L'Argument's Last Night

Wow! It's been a crazy week! On Wednesday l'Argument opened in Windsor Theatre with an amazing performance. Since then we've had 2 other awesomo performances and now tonight is the last night of the show. I have to say I've had the most wonderfull time working with Tintamarre. I've made friends with so many great people and got to work on a very fun show. I'm going to miss it very much, what will I do with all my free time? I'm going to miss rehearsals and collaborating on the script and show. I'm going to miss the crazy green room antics we've had every night. I'm going to miss performing for some pretty awesome audiences. Most of all I'm going to miss the family that has formed with all the people involved, hopefully we'll see each other lots over the next semester. Congrats everyone in Tintamarre! Let's make this the best show it can be! Merde!

-Emily

Snow Fight part one.

Today we were all set to go to Tintamarre rehearsal, the fourth last one, but it was canceled because of the crazy blizzard we had last night. When I woke up in the morning there was a good two feet of snow outside and the plows had been by, making a HUGE pile of snow in our parking lot. So what should one do with a huge pile of snow? Have a crazy fun snow fight is what. So even though Tintamarre rehearsal was canceled Francesca and I decided to have our potluck anyway, as the weather cleared up a bit. Not very many people could make it unfortunately but it was still a great night! We ate lots of food, played Cranium and best of all had a snow fight! Snow fights are the best part of winter! Here are some pictures of the epic event!

-Emily

Introducing.....THE SMUDGE!!!

So I have mentioned but not specifically talked about my lovely, but mischievous cat Smudge.

I adopted him from the Tantramar Vet here in Sackville almost ten months ago, he is just over a year old now, after seeing a note in the window one night, saying that an abandoned cat needed a home. I had been wanting to get a kitten since I'd moved out to Sackville because I'm used to having cats around. My family has had at least one cat since before I was born. In fact there was one point where we had nine....but that's another story. The next day I went back to the vet's and saw this little black and white bundel of fur with huge green, almost crossed, eyes staring at me from the diplay window. This was Smudge, and he was adorable! Immediately, I filled out the paper work required to adopt him and was allowed to go and play with him for a while. He was playful and friendly and very very very cute. I went home knowing that I had to adopt that cat. A few days later I got a call that I had been approved and I could come soon to pick up my new friend.

Now Smudge is a very special cat, in a few ways, but mainly because he has to stay on a special diet. When he was abandoned he lived alone for quiet some time and had to find food for himself. He took to eating a lot of things that a cat shouldn't, like people food, sticks, leaves, garbage etc. Because of this he had a lot of scar tissue in his stomach that was removed by the vet when he was first brought in. He now can only eat small amounts of food at a time, and it has to be a specific cat food that is easy to digest.

He also has developed a complusion to get at any and all food he can find, probably because he still thinks it could be ages before he is fed again, even though he's fed plenty of food twice a day :P. He will eat anything, cat food, garbage, bread, vegetables, baked goods, and even raw ingredients like flour, as my roommate experience the other day when she had to give him a bath after he got into the flour and was a completely white cat. This complusion also leads him to be very very persistant. We have tried everything to try and get him to stop jumping on counters and sticking his face in your food as you try to eat it. The best thing we've found is a water spray bottle. Everytime he does something he's not supposed to, he gets a spray. Though it usually makes him stop what ever he's doing and runaway, it doesn't seem to keep him from trying again....and again....and again until we have a very wet cat on our hands.

But depsite all his mischievious ways, I absolutely love my cat. He can be very lovely, like when he sleeps right next to me underneath the covers all night. He also likes to give "kisses" by rubbing his face against yours. And everyday he greets me at the door when I come home. It's very adorable. He's provided me with some much needed animal companionship I've been missing since I left my cats back in Toronto. So expect more stories about Smudge soon, as he's always getting into some sort of trouble.

-Emily

TINTAMARRE!!!!

I had to post again to talk about the wonderfulness that is Tintamarre. It is a bilingual theatre troupe that collaborates here at Mount Allison each fall semester on an idea that becomes a play. This year's show is Argument, about a young girl turns to her journal after an argument with her family. The journal then comes alive and hilarity and fun ensues.

This is my first year participating in the show. I have seen the two previous shows before me, Floralie and Trocshop, and have finally joined this year. So far I've had a wonderful experience with all the people involved. It's a big group, with 33 actors in the show, so I've met lots of new friends.

The process started in September with weekly meetings to talk and improv and collaborate on characters, plot, set, and costumes. By October our director had a script containing many of our ideas, ready to start casting. The casting was also collacorative, with everyone trying for different parts and recommending others for roles. Since then we've been rehearsing lines and blocking and today we are a week away from opening night.

One interesting challenge for me in this show has been that I don't read/speak/understand French that well, and since 70% of the show is French it has proved to be a learning experience. But I'm getting better. I'm slowly beginning to understand things more and my pronunciation is not too bad. Soon I'll be chatting with the best of 'em.

So if you're around Wednesday November 26th through Saturday November 29th come see Argument! Pictures from rehearsal are coming soon!

-Emily

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

The snow has arrived! Today at about 2:20pm little white fluffy stuff began to swirl around in a death trap of Sackville wind. The snow was nice, the wind was not.

Now if you don't know Sackville New Brunswick I'm hear to tell you it is the windiest place on the face of the earth. Why the "gods" 'Mount' Allison decided place a university in the middle of a wind tunnel is beyond me, but they did and now all the students get to be pushed and pulled around campus by hurricane force winds almost everyday.

But besides the wind I'm all in favour of the snow. Snow and Christmas are pretty much the only two things about winter that I do like. That is until Christmas is over, and your tree is looking like one owned by Charlie Brown, and the snow starts to get brown and gross. About February every year I suddenly get an uber longing for summer, not spring, summer. But for now I welcome the snow and look forward to snow fights, tobogganing on meal hall trays, and skating on the swan pond.

-Emily


Update: Here is the aftermath of yesterday's snow storm!

The Scrapbook Saga

For the past month I have been working on one assignment that has completely consumed me. The project was for a class I'm taking about Paris, called Paris: City of Light. We had to choose one of three options for said project: an essay, which I'm terrible at writing, a power point presentation based around one topic related to Paris, or plan a two week trip to Paris in the form of a scrapbook. Now in my usually logical thinking I said to myself, "Oh! A scrapbook, wouldn't that be fun and creative." What I didn't say was, "Oh! A scrapbook, that will take an infinite amount of your time and energy for the next month." So what did I do, I chose the scrapbook. I had one month to complete the project and in my mind that was easy. I even started my research right away, figuring out what hotel I would stay in and when I was going to go and what I was going do when I got there. I even had a long weekend during this month in which I spent 3 days working on this scrapbook. But it just was not getting done, in fact I think the longer I worked the more I had to do. Every night for the week before it was due I was up way past 3 am, gluing and cutting and typing like mad. I was even skipping classes so I could get this stupid thing done, but the miles of glue and paper seemed endless. And when I was just about to disappear into the very dark, never-ending, scrapbooking pit of despair there was a light at the end of the tunnel and I glued my very last piece of paper to that book. I handed in the project today, 2 days late, but it is done and I will be damned, to the scrapbooking pit of despair, if I don't get an A on it.

-Emily

A New Beginning

Hello!

Well this is the new home of Thoughts of the Mad and Absurd, now called Absurd Bird. I'd thought I'd try and re-animate my old blog in a new place and format that is a little easier to manage and a lot more open to everyone. Here goes.

For those who haven't read my previous blog here's a little bit about me. I'm Emily. 20 years old. Currently living in Sackville NB, pretty much the smallest place on earth as far as I know. I go to school here, Mount Allison University, and have been for the past 2 1/2 years. I'm studying photography in the BFA program. I'm actually from the "BIG" city, ie Toronto, so living in a small town is definitely interesting. Right now I have too roommates. Francesca, my best friend since grade 9, and Sara, our new roommate who is a lovely cook. We have two cats, Smudge and Banana, and a hedgehog named Sadie. All these facts make life pretty strange, but fun.

So yea, that me. Hopefully this blogging thing will stick again.

- Emily