:: Thursday, July 29, 2004 ::

Hm... trying to see if the leaving comments option works...

Alas, oh shed of endless turmoil
I will sand your coarse and rough character
All your years of resentment
Ground away as your layers are removed

Oh Shed of endless turmoil
How slowly your true colour is revealed
Eventually you will be healed.

I HATE SANDING MY SHED!!!

:: Jesse 9:18 AM

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It's so good to be back at home...

It's been such a long time since I've been home for an extended period of time. Praise the Lord, for so much has happened over the last 5 years of being away at Western. I remember when I used to dread coming back to Toronto and facing a whole different reality than the life that I live in London... but recently those two worlds are coming so close together.

NTCBC has been awesome. It's such a different feeling there now. Where once I'd know almost every auntie and uncle, and all knew me, over the years there have been so many changes and new faces that I barely recognize. But it's good. It's a change that I was waiting to see. My fellowship, Emmanuel, is so different from the highschool and university fellowship. New faces, new focuses, and fresh attitudes to things that those of us raised in the church never addressed. I must admit that it was difficult coming back to a church that was supposed to feel like home but had changed so much (I'm still getting lost in the church 2 years after being renovated).

This weekend was awesome in that I got to play some beach volleyball with some fellow Emmanuelites. We played hard... boy we played hard... and we ended up winning our last game! Ahem.. our consellation game, but hey... a victory is a hard earned one and worth celebrating over. It was a beautiful day at Ashbridges Bay, then sun was shining bright but there was this beautiful breeze that kept our spirits in the mood to play!



Our star studded team! L-R: Gene, Kitty, Natalia, Shen, Me, Elmo, Tam. Ken missing in action.



Kitty and Ken were resting hard and replenishing with our miracle juice: Mr.Freezie.




And who could forget the wonderful protein that powered our power spikes? Ironically we felt the heaviest and bloated after ingesting this stuff, but won our game afterwards.




NTCBC represents with winning the "Most Spirited" team... so our cheerleaders Shen and Kitty show that they deserved it.

:: Jesse 12:31 AM

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My new guitar
 
So by now Gavin should be slobbering in light of the new electric guitar I picked up on Friday. Turns out this baby is related to my Norman sitting there in the back of the picture. It's a Godin LG Humbucker electric guitar made in Quebec. Gotta love Canadian goods! It's been really really fun playing this sucker over an effects pedal, which sounds way too weird when playing an acoustic.
 
So my time is coming to a close in London. Bible studies with dentistry people, weird awkward patients, funny qualifiying program students, and enough of the commuting between Toronto and London! I finally finished that board exam... goodness... it was 6 hours long, and I barely knew a single thing. Thank goodness they bell this sucker.
 
A few things have happened since... I'm no longer going Portaging but now I'm going to the ACF camping trip!!! Woohoo... at least I can put some of this camping gear to use. I haven't seen these people who have been family in such a long time.
 
Speaking of nostalgia, some of the hype kids came over to my place a week ago for some speed scrabble and some jammin... man... they're so good at guitar now. It was so cool to see them, as if time never passed at all.
 
Well the summer is gonna fly by quick. I've already cancelled a few trips that I had in mind, such as Cedar Point this weekend and the portaging trip. Something that has come up once again is the decision to go to Longlac (an aboriginal reservation) once again, but this time I will actually get to see the place. It's in August, and will obliterate the rest of my free time in the summer. But... if it is the Lord's will, then praise His name.
 
You can download the article I wrote last summer by clicking here.
 

:: Jesse 11:39 PM

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One day after class on a bright sunny day in spring, I came across this really cute squirrel. He was only a baby and he wasn't scared of me. It was quite cute. Wanted to share that with you all :)

:: Jesse 12:11 AM

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Our Two Year Anniversary - July 1-4

So Priscilla had no idea what was in store for our anniversary. Originally we had planned to go camping up north at a site called Chutes, which was about 7 hours away so that we'd have a chance in catching the Northern Lights. However, due to these American Dental Board exams that I have to write this coming Monday, we weren't able to commit the entire weekend to going.

Originally I was expecting that we'd just prospone everything and celebrate a few weeks later after all the exams were over, Priscilla would be in NYC and we would have to delay things for almost a month. So we thought about going Seadooing around the Wasaga Beach area.

Cool thing is that on the Wednesday prior to the weekend, one my of classmates, Sayten, was talking about all the times he had been skydiving (like 17 times!), and it reminded me of 2 years back when Pris and I first had the idea of going. It never happened back then, and well, after calling Niagara Skydive I booked a jump at 12:00pm on Friday.

I was so excited, and trying to cover up the story I ended up telling Pris to wear something "she could get dirty in". Not knowing what I was trying to bluff her into believing, I attempted to sway any hints that we were jumping. She would mention every now and then that she thought that what she had in mind was probably what I had planned for the day.


So we were driving, and we see this sign that says "Dunnville". Priscilla blurts out something like, "Oh... I think I saw this place on what I was planning to do with you today" and I was like CRAP... so I blurted out something that Paul Yoon was shouting about the night before at fireworks... YAY!!! MONSTER CAR RALLY!!!

"Ya! We're going to a monster car rally!!! I've never bluffed so hard before but gosh, I was saying things like we were signed up in a competition, that we were going to drive one of those huge cars, and we were going to win $3000!!! And there were dirt bikes all around the place (what Priscilla was looking into for me :P ) but we couldn't ride them cuz we had no M1 license... that's when I realized that Priscilla had no clue where we were going. Yay... it was working... the plan was working...

About 15 minutes of pure bluffing and I just couldn't wait to see the reaction on PRiscilla's cute face. When we got out of the car we were at an airport, and just right then 6 people landed one after another, and Priscilla started going hysterical and running around the place and screaming and... well she was pretty excited.



This is a picture of a tandem jumper coming down right when we got there. It was crazy! The people would be like ..."woohooo!!!" as they were landing, and the sound of the chutes was very turbulent!!! The dials below were what the skydivers would wear on their wrists and it indicated how high we were in thousands of feet. It went from 8 to 11 to past 12 all the way to 13,500 feet!!!



So we quickly got registered and signed our lives away. The moment we were signing this form, a guy walks in, perhaps in his 30s, with a cane and he's limping like a total disabled guy. Man... that was funny... he had been skydiving for 14 years now, done over 3000 jumps in his life and it looked as if this injury wouldn't stop him now. I sat behind him in the plane as we ascended.



This was our "basic training". Since we were doing a tandem jump (attached to an experienced jumper, falling 35 seconds - 7000 feet then parachuting the rest of the way)our training was very brief. All we needed to do was learn how to lift our legs, bend our back, and then how to land. My tandem partner was this really funny nice Spanish guy who sounds like Speedy Gonzalez.



Jumpsuits are so cool... not necessarily the jump straps though. Man it was tight... tight around the pelvic region especially... and boy when that parachute opened... WEDGIE!!!

I couldn't fly with my camera, so there are no pictures of us actually doing the jump, but it was wild! The plane held about 10 of us, and it was this tiny little thing that smelt of leaking gas. We ascended quite quickly and in about 15 minutes we were 13,500 feet over LAke Erie and the Grand River. Wow... we were HIGH, way above the clouds. My ears were popping like mad. Then the door opened and out dropped the first 6 guys (who were all experienced solo jumpers). We got to the door, leaned over, and... jump!!!

For the first 5 seconds we were flying everywhere. I didn't know what was up, what was down, but after that we were flying and floating. Wow... my ears started to hurt, my face was plastered because of the wind, and I couldn't hear a single thing because we were falling at around 250km/h. The scenery all looks the same at 13,000 feet as it does 7,000 feet. And with that, our parachute opened, and I had a chance to blow my ears (several times!!). It was all of a sudden extremely peaceful up there, as we slowly descended down. Priscilla and her tandem partner would swoosh by us every now and then and we were able to shout out stuff to one another and there was no other sounds to interfere except the wind rushing by us as we descended.



This is after we landed and got all our gear off except our jumpsuits. This wasn't the plane, we just figured it matched our red/black outfits really well.



Cheese!!!

After such an eventful morning we picked up our fishing licences, got some picnic food (Spinich dip, coleslaw, bagette, pringles) and got ourselves a fishing boat and went out to in Lake Erie.



I've never driven a boat before. It's incredibly easy and fun! It was a humble little boat that went FAST. Nice and secluded for our yummy lunch.



Priscilla could now finally tan away all her white patches. She was so happy.



Can you believe this is all we caught the whole 4 hours we were out!?!?!? Pathetic. I didn't even realize that I caught him. I ended up using him as bait. Didn't catch anything else.



Our day ended at a little fishing pond that we hoped to catch something... the weather was absolutely beautiful... wondrous... I love the outdoors!!!

:: Jesse 11:26 PM

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When everyone grows up

There are days when you feel young, carefree, as if the whole world had come to a standstill and the only emotions you were joy and satisfaction. The largest concern in the world was when you had to return home from a night out with friends, a deep conversation between comrades, or a silly trip to a closed obscure zoo in some remote town. No one will truly understand the impact or importance of those moments except by the one who it was shared with.

All of a sudden, something called maturity rolls into the picture and squashes everything, and you are left trying to peel what remains off the road. Some of those memories are far gone and unretrievable, others seem broken and incomplete. You are left trying to string together what is of importance, what is worth "holding on to" and what is destined for the trash.

I believe in something called youthfulness regardless of what age one may be. Despite pressures from this world, one can hold on to youthful dreams and passions by abstaining from synicism and embracing simplicity. Simple mind, simple heart. Despite the constant crushing weight from my destined occupation, future family, and current family, I am persistent to stand.

I haven't written an ongoing publication of any sort beyond 3 articles, yet in order to piece these things together I hope to write on this subject every now and then, in hopes to bring my mind to peace and encourage you to do the same.

When Everyone Grows Up... Part 1- Albert Wu

I am so blessed to have someone who was monumental in my childhood life respawn in recent years as a great friend and fellow brother in Christ. After school in grades 1 and 2, I would sneak after class into Albert's home across the street, where we'd watch Smurfs while gobbling down his grandma's fantastic Fried Rice in these orange and yellow plastic bowls (surprisingly resemble some fancy retro dishware in some modern magazines). My clearest memory of that whole time of my life was actually the fried rice; I can still remember the sensation on my taste buds of piping hot rice with bits of bbq pork and peas that was not too dry so that we wouldn't have to drink anything to wash it down. We'd sit there, not saying much as little 6 year olds don't have much important things to say.

Funny thing is, that became a constant in my life; a refuge, a place of rest after school where my worries would be dissolved with every swallowing mouthful of fried rice. Soon after my mom discovered that I was disobeying her by not staying at school until 5pm when she'd return from working at Xerox. She was so disheartened by my rebellious nature at such a young age that she forbid me from ever going over to Albert's. I realized then that it wasn't only the fried rice I missed, nor the episodes of these pointless blue creatures that have no purpose but to reproduce and self-sustain their pointless society, but rather the unique friendship.

In grade 3 I sadly left the Christian private school scene and moved to the Markham public schools, where I was quickly introduced profanity and private parts. The days of my youth were encouraged to be replaced by tougher and "cooler" priorities.

On a regular Sunday morning in grade 9 at church, in walks a tall lanky character. I recognized him immediately but was astounded at how stretched he looked. His eyes seemed more raccoony, his hair was everywhere, and he was freaking tall.

I didn't know what to do. My mother was telling me to bring him to church events like fellowship or to hang out with him, but our differences were stark: he was into basketball, I was into music. He had this whole bad boy talk, I really didn't. 7 years had past and the only thing we had in common was our height. I hesitated to befriend him, since I had already all my friends in my comfortable circle.

3 years passed with passing waves and smalltalk that amounted to very little. Sometime in grade 11 Al asked me to join him in working at some small innercity centre with kids. I was aware that he had been involved for many years already, and felt quite intimidated. Yonge Street Mission became one of the pillars in my life as I slowly learned from Albert and others what it meant to love a child and become a child once again. I watched earnestly as these young boys would be hoistered 6 feet into the air by this lanky guy that never lost energy nor his passion once. Such dedication was unnoticed by my hardness of heart to accept Albert as a buddy. Quickly I was introduced to the boy who had grown up maintaining his childhood simplicity and dedication.

Albert was not only a friend but a role model. Seldom does one meet others his/her own age that carry such inspiration. The way I view children is in large part from my observations of Al. When I went to work with the Native Aboriginal youth last summer, I yanked in all the lessons I had learned from Albert. When I had issues with family, I looked at how he loved his family despite what they may have thought of him. His caring nature, his playful attitude and his ongoing energy depict him as a lightning bolt of inspiration and intrinsic man.

The Lord used him to touch so many people, from fatherless youth at Yonge Street Mission, to university students at MacMaster, to Refugees at Matthew House, to homeless youth on the streets of Toronto, to his friends and family, and now, to those in Geneva, Switzerland.

I have been so blessed to have been present with Albert two times already. As the weeks were running down to his departure, questions of the past rolled over in my mind. What on earth do you say to someone who is leaving to the other side of the world, who has taught you so much, who has been a shoulder to cry on, who has inspired you to drop your worries and depend on the Lord, and who has never ceased to show his loyalty?

During the last sleepover we had at his place 3 weekends ago, I remember trying to stay up as long as possible... our conversation dwindled as sleep patterns took over, and soon enough it was 5am in the morning and I had to catch a ride back to London.

"You okay buddy?"

"Yeah... I feel a bit sick..."

"Aww man... I wish I could do something."

"Dun worry dude, I'll be okay, just go back to sleep"

"Naww man... I wish I could help..."

When I returned to London I got an email from him once again, checking up on my condition. As I lay there in my bed recovering, the familiar taste of piping hot fried rice entered once again in my mouth. I didn't need to grab a glass of water... I just wanted that sensation to remain.

If there's anything I've learned about growing up, it's not growing up.

:: Jesse 9:44 AM

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