PYJ

Africa!!

2007-06-29T10:30:00.001-07:00

I'm planning to start posting again to record some of my experiences traveling in Africa and England this summer. I'm hoping that my feed to facebook will work, but if it doesn't, please stop by from time to time for updates if you're interested.

I'm very excited for the trip, but it's very hard to know if I'm prepared enough. We have pretty tight weight restrictions for checked baggage and carry-ons. It really helps that Daniel is willing to take the kitchen sink along in his carry-on luggage, so I'm free to pack a few more luxuries (like more than 2 pairs of shoes, and an extra sweater or two). It snowed in Cape Town this week! I'm glad I packed a toque.

Anyway, I'll try to post a few adventures along the way, but I'm hoping they aren't TOO exciting (e.g., encounters with large carnivorous animals). Love to all family and friends, and hope you have a great summer.

Some advice

2007-04-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

In my new job, I've had to participate in a number of conferences with educators and parents. It's been fine so far, but boy, was I ever grateful to come upon this highly-nuanced list of Dos and Don'ts related to body language in business settings.

A few highlights:

18. When you pinch the bridge of your nose with your eyes closed, you'll come across in a negative manner.
(You think? I am refraining from giving a specific example of someone who would actually benefit from this one.)

17. Don't rub your eyes with your hands: it signals disbelief at the situation.
(I'm a bit disappointed about this one - I had been using it a lot.)

13. Don’t blink excessively. People will be distracted and wonder if there's something wrong with you.
(This one's for Daniel, not that he reads my blog. Someone tell him.)

71. Don’t shake your fists at someone, as it is extremely aggressive.
(Wha. . ?)

72. Clenched fists raised in the air will indicate that you’re overjoyed or thrilled. Avoid doing this when situations call for restraint.
(If you say so. I saw the principal of a school do this just the other day.)

I hope that the complete list will help to increase your success in business and social interactions. Happy reading.

The writing on the wall

2007-04-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

Some background: Daniel and I bought our house from a couple, Tom and Christine, who were in the midst of a divorce. Things appeared to be amicable, but there was certainly some tension between Tom and Christine when we viewed the house before deciding to buy.

Tonight I got a bit "rippy", and started tearing off the old wallpaper in our bedroom. I also pried off the chair rail, to get better access for wallpaper tearing purposes. Under the first piece I removed, I found written in blue crayon, "Tom loves Christine".

Daniel pried off a few more pieces, and on the opposite wall he found, "Christine loves Tom".

Sweet or sad? What do you think? The house sure has a bit of history. I'm glad that walls can't talk. I'm not sure how many more messages I want to find as we tear things up.

*names have been changed, of course, to protect the lovelorn.

Snapshot

2007-03-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

I walked into a grade one classroom to get a student for speech evaluation recently, and the whole class was crowded around a cage to look at a bunny someone had brought in. The scene was a bit chaotic. Before I could find the student I was looking for, a little boy with ridiculously messy hair came up and demanded to know who I was.

"I'm Mrs. Atkins," I said.

"No you're not!" he accused as he marched away and began swinging from the coat rack.

"You're Mrs. Nobody!"

I'm having days like this quite often lately.

Now I've truly arrived.

2007-01-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

Jena, I finally tried one of those poppy-seed buns from the Maple Leaf bakery. You're right - they are amazing! Way to go, Moose Jaw.

A little explanation. . .

2007-01-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

No, I have not been posting pictures of my new home. But I have been house shopping in Moose Jaw, and this is one little house that I like quite a bit. The problem is that my husband is currently in Fort Nelson, B.C., and at the moment blogger is the only way I can show him the huge pictures I've taken.

Feel free to offer opinions. . . this house is listed on MLS, so you too can check it out and weigh in.

I meant to post sooner about being back in my hometown. It's been a bit strange so far, mostly because I don't have a husband at the moment, and I feel like a sullen teenager living in a basement bedroom with my stereo and my melancholy to keep me company.

Okay, it's not that bad. . . I do have LOTS of family here, and a friend or two. But I haven't made it to the Maple Leaf bakery for delicious poppy-seed items yet, so I don't think I'm fully living the dream here yet.

2007-01-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

2007-01-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

2007-01-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

2007-01-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

Things to enjoy in Moose Jaw

2006-12-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

I said I'd make a list of things I'll get to enjoy in Moose Jaw, so here goes. Be careful, reader, or you too may wish to join me in the friendly city.

1. My family (immediate family as well as many aunts, uncles, cousins, and nieces and nephews)
2. The spa
3. A running club!
4. A casino for my gambling needs.
5. Concerts at the Cultural Centre
6. Exciting tourist attractions!
7. Affordable homes.

People, I'm sure that this list will get longer and longer. I'm certain of it.

When are you coming to visit?

Please, please visit.

Please.

Already?

2006-12-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

I'm finished. As of Wednesday, I have completed all the requirements for my degree.

As I rode the bus home from my placement for the last time, instead of relief, I actually felt a wave of emotion (sadness? anxiety?) as I realized that no obstacle stands between me and my move to Saskatchewan. No obstacle but time, that is (the month of December, to be specific).

So now I have a month left in E-town, and a long list of things to do/experience/enjoy. There are people to spend time with, restaurants to eat in, and massive malls to shop in before I go.

Yesterday, I celebrated my accomplishment by buying CDs that will let me wallow in nostalgia once I've moved. Mmm. Nostalgia. I like to prepare for future emotional experiences. Let's be honest. Transitions aren't easy, and it pays to have a soundtrack for any pillow-hugging episodes that are bound to occur.

Next on my to-do list: actually think about the good things about my upcoming move. More on that later.

I like. . .

2006-10-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

Postsecret. Every Sunday, new secrets sent in by readers are posted. Today, I enjoyed this one.

Youtube. It's great for looking up new tv and music clips, as well as dredging up some painful ones for a bit of nostalgia. Today, Daniel and I looked up the hard-rocking Christian music that we used to listen to when we were kids, and we found this. We also looked up Keith Green, who I still listen to from time to time. This one made me squirm in my seat a little bit, but I guess that's the point.

The first clip is the group Petra, whose cassette I bought shortly after returning from summer camp in 1989, where I had learned to style my hair in the fashion of the day:

(Not an actual photo of me. She has achieved bang-volume that I could only have wished for, and I didn't figure out the magic of a spiral perm until grade 5.)

As you can imagine, when I returned to school that fall I was one of the best-coiffed girls in Mrs. Pedersen's grade 4 class. To further increase my coolness, when an airband contest was held that year, I tried to convince some of the guys in my class to perform a Petra song with me. Somehow it didn't happen.

Excuses, excuses

2006-10-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Reasons I haven't blogged in the last month:

I am not procrastinating. . . because I have no responsibilities!! My exams are finished, my research project is complete, and life is SOOOO GOOOOD! That is to say, I'm not sitting around every evening staring at an endless Word doc with the tempting tempting internet beckoning me to blog.

I am in the middle of a clinical placement right now, and I can't tell any interesting stories about the amazing people I get to work with, because of patient confidentiality.

I have re-discovered some hobbies that I had given up during grad school - reading and domesticity in general. I BAKE things - muffins, zucchini bread, cookies. It's very exciting. This basement apartment is putting me into nesting and hibernating mode, not blogging mode, sadly.

*digression*

So what have I been reading, you ask? I have been reading some fiction and some non-fiction, including:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Barmaid's Brain by Jay Ingram (quirky science-lite non-fiction)
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright (and to help me straddle the gulf between that and my fundamentalist upbringing, I switch back and forth between that and the next book)
Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe

That's about it. That's what I've been up to, and I hope that I'll be inspired to write more in the near future. Right now the interweb has been filling my evenings with pictures of cute bunnehs and celebrity gossip. And it has been good.

In transit

2006-08-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

We're in the midst of moving to our tiny apartment, and I don't know if we'll have internet access there right away. . . so I thought I'd put up a quick entry (before Daniel comes home and finds me avoiding the packing I should be doing right now!). I've been inspired by a friend's photo blog, so I think I'll keep the typing to a minimum and just post some pictures:

Daniel rocking out at a friend's Karaoke night; Me caught in the act of writing with the notorious lefty "hook hand", which I swore I didn't use, and wouldn't have believed without this photographic evidence

I recently met up with my dear old friend Anna for dinner - we see each other once every 4 years or so, so it was good to get together. I also got to meet her very sweet boyfriend, Will. Anna is hott.

Oh, the adventures of moving with Daniel. Point and laugh all you like - he really doesn't care.

That's all I've got. I really need to go and scrub the grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush now. Are you jealous? Thought so.

Voices

2006-08-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

You know the scene in “Billy Elliott” where Billy opens the fridge and starts chugging from the milk bottle, and suddenly his deceased mother is there with him in the kitchen saying, “Now Billy, what have I told you about drinking straight from the bottle?” and then reminds him to put the milk back in the fridge when he’s done?

Well, here at work, I just had that moment, except it was my Grandpa’s voice.

I slammed the tray of the printer shut, and heard him say with a wince, “Oooh, you’re going to break it if you keep closing it like that!” If Grandpa were really here, a short and very predictable lecture about the fragility of the latching mechanism would follow.

The nice thing about my moment, unlike Billy’s, is that my Grandpa is still alive (*insert preferred superstitious gesture here*), and I can give him a call later to tell him I was thinking of him. Or, alternatively, that his many years of gentle nagging have achieved their intended impression on me (except for the part where I slammed anything in the first place) and I can’t get his voice out of my brain.

A funny little story about my grandparents is that shortly after they met, my grandpa witnessed my grandmother unplugging her iron by PULLING ON THE CORD. My grandpa asked, “Is that how you always unplug the iron?” Again, presumably, a lecture followed. When I was a teenager, I sarcastically suggested that Grandpa could save his breath by numbering his lectures and saying "Lecture 62", for example, rather than having to tell me exactly why I should never wear my shoes in the house and what sort of filth they may have picked up on the sidewalk and what types of illness those bacteria might cause.

To counter my grandpa’s “fussiness”, my grandmother has maintained her general indignance and outright disgust that he insists on enjoying peanut butter on toast and taking naps after meals. Their daily script of mutual annoyance and affection has been perfected by 55 years of married life.

I love my grandpa very much. How could you not love a man who has reasoned that there is an appropriate direction in which twist-ties ought to be twisted, along with a particular number of twisty-rotations that ought to be executed to ensure sufficient closure as well as ease of re-opening? I will be hearing his voice in my head for the rest of my life.

Basement apartment

2006-08-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

One of the girls I've met at my summer job says that I look like Sarah Harmer. I don't know about that, but I do know that I will be singing "Basement Apartment" once again this fall.

I posted a while back about our past basement apartment experiences. The search for this one was interesting - because it's that back-to-school time of year, apartments were being rented the same day that the ads were appearing online. It was getting a bit frantic, and I was getting ready to settle for anything we could get.

When I called about one of the ads, the person said that the upstairs tenants would be doing their laundry in our kitchen. Um, no thanks. Another apartment was hideously ugly, had only 2 tiny windows and one entrance, and all I could think was that I was going to die in a fire.

The apartment we finally rented is small but very clean and bright, with windows that we can escape from easily in case of fire (okay, so I'm a bit paranoid), and a garage where we can store a housefull's worth of belongings. It's also on a beautiful tree-lined street. So it won't be SO bad. But still a little bit bad.

I guess if anything is going to make me look forward to moving to Moose Jaw, it will be living underground for 4 months. I'll be longing for the 'land of open skies' by mid-September.

Skinnamarink

2006-08-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

I attended a "Voice Care Symposium" in Banff last week. It was fantastic, with speakers ranging from surgeons discussing the molecular structure of vocal folds to wacky Los Angeles "Sing Like the Stars"-type voice coaches to. . . . BRAM from Sharon, Lois, and Bram.

If you're not Canadian, or over 20-or-so years old, this may not interest you, but for me it was one of the major highlights of the whole event! Bram was presenting at this symposium to offer the perspective of a singer who has significant hearing loss - he is completely deaf in one ear, because of an acoustic neuroma, and wears a BAHA (bone-anchored hearing aid). Because we had been sitting through 3 full days of somewhat dry lectures at that point, he brought out his guitar and had a sing-along with the audience. It was awesome, and he was very entertaining. I didn't realize how likeable and funny he is.

I learned a lot at the conference, particularly that it's very nice to sing "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly" with a room full of otolaryngologists, opera singers, and speech pathologists.

Radical!

2006-07-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I promised that I would write some stories about when I was young. Now, instead, I've come across a story I wrote when I was young, which really speaks for itself.

When I was in grade 4, I wrote a "novel" as part of a school assignment. I was reading a lot of "Sweet Valley High" at the time, and I think you can really see its influence in my work. If you need a more contemporary reference, my writing also evokes "Teen Girl Squad," by Strongbad.

A little background - the year is 1988, the main character is a 16-year-old girl named Naomi Gibson, and she has a boyfriend named Chris Wild. It's the end of the school year, and Naomi and her friends are celebrating when tragedy strikes! It's a real nail-biter.

Here are some excerpts:

"Naomi! Wake up!"

It was my mother, calling me for shcool.

"Naomi! Get yourself downstairs!"

"Coming, coming!" I yelled back. It was Monday morning. (Blech!) At 7:30 AM, it was amazing that my mother was up!

I guess I should tell you something about myself. I am not all that pretty, but I must admit, I am quite pretty. My hair is long, brown, and wavy. I love my hair. Also, my eyes are blue. Actually, I am quite tall. 5 foot 6 inches exactly. I am 16 years old and in grade 11. It is the last week of school and I am very excited. I have a real cute boyfriend, Chris Wild. He's 17 but still in grade 11.

"Naomi!"

I hustled into my hot-pink tank-top and shorts and burned downstairs. My cereal was on the table.

"Darn it! I forgot my hot-pink flamingo earrings upstairs!"

I started to get up.

"Don't you dare!" said Mom. "You keep eating and I'll get them!"

Brring! Brring! It was the phone!

"Coming!"

"Hello?"

"Hi Naomi!"

"Oh, hi Debbie! What do you want?"

"Oh, just to say that I'm coming to get you in half an hour."

"In the Corvette?"

"Yup!"

"Radical!"

. . . .

Brrring! Friday morning! The first thing I thought of was my boyfriend Chris. (sigh) I hopped out of bed.

"Today is the last day of school!" I thought.

I put on a blue high-cut tank top and mini-skirt. I did my hair up in a french braid. Also, I put on some dangly blue earrings and light blue eyeshadow. I looked okay!

. . . .

I grabbed my bag and ran outside. Debbie had a light-pink shirt and mini-skirt on.

"Hi!" she exclaimed.

"Hi!" I said. "After we pass, how about going with Chris and Ronnie to the movies, then going somewhere else to celebrate?" I suggested.

"Okay!" she replied.

. . . .

When we got to class, Mrs. Reesor went to the front of the room and said, "Okay, class, we are going to give out report cards now."

An excited little buzz went through the classroom.

"Also, I want to say that if you do not pass, it does not mean you are dumb, only that you don't learn as fast as others and you need a bit more work in some subjects."

. . . .

There's so much more. I am deeply ashamed, and extremely amused, all at once.

Receptionist

2006-07-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

I am a receptionist. Just the thing for a person who almost has a masters degree in their little fist. I spend the day in front of a computer, answering phones in my fake phone voice*, filing this and copying that.

There's a certain luxury in a 9 to 5 job that isn't even remotely related to my near-future profession. I don't have to stress out, because if things aren't done at the end of the day, I'm still out of there like a shot. People just tell me what to do and I do it.

(Wait for my post next week when I tell you that I'm sick of being told what to do and can't stop stressing out about filing papers and answering phones.)

*seriously, what's up with the fake phone voice? I can't suppress it. I can't pretend I'm talking to a good friend and speak like a normal person. I'm all, "I'm so smooth and quiet and good- afternoon-would-you-like-me-to-transfer-you-to-her-voice-mail?" and it's a little bit creepy.

How you say. . . ?

2006-07-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm writing! I'm actually writing the discussion for my research project!

Well, now I'm not, because I've taken this totally undeserved blog break because I'm momentarily stumped.

There's a word that's on the tip of my tongue, and I can't think of it. It's like 'boiled down' but it's more impressive -- it's a word for describing when a whole lot of ideas have been condensed into a smaller number of concise points.

not percolated
not congealed
not dissolved

Those words don't even mean the same thing, but they keep coming up in my mental rolodex of multisyllabic words related to food/science.

If I had studied chemistry, I think that it would come to me more easily. (Effie, help me out here). Any ideas?

Subterranean dreamin'

2006-07-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

It's time to complain about the weather.

It's hot. Sooooooo hot. I am lazy and useless and now I finally have an excuse. This is why I don't have the energy to do my laundry/dishes/school work/other miscellaneous chores.

We live in a house with many large south-facing windows, and we have no air-conditioning. My lovely plants are getting singed in the sun. The windows are a good thing for about 10 months of the cold Alberta year, but today, they are making me feel like Sam McGee, except that I don't WANT to stay in the fiery furnace.

Only moments ago, I felt nostalgic for the days when we lived in a cool, cool tiny-windowed basement apartment. The nostalgia passed quickly, when I thought about how the old lady upstairs used to come into my apartment each day and rummage through a drawer to find a clean dishcloth, or leave notes about how many lights were on or how I should clean things or how to load the washing machine. And how she lectured me oh-so-shrilly about how the door must be double-locked at all times in case of intruders. Yes, the nostalgia passed quickly.

It's good to remember these things, because husband and I are currently looking for a tiny basement apartment in which to eke out an impoverished existence for the remainder of our stay in Edmonton. If we come across one where older folks will need to do their daily laundry in my kitchen, I will not take it, no matter how windowless and cool it may be. It's important to learn from past experience.

Um, yay?

2006-06-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

I got a job. In Moose Jaw.

I'm still processing this.

Heavenly

2006-06-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

I've been kicking myself that I didn't bring a camera along when I went out for dinner last night. I want to show you the food that I love SOOOO much. But now I can't. Please imagine spicy and delicious cajun food - blackened shrimp and scallops, fried oysters and (drum roll) - SWEET POTATO FRIES.

Ever since I was introduced to this restaurant (is it you I should thank for that, Starski?), I have been absolutely in LOVE with those fries. They make me happy when I'm sad. And if I'm already happy, then they make me do a little bum-wiggling "yay-for-food" dance.

So what could be better than enjoying SWEET POTATO FRIES with a lot of fabulous people as part of my birthday dinner last night? Not much. And I wish I had a picture to share the love with y'all.

Did I just make up the coolest new word ever?

2006-06-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

I totally missed my blogiversary. Happy 1st blogiversary to me.

Making a /k/ from scratch

2006-06-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Big news! A little kidlet that I am seeing for speech therapy said a "k" sound today! Surely this deserves a blog mention/potential breach of confidentiality!

If you aren't a speech pathologist or a child with a phonology delay, you may take "k" for granted. No big deal. Likely, there was a point in your life when you said, "Tan I have a tootie?" and your parents thought it was cute. Then someone laughed at you for saying "titty tat" and you started making sounds at the back of your mouth and it was all good.

Say a "k" right now. Go ahead. Now, think about how you might explain to a 3 and a half year old how to make that sound. It's really not that easy. It's better if you try to show them, but it's a hard sound to see as well.

Since my supervisor is awesome, and I am trying my darndest to BE her, and this little kidlet is a genius, we were able to hear a few good k's today. Really, it was the high point of my day.

It kind of reminds me of last year, when a child I was treating said "kitty fart", and it pretty much blew my mind.

[I will only truly have achieved my goal of BEING my supervisor when I have successfully used the exclamation "Zippidydoo!" in an effort to entertain a small child. Seriously. I'm getting there.]

. . .continued

2006-06-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

I lied! It's been two days, and now you're all waiting with baited breath to hear how on earth a choir bus trip could lead to nightmares of my husband's infidelity. All in good time, my friends.

Where was I? Right, I was a self-righteous prig in high school, and I liked to hold hands by starlight but would not "date" any boys. My refusal to commit to a relationship resulted in my being abruptly dumped-but-not-really-because-we-weren't-dating-anyway on more than one occasion, with no explanation whatsoever. Or my special friend would just mess around with other girls (perhaps at the 'drinking' parties that I wouldn't go to) and then tell me about it (or not).

Which leads me to the choir trip connection. It was my first big high school choir trip to a music festival in one of our beautiful national parks (I was 15). My 'kindred spirit' somehow found time, between our chastely frolicking up mountainsides and holding hands past curfew, to get very friendly with one of the other girls in the choir. I had no idea at all. The hand-holding just went on as usual on the bus ride home.

A few months later, he was feeling guilty, and told me that he and whatsername had done some particular things together. I was VERY naive, and I knew what those things were, but I couldn't quite fathom what that entailed, or how it might have transpired. I had absolutely no frame of reference for such naughty deeds. I was hurt, and probably made my pillow all soggy over it, but I really didn't get it.

NOW I GET IT. I think there's a part of my brain that has been reeling for a while (especially since I gained a frame of reference for those particular things) at how unoffended I was at the time. And there's another part of my brain that responds with great suspicion and fear wherever choir bus trips are involved. I can't help it. It's probably my amygdala, and its job is to make me freak out about those kinds of things, right?

So when Daniel came home from the choir trip, the 15 year old and the 20-something parts of my subconscious got together and said, "You know, apparently things can happen very easily on choir trips. We should be afraid."

But let me tell you, if there's one thing Daniel hates, it's having to deal with my bad dreams. Especially the part where he has to defend himself against the nasty Daniel in my subconscious, who cheats on me with much older women, and doesn't bat an eyelash. He doesn't humour me much, and I can't get him to swear that he's never slept with a 50 year old. He's pretty sure that he won't do it any time soon, but he's never as convincing as I want him to be.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? A gem of truth that can be taken away? I'll tell you one thing. My friend who actually dated boys in high school did not deal with the ridiculous situations that I got myself into. And she still got to hold hands in the park, and received way more poetry than I did. That's about it.

Wait -- there's more. I should trust my husband a whole lot more (you hear that, Subconscious?). The commitment of marriage is worth far more than the fickle star-gazing of youth ever was.

This could be trouble

2006-06-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

I always want to post, but lately I've felt like nothing much has been going on in my life to write about. It's either too personal, or it violates confidentiality agreements related to my school practicum, or it's all just too darn boring.

And then it hit me. Why don't I just write some random anecdotes based on past experiences? Sounds good to me. It you've known me for a while, you will have heard tham before. Sorry.

As I've mentioned here, Daniel recently went on a choir tour that I wasn't part of. When he returned, I actually had a few dreams that he was cheating on me. Once with numerous young ladies, and once with a 50-year-old lady who was, erm, friskier than I was (keeping it family-friendly here).

I know perfectly well why a choir tour that involved bus travel sparked latent insecurities and fears that my partner will be unfaithful. But it's a kind of long story. Maybe I'll write it in installments, sort of a cliffhanger serial post, to keep you coming back for more. Tales of adolescent infatuation and heartache. . . tales from a prairie girlhood. . . tales of what a stupid kid I was.

Back in high school, I wouldn't "date" boys, because I was (and am) a christian (is there an html code for adding a little halo over words?). When my christian friends dated boys, I expressed general disapproval and self-righteousness.

What I would do, instead, was be "just friends" with boys, and we would go for coffee, take long walks in the park, and traipse about in wheat fields in the light of the harvest moon. After 6 months or so of this, we may kiss once, on the lips, but only if we were standing in a park or in a field or on a bridge in the moonlight. Seriously.

Just how irritating was I? Just how much pillow-sobbing did my behaviour cause? How many high school boys would restrict themselves to moonlit hand-holding with a non-committal young prig?

Tune in tomorrow, to find out!

Overheard at the Children's Festival

2006-06-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

Street performer guy in bowler hat: This one kid had me by the suspenders, and then this other kid sucker-punched me in the stomach. He was just a kid, but it really hurt.

This is not funny

2006-05-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

I saw someone slip and fall the other day. It wasn't funny. It was on an institutional-style tile floor, and it looked like it really hurt.

What was a little bit funny was that the cause of the fall was THE TINIEST PIECE OF BANANA KNOWN TO MAN. Apart from the miracle of banana detection that I witnessed, only a CSI agent would have been able to detect this infinitesimal banana morsel.

This leads me to believe that an entire banana peel would darn near kill a person.

Who are you, and what have you done with my husband - Part 2

2006-05-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

So the guy in the middle looks a lot like Daniel. If you've never seen Daniel before, trust me, the resemblance is uncanny.

This guy got off a bus last Friday night, from a week long performance tour to B.C. with a choir from Canada and a choir from Namibia. He gave me a hug hello, so I thought it was Daniel. Several incidents have since aroused my suspicion that some sort of switch has taken place.

First, there were the elaborate secret handshake rituals between "Daniel" and Linus (the guy on the right in the picture). Then there was the brotherly affection shown by "Daniel", as he excitedly introduced me to his new friends in the African choir.

The major incident that cemented my belief that some sort of Doppelganger has taken my husband's place came after our "Connections Encore" concert last Saturday night. We had left the auditorium, and a wild drumming and dancing circle had formed in the large foyer of the church. Africans from the choir and the audience were shakin' it, small children were entering the circle and shakin' it, Canadian choir members were doing the running man -- when suddenly, a tall choir member burst into the circle doing a frantic tribal dance, limbs flailing as he leapt and capered about while the crowd cheered and applauded.

Dumbfounded, flabbergasted, I watched my husband dance.

One of the girls in the choir told me she asked him after, "Where did that come from?"

He answered, "I've had 26 years to practice."

The African choir left for home yesterday, and now I'm living with a man who's becoming more like my husband every day. I keep wondering how I can make him stay like the guy who got off the bus that night. Because that guy was really happy, and I think I could get used to having him around.

A tiny little post won't hurt. . .

2006-05-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Coming off the May long weekend is a bit of a challenge. I realized with horror just moments ago that it's going to be Wednesday tomorrow. Wednesday!! But how will I apply my evaluation framework to 60 highly relevant journal articles by Sunday, since my week has basically been stolen from me?!

I hope to post some pictures and video links very soon, but in the meantime, let me just say that the concerts with Mascato this weekend were amazing. Mascato is amazing. I need to say a lot more about that. Also, look for the post "Who are you, and what have you done with my husband. . . PART TWO" coming in the near future.

Back to work. Sigh.

Domestic bliss

2006-05-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

Every relationship benefits from a little time apart. Once a year or so, Daniel and I have a week or two apart because one of us is traveling. Daniel has been away for a week, and I've actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

Things I've learned:

I sleep best when I stick to my side of the bed
My clothes look better than his do strewn across the bedroom floor
Driving to work makes every day a happy day, as compared to traveling by bus (shocker!)
I don't know how to use the lawnmower (Gas? Oil? I just want to cut the heads off the dandelions!)

Okay, so I haven't learned much.

Mother's Day

2006-05-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

Nothing says "I love you, Mom" like a large beast smothering a small child.

Celebrating the little things

2006-05-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes surviving Monday just feels so darn good.

Time flies when you don't have time to see your family or think about anything other than your clinical placment

2006-05-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, blog. I've missed you so much. Sad part is, I don't have much to say.

Here are some random stats about the last week of my life:

Hours spent on a bus: 9
Hours spent sleeping: about 30
Hours spent in choir rehearsals and performances: 18
Hours spent at placement: 44
Time spent crying with joy and general sentimentality: a lot
Time spent weeping miserably: way too much
Hours spent sitting on the couch doing nothing: 5 (sweet, sweet Saturday)

I had forgotten how to do nothing. On Friday, I swore that I would work hard all weekend to make sure that my next week is not as crappy as this one has been. But a comfy couch and "When Harry Met Sally" have seduced me, and I've been sitting on the couch eating salt'n'vinegar chips and sweet potato fries (home made!) all night. It's been pretty sweet.

On a totally unrelated note, I insist that you go here and watch the videos from May 2006. Look for me and Daniel in "He'll make a way"! And make sure to watch "Mascato Men".

My gift to you

2006-04-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

Crystal, Daniel, and I went to the movie American Dreamz last night, so you wouldn't have to. Aren't you glad?

You may be thinking that a movie directed by the guy that directed About a Boy and staring Hugh Grant as a nasty person can't help but be funny. Well, I admit that we did laugh from time to time, but not to an acceptable degree. I'd give it a score of 4 on a 10 point scale of funniness. The girl who sat behind me thought it was pretty stinking funny, and had a few good outbursts, but she doesn't get to post on my blog.

There was one thing I liked about the movie, but it requires a bit of back-story.

A lot of the slang that the kids are using nowadays is really only distinguishable from common English when it is typed. Examples are "hott" and "sux". I have started indicating when I'm using the slang version by saying things like:

"That sux, with an x."

or

"You're hott, with two t's."

Otherwise, how will anyone know that I'm not just using the plain old versions of "hot" and "sucks" that everyone else uses?

So I was very excited that the lyrics to the theme song of the tv-show-within-the-movie ended with this line:

"American Dreamz, dreams with a 'z'."

I'm really looking forward to seeing this phenomenon take off. Unfortunately, since American Dreamz sux pretty bad, it may not set off the wave of slang-spelling that I've been hoping for.

Where my ideas come from

2006-04-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

I don't come up with much to say that I haven't heard or read elsewhere. One of the books I've read lately gave me lots of food for thought, and I enjoyed it so much that I want to share a bit of it here.

Of my few faithful readers, I know that there are some who have had the influence of Christianity in their lives in the past in some way or other. If you are thinking, "She's talking about me," you're probably right, because it's true of most of my dear friends, whether or not they call themselves 'christian' now, and I'm thinking of you all.

Digression: Since I've been working on my research project, I usually type 'deaf' instead of 'dear'. Every time. Read on, my deaf friends.

The thing is, there's a LOT about capital-C "Christianity" in general and about Christians in particular that bothers a lot of people. Or makes them furious.

Unfortunately, many of us who come out on the other side of the trials of adolescent/university life and still embrace our faith feel like we have to pretend that we aren't bothered by anything about Christianity. Or worse still, we may even imagine that we have to support conservative politicians and their various agendas. So I liked it when I read this:

. . . Christianity was always right; we were always looking down on everybody else. And I hated this. I hated it with a passion. . . . I wanted to love everybody. I wanted everything to be cool. I realize this sounds like tolerance, and to many in the church the word 'tolerance' is profanity, but that is precisely what I wanted. I wanted tolerance. I wanted everybody to leave everybody else alone, regardless of their religious beliefs, regardless of their political affiliation. I wanted people to like each other. Hatred seemed, to me, a product of ignorance. I was tired of biblical ethic being used as a tool with which to judge people rather than heal them. I was tired of Christian leaders using biblical principles to protect their power, to draw a line in the sand separating the good army from the bad one.

That's from "Blue Like Jazz" by Don Miller. Whether you identify yourself with Christian spirituality or not, it's a great read. The author's dissatisfaction was very satisfying to read about. I liked it a lot. There are so many other good passages, that I would be here typing for hours if I included them all.

Okay, just one more, from the chapter called Church: How I go without getting angry:

One more thing that bugged me, then I will shut up about it. War metaphor. The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn't clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is that we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.

Are you still here? Sorry I've gone on and on and on. I just really liked this book, and I'm not so good at boiling it down into a few points. Despite the content of the excerpts here, it's not all about dissatisfaction - it points to solutions as well, and focuses a lot on loving people, in real ways, in everyday life, no matter what differences you may have.

Reading something like this makes me want to change. It makes me want to truly love others. Basically, it shows me that being annoyed or confused about certain aspects of my faith isn't an excuse not to keep trying to live out the parts that I'm certain of, like Jesus' love for people.

Thanks for reading.

Mrs. Deegan

2006-04-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

I've had this song in my head for weeks. We've been rehearsing it for an upcoming concert, and only recently have I been able to sing through it without crying. It destroys me. So I thought I would share the poignancy with you. (I wish I could put the tune in your head as well - it's very beautiful.)

Mrs. Deegan

And now who will arrange the crystal swans
frame the petit points
roll the ribbon sandwiches

and now who will give me crocheted doilies
and marquisettes
and what will become of persian lamb coats and
three-button gloves

(okay, I'm crying already and I just started typing it.)

and who will polish the silver service
and who will spread the cutwork cloth
and set the dainty Aynsley cups in their dainty
China saucers
and who will remember the sugar tongs
and who will ask me to pour

and who will be the keeper of all the niceties
of modesty and decorum and propriety
and seemliness

and will there still be Easter bonnets
and jaunty pillboxes and silver lockets

and did I think I would never lose this sweet and
gentle refuge
that there would always be a settee
a book of knowledge facing me
smelling of gardenias and a hint of peppermint
reminiscing of normal school and fancy dance
pavilions

and why did I think someone could replace her
the lady with a century of memories

and why does it make me cry that all the lavender
in the world went with her
and there will never be another trousseau tea

Poetry by Val Brandt, Music by John Estacio

I am not the only one who cries at this -- it's a women's piece, and most of us have a hard time holding it together while rehearsing it. It's the age we are, I think. In our early- to mid-twenties, most of us have begun to experience the loss of older loved ones. This kind of loss can be deeply personal, and somehow it's also the loss of a window on the past, a loss of an ideal, and a loss of the kind of unconditional regard that is so rare in our everyday relationships.

My own grandmother's health has been poor for many years, but I'm so grateful that we can still enjoy a cup of tea together in the santuary that her home has always been for me.

Dear 2nd Massey Posse

2006-04-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

Today I am eating Cadbury's Mini Eggs, and thinking of you.

Cheatin'

2006-04-14T23:45:00.000-07:00

Oh Blog. How I've missed you.

I set up a myspace account a week or so ago, and the little time I've had on the computer lately has been spent trying to figure that out. I really CANNOT afford to have any more internet-related distractions in my life!

In the meantime, I've been thinking about a few things I'd like to post about here, so I'd better quit messing around and get writing. I've been spending about 2 1/2 hours of each day riding the bus to and from my clinical placement, so I've gotten a lot of reading done. I've also had more time to think. And less daytime television.

My little neurons are very happy about the exercise, and they're trying to set up new networks and revive old ones that work on thinking about spirituality and the meaning of life and things like that. It's nice for a change.

The Gold Standard

2006-04-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Part of the speech and language assessment process for a child is a hearing screening. It's a very simple procedure, and can involve using a portable audiometer or an audiometer in a sound booth. Some kids DO NOT LIKE IT because of having to wear the bulky headphones, or having to enter a sound booth, but other kids don't mind having it done.

Yesterday, I saw the second kind of child have his hearing screened, and it absolutely made my day. The little guy was in the sound booth, and was looking out through the window, wearing headphones and the BIGGEST SMILE that I have ever seen. It was a smile of pure and utter open-mouthed joy and excitement. He eagerly shot his hand into the air as he heard each test beep. The smile did not fade through the whole screening. His mom had never seen him so happy.

That child should be sent around to participate in assessment with speech pathologists, just to give them a break from the average child, who doesn't behave as though assessment is a lot like Christmas morning and a birthday party and summer vacation and a new puppy all rolled into one.

What would we do, baby. . .

2006-04-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is my great-great aunt Ruby.
Yes, my grandfather's aunt.
She's pretty much the sweetest lady of all time, and I love to spend time with her. She still travels quite a bit to visit family, and we had a chance to see her last night at a family gathering.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with this branch of my family (and most of them didn't know me), so a lot of the conversations went something like this:

"Who is your great-grandmother?"

"Gladys."

"So, are we third cousins?"

"No, we're first cousins twice-removed."

"Okay. So then my son is your first cousin?"

"Um, he's actually my second cousin once-removed."

"I think I met you once about eighteen years ago."

It's always good to spend time with family. Family-tree confusion just serves as an extra conversation-starter.

5 hours of my life that I will NEVER GET BACK

2006-03-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

Today I saw the following headline on fark.com, and I honestly thought it might refer to the pub crawl we went on on Saturday night:

Cops: 1. Naked, oily ninjas: 0. Pirates unavailable for comment

Unfortunately, it was an unrelated story.

As for the pub crawl, the "pirates and ninjas" theme sounded like a good idea at the time. The evening was a bust from the get-go. In short:

The bus was an hour and a half late
Assorted 40-year-old men joined us (the moustaches! the Kenny G hair! the high fives!)
The bus was stolen.
THE BUS WAS STOLEN!

The only redeeming feature of the evening was how hard we laughed about it the next day.

Daytime drama

2006-03-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

[suspenseful, old-fashioned soap-opera organ music plays in background]

[melodramatic male voice speaks]

It's 10:22 am. 120 journal articles are strewn across her living room floor. Another 40 PDF articles are in a folder on her desktop.

[spoken with increasing urgency, organ music rising to a desperate crescendo]

Will she have those articles sorted according to their relevance to her research project? Will she have created a flowchart to illustrate that organization? Will she have gone to the library to get even more articles based on the reference lists from the original 120 articles? And all by 3:00 pm this very afternoon?

Tune in for today's episode of: Meeting with. . . The Supervisor

[dun dun DUHHHHHH]

Whoa

2006-03-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've had Jesus in my life for a long time, but Science just came along lately, and it gets crowded in my little brain sometimes. I don't wrestle with my beliefs often enough, so I really treasure moments when I hear someone else articulate thoughts and feelings in ways that I could never hope to.

That's why I have to share some interviews that I came across online on a website called Meaning of Life TV. I haven't seen many of the interviews yet, I'm sure to disagree with lots of them, but there are a couple that blew me away.

I've never heard of Robert Pollack before, but what he had to say about Faith and Reason, as well as Religion as Pathology makes me want to hear more from him. Check it out, if for no other reason than to marvel at the linguistic-y goodness of his speech. Mmm. Vocabularific.

Occupational Health and Safety

2006-03-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

After months of existing in a bleak, brown purgatory between autumn and spring, a great abundance of snow has fallen on our city. It's a winter wonderland! As I walk to school, enjoying the brisk winter air and the sparkle of sun on an unblemished field of white, thoughts of undergrad psychology fill my mind.

So I'm not a care-free kind of person. It's no secret. I just keep thinking about how my "sensation and perception" prof used to nag us his students to WEAR SUNGLASSES WHEN OUTDOORS! I don't wear sunglasses, so I'm afraid that in addition to etching squinty winter wrinkles on my face, I am damaging my eyes in ways that I will regret a few decades from now.

Continuing with the theme of eye-damage, I've been at the library A LOT lately, photocopying article after article for a lit review that I'm working on. I'm a photocopying machine (hee hee) - I could photocopy journal articles in my sleep. Most of my efficiency comes from the fact that I don't close the lid between copies. Instead, I stare blankly at the magical light as it scans each page that I copy. Each of the hundreds of pages that I copy. Hundreds of pages of retina-searing goodness.

Um, again, eye damage, anyone? This can't be good. But who has ever been warned about gradschool-related eye damage?! (Besides the link between all the reading we (should) do and worsening myopia.)

So in the interest of preventing further damage to my eyes, my new habit is to look away as the magical light scans the pages. It's best if there's a window nearby, or one of those library posters that tells you that you're breaking the law and belong in a federal prison. Even then it's a bit strange.

(you have no idea how quickly I copy - I'm looking out the window every three seconds. I look like I'm really worried about peeping-tom library stalkers, or like I have compulsive disorder of some kind)

Now, if I just bought those sunglasses, I'd be prepared in all situations. Wearing sunglasses at the photocopier. . . hmmmmm. I feel cool just typing that last phrase. Look for me at a library near you.

And then I did this, and this. . .

2006-03-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a long weekend of choir, choir and more choir. After a Choralfest performance on Thursday, an epic four-choir concert on Saturday, a church service this morning, and an afternoon performance in another city. . . . . I'm tired. But not too tired to write about some of the highlights of these musical adventures.

Highlight #1

At Choralfest, one of the adjudicators, Stephen Hatfield, workshopped one of our pieces with us. That man is larger than life, and the musical metaphors he gave us were oh so unforgettable. For example, wanting to help us express the longing and aching prayer of the traditional spiritual "Deep River", he said (with gravitas befitting a Shakspearean soliloquy, and with illustrative gestures) :

"You know how when you floss your teeth, the floss can pull a bit sometimes, and give you a little ooh (grimaces)."

Choir nods. (I'm thinking that a dental hygiene analogy might not work for me, as far as expressing emotional intensity goes. I actually enjoy flossing.)

"As you sing, I want you to convey that same ooh (grimaces again) as you floss your breastbone with your soul."

As he says this, he mimes gripping his floss-like soul between his thumb and index finger and drawing it painfully across his xiphoid process.

Ah. Now breastbone-hygiene, that's a different story. That wouldn't feel very good. It was a very effective illustration. And funny.

Highlight # 2

A second highlight of the weekend was after our afternoon performance at a multicultural event. A small group of 12 or so singers rather than the whole choir, we performed a number of African songs, with movement and drums. The enthusiasm of the audience was contagious, and we really enjoyed our performance.

It's always nice when people express their appreciation after the concert, but my favorite BY FAR was when a little girl, about 5 years old, in a knit poncho, touched my hand, and said:

"I heard you singing before."

I crouched down to hear her better, and I asked her if she had danced along with us. She (still holding my hand) said:

"No, I just did this" (kicks her right foot forward and back a few times)

I told her that was similar to some of our movements in the songs, and she continued to demonstrate her moves:

"And then I did this (kicks left foot a bit) . . . and this (kicks right foot) . . . and I did this (absently kicks with left foot again ). . . ."

This went on for a while. It got to that adorable little-kid point where she was thinking, "Okay, the nice grown-up is still listening to me. . . so I'll just keep talking" and was just making up nonsense. I don't think she even remembered what I had asked her. And that's why it was SO CUTE!!!

The beauty of today's performance is that it largely wiped out my memory of last night's performance (part of the four-choir epic concert I mentioned), from which I have NO HIGHLIGHTS TO REPORT.

(Except for the part where I cried as a choir of small children sang a poignant song with text written from the perspective of a deaf child - but that's it.)

I think a video file of that concert is going to be posted as the Wikipedia entry for Gong Show.

Book

2006-03-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

I read Barbara Kingsolver's excellent novel The Bean Trees last week. I loved it. This book resonated with me on many levels. Her characters are vivid and sympathetic.

In particular, Kingsolver captured the major themes of my upbringing with her portrayal of the paranoid Lou Ann. This particular passage could have been written about my own dear mother:

"Lou Ann's life was ruled by the fear of salmonella, to the extent that she claimed the only safe way to eat potato salad was to stick your head in the refrigerator and eat it there."

Love it. Mom loved it too.

I haven't done it justice by highlighting only this passage, but it's a beautiful book, and I recommend it very highly.

SOCCER!!!

2006-03-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend my family was in town for my little brother's soccer tournament. We went to most of the games at his last tournament, and it was a bit sad. His team was beat so badly that they stopped adding the opposing teams' goals to the scoreboard, to minimize the losing team's humiliation. This time, they won a game, and put up a good fight, losing by only a couple of points in their other games.

It was a very intense experience. We shouted ourselves hoarse, and were deafened by the cheers of the soccer parents around us. A lot of the families were francophone, so "Allez-y!!!!!" mixed in with our "GO GO GO!!!" I love Canada. And I can't wait to be a soccer parent, because based on my observations, I can then 1) bleach my hair and wear it too long for my age, 2) wear a pink winter coat with a faux fur collar, and 3) carry a Timmy Ho cup everywhere I go.

My brother's soccer skills have really improved lately, and he scored some very nice goals. Daniel took some video clips of the games, and my brother spent a LOT of time reviewing them at home afterward. This confirmed what I have long suspected: we are officially the most narcissistic family of all time.

Arguing for fun and sport

2006-02-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today I was thinking about how, when I used to teach ESL, I would try and try to help my students understand the difference between a dependent and an independent clause, which was very hard to do, so they would write a lot of essays that contained sentences beginning with "but", "because", and "or", and I would try to convey to them that you could actually join two clauses together using words like that, and if you don't join clauses occastionally, your writing looks more like abstract poetry that a TOEFL-award-winning essay. For example:

I like to swimming with my family.
But my sister is not like swim.
Because my sister is afraid of to swim.
When the sharks are in water.
She is thinking they will be bite the foot.

I realized that my style of writing lately has contained a lot of those same awkward one-clause sentences, so I thought that I would write a post that contains sentences with a lot of clauses. Check out all the commas, and all of the conjunctions, and adverb clause markers. Whooo!

Today's post is for any armchair psychologists who might like to speculate on why we do what we do. The thing is, I'm an argumentative person, but I only enjoy arguing in certain situations, with certain people. Specifically, I love to argue with my husband or some other family members, but I am paralyzed with fear and anxiety if I can sense the slightest hint of an argument growing with acquaintances or colleagues. I'm too lazy to analyse the situation, but if anyone has any thoughts on why it's fun to argue with those we love, please let me know your thoughts.

My love for arguing resulted in a strange situation yesterday; I'd had an okay day, but when my husband came home, I picked a fight wherein I criticized his haircut, which is totally a legitimate thing for me to criticize because I am the one who cuts his hair, because he refuses to get his hair cut in a salon). I'm not sure why I started the argument, but my main points were as follows: a) I'm not good at cutting hair, because no one has ever taught me how, b) The haircuts I give Daniel make him look like a character from "Dumb and Dumber", because he will only use styling products on his hair for special occasions such as weddings and graduations, c) He should get a decent haircut in a barbershop or salon so I can at least use that as a guide for one or two subsequent haircuts. This went on for some time, and we both knew it was just arguing for the sake of hearing me raise my voice (because other people in the house need to hear my arguments so they can side with me when I ask for support).

(Writing long sentences is hard work)

The strange thing was that the argument ended with Daniel cutting his own hair over the bathroom sink, and this really wasn't my intention when I started the hair tyrade in the first place. Boy, did he show me! Now he looks a bit like he escaped from bootcamp before they finished shearing the new recruits.

Next time I pick a fight, I'll argue about the dishes or the vacuuming, so he can demonstrate his superior skill in those tasks. Back to my main question: Why do I argue for fun and recreation with the person I love most in the world, but I am terrified of actually disagreeing with people I don't like one bit?

Moving

2006-02-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Daniel and I are planning to move this winter. . . back to my home town. I haven't lived there in almost ten years, since I left for school. I left the small 'city' behind, and haven't looked back. I have loved all the cities I've lived in.

Toronto unfolded in an ever-increasing radius around Trinity College for the four years I was there. I miss that city a lot. Of course, it had its problems. As a prairie girl, I found that there was a lot less horizon, and it was extremely difficult to find a place to watch the sunset. When Daniel proposed to me, he drove for over an hour into the "countryside", and we still couldn't find unbroken horizon.

When we moved to Calgary, we had the best of both worlds, horizon-wise. The mountains in the distant west, the open prairies to the east - and we only had to drive for about 15 minutes to find that open sky. It was a beautiful city, with the smoothest rollerblading trails around. Both Daniel and I had okay jobs, but there wasn't much to keep us there.

Then it was Edmonton. This is a beautiful city - we're near the river valley, and a great shopping and restaurant area. I enjoy school here, Daniel likes his job, and we enjoy the community we've found through school, choir, and church. Running here is fantastic - the air is fresh, and the trails are great.

So despite loving it here, and despite amazing job opportunities for me in this province, we're planning to move. There are a lot of advantages to the move, but it's still a struggle to really accept that it's going to happen.

Good stuff: We'll be closer to family (both mine and Daniel's - hello future babysitters!), we won't be strangers to little nieces and nephews, the cost of living will be MUCH lower (house buying?!), and there will be 360 degrees of unbroken prairie within a ten minute drive.

Maybe not-so-good stuff: Leaving a good choir (with little hope of finding one in the area), less access to shopping/restaurants, living in a place where people ONLY drive around, and other miscellaneous lame complaints

I have a year to come to terms with these things. It's nice that the not-so-good stuff is generally superficial. It's also nice that I have a chance to go along with Daniel's hopes and dreams for once. I owe him one.

cough cough

2006-02-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

I have a cold. I don't like it. I don't get sick very often, but it seems to be going around quite a lot right now. Even my 9 hours of sleep per night didn't protect me (both my mom and my husband swear that they get sick as soon as they haven't had enough sleep - they're very sensitive to that sort of thing).

I have some ideas about where I caught this cold. For example, I work with small children a couple of times a week, and many of them have been sick with colds. Even though their moms have very responsibly taught them to cough into their little bent elbows, they still do charming things like play with their chewing gum, pop it back into their mouths, and then say, "I want to hold your hand!!" My mental note to WASH MY HANDS fades over the next hour, until I've put a bite of cookie into my mouth with that same hand. Sigh. Sometimes I could use just a bit bigger dose of OCD.

Fortunately, I have an arsenal of remedies that I enjoy. For example, coffee is supposed to act as a decongestant. And chocolate, according to my friend's science-y website, contains theobromine, which is thought to act as a cough suppressant (yay for Valentine's day). And echinacea is my all-time favorite placebo/immune-system booster. Of course, I eat sensible things like fresh fruit and vegetables for good measure.

This cold is extra unfortunate because tonight, our choir is kicking off our city's first-ever 24-hour SINGATHON!! It's a big fundraiser for our African Projects Fund - our choir is doing some epic fundraising in hopes of bringing our twin choir, Mascato, to Canada from Namibia for a spring tour. There's been a lot of publicity for it recently, so it's very exciting, but we're down to the wire with a good chunk of money left to go. C'mon philanthropy! We live in a VERY rich province, so it will be very disappointing if it doesn't happen! I'll be there, lip-synching my heart out.

Concert day!

2006-02-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the choir that I'm in had it's annual "Stories" concerts - two concerts in which the pieces are linked through themes and dramatic narratives. The musical connection we share with the audience is palpable, and during our performance, I almost burst with happiness that I could be a part of such a wonderful experience.

(note picture of me and my sister, bursting with happiness)

I used to be rather cynical about this sort of thing, so my gushing over it really means something. I can totally understand why this choir is a spiritual home for so many of its members. It really is something unique.

This just in (o2-17-06): A choir parent has put up lots of pictures of the concert here. I'm in there somewhere!

Welcome, Dear Reader

2006-02-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

Yay! I have one reader!

Today, I was wondering if anyone reads my blog, and I briefly debated making an "IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?" kind of post. Now I don't have to do that, because I learned that one of my friends DOES read this blog from time to time. It's nice to know that.

I know that the presence of comments isn't a reliable way of knowing if anyone is reading this, because I am definitely a stealth-reader of other people's blogs. I check in regularly, and never comment. It's kind of funny, because if I actually run into someone whose blog I've read, I have to decide whether or not to play dumb when I've actually just read about all the blogworthy current events in their life. I opt for dumb most of the time.

(note re: "their life" - I'm deliberately using the 3rd person plural pronoun "they/their" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, simply because English doesn't have one. And while I'm on the subject of pronouns, I think I'll be promoting the use of "all y'all" and "all y'all's" as the 2nd person plural /possessive, because it's evident that we Canadians need a clear distinction between plural and singular "you" in our dialect. Plus I like the Southern flair.)

So reader(s?), please feel free to play dumb and/or be a stealth-reader. I don't mind.

One more thought for the day - go check out today's post on this blog. I really enjoyed it. Grab a tissue before you click that link!

Run!

2006-02-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

This city is going through a freakishly warm winter - the high today was +4. For a Canadian February, that's pretty crazy. I celebrated by going for a run. I've been on a bit of a fitness hiatus over the past few months, and MAN is it good to get out and a run again. I've been taking it easy for the last couple of runs, but today I turned it up a notch. On the home stretch of my run, I saw some Mormon missionaries about to cross my path, and I wondered whether they would try to stop a sweaty, red-faced runner. I enjoyed the Doppler effect on the 'hi hOW ARE YOU today'. No way was I stopping.

There are often Mormon missionaries on the main road near my house, and I'm usually in a rush when they try to talk with me. Sometimes I'm tempted to talk to them, mainly to find out more about what they believe, and what they say they believe (I'm not sure if those two things would line up completely). Having done my share of Christian outreach as a teenager, I definitely have a soft spot for young people who are trying to share their faith. It's not easy, and if I'd had half the boldness that they have, my youth missions would have been very different experiences.

2006-01-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight's choir rehearsal was amazing. We have a concert coming up in less than 2 weeks, and some of the pieces we're doing are very powerful. The best moment of the night was when one of our sopranos sang a phenomenal solo high b. We all had to stop singing while we picked our jaws up off the floor. I'm very excited for this concert, if only to watch the audience members' faces when they hear that note too.

In other news, I have become the choir's unofficial ambassador for hearing health. I guess it's a hazard of my soon-to-be profession, coupled with the fact that I have to do many hours of hearing screenings in order to be certified (thank goodness I'm not studying to be a sexual health educator!). I'll be offering hearing screenings to my fellow choir members, and offering hearing protection tips. Unfortunately, I don't always practice what I preach. For example, I don't wear earplugs when I go out dancing, and I still use q-tips to clean my ears. In my defense, I practice safer q-tipping by keeping my elbow tucked close to my body -- I have never forgotten the time one of my high school teachers ruptured her eardrum with a q-tip when she banged her elbow. *shudder*

What's my point here?

Come out to my concert. Your ears will thank you for it, I promise.

If you can't see the light ahead, back out of the tunnel

2006-01-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Whew. The decision is made, and now I can type it loud and clear. I've changed 'tracks' on my degree, and I've dropped the thesis portion of my masters.

It's bittersweet, and I feel slightly sheepish, but I am mostly relieved. As I chatted with wise friends and faculty, the main message I got was that the decision didn't affect anyone but me. I had to choose what I thought was best, and no one else would really be impacted one way or the other. That was nice to hear. Now I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Whew. Barring unforeseen events, I will be finished no later than December of this year. It's later than I would have finished if I had figured this situation out last summer, but I can live with that. I can definitely live with that.

On the fence

2006-01-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm on the verge of making a big decision. No, I'm not deciding to have a baby, or get my hair cut (although both are monumental decisions). I'm making a decision about school. That's all I'll say specifically about that. I have always had the sense that if you say too much about what you're trying to decide, your decision will be influenced by hearing the words come out of your own mouth too many times.

A weak and somewhat irrelevant analogy for this phenomenon involves my experience with high school crushes. When I was a teenager, I would approach crushes very tentatively. If I started feeling crushy towards a boy, I would mull it over for a while. I had to decide whether or not I wanted to have the crush become reality, because I knew that as soon as I started to tell my friends about it, the crush would take on a life of its own. Because I'm the kind of person that I am, I would inevitably tell people about my crush, for better or for worse. And then I would HAVE A CRUSH ON THAT BOY whether I liked it or not. Again, maybe it's just a quirk of my personality, but I tend to start to believe what other people say about me, so the crushes often went on for a long time, especially if other people were talking about them. That's just the way that sort of thing worked back then. Plus it's how I ended up with my husband, but that's a story for another day.

Here's the tie-in. I'm still totally on the fence with my current decision. I try to look down the road given choice A, and it looks pretty good. I can see myself on that road. Ditto with choice B. They both look really good. SO what happens if I start telling people about my choices? I might start to be swayed in one direction or the other by the words coming out of my mouth, or if other people hear me say them --

What? I'm not making any sense? Fine. I know. I've been thinking in circles lately. Decisions are hard to make. The last hard decision that I made was when Daniel and I got stuck in Vancouver with a blown transmission in our car. There were lots of problems, few solutions, and thousands of dollars to consider. Right now doesn't feel too different. Except that I'm the only person who is really affected by the decision, and I'm the one who has to make it. It hurts my brain.

One theory that's starting to shape my decision involves questions that come up again and again. I've been at this crossroad quite a few times before. I've made the choice I thought was best at the time, and went on my way. But the same question keeps coming up, again and again. Could it be that I've made the wrong choice again and again, and I'm finally getting my last chance to make the right decision? I think that may be the case.

I'll stop talking now. I can't help rambling about it. After I make my decision, I'll tell lots of other people that I made the right decision. Hopefully the more I say it, the more I'll believe it.

When too much is more than enough

2006-01-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

I can't believe there is still chocolate from Christmas left in my house. And fruitcake. And fudge. And some cookies. And Pringles.

It just won't go away, even though Daniel seems to exist solely on chocolate and perogies. He eats an entire tray of Toffifee in one sitting, between bites of perogy. Then he moves on to the Ferrero Rocher. And there is still chocolate everywhere I turn. It must be multiplying in a dark corner of my kitchen cupboards. Scary.

So I've bought out the Safeway produce section a couple of times in the last couple of weeks to try to atone for my bad holiday eating habits. It's good for me, because I really like spinach salads with red peppers and tomatoes and mushrooms and cottage cheese and chickpeas. I'm feeling pretty healthy. Daniel, on the other hand, only eats food that can be boiled and subsequently fried (perogies, sausages), or eaten straight from the package (bagels, chocolates).

Now, occasionally I feel a bit guilty that I don't make big 'healthy' balanced meals for my husband. I don't let that guilt spur me into cooking too often, because I know that Daniel is taken out to steak lunches and all-you-can-eat buffets with the boys from work quite often.

When it does get to me, I simply pour a can of "cream of " soup over some pork chops and boil some brussels sprouts. Mmm. Gotta love home cooking.

Babies and puppies and kittens, oh my!

2006-01-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Just home from family holiday times in S'katchen. It was good. We are no longer complete strangers to our two youngest nephews, and we saw lots of Daniel's family, as well as all of my grandparents.

The little nephews are extremely adorable. I am very excited to live nearer to family so I can hold other people's babies more often, and stave off my own maternal longings for just a while longer. To that end, Daniel and I drove up and down the streets of MJ doing some house-hunting.

I am back to work on school stuff, hoping and praying for leaps and bounds of progress to occur over the next few days. (I think I need a more internal locus of control in these matters). Meanwhile on the internet, I came across the most adorable website I have ever seen in my life. My heart is warmed. Check it out.

The festivities continue

2005-12-27T20:17:00.000-07:00

Mmm. Gift certificates. Daniel and I got a nice assortment of these for Christmas. Gap, Starbucks, HMV, Jacob. . . all good. Today we braved the post-boxing day crowds to try to redeem them. It was hard work. Daniel is extremely fussy about clothes, and every time we found a shirt that he liked, the stock was so picked over that there were only XXS and XXL sizes left. We gave up on that one. HMV was also a difficult one, because there are so many good CDs and movies to choose from. We gave up on that too. We're going to wait for King Kong to come out on DVD. That way I can zip past all the icky bugs/swamp worms and get to the parts where I can bawl like a baby (basically whenever Kong and Anne are on the screen together).

I keep interrupting my typing to tell Daniel to be quiet, and he told me to add to this blog entry how annoying I find him right now. What he likes to do is say, "Well, you see, that's the problem." I can never keep it straight whether his irritating phrases are from Napolean Dynamite, or from Office Space. Apparently, this particular line came from Kip. Daniel likes to say it a lot. He'll say it for no reason at all, in response to nothing. He also likes to start the phrase at a very high pitch, which he sustains for a long time.

"WWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLL you see. . . "

It's hard to take, to say the least. And he just said it about 5 times in a row. I feel better now for having talked about it. Maybe I can pre-empt future irritation by adding that he also likes to say "GOSH!" (in a frustrated tone) often. And "Um, yeah. . . " like the boss in Office Space.

I've gotten distracted from my original gift certificate topic, but it's probably more entertaining to read about my domestic frustrations instead of my shopping lists. I'm so grateful that Daniel doesn't have a blog, or care to vent about all of the annoying things I do and say. That would be trouble.

Festive times

2005-12-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

My family is here to celebrate Christmas a few days early, because they are traveling to New Brunswick for the holidays. Last night, we had the big turkey dinner and opened all our presents. Too much fun. I've never been a huge fan of Christmas (I like to celebrate the birth of Christ, but the expectation that everybody will suddenly glow with good cheer has always been a bit of a problem for me) but celebrating a few days early could definitely grow on me. Anyway, the early Christmas thing is great. There's not enough time for the buildup of holiday cheer, and therefore the whole thing can't be anti-climactic. Yay.

So much other stuff has been going on. I've finished all of the courses required for my master's, and now it's just practicum placements and thesis work for about a year or so. Our class had a big "grad" formal to celebrate being finished courses, and to say goodbye before going our separate ways. Daniel and I have gone to our share of Christmas parties and concerts, and of course, Daniel also had his monumental debut singing with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (okay, the whole choir sang, but it was the most exciting for my soccer-playing, new-choir-member husband to be part of such a big event).

Home sweet home

2005-12-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

I went to an opera tonight (Filumena). It was excellent. My favourite part was when they sang about Moose Jaw (it's my hometown!).

It's probably not easy to write Moose Jaw into a libretto.

Out of the blue

2005-12-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

I don't enjoy terse, abrupt emails. I don't mean ones from a friend quickly confirming when to meet for coffee. I mean ones from colleagues or superiors that are, or should be, professional in nature.

I admit, some people are very busy. I propose a solution: many people hate emoticons, but I really wouldn't mind if they were used as frequently as punctuation. If you don't have the time to use verbal 'cordialities' such as "hello", at least give me a smiley face. Smiley faces would go a surprisingly long way to making me happy, as far as email is concerned.

I'll be honest. I take the small stuff too seriously LOTS of the time.

Whiny

2005-11-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. I compulsively stay up too late. Last night my excuse was that I wanted to keep knitting. I forced myself to go to bed not too long after "Revenge of the Nerds" started as the CityTV late night movie. There's no justification for watching that.

Earlier in the evening, I finally saw "March of the Penguins", a big-screen documentary that I've been meaning to see for a long time. It made me happy. It was very touching - the challenges that those birds go through to bring little ones into the world are incredible.

*spoiler alert*
Basically, the males have to incubate the eggs by holding them on their feet under a flap of skin for two months, until the females come back from feeding in the ocean. The care with which the female transfers the egg to the male is crucial - if the egg touches the ice for more than a few seconds, the little eggy will die. The film seems to indicate that this makes the penguins quite sad. If the egg dies, the would-have-been father can march back to the water with the females, and continue his life until the next mating season.

I said all that to say this:
On the way home, when we were talking about the movie, Daniel said,

"I figure the best plan is to drop the egg right away. Whoops! Then you can take off and go back to the ocean. Why wouldn't they all do that?"

This is the future father of my children talking. How concerned should I be?

Correction(Dec. 27, 2005):Daniel did not say, "Why wouldn't they all do that?" He said, "That's what I would do." I don't feel any less concern.

Family

2005-11-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

My aunt is in town, and tonight she took me, Daniel, Crystal, and two of my cousins out for dinner. It was great. My aunt is a riot, and I hope I'll get to spend more time with her (and my cousins) in the future.

I love how with family, even if you don't see them or talk to them often, it can be so easy to connect when you do get together. Daniel and I also experienced this over the summer when we visited family out at the coast - we had a great time, we got thoroughly spoiled, and we really got to know people a lot better. It's just cool what an easy connection there can be sometimes.

That's my warm fuzzy thought for the day. It could just be that I'm buzzing on high doses of MSG (we had Chinese food), sugar, and caffeine, but I feel happy.

Who are you and what have you done with my husband?!

2005-11-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

Daniel and I were at the West Edmonton Mall for SIX HOURS yesterday. Daniel was shopping for glasses (his first pair ever!) and I was mainly shopping for a dress to wear to my "grad" party next month. (Cruel joke: I won't actually be finished for at least another year; only the course-based part of my degree is finished.)

Anyhow, I notice that a few posts ago I mention my shopping-related guilt with regard to Daniel's frugality. I occasionally complain to my friends that I suffer from abnormal shopping restraint when I am with him. Well, today I take it all back. He actually pointed out stores that looked like they'd have good dresses, and suggested that I try more on. He did this even when I was tired and didn't really feel like trying any more dresses on. Wow. The result is not one but two Daniel-approved dresses up for consideration.

Daniel also got his glasses. They look very good on him. Now he'll be able to read road signs, and we'll all feel a little safer.

Must get away from the computer. . .

2005-11-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

I thought that since I just invited y'all to come by, I should post a picture.

Hi! Hope to see you again soon.

Check it out!

2005-11-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Hey - I just want everyone to know about a fun and informative blog out there. Inky Circus is maintained by 2 young Canadian science journalists and 1 Brit living in London (one of them is my former college roommate). It's your daily dose of current research headlines and general informativeness with a twist of humour. Good times.

Coffee + Thesis = Wonderful

2005-11-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

If I had the right tools, I would make a button for myself that reads: Ask me what I learned in school today! because that's pretty much all I really talk about.

For example, if you or anyone you love still isn't totally convinced that smoking is a really bad idea, ask me about my voice and resonance class. Oh, the horror. You have NO idea. Please ask me.

The other thing I am dying to share with people is the physics behind why sopranos can't make clear vowel distinctions. When you're squeaking away on the high notes, all the vowels sound pretty much the same no matter how you contort your face, and now I know why. Ask me, please. I just learned it yesterday. I'd love to tell you, and I'll even draw diagrams.

Learning new things makes me very happy. As happy as writing over a thousand words on my thesis proposal makes me. I'm so happy right now. And so very full of caffeine. Yay!

I want that line on a t-shirt!

2005-10-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you know me, you may know that I love Smallville - the ridiculous cheesiness of it all just warms my heart. I mock it thoroughly week after week, but I have never cackled so hard at a line of that show as I did last night.

The episode involved Clark running around with his new superhero buddy, Aquaman. The fantastic line? Just after Clark turns on the sprinkler system to save Aquaman from fatal dehydration, Clark asks him how he's doing. Aquaman's response?

"Wet and ready, Bro!"

If that doesn't make you smile, your world must be a terribly serious place.

Wallow

2005-09-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been an interesting series of ups and downs.

Our choir went to Banff for a retreat -- we rehearsed a lot of the wonderful new music we're doing this year. I'm very excited about choir this year -- the music is beautiful, and my first few rehearsals as a 1st soprano have been surprising. My voice actually likes singing those high notes (at least in fantastic Rolston Hall at Banff). A few of us also "conquered" Sulphur Mountain this weekend -- my favourite part was that the first thing we saw when we got to the top was a $3.75 pop machine! Too funny.

So that whole experience was an 'up'. The down part came when I got home, my mom told me that one of our cousins was found dead in her bed the other morning - a wife, mother of 3 teenagers, and a wonderful person in general. It's very sad, to say the least. It's always hard for me to absorb the impact of tragedies that happen so far away from my everyday life (they live in Ontario). The family is in my prayers.

Another 'up' - I'm running the U of A "Turkey Trot" this weekend, and I'm hoping to survive the nasty hill at the end of the 8k race. I had a fantastic run last night, and if the run on Saturday feels as good, I'll be happy.

And now for the down -- I need to get myself to school to work on my research project!! Sitting here writing on a weekday morning is not quite part of my ideal workday.

Moving forward with resolve

2005-09-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

That title is especially for my husband, who hates the word resolve. Post-September 11 media ruined it for him.

In any case, I am resolved to be more successful this semester in working on my thesis, running, and writing more on this blog. We'll see what happens. As far as the thesis goes, I've had good day of work (today!) and it felt great. The running is alright, with the Turkey Trot 8k coming up next weekend -- good motivation to get going. And as for the blog, well, here it is.

Moving forward with resolve indeed.

Sweet Saturday

2005-05-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

It's my last day of 'freedom', since Danny's coming back from his training in the States today. I'm very excited to see him. :)

Except for the burden of guilt I have about my frantic effort to shop as much as I could today to get things I need without having to justify my purchases to my more frugal husband. Sigh. Who am I kidding? I'll end up returning half of it.

Today was a beautiful day, though, and I have happily neglected all my homework! It's t-minus four hours until I have to go to the airport, so I'll try to get something useful done. This next week is a bit frightening, with actual treatment sessions starting for our SLP clients. It's exciting, but more than a little scary -- I just wander around, peeking over people's shoulders in the computer lab, wondering if they're doing more and better work than I'm doing, and hoping that it will all turn out okay.

Whether or not things turn out okay, they're always over eventually, right? Not the most inspirational thought in the world, but it's enough to keep me going!

If you say so. . .

2005-05-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

This blogging thing sounds like fun, but now there's pressure for me to experience things, learn things, say things that are somehow meaningful. Good pressure. I hope that I can handle it. Good luck me.