Horse Shit

Some people really don't know how to live.
I have met a few of these people.
Living with these people makes me want to rip my eyeballs out with spoons.
Working here is a rip-off, we are immensely underpaid, and our bosses are all over the place and have no clue how to communicate with their employees.
Though there are some fun moments, they are not worth the rest of the crap.
I look forward to my one week of summer.
I am not looking forward to another year at John Abbott, in a program where 99.99% of students lack motivation and/or brain, and in which it seems as if every day as I sit on a disgusting old wobbly desk, I am wasting my precious teen years on useless crap about something which may or may not come into use at some point in my life.
I will probably hate my next job just as much as this one, unless it resembles my dream job in any way as described in a recent post.
I hate people.
I did NOT sign up to clean toilets and showers twice a week, or to slave away cleaning dishes with disgusting old wet sponges that smell like rotten salami.

''Ça pue dans les armoires!!''
Yes, well, according to the laws of nature, stuff becomes mouldy if it stays wet CONSTANTLY BECAUSE YOU DON'T DRY YOUR DISHES. And no, I will not dry them myself because I am not happy, I will use paper plates and pollute the planet as you eat in your bacteria infested dishes.

My immune system is now ready to combat the Spanish Flu.
20 times.

Let's be slightly positive and mention one thing I enjoyed recently (last night): galloping in the fields in the moonlight, avoiding giant bales of hay.

I hope you are all enjoying my blog about my constant struggle against humanity, its stupidity, and my own stupidity. Oh, and let's not forget to mention: huge piles of horse shit. Literally and practically.

I want to come home.

The Sky Is Burning

So, I did quite a few hours again today, woke up at 8:00AM in time for the first trail at 9:00AM to the cave.

Éloïse and Florence are back from their day off with family. They brought back a ****LOAD of chocolate. Jacques would hyperventilate.

Tonight, when Jeanne and I were showering the horses, I turned around and saw the sky was CRAZY. So, I ran to get my camera, just in time to get a few good shots before the sun was too low and the colour in the clouds was gone.

The trailer is acceptably clean once again. Should last a good....hour.

Dead

So, I worked 11 hours today.

I wanted to die.

Cash was under 18$, I don't care, it's the first time there has ever been a problem with my cash.

Crazy insane busy day, Jeanne was gone with her family, then Éloïse and Florence left this evening with their family.

Up at 8:00AM tomorrow morning, a trail with 7 people at 9:00AM, more insanity, Éloïse and Florence are still gone.

Jeanne comes back tomorrow morning, in time for the trail.

Sleep now.

!!!

Stop

playing

soccer

against

the walls

of

my

room

!!!

Ruby

I took Ruby on a trail for the first time today.

They call him la maudite charogne.

He wasn't that bad.

I did 4 trails today.

My butt = finished.

Merci

They did the dishes.

Wow.

I'm going to go eat breakfast now, so i'll see if they left dishes in the sink again. They also went grocery shopping, so we are saved from starvation once again.

I'm trying to think about where I could apply for a job once i'm back.

Criteria for new job:
1-Involves absolutely no direct contact/communication with human beings
2-Gives me money.

I'm not sure such a job exists and no, i'm not going to go clean up animal poop at the Ecomuseum.

I'd want a job where at the beginning of the day, someone says "Sort these gigantic piles of paper in alphabetical order. You'll be typing them into a computer later on." and then shuts the door and leaves. And i'd hope the piles of paper were taller than me, so i'd be spending my entire summer/year in an ugly little room. It wouldn't matter if it payed 9.50$. It would require only time and no skill whatsoever.

We were sitting in the trailer one day, and we realized how little we were being paid for what we were doing. By remembering what we had been told about wages and how they could vary depending on certain factors, we realized that we were gigantic losers. Well, at least I did.

We're staying FREAKING far, we needed a certain level of experience on horseback, walking to the cave/riding involves physical danger, and the effort required to do all this work makes sure I fall asleep in less than 30 seconds every night...I understand they're giving us a place to stay...a room next to the showers with 2 beds for Éloïse and I, a shed for Jeanne and an old stinky trailer for Florence, but...You get what I mean. Or maybe not.

"You get to ride horses!"

Correction: I get to sit on a horse at slower than human walking pace with people who a scared/inexperienced...And when we go on trail rides at night, we ride the idiot horses (ponies**). They're not dangerous, they just lack training.

When I come back and find a ridiculous job that involves paper and sorting and no people, i'm going to take lessons again.

Thanks.

Minke

5:50AM, alarm rings.

Lift comes to get us.

We go to the dock in Baie Sainte-Catherine, put on our waterproof jackets and pants.

Waited about 10 minutes for Dominic to come get us with the zodiac.

...We saw two Minke whales and a seal.

It was a pretty bad day for whales. We went all the way to the middle of the river, with three boats communicating between each other, trying to see where there might be more. It was foggy towards the center of the river, so we listened out for larger whales.

Nothing.

I got a few shots of small Minke whales.

We may go again to see if there are more.

Oh, and no more food left once again.



**Edit: The trailer is absolutely DISGUSTING. I walk in to make supper, dishes are piled up, the table is FULL of crumbs and other nasty grub, there is nothing ready, not much to eat...I grab a pot to boil sausages, the bottom has some kind of weird crusty black spot, obviously left by someone who burned something and ''thought they wouldn't be able to clean it off.''

It's official, i'm going to live in a box, and it will be clean.

Zodiac

No...Not astrology.

Quite a busy day today, Éloïse and I took the day off, and so we went to Tadoussac. We hung around the boarding docks for AML zodiac boats for a while, looking to see if we might know one of the captains. We didn't see anyone we knew, so we decided to grab a bite at some restaurant nearby.

Then we went to get my hair cut.

Then we went to eat some delicious homemade chocolate.

Then we went back to the beach, and we saw Dominic, and so he let us hop on the zodiac boat!
It wasn't to go see the whales, it was to drop off a bunch of people who had kayaked all the way to Tadoussac back to where they came from. I brought my camera, most pictures are trash, we got caught in the rain so I sat curled up in a little ball with my rain coat, trying to keep my hair dry and my camera too.

We saw two belugas from afar.

Tomorrow morning, at 6:15AM, Jeanne and I have a lift to go see the whales for real. Let's hope they're feeling outgoing. I'm bringing my camera again, hopefully i'll get some good shots. The sensor is really dusty, i'll have to get it cleaned when I come back.

Oh, and I also cashed one of my cheques, I had to go by Éloïse's bank account because the lady told me she couldn't do anything with other banks. Stupid banks.

It was a pretty exciting day.

Back to work tomorrow.

I'm going to sleep early, i'm really tired, and an early morning for me tomorrow.

Click Click

I rode Sisi in the outdoor ring today, not for long because it was very hot.

I took Major's bridle and a western saddle because the english saddle doesn't fit right.

She was ok until it came to cantering, she kept going to the door and wouldn't respond to my leg.

Then I just rode around without stirrups for a while. The ground is really soft so it's really hard to try doing anything properly, trotting is really uneven...

I have two trails later on, so i'll get some hours done...

Jeanne hid the nutella this morning, but I found it, and now i've hidden it.

Let the games begin.

Crying Babies

Pretty much every morning, there are parents in the room next to us with crying children.

Why the HELL would you bring children camping?
Why!?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Food

We went grocery shopping again today.

I had rice with peppers and onions for lunch.

I finished my pot of nutella.

Éloïse and I had to go put the horses out, and it was so dark even her cell phone screen wasn't good enough for us to see anything. We were scared shitless, but we got to the barn without being killed by some maniac with a chainsaw/axe/gun/anything more ridiculous you'd see in a scary movie.

We went on a trail ride without Florence, she was working. I took the english saddle, it's a cheap piece of crap and it's not fitted for Sisi either, so it wasn't that great. I used another bit with her too, she seemed to be better with it. We wanted to walk down to the waterfall, Éloïse forgot a tie-down, so we just went back but with a different trail, we came back after dark, people were worried something had happened to us, but we were fine.

Éloïse was riding a 2 year old who bucked once when we cantered.
I swear this horse is an angel.

Bleh, nothing else to report.

Last Minute

I'm staying here because I get tired of anywhere I go.

At Work

So, i'm in the office right now, and as it's not too busy, i've decided to take the time to update my blog.

Actually, every time i'm in the office, I get about 2 phone calls, and not very many people check in or come to reserve. I like it that way, because i'm still a bit confused and slow when it comes to doing anything...

We ate brownies with melted caramel chippits on top. Rather delicious.

I also realized it's quite hard for me to live without tomatoes and vanilla. Almost all meals i've been meaning to make myself require either of these ingredients. The other day, I made shortbread cookies, and since we didn't have any vanilla, I put almond essence, which didn't taste bad at all.

I wanted to ride Major in the outdoor arena yesterday, but then Aimé said that it was too soft to ride on, because he hadn't put the right foundations underneath the sand. I said i'd ride in the outdoor arena of the barn next door, but when we saw Major's hooves and how long they were, we had to call Guillaume for him to come shoe him, by which time I was in the office working.

Guillaume also brought us an English saddle with a gigantic girth, which means we can only use it on fat horses, which is okay because they are pretty much all fat.

Murielle was wondering when Hélène was going to come visit, and I told her I was wondering too, so i'm just throwing it out there for now, I know she watches my blog, so maybe she will see this message. Sue, I doubt you will have time to come down, maybe if you come visit with grand maman and grand papa, and you ditch Jacques at the store.

Come ride the fat ponies with me, thanks.

Up In The Air

We watched it last night.

I died instantly when I heard the French voice translate what was said.
Yes, we watched Up In The Air in French. I don't know if that is what made me hate the movie. Maybe it's because I hate movies in general, but when I watched the trailer in English, it seemed much better and deeper in meaning. Maybe I just didn't understand the high-pitched nasal French voices during the entire movie, with expressions i'd never heard before...and...when you look at their lips talking, it just confuses you even more. Actually, I think i'm going to watch it again in English.

I'm working in the office at 18:00.

Fog

We went to Tadoussac today, ate there.

It was pouring rain again, so I took my rain coat, rain boots, and umbrella.It's very humid and really foggy. When we took the ferry back, we could hardly see anything that was more than a few meters in front of us.

I tried to deposit my pay cheques, but the machine was Desjardins, so I couldn't.

Where do I go?

Francophone/Anglophone

They don't use those terms in the US?
I talked to some people from Michigan, they had come a few weeks back to the campsite. They had a special request for the trails, they wanted to trot and to canter, so Aimé took them.
They came back and took another trail, again trotting and cantering.
They were surprised at how little English people spoke here.

I worked in the office with Florence tonight, it wasn't very busy at all, so I wasn't really stressed. Maybe the fact I wasn't with Murielle helped a bit. I got very confused when one man came to buy firewood, actually the man from Michigan, and I remembered how much I suck at calculating how much change to give.

Éloïse and I went on a trail ride with two small children and their mother, so we both had a child with us on our horses. It was so SO so uncomfortable, no feet in the stirrups, sitting behind the saddle, half on the saddle pad, and not really on the smallest horse...All the way to the waterfall and back, up and down hills. When Beauty (my horse) started trotting to catch up a little, I died. Especially since her trot is not the most comfortable either. Plus I was holding the child, who was 5, who didn't know when his birthday was, who was called Olivier, who talked the WHOLE way, asked me every possible question on the face of the earth...I tried acting like one of those people who like kids, I guess it worked, he wouldn't shut up.

''Et quand ils marchent les chevaux, ça fait boom boom?''
''Est-ce qu'il fait caca?''

OH, the worse thing is when he started asking me about how he could defend himself against a grizzly bear. For some reason, he wouldn't understand that beating it with a stick wouldn't work.

''Mais si j'ai un GROS GROS bâton, un GROS bâton qu'il peut pas briser, est-ce que ça va marcher?''
''....Non.''
''Ok alors si j'ai un fusil je vais être correct?''
*imagine my face*
''Euh....Ben....Oui.''

Parents of the world:
How do you NOT slit your wrists?

I am getting quite good at finding stuff to make myself decent meals.
For breakfast, I remembered grand maman's trick for remembering a pancake recipe, though i'm quite certain I forgot some stuff.
1 cup of flour
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of baking soda....

I didn't have vanilla, so I didn't put any.

I took out my beautiful jar of nutella that i've been hiding in a safe place...Well, not that safe, but the fact there is some left leaves me to believe nobody has found it yet. I then took out my beautiful bag of frozen fruits and some cream, and had a Chez Cora breakfast.

They die when they see me eat nutella. I kindly remind them that I die every time they double-dip their spoons into the nutella, or use their fingers to clean out the jar...Éloïse used her fingers to take butter the other day.

''I saw that.''
''...Merde.''

I ate late enough, so I just had an early supper.
Jeanne cooked ribs in a pan, and made the cannellonis in the toaster oven as I had told her to do, and I made myself pasta with tomatoes and onions.

Later on, after work in the office was done, I had the rest of the cannellonis, and the rest of the frozen fruit.

Jeanne made a gigantic mess because she made ....Des pommes d'amour? Apples with sugar on the outside, which is actually supposed to be caramel but...You guessed it, we have no caramel. I remember we used to eat those when we were younger.
Anyways, hers tasted like crap, and there was sugar on the ceiling, countertops, table, my hands, plates etc... And with no hot water to clean it, Florence had to scrub away for a long while to get it all off.

Earlier today when I was in the barn, I heard a funny noise coming from the saddle storage area, so I went to check it out, and I saw there was a small bird trying to get out by the window. It kept smashing into it, so I tried to catch it, but it kept wriggling out, much more than Poosh could. It finally fell into a riding helmet, and I got it in my hands, and let it go outside. It was so soft, and I was surprised it didn't bite me. I wish someone had had a camera, because it was such a pretty moment.

That's what sucks about being a photographer, you get good pictures of everyone else but yourself, though I must say I can't complain that much because Éloïse has been getting quite a few good shots of me.

I have to go with Florence soon to take pictures of her, because the others have some, and she only has one, and she deserves them.

Good night.

Hello

So when I was working in the office today, pretty much all the clients that called or showed up spoke English, which means I had to translate at the same time as I was on the phone taking reservations, still not really knowing what I was doing.

It was pretty intense, especially since I am really bad at translating. People who hardly speak any English are quicker than me when it comes to translating just one word at a time. That's how bad it is.

I worked 5 hours today...

I made shortbread cookies. They were so tasty.

We found out what smells so bad in the roulotte. We just don't know why. It might be because the sewers are full and are about to explode, in which case Florence might wake up wallowing in crap.

I'm so tired I can't even formulate proper sentences......ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz

$$

I worked 7 hours and 30 minutes today.

We went on a trail with Aimé, his friend, Murielle, Éloïse and Florence.

I brought my camera because we were only going to walk, most of the pictures are blurry.

I mowed the lawn, I worked in the office and...I did a trail to the waterfalls.

I'm really tired so i'm going to sleep now.

I had a headache because working in the office is stressing me out. It's so complicated.

Ring Ring

So they decided to train me in the office.

I worked there from 10:00AM until 1:00PM.

It's boring and quite complicated, papers all over the place.
Initially they weren't going to train anyone else, but the other two are having trouble.
I don't know if i'll be any good either, we'll see.

Dishes still all over the place, not mine, too bad, I clean my own as I go along.
It's quite difficult to do dishes when there is no room left in the sink.
Poor Florence, she has to live in that mess.

I have to go clean showers/toilets now.
Great.

It's cold again, and all foggy. I used my boots today, I was happy to have them. It rained this morning.

Good day.

2

So I decided i'd post something else to make up for not having put anything up yesterday.

I haven't been putting a lot of pictures up, they take too long to load.

It's 4:17pm, and i've done no hours today.

I cleaned my room, everything is well organized and put away nicely.
That makes me happy.

The others went on a carriage ride earlier, nobody came to get me.
That is why we need to be standing around outside all the time, waiting to be given something to do, or to be there to help.
I don't think I feel like standing in front of your horse, petting its face as you take care of its hooves, for free. In fact, I don't want to do anything for free, and I shouldn't have to.

Florence and Jeanne went riding in the outdoor arena. I didn't feel like it, it's kind of pointless.

Dishes are piling up in the kitchen, the garbage is full and so is the recycling.
None of it is mine, I clean as I go along.
I used a paper plate when I ate because there is no room in the sink to do dishes anymore.
The garbage in our room is getting full, I told Éloïse (then I asked her...) to empty it, and she told me there was still some room to fill it.

I would write an inappropriate comment, instead I will keep this blog somewhat clean and write this: @#$%&*?!

Air

Well, the first thing I noticed when I walked out of the bus, across the street and towards my room, was how cold the air was, and how good it smelled.

I didn't post anything yesterday because I didn't really get the chance to.

I worked about 6 hours. You must understand that working 6 hours only includes the trails. It does not include saddling up the horses, brushing them etc...

I brought my iPod on a trail to make sure it was really 1h10 long. It was 1h17, which is not what I expected. I thought it would have taken about 1h30 or more, especially since we advance slower than human walking pace.

I did the waterfall trail 3 times, and then the cave trail with Jeanne.....

At some point we were all together, Florence, Jeanne and I, on one gigantic trail (Florence followed us with her clients because she was going to the waterfall, and the cave trail passes by the waterfall first). Pretty much all of the horses were taken. Then, when Florence was hanging back so we could turn left with our group and she wouldn't be stuck having to pull the horses with her clients on them with her because they wanted to follow our group. Then, I heard a bit of a scream, and I didn't think much of it because people often freak out when their horses move. Yes, move. And then I heard a horse behind me. Kate was trotting towards us, her saddle on the side, and she looked a bit frantic. So I told Jeanne to stop, got off my horse, held Kate, and tried to get her saddle back up. Good thing Aimé had come to check on us, he went straight up to check on Florence and the girl who fell. I ended up dragging Kate by the reins behind me all the way to the place where we tie the horses before going to the cave. She was very calm, so I was happy about that. Aimé took the girl back with him on his quad bike, and then drove Florence to come take Kate back after we got down from the cave.

Now, I must say that getting to the cave is quite steep and slightly difficult.

I waited with a lady who kept on getting very tired, and we kept on having to take breaks. We finally made it and caught up with the rest of the group. (Which is good because I had the matches to light the torches inside the cave)

There was also this girl in our gigantic group that was on Fanny, and she always goes off to eat in the fields, so that is what she did and the girl couldn't pull her out, so I traded with her and gave her Tornade, who also eats and is very slow, but eats less. I kept telling her to use the whip I had given her to go faster, but she didn't know what to do, even though I had shown her how to. She kept on saying ''I want to go home, can I walk?'', yes she spoke english.

This is what I was thinking in my head, and I know Sue will piss: ''SHUT UP AND SIT ON YOUR DAMN HORSE AND MAKE IT MOVE.''

I have NO, no, NO, NO! patience for these people. I just...sit there and smile and tell them it's going to be alright and that the waterfall is very pretty. Which it is.

Oh. I also brought blue string to tie around the trees so I wouldn't get lost trying to get to the cave again. Jeanne told me where it was that I got lost, because Florence had given her tips on how to know where to turn...Which Éloïse had not done for me because I hadn't gotten lost when I was with her, even though I was walking in front.

I am keeping my gigantic jar of nutella in my bag, I haven't started eating from it yet. I'm keeping it for when we are starving children and we have nothing left to eat.

We went to the village of BSC last night, we all sat in front of the Hotel de Ville. We almost walked there, because our lift had forgotten us. Idiots...

Then they saw us walking, (which is what I hoped would happen, and I knew would happen, because they spend their entire lives driving their cars around, and it's such a small place we knew we'd find them.)

Actually, we were walking to try and find ice cream somewhere.
We found some in a little dépanneur across from where we were sitting.

It was so small we were surprised to find ice cream there....We bought a tub of ice cream and asked for little wooden sticks to eat it with. I can never remember the name of it, it's the one with strawberry, chocolate and vanilla...Everyone ate the strawberry one because it's just so damn tasty.

And then there was someone to the right on the street who was having fireworks in their back yard.

And then people started doing funny things with their cars, you know when you spin the wheels really fast but you don't go anywhere. Yeah...

Oh and there is no longer the 3h30 long trail ride because some crazy man went completely insane when Florence went, he wouldn't let them go until Florence and her clients gave their names, because he says it's his land, which it isn't really, but he went to court against the town about it, and he won, and ....anyways, he's out of his mind, so is the rest of the family. Thanks to him, Éloïse is very happy because she hated that trail. I had never done it.

Holy crap I just wrote a freaking short story.

So, to conclude this gigantic junk I just wrote:

1- Air smells good here
2- Girl nearly dies on trail
3- I hate people
4- That 3-flavored ice cream is good
5- People here like cars/wrecking them
6- No more trail to the Fjord

Almost There

So it's currently 8:42pm.

I am in Saint-Siméon, we are taking a 30 minute break before continuing on our way.

The bus driver will drop me off right in front of the Ranch, which is good because I have no cell phone or number to reach anyone out here.

I was surprised to find out how many people were actually reading this blog.

On one end, i'm being depressed and angry, and on the other end, my mother is pissing her pants as she reads my complaints.
Lovely.

I have a migraine right now.
Bus rides give me migraines.

I think I forgot my keys at home (no worries we have many sets...)

If you guys find them, please mail them, thanks.