nothing really...

I think my jet lag has finally hit me (a few days late mind you) and now I get to lose another hour this weekend! crazy! these pictures really have nothing to do with this post, but I figured I would post them just to have some visual images for all of you. Plus I forget which ones I have already posted, so forgive me if they are doubles!

First week back at school has been good. Good to get in the swing of things and crazy to think that the semester is almost over! It's already March 8th!! AHHHH!! what worries me is the four 12-page research papers coming up.. I need to learn how to research.. and how to edit!

I have interesting thoughts to post, but I woke up recently and the brain is still not yet coherant, so those will probably come tomorrow when I am avoiding doing research for my 75 minute presentation coming up!!

Now that I have produced quite a long post about absolutely nothing, I will leave you with these nice pictures...

More Pictures

Third Installment!

Bathsheba

Codrington College

St. John's Parish

On Thursday we headed out to a beach cottage to go spend the day with some of Lindie's relatives. We took the round-about way of getting there (on purpose) and stopped at a few nice sites along the way. The first was St. John's Church which had an amazingly old cemetery. One of my latest loves is walking around old cemeteries. There are so many stories to be told there and it just sets my mind to wondering and imagining what the lives of these people were like, etc. After stopping at the church, we stopped at Codrington College, which has the most amazing view!

St. John's Cemetery

Bathsheba

Finally we arrived at Bathsheba which is on the east side of the island and the waves are

quite rough, but it's beautiful to watch! We took a nice long walk on the beach and then had lunch at the beach house. Afterwards we went to the Soup Bowl to watch some of the surfers. Then we decided to go nuts with the map and just go exploring! We went a bit of everywhere and found some interesting and beautiful sites and even came across a few really nice pottery stores!

Nice mountains

He was adding some color to the picture as he liked to say :)

Friday was the last full day in Barbados and we went on a catamaran cruise called Cool Runnings. It's a four hour boat ride with three stops. The first one we went swimming with sea

turtles! Luckily they were being fed, so I did not get eaten. Their shells feel really cool and they are fun to watch swim. We tried taking some pictures on the underwater camera we had, but sometimes it was a bit difficult to see what you were taking pictures of with the goggles on your head. Once I get them developed I will post them on here! The second stop was snorkelling by a shipwreck and through some coral reef. Amazing colorful fish! At one point a whole school of fish was swimming by me and I was surrounded! It was great! The final stop was by a beach and we had a fabulous buffet lunch and then went snorkelling and swimming some more! Then we walked around Bridgetown a bit and then went and played Dutch Blitz and had some pizza with Rachel and Theresa. Good times!

View of the island from the boat

Saturday morning I went and watched Lindie surf for a while! Then we headed to the airport and well here I am today! And so ends my trip.. I will post more pictures on this site and my pictures blog for your viewing pleasure! Now I am itchy all over because my body is one big peeling monstrosity! And I am home by myself and have no one to lotion the back! Oh well! Now off to school to write my exams!!

Lindie surfing

Installment number two!

Lindie trying to hide from the wave about to pummel her!

Okay, well Tuesday morning we decided to go to Surfer's Point from where we started exploring and hiking a bit along the beach. We climbed over rocks and many other things until we ended up at a new beach. The water makes incredible formations in the rocks! Absolutely amazing! We had fun taking pictures! Once we got to the beach, we watched the guys who were kite surfing. It is incredibly amazing to watch them and they get incredible air and do flips and all sorts of fun stuff! Afterwards we headed over to the Barbados museum to catch up on some of the history of Barbados, etc. The best part was the children's section at the end, because they had dress up clothes and Lindie modelled a bunch of them and I took a bunch of pictures!! After the museum we headed to Accra beach to watch the sunset which was beautiful!

That night we went into Bridgetown which is the capital of Barbados. We had dinner at the Waterfront Cafe. It is a restaurant right on the water (harbor) and we sat outside under the stars and enjoyed the live steel band playing. It was also great to watch all the people dancing! They had a Bajan buffet so we got to enjoy some more of the local food! Our favorite dish was the pumpkin fritters-absolutely amazing! i bought a cookbook that has a recipe for them so I think I will try making them with our canned pumpkin!

Archer's Bay-this was found with a little "detour" we took and it was quite lovely! Had to offroad a bit in Ol' Betsy, but it all worked out well!

Wednesday we decided to be posh and go to the yacht club for lunch (some of Lindie's family has a membership there). Lindie and I took a really long walk on the beach and then enjoyed some flying fish for lunch! Yum! Afterwards we headed off for attempt number two to NorthPoint! And we made it!! We even found some extra little exciting spots to go explore (thanks to my amazing navigational skills!) North Point has a bunch of cliffs with waves crashing up against it. Definitely breathtaking! Had a good time walking around the edge of the cliffs and taking in the beauty of it all!

On the drive back, we headed through Speitstown and Holetown. We stopped at a few beaches for some nice walks and then went to Cocomos for dinner which is right on the water and it was an amazing setting to watch the sunset! And so ends my second installment. Once again, more pics on the pictures blog! Sorry for the delay in posts, but I don't want to give it all at once!

Today was a great first day home!! I went to bed at 6:30am and then got up at 8am for church. Came back and studied for my social psych exam. Then I went for a walk around Mill Lake with a friend and then out for dinner to my new favorite Japanese restaurant 'Mars Bistro'. Then I went to the gym for a workout and now I think I will study a bit for my psych of religion exam tomorrow!! I do not know where my energy has come from since I got about two hours of sleep last night. Perhaps while I am writing my two exams tomorrow everything will hit me and I will crash-hopefully not though! For now I will take joy in being the energizer bunny!

i'm back!!

Well it's 4:30 in the morning and I just got home about an hour ago! And I am jet lagged and wide awake! So my latest strategy is to stay up now and study for the two exams I have tomorrow and then perhaps take a nap in the afternoon and study some more! Enough about that though! I think I will post on my trip intermittently, because i have millions of pictures to go through and want to make sure I share them all! I will post some on here and some on my pictures blogs (link on right side) so be sure to check both! So I hear there was lots of snow and drizzle while I was gone! Did not miss that! Barbados has one type of weather: hot and sunny! Every day was at least thirty degrees and even if it drizzled a little bit or had a bit of cloud it was still boiling hot!

I arrived in Barbados only to find that my luggage was lost! I guess it didn't make the connection in Toronto.. So here I was with my jeans and sweater ready to face the heat of Barbados knowing that my luggage wouldn't arrive for at least 24 more hours! One of Lindie's relatives kindly lent me some shorts and a bathing suit though so that was nice. That night we went to church which was great! There was a musician from India there who was super humble and just all around very encouraging. Aftewards we went to Rachel's house for dinner which was great as well!

me and ashleigh at cafe sol in St. Lawrence Gap

Sunday our little rental car (we named her Betsy) arrived so we could bomb around the island. Of course, it's a bit different driving on the left hand side of the road and having pot holes everywhere and people driving on your side trying to avoid potholes and other obstacles! Always an adventure! Lindie and I started the morning off at Accra beach where I got my first burn (of many more to come...) I blamed that burn on Air Canada, because my luggage hadn't arrived and I had no sunscreen. But swimming was glorious (very salty water-not recommended for drinking) as well as lying in the sun! Afterwards we went to a mexican restaurant in what is called St. Lawrence Gap which was great! Good times and great people watching!!

The next day we set out on an adventure to go to the north point of the island (we were staying in the south). The maps aren't that great, because not all the roads are labelled and not all the roads are even on the map. And the roads aren't great because most of them are not labelled either and there will be a sign pointing you somewhere but then there won't be any more signs along the way! So anyway, with my amazing navigating skills we eventually ended up halfway there. We were on the right street but thought we'd ask for directions just to double check. Well, it turns out that the person sends us back the way we came! So we drove all the way half up and then came right back where we started! hahaha! I think that was like two or three hours later (it should have just taken about an hour to get up there..) Feeling slightly defeated we decided instead to go to Miami Beach and the Oistins fish market. We saw some big sea turtles in the water from the dock so that was fun and well worth it!

That night we went to a Bajan (Barbadian) restaurant called Brown Sugar which was wonderful! We had dolphin and flying fish! Okay, I like to say dolphin for the shock value because people immediately think of Flipper, but dolphin is a type of fish there! I would never eat flipper! come on now!

All right, that is all I will give you for now because I'm going to go shower, study for a bit and then go to church! it is now five am! haha.. tune in again for some more u pdates and pictures and be sure to check out the photos blog!

BARBADOS!!!

In seven hours I will be on a plane headed to Toronto which will then bed off to Barbados! And tomorrow at 3pm (11am your time) I will be meeting Lindie at the airport! Yay for Barbados and Yay for friends! I will for sure have some exciting pics when I return, so be sure to stay tuned! I will probably not post for a week, but when I return it will be excitement to the max. :)

My exams both went well yesterday. Funny story actually (good stress reliever). Some friends and I went for dinner at Montana's at four as a going away dinner for one of them. Anyway, I guess we did not leave that much time to get back to school for our six o'clock exam.. I told them they could go to the bathroom at school, so we all got into the car already needing to pee quite badly. So we're cruising along, trying to get back to school and we're coming up to a red light when suddenly we hear the dreaded sound of the train... uh oh... so we're sitting there laughing at the irony of it all about to pee our pants, hoping the light turns green before the train comes! It doesn't and we're stuck behind this train, making us late for the exam.. haha.. But it was a very funny moment as we all needed to pee and we were all splitting a gut laughing so hard. We made it to the exam four minutes late, but they started late anyway so it was all good. All in all quite an adventure!

Now I must go and shower and finish packing and then I'm off!! Feel free to leave me comments in my absence so I have something to read upon my return!! have a good week all!!

One down, one to go!

So, my sociology exam is over and I just have on left! The one this morning went relaly well and I think I did all right. Glad to have it over! Now the big essay one is coming up this evening,b ut i'm not too worried about it, because I think I have a fairly good grasp on the material, so I guess I'll just start writing ad hope that it makes sense to whoever is listening. So yes, tonight i have a dinner with some friends and then the exam! woo hoo! should be fun. i'm looking forward to it.


I got all my shopping done for all the stuff I have to bring, so now I just need to pack everything together and I will be good to go! Tomorrow night Sandy and I are going for dinner and then she's dropping me off at the airport-hope I can sleep on the red eye flight! And I'm goign out for lunch with Bobbi tomorrow for her birthday! Fun times! So I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed-thanks all for your prayers, I appreciate it! And only 34 more hours until I will be on a plane to Barbados!! woo hoo!

One down, one to go!

So, my sociology exam is over and I just have on left! The one this morning went relaly well and I think I did all right. Glad to have it over! Now the big essay one is coming up this evening,b ut i'm not too worried about it, because I think I have a fairly good grasp on the material, so I guess I'll just start writing ad hope that it makes sense to whoever is listening. So yes, tonight i have a dinner with some friends and then the exam! woo hoo! should be fun. i'm looking forward to it.


I got all my shopping done for all the stuff I have to bring, so now I just need to pack everything together and I will be good to go! Tomorrow night Sandy and I are going for dinner and then she's dropping me off at the airport-hope I can sleep on the red eye flight! And I'm goign out for lunch with Bobbi tomorrow for her birthday! Fun times! So I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed-thanks all for your prayers, I appreciate it! And only 34 more hours until I will be on a plane to Barbados!! woo hoo!

end of my rope

Somehow, right before I go away, things go absolutely insane and there is far too much to do! That is how I am feeling right about now! I have a midterm in sociology tomorrow morning and a final tomorrow night and I don't have much time in there to study! Plus somehow I have ten million things I have to do before I leave and things just mount in insanity! Plus I have to pack! haha! Needless to say, I would appreciate your prayers as I feel kind of overwhelmed! Maybe I should just stop thinking about it all together! But only three more days until I leave and I am super excited! I am just excited for Thursday to be over!!!

words

Saw this on some of my friend's blogs and it is a picture of all the words on my blog. very interesting. i was glad to see that "haha" and "yay" made it in! :)

changes

As I have been putting more time into prayer and intentionally spending the beginning of my day with God, it has been absolutely amazing how much my day and mood/attitude is affected. I don't say this to say, 'wow, i've been praying', but moreso that we serve an amazing God who is incredible. As I start my morning with a newfound focus on God, I find that all the other little things that I made a big deal of before begin to fade away as my eyesight is adjusted. Suddenly I realize that I really have no right or reason to be in a bad mood when I truly look at everything around me. It's just been interesting to see how I have acted differently this past week in such a good way.

Tonight in church we sang a new song I had never heard before. I wanted to post the words of the chorus here, because I found them really encouraging:
You, You are my wholeness
You are my completeness
My soul, my thirsty soul can
Rest in the depths of Your love

Just a good reminder for me of who/what truly completes me and that I can truly find rest daily in the great depths of God's love.

Hope you're all having a splendid weekend!

ironic

Every morning I grow more and more to dislike big trucks (semis and dump trucks) on the freeway. They cut you off, spit rocks on your car (my windshield has two big cracks in it now!) and they always swerve over the lanes.. sigh. i think i will have to get over it though! have to remind myself about love and patience!

So lately I have been really been feeling the urge to pray more and to devote more time in my day to intentional prayer. One of the ways in which to do this is to take the cds out of my car and rather than singing mindlessly, to pray and worship God every day as I drive the half hour to school and back. I have felt convicted of this for about two weeks now but I always forget to take the cds out when I leave the car. Every time I get in and hear the music, I am reminded, but then I think "well, today will be my last day and I will really enjoy it and THEN i'll take them out." right. like that'll happen. so anyway, last night i got home and remembered and decided that i really needed to do that, because it was something that I really wanted to be intentional about and to have my time in my car be time with God spent in silence, talking and singing (without cds). So I grudgingly took them all out. This morning as I started driving, i was going batty with the silence.. so i decided I would ease my way into it by listening to the radio. HA! well, i turn on the radio and it's on 106.5 (Christian radio station) and there is a guy talking on it and he is talking about how we need to make prayer more of a priority in our lives. HAHAHA.. Okay, you got me God! So I laughed to myself at the blatant truth staring me in the face and turned off the radio. Good reminders. :) It's funny, because I keep automatically turning up the volume after I get off the phone, etc. and I realize what a habit it has become. So for now I am driving in silence (I could actually hear the sound of the rain against my car today!) and so far it's been fairly hard, but good at the same time!!

I just finished working out and should head to the shower before an exciting day at school tomorrow. (no sarcasm in there at all.. hehe)

bats

Upon reading my title, hopefully you all thought those were bats in the picture! haha.. they're only crows! the other day i was sitting in my room and suddenly all these crows landed on the lawn. every time a car drove by, they would all fly around in circles. I was trying to avoid doing homework, so I decided to count them and stopped when I got to 100. The picture doesn't do the number of crows justice, but I thought it was a cool picture as they were all flying away. I was going to go downstairs and open the door to take a picture, but I was too lazy and you never know when they might attack. haha

Fun times at the zoo!!

Today Chrystal and I went to the zoo after I got off work at 2:30. I havent' been in forever and it's always fun to be outside and look at animals (even though often they're sleeping or hiding!! haha) But it was a beautiful sunny day and a great time!

Haha.. this camel was getting fairly frothy and I figured out that I should back off before it spat on me. haha.. but i did make chrystal go pose by it. i think it would have been funny had it spat on her (don't tell her that.. haha) but luckily it didn't and we got a nice picture with her and the camel (although she looks a bit apprehensive to be standing beside mr. frothy mouth..)

Chrystal and I were planning on going to a late movie after church tonight, but then we realized that would be really late and the only reason we truly wanted to go was to get the popcorn. So we went to Towne Cinema (which you technically have to pay to get into) and asked at the box office if we could just go buy popcorn, went in and bought some popcorn and pop and then went back to Chrystal's house with Kaeli to watch a movie! haha.. we were laughing quite a bit at the fact that we were actually doing that!

We watched Chronicles of Narnia tonight. I hadn't seen it since when it first came out in theatres. It's such a grand story and watching the kids I would think in my own fantasy imagination land of how grand it would be to have been a part of something like that. Then I realize that hey! I am part of it! some good thoughts. Lucy's character always inspires me. I am challenged as I see her childlike faith and her trusting heart. I love that when Edmund returns to them (after having betrayed them), she is the first to go up to him with a smile and give him a giant hug. I need to do that more in my daily interactions rather than hold grudges over stupid little things. Anyway, good movie and good reminders.

Church was really good too. It was a sharing/praise weekend where people got up and shared from their lives significant moments when God touched them in their lives. It was a way of remembering corporately, as Israel did in Joshua, what God has done lest we forget. Very encouraging and made me think of some of my own stories and moments I can remember in my own life that were really significant and impacting. Always good to think about. And now I'm off to bed so that I can get up and work eight hours tomorrow! Yippee! Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

Exciting Purchase!

Now you're all thinking I'm a bit strange because I wrote exciting purchase as my title, yet i post a picture of a stapler. haha. well i'm a bit of an organizing freak and I love stapling things together (especially completed assignments!!) My poor little faithful stapler sadly broke last night and so today I set out to the office store in a trek to find a replacement. I got home tonight excited to staple together a paper I had written. I opened the stapler to put in staples and parts went flying everywhere! so much for that idea! haha..

In other exciting purchase news, I bought a new bathing suit today for my trip to barbados along with a couple of tops! The store was having fifty percent off already reduced merchandise so I got some great deals! And I bought about ten highlighters from the office store because once again, I'm slightly strange. So exciting though!