80 Things We Love About Arta: 13 - 17

More wonderful things about ARTA!!!!

13. Email

While I was at University of Alberta in the early 1990's my aunt introduced me to this new communication tool: email. I began using it to keep in touch family in Calgary and Ottawa. I began telling my friends to 'send me an email' if they wanted to share information with me or invite me to an event. Long time friends of mine have told me that I was the first one to introduce them to email. Turns out Arta had increased my social capital and I didn't even know it until years later. Perhaps the title of this Arta thing should be, "Increasing My Nieces Social Capital". Thank you Arta! (I have 500 emails between Arta, I and family members stretching back to 2009. I think the first ones from the 1990's have long been deleted.)

Remember this?

 

14. Treasure a Higher Education

Over the course of her 16 years as an employee at the University of Calgary, Library Services, Arta helped at least 27 of her children, nieces and nephews obtain degrees. By help I mean:

a. Taught us to shop for classes. At the beginning of the semester attend 10 - 15 classes, look at the syllabus, watch the professor/instructor, and choose the classes that fit you as a learner.

b. Registered and took classes with us to help us succeed.

c. Provided us with rooms in her home to live close to U of C.

d. Help us research and edit research projects and papers. Keep in mind most of us attended from the 1990's to the early 2000's. We had to physically go to the library to obtain articles and books for research as the digital research was not as prolific.

e. Feed us while we lived in her home.

f. Shared her lunch with us when we would visit her office.

g. Write difficult emails with us to make space for ourselves in difficult academic environments.

h. Tell us repeatedly how proud she was of each of us, working so hard to learn about the world around us through formal education.

i. Teach us to attend free lectures about topics we were not interested in until the end of the lecture. Then we could not stop talking about the topic. Sometimes there was even free food. Mmmmm.....

j. Encourage us to sit in the first eight rows of large lecture halls (research showed these students performed better) and ask ALL your questions during class. ALL OF THEM!

k. Gather all the current cousins and siblings for a photoshoot each year.

Picture at U of Calgary of the cousins and siblings circa 2001:
Laynie, Tonia, Kindel, Cohl, Jeremy, Marcia, Lurene and Trent
(left to right)

15. Bird By Bird

Many years ago I remember Arta saying she took a writing course. It went so well that she and several others from the group had organized a friendly writing group that would meet monthly. This group ran so well that she organized a writing group for at least two summers at Shuswap Lake. Family members interested would spend time capturing a moment or story, we would gather in a circle on the lawn outside the quiet cabin, each person choosing to share or not share their more recent written work. She is always writing and documenting, hence the success of this blog. Here is a book she encouraged me to read so that I could become a better writer too:

Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott

(More information about Anne Lamott here.)

16. CBC's Top 100 Classical Pieces of Music on CD

While attending university in the early 2000's and living in Arta's home, we began a goal that we never finished. She had found a list on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) website that listed the top 100 pieces of classical music. We agreed that if I bought the blank CD's she could spend the time at work recording all 100 songs for both of us. Over the course of several months our plan took shape as we added to our matching collection. I am not sure how far we got down the list. Somehow life distracted us. I am going to go look for those CD's. 

P.S. CD's are compact discs for all you young people out there. :) 

17. Be Yourself

...whoever that may be. One of Arta's most interesting physical characteristics is her beautiful grey and white hair. Many of us have been recruited to trim it for her over the years. I had the pleasure of spending time with her in London at my parent's flat. As we travelled around the city one day we found an advertisement in a store that highlighted grey and white hair, a sight not often seen in 2009. She posed for some pictures and I enjoyed taking them. Be yourself, whoever you are. 

Arta in London, UK

Both women wore it best!

More great characteristics about Arta forthcoming!