Well, I've been wanting to learn to paint for a long time but haven't had much luck until this week. A few years ago I met a local girl named Kristy Gordon who now lives in New York (her site is http://kristygordon.com/) and found out she is a painter who occasionally does workshops here in the Okanagan. The first couple I missed due to work and other engagements, and last spring I signed up for a community course in Kelowna which got cancelled. So I finally made it to this one, and am glad I did. It was a lot of fun and Kristy was great. We were doing portraits, and we had to find one that met certain specifications for what she wanted to teach in the class. Originally I wanted to do a painting of my grandpa but couldn't find a suitable picture of him, so I found a good one of Malala Yousafzai on the internet to use as a reference photo. Here is the final result:

It's an oil painting, so it seems to take a long time to dry (someone told me it can even take months to dry all the way through if the paint is really thick). Anyway for my first painting I'm pretty happy how it turned out. I can still see a lot of my mistakes in it (and I forgot to sign it, but it will be wet for ages so I have time) but really I think it turned out good enough to go on the wall. Have found another hobby!

I notice I have a lot of posts about dreams. I am a frequent and vivid dreamer, and the contents often entertain me. So here is another one.

First, I would just like to say that I have disproven the entire premise of the movie 'Dreamscape': you do not die in real life if you die in your dreams.

Underneath the church building I attended as a child there are dirt-floored tunnels which I believe were used as access to the pipes and such under the building. As a child these were fun to explore. In this dream, I was back at that church building with some guy who was the host of a TV show (though there were no camera crews with us at the time. And I don't recall if he was a real person or an invention of my dream). So I told him we should go explore these tunnels. He seemed hesitant, thinking perhaps I was luring him to his doom, as he didn't know me very well, and so I went first. The tunnel was filled with storage, and I commented on this, telling him none of that stuff had been there before. On my left was a shelf were some bags, and behind one there was a noise and movement. I thought perhaps it was a rat or something. I paused a moment before proceeding forward.

Soon I saw a girl standing in front of some curtains. At first I was confused why she was in the tunnel. I knew her-she had been a student of mine when I was an ESL teacher. She led me around the corner and there, sitting on and around a car in front of some nice townhouses,  sat every Mexican I have ever met. My first thought was, 'Are they living down here?' (I did not think it strange there was a street of clearly-outdoor townhouses in the tunnel). I thought maybe they had all decided to slip back in Canada illegally and hide under the church. But I soon found out that I was in fact dead, and they were there to escort me into the afterlife.

I didn't know what had killed me. It could have been the TV host, and it could have been whatever I saw moving behind the bag on the shelf. It could have been something else. I didn't know. But I knew I was dead. Actually I felt pretty good. I noticed right away that my body was more energized and wouldn't be subject to things like hunger or fatigue. And the street of townhouses was pretty new and clean and sunny, so it was a nice place. So I got to chatting with the Mexicans as we walked down the street. And then I woke up.

Final thought: There is a lot of fuss about illegal immigrants from Mexico. We all seem pretty afraid they'll take our jobs and drain our social welfare programs. But here's the thing: maybe, just maybe, the Mexicans get to decide who gets into Heaven, so you should think twice before turning them around at the gate or they might do the same to you when it REALLY counts.