What I've been up to since high school.

[To my few faithful non-Facebook readers on the regular dreamin-again.blogspot.com blog: please pardon this digression. I am making this post for Facebook reasons. But hey, since many of you haven't known me for the entirety of the history I'm about to describe, you get to learn more about me this way, too :)!]

Seeing as I have people on my Facebook friends list whom I have not seen in person nor talked to since, oh, high school (give or take), I've decided to use this post to share my summary of what's been going on in my life since we graduated from Woburn C. I. I originally wrote most of this for my life bio on classmates.com, but the fact that classmates.com requires a fee (which I am not willing to pay) for pretty much anything other than just seeing names and Facebook is free leads me to believe that Facebook is the better place for this profile to be. Alright, on with it...

Right after high school: I had planned for a long time to do a year of Bible college before going to university for my career degree. I went to Tyndale College (formerly Ontario Bible College, now Tyndale College University) for their Leading Edge program, which gave me a One Year Certificate in Christian Studies. It also included a 3 week trip to Israel and a one week inner city missions trip to Camden, New Jersey. This was all a great experience. I graduated with that certificate in 2000.

Working and wedding bells: I left my former job as a cashier at Lansing Buildall (now Rona Lansing) in September 2000 to begin working at the Scarborough Town Centre location of Black’s Photography (which I left in May 2003). In the 2000-2001 school year I worked 4 days a week and took the first and second Hebrew classes at Tyndale two days a week; while I wasn't going to do my career degree at Tyndale, I didn’t think I could handle full-time school and planning a wedding/getting married at the same time. I married Martin McCourt on January 27, 2001, exactly 5 years after we started dating.

My first degree, and a speed bump on the road of life: In the 2005-2006 school year I completed an Honours B. Sc. at York University (I don’t want to hear the York jokes...I went there for specific reasons and I happen to like York) with a major in chemistry and minor in physics. I worked as a research assistant for one of my professors from May 2003 through to the end of August 2005, gaining some experience I could take into the real world if I decided to pursue a job in the sciences. This position included a three week field study on Saturna Island (a tiny little island with a population of about 350 between Victoria and Vancouver, B.C.)...a great experience that included seeing whales in the wild 6 times, up close! I was originally supposed to graduate with my B.Sc. in June 2005, but Martin had a brain injury August 2004 and so I was only able to handle part-time studies in the 2004-2005 school year. How much life can change with just one phone call. The Lord sustained us through this situation, though, and Martin is up and walking around unassisted and back to full-time work and all.

Between degrees: I worked at the Ice Gardens at York University this past summer...I was a little exhausted after completing my B.Sc. and needed something low-key for my summer job (I didn't think I could handle doing research this summer with the state I was in...my brain wanted a break :)), and this fit the bill nicely. For various reasons to do with Canlan Ice Sports taking over the place I no longer worked there in August, which gave me a nice break before school started.

Current life stuff...back to school, in more ways than one: At this point I am pursuing a career teaching high school (my teachables: chemistry and physics), and am in teacher's college at York for the 2006-2007 school year. It is a lot of work. Really, though, I've been working towards being a teacher for so long (picking up whatever volunteer opportunities I could get along the way to give me experience towards getting into teacher's college and making sure this is what I really wanted to do) that this is just the next step in the process. It is good to feel that the process of realizing this goal is coming to an end and the plan is starting to come to fruition. The process will be complete when I finally get a teaching job, but then begins the lifelong task of becoming an ever-better teacher (and who knows what from there...teacher librarian? guidance counselor? principal? Minister of Education? one step at a time...), learning much from my students along the way. Martin and I still attend Wishing Well Acres Baptist Church at Pharmacy and Sheppard.

Keeping in touch: Jen McCauley also attends our church now and we still get together fairly often. Andrew Luft used to be on my bus home from York once in a while and I saw him occasionally at Woburn in the early part of 2006 as we were both doing some volunteering there. Cherylyn Dickson and I used to take the same bus to and from York as well, where she was working on a law degree last I heard, and apparantly we can still giggle as much as we did in grade 5. I've met up with Rika at York and have run into Andrew Steventon twice there as well. Then, of course, there is Facebook, where I'm sure many more people from my past lurk than I'll ever manage to reconnect with.

Interesting fact: when Martin and I got married, Matt, Jon and Rachel Blair became my second cousins! Small world...

Future plans at this point: completing my B. Ed. and getting my teaching certification, teaching for a while to help save up a down payment for a house, moving out of where we're renting now, and probably having some kids (the dream Martin has had twice about us having triplets is a little scary, though), probably going back to work at some point after the kiddos are born but maybe not. Still, who knows; life has much in store for me yet, I'm sure!