Crunch Time 4

My body crashed and burned this weekend.  It appears that both my brain and my body realized that major parts of my life are ending and both decided to just stop and rest.  I am very lucky that I get to take the time to relax and recuperate as most of the weekend was spent cleaning my apartment and being exhausted.  I am hoping I get my energy back early this week.  My exhaustion level has been ridiculous.  So tired.  3.5 hour nap today and I may even go to bed on time.  To all you people thinking of grad school, do it but know that, like with other large projects, utter exhaustion is inevitable multiple times throughout the process, especially at the (almost) end.  Something productive will happen tomorrow.....

Born to Run

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Running is not something that I like doing unless I have a basketball, am running bases, or playing some sort of sport.  Having started running in the Running Room clinics a friend lent me this read.  After devouring this interesting novel about a tribe of people who run as their more used form of transportation, the Tarahumara, several well known American runners organize a race down in the Copper Canyons of Mexico.  A fantastic read that will make you think you too can run for miles and miles.  While I continue to plod along, I shall allow this read to motivate me as I learn to run for the sake of my body and its abilities.


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Crunch Time 2

Update on how thesis is going.
Well.  Quite well.
Then I had a colleague that came to the grad student office sick.
Sick people should stay home.
Then I got sick.  For a whole week.
I stayed home.  Still recovering.
Still managed to get some work done in front of my computer.  Productivity down however.
Will persevere.

A few years ago a good friend introduced me to this blog:

Crazy Aunt Purl

She is a hilarious blogger who is living a different sort of life than she had planned.  I read her blog in early January and she had decided not to make any New Year's resolutions.  Instead she was creating monthly goals that she wanted to try to achieve.  Well, some were daily, some weekly, and some monthly.  Purl even made herself a beautiful (and tacky in a fun way) Kindergarten version of a star chart on a piece of large clipboard paper.  Turns out it worked for her and she remembered her goals all month, plus she now has an almost fully decorated chart full of shiny, red, happy stars.

I am in.
I made my list.
I made it twice.
Here it is:

Daily Goals:

1.) 1 hour of exercise

2.) 5 servings of veg & fruit 

(called 5 A Day in the UK; picked this up while traveling)

3.) 3-4 hours of work on thesis

4.) to bed before 11 PM

Weekly Goals:

6.) 1 shopping/grocery trip

7.) 2 healthy dishes made

8.) do 1 large cleaning job

9.) 1 fun night out planned 

One of my awesome sisters (I have a few) made family calendars and every day I write down the number of the goals I achieved in the day's respective calendar box.  

You might wonder about the simplicity of some of these goals.  I am in grad school and basic self cleaning, eating and care takes a back seat to many other projects.  You've been there.  You know what it's like to wonder if you neeeeeed to shower one day, or if you haaaave to buy healthy food this week, because it takes time and that time could be used on one of those projects.  You've been there.  This is to keep me clean, healthy, happier, and keep my energy hustle level up to get my thesis done.  February went well.  Very well.  March has slowed down because I am sick.  Once I am over this, I am back.  Full force.  

If this is your thing, give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Thank you Purl!

Against the Grain

I have a friend who is having some troubles lately.  I am having some troubles with a few friends. Love this song because it reminds me that I don't have to fix everything, but I do need to be honest and follow my own instincts and heart.  A dedication to both of us.



I have seen City and Colour in concert twice, once at a festival and again at a performance hall.  Both times I come out having spent several hours just pondering his lyrics and feeling a melodic calmness make its way through my body.  Mind, body and music.  Wonderful.

Grad School Lazy = RUN

It is time to get in shape using my shapely form.  Going from teaching all day and moving around for 6 hours organizing children, teaching lectures, providing supplies, starting projects and the general mayhem of teaching elementary school, grad school has left me lazy.  Yes, I blame grad school.  Other than the research I completed this summer at festivals and interpretive centres, grad school required my brain, fingers and wrists to function on overload, but not my other body parts.  Hence I am less healthy and fit than I have ever been in my life.  A once former athlete, I have been a casual participant in sports and other activities over many years, and several years ago was so frustrated in a crazy job that I began working out 1.5 hours a day, just to deal with the daily stress and bur-ha-ha.  I was tighter after that job but the insanity lead me to other paths in my life.  I moved to London and started to travel, during which I walked and moved for hours every day, and tried every delicious looking European snack possible (have you been to an authentic patisserie lately?).  Then I transitioned to grad school and lost it all, my sleek calves, my Carnival shaped butt, my tighter abs, and my single chin.  I want these back and in order for this to happen, and under the pressure of great friends, I joined a running club.

This means I have joined the Running Room for a 10 week Learn How To Run clinic.  Now those who know me know I am an athletic person and many of the sports I participate in include running.  My shins have always cried out in pain after a long workout, so I am learning how to run properly and will ease into running with this clinic.  Perhaps I will share interesting wipe-outs and other such nonsense on this blog.  Be prepared for shenanigans!

So far one of the runners this evening told me that there is a new basketball team starting up in Manitoba for women aged 40-49.  I have not found the link yet.  I will keep looking and share because I would really like to get back into basketball.

That would be awesome....must finish thesis first!

My new New Balance shoes:

Love New Balance, always have.

My new ICEtrekkers:

So I don't fall down and go boom!

My new underoos care of Costco and Paradox:

Note: my legs are far more luscious and curvy :)

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping

Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping by Elisabeth Eaves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Somewhere behind my desire to be both a reporter and a stripper lay an impulse to conceal.  Stripping - in competition with acting and espionage - is the ultimate job for someone who's instinct is to present different facades of who she might be.  There is nothing more illusory than a woman pretending to be a sexual fantasy for money." - p. 5

This book was on the wrong shelf when I entered a university library about a year ago.  It has been reminding me it is there waiting to be read for many months and I decided to pick it up over the holiday season.  It was on the apartment shelf as a classmate, during my first year of my Master's degree, announced in class one day that she was completing a PhD about women, their bodies and stripping because she stripped to pay her way through her bachelor's degree several years earlier.  I work hard to be an open person and I easily delight in meeting people whose lives are vastly different than mine and who are willing to share their stories of their life experience.  This book was perfect after I had spent several hours talking with my classmate to begin to build a healthier and more realistic perspective of stripping, the why, who, for what reasons, etc.

"I learned that no one is neutral about female bodies.  If they aren't sex objects used to sell every conceivable good, they are political objects, causing bitter debate on how to manage their fecundity.  And where not sexual or political, they are imbued with society's ideals with fears, turned into Miss Liberties, Virgin Mary's, and Wicked Witches.  Everyone had an opinion on what to do about female bodies, and sometimes it feels as if the only people who get in trouble for holding such opinions are young women themselves.  Some of us, though, have to live in them, and we each get by in our own way." - p. 6-7

Eaves explains how she first became involved in stripping and we meet several of her colleagues, who become friends, and their work as strippers, what purpose is serves in various lives, for some the cycle of dependence that is created in this industry, and the rules of safety that are continuously broken by purchasers and strippers alike.  Eaves teaches the reader that every woman had a line that she has drawn about the sexual work she is willing to perform, and sees many women move and bend this line under pressure from others and due to economic circumstances.

"And I was tempted to see sex work as more of a symptom of social illness than a cause.  The sex biz was nothing more that a sophisticated arbitrage operation, dealing in morals rather than financial instruments...At some point women had become artificially divided into two types - the good and the childbearing ones, carefully trained to disdain sex so that they wouldn't stray, and a separate, pro-sex class.  The second group were despised and disparaged so that the good women wouldn't want to join them.  One group of women ended up with respect but no freedom, and the other with freedom but no respect.  But economics abhors a vacuum, and the whore class...rushed in to fill the chasm between men's actual desires and the social structure that they, with women, had built.  I don't think the divide between the two types of women would go away until all the girls were raised to be free, responsible and unashamed of sex.  And until society had bridged the sex-ed gap - porn for boys and religion and romance for girls - there would always be Lusty Ladies [the stripper club Eaves worked at]." -. p. 138-139

A book that was telling and a strong mixture of social and political commentary shaken together with the lives of women and how their work infiltrates all aspects of their lives.  Give it a read!


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A Little More Understanding and Equality

May we spend 2013 spending more time learning more about people, analyze and improve how we treat each other, and see the ways that we can improve relationships with each other to coexist with more understanding and equality.

Here are two examples of ways in which people are changing the world to create a more positive, considerate and thoughtful sphere on which we live.

Idle No More:

Religion and Homosexuality:

A BYU's student review of the new LDS Church website about homosexuality.

May your holidays be merry and bright!

Summer 2012: Pottery

There was a chance this past summer to begin creating ceramic pieces again.  I have not touched a wheel for two years so I was really excited to ensure the skills I have been developing over the years were still there, and that I could hone a few more skills.  Over time I have given away most of my pieces and this time I decided I was going to keep the pieces and make what I wanted to use every day in my own eating, cooking, drinking and for my own enjoyment. 

I was able to take some time to make several functional pieces but there was not enough time before the pottery area was going to be shut down for me to make any complicated items with lids, spouts, and other accoutrements.  There was little time to glaze as well and I had to complete all of it in one night, which amounted to about 5 hours of glazing, completed very quickly, without a great deal of forethought for more pieces.  Next time I will try to secure more time.

Yes, I made mugs because there aren't enough of them in the world.  When I make mugs I try to create interesting shapes, fun handles the size needed to actually get one's hand or fingers in there.  Too many uselessly small handles in the world.

A funky twist on a handle.

A geometric addition to a handle.

I am reminded every time I get to the wheel how physically demanding such work is.  In fact, in observing friends of mine who complete many different types of art, I am always reminded that they physical literacy that one is demanded to learn in the arts is often as physically demanding as the literacy required for those who participate in sport.  As well, art can get just as dirty as European football or rugby on a rainy, wet, muddy day.

A medium size bowl whose circles of shape and glaze I enjoy as my new counter-top fruit bowl.

This is the piece-de-resistance for the summer.  A white bowing shape onto which I flicked underglaze of green and black.  Several coats of high firing clear glaze and I loved it as soon as I saw it at the bottom of the kiln.  As much as one can decorate, plan and co-ordinate a piece of pottery, the kiln always surprises you.  In this case, a wonderful surprise.

Over the past few months I have had friends request and attempt to claim several pieces, but I am sticking to my guns for now.  I don't have any pieces of pottery in Winnipeg and I am keeping these until I leave....if I leave.

Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada

Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada by Stuart McLean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Twenty years later this book is still a relevant piece of Canadian literature reflecting on the lives of those individuals who live in rural communities.  Working hard to survive and communities these people share with McLean what they love about living in small towns, what endures them to their community members, and the various ways in which they are attempting to survive together as urbanization increases and their rural populations decrease.  From a hockey town in Manitoba, to the historic town of Maple Creek, to the far reaches of a bay town of Sackville, the reader is taken on a soft and melodious journey through the eyes of those who live and work in rural communities.  I wonder if he has written an updated version.  I think McLean should.

The most interesting part for me was the meeting McLean secured with the person who created the Canadian flag, George Stanley living in Sackville, New Brunswick.  He was asked to create a version of a potential flag by a member of parliament as he had strong interests in history and heraldry (a means of identification, usually focused on country or familial commitment).  He based his single maple leaf design on outfits Olympians wore during the 1928 Olympics, the games my grandfather Doral Pilling and his room mate Percy Williams both competed in.  "One of the images I have carried with me all my life is a photograph I saw when I was a boy.  It was a picture form the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam of Percy Williams breasting the tape and winning a gold medal for Canada.  He was wearing a white jersey with a red maple leaf on his chest.  It's an image that has always struck with me."  Recently a book was written about Percy Williams by Samuel Hawley titled, I Just Ran: Percy Williams, World's Fastest Human.  Another book to read especially since the author consulted with my Aunt Arta Johnson who was instrumental in documenting her father's, Doral Pilling's, oral history which included stories about the 1928 Olympics and the athletic tours he participated in as the team returned to Canada.  I also have two cousins who have taken this maple leaf motif from their Olympic uniforms and had tattoos made from them.  Family stories and choices coming full circle.  Thank you McLean for shedding more light on a family story of which I was unaware.


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Keep Shining

While I plaster my blog with videos....here is one a cousin shared with me.  She was able to see Shad in London.  You and I get to enjoy his video and powerful music through YouTube.  Thank you to all the women who have taught me so much.  Keep shining.

I Love Jezebel!

For all those people who were disgusted at the type, amount, bizarreness, and uneducated number of rape comments made during the American election, this article is for you and me!

Team Rape Lost Big Last Night

Second Week of September

We all have busy lives and wonder sometimes if I can actually squeeze more into my life and not fall over from exhaustion.  Well, it was another week that I knew was going to be crazy.  All the responsibilities and signs were evident and I knew it was going to be a commitment and a doozy of a week.  For all you graduate students out there, you may have had similar weeks.  Ones that you know will take every ounce of survival skills you have and every ounce of energy.  Here is my seven day extravaganza week.   One I will look back at this post and wonder how I survived, remind myself what I am capable of, and be proud of how much work I have completed not only to get a degree, but in truly engaging with the many communities at this University:

Monday
- finish and send my supervising professor seven documents related to the methods section of my thesis (up until 2 AM doing this)
- organize supplies and freebees for graduate students attending orientation
- apply for a professional job
- meet with a professor about a new teaching assistant position
- three hour meeting with grad students executive team
- continue buying food, prizes and thank you gifts for orientation

Tuesday
- day one of grad student orientation (that I planned): four presenters, two meals, one open house, one social activity
- purchase more prizes and thank you gifts for orientation
- meeting two with a professor about a new teaching assistant position (prof forgot the meeting, the grad students did not)
- a two hour sustainability meeting to improve University campus
- work on paper for a conference, due on Friday

Wednesday
- day two of grad student orientation: five presenters, two meals, one open house, one social activity (a quiz night that was hard to organize and not well attended)
- order food for orientation party on Thursday evening
- meeting three with a professor about a new teaching assistant position (all present)
- purchase more food for orientation
- work on paper for a conference, due on Friday

Thursday 
- first seminar class for a term long course
- day two of grad student orientation: six presenters, two meals, one open house, one social activity (presenters fantastic, food great, much support from the mature and team focused executives)
- run about replenishing food, drink and snacks for bar-b-q orientation meal
- work on paper for a conference, due on Friday
- fell asleep on couch in GSA Lounge between open house and social activity due to level of tiredness
- kept the party going at the social, then moved it to a local pub, arrived home at 3 AM (not the best choice I made all week)

Friday
- first seminar class for another course taught and the group organized
- taught a lecture for a professor on monism, dualism, materialism and physicalism (thank you philosophers for both asking people to think deeply about our lives and confusing the crap out of us at the same time)
- cleaned up grad office from craziness of orientation
- organized and handed in receipts for reimbursement (much money spent, good times)
- slept for two hours
- went to bed at 9:00 PM exhausted (it felt like 3 AM...again)

Saturday
- headed out to Farm Food Discovery Centre (FFDC) two complete research for six hours
- work on paper for the conference, now due on Monday
- write a report about my grad student activities this month
- hang with a friend in this evening (she has a hot tub)

Sunday
- complete research as part of Open Farm Day at the FFDC (100 people expected, extra activities on the go)
- complete paper for conference due on Monday
- do nothing in the evening after all responsibilities are complete (so exhausted)

Monday
- do as little as possible
- sit around
- read
- go for a lovely walk
- buy some groceries
- clean my apartment
- do a little as possible (repeat as needed)

Yep, this is my week and right now I am half way through Saturday.  Good luck to me for finishing off this week and only have one strongly worded conversation with two people (whose immaturity was more than evident throughout grad student orientation).

May we all survive our weeks.  May we all keep going.  May we find the meaning and moments of joy in the constant demands on our time, talents and energies.

Cover Up ! / ?

A very interesting post about women, breast, cancer, surgery, gender performance, choice, non/conformity and acceptance.  One sassy blog!

Discrimination Korner: 

Cover your boobs whether you have them or not

Cattle Research Leads to Food

Currently I am completing some research for a new local museum that has opened just south of Winnipeg, the Farm Food Discovery Centre.  I am completing research in an area that is new to me, cattle.  Yep, this urban woman is knee deep in world wide cattle names, histories of new breeds, the ways cattle is used...including their manure.  Quite the learning curve I have to say.

As I look at webpages, read posts, and attempt to decipher breeding charts (yes they exist and they are like a foreign language), I come across other interesting websites like this one.  A man who lives in Geneva who love gastronomy (this word has always made me cringe a bit), and has a post about Swiss cattle and the cheese he found that is made from their milk after they have feed in alpine meadows on flowers, herbs and grasses.  Now that is the life!  Walking about on Swiss mountain sides, munching on natural foliage, hanging with fellow cows and calves.

This was another website that made me want to lick the screen and wow, what a set up!

Travel.  

Find food.  

Create dishes.  

Take pictures from the photography contraption hanging from your ceiling.  

Eat.  

Motivating me to finish my thesis so I can find something this cool to do with my life.  Plus, now I want to join this man on one of his adventures of travel, gastronomy and photography.  Add to bucket list!

The post I found by typing into Google, "what do swiss cows eat in pasture", garnered me this delectable webpage:

Swiss Alpine Pasture Cheese Croute

I don't think Francios-Xavier or Google is actually saying that the cows eat this dish, but I don't really know anything about cattle remember!?!

Here is the generic page of delicious international goodies:

FXcuisine.com

Bring food to the computer with you  

Quality food  

And a napkin

...for drool...

______________________________

Later in the day......

I came across a Canadian Beef Blog, yes I did.  

Yep there is.

This is for all you meatitarians out there who are hankering for an amazing bar-b-q.

Canadian Beef Blog

(Tonia returns to being distracted now.)

Doral Pilling In London

I have just spent the last hour scanning parts of Doral Pilling's autobiography into a computer.  I am in the process of sending this information to Dr. Bruce Kidd who is a professor at University of Toronto and researcher the history of athletics, amongst other topics.  He was at the University of Manitoba several months ago and I went to his presentation then provided him with the family story of Doral (my maternal grandfather) helping Percy get through his Olympic events without throwing up etc.  When I read the account in his history (thanks Arta for all your transcribing and work on that book), I can't help but think that Grandpa Doral was using sport psychology techniques with Percy long before the term was even identified.  A forward thinker for sure.

Having just taken a peek at a website dedicated to Percy Williams created by Samuel Hawley, I came across several pictures of Grandpa Doral that I have not seen in any relatives houses.  Once again, I look at these pictures and wonder why my brother Trent is there (or several of the Wood's boys), give my head and shake and remind myself I am looking at Doral.  Here is my favourite shot mostly because many of us have now been in London and here is Doral in the same city long before the rest of us even existed in the flesh.

Taken from website:  http://www.samuelhawley.com/percy1928olympics2.html

From left to right: Doral Pilling, Percy Williams, Stanley Glover

I just love this shot!  Take a look at the website to find even more information and amazing pictures about Percy Williams, with Doral Pilling often hanging in the background.

Spring Fling, Women of Note

When I moved to Winnipeg I took my time to get to know the city and settle in...then I became bored.  This is one of my arch nemesis, boredom.  Thusly I started finding interesting recreation activities to enjoy during my time away from school.  One of my passions is singing in choirs.  I am willing to take more risks with my voice when I am in a group of people and I found the Women of Note Choir.

My mother, a musician in her soul, had us singing around the piano by the time I was 4 or 5, just very young.  I was singing harmonies by 10 or 11 and my siblings and I were performing in competitions by the time I was in grade 4.  We were each playing musical instruments at this time and we were on a schedule every morning before school.  Probably to keep sane my mother had us rotate through three different activities: eat breakfast, practice piano, practice instrument, get dressed/ready for school.  Then were were out the door to school.  I don't know how she did it and found the patience.  We were all pretty sassy and bratty, but funny...at least we thought we were funny.

Music continues to be a prominent part of my life and my siblings lives.  Two siblings play trombone professionally and are active in their music communities.  A sister married another musician and now we have three trombone players who serenade us at many family events.  Here is a wee snippet taken 4 or so years ago:

In order: Teague, Tim, Lurene at family cabin at 

Shuswap Lake, British Columbia

Women of Note Choir, with its 70 female voices is equally talented.  Conductor and pianist both active musicians and teachers, and the women who sing are all experienced performers.  I have the opportunity to be part of the larger mass choir and the smaller Chamber singers choir.

We are performing on Wednesday, May 9 at 7:30 at the Westworth United Church in Winnipeg and you are welcome to come.  A mere $15 to hear an eclectic range of music including Let's Imitate Her Notes Above by Handel, The Prayer (in Slovanian, one of my favourite pieces) by Damijan Mocnik, four Hildegard Motets, a Navajo song titles The Sun is  Luminous Shield, a seductress song called Maid on the Shore, Gilbert & Sullivan's Three Little Maids From School, a romping old west song Old Grandma (she is a sassy one too), Punching the Dough (which my nephew has retitled Punching the Gabe, in reference to is older brother), and finishing off with Rosephanye Powell's spiritual, Still I Rise.  The woman singing the solo has a gigantic voice, that un-miked, can be heard above the other 69 women.  She is amazing!

We have been rehearsing since January and I am ready for this concert, even though I have been without a voice for two weeks.  I need to fix a few notes I keep missing, hop into my black top and beautiful skirt, then bring on Wednesday!

Good luck to us!

My Sweet Curiosity

Amanda Hale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Once again, I found this book walking back from the bathroom to my study carrel at a University library.  Two books caught my eye, both by the same author, this one called, My Sweet Curiosity.  Blending the history of Andreas Vesalius, the author of De humani corporis fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body), who is considered the founder of modern human anatomy; with the story Natalya, a medical student and her tumultuous relationship with her mother beginning with a bizarre birth story; and Dai Ling, a gifted cellist studying music in university with parents who sacrificed their lives in China to bring her to Canada.  Natalya and Dai Ling find each other and fall in love, and Dai Ling has to work through this revelation of being a lesbian within a traditional Chinese family structure.  Lost in tumultuous history's, each character, Natalya, Dai and Andreas, must navigate a labyrinth of ancestral choices that influences their current conditions, and reminds the reader that we come from a place we may not have chosen, but this history filled with people is desperate to hold on to us, despite our attempts to set ourselves free.

I will be looking for more Amanda Hale books as the intense research she completes on topics that I am unfamiliar with, teaches me about subjects I don't have time to research, as I turn each page.  Sounding the Blood, her first novel, is next.

http://amandahale.com/


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Uh...Really?

While studying in the abnormal heat of September in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg this past fall, I took a break, went for a walk and found a place to relieve myself.  I found a port-o-pottie, a place we all dread and praise at the same time.  Better than a bush along the river I suppose.  On the door I spotted a sign.  Yep. Odd?  Weird?  or Normal?  You decide.

The saviour of my bladder.

Follow you on what? Really? Why?

Project Love Manitoba: Caving

It is important to keep good friends who pay attention when an opportunity arrises.  Such are my I Love Manitoba Adventure friends.  Once of them heard about a caving club and attended a meeting, after which she set up a caving adventure with one of the groups organizers.  Brilliant woman and so excited when she called me!  I have been in several caves in the rockies but it was mostly enter the front portion, peek around, then leave as the cave is too dark  This adventure seemed far more exciting and interesting as special equipment, a membership in the club and a knowledgeable guide were all required.  The excitement of joining a club is a well researched topic and fulfills a layer of human need, as well I am an Enneagram seven, trying new things is a strong motivation in my life.  Oooooo, the excitement built through conversations, emails, and gathering supplies, then the caving day arrived!

We gathered in a Winnipeg parking lot, met the guide Scott and three men who were experienced cavers and already members of the Speleological Society of Manitoba (I am putting that on my resume as it sounds very official and intelligent).  I paid my minimal membership dues ($15) then received a book called Caves and Karst edited by W.D. McRitchie and K.M. Monson.  We jumped into cars and headed north of the city toward the direction of the Peguis Reserve and Fisher Branch, Manitoba.

As we drove along I opened my new book to realize I had joined a secretive and exclusive society as the book contained graphs, charts and a language with which I was unfamiliar.  I joked with my friends that I was excited to receive a book but I had no idea what it was telling me.  More research to come complete once back at home after the adventure's end.

I keep forgetting that I am not in Alberta and that there are no mountains in Manitoba.  In my mind's eye, we were going to climb a slight hill, find a hole in the side of said hill, walk in and cave around a bit, but there are very few, and I mean VERY FEW hills in Manitoba.  My expectations were about to be challenged, as they often are.

When we reached the first location, we parked our cars and dressed in our caving gear.  Protection and physical safety are most important elements to caving, and one's personal sense of style takes a back seat.

Christa and Steph in the hood(?)

Bright colours so hunters don't shoot us.

Wat up?!?
I did not wear bright colours.
Prime hunting target.

We began walking into the flat, densely packed but small treed woods and then stopped.  "Here is it," said Scott and we all looked down as a gently slope in the ground, which opened up into a small hidden subterranean space.  Scott stated that this was just a precursor to the actual caves and we enjoyed looking at the change in rock formations as we slowly descended then crouched underneath a rock shelf to peer into a bit if the earth.

Stephanie with two experienced cavers

After a brief stop, we headed to the first actual cave.  Upon arrival my hill was no where to be seen, but there was a hole in the ground.  That is what we were here to do, crawl into a hole in the ground?!?  I remembered that Scott had warned me that I should not expect huge caves and wondrousness but I flippantly dismissed his comment.  I was not disappointed but I had to adjust my perspective to realize that crawling into the belly of the earth was going to be as cool as walking into a small entrance of a vertical rock formation, which is what I had been expecting.  Mental flexibility in traveling; a requirement for a good experience.

Christa being lowered into the first cave.
We used climbing ropes for safety
and a permanent ladder to descend into the cave.

Me at the bottom of the cave entrance looking up.

Cave wildlife found by Stephanie.
Such a cute frog!

As we crawled on our hands and knees, on our bellies, pushed ourselves backwards we got a feel for the first cave which included changing rock formations, a frog, piles of dried poop and bats.  Very cool!  Hole in the ground or not, I was impressed and excited to be caving.

The bottom of the ladder in the cave.
I am in the first small room looking out into the cave .
Sparkles from the rock formations appeared on most of my pictures.  Think of it as glitz and glamour!

Some of us glowed in the dark.
This was good as the darkness was quite consuming.

We waited at the top of the cave for the last two people inside for what seemed like a long time.  After they appeared one of the men explained to us that they had found a large pile of small bones, and one of the men was a palaeontologist / archeologist who had worked at the Royal Alberta Museum for 25 years, was explaining to the other what they had found.  Are you kidding me?!?  This trip just moved from excitement on the travel scale to phenomenal!!!  

The palaeontologist picked a collection of bones out of his pocket and began to explain, "This is a femur of a small animal, probably a rabbit.  This one is a piece of the arm of a prairie mouse, oh yes, and one half of a hip joint....." and he went on as we stood there is awe at our luck.  The excitement in the group rose to a new level as we headed to the next cave.  

The Provincial Parks officer came out to visit us to ensure we were doing well.
She had a bullet proof vest on and a gun.  Wow, what a job!

Crazy Busy!!!

Crazy busy does not begin to tell you how my life is at this point.  Trying to survive a quantitative statistics class, writing a thesis, needing to propose by December, completing student governance work on two levels, preparing for two AGM's, attempting to grade two sets of assignments, teaching a seminar, updating resume, applying for potential employment, completing some research on behalf of professor, attempting to assist in creating a post-secondary course, and trying to get some semblance of sleep in there somewhere.  Occasionally I put a piece of food or a drink to my lips in an effort to keep my energy up.  Third term of grad school, HOLY CRAPPOLA!!!!

This term started out in a furry and will continue as such until the holidays.  Here is hoping that I actually have a holiday in two months.  I continue to pop Cold FX every day.  Off to do more.  Will return when have a chance to breathe.