Tuesday, August 14, 2007

the folly of youth

way back, about 4 or 5 years ago, I hated my job, which is nothing new. everyone around me, though, also hated their jobs, which makes for a strange and interesting and dangerous energy at work. at first, we channeled it into copious amounts of lottery tickets, kicking back at work and talking about how cool it would be to buy the house across the street and fly giant 'fuck you' banners at our current company. after several weeks and no powerball, we started to come to the conclusion that we were probably still going to have to work. we turned our attention towards finding something a little more us. enter the convent.

at the time, ebay was tout la rage and aside from ordering turkish movie posters and japanese deee-lite singles, we used to scan the interesting real estate auctions to see what sorts of crazy properties were up for sale. one day, we came across a 110 year old convent in alberta or saskatchewan or one of the bread basket provinces. the convent was in good shape, with an industrial kitchen, a refurbished tea room, and three floors just itching for renovation. we thought we could do it. we thought we could turn it into a b&b and a coffeehouse, with an ISP and co-location server on the side. we talked about financing and dual citizenship. we really and truly thought, let's do this.

i hadn't thought about the convent in years, but today, on his way across canada, damien stopped at the convent and took pictures. villi sent them to me via email and i immediately recognized it. now that we have all moved on or away, it was refreshing to see the evidence of our youthful fancy. it made me very nostalgic. i wanted to call someone from high school, just to say hello. then, i came to my senses.

here is our lovely convent. i still say ours because i'm still a might possessive of it.


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