consumerism

Even from the far corner of small town Quebec, without a credit card, without any income except for $15 a week, and a weekly expenditure of an average of $25 a weekend on booze, I still manage to keep consumerism alive.

Thank god for Paypal and international shipping.

I just bought this:

So cute! I'm super excited for it's arrival. I just hope it won't take 1 month and a half to arrive.. because I won't be here any more.

Shopping has become a distant memory for me. For the last 6 months every item of clothing I've acquired has been second hand - I do a weekly tour of all the second-hand stores in Valleyfield, and even in Manoel Viana, I managed to find a second-hand store (which is an amazing feat, since the town was so small, and barely had anything in it...) where I thrifted little boys button downs (actually if you think about it, it's kind of sad to think about - I'm wearing the castoffs of someone from a small-town in the South of Brazil... oh well). I don't think I'm capable of buying anything over the price of $5 any more. I actually balk at the thought of paying $5 for a sweater that looks brand new and has the tag on it here.

My host mom has promised me a trip to Montreal for shopping purposes, and besides the fact that I'm pretty much broke (or will be soon.. Halloween is on a Friday this year!) and have no access to a credit card, I'm dying to walk into an H&M, UO and/or American Apparel. (Let the stop-supporting-global-capitalism lectures begin!)

Out of the 5 pairs of jeans that I brought to wear on the trip, 2 are too tight and way too uncomfortable (I guess I did put on some weight...), one has several rips in the crotchal area and paint on it from digging, planting, and painting in Brazil, and one has a hole in it from falling off my bike. Someone purolate me some clothes please. I'm tired of fighting with little old men for plaid flannel shirts, little old ladies for cable knit sweaters, and buying mens undershirts to wear as dresses.

On the other hand, I will return home with the most impressive collection of plaid shirts and grandpa cardigans that Mississauga has ever seen.

The other day I bought a hand-knit, long, heavy wool sweater at one of the stores for $10. I wore it all weekend during mid-project, and at night I put a light hoody under it and spent the whole night outside by the camp fire, and I could not feel the cold even if I wanted to (this could've been attributed to the Fireball mixed with chai that I was drinking... but I really don't think so). It's magical, and probably the best buy I'll ever make in my life.

At least if I wanted to I could dress up as an old man for Halloween. It might be easier than dressing up as an 80s aerobics bitch, or a poutine...

Does anyone know what I can wear to cover my ass if I dress up as an 80s aerobics bitch, with my AA raglan sweater on top, and leggings and legwarmers? We all know how I feel about wearing leggings as pants...... RAFAY, I AM LOOKING AT YOU FOR IDEAS. Something that can easily be thrifted. I couldn't find short shorts at any of the thrift stores I frequent.

(wow, there are a lot of pertinent tags for this post..)

klutz

i have fallen off my bike twice within the last week.
both my knees have scrapes surrounded by very large, very black looking bruises. I think I have more bruises and scrapes at one time than I ever had as a kid.
It was like my body was unhappy about the large bruise and pain in one knee, and decided to even it out and do the same thing on the other.
yes, i was sober.
both times.
and no, it doesn't get any less embarassing after it's already happened once.

In other news, I am very bitter about life right now. It's stupid and trivial and whatever, but I still hate life.

In other brighter news, there's a very very good chance that I am going to be seeing Bob Dylan in Montreal on the 18th.

lush

do you know how hard/amazing it is to ride a bike home when you're trashed?
is that legal?

friday night we went to a bar where we accidentally ended up at a show.

last night we went to a club called "le saint", where the there was a jungle theme for the night, you could get squiggly lines airbrushed onto your arms and legs, and everywhere you turned, there was a frat boy with his pink polo collar popped and a beer bottle in hand.

welcome to small-town quebec. where it's like the suburbs, but worse.

but hey, drinks were cheap - $3.50 for a vodka+canneberge, $3 for a beer (i'm sure they know that there needs to be a certain level of intoxication involved in order to deal with djs dressed up in leopard print pimp suits, throwing budweiser hats at you).
and at least we started the evening off with class.. sitting on a bedroom floor listening to Madonna, and drinking wine with cheese and bread.
..and taking shots of gin on the long walk to the club..
all in all a good(ish) time was had - i vividly remember getting really excited and dancing really hard to lady gaga even though i could barely stand at that point.

my host dad just laughed at me because its 3pm and after i biked my way home from the place i slept over at, i took a shower and changed directly into my pyjamas. he asked if i drank a lot last night because apparently i look super hung over.

my counterpart and her partner for her JAE are in the living room listening to the beach boys for some reason...

good weekend.

anyways, happy thanksgiving.

salut valleyfield!

What if I told you that I found love when I was in Brazil?

It's been a week since I've arrived in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield.. and although I'm happy to be able to go out and communicate with people somewhat easily (my french comprehension has rapidly improved since I started the program...), and see and experience things that are familiar, and eat peanut butter and have Tim Hortons, I'm having sort of a hard time adjusting. You'd think that after living in a small town in Brazil for 3 months, coming back and living in Canada would be a piece of cake, but the thing is, I kind of miss Manoel Viana.

My host family here is great. I didn't have a very good time with my host family in Manoel Viana, and to have an actual family here where we only speak french (most of the time) and who are eager to share Quebecois culture with us is really cool.

But I still find it hard to hype myself up for the rest of the program. I think the reason I feel like I'm having trouble is because I feel like I'm home, but I'm not. I feel like I should be having an easy time, but it's not that easy.

The first week in Manoel Viana, I didn't miss home, I didn't miss anything because everything was so different. I was learning so much and everything was new.

I'm sort of over the program at this point. I've been with the same people for the past 3 months and as much as I love (most of) them, it's tiring. Also, inevitably, there are going to be people that after awhile, their novelty wears off, and if this happens in real life... you drop them and find new friends. But unfortunately this isn't real life, and you will have to see them at least twice a week for the next 3 months, or you end up working with them.

Or you live with them...

I feel like I'm not going to get anything more out of the program. The next couple of workshops are going to be on Gender and development, and the Millenium Development Goals - things that not only have I learned about, but things that I've written papers on and prepared 2 hour seminars on.

Maybe I could get excited about pushing my reflection, showing off a little, imparting what I know to the other participants, but everything has to either be in French or Portuguese. I already find it hard enough to express my opinions in clear and concise language to those who aren't in IDS in English. How am I supposed to do it in French?

I was robbed of my first choice of work project - archiving photos and negatives in a museum - because for some reason unknown to me, my counterpart got priority over me, even though she had a really amazing work project in Brazil that she helped shape and set up, and that I got to hear about how cool her day was and how she got to go to so many cool places and took so many photos for the tourism web page with my $700+ camera that I let her borrow because she too is also into photography. (Not that I'm bitter or anything......) So instead I work at a kitchen that makes meals to be delivered to those who are unable to get out of the house and buy food for themselves - sort of a Meals on Wheels kind of deal. Today was my first day, and my duties include... chopping vegetables, chopping meat, and spooning things into bowls. I don't hate it... yet.

It's not all bad.. yesterday our host family brought us to Montreal to participate in a protest march against poverty, for social housing, and for more funding for arts and culture (basically a march against a Conservative majority), that was organized by the artists of Quebec. It was totally cool, and I'm sure that there are more of those to come. But still, I need to find something to look forward to.

I think about maybe quitting the program, but I can't. As much as I'm not thoroughly enjoying myself here, I'm not ready to come home. I don't know if I ever will be - yet another thing I'm grappling with: after the program, do I want to come home? But I guess I'll deal with that when the time comes...

For now, I'll just suck it up. I'm not hating it here... yet.