Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I can no longer call myself unemployed. Tomorrow I work my first shift at Equitable Life of Canada. I'm a bit sad that this in-between stage of mine has now come to an end. I know that it's lasted for maybe a bit longer than necessary, but it was so nice to have my days free to do whatever I wish. I think it's good sometimes to take a bit of time in between things without rushing ahead to whatever's next. Time to think. To collect yourself. To breathe. To look ahead, but also to remember. But it's good to have finally found something. And I feel content in this, and no nervousness about my first day, which is nice. It's neat to see God work - he is so faithful and his timing is perfect. This job's not exactly what I was hoping for, but it is something, and I think it will be good for me.

Tonight my dad happened to be walking down the hall at just the right moment to see two girls stealing a pretty little 'welcome' mosaic dealy right off of our front porch. He opened the door as they were making their escape down the driveway, and when he asked them what was going on, they returned it and said, "just a trick or treat", or something along those lines. The nerve of some people's kids these days!

I don't like when cereal boxes go back in the cupboard with just a tiny bit left in them.

I am drawn to pretty little snowflake things.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I was just reading the blogs kept by some friends I got to know while I was in Ukraine, other people working there with MCC. And I learned about the recent increase in gas prices over there. I hear that gas will cost 147 percent more this winter than it did last winter. And I wonder how people will cope with this. Just before I returned home, transportation costs increased quite a lot as well. People are struggling enough to make ends meet without all these price increases. I'm not as concerned about the internat, because I know they still heat with coal (though I'm sure this will still affect them as well). But I wonder about the Semerikov's, the family I lived with. I think about how they just had gas put in last summer, and about how they were so happy with their first winter's use of it. I remember Larisa telling me how it's so much better having gas. How before, the room containing the coal stove was always so hot, while the other rooms further away from it were usually quite cold. How with gas, the temperature of the house can be regulated and all the rooms are the same. I wonder about how much this price increase will affect them, if they'll be able to afford to heat their house. And I think about the unusually cold winter southern Ukraine saw last winter, and I hope it will not be the same this year.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Waking up somewhere in New Brunswick, the colours of autumn were glorious. If I let my eyes shift out of focus, the trees became blurs of mixed colours, sliding swiftly by: blurs in horizontal lines, whizzing past, close to the train. If I look past and through the blurred lines, the other trees can be seen clearly, moving more slowly: the further away, the more slowly they move. The colours impossibly bright, the whiteness of bark flashing through, the sun shining down. The whistle seemed to be a part of the walls themselves, the sound coming from somewhere deep within. The bush seemed to go on endlessly, we had been cutting through it all day since the earliest bit of light in the morning. But every once in a while we would come upon a little town, the bush suddenly replaced by white houses, seemingly growing up out of the middle of the large green lawns, the walls bare from the roof down to the foundation. Making our way towards Halifax.

"autumn leaves
beauty's got a hold of me
autumn leaves
pretty as can be...
and those water coloured memories
soft as a summer's breeze
you're as pretty as can be..."
-Beth Gibbons