My On-Line Journal
Fall 2003

December 9, 2003
November 21, 2003
November 17, 2003
November 15, 2003
November 10, 2003
November 7, 2003
November 3, 2003
October 28, 2003
October 25, 2003
October 19, 2003
October 12, 2003
October 6, 2003
October 4, 2003

October 4, 2003

So much to write about, so little time. The past few days have been very full to say the least. Last weekend I went up on a trip with Sarah and Kat to Sackville to visit everyone and to celebrate Mabon. I unfortunately didn't get a chance to see everyone that I wanted to, due to a lack of time, but I did have quite a few interesting and new experiences, that's for sure. Thanks for the brownies, Josie. They were really delicious.

The highlight of the weekend for me was when seven of us drove down to Silver Lake in the middle of the night to go swimming. I had always wanted to at least visit the lake while I was at school, but never had a chance to go. It was such a beautiful night. Not too cold, though the water was quite chilly as you can imagine. But it was amazing that's for sure.

The trip was cut short by Hurricane Juan. My parents were worried about me driving in bad weather so we high-tailed it back earlier than planned. Though driving home wouldn't have been much worse had we left later in the afternoon, I was certainly glad to be home before dark. That night was one I will never forget.

When they say a hurricane is coming, I don't think much of it other than high winds and a bit of rain. This was way worse. The whole house was shaking and I was terrified, I'm not afraid to admit that. After getting up once with my parents and the dog, I lit a few candles in my room and prayed to every power that was listening that we would come out safe. Just as I was going back to bed, the eye passed over us. It was so erie. After so much noise to have absolute calm. Then the winds started up again on the other side of the house and I went to sleep at last.

The next morning, I looked out my window to see a tree had fallen in our neighbour's yard, and one was down from our property line onto our other neighbour's. We also still didn't have power, but that was no big surprise. My parents told me they had been out for a walk and there were hundreds of trees down in our neighbourhood. They showed me some pictures. I was absolutely dumbstruck. I have never seen distruction like this. Sarah and I went out walking to shove off the boredom of lack of power or work and were awestruck by the trees and powerlines down all over the place. What stuck us most, however, was that with all the huge trees down, very few houses were damaged, and there had only been two deaths. I'm sad that two men died, and I'm heartbroken at the loss of all the trees, but we have been so lucky. Someone was looking out for us, of that I'm sure.

The days wore on. We saw more of our neighbours than we have in all our years of living here. Without electricity, we did our best to eat food before it went bad. We went outside a lot, I got some reading and writing done, some planning for this web page, took lots of pictures, (which, once my computer is fixed, I'll post) and did our best to keep ourselves sane.

Finally, on Thursday afternoon, our power came back on. I have never been more happy to hear the hum of the fridge in all my life. I enjoyed sitting by candle light in the evenings, and sleeping in a darkness without any light pollution, but certain things like warm showers, or food that wasn't cooked on the barbeque were sorely missed. Being a vegetarian, my options were severly limited, and I did give in at one point when it was that or let the food go bad, and I needed some protien and iron really baddly. But really, four days without power wasn't too bad. There are still people today who are trying to live without power. And although our water was freezing cold, some people with electric pumps didn't have water at all.

Last night, I went into the city with my parents, and after dinner, we walked and drove around to see for ourselves the worst of the damage. We walked along the waterfront and saw one of the boats that sank. We drove around Point Pleasant Park and saw a few of the many many trees that are down there. And we walked around the outside of the Public Gardens. That was the hardest. Some of those trees were over a hundred years old. The damage was indiscribable. I'd seen pictures and heard people talk about it, but I felt like openly weeping in the middle of the sidewalk at some points. I was happy to bump into Kelly and Kelsie (I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to spell your name) because I knew they shared my pain. It will be a while before we recover from this, but what gave me hope was, despite the thousands of trees that fell or were damaged, we still have a lot of trees. And we can plant more. One thing I have seen over the past week is people's resiliance and willingness to help right things. We will recover from this, I have no doubt.

In other, non-hurricane related news, there's still no word from SWAP, though I know they cashed my check, so I still don't know when I'll be leaving. I'll be sure to let everyone know when I know. Zoe sent me a great e-mail with all sorts of contacts and bits of helpful information about Scotland. Thanks Zoe!

Also, if you have noticed I haven't been on-line, that is because my computer is broken. More specifically, the power source is broken and smells like fried wires with a side of cooked dust. The fan isn't moving so it won't turn on. This means, I'm using my parents computer for the time being, but I'm going to take it to get it fixed on Monday. So eventually, I will have it back.

That's all for now!
Jeannie

October 6, 2003

It's been a week since I woke up to find the city changed irrevicalbly by hurricane Juan. For the most pary, things are back to normal around here. Fallen trees have turned into brush piles by the side of the road. Bushes, my mom calls them. Our power is back on, though my computer has gone to the doctors to get fixed so I'm still feeling a bit disconnected, but for around 10,000 people, there's still no light on when they open their fridge door.

When my mom came home from school today, we decided to take a walk along the path around the lake. This is where I spent the better part of my childhood. Most of my favorite memories from being a kid revolve around running through the woods, climbing trees and building forts. Up on the street, most of the damage has been more or less erased from view. Things look pretty normal besides the strange bushes on almost everyone's lawn. Down in the woods is another story altogether. Trees are across the path, fallen or bent all over the place. On one property, there were so many trees down or broken that we could no longer see the house behind them. In other cases, we could see houses that weren't visable before.

When we came to the line between our street and next street over, there were so many trees across the path that we coudn't go any further. I felt like I had found my childhood home distroyed. Many trees are still standing, we are lucky for that, but there's just so much devistation. I'll have to go down and do some sort of healing ritual at some point.

In happier news, I've been so full of ideas and drive to write lately. I've been doing a whole lot of editing on The Twelve and I'm a whole lot happier about it than I was before. I have some pictures and things that I want to try out as cover art for some of my stories once my computer comes back on either Thursday or Friday. I also had an amazing dream that had a really cool plot that I'd like to make into a story at some point. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've had so much time to write, re-reading all my old report cards from Elementary, the time of the year or a combination of all three, but I really feel like writing a whole lot right now. Still no news about SWAP. Hopefully something will come soon.
Jeannie

October 12, 2003

Well, I have some really good news. I finally have my ticket all reserved and everything for my trip. I'm leaving on November 11th, and I'll get into Scotland on the 12th. So I've basically got one more month to get ready to go. It's a bit scary how real it's starting to get now that I have a date and that I've sent away all my paperwork. The plane trip's going to cost a bit more than I thought, but it's okay. I saved up some during the summer, and now I'm subbing at the daycare that Sarah works at.

I worked there for the first time on Friday. It was definitly an interesting and full day. The kids were a bit zooey and some of them were cranky. It was the full moon after all so I kind of expected it. I got through all right though. I have a bit of a sore back from picking the kids up the wrong way. I guess I won't do that again. I'm hoping I'll be able to sub there a few more times before I get going.

We headed up to Cape Breton this weekend to spend some time at my aunt's house. I was pretty sad that I didn't get to go up to CB at all this summer, so I was happy we could make it up this weekend. It was quite a full house. Two of my cousins and their dog, my aunt and uncle stayed the night, my aunt and her two dogs, plus my parents and our dog. Yeah. Four dogs and eight people under one roof. Then twelve of us for Thanksgiving dinner! It was a nice and fairly relaxing weekend. The colours in the trees on the drive home were absolutely beautiful, and it was nice to be away from the broken trees that are so constant around here.

Oh! I should get my computer back either tomorrow or Tuesday! So, with any luck, I'll be getting lots of work done on my web pages. I have so many pictures to upload! Later.
Jeannie

October 19, 2003

Not a whole lot going on this week now that I'm not working or anything. Since subbing the once, I haven't gone back yet, but I'm hopefully working four days next week, so that will be good. Sarah's not happy because it's the week before she goes away and she won't be there, but it gives her more time to pack and I can really use the money. So I've been spending a whole lot of time working on this web site! I discovered the joys of Photoshop, as you can tell from the title pictures for my stories and everything else. Next I'm going to try to make some picture buttons. Lots and lots of fun.

I've also been doing some research on Scotland, on things like, how much flats(appartements) cost in the major cities, and what the job market is like. I even applied for a tour guide job in Edinburgh for one of those Haunted Tour things, but no word back yet. I would love to get something like that, or, in a perfect world, some sort of job involving a theatre in any way shape or form. I'll try to at least volunteer at one, even if I'm not working in one.

Yesterday, Greg and Pat came home for a bit to drop some stuff off, Pat went back, but Greg's home for good now. We went into Halifax, intending to go into Point Pleasant Park because it was open this weekend so everyone could see what it looks like before they close it indefinitly, but it was pretty icky out, cold and raining, so we ended up getting some shopping done instead.

Today, we went back out to Halifax and did end up going to the park. The amount of people there was almost as unbelievable as the broken trees. One of the first people we saw when we going in to the park was one of the actors from Shakespeare by the Sea. We asked her if she knew what they were going to do next season since the park isn't exactly an ideal theatre space anymore. She wasn't sure, but was hoping they might get a more permenant indoor outdoor space if they get some relief funding or something.

The trees were... shocking was the best way to put it. I could not believe the damage. There were huge swathes of land that had been so forested before that were now just graveyards of trees. It smelled and looked a great deal like a very messy lumberyard. Another amazing thing was the amount of sea weed, shells, rocks, sand and other sea debries that was so far from the water. Near the end of the walk, there were more trees and we were heartened by that fact. It's amazing how many people came out to see the park. It felt somewhat like a wake. What surprised me was there was no donation box, or even a contact number for where people could send donations because surely all those people would have been willing to donate at least a little bit of money/time/resources to a cause like this.

When we reached the end of the walk we sat down for a while to just sit on the ground and be in the park, something we may not be able to do for a while, but we have done a lot of in the past. We all planted a silver coin because when you take something from a tree it's nice to leave a present of some sort and that's just what I felt I needed to do. We also found three acorns and planted them along the path. Even if they don't grow, it's the symbolism of promise of new growth that's important.

Then we went for dinner at Momoya and met up with Pat and Rob, Pat's new boyfriend. He seems really great and passed all our tests. Then we walked around the Public Gardens, but after seeing the park, it really doesn't look that bad. Now we're going out to a movie, so I should get going. All and all, today was a pretty great day.

Jeannie

October 25, 2003

This week was a bit topsy turvey. While Sarah had her last day at the day-care on Friday so that she can have some time to get ready to go, I worked at the day-care for nearly all of the week in her room! So I got to be the one taking care of cranky todlers all week instead of her. It really was a great experience overall. I really bonded with a few of the kids, though others not so much, but that's the way it goes. Plus, I now feel a bit more secure in my ability to become a parent eventually. It's a really good feeling. I think my back muscles got a great deal stronger. The one big pitfall is that I now have phrases like, "We do not hit our friends!", "This is my work. You need to find your own work!", "I like it when you use your words!", and "Your feet belong on the floor!" all in that over articulated way that Sarah tends to use with children in my repetoire. I'll be subbing again on Friday in the baby room this time. We'll see how that pans out.

I've got my plane ticket all paid for. I went down to the travel place on my break on Tuesday. Note: To anyone traveling who is prone to moodiness, do not go to pay for things like this while having a bout of moodiness. In other words, I was PMSing when I went to pay and then they sprang an added travel insurance thing that I was not aware of. I assumed it was included in the rather high cost of my ticket. So, being already worried about having enough money for the trip as it was, I nearly burst into tears in the middle of this office. I'm sure the woman was aware of this and she was very nice about it. But it's all paid for now, I hope. With any luck I'll be subbing more in the coming two weeks before I go. I need about six more days to get up to where I would really really like to be, but I think I'll be okay.

Because of this whole money issue, I'm thinking of staying in Edinburgh for the two days between my arival and my orientation, and then moving on to a less expensive city. I'll spend those two days doing touristy things and job and flat hunting from afar. I have my hostel accomodation paid for for the first two days anyway, so I don't have to worry about that. Just food and stuff. Travel within the UK doesn't seem to be too expensive, so hopefully it won't be too hard to find a way up to one of the smaller cities, maybe Glasgow, or up in the Highlands if I'm really adventurous.

Kat, Andrea, Sarah and I got together last night to work out most of the details of the big ritual for Samhain on Friday night. I'm really looking forward to it. It's my first Samhain in Halifax, a fact that everyone seems to be really surprized about. They keep forgetting that I've been in New Brunswick for the past four years I guess. *lol* It's going to be an amazing night if it turns out anything like what it looks like in my head. The songs that Don wrote for it are so incredible! Maybe if I get a chance before I leave, I'll set up a page where I can write out the lyrics to those and all the other chants that I have compiled.

Well, Sarah's leaving on Tuesday. I leave two weeks after that. It's all very sad. Her party is tomorrow night. I can imagine there will be enough tears to drown a mermaid. I really really hope that we'll both have internet access. Well, I should get working on Sarah's going away present and the million other things I have on my To Do list.

Jeannie

October 28, 2003

Well, two weeks from today I'll be getting ready to take off to Scotland. Or at least to St John's and then to London, and then to Scotland. I'm excited but I'm starting to get really nervous too. This is the first time I've ever flown by myself or been out of the country by myself for that matter. And it's just starting to really sink in that I'm actually going. Maybe partially because Sarah just left today.

We had a party for Sarah on Sunday. It was an open-house show up when you want type affair, and she was excepting neighbours and family and such, but it was almost all friends plus Zeta's sister and her parents. But we stayed upstairs and had adult conversation and celebrated Sarah's birthday early. The boys showed up late, of course, but we expected them to so it just gave us one more thing to laugh about. There wasn't any crying. We were all really good. Maybe it's because we've done this with Sarah before or something, but it was just a bit easier on the whole this time around.

After 5 we went downstairs to have our own party, piled on the couch listening to music and talking about things that happened "back in the day", our new favourite time period to talk about. Then we watched The Wicker Man. This bizzare movie from the seventies that was meant to be a horror movie about pagans and sacrifice, but wasn't at all scary. It was very interesting to watch though and it took place in Scotland, shot on location on a real island that I found on a map. I'll have to try to get out to visit it at some point.

Everyone except Kat and I ended up leaving after the movie because of work or whatever, but since Kat took this week off and I'm only subbing occasionally, we could hang out much later. Much much later as it turned out. My goodness when we get talking it never stops! It's great to have female friends like them though that we can talk about everything with. Since visiting Sackville it just seems like whenever the three of us get together we can talk about anything and everything.

Yesterday I got some more work done on this site. My chant compilation is up, with it's own picture too. Still no buttons but I'll get to that eventually. So much to do before I leave. I also got together with Don, Andrea and Kat to get some more or less final planning done for Samhain on Friday. I can't believe it's coming up so soon! It seems like we might be in the end of September, here we are the end of October. Unreal.

And finally we saw Sarah off to the airport today. For a minute I thought I might get away without crying, but so much for that. It was a bit easier than seeing her off to the States, but only a bit. At least then I knew we could be in contact fairly frequently. But at the same time, I'm about to start my own adventure, so I'll have that to concentrate on. We watched her go through security and I think her wires in her bra might have set off the metal detectors. It took her a really long time to get through. So the lesson of this is, don't wear bras with underwires through airport security.

Good luck Sarah! I know you'll do awesome!

Jeannie

November 3, 2003

What an interesting week this has been! On Friday I substituted at the daycare again, but this time I was in the baby room. The babies were so cute! It was very different working with younger kids. They don't really talk much at all and only about half of them could walk, but they still have so much personality. Plus I didn't spend most of my time trying to keep them from killing each other, so that was a definite bonus. I did miss the kids from the other room though. I could see them through the glass door that separates the two rooms and I kept wanting to go over to see them. I know how Sarah must feel when she has to keep leaving her kids, and I was only with them for a week. Must be one of those instincts we have I guess.

We had the big Samhain ritual on the Commons on Friday as well. So many people came out to participate, it was amazing. We also got a really great picture and article in the newspaper. I have to scan it so I can post it on here. The ritual didn't quite go as planned, but these things never do. We had a tree that we wanted to bless that we will plant at Beltaine that we didn't really get to talk about a whole lot. It's a nice little Rowan tree though and a good symbol that people probably understood without us really talking about it.

The songs that we tried to teach them, well, it's hard teach a song to so many people and expect them to all catch on. I really liked the songs, but they were a bit too complicated for people to learn quickly. I think I'm really in favour of short simple chants at big rituals. I think the "Farwell to Fleash" song worked really well with Kat, Andrea and I singing alone, though I'm not sure if people could hear us unless they were right next to us.

Josie, Ryan and Ivy all came down from New Brunswick too. It was great to see them. Ryan wasn't there at the rit, and Ivy was feeling a bit off, but it was still great to see them. Greg also showed up which was wonderful. And Trisha and her mom came as well. Some people dressed up and wore really amazing costumes.

The next day, Amanda, her sister, her sister's boyfriend and three new EROS people showed up. It was great seeing them all. I went with them into Halifax where we split up into several groups and went wandering around the city. Because I'm watching my money like a hawk these days, I only bought supper, and even at that I got a sub with a coupon so I really didn't spend much. It was fun wandering around and going into our favourite shops. I also saw a few people I knew, Emily for one who was just getting off work, and a girl that I used to dance with "back in the day".

We (Amanda, her sister, sister's boyfriend and I) headed over to Kat's to get ready to go to the Witches' Ball. Kat was.... not ready. She was still making her costume. It was nice to see Kat and Adam before we left though and very nice of them to let us get changed there. I went as a pirate. RRRRRrr matey. Amanda was an autumn faery, her sister went very dressy goth and her boyfriend just went as himself. Kat made her dress and it looked very nice, and Adam was a vampire with a very convincing set of fangs. We went on ahead without them to the Ball.

The Ball was at the Grad House and was awesome. The costumes that people were wearing were unbelievable! There were faeries everywhere, quite a few steriotypical witches, some bellydancers, a firefighter, two pirates besides myself, Vasalisa (the little girl from the Baba Yaga myth), the night sky, the Invisible Man, the murderer from the Fritz Lang movie "M", Medusa, the Horned God, Pan, Santa Claus, and many many others. The creativity was mind boggling. This was no normal costume party. People obviouslt spent a very long time on some of the costumes.

It was nice to see everyone. Some of the people there I only ever get to see at Avalon East, or occasionally on the commons. And I met a few new people as well, which is always nice. We spent most of the night sitting upstairs and chatting. It was kind of too bad we didn't see more of the acts, but we went down for the belly dancing, and Mark and I sang along with the Theives of Dagdad. Mark was dressed as a very modern death in a black suit with various funny buttons, bumper stickers and cigaret packages attatched to him. The most popular button seemed to be "Vote Bush 2004". I sort of wish we had seen more acts, but at the same time it was much quieter upstairs, with less drinking and I always enjoy the oppertunity to sit and chat with friends new and old.

On Sunday we went to Cora's for brunch, an amazing restuarant that is always busy. We only had to wait 30 minutes to get a table so it wasn't too bad. The food, as always, was amzing. I was sorry I had eaten so much before.

Sunday evening I went over to Pat and Greg's aunt's house to watch some anime with them. We saw 12 Kingdoms, a very strange anime series that was dubbed into English whose plot we found nearly impossible to follow. That and we didn't have the complete series. The other one we watched was called Silent Morbus(sp?). It was much more interesting. Also an anime series, not a full movie, but in Japanese with subtitles which automatically makes it better in my opinion. I don't like dubbed movies. Japanese, Italian or otherwise. It looses something in translation and the voice actors just don't ever seem to do a very good job. Anyway, this one was much better, easier to understand and had some very interesting characters in it. And, very strangely, one of the characters used the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, a really elaborate and cerimonial ritual that I believe came out of the Key of Solomon? It uses a lot of Catholic imagery but is used by a lot of really cerimonial pagans. It's kind of bizzare and I've never really understood the use of it. It's supposed to be used to cast a protective circle, I think, but it's so long and... cerimonial. *lol* Anyway, interesting that they used some western "magic".

After that, Pat took me over to show me his new place. It's beautiful, I'm so jealous. It's a really old house that looks like it's been recently redone. It's got hardwood floors, a huge kitchen, dinning room and living room, a fireplace, a Jacozzi tub, fake sky lights, a finished basement, and it's not too too far away from downtown. There are four of them sharing it and it's a three bedroom place so it's not as expensive as it could be, but even so. We may possibly be having my going away party there on Friday if Pat okays it with his roommates.

Today and yesterday I spent a lot of time getting ready to go. I only have one more week. Pretty scary. I made an appointment with my bank today and talked to the heath insurance people to okay my trip. Apparently they'll only cover me for one year, so maybe I will just come back in June. It'd be a shame to miss the best months of the year over there, but we'll have to wait and see.

I also converted some of my photo files so that they're smaller and re-posted them on my old photo page. There are also some new nature pictures and I did a few little touch ups on my Tintamarre pictures. I can really tell the difference between those early pictures and the ones I take now. I know a lot more about the camera settings than I did then, though I'm still not great, especially when it comes to indoor pictures with a lot of movement. I would really like to take a class in it at some point. I still have a lot more to do before I leave. Like figure out which bag other than my backpack I'm taking. There's a headache in and of itself. Oh well, it will all get done on time, I'm sure.

Wow, this is a long post. I should go do something more productive.

Jeannie

November 7, 2003

Four more sleeps till I go. And I'm starting to go insane. Well, not totally insane, just mostly. I know exactly how Sarah felt now before she left. It's so hard to get anything done right now, and yet I still have quite a few things I could be doing. Luckily, most of what I really need to get done is done.

I went to the bank today to work out a whole lot of stuff. For a few pretty scary moments I thought I wasn't going to be able to get any Britsh Pounds, but that got all sorted out and I just have to go into Halifax to pick them up. I also managed to get a credit card, for good or for bad. I know it's probably a good idea for me to have one, I can book hostel rooms in advance and I can build up some good credit and all that, but it seems like an added expense that I don't really need right now. And an added inconvenience. I may have to stay in Edinburgh a few extra days because of it, but I guess then I'll get to see a bit more of the city, and maybe I'll end up finding an amazing job there and want to stay in the city longer anyway. At least the hostel I'm staying at there has internet service. I'm not sure if it's a pay as you go thing or what, but I'll have to be really careful not to use up too much money especially if I'm not going to be getting a job right off. Oh the stress of it all.

On a similar vein to one of Jeff's rants about Metro Transit on his web page, I have one of my own today. So I was coming home from the bank, a trip that I could have done in about 45 minutes for free if it weren't for the fact that you aren't supposed to walk on that tiny little stretch of highway between Sackville and Bedford, and we pull up in the 80 at the Cobequid terminal to watch the 87 Downsview pull out of the terminal. Several of the passangers, myself included, tried to wave down the bus, but to no avail. It's not like it would have taken so much time out of the driver's schedule to wait for a connecting bus, especially since the 87 only runs once an hour. So I had to walk home. It's not that far, but after all the stress of all the bank stuff I was pretty pissed off. Besides there was one really old woman who also had to walk because of this. Sometimes, the buses really make me angry. It's great that we have them, believe me, I would have done anything to have a Metro Transit bus in Sackville New Brunswick, especially considering it takes about the same time to get from Sackville to Moncton as it does from Sackville to Halifax.... That's a really confusing statement. :) Okay, it's the same distance from Sackville NB> to Moncton, as it is from Sackville NS to Halifax. There. That's better. But since there's no metro transit system in the area, you end up having to take an SMT (NB equivilant to Acadia Lines) to get to Moncton if you don't have a car, or take a taxi. But it costs about $20! Plus it only leaves, I think, twice a day. So yeah, in some ways I do really appriciate Metro Transit, while at other times it frustrates me to no end.

I've been doing a fair amount of research on hostels and jobs and all kinds of other stuff for Scotland. There are a few web sites that have jobs posted on them. The two I've been mainly looking at have jobs in the tourism industry and the other has jobs in theatre, stage and related places. Unfortunatly, the theatre one is for all of the UK, so the majority of the jobs are for London, and I haven't seen anything promising there yet, but the tourism one has had a few interesting ones. They are mostly for jobs that start now or really soon or have interviews now so I sort of have to wait till I'm there for a lot of them. I also need to get a cell phone when I'm over there so that employers can contact me.

Well, I should clean up my room and pack a little bit more before my going away party at Pat's tonight. If anyone wants to come, just give me a call. :)

Jeannie

November 10, 2003

One more sleep. This is my last night at home until I come back, and most likely my final journal entry until I get to Scotland. The first hostel I'm staying in does have internet access, I'm pretty sure it's free, so hopefully while I'm there I'll write lots, but I'll also be busy seeing the sights and finding a job.

Before I get all nostalgic on what's been going on in my crazy brain getting ready to go, I'll go through some interesting events that happened the last few days. On Friday we had my going away party. Pat graciously offered his house, which, as you can see from the photos in the last entry, is awesome. I can't get over the bathroom. You can't see it in the picture, but the toilet is really long and the flush handle is small and hidden behind the toilet seet. Plus it's the same colour as the tub. And the sink is sideways so rather than having the faucet at the back, it's on the side. Very modern.

Anyway, so the first person other than me to show up was Matthew. We met him at the Witches' Ball on the weekend and I invited him knowing that he's very new to town and seemed like the kind of person who would get along with all of us. I didn't really expect him to show up, but he did and seemed to enjoy himself. Yay for meeting new people. First we played the strangest game of Scrable ever involving the rule that we could make up a word, as long as the definition made everyone laugh. At first we stuck with real words, and then we came up with words like bjorls, vegafantik, isisocen, ivafeck and the longest word ever, mugglieriphoned. I'm not sure if I spelt all those words right.

Anyway, Kat, Shelly, Adam Jeff and Andrea all showed up later and we played an interesting and slightly confusing card game called Phase 10. It was, so I've been told, slightly like Gin, a game I've never played. But I think it was kind of close to Skip-bo which I've played maybe once. At any rate, it was confusing but fun. I think Jeff won, but I'm not really sure. At some point in the evening we also ordered 4 pizzas! Yup, four pizzas, eight people. You do the math. Of course, we had Jeff who had seven pieces on his own. Andrea wasn't feeling very well though so I don't think she had many so those two kind of balanced each other out. It was a very fun night overall. Lots of interesting conversation, weird card games and a lot of laughs. I'm going to miss that a lot.

Thinking that was the last time I'd get to do that, I didn't mind staying out a little late, but no, the next night Greg, Jeff and I went out to Halifax to see the eclipse. We stood in the middle of the Commons in VERY COLD weather, we're talking in the negatives with a lot of wind, and froze while watching the shadow of the Earth cross over the moon. Kinda crazy, but we're kinda crazy anyway. At the peak of the eclipse, Kat and Adam showed up and froze with us. We tried to keep warm by jumping up and down and singing, till finally, the shadow started to leave and we high tailed it back inside, narowly missing death when a truck came very close to running us over in a crosswalk.

Back at Kat's, Adam was a great host and got us all tea. He tried to get all of us to drink "The Well-Known Tea", this very bizzare blend of oolong tea in a poorly translated package with outrageous claims, but it didn't smell very good so I went for lemon ginger instead. We sat around, drinking tea, eating popcorn and nachos with really good salsa and cottage cheese, and talked about everything. Another Adam, whose nickname has yet to be decided upon, had also come up with us to get warm.

One topic that kept us going for a really long time was high school. All of us except the other Adam, went to high school together, though we spanned three years. It was really interesting to see how Kat viewed what we did in high school and it was funny to see her reactions to how over the top dramatic we were. I'm so glad we've mellowed out. That level of drama was hard to handle at times.

At one point, we noticed that Adam and Adam were laughing a whole lot at this movie they were watching with subtitles, and really low volume to be nice. They were watching The Longboat. I think it was from the 70's and it was sooooo bad! The acting was terrible, and the situations were so cliche! It was hilarious! It was about Vikings and Muslims, called Moors, of course, in the movie, and them trying to find this rather obviously Christian bell made of gold. It was so bad it was funny. At the end of the movie we finally left Kat's. It was around four o'clock in the morning at this point.

So we walked back to Pat's where my mom's car was, and where Greg was staying. He wanted us to wait till he got in, in case someone had locked the front door, as he only had keys for the inside door. And of course, it was locked, otherwise I wouldn't bother telling this story. We thought one of Pat's other roommates may have come home and locked it. We walked around the house, knocking on windows, we rang the doorbell, we tried to get in through the storm doors to the basement, no luck. We noticed Pat's window was a little bit open, so Greg, with Jeff's house tried to climb up the storm doors, and open the window further to crawl in. Now picture it if you will. Three young adults, dressed mostly in black, all bundled up and covered in hats and scarves, helping one person to climb into a window of an appartement where none of us acutally lived at 4:30 in the morning. We were a little afraid someone would call the police on us. Luckily for us, no one did. So after the window was a little more open, we've been talking fairly loudly all this time, Greg goes to stick his head in and we hear Pat's voice swearing at us. We tell him to open the door and a very disgruntled Pat eventually unlocks the door for Greg and trudges back to bed. We found it very funny, but I can imagine being waked up at 4:30am to the sounds of your brother trying to break in through your window isn't exactly the best thing in the world.

On Sunday, after spending most of the day in bed reading and sleeping, we had Christmas dinner since I'll miss it when I'm in Scotland. Now, when I say we had Christmas dinner, most people would probably think that we'd have a nice turkey dinner in the dinning room with my family. Well, they'd be right, however, they probably wouldn't think that there would be Christmas music playing, a Christmas centrepiece on the table, Christmas glasses and napkin holders, and a giant Santa on the wall. My parents can be really cute sometimes. I had a really hard time not crying, but I managed to keep it in. It was a really nice dinner. Lots of veggies including BEETS!!!!! YAY!!!!! My favorite, and good dressing too. Everyone else liked the turkey, though, being vegatarian, I didn't have any. It smelled good though. I'm not sure if I'll keep being vegatarian in Scotland or not. I think I'll try as much as possible, but if I can't, I'll eat meat, maybe just fish and chicken or something.

Which brings us up to today. I finally got my British pounds today, they're very pretty, and I bought a converter and adapter for my camera battery charger and I bought a hat at a used clothing store that was having a going out of buisness sale. Kinda sad, but good for gettin a really nice hat for a dollar. My packing is very close to done. I have almost all of tomorrow too, but I want to spend most of it cleaning. My documents are all photocopied and photographed, everything's in order.

For most of the day, I just wanted to leave. I don't really like change overly, but when I make a decision that I'm going to go somewhere or do something new, I want to do it now, and get it overwith so that it's not new anymore. Plus I'm just so nervous about going and I feel that I'll get better as I'm there so I just want all this waiting to be over with. I'm really glad my parents have been so amazingly supportive and wonderful through all this. I've been a bit snippy at times because I'm so terrified, but they've put up with it amazingly, just like they put up with my bad years in school. And the material support is incredible too. They gave me a really nice new jacket that's water and wind proof and a great set of luggage so I could stop worrying about how I was going to fit everything I wanted to take in a tiny little suitcase. I'm really glad that I had my years at Mount Allison so I know that I can stay in touch with my family and friends, even if I'm far away. I'm really going to miss seeing everyone though. I had such a great conversation with Greg today and it remided me of how we always talk all the time, whenever we need to, about anything we need to talk about in our group. I'm really going to miss having that. But, as with when I went away to school, with luck, I'll find some more people I can do that with.

Well, Sarah's on-line now, and I have to do a little good-bye ritual before trying to get some sleep since I know I won't get any tomorrow on the plane. So, good-bye for now, until I get to Scotland.

Jeannie

November 15, 2003

I'm at an internet cafe and I'm running out of time, so this is just a really quick note to say that Edinburgh is beautiful, everyone should come up to visit at some point. I had a good flight, but my ears are still messed up, and I've switched to a nicer, cleaner, quieter hostel. I had a money crisis, but it's been solved, and I may have a job up in Inverness. Yay. the URL www.polmaily.co.uk It looks really nice. That's all for now!

November 17, 2003

Hi everyone!!!!!

Can you tell I'm in a good mood? Well I am. And why? Well I just came from the BUNAC office where I had a lovely conversation with Sonia, my new boss from Polaily House! Yay! She sounds like a really nice woman and the hotel looks lovely. They have a whole lot of children's activities and things so she asked me to put on my thinking cap and try to come up with some new ideas. They were very impressed with my very interesting resume, especially the circus stuff. :) So while waiting to go to Inverness, or near Inverness (14 miles from the city to be exact), and while I'm doing all kinds of touristy stuff waiting for mail from home to come, I get to think up some different children's activities. Maybe a juggling workshop? Or I could do some clowning stuff. Yay lot's of fun. She said there's a bus that goes into Inverness right from the end of their drive three times a day, the nearest village is only a mile away so it's in walking or biking distance. Plus her two daughters who are around my age both have cars and are "Always looking for someone to go to the pictures with them". She said that they're really quiet there right now, but it will pick up a great deal around Christmas and New Year's (Hogmanay). It's a completely live in job. I'll basically be living in the hotel free with all my food and heat and everything paid for. I'll be able to use all the facilities like the pool and tennis courts. Not bad, eh? So I have to call or e-mail her when I know I can get up there, and she also wanted me to e-mail her to confirm I'm taking the job, though why I'm not sure, I already confirmed on the phone, but maybe she needs something in writing. And then I have to figure out how to get a bus up there. Shouldn't be too hard, plus I have a discount card because of BUNAC. I knew there were some perks to going through this company.

So that's my really good news for the day. :) I've been doing a lot of touristy stuff around town since I got here. I've been to three different museums, The People's Story, The Museum of Edinburgh, and The Museum of Childhood. I liked the first and last a whole lot. The People's Story had a whole lot of individual stories about what life was like for people in Edinburgh, and a whole lot about the Suffrage movement here. The Museum of Childhood was just too cute! So many old toys and games, with lots of little interactive things for kids. The Museum of Edinburgh was a bit dry. It was a pretty standard museum with exhibits and plaques all over the place. A nice way to spend a half hour for free, but not all that great.

I've been walking all over the place and my legs are a bit sore. Edinburgh is really hilly, not surprizing since it's built on dead volcanoes. All the ups and downs have made my calves and shins very sore, but it's worth it. One of the strange things about the city (or maybe the UK in general) is that a lot of the streets are cobblestone or brick. There are some that are sort of paved, but even those have a whole lot of rocks in them. Oh, and I think I found out why the sidewalk is called the pavement; it's made up of paving stones. These and the cobblestone and brick streets are extremely slippery when they're wet. Before I left everyone warned me about how it was always cloudy and rainy in the UK. I'm not sure if that's a myth or if I've just been really lucky with the weather I've had, but today is the first cloudy day we've had since I got here. It's been relatively warm, though some people disagree with me on that fact, and sunny every day. I think Canadians are just more adapted to the cold. Yesterday, for a bit of familiar food, and also because it was one of the only restaruants open that early, I went into Subway. Yes, there is a Subway in Edinburgh, and more Pizza Huts than I can count! Anyway, the guy behind the counter asked me about Canada. He told me that he had heard the Canada was a miserable cold place. I told him I had heard the same about the UK. There was one really great difference about the Subway here though. Their veggie sub isn't just vegtables (or salad as they call it). It has a really nice hot veggie pattie in the middle, kind of like a veggie burger, the kind that I like where you can tell it was actually made of vegtables, not pretending to be meat, only it was shapped to fit in a sub. It tasted really good too. You can get a veggie sub without it, but if you have to option, why wouldn't you get one! The other difference is that you only get one cookie with your value meal, but that was okay. And the orange pop (they didn't have iced tea or lemonaid on the drink machine) that I had tasted a bit funny.

Yesterday, after eating, I went off in search of the Royal Botanic Gardens. I knew they were a bit far from the city centre, but I don't mind a bit of a hike. And what a hike it was! I think it took me about 45minutes to get there and I had to stop and ask for directions at one point. Maps here are terrible and mostly pointless. Some streets, if they do have names, don't have street signs, and sometimes the street names change from one block to the next. It's very confusing. Anyway, I got there after passing through another park that reminded me a bit of the Halifax Commons. It had a few playing fields, and some familys walking, some dogs, and a really nice looking playground. The Royal Botanic Gardens on the other hand, was a bit more like a really huge, hilly Public Gardens, except fewer trees and not surrounded by a city. It was really pretty. I took so many pictures! It had a huge section of Chinese plants that was amazing. Lots of really interesting flowers. I'd love to see it in the spring. All of the plants were labeled, but mostly only with their latin name, so that was no help.

At the centre was a huge green house complex that was just amazing. There was a palm tree in there that was over 200 years old! It was all sectioned off depending on the plants needs, hot and moist, cool and dry, etc. Absolutely amazing.

After a Chai tea and a sit down at the cafe, I headed back towards the hostel. But I left from the East Gate, whereas I had come in through the West Gate. Not a big problem. The good thing about Edinburgh is that the castle is so high up that you can see it from almost anywhere in the city, so it's just a matter of walking towards the castle, which is what I did, and eventually I got back to a place I recognized.

I spent most of the night in my hostel. I had bought some groceries finally, so I made myself a really nice soup in the kitchen. The flat that I'm in is really quiet. I'm pretty sure I had the whole thing to myself last night. I should probably describe the hostel as it's a little strange. It's called the Cowgate Hostel. It's a series of appartements that all open onto Cowgate streets. Appartements here are basically several floors of flats. Each appartement has six flats. Each flat has a shower, bathroom and commonroom/kitchen and four bedrooms. Some bedrooms only have two beds, some, like mine, have three bunk beds. The stairwell leading from the flats to the street is pretty gross. Concreat stairs, paint flaking off the walls and banister, posters all over the place, but the flats themselves look very new and pretty. They're painted really bright colours with fake wooden floors. All the cabinets and appliances are also new. Oh! One funny difference between here and Canada, the flusher on the toilet is on the other side! Why? I don't know. Maybe it makes it easier for right handed men to flush? I have no idea.

Today I'm planning on going to a vegetarian restaurant for lunch that I found, and then to the Writter's Museum, if I can find it. That's my biggest problem here is finding things. Maps are terrible. This evening I'm thinking about going on a haunted walk of some sort. There are several companies who run them and they all look pretty good and are fairly inexpensive, so that should be fun. A few more strange differences between here and home:

1. They don't cross the street at corners. Crosswalks are a little bit from the corner. And most street corners opperate like the one in Sackville NB, the cars go one way, the cars go the other way, then all the cars stop and the people walk.
2. The cars are all really small. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but in general even their trucks (lorries) look smaller than ours.
3. The key boards are different! It's not even just that they have a ?symbol, and a � (which I don't even know the use for) the @ symbol is on the key that the " should be on, and it's up as the shift function for 2. The ~ and # have their own key next to the enter key and the ??have a key next to the 1. It's all very strange. They do have a $ sign surprisingly enough though.
4. They eat supper really late. Sometimes around 7 or 8 o'clock. It's generally pretty small, and lunch (dinner) is much bigger. Kind of like in Cape Breton.
5. Lots of expresions. It would take me forever to write them all, but they use words like grand, and lovely a lot, lads, bloaks and fellows discribe girls or boys, oh! and cheerio is not just a greeting like I thought! They use it for everything! Well, the English do anyway, I'm not sure about the Scots. There were two girls from Bath staying in my room the other night and they used cheerio to say Sorry, That's okay, Thank you, Really?, as well as good-bye. It was really interesting.

That's about all my news for now. Please send me lots of e-mails. I love hearing from people and I miss everyone, even though I am having a really good time. There are times I wish I was traveling with someone though, traveling on your own get's lonely sometimes. OH! Sarah, if you're reading this! Guess where Inverness is really close to? Culloden! Yay! So I get to go visit the place where Jamie nearly died! Plus the standing stones that Claire came through are really close to there too. Lots of fun. Off to have food!

Jeannie

November 21, 2003

I feel like I've been neglecting this journal in favour of all my mass e-mails. Other than the last entry, I haven't been posting any of them in here, it kind of feels like cheeting to do that for some reason. Anyway, in honour of the fact that this is my last night in Edinburgh, and I don't know when I'll have a chance to write in here again, I'm going to write a proper, non-pasted entry rather than writing another mass e-mail.

Edinburgh's been a whole lot of fun, lonely sometimes because I'm traveling by myself and I'm not at a hostel where it's easy to meet a lot of people, but in a way it's been really good that I haven't had to worry about anyone but myself for a bit. Call it a growing experience if you will. :)

I've been really good to not get myself into a safe rut and eat at the same places or do the same things everyday. In fact, I have never eaten at the same restaurant twice since I got here, so I've really sampled quite a range of places, mostly cafes to be honest, and all around the same price range. For the most part, I've found the cafes here really laid back. They're not big on customer service here, but in a way, it's kind of nice that the workers aren't run off their feet and they don't seem to have to have that constant cheary look on their face like they do in Canada. There are quite a few foreigners working here as well, so you there are times when there's a bit of a language barrier.

I've decided that touristy things aren't half as fun by yourself. Even if it's something I'm interested, I don't get as much enjoyment as I could if there was someone there with me to make comments with. There were a few times when I was in a gallery or a museum where I felt like I was just going through killing time, rather actually being there to learn something or to experience the gallery or museum I was in. It was a bit sad, but that's the way it is. I also learned I like being outdoors a lot better than being indoors, especially if it's somewhere that's physically challenging. I'm looking forward to going on many walking tours and hikes when I'm in the Highlands. Another thing I've learned about myself is that I learn much better auraly than by reading. I've always sort of known this since in University I rarely took notes, prefering to just listen to the prof, but my trips to museums and other attractions here have really proved this to me. If there wasn't any sort of verbal or oritory componant to an exhibit, I easily lost interest, but even a bit of music or a brief voice over caught my attention. Good thing to know, eh?

Yes, I still say "eh?" in normal conversation. I have picked up a few phrases and a bit of an accent. I say "cheers" sometimes now when parting, and, like Susan pointed out to me in an e-mail, I've taken to saying "sorry" insead of excuse me, though that's a pretty Canadian thing to do too. The part of the accent that I've really picked up is the musical way they phrase their questions. It's pretty hard to discribe, but one of the other Canadians was talking about how she does it too. It's pretty funny. There aren't that many Scotts around me right now, but I bet in about a week or so in Inverness I'll be talking like a local!

The biggest surprise for me here has got to be the weather. Now I know it's got to be colder up in the Highlands, but right now everyone is complaining about how cold it is, and I just look at them in bewilderment. I haven't even taken out my hat yet! I took my gloves tonight, and I've been wearing my scarf, but more as an accessory than to stay warm honestly. It's rained once during the day since I got here, and it was windy one day, but nothing compared to Sackville NB. A girl I met from PEI who got here last February said that last year they had flowers growing and warm weather the end of FEBRUARY! Flowers in February? You've got to be kidding! We're normally burried in snow then. Not here. Craziness.

Surprisingly enough, I'm really glad I brought my diabolo and juggling balls. Those were the two things I thought I would have wished I hadn't brung with me, but they've proved useful. One because they gave me something to do one night when I was bored, two because they'll probably come in handy in this new job coming up with ideas for children's activities and such. I can do a whole workshop on juggling, making balls, beginer juggling, I can show them how to use the diabolo, all kinds of fun stuff, and three, today when I was walking down the Royal Mile, there was a guy from Spain who was using a diabolo! He was amazing! I asked him to show me some tricks, and I was blown away! Strangely, I knew a few he didn't know, the trapese suicide and everyone's favorite, the coffee grinder. I showed him the trapese suicide and tried the coffee grinder, but the language barrier was too great. Too bad, but fun nonetheless.

Being vegetarian here has been surprisingly easy as well, in fact, it's easier than at home! They have everything labeled in the grocery stores, lots of veg. restaurants (there's even one in Inverness) and in most restaurants they have a veg. section on the menu! They also say when something's vegan most times.

Overall, I'm glad I had a week here to experience the city. It is a really nice city, just too touristy and expensive and not "scottish" enough for me. So I'm off to the Highlands tomorrow morning! Hopefully I'll have internet there.

Jeannie

December 9, 2003

Wow, I really haven't written in a really long time. I haven't had a whole lot of time to go on the internet here as I've been working a lot, plus the internet is really slow here, one of the downfalls to being way up in the highlands is that they don't have broadband or anything so I'm working with an AOL dial up connection that likes to slow down and speed up arbitrarily.

So I'm at Polmaily House Hotel. It's about a mile away from Drumnadrochit, a tiny little village that's even smaller than Sackville NB, and about 14 miles from Inverness, the largest city in the highlands, though apparently the night life there is nothing to cheer about. It's a nice little place with a huge amount of land, lots of trees, it's really close to Loch Ness, so I may get to see Nessie :), and there are lots of animals and things to do like swimming in the indoor heated swiming pool.

For my first week here I actually lived in the hotel itself in one of the really small rooms that's meant for kids. It was nice, but a bit of a pain because we didn't have any guests so I had to lock up and turn off all the lights and there was all kinds of bother about the keys. Now I'm in the cottage behind the hotel with the rest of the staff that are live-in. Well, for now, there are just three of us in there, myself, Jacky and Naim. Two girls from South Africa are away on vacation but will be coming back soon, and Viranda and Davina live in a small house on their own. Naim, Davina and Viranda are all from a little island off the coast of Africa called Mauritious. Other than them, I'm the only foreigner here for the time being, everyone else is from Scotland or England. Sonia and her kids are all very nice and I've become friends with her youngest daughter Hannah.

The weather has been really nice, lots of sun... sort of, we only actually get to see the sun from about 11 till around 2 because there's a large hill in the way, but we haven't had many cloudy days and very little rain, though it is raining today. Everyone else finds it very cold, though we've only been just bairly below zero, yesterday was minus four. I don't find it very cold at all, but I think it's partially because I know how to dress for the cold better than they do. People here go out in sweaters without jackets and then complain of the cold! Silly people.

Mostly as far as work goes, I've been doing a lot of reception jobs, learning how to take bookings, helping Sonia with the books, plus odd jobs around the hotel. Last week I did a fair amount of work outside, raking leaves and feeding the birds and rabbits mostly which, in a way, I kind of prefer. I like being outside and I really don't like answering the telephone much. It's getting a bit better now that I have some idea of what's going on in the hotel, but I find sometimes it's really hard to understand what people are saying if they have a thick accent and talk quickly, and I hate to have to ask them to repeat themselves too many times.

Another thing I've been doing a lot of is decorating Christmas trees both at the hotel and over at Sonia's house. All of the trees are fake, unfortunately, but I can understand that they would make way too much mess if they were real. They're also decorative trees rather than having sentimental value which I can also understand, but I really miss being able to decorate our tree at home, and all the other decorating we do around our house.

I've been doing my best to make my room feel a little more comfortable and homey, even though I'll be moving again eventually into a slightly smaller room that currently doesn't have a door, but will before I move in. I bought a little bit of tinsel and a string of lights (or rather a circle of lights because they don't sell them in strings here) to decorate my room, and I moved the furnature around a bit last night so that I now have a bit more floor space. It's nice to be all unpacked and not living out of a suitcase anymore.

I'm not possitive about how long I'll be staying here. Hannah and Davina keep telling me they want me to stay a really long time, but Hannah is starting to think about moving herself now, and I'm not sure how long I'll want to stay here with so few people around my age. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. We haven't had any guests at all since I've been here so it's really hard to know what it'll be like when the hotel is running like usual. We have one family coming on Friday and then we start getting really busy leading up to Christmas straight through to just after New Years. Then we close for a few weeks because it's a really slow time of year and we'll all want some time off. If I can, I may try to travel a bit in that space of time.

Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to update this more often in the future.

Jeannie

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