snowflakes - no two are alike

it snowed today. and it has managed to stay on the ground for at least an hour now, which is creating quite the atmosphere around campus. there are snowmen being built, snowball fights along the walkways, and my lecturer even stopped the class today to throw a snowball at a student. what was funnier was when the student threw it back and we saw the quick reflexes of our lecturer. a classmate was deciding if she should leave because it was staying on the ground and she didn't want to drive home in it. and this is how snowy it is now, an hour later...

it reminds me of last year when we went toboganning with the south african and mozambicans we were living with in lacombe, what a great memory of feeling just like a kid again. this past week has been a hard one for me and i really wouldn't mind feeling like a kid again.

i accidently misheard 'lancaster' as 'lung cancer' yesterday and it is becoming to feel a bit like that - suffocating. so i am happy that i am leaving for a weekend, this evening i am off to leeds which will hopefully be rejuvenating and relaxing. i suppose any contained area gets stuffy every now and again.

but i should count myself lucky because yesterday i was able to go to the lake district and have breakfast and a rather frigid boat trip around the lake. quite a beautiful area. but the 'vegetarian breakfast' didn't have anything on anything nellie's could whip up with a nice refillable coffee.

so what are the thoughts on harper having to stand up to klein publicly? i hope that he prevents privatised health care, the thought just scares me. but that might be a trade off for cooperation with bush on this missile defense thing, which i am also not particularly crazy about. not sure which would be worse just yet. but i am following it on my morning viewings of the national, which i watch just to get my peter mansbridge fix.

i am all about compromise these days. we've been talking a lot about it in my conflict resolution courses and i have to say that compromise is something i am trying to get better at it but sometimes it is still quite difficult. i have to pretend to be a tamil tiger for an upcoming lecture where we will have to negotiate in a role play situation (oh my, even the words 'role play' give me shivers) and today we sat and listened to a sri lankan in our course tell us more about the finer details of a rather complicated conflict, but i am learning how evasive the concept of compromise can be so i am trying to my best to realise it in my own life.

well the sun has returned and soon there will be no snow left for a spontaneous snow angel, but it was nice while it lasted.

mabel, mabel

i have learned something recently. i like eating (that almost goes without saying these days) but part of what i love about it is when you have the opportunity to share that time with someone and talk about big ideas or just about your day. the part that has become apparent is that not everyone does this or enjoys this. which made me think about why i like it so much and i think it has a lot to do with eating with my family at home.

we aren't overly formal, but we don't allow elbows on the table.
we don't always have fancy meals, but they are always healthy and tastey.
we don't always need to be there, but there is always enough if we all are.
we don't say grace or have to wait til everyone is finished to leave the table, but we talk a lot and keep up to date on everyone's lives.

now that i am away from all of this, i find myself craving it. and when it does happen i really feel at home.

now if i could just get more people to wash and dry dishes the 'right', oops i mean 'my', way.