Appearing Horizon

12:01 a.m., January 1, 2009

The clock just struck midnight a minute ago and as I sit here watching the fireworks from the comfort of my couch at home, I am reminded of how God makes everything glorious. There is nothing short of spectacular that our God has made even when it seems like there is. Sometimes we have to search for the magnificant, and others they come right to us like right now. It amazes me at how we can see God's glory through something as simple as fireworks. He gave us the resources and mind power to be able to invent something so beautiful to your eyes that it just blows my mind away.

Now that the year 2009 has begun, there is an awful lot to think about. When reflecting on this past year of 2008, depending on what kind of person you are, it could be either a brutal failure, or a learning experience. 2008 was full of events and perhaps my biggest year in terms of growth that isn't physical. I think I'm done most of my physical growing but I wouldn't mind pushing for another inch or two. I normally look on the good side of things but it became somewhat difficult due to a rough finish to the year, but for this post, I will try to stay away from all the negativity. Now let's try to dig into my memory bank and try to pull out a few moments of this past year that might have been memorable for me or anyone else.

It all started in January, the time of year where everyone is looking forward to a new year, much like right now: how everyone has a list of resolutions of which to only be broken within a month - and knowing it too. The year of 2008 could not have began worse for me as I had just began coming out of the roughest time in my life just a couple months beforehand. However, things only went uphill for me as I began one amazing adventure of my life through 366 days, hurray for leap years. On the topic of leap years, I feel bad for kids who are born on February 29th.

By the time February hit, I had already seen a couple of pleasant surprises. One of which I finished my second 30 level course with an 80%. Early on in February, I was to be able to meet a school average for the fourth or fifth time in order to get my guitar. The first saturday of February, not only did I pass my learners exam, but shortly after my worship practice, my dad hauled me out to buy my guitar. I was so shocked at why he took me out because I hadn't even receieved my report card yet. It was later on that day that I first met my beautiful ESP EC-1000 Deluxe ASB. However, I was slightly worried after I bought my guitar, that what if I didn't get the average I was supposed to get, what would happen to my guitar then? But I was one happy guy as after I celebrated my 17th birthday, I also received the average that my dad set for me to get the guitar. I now am proud to say it was a great experience gone through to earn my first guitar. That's right, I have been playing for guitar for what is now my fourth year and never owned a guitar until now.

Skip right ahead to April, with an honorable mention to seeing some friends getting baptised in March being a great sight. One particular event in April, I believe, set me off on a rapid growth spiritually: leading worship for the very first time at the Youth In Christ conference at ECCC. I think I had been leading worship more or less for about a year before this event, but nothing I have ever lead can compare to what I experienced that night. Leading worship for me had always been a fun musical experience kind of thing, I have to say, because it allowed me to do what I love with some friends and to worship God. That night of leading worship opened a whole new door for me. I can still see myself standing on that stage like it happened yesterday, with about 200-300 young teens like me with a burning desire to worship God. I matured so much spiritually that night that I think if Ps. Joe had not asked me to lead worship, I will not be who I am today. As for any more details, I will have to refer you to searching for my facebook blog about that magnificant night.

Right up until June, I felt myself growing stronger as a person after falling almost to rock bottom just over half a year ago. My marks were improving, which was an awesome thing to see, I would be graduating from grade school, etc. June was quite the month for me as I had to prepare myself, not only for my diplomas, but to embark on another amazing adventure with an internship in Vancouver. There were a couple of personal issues that I also managed to work out miraculously by itself. This allowed me to be able to remain friends with certain friends without having other things get in the way, and the feeling is awfully refreshing. Writing my diplomas is a blur to me now as I'm writing this because I do not recall whatsoever the process of writing one. I remember writing a couple of IB exams but not my diplomas - weird. So I zoomed by all my diplomas, and after my final diploma, I went straight home, packed up and left for the airport to go to Vancouver for the summer. I could not say goodbye to very many people and I am disappointed about that because I value the people I care about more than I do myself. It was a very tough day for me, because on top of being stressed from my diploma, I had to say goodbye to my family, which is something I have never had to do before.

July and August was one heck of a summer, the second most definitive of the year for me. Most of you know, I was busy in Vancouver doing an internship with UrbanPromise. I met some really awesome people and had some significant knowledge and experience gained. I know a lot of people would like to know what I did for the eight weeks or whatever, but I would like to place the stress, not on what I was doing, but what I learned. I am going to try to keep this as brief as I can because the scroll bar is getting smaller and smaller from the length of this entry. What I gained most from this experience are two things: attitude and love. On the note of attitude, I can say too much but I'm going to keep it to this phrase: don't worry, be happy and every little thing is gonna be alright. With the topic of love, this is specific to God's love. Explaining this in summary would not help too much because I will need examples and stuff. Even doing so, it takes one's own experience to be able to understand fully what I am saying. All I can say is that God's love is neverending, indescribable, uncomparable, infinite, and most of all breathtaking. Why breathtaking? Because once you understand the feeling, you come to realize SO much from one simple aspect, that it is like being winded by something and then your reaction is almost literally like "HOLY CRAP." This is all I will say about the summer of '08.

September was a huge leap into nothingness for me. Starting university is a pretty big step for anyone that has their future set in sight. I, being blind, just went along with everyone and stuck myself into a spot in university as well. I don't want to get angry with this topic, but if you are reading this and you are applying into university without any real direction or goals but is doing it just because it seems like the right thing to do, please recheck yourself. University, although a great experience on the bigger life, is not absolutely necessary for people. It's just that it has become like a standard of this world for people to be able to have a university education to be able to succeed. If you feel you have a path in university, go ahead and get into it. If you're not sure and hesitant, don't force yourself in right away. I personally think it is better to take some time off to do some searching instead of wasting a semester or two taking useless courses and wasting money. Please trust me on this one.

The time between September and December didn't have anything that stuck out too much for me because I spent a lot of time thinking and searching and just contemplating in general. After graduating from high school, you see your life really open up and you are forced to step up to the plate or else you are going to fall behind and end up having to play catch up, which is not the best thing to do. The university experience has been treating me okay so far, but my resistance toward it does not allow me to experience it to the fullest. Novembers and Decembers have not been good months for me for the past few years. I always seem to hit some kind of a low during these periods of time. I guess, in a sense, this complements the stat of December being the month with the highest suicide or death rate. However, even through low times, I refuse to give myself in to the world because I truly believe I am strong enough to fight out of it because God has done amazing things in my life and I wake up each day thanking God for all that I have. Each person lives their own life, their own path and encounters their own struggles. That is why if some of you think that your struggles have been far more painful than mine, I would like to politely disagree. On a universal scale, a LOT of people live a harder life than I do. However, because of the way God runs things, each person is given their own personal challenges and they go through them in whatever way God has planned. Lows will be lows and highs will be highs. God does not give us more than we can handle which is why in a ratio stand point, the degree of things are much the same in all of us.

I think I will conclude it here for my year in review, and I am having a hard time of deciding whether I should put all my 2009 thoughts here or on a seperate entry.

Okay I will put 2009 on a different entry because this post is much too long, and it is a slightly different topic. So I hope everyone enjoyed a meaningful year and gained more than they lost, experienced the magnificance of God, and much more. Remember to love yourself, love people, and most importantly love God because He first loved us.

Live high.

1:16 a.m., January 1, 2009

Sense of Responsibility

Just need to get rid of some steam..

What good is it to have something you are so passionate about, the burning desire to share it with others so could be enlightened, just to have it completely ignored? I've been doing some thinking last night and this morning and when you look at a church, specifically a congregation, you generally see someone at the top as a leader which is usually a pastor. It is a pastor's job to inform us of the way God wants us to live our lives. A pastor's job is perhaps one of the most difficult in the world because of continuous attacks from not just Satan but people who "don't like your style". It drives me fricken nuts to be a part of a group that fails to live up to what a follower of Jesus is supposed to. Of course no one can live the perfect life that Jesus lived, but we're obviously supposed to strive towards something like that the best we can. We fail, a lot, but it's because of God's love that we can get up each time we fall to try again. When you see a pastor trying so hard to spark the rest of the church into living a better life, just to see and be part of the ignorance that comes after is so frustrating. Time and time again, we're reminded that church is not to only be done on fridays or sundays but every moment of our lives, and time and time again, we go out into our lives, and KNOWING that we should try to live good Christian lives, but choose not to do so. I will be the first to admit that my secular life compared to my church life isn't exactly of the same life. My do believe that my church life is dominant over my secular life but I have to be able to get the "church" aspect over into the secular life to be able to live even fuller of what God wants. When a pastor works so hard trying to reach to a congregation that chooses to ignore for the most part, who's fault is it that we are so weak and faithless? Church is something to be excited about because we get to practice the privilege that we have to be able to worship God freely, but instead all that I see is the appearance of apathetic people who could be much happier being elsewhere. There is almost no evidence of the sense of responsibility that comes with being a follower of Christ and it doens't even seem like it's about to change. The effort does not seem to be there at all when it comes to walking the talk. What good is it to be inspired by someone or something but to ignore it. I'm sure that if we want to accomplish something bad enough, we will take the initiative to go and achieve it, but where is that same want when on the topic of living a Christian life? Okay, fine, sometimes we may have a little streak of living some good days or weeks doing good for God, but a few weeks out of a lifetime is next to nothing. To see someone have to take the fall for something that they intently worked towards is the worst one you can take. Just think about it. You're working so hard to achieve something, to send inspiration, to enlighten people with the knowledge you're blessed with, just to be ignored and ultimately have to take the fall because the people chose not to take on your inspiration and live it up. It's not fair. It's not fair for someone to have to take the fall for something he has no control over. It instills the sense of failure that no one likes to experience. I know, I've been there myself. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore, that's how angry I am with, I guess mainly myself. But who the hell am I to say anything when I am to blame for someone else's fall?

Livin' It Up - 'Naked and Personal'

So yesterday I went out, and under some peer pressue, bought myself a pair of Nudie jeans. It was on sale and cost me 150 bucks instead of 200, so I guess it was somewhat of a fair deal. Incase you're reading this and don't know what Nudies are, they're a brand of jeans that are raw and dry denim. This just means you wear 'em for 6-12 months without washing so the colors fade out nicely and mold to your own skin becoming like a second skin layer.

I'm not entirely the biggest freak about jeans but I figured that since I had to buy myself a pair of jeans because it was jeans galore yesterday, I might as well give this a try. So now I've got to live up to not washing my jeans for atleast six months.. Hopefully I don't fail (= Honestly, I don't know if I can get to six months because I like things clean. So if I stop at two or three months, I can atleast say I tried, but wasted 150 dollars on this experiment. I've worn it for one day and I've already seen the denim rub off on certain places in the house.. Hehe, oops =D I've seen a very light shade of blue on the chair I sit in during hockey games, and most obvious of all, it gets on my fingers ><

So umm, let's see where this heads in the next half a year or so..

Start date: December 26, 2008

Devil's Advocate

This "job" is so freakin' fun. I know it's not a good thing to be like paparazzi and going around snooping at things, but when they happen right before you, and you're a loser like I am, you can't ignore it. Life is full of drama and events and all that kind of stuff. And what I like to do is kind of be like the person watching the movie or reading the book and try to play things out in my head and seeing which actually happens.

I. Am. Such. A. Noob. But I love it, the amount of speculation and possibilities is just too fun to not care about.

The Slam

I just finished watching the second Chronicles of Narnia movie entitled Prince Caspian. I missed this movie when it came out with a bunch of other ones a while back and I regret not watching it in the theatres. One reason is that a movie of this calibre doesn't deserve to be watched on a tiny 29' in my rather large bonus room. Another is that C. S. Lewis is just loaded with great messages in his writings. It's been a pretty eventful weekend for me and capping it off with a great movie was really refreshing.

I am extremely tired right now so I probably will say a couple of weird things without wanting to. I have a couple of thoughts on the movie though. First and foremost, the ending because it is still fresh, that scene where Susan kisses Caspian was completely unnecessary and stuck out like a sore thumb. I don't even think it happened in the book, but I could be wrong because Prince Caspian was one of the books I did not read in the series. But overall, I think it was a really good movie. C.S Lewis continues to amaze me with the amount of hidden messages that are in his pieces of work. All that I came across kind of reinforces what I've been thinking about lately with the advent weeks of Christmas as well, so I will try to briefly list them out because I've captured them in my mind and is escaping me.

A little bit before this "4 weeks of advent" began, I started thinking something when I was trying to sleep. Hope is a word that has been completely butchered by our society and has nearly completely lost its meaning. I was laying in my bed and I was thinking about alot of stuff, which I will not mention. And then all of a sudden, a thought came to my mind that I could not believe I had just thought. I was pretty shocked at what it was because when I thought about what I had just thought(sounds weird), I looked at the word "hope" in a way that I have never before. Then all of a sudden, oddly enough, we come to the week of "hope" during the 4 weeks of advent and I get reminded of what real hope means. It's when you have absolutely nothing left, and you are hoping that tomorrow may bring some sort of happiness to your life, to be able to get by the day with enough to eat, or a place to sleep, etc. Of course what I thought about wasn't about enough to eat or to sleep, it was on a different scale but I still think it can be related to the same degree. We get "hope" mixed up so often with "wish" that it really doesn't mean a big difference between someone saying "I hope I can get by tomorrow without being hurt" or "I hope I can have a 8 oz. steak tomorrow".

Again, I don't like people to have to worry about me because it's not worth it. But no one reads this anyway, so it's all good =D But after watching Prince Caspian, a very refreshing assurance gave me some peace in knowing that God is all powerful and as long as we keep seeking Him, things WILL be okay and tomorrow will be a better day. Like Aslan said a couple times, things never happen twice the exact same way. This phrase also is good because it helps you realize that just because God came through once a certain way, does not mean he'll do it the second time exactly the same way. Why? Because if God keeps coming to save our butts everytime we end up at the same spot, we'll never learn and we will never learn to go seek God like Lucy did. You must have faith to cross the bridge where you find Christ so you can see Him face to face.

I don't know, the messages that mister C.S Lewis has in his stories is just too much for a tired and sleepy boy like me right now. There is so much I could write on but I cannot put it into words right now so it will have to wait.

Destination Known - I Will Go

The Aftermath

I officially finished my first semester of post-secondary education yesterday. The amount of relief was incredible, not because I was exhausted from studying or anything, but because it's finally over. Looking back at the first semester, in a lot of ways, it can be deemed a failure of a semester but I don't like to see things that way. It was definitely a good learning experience for me to know what it's like being in university. In the past, I was able to get by without studying much at all, but now 90% of it comes from effort, so if you don't do your daily reviews and stuff, you're screwed, simple as that. I believe that's pretty common sense and obvious right? It is for me, but actually doing it isn't as easy as it may seem for a lot of people that have been doing it for years. I don't have the work ethic or motivation necessary to be able to do it, which makes my biggest weakness. It's a challenge for me to get up off my ass and open a textbook or binder and study my crap. And even when I do get to the point where I open up my books, staying focused is the next problem that I have because I get bored and distracted very easily; school not being a very high interest just adds to that. Then my efficiency of studying comes into play. Even if I somehow stay focused, I'm very inefficient at studying because of the lack of consistancy of studying over the years.

All in all, I've screwed myself over.

I became one of the many who went to university for the sake of going to university. It's a parent's dream to have their kids go into university and receive a degree in something that they love doing and end up with a good stable career somewhere down the road. So because everyone else is doing it, I did it too, and ultimately I went in blind. Going into university for the sole purpose of going in is pretty stupid if you ask me. I am applied for a BA in music major, but is that what I really want to do? Some might think so because I love music so much, but no, studying music is not even close to what I want to do for a career. Even if it was, I wouldn't know what kind of job I'd end up having with a music major. My take on music is another discussion so I won't say much more.

My first impressions of university were not too bad. I liked watching everyone scramble all over the place, people chillin and so proud that now they're living the 'big life', etc. But what about me? I am only here because this is where the crowd is. I went into university with a purpose of trying to find my passions so I can decide what I might want to pursue. I also figured that because I'm a year younger than most people, it'd be okay to use my first year to my advantage to find what I want. However, as the year progresses, I'm starting to think more and more that this year is making absolutely no progress in terms of finding my direction. Ultimately, this year could not be a bigger waste. I would make more progress in life if I took a year off and went to work or find something else to do instead of just going through the motions of a university life.

University is definitely what people say it is, but is it absolutely necessary? For a person like me, I don't think so, but that is because I have no direction in life. I wasted a semester taking courses that I don't even like, and yet I can't find anything decent enough to replace it. If this is not a semester gone to waste, I don't know what is. And it's not like I can say that I did well in this semester either. Calling grades like Cs and Ds progress is like watching the Toronto Maple Leafs game after game saying they're a good team and getting better.

But then again, who the hell should listen to what I have to say. For a majority of the people, university is the right direction to head because they already have their sights set on something achievable. Someone like me who's just wandering aimlessly shouldn't even have their opinion taken into account by anyone. I just hope that there's a hidden path somewhere out there that someone like me can find because I cannot possibly see myself doing another 3 years and a semester of this university business. Things take time and rushing it sometimes only make it worse. I will leave things here for now because I want to enjoy this Christmas...

OneRepublic - Stop and Stare

Halfway Home

You would think that me not having anything written for over a week would be because I'm studying for exams. Har har har, that is so not true. Exams are intimidating. I am done three exams and two left so I am almost there. I should be studying now but guess what? I choose to blog instead! Anyways..

This past weekend was a very relaxing weekend. I haven't felt such satisfaction in a weekends rest in a very long time. Saturday was lots of fun and business.. busyness.. how do you spell busy-ness? Our english congregation christmas celebration was loads of fun. Good food, good people, good performances, it was a lot of fun to be apart of. Sunday was cool too. For some reason, I think I might have been drunk or something because I have almost no memory of leading worship other than clapping. Weird. But other than that, I do think that I was pretty happy with our worship because it was pretty good all around. I admit that I should've picked either saturday or sunday to put some studying time into, but I chose neither. This just means I will have to be studying even more today and tomorrow. Oh well.

There is only 10 days left till Christmas! Two days until I am done my first term of university!

Fever

All the hype that is brought up when Christmas season approaches is insane! I'm reading the papers, watching the tele, on the intraweb, etc., it's all over the place! The media and the world definitely does a good job bringing attention and excitement for this holiday season. This is causing me an incredible increase in heart rate because I am looking forward and backwards into my memory bank with all the good times I've had and all the fun I've experienced during the holiday season: skiing, presents, friends, etc. Another reason for the increased heart rate is the lack of studying it's causing me! Here I go all excited about so many things and all that jazz, it just gives me absolutely no motivation to study, gay. I'm in holiday mode already =D

Also, I've just got a new number for anyone that cares.. Let me know if you want to know it, because I don't want to put it here and have like a million people try to sell me stuff =D

Happy Holidays!

One Moment

"If you had one shot, one oppurtunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it? Or just let it slip? -Eminem (Lose Yourself)

I feel that it's really important that you be able to recognize what inspiration is and when it is there. Since we only live each moment once, we have to be able to recognize oppurtunities and any inspiration that comes our way. Being able to recognize inspiration is the first step. The second step is to be able to capture the moment. It's something I'm not very good at. Inspiration comes at me left and right and I always let it slip by failing to find a useful way to capture the oppurtunity. It probably doesn't mean all that much but realizing that you only experience each second once, this makes every encounter unique. You don't get to live it again so if you let oppurtunities and inspirations pass by without being captured, it sometimes sucks because there are times when you find yourself looking back to a time when you felt a certain way or thought certain things, but you can't remember.

So if you can recognize inspiration, and be able to capture it, it will lead to many awesome things. Take advantage of what you can because if you dont, it's only to your disadvantage in the long run.

That Time Again

It's that time of the year again. November has now ended and December starts tomorrow. When December roles around, everyone knows what's happening: it's Christmas time! I am really excited for Christmas, not only for the presents, but also for the long break from school. One thing I really wish for this Christmas is for there to be snow. A couple years ago I experienced my first snowless Christmas and it was somewhat depressing in that aspect. December starts tomorrow, so I hope it will start snowing and that it will stay on the ground instead of melt away.

I've noticed something recently. Novembers absolutely hate me. I look back on the past few years and Novembers have been the most miserable time of the year for me, and I wonder why. I could go on stating why it is so, but that wouldn't really accomplish anything. Some of my darkest moments of my life happen during the months of November and that is all that needs to be said.

With that being said, I always look forward to Decembers! This year particularly because after thirteen years of two week breaks for Christmas and the New Years, I technically get a month now! Of course I have to work hard on my finals and not let $2500 go to waste for my first semester of university but I would like to dwell in the fact that it's holiday season again. There are so many things to look forward during the month of December. Christmas is always fun and cool where you get to hang out with your family and friends and just have a blast of a time and share great memories somewhere down the road. I, personally look forward to boxing day. I was talking to a friend a while back about how I only need to shop twice a year. Boxing day is one of them. I am loading myself up for this one as I anticipate to be making a few big purchases for myself (= If you want to know, one has to do with my favorite hockey team and another has to do with the one thing that dominates my life other than God. This gets me pretty hyped, I'll admit. To me, December is also a month of reflection and to finish off the year strong. I don't think enough people do reflections and thinking because it's one of the things that allows someone to be a very driven character. I treasure my reflective/thinking time greatly because it allows me to assess who I am and what's going on in my life and what I need to do to make myself a better person. December is also a time to look back to the past January and say, "oh look! I broke my New Year's resolutions in just a matter of a couple weeks." I do that almost every year.

Song of the month this December could quite possibly be "Last Christmas", but I won't elaborate why
(= Here's to hoping everyone has a blissed and blessed month of December.

No Stoppin' You

For anyone going through tough times, you've got to love yourself.

Climb up over the top
Survey the state of the soul
You’ve got to find out for yourself whether or not you’re truly trying
Why not give it a shot?
Shake it, take control and inevitably wind up
Finding for yourself all the strengths you have inside still rising.

Because once you hit the top there's no stoppin' you.

Awestruck

Have you ever come across something that just made you smile and go "awwwww"? I'm sure you have. Welp, I've been experiencing this feeling of awestruck for a little over a week. Now, I am almost desperate for something to fill me up.

I've become such a soft person...

Conscious

In psych, we're learning about consciousness right now, and I have to admit that although I am in a subconscious state 90% of the time in that class, I absorb quite a bit of things that my prof lectures about.

If you are weird enough to think about it like I am, how awkward is it to come to the realization that you're alive and living the life you are living? I think I may have come to this result a few times over the last year or so. There were a couple times that I wondered, "wow, how in the world did I end up living this life? Am I really apart of reality, or is this life all just a figment of imagination and we're somehow caught in some illusion or some other weird dimension kind of thing?" To me, living the seventeen years that I have so far, among the most fascinating things I've ever come to finding was that this is me! Get where I'm going? Everything I'm typing right now, is from me. I somehow was put into this life; I'm living it; seventeen years have gone by, and everything around me is so real, or atleast they seem to be. Life itself is such a mystery because you only get to live as one person. Our world is not supernatural enough to call the supernatural, natural. Because of this, we only live one life and experience all there is to experience that is within your control. Then pops the question into your mind: How do I know that I am not the only person that actually exists and everything else around me is just one big image created by my brain? In psych you learn that your eye sees things but your brain is what translate what your eye sees so your consciousness can understand it. When your eye is tricked, your brain can't seem to process everything that is in front of your eyes which causes you to be confused. We also have a blind spot in our eyes and when something crosses our blind spot, we actually don't see anything there but our brain assumes what is there based on what is around it. So considering all of this, how do we know that everything around us is actually there existing and not just imagination played out by our brain. Well the obvious answer for anyone reading this would be, "duh, I'm reading this right now, and you wrote it, so that means it has to be existing." I normally don't like to challenge people, but how can you be certain of it?

I guess this is just one of the amazing mysteries of life and something we as a single human cannot come to fully understanding. It's quite possible that I am just overthinking everything and the answer is very obvious and I'm just missing it. I also think alot of my thoughts were lost in translation from my brain to the keyboard, haha. Life is a test from God right? If we past the test, we get to go to heaven. So what if each person has their own life in front of them. They live their life, and everything else is generated and designed to be able to throw these challenges at a person. Therefore, each person lives a seperate life and experiences different things. Then when it is all over, we all meet happily in heaven for those that have passed.

Yeah, I know I'm weird. But the only way anyone could become smarter and more experienced is by thinking and pursuing. So here I am, just another inexperienced and young person thinking about why things are they way they are; don't mind me.

Every Little Thing

Courage, the magic that turns dreams into reality.

This past week was slightly different. It was a three day week, which killed me; I bought the game that I have been waiting for since forever, etc. I think my work ethic and motivation for school has been completely shot. After my three midterm day, I have not found any desire or motivation to do any school work; buying Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World brought down my desire to do anything school related even more. I will openly admit and be ashamed of being the epitome of a slack-off for the past two weeks. However, I don't want to be spending an entire post being emo and ranting about how horrible I am of a person.

So, now to my geeky side =D First impressions of Tales of Symphonia 2 have been pretty decent. I have to admit that this game is rather linear compared to the first one. I like things to be very open ended but I guess I cannot complain because the producers ran out of time. Aside from that, and other minor mediocrisies of this game, I have been fairly impressed with this game's story. I love it when people are continually left guessing and makes you think. For those people who are not so bright on the common sense side, play more RPG games because they make you think. The cheesy love story between Emil and Marta is also laughable. Whether that is good or bad depends on the state you are at. For me, it's a little mixed. Let's see how many classes I skip this week to play this game, lol <_<

*REMINDER TO DO MY STUPID ENGLISH ESSAY*

Now more to my spiritual side of things. I wish that the thoughts and feelings that come to me during the week relating to God and how amazing He is and the situation of living life could be put into words either in text or vocally. We are told to go and spread the good news about the gospel and about God's love, to let God's inspiration in you be inspiration to others. But I am finding it hard to be able to translate this inspiration into a useful method that I can maybe use to draw other people to experiencing some amazing things that I've had. There is actually alot that is going through my mind right now and all I can say to anyone who wants to know is to chase after God. Have a burning desire in you that makes you want to feel for what God can do. I've come to the conclusion that the only thing I can do as of my experience level is to inspire people or encourage to pursue God to see what He can offer to you. If anyone likes me enough to care about this(lol), and get to experience something along the lines of what I'm talking about, I will be happy beyond my sanity level holds. Today we had a guest speaker with Ps. Jon Kramer and I could not put it in better words than he did: living life following Jesus is not easy, but it is worth it. The part that really hit me was that all we're doing is 100% worth it; when you finally feel that sense of fulfillment or accomplishment, the satisfaction you have with yourself and all that is around you is beyond belief. Give it a try, it's worth it.

Be the change you want to see in this world, and every little thing is gonna be alright.

Relaxing Bummer

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.

I have been waiting for this RPG for a LONG time, and it got released today. However, since today is Rememberance Day, shipping gets delayed and no store knows when the game will arrive.. bummer. A couple factors play into this:

1) I am a rabid RPG fan. Since Tales of Symphonia got released for the gamecube, it had become my second all time favorite game adding up to 8 completions of the game for me (= This game was so good, it was only reasonable for the hype for the sequel to this game.
2) Since Baten Kaitos: Origins, I have not played any RPG game, and it has been well over a couple years and I am definitely RPG starved now.
3) On top of being RPG starved, I really have not been playing games at all the last year or so. So there is a craving inside of me that wants to play games again.. Every guy should have their fair share of games right? I am not much of a gamer anyways.. I just like my RPGs.

I will be checking stores constantly looking for this game <_< I don't care what reviews or people say about it, this game has top notch story lines and that's usually what I play for anyway.

On the other hand, so much for "fall break". I would've thought this four day weekend called "fall break" would be a week or so. But I have to be thankful because I have been able to relax and do absolutely nothing (basically what I do everyday). So what have I done this long weekend? Absolutely nothing. I just remember literally like a few seconds ago that I was gonna change my guitar strings, but I haven't, oops. Definitely feels good to do nothing again though.. But now it's all over and I've got to start working on stuff again because there's only a little over three weeks of school left.. Why does university suck so much?

It's been a good break, now it's time to go and git'r done.

Woohoo! Go Oilers!

King

Psalm 46:10 --
"Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

Isaiah 40:28-31 --
"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

1 John 5-7 --
"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,"

There's no denying the truth.

Dynamo of Volition

.. This is a post about.. well, nothing! I just feel like wasting a few more minutes before I hit the sack because I've been tired the past couple days. Well, what to rant about then? Obama will be the president of the U.S of A for the next term and here's to a better future for the States! Congrats Obama, you deserved this sweet victory.

I am beginning to fail in my hockey pool. I can barely hold onto my first place now as I see three maybe four teams creep up on me. I am trying to hold myself from making too many changes to my team because this is just a bust period for me. If I make too many changes, things could go downhill for the rest of the season. Hang in there!

The NHL schedules suck, period. They get progressively worse every year, I mean, seriously. The way the games are formatted nowadays is just horrible. You could have a 4 day span where you watch your team 3 times, and then have to wait 4 or 5 days just to see the next game. It makes me angry to have the schedule in chunks. I'd rather see it every second day, that way I'd have something to be excited about each day. But what the heck, it's not my job and it's really hard creating schedules so I shouldn't complain. But on that note, I am looking forward to the next few games the Oilers play. They will be very intense as it will be very challenging for us to beat Pittsburgh, Jersey and the Rangers.

Just want to tell you guys something..

"I've got the dynamo of volition,
po-pole position, automatic transmission
with l-ow emissions.
I'm a brand new addition to the old edition
with the love unconditional.
And I'm a drama abolitionist,
damn no opposition to my proposition:
half of a man, half magician,
half a politician holdin' the mic.
Like ammunition, my vision is simple as light.
There ain't no reason we should be in a fight
demolition, get a vote to say what you'd like.
Procreation propositions already written by themselves,
heck is for the people not believin' in gosh.

Good job, get 'em up way high, gimme gimme that high five."

-- Don't let your mind stop you from having a good time.

November

Halloween just past, and I had a pretty fun time at church helping with the Hallelujah Party we decided to revive after many years of absence. We set up some pretty wicked games for the kids to play in all night so they can win some stuff and have some fun. Once again, the dark maze made of cardboards was the unofficial main event of our games. Kau did a really good job with this one. It was incredibly squishy, even for someone like me, but it was much better than the 1st one we did many years back.

Aside from Halloween, I was surprised at the productiveness of myself throughout this week of school. I attempted study each day from monday to even today, sunday. I was successful on every day except wednesday. Wednesday was probably my least productive day where I only studied for an hour. The real reason for the sudden surge in producitivity was because I have been blessed with three back to back midterms tomorrow starting bright and early at 9:00am and ending at 12:00pm. Yep, three hours of midterms, what fun! So I managed to get through everything I need to know. The only concern is hoping my memory will hold up because of the amount of info I need to store in my head. Hopefully I can do well and raise my horrifying averages to something less scary. Good luck to everyone entering round two of midterms!

Two months of university gone, and it feels like it's only been a few weeks. Pace is insanely fast and I have no idea what happened to the last two months. I will attempt to, at the beginning of each month, write up some goals that I want to achieve.. Why? It's the only way I can be productive. I have to make schedules for myself throughout a week just so I can do homework and stuff like that. So you might say it takes more to get me going, which is probably true.

Definitely looking to get back on track with school this month. I need to set myself straight and keep up with each days materials: this means I have to probably read each chapter of soc or psych before I start them, take some time to review what I did each day, get homework done fast. I have the confidence that I can do this, odd but true, I am feeling I can turn this around really soon (= Since I work fast and learn fast, I will have a bit of free time, this also comes as being an arts student, haha. So I am definitely hoping I can: start up devotions again, find some new ways to inspire, practice some guitar, improve my stinkin' hockey pool, do something new and inventive! Like writing a song or something, it's been a long time goal of mine.

Welp, definitely a challenge that I can succeed in. Let's start by doing well on tomomrrows midterms. Hopefully I will be able to do decent, I know I am not the kind of guy that can memorize every detail, but I have enough info in my head that I know generally how everything works.

I am also looking forward to the new Tales of Symphonia game titled Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. The sequel to the first one, brings a bit of hype!

Fall term break, here I come!

SUPERPOWERS!

If I were to have one, it'd be some sorta telekinesis thing. The same power that Matt Parker from Heroes has -- except better. It'd be my kinda thing to be able to control things with my brain. I'd be able to control people's minds by putting thoughts into them and making them see things. On top of that I'd be able to move objects with my mind. Wouldn't that be something? I wouldn't mind at all if I had to start of weaksauce and train myself up; it'd be worth every moment of training.

Sorry I'm watching Heroes and Naruto too much. But hey, a kid can dream right?

SUPERPOWERS!

The Older I Get

The more you learn, the less you know; does that not sound crazy or what? You learn something new everyday; the older you get, the more you learn, but does that mean you know more? Two concecutive uses of semi-colons! Alright, I am so acing my next essay =D

When I was watching some videos today, I realized something. As life progresses, the more you learn from all the experiences you gain, the less you actually know. Do you see what I'm getting at? Everytime you learn something new that you find interesting, it just opens up more questions about that certain thing or other things. Kind of like the show Heroes. Yes, I am promoting that show right now. I'll admit the second season was not nearly as good as the first season, but hey, it's the sophomore jynx right? The third season has been running for a month or so now, and I have to say that the writers for this show are absolute genius'. Each show you watch, you're left hanging and you just have a billion questions about what is going on and what will happen next. That is exactly what I'm trying to get at here! I don't want to spoil anything here but everytime they reveal something, you are so amazed and you are left with so many questions that branched from one event. It's just amazing.. both the show and the concept.

So here's to never stop learning, simply because it's impossible. Even the extremist who chooses to set their minds focuses on not learning anything. By doing that, they learn about themself that they are able to live without learning, and then they learn that it is impossible to not learn. By this, they will know that they can't seem to not learn and this will cause them to spring many questions and alternatives to what they could maybe achieve or attempt to achieve from this experience.

Don't stop wiggle, wiggle.

Work Ethic

Well, I haven't had a rant type of thing in a while and I believe I have to end that streak now. I normally do not like to worry or be negative about things, but I just feel like helping myself make a bit of a declaration to make a change in my life that is needed.

Ever since grade 7, my need to do homework or study had gone down so much that my work ethic dissolved into nothingness. Throughout junior high, I barely needed to study, even for the bigger exams. I was able to get by with my common sense coming out with pretty good marks at the end of grade 9. I think that if I had to guess how much time I spent studying in all three years of junior high, it would have to amount to about four or five hours of productive studying - no more. Then grade 10 came, a new chapter, a new world. I was still able to not do much work to finish the year with honors. There were signs though that the lack of working would eventually take it's toll and catch up to me making me pay for my laziness. And finally, in grade 11, I took heavy, heavy drops in my grades because I simply did not do homework or study. My marks dropped at such a fast rate that I could not even believe that I was getting these marks. There was no hiding it. My parents wanted me to do good, they even gave me incentives to work; The standards that I were to meet kept getting lower and lower but I still could not get them.

Then grade 12 started and that is when I hit my low with these things called grades. I was fortunate enough to recover by the end of the year to get an average very close to honors but my lack of working was still evident. It has been something that I am constantly being reminded of and something I have been trying to correct for a very long time. The laziness I have developed has turned into my biggest weakness as a person. I am so lucky that this weakness of mine doesn't affect anyone other than me. Then again, it disappoints my parents to have to see me doing nothing all day and could possibly give them a sense that I just don't want to try, which is not the case at all. I mean, everyone has something that they need improvements in. It's very obvious that someone is only as strong as their weakest point. The thing with me is that my laziness is so strong in me, I could have the biggest determination in the world and still end up doing no more than a math assignment or two. It bothers me daily and I wish very much that I can fix this problem of mine, but as of right now, it just isn't working. Building up over six years of my life, it isn't something that will just happen overnight where I wake up the next day and have the world of a work ethic.

I believe I have the right mindset because I always wake up everyday looking forward to what the day gives me and how I respond to things. The only problem is executing. I am just absolutely horrible at it. I would tell people that I need to go home to do homework or to study with good intentions. But when I get home, everything falls apart and I am found doing something else. I wake up, go to school, come home, play some guitar, go on my laptop, watch TV, go on the laptop, play guitar, eat supper, go on laptop, play some guitar, and finally go to sleep. That is what most of my days look like with an odd occassion of an hour or so to finish an assignment. I am getting owned for my lack of studying; homework gets finished for sure, but barely.

I guess all I can do is just keep with my mindset and have patience with myself. Six years of my young life seems like alot, but like I said, I am still young and to be able to change myself comes alot easier now than 20 or 30 years down the road. I am still positive with myself to set goals each morning to get a certain amount finished. Of course, I finish each day disappointed that I have done next to nothing, but I believe that, like everything else, each day my determination will grow stronger and stronger and I am sure I will eventually be able to break this habit of laziness because that's just the way life works.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - the Great One. Everyone should have heard this before. So if you may have similar situations that I face, I encourage you to, no matter how hopeless it seems, to keep your attention in the right place and to be determined for change. It is better for you to atleast give it a shot than to do nothing at all but whine, because when you tell your mind to try, you create chance for success no matter how small it is.

Now let's see what happens with my math midterm tomorrow.

Guitaring

So uhh, (how many have my posts started like that, haha) I'd been granted permission by Andrea to join in her PT practice this past saturday to play a bit of guitar. Now for those of you that don't know, I don't own an amp because it is too expensive; I do not own one of those adaptor things to plug my earphones in either. With this lack of resourse, I cannot practice guitar on a regular basis-electric guitar, that is. The only time I do get to play with my electric is once every three weeks for an hour or so during practice at church. Whenever I do get to play though, I have to sing as well.. Yeah that's right, I sing, not very good at it but I do indeed sing.

Being able to join in on practice was pretty cool I think. I got to just play guitar and not have to think about singing. When I was heading over to church, I told myself "I can finally have a chance to just make music with the guitar, see how much I've improved." Playing today alongside Jonny and Deryk was pretty cool. It definitely brought back the times before I actually led a worship team of just being able to focus on guitar. When I started playing, I said to myself, "wow, I've gotten so much better without even practicing for ages!" I was pretty excited for sure. It's pretty cool how knowledge of music can translate into sweet new things on the guitar for me. A weird thing about me is that everytime I learn something new about music, whether that be a chord, a progression, a sequence, or whatever, I am able to see a whole load of stuff I can apply it to on either songs, piano or guitar. I don't know, I look forward to the next coolest thing I learn on the guitar.. Maybe some different patches and stuff

My passion for the guitar has been renewed, the joy I get from it is like none before, I feel like learning guitar songs, and definitely look forward to my next guitar jam session with whoever... Guess what? I seem to have forgotten what I wanted to say again. Thank you msn for distracting me while I'm trying to blog! But while one thought was lost, another has risen.

These are the guitar products I am currently saving up for:

Line 6 POD X3 Live
A good chunk of durable picks (100 or so)

The POD X3 Live is rather expensive... So that's stab me in the chest pretty hard when I save enough money and buy it.

Keep on rockin' to it. Please don't stop the music.

Childlike Wildlife

I cannot put enough stress on how important someone's childhood is. I don't even know if anyone cares enough to remember what their childhood was like. My childhood is amongst my top values in my own life. When you think back to being a kid, what do you see? For me, I see a few things that stand out right away. As a child, you are pure, innocent, clean, and to an extent oblivious. When I was a kid, still am in a way but not for long, I was very free, I didn't worry about life itself, I didn't have all these stresses that an adult life can bring. Life was very adventurous, each day brings a new and refreshing experience as you begin to build your life of morals and beliefs and values. I personally think you learn more in the first chunk of your life than you do the rest of it combined. Some may agree, some might not, that's fine. A child's life is so precious because these first ten or so years of a life defines what the person is like for much of the years ahead of him/her. If a child is raised a certain way, it only makes sense that the child has that type of a personality unless something drastic happens.

Where I'm going with this, is that I heavily encourage people that even though we grow older, as we mature, we should keep the child-like spirit of freedom and adventure no matter where we go. "Staying young at heart" is a term thats probably more commonly used to describe this. Umm, I'm not sure how someone may view this topic, but to me, it's how I can stay so "free" and relaxed all the time.

There was a couple times where I got asked how I would be able to keep up with this persistance and blog or write so often about so many things. This question ultimately lead me to typing this blog entry, yay. But I often tell people that it's about where you choose to put your attention. As life gets older, things become more routine-like; meaning you wake up, go to school/work, work your butt off, go home and go to sleep and repeat. Doesn't this bore you? Then you could probably ask, "then how do you keep it fresh?" Like I said, it's about what you choose to look at. This is where the child's mind comes into play.

You live each day as if you're starting a new life, then you go out and wait for things to come your way. It's not hard, you just have to look in the right places. Even if it means, daydreaming in class, you shouldn't let your mind prevent you from having a good time. Just let loose once in a while. Sometimes you just feel like dancing, singing, jumping.. but then your mind suddenly comes and tells you "hey man, that's not cool, people will think you're weird." It may not be that extreme but you should just let it happen. It allows you to be so much more freer in a sense that you experience something new everyday. By allowing things to just happen, you come into contact with so much more and you kinda just feed off of that. Let the environment around you influence you, then you'll be filled with thoughts and all that kind of cool things. Dwelling amongst the world is a pretty fun thing once you get used to it, if you ask me.

A big reason why people will stress or worry is because they let it get into their mind's way. Just take each task one at a time, sit down, work at it, and when you're finished, you can just slap it in the face and be like "done with you." Then move on.

... And my train of thought dies. If you've read everything up to right now, I wouldn't be surprised if you are confused out of your mind. I pretty much just sat here and wrote for the past half an hour; I know it isn't alot but you have to take into account the distractions of msn. So I mentioned a few things about a child's free mind in there and that's what I did. Something inspired me today and I decided that I'm gonna let this topic into my head, then I'm just going to write about it until my thoughts end. As for the meanings of this, I'll let whoever stumbles upon it to interpret it in whatever way you want, whether that be inspiration or just insightful knowledge. Afterall, it wouldn't be cool if I tried to indoctrinate people into living the loser-ish life that I live right? =D But ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that we should keep a childish side to us.. One that's slightly foolish, daring, adventurous; this keeps things new in life. This is how I get my inspiration to make the creations in my contemplation indoctrination, a beautiful fixation as you find yourself surrounded by His love and mercy. Try it. It's worth every moment.

Much thanks to Jason Mraz and the comfort of God's grace as my top inspiration to live high and righteously

Edmonton Oilers 2008-2009 Season [Predictions]

As I am a loser, I have a guilty pleasure of predicting hockey stats and stuff to such a detail that it's pretty sad. Here are some predictions for the Oilers 08-09 season that I have somehow come up with. Don't ask me why the specific number, it's just the most logical one I can come up with in my head. As I am such an optimist for the team, especially after the win tonight, I will definitely over predict on some stats. Here goes nothing...

Edmonton Oilers record(82 game season):
45-30-7 [97 points] 6th in the West

Edmonton Oilers player statistics(prorated for 82 games): [Goals-Assists-Points]
Ales Hemsky: 24-61-85
Shawn Horcoff: 27-46-73
Sam Gagner: 20-40-60
Erik Cole: 25-32-57
Lubomir Visnovsky: 13-42-55
Dustin Penner: 26-26-52
Andrew Cogliano: 21-29-50
Robert Nilsson: 15-35-50
Sheldon Souray: 15-32-47
Tom Gilbert: 14-31-45
Fernando Pisani: 16-20-36
Kyle Brodziak: 15-18-33
Ethan Moreau: 14-17-31
Denis Grebeshkov: 9-20-29
Marc Pouliot: 8-15-23
Zach Stortini: 5-10-15
Jason Strudwick: 2-8-10
Ladislav Smid: 1-5-6
Steve MacIntyre: 1-3-4
**Rob Schremp: 4-9-13
**Gilbert Brule: 5-7-12
**Theo Peckham: 0-3-3
**Taylor Chorney: 1-2-3

** If the three prospects do get called up, which is pretty likely and play a bunch of games based on their given circumstances, that is how many points I'll expect them to get at the very most.

So ultimately, I think my predictions are within a reasonable range. This being said, it is assumed that each player improves on what they accomplished last year, which is expected. I think it's pretty obvious that something could happen and my predictions be absolutely balogne, but nonetheless, this would be the ideal point projection assuming our team can live up to our potential which is also expected. So I hope some of our players can totally prove me wrong and do much better than what I hope.

Here's to many, many Oiler victories this upcoming season!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks for all that we have, duh. So, in no random order, I will attempt to come up with a list of what I'm thankful for.

I am thankful for...

• my life, and being able to be who I am
• my one and only Saviour, Jesus Christ (=
• each one of my family members
• such an awesome church
• all the people that I can call friends
• a peaceful country to live in
• good health
• an athletic sense and ability that is growing rusty
• the ability to live without threats or dangers to me or anyone I care about
• my wonderful laptop to be able to write all this in
• my electric guitar that I still can't come to the fact that it is mine
• my loving mommy that takes care of me
• my daddy that pays for all that I own
• my brother and his confidence
• my sister and her.. who she is d=
• a pretty cool musical talent
• being able to love people
• so much free time spent writing lame blogs
• the cheesecake that my mom made which of I am going to steal a piece of really soon
• the sweet house I live in
• being an Edmonton Oilers fan
• my arms and my legs
• starbucks
• all the freedom I have
• being able to not stress
• every single one of my life experiences
• being one of the youngest in my age group.. less wrinkles, haha
• such a comfy couch that I'm sitting on
• timmies
• being able to smell and see and TASTE such awesome food
• food
• cheesecake
• blogspot
• facebook
• being able to laugh and smile
• God
• fingers to type and play guitar and piano
• sweet clothes that I somehow have money to buy
• a clean environment to live in
• my telepathy
• that 20 dollars of mine that is sitting on the floor across the room
• half a brain to perform my daily functions with
• my vision
• so many things to be thankful for
• being happy
• being such a fortunate person
• being able to speak three languages, more or less
• being an inspiration for those who choose to accept it
• you, you who are reading my blog
• the world
• you

As you can see, I clearly started to run out of things to write about. However, I must say this is quite a long list (= and you can tell that I am a very lucky person. So what do you have that you are thankful for?

Sea of Faces

So for anyone who is currently or have attended a post secondary institution, you would know what the environment is like. Especially some of the larger ones with a population of a town, it can be quite intimidating. I find it amazing how even though there's so many people at a university, each one of these faces are after a goal of some sort and carry out their own individual path during their time in that college. At the time it seems that you alone is so insignificant and don't really mean a thing. The way the system works hints at that as well. To professors, you are nothing more than a number. You spend so much more time alone or with significantly smaller groups. You're just another face. And when you think about it, a few of these faces you see on a daily basis will go on and could quite possibly make it big and become more well known somewhere down the road. Thanks Ryan for your "people" post, it inspired me to do some of that as well and end up writing about it, haha. As much of my time is spent alone at the university (what a loser, eh?), I don't do it directly, but I take note of alot of people and what they do. I came to wonder what is running through each and every one of these people that I come across?

I've noticed that theres a certain population that work in pairs. It is always a guy and a girl. Of course you would see the couples who are dating, then there are those guys who always have a girl with them and vice versa. Alot of the time, the two of them seem like they are sidekicks and all that stuff, like they're so happy they know each other, even if they're not dating. There's also those people that I see who are obviously alone at the moment. Most of the time they would have a phone out trying to text someone or something like that, which means they have pretty big connections or friends that are just not with them at the moment. I sometimes wonder to myself, are they really talking to their friends? Or are they just trying to act cool and do the finger movements to make it look like they're so busy? These are two of many personalities I've come across here at the University of Alberta. I believe the university is a wonderful place for some humbling. Teaching that the world definitely does not revolve around you and that the world is actually so big. Forget that "it's a small world cliche."

As most of these people are probably busy as heck, I wonder if any of them actually come to contemplating the university life. I could probably go up to people and ask them what it feels like to be just another face on the campus and I'd get a huge range of answers. Some would say they never even think about it because they have no time, while others would just say something along the lines of it being sweet and enjoying the new life and all that jazz. But I wonder if I would get any responses that would include wondering what goes on with other people at the campus. Stuff about what they are thinking about, how stressed they are, how their life is at the moment, etc.

I feel like such a nerd for living such a "mystical" life, haha. I very rarely stress, not busy at all, think about life alot, and a bunch of other cheesy stuff. Well what can I say? I'm just one insignificant face out of a million doing my own thing and living my own life (=

Newly Untitled

I called the title of this entry 'newly untitled' because there isn't anything specific that I want to mention this time around. Actually, what prompt me to write another entry was actually that the second day of October is almost over and I wanted to give a go at my outlook on October as well as other things that come into mind, hence the 'newly'.

So it's the second day of October, my first couple days have been pretty decent actually. School is slowly getting better for me in terms of getting used to the environment and the people. The second day of October also counts down to one day closer to the start of the new NHL season. The beginning of October also brings the MLB playoffs to begin which means the season is finally coming to a close so it can move it's butt aside for hockey in the sports channels. The beginnning of October also brings those dreadful exams that university students stress themselves over. The beginning of October brings the change in weather to a more obviously colder state, usually. The beginning of October brings a month that people usually settle into their roles for the upcoming school year.

So there's alot of 'new' happening starting in October as you can see. October is usually a pretty underrated month for myself. I usually overlook October and especially November because I just want to get to Christmas break. But I think I realize the importance of October now.

The only thing 'interesting' I think I have done as of late is that my sister stole a Mr. Bean DVD from one of her friends and I've watched a bit of that. Let me just say that Mr. Bean can take the simplest things in a daily life and turn it into such an entertaining video that's barely 10 minutes long. Mr. Bean is awesome. I think my personal favorite might be the one where he goes to the swimming pool and goes off the diving board in the best way ever. I'm sure most people have watched Mr. Bean before and have had some laughs. Good on Rowan Atkinson (=

What's with the stupidly warm weather lately?! Well, it's not freezing cold so I shouldn't be complaining. But at this rate, the world's gonna die from global warming =D

Don't Worry. Be Happy -Bob Marley

Exposure

So I am a prime example of a procrastinator if you don't know. If not that, it's my pure laziness that gets the best of me most of the time and end up not doing anything at all. That is how I survived junior high and high school. Junior high made me incredibly lazy; lazy to a point where it has become dangerous for me. My laziness/procrastination barely got me out of high school into university and it is now catching up on me. I had been constantly told that I needed to start studying in grade 12 because there would be no way I could cram everything into one or two nights before an exam to learn everything. Oddly enough, I pulled it off and did quite decent in grade 12 considering my efforts and what I had to go through elsewhere.

And thus, I was trying to study for my soc midterm tomorrow today. It was a short day for me so I got home just past 1 in the afternoon. I swore to myself I was gonna sit down and study until I gone through everything thoroughly. I just looked at what I needed to study and I was like, "HOLY SH!T that's alot of stuff". So something new I learned today: KEEP UP WITH THE DAMN SCHOOL WORK. Just for completeness' sake, I did manage to study all four chapters that are going to be on the test excluding the textbook. My prof did tell me stuff from the textbook, that we didn't cover in class, would be on the test, about 10 questions. So there is a possibility that I'll get owned on these 10-ish questions.

So... note to self: must learn to develop a healthy work ethic. One that does not procrastinate. Being exposed to this now will definitely change my attitude. Normally just having the attitude doesn't work for me because being motivated and actually getting down to doing stuff is a huge gap for me. But this being in university now and knowing what's at steak.. or stake, I could use some steak, but it's gonna be that much more important for me even if the program I'm in isn't what I want to do because it will set me up for the years to come. So if you want to be a good friend, please tell me to get off my ass and do some school work once in a while, if you don't mind.

... I am getting slightly worried about the Oilers... note the stress on slightly.

You only live each day once, make the best out of it each time.

Calm Before the Storm

Is that how the expression goes? Well you get the point. I really wonder if anyone actually reads this, or am I just wasting space? Whatever, as long as one person reads it, that's fine; even if it's me, haha.

Looking ahead at the month of October, I expect some pretty big changes in myself by developing a work ethic and focus towards school. I am actually quite intimidated by all that is coming up in only the month of October as well, guess this is life in university. I've been having a pretty relaxed university life so far. However, that is all about to change very soon. I look past this weekend as September ends, and I see a whole crap load of work I need to get done. I think I got off to a pretty decent first week or two in university, but the lack of needing to work just makes me very lazy once again. Before I say anything more, please don't spaz out at me just because you're in sciences and have a billion more exams/assignments than I do, I know very well that I have a much easier life than most of you, and I'm proud of that too. But this coming week, I have a music rudiments exam on monday, soc 100 midterm on wednesday, and a english essay due on friday. I would like to think that the music exam should be a cake walk since my level of educated theory is beyond that. But it is this arrogance that let me to getting only a 78% on my second assignment, so I definitely have to correct my attitude towards getting a "free GPA booster". Sociology may be the exam I have to focus on most because it's one of those classes in a lecture theatre and I have not been keeping up with this course at all outside of the class. My english essay should receive some big attention from me as well because I am not the most enthusiastic about going to english class. Let's just say that it feels like I haven't really gone to class at all.

So that's how this next week plays out for me. I can still be happy because I don't have nearly as much to do as some of you (= I still have a math midterm and psych midterm coming up in October, so I can't slack much at all.. It will be difficult for me to overcome all this.

Good luck to everyone with their exams and assignemtns, and remember, we're all in this together and God will help us through.

Reborn

So... I went to an Oilers game tonight. It was a blast! I haven't been to one since the lockout and tonight was the first time for me seeing the shootout live since it got put into the new NHL. I must say that the Oilers are going to be epic this year. Who cares if it is only preseason right now, you can still feel the hype and intensity from these players fighting for a roster spot (even though only Schremp or Brule is gonna get it). You can tell these prospects are definitely trying to make it hard for MacT and company to send them down to Springfield, and I'm glad they're making their presence known. Gagner, where do I even start with him. This guy, is ONE year older than I am and he will make more money this year than I will for the next 20 years. He is honestly incredible for one 19 year old kid. Soon, he's going to take over our team, take over Horcoff, take over the captain position. I also really like Nilsson. He's definitely becoming who he should've been with the Islanders.

Okay, outside of how good the Oilers are going to do this year, it was my first game in a long time. Even though just a preseason game, I had lots of fun and we(me and brother) had great seats. Gagner alone tonight may have made my day. Brule also impressed me with his grit and Smiders for his passion. You've gotta love that guy. It's just too bad I didn't get to see Souray's shot, Lubo, and the top line. But I'll get to see them on TV during the regular season! So this was definitely a renewed experience for me to be able to watch hockey live again. Imagine Rexall during playoffs, haha.

A little off topic, I think the next few weeks, more specifically Octover, will be a very interesting month for me. From where I stand now, I can just see my schedule pile up with exams and stuff like that. Outside of just school, there's some other things that cannot be mentioned here that may also be influential to me and my life. It's amazing at how little worry I seem to have towards all this. Here I go again praising God, but it's a good thing. For anyone, especially in uni, that feel pressured or stressed about exams and stuff, try looking at it this way: I feel that it is a blessing from God that I am able to see these challenges ahead of me and to know that He is with me throughout the entire way. Which means that there's no need to worry our lives away. God makes life so much easier just by acknowledging his prescence in our lives and putting any sort of faith in Him. Kind of like seeing Gagner bring the Oilers to life this year. Honestly, I think at this point of my life, God has such a big affect on me that it bleeds out of me and ends up in places like my blogs and whatever else comes up. This is why you kind of see me mentioning something about Him in all my blog entries; I just can't keep it inside, you know (=

So um, kind of late now, and tired from the hockey game. If I don't write within the next couple weeks, it will likely be because a miracle happened and that I actually put myself to studying for exams and doing homework.

Here's to an awesome year for our Edmonton Oilers =D

Oh, did I mention how good Gagner is?

Why?

.. Have I been so tired lately?! I get alot of sleep, I don't have all that much homework and studying yet, and I still feel like I haven't slept in days all the time, haha. Could it be the lack of sleep over the summer is catching up on me? It's been over a month, I don't think its that.

Hmmm.. Well today's congregational meeting was definitely interesting. Time to start a new week of school! However, something even more important is starting: Edmonton Oilers pre-season! I am hoping Schremp makes our team this year and finally lives up to what he's supposed to be. Alot of things to be excited about coming up actually, a new season of Heroes to be more specific. Hopefully I won't be as tired, or maybe it's just my allergies to the pathetic change of weather.

I HATE YOU ALLERGIES! YOU MAKE ME KILL TREES BY USING UP ALOT OF TISSUE PAPER.

Yay!

AWANA

Yay! So another year of AWANA has begun. Tonight was opening night and I had a real good time getting to know a few of the Sparks. Since I have self-proclaimed myself of being 'demoted' from the games director to a Sparks leader, many things were new tonight; many things were also old but still brought a refreshing sense. It was only the first night and I was allowed to get to know these kids at a much deeper level already as compared to when I led games. I think I might have hesitated at first when we split into our handbook groups as I had no clue what I was supposed to do because the new handbooks hadn't come in yet. But then I resorted to what I did with UrbanPromise and did a really cheesy introduction game. But it managed to help the kids become engaged for the full 20 minutes I had with them.

Although my role had changed, I was reminded that this is still AWANA and it exists for the same purpose that it always had and that's to draw these kids closer to God. I wasn't sure of what to expect of the kids tonight because throughout the two months I was with UrbanPromise, I became so accustomed to those Camp Hope kids that I wasn't sure what to get out of the NEAC kids compared to the kids in Surrey. I definitely need to remind myself to not compare, but to love these kids for who they are. I was also reminded that these kids here at NEAC are just as cute as the ones in Surrey. One thing though, that I must mention, is that ALL the kids here are chinese, haha. And the numbers with Camp Hope cannot compare with the numbers here. AWANA has almost twice the amount that Camp Hope has on paper, so I will definitely need to get used to the gigantic numbers again.

I look forward to getting to know these little kids! Seeing them smile totally makes my day =D

Cycle of Positivity

Alright, I want to briefly touch on something before I head to bed in attempt to regain my health.

Sort of continuing from my last post about paths crossing, I just want to write down something before I forget it. I want to use this entry, for those that come across it, as something that may inspire. This is also a bit of a response to some of the things that people say to me that I never really get to respond to them in the way I really want.

Like I said before, everything we come into contact with has some sort of an affect on us. To a bigger scale, every person we meet or come to know leaves his/her mark on us as well. So the "source" of this is sort of based off of a couple things for me which is making me wanting to allow it to live up to it's fullest. So I've had some pretty good responses from people who have read my little "blurbs" here and there and may find it inspiring or something like that. If you're interested, you might find them on Facebook. Here's the story behind it all:

I came across a couple situations that pretty much started this whole thing for me over the last year or so. I hit a time in my life where things weren't going all that well and I was needing some sort of a lift to get me out of the hole I was in. I was more or less constantly praying for something to happen so that I wouldn't be such a mess as a person. So I'm just going to go straight to the point here if that's okay. Basically, there are alot of things that inspire me to be the person I am and the person I can be. Things coming from left and right continue to inspire me. I'm a bit of a wacko so I have some weird beliefs. This belief I'm talking about right now can be generalized as a cycle of positivity, a term I kind of stole and use as well. So with so many things that inspire me, I believe that inspiration is actually a cycle of neverending positivity. What I want to do with the inspiration that comes my way is to be able to have it affect me, and then inturn use it to inspire someone else. Do you get what I'm getting at? Whatever we take in as inspiration for ourselves should be used to inspire others. Hopefully, whoever you inspire will do the same. This ultimately causes a cycle of inspiration that goes around to allow us to live life to its fullest potential. I'll use an example and then wrap it up. I don't like to worry. I don't like to be sad. Some people we meet always seem like they are happy, like they have never lived a sad day in their lives. I, personally, like to always have a smile on my face, but that just comes naturally for me. I think people can live such happier lives just by choosing where they put their attention. You can't just dwell on the negatives all the time, it makes you a pain for people to be around. "Great, gas prices are up... Oh well, guess I get to ride my bike!" When life throws something gay at you, you can always find something good out of it.

There's alot of things I can say to this but I will stop here as I may be overdoing it a little bit. So hopefully, the inspiration I've learned will inspire you to inspire. (=

Inspire to live, live to inpsire.

When Paths Collide

When you look at it, it's pretty amazing how every single thing in existance has it's own timeline. That has got to be one of the most amazing things that God has created in this world. The only thing seperating each one of us from something else is time. Seriously, when you think about it, it's pretty insane, don't you think?

More specifically, when the paths of two or more people collide, many different things can happen. I witnessed something today that kind of started this mad train of thoughts for me. I was on the train coming home from the university when I saw something happen between two people. Between what they were doing is within the two of them and I will say nothing more. However, what got me was that when I saw these two come into contact with each other (LOL this could be interpreted in such a wrong way), it made me think, "how in the world did these two people get to the point they're at this instant? What caused them to be doing what they're doing right now?" Then I began to remember some things I either learned or was taught about the interaction of people. I remembered that our lives are built so that each and every single thing we come into contact with, no matter how big or small, plays some sort of influence on us. Each event leads to the next and it just keeps building and building, ultimately creating the world we live in and who we are as people. Life is such a complicated thing to explain because there's a billion ways to look at it and just the way that God "wired" this world is beyond me and I definitely think it's worth thinking about and learning about. Either that, or I'm just a psycho.

Live high.

Adrenalin

.. It is such a sweet thing to experience. Athletes feel it all the time; many people who perform, or participate in high energy events feel "adrenalin rushes" as well. I'm pretty sure everyone has experienced atleast one adrenalin rush in their life so there's no need for me to explain what it's like. But this weekend was a pretty adrenalin filled weekend-it was an eventful weekend.

Friday brought our first AWANA leader's meeting to kick start the new year of AWANA. I personally look forward to this upcoming year of AWANA because I get to take on a new role of being a Sparks leader instead of the old games director. So yes, I sort of demoted myself, but I was getting bored and tired of doing games, therefore, this will bring some real cool experiences. I'm also looking forward to getting to know these children individually instead of just seeing them during games time.

Saturday also kick started a new year of a couple things: teaching guitar and Fantasy hockey! I am very excited for the new season of NHL if you haven't noticed yet =D As far as teaching guitar goes, I'm not too sure what I feel about it yet. Teaching guitar is always fun, but it's a difficult task to do. Being talented does bring challenges in that you have to find out what makes sense to you naturally but not for other people. I also am needing to find some new material to teach my kids. However, I still get paid an awesome amount for practically "babysitting" their kids for a couple hours. Later on at night during Saturday, we did our hockey pool drafting! I was so pumped for this event because I put so much hard work into my researching player projections and stuff like that. I'd been waiting for this time of day for the last few weeks and it was awesome!

So being the loser I am, here's how it went down for me: I was pumped. I clicked open the live draft room to find that I am drafting at third spot in a twelve people pool! Smack dead on I was right where I hoped I'd be. Fourth would have been a pretty decent spot as well, but I'll take what I got. Right away I knew I would end up with Malkin as AO and Crosby are given first and second picks. Malkin is a great pick as he will most likely end up with 50 goals this year, give or take a few. So I had my draft all planned out and all that stuff, of who I would pick in which round. But of course, like all drafts are unpredictable, I had to adapt. After an hour or so of intensity and being pissed because people stole my players, here's who I was so fortunate to pick up:

1st round - Evgeni Malkin
2nd round - Henrik Lundqvist
3rd round - Thomas Vanek
4th round - Mike Green
5th round - Paul Stastny
6th round - Petr Sykora
7th round - Mark Streit
8th round - Alexander Semin
9th round - Martin Gerber
10th round - Maxim Afinogenov
11th round - Sam Gagner
12th round - Joni Pitkanen
13th round - Phillipe Boucher
14th round - Fabian Brunnstrom
15th round - Karl Alzner
16th round - Ales Kotalik
17th round - Michael Ryder

Clearly, this was a very high risk draft for me. My two sketchiest picks are obviously with Brunnstrom and Alzner as they have never played a game in the NHL and are not even guarenteed a spot on their respective teams. The single mistake I did make with these two are picking Brunnstrom instead of Stamkos. I believe I also made the mistake of picking up a defenseman one round too late. My top two defensemen, Mike Green and Mark Streit's season can go either way-boom or bust. Hopefully it's the former. All in all, I think I did a pretty good draft and came in within the top drafters, so I'm pretty satisfied.

Today, as in Sunday, was pretty cool too. We had our exciting annual CPP meeting which made me fall asleep a couple times. Afterward we had our "rematch" of the adults versus kids soccer game. As expected, adults came out on top! We, as in adults which totally makes me feel old, went up 6-1 just to have the kids score five unanswered goals to catch up just to have their hearts broken by the one and only, scoring the winning goal =D

Hopefully I have a good week ahead of me. I really am not enjoying school that much. However, I am trying to choose to put my attention on anything but the negative so I can get by easier.

Just thought I'd throw this out there: you can do anything you set your mind to as long as you let God work through you and in you.

Music

mu·sic
–noun
1. An art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

So I'm taking music in university. I've been classically trained on the piano for about twelve years, and now that I think of it, it was prison to be stuck in a classical way of doing music. The University of Alberta also teaches music with a very classical way of approach, and I can't say I'm liking it very much. I do have to admit for it being a little early to complain, but I do have my reasons-just hear me out. When I first quit piano and allowed music to work through me on the guitar instead of having myself work through music, it was so liberating. It was a very free way of learning and getting better at music for me. Now that I have to come back to being taught music, following all these rules, and stuff like that, I'm not enjoying it all that much.

I liked the idea that I got to grow in music through the different styles and methods that I got to encounter with just my guitar or piano at whatever the pace I wanted. This might be a little confusing, but thats okay, I understand. I had just recently began thinking about my view on music and I haven't been able to find the proper words to describe it to anyone else just yet. Music, to me, should be very free and done in a very leisurely way.

Music is a form of art that the entire world experiences on a daily bases. Music is a form of expression that people use to release emotions or feelings that they feel towards a subject of matter. I think the best way to learn more about music is by dwelling in it. Be sucked into music for a good chunk of time and you will come out learning alot. As I am supposedly on pace to becoming a music major, I am forced to think about this now. So I don't know if other people can relate the same way I can, but I just don't feel right taking music courses and being "taught" music again. I'm not even close to what you might call a music legend, but I do believe I have some sort of an ability that not too many people possess. Maybe it is because I have this ability that I can learn from music the way I do and do it so freely and with joy.

As I am still new to this, I cannot say that these beliefs are set in stone for me, so please don't judge me based on this little "rant". So if you're trying to find the point I'm getting across here, let's try this: Instead of learning music, we should learn from music. Make any sense? Haha. Also, this is a purely biased point of view towards classical music. Perhaps I'll go try the music program at Grant Mac which is supposed to be way better.

Keep on rockin' to it, please don't stop the music. The world would be a miserable place without music.

My Current Passion

I don't remember the last time I was so excited for a new season of hockey. These last couple weeks for me has been extremely slow in terms of waiting for hockey to start. I bet the next couple will be just as slow or even slower. As a right-minded Canadian, who doesn't look forward to a new hockey season?

I'm looking forward to seeing how the Oilers will play this year. Dang, Gagner is gonna be so pro. Really looking forward to this.

I've also been real hyped about the start of a new Fantasy Hockey season. I tried it out the first time last year and it was a blast! Although, I wished my results might have been better, haha. But I'm definitely geared for it this year, I've been doing my research (=

So to all you hockey apathetics, you're missing out on the second greatest game on earth!

The good old hockey game, is the best game you can name. And the best game you can name, is the good old hockey game.

Yay! So dang excited, haha. Well that's my post for today (=

Just a Little Bit

I may have crossed the line.. Just a little bit.

Hey people who creep my things! That's right, I've started a blog. Actually, I've been meaning to start one for a while now. The only thing that held me back was that I thought it was really stupid and that I'd end up like alot of other people who have absolutely nothing to blog about other than.. hiccups or something.

But hey, things change right? I've started university for just about a week now, and this curbside prophet's got alot of things on mind. Actually, I usually have something to say to almost everything, I just don't say it. Now that university has started, my world has just began to expand and I feel I should keep track of myself and see how insane I can be.

So starting today, I'm going to attempt to record my life.. on the internet. When I put it that way, it kind of sounds pathetic, haha. If you find my notes on Facebook interesting and a good read, you might find one out of ten or so posts on here similar to that. Why you might ask? The only reason I had those notes posted up on Facebook is because I literally could not hold it within myself. I had to get it out into the world somehow and Facebook was about the only place, so I did it. With this blog however, I'm going to be writing about just about anything and everything I come across now that a new chapter of my life has began. Kind of like that corner store you find just a few blocks down your house that you go to for your daily needs and stuff; Every typical thing you might find in a blog about a person will appear here.

Maybe I'll start tomorrow, I don't really feel like writing about what's on my mind just yet. I also hope everyone that's just began university is enjoying it right now.. I really do, because that's not exactly the case for me.

.. Okay one story. Last night I had a dream. Now, before I go any further, I am terrified of bees and bugs of that type, okay? So I had a dream, I was in the car with my mom and brother. It was a beautiful summer day and I had the window down. Along comes a bee, and it's a huge one. So I start closing the window, but it comes in.. I start freaking out slightly just to see the bee fly back out. *Phew* what a relief. Like, two seconds later, the bee flies back in and I get even more creeped out this time. I took off my seat belt and ran to the back row of seats. Next thing I know, I'm cornered into the edge of the car with the bee coming straight at me. This scared me so bad that I wake up. The second I notice I'm awake, I find myself dashing out of my bed towards the door out of fear. I had no control over this movement, wow. It was like a reflex, or a twitch, where I just darted out of my bed holding my blanket. I have never experienced this before, proud to say =D And based on a past experience, I checked my bed to make sure there was no bee, because for a split second, my dream may have escaped into reality based on the buzzing noises that a bee can make, haha. The End!

Peace out.