01.16. February 26, 2011

Song: The Park by Feist  [album: The Reminder]
Mood: confused. somber.
Desire: To take better photographs
Solution: Mum called. Better.

sushi date.

mixtape birthday present for a friend

montreal miriam.

trying to play anglophone scrabble with francophones = words that don't exist

new friends.

more of the same linguistic mish-mash

me? with white wine?

the fridge.

kitchen light.

01.15. February 25, 2011

romance.

sarcasm.

it's all good.

01.14. February 24, 2011

I spend my day in meetings.
I spend my evenings researching people's stories.
I spend each day trying to make so many other people of so many different countries lives potentially better, that sometimes I forget to think about me and my life.

A song just reminded me, unwillingly, to consider myself too.


"We're just holding on to nothing
To see how long nothing lasts...
There's one road to the morning
There's one road to the truth
There's one road back to civilization
But there's no road back to you."


Sigh.
It's gloomy out. I'm a bit sad, I must admit. I wish it were warmer out. I wish I had a few more things in order. I wish I felt more of a spark. I changed everything, and I love it but I guess I miss little thrills. Like forgetting you lit a candle in a room and going in and realizing how nice the room smells.
Or having a note from someone slipped under your door, so when you wake up in the morning, you have a message.
Or having a delicious cup of coffee brought to you when you don't expect it.
Or someone taking a nice photo of you by surprise.
Or discovering a really nice new song.
Or completing a project you've had on the go for awhile.
Or getting something new, no matter how big or small, and smiling at how fitting it is in its new surroundings.
Or finding an old pair of jeans that still fit.


Maybe I'm too romantic. Not just in the love sense, but in the sense of wanting lovely things. I romanticize the future where I see days full of sunshine and energy and smiles - genuine smiles. I see chasing a significant other or kids or nieces or nephews around a  kitchen table. I imagine painting a room and having a party while doing it. I imagine being older and still going to the playground to swing on swings.
Even on the days without the sun, I see warm cups of coffee and herbal tea, looking out a beautiful bay window outside. I can hear the sound of cars splashing through puddles. Smelling the earth after a heavy rainfall. I imagine my head falling onto something - a comfortable shoulder, a cozy pillow. I imagine warm slippers and early mornings and good novels and better music.
The funny thing is though, is that I'm not afraid to approach that future now (with some obvious adjustments). I want to have long, energetic days. Satisfying days. I want scrabble dates and glasses of wine and long conversations over cups of coffee and trying experimental cuisine in the kitchen. 
I know there's hardship - heck, I spend all my days, in some way or another, focusing on just those hardships: personal and international. 


I feel like feeling beautiful. But I don't.
Maybe I should exchange all my clothes for new ones.
Or get a new haircut.


I wish I were more creative. I wish I could change some things, take some things back, do things I never did. Anyone who says it's possible to live without regrets has never used their imagination. They almost certainly have no sense of trial and error. This just stopped making sense.


How do you stay become creative? How do you make yourself feel beautiful and worthy and loved and romantic?
blah.


I'd apologize for the post, but reading is a voluntary thing.

01.13. February 22, 2011

How do you make a good life great?
Pressure one of your longest friends to hop in their car and come visit you in your new digs for the weekend of course!

And always one to enforce a strong sense of pressure on my friends, I was delighted off the wall when my moaning and groaning guilt-tripping worked and Kordan arrived on my doorstep!

Kordan and I have been friends officially for about ten years, though the majority of this time has been spent living in different provinces. Actually, all of it has been spent living in different provinces. After a brief consideration period (unless you count the six-and-a-half years since last seeing one another) on Friday, Kordan and I decided to finally meet once again in Montreal.  He is currently living in Toronto and so Sunday he headed East to start the 6-hour trek here.
While he spent his drive drumming his hands on the steering wheel and likely singing his heart out to lame love ballads (it's just his taste of music I guess) I skipped around the neighbourhood, stopping in at the wine store, the cheese store, the grocery store, the toothpick store, the bakery and the meat store and picked up some essentials for a tapas-style dinner.
The Menu?

Chicken/bocconcini/tomato mini skewers
Balsamic and ground pepper marinated sausage and bell peppers
homemade guacamole and tortilla chips
Double Ash goat cheese with fresh baguette

and for dessert:

Freshly made Tiramisu and chocolate cake (it's all in diversity)

the wines?
A cheap 2008 Cab Sauv from "USA" (too cheap to list even a state)
a full bodied 2009 Chilean Shiraz
a 2009 pays d'oc Merlot by Rothschild

Whatever this romantic formula equates to...it was wonderful. In fact Kordan made such great time that I had no time to prepare anything and ran out the door when he got here with my cell phone in one hand and a knife in the other. I dropped both...somewhere (this somewhere ended up being the floor of the hallway) and zipped down the curly staircase and jumped into a very eagerly-awaiting platonic embrace. (I add the 'platonic' so no one gets ideas).
Then we attempted to put 6 & 1/2 years behind us by filling in every gap of news and gossip possible before heading out to a local bar called Barfly where it's open mic a la bluegrass every Sunday. After having a couple of gins and beers and a much-needed pee, we headed back home: full, drunk and excessively happy.

Unfortunately I had a lot of intern-related work and so we didn't have time to spend touring around much, though we did take in a faux-documentary at Concordia's Politica Cinema (free political documentaries every Monday. woo!) which was disturbing but good and also fit in all-you-can-eat sushi.
This morning before his departure we managed to make crépes together while listening to The Paperbacks (we are very 2003).

Okay I have to seriously get moving on Kwagala, intern stuff, degree planning, and school. Over all the best part of moving is having friends come visit.

Consider yourselves advised.

Speaking of friends, it's my best's birthday tomorrow! Happy Birthday leigh.!

bisou!

-k

01.12. February 15, 2011

Good day
I'm feeling creative right now. So, naturally, I put my hair in a high pony tail (figure one), put on the music du jour (Wye Oak's album The Knot), and have considered taking up cooking, photography, wine tasting, and trendy-shopping.
The only problems I've encountered in these plans has sprung from the non-money well (making this less a spring well and more like a dried-up-icy-cold-dead-inside winter well).

The good thing about having no money to spend is that I am not spending any money. The bad thing is that I'm now only going through the motions of living (woe is me!) and not actually having all the best possible fun in Montreal.

However, this has allowed me to start working when I get home in the evenings on internship stuff, I finally cracked open the LSAT prepper, not to mention the three academic courses I'm taking. God help me that I start calling them "academic courses". Blech!
I received an 85% on my first assignment, and dear family, before you even think about asking where the other 15% went, it was OUT of 15 and I received 12.8/15 and if you want to know where the other 2.2 marks are because you are sticklers for detail, ask the prof!!!!!

Last night I came home to home-made lasagna (allowing for ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar and swiss cheese to be melted into the mess). Oh my gooooooodness. Also, a lovely 2008 Malbec blend, followed by Dexter re-runs. I went to sleep with a huge stomach and a very definite smile.

Woke up today to let the fumigator in (I never mentioned lovely readers...we have bed bugs. Just like everyone else. Sadly, we don't have pro-active Greg Selinger to come up with a province-wide epidemic plan. So we depend on the Polish, the oil can used in the original screening of the Wizard of Oz and a hose stolen from our neighbour's yard. This is our exterminator.)
Anyway, the wonderful thing about bedbugs is you get to wash everything, for $1.75 per wash and $0.25/ three minute dry cycle. If you've never seen $34 in quarters, get bedbugs, because that's how much the laundromat will set you back. If you're privy to my Wanted lists (not of the vengeance variety), you'll know that I specifically requested laundromat-friendly clothes this year. Which is exactly what my dear brother provided me at Noel with some beautifully gawdy-gone-Posh sunglasses. So, when no one was looking today at the laundromat, I took pictures of the machines, and, then, of myself. (Narcissism suspicions? Confirmed. Comma over-use? Likely.)

In these dire times, I can only want, so I have decided to torture myself before launching into Kwagala 2011 Sponsorship updates (which is pretty much just one big email to my grandmother!) by perusing the internet for cute buys. That does read buys and not boys, for the skeptics out there.

The Boots, not the label

Speed Flash for my camera to become aforementioned photographer

Wallet 

Desk lamp

These glasses.

everything this lovely lady is wearing

Everything in this picture.

Oh my. Valentine's Day 2009 (recently single.)

Productive high pony-tail

To make & drink more cappucinos

Happy to have received: mugs with cute heart on it, plus chance to paint my nails today at laundromat.

And some eye-candy

Le Laundramat

Lunettes a la laundromat

Trendy advertising at the L-Mat - turns out, kind of a trendy place

23. Montreal.

Really, is it so bad to just want to look and feel great, while living in one of the greatest cities, with a bit of spending money?!?!!??!

I am going to counter my selfishness now with Kwagala work. I think mostly I just want to look trendy while I work hard.

A bientot!

01.11. February 12, 2011

Yesterday as I was beginning my trek to work I decided to take a look around.
I take the metro to Guy-Concordia everyday, and when I get off, there are puddles of waste - ceiling drippings, water, slush, and inevitably pee. There are rats that scurry in the tracks. But still, each day, beautiful music fills the station.

Saxophonists, slide guitarists, violinists...they all set up shop and while thousands of people pass them by without so much as a nod, I know we'd miss them if they weren't there.
So I think a salute is in order to these musicians. I never contribute monetarily but I do make a point of trying to make eye-contact and smile.  Same goes for the drivers of the metro. As it barrels into the metro stop I always try to make eye contact and smile...I mean honestly, they probably get so little recognition, never mind human contact and yet the city of Montreal moves millions of people through the Metro annually.

Another interesting aspect to the metro is how it's not a class thing. Everyone short of diplomats and celebrities takes the metro. It's not an embarrassment, or it doesn't bring about lower-class sentiments to say you are travelling by metro. In fact, when I had to meet someone at a 5-star hotel for work (hmmm that came out wrong), the concierge I was speaking with asked me if I needed directions first by driving then by metro/bus. Professors, doctors, teachers, accountants, white collars, blue collars, purple collars...everyone rides the metro. Trying to think of why that would be, I realized that it is BY FAR the cheapest and most efficient means. Gas prices hover around 122 cents per litre here. Errmm...I suppose that could also be called $1.22. Anyway, it's very pricey. The streets are congested and the drivers are maniacs. I've never seen such flagrant disregard for lanes anywhere in Canada. It really is like trying to drive through Rome.
So on top of safety reasons, the efficiency is undeniable. Yes, it takes me 40 minutes to walk/metro/walk to work, but if I were to drive it it would take just as long, far more frustration, and no chance to read my book. (Current book: One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War. It reads well, it's sad, but mostly it's outdated though I only started seeing it on stands in the last few months. The author, so far, stops writing in 2003. The areas he is writing from include Thailand, Burma, DRCongo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kosovo all have had undeniably large conflicts since his time of writing. I suppose it stays the same though. A Child Soldier is a child soldier is a child soldier.)

This week I also ran into yet another Winnipegger in an Irish pub. Tres cool.
However, my most fun times have been with my coworkers I must admit. Despite the awfulness that was Wednesday morning, Tuesday night was so great. I sat at a tiny table sipping martinis of all varieties, while listening to a Dalhousie graduate who majored in World War II studies and is now at Concordia doing his graduate work in public policy. The other guy present discussed his time at the London School of Economics, spending months in Kosovo, what it was like growing up in Paris and midwest-America. We then started talking about our mutual taste in folk music. My coworker Rob started a sentence this week with "When I was studying in Jerusalem". When I talked about being pro-Palestine he kept asking me why and challenging me. (I'm more pro-Palestine than I am anti-Israel if one can understand the difference). I loved it because he said that he agreed with me but I still needed to have substance behind my beliefs. I wanted to have substance behind my beliefs! I wanted to know more. I was craving to learn more. Craving so much that I googled "current affairs for dummies" and actually said out loud that I was going to be reading more. Politics is something I don't think I will ever be that good at, but at least being aware of what is happening is important.
For example, watching Mubarak's primary address to the nation and getting chills...this defines a generation. Heck, more than a generation. And it may have huge ramifications for the rest of Africa, never mind the Middle East and it's bilateral relations with the West.

So I vowed that even if I couldn't fully understand politics, I could be really good at knowing a lot about health issues in Africa; child soldiers worldwide and the reintegration process into their socieities. I could know about child mortality, women's rights and language distribution across Africa. I could know all about Internally Displaced Persons and refugees worldwide. I could understand the complications of starving populations.  I don't need to be excluded, but I do like the idea of being able to contribute something different. And these issues aren't contained just to Africa - the Balkans has these issues. The Middle East has these issues. Current political affairs aside, there is still much happening that I can focus on and pride myself on knowing.
On this topic, please take the time to read about Uganda's presidential elections that begin on February 18th. The importance of this election is huge. Besigye vs Museveni. The belligerent socialist vs the torture-inducing dictator. Uganda's last democratic election, held in 2006 was contested (a bit) and only a bit violent. Nothing near the types of elections seen across the rest of Africa (Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, Kenya). If this election process goes smoothly, no matter the turn out, it will work as a model for other nations. The results mark a crucial point for Ugandans too though, and whoever wins has his work cut out for him in terms of foreign policy with Sudan, Tunisia, and now Egypt changing drastically.

I don't know who reads this blog. I don't know if anyone is interested. I am writing for myself, and depending on our relationship, I feel that I broach topics that we'd all be talking about. No scandals here to report, no drama. I sleep lots, I eat well, I walk a ton. I am fitting in.
I still maintain though that I would love to see someone out here! You may as well come out while I'm still jobless so I can take you around.
oh dear. I'm still jobless.

More of the charm of the metro

This is what I look like most days. When I have my hand in my face. (Look at the earrings! Kelci HAND MADE them!)

We get about this much snow each day. Yuck!

The wall above my desk. Fond memories.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from you. Any plans for Reading Week? How are you keeping your head up during the thick of winter?

Love,
Katie

01.10. February 10, 2011

This was my homework assignment tonight. How lucky am I to be in this course?!?

Question: Think of the children in a community that you are familiar with. Have you seen the ideas about what constitutes a 'good childhood' for these children changing over time?  Can you briefly share an example of the sorts of changes in expectations and aspirations you have witnessed and make a link to right(s) that might have been a factor in this change?

My answer: 

The children of the community Kyababeezi in Central-West Uganda are not unlike children all over the world, whose resilience has astounded me. In my five years of working with them I have been privileged to watch infants become self-aware toddlers, and young children blossom into secondary-school attendees (where available). So many of these children’s’ problems seem to be due to chronic poverty – a recurring cycle of poverty that crosses generational lines. Most of the time, the children have inherited communicable diseases through birth, domestic and community responsibilities and community-wide struggles. Because childhood itself is a cultural concept and isn’t as easily defined as the CRC describes (“any human under 18”), the ideas of how to make that childhood a “good” one vary. Instinctively, a good childhood is one that keeps a child safe from harm, however in our present day society, we can’t overlook the fact that children’s safety is continually being challenged, no matter which developed or developing country they are raised in. Getting a bit tangental, I’ll try to get back to my original point here! Sorry guys and ladies!

What I have seen change is a move from “survival mode” to “living”. As money and organization has poured into the community, children’s immediate needs (shelter, food, water and indeed their sense of security) have been met. Their pursuit of education, even at a primary level, has opened their eyes to a bigger world than ever before imagined. Indeed, the children are now able to shift from a sense of immediacy to a more sustainable approach in their thinking and their actions. Supplying children and their families with a sense of security – be it through education or finance or any other resource – has given the family the ability to trust their children will be safe, and thus allowed the children to live more freely, more like children.

The recognition of their rights to not only survive, but to also enjoy their lives has absolutely helped the community to flourish. If, on a micro-level, a Human Development Index, taking into consideration the factor of happiness and hopefulness, had been conducted five years ago and again today, there would undoubtedly be a change in the results. There’d be optimism. 

01.09. February 9, 2011

This is what having friends in Montreal looks like:

Martinis in mason jars. What was I thinking?!

More to come.

01.08. February 8, 2011

Winnipeg - keep your head up. You are all grieving some type of loss and my heart and thoughts are with all of you.
I am with you in some form or another.

I will be making a longer, better, more colourful post soon I promise.

In the meantime, here is the weather for the week:

Also, might I add, here is an airfare for Reading Week:

And amid the promotions of la météo and l'airfare, might I suggest not bothering to watch any movies that are up for awards since they all stink like shoe vomit.

Which reminds me...a guy sat on the metro with me today. He had vomit on his shoe.

I'm off to straighten my hair. I have an undate with a political science graduate student who studied and lived in France, UK and DC his whole life.

Adieu,

Katie

ps. Family. It's Gram's birthday today. I'm sending her forget-me-nots with a note attached saying "sorry I forgot". A woman of irony is she, she is.

01.07. February 1, 2011

Salut!

Sorry I've been relatively silent the last little while. I have had a busy time adjusting here in Montreal. Traumatically, I have already run out of money. As part of an exhaustive search into the depths of my capabilities, I opted to sign up for two graduate-level courses through an online program called Human Rights Education Association, along with my University of Winnipeg course. The dilemma?
My student aid cheque went to helping me move (flight, shipping, purchasing new things, rent, groceries etc.), leaving me $2000less.
So now that tuition has reached fruition, I am at a difficult crossroads. Ah well. Such is life I suppose...I'm equal parts thrilled and terrified at the prospect and SEARCHING DESPERATELY FOR A JOB. So if you have connections in Montreal, quickly connect s'il-vous-plaites et merci.

Aside from my financial woes, the weather sucks. I can't stand walking uphill each and every day with my kneecaps clicking and clacking against one another like an Amsterdam staircase with the wind blowing directly and unfairly up my nostrils and penetrating my cranium's nerve endings. gahhh!!!

For those familiar with downtown Montreal, I take the metro from Jarry to Berri UQAM then switch lines up to Guy-Concordia, before tromping up the hill to chemin cote-des-neiges, and onto avenue docteur penfield.

For those unfamiliar with downtown Montreal, voila:

PRACTICALLY VERTICAL STREET (tilt your head backward a bit)

My place of unpaid employment (bitter?!)

I work next to the Swiss Embassy, as trivia. 

Anyway, walking this each day is a pain in the ass, legs, hamstrings, head, nostrils, meow meow meow...Sensibly, I haven't been in this much shape since 1993.

I had a meeting with my bossyboss today (not RD) and he challenged me like the one-space he is. Or is it four-space. We're talk enneagrams here people. 

Anyway, luckily, I have the wit and composure of Leslie Neilsen playing an orchestral leader (Wrongfully Accused...anyone remember that film?), and I fire-crackered back at him. I can't tell if that makes me ignorant or just wrong, but regardless I need a budget along with a Plan A through ZZ (yes, 2 Zs for extra caution) on Friday. Barring this possibility, I may wear a short summer dress and come in reading Chomsky. 

To be honest, I work well under pressure and now have a working-relationship with most concierges in the greater Montreal area, and so I should be able to give him what he's after budget-wise. It ain't gonna be pretty. We are talking some BIG names for the conference in the Fall. What's been interesting for me is being spoken to like I know everything currently and previously political and so my colleagues throw names and scandals around and I nod and giggle where appropriate and roll my eyes every time I hear the name Mulroney. Seriously though, the capacity of these people is incredible to know everything from MPs districts to which paper Samantha Power pumped out back in 1998. BUT I BET NONE OF THEM KNOW HOW TO MAKE PEANUT SOUP. suckers. Anyway, I try my best to write down names as I hear them and then try to do even the briefest of biographical research in hopes of being able to contribute more to the conversation in following days. For example, I finally looked up what was happening in Egypt, instead of grouping it with North African politics and ignoring it to read another article on HIV in sub-saharan Africa. Unsurprisingly there's quite the story there. 

Politics aside (and I use the term broadly), I'm finally allowing myself to socialize a bit. I found myself at Faggity Ass Fridays at the bar Playhouse, with a specific theme of Gaywatch (clever?). Not only did I find myself donating money to a cause I'd never heard of or getting packages of condoms thrown my way or have the utmost privilege of watch a man make love to the floor but I ran into Winnipeg's gay community. Luckily, I'm acquainted with these folks and it was nice to run into familiar faces. Par example, I was introduced to my pal Kyle's friends as "This is Katie! We met on the music scene in Winnipeg back when I was straight!" I thought about introducing myself to everyone as Straightie but people rarely understand my puns, especially if they don't know my real name or even moniker. 

Last night I went and saw a riveting, politically inherent, capitalist-gone-emptiness induced animated film called The Illusionist on a free ticket that a friend of a friend donated to me. Analysis aside it was about a magician in 1959 in Paris/England/Scotland who accidentally befriends a young girl who has nothing, and brings her to edinburgh where she simply points to sparkly things she wants and the magician makes them appear. She may think they are being placed in her hands by magic but, clearly, the old magician is in fact buying her everything. One day, jobless, penniless and down on his luck, the magician picks some flowers, sets his magic rabbit free (suddenly the frame multiples and there are thousands of rabbits...as if by magic...) and bids adieu to the little girl via a note that simply reads "magicians do not exist."

Well if that doens't get a whole bunch of artsy-saps-in-the-crowd going, nothing does. There was a Q & A session afterwards where one women stated "I loved the audio of the film. It really MADE the film for me. For isntance when a door opened or closed and they accompanied the audio of a 'click' sound...very moving." to which the chair of the event retorted "well you need sound otherwise nothing really makes sense".

...

members of Mulroney's former cabinet perhaps? 

*cue eye roll*

I also attended a very intimate show on Sunday night, something unlike anything I'd seen before. I made sure to close my eyes and get lost in the music for a bit. The nice thing about doing that is that you really can transform yourself into any place at any time. I was lying in bed in Uganda, then I was at a concert in Winnipeg, then I was having a bath in London and then I was at a bar in downtown Montreal. 

As I continue to go out more, I feel my sense both expanding and at the same time resting. I feel familiar with the area I live in and not one, but two people have stopped me to ask for directions. NAY. Three! I forgot about the third one last evening. 

While it may have something to do with my having downloaded google maps on my cellphone, I do feel myself spreading out here. Supposing I stumble across a job, or just luck and find a grab bag full of cash, I feel nearly compelled to socialize at bars. Now there's something different.

If it doesn't work out though, I've downloaded every episode of Dexter and feel confident in my ability to sit like a potato and roost until the end of April. 

Despite the melancholic tone, I am doing well and it is only today...this hour in fact where I have doubted moving here, and for purely monetary reasons. I find salvation in the notion that I am removed from all that I know. The only way I can describe it is putting on a snorkelling mask and realizing you can breathe underwater, and never wanting to emerge because it's so peaceful and so different. To feel soothed by difference is something I have craved for some time now. Knowing the difference is actually within me and not just through superficial surroundings is an enriching and wholesome feeling. If life is following your bliss then I have found a tiny garden on its path where I can be me for awhile.

Being Bliss. 

How lucky am I?