*Insert Evil Smiley Face*

The power of influence is a powerful thing. Wait, what? Yeah, that's what I meant to say. I love calling people out; maybe I should do it more often. Today, I read two blog updates that had no idea what they were talking about, and just went on listing off a bunch of things. Hilarious. It's been a crazy blog-athon over the last 24 hours. Beyond the personal blogs that I follow, the sports world has been blogging a crazy amount too. I just want to give a shout out to Roy Halladay for pitching a no hitter in his first ever playoff game. Good for you Doc, leaving Toronto was the best decision you've made.

Darn it. Now I forgot if I had anything else to say other than that.

Oh yes! Do you know anyone that has a really combustible laugh? The type that, when something funny is said, just suddenly explodes and scares the bijeebees out of you. Not only that, but there are little semi-spurts of lava that flow out too. Yeah, that's right; I'm talking about snorting. I can completely understand that some people don't have the biggest nasal cavity, so when they suck big time air through their nose, the pathway kind of closes and opens really fast due to the vibration, and causing that person to snort.

Well, everybody's favorite professor, Tim Moore, was at it again this morning. He thinks in pictures but the pictures in his mind don't translate to the hands. In class, we were discussing about how guys think in compartments and a girl's brain is like spaghetti in that it's all connected and intertwined. I won't get into any detail because why that was said is a completely different topic. So when he goes to try to explain what he's saying, he proceeds to the board to try to draw the head of a guy and girl with a side view. Out came probably two of the worst drawings of a guy and girl's head that anyone could ever imagine. The entire class starts laughing.

And in this sentence, you can insert what I wrote about the laughing. I don't want to be mean, but every time she does, a girl laughs exactly the way that I described two paragraphs ago. While everybody doesn't seem to mind, my laughter turns from the drawings to the girl. She is just having a masterful time using those laughing glands (which probably don't exist), and snorting with authority with every breath that she took. A month has passed and I still don't know who it is that does that, but I notice it every time and I can't help it. So while I'm still laughing, both at with her and at the drawings, I'm starting to get scared by the snorting. It was so intense that it was almost contagious. It made me feel like snorting! So by now, I'm so scared that I'm gonna let one big snort out as well, so I do my best to contain my laughter; but it don't work so well. When I laugh, I laugh out loud.

To whoever the fearless girl is, if you ever in your life come across this blog post (which I doubt, but who knows), I am so terribly sorry. Please don't come at me with a knife or something. I'm not making fun of you, I'm just pointing you out because of your awesome uniqueness; and special people deserve to be known. I know I'm mean, which is probably why you have about a hundred billion more friends than I do.

Anyway, that's the random story of the day. Also, for anyone that hasn't, check out Jason Mraz's new EP entitled Life Is Good. It really makes life feel good when you listen to it.

Fresh Air

First and foremost, what's with the lack of blogging recently? Yeah, that's right. I'm calling out everyone that I follow. Who do I follow? Just look to the right in the "where.else" column and you'll find out.

I have no idea why I am blogging, no idea what this entry is or will be about. Probably just going to be me blabbering about a bunch of random stuff. Hey cool, blabbering is a word!

School is picking up, as expected, and I think we'll get to see how badly I get owned by not keeping up. I've learned a lot about, pretty much, everything since starting. Mostly, I've learned a lot about myself as well as a lot about why Calgary is better than Edmonton. It's the strangest thing when my radio is on in the morning, and I hear the hosts raving about how the Calgary sports teams are so awesome. Yeah, sure the Stamps are fantastic this year, but the hockey season hasn't even began and they're drinking some Calgary 'lames kool-aid already. This is why, I am making it a mission that I will be buying Oilers t-shirts and wearing them in school whenever the Oilers play. So far, I have got my hands on - not literally, yet - on an Eberle shirt. I'm just waiting on a Hall and Paajarvi. Then we'll see how people respond to that. Of course I won't be wearing them in the streets when I'm by myself, or at least cover myself up because I don't want to get beat up; but, when I get the chance, I will expose my, uhh.. loyalties.

People say that you are what you eat; I'm going to take this a step further and say that I am what I study. Last night, or probably this morning, I had a dream about being a hockey player. I have no idea why, don't ask. So, as dreams would have it, something always goes wrong. I wake up into my dream and we're preparing for the final game held at the West Edmonton Mall rink. Our team was the big time underdogs against the big and heavy favorites. I forgot to bring my stick, skates, everything. For some reason, I was putting on a lot of snow clothes as if I was getting ready to go skiing. Then just as I'm about to go onto the ice after being freaked out at how big the opposing players were, I woke up. I am not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to find out what happened. I have no idea how that has to do with being what I study, but maybe because it's hockey related, and that seems to be what my a big chunk of this entry is about.

Some people know that I follow hockey rather closely. And I get called a nerd a lot, most commonly by one called Jennifer Fung. I don't mind so much, because I find it funny that she'll go out of her way to let me know about it by sticking the word "nerd" somewhere that did not blend in to the rest of what she says. But I digress. I was thinking about how much time I've put into reading and learning about this game, and how if I never got into it, where would I be today. I sometimes try to make it less obvious that I'm a freak for the game by acting dumb and pretending like I don't know something happened. However, I primarily consider myself a soccer player first and foremost, then a floor hockey player. I've always been pretty good with my hands, so I've never had trouble picking up sports that required the hands (at least the basics of it). I've been better at soccer than hockey all my life, until I thought about it recently.

I play soccer a ton more than I play hockey, but to my recent memory, I remember being way better at making a difference when playing hockey than I do playing soccer. Maybe because when it comes to soccer, people are generally more competent - maybe not. But I remember after our May day hockey destroying of the Cantonese congregation in that game, my dad said that I can control the game way better in hockey than soccer. That caught my attention a bit, because I never thought it would be possible. So, after thinking about it, I realized that maybe it's because I am so emerged with the sports, a lot of the stuff in my brain translates to my hands. So, is it fair to say that if I followed soccer as close as I did hockey, that I'd be pretty darn good too? Probably not. I still prefer playing soccer to hockey, but I love the hockey game once in a while. Great, now I want to clobber the Chinese again. Haha.

Does anyone else find it dumb how a prof would go out of their way to slap something onto their course syllabus that has absolutely nothing to do with the course to try to get you to do something? I am bothered by the fact that my evangelism and missions professor made it a requirement to go to ministry chapels once a month. I am not saying that going to chapel is a bad thing, but it's really not necessary for the course. If it was my theology class, I would understand. But now, I have to go out of my way once a month to stay late at school just to pass a class. It's probably not the fact that I have to stay that bothers me, it's the fact that I have to find a way home afterwards, when it's dark, that aggravates me. Oh well, I'll suck it up.

I get to go home this next weekend for Thanksgiving and see my sister get baptized. I remember when I got baptized. It was fun. All the presents and attention that I got.. uhh, I mean, declaring my faith was so refreshing. It was after I got baptized that my life really started to change. So to anyone that says they're not ready to be baptized, you never will be. Just do it, and you won't regret it.

How's that for random?

He Sees It All

They say that hindsight is always 20/20; I believe this to be true. September is now over and I wanted to get one more blog post in to make this month a blogging mania for me. One down, many more to go.

Some say that the past influences the future. The only way by predicting the future is by acting upon it. However, some twisted people wonder if the future even exists. Then there are those that are totally out of their minds and say that the future influences the past (I first came upon this idea from reading Artemis Fowl). I'm not gonna bother and try my hand at explaining any of those, but looking back at September, it was definitely new.

To kind of recap, I moved to a new city and started school. I knew that there were going to have to be some things that I left behind, both my belongings and characteristics. School hasn't been alright; not the most ideal, but it will do for now. I have a lot to be thankful for, and that's how I try to look at things. I thought that it would be tremendously liberating for me to choose the transition that I did. But, without getting into much detail, it seems as if I've actually lost some freedom. I'm very limited to what I can do and it almost seems as if I'm being surveyed all the time.

I remember before I left, that my dad said, the minute I start this path, all eyes are going to be looking at me, for good and for bad. People were going to start looking up to me, or even down - depending on what I do to make it that way. In some occasions I've become the topic of conversation during supper time, even if it's just how to say my name. Oh, don't worry, I'm not just talking about being to "popular" when I talk about being surveyed. To kind of make it frank, I have a lot of venting I need to do, but there isn't anyone here that I'm comfortable to do it to yet. So, a lot of times, it just ends up between me and God, or stuck in my mind.

And now to the awesome. Again, I'm so grateful that I've survived a month of school. Everything that I have is a blessing, and I hope that everyone knows how thankful I am for any sort of prayers.

How long can someone go, in their lifetime, without requiring an external source of energy to keep them awake for the day? No, I'm not necessarily saying that I need coffee, because I don't. But I'm getting rather tired during the day - even on seven or eight hours of sleep. It's strange. I could start out the day fine, but by maybe lunch time, I'm dead tired. Let's hope that I never need to resort to c*ff**.

I never thought that I would be worth visiting, but I guess there are a couple people crazy enough to want to see me. I'm thankful for who you are that came to see me today, even if it's just the medium of where you were going to end up. Hopefully, I met your expectations of seeing me because I'm a really boring person.

Another 80 dollars for a bus pass, another month - here I come! I'm so gonna get owned on all my assignments/exams.

Psst!

Ever since coming to Calgary, there was one thing I noticed that happened a lot. There are certain people that really love to whisper into each other's ears. And because I'm new, I get stared at a lot; I don't like it. It often goes like this: I walk into the room, and someone stares at me for about a minute, then turns over to their friend and whispers something into their ear. Okay, there - I obviously know you're talking about me. I find it rather annoying. I understand that I'm new; and I know that it's a pretty small church, but you don't have to be so secretive of talking about me. But whatever, it's just how people like to communicate. For everyone that whispers, though, there's another that seems to already know who I am. I keep getting surprised at how I introduce myself to people and they already know of me. With the way it plays out, it's almost as if I'm like some big hot shot that they've been waiting for to arrive. Obviously I am not.

Anyways, as expected, things with school are starting to pile up. I'm falling behind in my reading, etc. I'm very curious to see how long it will take before I become a regular reader. I knew, going in, that I wouldn't be able to go from never reading to reading all day in a matter of days; but I'm just interested to see how long it will take now. It's hard to keep focused and the distractions just make it more fun. It's also different how intelligent and knowledgeable that everyone is at school. I wouldn't consider myself amazing at this whole theology stuff, but I'm lucky enough to be able to grasp them quite naturally; but the way some of these people think, it impresses me more and more.

Everyday, God continues to show up in my life; and, therefore, he deserves his own paragraph of acknowledgement.

Today, I led worship for the first time since moving here. It's the first time I did it as a member of a different church; and it's also the first time I did a Sunday worship by myself. I can say that I had never been so nervous before leading. It felt so strange because I'm usually pretty calm about doing worship, but I guess the whole new environment and the unknown just makes it different. The only other time I can recall being this nervous was before I led at YIC. But even then, I had my entire team behind me. It was a new experience, indeed. Also with a tiny congregation, it's hard to get a good grasp on whether or not people are really worshiping. However, strangely familiar scenes started taking place after worship; and you can probably tell where I'm going with this. More or less everyone that I crossed paths with complimented me in some way on my playing. I knew they like my guitar playing, I just hope that my voice didn't make their ears bleed.

Psalm 46:10 - Be still, and know that I am God...

I forgot what else I wanted to blog about, there was a lot.