Today was awesome. I got a phone call last night from the photo editor about a story she kindly agreed to write for the first issue of the Accent. At the end of the conversation about the story she mentioned that there was a marketing story on the school's Web site about Friday's classes being canceled. I was pretty happy about it and got even happier a bit later in the evening when I checked my e-mail and saw the real, live proof. I have to say I was a bit amused by the entire thing. There wasn't even half a cm of snow on the ground when I opened my door to check if more snow had fallen since I'd entered my house. Having lived in Alberta and experienced many real snow days (ones that only took place if the temperature was -40 C or lower, which is when a diesel engine quits working and the school buses couldn't run) this Tennessee snow day was a joke. But don't get me wrong. I'll take any day off school than I can get. I'm already sick of this semester, well at least those two classes that I don't really want to be taking. I guess I'm just kind of ready to be done with school for a bit. Oh well, less than four months left.
So on to my day. I spent the entire morning catching up on lost sleep (I know, ridiculous right? Lost sleep less than a week into this semester? Unheard of. Oh well. It happened) and then later on in the afternoon I went over to Jonathan's. He had made me a lunch of bean threads and we ate it when I finally got over there. It was delicious and I was surprised that I've never had that before. Tim was decided that he would provide our dinner entertainment and showed us a 16-minute video called Ticket Validation or maybe just Validation. It was pretty hilarious. Then Jonathan and I had our Christmas, which was awesome. (It's always nice to have a second Christmas, especially when it's on a snow day!) First I sent Jonathan into his bathroom to hide while I conscripted Tim to help me hide Jonathan's presents for a treasure hunt. I made up the treasure hunt before I'd come over so I knew which rooms I wanted to put each present in, but not where in each I wanted to hide them. Tim was a great help and within minutes I told Jonathan he could come out again. Then we had Christmas in January using Tim's little fibre optics Christmas tree. It was tons of fun, especially watching the treasure hunt, which Tim took pictures of. After that we did some reading and then came back over to my place to make supper and listen to a Dr. Ashton sermon from SEYC a few years back. I love listening to Dr. Ashton speak, even if it's not in person. He just has such a great voice and has a lot of knowledge and good things to say. After that was done I wanted to listen to something else so we found Paul Howe's testimony from GYC a week ago and listened to that. It was super good and I was really impressed and quite inspired. And that's how I spent my snow day. How about you?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Career list
Last night I got inspiration. I was in bed and semi-snoozing when, for some reason, I started thinking about all the careers I have, at one time or another, wanted to do for my lifework. I was beginning to compile a list of those careers in my head when I realized that it might be a neat idea to write them out somewhere. At first I was just thinking it might be a fun blog post, but then I started thinking about why I wanted to do each of those jobs and how my idea of the actual career was quite different, especially when I was in elementary school, than what the job was really like. Suddenly I was struck with a thought; I could use this for my writing assignment for Adv. Creative Writing. I liked that idea so much that I sat straight up in bed, reached over towards the door and flipped on the lights (first telling my sister, as any nice older sister should do, that I would be turning the lights on), and then took out my Moleskine out of my pillowcase (it lives there for moments just such as the one I'm describing to you) and started scribbling wildly. Once my idea was appropriately documented I turned the page and made a few notes about some ideas I've thought up for Literary Journalism. They aren't the greatest so far, but hopefully making a list will help to inspire some more ideas for that assignment. Then I put my Moleskine back into my pillowcase, turned off the lights and went back to bed. Although I was planning to go right to sleep, my sister and I started a night time conversation (something we used to do almost every night my first year here when we were roommates in the dorm, but haven't done a lot of lately because we usually go to bed at different times this school year), which just got more and more hilarious. By the time we actually finished talking and tried, once again, to sleep I was wishing I'd turned on my voice recorder or taken a video with one of our cameras so we could have recorded the conversation. I was totally random and just got more funny the longer we talked. It was nice to have one of those night time talks again.
Today it snowed. It was awesome, but I wish we'd got more snow. Oh well, what we got was pretty good for down here. At least it snowed enough for classes to be cancelled tomorrow, which is awesome and hasn't happened yet since I came here. I shall let you know what transpired in our "snow day" when I write again tomorrow. Good night for now.
Today it snowed. It was awesome, but I wish we'd got more snow. Oh well, what we got was pretty good for down here. At least it snowed enough for classes to be cancelled tomorrow, which is awesome and hasn't happened yet since I came here. I shall let you know what transpired in our "snow day" when I write again tomorrow. Good night for now.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Article topic
First day of the new semester and I'm still on break mode. That might be because I only have one class today. Advanced Creative Writing at 3:30 p.m., which, ironically, is the class that I am writing this blog for. I started it for Creative Writing last semester and decided to keep it going after that class ended in December so it'll be easy to get back into the writing-a-post-of-three-sentences-a-day mode, since I never really stopped writing on this blog. Now my dilemma is choosing a topic for my Adv. Creative Writing article that I will be excited to write about for the entire semester. I am initially thinking of doing nonfiction. I am more comfortable with that, especially if it's writing about a personal experience I have had. I've written three articles for Insight Magazine about experiences I have in my life that had a spiritual correlation, but I want to do something different for this article. I know that I write best when the story is something from a personal experience or at least something that I am familiar about (I guess most writers do, too), but I want to try writing something for a non-religious magazine. Maybe I should try a humour piece, but I'm not sure my life is that filled with humourous situations that readers who don't know me would find interesting. Oh well. I have a couple days to come up with something...
And now, I must tell you the devastating news. Team Canada got silver in the 2010 World Junior Championships. Tonight they played in the gold medal game against Team USA - a repeat of the New Year's Eve round robin game. I wanted to watch the game online on a stream from tsn.ca, but that didn't work since they only stream to Canadian IP addresses. Jonathan tried to help me find a Canadian proxy address (yeah that might be totally wrong since I know nothing about that kind of stuff) so we could trick TSN into thinking my computer was from Canada, but that didn't work out. So instead we read our Bible chapters for the day (Did I mention that we decided to read the Bible through in a year chronologically?) and then hung out as I kept refreshing the TSN game updates page. Team USA looked too strong and fast to be beaten, but Canada kept up pretty good. Then in the third period the U.S. was up by two goals with a score of 5-3, but right near the end of the period Canada tied it up at 5-5. Overtime was needed to decide a winner and the U.S. got a goal to win the gold. Oh well, Canada got silver, which isn't nearly as epic, but I thought that might happen. The U.S. team was super good this year. I don't really begrudge them winning the gold, although it did put a swift stop to Canada's WJC gold medal streak. They were trying for the record-breaking 6th consecutive gold medal, but I guess they'll just have to start a new streak next year.
And now, I must tell you the devastating news. Team Canada got silver in the 2010 World Junior Championships. Tonight they played in the gold medal game against Team USA - a repeat of the New Year's Eve round robin game. I wanted to watch the game online on a stream from tsn.ca, but that didn't work since they only stream to Canadian IP addresses. Jonathan tried to help me find a Canadian proxy address (yeah that might be totally wrong since I know nothing about that kind of stuff) so we could trick TSN into thinking my computer was from Canada, but that didn't work out. So instead we read our Bible chapters for the day (Did I mention that we decided to read the Bible through in a year chronologically?) and then hung out as I kept refreshing the TSN game updates page. Team USA looked too strong and fast to be beaten, but Canada kept up pretty good. Then in the third period the U.S. was up by two goals with a score of 5-3, but right near the end of the period Canada tied it up at 5-5. Overtime was needed to decide a winner and the U.S. got a goal to win the gold. Oh well, Canada got silver, which isn't nearly as epic, but I thought that might happen. The U.S. team was super good this year. I don't really begrudge them winning the gold, although it did put a swift stop to Canada's WJC gold medal streak. They were trying for the record-breaking 6th consecutive gold medal, but I guess they'll just have to start a new streak next year.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Opry Mills Mall
What an interesting day I had today. I woke up just after 9 a.m. and texted Jonathan to find out when we were going to head to Nashville. He had to get some stuff done before leaving so he told me to just stay in bed as long as I wanted to and he would let me know when I should get up and ready to go. Then he said that I should unlock the door though. That got me a little skeptical and I remembered Jonathan texting a lot during the night before. A little later he called me and said he was outside the door and that I really should let him in. I wasn't completely convinced I should, but finally I dragged myself out of bed, threw on a sweatshirt, opened the door and trudged back to my room. Mysterious noises drifted into the room under the door. Awhile later there was a knock at the door and when I said he could come in, he opened the door, turned on the light and then there was some laughing and whispering going on right outside the door. The door was shut and more mysterious noises sounded outside the room. I was pretty sure by then what was going on. Then the knock came again, I gave a second all-clear and the door re-opened. Jonathan and Josh brought in a slab of board wrapped in our table cloth laden with breakfast food, including eggs! So they made Bryn and I breakfast in bed and it was delicious. I ate a whole bunch of eggs, a veggie sausage piece and a piece of French toast. Then I was stuffed and convinced Jonathan and Josh to eat breakfast, too. We got a few pictures and then they cleaned up (which was super nice of them) and then left so we could all get ready for our Nashville day trip.
We left the campus after finally locating one of our travel-members around 1 p.m. and drove to the Opry Mills Mall. Then we walked around looking at all the awesome stuff, mainly the Rainforest Cafe, where the gorillas and other jungle animals woke up every now and then to put on a show of their strength and skill. Then we ate lunch and Cinnebon's for dessert before finding the Glow-in-the-Dark mini-golf place and playing a round of 18-hole mini-golf. I think I was second last or something unimpressive like that. Either Jonathan or Bryn won if my memory serves me correct. Then we looked at a guitar store for a bit before Bryn and I branched off to run to another store. We rejoined the group on the other side of the mall and looked around the Aquarium restaurant. I watched the sharks for while, which was awesome. The only bad thing about the aquarium adventure was that there was this poor red fish swimming tail-up-head-down near the top of the tank. His eyes were all bugged out and he would have looked comical if he hadn't looked so near death. After that we browsed through Barnes & Noble (and I didn't buy one thing...yay for self-control!) and then some people bought Marble Slab ice cream before we loaded into Jonathan's van for the drive back to school. Jonathan drove super fast the whole way back so that his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend could get back to the dorm in time for curfew. We made it with a few minutes to spare and without getting pulled over by a cop, so that was good. Then Jonathan dropped Bryn and I off at our place and went home to sleep. Now that I'm done writing this post I think I'll maybe read a little bit before going to bed myself.
We left the campus after finally locating one of our travel-members around 1 p.m. and drove to the Opry Mills Mall. Then we walked around looking at all the awesome stuff, mainly the Rainforest Cafe, where the gorillas and other jungle animals woke up every now and then to put on a show of their strength and skill. Then we ate lunch and Cinnebon's for dessert before finding the Glow-in-the-Dark mini-golf place and playing a round of 18-hole mini-golf. I think I was second last or something unimpressive like that. Either Jonathan or Bryn won if my memory serves me correct. Then we looked at a guitar store for a bit before Bryn and I branched off to run to another store. We rejoined the group on the other side of the mall and looked around the Aquarium restaurant. I watched the sharks for while, which was awesome. The only bad thing about the aquarium adventure was that there was this poor red fish swimming tail-up-head-down near the top of the tank. His eyes were all bugged out and he would have looked comical if he hadn't looked so near death. After that we browsed through Barnes & Noble (and I didn't buy one thing...yay for self-control!) and then some people bought Marble Slab ice cream before we loaded into Jonathan's van for the drive back to school. Jonathan drove super fast the whole way back so that his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend could get back to the dorm in time for curfew. We made it with a few minutes to spare and without getting pulled over by a cop, so that was good. Then Jonathan dropped Bryn and I off at our place and went home to sleep. Now that I'm done writing this post I think I'll maybe read a little bit before going to bed myself.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Back at school
This morning our alarms (all three of us set our cell phone alarms and then we got a wake-up call from the hotel as well) went off within five minutes of each other around 4 a.m. We finally got ourselves up and ready to head to the airport. While Bryn and Ty took showers I went downstairs to the hotel lobby to check-in all three of us online and print out boarding passes. It was nice there was a computer all set up to do that. Then we did a last minute sweep of our room before carting all of our bags/backpacks down to the lobby to catch our shuttle. Then we were on our way. The shuttle dropped us off close to our airline and then we had to take the elevator up to the skywalk and then take another one up to the ticketing level. Then we got in the line to just drop our bags off. I was really glad I had checked-in online earlier because it was a lot faster that way. We got through security without too much trouble. Then we left Bryn guarding all of our carry-ons while Ty and I walked to the food court area and ordered some more of that delicious pesto penne that we always get when we come through SEA-TAC. We brought the food back to where Bryn was sitting and ate as much as we could right there. Then we packed up the extras for the next time we would be hungry and took the train to the S terminal, found our gate and hung out until our flight boarded. We got more comments about all our instruments as we boarded the plane. Bryn and I sat together in the middle and aisle seats and Ty sat in the middle seat of the row behind us. I slept almost the entire flight. I did try to read more of my book, but I only got about 10 pages before I had to put it back down and continue sleeping. I'm SOO glad we had a nonstop flight straight from Seattle to Atlanta. I've never had that flight before, but it's sure nice. Connections just make air travel take a whole lot longer than it should. We got to Atlanta at 2:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than scheduled so that was nice. It didn't take too long to get our bags, but then we had a little difficulty finding where to get our shuttle to the car parking place. Finally Ty went back in the baggage claim area and found a sign so we followed him and made it back to our car fine. Then we had to load up the car, put our destination in our GPS and start the last part of the journey back to school. We got here just after 6 p.m.
After dropping Ty off at the dorm, Bryn and I went to the music building to put our violins away. Well, I put my violin away and Bryn met Emily, a current SM who was back for Christmas and wanted to use a violin for the evening before she had to fly back to Ukraine. Bryn let Emily use her violin and then we headed back to our place. Jonathan called just as we were leaving campus and wanted to come over and hang out so soon after we got to our apartment he came over. It was great to see him again. Then I had a shower and just when I finished Jonathan's grandma called and said they wanted us to come over for supper so we went over there and I met his aunt, uncle and little cousins. We stayed there visiting for a bit and then I came back here to write this before having to head out to pick up Stephen at Groome Transportation. He gets there around 1 a.m. so I'm really happy we don't have school tomorrow!
After dropping Ty off at the dorm, Bryn and I went to the music building to put our violins away. Well, I put my violin away and Bryn met Emily, a current SM who was back for Christmas and wanted to use a violin for the evening before she had to fly back to Ukraine. Bryn let Emily use her violin and then we headed back to our place. Jonathan called just as we were leaving campus and wanted to come over and hang out so soon after we got to our apartment he came over. It was great to see him again. Then I had a shower and just when I finished Jonathan's grandma called and said they wanted us to come over for supper so we went over there and I met his aunt, uncle and little cousins. We stayed there visiting for a bit and then I came back here to write this before having to head out to pick up Stephen at Groome Transportation. He gets there around 1 a.m. so I'm really happy we don't have school tomorrow!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
International flight
This morning I awoke to my mother shouting through my doorway, "Ali, come watch! Quick! Come now!" (I know that seems like a lot of exclamation marks, but that's how she said it.) I turned over and tried to ignore her, but then, when I couldn't get back to sleep, I thought I might as well go see what the fuss was about. Turns out she had found out how to stream GYC online and wanted me to watch it with her. So I found a blanket and sat there watching Mark Finley speak for church service at GYC in my pajamas. It was a rather nice way to start the Sabbath, actually. After the service was over my dad and Ty had already left for church and so my mum and I showered, got ready for the day, and then drove down to the hospital to have a little church service out our own with Auntie Beth. She hates being in the hospital so much and especially can't stand it on Sabbath when she knows everyone else is in church but she is still stuck in the hospital. We had a nice time with her and she really enjoyed it I think. Then we went home and I finished my packing and then helped my mum get raclette toppings ready for lunch while listening to the GYC music concert streaming online. The rest of our family and my grandparents came over when church was done and we had an awesome meal. It was even better than the first Q. raclette-making with the addition of several new toppings. My grandparents were a little astounded at the whole process at first, I think, but they both said they really liked the meal. Then we ate my grandma's apple crisp and some ice cream for dessert. I was stuffed. We said good-bye to my grandparents until graduation in April/May and then finalized our packing. I snuck in several more minutes of GYC-watching with my mum throughout the last few hours at home.
We said good-bye to my mum at home and then my dad took us to the airport. We got there pretty much exactly two hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. When we walked in the doors I saw a huge long line up stretching from the Horizon Airlines ticketing counter down the hallway almost all the way to baggage claim. (I will admit that our airport is pretty small so it wasn't the same distance as if that line had been in say SEA-TAC airport or something.) We got in line and a few minutes later a guy from Horizon came by to talk to us about what we were and weren't allowed onto the international flight down to Seattle now that there are new emergency security measures enacted for international flights into the U.S. He confirmed that we were allowed to bring musical instruments with us as carry-ons, but told us that the only way we could bring our laptops with us on the plane would be to hold them without any case or covering or anything at all other than just the laptop, not even our power cords. Finally we made it up to the ticket counter and got all our bags checked. We could check our backpacks for free since we weren't allowed to take them onto the plane, so that was nice, but I was still kind of worried about the stuff in my backpack getting wrecked and ruined by the baggage handlers. By the time we got to ticketing our flight had been delayed 15 minutes because the incoming flight from Seattle was late. Once we had our boarding passes, we walked down to security and then said bye to my dad. He told us to make sure to text him if our flight got delayed at all. If it got delayed too much he said he was going to just call off the flight and drive us down to Seattle himself. Getting through security was a breeze, but then we just had to sit in the departure lounge with nothing to do. Actually, correction. I had to sit in the departure lounge with nothing to do. Bryn and Ty had their iPods to play games on. I only had a stupid phone that doesn't do anything cool. Eventually I got a seat near the White Spot restaurant which had two TV's showing hockey games in their bar section. I mostly watched the Team U.S.A. vs. Team Finland quarter-final game, but when that game was in intermission I watched the first game of a double-header on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, which was Calgary vs. Toronto. I hate both those teams so the only reason I was hoping Toronto would win was so that Calgary, who is in Vancouver's division, wouldn't get any more points. By the time we actually got in line to board Team U.S.A. was up 2-0 on Finland in the second period and Calgary was about 2 minutes away from beating Toronto 2-1.
While we were waiting there our flight got delayed another 25 minutes. Bryn decided this delay gave her enough time to order some food to-go from White Spot so she got a menu and found food she wanted and ordered it. When the food came I went over to help her and Ty eat it. Ty ate the yam fries while Bryn and I shared a Caesar salad and then we all helped finish off our random meal with a brownie and ice cream dessert. It was delicious. A few minutes after we were done eating our flight was finally called for boarding. While we were in line, a family right in front of us asked Ty if he really knew how to play the ukelele (He was just carrying it without a case or anything and lots of people commented on it all evening.) He said he could, but when older daughter asked him to play something for her, he said he couldn't cause he was carrying his computer, too. She seemed a little disappointed. I think she thought he was cute. Then she said they were from Hawaii and so the ukelele got their attention right away. (Later on the dad asked Ty if we were in a band.) We went through the gate in groups of 20 and then walked to our plane. When we got right near the plane we had to line up with males on the right side of the hallway and females on the left side. Then one by one, each person had to go to a security person and get patted down and thoroughly searched. They even searched through our carry-ons/personal possessions we were taking onto the flight. Then men got searched right there at the end of the hallway we were all lined up in and the women were around the corner right before getting onto the plane. Finally all of us passengers were completely searched and deemed safe for flight. We all sat around on the plane for at least half an hour with absolutely nothing being done. It was simply fabulous (and that was a highly sarcastic comment). The flight attendants kept saying that we'd get going in a few minutes, which was a gigantic lie. Finally the captain told us we were going to leave and then turned the propellers on just before 8 p.m. (our flight was originally supposed to leave at 6:35) and soon after that we were actually in the air. Bryn slept leaning against my back pretty much the entire flight while I stared out the window for any sign that we were coming into Seattle. After what seemed like hours, but was really only about 30 minutes, the clouds thinned out and I saw sprinklings of lights. Once we got near the town I searched for I5 and then followed that right through the city and picking out the Seattle Space Needle from the air. A couple minutes after flying over downtown, we were on the ground at SEA-TAC. Then we had to go through immigration, which took a little bit longer for me because I had to fill out a form for a new F1 visa. (I got a new passport this summer and when I drove across the border going to school in August the border official said I didn't need a new form or a stamp in my new passport, but this immigration officer didn't agree with that. It didn't take long to complete though and by the time I rejoined Bryn and Ty they hadn't even found any of our luggage yet, so it was fine. I thought it was interesting that the immigration officer asked me what instrument I played after seeing my violin case. When I told him violin he said, "And piano too right?" I looked at him in astonishment and said yes. Then he said his two daughters play violin and piano.) Then we got our luggage and went through customs, then put our luggage on another conveyor belt that sent our bags to the normal baggage claim out in the main part of the airport. We took the train and beat our luggage to the baggage claim so I left my carry-on stuff with Bryn and Ty and ran up to ticketing to make sure we would be allowed to each bring two carry-ons on our flight tomorrow. The lady there said everything was normal with carry-ons on domestic flights so I ran back down to baggage. By the time I got back Bryn and Ty had our bags and then we just had to get out to Parking and find the courtesy phones to call for a shuttle to our hotel. Now we're here. We rearranged items so that we had just the things we wanted to take on the flight tomorrow in our carry-ons and now we're just checking our e-mail and stuff before going to sleep. Tomorrow's going to come super early so I'm signing off for now. Write to you all again back at school!
We said good-bye to my mum at home and then my dad took us to the airport. We got there pretty much exactly two hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. When we walked in the doors I saw a huge long line up stretching from the Horizon Airlines ticketing counter down the hallway almost all the way to baggage claim. (I will admit that our airport is pretty small so it wasn't the same distance as if that line had been in say SEA-TAC airport or something.) We got in line and a few minutes later a guy from Horizon came by to talk to us about what we were and weren't allowed onto the international flight down to Seattle now that there are new emergency security measures enacted for international flights into the U.S. He confirmed that we were allowed to bring musical instruments with us as carry-ons, but told us that the only way we could bring our laptops with us on the plane would be to hold them without any case or covering or anything at all other than just the laptop, not even our power cords. Finally we made it up to the ticket counter and got all our bags checked. We could check our backpacks for free since we weren't allowed to take them onto the plane, so that was nice, but I was still kind of worried about the stuff in my backpack getting wrecked and ruined by the baggage handlers. By the time we got to ticketing our flight had been delayed 15 minutes because the incoming flight from Seattle was late. Once we had our boarding passes, we walked down to security and then said bye to my dad. He told us to make sure to text him if our flight got delayed at all. If it got delayed too much he said he was going to just call off the flight and drive us down to Seattle himself. Getting through security was a breeze, but then we just had to sit in the departure lounge with nothing to do. Actually, correction. I had to sit in the departure lounge with nothing to do. Bryn and Ty had their iPods to play games on. I only had a stupid phone that doesn't do anything cool. Eventually I got a seat near the White Spot restaurant which had two TV's showing hockey games in their bar section. I mostly watched the Team U.S.A. vs. Team Finland quarter-final game, but when that game was in intermission I watched the first game of a double-header on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, which was Calgary vs. Toronto. I hate both those teams so the only reason I was hoping Toronto would win was so that Calgary, who is in Vancouver's division, wouldn't get any more points. By the time we actually got in line to board Team U.S.A. was up 2-0 on Finland in the second period and Calgary was about 2 minutes away from beating Toronto 2-1.
While we were waiting there our flight got delayed another 25 minutes. Bryn decided this delay gave her enough time to order some food to-go from White Spot so she got a menu and found food she wanted and ordered it. When the food came I went over to help her and Ty eat it. Ty ate the yam fries while Bryn and I shared a Caesar salad and then we all helped finish off our random meal with a brownie and ice cream dessert. It was delicious. A few minutes after we were done eating our flight was finally called for boarding. While we were in line, a family right in front of us asked Ty if he really knew how to play the ukelele (He was just carrying it without a case or anything and lots of people commented on it all evening.) He said he could, but when older daughter asked him to play something for her, he said he couldn't cause he was carrying his computer, too. She seemed a little disappointed. I think she thought he was cute. Then she said they were from Hawaii and so the ukelele got their attention right away. (Later on the dad asked Ty if we were in a band.) We went through the gate in groups of 20 and then walked to our plane. When we got right near the plane we had to line up with males on the right side of the hallway and females on the left side. Then one by one, each person had to go to a security person and get patted down and thoroughly searched. They even searched through our carry-ons/personal possessions we were taking onto the flight. Then men got searched right there at the end of the hallway we were all lined up in and the women were around the corner right before getting onto the plane. Finally all of us passengers were completely searched and deemed safe for flight. We all sat around on the plane for at least half an hour with absolutely nothing being done. It was simply fabulous (and that was a highly sarcastic comment). The flight attendants kept saying that we'd get going in a few minutes, which was a gigantic lie. Finally the captain told us we were going to leave and then turned the propellers on just before 8 p.m. (our flight was originally supposed to leave at 6:35) and soon after that we were actually in the air. Bryn slept leaning against my back pretty much the entire flight while I stared out the window for any sign that we were coming into Seattle. After what seemed like hours, but was really only about 30 minutes, the clouds thinned out and I saw sprinklings of lights. Once we got near the town I searched for I5 and then followed that right through the city and picking out the Seattle Space Needle from the air. A couple minutes after flying over downtown, we were on the ground at SEA-TAC. Then we had to go through immigration, which took a little bit longer for me because I had to fill out a form for a new F1 visa. (I got a new passport this summer and when I drove across the border going to school in August the border official said I didn't need a new form or a stamp in my new passport, but this immigration officer didn't agree with that. It didn't take long to complete though and by the time I rejoined Bryn and Ty they hadn't even found any of our luggage yet, so it was fine. I thought it was interesting that the immigration officer asked me what instrument I played after seeing my violin case. When I told him violin he said, "And piano too right?" I looked at him in astonishment and said yes. Then he said his two daughters play violin and piano.) Then we got our luggage and went through customs, then put our luggage on another conveyor belt that sent our bags to the normal baggage claim out in the main part of the airport. We took the train and beat our luggage to the baggage claim so I left my carry-on stuff with Bryn and Ty and ran up to ticketing to make sure we would be allowed to each bring two carry-ons on our flight tomorrow. The lady there said everything was normal with carry-ons on domestic flights so I ran back down to baggage. By the time I got back Bryn and Ty had our bags and then we just had to get out to Parking and find the courtesy phones to call for a shuttle to our hotel. Now we're here. We rearranged items so that we had just the things we wanted to take on the flight tomorrow in our carry-ons and now we're just checking our e-mail and stuff before going to sleep. Tomorrow's going to come super early so I'm signing off for now. Write to you all again back at school!
Friday, January 1, 2010
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.
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.
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