Theology in Crowd Surfing

I have a notebook that I like to use to write down notes from sermons, lectures and conferences I attend. Recently I filled one and started another. Now that it is full I like to flip through it and rediscover some of the ideas that I found interesting enough to write down. I have decided I will share a few of the ideas that I found particularly interesting. Sorry some of them will be a bit broken and point form.  

There is a poetry and beauty in Crowd Surfing.

People sharing a love for great music,

Trusting and supporting one another- one person is lifted into the air and many raise their hands to keep them from falling

Christians should crowd surf – We share a love for something infinitely greater than any rock song (and there are some great ones!)

We should be able to have complete trust in each other that we know when we fall off the edge others will be there to catch us and lift us up.

We should be so willing to catch and support one another.

We should also be willing to be caught

You can’t crowd surf on your own- you need a crowd to catch you.

It can’t just be one person carrying you- they would get too tired and you would both fall. But with a community, the burden is light.

Advent #1

Advent is one of my favourite seasons on the Christian calendar. I grew up in a church where we lit candles each week to celebrate advent. It was always a time of magic and anticipation for me. One year I made my family celebrate advent at home as well, including making my own advent wreath with candles and preparing weekly Christmas readings. When I was in university the church I attended did not celebrate advent the same way (they thought lighting candles was too catholic.) In fact they barely mentioned advent at all. Although I loved the church I went to I ended up attending another church during advent season just so I could be amongst believers who were celebrating advent too.

Advent it a wonderful season of anticipation. We prepare ourselves to celebrate Christ's coming at Christmas, remembering the anticipation and prophecies of the Old Testament. We also are reminded to eagerly anticipate and prepare for Christ's second coming. The church I currently attend doesn't do much in the way of celebrating advent either. I am a little disappointed; though this time I don't think I will find a different place to worship for the month of December. Instead I will find my own ways to celebrate advent and share it with anyone who is interested enough to read my blog posts.

For my first Advent reflection I want to share this post from Alissa Wilkinson which I found on the Cardus blog. Click the link below and enjoy! Feel free to share any comments or reflections with me- it will be like we are celebrating advent together!

Longing and restraint Cardus Blog

Adventures of a Data Monkey

Some aspects of my job are very repetitive. Like this week for example. I was on loan to another program in the building to help them finish a time sensitive research project. We needed to take a variety of measurements from a bunch of tree seedlings that had been exposed to a variety of environmental conditions. This involved measuring and recording ad nauseum.

I was the recorder.

I heard numbers.

I wrote down numbers.

Since we finished faster than anticipated I retired to my office to catch up on some data entry- typing numbers.

Sometimes I think a well trained monkey or robot could almost do my job.

I told one of my co-workers this. He likes coming up with songs for everything we do. For example we have a field site nicknamed "the jungle" and everytime we go there he sings "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns and Roses. My offhand comment resulted in him jumping into a rendition of "Hey, Hey We are the Monkees" by the Monkees. 

Ironically one of my supervisors used to work for the U.S. military providing neonatal care for chimpanzees.

It all makes sense to me now. 

Repetition Breeds Inspiration?

The internet is a little spotty at my current residence. I have a few blog posts I wrote but didn't get a chance to post this week due to lack of an internet connection. Since the connection seems to be working fine today I am going to take advantage of it here goes- Enjoy!

I am three weeks into my contract and things are starting to feel familiar again. My co-worker and I have powered through two years worth of samples from one of our research sites. The progress is impressive (at least my supervisors seem impressed,) but I am told we will still have plenty to keep us busy. Currently our progress is limited by the availability of space in the drying ovens and the general disarray of the samples we have yet to process.

Today we needed to pause the peat cutting due to the above reasons. So we spent the afternoon clearing up carts and making more space in the freezer; or in other words disposing of water samples from previous years that have already been analyzed. The building is full of archived samples that have been analyzed and are awaiting disposal. Before today I had wondered why someone hasn’t just thrown them out. After four hours opening and draining over 800 scintillation vials, I knew. At the end of the day the task of washing and rinsing these vials to be used again remains for another day when the peat processing pauses.

Emptying vials and draining their contents is mindless work, even more mindless than cutting peat. I had an mp3 player and my thoughts to keep me company for the afternoon. I spent the afternoon thinking of the scope and breadth of the research that had been conducted on the samples I was disposing of, and then moved on to contemplating all the research done in the building where I work. The building was rather busy and I frequently saw researchers bustling by in different stages of their respective projects. The Ontario Forest Research Institute is an inspiring place to work. There are so many intelligent researchers conducting such fascinating and important research. As a young, low-level, laboratory technician my job is frequently to perform the tedious repetitive tasks which provide the data that helps to answer the questions the researchers are asking. Someday maybe I will be able to clarify my own questions and have the opportunity to conduct my own research. For now I am content to assist with the research of others and perhaps be inspired by their successes.

Night Owl Rehab pt. 2

So an update on the Nightowl rehab project I have going on.
Still not getting to sleep early.
Still not being entirely thrilled about having to wake up in the morning everyday for work.
However on Saturdays, the only day of the week when I can actually sleep in, I wake up early.
Earlier than I do every day for work.
And then I can't get back to sleep.
Every weekday morning, when I don't want to get out of bed for work, I tell myself; "Don't worry, on Saturday you can sleep in."
Well, apparently not.

The Lighter Side of Work

Fundraising season is in full swing at work. Ontario Public Service Employees are actively fundraising for their United Way campaign. Some of their fundraising are definitely Fun- raising. We get very creative at OFRI including chilli cook-offs, potlucks, auctions, and even some hallway busking.

This afternoon all OPS employees at the Ontario Forest Research Institute were treated to the delightful sounds of the Great Lakes Jammers- a group of musicians from OFRI, Canadian Forest Services, Great Lakes Forestry Center and several other nearby government offices. They delighted us with a variety of folk songs including, my personal favourite, the Logdriver’s Waltz. As if the song itself wasn’t entertaining enough several researchers who had stopped by to listen and throw some cash in the guitar case broke out into a lively waltz. It was certainly interesting to see my co-workers in a different light- it is really a blessing to have a workplace where people are able to be productive and have fun at the same time.

I have included a link to the fantastic folk song- sadly I didn’t have video of the live performance but this National Film Board of Canada clip is entertaining as well. Enjoy!

Night Owl Rehab

I am not a morning person, I am a night owl.

Since I am now a grown up with a job and no longer a caffeine- fuelled university student; being a night owl is not an ideal situation. In highschool it was too my advantage- with my after-school job and late night paper writing. Admittedly in highschool, I did have to be on the bus by 7:10 however, if I got dressed in the dark and my Dad made my breakfast, I was able to make it onto the bus (where I could sleep) without having to actually be awake for more than 10 minutes.

University was a night owl’s dream. I could sleep in, nap in class, and then stay up till 4 am finishing papers and assignments (or watching tv.) I actually found that my most productive paper-writing time was between 10pm and 2am. And if I got at least 4 hours of sleep it might be hard to wake up, but with a little tea or a delicious raspberry mocha I could still function at full capacity. 

Now I have a job. I have to get up at a decent hour.  I have to be awake and alert to drive to work. I have to be fully functioning to perform my job duties. When my alarm clock goes off I can’t just ignore it, or hit snooze, or just turn it off. I must wake up, and get dressed, and go about my day- Even if my bed is warm and comfy, even if I was having a wonderful dream, even if it is still dark outside since it is winter and the sun doesn’t rise until after 8am.

Often in the morning I find myself groaning and wishing I had several more hours to sleep. Being an intelligent human, I realize I have no control over when I have to get up in the morning. I do, however, have control over when I go to sleep at night. I don’t have paper’s to write or homework anymore so when I am home from work I am free until the next day. So there really is no need to have to stay up late.  So I thought if I wanted to avoid being tired and grouchy in the morning, the best solution would be to try and get to sleep earlier.

So I tried it. It isn’t working.

For the past week I have attempted to be in bed before 11pm. (Much earlier compared to my former 2 or 3 am schedule before I got my job.) Some evenings I even managed to slip under the covers by 10pm! But my efforts were futile- I just ended up tossing and turning in my bed until 12:30 or 1 and it was still hard waking up in the morning.

Night Owl Rehab has so far been a failed venture. I shall give it another week’s go but I might just have to resign myself to the fact that I will never be the type of person who bounds out of bed before the crack of dawn fully refreshed and rejuvenated for another day.

What do Katy Perry and Peat Cores have in Common?

So my first week of work has come and gone. It has been interesting returning to work where I had worked before. It kind of felt like returning to school in September and remembering what homework is like. Perhaps I wasn’t as excited because there is no prospect of field work (my favourite) and I already know what a long winter of sample prep and lab work is like. Things are similar yet different, there are new people and some people I knew have moved on to other jobs or other departments. I am sure I will soon fall into a nice pattern at work and that “returning to school” feeling will disappear. Already I dived right in and tackled a year’s worth of peat samples (from one research site) in a week.

Today at work I was thinking how our samples experiences are kind of like a Katy Perry song:

They’re hot and they’re cold

we store the samples in a -10°C cooler, cut them in a -2°C room and dry them in a 100°C oven. 

They’re yes then they’re no 

starting any new activity in the lab always seems like a stop and go process as we figure out

 what to do and how to do it.

They’re in then they’re out 

Most of my time during the day seems to be transferring samples in or out of freezers, 

holding containers, trays, or ovens.

They’re up and they’re down 

we use a hydraulic lift to move our samples through the building

That’s pretty much were the similarities end- I definitely had the song stuck in my head all afternoon while I was working, at least it kept me entertained.

So what is it that I actually did this week? Not very much, and yet a lot,- it is fairly repetitive work. Basically I went to the freezer and got Peat cores. Then I unwrapped peat, handed the peat to a co-worker to cut, measured peat, weighed peat, dried peat, grinded peat, and sent the peat to the lab for further analysis. If this was all I knew about my work I would probably go crazy. The work is tedious and repetitive. Fortunately I also know that the peat was collected from the Far North of Ontario along the shores of Hudson Bay and near a Diamond mine in Northern Ontario. We are analyzing the samples as part of a project to map, conserve, and understand Boreal peatlands and their contributions to global biogeochemical cycles. One of our project aims is to make an accounting of the Carbon in the Far North and understand where it is, how long it's been there, where it is going, and what impacts it’s movements through the ecosystem. All this ties into climate change research and also has important impacts on the forestry, mining, energy, and other industries. The data collected from the peat samples I am processing will be used by multiple researchers and help multiple projects. So Ontario taxpayers rest easy- your money is being well spent. 

Be it Ever So Humble...

Recent events in my life have made me a semi-nomad. I move so much that when I say, “I am going home,” I don’t really know where I am referring to anymore. Currently I am staying with a friend and looking for a place of my own- it is really hard to find an apartment in this city with only 4 days notice. This means I have some of my stuff at my friend’s place, some stuff at my parent’s place and a lot of my stuff in the back of my car.

I consider myself to be an environmentalist and consider it important to care for the atmosphere and try to use alternative or public transportation. I also believe that it is important to cultivate a sense of place and put down roots in a home and community. That is why I find it ironic that, in the past year, the place I could most truly call my home is my gas-guzzling, 4- wheel drive, bright yellow, Ford Escape. I would consider public transportation however I grew up in a rural area where public transportation is not a viable option, and I tend to find myself living in small cities where public transportation exists, but is impractical. I used to have a more fuel efficient car however it was getting old, and it was not so good with winter driving. This one time it ran over a piece of debris on the highway and it put the car out of commission for a few weeks. I live in Northern Ontario, we get snow- lots of snow, and our roads get icy-very icy. My wallet really misses that car when I am filling up my tank, but my parents feel much better about me driving a more rugged vehicle.

So I am living out of my gas-guzzling SUV which I named “The Bumblebee.” Currently you will find my office located in the backseat next to my lawnchair and snowshoes. In the back you will find my pantry, linen cupboard and miscellaneous kitchen supplies. My cutlery drawer has been relocated to the front passenger seat because I needed some utensils for lunch the other day. I would be very happy to find a place so I can stop living out of my vehicle. I would be even happier if I could stay in that place for more than 6 months- at least two years would be preferred.

One downside to my semi-nomadic lifestyle is that I frequently feel like all my friendships have ticking timers counting down the time until I once again load up my vehicle and move away. I would really like to have the luxury of setting down roots and developing friendships with a sense of permanence and commitment. Modern communication does provide a means to continue friendships after I have moved out of an area, but I am not particularly good at keeping up a long-distance friendship. I have been blessed with a few friends who don’t accept that excuse and stick with me anyway, and a few other friends with who I don’t have as regular of contact, but readily accept me back when we happen to be in the same geographical area. I guess that is all this semi-nomadic girl can ask for- I AM BLESSED!!