Blaaaaargh

Well today has been alright so far...got up at 10 something feeling horrible and having gotten a call from a driving school man about facilitating a Defensive Driving course here during the school holidays.

This means two things - Jacquie is doing well with community youth work, and Jacquie is going to be missing Snow Camp because community takes priority over ministry.

Having the youth centre has also opened up a bit of a snag opportunity. I mean, it's not BAD, per se...but John has decided to get Godzone up and running again because it looks like I am failing on the "older group" end of the ministry. It's really sad because I'm trying. And it has given people the impression that Godzone worked and Fusion didn't - which isn't the case. Because Fusion and Godzone have two entirely different purposes...ggrrrr.

It also means that I'll likely be losing Dan and Katrina as leaders - which won't leave me crippled but it means Iain and Karl are on every week now...and we're lacking in the younger leaders department. I guess I shouldn't be too worried about it...except Iain says it himself that he's not a youth leader type of person - he will always come along to support but he has very little patience...hehe it's kinda funny, actually, to see his face when kids are all over the place.

Anyways...yeah it's hard because I don't want to feel like a failure. But I kind of do, because I know that some people can say "well at least we know what worked and what didn't" even though a) that's comparing apples and oranges and b) neither apples nor oranges worked.

Argh.

The good thing is that the vending company came by to sell us products to sell to the kids here. She asked where I was from and I said Canada...and then she held up a Hersey's Skor bar...asking if I recognized it.

I think I almost passed out. I completely forgot about Skor bars! How amazing was it that she was handing me one for FREE! As I type this sentence, I am savouring the last beautiful bite of this chocolate bar. Wow. hehe. She had to have known that she made my day! It was beautiful. She also had a few Reese products (though not Peanut Butter Cups. Sad) and left those with me as well to sell. I fear the kids may never see those products. hehe...

Anyways, things are okay. I'm going to go play a good half hour of Need for Speed Underground 2 on the Playstation 2, as it is officially my lunch break.

This is the most time I've ever spent on a video game in my life...except maybe Mario Party back in the day. And considering I'm using the steering wheel instead of the controller, I'm doing pretty well! I've already fulfilled my Eurolite contract...hehe I know it's lame but I'm hooked alright?

See ya later.

More Randomness...

Oh yeah and I've heard about the crap in Caledonia going on these days. Caledonia made our local newspaper the first time that there was a barricade - but I forgot to save the clipping, even though it was small. To hear that it's escalated again...and then gone down...again? Wow, I would hate to be there right now. Except I will be in a few weeks.

My theory is that when I fly into Canada in a couple weeks, I will come over southern Ontario only to find a burning pile of rubble.


Random, again...

Big May Birthday Shout Outs to:
Mathew Southward (4th, 15 yrs)
Robbie Southward (10th, 13 yrs)
Eric Southward (today - 24th, 15 yrs)
Jamie Southward (31st, I think? I won't say how many yrs...hehe...mostly because I really am not completely sure)

May is a big month for my family. So is August. I'm the weirdo in November...but according to the birthday announcements every week at the Prezzy church, I've had quite a few birthdays so far. Whenever they ask who's had a birthday I raise my hand.

Hey...they give away free Crunchie bars...can't blame me for trying!

Ok the end, this time.

Randomness

In other news:

I am in the process of starting a youth volunteer program. We've started with simply getting kids to help out at the youth centre - signing out games to other kids and selling stuff from the snack shop, which is currently only filled with cans of fizzy (pop), but we have more coming soon.


I am coming home in 17 sleeps for Nicki's wedding! I will be bringing with me up to 40 packages of Tim Tams, as long as I can get a hold of the Border people in Canada to make sure they're allowed through...but they should be since they're pre-packaged! I'm excited for that. I'm just excited to come home, full stop (period)!


I saw Walk the Line the other night in theatres - it just came out in Te Anau, meaning it just came out in New Zealand about a month or two ago. It was a great movie, even though I never have considered myself anything close to a Cash fan. I have a new appreciation for him, though, seeing some of what his life was like. Yikes.


I also bought the DaVinci Code the other day. I can see how people can start taking the book as fact - Brown is very convincing, but people need to realize it's fiction. He never meant to try to write a historical text - it's just some stupid made-up storyline. But seriously at times I read it and find myself going "Hmm. Really...interesting." and then I have to stop and go "WAIT! Umm DUH what are you saying - why in the world did you just think that was a good point?!"

I've read about 450 pages in a mere 3 days...but the bulk of the reading (350 pages) was done in two sittings - a 2 hour and a 5 hour one. I was pretty hardcore on my days off! I bought a couple of other books as well, and I'll letcha know what I think of them when I get around to reading them.


Things are going fine at the new house with the new family. Rae got a bike out of the garage, got it fixed up a little and gave it to me so we can go for bike rides. But last night when I went for the first time, it was REALLY big...like the seat was ALL the way down and i still had to completely fully extend my legs to reach the bottom of the pedals. Sad - because I never used to sit down when I wrote my bike all around town...but now I have to coz I'm already standing on it with a very bony seat digging into the bum bones...ouch. I didn't last very long since I haven't ridden in forever, and I was sad to realize that I couldn't even ride steadily with only one hand, let alone no hands. I used to stand up riding with no hands - and now I'm all wobbly even when I take one hand off. Sad that I've lost it so much. I wonder what else I've lost over these years - could I still easily do a triple pirhouette? I was working on quad pirhouettes when I quit dancing...and I'm sure even a double right now would be hard to stay up on.

Oh well...maybe it means there are some things I should get back into, just for fun.

Well this is enough blogging for today - gotta get some work done.

the LightHouse: Te Anau Youth Centre

Well I'm finally back onto blogging now that things have settled down just a little bit! Sorry for not having updated everyone on the youth centre lately - though there are some pictures that say it all in my photo album over there. Wow what a HUGE change!

Everything is officially open and the kids are coming to the centre 4 days a week - Wednesday through Saturday just for a couple hours after school (and 1-5 on Saturdays). The reason for this is that we don't have anyone else to watch the place except me so we can't be open as often as we'd like. If this were a 40 hour job, I would easily be able to open it up twice as long but alas, we have to either rely on a lot of volunteers who I can trust to run the place without me being here, or we have to revise my salary. Oh well - the kids that come enjoy it. There are a steady 10 or so kids that always come after school, and another 5-10 drop in every so often.

We have spent over 1000 hours worth of man power in this building, mostly between me, Iain and Belinda...two others from the Prezzy church that I'm fairly close with. Iain always brings along his baby, Scarlett, and she runs around my office looking for the bickies I bought her (bickies = biscuits = cookies). She comes in and her way of always asking for something is pointing and saying "Yup!"...so she goes straight into the shelf that has the bickies, picks up the bag and runs to find me going "Yeee-up! Yeee-up!"...she's adorable.

Kate has seen her on webcam and has decided she is going to call her Skiwi. I think it's supposed to be a mix of Scarlett and Kiwi...ha. Scarlett's brothers think the name's cute.

Anyways...yeah so we've spent a lot of time here and there are times when I walk into the centre, sigh with exhasperation and want to turn around and leave because I've spent so much time in here before the youth even got here. But it's really paid off! It looks great and we're looking forward to getting a few more things to put in here. Right now it's a little bare but we're getting a Coke machine within 2 weeks. We're also getting at least one computer right away, another one within probably a month, and then likely 3 others sometimes as well. So we should have as many as 5 computers in here for kids to use for school stuff, research, etc.

We're also applying for funding for a big screen tv from Pub Charities. I'm not sure if that means that pubs are giving money to this - Karl's the finance man so he's doing all that stuff. I hope he's getting quotes for BIG tv's to give to these people. Yay. We also have a Playstation 2 for the kids to use as well as 8 appropriate games. We've taken 4 away because they're overly violent or are shooting games. Even as a secular organization, we shouldn't be condoning violence.

So yeah - we're also getting a computer desk and microwave today. Yay, I can start bringing leftovers to work and heat them up for lunch rather than going back and forth from here all the time.

Some of the rooms are really cheesy and retro or overly colourful - and that's thanks to the paint we were given. We didn't have much choice in what to paint the place but I think the only somewhat ugly room would be the kitchen, which is a terrible peach colour with blue cupboards and shelves. haha...but it kinda looks like orange if you don't turn the light on!

We're having a few problem kids coming in and it's a little draining, but it seems that I have a much higher patience level for useless noise and rambunctiousness (is that how you spell it?) than I thought. Parents have come in to see the place and they get annoyed with the yelling, the obnoxious laughter, and yes, even the armpit farts. But I really don't have an issue with it. Maybe working at CYPRES that summer really did a good thing for my patience level...hehe. It's when they get disrespectful and overbearing or thinking they own the place that I put them in THEIR place. haha.

So that's my story about the youth centre.

Doubtful Sound Trip - The Finale

On the way back from the Tasman, through Doubtful, we stopped in at Crooked Arm (an arm of water that comes off the sound) and got RIGHT up beside the slope of a mountain...it was so close that those at the front of the boat could probably have formed a very small human chain and touched it. Ok so maybe it felt a lot closer than it really was but seriously, it was amazing.

We also stopped into another little area where they did a little thing called "The Sound of Silence"...where the tour guide told everyone that we are all going to go outside, stop walking around, shut off cameras or anything that can even make a tiny noise, be completely still and just listen...they shut off the engines and generators on the boat and for about a minute it was completely silent. We could only hear the rolling waves, the wind between the mountains and the songbirds...it was so beautiful. I wanted to cry.

And it was a terrible moment when they turned the generators back on. I wanted to cry. I wanted to jump off the boat, swim to whatever piece of land would hold me instead of casting me back down into the water, and sit there and just listen. Forever. It was so great.

We cruised back to Deep Cove, got off the ship and back onto our buses. We then started for the Underground Power Station. This is where they have drilled their way into a mountain to make a power station under Lake Manapouri. We drove down this tunnel and had, if I remember correctly, 15000 m of mountain on top of us...it was some nutso number that kinda made me slightly claustrophobic after hearing it. It smelled like sulphur and to be honest, driving down and down a tunnel, deeper and deeper into a mountain was quite thrilling to me.

When we got to the power station itself, I was less than impressed. Yeah I can see how it would have taken a lot of work to do it but the whole splendour of creation and nature was slightly dampened at the sight of man-made technology...it was loud, crowded, and just...uninteresting to me. In any case, I went back up to the tunnel before everyone else.

We got back on the bus, went back to the boat to take us to Lake Manapouri, and just as we were arriving at the visitor's centre, a Kea (alpine parrot) flew in to pose on top of the roof for a few photos. Now everyone was all excited and wowed by the situation, but for people who live in the area, Keas are the New Zealand equivalent to Seagulls. Scavengers. Beggars. Destroyers of human property. They're cute and all, but they've been fed by humans so much that they will literally steal food out of your hand if you're looking the other way.

We got back on the boat and took off for Manapouri. I sat in the same seat as before, Mary and Len joined me, but my Dutch friend Pete didn't join us for he found a fellow Dutch friend and sat with him. But a lady from Austria came and sat with us, and her son immediately avoided everyone at the table...I thought he was hiding on the other sdie of his mother. I was talking to Len, who was sitting across from me when all of a sudden I felt someting rubbing my foot and leg...and I was getting really creeped out because I knew that Len was a good guy and a Christian and all...but...was he getting frisky?!

I looked down and realized it was Julian, the lady's 5 year old son, hiding under the table and trying to annoy me! I was absolutely blown away and started laughing out loud. I told Len I thought he was getting frisky and we all started laughing so loud...it was just one of those very awkward moments and the laughter was like a sigh of relief that I didn't have to punch anyone in the face! haha...it was funny.

I went back up top until we landed the boat - I got off, said a quick goodbye to Len, Mary, the Austrian lady and Julian...and found my bus to take me back to Te Anau. Once I had a cellphone signal again, my text alert started going off to show me the texts I had missed all day because of having no signal.

Back to reality.

It had been a very long day...but a welcome day off and a mostly relaxing one. I can see how tourists can get worn out very quickly though...the day just seemed to be "go go go go" with no down time. Always being filled with information, people always talking...no alone time. But I still enjoyed myself.

This is a random bit of information that I learned a while ago, but I don't know if I have told y'all yet: Trees that grow on the sides of mountains here have VERY little soil to nourish them. In fact, entire forests of trees grow out of moss - which is enough to nourish them. The trees, since they cannot deeply root themselves, intertwine their roots with other trees, causing a big massive tangle. When one tree gives loose, bends over or breaks, it pulls down a whole mass of trees with it, causing a tree avalanche, or "slip" as they call it here.


And these are the things I learned on my cruise:
1. The mountains of the fiords are cut steep because of glacial movement from inland to the sea
2. There are some very beautiful people in this world - and it's interesting to see so many cultures in one small place. Different languages, different looks, features, etc.
3. Tourists only ask single travellers to take pictures of them; as if they don't have anything better to do, unlike those who are travelling with friends.
4. When you're at the very back of a ship, facing outwards, you can sing pretty dang loud and no one will notice unless they're right beside you.
5. Bagged lunches taste SO much better when you don't make it yourself!

That's my story. The end.

Doubtful Sound Trip - Part Three

Once my lunch was gone, so was I. We were just leaving Deep Cove to cruise out to Doubtful Sound, and I knew the scenery would be too amazing to watch it from inside a glass room with people talking all around. I got up and went straight to the upper deck. I spent most of the trip out to the Tasman Sea up there, taking pictures, letting the wind blow in my face, and listening (kind of) to the tour guide telling us about, again, history and scenery. I was mostly alone up there, with the exception of the odd one or two people coming up for a picture, deciding it was too windy and rocky, and then going back down to the comfort of their noisy little glass box.

That's one thing I couldn't understand. I was on this cruise for free, but most of these people had paid upwards of $300 to be there...and they spent it at the bar or sitting inside their little dining room talking to people...seeing some of the scenery...but not experiencing the smell of the sea, the feel of the wind...or even seeing the top of some of these mountains! Like, how stupid can you be?!

The tour guide told us that depending on the conditions, we may be able to get right out to the Tasman Sea to check out the Southern Fur Seal Colony. But they said they haven't had much chance to do that lately because the water's been pretty rough.

So we cruised around in Doubtful Sound, as well as touched into a few other sounds and arms of the water. It turns out that Doubtful Sound isn't really a sound, but a fiord - just like Milford Sound. In fact, there is only one true "sound" in all of New Zealand...the difference between a fiord and a sound is that fiords are developed by glacial movement and melting...carving out huge mountains with steep drops straight into the water...the top bit of water is fresh water from rain and runoff, while the rest of the water below is sea water - salty.

As we were heading out of Doubtful towards the sea, the tour guide announced that the water was good enough to go out and see the fur seal colony. But they said that the water will get quite rocky and if you're not steady on your feet, you might want to sit down, and he particuarly asked people not to go on the bow of the boat. This is when I was like "WHAT?! We can go on the BOW and I didn't know it?!"

Anyways...I stood up top by myself while everyone was safe and snug inside the aquarium downstairs...I held onto the railing as the boat rocked more violently (but really not that violent...it would have knocked me over had I not been paying attention but it wasn't so bad). A few times I also had an old school moment and did some good old fashioned "bus surfing" but on the top of the boat...you students know what I'm talking about but for those who don't know what it is...it's like when you're on a city bus or whatever, you stand in the aisle and pretend to surf and keep your balance without holding onto anything. It's quite hard.

Well on a giant cruise ship that is rocking back and forth, side and side, it's actually quite a bit harder coz you're leaning pretty far trying not to fall over!

Anyways, I better move on here coz I'm taking much longer to write this than I had hoped.

We got out to the Tasman, and the tour guide told everyone that "You may not know this, but if you keep following this direction we're going right now, you'll get to New Zealand's western island...some of you may have heard of it; it's more commonly known as Australia." and I think I was the only person who laughed heartily - probably because I was one of the only Kiwi's on board...and by that I mean that I've lived here long enough to appreciate the Aussie jokes.

So we drove out to the colony, and the seals looked like lumps of dirt on the rocks until we got significantly closer - then you could sort of make out that they were seals, but we couldn't get very close...but I have some pictures where if you look really hard you can see them.

Then we turned around and went back towards Deep Cove, but we took a few small detours along the way.

Doubtful Sound Trip - Part Two

When we got into the visitor's centre at West Arm after taking the boat across Lake Manapouri, I didn't get much chance to look around because Len found out that I am a Christian and doing a youth ministry program, and started talking to me about his church and the youth there. He's a Baptist and is highly involved with youth in the sense that he has them over to his place to hang out and stuff (kinda funny for an older man, but it's cute). So I didn't get to see a single thing because he's so chatty and he just stopped me while I started looking around and just talked and talked...it was nice, but I was kind of hoping to check out the information and pictures on the walls. I was only slightly annoyed because I spend all my time here in Te Anau meeting new people and forcing myself to make small talk when I'm not good at it...and I just wanted a day out alone with just me and God's creation and a boat ride and a picnic lunch. But anyways...it was still a great day. Let's move on.

Anyways, we could choose between two buses, and I went into the one that Len and Mary went into because they wanted me to stick with them for the day. Our bus driver's name was Bruce and he was quite the humourous guy. We were driving up a mountain in a bus on a narrow winding road and then back down, and he was going to talk to us the whole way, telling us about the history and scenery of West Arm. The whole area has a permanent population of...ready for this...ONE. He is the guy who runs the hostel down by Deep Cove (which is where ethe bus would be stopping and we would get on the boat to take us out into Doubtful Sound). The rest of the people who come through are trampers, tourists and workers. Because it's an isolated area and has limited access, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous...almost unscathed and uncorrupted by human interference. We stopped at a few places along the way and took pictures, and everytime we took a tight corner or had to pass an oncoming bus on this narrow road very carefully, he would say "Right well I'll just close my eyes and hope for the best here..." He must get so tired of making all the same jokes and still getting the same amount of laughter for it.

When we came to the very top of the mountain road, Bruce said "for those of you who work in high rise buildings...here is the view from MY office" and that is when everyone in the bus gasped. We pulled over to the side of the road to just look at the majesty of creation. I will definitely post the picture I took here - though my photography does the view itself no justice. It was gorgeous - we were standing on top of the world looking down on Doubtful Sound. Wow. Words can't describe it, so let's move on.

We then started driving down the mountain, and stopped at a small river where I took another one of my favourite pictures, and then the ride was more or less uneventful until we got to Deep Cove.

At Deep Cove, we got on the cruise ship and found our seats at tables. Once again, Len and Mary called me over to their table even when I made a point to sit by myself. Oh well - I didn't plan on sitting down once my lunch was eaten. So I sat down with them, opened up my picnic lunch to see what these people planned to feed me. I was kinda scared because I'm a fairly picky eater (this is where mom says "FAIRLY?! Ha!") and I didn't make the choice to have a picnic lunch - but Rae booked it for me and I wasn't going to complain. Anyways, I opened it up and there was a smorgasbord (yes I had to look up that spelling on www.dictionary.com) of goodness awaiting me inside that little box. I could almost dedicate an entire journal entry to what I found in that lunch box:

A cheese croissant with bacon (here, bacon is just like a thick slice of ham...but I think it's the part of the pig that we would call peameal bacon...it doesn't really taste like bacon), tomato, pickle, lettuce and cheese, an individual packet of wheat crackers, a little tiny individually wrapped piece of cheese, an apple, a trail mix bake bar and a little peppermint chocolate thing to finish. It was B-E-A-Utiful!

Doubtful Sound Trip - Part One

Well hello everyone! I am here to finally tell you about my cruise to Doubtful Sound. I will separate it into different parts because I know how annoying it is to read super long journal entries and it seems that each part of the whole entry will be long enough to fill quite a bit of space. If I am uninterrupted for the next hour or so, I will also get around to writing about the new Youth Centre's progress and where we're at right now. And if no one bothers me for the next two hours (VERY highly unlikely), I will get the pictures posted, and add a couple links to the Photo list. Ok, so here are all my Doubtful Sound adventure details.

My first trip was going to be a bus trip, I was the only one on the bus at first...I waited there for about 10 minutes even without the driver. So I took the opportunity to not look like a loser by taking a picture of the ceiling of the bus. Why would I take a picture of the ceiling, you ask? Well that's because every "Real Journeys" bus has windows on the ceiling so that if you're driving right up next to mountains or beautiful scenery above, you won't miss it! How spectacular! I ended up being the only one on the bus until we stopped around a few hotels to pick up some more people - whew. That would've been awkward.

The bus ride itself was pretty cool. The driver was giving some fun facts about Te Anau and wildlife and history...did you know that Te Anau has a permanent population of about 2800 - but during tourist season it's up to 10,000 people at a time. To be honest, I'm glad tourist season is just wrapping up.

We got to Manapouri (a very small town about 20 minutes from here, but home to the 5th largest lake in New Zealand) to get onto the boat. Let me tell you quickly here that the only way to get to doubtful sound is to take a boat, then a bus - and even if you try to get over there yourself without having to pay a tour company, it is illegal for private traffic to drive on the road that goes between Lake Manapouri (West Arm) and the Sound. So if you want to do it yourself, you're tramping (hiking) it.

Anyways, I got to Manapouri, checked in for the boat ride and was told that I could pick up my picnic lunch down in the cafe. I was greeted by a lady who handed me a plastic bag with a good sized carboard lunch box inside it. It was pretty dang heavy. I wondered what these people planned on feeding me - and hoped it was good. Otherwise, I'd be eating about 2 pounds worth of yuck. This thing was massive! Anyways...I got on the boat and sat down at one of the tables, watching everyone file into the boat and find their desired seating arrangement. Travelling alone isn't all that fun because most people will sit down with others who are already talking to eachother, rather than sitting with someone who is alone and silent. I kinda felt like the last person being picked in gym class, and I knew that when a slightly elderly couple walked onto the boat, they would be the ones coming my way. I just knew it.

They sat down across the table from me and introduced themselves as Len and Mary...I'm going to call her Mary but to be honest it sounded like she said Maori - and I wasn't sure if that was the accent or the actual pronounciation. So, to be honest, I just didn't say her name during the rest of the day. They told me they were from Australia and Len was quite chatty to be honest. Classic Aussie. Another man from Holland sat down beside me, and he was slightly creepy. And of course the first thing he said when he found out Len was Australian was a very BAD pronounciation of "G'day mate!"...imagine a Dutch man who can barely speak english trying to mimick an Australian classic. I was embarassed for him.

Anyways...as we were going along in the boat, the fog started to lift (when I first got to Manapouri, you couldn't even see the mountains across the lake because it was so thick) and all of a sudden everyone decided it was a Kodak moment - they all rushed up to the top platform of the boat to stand in the frigid wind, take a picture and get back down before their face froze off. Well, me being from Canada, I quite welcomed the similar-to-Calgary bitter kind of wind blowing off the lake and mountains. We were ripping along at quite a high speed...and if anyone knows me really well, they know that my place on a boat is at the bow. For as long as I can remember, I have sat cross legged at the bow of grampa's fishing boat...holding onto the tie-off roap so the wind (and angle of the boat) didn't knock me backwards. So I am quite used to blowing winds and chilly temperatures. I took a bunch of pictures and then stood up there at the very front of the platform...letting the wind rip past my face and make my ears numb. I only left the platform because we were just about to get into West Arm and dock the boat so we could get on our bus to Doubtful.

As I came back down into the main cabin, everyone saw that I was certainly up there almost the whole time. My face was bright red with windburn and the hair that doesn't quite fit into my ponytail was a rats nest on the top of my head.

At this point, my day had already been made.

Another Delay

Ok so this isn't an update on Doubtful Sound. Things are so psycho crazy here that I just haven't had much time to go pee let alone write a journal. I'm super sorry. I'm at the office right now and I've done a million and a half things so far...and I still have about 200 more to do before youth tonight.

So this is a quick thing letting you know I'm still alive, and that I've got a point form journal about Doubtful Sound already written up, and I will expand on it and put it in a journal as soon as I get the time...which probably won't be until Monday, to be honest. But maybe not even then, either...I will do my best.

I miss everyone back home so much and I can't wait to see you all when I come home in JUNE for 9 days. June 11-20 will be my staying time because I'm going to Nicki and Keith's wedding in Niagara Falls on the 17th. w00t!

Hopefully we can hang out fo shizzle! Love y'all and see ya soon.

The Edge: All Nighter

Okay so here is my update about the All-Nighter we had last week with the junior highs. It was very interesting to say the least. Here is how the whole night played out...

Kids started showing up super early...like 6:45 when it was supposed to start at 7. You know how people always say "We start at 10:00, so 10:15 church time"...well with youth, they're normally 15 minutes EARLY coz they just can't wait to get started! They all dumped their sleeping bags and pillows all over the sanctuary and started running around the building...getting all excited and more energetic with each person to show up. 13 kids in total ended up showing up; two of which I didn't know at all before that night. It was a bigger turn out by about 60% than I was expecting.

We started playing games around 7:30...lots of messy ones. We started off with "Banana Blowout" - which is your typical "stick a whole banana in your mouth, put pantyhose over your head and try to squirt the banana out through the pantyhose"...it was great.

Then we moved on to a not-so-messy game, but extremely competitive...it's called "Chocolate Bar Scramble", where the kids roll a dice and everytime they get a 1, they put on a pair of gloves and start unwrapping and eating a chocolate bar...until the next person gets a 1 and then steals it away. The point of the game is to eat as much chocolate as you possibly can before it's gone.

Then we put down plastic bags, a pound of soft butter and an entire box of Sultana Bran (Raisin Bran...kinda) and told the kids they had 2 minutes to smear butter on their face and get as much cereal on them without using their hands. It was hilarious!

Then some kids kept the butter on their faces to play Bobbing for Marshmallows...in a bowl of flour! So they were getting flour stuck to their faces and huge gobs of it in their mouths.

The last game was getting back at Katrina and I, who were the leaders for the night. We played Banana Split Drop, where Kat and I laid on the ground and the kids stood on chairs, dropping Banana Split ingredients into our mouths...including the whipped cream in the spray can. Wow.

From there, we had a Tony Hawk tournament on PlayStation 2, while some of the kids watched a movie. Then we all watched a movie together when the champion was crowned. Then we had a SingStar time, where some people watched a movie, but the rest of us went back to the PlayStation to sing bad karaoke into a PlayStation microphone and getting judged for it...here is where it got REALLY interesting. Imagine about 9 kids arguing over the microphones to sing the same 7 or 8 songs over and over again...for almost 3 hours.

IT WAS TERRIBLE! Some of these kids really could NOT carry a tune in a bucket! Some of them could actually sing quite well but it was getting really old coz there was hardly a selection of songs. So...I was pretty sick of it by the end.

We finally set lights out at 3:30 in the morning. After some firm words and a lecture on respect for people who are trying to sleep, I finally heard a sweet, sweet sound at about 4:00...I was never so thankful to hear heavy breathing and snoring in my entire life!

We woke up at 7:30, had breakfast, packed up our stuff and went back to the SingStar (ACK!) for another hour or so before the kids left. It was quite a nice night...a few times I wanted to kill them for being so hyper, but I can't blame them - I was the one that supplied all the sugar and junkfood!

It was a really cool experience...certainly not as bad as some people make it out to be. I was surprisingly rested in the morning, even after so little sleep.

Well, stay tuned for my next entry about my Doubtful Sound cruise!

Lots to Update

Okay here's a quick post just to let you all know that I will be updating very soon: I promise. And I will try to separate the posts into different entries so it doesn't turn out as one long journal thing that makes you all fall asleep as you're reading it. I am on my way out the door right now, however, so I don't have time to do it just now - so it will probably be tomorrow.

I will write about the Junior High All-Nighter that we just had on Friday, as well as the new plans for the Senior High Program, and I will end it off with a detailed entry about my trip to Doubtful Sound, which is where I am going...right now. Remember how I wrote about Milford Sound before? Well apparently Doubtful is WAY better and the only way to get to it is by boat...and the boats are specially designed so that we can hug the sides of the mountains (or fiords, as I guess we'd call em)...I'm totally stoked to go!

So be prepared for a couple of journal entries coming your way! And I will also post the site for my newest pictures then - they're already uploaded but I haven't put the link on my journal yet - sorry!

Have a gooder! I plan on it!

Nothing Special

Well there have been lots of things going on lately, but none that I can really remember to tell you all about. Mostly I am excited to say that minus one small assignment, I am officially done my Briercrest Distance Ed course on the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit & Demonology.

I have also been seeing this youth centre take more and more shape and identity as the past few weeks have gone by. Almost all the rooms are painted...only a few need a second coat. My office is one of them...but for now it's nice to have a place to go to do my work. Well, mostly school work lately but at least now that's done.

Today is the Trust Meeting and I have to have a report drawn up for it about what I've been doing the past month. Hmm...it sounds a little something like "Painting." but I think it would be a little sketch to just put that in my report and try to get away with it.

This Friday coming up is "the Edge All Night Sleepover Bash" - quite obviously an all-nighter. It will be interesting to see what happens, because most (if not all) of the youth are boys...and the only leaders who are able to come are girls. HA! That's fun isn't it? I figure we'll make them sleep in the middle of the sanctuary and we'll each sleep by the doors. I have to figure out a few things before then; ie. how to hook up a gaming system to the data projector. I also have to buy food and game supplies (I promised them messy games this week). It'll be fun, I think.

Tiring, but fun.

Anyways, I should get back to making sure my report is ready to go. I'll have an update likely on Saturday after the all nighter. Until then, have fun!

Oh yeah, one more thing.

Go Chris Daughtry!