Going to Gaspé

The last time I was in Gaspé, I was 11 years old.  It was winter, and everything was covered in a thick layer of snow.

I wrote a while ago about my memories of Gaspé.

And now, with the death of my Great Grandmother at age 99 this past winter, we're going to Gaspé for her funeral.

From this tourist site, Le rocher Percé, by Jean-Pierre Huard.

 

We wanted to stay in her old house, which is now passing on to my great uncle, but sadly, he is, to be frank, an ass, and came up with an excuse for us not being allowed to stay in the old house.  I feel a bit of sadness at that, since there are many childhood memories from that old farmhouse (my sister and I loved the layout of that house, so different from modern ones, and we loved playing in it!).  But my mother, who has so, so many more memories attached to it feels the loss of it more accutely. 

What I want to do is hike on the land there, even if we can't go into the house.  It's on a lot with acres upon acres of forest, stretching right up to the top of a mountain!  There are deer and moose, and bear and wolves on that land.

We've been searching for hotels, trying to find ones that open early enough (it seems many of them open for the season a few days after we're due to arrive...), and just trying to figure all of the logistics out... 

There's been a rather melancholy and stressed feeling in our house the last couple of days.  We leave in a week from today.  And I have this horrible feeling that this is the last time for a very long time that I'm going to be in Gaspé.  I hope this feeling isn't accurate.  Even though it's been so many years, I love that place, that land, deeply.  I want to stay longer than just a few days when we head up there, even though we could only really extend things a couple more days anyway, since we have commitments back home.

I just keep thinking of the place, though.  The sights, smells, sounds...

 

  

These photos were taken by my mother when she went to Gaspé with my grandmother in 2007.  I wish I had any photos I've taken there, but at age 11, I wasn't into photography at all!  The only images I have are the blurry ones in my head...

Despite the reason we're heading up there, I'm really looking foward to this trip.  I hope we can stay as long as possible.  I'll have my camera with me, and I'm greatly looking forward to having tons of photos of this beautiful place.  

Now if we can only find a place to stay, and get through the funeral and memorial service, as well as whatever family drama often comes along with such things... *Sighs*

Peace,

Idzie

The Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering 2010

So, in case you couldn't guess, I'm home!!  I had a really great week, spent time with many truly wonderful people, and took way too few pictures.  But I'll do my best to tell the story with only a few shots...

Last Saturday, we headed off toward Pittsburgh, to stay with a family we met at last years UWWG.  We were originally supposed to arrive much earlier, but by the time we actually got there it was midnight, and by the time we all stopped talking and hanging out in favour of bed, it was pat 3:00 am!  Emi, mum and I were thrilled to find out that not only were Jody, Bethany, Timmy, & Sam awesome people, they were also just as much night owls as we are. *Grins* The time we spent with the Hagensen's was great, and involved lots of conversations around the table in the sunny kitchen, about a variety of topics.  I love how with unschoolers, age matters so much less.  Between our two families, there were ages 9, 15, 16, 18, 18, and parents (I don't think they'd be thrilled if I tried to add their ages as well... ;-)), and all of us would happily sit around talking to each other...  That just makes me really happy.  As do the Hagensen's.♥  I really hope I get to see all of them again soon!

Here are Sam, Emi, and Timmy playing Smash Bros on Nintendo...

Their adorable, fluffy, crazy, cat.

 Isn't he cute?

On Monday, we headed to the Kalahari, for the third annual Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering!  We took Timmy along for the ride, since his family was leaving a bit later in the day, and he wanted to have as much time as possible there!  On the way, we spotted the official Girls Gone Wild bus.  Seriously.  We found that hilarious!

Yeah, I know you can hardly see it.  But trust me, that's what it was!

The first night there I was sooo tired I nearly fell asleep in John Taylor Gatto's keynote address!  That first day though, it struck me how very different it was for me just a year from my first unschooling conference.  I knew SO MANY PEOPLE!  I could barely take two steps without running into someone to hug hello, chat with, or just enthusiastically wave hi to.  I was even greeted by a lovely gift in one case.  It was a truly great feeling. ♥

The next day, I attended John Taylor Gatto's workshop.  I find what he has to say very interesting, though I don't agree with all of it.  He's very Libertarian, and I'm definitely not, so I found myself feeling uncomfortable with some of the surrounding assumptions and beliefs in many of his statements.  Regardless, I really enjoyed his talk, and found that he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.  Not arrogant at all, and very friendly. 

   

It's blurry, but that's him!

The conference centre was filled with hoards of happy teenagers...

 

People with interesting clothing...

And cheerful goofing off.

I enjoyed myself, spending time in the waterpark and in the conference centre, with teens and with parents...  Sadly, since I'm the photographer here, I have no pictures of me having fun! *Grins*

We also had the great pleasure of seeing the world premiere of the short documentary about Not Back To School Camp!  This film is seriously, absolutely and completely, AMAZING.  It captures so perfectly what NBTSC *is*.  I love it. ♥ Both Emi and I can also be glimpsed in several scenes...  I highly suggest you watch it now!!

Not Back to School Camp: A Glance Within from Allen Ellis on Vimeo.

On Wednesday there was a marketplace, complete with advertisers!

Emi was very happy with the stuff she sold, and felt she got a good idea of what sold well and what didn't, what price ranges worked, and similar useful info.  She also met some very kind and helpful people, who shared their experiences with both selling handmade items and traveling.

 

A friend kept her company while she sold her Creations...

Emi introduced one of her favorite games, Werewolves, to her friends, and they played some pretty intense rounds, or at least so I've heard...

 

Apparently playing Werewolves is much more fun than dancing. ;-)

You know, I really don't have all that much to say.  I hung out with awesome people, had lots of cool conversations, played in the waterpark, went to a couple of talks...  Of course, that's a lot of stuff.  But at the moment, I don't really feel equipped to elaborate on all of that!  So I'll just say that I had a good time.  Oh, I did also get to meet a few blogging and Twitter peeps whom I hadn't met before, which was cool, and got to know some people whom I'd only met briefly at earlier conferences and gatherings, which was also great!

On Friday, we left the Kalahari, with much sadness.  After an unschooling gathering, home seems pretty lonely...  I really want to make sure that I keep in touch with people this year!  

But anyway, we left the Kalahari and headed to my grandfathers, whom I haven't seen in several years.  I was a bit nervous about seeing my granddad and step-grandma, honestly.  Having had only brief phone calls for the last few years, it felt a bit strange to be visiting.  But I'm really, really glad we did!  It was really great to see them, and I was a rather sad when it was time to leave the next day.

 My step-grandmother and my grandfather, with their adorable but VERY yappy little doggy.

Me, my grandfather, and Emi.

Then, on Saturday, we came home.  It's always surreal coming back home after being away.  The tap works the same way, the dishes are all in the right spots, and the bed is in the same state of dissaray it was when I last saw it, yet it all seems different somehow...

I should mention that the Tuesday we were away, we got some bad news.  My great-grandmother, Eileen Boyle Caputo, passed away at age 99 on the day we left, Saturday the 6th of February.  I wasn't very close to her, having only known her in her later years, but my mom was, and it hit her hardest.  I don't think any of us really thought she was going to die soon.  She always seemed like the Energizer bunny: you just expected her to keep going forever!

So I will leave things at that for now...  I hope everyone had a great week, and there are, as there often are, several post ideas bouncing around in my head, that will hopefully turn into actual posts soon!

Peace,

Idzie

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...

Gone for a week...

Leaving for NBTSC tomorrow morning, and will be back on the 26th, hopefully with cool pictures. Feeling draggy, clogged up, and like just curling up under a blanket with a warm cup of tea and not going anywhere. Yes, I seem to be coming down with a cold. I've already had loads of very sweet suggestions for cold-fighting things to eat and do (zinc, vitamin C, garlic, honey, no sugar, no greasy food, drinking lots of water, etc. etc.), so hopefully this will pass fast!

Have a good week everyone!

Peace,
Idzie

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

Cottage photos

Before it gets to be a ridiculously long time since our vacation, I wanted to share some photos from our week away (the first week in August). I took several hundred photos on our last full day there, and all the photos shown below are from that one day! I may share some pics from the rest of the week at a later date, or I may not... I'll see how things go! I don't have the energy right now to add captions, so I'm not going to.



















Peace,
Idzie