THE END.

My Auxano family.

So Auxano is over. The only reason I know that statement is true is because we had a graduation ceremony and then everyone said goodbye and then I went home and I can't think of any other reason for all this than that Auxano must actually be over. Hard to say. The last two weeks of Auxano were great fun. We went on an amazing surf trip to Tofino. I had a lot of fun playing in a wet suit in the ocean and being trampled by waves but very, very little success with a surf board. Most of us succeeded at what we called "accidental surfing" only (when a wave shot us forward while we lay on our board without any effort on our part other than facing the right direction). Unfortunately I tired myself out playing in the waves for an hour before actually trying to surf so by the time I got out there on my sweet board, all stoked to finally know what it feels like to surf, I paddled around five times, got washed by the waves twenty times and was pretty much done with the entire sport of surfing for life. We all looked like a bunch of oompa loompas in our wet suits or beached seals when we laid down on the shore and let the waves wash over us and make molds of our bodies in the sand. The best part was when we were lying on the shore and a big wave hit us and, when it left, everyone was still there except for Steph... who had been washed up further on the beach. Eric and Brad were like two little kids that didn't want to go home. We went the next day but only half of us surfed, and once again there was Brad and Eric in the water and all of us trying to convince them to go home after hours at the beach. Instead of surfing the second day Shayla, Matt and I made friends with a squirrel and a Stellar Jay. We also found quicksand on someone's private property and had a great time sinking and struggling to get out. I mean, no we didn't. The squirrel was one of those cute little brown squirrels too, the ones getting taken over by the big grey ones. I say down with the big grey squirrels! We need to start equipping the little brown ones with defense mechanisms and warfare tactics. I say build a brown squirrel army and unleash them on the grey ones to kill them off. Now that I'm saying this it sounds a lot like a racist genocide... only for squirrels.

Tofino

Anyway moving on, the last week of Auxano was a great end to the year. We had classes in the morning on the Bible (I know, weird topic) and in the afternoon we hung out with old people. The Spring Adult Adventure camp was up for the week and we got to help out and basically hang out with the "campers" (it was hard to think of them as campers when they could all be our grandparents). We played Scrabble, croquette, boccie ball, did crafts like permanent marker on coffee cups and painted Kleenex boxes. Katie and I ran the drinks station and made lattes and organized musical bingo from the 1920's. I think they thought that we thought that this was their actual era. There was one woman there who was 99 years old so it pretty much was. I wanted to ask her what the secret to life was but I couldn't bring myself to. What if she told me it was something I didn't want to do like you have to give up sugar? I couldn't handle the responsibility of knowing the secret to life but not being able to follow through with it. I'd rather live in ignorance. I keep getting distracted. I'm watching this creepy cult movie with Nicholas Cage called "The Wicker Man" and it keeps reminding me of Auxano, it's uncanny, like they took a camera and filmed our lives there. Just kidding! So what did I gain from these past eight months? A greater knowledge of the Bible, a closer reliance on God, really good friends, lessons in humility while still knowing when to stick up for myself, lessons in grace and forgiveness, greater discretion (I know, hard to believe), learning how to live in a community... and a boyfriend.

Pretending to be surferes.

Yes, you heard me. This year was really hard. Really good, but really hard. I think it could have been a lot easier. I'm trying to figure out why. I think maybe if I was to advise someone else I would say probably don't fall for someone at camp while you're still up there. I don't know but I would think that would end up complicating things a little bit. Wait did I say fall for someone at camp? I meant to say fall for a student... that's when things get awkward. I kept asking myself, should I fall for a student? And at first I was like mmm better not but then I thought you know this Auxano business is pretty boring. Let's spice it up a bit! Of course I didn't you moron! I tried so hard not to and like usual I just had to think hard enough and will my feelings away... oh wait, no, that doesn't work. If only life was so easy and you could choose who you like and when you like them. If I was going to give anyone advice from this I would say maybe don't tell the student you like them? Just a word to the wise. Not that I did that of course. Don't be ridiculous. But just let's say the student was a friend first long before he was a student and let's just I'm not perfect and I'm actually a Big Mouth Betty (see blog post Big Mouth Betty (Debby Downer's BFF)) and did tell the student I liked him, then felt like the stupidest idiot in the world and had to tell the leader and admit that I was actually a real human girl with emotions and then live with the consequences for the rest of the year. Now you understand my problem. But no longer! Auxano is over and God is still amazing, fancy that. So, if you too do something stupid like that don't worry, I am a living testimony that after eight months of awkward, you CAN survive. And the weird thing is people will still love you (not all of them, but you win some, you lose some). You will never be the same, of course, and people will point and laugh at you and call you a cougar and people like Shayla will say "ew" every time you're together and your leader will tell you it's lucky you weren't sent home, but hey! Isn't that what life is about? Blabbering to a student about your feelings for them and living out the next six months living with them and knowing everyone knows? Isn't that...? No? Huh. I was so sure.

Good news! He liked me back.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Or that time I..

Just remembering some funny moments. Like that time I lost my balance standing on the bus and actually fell on some strange man's lap. Looking back, there were so many things I wish I had said to smooth that over. But really, is there any smoothing over sitting in a stranger's lap? No. No there is not.

Or that time I decided to pick up my friend's travel mug and turn it upside down to see if it said what it was made of on the bottom. As mugs often are, it was full of coffee. I will never live that down.

Or that time I took a coffee onto the double decker bus and dropped it on the upper level, spilling it all over the floor. It meant that every time the bus went forward or came to a stop, everyone watched the coffee creeping further up and down the aisle and eventually spill down the stairs. You have no idea how horrifying it is to have to tell the bus driver that you had an accident. 

I should really stay away from coffee. And buses. Especially together...

Or one I really like: instead of saying "Have a good day" at the end of a call at work, I accidentally said, "Have a good idea."

Or that time I was really sweaty after biking to work so I decided to use the shirt I had biked in as a towel just to realize I forgot the shirt I was going to wear and now had to put back on the shirt I had just used to dry myself.

Or that time I watched some guy ahead of me step in dog poo in the middle of the sidewalk and as I watched I thought "Poor sucker never looked where he was going," and immediately stepped in the first part of the same dog's poo because I was too busy watching the other guy not looking where he was going. I tried to get his attention to commiserate with him but he pretended I wasn't there and that nothing had happened. Pride goeth before the fall but not before you steppeth in poo.



This is me, a failed bear.

Or that time I volunteered to wear the teddy bear mascot costume at a Christmas fundraiser for the Queen Alexandra Foundation and tried to convince a skeptical little boy that I was in fact a real bear. I mistakenly said something about bears celebrating Christmas and decorating Christmas trees. He replied (with disdain), "Bears hibernate during the winter." Nobody told me I was talking to Dwight Schrute's illegitimate child.

Or how as a child I had an obsession with carving my name into things, particularly our furniture. At the time I wasn't thinking that this was incriminating myself, I was solely thinking of one word: fame. I carved "F+R" (R for the boy I liked in grade two) into a cabinet and when my mother confronted me I tried to convince her it was someone else. Of the ones I remember, I wrote my name in our doorframe, our storage unit, my desk at home and at school, a bunkbed at camp and many trees. When I was thirteen I got in trouble with the park ranger at Miracle Beach campgrounds for carving "Faith + Mike" inside a large heart, into a tree on our camp site.  Mike was a boy I liked on a camping trip after knowing him for three days and, as we all know, 95% of all park rangers are bitter about young love (this is true, I swear). The day before he left he serenaded me on the beach with his Catholic school horror stories. He had a concaved chest and said his best friend was a girl with big boobs who offered to donate some to fill the hole. These are the kind of boys I like.

You will also find my name in many cement structures around my old complex: the rock wall in my back yard, a corner of the basketball court, my friend's patio, the curb on my street and outside my aunt's old house in James Bay.

I refuse to be forgotten.

Girl Meets Boy Meets Awkward Meets Boy Runs Away

Happy Baby

Everyone knows what it's like to accidentally let it slip that you like someone and then have it get around to the person so that even if there was a slight possibility that they might like you in the future, that bridge is now on fire and if you tried to cross it you would burst into flame and die, that is how low your chances of success are. If, by chance, that person likes you back and finding out you like them just helps it along, then well, way to go, you win. I always like nice guys so if they ever hear that I like them and they don't like me back they are too nice to lead me on and instead AVOID AVOID AVOID! RETREEEAAATTT! And the sad thing is half the time I don't really like them, I just want to be their friend. It goes like this, I see good qualities in a guy, usually because I think they are funny, and instead of saying to someone, "That guy is cool. I should get to know him," I say, "I like him. I think I shall marry him," and then it gets around to him and for some reason he runs away. I get it though. If you actually thought I was a stalker I should hope you would take serious precautions. Sometimes I want to say, "I don't even like YOU, I just like the Jesus in you, don't be so freaking flattered." Because it's true. I see the Jesus in a man and I'm like, "I LOVE him!" which should and will weird a guy out if some girl they barely know is saying she loves you (I don't actually do that, don't worry). All I can say is, I can't help loving Jesus. It just comes naturally to me. But you can't like all the boys all the time, it gets tiring. Believe me, I've tried (Grade 2). But I've always liked to keep my options open for whoever God might happen to bring my way. I am the opposite of picky. I walk around going, "Maybe it's him. Is it him? Could be that guy. Maybe not that guy, but then again, you never know." Hopefully keeping myself open will pay off eventually and I won't be an old lady on my death bed getting a crush on all my doctors and random male janitors who walk by: "Is it that guy? He's still got two hairs on his head. Looks like a winner to me!" Gotta keep hope alive though, right?