Outside the Box: Climbing Walls to Stay Sane, His Holiness - The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, and Red Leaves

A good friend of mine told me that the key to a successful blog was to update it regularly so reader's don't get upset. I can see now where she's coming from and you may be able to guess by the title of my posting this week that I should post more often, but...better late than never :o).

So, things on this end have been moving along amazingly, but insanely busy with trying to sort through everything that needs to get done before I leave for two years to South Africa. It feels as though if I do 5 things a day on my list of things to do before I leave, I should be done sometime in July of 2008. I have succumbed to the fact that what will get done, will and what won't, won't. However, to keep myself sane in all of it I have gone back to the one place that seems to make me forget everything that is going on and just focus on me for a while - the good ol' climbing gym - and it's been amazing. The best part is that it's also part and parcel of training for when I get to South Africa to do some rock climbing there. I really do believe that climbing these walls on a regular basis is keeping me from insanity!! I think everyone should try it at some point in time. It gives you an amazing sense of body awareness and the mental and physical aspects are amazing.

It's a bit odd for me to talk about rock climbing first when the most amazing thing happened on Wednesday, but I'm trying to go in chronological order (I need some sort of order in my life - hahahaha). I was on my way into work when I heard on the radio that the Dalai Lama was going to be speaking at the Roger's Center in Toronto!! I had no idea and raced into work to see if I could find tickets and as luck would have it, in an audience of about 16,000, I managed to get my hands on two so my afternoon off work, which was meant to run errands for my move, ended up being a day out with a good friend to hear the Dalai Lama talk about the "Art of Happiness".

I'm not sure what to tell you about the talk as I don't think I can do what he talked about justice in repeating it and messing up his eloquent words, but let me just say that at some point in everyone's life, they should hear this man speak. It was really amazing. Not what I expected, but amazing. See, I naturally defaulted to the selfish attitude of him telling us how to find happiness from within and although he talked about it a bit, his focus was more on happiness as a population - 6 billion living in harmony and how one should treat and look to others around the world. To summarize...the solution to peace and harmony in the world comes down to : WARM-HEARTEDNESS. Truly amazing. He is like a 72 year old man with the innocence of a child.

So, let's see, that covers my insanity and one of the most beautiful people I have ever met, which leaves the red leaves...

This part is simply for my friends Boris and Alana. They are in Burkina Faso, Africa with Engineers Without Borders and Boris is just getting over being sick the last little while. In Boris' blog posting (which I think you should all check out at http://boboinbobo.blogspot.com/ along with Alana's at http://alannapeters.blogspot.com/) he mentioned that he missed the red leaves back here at home so I went out to the Bruce Trail and found some for him!! I know what it's like to be far away from home and miss the simple things you may or may not have taken for granted when they were readily at your disposal and I also know what it's like to feel ill far away from home so Boris and Alana, these are for you (I also managed to find some other friends along the way)...