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Life is crazy, but so amazing.

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This week's 937 challenge is to fast. Watched this there last night (and I finally figured out how to post a video instead of a link):

Some other really awesome news: I'm going to Honduras! They got approved to send two teams so I have no idea who I'll be with or where I'll be going, or really anything at all, but I am so incredibly excited for it!

Listening to: When I'm Up - Great Big Sea

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Back in Ed. Missed the choir concert (the only reason I flew in this morning instead of tonight) but it was an excellent day anyway. Watched mens' volleyball take the bronze in an exciting comeback, saw my aunt, uncle, and cousin, taught Andrew to play crib, watched a bit of the Lovely Bones, and spent all evening hanging out with Allison, playing two person euchre, and talking about everything. It's REALLY hard to focus on what you're saying, and to put together coherent sentences, when you are exhausted. Roommates who understand you anyway are the best.

It makes me sad that I haven't seen a relaxed smile from this friend in months. It makes me sadder that she hasn't smiled at me in weeks. And yet her smiling face is all over my wall.

Listening to: The Great Collapse - The Zolas (thanks Abby ;)

175

Last weekend, I spent 36 hours on the bus in four days. My week began exhaustingly.

But it's been amazing. Except for feeling completely awful this morning, and acquiring a cold along the way, I've had a blast hanging out with my siblings, babysitting my nephew, and seeing a few friends. I got no homework done.

I'm really excited for the next few years at King's, and I'm happy to really know what I'm heading towards for the first time in my life...but it's so hard to leave here, every time. I love BC, and I mostly love the Lower Mainland. And it's wonderful to be at school and hang out with my friends and see new people every day and do all the great things you do in university, but I still miss being home and seeing my family every day. Here's to two more months before Easter/summer (only 8 weeks???)

Listening to: Kaleidoscope Heart - Sara Bareilles

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Things learned in conversation with Paul and Wendell:

1) more books are more awesome than I realized

2) the brains of people who are blind from birth actually re-designate the function of the sections that deal with optical input (because they never receive any input). cause I wondered why somebody blind from birth would say they see nothing while somebody who becomes blind sees darkness.

3) brains are incredible

4) computers are also incredible

5) computers also have the potential to take over the world one day. It's not just a crazy sci-fi theory, something that could happen but in like a million years - the theory is that once computers reach the intelligence level of humans, they can function (and replicate) without human control/assistance. This of course stemmed from a discussion of the level of consciousness of a computer, which came about because of Watson the jeopardy computer - is it conscious??? What defines consciousness?

5) apparently there's a thought that eventually people will be able to hook up their brains to computers and essentially have access to everything in that computer's database and function as a computer. Paul, the psyc major/taking the Brain and Behaviour class confirmed that this is a real theory so it's not just the computer nuts living in their apartment who think so.

I love my friends.

I'm scared of computers.

Listening to: Hey Ocean!

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I emailed Starbucks yesterday about their fair trade policies (and the fact that most of their Shared Planet information hasn't been updated for five years...some is a decade old). Crazy.

Loralee told me today that she found fair trade rice at this place on Whyte Avenue. Apparently she goes there all the time because they have a lot of fair trade and organic stuff, as well as a lot of local stuff. Loralee loves them because they really practice what they preach - apparently they used to be further down the street, up on top of a bar or something, super small, and they moved to a new place last year and to get everything there they used bicycles. Isn't that crazy? They had the help of some of their regulars and other people who support them and put everything in wagons that they pulled behind their bikes. I want to support businesses like that.

Listening to: Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford and Sons

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Today in church, Naomi Mahaffy gave a presentation on her experience in Cambodia (it was really good). Last week in Bible study, Loralee told us that the rice industry is big for child labor. She said how everybody is concerned with fair trade coffee and fair trade tea...but who thinks about fair trade rice? Now I'm reading in my theo of mission book (The Open Secret - Lesslie Newbigen) about the rich exploiting the poor. I can't believe how riled up I am about this. I want to go work abroad SO incredibly badly. I'm going to look into internships in Honduras for next year or the year after. I am fully aware that I can do very little for these people by myself, and the money that I spend travelling there could be more economically used by the people, but I want to learn more about them and learn about their situation and get to know them. Now if only I could speak Spanish.

Something that is a huge conflict of interest for me: last night Allison's friend had a birthday so we went to the bar and hung out with her work friends all night. I had the most fun I've had in a bar in a while, but what bothers me is the excessive waste and regret in a bar. The amount of drinking, for a start. I'm guilty here - I don't need to drink, but I still do. But Allison said yesterday, "I wonder what the average amount of alcohol consumed on Whyte Ave on the typical Saturday night?" And it's got to be SO high. Take me, Heather, Becky, and Allison. Four girls who drink a below average amount. Multiply that by the tons and tons of people on Whyte on Saturday, plus a bunch of extra for that majority that drinks a lot more than us. Then the regret comes in: people do DUMB things when drunk. We also walked past a significant number of cops, some of whom were just chilling out and maintaining a presence, others of whom were dealing with dangerous/troublesome drunks. What could possibly justify the amount of chaos inspired on Saturday nights that they need to having extra cops patrolling the street? I could go on and on about this, but I need to go to bed.

Last but not least, today was probably the most excellent afternoon I have had for quite a while. All the VanAndel children were in town this weekend for a wedding so I met 2 cousins I never knew (from Ontario), got to hang out with/reacquaint myself with another from Cloverdale, and spend a last afternoon with another who just moved to Cloverdale. And see Julie and the kids. Have some lunch, a glass of wine to celebrate the gathering of "all the VanAndel (and a Heinen)," and talk about shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. It's pretty funny (and weird) when your roommate introduces her dad to you, saying, "Dad, this is your cousin Allison."

Listening to: This City's A Mess - Said the Whale