My Journal is Packed

A few randoms

I can't stop listening to this song. This is a pretty sweet version of it... check it.

I leave for India tomorrow morning. I have to keep reminding myself that, otherwise I forget and begin to wonder why all of my stuff is in bags. I should be more excited. I think I'm mostly dreading 9 hours depravation of any sort of leg room. I also worry because the battery on my iPod only lasts 4 hours on a good day. Alison assures me it will be alright because there are lots of movie watching opportunities. Aron says I should be excited for the cute Japanese stewards. Still none of this makes up for the fact that airplanes are not made for tall people.

Today was a weird day. We had graduation, which was alright, except for the little hat we wore. I kept getting tassels in my mouth. Then everyones family took their son or daughter out for dinner. I was feeling very much like an orphan so the Krabbes adopted me and took me out for Swiss Chalet. 

I have to apologize, I suck at these last day kind of things. Everyones always crying and hugging and wanting a picture with you and these things tend to bring out the awkward in me. I suck at goodbyes and I'm clueless when it comes to writing into your yearbook. I keep thinking this is all temporary and that we will all wake up on Tuesday and show up to class. This is not the case at all. What we had - community, closeness, and relationship - was all temporary. Separation is eternal, or so it seems, temporarily. Needless to say, I didn't get to say goodbye to a lot of you because I denied the fact that you are leaving, and I'm sorry.

I should probably attempt some sleep. We do leave in 6 hours. 

Are Silversun Pickups any good? I'm downloading them right now. 

Good night Canada.

A Long Way Gone

So I finished this book almost a week ago now and I've been meaning to write some sort of review on it where I tell how great it is and how everyone should read it. Needless to say I haven't yet so I am now. Is that all useless information?

Probably.

Thank you for your 5 seconds you'll never get back.

The truth is I did read this book. It was recommended to me by my dear friend Adam who, I believe, picked up from Starbucks. For those of who live back home on the east coast, Starbucks is this coffee chain that has successfully marketed ethics, maybe even better than the church. 

But I digress.

A Long Way Gone is former boy soldier and Sierra Leone national, Ishmael Beah's, retelling the story of his childhood. This bitterly horrifying and brutally honest story tell of the suffering, pain, and abuse children face in the face of war. Beah tells of how he is split from his family, runs from death only to be meet by it on the faces of common people, is recruited to be a boy soldier, forced to kill hyped on drugs no child should even hear the name of, and has his childhood literally stripped from him.

Although Ishmael finds help in the end, my heart broke for him as he tells of memories no child should have. It makes me wonder how such hate and evil can exist in the world. It sounds cliche but I have no other way to say it really. Why are children forced to kill? What posses someone to rape a child in front of her parents and then lock them together in their burning house. And where were we when this all went down in Sierra Leone.

I watched To Shake Hands with the Devil on Friday. This documentary is about Romeo Delair, a Canadian General working for the UN while the Rwandan Genocide occurred. I won't go into too much detail about this film, other than to say it's a good one to watch, but it made me have the same thoughts as when reading A Long Way Gone. Why weren't we there? Why did I never hear of it until a few ears ago. 

I wonder how many wars we never hear of because everyone is to busy concerning themselves with the death of Heath Ledger. I mean no respect to Mr. Ledger, but I wonder how many Dead Rwandans it would haven taken to replace the trial of OJ Simpson in the headlines.

Reading this book has made me feel pathetic for being Western. What could I possibly do about the dying Iraqis? I'm too busy to do anything. I need to go get a 5th pair of shoes that were probably made by a child in some other part of the world. 

I've always wondered, would bombing continue in Baghdad if I - a white, privileged, North American kid, with supposedly more potential than any of the kids in Iraq who are my age - were to publicly go stand in the middle of it?

But this is turning into ranting.

You should probably read A Long Way Gone

Home?

This isn't always as easy as it may seem.

I say that because I'm probably homesick. This is something I never foresaw coming. I couldn't wait to leave home and discover the world and yet here I am wanting to discover home.

It's been especially hard as of lately because everyone is talking about. They graduate, go on a trip, and then are returning home. Some, even, are planning on staying for more than the summer. Not myself. I have chosen to stay in Abbotsford and find work here for the summer. This is most likely because I have decided that the only way for me to fully move out, is to do just that, and not return home.

And yet here I am, desiring home.

I find that when I'm stressed out about stuff like school and finding a job or worrying about money or even fretting about relationships, I just simply want to go home. This plan however, is flawed for two reasons. First of all, going home is not going to solve my problems. It's funny to think that when I was younger, I would want to run away from home to escape my problems. Now I'm older and I want to run home to solve my problems. Unfortunately, my problems will follow me everywhere no matter where I run. The second downfall is that fact that I'm not sure if i have a home anymore. I'm still not sure how exactly to define home, but I'm sure it is much more than the place you grew up, or the house your parents occupy. I don't really consider Port Elgin home anymore, mostly because I haven't been there in months and I would feel very unfamiliar there, or at least that's how it felt at Christmas. Even my room at Mom and Dad's doesn't seem familiar. I know this may offend some, but please do not take this personally, I believe it's just a part of growing up and becoming a grown up me. Abbotsford is even less of a home. I hardly know anyone outside of my program here at school, I'm constantly moving from place to place, and I don't feel very grounded here at all.

It would be nice to have a definition of home so that maybe one day I could begin striving for one. 

Someday. 

A Thought

That is all for now.

Time

Time is in short supply.

I'm on the island at my brother Matt's place, hanging out with family. Watching my nephews totally puts time into perspective. Everytime I come here, They are both completly different people. This isn't even mentioning the fact that it's wierd to think of my brother as a parent.

Quest is almost as well. Time flew by this year. I can remember being scarred to come here and do bible college. I can remeber being stuck in the van on a 2 week long road trip with my family, wanting nothing more to just get to abbotsford and start school. I remember the first day of school, not knowing a single person, and all the social awkwardness that ensued. I'm now studying for my finals, my final finals (locker locker?), looking for a job in the summer, and starting to pack up my stuff to move yet again.

All of this said to put things into perspective.

Feel free to hate. (Mooney)

But...

Time is in short supply.

Don't tiptoe

All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life just to arrive at death safely.

But dear children, Do not tiptoe.

Run,

Hop,

Skip,

or dance,

Just don't tiptoe

-Anonymous