Surprise Me... (Not)

There are two kinds of surprises I like: candy and jewelry. That's it. I hate all other kinds. I read the backs of books first, if possible I find out how movies end, I work hard to find TV spoilers. I just don't like not knowing. I also dislike change. This sometimes makes real life difficult!

Lately my real life has been in a state of upheaval. I had accepted a job in Japan which I was looking forward to taking. It was with a NICS school, it paid more money - my next two years planned out and ready. Except this week I've been struggling with the idea that this really isn't what God wants for me. At all. In fact I'm pretty sure God wants me to shake up the snow globe that is my life and live with it - in Canada.

Home doesn't seem like a radical change to most people but for me it is. It's unemployment, faith and trust and a whole bunch of issues I am now tough enough and adult enough to face. So, home might actually be the biggest change of all right now.

Don't get me wrong, I love Canada and my family but I also love travel, steady work and living all over the world. In honour of thinking positive I'm finding one thing a day that I'm looking forward to about home (besides family). I've come up with: boots, girl guide cookies, fast internet, snow, hanging with my sisters, hanging with my best friends, my mum and dad being 10 mins away, not being away for Christmas, STARBUCKS! and that's just this week.

It'll be different and not what I'm used to but I, of all people, know that different doesn't always mean bad - sometimes it means really good.

Anthem for the Year...

December was crazy. Incredibly busy, really fun, amazing and sad all at the same time. Christmas turned out great, my Florida vacation with my parents was like Mary Poppins (practically perfect in every way). I met them in Tampa and we went to see a hockey game, walked on the beach, ate tonnes of salad and shopped like champions. It was great. It was sad because I would have liked to have been there to say goodbye to Sarah, but life has to go on. 2010 was a good year over all and ended just as well.

2011 was rang in with me missing the fireworks in Florida because I was standing in a queue for lemonade. Actually I don't care about that because there were so many fireworks in Suriname the week before that I felt I didn't miss anything. It was fun to hang out with my parents on New Years and just to hang out with them in general. They're pretty funny, although I can give my dad's rant on pop-culture verbatim now; I've heard it that much!

So 2010 was pretty amazing. I ended 2009 by looking at all the things I had done that year that I had never done or experienced before, so here goes 2010's version:
-taught English lit
-made some care so much about what they were reading they showed it emotionally
-conducted a Christmas concert
-traveled to French Guyana
-had someone make it snow for me
-went to a professional hockey game
-played Dutch Blitz
-lost someone I loved
-"adopted" half my senior class for Tuesday night study group at my kitchen table
-had one of my students tell me that she really respected me
-had a professional makeover
-learnt that the baggage I sometimes carry around doesn't matter, and how to let it go
-got a job in Japan

Those some of the highlights, but not all. Some of those I'm keeping just for me.