today

Today was an interesting day. I've made it through for the most part with only 4.5 hours sleep last night. That's not bad. Reminds me of high school for some strange reason. Ah well. I even did my Theology report, though that's the only school-related work that I've done all week really. Anyways, we went to Sherkston this morning. Instead of getting there 45 minutes early, we arrived 1 minute late after a number of delightful events happened on the way that just made us all the more less prompt. The service went well. It was just Pat unplugged with Mel and Corrie singing. I enjoyed it while doing powerpoint from the balcony. Nice place, Sherkston is. I've never been there. I might consider going there again sometime. Perhaps.

I'm off to bed now though...

knee

Throughout my day consisting of playing ball hockey and helping my brother move, I did something to my knee and it's hard to go down and up stairs now. Wonderful. Hopefully it's better for tomorrow when I'm going with Living Stones to Sherkston. I've never been to Sherkston before, I wonder what it's like.

Ah well. I have a lot of work to do this week, so maybe I might want to do it rather than sitting around doing nothing. That said, I'm off to do nothing.

movies

I watched two movies on my wall last night with a few people. The first was The Stepford Wives. I'm not sure I really enjoyed that movie. It was really wierd, but the ending is different than what you would've thought from the rest of the movie. Wierd.

The second was Garden State. Firstly, there's lots of language in the first 30 minute and a few questionable scenes in it (in the first 30 minutes). That's where it helps to have a pretty floor to look at. But after all that was over, it was reasonably ok. It seemed like an independent film just cause it was different than what you'd expect from a movie with Natalie Portman and Zach Braff. But I think I liked it except for the questionable scenes. What do you know, it was independent... Go figure.

Speaking of Zach Braff, Scrubs season one is supposedly coming out on DVD on May 17th

voiceover guy

I want my own personal voiceover like in tv shows where I could say how I'm feeling without actually saying it. So when I'm sad, upset, angry, or even overjoyed, those watching would know how I feel about things without me having to say... I hate mornings.

an encouragement for youth ministry

"Let this be recorded for future generations,
so that a nation yet to be created will praise the LORD.
Tell them the LORD looked down
from his heavenly sanctuary.
He looked to the earth from heaven
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to release those condemned to die.
And so the LORD's fame will be celebrated in Zion,
his praises in Jerusalem,
when multitudes gather together
and kingdoms come to worship the LORD."

Psalm 102:18-22 NLT

current mood:...

"I no longer think being in love is the polar opposite of being alone, however. I say that because I used to want to be in love again as I assumed this was the opposite of loneliness. I think being in love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite. There are other things I now crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family. I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to." (Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, pg 151-2)

"I think it is interesting that God designed people to need other people. We see those cigarette advertisements with the rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse, and we think that is strength, when, really, it is like setting your soul down on a couch and not exercising it. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy." (Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, pg 154)

it's coming...

February 16th...
Common Lounge...
8:00 PM...

powerpoint typo of the day

Correct: "You said, 'Pray and I'll hear from heaven.'"

What it said: "You said, 'Pray and I'll heave from heaven'"

what if

So anyways, I was thinking tonight. Yes, I thought. We were going through the standardized prayer format with ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), and the verse that I've heard many-a-time this year came to mind. It's in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 "Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land."

So I started thinking. What if, for some strange reason, we started turning to God first? If we put ourselves on the chopping block and gave all control over to God. If we confessed our sins, and returned to Christ as the centre of our lives. What would happen? What if we actually called on the name of the Lord daily, if not more often? What if we removed the pride from our lives and lived in humility in knowing that God is in control? What if we prayed? Not only for ourselves, but for others, for the nations, for the communities, for the people in our neighbourhood... What if we prayed that God would send revival to this land? Would we do it? Would we stand firm in seeking after God? Or would we fall into complacency? What if we Christians, actually lived up to our "title" as followers of Christ? Would we live like Christ? Would we model our lives after him? Would we love the unloveable? Would we yearn after God? Would we put our lives on the line in order that our Father may be glorified?

That's a lot of what if's. What would happen if we started holding true to our belief in Christ? Would this world change? Would people come to know Christ because of the outpouring of God's people on the land?

So it's a large task to take on. So what if we just started small. What if we began by prayer and reading scripture? That's simple enough. Would that be enough to start a change? I don't know... I'm not there yet. The only way to find out is to get off our bums and start rebuilding the ties between us and Christ; tearing down the walls that have been erected in order to keep us comfortable; and maybe, just maybe, Christ will heal our land.

humility

I wrote a song today. I've put some music to it, but there's no real flow quite yet...

"Release Me" - Tim Grace (c) 2005

I can do it all on my own
I don’t need a helping hand
I want all the glory for myself.
No thanks, I don’t need your help
You can leave now, I’m doing just fine.
Give all the glory to me.
I hear those voices, so deep in my head
They’re taking me from the way I’m being led.
Giving me struggles, causing me strife
Holding on to my life

(I want to break free) Release me from your captive hold.
(I want to break free) Release me from your stubborn eyes
(I want to break free) Release me to the grace that only God can give.
Let me go free

Free me Lord
I need your help
Humble this heart of mine
I’m lost out here, all on my own
Struggling to find my way
I need your helpI want to break free

tim's desktop of the week

Cane Garden Bay on the British Virgin Island of Tortola.

intelligence

I took this test and scored this:

The Seven Intelligence Areas
Linguistic: 5
Logical-Mathematical: 7
Spatial: 7
Bodily-Kinesthetic: 4
Musical: 12
Interpersonal: 5
Intrapersonal: 2

A Short Definition of your Highest Score
Musical - the ability to understand and develop musical technique, to respond emotionally to music and to work together to use music to meet the needs of others, to interpret musical forms and ideas, and to create imaginative and expressive performances and compositions. Possible vocations that use the musical intelligence include technician, music teacher, instrument maker, choral, band, and orchestral performer or conductor, music critic, aficionado, music collector, composer, conductor, and individual or small group performer.

cold

It's really cold outside. I don't know if you've noticed that in your travels around today, but it's cold. I mean, we had a windchill of -34 degrees this morning... yes that's thirty four degrees below zero. Ugh... Cold.

My notstril hair froze after about 10 seconds outside too. It was funny. Somewhat. And we're supposed to be getting snow this weekend too. 2-4 inches of it. Should be fun.

T.

tim's current background....

...

I was going over to Magic Dollar a while ago and on the way across the Zehr's parking lot, we saw a car pull awkwardly into a spot, the door flung open, and a girl was inside screaming while the driver (male) held her back, yelling at her to close the door. I saw the license plate as it was driving away, but forgot it by the time we reached the phone. My memory sucks. So Ryan and I prayed, cause that's about all I could do at the time. I feel so stupid for not doing anything. I could have run over to the car and endangerd myself in order that the girl could be safe... but I didn't. I don't even know what type of car it was...

all I can do is pray that the girl gets free...

bapti-munion

I'm trying to figure out which topic I'm going to choose for a paper for Arts and Symbols. I'm debating between communion and baptism. I'm trying to figure out both of them right now. I insulted someone at lunch with my ignorance about sprinkle baptism, and I've insulted people before with my improper understandings of communion. Maybe I can get away with doing both. 5 pages per topic, but that's not enough. I did a paper on communion last year, but it was more general, and I'm working towards figuring out Christ's presence in the whole communion process. But maybe that's just for personal growth, not academic pursuits. Baptism's probably the subject that I'd learn the most on if I were to do a paper on it.

...

tim vs mornings

I don't like mornings. Well, not the 7-8am mornings that most people despise, but the 12:00-1:30 mornings that happen after I've gone to bed.

Reason 1. Monday morning at 1:30 I'm awoke by prodding. Someone locked their keys in their room and was stuck out of it. And I was on duty. And it was late. And they felt bad. And it was late. So I eventually get up and go to unlock it, but on the way back, I was attacked by the evil bannister. It may look all cute and fluffy on the outside, but no, it has daggers and axes ready to cut unsuspecting victims like myself. It almost got away with a chunk of my skin, but no, I fought back and it held on by a thread. So I bandaged it and went to sleep. Never trust the bannister. Ever.

Reason 2. Tuesday morning (today), I'm trying to get to sleep and almost there, but every time I'm at that point, there comes stomping from upstairs or the staircase beside my room. So about 1, I look and see that the light in the hallway's on, so I go out and turn it off, and while I'm out there, I close the door of someone who's talking really loudly. Then I realize that I was cold under just one blanket, so I went and grabbed the second one off my closet, but little did I know that there was a stocking up there holding a can of pop. So it conveniently fell off the closet to the floor (6.5ish feet below) and I hear the sound that no one wants to hear at 1 AM... pop can explode and start gushing pop all over the floor. So I had to go grab a bucket, fill it with water, and then grab a mop and mop up the mess. Not something fun. So I lay down and get to sleep eventually after everything was done.

I don't like mornings.

latest poetry

Paper?
Tomorrow, not today.
Get it done!
Later.
Why not now?
Extension.
--- Freeform.

It is cold outside
Freezing my bum off daily
Tunnels on campus?
--- Haiku.

so blue

I just finished reading "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. I liked it. A lot. I'm not going to rush out and buy his next book, "Searching for God knows What", even though I almost did last night... Thankfully Chapters didn't have it. I think I'll borrow it soon anyways.. But I did enjoy his thoughts on what it means to be a Christian. So many times we live nominal lives where we don't realize that we're just drifting backwards in our faith; saying that we believe, but in our hearts not believing. What's with that?

It's time to take a stand and move forward. Seek opportunities for growth, whether it be living in community, or going out on a limb and loving someone who's "unloveable". It's a grey area, that one... we all know Biblical truths about what it says not to do, but we also know the Biblical truth of what it says to do. It's something that needs to be worked out for each individual. It's a journey... it doesn't end here because tomorrow brings a new struggle... sometimes in the guise of an old struggle, but it's something new nonetheless.

power supply

So Ryan borrowed my old power supply for a few minutes to use while fixing a computer, and he comes back 20 minutes later holding it telling me that it just caught on fire. Good thing I got a new one when I did.

church

So I went to church this morning. For some reason, I always get really queasy while sitting on the bus, then I pray, and then it's gone by the time I get to church. It's only a 50 (yes, fifty) minute bus ride there. I think Kitchener should get a Weber Line. They have a King Line, but King and Weber have to be really far apart where I'd need to get off, thus making it like an extra 20 minute walk from there, so they should get a Weber line. That's my solution.

But anyways, the number 8 drops me off about a 3 minute walk from Church, so I take that. I liked it this morning. Good songs, good devotion, good thought time during communion, and a good message (less the psychadelic notes on the screen... never use a sans serif type face in neon colours on a coloured background... not good. Reminds me of an episode of Corner Gas... Pilates! wasn't he the guy who murdered Jesus? No, he just gave the order... lol. I'm assuming many people don't know what I'm talking about right now so I'll stop rambling... watch Corner Gas. It's a good show)

After the service came 20's lunch. It was my first time doing anything outside of the regular service at Lincoln Road, and I enjoyed it. I saw someone I knew from camp, so I ate with her and her friends, each of which I knew a relative of theirs... wierd. I knew a lot of people by association today. Ah well.. No, I'm not trying to pick up, I'm just trying to get away from the college more. My room's like a prison cell. Enter the reason why a laptop would be handy, but not a necessity. It's nice to be able to work away from your room. I spend a lot of time in this room as it is, and this computer isn't that mobile. Perhaps a laptop would be useful? But not required at the time. By the time I graduate though, I'll have one. It would be nice to use for work/home/whatever else I do when I graduate. But anyways, back to the lunch, I'm going to go again in February, given that I don't have anything else to do that day. I like free food.

Anyone know of somewhere that I'd fit in and work well at this summer? I'm lost for ideas. This is something new. Trying to find a job knowing that there's nothing I can go back to. Le sigh. I have computer skills, some communication skills, a bit of labour skills, organizational skills, and a few other skills. I'm working on relational skills. Anyone?

a few observations at 12:42 am

There are two things that people don't seem to understand this year, from my observations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've noticed that the two terms of greatest trials with me are 1) "quiet hour" and 2) "manditory".

1) "Quiet Hour": A definition - any time on campus between 11 pm and 8 am. What does one do in this time? Be quiet out of RESPECT for those around them. This means, no shouting, use the super-duper inside voices at a lower level than the regular inside voices. No running through the hallways because it echos through the floor or walls due to the nature of Lehman. No stomping down the stairs because they're old and make lots of noise. No jumping. But I guess, the concept's hard to grasp, seeing as there's only been 5 months to begin to understand this concept and the idea of respect hasn't seemed to be passed along through to the younger generation.

2) "Manditory": A definition - something that you are required to be at out of contractual obligation. If you tell someone that somethings' manditory attendance, without fail, there will be at least one person who goes ahead and forgets that there is manditory attendance required and books something for that time on that night on a continual basis. Is it that hard to remember something that occurs weekly for the 8 month period that you're under this contractual agreement? I guess it must be.

Another observation. When something is labelled as your own personal property, is there any specific reasoning as to why people go ahead and use it like it was their own? It's probably just the time that's speaking to me... or maybe the salsa, but ah well...

my heel's bruised. I'm not sure how it got there, but it's there... ah well. I wont be doing much walking tomorrow. 14 hour Lord of the Rings Marathon: 9 AM - 11 PM in the Common Lounge... wow. that's a lot of movie.

milk

I like milk.
It's white and tasty.
It creates a beard for me.
Milk; moo; milk.
Chocolate milk.
Mmm... milk.

pictureified

If you look below, I finally figured out how to put pictures on this thing... even the people who have no computer knowledge got pictures on their journal before me. I must be really out of it to have been this long without figureing it out... Ah well.

I got a new power supply the other day. It's a lot quieter than my old one even without the grinding. I think I want to take my old one apart sometime... I just need to get rubber gloves so I don't get electricuted or something like that.

Something that I made last year close to this time.

the day so far

This morning I woke up at early o'clock and went to class. It was Evangelism and Discipleship of Youth. The Syllabus looks like one of the hardest that I've seen so far, with the exception of Group Dynamics. There's 5 assignments that comprise the mark, due throughout the semester, the first on Feb 3rd, the last on April 7th. It's a good class though. We watched the QUEST leaders training video, and there was a statement that was a good idea, in my humble opinion, for youth leaders. If you're using this just because it's the hip thing to do, and expect results from the video alone, you'd better rethink your motives. It's so often in my youth group experience that we've done a Bible study or watched a video series and there's been no follow up whatsoever with it. If I was as knowledgable then as I am now about the subject I would have been very upset with them. For all those who are in youth ministry, I tell you this: The video's just one part of the message. Build relationships with your youth so that the message comes around in the lifestyle that you portray. When they see faith in action, then maybe they'll be willing to put it into action themselves. Just maybe.

It wasn't until last year that I heard anything about Relational Youth Ministry. I was all about the events oriented and one-night-a-week commitments to youth ministry. That was only because that's the way I was raised. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the work that went into the youth group when I was growing up, cause I do, but it's just the fact that there was never any follow-up to see how I was doing as a person. None (or at the least, very few) of the leaders ever sat with me listening to how I was doing as a person outside of the youth group. Maybe I would have gotten more from the youth ministry that I went through if they had. I enjoyed youth group and young peoples and Bible Club. It was time spent away from homework. It was good.

They say old habits die hard. Well, it's true. I was a product of what I had been taught. I went into youth ministry thinking that there wasn't much other than putting on a good Monday night and an event every month or so. People would have fun, and it would be effective. But I fell into the old tricks. Not checking up with the youth on a regular basis to see how their lives were going. No follow-up with new people, and no accountability among the leaders. Perhaps that was my own fault because I was busy and fell into the trap of thinking that it was all I needed to do. Surface youth ministry only works to a certain extent. There's a need for more. It's with this "post-modern" culture that the need arises. Maybe it was even there when I was in youth group and no one had clued in yet. Sarnia's normally about 2 years behind everyone else in ministry techniques and music, so it wouldn't surprise me.

But anyways, the test now is for application. Can I take what I've come to realize as a "Better way" to do youth ministry and apply it to my ministry context? It's all about the people... well, it's all about God, but the way to bring people to God is to gain their respect by caring about them as a person first, and perhaps they'll be interested.

my story of the day

So I have a story today. In december, I called Sympatico to have my account put on hold for a few weeks and was informed that all the features would be working when I got back on January second. So I got back and the internet was working fine, but I couldn't reach my self-care services for some reason. So anyways, I just left it for a week and a half, thinking that it may come back, but it didn't. So I called today and they said that I shouldn't have even had the Internet because my account was put on hold until the 19th of this month... needless to say the guy said "that's wierd" himself, so I know it's nothing normal. Ah well.. That's my story.

i'm hit

I was just looking at the tracking that my counter does, and it says that 62 distinct people have come because my journal is bookmarked, or shortcutted somehow. Wow. I didn't think I was that popluar. And I've somehow gotten 3 hits through Yahoo! for the term "unorganization", one for "DC Talk in the Light cords" and one for " "Festivus yes" and "bagels no" and meaning" " And another one on "why the world is so complicated"

That's intriguing.

Ah well... for some reason, my profile doesn't think that I've updated since October 30th, which is somewhat annoying, but ah well.. I'll survive. Maybe.

Off to exegete a painting...

T.

relational

http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/zits/about.htm

Go to December 29th.

That's so me.

werd

I'm awake today. It's only 10:03 and I'm awake. Well, that's the first time I've gotten to sleep in in about a week and a half, so it was nice. Now all I need to do is do my painting review for Arts and Symbols, my Theology report, and do a lot of reading for the fun of it. I started reading "More Ready than you Realize: Evangelism as Dance." As I learned last week, I wasn't built for dance, but this guy writes good stuff. I like how he interacts with e-mail from someone who was seeking. I remember when I ruined opportunities completely by getting mad and yelling at people for their beliefs, and other stupid things... wow. What was I thinking?

I don't think I've yelled at anyone for like 5 years now at least... good thing, controlling the temper is. Yep.

a song.

We had Pj's N Praise tonight (where only two people were in PJ's for some odd reason), and we sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and the words are powerful. I'm liking that hymns are coming back into rotation. For a while there, I was against them... but there's so much theology in them that they can't just be dumped by the wayside. Get rid of some of the modern stuff... our singing should be for God, not for ourselves as some songs seem to think, but that's another argument... but anyways, look at the powerful language within the lyrics.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

- Public Domain

tell me a story

I've just decided that I like stories. Who cares how stupid they are. I just like them.

class

Today is the first actual day of regular classes. I haven't even prepared any binders or anything. It's wierd. Ah well. It's only Theology today, so just go to class, take notes, and then come back to my room to wait for my next class on Thursday morning! Oh yeah... Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. I'm happy. I can get some reading done or something. I have to figure out which book I'm taking with me on the train tomorrow... perhaps some Evang and Discipleship of youth. It looks interesting.

T.

carman was a woman

Has anyone ever heard of the band "Flowers for Zoe"? I know a few people who have, but I was wondering if there was any way that I could get a copy of their CD. It's really cool.

They wrote the song about Carman and Jason, and another one about going far for love. It's really cool.

a response

So at a message board, I was just really annoyed by someone's comment about homosexuality... so I responded.

"So if someone's against your beliefs are you going to shun them from your circle? That's what I call sharing the love of Christ. Kick 'em while they're down and then they'll come to their senses and repent.Yeah right....

Try going to the Village on Church Street in Downtown TO and saying that... Walk by the AIDS memorial and say that. Go up to someone on the street and say "I condemn you" and see how well that goes over. Where's the grace? Where's the love? I know it's cliche, but what would Jesus do? He'd be down there talking with them, being their friends. He was friends with drunkards, tax collectors, sinners... the lame, the blind, the deaf... all of them. Jesus accepted them...So why has homosexuality become the sin of choice that's worse than every other sin? Homosexuality = Sex before marriage = theft = murder... a sin is a sin is a sin. Read about it in the Bible.

The only reason I can say these things is because I'm struggling through them myself. The only reason that I'm saved is because the blood of Jesus covers my sins and I've repented. There is no legitimate reason why I deserve God's love. None. But Christ died for us."

I'm not saying that I accept homosexuality, cause I don't. It's a sin. They're people too. I have just developed this heart that wants to get to know people. Who cares what their background is. Who cares where they sleep. Who cares how much money they have in their pocket. They have a story. They have a life. They have the longing to be listened to.

Last year I was in a church in downtown Toronto called Sanctuary. It was my first time in that area with EBC. We took a walk around a large block. Our goal was just to observe. Observe the community. Observe the people. Observe the signs and symbols of their culture. What were the idols? What were the gods? It was wierd. My first time walking through the Village at Church/Wellesly. I was scared. I was a guy who knew very little about the lifestyles of gay and lesbians, and there I was, walking on their turf. No more running and hiding in my hole called Sarnia... I was there.

About a month later, I was there again. At the Yonge Street Mission (on Gerrard Street, surprisingly), and we went for a walk through the community. Past the row where prostitutes stand at night. Along the area called "Boys Town" because there male prostitutes work. THrough the Village again. and then a block away from the Village lies Yonge Street. You couldn't tell that within a few blocks were all these places, because it was so built up and modernized with the idols of the world there.

And the I was in TO on Wednesday. We went to the AIDS memorial. Names were engraved from those who had died of AIDS. Think about it. Real people dying of a real disease. Hmm...

All people have a story. All people have a desire to be heard. Let's give them that opportunity to share with us their story and just sit back, and without judging them, listen.

medieval dreams

So we watched King Arthur last night. It's a good movie. I recommend it. Anyways, talk about movies affecting your dreams. I had a dream that I was a knight and the Saxons were invading, so I had to defend my castle. So I killed a lot of Saxons and didn't get one hit on myself, which was hard to believe in itself. And then after the battle was won (by us), I was going around to all the maidens in the area and they were giving me kisses out of thanks.

I've been single too long and it's getting to me... I was reading "Boundaries in Dating" the other day and it brought back a lot of memories from high school when I last dated. Good and bad, but a lot of them were painful to think about. I need to forgive myself in order to move on, but I have trouble forgiving for some reason. Maybe it's cause I expect things to go smoothly and have this whole scenario of perfection worked out in my mind, but when things go wrong, I can't allow myself to be the failure because I expected perfection. Legalism strikes myself as well as others... it's not a good thing.

T.

a modern day psalm

God's standing beside me, providing for me
He looks out for my needs... bringing me peace
Withi Him, I know where to go, even though the path's dangerous, I'll be ok
'Cause God's with me, keeping things cool.
God, you give me food, keep me well, and fill my cup
You are always with me, and I'll live for and with you forever.

Psalm 23 paraphrase.

liberation

So we went to Toronto yesterday and had some good times at Sanctuary, the Aids memorial, St. Paul's Cathedral, U of T, Chinatown and the Art Gallery of Ontario. At the gallery, we were recommended to look at a few paintings just to see what symbols we could pull out of them. One of them was Liberation by Fred Varley. Wow. There's so much that can be pulled from it. I have to write a paper on what I see in it by next Friday. Shouldn't be too hard. We'll see though. Another option that I have is to do Christ at the Pool of Bethesda by Artis Wolffort. Both powerful images. We'll see what I can exegete.

T.

fireworks

So I decided that I want some lasagna for supper tonight... but stupid me put the pan into the microwave.. Bad idea. Firstly because it's a metal pie place. Secondly, because it had the tinfoil on top of it still. Needless to say that within 4 seconds, there were blue flashes coming from within the microwave and I had hit the stop button very quickly. So now I have to defrost the thing cause I want to bake it in the oven for betterment of the whole. I had some the other day and there was a problem... that being that they were still frozen in the middle in comparison to the outside. ah well. Never again will this trajedy happen... never again.

arg

I had a huge post ready to go about the day with insights and everything and of course, that's the time that the server goes down temporarily... so I'll just say that it was a good day, and in this world of no absolute truth, we need to remember that Jesus is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.

a poem

the past makes me cry... but i've grown
the present's a challenge... but i press on
the future's unclear... but i'll stay faithful
forever, i'll stay faithful

classified

no, I'm not selling anything. Today was an interesting day. I went to bed at about 11:30 last night, but couldn't get to sleep until 1, and then woke up at 5:30 thinking that my nose was running, so I got up, grabbed a kleenex and wiped it off and lay back down... and then again 30 seconds later... and then I went for the taste test... it didn't taste like snot, so I turned on the light and realized that I somehow got a nosebleed and it was all over my pillow, sheet, comfortor and arms. That's something nice to wake up to... so 30 minutes later after putting everything in cold water to soak for a while, I lay back down, however was unable to get to sleep again until 7, and then off and on again until 7:30 when my alarm went off. Breakfast, shower, got my phone bill, and my mp3 player from the office (w00t!), and then went to class.

Class was good. I'm taking Arts and Symbols in Christian worship, which runs every day this week for 6 hours a day. It's a good class. We talked about arts and symbols in Christian worship today. Focussing on various areas of the topic, including Eucharist and Baptism, the via Dolorosa (Catholic belief), the detail that some arts have, and expressions that can be conveyed by it. It was a good class, but a long day... 6 hours in what is arguably the worst classroom on campus. By 4 I was tired... ah well. I'm awake now.

And tomorrow, we're going to Woodstock for the morning, and then various places in KW in the afternoon to just examine all the symbols in the churchs and culture and try and figure out what they're saying to the people. And Wednesday is a field trip to Toronto. Thursday is guest speakers, and Friday's Movie/Presenation day. What do you think about this class now?

Ah well. It was nice to have the mp3 player back. Though I just bought a new discman last week, so it's kinda technology overkill, but I guess it's ok. They'll each serve their own purpose.

T.

mp3ified

The neverending saga of the mp3 player is now over, hopefully. I picked up the player at the office this morning, and it works again! w00t!

donation?

If anyone's interested in donating $10.00 to sponsor me to be in a ball-hockey athon later this month with proceeds going towards Student Initiatives here at EBC, let me know via e-mail. I know it seems kinda frivolous considering the state of world events over the past week, so I have no problem with donations going towards other areas. But still, if you want to help, let me know.

gmail?

I have a g-mail account. I can tell you that I don't like it. It's not user friendly, in my opinion. It gets rid of folders "for the better", however I don't think that it is necessarily for the better. While the idea that you never have to store something again and the search function may be appealing to some users, I don't seem to like it. I like folders. I'm a neat freak. If my inbox has any e-mail in it that can be stored elsewhere, it'll be there when I get to it. In my opinion, it's just another fiasco like the msn messenger one was. ICQ is by far the better messenger, but people liked the idiot-proofness of MSN, so they switched, and the only reason I ended up switching was because everyone else was. ICQ is still my preferred form of instant messenging, but very few people use it anymore due to their idiot proof MSN. Now, this same thing might be happening with g-mail. People switch to it, people like it because of the gig storage, however shortly after, Hotmail gets 250 megs storage, more than 100 times their previous storage amount. That is a great move, and I like hotmail once more.

So a note to g-mail. Get folders. I might then consider using you as a junk-mail account. Until then, no such luck.

the end of the break

So tomorrow marks the last day of my break before school starts again. I haven't done much, but it's a break, so it means not doing much. I did finish the rest of the second unit of my correspondence course, and start reading 2 books for next week, which I'll probably try to get at least one of them finished today. I also found a new power supply for this computer online, which I should be getting, hopefully within the next month. That'll be nice... not having the annoying death noise coming from the back of the case every time I turn it on. Perhaps it'll be a bit quieter too. One can only hope.

I finally found a ride back to school with my good friend, Mark, from Wideman. So we'll see if there's enough room for my stuff, which is not much when you think about it, but it's still a lot. I can fill probably half of the back seat of the car with it at most. It's still a lot less than I had last year at this time... Hopefully the weather cooperates.

Anyways, that's all for now. Packing.