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January 25, 2007

My head hurts...

So, I'm officially through my first week of French classes. Since the focus of the course is to learn "conversational" french, the teacher only speaks in French and we are not really allowed to speak any English either. And I know it's the best way to do it, but two hours straight of constant translating in my head leaves my brain a little fried. I am encouraged though as I am able to understand most everything...or at least the general idea of what she's saying. I figure it can only get better from here right?

I'm also doing some independant studying on the side...just for my own knowledge. David has dug out some of his favourite articles and studies, etc from his BA for me to read and write little summaries on. I just finished reading one yesterday on the outbreak of World War I...how and why it happened.
It was very interesting but frustrating too as I realized that so many people died for the pride and/or disillusionment of a few men and their main advisors. So much of it doesn't make sense to my standards. It seems like leaders then believed almost that there was no choice but to go to war...the wheels had been set in motion and it was inevitable...however I believe it was just one miscommunication after another. I wonder if things would have been different if there had been telephones and they could at least hear eachother's voice...as it is impossible to hear the intended tone in a telegram.
It's hard to believe that it's almost been 100 years.

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Posted by Maureen at 1:28 AM

January 16, 2007

Back into the swing...

Well, as usual, our Christmas break went super fast, but we had a really great time with both families. After we got back, it was really busy right away cause we were moving into our new place. David had the first week off so he spent alot of time painting and setting up, and I helped too between shifts. Unfortunately, I was a bit useless in the moving department. as my rib is still pretty sore. Danny and Kerri were very hospitable in letting us crash at their place a few more days until we had the curtains up in our place.
Now we've been sleeping there for four nights now and it's great. We absolutely love how it turned out. I actually have a decent sized kitchen for the first time in our married life, complete with an island. I'm very excited about cooking in there. We will post pictures of it once we have it all finished. We still have some pictures and paintings to hang as well as a few other finishing touches.

Speaking of pictures, we have now posted the photos from our Christmas holidays so make sure to check those out.

We watched the season premiere of 24, season 6 last night...2 hours jammed pack full of stress. I don't know why I do it to myself...or encourage David in his desire to be Jack Bauer...but nonetheless, we're hooked:o)

I've started one of my courses now. I have French on Monday and Wednesday mornings and Cross Cultural Development on Fridays mornings. I haven't started French yet but I've one of the CCM classes and it seems really awesome. I'm really excited about it...so far I'm the only Canadian in the class so it makes for very interesting discussion and input.

David is back at work today and it is our first day of real snow this winter. Maybe we'll get to use our snowboards yet. The snow plows haven't been able to keep up at all so the sidewalks are covered in about 6-8 inches of snow. I'm not complaining though, I have been waiting for this!

Posted by Maureen at 3:55 AM

January 4, 2007

Northern thoughts...

a few things I've noticed up here.

There is a lot of money in oil. A lot. Like...it's silly. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

The sun sure doesn't spend much time in the sky here. It starts to rise above the horizon just after 9am and it isn't fully "light" until 10...then it is setting before 4pm for a grand total of just over 7 hours of daylight (according to Environment Canada). Throughout the day the sun seems to hang in the southern sky not more than 30 degrees or so above the horizon...

Mo went snowboarding yesterday and ended up in the hospital briefly due to torn cartiledge in her ribs. She's been sick for a while and a week or so of violent coughing caused some damage there. I woke up this morning with a sore throat of my own so I'm not looking forward to what is most likely coming.

...anyway - how 'bout that Canadian hockey team? Nothing quite like beating the US in the 7th round of a shootout to brighten one's day.

Posted by David at 11:34 PM

January 2, 2007

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Season's greetings to all. We just arrived in Clayhurst (northern BC) last night to spend a few days with Maureen's family after having spent Christmas with my family in Caronport, Saskatchewan.

We flew out of Montreal Dec 24th to Saskatchewan - by the time we drove the extra hour from the airport to my parent's place we had 1/2 hour to chow down on supper before my whole family led the music portion of the Christmas Eve service at my parent's church.

It was the first time my family had all been together since my brother Jeremy's wedding almost 20 months ago so it was just great to hang out again. Jeremy and his wife Erin were around for a couple days, Stephen and his wife Melissa were able to stay a little longer, and Mo and I were able to spend a couple days with my sister Julia and my parents at the end before our week was up. We spent a lot of time playing card and board games, spent an afternoon skating/playing pond hockey, napped, read books, and took turns beating each other in Mario Kart (I got an ancient Nintendo 64 for Christmas off of ebay).

We've got a bunch of great pictures but I think I'll hold out for a few days before posting them so that I can post some pics from up here with Mo's family as well.

Posted by David at 1:45 AM