Tangents

More pictures from abroad

2007-10-22T00:02:00.000-06:00

This is my favorite picture from my latest trip to The Gambia, it just does something to me. This is Fatou, the acting chief of Sitta Nunkus daughter. She had grown up a lot since the last time I had seen her in 2005, but her smile was the same. She is carrying her little sister who has the same incredible smile.

For those of you who do not have access to my Facebook profile here are some links for my Gambian photos posted there.

First Week in The Gambia
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62739&l=74dfa&id=892180214

The Village of Sitta Nunku
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53499&l=899d5&id=892180214

The Village of Soma
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36076&l=0b383&id=892180214

Africa Pictures Part One

2007-07-12T11:14:00.001-06:00

I have started to post my pictures on face book. This link is for pictures from the Soma Soccer Camp:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36076&l=0b383&id=892180214

Back with a brand new passport in hand

2007-07-05T22:01:00.000-06:00

I am back in Canada, for about two weeks now, and I think that my digestive system has finally gotten back to normal. Its so good to be back home, and with a brand new passport in hand. The last three days in the Gambia were hectic to say the least. Trying to get police reports and affidavits from the Gambian officials, filling out more passport forms than I care to count and so much prayer... but in hindsight I am glad it happened. I got to see, yet again, what God can do. When consulates told me that there would be no way for me to get back into Canada on my planned flight we all prayed. When the Gambian police force told us that we couldn't start the process of getting a police report till Monday we prayed. It was really down to the wire, but I knew that it was in Gods hands.

That goes for the rest of the trip. No matter where we were, how sick we got or what crazy situations I found myself in we always knew that God was in control of the situation. Romans 8:28 says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Of course there were days that were definitely less than fun and I did get sick a few times, but God always provided for our needs and looked after us in some strange situations. Being home has provided me with a lot of perspective on the trip, and by taking a step back I can see even more how many things could have gone really wrong and also how seemingly random some of our opportunity's were.

So I am back, in one piece, a little browner and I hope a lot wiser. It was amazing to be back in the Gambia. I saw so many friends from two years ago and was able to make a lot of new friends. I was able to step off the plane and suffer almost no culture shock, which was an amazing. I had an amazing team that I was so impressed with (and that I miss so much)

I am waiting for my pictures, so if anyone is still reading this, I will be posting pictures soon along with some stories. But the best way to hear about my trip is to ask me. I have some crazy stories to tell and I love to talk about Africa.

Thank you to all who prayed and supported me over the last two months. I have no doubt in the power of prayer! You all blessed me so much.

Africa Update...

2007-06-20T06:04:00.000-06:00

I was mugged on Saturday in The Gambia and had my passport stolen...
I barely made it on to my flight back to the UK with an emergency passport (20 minutes to spare) and am trying to get papers to get back in to Canada in time for my flight, but the office closes soon...
I never want to fill out a passport or police related form or sit in a consulate ever again...
Hope to be back in Canada this week.

Going back to Africa

2007-04-30T00:08:00.001-06:00

I am going back to The Gambia on May 6th and wil be there for a few weeks. I have started a blog that I will be posting on while overseas:

www.janainthegambia.blogspot.com

I should have some good stories about being chased through the forest by monkeys and a lot of marriage proposals among other things. Also my team has a blog which we will all be updating while we are gone:

www.Gambia2007.com

I missed them so much!

2007-03-22T22:50:00.000-06:00

There have been rumors of a new Radiohead album for over a year now, and I have been really looking forward to it. There is just something about Radiohead. Today I found a torrent of the rough draft of their new album, and I have to say it was nice to hear what they are doing. They used their old tricks and have put some very interesting new sounds like the vibraphone and jazz organ together… I am at track three and am still overly delighted.
“Radiohead's new album due out later in the year is described by Thom Yorke as similar to OK Computer "but much more terrifying." The album, which includes tour-tested tracks like Videotape and Bangers & Mash is their first since their Parlophone deal expired and, as Yorke says, "We've always worked best when we aren't bothered about making mistakes".”
I can't wait to hear the final product, if they ever decided to finish it : )

Terrin the Terror!!!

2007-02-09T22:09:00.000-06:00

My internship started as of January, and it’s been a long month so far. I am doing the first four months at my school, Central Pentecostal College, doing Technical Arts type things. I am working at Puls Works Audio Arts (which is so amazing), doing some video work in the Editing Suite and taking a few classes.

We had a weekend last week where high school students come for a mini YC type thing to check out the school. This year it was Super Hero themed, so we made a few student videos. This is one of the three that we made, and it’s my favorite by far. I will post the other eventually, but for now enjoy “Terrin the Terror!!!”

Mountain Montage

2007-01-14T22:33:00.000-06:00

I was driving through the mountains on my was home from bc this week and I don’t think that I can really describe how beautiful the snow laden mountains were. I love long drives for two reasons: Lost of time to just listen to music, and a lot of time to think. This drive, on the other hand, was longer than long. I got home before that huge blizzard that even shut down Saskatoon, but I did hit some crazy road conditions. Most of the trip was spent going 70 in 110 km/hr zones. But the moments when the roads didn’t require my total concentration I was stunned by the beauty outside my windows.

Maybe it’s a little flaky to say, but some things are so beautiful that they actually make me hurt. That was the case when I took these pictures. As previously stated road trips are a chance to catch up on so much music. I threw in Chris Tomlin latest album and this song struck me as perfect:

Raise your hands, all you nations
Shout to God all creation
How awesome is the Lord Most High

We will praise You together
For now and forever
How awesome is the Lord Most High

The pictures really don’t do it all justice… neither does my attempt at taking pictures while driving…

Vancouver Montage

2007-01-02T17:25:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pictures from my drive up here this week. I missed seeing the mountains in the winter. And of course another sight for sore eyes!
Song track for this montage: “Ruthless Gravity” Craig Armstrong

Finals Playlist - Fall 06

2006-12-14T19:29:00.000-06:00

Every semester I post a play list or two of the music that keeps me sane during my studying. This year I was a bit of a delinquent, so I am going to take the ironic road out and post on the day that I wrote my last exam (it’s so god to be done!) But this way the list is tried and true.

A lot of this music is very well done and excellently produced and really worth a listen… and some of it is ridiculous and fun. It’s a good mix.

Side One:
Cramp Your Style – Thievery Corporation
Shy Kind of Guy – Gogol Bordello
Twin Killers – Deerhoof
You’re So Damn Hot – Ok Go
Rock N Roll – The Sounds
Tropical Iceland – The Fiery Furnaces
Tiny Paintings – Architecture in Helsinki
Til the End of Time – Devotchka
Standing In The Way of Control – The Gossip
Execution Commentary – Muse
In Taberna Quando – Orff Carl
What D – Kaiser Chiefs
Twin Cinema – The New Pornographer
Humuman – Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood
Transistor – Scissor Sisters
Your Mother – Pocket Dwellers
Remember Me – The Zutons
This Harness Can’t Ride Anything – Chin Up Chin Up
Ruthless Gravity – Craig Armstrong
Bhangra – Punjabi MC

Side Two:
Run Run Run – Phoenix
The Clap – The Unicorns
Lousy Reputation – We Are Scientists
The Bachelor and the Bride – The Decemberists
Swim – Ambulance LTD
Live Long – Kings of Convenience
The Owls Go – Architecture in Helsinki
Penelope - Pinback
Twenty Four Hours – Athlete
Refuge – Matisyahu
Velvet Morning – The Verve
Different Stars – Trespassers William
Dream Brother – Jeff Buckley
Alright – Pilate
Recycled Air – The Postal Service
Kids Will Be Skeletons – Mogwai
More Matey – Keane
Lullaby – Pedro the Lion
Let’s Build a Fire – Plus Minus
Twin Falls – Built To Spill

It’s so good to be able to just listen to music and not worry about a final the next day or a paper that has to be written. Speaking of which if any Radiohead fans are reading this Thom York posted a new remix: http://www.theeraser.net/

The Christmas banquet is over: yay!

2006-12-04T22:09:00.000-06:00

Toady was the day of the infamous Central Pentecostal Christmas banquet. I never knew how much work one little banquet could be. Never again! But it was totally worth it in the end. The food was amazing, the people were fun and the skits… oh the skits. We had it in the lower hall of the beautiful Third Ave United church downtown, and the sound track was frank Sinatra and the boys.

Just like everyone else in my school I am going to treat my readers to a little bit of a banquet 06 montage. The soundtrack for this is ‘Let it snow’ By Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole:

This is the dream team. Together we can conquer all Christmas banquet planning that stands in our way!

My mother was a HUGE help tonight. She worked so hard. I couldn't have gotten it all done without her.

Awww Piper misses Melissa!

Ashley and I

My date, the beautiful Norah. She is a really good substitute... but I was still a bit sad:

Terrin I know what you would say; 'Aww muffin!'

Montage part Two

2006-12-04T22:01:00.000-06:00

Mrs. Antle followed the ‘formal attire’ guidelines to a tee. But I was a little bit disappointed that her husband did not show up in a dress…

Digital cameras make hold out pictures all the more fun.

It's just not Christmas with out the oranges right?

Nice work Matt!
Everyone cleans up so nicely! : )

Behind the Glass

2006-11-30T21:34:00.000-06:00

I was reading through one of my text books (Behind the Glass by Howard Massey) and I stumbled across a quote:

“For many people record production seems to be a black art, imbued with an almost mystical secrecy. After all it’s easy to understand the roles of pretty much everyone else involved in making a CD: the songwriter creates the music; the artist (who is sometimes the same person) interprets and performs it; and the engineer is responsible for getting the sound successfully on tape or hard disk by looking after the faders, knobs, meters and other technical aspects. But then there is that other person – the one hovering in the background, often engaged in deep conversation with the musicians and the engineer. What exactly is he or she doing? That is what this book sets out to answer.”

What am I getting myself into?!? If the author needs over 300 pages to give a job description…

All joking aside I am really looking forward to getting in to that business some day. Of course I have school to polish off first, and many years of grappling up a corporate ladder… but it’s nice to have finally set my heart on doing one particular thing. It’s also nice that I have been blessed with a mentor and amazing opportunities already. The prospect of spending my life doing something that I love blows me away, but it sounds like I have quite a learning curve ahead of me if I want to be 'imbued with an almost mystical secrecy'. What does that even mean?

So Cute!!

2006-11-09T22:30:00.000-06:00

Amanda just sent me some fresh off the presses engagement photos. I am so happy for her, and I know you’ll agree that this is pretty much the cutest picture.

End of Summer Sorrow

2006-09-14T22:20:00.000-06:00

It’s time to face the facts; summer is over and the onslaught of post secondary has begun. September has brought its usual charms. Classes and Essays, cold nights and rainy days, no more leisurely days of summer and definitely no more lounging in the sun.

So to celebrate the melancholy weather and to morn the loss of the fabled free time allow me to introduce my first annual ‘End of Summer Sorrow’ CD:

Jesse – Richard Gibbs
Falling By The Wayside – People in Planes
Haley – Needtobreathe
Gone – The Beta Band
The Drinks We Drank Last Night – Azure Ray
Insomnia – Wintersleep
Grey – Ani Difranco
Recall – Brave Stain Saturn
Over Our Heads – Zero 7
Today – Joshua Radin
Smile – David Grey
I Can’t Seem To Make You Mine – The Clientele
Bring On the Ending – Matt Pond PA
Angels & Saints - Never Ending White Lights
Dear Jamie… Sincerely Me – Helloandgoodbye
Dondante – My Morning Jacket
Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

I also put a few of my favorite songs of the summer on a second disc so as I drive to school I can not only torture my brother with my obscure musical taste, but I can also remember the better times. Time when music was my biggest priority of the day instead of academic pursuits… I went through a bit of an indie / alternative phase this summer, and this is the cream of the crop as far as oddity in recordings go:

Mercury – Brave Saint Saturn
Hot Summer Nights (Won’t Last) – The Aquabats
I Don’t Want To Fall In Love – She Wants Revenge
Stawberryfire – Apples in Stereo
Cavalier Eternal – Against Me!
No Breaks – The Bravery
Brooklyn is Burning – Head Automatica
The Wrong Way – TV On the Radio
Cross the Tracks – Maceo & The Macks
Primitive (the Way I Treat You) – Ambulance Ltd
Audrey, Start the Revolution – Anberlin
If She Wants Me – Belle and Sebastian
Losing Haringley – The Clientele
I Melt With You – Nouvelle Vague
Prove It – Television
Gypsy Part of Town – Gogol Bordello
Something Borrowed Something Blue – Ben Lee
Biomusicology - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Summer’s Gone - Aberfeldy

Lindy’s Mohawk

2006-08-27T00:18:00.000-06:00

I think this is so cute. It's hard to see, but it's there.

Every few months we shave all of my dogs hair off, and for years I have been asking my parents if we can do something fun. My mom finally approved the Mohawk idea, so during my dogs last haircut I got to trim her head. It’s funny to see people just stare at my dog when we are out for a walk.

I am hoping to keep it for a while to see how big it will get. Is it true that some people dye their poodles pink? If it is, there must be some sort of ‘dog safe dye’. Maybe it comes in black or red…

Hindsight is 20/20...

2006-08-09T19:21:00.000-06:00

What do you get when you mix a huge storm, a northern lake and two city people?

A lot of cussing.

This past weekend we (Steve, Jessica and I) headed up to Kingsmere lake to go to Grey Owls cabin. I thought that it would be great because this trip is a really easy going introduction to canoeing. Unfortunately my companions didn’t think so.

When we got up to the lake via the river it was a perfect day to paddle. The water was glass and it was overcast. Other than a lot of whining (I should have brought some wine gums…) it was a picture perfect day, for me at least. It was a bit too much for Steve and Jessica who hadn’t really done any canoeing (which is totally justified). The progression of cussing was hilarious, the climax was after we had paddled up the lake about 15 km up to where we thought the hiking trail started only to find a sign that said “Grey Owls' Cabin ->”. We thought that we would have to canoe further down the lake to find our trail... again. To say that Jessica was pissed would be an understatement. We had been on the river and the lake all day and she shouted in to the bush “Where the F*** is Grey Owls' cabin!!!” and another golden quote that followed was “ What a jack ass, living so far away from everything!” and it only got better when we were on our 7 km hike through the bush to the cabin.

I think that the mosquitoes knew that Jessica was fresh meat from BC. We walked single file through the bush on our hike and every time I turned around there was literally a flock of mosquitoes around Jessica and Steve. I had a grand total of three bites by the end of the trip, none of which itched, but Jessica looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. She is still covered in bites, so much so that she is all red. I don’t get it, they just wouldn’t bite me, but she had four coats of Deep Woods OFF but it didn’t help.

Now we get to the interesting part of the story. On Saturday when we were supposed to come home a big wind storm came up with three foot waves. So we just hung out most of the day and they slept in while I had a beautiful hike. By the afternoon, the waves went down to a good size that we could handle. I’ve been on this lake in storms, but never with ‘novices’... So we had the canoe all packed up and tied down and I went over the basic training for canoes one last time before we pushed off from the shore on to the choppy water. Unfortunately, during basic training, Jessica missed the part where you need to sit low in the canoe to lower the center of gravity. Right after she got in to the canoe, as we pushed off, she lost her balance. Of course, as she was falling out of the canoe, trying to hold on, a wave hit our canoe and we were toppled over and capsized. It really sucked to be wet as the sun was going down but I got a few fires started and in no time our clothes were dry and two of the sleeping bags that were damp were zipped together for us to sleep in.

It was so funny to see Steve freak out that he ‘almost died’. We were in three feet of water for goodness sake!! Maybe he will forgive me some day, but I doubt it, he was really scared.

And to top off the whole day I badly bruised my tibia. I was running around trying to start fires for my wet and cold friends and had a but of an incident while chopping the wood. Adding a wound to that situation is not a good thing. Drama Drama Drama

So the next day after a freezing cold and uncomfortable sleep and after not eating for 20 hours we made it back down the lake and the river to our car. And I tell you, the chips that were waiting for us in the car never tasted better.

And now a word from our sponsor... Jessica

When we got home about thirty hours later, we had about an hour to get rid of our deet smell, and scrub off the perma-dirt imbedded in our feet, in order to get ready for a BBQ at Jana's house (this is Jessica writing by the way, in case you hadn't sensed a change in writing style). It was so nice having showered and wearing clothes that didn't smell of campfire, it was definitely one of my favourite parts of the trip.

After eating some delicious burgers, watermelon, and rubarb-apple crisp (so good, and now i know what rubarb is, apparently it is not an ingredient in rootbeer, learn something new everyday), me, Jana, my new friend whom I met on the plane, Mike, and his friend Kirk who owns one of those half-car Smart Car things, anyways we went to the Fringe festival, very cool, and then hung out in the Saskatoon's very own castle. It was a great end to a very eventful and interesting camping trip. Of course, I think I'm gonna take a long break until my next camping excursion. Thanks for a cool Saskatoonese vacation Jana and everyone I met in Stoon, but now as that crazy californian says "I'm out!".

Irony Strikes… Literally

2006-07-25T19:50:00.000-06:00

Our denomination has a camp about an hour north of Saskatoon and it is a beautiful place, but requires a lot up keep. My dad has been on the board of the camp as the ‘Maintenance Manager’ for years and gives selflessly to the camp. (Kudos dad)

Now what does this have to do with irony you ask? Well this year during family camp my dad decided that unlike past years he would actually treat this year like a vacation and enjoy camp. But of course he spent the whole week working the new water system, running new power and water lines lines, fixing this and that. After six days of working eight hour days on his “vacation” he decided to draw the line.

He was talking to the caretaker of camp outside of the lodge at about 10:30 on Friday night. His exact words were (in a joking way) “I’m not going to work anymore this week unless something starts on fire.” Just as the words came out of his mouth the power pole behind him exploded.

I wasn’t there, but I did see him running through the dining hall in his coveralls with greasy hands soon after irony struck. Earlier that day at supper time he told us what he was going to say about not working anymore that week. So when I cracked a joke about seeing him back to work he just looked at me and said “Something started on fire.”

He ended up working till 3am and all the next morning trying to get the power fixed for the west side of camp. The cool thing of all this is my dad’s attitude. He works so hard for that camp and its all volunteer work. He always say that he doesn’t get paid till the other side. I think that the explosion was a sign from God that he should work harder… And no, my dad didn’t laugh at that joke either.

My backyard

2006-07-15T14:04:00.000-06:00

Summer...

2006-07-13T23:36:00.000-06:00

In my opinion the best part of summer is the thunderstorms. We had a huge one earlier this week, and I can hear one rolling in now. From the green house the lightning is amazing, but nothing compares to the thunder. The strangest thing is how fast they happen. Two minutes ago the sky was fairly clear, but now it’s pouring rain and the sky is lit up.

And of course the storms bring huge winds with them. We have two big apple trees in our back yard, and what you ask do we do with all of the apples that fall off during the storms? Apple golfing of course! If you haven’t tried it you are missing out. Of course it’s more fun when the apples are over ripe in the fall, but the almost ripe ones still explode fairly well. Jacq’y and I took a pail to the field near my house on Sunday and it was the most fun I had in a long time. If you try it the drivers are the best if you want overall splatter and distance. Be careful with the wedges, unless you are ok with being covered in apple chunks.

I know that apple golfing is not the most mature past time in the world, but I am trying to make the most of what feels like my last summer. Next year I will still be on my internship, and will only have about two weeks of freedom before schools starts in the fall. The summer after that I will have graduated and who knows? At work today I had a scary thought; Only a month and a half till the black hole we like to call 'post-secondary education' stars up again. Scary

I'm Not Dead... Really

2006-07-02T04:29:00.000-06:00

I do feel bad for not posting for two months… but good old insomnia has brought my back on to the fold. After all what else can you do at 4am?

So my summer is going really well. After another crazy year of school I am becoming reacquainted with free time. I am working as a nanny again, and doing some graphic design for CPC. I love both of my jobs and they afford me a lot of extra time, which has been hard to get used to. I of course have been filling the extra hours with music, trying to release my inner Dave Grohl. (I don’t understand how he does it… he must have three arms) I’ve seen a couple really good shows this summer, and have a few bands to suggest as well as a few Cd’s that have come out in the last few weeks:

People in Planes – As Far as the Eye Can See
Winter Sleep – Winter Sleep
Ben Harper – Both Sides of the Gun
Keane – Under the Iron Sea
Muse – Black Holes and Revelations
Billy Talent – Billy Talent II
And I am still waiting for the New Radiohead album. They were originally going to put it out last fall, but it has been pushed back so many times…

I have had a few crazy summer adventures, but nothing to write home about. I keep meaning to post about them, and maybe some day soon I will. Until then have a great summer.

Maple Tree

2006-04-20T22:21:00.000-06:00

I’ve been pretty busy lately, so I am doing a ‘cop out’ blog post as Terrin would say. It's just some pictures that I like. The Maple tree in our back yard looks really cool this time of year, not to mention the fact that we made maple syrup this spring. I took these pictures just before the sun set, so the light is pretty crazy.

Notice the plane in the background of the last one?

That's all for now.

Finals Survival Gear – Spring Semester 2006

2006-04-11T22:15:00.000-06:00

So that time of year has come around again. Despite the fact that it’s raining beautifully again and the snow is gone, it can still be a stressful time. The word ‘finals’ in no way, scares me as much as it did when I was a first year, but I can still feel the tension. It’s been a crazy time around CPC so I decided that the Spring Semester 2006 edition of the "Finals Survival Gear: The Mixed Tape" would have a bit of a mellow feel.

So after a lot of procrastination time I have made the final list:

Side A:
Eleanor – Low Millions
Post Modern Girls – The Strokes & Regina Spektor
There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey. You Just Haven’t Thought Of It Yet. – Panic! At The Disco
7 Minutes in Heaven – Fall Out Boy
Kiss You Better – Maximo Park
Arms Around Me – The Departure
January 1979 – mewithoutyou
Resolution – Motion City Soundtrack
Don’t Look Away – Joshua Radin
Crooked Teeth – Death Cab For Cutie
Bohemian Like You – Dandy Warhols
Back To You – Jeremy Kay
Represent, Cuba – Orishas
Bandages – Hot Hot Heat
Save Your Scissors – City and Colour
Bet She Looks God On The Dance Floor – Arctic Monkeys
Gone Up in Flames – Morning Runner
Touched – Vast
Standing On My Own Again – Graham Coxon
Call ‘n’ Return (Say That You’re In To Me) Hellogoodbye
The Fog – Kara’s Flowers
Hands In My Pocket – Jim Guthrie

Side B:
Love Will Come Through – Travis
Clark Gable – The Postal Service
Home Michael Buble
Slung-Lo – Erin McKeowin
Your Love Means Everything – Coldplay
A Million Years – Teddy Geiger
Thinking About You – Radiohead
Intuition – Feist
The Grace – Neverending White Lights
If It Smashes Down – My Morning Jacket
Summer is Coming – Matt Pond PA
Gorecki – Lamb
Hoppipolla – Sigur Ros
I Am In Love With You – Imogen Heap
Stop Joking Around – Hawksley Workman
Love of the Loveless – Eels
Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight – Amos Lee
Commin Home – City and Colour
Rain – Breaking Benjamin
The Bronze – the Lovely Feathers

And I know, there is no Yo-Yo Ma gracing my list this year. I realized this just after I had burnt off the CD’s, so for an honourary spot I nominate “Cello Suite No. 1, 4. Sarabande” I tell you it is the best music to study by.

How close to becoming a ‘crackberry’ am I?

2006-03-29T00:02:00.000-06:00

Not to sound like a person with ages of experience to give me perspective, but I am twenty… almost 21. My life, even if it doesn’t compare to the 70 year olds who saw the shuttle on the moon as a far fetched idea, does still offer me a distinctive time line inside the development of technology. I am a sucker for technology. We’ve had a computer in my house since grade three when the internet was DOS based and it was only used to email our family in Africa. Typing in the commands to pull up a game before the commonplace GUI was something I always left up to my brother who was the computer gru from day one.

Leaving the days of the computer in the basement far behind, I’m sitting here seven computers later with my prized laptop writing a blog post in my living room. I love the newest addition to my computer family. It’s a beautiful piece of machinery it by far the panicle of the technology legacy of this house.

Development is good. I have a memory card for my digital camera that is three times the size of our first hard drive. But what are the consequences? Other than the huge monetary cost of all these gadgets, what else are we loosing to this new lifestyle?

I check my email at least once a day, if not several times. I constantly listen to music, and have it with me wherever I go in some form or another. I’ve had a Palm pilot that went everywhere with me for about two years, and I do have a cell phone. I usually carry a digital camera. In the grand scheme of things, I am not doing to bad on the scale of obsessive uses of technology. But should I really be gauging myself against the crackberries of the world? Is the level of computerization in my life healthy in any way?

There have been studies done that say a constant involvement with technology (blackberries, cell phones, constant emailing, internet ect. Can reduce the average persons IQ by 10%. Pot only reduces the IQ by 4% (Canadian studies). Technology in some cases has been shown to increase distractibility and reduce attention spans. It even hampers creativity.

Don’t get me wrong I am not against technology, but I am dangerously close to, if not already, a hypocrite.

I would love to go even a week without any technology. No emails. No eBay. No CTV news net. No music. No online banking. No laptop to type notes (or to occupy me when I am bored) in class. No spell check to write papers with. No recording studio. No weather network. No cell phone for ‘emergency’ calls. How much time do I spend looking at a screen a day, regardless of my reasons? I could be writing a paper, researching, emailing a friend, chatting on msn, shopping, learning, listening to music, watching missed episodes of scrubs… but the idea of a clean break scares me. What would I do with all that spare time? Finally learn Spanish maybe…

If I added up all the time I spend with media of one kind or another during the week, including music, I am sure I would be out rightly shocked.

So the time issue aside how much money have I spent on technology in my life? I really don’t want to know. I am sure it rivals the amount I have spent on instruments easily. I really think, even though I would rather stay in my ignorance, that this just might not be using my time and money wisely.

So as I am searching ebay for an iPod, I’m faced with just one more chance to compromise to the seemingly inevitable computerizing of my life. Do I really want to have a tiny computer with me everywhere I go? I already carry my computer with me to school all the time, which unfortunately weighs a lot more than my Palm. But what would I become with a Laptop, cell and an iPod?

For me this all comes down to control. I hate text messaging. I hate when people answer their cell phones mid sentence, or even during a conversation. I like to keep my technology under my thumb. The idea of being always accessible to anyone who has my number or email address scares me. Anyone who knows me knows that it is impossible to reach me on my phone unless I am expecting a call or by some strange fluke have left my ringer on.

Well at least I am not a full fledged victim of my generation, I am still holding out on the blackberry.

Who knows what I will become. Maybe I will achieve my dream of living up north for two months away from every thing based on electricity. That clean cut at this point seems impossible if I can’t go more than two days without checking my mail.

"eagles wings"

2006-03-20T22:57:00.000-06:00

So we got in from our last special Ensemble trip of the year, and I have to admit it’s sad that the CPC dynasty of has come to an end. It was a great trip, tiring but good.

This time around, we went to the booming metropolis of Brandon Manitoba where we played at Calvary Tepme in the Morning and Bethel Christian Assembely in the evening. Stiller was right on with his preaching and so was the band (if I do say so my self) The ministry was powerful and I was honoured to be involved.

The team with Special Guest Blaine Eagle:

Josh and Fret-less Wes-lessBrandon hommies:
Terrin’s ‘special someone’
Becca and Andrew (aka Uncle Clarence)

Let the Montage Begin

2006-03-20T21:50:00.000-06:00

Tuesday Blood Tuesday

2006-02-28T16:25:00.000-06:00

So after that announcement at CPC today I turned to an old friend for some comfort; U2. The first song I flicked on was Sunday Bloody Sunday and I thought it was a little appropriate:

“I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
Tuesday Bloody Tuesday”

I am almost done two years of school that mean absolutely nothing in the real world unless it’s all in BA form. And I can’t get my BA because they had to let go of the professor who taught my program. I had the next four years all planned out until today. Today I have nothing to show for all of my hard work unless I move to Abbottsford, Toronto or Calgary.

This all is like breaking up and realizing that you have wasted two years of your life in a relatioship and probably shouldn’t have dated in the first place.

So as Bono says:

“Wipe your tears away
And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die
The real battle yet begun
To claim the victory Jesus won”

I need to take this all in perspective. Sure I just totally lost control of my schooling and what I had planned for the future, but I need to take a step back. It’s not the worst thing that can happen, and I know absolutely that God will carry me through this all. Nothing catches God off guard, but on my part this all feels like a sucker punch.

Strangest thing ever… almost.

2006-02-23T22:21:00.000-06:00

It seems that the plunge to the bottom of the lake did my Discman a lot of good. I put some batteries in it yesterday on the remote chance that it would maybe have a sign or two of life… and it did.

Before I took it to the lake, all of the buttons were sticking and frustrating me to no end. But when I tried it out yesterday the buttons were just like new.

I just think it’s really weird that the drop in the lake fixed it.

Reading Week

2006-02-21T09:39:00.000-06:00

My break was for the most part uneventful and relaxing. I did a lot of homework, played drums, listened to new music, watched a few movies and had some good times with friends... Mostly run of the mill things. But of course I had to put a little bit of a ‘Jana Twist’ on reading break.

It all started with spending a whole day at the shop tuning up our vehicles with my dad. It was supposed to be a routine changing of the oil, but of course when I had finished that my dad found more things to do. It’s a long list, but I sure learnt a lot about replacing water pumps and accessory belts : ) The Father – Daughter fun continued the next day when the Wind-chill warning was lifted and it was safe to spend the day at the lake.

Skidooing is a Heyer tradition. I actually can’t remember a time when we didn’t have one. We have come along way from the old John Deer Sled, and Saturday was spent on all the great trails around Iroquois, Constance and Emerald Lakes about an hour and a half North of the City. It was great except for a little ‘incident’ during fishing…

So you know what Murphy ’s Law is right? It’s the probability law that 'all that can go wrong will go wrong.' Well there are a lot of things that can go wrong at the Ice shack when there is a three foot by two foot hole in the floor. I was sitting on the couch doing a little reading for English class and fishing while we were up at the lake this past Saturday. Of course I had my CD player along and had my head phones around my neck because my Discman was off and I was talking with my dad. I had totally forgotten about my headphones when my dog barked to be let in (it was -20 so I she comes in a lot to warm up). So forgetting that I was still attached to my Discman I got up to let Lindy in. Just before I got to the door, I heard a sploosh. Murphy’s Law had kicked in with full force as I watched my Discman sink to the bottom of the lake. Where we were the water is crystal clear and only about 15 feet deep, so my dad pulled out a big Jack fish spoon with a gigantic hook and spent about ten minutes fishing it out of the lake. (photo bellow) My CD is gone (it was the Finals CD of a previous post…) and I have yet to try the CD player to see if it works. I’ve let it dry out for the last few days and don’t really have high hopes for it working, but we’ll see. So my day of hands being numb from the cold, badly bruising my knees (that’s a whole other story), having to choose between Rummy-o tiles and boggle for mid afternoon entertainment and getting stuck on Three separate logs on the trails (and having to pull my mom out of all three as well) wasn’t a complete loss after all. If the day had gone off without a hitch it would have been far less interesting I think.

Here are a few pictures so that you can vicariously enjoy the frigid day:

The 'Ice Palace'

How thick the Ice is so far this year

Lindy Ice fishing

Cheezy "Happy Family Vacation' picture.

Fishing my Discman out of the lake

So after that glowing recommendation of ice fishing if anyone wants to go up on a Saturday let me know. Just don’t bring a Discman…

Luck of the Draw

2006-02-12T23:08:00.000-06:00

If shaving a girls head was on my list of thing to do before I die I could finally cross it off. Unfortunately it was over looked, but who would have thought of that anyway? And who would think of shaving their head for missions? That would be Kendra. Now that shows a dedication to missions!

Here are some pictures of my handy work:

And thanks to Scott Wilson who not only had his head shaved in front of a few whole bunch of people at Elim, but also was a good sport about the monk hair cut I gave him. (It was great; he could put on his hat and no one would know that the rest of his head was shaved!) You both were good sports, and we raised a lot for missions. Who knew that there were that many people who wanted to see you guys bald? crazy

The devil... I mean act you know and love?

2006-01-15T23:33:00.000-06:00

So maybe I am just cynical but here are some thoughts on the election… mostly the entertaining highlights…

-Bear and Peanuts.

-The irony that the Liberals promised in 90’s to get rid of the GST (check the commie... I mean red book) And It’s Harper who is campaigning that he will reduce it to 5% within five years.

-Martin trying to trap Harper in a debate by pulling his ‘abortion / you want to take away the rights of mothers’ card. It was a really good question and Harper would have been put in a bad place… but in true Martin fashion he addressed the question to Layton. So instead of dealing a blow back at the guy who was pummeling him he had jack Layton yell at him for the full 30 seconds. ‘This is a total fabrication Mr. Martin. You are making up lies about me and my party’ My French is a little rusty but it was basically ‘where do you get off?!?’ And of course the question did't actualy reach Harper due to the fact that if Martin tried to state the question again in that debate he would go from idiot to Baffoon status… that’s just good TV.

-Speaking of TV, it’s important to vote based on the parties platforms and pollicies but it’s really tempting to vote based on entertainment value. There is a commercial for CPAC ( the Canadian CSPAN) the has Tom Green saying that the election is like a audition and a casting session, after all those are the people that will be on the channel for the years to come. That being said do we really want Steven Harper, who just learnt how to smile last week and is scandal free… or do we want the good old liberals? They have given us so much to talk about in the last decade. Who can forget the red book (did anyone tell them that the communists called their hand book the ‘red book’ too?) the sponsorship scandal and Martin just did just make a new definition for crashing-and-burning during the latest debates… if you want a more in depth 23. point list: http://www.rightpoint.org/liberal.html (click '1993')

But the conservatives do have their fair share of fun on their corner… Kim Cambell… Brian Mulroney and the air bus… Henry Dayday on a seadoo… I think that the final vote has to go to the Liberals. One word: Trudeau. I don’t think that I really need to say anymore. The liberals have been a constant source of entertainment, that is except for Lester B. Pearson unless you consider that universal health care is a stunt....

-This leaves us with two ultimate questions:

1. Do we want to put the liberals back in power so we can be entertained as the screw over our country even more, or should we go the ‘conservative’ road and turn to the Americans for our political entertainment…

2. Should we vote for the PM that Bono turned his back on? It is Bono after all.

Don’t forget to vote! For me it’s more exciting than my birthday. How sad it that.

Happy New Year

2006-01-05T09:50:00.000-06:00

My Yearly Survey for New Year's (stolen from Terrin....)

1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before?
Went overseas… went cliff diving and white water rafting… did a bunch of crazy stuff in Africa that I never imagined doing… made a bunch of new friends… paid fricken $70 for a concert ticket (Pearl Jam wasn’t worth it either)…

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions and will you make more for next year?
I’ve never been one for resolutions. It’s better to decide something and commit to it because you want to instead of calling it a ‘resolution’ and knowing it will fail… but I am a pessimist I guess.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Katrina and Stephen had a baby boy named Tyler. He is the cutest thing ever.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
This was the first year in a while without a death. I am so thankful for that, I don’t really deal with death all that well.

Actually one of my newts Annabelle died, that was really sad. I still have Dude… but he misses Annabelle…

5. What countries did you visit?
The Gambia, UK and Hong-couver : )

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
Hmmm… more time! I pack a lot into my days and I would love it if I was a bit better at time management. And I would like it if school and work didn’t take over my social life this year again, that sucked last year. And I would love to take music to the next level, I am not quite sure what that means… I guess I will find out this year.

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched in your memory, and why?
June 17th - That’s the day that I got back to Saskatoon from my two month trip. I thought that my parents would be at the airport and maybe my brother, but there was at least 20 people waiting for me, even the family that I nanny for. It was amazing. And it was really nice to be back in Canada. Also that night I was back in Canada where the internet actually works and the power doesn’t swich off all the time… and in the middle of writing a long email the power switched off… oh the irony.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting good marks in School and going to Africa. And driving to BC and back alone was great, 34 hours of driving alone was totally new.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Loosing contact with a few friends, not meeting some lofty ideas that I set out for myself.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
It’s been a good year actually. Only a few minor cuts and bruises as usual. I did have the worst migraine of my life when we were up country in The Gambia. I have to say that it was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, I never want to go through that again, we were quite far away from a hospital so I had to tough it out. And I did break my nose, but not that bad at all.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Djembe from West Africa! I love it.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I was curious to know if old dogs could learn new tricks, my dog is 9 years old and I taught her was to crawl… Myth BUSTED!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
There was a little bit of shall we say personal conflict within my team in Africa… let’s just leave it at that shall we? And a good friend really hurt me this year, that sucked.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Africa. All of it went to travel this year. And the trip to BC as well. Other than that I would have to say CD’s and I do indulge in clothes here and there.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Finishing my first year… Africa… Amanda coming home to surprise me during my first week back in Canada… Chad coming home for Christmas… Seeing everyone this fall back at CPC…

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
Anything by Muse, Metric, the Stars, U2’s war album, Sara Harmer, Vindicated my Dashboard…. Actually a lot of music… Maybe most of all my Finals Survival CD all of those songs are a safe bet to put me right back into last year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? About the same I guess. I have grown up a lot more, so life doesn’t shake me as much as it used to.
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same I would say.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer by far, I spent a good chunk of my saving on Africa, and one of my major investments tanked… which sucked really bad…

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I think that I need to have a lot more crazy adventures.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Sleeping. If you think about it I sleep maybe seven hours a day… That’s a lot of time to be wasting.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?
Hmmm, I want to hold out on that for a while, I don’t really want to get in to that while I am in school. Not to be negative, but it’s kind of restricting. I don’t want to be a spinster or anything, but I hope that I will happen in a few years, not now.

23. How many one-night stands?
Guess…

24. What was your favorite TV program?
I LOVE Arrested Development. It is by far the funniest thing on TV. Scrubs is also amazing. I usually download the episodes when I have time, because I never catch them on tv… Myth Busters and How It’s Made are also really great… and a little nerdy…

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I know that I dislike a person or two, but I wouldn’t say hate, and I would say that I need to get over it and grow up.

26. What was the best book you read?
Everything of my English lit. class I loved. And I did dabble in a few other English textbooks that I have picked up over the years. I also read a bunch of Shakespeare this year too. I haven’t really done much leisure reading because of school, but I did read a few Donald miller book and the jury is still out on those. Blue like Jazz was good, but a little sketchy at points.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
So man: Muse, Broken Social Scene, John Mayer Trio, Foo Fighters, U2’s 80’s stuff, Aberfeildly, Bedouin Soundclash, Damien Rice, Jams Blunt, They Might Be Giants, Ben Harper, The Postal Service, John Legend, Matisyahu, The Gorillaz, Beck’s Guerolito CD, Natasha Bedingfield, The Most Scerene Republic, The Lovely Feathers, Bloc Party, My Morning Jacket, DeathCab for Cutie… on and on….

29. What did you want and not get?
An ipod (fricken ebay… frick!) but I will live. And I want to get a laptop for school, but I am still looking around and dreading spending the money…

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Walk the Line was amazing. Rent was pretty good too, I went to it with musical junkie friends who sang along so that was fun. Watching the Machinist with Jess was great too. I got in to a lot of indie films this year and love alot of them too… but lists are boring, next question

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 20… and all of my friends forgot. I was in the Gambia and they had all been talking about it the day before, but all forgot when it actually mattered. So I spent the day doing Africa stuff, and at about 4 I said ‘does anyone want to go to the internet café so I can get my birthday emails?’ and Steve David said ‘why would you get birthday emails?!’ I laughed so hard. Anyway two days later they found some balloons and threw Mike and I a joint party… and the cake made me really sick because it had cinnamon. It was fun.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Touring with a crazy go nuts band… maybe next summer… Surfing would have been fun too...

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
I am a starving student who can’t afford to buy clothes unless the are on sale.. and I like unique clothes…

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
George Stroumboulopoulos – I love his show the hour, and he’s a pretty good looking guy too. (He has FIVE o's in his last name...)
Jay Malinowski (Bedouin Sondclash) – A white boy playing Reggae, does it get any better? I am a sucker for musicians and he’s really cute too.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Kanye West… joking… the fact that the earthquakes in Pakistan didn’t get nearly as much aid or attention as the tsunami or Katrina. Oh and basically anything in Canadian politics. I am addicted to CTV News Net…

37. Who did/do you miss?
Amanda who is in Denver, Chad in Ottawa, Jessica in Vancouver, Sheri in Sweden, Vashti at CBC, Amanda’s family who I don’t see very often anymore, My school friends during the summer, and everyone while I was away this summer.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
JESSICA MOOREHOUSE! And her family and all of her crazy friends in BC.

39. Quote a few song lyrics that sums up your year:
Who did you Think I Was – John Mayer Trio:
I got half a smile and zero shame

I got a reflection with a different name

Got a brand new blues I can't explain

Who did you think I was

Every mornin’ when the day begins

I make up my mind but change it back again

I'm a shifter of the shape I'm in

Who did you think I was

You got my number but I always knew the score

Who did you think I was

Here is a line that you won't understand

I'm half of the boy but twice the man

Carry the weight of the world in the palm of my hand

Who did you think I was

That was fun, I think this is the first survey thing I have ever done… thanks Terrin… : )

A word from our sponsor:

2005-12-28T01:12:00.000-06:00

Here’s a few quotes from a Dave Grohl interview that I heard today. They are the kind of quotes that both hit you up side the head and ring true at the same time. They were included in a MMM Bio piece on the development and growth off the Foo Fighters…

“If you have an obsessive compulsive desire to make music, that’s the healthiest way to be”

“Music should be it’s own reward… if that’s not enough, don’t do it.”

“If you love music you'll love playing it in your basement or on stage, it won’t matter”

Anyway, just some food for thought for all the artsies out there, and yes you too Terrin : )

My little civic...

2005-12-26T12:13:00.000-06:00

Hey, what’s up everybody, Merry Christmas and happy new year and all that.

Christmas has been really good at my house this year, lots of good family and friends time, but unfortunately we lost a part of our family this year. After 12 years the Civic is gone. After my brothers slid off the road two weeks ago we have been fighting with SGI over the value of our car, the potential of buy back ect. But after allot of thought it was decided that it would cost far too much to fix the poor thing, and it was time to let go. I love that car, my little green civic… I learnt how to drive in that car, took my first road trip in it, learnt how to do doughnuts and got my first speeding ticket in it’s beautiful gray interior. Understandably it was really sad to see her go. Believe it or not I actually cried…

Anyway as a result of only having two cars for a busy family of four the pressure was on for my dad to find a car in record time. The fastest he has ever found a car was three months, and compared to the seven of his previous purchase we thought that was fast. Needless to say we didn’t see the two day car search ending anytime soon. There we no good civics on the market and hey are actually really expensive to buy second hand compared to other cars. For example a 1995 civic coup with A/T/C and CD was $7000 compare that to a Saturn 2001 coupe with A/T/C CD ABS power locks double air bags ect... for bout the same price. Weird hey? Anyway much to my dismay my dad found a 2002 maroon Saturn with every possible feature, standard with a 1.9L twin cam engine for about $8000. You can’t really argue with that. I did have my heart set on a beautiful little civic, but I have to let my little car go…

Today I did see a commercial for the TV show that I TVA for. That was really cool and just might be a milestone for me, just like seeing my name on the credits for the first time.

“Sleep, no I never get enough, always sick and I'm tired”

2005-12-13T10:21:00.000-06:00

So today is the one day that I don’t have a final. Because I was up late studying I thought today would be a good day to sleep in. I was indulging in my waste of study time when the phone rang. When I say the phone rang I mean it in the multiple sense, and when I mean multiple I mean seventeen times in and hour and a half. After the fifth call I thought that I should just give up and get out of bed, but you know that feeling when it’s really cold, and your sheets are really warm and soft… I decided to fight for my right to sleep in. And the phone decided to fight back.

My brother had a final today. He was rushing to school and decided to cut off of Circle drive at the last minute to take Preston. The snow outside is so beautiful, an inch of perfect fluffy ‘movie’ snow which isn’t all that perfect for driving. My brother slid off the road, blew a tire, killed the front end and the coolest part was that the air bag blew. Don’t worry, he wasn’t hurt…

Anyway he trudged through that one inch of snow to call me from the Wal-Mart. I have a loft bed, so getting out of bed and to a phone before the answering machine picks up the call is a challenge. I thought my dad was home, so the first time I didn’t even try. The second time I was like Fine! and got to the phone just as it hung up. But then for the third time it rang in my hand and it was Scotty boy. So I had the joy of calling my mom at work and delivering the bad news. I started off with “Don’t freak out but…” and she didn’t! We’ve conditioned my mom over the years to the extent that when I called my mom to tell her that Scott was in the hospital because he shot himself in the hand with a nail gun all she said was, “Are to taking care of it?” I said that I was going to pick him up and she was totally fine. My poor mom.

Anyway my mom had to go pick up Scott and drive him to his final. The rest of the calls were from my mom to get my dad’s cell phone number (she didn’t write it down, so that took a few calls) my mom to check if my dad was home yet (another few calls), my brother to see if my dad was home so that he could he a ride, one of my dad’s friends looking for him, Scott’s girlfriend from work, my mom again, MCC looking for my parents, and on and on and on….

I finally gave up. I am usually a very stubborn person, but being woken up SEVENTEEN flippen times is a little much even for me.

Finals Survival Gear – The Mixed Tape

2005-12-08T12:32:00.000-06:00

Finals time is here again. In my limited experience with finals I have found that certain things are essential to keeping a firm grip on sanity. For example I always study with tea light candles burning and over the two week course of finals I consume at least a box or two of Christmas oranges. But the best thing to have is good music. Here are my selections for this year. Enjoy!

Side One:
Feel Good inc. – The Gorillaz
Black Tambourine – Beck
Steal My Kisses – Ben Harper
London Calling – The Clash
Middle of Nowhere – Hot Hot Heat
The Immigrant Song – Led Zeppelin
Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix
Combat Baby – Metric
The Future Freaks Me Out – Motion City Soundtrack
Falling – Jamiroquai
Refuge – Matisyahu
Love is an Arrow – Aberfeldy
Beautiful Love – The Afters
I Really Want You – James Blunt
Last Good Bye – Jeff Buckley
Ordinary People – John Legend
You’re Beautiful – James Blunt
Against All Odds – The Postal Service
Proposition 61 – The Most Serene Republic
Promise – Pedro the Lion
Greater Than – Riley Armstrong
I Will Sing – Ywam Denver; Amanda Van Ee
Dark & Metric – They Might Be Giants.

Side Two:
Apocalypse Please – Muse
Rude Boy Don’t Cry – Bedouin Sound Clash
Give Me Novacaine – Green Day
A Million Ways To Be Cruel – Ok Go
Bridging the Gap – Nas
List of Demands – Saul Williams
Beat Box Theme – Futurama
Going Steady – Death From Above 1979
End of the Road – Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies
Fool to Think – Dave Matthews
16 Military Wives – The Decemberists
Title and Registration – Death Cab for Cutie
National Water – Bedouin Sound Clash
2 + 2 = 5 – Radiohead
Are You Sad – Our Lady Peace
The Only Living Boy in New York – Simon and Garfunkel
God Only Knows – The Beach Boys
Cannonball – Damien Rice
Goodbye My Lover – James Blunt (this song makes me cry everytime I hear it... so sad...)
Bach’s Cello Suite 1 through 5 - Yo-Yo Ma
Karma Police (String Quartette) – Radiohead Tribute
House of the Rising Sun – Led Zeppelin
Rebel Rouser – Bedouin Sound Clash

"Yargh, I bring yea the gift of Scurvy!"

2005-12-07T23:29:00.000-06:00

I have a final tomorrow and in my tradition I am procrastinating. After all who needs to study for a “Tech for Ministry” class anyway? It is interesting to see how technology has impacted our culture and the church in particular, but I am pretty sure that I can pull it out of no where tomorrow.

Anyway I had a pretty fun weekend: The CPC Christmas party was hilarious. The class skits were amazing. Second only to my classes rendition of the Christmas story as a group of five-year-olds, pirates and mimes (I was a wise man) was Josh Brown. He and his class asked out a music video for “I like Big Bibles” Lucky I don’t think that many of the authority figures in the room (including my mom) know that it was a remake of the I like big Buts song. So good. It was nice to see everyone dolled up. And I felt really sorry for Matt. He and a few friends put on a short rap show for us. Unfortunately we are all chronically white. The closest thing we have to hommies at our school is Joe, because he is half Asian. I would pay to have a video of us trying to dance.

After a not so satisfying three hours of sleep we were packing for our trip to Regina. If anyone knows the secret to sleeping in vans or airplanes, please tell me! I just can’t do it. I slept for maybe 15 minutes the whole day. And during a nine-hour flight this summer I maybe slept for 45 minutes. HELP!

I really like the band from CPC. They are a really talented group of musicians who are not only passionate about music, but also about their faith. The services were so good. God really moved through us and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to travel around worship with so many people. And I really do like propaganda: Come to CPC!!!

Quotes of the weekend:
“That’s good teaching, you should get under that” – Just about everybody.
“Yarh, me water be breaken” - Terrin the Pirate Marry
“I’m the messiah!!!” – Piper a.k.a. baby Jesus

Winter Sunset

2005-11-30T17:31:00.000-06:00

I love this picture. I took it last week and I have to say that I really love winter sunsets, which is a good thing because winter has now officially hit Saskatoon with the -20 wind-chill of today.
But hey what can you do? At least it's beautiful.

We have now officially reached rigmarole status.

2005-11-27T13:41:00.000-06:00

So last night was marked by another day of my glorious intern position at Shaw. There is nothing better than putting lapel mics on dripping-with-sweat hockey players for intermission interviews, running cables around Sask. Place and doing all of the random jobs for the production crew. The upside is that no one asked me to fetch coffee for them (but I did get a new nickname last night: Coffee *****, always fun) and I got to go in to the owners lounge. Being a TVA is fun especially when my watch gets stuck on the captains Shoulder Pads when running a mic cable just seconds before the live interview starts… but watching the Blades loose 5-1 kinda sucked.

Today during church I was offered (and I think may have accepted) a part time job starting in January to come back and be a nanny. I love this family so much, and am really looking forward to my one or two shifts a week playing outside, making snow forts, taking the kids to hockey/skating… but it got me thinking about my identity.

At this point I am a more than full time student, I work for Shaw as a TVA, I pull a shift or two at the Meeting Place as a Barista, I am soon to relapse in to being a uber-nanny, I still in my spare time am a pseudo-musician, and moonlight as a youth leader/musician/filer at my church. I am so glad that my identity does not come from what I do, but rather it’s in who I am in God’s eyes. Sure He has given me gifts and abilities along with the opportunities to use them, but when it really comes down to it I am his precious child.

Now if I could only be done school and actually decide what I want to do with my life that would be something. : ) But hey I figure that we should just enjoy the ride and I really do like the variety.

Money Makes the World Go Round

2005-11-15T11:30:00.000-06:00

I have a love hate relationship with Canadian politics. One thing I love is the amazing work the speech writers do. For a long time I have dreamed of having the job of making a really bad situation look good. These are the people that they call when the S*** hits the fan. Its fascinating to see a publicly discredited finance department look trustworthy. For example; Ralph Goodale addressed reporters after the emergency ministers meeting today and I lost track of how many times he said “responsibility” and “accountability”. After the Gomery report made the Liberals look like scandalous money managers, the finance minister got up in front of the whole country and tried to convince us that by putting a $39 Billion Band-Aid on the problem he can be trusted again. I don’t care how much you say accountability and responsibly in a speech, the government’s strategy of paying people off won’t cut it this time. I can just imagine what went on in that meeting; “Hey guys I have an idea, if we paid off all of our supporters with contracts to buy our way in to office, can’t we just buy off all of the Canadians too?” Let’s face it, money makes the world go round, and $39 Billion is A LOT of money. If the Liberals are re-elected I will forever be in awe of two things: how a last minute scam resuscitated the Liberals grasp on power and the sheer stupidity of the Canadian people. No offence to the general public but the liberal spin-doctors have skills. They can make anything sound good.

There is one problem with the addresses that were made after the Ministers meeting; the speechwriters were too busy making the finance minister look trustworthy that they forgot to brief the PM. For his entire speech (all three questions he answered before he ran away from the mic followed by a burst of laughter from the press) he repeated on phrase: “ We have a lot of important legislation to pass, and you either have confidence in the government or you don’t.” That is actually a good answer to the first question that he answered, but when you rephrase that in reference to “why don’t you accept the compromise of the Conservative party” you look like a fool. Lucky for me there was no one home today when I yelled at the TV “Answer the damn question!!!” If they really wanted to pass that legislation they have plenty of time to do it (according to my hero Rex Murphy). And his feeble attempt to mock the conservatives lost it’s bite when it was rephrased the third time as “the traditions of our legislative assembles are clear when is comes to having confidence in the government. We have traditions in place.” Ouch…? I guess this comes out of Martins last ditched attempt to keep his name slightly intact. He has a clear agenda: “I want to Govern!” He as a perfectly acceptable compromise on the table from the opposition and yet he refuses. Admittedly the phrase ‘a vote of non-confidence’ sounds bad on anyone’s resume.

I have to be really careful here. Martin is our PM and we are to respect our leaders but quite frankly I am deeply disturbed by what I see in the Liberals. It’s sad that throwing money at a problem sways public opinion (even if it does nothing to fix the problem) I have come to terms with the fact that we many never be rid of the Liberal party and we will always have major corruption in government. If the conservatives win we will be faced with problems as well. No one is going to be perfect and because of the governmental system it is impossible for a totally honest person to win an election.

I just might vote for the liberals in the upcoming election. It’s better to know what type of faults a government has then to elect a new one. With the Liberals at least we know what to expect.

Daddy’s little girl.

2005-10-30T23:54:00.001-06:00

During a ‘what are you doing with your life conversation’ my dad made a comment that caught me totally off guard. We were talking about my plans when I finish school, my prospective jobs, and my dad asked ‘can you get a job in that industry here in Saskatoon?’ I realized not only that my dad thinks that I should say here in Saskatoon, but that I might not want to leave…
I really do love this city. Of course there are really cold and long winters, mosquitoes the size of birds during the summer and we are usually skipped over by touring bands but lets look on the bright side. It’s a beautiful place with amazing outdoor stuff like camping, hiking, canoeing only an hour north, Saskatoon is a really beautiful city, car insurance is way cheaper along with housing costs, no earthquakes, hurricanes, massive flooding, tsunamis or volcanoes, it takes a maximum of 15 minutes to drive anywhere in the city, you can’t go anywhere without running in to some one you know (guess that could be a down side). Sure there are other amazing places to live, but I think I might ultimately be a prairie girl at heart. Driving home from BC this year I stopped my by farm for a bit, and after leaving the breath taking mountains I was so glad to see the good old flat prairie again. Much to my horror I was more caught up in the beauty of my hay field than I was hiking through the mountains at sun set.
I know that my parents will never leave (even if it is a zone 2 for gardening and plants need to be hardy enough for the –40C winters) but I still don’t know if I am that hardcore… we’ll see. One thing is for sure I really need to get command start for my car. I don’t think I want to go through another winter of running out in to –25 with wet hair to start my car in the morning. That just sucks.
(Chad took that photo by the way, I can't take credit for that one...)

Metric

2005-10-25T17:58:00.000-06:00

I’m still having trouble hearing with my left ear…

Metric played last night at Louis, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed. They are incredibly tight, had good stage presence and sounded just like their Cd… but that was the problem. Aside from a few interesting dance moves by Emily Haines including the “HO down” (I have to give Nicole credit for that one) it was like popping in the CD. Maybe I would have been more receptive if I wasn’t told it would be the best show I will ever see. Also their opening band were REALLY high energy.

First off was the Lovely Feathers. SO CRAZY! They had a sound like Franz Ferdinand but that’s not the only reason why I loved them. They were all over the place, had very unique dance moves, danced around with tambourines bashing symbols here and there, and on top of it all had a really interesting way of dancing. They were so high energy and really talented. But there is a moral to this story; when wearing pants with a rip, please please wear undergarments… please…

The second band was The Most Serene Republic. That drummer was GOOD. He was really solid, but at the same time was so colorful and all over the set playing crazy stuff. The bass player was really hot too… but when are they not? : ) The Lyrics were a little bit sketchy but that was a norm for the night. They had a really fresh sound.

I was actually really impressed with the opening bands, but when it came around to Metric’s time to play it was really energetic but not as much fun as the tambourine/cowbell antics of the first two bands. They had me laughing out loud, where metric had me feeling like I was living in a rut of society with not hope of escape. Hmmm… but it was still really nice to see them live.

Anyway it was worth the $18, and Bedouin Sound Clash is less than a month away.

Oh and some sad news, my Anorexic newt that I talked about last post died. I know that Chad is laughing right now; but I had her for at least a year and a half, that beats all of your newts and fish put together!! : )

Three and a Half Hours and Counting

2005-10-23T03:32:00.000-06:00

So it’s just after three AM… four hours till my alarm goes off and I have to be coherent enough to play bass, and I cannot for the life of me fall asleep. It’s been a while since I have had a visit from the Insomnia fairy, and I have that stupid insomnia song by the Bare Naked Ladies is playing through my head. I have been lying in bed for three and a half hours, wide awake, and it’s been a while since I have posted about anything other than how busy I am, so here’s something new: Random thoughts of an insomniac.

I’ve had a really stressful week of school where every spare moment was spent working on my studies so of course the question ‘Why am I in school’ came to mind a few times, usually during a moment of high stress. This of course leads to the debate about what I am doing with my life. Am I in the right program? I really want to find a career doing what I love… so what do I love? What I am the happiest doing? I guess the answer to that is drumming. I absolutely love playing music, and am the happiest when I am on stage… now how do I make a career out of that? Do I have a chance of actually making it in the music industry? Hmmmm…. Maybe I should have followed some other dreams. I wanted to be an architect or a civil engineer for a while, how about being a chef, maybe a photographer, or a poet; I think that I am strange enough to pull that off.

Why do they call it a rubix cube? If it’s named after the inventor that’s one awesome name.

One of my newts is sick, so of course I spent some time thinking about that. She is either afraid of her food and won’t eat it, or she has some major self esteem issues and has chosen to be anorexic. I hope that Annabelle doesn’t die, I like her a lot.

I miss watching Sesame Street. Not this new ‘Stupid Park’ show that they have now. I heard that they killed off Bert by the way, is there any truth to that?

I spent some time running over the new bass line I am learning. It’s the song hysteria by muse, and It’s a lot faster than I can play right now… but a lot of fun, I love that band.

I started listening to a Klezmer Rapper today. He’s an orthodox Jew who can beat box really well. His name is Matisyahu and totally worth checking out.

I have to make a decision about investments, and after thinking about it for a while I decided that shuffling my portfolio should not be done at 2 am, not a wise choice.

Has anyone else noticed that Santana’s music is ALL THE SAME? He plays the same lick in all of his songs… or maybe I am just crazy.

I should go and take some pictures of my farm, it’s really pretty this time of year. But I can’t take Lindy; she gets burs all over her. She turned 9 two weeks ago… It’s sad to think that my puppy will die within the next four or five years. I will have moved out by that time, so it’s won’t be as hard, but she’s my puppy… that’s too depressing to think about.

I miss Amanda. She’s living in Denver and working with YWAM. She’s an awesome girl, and I am so glad she is following God’s call for her life, but it would be nice to have her back home…. stupid ywam…jj I wish I was a ywamer : )

It’s time for a hair cut… should I go really short, or just kindof short… or should I take the plunge and go for dread locks finally…

How much happier would I be if I could afford to buy all of the things I want? I don’t think It would make too much of a difference. I want to find a really good job next summer because I have my internship next year, maybe I could work up at my dad’s mine or at a fishing camp. Or should I go to Gambia again as a leader on the team… decisions decisions.

I usually go for a run when I can’t sleep but it’s -5 outside right now, and I really don’t want to freeze to death. I know I am a sissy, but I worked outside for an hour today and couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. So due to lack of options I am off to ‘sleep’ again. I have successfully written a really long post and wasted a half hour. If any of you made it to the bottom I congratulate you, I hate reading long posts… sorry guys!

Constructive Use of Study Time….

2005-10-19T20:29:00.000-06:00

That’s what I get for studying to Yo-Yo Ma…: )

Mental Break Down Anyone?

2005-10-17T19:33:00.000-06:00

Six Midterms in three days, a paper and a book due that same week and the school sends me out on a promotional trip for the whole weekend before the week from hell.

That should be illegal.

Not saying that I didn’t enjoy doing a weekend of propaganda for CPC but I don’t think that I can actually handle this.

It just dawned on me that I don’t actually have time for sleep this week.

If you can relate to this at all, please tell me your secret for staying in school, because at this moment I am seriously trying to remember why I am.

At least I got to take a picture with a moose in Cypress Hills.... : )

October

2005-10-02T21:45:00.000-06:00

I love October; it’s a month of freedom and beauty.

Two weeks ago, I had to tell a friend that I was busy till October. That sucked.

For the whole month of September and most of August for that matter ‘free time’ was an alien concept. I had to book people in two weeks in advance, or have a freak of nature opening in my schedule for a social life. Now I only have school, Shaw and working with my church. Today I watched a half hour of TV! It was beautiful, and by the way I am totally hooked on Lost now.

All of you crazy people out there who take on too much will totally understand the pure joy of having time to waste. That just sounds wrong, but it’s so much fun!

So to all of the people who think that I died, or stopped calling because I hate you; I am alive! So here is the apology from a workaholic to all of my neglected friends. I still love you all : )

And I can’t figure out a way to make a U2 pun in this post… Here’s the lyrics to October, have fun:

October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on

Spamidy-spam, spamidy-spam!

2005-09-25T18:11:00.001-06:00

No Way! I finally got my first ever Blog Spam today. I’ve seen it in all of its glory on other people’s blogs, but sadly enough had never had it on my own blog.

Was my blog not good enough? Why was it left out? These questions have been haunting me. But now I feel like I matter. Thank you oh gracious internet parasites for counting my blog worthy! Now I feel like I can be a tool to bring people to their destiny. I can help you embrace your purpose in the world of online business. And I quote:

“You Get All This With Cyborg Selling...
-The wealth and abundance you desire!
-The ability to make money while doing what you love.
-Confidence and competence in selling anything to anybody!
-An automated business that floats in money 24 hours a day.
-The Knowledge of how the human mind really works!
-Insight into your own mind. You will become aware of how automatic your own decisions are.”

Please remember me when you have all the wealth you have ever imagined, knowledge and insight. I was the blogger that hosted the link to your future.

Corrupted by Gambia

2005-09-16T16:02:00.000-06:00

What can I say, I think I may have turned to the dark side. I have always been a winter person. In the North West Territories winter was half the year but I didn’t mind. Here in Saskatchewan we have it a little easier and I even forgave the week of –50C this past year. That was all before this summer.
To tell the truth I actually really enjoyed my time in Soma (upcountry in Gambia). The temperature during the day was about 45C, or so I was told. I thought that I would hate it but I really enjoyed the heat, except during the mid day soccer games and when the team started to sweat, but we won’t go there….

Now that September is here and the temperature has been hovering between 10C and 5C for the last few days I find my mind drifting to exotic places like Coquitlam.The temperature will be about 8C in February when we here in the flatlands will not be able to leave our houses for more than ten minutes without freezing to death. I hate to say it but I am wondering why anyone would want to inhabit the barren wasteland that Saskatchewan will become for the next six months.

There are some good things that come with winter: NHL is back in action this year, Skidooing, building quinces, Ice Fishing, winter wakeboarding, battle tubing behind skidoos, shinny, skating at the Bez, ten second dash to start my car in the morning because I sure don’t have command start… but compared to summer that list is looking a little weak.

I have been freezing cold all day, and now I am off for my first day as a Assistant producer at a hockey game which means being in Sask. Place filming a freezing cold hockey game. I am never going to be warm again!!!

Oh I have good news: They found a replacement for me, so after two weeks of training the new nanny I am unemployed! I shouldn’t be excited about that but this semester school is enough of a full time job.

Monday Bloody Monday

2005-09-12T23:04:00.000-06:00

Today after a record six hours of sleep I was up at 7 so that I could squeeze in an hour of sixteenth Century sonnets and a bit of devotions before I was off for school at 9. Believe it or not I was actually on time for my first class today (that has to be come sort of a record, aren’t you proud Terrin? I was in 30 seconds before class started, and my clock is set to the nuclear clock, so I have to be right…). Today was a full day of classes; 9:30 to 4:20, with a break of some Timmy Ho’s action, and hiding myself in the computer lab trying to catch up on reading and notes. That actually didn’t work too well because someone who really likes to talk cornered me… here’s a hint; he talked about foot ball the whole time : ) any guesses?

The minute my class was over I bolted out the door to stop by and picked up Metric tickets before the 25 minute drive the out to Warman. (I hate how much gas costs by the way). At work I had a daylong interview with a new nanny candidate. Lucky she is a hard working farm girl, and was a lot of fun to be around. A down side of the day was that the Reid’s newly finished basement (seriously it was finished last weekend from the damage cause by the big flood this summer) was flooded AGAIN! But I did get to read ‘One fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish’ and Faith let me read my favorite page about Mr. Gump twice : ).

After work ended at about 8:30 I was off to my church to catch the tail end of my youth leaderly duties and to pick up the slack at the meeting place when the youth group invaded the coffee shop. People finally left the Coffee shop at 10:30 (It closes at 10…hint hint) So now I am back home procrastinating as usual and about to read a bunch of Sonnets, try to understand human behavior and study the works of C.S. Lewis.

Providing I don’t fall asleep first.

One Down 157 left to go…

So I was thinking of starting a pool; I think that I can last at least a month before totally burning out… any takers? : )

My ears will be ringing for days...

2005-09-07T11:42:00.000-06:00

Now I see why Evan loves Pearl Jam, but seeing them five times on the same tour is a bit much…

As I expected they are amazing. Then played a solid two and a half hours show complete with THREE encores, including at least five minutes of deafening cheering between each one. To start off the second encore they covered the Guess who song ‘Runnin Back to Saskatoon’ and even covered a Neil Young song during the third.
I really admire their choice of Opening band. They were called ‘Super Sucks’ (I’m not kidding) and they lived up to their name. Not that they were totally bad, but they sounded like every other garage band. The lead singer was an Eddie want to be, so when Pearl Jam finally came out it was all the sweeter.

I am still not sure if the concert was worth the $70… sorry Evan…. But it was a good end to a crazy day. Today I finished registration at CPC, and it was supposed to be my last day at work… until the new nanny that I have spent the last few weeks training all of a sudden decided to quit - today of all days. I think that the look of shock on her face yesterday when the Reid’s house was a little crazy as usually should have been a warning sign. So now I am back at school full time and still working full time until a new nanny is found and then I have to train ANOUTHER nanny. And that’s not an easy thing, but I still love working there… A clone would make it much easier to multitask…

And my insomnia is back in full force, just in time for school to start... coincidence? I think not!

Two posts in two days?!? That's a record!

2005-08-09T10:21:00.000-06:00

So I didn’t post for the entire month of July… sorry guys. It’s been a totally crazy summer. I have been away for the majority of the summer, but I only have two more trips planned before school starts.

I spent a week in Sparwood BC at an Irish Family Reunion where I met third cousins from Louisiana that I didn’t know I had. I thought that only happened in movies, but I really do have distant relatives from down south. It was a typical BC holiday week with white water rafting, hiking every day, cliff diving (which I am now addicted too.. but kind of hard to do in Saskatoon).

After my first trip to BC I came home to work for three days, do lots of laundry, and I was off to BC again. This time I was off to visit two good friends, Jessica and Mike, which I went to The Gambia with. It was totally worth the total of 34 hours of driving by myself. After this trip I am in serious danger of becoming a typical Saskatchewanite and move to BC as soon as I graduate. That was another very busy week of meeting new people, camping, hiking up mountains, museums, being an insomniac for the sake of art : ). It was an amazing trip because when I had that much time to think in the car, plus being in a totally new environment I got so much perspective on life.

So after a quick road trip to Calgary this weekend with Chadly I am back in Saskatoon to stay… until the last week in August, but that is two whole weeks of solid Saskatoon time : )

For the CPC people, it’s only thirty days till school is back….. I hope you all have had a crazy good summer.

Kicked out of a freak fest...

2005-08-08T22:21:00.000-06:00

Saskatoon each year has a big street festival Called the Fringe. It’s aptly named because the people who perform, busk and sell stuff are usually the weird people that are the ‘fringe of society’. I love it. I usually busk, and have a great time running in to old friends, making a couple bucks, and of course playing music. It sounds like a perfect combination, and it usually is…. Until this year.

Last night we got our passes and finally started playing at about 9:30. We had made barely any money and it was just about time to shut down. At ten people started watching us ( Steve David and I) so we continued playing and made a couple dollars. Usually the fringe is totally flexible, in other years I had stayed an hour late and it was no trouble at all. But this year an angry forty something guy walked up to us mid song and took Steve’s pass. He grabbed it from Steve with no explanation except that we were to pick it up tomorrow. That was fine, we had fun and we thought that nothing was wrong…until today.
Apparently the display of anarchist and hippies is REALLY organized this year, and we got yelled at and kicked of the street for playing a little too late last night. What happened to ‘stick it to the man’?!? The hippies ARE the man now.
Anyway we were told to leave. Tomorrow we night be able to get our busking license back but I am still confused. A world where the fringe is uptight and rude… it’s just wrong.

Artist of the Week...Or So

2005-07-16T17:00:00.000-06:00

James Blunt - www.jamesblunt.com
"...another British depressive whose weepy jingles make rainy days pass with less resistance” He is the British answer to Dashboard, but unlike DC Mr. Blunt has got mad skills. His last album was produced by the guy who worked with Beck, and it shows. It’s great music for the ‘post-midterms vegetative state’

Matisyahu - www.hasidicreggae.com
“…Matisyahu is the world's first Hasidic Jewish reggae star” Do I need to say more? As many of you know I have a soft spot for the strange and that’s what his music is. It’s Hip hop/Klezmer/Traditional Hebraic/Dance Hall/Reggae/Jazz with a bit of Beat boxing thrown in for good measure. I know it sounds like it would be awful, but it’s actually amazing.‘Refuge’ is my favorite song so far – ‘ You have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength in the face of my enemy’

People In Planes
A Great Brit rock band that I was at Louis a few weeks ago. So catchy and just as tight live as on their CD. They definitely are worth of being called an ‘Art Rock’ band, and have an amazing keys player.

Gambia Photos

2005-06-30T18:32:00.000-06:00

I am starting to post my pictures from my Gambia trip on my MSN space. Anyone can get to it, the address is : http://spaces.msn.com/members/theendishere/ and click on the photos link
I only have a few photos up, I took quite a few while I was there, so as I find the good ones I will upload them.
The image quality isn't that great because MSN shrinks them. If you would like a good copy of any of the photos, let me know.
Have fun!

4am

2005-06-25T18:54:00.000-06:00

Its amazing how fast someone can become a good friend. Amanda came up from Denver with a few friends: Texas (Kyle), Vermont (Alex), and Korea (Seoul) and they are amazing people. So when she left this morning at 4am (OLP reference) I was not only saying good bye to my best friend, but three new friends. I also really want to go and do a DTS now. Ywam people are really convincing. Don’t worry, I’m back at CPC in the fall, but I may take a break from that for a year eventually... I don’t know. Now that I am 20, I think it’s about time that I had a quarter life crisis. Saying good bye is a really hard thing for me to do, and I have been doing a lot of that recently. Leaving my team from Gambia, Amanda going back to Denver, and other friends leaving soon for school… I know that I’ll leave Saskatoon some day too, it’s just hard to be the one who gets left behind.

Torrent has a new definition

2005-06-22T03:40:00.000-06:00

The best part about jet lag is that I am right back to my normal Canadian sleeping patterns. Basically I am up at 2:30 AM like I would usually be, and it’s amazing out side. The rain is coming down so strong coupled with stunning lightning and equally amazing thunder. There are literally sheets of rain falling down, and I am wondering if I have ever seen rain like this before. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t seen rain in about ten months, but I love storms like this. They make my room and my house seem so safe. The lightning is incredible and the cracks of lighting are shaking my house. I usually don’t like to be reminded that I am a small human being but today, inside my house, I am all right with thinking that I am ultimately helpless. It’s allot easier to take in Canada where I ultimately have a lot of people, systems and safety nets to fall on. In Africa, being reminded that I am just a frail human wasn’t as much fun. Whether it was being really sick in Soma far away from any help and having no options, being followed home by scary people or little things like being away from good friends, Africa had a way of making anything in my head all that much larger. I am so glad that I am home where the big storms come, but I am inside safe and sound.

My Sweet Defeat

2005-06-20T10:34:00.000-06:00

Canada is just the way that I left it, and I love being back. The only sad part about being home is missing friends, both those on my team and friends that are away, especially Amanda. For any of you who have tried it, having your best friend move away is a hard thing, but hey it’s a part of life. I hadn’t been able to talk to Amanda since I got back to Canada, which was a little strange, but I thought nothing of it. To make the story short, Amanda has permanently put herself ahead of me in the “surprise Birthday competition’. Each year we try to one up the other person by throwing some sort of birthday surprise and until yesterday, with 13 years of trying, Amanda had yet to actually pull off a surprise without me figuring it all out… Until yesterday. I was sitting at home last night with some friends, talking about Africa like I usually do, and Amanda’s mom came in the back door. I thought nothing of it, because Amanda’s mom comes over every so often. But then one of Amanda’s friends from Denver stepped in to the house, and said that she brought something from Denver for me, and went out side for a second to get it. Maybe it’s the jet lag, but I totally didn’t catch on. Out of nowhere, Amanda ran up to me with a pot of Gebera daisies (which we always give to each other on B’days) and said HA! It was the best surprise EVER!!!! So here I am officially admitting that Amanda, for the first time, is ahead in the score. I figure that driving 20 hours for a birthday surprise far out weights Ten surprises on my part. Now that there is a new standard, just wait till next year Amanda! Thanks, this has been the best birthday by far.

Afri-Irony

2005-06-18T08:15:00.000-06:00

I’m Home! Thanks so much to everyone who came to the airport. That was so overwhelming to see all you guys, and for everyone who was working, thanks for wanting to come. It’s so good to be back in ‘toon town. Driving is such a weird thing to do, I can drink water strait from the tap, I have instruments again, and it’s SO COLD HERE I love it!

In the Gambia constant water and power are such a luxury, our power was on under 50% of the time there, and I was looking forward to having constant power and Internet that actually worked really well. So last night I hopped on the computer to email some friends, and half way through typing the power to my house cut off. What are the odds that the one day that our power cuts off is two hours after I get of the plane from Gambia… It defiantly made me miss Gambia and my team a little less.

It was so weird to wake up this morning to my own room. One of my first thoughts was “I wonder if the team is up.” Even now, sitting alone in my room is the strangest thing after being with people 24-7 for the last seven weeks. To my team, I miss you lots, this is like permanent ‘head phone land’ : )

I bought a beautiful Djembe while in Gambia, and took the risk of shipping it home on the airlines. Unfortunately it came home in a few pieces, along with several other things in my luggage. Oh well, it still sort of makes noise, and it’s the memories that count after all.

I have an unbelievable amount of stories, and even more pictures. Anytime y’all want a piece of Africa, you know where to find me.

Till next time, keep your stick on the ice.

London

2005-06-15T05:34:00.000-06:00

It's raining in london, who would have thought? Just a quick note to you all that I have left africa behind, which was hard, but am really looking forward to seeing all of you. I have missed everyone alot. Oh and I picked up the new Cold Play CD... in London.. how cool is that. I'm on my way to do some touristy stuff, so see you all on the 17th, or shortly there after.

second post from africa... almost my last

2005-06-07T14:06:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody!
Here’s a quick update… as long as the power stays on and the internet doesn’t go out….
We got back from soma this week. It’s up country, and when it’s almost the rainy season Gambians don’t even want to go because of the heat. But we went anyways. The soccer camps went really well, and we made a lot of good friends. It was 43C out one day and ridiculously hot for the rest. Jess got malaria while we were up there, but has totally recovered. I had a pretty bad migraine, which is hard in remote Africa with no water or power and on a thin foamy mattress. It was definitely an experience. The Jesus film went really well. We showed it to hundreds of people on several nights, and had to defend our faith afterwards to Muslims. They had really good questions, so it was totally a stretching experience. We are back in out house in Kotu, which seem like a paradise compared to our house in Soma, even when the power is sparatic at best. Jess and I have started to edit footage for a local IVCF type ministry for a support video. It’s very hard to do in Africa, but it’s exciting that we can use some of our skills to benefit ministries that are already in place. We are also finishing a project with the Galaxy crew, and almost finished recording a song that I wrote about the Character of God. We are playing on Goody Samde again this week with them as well ( that’s the national TV stations most popular show, and is so ridiculous) And Steve and I are about to go play a show at a hotel with the galaxy crew and the Holy Family band. We are being the “local talent for the Tubobs” ( Tubob is what they call white people). It’s really ironic.
I hope this is enough news for everyone. Keep the teams health in prayer, jess has recovered, but mike may have strep. Thanks so much for all of you prayers, it really means a lot. and the emails are great to get too.
We only have a week left.....
Lots of Love!

First from Gambia...

2005-05-20T13:58:00.000-06:00

Hey family and friends.
Here I am in Africa… I’ve been here what, two and a half weeks, and have finally gotten used to the heat. The recording process has been slow due to the power cutting on and off all of the time, and having to record in an African house. We had our fist single “Messege of Love” launched on the Banjul radio station. We had 15 strait minutes of air time and some interviewing as well. We are scheduled to play on Gambian National TV this Saturday as well. We met with two really big Gambian Bands today, and had a really amazing jam session. We played some of ours, and some of theirs. SO AMAZING!! I love African Reggae. The drummer paid me a huge complement by saying that he was surprised by my Djembe playing, and that I had very good feel. Does it get any better than spending an afternoon playing Reggae with African musicians? I think not.
We worked at sisters of Charity this week, which is a center that looks after malnourished and very sick kids. It was very sad, but I realized so much more that all we can do is to trust God. I couldn’t do much for the kids but hold them and pray. It was very humbling.
Next week we are heading to Soma to run a Foot Ball camp with YWAM and a Pro- Brazilian Soccer coach. Since I am soccer challenged (but am getting better) I well be doing more music stuff, and VBS.
Gambia is in the U-17 Africa cup this Sunday!!! GO GAMBIA!!! We went to a game the other day, and there were 50, 000 people crammed into a 30, 000 seating stadium. They went WILD! I am so glad that they won.
I should go, I have too many stories, but African internet is ridiculously slow.
See you soon!

Count down to Gambia : 15 hours 17 minutes.

2005-04-30T17:14:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that this is by far the craziest thing I HAVE EVER DONE. And for those of you who know me, I have done some pretty weird stuff, but this takes the cake. Going to Africa for seven weeks with people that I’ve met twice, and having never been off the contenent is leaving me a little nervous.

I have a good team, have my things packed, vaccinations done, passport ready, but with all that I still feel like a kid without my mom. I really have no clue what I am getting in to, and have resigned myself to the fact that I could never really be prepared for what I will experience in the next seven weeks. My only comfort is that God is always with me. He planned my life out in fine detail, and the same is true for this trip. He is guiding my steps, and is my protection.

I have a blog on the Christian Volunteer Movement Canada Website (that’s who I am going to The Gambia with). It’s : www.cvmcanada.com/gambiaprojectlive/index.php My Jana_Heyer@hotmail.com and JanaHeyer@Gmail.com addresses will hopefully be working too.

I would love it if you guys could all pray for me while I am gone, I am going to need it.

See you in June!

I finally gave in.

2005-04-28T00:08:00.000-06:00

What can I say, peer pressure got the best of me; I am now a full-fledged member of the blogging world. I was opposed at first, but this seems like fun. Give me a little to get the swing of things.

This may be my last post in a while, because I am leaving for The Gambia in three short days (crazy hey?). So enjoy it while it lasts!

Blogging fells allot like giving a speech…. Let’s go with that:“Thanks for this Grammy for Best Cow Bell Player of the Year! I want to thank my family, my producer; Bruce Dickinson a.k.a. Terrin, my roadies and the whole team who put me here! And my heavenly Father”

How was that? Typical enough?

Anyway you’ll hear from me when I find something to rant about, which should be too long : )