Lessons

Some days God chooses to teach you more about yourself than others, or perhaps it is rather we're more aware of it on some days. Nevertheless, today seemed to be one of those days. I learned that I "pfft" at way too many things way too fast. Even if I don't believe it in my heart, my head blows things off too quickly and in the ever-so-respectful way of verbally saying "pfft" aloud. Good times. Another good lesson of the day is to wear long sleeves whilst cooking; I got spat on by my dinner-in-the-making at least four times. Boo. God gave us mothers to teach us these things; if only I listened AND applied... Another lesson is that I can keep up with these business students if I pay attention in class. This might come to no surprise to many of you but for whatever reason I did not realize that I've been daydreaming for 90% of business lectures this year. Today went particularly well in accounting class and, I dare say, I had a good enough grasp on the topic of inventory that I could explain concepts to people who didn't understand.

I had lunch today with Rick Marcus & his wife. 'Twas good to have some *excellent* food and receive some encouragement and confirmation in ways the Lord has been revealing himself to me in the last little bit.

I took some time while studying accounting today in the library to pray for things tied to the Reinhardt Bonnke crusades. It was a pretty good prayer time; one of those where you feel like shouting "Yes Lord!" aloud at the end. I'm not sure if it means anything yet, but the first sentence that I had to read in my article after praying was, "As one accountant [William J. Vatter] so aptly noted, the credit manager's idea of heaven would probably be a place where everyone (eventually) paid his or her debts." There is so much work to be done in North America with people's concepts of heaven. Ironic statement though, eh?

I'm not a big fan of declaring a need for prayer online but I'd certainly appreciate being lifted up at this time; I need to make sure that I turn to Jesus first for comfort & encouragement at this busy and vital part of my life and I think of been a wee bit lax in this area for the last few weeks. Thanks in advance =)

Today's exciting stories brought to you by... you!

The Hamilton concert had a really good turnout and everything seemed to go pretty swell. My stupid reed required about 10 tip-undercuts and even then wasn't overly responsive with the dozens of low B-flats at pppppppppp, but hey, no one even raised an eyebrow...

I also went through my agenda today to double check for conflicts with the five ensembles I'm now playing with, and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) did not find any. I did discover that I'm going to be having two particularly tricky days in the spring though:

Sunday, March 30 - UWOSO concert at 3pm; Stratford Civic Orchestra rehearsal at 7pm
Sunday, April 27 - Symphony Hamilton concert at 3pm; SCO Dress rehearsal at 7pm

That's pretty much all that my day consisted of, so sorry for the lack of exciting stories.

Perhaps some of you have some you could share? Who *is* reading this blog? Leave a comment; I'd like to know :)

Heather finally plays somewhere pretty!

Tomorrow I'm doing a concert with Symphony Hamilton at the Royal Botannical Gardens in Burlington. Check out the prettiness! http://www.rbc.ca/

For ticket information visit http://www.symphonyhamilton.ca/

With any luck I'll see some people I recognize in the audience for once :P

A funny haha

In case you somehow haven't heard yet, the road collapsed at Dundas and Wellington Wednesday morning. This is the busiest intersection in London with many major office buildings located nearby.

A fellow blogger thought that this shot (with the mayor's hand over her forehead) might be appropriately titled, "Ahhh! I could have had a performance hall!" It made me laugh pretty hard =-)

Friday, A Day of Rest.

With Lucy and Erin gone, and no classes today, I finally got a nice chunk of very needed down-time. I went to school around noon (sooooooooo late for me :D) and had a few good chats before meeting up with Josh Wood & Katie Bestvater to watch a Reinhardt Bonnke (sp?) video at his house. This video clip was a short testimony of the Christ for All Nations crusades in Africa. I'm still kind of speechless from the whole experience; it *really* hit at something in my heart. If you've never heard of All Nations (I hadn't before this week), they're a team of 135 people who've had a role in leading over fourty million people to Christ . He spoke of one crusade where they saw 1.3 million people come to know the Lord in one night! Isn't that CRAZY!?! This isn't the video I watched, but here's a short glimpse of what I saw...



This is definitely a movement I'm a) surprised I've never heard of, b) want to learn more about and c) be kept up-to-date on. The group has a cheesily-done website but surprisingly not a lot of material is on there nor can you find anything about it on Wikipedia. The first group of websites that come up when you search his name make him out to be an impostor/fake/scary man. I'm still open-minded about this ministry though; Christian leaders are *so* often attacked.

[ a fitting video suggested for watching after the above]


On a lighter note, Kayla brought Erin a gourd with googly-eyes for Thanksgiving and over the last few weeks we've added to the display with a pumpkin, some squash, acorns, & candles. I haven't posted a picture in a while so here ya go!


I finally got a chance to do some cooking / baking today and for the record, this is what a ziplock bag looks like after you set it down on a hot element and then forget about it for about two minutes:

I am so going to make the most excellent of housewives someday :-P

Time

I am coming to the conclusion that I will never have enough time this year for all that I need to be doing. It is so frustrating to say that I cannot do something adequately because I didn't have enough time to prepare. I *hate* this. I heart how people's most encouraging words after something like that are "well it only gets worse." Yay team. North American society sucks sometimes. Boo.

Not impressed.

I got my Finance midterm back and let's just say the mark isn't too hot. I am hoping to more than make up for it with the final exam but alas I just looked up my exam schedule and lo-and-behold my Finance final is on the first day of exams! This means not a lot of time with no business of classes & rehearsals for which to study with. Here's hoping that my performance jury (still TBA) falls on that day and I can petition to move my finance exam. Arg. God help me.

Sarcastic lucky me too that my accounting final is a mere 69 hours after the finance exam. Oh joy. This sucks.

The word seems to be out that I'm looking for an internship as I've had quite a few contacts thrown my way today. The San Francisco Opera is looking like a possibility although a) it's way far away from home (wherever home is...) b) finances could be interesting as the cost of living is significantly higher & I'd need a work visa c) I really do not deal so well with hot weather d) it's far away (I know this is the same as (a) but I have great anxiety about moving away from good ol' Londontown). At my summer program this past summer, I did meet one of the bassoonists from the L.A. area and he suggested I consider it which is news to me as most people highly suggest that you stick with the Eastern US and perhaps the mid-West. So many opportunities, so little time to find the 'best' decision.

This weekend is going to be a lonely weekend so anticipate longer blogs; Lucy's going home to teach as per normal, Erin is at the American Musicological Society conference in Quebec City, & almost anyone else left in the music faculty has gone up to the Ontario Music Educators' Association conference in Bracebridge. I'm planning to spend a significant chunk of my time in front of my finance and accounting textbooks (accounting test coming up on Friday :-S). Here's to trying to force more information into your brain that it just doesn't want!