A Cowbell For Ellen

One of my favourite blogs these days is The Reign of Ellen. A while back there was a flurry of conversation about the SNL Cowbell skit. I'd never seen it, but after reading everyone rave about it, I looked it up on the net and watched it here. Classic!

So down at the Concerts in the Cove yesterday, the main singer had.... guess what??? I immediately thought of Ellen!

Summer Fun in Vancouver

Just a sampling of summer in Vancouver... Celebration of Light - a spectacular fireworks display that's all coreographed to music - down at English Bay, and Concerts in the Cove - open air concerts in Deep Cove, North Vancouver. We started a limbo line with the happy face balloon - fun for all ages :D

Sweet Freedom!

As of one hour ago, I am officially on HOLIDAYS! For FIVE WEEKS! (and two days!) I can not say a big enough YEEEAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOO!!!!

This is the first time since Grade NINE that I have had more than about 5 days off with no obligations, no commitments, no feeling of guilt at "oh, I SHOULD be doing this or that (like lesson planning, etc)."

No shouldas.
No oughtas.
No gottas.

I will be waking up in the morning and asking myself, "hmmm, what would I like to do today?" Oh it's gonna be glorious!

Oh yeah, and I've decided I'm gonna keep blogging (surprise surprise, but there's been a mindset shift) ... more to come a little later, I'm off the the beach for some live carribean music.

Welcome, summer!

The Coffee Table Book

OK. In high shcool my friend Chris had an amazing talent. He always seemed to be able to capture the most spectacularly BAD photos of me. He would always tease me that he was going to make a coffee table book of all the awful pictures he had of me. Well I was going through some of my photos and realized I had some pretty wacky pictures myself. So it's not a coffee table book, but it's close. And oh, there are so many other pictures I could share, but a girl's got her pride, you know. ;)

If you want to see what I'm really like... look no further:

(Now, you'll have to read my last post, too, at LEAST to see that I actually DO have a deper side - I jsut like to be silly, too! Apparently!)

Craig T

So I know I said no new posts just a few hours ago (see below), but this is an exception.

CRAIG - you have SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY crossed the line. I CONTINUALLY asked you to respect my request for privacy. You continued to press. You did not respect what I was asking, only til the very very end of our conversation, and even then, you had the AUDACITY to tell me you thought that I had fear and controll issues.

You do not know me at all. How DARE you say that.

You also asked for my website. I told you no, because there was too much personal information on here, and frankly, I did not trust you after our conversation to give it to you.

Yet instead, you hunted it down anyway. Likely now you have seen pictures of my house, my family, my friends, and have read who knows how much of my blog. Yes, I realize that it is on the web for all to see. However, after the conversation where you could not even respect my decision not to send you a picture, that is a HUGE, HUGE violation of my privacy. And when confronted about it, you first lied to me, then mocked me, then called me a child.

I am SO furious right now. And no, it is not a "controll" issue, nor am I "a child" as you called me. It is a matter of staying safe on the internet, as I repeated to you many times last night.

And as far as you preaching to me, or speaking to me, or whatever you want to call it, about prayer, you had absolutely no right to do that. My comment was more in disbelief that the only way you would honour my decision not to send you a picture was if I prayed about it and "Jesus told me [you were] a killer or something." You just wouldn't respect my request on it's own.

I should have stopped talking to you the minute you kept pushing for information I already told you I wasn't comfortable giving you.


Frankly, I am extremely creeped out by the fact that you hunted me down (and I still am at a loss as to how you got my email in the first place, anyway), then coyly referred to my blog in your email. You then lied to me about having seen my site, and only when I proved I knew you had seen it did you 'fess up.

It is precicely because of things like that that I do NOT give out personal information. I consider you a dangerous person, not in the sense that you will harm me, I hope, but in the sense that you have violated every boundary I had set with you from the beginning of our conversation. The fact that you cannot see this is even more concerning.

Now I don't suppose you'll honour this request, but don't ever come here or to my homepage again.

Is it something that makes your life better?

Dang.

I hate it when I get asked a question that makes me have to face up to what I've known for a long time but had been trying to avoid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After church today, I was talking to Alfred, a friend/acquaintance from church. A few weeks ago I had come accross a blog written by a girl who goes to Regent College. As I was looking at her blog one day, I saw she had posted a picture of her and some friends down at the beach. I looked at the picture and saw Alfred! Crazy! It was one of those "small world" things, which I jsut thought was cool. Anyway, I saw Alfred today so thought I'd tell him that I had randomly come across his picture as I was blog surfing.

Of course, conversation lead to the question of how I found this girl's blog. So I started talking about Blog Explosion, surfing blogs to earn points which translates into traffic for your blog, etc etc etc. As I was exlpaining this, I was feeling embarassed about it, and if I'm honest with myself (ouch) it's because I spend far too much time doing this, and have been realizing over the past while that too much of my conversation and time is taken up by this silly piece of cyberspace. Me being the person I am (saying pretty much every thought that occurs to me out loud), I rolled my eyes and laughed, saying, "Oh, man, I'm SUCH a nerd!"

To which Alfred responded, "Well, is it something that makes your life better?"

"Well, er... it's kind of an online journal thingy...umm.... and friends look at it, thay can see what I've been up to... uh... and it's interesting getting people from all over the world looking at it..."

I don't know if I was convincing him. I wasn't convincing myself.

Our conversation moved on from there, but his question stuck in my head. Is the time I spend blogging something that makes my life better? Or am I doing it for other reasons?

I know some deeper reasons, which I'm not willing to go into here, yet (if I do at all). But what I will say is that I'm going to take a blogging break for a while. No checking stat counter, no blog surfing, and no more posts for a while. I have some thinking to do about why I'm doing this and if it's something I am doing to enrich my life, or to hide from it.

Ouch.

Feel free to keep leaving comments. I get those via email.

Just two more!

Two more page loads and I'm at 2000 visitors since May 10 when I added Statcounter to my blog. Wowzers!

Who gets the lucky priveledge of being #2000?

Just for kicks and giggles...

I found The Sloganizer in my blog travels this afternoon. It makes a slogan out of any key word you put into it. Here are some of my favouries:

* Hello Hillarytastic!

* And on the eighth day, God created Hello Hillary.

* Welcome to the Hello Hillary universe.

* It's not a dream. Hello Hillary is real!

* Once Hello Hillary, always Hello Hillary.

* Hello Hillary – one name, one legend.

* Hello Hillary: it’s a kind of magic.

* Hello Hillary. To hell with the rest.

Try it out, it's good for the ego, and at least worth a giggle!

My head is a snow globe (aka An Explanation of Disappointment #1)

Like snowflakes in a snow globe, there are always lots of thoughts in my head, but sometimes life gives the ol' snow globe a bit of a shake and everything starts swirling around. In those times, it's hard to capture my thoughts clearly, because they haven't had a chance to settle. But after a while, the snowflakes come to rest again, and things become clearer. Nothing ever lands in exactly the same place, and so I'm never exactly the same person I was before. Hopefully I'm better, wiser, and have come to understand more about myself and about others through it. Well, some time has passed and the globe is a little clearer now. Here's a bit of the story of "disappointment #1" (see Questions or Showin' Me the Love for a bit of background) and hopefully a little of what I've learned through it.

About 6 weeks ago, I met a guy. I'll call him Mr BD. We hit it off pretty quickly, and started hanging out and talking on the phone a bunch. We weren't 'going out', just getting to know each other and enjoying each other's company. I was a little bit cautious at first, because I've had two "false starts," as I call them, in the last year that kinda flopped. By that I mean, that I met someone, read all the signals and got excited about what might happen, and they just didn't turn into anything. I wasn't heartbroken by any means, but it just made me more cautious about hitting it off right away with someone.

But, as I got to know Mr BD a little bit, I realized that none of what I was worried about was happening. It was nice, too, that we have mutual friends, cause all I ever heard (and continue to hear) about him is that he is SUCH a good guy. And I do agree. One of the things that caught my interest was that he has such a great heart, and really works at serving others. He's funny, warm, honest, and always treated me with respect. We seemed to have lots in common, and I was looking forward to getting to know him better and to hanging out with him, doing a whole bunch of the things we both like to do. I really liked him, and unless I am completely out to lunch on this, I know that the interest was mutual, at least on some level.

About three weeks after meeting him we were both wondering if we were going a little too fast, emotionally. His work was really intense, and he needed to focus on that, and for a number of very smart reasons, he told me that he felt we should back up a bit. His reasons and his approach to our friendship just made me respect him more, and I totally agreed with him. The only problem was that I don't think either of us knew what "taking a step back" looked like exactly, and I think for him it looked like a bigger step back than it did for me.

Long story short, last week he told me that he wanted to keep our relationship at the friendship level. I wasn't surprised, really, because since we had talked about slowing down, things had become very different - more distant, I guess. During that time, I was able to get some perspective, and there were a few minor things that I was wondering about as far as compatibility went. But, they were things that I was hoping to figure out as I got to know him. I was hoping to continue hanging out, and particularly get to know him once things had settled down for him at work when he wouldn't have to be expending so much energy and was not so tired. I was, of course, disappointed when he told me that he didn't want to go beyond friends.

In between the "step back" and the "just friends" conversations, I realized that a lot of what I was feeling for Mr BD was enthusiasm / excitement at a possibility. That's not to say that I didn't like him, because I did. But the way I was feeling didn't match the amount that I knew him. I was hoping to go slow, get to know him, and maybe start dating further down the road. So, needless to say, my analyzing "girl brain" kicked into overdrive after our "just friends" chat last weekend: Did I push too hard? Was God telling me "no" and I just didn't hear him? What is the lesson here? What about those first two weeks when he was very obviously interested, too? What were those about?

He gave me some reasons, kinda, when we talked, but they were sort of hazy. I mean, reasons or no reasons I can still accept it, but it sort of left me wondering. Now I in NO way feel led on. I'm guessing that, maybe, he got caught up in the possibility of something, and then realized that he wasn't as interested as he first thought. I don't believe at all that he was ever being insincere. Or maybe he just realized that he wasn't ready for a relationship? If so, fair enough. I don't totally understand where he was coming from, though regardless, the outcome is the same, and I will respect that. I am curious, though, as to his thought process through the whole thing, but that's a question that will most likely have to be left unanswered.

When all is said and done, even though I was disappointed, I will be (am?) fine. I still have the same respect for Mr BD that I did before, and I still think he's a great guy. I'm hoping that we can continue our friendship. I'm a pretty laid back person, and I don't think there will be any "weirdness" if we continue hanging out, at least on my end. The challenge is how to convey that to him without him thinking I'm trying to cling to him.

While I was hoping for something more, I'm also alright with the way things are. And whether our friendship ended last week or it will continue, I'm grateful for the time we got to spend together.

I'm sure there are more snowflakes that need to settle, but for now, this is how they've landed.

Day three, no pee!

I've made it three days with no peed pants!!! Let's hope this number continues to grow!

(erm, let's referesh your memory that I'm teaching 4 and 5 year olds at summer school. I'm not referring to myself here. MY personal record is 6 days, thank you very much ;)

Well Said

I couldn't have said it better myself...

...in fact it hardly even bothers me. only a little. and that little actually
has more to do with me that her. every time you enter a new relationship, there
is always that hope inside that it will blossom into something more, that you'll
fall in love, be the perfect match, and live happily ever after. of course when
this doesn't happen, regardless of the reasons, its always a bit of a
disappointment. even if the reasons make sense. even if you knew it wasn't meant
to be there is still that part of you that says, "maybe it was" or "maybe it
will still work out in the future". and another part of you that says "grow up."

(Courtesy of a fellow blogger)

And we're off...

Well, summer school began yesterday. Talk about having to be flexible!

I had two courses all planned and ready to go, and I was very excited to be able to be teaching at my own school. It meant that I didn't have to pack up my classroom, I was familiar with the building, and I would be teaching with some of my colleauges from the regular school year, who are also teaching summer school.

For various reasons, however, enrollment was really low this year, and the powers that be changed the way they determine whether or not to cut a course. That meant that both of my courses got cut. This was not a big deal, though, because I could still be rolled into the cirriculum and ESL classes, and would be able to keep my job. I hadn't received a confirmation by last Friday, so I didn't do any planning. I supposed it was gonig to have to be a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of month.

That is, until Saturday.

I was at the beach with some friends enjoying a fabulous day (the day after the previously mentionned disappointment #1) when my cell phone rang. It was the summer school principal. "Oh good! He's confirming what I'll be teaching!" thought I to myself. But no. Numbers were still down, and he wasn't able to hire me.

Oh

my

goodness.


The principal was really good to me, though, and he made calls to the other summer school principals to see if there were any openings at any other schools, and he found one! I suppose I didn't have the best attitude, cause hey, at least I have a job, BUT, I was going to have to go and pack up all my stuff at my school, bring it all to the new school, teach all July away from my buddies, AND, the "best" part??? I would be teaching PRE-KINDERGARTEN and kindergarten ESL and language arts. Hmmm... I am an intermediate teacher. I lvoe little kids, they're very cute and fun to play with, but as far as teaching them? They're just tooo little! Plus, THESE kids... many have never been to school and don't speak a word of English. Great. This was disappointment #2.

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

Well, Monday came awfully quickly. That was a prep day, thankfully, so I moved all my stuff, went to the staff meeting, and then my mom came and helped me get my room set up (she's a preschool teacher, so she had lots of tips for me! We're gonig to go pilfer her preschool later this week for some fun stuff :) .

Then the kids arrived today. Apart from the registration chaos, it was actually not too bad! (Hey, any day can go great when the kids get to play at centers half the time they're there! Don't worry, that will change, but today was a settling in day - more so for me than for them!) I actually had a lot of fun with them! There was only one girl who wouldn't let go of her mom's leg, and one boy who started crying when he came back from recess becuase he thought his mom was going to come get him then. He didn't realize that there was still more school, and I couldn't explain it to him becuse he doesn't speak a word of English! Poor litle guy! He jsut cried and cried and repeated the same entence (I think) in Chinese over and over... all I oculd get was "mama" out of it.

And the biggest thing I say "Thank GOD" for today.... nobody peed their pants!!!!! Let's try to keep that record up!


Well I survived day one. Only 24 to go...

An unsent letter

I was sorting though some old papers tonight when I found it: that little slip of paper you wrote your email on the weekend we met. I came up and asked for your address, but you already had it written down. You were already planning on giving it to me.

I didn't know I still had it, so it came as a bit of a shock. I had finally gotten you out of my head for the time being, and there it was... a stark reminder that you were at least as interested as I was, if not more. I mean come on, the first time you emailed me, you listed all the things we did together as the high point of your weekend.

I liked spending time with you after that. We'd go for long walks, talk for hours, and enjoy each other's company. And your eyes when you smiled at me... wow. But, we realized that we were moving too fast. We didn't know each other very well, and we both wanted to back away a little and just get to know each other slowly.

Maybe I misunderstood what you said you wanted, or maybe you just didn't know. Either way, you came to the conclusion that you were not interested in pursuing anything further. I respect you for the way you told me. Consistent with who you are, you were kind and thoughtful, but clear.

I was not heartbroken. I didn't cry, not that day, anyway. I was, however, terribly disappointed. I just don't know what changed between the few weeks after we met and the day you told me you just didn't feel the same way about me.

That slip of paper was an unexpected reminder of how excited I was about what might have happened with you and I. It caught me off guard, and that's when the tears came.

Shoot, I really liked you.

Showin' me the love

I won't get into it here/now, but I've had two disappointments in the last two days, and am feeling kinda bummed. But, it's amazing how God shows his love in really tangible ways right when we need it the most (well, all the time, but even more so when we need it).

Shortly after disappointment #1, I got a somewhat out of characteristic hug from a friend of mine, which was jsut what I was needing. Then just after disappointment #2, as I was making some phone calls to sort a few things out, my landlords knocked on my door with a big boquet of beautiful flowers that they had just cut from their garden.

So. A hug to remind me I'm loved, and some flowers to brighten my day! That's two for two. None of these people knew what was going on, and yet they have been God with skin on for me today.

Once again I say, God is SO good.

Questions

Why does God's voice always seem clearer to me after the fact?

Over the last year, it seems that only after something happens can I look back and go, "Ah, yes, God was telling me this or that." Is it because I'm not in the practice of hearing his voice? Or have I heard it and chosen not to listen? Either way, it sure would have saved me from some disappointing situations had I realized/listened. BUT, I'm constantly learning about God, about myself and about others through this crazy tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful beautiful life. I guess it's the "almost magic" part that's getting to me right now. For once I'd like it to just be magic. I'm getting awfully tired of the 'almost.'

Looks like I'm in for some more growing pains. It's better than staying the same, though, so I can deal with that.

Moving right along.....

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Ironic... I just found this series of pictures on The Reign Of Ellen. They seem verry fitting right now. :P

Oh so easy!

A little birdy told me that you can now upload images right from your computer onto blogger... no more messing around with flikr or hello (or uploading to your own very nearly full server)! Yippee!

Happy Canada Day!