4 things

Ok, because I'm in full procrastinating mode, here is a post I started months ago but never got around to finishing. It is inspired and requested by Queena's list of 7 things and I was reminded by Jocelyn's list of 4 things to revisit and finish my list. I've combined both of their lists and taken Joc's cue for 4 instead of 7 (it was hard enough coming up with 4 for each!). Here they are, starting with the easiest to answer progressing to the most difficult to answer...

4 places/provinces I've lived:

1. Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Regina)
2. Ontario (Ottawa, Toronto, Guelph)
3. British Columbia (Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam)
4. Alberta (Calgary)

4 places I've been on vacation:

1. New York City
2. Vietnam
3. Mexico
4. Spain/UK

4 places I still want to see:

1. Africa
2. France
3. Nunavut
4. Israel

4 favourite foods:

1. Sushi (especially alaska rolls from Sushi Garden!)
2. ok this is terrible, I can't think of anything else that ranks high enough, so I'm going to specify my favourite sushi rolls for the remaining three on this list (because sashimi goes without saying!)... so #2 is chopped scallop roll
3. a good barbequed eel roll
4. pretty standard house roll (crab, avocado, tamago, tuna and salmon)

4 TV shows I like to watch:

1. CSI (most often Miami, but also the other two)
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Law and Order
4. The Apprentice

4 movies I could watch over and over:

1. Finding Nemo
2. Matrix (the first one)
3. Lord of the Rings (all of them)
4. Ocean's Eleven

4 jobs I've had (I'll list my favourite ones):

1. Parliamentary Page (aka Glorified Gopher and PR program for the Government of Canada... check out if you can spot me in the goofy group photo I found online)
2. Graphic Designer and Customer Service at a print shop in Calgary (worked with the most amazing family who owned the shop)
3. Employee Communications at Campbell Soup (the best cafeteria and cheap Godiva chocolates around)
4. My current job I love, but don't have an accurate title to describe it :) I like it because I get to work with ideas and people for a God that I love

4 things I want to do before I die:

1. Travel from one end of Canada to the other
2. Learn to consistently live out a Sabbath-keeping life, or else I will die sooner with my natural pace of life!
3. More officially develop and launch a line of inventive wedding invitations
4. Get married (gasp! dare I utter it aloud? anyone who knows me well would recognize this as a miracle that God is working in my heart...)

4 things I cannot do:

1. Look at a document without considering its visual appearance/design and/or making a subconscious note about its usage of fonts
2. Sing harmony without the help of a strong voice beside me
3. Travel to a city and not call everyone I may know there
4. Eat without doing something else at the same time (read, talk with someone, watch tv...)

4 books that resonate most with my life:

1. Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace
2. What Color Is Your Parachute?
3. Life Inside the Thin Cage
4. The Bible

4 things I say often:

1. "in the sense that..."
2. absolutely!
3. no worries
4. can't think of a fourth... you tell me what I say the most! :)

4 things that attract me to a guy:

1. Self-awareness that fuels their own continual growth as a person
2. Other-awareness that translates into caring for others and for creation
3. God-awareness that recognizes, seeks out, follows and surrenders to the Divine
4. Walking on a similar path, headed in a similar direction (i.e. complementary calling in life)

Tag, you're it (people I want to see do this, should you feel the urge to procrastinate):

1. Florence
2. Shannon
3. Hengz
4. Matthea

top 10 memorable things from the Big Apple

1. Experiencing God's presence and power so clearly at the Redeemer Prayer Conference (the reason that brought us out to New York in the first place). It was amazing to see the fruit of answers to prayers that so many people invested in the conference for months ahead.
2. Yummalum food... the best Italian food I've had in a long while (you know you can't get any really good Italian in Vancouver!), delish deli food and burgers, cheesecake... the list goes on because 99% of what we tasted was super tasty!
3. The amazing creativity of The Lion King. I originally had apprehensions that it would be hokey, but they really pulled it off with imaginative sets and choreography and convincing acting. My favourite animal in the show was the giraffe, of course!
4. The Pajama Game, a top-notch Broadway production starring Harry Connick Jr... Not only was it a phenomenal show, but we had technical difficulties, which resulted in the treat of Harry coming out to entertain us with a candid Q&A time.
5. Catching up with old friends Tina and Jessica, from a summer city mission trip in Vancouver in '99.
6. Visiting Tina's small group study. The people were super friendly and welcoming. The topic on knowing our limits and trusting God for the rest was personally convicting and timely.
7. Enlightening and insightful chats with Mary, my wise co-worker who travelled with me.
8. Hearing the multiple languages at every turn and seeing the diversity of cultures throughout the city.
9. Finding my way around the city, even feeling like a New Yorker at moments -- like the four times people asked me for directions!
10. Circling the air at JFK airport for 2 hours due to weather and air traffic, running out of gas, flying to Toronto to refuel, finally landing back in NYC. I couldn't believe how alive and bustling the airport was at 2am. By the time we survive lineups, we arrive in time to enjoy 5 hours of our $180 hotel in Manhattan before our 9am meeting. Why am I listing this as a highlight? Just for how sheerly ludicrous it is -- only in NY!

yes, I'm still alive...barely!

It's June... what happened to May?? Here is an uneventful account of an eventful month:

• First was the very cool week-long course on dialogue education at SFU
• Then there was the road trip down to Birmingham with the roommies
• Then the best birthday party ever with the best gift ever (scrapbook full of notes and cards from friends... Words of affirmation are my primo love language) Thanks everyone, especially Rach, Dilys and Becks!) [see the photo on the right on the bottom -- my favourite shot from the whole evening!]
• Then getting high on checking things off my to-do-list by making a mad dash to finish a whole bunch of projects, including work related and self-inflicted creative projects before leaving for a week in...
  
• Atlanta -- my first time in the deep South. Learned all kinds of helpful tricks from our ministry partners who run the Church Planting Leadership Assessment there. Bonus: learned some interesting lessons about myself in the process. Briefly toured the world headquarters for Coca Cola.
• Back for 5 days in Vancouver, again running around getting high on checking things off my to-do-list, mostly in preparation for...
• New York City! John, Mary and I are headed out there to help train and encourage Redeemer Church in prayer. The conference is over in a jiffy (7 hours in 2 days), then Mary and I are trolling the city for 5 days. Good thing we have similar interests! Looking forward seeing God alive and working in a different context...

Phew -- I'm tired! I am quite looking forward to settling down for the rest of the summer to enjoy all that Vancouver has to offer. I do have to make up for kayaking time lost last summer!
But for now, off to pack for the Big Apple...

weekend whirlwind: roommate road trip

Great roommate road trip this weekend! Thanks to Dilys clicking into "Yes, I'm a tourist and I'm going to take a ton of photos because that's what tourists do!" mode, I also snapped a few pics. Here goes...

First, there was the necessary task of killing time in the car at the border crossing. When our turn was up, the American border guard apologized that we'd been randomly selected for a car check. Funny to encounter an apologizing American -- it's usually Canadians who are the ones who are constantly saying "sorry." Funnier still was when he asked us what kind of music we were going to see live in concert. Dilys simply turned up the volume in response so he could hear for himself!

Then we grabbed some lunch at the main mall in Bellingham. Dilys and Becki had Taco Time, (since we don't get as much Mexican food up in Vancouver), while I had a sandwich from Subway (uninventive I know, but I couldn't bear the greasy feeling of those temptingly yummy mexi fries). Took some goofy photos in a photo booth (will scan shots in later).

Did a bit of shopping at Ross (like Winners, but cheaper). That was a bit chaotic. What a mess. Not worth photo documenting. Got into a short and slightly amusing conversation with the Filipino family behind us who had a garden-sized dwarf from Snow White. It made Rebecca want to get a "garden gnome" for the patio.

And whaddaya know, it's dinner time before we realize it -- time for more Mexican food! We found this great little restaurant. It was a gorgeous old building, with vintage decor, funky atmosphere and service. Tasty home made salsa (token food shot in honour of my shutter-bug sister). I thought it was great that Becki basically had Jack Daniels ice cream with checkerboard shortbread cookies for dinner (with a side salad).

After dinner we had to kill some time before the doors opened for the show we came to see in the first place. Bellingham is quite the quaint little town. I totally loved (and was impressed!) how there was children's art displayed in windows of all kinds of businesses that we walked by (complete with artist's descriptions of their works), even in the window of a billiards club! The artwork really went a long way in bringing colour, cheer and life to the town's streets.

We closed the night out taking in the beautiful melodies of Over the Rhine (I found their piano arrangements were especially simply fabulous and moving). Their tunes are generally more reflective and sauntering in tempo, but they played a couple of new tunes that were a bit more upbeat and "optimistic" (in their choice of words) and quite fun. The only thing was one small observation that struck me a bit strange. I've never been to a show where people were sitting on the floor watching quietly like the folks who were there. I was standing up swaying to the music, trying to let it get in my bones a bit. I would've gotten into it more, but it seemed out of place with everyone else so mellow.

On the way home we radio-surfed and car-danced at times to "lively" music to help with Becki's driving concentration. Somehow that same choice of loud music just didn't seem to be appropriate when we stumbled into the car on Sunday morning to drive to church with the car radio still on from last night...

All in all it was a fun night but man I paid for it on Sunday. I'm so ready for bed. G'dnight!

bit by the travel bug

I've never been one of those people who needed to do the backpack-across-Europe thing. I've always wanted to drive across Canada and see my own land first as it is vast, varied and beautiful.

But my trip to Vietnam last summer made me want to travel and experience cultures that are different than mine (though I am not Vietnamese, I could relate to the cultural values a lot being raised to think more Chinese than I may realize most days). The Territories of Canada and Africa were first to come to mind as places that I want to experience that are quite different than what I know.

Today I saw The Constant Gardener. There were many excellent elements of the film, but the cinematography was simply breathtaking and gorgeous. Despite the seriousness and despair of the film's depiction of Africa, it still reminded me of my desire to visit this part of the world. I've always thought it to be a beautiful, colourful and lively people, culture and land. And my favourite animal (the giraffe) resides there!

I'm thankful that my job periodically provides opportunities to travel. May will bring a week in Atlanta, and I just received news today that I will be able to go to New York to help with a conference for work in June... I am excited and grateful for the opportunity as I loved the first taste I enjoyed of it back in 2003. I am a light packer and didn't spare any room for extra shoes so I was trekking around town in my open-heeled shoes (clogs) during the blizzard of the century that happened to coincide with our visit. But because of the blizzard, I was able to meet up with a friend whom I didn't even know was in town who had her work cancelled that day.

I think what I enjoy about travelling is that it gets me outside of myself, my usual routine, and my comfort zone to experience God and his creation in new ways. I've seen God tangibly involved in my travels, protecting me, directing my steps, filling my heart with awe and appreciation for the diversity of his creation of people, cultures and lands. In such a vast world to us, it blows my socks off that God cares for each person on this planet so tiny to him.