There's a first time for everything.

Hello, everyone!

I think Bible School students are susceptible to metaphors. My greatest life metaphor right now is setting my eyes on the Promised Land, which is home. I go home in 23 days, and I’m floored by how much I have to accomplish before that time. But I’m also realizing what the song “I’ll be home for Christmas” really means. It adds such a sweet dimension to an already wonderful holiday. I’m so excited to see everyone again, and to not have any work to do whatsoever, to be able to relax and catch up.

I wanted to make a list of “first times” in my life in the past month or so. Here goes…

1. First time cooking 1.32 kg of ground beef at once. If I told you why Danice and I had to do this, I would be making you fear for our health, so I won’t. We’re fine. Really. But we have a whole heck of a lot of cooked taco-flavored ground beef that we have to eat fairly quickly. I’ve had too many tacos. If anyone has any ideas of how to use it up without the use of an oven, please comment. Ah, another reason to look forward to home… mom’s cooking…did I mention Danice and I went through 2 kg of peanut butter in a month and a half?

2. First time getting carded at a bar. I went to my swing dance wind-up at the campus bar, aptly named “The Pit”. I was thinking so well that night. I said to myself, Beth, you don’t want to leave your wallet or purse sitting by itself while you’re on the dance floor busting out the moves, so maybe you should leave it at home and just bring a $10 bill and your bus pass in your pocket. Great idea, Beth. Until the bouncer asks you for ID. I pulled out my bus pass, which obviously doesn’t show my age at all. I tried to bribe him with the $10 bill, to no avail. Finally ten of my Regent friends showed up and vouched that I was a grad school student, obviously of age. Obviously mature. Obviously.

3. First time paying $70 for a concert. Yes, I’m going to Coldplay in January. I will finally witness someone pounding the piano harder than I do. I’m pretty excited, but not as excited as Danice. I’m still more excited about coming home.

4. First time eating supper at a professor’s house. I went with my tutorial group to Prof. Sarah Williams’ house lastnight, and it was great. We had such eloquent, important discussions together. Well, other people did. I talked to her 11-yr. old daughter the whole time. We mostly talked about the trials and tribulations of life in grade 6.

5. First time enduring a week of fog. A whole week of fog. Can you imagine it? That’s what all of these photos are showing you. Let me qualify that behind the masts of the boats, there are usually mountains. But one of the photos looks like God smudged the mountains with his thumb. And another shows that the bottom half of downtown Vancouver is engulfed with the stuff. It felt like I was living in a mysterious suspense movie, with danger around every corner. Today it finally turned into rain.

6. First time telling a prof to his face that I would kill. Ha. I’d better explain this one. Have you ever taken a language class and had to drill verb conjugations out loud? Perhaps those of you who have taken French will remember “je mange, tu manges” or “j’aime, tu aimes…”. I wonder if the choice of verb reflects the culture somehow. After all, if there’s anything the French are good at, it’s loving and eating. Hebrew is a different story. The verb my prof has chosen for the purposes of oral verb drills is “katal”, which is “to kill”. There we are, saying, in Hebrew, “I kill, you kill, he kills… we all kill!” I’m sure this will come in handy one day in my journeys to Israel.

7. First time seeing ducks having a conference, and duck racism, and seagulls having a bath, and seagulls lane swimming. I’m serious. They do these things. You just have to watch them a lot like I do.

8. First time playing on a worship team that consisted of me on piano, the leader on guitar, and a tuba. At the Anglican church. Throw in some pipe organ and it all works.

9. First time singing in a gospel choir. Yes, my friend Ben from Boston started a Regent gospel choir, and we rock. Like everything at Regent, it’s entirely multicultural. We are a Canadian-American-Asian-East Indian-British-Australian-New Zealandian choir. Suspiciously lacking in African Americans. But we’ve learned a lot of great things. Like how to all sway in the same direction. If you don’t, and you’re standing in the middle, like me, the two swaying directions converge on you, and that’s awkward.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Have yourselves a happy Thanksgiving (I’m surrounded by Americans, and they bring out my American holiday spirit) and a merry first Sunday of Advent. Daniel and Rachel, good luck in your plays. Chris, get well soon. Dad, happy birthday. A shout out to my grandma in Kentucky, who is a faithful reader of my blog. And also to Kate – I didn’t know I’d known you for so long! I love you all.