Craft Time

Several people have thought that I was joking when I said that I can do crafts, and so I thought I would post a few pictures here as to what I actually CAN do. Now none of these pictures have me in them actually performing the craft. So Iguess you will have to just take my word for it. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

This is a piece by piece put together of a tissue box. I finally got the idea that I better do this so that I can see it coming together. This is kind of cute...

Updates & Things

I know that it has been a while and no one really reads this. It usually just ends up being me venting about something. I did learn from a relative that they wanted to have an update and possible see more pictures. I thought I would take this chance, now that I am so sick and on spring break, to update a few things and maybe post a few pictures.

I am still teaching during the 08-09 schol year here in South Korea at Seoul International School. It is a complete English speaking only school. I have learned quite a bit of Korean, however by no means fluent. I am the Aquatics Director and spend my days teaching swimming to students who have no idea how to swim, some of thoe are high school students. Our school has about 1,600 students and over 100 teachers. It is a large school to say the least. My pool is four floors in the basement and on MOST days I don't get to see the sun. I am at school by about 6:00 and after practice I go home just after 6:00. I know that I haven't mentioned a team that I coach, that is because I have coached all year long. In the fall I coached junior varsity boys volleyball, during the winter I coached middle school swimming, and now I am coaching varsity swimming.

Love Life: I am now dating a wonderful woman who lives back in the states. You can say that I sort of met her online. Several years ago when I lived in the states, I was good friends with a guy by the name of Dave Sampson (still am by the way) I ran into he and his wife a couple of times at our local Target. He was walking through with his wife Jenny and her sister Laura. I had known most of them from Mid America Nazarene University. Fast forward to the end of this summer. Just as I arrived here in South Korea, I got a friend request from Laura and we hit things off from there. She came and visited me in Korea, and then for the first time since I left to teach over seas, I got to go home for Christmas. I got to visit my folks and her folks. It was a great time and since then we have still been together. It is hard and there are times where I wish that I didn't teach over seas, but she is awesome and we are finding ways to make it work.

Personal Life: There is none. I am at school 6 days a week for 12+ hours a day. I get home and usually do some reading or crafts maybe a little tv or video games, but I am in bed and asleep by 8:30-9:30. Just call me Party Animal. I do get to play sports when I am not just beyond tired, but I go out on Fridays and Sunday afternoons to play a little ultimate frisbee. On Thursday night I try and get out and play a little basketball.

Work Life: That is all that it seems to be right now. Just read above.

Spiritual Life: I have tried several churches around Seoul, however most of them are not in English. I was also kicked out of the one that I really liked and haven't been back since. Okay pick your jaw up off the floor. It was just before christmas and I had been enjoying this church from the basement or 'overflow' room. I had met a bunch of people and really enjoyed it down there. On said Sunday, a person came down and told me to leave, that they were closing the 'overflow' room. I told them that there were a bunch of people that were going to be there and that we enjoyed each others company, didn't seem to matter. I was ushered upstairs and just kept going. I now watch College Church online, and do my daily devotions in the morning at my desk at school.

American Values???

Many of you that have read my entries before have understood that I am a strong conservative Christian. I believe 100% in the bible and what it says should be the rules we as humans follow. We alread do for the most part and that is what is so funny. Peopl want to take the 10 commandments off places like government buildings and court rooms. Think about it...Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal...these are in our laws NOW...even if you just thought they were a nice guideline, makes sense to post them.

Now I get to my main topic of discussion. Today in California, a democratic blue state, voted that the definition of a marriage should be ONE man and ONE woman. This is the greatest victory California has voted on in a long time. Very quickly let me point out that I am NOT a gay basher, nor am I a homosexual. I have several friends that are gay and I love them just as much as everyone else. The Lord has commanded us to LOVE the sinner but HATE the sin. I sin, I have trouble with a lot of things, but God still loves me. Since I believe in the bible, I too believe that a marriage is between ONE man and ONE woman. Without turning to the bible on this subject, let's for a second take a look at the world if we instead of doing whatever we wanted actually did what the bible says...beliving in it or not. I would marry one woman, never divorce, never have sex with anyone other that HER. If the worlds followed this guideline, guess what. NO AIDS, no other sexually transmitted problems. Smoking kills so we put warning lables on cigaretts, alcohol has warning lables, when is the world going to understand that sexually transmitted diseases are killing more than smoking and alcohol combined.

Whether you agree with me or not about homosexuality, the problems that sex itself brings to this world is enough for people to open their eyes and look at the world around them and say enough is enough. ONE death in Iraq is too many...have many need to die from this before people finally take notice?

Death totals... Smoking: 5,400,000 world wide in 2004. This year in the U.S. 438,000 and 1,200 a day...PER DAY die from smoking of some kind.

Iraq war death totals: 4,119 as of Nov. 6th 2008. Over seven years. That is 1.6 per day.
Drunk Driving deaths: 17,941 in the U.S.in 2006 alone. That is 49 per day.
Murder deaths: 520,000 world wide in 2000. That is 1,425 per day.
Suicides: 1,000,000 annually. That is 2,740 per day.
Smoking: 5,400,000 in 2004 World wide. That is 14,794 per day.
Aids: 2,100,000 annually. That is 5,753 PER DAY.

ALL of these deaths are preventable...ALL of them. But yet we allow people like the ACLU tell us that what ever feels good, just don't tell me I can't do it, because that is not fair. We have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I think that we take these too lightly. OR we paint them with too broad a brush.

Driving while drunk is wrong. There is NO way to see that differently. We know it and are taking measure to prevent it, Designated Drivers. Smoking now has warning lables everywhere. Suicide has help lines and people to talk to and even drugs for that are getting better. The war, good or bad right or wrong, the world is a safer place without Sudam Hussein...FACT. But we will leave and then there will be no more death due to the war. But then we come to Aids. Yes it can be spread many ways. Blood transfusion, needles, blood to blood, and through Sex. But lets not deny the facts. Aids is greatest among homosexuals. So what do we do to prevent Aids...we hand out condoms. wrong. that is a myth condoms will NOT prevent against aids. Educataion??? False the trend lately is to stop teaching children abstinence and start teaching condoms and other things to stop pregnancy. Sorry those things will NOT save you from contracting Aids. Won't happen. We need a new direction, we need a new thought process, we need people in this world that aren't afraid to stand up and state the facts and what it will take to bring us back to a place where our world doesn't have to suffer from those things anymore. Who will that be?

Be blessed...and be a blessing.

Election Results

Well here we are...the wrong guy for the president was chosen and my heart is sinking. However I do want this not to be about him being elected, but why I didn't vote.

I have heard several people tell me that they didn't vote and for LOTS of different reasons. I am very curious myself as to the actual system in America. Most will tell you that EVERY vote counts. Well that can't be farther from the truth. If that was the case Al Gore should have been president the firt time. He won the popular vote, meaning more people voted for him than George W. Bush. So show me in that case where every vote counts. Secondly I have heard people that say, "Well, I just voted for the lesser of two evils." I understand what they mean but let's go back just a little bit in that statement...What you are telling me is that you voted for "evil"? Okay yeah THAT makes sense. I personally have gone with the approach that no where in the bible does it tell me to vote. It talkes about supporting the government, and some take that to mean that it is then your duty to vote because our government is saying vote. Well let's go a step beyond that. The government also tells me that abortion is legal and evolution should be taught in schools. I disagree with BOTH of them, but I should go ahead and agree with them because my "government" told me to??? You can't pick and choose.

Now that we have a new president, I will pray for him and support him, but I do NOT agree with a lot of the things that he is trying to do. "Joe the plumber" was my turning point. To take MORE money from hard working Americans and give it to people not working, what is this going to create? Laziness. Why would I want to work harder only to have more of my money taken from me, when I could stay at home, not do anything and I'll still be okay??? How does this make sense? The other point that struck me as funny was that of experience. When I took my current job I had to have so many years of international teaching, followed by so many years of teaching in general. I went through interview after interview, and I know that my job was not the toughest one to get into...ALL of this just to be an Aquatics Director at a large school in Korea. We now have a president who has been in the senate for 2 years. His own voting record showed that he didn't vote FOR anything, he only voted as present. 116 times he voted 'present'. Didn't want to take a stand on anything? Sent his assistant? What? Could you go to your place of work just sit down not do ANYTHING and get away with saying, "Well, I was present."

We as Americans have I believe a tough road ahead, but it is going to get worse if we do not come together as a nation, accept the hand we were dealt and move on fighting TOGETHER. I will be supporting and praying for both our newly formed government AND the direction in which we are going. Who will join me?

Be blessed and be a blessing.

Wow has it been a long time or what

For anyone still reading this or checking up on it, I thought I better explain a few things that have happened since the last time I wrote.

1.) I am no longer in Sudan, and therefore can update and post things more freely now that I am out of that country. I loved most of the things about being there. I loved the people, and I loved the culture. But the school was another story. I will not bad mouth the school in which I taught, but needless to say, I am glad that I am out of there.

2.) This is a tougher one to figure out. Starting maybe Nov. of 2007 I was tlaking to Grace and she mentioned that instead of doing what we had planned, she would now be staying in Korea without an end in sight. I flew out to see her for a couple of days in December, and left on good terms, however, things just seemed to be estranged. We continued dating until the point where I headed home for the summer. (explain the summer comment in #3) I didn't hear from her for a while and then I got an e-mail stating that we were not as close and heading in different directions. So therefore we have broken up.

3.) About the time I flew out to Korea, I realized that I could stay in Sudan no longer, so therefore I started looking for a job back in Korea. I knew several schools having been the athletic director here for four years, so I had scheduled a couple of interviews for my Christmas break in Korea. However none of the panned out, so I headed back to Sudan still looking. I looked into Peru, China, Japan and a few other places before getting an e-mail from a lady I worked with at a huge school in Seoul. She toled me that there wasn't an athletic directors position open at her school, but they needed an Aquatics Director. So after a couple of days of talking to my director in Sudan and a few friends, I took the position. So I am back in Korea. Feels just like home again.

The school that I am teaching at is called Seoul International School, and where my old school here in Korea had at MOST 240 students K-12, this school has 1600 K-12. A bit bigger. I am currently teaching basic swimming lessons to every student at this school in stages of 10 days. I love being here again, and I have a very nice deal. I just finished coaching boys JV volleyball, and will start coaching the middleschool swim team in two weeks. After that I will be coaching the Varsity swim program.

I wanted to just get a few quick words in since I hadn't written in a while. I got out of the habit when in Khartoum, I COULDN'T write...they were blocking me because of the title of my blog. Now that I am out of the country and can write whatever I want, I need to say this...Mohamed is a great guy, but NOT the answer for your salvation. Jesus Christ is the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE...the ONLY way to get to God is through Him.

During the summer I found a few older pictures of me, that I thought would bring a laugh out of some of my faithful readers. Take a look and have a chuckle...

Me at 9 months

My sister Kim and I (maybe 4 years old)
My family (Gordon, Eunice, Me, Kim and baby Renae)

Okay that is it for now...I have a few other funs ones that I'll save for later...

Camping and Pyramids

I just thought that I would share a few pictures of my camping trip to the desert.

I can not say that it was something that I have always drempt of doing since I was a child, however the trip taught me several things about camping. Growing up I never got to go camping. Something that I feel everyone should do at least once. For example I don't have a lot of camping trip equipment here, and so therefore when I was offered this trip I hesitated. I was reassured that I would be okay. I brought the bare minimum since I figured that this was in fact the desert. The 'we' that I am talking about is my friends at Medair. During this year that I have been here I was introduced to this organizaton through the church that I attend. They are a great group of people. In total about 14 people joined in this outing. We met up around 3:00 and drove about an hour and a half into the desert to a few rock mountain formations. We slept out under the stars, most of us, three tents were brought, however they were filled by the ladies. I guess I can rough it for them. All I brought for the sleeping portion was a sheet. I figured that this was the desert right...we got there and it was 110 degrees. But once the sun was out of sight, and the rocks cooled off, the temp dropped rather quickly. I was shivering the entire night. I didn't think that I would get a lot of sleep since I'm not good in new beds.

We woke up early, got something to nibble on and then drove off from our camping site at 9:00. We drove a little over two hours farther into the desert to see the pyramids that are here in Sudan. Now this is Africa and Egypt is also a part of Africa. The pyramids that are in Egypt are huge and hundreds of times bigger than the ones that are here in Sudan. However, there are dozens and dozens of pyramids here, but they are much much smaller. We only got to stay there for about an hour. Several of us needed to get back to Khartoum to be apart of the youth group that take place every Saturday at 5:00. So we needed to leave close to 1:00 to make it back in time to attend the youth group.

Enjoy the pictures, let me know what you think. I'll tell another story here and there about the trip and the healing that is still taking place on both of my ankles.

My old expression to finish a blog used to be peace out...later on, but now I will be changing it to something a dear friend closes hs chats with.

Be blessed and be a blessing.

I hope you like the new layout

For those of you that try and keep this page going by your viewing it, I have changed it up a bit and tried to make things more and more interesting. Some people have not necessarily enjoyed the posts about the vacation...they don't like me commenting on every aspect of the trip, but for me it is very helpful. I don't have the greatest memory and getting things down and reading them helps me to relive some of the greatest moments of my life.

Secondly with being here in Sudan things are just not being posted at a rate that I am happy with. The last post I actually wrote and published last month and I just checked today and noticed that it was finally uploaded. Kind of discourages you from posting when it takes a month to see it get onto the sight and not knowing if it even would be posted or not.

Quickly I'll post some new things that are happening in my life.

I will be leaving Sudan at the end of May. This will meet with several peoples happiness. I have choosen to take another job as a teacher in yet another school. I looked all over Kansas City YET AGAIN, with not even a reply to anything...I also applied to Peru and several other countries. I finally landed at a school I am actually familiar with. I will be returning to Korea and teaching at a school that was in our conference in athletics. The school is called Seoul International School...or SIS for short. I will be making more money than here and I will be ONLY teaching aquatics. I leave here with sadness and happiness as well. I love the students and the churches and bible study that I have been involved with, but I also feel that it is time to finish some things, and one of them is my Student Loan...after only one year of paying close to 1000 bucks a month, I am less than ONE year from paying it all off. That will be a HUGE weight off my shoulder. I will also be back in a land that I am some what familiar with. There will be more rest and more ability to do the things that I want.

I'm going to try and throw a picture in for those that would like to see more from Africa. We had a week here that we called "Sudan Days". We had art, food culture, Nuba wrestling, and that is where this picture comes from. I was not able to attend the wrestling event about two week prior to seeing them at school. There was one man that won every event he entered I heard. His name in English means "bird flu", yeah, yeah I heard all the jokes. Anyway, when he showed up at school all the other teachers were saying how much bigger he was than me. I keep trying to tell people that I am not the tallest person in the world, but they don't want to believe it. As they finished their mock wrestling, all the students wanted me to join in, however with my knee the way it is and my ankle not 100% I felt the best thing in the world was just to sit this one out. The students didn't like it, but it has taken me a long time to actually say no to things. =) So after the wrestling was over I went up to Bird Flu to see who was bigger...I'll let you be the judge of that...

I better close, but I hope that I haven't lost too many readers, I will try and post more now that I know eventually things will get posted. =(

Be blessed, and be a blessing.

SV07 #7

Wednesday came so quickly…I mean it felt as though we had just got here and now we had one day left to have as much fun as we could before heading on to our next destination. Today was going to be a little different than the others. First of all I would be waking up at my leisure. I had a play date with my buddy “Hawk”. This was his nickname from when we both worked at a camp in Simi Valley. My name was Yosemite. We had to choose nature names, but now I am drifting from my story. I had plans to hook up with Hawk at his dads dealership and then from there go to lunch. I really felt bad that I hadn’t gotten a chance to drop in on his mom. She was always so cool. His family was and still is very awesome. I have spent several New Years Eve celebrations with them at Disneyland and I know his sisters fairly well. It has been a joy knowing and growing with this guy since 1995. We’ve been through a lot, and we have lots of stories, but that will be for another time.

Today I woke up and slowly got around to showering and then heading out the door to meet him around 12:00. Once there I got out of the car and gave him a big hug and we just sat there and kept telling stories of what we had been up to the past four years. The last time that I had seen him was during the trip out to Cali to go to my sisters wedding in 2003. It felt really good to catch up. We waited for a little while before his wife and child pulled in. We were all going to go out to lunch together. It was good to see the little woman again. Seeing her was even longer than 2003. I had met her when she also was a counselor at the camp. We piled into his car and then headed for CoCo’s. This is a little restaurant that is kind of like a Denny’s or Perkins. Good food, and lot’s of good conversations. We talked and talked and talked and got caught up on all the happenings going on in their lives. I think I might have had some fish. Hawk had a hamburger and a coke “no ice” he doesn’t like getting ice in his drinks because he thinks that the ice takes up more room. Even at a place with free re-fills, he always gets no ice.

During my lunch date, Grace was spending time with Cheryl and they were doing some serious shopping. I had no ill feelings of this. I mean hey it keeps me out of the line of fire from the shoppers…right fellas?

We finished lunch and I was locked into the booth so that I couldn’t sneak and take the check up to the counter and pay for the meal, so I let Hawk go do it and then I took out some cash and slipped it into their baby’s bag. I figured that even if they didn’t know where it came from, that they could use it to take each other out sometime. Not that I like throwing money around, but I also don’t like feeling like I can’t take care of myself. One of my biggest faults, but that is another story for another day. We drove back to the dealership and I said my good-byes and then took off to meet up with my sweetness.

I met her back at her brothers house and I think Cheryl was napping. I had to hurry, because I knew that Cheryl needed to catch the bus back to San Diego later that afternoon. I wasn’t sure where the bus station was from that point, so we drove around a bit until we found it. We were fairly early and so we went a couple blocks away to a shopping center and went to Costco so that Grace and Cheryl could do a few last minute shopping adventures. We also went and got some more ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Finally it was time to say good-bye to Cheryl. We drove over to the bus station and waited with her until her bus came, picked her up, and took her back to San Diego.

It was getting late, and it was our last night in California. We remembered that her brother had been telling us about this place that sells used clothing from movies and television shows. We thought that would be cool to check it out on the way home. It was relatively close by and so we found it and headed inside. It was in a small shopping strip downtown. Kind of narrow and had a small upstairs. They did have a LOT of clothing from lots of different shows. The problem was that a lot of them were VERY used and just because they were used by some extra on Designing Women they felt they could ask 45 dollars for a white t-shirt. Not my idea of a good deal. But we did look around and it still was fun to see all the memorabilia that the owner had. After this we felt that it would be a good idea to get a movie and take some food back home with us. We stopped by Blockbuster and looked at their used movie collections. We looked for a while but nothing really suited us. We did end up buying “Trading Places” DVD. I had seen it before and it was pretty good if you like the show. We grabbed some food and headed back to her brothers house and just enjoyed a nice quiet evening at home. Grace was worn out, and I could tell. She was out before the first house was redone, and so I felt it best to get back to the hotel and let them get some rest…besides we had yet another long day tomorrow.