there and back again

i had quite the weekend at waterloo. i learned a couple of things as well. here is how the weekend went..

i was driven to york mills subway station by my aunt. being employed by the city of toronto as a junior inspector, i've become quite the quick driver. my aunt's driving was like turtle. after what seemed to be hours.. i got to the station (less 10 than minutes away from home). i had to wait for the bus to get there. but in meantime i started thinking of something smart to say to clara when i see her! she said that she was taking that fedbus, and we'd see each other. it was so exciting. the bus came.. and one by one, students got off the bus, and i watched each one.. until the last person got off. no clara! what the heck?! what about my witty comment?

being in charge of measuring all the small streets of scarborough with a trundle wheel, walking is becoming more and more of a chore, and being in waterloo, the chore was still present. having decided to sleep at richard's place, i decided to find a phone. mikeys was a good idea. the chances of my running to anyone are close to zero. when i got there, i didn't have to open the door to have seen kat and family, joanna and herman eating dinner. surpise #3 now? totally unprepared for that, i went in and tried my best to converse with them, still in shock of the surprise.

tip #1: think. but think quickly. it is difficult to expect the unexpected, but smarter to be prepared for anything. don't just stand there, stupy!

afterwards we headed to ccf. it was good to see familiar faces, as well as somewhat familiar faces. i left after worship to grab some timmys. laura and joanna later came to find me to tell me ccf changed rooms.. how nice of them. jo went back to rez, so me and laura went back to ccf together. wee were late, so ppl looked at us funny when we went in. the sharing was.. interesting. it was unfortunate that i didn't know most of the ppl in ccf, especially the upper years, but a couple of things that i thought were important were.. trial by fire, the importance of the Holy Spirit, and the importance of serving.

ccf ended, and i was convinced to go to hockey (not convinced enough to play). my backpack (with all my stuff) immediately became goal post #1; luckily my sleeping bag was free. that night was friggin cold as death. i gave jacqueline my gloves. the rest of the night consisted of huddling for warmth in an american car, emzhei's all day booger, lorna is very VERY loud, and annato, who threatened me, took funny pictures of me, and wanted me to go skipping like jasmine, laura, emzhei and herself did. annato is cool haha. the night ended at 2ish, where i headed off to derek and jon's place.

tip #2: when getting people's phone numbers, make sure they are accurate before you use them. otherwise you will not have the home you planned on having.

derek and jon's place.. they are nice ppl. frozen bananas with nutella was good.. but the BEST thing at their place was.. sleeping on jon's bed, and in turn derek and jon sleeping in the same bed together mwahahahhaa! that was quite the funny. the next morning's highlight with them was.. ninja turtles with derek haha. eventually they both had to leave, and i went to find the rev girls for lunch. holy mother that was like a half an hour walk to rev.

eating with the girls was cool, but quite soon everyone's attention was diverted to heath ledger in "a knight's tale" and his "hotness". back upstairs, a girl on the floor asked to open a glued-up bottle of super glue, and i managed to open it, but said the wrong thing after she said "you're amazing!".

tip #3: never use lines from popular sitcoms in real life.

soon after, i became a victim of chick flick. gahh.. sleepless in seattle. but it took us (me) like half an hour to get the vcr working, and that was very disappointing indeed. the kid was apparently cute, tom hanks was apparently attractive to hundreds of women across the states, hearts can be apparently lit on the empire state building, romances can be apparently started via letters, listening to the radio and sheer luck. and apparently some CRAZY lady actually flew to the empire state building to meet some guy she didn't know to get married to him.

ehh.. i loved the movie, girls, it was great. ANYWAY after that we started planning for dinner, which was at golden mango (aka pho), of which kat emzhei jasmine joanna and myself showed up to.

tip #4: just do it. you have the power. you don't have to put the burden on others.

soon enough, i conjured the idea of labelled napkins, and now we all have a napkin with our name, chinese name, favourite colour, and favourite place to be on it! herman joined after. after the dinner.. we had to go to waterloo towers for herman to shower, and then we headed over to rev. at rev.. me herman and joanna went to play pool for a bit.. then we were going to play monopoly, but rev office was closed.. so we ended up playing cards.. big2 and "slap the pile when the number is called" game. we played till we were about dead.. and waited for kat and emzhei to get back from studying. then i jumped into some chick's bed and slept.

sunday started off with washing up in a girl's washroom (forgetting to put the seat down) and changing in the hall of an all girls' floor. after service was lunch with rich and elliot, the scbc boys. kat laura and sarah later joined us, and the lunch became.. interesting (see tip #5 at end)

waterloo towers with herman came nextand finally the long overdue heart to heart talk with herman, while upper years walked in and out clearing furniture. scripture based action, and becoming a more open person. we were there for maybe 1.5 hours before we went to find clara. then i yelled at her for not being on the fedbus.. and herman slept on her bed. we went to slc together, becuz ppl were studying, and clara desperately needs to study. i went to rev myself to get my stuff back in preparation to leave, and said bye to jasmine. surprisingly i saw that chris was back, and i talked with her for a bit. i think she passed her exam. going back to slc, i proceeded downstairs to tim hortons for my last supper, of which i ran into jacqueline. eventually i realized that i had left my shiny aero hoodie back at rev.. and now joanna is its guardian for the month. i said my goodbyes and left the slc, wanting to look back, but not.

halfway down the stairs, i realized that i forgot my donut...

tip #6: think. acting on impulse doesn't work very well. acting on emotion doesn't work well either. messing up smooth exits because of a donut.. could have been prevented.

tip #5: never forget the big picture. setting your focus on certain things will cause you to disregard everything else.

and that is that. there and back again. back to toronto, back to the family, back to pointless hours of work, back to loneliness.

was a weekend of happiness and heartache...