Buses and Cheese are cheap, Life is not.

Well it`s day 3 in geneva, and for those of you paying close attention, you will see that I am typing on a foreign keyboard. From here on all apostrophies will be denoted by é, and all y's will be denoted by z, that's right, z. the letters are switched on the french kezboard and I donét feel like correcing it everz god damn time. So here we are, everzthing went smoothlz except for the all nighter I pulled on the plane on the waz over. That in ombination with a mild hangover and lugging mz crap around downtown geneva with ann while she tried to find a post office almost made me faint, but I survived. Weàre stazing at a trailer park. Zeah thatàs right, thez have a trailer park in Swityerland. Itàs 7 k outside the main area of geneva, in a nice rural upper class european subdivision, right down bz the lake, and itàs nice. Strains of Hungarian and german can be hard everz night as we fall asleep. The citz itself is beautiful and extremelz well organiyed. Unlike this kezboard. If zou havenét alreadz noticed, Geneva is the French part of Swityerland. This is iritating to a point, as Ann is fluent in French and so gets all the glorz when weàre trzong to get places, because as usual, the French here have decided itàs not worth it to speak anz of their other national languages. So mz German sits collecting dust as it does in Canada. Weve spent the dazs walking around looking at the citz, marvelling at the standard of living in this countrz. We are trulz poor here. If zou want to get piyya at a restaurant, thatàs 20 bucks. And thatàs about the cheapest meal zouàll find. Everzthing is connected bz bus and train and tram, and verz well organiyed. We know down to the minute when each bus arrives at anz one stop, so getting around is a breeye. For 2 Euros or 3 Swiss Francs we can get on the bus and ride. The transfer is good for one hour. Everz car is an incrediblz expensive one, and polo shirts can run up to 680 Francs. Zou read that right. It is entertaining living here, zesterdaz we stumbled into the saturdaz morning market, and we were not sorrz. Delicious provisions from around the countrzside were on displaz. Prices hjigh as usual, but it was worth it. After enjozing the atmosphere wandering around, croissants in hand, we retreated to the waterfront of Lake Geneva and ate our baguette with 2 kinds of fresh cheeses and strawberries. We later finished our idealistic stereotzpical experience off with a bottle of wine and some sandwiches. I instantlz fell asleep for an afternoon nap in the tent after that. We got smart and started going to the grocerz store to top up our supplies, as itàs alittle cheaper than the restaurants. We shop at a chain called Co op that we now simpz refer to as Coop. I like to think that itàs called that because the second zou trz to paz for what zou bought, zouàre standing in deep shit. Weàve got a small set of pet names developing here. We know the Dollar equvalents are Swiss Francs, but what are the cents? Swiss Cents? Frankin cents sounded better and made us laugh.

We decided todaz that we wanted to Visit the Capital citz of Bern. The historz sounded stimulating in Annés Europe book , and thez speak German there, as most of Swityerland does, so I was excited to go and feel at home for awhile, but after arriveing here at the train station and finding out the trip was 90 Francs per person, needless to saz we said "F that". So here we sit, blogging, trzing to figure out what to do next. Our train leaves tomorrow morning for Montelimar, and hopefullz weéll get picked up bz the camp on our arrival. It will be nice to get free meals and speak to other travellers.

Signing off from a higher standard of living powered bz a lower income.

Loving life in the land of cheap buses and cheese, and expensive EVERZTHING else.

Sorrz, no pictzures since this computer doesnàt like mz USB able, but Iàll keep trzing!

Address

If anyone is bored, write to

c/o Village Camps
La Base du Cros
07150 Salavas
France

That's where I will be.

Here I go. . .

Lemons and France

Well - here we are, the last entry for who knows how long (hopefully not too long) but definitely the last entry in Guelph for awhile. I haven't started to pack my room yet, but I'm leaving most of my stuff in it for Bob to enjoy, he's my subletter and friend after all! Ann has booked a hostel/campground for us on the night of the 28th. She says camping is cheaper, and I am bringing my tent, so there you go. I found out I am probably in for the BioMed MSc, so Mack, maybe see you on the other side. Mack is considering it as well, if he doesn't go to BC. for me it would be a no brainer, but I think he likes it here. So I can barely form a coherent thought right now, but I know blogging is important so I'm doing it. Also could have something to do with the Porchclimbers we had 2 nights ago that made absolute chaos happen in our house. Mack and I became infatuated with ripping phonebooks in half so we did a couple of those, and let me tell you, 2 phone books can easily cover hundreds of square feet of floor space. Will is moving out today, Bob and Derek moving in. . . I'm moving out also. It's sunny, a little brisk, and the smell of potential and apprehension are both in the air. Reading Ann's blog it's apparent she's quite culture shock, so though we're good friends, at least until we both adjust we'll be little help to each other, ahah. Maybe living in a tent will do us both some good.

On top of all this our director emailed us today to tell us to know how to tie 3 knots. Bowline (no problem), clove hitch (crap), and figure eight (no prob - ) on a bight (damn!). So got some review to do. No problem, got all day!

Oh well, time to pull all my shit together and turn this mother out. I'm sure getting to our destination will be an experience, so I will update on that when I get a chance. No guarantees on pictures but I'll try. Here goes nothing.

When life deals you lemons, make porchclimbers!

dropping the ball in the green green grass

Bought the R1 - now I'm happy. Takes great pics. France is creeping up. Got a new pile of exams to mark yesterday, I tore through most of the stack, got 16 left. . . But seriously, forget the boring stuff, let's get back to what this blog's really about: nothing. As you can see, the grass is green. Which is nice.
You know where that comes from? That "Which is nice" phrase? Caddyshack. Yank made me appreciate the genius of that movie when we first lived together. He loves it because Bill Murray is a damn genius in it. He was only supposed to have a minor role and apparently ended up ad-libbing so much absolute gold they couldn't leave it out. Talk about stealing the stage. There's one sequence (you can google it if you want to hear it exactly) where Bill is talking to Chevy Chase (I think), and he's making up absolute bullshit, and this is what comes out of his mouth:
"So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one -- big hitter, the Lama -- long, into a ten-thousand foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. And do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga...gunga -- gunga galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice."

sheer genius.

Right - green grass. It's been hot here for some time now, and the trees are bustin' those buds out and the grass turned green real quick. April showers are helping the whole process along. Yesterday was Will's birthday. He's 23. Jay and I drank here with will with hockey on the TV all night. Not my normal idea of a good time - but it was fun. I wanted to go out somewhere, but that's not Will's idea of a good time, so since he was the birthday boy. . . Also Mack was NOT here, I repeat NOT here after promising to BE here. For his room mate's birthday. Mack, you dropped the ball, Will was sad.

I might add that I turned 25 the other day, but I won't add that since that's neither here nor there.

So now it's time to get back to marking and get my life in order. Think I might have to go out again tonight. . .

on hold

So here I am - on hold with Mastercard. How did I get like this you ask? (cue rewind sound)
It all started yesterday. I made my decision. I had to have the Nikon D50. The camera looked sweet and made the most sense. I walked over to Black's to see if they had it, and what the competition was like. They were nice. They told me I could get the price matched even 2 months after I bought it if I found it cheaper somewhere else - tough to beat. I got home and found a website I like to buy from offering it cheaper. Having tried it and liked it at the store, I made the order. I also ordered a memory stick for $90 from them. Better prices than Black's. . . After going to bed I realized that after shipping and taxes, the price wasn't that far off of Black's, and that Black's offered some free corel software, 25 free prints, a 1 hour lesson on the camera, and warranty support. . . hmm. This morning after I woke up I cancelled the camera but kept the memory stick order. Also ordered some batteries yesterday for it. Took the camera home and messed around with it, realising I couldn't see pictures with it until after I took them. F-that. I need live preview. What's the point in a digital SLR if you can't see what the fuck you're taking until after you took it ? All it does is save the money on film, nothing else.
The sony DSC-R1 I've had my eye on is reputedly better quality, with a live preview, just you can't take the lens off. But the lens is way better so I probably wouldn't want to, especially travelling. I wouldn't want to lug lenses all over the friggin planet with me for different scenarios. So that's that. I went back, got a refund. This morning my credit card wouldn't go through. Turned out it hadn't refunded the money from the transaction I cancelled earlier today yet. . . The lady on the phone told me it might take up to a month for that to happen. Well I can't afford that. If I need emerg money in france I need a damned credit card. So I called, got the limit raised. All is well in the kingdom of life now. Going to the Sony store tomorrow morning to claim my prize.

Brought my acceptance in today for psych. . . yay. don't care. Hopefully Francesco will tell me I can go through Biomed.

Going to call the Greek Garden and see if they have an olive barrel I can have for trip. They're probaby going to look at me like I have three heads, but I'm cool with that.

Tomorrow I will spend way too much money on outdoor crap and this camera. What's money for though right?

Here is the only pic I saved from my 1 day stand with the D50.

interlude

This is where I'm working. . . 1 mile away from Pont D'Arc.

When I saw that cave painting it put it all into context. I'm officially stoked.

http://www.ardeche-holidays.com/temps-03.htm

Motorcycle manuals and Shoeless Marcus

So now I'm writing because I enjoy writing in my blog. Well, I guess when you really think about it, that's why I always write in my blog. What I mean is today I have no intended topic. I just want something unexpected, interesting, and a little funny - like silly string - to come out of my fingers. That's a simile, not a genuine expectation that I have. But seriously, imagine silly string did come out of your fingers? You know I just realized I didn't make that up. Dane Cook made that up. It was in a bit about what you would do if you had your choice of super powers, and Dane's choice was to have spaghetti dispense from his finger tips. The sound effect that accompanied it was a fart sound every time he shot it. It was more of an embarrassment tool against others than anything else.
A funny thing happened on the way to MEC:
So a couple of days ago I convinced Alaina and Bob to come to MEC with me. I was going to get that first item off the list: the shoes that would prevent future foot impalations. It's frickin' impossible to get Merrell or Teva water shoes in this part of Canada, even (especially) online. So finally I decided the ones the MEC website had weren't that bad, a pair of Solomons. I didn't feel like going it alone, so I invited Alaina and Bob to stop studying and come with me, and they obliged. We motored down the 401, in and out of traffic jams, and the first stop was the Camp Kandalore office. Mike Moore, the owner, was there to give me my camera, the one I won in the Our Kids Go to Camp photo contest. I need to ebay this thing, stat, before the value depreciates. If you have any friends interested in a camera, go ahead and bid on it, the auction's here:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7609711471

7 day auction, started the 12th of april, so get in on it while the price is down, cause trust me, it will go up.

Anyway, now that that advertisement's over. . . On we pressed. We made our way into the downtown core, and Alaina directed us to the MEC parking garage. We parked and, hungry as all hell, walked right past the store entrance to Shoeless Joe's right down the road. Zofia, the Slavic server, was curteous, but took for fucking EVER to get our bill and things to us. We got out of there and walked to MEC. It was 7:50, and lo and behold they were god damned closed. I won't say it was a wasted trip, but it sure as hell wasn't what I expected. Alaina thought they closed at 9, and none of us double checked that so. . .
Anyway looks like I will have to go back to solve that problem. Now I have a stack of finals to mark though, so going to have to put a dent in that while I'm at it. . .

Usually I have a story about what some dumbass did when I was on my way to this or that, and I'm sitting here thinking "I must have seen some dumbass do something dumb assed in the recent past, no?" YES! On the way back from MEC - or I should say dinner in TO - we drove through the darkness, the sun had just gone down. We came up on a group of three motorcyclists, crotch rocketeers. I could barely believe what I saw, the leader of the pack, up 5 cars or so and a few lanes over from us was pulling a wheelie. He was going 140, at least. I know that cause that's how fast we were going and he was peeling away like we were parked. He held the front tire up in it's manual for what seemed like an eternity, even changed lanes with the wheel in the air, illuminated from the bottom up by the headlights of the no doubt panicking drivers behind him. When his wheel touched down the sped off and the others wove through traffic to catch up with him. That's the guy you don't want to meet through a friend and get stuck with. I guarantee he has the IQ of a jar of mayonnaise.

To close off I wanted to make some joke about shoeless Joe's and shoeless Marcus, but I think I just did. Besides, that's a bad joke anyway.

And we're back - on a bee line with insanity

So my 10 day stint in Kingston has finally come to an end. I met some cool people and some crazy people, and if you were to draw a Venn diagram you would see that there was some overlap between the two. The dynamic was such that the laughter and appreciation for rediculous situations that many of us had as students became contagious and affected the instructors as well. By the end it was inappropriate jokes all around. We laughed, we cried, we cleared spines. Also I learned a tremendous amount. It wasn't the physiology that was so much new to me, as the techniques for manipulating it for the better of a person's health. I feel now as though if I came onto the scene of an accident, in the urban or wilderness context, that I would be capable of being just what I am supposed to be, a First Responder.
For info on what the course entails check out http://wildmed.ca/coursewfr.htm
All I have to do now is see if Dave Graham, our director, or ODG as we like to call him, will sponsor part of the course. He's just gonna have to. So now the insanity begins. I just have a jumbled mess of ideas and things I need to get done before France, and I need to impose order on them. Impose order on chaos, that's what they tell us in the WFR world. We'll see about that. My guess is once this is all done I'm going to need Advanced Life Support. Here's my plan though: Figure out where in France the camp should pick me up from: notify the camp.
Be on time for the final I have to invigilate tomorrow morning, mark that shit.
Go to my two dentist appointments and have my crown replaced (fuck).
Get gear for spring/summer, and make sure I have the money for it. In order of importance:
New river shoes so I don't get a stick in my foot: see entry on Noire river
A new camera (yikes)
Footprint for my tent
New dry sack
Pelican Case for new camera.

I think that's it for now.

Sent off my stuff for the WRT1 course in the summer, hopefully they get it and all goes well.
Also got a letter from the psych dept. offering grad studies for next year, and my mom couldn't figure out why I just didn't care - it's cause that's plan B, I want to go through a different dept, but at least the offer's on the table. Going to meet with my supervisor about that today.

Also I need to get a porchclimber party in, around the 24th it's scheduled. Game on.

Funny story: The other morning we learned how to do spine stable car extrications. They're useful since pretty much anyone who's been in a car wreck has a potential spinal injury. There were some cool techniques, so for the final simulation (the big last one where people get evaluated) a bunch of us were victims. I guess we were kicking ass in the course so we didn't need to do the final. . . Here was the story. A man was changing a tire by the roadside with his pregnant wife waiting in the back seat. A second car sped down the highway, the driver acting as an ambulance driver for his friend who was going into anaphylactic shock. He lost control of the car and hit the car of the man changing the tire. That made 6 victims. Add to that Chris and I, who were lumberjacks felling a tree of the roadside who were severely injured in an unrelated incident and unconscious on the ground, bleeding to death. That's 8 victims. To set up the scene my friend Rob (yes, just one more Rob for this blog) pulled his car up to Chisy's (the man changing the tire). All doors were opened, engines running, stereo blasting David Bowie's "under pressure" and Rob leaning on the horn. Blood everywhere, clothes torn, exposed bones protruding through skin, spinals and severe deadly bleeds. It was a shitstorm. The rescuers ran onto the scene and adrenaline ran high as they tried to suss out the situation. It was a couple of minutes before someone finally achieved the calming effect of pulling Rob off of the car horn and turned the car off. After several minutes, our rescuers had stabilized the scene. Important holes were plugged, people's heads were stable and in good hands. Neil, one of the instructors navigated through the scene, video camera in hand, asking rescuers about their patients for the purposes of watching after to assess what was done right and what could have been done better. Then it happened, and it was all on tape. My friend Amy had a victim stable in the palms of her gloved hands. She was taking pulse and breathing readings, and busily reporting them to the incident commander. A man pulled up on the road next to the field we were on. He got out of his car, and didn't flinch at the bloody bodies strewn across the field and the rescuers running back and forth from victim to victim doing all they could. He walked into the midst of our triage and didn't blink. Obliviously, on tape, he asked Amy "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but would you be able to give me some directions?" Amy looked dumbfounded. Neil stood there with the camera and looked at Amy. Neil usually has all the answers but now his face was only questions. Amy shook her head back at him indicating her guess was as good as his. The man proceded to bend down showing her his map, ignoring the victim whose face he essentially covered with his map. For lack of better recourse Amy began to help him, still bewildered. The best thing she could think of doing was leave a bloody thumbprint on the map, which was a pretty good idea, and then tracing blood lines all over it as she pointed out where he should go. He thanked her, and in no hurry, ambled off of the scene. Unbelievable. That situation was topped only by the oblivious Pierre who answered his cellphone twice during the scenario, like nothing serious was going on. Keep in mind this was a final exam. Pierre was on camera, patient laying unconscious next to him, saying "no, well I can't really talk right now, but if you'd like to call me back later tonight, I'd loooove to talk to you."

Unbelievable
Un - Believable.

what to do when you live on the floor

So yeah - hello from K town. I'm leeching internet from a cable that plunges into the depths of Ian's housemate's room. It runs sneakily under her door, and then I don't know where it goes cause I've never been in there - Ian hooked it up for me. She gets back tonight, and I hope she's nice because I am the unknown guy who is leeching internet from her room and made her house smell like curry and peanut sauce; and she HATES peanut butter. Found that out right before I made it. Ian told me to make it anyway. Things are going just dandy here. Ian's fridge has lots of room. He's a great host. I was here not 15 minutes and he had a key cut for me so I can let myself in and out throughout the day. His apartment is right downtown K town, practically on Princess st. It's a really cool location in a town that's not nearly as daunting to learn the geography of as I first imagined. I guess drunk memory isn't great memory. I stocked up on the old groceires which I hide under his kitchen table, save for the perishables. I eat my oatmeal every morning at 7:30, then I make my lunch, grab my gear, and walk the block to my car, which is parked in a non descript section of road, one of the only in the friggin' city not marked for the death and destruction of those who park there over night. I get in the car and zip across town to the West campus of queen's, and I walk up to an old stone house within which the magic happens. The days are long but the people are so rediculously interesting and funny that it doesn'ty matter. A lot of the content is a review or a spin on what I enjoyed most about my degree: physiology, pathology, neuroscience, so that makes it easy. We have learned some new and interesting things though. Also some new protocols are being added with the 80 hour that will allow me to reduce simple dislocations, and to give epinephrine for a severe asthma attack. Pretty cool things that could help me and a patient out immensely on trip, that god forbid I would ever have to use. Also learned to give infant CPR today, that was fairly new to me. . .

It's only day 3 but I know I'm going to miss the course, since I've already forged a few solid bonds, and how can I help but be interested surrounded by the likes of people who have canoed 2300 km qat a time in a 30 ft voyageur canoe on canadian heritage routes. The only complaint I have is that I am tired as all hell, so I hope that doesn't affect my retention. Kinda hard to decide when to go to bed when it involves shutting down someone's entire living room. Such is life!

That picture has nothing to dow ith the course by the way, but I like it and it's one of a limited selection on the old Tablet, so fuck it. Look at it and enjoy.

Love you,

Marcus