Christmas Season

Ugggggh... I'm not too into the Christmas season this year. Having spent three months without a roommate, and therefore paying double rent in the meanwhile, I'm in a financial situation where I have to be careful how I step forward. For the past few years, I've told people to not expect anything from me, and even though I meant it when I said it, I wound up spending heavily anyway. This would kind of even out, since honestly, most Christmases I wind up receiving more than I give. This year feels a bit harder than the previous ones, though.

I've joked about how I was going to go back to my roots... Like when you're a kid, and all the adults give you whatever expensive toys you want, and you give some kind of craft in return, because it's the thought that counts. Everyone's getting paper mache from me this year!

I've joked about this enough that two of my impoverished friends actually took up this line of thinking. They're giving away drawings and paintings in lieu of nothing. So I think I might actually take up this tact, would be better than showing up empty-handed. Just need some creative avenue that might be a bit interesting. Not actually paper mache.

When I joked about this at home, my mother told me she wished I'd learned how to whittle, just because it would "suit me". I thought about how I came home with those wood carvings from Mali, how they were seen as acceptable gifts, and how the Malian craftsmen boasted at how fast they could make their sculptures. If I'd learned wood carving, that would be unlimited cheap custom-made gifts! Not going to learn that skill before Christmas, though.

We've got winter in Kitchener! Usually when I'm down in the dumps, I'll say something about how the weather represents my state of mind. So here, I might say the weather reflects the "frozen aspect of my heart" but I gotta tell you, this weather is lifting my spirits! Last year, we didn't even really seem to get a winter. It just feels right, as a Canadian, to get some snow. It might be burdensome, but it's right.

The world looks beautiful covered in billowy white snow dunes. My winter fashion is on point, too. Today I cracked out my winter coat, which was a gift from my brother two birthdays back. When I paid a complement to someone's jacket, he noted that I never pay attention to clothes, and so he found it in him to get a replica. With my coat and it's fake fur lined hood, beard, flannel, toque, and blue jeans, I looked like a creature in my element today.

Choked on a snowflake! Really enjoyed the weather today, let's hope it stays around for a bit!

Last Thursday, I got to run the WALES Group. I've done this once before. Staff were required to go to a meeting, and so they needed someone to cover. I thought I might be doing this all on my own, but they pulled in the current placement student as well as a good friend of mine, someone who did her second year placement when I was doing my first, and who shared last year of Summer Program with me. When I said I thought I would be alone running the organization, she was like "Can you imagine?" I was like, "Yeah, I was".

Day went fine. We set the place up with Christmas decorations.

My neighbour's daughter had a bake sale, and me and my roommate took a few orders. We got ours in today. I'd ordered some cronuts (croissant doughnut hybrid) and some bacon-wrapped jalapeno banditoes (jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon) while my roommate got the Portuguese custard tarts and loaded potato soup. I think my roommate won out on wise choice selection. The cronuts were good, but they were in all honesty not much more than glazed croissants, and the Banditoes were delicious but it would have been easy enough to get some peppers, cream cheese and bacon and make my own for cheaper. The tarts he got were good (we shared everything out, so it's not like I missed out on food, just salty I didn't score the best deals). The real prize was the soup. I didn't get soup because I thought it would "Spill". But he got the dry ingredients wrapped in a layered format with instructions. Very cool. If this sale comes though again, I'll be getting some soup.

Did you know they rent video games at the library? I ran into someone at the library recently and when I asked him what he was doing, he was like "You know me Gryphon, loaded up on movies and video games". I knew that the age of book-only libraries was finished, and they were now used primarily for their resources. My local library has an Internet service, printing, photocopying, scanning, 3D Printing, virtual reality simulator, cafe, audio book, and movie selection but video games seemed to branch a bit further from the spirit of everything than I was prepared for. But yeah. they have a video game selection. And it's not like, educational video games either. It's just a random assortment of slightly older in-demand video games.