One of the differences that has struck me about Alberta is the light. It's something hard to explain, but when I'm driving around early in the day, it's something I find uplifting. A writer in a book I'm reading called Alberta: A State of Mind puts it this way, "The wondrous light slides throughout the exuberant skies and infuses the countryside with a vivid clarity. It defines every part of the province and even illuminates our provincial psyche: like the light, we are clear, direct, and sharp around the edges."

I'm not entirely clear on what the writer (whose name, appropriately enough, is Sydney Sharpe) means about the "provincial psyche", but I think I'm starting to get it. People come here, says someone else in the book, "on purpose, for a purpose." (Like us, though at this precise moment I'm not feeling particularly "clear, direct, and sharp around the edges.")

In other news...I basically finished my second assignment yesterday (just one teeny tiny detail to go) and received my third. Onwards and upwards. With each success the scariness subsides a little, though it still provokes me to pray mightily. The key is to keep on praying later on, when one begins to feel rather complacent. The reality is, peaceful circumstances can change in a nanosecond and we are not in control. (But God is!!)