2007-10-01 - 10:18 p.m.
The busy week was capped by an interesting and relaxing weekend. It's surprising how little these two things can go together, but this time it all worked out. I finished work on Friday pretty sick of it all. I had stayed late at the office for various (non work related) things- till ten on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then it was a rush to get the leaflet done for the Solemn High Mass last Sunday, and start thinking about the special service for Thanksgiving. So, when the opportunity arose to go to a Taize prayer service on Friday, I jumped at the chance. Taize is an unique style of prayer that is focused on contemplation and repetitive singing. You sing a short piece over and over again, and then there is silence, more singing, etc, with some Gospel and prayers thrown in. It's very nice, and I really like it- especially after a long week.
Saturday was mostly spent on the couch- I rented part of the second season and part of the third season of the Office, so I spent the morning drinking coffee and watching that. The roommmate has class on Saturday, so it's always pretty nice to be able to chill out alone.
Saturday evening was a hockey game- Canucks and Oilers preseason. I watched the first two periods, and went over to Jen's to watch a movie. It turned out to be a good decision on two parts- the Oilers ended up losing anyway, and the move (300) was really good. I came away with a couple interesting books that she loaned me.
The most exciting part of the weekend was Sunday. Jeff and I were invited to go along with St. Phillip's church, as they were going Dragonboating. Dragonboating, for my non West Coast readers, is a form of team boating that I think comes from China. Twenty of you hop in this enormous boat that is something like a voyager canoe. You sit two across, and each have a paddle. The stroke is slightly different than canoeing, but the principle is the same. The church had booked four boats with instructors. We took off into the Gorge doing our best to paddle in time with the person ahead. The people in the front set the pace, and everyone is supposed to be exactly in sinc with them. Really good teams can go five hundred meters in less than two minutes. It was really fun, but the person behind me seemed to have a bit of trouble keeping in stroke, and kept hitting my paddle. It was a real West Coast day, grey and overcast, with a little bit of rain. The rain didn't bother us too much, as we were busy slopping half the pacific into our laps with every mistimed stroke. We practised together for about forty minutes, and then the four boats had a race. Ours won handily of course, despite one of the other teams complaining that they were going backwards at the time the race was started. All in all, it was really fun, although I did wake up with very sore arms and shoulders today. After the race I went back with to Jeff's place for a nutritious dinner of whiskey and brownies.
I had to be up bright and early this morning, as I was heading up island for an ecumenical Parish Secretaries Conference. It was interesting, at times, although I think that the lesson on how to do Powerpoint was a little wasted on me. There was a really good talk this afternoon about self care. Apparently the three things that you need to do every day to stay healthy are : laughter, exercise, and prayer. It was really good, and definitely made me want to rethink my average day. The conference was up island, in Cobble Hill. There is a really nice Anglican church there, with a graveyard that I checked out after lunch.
Rounding out the day was a prayer vigil for Myanmar. Our diocese and the Anglican province of Myanmar are in a partnership relationship, and have been for six years. Lots of people from here have gone to visit, (actually, the Bishop just got back a few weeks ago) and they have come here as well. The trouble there have hit a lot of people here pretty hard, so they quickly put a simple thing together- just pictures, and candles and time to pray. It was nice, although I wish that they had not called the news. It was a bit off putting having a camera in the Church.
