Summary, or Novel?

So, as you may have noticed, I haven't exactly written anything for several days, and that would be because I've been madly studying in an attempt to at least pass my Politics midterm. No results yet, but at least it's over with. While I haven't been writing anything, quite a bit has been happening, and so I thought I'd take this moment, or more likely an hour, while my room mate is still sleeping, to write some of it out for you! And maaaaybe I'll post some pictures too.

October 17

Amber and I, both thinking we were finally recovered enough to at least walk, decided to meet up along the canal. We ended up walking through a bunch of streets, and taking a million pictures. We found a sketchy looking park, where we sat on the swings for a while, and went down the slide, and then we went to Second Cup to have some hot chocolate (I had white hot chocolate with whipped cream and vanilla powder on top) because we were pretty cold. After tons of laughter, being invited in to some 40 year old's place for drinks (of course, an invitation, and capturing sufficient evidence of our insanity, we decided to say goodnight and go our separate ways home. When I got back to rez it was full of parties, and I felt pretty convicted about the way I've been living life here. There's a lot of temptation to do things that I know aren't who I am, there's a lot of sin, and sometimes it's a really hard place to be a Christian! It really made me feel how precious God's presence in my life is, and how glad I am that I know who I am in him - and in His strength I can make it through the challenges that come my way.

October 18

I definitely didn't accomplish as much as I was hoping to accomplish on the 18th. Grocery shopping, tidying my room, and some other errands which I dont completely remember. Pastor Gordon phoned to say hi, as he was in town visiting his mom. It was nice to talk to him, but after hanging up the phone I was filled with a new wave of homesickness. I guess just the thought that someone from home is somewhere in this city set me off, and I really wanted to be able to see and hear and hug all of my family and friends. Speaking of sin and rez, the treat that Taylor and Veronica and I had to cheer ourselves up at the end of the day ranks pretty high up there. Chips-ahoy cookies, with a thick layer of Nutella (which I'm now obsessed with), and then a thick layer of canned whipping cream, and then some reeces pieces. Definitly more than my daily amount of calories in one serving, but considering how fake all of it was, it was sooooo good!

Oh yeah, sometime over Friday/Saturday nights I booked my flights home for Christmas! My last exam is on the 22nd, and I take the first possible flight out of Ottawa after the exam!

October 19

The deadly desert party on Friday night went a little late, considering my plan to wake up at 8:30 and take the bus to Grace Presbyterian in Orleans for church. I managed to get up, get ready, and run to the bus stop. On the way there I realized that I did not bring the directions that I'd written out a few days before, did not have change or tickets for the bus (it doesn't take bills, so I couldn't have even payed extra) and had left a few minutes late to catch the bus I needed. I remembered that on the directions I'd written out I would arrive at church 5 minutes early, but that certainly didn't give me enough extra time to miss a bus that runs every 30 minutes. I also remembered that although I'd been planning to phone Lianne and let her know I was coming, I'd forgotten. But, I was determined to at least get there and find the church. I asked 5 people and finally found someone with change for my 5, caught the next 95 bus to Orleans, got off and remembered I could either take the 120 or the 135 to get to the stop I needed, got on the 120 and told the bus driver where I needed to go - not only did I press the button at the right time, but just incase he also reminded me. Thats' the third time I've asked a bus driver for assistance in Orleans, and the first time he's given it to me correctly! I got off the bus, walked up the road, found the church, and went inside just in time to meet Lianne and Lane who were waiting to head into the sanctuary. On top of all of my errors getting there, I ended up being just 10 minutes late. Even though it's a bit of a commute, I think I might continue going to Grace, I felt really at home in there, even though it was my first time going! I had chili for lunch at the Johnston's place, and then came home despite their invitation to stay for dinner, as I needed to get some work done.

I ended up getting my laundry done, at least. But not much studying.

October 20

I woke up in the morning and decided to do my Bible study before class. Taylor was out, so I listened to some Christian music, and spend quite a bit of time in prayer, and then read my bible. I finished just in time to brush my teeth and walk with Becca to our Politics class (doom, destruction, and demise, as I not so fondly call it) After class I studied for several hours. When Veronica's room mate came by at 5:30 saying that she had two tickets to the Metric concert that night that she couldn't use, and if we couldn't take them, Veronica might have to go alone. My studying ended, and the mad rush to get ready began. I know that I should have been studying, but I had reached the point where I wasn't absorbing anything, I was just getting more and more frustrated. At 6:30 the three of us were ready to go, the only problem was that the tickets said the doors opened at 7:00, so we thought we were late. Of course I was wearing heels, and Taylor/Veronica were scared that we weren't going to get there. So we walked quickly to the mall, through the mall, ran down the esculator, and then outside, where we saw the bus approaching the stop on the other side of the street a block away. Veronica bolts off, and Taylor follows her - but I had the tickets, and didn't know which bus to take, so I had to follow too. Running down an uneven side walk in heels, and across the road to a bus was not exactly my dream form of transportation! I made it, without any face plants or broken ankles. It wasn't until after we had been on the bus for 5 minutes that Veronica suddenly exclaimed how bad of an idea it had been. But we were on the bus, and we were on our way to the concert - my first, actually, since Fedstock wasn't really a concert, and we didn't stay for the whole time.

It was SO good! To make the day even better, I checked the mailbox when we got back and had a giant parcel of homemade cookies! The group of us sat down having cookies and ice water, and playing with my spanish magnetic poetry. Here's my favourite sentence that we made:

La Galleta vive en la leche.

The cookie lives in the milk!

October 21-23

(In point form, since not that much happened, and I dont remember the order of any of it!)

- By fluke, I wrote about my family for my first spanish assignment. Turns out that we actually HAD to write about our family, but somehow I'd missed reading that line of directions. Finally a mark in University I was proud of, 100% Unfortunately, it doesn't count for much, maybe 5%.

- I had a little crash during English. I answered a question incorrectly, and then got a mark back that was lower than I'd expected for last week's quiz. I ended up crying for an hour. Not so much because of the low mark and wrong answer, but because I've been trying my best here, and never in my life has my best really not been good enough for me.

- The politics exam was significantly easier than I had expected, which is good, because I went in thinking there was no way I could even pass it, and came out thinking there was a small chance that I passed....I guess I'll find out in a week or so.

- Strange things kept happening, for instance, Taylor and I were talking about using our keyboards in French, while she was taking a break from typing up a lab report. Somehow, her keyboard put itself into french while we were talking about it, but her computer still thought it was in English, so we had a difficult time trying to put it back!

- I got my history midterm mark back. Have I written already that my history prof says "exams are a celebration of your knowledge?) . Maybe not so celebratory. My mark, which was a satisfactory mark for the new "must-get-used-to-low-grades-in-university" Jen, was still disappointing. (75)

That leads me to yesterday, and Lunch time, even though it is still very dark outside. I'm going to Angela's house today with the rest of my discipleship group from Campus for Christ - this time for a social. I'm looking forward to it, but since I have to leave in less than an hour, and I have lots of stories to tell from yesterday, the rest of this post will have to wait.