Oh, Hello!

I haven't blogged too much recently. Although, my lack of blogging is still more frequent than most other people. Yes, I am looking at you! (=

I guess I'll work my way backwards to give an update about what's been going on.

I just got home from a worship practice. I haven't lead a single worship in over a year, and the depravity is getting to me. I miss it. Playing on a team is a good way to take a break from leading, but it does not replicate the joys I get from leading. One side note that deals with leading worship is something cool I learned. I learned that a spiritual gift does not necessarily have to be something you are skilled at. Your spiritual gift is something you do that brings you joy and invigorates you as a whole - from physical to spiritual to emotional. Leading worship, although not always, has been something that brought me a sense of liberation all the years that I've done it. It is unfortunate that I haven't lead in such a long time, and might have even been a major factor in the direction my spiritual life has gone this past year.

Before I had my worship practice, I got to lead a small group of teens in a Bible study. It was pretty cool. It's nice to get together in a much smaller and relaxed environment to just talk about things in life. And it made me incredibly happy that they even open up to actually talk back at me. We did Hebrews 2, and it was a good bit on Jesus living life as a human. Bible studies are things that I don't really mind doing at all given the right context. I love the more informal atmosphere and just hanging out not in a church environment because it really allows "life" to happen.

So with school, I've had a busy couple weeks that kind of just flew right by. It's hard to see that there's only a couple weeks left of classes and then I'll be writing my finals and finishing up my practicum and looking to go back home to (hopefully) work for the four months I'm back.

And yeah! That's about all that's gone on. I know it isn't much, but I'm just leaving out most of the detail that I usually put into my blog posts.

Out of Left Field

One of the things that I wanted to be exposed to over the course of my practicum was for me to be able to see some of the more administrative sides of ministry. Unfortunately, it's taken 3/4 of the school year for me to finally get a chance to do that. I was fortunate enough to sit in on an elder board meeting tonight. I'll admit that I didn't really want to go because I started my church ministries foundation paper WAY too late. It's a ten page paper due on Thursday evening, and I've only finished two pages. Yep, I'm screwed.

Anyways, this post is not a post that will be filled with complaints and whining! So, I got to sit in on the meeting and it was pretty good. I got to listen to some of the things that the pastors and elders talk about, half of which I really don't care too much about because it isn't relevant to me in any way, but it was a nice experience.

After the meeting, I was expecting to thank them for letting me sit in before Ken told me to go to see him in his office. It was a bit strange because I don't work with Ken. So I get into his office and there he is with Ryan, who is the mandarin pastor, and Matt walking in behind me. After some awkwardness with the jokes about how I should sit down because I'm in trouble, etc., etc., they surprised me with something that came absolutely out of nowhere.

Inside my head, I was like "WHAT?! Seriously?!" But of course, I had to be a boss and stay composed and act like I wasn't phased by what they had just told me.

Because I'm a jerk, I just told you my reaction before I told you what went on in the office so I could leave you hanging (unless you're one of those that are trolling over from Tumblr because I told you to). But I was offered a job of being a youth pastor at their church.

My first questions were when they wanted to know by and all the immediate details, but they didn't really tell me much, just that they wanted me to start as soon as possible. Because they wanted me to start right away, it was really tough for me to really have any time to think deeply about it.

After many more minutes of discussion, I turned the job down. There was a bunch of side details that I don't really think need to be talked about; but I said that if they came back to me September, then I would have a much more serious consideration. But seeing as they wanted me to start right away, you can see why I turned it down.

During one of my many chats with my adviser, Bill, at Ambrose, he's told me about how many students who are interning or doing practicums get hired on the spot by churches, and I think I may have just had one of those opportunities fly right by me.

Man, look at me: a second year student that has next to no experience, turning job offers down...

LOL

March Madness - Take Two

This March is going to be hectic in terms of work load and things I need to have done. And unfortunately, my laziness is at an all-time high. I feel so incredibly not motivated that I could potentially be in trouble if I don't stop talking about it and get my butt moving.

Anyways, I am glad that I made it back safely after Reading Week to find out that we were actually given the option to or not to give our speech that Monday back. So, luckily, I won't be the one oddball that is giving a speech tomorrow. It's also too bad, because I am not prepared for the speech whatsoever. Game over. I got a B+ on my first one, which is pretty good considering I'm hearing that a lot of people got C's.

I am somewhat also starting to exercise again, playing futsal and looking to start up floor hockey once every week or two as well. The dumb thing is that due to my metabolism and construct of my health, playing these things two or three times a week doesn't actually help me improve my fitness. So, I decided that I'll try to run a couple times a week too. People always say working out is a great stress reliever. I never saw it that way; rather, I always thought working out was more like a chore. Either way, I'm going to give it a try! I hope it works. LOL.

After this term, I am excited to go home, especially now that I'm firm on going home rather than going to Vancouver for the break. There's a lot of things that I am looking forward to! My first priority though, is always going to be finding a job first. So hopefully I can do better than I did last year.

Anyways, life has been looking a lot better recently! I'm finally starting to find purpose again and I don't just let my days go by without not having found something good in it. I also find it helpful that I kind of talk about my down times and weaknesses in a jokingly manner because it allows me to kind of play it off and not look at it so seriously. That way, I can remind myself of ways that I might have grown without getting caught up in the emotions of it. It's all about learning how to dodge them ninja stars! (Only makes sense if you get the reference)

So yeah, I am going to bed now because I am exhausted from playing hockey earlier this evening. I am going to get screwed during my speech tomorrow because I'm not prepared at all. And I can already tell that in the morning, instead of refining that speech, I'll probably got play futsal.

Hope everyone's March isn't as mad as mine! =D =D

Highway 2

The only reason I am not back in Calgary right now is because of the weather. It is strange how when traveling, you need to keep track of the weather in two different places. I know right?! Anyways, the weather seemed to be pretty good in Calgary yesterday, but not so good in Edmonton. And today, it flipped.

It is a bit inconvenient for me to have to wait an extra day before going back to Calgary, but this is pretty much what happened last year too. Of course, last year was a different circumstance. To be honest though, I think if my professor didn't reply to the email I sent her on Saturday, I'd have driven down today. I have a speech for class tomorrow at 1:00pm, but thankfully my prof was nice enough to tell me that if I really had to miss the class, it would be okay! So, as I prepare to drive back down to Calgary tomorrow, I guess I will be forced to miss pretty much all of my double block public speaking class. I also miss most of trade deadline day, which is kind of sad; but having the feeling that this trade deadline will be a quiet one, I am hoping even more for it to be quiet now.

Hopefully the roads will be good tomorrow so I can have a safe and smooth drive back to (F)lames' town!

It was a brutal reading week in terms of productivity. I brought everything home, and woke up every single day (literally) telling myself that I'd work today. And at the end of it, it is pretty standard that I did absolutely nothing other than play Final Fantasy 13-2.

I also have to confess that I have come to the conclusion that I have been more homesick than ever this year. I don't think that there was any period of time last year where I really wanted to go home. This year though, it's hit me like a brick wall. Maybe I just haven't been comfortable, but everything I've longed for or dreamed of pointed back to Edmonton where I am comfortable. Each time that I had to leave Edmonton to go back, I have felt a huge sense of resentment. A big reason is that I hate long distance driving, especially by myself; but I just don't think I've really gotten comfortable anywhere in Calgary this year. In other words, I haven't really had the chance to be myself without having some sort of barrier being up.

Anyways, I can't do anything about it. And as I go back down tomorrow, it will be for the home stretch of two more months to truck along before my second year of Bible college finishes. And even though I hate job hunting, this year has been tough enough for me to rather be looking for a job right now instead of being in school. Something that I've also started to notice is how people, especially when they get closer to graduating from university, start to "run out" of schooling. Pretty much, it means that there's just no desire left to be in school; a change of scenery is needed to be in the work field.

So, yeah. I think I've decided that I'm going to stay in Edmonton this summer. There's just way too much I'd rather be at home for than in Vancouver.

Good luck to everyone with school! You're almost done another year!