The Fifth Day

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24-25

My Thursdays are evolving into good days. Tonight was definitely one of those good nights. I finaly had a chance to spend a good amount of time before God examining what I have been doing at Berkeley; I have been able to re-evaluate my own goals and actions and also spend time seeking God's will for my time here.

During the time of prayer tonight God really spoke to me through scripture, specifically Luke 15. It felt good to be reminded how much God loves me even though I so often act like I don't deserve to be loved. Tonight as I drew near to God, I could definitely feel him drawing near to me, and while reading Luke 15 I could relate to the different parrables.

I know that I am saved, but being reminded of how much God loves us is super awesome. Here are a few of my favorite exceprts from this chapter:

And when he finds it [the lost sheep], he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. verse 5
But whil he was still a long way off, his father sw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. verse 20

Not only do these relfect the love that I can sense from Christ, but also gives me a heart that wants to share about him. It is one of my desires to draw near to God and I pray that God can help transform me into someone who loves to seek him out.

No class tomorrow. G'nite

don't be forgetful

So I haven't updated this in a while. I thought I would tell a short story.
So on Sunday I had to wake up pretty early because I had to get to church at 8 AM to set up for half time. Anyway, I got out of bed and way still way tired. I grabed my toothbrushing bag thing and headed off to the bathroom to take a shower. Once in the shower I realized I didn't have my shampoo or soap so I put some of my clothes back on ran to the room and got those.
It wasn't till after my shower that I realized I had forgoten my towel. It was a good thing no one was really awake at that time because I ended up just putting my boxers back on while I was all wet. These boxers are white... I'll let your imagination do the rest for you if you want.
Anyway dont forget to take your towel when you go take a shower. At least I remebered my keys.

And here is a funny excerpt from my reader. Yay for high school essays:

Where do writers get the idea in the first place that a thesis should be static? In most cases they learned it early in their writing careers as part of a stubbornly inflexible organizational scheme known as five-paragraph form.
Perhaps the best introduction to what's wrong with five-paragraph form can be found in Greek mythology. On his way to Athens, the hero Theseus encounters a particularly surly host, Procrustes, who offers wayfarers a bed for the night but with a catch. If they do not fit his bed exactly, he either stretches them or lops off their extremities until they do. This story has given us the word "procrustean," which the dictionary defines as "tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means." Five-paragraph form is a procrustean formula that most students learn in high school. Although it has the advantage of providing a mechanical format that will give virtually any subject the appearance of order, it usually lops off a writer's ideas before they have the chance to form or stretches a single idea to the breaking point. In other words, this simplistic scheme blocks writers' abilities to think deeply or logically, restricting rather than encouraging the development of complex ideas.

If you read that and didn't think it was amusing, then I don't know what to say to you.

till next time.

Egyptian Splendor

The Itinerary
For those of you who didn't know, I spent the last 10ish days traveling in Egypt with family and 22 other people. We arrived in Cairo at about 11:30 pm on December 31st and I shared my first moments of the new year in the back of a taxi with my brother weaving through Cairo traffic.
Cario city trafic is pretty exciting. At night, headlights and highbeams are used more for giving messages than for visibility, panic lights give off some sort of message, and the horn is applied liberally. I was suprised that we didn't see many accidents while driving around. There were very few spotless cars on the road; the majority of cars had dented doors or messed up bumpers. After 20 some hours of travel, we finally arived at the hotel at a little after midnight.
On day 3 we toured memphis, sakkara, and the pyramids. The pyramids at Giza were nothing like I had expected. I always had the perception of the pyramids as being seceretly tucked away in the desert, far away from the city. Maybe this picture will help show how close the pyramid is to the city.



As I traveled through Egypt I noticed how well historical sites and temples were mixed in with the normal city life. Everyday people would pass the pyramids of ancient temples everyday.
The next day was spent touring around Old Cairo. We visited a the Mohammad Ali Mosque and a Coptic Christian Cathedral. In the evening we flew to Aswan. Here are some pictures of this day:





The next morning (day 5), we took a plane ride to Abu Simbel to visit a massive temple that had been carved directly into the side of a mountain. It was pretty amazing. Here is a Picture:



We spent the second half of the day taking a small sail boat ride to Kitchener Island's Botanical Garden.
The next morning we visited the Aswan Dams, visited the temple of Isis, and saw an unfinished obelisk. We floated up the river to Kom Ombo, visited a tmeple and then got back on the boat.
On Day 7 we visited the Temple of Horus in the morning, floated farther up the river to visit the Sunken Temple of Esna, and then got back on the boat to visit Luxor Temple at night. There was a bit of fog in the evening which made Luxor Temple look very impressive.(We drove past luxor temple the next day and it didn't look as impressive. I think it was the golden color created by the fog and lights that made the temple so special at night). It was hard to take pictures, but the few that turned out were very cool. Here's a picture from the temple:



The next morning started with a trip to the Valley of the Kings to visit tombs of different pharaohs and nobels. The amount of work put into tombs is very impressive. I took a few rocks from here. We then spent the afternoon visiting Karnak Temple. (I stole a bit of sand from here so tell me if you want some).
On day 9, we recieved a 4 am wake up call and took an early flight back to Cairo. We spent the afternoon in the labyrinthine bazaar and then got a chance to rest in the hotel for the rest of the day.
My family stayed an extra day after the tour officially ended due to a mistake in tickets. Our tourguide agreed to take us to visit Alexandria. On the way there we had the chance to visit our tour guides farm. This was really awesome becuase it gave us the chance to see the less touristy part of Egypt and to see how people who are not involved in the tourism industry live. We got to eat freshly picked tangerines and explore the 15 acres of farmland.
Alexandria was pretty. There wasn't as large as a tourist presence in Alexandria, which made for a whole different expereicne. We visited the museums and some tourist sites, and had an excellent lunch at a hotel.
We returned to Cairo Airport after 11 days of travel.