got brand new lottery machines at work today, very cool, touchscreens like little laptops, with superfast laser thermal printers. bc lotteries joins the 21st century. unfortunately today being Saturday, it was a massive pain to have the technician there fumbling about and turning off the Keno board while the little old men were trying to play. then when he turned the Keno board back on, it wasn't giving new draws, it was just rerunning old draws, so the little men kept thinking they had won and they hadn't.

and I canvassed for the kidney foundation, something I had been putting off. Made 27 dollars and nobody swore at me, pretty good.

Ian wants to know what happened to Oldfoundland... why did they need a new one?

Saw whales from the ferry yesterday. Orcas.

I'm tired.

At Kirsten's band concert on Thursday night, I met the boy she is currently chasing. He looks like a blonde Ashton Kutcher, very cute. He actually called to Kirsten from down the hallway as we were leaving, to introduce her to his mom. Kirsten's so sarcastic and just generally larger than life, I contrast how I was at that age and I feel very unworldly. She's got more self-confidence right now than I had at 22. I swear. In this I think she definitely takes after her father.

Rachel's report card said that she "demonstrates empathy" towards the kids in her class. Ian's report card praised his imagination, and Kirsten's mentioned her volunteer work in the school, she likes to help with the kindergarten kids, and she's in demand as a sorter of hot lunch orders. I commented on these things to them, and told Kirsten that it didn't matter a bit that she got a C in Personal Planning, whatever the hell that is. She comes home with marks that she's agonizing about, last term she got a B in Language Arts and expected me to be furious and I pretty much said, "Who cares, you read a lot". When she got her course selections for next year (she's going to high school, believe it or not) she told me she was signing up for basic English, and I said, "Whatever you want". I wondered why she wasn't trying for Honours English, but I figured if I said anything she'd go back to school saying "My mom's MAKING me take Honours English" and I didn't want that. Just before the form was due to be handed in, she came up behind me while I was packing my lunch and said, "I talked to Mrs. Hammond and she says I can try for Honours English", and I said, "Sounds good to me."

I'm writing my paper on electroshock therapy. Informed consent issues and such. I registered for one more class yesterday, for the summer term. I'm contemplating adding another, but since I had such a hell of a time last summer doing the work while it was hot, I think maybe I'll just leave it at one. After that I'll have four courses left.

curious?

I have applied for a job doing research for the government. And passed the first round of interviews, locally. Second round is upcoming, and will be done by people from Ottawa. The research is centred around the residential school issues that the government wants to resolve with alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, since there is a backlog of 10,000 cases.

I'm hopeful, as I fulfill all the criteria (thanks in part to the First Nations Studies course I waded through in my first semester and the law courses I took) and I've even got an English degree. It would be funny if it actually did me some good now!

Only problem is, if I think too hard about this, I don't want to go and sell another lottery ticket EVER. So, I am not thinking about it. (believe me? I thought not.)

The ex-secretary of Crimestoppers emailed me today to say congratulations. One less confrontation to worry about. My mother came and stayed the day today as M is in Victoria for the Species at Risk conference and I had to go to class. She frightened the children, as usual. When I got home Kirsten said, "Grannie made my BED." Rachel, while I was cooking supper, asked me, "Why does Grannie worry so much? I told her she's a worrier."

Well. The Crimestoppers fundraiser went very well, even though the two weeks surrounding it were hell. Some sneaky politics find me elected secretary for the coming year, supporting a really nice executive composed of the people who did all the work last year... sometimes there is justice. Apparently I wasn't the only one who hated the old secretary, everyone else was just too scared of her to do anything about it. M commented today that perhaps James should just call me every hour on the hour as a matter of principle.

My course is going well, I actually got a good mark for my presentation and the accompanying paper, and some of the nicest comments I've ever received on a paper.

Next weekend I'm going back to prison, and Ryan Vestby's band is coming to the Cambie hotel to play (wish you were here, Graeme...) and I'll have to miss it. Hopefully he will get into town before I have to leave for Victoria, as I haven't seen him since we lived in Field and he came out to stay. Ian answered the phone when he called last week, and when Ian passed me the phone Ryan said, "You got some huge kids there, Kate." If I think about it, Ian was about 3 or 4 last time we saw Ryan.

I'm still somewhat dazed. I find it hard to believe on some levels that I have become involved with the Alternatives to Violence Project. It came about so fast, I'm not used to my offers of help being accepted. I've been mulling over all the things that happened this last weekend. Some people told me some things that were very painful. I expressed my feeling of being drained to one of them, and he said, "it's disclosure, it always leaves you tired." Graeme used the same word when I was telling him some of what went on.

It's not in the realm of the everyday, for me, to hear so much about violence.

Long week. I was tired from the weekend in prison (go ahead, make your conjugal visit jokes, I've heard 'em all). Thankfully someone had won the SuperSeven, so it was pretty quiet at work. We're gearing up for the fundraiser for Crimestoppers, which means lots of work upcoming this week.

Kirsten has broken up with her first boyfriend, and is chasing another boy... the fun begins.

Rachel's Brownie troop has a new owl. A new leader, that is, and they're called owls, and they get little names, like Brown Owl, Ruby Owl, Sunshine Owl, etc. Rachel came home and said she was supposed to think of a name for said owl. Miguel said, Skanky Owl and Kirsten thought that was pretty funny, but Rachel misheard and said, no, not Stinky cos she didn't smell. Kirsten came by later when I was working on my paper and said, "How about Obsessive-Compulsive Owl?"

whoof. Nobody's won the superseven yet, so it continues to be freaking busy. I think my arm may fall off from pressing buttons.

I went yesterday and delivered my in-class presentation on fractals and mental disorder. I've come up with a new strategy for this. I pretended there was no-one in the room except Dr. Menzies and Gerald (who was in one of my classes last term). I even addressed remarks to each of them, as Gerald had given his presentation just before mine, and he said something I wanted to pick up on. I even had overheads. And Dr. Menzies liked my charts. So I think it'll all be ok.

I'm going back to the prison this weekend. I'm not so nervous about that this time, as I know the drill. I hate the bit where the doors clang shut behind me. Especially if I'm on my own, as you have to wait in a little cage for someone to come with the van and pick you up. The workshop this weekend is more advanced, I'm looking forward to it.

just because

nice weekend... finally got Patricia Cornwell's book on Jack the Ripper from the library. I don't entirely agree with her conclusions, I don't think any of it would stand up in court, but it was interesting all the same. Inbetween that, Ian had a birthday party to attend, Kirsten's friend Caitlin slept over and they watched Freddy vs. Jason. I watched for a while, but I was trying to complete notes for an in-class presentation I have to give on Feb 3rd, so I drifted in and out. We wondered, however, as both Freddy and Jason are supposed to be unkillable, why they would bother to have a classic battle in a boiler room.

So tonight I'm working on my presentation, which has to do with fractals and mental disorder. Other than that I have one paper and a final exam for this course, so it feels as if I have extra time suddenly. Very cool.

trying to overcome the paralysis brought on by having too many things to do. I dispatched a fair number of them this morning,
miscellaneous banking and postal errands,
library fines,
more crepe paper for the never-ending flowers,
a visit to Robyn as the word is that everyone feels that I've "dropped off the face of the earth", a quote for a balloon palm tree for Mexican night (he suggested a balloon cactus, lit from within),
a trip to the shop that sells the only soap I like; Bee and Flower sandalwood soap,
emails to the hotel that is accomodating the band for Mexican night...

The library also yielded a book of pictures of the life of Gandhi and a book about addictions that I might be able to use in a paper I have to write soon. Other than that, I just have the year end books for the booth to do, I think I mentioned that my accountant wants that done soon. So, tonight I will deal with all the piles. I told him I was at the piles stage, everything was organized but not compiled yet. This is also one way I force myself to get going on it, the visual lack of aesthetics of a collection of papers in the corner of the living room. I'm the only one who spends any time here, though, so it's only bugging me. Leaving it too long also means I run the risk of having the dogs plough through it on their way to bark at cats or forage for treats.

Oh, my. Where to start. Spent the weekend in prison talking about violence, playing with tinkertoy, making paper monsters, playing basketball, walking by the sea, eating too many cookies, hearing stories... I'm still processing.

The Alternatives to Violence project is not as it seems. There is much talking, no preaching. Also a lot of goofy exercises, meant to show interconnectedness and build community. I met some people with a lot of pain in their lives, their own pain and that they have caused in others. We did role-playing. I listened a lot. Something about the process invites a sort of suspension of the fear of feeling silly, and there were some extremely silly moments. And some funny ones. One of the prisoners was telling me that he was reading about Gandhi, and I asked him if he'd ever seen the Ben Kingsley movie. He said no, and I said, offhand, "It's kind of long". He giggled and replied, "I've got lots of time."

On Saturday, I was in the hallway talking to one of the prisoners, and he introduced me to a man not participating in the program. We shook hands., and he proceeded to tell me about his children and grandchild, and how he was looking forward to someday seeing them again... He told me his application for little trips out had been approved. I told him that was wonderful, and he left. The next afternoon, during one of the breaks in the program, I suddenly felt I was being watched. I turned around and saw that he had returned, and as I caught his eye he gave me a big grin and gestured for me to come talk to him. I was quite touched to find that he had brought pictures of his children and his grandson to show me...

I'll be going back in February.

I rented and watched the movie Magnolia this weekend. The rain of frogs therein came as a surprise (I don't get out much) and considering how much I liked the movie, I think it's interesting that it coincides with the title of this venue.

It is snowing here. Yesterday I got all the way to Burnaby before they announced that SFU was closed, about 10 am. So, I turned around and came home again. Since the skytrain was abysmally slow due to the "extreme snow conditions" (ya gotta love Vancouver, they had barely a half inch) it took me 9 hours to do the round trip, and I never even made it to campus. I was boarding the last bus, ten minutes away from the school, and the bus driver told us that the school was closing and that if we stayed on the bus and went up to SFU they couldn't guarantee that the buses would still be running to bring us back down.

We have a fair amount of snow here in Nanaimo, about two feet fell in all, and it's piled up all over the place like Edmonton (although not as much as Lake Louise) the mall was open today but hardly anyone came.

I'm going to be in Victoria this weekend, at William Head Institution (minimum security) as a volunteer for an Alternatives to Violence workshop. I think I mentioned I was there before Christmas for a Restorative Justice symposium. The only thing I'm nervous about is the bit where I have to go in by myself and give up all my valuables, etc. I've met a few of the people I'll be working with and they seem very kind.

On New Year's Day we pooled all our money and went skiing. Which was awesome, as always. Ian proved his usual daredevil self, falling off the chairlift, crashing into the platter lift building, having a spectacular charliebrown style wipeout and losing skis, coat, mitts, scarf, poles etc. I met him halfway downhill after this particular one, and he was carrying all his equipment and looking very vacant. He claimed to be walking back to the top. Kirsten whined a lot. She's gained some weight, due to her eating habits and her general fitness level being low. Rachel we left at my mother's. She's still a bit mad at me for this, as my mother organized the life out of her for the day...

Today I managed a rare day off. So, at 6 pm, I am still sitting in my pajamas, drinking the sherry my mother left at Christmas and listening to The Police, with the dogs. The others have all gone to gramma's.

Yesterday was our 15th wedding anniversary. We went out for dinner, and although we each ordered a margarita, M started to feel anxious after a few sips. No problem, I drank both.

Today, it is snowing. Which is uncommonly beautiful, here, with the huge trees all weighted down with snow, and the sky a backlit grey.

I've been thinking about my new year. This year's word was equanimity, and I had fun trying to find it. I think next year's word will be growth.