tim = jerk

This is me: Baron Von Jerk at your service.

It's only for a temporary time, so I apologize for the current situation. Hopefully Tim will not be synonymous with the term jerk really soon.

Please be patient through this time.

triple-size me

So I had 3 dreams last night, all related to something I've seen/done for the past year.

First came a Stepford Wives dream. It was creepy.

Second came a dream about the SLT. We were going somewhere and someone got lost or something like that. I think something bad was happening. I can't remember that much.

Third was a survivor dream, with a huge twist in one of the challenges. Something about the opposite team who'd been eliminated got a chance to Wierd stuff.

Ugh. now it's shower time.

w00t

I finished unit 3 of my correspondence course... Now onto Unit 4.

[feedback]

I had a fun weekend. Here's what happened in list form.
1. Went on tour with Parabole

1a. Went to Barrie Thursday PM- used their sound system. Big mistake. Huge feedback in the middle of the production. Never again. But, despite the issues, God moved. Drove from Barrie to Port Elgin that night (2 hours), arriving at 12:15 AM. Didn't get to sleep til close to 3 due to problems getting to sleep. Woke up at 6.

1b. Went to Under... where again? Oh yes, Underwood Friday Morning! (South of Port Elgin). Used our sound system. Still some feedback due to the 45 minutes in which we had to unload and setup in. It was our fastest setup to date. I was cramped in the bar of the community centre. Twas fun, but annoying at the same time. Packed up in 1 hour. Quickest takedown yet. God moved.

1c. Went to St. Anns Friday night. 3.5 hours from Underwood with one stop en route. 1 hour setup; 20 minute sound check; soup for supper; AMAZING show. Hardly any feedback to speak of. Good work cast. God moved.

1d. Went to Listowel Sunday night. Longer setup, but we got there with plenty of time. Sound check was hectic. Two mics were going all staticy for no reason I could figure out. It was the cable. Swapped with the extra cable we had from the school and all was well again. Little feedback, hilarious production, God moved in ways which I'll never know. Great time had by all.

2. Went to Evangel Church on Sunday morning. Their Easter production reminded me of one of those made-for-tv early 90's movies. It was great. I enjoyed it. Good times had by all.

3. Didn't do much work this weekend. Didn't have the energy. Hopefully that will change this week as I'm down to 5 classes left total.

a big "but"

I think that I need a break from the school thing. Not a long one, but a break nonetheless. I'm going on tour with Parabole this weekend to a few different places. Within 36 hours, we're going from here to Barrie to Port Elgin to Vineland and back here. That's a lot of travelling for two days. Ah well, at least I get out of class tomorrow. I might go to the first half to at least let the teacher know that I'm skipping out of listening to 20 evangelistic messages from 20 people = over 1.2 hours worth of evangelising spread over 2.5 hours. It'll remind me of the summer. Perhaps I should just relate the gospel message in the way that I hear it every time I go home.... and then pray for the salvation of anyone who is unsaved in the class, which going by what I know from hearing said messages last summer, would be assumed that everyone under the age of 30 in the class is unsaved.

I asked one of the characters in Parabole today if they were saved yet. They've only done the production 5 times so far, so I figured that they might have been saved sometime over that time frame, but it's still coming. Maybe by the end of the weekend. I should take my kit with me in order to make sure I do everything right.

Is that where we've gotten to with evangelism? Say a prayer for the unsaved in hopes that they're radically moved within their soul by no contact with anyone, or to the opposite extreme like in the movie "Saved", almost run them over with a van, pull them in, and then force the gospel down their throats until they puke?

I'm confused, because that's not how Jesus or Paul did evangelism. It's like we've either gone overly lazy or overly zealous with this whole concept of telling others about the faith that we call our own. Maybe that's where faith has come... to the individual point where it only matters what you yourself believe because it's between you and God; no need for others to be a part of it. In a sense, faith is an extremely individual thing, but there's a huge need for community at the same time. We need others to help us grow, help us make it through the tough times, encourage us when we're down, give us a word, pray for us, or just be by our side going through life with us.

Now, don't get me wrong... it's a hard thing to do. Honsetly, I've been on both extremes of evangelism... I realize now that it wasn't the best way to do things. And I've turned many people off of "Christianity." But I would think that I've affected others positively as well. I don't know, but maybe there's people out there who are walking a stronger faith because of me. Or came to faith because of what I did. I don't need to know. But I know that there's many people who have encouraged me greatly, and if I still saw them on a regular basis, I would thank them so much because I don't think I'd be where I am without them.

So, thanks.

(insert short noise here)

Today was a relaxing day. I didn't do much other than my Theology paper on "The Consummation of Personal Existence"... or a fancy way to say death. So I spent about an hour in the library skimming through the text book and typing away my reflection on it into my Cassiopeia. But, when I get back to my room to sync up and print off, it doesn't sync. It says that there's a problem with it.... so, I have to type from the Cassiopeia screen to my computer manually. Arg. Ah well, I fixed some grammar and spelling on the way, so it made me happy.

Then we went to Conestoga Mall, in the end to only come out with the Garden State Soundtrack, a bottle of Canada Dry, and a stomach full of Poutine, most bought by me. Ah well, it was worth the drive and experience.

When I got back, I talked with Dave and Sue for a bit, and then we watched Camp Nowhere. What a reminder of the 90's. I like that movie. It's clean.

And some good times with Drew, Brittany, and Mark in the common lounge. Fun stuff.

I'm not sure where I'm going to church in the morning, maybe I'll just (settle) stick to Grandview. I didn't go last week... but I'll definately go this week.

hmmm...

I think my next purchase is going to be the Garden State soundtrack. I like the music... it's been a good listen over the past few days to help deal with my current mood which is more or less blah. I don't know what's going on with a lot of things, and I'm indifferent towards it. Ah well.

I got a new CD-RW drive yesterday to replace the one that I happened to fry last week. I'm not having much luck with technology as of late. I got my Cassiopeia last week and the keyboard today, but it doesn't like connecting to anything... I have to force it down to the docking cradle and then fight to get the keyboard to connect and stay connected... Arg.

I have my scholarship/bursary application filled out ready to go back into the school. This is one step up from last year, seeing as I didn't even apply last year. Not sure why, but I didn't. Something new's happening this year. I'm applying for things that I didn't do before. I just need to transfer my bursary applying skills over to job applying skills and I'm all set.

The problem with applying for jobs is that I don't know where I'll be living this summer. Sarnia doesn't have much in the way of jobs for me. What I'd really like to do is work in an airline call centre somewhere, but I think most of the Canadian airlines call centres are out west. I know there's an aeroplan call centre in kitchener, but I'm not quite sure where it might be. I'll most likely apply for there. I started a profile on aircanada.ca to work towards applying there.

And there's always the school job to fall back on, which would be fun, but it's the lowest paying of all the jobs that I could get, so I'd have to cut back on a lot of things for the summer... including travelling home because the costs would be too great to afford.

Anyways, I slept for 1.5 hours this afternoon, which was much needed so I can be ready to study for hours tonight for the midterm I have tomorrow. I think I'm going over to Chapters to sit in Starbucks and just study like I've never studied before. It'll be something nice and different.

Turah.

off to see nessie

I became aware of a trip to go to the island of Iona in Scotland for a one-week session on "The Use and Abuse of the Bible" at the Iona worship community. Now, for those of you who don't know much about me, it's been just over 2 years since I've last been somewhere international, and I've been aching to go somewhere since then... last february and again this february around the end of the month I've been really wanting to get on a plane and fly somewhere overseas just because I really enjoyed my experiences in Europe and the Caribbean and wanted to do something like that.

Europe was a huge step of courage for me because it was my first time without my parents on a vacation. It was a step of independance because it was up to Gord and I to figure out what we were going to do, not some planned thing, and I loved it! Travelling is so much fun. I wish everyone had the opportunity to travel somewhere in their lifetime. It's so freeing.

So anyways, I would love to go to Scotland, to see where my ancestors came from. And it would be cool to add another country to my list of places been. And it would be fun to see if we could go to England too for the fun of it. Then I can see all the places that we talked about in Destination Geography II at Lambton. I know it'll be somewhat expensive, $1200-1500 ish range, but I think it would be so worth it. The only issue is that I don't have 12-1500 dollars to spare... I'm praying about this, and I know something will happen soon so I can book the plane ticket if I'm supposed to go.

God made such an amazing world, so diverse in it's culture and landscape. Each new place you go to has so much beauty that it just puts you in awe.

cd

So I fried my cd-rw drive today. Don't ask me how, I don't quite know fully. But, on the other hand, I can get a black one to match my case for 35 bucks. Ah well... expense upon expense... it just keeps building up.

Thankfully, I'll be getting my income tax cheque within the next month or two; and GST cheque comes next month; and another cheque I'm looking forward to. I'm thrilled.

Maybe I'll even be getting a standard paycheque this summer to. I like that idea... we'll see though.

T.