Down Time

Well, life has been pretty slow for the last while. Mind you, I'm not complaining. After having been on the move for the last couple of months, being in one place [Halifax] for over three weeks is a nice change.

Most of my time has been spent drawing. I think that I posted the link in my last entry. I'm almost finished my latest drawing (of Christina Ricci), and I'll probably scan it on Tuesday, at which point I'll get back on the road. I won't be going very far, though. My next stop will be my aunt Doreen's place, which is about an hour and a half north of here.

Sometimes it's weird being back in Halifax. I was brought here, and didn't even leave Nova Scotia [a Canadian province of which Halifax is the capital] until I was 18. Living in this city wasn't exactly the high point of my life, but at the same time it could have been a lot worse. Still, this has been one of the longest stays that I've had here since I moved six years ago. That said, one of the main reasons it feels weird here is that I keep bumping into people I grew up with, mostly just by chance on the street. Everyone is always very nice, and it's good to see them all, but at the same time, it can feel like being shifted backwards, to a point in my life where everything seemed very different. It's not that I dislike this place, but I've come to realize more and more that Montreal is now my home.

The last time that I was here [last May], I met someone that I found very interesting. After having tried to dig her out for the past few weeks, we finally met up a few days ago. One thing that I found very reassuring was that, though she is a better artist than I could ever hope to be, she's been improving for the last few years. After seeing her earlier work, and comparing it to her current drawings, there just might be hope for me yet. Assuming that I can keep my motivation, and practice as much as possible, perhaps I'll eventually be at least in the same sport as she is, though I doubt I'd ever make it to her league. If you'd like, you can check out her stuff at http://elky.deviantart.com

On a political sidenote, I found an interesting quiz that ranks you politically. However, instead of being on the standard linear left/right line, it gives your result on a graph, with the horizontal axis being liberal/conservative, and the vertical being fascist/libertarian. Although there aren't enough questions for it to possibly be accurate, I found it flattering that I was put on almost the same spot as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. La la la. Anyway, the test can be found at http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass

Switching Sides

Well, the western part of my trip has been over for a bit. I flew out to Halifax from Victoria on the 30th, where I've stayed since.

After leaving Denman Island, I made a short stop on Saltspring Island. A very nice place, with lots to do for an island it's size. Unfortunately, it lacked any sort of cheap accomodation. And camping out isn't much fun when the temperature dips below 4 degrees at night, so after one day there it was time to move on. I ended up spending most of that day with a hippie girl that I met in a cafe. She had been squating with some friends on a beach all summer, and intended to stay there all winter. Although from Quebec city, her mother was from Newfoundland (rare for a Newfoundlander to be in Quebec), so her english was quite good.

On the way back to Vancouver Island, I got into a conversation with an older man on the ferry. In the end, he offered to give me a ride back to town, which struck me as very nice. Then again, he was a very nice and talkerative guy. The weird part was his car. A brand new Mercedies Benz. One of the nicest cars that I've ever driven in. He was travelling with his friend and daughter, and we chatted for most of the trip from the terminal to Victoria.

Things in Victoria wern't too too interesting. One person that I met in a hostel was quirky, though. Very well spoken, and well dressed, but a high school drop out. Mind you, he was extremely intelligent. One example would be the night that he tried to explain some theories of chaos to me, going into details about the probabilistic components of said theory. Despite my having a degree in math, most of what he said sailed clear over my head. Apparently, the reason that he dropped out was that he was bored, and so instead of going to university, he decided to read through college text books on his own. People with that kind of courage and willingness to be original always fascinate me.

I found an old friend in Victoria, who I had met in Jasper. She's a fellow Nova Scotian, having been raised in Amherst. I had stayed with her brother while I was in Jasper, as he still lives there. The interesting part was that by an amazing coincidence, she was flying to the maritimes the same day I was, with her flight leaving just one hour after mine. But unlike myself, she was flying to Moncton instead of Halifax. Still, it worked out very well, as I was able to stay with her for the last few days I was there, and got a ride to the airport that morning.

I got into Halifax the day before Halloween, and after sleeping for about 12 hours, I decided to see what was going on downtown. I ended up chatting with some hippie kids that were sitting on the street, and they invited me back to their place for a Halloween party. Although we mostly just watched TV, some of the people there were quite interesting. One of them was a very bitter midget, about 3 feet tall and 40 years old. By day he does a scam where he limps around downtown acting lame, and asks people passing by for money. Also, one of the girls there was deaf, about my age, and three months pregnant. Communicating with her was a neat experience, which was done mostly by cheraides [spelling on that, the spell check doesn't seem to work on this computer].

Also, I've finally had some time to sketch a bit. For those of you interesting in checking it out, I'll be posting some stuff at http://driftin.deviantart.com

I'm not sure when I'll leave Halifax. Could be tomorrow. Could be the end of the month. Or any time in between. I'll go to Europe after the new year, so I have about 2 months to devide between here, N.B., and Montreal.

[And yes, Americans are dumb. Especially the ones that live in Florida and Ohio.]