End of Semester Adventures!

Winter Sunrise over the Straight

Classes are done for another semester and that means three things... 1) the marking marathon needs to begin, 2) more meetings will be booked, and 3) it's almost Christmas!! This term has been a good one - I've really enjoyed working with both our first year classes in Leadership but my fave class of the fall was the Market Research course with our second year rec students. I was so impressed with their learning and their ability to illustrate their knowledge of research - Great work guys!!

This year the marking marathon isn't nearly as bad has it has been in the past and with any luck I'll be done next weekend. I find that the hardest part is simply getting started. So in preparation for marking I've cleaned my house, made dozens of jars of jelly (and sauce which is really just jelly that didn't set), and over sixty photo cards... I even wrote a Christmas letter! After writing the letter I discovered that I did not have many mailing addresses!! It is amazing how technology has really changed the ways that we communicate!

The meetings haven't been too bad to date so that nice! I have a couple this week to set up next semester - I'm so exciting to be focusing on Ghana and setting up project work for the future! I'm only teaching two full face-to-face classes in January, the rest of my workload is Ghana (study tour and project work). I'm just waiting on a bit of feedback from my planning partners and then I'll post up all the details for May 2011!!

That leaves Christmas - this year it will be the second year that I've celebrated the holiday without Dad and the fourth year that Cam hasn't been home. That is a little tougher this year as it's any guess what dad's health will be like next year. That being said I'm really excited for dad as he will be spending the holidays up north with his own Mom and brother. My Grandmother's health hasn't been the greatest and she's pushing 90 so it is great that he is able to visit her... as she lives in the Northern BC (Taylor) mom and I are also content for Dad to make the trip without us!!

Winter Sunrise

Cam's spending Christmas again in Ontario - his first as a married man! I'm a little sad not to be sharing that with him and Dorrianna. He's got a great new family in the Simone's so it should be a great time... sounds like they will also have a white Christmas whereas we'll have a lovely green one!!

It won't be a lonely Christmas here on the Island as there are always Forbes' and Christies hangin' around! Next week mom, Patty, Gran, and I - along with our friend Phyllis - will take in our second holiday performance (first was the Bara McNeil's in Nov) when we head to Chemanius to watch A Christmas Carol. The on the 23rd I'm heading to Vancouver to brave the annual Christie family Christmas (expected to have small attendance - only 90 or so people). This should be a kick as there is nothing quite like having that many family members in the same place... pray for me! :)

Christmas Eve dinner is just Gran and I as mom will be at work. Our plan is to head out for prime rib!! We consider ourselves to be connoisseurs of prime rib so we'll have to figure out where we'll be heading for dinner!! With any luck mom's kids will all be out for the night and she may be able to join us! Christmas morning will be delayed as mom won't be home from work until at least 10 am - that should kill Gran as she's always the biggest kid in the morning!

Boxing day we'll have a bigger dinner as we're (us and the Biros) will be gathering up at Uncle Rob and Auntie Coral's for what is sure to be a ruckus and liquor filled family gathering! I'm looking forward to seeing what Kelly and Heather will be wearing as their personal style is always as unique as they are!

Well that is pretty much all that's been going on... except of course our amazing students and my wonderful colleagues who put themselves on the line for Movember! The ShaveTom.com campaign ended up raising over $3000! Not bad at all! I've include some pics of Tom loosing his hair below. As part of this event two other guys I work with (Rob Ferguson and Dan McDonald) had the legs waxed - silly men!!

I hope everyone who stumbles upon my ramblings has a wonderful holiday season! I'm sure that there will more to report after the marking is done, the meetings are over, and the Christmas baking is gone!

Yours in Holiday Spirit - Aggie

Leslie is having way too my fun with Dr. Tommy!

He looks like our former Uni Pres!!

A little checker board design

A whole new man!

Building memories and seeking new directions

This has been a crazy unexpected week of wonderful memories and thoughts of new directions. It started out as a normal week - as normal as life at a university gets in November - and then morphed into one that may end up shaping my world for the next ten years or so!

This week the Canadian team of the Protected Areas & Poverty Reduction: Canada-Africa Research & Learning Alliance met for their fall meetings. I was fortunate to be invited to sit in on the sessions and to my great delight a woman I had met in Ghana was at the meetings. Donna Sheppard is a staff member of the Calgary Zoo and is also a community conservation coordinator with NCRC in Ghana. I had met Donna in Ghana as part of my set-up tour for the 2011 study tour. This time I was given an opportunity to not only to set the itinerary for our visit to the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary but was also given a chance to pick her very experienced brain about international rural community development!! I learned almost as much in our four hour dinner as I had in two trips to Ghana!

As a result of that amazing (and totally unexpected) meeting I have been totally rethinking my plans and approach to the research and study tour, and to my future plans in Ghana. For those who have lived through my ramblings that last couple of days - thanks! It has been an active process of figuring out what I really want to do, what that will mean for my career, and what it means to my family! Needless to say final decisions have not been made but the current path looks to take me to Ghana for at least 2 - 3 months a year for the foreseeable future! Of course I now just have to figure out how to fund that!! Stay tuned as I have a fundraising calendar with shots from Ghana almost ready to go to print... it would make an excellent Christmas gift!!

This week was also a great one for building memories. My mom bought a plastic canoe for my dad's birthday, so that we can take him out fishing on the local lakes. He has a single pontoon boat but the reality of his disease is that he has neither the strength nor the coordination to row it himself. So Saturday we took him out on Spider Lake for a quick paddle and a little fishing. Well it was definitely an experience! Mom and I loaded up the canoe, packed all the gear, and got ourselves ready... Dad? Well he made sure that he had the fishing gear that he needed!

Those who know my dad know that he has fished all his life but not everyone knows that he doesn't swim! So you can just imagine how nervous he was to be in a canoe with his wife and daughter - both of us swim like fish! You would think he didn't trust us! Mom and I ended up paddling us around the lake while dad lounged (we had him in a lounge lizard chair to provide some back support) in the middle with a death grip on his fly rod! His did pretty darn good but we discovered that he only has the strength to last about one hour before he simply cannot keep himself upright and in the middle of the boat... the leaning got a bit bad at the end but we managed to stay on the lake rather than in it!

Getting in and out of the boat proved to be dad's biggest challenge - it turns out that he has very little strength in one of his legs. That little fact (something mom and I hadn't noticed before) was mixed in with the fact that sitting in one position results in his muscles and joints stiffening up. When we got to the beach mom got out first and while dad was working his way out there were a couple of moments that I thought that I may end up swimming! :)

Our plan is to modify the boat so that dad will have a seat that faces backwards (better for fishing) and has both a full back support and arm rests - overall this was an amazing experience and I'm sure only the first of many! Dad's MSA is definitely progressing faster than I had thought it would and it is sometimes very hard to see the strong man my father used to be but at the end of the day, he's still hiding in there somewhere!

Cable Bay Trail - Nanaimo, BC

My other adventure this week was a picturing taking hike with my friend Jon. We headed out to Cedar to hike the Cable Bay trail that leads out to Dodds Narrows. The sun was shinning - which is always a gift in November - and the light was filtering through the trees in ways that were magical!  There are a lot of maples along the trail and more than one section looked like it was covered in yellow shag carpet! Days like this are truly a gift!

Once we reached the bay we were serenaded by sea lions as we oohed and awed are way along the beach. The views of Nanaimo were great - I was trying to figure out what bridge I was looking at and then realized that it was the Duke Point ferry (okay, my sense of direction wasn't all that great!)! After enjoying the view of the city we headed off to the narrows and I was very thankful that I wasn't in my kayak! It was almost slack tide when we arrived but the current quickly become a rushing torrent - it would be a great place for tidal power generation!

Sea Lion in Dodds Narrows

At the narrows we were entertained by sea lions who surfed the fast moving water! You could hear the them coming as they took deep breaths of air... it almost sounded whales taking a breath. After a while I was lulled into a sense of calm when all of a sudden a sea lion breached, fully jumping out of the water, within ten feet of where I was standing. It was crazy and it scared the crap out of both Jon and I! Unfortunately it wasn't an image that I managed to capture on my camera!

On our way back we met up with some folks we both knew and while chatting we were entertained by a sea lion catching a salmon and a small flock of sea gulls attempting to gain a free lunch! Overall the day was simply amazing and it a clear reminder of the power of sunshine, friendship, and leisure! So my challenge - in the name of memories, adventures, and setting new directions - is to get out (even if it is raining) and play!

Sea Lion with Salmon

Looking for a free lunch

Where did he go?

I'm pretty sure that a Canada Heritage Moment told me that Inukshuks indicate the direction that one is to travel or where one has come from. Perhaps this is why I'm so drawn to this image - I'm in a place where I'm reflecting on where I've been while wondering where I'm going.

I've just spent the summer surrounded by family. It started with my brother's wedding in early July and culminated with a week long camping trip with my parents, brother, and new sister in-law. Spending that much time, on the heals of a month long trip with my mom, with family was perhaps the most I've spent since living at home in high school. In the midst of the summer of family was the trip to my father's neurologist - that was a mind numbing experience. Getting the new diagnosis was a bit of a shock as was the reality of what MSA is really like. The lesson that I've learned from this so far is the 'it is what it is' and what is really important is sharing experiences and building memories.

I was fortunate this summer to get to spend quite a bit of time with my dad. Cameron and I took him to a football game while in Ontario - we really didn't care about the outcome (Argos vs Stamps) but we had fun finding dad sushi (thank god for blackberries!) and making bets on the outcome of the game. I won but Cam and dad decided that I got to pay for the Tim's on the way home!! Once we got home I went camping on the west coast with dad and Gran in the new trailer. In fact I managed to make three trips to the west coast to hang in Gran's new palace on wheels!

I started this post quite awhile ago but have been wrapped up in my life to the point that I haven't been back here to complete and post it! Over the past month I've been focused on teaching my classes (it's always good to do what pays the bills), getting healthy (work-out 3 times a week and runs 3 time a week!), and learning to speak French. Sometimes I wonder why I've chosen to take all these things on but most days (today not being one of them) I'm really excited about the changes that I've made in my life!

The WARRIOR program that I've joined is killer! We work out at 5:30 am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and then are to do cardio on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I've been taking advantage of the great weather we've been having on the coast to do my cardio at Westwood Lake. The workouts are killer but a lot of fun - today we did a couple of circuits that all revolved around boxing - that's right I'm learning how to box as part of this so watch out!!! I think that I end up doing almost a thousand squats and an equal number of crunches each week! That doesn't even begin to count the lunges, push-ups, and steps each week! Today I think I threw a couple of hundred punches (Look out Cam!!) alone! So far I've managed to lose about 10 pounds and a couple of inches! If all goes well I'll need to purchase myself a new wardrobe for Christmas! I'll post some before and after pics but not until there's a lot more of a difference!

That's it for now - have a great day and I hope that you'll enjoy the journey as it moves forward.

Aggie

More adventures to come...

Welcome to my latest blog. This time I'm not heading off on another big trip, rather I've decided to write about the many adventures, big and small, that I am blessed to experience. I am currently planning a couple of trips - Ghana in May 2011 and Alaska in July 2011 - but I'm planning on spending the next eight months or so having as many adventures as possible!

As many of you know, I teach in the Recreation and Tourism programs at VIU - that provides me with daily adventures. This year I'm teaching across the breadth of the programs and am planning to take students on a month long research study tour to Northern Ghana. It should prove to be an amazing year!!

Another big aspect of my life is my father diagnoses with something called Multiple System Atrophy and I'm sure it will prove to be one of the most challenging adventures ever. MSA is a combination of three degenerative diseases that basically attack all systems of the body at once. The disease masks itself as Parkinson's but it's more like Parkinson's time 3 and on speed! I'm sure you'll read a lot more here as I'm going to be spending a lot of time with my dad and am planning on taking him on as many adventures as possible!

The only other major change in my life is that I've just signed up for the Warriors program at the Nanaimo Athletic Club. Starting September 20th I will be working out and eating healthy as part of a program that is very similar to the Biggest Loser on TV. Of course I won't be living on a lovely ranch and won't be exercising 6 hours a day! I will be eating clean (what exactly does that mean?) and working out three days a week as part of a team and doing cardio for another two - three times a week. A colleague from work is signing up too so it should be a lot of fun!

I hope that those of you who follow along or stumble onto the blog enjoy the journey and adventures as much as I do.

Aggie