Brock week 7

On Saturday I played some leisurely sport with the Campus for Christ people for a couple of hours out on the oval. That night, I helped Josh out doing the stats for the brock basketball game again, which they won easily. It’s great having a front row seat. After that I went with him and two of his friends to the Pen Centre and got free tickets (because one of his friends works there and it was his birthday) to see Jackass 3D. It was very entertaining. We even bumped into Mum and her friends at the movie.

After that, we went back to Josh’ house where we stayed the night. His parents were out of the country. We had some good table tennis games, basketball and football outside on the street, and jammed on the guitar. We went to bed around 130, but Josh and I were up to nearly 3am sharing a great chat.

Woke up early at 830 (Yeah that’s early!) to go to church at Central again. It was really good. After church, about 10 of us from our floor went for a trip into value village to get some Halloween costumes and groceries. I got some fully sick bright blue track pants which are really warm!

When we got back from the shopping adventure, the whole floor had a pizza party in the lounge and decorated it for a res competition – Haunted house. We all dressed up scary and scared the res heads when they came to inspect. A group of us went to the marketplace afterwards to get dinner in our costumes. We got many strange looks from that haha. After dinner, Taylor and I went and annoyed a bunch of people on the floor interrogating them with random questions. It was really funny but turned out to be good to find out more about some of them.

Monday – I woke up when it was still dark!!! That was tough! Lucky I only have to do it once a week. Classes were aight. Did some vacuuming and washing in the afternoon. Then played some soccer with the crew from my floor. Got pretty muddy from that. On Monday night, I played ice hockey for the second time. This time I was a bit better and got a few good touches on the puck. It was really fun. It is always great to hang out with the bcf people. They are very inclusive, friendly and encouraging. Great people.

Tuesday – Shelby and I went to the pen centre to get some cash out, and also check out some necessities for Halloween costumes. I had class in the afternoon. On Tuesday night I had volleyball then went straight to MW bible study at Vanessa’s house. We looked at the parable of the persistent widow, which was encouraging.

On Wednesday, most of the day was spent studying for an upcoming exam and working on my assignment. Thursday morning I played tennis with Ella for an hour and a half (beat her this time) and then played squash with Sophia for another hour and a half. Three hours of sport!!! For the rest of the day my shoulder was very sore and exhausted. I spent the afternoon working on my assignment.

At 9pm, I left with 5 of the girls on my floor for St Catharine’s biggest All Ages Halloween party at the Barracuda club. I dressed up as Aussie-man with my Aussie flag as my cape. It was pretty crazy. There were so many people at the club. And all the girls were wearing the skimpiest Halloween costumes imaginable. There were a lot of seedy guys there as well and I had to come to the rescue of a few of the girls on my floor from being grinded on. It was pretty cool seeing all the costumes but it wasn’t really my scene.

We got back to res around 130. Then a bunch of us went to McDonalds where we had to line up for about an hour because there were so many people there at 2 in the morning!

Slept in the next morning. Went to c4c bible study with Jaime, Mike and Tyler. I did some more study, went to Merge which was run by bcf and it was focused around worship. Straight after merge, Burgers and Hilary from Guelph came to visit. It was great hanging out with them, catching up over some dinner. Then we dressed up in some Halloween costumes (this time I was a fat lady) and went wandering around town. It was hilarious as Burgers dressed up as a ninja and got up to some ninja antics that we caught on camera. It was hilarious!

Spent about an hour at Tim Hortons, eating and chatting at 1am. Then watched a movie before hitting the hay. Burgers and I slept in the lounge room while Hilary slept in my bed. It was amazing how comfortable the couches were to sleep on! Probably more comfortable than my bed!

On Saturday, we slept in until the pm came about. Then grabbed some food. Said goodbye to my good friends, then went with Leanne and watched the Brock Mens Rugby game (win) and womens volleyball game (win).

My time here at Brock is just about half over. I have done many things already but still my time has flown by and I realise that I need to get out there and do as much as I can in the time that I have!

Brock Week 6

On Saturday night I went to a birthday party over in the village part of campus which is a more apartment style residences. It was Jess’ (one of the Aussie girls) birthday party. So we hung out there for the night. Played some poker, which was won by yours truly. Either I am getting much better at poker, or Canadians are pretty useless at it. A late night visit to McDonalds which are now having the much loved promotion of monopoly! Instant winner right here! Free pancakes!

The next morning I woke up bright and early to go with Josh, Kristen and Anne to Central Community Church. It was a really cool church. Very contempory. They broadcast all their services to other locations in movie theatres around St Catharines. The music was really great as well, sounded like a recording!

On Sunday afternoon we had ‘deep talks’ (weekly event that is pretty self explanatory) with some people on our floor, then all of our floor participated with a bunch of other people from Brock residences in the Don hunt. We dressed up and ran around finding all the Dons from the different residences. It was pretty fun.

On Sunday night I studied for the midterm exam I had the next morning. The exam arrived bright and early, it wasn’t too bad, but they had a heap of questions that were completely irrelevant and trivial and were only testing the fact that you learnt all the nitty gritty stuff on the lecture slides.

I actually fell asleep in my other lecture that day…which has never happened before. On Monday night I did something pretty cool but I forget now.

Tuesday – gym, swim, did some skyping, played badminton with Rohit, played volley ball at night time with the Aussies. Then went for a swim and taught sofia how to dive. Rushed back to my floor meeting. After the floor meeting we played a game called man hunt out in the courtyard with everyone on our floor. It was really fun and tiring.

Next morning I woke up realised that I left my camera on the stairs when we were playing manhunt the night before. It wasn’t there and hadn’t been turned into lost property. Shattered! Can only blame myself for it though.

I played squash with Sofia that morning. She had improved a lot and we had some great rallies! I spent the rest of the day being very conscientious on my assignment. Got some good progress.

In the afternoon after visiting the doctor about my cough, the international students had a dinner social in town. It was all you can eat sushi. Fantastic! It wasn’t buffet either….order from the waiter and he keeps bringing stuff out according to what you want. I even tried some eel!

Later that night, at 11pm, I went to the hockey again with the bcf crew. Only this time, one of the guys lent me his gear because he wasn’t playing. I got to play ice hockey!!! It was fantastic. I was terrible, very slow and pretty clumsy and goofy. I was the laughing stock of everyone there. But I got a few touches on the puck and even took a shot at goal. All the guys I played with were very friendly and inclusive which made it all the better.

On Thursday, I pretty much did nothing…started podcasting Hamish and Andy, which I don’t know why I haven’t done before, and I went to the gym. At night at 7 we had our Bible study with bcf. We moved it to our lounge room on Earp because all the library rooms were taken. After Bible study as I was walking into the elevator to skype dad about buying a new camera, I got a text from Andrew saying that he knew the guy who had my camera. It was such an answer to prayer!!! Perfect timing as well! Just as I am about to get a new one. Praise the Lord!

On Friday, I played tennis with Andrew in the morning – I beat him two to one but it was a great game! Watched some All Aussie adventures with him. At 1 I went to the C4C bible study with the boys which was good as usual. Then I went and hung out with Lyndall and Sofia for a while. That night I went to a drama presentation/show full of little drama skits. One of the girls on our floor Holly was in it so a bunch of us from the floor went along to support. After that, I bought a snowboard online, and hung out with people from my floor. I even met some people from the floor below which was cool.

Another week done, the time is flying by so quickly. With some of the spare time on my hands I made a video for upcoming halloween...

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/jligSlqfVE2xUFHJ

Brock Week 5

Jon, Dylan (brother), Becca (sister) and I all slept the whole ride to his cottage. Arrived at his cottage which was beautiful! Right on the lake, beautiful views. We spent some time relaxing. Then Dylan, Jon and I went exploring up the road. We climbed up a ridge and looked out over the cliff and lake. It was nice just to relax up there. Then when we came back, we put the wetsuits on and took his boat out. Dylan, Jon and I all had a turn, but the water was freezing! I only had one run. When I fell in, I got out because the cold was numbing. I have realised I have become a bit fussy with my wakes. Jon’s boat put out an okay wake but now I am used to riding on the big wakes of the nautiques.

That night, after a lovely dinner, we watched Get him to the Greek with the family. I spent a lot of time getting my video working again. It has been the bane of my existence!

Sunday morning held a lengthy sleep-in. Breakfast out on the veranda at 12 noon. In the afternoon, we did some more skiing, behind the tinny. Jon had made his own kicker/jump and we just kept doing that! It was really fun. I even learnt a new trick on it (roll to revert), but couldn’t ride away from it. I also got to try his no foot ski which is basically just a plank of wood. It took me a few tries to get up but eventually I did and had a great ride.

On Sunday night, which was officially thanksgiving, we went to their neighbours cottage where a few family’s would share a big feast. It was fantastic – turkey, veges and best of all - STUFFING! The food was great, and we played some games of darts, foosball, and table tennis down in their basement. The other people were very friendly as well. That night I stayed up till 330 finishing the video….finally!

Slept in again, and then helped the McTavish’s pack up the cottage and yard in preparation for the winter. Something that we don’t have to worry about back home. I did some study on the drive back home.

That night I stayed at Jon’s house in his basement, where I did some skyping, relaxing as well as study for the midterm I had the next day. The next morning, Jon’s dad Robby drove me back to Brock which was very nice. He had a golf game in Niagara which was close by. I did my midterm which turned out to be the easiest test I have done at university. It was ridiculous! And my only class for the whole week. Sweeet.

For the rest of the week the days mesh in together and are hard to distinguish from each other. So I will just give you some of the highlights.

I went swimming twice in the pool to do some laps, plus one night went with people from my floor and we played brandy and volleyball. I went to the gym a couple of times. I had 2 visits to the athletic therapist who worked on both my wrist and shoulder.

I played tennis with a friend named Ella, who used to play nationals in Canada, so she gave me a talking to haha. Also played squash with Sofia, it was more teaching than playing. On Tuesday night we had our Aussie team intermural volleyball games. Our first one we got flogged in, but the second game we came back from about 15 down to win by one point right on the buzzer. It was very exciting.

I went to the bcf bible study on Thursday night which looked at the temptations of Jesus, and then on Friday morning I went to the campus for Christ bible group which looked at Peter’s first miracle.

One day at lunchtime I caught up with a friend Tyler for lunch and then we went to his room in Valley (residence next door) and he had a bongo, guitar and keyboard, so we jammed for a bit.

I had an emotional rollercoaster where my hard drive crashed, which contained all my photos, all my videos and all my music. I was quite upset and angry. But then after some prayer, the next day I figured out how to get it back and running which was such a blessing. I also figured out why my summer camp video wasn’t exporting properly and fixed that up.

On Friday night, I went to merge which was a bcf church type thing. It was pretty cool to hang out with some more Christians. Josh and I had to leave it a little bit early, because he was having people over at his house from muskoka woods. A reunion. It was fantastic! We had burgers, played some table tennis, watched some YouTube and played ‘things in a box’.

Sabbath morning sleep-in (You guys don’t need to worry about me having a lack of sleep here!). I replied to some emails and did some relaxing. I went for a walk along the escarpment with some of the people from my floor which was very pretty seeing all the autumn colours and getting outside in the great outdoors.

I have a new favourite thing to eat in the cafeteria – and that is waffles. You make your own in the press, and they have hot jam, cream and hot chocolate syrup to smother it in. mmmm.

The week involved a few skypes back home which was pleasant despite making me somewhat homesick. Still enjoying it here though. Please do send me emails and/or skype me. I love hearing from and seeing everyone!

Brock Week 4

On Saturday morning I drove to London (Ontario) with Amanda (aka mum). We arrived on the wet miserable day they call homecoming. We were welcomed to town by a big marching band parade down the main street. Arrived at Coomb’s house just off the main street where it turns out there was a muskoka woods convention (not really but pretty much). There were a heap of girls that stayed over at Coombs’ house the night before. It was great catching up with them. Then came more and more and more muskoka woods arrivals. All up there were probably about 30 people that we saw. Spent a lot of time bumming around Coombs’ house catching up. Then the big American football game was on. Western (from London) vs Queens.

I went to Drew’s flat to watch this with some of the boys while the girls went…..shopping! Western ended up winning the game so the celebrations continued. We also went outside in the drizzle and threw the football around ourselves pretending that we were pro’s haha.

That night everyone headed to the main street with all the clubs and bars. The whole street was shut down and everyone was parading around in their purple colours. The atmosphere was very cool with everyone celebrating, dressed up, cars honking….the whole town was into it. For dinner we had an incredible souvlaki! Everyone went to a local bar…which we had to wait for an hour outside to get in. Once we were in it was very packed and sooo loud that I couldn’t even talk to anyone without shouting in their ear. Not my scene.

Later that night after another souvlaki, the boys went and stayed at Julie’s house, a very nice little house I might add. Dylan and I shared the fold out couch. In the morning everyone came around to Julie’s for brunch which was delicious, and we had some sing alongs with her piano and guitars as well. Swifty even brought his trumpet. After everyone left Julie and I played some piano and she gave me a haircut which was a bit overdue. Then Amanda let me drive her car home, and as always I very much enjoyed driving.

Back at brock Kristen, Tyler, and Anne came over and we watched the epicness of August Rush in the common room. I then had to do a bit of study for the small test I had the next day…piece of cake.

Classes went by pretty cruisily the next day. I had a meeting with my seminar partner to plan our assignment and 40 minute presentation on cardiomyopathy. After classes I did some washing and then spent the night hanging out with floormates and going to the pool for free swim. It was fun jumping off the diving boards and high platform. I even mustered up the courage to try a double front flip…and got it.

Tuesday – slept in, had one class, ate some food, did some study, chatted to Jason on skype, went for a swim and gym. That night I had thanksgiving dinner at the cafeteria with my floormates. It was very tasty. I had my first try of pumpkin pie which wasn’t too bad, I wouldn’t say its my favourite dessert but not too shabby. I hung out with Tyler and played some bass guitar in his room. Then that night I went to the muskoka woods small group with anne and Kristen. It was great to catch up with the crew and meet some people that I didn’t get the chance to hang with during the summer.

Wednesday – I don’t know where that day went.

Thursday – Did some solid study, gym, pool, played some board games in the common room. In the afternoon I went over to Josh’ house and I taught him some guitar, played some table tennis. Then went back to university and had a great game of tennis. That night we went to the Brock Badger’s basketball game. I helped Josh with his job of statistic keeping for the game. It was intense! I had to pretty much commentate everything that was happening and he would fill in the stats. My mouth didn’t stop talking the whole time! Apparantly you get payed 25 dollars for the game, but not sure if I will because im kind of an immigrant. Doesn’t bother me. After the game (Brock lost) I went with a couple of floormates to watch Avatar the last airbender in one of the lecture theatres where they play movies every couple of nights.

Friday morning I woke up early and caught the bus to Toronto. I sat with a girl that I had met previously at university and we chatted the whole trip. Once in Toronto, I walked with all my luggage to the eaton centre where I had booked an appointment at the Apple store to sort out my mac. The movie I had been making from the summer had stuffed up and could no longer be played or edited and I was very very frustrated. The mac ‘genius’ certainly was no genius. He fiddled around on the computer for about half an hour and then said that I would have to re upload all the clips. Pretty peeved off about that.

From there I rushed to Ryerson university which was downtown to catch Mark’s (Mr incredible) soccer game. He was travelling from Nipissing for the varsity team. I arrived at the university and found that there were no soccer fields around. After asking around I found that the game was on the other side of town! I wanted to get there quick so I decided to catch a taxi. 18 dollars later I arrived at the stadium only having missed out on 10 minutes of the game. There weren’t many people at the game but it was good to watch even though Mark’s team lost. Genevieve also came to watch the game in the second half. After the game the three of us all caught up. We then dropped Genevieve at the train station.

Mark and I spent over an hour just chatting in the train terminal. Then we caught our own train to visit Jon in Mississauga. Jon took us to his house which was very beautiful! Later that night after chilling, we went to a house party where Slippery and Dylan were staying. It was a very upper class house with its own recording studio, and dance studio in the basement. There were only 15 or so people there and the party was because a singing group had just finished recording a song which will be a one hit wonder. It sounded fantastic! The house was owned by a really friendly/cool Christian guy named JJ. I’m hoping that we will get the chance to meet up again sometime. We then had a black light glow stick dance party in the basement, and just hung out. Left the party, grabbed some 2am pizza, dropped Mark off at his hotel, then crashed at Jon’s.

We woke up early the next morning to go with Jon’s family to his cottage for thanksgiving weekend!

One interesting fact of my time at Brock…I think that I have had chocolate milk everyday since camp finished, whether that be a Tim Horton’s hot chocolate, chocolate milk, or milk with my chocolate protein powder.

Brock Week 3

So dad and I woke up at 330 on Saturday morning to drive to the airport. Caught my plane back to Toronto. I had a whole row to myself so got some good shut eye on the flight. I waited at the airport for a couple of hours before Jess and Craig Leslie (from camp) picked me up. From there we picked up Zach Shaw and went to the theme park - Canada’s Wonderland.

It was such a big theme park! It had about 12 rollercoasters comparing to dreamworld’s 2. One of them was identical to the lethal weapon at Movieworld. Highlights were:

The Behemoth – A HUGE rollercoaster (no loops) that went up and down but SO high and fast….fastest I have ever been on. And the only thing holding you down is this tiny little lap bar that I swear you could get out of if you wanted or were unlucky. This was what multiplied the scare factor by 21!

The Sledgehammer – A mix of the giant drop and the claw but a bit smaller…still very fun!

The Bat – A rollercoaster that at the end goes uphill, stops, then does the whole track again but this time backwards! It’s so trippy doing a loop backwards.

Drop Zone – A smaller version of the giant drop

They also had both a standing up roller coaster which was very cool. And the lying down (like superman) rollercoaster was also a highlight. At wonderland we also bumped into all the CEO’s from camp who were having their camp reunion which was a surprise.

After wonderland we went back to Zach’s house where we had dinner, watched a movie (She’s out of your league), and then watched a bunch of Zach’s dad’s travel videos which was quite funny as he was so enthusiastic about them. The way he pronounced my name was hilarious as well (RRRRRRRace!).

That night I stayed at Zach’s, slept in and after breakfast caught the bus into the subway, then subwayed into downtown to meet the Aussies. On the trip there I was sitting with a man and his 8 year old daughter. Somehow I got him chatting about politics and he started insisting to me that politics are corrupt and all about how 911 was a conspiracy and it ‘was an inside job’. I couldn’t even get a word in he just kept going… so I just did the old ‘smile and nod’.

I finally made it to downtown and went with the Aussies to the Roger’s Skydome where we watched the Toronto BlueJay’s baseball team play against the Baltimore Orioles. It was a very long game, but entertaining nonetheless. I even got a free tshirt. The Toronto team won which was nice. From there we walked to the bus station to catch the bus back to ‘home’ – Brock.

On Sunday night I did my first batch of study for the semester as the next morning I had a small test.

So Monday came and I wandered through the classes, which were fairly interesting, got my test done. Monday night I went with a bunch of the girls on my floor to the pool. We got to dive off the diving boards and use the rope swing. Good times. The pool even had a big spa which was incredibly warm. I can see myself spending much more time there this semester. After the pool I had a late night gym session. The gym was still packed!!! So frustrating as I cant get a decent session in when its so busy.

Tuesday I had my last class for the week. Its so fantastic being done at 5 on Tuesday for the week. Played a game of tennis with Rohit and Kaitlyn from my floor. On Tuesday night I played intramural volley ball with the boxing kangaroos. All the Australian’s are part of a team. We were useless! The girls couldn’t hit the ball for toffee. The only reason we won the first game was because the other team forfeit. I missed out on the Muskoka woods bible study for the volleyball so some weeks I will probably go to the small group instead of volley.

Wednesday I had the day off, so the day disappeared pretty quickly. Went to the gym, ate some food. Went shopping with Taylor at the pen centre. I bought myself a squash racquet because I am really enjoying the squash games and it was only $25. So that afternoon I had a game of squash with Rohit. On Wednesday night I played some balderdash and things in a box with people on my floor and with Tyler, Anne and Kristen from MW. After the games we went for a late night McDonalds run.

Thursday was a lazy day. I went to the sports doctor to check out my shoulder (camp injury) which it turns out was ligament damage rather than muscular. On Thursday night I went to the BCF bible study which was a very in depth study of about 15 verses in Luke. Good to meet more Christians around uni. I had a late night dedicated to working on my camp movie which was nearly finished then began to stuff up and now isn’t working at all. Very frustrating! Hope it works out soon otherwise it would be a waste of many hours of my time.

Friday I went to the athletic therapist who did some stretching, ultrasound, and electrical current on my shoulder. The electrical patches were very strange as they made my muscles spasm involuntarily. On Friday night I went with Sophia (Swedish friend), lyndal (Aussie friend) and Tyler to the Brock badgers vs York Lions Ice hockey game. It was so much fun! We were yelling out at the ref as he was right in front of us, we were front row. Brock won and there were a few fights so my night was complete. We were next to the penalty box as well so we chirped (Canadian word for teased) the opposition team when they were in the penalty box. A great first ice hockey experience!

I am very much enjoying the soups at the cafeteria’s. Very tasty broccoli, cauliflower, corn and asparagus soups. Breakfasts are a rarity for me with my sleepins. But im having brunch and afternoon tea and dinner haha. This weekend I’m heading to Western in London!! Should be fun fun fun.