So in between being a complete bum and skate-rat I've actually been ridiculously productive. Last month I became incredibly sick, I went out on a Friday night and when I woke up on Saturday my body was unusually sore, by Saturday night I was in full-blown flu mode. I'm talking can't get out of bed waking up in a cold-sweat haven't eaten in 3 days full-blown flu. To make matters worse I'd picked up what I thought might be pneumonia but was diagnosed as a lung viral infection. I was coughing so violently and so often that I somehow tore open my sinuses or whatever and was spitting up/blowing out mucus-blood constantly. Not just watery spit blood, oh no, more the consistency of half-dried paint and the colour of...blood. This illness resulted in me missing 2 days of class, but it could have been 5 if that wouldn't have resulted in me failing. The cold was fierce and persistent for 6 days and on the 7th I felt the turning point, at the worst of it I physically could not speak. So in addition to the 2 days there was 1 additional absence from the Mexico trip plus 1 tardiness in the month of March. Anyone else would have failed from the docked marks but I got my monthly mark the other day and I passed with an 81%. He also gave me an 86% on a vegetarian plating that was a near disaster. I cooked it while in the middle of the flu because I had no choice and an hour in I almost walked out of the kitchen because it was going so badly.
There's been a lot of productivity in my life outside school. I found a really beautiful room for rent just down the street, it's in the home of 2 charming young girls, they like to bake and they're environmentalists and they're into geology and all kinds of cool stuff. Today I ran into one of them at a protest for cleaner rivers. The rent is fair and the location is ultimate and the room is ridiculously small just how I like it. I've gotten myself 2 jobs, the first is a legit job in a busy bistro that floats off the pier downtown. Gonna cook there 2 nights a week and when I graduate they're gonna give me 5, plus the chef and sous-chef are certified which means I can clock the apprentice hours I need to graduate this year. The 2nd job is kind of a BS job in a hotel, it's called "casual" which means I only work when they need me.
On Thursday I met my friends Brodie, Lewis and Steve down at one of the piers downtown, my friend Taylor was with me. The plan was to catch 5 crabs, bring 'em to my place and have a BBQ, but it took too long to catch 5 legit ones (plus there was an unscheduled break at the pub) so we just boiled them. We had a close encounter with a couple seals and also a kind of intimidatingly close-encounter with a big old bald-eagle. The eagle in this photo was about 10' away from us, Brodie threw some bait in the air and it made an amazing dive-catch with it's kick-ass talons. So amazing. Brodie joked that an eagle's thoughts at all times must be "damn I rule, I am the coolest".
Clockwise: Me, Lewis the ginger, Taylor, master-chef Brodie, and Ottawa-Steve who's been to Ottawa so I'll call him Ottawa-Steve.
A few weeks ago Kassie and I went to Vancouver fairly spontaneously, we got there at 10:30pm and met my cousin Alex and partied all night. We went to the weirdest house-party I've ever been to, it was in some kind of abandoned office-building but the building looked like it hadn't seen activity in 50 years, for real. It was kind of crazy. Alex is the best, so amazingly hospitable. Kassie and I got home after he'd gone to bed and we were soooo disruptive, he reprimanded our poor showmanship by being a perfect gentleman. I didn't see Katie Swinwood which was horrible but there isn't much separating us so that's OK, plus I think I'm moving to Vancouver in September when the tourist season ends in Nanaimo.
I'm way too full of energy lately, God love summer in B.C...so damn good for the soul. God love Indiana Jones too...and hell, God love finding fiery orange tie-dyed Neil Young And Crazy Horse tour t-shirts at Value Village.
No new tattoos to report.
