Yes, another list. Deal.

Signs you're back in your small hometown... all which have happened to me in the past week:

1. Every third interview you do with the TV station knows your mom. (I'll leave the reason why to your imagination...)

2. You go to cover a 6 car accident and find yourself chatting with one of the drivers-- you played softball with her daughter.

3. You hop into the bank ATM line-up and see your mom at the machine in front of you. When you say hi, you realize your sister's in line at the teller.

4. You go see the annual Shakespeare play in the park and recognize both Hamlet and Ophelia from your grad class.

5. While sitting on the patio at BP downtown, one of your old high school teachers walks by... with one of your classmates on his arm. And her belly is starting to show.

Why I will never pee in the Amazon

This week’s assignment: researching for a quiz for the Backpacker Battle show this weekend.

Pete, one of the show’s producers, tells me to start with freaky animal and/or world travel facts.

“You know, like, the Amazonian pee fish,” he says in his British accent.

“The what?”

“Google it, you’ll figure it out.”

Hoo boy.

Note: once you’ve been traumatized by the description of the candiru’s feeding habits, you have to read this. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while…

Everyday is the weekend

I've had the last two weeks off of school, with few assignments and responsibilities. As is the end of any semester, it felt really weird.

Then it felt really, really good.

Janelle and Daniel were in town for Easter weekend and, in short, I spent the weekend eating, drinking, and generally being merry with two of my favourite people. Janelle came down a day early so we spent our Good Friday catching up, eating Korean fusion food, wandering the downtown and ending up at Oh So's. Saturday and Sunday was full of food, including an amazingly delicious Orphans' Easter Dinner with my bar coworkers in which everyone seemed to outdo each other on the cooking... impressive considering we work at a place where the kitchen consists of a microwave and an oven. There was lots of rye and Settlers of Catan (Wilcox House Rules) and good times.

I also gave Janelle and Daniel their wedding quilt— only about six months past their wedding!— which was pretty fantastic. It was actually a joint gift, I chose and paid for the fabric and my mother did the quilting. My mom is one of those crazy hardcore quilters, she's actually part of the Quilting Guild back at home, but she really outdid herself with this one, especially since she made it large enough that Daniel, who's well over 6 ft 3, can fit it comfortably.

Actually, as soon as he saw the quilt, Daniel wrapped himself in it and took a nap on my futon. If that isn't the sign of a great gift, I don't know what is.

This weekend, Tiffany came back to Ottawa and we did the "ultimate Ottawa in a weekend" tour-de-force, squeezing in a bit of shopping, ample Market wandering, drinking and socializing and hitting up the downtown's tastiest locales.

But alas, my glorious days of brunching and used book hunting and vintage shop browsing must come to an end as I start my internship tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow I start at Canada's national broadcaster, radio side, for two weeks.

Which also means that I move to Toronto in two weeks for my next internship.

Am I mildly terrified? Hell yes.

Mild trauma.

In the sidebar of my horoscope page:

In Today's Newsletter

Valuable Sex Requests

How to ask for what you really want…

Chelsea Clinton