If you haven't bought the CD "The Light of Things Hoped For" by Brave Saint Saturn, you need to do it soon. Here's the lyrics to one of their songs.

The girl in the alley kneels with exhaustion
She's guarded by the skinny guy who limps from some infection
Behind a veil of bleached thin hair her eyes tell a story
Like a photo of Berlin, December 1944
She's looking for a handout, she's been high for several weeks now
She's too far gone for whoring and the money just gave out

And her heart still beats inside
And the blood runs in her veins
A remnant of life remains
Her heart still beats inside

The man finally comes to the door, I've seen him several times
He always looks pissed off and his sunglasses stay on
I think he got his biceps and tattoos while in prison
And it doesnt seem to bother him when he says "go to hell"

And his heart still beats inside
The blood runs in his veins
A remnant of life remains
His heart still beats inside

The thought it comes to my mind, to somehow intervene
But it could bring me trouble, and what can I do anyway?
It's hard to be effective when it happens so often
To see a life unraveling, through drawn venetian blinds
I'm sickened by compassion, I'm stifled by my limitations
Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away

And my heart still beats inside
The blood runs in my veins
A remnant of life remains
And my heart still beats inside

Oh God, we need you here
We're sinking fast and we don't care
The evidence is all around me, on both sides of my door
Our hearts beat

BIG BRAGGING ALERT! YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ A POST IN WHICH SAMUEL WILL BRAG TO NO END.

Haha...one morning, $120 and 7 hours of college credit! Can you say "Samuel is ripping through college like a NASCAR driver?" (I hate NASCAR...why did I use that word picture?) I just passed the natural sciences CLEP (4 hours) and the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP (3 hours) and passed both with flying colors. And I didn't do any study for them. At all. None. Zip. I'm amazing.

To all those folks who told me that "Finishing college in four years is really difficult, and I highly doubt you can do it in under four years" I say: haha! I rub your face in my victory!

I'm going to do a Thomas Sowell on everybody and write "Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene." My thoughts probably won't be nearly as good as his, but hopefully they will be interesting.

Running on a treadmill is a horrible experience. With all the ice on the roads I had not been able to run since last friday, so Thursday I broke down and went into the rec center at school and got on a treadmill for the first time in my life. Ugg. Running, by definition, is supposed to be going somewhere. Not standing still. I ran 3 miles and it was really, really tough. Today I ran 3.4 miles outside and it was a piece of cake.

TV really, really, really needs some new ideas for sit coms. While running I was forced to watch a really stupid one. Ugg.

I called Andrew (in Kinmen) a few days ago and had a really great chat with him. I miss hanging out with Andrew.

Finishing college debt free is going to be a huge load that I will not have to worry about once I graduate. But until then it's going to be tight. Good news is that I found out today that NSU accepts a very large number of CLEP tests and I can CLEP out of 15 hours of my upper level courses.

Car radios are a wonderful thing.

Chuck Colson made a very good point recently about the war in Iraq. We can argue back and forth all day about if we should have gone in or not, but the fact is that we're in. We've made promises to the Iraq people which we are morally bound to keep, even if it is difficult.

And at the risk of sounding hard hearted, I'm going to say that, from a historical perspective, Iraq has not been a blood bath nor a quagemire. Several thousand deaths in four years is horrible, yes. But it's war folks! Did you think people weren't going to die?

I hate the cold. Hate, hate, hate it.

I wonder if the testing of the brown belts won't end up being in Feb. because of all this bad weather.

Monsters Inc. is the best Pixar movie to date. Hands down. I love the rest of them, but nothing can beat Monsters Inc. The characters and the story are just awesome.

I'll leave you with a question: what is the best animated movie of all time?

Happy New Year folks!

Well, 2006 was a great year filled with all sorts of amazing happenings. It's strange to think it's over, but exciting to think of what 2007 will bring.

The first big event of 2006 was winter camp at Zhong Zhun (中正). That was a hoot. Andrew was our camp leader (as always) and I got the most advanced team. They were the most amazingly well behaved kids I'd ever had in camp up to that point. One day we had 80 (I repeat, 80) kids in the gym and I was supposed to teach some basic juggling stuff. So before we passed out beanbags I told them that they couldn't juggle until I said "Go!" and had to stop when I yelled "Stop!" And they did! I was totally amazed! All I had to do was yell "Stop!" real loud one time and they all ran back to the front of the gym and stood waiting for instructions! Wow!

After that it was winter camp at Yong Lu (永樂) in Nantou. This was a camp for kids with really good English and we were not allowed to speak Chinese at all. I had the highest team, which meant they understood almost anything I said. I also had the dumbest boys on my team. No, I'm not being mean...they honestly were dumb. At one point they were supposed to be cleaning the boys shower...so they hooked the hose to the nozzle (which was in the shower room), took the hose outside, around the building and in the other door! Of course by then it wasn't long enough to actually spray down the shower. I didn't offer any help...instead I called Daniel over and we both stood there and laughed at them.

All in all, Yong Lu was great. It was kinda a strange "coming full cirle" for me. I had been at Yong Lu exactly one year before when I first arrived in Taiwan. So it was really neat to see the same things again, but with a years experiance to inform it. I also got to see Cindy, who was my very first friend in Taiwan!

After that we went back to Kinmen and started another semester. That was about when I declared war on a couple of my classes at Ging Who (金湖). I was tired of them acting up in class and the teacher would never do anything about it...so I took over classroom control. For some classes I just stood in the back of the classroom and threatened to kill anybody who misbehaved. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it sure was a lot better than the way things had been before!

It was also during that semester that I began doing extra Chinese classes. Those were a hoot. Friday I met with Jean (a friend who's two kids were my students) and we worked on reading and vocabulary. And on Monday I met with Sandy (a wonderful lady who runs a cram school) and worked on writing and vocabulary.

Of course the biggest event of that semester was MOM COMING TO VISIT ME! She stayed for a full month! I can't even say how wonderful it was. She went to school with me and helped me teach (actually she did a lot of teaching...she's real good at it, so why not?) The weekend before she left we went to Taipie and visited friends and saw the sites.

At the end of the semester I made what was supposed to be a quick trip to Taiwan to see the 9th graders at Show Zsteye (秀才) graduate. I had a great time with them...but then everything fogged over and I was stuck in Taipie for 2 extra days because nobody was flying to Kinmen! Boy was that annoying! I ended up missing the 城中 graduation, which was very sad. :(

The end of the semester was also very sad...leaving Kinmen was tough. I would walk down the street and students would run out of shops and say they heard I was leaving and say goodbye.

Then came ABC camps. Oh my Lord...how to describe ABC camps? King Car does a summer program in which American Born Chinese (ABC's) college students come over for six weeks in the summer and teach English camps. Ginger and I were in charge of training them for the camps and then helping them to run them. We had 18 ABC's...many of which were great folks...but many of which were not! We had several guys who wouldn't quit drinking in spite of the fact that King Car had made it clear from day one that was not allowed. Then King Car refused to crack down on those who did. So next we had drunken parties going on in the dorm rooms after camp...I got really ticked off when they spilled beer all over Andrews bed. Eventually it got to the point that King Car wanted Ginger and I to be in charge of enforcing the rules, but they pointedly refused to support us in anyway. So we finally decided it would be best to tell King Car we weren't going to do the ABC camps any more. God worked things out wonderfully (amazingly, actually) and both Ginger and I ended up going home sooner than expected!

Once I got home I had about 2 weeks to get ready for starting school. I promptly got sick. But once I got over that I was able to jump right into things...karate, school, gymnastics, church...it's great to be back home. But I miss Kinmen a ton.

Since then I have signed up for a mission trip to the Philipines during spring break, joined the leadership coucil for the Baptist College Ministries at RSU, decided to transfer to NSU and study English Education, made a 4.0 on the first semester, found out that there is a very good chance of skipping my 2 year of college if I work hard this semester...

And I guess that's pretty much my year! If you've read this far, give yourself a gold star.

Howdy folks. This is going to be a real update for once...not just a couple sentances pounded out on a campus computer in between running around like a chicken with my head cut off. :)

Life, as I find myself saying real often of late, is crazy. I've been keeping very busy but still managing to stay alive. I've also discovered that mid-afternoon naps are one of the greatest things ever.

Ok, let's start off talking about some interesting events at college in relation to the Honors Program and my scholarship. You see, I'm part of the Honors Program at RSU. But the degree I'm working on is Elem. education, which is actually a program done in cooperation with Cameron U. Just a few months ago, the word came down from RSU administration that all RSU scholarship do not cover the elem. ed degree because it's not techincally a degree from RSU. Because of that, I was told that my 4 year honors scholarship will go bye-bye after two years, when I start taking classes from Cameron. Yikes.

This was a really big shock to me, to say the least. But after telling myself to calm down several times, praying a lot and talking to Mom, I began to see that perhaps this is in fact a good thing. Elem. ed isn't really what I'm interested in (I didn't really like teaching in Elem. school) and I was only doing that degree because my scholarship was at RSU and it was the closest I could get to an English Education degree. Now that I'm looking at the fact that I don't have a scholarship, I've decided I might as well finish up my gen. ed requirements at RSU and then transfer over to NSU (another college about 30 minutes from our house) and do their English education degree. I'm also looking into the possiblility of transfering into the NSU honors program...hopefully I can still have a good scholarship too!

In other (school related) news: I have a 4.0 for the fall semester! This is very wonderful news, because I wasn't sure if I would get an A in Honors Seminar. It was extremely difficult to figure out what the teacher wanted in that class, among many other issue that I had with the class. But I did get an A! Yea! Right now I'm taking an intersession class (Intro to Psychology). Interestingly enough, Chera, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. The teacher is really good. THe first day of class she told us that Freud was a cocaine addict who's theories contradicted each other. Cool, huh? We had a test on Friday that was pretty difficult, but I'm still (just barely!) holding an A in the class.

Thursday I took the biology CLEP test and passed it. Next I'll be taking the chemistry CLEP and then the Social Sciences CLEP. If I am able to pass those two CLEP tests...I will have cut an entire year off of my college education. Cool, no? (BTW, Chera, that is why I am working so hard to mass up credits. I'd like to go over to NSU as a junior.)

Ok, enough about school. In other news, I am now vice president of the BCM (Baptist College Ministries) leadership council. The world really is run by those who show up. I'll be in charge of orginizing some type of original, creative devotional for our Wednesday lunch ministry. I'm really excited about it...and if any of you have ideas on creative ways to present Biblical truths to college students, let me know!

In addition to that, Ethan and I are working on putting together some promotional material for our juggling show, hoping to get more gigs lined up. My hope is to use that to help pay for my trip to the Philipines with WanKan.

Have I posted about that on here? I can't remember. I'm going with WanKan (which is the demo team from our karate dojo) and some folks from a sister dojo down in Texas to the Philipines over spring break. We'll be in one of the larger cities (I can't remember the name) doing demos and preaching. I'm very excited about it!

Last Monday was belt promotions for all the under brown belts who had tested in the last month or so. BJ got her blue belt (you should have seen her board breaking, it was awesome!), Isaac got his green belt (he's been waiting a long time for this and is really excited to have gotten it!) and Naomi got her brown belt (her fighting was really tough, but she stuck with it and came out in one peice)! Beside those in our own family, we have got some really impressive looking lower belt at our dojo. There's several (newly) orange and green belts who I'm really excited about. Next month Ethan, Joshua, Anna and I will all be testing. Ethan wants to be testing for his black belt this next fall: I hope he gets to, because that way I can watch him test instead of testing at the same time as him. As fun as it is to say "We'll test together!" it can actually be kinda frustrating at times, because you don't get to see the other fellow do much of their test!

BJ, Anna and I are getting really excited about going to Taiwan next summer. We'll get to spend about a week in Taiwan visiting friends (in Taipie and Nantoe) and then we'll fly out to Kinmen and spend the rest of our time there. I can barely wait!

We watched The Terminal the other day. I really like that movie, which is rather supprising, because I totally hate any other Steven Speilburg (sp?) movie. Mom and Dad don't really like it because of the stewardess character, but I think she's exactly what the movie needs. Her job is to stand as a contrast to Victor as somebody who values commitment. So while she isn't a good character, she is necessary to the plot.

Ok, I've got to get off now. Mom just came home with pizza!

Merry Christmas everybody! God bless y'all!

4.0

And I'm too busy to write anything else. I've got to do a project for psychology class tonight (taking an intersession course) and study for the CLEP test I'm taking tomorrow afternoon...life is fast paced!

Literally moments ago I just finished my first semester of college. I now have 22 credits to my name.

Honors Seminar: at least a B, hopefully an A.
Cell Biology: A
Chinese: A
Music: A
Speech: A (top student in class)
Government: A
Comp 1: CLEPed, no grade.

Cool beans, huh?

I'M DONE WITH THE FREAKING HONORS SEMINAR!!!!!!!! THANK GOD!!!!!!!

Short little thought here about the use of language which is considered to be not so polite. It would seem to me that there are times when such language is appropriate.

This is sparked by just seeing a friends title on Google talk...it said "Frankly my dear I don't care." Now please. While "I don't give a damn" is not the polite way to say it, it never was meant to be a polite sentance! Words have meaning, even the rude ones. To replace "I don't give a damn" with "I don't care" is to totally remove the entire meaning of the sentance.

I'M GOING TO KINMEN NEXT SUMMER!!!!!!!!!! MAY 11th TO AUG. 2nd!!!!!

我剛才把我們的機票買好了!

BJ *AND* Anna are going to be going as well!

This will probably be something of a ramble today. Things are both going well and not going so well...no, I shouldn't go so far as to say that...things are going well and I'm wondering what God is trying to show me in a couple situations.

Saturday was the annual Missions Tournament and it was (as usual) a hoot. Last Monday Mr. Murry had us brown belts each perform a kata for the white belt class, and since I knew that Ethan was going to do Wan Si Sho, I decided to do Teno, just so things didn't get boring. Well, I did Teno and Mr. Murry comes up to me afterwards and says "Hey, you should do that kata for the tournament." AHH!! Never mind the fact that I hadn't practiced Teno seriously for over a year and that Wan Si Sho has been my compitition kata for three years now! And I'd been practicing it for the tournament! So with 5 days to go I started work on Teno instead, hoping that I didn't fall flat on my face while doing it.

So at any rate, Saturday comes and it turns out that Anna and I will be in the same division...over 18 brown belts (not "more than 18 brown belts" but "brown belts over 18 years of age"). So Anna does her kata (did a pretty good job of it too! Got a 9 from Mr. Logston!) And then I go out to do mine...at that point the black belts were doing their weapons forms but Mr. Holzbaugher sits right next to the judges and stares directly at me during the entire kata! But I got really good scores...8, 9 and 9! And when they called up the winners, Anna took third place and I had first! WEEE!!! Mr. Holzbaugher even told me I did a good kata afterwards!

For fighting they put adult brown belts with adult black belts...and I made the really silly mistake of standing next to Jeff Logston when they were writing down our names for the fighting. Duh. He's a third degree black belt who is REALLY fast.

Just as we stepped into the ring to fight Anna grabbed my arm and whispered "Mr Miller is standing behind you." Oh, music to my ears! I ran over to him. "Don't get set. He's fast...you have to move. Don't be there when he tries to hit you." I bowed in, touched gloves and dropped into my fighting stance...an annoyed voice behind me calls out "Your already set!" So from that point on I was, as BJ described it, the Spastic Fighter. Say whatever you may about my fighting, I was on my toes for that fight! And it actually worked! I was supprised to discover that fighting him was a lot like fighting Brittany...He was very fast and if I let him get into me then it was all over...but he didn't have a particularly good defense and if I came in quick with my hands I had him. In the end he beat me 4 to 3...which is not bad at all, if you ask me. Mr. Miller was pretty pleased with it as well. (oh, and Jeff Logston went on to win first in fighting, as well as the overall excellent competitor award.)

In other news...Naomi took 3rd in kata and 1st in sparring. Ethan took 2nd in kata and did not place in sparring...whole nother story there! Isaac placed in kata, but he didn't remember what place he got! LOL! Joshua took first in kata and wasn't able to fight because there wasn't any other male brown belts his age to fight against! Poor fellow was pretty bumed about that. BJ placed 5th in kata (in a very large division) and got good scores as well. She lost her first fight...she would jump in with one strike and then didn't know what to do after that...have to work with her on some combos.

Ok, enough about the tournament...I'm sure I've bored all of you to death. If you are still reading...then you probably have no life. lol

Got some very bad news today. I'm in the honors program here at RSU, which covers tuition, books and fees...very sweet deal. RSU does a program with Cameron U. which allows students to do their first two years at RSU, and then take classes from Cameron at the RSU campus to get a degree in elem. ed. So I'm doing that. Well, I just found out that once I finish my second year and start taking classes from Cameron, my scholarship will go bye bye! AHHHH!!!!!!!! This is very scary news for me. I'm trying to think of what i might be able to do to pay for my last 2 years and I'm trying to think how God might be leading me through this. Please pray for me...pray I can figure out what God wants me to do without too much beating my head against a wall.

Ok, I've got to go now...this keyboard is not ergonomic (sp?) and my hands feel like they are about to fall off. I hate flat keyboards. talk to y'all later.

Howdy again folks...I'm going to be posting more of those "big moments" hopefully soon...but for now a little bit of a rant. For those of you who don't understand it...just know that I'm frustrated with what I'm doing right now and really, majorly miss Kinmen.

我不想上大學. 我只想回家! 我的家人和一些超好的朋友在這裡, 但是我的心還在金門.

跟我上課的同學大部分都很無聊, 而且很幼稚喔! 我的老師六分之五教的不太好. 大部分得時候我們在學的東西沒什麼好用. 問題不是我不喜歡學東西. 問題是我現在不要學這些東西, 反我很想繼續學國語! 我在金門的時候我的腦筋一直在忙, 一直學好許多東西. 對我來說, 我正在學的東西不多. grr....

And even that doesn't really fully express what I'm feeling or why I'm frustrated. And part of it is that I'm just feeling pretty depressed right now. Please pray that I do manage to get back to Kinmen over the summer...having that to look forward to would give me a big boost right now.

Howdy folks. This is a post I've thought about making for some time (several years actually) but never really did. I think it will probably turn into several installments, because as soon as I push the "publish" button then I'll think of something else that I want to add.

At any rate, I've been thinking some about those moments in your life that stand out really, really clear to you. Perhaps they were big turning points for you or maybe you don't even know why you remember them so vividly. But here is an incomplete list of some of those moments in my life, in no real order.

Stacy Lewis' baby. I was probably about 10 or 11 years old when I went with my Mom to visis our friend Stacy Lewis, who had just delivered her 4th (5th?) child. At that time they were living in a small trailer house a little ways outside of Amarillo. I spent most of the time there playing with Jake (Stacy's oldest boy) but not long before we left I got a chance to hold the new baby.

Now of course this was not my first time to hold a new born (far from it!) but for some reason when I held that particular baby I was suddenly struck with just how amazingly precious human life is. I would imagine that holding your own baby for the first time must be something like what I felt then.

Mr. Burnett's kata. About three years ago Mr. Burnett (one of Mr. Murry's first black belts and an amazing martial artist) tested for his third degree black belt. Because of some health problems he did not have to do the fighting portion of his test (he is actually blind in one eye now because he lost vision in one eye in one of his brown belt tests...somehow the stress of the test caused his eye to just give out totally) so he had spent an amazing amount of time preparing his kata. The day of the test he was sick as a dog. As all the testing candidates went through their lower forms it was to the sound of his coughing.

When he got up to do his promotion kata you could tell he was feeling really bad. He threw his first strike and then started coughing again and had to start the kata over.

But after that fit of coughing he did what was truly the most amazing, powerful and real kata I have ever seen (and I've seen some pretty good ones). As long as I live I don't know if I'll ever be able to forget that kata.

Two days into Kinmen. Or perhaps I should say the first two days in Kinmen. From the moment I landed God gave me a love for the island and it's people. On my second day there I told BonnieJean that I was considering staying on for more than the six months I had signed up for.

Easter Sunday Funeral. Two easters ago I was in Kinmen. We had a sunrise easter service in Shun Why and then came back to Jing Chun for normal service. As I walked home from church that day I felt awesome. Christ was alive and I was rejoicing in the wonderful hope we have of salvation. As I came out of an ally way I was stopped by a large group of people walking down the street. Loud drums were playing and fire crackers were going off to keep evil spirits away. A large casket was being moved down the road and the mourners follewed it, their faces covered. The utter hopelesness of the whole scene cut right to my heart. They don't have that hope that I do.

Hmm...Kinda a sad note to leave y'all on....but I need to get back to studying. I'll try and write some more at a later time. In the meantime....somebody comment! please?

Here's an essay I wrote for Honors Seminar. I thought it turned out pretty well. (Wouldn't it be great if Dr. Ford found this online and then said that I must have stolen the essay from this JJF fellow?)

------------------------------------------------

Compare and contrast two books: one that Adler would regard as “light reading” and one that he would regard as worthy of marking up. Indicate the primary differences between these books in terms of their diction, level of discourse, insight, purpose and scholarship.

In this essay I will be looking at two of my favorite books. For light reading I will examine All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot and for heavy I will examine Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I will contend that although they are somewhat similar and both of great value, they differ primarily in the areas of presentation and attention to objections.

The first and most striking thing about these two authors is their similarity. Both are British men of some education. Both men lived through and were dramatically affected by the Second World War. Both present a way life, or a way of looking at life: Lewis the Christian view of life and Herriot the rural farmer of 1930’s-40’s England. And both of them present their view with great enthusiasm, being themselves convinced that it is indeed a good way to live life.

Where, then, do they differ? The primary difference can be seen in the way that the author goes about presenting his view of the world. Lewis rushes his topic head-on: his purpose is clear from the beginning, his points are easily outlined and discussed, and he very much takes the format of a theology teacher in a college classroom: he has important, heavy material to cover and he needs to do it by ten o’clock. There is a logical progression to his arguments that could very easily be put into a power point presentation. In contrast, Herriot is in no hurry at all. He lights a pipe and begins to weave stories which are not even in chronological order and would be a nightmare to power point. No purpose is ever stated and at first it seems there never was one to begin with: you are simply listening to an old man talk about what he has seen over the years. Yet Herriot is saying something, and as you read further you begin to pick it out piece by piece, like piecing a shredded bit of newspaper back together. Slow down he tells us. Life is not about one-upping the Jones’, it’s about hot Yorkshire pudding and satisfying work

So while Lewis pounds his desk and presses forward, using only a short illustration here and there, Herriot is nothing but illustration: a huge painting which you are watching him draw. This is why Herriot takes a lot more pages to say not nearly as much as Lewis does (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Perhaps we can think of Lewis as a mathematician: he is describing something in as hard a way as he can. He measures angles and writes his proofs on the chalkboard, and when a student has a question or disagreement, he stops all and addresses that issue. All the while Herriot is standing before an easel drawing his vision of the world and we are merely watching him, with little or no influence on what he does, for ultimately he is not doing it for us and does not particularly care if we agree with him.

This can be seen in Lewis’ almost continual attention to objections. In fact chapter 2 of his work is titled “Some Objections”. He regularly stops and tells us what his opponents have to say about his points and shows us where or how their reasoning is wrong. His main purpose in writing is to convince us. From his perspective these objections are very much worth noting, for they have the potential to render his efforts fruitless.

Herriot, meanwhile, is not in the business of convincing anyone. Objections to his view of life are almost never mentioned and very rarely addressed. When he does answer them it is not in the format of How this objection is based on a misunderstanding of the following principles but the same format he uses throughout: story. He takes us with him to a small part of the painting that shows people living according to a different vision, walks us down a street or two and then returns us to his vision without so much as a comment on what we just saw.

So who has written the better book? Both are vitally important. The painting gives us a vision of what the math has proven. Neither is much use without the other. The math gives us faith in what we are doing, but who can pursue a mathematical formula as a way of life? What does it really look like? A painting is needed to show us. Yet a painting without the math is against our nature to pursue, for how can we know that this vision can be made into reality? We must have both.

This, then, is the critical difference: that of the mathematician and the painter. Heavy reading is written to prove something, while lighter has been written because it is something the painter has thought beautiful or useful and he simply hopes that we find it so as well.

All quotes of Fred Allen (no idea who he is, but they're funny!)

---I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

---I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the
case, and got my tuition back.

---I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you
find yourself up there.

---I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when
he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

---Some movie stars wear their sunglasses even in church. They're afraid
God might recognize them and ask for autographs.

---Television is a medium because anything well done is rare.

---The last time I saw him he was walking down lover's lane holding his own hand.

---What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?

So the Croc Hunter is dead. At the risk of sounding totally cold hearted and callous, I must say that I do not really feel sorry for the man. It's kinda like the guys who walk high wires without nets...when they fall (and they all eventually do) you just shake your head at their stupidity and move on. I do feel very sorry for his children, but as for his wife and friends who all supported his stupid behaviour...well, that's simply what happens when you have habits like that.

School is still going well. I have my first real exam tomorrow...chapters 1-4 in General Cell Biology. I'm going to be doing some more study once I get off the computer, but I'm feeling pretty prepared for it. I've actually come to like the proffessor a little more once he started talking about more concrete things. His thinking is rather circular when it comes to the big things, but he is good at explaining the technical stuff.

Music Appriciation is somewhat odd. Still, I guess it's good to have an easy class. Honors Seminar is fun at times and odd at times. I'll be giving my first speech for speech class on the 25th...I'm looking forward to that. It will be a 5-6 minute informative speech...I think I'll probably talk about some of the different types of Chinese characters. If I can fit that topic into 5-6 minutes, of course...I might have to try something a little smaller.

Being back at karate is really awesome. I wish I had time to go out to visit some of the other dojos more often, but I don't. :(

Thursday we started classes again at Gym City. It was totally insane for a few minutes but still fun. I taught a little kids class (6 years old and up...haven't worked with kids that small for some time!), then a boys class (I wasn't actually supposed to be teaching that class but the real teacher couldn't make it that night: we had fun anyway) and then the final half of a girls 12 and up class.

我正在很想家!!! Man oh man do I miss Kinmen! And it doesn't help that my team mates just arrived back in Taiwan only a few days ago. :( We watched "Around the world in 80 days" the other day (funny but stupid movie) and I felt like crying just to hear people speaking Chinese again.

Yesturday Ethan and I went into Tulsa with a group called "Mission Tulsa" to a government housing complex and did a "back door Bible club" thing. It was really fun. We juggled and got a really good response from that. It was nice to have the chance to warm up my Christian juggling routines in a very relaxed situation after not doing them for so long.

Ok, I've got to write a couple emails and then do some more studying. Talk to y'all later!

Ok, no time for a real update, so instead I will post what I wrote in response to the question "What is Wisdom?" for honors class. If it seems disjointed I'm sorry.

What is Wisdom?

Wisdom is the ability to discern what is right and proper. It is related to but very different from knowledge. Knowledge is merely a collection of lifeless facts and findings: something that even a computer can have. Wisdom, on the other hand, is the ability to take knowledge and make judgments which do not themselves come from that knowledge.

So, while knowledge is needed for wisdom (or at least for wisdom to be shown), wisdom is something that does not itself reside in knowledge. Even with all the knowledge in the world about stem cell research available to a person, he could not from that information alone, discover whether it is right or not to use embryos for the research.

Wisdom comes in two forms, although one is in fact a derivative or shadow of the other. The first is what Socrates refers to as “some wisdom greater than human” (Apology 20b), or which I will call Divine wisdom. This is the highest of all wisdom, as it is that of the Creator and is the perspective of the One who created and understands every detail of the universe.

The second form of wisdom is human wisdom. This wisdom is the inferior of the two, yet finds its ultimate source in Divine wisdom. Contrary to the beliefs of the Calvinists, who hold that humans are completely fallen and without any good at all separate from God, I believe that by looking at the world we can see that everybody has what has been called “The spark of the Divine”: an innate ability to understand and do good. Contained in this Spark of the Divine is our capacity for human wisdom. So, while incomplete, human wisdom can, in fact, divine right from wrong. Differences between Divine wisdom and human wisdom come from either the fallen nature of human beings or the incomplete perspective that we have on the world.

If wisdom is something that we all naturally have, foolishness is not the lack of wisdom, but rather it is the despising of that wisdom which we already have and the Divine wisdom from which it comes.

Our computer got a virus, so there is no computer (and therefore no internet) at home. So I'm writing this from college. Which is why it will be a very short update.

College is going well so far. Honors Seminar is strange in that it's such an undefined topic. Honors Government is frustrating because of my raving liberal nut proffessor, but at the same time I don't mind too much because he's got a well organized class, and has laid out the pathway to an "A" pretty clearly. Honors Music Apprication is fun (the professor is cool) and doesn't seem like it will take much work. General Cell Bio. is fun to read (the textbook) but the professor isn't all that great. "Read the first couple or three chapters" he tells us for the weekend. Or "Science is what scientist do." Huh? Is it two or three chapters? And you can't use the word your defining in the definition (duh!)

Still, I'm having a good time and understanding stuff...course it's only the first week, so we'll see what I have to say about 8 weeks down the line.

For now that's all. Love y'all, bye.

Baseball is REALLY boring.

Mind numbingly boring.

Like, I mean, BORING.

Howdy there again folks. I've been home for three two weeks now! It's amazing really...feels like I've been home longer than that...and Taiwan really seems another life away. I am enjoying being with my family more than can be said. Being at the dojo is wonderful...my kata and fighting need a lot of work, but it's just great to be there. Drinking Swan's milk is of course awesome. And I've started working at Gym City again, which is really fun...I'd kinda forgotten how much I missed working there.

At the same time, I REALLY, SUPER miss Taiwan! I miss Chinese (a LOT!) And I miss how I had everything back in Taiwan figured out! I'm having to go through setting everything back up for life in the states...bank, phone, college, car insurance...even where I hang my clothes! Not to mention the team...esp hanging out with Drew. And of course all my friends in 金門.

Chera has been visiting us for the past week. We've been having a hoot with her. A few days ago we went to see Over the Hedge...I liked it. Nothing really original in the plot or anything, but it had fun and interesting characters, so it was still an enjoyable watch.

I took a CLEP test on Friday so I can get out of taking Freshmen Comp. Since it's with an essay I won't be getting my score back for a few weeks. If I did good on the multiple choice answer part of the test then I'll get 3 credit hours for Comp I. If I also get a good score on my essey then I'll get 6 credit hours for Comp I and Comp II. Tuesday I went to TCC and took the Chinese test, which I passed with 100 points. So I'll be going into the intermediate class during the second half of the semester.

Ok, I've got to go to bed now. It's almost 11 o'clock. To Samuel living in 金門 that would mean almost nothing, but to the Samuel at home with Dad wanting everybody in bed at a decent hour, that means it's night-night time.

I’m back home! YEA! It’s really awesome being back home…and really strange. Everything is in English! Everybody is fat! (really fat) All the kids speak perfect English…and none of them stare at me as I walk past.

I’m having a hoot being with the family again. Yesterday I went with BJ and Anna to Eggberts and had lunch and then we went to the theater, met up with Ethan and watched Pirates 2: Dead Man’s Chest. Wow…that was really cool. I can’t wait for the next one. Then we went to karate class, which was really cool. It was awesome to see all the folks I haven’t seen in so long. And man, I’ve got a lot of work to do in karate to get my kata and fighting back up to the level is used to be at. Today and tomorrow we don’t have many big plans…then Thursday I’m hoping to go into Tulsa and take my Chinese test….(pray for that!)

Getting home was interesting. I got in on a flight from Taiwan to LAX on stand by. I asked them about my flights on to Tulsa and they said “no time! Just go to the Delta desk at LAX and they will get it worked out for you!” So I ran (literally) to catch the plane and when I landed in LAX there was no flight for me. Delta didn’t want to mess with my ticket because it was from China Airlines. China Airlines didn’t want to mess with it because it was for a Delta flight. I had to run back and forth between their counters about eighty million times. But finally I got a flight for the next morning. They wouldn’t pay for my hotel that night (drat) but really, paying a total of $85 in order to get home two weeks early isn’t a bad trade off.

Ok, I’ve got to go now. Bye y’all!