All is calm, all is bright

It's been a bit of a surreal week. Gabriel came to town a few days ago and my parents got back into the country unannounced a day before. I'd assumed they were still away for another five days (that's a whole other story) and as a result, had run out of money completely and was living off canned soup and peanut butter. The gas light was on in my car and I coudln't even afford to fill it up. I wanted to donate something to our school's food bank and gave up my last 6 cans of tomato soup.

It was pathetic. And then I ran out of peanut butter.

On the plus side, Gabe's been lovely and bought me tons of groceries and offered to fill up my car. Then he made me cupcakes. What more can a girl ask for?

Oh. There is one more thing a girl might want.

A BLOW DART PIPE!

My new Christmas wishlist item (besides some good earphones for my ipod and my prof's book "Wrestling with Rhinos") is a blow dart pipe and a dart gun. We got to do a lab today where I learned to shoot a rifle and use a blow dart pipe!! I learned how to make a homemade blow dart which injects stuff when fired. This is useful if I ever work with wild life or dangerous dogs and bulls and things.

The gun was neat cus I learned how to load it and aim and the proper stance and all that. There wasn't much recoil when I shot it because we were using .22 blanks and really low range settings. Either way, it was AWESOME! We blew the darts right threw the cardboard targets but luckily, my prof had shoved some hay bales and towels behind them. I think I did Alberta proud today.

I was surprisingly accurate with both pipe and gun but not accurate enough to hit the poor stuffed animal we had tied to a rope that we swung from the ceiling and used as a challenge. I got the deer poster square in the neck and the fox and raccoon were no match to my skills. THE COOLEST LAB EVER!!!!

The other news is that I sang in my church's choir here. We performed at the annual Christmas concert and invited some of our classmates to come along. There was one lovely moment during which I forgot we had two more songs to sing and made the motions to walk off the stage seeing as I was the one on the very right in the front row that was supposed to lead people off.

I had taken one step down when I realised that we had two more songs to sing so I nonchalantly stepped back up and made as if i was just stretching my legs between songs. Gabe totally called my bluff later. I hope no one else noticed.

Oh well.

The people in the audience didn't seem to notice. They were too fixated on the preschoolers that were dressed up in SHEEP COSTUMES and singing some song called "A tiny little lamb" or something like that. Half of them started crying half way through and their embarassed parents would have to come up and claim them. The other half stood there and smiled and just looked stunned. It was too precious.

We also sang at a nursing/long-term care facility tonight. I was hesitant to go seeing as I have my bacteriology lab final tomorrow, but I'm so glad I went. It turned out to be far more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

It's a level 4 facility whatever that means (Hugh can enlighten us). One of the ladies there could barely speak and was confined to a wheel chair and she volunteered to lead us all in prayer. The only thing I could understand were her first and last words which sounded like "FAAHHHER" and "AAYEN".

In between those words, she closed her eyes and strained really hard to enunciate her words but it just came out as strangled cries. The nursing attendant had to hold the microphone for her cus she coudln't control her own hands and they jerked about spasmodically. The man behind me, also in a wheel chair, would intermittenly make farting and spitting sounds while another old lady somewhere kept shouting "HEY".

Despite all that, it was one of the most meaningful and beautiful prayers I'd heard in a long time. It was funny but when I was singing in the actual church concert, the lyrics and words I was singing meant far less than they did tonight when I was singing in that nursing home. Suddenly, singing about Joy and Angels and Holy nights really meant something.

The Christmas story is really incredible when you think about it. Mary, in labour, no epidural, is forced to give birth in a stable. A STABLE. Donkeys, hay, straw, manure, cows, the whole shebang. I guess the fact that I've been working in barns with cattle and sheep all year has given me a whole new appreciation for the whole thing.

They went around the audience of all these debilitated and physically weak people and asked them what Christmas meant to them and what words they would use to describe Christmas: "Loved ones",
"I want to say Merry Christmas for my husband who passed away last year"
"Hope" (this coming from someone in a nursing home was really touching),
"Friends and family" (this was from a lady who had to type out all her words into a machine so that whoever was beside her had to read it out),
"Peace",
"Faith",
"This is for my brother and my father who are both no longer with us".

Each time someone spoke, they lit a candle beside the window till the entire window sill of the room was lined with candles. It was incredible.

One of the old ladies started crying and asked to be wheeled out because she was so emotional.

We sang a few more songs and everyone cheered and clapped, including us, and then we all left for the night. If I wasn't in the Christmas mood before, I definitely was now.

And that's my week so far. I have four exams to write before Christmas but somehow, they don't seem so important anymore. Well, not that they aren't important so much as I'm a lot more calm about them now that I've sorted out my priorities and values in life again.

Hope you are all getting into the holiday spirit. Too bad I won't make it back in time for Colin's fete! Ah well, I might take Vien's offer up and just meet you all somewhere for dinner another time.

Take care everyone! Hope to see you all soon!