a decade in review.

2000

well, new years 2000 I remember I was at a party full of radio DJs at somebody's house. Nobody was allowed to party until after midnight because of the whole Y2K scare. Because somebody was gonna have to go on the radio to tell the people not to panic... it was weird.

2000 was also the year I graduated high school.

2001 and 2002 were my 'bar star' years. I lived in southern alberta in a town where there were tumbleweeds, antelope, cacti, rattlesnakes and desert; a british army base, and the coldest winters I have ever experienced.

I had a bar to go to every day of the week. Seven bars. Seven different drink specials.

I lived in a place with a gambling addict and my supervisor at work. (In a grocery store deli. )

My roommate broke both of her elbows when she slipped and fell on some ice.

We used to host 'temptation island' parties every thursday at our apartment. This involved inflatable palm trees, leis, beaded curtains and a gigantic construction paper sun as permanent fixtures in our place.

2002? 2003? One of these years my dad and my step mom invited me to live in their home in Calgary and to help me get into college so I wasn't wasting my brain working in a deli.

They completely changed my life and I am only realizing now how glad I am that things went the way they did and I didn't resign myself to a life I didn't love.

2003 I lived with my great friend from high school.

That year I went on an exchange program through Mount Royal college to the Universidad de Colima in Colima, Mexico.

This place was beside a ginormous active volcano, and it was there I first tried a michelada, rode on a scooter with no helmet, felt an earthquake, understood another language, and had roommates I didn't get along with.

I had extreme culture shock most of the time and was always confused. I went into a sweat lodge in my bikini and climbed to the roof of an abandoned church on the top of a mountain.

I met the strangest person ever...he was a lawyer and an aerobics instructor. He was 35 and lived at home with his mom, and in his bedroom there were twin beds for him and his brother.

It was there that I learned that my small town ethnocentric attitude wasn't good enough for my lifestyle and vowed to change my attitude.

I came back, and moved in with one of my favorite friends. We had a place in Calgary and we went through a crazy amount of roommates.
Boyfriends, snooty girls, crazy people, my brother ... we had one roommate who was super nice but I couldn't understand his lifestyle. He had a day job doing construction, a night job as a bouncer, and went to the gym every day. He was also in tai kwan do.
His girlfriend at the time was a Hooters waitress and would come over in her heels, nylons and booty shorts.

This whole time I was going to Mount Royal College and The University of Calgary, studying Linguistics. I could never get my registration right for some reason. Every. Single. Year.

Those of you who go to post secondary institutions know ... it's not really very easy to get into school. You have to jump through hoops and somehow get funding.