Home and lovin it.

I am at home. I am at home and home seems to have been waiting for me just as it was. From the first supper I had with my family, I felt like I fit right in again. Nothing seemed strange; it’s almost like an alternate life I easily slip back into. There’s a familiarity to it that bothers me. It’s the same thing that happened at Christmas. Things that I missed so much are immediately normal and everyday, and I feel like I don’t savor them and appreciate them properly. It takes focus to remember how much I miss this when I don’t have it, this carefree hanging out with family and friends.

Who, by the way, are wonderful. Rachel’s singing never ceases to amaze me – she got second in her class of 18 in musical theatre at the Music Festival, without a teacher, and with only a few days preparation. I accompanied her on the piano, and my mom said she didn’t notice me at all, which is the best compliment an accompanist can receive. I play for Daniel’s saxophone class next week. The song is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. I also love talking to mom and dad. I love the dishwasher and the abundance of spoons in the house. I love my best friend, I had no idea how much I missed her. She is patient with me. She’s sleeping beside me on the couch at the moment. I wish I could get back at her and tell you she’s snoring, but she actually sleeps quite quietly. I am glad she never tires of spending time with me.

Speaking of Chris, we had an excellent time together in Vancouver before I returned home. After she wrote the last blog entry, she graciously came walking through the mud with me, even though it was “the coldest one of her extremities have ever been”. We also ran along the waves for a while, humming the “Chariots of Fire” theme, in honor of my father’s favorite movie.
We also got our hairs cut. Here are the before and after pictures:

Christine has Harry Potter hair. After that, she helped me pack and clean, and even vacuumed. I could not have done it without her. She's a packing whiz. And I needed her baggage space. Then we flew together, and Blue Spoon flew too. We did ok, although we had a few close calls - I forgot the tickets at the baggage claim, and Christine forgot my camera on the plane. But we made it. With a little help from our friendly stewardess.
One exciting thing that happened is that one of the eaglets was born on Hornby Island! Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see the little guy yet, because the website was flooded with visitors, and it doesn’t work very well. You can give it a try though. My grandma thought it was cool. http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/.

It was great to hang out with my grandma, especially since she shares my love of birds. She also told me stories of her college hi-jinx. Hi-jinks? Highginks? She told me about using a rope to haul something fermented into her college dorm, through the window.

Tomorrow I start my job. It sounds like Robin, my superior, is getting lonely and bogged down with work, so it should be fun to help her out. Our office is in the children’s craft supply room at the church, tucked away in a corner. I look forward to doing a job so different from school, writing things that won't get graded and reading things I don't have to write about.

I’ve been thinking about blogs, and why I started writing one, and why I write now. Originally I wanted it to be a way to keep up with people at home without having to write too many personal e-mails. I still write for that reason, but I’ve also started to have fun with it. I’ve really enjoyed writing this way, just as a hobby, to relax. I like being creative with the way I tell stories. People have remarked that my blog is fun to read, but it doesn’t really sound like “me”. Perhaps I am guilty of making myself sound more exciting than I am, and writing what I think you might want to hear. I’m really not very funny or witty or dramatic in person. I can actually be quite boring and uninteresting, and I rarely think of entertaining things to say off the top of my head. Mostly it just comes when I write. Maybe I should put a disclaimer on my blog to warn people that this is only one side of who I am. It’s my most vicarious self. Do not be disappointed if you get to know me, and do not think that I’ve changed if you already knew me. I'm just Beth. This is blog Beth.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope to continue to write this summer, if I don’t get too excited about being outside. I miss you, beautiful mountainous oceanous Vancouver. I miss you, roommates (who must be moved out by now). I will miss singing in the Gospel Choir tomorrow. But I won’t lie… it’s good to be home.

Vitamin Aftertaste

Herein lies a brief description of our adventures in the Couv:
1. Although Beth was at the airport an hour early, she was too trusting of the computer system. Before flight 8577 said 'arrived', I was by her side. It's ok though, I have grown so much spiritually in the past few months that I wasn't upset about not being greeted for the second time. Future visits are pending.
2. Our trip downtown on this visit was to immerse ourselves (Beth, Danice, Ryan and myself) in the splendours of Ballroom Hip-Hop with Antonio. Beth loves with wild abanderas. I have a rekindled love for dancing. We also visited a second hand cd store, a very hilarious (and yet to be fully revealed) clothing store and the greatest little candy store where I almost bought a 5 pound lollipop that could be used as a weapon. Strawberry flavored.
3. We ended the night by holding purple starfish, watching Sweet November and sleeping. Beth slept well..I know that because I was awakened by her snoring.
4. The shower here is lethal. For 10 long minutes I endured the pelting of little bullets of water. Good thing I've picked up a few things from my close bullet proof friend.
5. On a more spiritual level, I finally discovered why Vancouver makes me feel like I could disappear. At home, except for the trees, it's easy to feel like you're the tallest thing standing, the most reliable, independent thing, the protector. Here, surrounded by mountains, it's inescapable that you're not the centre of the universe, you are the one being protected by the mountains and One who made them, and that your significance does not inevitably follow you around everywhere- unless of course you've learned how to bring it with you.
6. There are beautiful cherry blossoms everywhere. It makes the world magical and surreal and happy. We spent time with the ducks and under canopy trees and feeling the wind from the ocean.
7. For the first time, while having coffee with Shauna, Beth and I tried Tibetan Tea, a carbonated beverage made of herbal tea and ginseng which transports you to the mountaintops of Tibet. Refreshing indeed. Beth aptly described it as 'good, like sparkling grapefruit with a vitamin aftertaste'.
8. Tonight, if all goes well, we are playing Dutch Blitz, venturing into the wonderful world of packing and running through the mud in bare feet while the tide is low in the marvelous ocean.

We miss you all.

The joys of blogging at 6:00 AM.

So it’s 6:00 in the morning, and my body apparently hates me, because I’m wide awake. I can’t remember the last time excitement woke me up. But in four hours, my best friend in the whole world will be here, and we’ve been apart for the longest time we’ve ever been apart, and I can’t sleep. Geez, Beth. She hasn’t even left her house in Saskatoon yet. You’re such a geek.

So I thought instead of doing something productive, like packing up everything in my room, I would write a blog.

What’s worse than being up at 6:00 is having gone to bed at 1:00. That’s because I was at a rager of a party last night. Well, as raging as a party full of seminary students can be. I admit, there was some Scripture read and some worship songs sung. We have to be a little stereotypical. But there was also plenty of mud wrestling, so, go figure. It was Tora’s birthday party, and she chose to be born right after everyone’s exams were over, which is highly beneficial, because everyone wants to celebrate, whether they know Tora or not. I think there were 60 people there, at the beach, and way too much food for all of us to eat. The best part of the night was that the tide was really low – we went running on the mud flats as the earth tilted past the sun. Johannah did cartwheels and Bob slid along his stomach and Amanda did interpretive mud dancing. And I realized… as much as I want to see my grandma and my family and friends and work at camp, I’m really going to miss this place and these people over the summer.

As I was trying in vain to force myself back to sleep, I came up with a plan for the day with Christine. We’ll see if she goes along with it. She will arrive at 10:15 and I will be waiting at the right door to meet her this time. Then we will come back here and have lunch, and then we’ll go watch “Take the Lead” with fabulous Antonio Banderas. Then we’ll do something for the rest of the afternoon. Then we’ll eat supper and by then the tide will be low, and we’ll go down to the Rock and find purple starfish. We will walk down to Jericho Park and I’ll introduce her to all my favorite ducks, and then we’ll find the mud flats and go running in them, like last night. But this time I’ll be better prepared, with a towel. We will then take the bus to the Regent party of the night, at Matt’s house, so I can say goodbye to all my friends. We’ll walk part of the way home, in the dark, because for some reason my best friend likes to walk in the dark, when you can’t see any of the beautiful scenery. She thinks it’s mysterious or something. I just think it’s freaky. I think that’s part of the fun for her. So that’s the plan, Stan. The only glitch might be that I’ll most likely be ready for bed by supper. Or maybe it will start raining and ruin my plans, like it was when I took this cool picture of a freighter.

So I finished my exams, and everything went well, I think. One year down. To celebrate, I went to a concert with some Regent folk – it was a band called Eisley. Check them out at

www.eisley.com. They’re from Texas, four home-schooled siblings and their next-door neighbor, and I think the oldest one is a year older than me. The two vocalists are sisters, and their voices are incredible together. It made me want to sing with my family.
Anyway, we were the oldest people at the concert, I think. And I realized something…here it is: I am not cool. In fact, I am un-cool. This perhaps doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but it really hit home the night of the concert. Everyone was dressed cooler than me, with suspenders and shirts over dresses and band t-shirts. Everyone was doing this dance move with their hands that made it seem like they were trying to brush dandruff out of their hair. Actually, it’s called “raise the roof”. I am not cool enough to know. One of the guitar players in an opening band was wearing a poncho. Just a poncho. Ponchos are cool. I didn’t know that. I thought they were itchy. Also, the bands kept telling us to check them out on myspace. I only found out what myspace was about a month ago, and that’s because I have a roommate who’s cool. I am officially behind the times.

At least cool people still hang out with me. Like Danice. She can dance and she knows all about the 80s, and those things are cool. I don’t know anything about the 80s except that I was born in them. But I’m learning. She is schooling me in 80s music and movies – after the concert we watched “The Breakfast Club”. It was cool. I felt a little bit cooler. I bet now that I’ve used “cool” 50 times in one blog, I’ll find out that the word “cool” is no longer cool and has been replaced, thereby making me all the more uncool. Or whatever the word is now.

“Unwicked”.
“Unsweet”.
Unsweetened.

Well, it’s now more like 7:00, and the Rock is calling me. I only have 4 more mornings to visit it, so I’d better obey the call. Cool people do not go bird watching at 7:00 AM. That’s ok. I am at peace with my uncool self. Except the fact that my uncool self doesn't want to sleep…

I’ll write again probably, with Christine. And if we don’t find the time… I’ll see you Saskatonians on Tuesday!

He is risen indeed

Well I should start by telling you about the bird walk I went on with the Natural History Society, my first outing as a member. It was in the park right by my house, Jericho Park, which is the second biggest park in Vancouver, next to Stanley Park. It seriously must have been God’s providence to bring me to this area, because this park is the mecca of bird watching. It has more habitats (meadow, forest, beach, swamp, pond) than Stanley Park, so a greater variety of birds use it.

So yesterday morning I joined five older women, united in their love of birds (and in their hatred of dog owners who let their animals off the leash and scare all the birds away). I think they were excited to have me because they think I am the key to attracting younger eople to the 90-year old Society. We'll see about that. Anyway, I learned so much from our guide, Daphne – I asked her all the bird questions I’d built up over the last seven months. You'd think these bird people would be frumpy, but this septogenarian was seriously decked out in all the latest and greatest MEC gear, with way bigger binoculars than mine. Birding is serious business, you know. Some dedicated birders have "life lists" of all the bird species in the world and check off birds when they see them, and travel to highly remote places on earth to get the rarest ones and join the 700 or 800 club. This could be me in a few years, folks. Tremble.

Yesterday, I saw six birds I’d never seen before, including the smallest woodpecker (downy woodpecker) and a duck called a green-winged teal. Here’s a picture of one, because I know you’re all wondering what they look like.

Isn't he great? I also saw Saskatoon berry bushes! A little bit of home. Mostly, it was so great to have my passion shared with others, to have people not think I'm crazy, even if those people are women in their 60s and 70s.

Now I must tell you about this morning… Isn’t there some sort of unwritten rule that it must be sunny on Easter Sunday, at least for the duration of the morning service? I mean, rain on Good Friday is ok, it’s probably even helpful and appropriate. And let’s face it, Easter Saturday doesn’t really have any rules. But on Sunday, God must provide sun for the entire earth, don’t you think? It’s just part of His job.

He broke the rules in Vancouver. I left my house before seven for the Kits Church sunrise service down at the beach (Hey – do I have any readers who have been at Emmanuel long enough to remember when we used to do Easter Sunrise services down at the river? I still have blustery memories of that.) Anyway – sunrise service. Nope, no sunrise. It was hailing. Hailing! Argh. At least it softened into light rain as a group of about 50 of us huddled on the shore, singing songs a capella, guessing at the key and ending up singing way too high! It was pretty cool to see this guy James’ baptism. That’s real commitment to Christ, when you’re willing to risk hypothermia to be baptized. My favorite part was when a raindrop landed in my cup and splashed me with communion grape juice.

From there, I got a ride to church to practice for worship team for the regular service. It was no ordinary practice. We got started late – we only had about half an hour before the service was going to start, and because it was Easter, we were singing more songs than usual – about ten. On top of time constraints, the sanctuary was in slight disarray. The pastor had started filling the baptismal tank, in case it was hailing and we couldn’t do it in the ocean. The sign said it would take two hours to fill. The sign was being modest. When we arrived after a little over an hour, it was overflowing! There was water all over the stage and even worse, down in the basement where we would be eating our Easter meal together. (btw, if I were a pastor, I would be using this as a sermon illustration, with some sort of metaphor about the waters of baptism overflowing to us all, but I’m just a Bible School student.) So one of the sound guys was running a wet vac as we practiced, and we couldn’t hear anything. Plus there was tons of feedback and microphone malfunctions. The vocalists didn’t know some of the songs. It was pure chaos. We pretty much didn’t practice. I didn’t have high hopes for this Easter service. Ah, how I wished I could be transported to Emmanuel for the well-organized, well-practiced, beautifully creative Easter service…

The service began in darkness, with black sheets over all the windows, reminding us of our theme of lament that we’ve been studying over Lent. We were singing a song that I didn’t know and had not practiced, called “Who will roll the stone away”. We got to a part that went, “He is risen from the dead!” and I guess the children had all been briefed at a meeting I didn’t attend, because they let loose, ripping the black curtains down, turning on lights and spotlights, and they all had obnoxious noisemakers and party blowers and they were throwing confetti everywhere and dancing around the church. It was one of the most amazing Easter outbursts of joy I’ve ever experienced! All I could do was play the piano with all my might, which I did. Over and over again, we sang “He is risen from the dead,” as the adults joined the kids in the aisles, bringing daffodils up to the cross. Pure, authentic, chaotic joy. Wow. A great Easter morning, all in all.

I just realized it’s kind of my baptism birthday today. I was baptized on Easter Sunday in 1997. Happy 9th baptism birthday to me! To my brother, Daniel: did you get your baptism ring yet? Chris told me that you and Bailey were going ring shopping. Almost gave me a heart attack. Ha.

So Happy Easter to you all, keep praying for me. I finished my paper but it somehow turned out to be 4000 words instead of 3000, so I have some serious editing to do. And I have three exams. But it will soon be over!

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

For once, a whole blog on one topic.

I should be writing my paper, but I need a rest. So if you need a break too, I say to you what I saw graven into these stairs on the ocean shore...

Rest a while, read about my life. I will tell you about my last class periods of the semester, because they have been especially rich. In my class about the missional role of the church in the world, our prof Darrell Johnson finished by bringing us up to the front in groups, according to our calling: those called to serve God’s kingdom by caring and advocating for the marginalized, then those who will serve God in the business world, doing jobs that are normally thought of as “secular”, then those who will be pastors, and missionaries and evangelists. We knelt down to be blessed, prayed for, and sent out. I felt empowered by this process – it’s so overwhelming to be recognized and prayed for as an integral part of God’s plan, no matter what your vocation.

In our last Hebrew class on Thursday, we received gifts of Hebrew Bibles from the Canadian Bible Society. I’m excited about reading over the summer. I need to be disciplined and keep up my Hebrew, because I think I want to take intermediate Hebrew next year. Actually, the Canadian Bible Society guy has got me dreaming about Bible translation. Before he spoke to our class, I pictured Bible translation as being sort of a desk job, where you sit in an office and pore over texts. But he talked about living with tribes, learning their language, figuring out how to write it, teaching them how to read their own language, and then translating… it seems like a very adventurous sort of job. I mean, you’d still have to sit at a desk sometimes and translate things, but it’s a much more dynamic process than I pictured, and involves lots of interaction with people.

I checked out the Wycliffe Bible Translators’ site, and there are 7000 languages in the world, with over 2500 yet to have a single verse of Scripture translated, representing 272 million people. That number surprised me, considering how many English translations we have. I guess having to read through the whole Bible this year has made me think a lot about it – how dependent our faith is on it, how incredible it is that it’s survived so many centuries, how this book was so cherished by the monks that they spent almost their whole lives copying it. I’ve also sort of fallen in love with it from spending so many hours trying to read one chapter in the original Hebrew.

I don’t think it was a mistake that my parents signed me up for French Immersion in kindergarten, igniting a love of languages in me. Argh. I don’t know. I'm frustrated. It feels like every day I have a new passion, a new idea of what, perhaps, God’s designed me to do. Just last week I was passionate about working in field biology, banding and observing birds with A Rocha, working for conservation. Now I want to go off to some tribe and translate the Bible into their language. I befuddle myself. My prayer right now is that either God will strengthen the passions He most wants me to focus on, or that He’ll give me some sort of avenue whereby I can combine them all. Who knows… maybe there is some sort of job where I can live with a people group, studying their language for translation, teaching them better care of the earth at the same time. Or… perhaps I’ll end up translating the Bible into bird song. Ha. I guess I should be happy I have too many passions, instead of none at all.

But to tell you the absolute truth, at the deepest level, I’m not that worried. God’s led me this far, and I’m more confident now that His purpose is good. Some of this trust in God is an illusion – I think a lot of the time I’m really trusting in my own ability to control and direct my life, which is completely bogus. I know I operate this way, because when it comes to something I really have no control over, like, say, the life direction of my best friend - I find it much harder to trust God. I get a lot angrier with Him when He doesn’t seem to be doing anything for her; she’s much more trusting. Oh me of little faith.

I guess where I’m at right now is… I’m pretty sure my vocation right now is to be a student. I’ve learned that “being in the center of God’s will” means being joined with Christ, since He was at the center of His Father’s will. So my job is to study and push deeper roots into my relationship with God. And to learn how to trust Him. That’s probably why He’s not laying out the whole plan of my life right now – He wants me to learn this. And not to take myself too seriously. Heck, my dad was an engineer and He became a pastor. I have to keep telling myself that it’s all about the journey, and God’s in charge, and He can use even my mistakes, and if I knew all the answers I wouldn’t need Him or anyone else.

Well, I’d better get back to my paper. Pray for me, for my three exams next week. I’ll write later and tell you how all of it went. In case any of you don’t know, Christine is coming here to the Couv on the 22nd, and I’ll be flying home to Saskatoon with her on Tuesday the 25th, to work at the Quest this summer. Man, I miss you guys. I missed Emmanuel’s Good Friday service today. The one I went to today was good, but it was a little too Easter-anticipating for me. I missed the creativity and depth of thought, and the power of symbols and atmosphere in Emmanuel’s service. I always left with the cross burned into my consciousness in a new way, without having to rush into happy Easter feelings. Do you know what I mean?

P.S. If you were reading this hoping for something more light-hearted, I heartily suggest you visit one of the funniest sites I've seen in a while: http://www.datetosave.com. "Not only can we date hot guys (as only hot Christian girls could do), but hopefully we can lead them to God and help them get saved them from the burning fires of Hell."

Just as random, but less silly.

Hello everyone. One week of school left, and one week of exams (three in three days – better than December’s four in two days). I can’t believe it. I have to write a paper and read for NT and study. And maintain a balanced lifestyle. That’s the hard part. The next two weeks of my life are highly scheduled; every hour goes toward reading, papering and studying, if I’m not already in class, in transit, eating or sleeping. I’m becoming increasingly thankful for Sabbath Sundays. Today has been a brain-saver for me. It’s nice to do things that don’t involve thought. Say, for example, blogging.

No, I do put some thought into these things. Kudos to Andrea, by the way, for introducing me to RSS, whatever that stands for. All I know is that I now do not have to check everyone’s blogs endlessly to see if they updated. If you look at my list of links to other blogs, on the right side menu, it tells you who has recently updated their blogs! Isn’t that wonderful? I’ll have to figure out new ways to waste time now…

Following up on last week’s story about Danice and the earthworms, this week I too have had the experience of a strange event happen twice in a short period of time. Nothing to do with earthworms though, as far as I know. Two times (Friday and this morning) a different person on my bus has been arrested and handcuffed by the police. This morning was particularly weird because the policemen stormed the bus and dragged the guy out, and had his face down on the pavement… I’m starting to feel like it’s illegal to ride the bus. They’ll be coming for me next. Ah, how I long for the boring bus days of Saskatoon, when the most dangerous experience was lack of oxygen due to crowdedness, or frostbite due to bus lateness.

I decided to take advantage of a tour of the UBC Botanical Gardens this week, even though I was too busy. I’m glad I did. Magnolia trees are truly something – when the huge pink petals fall, they look like leaves. Ah, Magnoliaceae. I also learned how to identify a Rhododendron (Ericaceae). I’m going to have to go back when everything is blooming. Sorry, Matt, I didn’t get any good photos of the gardens, but as a consolation, I’ll put one here of a magnolia flower on a tree near Regent. This flower is about the size of my hand. My next decision is whether or not to go on a bird walk with the Vancouver Natural History Society (of which I am a new member) on Saturday morning, when I should really be studying…

Speaking of birds, I’ve been slightly obsessed with eagles this week, since I talked to Peter Harris, who runs A Rocha (check them out – the world’s only international Christian conservation organization – http://www.arocha.org). He told me about a website that has a live video feed of an eagle’s nest, and it’s incredible, because the mother eagle sits on it pretty much non-stop. The eaglets are going to hatch at the end of April. You can find the video at http://www.hancockhouse.com.

My own eagles (my own beach’s eagles) have been quite active down at the Rock lately – here’s a picture of Lex Jr. in the light.

I’ve also witnessed the comeback of Spencer the seal, which is very exciting. And I’ve been taking a lot of pictures of the sun rising over Vancouver, because I’m getting up so early to get work done. By the way, does anyone know if taking pictures of the sun ruins digital cameras?

Ah, sun. Guess what? I actually got a mild sunburn on my face on Wednesday because of sitting out in the sun. Isn’t that fantastic? A sunburn in the first week of April?

Today I watched Rain Man for the first time, and I thought of Jon Erik. The Poppery.

So Lent is almost over, and I’m excited to listen to music again. Yesterday, I discovered a music-less way to block out the noise of the TV in the living room – nature sounds on internet streaming radio. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. What could be more conducive to reading than the chirping of little birds and rushing water? Although, for about an hour it played “Wind Chimes,” which, as Christine can testify, almost drove me up the wall. I suppose I could have just turned it off… Speaking of Lent, today is Palm Sunday. I hear the Gospel Choir at Emmanuel rocked the house today- wish I could have been there, especially since my best friend, sister and brother were pretty much da bomb (da balm) of the whole thing.

Well, if you’ve made it this far through the randomness, I suppose I should give you something a little more deep and substantial. I have been moved this week, several times, by visions of the new earth, of the apocalypse. Don't worry, I'm not going to get all Left Behind on you. It all started with Darrell Johnson, a prof of mine, who challenged us to “soak in” Revelation 21 and 22 every day for a week. Then he did an incredible lecture on those chapters where he showed that the new earth, the city of God, will be the very Temple of His presence, that Heaven will in a sense merge with earth, and the staggering implications of seeing the Face of God, which Moses was never allowed to do. He spoke so powerfully and hopefully, and at the end he broke into “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King…”, and we all joined in, but I could hardly sing, I was so choked up with joy. It sounds corny, but it wasn’t – God’s presence was there, and I swear I was getting the tiniest taste of what this kind of kingdom existence might mean. Darrell’s big point was that our vision of the future shapes the way we live in the present. I hope this does.

And over the last couple days I’ve been reading Jurgen Moltmann’s “Trinity and the Kingdom”, which is the most theologically dense book I’ve ever read, but just as powerful as Darrell in communicating a vision of a passionate God who has only given us a glimpse of what He has in store for us. Whoever thought a guy named Jurgen could change my life? I’ve been sitting on my bed, absolutely overwhelmed by phrases like this:

“All people and things then partake of the inner-trinitarian life of God. They join in the responding love of the Son and will thereby become the joy of the Father’s blissful love. Then the triune God is at home in his world, and his world exists out of his inexhaustible glory. This is the eternal feast of heaven and earth. This is the dance of the redeemed. This is the laughter of the universe.”

That’s what I’m going to try to carry with me this week, to keep me on track. Set your eyes on the things that are above…

This blog will NOT change your life.

My brother Daniel, who reads this blog but thus far has never commented, said he wanted me to post. He’d sure better comment this time. This week I have some interesting tidbits of information and tidbits of photos, and I don’t have enough energy to link it together into coherent paragraphs. So… point form it is.

- I got my ear cleaned by a doctor last week. I highly recommend this course of action if you wake up with an ear completely plugged by wax, like me (yeah, sorry, gross), or just if you need a pick-me-up for a low-energy week. Seriously, folks, it’s highly invigorating to have a jet stream of cold water shot through the recesses of your ear canal. It made it even more fun that this was the same doctor who assessed my puffy eyes two days prior (see last post). I swear I saw him write “hypochondriac” on my sheet...

- Look! These rocks look like a hamburger with eyes. A rockburger. I found them like that. These other ones look like a rock snowman. A snrockman. That’s because I set up the shot really well.

Some of my more faithful readers may have noted that this is the first time I've managed to get a photo to appear lengthwise like this. You no longer have to crane your necks around. The way I finally got it to work is... I have no idea. I didn't do anything different, I swear. God smiles on my blog, what can I say.

- Today, Danice saw an earthworm inside our house. This may not seem all that strange to you. But consider this: (haha, I sound like a Duracell commercial) - this is the second earthworm she’s seen in our house in the last week. Either there’s a hole in the house somewhere, or she has earthworm magnetism, or she’s crazy. I think we’d be safe in assuming the last option, as is clearly evidenced by this photo, taken yesterday.

Sometimes pictures speak for themselves. Actually, I'm sorry, Danice. Danice has been complaining how much I write about her in this blog. How much I mention her name. Oh, Danice. Yes. Danice. People are starting to approach her in the hallways of Regent, telling her how much they enjoy reading about her on my blog, asking for her autograph. It's really becoming quite overwhelming for her. So Danice, I'm really sorry for talking about you again. Danice.

- My favorite thing lately is peanut butter in my ice cream. That and being able to hear out of my right ear.

- Look! This is from when I took my pet duck for a walk.

For real.

- I read a whole entire book in just one night, on Wednesday. It’s a good encouragement for me, because I have to read four more within the next week. But this one was different – because it was freaking awesome. If for some odd reason you’re like me, and you didn’t know who Anne Lamott was until now, read a book by her, immediately. The one I read was “Traveling Mercies”. It’s sort of autobiographical, like “Blue Like Jazz”, but more different. Just take my word for it. I’ve talked to most people, and they like it too.

- Look! This is a cool picture I took of tree rings. I really like this one. It’s up there with the cherry tree picture from a couple weeks ago. It’s in the file I labeled “Photos that could one day change the world".

- Today we in the majority of North America “sprung forward” out of daylight savings time. Ok. Many people have asked me this question, and Saskatonians, it is up to you to offer your best guesses for the answer. Whyever does not Saskatchewan celebrate daylight savings time? Is it because it’s hard on the crops? Is it hard on the livestock and the pets? Is it because we’re backwards? Or forwards? Help me out, homies. Points for creativity. Let’s get some intraCanadian controversy going here.

- Look! This is the hill I have to scale every day to get down to my Rock. Do you see my footholds? Do you see the flower in the foreground? (Foreground is a fancy photography word.)

(Oh, and footholds is a fancy wall-climbing word.)

Ok. I think that’s about enough. Sorry this blog is so lame – it’s because most of my brain cells are required for use at Regent at this time. It’s crunch time. I’ll be back to my normal, deep, intellectual self very soon, I promise. :) I want to send a special thank you card out to Chris, only 19 more days, and the ducks are counting down too.

Daniel, you'd better comment.