so as this year draws to a close, i'd like to think back to the memories that i will carry as i enter into this upcoming summer. so without further ado, i give u a few of the top moments of my year:



Person1 got kicked in the nuts



Person2 (the kicker) feeding Person1 food


these two memories (or actually two memories in a sequence of events in a span of ... 2 minutes) alone are enough to bring a tear to my eye. and i must stop reminiscing for fear of a total emotional breakdown one day before my exam. good times indeed.

its funny that about the only thing keeping me sane the past few days have been my not so sane friends. and very funny how we all seem to have a common themed problem all at the same time. did i mention that i'm a mere two days away from walking into an exam that i need to do good on to PASS the course? its not like my computer course where i could get a 70 on the exam and still end up with a 91...this is the more crucial one.
SUPER DUPER

in attempts to calm our nerves down and vent, papers have been burned...papers in forms of textbooks even. at WEIRD hours of the day (like 20 minutes ago...its about 3:47am now)

i'm tired. i need to stop thinking. i need to trust God. i NEED God.

chemistry 282. organic chem. the death of us all. the sad part is that the picture shown above is not actually after the exam. this was during the process of studying when the three of us still in the apartment just snapped. things leading up to this major spazzing and box kicking and newspaper throwing incident include: lots of moulin rouge soundtrack singing, random cravings of sprite and rootbeer that were satisfied only by a quick run to shoppers, and people talkin to themselves in a scary psychotic way

after the exam, everyone had their own type of comfort food in which they turned to...
i actually just felt like sitting in the dark, which was very convenient when the prospects of watching sin city was thrown onto my plate. good movie. harold and kumar, not so good of a movie. and first daughter...well hahah i'll let u be the judge of that one yourself. so after a cinamon bun (my comfort food), some home baked cookies, 3 movies, and chocolate cupcakes...i'm feelin a lil better today, altho i did run out for pop again.

a life you cannot define
a purpose thats benign
they need to see and believe
be led to the rugged tree

the one on which he cried not for his pain but for our debt
the very same tree that He conquered death
it was an unfair deal on the part of Christ
He got my sin, i got eternal life

make me the breath of God
and i'll show them the One that means the most to me
they'll see the face of love
be touched by the very one who died upon the tree

Shane Barnard

on our magical white mountain ice cream experience, we found a wallet lying on the floor, with a few bucks in change and no cards except for a "queens medical centre" card. so kwan, being the very good person he is, left a message, and lo and behold, a few days later, the wallet has been claimed!

and u see, kwan is such a good person that he is personally returning it. he's taking time out of his busy schedule (you know, alternating between checking his basketball AND baseball pools) blade down to some place to give it back. i find that a lil ridiculous, usually its the person who has lost somethin and would want it back that would make the effort to go get it back.

oh well, i eagerly await the return of kwan. maybe he will bring along a haul of treasures because of his kind deed. only time will tell. and kwan. kwan will also tell me (...?)

edit
kwan just said he got squat diddly from the person he returned the wallet to. oh wait, he got a thank you.

note to self: if you're gonna watch a chick flick with a bunch of lovesick/sappy guys, then you better be ready for the lovefest and emotional instability that occurs during and after the movie. i know its been what, about "6,8, or 12" hours(whatever) since last night, but i'm "still" thinkin about it (oh brian mcknight...). its definitely affecting my studying, which i'm supposed to be giving my "all (or nothing at all?)"

after friday's semi-debacle of an exam i decided to crack down and start studying FOR REAL, but yesterday was too nice of a day to be couped inside studying. of course i realized this after a few hours of studying, but a couple of us made the trek to white mountain, the land of magical ice cream flavors that are worth the half an hour (at least) lineup. the one lil beef i have with them is i wished they displayed their ice cream for all to see, so i'd have some sort of idea what a specific flavor is. "white knight" sounded like vanilla ice cream with some extra ingredients to me...but it turns out it wasnt hahaha

random fact about me: did u know i could stuff about...8 of those baby carrot sticks in my mouth and still be able to eat them? not talkin thin ones either, these are thick carrot sticks... yeah. i found that out this morning. why am i such a pushover!? oh right...its cuz i'm weak ha

i've been raving about common's new album, "BE", and i got a question about my msn nickname (the title of this blog post) last night, and at first i just brushed it off, cuz it wasnt very inspired, i just ripped the lyrics right out from the song.
but for some reason, i thought about it again today, and i think it just may have a deeper meaning, or maybe i'm just pulling a lot of stuff out of my butt, thats for you to judge.

not that its wrong to want to be different, to continually change/evolve into a better person (its probably a good thing), but i mean if people could just BE who they are, and be accepted for it (not necessarily condoning actions or whatever). and i think a lot of times people may get caught up thinking about the past or lookin to the future, rather than realizing where they are, and all the things that are around them now.

one more random thing that may or may not have anything to do with anything, but i think i am guilty of this too, but sometimes we just get caught up in the "motions" of life as well. it especially doesnt help if you've mastered the art of "routine". but remember, we are human "BEings" not human "DOings" (quickly which simpsons episode was that from...cmon, i know you know)

cuz in the end, i think we are called to "be"...things would happen even if we weren't on earth.

fry-age
now back to my everyday ranting
i managed to spill some water on my keyboard last night. at first it seemed like no big deal. the keyboard worked fine for the rest of the night, i was still chatting away on msn and going to bed with no worry at all.
fast forward to this morning. i turn on my computer, only to find out i CANT LOG INTO WINDOWS. this started to scare the crap out of me. luckily i sat down and thought logically and tried a housemates keyboard, and everything was fine.
SO a few hours later and 20 dollars later, i'm back on my computer with a brand spanking new keyboard with those cool buttons that allow you to do stuff (way to be descriptive). you know, like change the volume or open music...

so now i have two keyboards. hmm what to do...oh i know i know! takes the broken keyboard and throws it out the living room window (just like we threw out a bat last night...yes there was a bat, go read derek's blog if you want to know more about it) and then BLOWS IT UP WITH THE ROCKET LAUNCHER to the horror of the little children playing in the playground across from our living room window. oops.

i know i've blogged about murphy's law of crap happening many times, but i have a new addition:

if you snap a guitar string, and you buy a new set so that one string can be replaced, the other new strings will be useless to you as you will continue to only snap that one string.

i've snapped the G string on my guitar twice already this year. the second time was during the day of fellowship when i had to lead worship, so i called up a friend and he lent me his guitar. of course, HIS G string also snaps the next day after me using it. bringing my total up to three (i'm gonna hafta start a list of "totals" soon ... hmmm note to self)

*blows the dust off the rocket launcher, and waits for it to warm up, dum dum dum, BOOM and blows up the rest of the new guitar strings, only to find that the explosion has once again caused G string to snap*

as jack bauer would say, "damit"

to have too many good things going on in your life that the good things start to clash?

get it? quote-y in quotes? clever no? so yes, a bunch of random quotes i have found and my comments below them:

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."

hopefully when i get out of university, i'll balance the software side a bit. i mean university should be training me for life out there right?!

"Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates."

oh crap. hahaha it was very funny last night at kccf grad night. we were "sending the grads off", not by applauding them of all the knowledge they have accumulated over the years, but by playing stupid games with them to make them look like fools. not that i'm opposed to this.

"The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does."

Shoot son, this is a very good saying.

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

so GET OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE and start sharing the good news. note to self, GET OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE A****.

"The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it."

one thing i have definitely learned over the past 2 years here in kingston (especially at worship practices). when we chinese people say 7:00 it really means 7:30...

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time"

also you forget that people are ALWAYS LATE for worship practice...

"Shin: Device for finding furniture in the dark"

haha...OR its also a weakspot for some people that like to kick shins, ahem you know who you are

"If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast onthe back of a cat and drop it?"

something i definitely challenge you to think about.

In Other A**** Related News
- i have been appointed the "worship coordinator" for kccf next year. big plans for next year. such as, getting people on time for worship practice (cmon u had to see that coming)
- the new common album has been leaked, i was super stoked about the john mayer collab, but it was a slight disappointment, altho the album is still pretty tight
- i had a super surprise visit from emily this weekend. thank you.
- housemate kwan does not like to read my blog (tear). in other kwan news, kwan got beat up by a girl.

turns out i did finish that assignment from last night, with a lot of help from someone else, but i hope this satisfies my housemate who can now not blame me if he fails the course by two percent (he's not gonna fail..he just keeps complaining).

more things have been a lil unsettling recently...i think i'll post more when those have been resolved.

here's the situation. one day before the assignment is due, my group decides to start working on it. the assignment is probably gonna be worth less than 2%. all of us have no idea what is goign on. we get half the assignment done, then we have no clue what the second part is even asking. we quit. so now we have half the assignment ready to submit. the mark is basically a pass or fail kinda thing. i dont know if this sits well with me, but i guess i didnt really give it my full effort either...altho its rather discouraging when i honestly dont know what in the world to do.

oh, and as for the title of the blog post itself, pun DEFINITELY intended, and only the ppl that have done the assignment will get it.

u know what the ironic part is. i feel like i've built half a house, and now am about to blow it up with a rocket launcher. just replace house with program, and...and you get the picture

*PROGRAM CRASH! SYSTEM ERROR! fizzle*

yup, saw this on a photoblog, and i definately wanted to give it a try!

ne ways, chem labs are finally over, i'm very happy. waking up at 6:30am (6:30am exists?!) for a prayer meeting was seriously hard. but i guess it comes with the property of being on committee for next year. but even tho this is the earliest i've ever waken up this year, i think that God has blessed me by giving me energy and awakeness while i was doing the lab. its this type of good spirited attitude that'll keep my rocket launcher in my closet today.

names will not be used as i'm not sure if what we, i mean, they... did was entirely legal:

kelloggs is giving away these snazzy watches in their cereal boxes. red, green, blue, yellow or black watches to be precise. at food basics today, mr.k decides he needs the yellow watch. already having the blue and red watch, he decides to MAKE SURE he gets the right watch by opening up the boxes before buying them. mr.k finds his yellow watch after four tries, and in the process finds me i mean mr.a the green watch i wa..i mean he wants.

we tell mr.m what we're up to, so now he starts complaining about how he wants the black watch so we go back, and bust open about half the remaining boxes, before he figures out that he can check the color by simply prying the box a bit open from the bottom rather than ripping it entirely. BUT after about 50 boxes (some of them on the shelves, some of them stacked up top not shelved yet) no black watch was found.

disappointed, they headed home. but all was not lost. we headed BACK OUT, this time to A and P, and our bad luck ended quickly with the findings of not one, but two black watches. and so all the box busting felt validated. just look how happy they are now.

(rubbing eyes) is that me going to a catholic church on sunday morning?
why yes. accompanied by the one the only kwan this morning, i attended a catholic service, which consisted of basically a "massive" (pun definately intended) gathering for the pope.

it was definately a cool experience, and very different from what i experience most sunday mornings. i did want to point out a couple things that stood out for me:

1. there was a lot more...interaction, between the ppl leading the service, and the general congregation. like a lot more of the "response" type thing. we all know the traditional "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" hand gesture, but apparantly there is a hand gesture for "the gospel according to John" (not sure, but a lot of ppl started moving their hands when this was said out loud). i said "amen" quite a few times today, as well as "and the grace of God be with you too", and i stood up/sat down/knelt a lot. its a good thing..keeps u on ur toes (or knees, or bum...) so that u dont fall asleep.

2. the stain glass windows. they were very impressive on the inside of the church, adding a lot of color and what not. but the thing was, they werent that colorful when on the outside looking in! it was very weird to me! (ok, not interesting for anyone else ... too bad this is my blog)

3. communion. i really want to know if they do it every week, cuz kwan told me they did it two weeks ago as well. so here's how it played out. the general congregation was kneeling (on those wicked cushioned kneeling ... planks i guess). then the ppl in robes got broke the bread, and they served one another. at this point i was thinking "great...did i just get shafted of taking part in communion because i dont have a robe AND i have to kneel down and WATCH ppl take part?" of course i was wrong, and in the end, the congregation lined up and got the bread, and if u wanted, drank for a common cup...which i did not do, even if the dude holding the cup wiped it after every person (he also downed the rest of whatever was in the cup after...which kinda grossed me out just a bit)

4. there were two boys, i'm not sure if they were the altar boys or whatever, but their main role was to hold candles. they had to hold the candle while one of the priests read the scripture, one on each side of the priest, as if they were providing light for the priest to read. luckily for the priest, the church was pretty darn well lit, cuz i dont know how much light would've actually come from the candle... but i think the boys did a fantabulous job

5. the church was DECKED OUT! i'm talking PIMPAGE here! anything from the banners that have been hung up, to the wicked stain glass windows, to the golden bowls and chalices (which looked like the pimp chalice lil jon carries around), everything seemed to sparkle. except for the hymn books which are just as ghetto as any other hymn book u will find in any other church.

6. there was no sermon/teaching. the priest spoke briefly as if he were teaching, but he basically gave us an overview of the pope's life. NOW for some my never implemented DID YOU KNOW section of the blog
- the Pope had a truck hit him once upon a time, it broke his back, but he survived
- the Pope's apartment building (when he was younger) was searched by Nazi soldiers, who took all the men from the building...mysteriously, the Pope's apartment was the only one not searched
- the Pope has been shot. THATS INCREDIBLE! i dont see the pope writing rap songs about how he was shot up (*cough cough 50 cough*).
seems like the Pope was one tough cookie.

7. the pamphlet that they handed to me as i walked in contained some interesting sections. they had a HUMOUR section, where it contained a semi-religious joke. but i first noticed the ADS for things like "no frills" and "food basics" and "amey's taxi" that was plastered all over this pamplet. since when did the catholic church sell out!!! WHAT THE HECK! "Ben's PUB"? you have an add for a PUB in ur church bulletin!? (a**** shakes head)

ne ways, i'm out everybody! i hope ya'll remembered to switch your clocks forward an hour, and if you didnt and your reading this, from now on you cant say my blog has never done anything for you.

mission status: complete, target obtained

the ppl i trusted the most...BETRAYED!!! most of them will probably never read this blog, but NATE (the guy who dubbed me "jamal") and it seems that gladys (who does read my blog) were the masterminds...

well the joke is on YOU i have my monkey back now :P

and as promised, i am going to blow up whoever took my monkey. but ur lucky, u get to split a rocket between the two of you.

i'm so tired i need to go to sleep now.

status: still not back home, but target has been located
my mood: better
monkey's mood: apparantly, its being fed only the finest of truffles and white chocolate
operation getmymonkeyback briefing:
target is in a frosh dorm room being held captive, but not been harmed
this will be a quick snatch operation, in and out, bam bam bam
once target is aquired, proceed to use rocket launcher to blow up frosh's room
end brief

YES so i still dont know who is the mastermind behind taking my monkey, but at least i know who has it (they confessed...i broke them thanks to the torture techniques learned from alias). now i just want to get it back...!!

ne ways, some of u may be wondering why i am up at 2:01am. well actually this makes it two days straight that i've been up this late. todays is a short story. i came home expecting to watch the movie "ray" but my housemate has decided to ditch me (twice in one day..BRUTAL! thats okay he's still cool) so instead i just spent the last...whatever time just chilin...kinda hungry now actually...time for cereal

but i think the major story is yesterday. of course it was april fools. and adrian, being the innocent guy he is, asks us NOT to get him...which is like an open invitation to get him obviously. so we decided to tape a whoel bunch of plastic bags together, and many layers of them. then plaster that over his doorway. THEN move our two couches in front of the doorway and put some empty juice cartons up top in hopes they would fall when he broke out. then we'd wake him up at about 7:15 with loud music and tape the madness that would ensue. unfortunately, we woke him up in the process of taping things to his door, so he knew our plan, and woke up at 6:30 and broke his way out so that we couldnt videotape him. BAH. oh well, it was still fun watching the last bit of him break out.

our apartment has just used its 100th garbage bag of the year.
sigh...we're such wasteful pigs...
so random i just remembered

an interesting fact i was reminded about while on the phone with my parents tonight. apparantly, when i was younger, i used to like to eat peas a lot. but when i was really really small, i would eat the peas, but i squeeze out the peas out of the pod, and then i would chew on the pod for a ridiculously long amount of time. and if ur thinking hours, think DAYS. my dad told me he found a pod in my mouth the day after...i had refused to eat it!

well where am i going with this story. semes like i've been very lackadaisical in terms of my schoolwork lately. i mean, i want to do good, and i want to learn and get good marks and whatnot, but i'm definately not putting forth the effort for it. i want all the benefits of an education, but do not want to do the gruntwork.

sorta like how i ate my peas. i took the good, but definately did not want the bad.

THATS RIGHT! BRINGS IT ALL TOGETHER IN A NICE LITTLE PACKAGE FOR YOU.

i'm done posting for tonight. when i find my monkey back (yes i own a monkey), i'm gonna blow up whoever took it.