Carrie’s Ramblings

Scuba diving0
Carrie posted in Recreation on November 25th, 2008

With the rivers and lakes finally frozen over I thought it was appropriate to post some pictures of the scuba diving I did this spring. I took the certification course through Confederation College with a friend of mine who was teaching the course (the college course…the scuba course was part of the college course). Well, we flew through the in-class component and pool part but had to wait a couple of months for the ice to leave the lakes so we could finish off the open water components. We did 4 dives in 2 days in Lake Superior and a small, deep, clear lake call Oliver Lake. Oliver Lake is a local teenage party hotspot and we were careful to avoid touching the bottom as it was littered with broken beer bottles and fishing lures. Real classy. But as a result it meant that there were really interesting things to look at. The instructor had an underwater camera and took some pictures of us while we were down. It was another one of his sales pitches (don’t even get me started) but it resulted in some cool pictures. I’ve posted them on Facebook finally and included the link here.

After spending two beautifully sunny days outside and underwater, I stayed up until 2 in the morning then got up again at 4 am to finish my thesis presentation and defend it.  I might have a prioritisation issue.

Movie magic0
Carrie posted in What's happening on November 19th, 2008

As winter has settled on the region I’ve been feeling way less adventurous and more hermit-like.  The bouldering wall in the basement means that people often spend their evenings here mucking about in the basement but they usually bring food and we often have big potlucks.

Holly has been visiting for the last week and a half, so we’ve had lots of parties and getogethers to maximize our time with her.  It’s been a lot of fun with her around and we’ve enjoyed some long chats, lots of tea, and walks in the woods to get outside in the cold air a bit.  There have been a number of foggy nights lately and it has resulted in some beautiful hoar-frost all over everything. It’s looks like an intricate lattice of snow flakes covering every single twig of every single branch and so delicate that to brush up against it causes it to flake off immediately. It’s makes EVERYTHING look like it’s been plastered (like the trees around the snow making machines on ski hills).

Recently I took on a job of making a slideshow for the All City Concert Band xmas concert. I guess they have a number of bands play in these concerts and while the bands are switching over they need something to keep the audience busy while we get set up. So they project pictures of the band members doing fun stuff together and play some music in the background. And, as long as I never have to do any fundraising I agreed to help with AV stuff, since that seems to be my focus as of late. This project turned out to be a much bigger undertaking than I had originally planned since there are some quirks with my programmes that don’t let me do exactly what it is I want to do. For example, iDVD won’t let me add motion to the pictures in the slideshow, and iPhoto won’t let me add more than one song so it just loops the same song over and over again. So after playing around with this stuff for a week I finally figured out that I need to make the slideshow in iMoive after all and that means adding motion individually to each photo. And since I’m going this far I figured I might as well do it really well and am making pictures line up with music and fixing the quotes they want me to add. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. So that’s been eating up a lot of my time lately.

Also, I showed the River Quest film to my friends and got some great feedback. Unfortunately that means quite a bit more work but as long as it’s done before Christmas I’m good. But as I work with these programmes I figure out little tricks and tips that make it easier every time. Just sitting at a computer all day and working on these little things to make them align perfectly is very tiring and there’s only so much I can do before I explode!

Other than that I’m still going with all my crazy activities. Thinking about switching into a senior skate on a different day than Monday because it’s super tough with hockey right after. I’m not sure if I’ll sign up for French next semester or not simply because I’m not sure if I’m getting what I want out of it. I mean it’s great for practicing my French but I can do that by watching French films and reading books/websites etc and not have to take this day off work essentially to do it (the course runs from noon - 2 on Thursdays). I just think that I’m not really retaining the grammar lessons etc so I’m not sure if it’s really working for me. I got suckered into volunteering as Camp manager for Girl Guides Yukon because they don’t have anyone with that experience but it’s such a small organisation here that it’ll be alright. Curling on Friday nights with the whole gang has been super fun and I hope we continue with that after the holidays.

I’m still working as a supply teacher now and again, enough to have some spare cash, but I’m definitely looking for more steady work. It’s just that not working is so much more fun!

Bouldering pictures0
Carrie posted in Recreation on November 19th, 2008

I’ve posted the pictures from the bouldering wall in our basement on Facebook.  There’s the link finally!

What’s with the semi-arid climate?0
Carrie posted in Recreation on November 3rd, 2008

So ever since I got here people have been telling me “Well we don’t get much rain because Whitehorse is in this semi-arid climate.”  I think the whole thing is a crock because it has rained PLENTY since I’ve gotten here.  In fact, our climbing season was essentially over on Discovery Day weekend (August 18) because it proceeded to rain for about 4 weeks after that.  Now that winter is here (and yes, I realise it’s November but winter is definitely here) it’s snowing A LOT.  I had to dig my pumpkins that I left out on the front porch out from under the snow this morning so that I could put them in the compost. Someone SNOWMOBILED across our front lawn!  We live in the city!

Halloween was interesting since no one wanted to keep their doors open too long to admire the kids’ costumes as it let all the cold air in!  A guy from Boston was asking Ryan the other day what we do for Halloween since it was -15 by the time the sun set and he answered, “You have to make the costume to fit around a snowsuit.  So we have a lot of really fat unicorns and really fat princesses.”  My French teacher also said that her kids have 2 costumes: 1 they can wear to school or a small party and another they actually wear outdoors when they go Trick or Treating.

The point is that winter is here and it’s not looking like any semi-arid climate to me.  The hills are about to open and the cross-country skiers are almost ready to put away their rock-skis and pull out the real ones.  To enjoy these early snowfalls when the weather isn’t too cold, I went horseback riding with a group of friends! We wanderd through some trails riding casually and bareback just enjoying the scenery and making conversation.  We took some pictures but dusk is so early that it was mostly dark and we didn’t get too many scenic shots.  Hopefully though, it’s not my last ride of the season and I’ll get out there some more!  Since this still doesn’t look to me like a semi-arid climate we should enjoy quite a bit more snow!