So far in my entries I have yet to really say anything about my fall 2009 semester except that I am still a student. This is unusual for livejournal entries during the school year, if you know me. And so, in my methodical approach to my life, I have now touched everything major that has changed in my life over the last semester and I would like to take a moment to examine how this tied into my student life.

My classes this semester were History of Christianity I, History of Christian Theology, Intermediate Greek, and Spiritual Direction. I said to some of my friends before this semester started that I felt like I was facing a semester of giants. These classes were colossal in scale and I was certain I was going to be overwhelmed, especially with everything happening in my life. Thankfully, that was not the case. Actually, unlike most years, I haven't had too much to complain about in school this semester. Compared to my massive winter semester last year, in which I had to write over 20 papers, I was delighted to find out I only had about 8 papers and 3 writing assignments and a whole lot more exams! Exams are a welcome change to papers for me, so I am definitely am not complaining. The lighter load in terms of papers gave me more time, too, to deal with the changes in my life.

Breaking down the classes:

History of Christianity I: This is a class I should have taken earlier, but I just didn't get around to it. So many of my other classes that I have taken throughout the years have said, "If you remember from your History of Christianity course..." and I felt stupid, because I hadn't taken the course yet. There were a lot of other things I wanted to take first though, and this is a two semester deal, so it just kept getting pushed back. Thus, it is a little late in my undergraduate life to be taking this class, and it shows in the content of the class. Because I took all of those other classes first, this class is building on their framework instead of the other way around. It has been a bit like review in some senses, although it does give a fuller picture. Also, the assignments in this class have been ridiculously easy. I said to one of my friends that it reminds me a bit of high-school: reviewing primary documents and writing out responses to questions the teacher gives us. Not that I'm complaining, mind you! Reviewing assigned primary documents isn't exactly exciting, and I'm not sure how much I'm learning by it, but it saves me the difficulty and stress of having another term paper to write.

History of Christian Theology: This was the class I was most worried about. The teacher is notorious for being brilliant and he talks about the most complicated theological doctrines in such a matter-of-fact way that a lot of students are often overwhelmed by his class. Not only that, but his exams are also infamous throughout the whole school, because they are multiple choice questions that go up to K. It's not even a nice multiple choice exam, with an obvious answer to every question; rather, there can be two right answers to the question and you have to pick the best one. Best in whose opinion? - is a question I would like to ask. Despite my fears regarding this class, though, this has actually been the class that I have enjoyed most this semester. Unlike other people, I do not seem to have problems following this professor - I have a good theological background being from a Christian family & school. Rather, I found myself often at the end of class holding questions that I knew I couldn't ask in class because I would further confuse people who were already confused with what was presented (that professor got a lot of after class visits from me). The exams were ridiculous, like I had feared, but it was so nice to do multiple choice again, instead of essay questions. Not only that, but I find that his exams really require us to put information together, rather than just regurgitate what we know - so I actually kind of approve. Finally, this class has changed the way I think about everything this semester, in two ways. First, on a smaller note, for the first time I feel like I have a really concrete, developed and accurate understanding of the Trinity. We have always been told 3 in 1, but for the first time I understand all the implications of this, and how this is actually possible. Second, I got to read an Eastern Theologian this semester called Maximus the Confessor. He changed my life. I have never seen so much importance to the incarnation of Christ before (Jesus becoming human)! There is a whole realm of salvation and sanctification that I never knew of, that has never been touched before by my apostolic roots that is going to change the way that I think about creation, humanity, time, sin, salvation and about what Jesus did for me by becoming human. It's one of those things that has got me so excited that I have to restrain myself when I talk to other people, because they probably aren't as excited in this as I am. So consider me restrained.

Intermediate Greek: This was, by far, the most demanding class of the semester. I am glad that I began studying for it two weeks before school began because we jumped right in at the beginning of semester without even a review of first year Greek. It was assumed that we would magically remember 2 whole semesters of Greek technical grammar (which is not easy when a single word can have 500+ endings that means different things!). Not only that, but soon we were required to memorize 30+ vocabulary terms per week. I have become a master at mneumonic devices. We were also required to translate a passage of Scripture for every class, which could result in up to (and over for some) 3 hours of translation homework twice a week. The letters of Paul were particularly difficult, and so I discovered a new dislike for the epistles. There was very little teaching in each class. We merely took turns reading out our translated portions of the text and discussing it amongst ourselves. At the same time, however, there was so much to learn! There are nuances to translation and grammar that one doesn't even discover until they are actually translating. Not only that, but I have been particularly impressed this semester at how the work of translating scripture requires an active exegesis at the same time (not just translating work but finding out what the text really means to our own lives). The work of translation is a work of theology (study of God). A person cannot divorce one from the other.

Spiritual Direction: This is the last class that I have left that is specific to my discipline at school. It is the highest level class in my department (aside from the thesis & practicum), so it really felt like the granddaddy of Spiritual Theology. Now, on the other side I could say that this assumption was true, but for very different reasons. It wasn't a complicated class, in fact one could say that the concepts discussed were relatively simple (especially compared with History of Theology), but it was immensely practical. This class has given me a changed perspective on ministry, evangelism and the way I live out my calling as a Christian, and all of these changed perspectives are tied up into the idea of listening. That is what I told someone, that this class, for me at least, was a class on how to listen to other people, and how to listen to God. Further than that, it is about how to help other people listen to the voice of God and how for oneself similar community is also necessary.

It is now the end of the year, and all 4 of my finals are here. I have been trying to write my class notes, but I keep staring at the book of History of Christianity notes that I have (SO MANY!) and I feel uninspired. But the exam is tomorrow, so I must get them done. Greek was yesterday and I found 3 mistakes on the exam that I confirmed with the professor (there may have been more but I didn't feel confident enough in that judgement to call him on it). Theology was today and I'm glad I reviewed the material on the handouts that weren't covered in class, otherwise I would have done dismally. Spiritual Direction is tomorrow night and it is going to have a real practical bent to it that will be a bit different from the normal exam.

All in all I can say that I am satisfied with this semester. It didn't turn out to be the major headache that I thought it would, scholastically, although the rest of my life more than made up for it. I'm really looking forward to next semester - it's going to be easy, breezy and beautiful! (at least I hope). Classes to look forward to are History of Christianity II, Greek Exegesis, Canadian Church History and Private Voice Lessons. ^.^

For a long time I have been struggling with the idea of church, particularly the way my denomination does it. I have been struggling with our idea of worship, community, evangelism and, in particular spiritual formation, or the lack thereof. For the past few years, in the process of working out my own beliefs, I have found them come at odds with some of the core values of the congregation that I attend. Well, it's not even that they come at odds with each other; it's is that there simply is no paradigm in my church for what I consider to be important, which is spiritual formation. What they consider to be important, which is missional living, falls secondary in my spiritual theology to the process of spiritual formation. As such, my problem has been that I don't fit. Within my church I have been like a square peg in a round hole.

Despite these issues, whichI have been having for a couple of years now, I have persevered in my attendance. This is because I am not someone who takes changing churches lightly, like changing a sweater. When I join a body of believers, I commit myself to them. It is a relationship, a covenant between them, God and me when I choose to be part of a church. Discomfort, even theological discomfort, is not a good enough reason for me to break this relationship, this commitment. Discomfort can be from God but it can also be self-inspired or devil-inspired. If I listened to the devil or followed my own passions thoughtlessly, I would not be following God. And so I have persevered in attendence.

Recognizing, however, that my discomfort presented its own set of temptations I developed 3 pillars out of my convictions that would keep me grounded to my church. The first pillar was scriptural. When Jesus sends out the 70 he tells them that when they go to a new town they should find a place to stay, and when they find that place, if that place welcomes them, they should say "Peace be on this house," and stay there for the remainder of their journey. If the place does not welcome them then they can shake the dust from their feet and leave. Since my church had welcomed me when I first came to Calgary, and has continued to welcome me, this Scriptural principle of stability was my strongest tie to the church.

My second pillar has to do with my core set of beliefs that are so different from the church. Because I have a passion for spiritual formation (which, btw, is the development of one's own spiritual life and relationship with God), and it is not something that is developed very much in my denomination, I saw myself as having a very important gift to offer the congregation. My unique passion was an open door to ministry and I felt that God had placed me in this denomination just for that purpose: to help develop something that was missing.

My third pillar was a lot more practical and tangible. It was my status as a worship leader. I have been a worship leader for years in my church congregation. It is something that I take very seriously. Worship is something that is very important to me, and I feel responsible, particularly when I lead worship, to leave whatever might distract me behind and worship God openly and honestly. I whole-heartedly believe that I cannot lead people properly into worship if I am not worshipping God myself. As such, in this time of uncertainty and discomfort my position as a worship leader held even greater significance for me because it was the one place where I could connect to God in church, no matter what. It was also the place where I could connect to the congregation as I shared with them my heart for worship. I knew that despite my discomfort I could still go to church because I would always meet God at least once a month when I went to lead worship.

This summer, before my first semester hit, a rock was thrown into the mix. The worship director approached me and asked me to step down from leading worship. He said that I was gifted in harmonization and he wanted me to do back up for a while. I couldn't argue with him. What he said was true - I do sing harmony really well, in fact it's where my voice was designed to sing, and I had been wanting to get back into singing harmony before I forgot how. I couldn't even argue on the basis of my third pillar, because inwardly I sensed the rightness of this request. For some reason it was okay that I become a backup singer even though it meant the destruction of my third pillar.

But it was also not okay. It threw me into confusion. What was going on? At one point in the past I had even told God that being a worship leader was one reason why I was sticking with this church, and that I would only reconsider my relationship to the church when that got taken away from me. Was God trying to tell me something?

And so I entered my fall semester. Immediately I was plunged into the chaos of having to make all the arrangements to move within less than a month, prepare for a new position at work while keeping on top of a full time position in part time hours, and go to school, getting all my assignments done in pursuit of the elusive 4.0 GPA. In the midst of this another storm was lurking as I tried to process in my spirit what was really going on with my church situation.

Finally, at the end of October I had an encounter with clarity. It happened during while meeting for one of the assignments in a class I have been taking on Spiritual Direction. The class is essentially a class on holy listening, and one of my classmates was practicing it by listening to where God was in my life at that time. In sharing the general chaos of all the change happening around me, I got onto the topic of church and began to share with her my struggles there. After I had poured out my soul she asked a single, very poignant question, "Do they need you?"

At that moment the walls fell down. This single question addressed the second of my pillars: the fact that I had something to offer, and as soon as I heard it I felt God speak to me and I knew the answer to the question. "They do not need you," the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart, "they need me." Was I willing to believe that? Was I willing to trust that God would bring about what was necessary for that congregation regardless of whether I was there or not? Could I trust the Holy Spirit in my church? Yes I could. And, no, they didn't need me. Down went the second pillar.

I wrote in my journal that night processing my new revelation. It was no secret to me that two of my pillars had fallen within the period of two months. I could see now that God was particularly trying to say something to me. It was time to leave my church. One pillar remained, and it was not one that was going to fall arbitrarily (scripture does not fall arbitrarily). I could see that the only recourse I had to be obedient to the Holy Spirit in my life was to make an appointment with my pastors and ask them to leave the church.

This was not an easy decision for me. Before I had my meeting with my pastors, I met first with my professor, who I view to be a mentoring figure in my life, and I shared with her all of this. As I told her I began to tremble and cry. I cried tears that I didn't even know that I had in me to cry. For a long time I might have struggled with my church, but I also love it. Church people need the love of God too, I have always said. And so, in that safe place I wept. I wept not only for my church, but also for all the abrupt changes that were going on in my life. So much sudden change had left me with so little time to adjust that I was experiencing senses of loss that I didn't even know I had.

I met with my pastors a couple of days later and we went out to dinner. After we ate I told them the story of my journey to Calgary. I told them about my commitment to this church. And I asked their permission to leave. I have to admit they surprised me. Although I was expecting them to support my decision, I wasn't expecting them to be so excited about it. They saw my journey to another church as a missional act; I would be a missionary bringing the spirit of God in me to another body of believers. They were sad to lose me, yes, but they were so excited to where God was going to take me. Once again I was dumbfounded by the love and support these people have shown me with all of my years with them. This is the other reason why it is hard to leave - because I have experienced so much welcome in this congregation. Because I don't know if I will be welcomed to the same extent when I go somewhere else.

I have made a committment to remain in this church until the new year. I'd like to finish up my commitment to the worship schedule. Actually, my last day of church at Living Springs is this Sunday. I'm leading worship. It'll be my last chance to lead for a long time, so I'm glad they offered. That wasn't the only thing they offered though; but they also gave me the opportunity to preach one Sunday. It was an opportunity I didn't hesistate to accept. Before they even asked me I knew what I wanted to speak about.

And so, in the midle of major paper season in November I stood at the front of my church and I shared my heart. I talked about what is most important to me - this lived theology of life that is a discovery of relationship with God. To speak on this sacred topic I had to use a sacred text, my own life. And so, in front of the people I have known for over 4 years, I told my story. I told the whole story of hate, bitterness, loneliness, darkness and transformation and I tied the text of Scripture into every step of my life. It's a story I thought I never would have imagined sharing in front of a church that I belonged to; in fact, the only reason why I felt I could was that I will be leaving soon.

Soon the new year will be here, and with the permission and blessing of my pastors I will venture to a new church. It is not going to be an easy step for me to make. The church that I feel like God is calling me to is a small Anglican church close to home. I've never been in an Anglical service before. I don't know what to expect. I will probably be facing it all alone. I wouldn't be lying to say that it scares me in some ways. Despite all of this however, I feel convicted within that this is the course that God has appointed for me, and I already know that there is no other place I can find true happiness, except within the will of God.

I have found a new favourite band: a bunch of HOT Korean boys. They might be singing in a language I can't understand, but, boy they can SANG! I am headed to the international section of HMV asap to see if I can find a disk. ^.^




Excerpt from Amazon store:

Formed by SM Entertainment in Korea as a standard boy band of sorts, Tong Vfang Xien Qi (also known as Dong Bang Shin Ki and Tohoshinki, depending on which country one is from) quickly became a leading front in the "Hallyu" Korean wave of entertainment across Asia, akin to the Latin wave of the late '90s in the U.S. The group was assembled in a Menudo-esque manner, with the similar intent of rotating members out when they became less popular or photogenic. After massive backlash by fans, the group was left alone. Luckily for the record label, the band also became one of the biggest acts in Asia. The band's debut in Korea, Hug, proved to be just the type of bubblegum pop hungrily devoured by the fans. After a successful full-length debut in Tri-Angle and a strong follow-up with 2005's Rising Sun, the band embarked on an Asian touring and media blitz, picking up fans along the way, despite singing primarily in Korean and English. After a third Korean album and a series of scandals, the band focused on the Japanese market, releasing tracks in Japanese (learning the language as they went) and scoring hits with a full Japanese album (Five in the Black) and a series of concerts that included the massive Budokan. While developing beyond bubblegum into still mainstream but more mature pop and a cappella vocalists, the band released numerous albums across three countries throughout 2006 and 2007. Further touring throughout Asia (including a memorable concert during a typhoon in Taiwan) led to more Japanese success, culminating in the number two slot debut on the Oricon charts for the album T in 2008 (preceding singles also marked the first time non-Japanese artists grabbed the number one Oricon position). ~ Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide

Side note: I looked it up and foreign CD's are expensive! I am torn. >.

It wasn't long after starting school this past semester that my supervisor at worked called me aside for a private meeting. In her hand she held a copy of my work hours that I had provided to everyone in the department - hours that accomodated my school schedule over a 20 hour work week. "There's a problem..." she began and then proceeded to break the news that my job as a buyer had been posted so that they could hire a someone who was full time to do it. In other words, I was losing my job.

In some ways it shouldn't have been a surprise to me. When I got promoted to the position, I was told that it was a temporary promotion anyways. Things were so crazy that year, however, that the temporary promotion became extended for an indefinite period of time. That indefinite period of time had reached a year and a 1/2 when my supervisor called me aside. I couldn't even really be upset about the news, because not only did I go into the position knowing it was temporary, but also that it was a full time position, and I knew my part time hours were not conducive at all to this position. Half my work had to be assumed by the other already overworked buyers and I knew it wasn't fair. So, when my supervisor told me they needed to hire someone full time to do the job, I couldn't even protest.

They said that they wanted to keep me though, and in lieu of my full time temporary position, they offered me a part-time temporary position that would involve managing the contracts that CLS had recently become responsible for. Was it a demotion? Yeah, sort of, but then again.... In short, I have been given a job for which there was no category. It doesn't even have a title. It was a position made specifically for me so they could keep me, and get their contracts cleaned up.

I was not looking forward to the change, but in some ways I also welcomed it. Being a buyer was a comfortable position for me and I enjoyed it. It was going to be torture giving my portfolio to someone else and watch them run it; to let them build relationships with all the end users that I had spent the last year and a 1/2 serving. At the same time I knew that a lot of the daily pressure that I was feeling being a part-time worker in a full-time position would be eased once I started the new position. Managing contracts is a completely self-supervised task that really has no deadline except that it gets done.

There were disadvantages to the new position, however. First, it is only temporary. Knowing that I am a vestigal employee makes me feel uncertain about the security of my job. At the same time, my supervisor has made it clear that they enjoy employing me and this position was because they want to keep me around. Still, it hasn't erased the uneasiness I feel not knowing if I will have a full time job for next summer (although I suppose I could start waitressing again, if this position remains part-time).

The second downer that I could perceive was that the position would involve a lot of boring data entry. I had actually done a similar thing a year and 1/2 earlier, right before I had obtained the buyer position, where I spent a month of full time hours cleaning out the contracts drawer by sorting through files and documenting them. It was long, boring work, and I felt like the work that I had done back then hadn't really been useful since I had done it.

The worse thing, however, about the new position was that I was going to be losing my desk. That's right, they were kicking me out of my cubicle. Our little department only has 6 cubicles and the other 5 were already filed with full time staff. It only made sense that as a part time worker I would lose my desk to a person coming in who was going to have to push a lot more paperwork than I was going to in my new position. Still, however, it was the desk that I had spent the last 2 and 1/2 years working at and I felt attached to the place. It was all set up the way I liked it, with brightly coloured post-it notes tacked up everywhere with some sort of reference or another. My new desk was going to be this temporary work table they put up in the back of the room.

Needless to say I went through a period of mourning. This wasn't just over a desk; in fact, there were other things in my life that I was mourning at the time, which will be mentioned in my next entry on my church. I wrote in my journal the first week of November about the sensation of mourning that I had in my soul - how at the end of the day I went home and felt like my heart had spent the entire day in tears. I was crying in ways no one could see.

As I said, when I first got my new desk it consisted of a table and a computer, and that was it. So, from scratch I began to pool resources together to make it conducive to working. I got someone to find me a set of filing cabinets from the basement. I made the facilities department screw in a keyboard tray and erect a bulletin board. I lobbied my supervisor for a phone line, and won. I got the clerks to clean out one of the shelves on the giant shelfing unit beside my desk so I could have someplace to put my tea. I cut the flaps off of boxes to use them for pen drawers and a recycling bin. I asked for a garbage can. I did everything in my power to make that place a legitimate desk, and I succeeded.

It has been over a month now that I have been working in my new position. It has involved a lot of data entry, yes, but not as much as I would have thought. In fact, my previous work that I had done on the contracts a year and a 1/2 before has provided me with a system that has streamlined my work considerably. Not only do I get to continue building on the system that I had already started but I get to continue to modify and improve on it.

Actually, the really surprising thing to me is that I am enjoying my new position. It makes the best of my administrative, organizational, multitasking, and problem-solving skills and lets me troubleshoot and resolve problems at my own pace. Not only that, but I am able to immediately see the value, this time, that my work has for the department, as I scout of pricing discrepancies, recover replacements for expired contracts, update product information in the system and file everything so that it is easy to access and reference. My desk, which was such a disappointment at first, has actually become an asset to my job, because I am only a turn of the chair away from the labeller for my files, and only a couple of steps from the contracts filing cabinet. Not only that, but I have discovered in the course of my work that this job does not just have a temporary significance, but because of the constant influx of contracts, it actually has an ongoing relevance, as I continue to update files and troubleshoot issues for the buyers.

In some ways, it would be a shame for CLS to lose me. I have been a do-it-all employee for them. I have acted as a purchasing clerk, a shipping & receiver, a buyer and now a contracts clerk. I have created a training program and developed a whole series of procedures for the clerks, and have constructed an entire contracts database system. As a buyer I built valuable relationships with both end users and vendors and modified a number of practices so that they became more efficient. Even though all this experience has often required abrupt periods of change and uprooting from previous positions, I am aware now, more than ever, just how valuable all of this is to my resume. I am really getting the full meal deal by working in this department - I am getting to know each of these positions in depth, and each of them have their own nuance that contributes to a more knowledgeable and efficient working out of my responsibilities. It has been a hard process adjusting to the change in work this semester, as I have been moving and undergoing other changes in my life, but now, as things are beginning to settle down, I am beginning to see value in the shift.

I've been living in my new place for a little over 2 months now. The whole senario has been a process of adjustment. Moving itself was not on my radar at the beginning of September, and really the circumstances came out of the blue. My first month of school was a whirlwind of stress, trying to get my first major assignments handed in while packing up all of my stuff while coordinating the movement from one place to another. Take my advice and don't move while you are in school. I was re-reading some of my livejournal entries below yesterday and they represented my level of stress really well. I was under so much of it that it was beginning to express itself physically in stomach aches.

So, what has living in my new place been like? I am sure you might be wondering (if journals really do wonder).

It took me a while to get used to the whole idea of living on my own. In fact, as much as I wanted and needed the space, at first I felt a little ambivalent about the whole situation. It was just so different to what I was accustomed to. It was so quiet..... there were no roomates around making noise or requiring that my presence be silent. There was no traffic noise to provide the constant hum which I've listened to all my life. The house felt empty, and I felt at lost at how to fill that emptiness. As time went on, however, I began to discover a world of opportunity open up to me in the silence. Suddenly now I have so much more permission to be myself and do what I want to do. I can make my own mess and not have to worry about cleaning it up. There is no apologizing or guilt required. When I clean up my mess, it is my own mess and I am not constantly picking up after someone else. Also, I'm disocvering more freedom to make more noise. My computer no longer needs to be the wall that I use to give myself mental alone time. In the past couple of months I have come to appreciate the ability to walk into the house and turn on the radio, to watch tv when I want to, to sit on the couch and crochet for a while and make a mess with my Christmas presents laid out over the floor. I have baked and cooked more than ever before, and it is a lot more fun now than whenever I did it at my old place and had to worry about the counter space I would be consuming and the mess that I would be making. There is more space for me too. For the first time in 4 years I am able to stretch out on my bedroom floor, if I wanted to. I can have something out of place in my bedroom without feeling like the whole balance has been placed out of order.

Probably the best thing about my new place is how warm it is. I have no control over the heat and it's a basement suite, so I wasn't expecting this. My old place, however, was perpetually cold, except in the summer when it turned into an oven. The floor was so cold I had to soak my feet in the bathroom sink regularly before bed and I always had to wear slippers. In this new place, however, I can take off my winter boots and feel the warmth seep back into my feet. I can walk around for hours without feeling the need to wear my slippers. Sometimes, in fact, it is a little too warm and I finally, desperately crack open a window, but generally I am quite content with the warmer temperature. As I said, it is a welcome change.

Not everything has been fun and games in the new place though. Because this is my first time living alone, I have come upon a whole new circumstances that have demanded a measure of adaptation on my part. One such circumstance has been my limited kitchen tools and appliances. THere is no power outlet in the kitchen except for the one that the fridge and my microwave is plugged into. As such, I have been boiling my kettle and using my Foreman grill in the general use living room area close to where my freezer is. I also didn't get all the gadgets I was expecting my parents to bring with them in my hope chest, such as my popcorn maker, my knife set and my toaster over. As such I have been doing all of my cutting with 4 little steak knive that I bought on a little tiny cutting board I once picked up in a garage sale. I didn't have any measuring cups for a while (I do now, thanks to a gift from a friend), so I was doing all of my measurements for baking purely by sight, using a clear coffee mug (I made quiche, apple quickbread, banana bread, cheeseburger pie and many other things using this method).

Naturally, without the proper kitchen tools, catastrophe has sometimes ensues. One such catastrophe was when I had no kettle but wanted a pot of tea. So I decided to boil my water on the stove using one of my brand new pots. Two hours later I realized the burning was still on high heat and all the water in the pot had long since evaporated. I turned off the heat and cringed for the next hour as the pot *pinged* and crackled as it cooled down. It hasn't been the same since. It burns everything it cooks, it has rust stains on the bottom and heat stains on the outside. I damaged a perfectly good brand new pot because I didn't have a kettle.

A worse situation happened with my attempts at making popcorn. I really wanted air-popped popcorn one night so I decided to try making it on the stove. I put the popcorn in a frying pan with a lid on it, turned the heat on and proceeded to watch a few kernels pop as the rest turned a dark black. When the first batch didn't work, I tried again on a lower heat. Still disaster. This has scarred my brand new frying pan for life with black marks on it that I cannot scrub off, even with a metal scrubby. Not to be deterred, however, I decided I could make the popcorn in the microwave. So I put it in a glass bowl, one of my two new ones from the second hand store, and put a plate over it and managed to get most of the kernels to pop. Unfortunately the kernels weren't the only ones to pop, when I took the bowl out of the microwave, it too had also cracked. In fact, it split in half and I had to throw it away. That was a bad day. I need to find my air popper.

So these are the tales of my house and home. It was really awkward at first to live alone, but as the months begin to pass by I find that I love it more and more. There are still bugs in the system though. Currently my internet is not working well and telus is being a nerd and not helping me with my problems. But, on a plus side, I got to decorate my house early for Christmas! I really want to start having more people over to my house; there are a lot of people who haven't seen it yet. I've already decided that this coming year I am going to do something more for my birthday than I normally would do. I usually don't promote it very much to other people. There is a reason for that.....but that is another story for another time.

I have returned. It has been over a month since I've last posted an entry. To those who use this journal as a way to keep up on my life, I am sorry for the absense. I simply haven't been able to post. Life has been too complicated. There has been too much to say and the few things that I needed to say needed to be said privately. So, while my livejournal has been silent, my real life journal has been receiving much input. I've reached a point now, however, where things have calmed down enough that I feel like I can actually come back here and talk about what has been going on in my life these past 4 months, the things that resulted in such stark online silence. It hasn't been just my livejournal that I have neglected. THere are still emails from a month ago waiting in my inbox that need to be replied to. I've barely been able to keep up with the bare minimum. I told a friend recently that I have a one track mind when it comes to responsibility. With that one track mind that focuses only on what needs to be done I have one escape, and it needs to be an escape that requires no input from me - like reading, or watching movies. Anything beyond those responsibilities and that one escape is too much for my mind to handle when it gets stressed and overloaded.

Stress is a good way to describe this semester, and for once I am not talking about the stress of schoolwork. School had its demanding moments, yes, but all in all it wasn't too bad. No, the real stress in my life came from life itself and its unexpected topsy-turvy unpredictable path that leads directly into chaos and out again. This was a semester in my life where everything changed: my house, my job, my church, and I am still reeling from the shock of it all. These changes brought back to memory the time that I moved to Calgary and how clearly God was in that. Although life was unpredictable around me, He still had His hands very much in directing that moment. So, too, has it been with this semester; He has had His hands in my life, stirring the pot, but I still cannot see the end product of what He is bringing about.

So, this email is to introduce an apologetic for my absense, although I probably should not need to explain myself on a journal. But I want to, because my goal this week is to write a series of entries that will explain and reflect on these abundant changes in my life. I feel ready to enter a new stage of processing the journey.

the following is an excerpt from an email I sent my sister...

I do not like snow. Or rather I like snow in its season, but only in its season (that is winter)! Unfortunately, as my friend pointed out, in Canada there are only 2 seasons. Winter and Construction. The sad thing is that this fact is sooooooo true! It had already snowed here in Calgary. Our first snowfall was the weekend after Mom and Dad helped me move. Dad put winter tires on my car at that time. I had protested because I couldn't foresee getting any snow in the near future. After all, just a couple weeks before Calgary had been boasting +26 degree weather! But...you would think I would be familiar with the unpredictability of Calgary weather by now after living here for 4 years. Snow in early October right after a bought of summer weather would not be uncharacteristic of this city of the great white northern plains. And thus, a week later I found myself extremely grateful to my parents, who know the weather of Calgary better than I do and had the foresight to put winter tires on my car.

You think roads are bad in BC when it snows. Sister, you have not seen the ploughing, or total lack of it, in Calgary upon a first snowfall. The first snow day this October was a day of over 350 accidents city wide that included 6+ car pile-ups. I set off in my car that morning to go to work and had to skip going up the hill that I normally go up, because it was blocked off with at least a couple different kinds of sirens. Going up the next hill I drove behind people who were going 20km. These people did not have enough momentum to get up the hill and it wasn't long before they started sliding off the side of the road. But, thanks to my super-duper winter tires I was able to keep going! As I continued up the hill I observed cars strewn over both sides of the road. I had to swerve between lanes to go between side-ways parked cars, until finally reaching the top - the sole victor on a road full of "I-wannabee-going-to-work-ers." Yes, that day I was definitely thankful for my tires.

I read in the news later that I mayor of Calgary took 90 minutes to travel 11 kms from work to his home and has thus finally decreed that Calgary's snow-ploughing system needs to be overhauled. Uh, no duh?

My main reservations about snow are two. First, it is cold and wet. My feet do not like cold and wet, no matter what kind of boots I am wearing. I bought new boots last year that I was really excited about, but was appalled to discover come snowfall that while they keep my legs really warm, they have absolutely no insulation for my feet!!!! My feet are so blueeeeee..... Furthermore the wet really matters when you have to trudge through ankle-deep puddles to get back and forth to school and work in your nice work clothes. Trying to wring out your pant legs and socks is no fun. (although this summer I had to do that too after being out in a rainstorm that even the ducks were hiding from).

My second reservation is that snow is white. Now, I have nothing against white. It is very nice to look at in its season. However, snow makes the whole world white (although I admit there are several different shades: pristine white, grey-white, dirty-white, yellow white [don't eat yellow snow]). As much as I can appreciate the colour white, it gets boring after a while if there is no other colour to see, and 6 months of the year is a really long time for the world to be monochromatic on the colour scale. I like colour. By the end of winter I really miss colour.

I think I’ve experienced too much confrontation recently. It’s happening almost daily and my body is beginning to predict it in my personal encounters. I didn’t realize it was so bad until yesterday when one of my close school companions asked to speak to me after class yesterday. I immediately felt the tensions in my body shift , an “oh no, what did I do now?” reaction. I tried to make myself relax but it was to no avail; I guess by then it had become a habit to prep for confrontation.

It was a confrontation, I guess if seen in some light, although one might have just passed it off for a casual discussion on the technical wording of my latest email sent to a group of people. In some ways I am glad we were able to discuss it without it really escalating to conflict, but at the same time I am also sad that my body’s fight or flight response was correct in predicting yet another dose of confrontation.

I think the event that exposed me to so much conflict was the process of moving. I have had a lot of conflict with my new landlord. I went to move my stuff into the house and found out that he hadn’t painted the bedroom like he said he was going to. His stuff was still in the living room too. So we covered up the gaping holes in the paint in the room with posters and moved his stuff for him into the storage room. There were a lot of unpleasant surprises that day. My dad spent a lot of time fixing things while he visited and I spent a lot of time texting back and forth with my landlord, which has turned me off of texting forever. Ugh, my body cringes just thinking about that terrible weekend.

Since then the continuing changes at work and church, the due assignments and major exams and ongoing process of settling into my new place has continued to keep me on edge. My body feels like a fully loaded spring that can’t do anything until it gets so tight that it explodes. I’m beginning to have stomach aches regularly, at least once for the past 3 days, and I’m wondering if the stress might be one reason why. Either that or I am not eating properly while under stress, which is also a probability.

This past weekend my D&D character DeeDee also experienced confrontation. She’s a lot like me, so she handled it in a similar way that I handle confrontations. First she ignored the situation, while being all too aware of it. Then, when physically confronted she tried to talk her way out of it, using her diplomacy skill. The conflict persisted despite these efforts, and it wasn’t too long before her aggressor had pushed too hard. That was when DeeDee blew up, and yelled at her opponent with equal aggression, verbally challenging her to a battle to the death. This challenge came despite the fact that DeeDee was a gnome bard: a vertically challenged music maker of peace who was half the height of her aggressor, a human paladin: a tall, fully armoured knight of the light who was immune to charms – the one thing that DeeDee could have used to win that battle. In truth, DeeDee probably didn’t have a hope of winning and she knew that. She made the fighting challenge fully expecting to die, but she was so annoyed and pissed off at the other character she didn’t care anymore. She just wanted to get the conflict over with and was too angry to care how that was accomplished.

I don’t think I am willing to face my giants in exactly the same manner DeeDee was. Fighting to the death is a little too extreme for me. But, all the same I can see parallels in her experiences and mine, and I hope that my issues with confrontation will be resolved before I explode like she did.

It has been almost one week without internet at home. I am suffering withdrawal. It is serious! I'm beginning to have trouble focusing on homework. I get nervous with the silence of the new home and my hands twitch. I lunge for the remote control at any chance I can get just to give some sort of sound and visual occupation for my senses, but it is to no avail. It only merely covers up the deeper longing that is inside: the longing to log on to the world wide web and engage in my favourite pastime.

This is no good. I am an addict.

The stress is making me feel sick. Is it over yet?

Hi Tim,

Attached is a spreadsheet of a number of issues I have been tracking since Dana’s visit in June. It will provide a comprehensive, although not complete, view of the sheer volume of errors I have had to deal with, as well as the lack of follow up that I have often experienced. This is of great concern to CLS as I will be returning to part-time hours in the fall to resume school and will be unable to keep up with these problems, should they continue to persist.

Thank you,
Danaya Kotyk

Calgary Lab Services
Purchasing Department

---

I haven't written much on this blog this summer about what a headache work has been.  Let's just say that at times it's bordered on nightmarish.  One of our main suppliers centralized their system back in April, which left us in the purchasing department treading water with only one extremely overworked, undertrained rep to help us.  When you consider that CLS does 20% of the purchase orders for the Calgary Health Region, this was not good news.  Day after day for months I have been trying to sort out the tangled web of errors that cropped up with each new order.  They have continued to pile up and pile up, until the point that I am not even receiving replies for most of the issues I am trying to deal with.  As a result of this stress, I have been generally pretty cranky at work all summer long.  Yesterday, after receiving 14 emails in my inbox about billing errors within an hour, however, I finally had enough.  I scrounged together enough time to build a spreadsheet based on the volume of emails I had been collecting for such an occassion and sent it to a higher-ranked employee of our supplier.

He has gotten back to me within hours of receiving the email that I posted above.  All the billing issues will be fixed by tomorrow with non-stock adjusting credits.  Some of these I have been trying to get actioned for months.  He is arranging pickup of all the misshipments that have happened over the past months that I have been waiting for all this time for people to action.  And - here is my happy news - he is soon going to be my one stop shop for all errors made by the company!!!!  You have no idea how excited this makes me!  This guy knows what he's doing; he knows how to fix my problems and he's the type to go nip the problem at its source rather than beating around the bush.  My work life might just improve by the time summer is up!!!!

WOOHOO!

When I woke up this morning I was stabbing a dwarf-sized minotaur to death with a needle and some ribbon, after I had kicked him to the ground with the help of some of my kickboxing moves that were improperly executed. My immediate conclusion after I realized that this was all a dream was that a) this was a rather morbid dream to have b) I should have been given a better weapon than a needle if I was going to be fighting a minotaur and c) I need to cut back on the video games.

On that note, it should also be noted that I woke up this morning in a rather foul mode, if my dream was any indication. Last night I played a MMORPG game with my group of D&D friends who had conned me into joining them online. Since the beginning of the year they had wanted me to be part of a dedicated group with them and I had run out of excuses. So weeks ago I went through the 3 hour download so I could join the thing. My conclusion? I guess I like the game well enough, although my internet connection can’t keep up with it and my video card spazzes out periodically. I don’t know if I like playing with them though. For half of the game I am stuck just running behind them trying to keep up since they all have every dungeon memorized. For the other half, I’m constantly turning the wrong corner, opening the wrong chest, fighting the wrong guy, or walking off the wrong ledge to fall to my near-death dozens of feet below because my screen keeps spacing out. It’s really frustrating and I’m beginning to realize that my version of “fun” in a video game is different than their versions of “fun”. As a new player I want to go slowly and savour the quests, explore and figure things out on my own (or at least be valuable to the process of figuring things out), and embrace the story that we’re supposed to be acting out. As veteran players all they want to do is blast through all the lowbie stuff so they can get to the good loot in the higher levels. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just do everything on one of my other characters all solo, but this is a game that sort of requires group work, and I suspect that most other groups I join will be exactly like these people. This is why I have always avoided massive multiplayer online games, and the reason why I still want to avoid them.

Where’s another minotaur? I need to go stab him with my needle.

Purple Elephants Fly At Midnight

Purple elephants fly at midnight
Which might seem weird
But that reminds me of a story
Where an unsuspecting quadrilant
Grew a beard
Quadrilants are purple too
Which I bet you didn’t know
But what they are is irrelevant
For the title of this poem

.................................

As I told my friend, I think this is a one hit wonder. In fact, I think I should publish. This way everyone, including myself, can wonder at our collective lack of knowledge regarding quadrilants.

No one else has written a poem called Purple Elephants Fly at Midnight, right? *concerned*

So I’ve discovered that journaling really is a habit, and it is a habit that I’m not in. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say – oh no! Quite the opposite in fact. Contrary to other summers, this one is actually turning out to be fun! There have been no car accidents, no two jobs-no life, no driving out to Cochrane everyday to freeze to death and then coming home to boil to death, no 2-month long stretch of pink eye, and no daily chronic headaches and fatigue from plummeting eyesight quality. Instead of trying to force myself to study the socio-political economy of Canada, I decided to not put much requirements on myself other than to enjoy my summer, and spend a little less time off of the computer than last year (got to preserve that eyesight).

Now I have so many wonderful things that I’m enjoying doing I don’t have time to enjoy them all!

For example, funny thing, as soon as I scrapped the reading list I started reading more. Some of my reading ( highlights: )

Now, here's something I’ve been doing a lot of it this summer: ( gaming )

I keep thinking ahead to school. Every time I do my stomach tightens with a negative sense of anticipation. I do not look forward to the stress of the approaching school year. You would think that after almost 3 months of wonderful summer holidays I would be recovered, but I’m not. Not in the slightest. I remember the absolute exhaustion of my last March & April – the complete utter lack of energy and motivation and the extended midday naps. I probably took more naps in that one month than I have in the last 15 years of my life. I was beyond scraping the bottom of the barrel. I was required to keep on giving when I had nothing left to give: not only during the rush of final papers and exams at school, but also doing year end at work. It drained me, and that memory of drainage is not a pleasant one that I want to return to, and yet I know that this is what awaits me this next school year. My classes for the first semester are going to be History of Christian Theology, History of Christianity I, Intermediate Greek and Spiritual Direction. I’m hoping that the excitement of learning history, the rhythm of studying Greek and the familiar ground of Spiritual Direction will carry me through another action packed semester.

On the positive side, school does not start for another month and ½, which leaves a lot more time for recovery. I’m just doing my typical stupid thing of analyzing too far into the future. There is still a lot of summer vacation to enjoy.

So far this summer I’ve blogged about our amazing trip to Cuba in May, which incorporated a lot of firsts for me. I also undertook another first at the end of June, just recently. I went on a pilgrimage, of sorts. Scheduling off the Monday and Tuesday of the Canada Day weekend, I made arrangements to go home, not for the express purpose of vacation and visiting my family (although that certainly was part of it), but more particularly for an immersion into the Holy Places of my life. I decided that I would make plans every day to visit a place that has significance to my spirituality within my hometown, as well as a few particular people who I felt that I needed to visit. I should really write an entry on here describing my journey, because although not much happened it was profound on so many levels. The immersion into the landscape of my childhood was like water to a parched soul, and I enjoyed my time so much that I think I’m going to use that encounter as a template for future visits I plan for home.

I’ll have a chance to test out my new resolve when I visit my parents at the lake for a week at the beginning of August. Instead of going home at that time, I travel out past Nelson so a spot on Kootenay lake where my parents have set up their trailer. This year plans that are flitting around in my mind are: an excursion to Kokannee creek where the salmon run, a hike up Kokannee glacier, huckleberry picking in the mountains, kayaking and power-boating on the lake, perhaps an excursion to Cody Caves, and the Glass House across the ferry has been recommended to me recently as well. A friend is making plans to join me on my trip so I’m really looking forward to sharing this experience of landscape with her. Other highlights will include Saturday night community poker, duck racing down the creek, lots of sunshine soaking time, and my dad’s 50th birthday at the end of the week. It’s going to be an awesome trip! I hope it’s sunny.

Before I head out to B.C. in August however, my sister will be visiting first. She’s going to be here for a couple of weeks starting this Saturday, in the style of a tradition that we started a couple of years back. I really hope we have fun, because my life is full of activity right now. I’m going to continue to work full time over her visit, and I have other commitments as well: such as worship practice, D&D night and other friend hang-out events. I hope she doesn’t mind moving to the pace of my life some nights, but I don’t think it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. My sister is just as much of a dork as me and she will have no problem keeping herself entertained, especially with all of the gaming stuff I own that she doesn’t have in BC Both of us are reluctantly under orders, however, by my mother, to go shopping for some clothing for my sister. Never before would you find such an apathetic pair of sisters to the prospect of shopping. Out of all the activities I’ve thought of for her visit, this one sounds the most like work.

Okay, one last report about my summer and then I shall sign off. Last Friday I went for the dreaded *gasp* eye appointment. This is something that I’ve been anticipating since meeting with the eye doctor last year. My eyesight jumped so drastically last year that she said that something needed to happen or it would start affecting my health (it already was with the constant headaches). She recommended contacts, but after struggling for 3 months with the contraptions, I came to the conclusion that contacts were not for me. Even after we found a pair that didn’t give me vertigo and that I could seemingly see clearly out of, my brain still wasn’t able to convert the images into anything useful. I remember looking at a sheet of music at worship practice and not being able to read the words even though I could see them. It was a frightening experience. So I scrapped the contacts and decided just to make do with taking better care of my eyes. I ordered a $200 screen for my computer at work, I took more walks and more naps over the past year. This combined with my resolution to spend less time on the computer than last year seems to have paid off. When I went to visit the eye doctor last Friday there was only a small change in my vision and quote: “my focusing is a whole lot better than last year.” I didn’t even need to change prescriptions! Now if this is sustainable, maybe one day I can go for eye surgery and scrap these glasses altogether, hehe.

Found this because of the news tonight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo. It's about a musician who had United Airlines smash his guitar and refuse to pay compensation.  Sowhat did he do?  He wrote a song about it, and promised the airline that he would write 2 more as well!  I have to say that the sheer artistry of this song makes me proud to be Canadian. And, actually, after listening to some of Dave Carroll's other music, I think I found another favourite musician.
 
 

I'm going for a pilgrimage this weekend: a spiritual pilgrimage, planned by yours truly. It's weird to use this terminology, because from an outside view it's just a regular vacation since I'm going back to Fruitvale, B.C., my hometown. However, once I get there my plan is not to veg with my family or to hang with friends, although I will try to fit in a bit of both; rather, my goal is to have a bit of soul time. Could there be a more abstract concept? During the school year, though, I thought that I'm always putting so much out that it would be good this summer to take some time to truly reflect. Thus, while I'm back home, I will be visiting places that have significance to me spiritually. Ironically enough, they're all outdoors. I want to go to Gyro Park, Mazzochi Park, Champion Lakes, Beaver Falls, and maybe Beaver Mountain if I have the time. In those places I want to take pictures and journal a bunch. I also plan to visit my Grandma and Nana, who I didn't get to see much of over Christmas because of my bout with Norwalk, and Josh - who I have to thank for teaching me to drive standard.

I really miss Josh's sense of humour lately. Actually, I just miss being around people with my sense of humour period, or a sense of humour that really complements my own. At least I get a bit of it at D&D. There's a guy there who makes really terrible puns (he's a pun machine), whom I can joke a bit with. Sometimes though, I feel like the lack of opportunity to break loose into my crazy self is killing me. I really feel much more alive and in tune with who I am when my sense of humour gets turned on full force. At least I can still make my roomates laugh...but....

Highlights of Cuba Vacation continued, as promised!

Our time in Cuba wasn’t all spent on the beach and we were very careful not to get too much sunlight. Actually, according to my boss and a friend, I’m not “tanned enough.” One Cuban tour guide said to us that you can tell who’s a tourist and who’s a Cuban in Cuba by one simple fact: all the Cubans sit in the shade, and all the tourists stand (or sit) in the sun. That was probably a very apt observation.

Our itinerary went as follows:

Saturday: fly to Cuba, get there in the evening and unpack
Sunday: orientation and beach!
Monday: shopping in Varadero
Tuesday: Colonial Havana excursion
Wednesday: Beach during the day, dinner at French Restaurant & Tropicana Show excursion in the evening
Thursday: Beach! Dinner at Cuban restaurant
Friday: Jeep Safari excursion
Saturday: Pack and check out in the morning, last chance for shopping in Varadero in the afternoon, beach/dinner/departure in the evening

Shopping in Varadero, at least the first time we went, was a bit of an experience in torture for me. I had yet to completely adjust to the climate and standing on my feet for long periods of time is something that I simply don’t do in my line of work. After a couple of hours in the flea market I was hot, grouchy, sore and ready to fall over at any minute. I apologize, friends who were with me at the time. On the bright side however, I did buy most of my souvenirs on that day, and to get to Varadero we had the opportunity to ride on the top of a double-decker bus with the wind in our hair, gazing out at the Cuban countryside and coast.

My favorite moments of the trip had to have been those when we actually were able to meet and bond with other tourists, particularly those from Canada (and there were a lot from Canada!). For example, on the first day shopping in Varadero, on our return trip home, we discovered that we had gotten off at the wrong stop, just as it was beginning to downpour. To add spice to our adventure, and to give comfort that we were not alone in our assumptions, we had not been the only ones to mistake this stop as the Sirenis La Salina. Two other young ladies from our hotel had also gotten off at this stop. Thus began our mutual adventure of exploring the Cuban countryside and relocating our hotel – which couldn’t be too far away, right? Although we started walking the wrong way, a prudent request for directions soon put us back on track. A taxi cab hounded us, offering a ride for a peso each, but we kept doggedly trucking through the rain. And, even though it was raining out, and the other ladies had a dinner engagement soon, and I had just come from a long day shopping in the flea market, I found myself enjoying the walk very much. The rain cooled things down, but it was still warm enough out that being drenched was not a big deal. In fact, it was kind of pleasant. The conversation with the other lost ladies was also nice, since they were from Vancouver and we had a lot in common – such as originally planning on going to Mexico and ending up in Cuba instead.

A similar sense of camaraderie was discovered the next day as we departed for Colonial Havana excursion. We ended up in a van with a young boyfriend & girlfriend from Vancouver, a middle-aged Swedish couple from Toronto and a young husband & wife from Montreal. Our guide was a boisterous Cuban lady who proceeded to give us the low down on Cuba, including history, her own personal opinion of current circumstances, and answering our questions throughout the 2 hour van ride. We toured all over Havana that day, taking pictures and chatting with the other tourists that we were traveling with. My favourite part of the day, however, was when we entered a small Cuban restaurant to have lunch. They sat the 9 tourists at a table together and we proceeded to enjoy each other’s company over the course of the hour. It was really a heartwarming experience to see how complete strangers could bond so easily together. We chatted about all manner of things, such as school back in Canada or the dining conditions at our resorts. By the end of the day I felt like I had mad a bunch of new friends from all across Canada, although I couldn’t even really remember their names! Later that week, when we traveled back to the airport, we ended up in line right next to the young couple from Vancouver and proceeded to pass time in conversation with them and another young married couple from another resort, as though we had not really just met each other. Maybe it was just the Cuban experience rubbing off of us, but I’m so happy I was able to go on this trip, if it was just to experience this camaraderie with complete strangers once again. I really miss this sort of experience that I would get when going to Street Invaders, LifeForce, or starting out in a new place.

Well, I have to admit, it’s now been long enough since our trip to Cuba (one month a friend pointed out to me the other day!), that I really have run out of things to say. I really have only one more memory that I’d like to share, that this is the one that I’ve been telling everyone.

We signed up with our Air Canada rep to go on the jeep excursion on Friday. “Okay,” he said after the transaction was complete, “remember to bring your driver’s licenses.” What?! We were driving?! That information came so quickly right at the end that we didn’t even really have a chance to react it wasn’t until later that the thought came to us…what if we are driving a standard? Now, a few notes about this situation: we couldn’t cancel without incurring a 50% penalty. However, on the other hand, none of us 3 girls really had any experience driving a standard. I was the only one with standard driving experience and that had been once, two years ago in the summer where Josh sat me down for a couple of hours to go over the basics (stopping, starting, 3 point turns, and reverse). With this dreadful information in mind, we decided to cross our fingers and hope to high heavens that it wasn’t a standard that we were going to drive.

It was. And thus I was nominated to be the chauffeur to shuttle our small group around in the caravan. It was a memorable experience. I apologized in advance to my girlfriends over my future stalling and proceeded to drive not only the Cuban countryside, but also the Cuban highways, freeways and cities. There where a few times where I thought we were going to die. There were a few time where I thought we were going to get lost. There were a couple times when I doubted my ability to actually park and start the vehicle. However, there were also times on that journey, gleaming moments when I truly impressed myself as Josh’s impeccable teaching came back to me with full recollection and I found myself succeeding at the tasks set before me.

In the end, I was really glad we had taken that trip. We were able to go snorkeling (first time for me!), riverboating (so incredibly relaxing), eating a picnic beside the river (didn’t know that mangos look like potatoes when the fall fresh off the tree, haha), sampling fresh fruit at a local farm (there was one that I tried that looked like a dried up pea but tasted like sour candy!), and swimming in an underground cave (best swimming experience EVER!). In the end I thought that the jeep safari excursion was a good balance to our Havana excursion, one giving us a taste of the Cuban city, and the other a taste of the Cuban countryside.

So that’s all I have for memories for now. It was an enjoyable vacation, and hopefully we’ll be able to do Mexico one day in the future!

I made bread by hand for the first time by myself yesterday! Pounded and punched it by hand and everything! And I made vegetable soup stock. It's purple. Must have been the purple cabbage and onion I put into it. Does anyone here like purple soup? I bet its really healthy - antioxidants and all that jazz. I was also able to make cinnamon buns with the bread dough I made. I brought them to Dungeons and Dragons and got an extra 1850 experience points to help me level up! (Also brought a loaf of fresh bread, and lemon chocolate cookies and coconut bread from cuba, and a gift of a carved turtle for the Dungeon Master, when I didn't know he actually collected turtles. Apparently the Rose-design dice box I gave to the other girl who plays D&D was a good choice too because she loves roses to the point of decorating her room in a Rose motif. What do you know? I was batting 1000 yesterday.)

Speaking of D&D I got home at 4am yesterday. And then went to church this morning. I am very tired. But not at tired as another member of our group who actually had to start working at 4am. I felt so sorry for him; he was falling asleep in his chair, but apparently no sleep is a normal thing for him. I asked him how he managed to stay alive.

Tomorrow I have to work and I'm cringing at the idea. I hate work. I've reached that point in my year where I curse the thought of working full-time. My co-worker and friend says it happens to everyone around summer. When I work full time I become so aware that my time is not my own and that over 1/3 of my day I put effort into something that really doesn't concern or effect me at all except to pay the bills.

Have you figured out yet that I am a closet pessimist?

My roomate laughed when I told her this, but I didn't take long for her to realize it was true, because no matter how much I may try to look on the bright side of things, my practical closet pessimism always seeps to a sarcastic surface. Sarcasm also runs deep in my D&D character and last night I had everyone in stitches over some of DeeDee's comments, such as the below:

"Do you know what time the guild hall is open too?" Diesa asks me (DeeDee)
"No, but I know a good way to find out. It's call ask someone."