The Mysterious Groupies

Dramatic Fashion at the height of the early ninties. 

Backwards Baseball Hats and the Morning Parking Lot

Why our highschool buses insisted on getting us to school an hour early still mystifies me. (well it had everything to do with money, but in a way it was nice because it gave everyone a chance to hang out and do a bit of last minute homework.

One of the things I miss the most from the Woodlands is the chocolate chip muffins that you could buy hot in the morning from the back of the kitchen. Yum.

I love this warmth in this picture. Two of the nicest smiles in the whole pile. :D

Cheers,

Jennith 

Funny and Funny in Grade 9

Whew. . . At least I wasn't quite the geekiest kid in school (albeit that I did memorize the periodic tables up to 104 for a couple of bonus marks.)

I thought everyone would smile to see Gareth and Alex and remember their hijinx. I haven't heard much about them recently. Alex is a genius and Gareth I heard joined the army.

It's neat that so many people are reading my blog. I suppose I'd better start trying to use full sentences and proper spelling.

I cut out halfway through the last blog where I was just about to describe the different between perserverance and perseveration. I was interupted by the surprise arrival of my very own angel (aka gabriel) 2 days earlier than I'd expected. So, its not surprising that I didn't finish the blog. I was accused of perseveration because I want to replace my current glasses with an identical pair because I like them and I don't like the weird new ones that count as fashion these days. (my current ones are a simple pair of black wireframe glasses. Perseveration is: " The tendency to continue or repeat an act or activity after the cessation of the original stimulus." dictionary.com... Sigh... now I guess I'll have to pick different glasses just to prove my mom wrong.

So now everything is much messier, but its nice having Gabe here. He was missed.

I'll keep the pictures coming.

Jennith 

Peace, Protractors and Perseveration

A tranquil morning on the Bruce Peninsula (1993), M looks over the lake on an early morning hike.

Other thoughts. . . I'm almost done sorting through my room, relocating things I don't need and repacking them. I even found the protractor I was looking for this morning on my desk under a stack of photos. (I suppose that none of you are suprised that I have photos everywhere still. Actually, I've packed most of the sorted photos back into a rubbermaid container. I just have a few stack on my desk that I'm steadily feeding through my scanner. At least I'm getting my money's worth out of it.

As for the perseveration (not to be confused with perservation) - I'll have to finish this later 

"This is me in Grade 9" BNL

My brother is a huge BNL fan... as were we back when Gorden wasn't even out. Probably one of the 2 best concerts I've ever been too (and both were at Kingswood - aka Canada's Wonderland) was the Barenaked Ladies in the pouring rain and Depeche Mode (it was like a huge sing-a-long).

So, this is me in grade 9. . . If I was a bit self crueler - I might include a shot of my self portrait which I painted from it. Actually the picture isn't that different expect we were suposed to do it in an unrealistic palate - so my eyes are red and my skin is yellow.

I really always hated these glasses. They never fit right and they never sat straight and they're huge!!!

Wow... do I look like a 90's geek with big plastic earings and bangs that I probably adjusted myself (I finally realized that I shoud stop trying to cut my own hair.)

The Orange shirt I'm wearing eventually became my tree planting shirt. It has faded to a pale orange and is stained and torn (I later retired it to my work shirt - so it has lots of paint and oil stains). I think I still have that Northern Reflections windbreaker somewhere too. I should take a look for it. Its a cool colour.

Cheers,

Jennith 

Outers Go to Tobermory

All the pictures from this trip turned out pretty nice. Georgian Bay is in the Background. We are on the Bruce Trail. Early 90's 

The Woodlands Parking Lot

Remember here? Maybe not if you didn't spend all your lunches here in the "Parking Lot".

Here is most of the JPC in their natural habitat. 

Spooky Stuff

Just playing with manual settings, cats and Picasa...

Jenn 

Chitaqua Girl

And the lights went out.... and the stage manager said the lights went out....

This play was proof that even if things look really shaky in the dress rehearsal - you can still pull it off on opening night.

I still wish that we'd done chaos and desire - risky as it was.

This would be highschool grade 11 Searsfest. I actually think the set is quite striking.

Anywho, a nother piece of Woodlands history - brought to you by the JPC

ttyl,

Jennith 

I think I'm a clone now!!

This actually isn't me as a child - its my mom! Scary stuff eh. I spent today going through boxes of stuff with my Grandma. We found lots of cool stuff including some great photos. There are a bunch more - like ones of yellowknife in the 1950's that I hope to get scanned eventually.

We figured out some reasonable bus routes to Humber as a side effect of wondering why GO transit had cut busses on the route that I took to get to my gramma's. So all in all its been a productive event. I myself still have lots of paper to go through and throw out still.

On Thursday, I went up to Guelph to tag along with my supervisor and one of her students on a tour de stormwater facilities in Guelph. I naturally forgot my camera and will have to go back and get some pictures next week for Dr. Wilson. Guelph has some really impressive stuff going on in that department, sadly most of their ponds are fenced, unlike the ones here that have been made into outdoor park areas. There is also a surprising number of forest trails there. I don't know what the snow is like, but the skiing looks promising trail-wise. I met another permastudent who also has a biology-engineering background. There are a few of us - Katy H. too.

So, tommorrow, I'll sleep in - I've been out of the house before 7 three of the last five days. Then, I'll just keep working through the list on my board. Window shop for glasses, cars and chest waders if I get to it. Well, the Corrolla is still in the lead. Thanks to all the people who've taken the time to comment. I really enjoy reading them and its nice knowing how many people read my blog.

Cheers,

Jennith 

Going Back To the Beginning

After seeing my gradeschool best friend for the first time in 8 years, I just had to post this picture of a slumber party at my house when I was 8 or 9. I'm the one in the green striped nightshirt, my cousin is beside me, I think the next girl's name is Melissa (but I don't know where I know her from) finally there is my friend and my baby brother (at the time) Apparently, my friend has pictures of us with licorish up our noses or some such tomfoolery.

Jenn 

Many Braids

Life is made up of many stands twisted together to make them stronger. Here is Erin back in the days when many braids were cool - well, her own unique style at any rate.

This photos is proof that you can do stuff with an SLR that you can't do with an digital camera. The picture was also taken on an Outers' trip to Tobamory.

Cheers,

Jenn 

Itches and Scratches

Here is one of the other Sears Fest Plays that took place in 1995 - Itches. I'm afraid someone else will have to identify everyone... I recognize Mike T., JP, Lisa C. and Jamie B and the other 2 I should know their names, but I can't think of them. 

Grade 10

Here are the guys in grade 9 (we were a year older) hanging out in the caf. Its funny, they look a bit different now, but its shocking how much they haven't changed a zillion years later.

This seems to be a theme for me this week. I guess scanning old photos will do this for you or running into old friends.

My best friend from grade school - who I first met in grade 2 when she sort of invited herself to my party. I'm not sure she actually came because I probably had a limit on the number of people could have, but she might have. I actually remember that party with Carrie and Penny and all of our cabbage patch kids and a couple of girls from the circle.

She's a mom now with an adorable 2 year old. (This being the girl that drove me crazy by teasing me about liking Eric Taylor) We had a really nice visit. My parents were glad to see her too.

Anywho, this is my post for tomorrow. I'll probably post again tomorrow night, but not during the day. The excitement for the next few weeks. . . glasses shopping.

Cheers,

Jennith

P.S. There is a guest book for Andrew Desmond in the star. A place where people can share their condolances or memories with the family.

P.P.S. For those of you (Geoff) who still haven't done my Johari window. The link is still there on the page. The Johari window for those who don't know what I'm talking about is this cool sort of personality quiz type thing where you have to pick 6 words off a list of about 60 to describe yourself, then other people can come to your site and pick six words from the same list that they think describe you. Its a neat excercise in understanding how you are precieved by others compared to how you precieve yourself. Generally, its a self esteem booster, since most of the choices are positive. 

Blind Revelations

The nostalgia continues. . .

Okay, here is the set of Blind Revelations circa April 1995. The silouette in the forground is our leader. She's one of those awesome crazy teachers who practically live at school doing extracuricular drama.

There are actually 3 locations visible. The actors are in the mad doctors study or some such place. I'm not sure where the kitchen (centre stage) was, but the fridge and shelves are full of cans that we labelled with generic "post apocalypse government" labels. The ingredients (which I believe I was entirely guilty for) contain things like eyes and frogs legs and rehydrogenated spamwhales or some such - not exactly appettizing stuff. That fridge was still in the lighting room 7 or 8 years later - heck it may still be there today. Memories of the lighting room... there is a sauce for the presidents choice folks. The last set - shaded in the darkness of a cross fade - is the isolation chamber/bedroom for the healthy post apopalyptic guinia pigs. Shamefully, I don't remember more of the story than that. Fun cast. Well written... oh and you have to be a bit careful of your speech in some lines though like "Mass starvation is killing us all" can sound an aweful lot like "Masturbation is killing us all" at least according to the judge.

Anywho,

I should get back to cleaning, cooking, reading and tidying.

Jennith 

Drama Awards 1994

Here is another amusing picture from highschool.

Points of note:

1. I still wonder what happened to the goldenrod shirt that Erin is wearing. I always kind of hoped to inherit it, but I supect it wouldn't fit.

2. I'm third from the left with glasses and blond wavy hair. Hee hee. Some things do change - my hair is straight and brown nowadays.

3. The gentleman in the red christmas hat was another friend of mine - I have no idea what happened to him. He wrote a crazy one act play that I never got to see, but I think he ended up doing something normal like computer programming.

Cheers,

Jennith 

The Good Old Days

Well, as a side project I've been trying to scan in some of my old pictures. Seeing as these nearly fill a halfsize rubbermaid container, it'll obviously take me a while. The gentlemen being strangled for the sake of the camera now has long hair, the gentlemen strangling had long hair the last time I saw him and a band called wildcard. That information is about 10 years old though. The third gentleman I have heard through the grape vine has just graduated at the top of the class at U of T Law school. Of the 3, I most expect to see him as the future prime minister of Canada. The red arm belongs to an artistic fellow who I haven't seen in 12 years or so. The picture is 16 years old and taken in grade 9.

So there you go... memories. I've been back to the school once or twice - it still looks remarkably the same.

Other than that, I'm putting around trying to get my room clean for Gabe's return and so I stop tripping over the stacks of sorted photos spread accross the floor and knocking over the ones on the desk. I'm still excited about being a student - which is good. Prolonged excitement is usually for real. My grade school best friend is also coming to visit with her family tonight. I haven't seen her in 8 years - so that'll be a treat. May seems to be the month of the reunion.

Jennith 

And the sun rises in the East and Jenn is a student again

Well, its unofficially official - I'm a student again. I have at least progressed past my infatuation with the undergraduate degree and gone onto graduate school. Actually, truth be told I'm absolutely through the roof excited for a million reasons - not the least of which is that I've made a decision and I know what I will be doing more or less for the next 16 or so months. I suppose I should thank (blame) Pete Emerson for his inspiration and future advice, since I'll be playing in streams again this summer. I can only hope that I haven't been completely spoiled by the Mightly Little Main Restigoche. From my initial interaction, I'm pretty sure that I've been lucky to have an amazing supervisor who I think will be an inspiration as well.

Besides, I've always wanted to go to Guelph (even if spelling it is going to make me cross-eyed.) They have good rock climbing, awesome engineering jackets and a long history with various members of my family. So here goes - this is my new adventure and excuse to devour journal articles whole and play with computer software.

I can't post a picture - since I'm in the library and don't have access to my hardrive, but imagine me in business casual with a big grin on my face. :P

Cheers,

Jennith

Some things changes and some stay the same

"They came like raindrops against the stone towers of time, but in time, it is always the rain that prevails, not the towers."

The Fool in Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin.

I can't remember the context of this quote, but it is one of my favourites. It speaks of the inevitability of death and sadness with a tone of acceptance. So, I accept what I cannot change - which is part of one of the best bible quotes out there - feel sad and begin to understand why religion is so important to so many people. I've seen a lot of people this week that I never thought to see again - Ralph, Jamie B., Jenn T., Todd, Chrises G and S, John Paul and Jim. They've grown in some ways (height mostly) - yet only a few were unrecognizable and none of their personalities had changed greatly. After the funeral, we spent some time at the family's home - then people went dispersed, changed and went to the Muddy Moose to drink and Karyoke their tributes to Dez. It would have been a nice reunion, but I kept thinking that it would have been better if the one person absent was there. I would have like to say hi to him.

The photo above is another example of things changing - that farm used to be across the road from my house. The land is now a big subdivision with a neighbourhood shopping centre. Even the stop sign has long been replaced with traffic lights. I used to ice skate on the field over there and I have lots of sunrise photos. On the other hand, the sun still rises in the same place and the world keeps turning and heck, it looks like I may have another year of school ahead of me. So, then again - somethings do stay the same.

My best friend from grade school is in Ontario. I'm hoping to see her Tuesday night. Its hard to imagine her all grown up and with a kid, as I haven't seen her in about 9 years. We used to think boys were gross and look at us now. Gabe should be here in a week! I miss him terribly and can't wait to introduce him to everyone.

So there is the nuts and bolts of my life. I've been instructed to clean my room and after playing in the garden - I should probably go clean myself too. I have piles of pictures to scan before I see my desk again :P. I suppose I'll move them first - and start by scanning the highschool ones - my immediate goals.

Take care

Jennith

The Only Other Picture I Could Find

I searched through boxes of photos and this was all I could find. I might have some pictures that Mrs. LeRiche gave me from drama in an envelope that has some group shots of him. If anyone has any other pictures, I'd love a copy.

This was taken in June 1995 at Elora Gorge where we went hiking. It was a fun trip.

Erin and Joe are the other folks in the picture. I'll keep looking.

The funeral is today and I know that it is going to be rough. I guess you can wish things were otherwise, but some things are beyond anyones ability to change or control. I keep playing back scenes from when we hung out - he seems so vivid and real its hard to imagine him being otherwise. The funeral is at 420 Dundas (between Hurontario and Cawthra) at 2 pm today.

Jenn