"It's a great night in Fort Whyte"

The Fort Whyte byelection took place on Tuesday night and the polls are in - Brian Pallister of the PC Party won, by a "landslide."

There was not much doubt in Fort Whyte that Pallister would win. He had a strong support system at his headquarters and it was quite evident that he was confident he would win when a Pizza Hotline employee showed up with 20+ pizzas well before the polls had even closed.

Leading up to the byelection there had been a lot of attention and focus on Pallister considering he is the replacement of previous Tory leader Hugh McFadyen, and many were curious to hear what he would have to say after McFadyen stepped down after losing last year's provincial election.

The chants began to break out at the headquarters as the votes began to tally up - Pallister was winning, followed by Liberal candidate Bob Axworthy, followed by NDP candidate Brandy Schmidt, followed by Green Party candidate Donnie Benham, and in dead last the one and only Independent Party "MrJetzTV" - Darrell Ackman.

The race stayed fairly the same throughout the night, with Pallister always in the lead ahead of Axworthy and the others. By the end of the night when all the votes were in the totals read as follows:

Brian Pallister - PC - 3626
Bob Axworthy - Liberal - 2074
Brandy Schmidt - NDP - 739
Donnie Benham - Green Party - 113
Darrell Ackman - Independent - a WHOPPING 19.

Why anyone allowed Ackman to run in this thing to start off with is beyond me but I'd rather not get into that because it's neither here nor there...

After waiting what felt like forever for Pallister to finally come into the room and step up to the podium, he did. He was greeted with cheers by his faithful supporters and up to the podium he went without a hesitation.

He dove into his speech starting with, "it's a great night in Fort Whyte," and continued on to quote basically every famous person he could think of - hardly producing his own material. After about the seventh cliche I could barely listen to him talk about nothing important for very much longer and just when I thought my arm would fall off in the scrum - he walked away!

Brian Pallister stood at the podium and talked for seven minutes straight and then ditched the media. Just walked away.
One reporter suggested, "How 'bout a few questions." Pallister replied with ignoring his existence and the rest of us media.
Needless to say none of us were too please when we were told, "he's not talking to media until tomorrow." By his rep Brandy... or Mandy. Something with an "Eeee" at the end.

Overall the atmosphere was quite exciting and positive but considering politics don't excite me in anyway, I was not pleased when I couldn't get a question in - I had such a good one ready to go!

Hopefully that's the last election I have to cover in a while because quite frankly I'm no good at it and I'm even worse at calling in a rant about something I'm not fully educated on. That was a sucky feeling. But you know what a good feeling is? Going to bed. Which is what I'm about to do now.

G'night!

Dionysus in Stony Mountain.

I was in a school musical once. "High School Musical" to be exact. YES, the same High School Musical with Troy Bolton and Sharpay Evans. Disney is cool, don't judge.

I figured after being in a play on stage I could consider myself as a thespian. That is up until as an assignment for CreComm we were told to go watch a play at Theatre Projects Manitoba.

Dionysus in Stony Mountain.

That was the name of the play. So we went. And on the way there I thought to myself, "well I know Stony Mountain is a jail, so I guess this is about like, Greek Gods in jail. Weird." Well I wasn't quite on the right track with that thought. Oh well, it's ok to be wrong. Sometimes.

Dionysus in Stony Mountain is about an inmate that is mentally ill and has recently refused to take his treatment of lithium. His name is James and he killed his wife- by accident. The first half of the play is James recanting long paragraphs from the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, a crazy 19th century philosopher/poet. He paces back and forth reciting these long sentences never missing a beat, all the while his case worker, Heidi sits patiently at her table barely asking any questions, just simply watching James pace back and forth. She occasionally writes down a word or two. I felt the first half of the play was pretty slow and terribly difficult to pay attention to if you aren't a Nietzsche know-it-all. It was kind of like watching a boring version of Shawshank the way James talked and acted the way he did.

The second half got a little better. There was more movement between the two characters except this time the actor that played James was now playing Heidi's uncle- because we find out in the second act that James has killed himself. Apparently Heidi and James have switched mental states and we learn that she too takes lithium regularly because she is bipolar (or manic depressive as she likes to call it.) Heidi and her uncle argue back and forth a bit until he reveals to her that her mother tried committing suicide when she was younger. It brings them together and they end the play off on a good note.

The play was sort of boring for me, just because it was based on a topic I wasn't very interested in. But I was still amazed at how much the actors could memorize and recite back to the audience at such a pace. That was remarkable.

Journey for Justice.

So we had to read Journey for Justice by Mike McIntyre for our Journalism class this semester. It's about "Project Angel" and how it helped break through the Candace Derksen case. This innocent little girl got snatched up on her way home from school and her investigation went unsolved for over 20 years until the evolution of forensics helped solve her murder.

The book itself was a fairly easy read. It gave all of the detail necessary for anyone who hadn't heard of the Candace Derksen case to understand exactly what was going on. However once the part of the book regarding Mark Grant and the psychological evidence they had in his trial the big words seemed to bog it down a little bit. McIntyre included excerpts of psychiatrist's notes and reports in his book for proof of what types of evidence the crown used to prosecute Grant and these excerpts would have been a little more helpful if they weren't so long. After a while of reading a bunch of doctors diagnosing that this guy had many mental illnesses with all of the medical definitions and what not my brain checked out.

It was nice to see how much he included his relationship and interaction with Wilma Derksen in the book. The fact that Candace's mom was all for it (writing of the book) every step of the way was really shown in Journey for Justice.

What amazed me most about the book was not how the case was cracked 26 years later, but how Wilma's unwavering faith kept her alive the whole time. It still blows my mind that this lady has forgiven the man who murdered her innocent little girl and has stopped asking questions. Flabbergasted. Lost for words. Mind. Literally. Blown.

McIntyre and Wilma Derksen came to speak to us after we had all read Journey for Justice in a seminar at school at the end of March. We didn't get much time to ask questions because Mike gave a thorough description of his background and accomplishments which took up about half of the seminar time. By the time Wilma had given us a little bit of her background there was only enough time for about questions, all of which McIntyre took the liberty of answering. Again, very thoroughly.

The seminar was pretty insightful and I'm glad they took the time out of their day to come and speak with us. The only unfortunate part of the seminar was that time was the enemy and we eventually fell as victims to the restraint of it.

So yeah, read the book. It was actually pretty good and not too long. I read it in just over 2 days (while I was at school so you can do it in a day easily!) There are a few typos but McIntyre I'm sure is well aware of them by now and promises to have them fixed up by the next round of printing.

Journey for Justice by Mike McIntyre, CreComm alumni.
Have You Seen Candace? by Wilma Derksen, also a CreComm alumni.

Happy Friday?

Today I woke up and thought to myself, "yes, it's Friday."

And then I thought to myself, "Mitchy always says 'Happy Friday' I miss Mitchy I hope I see him today."
I then went on about a minute later to realize I had a nosebleed.

Not so Happy Friday.

Dad made my tea as I cleaned up my situation before heading to the bus stop. So nice of him.
But I was running out of time. This nosebleed set me back.

My cold came back full force right after that nosebleed. Now I can't breathe so well.

Happy Friday? Sure. Let's stay optimistic Allison, Happy Friday.

I was walking to the bus stop and arrived at the end of my street to turn the corner and continue my journey.

SLIPPED.
My  one foot slid into my other foot and I was airborn for like .5 seconds and landed hard on my hip.
If only I woulda fallen on my booty, I'm sure there is more than enough padding on that thing to make me bounce back up. But nope. Hip bone it is.

Happy Friday? Well it can't get any worse than this right?
Wrong.

Spilled half of my tea from my fall!
Sewer.

I slipped again.
This time after my bus ride so thankfully my hip had a little time to regroup.
Wasn't my hip this time. I slipped forward.

You know when your foot like slides forward so that your knee snaps back the opposite way from which its supposed to bend so all you can picture in your head is that your knee cap is gonna have a bone sticking through it and you're gonna be stuck laying on the ground with a broken leg and no one will be around to help you and to top it all off it freezing as you-know-what outside?
(Yes I just said that all in one breath.)

Yeah, that happened. Sad-grumpy panda Friday.

However despite all of my obstacles in the first hour and a half of me being awake this morning I made it to school on time.

So Happy Friday right?

One would only hope after all of that my day went smoothly.
NOPE.
K-Press put this sister in a group with B-Logs.
SERIOUSLY?
Yeah seriously.

It's ok though, we decided as a group that he'll be the first character killed off in our Radio Drama.

So all in all.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

I Went to WPC. You Have No Excuse.

ALLOWED VS. ALOUD.

If you do not know this difference between these two words... I question your life choices.

YOUR VS. YOU'RE.

Please don't even get me started. Too easy.

THEN VS. THAN.

Just go away.

For Aunt Dorothy.

To think about all of the "what ifs?"
To think about everything that could have been said.
To ask the question why? Over and over again.

To do any of that would be to waste time.

To think about all of the memories.
To think about all of the smiles.
To think about all of the laughter that was shared.

That would be time well-wasted.

Yes you're gone but you're memory still lives on.
To forget anything about you would be nearly impossible.
You're still very much alive in each and everyone of us.

Your presence was a spark that could ignite much more than a single flame, but instead a whole forest fire.

Yesterday we searched for you. Called out your name.
Today we cry for you. Because we are in pain.
Tomorrow we smile for you because we know you are safe.

A heart heavy with the pain of seeing loved-ones so distraught.
Mine.

A heart I know will heal in time.
Mine.

A heart that will always carry your love and one of a kindness.
My stepmother's. Your children. Your friends. Your family. Mine.

You've left a little piece of you in all of us.
We'll make it through.
Just this time it'll have to be without you.

Rest in Paradise. You will forever be loved.

Word on the Street?

Word on da street is dat we be doin' streeters! Fa show.

Yup, CreComm is back in action. Not so bad for our first week back considering we made it through to Friday with no withdrawals (besides partying). So here's the real question we've asked ourselves if it's not "Why didn't I cry?" It's  "What else would we be doing with our first 2 hour J class of the semester other than streeters at 8 am?" Answer: Exactly. Nothing else.

This semester is my first time having Duncan teach me. I was already terrified of him before ever sitting in his classroom. (Have you seen this guy's resume? Pretty impressive. And anyone that can maintain a beard like that has my utmost respect. So an intimidating human being nonetheless.) So I thought I had him all figured out until I walked into the newsroom this morning and was greeted by the "Streeter Look."

What is the Streeter Look might you ask?

It's a look designed to instil panic and fear in any first year CreComm that passes Duncan McMonagle.
It's a cross between a little bratty child scheming and a Dr.Evil sneer. You know he's cooking something up in that brain of his. What he's cooking is Streeters. Streeters in the snow, streeters in the sun, it doesn't matter what the weather is like outside - you're gonna go talk to at least three strangers and you're gonna do it now.

Now I'm pretty sure only Duncan has mastered this look. So don't even attempt it because I'm almost positive he owns copyrights to it or something. CreComm's know everything about "copyright laws and stuff."- Duncan knows more than everything about "copyright laws and stuff."
I'm also pretty sure that he only uses this look on first years.( Just kidding, one can only hope.) Therefore I'm looking forward to next year. If I make it there. Cross your fingers. ( In hopes of no Streeter Looks)

Besides the blowing flurries the assignment wasn't all that bad. At least it wasn't like -15 or something. THAT would suck. Thankfully Duncan gave us a few options to write about. Weather and hockey being two of those options. Can anyone take a stab at what Allison might have chosen to write about?

HOCKEY you say? Me? Noooo.
Just kidding.
Yes I did.
Lucky guess on your part I suppose.

Next blizzard-esque weather we encounter on a Friday morning this semester I will come to school fully prepared to be sent out on to the street by Duncan. The only logical thing we would be doing that morning would be a streeter. Don't worry Duncan, we're on to you here.

Until our next snowstorm, Streeter, until our next snowstorm...