Can you feel the love?

Sometimes it can seem as though you work forever and only succeed in treading water, maybe catching onto an item floating past from time to time to add to the items you are already struggling to float with.

Other times life seems like a scene from the Original Mario Brothers, where you jump on floating clouds catching goodies.

Thankfully, these past few days have been the latter.

As the excitement of heading to medical school builds - less than two weeks til Orientation begins!!! I returned from two exciting weeks helping WYA's 3rd Summer Camp for teenagers to the discovery that the work I did with WYA Africa's Decade of Dignity and Development Conference last year had been used as an example of Spirit of the Game on 5Ultimate's blog.

Then, to top everything off I received a phone call from SEVEN Fund, that I had received third place in their essay competition entitled "The Morality of Profit"! What this means is that in the book they will publish next year of the same title, I will be one of the winning essays published! What it also means is that thankfully my years of treading water, reaching out to those treading with me and observations on how we all got there somehow struck a chord and hopefully if we all continue to tread water together will get us a little further if we only keep going.

For this week I'll keep floating on clouds to sustain me when I jump back into the water.

A whirldwind tour of the summer months

Two weeks before I start medical school and I am wrapping up my life in NY. Still need to find an apartment, and will do that on Thursday after I drive home (13 hours!) on Wednesday with my brother, Peter. This summer has been absolutely incredible. 6 weeks in the Arctic followed by a couple weeks in Ontario visiting friends and relaxing at my aunt's cottage - cue waterskiing, bbq and swimming in pristine lake images.

Back to the US of A mid-July to teach Ultimate at a summer camp. Awesome, the camp was 100% devoted to Ultimate and coached by a woman who played on Lady Godiva for 12 years. She impressed me so much with her dedication to Ultimate and the next generation as she organises the camp every year during her vacation and brings in great players to help her teach kids in middle and high school not just the basics but even advanced skills. 

Then on to NY... two weeks in the city divided by attending Wildwood Ultimate Beach tournament before I headed off to yet another summer camp :) Yep, from President of a global organisation to becoming (as one mother of a camper put it, who only saw me driving the van) "oh, are you the camp driver?" yep. 

The World Youth Alliance Summer Camp was our third camp held in Rhode Island overlooking a bay with incredible grounds. It's like spending two weeks in heaven. The cafeteria even has good food with super friendly staff! This year we had kids from Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, USA, Belgium, Canada and Mexico.

On top of great talks on all sorts of issues related to dignity we played lots of sports, went kayaking, rock climbing, swimming and even had a "fashion show" where the kids came up with genuinely fashion inspired outfits from newspaper, garbage bags and duct tape. By the end of the camp we succeeded in exhausting the kids who went to bed much more willingly, of course at the cost of exhausting ourselves also. Sleeping in this morning was beautiful!

Having a few hours of free time, I renewed my quest for housing in St. John which I'll need to settle by the end of this week and also discovered a great blog. 5Ultimate posted a few months ago about a conference WYA organised last year in which I taught Ultimate to the kids as part of understanding Good Governance through Spirit of the Game. 
http://fiveultimate.com/blog/?p=65

Enjoy!

If all the world’s a stage, and all the men but players, then who hands out the programs?

On June 23 I left Inuvik. Dave and my nephews came to see me off while Kim stayed home with the baby and the dogs. The night before I left we had a bbq with all the friends I had made up north. A few biologists who knew Dave and continuously bumped into me until we just had to hang out, and a couple of neighbours close to the family attended.

My final week in Inuvik was filled with a bit of boating, a few hikes and lots of time with the nephews. Finally my massage business picked up and I squeezed in all the requests I could. The last couple days I couldn’t even picture myself leaving. Aaron knew I was going and offered to call me every morning to wake me up as he didn’t know how I’d get up without him. Jacob had grown accustomed to having me around and finally let me comfort him and join in his stories. Ethan of course would never know I’d been there except for maybe a slight physical memory when we meet next?

Saying goodbye at the airport was so hard. Aaron cuddled in my arms looking slightly confused and sad while I cried. Jacob wanted to go potty. Knowing that we’d grown so close and I have no idea when I’ll see them again, I started to realize how people can be content to not travel all the time.

Two days later I arrived in London, Ontario for a friend’s wedding. Was great to see the bride as she ran errands and tried to keep herself sane the night before. Once she took off for the night the rest of us, bridal party and myself prepared signs for decorating the car and other random events the next day to entertain the groom and hopefully enable him to sleep also!

Early in the morning we accompanied Meg to get her hair done. I appointed myself the photographer and think I got some pretty neat shots of her hair, getting ready and the ceremony. As much as I typically love my little powershot, having a real camera would have made a huge difference in terms of zoom and working with different lighting. During the reception, I quit my photographic endeavors and devoted myself wholeheartedly to the food, the cake which one of the bridesmaids had made – it was amazing! And then to the dancing.

The humidity was not ideal for dancing, after about 30 minutes I was soaked; visibly. No amount of toweling off in the washroom helped. I even tried to wrap my stomach in a papertowel bandage at one point. Not effective. The moment I moved it ripped and slid down. Rather than having a few meters of papertowel appear from beneath my dress on the dance floor I quit where I was and resigned myself with the thought that there were no eligible men there anyways!

Side note on the cake. The bridesmaid who made it is not a professional cake maker or decorator. She did an amazingly beautiful job and had difficulty finding appropriate cake toppers, so I encouraged her with the selection of a large pink foamy M and blue foamy K for the bride and groom’s initials. Later on, someone remarked that it looked like Sesame Street. Consequently the largest cake ended up with the inscription “this wedding is brought to you by the letter M, the letter K and the numbers 2010”. The bride and groom loved it! One friend lacking a sense of humour thought we were cruel when she first saw what we were doing, and her opinion never changed.

To really finish the day in the best way possible we all went to a pub that night. Coincidentally there just happened to be a live band there who specialized in east coast music – the bride and grooms favourite! The one man band was awesome as he played songs especially for them, made them dance and offered numerous dedications along with honouring all our requests. It could not have been planned more perfectly, and was most perfect for not having been planned at all!

Size does matter?

Aaron now orders his eggs "light and fluffy" just like Prince Omelette in the Veggie Tales classic on sharing. This morning I was finally up early enough to make breakfast and served up scrambled eggs with bacon. Aaron was curious if I was an adult, if I was older than Mommy and if I was older than Daddy. His question de resistance came towards the end of that when he asked "Mary, are you bigger than a whale?"

This afternoon we went to the airport to meet the new puppy. An adorable, amazingly friendly little boxer arrived and went nuts licking everyone. While waiting Dave took Aaron and Jacob into the woods to distract them. As he emerged up a little valley he was only one foot shorter than the trees in the forest behind him. It looked like a camera angle trick you would see in a movie for them to demonstrate a character is a giant. Only it was real life and just really short trees.

4 days of substitute teaching has given me a renewed and new respect for teachers. Last week I replaced Dave at the local high school as Phys Ed teacher. Remembering how much I always loved Phys Ed I didn't think it could be too hard. Seriously, playing games for 80 minutes a day? Awesome! However, getting the kids attention, convincing them to do the activity, tailoring it to a range of interests and abilities is very hard. Not to mention that playing sports for hours a day is tiring! My muscles were sore by day two.

PS. Can you spot the purple flower?

No time to say goodbye, hello!

Following our day in Gwich'in park last weekend, we spent Monday night at a friend's camp out on airport lake. Dave carried all our cooking and sleeping equipment while Kim and I each carried a baby and Aaron thankfully walked. Other friends, Juliann and Shane also came with baby Jackson.

Running shoes were never meant for the arctic. Every time I go out walking I get a soaker. True to form, a few minutes into the walk I stepped onto a patch of moss only to have it sink in a foot with me also, I couldn't get out for fear of toppling Jacob into the water and thankfully Shane helped me up and onto a patch of solid moss. A few steps later I equalised my soggy feet so was grateful to arrive at the camp after a 40 minute hike and remove my shoes - even more grateful that the weather was warm enough for me to do so!

Dave and Kim cooked ribs on the bbq and I'd been put in charge of dessert. I'd prepared spice cake mix and mixed it with canned peaches which we placed over the fire. Unfortunately we started the fire after supper, which meant the cake got started much later, and then we didn't keep it going. So the cake was soggy for the first couple hours until we were determined to cook it, and burnt it... Even burnt it was pretty good, I'll have to try it again.

The kids were so excited to be out camping that none of them slept well. Ethan had to sleep with Kim and Jacob was determined not to sleep, only Aaron went to bed after a little while and slept soundly. Overnight it became incredibly cold and a 7am wake up call for breakfast was not welcomed. Dave cooked eggs and bacon on the bbq and we cleaned up the camp to head back to Inuvik for Dave to get to school on time. We dropped him off 1 minute before the bell rang :)

This week I've found a job working at a gift store in Inuvik. The store sells beautiful handmade crafts and as part of my job is to dust it all, I get to see everything that is in the store, and am also terrified that I'll drop and break one of the beautiful/expensive pieces sold there.

Dave is heading south next week for the high school track and field competition. It turned out my javelin and discus throwing years ago made me the resident field events "expert". It was actually nice to guide the kids and see immediate progress as their form improved and they got a sense of how the throws should feel.

Last night Kim and I had our TV Bingo debut. Bingo is huge in Inuvik and a few nights a week residents gather around the community channel to play as the numbers are called out. Bingo sheets can be bought in advance and the winner calls in to stop the game. Neither Kim nor I was even close which is too bad as the pot was $30,000. Today at the bank I saw one of the winners as they dumped a duffel bag onto the counter and then took a picture of their stacks of 20's.

Last night I also joined the second ever Inuvik Ultimate game with about 30 people joining this time! We played for over 2 hours and then a few of us visited a lounge for a beer before stepping back into the midnight sunlight to head home.

Geocaching

Yesterday we drove to Gwich'in park for an afternoon of geocaching. The day was gorgeous, sunny, with a slight breeze and 10 degrees - although it felt warmer in the sunlight. About 30 minutes south of Inuvik along the Dempster highway we pulled into the park and saw a few dozen people, more people than I'd seen at one time since arriving to Inuvik!

After a few minutes at the playground in which Jacob finally decided he was big enough to go down the slide by himself, and loved, we wandered over to greet some friends. I met a man who was nervous about moving to Yellowknife claming "I'm not much of a city person, all the people and congestion..." Dave pointed out that Yellowknife barely qualifies as a city with its population of 20,000 and then introduced me as coming from NY. Funnily enough, I'd been asking on the way to the park why people had camps, Inuvik is basically a camp. Is the purpose of the camps for people to feel like they're getting away from the trees and dirt close by to see trees and dirt farther away? I'm confused...

We then went geocaching. Dave had set up 5 geocaches a few days prior for his school and left the caches for us to use. We were given the first set of coordinates and after a clarification on using the gps - we initially wandered in the opposite direction - headed off towards the 1st cache. Walking on tundra and crossing all the swollen rivers thanks to the melted snow means my shoes are useless. I managed to stay dry til after the second cache when I got a couple soakers with Aaron on my shoulders.

Dave had hidden the caches well and especially at the second one we formed a search line and then a search radius to find it. Until one mom was too tired to search after carrying her baby, stayed at zero point and noticed it hidden at her feet under some torn up moss. We saw quite a bit of scenery en route and especially walking through the lichen the air smelled like fresh woodsy tea. 

Nearly two hours later we emerged, slight wet and slightly torn for a delicious barbeque completed with s'mores before we drove home for the night.

Breakup Excitement

Apparently a very exciting time in Inuvik is waiting for the breakup, of the ice in the river. During this time, there is no road connecting Inuvik with the outside world so all groceries are flown in and everything becomes very expensive.

Three of us went for a walk last night to check out the river. After walking a few kilometers outside of Inuvik we turned around and headed off the road down a trail towards the river. We encountered a number of large puddles in the trail which we avoided by hiking through the woods. Finally, we got 20 meters away from the bridge which would take us into the town. The 20 meters was covered in water.

Left of the trail was high, dry ground, we left the trail and made our way almost to the edge of the puddle. There we were faced with an impassable 30 meters of lake between us and the bridge. Since the bridge was slightly to the right of the path, we retraced our steps and tried the right side of the path.

To the right of the path were clumps of small trees sticking out of water stretching as far as we could see. For nearly 30 minutes we zigzagged from dry clump to soggy clump avoiding the water between. Finally, there were no more clumps. To get any further we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants and headed into the knee deep water to get closer to the bridge.

Squishing through freezing mud is not my favourite thing to do, and when we attempted to cross to the next patch the water got even deeper. We had to admit defeat, walk back the kilometer plus we had come and get home an hour later, instead of 5 minutes later.

Today, we went back to the river at a different location to see how high it was. So many people were also out walking and driving their cars to check it out. Did I mention how exciting breakup season is here? The water was about 10 feet higher than normal and had flooded an entire section of road which goes alongside the river.

We also took a look at the place we'd attempted to cross last night, I think we only would have succeeded in reaching the bridge if we had swum. It was DEEP!  On our way back from the river we went up a hillside to avoid the washed out road. I broke a piece of the front wheel on the baby stroller. Thankfully a friend came by and picked up the boys so they didn't have to walk home, and even treated them to ice cream!

In case you were already jealous of how exciting my life is here. Some people were out attempting to have a bbq and caught some grass on fire, which started to spread quite quickly. Thankfully a few firefighters arrived to put it out with a big bucket of water.

Since then I've spent a pretty relaxing afternoon on the patio, getting up from my computer every few moments to pull the 1 year old back from the stairs before he walked down headfirst.

Crossing over north of 60

Early Monday morning I left NY for a two day visit to Calgary en route to Inuvik, NWT. In packing, I left all my "clothes that I wear so people will talk to me in NY" and packed all my "clothes that I love". Aka, my semi-fashionable clothes stayed behind and my super comfy clothes came with! During 1.5 days in Calgary I ate steak, walked around the entire downtown and along the river aaaand hiked in Banff!

My friend Trevor drove us to Johnston Canyon where we hiked along a gorgeous trail alongside a glacier river with a number of waterfalls. Trev had to keep encouraging me forward as I would whip out my camera at every turn: oooh, look at this! oh wow - click.

We rested at the top of the trail alongside the inkpots. The inkpots are pools of spring water that continuously bubble up from the ground. Some of the pools had active bubbles on the bottom where the water was coming up from the ground. The water was a beautiful turquoise with patches of bright green algae in places.

After a picnic and quick wade in the nearby glacial stream we headed back down the trail and into the town of Banff. Banff is every stereotype of Canada rolled into one. Rustic, outdoorsy, clean, polite, with beaver and moose carvings liberally sprinkled around.

Early Wednesday morning I flew from Calgary to Edmonton to Yellowknife. Upon disembarking in Yellowknife a man I had spoken to previously welcomed me "north of 60". I felt like I'd stepped onto a tv set - probably only Canadians will know why :) I re-embarked after surviving the chilly 1 Celsius weather and very nervous for Inuvik temperatures.

2pm. I stepped off the plane. Having spent the last 4 hours watching the landscape become barer, browner and icier I peered around seeking the town of Inuvik as we began our landing descent. I couldn't find it. Only as we soared over the town headed for the landing strip was I able to spot it. A tiny town with a few large streets and a few more small streets.

Kim and the boys welcomed me at the airport, Aaron is now 5, Jacob 3 and Ethan 1. Aaron remembered me, Jacob pretended to, and Ethan gave an adorable chubby grin. We drove straight to the school to catch the second half of the talent show, which Dave performed in towards the end. He and two other teachers performed "In the Jungle" with Dave even swinging on a rope in a singlet - a pretty awesome welcome to the frozen north!

the art of being cool

Step one: hang out in a walk-in freezer.

Step two: pretend its normal to be there

Step three: warn each person who enters the walk-in freezer to buy beer about the conspiracy of global warming and scream at them to leave your igloo!

Or... you can simply enter yourself into a "coffeehouse" performance slot with no marketable talents.

Tonight my younger sister Clare and I will perform "Any Dream Will Do" before a hopefully small audience and other performers, all of whom are taking their performances quite seriously. Clare will be playing the part of Joseph and wearing jeans, a yellow/colourful housecoat with a gold bomber jacket overtop and cowboy boots. Very Egyptian. I will be playing the part of the Narrator and will wear a black dress with gold sparkles and a big bow in the back.

Neither Clare nor I will ever be asked to join a choir. Our singing lessons were typically combined with dance-offs in our kitchen at home. We have also never been asked to join a dance troupe. We will be acting out the song quite literally tonight, and I just hope everyone takes our performance very seriously also!  That would be ideal.

Los Angeles - Sun, Sand and babies?

Three weeks have passed since I ended my term as WYA president. Supposedly retirement was to usher in an era of free time and relaxation to visit with friends, explore NY and finish off un-finished projects. HA!

Finishing a job I've been personally invested in for the last 4 years continues. I've been involved in answering questions, contacting people, wrapping up and handing over projects, etc. I won't deny that my day has become more flexible, but it is not yet more free.

My first week as an ex-president was spent for the most part working :) And sending off a good friend from Calgary who visited for my "retirement party". In week two, I took off to Toronto for another good friend's bachelorette party! Those details shall remain untold except to say that it was AMAZING! I returned to NY at the end of week two for a different friend's wedding shower :) That weekend I then attended yet a different friend's wedding!

This past week things finally started to calm down. I finished 90% of my ongoing WYA projects by Friday leaving me with much more time to finally embark on all the personal things which have piled up.

This past Saturday I had my second performance as part of Chicago City Limit's performance class. The first performance I was terrified and messed up one of the scenarios we did. I then spent the last two weeks practicing all sorts of scenarios in my head to prevent that from ever happening again! I was only 50% terrified for the second show, with 50% excitement - much better odds. The second show was SO much better than the first. We all had more energy, passion, showmanship, and we all made fewer mistakes. It was so exciting to see such improvement.

Now, I'm in Los Angeles! I'm visiting my brother and his family for two weeks and am already enjoying it immensely. I flew in yesterday around noon and we went to a little Carnival where Caleb rode on some rides. Specifically two: once on a car ride and then about 8 times on a motorcycle! He's so hilarious and serious. He would stare straight ahead or look at the other kids, and we only rarely got a smile or wave out of him, but after every ride he was so excited and wanted to go again!

Today Maria and I jogged along the beach while she pushed the two kids in the stroller. She told me she goes slow and is out of shape - lies. I haven't jogged that fast in quite a while and was definitely dead by the end of the run, and I wasn't pushing a stroller full of kids... I hope to finally relax and enjoy my "retirement" these next two weeks. My plan is to do lots of exercise, tanning and spend my time in between hanging out with the family and sipping tea - hope I achieve it!

The first is not always the worst

For two more weeks I'm still the president of WYA. So perhaps this should be on wyapres.blogspot.com. However, as this post is actually all about me and very little "about Dignity" in the narrower sense of dignity being understood I've decided it should be here.

To begin, the last 9 months of my life have been filled with waiting. No, I haven't just had a child - however the symbolism is rather appropriate. I've waited to hear if I would receive an interview to med schools, and then to see if I would be accepted.

Prior to this I was always the one who made the decision. How I agonised choosing between so many awesome opportunities in my life. For once, there was only one thing I wanted - to go to med school - and the decision didn't rest with me. I had handed in my resignation as President of WYA and started the search to replace me last June. My successor had been chosen and is ready to take over.

Yet I still waited. Weeks passed, Months passed. I started to receive emails and queries about "where will I go next:?" My friends ever optimistic "of course you'll get in", "you are so qualified", and yet I still hadn't been accepted.

Either my friends and people who knew me were liars, or something about me wasn't translating well onto paper, or medical personnel simply weren't interested in what I have to offer!

I had almost given up hope of ever receiving a positive response. Weeks of researching Masters in Public Health schools was beginning to turn into excitement to pursue another path to achieving my dreams. My application was ready to send off, I only waited to hear from one last school before pushing that button and spending yet more money.

This morning I awoke after dreaming, I had driven to a room where the letters waited. I opened my letter with the other applicants and looked around to see people congratulating each other. I opened mine and one word towards the bottom jumped out; rejected. Immediately I reached for my laptop and struggled to clear my eyes of sleep to type in my username and password and check the results. I'd been locked out. 30 minutes later I used my new password to check again and saw those magical words; accepted - deposit requested.

I rushed from my office to call my Mom and started crying. Why, wasn't I happy? Perhaps the stress of imminent rejection was finally lifted and this was how I expressed it. Perhaps I don't actually know how to express emotions in a recognisable way (after my rejection I'd been cracking jokes - no one could take my depression seriously).

Whatever the cause of my distorted emotional reactions, I don't actually care. I'll learn about that soon enough. For now, I am just so happy to be going to Dalhousie medical school!