I could have easilly fallen in to the all too cliche Bush-bashing crowd were it not for an American Government professor I had a few years back. I won’t repeat what he said about the American presidency to us, but let’s just say, it’s left me with quite a respect for the office, and for every modern person who has held it *regardless of how the rest of the world views them*.

Point at hand: George W. Bush, possibly the most hated human being on the planet. Yet the more Bush-bashing I read, the more I’m convinced that people frankly don’t know what they’re talking about. Can anyone even define for me what Neo-Conservatism is?

Anyway, he’s my theory.

I see how much people hate Bush in relation to how much they love Barrack Obama. By which I mean, people don’t actually hate Bush all that much, they just Love Obama so much that hatred for Bush is amplified as a result.

This is easy to explain for Americans. They have all turned against their Presidents. Each president who has left office, left with pretty low aproval ratings, and have rebounded their public image since. I expect the same for Bush, if he feels like trying. If I were him though, I’d tell the world to *eff* off and get on with my life living in my mansion.

As for non-american haters though (and Canadians are horrific examples of these), it seems to me that hatred for Bush hinges on the Iraq War (ok so that’s where the source of hatred is for many Americans too). But just a few weeks ago, I reposted what i considered to be a very credible article whcih theorized that had Al Gore been president instead of Bush during 9/11, he would have invaded Iraw too… Now let me warn you, before you blast me in comments about this, please read the frigging article first, and at least gain a little understanding of how Political Scientist build such theories…

Just one of my favourite points from the article. Frankly to me, it’s just about the most convincing argument that Gore would have invaded Iraq. But it’s my favourite because it presents such a paradox to all these Bush-haters, and reminds me that most Bush-haters are just mindless drones repeating what Oprah or Bono said once… instead of intelligent, articulate individuals who can critically analyse evidence and form an opinion independent of some idiot celebrity.

* A major Bush-hating point is George W. Bush’s aparently lack of intelligence. Yet they attribute to his “neo-conservatism” the incredible intellectual prowess needed to completely bend the will of the American legislature and bureaucracy (contrary to popular opinion, the President of the United States is not the most powerful man in the world, and shares – as per the separation of powers required in the American constitution – power with Congress and the Judiciary. This means that Bush either has to be an Evil genius who manipulated the various people (and there’s a whole list of people he would have had to manipulate in that article i was talking about) required to make the Iraq invasion happen. Or he’s a complete idiot who was only able to make the invasion happen because the ball was already rolling for other reasons.

Bah. Rant over. It makes me cringe to think about how stupid people are. And this issue more than anything else in the world (especially here in Canada) is but a glaring example of this.. To President Bush. *toast* here’s to a job well done.

Got my mark for my paper on St. Paul. Another A… yeah yah. Nice to be reminded that writing is definately something that I will be getting involved in alot. One of my TA’s comments: “Your prose was often beautiful… A Joy to read”. Hehehe. I’m gonna submit this to a peer-review journal. Maybe it’ll get published.

Also got the Worship Ministries schedule today. Out of 30 times a band is playing, I’m on for 15 of them. Crazy. Makes sense though. There are 4 teams, and I’m on two of them.

Eh. What all this means is that it’s shaping up to be a really busy semester for me…

Earlier today, the Psalm 150 Project reached the milestone of 1,000,000 YouTube video hits. Many thanks to all our viewers and subscribers!

I started off the week pretty terribly, actually. I’m pretty sure I was sick … On Monday, I only had one class and it was in the afternoon, so no big deal, really. I spent the morning dealing with school of music stuff, making sure that my students showed up this week (amazingly, only 2 didn’t). Then I picked up my loan documents, though I still haven’t gotten the money yet, and off to class (where I got my midterm back).

Anyway, Tuesday was way worse. First, I couldn’t get a metropass cause they were all sold out. Meaning I’m gonna spend about an extra $20 this month to get myself to school. Although what this does mean is that I get an extra 30 minutes of sleeping every day, because I won’t need to leave at 6:30AM to get a decent parking spot. Anyway, I was outta the house by around 7/7:15ish… And I proceeded with my normal daily routine. Which meant breakfast at Timmy’s and reading the paper before class started. I didn’t feel it at first, but certainly by the second hour of class the cafein was really messing with me. By the end of the class, I had a pretty massive headache. I still had a class left to go so I just toughed it out since my bag-stash of tylenol was all out from that time I had food poisoning last semester. But man, was that last class of the day torture!

Anyway, I was planning on going straight to work, but the headache was getting really bad and I just had to go home to pop a coupla pills. It took forever to work, though, but thankfully by the time I got in to the jist of things, I was feeling pretty good. Once the pills wore off, though the headache was back. I decided not to pop any more pills though until I went to bed.

Wednesday was kind of the same, except instead of a headache, I felt really nauseous after my morning coffee. Felt that too… it all really had to do with whatever I had this week (I think it was just a cold). But Wednesday was good cause I had nothing else the rest of the day, so I went straight home after school and took a nap.

Thursday, i was definately feeling better, and I began to appreciate more how things are really looking up for me. My TV is finally getting replaced after 2 long months of phone-tag with HP support. I’ve got all my marks back and it looks real good. Classes are kinda boring, but eh. And of course.. work is busy, which I know usually sucks, but it means money for me!

So… can’t complain at all. But I’m really getting in to the deep end of things now. Time is really clicking, and in 8 months I will be an official college graduate … and hopefully, a graduate student as well…

Oh man. Grades are in, and they’re grreeeaaatt!

SMC206H1, Christianity and Music                      : 83 (A-) 
SMC302H1, Christian And Symbols                       : 77 (B+)
SMC418H1, Biblical Studies - New Testament            : 78 (B+)
SMC432H1, Christianity and Science on Human Sexuality : 81 (A-)

This means that I’m well on my way to undoing my screw ups of last year, and maybe even raising my CGPA up to that B- level (which means guaranteed acceptance into Grad School…) I *am* a little upset that I couldn’t pull of a 2 more percentage points in Christianity and Music to get that A. But ahh well.. Currently I’m also sitting on solid B’s for my full-year courses, which I’m sure I can raise to a B+ (and maybe even an A- in one case).

Anyway, horay!

I’m going to be sending in my application to Heritage soon. Just need a recent picture of myself. Hoepfully that turns out well…

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to check off too many things from the list this year. Most of them had to do with travelling (I was travelling a total of 2 and a half months this year). I had to update a few things though, as new goals have popped up. And this year, I’m looking forward to checking off a major item, “Complete my Bachelor’s Degree”. But I’ll also be starting on two major items: “Complete a graduate degree” and “Complete a doctorate”. Anyway, I’m probably going to actually do a full rewrite of this list in January. We’ll see how busy I get…

[ ] Appear in a TV Show or Movie
[ ] Ask KC Concepcion out on a date
[X] Become a Bartender
[ ] Become Fluent in French
[ ] Become Fluent in a 4th Language
[ ] Buy a Car
[X] Bunjee Jump
[ ] Complete my Bachelor's Degree
[ ] Complete a graduate degree
[ ] Complete a doctorate
[ ] Get a bartending job on a cruise ship in the Bahamas
[ ] Get my Philippine Citizenship back
[ ] Go to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver
[ ] Go to a Canadian National Park
[ ] Go to an Ontario Provincial Park
[ ] Go winter Camping and sleep in an Igloo
[ ] Get Married
[ ] Graduate with Distinction
[ ] Have children
[ ] Learn how to Salsa
[ ] Learn Claire De Lune
[ ] Learn CSS
[ ] Learn PHP
[ ] Run for Public Office
[X] Surf
[ ] Sky Dive
[-] Swim in each of the Great Lakes
    [ ] Huron
    [X] Ontario
    [ ] Michigan
    [ ] Eerie
    [ ] Superior
[X] Take Public Transit in the Philippines by myself...
[ ] Take the train across Canada
[ ] Watch a Hockey Game during the Playoffs
[ ] Watch a performance of Appalachian Spring (Ballet)
[X] Watch a performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
[X] Whale Watching
[ ] White Water Rafting
[ ] Write a Song, Record it, and film a music video for it...

[-] Travel To
    [ ] Africa
    [-] Asia
        [ ] China
        [ ] Hong Kong
        [X] Japan
        [X] Thailand
        [-] Philippines
            [X] Baguio City
            [X] Cebu
            [X] Mindoro
            [X] Tagaytay
            [ ] Mindanao
    [ ] Australia
    [-] Europe
        [ ] France
        [ ] Germany
        [ ] Italy
        [ ] Spain
        [ ] UK
    [ ] Middle East
    [-] North America
        [ ] United States
            [X] Florida
            [ ] Hawaii
            [X] Illinois
            [X] Michigan
            [X] New York
            [X] New Jersey
            [X] Pennsylvania
            [X] Texas
            [X] Washington
        [X] Canada
            [X] British Columbia
            [X] Alberta
            [X] Saskatchewan
            [X] Manitoba
            [X] Quebec
            [X] New Brunswick
            [X] Prince Edward Island
            [X] Nova Scotia
            [ ] Newfoundland
        [ ] Mexico
    [-] South/Central America
        [ ] Argentina
        [ ] Caribbean
        [X] Guatemala