Oh, Hello September

Woah - Hello September! When did you arrive?

September will always feel like "back to school" time. Time to bring out the pants and socks, the new notebooks, the pens and the backpacks. Time to leave the flexible summer days behind and enter into the schedule filled with school, extra-curricular activities, and youth group. It's time for packed lunches, late night paper writing, Saturday sleep-ins and life being organized by the agenda book.

For the second year, September does not have me going back to school (although late-fall may see an online course). September now means cooler days, a more relaxed schedule and the next set of projects and deadlines approaching alongside a very full schedule. September still has the joy of bringing out the fall wardrobe (I'm one of those people who love fall and winter clothes!) and doing some preparations for children and youth ministry in the church... which is sort of like school preparations!

My work has the summer months as the most full and most busy months of the year. The summer months are filled with some of the most joyful and holy days as people gather together to form community, to pray, to play and to learn. Which means that when the fall days come I have both a more relaxed and more flexible schedule alongside a more full schedule as commitments beyond Sorrento Centre come back to life and the meeting commitments I have made fill up many days and weeks of the year.

At the Cathedral everything starts up again in September: Sunday School, Youth Group, Young Adults, Staff Meetings, Bible Study, Parish Dinners, and the list goes on and on and on! And I am so excited and so ready to continue the planning and get back in touch with everyone. Alongside this my National Church commitments begin again: meetings, readings, writing, gatherings, traveling. There is much new for this year, namely - heading off to the World Council of Churches in South Korea as one of the handful of delegates representing the Anglican Church of Canada. Excited. Terrified. Honoured.

For me, the fall days also are the days when I get back into my cooking and preparing of meals. And I love cooking and baking - so when the time comes for me to get back into the kitchen I find myself filled with peace.

Fall means planning, traveling, preparing, cooking, resting.
Fall means new challenges and opportunities.
So, as much as I am surprised that September has already arrived I am also so very ready for it!

It's that time of the semester

Fall leaves at Thompson Rivers University

That time... that long waited for and yet completely dreaded time has come. Three more weeks of classes left and yet the work load is massive. Two short papers, one research paper, an in class write, multiple quizzes, books to read, exams to study for... there are three weeks before classes are over and exams begin. Three weeks until December is here - my month of rest and renewal. Three more papers until I'm that much more closer to being done. And yet all I want to do is put on a movie and rest. No reading, no composing, no analyzing, no thinking. I'm ready to sit and pause.

This is the time in the semester when I have to pull all the little pieces of energy and try to put it into the work that needs to be finished. This is when I need to say, "Melissa focus on what needs to be done." This is when I struggle to motivate myself. These are the weeks when cooking and baking finds time, my house stays clean, things become organized, and youth group ideas and plans don't stop appearing in my head. These are the weeks when all the things that don't need to be done at this moment get accomplished.

Three more weeks. Three more papers. I can do this.
Which means - I need to start that next paper...

In other news... the fall leaves were beautiful this year, especially on campus and on the sidewalk near the Cathedral. The trees are quickly becoming bare and we've had one snow fall already. Winter is coming!

Fall Leaves

I have a soft spot for the Fall leaves and trees... I remember the Fall days when I was a young child... days that required a jacket to protect us from the nip in the air... days when we gathered piles of leaves together so we could run and jump into them. And then as we tired we would just lay in the leaves with the wind kissing our noses.

The leaves above are from a trip to Six Nations Reserve in Toronto Ontario this past month... the signs of fall can be found everywhere!

In Elementary school there were a few poems that we recited during the Fall season that I was fond of as a child:

Red leaves and yellow leaves
Orange leaves and brown,
Leaves are dancing everywhere

Happily dancing down.

AND

Leaves in the autumn came tumbling down,
Scarlet and yellow, russet and brown,
Leaves in the garden were swept in a heap,
Trees were undressing ready for sleep.

These Fall leaves are on the Thompson Rivers University campus in Kamloops, BC outside of the Arts and Education Building. The four or five trees you can see here I have loved in the Fall since my first year on campus... finally in my fourth year of school I got a picture of them! What a lovely color of red.

And finally these trees and the abundance of leaves that come from them are on the pathway to St. Paul's Cathedral in Kamloops. I've had the joy of watching these trees turn to their fall color in full splendor. Just last week I noticed the amazing amount of leaves on the ground... what a lovely path... beautiful color, and the amazing crunch beneath every step! What a great way to begin the time that will be spent at the church!!

Happy Fall!!

Fall Conference - Thanksgiving Weekend

What can be more fun then an annual Fall Conference over Thanksgiving Weekend with the British Columbia and Anglican Youth Movement? Not a whole lot!!

This year ninety-two youth, youth leaders, and chaperones gathered together in Colwood, BC for a weekend of fun, friendship, games, theme sessions, worship and lots more!

Twenty-eight or so young people from Kamloops and Savona attended the conference this year... we spent about eight hours on the bus together in transit to the event and ten hours on the way back - lots of good times! This is the largest group we've had from the Kamloops area in as long as I can remember... and the largest group BCYAYM has seen from the province in years as well. It was pretty exciting to gather with folks who were all there for the same reason!

If I had to sum up my experience of the weekend with a few numbers it would probably look like this:

Conference: Total of 74 hours
Travel: 18 hours
Emergency Room: 6.5 hours
Sleep: 11 hours
Ferry Adventure: 30 minutes

That's right - I encounter a number of adventures and not a whole lot of sleep! The time in the ER was because we had a young person who got sick, nothing major.... just some time with the IV! Out of though I learned that I am able to stay calm when taking someone who is not part of my family, whose parents are not around, and at times when we don't really know what's going on to the Emergency Room... and be in conversation with parents!! Not something I planned on learning... but nevertheless I did!

The ferry adventure was the result of five of the youth under my supervision getting stuck in the elevator for thirty minutes... of course this would happen this weekend!! We laugh about it a lot now... a lot! And what a great story for them all to have to share! Oh dear.... as a result they got a complimentary desert and hot drink - really they were not hard done by at all!

Other then the lack of sleep (although that did mean I was up and visiting with some wonderful folks!), the weekend was amazing. I think everyone had a great time! This was my last Conference as part of the BCYAYM Council but will still go and take the young people from this area with me in the future... and always support the wonderful work that is taking place here!