Reality: The New Buzzword

Hey! It's been awhile!

Why have I been away for about three weeks? I have a good excuse, really! See, I've been working pretty much non-stop since I got back. It's like I've slid back to a year ago, to that sunny day in June 2007 when a fresh-faced me, directly out of my second year of university, hesitantly climbed onto a Bomag packer for the first time on a Norwich, Ontario construction site. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'm now a verifiable packer expert (with experience on THREE different packers) with a minor in traffic control management (or, as the plebes call it, flagging). Pete and I have been working in Minesing, close to Barrie, for about three weeks now, and staying at Georgian College. Every day we work for about 11 hours and then head back home for the weekends. It makes for a simple existence, wherein the highlights are showering, eating, and sleeping. But I really am grateful for the job (thanks Greg!) and am saving up for next year at UWO, which promises to be an insane cycle of MIT and English courses mixed with part-time work and some squished-in extracurriculars. It's about a 180 from my cycle of just three courses a semester, pub visits, and travelling on the weekends in Europe. That goes without saying, I guess. But that's fourth year for ya: no jokers allowed.

I see my friends preparing grad school applications and (gasp!) career plans, and it's intimidating. I'm about a year behind academically in MIT (though ahead of the game in English Lit), so I'll be playing catch-up all year in that department. But in other ways, I think I'm doing alright :).

Thanks to everyone who came out for Richard and Ashley's Buck and Doe on June 14th! It was a fantastic time, and a great way to celebrate their engagement!

Also, CONGRATS to my next-biggest brother Bryan and my lovely friend Lisa, who announced their engagement almost two weeks ago. I'm so happy for you two :). I'm glad we got to celebrate with both of you for a few days before Bryan headed to BC and his brand-new job in the north. It's really a time of exciting change... can't wait for the crazy year that's in store!

xx

p.s. Anyone else pick up the new Coldplay album? LOVE IT. Classy and at times heart-in-throat, as always. Their 2006 show at the ACC is still one of the best nights I've ever had.

Back in the C.A.N.A.D.A.

Ah!

That is how I can describe my reaction to being back in the ol' S-burg after nine months. Well, five, if you count coming home for Christmas for two weeks. As I expected, nothing has changed, though I do have a new apartment that I'm pumped about (which I saw on Saturday) and my family has ripped our basement apart in a serious renovation-y burst of inspiration. So, I guess change is afoot in our lives at the moment, though it mostly consists of tearing down drywall and adjusting to our ever-revolving lineup of Fords.

In other, much-delayed news, I am proud to present the second of a pair of travel videos that began with the freespirited "Clubbin' Through Europe" feature and continues to a more sombre piece: without further (or any) ado, here's my Windows MovieMaker masterpiece, "9 Countries, 21 Days: A Short Film".*




*Dedicated to my three travel mates, Jean, Johanna, and Francesca :).

Just Because It's Awesome

Last night's Guillemots gig was one of the best live performances I've seen so far. I know I tend to be over-effusive when describing shows (I must be easy to please when it comes to indie) but Fyfe Dangerfield (best rock name ever), the lead singer and mastermind behind the band, is actually a musical genius. He played multiple instruments while blowing away the crowd with his massive voice, and except for a a few rowdies near the front, earned the entire audience's undying love. I was impressed.

I then met up with Francesca and a few of her friends for her birthday at a club called Oceana to dance away on the light-up dance floor, disco-style. Good times were had.

And, just because I feel like it, here's that classic alternative Canadian anthem that we all know and love... makes me want to jump on a plane today instead!

The Rolling Hills of Skipton

The papers are being sorted and the books are being sold. I'm piling up clothes and taking down posters and although it's unavoidable, it's still bittersweet.



The organizer in me is elated at the prospect of cleaning house, but it's a bit daunting, so to take off some of the pressure induced by the official confirmation that I'm flying home this Friday (the 30th), Tasha, Anna-Mari, Silke and I made a quick trip to the green fields of Bolton Abbey in Skipton, West Yorkshire yesterday.



Bolton's been a functioning Christian worshiping place for 850 continuous years. You couldn't ask for a more peaceful (and pastoral) setting, either: sheep and cows roam freely around the abbey's boundaries and the land connects to a picturesque stream. Combine that with the children and their parents spending the morning outside on the walking trails, and it's classic Yorkshire: quiet and home-y. We enjoyed having some tea, seeing the abbey ruins and walking the farmer's fields just behind them before heading home to Bodington for a quiet Sunday night. Ah... serenity.


Tonight is Francesca's 21st birthday, so we're heading out to celebrate with her. Before that though, Christian and I are checking out a Guillemots show at Leeds Met University... I have a link on the righthand side of the blog page to Guillemots' MySpace-- the band's incredibly talented, and I'm SO excited to see them live. I waffled a bit over buying the tickets this close before going home, but decided I couldn't miss the opportunity... I have no idea when they're coming to Canada! I'll have an update soon to let you know what I thought :).

I'm so happy to be coming home so much earlier than expected... four days! xx

'Twas a Dark and Stormy Night...

I have a confession.

I'm an English Lit major (sometimes masquerading as an MIT student) and am supposed to be well-rounded in my lifelong reading experience. I've tackled many a classic that I wasn't quite ready for (I still haven't slogged through Catch 22 or Great Expectations, despite the looks of horror I get from my classmates), but out of the realm of books that I, as a twenty-year-old female student of literature, should have read, there are a few gaping holes. One, for instance, is The Devil Wears Prada. Another is Wuthering Heights.


WH is one of those towering pillars of British iconography that most people can discuss if it came up in conversation. Just because of its cultural status, I can kind of tell you the plot and the themes, and most definitely the setting. I think I've read the first few chapters, but I fell prey early on to Emily Bronte's heavy-handed dose of melancholy and high emotion. It didn't grasp me the same as Jane Eyre or anything by Jane Austen did, but I was aware of its literary value--hence the attempt at joining the 19th-century emo lit bandwagon.

However, the romanticized nature of the book still means something, so when Tasha and I found ourselves roaming the wild moors of Yorkshire yesterday under dark grey clouds and a strong wind, it felt pretty amazing to be standing on the actual Wuthering Heights.


We rode into the town of Haworth, possibly the quaintest dwelling in England, on what we saw as pretty much the Hogwarts Express. A real '40s diesel train! And the conductors were dressed in costume! Plus, to top it off, the town was indulging in a healthy display of WWII nostalgia for its annual 1940s Remembrance Day weekend, so there were plenty of soldiers and old-fashioned dancehall ladies wandering about artfully placed sandbags and yelping newsboys. It was like walking onto a film set for Swing Kids.



We got to explore the Brontes' home, where all four of the surviving children grew up and composed their famous works of art. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all wrote novels while their brother Branwell was a portrait artist; even their father published papers on theology. Sadly, none of the four reached the age of forty, all dying before their father. They spent most of their lives living in this small house, in a tiny town in West Yorkshire.


But you can see where they got the inspiration for their grand plots: after tea among a crowd of infantrymen, Tasha and I took a six-mile walk up to Top Withins, the building where Emily sat and contemplated the story for WH. There's a sense of isolation up there that's oddly affecting; how can such a famous story have taken place in such an unassuming (though remarkably beautiful) place?


After walking in the Brontes' footsteps for a day, we caught the last steam engine train back to the little town of Keighley before heading back to Leeds. Our sore backs and tired legs made us acutely aware of the effects of soft student life... although it was well worth the climb to see one of the most famous literary settings of all time.

All Good Things Come To An End (Soon)

I'm not sure whether this end-of-term limbo is more like the sadness at the end of summer camp, or more like the tingling of fear at graduation. I've never been to summer camp (just ask Mom) but of course I know the process: you're homesick, then you adjust, and then you're attached. It makes it hard to go home.


(Tasha and I at the Clapham House formal dinner)

But I guess after nine months of going to another school, getting on the flight home is going to feel like graduating from a one-year master class in New Experiences. The anxiety of exams is the same, and the tinge of sadness at people leaving one by one is just like at home, but there's a layer of permanence to these goodbyes that I don't want to even think about. The re-adjustment of coming back home is nearly the same as when I came over: a week of gladness, followed by a few months of aching to be back in a place I really do love. And then back to the comfort of being home with my family and friends.

I'm maybe putting the cart before the horse here, because I have three weeks to go before coming home. But my mind's started to wander to questions of how to bring nine months of stuff back home and when I begin my summer job, rather than plans for a trip to some far-flung European capital. So I guess it's time to start that oh-so-bittersweet process of looking back over the past year, a few weeks early.

We finally heard from Bryan and Lisa, who were in Italy for a week and are now heading to Switzerland... they sound like they're having a blast taste-testing gelato everywhere and roaming ancient ruins. Here's to a fantastic time in them German-speaking countries, and I REALLY hope Bryan (and Lisa, too!) go bungee-jumping in Interlaken! How amazing would that be? Take many, many pictures!


(above: Pete and Lisa on a balcony at Chenonceau; below: mmm gelato!)

I'm off to postpone revising for my exam in order to go for a walk and/or plan a day trip with Tasha tomorrow to Haworth, where the Bronte sisters grew up. There are still treasures in Yorkshire that I don't want to miss!

This past week I didn't do much else except study for my Romantic Lit exam (it went well) and go out to celebrate that and the gorgeous weather with Christian and our new friend Ollie, who was in one of my seminars and is coincidentally going to Western next year on exchange. The passing of the torch begins!

xx

How Nice, A Day in Pisa!

May 8

Our passage to Nice was a marathon. All of the direct trains to the coast were booked solid, so we were forced to change trains three times, in Bourges, Lyon, and Marseille respectively. But we made it in the end, reaching our hostel (the same one we stayed in in December) around 9:15 pm.


While Nice is admittedly absolutely gorgeous, if you're not interested in modern art or medieval ruins, there's not that much to do except lie on the beach. However, this is generally an agreeable alternative, so we lay on the stony shore for about three hours sleeping or watching French people and a few pasty tourists roast in the sun. My own pale British Isles skin, accustomed to the short days of Canadian winters and the rain of Yorkshire, couldn't take the heat. I have a new lobster-red sunburn to prove it.

We kind of meandered up the mountain (or huffed and puffed, actually) to see the view and then went back to the city centre for gelato before calling it a day. Unfortunately, we had to suddenly catch a night train to Pisa instead of a morning one (again, due to sold-out trains) and had to lose one night's payment at the hostel. But it was unavoidable, and on the bright side, we have an extra day in Pisa. It's been gorgeous weather, as well, so we're pretty consistently relaxed and enjoying ourselves :).

May 9

A night spent in a train compartment with strangers is never necessarily pleasant, but the faint hope of a few hours of sleep was dashed pretty early on when I realized I was in a different car than the others. There were four American girls in my compartment, thankfully, although the atmosphere went downhill shortly after midnight when the Italian conductor loudly charged them fifty euros each for different mistakes on their Eurail passes. It's too bad-- where most conductors would've given them a break, this guy fined them to the full extent.

Pisa seems to exist solely to support its most famous tilting, ineptly built medieval structure: the much-ogled Leaning Tower of Pisa. First of all, I agree with Bryan's immediate reaction to the bell tower; as we emerged from the mini-city of vendors clustered around the base, Bryan looked up at it and said, 'But I thought it was in a field.'


True, Bryan. So did I. But in fact, the tower's just the main attraction of an entire cathedral and baptistery, and leans only metres from the nearest street. The mass of tourists with raised arms and strained smiles, pretending to hold it up for the camera, however, make for another obstacle entirely. I can't criticize them, though... we did it too!

(Pete, breaking the illusion ;))

I fly home EARLY tomorrow morning back to Leeds. In an interesting twist (to me, at least), we can actually walk to Galileo Galilei Airport-- it's ten minutes from our hotel. What? That's amazing. And Bryan, Pete and Lisa have insisted on walking me there at 4 am, which I appreciate so much. I'll miss them a lot as they continue on their travels to Rome, where Pete flies home, and then Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.

We came, we saw, we conquered: I just had one of the best weeks of my life seeing some of the most beautiful countryside in the world, with three of the best travel-mates (and friends) I could ask for.


Have an amazing final two weeks, Bryan and Lisa!