away to awenda

this past weekend, 9 of us 4th year girls went up to Awenda for a weekend camping trip. it was so much fun. you just can't beat girl friends. period.

my favourite moments were...

1) getting lost on friday night when the estimated travel time of 2.5 hours turned into 4. it's just so funny in restropect. plus it was good bonding times at the time. then there were becky's awesome camping soundtracks. the intersection of lafontaine and "concession 16" will forever be rememebered.

2) going to the beach on saturday, and going "swimming". it was more like wading, but what the hey; my first and last swim of the summer. the water was so clear and beautiful. just couldn't help praising the Lord for His creation.

3) snuggled up all cozy and comfortable under my down duvet while it's storming outside. the wind howled, and the tent was pelted by rain and acorns, but we were so warm.

4) just being with all of the girls overall. what a treat! and what a blessing!

praiseworthy and blogworthy

it took me way too long to blog about this.

last tuesday middleton and i went sharing, and we saw someone come to Christ. the best part of this story is that for the 45 minutes beforehand i had gone sharing with ashley d., and i was just an incoherent, babbling, ...something. then with 15 minutes left until class andrew and i figured what the heck, let's keep going, and we saw eun come to Christ.

it's awesome how God uses us. not what we do for Him, but what He does through us.

the next morning i got to follow-up with eun, and she came to morning prayer at her own request in the same week. we're still meeting up for follow-up, and she's coming to Summit. it's all too exciting.

the rebelution

check out this site: the rebelution

it's a blog written by 17 year old twins alex and brett harris challenging young people everywhere to live by high Biblical standards instead of our cultural sub-par ones. it's extremely well-written, Biblical, and encouraging. they really exemplify the verse 1st timothy 4:12.

refreshment

ontario isn't alberta, and rockwood isn't the rockies, but it's still beautiful nonetheless.

after two weeks of craziness i was finally able to get away for some much needed alone time to rejuvenate. i spent about 3 hours at the rockwood conservation area which is 20 minutes outside of guelph. i "hiked" (after scaling beehive mountain, this was not a hike.) up to this escarpment which overlooked the lake. this is the view from it. i want to go back when the leaves turn colours. although most of the trees there were non-leafy ones. i don't know the technical term. so it might not be that spectacular.

no incidents today. no major incident. a lady asked if it was safe for me to be by myself. oh the things i can't do alone just because i'm a female....like go live in the rockies for a week. so after that comment i started to get paranoid especially since i deviated from the main trail to follow a smaller unofficial trail. worst case scenarios came to mind. i.e. meeting a vicious snake. and i did meet one...except it was 1 cm wide and about 1 foot long sprawled across a log. i get the heebie-jeeebies just thinking about it now. i bolted it out of there after that.

then i drank two gulps of water from the tap near the campsites. it was very piney tasting. blegh. made me long for the fresh spring water from the mountains.

milestone: going grey

when do you think you'll get your first strand of "grey" hair? 30? 35? 40? 50?

i was thinking of maybe late 30's for myself. i've been faked out a few times where i thought a strand of hair was white because of the way it was reflecting the light or because it was so bleached. but tonight it was a different story. as i looked in the mirror...there it was. one solitary strand of white lying amidst a mass of black. there was no way to mistake it. twasn't the way the light was reflected. twasn't because of bleach. it was just nature taking its course at 20....well almost 21, but i won't go there. it looks exactly and feels like fishing string. i could use it to go fishing.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
proverbs 31:30

i always added a lil twist to it that i heard in second year "beauty is fleeting, but it's good to have while i've still got it." i thought i would have it for at least 15-20 years, but it seems like i could be wrong. ah well a piece of humble pie never hurt anyone. always been too vain and proud about my looks anyways. it's a good reminder to really really start being serious about character development. that and hope this white strand is just an anomaly.

fishing anyone?

new year's resolutions

september always seems more a new beginning than january. here's to turning over another leaf.

1. i will try not to skip class.
2. i will eat healthy balanced meals.
~ i will avoid fast food as my main diet. limit: max one time a week.
~ i will not skip breakfast.
3. i will be in bed by 11:30pm every school night.
4. i will be up and running by 9:00am the latest.
5. i will exercise...somehow.
6. i will make time for devotions at the beginning of every day before doing anything else.
7. i will diligently make time to keep in touch with friends and family.
8. i will be disciplined in my school work.
9. i will stay on budget.
10. i will be gracious when i am tired, cranky, and in desperate need of a nap and alone time.

milestone: last first day of class

today september 11th, 2006 was officially my last first day of class. (the winter semester one doesn't count.)

in celebration of this momentous, never to be repeated occasion, becky, katie, ashley, napier, turnbull, and i went to the metro toronto zoo.

'twas a beautiful day to be walking about, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the company of good friends, and being amazed at God's wonderful creation. i can't wait for heaven when there will be no bars between me and the cute baby giraffes and the fluffy white polar bears. (sidenote: polar bears have THE cutest bums on this planet.)

the moment of the day was when becky accidentally dropped her nalgene into the kangaroo pen, and ashley came to the rescue by jumping in. huzzah!

but i actually did go to a class today at night. History of the Islamic World. i couldn't hear the prof properly, and when i did i didn't quite understand her pronounciation. i kept hoping that the textbook will come through and clarify things. nevertheless this will prove to be a valuable class.

milestone: of paddles and tennis rackets

friday night becky and i got home around 2am after our last, first september weekly meeting after chilling at east side's and kirsten's. becky went straight to bed while i dilly-dallied. around 3 am in the morning as i drifted off to sleep i heard footsteps coming up the stairs along with sounds of muffled voices. at first i thought it was becky, but then i realized that one; the voices were too low and two; there were voiceS not a voice. there were guys in our house....outside of our bedrooms.

but i was prepared. i was ready for such an incident as this. i went to my closet grabbed my dbr paddle, woke up becky, and gave her my tennis racket. and that's as far as we got...i pictured myself bashing the intruders over the head with my paddle, but we were both too scared to go downstairs. so after deliberating for a bit, we called the po-po's on my cell phone which had a weird siren thing go off, which is why this is a "milestone" post. it was the first time for both of us to call 911. the lady on the other end was somewhat rude and condescending and so were the police who finally came after 40 minutes. if we were really being attacked, we would've been dead by then....

but i suppose this makes for a funny story.

the moral of the story? always remember to lock your front doors.

edit------------------------------------------------------------------
sorry to have left you all hanging. somehow i assumed in my mind that you all knew what had happened. it turns out that they left. we're assuming that they were drunken boys who went into the wrong house after a kegger or something. we were not robbed.

an ode to becky

ten top reasons why becky is a "hen hao" housemate and a rockeriffic "pengyou"

1. becky is a greaat listener.
she listens to you, empathizes, and asks good questions.
2. becky has a great and diversed taste in music from hip-hop to country to pop to indie to....
she's also a broadway star.
3. becky is very considerate of other people.
4. becky's "hen hao"'s and other oex tidbits...
5. becky's very generous with her time, energy, material things, etc...
6. becky's a good cook and a fabulous hostess.
7. becky keeps stuff tidy.
8. becky loves Jesus.
9. becky is weekly meeting coordinator. therefore you get to preview all the vids before their official debut. w000t~
10. becky is fun period.

900+

grab highlighter.
grab red pen.
grab real life kit.
throw into mesh bag.
repeat until the materials are gone.

it was gone in a record 1.5 hours. guelph had borrowed 600 real life kits from waterloo, and it flew out of our hands in 90 minutes. graham and trevor had to go to fort superior to get 300 or so real life kits that were left over from last year. those were gone too before we had to close up shop at 4:00pm. we never left before our alloted time was up. well....at least not in the years i've been here. we also ran out of ice and syrup for the free snow cones that we were giving away. and to think i was somewhat discouraged that our booth time was cut significantly this year.

as for SIQs we have stashes of them. and by stashes i mean STASHES. follow-up is going to be quite the task.

i also ran into a friend from high school that i haven't seen in three years.

praise God. praise God. praise God.

a stroll down memory lane

tonight becky, kirsten, and i took a stroll down memory lane down to briarlea and cole road to the establishment formerly known as "awesome house". twas nostalgic as we walked there as we would most likely never make it again. we went to bring back the BBQ that becky and i inherited from the newly married mr. andres. oh what a blogworthy trip it was.

first of all when we reached the said establishment the lights were on, which came as a surprise since we had heard that no one else dared to spend a year of his/her life there since the departure of former AH tenants. we knocked on the door to come face to face with the mysterious landlord, poochkie (sp?); who was actually quite friendly.

it took a bit of time to get the BBQ down from the patio and onto the driveway, but we managed to do it and in a few minutes we were happily rolling the BBQ on the newly paved road back to bling bling. however we didn't make it very far. we got to the intersection of ironwood and cole (about two minutes walk from AH)where three boys waiting for the bus to go to the bar, hollered after us, inquiring after the price of the BBQ. they thought we were going to throw it out. so they came after us and offered a sweet $20 for the BBQ. after much debate between the three of them, a few f-bombs, a phone call to housemates who lived down the road, the BBQ exchanged hands for a nice green bill. it took a while and i with a bit of OEX bargaining savvy at one point pretended to walk away impatiently, but in the end it was worth it. plus one of them called us beautiful. ;)

then came the dilemma of what to do with a crisp, cool $20 bill. what can one buy with $20? first we were going to be pragmatic and buy a shoe rack for mass of shoes cluttering bling bling's hallway, but then we decided to celebrate and went to DQ's. a shoe rack might still be purchased though...

a few years from now we shall reminisce about the night we sold AH's BBQ.

what a night.

ready, set, GO!

last night was the kick off, welcome back BBQ for the upper years at 403 scottsdale drive, now re-dubbed "le house". (will it stick? only time will tell.) becky and i arrived 30 minute lates because we underestimated the time that it would take to shuck 4 dozen corn on the cobs (approx 35 minutes if anyone's curious.)

around 30-35 upper years attended. most of whom were second and third years. it was weird being the oldest except for turnbull who was visiting...or maybe brandon and amber. this year's bbq wasn't as intense as last year's because there was less people to catch up with. no older upper years and there weren't that many fourth years either...sad. quite a few non-graduated people have dropped off too...

but the enthusiasm and the excitement for this coming year was really encouraging. so many new people have stepped up. it was cool to see the room slowly turning red as people were buying the new c4c t-shirts.

the pep rally was fun and sombering. this year a whole bunch of us went down and crashed the boogies. and we didn't just crash one; we crashed a few. i went for east, johnston, and lambton. it was so funny because the OV's really thought that we were first years and were trying to pump us up.

but it was sombering at the same time to see that whole sea of people using their God-given creativity, energy, health, etc... to coordinate these cool formations and dances, but refused to acknowledge Him and give Him the glory for it. that's the one image that's going to be burned into my memory to spur me on this year and for years to come...

servant team retreat

this past weekend the servant team comprising of andrew (prayer), ashley(ksl), becky(weekly meeting), rachel (women's min), sam (admin), silas (ksl/men's min), suz (evangelism), and me (send) went to guelph lake for our retreat. we booked the campsites for two nights, stayed there for one, and ended up relocating to bling bling (becky's and my house) for saturday night/sunday morning as the weather became too unbearable.

friday night we set up camp.
memorable moments:
~ watermelon seed spitting competition
~ foraging for firewood-> watching graham and jamie knock down dead trees
~ vanessa's awesome s'mores skills

saturday during the day we sat under a tarp telling each other our testimonies with a few breaks in between.
memorable moments:
~ ashley: "silas!" when a biker passed our campsite
one of the other girls: "ash, that's a 50-year old white man."
~ andrew's ice cream story
~ swapping project stories

saturday during the night we hit up bling bling for warm food and fun games.
memorable moments:
~ playing things in a box
what are you scared of: "eskimos"
what NOT to say to C4C staff: "i feel like God's calling me to father your children."; "hi my name is andrew. i like vanessa. who do you like?"
"acceptable" pick-up lines: "i'm pretty much God's will for your life. let's get married."; "hi my name is andrew. do you want to go for ice cream?
"what would you put on an apron: "if you can lean then you can clean."
what not to rename the weekly meeting: "jihad"; "the pick-up"

sunday we (minus sam) piled into my honda civic and headed to calvary for church where we took up an entire row.
memorable moments:
~ pastor robin: "aren't you glad you're not camping right now?"
~ becky cradling suz to and from church in the front seat of the car.

most popular phrase of the weekend: "christian conscience"
next bonding activity...winter camping.