the P.Pole

As part of an on-going tradition, I am now going to do a (hopefully) short summary of the Year of 2008. Yes, an entire year of our lives (from my POV) in a short series of sentences.

This year saw the graduation of my class of IB ’08 from Victoria Park Collegiate Institute. I suppose this sort of thing happens to most everyone and every year, but for us, finishing with an overall average within the top 5% of the world (a first for VPCI) was particularly shiny for me. It felt good to be part of such a class of strange and talented childrens.

This was also the year I would have the last real/scheduled summer vacation until retirement kicks in for me (assuming I live that long and Christ hasn’t come back yet). As such, I’m glad I spent the bulk of my vacation actually on vacation in Hong Kong. One of the greatest experiences I’ve had thus far in my short life has been the time I’ve been blessed with to spend with my dear Uncle Keith and his family, along with my Aunt Margaret (other side of the family now) and company. Learning to dive and making Phoebe? Both very interesting experiments that worked out swimmingly.

This year I also began my post-secondary career in Waterloo-Kitchener. I am glad to be part of the Math-Business program there and have been enjoying residence-life so far, adjusting quite easily to being more or less alone and independent. I do feel kinda–to be honest–shitty about having many of my closer friends from Jaffray all over the place. Benson’s off in McMaster, and Raphael’s back home at George Brown. Then there are the other friends from Jaffray who have been at some sort of UoT since awhile back. I also miss having Shivon (University of Toronto, Downtown) around to make a dynamic (thoroughly heterosexual) duo. And while I’m listing misses, I might as well mention the Missus as well, who is also at UoT.

Then again, I do believe there come a time where a person (especially being a boy) must set off and out for more than just a little while to be alone and fully come into what he is to be as a man in earnest. I’m going to go right on ahead and call this year the year that this phase of life has begun for me. I’m quite glad to mention here that I’ve dutifully and carefully abided by my grandfather’s requests, that I stay clear of gambling, smoking, and drinking while at school. Of course, these aren’t particularly hard to avoid if you know what kinds of values to adopt. I have little intention of breaking my promise now or later (and would almost go as far as to voluntarily swear off any of the above lifestyle choices), but of course, this might just be asking for temptation–so be it!

In any case, the coming year should be just as interesting as this past one, with the finale to my first year of post-secondary schooling and the beginning of my first co-op work term. I also sense there should be some other good developments, like me getting very good at Left 4 Dead and Portal. Oh, and of course there are things to do, places to see, and territory to explore.

I once read a book by Charles Swindoll (really, that’s his name) called “Hope Again” and it was about finding/renewing/refreshing one’s hope in God’s promises, most chiefly those directly involving our salvation in person and works of Jesus. I remember very clearly that that book had played quite an important role in the shaping of what I currently know as my faith in Christ.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
A great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free,
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there, the risen Lamb,
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace.

One with Himself, I cannot die,
My soul is purchased by His blood.
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God!
- Sonicflood, Before the Throne of God Above

This morning, at Sunday service, those words (bolded and most of the unbolded) really stuck out to me. It’s not the first time I’ve seen, heard, or sang those words (I don’t normally sing anyway) but for some reason they stopped me and caught me between breaths, in a manner of speaking. Mighty powerful, the Spirit can be.

Today was good. I don’t exactly think any one message came across too clearly with Matt Gunn’s message “Faces of Hope” but hoping in God through the worst circumstances is sort of the gist of what the passage (with Pastor Matt’s helpful insights and explanations) is about, to the best of my understanding. It was Bible-y analysis (anal-lysis) that was good and learning for me.

Even the weather, rainy and altogether crummy while heading in towards church and suddenly sunny and clear after service, was fallacy pathetic enough for me to throw up my hands in defeat. Quite clearly, G-d (is that more reverent or just silly?) is at work here and was getting some very deep stuff across to me. There will be slow digestion and unpacking of what happened today, but it was something very important and something very necessary. And I thank the Lord and Church Jaffray for the day.

It’s been long enough since my last music post! Here I teem!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Drowning, just as fast as I can.
But don’t throw me a line, don’t reach out your hand.
Because I’m on the brink of something beautiful and,
I want to sing about it, but I don’t know where to begin.

Write a letter but the words don’t come out right.
Trying to explain how nobody can do me, like–
You don’t understand just how helpless I get,
Since the day we met–Oh, can you feel it yet?!

It’s never been more perfect being alive.
I’ve never been so satisfied.
Oh!

I could feel something different for the first time.
Heaven made sense and all the words rhymed.
No chance of stopping now,
I’m taking it all.

And now I’m caught in the air, it’s a good glide.
Pass it up? Wouldn’t dare, what a wild ride.
I remember being ready and waiting to fall,
Just like I did tonight.

Spinning around and around,
Until my left was my right and up became down.
With just one look you knocked me off my of feet–
So unable to speak.
Oh how you made me weak.

Though it was a while ago, I still can recall.
That moment, so ready and waiting to fall.
Can you take me back in time remembering when
You captured my heart, over and over again.

I could feel something different for the first time.
Heaven made sense and all the words rhymed.
No chance of stopping now,
I’m taking it all.

And now I’m caught in the air, it’s a good glide.
Pass it up? Wouldn’t dare, what a wild ride.
I remember being ready and waiting to fall,
Just like I did tonight.
- Mae, Ready and Waiting to Fall

As seen on Adwin’s blog.

1. Put your music on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. Write down the song name as the answer.
4. Silliness ensues.
5. Spread the good news to others!

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY?” YOU SAY?
Merry Christmas, Here’s to Many More (Relient K)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Continue reading

I used to have a house. It was on lease, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep her. I liked staying in that old house how fish like living in water–it’s not great but it beats the alternative until I sprout a pair of lungs. Her floorboards would creak in the night and the furnace would making pops and cracks–signs that things were not quite right.

While I had that house, I never could get used to sleeping in that old house. She was far too large, too empty for me to truly feel homely in. And since moving out, I fear she’s only gotten larger and emptier.

Yes, I moved out. The old house, for all her character and antiqued charm, could not house me any more. I had grown tired of her half-way creaking, cracking and popping. I had in me neither the knowhow nor the means to fix her of her aches and pains. Second owner, be warned. This can’t possibly be good for resale.

I like my new place. Much warmer.

It’s 1 o’ clock and a half in the morning, do YOU know where your children are?

5 things I enjoy about being home again:

• the food in the fridge, as far as I’m concerned, is free
• there’s a car somewhere here to be driven
• fancy restaurants abound
• I don’t need to lock my room when I go to shower/leave the house
• torrenting

I’ve been back since last week’s Wednesday. I checked my marks for my Waterloo courses and I am decidedly counting it an overall win. Calculus I did exceedingly well in, whereas Algebra was a pretty good mark too, with the dreaded but foreseen only-decent CS mark dragging otherwise-boners down. I am uncertain as to when or how I will get to access my final marks for my Laurier courses, Business and Economics.

Later today (since it’s not past twelve) Herman and Sherman will be coming over, followed possibly by a visit from Kristen the Krantastic. More likely than not, we will be watching some Firefly and maybe playing some Winning Eleven.

PS: On a completely unrelated note, check out my flickr (see sidebar) for the promised photos of the LEGO Hermes I gifted to Amy (if you haven’t already).

University so far has been interesting. Tomorrow morning I will write my final Final Exam for this term, for CS 135. Scheme is the language we used in this course and it’s very minimalistic as far as programming languages go. The basic tools/functions are designed in such a way as to make creation of new tools and functions very easy. This is what I like most about Scheme.

4 Scheme built-in functions and what they do:

• (cond [question1 answer1] [question2 answer 2]…)
  cond is basically an IF and THEN statement. You ask a question, if it’s true, you do whatever the corresponding answer is. If it’s false, you ask the next question.
• (cons something list) / (list something1 something2…)
  cons makes lists. The “something” can be anything, be it a number, a word/string, a symbol, another list, etc… The second thing (the list part) is any list, so some other cons item, or the item “empty” (which is the basic, ending item for a list). list can be used in its place for simplicity’s sake.
• (define name something)
  This define is used to give a name to something. You could define the name Carl as the string “awesome problem child”, so that later when you enter or call Carl, you’ll get “awesome problem child” back. This can be useful for giving short names for long expressions/things.
• (define (function variable1 variable2…) expression)
  This define is used differently, to name a function with a certain number of variables. The following expression with use these variables to do calculations or make changes to them or whatever. This is tantamount to defining “y” as something in terms of “x”, maybe “z”, and possibly, if you’re lucky, there’s a “w” somewhere in there. When the function is called, that’s when you also give it values (like numbers or words) to use as the variables (like saying “let ‘x’ be 50″).

And that’s pretty much it. With those and a few basic predicate functions (like =, >, <, equal?, etc…) you can build a surprisingly large variety of functions and applications that run on a lot of different kinds of inputs, generating a lot of different kinds of output too. You can even use and generate functions as input and output. Exciting, I’m sure.

Anyway, tomorrow’s the exam and I’ve somehow managed to waste most/all of today on reading blog feeds and anything else that isn’t studying. how foolish. My dad seems to have faith in it being a “piece of cake, right?” for me so I now I should have to do well. As long as they do not tell me to do any intensely complicated abstraction of functions, I should be able to do quite decently. Here’s to gambling!

Note: Click here for the photos on flickr of Hermes in LEGO form.