No Longer A Hobo.
Here's my address, in case anyone feels the need to send me a letter, or is just curious as to whether I'm still in, in Rob's words, "the dump without the DVD player"! Teehee.
1207 Hillside Gardens
7434 Kingsway
Burnaby, B.C.
V3N 3B7
Canada
I'll post pix soon, it's a luuuuuuuuuvly little place :)
Oh yeah, before I forget, Prill m8, what is your address?
Oh and something I wanted to mention, there are a lot of beggars/street people in Vancouver, and to get money off you they often have to come up with imaginitive things to put on their signs to get people to give money to them rather than the bloke two blocks away or whatever. There's been classics like
NEED MONEY FOR POT,
some perfectly normal looking guy (ie he didn't look hungry or homeless), quite portly, and with a BICYCLE, calling out to me going, COME ON, YOU GOTTA GIVE ME MONEY, LOOK AT HOW SHABBY MY BIKE IS!... oh... DEAR... , but the funniest, remember the game Hungry Hungry Hippos? Some imaginitive people were sitting on a pavement with a sign saying
HUNGRY HUNGRY HOBOS
teehee :D Ok, so it's not really funny, it actually gets quite depressing after a while. Well actually it's depressing the minute you get there. But I guess you have to find humour in it - especially those people who sit there going, need money for pot, I never feel sorry for them in the slightest. I guess the thing to do is to find one person to give to each day, cuz there's no way you can give to all of them, unless you're Bill Gates.
You know when I was working at that music shop, with the horrible Fillipino wife who would make me feel like shit? At the end of a long day I'd come out and this busker guy who usually plays just outside there, always wearing a black jacket and cap, would be playing Green Day - Time of Your Life, or Stairway to Heaven or something awesome like that, and it would give me SUCH a lift, so I always gave to him. In fact we know each other fairly well now. It's always like, omG who's playing that amazing... oh it's him. Hello! Hey again :) Thanks, have a nice day. Keep playing :)
I like my busker :)
Anyway. I've got training for my job now, (me and Jo are both working for a charity), well I've got training in half an hr, 10.30 am, so I'll go.
OH YEAH I NEARLY FORGOT!!!!! :D:D:D
One of my favourite authors, Tom Arden has a website and an email contact, and I didnt even realize! I stumbled on it when I was looking for reviews of his PHENOMENAL "Orokon" series, which I finished like a yr and a half ago. If I'd known I coulda emailed him then I would have, but I don't think he had a website then cuz I did look. Anyway I emailed him this really long, heartfelt message explaining just how stunning and different I thought his writing was, and how much of an impact his books had on me, and he wrote back this AWESOME email, I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
I'll put the whole reply up on my blog, and also bits of what I wrote to him (although it's mostly prett embarassing), but here's a bit of what he wrote:
"I don’t think anybody (including the professional reviewers) has got anywhere as close as you to understanding what The Orokon is about. (English student or not, you have a truly impressive ability to convey what a book is like, relate it to other books, and say what you think it means!)"
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG can you believe that????!!!! I know you're probably going to take the piss, but come on!!! How incredible is that???!! I can't believe one my favourite authors said that to me!! Oh, and I told Jo about you guys' "It was so beautiful I cried" j0ke that you rip out of me every now and then, because she tends to get similarly enthusiastic about lyrics. Big mistake :P Just now when I read the email and was hyperventilating with joy, she comes out with, "Is it so beautiful you cried?"
Sly lil.... damn, it's like a contagious disease! Damn you all... I will have my revenge.... mwahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... (fade to black).