T'is the season to be jolly

... well maybe that person who wrote that wasn't having to write 3 major papers in just over a week, plus study for finals. But while yes, I am procrastinating at the moment while I write a quick little entry, I am trying to stay focussed on the present and get finished, because it will be such an awesome feeling when I am done. More than the 25th of December, I find I am looking forward with such enthusiasm to the 12th!! Not only is it "Adventure Day" as is the 12th of every month with Jason and myself, but it will be my first day free after my exams. My very first day of the holidays!! I am so excited, I even booked the day off to make sure I could take the day to have fun. There was some talk of a snow hike!! I have so many things I want to do this holiday break:
- snow hike
- snow biking!! Last year we went to the woodlot, up to Goldmine... It was sooo awesome!
- Christmas train in Stanley Park
- Ice Skating on Grouse Mountain
- Go visit Santa (haha, that was Jason's idea, I just think it's awesome!)
- play in the snow (they are actually calling for snow tonight!! whether or not it will happen is yet to be seen... I bet it'll just rain...)
- go snowboarding
- visit with all my friends a lot, because we'll actually have time!!

There's probably more but that's what I can think of right now... Now that I'm filled with all sorts of wonderful thoughts for my break, I'm going to go do some homework!! :)

Hmmm

No time to write, but I've been going back and forth between blogger and livejournal... so if you're wondering if I've updated go here:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mandabear11

cool bye!

And so begins Christmas 2004...

Well I decided last month (after Jocelyn kept bugging me that HER holiday - halloween - hadn't even happened) that November 1st would mark the start of the Christmas season for me. I love Christmas so much, and honestly, I don't understand how so many people can and have said to me that it's much too early and basically respond in a negative way. Now, I don't expect everyone to just pick up and begin Christmas with me, not at all. Most normal people start the "Christmas Season" in December, or at least closer than now, and that's totally fine (and normal... kinda unlike myself anyways.) But a lot of these people seem to be so focused on what Christmas is today. The media seems to equate Christmas with money - people spending it, and retail companies making it. Heck, they don't even call it Christmas anymore. Seriously, look around, NO WHERE will you find signs saying "Merry Christmas". It's all politically correct, "Happy Holidays". They seem to profit out of the holiday that started out as a memorial to the birth of Jesus. No frills, no gimmicks, just Jesus. Now I realize not everyone believes in that, but I do. And even still, if I didn't believe that, Christmas is much much more than spending money, buying gifts, getting gifts, etc. It's about family and loved ones and the joy that people can feel over the holidays. I'm so excited for this joy that I am already feeling, and I hope that more of you (if anyone reads this) will feel that joy and excitement for what it really is. I realize that "The real meaning of Christmas" as a phrase is a huge cliche, but maybe it's because so many people haven't realized it, despite all the talk of it.

Anyways, I guess that's enough of my rant, however, I think I've changed my mind about my English essay that I was doing .... We are supposed to do a position paper, to learn how to "argue" in essays. I was going to do a paper on mountain biking and how it should be permitted on all trails in the North Shore, because lots of people are against it. But I think I'm going to look into doing it on the holiday season...

Oh! I got my geography midterm back annnndd................. (drum roll please.....).... I got 99%. A+!!! And my map quiz that sorta went with it, I got 100%. I was sooo happy. Crazy happy. It was awesome. I celebrated by buying myself a mocha.

And with that, I'm going to go work on my essay. Merry Christmas! :D

Sigh

Well I must first start off by thanking Gayle for the wicked reference, because I am now an employee of Cineplex Odeon. I haven't started yet, it doesn't open until halfway through November sometime, but at least it's a job. And it seems like it would be a fun job! I hope I get free movies, that would be sooo sweet!
In other news (I sound like a news anchor) I found out the other day that I am officially going to Boston for New Year's. I'm super excited to see my family again, my Uncle Gary is getting married to ... well my new soon-to-be aunt Nancy. She's very nice, I met her in Nova Scotia. They both wanted me there a lot, and since I am going to school and can't afford to go, they are basically paying for one whole ticket, so me and my sister only really have to pay half the price... I don't know how to thank them, they are absolutely amazing people. I'm so excited to get to see my Pere-Pere again, and my cousins from Tennessee. I can't believe it won't have even been a year since I last saw them, that NEVER happens in my family. The only bad part about the trip is that I won't get my midnight kiss from Jason :( But I am going to call him at midnight in Boston which is only 9:00 here. Perhaps I'll even stay awake the extra 3 hours and call him then instead... depends on what I'm doing, and what he's doing too I guess.
Anyways, I should stop procrastinating and get to work on my homework, cuz I have to pick up Jocelyn from work pretty soon.

DooDooDeeDoo

Well I coulda slept in today, my first class was cancelled. So with my new extra time I made myself some breakfast and watched some Clean Sweep on TLC. A Wedding Story is on in about 10 mins, it's my favourite. I think I'll watch that and leave for my second class right after, so that I can stop somewhere on my way and pick up a present for Dianne, Jason's mom. It's her birthday today. I coloured my hair yesterday, it's beautiful. :) Well, it's a heck of a lot better than the red I had anyways. I never liked the red, I just couldn't die it again right away or it would be crispy... Now it's a nice dark dark brown. Good for wintertime. Speaking of wintertime, I am super excited for Christmas! I have been listening to christmas songs, and last week I watched "One Magic Christmas"... Yes, I realize it's very early.... I've been told... :) But I love Christmas and want it to hurry up and get here! I get to house-sit over the holidays which is super awesome! from Dec. 20th to Jan 4th or so. It's gonna be wicked. I love her big slobber dog, it's a bull mastif. And she has a kitty that's cute too!! yayy! Anyways, I'm gonna go watch the wedding story show... this blog had no point to it other than to kill time.... :)

Mondays aren't fun

Well not only was today a Monday, it was an extremely busy Monday. I had to be at school for 8:30 for my geography midterm. That's not any earlier than normal, just stressful because of the exam. It was brutal, the teacher doesn't "believe" in multiple choice so there were like 75 short answer and essay questions. Blech!!! I hope I did ok... Then I had a geography lab which was fine, just boring like normal... then after killing some time I decided to go to my car and head to Mission for my next class. Yeah. Well. I had been a complete idiot and while being all flustered about my exam when I got to school, I forgot to turn my lights off. Soooo, the battery had died, and I wasn't going anywhere. I think I sat there for about half an hour, asking every single person that went by if they had jumper cables. FINALLY, someone did. I don't know for sure, but I think some people just didn't want to help. But maybe that's just me being weird. People do that sometimes though. Anyways, I made it to Mission for my 3 hour history class.. and when that was done, I had to drive all the way back to Abbotsford for my ECE interview. (too much driving today!) My interview went ok I think... it was 3 of us in the same room, being interviewed by 2 professors in the program. All of us at the same time!! it was weird! Oh well, I hope I get in!!! I also hope I get a job at Cineplex. I stood in line forever on saturday, in the freezing cold to get a job... now it's Monday and they said they'd call after the weekend... hopefully they call... I don't know what I'll do if I don't get it. UGHHHH too much stress I need to go sleep!!!!

Surprise Adventure Day

First off I should say that the 12th of every month (well, not every, but some) is called Adventure Day. When Jason and I started going out we celebrated our "3month" and "7month" and all the insignificant ones like that, but instead of calling them "monthiversaries" or something, we called it Adventure Day because most of the things we ended up doing were adventures. So anyways, Jason and I had decided a few weeks ago that we would celebrate a year and a half together on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because well, thanksgiving is too busy, and our actual "day" is Tuesday, when we both have school. So he had something planned for a while and said we'd do that. It was all a surprise. He picked me up at 11 this morning and we drove towards Vancouver. I had thought it was going to be the Planetarium, which woulda been neat, but he kinda tricked me and instead we went to Science World!! (much preferred over the planetarium, although i've never been to that one, I should go someday) I was soooo excited!! We had a ton of fun running around learning science things. I swear that place gets more and more fun as I get older. Went to the Omnimax show, which was "Forces of Nature". How appropriate is THAT!? So awesome, just so happens to be one of my big interests! It was a good show, it talked about the Montserrat Volcano, and the predicted big huge earthquake in Turkey, and one of my ultimate favourites, tornadoes. Haha I'm such a weirdo. Anyways, afterwards Jazoon took me out to dinner at this new place in Coquitlam Centre called Montana's. It was soooo great!! They have paper down on the tables that you can draw on! And their ribs were tasty-good! mmm... So great. All in all it was a great Adventure Day.

Bike rides are great stress relievers

Well the other day I went on a 16km bike ride at Gold Creek in Alouette. It was a beautiful day and the trails were absolutely perfect. The climb wasn't too frustrating, and the scenery, with the autumn leaves changing colour and falling combined with the evergreens was gorgeous. I could've gone for much longer but it was starting to get late and I needed to get back to go to church that night. (This was Saturday) I found that it really took my mind off school for a bit. I wish that could've happened more... Last night I was up until about quarter to 2 in the morning working on an essay. pretty crappy, but at least I got everything finished. I guess it's all part of being a student... So tonight I celebrated by not doing any homework at all and watching the Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow is crazy homework day so I decided I needed (and deserved) the break. I also found out that I got a B+ on my group presentation for English 170 last week. It's worth 15% of my overall mark, so I'm pretty happy about it... hopefully my essay does well, because that one's 20%... I really want to do well... This whole ECE thing is excellent motivation!! Hooray for direction!!

A New Direction

Well, yesterday I wrote an amazingly long blog only to have my computer completely crash as I was trying to publish it. I was too frustrated to even try to start over so I decided to leave it until today.
A couple days ago I was stressing big time. Maybe I was just being over-emotional due to certain girly stupid stuff, but I was completely freaking out. Money and school were what were occupying my mind... or rather the lack of money and the amount of school ahead of me. It's just been a month and I was already panicked about how the heck I was supposed to pay for 5.5 or more years of school, and I really don't want to be stressed for that long. So I decided to look up information on 2 year programs I might be interested in. Then I found something that I had seen a lot of but never actually considered. And the more I thought about it, the more it worked for me. Early Childhood Education! There are a ton of different directions I can go afterwards, but initially I will get my certificate that will allow me to teach preschool. It was absolute perfect timing, as the program starts in January, and only takes 3 semesters! So that means I will graduate (with the cool ceremonies and everything! even the hat!!) in April 2006!!! That's not long at all, and it all just makes sense. I can see myself doing this much more than the other stuff... Also, if I want to upgrade and get a diploma, it will just take 6 more classes - 3 core courses, and 3 in one of 2 specialties: Special Needs or Infancy. I think I would opt for the Special Needs one, as that would allow me to be a teacher assistant at public schools. The best thing about all of this is that I can get into the career right away, and work my way through school at night if I wanted to. Eventually, I can also take the Child and Youth Care program, and with all of these together I could get a bachelors in Child and Youth Care. I am a lot more relieved now, this makes a lot of sense. And a nice bonus factor is that Jason will grad at the same time as me! It all just works out well...

In my lost-blog I wrote also about the wedding this weekend. It was absolutely beautiful! Tara looked gorgeous... I couldn't look at Scott during the ceremony, he was teary, and that was making me cry! And Jason looked... tall. Haha, well pretty much everyone was around the same height, and then there was my boy, towering well above everyone. But he looked amazing too, which was torture! I couldn't hang out with him, he was running around with the wedding party doing wedding stuff. But that's ok, I was busy decorating and dealing with the guestbook. All in all it was a great wedding, and I am super happy for Tara and Scott, they are a great couple.

My last blog was a lot better, but this will have to do... So now I have to go memorize a script for church, which I really should've had memorized earlier. :S

A Beautiful Day!

I love the sunshine, and how it just makes me feel so happy... It's not very good though when you have a lot of school work to do... But I just checked the forecast, and it is supposed to stay sunny and nice all weekend, so the sooner I get this stuff done, the more time out in the sun I'll have later. It's even supposed to be nice on sunday for the wedding, how perfect! Biking tomorrow will be awesome, hopefully it's not too slick in the forest. Later today I have a job interview to go to!!! Hooray!! It's all the way out in Abbotsford though, so hopefully it's not on days that I'm not at schoool, because that would be a long way to go all the time... We'll see... wish me luck!