Now or Never

In the wise words of the great bard of our times, Mr. Troy Bolton:

This is the last chance to make our mark
History will know who we are!
This is the last game so make it count, it's
Now or Never


Well said, Mr. Bolton, well said. I have no real reason to have included that above, except perhaps as a tribute to the greatest High School Musical movie I have ever seen. Yes, I'll admit it -- I am a fan of High School Musical. I liked the songs in the first one, loved the songs in the second, and as one critic named Emily Boden raved, was "blown away" by the third. Take a winning formula of ridiculously catchy songs, a romance for the record-books, and a perfect world in suburban Albuquerque where high school kids party with their parents, give it $30 million and you've got a box office hit! So that is my take on the new HSM, which I am sure you were all greatly anticipating.

Back to reality, this week was a good one. I was very busy with homework and lots of other things, but that just makes this little entry more interesting for all of you! How about we go in chronological order this time? And for the sake of some practice, I'm going to use a little Spanish.

Lunes - Thus began the busyness. I had a major Psychology project due on Friday that was supposed to be based on an interview with someone who "works with people." You'd assume that everybody works with people, but we were supposed to find someone who could provide further insight into some of our course material. I interviewed my admissions counsellor, Cindy Blount. It went really well and I learned a lot about her and different psychological concepts. She has basically spent her entire life travelling the world, so she had a lot of valuable things to say. Later that night I went to an honors credit movie thingy. We watched Bonnie & Clyde. The title of the series is "Films that Changed America," and this one is definitely worth the label. The story was just really well done, and the characters and acting were excellent. You could just tell how ahead of its time it was they way that the violence was portrayed. To audiences in the 60s it was a major controversy, but to our polluted vision the fake blood almost looked silly. I give it two thumbs up. The last Monday highlight was throwing Zach (fellow swimmer) in the frigid waters of the creek for some birthday well-wishes.

Martes - Chapel had a gospel theme. Although any authentic gospel choir would probably laugh, the attempt was well-done and very entertaining. We watched the Harrison Ford movie, Witness, in Amish seminar that afternoon. It's a movie about Harrison Ford being himself as a hardened, brave, smart-mouth cop who goes undercover to protect an Amish boy from some sort of villain, seducing Amish women and causing all sorts of trouble along the way. We analyzed it for its portrayal of the Amish, which was not at all convincing. I spent the rest of the night at Men's Ensemble (Christmas performance in two weeks!), an audition for tonight's coffeehouse, and lots of homework in the library.

Miercoles - Starting to feel the pressure of imminent due dates fast approaching, I decided to get my priorities straight. I spent the day in classes and working, all in order to prepare for the week's main event -- High School Musical Tres! It was three guys (myself, Austin, Isaac) with one girl (Lauren). I wouldn't let that slight gender imbalance deter me from my goal, however, and as embarrassed as I felt asking the girl at the counter for a ticket to HSM, it was totally worth it.

Jueves - In short, I finished an Amish essay, handed it in, listened to the HSM 3 soundtrack, worked on a big Spanish assignment, wrote a 8 page report on the aforementioned interview, and had a wonderful phone-date with my wonderful ladyfriend.

Viernes - one word: SNOW! It wasn't a lot, mind you, but it was enough to get the whole campus bouncing in their seats. It was Friday, my work was all handed in and behind me, the weekend was ahead, the snow was on the ground, and everyone was happy. I had a nice long talk with Momma and Papa -- always a pleasure -- and watched Messiah Women's Basketball destroy Eastern University. Then I went to sleep, because on Saturday...

Sabado - Swim meet! To be totally honest, sometimes I am not all that enthused going into these events, but this one was actually a lot of fun. It was a really nice pool and I felt really good. I broke some more personal records, including down to a 57.5 in the 100 free, which, for me, is a big deal. I don't know if I've mentioned this about our meets before, but our team is determined to make a good impression at all our meets, and what better way to to do that than to pray before and after each meet. The school we were facing has a particularly obnoxious (and vulgar) cheer when they enter the pool, so instead of staring at them and being intimidated like they expected us to, we made a circle and all took a knee in prayer. And then after the meet we invited them (if they were willing) to join us as we prayed for each other and our future meets. We do that with every school, and it's just really fun to be on a team that has that sort of focus.

Domingo - All I've done today is church and the blog, so I'll tell you about church. It was amazing again. The emphasis of the service was on healing. And as I mentioned last week, my expectations were for some classic charismatic preaching and a call for heavenly healing on everything from paralysis to cancer. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised. The service had an extended time of worship, and then a panel discussion on the stage with just a few members of the congregation. They talked for a little bit about a few joyous and miraculous healings they had witnessed and then moved on to spend the majority of the time talking about a painful reality -- when people of faith are not healed. It's all great when God comes down and miraculously heals people with all sorts of ailments, but I really appreciated how they emphasized the fact that sometimes God just doesn't answer those prayers for healing. It doesn't mean the sick lack faith or have lost favour in God's eyes, it just proves we'll never understand how God works. Some real-life testimonies of church members with chronic illnesses really sent the message home. It was somber, but it was still a celebration of faith through the hard times.

And that is that. For the sake of reducing redundancy, I've deliberately omitted all mention of daily classes and swimming practices. But don't you worry, they are always there to absorb any free time that might emerge in a day.

Now I'm off to a sound-check for the coffeehouse tonight. I'm doing a song called "Save" by The Rocket Summer. Should be fun!

Love you all,
Josh

p.s. once again, I'm out of time to edit...