As time goes by

I know its been a long time since I've blogged, but I haven't really been in the blogging mood of late. But I have had a lot of things happen in the last while.

First of all, the day before yesterday was my last day of classes! I can't believe they are already done. It is such a great feeling. Now I just have to be able to make it through finals. Also - on the school front- I have been talking to a professor at the University of Alberta, and I pretty much have a job for my last 2 Co-op terms [they are consecutive 4-month terms starting in January and ending in August 2008]. I will be doing some projects in his lab, and get a feel for what I want to do. Yes, for what I want to do. I have pretty much made up my mind that I am going to do graduate work in Mechanical Engineering. I always have loved learning, and engineering is really interesting so I thought why not. But, to do the graduate work you want to do you need tor receive a NSERC scholarship. And here is where the hard part comes in. To be eligible to receive an NSERC scholarship you need to have an A- average, which for all of you who know the 4-point GPA scale that corresponds to a 3.7 GPA. I will admit that I have never gotten that high of a GPA, and as this is my first semester to be working towards that; I have to really do amazing in my finals.

So that's school. That is now just part of my life. At the end of this month I will have been dating Sarah for 6 months. I can't believe how fast these 6 months have went by either! This month is also special for us because it is Sarah's 21st birthday on April 18th [so don't forget to wish her a Happy Birthday!]. We have been busy together, now that we have started to overlap our lives so much.

Yesterday [saturday] my roommate -who is training with Edmonton Fire- invited us to a most amazing event! He called this event a 'burn'. In a 'burn' the instructors set their concrete building on fire. Then the trucks are deployed and it is treated as a real fire and they have to put it out and save the people who are trapped inside. So it was just good to be able to get out there and support my roommate who has to put up with me day in and day out. When we [Sarah and I] were leaving my condo I decided that fire and firefighters make great pictures, so I took a few while I was there. When I was taking them I found this man [who is the firefighter in both of the pictures] who seemed to be the epitome of what I think is a firefighter. He is obviously weathered, as can be seen by his face and by his clothes; but he is also a very kind man. He sat beside those two kids for at least 15 minutes, just talking to them and being around the. I have no idea if he knew them, but as many firefighters are, he was a model citizen. It was sort of like Jesus, who sat with those who were neglected. He [Jesus] was also not afraid to be seen with children; it was quite the contrary! This challenged me by showing me just how much I have to still learn. This man probably had better things to do than to just sit and entertain these children, but instead he took some of his time and invested it with them.

I don't remember if I mentioned in my last blog, but I am now employed! I have a job for the summer working with Kiewit. Kiewit is an engineering company that deals with construction. One of their largest projects is the Sea to Sky Highway that goes from Vancouver to Whistler [it is being built because of the Olympics]. From what I have heard thus far I will be working in their estimating department. This is a Godsend in my books! I was afraid that I was going to sent out of Edmonton for the summer, but their estimating department is based here in Edmonton. So in the next week or two I should be finding out where I will be assigned.

So I hope this gives all of you a glimpse back into my life. I hope that I will be a better blogger in the near future [and take more photo's as well]. I may even try a photo story too!

God Bless.