Still waiting for bells and whistles…

So a few weeks ago I finally hit the “accept” button on the offer from Wilfrid Laurier University. It was extremely anti-climactic. I had agonized over the decision for so long and got input from everyone I could think of and when I could no longer think of a reason to wait, and I was sure in my gut that WLU was the way to go, I hit accept.

Since then, aside from a curt email telling me what my WLU email was, and that they’d ONLY be communicating via it, I haven’t heard a thing. Now they do say that it can take “up to three weeks” to process but still. I wish they’d send me a welcome letter or something! I haven’t even received anything at my new email. I’m tempted to email myself just to make sure it works :P

Random Observation

I'm getting ready for tonight's book club meeting and I realized the following.

February's book (Dear John) was written by Nicholas Sparks and is about John Tyree. March's book (Runaway Jury) is written by John Grisham and about Nicholas Easter!!!

March 12 of 12

At work on time. Woohoo!
Breakfast of muffins...I think I need to do a layout dedicated to these things. They tend to show up in my 12 of 12 often...

It's roll up the rim time! No luck...but the latte was good.
The funny thing this year was McDonalds was giving away FREE coffee for the whole duration of Roll-up The Rim. I have a few coworkers who get coffee at Tim Hortons or McDonalds every morning...McD's got their business for those two weeks. Personally, I like the chance of winning.

And more coffee. This one is in the green mugs that this office has had for YEARS.
I'm working on ripping all my cd's to my laptop. As I finish them, I'm lining them up in the hallway so I can keep track of what I've done and what I still have to do. So far I'm up to 11GB of music!
The requisite self portrait. It's Friday, I wore a denim skirt to work :)
The sun came out and made the purple flowers lining the walk way to my building more vibrant. I love spring :)
Tonight was Meredith's birthday celebration. We started the evening at a local Mexican restaurant and then went back to her parents place.

Treats on the table.
Mere's friends Julie (left) and Amy brought out the ice cream cake.

Make a wish!

The cake. Love the red high heels!

S2S February - Dear John

Our February book club selection was "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks. Heather had originally planned to host the evening and selected the book because it was coming to theatres. Again, the premise of our book club (Script to Screen) is reading a book that has been turned into a movie and then watching the movie as a group. Not everyone has a large enough home to comfortably accommodate the group (or a tv big enough to make viewing fun) Heather got clearance from the group to host the night at the theatre (our goal is to make this venture as low cost as possible so she had to have support for everyone to pay for a night at the movies, which we all readily gave). Just after the plans were finalized, Heather got the chance to go stay with her parents in Texas for a few weeks while her husband was out of town. I stepped in as hostess for the month because I don’t have a decent tv either. It worked out great though.

So Tuesday, February 23rd we all met at the movie theatre. The movie changes the ending of the book, but we all agreed that we liked it better. It was more "Hollywoodized" but it left you with a better feeling.

One thing that I really picked up on that wouldn't have had the same impact for others was the images of coins throughout the movie. The main character's father is a coin collector. After having spent so much time at the Royal Canadian Mint pavillion the night before, I found it fascinating to see the coins on the big screen.

After the movie we went to Tim Hortons where we discussed the book and it's movie adaptation in depth. I had sent out copies of the questions from Nicholas Sparks' website and we used those to direct the conversation. I loved hearing everyone's take on the book.

I also had a sheet of quotes from the website and we discussed them and if we agreed or not.

As favours I bought salt water taffy, which seemed "beachy" to me and added a tag from the scrapbook store.

Our next book club selection is "Runaway Jury" and I've already been "summoned" for jury duty. I'll let you know how it goes ;)

That bad?

File this one under "things I shouldn't admit but blog about anyways" :P

I cleaned my car last week. The inside anyways. I was at my parents house doing laundry and it was a nice day so I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the dirt and gravel that gets in my car over winter, and all the other gunk that accumulates. Then I got a wet rag and dusted/wiped down the whole interior. Apparently I don't do this often enough because ever since, I've been getting in the car and feeling like it's not mine!!! It doesn't feel right because it's CLEAN. How sad is that?!?! I was hoping to wash the outside in the next few days (if it doesn't rain too much) but now I'm re-thinking it...I probably won't recognize it in the parking lot!!! :P

Olympics #4 - GOLD!

Sunday, February 28th I was BACK in downtown Vancouver. This time I picked Shannon up and we just drove down. We got parking a block from the intersection of Robson and Burrard and met up with Marianna, (that's she and I, left. Mar in CA for you SSers) who was visiting from California, and Deb and Jo who were downtown for sushi. We watched the gold medal game on a little screen in the Roots store. You couldn't hear the announcing but the crowd was big enough that you could tell exactly what was going on. When the US scored, the whole street went quiet...and when Canada scored in overtime, it errupted. It was SO neat to be part of such a large crowd for that historic moment.
Shannon pointed out that if she had fainted, she probably wouldn't have fallen since there were so may people around her! After the game we all went for cupcakes and then Shannon and I walked Marianna back to her hotel and watched all the crazies celebrating the win :) Then we hustled back home to watch the closing ceremonies from the comfort of our own homes.

Olympics #3 - Vancouver with Meredith

Saturday, February 27th My cousin Heather and her husban Jared were staying with me so we met up with Meredith and took the West Coast Express Train into Vancouver together. It's too bad that WCE is primarily a commuter train (and therefore normally only runs at rush hour, they added extra trains for the Olympics). It's a beautiful trip and I wish it was more available to tourists. In Vancouver Mere and I went one way and Heather and Jared went their own. Our first stop was to get on the skytrain and take it to where we connected to the Bombardier Street car that they called the "Olympic Line". It was a test line that only ran during the Olympics to Granville Island. Again, something I think they should offer it year round. Granville Island was cool as always but aside from "Atlantic House", which had really long lines, there wasn't very much going on related to the Olympics so we got coffee and then got back on the street car and headed back down to water front.

Mere hadn't seen the cauldron yet, so we made our way over there. The crowds were kind of crazy and this was as close as we got. It looks so different in the day time!!! After seeing the cauldron we went for lunch at Steamworks. We actually ran into Heather and Jared outside the restaurant :)

From there we walked up to Robson Square to see the celebrations there. It was a grey overcast day and quite cool at times. It really didn't rain until later in the evening but it wasn't very pleasant.

We walked along Robson, stopping periodically to watch the events being broadcast and shown on a tv in practically every store. We got cupcakes at the Cupcake store and then spent some time in Chapters where it was warm and dry. This picture shows the Hotel Vancouver illuminated and towering over the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Because we didn't have a mapped out plan of what to do during the day, we ended up wandering quite a bit. Part of me wanted to stay and see the pyrotechnic show at Robson Square but by that time my feet were sore and I was cold so we decided to just catch the first train home.

Olympics #2 - Doc Walker in Surrey

This post requires some back story. A few months ago I got a message from Jackie (thephotoalbumlady for the SSers here) asking fi I'd be willing to get a cd for her nephew. It was by a Canadian band and it wasn't available in the States yet. I said sure, found it and shipped it off no problem. I hadn't heard of the band (Mariana's Trench) but I texted my youngest brother Aaron and he had. It was REALLY weird for him to get a text asking about them from his country obsessed sister but he played along.

Fast forward to when the line up for the Surrey Live Site was announced and it turns out that Mariana's Trench and my all time favourite band, Doc Walker were both playing on the same night!!! I immediately texted Aaron to ask if he was interested in going which he was. We were both really looking forward to that night.
Of course as it got closer I heard that Erin and her husband Paul (front row on the left) were coming up and staying with Shannon (front row, second from the right) Terri (front row, right) and Sue (back row, second from the right) were meeting up and so I talked Aaron in to stopping by at Shannon`s before going to the Live Site. We stayed there for awhile and watched the first couple of periods of the Canada vs. Slovakia game and then headed to Boston Pizza for dinner.

After dinner Aaron and I headed over to the Live Site. We arrived while IllScarlett was on stage. We didn`t know they would be playing until a few days before the show and Aaron was super excited. Almost more so than for Mariana`s Trench (I don`t know either band so it didn`t matter to me). We only heard a few songs but we got to meet the band after which he was really happy about.

Mariana's Trench was actually on a different stage during Doc Walkers show. We're not sure what happened with scheduling. We were under the impression that the shows would be off set. Anyways, Aaron ended up chosing to coming to the DW show with me. It was pretty much the same format as last summer, minus the ballads (because they only had an hour) but including drummer Steve Broadhurst`s medly of songs including Kiss's "I Was Made for Loving You" and "Staying Alive" which are a ton of fun.

I am losing track of how many times I`ve seen Doc Walker live now but I don`t care. I love their music and any excuse to se them perform is good enough for me :D

Vancouver 2010 #1

I've been procrastinating on doing this blog entry because there are some pictures on my parents camera that I wanted to include. I have lots here though so I'll just write it with what i have. Monday, February 22nd I skipped Dance and Mom, Dad and I took the sky train in to Vancouver so we could soak up some Olympic atmosphere. Our first stop was at the cauldron. It was beautiful at night. The line to go up on the viewing platform was only about 25 minutes so we waited and enjoyed the view out across the water.

From there we popped in to Canada Place and got up close to to Sails which have Olympic images projected on to them. Very cool. Speaking of cool, it wasn't. Cool that is. It was actually really mild. Warm you might say. Yes I was wearing a winter coat and scarf but I had my Olympic mittens with me but it was too warm to wear them! It was dry that evening which was a bonus. It was quite a lovely evening weather wise.
We didn't really have a game plan on what we wanted to see as none of us had made it to the city before this night. We wandered up Granville Street because it was pedestrian only and quite well lit. We found the Canadian Mint Pavillion and enquired about the wait. It turned out that the line to see the medals had been closed off hours ago but the line to see the rest of the exhibits in the pavilion was only ten minutes so we queued up. It was really interesting in there! There was a real gold bar, a million dollar coin, brand new Olympic quarters that you could buy for 25 cents and more information about coins and the minting process than I could really properly take in. The picture of me is supposed to look like I'm standing on a big pile of coins :)

We continued up Granville taking in the sights and sounds. We stopped in at the Sleep Country store because they had lots of Olympic stuff on sale. I got to pose with these mascots as well :)

All the pictures in the world can't capture what it was really like to be in Vancouver during the Olympics. The whole city was charged with excitement. We were walking down the street when one of the gold medals was won. It was really easy to tell it had happened. Everyone was cheering.

I had met Mom & Dad right after work and we went directly into Vancouver so I didn't really have dinner. We popped in to Earls later in the evening and had some appetizers. When we came out the nightly show at Robson Square was in progress. I didn't get a really good view but we did get to see the fireworks which only added to the excitement.

This picture is kind of dark but it's the best one I have that shows both the cherry blossoms on the trees and the artwork on the Vancouver Art Gallery. Someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that it was the WINTER Olympics and instead she chose to decorate the city for spring and give gorgeous weather so the world knows why we love living here LOL

That's about it for my first time in. I'll add more soon.

Word of the Day #40: cogent

co·gent [koh-juhnt]
–adjective
1.convincing or believable by virtue of forcible, clear, or incisive presentation; telling.
2.to the point; relevant; pertinent.

You're in!

Friday morning before I left for Hemlock I checked my email and found one with the following subject line "Congratulations! You've been Admitted to UW's Faculty of Arts" (UW=University of Waterloo) It also stated that I had been "conditionally admitted" but I received the Offer of Admissions yesterday (that's it in the picture) and it says that I've been accepted without conditions. In any case, I now have TWO offers of admission...and here I had myself convinced that none of the schools would want me!

So between receiving the email and the package, I've been weighing the pros and cons of each school. UW was my first choice but that was totally arbitrary. I had nothing to base it on. Now that I've had a chance to get to know each school and talk to people that either did go to either or are going, I'm leaning towards Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU). They're just a few blocks apart physically so location isn't an issue.

I'm leaning towards WLU because it's a smaller "Liberal Arts" school. UW is massive and tends to focus more on sciences. The schools work very closely together though so if I enroll in WLU and then decide that I made a mistake, switching will be a pain but it will be very easy to do. The libraries of UW, WLU and Guelph (the third school I applied to) are all connected as well so I can order books from any of them...important for History, or so I've been told :)

I'll let you know when I finally pull the trigger, or click the "accept" (I technically have until May) but I think WLU will be my choice...unless I can come up with a reason not to.

Hemlock 2010

For our eighth annual trip to Hemlock Melissa and I swore we were going to go snowshoeing. We've been wanting to try it for awhile but the weather has either been nasty or we just haven't been motivated. This year I took the full day off work on Friday, drove up with Melissa, her DH Jevon, his sister Rachel and her boyfriend Scott. We arrived at the cabin by 10am. And found out that it had just been vacated the day before by the men's snow cross team who were practicing up there!!!

We unloaded the van, settled in, had lunch and then went snowshoeing because we knew if we left it to Saturday we'd never go. It was a gorgeous sunny day. There is no fresh snow at Hemlock right now so I feel like we could have done our trek in just regular boots but it was fun to try the snowshoes...even if we were sore the next day!

Our weekend fell on Melissa`s 29th birthday so on top of the regular playing board games and watching movies, we celebrated that. She had masks and tiaras for the girls and masks, bow ties and stick on facial hair for the guys on Saturday night, oh and feather boas for everyone :) We wore them while eating ice cream cake and playing Cranium.

Erin also brought up a pinata which was hanging up but soon fell so she bravely held it so we could smack it :)

It was another wonderful relaxing weekend. Possibly my last which is kind of sad. I will miss these guys!!!

Why History?

When I tell people I’m moving to Ontario to go to school the next question is always “what will you be taking”. I’m enrolling in the History program. Why History? Well, my first indication that this might be a good study areas was that, whenever my old boss would encourage me to look into schooling, I’d get online and look at the Business courses and inevitably “just check” to see what the History department was offering. I realized after doing this a few times that that’s probably what I’m actually interested in :P

Also, last year, last May specifically, I met with a career counsellor at my local university. We talked about my current job (which was fairly new at the time) what I liked about what I did and what I didn’t. We talked about what I do in my spare time (scrapbooking, visiting museums and historic sites…and scrapbooking about them, travelling, etc.) And we talked about how I could apply what I do in my spare time, to my career choice. He gave me some great resources for career research…which I confess I never really followed up on.

So fast forward through a lot of soul searching, through a lot of talking to people, and through another summer of doing the things I like doing and when the 2010/11 university application process opened, I put my name in and “declared” History as my subject area.

Inevitably, the follow up question to “what will you be taking” is “what do you want to do with that?” Everyone assumes I’ll be teaching. Maybe there’s a reason for that. The thing is I don’t want to teach. Definitely not high school anyways and probably not university. I like the idea of “teaching” in a non-traditional setting. Like being part of educational programs at a National Historic Site or museum that focuses on my area of interest. I like to tell people that I want to be a tour guide. Now I realize you don’t need a degree for that but by going to school I feel like I can explore those types of job opportunities better.

One of my (many) reasons for moving to Ontario is because there is so much more history there than there is on the West Coast. BC just celebrated 150 years. Woohoo. Seriously, it’s not that long. Quebec celebrated 400. That’s more like it. I’m not too excited about ancient history, or even European history but I’m looking for something a bit older than the fur trade.

I look at people who are “tour guides” or who do educational programs in historic sites and think “I could do that, I want to do that”. I’d like nothing more than to be in period costume all day. Maybe not for forever, but to start at least. I’m also not eliminating the possibility of getting back into administration, but hopefully for an organization where I can be passionate about what they do and the message they have to deliver.

So when people ask “what do you want to do” there’s a list of possibilities. I also realized a little while ago that I may not even know the title of the job I want to do! I don’t want to just do what I know is available. I want to explore options, and find the perfect job for ME, whatever it may be. I’ll let you know when I figure it out :)

12 of 12 February

As you can see, once the Olympics started, I kind of stopped blogging. I just didn't have time. I'm going to try and catch up now but I want to try and do it in order so I can capture the whole experience. The first day of the games also fell on February's 12 of 12 so that's where we begin.

This is the view at the end of my street. A beautiful morning!
Last year I took a picture of the paper marking the one year count down to the games, and now they're here!

Meredith and I went for lunch at Earls. Our server was a classmate of hers and he brought us free hot wings. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture because they looked so pretty with the green celery but I was too interested in eating them. Instead I snagged this shot of the outside of the restaurant on the way home.
My mail. Thank you for giving blood four times this year. I have been a "donor for life" for at least seven years now. Probably more if I was to actually find all my pins.

For the opening ceremony Meredith and I went over to her sister-in-law's sister's house to watch it on tv. Claudia's daughter still had her face paint on from the celebrations at school.

We had a bunch of snack foods including some very out of season (sour!) strawberries.

"Oh Canada, we stand on guard for THEEEEEEE!!!"

Sam was constantly moving and having lots of fun :)

So I didn't take very many pictures of the ceremony but I have to include what I did take to meet my 12 quota. Overall I was very happy with the ceremony. I was proud of my country, proud to be Canadian and proud to welcome the world. I thought Wayne Gretzky (and the others) was a great choice to light the caludron. There's small things I could pick on about the ceremony, but I won't remember them too much in a year. My personal favourite parts were the whales and the trees, because that's what "BC" is to me. I also LOVED the slam poet and was designing a scrapbook page in my head while he was talking :D

Welcome World! Let the games begin!!!

Oh yeah, and the requiste last minute shot of me :D