Knightmare on Knight Street

What a week. I shouldn't be here to tell you about it. A week that was otherwise burdensome with school stress, insomnia and craziness involving our landlady was punctuated by two back-to-back near death experiences. They still make me sick just thinking about them. Our internet was out Thursday and Friday, and I needed to email an assignment to one of my TA's by 11:50pm Friday, so Allison and I made plans to go to a Blenz (free internet) in Coquitlam. We got as far as the garage when I thought I may have left the hot plate on. I felt bad for making Allison wait for me to go check it, but I went back in anyway. Turns out, it wasn't on, but we were 20 seconds later leaving the house. We walked north up Lanark Street, and just as we got to 49th (to make a left turn on the sidewalk towards the bus shelter), we heard screeching and BAM! Just at that moment, we turned the corner and saw a black Mustang parked on exactly the spot I stand to wait for the bus every morning. The car, whose front end was completely totalled, was surrounded by the remains of the bus shelter, which was now a crumpled, destroyed mess of glass and metal. It was the most improbable accident scene: this lady had somehow crossed over two lanes of oncoming traffic (after jumping over a cement barrier), and crashed into that shelter pointing the wrong way on a very busy street. I am sure that had I not been prompted to check the hotplate, Allison and I would have already been standing in the crease of the bus shelter, chatting away to each other, unaware that we should be watching for oncoming traffic from that direction. No doubt that would have been the end for both of us. Emergency vehicles were there within three minutes, and by midnight, everything (car, pole, shelter and all) had been cleared away).

Which brings me to our 2nd near death experience. Allison and I took the bus home later that night and got to our stop at around midnight. It was dark, pouring-down rain - not an unusual Vancouver evening. Having witnessed an accident at this same spot only hours earlier, we very warily crossed the street, eyes pointed in every direction. We waited for the light to change, standing as far away from the edge of the street as possible. The "cross" signal came on, and we cautiously began walking across Knight Street (a 6 lane urban highway in South Vancouver). Both of us checked every possible direction for traffic. About a quarter of the way across the street, a Toyota truck came barelling down the cross-street ready to turn onto our street, not watching for pedestrians in the crosswalk and not at all slowing down. I was in front of Allison, and when I saw that the guy wasn't going to stop for us, I ran in front of the stopped traffic ahead, thinking I would be safest there. I turned around, and Allison wasn't behind me. My heart sank, and my only comfort was that I hadn't heard a "thump" so he must not have hit her. By the grace of God, Allison, having been two steps behind me, had been able to step back as he charged though (way beyond the speed limit). He missed us both by inches. We stood momentarily in front of the stopped traffic to make sure each other was OK, then we ran off the street as quickly as possible. We were shaking, furious and terrified. I bawled my eyes out the whole way home.

Today in church, I shared our experience with everyone, and I got to thinking a little more about it. You know, most of the time, God protects us so much that we have no idea what lengths He goes to to ensure our protection and well-being. Maybe this was just a little reminder of how close we come every day to disaster, and that He really is watching out for us, even when we are most vulnerable - even on a dark, rainy Vancouver night with nothing but our bus pass to protect us from the speeding cars on the highway.

Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Psalm 100:3 (NIV)

KNL

LET ME OUT!

Only 25 days until Allison and I leave our little piece of heaven. Any of you who have spent time in our suite know the 10 reasons why that is funny. The problem of the week is that our landlady keeps moving our mousetraps when she shows prospective renters our suite (and about 15 couples have come through in the last two weeks - no takers so far). She kicks them (the mousetraps, not the renters) under the stove and the cabinet so no one will know about our little 'subletters' (who, I might add, are 7 months behind in rent -ha). Anyway, Allison and I were angry that the landlady has been moving our stuff around, so late tonight, we rolled up duct tape and fastened the traps firmly to the floor. This lady has brought out a side of me I never knew existed. How do you show love to someone who lies to you, withholds your mail for weeks, blames US for the mouse problem (and denies that the fist sized hole in the living room floor has anything to do with it), won't answer her door when the fire alarm goes off upstairs in the middle of the night, etc, etc.? It has been a real test of my patience and virtue. How do I show her that it isn't OK to treat us like this without being nasty? How do I love her unconditionally without being a doormat? I feel torn - my vindictive side wants to slide little lab mice through her mailslot on my way out on our last day here. My gentler side wants to just smile and not stir the waters. Any advice would be much appreciated. Anyway, regardless, only about 3 more weeks, and then on to Mom and Dad's for a much needed break.

Just a little something that, in light of my school difficulties and house stresses, has come to mean more to me recently:

“ … there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Cor. 12:7-10

Yeah, I needed that.

KNL

"An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible." - Alfred A. Knopf

To get into my MPP program at Université Laval, I needed to take two Economics courses and one Statistics course this term. I initially thought, "Super! First year courses will be a breeze compared to the other work I have done these last 2 years." Wrong. I find it oddly fascinating how I can read my textbook, understanding generally what they are talking about, and then be presented with formulas and graphs at an exam that may as well be in Chinese. Am I losing my mind, or is Economics just a complicated, ambiguous subject? For example, my last assignment contained the following question:

Assume that a perfectly competitive firm has MC = AVC = $12, MC = ATC = $20, and MC = MR = $24. On the basis of this information, can we tell what level of output will the firm choose? Is the firm making a profit? Is the firm making a rent?

To which I said: Are you kidding? Is the firm making a profit? It dang well better be, or someone is in big trouble. Is the firm making a rent? No, 5 years of teaching English have taught me that one "charges rent" and does not "make a rent". Yeah, well, I think I'm funny. I guess I have just met my match; fortunately (well, hopefully, if I pass) it will all be over April 10th.

On a lighter note, French is a great language (but of course, I may be biased). I love discovering things that when translated literally, have a completely different meaning in English. One of my favourite French Bible verses is:

"On reconnait la sagesse dans les paroles de l'homme intelligent, on réserve les coups à celui qui a la tête vide." (Prov. 10.13)

Which, when loosely translated, becomes:

"We recognize wisdom in the speech of intelligent men, we reserve kicks/punches/whacks for him whose head is empty."

Funny. Now THAT's Scripture I won't forget.

KNL

The road to Sainte-Foy

Life often takes us down unexpected paths. I am the kind of person whom God needs to smack in the forehead to get me to shift gears. This may be the reason why every new turn in my life seems so dramatic, like a little Honda Civic hurtling down Mount Baker ('member, Allison? haha). For 7 years, I have set up my nest here in Vancouver, teaching English, chillin' on the beach year round, enjoying the rain, taking in the incredible scenery. But back in 2005, most of that came to a screeching halt, and I found myself in the midst of a major life change. No home, no job, boredom in my career and no long-term plan that excited me in the least. But the little voice in my heart (the one who speaks with a French accent and sounds like Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise - ha) kept prompting me to get back into the French community somehow. But in Vancouver? Yeah, right. French may be one of Canada's official languages, but there are more people in Vancouver who speak Vietnamese than French. What do I do with my now useless education as an ESL teacher? Sure, I also had a French Translator's Certificate from the U of T, but did I want to be doing that the rest of my life? Not exactly. After a summer of depressing unemployment, I took my mom's advice to look into going back to school, and long story short, after 2,5 years at Simon Fraser University studying French and Political Science, I am headed to Université Laval in Quebec City in the fall to start an MPP (Master of Arts in Public Policy - Maîtrise en analyse des politiques). Scary. Exciting. Overwhelming. What a refreshing promise of change. Sitting in the midst of it is still mind-boggling. I really thought I would be here on the West Coast for the rest of my life. Who knows where this detour will take me? Maybe Vancouver has been the detour all along ... Québec has been on my heart ever since Grade 9 when my class went and I stayed behind for a tonsillectomy. I eventually spent a week there with my family in 1994, and I vowed I would be back someday. Yet, somehow, my life plans always wanted to include Québec, but never really planned for it. First, I was going to Africa to work with orphans. Tried it, but not a great match for my 19-year-old self. Finished my missions degree. Hmm. Still no plan. Went on OMP, worked with the homeless in Vancouver, decided to come back and teach English to illegal immigrants in Chinatown. Finished ESL training, moved to Vancouver, got connected into the wealthy Korean International Student community and taught hundreds of their children over 5 years. Now .. politics? Tune in next time ...

KNL