fun on the rock

I'm in Newfoundland, on the avalon peninsula, in the Land of the Unnanounced Visit. I'm listening to CBC Radio One, either the Hali feed on Expressvu, or scratch AM radio form St. John's. It's unbelievably beautiful here. I'm related to almost everyone on the road I'm staying at. There is no gas station in this settlement. I picked blueberries randomly while on a walk today. Messenger is going nuts on this computer I'm on... I have no internet connection where I'm staying. I'm taking about 50 photos a day... I can see the ocean from the kitchen window. :D

I'm still trying to read Ulysses. It's gonna be a hard slog through it. I was starting to like the Erica Jong book a bit better. I also have a couple of Gabriel Garcia Marques books I'm starting on.

rock info update

So I talked to my mom.

She is going to show me around St. John's. Good. No arm-twisting, she seems happy to do that. Yay! However I was advised to bring both winter and summer pyjamas. And not just fall stuff, still bring shorts & summery tops. Hmm! In my rapidly filling, brand-new, funky-coloured, carry-on-sized turning-out-to-be-not-quite-big-enough suitcase, I think I will have to rearrange. There is no DVD player available, at least they haven't been able to hook it up, so I may have to call my film & TV education into play when I get there, but not sure still if I should bring my King of the Hill and Office DVDs.

I made an intriguing discovery. Apparently, any area of Newfoundland that is NOT coastline, is pretty much uninhabited. Google maps, sattelite view, kind of bears that out. On teh Avalon Peninsula, one highway weaves close to the shore... that's it. Otherwise wilderness. *gets excited* My mom is funny though. I asked her if people go out into that wilderness at all, etc., they go for walks, but only as far as they can go without having to pee. LOL

Another bit of bizarre info, apparently the local mass is a half hour... LOLOL standard length of time of a Catholic mass as far as I know, is an hour. Well, all the more time on a Sunday to pick blueberries. 3 more sleeps

Four more sleeps till I fly to Newfoundland. I was cutting and pasting from Google maps, to make myself a map of the area I'll be in, and I'm looking into what radio stations I'll be able to get there. Hmph! There seems to be no terrestrial CBC television reception in that area... I think my parents have a dish. We had a half day at work... I had lunch with some co-workers after, and it was fun. I mean it was more than fun, it was good to reconnect with them - I've been a bit grouchy for the past several months, I think I reconnected with myself today as well. I'm doing laundry & doing a trial run of packing my suitcase. I got a carry on size one because I thought I was all low maintenance, but it'll be tight packing 2 weeks worth of stuff in it, it looked big enough, but I think it's smaller than my deteriorating backpack. I don't know how to dress there, because it's stinking hot in Toronto, but I'm sure it'll be cooler there, don't know just how cool. Now that I'm used to the heat, I don't want to sit around being chilly.

I go on vacation in less than a week. I am freaking out already at the thought of bringing my cats to the vet to be boarded. One hates the car. The other I only got last fall and I don't know how she behaves in the car. Just the thought of a chorus of tortured-sounding meows from the back seat of a car makes me a little sick to my stomach. I am going to Newfoundland where my mom is from. I haven't been there in 20 years, so I'm all ready to see some relatives I won't recognize. I am not entirely convinced about the goodness of this trip. I hope it's not something that I should have listened to my intuition about. O.o

day for night

I made a neato discovery... Day for Night on Bryan Ferry's Bete Noire CD. I liked his music from hearing it on CFNY way back when but I didn't buy it till recently. I didn't start listening to it till I got an MP3 player program on my computer. Anyhow, I'm having fun learning it on my acoustic. To make my life easier, I tuned down a whole step so I could play the Dm in Em fingerings. I had to decode some of the chords on the piano first. Some of the chord progressions remind me of When Smokey Sings.

back to school?

My knee is still painful, and I'm thinking it's not just the skin but some bruising or damage to what's underneath. Much of my weight came down on it when I fell. :[ I was poking around the skin that is not damaged, to see what parts still hurt. I can't bend my knee all the way, but I'm trying to keep everything moving. When I cut my finger (3mm deep) it took A LONG time to get back normal feeling & movement after the skin healed, so I know it can just be a waiting game.

I'm looking into taking some art courses at Humber. They are to trowel over the gaps left between my art history draw-your-dreams university education, and what would have been a better choice, graphic design. I mean, I did SOME design courses at university, but they... I dunno, in the senior years I did photography and sculpture, not anything that makes me confident for designing an ad, which would be the optimal goal of what I would need for a more senior position at work. Had I studied typography and graphic design at university past the year 1 or 2 level, yeah, I might have been more confident with things.

So... I've picked a little certificate program at Humber. I wanted to just take 2 courses, but the more I look at it, all 6 would be useful. HOWEVER some are prerequisites for the others. Yikes! My sup had indicated that Rogers would pay for an upgrade course for me, but for 6? And if one is in drawing with pen and ink, heh that doesn't relate to my job very much. :/ So I emailed someone at the college, and, thinking I could be exempt from computer basics (Illustrator, Photoshop & Quark) and drawing (did that at University, but thought, hey, a refresher course would be fun), the reply was that since the last formal courses I took in Illustrator and Quark was 9 years ago, she said I should likely take that course... sigh... I have visions of myself helping people with creating mattes and using the pen tool during the class. :[ But she said that with a portfolio or transcript, I could be exempt from the drawing. I mean, I can draw with 3 point perspective, but my drawing instruction was quite literally "draw your dreams" at university and I wouldn't mind brushing up those skills in a more graphic arts sense. In any case, the thought of making a portfolio has me thinking of all the things I could put in it, ie drawings of everyday objects, supplies I want to buy, etc. :D :D :D I'm getting excited about drawing again. The only drawing I do is the occasional doodling - the only reason I want to draw is to show them off to be critiqued in front of a class, to show off my drawing-fu.

first post

Hello world!