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Hair

So it looks like when I said, "Everything's still within walking distance, but you feel like an idiot walking for longer than doing what you're walking to do", I was pretty apt. If I walk to Karate, it takes me a full hour. Going there and back totals two hours I'm not going to spend two hours walking for an hour and a half lesson!

It looks like I'll have to deal with the bus system. I don't know why, but I hate using buses. Back in high school, I'd do a 3 K walk to and from school to avoid using a bus. In Katimavik, I once jogged 9 K,and had to suit up with mapping, communication, and bear-repellent gear, just to avoid having to wait in line in a crowded car coming back from Fort George (me and the pother guy that did this still got back before the van).

Like, even now,I have to go to my doctor's, which is five minutes walk from Karate. Gotta make it by ten, and my thoughts are, "If I leave at 8:30, I'll get there by 9:30".

NO! Take a bus!

I don't know if I should trim my beard, or if I should grow it out to Viking/pirate/wizard/dwarf length. See, the main philosophy behind the beard is that, in the face, women look at three things: strong nose, eyebrows, and jawline. The aspect of jawline is based on a throwback instinct to when our primitive ancestors would use their teeth as weapons. The beard gives the appearance of an enhanced jawline. But if I grow out my beard any longer, I think it will lose the appearance of a jawline. My plan was that, if I got into CWY real quick, I'd grow my beard for an entire year, but my beard has already lost some of it's purity. I trimmed the moustache a little, just so it doesn't curl into my mouth, and there was a section of skin under my eyes where hair was growing, but it wasn't thick enough to be beard, so it was just this awkward middle ground between face and beard, so I shaved it. Nobody can tell, but everytime I eat something and I don't have to wipe crumbs from my moustache, I'm reminded of my shame.

Already, I think my beard is growing more vertically than horizontally. That means it's getting longer, not just bushier. It's reaching a new level of beard, and I need to decide what to do with it.

Here's pictures of my beard: http://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/

I think the hair on my scalp is thinning. I thought that before going to Katimavik, but everyone thought I was crazy. Now a few people have offered their opinion that it is,not even provoked! And somebody who before said I wasn't, changed her opinion! ARG!

I was right to have grown my hair out in high school. It would be my only opportunity.

I think it's growing slower, too. In Katimavik, I got it cut only once, two months in, and you can see basically it's extent in those photos. That's four months of hair growth, for both beard and scalp, and my scalp had a substantial head-start. My brother had sort of longish hair when I went to Katimavik, and coming back, he's got it shoulder-length. So he had a bit of a head-start, and then I got mine cut two months in, but even without these handicaps, I doubt I could have made it to shoulder-length by the end of Katimavik.

Canada World Youth

So, there's this program called Canada World Youth. It's Katimavik's sister organization. It's basically the same, but instead of everything being inside Canada, you do one rotation in Canada, and one rotation in a third world country, you're not in a group, but instead travel with only one other person, who is a native of the other country, and instead of a Project Leader, you have billet families. It's still for a six month period, your work for not-for-profit organizations, and you do volunteer activities and workshops evenings and weekends.

I signed up for a program starting in nine months as a back-up plan in case I didn't have anything solid by then. Well, turns out, there have been a large number of drop-outs for the programs taking off last month and this month. That means, they're looking for replacements from applicants in my cluster. They'll pull in replacements anytime up to six weeks after the program's start. There's a fee that you're supposed to pay through fundraising activities, but the requirements for replacements are cut. I didn't want to lose my opportunity, so I said yes, put me on a back-up list. I had my medical file transferred from Katimavik, since they both work out of the same office, and there was only one last piece to complete it. Since I'd been speaking to them consistently, I'd noticed that they always responded to me within the day, that the person in charge of dealing with applicants is the same person who dealt with my Katimavik application, and that, because I had completed Katimavik, and was ready to jump into another program like this so quickly, I felt my chances of getting in this round were very good. This Wednesday was my doctor's appointment, where I'd get the last necessary form.

I told my family and was met with negative reception. See, my mom's really sick from this Hep C treatment, and my brother's not in a position to support the household. Since I came back, there was an almost-eviction-level incident that I managed to steer away from happening.

Before, when people emphasized my importance in this family, I didn't think there was any legitimacy behind it, but now I'm worried that there is. I don't want to think I'm the type of person to ditch someone in their time of need... and there's a lot of good stuff going on over here that could really get screwed up for them if things went wrong at this stage...

...And a friend of mine says that they're hiring full-time at his workplace, that they're seriously understaffed, that he's a group leader, and will put in a good word for me... Says I'll probably get the job... One catch... Gotta shave the beard.

Man... Full-time employment. I have to say... coming back from Katimavik, I've been offered short-term work at two places and now I'm being recommended by a higher-up for full-time employment, and I haven't even really been looking. World of difference from before.

But still... Being asked to deny the opportunity of going on another adventure, and being told to shave my beard... It feels like I'm being asked for a lot.

I've been messaged by the airline, saying they have received my request and want a seven-day processing period. That's okay.

I have been messaged by Katimavik, saying that I can order a "Got A Life" T-shirt fro free from their website, since I completed the program (their slogan is "Get A Life").

Toronto, New House

Alright, so I just updated the blog, but I logged out of my email account, and I forgot that logging in/out of my email logs me in/out of my blog, and vice-versa. Now, that wouldn't matter so much, because I can always copy/paste my existing post into a new post after logging in, but I learned about my mistake by trying to post and having it bring me to an error screen. Now, this doesn't always work if you're logged out of a site and hit "back", but I tried, and it brought me to my original message. I'm on top of the world here, because now I can't fail to preserve my message... I just have to log in, start a new post, and copy my message from this screen. I log in... and it changes my page with my message to a "successfully logged in" page. So I try to go back, but it doesn't let me!

I think I'd be able to let it go more easily, if I hadn't been offered hope and had it snatched away repeatedly, and if I didn't have to deal with the irony that the failure screen was more forgiving than the success one, and that I lost through success. It's like being told "Congratulations, you're fired! :D"

At least there wasn't a ton... I wrote down all my newest, notable experiences, and of all of them, for various reasons, only two are publishable...

First thing to note is that I'm back from Toronto. I was there an extra day because my work asked me back. They originally said they had four or five hours, and because I was starting early, that would mean I was done noon. But it was a specific task they wanted me to complete, and it seemed to me that it was more like a full two days of work! I don't think I could have just been slow, or else I would have fallen behind my coworker, and I wouldn't have been asked back.

My job was to put labels on lids. Guess for which flavour? Corn & Cheese. I bet you've never had Corn & Cheese ice cream before. They also have Black Sesame ice cream and Lobster ice cream.

All the workers there remember me, but none of them mentioned my beard! They were all super-casual, too, like I was a regular worker and they weren't surprised to see me. Maybe they were tipped off that I was coming, didn't actually remember me,and therefor, didn't realize they were supposed to realize my beard was new?!

Second point is, did you guys know I'm living in a new place? Ever since I came back, I'm living in this regular house that's sectioned off for different families. It's like being in a Katima-house, where certain groups are allowed to call "dibs" on certain sections. I actually like the community aspect. Coming out of Katimavik, I don't think I have a sense of personal space, and too much space makes me feel agoraphobic. It actually feels like we have neighbors. In a regular apartment, I've found that you don't really have neighbors... Just people you live next to.

What I don't like is location. This is a classier neighborhood, but back at the old place, it felt like everything was within walking distance. Everything kind of is here, too, but not so much that you don't feel like a fool for walking a longer amount of time than doing whatever you were doing that required you to walk there.

More Recapping, and Hard Scheduling

So far, the differences I can detect in my life, before and after Katimavik, are:
-I do the dishes more often
-I make dinner sometimes
-We only eat homemade bread

Being able to make homemade bread is probably the skill I’ve found most useful since coming back. If you can make bread, you can make it white, multi-grain, whole wheat... You can make cheese bread, raisin bread... You can make buns and soft pretzels... and, most importantly, you can give it out to people, and it makes them happy. Try not to give it any context. Just say “I baked a loaf of bread for you.” So far I’ve given loaves of bread to my old employment counsellor and my old employer.

I made almost all the bread in the last rotation of Katimavik. Since it was normally House Manager responsibility to make bread, this was the first time people were doing it on a voluntary basis, because there wasn’t a real HM system (there was a meal plan, but that was it), and because of that, I managed to take the title of group bread-maker. People said that my bread was better... When we were doing a debriefing exercise about each other’s positive qualities, mine kept coming out “Stories, hat, beard, bread”. Three of those I did not have before Katimavik, and I suppose it’s nice to have developed another quality like that so near the end, but I disagree that my bread was better. I used the standard Thunder Bay recipe that I would think the majority of people were using.

I forgot to say in my last update that I’ve not only seen my old employment counsellor, Karate friends, Granddad, and Food Bank friends, but also a couple friends of the family, my former employer, an old guidance counsellor from high school (the one who took me shopping), and someone who used to work for my old employment agency. The last two on that list I saw just by coincidence, when I was grocery shopping. I also met my old employment counselor’s girlfriend.

In none of my newsletters or Katima-Gryphon blog posts, did I ever say anything about the last three major events that happened in Final Rotation. I wrote about them on The Weekly Flock, our group blog, but that was it. We had three week-long projects, that were supposed to substitute for not having a regular work placement, since we didn’t have enough time to get settled into one.
These substitute activities were:
-Mamouidow
-Pow-wow
-Beach

Mamouidow was an event held throughout the community, where everyone moved to an island called Fort George, and lived traditionally for a week. Apparently, until thirty years ago, everyone lived on Fort George. While we were there, we helped the locals build and maintain teepees, prepare food, chop wood, and generally help out where necessary. They fed us so much, we ate barely any of our own food, and since they helped us set up our place, it didn’t really feel like we were working. Since we were hanging out with them all the time, it felt like we were maintaining ourselves as much as maintaining them, and vice versa.

We had a surprise group bonding event. The entire group got heavy into chopping wood. We were mainly pretty terrible. Em and Marie had prior experience, and Devon was inexplicably talented, but me,Cole, Pierre and Clay had a lot of learning to do. The locals had a good time watching us, laughing at us, and taking pictures of us, but they were very cool, and showed us the techniques. It must have been to them like if some foreigners came to live with us, and got heavy into vacuuming, but were terrible at it, and wanted to vacuum all day and host vacuuming competitions, where they just ran into walls and needed to be taught how to do it properly. By the time we left, all of us managed to successfully split a log with one chop.

Our second major event was a Pow-wow. That was about a week long, too. Our job was to maintain a Katimavik booth, and to help with registry for the dancers. Plus set-up and take-down. My job was to tell the adults they couldn’t sign up unless they were in full regalia. That was a bad job. Nobody knew about that rule, and not very many people agreed with it, myself included. The people working with the children didn’t have such a rough time... Children are kind of used to taking instruction from adults, even when they don’t understand them, but I was working with people who were mostly older than me. To them, I was a foreign kid, telling them what to do at an event I didn’t know anything about. It was the opposite of building good relations in the community, and I would have let them slide by, but I did that at the beginning and my boss yelled at me twice.

Plus, sometimes you’d tell them they’d need to get dressed up, and they’d be all, “I am dressed up!” and that would be awkward...

It wasn’t a very good place for a Katima-booth, either. You had to yell at the top of your lungs if you wanted to actually tell anyone about Katimavik:

“KATIMAVIK IS A YOUTH TRAVEL-VOLUNTEER PROGRAM FOR PEOPLE BETWEEN AGES 17 AND 21. GROUPS OF 11 TRAVEL TO TWO OR THREE LOCATIONS ACROSS CANADA, FOR SIX OR NINE MONTHS, EACH DOING A REGULAR NINE TO FIVE JOB FOR A NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATION AND DO WORKSHOPS AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT PROJECTS ON EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS. IN ADDITION, THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MANAGING A HOUSEHOLD AND LEARN HOW TO COOK, CLEAN, AND MANAGE A BUDGET. THE PROGRAM IS FREE.”

Kills your throat. By the end of the day, I think we were known as, “The booth that gives out free cookies, brownies, bread and balloons” and our main audience was very young children.

I couldn’t tell the difference between some of the different kinds of dancing. There were Tiny Tots, Traditional, Grass, Jingle, and Fancy dancers. The Tiny Tots were children under five. Grass and Jingle were male and female equivalents to each other. There weren’t any male Jingle dancers, or female Grass dancers. But I couldn’t tell you the difference between Grass, Fancy, and Traditional.

Our third placement was at the beach. Children who weren’t in school would go to the beach with these life guards and hang out. The life guards weren’t exactly babysitters. I’m not sure what our job was. Most of my group spent most of their time sunbathing (mark of failure for the organization if a Katimavik group can sunbathe in what’s supposed to be their Northern rotation). I figured the best I could do was be another child, so that’s what I did. I just played with the kids. Apparently it was the right thing to do, because I got a Warm Fuzzy from my PL, saying that the lifeguards had pointed me out as having done an exceptionally good job.

So that’s that.

I’m trying to get reimbursed for the luggage I lost going to Thunder Bay. They give you $100 if it’s lost for over 48 hours, and they reimburse you if it’s over 91 days. I sent in my luggage declaration and heard nothing, so I spoke to someone from the baggage department, and he said they sent the letter to my home in Chisasibi. I told him I don’t live in Chisasibi, I was in a program that required me to be there when I sent the declaration. He said to contact my family in Chisasibi. I told him I don’t have family there, and the people who lived in the house I was at are gone, too. He was getting frustrated and I was getting frustrated and eventually we kind of quit on each other. I’m sure that’s just what the airline wants, so the next day I tried again. This time I got a woman, who was a bit more understanding but spoke very quietly, and since it was a bad connection I could only hear a word she was saying every now and then, and answered based on what I thought she was saying, since she was kind of using the other guy’s formula, and I sort of knew what to expect. I asked her to repeat herself several times, apologized, said that this was a bad connection and it made it difficult to hear, but she never made any attempt to raise her voice. I’m pretty sure she wound up telling me to write to claims department, telling them that my address had changed.

I... just want to say that I had my correct address on the actual baggage declaration... I wrote my Guelph address as my permanent address, and the only reason they must think I live in Chisasibi is because that’s what the return address was on the envelope, or because it’s where the claim was sent from.

A friend of the family just got a car and is interested in teaching me to drive, so I can apply for my G2 license. Unfortunately, we were schedule to start next Tuesday, when I leave for Toronto. I’m going to have to reschedule that, too.

I went in to get my blood tested for vitamins D and B12. It’s a reassessment of how I’ve been doing since I started taking supplements. Our family doctor didn’t forget about me, and wrote me out a request while I was away. But when I went to get tested, the receptionist told me that my paper was way overdue, and told me it had been written some time in 2009.

That’s kind of weird, since I left for Katimavik March 3rd, 2010.
I have one video game, three books, and 39 movies to review, coming back from Katimavik. Here are the lists:

Video game:
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Books:
The World According to Garp
Frankenstein
The Little Prince

Movies:
Alice in Wonderland
Greenzone
The Losers
Clash of the Titans
Robin Hood
Macgrouber
Shrek Forever After
Karate Kid (remake)
Iron Man 2
How to Train your Pet Dragon
Pulp Fiction
Fight Club
Law Abiding Citizen
Mr. Brooks
Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog
Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal Lector
The Ring
The Prestige
Get Smart
Watchmen
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Pursuit of Happyness
The Bourne trilogy
The Die Hard quadrilogy
Mama Mia
Avatar
Twilight
The Bounty Hunter
The Proposal
Hot Tub Time Machine
Kick-Ass
The Dark Night

It's the same number of movies as how many tickets I sold at the Women's Expo. I can never make an even 40!

I'll have to do speed-round reviews sometime, but not today!

Restarting the Blog

KAPOW! I'm back in action! It's been about two weeks since I got back from Katimavik, and it's time to get this thing back up-and-running.

The trip back to Guelph was okay. They sent me, along with a bunch of other people, home by bus. It was the first time they've transported any of us that way. I figure it's because, now that we're done the program, Head Office doesn't care about us anymore. A slightly more optimistic perspective, given by Grandma, is that, now that we're out of the program, they don't have to worry about taking time out of the program. At any rate, they apparently could have done us one worse. There's a bus that goes from Chisasibi to Montreal. They flew me out of Cree Nation, and sent me the rest of the way by bus.

If you were reading my Katimavik blog, you'll know that I got a magic stick from a cool guy with a mammoth beard, who's lived in the woods for eleven years, raises wolves, and makes a living by harvesting mushrooms. I was real scared that they wouldn't let me take it on the plane. I figured if I could get it through the plane system, it could make it through the bus system. I practiced my limping, so as to have a better chance of attracting sympathies. When we got there, I limped my way up to baggage, and limped over to where my groupwas sitting. A friend of our group said to check and see if I could get it checked as baggage. I was uncertain, because it would seem suspicious for a crippled man to ask for his crutch taken away, but my Project Leader concurred, and I figured that the insight of two elders was probably worth more than my own, so I complied.

Well, they took it! The whole trip would be coloured by anxiety for my stick, though, because we stopped over in Waskaganish, and we had to go through luggage and a more thorough security system, and no bus would allow me to take my stick on board, so I had to worry about it getting cracked as it was packed in with all that loose luggage.

It made it the whole way, though, and maybe my worries for it helped ease the anxiety of leaving my group. It even got a few notable moments. I was just a tiny bit lost in Montreal, and I was approached a Cree person. He first tried speaking to me in Cree, but that didn't work too well (I can say, hello, okay, one, two, three, eleven, rabbit, and fart, in Cree, and that's all), so he said in English, "How is the weather in Waskaganish?" in a sort of cordial, "I-acknowledge-you-as-a-countryman-enough-that-you're-worth-talking-to kind of way, and I received help from him. I think he saw that I needed help, and stuck his neck out, sort of explaining that he was doing so because of this tie. The Cree can be very perceptive. One time, one of our Cree friends told me where to find two of my group members, who I was looking for, and I never told him what I was doing, or even approached me. So, by comparison, being approached because I looked lost is in no way unrealistic.

But how did he know that we had this tie in the first place? I don't think I have an aura of Cree-ness... One month shouldn't do that.

So... maybe it was the stick! He saw this emblem, bestowed on me by a man who is said to have a heightened sixth sense, who does nothing for no reason...and who is known by all in Cree Nation... I was seen as a man who would be given this kind of a stick (It's not just a stick, it's got these funky, red-and-black ropes tied around the top, which might be more characteristic).

Honestly, that's what I've been telling myself, but an annoying part of my brain's been telling myself "He probably saw you in the Waskaganish airport. If he knew the man who gave you the stick, he'd have said 'How's the weather in CHISASIBI'".

Oh well, you still feel pretty accepted by the world when you're spoken to by the Cree in Cree, the French in French, and the English in English.

Going through the Montreal system both ways, the officials would address the French people in French, and the English in English. They never asked what way to address people, and with no knowledge outside a quick glance, the anglophones were left scratching their heads about how they could tell the difference.

Well, I was the only Anglophone to be addressed in French! And it happened every time!

Of course, if you try to reply in French, they'll know your Anglophonic origins before your finish your first words, so I'd usually do something like smile and nod, and they'd realize their mistake, anyway. I'm only French enough to last a first impression...

I adopted a lot of fashion advice from a French participant in my group, and I took on some of his life philosophies and techniques. It was only at this point that I realized the extent his culture was rubbing off on me.

That's not necessarily a bad thing... Sure it makes me kind of like the Vanilla Ice of French culture, but... in the world of women and romance, the very best any Anglophone man can hope to be is a pale shadow of a Frenchman. If you're in a battle of love with a Frenchman, give up.

Want statistics? Not any French man, or French woman, in all five groups my group was associated with, did not hook up with at least one person. Want another, weirder statistic? Not any Anglophone hooked up with another Anglophone, and there was only one double-French couple. There was at least one couple in each group... In total, there were... seven public couples, and they all but one went Anglo-Franco.

Okay, so that makes it sound like a wiser technique would be to go super-Anglo, and hit the streets of Quebec as hardcore English as possible, but in practice, that's not how things work...

Anyway, we were talking about my stick...

In the Toronto bus terminal, a girl sits across from me. She looks at my stick, then looks me in the eye and holds gaze. I hold gaze. A slow smile crosses her lips, I return it. She murmers "Nice stick".

I respond "Thanks! I got it from a man who's got a beard down to here, who's lived in the woods for eleven years, who raises wolves, and picks mushrooms for a living! He lives near a Cree village in North Quebec, they say he has a heightened sixth sense and doesn't do anything for no reason, he only gave one to me, and he offered for me to live with him for a month! I just came back from there, and I never thought it would make it this far!!!!!"

She looks at me kind of confused and says "That's.... awesome?"

And we sit in silence until my bus shows up.

The stick gets a third response, but ti's actually too emotional to post publicly.

I rode a double-decker bus, for the first time in my life, from Montreal to Toronto, and I sat on the top deck. Once the novelty wore off, it was pretty much just like a regular bus.

Coming back home was surprisingly not awkward. Mom and Bro haven't changed a bit, and I don't think they think I have, either. I asked them if they thought I'd changed, and they said something along the lines of "Kind of... you have a beard!"

My cat still remembers me... Didn't even punish me for being away by ignoring me, like he would normally do if I was gone for two weeks.

I've been to my old employment centre and seen one of my old counselors, went to the Food Bank where I used to volunteer, and went to a stag and doe, held in honour of my Karate sensei and his fiancee who also worked there as a teacher, that was located in my old dojo. I, and one other guy there, were the only non-black belts. That would not have been an ideal place to get drunk and pick fights! Everyone so far has recognized me. The Food Bank people didn't even flinch!

Coming back from Katimavik, in my full regalia, I appear as a typical flannel-wearing, suspender-sporting, flapjack-binging, axe-savvy Lumberjack. That doesn't sound French, but it is. My French friend was a pilot. Being French is like playing dress-up, but you take it real serious.

I haven't been back to Karate. Coming back to Guelph, it seems like I felt a release from duty, and I just dropped all the toughness and durability I'd displayed in the program and fell to all the little damages I'd acquired across my journey. A guy who managed to go through something that had been described as "A trip to Hell" with a smile on his face comes home and manages to wreck his ankle doing something which, at it's coolest, could only have been walking. And I think I did it sleeping. I've taken short walks outside and developed blisters. I get up in the morning and hear my bones crack and pop. I became so brittle!

But the only thing holding me back right now is my ankle. It feels like I did something seriously bad to it.

This is also the furthest South I've been in six months, and I'm feeling it in the heat.

Looks like that place I was taking those online writing courses from went out of business while I was gone. I think I'm going to take it off my resume. I only did one course, and it was kind of like one in a set of four. IfI'd done all four, I might keep it on, but as-is, I don't think so...

Going to Toronto next Tuesday to see my Dad and his side of the family, my grandparents, some old friends, and maybe my Aunt. Gonna be gone for two or three days, and I might do some work at that ice cream manufacturing place.

I was talking to the friend I planned to see from my old pre-employment program on the phone, her roommate walks in, and she says "Guess who I'm talking to?! ------- -------!" (I won't say my name on this blog again, I don't like how many times it shows up onthe front page of Google for unsettlingly non-cryptic phrases).

Turns out, she's living with someone I know from high school! Blow my mind! Two people from such separate aspects of my life are living together in such a remote location!

Can you believe I have more to say? I've got reviews and struggles with airline services at least still on my list, but I've been writing for long enough...

Final Post

Well, this is my final post. Don't really have anything interesting to say, though.

The dimensions of my luggage DID exceed the baggage limitations. My plan B worked, though. It's weird that I exceeded the dimension limitations and missed weight by such a margin when I had to pack so tight. What do they think I could pack in such a space that would weigh 50 pounds?

Looks like I'm not going to do either of those movie reviews. OH WELL! The Lovely Bones had pacing issues, and even though I haven't read the book, I can tell some characters were under-developed for the roles they were supposed to play as a result of time restraints not found in the book. I've got mixed feelings about Coach Carter. I kind of liked it but don't know if it was very realistic, and I think it was trying to be.

I did my final RP post on my brother's forum. I already said I had my character kicked off a train some time ago, and decided how long it would take him to catch up would be determined by whether or not, but at that time I had the guy that kicked him disguise as my character and join the group, so I needed to wrap that up. Because I was rushed and didn't know the surroundings, but had a lot that needed to get done, it was a cop-out to the point that it wasn't a cop-out, including a talking, fire-breathing lion with alcoholic blood and a weak butt named the Lion of Legend (not a character ever seen previously) attacking the group just to make the story go in a direction I wanted. It also started with me, as the narrator, saying that the crew is hanging in some huts because I guess the villagers gave them some huts.

My only regret is that I didn't manage a friendship montage with Best Friends For Life playing as the background music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQx8m2zwuU

The show that music is from is most popular with males between ages 13 and 17, BTW. I used to watch it between ages 15 and 16, so I fit those statistics. It was on every day before school and I've seen every episode. It's a bad show, with bad moral teachings, and I'm glad that it wasn't popular with it's target audience, but for some reason, you can't resist watching it...

I don't think I'll be able to finish uploading my comics by the time I leave. I had more than I thought! I have 28 uploaded over a span of eight months. Still not as good as I'd like, and not as many as my 32 deviations on my old account, but...
...
...I CAN BEAT THAT!

Even if I can't upload all my comics, I'm gonna try to make 33!

My Katimavik team leader emailed me. It was just a general email saying stuff I already know, but it was nice to have some contact in advance.

That writing class NEVER GOT BACK TO ME!!!! They better not fail me when they extended the class by three weeks without notifying anyone and didn't give me the means to finish my final assignment! I'm going to hand in a final assignment of the same caliber as my final RP post!