Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
1 + 3 = 5

Today makes it official and final. I'm a graduate.

After 5 years of Bible College (I'll pause for a moment to let many of you either make audible gasps of surprise, or arc your eyebrows in curiosity), I have earned a degree of Bachelor of Religious Education. I can't exactly say that my feelings right now, while naturally a mixture of relief and euphoria, are along the lines of, "Yay, I'm done!" I don't even feel like going, "On with the rest of my life now!"

My thoughts right now on graduating? About bloody time.

I originally attended Emmanuel Bible College for a 1-year program. I graduated from that (which makes me technically a double graduate), and then decided to further pursue the 3-year B.R.E. degree. However, life being what it is, I was required to stretch out my courses over a few extra years. So instead of finishing my B.R.E. in three years (with my 1-year certificate counting as one of those years), it has taken a respective 5 years to come to completion.

While I can gripe about the time I took to get this all done, I cannot complain about what I'm taking away with me now. I've gained wisdom & insight, found illumination, faced my demons in the dark (and most importantly: won), and stumbled across a number of invaluable friends I do not intend to lose track of for the remainder of my life. Most of all, I've learned that for all the knowledge I have, or even think that I have, I've barely scratched the surface.

It's a humbling thing when you come face to face with your own arrogance and ignorance, and realise how lacking you truly are. I can only hope I do not take such encounters for granted, as they have both bolstered my confidence and cut my rampaging ego down quite a few notches. Humility is always an honourable thing. For that matter, so is clean underwear.

I want to spend the rest of my life learning. Not necessarily theology alone, but of all things. I can learn from the books I read. I can learn from the courses I take, and the issues I study. I can learn from my humility. I can learn from my mistakes. I can learn from my ambitions and dreams. I can learn from my disappointments. I can learn from my friends. I can learn from God. And best of all, I can take all of these and strive to become a wholly better person.

So if you need me, I'll be upstairs listening to The Cure's "Friday I'm In Love", and drinking a Malibu Rum & Coke, and thinking that while I've just closed an important chapter in the story that is my life, there's still a lot that has yet to be written. In which case, I had better get up off my ass and start writing it.

Ja.

Today's Lesson: "Gold from Egypt is still gold." --St. Augustine. (which is to say, truth is truth, no matter where you find it, even if it's come from the most unlikely, strangest, seemingly contrary or darkest of places)

posted by Phillip at 6:47 PM

 
Can't Sleep, Chairs Will Eat Me

In what is either a peculiar coincidence or someone having a deranged sense of humour, today I was attacked by a patio chair as I tried to sit out in the backyard and read a book on Jack the Ripper. The weather was quite beautiful--warm, sunny blue skies--and I figured why not read Patricia Cornwall's book "Jack the Ripper: Case Closed" outside, where I could also let the 4 Shih-tzu puppies run around under my watchful eye.

Being someone who needs to be able to stretch out their legs when they read, I stacked 2 patio chairs with the intent of sitting on one and using the other as a footrest. I carried these into the middle of the yard, and there came the horror. Bear in mind, these are moulded, plastic chairs with armrests that have not had all their scratchy edges smoothed off. I rather foolishly carried the chairs by gripping either side of the seat, instead of gripping the armrests.

I set the stack down and, still gripping the seat of the upper one, tried to shake them apart. This proved troublesome, as the patio chairs had decided they'd rather be siamese twins and blatantly refused to bend to my will. I therefore lifted them higher off the ground and gave a mighty shake. The chairs separated, and gravity yanked the lower patio chair downwards.

This proved troublesome, since my hands were gripping the seat of the top chair, and the armrests of the lower chair came dropping down and tore across them during the descent. Fortunately, I got off with having lost only a few patches of skin off the back of each hand. Unfortunately, every single nerve ending I had on those patches of skin are screaming vile obscenities and letting me experience very unpleasant, painful sensations.

So currently I nurse two somewhat scarred hands, and a bruised ego at thinking how in a war between a patio chair and myself, the patio chair came out the notable winner. And very little reading was accomplished in the end. It's hard to turn the pages without getting blood and some other sorts of leaky fluids dripping onto them.

Today's Lesson: some species of patio chairs may in fact be carnivorous.
posted by Phillip at 2:46 PM

 
Today's Lesson: There are quotes that can make people famous in the long span of history. Somehow I do not see "Holy crap, he just kicked that squirrel in the nuts!" as being one one them.




posted by Phillip at 5:47 PM

 
Non-Sequitur

I currently have the song Pop Goes The World by Men Without Hats stuck in my head, and much like belly button lint, it's refusing to go away and leave me alone. This unto itself does not worry me. The fact that I've been bopping in my chair along to the song for roughly 3 hours now is what's got me concerned...

Alternately, it's been two and a half days since I received a large, solid milk chocolate bunny. There is roughly 1/10th of the chocolate rabbit left. Usually such a rabbit would have been rendered extinct and digested within 24 hours, maybe going into 48 hours. This leftover 1/10th has me wondering if I'm slowing down in my old age (whatever age I might be, since I've once again forgotten if I'm 24 or 25). There was a time that I could have gorged myself on that chocolate rabbit in an afternoon and not thought anything of it. Things do slow down as one grows older, and I suppose this is simply one of those signs.

When I start prattling on about how in my days, we had to walk buck-naked for two days, uphill, against the blistering cold snow, and carrying all 12 of our younger siblings and their tubas for band practice, in order just to look at a chocolate bunny through the store window...then you should consider smacking my upside the back of the head.

Just giving the world a heads-up.


posted by Phillip at 11:24 AM

 
Warning: May Contain Primates

It's Easter weekend once again, and you all know what that means. Yep, it's the third-most-valid excuse for family members to gather together to eat lots of food. (The two most valid excuses for this being Commercialmas and Thanksgiving). Happily for me, this did not happen, as while I'm a fan of family gatherings, I'm the type of person who will nibble and munch on many small meals throughout the day, as opposed to gorging myself on 2-3 meals only. And today there was no gathering in my neck of the woods (well, as tree-covered as the suburbs get), so I've been delighting in my small grazing sessions.

Melissa, my fiancee, however, expressed her disbelief that my natural nibbler inclination have somehow affected (or infected) her, and she spent her Easter family gathering slowly gorging herself over the course of the entire day. In fact, when we were talking to each other across country divisions, she said she was munching on something right then.

Intrigued, I asked what she was currently munching on. The conversation that follows is pretty much word-for-word:

Mel: "Monkey Bread and crackers/dip."

Me: "Ne'er had monkey bread before. What part of the monkey is it made from?"

At this point, Melissa informed that Money Bread is basically like a cinnamon roll, but in smaller pieces. This perplexes me. Why not call them something along the lines of "Little Cinnarolls" then? Why include "Monkey" in the name of the product when there is no monkey in the food? Is this false advertising at its greatest, or did someone long ago have a keen albeit dertanged sense of humour, and arbitrarily name this article of food after a furry mammal?

This does bring to mind the question of whether or not hotdogs originally were, in fact, made of dogs. Say the daschund, who tends to resemble a hotdog weiner anyways. Now is probably a good time for me to end this entry before I get dog lovers the world over on my case...

Today's Lesson: Monkey Bread is not made from monkeys.


posted by Phillip at 3:29 PM