Photo of the Day

Another of my Las Vegas prints from film, this one of glass building near Freemont St. and Las Vegas Blvd.

Note: I hope to have the continuation of my previous post up tonight after circus class.

Photo of the Day

This is a digital photo of a print I made from film I took in Las Vegas last Christmas. One of the many seedy motels on Las Vegas Blvd. beyond the flashy lights of the main part of the stip.

Photo of the Day (extra)

I realized not everyone is an art geek like me so here is James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket)

Moving On: Part One

I'm moving to my first real "adult" apartment in 22 days. Of course I have lived on my own for the past four years but it has always been in residence or student apartments, so now that I've graduated this move feels more "real" I guess.

Back in the spring when I had originally decided to move to Halifax I was intent on living by myself. I have lived with F and a variety of different roommates in a variety of "interesting" apartments over the past four years while at university:

Me on my "bed" in residence

First Year: F and me in a residence room that was probably about 3/4 of the size of my bedroom back at my Mum's place in Toronto. Now let me tell you, I have never shared a room with anyone in my entire life (sleepovers and cottage visits exempt). It may sound a little spoiled but that's just how my life worked out. I always has a place of my own to escape to, but in res. that became a lot more difficult. I had also not slept in a single bed since I was eight years old, so you can guess what size the beds were in our room. Needless to say, F and I were looking for an apartment for second year by October of our first.

The infamous wood paneling in our first apartment

Second Year: My first apartment! F and I find a place that we call the Big Blue House. An old house that had been turned into three levels of apartment. We're on the middle floor. Underneath us? Wannabe frat boys. Above us? International students who think BBQing on the wooden staircase, that serves as both the only entrance to the upper level apartments and a fire escape, is okay. The apartment seemed awesome at the time, but looking back only a couple years later all I can see is miles and miles of wood paneling. Also guess who moves in?! F's boyfriend from back home moves to Sackville to be with her. K (the boy) and I go way back to the fourth grade and although we were never close friends we get along okay. However, apparently getting along has nothing to do with being able to live together. Our inability to co-habitate is mostly to do with the fact that he's a dirty, messy boy and though I wouldn't consider myself a clean freak, I still don't appreciate month old apple cores and half eaten pizza slices hanging around. By the end of the year K is back in Toronto, F is a little heart-broken and I....well I'm sad for F but can't help feeling a little relieved.

Vegan cupcakes!

Third Year: F and I stay in the Big Blue House and find a new roommate. A GIRL this time. She's great! A fine arts student, a baker and a vegan. She teaches us to bake vegan goodies, we watch silly movies and make cookies at midnight. We all have the usual roommate spats but nothing out of the ordinary. But despite the great roomies, we are still living in an apartment with carpets an indescribable shade of.......grey?......brown? A toilet from which you can easily reach the sink, and a strange fruit fly infestation that, even when the place is spotless, won't go away.

Me on the roof of our last house

Year Four: F and I part ways with our other magnificent roomie but we stay close friends. We're originally supposed to live with couple other friends from school but things fall apart and F and I are left without a home a month or so before we're supposed to move. Eventually we find a house and pride ourselves in the negotiations we make with the landlord. A six bedroom, two bathroom house for just me and F at only $1,000/month, all inclusive. It's a good deal considering the place was home to some very exuberant soccer boys for the past few years and is now falling apart. But despite the holes in the wall, atrocious paint job and strangest layout for a kitchen I've ever seen, we call the place home for the next year.

So come graduation, after four long years in student housing, I was ready to strike out and find a place to really call home. I was not, however, prepared for the battle field that is finding an apartment in the city.

Photo of the Day

A shot of the Natal Day fireworks over the Halifax harbour. Reminds me of one of Whistler's Nocturne paintings. 

Photo of the Day

Note to self: Photo of the day should be a daily occurrence.

The MacDonald Bridge, from the Dartmouth side of the harbour, right before the Natal Day fireworks.

Family Values

For the past almost three months I have been living with the Bennett family in Dartmouth, NS. (just across the harbour from Halifax). As described in the About Me section, the Bennetts are old family friends from Toronto. L and P are basically my aunt and uncle and, I guess by extension, their two sons are cousins, though they feel more like little brothers. They very generously agreed to take me in after I graduated so I could get on my feet before finding a place in Halifax to live.

Moving in with a family definitely required an adjustment period, as I have been living on my own with F and various other roommates for the past four years; I also require a fair amount of "alone time".

The biggest adjustment has been dealing with two young boys. Before now, I had always been the one of the youngest in my family and always the youngest in my house growing up, having only an older sibling. I've also spent a large portion of my life living only with women, so co-habitating with boys is not my area of expertise. At first it seemed pretty easy. I was a new person in the house, someone with interesting stories and a different perspective on things. But the curiosity didn't last long. Very soon I became the older sister figure and the perfect target for practical jokes and teasing. As a younger sibling originally, I can take a fair amount of teasing and dish out a bit of my own. However, as a girl (a minority in the house), I was not prepared for the extent to which boys will go to get a laugh out of anything you do, say, or even think.

example 1: An advertisement for Clear Blue pregnancy tests comes on t.v

R: "Emily, don't you need one of those?"

G: "Yea, this ad only comes on when you're in the room"

Me:............ o_O.................

example 2: I walk into the living room and sit down. R is sitting, quite happily, on one of the 3 other empty couches in the room but immediately gets up to come sit by me.

Me: "Why are you going to sit here when the other ones are free?"

R: "So I can annoy you."

Me: "No. Get your own couch."

R : sits down beside me anyway

Me: stares at R

R: "What?! I'll stay on my side"

Five minutes later guess whose limbs are splayed out across the couch digging into every bit of me they can reach?

And it's not just the young ones who enjoy poking fun at me. P often joins in or is the instigator of it all. Though he is also the first to agree to me exacting my revenge on either of the boys, and I definitely do. I cannot claim to be an innocent party.

Teasing and jokes aside though, I couldn't have asked for a better place to spend the summer. It's exactly like being with family.

However, everyone needs to leave the family at some point and as lovely as the summer's been I am very much excited for moving into my first non-student apartment with F and the cats on September 1st.

25 days!