salieri

I've tried working my way through Time's top 100 English language novels. To date, I have finished about 50 as there are some that just don't interest me at this point. I've read a few things over the past bit though:

1984
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Watchmen
Neuromancer
The Tipping Point

and I am currently working through Lolita again. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Any recommendations of life changing things for me to read? (If you suggest Dan Brown or something equally as shitty just stop reading this now. Go start the new Stephen King or something instead).

So as some of you know, I am pretty big into non-profit and volunteer work. Things have been going amaaaaaaaaaazingly lately, and I had some really cool chances to do some really great things lately. I....

- Flew to Norway for a weekend to attend a youth conference on international development. I met some really amazing people that just blew me away. I'd like to think I've done some cool things, but some of these delegates were just insane...super inspiring.

- Had some amazing HIV 101 and Safer (harm reduction techniques, bitches!) Sex workshops at some local high schools and CEGEPs. Basically, Quebec doesn't have sex education present anymore in schools which is just fucking ridiculous. So it falls to organizations like AIDS Community Care Montreal (one of the groups I volunteer with) to go into schools and do patchwork education. Some of these workshops have been hilariously awesome though.

The highlight was definitely how one of the local CEGEP's nurse was telling students to always use two condoms. Wait, what? Haha.

- The NGO we created this year in Montreal just gave a copy of our presentation on the Rwandan Genocide to an organization working in the UK, which is a pretty big step for us. We also had a benefit concert thing at Le Cagibi and Sarah Polley showed up (Apparently she was related to someone in one of the bands?).

The event was a success despite not being packed with people and we spoke with Sarah Polley about possibly doing a Q & A for the website/newsletter. I don't know if we're still in contact though, I'm the Presentations Coordinator - out of my jurisdiction!

- Saw Man Man and Yeasayer play last week, and Hot Chip yesterday. Yelle is coming up on the 2nd, too!

- I think I have decided on either traveling to South America (Columbia or Argentina, not sure), Morocco, or France/Spain for a month before I leave for Valcartier to do my Infantry Qualifications.

Opinions? Its probably going to just fall to whatever flight is cheapest on the day I decide to go, to be honest. I'm really not very good at planning ahead so I usually just leave it to the fates or whoever else decides on ticket prices (God? Tiger Williams?).

- I start my Infantry contract on May 27th it looks like. I still have to do a few more tests and such (since I'm transferring from Signal Operations) but it all seems to be going as smoothly as can be expected for the Army. The Regiment I'm transferring into acts as Queen's Guard at Parliament so I may be able to extend my contract to do that as well. Wheeeeeeeee!