I could feel myself getting miserably sick yesterday. I was insanely tired, my mouth was drying out and my joints were sore. According to everyone around the school, I was due for that nasty flu that’s been incapacitating people.

Today, I’m healthy again. I wouldn’t run a marathon, but I’m doing much better. And it’s all because of Mike and his crazy Chinese cures. I’ll explain…

I’ve been staying at several different places until I move into the new house. One of them is the head instructor of the school. When I was at Mike’s place yesterday, he gave me some of these Chinese herbal pills that he swears by. They look kind of like little yellow candies or something. When Mike explained to me that he goes to a Chinese herbal doctor in addition to his regular doctor, I couldn’t help but visualize some old shop like in Gremlins or something. I told Mike I’d probably have “Chinese Dragon nightmares” screaming and performing martial arts maneuvers in my sleep. Anyways… took the pills, feel better today, end of story.

I’ve been doing Life Drawing in the evening once or twice a week since I got back. Although it’s been painful getting back into it, I’m glad I’m doing it. The results have been slow and I’m still not where I was when I left Sheridan, but the progress is not bad, all things considered.

I’m hoping to get back to where I was soon and then push beyond with more practice. I guess Werner (my old Life Drawing teacher) would be pleased. I know too many people who stopped Life Drawing after they got out of school.

Otherwise, things are good. I’m excited about moving in to the new place and setting up all my crap. With the money I’m saving by having easy access to the transit system instead of buying a car, I’m planning to buy a kick-ass computer.

I can’t believe January will be wrapping up soon. The daylight’s getting longer here and I can’t wait until summer.

That’s all for now.

Searching for somewhere to live is a frustrating experience. Ideally, I wanted to find a house I could rent in near the C-Train (streetcar system in Calgary). That way I could save up money for a car for the summer instead of buying a crappy car now and praying it lasted through winter.

I ended up seeing a whole pile of houses over the last week. They fell into several categories:
• ungodly expensive
• horribly destroyed in crappy neighborhoods
• the weird

The weird took me to places like a really clean house with a nice property. The landlady, however, was a clean freak (read- obsessive/compulsive). She insisted that we would have to trim the bushes and manicure the lawn every week as well as keep a flower garden. I am the farthest thing from a gardener.

Then, she mentioned that we had to be relatively quiet people because her father lived next door. At that moment (no lie) the old father bursts out the door and starts screaming at us from his porch next door. His senile ramblings about parking continued while he waved his arm (he had a hook for a hand) at us. Not a good sign…we passed on that one.

Other ads in the paper that said “walking distance from downtown” should have read “marathon run to the outskirts of downtown” or “commute through heavy traffic and pray you’ll reach downtown”. Not good. I really wanted to snag a house instead of an apartment. Ideally, I want to set up my art stuff and work away on my own projects in the evenings.

However, after much frustration and searching, I’ve found a perfect place. A little house in Kensington/ Sunnyside (the young, single, artsy district) right by the C-Train. Within 3 blocks of my house are:
• a cool comic store
• an art store
• a grocery store
• some great pubs and restaurants (sushi!)
• my bank

Needless to say, I’m excited. I should be moving in February 1st. Once I have the mailing address and phone number, I’ll send it to all of you. I want to have a house warming party and get together with friends, but I don’t know how soon I’ll be settled in.

In other news, work is good, but very busy. We had a massive staff meeting today and found out that the Head Director and his brother have been let go from the parent company that owns our school. Scary at first, but actually very good. A lot of changes weren’t being made because things were stagnant with the upper management. Things look like they’ll be smoothing out more now that there’s closer communication. The announcement caught me off guard and I was worried they were telling us that the school was closing, but that’s not the case.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who e-mailed me about the whole Christmas/New Years thing. I know many of you were surprised by the sudden move (or re-move) and I really appreciate the love and support you’ve shown me.

Here is the story of my strange and wonderful New Years Eve. Get ready for it-

On the flight back to Calgary I realized that I had no real plans for New Year’s Eve. I was back in Calgary with no idea of what I would be doing as the year 2000 swept in. Years from now, kids would ask me what I did for the year 2000 and I would have to say “Uh, I just sat around and watched fireworks on TV.” Not acceptable.

Then, the weirdness began. As the announcements on the plane came on for our in-flight meal, they asked specific people who had ordered a vegetarian meal to raise their hands. The names they called included “Phil Zeller”. Phil was a friend of mine when I was growing up who lived just down the street from me. Our parents were friends and our older brothers hung out together too. I hadn’t seen Phil since I was about 15 or 16 years old. Now he was sitting two rows in front of me, on a flight through to Calgary.

Once we started talking and got over the initial strangeness of the whole thing, he let me know that he was in a punk band called Scratching Post that would be the opening act for Big Sugar on New Years Eve in Edmonton. If I wanted, he could put me on the guest list and we could party. Tah dah, a plan was now in effect.

Calling up my friend Jean, our plans fell into place. Jean has friends in Edmonton we could stay with and grew up there so we’d be able to easily get around town. We made the 3 hour drive up, had a kick ass sushi dinner and then rocked out New Years Eve at the Shaw Conference Center. When the moment hit, balloons fell from the ceiling while Big Sugar blasted out Auld Lang Syne.

I just hoped I would be on the guest list and get in for free, but we got a hell of a lot more. Backstage passes, lots of free drinks and we got to meet some great people in both bands. Considering how little I ended up spending, we did a hell of a lot.

The whole thing was pretty surreal. Two days ago I had been in Toronto and there I was in Edmonton with my friend from Oshawa that I hadn’t seen in 8 years drinking and partying while a guy from the University Radio Station interviewed the band. It was something I won’t forget. I guess I should have figured my New Years wouldn’t be normal, but when I’m in the middle of these adventures, it’s kind of hard to believe it’s all happening.

I hope everyone else’s New Years ceremony was entertaining. Best of luck to everyone in 2000.