Ugh.

Well, obviously I'm neglecting this whole blogging thing at the moment. I suppose I'll get back to it. Maybe when I dont' feel so guilty about writing about nothing when I should be writing about school things...

Dancing, paddling (when my alarm clock actually works and I therefore make it to practice), and school. Ca c'est ma vie. Elle n'est pas tres interesant. Mais, Meh.

Good Day :)

It's time to step out of the frustrating world of MSN Spaces. As wonderful as they are for posting photos; they drive me nuts. And so I have moved on. We shall see if it was a good choice or not.
Welcome to my new home :)


(everything before this point is archived from the other site)

Welcome to British Columbia!

Our province:
Where a pot-smoking, world-class snowboarder gets a hero's welcome after the IOC strips him of his olympic medal (ok, they returned it due to his plea of ingesting 2nd hand smoke... uh-huh...we may love you, but it's unlikely we actually believe you)

Where the premiere is a drunk drivier

Where the government flagrantly disregards the legality of a contract.

Where teachers are accused of setting a bad example for their students because, unlike the nurses, they are willing (or their union is) to openly oppose our government's dispicable behaviour.

Hmmm.
Welcome to British Columbia.



Comments:
Animyr: Hi! I just discovered your website, and I am so enjoying your writing as well as all the photos. I just happened to see the little icon beside your name in my Hotmail Contacts and wondered: "Should I click on this?", and here I am. I will continue to check out your site from now on so please keep at it. Loved your "gotta have an angle", and I can see you have no lack of such!

Something to Focus On (working title)

At some point there is going to be an interesting (hopefully) writing here on "focus." I'm supposed to be focused at the moment on a structuralist interpretation of a section of Nabokov's Lolita so I can't yet entertain you with my ramblings on the subject. But check back...I'll get to it, eventually.


(*edit* Or not...)

Random Congrats

Wow! Two entries in one day. Amazing.

It occured to me that people I know (sort of) are doing things that may be of interest and deserve some congratulations so here's the list :)

Maristar and Weasel: Getting MARRIED! YAY!!!

Maggie: Being sought out by the local cadet band (hounor winning cadet band) because she was Recommended to them in hopes of having her be their new director! * Bowing to you Ms. Music* :)

Hope Afloat Dragon Boat Crew: 2nd at the International Cancer Cup Dragon Boat Festival in Bellevue, Washington and 4th (of 62 international teams) at the All Breast Cancer Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver. Wow. Paddles Up!

Comox Women's Outrigger Crew: (the lovely ladies that put up with our novice-ness on Wednesday and provide never-ending encouragement) 1st in the master's div for the Catalina crossing and 13th overall (of 59 women's crews)! And 1st in the master's women's div at the Canadian Iron Championships. *insert Hawaiian word for "Congratulations" here* Way to go!!

Jonas H: (who's a '97 Highland grad just like me, and maggie, and maristar, and likalia, and tweek) k, was browsing the CORA outrigger site and came across this little tidbit - 15th at the U.S. surfski championships in San Fran and 3rd overall at the Canadian Small Boat Challenge in Vancouver. WooHoo!!!

You gotta have an angle

(us at the Nanaimo Dragon Boat festival)

Ok, so I was standing in the kitchen this morning making coffee, reading the paper, and thinking about how I havn't updated this in ages and feeling like I should because Weasel was asking where my blog was last night. So I figured I should put something new up. Problem is that I have a rather boring existance (no idiotic customers in my life thank god) and I'm trying to complain less so that cuts out pretty much everything I'd think to write here.

Thankfully the local paper helped me out. It was lovely, one of those, omg I can't believe this; i just have to write this up (nuts to the not complaining rule, and how convenient that it just happened to come up while i was totally at a loss for an update) sort of incidences. Nothing earth shattering. Nothing about the terrible injustices that our fellow humans are subjected to, nope, something completely self-centered. But thats ok. It's MY blog after all. I'll be self-centered if I want.

I opened up the paper not expecting much; I've lived here for 16 years (with a few breaks in there) and there is usually nothing much in there, and if it is interesting the date or place or names of those involved are probably wrong (and they never did publish our "Day in the Life of the Comox Valley" photo assignment, we're really glad we went out at stupid hours of the morning to try and find and photograph people doing interesting things in in comox at 3am. yeah riiight.).

Anyhooo, they have this neat little feature where if you go somewhere interesting and bring the CV Record with you and take a photo they might publish it. Here's where the self-centered bit comes in...wait for it...

My D Boat team suffers for lack of publicity. The paper Loooooves Hope Afloat (and so do we) so they get lots of press, which is good because they do all sorts of fund raising and publicity is good for them. And they're good! And they're the nicest people. No complaints there. And lately the "Other" D Boat team in the valley has decided they're fund raising for another boat to implement a "therapeutic paddling program" Cool! that's great, but how convenient to have such a heartwarming angle to fund raise on. Especially since your childish and un-sportsman-like behaviour has basically alienated you from the rest of us! That's right, get your own boat. We don't want you anyways. (I hope y'all don't wonder why you weren't invited to Pt Alberni's festival this weekend.) That leaves us. Apparently we don't exist. In fact, we weren't even at our own festival in Aug. That's right, in the the paper's world Hope Afloat represented the Valley at the Comox D Boat races.

The problem is that we are self-centered. We paddle for the joy of it and race for the fun of it. We aren't cancer survivors and we dont' have a cause. We don't fundraise because in a backwards way we want to support Hope Afloat and not spread out the possible public contributions to their efforts by making people choose between us and them.

It kinda stings though that they don't even mention us racing at our own festival! Plus, we could use a little interest in us if it boosts our membership. That would be good; having a full boat at a festival would rock! So we figured that if we took a pic of the team at the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival in Aug with the record maybe they would print that, we're not asking for much...

Apparently though that is too much to ask for. I've been opening the paper since August and looking for the photo. This morning was the final straw. Cancel my subscription (shhhh, I know, I don't actually have one). I give up entirely. You annoying small town paper (that made me break my vow not to rant on my blog anymore) YOU SUCK!

That's it, that's all, no more. We will just have to make ourselves known without your "help" CV Record.

ps. Hope Afloat, that was a lovely photo of you and the record in Bellevue in the paper this morning. And congrats on your awesome results at the races there!


(us at Comox Nautical Days DragonBoat Races - yup, picture proof that we were there. With ribbons no less. *sticks tongue out at the paper that likes to get things wrong*)

Something good

Actually it's two things good.
#1 I saw bunnies today. Two bunnies happily munching away on the grass at Mala in the midst of chaotic first day gatherings. Cute bunnies.
#2 I saw the happy bunnies from my comfy armchair in on the second floor of the newly renovated library. Yes, an armchair. In a "bay" window. i chose an armchair as opposed to a half circle table because the armchair looked comfy. It was. and I didn't need a table for two just to myself. The study cubicles appear to have disappeared, instead it's individual windows each with a table or little blue armchair. OMG. Brilliant!

In the absence of ashtrays

OK, Some people just shouldn't be allowed to stay in hotels. Either that or they should be made to clean up after themselves. Or charged double if they expect someone else to do it (and the poor room attendant that has to do it should get the extra fee). What sort of world would one have to grow up in to think that the drawer of a bedside table makes a good ashtray??!! There is a reason the room didn't have ashtrays; it was NON-smoking room! Thats why it had that pretty little icon on the door under the room number of a cigarette with a line through it. Pretty simple, you dont' even need to be able to read to understand that one. Grrr.



Comments:
Maggie: But there wasn't a "no dog food" sign so it was quite alright for them to throw, spread, dump it all over the floor. I mean, if it had been me, I would have done the same with the dog food b/c isn't that how you're suppose to behave? (http://spaces.msn.com/members/maggiesmusings/)
IndigoEve: oh yes, most definately. and garbage cans! what are those? there are TWO in every room. but really, why make my life more difficult? having to empty garbage cans is so trying compared to having to pick up garbage off the bed, floor, dresser, sink, fridge, tv, bathroom floor, did i mention out from behind chairs, the bed, the drawers, and the table?

Dust

I've been neglectful. I'm sorry. It's not that I didn't have anything to say. Just that I had nothing to write. Yes, there's a difference in my world.

I could fill you in. But I don't think I will. I'll jsut say that there will be photos up soon from a recent sojurn to Vic for the purpose of dragon boating and attending 'Rin's stagette. Keep in mind that I have to scan these photos as they were taken on film (i have no one to babysit my digital Canon when i'm racing so, much to my chagrin, it stays home on these trips, sigh, what i would have given for my 450mm equiv lens on the weekend....) so "soon" may or may not be "soon" in your timeframe.

Dust. Why is there so much dust in my house? I don't mean a bit of dust, i mean layers of dust. It's most trying. I have yet to get a clean set of negs out of my darkroom. DUST! Always dust imbedded in them. It dries into them, I swear. I'm going to have to build a drying cupboard I think. And no wonder I'm always coughing. I've been asked if I smoke; I don't! I don't smoke anything, in fact, I've never smoked anything in my life! ever. Not even once. Why would you do that to your lungs? I don't know. Insted I live in a dusty house. I suspect it must be the house as I don't cough nearly as much when I'm not living here. And invariably the first night home after an extended absense I wake up in the morning unable to breathe. Stupid DUST!

In explanation of the portfolio...

~5 categories
~4 prints in each
~portraiture had to show groups and individuals, shot in the studio and on location
~advertising was wide open in terms of content...two of mine were prints from slides and I don't have scans of the slides so you won't see those images here
~my landscape and nature images were shot on b&w film, processed, and printed in my darkroom
~digital imagery had to be a montage of at least two of our own photos (how limiting is that?? that's hardly the only use of digital imagery *rolls eyes*)
~open category(our choice) - photojournalism images from a class trip to CFB Comox. Just a tiny bit of bragging; the first and the last of these four were published in the paper :)


(Totem Times April 5th edition front page)

Comments:
CassieMarie7: Incredible photos! Just came across your site and thought I'd say hello! Cassie. ( http://spaces.msn.com/members/humblefamily/ )
BornFree2c: hello......i was out surfin the ole net.i enjoyed the pictures....good to see some still have a eye for a perfect shot.tap it cool.cheers.... ( http://spaces.msn.com/members/bornfree2c/ )