People leave

I can't decide what to do with this blog now that I'm not required to write on it for Creative Writing or Adv. C.W classes.  I have so many blogs already, I don't really know if I should keep this one up or go back to using my original one.  I think I'll keep using this one, at least to record my trip home and then I'll re-evaluate.

Well, it's the day after grad.  People are leaving.  Actually, Julie already left.  She took off yesterday during grad because she had to get back to her PT clinical in Michigan.  Luckily, she got away before all the rain and craziness in Nashville, although she did have to drive through about four hours of really, really heavy rain later on in her trip, but I got a text later on last night saying she had gotten back safely, so that's good.

My uncle left early this morning to go visit his cousin in Oklahoma so we said good-bye to him last night.  And my grandparents flew out of Chattanooga this morning too back home.  We said good-bye to them last night too, but we'll be seeing them when we get back to BC.

Around 11 a.m., I drove Jodi to Groome Transportation so she could catch the shuttle to Atlanta to get her flight back to Alberta so now she's gone too and then, several hours later, Bryn drove Cherry to the airport to fly home to BC.  So now it's just my immediate family still here.

I worked a bit on grading more newsletters today and also started working on packing in earnest now.  We're going to try to leave sometime (my dad says early, but I know it won't be until at least afternoon) tomorrow.

Jonathan and I went to a wedding tonight.  Adrienne, the copyeditor for the Accent, got married in the UTC chapel and I was invited and could bring a guest.  I wore the same dress as I did on Sabbath at church, but I doubt anyone except for my family and Jonathan knew.  It was a nice wedding, but there was a little ways to walk from the parking lot to the chapel and then back again.  And then Jonathan and I got lost trying to find the reception place.  We saw another car trying to find the place too.  Finally, we just ignored the directions on the program and used Jonathan's phone to find the right place.  Ahhh, how nice to have technology when we need it.  About halfway through the reception, I got really tired and I also started to worry about the newsletters I still had to grade, so we left and went back to my apartment where I graded for a couple hours.

I've actually made a significant dent in them now, so hopefully I can get the last few done tomorrow morning.  I think Ms. Chamberlain needs to get them soon and look over them herself to get the grades in on time so I have to do that first thing.  But now I'm dead and so I'm going to bed.  I can grade more tomorrow.

Graduation Day

And I'm graduated!!!  Let me tell you, it feels great to FINALLY be done.  And I should know.  I graduated from high school a little more than seven years ago, which is a long time since I'm sure that the majority of the university graduates sitting up front next to me today graduated from high school about four or five years ago.  But I did other stuff, like SMing and working and changing my major four times.  So what I'm basically trying to say is that it really feels awesome to be done this next step in my life.  I'm sure you all know how grads go so I won't get into the whole ceremony.  I'll just say a couple things:  (a) I had to get a picture taken by an American flag.  I asked the camera person, "What if I'm not American?" but got no answer other than a shrug and a nervous laugh.  (b) Commencement address was terribly boring, in my non-financially-oriented brain.  Maybe some people liked it, but I sure wasn't interested.  I used that time to text Jonathan, who was sitting several rows in front of me.  (c) Class gift at the end?  Strange.  The whole talk about it being almost as long as the address was super annoying to me.  I really don't care much for or against the gift, but I felt a whole lot more against it after that whole rigmarole than before it.  Yeah, it's a picture.  People will look at it.  But what can anyone really do with it?  I'd rather have gotten another gazebo thing for people to swing in or eat food in or hang out in or something else like that that people could actually use.  But a picture is fine.  Just don't make me sit in my chair an extra 20 minutes telling me stuff I already heard over an e-mail, on a voice mail, and at grad practice.  (d) The idea of having people gather at their major signs in the hallway after grad made sense, but it didn't turn out to be very practical.  There are just too many people attending grad for that kind of thing to be very feasible.  Oh well, I guess they'll probably do something different for next year.

So after grad, a bunch of graduates and our families and friends met at student park for a haystack, potluck meal.  It was great, especially since my family made sure to bring pickles.  Americans seriously don't know what they're missing out by not having pickles on their haystacks.  Then we had a bunch of pictures taken of the grads with a big cake and then people ate the cake, but I opted not to since I am still caked out from all the cakes I've eaten earlier in the semester.

After the meal and hanging out and visiting, people started leaving and then mine and Jonathan's and Danielle's families moved by the Southern sign and got some pictures and then we left to go back downtown to the aquarium.  I've been there tons, but it was fun showing it to the family and friends who had never been there yet.  I especially love watching the sharks and spent a good portion of time sitting in front of that tank.  Oh and also the crocodiles and turtles.  When we were done at the aquarium, it was pouring rain so my parents ran to get the vehicles and drove them as close as they could.  We all piled in and then went to Panera's to get food to go and then we all came back to our apartment to eat it.  Ahhh, a good fulfilling day.  Oh, and busy!

Picnic & exploring

Today I had to get up early.  Earlier than I have in quite awhile in order to have a shower and get downtown for Sabbath School and church in time.  I made it and I enjoyed both very much.  After church, our whole group drove to Chesterfrost Park in Hixson where my brother Mark and my sister-in-law Terrie put on a wonderful picnic meal for Bryn and me.  Veggie meatballs, potato salad, assorted raw vegetables and then a triffle and cookies for dessert.  I ate so much I thought I would pop.  My mum's cousin, Alan, and his granddaughter, Brianna, drove up from Dalton, Ga. and it was really neat to meet them.  I've seen pictures and read e-mails, but had never met them in person before, even though we were so close to them for three years.

Before lunch was fully ready some of us played a game that Mark and Terrie had brought along for their kids, Tucker and Coral.  There were two ladder sort of things set up across from each other separated by several meters and each person got three balls (which were each really two balls connected with a string) to throw and see if you could land on certain rungs.  Each rung higher was more points.  It was kind of hard at first, but soon enough us older people got the hang of it and it was fun.

After playing that and then eating and visiting and playing the game again some more, Bryn and I and Jodi, Julie and Cherry decided to go explore Lookout Mountain.  Other people wanted to leave and go rest for a bit so we took off all squished into one car and found Point Park.  We were disappointed at first because we thought you had to pay to get in when we saw the turnstiles, but then we realized there were no people taking money and all the gates were open, so we just went in and really enjoyed ourselves as we walked around.  We took a bunch of fun pictures and just had a great time hanging out together.  Then we realized it was getting late so we quickly drove by Rock City and then down the other side of the mountain and back to Collegedale to change into warmer clothes.

Soon after, we left for Cleveland where my parents had their fifth-wheel parked and joined our family and Jonathan's family for a worship and then meal of hot dogs and other fire-roasted-type foods.  It was delicious and again I ate too much, especially when the marshmallows were opened!  And then we all left and now I'm about ready to fall into my bed, smoky smelling and all.  Wow, what a busy day.

Everyone arriving

Last night my dad took us (and the friends and family who had already arrived) out to supper at P.F. Chang's.  Right before we were seated, Cherry called and said she was almost at Groome Transporation, so my dad, Bryn and Josh left to go pick her up.  We waited to order until they got back and then we all ate really good Asian food and had tons of leftovers to send back to Ty who didn't come because he was on duty in the dorm.

This morning Cherry took my car and left early (like the kind of early that is so early humans shouldn't even be awake yet) and drove to Atlanta to pick up another friend Jodi who flew in there.  I spent the late morning and early afternoon sitting on the porch at Jonathan's apartment trying to get some grading done of the Pub. Editing final newsletter projects, while his family worked at packing up his stuff.  I tried to keep in touch with my dad and also with my mum who was supposed to be flying into Chattanooga at 4 p.m.  Unfortunately, the person who was pushing the wheelchair for my grandma (who was traveling out with my mum) walked too slowly and they missed their flight from Atlanta to Chattanooga.  My mum, apparently, was really angry with all the people involved in the situation and because of her persistence to have them remedy the situation, they got them onto the next flight into town and bumped some of the airline workers who were trying to get free flights.

Once we knew their new arrival time, my dad, my uncle and I went to the airport to pick them up.  After waiting and waiting for the luggage to come, the carousel stopped and we didn't see the luggage anywhere, so my mum went to investigate and found out it had come on that earlier flight that they had missed.  So it all turned out alright.  We brought my grandma to the hotel where she was reunited with my grandpa and she left her stuff there and then we all went out to Cracker Barrel.  Cherry and Jodi, who had just gotten back from Atlanta, met us there with Bryn, Ty and my cousin Breanna.  After supper, they all came back to our apartment to hang out and talk for a bit before everyone headed out to their respective sleeping places.  And now Bryn and I are about to leave to take Jodi and Cherry and Jodi's auntie's place where they are staying for the weekend.

Finally finished

And now, here comes the whirlwind effort to catch up on exactly three weeks of inactivity on this blog.  Bear with me please.  I'll do my best to zip through the days and get you all caught up on what's been going on with me.  Going back in time, now:

I'm done, really done.  I just finished my Adv. Creative Writing final.  I was kind of worried, after our last class period on Thursday, that this exam would be harder than I thought, but it was actually a lot of fun.  Tons of writing though, but hey, I'm a writer so it wasn't bad.  And now all I have to do is visit with family and friends who have already started arriving here for grad, participate in all the graduation events, and pack up my apartment.  Should be fun.

My dad, grandpa and one of my uncles got here this morning.  They left my hometown last Friday, stopped by WWU for Alumni Weekend, and then drove the rest of the way to TN.  My dad called me earlier while I was holed up in the abandoned Accent office marking/helping to edit an Adv. Reporting student's final project/studying.  I gave Dad directions and the three travelers came up to the office to say hi and visit for a few minutes.  They didn't stay long since they wanted to pick up the fifth-wheel that my parents left in TN last fall and move it to the KOA they'll stay at during grad weekend before it got too dark.  And now, in a few hours, one of mine and Bryn's friends, Cherry, will arrive here too so I guess I'd better start cleaning this place up a bit for having company.

Surprise birthday party

"Have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow," Mrs. Minner dismissed the orchestra. I jumped up and rushed out of the rehearsal room, pushed my violin into my case and zipped it up securely while walking to the music lockers to put my instrument away. Then I ran back into the hallway, grabbed my backpack, and rushed around the corner, up the stairs and down the third floor hall to room 307. John was right behind me as I opened the door. Joel and Christy came in after us.

A ring on people greeted us as we entered the darkened room. Colourful balloons rolled along in the air currents left behind as we walked to seats set up in a ring around the room's perimeter. I let my backpack fall from my shoulder. "Phew," I sighed, "I can't believe this seems to be working. I really hope Mrs. Minner and Robbie detain her long enough for everyone else to get up here." Danielle dashed into the room. "John, can you play 'Happy Birthday' when she walks in?" Stephen asked from his perch on the piano bench. He stood up and gave his seat to John. Jonathan came in. "She's still talking to Robbie about chamber group rehearsals," he informed us. I greeted Breanna and Erin who I had sat beside and we talked in almost-whispers. We all waited, excited yet trying to control our emotions and be quiet until the moment Bryn opened the door and we could yell out and surprise her.

Danielle walked over to the window. "Hey, she's down there by her car!" My heart sank. Our plan to give Bryn a surprise birthday party hadn't worked after all. She must have figured it out. Maybe she hadn't even given Mrs. Minner time to ask her to unlock the room for a pretend rehearsal. Suddenly the phone in my jacket pocket started to vibrate. I pulled it out and stared at the screen. "It's her! Bryn's phoning me!" I called. "Shhhh everyone. I'm going to answer it." I quieted the group then answered my phone. Bryn wanted to know if I was going to pick up our cousin Breanna and one of her friends for the supper we were planning to have at our apartment for her birthday - this was the decoy party that I had discussed with her several days earlier. I figured if she knew I was going to plan something at our place, something plain and ordinary like we usually did, she wouldn't think that we would have a surprise. I assured her I would take care of it and hung up. Danielle broke in again to continue reporting live on the event taking place outside the building. "OK, she just went to her car to get something. She's coming back in!" Yes, I thought. This is working. She probably just forgot her card in her car or something like that.

We waited in almost-complete silence (as silent as 15 or so excited college students can manage to be) as Bryn entered the building and walked up two flights of stairs to the third floor. Then she was standing in front of the door. A piece of paper notifying people of a practice in the room later that evening obstructed her view through the small window in the door. She slipped her ID card into the lock. It, obviously, was unlocked. She turned the handle and pushed open the door. For one second we stayed silent, watching for her reaction. Was this roomful of people a surprise? Did she know what was going on? What in the world was she thinking? She stared at Christy who was sitting closest to the door Bryn had just opened. Then, as if we all had one mind, we shouted a loud "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" and John grandly played through the song while we sang with gusto. Bryn stood in the doorway, blinking and grinning. By that time I had my answers. It had been a surprise. She had had no idea what was going on. I was thrilled.

Bryn has always wanted a surprise birthday party, or really any surprise party at all. The problem with this is that anytime her birthday approaches, she always thinks out every possible surprise scenario. She once told me that, even though she so wanted a surprise party, it would be impossible to surprise her because she had already thought of all the ways in which she could be surprised. This year it became my mission to plan and execute a successful surprise party for my little sister and, in that moment as we burst into song, I realized that, with the help of my friends and brother, we had achieved that success. I guess there was at least one scenario that Bryn didn't think of in all her imaginings.

Warren Miller

Preposterous! I've never in my live had church cancelled (except for during Campmeeting, but even then it's just the smaller churches in our Valley that are cancelled; the biggest church always has services). But today all the churches in the vicinity were cancelled. Well, at least all of them except for the McDonald Rd. church and the East Ridge church. Jonathan and I decided to make the arduous journey to the McDonald Rd. church where we saw a church filled with members. Funny that they had all been courageous enough to brave the terrible winter conditions (ie. wet roads and soggy side-of-the-road snow). The church service was good except for the sermon, which I felt was a very American-bias presentation about religious liberties. I made numerous notes on the back of bulletin inserts detailing my opinions about the sermon, but maybe I should keep them private. They weren't all that nice.

After church we went home where all the people who didn't brave the winter roads were making lunch. It was amazing and I ate more than a great white shark. Then I sat around talking to Jonathon and Jonathan and the other people at my apartment. Jonathan decided he wanted to make his dirt cake then so he worked on that. It went well except for the part where he tried to make the middle layer out of non-instant pudding. He was using an electric egg beater, but the mixture of pudding mix and milk wasn't getting firm. He consulted Stephen who told him he had the wrong type of pudding and told him to put it on the stove and bring it to a boil for the concoction to become pudding-like. Jonathan did without reading the directions on the box, therefore the baby pudding burned before it became it reached its adulthood. Jonathan decided to retire from cake-maker until after sundown and we all played a short game of Bible Apples to Apples and then Stephen and JT left so Stephen could get ready for Evensong. A bit later the rest of us went to the church for Evensong. Then Jonathan and I made a Walmart run to get instant pudding. We went back to my apartment where Jonathan successfully finished the dirt cake and put it in the freezer to freeze and then we ate a quick supper before heading back to campus for the Warren Miller film. I always go to watch the Warren Miller movies and this year lived up to my expectations. I have to say that my absolutely favourite part of the film this year was a segment where this guy strapped a Florida alligator to a snowboard and let it crawl-slide its way to the bottom. The last clip in that section showed the beast with its mouth open in a huge alligator smile! It made me laugh. I like things that are out of the ordinary and this Sabbath definitely was one of those kinds of days.

Friend visit

Today Stephen's brother Jonathon (yeah, I know about 5 billion Jonatha(o)ns so I just call this one by his initials, JT) flew in from Loma Linda, where he's in his third year of medical school, for a weekend visit. I met JT in grade 7 when his mum organized a small chamber orchestra made up of four musical families in the Valley. While JT and I didn't meet until the weekend of the orchestra concert, our families, grandparents and parents, have known each other for years. After that weekend I saw JT once in awhile at the annual sports day for all the Adventist schools in the Valley. Then his family moved into town and he came to our school for grade 11 and 12. At first I was annoyed that he'd joined our class. As soon as I saw him walking down the hallway on the first day of classes I knew that the valedictorian-race that my best friend Jodi and I had been having since grade 7 was over. I was right too. JT got the valedictorian distinction at our high school grad, but by that time I didn't mind so much. JT and I had become pretty good friends over the past two years. We still are and that's why I'm glad he came to Southern for the weekend. Tonight Bryn and I had Stephen and JT and some of our other friends over to our house for a burrito potluck. It was great catching up with JT again, especially since we'd only seen each other for about an hour and a half during the first Saturday night of Christmas break.

Birthday cakes

I ate two cakes today. Not two whole cakes, but two cakes nonetheless. Danielle came over yesterday to make an ice cream cake and I helped. She actually got the ice cream layer in a round cake tin and put it in the freezer on Saturday night and then got Bryn to bake the German chocolate cake part then too, while we were playing games. We used the extra cake batter to make cupcakes. Then today she made the in-between holding-the-two-parts-together layer out of crushed golden Oreos, fresh (amazing looking) strawberries and vanilla icing. Previous to making the cake she'd asked me for my ingredient-preferences, but since I really didn't know anything about making ice cream cakes, she made some executive decisions too. Anyway, she whipped up the middle layer and then we quickly put the three layers together and spread icing over the whole cake. She used green decorative icing to write my name and add some other creativeness as well. Then we put the cake back in the freezer to await today's supper. Only a few minutes after the ice cream cake was safely stored away there was a knock at our apartment door. It was my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece dropping a chocolate bunt cake off, a day in advance, for my birthday. So I had a lot of cake to consume at supper tonight. In addition to cake we had four cheese pizzas and two pans of breadsticks, which disappeared rather quickly. After eating, some people had to leave, but the rest of us figured out how to play Set Cubed, which was confusing at first but got easier once we read the instructions. All in all, it was a good way to celebrate.

Geocaching

Jonathan took me geocaching this afternoon and even though we didn't get too far away from campus (actually, we didn't even get off campus) or find many geocaches, I had a blast. We managed to figure out how to set his GPS so that we could see the general vicinity of the geocaches, but he forgot to print out the descriptions so that we could actually find them. So basically he just took me to some that he already knew about. We discovered that we needed to make up nicknames to write on the "guest lists" of who had found the geocaches, so I guess we'll have to come up with some of those by the next time we go geocache hunting. Anway, it was really fun to hunt around and try to find the geocaches. I've found geocaches accidentally before, but never actually gone real geocaching so it was definitely an experience. Apparently Southern is one of the most densely packed areas of geocaches so there's a lot for us to find the next time we make another hunting attempt.

This evening Ty, Stephen, Nathan, Jonathan, Danielle, Breanna and her roommate Svetlana came over to our apartment for supper. Stephen was so thrilled to be able to have a kitchen to cook in that he did all the cooking by himself. He made what seemed to me to be an infinite of Ichiban packages and tons of grilled cheese sandwiches, as well as cooking my lentils for me. I ate like a pig and it was awesome. After supper we played Dutch Blitz and 7-Up, which was just as awesome. Game nights are great!

Cardboard Boat Races

I went to second service by myself this morning. I haven't gone to anything by myself for a long time and it was interesting to do that again. Although the sermon was good, I have to admit, I did a fair amount of people-watching. After the service Jonathan, who was singing in I Cantori, came and found me and then Stephen, who was sitting a few rows behind me but didn't see me until the end of the service, came up to talk to us too. Danielle, also sitting behind me, moved up to talk, too. I moved farther back in the sanctuary and saved places for Bryn, Ty and some of their friends and then stayed for the first half of third service to participate in song service. Then I went home to start getting lunch ready. I noticed a lot of lint on my jacket when I took it off so I got distracted with de-linting my coat with a lint brush for awhile. I also got distracted by a list of notable Adventists on wikipedia. It was really intriguing. Here is is in case you're interested. Then I stopped being distracted and got to work on making burritos. Danielle came over and brought twice baked potatoes. I'd never had those before but they were pretty good. I ate like a pig and was absolutely stuffed. Then we met up with some people at Wright Hall and carpooled to The Lantern where we sang hymns to the residents. A few people brought instruments and John's cello was passed around from cellist to cellist during the time we were there. I was so full I kept feeling like I was going to burst (and feeling like I was singing off tune), but I somehow managed to stay all in one piece. Christen was in our group and I talked to her for a little bit and then we ended up standing next to each other and sharing a hymnal. It was nice to see here again. I told her we missed her in ACW. After singing we went to Jonathan and Tim's apartment for worship and then went off to hear Stephensong (Danielle's word for Evensong when Stephen plays), which was good. From there we went to the gym to watch the beginning of the Cardboard Boat construction. I was convinced to leave after a few minutes. We picked up Nathan and then Bryn, Ty, Nathan, Danielle and I went back to our place and finished off the burritos and a bunch of other food, too.

Nathan and I had a discussion about Advanced News Reporting, which he's in right now and I took last winter semester. Then we started counting up the writing classes we've been in (not only W classes, but ones where the main emphasis of the class is writing, too). Here's my list in chronological order.
At WWC: Honors Writing I, Honors Writing II, Magazine Article Writing
At SAU: College Composition 2 (since I didn't take Research Writing at WWC), Writing for the Media, News Reporting, Expository Writing, Advanced Reporting, World Religions, Creative Writing, Mass Communication & Society, Literary Journalism, Advanced Creative Writing. Other classes in which I've had to write a research paper: Intro to Communication, Media & the Presidential Election, Communication Research
I think that's a pretty hefty list and I'm not even completely sure I've thought of everything.

Anyway, after eating we rushed back to campus and headed into the gym to watch the parade of completed cardboard boats and then followed the parade to the pool where we watched the teams compete. I knew quite a few people on various teams so it was fun to cheer for them and take pictures. Jonathan and Christen were on the same team and Tim had a team of people I knew, too. Finally, when there were only a few teams left and they looked like they would be going for quite awhile still, I left and came back to my apartment to watch a movie. I heard later on that Tim's team eventually won so that's cool. It was a pretty packed day, but very diverse, which is always fun.

Winter hike

I went to the Village Chapel church in McDonald this morning for the second time since I've been here. I went once last year. Tim's parents are visiting from their AFM posting in Palawan, Philippines and his dad did the sermon. The whole church was packed to overflowing, mostly with college kids, probably all of them friends of Tim or his sister Stephanie. It was a really great sermon, at least I thought so. I found it interesting that it went along so nicely with Paul Howe's testimony that I listened to last night. They were both about missions and very inspirational. (Stay tuned for more on that in another post.)

After church I changed and then Jonathan and I went over to some people's house that are related to people he knows in Maine. One of his Maine friends, a nephew of the people whose home we were at, was there visiting so it was nice meeting him. Quite a few other college kids were there, too, all of whom I knew, so we had a nice afternoon. I also tried to coax the cat, Maestro, to come sit on my lap and let me pet him, but he wouldn't agree, so I just had to try to pet him whenever he walked by. Later on we all met up with some other college students and went on a hike on the Biology Trail. It was cold, super cold, and it even was snowing nice fat flakes for part of the hike, but I had some layers and nice long sleeves to hide my hands in, so it survived. Actually once we started hiking only my hands were really all that cold. I never thought I'd say this, but it kind of felt nice to hike again. Except for the steep uphill, but I made it through that ordeal without too much terrible hardship and the rest of the hike was fun. We did manage to accidentally leave Jonathan and Daniel behind when they stopped to take pictures of the sunset, but they found their own way back and came to pick us up at the other end of the trail. All in all, my verdict of the day: great because it was very different than many Sabbath's I've spent here at school. I like it when my Sabbath's aren't all exactly the same.

Pizza buns

I'm not sure why I thought my life this semester would be easier than last semester. Yes, I'm only doing 13 credits, but 10 of those are upper division and nine of those are W courses. So besides having to come up with an article idea for Adv. Creative Writing, I have to figure out an idea for 30-40 pages of writing that I can stay interested in throughout this whole semester for Literary Journalism. I wish I was just doing Adv. Creative Writing and Literary Journalism and could devote all my time to those two big projects. But I have to do Mass Comm & Society (an icky upper division comm. class required of all mass communication majors) and Intro to Public Speaking. (Yeah, I know, I could have got that out of the way a LONG time ago, but after changing majors numerous times and having to try to get in all the required classes for my current - and final - major, I decided to leave speech until last since it's offered every single semester.) So that's my classes this semester, oh and orchestra as well. Anyway, my point was that I wish I could just take the two classes I actually care about taking and not the other annoying ones. Oh well, it could be worse. I could be doing a full 16 credits, or more...

Tonight Danielle invited Bryn, Jonathan and me over to her new apartment for supper after orchestra. Jonathan and I made a quick trip to our apartments to get some pizza-bun-making supplies while Bryn and Danielle got the rest of the food at the VM. Then we traveled together to Danielle's apartment and all pitched in to cut up the vegetables and make the pizza buns (basically mini pizzas using thin buns as the crust) and a salad. It was a nice relaxed time and I was sad when it ended because that meant I had to get to work again. Of course, lots of my homework this semester will be writing and reading so I got started on "Oranges" by John McPhee which is the first book we'll be reading for Literary Journalism. I love it so far. I wish I could think of something interesting like oranges that I could immerse myself in and research while here at school, but all my ideas sound incredibly stupid in my head. If any of you can think of something, definitely comment and let me know.

Bittersweet visitation

When I woke up this morning I decided to stay in bed for a bit and start a new book. The one I finished last night was part of the Dear Canada series (yes, I'm pretty sure it's a copycat of the Dear America books) about a slave girl from Virginia who escaped with her family to West Canada (modern-day Ontario) during the Civil War. The book I started today "The Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech is written very differently than any book I've ever read. I'll probably do a review of it on Enjambments when I'm finished with it though, so I'm not going to spend much time talking about it here. While I was chatting online to Jonathan, my friend Jodi called so I spent about an hour on the phone with her catching up on her life and telling her about mine. It was nice to hear from her again, but it definitely would have been better to see her in person. Oh well. She spent Christmas with her brother and sister-in-law in Spokane and then went to Walla Walla to visit her grandparents before going back to Alberta. After that I was planning to get some of my stuff together and start packing since we're flying down to Seattle tomorrow evening, but that never happened. At this point in time I'm unsure if I'll even be finished packing by the time we have to leave for the airport. I don't even want to think about it since I'm not sure what's going to happen once we get to the airport. Since the Christmas Day airplane bombing attempt most international flights to the States have new security measures and many airlines aren't allowing carry-ons at all. I sincerely hope that rule relaxes before we fly out tomorrow since Bryn and I brought home our violins and we sure don't want to be checking them. Oh well, whatever happens happens. I'm not going to worry about it tonight.

We had a really early supper, well at least it was early by our standards. We ate around 4 p.m. and then cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for a night of visiting. We started by dropping by my friends Brad and Sharlet's house to see their new daughter. She was a week old on Thursday. She's pretty tiny and pretty adorable and Bryn, my mum and I took turns holding her and getting pictures with her. Then Brad and Sharlet gave us a tour of their new place. They've only been in it for two months now so it's pretty new to them. Finally we let them have their baby back and then drove down to the hospital to visit Auntie Beth. She seemed in a better mood then when Mum and I were there to see her yesterday. My mum read her an e-mail and then I asked her some Bible questions from a trivia game my mum had brought with her. Then Bryn read another e-mail, Ty read a short story from the Women of Spirit magazine and then we sang a few songs to her before my dad closed the visit with a prayer. Then we drove to Vernon, a town 40 minutes north of us, where we visited our former pastor and his wife. They have been family friends of both my mum and my dad's side of the family for years and have been like an extra set of grandparents to us kids throughout the years. I really wish I had the words to describe how Pastor Teranski and his wife have impacted my life. Maybe someday I'll be able to find the right words to say, but for now I'll just say that they've always encouraged and mentored us in life whether in our music, or studies or just choices that we had to make. I so appreciate their input and guidance. The best picture I can give you to describe Pastor Teranski is that he is an extremely kind-hearted and caring man, who adores jokes, riddles and puns. He's of Ukrainian descent and his favourite jokes are Ukrainian jokes. He will never pass up an opportunity to tell a good Ukrainian joke. For years Pastor Teranski has raised money for new churches in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union. He has traveled to Ukraine many times to dedicate the churches and to put on evangelistic meetings. When I was seven or eight, my mum and her sister went along with the Teranski's and did the VBS and children's meetings for 500 children a night while Pastor Teranski held evangelistic series for three weeks. A couple years later my dad went along with the Teranski's on another visit to Ukraine. Mrs. Teranski is as petite as he is rotund, but they compliment each other perfectly. She always would be playing the piano for church services and meetings and she played so beautifully. I hope that gives you a bit of a picture of the Teranski's.

The visit was bittersweet for me. I care for the Teranski's quite a lot and it's hard for me to see people I care about hurting. Mrs. Teranksi was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about a year and a half ago. The first time I saw her after I heard about her diagnosis was right after I came back from my first year at Southern. I was at our high school gym for the Mini-Campmeeting that our valley has during a weekend in May when I ran into Pastor Teranski. I gave him a big hug and then turned to give one to Mrs. Teranski, too. She was happy to hug me, but then asked her husband, "Now, who is this young girl?" He looked both shocked and terribly pained as he explained who I was. Then she said, "Oh yes, of course I know you," and the rest of the conversation went on normally. This past summer our family went to visit the Teranski's just before Ty left to come back to Southern early for RA duties. Mrs. Teranski seemed to know and recognize our whole family and was pretty good with carrying on a conversation with us and remembering trips to Ukraine with Pastor Teranski and my parents. This visit was different. Right from stepping into their warm kitchen from the chilly outdoors, I could tell Mrs. Teranski was worse off. She kept interrupting sentences with nonsensical phrases. Her words made sense, but not the way she arranged them into sentences. My mum and I sat on either side of her on the couch and tried to respond to her ramblings so that she wouldn't feel left out of the conversations, but it was hard to do that and try to follow what Pastor Teranski was saying. He questioned each of us kids about our schooling and how things were going down in Tennessee and asked about our cousin, Breanna, as well. Of course we slipped in several jokes, too. Then my mum told Tyler to bring our instruments in from the car and joked to Mrs. Teranski that she would have to play the piano to accompany us. We'd brought our instruments along to play some songs for the Teranski's. They've always been so encouraging of our music and Pastor Teranski has always promised to take us with him to Ukraine to play for the churches there that he goes to dedicate. Up to now we still haven't gone, but he mentioned tonight that he feels really urgently about fulfilling his promise to us. He talked about how he was thinking of going back there in June once more to dedicate several new churches that have been built since his last trip. As we got out our instruments Mrs. Teranski stood up from the couch and carefully made her way to the piano. At first we thought she just wanted to be closer to us to hear us better, but then she fumbled with a songbook sitting on the stand. My dad got up to help her flip through the pages and then she stopped at one song and placed her shaky fingers on the piano keys. "Audrey, why don't we just listen to the kids play?" Pastor Teranski tried to encourage, but she broke in. "Let's play a song together," she said to us and pressed the keys. The first few bars were filled with mistakes and incorrect notes. I didn't know the song. Neither did Bryn or Ty, but after quickly glancing at each other, we all started to play along. As we got close to the end the incorrect notes faded into beautiful chords and Mrs. Teranski continued right on to the second verse, the violins and cello following her lead. My dad sang the words and my mum joined in. Pastor Teranski sat in his chair listening to the harmonies fill the living room. As we finished the song, she immediately start flipping more pages, but then Pastor Teranski suggested to her that maybe the Hymnal would be easier for her to play from than the Christ in Song book so my dad got that and helped her find the Christmas section. We played "Away in a Manger" with her and during that song Pastor Teranski was wiping his eyes. He seemed so amazed to see his wife still playing the piano like she has always loved to do and that she was still able to do it quite well. She kept apologizing between songs that she hadn't practiced in a long time and that she wasn't very good, but we made sure to tell her she was doing great. Next we played "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" with her and for each song she wanted to do all of the verses. Then she wanted to try out some non-Christmas songs and had a harder time with those. It almost broke my heart to watch her try to figure out "All Creatures of our God and King" with two sharps. She could figure out the C sharp, but not the F sharp and she kept playing the first line over and over again and trying to get the F sharps, but the chords kept turning out minor. Bryn tried to show her which key to play, but then in the end my dad found "Softly and Tenderly" and we played that instead to end off. Then Pastor Teranski told her she had done a great job and now she should take a break and just listen to us play. So we played our version of "All Creatures" that we played for church at school at the start of December and they both really enjoyed it. We told them about how we didn't know we were supposed to be playing for communion and that we decided to dial back the rhythms a bit to be more appropriate and Pastor Teranski thought that was so funny. He just let out huge Pastor Teranski-esque guffaws and we all grinned to see him so humoured by our story. Then he made us sit down while he cut up some slices of a Ukrainian poppy-seed dessert for us to try. It was an acquired taste, but by the end of the slice Bryn and I shared I kind of liked it, minus the raisins embedded in the pastry. Then, after a few more jokes and enquiries about family and friends, we gathered together for a prayer before exchanging hugs and saying good-bye until the next time we get to see each other again. Just before we left Pastor Teranski said again that he wanted to take us to Ukraine with him in June. I think if we don't go soon, it won't happen so we'll see what happens with that. We all, including my dad, want to go with him. Anyway, I'm extremely glad we took the time to drive all the way to visit them. They're very special people to us all.

When we got home we made hot chocolate while my dad brought in some wood and built a nice roaring fire in our fireplace. Then we sat around the fire drinking our hot chocolate flavoured with peppermint stir spoons. Somehow we got around to talking about how my parents ever started dating and found out some new things about them. Those kinds of conversations are usually quite interesting and informative. Then my mum read a story from a "Christmas in My Heart" book and then I read another short one. It was a good ending to a kind of happy, kind of sad, day.

Snowmoboarding

Once again it was a sleeping-in, lazyish morning for me. I read for a bit before finally getting out of bed and getting ready for the day. I went checking my e-mail a little bit after noon and Ty came into my room to tell me that our high school English and French/choir teachers (they're married) had come by to drop off some tithe for my dad and wanted to see us. So I went to talk to them for a bit. It was nice seeing them again and getting all caught up with each other. They were in Alberta for Christmas and said they were quite happy to get back to the milder BC temperatures.

In the afternoon our family and Tyler's friend, Isaac who lives just across the border a couple hours south of us, took our snowmobile and the one my cousin's daughter uses up into the mountains. Then we spent several hours driving up and down the logging roads. For the majority of the time we took turns pulling each other on snowboards/skis which was so much tons of fun! I even tried Bryn's snowboard and it wasn't near as bad as the last time we switched equipment. I just put my snowmobiling boots into her snowboard bindings and it actually worked alright. The only part that was hard for me was steering. I kept edging off toward the left-hand side of the road and once I hit the branches of a tree and broke some off. I fell many times, but by the end I was getting the hang of things a bit better. My second fall of my snowboarding experience I went straight down on my knees so they're a little bruised and sore, but it was too terrible. The snow is pretty thick up there so falling wasn't too painful usually. Ty and Isaac used my dad's snowmobile and Bryn and I used the smaller one. My mum stayed up at the junction between two logging roads were we had parked the truck and trailer and my dad stayed around there for most of the time too, but took a couple rides around on the snowmobiles in between when we went. After both Bryn and I snowboarded behind the snowmobile, we got out my ski boots and skis and tried that. My dad was just moving his snowmobile to get it reset up for Isaac to pull Ty on his snowboard when he drove over the tow rope that Bryn and I had been using. The rope got all caught up and wound around both sides of the snowmobile track and so I ran over to help him. We tried and tried to get the handle back through the track but it was just too long to go around some of the curves. I'm not sure how it got through originally, but finally my dad found a way to undo the handle from the rope and then it was easy to pull back through and untangle the rope from the snowmobile. Then I towed Bryn on the skis and then we switched and she pulled me. That was the most fun part of the whole afternoon. It was just like waterskiing except for colder and not quite so wet. It was so much easier for me to steer on the skis than with the snowboard and I was skiing all over the road just like how waterskiers cross the wake. By the time we turned around to come back it was getting pretty dark so once we got back to the truck we loaded up the snowmobiles, got all our gear into the truck, and headed back into town.

A couple hours later we drove downtown to meet some church friends at The Keg for a supper out. My dad had gift cards for that restaurant from last Christmas and this one from someone at his business so it was nice to be able to share the meal with others. The adults, my parents, one of my dad's salesmen, Arnie, and his wife Lori, sat at one end of the table and the young adults, my siblings and I, Isaac and a guy from Australia that's stay with Arnie and Lori while he works here, Daniel, sat at the other end. We had a great time learning more about each other and, of course, eating. Daniel told us that his dad was a taxidermist and then Ty and I peppered him with questions about taxidermy. I sure learned a lot of stuff I never knew before. Later in our conversation we tried to think of a name for the snowmobiling-snowboarding/skiing that we'd done that afternoon. Ty came up with boardmobiling (which would be skimobiling when skis are used) and Daniel thought up snowmoboarding (or snowmoskiing). I think they're all great, but I think I like how snowmoboarding sounds best.

Now we're home and I'm planning to spend the rest of my evening reading. That is if Bryn doesn't convince me to watch a movie with her and my parents instead. We'll see. Both sound good. Oh, and not to leave hockey out in today's post, feel free to read my Olympics Hockey Roster post on my other blog if you're just dying to find out who will represent Canada in February's Vancouver Olympics.

Team Canada

For pretty much the first time all break I have nothing of much importance to write about. I was basically lazy all day. My friend Julie flew to NYC last night to visit a friend there and then go to GYC so she's gone. Bryn's friend Rachel and her husband are gone to Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland to visit their extended families. I think Nik left back to Alberta with his family today. Stephen, Chris and Jonathon, as far as I know, are at their house two hours south of us and I'm not sure if they'll be back in town during the rest of this break. My friend Jodi and her family are in Spokane visiting her brother and his wife for the holidays. Just after I got back home for the break I wrote to my friend Jodi, who currently lives in Alberta, that she should swing by my house on her way to or from Spokane where her family was visiting her brother and his wife. She wrote back that that would be rather difficult and add a lot of hours to their trip home, which I knew, of course. So I guess I'll just have to try and convince her to come down to visit us at school. Maybe she'll come for our grad. This is sounding like a pity party so I'm going to switch subjects.

I was on the computer pretty much all day. It was pretty nice. For a few hours in the afternoon I went out and settled on the rocking chair in the TV room and watched some World Junior hockey. Team Canada beat Switzerland 6-0 in their second game of the tournament. On the opening day, Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) they beat Latvia 16-0, so they still don't have any goals against. I suspect that could change soon though. They're playing Slovakia tomorrow and then the United States on New Year's Eve. Particularly the game against U.S. could be challenging for them. But I'm going to stay positive and say they can keep up their winning ways. Some notes about today's game: (1) Team Canada wore green sweaters. It was rather shocking to see them in a colour other than red or white. I read somewhere yesterday that the green jerseys were in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Saskatchewan's CFL team that lost in the Grey Cup (CFL's equivalent to the SuperBowl). Oh, by the way, the World Junior Championships this year are being held in Regina and Saskatoon, SK. I found the idea of the green jerseys rather odd since this is the first time the Team has ever worn any colour other than red or white that I can remember. I wonder why, when the WJC were held in Vancouver in 2005, Team Canada didn't wear orange and black sweaters in honour of the BC Lions, our provinces football team. It's all very strange and very hard to wrap my brain around. Even by the end of the game I would sometimes still think that Team Switzerland was Team Canada because they were wearing white jerseys with red emblems on the front. Hopefully in tomorrow's game they'll be back to their ordinary jerseys and everything will be back to normal. (2) Brandon McMillan got a hat trick in today's game. A hat trick is when one player scores three goals in a single game. (For more intriguing details, click here and scroll down to the hockey entry.) I was happy to see McMillan get the hat trick because they are always nice to see, but what made me proud was that he's a forward for the Rockets, my hometown WHL team. He's the only Rockets' player in the World Juniors this year so I'm sure that tonight all the junior hockey hearts in town are bursting from pride over his achievement. (3) I was disappointed to see the McMillan wasn't given the Player of the Game award at the end of the game. I think getting a hat trick beats out anything else another player does, even if they had good physical play or did a great job of defending. The only player that might supercede a hat trick scorer could be the goalie if he made numerous amazing stops and saved the team. But today our goalie had a relatively easy day with only 15 shots on goal from the Swiss. So I thought it should have gone to McMillan. Plus he's a Sask. boy. Why not give it to him in front of a hometown crowd? I definitely agree with TSN analyst Bob Mackenzie on that one. (4) The Team Canada coach talked in a press conference that I saw a part of tonight when I was watching the evening news. I was highly impressed with his tie, which was Team Canada red with little tiny Team Canada logos subtly spread out over the entire tie in the same red colour. It was classy, but showed pride for our team and our country.

After watching hockey I watched some Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which is a pretty sad, but also uplifting show. There was a marathon so I watched a few. Didn't I already tell you it was a lazy day? Then tonight we went out to eat at Milestone's with a gift card from one of my dad's cabinet installers. Every year he gives our family a gift card to a restaurant so tonight was the night to use it. I hadn't been to the new Milestone's since it's been moved from in the mall to at the edge of the mall parking lot so it was nice to see how they did things up differently. It seems a lot more classy now. I stuffed myself even though Bryn and I shared our penne dish. Somehow, though there was room for gelatto for dessert. It was scrumptious. Then I came home and decided I really had to finish "Harriet the Spy" so I did just that. I can see some similarities between Harriet and myself (more on that here). Anyway, now I can move on to one of the many books I got for Christmas. We'll see how much I can accomplish in the next few days. Wow, for doing nothing and apparently having nothing much to say, I sure said a lot. Allow me to apologize once again.

Q&F game night

This morning I:
-woke up late
-missed Sabbath School
-got to church in time for our Christmas program
-performed in the program
-heard and wrote down a great quote
-got my foot caught and almost fell down (nearly knocking Ty's cello over) during the closing hymn
-talked to a friend from way back in Gr. 1 who I haven't seen since summer
-had a pleasant conversation with our pastor
-nearly froze walking to and from the church in a skirt

I think that's quite a few accomplishments for one morning, despite the few setbacks included in there. (Apparently despite is my new favourite word. I'm using it all the time these days.) If you're curious about the quote, here's the background story as well as the quote:
For our church service, the elder in charge did some announcements after the song service and then said the program would proceed as planned after the prayer, scripture reading and opening song. When the opening song was over, the song leader said, "Now the Q.'s will play. I'll let them introduce their song." We were just planning to set up and start playing, but I thought that would be just a bit awkward after he said that we'd introduce our song. So once we were set up and tuned I just said, "I'm sure you'll all recognize the song." Then we played our song. My friend, Shannon, played a flute song next and before she played she said, "I don't think this song needs much introduction either so I'll take a cue from them (point in our direction)." I almost burst out laughing right on the spot because of her little cue/Q pun, but managed to contain my glee to a quiet, muffled guffaw. A classmate of Ty's who was sitting behind me giggled, so I knew I wasn't the only one that caught the joke. After church as we were eating lunch I brought it up and my mum said she thought it was pretty good, too, but I don't think the rest of my family got it. Maybe it's not even that funny or maybe it's just one of those things you had to be there for. In any case, it amused me for the rest of the day.

For lunch we all pitched in to make raclette. My mum had left church early to go spend some time with my Auntie Beth at the hospital and so Ty directed the rest of us in the raclette-making so that it would be ready by the time my mum got home. She came in the door just a few minutes before we were done the preparations so it was pretty good timing. It was an awesome meal to finally eat again. I'm so happy we have a raclette grill!

Tonight my friend, Julie, and her family came over for a game night. We each wrote down on a piece of paper one game that we wanted to play and put them all in a Santa hat. Then we took turns pulling pieces of paper from the hat starting with the youngest person. The first game was "Smart Ass," a game Ty had seen when he and Bryn were shopping at the mall and told her he wanted. She went back and later and got it for him for Christmas. It was actually a really fun game and when my dad eventually won, I was sad that the game was done. (I was also annoyed that he won cause we had been sitting on the very second-to-last square of the board until he got that last question right and moved to the end.) We played crokinole next. Since we had nine people it was rather complicated but Julie's mum sat out and kept score and then we played in with partners (two people on each side of the board) so there were four people per team. It was a little confusing at first to remember who's turn it was to shoot, but eventually we figured out the pattern and it was fine. I was on a team with my dad and Julie's dad and brother and we won 110-0. Then we were going to play 7-Up (the game with Rook cards, not the game kids play in elementary school), but we couldn't find our Rook cards. My set are at my apartment at college and my mum said she thought our other set was in our 5th wheel down in storage there until the end of the school year. Our pizza came right around then so we took a break from games to watch the last movie in the "Love Comes Softly" series. Those movies are aggravating. They are so drastically changed from the book series that it really bugs me. I decided to just think of them as a whole different storyline and then they're not so bad. Anyway I pretty much called the entire plot, which is fun to do sometimes. After that we played Careers, which Bryn had just bought me for Christmas. Our family plays it with my grandparents and so we know the rules down pat, but it took a bit of explaining to teach Julie's family how it works. Finally they got it, although on some turns it took three or four people to help Julie play. It was pretty hilarious. Bryn ended up winning that game, but several of us were close to winning. Then my mum took some pictures of Julie and I and we said good-bye to her. She's flying out to NYC tomorrow night and then going to GYC for the weekend before heading back to Andrews for her last 8 months of PT school. She made me promise to come visit her at school sometime before the end of March when she'll be gone to other parts of Michigan doing more clinicals. So I guess I'll be going to Andrews in the first couple months of the semester. If any of you want to come with me, let me know.

In hockey news, today Team Canada beat Team Latvia 16-0 in the first game of round robin play in the 2010 World Junior Championships. That is the most goals Team Canada has scored since an 18-3 win over Poland in 1986, according to CBC.ca. It might look like a cruel score to you, but CBC.ca explains, "There is no mercy at the world juniors, where goal differential in the preliminary round can be a key tie-breaker to reach the single-game elimination stage next week." There's a lot more stats from the game I'd love to tell you, but you can just read them yourself if you're at all interested. Also, the Canucks beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1. Bryn's friend and her husband were at the game in Vancouver with seats three rows back from the Canucks bench. They were so close to the ice that they made it on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada." I'm jealous (of them being at the game and sitting in those seats, not for being on CBC). I kind of wanted to watch the game since it was the only time during break that I'd get to watch them on HNIC (which only happens on Saturday nights during the regular season), but I'm still glad we got to have game night. Hockey is just a game, friends are more important.

Friends reunite

Today was awesome. First we went to our little church on the hill. It was full, which is something I haven't seen at our church since, well probably last Christmas. For some reason our church has started doing two Christmas programs, one the Sabbath before Christmas and one the Sabbath after. So for this week we weren't involved in the program and just got to sit and watch it. To be perfectly honest, I did a good bunch of people-watching through the almost two-hour program, especially since there were so many visitors and people I didn't recognize. Part of that people-watching was kid-watching. For years our church has been rather devoid of children, but recently we've been having more people with younger children come and it's fun to hear kid sounds and to watch them throughout the service again. One of Bryn's friends, Rachel, was sitting about halfway up the church holding her 14-month-old nephew. He's a really quiet, but very observant baby, so it's always fun to watch him when his parents are in town and come to our church. Anyway, after the service we talked to all the people we haven't seen since August and then went home for a wonderful haystack meal with my family and grandparents. After lunch my mum read more Christmas stories and then she took Bryn, Ty and I to the hospital to visit my great-aunt who got admitted on Wednesday because of asthama/breathing problems. She really, really doesn't want to be in the hospital and apparently kept telling my mum all during her and my grandma's visit yesterday that she just wanted to walk out of the hospital and leave. Today she was a lot calmer and was really happy to see us college students home again. We helped her eat supper and get her comfortable before leaving.

After that we stopped at one of my favourite stores, Art Knapp. It's a plant and florist store with a bunch of lawn and house decorations. That was a really bad description, but unless you go to an Art Knapp store, especially at Christmas time, you can't really understand what it's like. My mum wanted to show us a few things that we could get her for Christmas, but we ended up just wandering through the store looking at all the cool stuff they have. I must be getting old because every time I go into that store I see more and more things that I like. I'm starting to become my mother, ack! After that we went home for a few minutes and then were off again to Julie and Michael's house. We picked up another of Ty's friends, Mark, on the way there and then the them and Michael and another friend, AJ, went to the basement to watch movies. Julie and her parents and Bryn and I played a whole bunch of games and laugh, a lot. It was great to play games again. I didn't do too much of that this semester, but really want to do more of it this coming semester. After we were game-ed out, we found a couple Christmas movies on TV to watch and switched back and forth between them until we decided to watch the less weird one. We were about halfway done that movie when we heard the doorbell ring. Julie's dad went to answer it and as soon as I heard the person outside talk I knew, it was one of my high school classmates, Jonathon. He just got home from Loma Linda yesterday and their family was in town for the day. On Saturday nights here at home our school gym is open and anyone who wants to can go play floor hockey. Jonathon and Stephen and their other brother, Chris who goes to CUC (the Canadian one) were at the school playing hockey and then when they were done they came over to our house which is just around the corner from the school. When my parents said that we were up at Julie's house they came up there to see us. We abandoned the movie and talked with them for awhile. Later on Chris came over too and after more talking, when the boys were done their movies, we decided to make a Tim Horton's run before heading our separate ways. I rode with Jonathon and we had a really great talk, something we haven't had a chance to do for a long time, mostly because he's always in med. school and even during breaks we don't have that much time to see each other. Anyway we all got food and talked some more until finally Jonathon said he had to get to sleep and all the groups of siblings headed back to our respective dwellings. It was awesome to be able to spend so much time with friends we don't get to see all that often. If tonight is any indication, I think this break is going to be pretty great!

Thick and thin

Last night we flew into our airport just before 6 p.m. PT. It was awesome be back on Canadian soil. It didn't take too long to get our bags and go through customs since it's a pretty small airport. Our parents were right there waiting for us outside of customs so we hugged them hello. Then we saw another family from our church there to pick up a couple of their kids from work/school so we greeted all of them before heading home. We were all pretty much beat so we just sat around in the living room listening to my mum read Christmas stories and then went to bed.

Today I slept in for the first time in awhile. Then I was rather lazyish all day. In the middle of Friday night worship our doorbell rang. I instinctively knew it was my friend Julie. Turns out my instincts were right. It was Julie and her brother Michael, who is friends with Ty. They came in and more hugs with traded. We finished worship and then Julie and I talked for a good long time, with my parents occasionally wandering back into the living room to join in. At one point in our conversation I told Julie that I loved her hair. It's so nice and thick and manageable, unlike my own thin, always-doing-its-own-thing hair. Then she told me she would give me her hair. I thought that was a great idea until I imagined Julie without hair. I didn't want to take all her hair away from her nor did I want her to have to go through the annoyance of having my hair. Somehow as we discussed the pros and cons of thin and thick hair Julie came to the conclusion that I have thin hair, but a thick head and she has thick hair, but a thin head. I'm not even sure what that means, but it amused us for quite awhile. I'll leave you to come up with your own ideas for that statement. Happy Sabbath!

Update: I came up with a meaning for the thick and thin thing. Julie's right, I have a thick head. Once I have an idea in my head I usually stick with it. It takes a lot of convincing (and a lot of proof from the convincer) to make me change my mind. It also takes me a long time to make new friends, but once I do they are usually friends for life. Julie, on the other hand, has a pretty open mind when it comes to ideas and friends. I'm not saying she can be easily convinced of stuff, but she is more open to others' opinions and view points. She also is super friendly and easily makes new friends wherever she goes. I sometimes wish I was more like her in that aspect. Oh well, I guess that's just one more thing for me to work on.

Meteor shower

Last night I was supposed to watch the most amazing meteor shower since 1996. Instead I stared up at a overcast sky lit by a gas station down a hill to the north and apartment houses across a cemetery to the south. Not one single falling star did I see. Oh well. Instead of star-gazing I ate a whole bunch of good food (although I'm not really sure how nachos, fudge, cheesecake and bottles of IBC cream soda's really go together to make a nutritious meal), and hung out with interesting friends. Some of these interesting friends decided to try and do a star dance to ward off the evil clouds blocking our view of the meteor shower. It didn't work, but it was amusing to watch. Later on, when we were about to leave, my brother discovered that his car key had fallen out of his pocket at some point after getting to the star-viewing location. So some people used the flashlights we had along while the rest of us tried searching with the light from our cell phones. Those of us with only cell phones realized how unbright cell phone lights are. Eventually Ty's friend Nathan found the key in the parking lot and we all bid each other good night and good luck on exams. Although this event wasn't quite as epic as the last meteor shower I witnessed, it was a memory that I'll look back on fondly. I mean who wouldn't remember cooled off nachos sprinkled with mist?