An Epic Adventure

SO, bright and early tomorrow morning, we are heading off into a snowstorm!!  Seriously, we are.  The forecast isn't looking great, but my mom is a tough Montreal driver who is very used to driving in lots of snow, and if it gets too bad we can always pull over.  Hopefully that won't impact on our plans, which are to drive to Pennsylvania tomorrow, and stay with some lovely people who live near Pittsburgh until Monday morning, at which point we'll drive to the Kalahari waterpark for the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering!  We'll be there until Friday, when we head to just outside Toronto, Ontario, to visit my grandfather, whom I haven't seen in several years!  Saturday, we'll complete the final leg of our journey, and return home.

By that point, I expect to be thoroughly exhausted, but very hopefully cheerful!

I will, of course, have my camera with me, and try to remember to take lots of pictures.

And I most likely will not have internet access.

Right now I'm both very excited (I'm going to be seeing lots of awesome people!!), and rather stressed (we still have tons of stuff to pack!!).  We're bringing all of our own food (or at least, bringing *most* of our food, and buying some at a grocery store in the States), because otherwise we couldn't afford to go, but that means that today includes cooking and stuff as well as packing and tracking down lost clothing items and buying last minute things...  PLUS I signed up for what will be my last year of NBTSC just a couple days ago, so I need to send in my registration form before I leave!

...Phew, it made me tired just writing all that...

Point being, I have much still to do.  But I'm excited!!

Oh, and if you're going to be there, come say hi!! 

Enjoy your week, everyone!

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...

Overview of the Northeast Unschooling Conference 2009!

(This first paragraph was written last night. I ended up giving up after then and postponing the rest until today! :-P)


So, you know how I said I was going to write a daily journal entry unless I was having too much fun? Well, I was having too much fun! I'm honestly torn about whether or not I should write about the conference now, because I only arrived home today at about 7:30 pm and I'm ridiculously tired (hanging out with people was the priority at the conference, not sleep), but at the same time I really want to write about it while everything is still fresh in my mind! So I'm going to plow through the exhaustion, and hope that what I write isn't complete crap! (As I said above, I gave up on that idea. Instead, I'm writing Wednesday, when I'm slightly (only slightly) less sleep deprived!)

Day 2 (I counted the first day of travel as day 1) which also happens to be August 27

The 27th was Emilie's 16th Birthday, as well as being the first day of the conference! I felt really bad when I forgot to wish her a happy Birthday in the morning, but a friend of hers had discovered when her Birthday was and made her a lovely card, then got it signed by a ton of people at the conference. It was really sweet, and made Emi happy. :-)

Conference registration opened, and people just hung around the registration area talking. I didn't really know anyone well, so I was being pretty shy... My mom started talking to people so I just trailed around bouncing between my mom and Emi, until I got into a conversation, along with my mom, with Erika. I have to thank her for being the first person to make me relax and laugh!

I went to Eli's World Travel Photos session, and although there wasn't a great turnout (apparently the first time slot in a conference isn't necessarily the best), I enjoyed seeing the cool photos, and I had some interesting conversations with the people who were there about Montreal, Quebec, our culture and history, family history, and similar interesting things... I also got a henna tattoo, which is something I've wanted to do for a while, so I'm happy I finally did! It's mostly worn off by today, but it's still visible...


The whole afternoon my mom was stealthily arranging a surprise for my sister. In the evening, just before karaoke started, they played Happy Birthday and pulled out a cake. She was completely surprised, so that was awesome. :-)


Since I'm not exactly much of a karaoke person, I headed outside to throw a Frisbee around with a bunch of people instead. Now Frisbees, I like. :-)

After that, I headed to bed... Probably my earliest night of the whole week!

Day 3 (august 28)

This day was lots of fun, but so long it almost felt like two separate days! First off, I stumbled down to the Tie Dye workshop, where I greatly enjoyed dyeing my shirt in cool ways. I'm thrilled with how it turned out! I also got my feet and legs dyed, thanks to some very enthusiastic young kids with squirting dye bottles! :-) I then went to the Artist Trading Card funshop. I'd never heard of ATC's before, but I LOVE the idea! You take a small card (2 1/2 by 3 1/2 I believe) and do whatever you want with it. Collage, painting, drawing, basically creating a miniature work of art, then trade it with someone else for their miniature work of art. That way, everyone ends up with awesome artwork from all different people. Really cool!


The card at the top (I couldn't get the picture to rotate for some reason) has the most wonderful little story. It reads:

A lone fisherman sat on a stretch of beach. His single fishing pole was planted in the sand. Along came a businessman on vacation. "Why don't you have two poles so you can catch more fish?" the business asked. "Then what would I do?" asked the fisherman. "Then you could take the extra money, buy a boat, get nets and a crew, and catch even more fish." "Then what would I do?" asked the Corsican. "Then," said the businessman, "you could move up to a fleet of large ships, go whole-sale, and become very rich." "Then what would I do?" asked the Corsican. "Do whatever you want!" shouted the businessman. And the Corsican replied, "I am."

After lunch (or in my case most probably after hanging around with people or something, since I was either too busy or didn't feel like eating most of the time while I was there!) I went to a discussion called Unschooling Teens, then to one called Sex, Drugs, and Alcohol, both of which were interesting. THEN I went to a session with Michael about GLBT issues, which ended up being more of a presentation on transgender issues, which I'm glad of. It was a great session! I think that too often people focus entirely on sexual orientation, and forget that gender identity is something extremely important that more people should be talking about! EDIT: Bonnie wrote a cool post on that here.

That evening, I stayed up late talking to people and listening to beautiful music played, and sung, by Julian (check out his stuff here).

Day 4 (August 29)

Went to Erika and Kathryn's Even More Different talk, which was great and really got me thinking. After that, I spent most of the lunch break having fascinating conversations.

I picked at food a bit, talked to people a lot, then went to Eli and my discussion, Untraditional Adult Paths. There was a really good turnout, which tells me that this is something that should be talked about more at unschooling conferences, since apparently it interests a lot of people! I feel it went really well. Most people were a lot more interested in Eli's input, since he's been doing things "untraditionally" for a while now, but I'm happy with what input I did give, and it was great to hear from several people who have managed quite well without either college or regular jobs. :-)

After that, I went to a photograohy funshop! There were only a few of us, so basically we just hung around chatting about photography, then wandered around a bit taking pictures. It was fun.

We fed a couple of people sandwiches, then it was on to the entertainment of the evening. An absolutely AWESOME band called Fishing With Finnegan, made up of grown unschooling siblings, was playing, and they were tons of fun. They play Irish, Scottish, English, and American folk, and they do it with much humour and a unique flair. I highly reccomend that you check them out! After the concert, I sat around talking with a couple of of the band members, as well as the other cool people I'd been hanging out with. Even once the band members were dragged away by the rest of their family, I stayed talking to people for a while more... Are you noticing a theme here? Another long but good day.

Day 5 (August 30)

The last official day of the conference, I was finally relaxed enough to pretty much just be myself. That always seems to happen with me. I only ever relax at the end of an event! After closing remarks, I, can you guess? Yup, hung around talking to people for a couple of hours! Then I played a game that was quite popular, especially with the moms (they were intense at that game. Scarily intense. O_o), called Bananagrams.


Annnd after that, virtually everyone who hadn't left right after closing remarks went out for Sushi! It was kind of funny actually. Someone called the restaurant ahead of time to make reservations, but the restaurant understood the reservation to be for 3 to 5 people, when really it was for 35!! Luckily, they managed to fit all 45 of us in (more people went then had oroginally said they would). My table played hang man (with much laughter and joking around) while we waited for our food, and the sushi was really good. Fun times. :-)

Having entirely given up on getting any decent sleep while still at the con, I was up late with a bunch of people who decided to not sleep at all... I was actually one of the first to bed, at 2:30 or so!

Day 6 (August 31)

The last conference activity was a picnic in Salem, right on the beach. I played Frisbee, hung around with peeps, and went for a long walk on the beach...


I also came very close to heading straight to Texas for the Rethinking Education conference with a couple of friends! It was a crazy plan that ended up not working out (airfare was just too expensive), but it really brought home the fact that it's very possible to just take off across the country when you feel like it, so I've decided I'm going next year. That conference looks awesome, and there's no reason why I shouldn't go!

It was sad saying goodbye to everyone, and the hotel felt so very quiet and lonely that night...

Day 7 (September 1)

We drove home. Pretty simple, really.

Now, this post feels like such a skimming of the surface (and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of the surface stuff as well). I had so many wonderful conversations, such a wonderful time overall, so many new thoughts and realizations, that I can't possibly fit it all into one post. There are several issues and things that I plan on devoting whole posts too, but for now this will do. Some interesting posts you may want to check out, that are to do with this conference, are Jean's post on "unparenting" at the conference (it was pretty bad), and Bonnie's posts entitled Shit Happens. Even to Unschoolers. and Highlights from NEUC 2009. Eli also wrote an overview of the conference here.

As I said, more to come soon!

Peace,
Idzie

The Northeast Unschooling conference!

So, as I think I mentioned ages ago, we're going to the Northeast Unschooling conference near Boston, and leaving in TWO DAYS!! I'm a mix of excited and nervous, which I will explain below...

I'm excited because I'm going to be meeting/seeing a ton of cool people, some completely new, some that I know online and will be meeting in real life for the first time, and some whom I've met previously, and am happy to see again! I'm also excited because Eli has kindly asked me to speak alongside him in his discussion entitled Finding Your Own Path, where Eli and I will talk about finding meaningful work! Also, there are tons of cool presentations and funshops.

Now, why I'm nervous is because I'll be meeting a ton a new people, and I'm shy. I usually refer to myself as a social introvert, because I love being around people and am happy being around them nearly constantly, but large/new groups, new situations, and new people make me feel shy and kind of like finding a nice little corner to hide in! Even in the case of all the people I already *know* online, I find it slightly scary to actually be meeting them... When people meet me without ever having read my blog or talked to me online, I'm usually quickly forgotten about because, as I mentioned above, I'm shy and tend to fade into the background in new groups. However, when people do *know* me online, they're expecting something of me in real life, so I can't get by by simply fading into the background, I actually have to be myself to a certain extant, to put myself out there more! Which is probably a good thing, but doesn't change the fact I'm nervous.

Annnyway, the excitement does still outweigh the nervousness, which is a good thing, and I'm really excited to be going!

Peace,
Idzie

Heading to Boston...

On Friday I leave for Boston, to visit Ty and hang out with various cool people. :-) I'm excited! I will have internet access there, and I'll try and update a couple of times, but I won't really be posting much until the 11th of May when I get back home. I just got a brand new 8 gig memory card for my camera, so I'm sure I'll be taking lots of pictures! :-D

Peace,
Idzie

Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering 2009

Yes! I finally have all of the pictures I wanted uploaded onto this post uploaded!! Since blogger only allows you to upload 5 at once, I've literally been uploading for hours. Hey, you guys asked for lots of pictures, right? ;-) They're in chronalogical order, and that's how I'll tell about our trip as well!

My mom, sister, and I started out towards Ohio Sunday, the 1st of February. We entered New York, and ended up staying in Buffalo.

When I saw this truck at night, I just loved it for some reason! My mom was nice enough to stop the car so I could get a good shot. :-P
We arrived in Buffalo fairly early, around 8:30ish pm, I think. We ate supper, then attempted to find a hotel. And that's where the difficulty started. The first one we tried was filthy (like really ew), and then the next half dozed or so were scented. Since both Emi and my mom are allergic to synthetic scents, it's really hard to find places that don't use stuff like Febreeze (which is really bad for everyone by the way, regardless of allergies), we have to try LOTS of hotels before we find one that we can actually stay in. Finally, at 11:30 pm, and after getting lost several times, we were stressed out, exhausted, and nearly in tears, when we finally (finally!) found a non sweet smelling hotel! Woo hoo! I took this pic the next morning.
The hotel gave us some coupons for a restaurant across the street, so we ate there the next morning. It was a really nice homestyle, large portion serving, place, with a really sweet waitress to boot.
We then passed through Pennsylvania.
It was a beautiful sunny day...

And it got steadily warmer the further we went. It was like driving into spring.
We were totally comfortable walking around outside in just our sweatshirts, which is certainly not something you can do in Montreal in February!
The Ohio welcome center was awesome.

Passing through Cleveland, we spotted this gorgeous building. I love it!
The car door handle just suddenly seemed really photographable...
And we made it there! Finally! It's about ten hours of straight driving, but with the amount of stops we make, it took us much longer.
We arrived at the Kalahari resort, where the UWWG was being held, on Monday the 2nd of February. That night, we were all really tired and spastic. Emi and I went down to the conference center, where everything was being held, for the Winter carnival, but we just felt out of place. I met a couple of people I knew from camp, but overall the carnival was really just for young kids, and all of the teens seemed to have come with their friends. I think we both, in our exhausted depression, decided that we'd have an awfuk time. Luckily, we were wrong!
The next day I woke up and started bouncing around excitedly trying to get my family to go down to the Waterpark with me. Mum was busy, so Emi and I went down. It's an all inclusive resort, so the waterpark, rooms, restaurants, convention center, and spa are all accessible without ever leaving trhe building! Emi originally didn't want to go in the wave pool, or on the slides, since the last time she'd been to a waterpark she was about 8 and it terrified her! However, as soon as she saw that there were tubes for the wave pool, she decided she's try it, and we both had a blast! After that, we tried several slides, which were all extremely awesome!

We wandered down to the conference center after that, and were hailed by a whole group of teens sitting around on couches, including a couple of people I know from camp. They were crazy, chaotic, and very friendly! After everyone split for food, we hung out in the hotel room for a bit...

But when the cleaning staff came to clean our room, we headed back down and met up with people again. They started a crazy girls against guys truth or dare game (I say "they" because I wasn't playing, just taking pictures :-P).
EWW! It got far worse even than that, sadly... :-P
"Why am I not on the cool fish list??"
These lights were on the ceiling of the auditorium/ballroom/really big room, and I just loved them!
I took lots of pictures of the first talent show (it was on Tuesday, I believe), but most were blurry! This little girl was just SO CUTE! She sung a song, and danced along to it too. :-)
The outdoor hot tub was awesome.
This guy was insane. Nice, but insane. ;-P
My mom took a belly dancing class on Wednesday. I took pictures. :-)
The lovely and very talented instructor. It was truly awesome watching her dance.
Mummy!
The endless ghallway that our room was on... The Kalahari resort is the largest hotel in Ohio with over 800 rooms, and also bosts the largest indoor waterpark in North America.
Wedensday night, hanging out in the empty, dark, grand ballroom. They played spin the bottle, we ran foot races, and some people started playing football. Emi just sat on this lion statue. :-P
The view from the windows overlooking the waterpark. A whole bunch of it is cut off at the left edge of this shot...

There were two elevaters that brought us from our room to the lobby. One we named Otis, the other George. George was cooler, because he had a heart on his floor.
Thursday, lying around in people piles. I loved watching these two (adorable little kid and Ben) interact. They just get along so well!
Group shot! Missing a few people that were part of this hangout group, but there's a lot of them here!



Riding the luggage carts was a popular pastime!

Paris Hilton ;-)
Crazy, chaotic, insane, elevator rides.
Such a cute picture! I love how much hugging and cuddling goes on at unschooling gatherings.

This was hanging around at the ball on Thursday night, our last night there. That is a petty intense look, although I have no clue what it's about! :-P
Emi doesn't like this picture, but I do!
Aww :-)
The ball!

Crazy headbanging.

Emi and Max looking lovely.
Swirling lights...
Nate doing a funny pose.
Dancing.


The woman who did the belly dancing class let people borow her coin scarves for the dance. Mum LOVED it and wants one of he own now!

Scattered shoes...
This little guy made friends with a couple of the teens, and was planning on sleeping over with them on Thursday night. However, his parents were leaving halfway through the ball. He was so sad! :-( He gave his shirt, which had earned him his nickname Checkers, to the guy he's made best friends with. :-)
More dancing...
Myself in a mirror.
The next, and final, morning at Kalahari. I realized I hadn't really taken pictures around the lobby, so I did. The tackyness pissed me off a lot to start with, but by the last day I'd pretty much gotten used to it. :-P

The Candy Shack
Signs
More waterpark shots through the windows.
"African" (we're not so sure about it's authenticity ;-)) decor.


People, getting ready to say good bye.
Jack and Emi.
All the group, or at least those who hadn't left yet.
Bethany, the girl in this pic, did an awesome workshop at one point on raw foods. She has a fascinating story (of how she used raw foods to heal herself), and you can check out her blog here. I'm sad that I only really got to talk to her and her mother on the last day! That whole family seems really cool. The three siblings that were there are pictured below. Emi and Timmeh (the bigger brother!) spent the last sleepover night talking, and Emi only got about two hours of sleep!
Jane and Tristram are so cute together! I met both of them at camp.
Their expressions are just made of awesomeness.
We stayed so long talking to people that by the time we got going it was three in the afternoon!

These swans were in a pond just outside of the Kalahari's main doors. I love ducks, swans, and similar birds. :-)
Pretty ice.
The bridge that connected the Kalahari building to the parking lot.
We only got as far as Buffalo again going back on Friday, so we stayed at the same hotel as last time. In the morning, on Saturday, we were up bright and early for the long drive.
Oil is such a fascinating contradiction. Beautiful, yet awful.
It was a good trip, even if the traveling bit coming home was stressful as hell. We were all really tired! But it's always nice seeing other unschoolers. There weren't all that many people my age, and out of the few that were there many seemed rather cliquey, but I still met some really cool people. There's this guy, Eli Gerzon, who's doing world travel tours for unschoolers. Emi was originally interested in the Japan tour, but since she always envisioned going to Japan in a few years, she's not sure if she wants to go as soon as November. Either way, Eli was a very interesting person to talk to, and I look forward with interest to any future trips he plans.

There were also several interesting workshops. I already mentioned the raw foods one briefly, but what I didn't mention was that there was actually food to try! I was rather suspicious of it at first, but the ONLY thing I didn't like was the guacomole, and that's just because I never like guacomole! I also caught the tail end of a talk on radical unschooling by Kelly Lovejoy, which made me sad, but what I did hear was very interesting, and my mom was there for the whole workshop and really felt that she got a lot out of it.

I'd love to catch up on all of the blogs I'm following, but since I follow about 40, I just can't! Because of that, please don't be insulted if I usually comment, yet don't this time! :-S

I'm still looking for unschooling articles for Homeschooling Horizons, and I'd be much obliged (and very happy) if you'd be interested in that!

Peace,
Idzie