In the news...

Sometimes it is hard not to feel grim about this world, and how badly we take care of it. Wikipedia has an In the News section on their front page. This is what it read this very morning..

• American businessman Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to the largest investment fraud in U.S. history.
• Cougar Helicopters Flight 91 ditches in the Atlantic Ocean near Newfoundland, Canada, killing 17 people.
• An oil spill in Australia's Coral Sea is reported as Queensland's worst environmental disaster (affected Sunshine Coast pictured).
• A school shooting kills at least 15 people in Winnenden, Germany, and another shooting spree kills at least 10 people in the U.S. state of Alabama.
• A suicide attack kills at least 28 people and injures 57 others in Baghdad, Iraq.
• Two British soldiers from the 38 Engineer Regiment are fatally shot in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Three shootings, one suicide attack, a crash, and two environmental disasters... Ironic perhaps, that the last item in the news is this...

• NASA launches the Kepler spacecraft, a mission to search for Earth-like planets.

Unless there is some sort of awareness that we are perhaps not doing a very good job at being stewards to this earth at being Ambassadors of Christ's reconciliation why would we look for other Earth-like plants.

It is not the case that I am currently in some kind of state of disillusion and unbelief at our failures. Reading these few news items serves more as a reminder of the enormous task, and our call or renewing - one step at a time.

TIme flies..

It has been a little while since I have last let people know what has been happening in my life. And since I can't get to the text I need for my sociology assignment, I am writing this update.

Academica

November has proved itself to be a great month. The beginning of November was mainly devoted to writing midterms and assignments, now school has moved on to paper season. Yesterday at midnight my political science term paper was due, and I finished writing it at 10:30 in the morning. At 4pm it was time to do a bit of editing, to hand in the paper at the library right after that. However, it is clear that nothing goes as planned, I spend the next 2 hours trying to recover my paper, after WordPerfect, made it a lot less perfect. Nevertheless, in the end I was able to hand in my paper.

Strange News

Squirrels, you know the little animals, depicted pretty and lovely in fairy tails and cartoons, known as terrorists and fried food at Redeemer. Last weekend a squirrel came into the transformer and put down power on all of campus. Even though I wasn't there for the evacuation, sleeping in hotels and pizza. Which I think is sad, because it would have been fun. I want to pay tribute to the squirrel that changed Redeemer's fall semester of 2006.

Weekends

Well,last weekend the Go Transit system took me to Barrie for the weekend, this weekend the VanMarum family van, will take me to Sarnia to celebrate Rachel's birthday, which is tomorrow. Barrie was very relaxing for Rachel and I, long nights of sleep, the Timothy Christian School bazaar, a mall trip turned 8km walk on the most beautifull saturday if the month, and a really refreshing sermon in church on sunday. This weekend looks to be fun as well, it's a birthday party after all.

The Motherland

My trip to the Netherlands is still planned for December the 21st, after visiting Jeroen and Jacq for a bit, I'll be heading to Ede for most of the time, I can't wait to see all the family and friends, many of whom I have not seen in 1,5 years. As for all of you that live in Holland, my unofficial trading company is still operating, I can take any food, gift, or animal to Holland this Chirstmas. Maybe, the animal is a bad idea, but let me know.

Closing remarks

It is crazy to see how quick time flies (as do pigs app, it feels like a couple weeks ago, that I was busy with all the First year introduction events. And now I only have one week of classes left!

I wish everybody a great week, and a jolly great december, seeing that I will probably see most of you in December, I'l say, see you later.. In Christ, Willem

In today's news

Check out this news article.

It was about the plane that flew into a luxury apartment complex in New York yesterday. A former Toronto Blue Jays and now New York Yankees pitcher, flew the plane into this building. What I found very interesting, scary and a whole lot of other feelings I can't describe is the fact that fighter jets were sent to patrol the skies over numerous North American cities. Including, Ottawa, New York, LA, Seattle and Washington DC.

I don't really know why it caught my attention, I don't really know what I think about it yet...