Before I settle down to play some Baldur's Gate 2 on this quiet Friday evening, I thought I had better relate some of the interesting events of the past week. If I don't do it now, I might never do it. Of course, this time last week, I was at Anime North. Normally, when I go to conventions it is as a vendor working for Nicole and as an artist. I have to say that it's really nice to get away from that once in a while and just attend a convention for the sake of attending. Anime isn't my principle fandom, as most of you will know, but I have enjoyed it for years and I love seeing all those people dressed up as characters. Some of the costumes display the most amazing creativity even if they don't entirely succeed.

It all began with the rather lengthy bus ride out to the Airport. Somewhat inconveniently, because the old venue was condemned, this year's convention was held at two locations: the Toronto Congress Centre and the Renaissance Hotel. I have to admit, I didn't even make it to the hotel. The things I was most interested in were occuring at the Congress Centre, including the art show, Artists' Alley (where all the artists do commissions and sell stuff), the Dealers' Room, Masquerade, and workshops and participatory programming. One highlight was attending the traditional Japanese art workshop held by Nobuyuki Ohnishi. His prefered style of art is the traditional monochromatic (single colour) ink wash technique called sumi-e. He talked about the differences between Eastern art and Western art and gave a demonstration to illustrate these differences and then we went and examined his artwork that he had on display in the art room. His English was a little fractured and the noise level in the main hall of the Congress Centre made it very hard to hear what he was saying, but we (his keen little students) got the hang of what he was saying. And, of course, he took photos of us and we took photos of him.

On the Saturday, I met up with Techknight and we spent most of the day wandering around the Congress Centre enjoying the myriad of costumes and all the other sights and sounds that an anime convention affords. You can read his highlights here as they sum up the Masquerade very nicely. I didn't spend too much money on anything, a fact that I am fairly proud of. I had wanted to pick up some of the Copic markers, but they're just too expensive for a trial run. I'll ask for them at Christmas, or something, so that a whole lot of people can chip in to purchase them. They're really friggin' expensive. I did buy some art of a fellow Elfwood artist and a pair of chopsticks that are simply too nice for my mother to tie plants to, though I'm sure she would, given the chance. I also picked up the OCAD student comic compilation from two students involved in its creation, development and publication and one cheap print. That's one of my favourite things to do, chat with the artists.

In other news, I helped my friend Megan move on Sunday. That was a somewhat painful experience as the building she was moving out of is NOT WELL DESIGNED. It's awful. At one point I was wandering around the fourth and fifth floors with a pair of handtrucks for what seemed like hours, trying to find the elevator that would take me down to the lobby. Opportunity provided us with a rope that enabled us to tie her mattress and boxspring to the van and though some might call taking it 'stealing' it was made up for by the fact that of all Megan's friends, I was the only one to show up after promising to help.

Otherwise, the week has pretty well flown by. There is only one more week of Eternal Egypt and I realise that when it's over, I'm going to miss working as a schoolgroup educator desperately ! I might not have believed it at the start, but I have derived so much satisfaction from this job that I wish it would go on forever. I've developed a bond with many of my co-workers and I will endeavour to stay in touch with them. I've even bonded to several of the pieces in the exhibition. One day, I will have to go to the British Museum to visit them again. Senwosret and "Monty", the beautiful bald priest, little Princess Nefurure on her tutor's knee, and of course all those wacky kings at the end of the 18th Dynasty. I went into the exhibit thinking I knew a pretty fair amount about Egypt, but now, coming out at the other end, I realise I know much more than ever before, and I've only bumped the tip of the iceberg.