Last week was good - I spent Wednesday to Saturday hanging out with the grade 12 students in New York - it was great to experience the city through their eyes. I have decided to go back in August to actually see the city for myself - but this was a great introduction (the 9 hours last summer not withstanding)... Sunday I got to hang out with Brandon and Danielle - they joined me in church and then we went for lunch - it was great to catch up - I haven't seen either of them in a long while.
The rest of the week has been interesting... I finally had time to come crashing down from the stresses of the play and the exhaustion of New York and have been feeling a little tired and blah and alone in this city.

Lately I've been noticing that God fills my life with what I need to know or needed to be reminded of. Bible passages that are read in church are repeated in chapel and then again in homeroom. Songs pop into my head that fit the situation. This has been the song of the week... it seems that whenever the lonely has been creeping in this song pops in my head and fills the void...

Never Once by Matt Redman

Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
Carried by Your constant grace
Held within Your perfect peace
Never once, no, we never walk alone

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Every step we are breathing in Your grace
Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

update: it is 2:22 am and i have figured out how to consolidate so the email address i use most often is now associated with this blog - perhaps this means i will update more since i don't have to remember what other combination of things i have to do...

life is going well - very busy - but still going well...
it's 2 am and i am currently wide awake - it has been a stressful couple of weeks with the play and now that it's over my body still can't figure out how to stop the constant flow long enough to sleep despite the fact that i now have time during the day to figure it all out. i leave for nyc with the grade 12s super early on wednesday so that should be fun - especially pumped for seeing phantom on broadway - which means i get to cross see a musical on broadway off my bucketlist... woot!
my goal is to get back into blogging more regularly - but i may have to change my blog title as i'm sick of having to sign in to this account when i can just associate something with another email address which seems easier - unless i can figure out how to switch this one over...
i hope all is well with the 2 people that read my blog :)

so 2011 is ending in like 3 hours... it has been an odd year.
here's to 2012 being a little less odd..
have a good evening everyone who reads this...

I'm sitting in Starbucks yet again... attempting to write my final research proposal paper for this course I'm taking... I'm thinking that I may move to school later where I can stretch out on a couch and write without being able to access facebook or blogs or youtube or netflix or really anything fun...
There are 2 weeks left in school before Christmas break and I'm looking forward to the break. I'm not really looking forward to the end of the semester - I am seriously going to miss my grade 9 music class... they are such a cool bunch of kids. The grade 10 drama class is also fun - but not in the same way. I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes in that class... whereas in music I'm confident that I'm doing a good job.
Christmas concert is on Wednesday - I'm not feeling ready on that front either... the music is - the rest is not... I need to learn how to deligate more... Guess I'll have to try that next year...
Oh well - off to somewhere more comfortable than this chair... Will return later - when this paper is complete :)

it's been a while.
ghana was fantastic - it was such a cool experience to just learn west african drumming and dancing in west africa. the group i went with was really cool - about 20 of us - 3 canadians the rest from mostly north eastern states and then one from florida, tennessee, and louisiana. i don't even really know how to get into the experience still and be able to sum it up in a few words because i would need a really long post, but i did will 100$ in a photo contest - i'll post that picture here soon.
i started at my new school in ottawa in september - went to a staff retreat 3 days after returning from ghana and it's been a whirlwind ever since.
i head to school most mornings by 8 - do devotions with my gr 12 homeroom and then prep until 1130 when i start band or choir, then i teach drama, then music, then prep some more. i return home around 4 or 5 and then start work on my masters... it's busy - hard to meet people - but i'm slowly finding my way around this city...
currently i have a paper due in 5.5 hours and i should have finished it on wednesday but it just doesn't seem to be writing itself... i should get back at that now...

I'm sitting in Pearson airport, terminal 3, gate B13 along with Katie my travel buddy for the day. I woke up at 5:30 am and dad and I drove to the airport. I attemped to check in but they wouldn't let me without the credit card I had used to book the flight - which of course I didn't have. So dad drove home and back to pick it up for me --- not a good start... but that's done now. All was sorted out.
Today the plan is to explore NYC for a bit of our 9 hour layover and then hop back on a plane and go to GHANA...
Internet may be abundant - or it might not... guess we'll see updates as we go...

well, it's official. i am making the move back to ontario in t-19 days. things are going well in goose bay lately and therefore it's making the idea of packing up and leaving a little more difficult but things in ottawa are falling into place as well.
most days i feel a little bit like a gypsy - i want to live in so many places across this country and i want to visit everywhere else, but when it gets right down to the packing up i start re-thinking my wandering ways. i hate packing... my solution to this is--- find a military man... they move a lot AND the military packs for you... seems like a perfect solution ha.
the past couple months have been quite full at work.
i've met robert munsch, pulled off another successful joint spring concert (no video for everyone to sit through this year), had kids perform at the retirement dinner, the volunteer appreciation night, finished up the musical theatre unit - marked all 300 booklets, have done playing tests and theory sheets and composed with boomwackers...
life here is good... the known is good.... the unknown is - unknown.
i have somewhere to live now--- i think it's even affordable
i'm starting to think about what my year should look like for both my music and drama classes - i'll deal with the unknown class as soon as i learn what it is.
dad and i are constantly discussing what is going to fit and what isn't... he's a lot more optomistic about things then i am.
either way - ghana is also coming up in t-43 days so that's also super exciting... hopefully all the visa stuff gets figured out before then.
that's all i've got for now... life is good.... but changing.

life has been moving at break neck speed lately. i should be just about home from a tuesday to sunday band trip to lab city right now but instead i'm sitting on my couch watching an episode of gilmore girls before heading outside for a quick walk on this beautiful day NOT having gone to lab city or walmart or mcdonalds this week. the school board made the decision at about 10am on monday. i then took the next 2 hours to plan "PLAN B" before telling the kids that the event that they had been working their butts off for for 6 months had fallen through. it was the right decision to make - the road was crap - and i wasn't really looking forward to 10+ hours on a school bus over a dirt road... but it was pretty disappointing. however plan b was a success - we did a mini festival at the arts centre on Thursday - i managed to come up with 3 adjudicators with varying degrees of musical abilities. they did well and i think that they enjoyed the chance to play with a different audience then just myself or nick. after the mini festival we took busses down to the christian youth camp for a sleepover. 67 students from 6 grades all mixed up together... 24 hours at a camp... about 45 min sleep for me... more for some students - less for others... overall an excellent time... perhaps i'll write about it more another time.. for now i'm going outside for a walk in the pseudo warmth.

got this email today...

Dear Katie and Ashley,

This message is to inform you that:

a) you are both Canadian
b) you are both travelling to Ghana this summer on the UMass program

Please discuss amongst yourselves.

Best, Jeremy

i am so super pumped about the whole ghana thing - and think it's awesome that there's a canadian going and therefore we must be bffs.... hopefully she's cool :)