Sparklyladybug.com.au

So, to some of the people i'm working with now, this is how i'm known...kinda funny...being infamous is maybe the first step when trying to take over the world...and if thats the case, then well, i'm on the right track, yay me!
This week was a funnish one, i was in Ottawa, and working as a ground rep, this meant that i wasn't touring with kids, i was an in-city rep to help the other guides with trouble shooting and to chat up teachers and make sure all is going well. So, first night in the city, was meeting a group for dinner and to help them out a bit and went up to one of the teachers an introduced myself...and he said "ya, i remember you, you were our guide a couple years ago" and i thought oh, ok, maybe...didn't remember him at all though (I have the worst memory!). A little later i was introducing myself to another teacher, i got as far as to say, "I'm..." and he jumped in and said, "Christie, i remember you from 3 years ago". And i kinda did recognize him...funny funny though...it had been 3 years since i was a tour guide, i didn't think anyone would have remembered me!
This isn't the first time this has happened to me...I can't often remember faces, pretty much never names...but i'm still pretty bad at remembering people that i have only met once or in passing in general. Why is this? How does my memory not work so that i neglect to make connections and remember deatils! I'm always the first to admit that i have a horrible short term memory, i am a constant list maker and always have to have a whiteboard in my room to write things on, i dont count on myself to remember anything! My computer has this great little exterior harddrive...not much bigger than my hand and it stores and remembers all my music, why can't we make exterior hard drives...kinda like an attachmenty thingy to help your brain out...so gotta work on that!

Prepping for my ghost tour this week, I said to Adrienne, my parter in crime for the week, that it is funny, you'll never get as many blunt pick up lines as when you are in a ghost costume...it was her first ghost tour, and sure enough when we met after she too was astounded! My friend Cathia came and met up with us for a bit while we were waitin to start and she too was surprised. One guy even came up to us and said his buddies would buy us a round of drinks... We just couldn't figure it all out...i dont think i look particularily attractive with a super gross matted wig on...don't know if you guys can shed any light on it...

So, i've been in Montreal about 5 times in the last 7 weeks! So, here are a few pics of some of the things i usually see and do there...

The city of Montreal from the top of Mont Royal...way back in the day Mont Royal used to be an active volcano...now it just looks like a really big hill...it's got a beautiful park at the top though with a great lookout!

One of my favourite sights in Montreal is the Biodome...it's cool...they have 4 different ecosystems under one roof. My favourite animals there are the penguins...they are so much fun to watch! They also have a linx, sloths, kappiberra (these guys are funny, they kinda look like the rodents of unusual size (RUS) from the Princess Bride) and there are lots of other animals too!

Lastly, Space camp...it is so much fun, for the kids...they usually dont let me try anything! But, this one day my kids were all tired and boring and not want to try the simulators, so i got to...this one was meant to teach you how to keep cool under pressure and so there were 3 rings that moved in all different directions and i was strapped into a seat in the middle. The space camp leader would ask me questions like how to spell my name backwards while i was spinning around...i'm happy to say that i passed with flying colours...i can now go on to be an astronaut!

Ok, so, here i was, pretty proud of myself, during my time in japan, one of my acquired skills was learning how to make coffee...i kid you not, before i went to japan i didn't know how to make coffee...who needs to know how when there are always coffee shops nearby. So, i learnt how to use a filtery thing, a bodum, an electric coffee maker (the normal kind, not sure what to call it) and of course which ones to buy from vending machines. I thought i had the coffee thing figured out. Anyhow, sleeping over at a friends house (thanks Jen-Mai!) and making coffee this morning, she had this kind of bodum, but not the normal kind, i think it was like maybe a camping version. There was a cup at the bottom, a filtery thing that goes on top and a cup thing with holes that goes into the filter...so, i put coffee in the filter, boil some water, pour some water into the filter and figure it should work. I couldn't figure out what the cup thing with the holes was meant to do, so i just decided i didn't need it...bad idea! So, the water went through the filter in about 3 seconds and i got wattery coffee all over the kitchen...oops...maybe i dont really know how to make coffee afterall...

Ok, so, conversation of a little while ago with my mother goes...

Mom: Christie, do you smoke?
Me: No, why?
Mom: Christie, do you smoke?
Me: No, i dont...why?
Mom: Christie, do you smoke?
My cousin: She doesn't smoke, why?
Mom: Christie, do you smoke?
Me: I don't smoke...and what does it matter if i do!
Mom: Christie, tell me the truth, do you smoke?
Dad: Why do you keep asking her she said she didn't, leave the poor girl alone!
Me: Well maybe I will start now! No I don't smoke...why do you keep asking me?

The whole interrogation took about 3 minutes, with my mom repeating only one question. Finally, the truth comes out, she was reading my blog, a post entitled "These are a few of my favourite things..." but she forgot to read the part about not all the opinions being mine...i love getting interrogated when people misunderstand cause they don't read the whole story!