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| Wow, so I had a really odd dream last night. I was in Uganda with the
philippines team. which is odd, because Elizabeth is leading an
outreach to Uganda (hopefully) during the fall dts when I'm hopefully
doing phase 2, and i had been thinking about going with her on that
outreach. but anyway.
i'm really really bored. one of the nice
things about YWAM was that there was always something to do and people
around. not so much here, since my parents are out of town, and my
friends are either at school or work. so i want to do something this
weekend, like see a movie (Ghost Rider anyone?) or hang out with
friends or something.
do i have any takers? | | |
| Well, I graduated. I suppose I should be feeling some sort of happiness, not necessarily elation, but still, some form of positive feeling. And yet, I don't. I was going to upload some more pics of the outreach onto facebook, but I can't. Its just too hard (and not hard as in the computers being difficult). Oh man...I'm going to miss these guys so freaking much. Its like...well...i don't know what its like other than so bittter sweet. When I first started this whole DTS adventure, it was basically something to do, not much more than that. you know, a chance to avoid going to college, possibly get closer to God, and maybe figure out what the freak i'm doing with my life. Funny thing though, it wound up being so much more. The only way you'll be able to completely understand what its like is if you do one, or have already done so. Over the 5 months of DTS I made friends, many of whom I have a deeper relationship with than those back home, something I would have previously thought impossible (for instance, being able to call a friend "mom" isn't something i've got at home). I've seen God move in not just my life, but in other people's lives as well, in incredibly amazing ways. And, while I still might not have a complete idea of what I'm doing with my life, I certianly have a broader scope of the possibilities. As of right now, my plan is to not go to college in the fall, hopefully via deferred enrollment again, but if not that, i guess i'll cancel my application. What I intend to do instead is do a Phase II at YWAM Denver, and from there, well who knows. Anyway, now that its all over, it feels....good to be done, but sad to be leaving. honestly, it almost feels like i'm going back to the mundane normallity of life. While yeah, its great to kick back and relax, that only goes so far ya know? I've come to far now. I've made commitments, and I intend to keep them (and with the help of my friends, both old and new, that shouldn't be to big of a problem). Hopefully I'll be able to readjust to normal life (albeit with minor changes, such as me not sitting on my butt all day long playing video games), but man, theres sooo much i'll miss here, so many great memories...
well, peace love and donuts, and to all my DTS buds, God bless, I'll be in touch.
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| Well, today we had our memorial service for Hoite Kim at the base. It went pretty well i'd say, all things considered. We opened with some worship songs, and then we shared our memories of him and stuff like that. it was pretty emotional, to say the least. to sum up Hoite, he was a happy man, with only two faces, happy, and confused. He never said a negative word about anyone or to anyone. ever. He was always so full of joy, and was truly a man devoted to God. When Tony and I asked if he had any regrets, he looked thoughtful for a second, said he missed his parents, but beyond that, he regretted nothing. What a guy. The picute I keep getting is from the end of Shawshank Redemption: "I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their
feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you
that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place
you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess
I just miss my friend."
that pretty much describes what happened.
well, i graduate in a few days. wow. it all seems so surreal, how fast its gone by. its actually sad to be leaving, theres so much good here, good people, good friends, good teaching, good memories. it'll be nice to go home for a while anyway, till i'm ready for whatever's next.
later
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| good grief. my team saw the movie last night. the whole time i was watching it, i was on the edge of my seat. the back edge.
that was arguably the biggest knockoff of everything sci-fi ever. i felt like i was watching some childs mockery of star wars with elves and dragons and really, really, really crappy acting and dialogue (while the more recent star wars flicks had some of that as well, this just went above and beyond that.)
so eragon (luke skywalker in disguise) finds some weird egg thing (like the matrix's blue pill, only bigger) which low and behold happens to contain a dragon! and in the olden days of yore (you know, "before the dark times, before the empire") there were these guys called dragon riders (jedi knights anyone. also, anne mccaffrey and her Dragonriders of Pern would be proud), and they kept the peace. until they were betrayed by anakin skywalker...erm...i mean...Galbatorix (sounds like a medicine. a very nasty medicine). he promptly seized power...and made an empire of evil. (why can't they ever betray someone and actually make good on their promise to make the world better by doing so?) so anyway, eragon now has this dragon. which for some reason ages in 5 seconds flat. what. the. hell?!!!!1one
oh yeah, and then there's old ben kenobi and uncle owen. i mean brom and eragon's uncle (who could in fact be named owen, as they never mention his name). in a scene straight out of star wars, the uncle is killed, eragon/luke flips out, and brom/obi-wan says something about him not being able to help even if he was there. oh, and magic works by knowing something's "true name". wow. straight out of Earthsea. and the cliche's keep on coming throughout the movie (as does the Deus Ex Machina, as eragon will suddenly learn things or be able to do things in the nick of time. wow. handy that.) then of course, there's the wonderfully believable bad guys. durza (a magic weilding version of dracula), is a shade (a cool concept..if it weren't pretty blatantly stolen from dracula...) who can't be killed, unless you stab him through the heart. fortunately, unlike dracula, you aren't limited to a wooden stake, or garlic. a normal red painted sword (you can tell its magical cuz its painted red) will do the trick. and who can forget durza's stirring speach to Galbitorax's army? oh wait...i can..and did. it felt very much like someone trying to copy Saruman's speil to the Uruk-Hai right before he sent them a-marching to helm's deep in the Two Towers. that was a cool speach. this on the other hand, was not. . then of course, theres galbatorix himself (i think i'll start calling him lord gall stone). lord gall stone...arg. as far as baddies go, he's laughable. he lacks menace, he lacks the reek of evil (what he reeks of is patheticness), he even sounds lame. every good villain should sound villainous, and john malcovitch just doesn't do it. jeremy irons on the other hand, might have been able to pull something off, but even then, the script probably would have ruined it anyway. who wrote the script anyway, a five year old, or a million monkeys banging away at a keyboard? The first lines from Lord Gall Stone set the path for much of the movie: "I suffer without my stone." ah yes, what a great and awe-inspiringly evil line. oh wait....
the scenery was nice though...but nothing spectacular. and the camera work was shoddy to say the least. about the only thing i truly enjoyed was the music, and even that left much to be desired in the way of epic orchestral sound. the final battle was lots of flash, but very little real substance. (i must say, seeing durza flying around on a shadowey magic dragon while hurling fire balls was rather nice, in a cliche sort of way). the plot "twists" were more of "hey, saw that coming from a trillion miles away" and the characters...well lets just say i wouldn't have really cared if eragon had died (and his dragon by proxy...life must suck for dragons) and the world had been plunged into a second darkness when sauron got the ruling ring as a result... er i mean, and lord gall stone had won (which would be bad because....why exactly?)
so yeah, if you want to see a movie to laugh at cliches and ripoffs, this is for you. otherwise, i'd avoid it.
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| Well, we've been here a week. And it feels nothing like christmas, mainly because of the weather, which is hot (appearently even for a filipino christmas) and humid. So far things have been going really well, we've done alot of ministry times and dramas and such for the local kids. YWAM Davao is really great, they've been such a big help espcecially with translating for us. Its kind of wierd, the kids can understand english, but can't speak it too well, and they are really shy, so interacting with them was sorta hard. But some of the older ones warmed up to us. And most of us got nicknames: Julia is Barbie, Danny is Jackie Chan, Tony is Spiderman, Brian is...Brian, Maegen is Mae Mae, and I'm...uhg...Harry Potter. This only reinforces my desire to kill that little punk. oh well. The other teams are doing fairly well too it sounds like, except for the Mexico team. A few days ago, we found out that they had a swimming accident. They were taking a day off at the beach, and two students got caught in a rip current. one managed to swim to shore. the other did not. Hoite kim (one of the 7 other guys who roomed with me) drowned on Dec. 21st. It was so out of left field, Mexico was supposed to be the "safe" trip, and for it to be Hoite...man... our whole team was in shock for a while, but we're working through it pretty well all things considered, and it sounds like the Mexico team is going to as well. Be praying for them. I wish all of my friends back home and scattered around the globe a very merry christmas, God bless, I'll be praying for you all. | | |
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