The New Floodgates of the Mind

Well, the trip is booked. Chantale is heading over to New Zealand to partake in a 12-day Contiki Tour of the island! She’ll probably be leaving here on Jaunary 5th or 6th as it’ll take her some time to get there. The tour officially begins on January 13th and goes through the 24th. Sometime after that, she’ll begin to make her way back home.

She’s been wanting to travel for a long time now, and has constantly stated that she’d be taking a trip as a Graduation gift to herself. After all the hard work, long hours, and many years of studying, she deserves it.

Whoop! She just called to tell me her insurance is taken care of now, too! 🙂 One more tick off the list 🙂

Yes, she’ll be going on the tour alone, although she might fly down to Sydney with her dad so they can hang around a few days before she begins her tour and he heads back here. That part’s not decided yet, though 🙂 Am I jealous? Nah. A little envious though as it would have been amazing to go as well. However, it’ll be good for her to go off on her own and do what she wants (within reason, of course! She is still my fiancee ya know!! 🙂 )

How am I going to survive a month without her when I was hardly able to stand a week back in 2001? Well, our bond is a lot stronger now than it ever was, that’s for sure. But, we’re also strong individuals as much as we’re a strong couple. I might not have as much fun during that month as Chantale will, but I’ll have my own things to do 🙂

Plus, we’ll have plenty of chances to take trips together. We are planning on spending our lives together you know 🙂

Have a FANTASTIC trip, darling!!

Theology Final Exam completed! Now, just to hand it in and no more Wednesday night classes for a month+ !!

And I got an extra 2 hours of sleep last night because I went to bed at midnight and not at 2am!! Rockin!

And after tonight’s class, Chantale and I are gonna head over to Picasso’s restaurant and thoroughly enjoy a Smoked Meat Platter/Sandwich! And coffee!! Don’t forget the coffee!! 🙂

And here’s a crazy thought: I’m looking forward to my Loma 280 exam on December 10th. See? Told you it was a crazy thought. 🙂

Later, Gator!

i want the eyes of a child.
i want to be able to look at the world in wonder
– not in disgust
i want to be able to go about life expectant of good things
– not of fear

i want the eyes of a child
so my spirit can be lifted with joy
not trampled underfoot by the harsh realities of life

i want the eyes of a child
so i can look everyone squarely in the eye
and smile appreciatively at the welcome reflected
– not cower in terror

i want the eyes of a child
so i can walkabout and smile openly at all i meet
– not hide my face in shame

i want the eyes God gave me when i was born
to look upon the world He created
before the advent of man altered it and all of us

and although it’s impossible to do so right now
the time will come when the rising of the sun
will fill me with the light and strength to carry on

this i know, that as things done come undone
the eyes of a child give way to those of age and wisdom
and i will re-learn to see creation and every one
with the eyes of the child, that is within me still…

-Mike Aragona
November 26, 2002

Hey there fellow Comicopians (and other assorted fans of comic books!)

Gaby forwarded me this URL from Manchester Online:

Store’s Caped Crusader Halts Thieves

Incredible but somewhat cool, too 🙂 (almost reminded me of the movie Hero At Large starring John Ritter! – woo… 1980.. that brings back memories! 🙂 )

So much happened this weekend but I don’t really have the time to write it all up! However, as quickly as I can, here are the highlights:

Picked the kids up early on Friday and the Beavers Investing was truly something special. Melyssa was SO excited to have gotten her scarf and allowed to wear her hat. I don’t remember the last time I saw her so happy and bouncy 🙂

Sadly, that same night, she got hit with a nasty bug. When we got home from dropping Chantale off at her parents, they went to bed and continued the sleeping they’d been doing in the car. I was on the phone with Chantale until almost 2am before I went to bed. At 3am, Melyssa comes into my room complaining of a neck and tummy ache. I have her stay with me for a bit but she can’t calm down. We go to the bathroom to check her temperature and she ends up throwing up (on the floor before I got her to the bowl). Poor kid. After cleaning up and cleaning up, I get her to bed. Within a half hour, she’s up still feeling sick. I get her to the bathroom again and she clears herself out. Phew! Back to bed by about 4am. At 5am, she’s throwing up in bed, not having been able to get to the bucket by her bed. I’m there, cleaning up, helping her out and changing her clothes. I get her settled in bed and go dump all the sheets in the washing machine. I didn’t care it was 5am, those sheets needed cleaning! Back to bed… and back up at 6am as she threw up again. *sigh* By the time she finally got back up at 9am, she was feeling much better. With half a toast in her, we went to Beavers simply because I felt she needed some air and there wouldn’t be any jarring activity for her. When we got back home, she didn’t want lunch, just sleep. She basically slept the entire afternoon. She was sick again by the time we got back to Chantale’s parents but, happily, by about 7pm, she was eating properly. Sunday she was completely normal.

Saturday night after the kids were in bed, Chantale and I played Lord of the Rings RISK (did I mention I picked it up? 🙂 ). It was a blast! By 2am, I begged off as Sunday was going to be another busy day. 2 Activity Highlights come to mind for Sunday: I took James and Melyssa to see Harry Potter with some other Beaver friends. Melyssa was somewhat bored by it (too young to get into it I guess) but James absolutely loved it! His review: Wicked Cool 🙂

The second highlight was watching the Als win the Grey Cup 🙂 After dropping the kids off, I went back to Chantale’s parents house and we all watched the game, chilling with some excellent food and excellent coffee. I also got a BIG thrill out of seeing my Standard Life commercial come on the air during the 3rd quarter 🙂 Makes me wish I had taped the entire game so I could have a piece of television history in which *I* actually made an appearance!! 🙂

Ok, out of time now. More much later!

The class is getting ready to wrap up. I got my attestation form and guess what else? 2 Continuing Education credits. Way cool and totally unexpected! This is the 1st time any of the Tech courses I’ve taken have actually given me Government-approved C.E credits! Nice to be recognized! 🙂

Hey, are you a fan of Lord of the Rings? Have you gotten your Platinum DVD collection yet? How about the LOTR RISK game? After all the various Monopoly games, I didn’t think other games would jump on this bandwagon. But, with recently seeing the Disney SORRY, and the Simpsons CLUE, I was surprised with the LOTR RISK!

Class is going quite well. In fact, we’re ahead of schedule and will thus be finishing early today. Which is great for me since Chantale and I have to go pick up the kids from school, rush home and grab a quick meal, and head over to the Beavers meeting as Melyssa will finally be getting invested tonight! 🙂 This should be really fun for her 🙂

Afterwards… we drive Chantale to her parents’ place as she’s house and dog sitting. The kids and I come back home and I get them into bed as tomorrow morning begins another hectic schedule of: driving Melyssa to Gymnastics, picking her up from Gymnastics so she and James can go to Beavers, driving home for lunch, driving James to his 1st Communion class, go (probably) visit my sister with Melyssa, pick him up, drive to meet up with Chantale for supper! On Sunday, more than likely go to church in the morning and then we’re driving back to the East End to meet up with some friends and other Beaver volunteers for a 1pm showing of Harry Potter!

Basically, I’m glad the local Petro Canada has gas down at 69.4 today as I’ll need a full tank for this weekend’s travelling!!! (I didn’t mention all the driving I’ll be doing, just most of it 🙂 )

On top of all that, there’s homework and studying to take care of! Boy, it’s a good thing that we had such a relaxing weekend last weekend as things will be hopping this time :>

– Star Wars II – Attack of the Clones on IMAX was incredible! It more than lived up to my hopes and turned into quite a thrilling spectacle! Plus, being a Tuesday, it was a wonderful surprise to only pay $7.50 for it 🙂

– Day 2 of class. Interesting stuff, although not overly difficult. I feel this course could have easily been condensed into 2 days from 3.

– I’m… exhausted. I actually had to talk to my teacher this morning and basically tell him that if he noticed my eyes closing, it wasn’t because of him, but that I hadn’t slept enough.

– I’m feeling a little ill. I don’t believe the fact that I had my fourth small cup of coffee is to blame. I drank them down not because I was hungry/thirsty (far from it) but because I need the boost to keep me going.

– I’m cold.

– I want to go to bed.

– Don’t ask.

Jack was just standing there when the first kick came.
Out of nowhere, pain flared up in his stomache.
The impact, felt deep in his chest cavity, knocked him over.
Lying on his side, arms wrapped around his stomache, legs up in a fetal position, he gasped for air.

Another kick and his kidneys felt like they were stuck in his throat.
Another kick and he could almost feel his lungs flatten against his back.
Another kick and his belly button ruptured.
No blows came anywhere else; all were centered on his digestive system.

Weakly looking up, trying to understand, the final insults.
Slaps. Across his cheeks. Burning his face. Stinging his eyes.
Uncomprehensively, he opened his mouth, trying to formulate the words, unable to understand the reason.

Why the pain? Why the hurt? Why the anguish?
No one would tell him.

The mirror stared back blankly, unfeeling, as Jack writhed, trying, and failing, to conquer the pain, wondering if it would ever go away…

Well, here I am, in another course. This one is at EduMicro on Berri and we’re going through “Implementing and Supporting Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0”

It’s another Microsoft product. It’s all point and click and click and click. *sigh* Well, everything is what we make of it and I guess when you have no choice but to get involved in that world, you might as well learn something about it 🙂

Day 1 of 3 and so far so good 🙂