Happy December! Everyone is allowed to put up Christmas Decor now! And start listening to Christmas music! If it was up to me, people would receive a piece of black coal in their stocking for every day that they had their xmas stuff up prior to December 1st. [So if a person hauled out their fake tree on November 29th, they'd get 2 chunks o' coal].
Ok ok, i'm just kidding (sorry Heather!! lol). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE CHRISTMAS!! SO MUCH!! But starting in early November makes my head spin a bit. So hurray for December!

Alrighty then, so you're probs wondering about my billeting week. Overall it was pretty swell. Betty and Ramsie were very nice and hospitable. Ramsie (grade 8) was hilarious... one day he asked me, "So, where do you see yourself in 10 years?" I have no idea, so I wittily replied "I have no idea", and asked him the same question. He thought about it for a moment with a very serious, pensive look on his face, and said "I wanna be a professional skier and comedian". And that's a perfect answer, because while i was there he got new bindings for his skis, and he was so excited that he got all dressed up in his ski gear- goggles and all-and tromped around the house to break in his ski boots. On top of all of that, it had snowed for the first time that night, so skiing and snowfall and Big White was all he talked about for the rest of the evening. He was awesome. Betty was quite an interesting woman... after she graduated in Edmonton she went to live with her uncle in Venezuela for almost a year, and when she returned home she got a job in a small travel agency. When she wasn't practically running the place herself, the agency sent her on "Familiarization trips" all over the world. I asked her what her favorite place was, and she said that she'd move to the Mediterranean in a heartbeat, if Ramsie wasn't still in school. Also, she lived in Beirut in the early 80s, so during the Lebanese Civil war. At one point there were freaking snipers on their roof. As she was telling me a little bit about it, I couldn't do much but gape like a fool and say "oh. my. god.". But because of the fact that she's seen such crazy stuff and been through so much, she has no tolerance for laziness or ungratefulness for what one has. She's a very strong woman, and it was really cool to get to know her.
Their (large, clean) house is in Mission, which meant a 1 hour, 2 bus journey to and from work for me. And by the way, the bus system in Kelowna SUCKS. Compared to Vancouver. Its super unpredictable, so a few times I just decided to walk for 35mins uphill to their house instead of waiting 45 mins in the freezing cold for my transfer bus to come. arrrrrghh. It wasn't horrible though... I actually impressed myself with my navigational skills when I managed to find my way back to their house with only the crappy bus map to aid me.
I didn't do a whole heck of a lot while I was there... watched a lot of TV, so i'm all caught up on my commercials now. I watched an episode of The Hills and then wished i had a time machine so i could get back that wasted half hour of my life. The first weekend I was there I went with them to a Waldorf school craft/xmas fair, which was pretty cool. Waldorf schools are all over the world, and they're basically alternative private schools that base their teaching methods on the philosophy of some German dude 'Rudolf Steiner'. Google him if you want. They are seen as "Hippie schools" by the misinformed, but there's a reason for that stereotype because the craft fair was an excellent arena for people-watching. Anyway, this post is getting quite long, so I'll just list off the rest of the stuff I did: Ironed & vacuumed (to help get ready for the open house), hung around and explained Katimavik a frillion times at Betty's open house/jewellery party, practiced my crochet frogging, went to Wal-mart and tried on glasses with B and R, Went to see Australia with Betty's Australian neighbours but it was sold out so we saw the new James Bond instead, and did some more crochet frogging. It was nice to have a comfy double bed in my own room and only share a bathroom with one other person for a week, but I never felt completely relaxed b/c i was always trying to be polite and pleasant (an extremely difficult task for me... lol) and I harsh missed the Katima-House and the Katima-People. So i'm glad to be back!
Oh btw, I'm healthy again! I slammed Vitamin C and Echinacea for 9 days, and i tried to eat a lot of garlic. Also, I'm house manager again this week, avec Kara! Its been pretty awesome so far... We've made black bean soup w/ quesadillas, homemade perogies (Kara's moms recipe), 4 types of bread, and tonight is Spaghetti and rhubarb crisp. Good food, Hurrah! I miss work though. That's a pretty excellent thing isn't it? I think it's amazing.
So I have survived the first half of the first Trimester of Katimavik, and I'm glad to say that I'm pretty stoked on life.

In this edition of A&A of a K-V, The Diagnosis, a Journey through the Not-So-Secret-But-Really-Flippin-Awesome Passageway, and Assorted Other Photos.

So, the diagnosis was early sinusitis/ viral URTI. So basically just a cold. I feel a bit better today, plus I got my voice back, so it should be about 2 more days of misery until I am reasonably healthy once again. Hurray. At least I keep my roommates amused with my foghorn-esque nose blowing technique.
I'm in the midst of repacking my suitcase for billeting... I must say it is a trillion times easier to pack for 9 days than for 9 months.
Here's a few more photos:

The upstairs girls room (my room); viewed from the doorway.
That blur is Lisette going to attack Jeanette with a pillow. It happens quite often.

And here's the view from the back wall.
That is my bed, and on the right side of the photo next to the dresser you can see the small door to the secret passageway!!!

Here is Ali going through the door... (yes, she has super long hair in this photo, but she actually just cut 9 inches off for cancer a few days ago, so now it's shoulder-length)

and through the first part of the passage... (it's not normally that bright. It's much more creepy and mysterious without a camera flash)

This is a more realistic representation of the light. There's Lisette peeking in through the door...

Ali going down the stairs that lead down to the dining room...

here's the steep stairs, and the door to the dining room.

Jon, Simon and I

a sweet Polaroid that Kara took (she has to buy the film on ebay)

Everybody crowded around the bathroom door to watch Ali chop off her hair...

Ali w/ new shortish hair, Gabrielle, and Kara

Yikes, Betty my Billet "Mom" is coming to pick me up in 2 hours, and my stuff is still strewn about everywhere.
I'll post again asap w/ more details on Billeting.
I hope everyone back home is healthier than I am!

This is my third day in a row staying home from work, which really sucks because i really like my job, plus i'm going to live with my first billet family for 9 days starting tomorrow and i feel absolutely disgusting. All i've done the past few days is sleep as much as possible, guzzle tea & water, and use up an entire roll of toilet paper blowing my nose. It's more than likely a run-of-the-mill cold, but i'm going to walk down to the walk-in clinic in about 10 minutes just in case. But before i do, i'll tell more about my billet fam. I only met them briefly at the Katima-House last night b/c we had a "billetting party"; basically a meet and greet with the billeting families before we go to live with them after work tomorrow. Anyway their names are Betty and Ramsey, and they are Mother and 13 year old son of Lebanese origin. Betty makes jewellery and is "a designer"... i think interior decorating or something. Ramsey is in grade 8, and is pretty hilarious. They seem like nice people, but i'm actually more nervous now that i've met them than i was before. Mostly i'm worried about running out of things to talk about. Also, Betty didn't seem too impressed that i am ill with a cold, so I MUST GET BETTER ASAP.
So, off to the clinic i go. I'll write more whence i return, if the blasted wireless internet decides to work.

PHOTOS!!!!

This is the whole cluster about to leave Mass-O and finally move into our houses.


This is me in the living room of our amazing house... I know I look grouchy but I guess that's my "concentrating" face. (taken by Simon)


This my group (before Alison arrived) on one of the reconstructed trestle bridges of the Kettle Valley Railway. It was a cold but gorgeous day for an 11k hike/walk.



And here's the group again at Misson Creek park. From left to right, the names are *drumroll* Kara, Lisette, Moi, Gabrielle(aka Gab/Ranger), Ron (in the elf hat), Simon, Jeanette, and John.


As soon as someone takes a photo of our "new" group (with Ali) I shall post it.

So, by now I believe I have proven myself to be THE WORST CORRESPONDENT IN THE WORLD! I think we can all agree that I will never make it as a Journalist. I'll never be able to make the deadlines.
Quick Headline: A new participant, Alison, is joining our group today!! Maude is picking her up from the airport this afternoon, so we have to wait untill after work to meet her. She will be rooming with Lisette, Jeanette and I. So far all we know about her is that she's from Ontario, she was once a vegetarian, she likes playing sports, and her favorite meal is Burgers & Fries.
I started my job(s) last week, which was awesome b/c I got super sick of being a House Manager (sweeping, mopping, dusting, cooking, washing). I don't start work untill 10:30 on mondays and wednesdays, whereas everyone else leaves the house by 9. Plus, the House Managers go grocery shopping on Monday morning, so I actually have the house to myself!!! It's so weird!!!
Umm umm umm what else can i blabber about... I know i have a lot to explain, but It's hard to determine where to start. OOH i know, i'll post a picture of the group, so you can put faces to the names.
Blast, it's not working right now. Ok then, I'll explain about House Managers. Each week 2 people stay home from work and are in charge of cleaning house and cooking all the meals. It was actually very draining; I must've swept the kitchen floor at least 6 times a day. But I was HM with Ron, who is an amazing cook, so all of our meals were pretty fantastic.
About our jobs: We all volunteer at Non Profit Organizations here in Kelowna. These include the Rec Centre, The Foodbank, Community Gardens, CRIS (in a nutshell, it's an organization that takes disabled people on hikes and bike rides), CNIB (provides resources and services to people with blindness or near blindness), the YMCA daycare program, and Boys and Girls Clubs (that's Me!) Everyone works about 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.
oh shoot, i have to go to work, and the internet crapped out (as usual) so i'll post this later.

~~~~~~~~ ....LATER.... ~~~~~~~~
Ok, so it's now 5:54pm, I'm back home after a fantastic day at work (I mostly chased the KinderCare kids around... they are speedy!!), I have met Alison (she seems super awesome), and I'm going to finally post this so i can go eat dinner. I also just realized i don't have any pictures of the whole group on my laptop, so I'll have to post a photo using the house computer.

Huzzah, Lauren has a blog!
Hopefully this form of communication will work better for me than sending out masses of emails galore. Don't get me wrong, i adore your emails and they are read with great pleasure, but i very rarely have enough time to reply. So i'll try this newfangled blogging thingy and hopefully i won't just give up after 3 posts.
I'll just come right out and admit that i haven't been too stoked on starting a blog or writing emails b/c there's SO MUCH preliminary stuff to explain. But i'll man up and get it over with, so my future postings will be shorter/more fun to write/more fun to read. I'm going to be lazy and just copy and paste bits of a mass email i sent out last week, for the benefit of those who may not have recieved the email (sorry!). Then i'll clarify some things, answer some questions, add some photos, do some cartwheels, and try not to be too corny. I have to go make couscous soon though, so i may not get it all done tonight. ok, enough with all that, here it goes...

My first four days of Katimavik (oct 15th to 19th) were spent at 'Mass Orientation camp' (aka mass-o). It was held at a 'Samesun' hostel in Vernon, right next to a ski run on Silverstar. It was a massive place, quite clean and comfy. When we arrived (around 9:30pm) there was some snow on the ground; it snowed more on Thursday and at one point there was about a foot of snow.
There were 25 people at mass-o, with 3 different destinations: Vernon, Kelowna, and Penticton. There are 8 in my group, but I’ll talk about them later.
There were lots of looooong tedious workshops on all the aspects of the program such as work habits, community, behavioural expectations, etc. When we weren’t listening to Christine, the ‘Project Coordinator’ (PC) for the Southern Okanogan region, we could play pool (with only one cue), foosball, cards, board games or go outside for a cigarette (a shocking number of people in the cluster smoke. Blech). The first couple of days were the hardest. I felt like I was in limbo… part of the time I really wanted to go home and other times I just wanted to get moved into the house and ‘get on with it’! But once I got comfortable talking and joking with some people it got a lot better. One night I had a great conversation with a girl from Nanaimo group about music. It turned out that she was at Pemberton festival as well as the tiny social justice festival in North Van I went to to see ‘Tegan and Sara’(a band I like). She’s in the Vernon group.
By Sunday morning it felt like we had all been at the hostel for weeks rather than only 4 days. We were all itching to see our new ‘homes’, but it was a little sad for all of us to be split up.
Quick Side Note: I SUCK AT FRENCH! And I’m not just saying that. I was definitely one of the worst in the cluster. All the francophone kids actually scared me at first. They were all really well dressed, loud, and overwhelmingly animated. One girl named Amelie was definitely the most loquacious person at mass-o, but interestingly we just found out after we moved into our house that she spent 4 hours in the Penticton house and decided she wanted to go home to Quebec. Also, I recently found out that a girl i was on the Greyhound bus with went back home to Vancouver last week. But anyway seriously, my French is tres mal. I have a loooong way to go, and we don’t start French lessons until the Quebec trimester (April!).
We moved into the house on Sunday Oct 19th. It’s only a few minutes’ walk from downtown Kelowna, so most of us walk to and from work in less than 20 minutes. I love the house! Apparently it was built in the 1920s, so it’s quite small and aged but it’s cheerful and cozy and quirky. I’m sharing a room with Lisette and Jeanette upstairs. The ceiling will take some getting used to, but it’s nice and gets a lot of natural light. And it has a SECRET PASSAGEWAY! Ok, not-so-secret-but-really-flippin-awesome passageway that leads downstairs to the dining room. I had a supreme-o Nancy Drew moment when we found it.
By some bizzare and extremely fortunate fluke, most of the people in my group are excellent cooks, so all the food made so far has been really tasty.
The first week in Kelowna we did a fun scavenger hunt activity downtown, which was great b/c it helped me get my bearings. However downtown Ktown is nothing compared to downtown Vancouver, so I don't think i'm at risk of getting lost. In the first week we also went to a job-search and interview skills workshop, got to tour all of the work sites, then we had interviews with our top three choices. (in the next post i'll tell you more about the work stuff.)
In a nutshell, I’m having a great time so far. I really feel like I can be my crazy self around all the people in the group.
I miss everyone a lot! Feel free to send me emails and texts and snail mail! *hint hint* I promise a postcard in return. eventually.