Parliamentary Procedure

When I was a senior in high school, I was class secretary, and I remember one of our teachers always talking about following "Parliamentary Procedure" when we were in meetings. And I would just think "What in the world does that really mean anyway? Why is it called Parliamentary procedure? " And now I know. Yesterday I went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. It was great! We got to go all through the place, into the normally restricted areas and everything. Went into the Queen's Robing Chamber where she goes in to change before entering the House of Lords...apparently that room is only used once a year. Crazy. Saw the House of Lords and the House of Commons and Westminster Hall and various other places. Learned a lot of history that my poor mind cannot retain. It's so interesting to learn about the various traditions that are still performed. Some are so random and funny. Upon entering the House of Commons there is a large Churchill statue made of bronze. The whole statue is black now, save Churchill's left foot-toe rather-which is shiny and gold. Apparently it is good luck to rub the toe upon entry-supposedly some of Churchill's great oratory skills would rub off on those entering to speak. Anyway, after that tour we were outside of parliament talking, and I guess Dustin asked another man that gave tours of Big Ben and the clock tower, if he could take us on that tour. So he took us. There are something like 350ish stairs in the tower to the top, where Big Ben (the bell) is. I'm not so comfortable with heights, and I was thinking that it would be sort of a closed staircase-spiraling but stone in the middle or something closed. However, the middle was open, so as you would climb the stairs you would be able to look down and just see straight down to the bottom. No thanks. I went up just a couple of flights and was done with that. Too creepy. Pretty soon after I decided not to partake, Megen's parents made the same decision and sat with me at the bottom. They weren't okay with the height either. Again it was the problem with the middle of the staircase being open. So that was a bummer because it would've been a really interesting tour. They got to see the mechanics room and the inside of the clockface and Big Ben and everything! Who knew there were 4 other smaller quarter hour bells that rang, and that Big Ben only rang on the hour? And that Big Ben weighs 13.5 tons. And that there are 28 light bulbs behind each of the 4 clock faces which are made with opal glass. There's even a prison room a third of the way up the tower for any member of the House of Commons or the House of Lords that had to be detained for misbehavior during a debate...it was last used in 1880. Great tour.
So that was my Monday. But before Monday was Friday-when Darren got to England to embark on his 3 month adventure. We hung out Friday, didn't really do much, and went to a high school play Friday night. Saturday I took Darren into London and tried to show him around a bit. It rained pretty hard part of the day and was sunny another part. That's England. Saturday night we came back down to Surrey and had a really great barbeque with the fantastic family I live with...and then headed to Heywoodstock at the school. Houses and some buildings here have names, like I live in Breton Hill...and Heywood is the name of the school building I guess, so that's where the name Heywoodstock came from. Obviously Heywoodstock was a huge concert. Basically it was middle school and high school bands from the 3 ACS schools in Surrey. It was interesting. We didn't stay all that long. Sunday Darren felt sick-nerves-and didn't get to go to church with me. But it was a great Sunday. During both morning services we had senior recognition and in between during the Sunday school hour, had a brunch for seniors and their families. Parents were invited to share a story or memory about their senior. It was a very emotional hour for all of us!! Sunday night was the End of Year banquet-which was my baby. Much planning and prep went into it, but I was a little nervous about. My youth bands had cancelled the week before and I was worried about the food situation-pot luck. I didn't know how many people were attending or anything. Just kinda nervous and stressful. But it was fantastic! We had well over 100 people, which was crazy-way more than expected! We played Name That Tune during the time that the bands would've played. Travis planned for and facilitated that, and did a spectacular job. Had like 4 categories of music, clues for every song, a whole weird host costume to carry out the gameshow in. Good times. We had a fantastic slideshow made by one of our seniors, and several kid and parent testimonies. It was such a great night. We had a 50's theme and had coke and d.p. floats. All in all it was a huge success!