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| Whew, well it has been a bit of a stretch since I posted now hasn't it?
I do have a good reason :) .
Well, I did go to planet wisdom and it was great! Had all sorts of cool stuff going on. Everything from the "By the Tree" band, to skit guys, a rapper who played Solomon (I'm not big on rap but this was ok the first few times), to the great teaching of Mark Matlock. I'm wearing a tee-shirt I got there right now. It has the word "Meaningless" across the top. Why meaningless? 'cause that is one of the key words from the conference.
Just about the whole conference was on the book of Ecclesiastes. And if you have ever read "Ecc" you'll notice the phrase "meaningless meaningless says the teacher. Utterly meaningless!" a lot. The main point of Ecclesiastes is to show just how temporary and how pointless a lot of this life is. That is was what a lot of the conference was about; How, no matter how rich, famous, or important you are, there is only one thing that really matters in this life. And that is getting set up for the next one. The permanent one. The one where you won't lose all the hard work you spent getting "x". Because, eventually, in this life, your gonna die. And when you do "x" aint comin' with.
So Planet wisdom was good. very good. Except the weather was terrible. Rainy, wet (well, yes, I suppose if it was rainy it HAd to be wet lol), a touch on the cold side. Just plain nasty. I mean, it could have been worse, but it sure wasn't the best.
Anyway, apparently the "flu" I had earlier on wasn't the flu. Or at least we don't think so now. Because after I got back from planet wisdom I fell ill AGAIN :P (hence my not posting here for a while). Apparently my favorite little bug decided it rather liked my body and decided to stick around. When I got wet and chilled the whatever-it-was decided it would like to stage a comeback. And boy did it ever. It was about as bad as the first time, but just the fact that it come back made the decision to go see a doc' an easy one. He prescribed some medicine and stuff and I have slowly gotten better. I still haven't regained all the weight I lost (10-13 pounds. And I'm a skinny guy who doesn't have 10 pounds to lose lol.) and I still have the stuff in my lungs. Man this is one tough bug to kick. Be glad you can't get infected with it through the Internet.
So that gave me about two weeks off. One down with the bug, one recovering from it. But now I'm back. Did my school for the day and paid my debt to society :P . Nothin too special. I'm continuing to read that great book by Georges Sada "Sadam's Secrets". Pretty cool. Also did another exercise in my collage writing book, and whew what a brain drain. But hey, If your brain never stretches then I suppose it never learns so I guess it is a good thing.
Well, that's my past few weeks at a glance. High points and low. Hope yours were all high ones! | | |
| One day! Just one more! Planet wisdom draweth nigh!
Lol, yes, I am looking forward to it :D . I got lots done in school today. Well a good amount anyway. Its great to finally feel like your getting someplace. I have been trying to memorize some of the numbers I'll need to know for the drivers test. Let me see if I can quote a few for you...
In Arkansas you must not park:
More than 18 inches from a curb.
closer than 15 feet to a fire hydrant.
within 20 feet from a fire station.
within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection.
There are a few more than that. But those are the ones I have down so far. I also did another collage writing exercise, and am reading an excellent book titled "Saddam's Secrets, How an Iraqi general defied and survived Saddam Hussein."
The book is incredibly fascinating! It is written by a man named Georges Sada; a man who can trace his family lineage all the way back to "BC" times!
The man is a incredible fighter pilot, flying the MiG 21 when he had no experience with it. His closest experience to the MiG 21, was with the MiG 17! Now, to us who don't know much about planes, that may not sound like that big a difference. I mean, it's only four digits right? But Georges Sada explains in the book, that in comparing the MiG 17 to the 21, the 21 is practically a rocket ship. Almost everything was different. Yes, it still had wings. Yes, it still had engines. But all the dials were either unrecognizable or had extra features that Mr. Sada did not recognize. He had no instructor to teach him. He had to get most of his help with learning the controls from four technicians. And, though a technician can tell you what a button does, flying an airplane is more than just knowing what switches do what. When Mr. Sada took off he didn't even know that he was supposed to use the afterburners. On the MiG 17 you didn't have to. He had no one to teach him otherwise. Some time later, when some Russian instructors came, Mr. Sada told them he had taken off without afterburners. The Russian instructors were shocked! They told him that it wasn't possible to take off without afterburners. And, indeed, it wouldn't have been possible had Mr. Sada not used up half his fuel in trying to take off, unsuccessfully, once before making it into the air. The loss of the weight of the fuel used in the first attempted take-off made it possible to get off the ground without the afterburners.
His story is really quite amazing. To be a close, part time advisor to Saddam himself, and yet very often disagree with a man who would hang you, or worse, on a whim; a Christian in a mostly Muslim area; NOT a member of the baathist party (and the baathists, for all practical purposes, controlled who got promoted and who didn't); and many, many, many other amazing things. Georges Sada's story is a captivating and quite fascinating one. I highly recommend it. I can't wait to have read the whole thing.
I might not make a post here tomorrow. I have to be at the pick-up point at 3:30 for planet wisdom. We will just have to see how busy I am and all that. | | |
| It's official! Two more days till planet wisdom! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Sure, the conference is now 45 minutes farther away but we still get to go so... :D Big grin!
I also worked some more in that collage writing book. Did one of the exercises.
It was an exercise about "free writing". Essentially you just write whatever comes to mind in ten minutes time about an assigned subject. It's supposed to help you narrow a broad writing prompt down. A prompt like "Books" (nothing more than that, just write something about books) for example. The ten minute free writing session is supposed to make such a huge topic like that more workable.
And the cool thing is, it actually works! Very neat.
Other than that I think I have finally found the path I am to take. In collage anyway. I want to teach. Not in the traditional way, as in a "teacher" in front of a bunch of students giving a lecture. But to teach to help people in some way. To help people by giving them the knowledge to help themselves. Specifically in respect to Christianity. Whether that means being a pastor, a missionary, book writer or whatever. I think that's where I am headed. So I really need to focus on my communication skills. Lol, as this post attests to :P .
Not much has been happening besides that. I went to youth group as usual. I Hope I can get to bed on time.
Well, with that in mind, I suppose I'll bring this to a close.
Have a good'n everybody! | | |
| Not much happening today. I finished reading the drivers book. Lol, I need to get to bed on time tonight. | | |
| Oy, it's miserable out there!
Freezing cold, icy, cloudyish.
They had to cancel Planet Wisdom because of the ice :( . But the good news is it was moved to another town and another time that is still close enough that my youth group and I can still go :) !
So come this Friday, if the weather will co-operate, away we shall go!
But enough of the future, let us speak of today and the things past! I've been wandering around the net a lot. Well some anyway. I came across a nice blog with a very mature young bloggee. some stuff she said got me thinking and I think I'm going to be checking in on that blog often. Check it out at http://spunkyjunior.blogspot.com/ .
I also ran across, lol, the Numa Numa video. A hilarious little thing that has apparently become one of those forwarded-to-no-end-I-have-received-this-27-times-and-it's-still-funny viral videos. You'll get a kick out of it I think: http://www.break.com/index/numanuma.html . The original song in that vid was called "Dragostea Din Tei" and was preformed by a Romanian band called O-ZONE. The song was incredibly popular. Probably almost as much as the video :D lol. Here are some stats of Dragostea Din Tei:
* Over 8 million singles sold throughout the world so far
* #1 hit Worldwide
* Billboard Euro chart: #1 for 13 weeks
* The song has been #1 in 27 Countries
* The Romanian title is “Dragostea din Tei” and the English Title is “Mai Ai Hee”
* The song has been recorded in 12 languages and has been covered 29 times!!
Selected Europe charts positions:
Spain: #1
France: #1 (on to way to 1.000.000 copies!) diamond record
Belgium: #1 (Platinum) 25.000 copies
Romania: # 1 both Album and single have reached platinum, more than 100,000 copies sold
Germany: #1 (Platinum status) over 500,000 copies
Austria: #1 (Gold status)
Switzerland: #1
Holland: #1
UK: #3 was the highest position
Italy: #17 (old position of April, now we are working the 2° single)
Norway: #1 Double-Platinum (around 25,000 copies)
Denmark: #1
Russia: #1
Ukraine: #1
These stats, the original, and altered videos are on www.garybrolsma.net . The vid I linked to, up the page, was actually altered from the original but I like it better :P . Oh, credit for these stats in particular goes to Wikipedia, which were then posted on garry's site.
Other than that I have been studying for my driver's test. It's pretty much all just common sense but there are a few numbers I will have to memorize.
Oh yea, and my younger bro is going to good ole "testing" tomorrow. You know, bubble-in-the-answer testing. So I'd appreciate it if any Christians who may or may not drop in here would pray for him :) .
Which reminds me (yes, yes I'm rattling on now, humor me, lol), about prayer, this little girl named candace, ( http://www.candacejoy.org/ ) She needs a lot of it...
We so often ignore how blessed we are by having the health we do.
well, off into the sunset I ride! Wait, the sun is already down... Hmm... O well, off into the darkness I ride then! | | |
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