The longest night....

In lieu of the Solstice, I thought I'd add a few updates on various developing fronts...

No word yet from Labor Relations about the Mt Washington fiasco, but my job at Save-On is going fairly well. I'm able to shut my mind off and just float through the day most of the time. Although since I've been getting so many hours, I don't have much time for jogging or karate training, nor have I had much drive to meditate or do any yoga. My dreams have been very vivid though.

I watched that new documentary, March of the Penguins, and would very highly reccommend it.

I've been following the election campaign quite closely and thus far, I'm undecided (between the Green Party and NDP, of course). Frankly, I'm pretty disgusted with politics altogether, and almost everything I see is such a turnoff. If ever there was the perfect situation emobied by the saying "Same shit, different pile", it's politics. Too many red herrings, mindless robots, and petty bitchfights. Hopefully I'll have something more optimisitic to share at a later date.

In a interesting chain of events, I ended up deciding to check out a local event called The (13th annual) Bethlehem Walk. It's put on by a church and basically a ton of volunteers take this huge barn-style building, and turn it into a recreation of Bethlehem circa the Birth of Christ. Surprisingly litle Christian overtones, they'd set up a mock market place, mimicking what it would've been like around the year 0. They did an awesome job with set and costume decoration, and at each little shop, there would be someone actually making what they would've been making 200 years ago. Like the Blacksmith was actually pounding out metal with a fire, straw brooms were being made, copperware was being formed, lotions and food were sampled, tales were told, etc, etc. I found it very enjoyable and entertaining, and so did everyone else. This was the fourth and final night that it was set up, but there was at least 400 people there when I went, so it's definitely a huge attraction each year, and deservedly so. After you exit Bethlehem, you enter the church, and listen to a choir, eat cookies and drink hot chocolate as long as you want. The most noteworthy thing though was that at the very beginning of the 'walk', it's made out to feel like you're on the outskirts of Bethlehem, and you walk by the manger where Jesus is born, and there's an actual couple with a real baby there. Well for about 20 minutes leading up to that point, on at least 4 occasions, I had to fight the urge to start crying for no reason at all. Very peculiar. Last night, I woke up with a gasp from a nightmare, and was really creeped out. It didn't help that doors in the house wsere creking and that my mom was gone for the night. I rarely have nightmares, and I almost never have problems getting back to sleep, but I was unable to sleep for 2 hours, so in that time, I went on the internet and checked out the church website out of curiosity, and found myself at a site promoting the Apha Course. You've probably seen advertisements for this course, they're all over Canada, I imagine. "Discover the Meaning of Life", and so forth. It's a 10 week course, once a week, free dinner, and it's all free, although donations are welcome. I thought about it, and realised how long the chain of events were that led me to The Bethlehem Walk and eventually to looking up this course, and I decided it must be a sign or whatever, so I'm highly considering enrolling in the course for January, out of sheer curiosity. There's no obligation, and you don't have to be a member of any church to join, so if nothing else, I'll learn the basics of Christianity (the course is non-denominational) firsthand. Also, I was thinking about it, and I think that if I'm not too turned off by the course, maybe I'd be interesting in Volunteering with a Christian organization. My problem with volunteering overseas has been that it is so expensive, but I imagine the best volunteering deals around are through the church, so if I could find one that doesn't require me to be evangelical, I would definitely consider it.

So yeah, that's where I'm at right now. And yes, I'm extremely aware of the irony....