Something I’ve found interesting is our incredible ability to make acronyms out of everything. I realize it’s a byproduct of our typing society. For instance, it hadn’t even occurred to me that TJCAC was ever referred to as just plain old Jaffray. Then we realize that it’s harder to say the acronym than just Jaffray. It’s a hell of a lot harder to type. There are also those crazy acronyms with W as one of the letters. Think about that one. There are also my friends’ hilarious Chinese acronyms, the latest of which is ‘gum yu lo’ or GYL for short. I’ll not explain that one.

Speaking of explosions, my coke exploded in my bag when I dropped the bag on the floor today. It left quite the mess. Ruined my copy of Euthyphro and Apology (Plato). Once I got home, I put it in the shower and blasted it with water for a few minutes.

Today I was doing some wishful thinking looking at the pages of Canada Computers again, since my laptop suddenly disappeared. I wish Ars Technica would update their system guides. I’ve taken a look at AnandTech’s system guides, but they don’t offer any other suggestions, considering CC has quite the limited selection compared to the entire Intarweb. However, I think I have decided on the Antec SLK3700AMB as the case for my prospective computer. Even though I really would like a window, I think that the SLK3700AMB is the best choice considering the money and quality of the case.

I also had a look at those LCD monitors. I think I’ve set my mind on 16ms as a nice reaction time. I’m looking at those 17″ ones, since I’ve always dreamed of having more desktop space than my current 1024×768 setup. The problem is that without a video card that can run games on the native res of 1280×1024, I’m basically screwed, since the picture will be horrible or the game will be wretchedly laggy. Therefore, I must also acquire a mid to high-end GeForce card, which would set my video card budget to about $200+. Yes, it sucks to be a student and a gamer and whatever else I am that drives me to demand perfection of my system.

Wow. If I had to buy a laptop right now, this would be it. It’s at the perfect price range and meets my minimum requirements. That’s incredible. Now I just wait another year and see if I something so perfect stumbles across my path again.

In an incredible stroke of luck, I got over 100 on my chem exam. By luck, I mean my exam mark could have dropped down to about an 80. In another incredible stroke of luck, I messed up horribly on my math exam but ended up with an 83. By messed up, I mean came out with zeroes on entire sections. I don’t know how this happens. Every time I think I’ve screwed up big, I end up coming out alright. I think God’s doing something.

Tomorrow we have a lockdown situation drill tomorrow. Is it just me or does anyone else think it is suspiciously like a response to the shooting down in the States? Of course, a shooting just isn’t a shooting without some major news outlet making shocking revelations into how youth are corrupted by evil video games. In my opinion, blaming video games is like acknowledging the fact that the US can’t seem to raise psychologically stable children, considering there are no such happenings elsewhere in the world. Of course, Asia has their own video game related violence problems, but you don’t see them clamouring to ban video games or the like.

Lately, I’ve become bored with school. There’s nothing really interesting at the moment. Sure, there are a few little blips of new-ness, but they are few and far in between. I mean, after this past week of so much happening, the back to the daily grind thing is not working out. With that, university is looking better and better and I keep on thinking about how wonderful it would be to finally be rid of high school. Being faced with Grade 12 is not particularly a pleasant prospect, considering this is probably the year with the mix best teachers I’ve ever gotten. Back to grinding along.

Downloading stuff is fun. I’ve been looking for Hillsong United Live – Look To You and Hillsong and Delirious – Unified Praise for the past day. In my quest to acquire these I also came upon David Crowder Band – The LIME CD, Brian Doerksen – Today, and Mortal – Nu-En-Jin. I love it when I stumble upon things that I want but weren’t searching for. Especially Mortal. I remember looking for it a few months ago. It’s a Christian industrial band. I’ve been looking for it ever since I discovered Andy Hunter back in Atlanta. Good stuff. I was also able to get a high quality set of Star Wars Special Edition Soundtracks off of BT. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

I just spent the last two hours emergeing fonts for lilypond. Holy crap, fonts take a long time to compile. Lilypond is a music engraving system, and I hope to print out a legible copy of my part for Carmen (Bb Clarinet 1). I appreciate all of the stuff Ms. Moroz does, but if I have to read another page of anyone’s handwritten music, my brain will explode.

And now I will cry because my MD requires that an album be transferred overnight. In fact, I’ve just been reminded to go scour the web again to see if any new developments have been made in making Sony’s wonderful little player not suck. I wish I hadn’t bought that and instead got myself a nice Archos Gmini XS200, assuming that all the stores in Canada would start selling it. Ah well. Time to go a-searching.

So basically, this entire March Break, I've been working. After the TC days, we had rehersals for the Good Friday dinner/theatre program basically every night until the days of the performances. Pretty much every night I got home around 11 or so. Things were looking pretty bad on Wednesday night when a lot of things were undecided, which made us work on overdrive on Thursday. We held our collective breaths as we waited for Friday to roll over.

Friday afternoon, the final rehersals went quite nicely. They were a tad shaky, but much further than we could believe. The results of both nights were incredible. The performances were excellent. The crowd was huge, over 100 people each night. And after both nights, there was an incredible response at the Cross.

I don't know how we always manage to write such a perfect script for what we need. All the way back a long time ago when we had the Seeker service in the morning with the play about Hitler's spear and the power outage half an hour before the play started, then Worlds Apart, the one with Jose getting shot at the end, Passover last year with Moses and the Israelites in Egypt, and this, the Last Supper, everything from characters to writing fit so nicely together.

So today, we had the baptism and it was a joyous occasion. We finally got the guts to cheer in the Chinese service. Being me, I realized that the Chinese service's worship music was kind of cheesy. I mean, I like songs like Above All and In Christ Alone, but the Chinese worship team has a love for the different settings on the electric piano that makes the sound very fake and synthesizer-like that totally ruins the song for me.

We also had a crazy huge party at Edward's house. It's true what they say, that the first time you watch Napoleon Dynamite, it's awful and you have to watch it with other people. It was soooo much better today when we watched it in a huge crowd. Wonderful time.

Now on to ranting. I really hate it when my dad makes baseless accusations. Like OH HO HO YOU NEED MORE SOCIAL SKILLS BASED SOLELY ON THE FACT THAT YOU DO NOT TALK TO PEOPLE IN THE CAR <em>AFTER</em> YOU WERE AT A PARTY AND YOU ARE TIRED. Another one I really hate is the YOU DO NOT WORK ON THE COMPTAR SINCE EVERY TIME I SEE YOU ON THE COMPUTER IS INDICATIVE OF WHAT YOU MUST BE DOING THE 99% WHEN I'M <em>NOT</em> AROUND OH HO HO. Please stop.

Now then, I listen to my parents. When they tell me to go downstairs and stuff, I do it. Not my unfortunate sibling. Oh no. The above said must <em>always</em> ignore the summons of my parents and must <em>always</em> get yelled at. The above said must always cause me to have to yell at above said so as to not incur collateral damage upon myself. It gets annoying quickly.

Last thing. I remember one of my friends who was like "but Hosanna is my little haven away from my family." It used to be mine, but no longer. I've gotten used to the fact that said sibling has friends in fellowship and even the fact that said friends may overlap and be my friends too. BUT, said sibling does NOT need to constantly follow my friends around 100% OF THE TIME. I'm not saying like, oh they were talking and I come and now they must part ways. That's fine, that's acceptable, I don't have a problem with that. My problem is the fact that sibling is having a nice chat with other people (who are my friends, just other friends) and me and my friends that I am in the state of conversing with start heading off to find a room to eat in and said sibling feels it is necessary to deliberately break contact with the current group and join my group. It's not like there's a reason either. If there were a need to do so, it wouldn't be that bad, but there isn't. Sibling appears sits down, and laughs heartily with the participants as the conversation progresses. It happens 100% of the time without fail and it bloody annoys me.

Oops, I guess this just occured to me. Bloody hell, if <em>family members</em> are going to start reading this and start subtly hinting at me that they disagree intensely with what I wrote here, just like last time, then please stop reading. There's nothing you can do to change my mind or what is written here. It's not like you're supposed to be reading into my affairs anyway. I don't go searching around for your writings or friends' writings nor do I alert friends if something I read in something I'm not supposed to be reading says something about them. Let this be a lesson.

<a href="http://www.dhsonline.org/mike/">Mike Mak</a>, the official TC2005 photographer posted <a href="http://www.dhsonline.org/mike/sessions/2005/03/wrecked-but-drooling.php">a few TC photos</a> on his <a href="http://www.dhsonline.org/mike/sessions/sessions.php">blog</a>. The shots are of the crazy team thing going on on the stage, conveyor belt, the worship team under the huge cross at Young Nak, and the candle lighting response. Very nice.