hey all. well, it was time. for a few reasons, i have decided to move my blog over to wordpress. so, faithful readers (if there are any of you left!!), please keep on reading over there, & i promise not to forsake your blogs either. the new blog can be viewed right here.

another night
& another drink
& another dance of tongue in cheek
words these walls,
this chair,
and of course that set of stairs
has heard before....
a thousand times?
(maybe more)
so how?
to say the things we mean to say
when meaning is tired
& saying
is rhetoric
& half a cigar smoked
is half an answer never gave

today i feel like crying, a little.

not a great, sobbing cry; not for wrongs done or pain or death or even a bad day. not a joyful cry; for new babies or good news or overwhelming relief. not even a melancholy cry; not for loves lost or discarded ambitions.

and, just a tear or two, really.

for those things we store away in photo albums and backs of closets and under the bed. for grade three friendship bracelets and grade eight love notes. for ticket stubs and old parking passes for the places i used to belong. for old haunts and last year's cups of tea.

just a tear or two, so those things in closet backs and under the bed remain unforgot.

and a tear or two for the paradox that comes from remembering.

it has been almost two weeks, and i am more or less all settled into my new house. i love it. the house is old and full of character, from its 70's vintange metallic wood patterened front door, dated but sparkly light fixtures, and great big windows. it is situated in one of my favorite areas of town, on a languid, leafy street, and two big windows look out upon a row of businesses from which people come and go at an unhurried pace. it is a fabulous selection of businesses to have in front of one's house, i think; a gas station/convenience store, a cafe/organic market, a bar/restraunt, and of course, a canadian ski patrol facility which functions sort of as a good-looking man magnet. no problems with the roommate, we get along just fine and she has over 300 movies therefore i plan to refrain from shelling out money at the rental store for a good while. two guys live in the basement, who sometimes let me play guitar hero on their system. it is nice to have neighbours who i actually want to hang out with, and it is nice when jana is gone to know that there is somebody else close at hand, just in case. so, i will be posting pictures sometime soon on facebook of the house, after i take some. the pictures below however i took on a path near my house. it is a mere two blocks from my house, it follows the river and a few steps in and it is as though i have left the city far behind me.

i have been learning something about contentment.

it is easy to feel content when one is in a place where he or she feels like they have "arrived", like they have reached a place he or she wants to be. they've got the right friends, the right job, live in the right place, whatever.

i am not in this place.

haha oh no, farrrr from it. after graduation i made the decision to move back to medicine hat; long story short, i have questioned many times in the past months, why oh why did i ever do that??? i suppose though, however much i question it is rather pointless, i am here now and like it or not, here is where i must remain for the time being.

it is then out of this that i have been learning about the importance of being content with whatever it is i have at the moment. this does not mean i resign myself to the idea that well, i guess this is it for me...oh well *sigh*; of course i am still working toward the "bigger and better", so to speak. it simply means that i must make the most of what i've got right now. and, i believe, if i strive for contentment even when i perceive my circumstances to suck, it will actually prepare and stretch me to the point where i'm ready for the next step upward. theoretically.

i dont often like to write directly to my blog when i'm in a vulnerable state of mind, annnnd i should be packing for my grand manitoban adventure (which is to commence tomorrow!!), but, here goes.

commuting back and forth between what are essentially two separate lives is beginning to take its toll on me.

the past three years of my life have been split between eight months in manitoba, and four here in medicine hat. every year, i live in manitoba, hang out with my friends there, go to my favorite local hangouts, etc etc. i live out my manitoban existence.

end winter semester. within a 12 hour transition period, i move across the country, and begin to live out my medicine hat existence. the trouble is, while i've been away, most of my other friends have not. and while i'm away, though it may seem like it at times, time does not stand still in medicine hat. things happen. people change.

i change.

and now for a little word picture: imagine a puzzle someone's put together. it sits on a table in a house, each piece snapped neatly into its own little niche. then one day, a piece goes missing. it goes missing for a while. by the time it is found, it's been bent, maybe torn, maybe it sat out in the sun and the color's faded. whatever. in any case, the things that have happened to that little puzzle piece make it so it no longer fits inside its little niche. at least not very easily; it is possible, with a little prodding and pounding, one could get that piece to stick in where it supposedly belongs.


bottom line, the longer i have spent away from this place, the harder it is to fit myself back into where i once belonged. friendships grow & fade, social networks shift, individuals values, beliefs, and interests (including mine, of course) evolve as well. it becomes harder and harder to find my place here. so much so that i'm not even sure i still have one.

but, september is here, and normally i would already find myself in winnipeg with a pile of syllabi sitting in front of me. i would not be here. yet here i am stuck.

and i feel exteremely lost.

a friend of mine who i have not seen in quite awhile is in town. tonight, some of us went to a movie, and when it was over and we were parting ways, my friend gave me a hug as he said goodbye. i was kind of confused, since i knew he had a few days left in town, and i would likely see him the next day. i questioned him about this, wondering if i'd miscalculated the length of his stay, but was assured that no, he was just saying goodbye for the night.

hugs, its seems, in north american culture at least, are generally only given and received before and after extended periods of absence, between significant others, and between families. it is not a direct violation of any cultural code, but to exchange hugs in greeting and parting between friends often seen is simply just not really done. thinking about this, i have to wonder why this is so; how has our culture, even in such a small way, become so disconnected, unattached? i heard a statistic once that said the average north american comfort zone is about a metre and a half in radius. i also read another statistic suggesting that in order to maintain an optimal level of emotional health, one needs a minumum of eight positive touches per day. i know that most days i myself am way under quota.

in any case, i do not see any viable reason that hugs should be reserved for a few select occasions and relationship statuses. i would not really describe myself as an incredibly touchy-feely type of person, but i rather like the idea of hugs being used in greeting and in parting among friends. therefore, i suppose that as much as possible, without making my friends or others around me feel awkward, i shall try my best to reverse this trend.

i'm gonna do it; one can become only so sleep-deprived, i figure, so now is as good a time as any to employ my fatigue-fuzzied brain in penning - er - typing a small update.

it seems to me i have begun many a blog entry in such a manner as of late - maybe i just think it even if i dont voice it.

in any case, summer has, for all intents and purposes, fallen upon its timely, bittersweet deathbed. each morning arrives with a little more chill in the air each day, and though the sun still shines warm, it fails to completely irradicate the coolness of the air. it feels like fall. it feels like back-to-school.

bittersweet deathbed....bittersweet indeed.

the experiences and i have gathered in these past days (months, really, but days to me seems more appropriate in that each day seemed almost a mini-journey of sorts in itself) could be viewed loosely as an acquaintance with beauty through the mundane; by which i mean simply, i am learning to value and appreciate much though simple means.

let me attempt to explain.

may and june were spent toiling away amongst berry bushes, row upon row of them in a big dusty field. my job was to hack away at the colony of weeds growing at the base of each of the berry bushes with a hoe whose ablility to slice through a sheet of paper was more often than not questionable. it was hard, hot, and for the first few days, horrible.

i cant pinpoint a specific instance or day, but at some point, between battling my newly discovered archenemy pigweed, and shuffling through songs on my ipod, i began to observe. hundreds of things were happening all around me, in the soil, in the bushes, in the sky, of which i had previously, for the most part, been oblivious. here, in this forlorn, dusty field, existed a tiny yet intricate ecosystem of insects and small animals - a small society almost, if you will. as i observed this small society day in & day out (there is little else to do in such as situation), i suppose i began to gain a consciousness about what it truly means to respect the environment, to take care of it. who are we, really, to unnecessarily destory even this tiny part of creation? and of course, this translates into the bigger picture.

this experience was one of many like it, some smaller still, some bigger. and i assume it goes without saying that these combined experiences will be carried with me beyond summer's death, into.....

and there's where i dont know what to write anymore.

it feels like fall; it feels like back-to-school. but i am not going back to school; in fact, i really have no idea what the fall will bring. big things will be happening in the next couple of weeks, the outcomes of which i haven't a clue. i need a job, goodbyes and hellos will be said, and it all makes me nervous, i feel unsettled. dont get me wrong, i anticipate the fall, yet at the same time, am reluctant to leave summer behind.

bittersweet.

*sigh*...three weeks remain until summer careens headlong into fall. i believe that it is about this time of year when i usually sit down and compose some journal entry about emotional unrest, or the bittersweet nature of change, or some other angst-related topic, because usually at this time, the three-week countdown is on for my return to manitoba, or, life #2 as it were.

in any case, since i am now officially a providence college alumni, my faithful readers will be delighted to know that this year, there shall be no such post. however, since i am by default not returning to manitoba this fall, my job at the y is finished in three weeks, and had no other plans or prospects for plans in sight, the swift approach of summer's end was something of a source of worry for me.

i arrived home from camp last friday to find a newspaper clipping with a sticky note slapped across it reading "jenae, check out this job!!" in my mother's handwriting. i lifted the sticky note, mildy interested, expecting to find another "in the meantime" employment suggestion.

in reality though, i was quite excited to find that apparently, the cypress courier, which is a small weekly paper which is circulated throughout medicine hat & area, is looking to hire a reporter/photographer, and, according to the advertisment, i appear to meet all of the qualifications. not, of course, the dream job, final career goal by any means, but huge piece fallen into place for both the fall and the following future.

wow, i am falling asleep, so off to bed with me. eesh, i think i really need to make myself write more...i think i'm getting a little rusty :S

the summer has been busier than expected, and again, am having a hard time finding time to sit down & write about it. or maybe, between sun, storms, campfires, and friends, my priorities simply lie in other areas.

in any case, the summer up to date has been wonderful. i spent the last week out at camp with a bunch of 8-14 year olds who were (for the most part) a lot of fun. i am now extremely tired, but tanned and happy, and looking forward to one more week of the same. various adventures include:
-the valiant vanquishing of the black widow in boys cabin 2
-failure to rein in a rogue sailboat, and shipwrecking on the shores of the elkwater lake
-the banishing of one mouse from within my cabin
-the fruit basket game/improvised marco polo (probably the funniest thing we made the kids do all week, as soon as i figure out how to upload videos to youtube i will share it on here!)

last night i went to the stampede grounds, which i was really excited about since i missed out last year. it was the epitome of a perfect night at the fairgrounds, complete with impossible yet maddeningly addictive carnival games, a spin on the ferris wheel at night, and of course, mini donuts.

i am a firm believer in the idea that walking is a very viable transportation option. it's economical, excercize, and eco-friendly. and enjoyable. or should be.

one of my frequent destinations as a pedestrian is a friend's house, not far from my own. my route takes me down a street that is, on a scale of trafficked, on the heavier side. i made this journey today. and four times, as i made my way down the sidewalk, was i rather boorishly hollered at as some vehicle overfilled with testosterone thundered past. four times, in this short 10 minute walk. one car even had the audacity to slow down beside me and ask me where i was headed. actually, come to think of it, i cant recall one occasion where i've walked down this particular road and not been honked, whistled, or cat-called at at least once.

this really bothers me. not because i feel as though my safety is being threatened, or because it particularly embarrasses me. it makes me uncomfortable. i am a confident person, but i should not have to feel as though i am walking the gauntlet every time i step out for a stroll, especially when it is a sunny sunday afternoon. i find it undignifying and dehumanizing.

you know, i believe that 95% of these boys mean no harm. and i dont mean to make a bigger deal about this than it is worth. a small thing it is, maybe, but could this be a small, sad indication of where our culture is heading? not far out of line, perhaps, from the presentation of sexuality in most mainstream media. but which exerts more influence on the other, the media or the masses?

hmm, a tangent.

in any case, harm meant or no, mountain or molehill, i am saddened and frustrated by this apparent lack of regard for the individual, especially, perhaps, the female individual.

ah, medicine hat jazz fest, an uncanny collision of individuals. young, old, rich, poor, plain, or eclectic, i supppose we were all just there for the music.

because gas prices are absolutely ridiculous,
because i have decided that i am going to remain active and healthy this summer,
because over-consumption of gasoline is harmful to our world & unnecessary,
because demand for ethanol blended gas, while profiting south american farmers, is creating a severe increase in tortilla prices (which is the main source of calories for mexico's 50 million impoverished) since both are products of corn,

today i bought a bike. it is navy blue with silver accents, with hand-painted silver racing stripes along the - well, the things that go over the tires; it is beautiful, and according to the man from the pawn shop, twice as old as am i. but she rides well, and will get me reliably from point a to point b. i am quite delighted.

i have 3/4 of a tank of gas in my car, and i would like to imagine it will do me for the rest of the summer. at least for the month of july. medicine hat is, really, a small city; there are very few places i could go that it could possibly take me more than a half hour to reach, so really, barring rain, there is little reason aside from convenience and comfort to drive most places.

and the seat of my new bike is quite comfortable, so i am all set.

confession:

sometimes,
when i am driving
by myself
at night,
i play Idiotique
and
pretend
that it is january;
that i am driving
home
from st. boniface,
or maybe the kings head.

this morning, i did not wake up before 8:00 am. i did not wake up to a house full of strangers, i did not lug a very heavy suitcase up or down a flight of stairs, and i did not spend eight hours driving in a big dodge van.

and i almost dont know what to do with myself.

in short, tour was amazing on so many levels: relationally, anecdotally, musically, experientially, and of course, ministerially. reflecting back i am so thankful for each person who was on the team, for the people i met and places i visited along the way, and most of all that i was asked to be a part of veritas second semester!

now for a bit of a tour recap in long.....

team trips like this, in my experience, usually go through three stages. in stage one, everybody is thrilled to be there, thrilled about traveling, thrilled with eachother, and just thrilled in general. then stage two hits, and suddenly, henry's sense of humor isnt so humerous anymore, and susie's habit of singing along to her ipod in the van is just freakin' annoying. basically, tiredness + homesickness + lack of alone time etc creates a deadly mixture of pissedoffage. in stage three, differences get hashed out, people get over things, and the group experiences true bonding. what made this year's team unique was that we more or less skipped stage two and transitioned right into stage three. and oh, the joys of stage three, where everyone is too comfortable with one another to bother with pretenses of any sort. something happens to a group of people who have the same purpose, laugh with each other, cry with each other, and of course spend hours each day in very close quarters; when our big white van pulled up to the school and one by one said our goodbyes, it was like i was saying goodbye to my family.

of course, we all emerged from tour with a plethora of stories to tell, such as The Drunken Montrealers Meet Three Mantobians, Justin's Drunk Driving Mishap (or, A Case of Mistaken Identity), The Billets From Hell, and Pregancy Perils, but perhaps the story that had the most bearing on tour was The Day The Van Would Go No Further. Long story short, the transmission on the van died, and we had three days to make it from Fredericton, NB to Sudbury, ON for our next performance. Thankfully, it died just as we pulled into a church parking lot for our Sunday morning gig. The church found us a mechanic, another church's van to borrow to get us to our Sunday evening gig, and last minute billets. The church where we did our Sunday evening gig gave us enough money in the offering to pay for a new transmission. The van was fixed by tuesday noon, and by wednesday supper we had driven about 20 hours to sudbury. we were tired, but we had made it on time to sing in sudbury, and without missing any of our performances. through the whole ordeal we were blessed so much by others in so many ways.

it was really cool to see parts of canada i had never seen before; the east coast is extremely beautiful and full of so much history. one afternoon we took a trip out to peggy's cove, which is on the easternmost tip of nova scotia. it was my first time seeing the atlatic. i had never seen anything like it; big, open rocks, lone lighthouse stretching into the sky, waves crashing and this vast, vast body of water, as far as my eyes could see, underneath this blue, blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. there was also this little harbour filled with colorful fishing boats and lined with weathered fishing shacks; it was the stuff great canadian scenery calendars are made of, and i couldnt take my photographer's eyes off of it. later that day, we went into downtown halifax, which is one of the oldest cities in north america. unfortunately we had just under an hour to take it in before our evening performance, but i did manage to pay a visit to the alexander keith's brewery! other trip experience highlights included, of course, montreal; here, besides shopping, we got to visit the st. joseph's oratory, where we sang just for ourselves in this huge domed chapel. on cape breton, we sang in this beautiful old wooden church that had been constructed in 1904, and apparently left more or less as is.



i must confess that through part of the middle of tour, i was very tired, stressed, pensive, and did not really want to be there anymore at all. i was ready to simply come home. i would arrive at the church tired, struggle through the concert, and just be ready to collapse when we got to the billet's house. what would keep me going through each peformance was finding one or two people who i could focus on, who were outwardly connecting with what we were singing about. and it was always so encouraging to have people come up to me after and tell me "your singing really touched my heart. thank you". in sudbury, it was my turn to give my testimony during the program, which is something we all do once or twice throughout the tour. i get kind of nervous when its my turn, especially when i start to wonder what i have to say that these people will relate to - lets face it, most veritas audiences have an average age that is well over 60. but in sudbury, there was this one lady sitting right in front of me about three rows back, who kept nodding affirmatively at things i was saying, and right after she beelined over to me and thanked me so much for what i had said.

so that, in a nutshell, was tour. over 8700 kms driven, 16 performances in 18 days, 22 different beds slept in consecutively, and one amazing experience.

well, five days into tour and here i am sitting in someone's house with five of my other fellow veritas members as we all frantically check our email, facebooks, and update our blogs, as i am doing now. first wireless connection of the tour; yes!

so far tour has been a raving success. audiences have been responsive & enthusiastic, driving has been loooong (3 8-hour days in the van in a row) but everyone's nerves are still intact, and billets have been great. the first ones had 2 teenage girls who had taped the finale of the pcd reality show so i got to see it (yeah, i watched it. so what??), and the second ones offered me a beer 2 mins after i walked in the door. last night was somewhat interesting however; another girl & i stayed with these italian people who from 10 pm when we walked in the door to 11:45 when we went to bed did not let us get a word in edgwise. they also had some really shall we say fundamental view on christianity and which denominations do and do not have the "right" teaching on things like salvation and creation. needless to say our evening consisted of a lot of smiling & nodding, as offending the billets is generally not considered to be a good idea.

last night was great because while our audiences are generally 90% made up of people over the age of 65, this was a youth event night, so after we sang we got to hang out with a bunch of high schoolers. i got to talk with this girl who was really obviously struggling with poor self esteem and awkwardness; not that she said so in so many words, but i just hung out w/ her and i think it was good.

tonight i get to give my testimony and as of right now dont really know exactly what to talk about.

in closing here are a few pictures of random road trip excitement.

in the midst of a vast sea of darkness (eesh...thats a brutally mixed metaphor, sorry guys, its late), a darkness i have been blinded by for the past few weeks, hoveled in my cramped and depressingly dismal basement suite (which i only have to live in for 2 more weeks, woo-hoo!), forced to pen paper after paper...after paper....

...a sudden, unexpected light flashed.

finally, after weeks of hunching over my ibook, squinting at the screen, pouring over books and journals...the time had come, and i said to myself,

"screw it, i need to get out!"

the opportunity came in the form of a lovely little myspace comment from my dear brother which said, "hey awesome sister, joel kroeker is going to be in winnipeg saturday night, and you should totally go."

now, for those of you poor, uninformed individuals for whom the name joel kroeker rings no bells (besides the false alarm kind that make you go 'joel kroeker? didnt he go to prov?' - no, he did not.), he is a fantastic folk-esque (with a few jazz and country touches thrown in there) musician who writes amazing lyrics and beautiful melodies. anyway, i was incredibly stoked to hear this news, so i made a few phone calls, tucked $15 in my pocket, and headed to the west end cultural centre where i spent a stellar evening treating my ears to THIS. hmm, there are very few better ways to spend an evening than in the presence of truly good live music, in the company of truly good friends.

after the show, there was a party that i needed to make an appearance at, only it was one of those make-an-appearances that turned into make-an-appearance-have-a-couple-drinks-and-hang-out-for-a-couple-of-hours. this, i would almost go so far as to say, was the best party i have ever been to. if not the best, then at least it was the most interesting, and here is why. it was for all intents and purposes a cmu party, which essentially means that there were a lot of mennonites drinking beer and dancing. now dancing mennonites are always amusing in and of themselves, but on top of that, i find them rather comforting because hell, in company like that, there is no way anyone can say anything negative about the way i dance.

there was also a live band to add to this party's awesomeness, which was actually pretty good. so we've got mennonites, dancing to a live band, who was playing - are you ready for this - every hit song from the musical jesus christ superstar. it was completely absurd. i was slightly out of place because every other person in that room knew the words and was singing along lustily as they danced emphatically. i actually cant decide if that was the pinnacle of the evening, or the spontaneous rendition of the hymn 'christ arose' (at least 2 of the verses plus subsequent refrains were sung in their entirety) that came thundering out of the roomg while people were waiting for the band to set up. i honestly did not know how to respond as voices swelled in creschendo as they sang "he arose, he a rooose, halleluiah, christ arose!" do - do i toast someone?? it was glorious.

so, now i am at home, and about to go to bed. i definitely conclude that my temporary escape from the basement has been a raving success!

in just 3 short weeks, i will officially no longer be a student.

at this point in my life, with over 50 pages worth of papers to construct before april 20, funds that arent even mine dwindling at a very alarming rate, weather that beligerently refuses to go above 0 for more than a day or two at a time, and a basement suite that i have come to absolutely loathe, i CAN NOT wait til the day they flip my tassle & pronounce me graduated. you know, i have loved learning. i've loved exploring winnipeg and finding my little niches here; i actually sort of never planned on leaving. but my 3 years are up. and i am kind of surprised at my convictions, but winnipeg is no longer meant for me. or perhaps i am no longer meant for winnipeg.

thus, i have decided, after much wavering and back-and-forth, to go home. as the year has progressed there is less holding me here, and more enticing me to move on. dont get me wrong, as excited as i am to be finished and to move on to what is next, winnipeg holds dear friends and dear memories that will be extremely diffucult to say goodbye to when the time comes. but for now, i am more or less just awaiting what's ahead of me in the coming months.

hmm, yes...moving on; going home. actually not two months ago would i have ever equated the two. to go home was to admit a type of defeat, i guess...defeat's not exactly the right word...i guess maybe that i viewed it as a revertion to something, someone i was before is more accurate. i did not want to go home and have all of the experiences and memories and knowledge that i underwent in manitoba to become...dream-like....to become another unconnected fragment of my life. i still dont. but i think i am past that point where instead of perceiving it as a step back, i understand going home to be kind of the next era of my life. i am not going home to pick up where i left off. and that, i think, is the difference...to stay in winnipeg now would be to cling to the things of the past; to stay in winnipeg would be to become stagnant.

so, home i go. back to sunny, beautiful medicine hat! back to good friends and family. but forward to.......well, i'll keep you posted.

a few weeks ago i gave in to the man and opened a facebook account. i know. its kind of embarrassing, and the only people i really like telling that to is other people who have facebook accounts. for those of you out there blessed enough to not know what facebook is, its this site where you find other people you know who also have accounts, and you can leave them messages, upload photos of yourself doing cool stuff with your friends, and...umm....look at other people's photos of them doing cool stuff with their friends, i guess. actually to be honeset, i havent quite figured out what to do with facebook yet. it actually kind of creeps me out because everytime you modify something on it, it sends out this notice that you've changed something, so everyone you have as a contact will know and can go look at it or something. this means that if poor sally goes through a really rough breakup with george, her boyfriend of three years, and she changes her facebook "relationship status" to "single", evvvvveryone will be alerted with a little notice that says "sally and george ended their relationship", and a little picture of a broken heart.

i started writing this a few hours ago and dont really remember where i was going with it. hmm.

i actually really kind of dislike facebook. a lot. i dont even really do anything with it besides delete the multitude of emails it sends me everyday. but i have this feeling that i cant delete my account, because i have so many people on there who i'd lose contact with if i just up and leave. but can it really be considered keeping in contact if i just read with passing interest random little notices that pop up every now and then that say things like "charles removed "fishing" from his list of interests" and "harriet is now doing homework"? how much am i going to miss - not even talking to - but having the opportunity to talk to a bunch of "friends" i havent really cared enough to talk to yet?

one of the many, MANY things i have to get done in the next month is this media project, which is ambiguously termed "special project". i sort of decided to put together an extensive feature section for a magazine, and it gets to be about anything i want. FINALLY an assignment where i'm granted free reign to write about whatever i want, AND its not an academic paper!......and i am absolutely flummoxed! *sigh*. of all of the things i have to get done in the next month, this should be one of the easiest, and i'm stumped.