Another Day At The Office

It seems as if nothing much is happening at school besides school work. This is not really a bad thing, I mean why else would I go to school? I have no fun things to report like fending off monsters and saving damsels in distress, or funny things to share like jokes. Yep, I went to school and I did work. Then I came home and did more work. Studying is a 16 hour job.

Ok that's pretty boring so let me tell you about the coastal clean up I went to today. If I name names only a few of us would have any idea what I am referring to, but still try to paint some picture of it in your mind. It started at 6:30am on Long Beach, Christ Church. The weather was lovely. It was as if God knew there would be people on that beach today so he held back the rain. The sun shone on the participants as the beach was filled with sand and spotted with red t-shirts and garbage. Bags full of garbage heaped about the beach until about 9 when all of the collecting stopped. Then the cataloging began.

There was a prize for the largest group collecting garbage and one for the largest amount of garbage collected per person. It was amazing to see what washed up on the beach from the main land - lightbulbs, hammocks, glavanise, shoes. We even found a compressor!

So this is where I came in. I woke up about 9:45 this morning and got a call that my dad wanted me to collect the car. I got dressed, ate, and left home for the car. I arrived at the beach where the garbage was piled up and the volunteers were already too dark for their liking and sweating under the blazing sun. After observing and making light conversation I was asked to move a tent from the top of the beach to the cataloging site.  So after walking on water, climbing over vines and pulling stakes out of the ground, I move a whole tent (and nothing but a tent. So help me God).

The End.

And The Gift Goes On...

Ah yes. Now you must be wondering why I called this meeting of readers at such a short notice (I know I am).  I once heard a guy say that every time you experience a day it becomes a smaller fraction of your life and that's why the days go faster. Of course that would mean that for a 2 day old baby a day is 1/3 of its life and so it takes forever to go by, and God help you not to sneeze if you're around 70 because at that age a day is an almost insignificantly small fraction of your life that you would have missed about 3 of them before you knew it. The week has gone by pretty quickly.It kinda sprung like a leak and I guess this blog is the rainbow that we see when light hits the water. And speaking of rainbow, it rained somewhat this week. Of course that has nothing to do with what I'm about to say.

Well what am I about to say?

For those who didn't know, my birthday was two weeks ago. I met this girl yesterday who was lost and all alone (literally) and we were talking about stuff (and videogames! How strange! A girl who is a Call of Duty fan!...Ah...university life) and she asked me how old I was. It has been noted that I look younger than I really am so I asked her to take a guess. By golly, she got it right! I was so surprised. Apparently, she said, I have the air of a 21 year old (whatever that is). Her theory is that at 21 you look different, like "I've made it!...You 20 year olds are such little boys and girls." I don't know, I'll test that theory. 

Back to my story. I got a whole set of cool gifts that I asked for this week. On Thursday I was so happy as I began reading the Chronicles of Narnia before I went to sleep. When I thought about it, I remembered begging for grey Converse and asking for that book and not asking for the other gifts that I got that will remain a mystery. And it dawned on me (in the middle of the night) that the things I have are the things I need and the things I don't have, I don't need. I don't know if I'll ever get grey converse in this life. There are things I get immediately and there are things I wait for for a long time. There's a purpose in all of this. Things do not make me who I am; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possession. Things help me to do what I have to do. Understanding this trumps all of my delusions of greed and covetousness. It also then asks me what am I doing with these things I have. 

It helps to know the purpose in life while at school especially. I hear that there are very little jobs available and too many qualified persons to fill them. And of the jobs that are available one needs work experience first and a whole set of potentially depressing stories. So then we spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in our own education and when the excitement of going to school has faded we wonder why are we here. But knowing that answer is the difference between enjoying school and enduring it. I don't know the answers but I know that there are things we have because we need them and there are things we don't have because we are working on the prerequisites. 

I think that changed my week from "About to throw something (or someone) into a wall to bearable. Now all I have to do is work on these slow drivers! Slow drivers (i.e. people who drive below 65km/h) are so annoying! I almost had road rage this week because of them. I heard it's fun, road rage. 

That's pretty much my week. I'm sure you don't want to hear about all the classes I went to and how people got picked on by the lecturer and were subjected to public shame and how much car insurance I saved switching to Geico (Weeeeee! Weeeeeeee! Weeeeeeeee!). So remember, keep within the speed limit (i.e. +20 of it) and if you're caught, when the fuzz asks you if you know how fast you were going just say "200?" and look disappointed when he tells you the real speed.

It Starts With A Degree

Some of us have been asking me when is the next blog being posted. I would assume that some of us missed me over the last 14 weeks. Well here's what I have been doing. Believe it or not, I've spent 14 weeks trying to find an introduction that would rock this world, lure the readers and hook them for life (awesome isn't it?). Sadly though, I have failed. I remember having such an introduction earlier this week but I decided to hold it off for the time I write. Then school hit and I forgot...*tear* Now don't you fret, nor don't you frown. I still forgot the introduction I failed to write down. The moral of this story is that not every story has a moral really.

I started my final year on Monday. After a restful, rejuvenating, and relaxing 14 weeks of pure vacation, which included boredom, beach and travelling, I was ready to go to school and end it all - rather finish. On Monday I was excited. I was smiling, I was laughing and my face was glowing. Who wouldn't be? When May comes I will be out, only to return in October next year for my release papers. On Tuesday, however, I realised a very interesting fact: if I don't pass, I won't leave. Making it to final year is a good achievement but graduating is the real goal.

Many times over the last semester, when I realised that I was on my way out, I thought that it would be smooth sailing to the end. I could run on momentum and the university would give me my degree once I showed up for class. In movies it goes like this: the hard part is ahead of me and the scene fades and I'm at graduation. What movies fail to show is what happened between the hard part and the end. But I write my story so let's see what happens when the screen goes black.

As per usual, I had classes this week. Each class began with a fifteen minute introduction of the course and the rest of the time was spent teaching.

In many ways I feel like I'm in first year.  Almost everything is seems new. I feel washed off completely and ready to take this new opportunity to do well.

That's pretty much it for now. Work calls and I must answer.