Banana Bread

Tamara made me a loaf of Banana bread today. I'm happy =)

Passion

I went to the Passion Concert at GM Place in Vancouver tonight. It was really good. Christ Tomlin and his band played. Louie Giglio talked, and David Crowder Band Sang. I was a little disappointed though, because DCB only sang 4 songs, as opposed to the number of songs in Chris Tomlin's set. Oh well. It was their first time in Vancouver, so that was an honour. I'd rather be there for their first time in Tokyo though....

oh well. So for those of you in Tokyo and the rest of their stops, expect an amazing performance, great inspiration and an exciting night of worship, but don't expect a lot of David Crowder Songs. What you get from them though will be good. What can I say, they're David Crowder Band.

Now coming out of this, I really want to have the mind of God. I don't like living this life with so much to do and be to so many different people, and not feeling like I'm really in touch with God in the midst of it. I want to think what he thinks, see what he sees. I want to have his heart, and have the same passion for the people around me that he does. I want to feel what he feels.

I want to get excited about what he's done for me, and really feel that excitement. I want to get excited about what he's done for you, for us, and inspire others to get excited too. I don't care if it expresses itself as being a more charismatic person, writing good songs, becoming a preacher or writing good papers or books. I want a tangible attitude change involving excitement and passion for God.

I don't just want an excitement as in hype though. I don't know what the word is. As fame is to renown, excitement is to X. I want X. An everlasting longing and nagging passion in me which surfaces in my concious thoughts, perceptions, and the words and actions that come out of me.

So yeah that's what's on my heart. Please pray that God would grant me these things. Thanks.

Frustrated

I've gotten to a point where I'm starting to not care. It happens every semester. I start out attending every class, handing in every assignment. But then something happens. I either make myself work too hard, or too much is asked of me.

This semester it was my presentation. It works like a domino affect. Because I had to prepare for my presentation, I couldn't do the homework I usually do. Since the homework wasn't done by the time it usually gets done, I had to stay up very late to make sure it got finished (5am). Because I stayed up so late, I had to sleep in and miss some classes, which if I had attended I would have heard some important information. And since my biological clock is confused, I have a hard time being consistently motivated (as if I didn't have a hard time as it was).

In short, I'm quite frustrated with myself and my situation. I'm at a point where substantial damage hasn't been done yet, but if things go wrong at the end of the semester, I'll know it all started here.

Accomplished!!

I finished my Math homework! chka what????!!!! That's right. It's half past midnight Sunday, and I finished homework which was due Friday (which will be ok to submit on Monday) and I'm stoked!! I still have 3 homeworks to do due 8am which I will not rest until I'm finished, but I just had to celebrate.

So yes I have 7.5 hours to finish that homework. Then I have other reading to do. We'll see how sleepy I am when I finish the homework. Having had a 4 hour nap today helps things.... I was pretty exhausted today.

PS this is my 50th post on this blog... in case any of you get excited about blogiversaries I thought I'd let you know

Evolution Religion

What if I started a religion based on evolution... would that make it illegal to teach it in schools? Hrmmm...

Gah

Gah!!! My lack of sleep is affecting me. I could barely focus in class at all today. On the bright side though, I finished the assignment given to at my 8am class during the hour I have before my 10am class! Woohoo! So I don't have to worry about that at all. Now I just have to stay awake and read a whole bunch, and hopefully be sane enough to do Calculus too. I'm contemplating a nap but we'll see...

Woohoo!

Woohoo!

It's 11:43pm and I just finished the last of 4 assignments due tomorrow at 8am. phew. That third one was really taking forever. I was reading up on it over the past two days haha. I'm glad I have that out of the way, and I don't have anything new due until Wednesday, so I can use the next two days catching up on reading! So yes things are looking good. Hopefully I won't be too dead tomorrow after only 7 hours of sleep (I'm a real sleep hog, I need 8-9 hours to be truly happy).

I got to go to church with Tamara this evening too! =). We went to CLA, and they played some really good songs really well. The message was the same (kinda) with the Sunday School lesson I taught at my church this morning, which was interesting. At CLA they talked about the Jesus walking to his disciples on the lake in the storm. Interesting points about how he was "about to walk by" and the disciples had to initiate for Jesus to do anything. In the end it came down to "when you see Jesus while you're fighting against the storms of life, stop rowing (even though you may reason it's stupid) and invite Jesus into your boat who is the master of the storm. Not bad.

Unfortunately the music was a little loud for Tamara, but it's going to be hard to find other churches that do Sunday evening services because we don't know any. I'm sure there are some out there, we'll just have to reach....

OK 5 minutes is enough blogging, I need my sleep now. Goodnight to one an all!

Assignments

Well I've completed both of the assignments given to me so far, and handed them in on time. I'm happy with myself in that respect. A little bit more last minute than I would like, but oh well. I can work on that.

Rudimentary

Wow, today's digital recording lesson was sooo elementary. Learning binary theory in that class is a one liner compared to binary theory in my Machine Language class tomorrow morning at 8am. I was sitting through most of the class thinking of better ways to explain the concepts...

Well at least I'm not stressed by how much homework I have to do in that class and how I feel like I can't complete it. I already have enough homework piled up as it is =P. Yay for my weekend. Hopefully I'll get all of the reading and those math problems out of the way. Tamara helped explain a very key concept in set theory to me today =D. Well, Winston helped too. I'm glad I asked, otherwise I bet would have been very confused in the class later on.

Brain is mush. Must sleep now

Futon Hunt in Canada

I'll tell you right away: it's hard. Even I gave up. People here don't know what futon's are... They have a weird version of their own. Wikipedia explains the differences quite well.

After going through Sleep Country and The Brick which had nothing close to what I wanted, I ended up getting myself some foam, and I'm going to pretend it's a futon. Sheesh, how hard can it be to think of a piece of bedding you just lay on the floor and sleep on? It can't get much simpler...

Sleepiness

Well I've attended all of my new classes once each now. I'm really noticing my lack of ability to concentrate in class. At least 5 times during a 50 minute class I find myself distracted and thinking about something else, and I have to force myself to pay attention to the lecture again. It may be related to lack of sleep, since I haven't slept well over the past two days.

I was very happy with my digital recording professor though. He provides us with class notes already filled out, because he talks about how he remembers when he wrote notes in class as a student, he didn't have time to dwell on and learn the concepts being lectured to him. I totally empathize with that, and really appreciate the notes already being filled out. Writing things down doesn't help me memorize things much at all. Neither does typing. I have to speak it out, and that's where retention happens for me.

So I hope that I will sleep better over the next week, and I'll find myself paying better attention in class. At least with sleepiness out of the way, I'll be able to accomplish passive tasks like homework without giving up in despair.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the car back to the mechanics and tell them my brakes are failing again. They haven't failed all the way yet, but they're getting close enough and I'm not going to wait this time. After they fix it (hopefully before they charge me an exorbitant amount...) I'll go shopping for some bedding and other things with Tamara. I don't get to see her as much this school year which is a bit sad. I find myself missing her a lot.

Money is Here

Well, the money isn't here yet really. But I got the wire transfer receipt from a generous supporter, so that I can show it to enrolment services and they won't de-registered me from my classes. Jonny too. I'm happy about that.

Classes start tomorrow. I took a look at my class schedule but there were no rooms assigned to my classes yet. Could make things interesting. I'm taking 3 computing classes and 1 music class with Jonny. Intro to digital recording. should be fun.

Jonny and his friend will be running in the morning and doing devotionals together. I'm invited. We'll see how that works out, since it's a bit earlier than I'd like to wake up, and I don't want to sacrifice too much of my evening. I need my sleep. I'm proud of my brother for putting effort into that area of his life though.

This house is still a mess: I have so much unpacking left to do. I cleared the dining room table today though. Now just for the rest of the floor and chairs. I just hope that Steve unpacks most of his stuff sometime soon, and stops leaving dirty dishes around the house.

Master Cylinder

My brakes slowly lost pressure in July, and I had to get it fixed. They refilled my brake fluid for free, and didn't find any leaks apparently. They didn't charge me that time.

This past week though they lost pressure again, and they suggested I buy a new Master Cylinder. Cost me $380. I feel like the brakes are losing pressure again. Oh well, we'll see.

Luke 13:24-27 & Revelation 22:16-17

Luke 13:24-27

Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!' "


Revelation 22:16-17
" 'I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.' The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come'. And let the one who hears say, 'Come'. And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. "

So the first scripture here says "many ... will try to enter and will not be able to". However, the second one says "let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost".

To me the first one seems to say many are going to try to get into heaven but won't be able to, and the second says anybody who wants to get into heaven can... So either there's a difference between "trying to enter the door" and "wishing to take the water of life", or there is a discrepancy here in how salvation works.

Psalm 121:5-8

Psalm 121:5-8
"The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever."

I've always wanted a shade on my right hand(sarcastic).... I'm really feeling the culture shock here reading this. I get the imagery of being protected from the sun (sunburn, sunstroke etc. = evil). But my right hand? Did Israelites have really sensitive right hands? And how does the moon fit into this?

Luke 12:22-23

Luke 12:22-23 (NASB)
"Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.' "

So, how does the fact that "Life is more than food" and "the body more than clothes" help emphasize that we shouldn't worry about either of them? If I say the following:

1. Don't worry about A and B
2. Don't worry about C and D
3. A is more important than B
4. C is more important than D

How does point 3 help point 1, and point 4 help point 2? Points 3 and 4 are pretty much moot to the whole argument. Jesus does wrap up the argument nicely in the following verses. But the last sentence (points 3 and 4) in verse 23 there is irrelevant. Why would he put it in there?

Comments

Since nobody seems to be commenting on my blog much recently, I'm going to start a series. I'm going to ask some questions about biblical verses which I want you to respond to. Hopefully you all care about the Bible enough to get engaged in its topics ;).

Laundry Detergent

Recently this summer I read an article about how to make your own laundry detergent. The author of the article related how it saved him a lot of money, and worked the same if not better than a brand name equivalent (in his test case he compared with Tide.) So I thought I'd try it out myself.

The ingredients include:

• Washing Soda
• Borax
• Bar of soap
• Water

The hardest part for me was getting the bar of soap into small pieces, especially since I used a potato peeler as opposed to the box grater the author used. I'm glad I had Tamara there to help me though or else it would have taken much longer.

In the end I ended up with a chunky and slushy mixture. The soap I used floated and caked on top of my mixture. When I broke it up by mixing it, it resulting in polygonal shaped globs of fluffy white stuff floating in soapy water.





I tried using it however, and it works perfectly fine. The globs just disintegrate and do the same job as any other detergent. No special scents or anything like you get from brand name detergents, just a clean smell (i.e. no smell/cloth smell).

So in the end, I highly recommend it. Even though it's a bit of effort, you end up with a very large bucketful of the stuff which has lasted me over a couple of months, and I'm only a quarter of the way through. Especially if you enjoy homemade project or enjoy being frugal, this is something for you.

Here is the article written by Trent on his blog "The Simple Dollar".

Birthday

My Birthday has come and gone, and now I am 21. This was my first birthday outside of Japan. Not as epiphanous as I thought it would be, but enjoyable nonetheless. I got to have Brian, My roommate from 2nd year, come up from Washington. Also Jonny, Sarah (Tamara's sister), and Tamara were there. We had barbecue and jumped on the trampoline then swam in the pool for a while.

The pool started to cool down, so we tried pouring boiling water in it but it only comforted us for a few seconds at a time. Once we decided that the pool was colder than it was fun, Nathan showed up with his girlfriend Maya and friends Brent and Josh. I don't know Brent and Josh but I like meeting new people. I had asked Tamara to let everybody know they can invite whoever they want.

So we split in two two groups and we played munchkins while the others played another card game relating to bunnies. All in all it was a fun day.

Here are the things I received for my Birthday:

1. One eCard
2. One Real Card
3. One hand-made postcard
4. Pack of excel gum
5. 12 bags of popcorn
6. Box of Tetley Tea
7. Knapsack (I got an endowment for it but I still have to actually buy it for myself)
8. Batman Graphic Novel
9. BFF Heart Necklace (Inside joke, very funny =)
   

And that doesn't even count the burgers, ruffles all dressed ships and cheesecake Tamara got for me, let alone organizing the whole party. She's a gem.

Oh and Jonny made sure I got breakfast in bed. I was really worried I wouldn't get that, and actually very sad about the prospect. But he made sure it happened by getting Brian and Uncle Boyd involved. I'm glad I have a brother who values things like that.

Transit

Due to the rising cost of gas, and my recent fad of going frugal (which I hope lasts a long time), I started taking the bus to work instead of driving. This has worked out well because

1. I don't have night classes anymore, so I don't threaten my bedtime with lously bus schedules
2. Tamara has a class at TWU so she can be my bus companion!

I see myself saving 75% on transportation this way. I still have to drive to church, and I still drive to work when I have the night shift. But other than that, goodbye rising gas prices :).

In other news...

So my birthday is coming up soon. I was going to try to plan something extravagant, especially since this is my first birthday in my life outside of Japan. However, I figured it would be easier to just appoint Tamara the coordinator of my birthday party, so I don't have to worry about it.

The depressing thing is though that I don't foresee myself getting breakfast in bed this year as I have done since I became a double digit (10 years old). If indeed this family tradition is broken I will be very disappointed. I guess everything can't be happiness on one's birthday though. Oh well.

Prince George

I went to Prince George with Tamara and her sister Sarah, to visit their sister Erin who works at a camp there for the summer. We drove up together in my car on Monday. We left at 8am and arrived around 8pm. Tamara drove, since I'm only allowed to take 1 non-family member passenger at a time when I'm driving, unless there is a 25 year old with a valid license present. Weird rules, yes, but oh well. So despite poor Tamara having to drive for 12 hours (including the breaks), the trip was lots of fun.

After arriving in Prince George on Monday evening and sleeping, we spent Tuesday meandering around the camp, amusing ourselves with various activities such as archery, canoing, napping, and watching a movie. It was an overall relaxing time, and Erin got to be with her sisters which was very good. Tamara and Sarah slept with Erin in the luxurious, female only lodge, while I slept in the dingy cabin reserved for boys. Such are camps...

Wednesday morning we drove back, and it took about the same amount of time. Thursday I went back to work, and then Graduated from my Game development class in the evening. We had a ceremony and everything, and I have a diploma from that now. Tamara, Sarah, Jonny and Uncle Boyd came, which was nice. After the ceremony there was an after party which I didn't leave until about half past midnight. I don't know how much longer it went after that.

The after party was fun because they brought in xboxes (both the normal and 360) and played rock band and another game I haven't seen but has cool custom controllers. They also had a Wii, which they played wii tennis and smash bro's brawl. There was also a play station on which we played sing star. Of course we used the classroom projectors where we could, which made it even more awesome.

Today I am at work and suffering the consequences of partying the night before. But it was worth it. Tomorrow I get to sleep in, which will be nice.

Now that I'm finished my Computer Game course, I will be starting Integral Calculus soon, since I failed that and have to retake it. I'm going to take it at TRU instead of TWU so that I can do it at my own pace, and for a lot cheaper. I will then transfer it in. Please pray that I succeed in passing thing course. Math is not my best of friends.

If you are interested in purchasing the game, it is distributed by donation at www.labelriseofband.com That means you can get it for free if you want, but you contributions will fund future endeavors of the project.

This is a first blog...

This is a first blog post via jott. I am actually talking this blog post into my cell phone, which will get posted into blogger, it's really really cool, you guys should check out jott as well if you are in North America. listen

Powered by Jott

Yaaaaayyy!!!

Tamara has been back for a week now!!! I'm SO happy =). It took a couple of days to get caught up with her, (esp emotionally) but now after a week I finally feel like I have my girlfriend back again. She had really cool experiences and got to see people, churches and places outside of North America for the first time in her life. She sees things a little differently now, and I'm really happy about that.

In other news, I've become obsessed with frugality. For a while now I have been reading a lot of blogs on issues and techniques of how to be wise with your spending. Fortunately I am not in credit card debt, which a lot of the personal finance writing out there is dedicated to. I feel blessed to not be in that sinking boat which the majority of people out there have to deal with at my age.

I have been eating salads for lunch, and doing a lot of my cleaning with baking soda. I'm looking forward to also making my own bread and laundry detergent. I'll let you guys know how that goes =).

I've also become a little obsessed with learning Spanish. I wrote a little program which quizzes me on Spanish phrases, so that I can memorize them quickly. I usually prefer immersion when learning language, but I only have two people to try it on (Tamara and a girl from Honduras) and the odd friends online, so I have to make do with what I can. So far I can count to 100 and say at least 10 different phrases.

Finally, the young adults band has had a renewal of commitment, and are trying a lot harder to make time to get together. Since I have a car now, there is more hope that I can make things happen, but it's still difficult since our drummer is in school. It would be nice if we could get some momentum and actually get into the habit of leading worship often, so if you could pray for some corporate motivation and momentum on the band's part, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks all.

In the midst of it all

Today was a crazy day. Our computer game development class had a beta test session today, where we had lots of people (mostly high schoolers) come to TWU to test our game out. From 18:00-18:30 was settling down and introductions. Since our professor didn't show up until a little later, I took charge of pairing up all of the people in our class (the observers) with the guests (the testers). There were more testers than observers, so some people had to double up.

The idea is that a tester would play the game while the observer wrote down the tester's experience (frustrations and insights etc. with the game). I set aside four students to test the game in multi player mode over the network, and had some of the more experienced developers be their observers. Since networking issues tend to be a lot harder to solve, the idea was that if the experienced developers were right there when it crashed, it would help with figuring out the problems as well as assisting the testers. It turned out that since I had the testers volunteer to test in multi player mode, we ended up with keener and more opinionated people testing in multi player mode, which was good.

At 18:20 the lab technician with the keys showed up. Thankfully my professor had arrived by then so after completing the pairing of observers with testers I passed things over to her, and she gave her little spiel of the background of the course. After that all of the testers and observers chowed down on pizza while they got to know each other a little bit (at least that's what I suggested they do). In the meantime I went downstairs with the technician and logged all of the computers in and made sure they were ready for the game to be run on.

Little did I know that the night before I had compiled the developer's version of the game instead of the tester's version of the game. It didn't cause too much trouble, since they are very similar. It just meant that there were a few things in there that we didn't want the testers to see which we were still working on.

At 19:00 the testers arrived downstairs, and there was a nice cacophony and confusion of sitting down, getting headphones and questionnaire forms, and the instructor shouting instructions over everything. Once everybody had settled down, we told them they could start the game. I proceeded to patrol the room and give tidbit instructions to each observer which had not been announced. I personally thought that we needed to have a training session for all of the observers before we did the session, but we didn't really have time for that so I kept it to myself. I need to speak up more now and then though.

So my patrols proved useful since now and then I noticed that very little communication was going on between certain observers and their tester, so I tried to encourage communication by asking a few simple questions or making comments on the tester's game play. It worked two thirds of the time, which was good. I had some observers madly scribbling notes trying to keep up with the words coming out of their testers mouths because of the questions I was asking them =). The age range of the testers there was from around 8 till 50 something, so it was quite wide. Like I said tough, most of them were in their teens, though more on the early teen side.

At 20:30 we told them to stop playing, and begin filling out their questionnaire and consent forms. This took a while and people started slowly turning in their forms. We were supposed to get out by 21:00, but we finally got the last people out of the room by 21:10.

All in all it was a very good day for me. It was quite busy running around and making sure everybody was OK, and contributing when I could. But I like that kind of work. Making sure things are running smoothly, things are going as they ought, and that people are happy is my kind of thing. So at the end of the day I felt very productive and useful.

In the midst of it all though...

I miss Tamara. I've never missed somebody like this before. It's been really obvious to me today. There's this longing, anxious, empty feeling inside of me that keeps stretching and gaping inside of me. I can't get away from it. I miss her a lot right now, and all day today. I just really want her to come back.

She'll be back the day after tomorrow though =). She's in a resort in Puerto Plata right now (in the northern Dominican Republic) doing a recap kind of thing. She gets back to Seattle on Saturday night, and I'm going down with her family to pick her up. Without thinking about the implications of being away from her for a whole month, I just want that moment to come as quickly as possible. Anyways this post is long enough.

Short Eurovision Judgement

The Eurovision contest just finished with Europe. It's a pretty big deal over there in Europe apparently. Russia won, but there was a lot of controversy over it, so I thought I would watch all of the performances and judge for myself. I didn't get to watch them all, but I made a point of watching at least all of the semi-finalists. All of the semi-finalists have an asterisk in from of them, and the list is ranked according to my personal opinion.

1. Armenia - Amazing voice both when live and canned. Musically the song was very well written as well.
2. * Croatia - I think they had the best combination out of everybody when it came to talent, on stage performance, and composition. The only thing they lacked was oomf to their song; it was too light hearted.
3. * Turkey - Finally something different from the rest!! His voice wasn't amazing but the performance stood out enough to boost it up for me.
4. * Portugal - This one stood out too! The style, a girl who wasn't a typical skinny-beauty, good stage performance. There were just a few noticable flaws in the singing by the backup team.
5. Israel - Good singing - wonderful voice. They could have used their bodies more on stage though. They were just standing there and singing
6. * Iceland - Ah, true European techno. The performance was amazng. SLIGHTLY off notes by the femaile but it was a beautiful performance. Run of the mill as far as style though. The style didn't stand out like Croatia, nor did the talent like Armenia.
7. Serbia - Very good voice. I liked the composition as well. The chorus sounds a bit like Numa Numa Yay though.. hehe.
8. * Denmark - Crisp and clean performance. The singer was talented and he delivered the oomf I think was needed. The composition lacked substance though.
9. * Sweden - Very similar in caliber to Norway and Denmark. A few notes were off though. Genre is also run of the mill.
10. Norway - Very good performance. It seemed like a normal gospelly pop song performance which was well done.
11. Slovenia - Very talented voice. I liked the miming going on in the background as well. The background singers didn&t have it together though.
12. * Albania - even though she had a very nice voice, it didn't seem to match the instruments at all. The guitarist's sound of choice didn't help much either.
13. Azerbaijan - Crazy singers. Kudos for their talent. I didn't really like the song or the delivery of the visual theme though.
14. * Ukraine - Besides the creepy men running around, she's not too bad. There's one or two notes she always misses though, and that's annoying..
15. Andorra - Bad singing. Wasn't as bad as Russia, but was still off here and there. Her backup singers were TERRIBLE at singing though.
16. Poland - Overall plain flat. It's not as bad as missing notes I guess, since she was consistent. Pretty much the same thing though.
17. Russia - Terrible singing. Live his voice is all off tune, but in the studio version his pitch is corrected
18. * Georgia - The singing was pretty much as bad as Russia. It was compounded though by her awkward stage presence.
19. * Latvia - I commend them for the theme, but the singing was TERRIBLE... just a cacophony of a group of cool people having fun.
20. Bosnia & Herzegovina - Started out very well. I thought they would be my favourite until the male singer came on. He was so annoying.
21. Spain - He's a good performer but seems a bit too comedic for this contest... Besides, I feel his performance isn't hard to imitate

This list is long enough that you'll have to watch the performances yourself to appreciate it, so I apologize. General review though: I found that a lot of these songs went for a positive feel in both the music and lyrics, and didn't put in much wit and thought into them. The only exception was a few songs with regard to the music, mixing different styles etc. Of coures I can't understand what they're singing half of the time, but overall I was disappointed with the lyrics. It seemed like the songs that won based on how "positive" the lyrics are. If they were going to vote on the content of the songs the artists should have just submitted poems instead of having songs performed

So anyways I think Armenia's song was by far the best of the lot. I personally think it was a lame song on its own merits, but so were the rest of them =).

1. Semi final performance (terribly out of sync)
2. This performance is earlier on and much better
3. And finally the canned version of the song.

Twitter

I just signed up for twitter, which is like a blog but is just for short updates on what I am up to. I can post updates from the website, from my chat client (xmpp/jabber only) or even from my cell phone via SMS. If you want to keep up to date on it, you can go to my twitter page and either just read it now and then, subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for a twitter account and let me know what you're doing too! Anyways that was my little promo...

If you have kids, you might enjoy this post on whether it's more of a change when you go from 0 to 1 kids or from 1 to 2 kids. Enjoy.

A good post

A blog I read had a very good post about 25 ways to help a fellow human being. I'd encourage you to read it and carry some of it out =)

Idea

I had this idea I thought I'd just dump on you. If you comment I'll be excited.

University education assumes that theory must be understood before the student is prepared to apply his or her knowledge practically. However, it is better for students to become proficient in their field's practice before they can intelligently discuss the theory, ethics, and other issues of their field. This reverse to the conventional approach will produce better informed and equipped toolsmiths in the marketplaces of this world. Students will actually know what they are talking about and will be able to relate the theoretical concepts they are discussing to the tangible applications and phenomena they have experienced in the fields.

Terrible

Wow I should never write blog posts when I'm sleepy. That post yesterday was totally incomplete and a terrible read. Oh well, I'll have to make a second attempt some other time. For now I'll add one crucial yet missing piece to yesterdays puzzle.

I started picking up a friend who has to work here an hour earlier than I do. I'm hoping to use the extra time by spending it with God. It's a little hard, because my schedule isn't really consistent so I can't pick her up every single day, and she gets rides randomly sometimes. But I'm really hoping to give my relationship with God a jump-start. An hour a day with him would be really awesome. So if you could pray in that regard, that would be very awesome.

The Swing of Things

I'm finally settling into a lifestyle for this summer. I'm really enjoying it.

Monday:
MMMmmmm, Mondays. I get to work at 9:00. First thing is the check the eSupport email. A big part of my job is providing support for the systems we maintain. Once the folder is cleared, it's work on projects we're doing. One project I just finished is writing up a draft for an Accessibility Policy Proposal. This is going to be a huge thing to enforce, given the laziness factor of humanity, but I have fun doing things like that. I also hope to be getting my hands wetter with code. With the new projects coming up, we're going to be pretty busy with that so I look forward to it.

At 12:00 is soccer. Staff and faculty from different departments get together on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to play soccer, rain or shine. It's quite competitive, and keeps me (or should I say gets me) in shape. After that is lunch, back to work until 17:00.

Then from 18:30 until 21:30 I have my game design class which is lots of fun, but very busy right now.

Tuesday:
Tuesday starts the same time, 9:00. As far as work goes everyday is pretty much the same. Come 12:00 though, I work out in the Gym with 2 of my coworkers. I'm really happy about working out in the gym too, because it looks like it's going to turn into a habit. After working out is lunch, then work until 17:00. I drive 35 minutes each way from home to work every day... eats up gas but I've gotten used to the "driving perspective" of the city.

Wednesday:
Wednesday I get to work at 13:00, because I have the night shift until 21:00. I show up at 12:00 for soccer though =). My bosses name is Geoffrey, a guy from China who's pretty cool. Young and newly married, the good buddy type you can make fun of.

There is a coding party in the evening until 22:00 on Wednesdays as well.

Thursday:
Thursday is the same normal schedule, 9:00 to 17:00. I work out at the gym again at 12:00. Today was special though because I was invited to an XSLT tutorial at 12:00 so I worked out from 13:00 then went to a farewell party for staff here at 14:30. Free lunch and everything =). Wasn't sure if I was going to get any work done today... then at 18:30 I have class until 21:30.

Friday:
Friday is the same as Tuesday... kinda boring, but hey, it's the last day

Saturday:
Coding party for the class all day!!!

Sunday:
Church of course

What I do Now

Now I work at TWU for the "Global Learning Connections" department (GLC), which serves non-traditional methods of learning. The main bulk of my job is development of the online courses website, "MyCourses", and providing support for this website via email and phone. Of course I do other random things like make coffee and develop policies. I really hope to learn a lot from this job and enhance my computing skills through it.

I'm enjoying myself so far with the work environment, the staff soccer games on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, as well as working out whenever I can. I hope to also start coming in an hour earlier so I can spend some time with God in the prayer room before my day starts, since I have a harder time doing that at home.

Oh yeah I live at my Uncle's now, and it's a 35 minute commute one way by car. Jonny and I share a bunk bed, and have set up internet there and just installed a light in the room, which has made our lives much brighter(...)

Tamara Gone

Tamara has been gone for over a week now. She's in a place called Los Higos in the Dominican Republic. It's so remote that I can't even fine GPS coordinates for it on the Internet. Well, at least ones which I can rely on being accurate. I just miss her a lot right now. And of course I missed my readers too, so I thought I'd let you know how I'm doing.

Oh p.s. don't worry, she'll be back. She's only gone for a month for a missions trip. Not like she broke the law and high tailed it indefinitely. You could have inferred that from the previous paragraph if you wanted to I suppose.

My First Car

I finally got my car today! It was quite the experience.

My Grandpa bought a car for me recently from a friend of his. It's a white 1987 Acura Integra. Made when I was born =). So I spent a day a month or so ago taking the tires off with him and seeing how the brakes work, and looking at the engine, checking oil etc. That was lots of fun and I got my first introduction to the innards of cars.

So this past Saturday I went to Grandpa's again and we dealt with the paperwork for transferring the vehicle and getting license plates, insurance, and BCAA membership etc. That was another big experience in itself hehe. We brought the plates back, stuck them on, reassembled the interior (Grandpa had taken it apart to air out and check for leaks, which he fixed.) I then gave the car a very good wash while Grandpa went inside and got ready to go.

We then hit the highway, and I got to drive it for the very first time, let alone use my new N license (see previous post) for the very first time. When we were halfway to school though, there was this weird smell and, all of a sudden, smoke started pouring out of the front. "Quick, pull over!" Grandpa yelled, "Slow down! Slow down!". So I obeyed and brought the car to a quick stop. "Open the hood!" he instructed as he jumped out of the car. He took a look but saw nothing wrong, when we realize the smoke was coming from the driver side front wheel.

And sure enough, when we touched the wheel, it was really hot. We sat around for a while trying to figure out what to do. In the end we called the BCAA and had a tow truck take us to an open mechanic (being a Saturday, those were scarce) where we could have it checked out. Of course, I'd never had my car towed before, so that was quite an experience.

It turned out the car's rotors had warped, and so the pads had been damaged too. Most likely due to the calipers seizing up. So we had those replaced and the brakes flushed as well. HOWEVER....

When they were flushing the brakes, there was sludge in the master cylinder which clogged up their flushing machine. So they said we needed a new master cylinder too. Grrr. Grandpa wasn't really happy, that's for sure, especially because they called him right after he'd had a nap.

So we had that all done and I finally got to pick up the car today. Whew. I was so happy, I pulled Tamara out of bed (she was napping) and took her for a ride! Now I just have to worry about insurance, parking, gas, etc etc etc. Ah the joys of cars. I don't care though. I'm just happy I'm mobile now. And when you're in Canada, you NEED a car to get anywhere in a REASONABLE amount of time.


If anything good came out of this, one thing is for sure. My Grandpa says I've pretty much had a lifetime's worth of experience with my car already. Feels like just about =).

Ok finally to entertain you all, I'm going to let you listen to my composition I referred to in a previous post. This song was written for the purpose of using all the music theory rules of Mozart/Beethoven/Bach era I've learned. The idea was to take a text, preferably from the Bible, and put it to music. I used Judges 19:29. My song ended up with a Monty Python feel to it, but (or thus) it was a hit in my class.

Here it is: Unsung Tale

Avenging my Absence

Wow I've been neglecting this place a little bit. I just had two midterms today so I feel kinda light. My Music Midterm went fine. I didn't do to well on my Calculus midterm. That's what I suspect anyways.

Well except... the music midterm was annoying because we had to identify intervals and chords, and dictate harmonies and rhythms, but there were geese sqawking like crazy and the professor in the next classroom was playing these crazy arpeggiations.... very annoying. And that's a crazy run on sentence...

So I have homework due tomorrow for music theory, and my one on one midterm for music theory tomorrow too. Then I have to record my piece I wrote for music theory by Thursday. At least it's all music, and not Calculus =P.

Though I hope I don't do too terribly on Calculus. I don't want to fail a course ever again.

80% Sucess

Well I was able to keep my goal for the most part. I only stayed up and slept in really late 2 days out of the entire week. So I'm half-decently happy with myself. Of course I picked a bad day to stay up late: tomorrow I have church so I'm not going to enjoy waking up in the morning.

So for today, I have two tasks. I've been trying to meet with my hopefully future landlord this week, but the past 2 times didn't work out. Hopefully I'll be able to meet him today, and talk over renting his suite come September. I better shower first before I do that though.

Secondly I have to call the nice man who gives me rides to church. Too many times I have slept in or miscommunicated with him, causing him to wake up 20 minutes earlier in vain. I better call him tonight to confirm that I will need a ride tomorrow morning. Tsk tsk me.

And finally, just a little heads up that I might be sending out a prayer request for my finances again, regarding tuition. My summer finances and my non-tuition finances during school next year seems to be coming together, with the advice and prayer with my parents. Tuition is always a big chunk though. Comes with going to a private Christian University with no Public funding.

So if you could do some preliminary prayer for me before I actually find out the specifics of my financial situation with tuition. But also, please pray for a breakthrough to happen with the finances of Trinity Western University. This University is a community which strives to serve God in so many ways and does so with great success. However with recent drops in enrolment, it is hurting the school which depends on students' tuition for 90% of its operating costs. I think that if God can provide a miraculous means of funding for this University, the school would be freed to grow to its maximum potential, and the financial burden on students would no longer deter them from their studies and the amazing blessings which come with the Christian community here.

You're all I want

I think I'm finally starting to feel what it's like to get really caught up in life, especially from an adult's perspective. It really gets to the point where your self worth or sense of success depends on how much you have life figured out.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

It's too easy to forget that it's God's job to have life figured out, and it's your job to please him and glorify him. If you feel like the world is overwhelming you, you shouldn't feel nearly as panicked as when you're not making God happy.

You're all I want in heaven!
You're all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.

So what I'm going to try to do is take a breather and give God my time. Giving God huge chunks of my time may jeopardize my success by the world's standards. However, after putting things into perspective, I'd rather be running toward God when I fail the world instead of running away from failing the world.

Besides, if I live for God by glorifying him and trying to please him, I'm going to have the best life ever. Living for a Dad who loves you and wants the best for you seems a better way to get through this life than to live for a world that lives by politics and would rather know you by number than by name.

I Passed!

I finally passed my drivers test after my second attempt!! Well, I'm now a "New Driver", instead of a "Learner Driver". This means that I can stick on this green N magnet on the cars I drive instead of the red one with an L on it.

I couldn't find my old L magnet, but that's fine: I don't need it anymore. You can see what it looks like here if you really want to.

So now I don't have to have a licensed supervisor over 25 years of age with me in the car when I drive. I can drive on my own, but can only take up to 1 non-family member in the car with me when I drive. I'm stuck with this license for the next 2-5 years, until I can get my full license. The cool part about having this license is that I'll be able to drive the car that my Grandpa got his hands on for me. It's a 1987 Acura Integra. That's a random picture of the exact same model and colour I found on the Internet. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the actual car for you guys soon.

So last night I stayed at my Grandpa's and today we looked over the car to check how it's doing. It's in very good shape, and I should be fine without paying for any major maintenances for at least 2 years.

The real blessing of having this car is that for one I'll be able to get to church on my own time. This enables me to not depend on rides on Sundays, and also to get to small groups and practises at other times during the week. Also, I'll be able to get groceries during the school year and save lots of money. During the summer I'll be using it to get to TWU for my summer courses and (hopefully)my work there as well.

For now though, my focus is to get my studies done, but of course I have to figure out taxes and plane tickets and whatnot as well.

Spring Break

Today is the last day before Spring Break! I want to jot down my goals and "aspirations" (or in other words, tasks and to do list) for the break.

1. Practice Driving
   • I'm doing some driving with Uncle Boyd today from 18:00 (in 3 hours) and hopefully at least two other times before my test. I failed my last test because I wasn't looking over my right shoulder when turning or pulling over (though I was doing the left shoulder check fine).
2. Submit Passport Application
   I want to go to England this summer, but my Canadian passport has expired so I need to renew it. To do that, I'll need to:
   1. Take My Picture
   2. Get Uncle Boyd to sign the picture & the form
   3. Mail in the Application
      I've already taken care of the rest
3. Go to the Tax Office
   1. Pick up forms
   2. Ask questions about tax returns and RRSPs
4. Meet landlord of the house I want to move into
   I called him up today and I'll be meeting him. It's a good sign that I'll have my living arrangements sorted out for next year.
5. Take drivers test!!!
   I have no clue what the ramifications will be if I fail this. I think I start from square one, but I'm not sure. I really don't want that to happen... please pray that I'll pass by remembering to do right shoulder checks as well as all of the other skills I had already mastered for the previous test.
6. Go grocery shopping
   I'm running out of food hehe...
7. Calculus Homework (and other homework too)
   I really need to take advantage of this week to get back on top of Calculus. Well hopefully Calculus won't get buried in the midst of the 6 other things I have down on this list so far.

That's all I can think of. I may have missed something because it's all off the top of my head. Please throw in a few prayers here and there if you can, and comment to let me know you're praying too. Thanks.

Public

I have finally conceded to publicize my post. I figured that the risk of my personal information being publicized on the internet does not compare to the convenience of accessibility. The only other person's name and picture I've put on here anyways is Tamara's, and she has already given in to an internet presence long ago.

What that means is that you can a number of things which you couldn't before. If you look to the right, you can see that you can subscribe by email so that you don't have to come checking here all of the time. If you use an RSS reader, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog.

Taxes

Recently I've realized that I should probably file my taxes. Financially this year has been an interesting year for me. I did some self-employed work for the first time, and actually began to budget so that I kept track of a lot of my finances.

When I first got here I had no clue what the deal was with filing taxes and everything; I was very confused. I kind of expected the government to just do everything automatically; I mean sheesh, they know all of my information already anyways.

The good thing about this sudden awareness and pursuit of financial knowledge is that I'm learning a lot about tax shelters and options for saving and investing. Unfortunately though I feel like my situation for financial planning is a little more complicated than most because I don't know where in the world I'm going to live and work for most of my life.

Hopefully God will make things like that crystal clear to me as time goes on. It kind of helps to know God's plans for you to be responsible with the investments of your time and money. One of my motto's is to "live in the moment for God.", but that doesn't carry over to every decision making moment in your life.... life is never ever THAT simple =)

Spring

Today is an epitome of a spring day. The sun is softly shining, everything is basking in it's glow. I can actually smell a little bit of nature. In between the incessant. I've never seen myself as a person that especially finds great emotional joy in nature, but today I can honestly and regretfully admit that being outside made me happy.

Though I realized that it's not the sights, sounds and smells in and of themselves which made me happy. It's the vague memories they invoked which brought me back to my childhood, and drew back the sights, smells and sounds of spring and summer in Japan and other places. In any case, I must conclude that I'm more sappy now than I was when I was a teenager.

Well I didn't get enough sleep last night so I'm going to take a nap.

Midterms

I have a midterm exam in 15 minutes! Music Theory.... should be ok. I'm so happy I got my Calculus midterm out of the way already. Tamara has been a big help as I try to catch up with the concepts. All those different tests for finding if series' are convergent or divergent... sigh.

In our Music Theory class we have 3 midterms twice a semester. I already did my Music Lab Written exam, but forgot to do my singing exam!! Thankfully my professot agreed to reschedule it for right after my lecture exam today. So technically I have two midterms back to back today, though the singing exam is only 10 minutes long. Well anyways I'll let you know how that goes.

Sick

I have been done in by a puny little virus. except by now I bet there are trillions of them in my system. I woke up this morning at 5:30 with very warm body temperature, clogged sinuses and body cramps, unable to go back to sleep. Once my sinuses started draining I got post nasal drip which caused me to cough from the chest, even though there was nothing there.

I went to the wellness centre though and went to my first two classes. By the time I got to my Calculus class though, I was too exhausted to sit through anything so I asked a friend to take notes for me and rested during that time. I'm glad I did that because I had a meeting from 14:30 ~16:00 then I worked from 18:00 ~22:00. So now I shall finish typing this, brush my teeth, then kurplunk into bed.

Week of Valentine & Goals

Valentines
This week brings Valentine's day. So to celebrate, Tamara's church youth group decided to invite me along with Tamara's sisters' boyfriend Tim for a little Q&A on relationships. Here's the list:

1. How did you meet?
2. What attracted you to each other?
3. What characteristics do you look for in a person of the opposite gender?
4. What factors did you consider before starting to date?
5. What are your views on dating?
6. What role did your friends & family play in your friendship? Is it important to have their approval?
7. What do you see as important factors in developing a healthy relationship?
8. What advice would you give to a sibling about dating?
9. How should Christian relationships differ from those who aren't believers?
10. What boundaries are important in a dating relationship? What boundaries have you set?
11. Describe a relationship you have observed after which you would like to model your relationships.
12. What is one thing that your girlfriend / boyfriend doesn't know about you?
    

Number 5 is very generic. Quite a hard one to answer I think. As for number 11, I'm tempted just to say "Jesus, the groom, and the Church, the bride". I don't really have any relationship role models otherwise haha. Well those are the most amusing thoughts I have so far on those questions. I talked with Tamara a bit about them while we went for a walk this evening.

Goals
I have goals for this week, besides just sleeping normally. By the end of this week, I want to feel like I am on top of Calculus again. Usually I measure that by attempting to do every problem assigned to me thus far which I have neglected to solve. However, I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that such an ambition is impossible for me to fulfil. I just have to get on top of the topics at hand, and if the concepts are derivative of previous concepts, then I will be forced to understand them anyways. Anyways, a word or two of prayer would be appreciated on that note.

Long Week, No End

So I just got through a very long week, with pretty much no end to it. My Calculus midterm was on Wednesday, which I passed with 62.5%. That is actually quite impressive for me. I do not look forward to the rest of the course though, because I am behind and not following the lectures AT ALL anymore. That is probably just a self-esteem issue though.

I felt the same about Music Theory because I was behind in that course as well, but I was able to catch up after work last night. All I have to do now is write a 4 part, hymn style harmony for my composition and work on my Ear Training for the midterm on Monday. So hopefully there is still hope for catching up and understanding in real-time the concepts being thrown at me in Calculus. Sometimes I feel like it's just too fast...

Work tonight was crazy, the girls' volleyball played UBC to 5 sets, playing for at least 3 hours. They won a very tight and entertaining match, and may be hosting playoffs because of it. There was a men's match after that against the U of A, which pushed the Event-Staff's clock out time to 12:15 after cleaning up. Thus it felt like my long week never ended... At least I can be sure I didn't have a weekend.

Another cool thing this week: I received a desktop computer from my friend who recently graduated from TWU. A friendly staff member also gave me some RAM for it, which was awesome. Unfortunately I'm having problems partitioning the hard drive. It seems though that I am not alone in this... we'll see if I figure this out. In the meantime I have a very beautiful peace of machinery sitting on my desk =D.


So now it's past 3 am and I have to wake up before 9:10 at the latest when my ride picks me up for church. This is the unfortunate cycle of David's weekends, where he stays up very late on Thursday or Friday because he has nothing to wake up for, but then come Sunday morning he feels very unfortunate. It may be kind of lame telling you this but I intend to break this unfortunate cycle. Hopefully by telling you it will motivate me even more to sleep and wake up at normal times in the coming weeks. This is me trying to play psychological games with myself. Hopefully it works.

Trudging Through Calculus

I'm writing a song in Music Theory. We had to pick a text from somewhere and put rhythm, chords and then melody to it, in that order. I picked Judges 19:29, so I'm having a lot of fun. I like to call it one of the "Unsung Tales of the Bible". I must either be unable to abide by the social norms or have a certain taste for shock value. The melody is turning out to be quite intriguing actually; if I get a recording of it I might post it on here.


Calculus is coming along. I got a lot done but not enough. I'm going to have to settle with turning in half an assignment in tomorrow. We have a quiz tomorrow as well. And the midterm is on Wednesday. Hopefully Dr. Atkins won't assign additional assignments and I can take advantage of catching up so that most of the topics are fresh in my mind for the midterm... at least that's a positive way to look at things =).


I noticed my previous post doesn't allow you to post comments. Sorry about that. I was tweaking with the settings and must have forgotten to put it back. Hopefully this post will allow you to post comments. Thanks for reading though!


Oh and also if any of you prefer to read blogs through feeds, let me know and I'll consider publicizing this blog so you can do that. For now though I'm opting not to, for other people's sake rather than mine of course =P. I don't like to be vain enough to think that my personal life (or the information contained in it) is of value (financial or otherwise) to anybody. Or perhaps I crave attention. Either works I guess.

Snow & Calculus

It snowed today!!! Though school wasn't cancelled so I had to go to classes. One of the two professors of my Game Design class - Dr. Alma Barranco-Mendoza - was sick and her kids' school was cancelled because of the snow, so she couldn't lecture today.

So my other professor - Dr. Kevin Schut - decided to finish a lecture he couldn't beforehand (sometimes those professors ramble and lose track of time so that they don't get through all the points they wanted to, tsk tsk).

I'm behind in Calculus, and I'm not sleeping enough. This is really frustrating me. I have a midterm next Wednesday and my homework is due on Friday + there is a quiz that day, so I need to be prepared, but if I sit down to study I feel like falling asleep; it's very hard to think through integral Calculus when your brain is all muggy and trying to shut down. Please pray for me

My Future

Car
For the first time this summer I'm going to be taking a course at Trinity as a commuter. Ah, commuting with the great Transportation company known as Translink. I cannot say anything of the quality of the England, California, Northern Ireland or Australia versions of Translink - all of which are separate companies - but the Vancouver episode is... quite the frustration. This of course may be due to my upbringing in Japan, the land of railroads reaching every corner of the entire nation. However, many local residents also complain about the service as well. On the third side of the coin, people tend to complain here a lot in general...

Hopefully the picture I have painted is bleak enough to make my salvation shine gloriously. I have come across an opportunity to acquire my own car. I might as well be vague until it happens but I want to share the news of this opportunity because of a couple of cool things.

For one, I'll be able to transit to TWU during the final semester of my Game Design course instead of having to ride a bus for an hour and a half. I concede that the bus ride has improved improved from last year - it used to be 2 hours - but it's a 30 minute drive by car...

Also, I will be able to get to church at odd times instead of having to depend on a ride. My involvement in ministry at the church is limited because the buses don't start early enough for me to get there by 10am for the normal worship service time, let alone for a worship practice beforehand. This is mainly because it's a 2 hour bus ride which is a 30 minute car ride. I'm hopefully getting my license on February 26th (provided I pass the road test on that day), so it will be awesome to put that license to some good use.

If all goes well, I'll get to pick up my parent(s) at the airport when they come over in April. If all doesn't go well, I'll fail my road test and my Learners license will expire in March.

House
So far I've been an on-campus resident student since my first year here at TWU. As a young student at first you don't really realize how your living and food expenses compare to market prices, especially coming from an entirely different economy. Slowly however I've come to realize that though the price of convenience for living on-campus is cheap for the market, it is still a big expense which can be done away with.

A friend of mine just recently moved out of a house right across the street from TWU. I asked him to speak with his landlord on my behalf so that I might have preference as a potential tenant for this coming September. If I share the house with Jonny I slash my monthly housing cost by $200, yet still maintain the convenience of being in walking distance of my classes. I'm really excited about this opportunity of frugality, and hope that everything goes down well. I just need to keep persisting with getting through to my friend's landlord.

Minor
For the past year or so I have frequently described myself as taking a Music Minor. It was not until 2 days ago in face that I finally filled out and submitted the paperwork to do so. I'm really glad I made that step and look forward to entering dialogue with my Music professors to seek advice on my academic pursuits.

Google Reader
And finally, a little bit of advertising. I recently started using a tool called Google Reader. What it does is subscribes to webzines (online magazines), articles, blogs and anything that uses an rss feed. It then organizes it for you and keeps track of what you've read and even keeps your reading stats for you. Essentially it serves as your digital newspaper except is especially tailored to your tastes, so it's way more interesting.

I've subscribed on my family's blog so I can keep up to date on what they're up to. I also get some sermon audio from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Mars Hill Paper (TWU's student newspaper), NPR and BBC news, as well as some project management blogs since I am doing that with the digital game design project.

If you find yourself spending your leisure surfing time looking up things in a very scattered and inconsistent manner, this may be the tool for you. If you already have a Google account, you're already half way there. It's very simple to use, and will either save you a bunch of time or take up all of your leisure time. Whichever it does for you, it's going to do it really well.

Something New

I tried keeping people up to date on me by posting YouTube videos, but then I found out I'm not allowed to stay in the lab after work. The lab is where the iMacs are with the cameras and mics... too bad. So now I'm trying something new. I'm good at doing new things, but new gets old pretty fast....

I'll still be using the time I have at work to post on here probably, which is maximum of 3 times a week. So anyways, let's see if I can recap my semester here at TWU so far...

I'm taking 3 classes, working at 2 jobs, and have 1 girlfriend. That's pretty much the extremely short version which actually describes how I spend most of my time very well. Let's explore each item one by one

Digital Game Development
This is my favourite class. The class consists of a team of students who are pursuing different degrees (art, music, business, computer science, communications) all working on a single project to develop a computer game.

I am the "Technical Project Manager" for this project. My job is to compile and maintain the schedule for the entire project (including each individual task) and making sure everybody completes their tasks on time. It takes a lot of communication with everybody and dedication to the project, both which I love and thrive at doing. The "Technical" part of my title is supposed to mean that I am especially managing the software developers workload, but I suspect I'll be doing an equal amount of project management across the board.

Music Theory
This class is quite self explanatory. I took on a music minor as a part of my hopeful preparation for graduate studies relating to music and computers. This entails learning the theory of music. I have always engaged in music from an aural and experiential level, never really tackling any theory aside from my encounters during piano lessons from my Mom.

The method of this course is to introduce the student to the rules of music followed by musicians approximately 250 years ago. The community of musicians never really felt the need for rules or theory until the enlightenment age came along with its expectation of rationality from all things claiming to be worthy pursuits. Thus people like Rameau decided to systematize and analyze music in a whole new way...

The existence of music theory is not very negotiable. Thus actually the method of taking students back 250 years is a favour because the theory of music today is way too complex and diverse for any student of music to take as a starting point. It's nice to work with music which is very restrained in its taste... learning more modern music will make more sense once we get to it. Otherwise it's kind of like learning about democracy without knowing about monarchy or better yet about anarchy without learning about government.

Integral Calculus
If you haven't figured out already, I despise mathematics on many levels. However for some odd reason I have picked the degree of Computing Science which mandates the successful completion of over 3 mathematics courses. I protest to their relevance to my pursuit of technology, but who knows, it might prove useful one day.

In the mean time I struggle with motivating myself to do mathematics assignments which I struggle with

1. Accomplishing well
2. Finding a practical reason for it which is relevant to me

My professor though is a very intelligent man who clearly enjoys mathematics which amuses me very much.

Spartan Athletics Event Staff
The Spartans are the University's athletes. The event staff is me. I've moved up since being hired in my first year, tearing tickets and maybe selling them. Since then I've pretty much done every job available, which is nice because I have the experience to be helpful in almost any situation.

The thing I enjoy the most right now though is announcing. I've started to announce Volleyball and Basketball games. I do like all the jobs which involve watching the game, but I like this one the best because you actually get involved with the game and athletes on a more personal level. Even though you don't interact with them per se, you learn their names and describe plays to the audience.




Main Computer Lab Teaching Assistant
This is where I'm at right now. Right by the white board. Basically all I do is sit here at the computer and look smart. People may ask me questions if the have problems now and then, just to test if I'm actually as smart as I look. For the most part though, it's a very quiet job, especially compared to event staff. Even though it's not as exciting, you can't turn down getting paid for just sitting at the computer, and maybe answering questions and pushing chairs in now and then.

Also as a part of this job I get paid to mark for a programming course. Last semester I marked for "Intro to Programming: Modula-2". This semester I will be marking "Intermediate Programming: Java". It's a good way to keep on top of my programming knowledge and maybe even add to it. I love the concept of getting paid to learn.

Tamara
She's the girlfriend, in case you couldn't figure that out. We've been dating since April 2007. This is the first relationship I've had where God has been such a big part of it. He has definitely been leading us and guiding us as we get to know each other, and I think I have a pretty good idea of where he is taking us. Otherwise I wouldn't be dating her.

We spend almost every morning together; I go over to her place and we have breakfast, and share a time with God if we can. We spend almost every evening together too by just enjoying each other and praying at the end. If you pray then you can pray that God will continually be the guide and master of our relationship.


Oh yeah, about the title of this blog. "The Struggle for Balance".... for one I didn't feel like writing a title for my blog in the first place because it's merely a medium for me to write about my life so others can get a glimpse of it. I began to think though.... "balance" is something I've found to recur as a theme in my life. By theme I mean it seems like nobody has balance and it really frustrates me. It's just something I see as being very important. So I figured I could call my life a struggle for balance, be it for myself or for those around me.