Super long December post

Ok, I haven't updated in awhile, but that's a good thing. I was focusing on more important areas of my life. Speaking of life, there's nothing like a good physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental storm(s) to hit you all at once. That was basically my past 2 weeks.

Let's see, I had exam finals and a term paper to deal with, constant power outages (literally, constant), and my Mom being rushed into the hospital all at the same time. I think a fair majority of people can identify with our crazy weather systems that hit the Lower Mainland, wow. I had finished studying around 3am one night, and as I was going to bed, I heard so much howling and trees shaking from the wind, it was so strong it sounded like cars driving past our house outside. I looked out the window to stare at the trees and everthing shaking, and *ptoof* out goes the power for the entire neighbourhood. Praise God, I had just finished studying some powerpoints on the computer 10 minutes before.

As for my Mom, she was rushed to the hospital right before my first final exam started, and then ironically, she was released the day they ended (which the doctors are amazed at considering her medical condition; people were praying and God was/is faithful in take care of her, email me if you want to know more). Now she's on a 24 hour IV drip that gives her antibiotics.

Siiiiiiiigh. It's all over now. It almost feels like a dream though. Those past 2 weeks almost feel like they happened a month ago or something. I don't really want to dwell on it anymore. I felt so overwhelmed at times and it was dark. But it's over.

Soooo, onto a new topic....Christmas.

I'm still quite cynical, maybe more angry this year at what Christmas has become. I've seen stupid news reports on TV where the headline was "The War on Christmas" where some reporters went and "investigated" whether or not random people on the street will say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" to various other people, or why Christmas trees were pulled down because some guy thought it would be offensive if other religious things weren't put beside them. Baahhh....IDIOTS. And I'm still angry at all the commercialism and for people who think they have to give gifts, because it's the season to do so, yadda yadda yadda. Incompetence in the shopping malls. Don't get me wrong, giving gifts is great. Receiving gifts, is also great. But giving gifts for the sake of giving gifts, or just because everyone else is giving gifts or because the mass media is telling you to give gifts, just doesn't sit well with me. And Christmas cards...oooo how I loathe Christmas cards. Christmas cards (oh, pardon me, I meant to say Holiday cards...NOT!) are probably one of the biggest factors that contributes to global warming. Save the trees!

New topic: Asian men stereotypes

If you don't really follow the TV show Survivor, then you probably don't know that a Korean American guy named Yul Kwon won a few days ago. He mentioned that a reason he wanted to do the Survivor thing was because he wanted to help break bad Asian male stereotypes and in my opinion, he did it pretty well. I just find this really interesting because I took ASC 301, and just finished ASC 300, so I'm really not surprised if within the next few months or so, there will be a bunch of new academic journal articles that talk about this guy.

New topic: Stuff I really really want, right now.

Please note, this is not a Christmas list. NOT a Christmas list. I just thought this would be a fun thing to do because in this season of economic greed, I thought I'd add my own two cents to share with the world. Hey,our wants will never end.

- a Dyson DC07 Animal

Most guys my age want a car, and I do, I just can't afford the upkeep of one. However, I do a lot of vaccuuming and hohohoooooo.....this thing is sooooo beautiful.....
-a huge slab of lean BBQ pork. I think the redder the skin is, the more lean it is. So sweet, so tender....
-a Strida3 bicycle with mudflaps....sob sob....not available in North America... 

-bacon. Lots of bacon.

-ummmm....a Colt Python 6in revolver by Tokyo Marui....so pretty. I thought they used to make a 9in model....o well

-ah who am I kidding. I want my own Futureshop, Wal-mart Supercenter, Canadian Tire, and T&T supermarket.
-to be taller
-and a king-sized Twix
-----------------Saw gas for around 108¢/litre the other day. I think it's around 104¢/litre now.

Fall 2006 Semester = End

It's a little hard to believe that it was summer 3 months ago. Anyways, it's almost final exam time. Yay! I'm so excited! Exams are so much fun and I'm so happy! Not (but actually right now, I am happy).

Last Tuesday, because of the weather I got to walk on water.

The AQ Reflections pond froze over. See?

You have to admit, that's pretty cool (pun possibly intended).
However, Paulman was cooler. He skated. On the pond. At SFU.
And he did it for free too.

How cooler is that? His actions are like a legend now. Hundreds of years from now, people will question amongst themselves, is it true, the one called Paulman skated on the SFU pond? And what are skates? (ok, so I'm assuming global warming is on schedule in my lame little joke. Doesn't feel like it is because of our recent temperatures...)

Anyways, I saw two random/funny things today:
1. A girl talking on her phone outside the library.
Oh wait, I forgot to mention, she was smoking, two cigarettes... at the same time!
2. A guy on the bus reading a book called Linux Server Hacks.


Ok, so maybe they're not that funny.-
Maybe its because you're not funny.
Nyah nyah! 8^p

It's still snowing right now

Since Saturday night, we've gotten about 8 inches of snow (measured by me sticking a ruler outside...hehe). On Friday, while going to class, it started to snow a little at SFU (and then it stopped and completely melted). Anyways, it was really fascinating to watch people's faces as they saw the snow start to fall. Nearly everyone had a huge smile on their face, some laughing, some pointing to show their friends what they were so happy about. I think I was grinning a bit too. Snow isn't magical. But it's so beautiful. That's why it's mentioned in some parts of the Bible. Maybe in our minds, we see snow as a symbol of peace. It falls gently, softly, and is a strong clean white. And everything that was not, is now white. Even the sky is white. Our entire neighborhood last night was so peaceful, under a thick heavy blanket of puffy snow. Complete tranquility.

Speaking of last night, our neighbourhood lost hydro (that's partly why it was so peaceful...). That was a bummer. I was really angry at first, mostly at the 1-888-POWERON phone number that you can use to report your outage, because I kept on getting a stupid recording that just looped me saying that I could call the number that I just dialed. I gave up. Tried to do homework by candlelight. Everyone went to sleep early. I called the number again before sleeping, was put on hold for 35 minutes (picture me in the dark, lying on the carpet, waiting on the phone, listening to lousy "on-hold" music), then was told we'd get our power back on by noon (they actually got it back by 7:30am, kudos to those hardworking electric hydro people!).

Anyways, I've learned not to be angry at situations like this (well, now that it's passed...pretty quickly too, so I don't have that much reason to whine), but to appreciate the basic need of electricity. Or wait, maybe it's the basic luxury of electricity. Either way, I'm very grateful. Got to go to sleep with sweatpants on. And "play" with fire and candles in the house as my Mom says. And got to hear that classes were cancelled at SFU today. Narf!

So......I'm off to reset all the clocks in the house and do some snow shoveling.
And just for fun, here's a new picture of Spider-Man:

Up, up and away...

Sometimes when I heat up my food, I like to stand directly in front of the microwave and while watching the plate go around and around, I pray that the radiation being emitted will be strong enough so that I can develop super-powers. It hasn't happened yet.

No just kidding, I don't do that. I'm not that dumb (as much as you may think, so nyah! 8^p).

I've just been watching a lot of Heroes and X-Men, that's why the lame joke. I've considered this before and if I was only limited to one power, it'd be to fly. How I long to fly. The closest thing to that would be to skydive. I've yet to do that. I'll post pictures if I do someday though.

Before jumping out of airplanes, I should probably learn how to jump off stairs first...
I jumped down 12 stairs last Friday and my foot still hurts. Oh well, be more careful in the future.

This is a time-wasting post (gas and chocolate)

In the interest of procrastination, I'm posting some nonsense. I should be doing homework. But now I'm not.

Ok, firstly, gas has been sort of steady for the past few weeks, hovering above or below the $1 level. Not that anyone cares. Whenever I post about how much gas is, it's for my own knowledge. I don't know why I find it interesting. I don't even drive. Maybe it's because I can remember gas prices from some of my childhood memories... like seeing a big sign with numbers that read 49.9 or something like that. I never really fully understood what they meant, because in school, they didn't teach us that cents could be broken down into tenths. Anyways, today I saw prices for 98.9 and 102.5 ¢/litre respectively. I don't even know what respectively really means....

O yeah, this is a funny commercial:

Whenever I see this commercial on TV, it makes me smile. Because it's funny. And cute. And it's an awesome jingle (gives Capital One a run for it's money). This is an interesting write-up here with more info about lyrics and stuff. Apparently this ad campaign is from Australia and 4-5 years old. Still good.
On a semi-related note, I don't like Cadbury chocolate because it's too sweet. And most of their candy bars have colours on the wrapper that aren't really pleasing to my eye. I like Nestle though.

"A fool and his money are soon partying"

I saw that on a bumper sticker last week. I laughed.
Then I was sad and I pitied the fool (no, I didn't pity him Mr. T style).
It was more like a shake-my-head-in-disbelief/"gah-that's-too-bad" kind of sad/pityness.

As funny and as true that saying might be, as soon as the party is done, the fool is still a fool. Except now he's a poor fool. In more ways then one.

Time for a siiiiiiigh.........
Stupid things that are for the here and now.
Stupid things that provide instant gratification.
Stupid things that are temporary.
Stupid things that have no real purpose.
Stupid things that bog us down.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Going to be busy the next few weeks. Group projects, presentations, assignments, term papers... Then finals. Oh the joy of it all.
I'm tired, off to sleep. There's light at the end to look forward to. A hope to keep me going.
Ok, now I'm really going to stop.
Right now.
Bam!

"The 1 and Only Cheerios"

I remember when I was younger, seeing a TV ad for Cheerios, where there a bunch of kids running up this grassy hill at night time and they're all cheery and smiling. And when they get to the top of this hill, there's this giant radio/satellite dish (I think), and it's tilted so that it's like a bowl.

Then all the kids starting pouring milk into the giant "bowl" an they're still smiling. Then out come the boxes of Cheerios, and they get dumped in and so now there's bigger smiles and such, and they all start to eat it. So picture about 10 kids or whatever, around a giant bowl, all eating Cheerios digging in to this huge dish, and while they do so, they're still smiling/laughing at each other and enjoying the cereal. I think one was supposed to feel good after watching it.

Anyways, I think while growing up, my Mom only bought Cheerios once and I hated it. I don't remember if I persuaded her to buy it after watching that commercial, but if I did, I severely regret it and I now know what a stupid little kid I was for doing so. Cheerios are the pits. I don't care if it's healthy or if its low in trans fats. I don't care if it lowers the risk of heart disease or is part of a balanced breakfast. Cheerios were and are still disgusting to me.

They have this super Cheerio-ey taste and it's not sweet. Where's the sugar?!?! Where's the fancy coloured box?!?!? I don't want to eat cereal from a boring yellow box (nothing to do with racism...I hope) that doesn't taste like anything. (Honey nut Cheerios, however, are a completely different story. Yum.)

Almost all commercials I see now for Cheerios seem to be targeted at middle aged people and up. I rarely/(never?) see kids eating Cheerios in commercials. When I think about this topic, I sometimes wonder if there are any kids in realy life who currently each Cheerios. And if they do, why do they torture themselves? Or why do their parents torture them? In short, Bleagh + Wheat = Cheerios.

Wow this post was really pointless. Except now you know, I hate Cheerios. Because they taste bad. If you have read this last paragraph first, you could have saved yourself a whole lot of reading. Too late for that.

Daniel Asher Memorial

All Glory to God.

Click here for the PowerPoint in a ZIP file (15.4 MB)
- Contains PPT File and MP3 file
(RIGHT click ==> Save Target As)

Click here for the PowerPoint converted to a WMV (video) file (7 MB)
(RIGHT click ==> Save Target As)

Click here for a collection of pictures of Daniel (Flickr)

For a beautiful, well-lived life, because he wanted to know and follow his Lord Jesus Christ.
We know Daniel's life was not cut short. It was God-ordained and his life's purpose was completed.
And now he's Home.

Life is funny

It’s not always hahaha funny, but also funny in the sense that we think we understand life, but then things happen and then we feel like we don’t understand it. We’re back to asking questions and answering them in our head.

I’m not sure how I feel. This situation still doesn’t feel real, so I guess it hasn’t fully sunk in for me yet. I’m not sure what I should do, or what I’m supposed to do. My mind is blank, but full of thoughts at the same time. I’m staring blankly ahead, but still focused on what I do. I reflect on what I remember and think silently. I can’t control anything. I don’t know anything. Things happen suddenly. Without notice, to everyone; “...for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” That is God.

From my own experience, it’s almost never you get word that a friend has gone to be with Jesus. Passed away. Dead. But praise God, he’s not dead now. He’s in Heaven rejoicing (in his case, partying) where there is no suffering. I wonder why God chose for his time to be now. But really, there’s nothing I can do and no matter how much I question, the situation is still the same as it was five minutes ago, an hour ago, etc.

I thank God for the change He made in his life, for the better and to the glory of God only. In his own words:

I always felt the need for acceptance and importance...

I was raised in a Christian environment. My parents were very strict with me, ensuring that I had the right friends, was home before dark, and didn't go to parties throughout high school. I had to keep my crazy and spontaneous side of me under control.

However on my 18th birthday I unleashed myself, the rules no longer applied, I was now officially free from my parent's curfew. Here I am starting University, and I just had to join a Frat because of what I've seen in the movies (Old School), I wanted to blast off into what was supposed to be the best years of my life. Also, I knew that joining a fraternity was my own personal way of rebelling against my parents who totally went against that idea. After attending a couple of their parties, I received an invitation at the fraternity I was rushing at. Shortly after, I only had three things on my mind: girls, beer and myself.

A voice in the back of my head telling me "Dude you are totally not meant to be doing this!" It didn't make sense to me because I was having the time of my life. I felt accepted, and plus I could take advantage of my no-curfew. But something was missing...

The missing link was the purposelessness of what I was doing. I mean I can live my life, have a lot of fun, and perhaps make a lot of money, and maybe leave some mark in history but what will that mean to me after I leave this world? It will probably mean absolutely nothing, because I can't take all my worldly success with me when I die.

So I went back to my childhood roots, I remembered learning about God, and Jesus, and how they will love me no matter what. Well this was the end of my search for the "missing link", I knew whom to go to be accepted, to God! I immediately left the frat, and was in search for a new group who could help me grow - not grow financially, but grow spiritually!

Since then, I have not only found acceptance, but also I have found purpose! There are some pretty stellar benefits to all of this, for example having joy and being kind. I mean honestly, who doesn't feel good after doing something nice? I finally understand that the only way to feel satisfied is to know God. Nothing can separate us.

(From everyonehasastory.ca, February 2006)

Definitely not separated.

Daniel Asher
(September 17, 1987 – October 17, 2006)

And Laziness is...

...me. I'm lazy. Haven't posted anything in a while. But in a way that's good. That way, the Internet is not polluted by my kilobytes and crap. And there's less global warming. Actually, there's no relation there. Now I'm lying.

Some general things I've seen on public transit in the past few week:
- a bright yellow Ferrari (couldn't see what kind it was, drove too fast)
- I found an old lighter (fulfills my pyromaniacal pleasures)
- tourists......many many tourists
- a girl clipping her fingernails. Sitting beside me.
- a guy with green socks (they were SUPER green) reading The Real Terror Network
- a beautiful firey orangey light reddish outline above the horizon as the sun set, blending with the various dark blues in the sky

Oh yeah, Google bought YouTube. Wow. Maybe my Google conspiracy theory was right. Imagine some day, if Google buys an island in the middle of nowhere. Then they could start a country! Imagine if Google were to get a seat on the UN Security Council thingy! Imagine if Google started their own underground nuclear testing (oh yeah, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea did that yesterday)..... Bad Google.... Just kidding. Or am I? Well, since I want to keep using Blogger for free, yes, I am kidding.

Btw, YouTube is bad, if you enjoy watching TV and movies. I've watched so much Spider-Man (old Fox cartoon), caught up on an episode of the The Office I missed last week, silly hilarious Korean and Japanese game shows, Fight Back to School, Colbert Report clips, etc....
There's also tons of Just for Laughs and old Whose Line is it Anyway clips....
Ahhh laughter! And procrastination! Wait, that's bad.

--------
Saw gas today for 96.5 ¢/litre. It's been hovering slightly above and below $1.00 for a while.

Happiness is.....

....watching old Fox Spider-Man cartoons on YouTube and eating some sloppily made egg and bulk meat (corn beef I think?) sandwiches.
The happiness is only temporary though. After the cartoon ends, I have nothing left to watch. After I have finished eating the sandwiches, they are gone. All happiness is only temporary.

On the other hand, joy is everlasting. Unlike happiness, it's more than just a feeling. You can have it when you mourn or are excited. It can feel like it comes deep within you, and you may not be able to explain it when your current situation dictates that you should be angry or depressed. Joy is the result of when you no longer feel guilty from your wrong doings. You acknowledge the forgiveness of God and experience His love. And it strengthens you. Joy does not make sense, but you know it's good.
You [God] will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)
In Heaven, I'm going to eat a humongous sandwich.
Actually, I think in Heaven there will be better things.
Bam.

Tuesday - September 12, 2006

Well, the Terriblelands is more than one. That kinda went fast... and slow at the same time. Meh doesn't matter. Also, another year passes by 9/11, the marked day that will always be engraved in our minds (thanks to the media's constant replays) of the tragedy that hit pretty close to home. Sometimes things seem so meangingless.

But life's not. Thank God He didn't make it that way.

I'm pretty sore from last night. Played hockey at my church, the first night of the "season." But it felt good, and I got to run around so I'm content with the pain (if you're in the area, drop by at 7pm on Mondays to play). School still chugs away, and nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I'm trying to get involved in some paid research studies at school because some of them have pretty good pay (eg. $10 for 25 min doing a survey or whatever). That should be interesting. More or less.

Oh wait, something out of the ordinary did happen today. I saw a guy pee on a "wall" in front of more than ~75 people waiting for the bus at school. It seemed like I was the only one noticing it though. I should try and get a picture of the area so that my story is comprehendable. I was laughing, but disgusted at the same time. What a feeling.

Ok, go live your life now. Its passing by you know.

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Saw gas on Saturday, yetserday, and today for 98.9 ¢/litre.

12 Weeks left

Well, the first week of le semester has ended. It’s been good. I think it’s safe to say that I will probably enjoy most of my lectures and classes, partly because from what I’ve heard so far, the profs seem interesting. Also, I probably won’t have to do any quantitative analysis math junk. So there. But I will have to do a lot of writing. Boo writing. Boo it to the core. Boo. Bu, wo shi Jianada ren. Or Huaren

Well the first week of school has ended. It’s also been bad. I’m a little peeved at all the people. After taking the summer semester (bad grammar, I know) this fall semester feels like sardines. I mean this especially literally when on the bus. I blame all the returning students who have come back from work, and first years who just clog up everything. Good job people. You just made my life slightly/barely/noticeably miserable with your humongous backpacks and slow walking/standing in the middle of hallways/stairs/paths/doors. I need a big stick to poke or swat people who don’t know how to get their feet out of first gear. Grr.

And now something completely unrelated, if you ever need to do special printing/photocopying etc, don’t go to Quad Books in the Maggie Benston Centre. You may as well just call me up and ask me to kick you as hard as I can in your behind. And I can kick very hard. Bam!

But DO go to the Campus Printing Centre shop at the Cornerstone building. That owner is soooooo nice/personable/helpful. And its clean. And you don’t need to leave your backpack by the door. And it’s buttloads cheaper than Quad Books.
So remember: Quadbooks?
No.
Campus Printing Centre at the Cornerstone?
Yes.

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Saw gas for 100.0 ¢/litre today. Wow.