A new sense of Self Accomplishment

Man, what a week! 

So i just got back from a 3 day trip to Banff. Leo had been planning this bike trip for Terence and I for about 6 months now. We got lucky and were able to stay at a friends Condo in Banff. IT'S NICE!!! Such a nice view too. So we left Sunday right after church, packed up the bikes, all our supplies and hit the road. 4 1/2-ish hours later, we're unpacking and exploring the condo in amazement. The Yongs came too! Michy, Mel, Jia, Pastor Steven, and Auntie Violet.

The Girls were our support drivers, they carried all our food and water. We pretty much just relaxed the first night, we ate our pasta and went to bed.

A pic of the Condo

Monday (also known as D-DAY!). 6:30am
We get up, eat our oatmeal and raisins, hydrate, gear up, and head out! but not before a team photo from Auntie Violet. Start time, 7:30am. It's cold. We start off with a nice downhill out of town. It's soo cool that my fingers start to go numb, but I'm soo pumped it doesn't matter. Before our first rest stop we hit a VERY nice downhill. I clocked in at 72.3km/hr! What a rush! The girls got a little lost and we ended up waiting for them for about 25min.

Leg 2 of our trip begins! 9:00am. Leo tells us to just follow the road, and turn at CASTLE JUNCTION. I was biking right behind Leo, Terence had stopped to fix his breaks or something. So we're heading down the road, I'm looking everywhere for the sign to CASTLE JUNCTION. All the sudden Leo turns, apparently we were at CASTLE JUNCTION. There was no sign. Everyone missed the turn. We had lost Terence. We didn't actually realize we lost him till 11:00am. The girls finally found us, (after realizing they missed the turn at CASTLE JUNCTION) and we had lunch. After eating we sent them off to find Terence, cause at this point we had no cell coverage.

leg 3. 11:30am. Leo and I head out after refilling our water and stocking up on granola bars. We weren't sure when we would see the girls again. At this point we were had covered about 60km. We eventually ran out of water and had to stop by a nearby stream. It was hot. Don't worry, we didn't drink the water straight out of the stream. Leo had some water tablets that sterilized the water, but gave it some weird after taste. The only downfall was that it took 30 min to sterilize. ONWARDS WE PUSHED! After several hours of cycling and no sight of the girls, Leo and I had made it to the last vital rest stop before Sinclair's pass. Our 10km uphill climb -____-

It's 3:00pm and we finally see the girls pull up. But no sign of Terence in the vehicle. Don't worry, Terence is alive. He apparently didn't know he was going the wrong way until he reached Lake Louise, then he doubled back and continued on route. The Girls met up with him, forced him to eat and replenished his water.

He was supposed to get a ride back to us, but he wanted to go all the way. *by the way, we're cycling from Banff to Radium Hot Springs BC.* Even though Terence wants to continue cycling, he's about 2-3 hours behind us. Although he still has roughly the same amount of mileage since he didn't stop. So after eating and replenishing everything, Leo sent them back to pick Terence up and bring him to the dreaded Sinclair's Pass.

4:00pm. We have already skipped leg 4 and 5 and were now starting on leg 6, (We were supposed to stop and rest at each leg) the final Leg. Terence isn't back yet, but Leo and I can't wait. We begin our ascend. It's slow -___- but the view is magnificent. Apparently about 6 km up there's a fake summit, it kinda plateaus out and gives you hope. Then you continue around the corner only to see that it keeps on climbing. I had overtaken Leo at the base of the climb and made it to the top in about 45 min. The girls were waiting. I wait for Leo and Terence so we can descend the hill together. This is the best part of the trip by far. The last 10km. ALL DOWNHILL. Right into Radium Hot Springs! We had to be going about 80km. we were whipping past cars. We were going soo fast i think the wind damaged my hearing. But it was such a rush.

Roughly 5:15pm. We Packed up our bikes, grabbed our trunks, and went into the hot springs to relax our exhausted muscles. hahah they also had this mini mystery pool which is either filled with fresh hot spring water, or fresh glacier water. Today was Glacier day. Leo and I dared each other to go in and fully submerge ourselves. IT WAS FREEZING! But the day was coming to a close and a new sense of self accomplishment had been achieved.

We head back to Banff in the vehicle, reliving our freshly travelled journey, commentated by Leo, Terence and Myself. What a day. When we get back we decide to eat out instead of trying to cook. We go to some Thai restaurant. I get one of the more white things on the menu. Smoked Atlantic Salmon with yam fries. I only got it because of the fries.

Day 3! We get up reallly early and clean the place up. we leave just before 9am. Leo has meetings he needs to prepare for. We say our good byes to Banff and head out on the road for a long long drive back to E-town.

Banff was Beautiful.

Interviews

So, as most of you may know, i've been looking for a job for about 2 months now. I've had several interviews already but no luck. The last couple of weeks have been pretty depressing cause I haven't received any call backs and nothing has seemed promising.

I decided to drop off a few resumes yesterday. I dropped one off at Le Chateau Outlet, Mexx, and Best Buy. Well later last night I got a phone back from all 3 and now have interviews for tomorrow and Thursday. Let's hope they go well. I hear Best Buy pays more, but i kinda want the discount for Le Chateau. We'll see.

Reminiscence

Unstable Defenses

I caved. I've had 8 weeks to decide, to prepare, to realize... and I caved. I caved! I told myself I was over Her, I told myself it was time to move on. My decision wasn't supposed to fall apart so easily.

I saw her today, it was the first time since she came back from vacation. She had new glasses. Just seeing her made my decision to stand firm and move on, my defense, seem like an unstable tower of Jenga pieces. I had been trying to forget Her, to not think about her; but i had spent so much time looking at her, trying to memorize her in case I never saw her again. Seeing Her again was like a tidal wave of emotion. It completely knocked me off guard. She's left me weak, vulnerable, and defenseless yet again. How She does it is still a mystery to me.

Today was supposed to be awkward, things were supposed to change, I was supposed to change. But today She's made me think about all the moments we've spent together. I'm falling back in Love with Her, but i don't know if i want to. Why does she do this to me.

Refresh. Renew. Rejoice.

I guess this would be considered my first "blog post" seeing as how all my previous posts were just short second person narratives. But my weekend was sooo awesome I had to share it with someone. Anyways, I just got back yesterday from the NEAC/ELFAC Summer Camp at the Augustana University Campus. The Summer camp was awesome, it was my first time going this year so i didn't know what to expect. I actually thought I would be "camping", like sitting around camp fires and roasting marshmallows and stuff, so i was a little disappointed when I found out we would be staying in dorms. Showing up at the camp was a little awkward for me, mostly because I'm the racial minority. I was the only white guy at the camp, everyone else was asian. I don't mind this at all though, it was only weird because i only knew about 7 people coming into the camp and everyone else who didn't know me probably thought I was either at the wrong camp, or i was a student at the University.

The first day was pretty chilled, Nathan had asked me to join his worship team for the camp. I have to say I was a little nervous, I mean Nathan has some pro skills. I was more worried i would just be a hindrance to the team, but there was no way I could pass up the opportunity to learn whatever I could from Nathan and his team, Thanks again guys. So we played at the opening ceremony, played some games, then we pretty much had the rest of the night to relax. We ended up jamming out in my room till 2 or 3 before we called it a night.

Day 2 was where the real meaning behind the camp came out to me. Kau, Daniel, Terence, Eric, and I had a more personal time of devotion and prayer with each other. It's a very different feeling to pray like that, in a group of other believers your own age. i could definitely feel Gods presence among us. Later that day we made it to the climax of the camp, the GIRLS VS GUYS COMPETITION! haha this really was a ton of fun. In the end though, the Girls reigned victorious. I have to say, they were some serious competition.  Good job Girls.

In the evening we discovered a rec room/ Lounge area in the basement. We pretty much spent the rest of the night down here. me and terence had walked in on a group that was supposed to be singing songs and whatnot, but Stephen had introduced a new game to the group that we spent a good 2 hours playing.  The rules were simple, Figure out what the Pattern is. Eventually everyone in our Dorm had come and played. I think this is one of my favorite memories of the camp. We stayed down here till about 5 in the morning playing Guitar, speed Scrabble, Poker, Air hockey, and eventually even truth or dare. The last one was pretty lame, Kau had the best truth questions though, "Have you ever had braces? O_o" haha made me laugh. Eventually I called it a night and retired back to my room.

The last day. After dragging myself out of bed and making my way to the cafeteria to get some breakfast  we all headed to the Chapel for Sunday service. We rocked the Praise that morning. Everyone was on their feet singing. It was truly uplifting. We went through the closing ceremony and gathered for a group photo. After cleaning up the Chapel we headed back to the cafeteria for lunch before heading to the dorms to pack it up. At this point i think everyone was a little sad that the summer camp was coming to a close. I know I was, the camp had been a getaway for me, it had been a time of spiritual growth with many others. I came into the camp knowing around 7 friends, and I left the camp that day having around 200+ new brothers and sisters in Christ. This Camp was exactly what i needed.

I can't wait till next year.