Not as nimble as a deer

The trails around Gabriola make me very happy. One of my favourite things is to go exploring in the forest and attempt to get myself lost. I just got back from a bit of an adventure doing just this, managing to get myself on a narrow deer trail on the side of a cliff with the ocean far below. It was a beautiful gulf islands scene in the evening sun; arbutus and Garry oak, dry grass, and low scrubby plants gone to seed with burrs all over them. My heart rate was up on a couple of occasions as I lost my footing, slipped, and had nothing to grab onto except thistle. I decided to scale the cliff and get to more solid ground above, which proved to be much more difficult than it looked from my eroding footing below. I have a new appreciation for the benefits of four legs and the hill climbing skills of deer.

Other recent joys include planting a wee fall container garden consisting of kale, chard, two kind of lettuce, and basil (which is indoors for now in a very sunny window where I think it will do alright). As the fall weather sets in and I am less likely to spend my time kayaking, swimming or otherwise just being outside for the sake of the weather, I am beginning to dream about other projects. Knitting, sewing, cooking... But I am trying so hard to focus on this small matter of graduation that is looming over me. I worked on it all afternoon (before the cliff-side adventure, which was my reward). It's getting there.

The view from here

It's been a long time since I posted. Way longer than I thought. With Facebook now part of life I can't remember what pictures I posted there and when I last updated here.

Much has happened since I last posted in June. I spent much of July kayaking, both guiding and personal trips. You can see photos of these adventures here.

I have had lots of visitors over the summer, and feel so blessed to have wonderful friends who will make the trek to visit me on Gabriola! You can also check out photos of exploring Gabriola, and a day at MudgeFest (Mudge Island is a stones throw across False Narrows from Gabriola but there is no ferry that goes there).

The picture above is the view from my new place. I lived with Penny and Tina for three months, renting a cute little pentagon-shaped cabin from them. I found my own place earlier than I needed to and reluctantly left Moss Hill and The Pentagon. The new place is lovely though, but a bit lonely. My efforts to find a roommate haven't been successful yet, but I continue the search. Any takers?

Work is fantastic. What can I say? It's great to feel like I'm doing useful things that directly affect people's lives and to have put academia aside, for now or maybe ever. Who knows. Well there is still the small matter of graduating which I haven't actually done yet. I have a project to finish, and hope to have it wrapped up before 2008 is over.

Hope you are all well and I promise to post again soon.

Mermaid Tears or Nurdles

Floating out in the ocean, and washing up on our beaches, are tonnes and tonnes of mermaid tears, also known as nurdles. Sounds cool? Strange? Like I'm really gullible?

Well I found it on the Internet so it must be true.

Mermaid tears or nurdles are the tiny bits of plastic broken up from plastic garbage that finds its way to the sea. It doesn't biodegrade, but instead just gets broken down into little, well, nurdles. And there is a lot of plastic in the sea. Check it out.

New sub-title needed

The time has come for a new sub-title for this blog. As Sheena has pointed out, I am no longer "under-employed". In fact, by Gabriola standards I might be considered over-employed, having one of the few full-time, permanent, professional jobs on the Island. In any case, I am employed, more a "planner" than "geographer" (although I think once a geographer always a geographer), but still a kayak guide.

If you have any ideas for a new tag-line, let me know. I'm quite attached to the old one, but have realized that I have to come to grips with a new identity. I can't define myself by being a perpetual student, who only ever has short-term or seasonal work. How strange.

Here are a few shots of Gabriola to add interest to the post:

Welcome to Gabriola Island

I'm still getting settled, becoming aquainted with Gabriola, and trying to just go with the flow as my mind and soul goes through quite an adjustment. I am so happy to be out of the city (although of course there are wonderful memories of my time in Vancouver) and back to Island life. I've always wanted to see what it is like living on one of the Gulf Islands, and now I have my chance. It's all fitting into place, in many ways a dream come true. I don't think I realized until I got here that it might be a bit strange at first. A bit lonely, a bit difficult, and a bit unsettled. Numerous people have told me that there is a severe shortage of eligible young men here. Sigh.

I am so fortunate to have met Penny last year in one of my classes, and that she is such a generous person to welcome me into her and Tina's home for a while until I find a place of my own to rent. I'm living in an pentagon-shaped cabin (dubbed "The Pentagon) as you may have heard. Photos to follow. It's lovely.

Moving to Gabriola Island!

My days in Vancouver are numbered. I'm checkin' out of the big city and movin' to Gabriola Island. I got a job, a "real" job, as a planner for the Islands Trust. I can't really believe it's real, to be honest. I had my summer all planned out: I'd move back to Victoria, work a summer job with Parks Canada (where I worked also last summer), write my graduating project, then look for permanent work in the fall. I applied for this job kind of on a whim. I figured they'd want someone to start earlier than September, but I didn't think I'd get the job either. Making the decision to back out on the summer work with Parks to take the job on Gabriola was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make.

Now, I'm disappointed that I won't be in Victoria for the summer where I have some of my closest friends, and lots of family. But, it's a permanent job, and this is what I've been going to school to do. It's a GREAT job in fact, and I can't turn it down. If it was in Prince George I'd turn it down, but it's really not that far from Victoria or Vancouver (or Gibsons, for those who are interested ;).

Now that I've come to grips with this massive change to my plans, I can start getting excited. I'm looking forward to Gulf Islands life and to checking out Gabriola. I'm also really looking forward to the job. To be honest, I'm nervous. I have a hard time explaining to people what I'll be doing, because I don't really know! I'm nearly finished two years of planning school, but I'm still not sure what a day in the life of a planner for the Islands Trust is like. There will be a steep learning curve, but I'm encouraged by the fact that they picked ME, so they must know what they're getting themselves into. I did get a technical question wrong in the interview, so they are under no illusion that I am a pro at municipal planning.

I'm not looking forward to being lonely. Maybe I won't be lonely, but I already feel lonely thinking about it. I know, I shouldn't focus on the negative, but I'm not being too negative, just a bit apprehensive. I know one person on Gabriola; a wonderful gal who I had a class with last semester lives there with her partner. I imagine she'll be happy to introduce me to people and help me get oriented when I arrive. I imagine I'll also enjoy the change from the big city, and will be happy to spend exploring time alone.

I'm also hoping that lots of people will come and visit me. If you're in Vancouver, it's easy to get to via Horseshoe Bay, and if you're in Victoria, it's just an hour and a half drive to Gabriola ferry. It looks like there are some summertime community events to entice you all, such as the "Himalayan Festival" from June 6-8. Don't ask me why Gabriola would have such a culturally specific festival when I am fairly certain there is no Himalayan heritage on the Island, but perhaps you should come and check it out for yourselves.

With such exciting things to look forward to, it is proving especially difficult to motivate myself to finish the mass of papers and presentations I have to do. Really, really difficult. Please send motivating energy my way.

Knitting gallery updates

The knitting has been kind of sporadic recently. I finished one sock of a pair I'm making out of beautiful deep pink heathered stuff (after taking it out back to the heel because it was too tight). And I'm part way through a brown-ish pair for my Mom with a new toe-up pattern. I have yet figure out the perfect combination of needle size and number of stitches for a sock to fit my foot but both of these pairs will be closer than I've been before.

Brown toe-up

Beautiful pink

I had the worst flu of my life last month (unless there was something when I was very young that I don't remember) that I am still kind of fighting off (every few days I get a sore throat again and feel really tired). Appropriately, I was inspired to knit a cover for a hot water bottle that I bought at the thrift store for 39 cents. I experimented with the seed stitch, and worked in a reindeer (or elk, or deer, whatever you want) that I designed a few years ago but hadn't used in anything yet. I also managed to use eyelets for the drawstring which are actually very easy to make.

The last new knit is these legwarmers that I made for Jenny's Christmas present. She was away in January on a practicum and took them with her (yay, she likes them!) so I just got the chance to take a photo recently. I'm quite proud of these too because although they are not a 100% from nothing creation, I didn't stick right to one pattern. Being the kind of person who gravitates more towards following instructions than creating something myself, I am quite proud of my progress in altering and creating patterns.

ps. Does anyone who uses Blogger know why I have so much trouble with formatting spaces when I use pictures?

10 Things I am Looking Forward to...

...when I move back to Victoria:

10. Yoga at Moksana
9. Cheaper rent for a nicer place
8. Summer concerts
7. Outdoor rock climbing
6. Working for Parks
5. Saanich Organics food box
4. No homework in the evening
3. Biking around town
2. Friends and Family
1. Kayaking a ton

Poem: "Lost"

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it to you may come back again, saying Here.

No two leaves are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

Wagoner, David (1978). Who Shall be the Sun? Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

A Weekend in Gibsons

A few weekends ago, I took a much needed break from Vancouver and a busy schedule to visit Sheena and Matt on the Sunshine Coast. It's a good thing I got some fun times in then, because I've been insanely busy since (AND came down with the flu, which I am still battling).

Sheena and her mom picked me up from the ferry Saturday evening and we went straight to a potluck to celebrate a citizen group's victory over "the [evil] developers". Go citizens! This is what gets me excited about planning; grassroots struggles over top-down planning. Yeah! Someone had actually cooked an entire turkey for the potluck, and it was then we realized this was "grown ups" potluck, which is quite different from the university potlucks we're used to.

Sunday morning was rainy, but we decided to go exploring around town anyway. The chickens didn't seem to be too happy about the rain and sought shelter under a bench.

At the marina we spotted this great blue heron in bright breeding plumage.

At the beach where Sheena learned to drive stick (not on the beach itself, but the steep road down TO the beach), we communed with the sea and basked in the sunshine that decided to arrive.

They're cute!

Returning to town, we walked passed the site of the [evil] development that was stopped by valiant citizen action (below).

The development was to look something like this, and be built on a wetland.

Not too far away is the museum where Matt works, humbly answering emails, vacuuming the floor and aspiring to greater things, if only the museum had more money to actually improve its exhibits. Sigh. Maybe they could get the developer make a donation to the museum...

Believe it or not, we did all of this after a delicious pancake breakfast and before a scrumptuous lunch of oysters at Gibsons' newest, and perhaps poshest, restaurant right on the water.

Back at home Matt baked bread while Sheena and I knit.

And we bottled beer...

...making sure to get every last drop.

What a super day! Thanks for the fun times.

Fairfax Mission

I'm unwinding after a tiring 2-hour marathon dinner with university colleagues and thought I would catch up on some blogging. I'm on the search committee for a new professor for my department (foolishly volunteered to be the Masters student representative), and after the 1.5 hour interview, we took the candidate out for dinner. It was a very fancy dinner and I didn't have to pay for it, which was quite fantastic. But the trade off was 2 hours of often-awkward small talk.

Pictured here is Jeff Nordstrom, a friend from high school, in concert at a small cafe in Vancouver last month. I love Jeff's voice and hearing it again after years (I haven't seen him in quite a while) brought me back to no specific time or place, but awakened some warm memories in my mind. Jeff just released a CD and you can even buy it if you want. Check out his website here.

Coming soon to this blog, is the story of my fantastic 24 hours in Gibsons this weekend, hanging out with Sheena and Matt. We meandered through town, strolled the beach, ate oysters, bottled beer, played games, ate moose, and knit. And there were perhaps a few other minor events in there. I have some great pictures and will blog about that sometime soon.

Best typo EVER

I'm sure there are other contendors for the best typo ever (or should it be worst?), but this one has to be up there. I am in the process of perusing information on British Columbia's wetlands, and found a 2002 "Wetland Survey". Perfect! On page 4 (yes, you should definitely see it for yourself), in the second row, we are talking about bylaws affecting development in wetland areas. Under the "organization name", we have "District of Satanic". Satanic? I have never heard of this area before. How strange. Hm, oh, look at this, it's actually a typo, and what they meant to write was Saanich. How did this manage to get published on the Internet, and presumably remain online for 6 years without being corrected? the District of Saanich is the Victoria area, is which incidently is the satanic capital of Canada. Coincidence? I think not...

Sunny afternoon in Little Mountain

I have just changed into my cozy red fleece pants and am drinking Bengal Spice, after a bit of investigative reporting in "Little Mountain - Riley Park", my neighbourhood. First, I would like to show you my newly rearranged living room. It was Naomi's doing, with minor adjustments from me, and I just love it. It's much cozier than it was before. It looks especially nice when the sun is shining in, which happens rather infrequently.

I live a few houses from Fraser Street, home to a thriving community that I don't understand. I don't know what half of the things are at the little grocery stores dotted along the street, and I can't read half of the signs that are (I think) in Philipino. It's very interesting, really.

At the corner of Fraser at 29th (my street) is the creatively-named "Fraser 29th Market". There are lots of vegetables here, and a limited supply of anything typically North-American. I am going to try the cheese flavoured ice cream one day. Just sounds so strange.

A block down near 28th is this thrift store. It is the craziest thing ever, totally jam packed. You can't even walk along some of the aisles because the shelves have spilled over onto the floor. It hasn't been open for at least two months, however, and I am worried about the woman who runs it. I wish I had some way of finding out if she is okay.

I decided to take a walk through the cemetery to get away from all the buildings for a while. It made me really sad to be walking though there. Not to be flippant, but there is quite a beautiful view. This is looking at the North Shore mountains with downtown at the foot of them. If only we could actually see these mountains more than a few days a month in the winter...

I strolled home, past the teenagers smoking pot in the alley, and considered asking if I could take their picture. That would be good investigative reporting. I guess I'm just an amateur though because I chickened out.

The trials and tribulations of a knitter

I did the unthinkable. I took apart a completely finished pair of socks and reknit them. I had even worn these socks around a bit before I admitted that I would be much happier if they fit a bit more snugly. Recently gaining the confidence to alter a pattern, I decided to do it. And finally, the reknit socks are complete. I love them! And the fit is fantastic. Although now of course I am thinking that they are too snug, and might be more prone to a hole at the toe, but I am definitely not knitting them a third time.

The tragedy has to do with the felted slippers I boasted about earlier. I finished the knitting, and decided to do the felting this morning. I also threw in the wool sweater I bought at the thrift store last month that had holes in it that I couldn't patch to my satisfaction. So I felted the sweater, and have plans to sew something out of it. Maybe a purse...I don't know. Other ideas?

But the tragedy. I suppose you want to know about the tragedy. I don't know if I can speak of it. I am so embarrassed. I feel beyond disappointment that the hours I spent knitting the damn things are lost, and I will never get them back. I just feel dumb.

So the tragedy. Well, I bought the yarn at a thrift store a while back, and it turns out it's not wool. It must be acrylic, and acrylic doesn't felt. Who knew that rough-looking, ichy-feeling yarn could be acrylic and not wool. Well, a lot of people actually, but not me. Now I have learned the hard way. So now I have a completely useless pair of large and floppy unfelted slippers. Might I remind you that this is the second time I have attempted to make these slippers? Is this is a sign? Do I quit here? Or should I go for the old "third time a charm" belief? I don't know. I think I am putting slippers on the shelf for now, even thought I desperately need a pair for myself. I have yarn for four pairs of socks (or maybe some gloves in there somewhere) waiting to be knit, and it is all beautiful, and I have a new sock pattern to try.

I should probably be reading scholarly things and writing papers anyway.

A slipper in the making

Believe it or not, this will be a slipper. And this slipper will fit my foot. And my foot stopped growing long ago.

It is experiment #2 with felting. #1 was a dismal failure because I used the wrong yarn, and it didn't shrink down enough when I felted it, ending up about 5 sizes too big for me. If you have a big foot maybe I will give them to you.

This picture was taken last week, and not much more progress has been made since because I was busy with the first week of classes. The beginning of the end, my last semester at UBC! (Although I won't finish my own project until August, probably.) Then, who knows what is next, although I have my ideas...

Quote of the Day

“Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It’s the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other’s stories once again.”

-Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, 2006: xxxvii

Lucky Live Music

Still at home for the holidays, a few of us went out to Lucky Bar last night for a Joel Plaskett concert. I know him thanks to my CBC radio 3 habit, and was thrilled to see him live for the first time. It was just him, without his band, because he's spending Christmas with his in-laws in Brentwood Bay and thought he might as well play a couple of concerts while he's here. I love live music because it's more personal, especially at a small venue like Lucky. Joel Plaskett's stage banter is a bit dorky, and the music is probably better with the whole band, but it was still fantastic to see him live.

One of my New Years resolutions is to try to see more live music.

Ps. He's heading on tour in Australia in January if anyone is interested...

This time last year: Christmas in Nicaragua

It's hard for me to believe that this time last year I was in Nicaragua. I spent Christmas Eve of 2006 playing in the waves at Las Penitas, a beach that reminds me of Tofino but with warm water and tropical shells. I was with a nice group of travellers from England, Israel, France and Canada. I bought a shell from a local girl for the equivalent of 20 cents, and she said it was alright when I asked if I could take a photo of her.

In the evening I was back in the colonial city of Leon and went to the Parque Central (town square) that was buzzing with activity. A massive market had set up around the cathedral which had grown over the past several days that I had been staying in Leon. The market sold mostly toys, jewelry, and other novelties. Many stalls were also selling apples imported from Washington state and grapes, which are apparently a Christmas treat in Nicaragua.

The cathedral had its doors flung open and the crowd was moving through it as if it was an extension of the public square. Despite the hot weather, there was a Santa in the crowd. I was there in a sleeveless shirt, and I can't imagine how hot he was in that costume! Santa seems to me such an incogruous theme for Christmas in Nicaragua.

Then there is the Gigantona, pictured in the crowd outside the cathedral, a unique Christmas season tradition in Nicaragua.

I would love to visit Nicaragua again. This year, I am so happy to be celebrating Christmas with my family.

New Knits

It's been a busy knitting season in our house with Christmas approaching. Jaunts up the street to the yarn store abound, and projects are flying off the needles. There is some diversity, but this knit farm is a bit of a monoculture at the moment. A brilliant pattern for fingerless gloves is the project of choice, and here are two recent examples:

The Beach Crawl

What could be better than a sunny day spent outside with friends? Especially when most of our days are spent in class or writing assignments in our less-than-bright basement suite.

Then we moved on to Wreck Beach,

and frolicked.

What a glorious day.