Women are taking over (yay).

Boring politics post, ewww.

There was a collective "wtf" moment a couple weeks ago when Stephen Harper elected Leona Aglukkaq as minister of health. Health is HIGH-PROFILE. Aglukkaq is a first time MP. SHE'S THE SARAH PALIN OF THE NORTH JONES' PANTS.

I was super happy to see a woman get this position, but in all honesty, I'm pretty sure it was just Harper shining up his cabinet. I mean, what is better than a female native cabinet minister? Nothing... except maybe one that's in a wheelchair.

And this sounds cruel, yes, but I've taken enough Poli Sci classes to realize THIS IS THE SHIT THAT MATTERS. It is not who is qualified for the job a lot of the time, it's who looks good/sends a good message. Just ask Duceppe's hairnet supplier.

Back to women in politics.

Eva Aariak was elected as Nunavut's second ever premier today. I know absolutely nothing about her and the CBC says she's an "Iqaluit store owner."

Paul Okalik has held the position since 1999 when Nunavut was formed. I'm kind of sad to see Okalik go. Not because he accomplished anything worthwhile mind you. But he always said hello and kind words when I passed him on the street during my lunch breaks in Iqaluit (Nunavut's a tiny place... population wise).

And I super loved that classy seal-skin vest he wore all the time.

The muscles fought so long.

I left for Iqaluit one year ago today. LIFE STOP RUSHING AWAY FROM ME.

Kisulirijiuvilli?

I sat down yesterday morning and worked out a life plan. Well, a three year plan, which I think is a very good start.

I was worried that it would take me five years to get my degree. This would be because of the fact that I am doing two certificates (Crim and Public Admin) in addition to my major and minor.

But I worked it out that if I did three courses over the next two summers (and don’t fail anything), I will be fine. This is such a relief, you can’t possibly understand.

I have officially decided on Aboriginal Studies as my minor. There was some confusion over a Law minor or a Sociology/Anthropology minor. Not anymore, I am moving ahead!

I know what you are thinking, Aboriginal Studies? It sounds like you want to move back North again. And I realized after much soul-searching (corny, shut up) and THOUGHT that I do. Some shitty things happened while I was up there; I won’t tell you it was a field of daisies. But the positive outweighs the negative by astronomical amounts.

So yeah. Two years of school left. Dumb summer job this year, FINGER’S CROSSED I’ll get an internship next year. Then I make my way back North for a year or two.

I’m not forsaking plans of France or Iceland, not at all. But I’m only going to be twenty-one years old when I graduate. I [hopefully] have years to fulfill all of my many, many plans. I'm actually thinking of doing my Masters overseas, I'll have the money to fund that option after a couple years of Arctic work.

I promise that this isn’t all coming about just because I got my tax refund yesterday... Well, maybe just a little. I probably got more back on my taxes than the average student made working a minimum-wage job here last summer. I’m just saying.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE, HMM?

A high of minus thirty-three.

I always feel bad for my brother around this time of year. Maybe it’s because I’m still plump from Christmas festivities. Or the fact that his birthday is at the end of this month. Or it could be all that winter Arctic darkness.

On second thought, it’s definitely just the weather that makes me sympathetic.

I noticed in Darryl’s MSN name today that he had written “I’ve never seen it this cold.” I knew that meant no dice. I checked the weather online; it got to be -58C today in Iqaluit. Feeling a little sympathetic yourself?

Environment Canada issued this cheery warning for the city’s residents:

“A bitterly cold Arctic airmass combined with winds of 30 km/h continue to produce extreme wind chill values between minus 50 and minus 55. No significant change is expected over the next 24 to 36 hours so these extreme wind chill values are expected to persist through Tuesday.

At these extreme wind chill values frostbite on exposed skin may occur in less than 5 minutes.”

We bury those things.

Tonight I was really missing my kiddies from the daycare I worked at in Iqaluit. I think about them a lot, over the course of four months you can make some really tight bonds.

So in hopes of curing my heartache I dug out the CD with all my pictures from the summer on it and started to flick through them. I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, but in the last couple of weeks that I was there I took more and more hoping to keep something to remember everyone by.

I got to the photos of my last day at the daycare and there is easily a hundred pictures. That morning we took the kids to the RCMP station for a tour, it was one of those rare nice days and we made the trek with about fifteen of the kids in tow.

I got some beautiful shots at the RCMP station of the kids. A wonderfully nice (and awesomely hot) guy greeted us when we came in “Hey kids, ladies, I’m Constable Doug and I’m going to show you guys around today.” Well Sheena and I pretty much melted right there. Uniform. Cute smile. Blonde hair. Yum, yum, yum!

And show us around he did “Well kids, this is the drunk tank!” Insert big eyes from me and a “No, uh, it’s just for bad people.” This guy obviously hadn’t caught on that these were four and five year olds.

Man was he awesome though, I kept snapping photos of him left right and center. Hot, stable job and extremely nice to small children… MARRY ME. Sheena kept telling me to ask him to meet us at the Storehouse that night for our leaving town bash. She kept nudging me and going “nooo ringgg!”

A combination of me being chicken, plus already going out with someone kind of stopped that idea. And of course the fact that I was leaving the next day.

Before we left he got every kid an RCMP hat and we took a group photo. As I was trying to get the kids situated he came up to me and said “I can take the picture if you’d like to get in with the kids” and he held out a hat towards me. I could see Sheena and another girl I worked with freaking out because he was singling me out.

But of course the only thing I managed to get out was “um, no that’s okay.”

I was looking at photos of him tonight and smiling to myself thinking about that day, when suddenly I stopped. Constable Doug. Constable Doug. Constable Doug.


"People in Nunavut reacted with shock and grief Tuesday to news that an RCMP officer was shot and killed in the Baffin Island hamlet of Kimmirut. A man was arrested by Kimmirut RCMP several hours after Const. Douglas Scott, 20, was fatally shot while on duty late Monday night. Police have yet to identify the man who was taken into custody in Iqaluit on Tuesday. Charges have not been laid as of Tuesday[. . .]"

I wonder if subconsciously I remembered and that’s why I got so upset when I read about his death.

If tragedy's appealing, than disaster's an addiction.

After reading this article I decided to offer up a little of what happened to me while I was up North. I wanted to put the article into context, so after reading this post (and I realize it's a mouthful), I'd encourage you guys to go back and read the article by The Canadian Press.

-

Since I've returned from Nunavut I have started a million blog posts about what it was really like to live there. I've been asked a thousand times "What's it like up there?" and my answer is usually along the lines of "Oh cold, but nice" or something like "It was pretty rough, but I got used to it."

People have asked me how cold the temperatures got (-41 was as low as I saw).

People have asked me if I saw polar bears (not ones that were alive).

People asked how hard it was adjusting to a place that didn't speak my language (more difficult than I could have fathomed).

And people question whether I learned any Inuktitut (ii, qanuippit?).

Nobody asked me how many times I witnessed domestic abuse occurring right in front of my eyes (easily a half a dozen times).

No one inquired about how many sleepless nights I suffered because the noise of my neighbour beating his girlfriend senseless kept me up (countless times).

When I first moved into my brother's apartment, he warned me about "Mr. and Mrs. Fuck You". He told me exactly what would happen, Mr. Fuck You would come home drunk around 2ish when all the bars had shut down and start banging on Mrs. Fuck You's door until she let him in. They would then proceed their rounds of "fuck you" "no, fuck you" until he would beat her into submission.

Darryl told me not to call the police, that he or his roommate had done it a number of times and the police had kindly suggested to them to stop as there was nothing they could do as long as she stayed with Mr. Fuck You.

Here's where it gets tricky.

I ended up meeting that girl and her son outside of our apartment building not realizing she was Mrs. Fuck You. I got to know her (she's only two years older than me) and we became "friends". Her son was a sweet little boy who went to my Day Care, barely three when I first met him.

When entering my apartment once we ended up riding the elevator together "I didn't realize we lived in the same building!" I exclaimed, excited at the prospect of having a "friend" whom I didn't have to dress in a parka to visit. She seemed embarrassed, something at the time I couldn't understand.

When we both stepped off the elevator and walked to doors facing one another, I had to use everything in me to keep myself from saying something I shouldn't. "See you around" I semi-whispered, shutting the door on her almost apologetic face.

After finding out she was Mrs. Fuck You, living in that apartment was almost unbearable. There was one night I will never forget for as long as I live.

I came home from work at around eleven one night, collapsing into bed literally with all my clothes still on. At the time I was battling an infection and working from eight in the morning until eleven in the evening. I needed every second of sleep I could get.

I was awoken by their screams around two o'clock. They lasted until six thirty that morning.

Through their screams and the sounds of fist meeting flesh I could hear the music from a children's show blasting. It seems they weren't the only two in the apartment that night.

It took everything that was in me that night to not barge out my apartment wielding some sort of weapon along with a slew of threats. I am a confrontational person by nature, but I knew this was not my battle to fight.

I stood at my front door with shoes on my feet (I didn't need to change as I was still wearing the clothes I had on the day before) for about a solid hour that morning. My hand on the door knob while I listened to those kid's shows play on.

I never saw her or her son for about a week after that. And even then I wish I hadn't.

Her face was still black and blue, her glasses broken on the right side. Three teeth were gone from her mouth.

I never spoke more than a passing "hello" or "how are you" to her after that.

When I moved to another apartment and the same scenario happened again, I made sure to never look the battered woman in the eye.

If I remained detached, maybe I could get some sleep.

You sigh low.

Very few things reported in the news make me want to cry. I watch the destruction of thousands occurring everyday overseas and I stare at the newspaper like it’s just told me the sky is blue.

Although I’m probably one of the few people my age who keeps a diligent eye on what is happening here in Canada and around the world, I sadly remain apathetic to the facts.

But today in a rare occurrence, I found my eyes welling up with tears as I read of the horrible death of an RCMP officer in Kimmirut, NU.

Every single aspect of this story got at me, like it was taken straight from the horrible scenarios I sometimes conjure in my head.

“A 20-year-old Mountie was shot and killed in the line of duty in Kimmirut, a small community in Nunavut. Const. Douglas Scott became the second RCMP officer within a month to be gunned down in the region. His death comes as the national police force reviews its back-up policy and questions swirl around the practice of sending inexperienced officers to Canada's high Arctic. . .”

I could honestly write forever on how this makes me want to get a megaphone and stand in front of Parliament until someone looks out the window and questions what I’m doing. Because it looks like no one is asking questions. And when they are, they’re not the right ones to ask.

People inquire how the RCMP could send an inexperienced officer to the north. But no one is questioning why this is even an issue. We send soldiers who are fresh from boot camp to Afghanistan. Is Canada less safe than a war torn country?

There are so many things wrong with how the north is being governed. I’m just wondering how many more people have to lose their lives before someone figures this out.

Bubble bath.

I went out with a guy this summer that I didn’t really like. We only went on two “dates” (I seriously hate that word) before I decided his mind was indeed as bad as his hair cut.

It didn’t take me two outings to figure this out. I went along with it at the time because he paid for all the drinks. Sad and mean spirited, yes, but at $7 a glass it made perfect sense to me.

I remember on the second. . . occasion. . . we were talking along the lines of how we deal with people/relationships and the like. Today while reading a book for my War and Aggression class, I remembered the analogy I used to describe to this guy how I go about dealing with the opposite sex.

It went something along the lines of:

“I’m the kind of person who deals with relationships like they deal with. . . a bath.”

“You soak them up?” (seriously that was about as witty as he got)

“Um, no. I mean like when you run a bath and it’s all super exciting at first and you just have to stick your foot in there and get in right away. But then you realize that the bath is not exciting, in fact it’s burning and overwhelming so you take your foot out as soon as you’ve put in there. You don’t give yourself time to acclimatize.”

At this point I’m looking at him for some reassurance that he at least partly understands what I’m saying. And in his Coor’s Light from a can (because Iqaluit doesn’t have glass bottles) induced haze he offers me this gem:

“Man, I don’t take baths, I shower.”

In the end I (my mind anyway) paid dearly for those few drinks.

Knife going in.

As of today I have a mere five sleeps to go. Five sleeps until I'm with my family. Five sleeps until my friends. Five sleeps until Ice Caps. Five sleeps until the most extensive shopping trip of my life.

So why am I sad to go?

Iqaluit means a lot of things to me. The main one being freedom. For the past three months I've answered to no one. When I want to go out at midnight on a week night, I do so. When I want to have Pop-Tarts for a supper, I eat them. When I don't feel like washing dishes for a week, they stay there.

My laundry is clean. I'm always on time for work. There are groceries in my fridge that I've purchased with my own money.

With the exception of bills and doing my own taxes, I have some how stepped into this pool called adulthood.

It really hit home the other night just how independent I am. This was while I was sitting on my couch in fear at three in the morning while some drunk person banged on the door and tried to find a way into my house. I realized with the exception of Sheena (and the cops), there was not one person here I could call to come rescue me.

Yeah, it was frightening.

Yeah, after talking to them through a securely locked door, they left.

Am I honestly going to miss this?

. . .

Totally.

I'm sad at losing what I've taken the time to build. The idea of going back to the way it was last year completely depresses me, it sucked on a personal level.

I've been debating changes. The main one being my living situation. I know I probably won't be able to do anything about it this semester, as it's just a month from the start of school. But come January I cannot honestly see me still living at home.

Options, options, options.

So sudden.

Iqaluit has no trees. Limited amounts of grass. It's bay only unfroze a couple weeks back. The sun hasn't shined in about five days and it's four degrees out right now. But man, the sunset is awesome here.

10 days! :)

That's a seventeen dollar deck of cards.

Last night instead of going to the bar with everyone else, Sheena and I took it easy and went to the movies. Knocked Up! is absolutely hilarious. I can't remember the last movie I saw that made me laugh so much. The cast was pretty much the same cast of 40 Year Old Virgin, it actually kind of worked though.

This morning I was greeted with the news that a sniper was trying to kill people down near where I work. AKA: No work for me today! Yayyy. He's still there right now and if he can hold off for a couple more hours, the store won't open at all. Yayyy.

It's an Iqaluit thing.

Tomorrow is Nunavut Day so I get the day off with pay at the Day Care and I'll get time and a half at NorthMart. Work absolutely dragged at both places this past week, so hopefully the pace will pick up a bit since it's just four days of work.

I will say this: My kids are all gorgeous.








And a tan one for the people who haven't seen me in three months:

It's that time of year, leave all our hopelessnesses aside.

My Dearest Meagan,

After spending the past thirty minutes working my ass off (literally) on the treadmill, I’ve come to the conclusion that exercise equipment and television do not mix (especially when you are of a reactive personality like I am and have physical responses to what’s happening on TV).

My foot has still not recovered from the last treadmill related incident.

So what is new with me? Pretty much everything I guess considering you haven’t seen me in roughly 76 days. Does that number break your heart like it does mine? The Day Care is going great again, the tumultuous couple of weeks that ruined my psyche awhile back are completely done and over with. Also, on Wednesday I cut back my hours at North Mart (now 65 hours a cheque instead of 80). Basically I go home two hours earlier on week days so I can actually accomplish things like dishes and feeding Scrambles.

I’ve made beautiful friends. I’ve honestly gained a best friend up here and I couldn’t be happier. I can’t remember a time where I’ve got a long with a person so well (which is amazing considering we spend something like 13 straight hours a day with each other). Her name is Sheena, she’s 23 and just graduated from MUN this year with a degree in English. We don’t have the same tastes in ANYTHING and it completely works. I refuse to use the overworked cliché of “opposites attract”.

There are others. There is another. We will discuss this further in a more appropriate setting.

The weather has been great this long weekend, shorts and t-shirts – no lie. Iqaluit absolutely went to town for Canada Day (minus the fireworks of course, as there is 24 hour sunlight). I’m excited to see what will happen for this next long weekend as July 9th is Nunavut day. Throat singing and wicked arts, oh my!

Well it’s only quarter to ten, but there are dishes to be washed and beds to be slept in.

Miss you,
Sarah :)

True stories.

Hi Sarah;

How are you doing this week? I don't have any news so this is probably boring for you.

Darryl phoned on Sunday from the Ottawa airport while he was waiting for his flight to Toronto. How long will he be in Winnipeg?

Today is Tuesday so I guess you're going grocery shopping today. The temp. today in St. John's is 8 degrees and in Iqaluit it's 7 according to Canada A.M. you guys will soon be caught up with us, how sad is that.

Take care and I'll call you later this week.
Love Mom

-------------------
RE: Tuesday Morning

Hey Mom,

This week is flying. Just like last week and the week before that. I'm back on the toddler/pre-school side again now and I couldn't be happier. Though some are still trying to stir the unstirable pot (if you know what I mean).

Darryl comes back tomorrow at noon according to Ashley. Though they are having trouble getting out of Winnipeg so it might be delayed. I hope he picked up the things on my Wal-Mart Wish List. Who knew I'd miss the place so much?

I caved in and bought more laundry detergent yesterday. It hurts to pay close to twenty dollars for the little mini bottle. Though I did get it on sale and my fifteen percent North Mart discount.

We will never catch up to you weather-wise because it will always be as windy as hell here (35km today). It's times like this I feel happy for tanning time between jobs. I need to warm my blood again somehow.

I checked my calendar and I haven't had a full day off since June 6th (when I took the time off because of hospital visits and pink eye). It's getting to me so I took this evening off (my first night off from North Mart in almost two weeks). I probably shouldn't have, it's not like I accomplished anything home tonight.

Is Poppy still in the hospital? Did he get back his test results?

Miss you,
Sarah :)

P.S. I did grocery shop. Cereal, Diet Pepsi, Bananas, Milk, Bread, Bagels and Yogurt. There are no surprises with me.

And since you're always curious:
Cereal (Sm. Box) - $8.99
Diet Pepsi (12 case) - $13.99
Bananas (Four) - $2.49
Milk (2L) - $8.97
Bread - $3.19
Bagels - $5.99
Yogurt - $8.89

If you came here on your own you'd be dead.

Tonight is my first night off in. . . forever. I got home from the Daycare about an hour ago and I've just been lying on my bed (well, Ashley's bed. Did I mention I switched apartments?) ever since.

I've only just recovered from a two-week long flu (dubbed the "Iqaluit flu", seems everyone gets it when they first come up). That, along with chasing kids and stocking shelves 80 hours a week has left me completely drained. I am a zombie.

I was hoping to do something productive tonight, but I honestly can't see me moving from this bed, it makes me neutral.

Don't get me wrong, I love it here. Already I'm making plans of how I can stay up here past the summer. But the idea of rent and -50C weather scares me too much.

First off, it's not getting warmer here yet (-22C today). Second, it's getting brighter (sun rises at 4am, sets at around 10pm). In another few weeks it will be 24 hours a day.

The people here are great. Inuit guys seem to have a thing for white girls and I've been asked out more times than I can count. The people I work with for the most part are very kind, and both places seem to understand that I can never truly give 100% of my effort because I have the two jobs and need to save energy for both.

I'm on the babyside of the Daycare now, something I enjoy. It is quiet and the kids are cute. I took some pictures of them today, I'll post when I get a chance. They love me (HARAH!! is what they always yell when they see me come in) and I love them right back because they are 100% less scary than the toddler/pre-school side.

K. That drained me. Please send your loving C/O my e-mail (which reminds me, Meagan I will try to return loving at some point this week).



Who wants to send me a care package?

Double Stuffed.

So what can I say about the past week and a day?

Lots.

But I'm tired.

Got a second job today at one of the Day Cares here. I'm in charge of the three year olds. Eek. The place seems nice and the kids are adorable, so it shouldn't be too terrible.

So from now out, I will be working 8:15am-3:45pm at the Day Care and 4:00pm-10:30pm at DJs. Can you say overload much? I have a feeling I will probably crash and burn (since it's only my first day at the Day Care and I already feel I have), but we'll give it a go for a couple of weeks.

Did I mention $?

Seems to be a great incentive.

I'd really like to write more about what's happening, but like I said, I'm tired.




Miss you.

It's no excuse to say you're easily led.

Today was my second day of work at DJs. I like it there, the staff is very friendly.

But might I just add,

Holly asked me a funny question the other day: Are there any hot guys up there?

To which I reply: Hell Yes.

I've never seen anything like it, there are so many six-foot-something-rugged-nice-hair guys in Iqaluit! It is so bizarre. And working at one of the most busiest places in town definitely allows me to size up everyone. It's just bizarre.

I dreamt I was pregnant (again) last night. I don't have many dreams that impact me out of sleep because I almost always know that I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming. But last night I woke up in panic with the kind of "What do I do? I can't have an abortion, can I? What is everyone going to say?" It took a long time for my conscious mind to convince the rest of me it was dream. I am getting sick of these.

I got a call to come in for an interview Monday morning at one of the day cares in town (don't ask me what it's called, it's got about four a's and six i's in it). I'm really excited because one of the two people I've actually met in town works there (her name is Ravee, RAH-VAY). It looks like a really nice place and the people seem cool so I hope I get it (plus it pays like double the store does!).

I keep buying Inuit art. :( A fabric painting and a soapstone carving has been added to the mix. So beautiful.

Jason (a guy I work with at DJs who is both a full time teacher and a full time manager at DJs, can you say KACHING) asked me today if I like it up here, and I surprised the both of us with a big "Yeah, I really do". And I mean it, I am completely enamored with the place.

I went for a walk the other day and ended up at the museum (again lots of vowels so don't ask me what it's called). The work is so beautiful and I wish I could take it all home with me. Here are some pictures from the walk.

The view from my window (taken from the road though).

See that field behind the houses? Nope, it's the bay. The ice right now is about twenty-five feet deep, it won't thaw until July.

Cool Nunavut license plates.

Formerly the beloved "The Snack", my brother remembers it fondly as it sadly burnt down on his birthday.

Only animals in town (other than the millions of dogs) are the GIANT ravens. I pee myself every time I'm near one, they are honestly the size of a large cat.

Funky school. The reason all the buildings are on poles is because it's hard to dig through frozen earth, because of this a lot of buildings in town have to have their sewage pumped because they are not connected to lines (kind of like a port-a-potty).

Front of the museum (see what I mean about the spelling?).

Some of the art. I loved this painting.

Made entirely out of caribou antler.

Made with whale bone, it was huge!

And for sale. . . ATCs!!!!!!!!! OH YEAH. I didn't buy one (they were $15 each), but I'm thinking I'll go back and buy the first one in the second row if it's still there.

So everyone who has ever been to S'ville knows about the FCP, aka The Food Center Parking Lot. Well Iqaluit has its own version in the North Mart front entrance, except people just stand around instead of park.

So to prevent it, another store in town blasts LOUD annoying music (either opera or middle-eastern/indianish music). So I took this video (which doesn't do it justice because I'm far away and the cold/snow is messing with the view, but you get the idea):

From the ocean to the permafrost.

Alright! I'm eating my words.

But $40? I can't even get a couple of liters of milk and a box of Special K Red Berry for that price.

But whatever the price ends up being, I know what I'm doing June 27th.

Day two in Iqaluit.

So today was my second day in the Arctic. After yesterday's exhausting minus thirty mood today was a welcomed change (only minus eighteen!).

This morning I woke up early (hard to adjust to the time difference) and relaxed for most of the morning. This afternoon Darryl and I went shopping for hangers and milk. I picked up my groceries yesterday, it broke my heart. Eighty dollar tukeys anyone? How about three dollar Kraft Dinner?

Picked up two boxes of Special K (they only sell tiny ones, no jumbo sizes), at eight dollars a piece I'm pretty sure my mind broke a little.

For supper Darryl took Ashley (his girlfriend) and I out to the "fine dining" of Iqaluit. The Frobisher Inn (conveniently located in Darryl's building along with the movie theatres, the bar, a convenience store and a coffee place) is just like the Holiday Inn with two exceptions. One, the prices: My hamburger? Twenty-two dollars.

The other difference: sellers. The Inuit come in and walk around while you are seated to try and sell you things. Carvings, jewellery, prints - all at really high prices. But the thing is they're beautiful. So. I suck. Artsy stuff is my weakness.

Haggling him down to $50, I bought this piece and so far do not regret it. Darryl has a thing for carvings, but my weakness is definitely the beautiful watercolours, screened and hand-drawn (like this one) pictures.

Iqaluit.

Here's a quick update of the last couple of days! Arctic is cold and very sunny.

2:02am
The journey begins! Shower and final packing time, and then off to the airport. . .

7:18am (now switching to Eastern time zone)


Just landed in Toronto’s Pearson airport. Despite the copious amounts of fog in St. John’s, we got and here on time (actually, 40 minutes ahead of time). The sun is absolutely glowing here, which is awesome since I know that the weather is even better in Ottawa.

Right now I’m debating what to be doing since I have about four hours before I have to go anywhere. I think I’ll choose finding a drink machine and watching some dl-ed television.

9:30am
It’s kind of weird, but when Darryl heard I had a four hour stop-over in Toronto he warned me “bring a book, because you’ll be bored”. And having been here before, I couldn’t imagine being bored! With more stores than the Avalon mall, the Toronto airport seems like it would be a hoping place.

Timeee. Isss. Slowww.

You forget that everyone around you is weary with travel. That there’s that constant nagging you’re missing your flight while perusing one of the two bookstores. And then there’s giantness. Everything is nowhere and trying to find something is near impossible.

So what have I been doing? Basically sitting in front of the sunshine-y window and watching episode after episode of Sex and the City (holy awkward naked parts with other travelers near). Sounds like it would be alright, but after the fourth episode and awkward too cheesy sandwiches and OH YEAH, KATE WINSLET, it gets to be too much.


I know, Kate, you love your American Express.

12:58pm
So I’m in the Hotel, the second flight from Toronto to Ottawa arrived early too. And the plane was wayyy nicer. I was one of three that were not wearing business attire. Now I’m starving. And hot. It’s like nineteen degrees here and that was huge jump from the minus eight that I left behind in St. John’s. It’s not really a good way to help adjust to Arctic temperatures. So. Hot.

4:44pm
One fruit and yogurt parfait, blueberry muffin and banana later. . .

Trying to nap is proving to make my feeling of nausea worst. It’s still absolutely gorgeous out and I’d like to go out and look around Ottawa but my exhaustion is winning the battle. I’m really craving juice and I know it’s just because I didn’t but some when I was at Wal-Mart. Juice de Pomme, s’il vous plait. :(

There really is every store imaginable across the street (Chapters and Michaels included), it sucks to not be able to buy anything. I’m sure North Mart doesn’t have the selection.

5:57pm
Finally figured out how to open the window, thank goodness. It’s six o’clock in the evening! It should not be this muggy. Opening the window graced me with the sight of the most intimidating intersection I’ve ever seen. If I counted right, a thirty-two lane intersection. The constant barmping would suggest this intersection is as hard to maneuver as it looks.


8:28pm
Ever since I got off the plane I’ve felt like absolute s-h-i-t. That was before. Before I found out that I had free access to the Hotel’s pool, Jacuzzi and sauna. So the last two hours have kind have gone pool-jacuzzi-pool-sauna-jacuzzi-pool.

I was so wrinkly by the time I got out that I was almost unrecognizable. There was only one other woman in the water area for the first half an hour. For the rest of the time, all three were solely mine! She was from Winnipeg and really nice and showed me how to use the Jacuzzi/sauna. She also tried to recruit me into the military. Now I feel awesome, like I could sleep foreverrr. :)

6:01am
Oh, these early morning. Last night I slept great, the pillows here are absolutely rockin’. I’d asked to buy one if it wasn’t so gross. Now I’m showered and semi-packed, debating how to get a cab here and cringing at the thought of paying another fair ($11.30 for something like three and half minutes).

Plus you all know how bad I am at hearing people, and it seems everyone here has an accent, it really makes me feel like an idiot saying “wha?” every ten seconds. Iqaluit in six hours!

6:31am
Ugh. I just looked in the mirror and my eye was bleeding. It was killing me all night so I’m not surprised. I probably caught frigging pink eye or something on the plane, stupid recycled air. Does bleeding even occur with pink eye? I honestly have no idea. I’m not sure what to do.

They say you should take your contacts out when something like this happens, but my glasses yesterday was making the pain worse because it was digging into the corner of me eye. I’m not good with this stuff. :/

11:43am


Dans la plane. Sex and the City is keeping me sober. I’m pretty sure my head is about to explode from the air pressure.



I'll give a real update when I get the chance. You know how they say getting a job is easy in Iqaluit? I had an interview (and got the job) in less than my first hour here.

Going out and coming in.

Today was one of those days that even though I'm stressing over the remainder of my exams, I'm feeling the love and happiness of everything.

I got my Delia's stuff today in the mail and everything is soooo super cute. I absolutely love the tops and I was worried about the pants because I thought the size I had ordered might have been too small, but if anything they are a little loose on me (which is something I can handle). Hawt stuff.

I also got a nice going away card from my Nanny and Poppy. They sent me two things that totally sum them up. From my Nan: a Bible verse on a little card that she says I have to take with me and read every morning and night so that I won't forget her and God. From my Poppy: a blank cheque that he says "I can fill out for what ever amount I think I'll need", he just signed the bottom.

Both these thing just make me feel happy and loved and just good all over. LOVIN' THE LOVIN'.

I also added to the growing pile of "stuff I bought for Iqaluit". It only occurred to me today that I won't get half of that stuff in my suitcase. What started out with two shopping bags of stuff ended up being nine, a box, a coffee percolator and a big bushy vest. I pray the coffee percolator makes it to the Arctic.