The Week of Halloween

Tonight is the actual Halloween in Rimouski (and everywhere else). But it has felt like Halloween for the past few days. Maybe I didn't notice, but back home, costumes normally don't come out until the day before. Not here though. They walk down the streets in their costumes, go to work in their costumes, go to the hockey game in their costumes. It is a big deal! On Friday I played a game with my Sec II students and at one point in the game I told the students to "step over the line" if they liked Christmas MORE than Halloween. Only a few stepped over. Seriously, people love this holiday here!

People back home would be so proud of me (People=Mom and Em)! I made my own Halloween costume. Not just put it together with pieces around the house like when I went as Pippi Longstocking a few years back. I already had the red hair and freckles, I had mismatched socks and little black flats, and a torn Disney princess shirt. I was all ready to go.

Not this year folks. I went out and bought several metres of organza and sewed it all together to make a little gold and brown tutu. Then I got some fake leaves, ribbon, and flowers which I glued all over the skirt. I twisted a garland that had little red and gold berries on it into a wreath for my head. After my wand was made and my face makeup done - I was ready to go out as Autumn. 

Now, I didn't go out as Autumn alone. No, that would be silly. With me was Spring, Winter, and Summer. I must say that after several hours of creativity, glue, silliness, and glitter - we looked pretty good.

Also - a fun French/English fact for you: The term Trick-or-Treat is purely an Anglo thing and Rimouskians don't understand that in English communities, tricking happens! My sec II students were very surprised to hear about the common egging, TPing, and other such antics that went on around Belfast in my earlier years. I worry that I gave new ideas to some of the boys. :S

Happy Halloween everyone! Be safe. Have fun! And make sure you don't eat all your trick-or-treaters' candy before they ring your bell!

Listographer

Last Christmas, a close friend of mine got me one of the most genius books ever made. It is called "Listography". On every page in this book there is a title and below the title - blank lines. I have slowly been filling up my Listography and the point to this book is to have an autobiography in lists. I started this blog post to share my most recent list (I'll share it at a different time) and I got carried away looking through my listography. I want to share one of my favourite lists:

List the best days of your life (in no particular order):

-The day Mom told me she registered me for figure skating.

-Grade 9 grad from Belfast

-The night Dad and I watched "Love Happens"

-That night that Dad let me cry in his arms

-The day that Mom let me skip school and we had a mother/daughter day of shopping and I got a "Kitney Spears t-shirt and yellow biking shorts". I was a cool kid.

-Closing night of Footloose

-Prom day, but because of the progression of "Unproms" that followed.

-The night the old gang went to the Wood Islands lighthouse.

-The time that Lin and I went camp shopping and met "Handbone", and got a sub for a young homeless girl.

-That time that the old gang stayed up all night at Em's chatting about life.

-The day in Guatemala when I met Azucena.

-My 18th birthday.

-Many drives of Mom and I talking about life.

-First day at ABU (long before it was Crandall)

-Every Christmas banquet.

-Seeing Matt the day that Miguel was born.

-Holding Alexia for the first time.

-The day Aaron got home from Afghanistan.

-The night that Aaron, David, and I stayed up late playing cards and Aaron ate one box of KD under 2 minutes.

-Christmas 2010

-The day that Tiff and I ran around Montague doing errands, and made our first trifle.

-Candace's wedding day. 

-The night before Candace and Andrew's wedding at the cottage with great friends.

-Candace's bachelorette. The whole night :P

-Each long car chat with David.

-The night that Em, Sarah, Matt P, Rynier, and I went to Selkirk after the musical.

-When Matthew came to Highfield with me.

-The time in gr 6 when us girls went swimming at the dam.

-"That day" at the beach after my last exams.

-Tadoussac

-The time Em and I just sat in her car talking. 

-Crandall graduation day.

-Chili supper at Ashworth with friends.

-Canada Day 2011 and the night at Victoria Park when we saw Saturn's rings.

-The drive up to Quebec City with Katie.

-The time that Em came to res for the weekend, just her and me.

-Brunch at Cora's with the girls before leaving for Quebec.

-Mom coming to every showing of Footloose.

-My baptism.

-Dinner/movie night with Dad, Mom, and Boo.

-The night at camp it poured and we did the Big Brother challenge. 

-The night that I sat on the steps at the camp beach with my lovely bedrock girls.

-Girls night at camp when everyone went over the broom.

-Spring Banquet 2011

-Last Christmas Eve day when Mom got Dad his snowmobile.

-Mid-summer visit to Ashworth.

-Our Ashworth Christmas, the Christmas paty, the Will & Kate morning.

-Sitting praying on the staircase late at night with Laura Ells.

-Going to Buctouche with my Highfield youth group.

-Callyn's wedding day.

-the day Callyn and I went for manicures and out for lunch.

-Spontaneous trip to beach in my 3rd year in March.

-The time that Callyn made me breakfast in bed when I visited her in Hali.

-Callyn's wedding reception.

-Every night of worship at camp!!

This list is getting really long and in my Listography book I am constantly adding to it as I remember days of loveliness. I'll add to it on here as well as those days pop into my mind. 

I Forgot How Big I'm Blessed

It's been a little stretch of time since I posted last. I don't have any really good reasons for this. I got busy? I got distracted? I forgot? Those are some of the common excuses, but none are true for me.

For some reason I feel that in the world of facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. there are several "types".

1. Those whose statuses and comments are always about the negative parts of life, "I feel like my world is caving in", "The world might as well end", blah, blah, blah. These types of online personas are so depressing. Really? Are you only able to share the bad stuff on here?

2. Then there are those who don't take the online world seriously at all and say and do whatever they wish as if the person on the other end of whatever is just a blob with no emotions. When your fingertips touch the keys, you suddenly transform into a robot who has zero filtering capabilities. "I just became an uncle!!".. "No one cares." Ouch.

3. Then there are those who have violent online mood swings. Status #1 yesterday at 4:45am: "I love life. People are lovely. Puppies are awesome. So are kittens.".... Status #2 yesterday at 4:47am: "I hate people. I hate life. Nothing is good anymore!!"

4. Then there are the few who are very normal on facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. For the most part they only inform the online world of their bad days once in a blue moon. And even when they post negative things, it really isn't something so awful that you want to turn off your computer forever and go somewhere happy where people drink tea and read books.

5. Then there are the people who are afraid to expose when they are having a really bad week for fear of pity or to be thought of as one of those constant complainers. Or they worry that they will take on one of these crazy online personas like it's a contagious disease. So instead, they only inform when things are good.

This is me.

I didn't forget to post this week. I wanted to. I was just finding it hard to post something super positive, happy, or fun. I worried that people would judge me for having a bad week. Isn't that ridiculous? What makes me think that I have to have a good day or week all the time? For all you people in the last category, I challenge you to put aside any of your pride and let people know when you are having a rough time. And make sure you don't just tell them online, tell them for real too. I finally did, and I'm very thankful because now I have some loved ones back home praying and thinking of me!

So. In a nutshell, Becca had a bit of a crummy week. BUT, this morning I got up, read a few psalms, and said (I actually said this out loud): "Today is Saturday. I will praise God today. I will read today. I will talk to people I love today. This will be a good day which will lead into a good week. Why? Because God is faithful." Even as I write this, the sun has come out and it has stopped raining.

Here's a little encouraging song. Because, remember, when we feel weak, God is strong for us and will pull us up out of the muck and will renew us. He will somehow even use those things that are driving us absolutely crazy:

A Whale of a Time (forgive the pun)

I was recently talking to a friend from home about what it is like to meet many people from around the world at the same time. The Spontaneous International Phenomenon - that is what I will call it for now (aka: SIP). She is someone who has travelled a lot and always told me stories about how she would meet people from all over and the feeling she got from it. It is exhilarating. Until last weekend, I didn't understand this at all. But now I do.

Last weekend, we went to Tadoussac. This is a little tourist town on the other side of the St. Lawrence River where people flock to go whale watching. Seriously, this town is tiny but there were so many people there. I think that only about 850 live there year round. So, a carload from Rimouski made the long trip down and around (8 hours) because the ferries were closed due to high winds. We got there around 7pm on Friday night and the hostel we stayed at (Auberge Jeunesse) was already filled with other 20-something aged people. We assumed that these people were all fellow Odyssey-ers or language assistants in the British, German, or Mexican programs. But, no. They were with an international student group from UofO and from Bishops university. The whole night was spent finding out about where these people were from and sharing stories about what our countries/provinces are like. 

PEI is very unknown by the way. Even to the Quebecois. Sometimes if I say Ile-du-Prince-Edouard, they understand, but rarely. And they would never abbreviate it like us Islanders do. Explaining my province to people from the Czech Republic, Spain, and China was very interesting for them. 

One of my favourite parts from this night was when a birthday cake was brought out for one of the UofO students and all around the hostel people broke out into "Happy Birthday". Singing a simple song and celebrating in this familiar way brought us together and yet everyone was singing in their own language. So cool.

The next day was whale watching day. It. Was. Freezing. Like, we put on five and six layers, plus the suits that were provided and we were all still chilled to the bones the next morning. But it was so worth it! We saw probably about thirty whales - belugas, minkes, and fin whales. At one point, a little pod of belugas swam under our zodiac! It was so neat!

It was such a great weekend, filled with new friends, new stories, and my very first hostel experience. I must say, it was a great one!