Blogging 101 Workshop for Teens and Young Adults

I hesitated about posting this on the blog, since most of my readers are not local, but finally I figured what the hell?  Maybe some local peeps who read will be interested!  So here's some info I just sent out on local lists about a workshop I'll be facicilitating next week:

What is this? Blogging 101

Blogging can be a wonderfully versatile form of self (and public) expression: you can use it as a journal; to showcase your art (photography, painting, comics, short stories, longer stories...); to share a subject you're knowledgeable about, or to document the process as you learn about a brand new subject; to keep people up-to-date on a community project; to provide support and information, to make connections with others, and a thousand other uses. Basically? Blogging is really cool! In this workshop, we'll aim to have every attendee figure out what they want their blog to be about, then set up an account and blog with Blogger (a free platform that lets you create and customize blogs). We'll also dicuss networking with other bloggers, building a readership, and other relevant blogging basics. Though this is a one time workshop, there's the possibility, if attendees are interested, in continuing to learn and share through a blogging club. Experienced bloggers who want to share their knowledge and experience are also very welcome to attend!

Who is it for? Anyone, homeschooled, unschooled, or schooled, who is in their teens through early 20's.

How much does it cost? Nothing! 

Where is it? In St Henri, Montreal (email Idzie at unschooledwriter@gmail.com for exact location)

When is it? Tuesday, October 11, at 5:30 pm

Who's hosting the workshop? The workshop is being organized through the brand new IMAGINe educATION resource centre for teens and young adults (http://www.centreimagineeducation.ca/english.php), and being facilitated by Idzie Desmarais. Bio: Idzie often refers to herself as an unschooling vegetarian animistic green-anarchist feminist hippie child. She dropped out of kindergarten, and instead grew up pursuing her varied passions and figuring things out in her own time. She became passionate about unschooling and freedom-based education in her late teens, and in the several years since she's established a well-known blog entitled I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write. (yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com), attended multiple unschooling conferences and gatherings, spoken about unschooling at various events, and has had articles appear in several education related publications (Life Learning Magazine; Our Schools, Our Selves; Homeschooling Horizons).

For more information on this workshop, including where it's being held, contact Idzie at unschooledwriter@gmail.com. For more information on the center, contact Marilyn at marilyn@educationevolution.org.

I hope to see you there!

Idzie
unschooledwriter@gmail.com

Trips and Ukuleles and Anarchists, Oh My!

I do believe this marks the longest time I've gone without blogging since I started this blog almost three years ago.  Part of me feels like I should apologize, but a much bigger part of me is down with the whole blogging without obligation idea, and even more importantly, realizes that I've been mentally/emotionally not really able to blog.  I just haven't been in the right head-space.  I've been dealing with some pretty high levels of anxiety and stress, and have felt a strong need to retreat from more public areas of expression and instead focus on spending time with friends, meeting new people in real life, and otherwise trying to maintain and build my community.  I'm not sure what most of the things I want and need to change in my life are, though I'm well aware that some changes need to be made, but I do know that having a strong community and network of friends is one of them.

So now that you know a bit about how I've been feeling, I figured I'd update you on what I've been doing since last I posted anything here.

Near the beginning of this month, my sister and I went to a small NBTSC gathering in New York state.  A friend swung a few hours out of her way to pick me and my sister up, and we had a nice little roadtrip through the mountains to a small and really lovely town.  There we stayed, with a handful of other people, at the house of the friends who were hosting us.  And what a lovely house it is!  Which for me, someone who absolutely ADORES old buildings, was quite a big plus. (I didn't take many pictures, so I'm afraid the few I have aren't so hot)

A skatter of instruments and luggage.

I think this shot is "atmospheric," but some might say it's just "dark."

How come new houses don't have awesomely long hallways?

Emi has a ukulele!

Part way through the gathering, Emi picked up a ukulele, and asked her friends to teach her some chords.  Then she proceeded to not put down a ukulele for the rest of the time we were there (except for brief breaks to use the bathroom and sleep)!  In three days, she went from having never played a stringed instrument to knowing several songs on the uke well enough that she could sing along with them as she played!  I'd say that's passion driven learning at it's best, and yet another example that passion driven learning is the best kind there is.

On the day we left we stopped at a music store, and Emi picked out and bought her own ukulele before we headed out of town, so we were serenaded frequently on our drive home.

Her playing has become less frequent in the couple of weeks since we got home, but we'll still hear the sweet sound of the ukulele at least once a day, so it seems to have become a real part of daily life.  So I decided to record her playing, and singing, one of my favorite songs in her repetoire, Over The Rainbow:

Over the Rainbow on ukulele from Idzie Desmarais on Vimeo.

Now, a few years ago I heard about Couchsurfing.org (at my first year of Not Back to School Camp, I believe), a website that is "a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit."  Things I love about this site is the sheer size of the network it provides (it's the biggest and best known site of it's kind), the fact there are multiple safety thingies built into the site, and the fact that it's free.  As in, the hosts don't charge their guests, just offer a spare bed, futon, couch, or floor space to travelers because they WANT to meet cool people from all over the world!  I also really like that you don't set up an account as *either* a host or surfer, and that most people on the site seem to both host and surf.  So anyway, I think the idea is really cool, so I got an account as soon as I was able to, which was at 18 (I could have just lied about age as everyone does on most sites, of course, but since there's real life verification stuff involved, and I wasn't planning any couchsurfing adventures just then, I figured I'd just wait!).  But then for a while, it just sat there.  The traveling I was doing was to conferences and the houses of people I already knew, and no one contacted me through CS about surfing, so I pretty much forgot about it.  But in the new year, I actually started getting contacted by people through the site, though not many and nothing worked out, until something did work out and we had our first couchsurfer here for the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, which was just this past weekend!

I find it really cool that though she found me through couchsurfing, she's a former unschooler and NBTSCer (Not Back to School Camper), so we already had friends in common!  We hit it off really well, and for the five days she was here, I had a great time. We wandered the city, helped set up for the bookfair, ate yummy food, chattered through long bus rides, hung out at the bookfair a bunch, met lots of cool people, bought some cool shit, lay around in the sun, went to a seriously awesome punk show...  Photos would probably make things look more interesting, but I have none.  Anyway, a very good time was had, which is good, because I was really looking forward to the bookfair this year, and also really looking forward to my first couchsurfing hosting experience, so it's lovely that everything actually met my expectations (which doesn't happen as often as I'd like)!

Sadly, after that week of partying (around people bringing germs from all over the continent, no less), I got sick.  So I've had a sore throat for a few days now.  Seems to be getting better, but even just a few days of not being able to talk are hard for my chatterbox self!  I think that's what finally spurred me to actually write a post, really: if I can't use my voice, I'm forced to "talk" in other ways!  Even then, this post took me three days to finish.  Like I said, I haven't been able to easily write publicly lately.  Right now, I feel like I might be ready to write a bit more on this blog again, but I'm not sure whether that feeling will change or not.  Lately, hell, for months really, I seem to be swinging between "yay I love my friends, I love the world, life is great!" and "everything sucks, I really suck, I can't handle anything except basic hygiene, maybe a bit of time with people, and reading fantasy novels."  So I suppose time will tell...

I hope all my readers are doing well, and I want to let you guys know how much I appreciate you all, the support you've provided over the years I've been writing this blog, and the fact you stick around even when I go long periods without writing much or at all!  

La Rééducation: An Unschooling Interview with a Mother and Daughter

An episode of La Rééducation, a Quebec web-series on education, featuring an interview my mother and I did last April, is now out!



The first few minutes are of my friend Marike (unschooling mother and one of two people behind the freeschool starting up in Montreal), in French, and our interview starts, in English, at 3:44.

I find it interesting seeing this now, a year after it was recorded, as my answers to Mathieu's (the guy who put together this series) questions, the things I emphasized, would definitely be different were a similar interview to be conducted now.  Some of my opinions on unschooling have definitely changed (though nothing specifically mentioned in this video), I no longer really differentiate between unschooling and radical unschooling when I'm talking about it, and similar things...  Regardless, I'm pretty happy with what my mum and I had to say (mostly me...  Sorry for hogging the interview, mom!).

La Rééducation and La Déséducation (part 2 and 1 of this series, respectively) are currently only available in French, but a translation is in the works, and soon they'll be available in English as well!  It's a very interesting look at education in Quebec, it's problems, peoples opinions on it, and some marvelous solutions...

Unschooling Publicity in Montreal

A few months ago, my mother and I were interviewed, in person, by a journalist from La Presse, the largest (or one of the two largest: not quite sure) daily French language newspaper in Montreal.  She was writing an article, not just about homeschooling, but specifically about unschooling.  How exciting is that?

In Quebec, alternatives to traditional schooling are even less well known than in the rest of North America.  I've even heard one friend suggest something along the lines that when the Catholic church lost control of the hearts and minds of Quebecers a few decades ago, school stepped in to fill that space!

Saint Joseph's Oratory. (Source)

At least churches are prettier. (Source)

But regardless of whether or not that holds true, the fact remains that homeschooling, and especially unschooling, can be difficult here in Quebec.  The law is ambiguous at best, having one line mentioning home education, and saying only that students must receive an education "equivalent to that received in school."  What exactly "equivalent" means is left open to interpretation, and basically means that the school boards interpret it to mean they have full oversight of all home educators, and home educators interpret it to mean they can do quite well without any school board involvement, thank you very much.  Because of the many troubles school boards can cause, at least half the home learners in Quebec are "under the radar": not registered with any school board.  School board policy states home learners must be registered, but since the actual law says nothing of the kind, it falls into a legal grey area of a kind.  Freeschooling seems to be even less legal, from what I've heard and seen (not that that stops people from starting a freeschool, which is awesome, in my opinion!).  Which is all just to say that educational alternatives in Quebec are very, very far from the mainstream.

But back to the article.  I was excited to know that someone was interested in sharing unschooling with such a wide audience in Quebec, but also rather leery, considering how badly slanted media pieces have been in the past, when talking about unschooling.  We (my mother and I, since the interview request was for me and any/all of my family members if they were interested) came very close to turning down the interview request.  But I discussed it a bunch with my family, since really it would be putting a spotlight on all of us, no matter which one of us was being interviewed, talked a bit to Wendy, who'd already been interviewed over phone with the reporter, and her positive experience talking to the journalist in question was enough to finalize our decision.

So my mother and I met the reporter and photographer at one of my favorite places to sit down and have tea, a co-op health food store and cafe.  And, you know, we talked about unschooling!  And also had a lengthy photo shoot.  Both the photographer and the journalist were very nice, and though as soon as we left I started thinking of things I wish I'd said, or said differently, I was still happy with how it went.

Cooperative du Grand Orme.  Isn't it cute?

But of course, how an interview goes says nothing about how the final article will turn out!

Last Friday, part one of a three part series on unschooling came out in La Presse.  Now all three parts have been published, and you know what?  They're pretty good!  I mean, there's the usual experts-who've-never-heard-of-unschooling-before-but-hate-it included, but the series of articles overall is one of the least blatantly biased against unschooling ones I've seen.  Part three is the one that talks about my family.  And the photos included of me (there are three, spread out over the three installments, though only one is online) are even good, which made me happy!  I mean really, who wants to be in the newspaper looking bad?  At the bottom of any of the articles linked is a list of links to the other parts in the series.

Photo credit: Robert Skinner, of La Presse.

The articles are, of course, in French, but I include them for both my French speaking readers and anyone who feels like using Google translate to get a (very) rough idea of what the article says.

You aren't able to post comments on the articles, but I stumbled across a blog post by the author (in French), and there are most certainly comments there!  And they're basically what you see every time unschooling gets some new publicity, minus all the positive comments by unschoolers jumping in to tell people how wrong they are (there just aren't enough unschoolers in Montreal).  And no, I didn't look at the comments to aggravate myself (though I must admit it does feel weird to have such venom directed specifically at us. It doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but it is weird...).  I looked at the comments because I was curious if the reactions would be different than what I've seen in the past, since Quebec itself is pretty different from the rest of North America.  For the most part, the reactions are the same, though there is a much stronger current of "these people will always be on the margins of society and will also be, *gasp*, RADICAL!"  Evidenced by the fact I'm a radical anarchist hippie, because obviously one unschooler represents all unschoolers...

But despite the pesky comments, I'm most definitely more excited about this than anything else.  So many people who never knew there were any options other than traditional institutionalized schooling now know there are vastly different ways to "get an education."  My blog, since it was mentioned in the article, has been getting a lot more hits from Montreal, so people are actually looking up this unschooling thing for themselves. 

I get all excited whenever some new radical education project starts in Montreal, or there's an alternative ed workshop that gets a big turnout, or there's some new unschooling publicity.  I feel like interest in alternatives has been growing by leaps and bounds here in the last few years, and there really is a small but growing revolution in education happening here!

So while I'm on the topic of freedom based education in Montreal, I want to throw in some links to cool projects and similar things happening in the area:

There's the Montreal Rad School, a freeschool being started up by some really great people, who want to make freedom based education available to all, not just those able to unschool.  This is a bilingual project.

The web-series La Déséducation has been airing since November, and focuses first on what's wrong with education in Quebec (the first eight webisodes), and starting up once again in February, will focus on alternatives to the existing model, including homeschooling, freeschooling, and unschooling (my mother and I were interviewed, and will be included in one of the webisodes).  Sadly, this series is currently only available in French.

The first webisode in the series:


There's also the long neglected (I feel a bit guilty about that) yet hopefully starting up soon once again support group, Unschooling Montreal.  And remember the Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering that my mother and I organized last year?  Well, it's happening again this summer (though the location may be changing...  Join the Yahoo group or Facebook group to get all the updates!).

So there you have it!  Montreal.  Unschooling.  Cool stuff.  I'm looking forward to seeing how things progress in our ongoing education revolution!

Freedom-Based Education Conference Outline

After brainstorming with a few different people, I've come up with a pretty vague outline for what I want this conference to look like.  My vision for this conference, if you will.  As things move further ahead, it may very well change, but right now, this is what I've got.  Note that when I say "we" I'm referring to both myself and everyone who's contributing to the planning of this event.

Theme/overarching message: Freedom based education can be for everyone.  Looking to break the myths of who unschooling and freeschooling is for, and to give the tools and information for people to *make* these types of education available where they currently aren't.

A two day conference, held close to downtown Montreal (probably) and easily accessible by public transport.  Either in a hotel's conference space, or, preferably, in a separate venue but with a nearby hotel that we've worked out a special rate for conference attendees.

Talks and workshops split roughly half-half between unschooling and freeschooling, with hopefully some other talks and workshops that don't fit into either of those categories directly (what's wrong with the school system, freedom based education at the university level, learning centers and co-ops, etc.).  Also a film screening room and a vendor hall (with vendors that we've approved, so meet with the vision for this conference).

Something I feel strongly about is that everyone who wants to should be able to attend, so there will be a sliding-scale registration fee for attendees, as well as an added note that if the lowest end of the scale still doesn't work for you, contact us and we'll work something out.
 
We'd also like to find multiple sponsors to lessen the cost, and have a food collective or similar there so that food can be bought, but isn't included in registration fee.


Speakers from across North America (if we can afford them).  We still need to put together a list of speakers we'd love to have, and want to approach to find out more details...

And I think that's basically what we've got right now.  There are other details, but that's the general overview!  So, what do you think?  Does that sound like a conference you'd like to attend?  Any suggestions or ideas that you'd like to share?  Speakers you think we might want to look into?  Comments are very welcome!

Organizing a Conference... Yikes!

I have a pretty exciting, scary, and overwhelming project I've just recently decided to take on...

For a while now, I've thought it would be great to have a freedom based education (unschooling and freeschooling, basically) conference here, and so I've decided to go past the thinking about stage and onto the actually doing it stage!  So I've been brainstorming with a couple of people, have sent a call out for people interested in helping organize and run this event, and am just generally getting the ball rolling!

In some ways, it seems a pretty strange decision to make, seeing as the slump I was in for a couple weeks after getting back from SMUG was caused largely by my feeling overwhelmed.  But I know it's the right thing to do, because as soon as I decided I was going to go through with it, my mood lifted and I just felt so free and happy!  I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be write now.

So it's exciting.  But yes, still most definitely scary!

I don't have much to add to that, though I do want to apologize for having neglected this blog a lot lately.  Inspiration will hit again soon, I hope, and until then you have a few updates on my goings on as well as a couple more exciting guest posts to look forward to!

Peace,
Idzie

P.S. If you're local and want to help out with this conference, or at the very least find out more, please send me an email at open.eyed.slave@gmail.com.  And if you're further away but have ideas or experience to share, I'd also be very happy to hear from you!

The Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering 2010

Firstly, I have to say that if this post is mildly incoherent, I'm sorry.  That pesky cold seems to be intent on hanging around for at least a little while longer, and I still haven't fully caught up on sleep.  But I want to get a post written about the gathering, so that's what I'm doing!

I feel like starting with the negatives first, because the positives outweighed them and I don't want to end this post on a sour note.  I have to say that I found it far more stressful than I'd expected.  I expected the stress beforehand, in the planning stages, but what I didn't expect was the stress while there!  There were problems with the building/facilities (it was not nearly as clean as it should have been for the price we were paying for rooms; the electrical circuits were easily overloaded, meaning we regularly had to take a drive out to the main building to get them to fix it; the basement ceiling leaked; park workers were working on the building while we were there, including using power drills in the morning one day, and turning the water and power off while they fixed something...), issues with around 70 people living in close proximity for nearly a week (trying to make sure both late night and early morning people were happy, and that everyone had the opportunity to sleep without being woken up by noise too early or late; issues with respecting others property; the bit of tension and disagreement that's virtually impossible to avoid after a group gets over a certain size...), and I felt like I had some sort of responsibility, as one of the two organizers, to make sure everyone had a good time.  Which is silly, because, as I often need to remind myself, I am not responsible for other peoples happiness!

HOWEVER, lest it seem like things didn't go well, it was truly amazing having so many awesome people in the same place.  I loved, so much, getting to spend time with friends I see far too infrequently.  I loved the music that was played and the songs that were sung.

I loved all the art that was created and shared.

 

I loved all the laughter, chatter, and sleepy silences.  I loved the bustle of mealtimes, the camaraderie of eating together, and the late night hanging out. 

I loved all the wandering around the campsite in bare feet, and the exploring of the city.  

 

I loved all the interesting discussion and sharing of stories.  I even loved the ridiculously crazy moments (can anyone say insane car ride?).  It was good.  I'm so glad we held this gathering!  And it seems other people really enjoyed it too.  All the feedback I've gotten so far has been positive, and multiple people at the gathering asked if we were going to do it again next year!  At the time, I said that I still had a lot of processing to do, and really wasn't sure.  But at this point, both my mother (who is also the co-organizer) and I have decided that we will do it again next year.  I don't think I could bear to pass up on a chance to bring so many wonderful people together here again next year!!

This may not be a terribly in-depth look at SMUG, but it's what I can do right now. 

And I miss all my friends from far away already... *Sighs*

Peace,
Idzie

Speaking Out About Unschooling

Recently I'm realizing more and more, as I've been in contact with an ever growing amount of local unschoolers and alternative schoolers, as well as similar "radical" educational types, how very precarious the state of all non-institutionalized schooling is in my home province of Quebec.

I grew up hearing some homeschoolers worrying about having the neighbors call child protection services, and I remember hearing of a couple scary stories when they were called...  Things never seemed all that bad, though, overall.

But in recent times, it seems to me that the climate here is becoming increasingly unfriendly to those outside of traditional schools, even as (or perhaps because of) the steady rise in the amount of people choosing to stay far away from the school system.  I'd wonder if maybe my personal perspective has changed as I've gotten older, and I'm just noticing it more now, except that others in the area are saying the exact same thing: from speakers at a local Christian homeschooling conferences, to freeschool advocates and anarchist unschoolers.  The government really is cracking down on what they seem to see as a potential threat to their control of the minds of children and teens.

When I commented about this on Facebook, several people suggested it was a fallout from the recent publicity unschooling has been getting.  I can't speak for anywhere else, but I know that that's certainly not the case here!  The general population in Quebec pays very little (I'd go so far as to say no) attention to news in the States.  And even beyond that, this isn't something that recent: I think the last several years have shown an increase.

But those comments raise an important point (one I've talked about a bit before, and thought about a lot more), about whether publicity, and whether being very outspoken, is a good thing or not?

Many unschooling and homeschooling families choose to be "under the radar".  To just quietly go about living their lives, without bringing much if any attention to *how* they're living.  I totally understand and respect that as a personal choice: either because you don't want to deal with the annoyance of being constantly questioned, or even more importantly because unschooling is borderline legal where you live (as in Quebec), so being open about it can be downright dangerous, depending on your situation (I know that my family didn't even admit to being homeschooled [let alone unschooled] when we were younger, if we could help it.  We all felt safer that way!).

But I take issue with the idea that people in general who have chosen non-traditional paths in education *should* keep quiet about it, stay under the radar, for fear of government crackdowns and restrictive laws.

I think that's a horrible way to go about things, and honestly a very selfish way.  People who are unschooling, people who have started or send their children to or go to democratic or free schools, people who are natural, autonomous learners of all types, are showing that the alternatives are wonderful.  We're going beyond the theoretical and actually showing, through our lives, how joyous life can be without a coercive schooling system.  To keep these alternatives quiet seems a gross injustice to everyone currently in the school system.

I watched The War on Kids last night, screened as part of this month's Festival of Anarchy.  It's a GREAT film, though very depressing.  I cried at multiple points during it, and I just kept thinking "thank you mom, for never sending me to school!".  To allow things to continue the way they are, to keep quiet when so many are suffering--depressed, self-harming, suicidal--in school doesn't feel right to me.

I think that those who feel comfortable, and those at least risk by doing so, have, well, I'd almost go so far as to say a *duty* to be outspoken.  To share our stories, speak out, write about it, write "Ask Me About Unschooling (Freeschooling, Homeschooling...)" on our shirts... ;-) Just to be OUT THERE, willing to discuss and share.

My family is at a point where both my sister and I are old enough to be safe from government intervention.  I'm past compulsory schooling age, and Emi would be finishing her last year of high school were she in the system.  So we're in an excellent position, and one we're taking advantage of, to be very outspoken.  My mother, sister and I spoke at a local homeschooling conference last month.  I'm speaking as part of a panel on radical education at the upcoming Anarchist Bookfair.  We've been connecting with lots more local educational radicals of all stripes.  And there's also other amazing local stuff going on, promoting alternatives to the traditional educational model: a local mother is helping to start a freeschool, as well as writing a book about how harmful the school system is (which I'm helping to edit/organize); a young Quebec teacher is putting together a documentary on how bad a job the schools are doing, and how many wonderful alternatives are out there!

I'm thrilled to have connected with so many locals recently, excited to be a part of this movement for educational freedom in Quebec, and looking forward to connecting with many more people in the coming days...

Not only do I think being outspoken is incredibly important, it also just feels so GOOD to share something I'm so passionate about, to be a part of a movement I think is so important!

For all of us who have solutions outside of the mainstream, institutionalized models, I really do believe the best way forward is to speak up!  The more voices, the better. :-)

Peace,
Idzie

A lovely outing and more info on SMUG

My mother and I drove out to check out a campground today, Oka national park, that we thought might be good for the Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering (we figure since we came up with the idea so late, only a few months before we want it to happen, we should get everything done as soon as possible!).  And I'm very happy to say that I think we've found the perfect place!!  It's only about 45 minutes from downtown Montreal, and it's also a really lovely place.  It's lovely in the Winter, and looking around, we think it'll be even more beautiful in the Summertime!

There's even a (swim-able) beach on a large lake...

Why we were especially interested in this campground/park was because they have a building with twelve rooms to rent, but you can rent as little as five rooms and get the whole place to yourself!  Here are the pictures I took on our tour of the Gîte Sous Les Pins:

Here it is from a couple of angles...

Inside, there's a lot of lovely wood...

A dining room...

A downstairs hangout room (my mom thinks those tables are perfect for playing Bananagrams! ;-))...

 

 

The upstairs hallway, which is entirely comprised of bedrooms...

Each bedroom sleeps three people, with the option to add a fourth bed (which would make it wall to wall beds).

 

Each bedroom also has a sink and closet space.

 

For those who would prefer to camp, either for money reasons or because it's more fun, there are campsites RIGHT by the gîte, as in a two second walk, so that really wouldn't affect your ability to hang out in the main building at all.

Also, the park includes several historical chapels and oratories (see the little white building on the hill?  That's one of them!).

The staff there were even super nice, and very knowledgeable, so we were just pretty impressed with the place in general. 

Nearby Oka village is lovely, and my mother and I decided to drive through it and make a list of important local stores (I found it funny that, by chance, the grocery store and the liquor commission where at the top of our list.  Really, what else do you need. ;-)).  While we were there, I hopped out and took a couple of pictures, including of this old church, that I've always thought was gorgeous.  Quebec has an abundance of lovely old churches!  All the old buildings are one of my favorite things about Montreal and surrounding area. :-)

Right by the church is where the ferry is in the Summer.  The ferry goes right across the water, to another scenic little town called Hudson. 

On our way home, but still only minutes from Oka national park, we pulled over to take a closer look at an old, yet still operational, monastery.

Having now looked the place up online, I know that it's not only operational, but open to visitors!  Next time I'm out that way, I TOTALLY want to see inside that building.

So, it was a really nice day out.  The weather was beautiful, and we were both so pleased to have found such a pretty place for the gathering, that's also so close to the city!!

Now we just need to find a good date (we're thinking maybe July 2nd to 6th or 7th?  We're not sure how attached the Americans who want to come are to July 4th celebrations though, so that might not work...).  The jazz fest would be on then, with TONS of free music, so it would be a great time to hang out in the city (if that date doesn't work, there are plenty of other music festivals with lots of free shows.  It's just that the jazz fest is both the biggest and bet known!).

I'll be setting up a website for the gathering soon (both because I love playing around with Wordpress, and because it's practical to have all the info in one place!).

If you're interested, don't forget to join the yahoo group:  Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering

Really excited about this, and hope to see you in Montreal this Summer! :-)

Peace,
Idzie

Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering

I've been having a difficult time of things lately, emotionally.  I'm not thrilled to be turning 19 in less than two weeks, and having some family issues.  But, one thing that's making me feel happier at the moment is a tentative unschoolers gathering this Summer in Montreal that my mother and I are (looking at) organizing...

Tentative time: June or July 2010

Tentative place: A campground within an hour of downtown Montreal

My mother and I are actually going to be visiting a campground with a building to rent this week!

If you're interested in possibly attending this gathering (if it ends up happening), and would like to provide some much needed and appreciated input, join the Yahoo! group here:  SMUG: Summer Montreal Unschoolers Gathering.

Montreal is a gorgeous city, and I'd love to share it with a bunch of awesome unschoolers!! :-)

Peace,
Idzie

A Canadian girl: thoughts on the two sides of the border

I've gotten a lot of hits from a couple of Australian forums recently, and I really want to thank the people who both posted the link to my blog, and who said such nice things about it!  I really appreciate it! :-) Just one thing I wanted to add: I'm Canadian, not American.  Born and raised just outside of the beautiful city of Montreal, in the province of Quebec.

This led me to thinking, and mulling a few things over...  Like the fact, outside of North America, it seems many people consider Canada and America to be practically synonymous (not saying this was the case on the Australian forum - it just made me think of other things I've seen).  I don't know if that's an accurate view on my part, since I've only ever seen this online: I've never been overseas myself!  But it does seem to be an idea out there...

Continuing in a similar vein, it's only in the last year and a half that I've done much real traveling in the States.  Before that all I'd done was go on the occasional day trip into New York state, and go on a road trip to Florida when I was about 10 (something I have fairly foggy memories of...).  I'd never really had any American friends before the last couple of years, either.  Without traveling there, I suppose that's pretty logical!  I should say at this point that whenever I go to a new place, I'm absolutely fascinated by finding the similarities and differences compared to my own home of Montreal.  How are the buildings different?  Do the people speak differently?  What slang terms that I use are understood, and which ones aren't?  I find these things, small as they may seem, to be really interesting.  So I've been very interested as I've met so many Americans in recent times.  The U.S. and Canada are so similar, yet so different!  One thing that I've found slightly odd is how much of a wall many Americans seem to find the border.  I don't know anyone in my area who hasn't been to the U.S., even if it's just for a shopping day-trip!  Yet in the U.S., it's quite common to meet lots of people who have never been to Canada.  And when talking about traveling, many of the Americans I've talked to don't seem to ever consider traveling to Canada! There definitely seem to be different ways of looking at North American travel depending which side of the border you're on. EDIT: Note that *most* (definitely no where near all, but most) of the American peeps I know live relatively close to the border.  I understand quite well why Canada isn't a popular destination for those in the more Southern regions of the U.S. :-P

One other thing that I find interesting: I've been told I seem "very Canadian", and I have no clue what "Canadian" is to the people who have said that.  Canada is a fucking BIG country.  Winnipeg, Manitoba (and the people who come from there) has little resemblance to Montreal, Quebec, or the Northwest Territories, or any other random part of the country.  I know what's generally considered to be "American" here (though I find that to come up with one view of what "American" is makes as little sense as coming up with one version of "Canadian"!), but I've yet to discover what being "really Canadian" is, so if someone can enlighten me, that would be great. ;-)

But anyway, I'm just rambling now, so I think I'll bring this post to a close before I can ramble any more. ;-) Oh, one more thing: for a while I've been planning on writing a post about my home Province of Quebec.  Even compared to the incredible diversity found in Canada, Quebec is VERY different, and has a very interesting culture.  So I want to share a bit of that, whatever I can get across in a few words on a computer screen, anyway, with as many people as I can...  So hopefully I'll get that done soon. :-)

Peace,
Idzie

P.S. The pictures interspersed in this post are just shots from the last time I took my camera with me downtown...

Unschooling support group

So, you know how I said I was kind of busy working on a couple of projects? Well, the main thing I'm doing right now is starting an unschooling support group in the Montreal area! You may remember when my mom and I attempted to do so in February. Well, that time, someone else was doing the same thing, so we were involved with that briefly, but then it fell through and was temporarily forgotten. Also different about this time is that back in February, my mom and I were starting the group, which really meant I badgered her to do this or that important detail, and she went about things in a way I considered incredibly slow and meandering! This time, however, I simply decided that I really thought that this group was important, that it meant a lot to me that other families have that support, and that therefor *I* should be the one to make it happen. And so I am! I already have a few families interested, I'm looking at were we can meet, and genuinely doing this thing! It feels good to be actually doing what I want to for once, instead of just hoping it'll magically happen, then being disappointed when it doesn't! :-) This is the message I posted to a ton of online groups:

Hello!

Unschooling, Worldschooling, Child Led Learning, Delight Driven Learning, Life Learning… Many names, yet one desire to live in freedom, loving, learning, and living each day to the fullest! That is the joy of Unschooling.

I'm an 18 year old longtime Unschooler, and it was always hard for my family when my sister (16) and I were younger, since pretty much everyone we knew was very school-at-home, and thought we were crazy to be Unschooling! So I want to create something that wasn't there for my family when I was young, but would have made things so much easier for us! What I want to do is bring together a supportive, caring group of Unschooling families, families who are seriously considering Unschooling, and those passionate about Unschooling, who can validate each others choices, share experiences, and just enjoy each others company!

If this sounds as great to you as it does to me (or even if it just interests you) please check out this Yahoo! Group for a bit more information on the support group, and if you're interested in being part of this, please join!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmontreal/

Still have questions? Feel free to contact me at UnschoolingMontreal@gmail.com

I hope to see you at our first meeting! :-)

I greatly appreciate support from people all over the place, and would love to hear your ideas, suggestions, etc. for the group, but I'd like to keep the Yahoo group as simply an extension of a physical group that actually meets in real life, so please only join the Yahoo group if you're in the Montreal area!

I'm so excited about this!! *Dances around excitedly*

Peace,

Idzie

Punk, jazz, and good times!

Yesterday was lots of fun! I was a bit worried, because Ty and I were going to see the bands Rise Against and Rancid at an outdoors venue, so although I really wanted to see Rise Against again (they're one of my favorite bands (you may remember me talking about them when I saw them back in December)) it was also rainy, which isn't so much fun when you're standing outside.

Since it was downtown, and my mom also had to pick my sister up and drive her downtown a bit later (Emi's drum teacher, who's a really cool guy, offered to have her sell her handmade stuff between sets at the place where his band plays), she dropped Ty and I off at a Metro (also know in other places as the train/subway) station, and we headed downtown! It was rather funny, by the time we got to the last leg of our commute, it was so obvious that the great majority of people on the train with us were also heading to the same punk concert we were! When we got there, the opening band, The Riverboat Gamblers, were about halfway through their set, so we watched them for a while. They were pretty good! However, it was raining pretty hard at the start, so even though I had a raincoat on, I still got pretty wet. Wet, but not cold, so I was still quite cheerful. :-) Next came Rancid. They're good! I'd only ever heard a few of their songs, so I didn't enjoy them as much as I could have, but I really want to hear more of their music now...

By the time Rancid finished, it was getting pretty dark, it had stopped raining for the most part (yay!), and you could feel the crowd energy rising. The crowd was definitely made up mostly of Rise Against fans! We stood around waiting, feeling the occasional cool rain drops on our face, breathing in the tons of secondhand marijuana smoke (there were seriously TONS of people smoking weed! I was amazed at the joint to cigarette ratio, since there really weren't many people smoking cigarettes at all. We were even offered some for free, though we turned it down of course. ;-) (Seriously, we did turn it down. Unknown dealer=bad idea!)), hearing the intermittent chants of "Rise Against!", and waiting with excitement. We worked our way right up into the front of the crowd, where we'd have a good view. When they finally came on, the crowd went wild! I was very happy to have the earplugs that we'd brought (always a good idea to have at concerts!). We had a great time, jumping up and down, singing along loudly, and getting bumped into nearly constantly by people. I've never really been in "the pit" at a concert before, and it can get pretty rough. You have to be aware of the people around you, keep your arms up to easily protect your head and upper torso, and not mind being squashed against multiple people! Except for one jerk who literally smashed into people with no care for injury, everyone was really cool though. The worst injuries I got were frequently squished toes and a fairly light elbow to the throat (and in the latter case, I instantly had a complete strangers hand on my shoulder and a concerned query if I was alright. As I said, most people were really cool. :-)). It also helped that there was very little real moshing, and when there was we were careful to stay out of it! At the closest, there was only one person between us and the barrier in front of the stage. It was really cool to have the lead singer actually that close, and singing straight to those of us right in front! :-D We ended up moving to a safer location later on in the show, when the aforementioned jerk moved into our area, but it was still a good spot.

After the concert ended, we stumbled into the packed Metro caked in dirt (the rain had made the ground very mushy, to say the least), sweat (ours and others), and beer (one time when someone threw their cup over the crown, I actually got beer in my eye. Ouch+eww) bruised, sore, tired, and smelling strongly of weed. We went to a station (still in town) where we were picked up by my mom and brought to the place where Emi's drum teacher, Nick's (not the Nick I've talked about previously, a different Nick :-P), band was playing (their set only started at 12:00). They are a really fricken' good jazz band! I loved their music. Apparently the previous two bands that had played before were good as well, so although Emi hadn't sold anything, she'd enjoyed the music. My one problem with the evening: a university student ended up hanging out with Emi for a while, and he was TOTALLY hitting on her. My little sister. Getting hit on. By a guy in his early twenties!!! He thought she was older than she was, and she made no move to tell him otherwise. Instead, she gloated at me, since I'd informed her she would never pass for 18, and she did. *Grumbles* But big sister over protectiveness aside, it was a great evening. :-P Frequently, Ty and I would wander out and wander around the street. Ty got something to eat, a slightly drunken guy played us a song on a ukulele, and, considering, he was pretty good! When Ty handed him a couple of dollars, the ukulele player happily informed us that it was enough for another beer. Oh dear. :-P

By the time we headed home, it was about 2:30. We said goodbye, told the band how much we'd enjoyed them, made plans for Emi to attempt to sell her stuff at the bands next gig, and headed to the car. We then proceeded to get lost almost instantly. Since we got lost near one of Montreal's well renowned bagel stores (one that's open 24/7), we picked up a dozen deliciously fresh bagels. "It's okay that we're lost" we giggled in cheerful tiredness. "It's an adventure... WITH BAGELS!!" Said Emi happily. "Every adventure is better with bagels.", I agreed with my mouth full. We also saw a depaneur (corner store) advertising that they were open 25 hours a day... Hmm, someone seems to be unclear on the concept. I also broke my personal record for how late I'd stayed downtown!

When we finally got home at about 3:40, I took a quick shower to get rid of the concert grime, then collapsed in bed. I slept until past 3:00 this afternoon, and I still feel tired! But it was a very good time had by all last night. :-)

Peace,
Idzie

Montreal

I love downtown Montreal so damn much, especially in the Summer.

I went downtown yesterday with my mom, Emi, Ty, and Nick (Ty is here visiting again). The Fringe festival is going on right now, so there was plenty of activity. As I think of what to write, the sensory impressions are what come to mind first. The smell of cigarettes, weed, and good food. The sound of cars, music, laughter and voices. The sight of a numerous amount of people. Dyed bright hair, dreadlocks, bright summer dresses, studded everything, cool piercings...

We headed down in the afternoon, and as we walked along the streets, the first thing I noticed were the colours. The bright purple of someones railings; street art splashed on multiple walls, bright colours, faces, abstract scenes. I can't understand why some people don't see the value in such art. To me it's a beautiful art form, and the artists who create it are no less talented than their more traditional counterparts!

We passed a small garage sale on our way, and I bought another pin for my purse. I'll have to post a picture of my small but ever growing pin collection sometime soon.

In the square where the folk music was being played, we hung around briefly. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and the twang of bluegrass folk sang in my ears. Since it wasn't really our type of music, we left my mom there to listen while the rest of us threaded our way through the band booths, poster plastered temporary walls, and eclectically dressed people. Some sounds we did like were the Fringe fest Cabaret, a motley group of people who wandered through the streets in pirate/gypsy-esque costumes, playing plaintive gypsy tunes. We passed them several times, and always enjoyed their music (and the juggler, in Ty's case). There isn't any feeling quite like wandering down the street with friends, the sun beating down and warming my back, watching the people that pass, taking in the sights, sounds, smells...

When we headed back to meet my mom a little while later, we were all slightly hungry, so after applying a few temporary tattoos supplied by one of the shows, we started on the twenty minute walk that would bring us to a cafe that was selling vegan food by donation. It was a lovely little fair trade, vegetarian cafe, with friendly people. We happily consumed millet pie, ginger cake, and spiked fruit juice with much happiness, at least on my part!

Afterwards, we wandered around for a while, Ty bought a new hand drum, and we headed home, sweaty, tired, and sore-footed. The day ended on a worse note than it had started on, but overall, it was still a good day.

Next Saturday, we're going downtown to see the fireworks (every year Montreal hosts an international fireworks competition, so the shows are truly spectacular), and we'll be there again at least once more this week for an outdoor concert.

I love this city. I really do. And I love long Summer days wandering it's streets, taking in everything, and just enjoying the vibrancy that is all around me. I'm biased, of course, but I truly believe that I live near one of the greatest cities there is!

Peace,
Idzie

Updates on life, the universe (or at least the small part of it that I inhabit), and anything else I can think of

While Ty and family were still here, Ty and I went to the hotel that Donna and Cole were staying at to eat dinner and swim one day, and had a small early birthday celebration for Ty at my house another day (his birthday is on the 20th), and then they left on the the 16th.

Later that day (the 16th), my mom and I went to the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. There were tons of people there! Outside of the building where it was being held there were groups of people standing around talking, and a small camping tent set of where several people had crammed themselves in and were playing instruments. Inside, it was packed. In the main hallway people were sitting all over the floor, talking, laughing, playing guitar and banjo, putting dreads in each others hair... I loved the style of the people there. There were tons of people with dreadlocks, some with mowhawks or mullets. There were tons (and I do mean TONS) of awesome piercings, and tons of cool DIY punk clothing. As my sister pointed out, pretty much the only people who are anarchists are punks and hippies, so was it really a big surprise that those were the prevalent people there? :-P My mom and I were both equally happy with the wonderful atmosphere there and all of the cool stuff to see. We wandered around, happily looking at/reading a wide range of radical books, zines, pamphlets, stickers, buttons, t-shirts, and similar paraphernalia. Many things were sold on a sliding scale, and many things were free, or simply by donation. There was also a decent amount of stuff on green anarchy, ecology, and similar stuff, which made me very happy! Finally, between my mom and I, we got Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed, Stolen Harvest, Earth Democracy, Days of War, Nights of Love, and Expect Resistance. I was thrilled when my mom decided to get Days of War, Nights of love since it's a book that I myself have wanted to read since it was recommended to me last year by the guy who got me interested in green anarchy. Both that book and Expect Resistance are published by CrimeThinc., which I love. Their rebellious, sarcastic, energetic style makes their stuff compulsively readable, and what they have to say is virtually always thought provoking.

My mom and I have started reading Days of War, Nights of Love together, taking turns reading bits out loud, and it's already sparked some very interesting conversations. For instance, last night we read the chapter on hygiene and "cleanliness" which was very interesting, and then moved onto the chapter about sex, which sparked a long discussion. Strange thing to be discussing with my mom, eh? When I was in my preteens and early teens, there was so much stuff that made me uncomfortable to talk about. Sex, drugs, bodily functions, just tons of stuff. But as I made different friends, I became desensitized to a lot of stuff, and that's basically what I'm still doing now. I really don't like it when something makes me uncomfortable to talk about, because I honestly believe that everything should be able to be discussed with comfort, and I want to be able to do that! So I'm actually almost happy when I find something that makes me feel uncomfortable, because then I can push through that feeling and be happy in the knowledge that I've just broadened my horizons a bit by having an interesting conversation that I could have shied away from do to a bit of uncomfort! It also helps that my mom is amazing cool, open-minded, and as much a best friend as a mother. I know that it makes both of us very happy that we have such a strong relationship, and can discuss things comfortably with each other that most teens/parents would never dream of talking to their parents/teens about! It also makes me very happy that my mom agrees with so much of what I have to say. It really wasn't all that long a stretch for me to get into as radical views as I have, since my mom has always been a wee bit "radical" herself! ;-)

In other news, well, there isn't really much news that I can think of at the moment, actually. Oh, wait, perhaps there is... I've been thinking a lot lately about issues of sexual orientation, and similar things. For the longest time it seemed to me that many of my friends, and simply people I knew, were wrestling with issues of sexual identity, and how society looked on their sexual orientations, how whether the fact they were bisexual or homosexual changed the way people viewed them or treated them, as well as gender issues, and issues of how society expected them to act in a very narrow way because of what gender they were assigned at birth. I always found it slightly ironic (as well as sad) that I was very sure of my heterosexuality and felt entirely female, yet had some of the most open-minded and accepting parents I knew, and the people I knew who did not identify as heterosexual had parents who were very homophobic, close-minded, and unaccepting.

For the longest time I've said, and believed, that those boxes of straight/gay/bi were too restricting, and unrealistic. People are people, and I think that matters a lot more then gender, straightness, gayness, or any other label. People are attracted to people, and some people simply tend to be attracted to certain types of people (I am including gender in types of people, I just don't think it's necessarily the most important part). However, as much as I knew that to be true, I'm not sure I fully absorbed it, because a little while ago I realized that I wasn't as "straight" as I thought myself to be. I was, and am, attracted to girls somewhat, I'm just attracted to a wider range of guys. For about a week, I fussed over that. I'd put myself into too tight a box, then felt insecure and a bit lost when I realized that the way I describe myself and show myself to the world wasn't quite right. But luckily, after about a week of that, I realized that I was being silly. I didn't need to worry about labels or anything else. As I already knew, people are attracted to people, and it really isn't all that important, or even necessarily healthy, to try and attach a ton of labels to myself. Now the closest to labeling I've come lately is in a rather interesting conversation involving each person's percentage of attraction to either sex. I've decided that I'm 85% attracted to guys, 15% girls. And for some reason, having something solid like that in my head makes me happy. I think it's because I find it very important to be able to describe myself to people in words, and when I can't do that it makes me unhappy...

Anyway, I'm going to head off now, and perhaps spend some time outside while the sun is still out... :-)

Peace,
Idzie