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amoret a.k.a. rocketbride, tisiphone, belphoebe, aleta. this is me. allow myself to introduce...myself. the anti-stephen although the name suggests that he is the antithesis of saint stephen, in reality he got this name because he is (superficially) almost disturbingly similar to stephen. an english major with a good working knowledge of all things nick cave, our conversations are often marked by an awkwardness that comes from my unaccountable feeling that i know him better than i actually do. baby cougar the pet of our congregation, at 6 years old she rules my life whenever she's around. the daughter of two talented musicians and younger sister of 3 bright brothers, she's totally little girly, yet completely well-behaved and wise beyond her years. big sur in my mind he appeared suddenly in january 01, but i'm assured that he's been around all year. he's an english major & self-described ADD'er who snowboards and knows way too much about the beat poets. but he can be fun, if only because you can say 'romantics' to him and know that he'll hear the capital 'r'. billy talent my bedmate on the road trip, billy is the most relentlessly conventional of all the alternate Hard Core Logo crew. pity, really.the boy a.k.a. jimmy silverthumb, the mate, the husband and of course rocketgroom. very kind, very fun, very smart boy. the other day when he was at work i opened the locked door in our house. imagine my horror at finding the severed head of every actor who had played dr. who.ceilidh a.k.a. squeakers, little girl, useless, little miss do-nothing. she is the boy's equivalent of a mad wife in the attic - in this case, a surly 6-year-old grey longhair cat that likes to sleep on my important papers. dirk nightshade a.k.a. palaver, dirk is the first person outside my immediate family who has visited us (& his ancestral lands) on the sea-bound coast, and thus deserves special mention in these pages. while he was here he stayed up late, brought me sandwiches at work, and dragged us around historic monuments ("look daddy! the soldiers! look daddy!"). he's an enormous amount of fun in black slacks and ox-blood fluevogs. also, he dates stacy. flower another former literature major who uses her spare time to do silly things to volleyballs. she loves her cat cringer, although "sometimes [she has] so much love that [her] kitty just isn't ready for it." gabriel the new church organist is interested in historical costuming and oscar wilde. we love him. hermione also known as the Girl Who Looks and Acts Like Ophelia, she is a note of scientific sanity in a sea of touchy-feeley creativity. rock steady, she lets me schedule last-minute hair dying appointments in her kitchen/salon. plus, she will lend her collection of children's literature at a moment's notice - hence her magical psuedonym. the HMSS Lassitude see mustang scotty. ikebana a beautiful blonde classmate on the good ship education who possesses an admirible precision offset by flashes of motherly warmth. her pseudonym means 'the japanese art of flower arranging' and was chosen because she spent 2 years teaching english in japan. yeah, i'm reaching. infallible supervisor the guy who was in charge of deciding if i would pass this academic year, a duty since ceded to la belle dame avec merci. he used to be part of the university and everyone in town knows him. as with superteacher, he seemed to think that i was an idiot who somehow stumbled through 6 years of higher education. iris contrary to popular rumour, there is at least one girl who graduated from mount 'a' and wasn't corrupted by its wild female atmosphere. now she wants me to teach her how to smoke. j long & thin like a crane, he's off in spain for the summer. smart, funny, sarcastic - all the things i like in a new age sort. partner to miri; together they cook up beautiful dreams and savoury meals. jerry a secondary student who spent a few summers following the grateful dead and/or phish across the continent. the boy loves him because he's interested in the toronto maple leafs. i like him because he's a voice of otherness in a sometimes cookie-cutter education program. partner to keri. joe dick our driver during the alternate HCL, joe is a nice catholic girl from ontario who can't wait to return to gomorrah. she has a darkness in her future, or so the cards say.josie everything you think you know about farmer's daughters is wrong: she's a technology education teacher with extensive travel experience and she waters the cows every morning. mother of the tiny zap. keri as befits a nice elementary student, she's full of warm feeling; as befits the partner of a secondary student like jerry, she may also display a charming lack of sentimentality depending on the situation and/or presence of small humans who need help with their coat zippers. la belle dame avec merci my new supervisor! she is not offering me a free pass; what she is offering is a chance for me to shine like the crazy pedagogical diamond i am. little miss landslide mr. avalanche's mate: a dancer, a scientist, and a surprisingly sharp chez geek player. little orphan annie my SMILE child; a pint-sized girlie with a great smile who just needs a little help from her friends. lorax my wonderful bendy yoga teacher mr. avalanche nutty drummer boy, very introverted, very fun when emerging from his protective djembe-like shell. miri a charming belly-dancer, brought into our lives by will the sailor friend. no, i don't mean the kind of dancing with a big top hat and a face painted over a torso...the other kind of belly dancing. lives with the man known only as j. mustang scotty a.k.a. the HMSS Lassitude. this is the car that dirk bought me for graduating. now deceased and quietly rusting in an auto lot in ontario. he never let us down.petra she's a nice baptist girl, looking for a life-path in the jungle of teacher's education. she's got a great laugh and a wonderful appreciation for the absurdities of life as a student teacher. her associate teacher was princess leah's dad, which provoked many synchronous laughs for all. pipefitter poor pipe! in many ways the most interesting and complex girl on the HCL tour, pipe had to settle for the stupidest group identity due to forces beyond our control. a practicing pagan, music teacher in training and fan of Squee, pipe is all you can ask of a crewmate on the good ship education. and she reads a mean spread to boot.poly hippie chick & graduated student teacher who wanted to be a math teacher when she grew up. very cool. i met poly practice-teaching last year, and soon found out that she was princess leah's best friend in highschool. small world. she's in toronto now, and she still has my christmas copes of 'bust' & 'bitch.'princess leah a former annapolis valley punk and accomplished flautist who dated saint pete for the longest time. i was a student teacher at her old high school. and the carnival of coincidence continues. saint pete a u of t alumni with a flair for the dramatic, he is most closely associated with saint jack and saint stephen, although he's currently living with dirk nightshade & tymothi:j. a boy who needs his globe & mail on a daily basis, he has a few more years in the ivory tower before he needs to make scary career decisions. sister silver one of the boy's best perks from his job was meeting sister silver, a quaker, a social worker and a raptor's fan. when she asks you a question, she's really interested in hearing your answer. it's rather amazing to experience, really. superteacher my host teacher this year; so-called because everyone in town thinks that she's fantastic and i'm incredibly lucky to have her. she warmed up considerably during the second go-around, possibly due to the benevolent influence of la belle dames avec merci. see also: infallible supervisor suzy ticktock (a.k.a. beatrix) we met last year in the context of petra; as she was her almost-roommate. now that they're official roommates, i've been able to spend many more hours in her presence. her heroic strength of mind was most obvious during practicum, especially during the night we helped her cut out 46 rocking horses as she whipped around the apartment preparing at least 6 other crafts for the next day. i'm so glad i'm in secondary.will the sailor friend he's another graduated education major. will, the boy & i were destined to find each other, as we're the only people within 100 kms who know & like belle & sebastian. he's hooked into a very cool group of intelligent & artistic loonies who hold wonderful vegetarian potlucks at semi-regular intervals. i repeat: very cool.zap yawn. stretch. fuss. nurse. sleep. (josie's new son: this is his life.) |
