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!