetables (so usually we would choose a main dish and then put a vegetable dish on the side) and we can't eat meat with dinner more than 4 days in a week. So an example of a good meal would be vegetarian burgers on ciabatta buns with sweet potato fries on the side, or chicken gyros with greek salad on the side. We have a zillion recipe books and some suggested weekly menus already so it was really easy to come up with the practice menus that our Project Leader (PL from now on) asked us to make.

Today for lunch we all made individual pizzas on whole wheat pitas. I made mine with bechamel sauce that was left over from dinner on Friday instead of tomato sauce, and topped it with Spinach, ham, little chunks of feta cheese, and lots of grated mozzarella. It was fantastic! It's never occurred to me to make something so nice for myself for lunch. I feel like I'll continue to eat healthy when I get home because I never knew how much fun it could be.

Today we toured most of our potential work placements. There are still a few to check out tomorrow. I was really excited during the tour of the women's shelter because we had been told only a Francophone girl could work there and I was disappointed to hear that because it was a place in which I would be interested. But then when we got there I asked if an Anglophone could work there if their French was strong enough and the director said that wouldn't be a problem! And to make that even better, the other two French speaking girls had no interest in the place so (knock on wood) I have a pretty good chance of getting to work there. I think it would be so rewarding. Also, I wouldn't have to pack a lunch (only a few of the placements provide lunch for their volunteers), clean up horse shit (one placement is a farm), or go outside much (the daycares, while awesome because kids, talked about going outside with them. Well, -10 is a warm day around here and -25 happens. So, no thanks). Sounds good to me.

I'd like to talk about the dynamics emerging in our group because it's so interesting to see how everyone is interacting but I'm very, very tired. I actually took a nap before supper. I don't know what it was about touring work placements but I was exhausted when we got back. I have to be up early again tomorrow so I should get to bed now to ensure at least seven and a half hours of sleep.

It's hard to balance socializing with this group, keeping in touch with people back home, and getting a decent amount of sleep (I prefer ten hours). I guess I'll get the hang of it though; it's still early.

Katimavik Day 1

I'm not going to worry about song quotes that relate to my Katimaposts for the next six months. I will certainly start again when I'm home.

Yesterday was the big moving day. I spent my last few hours packing and panicking and being nervous. I said goodbye to my cat and told her I wasn't abandoning her and that I would come back, and she hoarsely said "mruh" which almost made me cry because she is normally a very quiet cat so it was like she was trying to tell me that she understood and it was OK. Wrecking Ball drove me to the airport. We met my parents there but they didn't come in with me because my brother was having a bad day and they thought it best not to bring him in. We said goodbye there and I thought my sister was going to cry. Then I had to leave Wrecking Ball behind and I was trying not to cry, it was very hard. I'm not worrying like I was about what would happen to our relationship over the next six months; instead I am sad about how hard it will be to miss him.

My first flight landed in Montreal, and then I flew from there to Quebec. I met a girl on the plane who is in a nearby group. Then at the airport I met one of the boys from my group. We all piled onto a bus and I met another boy from my group. One of the girls nearby might have been in my group but I slept through the bus ride and can't remember who else was near me. We got to our Katimahouse a little after 1 am.

This morning we introduced ourselves and our Project Leader told us a little about our schedule. We're about to go learn how to make bread, because we won't be buying bread at all for the next six months, it will all be homemade! I'm quite excited for that. But I'm due back upstairs in three minutes so talking about the other people in my group will have to wait. I have most peoples names down already though!

The Wedding

"They start to move across the floor, the room is frozen wanting more. The happy couple on display, with nothing standing in their way. It's so romantic I could die, right here and now!"
- The Wedding Singer musical, Someday

Yesterday Wrecking Ball drove us to Charlottetown for my cousin's wedding. We showed up just in time for the ceremony - only minutes to spare. We tried to leave early, but Wrecking Ball needed to talk to Cat before we got going, and then I realised I'd forgotten the dress I wanted to wear to the reception, and then the roads were awful for most of the drive.

The ceremony was lovely. It was in a basilica that still had red velvet ribbons and white fairy lights everywhere from Christmas. The bride was crying with happiness as she walked up the aisle and it made my day. The only unenjoyable thing for me was that we had jogged from the hotel to the church and I had a mild asthma attack through three quarters of the ceremony. It was all I could do to hold my coughs until times when we were all moving or otherwise making noise.

At the reception, my aunts kept coming to talk to us. Many wanted to talk to me about going to Katimavik, but what they all really wanted was to be introduced to Wrecking Ball. They had almost all met Acadia once upon a time, if only through Facebook, but I had never brought him to a wedding and if I'm not mistaken there were two on this side of the family (my mother's) during the time frame of our relationship. It seemed to be a major thing for them; my favourite aunt and my second cousin were particularly interested in asking me about him.

Around 10:30, it was time for the bride to toss the bouquet. I had had a decent amount to drink by that time - sake with the sushi we grabbed pre-reception, two glasses of wine (mine and my cousin's with dinner, as she didn't want hers), and a rum and coke. That's over about 4 hours, but it is a lot for lightweight me, especially with my newly lowered tolerance (the anti-depressants still work really well) and the fact that I hadn't eaten much all day. I was feeling giddy and a little less coordinated than usual. My aunts wouldn't even let me choose whether or not to get the bouquet. I don't know if they sincerely wanted me to be next in line (there are only two cousins older than I am who are not married) or if they just wanted someone from the groom's party to catch it (because the other women were all from the bride's family and friends). Whichever it was, I was being told to go up there before I could think.

So there we were, standing in line a few metres behind my new cousin-in-law. She tossed the bouquet over her shoulder and I watched it sail almost slowly towards us. It looked like it was going to hit the girl beside me in the face. She didn't even seem to be starting to raise her arms. So I just reached over and plucked it out of the air. I had caught the bouquet! I caught it! I looked at it in surprise. I can't catch things even when I'm completely sober, and here I was, having ninja'd this prize out from under some other girl's nose. I was more than a little pleased with myself, can you tell?

We all counted down to the new year together, which was very cool. I've never been around more than a few people during a NYE countdown, and there was something so magical about the energy in the air. The alcohol was probably contributing to that, but it gave me the same feeling I get when I watch fireworks, which is something I can't describe without getting really cheesy but in short it is wonderful.

Wrecking Ball and I went back to the hotel before the party was over. I drunkenly told him we should get married and have six babies. This morning I awkwardly told him I remembered saying it but didn't actually want to have six kids. "I don't think I could handle more than three," I said, which was an attempt at a joke but the whole thing was just too strange and he didn't really say anything to that. I don't think he could have.

We went to Cora's for breakfast at noon and he couldn't decide between two things that sounded very tasty. I had already made up my mind (mostly) but changed it and we ordered both of the things he was debating and shared them both. I think it was actually the best breakfast I have ever had, no exaggerations.

I felt really bad during the drive back because I was able to nap and Wrecking Ball was clearly getting tired. I had already been pretty sure that I'd like to get my driver's license when I get back from Katimavik, but now I'm sure. Because I'd really like to go back to Charlottetown to revisit Ta-Ke Sushi and see Anne & Gilbert: The Musical (it will take me a lot of convincing to get WB to agree to that one) but I don't want to make him drive that far again. It feels quite unfair.

Anniversary/Christmas

"Best that I've had, I'm so glad I found you - I love being around you!"
- Plain White T's, 1 2 3 4

Last Saturday, Wrecking Ball and I celebrated our first anniversary. I went over to his house and traded Christmas present with him and his family, and I was pleasantly surprised when he gave me some books he enjoys as a Christmas present. He thought we could read them together while I'm away. I thought that was an excellent gift, and told him I had already bought extra copies of my two favourite books (Memoirs of a Geisha and 13 Little Blue Envelopes) so that we could read them together. It was really cool that we both had the same idea (well, we both like the same idea. I didn't think of it myself, I actually read it online somewhere).

On Christmas morning, after my family had opened all of our presents, Wrecking Ball collected me and we had dinner with his family, then went back to my house for dessert and watched a movie with my dad (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the Swedish version with subtitles).

For some reason this felt like the best Christmas I've had in a long time. I don't know whether it was because I'm really cherishing the time that I have with my family before I leave (that sounds so silly, but I love them more than I like to admit) or if it was something else, but it was a really good weekend.

For the rest of last week I've been seeing my friends, Love in particular, as much as I can. Jewel and I had a nice time together on Wednesday. We went to the mall for no reason just like we used to do in middle school. It was great. We're going to see each other again tomorrow night, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's funny, we don't see each other very often, but the option is always there and we seem to take that for granted. Since we are about to have six whole months in which we are guaranteed to not see each other, it suddenly feels like I couldn't spend enough time with her.