Getting excited...

You know when you start formulating plans in your head, and start working towards making things happen and you feel a little angst about whether its all going to work out as well as you've planned it, if you can do it all, and if its going to be as good as you planned? Well I'm happy to report that most of the angst I've been feeling about Australia specifically, but also some other plans, are dissipating away. Sometimes, I don't know whether its because its cold in the house (and I stubbornly am wearing only short and a sweatshirt) or its something else, but when I start to get excited, I almost get the shivers, short of breath a little and goosebumps (the latter most definitely being from the cold). Australia is starting to get really close, as is 2009. I'm really looking forward to 2009 simply because 2008 was so great. I learnt a lot about myself, and a lot of good things happened, and naturally some bad things happened to which is sometimes a blessing in disguise as they allow us to more appreciate the little positives. So where to start really?
I can't wait to get down to Australia and be a tourist. Sometimes, we get self-conscious living around the area's we've been around for so long, and we're so comfortable in daily routine in one place that we're almost too shy to discover some adventure that completely surrounds us in every direction. Recently at home we've gotten rid of a t.v. in the whole house minus my mom's bedroom, and there's just that foreign strangeness of your parents that makes you not want to be there. But really, I couldn't have asked for anything better. I've been forced to just sit around and read, or get off my butt and head out for a run, or just think rather then sitting in front of a box that tells you what to think. Everyone, absolutely everyone, can benefit from a little bit less t.v. I think. Actually, probably most people being as some of you have figured this out much faster than I and therefore don't waste time in front of it in the first place. So, back to being a tourist. I got to spend less than 24 hrs in Montreal with my dad before the holidays, and I really wish I would've been able to spend more. I really do just want to walk around and look at the cool buildings. And not even in Montreal (a city I'd only been to one time before that) but I wanna do this in Toronto, in Halifax, in Oakville even. Learn what these buildings used to be (in Oakville, most of the buildings used to be farmland, but not some downtown!). And that's why I can't wait for Australia. To experience new things for the first time and have the audacity to say "hey, what is this?" and not feel a little ashamed because of it.

So back to having some free time finally after the busy school schedule, I've been able to read some books, and pick up on learning the violin again. Frustrating, I don't have any masking tape so I kinda had to stop for a bit until I find some, but it feels a lot better then watching a rerun episode of some drama on t.v. And best of all without the t.v. was I got off my butt and was swimming every day, on top of doing something else (running or biking at the Y). Now, as soon as I lost access to the car, this stopped because I can't get a way down there that doesn't require me biking in negative degree weather (and even I admit for me this is a pretty weak excuse) and I've also been instructed to take it easy because of an infection I picked up from who knows where (bacteria, not cold/flu viral).

So the angst is leaving finally, and I'm just feeling blessed about everything that's coming together right now, and although I know not everything can be perfect, I've learnt to really appreciate the things that are going right rather the focus on the things that aren't.

As a side note, I wanted to put up a couple of cool pictures, one being from the drive from Halifax to Ontario where I looked in my side mirror and saw a sight that I couldn't let pass me by. I only looked at it today on the computer because I didn't think the shot turned out as spectacularly as it did. (as you may have seen before, I am just realizing now my certain affinity for sunsets and sunrises, but man, you see some colours there that you'll never seen anywhere else)

-click on the photo and it gets even better

The other photo's are of this amazing cupcake that my friend's sister made, there were tons of them but when I took mine home I decided it needed a little photo shoot of its own before it was deliciously devoured.

Christmas Overload

Its nice to get a little bit of a break after all the hustle and bustle of Christmas. But only for a short while as I'm headed down to Rise Up, a conference put on by a Catholic program set on 8 or 9 universities across Canada. My expectations were really high for the conference, and now thats its nearly here are getting higher again, but I'm more anticipating the arrival of a book I ordered online, Theology for Beginners, to really understand some more of the religion and Church stuff. But enough about that, and more to what's happened in the past few weeks.

Exams went swimmingly, no real hang ups there. I've yet to check my grades in three of my classes, but I did very well on one exam so I'm expecting similar results for the other three, atleast some sort of level of accomplishment to be felt in surviving another year. This past semester was really busy with work and everything and I'm looking forward to my trip down to Australia and my next two months off school. And to help with Australia, for Christmas I got a digital camcorder to help share the experience with all the friends and family across the pond.

It was great to see family, and I really only grabbed pictures of the last of four family events on Boxing Day, so here`s the highlight for sure: His name is Duke, and he`s my uncle/cousin`s 10 week old German Shepherd:

As you can see, Duke is as cute as a button, and the best part about the night is that Duke really learned that when you bark at another dog (at one point, there were four dogs and eight people shoved into a room tinier then a standard motel room) they usually like to bark back. My dog was not impressed, but the two Golden Retrievers were loving it. I`ll add the rest of the pics of some awful looking people and a really cute guy eating pie just so you could get a feel for the whole night. Excuse Dave, he was a little fixated on Canada beating the snot out of Czech in the opening games of the World Jrs.

Training has been going great, I picked up a month membership at the Y for not cheap but not outrageous, and I`m definitely getting my full use out of that one, I`m in the pool virtually every day, if not on the treadmill or the bike. Stationary bikes suck though, you just get zero feel for even the pedals, although noone is denying the sweat it works up. I`m off to catch the newest Tom Cruise, Valkyrie, if anyone can play an American sounding German conspirator, he can. Enjoy the leftovers, because I`ll be having Turkey sandwiches til I head back to the east coast.

Good grief, good glory

Grief can be good sometimes, you know. Because once its gone, such a feeling of calm comes over you that you just feel right. That's what I've got going on right now. Not a care. Just enough time to relax and do all the things I'd like; pick up some creative Christmas gifts and start training, more and more and more. Hours beyond hours, and I couldn't be any happier. Its great to hear that so many people are doing well around the holiday season, and I only hope things continue going well. Even the Raptors have started to pick it up as of late, which is great. And Dwayne De Rosario has signed with TFC, so that's great too for this coming MLS season. It may not be much, but its the only football we have right now in our city and we can only hope they get more competitive with this move.
But lately, I've really started to enjoy the glory days, and I thought I'd push people on in the same direction;
-Music on in the background: Ray Charles, the original. Not Jamie Foxx singing like him. Ray could jam, you'll learn this quickly. And as always, my favourites, the Rat Pack - Frankie, Dean and Sammie. The tunes Michael Buble is making famous again, but sung with way more humour when you get some live tracks from the Sands in Vegas.
- TV: Mash and the Dukes of Hazard. These are how shows were meant to be made, and yes, although it happens 4 times/episode, I still get excited to see the ole General Lee take air like that.
- Movies: This year, for the first time I saw It's a Wonderful Life in full. Not cut by commercials and in the perfect setting of a classic one screen theatre. I would suggest this movie to absolutely everyone this season, something from these eras just make you think or say, they don't make movies like they used to.

Thank you Bob Rae

You may or may not have heard, and I wish I wasn't studying and had more time to dive into this, but Stephane Dion stated that he would step down, meaning that a new leader had the chance to be picked by the Liberal caucus as early as this week. Well, yesterday LeBlanc, third leading Lib leader hopefully, dropped out of the race and through his support behind my man, Michael Ignatieff. This morning I bought the Globe and Mail when I read that Dion agreed to step down (which is actually very honourable of him and I'm glad for him, he's a good sidelines guy that didn't deserve the negative press he was getting for the debauchery that was the most recent Liberal results for the elections) and I just read right now online, so it must be very recent being as it wasn't even plausible in the paper's headlines and wasn't on the CBC website earlier today, that the second most popular Liberal leader hopeful, Bob Rae, has also agreed to step aside for the sake of the party, I'm assuming (haven't even read through the article as procrastination is getting dangerously addictive), and now the Liberals have a new leader, Michael Grant Ignatieff. I read a bit of stuff on the guy already and I love what I've read so far, he's complex, a thinker, and not shy about certain opinions. 16 published novels, decades of teaching at Harvard, and international experience and unfortunately, a minor experience in Parliament, two years and two elections. But regardless, the guy is wicked and he does have some environmental bones in his body, which is great to hear. Had the Liberal party had him on the foreground 2 months ago, anything could've happened. Time to get excited about the Liberal party again folks.

As a side note, someone reminded me of a fact that I'd never really considered before that is kinda very telling for me. Nationally, there are usually two divisions people vote, for a party with conservative or liberal ideologies. In Canada's multi-party system, we have only one national conservative party, Harper's Conservatives, but we have three separate liberal parties; Ignatieff's Liberals, Layton's New Democrats and May's Green. So what were the statistics, 40 odd voters in 100 voted for a conservative government, while the remaining sixty wished to see a liberal party in the stronghold. This is why I support the idea of a coalition government. Its not undemocratic because that is the nature of a minority government, half of the country didn't want you there, you just garnered the most support because of a lack of intra-ideal competition. So media saying that US is going left and Canada is going right, get your facts straight. Canada is still very much of the free thinking, "individual liberty and equal opportunities" (Wikipedia said it best).

Phoenix Coyotes turned Waterloo Wolves or London Lynx?

Although I love my team and they way they are, here's also something to get excited about. The possibility of these guys headed to a Waterloo-London or Hamilton or Toronto II team near my hometown.

check out the full article for a better understanding about what could go down:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wspt-coyotes-shoalts-05/GSStory/GlobeSports/

Also, Liberals maybe are heading to my advice (finally!) because many are calling for Dion to step down within the week so we (am I a Liberal without his Carbon Shift/Minister of Environment leadership?) can have a new leader before Christmas. Also from a new article in the G&M.

Pirogue and trash

So, pirogue it is. Canadian parliament has just gone on hold for eight weeks, and this can equate to nothing good at all. I haven't checked out the latest feeds on the coalition government yet, but I'm hoping the Liberal party is going to take this opportunity to elect a new leader sooner then later, yet I imagine they are not. Probably too little time to be able to make such a huge decision and therefore thing won't change, and people won't necessarily be any happier having Stephane Dion as PM, but atleast I voted for the man and I'd be happy hearing all about it because maybe there can be some change for the environment?

Speaking of which, this opens up to fears and dreams. I'm actually started to get pretty worried about what jobs are gonna be available to me when I graduate school with the economy to continue to be in a form of near recession. I know this is looking down the line pretty far but its something that people should do. And I'm pretty comfortable saying that if things don't get much better in two years, I can gaurentee I'll do either my Bachelor in Engineering or a graduate degree, because things are just more secure in school then floating around jobless or doing something you don't want to be doing, i.e. working at Tim Horton's full time. So I fear that the recession will affect things so hardly that my previous plans of being a fresh young face in the environmental movement won't really be as attainable as I once thought possible.

Which leads to dreams; those that are getting me in trouble. I got into a disagreement today because I just never get to funnel my fumes about how inconsiderate and really ignorant some people can be. The health effects of smoking need no reminding or introduction here, everyone is finally realizing; smoking kills. Its not good for you. And whats even worse and more frustrating is smokers that just throw their butts onto the ground and step on them, because we all need to walk around the city seeing these little pieces that were in your mouth litter the streets. This is just so inconsiderate. Why? Just why? What gives you the right to throw your ash on the ground? I have this really cool idea that I want to do where I go to an area, pick up all the litter there, and then bring it all and (with permission) dump it inside and ask people walking by "Why is it any worse just because its inside a building?" See what kind of responses I can get there.

All things are going well, and training is certainly getting more regular, which is great because I feel alot better and I'm getting alot more regular sleep. I've starting fasting during the month of December in preparation for the upcoming Christmas holidays, nothing too serious. I initially wanted to do no eating during the sunlight hours of the day and thought this would be good to do now because its the shortest days of the year, but at the same time I didn't really prepare for that and so it would've been quite the shock to my system. So instead I'm just eating three meals/day, nothing in between and limiting the portions of my meals. Its been going pretty good because its has the extra effect of eating healthier.

New joy

I often get kind of annoyed by particular people that talk about how often they go to the gym and how much they did and how tired I am. That's not what working out should be, there's a difference about talking about it and bragging about it sort of thing. People should be getting in shape and staying healthy for health reasons. But, then something happened; I remembered what its like to not have sports be your life. When things are new, when you're just getting into running or just getting into going to the gym regularly, sometimes you can't help but talk about it because it makes you feel good that you went and you're excited about doing something new. This happened to me last night, my tri training at school has been lack luster due to being so busy, but for the past week or so I've been tackling my biggest weakness/the area where I can improve the most: the pool. I was talking with Ellen when she mentioned something to me about what one of her friends told her; there's certainly training, and triathlon is quite intensive in this, that teaches you just to keep going. Go through the tiredness/boredom/wanting to quit. While I've been in the pool the past couple weeks, the workouts have been pathetic, I've been swimming but not really doing anything of endurance, I'd not pace properly and blow a lung after 100m or even 50m. Last night I decided this will happen no more, I pumped out 3x500 and I've never been more pumped, especially because all this means is that now I know I can do that and can keep doing more. I think this is a key moment in water training for sure, just as the fixie is teaching me more and more that you don't even have to stop pedaling on a bike, always keep your feet moving.

Last night I also found out that I've been accepted to the University of Adelaide for next semester. This is gonna be an amazing trip for sure, going to little deserted Adelaide to surf, scuba, train and in my spare time, take four classes. I knew it was probably a good possibility but there was still a couple things that needed to be cleared, and now that they have I'm set to start planning all the things I'm gonna need to bring down to rock the 4-7 months I'm going to be spending down there. Regretfully, this means no planting in the summer (probably only 10% of planters would actually saddened by this) and no summer time with the boys at home, but alas, you only get chances like this once. I've never even left North America before, let alone the North or Eastern hemisphere, so I'm pumped for sure.

I'm really looking forward to the holiday season too; to get home and see some people and to just not have to work or go to class. I have a feeling with Australia approaching January is gonna fly by, and before I know it it'll be February 17th and I'll be showing up for international oreintation and two weeks later back in classes, so it won't feel like much of a two month break but it will be, and I have big plans for it.