but by the time we got there, the little guy had fallen over on his back, and as Carly said, it looked like he was being trampled by the mammoth. (She also said she was glad the mammoth won.)

The greatest excitement, though, was yet to come.

Possibly the best sculpture of all was "Survival of the Fittest" by Steve Buzak and Rusty Cox, which featured a tiny man in a parka fighting a giant wooly mammoth. . .

Beavertails with cinnamon and sugar and lemon and apple cider on the side.

As a parka-ed family! And I got to be the kid.

Kids building inukshuks of coloured ice near the Nunavut tent.

Me chauffering Carly's dogsled.

Carly, me, and Abby on Nanook's lap.

Sculpture by Chin-Lung Kou of Taiwan.

The Archangel Michael.

The Russian entry.

As you can see, the ice sculptures on display were phenomenal. The one above was carved by Junichi Nakamura of Japan.

And I wonder how he felt about the ice sculpture that represented them.

First we met this gentleman, a 19th century British soldier (Colonel By, apparently). He interrogated me about the purpose for which I was taking pictures, afraid I was an American spying on the canal under construction. I passed his test, when I said I was from Peterborough and was even able to name Peter Robinson as the founder (yes!) I think he was impressed. At least, he offered me a job as a washerwoman for the troops. Little did he realise that he was interrogating the wrong "American". I wonder if he would have agreed to this picture had he known he was standing between two of them.

First stop! Grampa says the turnout for Winterlude might be up to 650,000 this year.

It was bien fun, of course. I got Grandma to tell Carly and Abby the long and complicated story of the romance of the century (pictured above), gave them the tour of the whole apartment, and then, full with blueberry deliciousness, we went out.

Reading Break in Ottawa

First I woke up, on this very pillow. 45 minutes later, Grampa and I went to pick up Carly and her friend Abby from Carleton. They were coming over for blueberry pancake brunch!

"I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory"

I can't believe it has only been two days. I'm so relaxed that it's like I'm in a different world. This reprieve has been absolutely lovely so far. Sometimes you just have to get out of your carrel and breathe the fresh (or smoky, Grandma, but I still want to be here) air.


I took the bus Friday afternoon to Peterborough, then, as soon as I got out, piled into the car with my mom and her friend Bev to spend a few days visiting my family in Ottawa.


I spent yesterday at my aunt Dee’s house (in the country) and attended my first Pampered Chef party. It was pretty sweet. Mainly women in attendance:
~Lyn (the PC rep)
~Auntie Dee
~Mom
~Bev
~Grandma
~Auntie Jan
~Aunt Mags
~Carol
~my cousin Samantha
~her friend Kristen
~me
But my cousin Erik valiantly sat through the whole thing as well, and it was so much more fun having him there to swap sarcastic comments with me. Plus he was interested in purchasing some of the cooking knives:





There some delicious payoffs when we sampled the food demos. ("Chicken Broccoli Braid" and "Mocha Brownie Trifle" . Also these chocolate chip cookies baked with a Rolo in the middle.)


Those were just appetizers for the family dinner after the party: surf (crab) and turf (steak) with mashed potatoes and Caesar salad. I know I’m describing a lot of food here, but honestly sometimes I can’t decide whether my family members are gourmets or gourmands. Dinner was accompanied by a rousing debate over the veracity of An Inconvenient Truth and whether the environment is really as bad as "they say" (I kind of think it's worse). Then I went back with Grandma and Grampa’s to their apartment (in the city), where I spent today, which has pictures to go with it, so I’ll blog it above.


I love being with them, hearing family stories that I hope to remember well enough to tell my children some day. Of course, G&G are spoiling me to compost. And now they’re asleep, I suppose, and I’m in my bedroom with my laptop taking advantage of the wireless internet from nearby hotels, and (see above) supremely relaxed.


It helps that the women in my family know how to decorate a house. Seriously, whatever their resources are, they make the most of them to create such peaceful environments. I hope I carry that tradition on someday. After spending two days enjoying well-chosen art, hardwood floors, cozy couches, roaring fireplaces, soft green walls, shimmery cream-coloured duvets, how can I help but feel relaxed?


I have been given such a beautiful, loving family. I don’t really understand why I should be so blessed.


And by God's grace, this weekend I have been able to let all the worries that I’m ever winding and unwinding like a ball of yarn just roll away.

snow days (insert exclamation marks here)

I woke up yesterday morning and looked through the living room window into a snow globe. Sarah, Annie, and I all had class at 9:30, so as we got ready we kind of debated whether classes might be cancelled.


Sadly, there were no emails or notices on the school website to tell us it was.


So, a little late, we trudged through the snow. It was already getting close to a foot deep. We have about a fifteen minute walk, which is fine in most weather, but on cold winter days, walking down a lonely path that runs through the centre of a huge, elevated, open field is like walking across the frozen tundra while under direct attack from the Winter Wizard. (Most of the pain is caused by the wind.) To add to the pleasure, the snow was masking the fact that the path had turned to ice during yesterday's "thaw". One of my friends made impromptu snow angels twice in a row. At least, when she fell on her back it was a snow angel. The face plant created a slightly different shape.


It was actually a really fun walk.


We made it to Lewis and Tolkien class fifteen minutes late, but it hadn't even started yet, so it was fine. I was looking forward to the usual 15-hour Tuesday at school, between meetings, four classes, and a shift at the writing centre. So imagine my delight when in Postcolonial History I discovered that everything was cancelled from noon on!


By the time we walked home, it was up to our knees on the path, maybe two feet deep.


* * *

"Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery."
Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

"Where does the white go when the snow melts?"






"A year of snow, a year of plenty."
French Proverb

"Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough."
Earl Wilson

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending."
J.R.R. Tolkien

Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Francois Villon

"You are ice and fire,

The touch of you burns my hands like snow."

Amy Lowell

"There is neither heaven nor earth, only snow, falling incessantly"

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
John Ruskin

* * *

Another blessing came with the storm. I don't want to talk about it too much on this blog, but God gave a beautiful gift of reconciliation last night. Openness, honesty, confession, forgiveness, the Holy Spirit invited in. I really believe that it's God's will to restore communities that the enemy tries to corrupt. Some mold was cleansed from out house last night.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

Oh, and today is another snow day.

thinking out loud

I'm posting random thoughts because:
a/ it is a better use of my time than other forms of procrastination
b/ if I don't keep blogging, I will stop blogging

So, I imported a bunch of my blog entries to Facebook, thinking that some of my 199 "friends" would then actually know/remember that I had a blog. (Not that I can fault them, since I often forget about it myself.) But no sooner had I done so than Amyann Faul Groen posted this link:
http://www.albumoftheday.com/

It scared me.

Now, it could easily be just a conspiracy theory, but you know how in the movies, when there is a conspiracy, the normal people always think that the people who discover and expose the conspiracy are crazy until it is too late? Yeah, I don't want to be one of those.

Plus, I just don't want to take a chance of Facebook owning all the blog posts I've written. I don't know that someone else doesn't own them when I post them on Blogger, but it's a little late to worry about that.

So I deleted all the posts that I had uploaded. Alas, my blog will continue to languish in obscurity, read by only a dozen or so faithful. But hey, if it ever becomes really worth reading, people will find it.

I did not actually go so far as to quit Facebook, or remove any of my personal information though. Because even though conspiracy theories set my imagination in motion, it's not really my nature to get concerned about them. I don't know if I'm too trusting and optimistic, or just lazy. (I know, I know, it's both.)

And I kinda like Facebook.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

How I love my family. It was so nice to talk to Dad and Tammy and the boys on the phone today. My little brothers were in a hockey tournament this weekend. It's a consuming passion for them now. Johnny also does something called Tyke Development (how cute is that?) to hone his mad hockey skillz. All they ever want to talk to me about is their hockey cards, or the last Ottawa Senators or Petes game they saw. I do love that they are Sens fans.

Hockey was not their first love, though. And it has not entirely supplanted their other passion: food. In fact, the first thing Danny asked me when he got on the line today was what I had for breakfast. Then he told me what he had. (Both of our breakfasts included cinnamon toast.) He was excited that they had gone to Swiss Chalet for lunch today, but he complained that his ice cream sundae was not very good. Apparently it tasted of avocado. I'm not sure why.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I went to People's Church with JJ this morning. It was so nice; it reminds me of the church I attended when I was a little girl. Neither of us had been there in a while though, and at first I wasn't sure we had chosen the best Sunday to return. There was a guy from the PAOC head office visiting, and he was speaking about "Building Financial Security". I've heard the figure that "Jesus spoke about money more than any other single subject except the Kingdom of God itself", etc., etc., but it still didn't sound like rousing spiritual fare.

I actually really enjoyed the sermon. It was more like a seminar, and it ended up being relatively long, but I felt that it was very sound advice. He was relaxed and had lots of moderately cheesy yet funny cartoons to illustrate his points. Yet he was also clearly putting the whole topic firmly in the realm of our calling to be good stewards. I won't go into all the financial advice, but a few things that stood out were:

1. If I put aside $1000 dollars a year in an RRSP starting now, I could theoretically have $900,000 by the time I retire. I feel like maybe I should try that.




2. He encouraged looking at miscellaneous spending and doing without whatever you can get rid of. "Most of us have wish lists, but how many of us have a 'do-without' list?" I was reminded of what I learned this summer about living simply. It is still an unmet goal, but I really want to learn what it means to give up my reliance on possessions and start clearing away the chaff of luxury from my life.




3. As we manage our time and our money so that we aren't always too busy or too broke to give of ourselves, we can be an ever-brighter light to others. The pastor told a great story about a taxi driver he met in Pearson Airport who was crying and praying in a parking lot with him by the end of the cab ride, all because the pastor was able to spend some time.

This evening was Church in the Box at Redeemer. And it was about community. Which kinda ties in with Facebook and my brothers and all those other human connections that we cherish on earth.

Christine Vaughan spoke. She is a amazing woman in her late twenties. I got to know her a little bit on the way to and from St. Louis for Urbana this Christmas (about 30 hours on the road in a very small car). She's a social worker, a Ph.D. student, and an occasional instructor at Redeemer. She talked about community, and how most of us lack it. We all want to be fully known, accepted, and loved for who we are, and to give those same things to others in return. Created in the image of a God who holds in himself the perfect fulfillment of community (the three that are one), we long to be connected to others. But fear of rejection keeps us from becoming truly vulnerable with each other. People are too busy for us, or we push them away.

Christine told a story of a woman she met at her job as an emergency room social worker. This woman was in her eighties. She was too ill to leave her apartment, and she said that no one came to visit her. She was terribly lonely, but she said she had found a way to experience community. She used the building's security camera footage, trained on the front foyer. The tenants could access it through their televisions to verify that they knew whoever was buzzing up to them before they let anyone in. "I turn that on and watch it all day. That way I see that there is some activity and life near me" she said. "The cleaning lady knows that I do, and she always waves to me when she goes in and out. It's nice to know that someone remembers I'm here."

As Christine said, that is not what God intended.

The early believers, we know, had everything in common, and so cared for their own needs, each other's needs, and the needs of widows, orphans, and outcasts. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live in that kind of community, but it sure would be fun to try.

Well, maybe not fun so much as worthwhile. I know I long for the kind of openness where you can share your joys, sorrows, and sins, knowing that your sister or brother will celebrate with you or cry your tears or forgive your screw-ups. It can start simply. Even to be a cheerful giver -- gladly sharing a car ride or a meal or an hour to listen -- means so much. I guess the first step for me is just to try to be that sister to other people and to (shudder) make myself vulnerable. I don't even know if I want to write that publicly, because it's so hard to actually do.

At least we can always look forward.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

I really believe that heaven will be the perfect fulfillment of community, dwelling forever with God and in harmony and perfect openness with all other people. We have glimpses in family and marriage, but. . .

Maranatha.

paranormal

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

images of God

Most of the time this summer it was the Bengali people who showed humility, opening their homes to us (some were huge, some were hovels). People who had several graduate degrees were interested in our opinions, open to learning from strangers. People who had homes built of corrugated aluminum (one room for eight people) gave us the seat of honour when we visited, even if it was only the bed. They sent their children to buy crackers and Sprite, so they could be hospitable to us, even when they didn't have enough for themselves.

The thing was, we did not do anything to earn this, but they gave freely. To me, they were a picture of the ever-surprising grace of God. Only once in a while did we get a chance to be that surprise in return.

My friend Erma posted this really cool assignment for other bloggers a couple of weeks ago. The challenge was to post an image that reflects where you see God in the world.

It was hard to choose just one picture when all creation is declaring the glory of the LORD, but as I looked through some of my pictures from the past year, one really stood out. Naturally, it was one from my summer in South Asia:

This is Caleb, one of my Global Urban Trek teammates with one of the students at a Salvation Army school in Dhaka, where five members of our team were placed. About half of the students at the school were blind and the others were sighted. This picture was taken on the last day my teammates spent at the school.

One of our focus passages for the trip was Philippians 2:1-11, which begins:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ,

if any comfort from his love,

if any fellowship with the Spirit,

if any tenderness and compassion,

then make my joy complete by

being like-minded,

having the same love,

being one in spirit and purpose.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,

but in humility

consider others

better

than yourselves.

a complicated affair

Have you ever tried to put on a sari? It really is complicated. The whole time I was in Bangladesh, I only wore one once, for our going away party. The rest of the time, we all wore salwar kamizes -- much simpler garments. Saris are stunningly beautiful (khub shoondar), but it would take a lot of practice to master getting on one.

Here is our friend J---- helping Sarah into her sari.

An interesting thing about saris is that, even though Bangladesh, as a Muslim country, has a high standard of modesty for women, the propriety of saris is never questioned, since they have been traditional wear in South Asia for thousands of years. This is despite the fact that they can leave a woman's arms and midriff exposed.

Once you've worn one, part of you never wants to wear anything else again, but I never thought that I would be able to duplicate the process, even if I should ever have the chance to purchase a sari. That is, until I found this online:

That, people, is what it takes to put on a sari.

The finished product:

Rachel, me, Marie, Beth, and Danielle in our sarees!

I felt like a rani.

well, that's good to know.

It's comforting to be told, since I am in my early twenties, that:

You've Experienced 36% of Life

You have the life experience of someone in their early 20s. You've seen some of what life has to offer - but you have a long ways to go.

How Much Life Experience Do You Have?

OHL Action

I don't know if you've ever seen The Colbert Report, a very witty fake news show from the States. It stars Stephen Colbert as a parody of opinonated right-wing pundits and airs four nights a week on CTV, at 11:30. It's a spin-off of Jon Stewart's Daily Show. It's almost as good as 22 Minutes or The Mercer Report.

Anyway, believe it or not, the Peterborough Petes' biggest rivals got a shoutout from the famous American comedian -- the Oshawa Generals have been prominently featured on his show three or four times. Here is one:

Edited: I had to change the video to a local news clip about the bet, because all of the (copyrighted) Colbert Report videos have been taken off Youtube

chatterbox

Tonight, my friend JJ told me that girls talk more than guys (2.5x the number of words per day) because we have shorter vocal cords so it takes less effort. I wonder if that is true.

simulacrum

So, ever since I came back from Bangladesh, I have a fascination with South Asian culture. I realize how much I fell in love with the country, and I really long to go back. I keep noticing the way my attitudes have subtly shifted. A lot of the changes have been ones I like.

I’ve been reading books by Bharati Mukherjee, Amitav Ghosh, Monica Ali, and Rohinton Mistry. It’s great because a lot of the best contemporary literature is being written by people from the South Asian Diaspora anyway. I have started watching a lot more Indian movies too (that’s mainly what’s available). Some of them have been more serious, like Deepa Mehta’s Water or the documentary Born into Brothels, set in Kolkata. I’ve even been getting episodes of the Amazing Race Asia from the Internet. It’s a different experience to watch or read these things now that I can pick out a few words in Bengali or even in Hindi and see faces, customs, and places that seem familiar.

But I’ve also been watching Bollywood movies. They’re kind of addictive. It’s funny because they are very culturally enriching in some ways, yet I realize that many of them are just escapist fluff, except in a different language. And the way people act is sooo different than what I experienced this summer. People wear revealing clothes. They hold glamorous jobs. They perform almost superhuman feats at times. They pursue romance, love at first sight even, rather than having marriages arranged. There are acts of jealousy and selflessness on a grand scale, and spontaneous song and dance numbers on an even grander scale. A lot of the times I really can’t understand why they do what they do.

Here’s a clip from the movie Kal Ho Naa Ho, starring Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta, (one of my favourite songs, "Maahi Ve"):

Some of these differences might come down to the cultural and religious differences between Bangladesh and India, but I think a much bigger part of it is that the media simply is not reality. This fact comes home to me a lot more powerfully somehow when I realize it about a culture other than my own.

I always think of what someone said on one of our early days in Bangladesh. We were watching TV (one of only a couple of times we did while we were there) and there was a music video, probably from India on TV. It was a club scene and people were scantily clad and dancing as seductively as they would in any rap video on MuchMusic. We found it incredible that this would be shown on TV in a country where we had already learned so much about modesty, where we had to be very demure in our dress and behaviour at all times.

Our Bangladeshi friend "Chuckles" (we all had awesome nicknames) tried to explain to us, simply but profoundly: "The filmy world is not the same as the actual world." Very true, of course, although generally we think of good art (including films) as being better if they show us truth about the world, whether through verisimilitude or absurdism. Still, the most popular entertainment is usually not "high art", it’s as fun and fluffy, or as melodramatic and clicheed as some Bollywood movies are. What we love to watch is generally a version of the "real world" that has been airbrushed beyond recognition. But we forget that much of the time.

Even going to the US, I realize how many of my perceptions of America have been shaped by a glossy media version that doesn’t really exist, or by Canadian stereotypes that soothe our national inferiority complex.

I wonder what misconceptions people from other parts of the world might have about North American culture if their only exposure to it is watching music videos, TV shows, and Hollywood movies. (We’ve heard what the popularity of Baywatch has done to the reputations of American women.) We think of these things as being culture-shaping forces, and they are, but no matter how much they affect us, for better or for worse, there will be a divorce between society itself and the media that acts as kind of a Bizarro magic mirror for the society. If the media has a negative effect on the people who live in our culture everyday, and have a certain filter that tells them how far a given film is straying from the realities of North American society, what does it do to people who aren’t familiar with North American culture in the first place? I just wonder if watching each other’s media always promotes cross-cultural understanding as much as we think it does.

And this shall be a sign unto you...

There is a new Blogger! Like not a person, but the actual website/program/whatever-it-is has changed! (Everyone probably knew this before I did.)

Anyway, I have been meaning to start blogging again (seriously!) as you can tell from the pathetic old posts from the last few months.

Will new Blogger = new me?

Don't count on it. My change-resistant genes are strong. I am also bad at doing anything consistently, and on a regular basis. Other than procrastinating. So we'll see.