WHY its meant to be....

So I tried posting on my iphone and it didn't really let me write, except for the title...hence the post with no info. So here is the rest....

I feel like its been a process for me since I moved to kamloops. A process of accepting the change. Just being in school again, in a new city, with new people...not really having a plan. For these first couple of weeks I haven't been too sure about it all. I decided that if I was IN the moment, it was ok. If i looked back or ahead I got a bit anxious. I guess Being in the moment isn't a bad thing, I've always thought it's important to BE where you are, but i do feel i need to reconcile the past, present and future to be fully content with where God has me. It will continue being a process for a while at least, but I DO feel this present peace....that I am in a good place and there is nothing i would rather be studying/doing/learning than what I am right now. So i'm feeling its meant to be. This is a good feeling, so one moment at a time I'm experiencing new and exciting adventures!!

The second week of our first class was a 5 day backpacking trip.
Although I've been backpacking quite a bit, this trip was different in that we weren't on trails. This campsite is in a nice open alpine area...what you dont see is the thick vegetation we had to force our way through a lot of the time. (my thighs are bruised from my knees up). The idea was to navigate using a topo map and compass. This is so new to me but i ended up loving it!
So here I am looking at the map trying to figure out where we are using peaks in the distance or other contours.(I AM in school you know) I seriously always wondered how people found out where they were located using a compass and now i know how, its amazing!!
Here we are at the top of Trophy mountain! this pic was taken just before a whiteout hit and we were about to head down a different route than we came up! little did we know what lay ahead...This is what lay ahead! A Steep rocky descent in blowing snow and wind that we had to navigate down. It cleared up a little once we got below the clouds...just so we could see how steep the fall to our death would actually be.The mountain in the middle is trophy. This was taken from the campsite we got too the same day we summited it!
Here's our group from left to right: Abbey, me, nate, ken(our leader), aaron, james and sean.I guess now I'm officially a mountain woman!

meant to be...

Growing on me...

well, this place is growing on me. The past few days of class have been great! I'm in university and learning about sleeping bags, hiking boots, jackets....and of course REAL stuff too like maps, compasses, weather readings....;) haha. today we set up tents......

I also went to the pool today. we get free access and its a nice pool with lane swimming all the time. I learnt that I can't swim. I mean i can swim, but every time i dip my head to take some strokes i breathe in my nose while i'm breathing out my mouth...is that even possible??? so i end up having to come up and choke, which probably looks like i'm drowning. I kept expecting the lifeguards to come over and see if i was ok, I even tried putting my ear plugs in my nose (seriously)....finally i gave up and wanted to go on the water slide (more my style) but it wasn't running, so the hot tub had to do. Then i found a great wrap place for supper and I went to the climbing gym. so much fun, but i'm more excited to get outside and climb.

Each day gets more familiar and goes by quicker...i'm learning the streets here too a bit, and i want to get out biking in the hills before it gets too cold. Seems like there is a lot to do here which is nice, and I get two weeks off really soon...its a bit odd but its just how the scheduling worked, unless i read it wrong (very possible). anyway, that's it for now....

What a way to start!

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself...

There was a "get to know you" bbq for the adventure students yesterday evening that i planned to go to, so i got ready and started driving to the university. I missed the turn i had planned to take so i thought i would turn around and kept driving and thought maybe this road goes to the university so i'll just go straight.. (because all roads go to the university obviously). and the funny thing was...it did!!! so i got there and parked and asked around about the location of where the bbq was supposed to be and no one knew what i was talking about so i walked around some more and then drove around and finally i left. Instead i drove around Kamloops and found a gellato place! yay!

The next morning i wasn't in a hurry because it was just orientation/pay your fees come and go (so i thought). I decided to try to take the bus to school. So i went to the bus stop and waited (because busses come every half hour or so) but it never came, so i walked back to the house and took my car. At school i got directed to the adventure office, walked in and the secretary was like "Renae! you did decided to come"and i thought oh boy if she knows my name i've done something wrong....

so there was class in the morning that i missed! I missed my first class. what a way to start. So i decided to go pay my fees and stood in a loooooong line-up, and made some comment about being last to the people ahead of me who started talking to me and they ended up being part of my program! so that was nice. 45 min. later though it came out that I was in the WRONG line to pay my fees! so i had to stand in another line to do that, but thankfully they kept my place in line to get my student card.

I did end up making it to my afternoon class where we got right into wilderness travel/group leadership stuff and homework! I need to get my mind around this school thing again..being graded, taking tests, ....knowing stuff. do I actually want this?? sometimes i ask myself what i have gotten myself into?

anyway, that's a rundown of the first two days...hopefully I will know what's going on better in the future. :)