Hi all, sorry for the long (almost two months) break in posting. Since December I have started a new semester at school and I have taken up babysitting. Both of which I absolutely love. School keeps me much busier than I would like but I guess that is what you get when you’re dedicated to school work. Sometimes I wonder how people can feel so okay with incomplete work. I have a hard time sleeping at night when everything is not done and checked off the list. Oh well. One class that has been no work and is 100% fun is racquetball. At UVM we are required to take at least two gym classes and racquetball is my first gym credit. Other than gym I am also taking my practicum classes as well as a phonics class and an environmental history seminar. All of which are great.

However, I decided it would be a fun idea to take this weekend off. I usually have a four day weekend so the fact that Presidents’ Day is this Monday didn’t really make a difference for me but it gave Tristan a three day weekend. Anyway, we decided to head up to Montreal for some good old city adventure. I always think that Burlington is huge but then I go to some place of a much bigger size and I am blown away. I love the city. I love city transportation, I love all the activity, I love the restaurants, and I love people watching. However, I am glad that I do not live in a large city. I was sitting in a coffee shop watching a homeless man beg for money. He followed people down the street and he washed car windshields expecting money in return. All of this made me nervous. I understand that homelessness is a big problem and that people who are fine upstanding citizens become homeless because of one circumstance or another, especially now, but I always have to wonder how someone of around the age of 30 becomes homeless. Is it drugs? Is it alcohol? I wish that I could help. I wish the money that people give is used to buy food or saved to have a warm place to sleep but somewhere deep down I really question that. Homelessness is such a cruel area. You cannot get a job because you have no place to get clean, you have no phone for employers to call, you have no address for mail to be sent to, and worst of all you are going through a rough and depressing time in your life.

Homelessness is not something new to me, we have many homeless people living in Vermont but none of this degree. I wish that all people could have a place to live and a warm meal on their plates at least once a day but I know that’s not going to happen. Anyway, this particular person watching experience made me think. This man was there and I was watching him like a play, each of us in our own separate world. I was so interested but sad and scared at the same time. It was really quite a scene.