Last day of work.

hey everyone!
So right now I'm at work on my very last day at Volunteer Vanderhoof and my last hopefully) 20 minutes. A thank you for card for Reg is on my left and my desk is perfectly organized for the Katimvik Volunteer who will take my place next week.
We only have 4 more days left in Vanderhoof at this point!
This evening we will be doing some end of rotation reflection again. Last time we had reflection Mel made us imagine how Quebec City would be different than Vanderhoof, and what sorts of activities we'd like to do there. We also had to do the cross the room activity if you agree or disagree and basically questions on how we've changed during Katimavik. I love reflection because I can actually hear everyones opinions and how people felt about their experience in Vanderhoof. I talk with my group members everyday but we rarely sit down and talk about exactly what we've been getting out of our experiences.
Last night Reg had us over to the neighbourhood space and bought us pizza and we watched Petropolis, a documentary on the Alberta tar sands. That documentary can make you very embarrased to live in Alberta when you're 1 out of the 2 people who come from the province. For every 1 barrel of useful product they make they permanently dirty 3 barrels worth of water. The devestation and affects on the planet that has come as a result the of the tar sands is irreversable and graphically disturbing.
Tomorrow and Sunday are going to consist of intense cleaning and cooking. We need to prepare food for Quesnel who are coming on Monday, and prepare meals, bake bread and grocery shop for the Quebec Group who are switching with us. As well as this we need to intense clean and we're talking like moving couches and vacuuming and moving ovens and fridges style. It's not going to be too fun or anything, and I feel bad for Sarah because it's her 19th birthday and she's going to spend it cleaning the Katima house top to bottom.
Today is Isaacs 18th birthday btw!
So then on Monday around 3, Annie and Amy are driving Quesnel down here in the vans and then Mel and Annie are going to chill in PG while Amy and a lady named Danielle from head office is going to do somemore cleaning and somemore reflection with us. I'm slightly apprehensive of the 25 bodies, and 2 people being in charge I've seen only a few times or not at all. We need to wash our sheets and fold them and put them away and sleep on bare bunks with our own sleeping bags. I normally would not care but we're also supposed to have all our stuff packed, but I need to pack my sleeping bag in my luggage in order to pack properly and I can't put that in until late Tuesday night.. ohh the struggles in my life hey...
Travel day will be interesting as we have to be awake at 3, to leave at 4 to get to Prince George at 5, to leave at 7 and then go to Vancouver, fly to Montreal, drive in a bus with 2 other groups first to Victoriaville, and then to Levis, and then finally Ste. Foy/Quebec City. It's going to be a wild ride.
I also had the oppertunity to do more anti-bullying presentations and they went pretty well.
It's been a... pleasure... volunteer Vanderhoof, but it's time to say goodbye, Charlyne my boss is heading down here soon to give me my reference letter.
Wish me luck this weekend!!

9 days in this place.

Oh dear, my life has been kinda busy lately, soo.. I have no been blogging much. My apologies! The start of last week me and my bosses had a convo about my job and how I can enjoy it more because lately it's been kinda frustrating as the local organizations are not reacting well to my efforts to get information for the Volunteer Vanderhoof data base, so I told them how I'd like to do my anti-bullying presentation for the local schools. So on Friday I had my first presentationn!
The class really listened when it came time for my story, and they wrote in the evaluations that they liked my story so that was pretty awesome.

On my way home from work I was greated by the surrounding beauty of Vanderhoof.


Then I walked to the post office to collect an amazing package from my lovely parents... and MA had two amazing looking pizzas ready for supper!!

After supper we went to the Neighbourhood Space for open mic-night and a few local talents came out to play. My favourites were Rosewood's Diary, and Isaac from our group!!!


We returned home where Brandon had a bet going with Jared and Isaac that he could finish two entire boxes of craft dinner in one sitting.

Dispite popular belief he was unsuccesful..
The next morning we headed out to PG with Jorma and Clara as our resource drivers.
The day consisted of the public library where I wrote a letter to my lovely sister..
the art gallery and the swimming pool.

The evenings now a days consist of knitting. And knitting, and kinda more knitting. Thanks Mam, for sending more yarn to fuel their productive habit!

Then today we worked on a project where we each had a puzzle pieced shape of this piece of wood board, where we did art/collage/poetry to represent our time in Vanderhoof and our memories. It worked out super well and everyone is super talented, especially in the art of the crayon. And we all know how good I am at art despite my almost near failure of the class in Jr.High so I did poetry instead.



The poem on mine I wrote today and is as follows:
'Accidental discovery of self, purposeful adventure, put rediculous fears on the shelf, regardless of risky venture. Live with 12, people unknown, share a bedroom with a few, always together, feels like home, the feelings of security are true. Food to eat, sleep in a bed, an unpaid job in the day, a safe place to clear the head. You can't imagine life a better way, the longer you live the life the more you absolutely love, you learn to avoid constant strife and the casual un-dreamed of. This is Katimavik, 2 jobs, 2 places, it teaches more than expected, a life of repetition it soon replaces and leaves the individual permanently affected.' - Kyra
Then we went skating and now we're back home where majority of people are knitting, and Sara is clearly hyped on coffee and laughing hysterically.
This is our last week in Vanderhoof and while that's hard to believe, it's still insane that we have 5 more days of work, and 9 more days to get through here.
We love Quesnel, but let's just say we're getting all of peaceful quality time now because when you put 25 people in one house, and not enough room at the dining room table you get mayhem and eating supper on the kitchen floor. All of next week is going to be spent debreifing, and cooking meals for the Quebec group and cleaning behind large kitchen appliances. Soon we will revert to living out of our suitcases, doing mass amounts of laundry and noise and commotion. I'll miss Vanderhoof but it's time to go. If only Mel could come with us..

Weekend of Epicness.

So let's start with Saturday which was pure awesomeness. Friday night it rained and then froze so we decided the roads were much too slippery to travel all the way to Prince George on, so we stayed in good old V-hoof and had a photo compeition.

Me, Sara and Ryan were in a group and had such a good time trying to take photos to fit with our theme of Fire & Ice. We mainly got Ryan to take epic photos of me and Sara in selective gorge places... but we ended up being quite successful as we WON!!

It was very unexpected too, because MA, Brandon and Isaac were a power team and actually doingthings with fire, but regardless, we won and winning meant a chocolate bar of our choice!!
This is our winning photo and is really an orange building reflected in the ice. (:

And then the photo shoot began...





Afterwards, we judged the photographs, and then we went out to eat at a vietnamese resteraunt called the New Pagoda.
Let's just say, that this resteraunt feels that a long piece of hair is sufficent garnish, that their brocolli has been clearly cooked in sketch sauce, and that the only close to normal thing you could get your hands on had to be the grilled cheese sandwich which I ate.
After supper we headed over to the arts centre and did TYE-DYE!!! Oh wow. This was so much fun, and Mel was just absolutely euphoric as she was totally in her genre. Plus, how can you go wrong doing art while listening to Kid Cudi, MGMT, and Gnarls?
This is me, clearly having no idea what to do with my tye-dye project.


But tye-dye was epic fun, and everyone got so creative. Hahaha.



Sunday came, and we went on an extremely epic hike!!
We went to Greer Creek Falls, and almost went the wrong direction, but we found it eventually and walked through a forest with creaking trees, gorgeous water falls, and intense sunlight.






And just for the record, I climbed ONTOP of the water fall. Yes, I did. And it was like freakin' a million feet high. Just to like, you know, show that I'm not that wimpy.
Overall, this weekend was really great. The only crazy part is that there is only 9 days left at our work placement, and 15 days left in Vanderhoof. I've learnt so much from this small town, and saw a town dynamic I never expected to see but I am so ready to go to Quebec and experience a new adventure, and to really and truly start learning French. I'm also super excited for the long exciting travel day where we are again the last group in the cluster to be dropped off. I'm excited to see what it feels like to be surrounded by the French language and to see the beauty which I'm sure is all around Quebec City and Montreal area. But it is also crazy to think that I won't be coming back to the same desk at the Neighbourhood Space, or that walking to Timmies will not be a common occurance, or that I won't be able to go to Melissa whenever I want and talk through my problems. Lately I've been having those slow motion moments where I really look at Mel and I'm like, I am going to miss this PL. Melissa has already taught me so much about myself and hash helped me put my life in a direction I really want it to go. She's taught me to be mature and face my realities head on, but at the same time to accept my flaws. It's not a mistake if you learn from it. I'm hoping that my PL in Quebec will be able to teach me just as much because he has to compete with the epic teachings of my rents and Mel. :P
I already have more plans for directly after Katimavik but Imma keep those on the DL. I'll let everyone know when I'm ready, but don't worry. No matter what adventure I go on, I'll keep you posted.

Rememberance Day, and some other crazy stuff.

So today was rememberance day, therefore we went to the local highschool to listen to a service and then we walked to the park by our house and wreaths were laid. The only confusing part was that they had no minute of silence... but that's alright.

And every year I write my dad a poem on Rememberance Day because he's a veteran.

A Certain Fate

Obligation, honour, desire to leave
the reasons never change,
Sadness, vacant, necessity to grieve
every shot is at close-range.

Cause and effect,
means to an end,
a steady aim, yet misdirect,
a single subtlety can offend.

War is a battle that is never won,
the effects of it are far too great
there is no way to re do what has been done.
a truth not under debate.

Endless pain, and in the end, why?
losing, conflict, an on-going fight,
at the end of the day we look at the same sky,
the stars are thought to come out each night.

Sacrifice versus gain,
what can we afford to lose?
hundreds, thousands , slain
and it will only continue unless we choose

Peace.
-Kyra

And recently, I've been notcing a trend... everytime I see Ryan, he picks a fight with someone in the house and then pretty much get's his butt kicked. He usually goes after MA who is very fast to react in creative ways. These are some of Ryan's shining moments.

Like this for instance is Ryan on the living room floor after French lessons last night.


This is this afternoon when Ryan attacked MA, and MA responded by picking him up, placing him on the counter and turning on the tap giving Ryan a 'petite douche' aahaha.



Also, our group seems to have a thing for pillow fights... and it usually gets pretty intense. I'm just glad that we have an epic ex-daycare basement in which to have crazy throw downs in. [Also, please notice how MA has chosen to battle with an entire futon rather than a pillow. This boy does not mess around, clearly.]

Near the end of the pillow fight there was Ryan, MA and Brandon. MA and Brandon decided to team up on poor Ryan who huddled in the corner using the lid of random tupperware container... but while Brandon and MA were distracted attacking one another, Ryan tested out one of our near by fire escapes...







So Ryan escaped another beating, and now we know for a fact that if there was a fire, we could run to the basement and escape through the window effectivly...
As well as this.. is snowed today!! It was one of the first snows here, I think it's snowed one other time and didn't stick around but today was really pretty because of all the fresh snow.




We also went to the neighbourhood space tonight and we made cards and had a potluck to say thankyou to our billet families, and I pretty much made the best Peanut Butter Cookies ever and screwed up the bread I baked for tomorrow.
It's Katimavik, either you eat bread that's half raw, or starve. I'm not worried, it will be eaten regardless of what kind of state it's in.. :P Maybe they'll get annoyed with my mad skills and fire me from being house manager. It's not even Friday and I'm soooo done..
(Just for the record I have already made 6 perfect loaves of bread, so this was a fluke, I'm obviously a bread artist.)
Fun things to look forward to:
Tye-Dye Project Tomorrow Night
Sarah.L's Fam Jam coming in to visit this weekend.
Going to PG on Sat to go to the library, art gallery, swimming and to eat out..
and Sunday is my last day in the hell that is house managing pree-much solo style. (:
Thanks for reading!