Update On the Admiral

Here is the latest update on The Admiral...

- 2 more holes in the engine needing to be filled, welded and fixed by the aluminum man at $178 per hole

- not only are there holes in the engine but I have now been told that the engine I thought was a Toyota Carolla engine from its "birth", is not at all that. In fact, the person who owned the car before me decided to play with the engine and mix-match parts to create a useless piece of garbage with wires hanging out and holes and missing parts...

So far this summer I have: replaced the brakes, brake pads, the fan belt, the tires, the fuel tank, the fuel neck and the fuel lines. I have unclogged a blockage in the lines, filled holes that are/were leaking carbon-monoxide everywhere and yes, I have even changed my air freshener.

Admiral: 10
Lindsay: 0

Travel Bug: Story #3 -- New Brunswick

So this may not seem as glamorous as the rest of the Travel Bug stories seeing as it occurred in the armpit of Canada (I say that with love of course) but after my journey this weekend, I felt it absolutely necessary to blog about it.

The trouble started minutes after my roommates and I had piled ourselves (and our insane number of bags) into my 1997 Toyota Carolla. Named "The Admiral", my vehicle typically acts as my strong, loving, comfy confidant... however this summer, my Admiral has been letting me down more often than I care to admit. This weekend was no exception.

We got on the road towards the highway and heard a very strange lawn-mower sound. Originally, I thought nothing of it but after reaching the Evangeline Inn, I thought it best to pull into the small Irving Gas Station and ask the mechanic there for a little advice. As I get out of my car, a large 1/2 naked man (with a withering tattoo on his arm that professed his love for some chick named "Rosie"), comes sauntering towards me. He takes a few minutes, looks under the hood and tells me that there's a hole in my exhaust and that it's no big problem at all. Like an idiot, I believed him and headed back to the road.

By Hantsport (15 minutes down the highway) the lawn-mower noise had turned into a tractor-like noise and I thought it wise to call my mechanic in New Minas. He, alarmed by my description, told me to turn around immediately and head to his shop.

After a few minutes at Midas, it was determined that the previous owner of my beloved Admiral had decided that it would be a good idea to drill 2 holes into the engine and then proceed to cover them up with epoxy (glue) in order to fix their dumb-ass move. We were told that this was a HUGE problem since the hole in the engine would affect the exhaust system and would essentially pump carbon-monoxide into the car until we all died without warning. Fantastic, no?

In order to fix such a problem as TWO holes in my engine, a very specific type of welder had to be called in. After 2 hours of waiting, he finally arrived and welded the aluminum hole shut and wished us luck with our travels.

Incredibly relieved, my roommates and I hopped into the vehicle and made our way back to the highway. At the stoplight right before the highway however, The Admiral began to shake violently and make a "chugging" noise. BUT, after waiting 2 whole hours to leave, my roommates and I decided to shrug it off as nothing and continue on our journey... DUMB ASS MOVE.

The car ride seemed to be going well enough, cruising at a steady 120 down the highway until my lovely roommates felt nature calling and the Admiral felt rather thirsty. We pulled into the Irving in Oxford, NS. and I filled my tank with gas while the girls hit the lady's room. After filling up the tank, I got into the car with intentions of moving it up and into a parking space to wait for the girls... unfortunately at this point my dear boy said "Fuck you Lindsay" and decided to NOT start again.

I immediately got out and screamed like an idiot at my bastard car, much to the surprise of the other drivers filling up. Thankfully - some divine intervention, I'm sure - a mechanic happened to be filling up his truck right at the next pump. He came over and told me that he thought I had a blockage in my fuel line and that in order to run my car, I would have to constantly have my foot on the gas. This means that any time I were to take my foot off the gas, my car would die and possibly not start again.

And so began the last leg of the journey to New Brunswick... my foot didn't leave the gas pedal once. This wouldn't have been as huge of an issue if we had been driving in the day in some nice weather. Unfortunately for us, thick fog rolled in and with it came torrential down-pour. On dark, winding roads with flat paint (instead of fluorescent paint like the rest of the world), my roommates and I traveled full speed ahead and fully terrified. To top it off, in the midst of the fog, the engine light came on and the car began to rumble once again as it hydroplaned down the road. I have never gripped my steering wheel so hard in all my life.

As we pulled off the highway into Quispamsis, NB we got lucky and had two green lights... followed by a red (which we ran) and a couple stop-signs that, with any-luck, had approaches that could be called "cautious roll-throughs".

We arrived at our destination for the evening and put the Admiral in park. The next morning we braved the unbrakeable-breakable vehicle and motored into Sussex NB for some emergency assistance from the local mechanic. Indeed the man at Irving was right - there was a blockage in the fuel line. The mechanic flushed out the fuel lines and out popped the lovely piece of metal (1/4 the size of my pinkie finger-nail) that had caused us so much distress. FINALLY the Admiral was fixed! Or so we thought...

For the rest of the weekend my boy behaved himself and trucked around NB without any issues. On the way back, my roommates and I decided to stop off to visit some of my family in Amherst. After a few hours with them, we hit the road. Not 10 minutes down the road did we hear the tractor noise rise from the belly the beast once again. I pulled over and popped the hood to investigate the noise.

***I must add here that prior to the disaster that was this weekend, I had ZERO knowledge of how cars worked!***

So yes, I popped the hood and looked in at the engine where yet again, I found ANOTHER giant hole with epoxy residue flaking off as I glared down at it. I called my cousin to save us at Amherst's "Riverside Diner" and once he had given his final opinion, it was decided that we would ride the rest of the way to Wolfville with the windows down, the tractor-noise up, and the carbon-monoxide at a minimum (air filters blocked + windows down = less chance of death).

Now, a few hours after returning to the safety of my home, I can say that I've never been SO furious with the Admrial, nor have I been so terrified for not only my life, but the lives of others. Our motto for the weekend was "small victories"... I consider one of those victories as getting my roomies home safe for sure.

Tomorrow I will take him back to the shop in hopes of bringing him back to life again.
So far, this summer has been a war. Lindsay vs. The Admiral.

He is kicking my ass.

Travel Bug: Story #2 -- Malaysia

To continue on with my travel stories, one in particular comes to mind now that we've hit the summer holidays. You see, last summer I decided to venture to Thailand to work at an orphanage for kids with special needs. After a month of exhausting work, a dear friend of mine invited me to visit him and his family in Malaysia. The deal was that if I would pay for my flights, he would cover everything else. What a deal right?

And so I went, and the deal was no word of a lie! He had planned out the entire week for us -- even got angry when I offered to pay for an ice cream or pop here and there. We had a fantastic time, I met his family, his friends and really got to see Malaysia as I wanted - no touristy garbage, just first hand Malaysian style travel.

One of the excursions that my buddy lined up for us was to go to this island called Langkawi. It was beautiful -- we stayed in little villas, enjoyed some extremely spicy food and hiked, swam and boated like it was nobody's business.

On our last day on Langkawi, the group of us (my friend and his friends) all decided to go to the beach at sunset. I, looking for adventure as always, then thought it would be a great idea to go parasailing! For those of you thinking "So what? People go parasailing all the time!", you really have no idea what MALAYSIAN parasailing is like.You see, as I said before, I was experiencing Malaysian travel just as a Malaysian person would. Therefore, the beach we were at was not touristy, nor did it offer the comforts of a classy resort with certified equipment or bilingual staff.

So there I was, standing on the beach with my buddy as he bartered with the guy to get a better price for the activity. As it turns out, they were both born in the same tiny mountain town and so, being "brothers" we got a fantastic $30 for 20 minutes each!

My friend was a little nervous about parasailing (I should have listened to him) and so made me go first. We walked out to the beach and each got strapped into what looked to me like fraying seat-belts. I stood there, happily being groped by random men as they put my "harness" on, and tried to understand the instructions on how to parasail from a man with very little knowledge of the English language.

I was to run (yes RUN) down the beach in the harness, pulling the parachute behind me until the slack between me and the metal dingy boat that was to be pulling me disappeared. I would then be hoisted into the air and pulled along the shore, over the water and off into the sunset. After my time in the air was going to be drawing to a close, I would "hear a whistle" and see this small, Malaysian, purple-shirted man waving his arms above his head. After I saw this, I was to pull on the right side of my parachute. Once I saw this same little man waving his arms below his knees, I was to let go of the parachute and drift softly down to the earth where he and his co-workers would catch me.

It sounded easy enough to me and after going over it about 30 more times with the man, I was on my way down the beach, awkwardly running like some sort of Forrest Gump equivalent, strapped onto a parachute and into a sketchy harness, waiting to be hoisted into the air.

Off I went, sailing through the sky, looking out over a calm sea at sunset. The colours in the sky were insane and the beauty of where I was - at what seemed to be the top of the world - was overwhelming. As the boat turned and began to go back the way we came, I stopped looking at the sunset and the ocean, and focused on the beach below. Much to my surprise, when you're at such an altitude, people on the beach look more like ant colonies than actual human beings.

So there I was, looking down, trying to spot the small Malaysian man in a purple shirt amongst a sea of ants and suddenly found myself getting a strange sinking sensation deep within my soul. As I tried desperately to search for my little man in the crowds, what do I hear but a whistle blast - just the cue I was waiting for to begin my decent onto the beach. At that moment, I grabbed onto the right side of my parachute and began to pull. Looking down at the beach I began to see many people waving their hands over their heads. I thought to myself "WOW, I am actually doing great!" ... that would later prove to be the dumbest thought I had ever had.

After keeping my focus on the people on the ground for so long, (what was really maybe 10 seconds) I looked up to see that I was no longer over water.. and was in fact heading quickly towards a very rocky cliff. Realizing this, I let go of my parachute and was instantly whipped in the opposite direction where I saw - looking down again - that my boat driver had stopped driving the boat and was also waving his hands above his head.

Then it happened. I looked up. What I saw was my parachute folding in on itself and what I felt, was a sudden rush of wind and as I began to plummet to the ground. Scrounging to make it alright, I tugged on my parachute here and there as I free-fell from what was now about 3.5 stories in the air. I decided at that moment that I did NOT want to break my left leg again (as I had just recently gotten out of a cast) and so angled my body in such a way that my whole right side would take the impact of the fall, instead of my left.

As I crashed to the ground, what seemed to be hundreds of people came running toward me screaming in Malay (the language of Malaysia). I was numb and in incredibly shock that I had just plummeted from the sky. One man yelled at me in English "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?? YOU COULD HAVE DIED!!" as I tried to untangle myself from the mess of the parachute and cords.

I ended up with a sprained ankle, a twisted knee, a sprained wrist, a mild concussion, a toe-nail completely ripped off, and bruises up and down the right side of my body.

I could have died that day. I'm very aware of that. It certainly has made me think twice before trying to experience things that perhaps are maybe not as safe as they should be. None the less, I did get a fantastic story from the fall... even if it did result in some pain meds, bandages and a seriously bruised ego.

Travel Bug: Story #1 -- Honduras

So I was talking to a friend of mine about a week ago and the topic of travel arose in our conversation. She was telling me about her upcoming summer and was looking for some advice. All that I could think to say was "Be safe". She laughed and asked of all the things I could say, why would I say "be safe"? Normally I would think up some responsible response encouraging safety to her by saying that the best way to travel is to ensure that you're alive and well to tell your stories when you get home. However, what I then realized was that some of my absolute best experiences and stories have come from when I was fearing death, facing death, or simply in a position that could have resulted in me not being able to come back alive and well to tell a story.

Needless to say... it's story time :-)

I'll begin this (hopefully) chain of travel posts with the story that sparked the aforementioned conversation. It happened in La Mosquitia, Honduras in March of 2006. I was in my final year of highschool and was partaking in a service project, building a dormitory and volleyball court for a boys orphanage/school run by a nun named Sister Maria Rosa. I had gone with Friends of Honduran Children - http://www.friendsofhonduranchildren.com/ - and after just under a month working a 1/2 hour outside of Tegucigalpa (the capital), myself and the other 15 volunteers departed for what we thought would be a fun, safe, educational adventure in the rainforest.

It started off interestingly with the plane ride to La Mosquitia We took a short regular plane ride to La Ceiba (one of the most popular cities in Honduras) and from there, we boarded a 16-seater plane - including the pilot's seat - to La Mosquitia. Everything about this plane was questionable from the frayed seatbelts to the cracked window to the Russian instructions written throughout the cabin. We later found out the plane was used during the Cold War and had been left in Honduras by the Russians... go figure. ANYWAY, so we took off into the sky in this tiny little aircraft and flew just under the clouds for about an hour. As we were getting ready to land, the group of us kept checking out the windows in search of an airport... we then landed on a strip of dirt no longer than a football field and the airport itself was about 6 wooden posts in the ground with a straw-thatched roof. We unloaded and looked around the dirt patch and made our way to the back of a pick up truck which we were told would take us to our guide. We ended up spending the night in a cute little hotel in a little shanty town where everything was on stilts. All night we could hear men fighting and women hollering at the pub next door and after a little bit of shut-eye, we awoke excited for the adventure ahead.

We walked across the street to the docks where we expected to see a couple of motor boats waiting for us. Instead, we found hollowed-out trees with little motors on the end with an old man at the motor and a young boy standing at the bow of the tree-boat. As we skeptically climbed into our trees, we were told not to worry, we'd be well taken care of and would be at our destination before dark.

So we took off in a little convoy of tree-boats down a peaceful lagoon. Soon the lagoon turned into a river and the river then turned into a large open expanse of water with fairly rough waves. Holding on for dear life to the hollowed tree, afraid of boats and open water, my group and I finally made it to the other side. We assumed our journey was ending here as it was already about 2:30pm and we had been travelling for quite a few hours. Were we ever wrong.

After coming out of the open water, we entered yet another lagoon. This one was unlike the first in that it was incredibly shallow... this meant that our tree-boat - loaded down with passengers, dry-sacks, backpacks and food barrels - would often drag on the muddy bottom and get stuck. It was at these times (which were more often than one might think) that we all would have to hop out of our tree-boats into the murky waters and drag the boat along until we got to a little deeper space. We'd then heave our wet, muddy selves back into the boat, peel off the leaches and slime and continue the journey. By 5pm we had reached the end of the lagoon, only to hear that we had still quite a ways to go on the river ahead.

At first it was really neat. We were passing homes on stilts with thatched roofs and were weaving through mazes of up-rooted trees that had been scattered throughout the river after a terrible hurricane and wrestled with the area a few years before. We motored alongside water-snakes, saw toucans sitting in the branches of the trees along the river, heard monkeys howling, saw native families bathing and playing in the river... it was one of the most peaceful, inspiring, beautiful things I have ever seen in my life and what made it all the more beautiful was the rich Honduran sunset that kissed every inch of the area. And, as the sun continued to make its way behind the trees, we volunteers breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we would be reaching our camp any minute, as the guide had told us we would be there by sundown.

As the last ray of sun dropped behind the trees and night began to fall, we asked our guide if camp was in sight. To this he replied shakily, in broken English "Umm not exactly". He refused to say anything more and as the stars came out and the darkness kept everything from view, myself and my fellow volunteers began to get a little nervous. With our 70 year old tree-boat driver and our 10 year old bow-man, we found it difficult to keep trusting them... especially when they asked if anyone had a flashlight so they could see where they were going.

We spent the next hour in pitch darkness, motoring down a river with only a head-lamp showing the way. We then hit, what would be the most terrifying part of the trip.... RAPIDS. I'm not talking little ripples in the water, I'm talking legitimate rapids, sloshing our tree-boat about like a toothpick. Unfortunately for my group, our toothpick was sloshed into a rock hold that, no matter how hard our driver tried, we could not maneuver out from. It was then that we were told to get out of the boat.... let's recap here shall we? Pitch black darkness. Rapids. Snake and crocodile infested waters. 5 volunteers. Pure terror.

So we got out of the boat and tried desperately to yank the boat out of the crevasse, all the while trying to stay afloat, alive and calm. Our 10 year old bow-man had joined us in the water and with the 6 of us heaving and hawing, the boat finally got loose and was able to push forward through the rapids. The 5 of us volunteers, exhausted, cold and terrified clamoured back into the boat, only to realize that our 10 year old bow-man was missing. We scoured the water with our headlamp in hopes of seeing him, but nothing was happening. Finally, we heard a splash come from another boat and, hearing the screams of our fellow volunteers, we learned that the guide had jumped into the rapids to save the boy. As we all sat silent, listening to the pounding of the water through the rocks and against the boats, we feared that we had not only lost a small boy, but also our guide who was supposed to be keeping us safe. After what felt like 10 minutes (but was probably only 2), we hear a large bellow followed by fits of sputtering. Our guide had found and saved our boy and as soon as he had done so, the 10 year old - with only a wipe of his face - was back at work navigating our boat through the rapids and down the river, much to our astonishment.

We arrived at the camp base at 11:30pm, exhausted, wet, unnerved and incredibly thankful that we had survived such an epic boat ride. And, although it was in my top 10 list of most horrifying experiences, it also makes my top 10 list of insane travel stories, which have really impacted my entire life and have left me craving adventure. So, to my dear friend who asked for advice when travelling... screw being safe. Make it a goal to stay alive, but try everything, fear nothing and love every minute of every experience no matter how crazy it may seem at the time.

Fibromyalgia: A Real Pain In The....

I want to take the opportunity to discuss a topic that is extremely important to me. It is a disease called FIBROMYALGIA, and it's a pain in the ass... and everywhere else for that matter.

This disease affects 900,000 Canadians and most of them are women... and most of them are over the age of 40 (as my doc told me). I was diagnosed with it at 16. Now with most things... take the olympics for example, people are so impressed when the announcer says "the youngest competitor to ever take to the floor, her parents must be so proud". For fibromyalgia, it was as if that announcer said "congratulations, you've just won a life of constant pain, and guess what - because you're the youngest, you get to live with it even longer than most!"

My friend Meaghan just recently wrote a paper on this disease for her Women in the Modern World class and I couldn't have been happier that she did. She explains the symptoms well when she says:

The most common symptom is pain. Some victims describe their pain as deep muscular aching, burning, throbbing, stabbing and even numbness. Often, the pain and stiffness are worse in the mornings and may hurt more in muscle groups that are used repetitively

Along with the pain, comes issues sleeping, intestinal problems and depression. Doesn't this sound lovely? Well it gets even better.

The best part about this disease (please hear the sarcasm in my voice) is that people - including doctors - do not understand the disease. There are no outward signs of it and nothing can be seen when x-rays are done because the pain stems from the soft tissues of the body. Doctors often mis-diagnose it and friends and family members never really "get it", insisting that you're: lazy, a party-pooper, faking it, exaggerating, just tired... or various other condescending phrases.

To these people, I say: Fuck. Off.

I'm sorry, but until you can tell me that every day you wake up in physical pain, that you spend your entire day in some sort of pain and that every night you go to bed, aching from the day you've just had - you cannot tell me I'm ANYTHING but legit for wanting a little bit of a break.

Want to know what makes it even more fun? Stress makes it worse.

At this point in the year I don't think that I could be more stressed... I wrote a list a few posts ago but now, as it comes down to the wire with performances, essays, exams and rehearsals... I feel like my body is about to fall apart.

No, I'm not looking for pity by writing this post. I just wanted to write - to vent - and let people know that no, I'm not just upset because I'm PMSing (which I'm not at the moment in case you felt you needed to know), I'm not in pain because I just wore the wrong shoes, and I'm not just feeling ill because of meal hall... I have this disease and right now it's beating the shit out of me. Yes, I'll jump back and be the perky me once again but for now... just understand there's more to my "laziness" than meets the eye.

Feeling a little... "Wahn Wahn"

Have you ever wondered why in the times that you're the most down, the only thing that soothes you is thinking that people, somewhere else in the world, or maybe even a few minutes away, are even more down than you are?

Thinking that many people all over the world have it worse than you may for some be something that upsets them. For me, it's comforting. Of course I don't mean this in a sick and twisted hate-the-world kind of way, but in the sense that no matter how bad things get for me or my family, things could ALWAYS be worse. My sister and I could have been sold into prostitution as children, I could have become an orphan and forced to scrounge for food in the gutters, I could have been born with 1 arm, 1 leg and a crooked smile and forced to work as a member of a Freak Show. I respect the people that live through times as awful as these (or worse) and it makes me feel proud to be a member of the human race. Perseverance in the face of sadness, doubt, pain or struggle is something that we as people have been able to succeed at and you know what? That's a pretty cool thing. Perhaps that's why dinosaurs are extinct... they just gave up on life.

In class the other day we were talking about death and dying as being mildly equivalent to a break-up. The argument was that in both situations people have to grieve. More often than not there are tears, anger of some sort, a desire to make things better and a period of time where you just don't and can't feel like "yourself". Having to deal with both the probability of a death of a loved one in the near future and a break up in the same week, I can say that I find myself agreeing with this comparison.

At times I feel as though I can't differentiate one sadness from the other - they are melded together in some sort of cruel hybrid that tortures me whether I'm awake or asleep. I'd like to think that at some point the cancer will just disappear and the relationship will mend but in reality what will probably happen is yes, the cancer will disappear... and so will the human it devours along the way; the relationship will mend but into a friendship where the only sign of past intimacy will be a "remember when" story. Are these bad things? Not necessarily. Both could be great - someone no longer has pain and I'd gain a friendship and learn from a wonderful life experience. On the other hand, the pain could be stretched out for years and the breakup could lead to the awkward nod (you know the one I speak of) as you pass by them on the street or in a building.

Really, I would just rather have neither situation percolate into my everyday life...

Gosh I'm glad I skipped a pubcrawl tonight to get to bed early - it clearly has done a lot of good.

Wahn wahn.

So here I sit in the library, it's just another Friday with people scurrying about to get in those last few hours of work before the weekend hits and the work really piles up. I chose to get up this morning with one goal in mind - to finish my reading for Cross Cultural Belief Systems. Thinking of course that I hadn't fallen too far behind, I went to Acadia's portal for learning - ACME. Yes, it's outdated but some profs just can't get used to this whole ACORN thing and really, why should they when ACME still works? Anyway, I open the link to the required readings and see that I am three weeks behind in reading... that's six chapters and seven articles that need to be read, reflected upon and written about by next Thursday.

Normally this wouldn't bother me... I tend to work well under pressure. However, with all that, a scene to memorize for my acting class, a huge presentation, a dance that needs to be created and presented in a few days, three huge mid-terms, a 3500 word research essay, 5 plays to read and rehearsals for Minifest (a student run collection of plays put on at Acadia), I can't help feeling a little overwhelmed - especially since all of this is to be accomplished within the next 2.5 weeks.

So of course I would be sitting here blogging instead of actually accomplishing any of the previously mentioned tasks. Perhaps it's about time I get down to it.

Popping the Cherry

Hey there -

So it's official. I'm no longer a virgin blogger, the cherry has been popped and the journey has begun. Welcome to my first blog ever. By no means should anyone who visits this site feel obligated to read what I've written as it's more of an outlet for me, my thoughts, my observations and my adventures.

It is a rare-occasion that I actually find myself wanting to write about what's going on in my mind or life but perhaps it's because I've never really taken the time to reflect on what exactly IS going on with me.

And so it begins, the blog that will most likely help my habit of procrastination and destroy what little I have left of my desire for scholastic achievement.

Here's to future procrastination and free thought!