The Legoland Convention

Bah!!!!
So much on my mind that I don't know what to do with
Way too much to do that I don't want to do
And not even the words to express it all


Holly...we need to talk!!!

I think that attention can be equated with love.
They can be described in the same way.
At least in the sense I am talking about.

Everyone seeks attention in some form or manner. That's a normal thing, right?
I have always loved attention. Sure, when I was in situations that intimidated me I faded into the background so I wouldn't be noticed and receive negative attention.
But I've always loved the spotlight. Dramatic presentations, band performances, youth-led services...I loved it all.
I still love attention, but now it's somewhat different. I do not seek those situations that are so overtly obvious (for the most part). I guess I go about getting attention in a more subtle way. Still, I like attention. Is that bad? When it comes down to it, that's one of the reason we have friends. Sure, we have friends so that we can have a chance to give attention to others and pour out our love on someone, but those are the same people we go to when we need to be loved on.
So what am I getting at here?
I don't know. Sometimes I think I am selfish in wanting attention. And sometimes the way I go about getting it is probably more manipulative than it should be. It's something that is so ingrained into me. I don't know how to change it. Or even if I need to?
That's what is on my mind

So it's almost Christmas. Hooray. I have absolutely no desire to go home in two weeks. That's a whole other topic. Why don't I like going home? Is it just Courtenay? Or do I have hidden tensions towards my family? I do not really think that is the case. At the same time...I had to write this philosophy of ministry for a class. And this whole class is about being a pastor. Throughout the semester I have found myself becoming angry at certain points when we talked about all the responsibilities that a pastor has. I have always argued that we expect way too much from pastors. So I was thinking about it. And I think I may have some harboured bitterness towards my dad (who is a pastor). But it doesn't make sense. He was busy. But he had lots of time for us. He worked out of the home so that we would not have to be alone while my mom worked. Sure, he was stressed a lot, and I remember him not being very happy some of the time...but he was always there for us. More than a lot of other dads I know.
So what is the problem?
I was trying to figure out what I believe about ministry and family together. And I understand and agree that a minister needs to have his/her own family in order before dealing with other people and their problems. But how high of a priority should family be? Should it always be put above the people one is ministering to? I don't know if that is biblical. See, there's a dilemma. On one hand I'm slightly hurt that I got a bit of the shaft for my dad's ministry. But on the other hand, I'm glad he poured out his life for others...I think that's how it should be. I mean, so far I've turned out okay. I am not scarred for life or anything. I feel loved. I feel blessed, as a matter of fact. I guess I'm just trying to reconcile this whole issue with where I see my life going. Actually, I don't know where my life is going. I used to have it all figured out, but I'm not so sure now. But let's just say I one day have a family. Will I have to compromise my ministry for them? Is that okay? Am I okay with that?

I think one day I will need to write a book.

The homework rush has begun.
I am a stressball.
Every year I don't think I can get it done, but somehow I always do. I hope this is no exception. It could be. Maybe I need to fail a class. I've only failed 2 important things in my life. Maybe 3. First, there was a big project we had to do in grade 5. I did the shoddiest work ever. I failed the project. Second was my first term of English 8. I had just moved out from Ontario, so I give myself some credit there. Third was my soteriology final exam last year. I knew I was passing the class. That didn't help me study.
I'd like to do well, but I just don't care anymore.
Really . . . I don't.

Its been about three years since a guy made me a compilation tape. (cept for Zennon, who makes them for every one). Too bad that I didn't understand the significance of it at the time. My new goal: allow room in my life for music loving guy who makes me (and only me) compilation tape(s).


I hope I don't get strepthroat from slynn and laura.

Dubien needs to blog

I'm sick
I came to write something great and profound but, even if I wasn't sick, it probably would not have been that good. So I will not even attempt to try right now.
All I'll say is who gets up at 4:00 in the morning to have a bath?
Not me for sure. I hate baths!
But that's what I did last night. And then I stood staring at my face that was all full of swollen glands. And my roommate came in because I had woken her up and was blinded by the glaring flourescent light. And we both stood there looking piteous. She was all swollen too. Then we went back to bed and didn't sleep most of the night.
It was a monumentous night.

I got new shampoo and conditioner today. It felt so nice. I think my hair is happy.

You know, I gotta say, no matter how bad their commercials may be, I love Herbal Essences. It's got such a nice smell. I like it on me, that's for sure. I love it on girls. If I catch a whiff of a girl's hair, I can usually tell right away if it's Herbal Essences. It's such a soothing smell.

That's all I have to say about that.

Here is a poem that I wrote last semester (Holly, this is the one I told you about):


Blow the ram's horn,
Give us a shout!
Stomp on the devil
Get him out! Out! Out . . .

God's feet
were never this violent.
But stepping
firmly and gently on this earth,
He reached with a touch and a whisper where shouts could not.
the place called
Silence

Ahhh!! Silence?
The devil lives there!
The devil the devil- beware beware!
We'll sing and shout,
and stomp him out;
But the devil's lair,
we'll never go there.
For we cannot control,
nor overthrow
the realm
of Silence.

That's it, with a little revision.
Later.

I currently have 125 padiddles.

In other news . . .
Holly is creative.
I am a gullible fool.
I still haven't fully read Andrew's love blog.
I still love fully haven't Andrew's read blog.
Pearl Jam does rock, no matter what people say.
I think most people would say that they rock.
I like rocks, but not the boring ones.
later.

Bryan's current Maglight record: 78.5 seconds.

When I was a kid I trusted my parents for everything. My happy little nuclear bubble kept me interested with educational tools and exciting experiences. I got to be on a float once, as snow white. I don't remember knowing that it was going to happen, just that i ended up being there. Another time I got to go in a fire truck. Another time, My dad took me up a huge mountain (hill) where i wussed out and made him carry me up the rest of the way. Then we sat on the edge and i dangled my feet over the edge of a cliff (I actually think it was a cliff, though likely not more than 50 feet). My dad always let me do the dangerous things. I followed him up a ladder once onto the roof of our house. I was four. My friends have all heard this story, likely more than once. My mom freaked out. She was always that way - so worried that something terrible would happen. The thing is, my dad always figure something terrible would happen only if I knew it could and started doubting myself. He knew I would lose my balance if I got scared. I've never been afraid of heights. My mom always has. I didn't find out she was until I was 18 - my dad never let her tell me. It was almost like they were the antitheses of each other. I'm not sure if that was grammatically correct. Don't correct me if it wasn't, I'm just rambling here. Anyways, my roundabout point is that I always figured my parents knew what they were doing. Being parents meant they were superhuman. My mom was my age. I still feel like that little kid. It turns out that she did too. A little kid with a little girl. And my dad still a big boy who, even though mid fifties, still isn't sure what he wants out of life. I think it's so interesting that when I was a kid I was always anxious. I still trusted my parents implicitly, but I was never sure what was going on. My life happened without my understanding. I was carted here and there like every other kid. Now I don't have that. I'm an "adult" now (so I've been told by the government). But I'm like my dad. A grown up kid (he still calls me that too - will till he dies). I'm Kid. So appropriate. And maybe someday this little girl will have a little girl or boy. They'll think their father and I will know what we are doing. But we won't. I need to keep reminding myself that I will never be prepared for life. Only living life prepares us. Weird sense of humour that God has. He rigs life in his favour so we need to trust Him. I'm glad I've figured that out. Then maybe I'll get to enjoy the ride
Where did all of this come from anyways? I was going to write about something else.

The Love Continuum: A Nerd’s Perspective.

To properly describe love, a 180° continuum is insufficient. Instead to see the full scope of love and its diametrically opposed counterparts, a complete 360° continuum must be employed.

At 0° is love itself. This love is unconditional. “If I loved someone conditionally, it would not be love, only convenience or obligation. Love, by definition must be unconditional or it is not love at all.” The conditional aspect of love is purely emotional; I do not discount the validity of emotional love, but its pre-eminence over the attitude of love is nil. Secondly, this love is active, for without activity, it becomes worthless. Money left in a jar too long not only cannot be spent, and not only cannot grow, but in fact diminishes in value. Similarly, idle love also ebbs in potency. This love also is humble, putting others ahead of itself. It does not put itself down, but instead seek to elevate others to a higher station. Love bonds relationships together; therefore, when one promotes another, then he is lifted with them. Love is unconditional, active, and humble.

At 120°, there resides hatred. Now, one would think that hatred, being the opposite of love, should be placed at 180°. But this theory is a false dilemma; it is based on the premise that love has but one opposite. Hate is the breaking of relationships. It is often unconditional. Though this is a strength for love, it is a weakness for hatred. It is based on a Non Sequitir argument. The Nazis hatred the Jews and Gypsies because they were of a lesser race, but no logical reasoning can bring one to this conclusion; their proposition is untrue because their premises are faulty and do not follow. Hate, like love, is active; it demands that action be taken on the hated one. The actions, however, are pejorative, not constructive. Hatred also has a foil for humility to deal with: his name is pride; it sees others as beneath it, not worthy of contact. In fact, others are so beneath it that they must be annihilated, destroyed. Hatred, then, is unconditional, active, and prideful.

The third option inhabits the 240° position. This is indifference; indifference is neither the builder nor destroyer of relationships, but the complete lack thereof. It is a conditional state, depending on a set of pros and cons. One would be indifferent towards someone who had nothing to offer, but not towards someone who offered much. It is quite inactive as well, being generally characterized by apathy. When one disregards another, no need for action exists as with hatred. Also, indifference is full of pride, seeing itself seated high above the rest. Those who have much to offer are accepted not as people, but as tools; the rest are simple not worth the expenditure of resources. Indifference is conditional, inactive, and prideful.

One might reason, then, that since indifference has all three elements opposing love, whereas hatred has but one, that it must be the one true contrary term. This, however, puts hatred and love too close together for comfort. It is true that both hatred and love represent the existence of relationship, but that they exist at opposite ends of the spectrum. Indifference is the non-existence of relationship altogether, and so it must be found as far away from both love and hate as possible. Imagine the way a magnet behaves. When two identical poles are put together, they separate. Imagine, then three magnets of the same pole. They will therefore separate as far as they can from both of the other magnets. Essentially, this thesis recognizes the fact that love exists in opposition to both hatred and indifference on two separate scales, and synthesizes it all into one continuum.

Deep unrelated thoughts.

I am slowly going crazy . . .
Two weeks of classes.
Better yet a terminator, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The debate rages on what makes things cute.
It is early in the morning.
I miss my simple life.
Caring hurts.
theend.

I always feel as if I need to perform, as if I'm on some sort of stage and God and everybody is watching. I need to do everthing right or not try at all. I have this stigma about failure. It's not so much that I don't like losing (though that is true) but that I often cannot recognize the value of a good failure; I fail to see the lessons involved. If failure is inevitable, or even sometimes possible, I tend to avoid the situation.

I began to think about this when I was thinking about blogging tonight. I was sitting, feeling the need to write, but I had no inspiration. I felt like I needed to perform, even here; I felt like I needed something inspired and eloquent to write.
But I had nothing.
Then when I think about it, I guess my non inspiration has kind of inspired me tonight.
I guess I had something to say after all.

Ever find yourself in situations that you don't want to be in, yet part of you likes it?
And you feel completely weak and powerless, but you know you should do something.
And you wish you could just go back and change something, but you can't or you don't even know what should change. Those kind of situations suck!
(And please, if I want to talk to any of you about this, I'll let you know. For now, I just want to vent)

I like big butts and I cannot lie . . .

I have a theory about romance. I believe that awkwardness breeds romance. I think there's quite a bit of corroborating evidence to support this. For example, look at any couple around you still in the early stages of romance. There's so much awkward silence and uncertain staring. It's great. Look at most movies. Like "Love Actually" for example. There were so many great awkward moments in that movie. Like that girl who likes that guy Karl, and she never knows what to say to him, and they're ending that date, and they finally agree that he should come inside. They had such a weird time deciding. It was cute. I think I've pretty much proved my point. Now, the question is, how can I harness the power of awkwardness? There must be a balance, a way of discovering the perfect amount of weirdness in any given situation. I could then use that, and rule the world. Of romance. Somehow . . .

So I would love it if once, just once some type of normal relationship would happen in my life. Why is it that the guys who are the greatest, yet worst idea are the ones I end up thinking about?! Timing, age, vocational situation, ability to care of themselves/others etc, never seem to fit. And then there's the interest. Why am i never interested in the ones who are interested in me? Aggrrr. I'm having a feeling sorry for myself day. do i accept my fate? or do i somehow change the odds. I don't even know what i would do. for now i just pondering the unattainable

Have you ever held your foot up to a lamp when you were wearing socks? Well, probably not. But I did, and I could see my toes right through the sock! It looked as if my toes were in a womb or something, kinda like that scene from the beginning of Alien, where they could see the facehugger in the egg. And it made me think. Even though I'm graduating from college this year, I'm still a baby. I don't really know all that much about life or God, and man do I know how to make a mess of myself. Suddenly, the toque just doesn't matter anymore.

I FOUND MY TOQUE TODAY!!

I'm at home!
Nothing more to say.
Except that it's funny how going home and being around your family reveals to you your weaknesses and quirks. I was thinking about that a lot even before I was here. More along the lines of what it would be like to be married, though. Having someone know you so well...and be around your little oddities ALL THE TIME. That kind of scares me. A lot! But I guess I don't have too much to worry about. I mean, my sister is definitely the weirdest one in the family...hehehe...

I currently have 91 padiddles.

I've decided that 80's new wave bands are cool. Not just were cool, but are cool. Objectively cool. I figure that any group of people who went to that much effort to be abstract/obscure must have had some deeper conscience . . . Some common understanding perhaps . . . Something that would make them say something like this:

"You know, I don't think there's enough synth rock with opera voices out there these days. Not enough people sing about Hot 80's topics like sexuality and computers. And there's definitely not enough people wearing really obscure/uncomfortable clothing and black makeup. I think I'll change all that. And I have greasy hair, which is a great start."

And that's exactly what they did. Many people think that new wave music is extinct, but I think it's just underground. Plotting a new world conquest. I hope No Doubt leads the way . . .
Just because they could.

Last night I could not sleep! I was lying in bed wide awake full of unintentional ponderings. I think its funny when my mind just refuses to stop at the most inconvenient of moments. Yet put me face to face with some cute guy I don't know and... nothing, nope not a thing will come to my mind. Yikes. If only I could refine the art of social conversation with the use of this stubborn, always working mind.
So anyways, last night I was pondering the concept of love. Not in the fuzzy warm, twitterpated way, but the socal concept of love. "Love is Blind" I hate that stupid clichè. Of all things love is not blind! Stupidity is blind. Foolishness is blind. Love is not blind! Love brings clarity to our sight. Love shows us the faults of others in a true perspective. It accepts the raw, undesirable part of humanity and prevails through it. If I loved someone conditionally, it would not be love, only convenience or obligation. Love, by definition must be unconditional or it is not love at all. Love sees faults in people clearly and is not afraid to face these faults. Our tolerant, relativistic society hides behind the love is blind ideal. If we ignore the faults then we won't have to deal with them. And all people have a right to have faults if they want to. If I had friends who believed in these lies I would be hurting, alone and unhealthy. Thank God I have friends who call me on the things I do to hurt others or myself.

Ah, the Etruscan lifestyle. How I miss the pre-Roman era

I currently have 66 padiddles.