Little Talks

I've just been thinking about end of summer, my last year of university, the future, and making the most of life. I wish I had some deeper thoughts to share with you all today, but all I can say is that you shouldn't waste your time on things that you don't enjoy. Make the most of the situations you can't change, and change whatever you need to in order to live a life that makes you happy. Make time for God, find a job you love, indulge sometimes and make healthy choices when you can. That's my advice for you. Perhaps another good piece of advice, one that I've been slowly finding on my own, comes from About Time : live every day as if you've deliberately come back to that one day to enjoy it as if it were the last full day of your life. Let the small things go, and try to be present in every moment.

I really don't have a lot to say today, so I apologize. I've been working a lot, it's late, and t's almost the end of the summer - I'm brain-dead.

I decided to make this a special edition of Sunday Sayings in case some of you still hadn't seen the finale last night. I apologize in advance if you still haven't watched it, because I'm not going to hold back on anything I want to say. I am so glad to have started this show when I did. In January, when I was just settling into my apartment in England, it was often quiet and lonely. So I started watching Orphan Black when I realized that it was on UK Netflix. For years I have wanted to see the show and understand what it was all about, and I'm beyond thankful that I was able to binge watch 4 seasons in a couple of months and then come home in time to watch the final season. While I wish this show had been in my life longer, I don't regret that I could see the show from start to finish in just about seven months. There are so many things that I admire about this show: it's raw, it's real, it's full of deep character development and well-incorporated ...

Starting in a new positions at my job, I have to admit that I've been feeling pretty co rodent about it. It seemed simple enough. And then I hit an unexpected snag. I can across some problems that I didn't know how to solve because I've never experienced them before. And I admit that when I saw the first problem I started to panic a bit. But I reached out to my friend, and when he told me what to do I realized that it's okay if things don't always go as they should. After all, I'm human, so I'm going to make mistakes. Plus I'm still very new at this job, so no one will be expecting me to be perfect yet. If the fault is mine, they'll tell me what I've done wrong and hopefully I won't do it again. But I choose to see this as a learning experience, a small wave on an otherwise calm sea that has already passed me by. It won't stop me from enjoying life if I just let it go. This doesn't affect any of the important things in life.

I came to the realization yesterday that a lot of my recent loves in film and TV are feminist pieces. This is not intentional, I swear, but I am drawn to female-driven programs like Orphan Black and The White Princess . Perhaps this is a more subconscious factor in my choice of show. When I read an interview for The White Princess this week, I discovered that the show is intentionally very female-driven. There was actually a discussion about the way that the male characters are almost entirely passive, at the mercy of the women around them. It's very much a reversal of the way the history is traditionally written, and I think that the variations from text to screen are a result of making the show more female-driven. The men in the show function as love interests and pawns more than anything else. The women manipulate them, lie to them, cause them fear or attempt to comfort them when they're afraid, etc. And I realize that this is not all that far off from what happens in Orp...

You know those instances when God just continually sends you the same message? The past two days have been like that. God has been helping me to understand what it is that is keeping me from having a close relationship with him, and the main reasons are pride and fear. It's hard to admit to pride, especially for people who don't like to boast...but pride can be subtle and quiet. Pride is thinking you're better than people, or that you can do things on your own. It's a hard thing to spot in your life, and harder to fix. Fortunately, God doesn't ask us to change on our own - He's here to help.

Can we please just take a minute to appreciate how amazing Sing Street  is? I just watched it again, and I think it is the best movie ever! It is so heartfelt, funny, weird, sad, and wonderful. The music is downright amazing! The characters just capture your heart. I could watch it on repeat. I always feel so inspired by the brotherly love, and the idea of chasing your dreams and being an artist.  There are so many great lines in that movie, but following that thought I have chosen this one: Isn't it so fulfilling to create? Makes me want to spend every day writing my books and coming up with new ideas. Never give up on your dreams, my friends! Use the gifts God has given you; follow the Creator's example and create!

So I half-heartedly published this Sunday Sayings yesterday. I barely knew what to say, but for some reason I wrote it anyways. And then I noticed this morning that I published it instead of saving it for today. Oops! But after watching Orphan Black last night, I've decided to make a new post. Can you believe how close we're getting to the end of this amazing series? I'm both excited and sad to see the end of this show. But I like where it's going! Just wish it wasn't moving so slowly.

So Canada officially turns 150 this weekend! It's nice to be home for the celebrations. After being in so many countries with histories running back hundreds of years since their political foundations, it's crazy to think that Canada is still such a young country with the potential to shape itself. Of course, even Canada has some negative parts of its past that we'd like to forget, but I'm hopeful for the future.

You may have noticed that I haven't posted a Sunday Saying in a few weeks. I've been a little busier than I expected to be this month, now that I am home. Yup, I flew into Canada a couple of weeks ago. Now I have to get back into routines here at home. (And think about what I'm doing with my life after school, but we won't talk about that). It's nice to be home, but I did like England.

Today's saying is just fun and simple because I don't really know what else to say. I've been working on a paper all week and just relaxing since I got it done. Soon I will be packing up and leaving my little place here in England, but not yet. Today, I've just been enjoying the sunlight and feeling content.

It has been 4 months exactly since I last saw my mom, but I did not realize that until I sat down to write this post. Has it been hard to live away from her? At times, yes. That probably sounds odd coming from an adult, but I think growing up and moving out is when we realize just how much we appreciate our moms. My mother and I have become really close in the last couple of years while my sister has often been away at school. We do so much together and sometimes I miss those little things like grocery shopping or watching our favourite shows. The older I got the more I was able to appreciate how well my parents raised me; I say this not out of pride for myself, but out of the humble realization that my parents shaped me into the woman that I am today. My mom and I have always been close, but becoming an adult has made us friends. You might think it odd that I would not have considered my mom a friend before, but I think a mother is something so much more special. Moms are the ones to ...

I'm sorry I haven't been posting much again, but it's final assessment time. There's been a bit of a theme to my weekend, and I just want to share with you what has been on my heart: Jesus is our source of joy, just knowing Him should make us laugh and smile with glee. If I saw Him today I would drop everything and run to Him with open arms. If you knew my Jesus, you would do the same. I think that this song sums it up so perfectly that I just wanted to share it with you. (Besides, I think that posting videos is becoming my way of making up for a lack of posts 😛)

With a month and a half left of my exchange, I have suddenly begun to see England as my home, however temporary. Even just in these past few weeks I've been forming deeper friendships. I've grown so much in my time here. The people I've met and the experiences I've had have definitely shaped me, and God has taught me so many things about myself and about Himself. I am truly stronger for having lived here these past few months. And as people start to ask me about going home I realize that it may be harder than I thought to leave this place. Yes, of curse I want to go home. But I miss the people more than I miss the place. Home will always be familiar, but now that I've gone through the struggle of leaving it behind, it's not as important to me to go back there. I'm more excited to have my family join me here than I am to go home with them at the end of all of this (although, that will be nice). What I wonder now is whether home will still feel the way it use...

So I think I should be really open with you. I don't know who reads this blog (but obviously somebody does because the count keeps going up), nor do I know why you read this blog. However, I want Little Talks to be helpful, not just entertaining. If you are having some of the same struggles in your life as I am, or if reading about my walk can help you, then I want to share it with you. That's what I've tried to do this year, especially being in a totally unfamiliar situation. I think it also helps me to feel like there are people out there who might see my posts and understand what I'm going through. I have struggles with my faith, but who doesn't? Anyways, my greatest struggle for the past few years has been rooted in my singleness. I am completely content being single. Yes, I would love to get married and have a family some day, but for now I am okay without all of that. But my writer's imagination has a tendency to pull me into a world of my fantasies and...

I know todays saying maybe doesn't fit my little talk, but we're just going to roll with it. (Okay?) Now that it's April I am officially at the two-and-a-half month mark of my stay in England! And this week I noticed a change: I stopped feeling like I was meeting people and started feeling like I was making friends. I'm sure anyone who has ever moved has had that moment. But maybe not. I've never moved before, so I wouldn't know. I don't expect to come out of this trip with new best friends or anything, but I'm hoping that I can strengthen the relationships I have made so that maybe I won't just lose all contact with the community that I've become part of here. I suppose if there's any connection between this and the Sunday Saying, it's that I may have lost one of my best friends in the past year (no, she's not dead, she just walked out of my life). As hard as that was, I'm sure that these relationships are going to be so great,...

Hello! If you have visited this blog before, then you may notice that it has been revamped! That's right, Little Talks has a new look. I thought about doing this several times in the last year, but was never entirely satisfied with the changes. However, some new templates have become available and I think that this one is pretty neat. But I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm going to post a poll (hopefully I can still make that work here) and I would love to have your input on the new look. I was finding the old colours too intense for my taste and the background was just totally random. Can't find what you're looking for anymore? The sidebars are gone now. I know that might take some getting used to. Try clicking the little menu icon in the top left corner. There you will find a some information about me, a list of all my blog posts, some tools for translating or following the blog, and some links that I've shared. Well there were so many things I wanted to ...

I have been in England for over 2 months now, and I realize that perhaps the greatest thing that God has been challenging me and teaching me to do - something that He has been trying to get across to me for quite some time - is that I need to pray more. When you don't know anyone, when you are removed from the community you've grown up in, the community you've lived in your whole life, it can be quite lonely sometimes. By that, of course I sometimes mean that empty feeling of having no one to turn to. But what I really mean is that you don't have people to talk to. I'm not much of a talker, but I have definitely spoken less in the last 2 months than ever. Normally I come home to my family and we chat about our days or whatever we want. I can't do that now. So who do I talk to? Well, thankfully, there is still social media to keep me in contact with my loved ones. However I turn to God a lot more now. I have developed a daily routine that includes prayer times at...

It appears I have let this week slip by without a single blog, after telling myself that I'd post at least once per week (aside from Sundays). It's hard when I see my list of things to write about and yet feel only discomfort at the thought of taking the time to write out a whole post for whatever movie or book I want to discuss next. I think sometimes my brain doesn't want to have to think critically, especially not about things that I read or watched quite some time ago (and even more so if I did not particularly like the film, book, or whatever). But I know that to improve my writing skills, to keep the creative side of my brain active, I must continue to make myself sit down and write. Growing up, I wrote because I could not longer keep all of the ideas in my head. I wrote because inspiration struck, then passion overcame me, and finally I critically began to shape my ideas and focus all of my imagination into the narrative. Somewhere along life's journey, my inspi...

In honour of Ed Sheeran's new album being released this week, I thought I'd share what might be my favourite lyrics from X. (Seriously, though, every song that man writes is brilliant!) I was part of a discussion a few weeks back - not for the first time - about how all music seems to be about love, relationships, and sex. This is true, save for a few marvelous examples. And I heard someone say that more artists should write songs that aren't about love, but about journeys, like Ed Sheeran does. And I agreed with that. I still do, but I realized later that a lot of Ed's music does still focus on relationships. I might argue that his music feels very real and deep, but that doesn't change the content. So why does so much of our music - and all of our entertainment, in fact - contain so much about love? To put it simply, I think that love is the strongest emotion we can experience as human beings. Whether we are feeling the joy or pain that comes as a consequence o...