I must admit that I am feeling a whole lot better about being here than I was even three days ago, the charm of this city is becoming more apparent to me and I'm starting to wonder if their (the pegger's) warnings that I will NEVER leave might come true. Regardless if it is true or not, I am here for 3 years minimum and at this point that feels like FOREVER, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Two eventful things happened today. One wonderful and one funny/ a slight bit humiliating.
The wonderful thing that happened was that I went to the U of W's campus and met with the woman who heads up the Master's program I am doing. I was immediately comforted when I walked into her office as it had all of the fixings that I associate with seasoned social workers (and the kind of lady I hope one day to be). There were large and disorganized piles of paper covering her desk, at least four comfy chairs--decked out with little pillows-- squished into a relatively small space, a large window eclipsed by several hanging plants, a bookshelf stacked with amazing reads (if you have a penchant for mental health, gender issues, family dynamics and theories of trauma!) and all of the requisite posters with empowering messages scrawled in 80's style fonts across them. Might be hard to imagine if you haven't worked in social services, I however have seen many such offices and so appreciate the messy, unpretentious and overall welcoming feel of them.
Marilyn, the director, is as I expected, a pretty great lady. Within minutes of my being there she was on the phone with various higher-ups at agencies and organizations in the city trying to get me a job!!!! When does that ever happen that you go to meet your University program director and they look for a job for you. AHHHH, these nice people, I tell ya.
Marilyn and I chatted about the courses and I noticed the combination of sensations that indicates I am in the right place: warm, fuzzy feeling in chest and quick, excited feeling in brain. The program is incredibly down to earth, intellectually rigorous and genuinely committed to creating caring, intelligent and accountable therapists. So yeah, I felt about 1000 times better after leaving what turned into our hour long meeting.
The other noteworthy thing that happened today was that I attended a two-year old's birthday, however amazingly I attended it a day early. Yes, that's right, I was so excited to have a plan (the said b-day party that I was invited to by someone I met over the weekend) that I giddily biked over a somewhat considerable distance with some kind of desert loaf in my backpack as an offering, only to find an empty house with a very irate dog barking at me from behind the door. I called the mother of the 2 yr old and she regrettably informed me that her son's birthday is tomorrow and that I should come back then as they are not home at the moment. Well, I must say I felt pretty f-ing embarrassed, not to mention totally fucking itchy as the mosquitoes appeared to be extra plentiful in the 2 yr old's hood.
On the plus side, biking to the non-existent party gave me an opportunity to see more of the city and to feel more comfortable navigating it. One thing that is worth mentioning about this here Winnipeg is that the light is pretty special, I guess it's prairie light? It's hard to describe but just imagine a light that seems to stretch on in every direction endlessly. Big light, broad light. Beautiful.
Till next time dudes and dudettes.
P.S. Here are some photos of the house and toad. They are kind of shoddy 'cause they were taken with my phone...so don't judge!
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