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I'm back!

For those who didn't realize I was gone, well, that's too bad on your part. I had the opportunity to drive a van load of students to New York City for the week and it was great. Throughout the week, we had the chance to serve with a few of New York's many organizations that come together to share the love of Christ with the people of the city. These people ranged from the homeless to the organizations that supply the front-line organizations to kids and more. It was an eye-opening experience for a lot of us, and it makes me look at ministry with a fresh mindset.

Pictures will come later, although I didn't get many, because my primary objective was not to be a tourist, but to observe and be a servant.

Here's a brief rundown of what we did through the week:

Sunday: Drive - 11.5 hours later, we arrived, after going through almost every type of weather possible during this season. Middle-Eastern Cuisine for dinner - Falafel

Monday: Prayer Tour - Stopped at various places across Manhattan and the Bronx to learn more about the needs of the city. These sites included Battery Park, Central Park, Times Square, Harlem, the Bronx, Chinatown, the World Trade Centre site, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Dinner: Salvadorian Cuisine - Papusas

Tuesday: AM: New York City Relief Bus #1 (Bronx)- Talk with those who come to use it, and serve lunch
Tuesday: PM: Father's Heart Ministries (Manhattan) - Serve dinner for kids in the neighbourhood and hang out with them Dinner: Polish - Perogies and Cabbage Roll

Wednesday AM: World Vision Storehouse (Bronx) - Worked through many "gaylords" of donated toys to sort them into type and size.
Wednesday PM: Neighbourhood Immersion - Find our way to the Lower East Side Manhattan via Subway and walk around talking to people to learn more about the neighbourhood. We were given $2 a piece to feed ourselves and feed someone who probably wouldn't get a meal that evening. Afterwards, the group I was with ended up at Union Square and looked at the differences between there and where we were, just a few blocks away.

Thursday AM: Dorcas Centre - Brooklyn - Help ESL students with their lesson for the day.
Thursday PM: Operation Exodus (Washington Park - Manhattan) - After-school tutoring program for grades K - 8. Hung out with the kids and then helped them with their homework if needed - Dinner: Dominican - Chicken something.

Friday AM and PM: Maspbeth Bible Church (Queens) - Helped out around church and then hung out with kids during "Open Gym". This is a small church of about 40 people that opens up their facilities to students on Friday afternoons and has had over 300 different kids come out, averaging between 60 and 90 per week.
Dinner: Colombian - Meat, Rice, Beans, Eggs, Plantains.

Saturday: Drive - 10 hours and home. Some say the highlight of the day was driving through Scranton, PA. I say it was the Appalachians as we drove through (and we crossed both the Appalachian Trail and the Bruce Trail on the same day).

Highlight of the week: Probably the ESL or the Neighbourhood Immersion for myself, although I haven't really had much time to process as of yet.

Pictures and stories later.

sleep, no i never get enough

So last night, I figured I'd be a good kid and try and go to sleep at 10:30, in hopes that I could get up early today and be ready to get up even earlier tomorrow. However, last night my body decided to go against my best laid plans and the next 5 hours, I lay in bed, on the floor, on the couch, and spent a few minutes in front of my computer trying to get to sleep (not in front of the computer, although sometimes staring at the screen can make me tired), but I was wide awake. Finally, I got to sleep somewhere between 3 and 3:30, only to wake up at 6:45 wide awake and my body not wanting to go back to sleep whereas I would have been happy to sleep a few more hours after that fiasco.

I've now been awake for 13 hours, less a 20 minute nap in the middle and I'm still feeling fairly not tired. Here's to hoping I can get more than 3.5 hours sleep tonight and still manage to be awake to drive 900 km to NYC tomorrow.

In other news, I've been looking for a place to live come the end of April and the options aren't really working out well for me as of yet. Most are about $100 more than I'm currently paying PLUS utilities and laundry. Why does this world need to be against un-married people and those without roommates?

Sigh. Hopefully there will be a few nice options available when I get back in March. If you're in the area and know of any places that could work for me, feel free to let me know.

goo'd

I've been playing World of Goo recently and since beating it, I've moved on to getting the OCD goals and building my tower in what was formerly known as the World of Goo Corporation. Tonight, in terms of the tallest tower, I moved from 75,000 to 483. And then it collapsed on me, but I have a screen shot!



In other news, I'm going to New York City next week with the EBC Expedition Team and those who wanted to go on the Reading Week Mission trip. About a month ago, one of the drivers suffered a minor stroke (he's recovering very well), thus leaving a vacancy in the second driver's spot. So, after having a few people approach me and suggest that I should go, I took it as a sign and decided to go with them.

So, on Sunday morning at 6:30, 12 of us in 2 vans are setting out on the 9 hour trip to Brooklyn. It looks like there's going to be a few inches of snow tomorrow, so you can pray that the roads are clear by the time we head through and safety as we travel and a good experience while we're down there.

In other, other news, I'm off Facebook and Internet Social Networking sites for Lent (I started 8 days early with no plan on returning til after Easter). I also blocked news websites on my work computer so I can't waste time by reading the same old drivel day in and day out. I've found that I've been more productive this week overall. I've also started reading the book 1984, because I haven't read it before. It's an interesting take on what life could be like if those in power decided they needed to control everything. Somewhat scary.

tim 1; bell -1

I just quickly got rid of a Bell rep on the phone who was trying to offer 10 mbps download speed package... I just told her that Bell packet-shapes and it's not really useful to have 10 mbps when you can only get 20 kbps for the things I use the Internets for because Bell are being jerks to even their own customers.

She quickly said bye and hung up, no attempt to even sell me any more.

I win this round.

trail

Here's the exciting news as promised:

On August 29, 2009, EBC is running an event entitled Blaze A Trail, in which we hope to collectively hike the Bruce Trail in it's entirety in one day. That's 900 km of main trail covered over the course of 8-10 hours. The goal is to have 100 people split into pairs to cover approximately 50 sections of 20 km each on average.

This event is being run as a fundraiser for student scholarships and bursaries. Each participant is required to raise a minimum of $100.

For more information, and how to register, visit the Blaze A Trail page on the EBC website.

If you'd like to support me in this endeavour, visit my GivingPage at CanadaHelps.org or you can get me cash or cheque when you see me. Tax receipts are issued for any donation online and any donation over $20 if by cash or cheque.

I'm also sort of organizing a lot of this event, so feel free to support it to keep me smiling.

don't you hate pants?

There's a group called Improv Everywhere, which organizes fun events in various places around the states, with one of their most famous events being the No Pants Subway Ride, where participants all get onto one trail, or a number of different trains, and then promptly remove their pants and act like nothing's wrong. It's quite a comical concept. This year they've started taking it around the world, and something like 20 cities were involved.

Afterwards, in New York, at least, they met up at one common location and some of them were presented with some material stating the joys of pants. This organization, Pro Pants, claims a 100% success rate, with 100% of those reached coming to lifestyle which embraces pants within 24 hours of being presented with the material.

See pants are a good fit for you:

The Pants Quiz
Welcome to Pants
Are Pants Right for Me?

water fallin' over the ledge

This year, I've taken it upon myself to take students to various places within 1-1.5 hours of Kitchener that are both outdoors, and have a unique natural setting that makes it something more exciting than the parks within a 5 minute walk of the school. So far, we've gone to Limehouse, Cheltenham, Rockwood, Bruce Trail hike, and a waterfall tour in Hamilton. This is partially because I want to help get students active (we don't really have an Athletics program at the school) and partially as an excuse for me to get out of the house and have opportunities to take photos.

I've enjoyed it a lot, and I'm beginning to think that those who come with are enjoying it too. Besides, it's no fun being in the wilderness by yourself.

So, tomorrow's the latest adventure. Originally, we were planning on going snowshoeing at Pinehurst Lake Conservation Area near Cambridge. Two weeks ago, I would have thought no problem. Then we got the warmth and the rain and now the snow that once was is no more. I was getting excited to try snowshoeing, but oh well. Such is life. Instead, we're going to Hilton Falls Conservation area in hopes to see something new and exciting. I've never been before and have heard good things. It is looking like it's going to be a good day, so we can hope that it turns out to be such and fun is had, no matter if the water is falling or not.

On a somewhat related note, there's some big news coming on Tuesday. It's going to be so wonderful. Even more exciting than Zombo.com. Trust me.

wedding planner

Recently, I've been following a photoblog by the KW Record that's entitled a Year on the Grand. This photoblog consists of photos or video of various sights along the Grand River as it flows from this area to Lake Erie. I like the concept of taking all the different viewpoints that you might see while along it and putting them together with the story behind it. What is the picture? Why did you take it? Where was it? Is there any history behind it? What can we learn about the photographer and how they see the world?

So, in preparation for the chapel that I'm doing in March along these lines, I'm going to try and do a fairly consistent photoblog of my own. That's where the title of this post comes in.



This afternoon, I looked outside and realized it was a gorgeous day out there. So, in attempts to get my fresh air intake for the day, I convinced Gord that we should go outside somewhere to take pictures. In looking for someplace new to go, I figured, why not go to downtown Cambridge? It's not necessarily a place I have been before or would go for any reason in particular, but I know it's got some beauty due to the river and the old buildings and such. So, after driving down and finding a parking spot and wandering around a bit, I spotted this sign at the top of little amphitheatre on the edge of the river. If you look, you can see an out-of-focus Gord in the background, almost as if he's considering planning his wedding for this location. I don't think it would fit all too many people in there, but I think it would be really nice for holding an event outdoors, although the traffic noise might be too much.

So anyway, there's my first attempt. We'll see if this actually continues, or if I'm just typing hot air.

examination and grammar

Tonight was my mid-term for the course I'm taking at UW (Grebel, actually, but it's through UW): Paul - Life and Letters. I've been petrified about this midterm for the past week or so for a number of reasons:

Firstly, I don't remember much from the textbooks. I usually don't remember much from reading on the first try anyway. If I like the book enough to read it through again, then I'll probably glean something from it, but it's still not enough to put together a full plot synopsis.

Secondly, I'm not necessarily a history major. It interests me, but I can't really tell you much about it without having notes in front of me.

Finally, this is my first University level exam. I've done Bible College exams of all sorts, from the 90 question multiple choice ones to the 4 essay Old Testament ones and all sorts in-between, including Olu's famous "Examine" or "Identify" questions, which although they're worth only one mark, you have to put everything you know on those four lines in order to get that mark. For some reason, I have this distinction in my head that the three post-secondary institutions I've gone to are on different levels in their testing purposes. Lambton was easy, for me at least. The only reason I didn't get a 4.0 was due to not knowing Excel all that great when I took the early exit test to get out of ITS (AKA Computers for idiots). EBC grew on me. But when it came to tonight, although it's just another Biblical studies exam, I figured it would be this daunting task that would be the end of my existence as a student. I should mention that I have a tendency of over-thinking any exam I write and thinking that I probably haven't prepared enough and am going to fail. In the end, I usually pass with flying colours (whatever that means), but for those few hours before the exam starts, I'm petrified.

In the end, things were ok tonight. I figure I'll get somewhere between 15 and 20 out of 25, although I could do better. We'll have to wait and see... oh, I also need to get my WatCard soon. I had to look up my Student Number in my e-mail before class started, and thankfully it had been cached on my computer or else I would have been out of luck because the wireless wasn't working so great tonight... sigh.


Onto a completely different part of class where we spent over an hour discussing the difference between the classically translated phrase "faith in Christ" in Philippians 3 to the scholar's choice "faith of Christ" and what that meant. I don't really understand yet, but maybe someday.

commerce

I went to the Princess Cinema last night to see the Best Commercials of 2008. It was 1.5 hours of straight advertisement. Some of them were good, others weren't so good. So, to save you some time and money, here's the link to see all of them.

Some of my favourites:

"Figures"
"Non-Blinking Woman"
"Conference Call"

And there's ones that weren't in the Princess version either.