Up Too Late: An Endless Search for Mr.Right & Other Important Things in Life

It's been a while since I've last blogged. Too many things have happened for me to write about on here, so sadly, the last few weeks will have to remain a mystery for some obvious and other, more complicated reasons.

Nevertheless, I will summarize in one-sentence segments some of the points I thought important to mention:

-A young man in his late twenties, from Philadelphia, drove for 36 hours and got on two ferries, traveling from Philadelphia to Augusta, Maine and somehow made it to Nova Scotia, got the ferry to Newfoundland and made it to St.John's on Thursday. The intelligent polyglot [speaks six languages... Dari, Farsi, Spanish, Portuguese, English and Turkish] found a place to stay for the night, then headed to my workplace and came to talk to me about becoming a volunteer there. He said he had run away from the US so he wouldn't go to Iraq, and, to quote him, to "dodge the draft". I was moved and touched by this young man's enthusiasm to contribute to the community to which he had just moved, but I felt he was too nervous to speak to me at that moment. He, as we chatted, insisted he show me the photos of his deployment in Iraq... He played an instrument he had brought along, a saz-like instrument he said is a traditional music instrument in Asia.

-My best friend, princess Ivana and I found ourselves disclosing our most personal stories, only to find out that we had much more in common than I had thought we had. It's good to know that I'm not alone, when it comes to going through family issues. She and I had a trip to Cape Spear and took tons of photos, mostly of her...

-My camera will be making it to the ER sometime this week. It had a slight accident last week when a young girl from a children's summer program that I visited dropped it and then, upon realizing she had caused some damage, continued on as if nothing had happened. I hope it lives to see the day of taking another photo soon...I miss taking pics.

-I bought Breakfast on Pluto and The Dying Gaul on my way back from the hair studio... Breakfast on Pluto is certainly one of the best films I've seen in a while. Patrick Kitten Braden, aka Patricia Kitten Braden, is a transvestite who spends half of her life trying to find her mother, who abandoned her at birth. Through her narrative, we see the Irish-English divide in Northern Ireland, but also the contrast between the rural naiveté and the urban cruelty and coldness in human relationships. It's heartwarming story that I thoroughly enjoyed... I haven't seen The Dying Gaul yet.

Labels: adventures, Friday, friends, movies, St.John's

I am in Kelowna, have been for two days now, and will be here until next Monday.

There's something about a small, green, university town, that has helped me reach peace. In the last few weeks, I'd been slightly stressed out about finding a job and making my monthly VISA payments. Suddenly, I don't think about that anymore. I'm fascinated by Kelowna.

I'm in a town where sailboats are THE thing, where the highway goes in the middle of the downtown area, where the rich have built houses in the hills to overlook the rest of the inhabitants, where a new university campus is the hope for a more lively Kelowna. The hope is that incoming university students will bring noise, so that the continuous sound that the crickets make incessantly, day and night, will stop, or at least, diminish.

I went out on the town yesterday afternoon, after leading a workshop, in which I felt so out of energy, my 39 participants also felt extremely out of it. I had traveled for 13 hours the night before and had gone through two connecting flights, only to get up the next morning at 6:30 am, due to the time difference.

My friend Anita, whom I sometimes think of as one of the closest friends I've ever had and will have, took a day off work as a schoolteacher and rode for 3.5 hours on her motorbike, to come see me. I couldn't be happier when I opened the door to let some participants out for an activity I was doing, and she was there.

See, Anita and I go way back. When my family made it to Newfoundland, Ann's parents helped us around town. They were with us constantly in the first six months, when life for us in one of the coldest provinces of Canada became a stage of undiagnosed depression that took a while to heal. Anita would come during the Christmas holidays and bring her cheery smile and funny jokes, though she herself went through depression at the time, for reasons different than mine.
I remembered her as someone who gave everything she had, her energy, hapiness and smile while she sat down with us in those cold winter days.

I will never forget those year-end holidays, when I looked forward to Anita's visit, her warm presence and the "always-happy" appearance, which, at the time, gave me a push of happiness, at a time when the indicator of my happiness tanks pointed to "empty". Once again, as she visited yesterday, I felt her ever-powerful presence, as we rode on her motorbike [a first for me...what a thrill!] and tanned on the beach, looked at her new photographs [we share a passion for photography] and contemplated the future [we decided we will be a bit more selfish in the future]. Anita drove back to her town in the evening, and though I was slightly sad to see her go, I was re-energized from her visit.

I got back to my room in the new UBC residences, which are great, air-conditioning-equipped, huge-bathroom, living spaces for students who are here September-May. Right now, there are no students here, so all of the conference members are occupying the rooms.

I share the bathroom with Renee, who is also at the conference. She and I talked for a bit about her frustrations with some of the conference participants, and after venting off, we decided we'd order some food in, rather than join others in an outing to Kelowna. We ordered italian from some restaurant that took 45 minutes to deliver chicken cacciatore and Greek pizza that made me wonder why we had ordered there...We also didn't have any cutlery, so I ate pasta using my fingers...great.

After our food got in [Renee had to give directions to the delivery guy], we sat down to watch Garden State, the movie that Renee insisted I should watch. Instead, I fell asleep and it was decided we should go to bed, except that Renee went on to chat on MSN. I was extremely tired and after checking Facebook and sending today's photos to Anita, I turned off the lights and went to bed at 10 pm...

It's 7 am and I got up 20 minutes ago. Another sunny day in Kelowna awaits...

Labels: adventures, Canada, friends, Kelowna