Approved

Guess who just got a new study and work permit. Yeah, That would be ME. Now I can stay in Canada till at least July next year :-) Too bad for everybody who already hoped I would be leaving soon, hehe

Frozen

It's Monday night, I am still in the office, time for a snack Good that I brought some carrots yesterday, good thinking Christina! So I am hopping like a bunny to the fridge and grab a carrot. Yeah, oh wait what's this??? My carrot is frozen, FROZEN, stupid fridge! Have you ever had carrot ice cream??? Yeah, me neither, just does not seem right. I guess back to work without a snack *cry, cry even more*

A Beautiful Lei

My sister sent me this beautiful flower lei in Germany colours, which she snatched on one of the Germany soccer world cup games. Now she wants that Pepe is wearing it, but Pepe does not want to wear it in public, because he is too shy and since I am super shy as well I don't dear to wear it either. Angela was quite sad when I told her this and that the beautiful lei most likely is not getting a place where it is exposed to public. So we made a deal, if I post a blog entry with pictures of the lei then she wouldn't be as sad. And I keep my promises! Isn't it pretty?!!!!!!!!!

Scurvy Dawgs' First Race

As Scurvy Dawgs groupie I am proud to report that the pirates have successfully finished the “7th Annual RE/MAX Vancouver Island Dragon Boat Championships”. They paddled their way to place 7 out of 47 and with all their Agggrrrr screams and other pirate noise they even won the “Just Give'er” Award (also called Team Spirit Award”). The award price was a huge paddle, which was later on modified a little...

And how could a Scurvy Dawg celebrate his/her success without a real feast, with lots of rum, Agggrrrr's and a pig...
The next race is next weekend. You should come and cheer for them. It's fun!!! Agggrrrr

Gone

I am sad. Russ moved out and his room is all empty :-( Besides that I will terribly miss Russ and him making fun of me, I am not sure where Jen, Raj and I will spend our evenings from now on. Russ' room was the Nyumba Rafiki living room and whenever Jen and I came home the first thing we did was run into his room and jump on his bed. I tried that this afternoon, but it's not the same anymore...

Arrrggg meets Yeeeee-haaaaaa

When pirates set their anchor and go to town to meet the local cowboys then for sure there will be lots of noise and trouble. All you can hear in the barn is YEEEE-HAAAAAAA and you gotta watch out for flying HAY STACKS and possible GUN FIGHTS and not to forget the PIGS.

Okay does not make sense? Well my roomies are part of a dragon boat team, called Scurvy Dawgs. There are 24ish people on the team and all of them are pirates. I am unfortunately just kind of on the team as a back-up pirate, but it does not stop me from joining them in the pub after practise. Hehe they already asked me whether I am their groupie. Well why not. Anyways, last night we pirates played a cowboy drinking game, hearing loud YEE-HAA screams instead of the usual ARRRGGG was quite strange but nonetheless fun! Here the rules or at least what I remember...

Yeeee-Haaa

The game is played in a circle and is started by someone saying 'YEE-HA' at the same time as motioning across their body with their left or right arm depending on the direction choosen.

Each player in the circle can make one of the moves below. If someone makes a mistake then he/she has to drink.

'YEE-HA' (and motioning across body with arm in direction of play)

• this continues play in the direction it was going.

'HO-DOWN' (and putting up left arm if play is going left or right arm if play is going right)

• this reverses direction of play.

'HAY-BARN' (hands together in a point above head)

• this means play is skips the next player

'UhUhUh' (one hand in front of the mouth and looking like an Indian)

• this means play is reversed and skips the next players.

'THROW THAT HAY STACK' (pointing with two hands at another player)

• the player who is pointed at continues

'BARN DOOR CLOSED' (both underarms in front of the face)

• returns the received “Throw that hay stack' to the player

'GUN FIGHT' (and pointing at 2 other players in the circle)

• the 2 pointed leap up as quick as possible and shoot the other one saying 'BANG'. The loser gets a fine (n.b. after this a new round is started)

'COWBOYS DRINK'

• all guys have to stand up and drink

'COWGIRLS DRINK'

• all girls have to stand up and drink

'ROOT THAT PIG'

• once we will play the game I will explain but not now

Turtleneck-less

Russ and I compared our future living situation and we came to the conclusion that my room in Vancouver is not much bigger than Russ's walk-in closet in Lethbridge. This made me realize that I needed to go through my stuff and throw the clothes out that I don't wear and like anymore and also the ones that don't fit. All together I came up with 6 bags of clothes, which I brought to the Salvation Army.

Iryna and Bee I want you to read this one out loud! I threw out almost all my turtlenecks and girls you were right I had way to many of these...

Life is Great

I remember those days where Martin used to come into our office and instead of saying Hello he would say “Life is Great”, he smiled and sat down on his desk. This morning I work up and all I could think of was “LIFE IS GREAT!!!” and I started smiling and all that for no particular reason. And it just got sweeter, because Adeniyi just surprised me in the lab with some ice cream, because yesterday I was telling him about my ice cream cravings :-D Thanks sooo much!!!

I guess I do have a great life, with a family that loves me and friends that always care for me no matter whether they live in town or on another continent.

Hope your life is as great as mine.

Canadian Living

I thought I could tell you guys a little bit about my future living situation. Since I am moving to Vancouver in a month, I spent the last weekend looking for a place to live. Thank god, that Bee and Iryna, my independent consultants, joined me otherwise I probably would have started crying, so many bad, dirty and dark places.. uahhh...

Anyways, in the end I found two places that I could see myself living in and where I liked the people too. I ended up choosing an 3 bedroom (well it's more like 2,5 bedroom) apartment in downtown Vancouver, which is only 1km away from my work, walking distance YEAH!!! I will have a guy and a girl roomie, who seem to be lots of fun. The apartment has a huge patio, a decent size living room, only the bedrooms are quite small, so I will have to see how I get all my stuff in there :-) BUT did I mention that the apartment building has a swimming pool, a hot tub and a gym. I basically can fall out of my bed into the pool.

Here a summary, cool roomies, many BBQs on the patio, pool, gym, hot tub, walking distance to work, crawling distance home from any downtown bar/pub/club, close to English Bay and Stanley Park. Sounds Great to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!