Did you know...

So all these people are making all these posts in facebook notes about writing 20 things you might not know, and tagging 20 people or whatever then you have to write it and I would like to announce I am not going to do that. However I will add a new part of my blog where at the end I will write a little fact that people might not know, but I will save that for the end.

I am pretty happy with volleyball so far hopefully tomorrow we can continue in our winning ways against Red River, should be a good game, hopefully you can all make it out. Red River College at 7. Also the home crowd was good times the other day, I like the missing of quite a few serves in the third set when CMU decided to play with the crowd but then ended up missing their serves anyways, they stopped bouncing the ball more after that.

And for the fact you might not know. I would rather park far away somewhere and walk then wait forever for the closest spot in the parking lot. Like I will drive by the close spots first just in case it turns up, but if it's not there I am just parking far away and walking, it is usually faster anyways that way. However if the temperature is below minus 40 that fact does not apply. Because who wants to walk far when it's below minus 40. No one is the right answer.

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

So after the last post that I wrote and other people prompted me to think about what I am doing I tried to decide if I should write a post back for everyone about what I am doing or trying to do in response to the readings, but I didn't think that was the best idea. But after thinking about what other people wrote and what I am doing I came to the answer "Not Enough". I think that a lot of other people often come to that same response when they have an idea and people call them out on it. But I am trying not to use that as an excuse but as a motivation.

On another note but somewhat similar I was chatting with someone and they came to the conclusion that unless you are fully living what you think you should not be telling other people about it. But then nothing would happen and no one would be sharing any of their ideas, no matter what ideas or principles we are trying to live by we are never fully living up to them. Anyways, I feel like I didn't word that properly, but hopefully ya'll get what I mean.

Also a few of you may have remembered a while back that I said I was opening the floor for other people to give me subject ideas or stories to write, and there was only one entry, so you know who you are and you won! And they suggested I write about walking in a crowded hallway. I am sure this is something we can all relate to, imagine this scenario...

Your walking in a crowded hallway and you can see a small path towards exactly where you need to be, so you start on this tough trek. A few steps in you see someone else coming the other way, also using the only path towards their exit from the crowd. They are completely unavoidable but you need to use this path, finally you get to each other and it is the awkward "Oh dear which way are you gonna step," situation. Of course no one says anything to the other because that would just make the situation more weird. You both step to the same side, still blocked, and the side step the other way, this continues to happen for perhaps even five steps, finally someone allows the other to go past and somehow you still bump shoulders. You utter to yourself "That was awkward," but they heard you, making the situation even worse.

Congratulations to the winner/only contestant, maybe next time I have a contest there will be a prize better then you get your thoughts posted. Also feel free to present yourself however you feel led.

PS: I would like to hope that if I wrote a blog about child labour being a good thing, that I would get as many replies as I did when I wrote about animal rights being ridiculous. Unfortunately I doubt that would be the case. I don't think child labour is a good thing by the way.

Reading

Today I was reading Irresistible Revolution again, and there were two paragraphs that specifically stuck out to me, I just felt like posting them in here:

Not long ago, a few friends and i were talking with some very wealthy executives about what it means to be the church and to follow Jesus. One businessman confided, "I too have been thinking about following Christ and what that means, so I had this made." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a bracelet engraved with WWJD. It was custom-made of twenty-four karat gold. Maybe each of us can relate to this man - bound up in the materialism of our culture, his distorted execution of that desire.

It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don't feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organization and never have to open up our homes, our beds, our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will be separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me," or "When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me." Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: "you fed me... you visited me in prison... you welcomed me into your home... you clothed me."

Again neither of these are my thoughts they are just thoughts I agree with. Gotta love Shane Claiborne.

Animal Activists

So I was thinking the other day in Psych as we constantly talked about animals and communication. Why is it that I hate animals so much? And then I started to think about it for a while. Really it is not that I hate animals I just think it is absolutely ridiculous to treat animals as if they are humans. And seriously this whole animals rights thing is a load of garbage. Seriously who cares about how they kill the chickens that KFC uses in their meals, or how the pig was killed to get the bacon, or how old animals are when they are used for what they are meant for, which is to eat as food.

But the thing that I realized I most don't like about animals activists, is that it seems they are more into animal rights then they are into human rights. Which makes absolutely no sense at all. I mean I don't care how much you love your dog it should not be nearly as valuable to you as your friends or family. People who say their dog listens to them... sure... but does it answer back to you (if your answer is yes to that question... I don't know what to say to you). Also last comment on animal rights is that, I think your priorities are messed up, human rights first then we can get to the other stuff. I mean people were made in God's image not animals.

So this is fun, a fellow blogger of mine just used this idea the other day and I am going to steal it quickly, I believe we have different readers so hopefully not many people will find out about this.

But I am going to invite you the reader to become a guest blogger. Tell us something funny that happened to you lately, or something you have been thinking of, or really anything you want send to me and I can publicize it for you. And so you don't feel like a big loser because you are in a blog I could even leave your name left as Anonymous. So please email me your potential blog posts to ryanmalech@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

The Glass

"The glass is neither half full nor half empty, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."

Sociology

So I realized today that Sociology is going to give me lots to blog about probably, and today my prof said something that I have been trying to put into words but have never been able to say it properly. So somehow we got onto the topic of people having money, and how a CEO will make more money then other workers below them and potentially are doing less. And then it somehow got us to the topic of offering and them having money to give for God's work. While talking about offering my prof says, "Unfortunately a lot of people think once they have put their money in the plate their job is done." And that is exactly my thoughts on offering, good to give, but I would say better to do something.

Also I realized today in class how funny all people are, I mean including myself in this, whenever I make generalizations I try to include myself in the generalization because obviously I need to change as well. But out prof is talking about stats and numbers and stuff and how if we put all the money we put into pet care into feeding people without food there is enough money for everyone in the world to eat. And other stats about how North America uses however many percent of the worlds resources, and has the majority of the wealth. And people hear this and they are in disbelief of this "American" culture of greed and how much we could change. Seriously when they say stats about America chances are we are in the same boat after all we are pretty much "Northern America". However people hear this and think I can not believe people. Well surprise for you, You and me we are those people. So I think before we go preaching this stuff to motivate people how they are being greedy and need to reevaluate we should just start at ourselves, because we can only change ourselves. Like my dad says when I talk about weighing a few too many pounds, "There is only one person that can change that"

On another note when people talk about their job and they laugh and say "But obviously I am not here for the money." Trying to imply they don't make as much as they should in a light-hearted way, they probably are there for the money. However if they say it seriously, then they probably speak the truth.

Prov

So yesterday was my first day at Providence College, and what a day it was. First of all it was weird being in a big class with 40 people, when my other two big classes were 80-90 people at U of W, which I know is still not a big class compared to some U of M classes. Anyways they were quite small with a pretty big room with twice as many seats as students. And I think the profs will be alright, although my first prof seemed as if she had never talked in front of people and my second prof is kind of a feminist. Should be interesting, but I am really looking forward to sociology, it sounds like a sweet course.

Also Volleyball game tonight at CMU at 7! So pumped to finally play in a game.

Explosion

So lately I have noticed a large explosion on my counter, I am not sure if that is the same people constantly checking if I have updated or if there are actually that many people reading my blog, either way it's cool. Also I like it when people make comments, however I like it more when people reveal their identity when they leave comments. So if you feel led to leave your name, feel free to do so. Or don't.

Another explosion I would like to talk about would the the Team Canada Junior Hockey Team and how good they are all the time, I mean seriously going for five gold medals in a row, always with different players and coaches that is ridiculous. So hopefully Monday they will pull out the win for the gold.

I would also like to take this time to announce that I will be cheering for Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl, I had already decided this before they won today, but just so there isn't people who are like you bandwagon jumper if they win or something. I'm not I am still a Cowboys fan through the good times and bad, but I need a team for the playoffs or else I would just be depressed while watching.

New Years

So this is a bit late, and I know everyone always expects that on January 1 or 2 that you blog about the past year in review, and talk about the good the bad and the ugly. But I am not doing that because everyone always writes the same thing. That you learned a lot but didn't regret a moment of it, you made new friends lost old ones.... blah blah blah. And the occasional person has found love... strange they found love last year with some one else, and low and behold that person has made them a better person. Anyways I could write that for next year now already. Obviously no one cares to read anything you write when it is like a three page essay, but I hope that in our years in review we could be a bit less vague and predictable.

But that is not what I wanted to blog about, I just wanted to write about how I feel like New Years Eve is always so anti-climactic. I don't know about all the rest of you but I feel like we all count down to midnight, and then the clock strikes twelve and... your still there. I feel like when I hit zero that I should magically be wearing new clothes, or have teleported to a new room or something. But no we are all still there in the same place. Maybe I don't fully understand what I am looking forward to for New Years, if anyone can tell me a way for new years not to be anti-climactic let me know. Thanks.