Winnipeg, here we come

This past weekend I got to head out to Winnipeg. You might think that a free trip to Winnipeg for a weekend would get people jumping, with the competition for spots being fierce. And that's where you'd be wrong. However, 5 brave volunteers represented Western at the CMDS (Christian Medical and Dental Society) Western Canada conference. Which begs the question "why are you going to a Western Canada conference?" The simple answer to which is that because the conference was in Winnipeg, they figured us east people were so close they'd just invite us too.

Anyway, Friday afternoon, off to Toronto and the snowy north. Meet Vaughn and Peter Allen at the airport in Winnipeg for a great 45 minutes of hanging out that involved Slurpees and cake and then off to Camp Assiniboia.

The weekend was a good experience. Meeting lots of other med students (and a few token dentists; it would appear that the overwhelming majority in our group is constant) who share faith was cool. The weirdest thing about the weekend was the fact that it really felt like a return to the old days of going on youth retreats. Frankly being at a Mennonite camp and singing and having sessions and all that stuff almost made me feel like I was back then, but once in a while I'd be reminded that I was there with other meds, such as when we did case discussions, and somehow the whole experience felt like ramming and old part of my life into the new part. Which I think is a good thing, it just felt a little odd at times when I'd suddenly become aware of it.

The speaker was pretty good. Really philosophical, we're talking some high level theology going on. Lots of logic, and references to C.S. Lewis, and defining words and Greek and Latin and Chinese and other amazing stuff. If you could follow him and stay with him and catch most of the references he was making there was some really good stuff to get out of it. My main criticism is that when things get really philosophical they can become almost inapplicable in life. And for myself I usually try and see the practical in most things. Though I enjoy the beautiful parallels that (for example) he drew between Lord of the Rings and modern society his talk about everyone being called to sainthood, and sainthood being of the heart, with no concrete method or even decision that can be made to bring it about can be kind of frustrating to attempt to use in life. His other interesting characteristic was being Catholic, and really attempting to show some Catholic doctrine as very important, including some stuff I wasn't too sure about. The bottom line is he made some very convincing arguments about a lot of stuff I'd really never thought about before, so it was nice to stretch the brain a bit.

We had some free time on Saturday afternoon, the highlight of which was doing a high ropes course thingy. This is all with the belaying system and whatnot. The one was a climb up thing with rope laddery sections and tires and 4×4's and stuff up to around 45 feet, and the other, more challenging, involved a "tightrope" of cable with ropes hanging down from above about every 6 or 8 feet, so you walked across with the ropes to stabilize you. The second half of that part was a bunch of small wooden "swings" attached above you that you could put one foot in and had to move across sideways. Hard to picture I'm guessing, this might help you out. Lots of fun, remarkably hard on your grip strength, leaving me with amazingly sore forearms for a couple hours.

Ok, this post is now long, I'll end it here.