Today, reading my favourite book, I am encouraged.

Consider it pure joy, my brohters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is lke a wave of the sea, blow and toessed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
James 1:2-8

I am that double-minded man; doubting, full of fault. I am facing trials, and am persevering.

There is hope for me yet.

A bright flash of light left them standing in their own disbelief; as said on the radio, the enemy had delivered. They could only watch as they knew countless innocent lives were obliterated infront of them, knowing theirs was coming too.

It was a silent moment. A silence that kills. With an explosion that large, should there be sound too? A shockwave to reassure their existence? Instead they are deer caught in headlights, waiting in shock to hear of their defeat.

Soon enough they will die. Soon enough their waiting will cease. They might survive it, it has been known to happen, but what is important now is to hear the fatality, that it is upon them, and not hundreds of kilometres away.

So I'm sitting here, writing a paper (wow!) and on my book this Ladybug comes and lands. And sits there.

So I'm like, "Ok, are you gonna move, or get squished?" and she just stares at me. So I'm like, "Ok, well you're lucky: I don't gotta flip the page for a while". So I let her stay.

And I turn on some music, Korn's "Clown" to be precise. Then I notice the Ladybug is DANCING. Right on the beat, RIGHT ON THE BEAT. She puts her rearend in the air on every down beat. Amazing!

Never saw a bug dance before.

...And in my mind I will now analyze this event, instead of killing it for all of you here.

I want to take this time to publically appologize.

Lately, I've made a mess... of my own life. Things that are normally easy, normally mundane and completed, are overlooked and difficult. Details are irrelevant, but what is very relevant is the way I am affecting everyone around me with it.

I've poked and prodded, passed lines I should not.

I've sworn, cursed, judged and walked away.

I've caused stress, not helping the paper crunchers.

I've flaked out of work, class, lessons, wasting many peoples' time.

Everywhere I go I seem to reap destruction. I'm down, yea. But I am sorry for how I'm handling myself. All you people are very important to me, and there is no room for selfish temper tantrums in any friendship.

I only ask two things: Forgiveness, Patience. I need some extra of that lately. Although I've listed some very specific things I am sorry for, please also note the generality of the appology...

I am committed to becoming a better person everyday, and I'm glad I have you such fine people around me to affect me, and admonish me. Keep praying for me.

A drum beat fills my mind. It never waivers, solid like a metronome. It's rhymically technical; like a mathematical equation with many variables, many integers. Some aspects of the rhythm never change, they are there, they are the backbone of the groove. Some of the aspects twirl this way and that, adding tripplets, adding rests, dotted eighths, dotted eighths with synchopated rests... They are the flavour of the groove.

Suddenly the rhythm changes, the backbone shifts; the solid ground on which the groove is founded alters. One single shot is missing. The sound is changed entirely. The end product is completely different. One integer changes the outcome.

One tiny aspect changes the entire effect.

One tiny rudder steers the ship.

"I'm tired."

Lately, there is a lot of attitude towards one of our teachers here at school. Every student must, and does deal with her.

Regardless of where she is coming from, she is a person. She is to be shown patience, love, kindness, compassion.

However unfair the things she does may seem, we need to check how we approach her and how we talk to others about her. Scheming, plotting, taking joy in disrespect is unacceptable.

Remember: we are students, she is the teacher. If you can say, "There is nothing I can learn from the joke that this class is", then you are truly a fool. Learn. If you're not getting what you payed for, take it up with the school administration.

We may not like how she does her work, but she does her work. That's all that matters.

I think it would be very appropriate to include some verse about respecting (elders, authorities, teachers), or loving (neighbours, brothers, sisters, pastors), but there are simply too many to choose from. Really, we need to start thinking like Christians, and our attitudes should directly reflect the Christian thinking within us.

Alright everyone. Here is a chance to get to know me a bit. I am going to tell you about my BEDROOM.

Most noticable about my room is the MESS. My room, on its best day, scores about a "3" on an out-of-ten cleanseliness scale. The mess is made up mostly of laundry and papers (you know, "The Source", sylabi, letters and such). Laundry gets cleaned once a week, and the papers once a month, but never at the same time, so the mess is consistent. Easily fixable? Sure, if I had a community of visitors to please this place could sparkle...I think...

At this exact moment, I have 47 empty Pepsi cans, and roughly 6 bottles (600mL or larger) collected in 12pack boxes. One is on my wall. Yes, I sticky-tacked one to my wall. There used to be two, but the other kept falling.

If it's ever not cluttered, the most enjoyable aspect about visiting my room would be sitting on my couch. It is fantastic. You don't sink, but it's not stiff. Slouching is made comfy by the fabulous balance of stiff/soft. It builds up in the middle (head rests easilyer where the construction is taller), so the sitter has the tendancy to sit inwards, towards the middle. If two people sit on the couch, it's cozy, making it a great couch for... oh... umm "G" rated...

In the corner of the unused side of my desk, there is a "shrine" dedicated to me. It's Ryan McQuoid's doing, really. Sitting on a glass table is an 8"x10" portrait of me when I had my long hair. Ryan promises to find some candles. Why not take it down if it's so vain? I never see it.

Besides the Pepsi can, on my walls I have three posters and eight photographs. The posters are of motorcycles (x2) and the animated X-Men movie. The photos are of highschool friends, and of me doing a front-endo on my mountain bike, which I haven't seen since september... I should do something about that. OH and I also have some kids' drawings. They're cool. One's got jokes on them. Though the "J" in "jokes" is backwards.

Hey, want to know something about my room? Ask away!

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Here's a freebie for you guys. We had fun!

Hi guys.

Running rampant in my mind last day and a bit is "I hate this school I want out".

1) For whatever reason... I'm HARSH turned off by people speaking in tongues. I don't know why. I understand, accept, and believe that speaking in tongues is a spiritiual gift awarded as said in 1 Corinthians. I've been around it for almost... well for years now and it was never a problem. Somedays I wish it was just easy to peg it as "Oh, I'm jealous", because, somedays, I am. But I just don't get it. The thought just occured to me that I can only think of one specific example, twice, the same person. Am I offended of THEIR particular tongues? Is that even a possible thing?

2) A friend earlier said, and I quote, "I've never had a teacher that makes me want to swear in [their] face". This teacher doesn't follow college standard for late assignments (which is their perogative, I believe, but inconvenient nonetheless), and since all of my assignments are always late, I don't stand a chance. I've been threatened to fail this class and that, and lately, my graduation is at stake, and I am required to write two papers I didn't know existed! (please feel free to ask me about this in person, too much typing involved to fully explain)

3) Not helping with assignments is my work. Well really, is the bike. This stupid motorcycle, that I can't ride. The only reason I go to work is to pay for this thing. Sell it? OFCOURSE. You read my mind. Problem: who wants a broken motorcycle? So I have to fix it. In order to fix it, I need money. But now, all the money I make is going to paying for it since I can't put more hours into work!! AHH.

My Dad used to say to me, "Give me three good reasons why I should let you _____ " and would name an event to let me to go, or a friend he would let me visit. I have here three good reasons why I should get my ass outta here. Am I off my rocker? It's only two more months, I can do it...

...But maybe I wasn't supposed to do the first two.

Well.

Last night was our last night. Go figure. We played our worst service, we were not tight, played at wrong times, finished the service quickly (within an hour). But it was OUR LAST. Thank God.

Throughout the trip, we had many "OPAH!"s... a story many of you may wish to hear. All of us guys managed to fool the girls into thinking my arm was broken, to the point that we even had Steve play drums for one practice. It helped a lot that I was wearing a cast.

We've grown closer to each other, which is fine. But I can say without shame that I'm glad I don't have to spend any more time in thAT BLASTED VAN with them anymore.

Anyways, I henceforth promise to be a grouch for the next couple days. My back is hurting a bit, and I'm overfed and underslept. Dave said to me "You look chunkier". Thanks, Dave.

See you all around!

Hey guys. Good to see that the site's been maintained and nourished while I'm away... *shifty eyes* ...right.

Anyways, I'm posting from Williams Lake, BC. Weather's nice. We've done... umm... 7 or 8 services/shows so far. Mostly successful, meaning people respond or enjoy themselves. I've stayed at farms (one was 900 acres huge), slept on floors, made movies...

Tonight we're doing a youth service. Todd has us doing a bunch of songs punked out. I'm witholding reservations based on the fact that nobody here will ever see me again, so it doesn't matter if we suck or not.

But in any case, no major fights yet, no accidents, no complications. We're continuousoly tired, seeing that we set up, take down, eat and sleep, every day. Hauling equipment... etc etc. Working as a musician on the road, performing this way and that could be a very very hard deal. So far it's been pretty alright seeing that we've been fed everywhere we go.

Man... have we been fed. I mean sometimes 4 or 5 meals a day.

Ok well I gotta jet; Darrell's the boss!