Billeting, Program Reservations, Body Language

So far, these are the differences I perceive between Summerside and Guelph:
-They call lunch dinner and dinner supper
-They say "bet" instead of "beat" and "youse" instead of "you"
-They prefer Pepsi to Coke
-There are a shockingly high number of Toronto Maple Leafs fans

Anyway, I'm back from billeting. The house was tiny. The photographer of our group took pictures of me standing in the bathroom, one with my head bent and my shoulders touching the ceiling, one with the showerhead coming up to my chest, and one in my bedroom, with my feet sticking off the mattress. It's an old house, built for when people were smaller. It was still a huge improvement from the Katima-house. I was allowed to take a shower longer than ten minutes (that's our shower time cap) and my mattress was more comfortable than the stiff, squeeky thing Katimavik provided me.

It had no Internet, though, which is why I couldn't update the blogs. The house was just down the street from Katima-house, so the walk to work was barely any different, and I could see Pierre's billet house from my billet house's window. That, coupled with the fact that Rachel's billet family is close-knit with mine had me, Pierre and Rachel hanging out every day. The concept of experiencing a different part of Summerside, and getting away from the group, was totally lost on me.

It was pretty neat to know that we would get together voluntarily, and not out of obligation, though, and it just being the three of us really changed group dynamic, which was an interesting experience.

I feel like my host family really wasn't that into being a billet. They weren't rude but we were kind of quiet with each other. I did get a good taste of their extended family while I was there, though. I met their children, neices, sisters, in-laws, grandchildren, and step-children. What was interesting was that they all shared a kind of unity and appreciation for each other that I've only ever really seen in one other extended family dynamic in my life. I mean, I know a lot of family members who get along with each other, but for such an extensive family to ALL get along genuinely... That's rare.

Anyway, it was sort of stated that Rachel's billet was expected to do some things with me, and they did. Her host sister even nicknamed me "Gryph-Gryph" which was a plus, I guess.

We volunteered at the Women's Expo, us three. There was also someone else from our group, another from our group visited, and a number of extended Katimavik participants from the PEI cluster were there.

I sold raffle tickets, and helped take down everything afterward. In total, I sold 39 tickets and worked nine hours straight. They bought me pizza and Sprite afterward. It was cool to know that, not only would my Katima-friends come together voluntarily, but that we'd voluntarily volunteer. There was no program prerequisite saying we had to do this.

While I was there, I got a sparkly purple butterfly painted on my forehead. Some Katimavik girls from another group offered me a free temporary tattoo. All the options, of course, were extremely femenine. I could have gotten a fairy posing seductively and retained my manliness, but I felt that that would be kind of missing the point. I asked a little girl what she thought I should get, and she said the purple butterfly. I asked where I should put it, and she said my forehead. They asked if I wanted sparkles and she said I did.

I don't know how to upload pictures to Blogger on our house computer, but here's a link to my Facebook page. Even if you don't have Facebook, you'll still see my profile picture which, as of this posting, is me with my sparkly purple butterfly and my beard two weeks into the competition: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=617280867

I realized that my hat looks vulgar and touristy. Nobody in Summerside would whear a Summerside pin, and the Katimavik slogan is "Get A Life"! Oh well, I'll still wear it.

I took my vitamin supplements every day during billetting. Back at home, I was taking B12 and D supplements, and if I fell off my pattern, then got back on it, the difference would be immense. I haven't been doing the supplements hardly at all since getting in Katimavik, but getting back on hardly made a difference. Maybe it's because my dietary patterns have changed so much.

I regret only doing the six month program. If you can do six months and not drop out, you can do nine, I think, and if you're not going to drop out, you want those extra three months. And because it's not Katimavik that decides the activities, but rather the group, that means the differences between the six-month program's contents don't really show. Also, I think we were kind of guinea pigs when it comes to working out the six-month programs. This is the first time they've tried these, and they're making all their mistakes with us. Next time around, they're doing it so that you spend two places for three months instead of going to one place for three months, one for two, and one for one. They're also getting rid of the Community Involvement Project. I approve of both these decisions.

But it's not like I could have necessarily gotten into the six-month program. By the time I managed to submit my application, the nine-month was already full. Nine-month program for next year is already full.

Everyone I spoke to in the cluster was under the same impression as me, that we'd spend two months at each location. Also, we were supposed to get one Urban, one Rural, and one French community, but my group got two places inbetween Rural and Urban, and our French community speaks Cree primarily, and it's second language is English. Also, the gender and geographic balancing they said they made their selections by was not honoured in my cluster at all.

There's actually a rumour going around that the reason for this is because PEI got all the late applicants, so it was kind of a last-come-last-serve thing.

I've got a lot of strange body mannerisms that I never knew I had, and that nobody ever told me about before I got into this program. I shake my head every time I sit down, I bob my head back and forth randomly, I raise my eyebrows before I'm about to say anything interesting, I swing my hips and tap my right foot while I'm trying to stand still, and I cradle my left arm with my right hand behind my back while I'm walking. Could this be a.... new development?

I'm going to Charlottetown for my 48 hours off with some people from my group and we're getting together with some cluster members while we're over, so don't try to contact me over the weekend.