Semi-what I'm up to?

Missing you all!



Today I skimboarded, and in previous days I've been surfing. Unfortunately, the surfing has made the front of my body raw, especially the nips, it's horrible, but it was worth it, Surfing wasn't great, not the most fun I've had doign it before, rainy and cold as well, BUT! IT WAS STILL FUN. Huzzah.

Been diving, and such, I don't think i'm tanned... but that'll be realized when I get home.

Tommorow I'm going to Kona to the YWAM base there, to visit some folk, that will be great.

I wish I had some photo's to show you all... not at the moment, there are a few on facebook.


I really do wish I could be with everyone right now, I'll see you soon.

Much Love and all that such


-Jon !

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone, that means YOU!


Although the actual day of Christmas is almost over, it's still nice to hear evening "Merry Christmas" wishes.


*Sigh.... and now the wolse season ends, the lights come down, and people stop anticipating and loving each other.   Focus goes on new years, and then when thats over.... it's a whole year until the best time of the year.

and in completly unrelated news

I still stand by the solid fact that "The Fellowship of the Ring" is my favorite of the Lord of the Rings movies.


 

Chances are...

Edit: Whatever path I do take in the future... I want to reach a level of enough experience, whether it be in a career or just "life in general", where I can give good, honest advice to others. Maybe be a jerk while I'm at it, but still be respected, a "Dr. Cox" if you will (Mike).
Huzzah!
Anyways... I think thats more important to me than purpose I think... having people to help, not only practically, but through wisdom. THATS the word I was looking for, wisdom.

------


Chances are that this is just a result of panic and stress over exams... perhaps it's a mixture of many things, but none the less, the feeling is here and it sucks....

Not knowing direction. The other night I lay awake in bed not able to sleep while my mind raced, unfortunatly sleep didn't exactly make it all go away. I honestly have no idea where i'm going. Sure i'm going to school... but for what? An arts degree? I don't know what I want to do with that... I could be a teacher sure, that'd be swell haha, but thats not the satisfying "dream come true" for me. I want to know what is right in life for me, I want to know my "calling" as it were.

Whatever, i'll stress about this on my own later on, I'm not depressed or anything haha far from it, I'm just confused. I try reminding myself that i'm still young, and quite a bit younger than people i might be comparing myself to who are "on the right path" but still... the worlds competitive, I just feel if i don't get a grip soon, then I'm going to fall.

In other much happier news, Cry of the Afflicted show last night, awesome, amazing, they are the best. Too bad you wern't there mike, missed you bud, next time. Next time.
Also, for those who may not know but possibly take a gander at this blog from time to time, This christmas/newyears/ ("Politically correct/irritating "holiday season?) I am going to Hawaii with the entire extended family and such. I'm really looking forward to it for obvious reasons, spending time with cousins who I havn't seen in years now due to my travels and such.

Well.... Final at 6.pm tonight, I have no doubt in my mind that this blog was me trying to get away from it.... but back I go "cadre parties and single member pluralities" (it's as exciting as it sounds!!)

Oh wow, and socks

hahaha, So last night I worked a 12 hour shift, (Today?) and got home at 12 noon.
Had my shower etc, and had a realy good idea of something to write a blog about... however i sat down on the couch with my computer and....



It is now 6:13pm

Lame, I hate sleeping, it made me forget my awesome blog subject. It was good enough to actually motivate me TO write another blog, I'm a few weeks behind.



New edit*

So, my socks are different sizes... they look exactly the same... except one is longer. Irritating, but what is worse!

...Is that i know that this same occurrence is due to happen again at least once more in the future....


I love my job

The snow is kind of trying to come back today.... not interesting. It's had it's chance, then it melted... I don't think so snow.

Also... I sprained my wrist at work the other day during my 12 hour shift.... and now it kills. Very Very Lame.

Thats more like it

Last nights snow was exactly what I was waiting for!

huzZAH!

(I was being told about BLT...on a Bagel?? Weird)

Yay

Snowfall

heh

Finally

:)

Midnight shift activities

Today during graveyard was basically "dish out" Transformers fest, thankfully some people on the crew had seen it, for the first time AFTER they had heard my.... unique review? (well.. unique to kelowna at least... everyone seemed to love it)

None the less, hahah they said all they could think about was "Jon said he hates this part" and thus started oppertunity to laugh at ridiculousness of the movie.  Yes, i know it's about giant robots, I'm not talking about ridiculous in that sense, I mean just parts where... I don't know WHAT possessed the writers to put it in there.

I wish I had written a review blog on taht movie after it cameo ut, similar to my pirates3 one.  I guess i'll have to wait until the next big blockbuster.


ALSO, another thing that I have been discussing recently during graveyard shifts, (where all the best conversation happens, sleep deprived awesomeness)  has been the fact that I dislike it how so many songs nowadays (mostly hip hop, but not excluding britney spears) seem to have this retarded trend where someone, not even always the artist themself, will talk, and then do a retarded little laugh, it's always like a "heh heh" just those two.  Everyone from JT, to Britney spears, to Fiddy is guilty of this irritating addition to the songs.  I could go on more about it, but it's more fun to discuss in person.


-------------------------- 

In other news.... I sincerly, sincerly hope that the name "Smore's" did NOT come from this...

"they are so good, i want s'more"

*shudder*

Everyone Everwhere

Boy was today wierd, I was running into everyone everwhere, family, friends, randoms here and there, nuts.

My cousin in law in tim hortons
My uncle at airport
Friend who coincidentally I had been talking about earlier at tim hortons (different time, yes twice in one day)
Uncle at blockbuster

In other news, I saw my dad off at the airport earlier tonight, and this security lady walked up to a very nice young man with his little puppy (aw) and said "Your dog has to leave now" incredibly rudely, it made my blood boil, she continued to be rude and while the guy was doing what she asked he was calmy trying to reason with her that he cannot take his dog outside RIGHT then for whatever reason, she continues to be unbelievably rude, and he asks her if she could just be a bit more polite, she then walky talkies for backup!!! "resistant male, backup needed"

It made me so mad I actually stood up and challenged her "P's an Q's lady, Ma'am I understand you have authority, but c'mon"  She turns away and continues to ask for backup.  Unbelievable, i was so mad ahah I couldn't believe her, unfortuantly I left before I saw the end of the situation.


School is going well, and it's either the weather or something i don't know, but i've been in a wierd mood lately.  A bit of a loner and sometimes downer mood i think, but we'll see what happens.  It usually comes around now at the change of the seasons, season changes usually stress me out, mostly just late fall, and early spring.  These things happen.

Robots... like, totally

I was thinking on my evening drive, whilst being distracted by the bright streetlights and water raining down onto my windshield,
 Imagine... if every body and everything around you... the entire world and everyone in it, we entirely a creation of your mind.  This is age old, cliche, and e veryone has had some kind of "what if everyone else is a robot" type though I KNOW, but entertain me

So, further imagine that if everyone who was a "figment of your imagination" had a conciousness, and as a result, a desire to live/exist.  The only reason you would have any friends, is becuase these particular characters your mind has dubbed "friends" or "close" would only maintain this assigned status with you because they WANT to live,  if that was to faulter, or you were to go your seperate way, then their "role" in the story of your life would be over, and as a result, they would eventually cease to exist.  Yep, 

As, this hardly deep, and ridiculous concept has probably cued any reader on to, I'm tired, exhausted even.  Not just physically, actually, possibly least of all physically.  Just over all i feel drained, possibly the weather? Possibly even just today, who knows, none the less, it's a weird mellow that i'm not sure wether or not i like it, or hate it.

In other news, I find that gossipy girls in college who need to grow up past their grade 10 bickerings are irritating, especially when their gossip fills the halls around you so you can't study your philosphy text and are forced to hear about "OMG, did you HEAR what happened at this partty?  omg I know! I was sooo omg like totally drunk omg I was like 'haha i'm sooo drunk kiss me' then i was like &*%@ and @#&* to her &@@% face, that &#@%"

Hardly charming.

Graveyard Antics

I'm panicing.... I don't know what to do about life...

WHAT


WHAT!!



I need to focus on the present, then maybe I'll notice something exciting to write  a blog about...

At the moment nothing, but I figured I'd throw something out there, something new for those reading my blog.


Huzzah.



Anyways, graveyard shift this morning was great, laughed so much, man.... best crew.

The new Coheed grows on you, I wasn't too impressed at first, the only good songs were the ones on the myspace, but it's good enough.

It's coheed.

Stay true.


ALSO, well, I don't know what else to say.

I want to accomplish something with life someday... but how.
I will not be a nobody.


I also wish the Kelowna Scene was back haha.
I've had a few discussions about this with people in the past few days... *sigh


Anyways, new Coheed, giver a listen, don't bother with the album art.... it sucks.  Worst Album art ever, looks like anime or something,I'm very dissapointed Coheed (or Cambria) 

Graveyard antics

She threw away my lunch again today...

Kind of,

This time, she took my lunch bag, emptied it so that the individual items were now seperated throughout the fridge, and threw away the bag. She also moved the Nalgene bottle that was resting beside/ontop of the bag in the fridge.


Que!?!?!

Two things that have interested me.

I just (literally 3 min ago) witnessed about 30 little birds in a flock flying like WWI planes diving in two groups at a bigger bird who had obviously ... heh... ruffled their feathers. It was like watching a Snowbirds show.... except with little birds, perfectly flying together in big swooping arial combat with this bigger one. Really impressive


I was in Tim Hortons yesterday, one in Kelowna, and before getting something to eat (a bagel) I went to the washroom. In the washroom was a garbage can, with your classic brown paper towel, crumpled up as it had been used, half hanging out of the can. Why is this interesting? There was no paper towel dispenser in the washroom...


There we go, short and sweet, but at least it's something INTERESTING! hah!

Stealing my attention

So, this English Writing blog of mine seems to be stealing my attention. I blame the fact that my prof makes it mandatory and gives us topics to write about. I think thats what makes it interesting to write though, the fact that i'm given a free playing field on whatever topic she throws at us.

But into other news! So yesterday I fell asleep in my car. Not while driving mind you, but it was still unexpected, at lunchish time I went to my car to switch up texts and low and behold, i sat down with my music playing and fell asleep! I panicked when I woke up for that horrible split second thinking i had missed class... not that it would have been a big deal? it just would have been annoying.

What else is new....in point form?

I just attained... and in the same week satisfied a fierce addiction to The Office. Now i'm waiting for season 4, on Thursday.

okay, thats that, AND! Heroes on Monday was awesome... for all of you who do not watch heroes, you need to start now.

Yikes, what a horribly boring blog...... check out my School one for some other interesting musings i guess.... I think I did a better job at that one today, but thats with the help of Youtube and Streblo.

Throwing things away

So, at my work there is a cleaning lady, she cleans the lunchrooms and the washrooms etc and does a very good job at it indeed. She comes in on graveyard, (which is my shift) and is working away very busily in the lunchroom where my shift leaves our bags and lunches etc, sometimes we'll come in to the room at lunchtime to find that while we were out she has come and gone.

Sometimes I find this out in ways less than desirable, for example, last weekend, she cleaned out the fridge... including my lunch, and there was no retrieving it in the garbage because she had replaced the bags.

Honest mistake, it happens I'm sure.

Yesterday however, (or last night... this morning? Whenever, the shift I just had)
I forgot one of my work gloves at my car, and before I went back to grab it, I got a nice new pair, sounds good, the old pair were getting old anyways. Well... I place the lone glove with my high vis. vest, which is on top of a cupboard where we all leave our bags etc, and go to work.
I come back, and the lunchroom has been cleaned, and my glove had been thrown out!!! Ridiculous, and again, no retrieving it because the garbage bags had been replaced.
No mercy, I can't leave my lunch in the fridge, nor my stuff on the cupboard.
I can't bring myself to an assumption that iIm being picked on.... however, that is irritating.

Next week it'll be my car keys or something of that nature.

Another Blog??

*Gasp, check this out, another blog!?

For English, (or more specifically "University Writing"), my prof has assigned quite an interesting.... assignment. Blog within 24 hours of each class, based on a topic given in class (usually a reflection of the day).

Anyways, as a result of it being school, that blog will be updated 3 times a week, and will more be focused on what I'm up to in class, BUT if it so tickles your fancy, then you can check it out.

jarkle.blogspot.com

(or if you don't want to type that out, you can go to my "profile" by clicking on my picture over there to your right, that'll take you to my "profile" where you can then see my 2 blogs, the school on is "This is what I think....")

Enjoy!

(And I'll try to keep this one exciting with better comings and goings of life outside school... starting now?)

avoid eye contact

Have you ever noticed the great lengths that strangers will go through, just to avoid making eye contact with someone walking towards them on the sidewalk?

Here's the scene.... a lonely sidewalk, two pedestrians (both human beings, both presumably able to speak) walking in opposite directions, towards each other. As the space between shortens, the awkwardness sets in.... neither speaks, and both frantically try to figure out how to pass the other... now if one is wearing sunglasses, this makes it much easier becuase you can do the "look past", otherwise some opt to do the "look away" some do the "quick eye contact, then look forward" and the little gem that I got the other day was someone who turned their head in the complete opposite direction.. towards a wall! Is someone walking towards you THAT intimidating?

None the less, I'm in College now, and it's school. There is too much, but not enough time in between my classes, so I'm trying to figure out how I should pass the time tomorrow. Philosophy is going to be an amazing class from first impressions, and I hope I'm right.... but I'm afraid the Prof might not like my arguments if I come to a topic such as "the existence of God" (term one). We'll see.

Macbook pro coming in the mail.... soon! ooh boy

I guess this week was the week that Steve Irwin passed away last year, so the discovery channel has been doing Croc. hunter specials. It's making me miss Australia a surprising amount.

I don't know what else to write about. Life is fun, confusing and sometimes I don't do it right, BUT it's fun.

The Unveiling

It's out, it's here, hello!

This band.....
This band hahah
Order it now! Get it now! You can too! No matter what country you are in, you can order this CD! INTERNATIONAL RELEASE! wow, it's so good.
Go get it,

Now
That means you.



excerpt from CD cover
"Cota Thanks: '..., Jon, Mike and Danny who have been with us from the start, ...."

Aw.... thats so awesome.

ANYWAYS! GET THIS CD NOW! I DON"T CARE IF IT'S NOT YOUR STYLE OF MUSIC, IT WILL BE.


http://www.solidstaterecords.com/cota/ecard/



In other news, after 3-4 years of faithful, everyday use, it seems my ipod has finally gone kaput. (More so than it did in Australia, this seems to be the final Kaput). SO I guess this means I need to get a new one... whcih is a horrible thought for me for 2 reasons.

1) I have a weird faithfulness to my old ipod, so i'd rather try to get it working (I'm the only person i know who still has an old school black and white screen Ipod)

2) I hate spending money. Not becuase I'm greedy and want to hold on to it, i just value the importance of saving. I need that money for my kids college education! (Mabye i can get a new Ipod)

BUT FIRST I will try to fix it.... or at least try to get ONE certain CD onto it.....
Only one CD is important right now. (And I can't even put it on...)

I'm very Tired.

The sun takes a lot out of you....
after 8 hours, I'm slowly counting down the last 2 hours from now until i have to go back to the mill for another 8. The Friday day/graveyard double I do.... why? Because I can.

I had an idea on what to write about, but it's completely escaped my mind! This is unfortunate.

Well... I'll write some random fun facts.

Currently listening to : Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Currently Relying on: Spell check.

Currently running on: the last ounces of energy a coffee gave me a while ago.

My surroundings at the moment are a computer in front of me, an empty nalgine bottle (1L) to my right, also to my right, guitar (and boomerang haha woah! random, this just got fun) To my left? various books on the desk, few of which are mine.

What did I do today? Well, my Fathers Father and Mother showed up in the country today, So my house is now filled with a very British presence. After work I talked with my Granny, she saw a deer and then we went out for dinner. Those are the highlights. Whilst at dinner I was wondering if anything was going to happen that night (Plans with friends wise) Nothing did.

I just yawned, suggesting I should do something to try to relief myself of this sleep... issue.
Tiredness puts much to much on your mind... but takes away rational process of thought.
Strange unfortunate conclusions which then make for MORE food for thought the next day.
Yikes.

(I think the Quail from the other post was watching me today as I drove by... Quail Stalker)
I wouldn't mind a stalker.... wouldn't it be interesting? having someone So enfatuated by you that that want to know your every move? I guess... I wouldn't mind a stalker for a limited amount of time, once they started getting annoying I'd send them away. "shoo" I'd say.

Last night, I was explaining to Danny and Amanda that it's just as logical for people to, instead of shortening Jonathan to Jon, call me Nathan. joNathan. I don't think I'm a Nathan.
My parents were going to name me "Aiden"

There we go.

Todays Resolution? Think an idea through before trying to write a Blog.
(oh, but in the last post i had a little shout out that no one really caught... the "wheel of morality", Animaniacs? anyone? the end of every episode had the "Wheel of morality" to give the episodes random moral? no? thats okay.)

Survival Tip.

Well, here it is, some much awaited advice on how to survive in the hot summer.

Don't run across the road in front of cars.

Let me explain.

I'm on my way home on a balmy July afternoon after completing a full day of work. Whilst driving up my road I am suddenly shocked to see a little brown ball of feathers dart out in front of my car, not even 1 foot away from my tires. I see feathers fly everywhere (literally... it was almost funny how many feathers there seemed to be), and then a little body in the rear view mirror crumpled in a ball in the middle of the road. My very first roadkill. (If my memory serves me correctly... which means, it could just be the first one in the past week...)

Nonetheless, I feel bad. I've always wondered when one of these suicidal birds we call "Quails" would do just this, make a dart in front of the car when there is no possible chance of survival. Usually they are SLIGHTLY smarted than starting to run a foot away from a moving vehicle, but I guess this one was just unlucky... or didn't have a very acute sense of logic, timing, or depth perception.
I back up the tank back so that the little...fat bird was now in front of me.. when all of a sudden this thing starts to kind of flail around!
"Oh no... I've broken it's neck or something" So I get out of the car and go to pick it up. I was wearing my work gloves, so I wasn't touching some bloody mangled corpse, actually even if I hadn't been wearing my gloves, there was no blood on the bird. It's neck seemed crooked though... kind of in the same way that you see a bird that has just hit a window. I pick this quail up and realise... it's still alive. I'm going to look after it.
So I got back in the car with the bird cradled in my hand, and I drive home. I then sit on my lawn with it while it slowly recoups, and watch it as it goes from "dazed.... to frightened... to calmer... to falling asleep?".
This attention I was giving this bird made my dog very jealous, as he would actually nuzzle his nose under my arm when i was petting the bird, to try to make me pay attention to him. He would shoot dirty looks at the quail before pawing at me to pay attention. aw.





Anyways, the Bird looked like it had eyelashes, so I decided I'm going to refer to her as a she. I named her Susan because that was the first name that came to my head (??) and when she finally seemed to have enough consciousness, i drove back down my road to where I had hit her, and put her back in the bushes on the side of the road from whence she came. She wasn't moving much... she just sat, but I'm sure thats becuase she was still terrified. By this time she was chirping and her chest looked like it was constantly vibrating becuase of her heartbeat. The only place she was obviously hurt was one of her toes which was slightly bleeding, that and lots of feathers still lose.


Spin the wheel of morality.

Today's moral is, don't run out in front of cars, especially on my road, becuase you might not be as lucky as Susan the Quail was.


The End.

Today

Today at work, it rained.

Alot.

And it was the best thing ever.

I liked today because I like the rain

I like the rain when it pours hard, and there is thunder.

Today was one of my favorite days of the past little while, because it was my job to be walking

through knee deep water on the road.

I "surfed" on floating logs down the road.

My Dogs name is Champ.

I wish It was more acceptable to write like a 4rth grader all the time.

But in all seriousness, this weather was awesome today. At one point (at the mill at least) there was hail, which was sweet. My jeans got completely soaked to the point that I felt like i had jumped in the lake, and thats not even mentioning my boots. As I'm typing this however, the sun is shining through the window, and is brighter than usual because of the shining on the wet leaves. grr.
Awesome, rain is the best. I want to sit somewhere and watch it, yes yes I know that sounds lame, but I don't want to do it alone pfft, so it's not THAT bad. One of these days I'll be able to enjoy the monsoon without having to work in it. I'll have company and hopefully be dry, although once completely wet? you don't care anymore.

haha, imagine that, ridonkulous.

List

I'm a big fan of my job for 2.5 reasons
- It's fun, it's doing something and I feel like I've worked afterwards.
- When you have something on your mind, you can think about it, you just get into a zone, a rhythm, and just... think about it over.. and over
-(.5) at the same time, when you have something on your mind that you DON"T want to be thinking about, you can just start to work hard and completely preoccupy your mind.

I want to see the Transformers movie again

At the same time that I like my job...
I like having days off, Because I play ALOT of guitar during that time. I realized this the other day, because when I came back from Aus. I had a week of no work, (week and a half?). Everyday, guitar guitar guitar until the evening when I would maybe meet up with Danny.

Coming back from the travels this time, it was only 3-4 days before I went back to work, but it was the same deal, hours of guitar. Which I enjoyed.

Oops, I lost the "list" format I was going for.

But then again, I've also forgotten what it was I was going to write about in the first place, the guitar thing came because I started listening to some songs I have learned to play.

I've finally found something that can take my music focus away from Joshua Radin, the new Iron and Wine song. Here "Boy with a coin"
Such a good song, I've been listening to that
Also, the odd Evermore since I finally got ahold of it.

After work this morning I went to the docks and jumped in to clean myself off, met this interesting guy.

Graveyard shifts + Jetlag make for strange emotions and thought process's

I think God speaks to me most when I'm at work... I think thats when I Speak to him most as well.

This list has more work related topics than anything else...

*Survival question - Lets say you were stuck in the desert, and you had a water bottle. Now, I'm assuming most people would wait till they absolutely had to before drinking that water as to stay alive longer. Now... what is the wiser thing to do? Drink the water all at once? to completely rehydrate, OR would it be wiser to slowly drink the water, maybe over a few days, so that your constantly dehydrated... but "hydrating" longer and more often.
Don't ask why

No real topic, just musing.

All I really listen to is Joshua Radin now haha I took a decisive break from Brooke. I need to break this JR habit though... BUT at least I have his songs memorized, which makes it easier to remember on guitar.
My favorite song by him is called Winter... and it's making me really really look forward to wintertime. The song actually has nothing to do with winter... in the slightest really, BUT it is called "winter", and as a result makes me look forward to winter every time I see it. Cold weather is the best, and snow is even better. I entirely missed last winter, no snow whatsoever, so this one will be welcomed.
(And I recognize that for the Alberta readers of this blog of mine that your winter is not looked upon quite as fondly.. but bear with me Amanda)

Not to say that summer isn't nice, it was commented to me just yesterday by a friend how nice it is that 9:00 or 10:00pm can roll around, and it'll still be light outside, which is nice, I've gained a really large fondness to spending time outside. It's all been in my slow venture to rid myself of what I see as a slow cancer, this being MSN and Facebook. And I've actually really enjoyed it, it's had me playing more guitar, spending more time with friends, and making an effort to be active aside from sitting listening to music in front of a fluorescent screen.

This being said.... if you read this little online semi journal of mine, then please get ahold of me, because I want to spend time with you.

For serious.

Holy Cow!

Something that I find really funny about Nepal is that becuase of the strong hindu influence, Cows are revered so much to the point that they can stop traffic. We'll be speeding along in one of these insane taxi's, and then have to slow down all of a sudden to take a wide turn around a Cow that decides to take a nap in the middle of the road. (I also like seeing monkeys just walking around down sidewalks, doing all sorts of buisness.. ha)

A story:

So, two days ago we met up with this friend of ours who took us out of the Kathmandu city into the hills to a small village out there. In this landcruiser of his we took a very very bumpy ride up into the hills on these small one car roads that due to the heavy rain that had started were muddy and awesome. The rain took a well timed break just as we reached the bottom of this hill that we then walked up, on the way we saw this church that he was building and heard some awesome stories about the changes happening in the village. On our way down, it started to rain again, and some of the members in our fellowship had a revelation... rain brings out leeches.
There was quite a few funny moments as the girls in our group panicked becuase of leeches crawling up their shoes, and one incident on the leg, eventually (most of us) were calm with the belief that there was no longer a leech threat.
myself included,
Now, I'm going to give a short history for anybody reading this who has not seen me really since I came back to Canada. I came back with some amazing shoes. At one point they were all brown Converse Allstars. They are the same shoes that I left to ywam with... except they no longer look like the same shoes, they are so ripped up and in pieces that some could technically refer to them as being "sandals". (Now for those of you who may know me even better than that... i don't frequently buy new clothes... so my socks? didn't look much better... they hardly have bottoms anymore the holes are so big. (Also... in Kathmandu there are many people on the streets who "fix and shine" shoes....you should see their faces when I walk by, my sister has seen some actually turn around and drop their jaws... I refer to my shoes as "dead" when i talk to them"

Back to the story
So, 30 min after the leech fiasco, we are just arriving on the outer rim road of Kathmandu, when all of a sudden.... I can feel something. In my shoes. No... In my socks. Crawling? no Slithering in between my toes.
"I think there's something in my shoe"
"WHAT? Jon thats not funny"
"hahah no seriously"
I then proceed to take off my shoe... to see that the tip of my sock is darkened with blood, I then start to take off my sock, but it is unecessary to completly remove the sock becuase what should drop out of the gaping hole? But this leech, already fat on my blood. It had crawled through the gateways that were my socks and shoes.
I'm loving it, laughing away becuase I thought it made a good story, however it started an entirely new panic between the girls about leeches, and it turns out there was actually another one on one of our members backs that had stuck on. fun fun.

We then drove to the "transition home" and hung out with the people there, which was awesome. Last night was actually our goodbye with all the kids from the homes, as today we start our journey home (there are overnight layoversk, and we are going through Cambodia on our way back, so we're staying there a day etc.) But it was really sad to say goodbye. Even though it was such a short time, we really got connected with these guys, there was Lots of guitar on my part on the roof of the home with the boys, haha I taught them Saosin and how "metal music" in North america is played (drop D heh). They loved it, and especially liked "Out of the mud" by Stutterfly hahah. There was also sing alongs for well known songs like "American Pie" and old faithful, "knocking on heavens door". To be honest, I think it was one of the (if not THE) first times I've ever sung and played Guitar (together) in front of people, (usually I'm too self concious) which was cool becuase they were all into it. One of them then showed me a song that he and his friends wrote, which was awesome, All in Nepali, really cool.

There was another funny story... when it happened I thought to myself "write this in the blog", but now I can't remember it.

But thats life. Quite a few days back we went to the zoo with the youngest kids, which was really cool, They all refer to me as "Jon Uncle", which is really cute. The zoo was small, but still was really cool, the first zoo I'd ever been to. The kids love monkeys, but arn't so fascinated by the tiger they had. Suprising.

BUT! I have to run now, catch a flight. Thank you for reading! It really does make my day when I hear that someone has been.

cat-man! don't

So, here is the update that I promised in the previous post that no-one probably read, becuase I think the time in between has probably been while all you wonderful folk were asleep.

None the less! here it is.

Now, originally I had a grand plan to quote various bits from my journal in this, seeing as it's hard to remember everything completly.... but thats not interesting, anyways journals nowadays seem like less of a "day tracker" but more of a mind tracker, and thats not what keep the ratings up, people want action.

So here's the deal



Basically, 1/2 of the time or more in between when I probably last saw you and now have been spent on a plane. haha, it was like the Australia trips all over again. The thing about plane rides is that there is nothing really entertaining about them. You sit upright becuase you don't want to be one of those insensitive jerks who would DARE to recline. You try to amuse yourself with reading, unfortunatly in myt case this flight, my mind kept taking off on me, and I'd realise I had 'read' and entire page without even reading anything. The best thing is when your mind is taken off of whatever it is that is particularily haunting you at the moment when this wonderful gift of nature comes around... toilet time. Yes, the most exciting part of a 14 hour sit fest is when you get the excuse to stand up and wait in line with some other strangers to go into the exotic little... "room?". Anything to add some variety.
Anyways, after various overnight Layovers, on the flight to Kathmandu itself this little gem made me smile as the pilot intropduced himself (in thick accent) as being "_____________ and I will be your Prime Minister this flight"

Yes!

One of hte layovers was in Thailand (overnight), and we met up with two YWAM Missionary friends out there of ours, I had met them in Perth before they moved out to Bangkok, and they go back with my dad. It was really really cool to see them again, brought back alot of fond memories. Besides the point.

Anyways, Today we went to one of the homes for the first part just spent time with the kids, The honourable Mr. Arkle and Carr wer in meetings of sorts with those in charge of the house, and I joined them in those later on, but for the first part chilled with the kids. Unfortunatly while having them show me their incredible acrobatic skills, I feel responsible for having one of the kids hurt himself, but like a trooper he cheered up and we continued to play soccer in the rain on hte roof with a hacky sac. Awesome.
I also tried teaching some of them Guitar (after an intense boxing/tickling show down... little dudes are fast) , not with much success, BUT something I was quite excited about was when this one little guy (Abraham as the home calls him) looks at my shirt and reads aloud "Cry!.....of...the.....Afflicated!"
Close enough, I happily corrected him. What I also found kind of cool was that HIS shirt I could very gladly read aloud as "Perth Western Australia"

The Roads in Nepal are chaotic.... but very poetically haha, there is the strangest order in the absolute madness... no lights, no lines really (some... but they are not followed as a taxi will speed down "oncoming traffic", but it's not really oncoming... it's just other vehicles on the road. In less than inches these cars will speed by each other, never hitting. It makes for a jerky ride with all the starts and stops, but it's incredible really... Sereously... there is absoultlyu no shape or order to these roads... no single file of cars, no "right of way", just whoever gets there first, and whoever brakes fastest. Courtney and Katy said they just close their eyes to stop them from freaking out.

Now for the more personal stuff that isn't just action. For the majority of you, you've had your fill, and thanks for tuning in. For the rest? What could you possibly want to know about Jon Arkle?

Well.... Every night I fall asleep to, and every morning I start my day with the beautiful Brooke Fraser. I'm trying to decipher now whether I'm a bigger fan of her new CD or her old. My opinion right now? Her old... BUT at the moment the first becuase it's so different from the new one, but still awesome. Also, I've listened to her so much haha every variety is awesome.
But, my music choice has not been entirely brooke Fraser, actually she is just my day starter and sleep... fader, everything in between? Has been dedicated to one artist entirely, Joshua Radin, Incredible, I can't STOP listening to him either. If any of you are aware of him, do tell, if not? Now you are, check him out.
My favorite song of his is called "Winter" and then "Star Mile", so for all you downloading types, there you go.

Hmm, Danny and Mike, if you two read this (Danny, you said you do sometimes), Tell me about Warped tour! All the best for you two if I don't get ahold of you before it. I'll do my best to anyhow.
Erm... Oh, if there is anyone who would want to see that Transformers movie with me that would be sweet. Now, this would have to be someone who is not necessarily particular to seeing it opening night... becuase I don't get back till after the 9th. ALSO! After the 9th ahha sometime soon, and chances are that'll be a Saturday night (after 7:30ish) I want to have the long awaited, or much dreaded Photo night... heh. So yea, tell your friends? It'll happen soon. HOLD ME TO IT! haha there. I think thats the catch, I need people to keep me accountable.

Also, the book I'm reading is so awesome haha, Orthodoxy (Jordan!) I've never underlined and circled and written so much in a book (unless a teacher had told me to). SUCH a good book. Basically it's Theological Philosophy for those of you who may not have heard of it. The Book i have lined up after it is called "The Question of God" which is Debates for and against God by Cs. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. Pumped for that one.

And that was a blog. I'll be sending more personal penitrating e-mails later. If anyone wants a more specific update on any corner of my mind of experiences then PLEASE! ask, Becuase unfortunatly... I don't give myself any credit for knowing what to tell people at all, much less what they want to hear heh.

Anyways, Joshua Radin Cd just finished so it might be time to wrap up the blog, header off, mabye listen to some Brooke Fraser. haha.

Namaste


ps. Kathmandu is filled with hippies... like... actual bare footed, dirty, very hairy, rasta...ish? nirvana seekers. It's so.... interesting to see.

pps. I've decided I'm going to listen to "Winter" again, then Brooke.

Subject.

"I don't know if this is going to work....

This is a "blog entry" made by sending an e-mail to blogger... haha, we'll see, if your reading it then it works


I WILL GIVE AN ENTRY WHEN I HAVE TIME, unfortunatly I have to run, this was my 5 min window to check e-mails.

But when I have time, I will blog and e-mail etc.

Trust me."


Ha, it didn't work, thankfully I trusted my instinct and followed through with a quick copy paste.

Anyways, now I REALLY have to go in even Shorter amount of time. So I'll update you all later.
(Amanda... your ridonkulous. Thats the only shout out I'm making in this post.)

2 weeks

I'm gone for the next 2 weeks,

Now although not nearly as long as the 7^ months that I was gone before, I'm going to do better by all of you this time...

I'll be sending e-mails, and doing my best to stay in touch the entire time,


Hold me to it.

The Problem

The problem with blogging etc, is that you are (I am) never quite willing to be fully honest on it. Not in the sense that i would lie, never, however I won't be as open as I may be wanting to be.
Which makes it harder I think... to have something like a blog where you can "journal"or "update"... but when you can't exactly tell the whole story becuase of the implications or ramifications that will occurr if you do spill on the Internet. It's like a teaser for opening up haha.Thats all I had to say on that subject... becuase I'm dying to write down everything I'm feeling.... wait
I have a paper Journal
hahah why am i typing this?? I can just write down my musings and records on paper... I havn't kept it since Australia! Ridonkulous. I'm lame.

Well, thats my thought process finding a conclusion.

However, it's always nice to have someone to talk to in person, Especially someone you feel gets you. those can be hard to find.

Peace up
A town out.

Venting?

So today at work I went on a rampage of venting, now as some of you may be aware, this is an event where I can go on a largish monologue about whatever it is that has particularly edged my nerve.

For example, for those of you who read this blog, you saw a light version of my rant about Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Now this movie only irritated me slightly as I thought they could have done a better job... which brings me to rantings about something that does more than irritate me... things that just get right under my nerve.

So at work today, I went into such rant, after being silent in general for almost the entire day (by my own choice... I think I should take a vow of silence... because of Neitche) but then at the end of the day, while doing overtime with some friends a topic comes up and I voice my opinions. Fueled by the by laughter of my two comrades I continued, and in some cases with me, nothing is sacred (see paragraph 5).

Now... what made me realise that I even DO this ranting thing was the fact that on of these said friends after laughing said "Man I love it when Jon vents", and it brought upon revelation about it. For one... it actually showed me that I go into these vents, but I realised that it's usually in these rants when I almost discover more about my actual opinions on things than I do with just simple reflection. (However even reflection for me consists of a small venting of thoughts in my head... so I guess it's how I figure things out) I Don't think i'm a big fan of opening up... unless it's an provoked explosion.

But what caught me was the fact that when I get into these rants, how easily I can find myself tearing apart at people, not for reasons that aren't "supportable", but tearing is still tearing. It caught me, what if deep down I haven't really gotten rid of that malicious jerk that I was very frequently before leaving for Aus. I guess it's something that will still be there when you find it (too) easy to come up with sharp comments off the top of your head... but it's something that you have to be able to catch yourself doing. Even for humours sake? There are limits.

Am I a jerk? A thought.

That was one of today's many revelations. I rant. Who knew.

Why do i keep forgetting to give E-mails and Blog posts titles? You think it would be the primary thing you'd think of... guess not.

Vanessa, I think your the only one who reads my blog anymore, SO!
Check out this artist that Jordan sent me,

Brooke Frasier, I think she's amazing.



On further notes, Chucky will be coming to visit hopefully, and this is the best thing ever. So I am excited for that, and also the new Cry of the Afflicted song is amazing, AMAZING, and i'm really really excited for the new album.
www.myspace.com/cryoftheafflicted
the song is Read Between.

It's awesome, check it, love it, listen over and over. Then tell your friends.

I didn't know

I had no idea I could feel this!

I don't like it! haha

So Jordan, i ordered Orthidoxy yesterday, It'll be coming in to my local bookstore in 3-9 buisness days. Thats a wonderfully vauge amount of time.

Actually... i'm sorry, I thought mabye writing in the blog I'd be able to put my mind in a good creative spot, but unfortuantly today isn't that day. Jordan be on Gmail more often, and Vanessa.... on msn more often.


Good-day to you sirs.

Just Super

So today I had off, not on my own accord however. You see the situation was that on Wed. I get a talking to from my boss saying that the higher ups have commanded me that I can't work on Friday as well as the Saturday graveyard shift because there is not enough time in between the two shifts and it is close to double time which they don't want to pay etc etc.
ANYWAYS, as it would happen I don't come in to work on Friday because i needed to work the Graveyard shift, but I get a call saying they figured it out and there IS enough time in between shifts just as long as I NEVER EVER STAY OVERTIME ON FRIDAY.
So, as thankful as I am that they figured it out and I can keep my convenient Monday Tuesday weekend, I kind of wish I could have gone into work today (found out earlier), especially after seeing the pay stub that I got the other day. Huzzah for work!

I enjoy my job.


I've realised how random my music listening habits actually are.... I'll go from listening to
some amazing music such as Iron and Wine or "I can make a mess like nobody's business" (*Vanessa I think you would love the latter of those two) I"ll then switch to something such as In Flames (which is what's currently playing) or As I Lay Dying, which is arguably heavier. Random. I'm glad I'm able to appretiate it both... I've even founded a soft spot for folk! haha This guy Greg Graffin is the lead singer for one of my favorite all time bands called "Bad Religion". They are an old school California punk band who have been around forever. This guy is in his 40's or so and still making music with both Bad Religion and this solo project of his which is surprisingly... folk music. I'd reccomend anyone reading this who knows how to preview music on the iTunes Store to check him out, especially the song "Don't be Afraid to Run".

What else is remotely interesting for now...

OH! My sister borrowed a game boy from her friend and he's got some game which has no label and has obviously been bought from some illegal source, China? (haha China is illegal, I need to learn how to write better) who knows. Because it's got like... 10 games on one! Full games too. Now usually this wouldn't fascinate me too much because I'm fairly selective when it comes to video games that I like, but this one had Ninja Turtles games, including the old school Arcade one which i remember my Cousin having for the original NES. Which excited me quite a bit.
So I played that a bit, tried to save April from the Foot in this burning building and this Rhino guy with a gun. But after that the Shredder came out of nowhere! Grabbed April and jumped through a window into the second level... but by that point I had lost interest because I think I had already made my point that Donatello was a better Ninja than the hordes of "the foot", and I turned off the game boy.

Pirates 3

... *cough

**** I AM giving away and tearing apart the movie.... so don't read if you haven't seen it.


So I saw Pirates 3 as well....and to be honest...

The lamest parts of the movie were the ones revolving around the pirates... which was disappointing (seeing as the entire movie revolves around pirates), but especially the Pirate Lords. What was up with that? We have one pirate that looks like memoirs of a geisha, another one that looks like whatshismask from V for Vendetta, and then finally.... one that was a freaking knight who says Ni!

Keith Richards was the most awkwardly placed characters of the movie, who offered nothing new other than giving Sparrow a father (which took away from his "epic" nature, and also! What was with the whole split personality thing? They focused less on his quirky nature that people loved from the previous movies and now they just give him random.... others?)
"Instead of writing clever lines for him.... lets just make him every character that he ever needs to talk to!"


Aside from parts of the movie that made me laugh (at) There were some other parts that butchered some of my favorite parts of the last two movies. Particularly Davy Jones. He was my favorite ever since the first scene when you saw the Flying Dutchcman shoot out of the water in the second movie.... as he ominously walks up the deck and offers his spooky ultimatum. "Do you fear Death?...." Anyways, not only did this movie take any any prestige that this "master of the sea" carried in the second movie (by making him the East India Trading companies pet, thus proving him to be in fact the weakest of all the pirates? But we're still supposed to fear him? All because Mr. 4'6" gets all freaky deaky about shooting the heart and blah blah blah), but they also made a butchering of his awesome "do you fear death" speech from the second movie. In this one, anytime ANYONE is at gunpoint or at the end of a blade.... heck, even if someone was maybe a bit sad in this movie he would pop out his "Do you fear *sucking sound* death?"

(speaking of 4'6", did anyone else notice that he had the most epic death of any character from all 3 movies?? Even Sparrow being eaten by the Kraken wasn't as Epic as his slow motion 300 esque walk through the exploding ship, then his body landing in the floating flag with the silhouette of his crushed empire behind him? Yikes, I didn't realize he was THAT 'big' of a character, heh

On the note of Davey Jones... I don't think I even have to mention ANYTHING about the 80 foot Calypso that reminded me (personally) of a Gulliver's travels movie I saw in the 90's.

There were two redeeming factors for the movie for me however, one was Barbossa, who is by far my favorite Pirate. He does things right. The other was the fact that the ending had a very Empire Strikes back feeling to it in some parts for me because.... look at it this way:
The entire movie series has (as much as we might like to think it's Depp) revolved entirely around Will Turner and Elizabeth whatserface. Now their entire story has been a tragedy throughout! First she gets kidnapped, then she leaves him then goes for sparrow etc etc. Anyways by the end... He's doomed to fulfill his duty for eternity... heartless, and she can only see him once every 10 years! PWNED! What a downer for the both of them eh? I loved it, there was no corny happy ending to it, in a sense they 'got what they wanted' but it came with a harsh twist, which I thought was amazing. (Unfortunately, the movie had them turning on each other so many times, whether real or not, you kind of forgot that they actually loved each other).
The other ending quality that i loved was the fact that everyone went back to square one in the beginning. Jack doesn't have the Pearl, Barbossa is off with his crew to try to find some immortalizing treasure, (hmm... how will that end?), that old sideburns pirate is back in Tortuga with those two slapping... escorts? Square one, as the last thing we see of Sparrow is him in his little dingy boat. Everyone is where we love them to be at... (except the aforementioned lovers who are doomed to the eternity of love/despair that we saw in Davey Jones and Calypso).


Anyways, I liked the length to be honest... nowadays it's hard to watch a movie thats less than 3 hours long and consider it substantial. All because of Lord of the Rings eh?

I guess it's... just good business

Pirates

So in the last few days I've been randomly visiting old friends and it's been amazing! haha it suprises people when you randomly show up at their front door, and I got pumped on it, visited Foster and Rob the other day with Robin, then Mick yesterday and thats where I'll lead into my next topic

So at Mick's, we watched this new reality show called "Pirate Master" and there was this guy John on it who was a "Scientist.... / exotic dancer" which was pretty much an amazing career combination. The best part was the fact that he was just "Scientist", not a particular chemist or biologist.... just Scientist. Amazing.

Working Graveyard tonight, which will be the third week in a row.. and I've been unofficially put on that shift. I enjoy it though, lots of time to think, especially when I'm alone working somewhere, it's dark, I get into a zone where I just work and think... whats strange is lately when i get into that zone I think about musicals... constantly, particularly 'The Producers', but I've had the odd 'sound of music', and then randomly 'Animaniacs', which wasn't a musical but was musical at times.... eh?

Still haven't seen that new Pirates movie, I'd like to though, I've heard mixed reviews from friends.... and I'm not going to fall victim to the commercial slew of rants about how it's the BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER HAERADLKASJ, I'll decide that myself... and probably be critical of it... because I can.

I'm going to update in this more often, I didn't really have much to say, but I realised that I lost my blogger address when I cleared my Internet history to try to get rid of a glitch, so I came back and decided.... I'll write, I don't know about what... but I'll write
.
(this glitch by the way is horrible, on half hte sites I try to go to it shows a blank page with this

MANNN!! THE DREADED CODE WON"T EVEN LET ME PASTE IT INTO THE BLOG, when I do it quotes my "headline" and then ends the post... when you can clearly see there is more below.

see?


HORRIBLE!!! GO AWAY!

But whats worse!! Is that it also causes Youtube, myspace etc to not play any sound.... so when I'm on the internet there is no music... so I have no use for it. Why listen to itunes, I have music OFF computer. Anyways, this could be a blessing in disguise to free me from the clutches of the PC, but I'm giving it some time to see.

Yep.

Weak

So, the last few nights have been interesting... actually the last few days have been random in many sense. Of course true to my nature I've forgotten a lot of what would have happened, but what is fresh in my mind right now is that this morning i wake up to realize that i stepped on my phone sometime the night before! Which is needless to say disappointing because in the last two days I had been quite proudly admitting to people (when they started flashing their fancy new mp3 camera phones with.... built in TV's? i don't know, nice new ones) that my phone was still old free bee from a time gone by when i first got a cell phone plan, and it was old, beat up, but still a tank.

I guess you can't step on tanks.

Anyways, so that'll be my main objective for today, which will be to go and find a new phone. I think I'll betray my inner convictions on this one and get a nice new one too, like those razers.

Anyways! What else is fresh on my memory.

Nothing else! Other than some movies I've watched lately, but those aren't interesting to talk about on Blogs.
I work Graveyard shift next weekend, OH! and also next weekend is this Christian conference thing I'm going to, called "Avalanche", and Jason Upton is speaking! haha sweet eh? So, I'm hoping I don't work on that day.

Thats it for now I think.

Callings?

Yikes... today I had a crazy Stress out attack, not insane... but i started to get these horrible anxieties about the future... Can people really hear their calling? Of course... Did I hear my calling? Well... I was so sure, but now I'm terrified.
God please... help me with that? comfort me? Speak to me more? haha some MORE conformation? mabye? Please show me that I'm not insane.

What should I do to figure this out? To find the direction?
What should my first step be?


Anyways, Rise against is good, listening to that right now. Man, I really don't have enough in my mind to write about right now... let alone people reading the blog haha, oh well.

"Why being really lonely is sometimes super awesome"

It figures eh? I've been back for about 3 weeks now and when it comes to updating the blog (or journal for that matter... yikes, I haven't touched that since NZ, so much for my everyday streak)
I have no idea what to say, or to write about.

Since I've been back I've been hanging out a lot with people such as Danny and Krystal a few times, not doing too much. I've been reading I guess... but mostly catching up with people. I went to a show the other week? haha which was awesome, man... news isn't exciting unless it's fresh.... so! Today,

Hmm... Today was a fun little experience, went to a casting call for extras in a CBC movie about the CPR... it's a romance with Sam Neil (Jurassic Park) hahah, anyways, I don't really expect too much from it, 18 year olds with Hippity hoppity hippie hair don't exactly carry the same look as the... nice? old men with crazy beards and full our costumes. Anyways, fun experience, BUT while I was there this guy talked to me and told me he was filming an Indie film and would like me to Audition apparently I had the "look" (Thank you Hippie hair!) So we'll see how that unfolds, but nonetheless it was cool.

Then ran into Alex Bird in the mall while I was looking for shoes that aren't quite
as... well used? as the ones i have now... anyways, this is boring, chilled there then ended my day after stuff. Done, and done.

Oh, the name of the blog is from a scrubs episode, I downlaoded it and was watching it as I wrote this, and lost all creativity for thinking of a name "If I wanted to be any more depressed i'd read newbies latest blog entry" "Why Being lonely is sometimes super awesome" heh...

I like scrubs, been watching that, and Heroes... yes Heroes.


Yikes, was this lame, BUT I needed to update.

Stay in the Game.

There and back again

Well,

I'm back in Westbank now.


Thank you to everyone who read my blog during my time away, It means so much, and every time I hear from one of you who was reading the blog when I didn't know? Puts me on cloud 9, much appretiated.

Now to get rolling here in Canada.




What an Adventure this has been eh?


(End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 "Canada"" begins shortly)

In New Zealand now.. haha

Well, Now i'm in Wellington

Before that I was in Sydney, but thats another story, I had a great time there as well, staying with family there was awsome. Really cool to meet people who are blood.. on the other side of the world!

Anyways, My flight to NZ was with Virgin Blue, with a layover in Melbourne..... BUT that flight got cancelled and all the people who were continuing on to Wellington got moved to Quantas! Which is a bonus because Virgin Blue is a cheap flight with no meals or movies etc, but Quantas is much nicer with food and drinks and etc. SO, I got a bonus there, which was really sweet.

It's really funny to me, every airport official asks "do you have a place to stay in NZ?" "No.." then they give me this "oh boy" look, haha, that aside I also only have one bag that is smaller than the one that i would use for school haha, this Yellow Backpack. Woo!

Got in at midnight, stayed in a hostel for the night, and then today I got lost and walked aimlessly through the outskirts of wellington... haha, THEN I missed the ferry that I wanted to get to Picton
(This is a very point form entry, I want to be sure I don't spend too much time on this and miss the next ferry) It all works out, even better in some aspects becuase I just got to see the Embassy theater (since missing it), thats the theater where they had the Premiers of the Lord of the Rings movies, so that was cool. Only downside is it'll be 9:00 pm coming IN to Picton, so I won't be able to see the landscape... win some, lose some. I don't know where I'm going to sleep though....

Actually... in Sydney I had mishaps similar to this come to think, I caught the wrong train home, so I wasn't able to get back in time to see my Sydney relatives (Rob and Ros) as they left for the Easter Weekend... I was trainhopping and station waiting for 3 hours... haha.
OH! But, Rob did give me Kangaroo steak! SO i made that for myself when I got home that night, and it made the night really fun, Kangaroo and "Lost survivors guide" was on TV.
Oh, I also watched "The Passion" on Good Friday, wow... I don't remember it being like that... I've never been so hit by a movie.

Team Tech

So this last little while has definatly been a transition. I have been on the tech team, setting up and tearing down stages for the past week? and it's going awsome. I've made good friends with the guys on the team, and we get along really well. I'm still living at the base foer the time being however, but that works out all for hte better because travelling for me is easier that way. Tonight I will be beggining to set up the skate ramps for the Gen X team that does all the skating, in-line-skating, BMXing (one of the guys is an ex world champion apparently), and lots of awsome dancing (break dancing is even cooler than I thought before)

Anyways, last night was Chuck's performance again and I have definatly decided that it's my favorite in the show. haha it was really funny actually, his little grass skirt at one point, during the New Zealand Haka called "The Crucifiction", his grass skirt thing started to fall off... it didn't completly, but in some of the turns haha it was funny. Two fire knive dancers last night, and one of the them had two sticks, man.... SO impressive. Best show of IWT for me, my favorite by far. But they are all so cool... after this it's going to Ohio and I'd love to try to go, road trip or something... so if anyone is interested haha i'd love to go and visit Chuck while he's in North America.


Hmm... I can't really think about what else to write about... IWT is essentially my life right now...

Was able to spend some nice time with James, Eric, S(o)imon and Adrian the other day from the "Long DTS" but it's wierd to think that i'm completly done... I'm not even with YWAM anymore, I'm with IWT... really cool, actually today I got my official papers confirming that I have graduated the "University of the Nations, Discipleship III training school" haha nice.

Anyways, there is an update for those of you who have not quite forgotten me yet haha it seems wierd I've almost forgotten that my time here is almost over... Now that DTS is over it's been a whole new world... not like theres a countdown ending... everyone who was to leave has left... so now it's me living in australia... haha what is "home" anymore?

Well... home can change and does change, but soon i'll be back "home" in Kelowna. In time.

Theres the Update! Very exciting eh? slightly lacking.... but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless.

-Jon

The End

Well, DTS is now over, and people are parting ways

Be Visionary I and II are out on DVD

Many the closest friends I've ever had are going back to their various locations across the world

I'm prepping myself for my current commitments (I signed on to help out with this Imapct world tour for the rest of the tour, working on the stage crews, setting up lights and sounds and construction and tear down, also working on skate ramps for the performers)

The future is here

6 months is so short, but so much happened, hearing God's voice, seeing miracles, healings and signs, making friends and family, laughing, movements, music and movies, pirates and ninjas, Perth and Vanuatu, early mornings, late nights, leaders, kangaroos, sunsets, coffee, books, philosophy, macs, revelations and ... wow

I can't even begin to explain the impact on my life this has been.

now for the next step ladies and gentlemen, a new chapter, a new season.

I will never ever forget this past 6 months... it would be impossible to...
my life has changed.

God is Amazing.




I'm stoked.

Thats Chucky!! LOOK! LOOK!

So, IWT time is progressing and it's been nothing but epic. SO much personal growth even in THIS time! You'd think Vanuatu was enough, haha but I can feel it even now, and It's awsome, I'm thankful for every second of it.

SO the Tour is going really really well, The events themselves are amazing, so awsome. We've been setting up and tearing down stages and venues and all sorts of whatnots which has been really cool to learn how to do. I've always wanted to have a better know-how about all the tech things behind shows, and now my experience is definatly growing.
Last night we saw the Island Dancing part of the tour, which Chuck was performing in and I was so pumped about. Seeing him doing what he loves in front of a huge public crowd, so exciting. I have been on stage quite a few times in my life and I remember people would always come up to me and tell me how pumped they were to see me, or how excited they were, and I never really understood their enthusiasm, I was without a doubt thankful for it, but never could really identify with how pumped they'd be about me being up there. Then last night haha oh man, I couldn't stay still i was so pumped for Chuck, I was shouting out Samoan war cries and clapping the entire way through "THATS CHUCK!! MAN THIS IS AWSOME!!". Love it, I was so pumped for him.

Anyways, so the two shows that we've been helping out with have been The extreme one with strong men and whatnot. HUGE teddy bears of guys who push themselves to an extreme limit, it's intense. We've done two...two? yeah two shows with them, and then one with island breeze last night. They have been intense. Really fun, I'm lacking on sleep however, people say they can see it on my face, but i'm okay with that. Pushing myself harder reminds me that I'm alive, my arms and legs feel worked out from all the stage whatnot, which is good BURN IS GOOD.

Anyways.... unfortunatly I can't really think of what else to say...


OH! I've heard a rumour that there are some people at home who have put the preverbial 'last nail in my coffin' haha, assuming that I'm never coming back. That is in no way true, and i apologise to everyone who has asked me that and i've given such an undecided answer because the true deal is, I'm still waiting to hear my calling. My future plans and future destinations with life rely entirely on where I am led, and to this point i have recieved faint whispers about guidance but I am still waiting till I hear exactly what my purpose is. Which is seeming closer and closer every day, BUT nonethe less, I'll have to come home sometime soon, Australia will only let me stay in the country for another month or so with my visa, SO Even if i feel my calling is to somewhere away from home for "the next 2 years" as I've mentioned to people before, I will still have to return home for a short bit LEGALLY. So yea, I'm not quite dead yet.

SO thats all I can think of right now. Life is still amazing, and I'm finding more and more purpose in it every single day. Your not dead, and thats not the only reason to be happy, it's an amazing one, and a single strong foundation. But there is so much.... so much in life that.. haha yes! Love love.

Thank you YET AGAIN for all the E-mails everyone, you put such a smile on my face and I am so excited to see you again. You are all Numbawan

Oh yea, Remember when i fouind thebleedingalarm in a Perth CD store? now i foudn stutterfly.... or the... band previously known as stutterfly?

"GOD BLESS US.... EVERYONE"

-Jon

I'm home

Well, I'm back home in Perth now, and needless to say...Vanuatu was epic... is was amazing and it was legendary. I have so many stories for every single person and so many miraculous wowza's it was the best.


You see, getting back into the atmosphere in Perth with all the western commodities was no doubt a bit of a shock. In the Sydney airport for a layover it was intense to see so many.... buisnessmen, tourists, obvious westerners it was crazy! Now back in Perth we are exposed to all the familiaritys of the western world.... internet, coffee shops, Hungry Jacks (also known as Burger King in North America), and of course... Jerks on the street haha.

It's a crazy culture shock for all our teams, being back in the western world, but we are easily moving into our new routines.

We are currently helping out with this huge event thats coming to Perth, 4 years of prep. It's going to be Huge. We are Being ushers and security and setting up stages etc etc. Some are actually helping perform (Chuck from my Vanuatu outreach)

We have new Outreach teams now, which is cool, I've been appointed as a secondary leader of sorts. So when the leader of hte team is unable to do something (for example the other day when she was stuck in bed becuase of Bronchitus) then I step into the position of leadership. Which is really cool.... especially since I'm the youngest on the team heh, it's quite an honour to have that responsibility. (even when it means waking up before sunrise everymorning)

Anyways, I don't really know what to write..... We are currently staying at this campground which is like luxury to me! Running water!! imagine that? AND electricity! pretty cool.

Anyways, my life has no doubt changed in these last few months and I can't wait for people to see how... it's nothing I can really write about in the blog... some things i guess.... but it's just complete transformation in hte best ways ever. I love it.

It's hard to write about the experiences becuase of how many things happened.... and it's something that can't just be told on a blog. So, I'm sorry about this blog's lack of "update" stories.... These last few months have been incredible in every single way. If there is ANYONE who would be wanting some kind of recommendation about this, Mabye considering doing the same thing i've done/doing/ may keep doing!

I say with no hesitation DO IT!

Life is amazing, and all of you back home are amazing for your continuing support. I hope everything is going awsome with all of you and I wish you all the best.

Still trying to recognise the calling however....

It'll be clear in time.

I'll blog again next chance I get (mabye with photo's? But don't hold your breath...)

-Jon

Tails, Trails and Trials

WOW


This second half of outreach has outamazed me X10 from the last one. If you thought hte stories in my last post were powerful, if you thought hte things that were seen in the last post were awsome, if you thought that that was a pretty intense report of God's true power of seeing him move through people, and fight against darkness.....


oh boy...ha HA!


So, where to begin. I left the plkace where i currently am, Vila, a while back now, and went back to Lelepa, where we finished off hte water tank so that it is "fully operational"...heh. We were there for a while and had some cool time where we went and prayed and worshipped in this HUGE amphitheater cave that they say spirits are in. But that was Lelepa, adn although there are stories tehre, that I will tell you all in person in full detail, awsome stories, amazing stories, funny stories, i need to get this blog done fast before this internet cafe place kills me of my money.

SO we went to The Island of Emau, and that was possibly one of the most amazing, most powerful times of my life. I have seen things i never thought i could have seen before, i have seen God move, i have seen the reality of hte spiritual world like there is no tommorow. THe west... just doesn't see it... it's so hidden... but not here, they know whats real.

We went around to all 6 villages on the island, backpacking, and in each village we were taking a census for health, occupational things, etc etc. Just to serve the people. 2 nights in each village, some on hte coast, some in hte hills, one by a lagoon.
Some villages built relationships with us so strong... in the two days that they actually wrote us songs and danced when we left.... tears in their eyes. So moving. This one elder, William, from the second village actually came with us to every village after htat on the island, and became hte 12 member of our group.... and thus, we became the 12 disciples of sorts. And just as the Bible says the "signs that will accompany followers of christ" include, casting out of demons, healings, safety from sicknesses, and more. We experienced them all.

Like..... i docn't even know how to tell all teh stories..... i really can't i guess, it would take much too long on a blog, but i can promise you all very good reports when i get back, with photo's and all sorts.


I've been speaking a fair bit, for example the other day I spoke to a group of 40, 20 somethin's year olds, about the world you enter into when your a christian, the reality of what it is, and totally taking away the veil over people's eyes that being a christian is somehow.. a "wimpy" thing, becuase it throws you into a world, into a real battle that is sometimes hard to handle... spiritually, it drains you.


But it is worth.. every.. single.. second of it.

I had one church elder who was watching my "message" come up to me later for prayer, and told me he was incredible moved by it... he kept repeating it. I'd love to be able to tell any of you readers about it as well, it was probably one of my largest revelations I've ever recieved was this new perspective. Christianity is NOT just salvation and 'going to church', oh man, it's so much more.


SO aside from even the discipleship and the missions work in itself, we have all been having SUCH an amazing time, we have climbed mountains, we have been swimming in hte beautiful south pacific, we have been eating... some of the strangest food, I had not been shaving until yesterday haha, lots of amazing bonding times and awsome times with the guys especially haha, we have been scratched and bruised, we have laughed and just... it's amazing.


BUT! i have to go, time to get on with the rest of today..... THANK YOU EVERYONE for your E-mails! For your shout out's! On Myspace, or even to through my Dad hahah. I Love you all so much, and i wish you all the best.


Stay strong
Keep Praying
Believe
and Fight.

Pray Dangerous Prayers.

-Jon

PS. OH YEA, I GOT SCABIES, and in short form of some other funny things.... there is now a baby on one of these islands that will soon be named "Joe-Chucky" (A little girl.. haha), i was just reminded of that right now... anyways, have to run)

Healings and prayers and crowds, oh my!

So....although we have been in Port Vila for the last few days, which we didn't expect to be as powerful as our time in Lelepa (our our time in Emao coming up) man, we had one of the most intense few days we've had all outreach.


On Saturday we went into this slum-ish area of Port Vila to have a time for kids, so we were singing songs and building relationships, really just trying to get to know people. However, in the midst of all this there were powerful things happening as one of our members saw God heal this woman and her child of malaria, and that story in itself is nuts, this kid during our program was really burning up and shaking, so one of our members (Myung -hee from Korea) took him home. When she did the mother at home actually fell down and was burning up from fever or something... and myung hee thought she heard the people panicking saying it was malaria... who knwos. anyways, myung hee immediatly began to pray and then the woman's body immediatly cooled. We came back the next day and the woman wasn't around.... but then the NEXT day (Monday) we came to the commuiunity adn this woman (and her sister who she had brought) come spruiniting up to Myung hee more excited than anything becuase they had miraculously been COMPLETY healed. Halleluja haha

The night on monday was nuts, we held an open air where we taught, preached, performed, everything and it was awsome, so many people were turning up, on average the crowd was 120 people watching. and at the end we offered that we would pray for anyone who wanted prayer.... and the next little bit was hectic with all the prayer. It was amazing, it started slow but then one woman gained the courage to step forward, adn then it broke loose, I had people trying to drag me away frmo other people WHILE i was praying for them to pray for healing, and to pray for all sorts of everythings. We may have seen healings, but in many cases we're unsure becuase we'd pray for healings for sore backs, finish, ask how they were feeling and they'd casually say "much better, thank you" and then walk away... um... hahah good? I know if i was healed like that i'd be like WOAHHHH!! WHATT>?? but for them it seemed to be an everyday thing, "of course, you pray and your healed" kind of mindset. Vanessa and I prayed over one individual over a strange sickness that was... something else... I actually went back later and prayed for her again in a different way... becuase something wasn't right there...

But!

It was a really good time, and good prep for Lelepa when we go back. I neglected to write about it in my l;ast blog, but when we go back to lelepa, there is alot more truth that has been unnearthed about that place that we were oblivious to before... and alot more things are starting to make sense. There is a dark presence that we are going to be going up against, and our "mysterious sickness" that our leader came down with that basically put him out of commission for a few days was actually predicted and prayed against by two completely different groups back in Perth australia while they were praying for us, and the source was made clearer...and actually caused a bit of fear to enter into our group, but we've dealt with it and are ready to take it on. (it was actually really cool, because at around the same time they had started to pray was the time when Joe said he actually felt BAM a huge difference). There is spiritual warfare behind this and I would appretiate all of your prayers for my team as we go back into it, prayers for strength and prayers for protection.

But, before i start physching poeple out with all this spiritual warfare talk, I'll talk more about whats up now,
So the last few days we were in these slums with our outreach leader gone back to perth, but today actually is the day that Joe gets back from perth, so we will start to press in and get ready to go back to Lelepa and then Emao.

Man, words can't describe how much I appretiate the E-mails that have been sent to me and the updates I've been getting on people's lives back home. It reminds me of you all and i really appretiate it. Please keep them coming as they are the only contact I have with home these days. Honestly, they just bring the biggest smile to my face, I'm so happy to hear about home from the people who I can see are thinking about me constantly!! THank you so much

But yea, this is the last time I'll get to update my blog for a while... so this is really the last update you could get until... well for a while! So if you have any details you would like to know, please write me and I'll tell you, i'm trying to keep some things on the blog fairly vauge becuase i feel uncomfortable talking about them on the "world wide web" but if anyone wants to know more specifics to pray into or anything like that, than by all means e-mail me and I'll get back to you.


Thank you so much for your support everyone.


The Authority and the Commission
The Power of Prayer

-Jon

1 Week in

Woo!

Hello everyone! I am having the most amazing time, it is incredible!
We just spent the last week on the Island of Lelipa and it was absolutly incredible, I met some of the most amazing people on the most beautiful island, it was something else.

Everyday we would work on this concrete water tank that we were building, (The villagers would have to usually canoe across the passage to the mainland (Vila) to get water from freshwater streams there when the tanks they have run out, so we were building another one. Whats awsome is while we were there, it rained HARD twice, filling up all the tanks so that some were overflowing! it was powerful.

We made friends with so many people, and impacted alot of lives. There was this one woman who had suffered from a stroke and the entire right side of her body below the neck was pretty much paralyzed. She could move her fingers and toes really. We all prayed over her one day for healing, and once we were done... she could move her right arm fully, that was really cool to see, theres been a fair bit of spiritual warfare, and htast JUST on Lelipa, and i'm sure we'll be faced with more.

On the island we ate fruit, 'showered' in the ocean, and would sweat... alot haha.

The guys all slept in this half built church while the girls in this building of sorts that was a big room. There was in general no electricity on the island save for one 'shop' and one or two homes, but those were not community generators, those belonged to the family. Also, no running water save for water coming from the tanks, the toilet was... haha something else, i'm sure you'll see pictures.

Everynight you could hear village mutts fighting, haha and the next day the dogs would have all these scars all over them.

For fun when we were done work, Eric and myself (usually with two of our Vanuatian friends Fredie and Rex) would swim out to this sunken plane and go freediving around it, the other day we saw a Stingray and we tried to spear it with Fredies spear but it was too quick.

The water tank is finished save for a roof, it's watertight, but now we want to structure it perfectly so the DTS will be heading back there in a few days... next week? After hte SOS has gone home. When the SOS goes home, our outreach leader (Joe) will be going back to Perth with them temporarily (Which is a good thing because then he can go to a doctor, his eye got really really swollen up the other day and we don't know why.. he may have been bitten by something but we are unsure, they have some MASSIVE bugs here)
Anyways, when Joe is gone, we will be going into Prisons here in Port Vila to speak to prisoners, which will be amazing, after that we go (as i said) back to Lelipa for a day or so to finish the tank, which will be cool, I miss them all already. (Oh! I'll talk about this game I learned that the kids on the island made up)


When Joe does get back to Vanuatu then we will go to this Island up north about 30 min boat trip that has 7 villages on it, and we will be backpacking from one to another. (Oh, and and one point... either before or after that, I can't remember we only got concrete plans a few days ago, but we will be going into the slums of vila as well)

And thats essentially all the details i can think of right now.... Joe leaves in 2 days for Perth, and thats the gameplan.

This morning I woke up at 5:30- throwing up... thought you might like to hear some of my calamitys as well haha, also my feet have been slaughtered becuase hte sandals that i have are my dads, which have moulded to his feet not mine, and as a result I have some AMAZING blisters and gashes.. which may be septic now becuase i didn't put anything on them the entire time i was on Lelipa, but I doubt it. A few scrapes and scratches from the plane (cutting myself on the sides as i swam through it haha but nothing some salt water can't fix.. whats awsome is not too far off is where there are Hammerheads!


Right now in Vila we are staying at a YWAM run...area? it really reminds me of Morningstar
kind of set up, almost exactly the same sized and designed buildings, everything (For those from westbank/ glenrosa), and we are sleeping in the church. Last night the biggest beetle i have ever seen in my life came flying through the window, this thing was the size of my palm and it landed on my mosquito net and got trapped. Also last night chuck said he saw cockraches crawling all over, and one on my net. haHA! Missions is amazing!

So... thats my quick blurb update for now.... I've been keeping my journal everyday so I have lots of good full length explinations of awsome stuff that i've forgotten at this current moment... but oh boy... one week and it's been this good? thats great.

So! I have to head off now, time is running out, so i should wrap this up

I've been thinking of you all! haha and i won't give you the little updates like what music i've been listning to, noone wants that anymore, BUT! if you have any questions about anything that i havn't mentioned here? then PLEASE! by all means e-mail me! Thank you to those who E-mailed me in this past week, I was excited to hear what's new with you!


"Pray Dangerous Prayers"

-Jon

On my way

I'm currently in Brisbane International Airport, waiting for mu flight.. which boards in 5 min

TO VANUATU

Gotta go