Take the David Suzuki Nature Challenge

It's SO easy! Why isn't everyone doing these things?

just a random photo ...

So, apparently if I delete this post, this picture won't appear in my profile ... weird. I'm still figuring this "blogger beta" thing out. For the most part it's cool, but frustrating when I JUST DON"T GET IT!! AH!

Freedom!!

I handed in the WAC grant for Theatre by the River today!! YES!!!! I started it over 3 weeks ago, and still spent until the wee hours of the morning the past 2 nights perfecting it. SO STRESSFUL! It's so frustrating trying to get into the heads of the "grant assessment panal" and to know what they're thinking. I am defanitely going to ask the company if they can pay for me to take a workshop on grant writing. As much as I can ask questions to Hope McIntyre and call WAC for clarification, there's just too much stuff to communicate and clarify. Hopefully that can happen in the next year so I'll be more confident in myself in the future.

But, the end result looks good and professional (I hope!), so maybe we'll get some funding this year!

I've been insanely busy lately (I thought things were going to calm down after Christmas ...?) I recently started taking a class at the Actors Training Centre of Manitoba with Jeff Skinner. I really like it. I was able to start in the intermediate class based on my resume, which is nice. The class portion is still pretty basic, but I'm learning tonns about "the biz", and Jeff has been pushing me in my scene work, which is great.

I haven't been able to see a lot of Stoppard shows yet (since I'm only home 2 nights a week, and one of them is Wednesday ...) But I did get to see Theatre Incarnet's Arcadia - highly recommended! The show is a long haul at over 2.5 hours, but it is so well done that the time flies, especially in the 2nd half when all the pieces start to fall together. The performances were great and the staging was dynamic, so it's a show to see!

I'm in rehearsal for 2 shows right now: Ugly Ducks, Pretty Swans, which played at the Fringe this summer, is going to do a small tour. I am also part of The Vagina Monologues. This show got off to a bit of a rocky start organization wise, but now it's smooth sailing. Come out and see it in April!!

PEASE READ.

The Green Debate

Also go to http://www.cbc.ca/mansbridge/2007/01/elizabeth_may.html I couldn't figure out how to post the episode, but it's a must-see for anyone who cares about where Canada is going, and why the voice of the Green Party is now more important than ever since Dion's election to leadership. Think about it.

What's real, and what's a big poofer?

There was quite a discrepancy in the Free Press this morning regarding Global Warming (or that inconvenient little "trend" that seems to be happening). Just as Dr. Gordon McBean, chair of policy in the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western Ontario University, reported an am anticipated study to be released out of Paris highlighting "how human activity is heating up the planet much faster than experts had previously expected" there was Tom Oleson's editorial in the same A section.

Oleson, while admitting that it's pretty odd that he's been wearing his rain coat well into January, and that even the Bush administration is considering upping Polar Beards on its endangered species list, writes:

But put a pause on that pause before you sign on to the crusade against greenhouse gas emissions and most other kinds of useful human activity. Because there is nothing exact about all this, not much real science in it, mostly just a lot of by-guess-and-by-golly and said-to-be-so in the so-called science of climate change.

He then goes on to say that we can't know if there are less polar bears because they're hard to count since they eat people, and that it's kind of weird how the giant chunk of ice fell off of Ellesmere island but who knows and stuff. But! Here's where I laughed so hard that a lil'bit of pee came out:

We all have our idiosyncrasies, and the environmentalists' obsession is greenhouse gases - the poison spit out by the evil automobile. We probably should watch our greenhouse gas out-put, however, and one way to cut back is to eat more meat. Cows and pigs and such animals contribute more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than all the automobiles in the world because - not to put too fine a point on it - their mostly vegetarian diet causes them to poofer like crazy, releasing methane gas. Every hamburger you eat, every pork chop, perhaps even every drumstick ... every mouthful of meat you eat is a blow against global warming. Who would have thought that the Sals or KFC could save the world? Thanks to them, we can even use emission transfers, trading the gas we use in the McDonald's drive-thru against the methane we save my munching a Big Mac. That's a crusade I could join, one based on solid, scientific fact.

Kind of makes me want to poofer, take a giant dump, and then use Mr. Oleson's article to clean-up the mess. Good lord, when will humanity be able to stop joking around about how this "warming trend" is kind of nice (golfing in January? Sweet!) and actually step up to the plate?

I need to end this post with a quote that should ACTUALLY be taken SERIOUSLY:

Climate scientists have predicted the Earth could heat up by anywhere between two to six degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the 21st century because of the greenhouse gases that trap heat from sunlight in the earth's atmosphere.

"Just to put that in quick context, the difference between now and an ice age, when there was several kilometres of ice over this part of Canada is about five degrees globally," McBean said. "So we're talking about a temperature change in the net 100 years that is of the same order, perhaps larger, perhaps a little bit smaller than what we had going in and out of an ice age. That's a big difference, and it's happening in 100 years, not in tens of thousands of years."

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Mel's must reads for December/January: Habitat by Judith Thompson and Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland.

Colbert Helps Out with Bush's Speech

So, did Bush take the advice ...?

Some stuff

I've been unsure what my first blog update of 2007 should look like - should I do the usual "this is where I was last year, and here I am today" or a "in 2007 I'm going to"?? First off, I'm not a New Year's Resolution person - I think we should always be making changes in our lives and evaluating ourselves. No offense to people who are into the resolutions, but to me it's kind of like "Earth Day" - great to get the exposure, but shouldn't everyday be Earth Day?

Anyhoo, semantics aside I decided to bring a little notice to a great organization here in Winnipeg. RaY (Resourse Assistance for Youth) is a street level organization dedicated to helping youth and young adults on their terms. RaY was formerly known as Operation Go Home, and it has a wide mandate, assisting youth in everything from emergency care, addiction treatment, finding employment, housing and a whole range of activities. I also recommend Voices from the Margins: Experiences of Street-Involved Youth in Winnipeg.

Life on this end is tres busy. The ball is rolling for Theatre by the River, a grant deadline is approaching, I'm working on two writing projects and just started taking classes with Jeff Skinner. And I have 3.5 jobs.

Ok, I'll bite the bullet and make one resolution: by this point next year I will only have 1 - maybe 1.5 - jobs next year, aside from artistic endevours. *Big sigh of relief*

Did anyone read the Free Press article yesterday about what the CIA was able to get away with doing during the cold war? Scary!