road trippin'

This past weekend was a magical celebration of love, the great North, bad food, Maurice who changes oil, and of course, fish.

Rachel's cousin was gettin' hitched so Rach and I were invited to hit it up. That we did, with the aid of two wonderful friends & gentlemen, namely, Todd Anderson at the wheel and Jerry Bolton at the camera. Lots of fun was had by all, as well as much consumption of poor quality fast foods, and of course, some rather strange and inane conversation:

J= Jer, T= Todd, N= Noah, R= Rach

J: Dude, the guy in your riding is called Rapin!
N: RAPIN! You could have a lot of fun with that... Rapin' the economy, rapin' the environment
R: Rapin' the other team!
J: [insert bad Quebecois accent] John Rapin! I will beat you avec my poisson
R: with your fish?
T: Avec! Avec! Avec!
N: [insert bad Southern US drawl] Hi, I'm Maurice. I will change your oil.
J CHANGE YOUR OIL AVEC MY POISSON!!

[and so on, for 15 hours...]

All in all, lots of fun, especially seeing Rachel... who I also get to see this weekend for fun and havoc in Kingston! Yay!

Oh, we also listened to a lot of As Cities Burn, and I must say their new record is awesome, and it has rekindled my love of their first record as well. Lovin' it!

I am not safer than a bank

Listening to: Fear Before the March of Flames- Drowning the Old Hag Got into these guys after seeing them live with Underoath and The Chariot. They are pretty schizophrenic musically; each album changes and progresses in a healthy manner. The Always Open Mouth is easily their best both lyrically and musically, not to mention it has probably the best album design I have ever seen. Looking forward to lots more from these guys.

Well, it has been almost two full weeks since I arrived in Kingston, and I can safely say I have "settled in" whatever that means. It could mean that I am now used to cooking all my meals for myself... or that the opening of my morning is comfortably Jim and Joe instead of Mom... or that I am used to missing my closest friends and my fiancee... or perhaps it just feels like "home" now.

Living, for all intents and purposes, alone and as a bachelor is bittersweet. The excitement of the freedom is palpable, as is the feeling of being alone and somewhat insignificant. However I am finding a growing significance in my work. I am excited about teaching again... but more than that I can now see it as something worthy of my life's devotion. Shaping the next generation is a privilege that is important, humbling, subversive, and above all that something Godly, something that can impact souls as well as minds... and to think that I can do this with Shakespeare and World War II.

I have also become more thoughtful than I have been in a long time... I have much more time to think, and I have devoted more time into pursuing specifically God's will, be it a burden or a featherweight. But conviction seems to burden as a featherweight, but one that is always present, always demanding, always significant.... "I smell a change with horizons..."

To bring some levity, I am also sporting a rather rocking beard... as beards are quickly becoming something only the rocking attempt to possess. I enjoy it greatly, I definitely feel as though it holds some significance at the moment, a symbol of change, of moving on, of growing up perhaps? Wait, where's the levity? I think it looks bad ass. Bad. Ass.



Maybe that is all for now. Make your mamma proud.

More updating

So it turns out that there is a coffee shop that is near the church that has free wireless internets!!! So I went to Bethel Tabernacle... turns out it happens to be the church that Caroline Cuthbert attends... also turns out the preaching was awesome so I think I'll be going there regularly. Today I need to get in contact with Sybil somehow... kind of hoping she gets her internet going or that it is not too expensive to phone her on a pay phone... the reason being I'm already downtown and I don't want to walk the hour back home to phone her then walk an hour back downtown to meet her for the movie.... argh

Anyway, Kingston is being good to me so far, and God is certainly faithful. I don't take it as a coincidence that the church that Jim pointed out to me is also the church that Caroline goes to... I will choose to take this as a hint from God that he wants me there, after all, I don't believe in coincidences.

Another interesting thing: I received an e-mail today from a woman that I haven't heard from in a while... she is one of the people who helped lead me to Christ over six years ago at Alpha in Norwood... apparently she reads my blog! It's funny what the internet can do.

That's all for now, I have to do some reading for my essay that is due on the second day of class. I guess this whole grad school thing isn't a party after all, byes.