Voyages, voyages, voyages...

So, tuesday, there was a tornado in Stony Plain, which is just besides Edmonton. Here's what happened.

At 4pm, someone comes in, tells us: Ok, there's been a tornado in Stony Plain!!!!

Immediatly, everybody gets on their phone, all the phones start ringing, you know, like in the movies? Then we quickly get in cars and go, go go!

Here's what's going on in my head: remember in Godzilla, Twister, and all those american movies where there's a catastrophe and there's a reporter there just doing her job and braving the danger,and she takes all sorts of risks and at the end she's a hero? That was me! Or so I thought.

Actually, the tornado was looooong gone when we got to the small town. It had hit the ground God knows where and no one had seen anything. They had all just heard it on the radio! And we were hungry, and we had worked all day, and couldn't really go back to the office until we actually found someone who had seen something...

Ugh.

Anyways, so much for braving the danger.

PS - Walid, I didnt call you that night for your birthday because I got home late. But you know, I risked my damn life that day, I was a freaking hero that day, I was a superstar that day, I was so brave, I was so important, so listen, gimme a break ok! JK, I love you.

Il fait chaud! Il doit faire autour de 30 degrés ces derniers jours.

Je fais un reportage de 6 min pour mon stage (c'est considéré long) et mon sujet est le fait que les résidents d'Edmonton ont peur de sortir dans leur propre quartier (comme dans la plupart des grandes villes mais là Edmonton est rendu le Murder Capital au Canada).

So anyways j'ai voulu me rendre sur l'Avenue 118, qui a reçu un score de 0 sur 100 selon une étude... c'est l'endroit ou ya la pire qualité de vie dans la ville. So j'ai pris un taxi, et le chauffeur voulait pas m'apporter!! Il décollait juste pas! Il comprenait pas pourquoi j'irais là. Il a fallu que je lui 'explique que je travaillais pour Radio-Canada et que j'allais là pour faire un reportage... Finalement il a décidé qu'il m'apporterait, mais tout le long de la drive il arrêtait pas de répéter : "ok, fine, I'll drive you where the crime is, you're doing a story on crime, I'll drive you to the crime..."

Jpense vraiment qu'il me croyait pas pis qu'il pensait que j'avais 15 ans.

Je peux pas croire que je décolle déjà dans 2 semaines... j'ai comme rien fait à Edmonton. Je travaille, je reviens à la maison, je "hang out" avec mes cousins, je dors...

Demain, faut que je parte a 6h30 parce que je commence à 7am ou des fois plus tôt les lundis... so it's time to go to bed...

a+

Pour ceux qui regardent The Office (ahem, Robin), mon boss est TELLEMENT comme le boss dans The Office.

Deux exemples:

-Conversation normale et tout à coup il fait: "blah-blah, blahblahblahhhh, blaaaaeeeeeeeeoooooooh" en twistant sa bouche. Tout le monde le regarde pis c'est juste awkward.

JOU#1 -C'est quand les prochaines élections municipales?
BOSS -Errrrrrrrr en septeeeeembre. Non novemmbre. Ehhhhhhhhh 15 octobre.
JOU#1 - Ok...
JOU#2 - (softly) Err you better double check that, he has no clue.
JOU#1 - Oh I know.

Aussi, j'ai une copie conforme de Phyllis assise en diagonale de moi.
Les autres sont normaux.

By the way, aujourd'hui j'ai fais une entrevue, et ç'a été diffusé. C'est une très bonne nouvelle et c'est excitant parce que normalement un stagiaire n'a pas le droit de diffuser. Ça veut soit dire qu'ils me font confiance, soit qu'ils sont tellement débordés qu'ils carent plus a propos des règlements. Et honnêtement, je crois que c'est la deuxième raison qui est la bonne. Mais c'est quand même awesome!

The city, I find, is beautiful. Downtown is sort of up hill so it's more like an uptown. They call it the City Centre. The buildings are nice, they're all new and shiny and architecturally interesting I suppose. The river is nice, it's all watery and stuff. But the streets don't have names. The avenues are north-south, they go from 1 to 100-something, and then you have the streets, they are east-west and go from 1 to 100-something. The only streets that have names are the ones that aren't straight. It's like the city has no soul.

So let's say I lived at 4467, 21st avenue. It means I live on the 21st avenue and that my house is between the 44th and the 45th street. If I work at 10062-102 Avenue (which I do), it means I work on the 102nd avenue, between the streets 100 and 101. Isn't that great.

I can see how it must be easy to find an adress with street numbers when you've lived here all your life, but right now, I find it really hard to understand where everything is. I mean how are you supposed to remember which street gets you to which place when they have no name? I'm used to associating names with places, I don't know. For me, there's no difference between street 44 and street 45, you know what I mean? It doesn't stick in my memory.

That appart though, I know I was a bit sarcastic in the first paragraph, but really, the city is kinda beautiful. I promise you some pictures soon.

Only thing is you can't really walk around unless you want to take the "sentiers" around the river, I hear they are really nice, but the thing is, you can't really get from one place to another with those. You have to want to walk or bike or rollerblade just for the hell of it. Nothing wrong with that, obviously. It's just not practical.

xx leave me some comments

PS - I went to the gym with Susan (my aunt) tonight, there was a lady in a wheelchair, she was rolling around the "stade", it seemed like it took her the greatest effort ever, she was going extremely slow... I even wondered if she'd like to be pushed (but obviously not I mean she wouldn't go to the gym to get pushed around by someone...) The funny thing is, the brand of her wheelchair was "Quickie", it was written in big bold letters on the back of her chair.

PS2 - Walid... I know what you're thinking...

PS3 - Again Walid... no...

PS4 - It's great living at my uncle's, I love being able to spend time with everyone.

So I think it went well. Found the place, presented myself to my boss, who asked me when I had arrived. I said "friday night", with a big smile, to which he responded, after staring at me for 5 whole seconds with mean eyebrows -- oh cmon you know what I mean -- "ta tute la face rouge". I thought wow what a guy, this is gonna be fun. But then everyone was really nice to me. I followed a journalist for most of the day, it was really interesting but I didnt get a lunch break and got out of there at 5:20pm, which is 20 min later than I'm supposed to. So I guess I'll be working hard for the next 6 weeks. It's better than not working, which is what I did all summer long in Winnipeg.

On the way back from the Audiences publiques we were covering, I thought to myself, "yeah I could do this, I'd like doing this as a living". So it's a good sign. Then again, 20 mins later, I saw horses and poneys in a field and thought to myself, "yeah I could do this, I could be a farmer and ride poneys as a living".

I'm tired. It was fun for a day, but cmon, I can't work like this EVERYday. I think I'll just sleep in tomorrow.

PS - I write in english because I'm in Edmonton. I think that's why.