Christmas 2015

Christmas has come and gone, and it was a green Christmas after all. That last snowfall that I thought would stick only lasted a couple of days.

Oh well, some Christmases have to be green. The temptation is to blame climate change, but if people were able to rely on snow in the past, then we wouldn't have classic songs such as I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas (probably not the song name, but I just remember the lyric) and Frosty the Snowman wouldn't have been made with the first snow of the year, which was on Christmas Day.

You have to have green Christmases so that the danger of not having a white Christmas feels real and therefor more rewarding when you do have them. And if a Christmas had to be compromised, I'm fine with it being this one. This month has really dragged, with work, with being sick, with finding a place to live, and with preparing for the move. Dealing with the holidays was just an added challenge.

I told everyone not to get me anything special, and not to expect anything special from me, but I wound up both giving and receiving more than I'd intended, which was pretty predictable.

I'm celebrating in Guelph with my mother and brother.

There's a place in Guelph called The Hundred Stairs, which I'd heard about but never been to. I went on it, and there were 105 stairs. Disappointing.

I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. I thought it was excellent. I'm sure the jury's out on whether or not it accurately portrays the perspective of someone with autism, but I am very rarely moved by books in the way that this one did for me. There was one scene where I had to put the book down because it was giving me anxiety, and I cried at least twice, in public, because it moved me so. And I don't really cry. Last time I cried was at the end of the Walking Dead video game back when I was taking Human Services Foundation, and the time before that was when I left Mali. It really irritated me that my cry for Mali was such a significant point in my life, and then I broke my record on a video game. But now I have to say that I've cried for Mali, Walking Dead, and The Dog in the Nighttime. Still averaging less than a cry per year.

My mom blasted through The Dog in the Nighttime as well. started and finished it in one sitting, and described the book as an "emotional journey". So even though my field of work deals with people similar to the main character in this book, my mom was able to be engaged just as strongly without such a significant influence. The book is accessible to anyone.

The author of the book says that he is not an expert on autism or aspergers, and the book was made more to demonstrate the experience of being different. And in fact, the main character is never referred to as being on the spectrum.

If I were still doing that Sage Award thing I did on my previous blog (I used to do book reviews on a blog with the word "Sage" in it), The Dog in the Nighttime would surely earn this award.

I'm giving this Book of the Year, although I think my only other reads were Children of Segu, and Into the Wild, although those are both very solid reads.

Dreams

It's finally snowing... Looks like we're going to have a white Christmas after all. We've had one other serious snowfall this year, but it didn't last more than a day before going back to Autumn weather.

I had a dream about a week ago. I was carpooling to Extend-a-Family with two of my old SSW peers and someone from my New Story training. Then we noticed that nobody was in the driver's seat. We wondered how the car had gotten onto the highway and appeared to be steering without a driver. Then we realized it was because the guy from New Story was pressing buttons in the back seat. But he hadn't realized that that would make the car move, and he wasn't really sure how to drive it. So we all started frantically trying to figure out how the back seat driving worked, but it was unsteady and we wound up veering off the road into a swamp. I saved my backpack but lost my shoes.

And then last night I had a dream that one of the Malians from Canada World Youth gave me an all-expense-paid trip to Mali. I caught up with my host family in Karadie, then met with the person who had called me, as well as my Counterpart who he'd also called. Turns out, he'd made these preparations just so that we could do a simple delivery. It was on the other side of the nation, though, and we were on foot, so it would be a journey. As we passed the different villages and cities, I was surprised over and over again that people I knew from Canada were there. I ran into some old coworkers from when I was at the Info Desk, and I ran into an old coworker from the Summer Program, who was there because Mali "has the best gym in the world" so he had to make the extra effort to cross seas.

Sick

Ugh... I'm sick. Sore throat, low appetite, low energy. Think I've had a fever. Better not be the flu. I've had my flu shot.

Told my coworker and she ran a care package over to me. So nice. Got a lemon and a jar of honey with instruction to add two tablespoons of lemon juice and one heaping tablespoon of honey in a mug of warm water and to drink this regularly. I have, and my throat actually feels way better. She gave me a thing of tomato soup too. I've only been eating liquids, and it seems to act as a go-around for the lack of appetite. Getting some sustenance into me without overwhelming the system.

We managed to get a Christmas tree up over here. Wasn't really going to bother, but my roommate's work threw him a spare artificial tree. And then I set it up and was aggravated by  it's being bare, so I got some tinsel and a tree topper.

The "SSW Completion" post that I was trying to get to be the main Google hit for this blog is now showing up. The one from the first year of this blog is still the primary hit, but one time I Googled it, and I only got "SSW Completion".

Apparently there is a "Griffin Ave" right near where we live currently. Why didn't I get a place there?

I finished Into The Wild, which is a book by Jon Krakauer, who wrote Into Thin Air. Into Thin Air was about his experience climbing Mt. Everest, and Into The Wild was about his investigation of a young man who had passed away after a lengthy excursion in the wilderness. This book was good, but I think Krakauer is best when he's writing from his own perspective. For example, my favourite part of the book was when he was writing a comparative piece between his and the book's protagonist's perspectives, by putting in a bit about his mountain climbing.

I'm reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which is about a child who falls on the autism spectrum and his investigation of the murder of a dog, and I'm reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which is about an orphaned child being raised  by ghosts.

Homehunting

This is going to be hard to explain.

So you know how I was gone for two weeks for the Extend-a-Family Overnight Camp when I had half a month to find a place? I put my faith in my roommates and they didn't disappoint. They found a central location in a century home with two bathrooms, all-inclusive at a reasonable rate in a neighborhood with many of my current and former coworkers, right by where my cousin lives, and it even came furnished. To the point that it had live plants. It seemed too good to be true.

...And it was.

Turns out it was a sublet situation. I mean, I knew I was subletting from one of my roommates as the primary leaseholder, but I didn't realize that she as well was subletting from the original owners. And the original owners decided to move back in in January.

So I've been scrambling to find a place for the New Year.

Last week I had four viewings. I had one at a high rise apartment building behind Fairview Park Mall, where many recent graduates of Conestoga wind up. A general trend for Conestoga students is that they do a year in the Residence, get tired of the high rent and move into student housing. Then when they graduate they move behind Fairview Mall because it's only one bus terminal away from the college and therefor familiar, and the rent is pretty reasonable. There are six high rises behind Fairview: William I, William II, Gresham I, Gresham II, Cedarwood, and Highpoint. I think technically they all have unique names (William I is also called Georgian?) and Cedarwood and Highpoint are a pair in the way that William I and II and Gresham I and II are pairs. If I hadn't gone with my roommates, I was planning on following the trend and getting a place in one of these six buildings.

It would be like moving away from my coworkers and back into my college community, now in the form of recent graduates.

Good accomodations. Gresham had a swimming pool, sauna, gymnasium, leisure room (with ping pong and foozeball), and a tuck shop all located within the building (in a strange section connecting the buildings called the "link"). William had all that plus ensuite laundry (but they had no spaces available)

When I did the tour of Gresham, they asked me if I wanted hardwood or carpeted flooring, and if I would rather be higher or lower in the building, suggesting they had a selection. Then we went to do a viewing and we went into one, which my tour guide said was dirty from previous visitors, and so she led me to another vacant apartment on the same floor, further leading me to believe that there were a number of vacancies.

I submitted an application on a Wednesday and they said they would get back to me on Friday. I called Friday and got someone saying that there was no business that day because of an office party so I should call back Monday. Called back on Monday and they had apparently lost our application (what were they doing at that party?). Promised to get back to me the next day. The next day they called to let us know we had been rejected.

I asked why and the woman said she didn't know, because she just sends it away to get checked and it comes back with a confirm or deny. She said it usually has something to do with credit, and  that no, there was no one I could speak to about it.

I'm comfortable speaking on that, because I know my credit is immaculate. I've been living independently for two years and have paid rent on time without exception. I have a credit card and phone plan, both of which I've had for about a year and have never failed to pay on time. My only blemish is that I'm not as established as some.

But this pulled up certain fears. If an invisible entity that even the person choosing applicants doesn't know is calling the shots, does that mean this same entity is casting judgments on everywhere we apply? And if it is, won't it give the same answer no matter where we go?

I picked up the pace. I applied for an apartment, but half an hour before the meeting, and me being on the bus headed toward it, I received a call saying it had just been sold. I applied to another apartment, and when I got there, it had sold it's last two-bedroom before I arrived. Places were being advertised, toured, and applied to within a 24 hour span.

 I saw an ad for a place going at $700, all-inclusive including Internet, with 3 months rent free. Seemed good to the point of suspicion. It's near the Waterloo Universities, so it might be kind of a student hosuing area, but at these stats who cares? I contacted them and they got back to me within two minutes, asking me to visit immediately. I say yes, but I'm worried I might get beat up or something.

I show up and it's a beautiful building, with all the accommodations you could ask for. I enter a proper office and meet a fellow who gives me a tour. Place isn't sketch in the least.

...Except the rent isn't $700, it's $1600 to $1900. Don't know where $700 came from. I'd say it was per head, but $700x2 is $1400, not $1600, which is their lowest rate.

...And also, they changed their availability from January to February... during the time it took me to bus over. The guy pitched a February spot hard, to the point he extended the three month free rental deal for me and contacted me today, even offering to contact my landlords to try and convince them not to move in until February, or to get me to couch surf until February for a place there. Yeah, not happening.

And those were those four viewings! I also viewed a building on Queen Street, which had everything Gresham had, plus a proper gym (weight room and cardio) and a hair salon, and I viewed a place of Forest Glen Plaza, where I picked up the interesting piece that rent is determined by the floor of the building. The higher the apartment, the higher the price. Strange, because I always favoured lower apartments. Less travel time, usually closer to the laundromat, and less likely to get killed by a tornado. Also, I'm afraid of heights, so the view isn't exactly an advertising point.

I had another set of four lined up and a couple more strategies... but I have a place! I was the one who found it, and it's a proper lease. I won't do too much elaboration, since I don't reveal my exact location on my blog. But you can know that it's not at William, Gresham, Cedar, Highpoint, Sage, or Queen apartments. Probably narrows it down quite a bit actually, haha.

New Story 4

A little while ago, there was an attack in Mali. It was in Bamako, the capital, where we stayed a number of times. The attack was apparently made by Muslim extemists, and it was done on a hotel. A lot of the victims were tourists.

I finished my last session of New Story Training. When I originally saw their schedule, and saw that the fourth session was a month away from the third, I thought it was just bad scheduling. Like, the room was available three days in a row, and then the next availability was a month later. But they actually wanted to act as facilitators, and to give us the chance to work on and follow up with our partners before coming back together to review how the facilitation process went.

My phone has become very difficult to charge. When it first started giving me trouble, it was a matter of me placing the plug very precisely within it and then not disturbing it. Eventually, it needed to be angled in a way that wouldn't allow for standard positioning, so I'd prop the plug on a pen so the charger was at an incline which allowed it to fuel the phone. Now it needs to have pressure applied to it or it won't charge. I solved this problem by taping a pen to the charger to create handles, then wrapping a rubber band around the handles and then the top of the phone to create consistent applied pressure without me holding it. Still, if it's becoming this difficult this fast, I worry that it will regress to a point that I can't use it.

I think the problem is the plug to my phone, and not the plug of the charger, because I've tried another charger on my phone and it had the same issues.

I really rely on my phone. One time I was walking home to catch a bus late at night and my phone was dead. When I got to the bus stop, I decided to do an EasyGo text to see when the next arrival would be. Then I realized that I needed my phone to send the text. I didn't think that was a big deal, after all, it was at most an hour wait, so I'd just check the time and track the hour. But I use my phone for the time, so that didn't work. I wanted to check to see if there were still buses at that time of night, but of course I can't verify that without my phone. I thought, worst come to worst, I'll go to a pay phone and call a cab. But I didn't know the cab number, their number was in the contact list in my phone.

Back Again

I'm back up! My genius brother somehow got my laptop to work again. Several people had tried and failed, and I was sure it was a goner, but my brother proved me wrong. He tried to explain what he was doing as he went along, but it made my head spin, so I don't really know. But I'm back!

As the Greyhound to Kitchener arrived in Guelph and passengers were getting off, the first person to get off thanked the driver for his kindness and gave him a hug. I thought that was a sweet gesture and figured they might have had some kind of good interaction. But the second person clasped both her hands around his, looked him in the eyes, and thanked him as well. And every single passenger after that made a sincere effort to express their gratitude to this driver. I know most of the Greyhound drivers that do the route between Kitchener and Guelph, and this guy was new. It made me wonder what he must have done on the bus to have invoked the gratitude of all the passengers.

Bus drivers are in general the subject of aggravation for people. I've often thought that it's a profession I do not envy. It's a position where people require you to be exact when you're operating under unpredictable circumstances, and people confront you when things don't go well, but don't acknowledge it when things are good. I feel like people go to bus drivers with their problems as much as social workers.

But the position being one that attracts such negative responses made me wonder more about what this driver had done to receive such admiration. I wanted to ask, but didn't, and no one boarding the bus did either. When exiting the bus, I thanked him with as much enthusiasm, because I enjoyed the positivity, even if I didn't understand where it was coming from.

I hate the limitations of human perception. When I was at the Guelph terminal, I noticed that there are ornamental metal carvings of crowns placed in the crook of each light post. I obviously know the symbolism, Guelph is the "Royal City" after all, but it made me think of how many times I've been at that bus stop and failed to notice this decoration. I really enjoy that some architect or whoever thought to make such a detail, but their effort was lost on me for how many years I've been taking that bus. There are likely many people who have been using that bus for longer than me and who still haven't noticed it.

Recently I found two pennies on the ground. Separate locations, each event a day apart from the other. The phrase "find a penny pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck" holds more weight now than ever, since pennies have been discontinued for years. I wonder who's dropping them, or if they'd just been overlooked for such a length of time.

Laptop Down Again

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long, my laptop is down again. Just tried to go on the Internet one day and it wouldn't let me. Checked my phone's connection, which was fine, so it wasn't the wifi. I did some troubleshooting, found a problem, called someone who had me uninstall the malfunctioning device, but the next step was to go on their website to reinstall it.

Well, I can't do that if the problem is I can't get online.

So I'm back at the KPL doing my blog. Next time I meet up with someone with a functioning computer for an extended period of time, hopefully I'll be able to get it back up and running. Until then, I'm using my smart phone for all my Internet necessities.

Last week I did two days of training for Mental Health First Aid. As you probably guessed, it's like First Aid, but for mental health. Went there through my employer along with my coworkers to improve our skills working with people who have dual diagnosis. It was kind of like my safeTALK training back in school, as they both had a focus on suicide prevention.

Last Friday was Friday the 13th. I got accepted by a new family to work with and I finally got my paycheque. It wasn't so unlucky. My laptop crashing did happen directly after I created the 13th edition of my resume, though.

I got a new phone plan with unlimited minutes. I feel posh. But when part of your job is making calls on your cell phone, it really is necessary. I mean, I was still pulling a profit, but you don't want to be clipping out a portion of your pay as you work, you know?

I've been able to voice-chat over Facebook with my Malian friend. Haven't spoken to someone who knows the language fluently in a long time. It really doesn't leave you.

Halloween

Whenever anyone asks me what my favourite holiday is, I always say Halloween. My rationale is that while Christmas and Thanksgiving give good ideas for how they should be celebrated, they feel the need to attach themselves to some kind of moral principle, such as sharing and reflecting on what we should be grateful for. Easter is attached to religious meaning, Valentine's Day is only applicable to people in relationships, etc. Halloween is about dressing up in costumes and eating candy. It's the most low-pressure, person-focused mainstream holiday.

But realistically, it gives difficulty for adults who choose to celebrate it. Since I'm living in a house now that isn't in student housing, I had my first real chance to hand out candy (even though my place was half family homes, children wouldn't approach it because of the student population, and nobody chose to decorate). I got two boxes of candy, since I didn't want to overestimate. One was full of fun-size chocolate bars, and one full of twizzlers and twizzler-variants.

Everywhere people were  offering fun-sized chip bags, but I knew better than to purchase. I remembered how when I was a kid, I felt the chip bags were disappointing because while they filled up a lot of space in your treat bag, most of it was air. I know that chip bags need air to avoid being crushed during shipping and they're not actually trying to rip you off, but if you're a kid and your goal is to leave once your bag is full, it's not a good feeling to find a good percentage of your earnings is empty space.

I know that people make fun of fun-size bars because a full bar would be even more fun, but let's be realistic. You can't expect a full-sized bar per house, and a bag full of fun-sized chocolate bars is as high-density candy profit as you will get. I had the Twizzlers as a nut-free option in the case of allergies. Even chocolate bars you wouldn't  expect (Aero and Caramilk) have a "May contain nuts" warning on them.

But no children came by our place, even though 'i saw them trick-or-treating and I left our porch light on and the candy visible. My roommates wanted to go out to the Apollo Theatre and watch a horror movie. The Apollo is a single-screen theatre that serves wine and beer and offers tables to set them on. Never really thought about it, but why not? It would be a weird stipulation that you couldn't be watching a program during the consumption of alcohol, especially since bars, planes, and other place with alcohol preset feature televised entertainment. We watched The Shining. This time slot probably was during prime trick-or-treating hours.

After that, we had a few friends over. They were dressed in costume. We weren't. I've got a costume from last year ("The Emperor of Evil"), but I didn't bother putting it on.

Recently, I ran into someone on the street selling a book he had written. The price he gave was $5. It appears he wanted to bypass needing a publisher. It's called Coryworld, and it's "A wacky and futuristic science fiction novella where children race and dance inside a simulator, except for two of them :)"

By Gap Yuet Bing Ding. I'll let you guys know how it reads.

I got a friend request on Facebook from the son of the chief of Karadie, the man who gave me the nickname "Elephant".  I don't even know how he found me, since he's never heard the name "Gryphon" (I was Ali Traore over there) and he's not friends with anyone who would know my Canadian name. But he had to be so beautiful, referring to me as "Gryphon Elephant" ( showing he acknowledges my Canadian identity while referring to something shared between us). And when he introduced himself, he spoke of himself as"From Karadie". Karadie is the local spelling, while the global spelling is "Karadje".

So much strength in a short message to me. 

New Story 2

I'm back in Kitchener. Second night in, I solved my busted shoe problem. Value Village had a perfectly-sized, classy, cheap pair of shoes, and I could go into my third day of training with decent footwear.

My room had a cute little coffee maker that brewed one cup per use. I got up in the morning, looked at the instructions, prepared the machine and flipped the switch. But it didn't turn on. I looked down and saw it wasn't plugged in. I went to plug it in and realized there wasn't an outlet. The room seemed to be designed to avoid putting outlets in convenient locations.

Having maid service is weird. I get my bed made and my towels folded in some funky way. I get new miniature bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. But it's a weird feeling to know that someone is coming into your room and doing stuff.

I couldn't find my camera, so I couldn't take photos of the exotic land of Brantford. I took some with my phone, but I don[t know how to take them off, so it doesn't matter much.

Training was good. We got to act as a facilitator for another facilitator and vice versa. We got to create a goal and develop a plan and have one developed for us. I've got confidence that the plan I have is both realistic and will improve me in an area applicable to where I'm at, and I also believe in the plan I helped deliver for another,

New Story

Guess where I am?

...

... If you guessed a hotel in Brantford for a three-day training session, you got it! Transportation and hotel charges covered by my employer. I'm call this my first business trip! And since the hotel has a complimentary breakfast and my training a complimentary lunch, I'm pretty much covered for food, too.

All of my coworkers with Facile have done this New Story training except for me, because I was hired at an unorthodox time, and because when I first started working, I had two jobs and couldn't take on anything more. I'm the only person representing Facile for these session.

Funny thing is, my training is at a hotel, but my room is booked at a different hotel.

This room is sweeeeet. I've got two beds (for some reason), a fridge, microwave, TV (that I can watch TV on!) WiFi, shower with towels, soap, conditioner, shampoo, and body wash, even an ironing board!

My door has a peep hole! I haven't lived in a place with a peep hole since I was a teenager! I tested it out, and a guy walked by at that exact moment, just in time to get peeped at! I have one of those manual clasp locks, which brought back distant childhood memories. In fact, sliding that lock gave an eery sense of deja vu.

It's strange how I appreciate stuff that I used to disregard, and to be fair, should probably still disregard. But when I get into my room, I get so jazzed about everything ("WOW! Complimentary toilet paper!")

This place gives me flashbacks of the Residence at Conestoga. And I guess it should, since the Conestoga Residence is a repurposed hotel.

What a location! There's a Food Basics, a Zehrs, and a natural food supermarket all less than a block from each other. There are two malls across the street from one another. There's a Winners and a Sears literally facing each other. There's a Value Village, a Mark's Work Warehouse, and a Moores. There's an LCBO, a dollar store, a TD bank (and several other banks that don't concern me) restaurants, fast food joints, and pubs. I have literally never been in a neighbourhood so versatile in terms of shopping and consumer needs.

Unfortunately, it didn't support my specific shopping needs today. Since I'm away for three days, apparently one of my shoes thought this would be the perfect day to develop a tear. We're getting the tail end of Hurricane Patricia and my torn shoe is doing an insufficient job of keeping my foot dry, so I went shoe shopping. But  I've got shoes at the house, so I didn't want to buy anything fancy, but none of these clothing stores had anything at a decent price, or even anything in my size. So annoying.

Last night, me and my roommate watched a horror movie, the remake of Poletergeist. It involves a possessed old house, an oncoming storm, electronics malfunctioning, and an oncoming storm. We were living in an old house with strange furnishing, my computer had just fried, hurricane Patricia was setting in, and it was a full moon night. To top it off? The character that gets the most focus is a young boy named Gryphon (alright, Griffin). WHY?! Sometimes life just syncs up in disgusting ways like that.

Oktoberfest

I voted today! I don't want this blog to get political, so I won't speak on who I voted for, but wanted to mention that I acted as an involved Canadian citizen and did my part in our decision-making process. Whenever I get into the voting box, I always worry that I'm going to mess things up somehow and accidentally vote for the opposite person of who I want, and wind up quadruple-checking that I did it right. And then I get self-conscious that someone is waiting for me to finish, and wondering how someone can take so long to draw an x in a box. It just feels weird that something with so much buildup only takes a couple of seconds to actually do. Something about that sheet of paper, which looks like a scantron and comes with a #2 pencil, reminds me of a school exam and I wind up overthinking.

Oktoberfest just finishing in Kitchener. Kitchener is silly about Oktoberfest. They close down all of Downtown for nine days and all of the bus stops in that area are inactive. All buses are free after 11 during this week, although you have to walk outside the Oktoberfest area to get one, and there are cabs parked everywhere to help prevent drunk driving. There are police stationed everywhere. Men are wearing lederhosen all over the place, which is kind of funny, because women will frequently wear revealing clothes in cold weather, but at Oktoberfest it's the men who choose fashion over function. Doing anything in Oktoberfest is called "Oktoberfesting". There's a mascot for the festival (Onkel Hans), who represents it in a similar way to how Santa represents Christmas.  I went home for Thanksgiving, and Guelph's downtown was dead, probably because so many people were at Kitchener's Oktoberfest. There's a store (which I've never been in) called "Oktoberfest" and it stands year-round. If Kitchener were in The Nightmare Before Christmas, where there are portals to different dimensions that constantly celebrate a specific holiday, then Kitchener would be the Oktoberfest dimension.

I kind of hate Oktoberfest. I enjoy drinking, but shutting down the core of the city is a bit much. It makes getting anywhere difficult, and I just don't particularly enjoy the atmosphere.

Flower Pens

A couple days ago, I got to drop by student housing to collect my sunflower heads. I was happy to see that all seven heads were intact and ripe for harvest. So not only was this the year that I got the most sunflowers, it was also the first year that I got to harvest them. And I was very pleasantly surprised to see I got a 13 inch zucchini! My previous record was eight inches.

I went home for Thanksgiving and brought my zucchini with me, which we prepared as part of the Thanksgiving dinner. It was kind of cool to actual bring my own harvest as a contribution to Thanksgiving.

My work has given me a little "book" (smaller than a laptop but bigger than a smartphone) which can detach it's keyboard to become a tablet (smaller than a book but still bigger than a smartphone). One day when I had finished charging it, I pulled out the cord but it left the front piece inside the computer. I thought that I wouldn't be able to use my book anymore, and I didn't for awhile, but one day I reached inside my bookbag (works great for both paper and electric books) and pulled out my charge cord for the little computer. That made me wonder, if my book's charge cord was in my bookbag, which charge cord had  been using, and how had it been working? I checked all my electronics and matched them with their respective chargers. I don't seem to have anything missing a charger, so I really don't know where this random charger that worked on my book came from.

When I was in Summer Program, one of the activities we ran had people painting flower pots. We then had them filled with marbles and put fake flowers in them. The flowers were attached to pens with green tape wrapped around them to create a sturdier stem.

At the end of the day, we set the flower pots out on our sign-out table and participants brought them home. But of course a few people didn't want theirs, so they kind of wound up sitting on the table.

One day, we had several people writing at once, and instead of waiting to take turns with the community pen, someone had the good idea of plucking a flower and writing with. it.

Normally, we would run through a good number of pens due to people absentmindedly slipping them in their pockets, or maybe someone might just want an extra pen. But with the flowers, they didn't fit so easily or conspicuously in someone's pocket, and leaving a flower pot empty was too noticeable. So we could count on people "replanting" them, and we never lost a flower pen. As effective and much less aggressive system as that little chain they sometimes put on pens in banks. If I'm ever in charge of managing pens for an organization, I'm going back to the flower pot method.

Super Blood Moon Eclipse

I am officially a Registered Social Service Worker and I am now legally able to put letters behind my name. I have transformed into Gryphon Sibbald, RSSW.

I was home for some time last week, and my grandparents visited. My family wanted to see an example of one of the bottles on my spice rack, in case they could find something to replace the one that broke. They'd been laughing at me for my overreaction to my damaged spice rack, but as soon as they saw the bottle, they learned better. It's not a fixation, anyone who owned that beautiful spice rack would feel the same.

A while back, we had a Super Moon, a Solar Eclipse, and a Blood Moon all together. I'm sure you heard about it, it was a pretty big astronomical anomaly. I was with my family at that time and it was overcast! Looking at visuals of people who charted its progress, it looks like it started in its Super Moon form, eclipsed, and then when it reappeared, it was a Super Blood Moon. So dramatic.

Because the house I'm living in came furnished, it was easy to think of it as a complete package and to only consider what we brought in as needing any kind of consideration. During the third week of our stay, something tickled my senses and I saw the room with a bit more clarity than usual. I turned to my roommate and said "That plant's fake, right?"

It wasn't fake. Along with the furnishings, the previous family left two spider plants and an aloe plant. They must be pretty hardy, because after three weeks of not being cared for, they were all only just beginning to look a little depressed. A little water and they look as happy as anything. And I guess aloe doesn't need sunlight, because it's stationed on a shelf in the middle of the room. Seems weird to me, but whatever.

I briefly visited my old place in Student Housing. I brought back my raffle-won lawn ornaments, my snail, toad, and turtle with solar powered glowing resin. I need to get back there to cut the heads off my sunflowers. Apparently they're still attached but wilted, which makes them ripe to harvest.

26

It's my birthday today! I'm now 26 years old. You could argue I'm entering my late twenties, but I'm going to argue I'm still mid-twenties. 21, 22, 23 are early twenties, 24, 25, 26, are mid twenties, 27, 28, 29, are late twenties. 20 is a round number so it doesn't have to be categorized. Three sets of three to divide a decade, it's just math. You could say I'm in my late mid-twenties if you really wanted an age dig, but that's kind of cumbersome.

It was a pretty good year. I helped run the Respect Campaign, I graduated college, did another stint with the Summer Program, got work with Extend-a-Family as a Direct Support Worker and got hired with Facile. Moved out of student housing and got my own place with a couple of friends. And I managed to make seven sunflowers blossom. In the next year I want to take driving lessons and get my G2 and have eight sunflowers blossom.

Don't have much planned for today. I purposely didn't schedule any work so that I could have the day off. My roommates prepped me a little birthday surprise, which was sweet.

I've had some pretty good birthday reveals is the past. It was my birthday during Canada World Youth the day that we were traveling to Mali. We reconnected with the other group and during a conversation, one of the other group members asked me how old I was. I said "21. Wait." I looked at the clock, turned back "I mean 22".

When I was in my first year of college, I was sitting in the Atrium with a couple of friends when some people walked by, spreading word about the International Day of Peace, which was that day. I said "My birthday is the International Day of Peace?" My friend said "It's your birthday?"

By the way, my birthday is the International Day of Peace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Peace

Spirit Halloween

It's been awhile since I updated! My computer's pretty broken and I've got another one coming in. Before, I would just use a student computer, but since I don't live next to the school and my account is finished, that's not a possibility. Nowadays, I just wait for my mostly-broken computer to be in a good mood. Even now, I have to worry that before I finish writing this, it will decide to start pulling up search bars and plug random combinations of letters and numbers until it drives itself crazy and shuts down.

(Edit: It started writing "vvvvvvvv" over and over and deleted half my post. Two days have passed and I've now started an account with the Kitchener Public Library and am finishing this on a public access computers. They only give thirty minutes as opposed to Guelph's full hour)

However, while my computer's behaviour is confirmed mysterious by my tech-savvy friend, I showed him my phone (which was giving all those strange suggestions) and it turns out that it was pulling suggestions from a combination of Afrikaans and another language that I forget. He re-set it to English.

I was at Conestoga Mall, where they have a shop called Spirit Halloween. As the name suggests, it is completely dedicated to the Halloween season. And apparently there's no Spirit Christmas or Spirit Easter. When the greeter greeted me, I asked her a number of redundant questions regarding whether or not it was a whole store dedicated to one holiday, and she kept saying it was.

There were these ornaments in the shape of spectres that would make some kind of motion if you stood on a button. My friend stepped on a zombie which made crawling motions at him. I stood on a button near a zombie girl, which made her sway back and forth.

I thought mine was a little unintimidating compared to my friend's zombie, and I said as much. I could appreciate th

(Edit: this is where my computer fried on me, I'm picking it up from here. And between my last edit and reviewing what I'd written two days ago, I overheard a librarian explain that the computers to my left give two full hours, and I just got unlucky and chose a half hour one)

the idea behind it, creating a sense of unease by depicting something pure like a young girl and combining it with something unnatural like a zombie. But the comparatively tame motion next to it's adult male counterpart still left it seeming a little uninspired. And I said as much.

Then it said "Help me... Please... Help me....". That gave me a chill. I could appreciate the way it appealed to the human desire to approach and help based on it's seeming fragility, combined with the urge to keep distance based on it's unnatural appearance, combined with appealing to the fear of the unknown as it urged you to question what it needed help from when it didn't seem in any evident danger.

I praised the little girl creature, and told my friend that I'd spoken too soon. My spectre was more frightening than his.

Then it flew at me.

Some of my friends like to jump out and surprise me, because it triggers an old Karate instinct and makes me bounce back into a fighting stance. It's probably not wise to provoke that, but there's some novelty in that I'm always battle ready.

But this girl... came at me in such a way that I couldn't perceive it as human motion. With my senses frazzled, I screamed, covered my face in my arms and jumped backwards off the button, deactivating it. The whole store was staring at me.

I haven't screamed in years. I didn't even know how I sounded when I screamed. I can't remember the last time I've been so terrified.

After we walked away, a staff member came and stood on the button in front of the zombie girl (presumably to test and see if it was too frightening for public display after my fit). Looking at it from afar and knowing what to expect, I was slightly humiliated to see that the girl doesn't really move all that much when she jumps at you. She just kind of lurches forward.

Worst part was when some young boys told me to try out a giant tarantula ornament, telling me that I'd think it was "cool". I guessed that it was going to jump at me too, and they were just trying to get me again thinking that I might be vulnerable to jumpers after my previous display.

I was right. Without the aspect of surprise, the gimmick has no potency though.

Seven Sunflowers

I was wrong about the DVD, VHS and board games being here when we moved in... They actually belong to one of my roommates. The house is still decorated and furnished.

All seven of my sunflowers blossomed before I left student housing. The final one blossomed on the day of the move. That's my record for successfully blossomed sunflowers, beating my previous record of one.

Remember how I mentioned that my last day of Day Program in the Summer Program was on a Blue Moon? Well, the night I moved out of Student Housing was the night a Harvest Moon. One life stage ends with a blue moon, and another with a red moon, hmm...

Moving Day

Well, yesterday I moved out of student housing, where I'd been living for two years and had shared living space with a total of twenty different roommates over that timespan. When I showed up, I had only two suitcases and a backpack. Now that I'm leaving, I've got three suitcases, two backpacks, five garbage bags and some miscellaneous stuff. And I threw out a lot of stuff and made a number of house donations to future students because I couldn't be bothered to move it all. It's crazy how you build up possessions. By the time I'd moved all my stuff out, it didn't even make the house look much different, just showing that everyone's got a similar kind of buildup. And of me and the two people I'm moving in with, I wasn't the one with the most stuff either.

And even though three people just moved in with their own stuff... the place is furnished. Really nicely, too. It has a lot of neat personal touches and the impression of a family that had been here a long time, although I hear the family before us had only been here briefly. There are decorations, board games, books, a DVD and VHS collection etc,

I finally took the industrial-sized panini press and beer machine from the house, which belonged to my first generation of roommates.

All of my delicate stuff survived the move. My stick from Chisasibi, my drum, masks, and animal carvings from Mali, my paintings from the Summer Program overnight, my certificates from Ways2Work, Katimavik, Canada World Youth, and Human Services Foundation and my diploma from Social Services. My spice rack. My raffle-won French Press, wine glasses and cheeseboard all made it.

But by some twist of fate, my spice rack did not survive the night. I'd successfully gotten it to the other side and had propped it up on the counter. It had survived in student housing propped up on a counter just like it for months, and then after everything was over, one of the people that helped us move bumped it and one of the glass bottles broke.

Do you remember me blogging about how I got this classy spice rack with specified bottles that had the leaf of their respective spice engraved in metal on them? And that I got a bunch of spices just to fill the rack? Tarragon and turmeric were the only ones I didn't know, and tarragon was the most expensive and hardest to find on the rack. I got it in a little glass bottle the same size as the bottle I wanted to put it in, just to complete the collection. It was my show spice.

As soon as I heard her say that one of the spices broke, I said "It better not be tarragon".

It was tarragon. I don't even know if I want the spice rack anymore, since it's now incomplete.

Prep for September

Recently, I went to the school and backed up everything on my student account that I want to keep, since it will be shut down as of Tuesday. I also bought a city bus pass for September, the first one I've purchased in literally a year. My last pass was dated August 2014. On the September pass, there is a picture of an apple to represent the month, which I took to signify the supposed tradition of students giving apples to teachers as a show of gratitude (never actually saw it happen...). It appears that even though I got an Adult bus pass, the association of my birth month and the beginning of school will always be a thing...

I updated ,my resume recently. Since I'm gainfully employed, I don't expect to use it anytime soon, but I hadn't updated it since becoming an Independent Facilitator and Direct Support Worker, or since my second go as a Summer Program Leader, since my stint at Healing of the 7 Generations, or since graduating. I just did it for my own self-esteem, and it was really gratifying to be able to make all those changes at once. I sent in an application to the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers. Provided nothing unexpected happen, I should soon be able to legally refer to myself as Gryphon Sibbald, RSSW.

I also finally created a LinkedIn account, which is like a social networking site, but focusing on professional stuff.

Check it out, I have a bio on the Facile website (I'm third from the top): http://facilewaterlooregion.ca/who-we-are/our-staff/

Three more of my sunflowers blossomed. That's five out of seven, now. The other two have two days before I move, although since one of my friends will be living here, he's offered to oversee my garden and allow me access to it, so I don't feel so much like I'm abandoning it.

End of Summer Program

Today was the last day of Summer Program. During the evaluation week, we wrote our perspectives on the summer, we discussed it in-depth with the program coordinators, we got our personal assessments, we compiled data from participant evaluation sheets, we made house calls to get feedback on participant experiences during the overnight, we sorted through photos taken throughout the summer, we designed a collage from participant art based on their overnight experience, we picked up clay art that had been made during Wacky Water Week but took time to finish, and we cleaned the accessible van.

We all got a special lunch ordered in for us this week. We gave a gift to our supervisor, and each of us received a framed sheet with a collection of praise given to us by our coworkers.

I feel like I'm finally "psychologically graduating". After I graduated I kept living in student housing, I went back to my old student job, I kept using my student bus pass, and I kept going to the school to use their printer.

But now my student job is ending, I'm moving out of student housing, my student bus pass is expiring, and my student account will be shut down, so I can't use the printer. When I graduated, it felt like summer vacation. But now summer vacation is ending, and I won't be going back to school/

I had a Facile meeting tonight, and I was getting a ride from my Facile mentor. Right after I said my goodbyes and left the building, she had just arrived and was ready to take me to my meeting. It was exactly like leaving my old life behind and being carried directly into my new.

Impeesa and Kimbercote

Sorry it's been so long guys! I just finished two weeks of overnight camp, in which I couldn't update because I was gone 24/7. I was home during the weekends but my computer is (mostly) broken, and since I have two other jobs, I just didn't have time to access something to update the blog.

First week of overnight we stayed at Camp Impeesa. I went there last year. To review, it's pronounced "Impessa", it's usually a Boy Scout's camp, and it's named after the guy who invented Boy Scouts' nickname when he was fighting in South Africa. It was given to him by his enemies and he said it meant "The Wolf that Never Sleeps". However, it actually means "Hyena"| in Ashanti. It's supposedly haunted by a ghost named "Drumbo Dan" who was killed there after losing his feet, and who therefor cuts off peoples feet off in an attempt to reattach them to his ghost body.

Second week was at Kimbercote. Last year was the first that Impeesa was used, and for at least three years prior to my joining Summer Program and likely more, Kimbercote was the go-to location for overnight. I'd heard plenty of stories about how much rougher Kimbercote was, so I was very eager to experience it myself. It wasn't so bad. The location was far more remote than Impeesa. The cabin seemed older, and had a number of personal touches and quirks, but it was fine for our purposes. It's near Collingwood, it's at the top of a hill, and the view is spectacular.

Over the two weeks we had campfires, went on hikes, went swimming, watched movies, played games, held a dance... A staff at Extend-a-Family has a farm near Collingwood and we went there for a day trip. We also had a day trip at Bingemins water park on the last Friday (scheduling difficulties landed us in Kitchener a bit early in the second week, but we got an extra day trip out of it). At Bingemins we did the wave pool, warm water jet stream, water slides, and mini golf as well as a few games the staff led nearer the end of the day.

It was a good two weeks!

I have a place to live next month! Moving in with a couple of friends. I was getting pretty nervous when I had half a month to find a place and knew I was spending two weeks out camping.

And two of my sunflowers blossomed! I'm calling it a good omen and naming them after my two future roommates.

Wacky Water Week

Last week was Wacky Water Week. We did clay art, we went to a water park, and we played Reverse Paintball (staff got painted by participants, then had them shoot the paint off with water guns).

For the water park, we went to the Wild Water Works in Hamilton, which had a wave pool. water slides, and a lazy river (floating down a river in an inner tube).

The whole week was pretty awesome!

By some quirk of fate, I wasn't doing either of my other two jobs on Saturday, so I managed to visit my home in Guelph for the first time since Summer Program started. I haven't seen them since convocation started, actually.

But the way time lined up, I had to go to the Greyhound station right after work. And since I hadn't had time to change, I was still wearing my swim suit. The first bus that came was supposed to be going through Guelph, then Toronto, but apparently that day it was a Toronto Express, so all the people with regular Toronto tickets got upgraded while the Guelph people were asked to wait. We were told the Guelph bus would be half an hour late, but by that time, it was already half an hour late. We were told the next bus would be going to Guelph, but it was going to London. And then we had to talk another Toronto Express into taking us. Finally got on a bus an hour and a half past schedule.

My phone hadn't properly charged the night before, so it died while I was lined up. And even though I had brought a cell phone charger, there was no outlet and I couldn't leave because I didn't know when the bus might arrive. So I wasn't able to phone home and tell my mother and brother I would be late.

Night of the blue moon too. Felt powerful that my last day of Day Program would be on a blue moon night.

And yeah, Day Program is over! I'm now doing a prep week, followed by two weeks of overnight camp, followed by an evaluation week, after which the Summer Program is complete! Time is moving forward.

Got a pretty significant crop of string beans recently. Since my first batch of tomato plants didn't work out and I replaced them with a set of partially-grown ones, I've found myself in need of tomato cages when no place sells tomato cages anymore.. They're just falling over each other right now. My flowers are flowering, but sort of weakly.

I brought home some snow peas for my mom to make something with. She made them as a side with ramen.

Got my beer machine on the chilling process. Will get one more crop before I move.

Get Your Game On Week

Last week was Get Your Game On themed, a week dedicated to sports and other high-energy activities. Some highlights were the Drum Fit exercise routine, and our visit to see the Waterloo Warriors.

For Drum Fit, we had an instructor come in and talk us through some exercises involving exercise balls and drum sticks. Since we did this last year, I'm pretty sure I blogged about it then as well. The reason it is called Drum Fit is that most of the exercises involve using the exercise ball as a percussion instrument. I really like this form of fitness, because the way the instructor talks you through it, you don't realize that you are doing some pretty intense work until near the end when you're finding it hard to stand. I wasn't quite as beat-up by the end of it this year than I was last.

The Waterloo Warriors are the University of Waterloo's sports team. Their football players took us on a tour of the training and fitness areas of the campus. They then had us do a number of drills, and we ended by participating in a game of football with them.

The Waterloo Warriors were a new trip concept for this year, and so it was pleasing to see that it went over well. The Humane Society trip for Vibrant Volunteers was also new, which I forgot to mention last update..

It was a really smooth week. Other activities that came along well were our Mission Impossible game, where participants attempted to sneak behind barriers and retrieve balls for their team, our Tarp Toss game, where people threw balls through targets positioned on giant mats, and Minute to Win It, which had teams filing through stations and attempting to complete tasks in the span of a minute.

This past weekend I got to catch up with someone from Katimavik. This guy wasn't in my group, but he was in a group doing the same rotations as us, in the same span of six months. So when I was in Summerside, he was in Thunder Bay, and when I was in Thunder Bay, he was in Chisasibi, and when I was in Chisasibi, he was in Summerside. We lived in all the same houses, and only met briefly but learned about each other's groups from the stories we left our Project Leaders and placement agencies with,. It was great swapping stories with him and putting together the pieces of such an old puzzle.

Vibrant Volunteers

We just had our Vibrant Volunteers Week at the Summer Program. We went to the Community Centre, the Family Centre, and the Humane Society. Facile runs through the Family Centre, so my boss from there got to see me working my other job. Kind of like when one of the Extend-a-Family higher ups showed up at the Student Life office while I was working for the Respect Campaign. Bosses colliding.

Actually, I have Vibrant Volunteers to thank for getting me acquainted with some of the Facile folks. When I applied for Facile, I didn't expect to know a handful of people because I'd led a group there for Vibrant Volunteers almost a year previous.

I was a little salty last year about actually having to work during this week, since I'd become accustomed to being paid to play. But a coworker pointed out that I'm getting paid to volunteer, which made me feel better.

At the Community Centre, the team I'd led was in charge of assisting preschool kids. Snack time was a sight to see. I saw some of those little ones pulling out those yogurt containers that you can eat in like, two scoops. But these children were small enough that they had to lift these cups with both hands. To them, these tiny cups were the size of large bowls of soup.
These kids must eat their weight in food every day.

I just got a large crop of snow peas from my garden. They are so sweet and delicious. Does anyone know a recipe that snow peas can be used in?

I fell off the flexitarian wagon again. Since I work three jobs, I find that I have less time to do such everyday tasks as making lunch. And there just doesn't seem to be a quick, frugal, allergy-conscious, non-microwave, vegetarian option, which is what I need. So on a particularly energy-draining day I picked up a large ham, carved big, meaty slabs out of it and made sandwiches. Haven't really looked back since then. Oh well, these increasing vegi stints must at least lower my overall meat intake.

Hidden Talents

We finished Hidden Talents Week. Some highlights were a magic show, bowling, and watching a movie. I've got kind of a thing for magic shows. They're usually marketed to children, so as an adult, I have limited opportunity to go to them. You assume that they are marketed to children because as an adult, knowing there's a trick behind everything will ruin the magic. Besides, with the knowledge you gained in your Developmental Psychology class, you'll probably be able to detect all the tricks anyway.

But last year's magician blew me out of the water. If anything, as a child I had the excuse of magic to write away what seemed to be impossible, and the fluidity of my perception of reality made what appeared before me less abnormal. As an adult with a more cemented sense of what can and cannot be, having those perceptions challenged gave it much more impact. And knowing that there is a trick behind everything but failing to perceive it created the sense of being teased, and caused doubt in the reliability of those five senses to determine the reality you've grown so attached to.

If anything, it's better as an adult.

Developmental Psychology didn't help me at all. I knew to look in linear patterns if the magician moved in a non-linear way and vice-versa, but it came to nothing. He still made a rabbit appear out of a balloon that was placed on four-legged table with a thin surface that I could see on all sides, a balloon smaller than the rabbit itself. And he still turned a plume of fire from a lighter into a live dove. Astonishing.

This year's magician was very charismatic, very engaging, and very personable. But his tricks were a bit lacking. Very entry-level stuff.

The movie we went to see was Minions. Got to see it on the opening day. It was good, but it's a prequel to the Despicable Me movies, and since I've watched neither of those, I felt like I missed out on a lot of inside jokes.

Bowling was bowling. I'm not the best at it, but I'm not quite the worst anymore.

Today I went to the Latitudes Storytelling Festival, and a Latin Music Festival. They were placed side-by-side, so when I was listening to the stories, the Latin music kind of served as mood-setting, and the story and the music more often than not failed to match.

Around the World Week

I forgot to mention in my last post that I'm scared of heights. The primary struggle for me against the rock wall wasn't physical (although that was a very strong secondary struggle), but rather mental. When I set my foot on that blue foothold that I couldn't get up last year, and glided up the rock wall almost effortlessly, my emotion at that time wasn't pride... Just a horrible trigger for my fear of heights. Pride came later.

The whole thing was like a trust exercise. It wasn't one of those automatically stopping protective mechanisms connected to my gear, instead we had a "belay team" which comprised the Summer Program staff holding a rope connected to my harness. They would catch me if I fell.

And I did fall, both on the rock wall and the vertical playground. I was able to climb until I could no longer, then make a move I knew I couldn't make and trust in the team to preserve my life by catching me. I was nervous that they wouldn't be able to hold my weight, just because I amk the largest in the crew, but I put my faith in them, dove into my fear, and found that they could support me.

First week of Summer Program is over. This year we have walky-talkies and fanny pack (and our team is thusly named the Fanny Pack). It's been great reuniting with returning participants. This week was Around the World Week, the only one not booked to full capacity due to being interrupted in the middle by Canada Day. We had a reptile show, where I was able to handle lizards, snakes, a tortoise, and a caiman a member of the crocodilian family). We also went to African Lion Safari.

Remember how I said that when I was a kid, at the Birds of Prey show, they had me and some other kids engage in a foot race against some vultures, and even though they promised me the vulture wouldn't use its wings, it did and took the win with foul play? And then when I went back last year, they had the same show, the kids won, but they announced the vultures as the winners? Well this year, the kids won again, but at least they admitted it.

They need to end that show. It's been going for like, 15 years at least, and the vultures never win. Those are some slow vultures.

Also, remember how I said that last year, during the elephant show, the woman fell off the side of the elephant and playfully teased her two fellow presenters as they tried to help her up? And that when I was a kid the presenter ripped her pants during the performance, causing me to wonder if these comedic blunders were a part of the act? Well this year, the same exact incident occurred as last year, causing me to think that it's scripted.

Unique to this act is that one of the elephants decided to take a poo right as it posed for the crowd. I feel like that might not have been part of the act, although it certainly added to it. But what do I know, it could just be a new addition.

Chicopee

Not yesterday, but the Friday before that, the Summer Program team went to Chicopee to do some team building stuff. We played volleyball, did tug-of-war with a giant elastic around the waist, slingshotted each other around with the elastic, played frisbee golf, walked on tightropes and balance beams, climbed rock walls and the Vertical Playground (a mess of ropes, beams, and tires).

I mentioned that last year I only got up a few footholds on the rock wall. Well, this year I did significantly better. I remember going for this one blue foothold over and over and only barely touching it when I did my best. This year, I got my foot on it on the first try, then glided up the wall like nothing as I pushed off. And from there I climbed at least a body length, and I think more (I'm using my own body for that measurement, so 6'3").

My coworker that is returning from last year as well said I also did better on the Vertical Playground, but I don't really think so. I think I made it to the same point I did last year, but I did it faster that's for sure.

Whole different game this year. I still didn't do the best, but I was significantly better this year, so I'm proud of myself. I won the tug-of-war, and even though it's not quite as much of a personal achievement, I was better at frisbee golf too.

When I was doing my student placement, sometimes I would find myself running late and dashing out the door before I could make myself a lunch. When I did that, I'd go to Central Fresh Market and buy a sandwich from the deli. Whenever I did that, I felt like I'd failed my first morning ambition, and put money from what I'd allotted to groceries to eating out. But eventually I realized that Central is a grocery store, which means that when I buy lunch there, it's not "recreational", it's grocery shopping! I can budget it under groceries. Still costs the same, but for some reason it gives a little mental relief to think of it that way.

We got new Extend-a-Family staff shirts. Last year they gave us four, which meant that I had a shirt for four of the five day work week. This year they only gave me one because I still had my shirts from last year. So I got fewer shirts, but at least now I have a shirt for every day of the week! They designed a new logo, so four days a week I'll still be advertising the old logo.

Extend-a-Family's symbol is always four stick figures standing together, holding hands, with one in a wheelchair. I guess it's hard to figure out a design a stick figure so that it immediately sends the impression of a wheelchair to the general public. A while back, they used an image where the image of a wheel was placed in front of the stick figures, but it didn't really make sense because that would mean the wheelchair was sideways and the person in it would have to be contorting their body to hold hands and face forward. Then they did another one where the person's legs were shown in two vertical lines to simulate a sitting position, with larger vertical lines on either side to represent the wheels. That's the one on last year's shirts. This new shirt shows the wheels simply as curved lines on either side of the person.

It's neat to guess why people make changes like that. For instance, aside from the change in the chair, a few other changes have been made. Instead of one figure showing the outline of a skirt and the other three without, this new image shows the body as a simple line that narrows on the top, expands in the middle, and tapers to a point. This means that this image is gender neutral and doesn't make use of tradional gender indicators that are now out-of-date. Also, each figure is the same height, including the person in the wheelchair, whose "body line" just ends where his waist would be, and his wheels replacing where his legs would be. By making each the same height, it makes the image less hierarchical. That's my take on it, anyway.

I use hangers from the dollar store in my closet. The dollar store sells white, grey, and black hangers. When I started, I bought a pack of each, to give my closet diversity. As my wardrobe expanded and I needed to buy more hangers, I would rotate which colour I would buy at a time. One time a while ago, I needed a new set and took a guess at which hanger colour's turn it was. I thought that it was white's turn, since I usually lean against white in decisions like those. But when I got back I realized that the last colour I'd purchased was white, so I already had more white than the other two colours, and now I had even more. I was so angry. Now my closet has a strong white hanger majority,

I built an extension on the garden since I felt my crop this year had been so disappointing, and I put some partially-grown tomatoes with the old part. It's not quite as bad as I first thought, though. After some weeding I realized that some of the plants had a different shape of leaf than the weeds, and I soon realized that those plants were sunflowers! There are also a smattering of zucchinis that are still small. My new garden extension has just zucchinis and sunflowers, since those are what I wanted most, and both have just started to grow.

Of my original batch of indoor plants, some failed to grow and I set them out in their jiffy pots and continued to water them just in case. But I'd put them outside and those pots aren't really meant to stand against storms so they became victims of the elements. Due to their inactivity and haven gotten knocked around, I gathered them up and threw them in the shed. Weeks later, I went into the shed to get a tool and notice that, without water or sunlight, one of the plants had sprouted. As I looked through them, I found two more like that. I've brought them indoors and have been watering them. I want to reward these plants, who showed such a determination to grow under the worst possible circumstances.

Almost feels like foreshadowing. Three opportunities will come because of actions made long ago and which I'd given up on.

Beer Machine

Got my first crop of beer from the beer machine a little while ago. It's... it's okay. It's really dark, almost opaque, with very little head. I used the "honey brown" mix, and even though it smelled overpoweringly sweet at first, when it finished brewing the scent was completely gone. It was kind of watery to taste on the first sample, but in the next few days it changed to a more "beery" and bitter flavour. I've had three other people drink it. It's okay.

My garden's not doing well at all. I grew everything from seed this year, so when stuff came up I sort of assumed that they were my crops. But a little while ago I compared my plants with the newly-sprouting weeds in the unused portion of the garden and they are the same. I figured that since my stuff was growing faster and better than the weeds, that it must be different. But in reality, the weeds in my portion only grew better because it was better soil, with more regular watering, and no competing weeds.

The only thing that's growing alright are the beans. I don't know what to do.

I used to get really existential when I'd weed. Like "Why should the strong die to make way for the weak, just because the weak profit me more?"  I almost appreciate these crafty weeds, that grew in so systematically and so appealing to the eye, as if they disguised themselves in order to survive.

I have a couple of flower baskets growing at least. So there's that.

But I wanted zucchinis and sunflowers!

Summer program training started this week. It's good to see my people again.

Convocation

Today was my convocation! My grandparents, my mother, my brother, and a friend all came to watch me walk across the stage.

It wasn't held at the college, so I had to take a 2 hour bus ride to get there. On my last of three buses, a friend texted me saying we had to be in line half an hour before the stated time. I was going to get off the bus 40 minutes ahead of time, but this news gave me 10, and since it's still a bit of a hike to get to the destination, I thought I'd have to sprint it. But almost as soon as I got out, an SSW peer swung by in a car and motioned me to get in.

When I got there, I received a call, which I didn't think was possible because I'd put it in Airplane Mode (an idea that occurred to me after my phone decided to delete half my contacts again and put it in Airplane Mode). Turns out, my phone had called Emergency Services. I was worried they were going to send a crew over and crash convocation, but they didn't because they made voice contact with me. I turned my phone off for the ceremony. My contacts later came back.

When I did the ceremony in HSF, we all wore these sashes called liripipes over our shoulders and everyone had trouble keeping them on. I remember I felt greatly accomplished at balancing my liripipe flawlessly. This time around, nobody dropped a liripipe or even seemed to struggle. I wondered if they modified them in some way to make them easier to balance. I noticed they had ridges, and wondered if the HSF liripipes had ridges or if this was the modification that made the difference.

Remember how I said that the Registrar's Office had me down as Gryphon Sibbald Sibbald, and that because of this, my HSF certificate said "Gryphon S. Sibbald". When I went into the office, the receptionist was very defensive, as if I was calling blame on her, even though I know that were there some sort of mistake, it would very likely not be the cause of the random receptionist that happened to be working in the Registrar's Office when I went to talk about the issue. She countered by being the first to allocate blame, saying that I must have filled out the form wrong, because the office doesn't make mistakes.

Well afterwards, my Student Portal and other academic systems would always address me as Gryphon Walter Barent, when it used to just call me Gryphon. I only realized the implication of this when we all got our name cards and was shown as "Gryphon Walter Barent Sibbald" while everyone else got "first name, middle initial, last name" format. That receptionist who'd gone out of her way to be antagonistic and to flaunt the infallibility of the Registrar's Office had put my first name as "Gryphon Walter Barent". That's why all the systems that would address me by my first name started calling me by first and middle.

My program coordinator asked me how I wanted to called on-stage. I said Gryphon Sibbald was fine. She told me she'd call me whatever I chose. I told her to say the full name.

In HSF, the played us out with an orchestral take of Bad Romance. If they played an orchestral version of a pop song this time around, I wasn't able to identify it.

Camera Down

Ech, using the school computer to update the blog since I can browse, but not type anything on my laptop.

On top of the bust laptop and creepy phone, I recently found out that somebody extracted the removable battery on my camera. This hits kind of hard since, while I've got kind of an uneasy alliance with my laptop and phone, I actually really like my camera. And my camera stopped working out of no fault of its own, unlike my laptop and phone. At any rate, I feel like I'm losing all my tech.

I can't extract images from my phone's camera because the SD card is nigh impossible to take out, and the phone camera very quickly shuts itself down. If I want to take a picture of something, I have to use a Nintendo 3DS. Bah.

We've had a couple of really hard frosts recently. I was wearing a jacket two days ago. My sunflowers, beans, and squash are still coming in hearty, but I'm not feeling good about the tomatoes. My flowers are coming in fine.

Did I ever tell you I wound up with a sixth roommate? That puts us up to seven, which means we're at full capacity. Five-two gender ratio girl-guy. That means that it's the opposite of the past two generations of roommates I've had, which was always five guys and two girls (although last summer we had a two girl-one guy, and a two girl-two guy dynamic).

I also don't think I mentioned having run an information session for my mother's career counseling program, for anyone interested in Human Services Foundation, Social Service Worker, residence and student housing, and working for Student Life.

Today I appeared on camera to be used for promotional material for Student Life. They had me talk on my experience with the Connect Workshop I did almost three years ago.

I won that School Spirit award in class, and it looks like I've held onto it for awhile after-the-fact, with the video, information session, and that school tour I helped out with.

Looks like I'll be one of only two returning staff for Summer Program this year.

I tried to make that old post from 2009 to be not the primary link on Google to my blog. I tried editing my name out of the post, but my post, name included, still shows up as the first hit, with the name extracted only once its been clicked. 2009 wasn't exactly my prime year, I'd much rather be judged on recent events. Oh well.

Laptop is Done

My laptop bit it. The button on the mouse stopped working, I started using a detachable keyboard and mouse. Then the computer stopped registering the detachable mouse and keyboard. So now I can turn it on and look at my desktop, and use my mouse to scroll around the screen, but I can't click or type anything. I'm trying to remember how old this laptop is. Less than two years, that's for sure, because I remember using my old laptop where I'm currently staying and I remember talking to an SSW peer about getting the newer one. The laptop before this lasted over six years.

I don't know whether I should get a new one or try and repair the one I have now. I still have access to the school computers until August, so I can kind of make it through.

I got something in the mail congratulating me on graduating and for having completed the program with distinction.

I don't know if I want to register with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers now or if I should wait until after convocation. The form asks for a date of convocation and there is a section for special requests before convocation. If it's standard to wait until after convocation, I don't mind.

I had two interviews this week. I am officially a bearded man again, as I did not have to shave to be presentable. The interviews included a second round with Facile and a direct support contract with EaF. I am now a member of the Facile team and I have an EaF contract as well.

When Summer Program begins I'm really going to have my hands full working full time and having two contracts. I feel like I'm on the precipice of a new adventure, coming out of a reflective and transitional point after completing college.

Crow Hop

So I noticed a pattern with the code that my computer searches repeatedly when I try to type things. It's searching for each of the letters that don't work on it's keypad. It's searching for its lost functionality. To avoid it doing the search I just use a detachable keyboard.

And you know how I said my phone deleted half my contacts? ...They came back. Along with a few extra, like "Customer Care" and "US Customer Care". I can't imagine having one specifically for US customers will be of much use to me, since I'm not a US citizen.

I just got back my academic achievement report. I'm officially an SSW grad now. Not only that, but apparently I was on the honour list for HSF, and graduated "with distinction" from SSW. Now I can apply at the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, which is a regulatory body (not an educational institute) that will legally allow me to put letters behind my name. I will become "Gryphon Sibbald, SSW, RSSW".

Do you know what's kind of tough? The Respect Campaign became an academically acknowledged achievement during the year that I worked for it, but even though I'd volunteered for two years and worked in it for one, because in the year it was recognized I was an employee rather than a volunteer, it isn't recognized on my transcript.

Although a Connect Workshop I did two years ago got put on there.

When I was with Healing of the Seven Generations, I had the opportunity to listen to the work of the Chippewa Travellers, live, for the mini powwow that they would host daily for the elementary school children.

Here they are on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER-TBxB1w20

They had a song they called the Crow Hop, which came from Blackfoot Nation and had dancers emulate the movement of a crow hopping. It had a really strong and consistent beat with each drummer striking at once. A dancer would come up and every time their foot fell, the drum would beat, giving the impression that the thunderous sound came from the dancers footsteps. It was especially impressive with a female dancer, who would step delicately with the crashing sound of the drum.

After the dancer's demonstration, they would invite the children to join in. At that point, the children would be really amped up, wanting to feel the power of their own footfalls booming like thunder. Everytime, the children would get way too close to the drummers, though, and the workers would have to stand in a circle around the drummers with their arms stretched out, to build space between drummers and children.

I was standing between drummer and child one time, and with my arms outstetched to maximize my range, I felt like a scarecrow. Then I realized that, with me there warding off the children, and the children emulating crows, I really was playing the roll of a scarecrow. Whoa.

So what would that make the drummers? A garden?

Creepy Phone Continued

Yeah, so I'm fine. The phone's curse didn't come to fruition. At the designated time, however, it did delete half my contacts. This isn't the first time it's pulled that, either. Last time, it deleted all my apps and all the contacts that were saved to the physical phone, as opposed to the SD card. So I figured if I just saved to the SD card I'd be okay, but this is pretty random. Oh well, since it saved my conversation history and most of my recent contacts have texted me, and the others are on my old flip phone, the damage shouldn't be too significant. But I don't want to have to plan around this being a regular thing.

I tried taking the suggestions it gave for the demonic-sounding gibberish and it just gave me more gibberish. I realized that I was testing it in a text I was going to send to my friend, felt guilty and stopped. Wouldn't want to send along some kind of incantation.

But this thing has really gone insane. Listen to the suggestions it gives to finish a word when I write "differen" (I was going to write "different")

Differensiasie, Differensiaalvergelykings

What

Okay, so I just want it to be known that after writing that, my computer froze and it started looking up "zdvnk>" in the task bar repeatedly again. Also, my computer stopped letting me write the letters "D" "V" and "N" and it started repeating those specific letters in the task bar as well. So weird.

I forgot to mention that my mom's career development class was taking a tour of the Conestoga Doon Campus last week. Since I live right by the college, I got to come along with them and help out with the tour.

I put in a garden at my place in student housing. I started with indoor stuff because I have a hard time waiting for the Victoria day weekend. Sunflowers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, squash, beans and peas. And since we have a few flower baskets, I put in some flowers. Why not.

The quantity of seeds they offer per packet differs so wildly. The amount of cherry tomatoes were miniscule compared with the regular tomatoes, and there were far fewer zucchini than squash. I looked at the packet because I felt that such uneven distribution was so uncalled for, but there's nothing on how many seeds each packet should have. So I guess they weren't dishonest.

Creepy Phone

My phone is seriously bothering me. It has a function so that when I'm texting people, it will make suggestions as to what it predicts I'm going to say. At first, it makes guesses based on the texting patterns of the general population, and then as I get to use it more, it suggests based on my own personal texting history. By offering suggestions it can make it faster for me to message people, because I'll be able to just click the suggestion instead of typing the whole word.

But recently it started suggesting "die" after almost every word I type. Sometimes it will start suggesting gibberish, too, as if it's speaking in tongues. And sometimes the consecutive suggestions or the three suggestions lined at the top will form together to make a sentence. So a couple days ago it was charitable enough to say "Probably won't die" but yesterday it said "Die later tomorrow". Oh, and once I die, it said that I "Won't be honoured".

I've had other people watch it, and they're like "Did your phone get hacked?"

My flip phone never did this to me.

I'm even making this post right now because if the prediction is true, people can be like "Oooh, how did the phone know?"

But when I tried to log into my computer (I have it password protected) my "D" key stopped working. So I couldn't type my password (and yes, now you know there's a "D" in my password, you're one step closer to guessing it) and even if I got in, the first letter of "Die" is "D". It's like something's trying to silence me.

I just borrowed my brother's detachable keyboard to get in.

My computer's been weird too. It uninstalled Windows 8.5, it started putting any character written with the shift key into a search bar, and it would randomly and automatically search a specific combination of letters and symbols that didn't get any results when I Googled it.

Then it reinstalled Windows 8.5 and everything went back to normal.

I hate modern technology.

Finishing Up With Teaching Circles

I finished my two weeks with Healing of the 7 Generations. I wound up memorizing most of the presentation that precursed the friendship bracelet workshop

There are 7 main clans which are universal throughout most First Nations people. They are:

The Crane, Loon, Fish, Bear, Martin, Deer, and Bird Clans.

In that order, the Ojibway terms for these clans are Ah Ji Jack, Maang, Gi Goonh, Maakwaa, Wa Bi Zsa Shi, Wawazskazsi, and Be Nays.

Although I admit I'm not 100% on the spelling.

The Crane and Loon Clans are the chief clans. They create a dual government to keep things balanced and serve to keep each other in check.

The Fish Clan are the intellectuals. Sometimes called "star gazers", they devote themselves to meditation and philosophy. They manage disputes between the two chief clans.

The Bear Clan is the police force. They also study medicines and are the adoption clan, taking in those that don't know their background.

The Martin Clan is the warrior clan, serving to protect the people.

The Deer Clan is the gentle people. They are pacifists and won't even use harsh words. They are the poets.

The Bird Clan is the spiritual leaders of the people.

Now, there are a lot of sub-clans that fit into these 7 categories. For example, the Eagle Clan is part of the Bird Clan, the Otter Clan is part of the Martin Clan, the Wolf Clan is part of the Bear Clan, and the Turtle is part of the Fish Clan.

To live a good life, there are 7 Grandfather Teachings. They are: Honesty, Truth, Wisdom, Respect, Bravery, Humility, and Love. Pretty self-explanatory, I didn't memorize the Ojibway terms for them though.

Some Ojibway:

Hello (to a peer): Anii

Hello (to an authority): Boozoo

Thank You: Miigwech

No: Kaawiin

Yes: Enh

And there's no term for "you're welcome" because they felt that "miigwech" was acknowledgement enough.

Ojibway is the hardest language in the world to learn, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, as a result of its many dialects.
There are four sacred medicines. They are: tobacco, sweet grass, sage, and cedar.

There are three sister crops which were the staples of First Nations agriculture: corn, squash, and turnip.

Aside from friendship bracelets, I got to play Lacrosse, do Metis jigging, use Inuit yoyos, and help build a Teepee.

What a cool experience!

Mom's 50th

Yesterday my grandparents visited for an early celebration of my mother's 50th birthday. We went out for lunch and had dinner at some friends of the family's. For lunch, we went to a place called The Boathouse. I'd never been except for once when I got an icecream cone from their little icecream side operation. I've heard that you're not a true Guelphite until you've been to The Boathouse. So I'm glad to be a true Guelphite now.

Have you ever heard of the site how-old.net? You can upload images of yourself and it estimates your age and gender. It's gotten pretty big, and I don't know why because it's not exactly a new concept. But I decided to put in my collection of facial hair styles and see how it effects the estimation.

Age 45 for the pencilbeard. Not too much younger than my mother.

38 years old at my standard look. By trimming my beard, I trim off 7 years.

 

37 for my fundraiser selection. Losing that chin and neck hair doesn't do as much as losing the excess of the pencilbeard.

37 again. The muttonchops didn't effect outcome.

 

37 again. It's all in the moustache.

24, a year younger than I actually am. This thing is prejudiced against facial hair. It never got my gender wrong, though.

I'm going to upload these fundraiser photos to my gallery blog. I haven't put anything on there in ages...

Healing Circles

I'm helping out with a two-week project for Healing of the Seven Generations, an aboriginal services agency. A friend of mine works there and helped me get in on the opportunity. For two weeks, they are hosting healing circles at a local museum. Elementary schools have classes come in for field trips and the classes rotate around to different stations to learn more about First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people. I'm specifically stationed at the Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Anishnabeg point. After a presentation on the Seven Grandfather teachings, the clan system, and a lesson on the Ojibwa language, we do a friendship bracelet activity, which is where I come in. I'm one of the people teaching the children how to do friendship bracelets, just learned how to do them myself. Somebody actually made me a friendship bracelet awhile back, and so now I know a bit more about them. Been doing this for two days.

We have daily miniature powwows, with a drum circle and dances separated in Grass, Women's Traditional, and Women's Fancy. Tomorrow I'll supposedly be building a teepee. Haven't done that since Chisasibi. It's all pretty cool!

One of my old roommates moved back in. He moved out after first semester of last year so it's really a blast to the past to have him back in the house. He's a Canadian boy, so I'm not in such a stark minority anymore. This means we're back up to six people in the house again. Almost full capacity.

Even though I finished my classes, my student card is still good until September, so I managed to get afinal discounted four month bus pass from the college. Funny to still be using college resources.

Rock Wall

I got into my old exercise routine recently. During the last stretch of college I really wasn't able to follow it and I was really worried that I had completely regressed. It wasn't so bad. I could almost complete my entire routine, and I think I just need to break myself in before I'm able to do the whole thing. Definitely capable of doing more at this time this year than I was at this time last year.

My goal is to do better climbing the rock wall in summer program training than last year. Honestly, that's what inspired me to start looking after my health. Last year, I was the only summer program leader that couldn't climb the rock wall.

My house has three refrigerators and three bathrooms. Since my two remaining roommates live in the basement, I figured I'd have my own private fridge and bathroom. But both of my roommates changed rooms to a higher level. So I thought that we'd wind up sharing space despite having two sets of unused resources.

Doesn't really matter though, since I've got two roommates moving in this week. Back up to five people, the house is filling up and we'll use it to full capacity.  They're a couple of girls from India. Since the two people I'm living with right now are Indian girls, I'm really going to be a minority.

Really parallels last year. My two roommates that I'm living with now are the same I was living with last year. Between summers, we've had many people filter through, but we ended up together again. Now they've swapped rooms, and these two new girls are moving in at the same time of year, and moving into the same rooms that they used to live in.

Got my indoor garden started. Growing some stuff inside to transplant on the May 24 weekend.

New Jacket

Another roommate moved out. Now there's only three of us, and we're the three that lived here last summer. It started with us and it ends with us.

I fixed my jacket situation. I went to Value Village to see if they had anything. I'm used to the one in Guelph, which has a pretty random selection. But the one in Kitchener... I wound up buying a new jacket, two shirts, three pairs of pants two pairs of shorts, and a swimsuit. Dropped $90 there. I'm putting that toward the $160 I made from my change jar. Last year I said my change paid for a week's worth of groceries, this year it pays for a new wardrobe.

Got to bring my jacket to an interview, too. We'll see how that goes.