The BS Club

Today I joined a club called the BS Club. (No seriously, I did.) It's a legit club in Portage and it means what you think it means; bull shit. (click here to read a story I wrote about them.)

The BS Club has been around for roughly the same amount of time that I've been around. The president, Don Whyte, is a retired school teacher who is as cheeky as the club itself. He has this charm and genuine sense about him that renders you to fall in love in about eight seconds flat. (And I don't necessarily mean you fall in love with him. No, you fall in love with the notion that there is a club in Portage la Prairie that has been around for a long, long time and it's called the BS Club, and the members are as you think they would be; laid back and friendly!)

So I joined the club today. My membership cost me $5 and it's good for an entire year. I got a membership card and I even have my own BS number (it's 83 in case you were wondering...) If I so desire, I can meet the club members (who basically consist of anyone who has five bucks and wants to be in the BS Club) every Tuesday at the Cat and the Fiddle bar at the Midtown Motor Inn in downtown Portage, where they drink beer and hold raffles. It's not formal, yet it's a staple Tuesday afternoon to the longtime members.

Did I mention I'm in love?!

The BS Club also does something else that's beyond cool; twice a year they donate $500 to different charities that help people. Why? Because they want to help people.

If you're ever in Portage on a Tuesday afternoon, swing by the Cat and the Fiddle at the Midtown Motor Inn and buy yourself a membership for the BS Club. You don't need to drink, or even buy into the daily raffle. You'll probably feel compelled to, but you don't have to. Heck, you don't have to do anything you don't feel like doing in the BS Club, it's a 'whatever goes' kinda club!

Bottom line: I guarantee you that you'll fall in love with the club and its members.

Number 83, signing off...

(Note: I didn't partake in any drinking at the BS Club today, FYI.)

these days...

Life is chaotic these days.

I just finished my weekend stint at my part time job, and am now getting ready for my work week at the newspaper. I'm tired, but this is what I need to do right now to move forward in my career. It will pay off one day, that's what everyone keeps telling me.

I enjoy being a journalist, it's hard work, but extremely rewarding. I like telling people's stories, and I'll admit, I still get excited when I get the cover. I try not to act excited, or even tell anyone, but it's a good feeling. I hope I never stop getting excited about it.

One of the most difficult challenges I've faced so far is the unfamiliarity that comes with being new to a community. As time goes on, I'm becoming more and more familiar with Portage la Prairie; both the city and the people, but the first little while was downright hard. Not knowing your surroundings is uncomfortable because you always feel like you're lost, and it's your job to not only find yourself (so to speak) but to also tell the entire community the story (or stories) you've been assigned as though you're one of them. Nobody wants to read news from an outsider; would you?!

Even being lost was a good thing for me, because it's something I've never experienced before, and it's a learning curve that makes me better at my job. Right now I'm working at becoming a member of the community– or at least an honourary member. Since I'm only working in Portage for the summer, I'm not relocating, but I am trying really hard to fit in.

In all the job is good. I am getting better at my craft, and learning a whole new side of being a journalist– I falsely assumed that working a small community newspaper would be a synch, especially since I have experience writing for the Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Sun. I've discovered that, like most jobs, being a journalist differs from place to place. The overall job is the same, but there are subtle differences that makes each experience its own.

NOTE: The pic doesn't really go with the post, but I like it. I'm wearing dollar store reading classes because I think I need glasses, but I am far too busy to go to an optometrist and find out...

The Picture

I got some mail from school yesterday. When I opened it, I saw that it was a picture of me and CTV's Kelly Dehn, taken at a Red River College awards dinner a few months ago.

I looked terrible.

Aside from being ungracefully huge, my hair and makeup looked ratty and tired, and I'm making this face like I'm about to say something. It's an awful picture, it really, really is.

I don't know why, but I started to cry almost instantly after I looked at it. There I was, standing in the hallway of my apartment; I couldn't look away, yet I couldn't look directly at it either. The picture seemed to have this sort of power over me. At that moment, all the denial I have about myself and the way I look was washed away with that raw image. It was like a tsunami of cold hard reality. There I am in all of my glory, holding my coveted award, and I look like that.

Barf.

It's vain to care so much about your appearance, I know that. I also know that an "educated woman" should be smarter than to let something so superficial, like her appearance, dictate how she thinks and how she feels about herself. Logically I am on top of the word; or at least I was that day the picture was taken. Yet looking at the picture now, from outside of my denial, it just seems so awful and embarrassing.

This should motivate me to do something about my appearance. If I don't like it, I should change it. I do subscribe to that mentality, it's what got me through school. Yet, here I am, at the pinnacle of so many unfathomable life accomplishments, being sucked in by my incessant weight preoccupation and negative self image.

My attitude toxic and far uglier than the picture.

I heard this song on the Ace Burpee show the other day. It was profound to me now (more than ten years later...) Sound advice, that I should consider when I get bummed out about stupid things like pictures that I look bad in.

Life is short, right?!