All Wrapped Up for the Semester!

It's in December. It's an annual tradition. It's hosted by QCCC. What is it? It's Christmas Cell!

Partially eaten food. Whoops, forgot to take a picture right at the beginning.

As with previous years, we hosted a sumptuous potluck featuring dishes cooked and prepared by our own chefs, including the traditional secret recipe escargots. Father Raymond also came by to say hi, while watching us compete to win mystery gifts, varying from that of a dish sponge to a shower cap. 

Hi there, Father Raymond!

Fleeing after "stealing" a present. 

Another tradition at Christmas Cell is the Secret Santa, in which we had fun guessing the giver of gifts and admiring the uniqueness of the gifts given. This year's gifts included onesies, mugs, David's Tea, flasks and Chopin CDs.

Nice and warm onesie. We should've a onesie party for Secret Cell (heehee).

Mr Men mug - the colourful characters from those childhood books
are so nostalgic.
Note: That DSLR wasn't a gift. 

Chopin CDs!

For the first time in recent memory, we also had Christmas Caroling too!

The in-house guitarist.

Of course, we always end with group photos, so here are this year's ones.

The standard "formal" shot.

And the shenanigans shot. 

It has been a great [calendar] year QCCC! Here's cheers to another great year ahead, and for QCCC's upcoming 25th anniversary!

Cheers,
The QCCC '15-16 Team. 

Taco Night Fever

On November 6th, QCCC held a taco dinner featuring yummy tortilla and taco shells at Newman House. It was a great way to bond together, especially with some laughs over dinner. After having consumed these filling creations, we headed over to participate in Night Fever. Don't we look excited?

After having walked over from Newman House we attended Night Fever, an event held at St. Mary's Cathedral. Night Fever is a drop-in open house event that invites people from all walks of life to come into St. Mary's Cathedral to light a candle to leave at the altar.

After placing a candle, they had the opportunity to listen to the lovely music playing within the Cathedral and the chance to discover God's mercy. It was a night full of moving testimonies, wonderful music and moments of personal reflection for all. After the event, there were plenty of baked goods and hot chocolate for all. Check out more pictures from the bight below.

QCCC Goes to JU Local Visit 2015!

On Saturday, November 14th, several QCCC members made the journey to downtown Toronto for the annual JU local visit. This year, the event is hosted by UTCCC at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus. The overall turnout for all CCCs was 60, the biggest in many years. It was a great time for members to network and forge friendships with people from other CCCs. It was also an occasion to reflect on issues in our faith.

As such, the theme this year was Laudato Si, the second encyclical of Pope Francis, which discusses environmental degradation and strategies for mitigation. The guest speaker was Father Chris Cauchi, the chaplain for the Newman Centre in Toronto.

No local visit would be complete without a Singspiration session, as well as a sharing session by our recently-minted GT 2016 committee.

Of course, there were group photographs and selfies as well.

And after mass, we all had a fantastic Korean dinner at the Seor Ak San restaurant.

And how could you forget about the Squirrels of Toronto? Cuter and a lot more sociable than the ones in Kingston.

"One day I was walking across the field and I saw this huge pine nut. I ran towards it, only for it to be snatched away by my brother. Jokes on him, I found an even bigger one today and I've got to say that it's really tasty."
#SquirrelsOfToronto

A Pumpkin Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

For our Halloween cell this year we made an insanely detailed Cinderella carriage pumpkin!

Aside from discovering some mad pumpkin carving skills and the deliciousness of roasted pumpkin seeds, we learned more about the saints through an "All Saints Bingo" activity. Who knew St. Clare of Assisi was the patroness of television (because toward the end of her life, when she was too ill to attend Mass, an image of the service would display on the wall of her cell) or that St. Francis of Assisi once preached to hundreds of birds and that they stood still as he walked among them, only flying off when he said they could leave? 

It was a fun night of pumpkin carving, warm foods that had the warm flavour of fall, bejeweled Bingo cards, and several rounds of Heads Up.

Hope everyone finds a way to make their Halloween this year spook-tastic and treat-iful. Happy Halloween!

We're all Mad in Wonderland!

"Sometimes, I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Why, Alice, so does QCCC. Here's our list of six impossible things—done all before breakfast on Saturday morning.

1) Transforming the entirety of Dunning 12, with all its eraser shavings and integral calculations on the board, with Wonderland themed decorations.

2) Hauling food from our respective homes and back and forth between Newman House to keep everything warm. 

 

3) Showing up in costumes as awesome as this: 

And this:

Oh, and how about this?

4) Successfully discovering the murderer of Tweedledee after a series of clues throughout the murder mystery dinner. (You're welcome, Wonderland Security.) 

5) Successfully taking a picture where EVERYONE looked this good: 

6) Leaving Wonderland "muchier" and without losing our "muchness." 

So how's that for six impossible things before breakfast?

"What did you say...I mean, draw?"

Tonight at QCCC we played a mashup of broken telephone and pictionary! Pieces of paper with a single sentence were passed along so that the next person had to draw an image to represent the phrase. The next person would be tasked with summarizing the image in a sentence, and so on until the end of the page was reached. Needless to say, things unraveled rather quickly. "A hippo has a bubble bath" ended up as "an alien is about to abduct a cow" with some creatively interpretive images in between. We had some very eloquent writers, some very wonderful artists, and some...people that tried really hard.

Not only did this activity provide cause for rollicking humour, it also put into perspective the daunting task of communication with God. While prayer is the channel through which we speak to Him, it isn't always easy to know exactly what He says to us. God speaks to us through signs; like the images in the activity, we need to learn to take these signs and interpret them in a coherent way. And as the activity quickly showed, each person can have (sometimes a radically) different interpretation from one another. 

Of course, it wouldn't be a QCCC night without both Saintspiration and Singspiration. We learned about Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of the deaf (more on the importance of interpreting signs!), as well as writers and journalists. 

So remember to keep not only your ears and eyes open, but your heart as well. You never know when God might be sending a sign your way! 

Let There Be Light!

It was a night of spectacular lights and bizarre food combinations as our QCCC cell last Friday took us down a journey of unforgettable...taste bud sensations?

We started off the night with "the toaster game", where we put a slice of bread into a toaster and gathered around to answer a series of questions. If the toast popped up while someone was speaking, it meant drawing two random toppings from a bag and putting it together on your toast. Yum. Except people ended up with peanut butter and cheese, frosted flakes and ketchup, balsamic vinegar and bacon, honey and herbs...yikes.

 Aside from discovering some surprisingly delicious combinations (you might want to try peanut butter and cream cheese), we learned some interesting new things about one another—our favourite spot in Kingston, family traditions we would like to pass on, the strangest thing we have on our desk. After stuffing ourselves with bread, we went out on Tindall field for some phone light pictures! We braved the cold for the sake of art, and created some contemporary masterpieces. 

Just in time too, because later on in the night we learned about St. Lucy, the patron saint of the blind. The name "Lucy" means "light" and her sacrifice in life taught us where to find God in our darkest moments, even if we may be blind to his presence during our suffering. May St. Lucy continue to pray for us during this year ahead as we embark on this journey for Christ. Open our eyes to the light of God and the grace that comes with His love.