More highlights from the past year . . .

Milan and I at conference in Nelson, B.C.

In hotel room

At a ferry stop near Nelson

Pretty . . .

More Scenery . . .

View from Ferry

On the ferry to Nelson, B.C. (2008)

Milan, Concetta and I

Glenn, Jean, Fiona, Milan, me, and Lorne

A park near our house (Autumn 2007)

A pond . . .

Lorne at Johnston's Canyon, near Banff (2007)

An Ink Pot at Johnston's Canyon

Mountains (of course . . . )

Normel, Claire and I (friends from The City) on our last day of our internship

A Cheetah Lorne painted for a company whose name we won't mention (2007)

Invermere, B.C. (2007)

Panorama B.C. (2007)

Panorama, B.C. (2007)

Glenmore Resevoir, Calgary

Yup . . .

Just a pic from the ski trip we took to Fernie. This is a place where this huge rock slide happened about 100 years ago and killed an entire town. Cool eh? And sad too, of course.

Here's an oldie I found from Mike's wedding that I like just because we all look so nice. No other reason for posting it. This is, of course, before I became utterly plastered. Seems like not that long ago, but now baby #2 is on the way. Hard to believe . . .

That's about it. Just surviving the next few weeks till school is over. Got an A in one class for the term - kick ass!! Also, Lorne just brought home a crap-load of free stuff from M&M, finally some iron in the ol' diet. Ahhh, it's all about the small stuff in Calgary . . .

Photo's

Well, hello all. It has definately been awhile, yet, I still don't have much to stay. Still busting my butt in school, I've had a stressful few weeks and I've got an even more stressful month left to go. But then I'm done - yahoooooooo! I can almost taste the celebratory beer that will be drank. I can't wait. Calgary's starting to show its potential too. The last few weeks have result in a few spring-like days, reminding us that, hey, maybe it won't be so bad this summer. In fact, it should be quite nice. That's why people should come out and visit - c'mon!

Anyhoo, I'd thought I'd post some pictures up of some of Lorne's work that he's been doing over the past few months. First his artwork and then his baby, his aquarium which, if you've seen the past pictures, has definately made progress. Enjoy!

One of these things is not like the other . . . can you guess which one?

Marilyn Manson fits well with our ethnic decorations

I sleep beside this . . . nightmares anyone?

Sleeping and Skiing

Lordy, this long Calgary winter is starting to get to me. I've never been a big sleeper but lately I can't seem to get enough sleep, even weekend nights I'm in bed pathetically early. Anyone know a way to get energy? I've started yoga and pilates (not nearly as fun as yoga) but I still can't seem to get my act together. Maybe once the days become longer than 6 hours I'll finally get that charge . . .

Anyhoo, nothing much to report here from the West. School's already back to being busy-central. Prof's are starting to get on us to pick a thesis topic and I'm the most clueless of the bunch. One cool thing this term is that for my one class, Communications Management, instead of writing a paper full of useless theoretical bull, we get to develop a communications plan for a business in Calgary. I'm doing one for a vintage clothing store that raises money for women in need so I'm kinda pumped about that. I think the first thing they need is a new website, this is crap: http://www.myspace.com/vintagecatseye.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet-as-usual, as evidenced by this boring blog entry. Lorne's been happy, he's taken the last few weeks to develop his painting skills and save his precious aquarium from its near-disaster over Christmas. Next weekend we're off to Fernie to ski with some of my school friends, which should be interesting, seeing as I haven't skied in 4 years and the last location I skied at was Chicopee in good ol' Kitchener, Ontario. I hope my pride doesn't get too scarred when all those 5 year-olds fly by me . . .

Oh, an who's paying attention to this presential bid 2008 crap? I'm all for Hilary, I find her cold and a little too calculating, but the woman's got guts - she wouldn't take any shit. I'd be all for Barack Obama, but he's got no experience. If I were him, I'd wait another 4 or 8 years and then take a stab at it, right now he's just all talk and no substance. Although, his dad was a goat herder and that's gotta count for something.

2007, here we go

Well, back to the grind. Just finished my first week back at school. 9-5 class + homework for 5 days in a row ain't fun. But I survived, now one class is done only 2 more to go.

Had a great 2 weeks back home - lots of drinking and, perhaps, a bit too much Norfolk. It was awesome to have Erin and Kevin back. The only person missing was a certain person in Saskatchewan. But we'll let that go . . . Shout-out to Sinkowski and Mitchell for throwing a kick-ass New Year's party! I'm waaaay too tired right now to write more so you'll just have to do with some par-tay picks. They speak for themselves. If I look drunk, it's just because I was.

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 . . .