Day 2 all over again...

Okay, some things to report: a cigarette relapse on my 11th day. I felt like a heel as soon as I cracked the pack - damn school pressures but no excuse really. So now I'm on day 2 of the patch again. So much essay writing to be done over the next month and all I want to do is get out into the mountains and hike. I got some of my vaccinations for Africa yesterday, a small amount of yellow fever is coursing through my veins at this moment (it hasn't given me much more than a headache).

Back on Vancouver Island at the moment at my mom's place in Qualicum Beach. I always feel as if I've come home when I stay in this town. I went out with Tracy and her new boyfriend Mike tonight to see the Errington Coffee House performances. A couple of decent bands performed and a soloist did a pretty good rendition of "Smoke gets in my eyes" amongst others. I love the small community atmosphere of this place, the coastal rainforest all around, I even enjoyed the rain that came when I got to Qual, which is something odd to enjoy in early May.

I went with Dave and saw "Live and Become" at Fifth Avenue cinemas. It told the story of a young Ethiopian boy who escapes the Ethiopian famine by disguising himself as a jew so that he might escape to Jersusalem with the rest of the Falushas (I think they were called). A very good film the focused on the boy's life as he grew up and desperately tried to construct an identity for himself in this foreign land always knowing that his only true wish was to return to his mother in the refugee camp in the Sudan. The film ends with him returning to his homeland to work with doctors w/o borders. He sees his mother, and grasps her to himself (she is a mere wisp of a woman after years of poverty). When he does so she lets out a wail of uncontrollable sadness. It's hard to describe the sound, it's not high pitched crying, it was a low and endless bellow. If sadness could be described in sound, that would be it.

Also saw Brokeback Mountain, damn Ang Lee. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon made me want to travel to China given his luscious cinematography and consideration of landscape as a backdrop to events. The movie was all it was played up to be, beautifully sad. But the scenery, those jaw-dropping high alpine meadows, lakes, and mountains of Alberta. Sometimes I miss the prairies and the mountains of my youth to a great degree. Never more than seeing that film. I've really got to get myself a vehicle and climb and trek in the Rockies on of these days.

Good news to report about the Cabinda article, I'd sent it to the editors of Adbusters hoping to get it published. I hadn't heard anything for a few days until Kale Lasn, owner and publisher of Adbusters, contacted my through e-mail and asked me to send him the article. Fingers crossed, if I could get the full article in Adbusters it would be would be a Godsend.

I'm now of the state and mind that a 4th season with Apex as a brusher might not be what I really want to do with my life. I've decided to apply for a position with Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO) for a 2 year volunteer position in Africa after I graduate. Hopefully doing development and sustainable economy work in Burkina Faso or Ghana. I intend to e-mail their African director with my interest pretty soon even though graduation now looks like it's going to take 1 more semester and a summer semester before graduation.

Signing off....