The semester in Guelph is now over and I’m back in Toronto. Home. It’s weird because I have such a structure all built up around myself in Guelph that Guelph is where I’m more comfortable and more secure.

For the most part all I’ve been doing is having dinners with my family, a bit of video editing, and figuring out what I’m supposed to do to get orthotics and orthopaedic dress shoes. It’s been quite confusing for the last task… but I know it’ll be important, so I’m doing my best to make it happen. This is a new situation, now that I’m not going to be a full-time student next semester and my mom and dad’s insurance policies will no longer cover me.

Now that I’m out here, I’m trying to figure out how to make my WC costume. I don’t think I factored enough time in. I’ll also have to figure out how to get it to WC without anyone seeing it. It seems like because I’m keeping it a secret, many others have also kept their costumes secret… leading to an aura of mystery and anticipation around everyone’s costume!!

Wow, I’m realizing now just how little time there is before WC. So I’ll need to make sure to use my time wisely.

The first priority is to make sure my devotions don’t get totally thrown off track with these living environment changes and weird schedules and time for sleeping in.

Here is the fastest route, to my knowledge, to get from my place in Guelph to my sister’s in Waterloo.

Extremely Long Link to Google Maps

I wish that in Google Maps there was a feature that you could just click on a location and set that as a landmark for driving directions.

Also, I really should be reading more of the Boundless webzine regularly. Man, it has some great content in there. It is helpful to have some great godly content online in an environment that has so much crap. From reading some of the many great articles at Boundless, I think it’ll help me to a better, godlier, correctly-oriented young man. Sometimes I look for great examples to follow and garner wisdom from, and this is a great resource. Hope you enjoy it too, I know many of you already do.

The other night I saw “Stranger than Fiction” starring Will Farrell, and tonight I saw “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Forrest Gump”. *warning may include spoilers*

It’s weird because the first one is about a dude whose life is being narrated, the second is about British gangs, and the third is about a simple man who encounters everything monumental in the latter half of the twentieth century. But it all made me feel quite depressed at some points to think about the meaninglessness that is portrayed in the movies. All three of them. Screenwriters, directors, and actors all try their best to help the audience understand what is truly meaningful, but they’ve all missed the mark.

Can you find full meaning through dying for another person knowingly, or gambling away the livelihoods of you and your friends, or even finally having the love of your life return your love (along with a kid of your own)? I know they’re all trying to make sense of things, but are they getting it? Does true meaning have box office appeal? Will it ever?

Now that exams are done, I’m going to post about a variety of things that I wanted to earlier… it’s going to be pretty random.

In your blog posts, how do you usually type? I have caught myself beginning almost every sentence with the word “I”. That’s right, sentences that begin with “I” are usually about none other than me. It’s probably from typing up cover letters meticulously, as cover letter critiques typically suggest against starting paragraphs and sentences with “I” because it is very self-centred when you want to be focused on the company you are applying to. But it probably also can pertain to other forms of typing, eg. blogging. Try it sometime, when you are typing, do your best to limit your sentences so that they don’t begin with “I”. It’s quite the challenge.

How did the kids Christmas maze game go? After realizing that Beth had left a comment asking me how the game went, and then realizing that I had just spent an hour or so with her when she gave me a ride to a print-shop in my time of desperate need, I realized cumulatively that I could have answered her question in the van. But no, the blog world and the real world are frequently so detached from each other that I rarely remember that specific people read my blog. Unless it’s someone like Jamie Strickland, who now calls me “singforever” as my nickname.

The maze game went well. Not as exciting as planned, and not very much screaming at all… since the kids didn’t guide each other, and screaming doesn’t seem to be a suitable thing in this church right now (however, a 4 year old running around without his pants on is a frequent occurrence). I recruited the help of some of the older young guys to set up the maze, and they had a good time thinking about how to make the maze difficult. The younger kids first walked in without our knowledge and said “this is so easy!” And then we told them they had to be blindfolded. That presented a challenge, as it seemed they really weren’t super keen on getting blindfolded. And we found out that the towels I brought were too short to tie around a kid’s head. So we just draped it over their heads and told them not to peek out the bottom (of course, some of them still did, out of fear of bumping into things). And instead of yelling “star!!” and “King Herod!!” as instructions, it seemed difficult enough to just give them normal directions and have them follow our voices.

Apparently some of the kids really don’t know the difference between right and left, forward and backward!

The game was short-lived and I think they quickly got bored. I think it’s because they are a product of the short-attention span generation. When I was a kid, at church our parents would have meetings and fellowship time with other parents on Sunday afternoons, and with all the other kids we would build massive (I mean massive) mazes out of the chairs. We would use the chair backs as walls and line them up and create huge geometric mazes and it would almost be like a city. And we would crawl under the chairs, take off our shoes and walk all around, and chase each other around in the maze.

However, the response at Priory Park was interesting. Mainly from the parents and the adults — some of them saw the maze and were really intrigued by the setting up of tons of chairs. Some parents thanked me for getting the older children involved with the making of the maze, and for being so creative in doing something new for the kids. I thought it was quite the easy thing to do and it didn’t even go as well as I had planned in my head.

This morning I started doing a Bible study devotional booklet called “Living above the level of mediocrity” by the Insight for Living people. I took this booklet from my dad’s shelves many years ago, thinking it would be good to do, but never actually did it. Now I pulled it out and it is really helpful. I hope I finish it, so many times I start something and don’t finish it.

The devotional today talked about reliance on God’s word as the way to turn from sin. I found that to be a great concept that I knew but have hardly put into great practice. At the end it suggested I memorize Hebrews 12:1-3, so I had the time and memorized it. Here goes:

“Therefore, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay down every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us, and run with endurance the race set before us, and set our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured the hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3

Sweet! Yes!! I almost got it all right. Had to go back in there and add one line, but not too shabby.

GEOG 3020 Global Environmental Change, finished.

That’s three exams done, no more to go.

It should have been a huge deal to be done, but for some reason it feels anti-climactic. I’ve no idea why.