It's Christmas time? Seriously?

Because I can't tell down here in the basement (a.k.a. my home). These papers are seriously sucking my will to live. Christmas break is going to be drunktacular - Al's gonna be partying Britney Spears style (but, wearing underwear).

My girlfriends and I are going to see a movie this week. There's sooo many out right now. We're thinking The Holiday just to get us in happy Christmas mode. But Blood Diamond looks amazing too. Plus, it has Leo, always a bonus. Anyone have a vote for which one I should see? Boys, I don't know if you have a say - I know you're pick.

World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day

Around 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, 95% of whom live in developing countries.

In 2004, approximately five million people were newly infected with the virus.

HIV/AIDS has killed more than 20 million people worldwide. 3.1 million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2004.

AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa and the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide.

Act up! Fight AIDS!
- http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/index.html for more information on AmFAR.
- http://www.one.org/ for more information on the One campaign.
-http://www.youthaids-aldo.org/ for more information on Youth AIDS.
- http://www.joinred.com/ for more information on the RED project.
- http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/ for more information on The Global Fund.
http://www.africaalive.org/index0.htm for more information on Africa Alive, the organization I worked with in Tanzania.

Cal-freezing

Hello everyone and welcome to Calgary! Today's high is -25 degrees without the windchill. Don't forget your mittens!

Yeah, and the 12 other layers you'll need to prevent body parts from freezing off.

Good lord, why did I choose to move to Calgary again? Why didn't I just do my M.A. in Australia - $32,000 dollars of debt for 8 months of school isn't that bad, right? Better than freezing my butt off.

I can't complain as much as Lorne, who's been building houses in this frozen wasteland. Needless to say, he ain't to impressed with Calgary right now . . . However, the guy does get to spend a month at home starting next Saturday. Sooo jealous. He's leaving me here alone with my laptop and mounds of papers to write. I'm going to need serious human interaction after those 2 weeks. So please, if you love your friend Al, please give her a call between the weeks of Dec 2nd - Dec 15th. She'll need it . . . I'm going to be having full blown conversations with the cat and T.V. by the end of the first week.

Here's a real "Allison" moment: Lorne's been saying how much he misses his mom's baking, so I decided to be a good girlfriend and bake some cookies for him. Baking, of course, meaning scooping the pillsbury pre-made cookie dough from the tube and putting it on the baking sheet. Anyway, would you believe it (and I think you can), I completely burnt them! Good lord, I do not belong in the kitchen. Lorne managed to say "thanks for the effort" in between bouts of laughter. See if I bake for him again . . . which I think he'll be to disappointed to hear.

Anyhoo, Lorne and I had a lovely weekend a few weeks ago visiting his seriously hooked-up friend Teenz in Panorama mountain, just inside the B.C. border. The guy has an awesome apartment overlooking the mountains - so gorgeous. Just what we needed - a calm weekend away from Calgary, school and work. Just chilling out, watching movies, having some drinks, and playing some serious games of Sorry! That game rocks.

Here's some pics . . .

They've been out west too long . . .

Nice eh?

Shock and Awe

Wow, isn't it fun watching the Republican party implode? Finally they're getting what they deserve after taking their country into what could be the most disastrous war ever - definately even with or possibly surpassing Vietnam. That's right Rumsfeld, bow down buddy. Wait, bow down further so we can all get a better shot at kicking you in the ass.

Speaking about war and whatnot, I just watched a documentary in my class that seriously rocked my socks. It was basically about media representation of the war and how the government has controlled it. First off, it pointed out that we have absolutely no perspective of actual Iraqis, beside those which the media construes for us. Really, how many of us are actually aware of how many Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war began? A report by a watchdog group recently reported it could be over 100,000. How come this isn't well-known and reported by the media?

Why? Because the media is controlled by the government. For instance, remember that whole pulling down the statue of Saddam a few years ago? Where we all saw Iraqis jumping and dancing for joy and then this footage was subsequently replayed over and over again by the media? Well, turns out this was all orchestrated by the armed forces. They took a few tanks into the square, turned up a speaker really loud to tell civilians and reports to come out, and proceeded to pull down the statue. It wasn't begun by the Iraqis as Bush would like you to believe. Then, when you look at the actually footage, you realize that there were only literally, like, 30 Iraqis there - and half of them were kinda pissed. The rest of the "crowd" was journalists.

I don't know, maybe this doesn't sound as shocking to you as it did to me, maybe due to the terrible quality of my writing, but I walked out of that class "shocked and awed" (haha). It also had to do with the very graphic photage of dead Iraqis (including children and babies) - definately stuff you don't see on the evening news, because they refuse to air it.

Damn, I've lost my faith in Katie Couric - I thought that was impossible.

Why did I go back to school people? why I ask? Was it the constant self-doubt? The stress? The papers? The crazy profs? The even crazier PhD students? Why?

Blagh, school sucks.

Missin' me some turkey

Isn't this the funniest looking dog? He's our landlord's dog, Max, and he weighs maybe 8 pounds. I'm still trying to figure out a way to steal him. (don't tell, okay?)

Anyway, I haven't updated in a while because, really, things have been slow in Calgary land. School, work, school, T.V., wine, aquariums, cooking, more work and school . . . that's been our life. On the note of T.V., was anyone else annoyed with the whole love triangle on Grey's? Please, McDreamy, you are too awesome to bring yourself down to that level (especially after that sex scene last season), you shouldn't have to compete. Oh, and a hearty welcome to McSteamy- you're presence as brought the show up to a level of hotness I didn't think possible.

Off that subject. . . oh, happy very belated Thanksgiving. Please, no more descriptions about what you all ate. Not that Lorne's and my feast of pizza and sausage rolls wasn't crumbelievable (Colbert Report, anyone?), but it's no turkey. Oh Christmas, come sooner.

Well, that's it for now. I have to go work on my presentation about ethnography. That's right, anthro peeps, it's back to haunt me . . . here's to hoping I make Lyons proud.

Nature Pics

So, first off, this is the park about a 10 minute walk from my house. It's really beautiful - you almost forget that you're in the city. There's nice paved paths to bike along too. Here's a few pics I took Friday . . .

As well, yesterday I went with Dave and a couple of his friends to hike up and around Banff. We, of course, got a bit lost and endedup on animal trail instead of the regular trails. But, ah well, it was a beautiful day with some beautiful scerery. Here's some highlights . . .

Dave can't even get enough!

How do I become friends with these guys?

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Survey this!

Oh man, we talked about surveys today in my research methods class and I quickly felt my blood pressure begin to rise. Suddenly I went back to Korea where at least twice a day the Christ Crusade hunted me down to ask me about God and Jesus and whatnot. I mean, Jesus, leave me alone. (you hearing me on this one, Korea peeps?)

One of the questions would be, for example, "do you believe in God? Circle 5 for strongly agree, 1 for strongly disagree". You want me to rank my entire belief system in a scale of 1 to 5 with no room for interpretation, personal spirituality, and whatnot. How about I circle a 5 for I strongly believe that this is the stupidest question ever.

The nerve.

Anyhoo, I didn't want to bring this up in class in case, you know, I sounded like an idiot or offended someone. So I vent to you, blogger.

More venting to come . . .

Welcome to the resurrection-issue of Wandering Aimlessly!

I have no excuse for not updating over the last 2 months, just that I was in my usual summer haze where few things take higher priority than beachin' it and hanging out. So, basically, laziness.

But now it's time to pack away the bathing suit (oh, the horror) and pull out the binders and pens (oh, again, the horror). Grad school has begun. But forget the Loo - it's all Calgary these days.

Lorne and I took six days to get out here, giving the car lots of TLC. I think we did it well - we were still talking to each other when we got out here - especially considering we camped most nights. A nice break was stopping in to stay with Mike and Adrienne and the cutest baby ever, Matthew.

Look familiar to anyone?


Anyway, the last 3 weeks have gone by kinda slowly. The running around to get our apartment in order has completely exhausted us both. I actually despise IKEA right now - I didn't even think that was possible.

Other than that, life is slowly coming together. Lone's starting job #2 (we won't bring up job #1) and so far it seems good and I've finished my first 2 weeks of my master's program (communication and culture, for those of you who weren't sure).

What can I say about grad school . . . it's basically how much can you read without lighting fire to all your books in the heat frustration. It also entails feeling like an idiot 98% of the time and using as many large words as possible. But we can't all be a human thesaurus.

Well, I'm going to update later this week - Janet Jackson's on Oprah (yeah, yeah, I should be reading). Here's some pics of the new "cozy "place and, of course, Lorne's new baby - the aquarium. We're going to get a fish tonight - yeah!

Sawadee Ka!

Sawadee ka from Thailand!

Well, I can't believe that my 6 months in Korea is up. Though there were some definite ups and downs, I made some really great friends and had a learning experience I will never forget. It was hard to say good-bye to a lot of people. Karen and I had a great last couple of nights - especially our last Noraebang night. We had lots of people come out and say good bye and all the classics were definately sung. Karen was a waterfall in the crying department, but I held myself together pretty well.

It was definately hard to say goodbye to some of the kids as well, as you really do become attached. My preschoolers didn't really understand that I was leaving until the last day and then they gave me a hard time. I teared up saying goodbye to some of them, but they're young so they'll move on probably quicker than I will.

So here I am in, back in Thailand with my friend Karen from Korea and my ex-roommate Erin from university. It's been over 10 years since I've been here, but already I feel more at home here than I ever did in Korea. Karen and I had a good first couple of days in Bangkok. Made friends with a tuk-tuk driver who drove us to a bunch of temples, met some great people from England who took us to a night market. I was so young when I lived here that I never fully realized how much everything is centred around sex. You're almost constantly being asked to go to sex shows or being offered a "good price" by hookers (for the record, I don't know what the good price is). The ping-pong shows are the most popular attraction so if you wanna see a girl shoot a ping pong into a cup or write a letter or smoke a cigarette from her goodie part, Thailand is you're kinda town. I think I'm going to pass and go to the lady-man cabaret . . .

So now we're in Southern Thailand, Phuket exactly. Our days are pretty stressful, you know, having to wake up and go to the beach. Yesterday we went on a snorkel trip out to PhiPhi island. Absolutely amazing - the fish and coral were so colourful and the beaches gorgeous. Snokelling rules - you get to see all the fish but it lacks the danger of being 50 feet down. I'm still haunted by an episode of "Baywatch" where the Hoff spent the whole episode almost dying from the bends. We, of course, had to stop and feed those stupid, mean, little monkeys - they don't deserve my banana. Then today Karen and I got Thai massages which is, basically, see how far you can bend in weird positions.

Off to Ao Nang tomorrow! Update again soon! Well, maybe . . .

A Little of Everything

Well, hello everyone!

It's been a crazy 2 weeks since I've last posted, as my time here is running down quickly (only 1 more week left!) and I'm trying to get things done and spend some quality time here.

So, 2 weeks ago I headed up to the DMZ (the Demilitarized Zone) - the border between North and South Korea. It's a 4 km stretch of land between the two countries that was established after the Korean War. There wasn't a peace treaty, they basically just decided to stop fighting. It's was pretty surreal - makes you realize how tense the situation is even though they've made a lot of strides in the last few years (not counting the little missile fiasco that's going on right now). The North is just so unpredictable - possibly due to their self-obsessed, deluded leader. It also makes you realize how far South Korea has come in terms of development. We visited a tunnel that they only found 15 years ago that was dug by the north after the DMZ was established that goes under the DMZ. They think they're might be a lot more of them, some of which go almost to Seoul. I hope they don't ever get used.






At a memorial near Freedom Bridge. The bridge used to be used for exchanging POW's. It's sad because so many Korean families were divided after the war.

This last picture was taken at Dorasan station - they're building the first railroad between North and South Korea. I guess George Bush visited not too long ago. The Korean prime minister wrote this really eloquent statement about unification and a new era of peace and prosperity. George bush wrote this - and I don't think he even spelled railroad right.

Keeping on my theme, the next day I hit up the Korean War Memorial and Museum. It's absolutely huge and impressive and I have a much better understanding of the war and Korea's history now. I had no idea how huge the Korean War was and how many countries were involved. You really do feel the military presence here everyday (both Korean and American). I live right by an airforce base and yesterday 8 helicopters flew over my house right in a row. There's constantly airplanes in the air, soldiers walking around. Plus, a few months ago we had an air raid drill. I say, if the North attacks - send in the ajimas. Those 60 and 70 year old women scare the hell out of me. They're always wearing giant visors and jogging pants and pushing people around - I always stay away.

The other excitement lately is, of course, the World Cup. The last World Cup, the Korean team did was better than expected so there was a lot of pressure on the team to do that again this year. Their insanely obsessed with it here - way worse than hockey playoff time. Their first game against Togo last week was at 10pm and Andy, Jonathan and I headed to City Hall in Seoul. They had the game playing on huge screens and they expected over a million people to go and watch it there. How could you not go? It was absolutely insane - a sea of red (their team's colour). During the game, everyone sat on the pavement and watched politely, but when they got a goal - everyone jumped up, screamed, danced - you name it. There were massive fireworks and music too. When they won, all of Seoul was partying - it was awesome.

Sadly, they were eliminated the other night by Switzerland. The game was at 4am and even my preschoolers got up to watch it. There were just as many people at City Hall at the 4am games as there were at the 10 pm game - minus me, of course.

Some Random Pics

Man, I'm getting lazy with this thing. I'm just sooo busy - working all day and tutoring 4 nights a week. Only a few weeks left in Korea. I gotta admit, there are aspects of this place I will miss and will be sad to leave, but I know I'm going home to so much more.

I had my best weekend yet in Korea last weekend. It's been so hot here lately so my friends and I made the decision that "screw it, we're finding a beach". We heard there was some islands off Seoul, so we headed in that direction. After a 2 hours subway, followed by a taxi ride, followed by a ferry, followed by a bus - we finally found one! Alas, sand and water! These are some pictures of me doing a shot of soju while waiting for a ferry . . .





Feeling good about the decision . . .



















Alrighty, here I go . . .
















Chasing it with some beer . . .



















Don't puke, don't puke . . .
















Chase it with some more beer . . .
















Look Mom! I did it!













Haha, we had a good laugh at these! Anyway, after that long journey, it was time to find a hotel. Of course, the only hotel had one room with no beds it it, only "yo's", these thin matresses that they put on the floor. But who cares when a beach is right there, right? So we headed out in search of food and found a seafood place that gave us way more oysters, mussels, conks, and other seafood-alicious food that we could ever want for only $30 bucks. Too bad we had no idea how to eat the stuff and ended up with the entire restaurant laughing at us.













Our comfy hotel room - Andy, Jon and Karen getting the drinking games started.

























After that, it was on to the beach for some beer and fireworks. I love how Korea is this very technologically advanced place, but it kinda forgot about many basic laws and regulations . . . helmets, traffic, drinking, and fire safefty regulations are just a few. For example, allowing drunk young people to set off fireworks and drag racing on a public beach. So, yeah, we fit right in.






Gotta have a litre of beer close by at all times . . . beach etiquette.













So, we managed to drag our asses out of bed at a decent hour the next morning and get some rays. First was a little rock climbing, next scoping out some breakfast (there's no such thing as breakfast in Korea - it's the same meal as dinner and lunch), followed by a long day at the beach. It was the most awkward I've ever felt at the beach, however, seeing as we were the absolutely only people in bathing suits. All the Koreans were completely covered from head to toe in long clothing and the beach was dotted with huge umbrellas and actual tents. What's the point of going to the beach then?! Anyway, we made friends with 6 other foreigners and hung out with them all day - strength in numbers. We got a hell of a lot of stares, though.




Chilling on the rocks















The boys aren't sure if they like their first round of breakfast . . . silk worm larvae.














This picture cracks me up. This group of Korean teenagers kept asking us to have their pictures taken with them, so we asked them to take a picture with us. It's all about the "peace". My favourite part was when this Canadian guy we met joined what we think was their bible group circle, all the while drinking his litre of beer. Way to represent buddy! All of us Canucks them serenaded them with "O Canada". I don't think they were that impressed . . .