A Salute: I'll cry for you argentina

you know if you are going to do a post about argentina, you have to make some kind of reference to Evita. So I have done it. Let's move on.

A Salute to Argentina's world cup soccer team. A Salute because Argentina lost today. they were my team. well them and holland. but i had high hopes for argentina, high hopes as in the final match and possibly even winning the world cup. but today....they lost. and it hurt me inside. i was amazed at how much it affected me. i was sad about the oilers but this one, this one hurt me deep down inside where my feelers are. i was not expecting them to loose and to make it worse they lost in a shoot out.

i mean seriously, shoot outs are disgusting. like eating dry bread with moulded ham and sour mayonaise. the sort of sandwich you would throw up afterwards and don't even enjoy as it is going down. they are not a way to determine a game. i mean sudden death overtime, atleast both TEAMS are playing. it's not all dependent on a goal keeper. how awful of a deal was that. you feel bad for the goalie who lets it is and you feel bad for the player that didn't get it in.

but my heart was sad. they deserved to win that game i believe. my hopes for world cup have died, all the teams I chose are out. now it's down to individual players that i like rather than countries. so i go to sleep sad about ukraine, sad about the Czech republic, sad about holland and most importantly sad about Argentina. there's always next world cup i guess. as long as italy doesn't win i will be happy. sorry italia fans.

So I salute Argentina and their hard work. For their amazing passing and calm cool collected way of playing. for your long hair and spanish-isms. for being such a young team and doing so well. you are saluted. signing out.

The End of An Era

In a recent post I mentioned that I had a new favorite chocolate bar. This might not seem like a big deal to some of you that can eat whatever they want in life. But to celiac's treats are hard to come by and there are very few chocolate bars I can eat, so when I find one I like it's important.

Now some of you might not know that I had an addiction to Eatmores for quite some time. I would buy one when I went to 7-11, to Mac's, in the grocery store lineup, every time I stopped for gas and even sometimes when I didn't need gas. At the height of it all I was eating about 2-4 a week. I believed an Eatmore and a slurpee to be a meal supplement and Janess can back me up on that one. I used to think that all I would expect from a date was an eatmore and a slurpee.

The obsession was so severe that I decided to go off Eatmores and slurpees for lent. but after by 40 day lenten fast things just weren't the same, things were different. this dance that had once been so effortless, so easy, was now an awkward movement that not enjoyable for either of us. whatever had been there was gone, and over those 40 days part of me had died.

things began to get a little rocky, i was eating them out of obligation because it was what I had always done. during that time i dabbled unfaithfully in other chocolate bars, looking for something to fill that void. i found Reese Peanut Butter cups. It was a sweet but short relationship. I needed something more than just peanut butter and chocolate, I needed something I could depend on.

I began to return to a chocolate bar from the halloween days. a funny mini-chocolate bar that looks like a piece of poo but definitely does not taste like one (and I would know). Wunderbar.

at first i was hesitant, visiting only once or twice. i didn't want to commit to early, i didn't want to give Wunderbar the impression that i was in this for good. i didn't want to say something that i couldn't back up with commitment. i had just been through a hard break up with eatmore....could a chocolate bar be replaced that quickly in my life? how could i explain this to people? it is possible to fall in love twice? i was so unsure, i felt like i was in jr.high all over again (in the jr.high concession line). after a while though it convinced me that it was worthy of my time and money. peanut butter, chocolate, rice crisps crunch, caramel sweet goodness. Wunderbar - oh how i love thee. I have come home once again, after a long journey of frustration and brokenness I am at home again with a favorite chocolate bar.

Funny thing after all this, I have recently decided that I cannot morally buy chocolate anymore, unless it is fair trade. the chocolate industry is absolutely awful and it seems that i must make a moral choice here. so perhaps i can have wunderbars on every second friday and alternating thursdays. i don't know. i guess we'll have to have one of those relationship talks about it all. and we all love those. how does this sound, " i can see you anymore because you defy my morals." or "i just don't think this relationship will work because you go against everything in my life that i hold dear." i'll keep working on it.

People come and people go, they leave their imprints in ways that are unimaginable. People are like pictures, filled with thousands of details that go unseen to the glancing eye, that you will not see until you see them upside down or sideways or in twilight or dawn. certain colors that will only emmerge when you are looking for them, when you are in the right mood to notice.
we are enigmatic creatures with much lying beneath the surface of our every day lives. just think of all the thoughts you have that you don't tell anyone about, the absolute honest truth that you can't bare to tell another human being. the hurt or fear that you cannot bring yourself to admit.

we are islands in some ways. some of us are closer to shore than others but islands still the same.

i have realized recently that my school life and my real life are completely different worlds. i share the funny stories from the days but not the struggles, not the hard things kids face or have faced in life. and i could have had an absolutely painful day at school full of information from broken kids about horrible things they have endured and yet when someone outside of school asks how my day was i will say, "it was good." and almost mean it.

they are two different worlds and i'm sure many other people live in this way. i have to force myself to tell someone, to share the things that happened during the day or i could enter the habit of living two lives, of keeping half my life from people. i can understand why teachers marry other teachers because then at least that person understands all the intricacies of their spouses world, the unspoken yet understood aspects of life.

i don't want to be an island though, i don't want to build up the habit of keeping secrets from someone. not everyone needs to know and i realize that one person knowing is enough, but learning to share everything with someone seems weird. i often spread out myself amongst many people. one person knows this side, another person another side. but no one knows all sides. there are too many things in life that would be easy to keep as our secret thing, as our thing that keeps us a safe distance from other human beings. and it frightens me to think about being completely close to someone. i have recently been reminded how much broken relationships hurt and for 24 hours it stopped me dead in my tracks.

but i don't want that and need to fight against the temptation to seclude myself. it is a temptation. i think it is sin in my own life. the desire to distance myself from others rather than share my frustrations, short comings, anger, weakness with someone else. i also need to learn to share the good things, my quirks and funny things. it isn't God's desire to keep himself from us and i don't want it to be mine.

Taboo within taboo

In class today we were playing taboo to end off a rivoting semester of psychology. one of my innocent students (we'll call him fred) decided to try his hand at this game. here is what happened.

Fred was trying to describe the words to us and he said, "Ummm guys have this. Sometimes they're long."

some of the boys in the room look at me wide eyed and shocked that the word they were thinking of could possibly a word to guess in this game. they look at me wondering if i know what they are thinking, wondering if they can say the word they're thinking and then instead of saying the word they just start laughing but Fred could not understand what could possibly be so funny about this certain word. Luckily the timer went and saved us all the embarassment of trying to guess what he was describing.

As Fred was taking his seat I asked him, "ummm...what word were you trying to describe Fred?"
Fred replies: "beard" of course.
me: "Right, that's what I was thinking."

I Salute You

i witnessed a beautiful thing today....a beautiful thing indeed. last night the oilers lost in game seven of the stanley cup final. a heartbreaking loss to a team that had fought hard to get to that point. they made this city proud.
this morning as i drove to work it felt different knowing there were no more hockey games to watch, no more stats to discuss until next year. i expected to see the world back to normal, no more oiler flags or signs in shops....the playoffs were over. we had lost.

but as i drove through the morning traffic, cars and semi-drivers, mini vans and trucks all had their oilers flags flying proudly, as if there was still one more game, as if the boys were still going. and i thought to myself, "why shouldn't the flags still be flying. we are their fans, they have done a good job. yes....they lost but they fought a good fight. fly on dear flags"

and so i salute the edmonton fans. the true edmonton fans. the ones that were at Rexall and continued cheering on the oilers after they lost at home. the ones that proudly wore their jerseys today and kept their flags a-flyin' on their vehicles. i salute you. it was fun. one might not even know the playoffs had ended and that my friends is a sign of a true fan. beautiful.

A comment to end off the year

I have this class you see? It's my world geography class you see? They're a special bunch of misfits that I have grown to love over the year but they try my patience on a regular basis and make life difficult and I have had to sort of drag them through this course this year. they are my last class and often drain my energy completely. and they are aware of the obstacles they create. they're the cool and hard to motivate kids.

So today they were being incredibly difficult, arguing and complaining etc. And Student Y whispered to his friend, "She hates us."
Student W: "Ms. Bennett are we your favorite class? or atleast your favorite students?"
And I said, "I don't hate you guys. There's a very special place in my heart for this class."
Studnet X: "Is it the retarded part of your heart?"

i laughed. thought i would share that.

A Resting Place

in communion this sunday we were asked to think about the "i am" statements of Christ. who is jesus to us? what does our own relationship with him mean?

i went to england last year and my parents drove us up to Coventry, an industrial town much like Edmonton in the south central part of England. in convent's there stands the only 20th century cathedral in England and it is beautiful. as you walk along inside there are several saying of jesus carved into giant stone slabs. and as i was walking along i came across one that says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." and right there in that moment i realized how much God wanted that for me in my own life, to just give me rest, to rest in him, to find comfort in him. an epiphany in Coventry.

and so i as i think of what jesus is to me (especially in this crazy time called june) i think of rest. I AM YOUR REST.

i wonder how God looks at our inability to depend on him, our inability to find our rest in him. we run around going to counselors, massages, weekend getaways, reading books guaranteed to help us organize and settle down our lives, sneaking in naps wherever we can, drinking coffee to keep us awake, having a beer or two to relax. But what if we started by centering our lives in God, learning to wait on him and depending on him to renew our strength or to calm us. What if...instead of drinking coffee or taking a nap we spent time in prayer asking God for strength?

Now drinking coffee or a beer or two are not bad things. They are quite pleasing to taste. So that's not what I am saying. I'm just asking if we are too used to depending on other things rather than God. You know, if we are using a beer to take the edge off things or a drink of coffee to give us the energy we need....maybe that says something about our dependency on things other than God first. If you are depending on God first and have these other things on the side then.....well....have at 'er.

Is it ridiculous to take it to this level? Something inside of me says, "well lisa...God gave us sleep so we could get rest." But at the same time I want to live a life that acknowledges that God is my strength and my sustainer, not anything else.

I have been challenged about this in my own life. wondering how my lifestyle reflects what i truly believe about God, how much i really believe, really love, and really trust. and not just what i say being representative of that, but the little things i do even without thinking. i guess just something to think about.

So I'll start a revolution from my bed

Beds: we all have one, we all love it, we all want to spend more time in it. Beds.

I am in my bed right now, as I write this....one of the wonders of laptops. I love my bed and I haven't got to spend very much time in here recently. When it is hot I sleep downstairs but now a days sleeping downstairs is out of the question now that World Cup has begun. My house has been so crazy recently that I actually had a nap in my parent's mini van yesterday. There was laminate floor construction upstairs, World cup soccer in the basement.....so i took the keys and my sleeping bad and tried to find some quiet in the mini van. Ridiculous I guess but such is life these days.
And so I'm quite happy to be in my bed right now, to take a saturday off for rejuvination. It's such a lovely place to be, no one understands me like my bed does.
I might even read a book. I am so NOT reading these days that I can't even say I'm reading anything. Normally I am slowly working my way through a book but there is no progress in that area of life these days, somehow there just isn't time.
So the plan for this morning is to stay in my bed as long as I can. Actually I have already left it once to eat something and visit with the World Cupians. But now I am back and really I am confused as to why I ever left.

I tried writing an Ode To My Bed but I just wasn't feeling it this morning, I will try again some other time.

So, if you love your bed shout it out. And if you have a good book to suggest once I actually get back to reading let me know.

Tomorrow Tomorrow, I'll love ya Tomorrow

June is upon me in full swing and I'm feeling it....oh am I feeling it. It's exhausting but I know I will survive. I have survived things like this before.
I have been thinking about next year and what I should be doing, throwing around all these ideas of options. I used to be really into planning out everything, knowing everything I would be doing, knowing exactly where I would be in a few months and now.....well I don't know.

I don't know what I should be doing next year and I'm not even sure I necessarily care. I mean I do in someways, and I'm sure I will do something useful and good but in all honesty I'm feeling like it isn't in my hands. Is that too apathetic? Or is that good acceptance of the reality that I'm not in control?

At this point if you asked me what I wanted to be doing next year I might say that I want to sit by a fire and read, with a pair of wool socks in some cabin on Vancouver Island overlooking the stormy ocean. I just want to sit somewhere with no big school stuff pressing on me. Is it wrong to just want to not work next year? Just sub and have some fun? Should I want to settle down into a career? Is it a bad career move to take a year off next year? (I don't like thinking about career moves, sounds too old for me)

And then I think, maybe I don't really want to be a teacher, as much as I enjoy being a teacher right now. Or maybe I'm afraid of settling down and committing to something.
I think perhaps what I really want is......a break. Life is just a little too much sometimes, a little too busy and it seems that there are always things to care about, things to be on top of, people to call and to care about, people who I want to learn from, books I want to read and movies I want to watch. You know sometimes I don't see someone for three weeks or three months and I haven't even noticed. And that's awful and it's not that there are unimportant to me but rather that life is so full of stuff that I miss out on being consistent or dependable in their life. And that.......the belief that you cannot really rely on me for much is a very frustrating thing, because that is not the sort of person I want to be.

But the strange thing is that with all these questions in my mind I am not panicked but rather peaceful or nearing apathy. Things will come how they come and pieces will fall into place. And probably I am just really weary without a break insight for at least another week.

PARTTTAYYYYYY

All right, here's the deal. Edmonton Folk Fest this year is going to be awesome. David Gray, Bruce Cockburn, Sarah Harmer, feist, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, The Bedouin Soundclash (of course I haven't heard these guys but i have heard good things about them) and many more. Anyway, I'm going....are you? tickets went on sale today. I'm going to get mine...are you getting yours? four days for $119, quite a good deal. plus i will be there and a few other friends. so, hope you are all in for the big party this summer. Aug 10-13. Saweeeettttt! Live music, outside, in beautiful Edmonton and amazing line up. Who's in?