thnks fr th mmrs: September 2012

Saturday, 15 September 2012

here I am alive.

I'd like to start with an apology about the space between the previous post and this one, but I'd be lying, so I won't.

Surprise to anyone who doens't know: I'm still at camp. As I was typing that, I had a vision of me wearing a baggy, off one shoulder t-shirt that has EGREEN FOR LIFE scrawled across the front in a nice lime green. Hm. I lead a sad life in my mind sometimes.

I've been sitting in the conference room for almost an hour, listening to various songs from the Glee repertoire, and thinking that I should really make the effort to sing more, but it's really hard when there's a group (or more) on site and Alyne isn't here. Gosh I miss that girl. We had the most epic evenings bonding at the barn this summer... I can only hope that I still get to see her sometimes now that summer's over.

I'm too afraid of singing during daylight hours and where people may perhaps hear me, simply because I am still ashamed of the voice I have now (compared to what I had in high school), and am afraid of others' judgement. I'm also really weak when it comes to self image. Try to contain your shock.

Some time last week-ish, I had this problem that involved me waking up around 4am and not being able to get back to sleep. A couple mornings when that happend, I just lay there staring alternately at the ceiling and the inside of my eyelids until my alarm went off at 6.30. The night before one morning in particular, I had this epiphany: I should take the opportunity of being awake well before anyone else to go into our Activity Centre and sing! So, the next morning when, of course, I woke up at 4am on the dot, I shot out of bed, threw on some sweats and a hoodie and hauled over to the AC. I can't even begin to describe how happy it made my heart. Truly. My only regret about that morning is the realization that singing is like a drug for me, and there have been groups on site every morning since and I haven't been able to repeat my actions. Yet.

Words also can't express how excited I am about the upcoming Mumford & Sons album. I've even pre-ordered it. Really.

Somehow, Yellowcard released a new album without my knowledge. Thankfully, I was perusing iTunes one day when I was in Sundre (or some town somewhere), and had the opportunity to purchase it posthaste. God bless Yellowcard for making such fine, fine music for so many years.

I've spent the better part of my past hour and a bit in the conference room looking up flights to the UK for as soon after xmas as possible. December 29 out of Calgary at 4.15pm to arrive at London, Gatwick December 30 at 8am for $651 (taxes INCLUDED) seems too good to be true, surely. Surely there's going to be something that stands in my way (surprise bankrupcy) or someone (my mom)...

I guess, now that it's near my bed time, I should escape my perch and hope that I wake up at 4am on Monday morning. (fingers crossed!)

God is good. All the time. God is good.

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Some Germans, some ice cream, and a hair dryer...

Allow me to tell you the story of how we met Susan:

We have some Germans working here for a year, and as they were limited to 23kg and 70kg of baggage on their flights over here, they had to leave things in Germany (like hair dryers and nail clippers, for example). So over the past few weeks, they've been finding and collecting some of the items they've been missing. One of the things they found today was a hair dryer that they named Susan Skyler. On our way home, we found out that neither of them had ever had an ice cream cake before, so we picked one up. When we were paying for it, the lady behind the till asked if we wanted anything written on it, to which Steph replied "Happy Birthday Susan!"