life continues

Welcome to my life. I’m so glad you continue to join me for these dull and irregular posts. I hope your experience reading this provides you a glimpse into the life of an average over-committed Pearson student. 

Okey, sorry guys, I’ve just come from Media activity and a wild weekend (but not the sort you’re imagining). I can’t even recall when I last posted. I’ve been hard at work and not so hard at work all at the same time this weekend. Friday afternoon the first drafts of our EEs were due. So everyone was hard at work, me and my fellow chemistry EE students had assumed that there was nothing due for us since we weren’t finished our labs yet. So Sean and I were sitting in chemistry class on Thursday and figured that just to be on the safe side we should ask Garth if he expected anything to be handed in. Garth replied that no he didn't ... but that he did expect all our lab work to be done. Well, that was more or less impossible for me. Garth then said that he would extend it to Sunday, but that we needed to get it done. So I spent two hours in the lab on Thursday evening. And then Friday from 6:00 till 1:30 in the morning. And then Saturday from 10:30 in the morning till 2:00 and again from 4:00 till 5:30 and then again from 6:30 till 10:00. And then Sunday rolled around and I spent 8:00 till 10:00 in the lab, and then 3:00 till 5:30 and then 10:00 till midnight. Needless to say, the weekend passed very very slowly. I spent all of my time alone, wearing shoes (the travesty!) in a lab, listening to the same music playing over and over again. At first it was fun, but it got to be dull. On Saturday there were other chemistry students there keeping me company, but truth is most of the time I was all alone. It was sad. But I'm almost done. Even though its Monday, Garth realized that we couldn't possibly  get everything done (I think all he wanted to do was put a little fire under us ... clearly it worked for me). My little 3cm by 3cm pieces of fabric have been soaking for 24 hours, so I just took them out and hung them up to dry. That'll probably take around 48 hours. Then all I have to do is weigh them and I'm done the lab work. Then all I have to do is write the stupid thing. I haven't got a single word yet. I don't mind writing the 4000 words (though it will be a challenge) its the reading it over and over and over again as I edit that will frazzle me. But lets not worry about that yet. I have yet to get there. 

So what else has been going on in my life? Truth is, not much else (as I'm sure the last paragraph managed to communicate fairly clearly!). We're preparing for the African-Caribbean regional day coming up this weekend. We decided last year to make regional days much less stressful and everything, so the practices for this one have been relaxed and you're only allowed to be in two dance (not that there are many dances anyways as the show is only about 45 mins long). I didn't really have any trouble staying out of dances this time as they all seem to involve an incredible amount of shaking things that I either don't have or don't know how to shake. So I've been able to not fall behind in school work and not get stressed out at all yet. I've had breakfast every day of classes so far. Which means I've been out of bed before 7:45! Kudos to me. But anyways, I get a much more exciting job in this regional day show. I get to be the choreographer. It's sort of a new job when it comes to the College's shows, but one well worth the effort. Basically I watch the whole dress rehearsal and take notes. At the end of the run through I get to sit on stage with the all important technical and backstage crews and give notes to each and every act about their costumes, timing, staging, energy, size of their smiles or stage patterns. Or basically whatever I want that has to do with the visual aspect of the show. It's quite exciting actually. I enjoy it. Perhaps more than I should? But it does mean that I can't be in as many dances. Which is alright for this show, but will it be alright with me in the future? I'm not sure yet. I love being busy at rehearsals, but I also love being busy on the night of the show. Something to ponder I suppose ... 

Anyways, there is much more mundane drivel to tell you, but I should go and do some work. It's a much better use of my time. And then I'll be able to continue on my healthy lifestyle habits! :D Ta. 

i'm taking an unofficial sick day.

and so why not update the blog? it's also a friday and half the campus is off on a 56 kilometer walk around a lake. personally, i don't want to pay 40 bucks to walk around a lake and earn billions of blisters for no cause. but kudos to them who do. so we're preparing for our first regional day here ... the afro-caribs are in the spotlight this time. i got invited to the initial act auditions tonight to be a sort of show-advisor type of thinger. so i was fairly pumped about that. i think i'm going to do a nigerian hip-hop/club dance, a swazi dance and a dance from a musical about the apartheid (dang thats a hard word to spell!) in South Africa. so i'm pretty excited. but as a collective the second years decided to make national (this year renamed regional) days less stressful ... so its been a totally different atmosphere, but still completely fun and exciting. what else, what else? i've been waking up early this year. 7 o'clock. ain't that crazy! i never wake up that early! oh! and i've been working at my lab (i want to have it all done by sunday afternoon). it's great fun. but my goal is to go into the lab and do chemistry at midnight. how creepy would that be ... its the perfect image. claire the mad scientist with dreadlocks mixing chemicals at midnight in a dark lab lit only by the moon. sweet eh? so thats my goal for tonight. it was my goal for last night but i ended up going for a late night run instead. that was cool too, but it turns out there are no lights on pearson college drive. so going to the beach was not too bad (there were only two of us though) but coming back we couldn't even see the road! i don't know how it gets so dark that a whole road disappears, but disappear it did! the funny thing is we've been having problems with bears this year. i guess it was a bad summer so they're venturing into civilized grounds for food. we had a baby bear walk around the library at 5:30 in the morning a few days ago, and a full sized bear was seen on the bridge to the soccer field. so yeah ... i was slightly nervous to say the least. but i;ve joined a new activity called pearson raccoons whereby we go tree climbing and mud running and all types of madness at 5:30 in the morning on thursdays and 9:00 at night on tuesdays. im fairly pumped. 

we've also had a full week of activities at this point. i'm helping lead media activity due to my pc radio involvement (we're remaking the activity to include film and such ... mixed media of sorts. i'm more that slightly excited). then i'm in social justice (which we promptly renamed the justice league) on tuesday afternoons. its a discussion group mainly, but we're going to try and do some sort of activism as well. then on thursday afternoons im in the slightly more devoted group of musicians called singers. though we don't all sing by any means. but we are called upon to perform for charity events and when the sponsors come visit us in their fancy float planes and such. sorta neat. and then im doing yoga on friday afternoons. i had the first session of that today. definitely didn't enjoy it as much as i thought i would. the poses are just plain uncomfortable. i have nothing wrong with discomfort, but they aren't particularly stretching either. so yeah ... i may drop that one ... we'll just have to wait and see. the major benefit i see from it is that it will build tonnes of muscle and sort of keep me limber ... sort of. and its relaxing and a great way to end the week. 

so ... on the music front things are very exciting. the new teacher is not as great as i had hoped, though he is definitely better. i'm taking standard level, which means i have to do analysis (everyone does) and then i get to choose either solo performance, group performance or composition. though i had originally planned to do composition, it turns out im going to do solo performance. the school has rented me a double bass with a bow and everything! so i'm going to be a real bass player!!! and i get lessons at the conservatory each week. they haven't started yet, but likely the week after next. perhaps this week, but im not holding my breath. its definitely going to be a challenge, but im really excited. time to buckle down and actually apply myself to something! its pretty exciting in my opinion. 

what else has been going on lately, im trying to think. my room has started to bond (finally). last night i was meant to go to bed but me, aiya and elena got chatting and ended up staying up till 1 o'clock. now i know thats not all too late, but im getting up at 7:00 each morning! thats a huge stretch for me guys. huge. you have no idea. 7:00! and next week i'm cleaning leader so i can't even slack off and sleep in at all. hoorah. 

earlier this week i was definitely having some trouble adjusting to having so many new people on campus, there just seemed to be that summer camp attitude, where first years do stupid things because they don't realize that they have to actually live with these people for one or two years and such things are hard forgotten. and the fact that at the end of last year there was such a sense of community and now i still have that with the second years, but its not there yet with the first years. i dunno, it was hard for a bit for certain, but things are starting to settle down. life is actually happening, deadlines are looming, activities are starting, responsibilities are piling up and so people are realizing that this is it. and as such, (i don't know if any of that made sense ... ) the first years are starting to fit in as a part of the community. its good stuff. 

anyways ... hmm ... i don't know what else to say. i've started the seemingly endless hunt for university. it sucks. right now i'm focusing on scholarship applications because surprisingly they're due first. apart from that life has just been life. and life is good. went to church on sunday for the first time. it was so good. turns out im in charge of the catholic van as well as the pentecostal one (surprise to me!) so i put up the sign up sheets, had 16 people sign up for the catholic church and 14 for the pentecostal! papa jim (our lovely driver) said thats the most he's ever had in all his six years of driving for pearson college. and christian fellowship had 21 people show up two weeks running. we're on fire this year. its good. god is good. but anyways, we went to church and it was just so good. our (being the pearson students in general) favourite worship leader was leading, the message was good and yeah ... i feel more freedom in that church this year. im not afraid to go to the back and dance, to express myself however i need. god is good. 

anyways, i think thats it for now ... theres so much to say and so little to say all at the same time. isn't life strange. anyways. later. 

yes, hello, I am alive. mostly.

So I realized that everyone else has finally updated their blogs and figured that perhaps now that I am back at school and settled in it was time to update mine as well. So I got here about two weeks ago. Actually, two weeks and two days. It's so good to be back. And the place is so different this year! I mean , its the same place but things have changed. Some for the better, others not. Oh, and I only have 20 minutes till class and I have to run to the room first so this will be short, but hopefully will be sufficient for awhile. So my second year roommate is Aiya from Kazakhstan. She's absolutely off the wall crazy. I love it. I'm so pumped to have her as a roommate. So far we've had some great conversations and I can tell that by the end of the year we're gonna be great friends. An interesting thing about Aiya is that she's a very devout muslim. To the point where she wakes up around 4 o'clock each morning to pray and all that. So I'm going to learn a lot this year I can tell. But strangely, its one of those things that really brings us closer together, both of us being sold out for a greater power. Then I have two first year roommates as well (even though we're in a five person room ... which means that we have extra space because Peter our wonderful friend and maintenance man moved out the extra funrniture). Jn (Jennifer) is from Peru and also completely loco. The number of times she has jumped on me in the hallway is innumerable. Unfortunately for her, the number of times I have dropped her because I waas not expecting a human cannonbal is about equal to that. Someday she'll learn ... But she also has a deep and human side which is important. My other roommate is Elena from Italy. Shes a lot more quiet (a lot more) than the rest of us, but awesome nonetheless. That sounds really bad, as though quiet people can't be awesome, but you catch my drift. Elena is Orthodox (her family is half Greek) so she's going to come to Christian Fellowship with me. Yahoo! Hmm ... 12 minutes to go ... what else is important? It's been strange sort of, even though there are tonnes of new people to talk to and get to know, the most intersting and life changing conversations I've had so far have been with second years who I didn't really get to know last year. It's been good. I got to talk to a guy who lives in my house and studies martial arts as a spiritual experience. It was really an interesting conversation. He believes in zen and such, the discussion got fairly philosophical but I was proud of myself because I managed to follow his train of thought the whole way through without getting confused and lost. Definitely a good night. AFter ten days of orientation, we finally started classes, so this will be my first "real" weekend. And goodness am I looking forward to it. What else, what else. We went camping as a house one night, it was lots of fun. I took my sleeping bag outside and slept under the stars. And goodness were there a lot of them that night. A bunch of other people came out and joined me, it was really cool. And then on Wednesday afternoon when I was doing homework like the good non-procrastinating student I will be this year, Yarin came and invited me to the lake to go swimming with a bunch of other Calgarians (my housemates). So I of course said yes. When we got to the lake there were tonnes of people so we decided to keep walking adn go to the rope swing. Let me explain thsi wonder to you. It's a cliff. And a tree. And a rope attached to the tree. And you hang on to the rope, and scream your lungs out and swing over the cliff and then let go and drop in the water. Definitely an exhilirating experience. SO MUCH FUN! I did it twice, the first time I didn't grab teh rope high enough and so skimmed the water, but the second time I was flying so much I didn't want to let go. Everyoen on shore was yelling "let go, let go!" It was funny. Anyways, I have to run to chem now or ... well ... I'm sure some sorto f consequence will await me! Love y'all and miss y'all.