The Journey North

It suddenly occurs to me that I never did explain how we got to Kitimat. It's a two day drive here from Victoria and an absolutely beautiful one in the summer. You can either take the ferry to Vancouver and then drive halfway up (to about Quesnel or Williams Lake) in one day and then the rest of the way the next day or drive to Port Hardy at the north end of Vancouver Island (an 8 or 9 hour drive from Victoria) in one day and then take a 15 hour ferry trip to Prince Rupert the next and drive 3 hours to Kitimat from there. I've done both ways several times and it's absolutely beautiful.

However, it's December and it's not so beautiful a drive this time of year so we flew. We couldn't get a flight out of Victoria so we ferried to Vancouver and flew out of there. After spending the whole day in the airport (we went hours early so my mom could go to ikea. Yeesh!!) we were finally ready for takeoff. But then there was a mechanical problem and our flight was delayed for about an hour while we waited for a replacement plane. While waiting, another flight going to Smithers also had a mechanical problem and several others were held up because of weather at their destination point. One flight to Cranbrook had to be redirected to Edmonton!!! That means bussing back across the mountains in the middle of winter. Not fun.

Well, we finally got on our flight and not 15 minutes out of Vancouver there was another mechanical problem and we had to go back to Vancouver so they could fix it. They told us to wait an hour for another replacement plane, but while we were waiting I heard someone say they'd fixed it after about 5 minutes. Aurgh!!! It's less than a 2 hour flight from Vancouver to Terrace but with a 3 hour delay that adds up quite a bit. Oh, plus then there's the 45 minute drive from the airport into Kitimat. And they got snow here a few weeks ago that wasn't very much and wasn't really worth plowing, so everybody drove over it and it turned into slush which then froze and iced over every street and driveway in town, very much like the odd time it snows back home. It's like, no matter where you go you can never really win. Life's funny like that isn't it?

Blame Game

People fascinate me. Like, the relations, the interactions, the feelings and emotions, thoughts and actions everything. Sometimes I wonder if some of what people do is simply human nature and can't be helped. What I'm really thinking of right now is blame. For example, think about when something bad happens. Most people seem to imediately say "It was her fault..." "It was his fault..." and it just goes on and on, everyone trying to put everyone else at fault for whatever it was that went wrong. Nobody wants to be the bad guy but everyone wants to be the hero right? Another thing I've noticed people do is blame themselves. "This is all my fault. If only I'd... If I hadn't done... If I'd looked sooner..." you see what I mean? It just goes on like that. But maybe that's just part of what we as a species are. Maybe it's just human nature and unstoppable. It's an interesting thought don't you think?

Good old Kitimat!

The thing I love about coming to Kitimat for vacation is the sense of relaxation. There is absolutely nothing that immediately needs to be done. Like, at home there's always school and school related activities, there's weekend courses and volunteering and shopping, there's groceries to buy and carpets to vacuum and you see what I mean? There's always something!! But here, it's really vacation. I mean yeah, it's my aunt and uncle's house and there are things and chores that need to be done, but we're only ever here at Christmas or in the summer and we can fall totally into vacation mode. And there's family and snow and it's just so wonderful and magical. I get that the rest of the year it's just like us, work and school and things to do, but that's why we all need vacation right? To get away from the chaos of real life. And in 3 days it'll be Christmas, after which will be the last week of 2009. How the time flies. I don't know if I like that or not.

End of Victoria Christmas

Once again my mother and I are making the preparations to embark on our journey to Kitimat up north for Christmas. School ended yesterday, our tree is down, and our Victoria Christmas is pretty much over. But we still have much more Christmas to enjoy, and New Years too for that matter. Here's a picture of our Christmas tree, I decorated the whole thing myself. There is also a little one that usually spends December in my bedroom.

An Incident with Fluff

Well, the days leading up to Christmas are getting busier and busier. School ends on Friday and we're all getting hyped up for it. Our band concert in tomorrow night, and our last carol band gig was this afternoon. It's so much fun to do! The music's easy enough we can all sight read it pretty well but it gives me such a warm feeling of self-succession to be able to produce this music for others to listen too. And I'm playing better every day. I'm sad to see our line dancing almost at an end since it's about the only thing I like about PE, but I want to ask my teacher if we can do more line dancing throughout the year. Maybe every other Friday at break they could just put on the music and a bunch of people could show up and do a run through of the songs. I think enough people in the whole school like it that it'd be worth it just to ask.

But, the reason for my blog title happened today. I wore one of my favorite tops that I bought when we were back east this summer (a black v-neck peasant blouse with embroidery down the front) but since it's been so cold lately with even a bit of SNOW (in Victoria!!!) I didn't want to wear just that so I grabbed a sweatshirt on my way out the door without really looking at which one it was. Well, I wore it all day and my last block I was baking. So I took of my white sweatshirt and revealed my beautiful black, white fluff covered shirt underneath. It covered my front and back, it ran down the sides under the armpits and over the shoulders and worked itself into the little emroidery on the front. You know what happens when you accidently leave a kleenex in something you threw in the dryer? That's a little what I looked like. It looked awful but I was able to rub and pick most of the fluff off and it gave everyone something to laugh about. I laughed too of course, how could I not? When life gives you something to laugh about, the only thing to do is to laugh. Too bad I didn't have a camera. :)

Windy, Winter Weather

It's hardly rained here since December started. It's been beautiful in fact: crystal clear blue sky, bright sunshine beaming down all day, night begins and 4:30pm and ends just after 7:00am and it is absolutely freezing cold from dawn until dusk. I am so much in love with my winter coat; it's warm and thick and just wraps me up in warmth. And it's zip out liner is an atractive coat for late fall and early spring. I had band first block today (after going to the orthodontist to get an imprint for a new retainer... Ugh!!) and about half an hour in the power went out. It's been really windy the last few days so that wasn't anything really major and we made due. But about 20 minutes later both the vice principals came in and asked if one of the bass players had plugged in an amp that had overloaded the outlet and one kid said yes, he had. There were already about six plugged in and the cold weather hadn't helped that situation. They were quite exasperated by that and so was the band teacher. At the end of class when we were about to leave he made us stay and said: "The band program has broken the school." That was what had blown out the power. He also added "The band program had also broken the neighbourhood." So we blew out the power for everything around us too. We all laughed and cheered and said "Yay, go us!!" then they got the power back on and we continued our day. Ah, the memories you make in high school.

Creating a Dream

Last year in late January I got an idea. I own like 6 books from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series (people often give them to me for Christmas) and so one day I was flipping through one of them and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be a cool idea if my school had something like this?" It didn't sound like a totally horrible idea, so I told some of my teachers and they seemed to think it was a relativly good idea so I decided to make it happen. However, like so often happens to 14 year olds who have ideas and no motivation nothing happened to it for about 4 months. Then I thought of it again and I still wanted to make it happen so I tried to make it happen for September this year. But when September came it was a madhouse as everyone tried to fix their schedules and figure out their classes and planning my "Reynolds Soup Bowl" became a lesser priority. But I was bound and determined to make it happen, I talked to a counselor who was helping me with it as well as a peer mentor in grade 12, then the principal who loved the idea and then the English department head. Finally, nearly a year after I originally got the idea to create our own Chicken Soup for the Soul book, it will happen. I've now written about 4 different proposals and edited my idea with help from many people and my final proposal will be given to all the English teachers this week and my idea (I whose ideas never work or get anywhere) will come into existance. I am SO excited. But it just goes to show: If you want something badly enough and you put in the work and the waiting, anyone is capable of doing anything. And that is a valuable message worth carrying on.