"Friends OFF"

Have you ever heard that phrase before? When and where?

Pity

Hello guys, so this is Sam blogging for Ashley. If you could all be so kind and give her your pity comments that would be great. She is a little down that no one is commenting on her blogs these days. So Please help me out I can only comment so many times!!

too clean to find anything...

It's not like I urgently need it, but I have looked high and low and my yellow fever card is nowhere to be found. Sam gave me my Hep A booster today (perk of having a best friend who is also an EMT) and I went to write it down right away. I was going to write it in with my yellow fever immunization record but I can't find it!

My room is SUPER clean due to my excess of energy yesterday, but the bright yellow piece of paper is nowhere to be found.

How I Got Sick

Sam got sick first. Then, one evening, she got herself into a coughing fit while she happened to be standing right in front of me. She was using her hoodie to cover up and I was watching her, mouth open wide in surprise at how nasty her cough sounded. She accidentally dropped her cover. My mouth was still open. Now I am sick.

I think I'm nearly better, though. My energy today is about triple what it was yesterday. Unfortunately it has been snowing for the better part of the day. I did, however, manage to go for a small hike with a few friends (proof below). Afterwards, I organized my room so thoroughly that I don't know how I'll ever find anything in there again.

Human Right #8: Your Human Rights are Protected by Law

Making human rights protected by law is a way for the UN to give itself the authority and responsibility to intervene when rights are being violated. It also sets a standard for the governments of countries who are UN members. There are a lot of violations to the UDHR across the globe; the deal is that governments have to be working towards compliance, often by the urging of activists and organizations aimed at defending human rights.

The Game

On the major Canadian holidays (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas), Sam's family has a big dinner and, after dinner, they always play what is referred to as "The Game." It's basically a white elephant sort of deal where everyone buys a small gift, everyone gets a number, then everyone opens a gift. Stealing is involved and it's pretty fun.

I'm pretty much always there for the game, unless it's Christmas, which I go back to Washington for. My strategy is to just buy something I like, then I can steal it for myself when the time comes. I put some Divine Chocolate in the game, which is the best in the world (this is fact, not opinion). Tootz (Sam's aunt) opened it and I was glad because if I couldn't get it, I would want her to have it. So, I didn't steal it, and there wasn't really much else to steal at that point. I opened a present.

It was two jars of PICKLES! "Oh no," I thought, "nobody's going to steal these pickles from me and I'm gonna have to keep them." Then, Sam's grandma opened an iTunes card, which got stolen from her pretty quickly. Then my luck changed. Sam's grandma STOLE THE PICKLES! Apparently she liked the lifting device that one of the jars had in it (so you don't have to stick your fingers in the jar).

After a series of steals and strategies, I got my chocolate back! And Sam got the iTunes card, so we can go find some new music. Success.

Big Blue Bins

The city of Calgary is finally offering a functional recycling service. We got our blue bin yesterday and boy was I excited. We can finally recycle our plastics. The drop of recycling locations in Calgary have no bins for plastics unless they are milk containers.

BUT... please don't forget that reduce and reuse come BEFORE recycle. Recycling your plastics in Calgary is not the greenest thing you can do. When plastics are recycled, they are more or less put on big crates and shipped all the way to China to be made into who knows what. (All of those cheap little MADE IN CHINA toys, perhaps?)

However, for the sake of being optimistic, I will stick with saying that it has been exciting to see the streets lined with blue bins soon to be filled with things that would otherwise have gone to the dump.

Proverbs 12:18

Isn't being human so frustrating sometimes? Sometimes I just can't stop myself from saying things that are unnecessarily argumentative. Even when I know that my reckless words are piercing like a sword, they just come out of my mouth. Easily. Using the tongue to bring healing is so much more difficult. Sorry is such a hard word to mutter sometimes!

I love my buddy Sam so much, but there are times when we just don't get along. I often have to apologize for being grumpy and taking it out on her. Though arguments escape my lips so quickly, my apologies require an uncomfortable dose of humility.

Every time I apologize, I sit there and wonder if it's possible to be free from this pattern. Or does the real freedom lie in the grace of God concerning such things?

(I'm not talking about chicken legs here.)

I saw the BEST thing ever while I was driving to the theatre to see 17 Again (Yes, Sam and I did see 17 Again on its opening day: April 17. Yes, we are lame. But I will not be talking about that because I'm sure that, if you read this blog, you already know all about how lame we are).

The lady in the car next to us was DRUMMING. She was not a passenger in the car, she was the DRIVER. And there was nobody in the car with her. It was so weird. She'd just be driving along, then she'd pull out her drumsticks and go crazy on her steering wheel, dashboard, passenger seat, etc. She was also doing twirly drumstick tricks and had a 70s haircut, a bit like Farrah Fawcett has over there on the left.

We drove near her (on purpose) for almost the whole drive up Macleod Trail. She actually looked really cool, like she knew what she was doing (but maybe she just plays a lot of Rock Band?). You should have seen her get into it when we got stopped at a red light for a couple of minutes.

Anyways, the movie was pretty funny but the lady in the car totally made my night. I feel like she needs a better name than "lady" because she was so cool. What do you call a cool lady?

Just wanted to...

...say Happy Easter so that I can post this picture that I found.

Done like dinner!

I sort of skipped dinner tonight, so maybe that simile is not appropriate.

But I am done with my class and I think I did pretty well. The readings were mostly enjoyable and the class discussions were... tolerable. By the way, if you can get your hands on Brother to a Dragonfly by Will Campbell, it's a really good read. It's an autobiography by a Baptist preacher in the South during the black civil rights movement.

OK, so I'm not completely done. I have one more class left. But I have handed in all of my work. So, yeah, I'm done. All I have left to do is show up next Tuesday and appear to be engaged in the discussion for 3 hours ("participation"). Then I'm done done.

Look who ELSE I found in Calgary!

That is a buddy who I like to call Miriam Oasis Vandenberg! Unfortunately, Sam missed out on our escapades due to her being on practicum, but we had some fun anyways.

Anyone else coming to visit me and/or Sam? Perhaps you'd even like to move here? Great, see you soon.