Atrocities

It is far too easy for us to get wrapped up in our own lives. In fact, even as I sit down to write this, I am more tempted to just start whining about the mountain of cover letters I should be writing.

But being in Munich this past weekend reminded me that while I have been insanely blessed, there are people around the world who are suffering and have suffered. Before I get further into this post, though, I do want to highlight that Munich has nearly nine centuries of beautiful, fascinating history. It is, however, impossible to ignore the years that came around 1920 to 1945 when exploring the city.

The picture above is a sign posted discreetly on a wall on a building in downtown Munich. It translates to something along the lines of "Here stood, until the year 1938, the department store owned by the Uhlfelder family." As you can imagine, the Uhlfelder family was Jewish, and their business was destroyed as part of the Holocaust.

The more I ponder this reality, the more teared-up I get. Here I am, working hard at establishing myself as a businessperson. I have invested large sums of capital and time into developing my skills. On the same vein, the Uhlfelder family did the same with their department store. Then, one day, a man, a charismatic man feeding on the desperate plight of a nation overwhelmed by hyperinflation, decided that the Uhlfelder family didn't deserve to own their business anymore simply because of their heritage.

The whole thing gives me chills. I wish that we could point to the Holocaust as a one-time event, but history has repeated itself. Genocide has occurred in Rwanda and Sudan.

I wish I knew what we could do about it.

Assume Positive Intent

It makes life simpler when we categorize everything and everyone and put them in boxes, right? If someone cuts you off in traffic, you can assume they are a bad driver, probably an inconsiderate person and, oh yeah, because of all those things they probably hate puppies, too. The guy in front of you in line at the self check-out station at the grocery store who is taking forever must obviously be stupid.

It was a while back that I heard someone say that "we judge the intentions of others by their actions, but we judge our own actions by our intent." When I am the one taking longer at the self check-out, it's because the machine won't scan fast enough - I'm trying to go quickly. If I ever accidentally cut someone off in traffic it's because I was trying to get around another inconsiderate driver.

This tendency can cause huge problems in community. It's one thing to be frustrated with a random person at a grocery store and an even bigger problem when we start to put labels on people with whom we need to be in community. A line from the Associate Dean during our orientation stuck with me and has been festering over the last few weeks: "Assume positive intent."

We all come to situations with our own experiences and often baggage. If I'm having a bad day, and someone says something, and I take it in the wrong way, it's very easy to fall into the trap of assuming they meant it in a negative way. Once you take it that way, you assume that person is generally mean or does not like you very much. (You become "in the box" toward them.) And once you view them that way, every action that you observe of them only reinforces your opinion.

This is a very dangerous line of thinking. For starters, while I may have a bad day and snap at someone, this does not mean that I am ALWAYS snappy. We need to be careful about the labels we apply to others (and to ourselves, for that matter!). We like to think in terms of absolutes, but people never fall into absolute categories. More importantly, doing this can destroy community. It can lead to gossip and slander and can also destroy the opportunities that we could have from being open to everyone and their input into our lives.

So the challenge I am giving myself for the rest of this week (and beyond) is to give everyone a blank slate every time I meet them, and to assume positive intent.

How Does It Happen?

Today Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

It really makes me wonder. How does one man end up committing the largest Ponzi scheme in history?

Now, this may be a controversial opinion, but I don't believe that people are naturally good or well-intentioned. (Probably better for a different blog post, but I know that my default mode is more selfish, and I need to overcome that... I'm not naive enough to think I'm the only one who struggles with that!) However, I don't understand how someone can be depraved enough to swindle the kind of money that Bernie Madoff swindled from his investors. After all, a Ponzi scheme is not something you fall into accidentally because you need to cover up a mistake. A Ponzi scheme, where nothing is invested, is sheer fraud, in its entirety.

It's funny how our priorities can become so disjointed. We start to feel the invincibility of getting away with our actions, and we just go further and further down the road, until one day we get caught and suddenly find it's time to face the consequences.

My dad always said that if one of us girls was caught shoplifting, he wouldn't come and post bail right away. He'd let us suffer the legal consequences. Because I never did shoplift, this always made sense to me. Sometimes the best form of grace is getting caught early on. After all, if Madoff had been caught early, he probably would have been out of jail right now and enjoying the last days of his life with his wife. Instead, he gets to be the really bad guy everyone's heard of in jail.

It's easy to look at the Madoff story and think "I would never do that." But I think that these behaviours sneak up on us. There has been a lot of discussion among the MBA community about oaths. I don't know what I think about how effective that is, but I do know that integrity is absolutely the most essential character trait for a businessperson. Allowing cracks in integrity is never a good plan. If it's tempting to lie, cheat or steal to cover up a mistake or make a little extra money, then there is nothing to stop a big lie. My dad tells a joke that illustrates this point...

A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a woman. "Would you sleep with me for $1,000,000?" He asks. "Sure!" She replies. "Would you sleep with me for $50?" He asks. "What kind of woman do you think I am?" "Well, we've already established that. Now we're just negotiating the price."

Character is character. It is only developed after years and years of right decisions, but can be torn down by one wrong one. It's easy to look at what Madoff did and say, "that would never be me." But if we allow decisions into our lives that compromise our character, then we could easily be drawn down that path.

Information Overload?

Sometimes I wonder if we cram too much stuff into our heads. Two of the books I have read lately (The Black Swan and The 4-Hour Work Week) have suggested eliminating news from our daily intake. After reading these, it's gotten me to thinking.

Every morning, I set my alarm for 6:21. This allows me to hit snooze and wake up just in time for the 6:30 news broadcast on the radio. I blare the radio again at 7:30 as I am getting ready, just so I can catch the news. Then, I will often go into the office a few minutes late because I am sitting in my car listening to the 8:00 news.

Once I get my computer turned on, Google willingly hands me everything I need to know. I am supposed to keep up with no less than 6 publications (The Economist, The Financial Times, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Forbes) for an economics class in first semester. Rather than trying to read each of them, I've put the feeds into my Google RSS Feed Reader. This, along with a more general news stream, and such great blogs as Freakonomics keep me informed of everything I need to know. And if I'm feeling an information defecit, I need only log on to Twitter to see what people are discussing. If I don't know what they are referencing, good old Google is there at my fingertips to tell me what I need to know.

Sigh.

It's a lot of information to take in. And yet, I'm addicted to it. Part of it is the desire to be able to discuss situations intelligently with others. (I remember Blagojevich coming up when I was at Darden for my interview. Since this wasn't front page news in Canada, I was so grateful it had been discussed in the Freakonomics blog so I knew what my fellow interviewees were talking about!) Part of it is wanting to synthesize what is going on in the world so I can see what direction the economy is headed. (Which is exactly why Taleb discourages reading the news in The Black Swan) And part of it, I must admit, is my ADD. Sit and concentrate on creating a report for an hour? No way... like shiny objects, the news headlines grab my attention as they scroll past on my reader.

I'm contemplating a mini news fast. Just a day of not listening for it, not watching it go by on my feed reader, and not googling every phrase that I don't understand. I am deeply passionate about knowledge, but I think that I need to start controlling how I synthesize it before I go crazy!

Black Swan - First Thoughts

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been on my reading list, and actually my book shelf, for quite some time. After reading an article a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal about how Taleb's hedge fund is betting on hyperinflation, I decided it would be the next book I read.*

The Black Swan explores "the impact of the highly improbable." Taleb argues that history and the significant events that have shaped our world have been black swans. No one could see that they were going to happen (except in hindsight) and they had a huge impact.

Thus far, I have only read the intro, but it brings up some interesting points and already I am finding takeaways. One suggestion made in the intro is that we should be less focused on trying to predict what will happen and more focused on trying to figure out how to react to what happens.

I have had some exposure to this line of thinking with business continuity planning. We've considered what effect certain "shocks" would have on our business. (i.e. loss of access to building, failed IT systems, etc.) Then we've come up with a plan to counter these effects. (Finding suppliers to rent equipment from until we can replace it, having an IT server stored offsite, etc.) Though at one point, I brainstormed possible shocks (fire, theft, flooding, snowed in), the more important thing was considering which operations would be affected by shocks.

This kind of thinking surfaced in a conversation that I had with someone a few months ago. (Warning: the following idea is only half-baked and may be offensive. Please try to consider the big picture of what I am saying!) He said that we have been putting so much energy into trying to stop global warming when there is still a good possibility that global warming is naturally caused (i.e. recurring cycle in the earth's atmosphere). While I absolutely think that we need to focus on sustainability and minimizing our impact on the earth, I also think that we need to consider what impact a "warmer earth" will have. We seem to be hedging our bets on global warming being entirely human caused, and putting our focus on stopping our impact. BUT, this is a risky bet. What if we can maintain complete carbon neutrality, but the earth still warms? Will we be prepared to deal with that? Maybe, just maybe, we should focus on sustainability separately than we are dealing with global warming. (Of course, that said, I am not a scientist. But I could organize and manage some scientists to look at dealing with global warming.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting further into this book. I have about ten more that I want to read before school starts, in addition to the one I have to read for school. Oh, I'm going to miss my free time...

*I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea for a book club I'm in, and I really enjoyed it. It's amazing to see what the tenacity and perseverance of one man can accomplish. Of course, as a side note, I also can see how my business skills can bring a world of improvement to the not-for-profit sector, but we'll see how that plays out in the next few years.

Stop and Smell the Lilacs

Running is my new stress-reliever. I got home from work today feeling wound up, and recognizing this in myself, I knew I needed to just run it off and process my day. It worked...

If you're not from Edmonton, this may sound odd, but today was the first day I've gone running and seen the trees full of leaves. I've been watching them bud for a few weeks now, and waiting anxiously for this beautiful day. And it was a beautiful day, as I set off for my run. Not only were the streets much more green, but the scent of lilacs also filled the air.

As I ran, I processed what's really on my mind. I feel as though I am in the midst of this immense struggle to really be present. I have 37 days of work left... That translates into 296 hours and 17,760 minutes. Being at work right now is a huge opportunity to build up my resume before I head off to school. But my head is way in the clouds, daydreaming about the upcoming move to Virginia. I'm getting everything done, but that drive that I need to really finish with finesse is just not there.

I'm sure that most of you can agree with me that there is nothing wrong with being excited about Virginia. But today is a gift that we have, that we only get once. The events of each day are so important. To "waste" time is a grand indiscretion. Plus, and I don't say this to sound ominous, we never know whether tomorrow will come. But we do have today.

Like my last post, I wish I had more answers than questions. This is something that I'm still trying to figure out, and would love to solve by the time my alarm goes off tomorrow morning.

The buds on the trees, though I couldn't see it, were spending their time very deliberately. There was a seasoning and a development process that was required before they could be exposed as the rich, green leaves they are today. Had they "checked out" (analogy is weak, but, you know... tried to rush the process, gave up taking in the nutrition from the tree, etc.) because they were just too anxious about being leaves, the end product would not have been quite as spectacular.

The title of this blog posting is "Stop and Smell the Lilacs," but I have a confession. I only slowed down to take in a whiff. Alas, patience is a virtue that is still in the bud stage for me.

Finding the Contentment/Striving Balance

Sometimes I feel as though my life is the dichotomy of two desires. On one end, there is the need to be content, just as I am. On the polar opposite, there is the desire to be constantly struggling for growth and improvement.

These are both important, but sometimes I wonder where the balance is. Part of me thinks it is only possible to truly grow and stretch when we are secure in who we are and content at where we are in life.

This was something running through my mind as I was jogging the other morning. It was less than 2 months ago that I started, and at that point, I was doing about 4km and alternating between walking and running. Now, I can run a full 7 km without taking walking breaks. But now it feels inadequate when I only do 5 km. So it got me thinking... where is the balance between being happy with what we've accomplished and striving for more improvement and more growth? I'm a natural driven person, so I feel as though I'm always aiming for more. Sometimes I don't really know how long to enjoy that plateau before I start striving for the next step.

Now, I hope that you didn't read the title of my blog and start reading because you thought I had answers. Instead, I have only questions. The only thing that I can really come up with is that I think that balance and the dichotomy of desires is important. Contentment keeps us from going crazy, and the need for striving and growth is what really makes life worth living.

Fear Insignificance, Not Failure

The secret to success is learning to fear insignificance more than failure.

It's been said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. In "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss, he suggests that the opposite of happiness is not sadness, but boredom. And now I'm learning that the opposite of success is not failure, but insignificance.

Failure is a remarkably splendid thing. We learn more from failure than from success. I remember the last time I lost a game of "Settlers of Catan." I was poised to win, completely dominating the game right from the outset. But I made a fatal flaw, my opponents exploited it, and I spent the last half of the game completely frustrated while everyone else caught up and someone else won. I learned a lot from that loss, though. I learned lessons that I can use in future games, as well as in actual business strategy. (Yes, I'm that competitive/nerdy) Ironically, I had won the game before, but I don't remember learning anything from that.

Although my competitive streak would suggest I think otherwise, my significance in life is not defined by how many board games I win. However, this is still an important example. When things don't turn out how we expect, it gives us an opportunity to examine what went wrong to change for next time. It forces us to look inside and examine our assumptions. Failure provides the impetus for change.

Anyone who has achieved anything of significance has experienced failure. If we give up when it gets rough or we experience setbacks, we're going to find that life becomes monotonous and repetitive. Success is dependent on stepping out, taking risks and embracing the failures for they are worth. Experiencing failure does not make us failures, unless we choose to stop after failing.

For a heartwearming end to this blog post, check out this inspirational Milk commercial. Also, John Maxwell brings a much more seasoned and in-depth look at failure in his book, "Failing Forward."

Scent-Induced Memories

This morning, before going for a run, I put on sunscreen for the first time this season. (Despite being blonde and fair-skinned, I don't wear sunscreen anywhere near the frequency that I should.) As I squeezed the sunscreen into my hand, the smell aroused some powerful memories. Immediately I was transported to my suite in Cuba, a fun day at Sylvan Lake, my summer camp counselling days and sitting by the pool in Phoenix working on my leadership presentation over Reading Week.

It's amazing how our memory filter works. I love that when looking back on life, it's the good memories that stick. Every adventure has its ups and downs. But looking back in time, it's only the ups that we really remember. We might, if prompted, remember the challenges, but the weight of those challenges, however insurmountable they have have seemed at the time, is diminished by the fun memories and victories we achieved. I suppose the lesson in that is to endure the challenges and the hard times if they lead to good things. It's so cliche to say that "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger," but I think it's even more important to realize that anything good is going to come with challenges, and if the "good thing" is worthwhile, putting up with the challenges is, too.

This was crossing my mind as I thought about my upcoming road trip with my sisters. We've been on a few road trips together. Since our family drove for almost all our family vacations, the three of us are well-conditioned to travelling together. I know that in our travels, we have absolutely fought and argued and gotten mad at each other. But I don't remember any of those specific incidents. What sticks in my mind is the fun adventures that we've had, being silly together ("I noticed you're not wearing any galoshes"), talking about whatever meaningful conversation comes up, playing stupid car games, pulling over to the side of the road to take completely random pictures and doing "chinese fire drills"* to switch drivers when one of us would get tired.

Well, this post has really migrated away from what I originally intended it to be. All this to say I'm so excited about driving down to C'ville with my sisters in August!

*Chinese Fire Drills: When the light turns red, everyone gets out of the car, runs around it, and hops back in. In this case, we changed seats when hopping back in.
As a further note, the irony of the term struck me as I wrote it. I recently came across the term "Canadian Tuxedo" and had the most perplexing time trying to figure out why a wardrobe combination of all denim would be somehow associated with Canadians. While I still don't have an answer, I wonder if any Chinese people will read my blog and wonder why running around the car and calling it a "fire drill" is associated with the Chinese. Sorry... I don't know!

Choose Happiness

Lately, I've gotten caught in the trap of thinking that joy and happiness are something that are supposed to be bestowed on me by some sort of external force, blessing or circumstance. This is something I've blogged about before, so if you want all the reasoning for why happiness is internally generated, you can read that. (And, if you don't believe me, check out this Freakonomics blog or this Cracked article.) Today what is really on my mind is what DOES make us happy.

There are many studies out there, I am sure, which go into the specifics of how to raise kids happy, whether happiness is genetic, whether religious people or political people or whatever are more happy. But, since I am fairly fixed in all of the above factors, those studies have little bearing on my disposition.

Instead, I have discovered that happiness and positivity are a choice. It comes down to what we choose to tell ourselves about our circumstances and how we look at things.

Here's a confession: I get road rage. I don't know if it's my competitive side, or just leftover anger issues from when I was a child (I threw tantrums and stuff... those aren't really acceptable anymore, so I just take it out when I drive, maybe?), but I definitely road rage. (For anyone who doesn't know me... I'm really not an angry person. In fact, anyone who knows me doesn't believe I road rage until they witness it firsthand.)

Anyway, there is pretty much one freeway that connects my house to the rest of my life (work, parents' house, friends' houses, etc.), there are no side streets I can take to avoid it, and it's under construction. Construction which makes the drive home from work mind-numbingly slow. Any number of factors can set me off on the drive home, and I often arrive home completely stressed out from the drive.

However, seeing that this was a growing trend, I decided to see what happened if I just chose to look at the situation differently. "Okay, Julie, there's nothing you can do to make this traffic move any faster. You are not in a rush, and there is no benefit to arriving home even 5 minutes earlier." As patronizing as I may be to myself, it actually works. Nothing external changed, but the way I saw the situation changed.

Our circumstances really have little bearing on our disposition. We can blame them for our disposition, and many people will probably understand. But ultimately, we are the ones who need to choose how we see life and how we frame our circumstances.

Going into this week, I choose positivity. I choose to stop stressing over the construction on the Whitemud. I choose to appreciate that the snow tomorrow morning will save me from watering my lawn. And I hope that by making these small choices, it will become a habit to choose positivity in the big things as well.

Spring has FINALLY Sprung!

Just a week ago, I was pessimistically musing to myself, "if April showers bring May flowers, then what do April flurries bring?"

Today, the sun has finally made it's triumphant entrance and I think it's safe to say that spring is finally here. The snow has melted at an unprecedented wait, and the roads and sidewalks are finally clear to walk on again. The sun was shining today, and rather than driving to do errands, I've started walking again!

The weather seems like a trivial thing to blog about, but this past winter seemed especially dreadful. I don't know if it was metaphorically influenced, but with all the stress of MBA applications, the winter just seemed long and arduous.

Though I have no idea where I will end up in a few years, both career-wise and geographically, there is a possibility that I've suffered through my last Edmonton winter. I think that's why this spring feels especially epic.

A few years ago, I was talking to a friend about something I was struggling with. She said that the thing I was struggling with was like winter. It's hard to see the end, but you know it's coming. I remember that conversation keenly, because we had it in April, and I had just gotten a sunburn from studying outside. No matter how frustrating or seemingly endless our struggle may be, there is hope. How appropriate that this spring breakthrough happened on Easter weekend.

Anyway, for anyone reading this and living on the northern hemisphere... enjoy your spring!

Deep Thoughts on Happiness

Happiness, I've logically concluded, is 100% internal.

Here's why:

- God never changes. So, while you're relationship to Him definitely affects your joy and happiness, it's not His fault if you're unhappy because He hasn't changed.

- Stuff doesn't make you happy and I think that can generally be accepted without providing too much support. But, for the sake of a well-rounded argument, just think back to the last thing you really, really wanted. Now, think about the next thing you really, really want. There's always something new that we want. So getting stuff can't make you happy because as soon as you get it, you want something else. Emile Durkheim (a sociologist) said something to the effect of satisfying a want only increases your appetite.

- If stuff can't make you happy, then money can't either. A survey (don't know the source, or for which country, but that's okay, trust me on this) found that all people needed to be happy was a pay raise of 15%. So, apparantly, no one makes enough to be happy.

- Relationships definitely provide a sense of fulfillment and worth, but when's the last time you had a truly amazing relationship with someone who was unhappy? Logically, then, it would follow that in order to experience fulfilling relationships, you need to be happy beforehand.

- Circumstances don't make us happy. Here's why: a study (again, I can't cite the source because it's just something I heard in a sermon once) found that after people suffered life-altering injuries, they returned to the same general level of happiness they were at before the injury.

So, all that said, if you want to be happy, you just have to decide to be happy. Of course, that's easier said than done. And joy, well, that's another topic. But here's a teaser: true joy can only come from a relationship with God.

Oops... one more thing...

The previous post needs some clarification...

For the first time in my life, I'm headed in the right direction. I LOVE business school, and I'm working toward something right now. My summer job is intended as very practical experience for the work force I will be entering in due time. The volunteering that I do is leading to the same thing. And the friends I am making at school will be good friends during my career as well. So, I'm not cynical and bitter... I don't need anything to change. 2006 is the first year I am heading into with a positive outlook and a sense that I really know where I'm going for once. There's no questioning the direction like I did when I was heading into computing science. There's no wondering if I'm going to get in to business school. There's no sense of responsibility to my job that's holding me back from anything.

I truly am moving forward and enjoying every moment of it.

*sigh*

My head is a jumble of thoughts tonight. Exams finished almost a week ago and life has been a whirlwind since then. Parties, getting ready for parties, shopping, work and, oh yeah, a day for just being sick. But now I get to breathe.

But when I sit down to breathe, I realize that a whole week of my life has just slipped by. A week that for months I was looking forward to because it was supposed to mean I was doing nothing and simply enjoying Christmas.

But now I'm not so sure that Christmas can be simply enjoyed. My friend and I were discussing this the other night, as we wondered where the magic had gone. When I was younger, Christmas was the time of Christmas musicals (which I LOVED), evening visits with the family around the advent wreath, singing and dancing to Amy Grant's "A Christmas Album" with my sisters and putting ornaments on the tree. And I LOVED the lights - the candles and the Christmas tree lights gave me a feeling like euphoria that I can't even describe. I used to sit in the room with all the main lights off and the candles and tree lights on and wish that Christmas could last forever. We have a nativity scene with 24 characters and bring one out each day in December. My sisters and I used to fight and fight over who got to choose that day's character, then we would play with them for hours. But now we barely remember to take them out.

And I don't know where it went - that magic that used to be Christmas. I don't know if I can blame exams. And I definitely can't blame the busy-ness of Christmas parties, because those are designed to invoke the magic. And it definitely isn't the lack of decoration and cheesy Christmas music in the malls. Nothing else has changed - only me.

Is it age? Now that I'm 24, a year is a 24th of my life. When I was 5, it was a fifth of my life. So Christmas came much less frequently. Maybe now we just get sick of it because it's Christmas so often? Christmas starts in November - as soon as the Halloween decorations are down. That's 1/6 of the year. Maybe Christmas just becomes much less precious.

By now you probably think I am going to make a point soon, but I really don't have one. The truth is that emotions shouldn't rule Christmas. The truth is that Christmas is a celebration of God's greatest gift to mankind: Himself. And it shouldn't matter how I FEEL about that... I still need to respond with worship and reverence. Perhaps I am being selfish in trying to rekindle the old FEELING of Christmas, because it shouldn't be about what I get from it.

And so, this post will end. Without anything significant or profound being said. Just a confused and tired 24-year-old girl trying to figure out life once again.

No matter how I feel, God, thank you for the sacrifice you made.

2005 Year in Review

Saw someone else doing this in a blog, so I figured I would start as well.

The general outlook on 2005 for me was generally positive. Maybe not always, as there were some definite rough patches, but I would say that 2005 was a year of significant accomplishments and just generally moving forward in a very positive direction.

January Highlights:
I managed to work my school schedule so I only had classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. (Okay, lame-o, I know, but it was a long time ago! How am I supposed to remember?)

February Highlights:
Accepted my summer job as day camp coordinator at my church... after the children's pastor hunted me down for months.

March Highlights:
Went snowboarding in the mountains for the first time. It was an enlightening experience in the sense that I learned just how much I prefer skiing quickly down black diamond runs to sitting tired and sore in the middle of a green run with a snowboard strapped to my feet.
At the end of March, I found out I had been admitted to Business school... which not only gave me the opportunity to create a great schedule, but also took the pressure off with final exams.

April Highlights:
The biggest memory from April is how much fun exams were. It was beautifully sunny, and I got my first bad burn of the season sitting outside on a picnic table with my friends memorizing dates for a history exam. Now, you may not think getting burned was a highlight, but it was the sun and beautiful weather that made it all worthwhile. One of my friends also started dating the guy she is now engaged to during this exam time, and it was really exciting to be with her for the start of all that.

May Highlights:
Started my summer job and it was just an all around good experience. I learned to appreciate school because of the flexibility of the schedule (despite the heinous amount of work I don't get paid for).

June Highlights:
June really is a blur, to be honest. I think it was in June that my sister came home from Montreal, so it was good to have her around again.

July Highlights:
First week of Day Camp made for an incredibly busy July. I worked more during July than I have worked in any other month, except maybe the months I spent working at camp when I was on staff there. However, all the hard work paid off and our camps were incredibly successful - a huge blessing to me.

August Highlights:
I inherited a dog, a car and a house for the month as I was housesitting for a couple who had gone to the Philippines. I loved having a dog and it was really awesome to have my own space for that month which was again really busy. Of course, I had people over on a frequent basis and it was a more relaxed end for the summer for me.

September Highlights:
Started business school. Love it. Absolutely love it. Met some awesome people.

October Highlights:
Road trip to Seattle to see my favorite band - Switchfoot - in concert. For a weekend. I spent over 20 hours behind the wheel of our van in three days, and I wasn't the only driver. But it was all worth it, as we met up with my best friend in Vancouver for the trip down to Seattle.

November Highlights:
November was an incredibly busy month, but a big part of me really thrived on that. Group projects and assignments dominated my every free moment, but in the process I made some great friends and got to build my teamwork skills.

December Highlights:
Yet to come, I suppose, as it is only the 10th. It would be unfair to comment until January. I am looking forward to relaxing as exams finish and spending some time doing a lot of nothing. Catching up with friends who have been away and friends who have been here, but just too busy to hang out. That's the agenda.

There have been low points, too... But what would be the point of dwelling on them?

As January and 2006 approach, I'll probably do a post on what I'm looking forward to in 2006.

And alas, the practice final for my business class is calling my name and I should stop procrastinating...

Wisdom of Socrates

According to the good old Delphic oracle, Socrates was the wisest man.

But you know what made Socrates wise? It was the fact that he knew he didn't actually know anything.

Hmmm...

I want to be a wise fool... A fool in the sense that I don't have everything figured out, but wise enough to know that I don't have everything figured out.