Winding Down the Seasons

Dwarf-Winged Burning Bush in autumn.

Autumn is my favourite season.  I love the collective slowing down of the world.  I love the scent of the leaves as they go dormant.  I can't get enough of the hues of the season; the crisp apple reds, the spicy pumpkin oranges, the deep mahogany browns... breathtaking.  The cooler winds and the early evenings, the quiet of the dark, early morning mist and the softness of the longer nights; I adore this season!

 

Spirea Goldflame, common but lovely

For the first time in 21 years, Autumn is not, for me, associated with returning to studies.  I am still working at Connon's, and still enjoying the change of pace.  It's fascinating to watch various types of plants enter their stage of dormancy.  Euonymous Alatus begin to 'burn', Spirea Goldflames begin to pass the Goldmounds in beauty, and the Caryopteris Jasons finally wow me with their blossoms.

Sunshine Blue, worth the wait!

Part of me misses the lifestyle of a student.  All of me misses the adventure of traveling.  But luckily, I am able to see the adventure inherent to these changes in my life.  I have entered a third phase of the self, one which feels to be the most in-touch with who I truly am, and discovering the self this year is going to be an unprecedented journey in my Year of Discovery.

This fall, besides spending time with my fantastic boyfriend, my incredible friends and my crazy family, I am also enjoying (a) reading through Chapters' List of Books that Will Change Your Life (titles such as Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Heller's Catch-22 have already been transforming my everyday thoughts), (b) wearing a lot of plaid at work and feeling particularly Canadian, and (c) the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. 

Cheers to Autumn!

Living Off the Alcohol

My life seems to consist solely of vices lately.

Wake up before the sun has risen, chase with coffee.
Have a few cigarettes on the drive to work.
After picking up the work van, have a few smokes and another coffee with the yard boys.
Drive to Mac farm and work ten hours.
Cigarette and coffee, cigarette and lunch, cigarette and coca-cola.
Drive to the yard, drop off the van, chase with a Red Bull.
Have a few smokes on the drive home.
Beers and cigarettes until the night has become the morning.
Sleep an hour or two, get up, repeat.

Luckily, I am not alone in this cycle.  Thanks to Bestfriend for living off our vices with me.

Just Wanted to Know If I Could Go Home

Sorry for my ultimate failure to update lately!

My life has been insane as of late.  Here are some brief updates.

I went to England for my last weekend of backpacking, to meet up with the boys from Vienna.  I can summarize the trip in one photo:

Camdentown, hookah, 4 miserable Jews and myself.

And one video:


After that, I was back in Paris for a few hours; enough to empty my studio entirely, and spend a night in debauchery and tears of goodbye with the beautiful people I met there

Table one

Table two

 Saying goodbye is hard.  It's especially hard if you are uncertain whether you'll ever see some of these people again.










But goodbyes are beautiful, too.  Because in the same way that death is what gives value to life, goodbyes are what give value to hellos. 










With any luck, I'll be backpacking again Easter of 2012.  That is, assuming the world hasn't ended.

Definitely going to miss this crowd

 

Meanwhile, I've been lucky enough to meet the best people I could have ever imagined possible to meet.  And I get to share so much joy and enlightenment with my friends back home for a little while.

The future doctors <3

Massive shoutouts to the people who made this trip a wonderful experience.  Above all: Lynette Van de Hoef, Rachel Stevenson, April Larochelle, Martha Maris, Maria Noorloos, Jemima Dickinson, Larissa Gare, Gemma King, Christina Ammon, Nicolas Sanchez, Bram Van Beek, Paula Molz, James Lloyd, Hayden Lawn, Remi Piriou, Kara Abernethy, Liz Rosenberg, Darren Helstowski, Aidan Kenny and Liam Kerry.  I've never been happier than in the company of any of those people.

Shoutouts also to the best of friends ever, and especially those who kept in touch with me from back home: Amber Lepine, Adrian Vander Vaart, Jill Van Ryn, Amber Burns, Jess Crandall, Elle Rombough, Amanda Fraleigh, Rich Oosterloo, Natalie Campbell, Chad Haverkamp, Dan Kikkert and Austin Miedema.

Some congrats are also due!  Upon my return, I was in a wedding for one of my dearest friends.  Congrats to Elle and Lael and many, many blessings.  Nathan and Janelle, some of my favourite people ever, also tied the knot this May, the day after James and Katie, some of my oldest friends.  Congrats to all three beautiful couples!

James and Katie

Nate and Janelle

Elle and Lael

Those are essentially all of my life updates for now.  I've moved into my fantastic new apartment in Hamilton, am working off the debts that I acquired this year, and am planning to take a year off to work (and travel, of course) before returning to Europe to complete the PhD.

Stay tuned!

Les Fleurs du Mal

The sun has been shining in Paris lately, and the weather has been hovering around 10 degrees for the last little while.

All the flowers appearing remind me of work.  I miss work.  I want to go back.  I want to wake up too early in the morning, stand in the warm sunshine for a full day, and cut the flowers all summer.  I want to chat all day with my work mates.  I want to attempt my limited Punjabi and work on my Portuguese.  I want to make a fool of myself trying to joke around in Spanish.  I want to weed-whack around the pond and enjoy the presence of our great blue heron. I want it dearly.

The warmth reminds me of Redeemer and how I can lay on my stomach for hours in the quad, looking for clovers, eating licorice and chatting with everyone who passes by.  I miss walking around Hamilton barefoot and not worrying what I look like.  (This carefree attitude doesn't exist in Paris, trust me).

A lot of the joy that I've found before in schoolwork has been missing this year.  I love my classmates, and I enjoy my classes, but I'm finding it difficult to sit down and read Baudelaire, or write a thesis statement.  This is beyond odd for me -- it is downright horrifying.  Which author can capture my heart and soul, if not Baudelaire?  Who am I, if not the Academic?

That being said, I have had of late a big smile on my face too many times to forget.  Most of it revolves around going out with the previous classmates, or getting to know the new ones.  Some of it revolves around the trees budding and the flowers blooming.  A good deal of it revolves around the ridiculously hilarious things my room mate says.  I am very thankful for a lot this year, and I truly am enjoying myself.  but there is still that dull ache of being ready.  Ready to go home, ready to start work, ready to feel grass under my bare toes again.

Be a part of an institution, lead the way in a revoloution.

I realized yesterday that I am going to need a year off after school just to swallow and process all the information I will have absorbed during my 5-year long adventure in Bachelor of Arts with an Honours French Major, Psychology Minor and Bachelor of Education.

I love my house. I live with some of the best guys around; Richard, Kevin, Corey, Chad and Nathan, as well as my stellar roomie Amanda. Two weeks ago at devos, we spent all night making jokes about Richard making porn and Corey being a pedophile. This week at devos we spent almost two hours discussing whether Deedz was doing God’s work or not. Just based on the fact that we can be laughing in both of those discussions means that I have found a crowd I can fit into, have fun with, grow with and learn from. I think that is as good as it gets.

One of my goals for this school year is to have 100 coffee dates. So far I have managed to squeeze in 5. I'm so excited for all of these coffee dates. So many people here are so amazing and have a lot of wisdom to offer.

Apparently many people from my school no longer believe in short-term missions. Anyone who doesn’t believe in short-term missions needs to move past “numbers” and “results” and look up God’s commandment to take care of the widow and the orphan. I’m pretty sure He didn’t specify how long we had to spend with them to ‘take care’ of them. And I’m also pretty sure He didn’t tell us to ensure “results”. And how can we measure efficiency, change or worth? Certainly not the way He measures efficiency, change or worth.

Everyone who thinks choral music is lame should listen to Crucifixus by Lotti and O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen.

Today was “Random Act of Chocolate Day”, in the world of my I.T. Boss. Score!

The Days We Went Crazy

My current life:

- 8 courses, none of which I love, but only one of which I hate... unfortunately, that is my major
- IT desk, where I do readings and/or watch videos
- Language lab, where I generally do readings
- French/Spanish tutor, which seems to not be doing much lately
- Freeway Cafe, where I get to hear wonderful bands and serve people fair-trade coffee
- Debutante/Amy, our indecisively-named band, where I get to hang out with my best friends and do the one thing we love most
- CEW Team, where we basically dance and worship creatively
- Green Team, where I get to make sure Redeemer is taking care of the environment as best as possible
- Environment Hamilton, where I make sure Hamilton keeps up with Redeemer :P
- Small Group leader, where I get to lead some youngsters (they're pretty much older than me) in our meetings about God; think church, but little
- Small Group Ministries Leader, where I make sure all the people doing that are doing it well
- Outdoors Club, where I get to spend time with Redeemerites and nature... all at once!
- Choir, which we all know is my favorite, where I apparently get to meet my future soprano husband? (come on; we all know I'm marrying a bass)
- Revival Prayer Team Leadership, where I get to make sure that Redeemer students are actively living out their faith... by praying for them
- Deeds Leadership, where I plan short-term missions trips and lead them!
-M.Ed theses, where I am translating correspondences between M.Ed students and administrators in Haiti and Dr. Sider, a professor at Redeemer

Occasionally there are some meals in there, sometimes a bit of sleep. Not too much, but enough!

All This Talk of Getting Old...

I love music. If you love music, you should find the following five songs and listen to them. They are incredible.

Fall For Anything -- Jeremy Fisher
The Drugs Don't Work -- the Verve
Life Is Beautiful -- Ryan Adams
Hallelujah -- Jeff Buckley
Boats and Birds -- Gregory and the Hawk

As a side note, most of you know by now that I love volunteering. If you were unaware, you now know. In any case, the place where I have chosen to volunteer is the Freeway Cafe. I received a very saddening email this week about some changes about to take place in the coffee house. Due to financial problems, my co-worker Randy will no longer be employed there. He is one of our only two paid employees. He trained me and taught me so much about Hamilton, safe biking and standing for what I believe in. Please pray for him and his family while they make this difficult transition. As well, the Freeway may be forced to close it's doors either permanently or temporarily, as I understand it. Please pray that we will see God's hand in this situation. I truly believe that He values the initiatives behind the Freeway and I know with all certainty that He will take care of us. Thanks for the prayers.

I hope all of you with outdoor jobs enjoyed the rain as much as I did today! :)

PS: Anyone know how to get rid of fruit flies?

It'll All Seem Better Somehow, in Time.

I'm running out of gas.
I don't like biking to work.
I don't like working 10 hour shifts.
I don't like my current lack of night-life.

But praise God that I have a bike to make work possible.
And that I have a job.
And that I am alive.

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
-Eric Hoffer

Darling You're Not Thinking Straight

Brief Life Updates:
-I have a second degree burn... covering my back. It's very pretty.
-I have a new job, and. I am enjoying it. The teams are sorted by ethnicity and I'm on the Portuguese/Spanish team. With the exception of the one Canadian girl, Amber, who was very lonely before I got there.
-I am already seeing a decline in my english grammar and accent. Oops!

Anyone out here like Imogen Heap? Yes? I am in LOVE with her song "The Moment I Said It" . Posting the lyrics can't truly do the song justice, but I'm not feeling very wordy currently, and trying to describe it would likely not result in you wanting to listen to it. So here are the lyrics. If they intrigue you look it up. 5 Stars.

The moment I said it,
The moment I opened my mouth
Lead in your eyelids,
Bulldozed the life out of me

I know what you're thinking,
But darling you're not thinking straight
Sadly things just happen we can't explain

It's not even light out,
But you've somewhere to be
No hesitation
No I’ve never seen you like this,
And I don't like it
I don't like it
I don't like it at all

Just put back the car keys,
Or somebody's gonna get hurt
Who are you calling at this hour?
Sit down, come round, I need you now
We'll work it all out together,
But we're getting nowhere tonight
Now sleep, I promise it'll all seem better,
Somehow in time

It's not even light out,
Suddenly (suddenly) oh, you've somewhere to be
With no hesitation
Oh, I've never seen you like this
You're scaring me
You're scaring me
You're scaring me to death
Don't…ohh (smash)
Please don't…ohh (and a-[please] nother one)
Don't…ohh (smash)
Please don't…ohh (and a-[please] nother one)

I'm losing you, I'm losing you
Trust me on this one
I've got a bad feeling,
Trust me on this one
You're gonna throw it all away
With no hesitation(Smash)

We Are Nowhere and it's Now.

(Bright Eyes rocks my socks right off).

If you're wondering what's new in my life, my employer hasn't paid me in the month I've been slaving away for him. I'm also planning on reporting him to the Health and Safety Standards committee since we use no safety equipment. However, I need my paycheck first. And then I will be jobless. I'm out of food already lol. Though, I have tons of peanut butter and potatoes. And I went resume dropping with Maryanne today, so we'll see if something turns up. As well, my father and I fought today over his alcoholism. I'm not as upset as I would have expected though, likely because he hasn't been around for a few (read:12) years. And I apparently have to choose between him and my mom and older sister. So I guess I chose my mom and sister. But not on purpose. If I could truly choose, I'd make us all love each other. Oh well! Also, I'm doing a CD exchange with Elle, and soon I get to see the next Star Wars movie in my continuing adventure called "Catching Up to All the Other Youth in Canada".

PS: I love this...

Baby, You're a Rich Man

(That's by the Beatles. I hope you knew that).

1 Wake-up call: $0.35

2 energy drinks: $6.00
1 Work uniform: $138.00

Getting to work to find the truck isn't running: PRICELESS.

Teenage Heartbreak.

(A song by Eleventyseven).

While driving to a property this week, my co-workers and I saw a young pregnant girl on Barton Street. This is the conversation that followed:

Ashley: Everyone's pregnant nowadays!
Donna: Why?
Ashley: Love.
Erica: Welfare.

Side note: I bought blonde hair dye today...