Progress

The internal defense was a week ago now, and since that time I have completed the changes requested and turned my thesis into the graduate school which means that you are now all invited to my graduation. I was told I can have as many people as I want, so you are all welcome! Graduation is November 7, 2009. at 2:30 pm at the Abbotsford Pentecostal Assembly, located at 3145 Gladwin Rd. I realize that most of you won't be able to attend, but I would like all of you to know that you are invited and I would love it if you could have made it. To those who are able to attend I would love to have you there.
So now that my internal defense is done and I have a draft into the school I have also had to submit a list of possible external examiners. The school will contact these people sending them a copy of my expanded abstract, and will ask them if they are willing to serve as my external examiner. Once they have found someone we will work on scheduling an external defense. External examiners can request up to a month with my document before the date, though more commonly they request around 2 weeks. During this time of waiting my supervisor and I will be running some other background analysis, as well as just keeping up on the literature and preparing for the different questions that I might be asked. For right now though my supervisor has told me to take a break and try to recuperate. So toady I plan to clean and put my house back into some kind of order after this past month, and I have already spent some time on the phone chatting with my sister.
Internship is still going well. I am winding down in Bellingham with my last day on the 13th. I was supposed to be helping out with a workshop this weekend to help me get my group hours but not enough people signed up so it was cancelled. This means that if this happens for the other workshop I am scheduled to help out with I will not have all my hours and will have to try to figure out where else I can get my last 6 group hours. I am currently getting group hours at my internship as well as helping out with a resiliency group that works with classes in different schools. So it would be great if you could pray that the last workshop doesn't get cancelled or that I can find a way to get those final 6 hours without it so that I can be more relaxed about meeting that requirement.
On a non-school front I am enjoying working with my youth again, they are a lot of fun, though I do find it hard to believe that my girls are now in grade 11! Tonight since I am no longer helping out with the workshop I will be able to help out with the youth car rally. Currently we are short drivers, so we are praying for drivers to come out of the woodwork. If they don't we will be doing a fly by the seat of your pants youth event...those are always fun, yet slightly stressful (especially because in this case we have another group that will be using the church most of the night).
Last night my small group for college and careers started. I intended to join a life group this year, but when I went to sign up the groups were all divided by age, and I didn't really fall in to any of the age groups that met on nights I could attend. I was pleasently suprised to find out that this year C&C has adopted a small group format where we will meet in small groups twice a month, gender groups once a month and as a large group once a month. So, I figured I would try that out again. The past few years I haven't been able to attend C&C a whole lot because I often had classes on the same night as it met.
Also next weekend I get to see some family and friends. With the Christian Teachers Convention in Abbotsford this year my dad and mom are coming down, my friend Denise is coming up, Jason, Michelle and Jayna are coming up etc. so it should be fun. My cousins daughter is also be dedicated that weekend, which means that I will also have extra family around for that. It should be a lot of fun, and the best part is because my thesis supervisor has ordered me on break I won't feel guilty spending time with them!
Last but not least for this post...(which I thought was going to be about 5 sentences when I started) I have decided to do something completely out of my comfort zone. My friend is in charge of the church's dessert theatre for this Christmas and was having trouble finding people. I had early told her to feel free to ask me for help with things like stage managing etc. because by then I would have free time. On Sunday she asked me if I would be willing to start helping out now by being in the play. I said yes, so now I am working that schedule into my work schedule. I don't feel like I am overloaded though because with internship ending and thesis getting near the end I feel I have more time free, and thesis time is something I can arrange and do almost whenever and mostly during the day and rehearsals will be in the evenings. My friend is still in need of some other cast members, but we are trusting that God will bring them forward.
Anyways, I am going to go and get something to eat, then clean up my house, then see how much time I have left before youth and decide what to do with it...I'm not sure what to do with free time yet (kind of a new phenomenon!)