Ben Tshin

My feelings of late: summed up in U2′s newest album that is getting lots of play in my head.

Other notables: Love And Peace Or Else, Yahweh

Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own
U2

Tough, you think you’ve got the stuff
You’re telling me and anyone
You’re hard enough

You don’t have to put up a fight
You don’t have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

We fight all the time
You and I…that’s alright
We’re the same soul
I don’t need…I don’t need to hear you say
That if we weren’t so alike
You’d like me a whole lot more

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

I know that we don’t talk
I’m sick of it all
Can – you – hear – me – when – I -
Sing, you’re the reason I sing
You’re the reason why the opera is in me…

Where are we now?
I’ve got to let you know
A house still doesn’t make a home
Don’t leave me here alone…

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
Sometimes you can’t make it
The best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

I’m finally back at this. I’m still under the impression that there is nothing worthwhile enough to write about. I feel bad for leaving the drain plugged. But I’m not entirely sure if I feel bad for not writing anything here, or if I feel bad for having nothing to write in the first place.

Either way, the summer is over, and my long commutes to work are only one more day. Waking up at 7:30am will no longer make me feel guilty, now that I can walk to where I need to be.

That was close. Or at least it should have been. Most young people don’t care about elections. It doesn’t seem to matter. But it does matter:

• education: my tuition has almost doubled in 4 years.
• health care: what happens when I mash my body racing?
• transportation: I missed the bus… there IS no bus.
• foreign policy: what’s the “right” way to fight terror?

Looking at our neighbour Dubya, I’m glad Canada didn’t go the Steven Harper way. Besides, it looks like his hair might all of a sudden undo itself and kill someone.

Three cheers for the Liberal party; three cheers for the left; and a big cheer for minority government!

I hate this love-hate, stop’n'go relationship that I have with the brain drain. On one hand I admire those who can seemingly effortlessly churn out daily grey matter updates. But at the same time I have a inner pity (and a side order of scorn) for those same people for whom it seems that blogging is their primary mode of relating to others.

I am now calling a hiatus to my blogging hiatus. I normally like to blog only when important things are happening in my life. So it would seem that the past 6 weeks since my return to Canada have not been “important”. Or maybe it’s just a matter of perspective – or Perspectives.

I’m back at it. Trying to kick the cycle of spiritual life and spiritual death. From the logical standpoint, I still cannot pinpoint the cause and effect of this process. The best hypothesis is human frailty coupled with self-dependence. There is no wrong in human frailty and weakness, but perhaps the answer (to Life, the Universe, Everything) is my self-reliance, my sense of do-it-yourself (D-I-Y). My capacity for achievement is undoubtedly a blessing, a huge gift from God. But it curses me in a strange and illogical way: “I am Superman; I can do everything on my own.”

And now I want to get inline with God. “I“, “ME“. Where is God in this desire? What’s His role? Will I continue to fight independently? No!? I may always represent the “godly role model” to others, but inside I know that I need God’s help, God’s push, more than anyone could ever tell. I am a spiritual dunce and that’s a tough pill to swallow.

But life isn’t always so depressing and negative. Life moves onwards and sometimes upwards. Reading Matthew, I see all these prophecies and promises fulfilled. I’m reminded that God has promised me life. He came to give me a life of abundance not dread. I’m still remembering the promise: “You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.” -Jeremiah 29:13

God,
I’m haven’t been caught up in you. I’m caught up in all the temporary things of today. I’ve lost sight of eternity and your plan. I’m not sure if I’ve just lost focus of you or perhaps I’ve been distracted. But I know that I need to be reminded of the abundance of love, joy and peace that you promise. Maybe I need to see evidence of your greatness and power. Also, I need to see evidence again of your personal connection to me. Life seems fine on my own: so show me how much better life is with you.

We finished! Unbelievably, 9 hours and 20 minutes after we had started the ARC Haliburton Enduro we crossed the finish line. Almost as amazing was the fact that we didn’t get disqualified and we didn’t finish last. Actually, we finished second last.

The race started pleasantly in nice weather but it almost ended in a death trap. We began with a short 2km jog to the first checkpoint where we picked up our canoes. (Funny note: our team name should have been “Team Keepafloat” after our identical life jackets) The next 2.5 hours were canoeing 7km and portaging 1km. Everything seemed fine until we jumped onto our bikes.

The bike section was supposed to be our strongest suit, but we encountered too many obstacles, mud pits, misplaced checkpoints and broken chains. We lost 30 minutes repairing a broken chain twice and 1 hour looking for a checkpoint that was moved the night before by race officials. Too bad they didn’t tell us.

In the middle of the bike section we had to do a bit of orienteering (ie: bushwacking). Evidence of this is my battered legs as can be seen if you ask me. We were good for the first beaver pond checkpoint (which required my graceful swimming skills) but we got a bit lost finding the next one. As we got back to our bikes we barely made it out under the cut-off time of 6.5 hours (around 4:30).

The next 4 checkpoints took us the remaining 3 hours as members of the team began to cramp up, forcing us to walk instead of bike. It didn’t help that we were also out of water, getting extremely tired and encountering more mud than we had ever seen in our lives — combined.

The three members of Team Fatboyslim (Gordon, Ani and myself) would like to especially thank our two water saviours at checkpoints 12 and 13 who saved our lives with “living water”. We wouldn’t have finished without their help.

After effects? Muscles so sore we couldn’t move. Mosquito bites counting upto 100 (on myself only). Memories of one of the worst physical days of our lives. Determination for next time.

Memories of being lost in the rocks and trees.

Ready, Set, GO!
(or more like: Ready, Set, DIE!)

Putting my thoughts to digital paper feels like a resurrection for my mind and soul. Here is the correlation: there isn’t anything to reflect on so I don’t blog. OR I don’t have time to blog so I don’t reflect on life.

No self reparations nor any self analyses. Something just doesn’t jive. I’ll figure it out sooner or later. I have time, right? I hope I do. It feels that I’m caught doing everything BUT spending time and thinking and reflecting on the big picture. Gear down, big trucker!!

Since I’ve been spending so much time on the bike I might as well do some personal psycho-analysis. I’ll be my own psychiatrist.

Food for chewing: “All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, training in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16

AHH!!!! Well I played a big joke and it WAS really funny too. In preparation for my upcoming update of OpenBSD 3.0 to 3.3 I decided to clean out the source tree. Bad decision. I ended up wiping out my /usr/bin directory…. OUCH!

Happy April Fool’s Day, Ben