Yes that’s right. I have never failed a class in my life.. until now. That class, was Politics and Transformation in the Asia Pacific (POL215). What really sucks is that it was just an elective. I didn’t need to take it… but then again, at the same time, it was space filler. I *only* took it cause I didn’t couldn’t get into the ones I wanted.

Anyway, today I got the last of my marks back. It was the crucial mark too… and I passed! It was History of Modern Espionage, which as I explained in my previous post, if the last history class I will have to take if I passed it.

My GPA dropped almost 0.5, which really sucks. But I’m still in the safe zone to get in to Graduate School if I wanted… amazingly, despite a failure… Though I really would like to raise it up a little bit (at least back to what it was before), and not rely completely on my writing ability to get myself into Grad School, if I needed to go…

Bleh.

Anyway, I don’t want to say it’s clear sailing from now on.. though at this moment in time it really feels that way. Ah well…

So everyone in Canada knows the story about Brenda Martin. Omg I’ve heard it so much that I know it off by heart… 51 years old. Chef for some nab wannabe rich guy who bilked some people outa millions of dollars… got fired… got 25k severance. reinvested some of the severance in to the nab guy’s company. got caught in mexico. In jail for over 2 years waiting trial.

Ok so obviously something went wrong here. There’s no reason for her to be in jail without a trial and such for so long… The Mexicans really screwed it up here… And on that note, probably the Canadian government if it took 2 years for this to come to light. Anyway. the thing is, I heard so much about it, I actually started getting annoyed everytime i heard about it..

And then… and people will be really pissed off with me about this… she get’s convicted of the crime.. And I was like LOL! Hahahaha. I dunno.. I just felt it was really fitting for how much her story was publicized here in Canada… Ok yeah, lemme have it… stone me… But wait.. here’s my beef… Now that she *has* been convicted, and has been returned to Canada under some prisoner exchange… I hear now that she still has to spend a few months in jail…

And I’m thinking… hmm… that doesn’t seem right… First of all… her sentence in Mexico was for 5 years… which should be alot less here in Canada. I mean comon.. we have frigging child molesters who get shorter sentences than that. On top of that… She’s been in pre-trial confinement (technically) for more than 2 years… The rule in Canda is that pre-trial confinement counts for 2-1 ratio towards the sentence.. Meaning, she should get credit for 4 and a half years or for her sentence… Ok so that means she *does* have a few months left in her sentence… But then… There’s the whole parole deal. Obviously she would have qualified for parole by now in a similar circumstance in Canada… and given the circumstances… what, that she didn’t kill anyone and all, most likely she would have been paroled… (I think, but not sure… that parole is 2/3 of the sentence… which would have meant she should have been paroled at 3.5 years… meaning… with the pretrial confinement thing, she shouldn’t be in jail at all!

Phew… Anyway. all that to say that… omg enough with Brenda Martin, I’m sick of hearing about her… But before she fades off into history… why the frig is she still in jail???

Well I’m really down to the final stretch. 30 minutes from now is my first exam of the day… it will be followed by a marathon studying session until my next exam later this evening. Ahh. I’ve pumped one double shot espresso already… I plan to do another sometime this afternoon. Hahaha. Oh man, 12 hours from now and I’m free!

I’m entering hour 13 of this all-day studying marathon. And I have yet to make it through half of the material I needed to read… And tomorrow, I’ll only about half the time to study… and I’ll be quite sleep deprived at that too…

But whatever, that’s just the way it is, I guess… I actually can’t believe the drive I have now to study… makes me think that I really can do it… I can handle school still. But then again, for this class I am going on some pretty serious motivation.. I need to pass this class so that the History portion of my degree will be done with! Ahahaha. Passing this class means, no more history classes ever again! And what a way to end it with as awesome a class as History of Modern Espionage…

Anyway, I am reading through an article about the history of Signals Intelligence in World War II… which is what I wrote my First Term Research Paper on… And what do I come across? This: The solution after Pearl Harbor of Japanese naval codes engendered three critical American victories: the battle of Midway, the midair assasination of Japan’s leading strategist and architecture of Pearl Harbor attack, admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and the strangling of the island empire through the sinking of its merchant marine… What’s the significance of this? Well the thing is I’d never read this article until today… yet the evidence I used in that research paper were exactly those three! Well almost those three at least…

And I quote from my paper…

“This paper will explore the impact of the use of intelligence derived from decrypted Japanese Naval codes, also known as “Ultra”, on the war in the Pacific. Through an analysis of the assassination of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the naval battle at Guadalcanal, and the destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet (the marus), it will be shown that Ultra was quite a significant factor in the defeat of Japan. While it is not necessarily the absolute cause, it certainly was essential to the victory of the United States over Japan in the Second World War.”

The only difference, the Battle of Guadalcanal… but then again, when I was using that example, I of course had to deal with the Battle of Midway too… So it’s pretty much the same three. Hahaha.

Anyway. I just thought that was really cool… Bleh. Back to studying…

Well. I’ve been doing alot of contemplation recently. And I’ve finally come to a decision about my school stuff…

First of all, I’ve switched Majors, yet again… Well not so much switched majors… I played around with it. My program, an Honours Bachelor of Art requires one of the following combinations… Either 1 Specialist. 2 Majors. 1 Major and 2 Minors. Or 4 Minors.

Up until now I’ve been signed up for 2 Majors: History and Political Science. Not anymore. I’ve realized that I really really hate history. So I’ve switched it to a minor. If I hadn’t done so many history classes last year, I would have gotten rid of it altogether. But, if I pass HIS343 this year, I won’t have to take anymore! I have the 4 credits (American History, Canadian History, Pre-Modern America, and hopefully… History of Modern Espionage) required for a minor. That means I can concentrate on the Political Science courses that I want to take, and in building up my requirements for the new minor I’ve added… Christianity and Culture.

Phew. Having figured all of that out, I’m now ready to take the next two years on… Haha, yes I said 2 years. There’s no way I can graduate after next year only. So what I’ve decided to do is take 3 credits next year, bringing me to 15 credits (since I’m hopefully gonna finish with 12 credits this year…) which sets me up for a full, but manageable 5-credit load for next year. Expected graduation… May 2010. Ahahahahaha.

Whatever… I also do plan to work (as in, paid work) my butt off this year.

Anyway. Here then are the courses I plan to take next year…

• POL214 – Canadian Politics (Requirement for Political Science Majors… I’ve just been putting it off until this year)
• SMC203 – Christianity Encounters the Secular World (Entrance requirement into the Christianity and Culture Program)
• POL320 – Modern Political Thought (cause I enjoyed Political Theory so much this year… hahaha, *eye roll*)

This sets me up for only 2 days of classes next year… Looks like on Mondays, I will be in school from about 9AM to 12Noon. And Wednesdays, from about 1PM to 4 or 5PM. Which means I will do my piano teaching next year on Wednesdays. And then work on every other day/evening.

FUUUNNNN…. Looking forward to it! Yeahyah…

PS: For those who don’t know… I graduated from High School in 2003… But then I was in Bible School (not Bible College where you earn a degree or become a pastor…) for 2 years. So I started University in 2005. Which means I will be completing a 4-year program in 5 years… Not 7 years.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot… What does it really mean to love others? And how should it affect how we evangelize.

Frankly, I don’t believe that we are to “constantly” be evangelizing.. At least evangelizing in the way that Christians understand what evangelizing means… That is to be preaching the gospel… with words, I suppose… as in… Handing out tracts… Street evangelism… Etc.

Bleh.. I’m not really in the mood to write right now. So I’m just going to cut and paste my response to a comment that someone left on my YouTube page…

First his comment… (Which is actually a response to a comment i made to him, which was a response to a comment he made on one of my videos… I said something like.. Praise the Lord that we live in a country where we have the freedom to do as we please.. kind of thing)…

“Hi there, yeah, well we are free to believe or not to believe in anything we like and wish.that’s for sure.But you know, sometimes, when I switch through all the videos with even the remotest and closest jesus connection on youtube, then i sometimes wonder, what you guys really want.To share your experiences with your beliefe, or do you just want to evangelize us?? I mean, faith is a thing of education and upbringing, if you are being told a thing every day your life, then someday youre gonna believe in it for sure…Faith for me is nothing but a bad custom….Nevertheless, be peace with you, Fabian”

So here is my response to him…
***
Christians have this thing.. a guiding principle I suppose… called the “Great Commission”. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It basically says to “preach the gospel through all the world, and make disciples”.. ie… to evangelize.

I have a problem with this though. What most Christians have turned this principle in to is not so much *a* guiding principle, but *the* guiding principle. As if the only thing all Christians are supposed to do is evangelize… Which I suppose is why you feel like all Christians are doing is try to convert people.

Here what I believe. The “Great Commission” is not the great commission.. it is one of Jesus’ commandments to his followers… as in, it’s one of the things we are suppsosed to do.

So first of all, I don’t believe in no evangelism at all. It’s required of us to share the gospel… The question is when.

I take my cue on this from the true great commission… Jesus’ greatest commandment.. That is, to 1. to Love God… and closely related… 2. to Love our neighbours as you love yourself.

What this tells me, is that sometimes in order to love others… the very thing you’re supposed to do is to let them be… to *not* constantly berate them with the Gospel.. This is why I always try to preach to all the Christians I know.. love first.. not the Gospel…
***

Maybe I’ll elaborate on this a little more.. if I feel like it. But right now… eh.

Sometime yesterday, I went over 200,000 hits in YouTube. Yeah! Thank to all my viewers, especially subscribers!

If this trend continues, I’ll hit 500,000 by the end of the year. But of course, I have much more videos to upload, which could actually mean much more hits! We’ll see how it goes!

Well I had fun these past two weeks with the Capernwray team.. But I’m glad it’s over. I’m looking forward to two days of vacation, then back to another craziness… exams. When I’m done that, then I’m home free, horah!

Fun… Eh.. more to come later.

Ok. I know that it’s not going to seem as good a prediction now that most people are saying so already… but the fact though is that I’d already predicted long ago that Obama would beat Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. I’ve been saying it since even before the primaries began, but yeah, have only now posted about it.

Before I tell why, let me reiterate. I’m Canadian. And Canadians by definition aren’t bigots. More than that, I’m a visual minority… So anything I say here… that may seem… I dunno racist, or sexist or whatever, should not be seen as that. But as the simplest way I could explain why I think… based on the history of the United States, basically, I believe a black man will become president before a woman.

Let me start off by saying that it’s obvious that both candidates are highly qualified for the job. Barack Obama is one of the most inspirational presidents since JFK. And Hillary Clinton is just… experienced. 35 years? By the way I share a birthday with her… October 26.

Honestly, based on their qualifications, it would be… it should be… difficult to choose between the two. This is why I turned to this form of analyisis, basically looking at the way history has unfolded… and clearly, in history, the race equality movement began before the gender equality movement… In 1870, the 15th Ammendment (to the US Constitution) guaranteed blacks and other minority *men* were guaranteed suffrage (the right to vote) while it was’nt until the 19th Ammendment ub 1920 when women were given the same suffrage. That’s a 50-year difference – so it’s just fitting that a black man would become president before a woman…

Let me explain why I believe this too… Basically, I believe that the plight of minorities become a concern to the public based on how they were treated. Blacks were obviously severely mistreated in the United States because of slavery. And so their situation came to public view much sooner… in fact a war was fought on the subject of slavery… On the other hand, women, while disrespected were not as severely mistreated like blacks.

This is seen further in when the civil rights movement occured vs. when the women’s liberation movement occured… Again a decade or two between the two…

Bah I gotta run. I’m gonna continue this some other time…