nuff of the winjing

okay, im feeling a lot more calm this morning, so hopefully i can get through a post without sounding totally negative about my experience here.

my life is pretty relaxed. my host family lives in a really nice house, with a dishwasher, no fighting over milk.

heres what an average day looks like for me...

everyday i go to work at rogers for 9:30 am. if im sometimes late, its okay. no biggie. but on tues and thurs i have to be there at 6 am, to help out with the french morning show "deux bon'heures". that means i have to wake up around 5 am to get ready and im having a really hard time with that. last time, i practically fell asleep operating the camera. master control was like "camera 3, pan to the right. camera 3. pan right...camera 3!" and then i pop awake and jerk the camera right. and fall back asleep :-P

im also filming my own pieces to air for the local news channel. i could be more proactive about it, but im kinda indifferent towards broadcast journalism. i mean, i dont really love it. i prefer print journalism, and have been putting in a lot of effort working my side job with the newspaper. and another reason is that my camera man is james, and he is so hard to direct. you tell him what you want him to film, and he doesnt listen. hes always zooming this way and that way, and he never wants to use the tripod so shots come out shakey. ive thought about just training myself on camera and doing the shoots myself, except the camera is pretty heavy. and then james wouldnt have anything to do at work.

i get off work anywhere from 1 pm to 4 pm, depending on the day and workload. i bike home, have some food. sometimes i'll work out at the YMCA. sometimes we have Tuin Dui meetings. and sometimes ill just chill with some of the other CWYouthers.

So you might be wondering, whats a tuin dui? tuin dui means 'group' in mandarin. there are 18 participants in our bigger group, and we are divided into three smaller groups, or tuin dui's. our tuin dui is called "the rock stars" and theres me, amy, sarah, shirley, nick and kevin.

this thursday we are supposed to organize a food drive in our tuin duis. we were supposed to distribute bags to neighborhood houses, with flyers attached asking for food donations, as well set up a donation box at a local supermarket. unfortunately, cuz its remembrance day weekend, all the stores are closed so we couldnt get any photocopying done. and two of our members are away in montreal so im supremely jealous! although not so much with the 20 hour car ride there and back...

anyways, ive got a pretty packed schedule. phone supermarket, handout bags, finish my newspaper article, interview 3 more people this week, edit a piece for rogers. and to think, this is only a portion of the business of most people's daily lives. i dont know if i can handle the real world. gahhhh!!!