Chris Tomlin - In The Secret

home sweet home

What else can I say...
I'm home and loving every minute of it :D

...money...money...money...

The world circles around the concept of MONEY!
Without money, whatever currency, we can't go far...
In all parts of the world types of currency are needed
to live. There are different exchange rates, tax percentages.
But all around the world, everything involves money.

There's nations with high debts, and there are people whose
debt is continually increasing.Others have a current debt
but are working stinking hard to get rid of it. I on the other
hand seem to be increasing my debt. I have never been in
debt before, but now since I'm in university I have huge loans.

The thought of having the crazy amount of debt I have right
now is terrifying. The thought of it increasing every year,
from now on until I graduate scares me even more.
And the thought that from now on I will live on an extremely
low budget, and try to live stewardly seems impossible.

Currently I'm enrolled in a private university. It is an amazing
university and I have thoroughly enjoyed my first semester
there. The first semester is now done, and I am thankful for the
growth and the new experiences of the past semester. Plus
all the blessings I have received.

But the amount owing first of all to the school is terrifying.
With that an ever increasing amount of debt. It all involves
money, money that I don't have..
I have been taught to trust the Lord, and to find His will
in all things. I have experience that trust and faith really works.

However, that does not make it easy. I am home for the
break right now, and it is so nice to be home right now. It
is also tempting to withdraw from Redeemer, and go to a
university closer to home, with less tuition awaiting, and
not going as deep into debt.

To find God's will, to trust His plan and purpose for me
is something I will be searching for, and have been.
To trust in Jehovah Jireh, my provider!
For now and forever more!

Math is hard

I found this article online.. and boy does it fit me well, especially the highlighted part. 

(PS--When I arrived at Redeemer I got a note in my mail from the registrar that I had to take another math course in order to be able to enroll into the Ed program.. O NO!! I was devastated, thought I was done HARD math forever... Thankfully I got out of it, and don't have to worry about doing more math :) )

Math is hard

Emily writes about why math is going to get a lot harder for your kids

As you may have already heard, there’s a debate raging on about how math should be taught in schools.

According to Thursday’s Globe and Mail article, the multiplication table is out and strategic problem solving is taking its place.

Yes, you read that right; apparently kids don’t need to learn the basics of adding and subtracting, but they’ll know how to approach it with “strategy.”

Although I’m a word girl through-and-through, there was a time, back in elementary school and part of high school, when I actually really liked math. As a chronic over-thinker, I was always asking, “why?” So for me, math was a break from words and arguments and paragraph structure and research. It was a series of formulas that, if executed properly, would result in the correct answer. The only correct answer.

My over-active mind found comfort in the straightforward formulas of algebra and addition, like one giant puzzle to solve. It wasn’t until the introduction of graphing calculators that my hatred of math started.

It’s no surprise that this change in my attitude towards math coincided with the introduction of strategy. If we’re starting our kids on the word-oriented strategies of math and digging into the “why” rather than the “how much” of math, we’re basically moving backwards.

As the Globe and Mail article states, cutting out the multiplication tables is like “playing the piano without ever learning scales, or hockey without basic drills."

Needless to say, math is about the numbers. And that’s the way it should stay.

What do you think about the way math is being taught these days?

Photo by O.Taillon via Flickr

time zone

Boy I just realized that I was still living yesterday according to the blogpost, that is I was three timezones behind... So I fixed it.. Also I know live in Ontario and am in the Toronto Eastern Time Zone :D Yay! Life changes... gotta go along with it.. ;)

OH HAPPY DAY

(ACC - African Children's Choir singing the song OH HAPPY DAY...) 


Well when it's 2am and you're studying for an exam that is at 9am... Really it is NOT a happy day!


But OH HAPPY DAY....! I GET TO FLY HOME TODAY... :)


(My ticket is printed, I will have 3+ hours to spare between exam and drive to the airport so that is when I will pack, and must write an exam and sleep before I go. Can I just say it one more time?! OH HAPPY DAY)

happy

I am in love with colour. 

They make me so very happy.

Praise the Creator for making life colourful!

bless....

Goodness, I am so blessed!!!


What else can I say?


I thought it was a verse in the Bible, but cannot find it. I know though that I must count my blessings, and be truly thankful for them. O boy I forget that ALL the time. Sure I know that I'm blessed, that I have food and clothes an education and so many more, but I forget the 'little' blessings of tap water and eyelashes, or 'big' blessings like friends and good conversations. How in the world do we start counting our blessings, where to begin? Just looking around the room there are so many things I could list, and there are so many things I would miss (aka not consider blessing because it is so normal and I always take for granted.)


In less than four months of living in Ontario so many things I have changed. I met so many amazing people and made good friends. I feel like I've changed, grown in so many ways. I realize different things now, think about different things and am aiming to become more rational, and think more philosophical perhaps, so that I would love the truth more and not just think basic thoughts, but think deeper, because so many things I think are so very shallow. It's a blessing to be here and to be challenged by others to be more rational and to think deeper.
It's a blessing to be here and to learn so many new things and realize different things...


Just a few days from now I will be going home for the first time since the end of August. It will be a week from 4 months, and it has been long. The 'four' months have flown by, and I look back on for blessed months. Times of growth, although it has been long, I'd initially thought I'd feel more homesick. I feel blessed that I haven't been homesick at all, because it would have made it so much longer. Yes I am pumped to go home, it will be a blessing, but I am so blessed here too, more blessed than I would ever had imagined!!


Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!

The Darkling Thrush

The Darkling Thrush

~ Thomas Hardy ~

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had saught their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Has chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware

Draw me...

It's December.. December 4.

16 days till I go home.. only a matter of hours from now. Yes I know, I did calculate the hours until I will be back in Alberta. It's silly. I feel like a child. But really it makes it seem like its going faster.. Ill tell you why. We started this afternoon at 5pm. It was 411.5 hrs then. Now its 1235am. So 7.5 hr later, so that is 404 hours. Time seems to fly now..

Yet I'm very far away from home. I felt that very much so today. And it was tough. I haven't felt that so much yet. But now, that it is only weeks away until I go home it seems to seem so far, so long from now. It really isn't I know and maybe I'm just being silly.

I found that in these last days I was again, and again, looking to me. Looking at what I have to do, what I have to take care of, what I have to get done, what I should change, what I... what I... what I...
O goody, I have the wrong focus again and again. I'm focusing on me way TOO MUCH!
So often I find myself looking for answers from myself, instead of looking to God, and failing. I fail to find answers here, with me. Stupid! When will I learn. Every single time I realize that I want to just punch myself. I then remember that I cannot do this on my own. I must try my hardest though.

But the God of love, who loves me!, wants to be there for me, and wants to be #1, in my life, also for the answers. Who am I to be so stupid and to ignore that and to again and again put myself in first place! IDIOT!

O goody, will I ever learn, or will I just keep making the same silly mistake over and over and over and over again?

Draw me close to You, never let me go!