Monday, October 9, 2006

2:24 PM

Final Journal Entry

I can believe that the PBI trip is over, but I can t believe how amazing it was or how close everyone grew to each other. When we reached Winnipeg and it was time for me to go home, I was holding back tears. I already miss everyone I ve met, but I m very grateful for the chance to share this amazing experience with them. In retrospect, I realize I ve gained so much, and I ve learned more than I could ever have expected. Turn after turn I kept being surprised by the sheer awesomeness everything was. This was definitely one of the best events I ve ever been part of, and I will not forget it. I did not expect so much from this, and I leave with even more. I can t seem to express my thankfulness in words, but I am just so happy with everything I m able to take back with me. As an ambassador of the artic, I will try very hard to share my experience with others and help them realize and appreciate the world we live in.

I will dearly miss everyone I met, and remember with fondness the memories we all shared. I remain hopeful that perhaps someday I can see everyone again. And I will try to give back to the community what I gained from this camp. I hope I can live up to our newly created mission statement:

"Educating to inspire passion and the desire for change through conservation and understanding of our environment"

And in closing, as everything good must come to an end, so has this amazing trip. Here s to hoping that if we all work hard and together, we can make the world a more stable place.

~ With love,
Merci beacoup mes amis,
~ Angela

Goodbye and goodnight ladies and gentlemen, it s been so much fun. And thank you everyone, for everything.

Friday, October 6, 2006

7:25 PM

Journal day 8

Today was freakin amazing, with a capital F ! We went off on HELICOPTERS to the maternal dens. The aerial ride was exhilarating, it was so much fun. During the flight, we saw some swans and caribou. I was pretty surprised to see the swans, which were really very pretty.

As soon as we landed I threw myself onto the ground. No I wasn t sky-sick, the ground was just really soft! There were all sorts of lichens on the ground that were spongy and fun to run around in. There were lots of bearberries growing around too, and I ate quite a few. I actually have berry stains all over my cloths right now.
The maternal den was much smaller than I expected it to be, but since I m pretty small myself, I still had enough room to crawl around. The whole inside of the place was soft with lichens, and I was tempted to fall asleep right there.
The weather has been very nice too these past couple of days. It really hasn t been as cold as I was expecting, and that is great since I get cold easily.

I was thinking that when I get home I ll be making presentations at the local children s museum, elementary schools, daycare, and I ll put posters up everywhere. Of course the first thing I have to do is make sure my own habits are environmentally friendly first. I must practice what I preach myself.

~ till next time me amis
~~ angela

Thursday, October 5, 2006

7:38 PM

Journal day 7

-Warning: sappiness ahead-
I am definitely overwhelmed (but in a good way) by how completely awesome everyone here at the camp is. Almost all the people I ve met through this trip are amazing. At every turn I am surprised by how great this trip is! I had no idea that our lessons would be this fun, involving and educational at the same time. I know this might sound cliché, but I am really very thankful for this opportunity. This entry probably sounds like it should be on the last day, but I ve just been thinking about everyone here, today. I am so thankful I got to experience this trip and meet everyone!
At the beginning of the first day, someone told me we would all be like a family. I wasn t completely convinced, but now I ve had a change of heart. I don t even care, if this entry sounds absurdly feminine and sappy. Everyone really gets along here and they all have such nice personalities. It seems like everyone really cares for each other in a perfect sort of way. I really learned so much from these people; everything from environmental issues to new appreciation for different genres of music. I hope that everyone is able to keep in touch with each other, although I m a bit too cynical to think so, but I do have some hope. I m going to miss everyone when we all go back home, but I m thinking to soon in the future.
I also did not expect to get as excited about all the learning we ve been absorbing. I did not think that I would be as into this whole environmental business as I find myself. But saying that I m working hard to save the world is kind of cool.

Also I am very susceptible to other people s speech patterns. I keep picking up accents and words like like and nanny from the different people here. I ve also been saying the word eh a lot more than I usually would. It s a shame about the whole like business since, I had just broken the habit prior to this trip. But whatever, you win some, you loose some, and I believe the got the better end of the bargain in this one.

~ till next time mes amis
~~ angela

Thursday, October 5, 2006

7:38 PM

Journal day 6

This is yesterday s journal. Why am I a day late you might ask? Well simply put, through a series of random events, my last journal entrée was deleted. So please excuse me if this entry is less than amazing.

The night of last Tuesday we all saw the northern lights. I was hoping the lights would be different colors but they were just green. Of course they were ten times more awesome than what I can see in Winnipeg, but still only green. I m not really bothered by this though since green is my second / third favorite color. I stayed up very late last night and saw the lights being really great. So there is a very definite plus on staying up late. The northern lights were so totally worth walking into walls and the enormous bags under my eyes.

We also saw minnows yesterday while we were ridding on the Tundra Buggies. I saw more because I was looking for them today.

We also had a very educational lesson from some trappers. I had some very mixed feelings about some of the visuals, but I did kind of like how soft some of the animal s fur was.

With mixed feelings,
~Till next time mes amis
~~angela

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

7:41 PM

Journal day 5

Today everyone went to go for rides in the Tundra Buggies. I finally accomplished my PBI goal of the week; to see a wild polar bear! My first thought was that the bears were super cute and that I wanted to go and give them big bear hugs. (pardon the terrible pun) My next immediate thought was that upon hugging this creature, I would probally be mauled to death! In any case, these white bears were really absorbing to watch. I ran out of room on my camera today and did not have enough space to take a bazillion pictures / videos. I hope to see more bears tommorrow too, so I'm super psyched.

While on the tundra buggy, we drove through lots of huge puddles of water. In some of theses ginormous puddles I saw little minnows. I had this crazy image that we were driving through the ocean even though the fish were tiny and the water was really brown. I loved the image in my head so I took a bunch of pictures of the shallow water making sure to include parts of the buggy windows. The pictures really aren't very nice or special but I really like them anyway.

The most fun thing I did today was help put whipping creme on pieces of banana creme pie. It was lots of fun squezing out the whipping creme and the sound the cannister made was funny too. I'm surprised that this simple task was as cool as it was to me but whatever. It was lots of fun. So if anyone wants help whipping their cakes, gimme a call.

&&& Till next time mes amis
§§§§ angela

Monday, October 2, 2006

10:59 PM

Journal day 4

Today everyone had to wake up very early in the morning. This was rather hard for me since I am really not a morning person at all. Regardless of the fact that I have a tendancy to walk into walls earlier in the day, I was still excited about continuing the PBI adventures. I spent most of my time running around and madly taking pictures with my school's camera. Digital photography is pretty cool, and I like the way everying is automatic and how you can zoom in and out and delete pictures.

We went exploring some of the Hudson Bay beachs and I saw lots of sea-weed on the shore. I liked running through it since it was squishy feeling under my shoes! That was lots of fun. I also wasn't looking where i was going, when i was taking a picture of the coast and i stepped into a rather deep puddle getting my pant leg all wet up to my knee. With the wind and the wet pants, i was a little bit cold, but I didn't really notice since there were so many things to take pictures of. I also found the skull of a baby beluga whale and we all saw a bunch of dead bird wings and feathers! It was pretty exciting.

At our last stop of the day we visited the Wapusk National Park building. Here I saw a polar bear pelt. Upon greater inspection i came to realise that the bear's skin wasn't black but white. Its pretty commun knowledge that a polar bear's skin is black. I've read that all over the internet and in countless books. But as it turns out this isn't true at all! I confirmed that the bear's skin is the same color of that of any other animal pelt. It was a light beige and not dark at all. I can't belive that all this mis-information is circulating every where.

The food as always was very good and tomorrow we leave for the tundra buggies. I hope to see an actual polar bear soon! I'm hoping to get pictures and draw it if I'm lucky.

~Till next time mes amis
~~ angela

Sunday, October 1, 2006

10:00 PM

Journal day 3

Today was both good and bad.
It was bad because I ended up loosing not only my hand lotion to the aiport personnel, but also one of my backpacks. Please allow me to tell you about my day.

We all left for churchill today and that was pretty exciting. I've never ridden on a twin propellor airplane before so i was pretty excited. But more on that later. Anyway, as it turns out, you aren't alowed to bring liquids onto the plane. I didn't know that, but when one of the airport staff looked at the content in my carry-on, he told me i was good to go. I of course, trusted his experiance and continued on my marry way. Upon reaching the security check, the security guards took my 350 ml bottle of skin lotion away from me. As it turns out, my hand lotion bottle carried too much fluid and I couldn't take it with me. I got three choices from the security man;
1) I could leave my lotion in the airport's care but pay 3 dollars per day
2) I could spend 15 dollars and mail the lotion to my hotel
3) they would throw my lotion away
I decided the stuff wasn't worth the trouble, and let the bottle be disposed of.

THat of course doesn't bother me as much as the fact that I ended up loosing one of my backpacks as well. I had brough with me, a small winnie-the-pooh shoulder pack full of pencil crayons and other art supplies. (Homework for my art classes at school) Since i didn't want to take 2 carry-on bags with me, i tied my winnie-the-pooh backpack to my larger backoack/suitcase. And let me assure you dear reader, that i did indeed take great cares to make sure the two pieces of luggage were seccurly attached. I asked another airport staff if the two packs were alright in their current conected condition. She said yes and off i went. Arriving at Churchill though, my winnie-the-pooh bagpack, had been untied and was nowhere to be found. THe airport staff can't find it yet, but they assure me if they do, they will give it back to me. I really hope my bag shows up soon since it has a huge sentimental value to me and also was carrying the majority of my art supplies.

The good parts of today were numerous though. The airplane ride was fun and I liked looking out the window at the clouds. The food as always was really good too. All the other students continue to be super cool and fun to hang out with also.

Interestingly enough, even though today wasn't very physically active, i still find myself very tired. So i'll be going now since we are getting up early tommorrow.

-edit- = i edited my previous journal posts a bit, to improve the grammar

~ see you soon mes amis
~~angela

Saturday, September 30, 2006

6:55 PM

journal day 2

Today I had a virgin strawberry daiquiri and it was amazing. It also reminded me that I love the drink s name as much, if not more than the drink itself.

This morning there were PowerPoint presentations that took place. My favorite event today was watching Robert R. Taylor s presentation. He is a photographer and was showing everyone the pictures he took while in Churchill and telling us bits of information pertaining to each iamge. Since I m a rather artsy girl, I really liked watching the presentation and all it's eye candy as it passed. Two of my favorite pictures that he showed were:

1. This one picture that featured a purple and red artic flower covered in raindrops. It was very pretty and I liked the way that the flower was completely the main focus of the image. The varying shapes of the water droplets really added interest to the picture too.

2. My other favorite picture was of a foggy day and had a polar bear looking towards the viewer. I liked the atmosphere of the image, and the fog and the way that the bear looked completely non-threatening. It was a very surreal image.

We also went to the zoo today. And although we didn t spend as much time there as I would have liked, everyone still seemed to have a great time. I know I did. My favorite exhibits were the big cats, the reptiles and tropical birds. I liked seeing the Indian python because I love snakes a lot! The salt-water fish were very colorful and cute, although the cutest animals were the puffer fish. They kept swimming back and forth along the tank wall and pressing against the glass. The way their mouths are shaped makes them look like they are constantly smiling. It was, like I previously said, very cute. I also enjoyed seeing all the big cats, since all but the leopard were asleep. This is a first time for me to see so many of the felines awake and actually walking around. It was a visual treat.

~ until next time mes amis
~~ angela

Saturday, September 30, 2006

6:05 PM

Journal day 1

I great you once again ladies and gentlemen.
Today I am a day late journal wise. But fear not, for this is the norm, as everyone else is also a day late. I will be uploading 2 journal entries, so be prepared please.

Yesterday, I was totally calm about this whole adventure. This mood lasted until one hour before I left for the Four Points Hotel, then I started to get nervous. I unpacked all my luggage and worried that I had brought too much stuff. Then I started worrying that I hadn't brought enough. I was torn between taking my laptop and leaving it. I ended up not taking it, in place of the 3 sketchbooks and the backpack full of pencil crayons I ended up bringing. (I am totally ready to do some crazy art.)
Besides the many sketchbooks and pencil crayons, I also brought the book A Dirty Job . I m excited to read it, but look forward much more to hanging out with all the awesome people here.

Before I left for the airport, I read everyone s bio. And I was incredibly excited to meet them all because what they had all written made them seem like very cool people. Meeting everyone for the first time, indeed proved that they were as cool as I had imagined them to be. (And believe me, that s is very truly cool indeed).

But since we all didn t know each other, when the weather conversation topic had been exhausted, there was a sizable awkward silence. I met a pretty cool kid, and we invented a great icebreaker game together. It went along the lines of: Paintball on donkey back, with a twist; the donkeys are on roller skates and the opposition are riding hippos equipped with buckets of paint. The game was going to take place in the hotel hallway.
But don t worry, we didn t go and destroy any hotel property. The PBI mentors invented a different cool icebreaker game; Californian snowball fights. It was fun and really got everyone more comfortable with each other, that made me happy.

My favorite event yesterday had to be supper though. The food was amazing! And I am not ashamed to say I ate like a starving bear. I had 3 pieces of chocolate cake, and don t get me started on what were my main courses and other desserts were. Let s just say I m storing up food for the cold that I expect Churchill to be. The Salmon was amazing; I just really wanted to say that.

Alright then
~ Till next time mes amis,
~~ Angela