Finally it looks like home...

Yes, that's right! We now have pictures on the walls! There's a real bed in the bedroom! Our apartment actually looks pretty nice! So, here is a virtual tour...

The living room, which contains the piano and little else. We managed to fit the couch. The door leads to the office, and when Keith plays the piano, he sort of sits halfway in the kitchen!

The office, where Keith's computer, my instruments, and the harpsichord live

The kitchen. I was mopping at the time. Keith said "duck." I didn't duck far enough. Oops.

Hallway and storage area

Bedroom, with a real bed, and a nice rockery with native plants out the window (so pretty!)

A sample of my poetry/photography project

Here's one of my poems from my project and the photograph that went with it. None of the black and white pictures have been scanned yet, so perhaps a few more poems and photographs will show up later. The title art is by my friend, Jane. Just so you know, yes, we did have 27 consecutive days of rain right after we moved here...

Wet shoes, wet socks, wet hair, wet raincoat,
wet pants, wet books, wet bag, wet laptop…
(You’d think I didn’t grow up in Seattle.)
It’s raining again.

For some reason,
the people here
(and I am no different)
have been taught
that umbrellas are for wimps.

I’ve decided,
after weeks of incessant nagging drizzle,
with soggy garments and accessories,
not to mention cold drips down my back,
that I am a wimp.

Therefore I will do
what I have been taught was wrong…
I will carry an umbrella and laugh
from my (relatively) dry comfort
at all those poor, wet machos.

Wet umbrella, dry Celia.

Done!

We survived! Every last assignment is turned in, every final is finished, and now all we have to do is CATCH UP FROM EVERYTHING WE PUT OFF. This means putting up pictures, organizing shelves, eating, practicing, reading anything that's not for school, paying bills, etc. We also got our bed, finally. It's not like we were sleeping on the floor... we had a mattress, but an actual bed with a beautifully curved headboard is so nice... Seriously, we did nothing but study for the last month.

We went to Galiano Island last weekend to present projects for our Christian Imagination class. Well, that wasn't the only reason. It was a good excuse to go on a retreat. It was also particularly nice to be able to eat really good home cooked food (such as spaghetti with homemade noodles) that someone else (Mary and friends) made. I enjoyed being sort of pampered all weekend, sitting in the sun, admiring the gorgeous scenery. It was like reliving my childhood trips to the San Juan Islands, which are just south of where we were this weekend.



My project was poetry and photography. I therefore had an excuse to play in my darkroom, which I hadn't done since high school. It was very fun. I also took the time to write poems and polish them up a bit. Then I put the whole thing together in an aesthetically pleasing way--pictures and poems in nice mats. My friend, Jane helped me out with beautiful calligraphy for the titles. People seemed to like what I did. That's encouraging. When I was done reading, I displayed my work on the windowsills.



For Keith's project, he recited large portion of the Gospel of John from memory in a story-telling style. He was awesome. I know I couldn't do that... His presentation took place outside on the deck overlooking the water.

Study break

So, it's almost finals. I realized that I have not put anything on the blog for quite some time (yes, we're still alive, Ilene), so here's a little update. Can you tell I'm procrastinating? Keith and I have 2 finals, one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. It kind of stinks that we are spending Easter weekend studying. Oh well, at least we are studying about Jesus. So...

We went to North Dakota for Megan and Jeremy's wedding on St. Patrick's day (it was very Irish), and we got to spend lots of time with Keith's family. We had fun in the snow. There is no snow here in Vancouver. It is spring already; there are daffodils and whatnot.



I finished another knitting project! This is one is for Martha. My friends keep having baby girls! It's crazy!




It was my birthday... I officially became old... I am now able to rent a car without pay $20 extra per day. I spent my birthday weekend in Seattle with Keith and my parents. There was a birthday party with parents, grandparents, and neighbors.



Keith and I spent my actual birthday being sopping wet. We rode our bikes around at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, where it was raining heavily. We discovered that the tulip fields were a lot further away than we thought, so we wimped out and took the car...




I played/sang a concert! It was the final project for my History of Music in Ministy class, a demonstration concert with 3000 years of music as used in worship. We had lots of really interesting selections, many of which were composed by the class: Gospel, Chinese worship music, hymns, a reconstruction of temple worship in ancient Israel, a trio sonata by Corelli, and a piece written by a Canadian nun in the Baroque period. I contributed a Kyrie in the style of Palestrina. We had a great time, and it turned out pretty well, especially considering that we only had a month to plan it.




Now, we are cramming for finals with our study group... wish us luck!

Another project complete...

I completed another knitting project! It took a very long time, since the technique for sewing the pieces together was quite difficult. I also had to learn how to crochet for the edge. There's a matching hat, too. It was a gift for Andrea and Edgar and their new baby, Leila!

Whistler

We went to Whistler for reading week with my parents! That means spring break, but apparently it's supposed to be spent reading, not vacationing. We went on vacation anyway. It was so nice to spend some time outside... doing something other than studying. Yes, the academic load at Regent is quite rigorous. We also ate a lot of good food, so any benefits we may have gained from the exercise were immediately lost. There haven't been too many pictures on the blog lately. That's partly because I've been (gasp) shooting film with my other camera. I'm doing a project for one of my classes which will involve both photography and poetry. Bits of the project may show up here in April sometime.

This is me skiing.

Here we are riding on the gondola.

This is Keith--he's improving rapidly!

Lecture and Concert

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to give a lecture in one of my classes, The Christian Imagination. This class discusses issues relating to Christian artists. We had not had any discussion of music-related issues (the professor is an actor), so it was good to be able to fill a need. I talked for almost 3 hours about music in the middle ages and the renaissance (thank God for Mass and Motet in the Renaissance class). This was my first time giving a lecture without the text written out word for word, and also my first time to use power point! I brought my viols so people could see, hear, and even try out a renaissance instrument. It went pretty well, and I received a lot of very positive feedback from the class. People seemed very interested in particular in the instruments and in hearing about some of my personal struggles as a Christian musician. This is encouraging, as I may be interested in teaching at a university in the future.

On another note (ha ha), Regent will be getting another dose of early music this Tuesday, when I will be playing a short lunchtime concert as part of the "Offering of the Arts" festivities. I'm playing both my viols (pieces by Hume and Ortiz) and my cello (Bach first suite). I'm hoping that perhaps we can have lunchtime concerts more often than just over 2 weeks in March. There's a lot of really great musicians here, and everyone loves to hear them.

Why I Changed My Name

Hi. I just wanted to clarify why I changed my name for my feminist professional friends, since I've been enduring a fair amount of teasing on the subject... :)

1. I can't very well hyphenate. Can you imagine how bad Wilson-Olson would be? Very bad indeed.
   
2. It would be really confusing to have Wilsons and Olsons in the same house. People would still call me "Celia Olson," and they'd get confused and call Keith "Keith Wilson." Annoying, yes? Changing my name simplifies social matters for both of us.
   
3. I really don't feel that changing my name is degrading myself. I'm sure if I made a big enough stink, Keith would take my name. I love him and I can trust him not to look down on me because I'm a woman. He respects me, and I respect him.
4. I also don't feel that I am losing any professional status by changing my name. Those who matter will remember my first name which is unique enough. Furthermore, I doubt too many people will notice that I changed my last name, since it's really not all that different...
   

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We've been having a very relaxing time with Keith's family in Iowa.

I made some tasty cardamom bread (Tess, this is for you!)

Keith enjoyed playing with the new video camera we got from Celia's mommy and daddy for Christmas.

We got all dressed up and went to the Christmas Eve service. Keith, Celia, Sarah, and Rebecca sang in the Choir. (Keith and Celia also played Gounod's Ave Maria together on cello and organ at church on Christmas morning.)


Here's the whole family! Too bad Joseph and Catherine couldn't come. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Letter

Greetings, friends! Several important pieces of news:
1. Keith gave his final presentation on Wagner's Parsifal on Thursday. He worked really hard, and I have to say that the highlight of the presentation were Keith's fantastic MS Paint drawings of the plot of Parsifal.
2. Keith graduated last Friday, on December 16!! Yay! He didn't actually attend graduation, since we didn't feel like making all our friends and family sit and be bored for several hours.
3. We moved out of our apartment in Grand Forks. We're spending Christmas with Keith's family, then we'll be with my family for a few days, then we move into our new apartment in Vancouver, BC! Of course, this means we have a new address that I'm not going to post here, but if you want it, email me. Our permanent US address is my parents' address in Washington. We still have our cell phones, but we'll have a new phone number in the beginning of January.
4. In January, we're starting at Regent College where both of us (not just Keith) will be studying Theology.
5. We wrote a Christmas letter this year! We hope you enjoy it. Please click on each page to enlarge and read. Merry Christmas!