Category Archives: travel

13.04.14 [Sunday]
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campbell river, sports, travel

time and work

Yesterday I watched a documentary about the Chinese artist/dissident Ai Weiwei. The scenes where he was in Chengdu made me miss China. Not that I was especially happy when I was living in China, but visiting China after my term was done? I loved it.

Maybe I just miss being on vacation. I know from Australia that working five days a week wears me down. After easter I was joking with some of my coworkers about how I could get used to that 3-day work week/4-day weekend cycle. But it wasn’t a joke exactly. I totally wish my job was a (predictable) part time one. Especially here in Campbell River where I do not need to be working as much as I do to pay my rent (as opposed to Vancouver or Sydney).

I mean, I like making enough money I don’t have to put off buying groceries till my paycheque comes in. I don’t want to make less per hour, just work less. Socking money away in a bank account is something I’ll appreciate eventually (when Aileen and I hit the trans-siberian for example), but for now it’s not exactly providing a huge amount of pleasure for me the way lazy long weekends do.

But I have vacation time coming, and I’m taking it in San Francisco. The Jays are playing two games against the Giants the first week of June and I’ll be there. I bought tickets yesterday and had to fight very hard to not spend hundreds of dollars on each one.

I got one seat behind the plate-ish along the home-3rd base line (which is my favourite place to watch a ballgame from even if it is thirty rows further up from where I’d get them at a Goldeyes game), and the other by the Giants bullpen lined up along the 2nd-3rd basepath. I’m hoping Lawrie’s back with the big club and isn’t injured so I can watch him do his thing fairly closely. It’s too bad about Reyes’ ankle injury.

Sometimes I think about my time here in Campbell River being something like my time in Wanzhou. When I do that it feels more manageable. I mean, I couldn’t possibly go to San Francisco for a week or Vancouver for a weekend from Wanzhou. And I made it through those years all right. But I worked a lot less as a mediocre teacher.

Sigh.

That’s my infrequent update on what is happening in my non-reading life. (For my reading life, as always check Librarianaut)

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13.03.11 [Monday]
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books, campbell river, library, travel, vancouver

the ol’ walk’n'talk

The other day I went out walking. It’s spring now, so the sun comes out sometimes and then it’s pleasant to see what there is to see. And for the first time in a long time – maybe even ever when I’ve been out by myself without a more talkative companion – I chatted with a busker for something like ten minutes. I see him at the library all the time so it’s not like he was a complete stranger or anything. We talked about Stalingrad and the shittiness that was WW2′s Eastern Front, topics we knew through History Channel documentaries, wargames and Hollywood movies.

Last week I went to Gold River, and before we started work we stopped for coffee. In the coffeeshop there was another table of four who were talking about someone they all knew who’d hit some ice and then the ditch just last week. It’s weird having a conversation in a small place where you know whatever you say will be clear to everyone around you and that they aren’t anonymous strangers but know who you are, or can find out. This was the day after Hugo Chavez died but I couldn’t draw my coworker into a discussion of South American politics, possibly for that reason. More likely because we didn’t have much interesting to say about Chavez. Though I did try to talk a bit about Chavez’s love of baseball.

I’m looking forward to the BCLA conference this year. I’m going to be on a couple of panels talking about things I find cool (breaking digital locks and indie comics), and interesting people are going to be talking ’bout cool shit on others. I’ve been going to Vancouver more recently, and I think it’s important for me to keep doing it. Just talking with friends and colleagues puts me in a much different (better) mindset for being here. Reading a lot just isn’t the same.

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13.01.24 [Thursday]
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books, campbell river, comics, library, teaching, travel, vancouver

hanging up a coat in an empty town on literacy day

The other day I wore my Tibetan coat inside the library and was told I looked very urban. Which was funny because I was only wearing the coat inside because I was waiting to go up to Sayward with my boss to see the branch there, which is very rural.

Sayward is about an hour north of Campbell River, and it is a tiny place. It was a foggy drive so I wasn’t able to see as much of the countryside as I would have liked, but there were mountains that appeared when the fog had gaps. And mossy forests that I saw one deer/elk trying to escape the highway into.

But the town itself doesn’t even have a grocery store. If people want more than general store milk and eggs they’ve got to drive an hour down to Campbell River. That seems crazy to me. It seemed crazy to a non-librarian friend of mine that the library branch was in a strip mall, but I had no strong feeling about that.

I’ve had a bit of a tense week because today was Family Literacy Day and it was the first event I’d done to sort of integrate with other community development projects in town. That one of the literacy coordinators was there to help made me that much more aware that I didn’t really take classes in early literacy type things at school. I feel fine doing storytimes and stuff, but really focusing on what kinds of words they’re learning gets a bit wonky for me. My sleep this week was interrupted with lots of inadequacy thoughts I remember from teaching in China. I definitely see myself as a librarian not an “educator” or “literacy expert” though I guess if I keep doing this kind of thing I’ll learn.

But it all worked out. We read some stories, I talked about community and we made “comics.” Nobody decried my event as being terrible and built a rail line to run me out of town on. Now I can relax secure in what I’m doing until my gaming for kids events start up.

On Saturday I’m heading into Vancouver, where one of my awesome librarian colleagues is visiting from Calgary. It means I miss our library’s post-holiday potluck party here, but it’s been almost 3 months since I was in the Lower Mainland. ‘Tis time.

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12.10.21 [Sunday]
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campbell river, food, games, travel, vancouver

legitimately singing along with johnny cash

Last week I drove down to Nanaimo the day after buying my new old car (a black 2001 2-door VW Golf), which was good. Got some initial bonding under way. The drive taught me how owning a car is much more fitting with my personality than owning a home was. It feels much less hypocritical to enjoy songs about wayfaring strangers and such on a car stereo (with a tape deck!) than a home theatre system.

Now the next time I have to move across the country I’ll be able to do something like sell off everything except what fits in the hatchback and perform a soft reset. Not that I’m planning on leaving – Campbell River is treating me well – but it is good to have a back door open.

Anyway. I made cookies yesterday. The recipe was lower in oat content than I remembered, but they weren’t terrible. At some point I’ll probably have to buy an electric mixer/egg beater kind of thing, because smooshing butter and sugar together till it’s smooth is a lot of work with a fork.

Next weekend I’m going into Vancouver for a Halloween D&D party. I hope my costume arrives in time.

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12.09.25 [Tuesday]
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travel, vancouver, winnipeg

leaving the city for the town (that’s technically a small city)

Last night I hung out with library school friends drinking beers and generally talking about how much we like each other and should see each other more often. And today I leave for Campbell River.

I was out on the island over the weekend, moving my crap in, and I think I’ll like CR. There’s a pier where people fish from, and it has communal fishgutting tubs. There’s a bookstore and a toyshop with reasonable amounts of Lego. My apartment is the big “standard of living” jump this job’ll give me. Two bedrooms and a view of Discovery Passage and a 5 minute walk to work.

I looked at an apartment that was right on the water, and that I could also have afforded. My bedroom in that one would have had a view of the Quadra Island lighthouse. But the place was too big, too nice. I would never have felt really comfortable there, like it was really mine. The place I got is smaller and a bit shabbier, but I feel like I fit it, even better than my old condo back in Winnipeg (and none of the condo corp responsibilities/aggravations).

So yes, I’m on my way out there now. So long Vancouver; I still like you. Vancouver friends, you’re pretty great, and I’ll be back to visit before Xmas I’m pretty sure.

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12.08.31 [Friday]
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games, library, school, travel, vancouver, winnipeg

i have a new job (on vancouver island)

Today I finish up my last bit of work for my MLIS degree (my professional experience moderating TeenRC.ca) and a couple of hours ago I got a phone call offering me a job as a librarian in Campbell River BC, out on Vancouver Island. It’s been a good day.

So Campbell River is a small town on the eastern side of the island. The branch there is a hub for five surrounding very small libraries whose collections we also manage. My job is as a Children’s/Youth librarian and they really want to develop their teen programming and services so I’m being given an almost blank slate to be working with. They already have a Teen Advisory Council set up, and my boss is really proud of the teens up there. So it should be a good time.

The branch is small and I’ll get on-desk time covering both Adult and Children’s services, which is great. I know that another library in the library system does D&D nights so there’s precedent for me to get some gaming into this library if the members are into that.

Morning ferry

I’ve never lived in a small town before so we’ll see how that part of everything works, but it’ll be somewhere new and hopefully means I’ll have more to write about. It’s going to be so nice to unsubscribe from all my jobfeeds.

Thank you everyone who’s been nice to me while I’ve been kind of down this summer. I’ve complained a lot about the soul-grinding nature of jobhunting, but I have been lucky enough to get interviews, and now I’m going into full-time work. Which is weird. My plan is to save money for doing the Trans-Siberian trip in the next couple of years since I’ll be making money and won’t be in a big city to spend it.

A week from today I’m going to go to Winnipeg for a week. It’s been a year and a half since I was there for my grandma’s funeral. I planned this a while ago as a break from the accursed hunt, but now it’ll be much more fun without my lack of income to pay October’s rent looming.

I’ll also try to write more now that I’m no longer wasting all my energy on cover-letters.

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12.08.06 [Monday]
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games, travel, vancouver

update for my mom to show her i am not dead

This past week it felt like everyone went off on exciting roadtrips. Except me. I’m still here applying for jobs in many places. There are two really interesting jobs in Toronto I applied for, and there’s a lot of appeal in packing up all my stuff in a U-Haul and driving it across the country. But then it’d be another round of getting to know a new place and finding friends and all of that, which I am getting a little tired of. I’m applying for jobs here too. I know people who’ve gotten jobs here straight out of SLAIS. It is possible.

Last week I learned to play Agricola (emphasis on the GRIK with a short I sound) and croquet. I was accused of being a hipster when I enthused about croquet. Which I found a little odd because I was actually enthused, not ironically-jaded-enthused. Maybe I’ve misunderstood hipsterdom completely.

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12.06.26 [Tuesday]
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travel

i’ll return across three biomes tomorrow

I should probably look that up to see if I’m misusing the word “biome” but I’m thinking Canadian Shield, Prairies and the Rockies. Currently I’m in Toronto, where I’ve completed all nine interviews I came here for. Some of them were really interesting. Some were less so. I saw way more of Ottawa than I have before, and had a good couple of days in Montreal and Kitchener too (thanks to Kate Aileen & Bruce for letting me stay with them).

Sadly, I’m getting swamped with work and have to hole up on the ol laptop tonight rather than enjoy any fun things Toronto might have to offer. I did get to Bakka-Phoenix Books this morning, and am now at the Reference Library. Snakes and Lattes looks very cool but I wasn’t quite confident enough to go in, grab a table and a game you can play solitaire for hours and just play.

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12.04.06 [Friday]
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school, travel, vancouver

opening week

My mom is off to France, heck, she might even be there soon, and I am done school for the term. Many of my classmates are now done school for good, which is a little weird. Weird that we don’t all finish together, I mean. I don’t have the great cathartic sighs of relief, since I’ve still got two and a third classes over the next four months. Plus doing interviews for a book we’re working on.

The good thing is that remaining a student leaves me able to work in Graduate Research Assistant positions over the next few months. I’ll hopefully be doing a bunch of video production work for one of my profs, and right now I’m doing a whack of content management stuff for SLAIS’ new MA in Children’s Literature website (which isn’t up yet).

The wonderful bit about this kind of work is that I can do it on my own with a baseball game on. The Jays have new uniforms and hey, maybe this is the year they’ll play meaningful September ball. I enjoyed the hell out of their first victory of the season yesterday, but really, I just like watching games.

I was looking at my history of being here in Vancouver and I noticed that this month till the summer classes begin is my first time I’ve really spent in Vancouver without school going on. I ran off to China and Australia at the ends of my previous semesters, so I’m going to have to remember that there isn’t any meeting with people in my classes that will just happen because I’m sitting in a chair near somewhere they are going. If I’m going to see my friends I have to contact them. Which will be difficult but I’ll do my best. It’s a time for hope.

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12.04.02 [Monday]
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books, comics, games, travel Aside

I’m back from Seattle and Emerald City Comicon (ECCC). It was my first big mainstream comics convention and it was pretty fun. I saw Wil Wheaton do readings, indie gamers do their thing, met a bunch of webcomic people I’ve followed for years, bought some books, watched an amazing reading of the Star Wars radio play by a pile of voice actors, saw Marian Call sing and a pretty great night of improv. Good times.

clicked my ruby heels and here i am

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