perpetually unfinished

The title is a lot deeper than this post. I am in one of those ruts in school right now where i keep starting endless school assignments but not being able to put the last touches on any of them. Not a very good feeling. I calculated that I still have to make up approximately 300% of my possible 500% in my 5 classes in the next month. That is pressure. But then again, who thinks like that?
The closer the summer gets the more i can smell all the things I want to get done. I wonder how many of them I will actually accomplish. Like finding a job...oh wait, you have to apply for those.

But amidst all of my fantasies of appendicitis I experienced the peace of God. Ashley was reading to me a quote from the introduction to Donald Miller's new book. It was about the importance of living life, building relationships and prioritizing. I have heard things like this a lot but this time I guess I was open to it. I actually believed that I am not a sum of my grades (ok this could change when I actually get the grades back), there are worse things than 70s and I can be happy with the choices I have made this semester. Whew. At least I can sleep tonight.

A day to remember

One minute. 11:59. 12:00. Its all over, and it was a day worth remembering. If the first day is any indication, 21 will be a good year. Thanks to every single person who took the time to say Happy Birthday, or would have, had they known it was my birthday.

I feel like a recap is in order since I do not want to forget this day. Woke up: 7:20ish. Great mood. Usual morning things. Parents called. I found a card from Cathy in my food cupboard with monkeys on it and some candy...sweet. Ate some oatmeal. Great breakfast food. First class, Econ, boring. Met with a friend, she wanted a Case for Christ. Alex Wong treated to Bob's Dogs. It was a fantastic dog/sausage. Sat with some cool people in operations management. Ashley told Tom it was my birthday but he said nothing so I thought I was safe. Needless to say he found a way to run to the back of Roz 104 and have the whole class sing to me. Even better. After class he yelled up to the back of the room "What are you doing for your birthday tonight?". How could I answer but honestly "Leading my Bible Study" hee hee. Chill time in the office, I love those people.

Meet Becky at the Keg, 230 pm. Salt, lemon and no i.d.? At least we broke university policy! Scavenger hunt. The creepo on the 2nd floor of the library, Tim Fraser says "What the h*** am I doing drinking in L/A, I'm feeling warm and toasty" (its a song, Bran Van 3000). Saw some great peeps, including a miss Meredith Brown that sported an outfit in honour of me. I hope she was more trying to capture my 'essence' than my actual style....or maybe i do wear pink lipstick and butter yellow puffy-sleaved coats.
Chill time in the clubs office. Trip to the Aqualab. Held a starfish, whose stomach popped? Held a sand dollar. Pet some sweet fish. I hate lobsters, that is decided. "Surprise" trip to DQ, squashed into every last possible inch on the bus. Ate cake, ince cream, oreo goodness with people I love. Opened my package from the parents, 21 things for me on my 21st birthday. Sooo much food.

Chill with the housies. DG. Sang happy bday, got a card, talked about God with some of the most awesomest girls on campus. Always worth the trek to campus at 10pm.

This was more for me than anyone else. If you took part in this fantastic day, thank you so much. I still have all my birthday bombs too....I guess I rang this one in slightly differently than last year, no shopping carts...but just as special.

Pray that my love for the Lord would only grow stronger in this next year.

10 minutes and counting

My birthday began 10 minutes ago. I have received 3 wishes of goodwill on said day at 12pm, 12pm and 1201pm...very punctual and thoughtful people. I even received an early one on March 22nd, but I took it anyway.
I realized today that I could start counting my life in decades. I am IN my 20s, not teetering on the edge but actually inside.
Wow, so right there i took a break and went to the bathroom (more information than you needed but keep reading, there is a point). I walked into my room and ashley pops up out of my bed and yells HAPPY BIRTHDAY....honestly i thought i was going to crap my pants. No one has made me jump that high in a while. So thats well-wisher number 4.
Tomorrow I get to pick up my birthday package from my parents. Apparently its 2feetx1.5x1.5 but light...who knows. The hint: 21 things...like Gilmore Girls. Man, I haven't seen that episode, so in the dark I will remain.

I wanted to say something profound on this day but nothing is coming to me. I realized that I had posters of Salt N-Peppa from Teen Beat magazine in my room about 10 years ago. I think that means I'm old.

My Birthday is coming and the goose is getting fat...

So less than one week until my long-awaited 21st birthday. Long-awaited by myself at least. Ever since last year when I had the blessing of celebrating it with 4 other great people whose parents happened to go on a weekend away around the same time I have been waiting for another chance.
This year promises to be even better, with even more birthdays.
I am a little saddened though. I am trying to understand why some of the other birthday people are not as excited for the mega party as I am. Its hard, you see, my birthday would feel lacking if those people chose not to come, however, they may feel that going to the party would actually detract from their big day. Its a difficult compromise. It is a good exercise for me to try to see things from other people's view. Wow, that was so vague....I just want to have the second best birthday ever (last year was THAT good, I just don't want to get my hopes up about topping it).
My first Ontarion article came out this past week. I dont' feel any more like a journalist. Maybe it will take some time to sink in. I wonder if Jay Ingram is going to read it....

Excited

Excited, exciting, and other variations of 'excite' are now the word(s) of tha day. I can't tell you how many times I used that word today, and I meant it every single time. I also laughed a lot today. Silas, I think i told about 10 people your stick story...maybe everything is funnier when I'm sick but man, i laughed everytime. I find things are funnier if you try to picture it in your head at the same time.
God came through today too, it was really exciting (see, there it is again). Some of us had gone to an event in rez that looked like it would not be glorifying to God, actually it would be totally abhorrent to him. And when we got there, no students had showed. God is sovereign.
My article came out in the Ontarion today...first one! This may start a long and painful journalism career, who knows? I went to the meeting tonight for the volunteers too. I took a CD. As long as I write a review I can keep it. Sadly, its no good, (although, this is after a first listen and i don't usually like anything after a first listen). I wanted to say nice things...now i'm not sure my vocabularly is extensive enough to properly convey its suckishness; this is where my creativity comes in.
Very very very much looking forward to my birthday and the monster joint party. Highlight of my semester (or is anticipated to be).

I've been talking about you all night

An interesting way to start an msn conversation. But I ran with it. Turns out that one of my friends from back home works with a guy that I went to elementary school with in Wawa. That is really exciting to me since I only have one other person I talk to (about 3 times a year) from Wawa. Although, my Wawa friend probably saw me at my nerdiest...little Katie V. with chubby cheeks, freckles and big round glasses...oy, grade 2...and 3 and 4. Ok 5. Being in Belleville with Becky, one of those people who always went to the same school with the same people, really made me sad that I didn't have that.

Last night was great. Last night being College Royal of course. Everyone looked amazing. I'll second Shelly on the fact that it was so much fun, but most of it was spent making up crazy dances and hoping no one remembers what you were doing (which likely they won't since they were doing the same thing). Big shout out to all the guys who came and who danced the night away. Actually, i was really impressed. No sitting on the sidelines during the fast stuff, no whining or standing awkwardly and bobbing...no, there was full out dancing. Some of it was really bad. But so was mine. And I appreciate bad dancing far more than sitting out. So big props.

One observation though. I would love some feedback on this, and it isn't directed at anyone in particular. Its just that, are guys terrified of asking a girl to dance? If I had been with any other group of friends I think the guys would have asked the girls to dance. Its not that they have to. But i noticed that they would dance with girls who were already taken.
So that makes me ask the question, is it shyness, they don't want to show favouritism or is it that they are (and I suppose the word arrogant could be used in this situation) afraid that any girl they ask will not be able to control herself and fall madly in love with them on the spot, and then...that would be awkward.

Hopefully that wasn't too harsh. Just a question from a girl who admits, she doesn't have dudes all figured out.

Good (Solid) night

Tonight was good. I almost didn't go to CCC. Not really sure why, no good reason. Glad I did. The talk about having good devos...very thought-provoking, challenging and then all-round encouraging. Tonight was good. I felt like I really belonged there, with those people. Or just belonged, period.

Jay Ingram

I just interviewed Jay Ingram, the host of the Daily Planet. Thats right, a real celebrity. Ok, I was excited. He was a little intimidating at first and since I'm a little high strung as it is (or a lot) i had a little freak out before he showed. At least my friend got a kick out of it. He turned out to be really nice, a personable type guy. A little on the short side. He put his feet up on the chair beside him when giving the interview...I liked that. I think I'll keep that in mind when I'm giving interviews in the future.

Blogs and PDA

I'm in the library. Other than to buy a cookie, and to buy a tuna sandwich (i'll write about the perils of purchasing tuna in a library another time) and to pee twice (or was that three times?) my position has changed little since 1pm. It is now 8:54. I am writing a paper about blogs...more specifically blogs as a marketing tool. I'm a marketing tool...but again, another post. This has now been four solid (well, relatively) days of reading about blogs. I can't believe it but I am actually finding this interesting. The hardest part is not knowing whether all this work is even creating something the professor will accept. The instructions: Write something, 4-6 pages. Gee whiz, is it a report or an essay? What style? Meh, who knows.
Not only have a come to the stage of writing what I think and then looking for articles to support it my new strategy to make the paper go faster is to play spider solitaire and blog.
Across from me is probably the largest display of PDA (public display of affection) I have witnessed recently. Ok PDA might not be exactly write...there was little in the way of actually groping but nonetheless the 'cuteness' level is nauseating (or is that the tuna?). 4 kisses. Thats what you get, apparently, if you eye is twitching. 2 on the cheek for just being you...aw.

Haha, I hope its the paper thats making me bitter but I'm sure we're up to 37 smooches in 2 hours...thats .267 kisses per minute. Someone get me another cookie....

~EDIT~

About 15 seconds after I published this post someone sat down at the computer next to me with one of those McCain deep dish chocolate freezer cake things. The whole thing. I was about 3 seconds away from making a new friend. But I suppose I have my pride. I like what Becky said, "its like you're in a big dream". Yeah it feels almost surreal to be barely conscious, writing a paper that as of yet has no purpose with PDA boy over there and massive cake girl over here...Now all i need it Pacman and the Ghost to go running through here. Wait, if this is a dream then I can do anything I want and I'll just wake up with a strange unnerving sense that I can't quite put my finger on......maybe i will go get that cake

Changin' it up

I looked at my blog today and realized the lack of defined 'areas' on it and separations between each section was not satisfactory. I think I like this one better.

The next book I plan to read is "Theatre of the Mind" by Jay Ingram. From what I can gather it is loosely based on the idea of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The mind is a fascinating thing so hopefully I can get my hands on this book. The author is the host of Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel....a great show. Ps. Anyone watch the show or know who J. Ingram is?

another method of procrastination

In the library now, hoping to take out Jay Ingram's new book and researching for my advertising paper due on Tuesday. The library didn't have the book and I haven't found many articles (for lack of trying) BUT I have learned about this website www.43things.com. I'm obsessed...yet another venue to siphon my time between. It resembles a blog site however the main focus is goals...anything as big as going to the moon and as small as seeing the northern lights. You can add as many goals as you want and see if who is trying to do the same thing. You can blog about your progress and check off things once you have completed them. I think I want it for the rewarding check mark of finishing something....having the label "has compeleted 12 things...." Maybe i'll post something like Goal: to eat cheese tomorrow just to get the excitement of ticking it off....

Learning about failure

This blog is somewhat preemptive. I had three midterms yesterday (one scheduled, one rescheduled from before reading week....oh snow day...and one surprise one). They got progressively better as the day continued. It was difficult to write two more midterms after I got owned by the first one. Hence the lesson. There is a very real possiblity that I 'earned' less than a 60% on my economics midterm. I had thoroughly planned to finish university with a solid average above 80. Then came this class. I guess this is meant ot be a lesson, not to find my worth in grades and school, to define myself by Christ and not my accomplishments....I just don't want it to be this way. I needed to blog about this since the memorable events in my life should be captured on something as secure (sigh...) as the world wide web for years to come.

Integration

As of today I have successfully integrated tofu into my diet. I am trying to expand my repertoire of "good-for-me-foods" I eat regularly. Since I have a spongy brick of the soy paste in the fridge I would say its here to stay. Actually I really enjoyed the texture of the extra firm tofu. I never thought I would be converted. Thats two healthies in one week since I recently became a Hummus addict and even created my own mushed chickpea concoction of edible proportions. Another fairly recent addition is natural peanut butter. I will never go back now. While its all fine and dandy that I like these new foods I think the next goal may be to shorten the number of 'crap-foods' i enjoy regularly. Next on the integration list....I'm open to suggestions. I'm thinking maybe fish, but i dont' know if i'm that daring.

Where the French Are

Back in Guelph and feeling less and less bilingual. I have now officially been in 3 provinces, my most recent excursion being to Montreal, Quebec. I spent three days there with Becky, Christine and Lisa in the aparment of a Montreal CCC staff. Big thanks to her for sharing her apartment for two with an additional 4 people and a clogged toilet. It is a gorgeous city, with incredible shopping. Half price shoes? I'm there! Our day spent in Old Montreal was fantastic as we browsed art galleries with all types and styles of art. Some of it just drew me into the colours and the flow of it. I recommend checking out Claude Bonneau, excellent usage of line and just a few colours.
I was introduced to the kicked-in-the-shins reality that the Canadian public school system has failed me; I am entirely monoligual and can no longer hold onto the illusion that I can make myself understood in french. While I was successfully taught basic verb conjugations and a disproportionately large number of nouns, the ability to string them together in a coherent thought has alluded me. Hopefully this experience will further increase my drive to become fluent in Spanish and fulfill my dream of being bilingual. A grammar wiz in two languages?
PS. The notre Dame cathedral was amazing. Gorgeous and ornate beyond what I could have guessed. Its so sad the state of the actual churh, the Body of Christ in Montreal. A beautiful church like that goes half-ful at best on most Sundays of the year.
With all that traveling I still found time to endlessly go over the pros and cons of a second undergrad in the near future. My biggest fears of money and age have be somewhat alleviated over the past few days, I dont' mind finishing my masters at 30, who cares if all I own by that time is a laptop, a good suit and some crackers when I finish? This would be a good chance to learn about storing up treasures in heaven and having an eternal perspective....

A day to remember

Only the second school closer in the history of the University of Guelph and I got to benefit from it! I had one midterm and two assignments today so the excitement of the day was not lost on me. Geekily, I still trekked to the school at 9am to hand in two assignments that were creating a burden on my heart. It paid off as my professors were thoroughly impressed with my concern for punctuality; 10 Brownie points! Basically this is a sign-out. Tomorrow (weather permitting) I will be swept away to Belleville and on Sunday make the harrowing journey to Montreal where I will enjoy the richness of Quebecois culture. Have a wonderful break!

Wasting Away

Today I had my first leaders DG, and let me say, shout out to a really great bunch of girls. I had a great time discussing the word and sinus infections with all of you! We did the inductive study for 1 Thessalonians 3. One thing we really got hinged on was v.5 (i think or one near it, i'm really full so i won't bend over to get my Bible). It (paraphrased) Paul saying he had heard they were strong in their faith and he was overjoyed because it meant that their work hadn't been useless.
Useless? Wow, thats a pretty dramatic statement. (He can be a pretty dramatic, black and white kinda guy). Can our efforts really ever be useless, for nothing? If we take the time to invest in someone and they fell away tomorrow, or in a year or in 30 years, would we see that as effort wasted? I don't know, we are encouraged to believe that God will use every thing we do for the kingdom and I do think he works through us. It does put an importance on being prayerful and careful about who we choose to invest our time in.
That got us talking too....when it comes to initiative evangelism, do we always pick the 'safe' people. The ones who look like us, who seem quiet, maybe not as opinionated, the bookish white girl? I think I do. I'll zero in on the safe person, the one I think I can relate, who's toes I won't be stepping on as much. Still thinking about it.....

Going a little deeper

Two in one day? yes, sad but true. This is just an exerpt from a conversation I had today.

"i mean you envy other people, and it must be because some part of me actually believes I will get to be someone else....it frees us from the responsibility of this life, of being us"

Talking about conviction from last night, and how at least me and this one other lady, have a small part of us that hold out for the day when we get to be someone else, when all of our envying and jealousy and cattiness pays off.

A future worship-team leader!

It is true, I held, for just a few hours, a tantalizing spot on the worship team. My career as a soloist started *innocently* enough pulling a prank; a harmless prank really. Somehow it resulted in me singing Amazing Grace (on key nonetheless, which was most surprising to me!) into a answering machine. This is my official thank you but I regretfully (?) must refuse the offer to be trained up as the next worship leader. I have other passions in my life and I just do not have the time to commit to it.

Green-Eyed Monster

I was convicted today of being a ravenous monster with my time. Maybe that was for effect but to be completely honest, I value my time highly and I am often wary of parting with it. But I see you in the clubs office! Yes, thats true. That really hit me where my priorities are. I have friends in other things I'm involved in, but to just sit and chill, I'll always veer for the clubs office. I don't see myself living out my faith because I am greedy. God has given me time, given me life, and I should be using it for His glory. Hopefully this isn't a one day revelation. Lord, keep convicting me.

I luv Language structure, don't u?

This week has been one of a little self reflection and finally productive splat in a drawn out process of finding a passion and wondering what in the world I will be doing when I graduate and (maybe) start my real life. Over the last few years I have grown more and more into a love for language and linguistics. Which got me thinking, why not do my second undergrad in that? One thing that holds me back is that I don't want to pay for another undergrad, of slightly less importance, an issue of pride.
Throughout school I always had great marks in math and science, people said smothering things like "She's the next Prime Minister" (ok, I get the "encourage the child" but what?) or "Maybe you'll be a Neurosurgeon". I bought into it all and now I still have pangs of failure whenever I realize that I'm not either of those things. Somewhere in highschool I lost myself and lost my goals and my passions and I am still finding my way out. I have this part of me that needs to prove myself by taking some ridiculously difficult degree. But linguistics, now there is something to be passionate about!
I found a way to spend two semesters in Spain (or Mexico) once I finish my 4 years at Guelph. It would be without the pressure of taking 5 classes (just 3 per semester!) and plenty of time to travel, not to mention my life dream to become bilingual (geeky? likely)

Which directs me to one of my favorite books. I have read this book twice and I NEVER read books twice. It is called "Spoken Here" by Mark Abley. It explores languages that are threatened and endangered. Languages like Yuchi that have only 13 fluent speakers left, all over 70. One of the most fascinating things about the language is that there is "man talk" and "woman talk". Not hockey vs. nail painting but actually different words for the same things depending on whether the speaker is male or female!
There is also a tribe in Australia that does not have a separate word for blue or green (just one word) because they don't distinguish between the two, but have 5 words for yellow! What we call yellow would actually 5 very distinct colours to these people....

This is getting long, read the book, inevitably I'll indulge myself with some reading tonight and mention a few more facts tomorrow!