My first Illustrator project

I'm like a proud mama! I thought I had found somebody to design a flyer for my dance camp, but that fell through and I needed to get this flyer printed ASAP, as I have to send it to Herrang, before the Swedish dance camp ends, in July. Well, I bought the Illustrator program and gave it a try, while being coached by P, on FB chat, with her not seeing my screen or knowing what images I was playing with. Hahaha! That was truely unique! Well, here it is, my baby:

And for more info on the dance event, visit www.bali-lindy.webs.com (my first website, so my slightly older baby, ha! ha!)

Cheers!

Procrastinating...

Why am I writing so much today? Yes, I am procrastinating again... I have a paper due on Tuesday. I don't know how I will ever get it done on time. I'm worried. But am I hitting the books? Noooooooo... That would make way too much sense. Argh! I am so uninspired on researching volunteering programs in schools and what kind of impact they have on students. ...I can hear you snoring from here! Well, this is the subject for my thesis. I wanted to write about something else, but I just can't find enough material for me to base my facts on, so the professor rejected my idea. He seems quite interested in this project though. Too bad he's not the one that has to write it. OK, enough moaning.



Figured I'd post a few photos from my Canadian holiday.

Miss Canelle, une des deux royautees du domaine!

Two self-portraits taken in the golf, Pointe-Claire, PQ

And what do you do on a cold winter night?

While visiting friends in Montreal, it was no surprise to see that most of them had started a family. While in Quebec city, I visited with Natasha and Etienne. Both of them have 3 kids each. In Montreal, I tried to surprise Catherine, who still works at N-D, but she was on maternity leave. She's waiting for her 4th. Marco is too. Karl and Isa, I just found out, have 3 of their own. In fact, I don't think I know that many people that have the old average of 1.2 kids...

What's up with that? Did you guys have a meeting and all decide together that you were going to repopulate the whole province? I know all of you will be paying heavily to take care of the baby-boomers that are now getting pretty old. Did you decide that by having so many kids, you'll have it easy when it is then your turn to retire?? Is it THAT cold during the Canadian winter months???

Hehehehe.... Just wondering....

And people do...

I have just returned from a 3-week holiday in Quebec, It was my first Christmas back ever since I left Canada (7 years) and I must admit, it was a better trip than expected! I'll tell you all about it in my next posting, but first I wanted to address all those complaints about me not updating my blog very frequently...

Do you keep a journal? I don't. I tried, as a teenager, but I thought it was a waist of time writing my thoughts down when I knew very well that I would never read it again and that nobody else was supposed to read it.

When I started this blog, it was to cut down on the long emails I was sending to everybody, realizing that they rarely replied or only wrote back a few lines (figuring their life wasn't exciting enough). I figured that keeping the blog would allow people to find out what I was up to and let them write their little "one-liners" in the COMMENT section of the blog (at the end of each entry). Guess what? Annick (annicksurlatrotte.blogspot.com), my sister Colette and sometimes Carol-Ann wrote a comment, once in a while, but lately, nothing. What am I to think? I am obviously boring people to death and nobody is reading this stuff, not even me! So I don't write. I might as well spend more time on flickr.com or kodakgallery.com, to post photos instead of trying to construct a decently-structured text once in a while---I am waaaaay too lazy for that (and I hate writing).

Well, imagine my surprise when, during my visit, almost every single person I visited complained that I didn't update my blog very often!!! You guys read this s**t?? And you enjoy it??? Hehehehe.... I am shocked!

Anyway, if you are reading, thank you! It means a lot to me to know that you care enough to keep up to speed with my ever-changing life. Guess what? I wonder about YOU all the time! (OK, I actually started crying while writing that...sob, sob...). OK, you think your life is not that exciting. Well, it's different and interesting to me! You're in love (God knows that's a foreign concept to me!!!), your kids are groing up before your eyes, some changes are happening at work, whatever. If it's not enough to email, then just go to the "comment" section of this blog and let me know what you thouht about what you just read or what you have to get back to once you're done reading or a little bit of news you don't mind others seeing.

After writing your comment, if you click "anonymous", don't forget to write your name.

It was great to see you guys during the break. I am sorry I didn't get to see everybody. Next time, next time!

Big hugs to all,

Cat

N.B. I am not even going to re-read this, 'cause odds are I'd probably delete the whole damn thing!

You like photos??

OK, I have started to take photography a bit more seriously. I've been taking great shots not because I'm any good, but because I've visited amazing places. I want to be able to take a great shot of even something that looks boring. I want to learn how to use photoshop. To help me, I've been posting a few shots on http://www.digital-photography-school.com/ and following what other photographers do on the forum. To be able to post on this forum, I upload my pictures on http://www.flickr.com/. As I can only post 3 photos at a time on this site, you'll be able to visit flickr and see more, if you're interested. I have added a link to that website to the right of the screen, so you can just click the link and bingo!

Last week's assignment for DPS (digital photography school) was hands. Here's my favorite shot of the lot. More on flickr...

My 7th grade students signing the word "hands"

China-Yangtze river dragon boat festival

All the expat teams in Singapore (Canadian, American, Australian, British, Irish and German teams) got together to form a traveling team, called the Singapore Barbarians. We practiced together only a few times before setting off to China for 2 days of racing on the Yangtze river.

We were guests of the government, so we only had to pay for our plane tickets. The bad thing about that was that we had to eat what they fed us... Eurk! Pork liver, beef intestines and all sorts of other things that I didn't want to know I had put in my mouth were on the menu. I neve thought I would say this, but where's a McDonald's when you need one???

We spent our first day on the water, practicing and making fools out of ourselves because we didn't have a cox on our boat (the "driver"). The other teams must have been wondering what was up with the crazy white folks! Then we went to the new Yangtze River dam. Around the world, people are complaining about the damage that this dam is creating. It was very eery to hear how the Chinese government thinks this is one of the greatest things that could have happened in this region....

I have never seen such a crowd show up for a dragon boat event! The banks of the river were crowded with locals (see photos) and we had a water parade to kick the whole thing off (maybe that's what people really came to see---who knows?). On the first day, the level was quite high for the men, but there were barely any women teams competing, so we were basically assured to medal. We had a packed lunch from the hotel (chicken feet and whatnot--I stuck to the rice) and ran accross the street to buy crackers to be able to survive the long day.

The next day, we took a long drive up the river, back to the dam. That's were the start of our next race was. During my 2 years as a paddler, the longest race I've participated in was a 1km race. Well, this was going to be a loooooong one: 35km, estimated to take us 2:30. Well, it took us 2:10 and I must say I was in less pain that I had anticipated. Still, as soon as we got back to the hotel, Alicia and I had a 90 minute massage.

Going back in time...

I've had a few complaints about not updating my blog--Oui, oui, je parle de toi, Annick! I have not taken any pictures around Jakarta yet, but I've taken many while traveling last school year and I never took the time to post them, so let's go back in time...

Let's start with dragon-boating. Sadly, it will be impossible for me to compete now that I am in Jakarta (with this insane traffic, it would take way too much time to get to practice), but I have a few pictures of my last race in Singapore (April). I was usually responsible for stretching the teams out before each race and would prepare healthy food for up to 60 people (breakfast and lunch), which Siti (my maid) did most of. I wonder what they're eating now....

Our men finishing first, in boat 3

Our women's team, paddling to the start of the 500 m race

The women's team, being goofy!

I'm back!

OK, the end of the last school year was CRAZY! I didn't take much time to reply to personal emails and certainly didn't update my blog. I am sorry. Good news: I'M BACK and ready to settle in my new home in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Where is that? Here you go:

I arrived on Thursday, July 27 and moved into my new appartment on the following Monday. It was quite a shock to see how small the place was, especially compared to the huge place I had in Singapore. I am wondering where I will stash my shipment (12 cubic meters!!), which will arrive in about a month. Where is Siti going to sleep? I have no clue! This is only for a year and I will hopefully move into a house at the end of this school year.

The school looks amazing and my dance studio is HUGE! I can't wait to send you guys photos! The best thing about returning to Jakarta after that god awful experience in 2001 is that the place looks and feels so much better than it did the first time around! Maybe making the big bucks is what makes the difference. I don't know, but all that to say that so far, I am enjoying the little bit of the city I have had access to.

Well, I have ANOTHER party to run to (these folks are trying to test us, I am sure...)

In my next posting, I will hopefully have time to bring you up to speed with my summer holiday: a trip to Nepal & Tibet with Shabari (a colleague from SAS) and 5 weeks in Sweden, swingdancing.

My new email, by the way, is cparent@JISEDU.OR.IN yes, those are all capital letters at the end. Hope to hear from you soon!

Overload!

Argh! I am leaving Singapore in 3 weeks and it seems like I need another 2 months to prepare for my departure....

I've had many visitors stop by in the past few months. I guess everybody was trying to slide in a visit before I left. It's really cool to get people to come visit, but this year, they all seem to have come during the same week!

Colette (my sister) came over for 3 weeks. We managed to spend 9 days in Vietnam (photos later) and a weekend in Phuket (for her birthday), but I feel like I didn't have any time to show her what the real Singapore is like. Oh well, maybe in a few years!

Andrew Sutton (check out www.smoothsavoy.com), on his way to Australia, stopped by for a week. He taught a few classes at school and it was awesome to have him around, although I didn't get to go social dancing with him at all. OK, that's a lie: we managed to slip a dance in at 6:30 am, while waiting for his taxi to take him to the airport... I think I was still sleeping!

I received an email from Martha (an old colleague and friend from Beirut) while I was in Vietnam. She wanted to know if she could stop by for a few days. I am never one to say no! I was definitely very happy to see her (it had been 4 years), but I barely had time to spend with her. I am so sorry, Martha! Hope you'll come to visit me in Jakarta (actually, we could just go to Bali) and I'll make sure you have my full attention next time!

Now, I have to figure out my summer plans, getting my stuff out of Singapore (including my cat) and settling in to my new home in Jakarta. How am I going to manage that? I am supposed to go scuba diving this weekend, but I have an important skin infection. Maybe I should cancel that, but how can I pass on an opportunity to go diving? Also, next week, I am supposed to compete in a dragon boat race in China. I took 3 days off of work to go to this thing, but again, the doc thinks I should cancel... I'm still undecided!

The shipping company will come pack my stuff up on May 28 or 29, I finish work on June 1st and off to Nepal and Tibet for a few weeks, with Shabs. Then, I'll fly to Stockholm for the rest of the summer. How can I cut out my favorite dance camp when i'll be teaching dancing next year? Makes sens to go, right?

That leaves the evenings to plan for everything. We have a dance show this Thursday night, so the planning can wait to next week, I guess. Am I crazy? If I am not, I'm certainly going to be... Very, very soon! I need a personal assistant! ;-)

OK, pics from Vietnam coming up soon!