Exhaustion has set in, and I'm only beginning

I would have thought that I would have had a lot more free time once school ended, but since school ended two weeks ago, I have felt very busy. I think part of that stems from me trying to catch up with my sleep, but there are just so many things to do in a day.

Part of the lack of free time can be attributed to Ultimate. We are currently going through tryouts from the Coed Competitive Stream of OCUA. We had about 90 people at our first tryout and just over 110 at our second tryout. Trying to manage that many people when we are looking for 40-45 is quite difficult. We made our first cut on Wednesday night, which was quite difficult to do, but we still have quite large numbers. As we go to our first tournament next weekend, we have a lot of work to do in the next week.

I start my internship at the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa next week. I started this week with a part-time job at the Boys and Girls Club helping out with their special events. I hope that I will be able to transition well from school to working again. The job this week was only two days, but starting next week for the whole summer I will be working 5 days a week. I am looking forward to it as it will get me out of the house, but at the same time, it will be a big change.

Cabane à Sucre

Melissa organized a trip to the Sucrerie Le Palais Gommé (this is the satellite map of the place) in L'Ange-Gardien (Quebec) over the weekend. It was a lot of fun, Geofford and I got to meet up with Melissa, Steve, and Tanya - who we met in Mexico for Rachel and Clayton's wedding. I also got to meet Nick - Tracy's new boyfriend as they came along too.

Fortunately, I was very hungry because they served up a great meal. We had pea soup to start, which was quite tasty, and the feast came out onto the table. After the soup was cleared from the table: bacon, sausages, ham, potatoes, eggs (it looked like a pie), and beans were placed in stainless steel bowls on the table. It was a huge feast. The bacon wasn't normal bacon (see picture at left), but it was a lot thicker and harder, and it was called "les oreilles de crisse". After the main courses, we were allowed to choose our dessert, which was a choice of: cake with maple topping, pancake, or a sugar tart. I chose the cake and it was delicious. Nick being the smart one, took two desserts. I was very jealous because although I was really full, I would have liked to try another dessert. :)

After lunch, we were too full to get our maple taffy or "tire" as they call it in French, so we decided to go on a horse ride. At first I thought that this horse ride would be on a horse, but it turned out to be a horse drawn wagon. It wasn't all that long, but Steve kept us laughing the entire time, so it was quite amusing. We got a little tour of the farm, but we never saw any maple trees, so we were unsure if they actually made maple syrup at this sugar bush.

Despite being full, we had to indulge on the maple taffy or "tire sur la neige". Basically they take over-boiled maple syrup (in our case it was microwaved...) and pour it over snow in thin strips. After a few seconds, we took a popsicle stick and rolled the sticky taffy onto the stick. It's super sticky but very sweet and yummy. I'm showing off my maple taffy in the picture to the left. We got two of these maple taffy, and I'm not sure if I could have eaten another as they were so sweet.

All in all, the trip to the Cabane à Sucre was good. Good times with good food and good people. Can't wait to go again next spring!

Note: All pictures posted by: The picture of Geofford and I was taken by Steve Wallace.

Spring is Finally Here!

I am very happy that spring is finally here and now I have the time to enjoy it. With all of my planning, I still managed to work on my school assignments right up until the due date. I'm thinking next time, I should just work on it last minute :) I only have one assignment/exam left to complete, which is due on Friday, so hopefully I will get that done sooner than later, as tryouts for seVen start on Thursday night.

All the snow is melted here in Ottawa, but that didn't stop Geofford and I from snowboarding at Tremblant over the weekend. The mountain had perfect spring conditions, which I discovered was great for skiers, but not so great for snowboarders. I remember loving spring skiing, but I'm still undecided about spring boarding. The first four runs of the day were awesome, the snow was still quite fast, and wasn't softening up too much. After a mid-morning break, the snow got too soft and was beginning to form moguls on most of the runs. On skis, this really isn't that much of a problem, but on a snowboard, I found it a little more difficult to maneuvre. Next year, I hope to get out on the slopes more than once, and hopefully I won't have such a difficult time in the spring. We'll see...

As for ultimate, the indoor season is coming to a close, and the outdoor season is starting up again. seVen (OCUA's A Team) starts tryouts in conjunction with BigFish (OCUA's B team) this Thursday night, which starts off hopefully an exciting season. I can't wait for tryouts to be over though so that I can start playing. That is the part that I definitely look forward to.

The end of an era...

I know that I am supposed to be working on my paper, but the news of Pope John Paul II's death has really hit me. I knew that he was gravely ill and his death was imminent, but I was still surprised to hear about his death while I was driving to my parents' house for dinner last night.

It seems appropriate that it was raining so hard last night as catholics and many other people were mourning his death. Although I mistimed my trip to Rome in 2001 and was unable to celebrate mass at St. Peter's with the pope, I was lucky to have been in his presence at an open air mass in 1984 in Ottawa and also at a few occasions during World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto.

I am having trouble holding back tears as I am reading different articles that describe his life. I am sure that the cardinals will have a tough time choosing Karol Józef Wojtyła's successor, but hopefully this next pope will be as influential and special as Pope John Paul II.

(I will try and post up some pictures that I took of the pope when I was at WYD in Toronto when I can get them scanned in)

Back to work...almost there...the presentation is almost complete, and the paper is 2/3 of the way done...2 more sleeps.

Light at the end of the tunnel....

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. I completed two out of four "assigments" due Thursday and Friday and now only have one paper and one presentation left to finish, and both are due on Tuesday, so I am quite excited that the terms is coming to a close. I have about 15 pages left to write , and a presentation to prepare for Tuesday, but I have faith that I will get them done.

On a completely different note, I am very sad that the Pope John Paul II's health is so weak right now. Although he maintained a lot of traditional values of the church to be important, he was also created new initiatives such as World Youth Day which had a large impact on people. I was present at the World Youth Day in 2002 in Toronto and I will never forget seeing him. There was such a peace that came over the crowd when he was at the Exhibition Center. You could just feel that he was close. I was fortunate to have been right close to the barriers when he drove by, so I was less than a meter away from him. As he passed by you could feel the love and peace that he radiated. I will never forget that experience. I wish Pope John Paul II the best, and I hope that he will make it through this illness. If not, I hope that the next pope is just as inspiring as this one.