Another interesting conversation that I over-heard today:

Guy: "You really shouldn't jump into this too fast. You just met him: you should get to know him before you start dating him. Give it three months."

Girl: "Three months! *laughs* I've never even been in a relationship that long!"

And you wonder why that is...

Ok, here's the scoop on the pictures below. I didn't have time to write anything last time.

First picture: Me holding Julieanna (how do you spell that name?) a little girl I fell in love with at an orphanage we visited.

next to that: Ryan doing con ku die with a sucker in his mouth. That struck me as very funny.

Erin and her fan club. She always had a huge number of kids who followed her around. She gave this particular group some bandanas.

A really cool fruit they have over there. It's slimy and tastes kinda like mild banana yogurt.

Josiah with a bunch of kids.

Me breaking a board.

I'm sitting in the library and the two guys next to me are a study in pathetic college dating habits.

"Dude, there's this girl I've been talking to on Facebook...her name's like Susan or something...she's cool."

"Hey, I think you got a gift from somebody..."

"No, I don't think so..."

"I'm almost certain you got a gift from a girl...you should check."

"Check this girl out (now their looking at myspace)..."

Can it get any worse than that? Don't ask...it probably can.

I will try to write a Phillipines update later this week (if I can with all this insane amount of school work to do...) but in the meantime...

I had lots of strange dreams while I was over there. Maybe because I was really tired the whole time...or maybe it was something in the food or something, I don't know. But here's an interesting one.

I had this girlfriend who I decided it would be best to break up with. So I planned a trip for the two of us to someplace in Tennesse (sp?). My plan was to make the whole trip very romantic and then have her get out of the car at out distination, tell her that I was dumping her and then leave her there.

After I'd made my plans I started to wonder if perhaps it might not be the very best of ideas. But BJ was adament: this was not just the best, it was the only way to do this. Besides, she reminded me, didn't my girlfriend have an aunt near TN? So I would actually be doing the girl a favor by taking her near her aunts house! So I decided to do it. Then I woke up.

Can you think of a more horrible way to dump a girl? Wow...I didn't know that was even in me to think of.

No time for a real update, so here's an email I just sent home. I'll try and post pictures sometime later.

Keep praying for us!

Hey guys, things are going great over here! Yesterday we went to a
remote village in the middle of nowhere...David kept telling us "these
people are VERY sensative...be very careful about anything that you
do!:" Once we got there (with our military escort...apparently
there's some tribal warfare going on) we had to sit in the truck for a
long time while they talked to the King about if we would be allowed
to even get out. Finally they did let us. The King was an amazing
looking man...dressed in rags that had at one time been nice clothes.
His right eye looked like a glass ball. I really wish we could have
taken pictures, but they didn't let us. We did a short, very tense
demo (we didn't know if they would be offended or put on edge by us
acting tough...ever tried doing kata on a hilly slope and only half
power?) and then handed out some food. The people were
starving...they get only about one meal a day is what we were told. A
nurse from the church came with us and was weighing the little kids to
see which ones were in the most desperate need of nutrition. We
didn't get to present the Gospel to them, but they knew that we were
from the church down the hill and David told us that we made an
amazing amount of progress with them and opened a lot of doors. He
said that they usually don't even let visitors off the trucks.

Sunday was great too. I went with Josiah and Tommy to a church in the
middle of nowhere and I gave the sermon. I had written myself a
salvation message sermon, but then found out it would all be
Christian's there, so I had to come up with something real quick the
night before. I talked about God's power and went through various
examples from the Bible...talking about God's power of nature, and his
power over the plans of men. It went real well. The church people
were wonderful very welcoming. I felt just like I was back in
Taiwan....we were only the second pale-faces to ever visit there and
they made a very big deal out of it. After lunch we hiked to a
different location for a Bible club with some village kids. We got
there about an hour early and I was really glad of all the various
ways I've learned to interact with kids without actually speaking to
them....we did lots of thumb wars and slapping games.

Sunday night was our first demo. It went amazingly well. Many people
were saved. :)

Monday night (after visiting the village I wrote about earlier) we did
another demo. Once again I felt like I was in Taiwan...the pale faces
always draw a crowd. The floor we were on was very dirty. Nobody
responded to the alter call, but when I talked to them afterwards and
asked what was the best part of the demo, they all said the Sacrafice
was the best...so seeds were planted.

Today we have another demo for a Muslim group. Pray for that. This
morning we went shopping...I got stuff for y'all and the kids at gym.

Ok, got to go now. I want to send a couple more emails.

Love y'all!

JJF

No real time for an update here (I'm actually supposed to be doing my math homework or writing an essay for history class...) but I'll just do something short.

I got a raise at work yesturday! Now I'm making $8/hour...not going to get rich, but it's better than the $7/hour I was making before yesturday. I love my job. There are a few students I would like to strangle but on the whole I really do enjoy it. I'll have to have Anna come to class sometime and take some pictures so I can post them on here.

I'm leaving Wednesday for the Phillipines! Ahhh! And I've got a million things to do before then. In fact...here's the list

Today:
--finish math chapter 5 homework and take the quiz.
--Post on the disccusion thread (math)
--Post on the disccusion thread (geography)
--Write an essay for history class
--Call Scott Brown
--Call Jason
--Study for nutrition exam

Tomorrow
--whatever I don't do today

Monday
--Math exam 2
--Study for nutrtion exam

Tuesday
--study for nutrition exam
--pack
--study for Cinima exam

Wednesday
--take nutrition exam
--take Cinima exam
--leave for the Browns

Thursday
--Leave for the Philipines!

And of coruse I've got to get packed and ready to go sometime during all this....ok, I've convinced myself I have no time for this post...I'm outa here! Bye!

Happy Birthday Isaac! You are now ten years old...wow! That's really hard to believe!

I'm at TCC right now, chillin' in the library. I just took two CLEP tests and I have about a three hour wait until it's time for Wankan practice...not long enough to go home, but I should have thought to bring a book with me.

At any rate, I just CLEPed out of another 6 hours! Yea baby! Intro to Educational Psychology and Information Systems & Computer App. I had actually planned on taking the challenge exam at RSU for the computer class, but I failed it! Ahh! That was annoying. It had a lot of stuff with Microsoft Access and Excel, which I haven't used very much. But I just got a 57 on the CLEP (needed a 50) so everything is good! The Educational Psychology CLEP was a little harder and I only made a 53 on it...but who cares! It counts! I'm happy!

If I had the money I would send Peggy Dugan flowers, because I learned enough in her Intro. to Psych class that I was able to pass this CLEP today. But I don't have enough money. I'll just send her a big thank you note instead.

We had Wankan come out to the BCM this week and do a demo for us. They were awesome, as usual. Only Jason, Josiah and Luke were able to come, but they did some great breaks and kata and self defense...not to mention a great Gospel presentation.

Chera, you need to leave Michigan. It's a bad state for you...you were made for much warmer climates. But I'm afraid I can't really recommend Oklahoma to you...it's not a very good state either. Try Texas.

I talked to Dr. Ford last week about my plans for my college future. I told him that I'll be at NSU next semester and he didn't scream at me or anything, so it went well, I guess. He also let me drop Sociology, which frees up my Tuesday and Thursday mornings completely. Which is a very good thing: I need to start working on my term paper for history class. He wants a 12-15 page paper! ouch!

The clock is ticking down to leaving for the Philippines! I'm so excited!

But not nearly as excited as I am about going to Taiwan. I can' t wait for that.

Ok, I'm going to go find a quick trip and get something to eat. Bye!

新年快樂!!!!!

Hope you all have a great year of the pig!

The RSU Honors Program is so frustrating. I'm going to be glad to be leaving it after this semster, although I am REALLY going to be missing my scholarship!

I'm going to be talking to Dr. Ford (the director of the program) on Friday. I'm going to have to convince him to let me drop a class and tell him that I'm leaving the program. Pray it goes well.

Hello folks. It's time for movie reviews with Samuel!

Serenity: Very interesting movie. The plot wasn't all that great, but it had a couple good characters. Of course for me the most interesting part was the Chinese aspect of it. I wish they had put in a little more Chinese than they had, but it was still really cool as it was. Probably the funniest part in the movie was the rough, tough spaceport bar that had the little Japanese-inspired animated panda bears dancing on TV. That was really funny. But what is it with movies that seem to be obsessed with corpses? They were all over this movie and it got annoying.

Hitch: You need to see this movie. It's extremely funny. Will Smith is awesome.

Mr. Deeds: dumb, dumb, dumb. Don't waste your time. I watched this because I felt like watching a comedy and it was one that Jamey had brought along...what a total waste of time. jamey, why did you bring it?

Oh, that reminds me...I forgot to tell y'all that I went to New Orleans over the weekend! It was a hoot. I went with our BCM director and another fellow doing pre-routing for our mission trip (which I'm not actually going on, because I"ll be in the Philipines!) The food was really good in the French Quarter. The drive was REALLY long.

If you live in Oklahoma you need to do what you can to stop Senate Bill 375. Go to HSLDA's website for more info.

Got to go now. Talk to y'all later!

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.