From Funeral to Dance Party:

"The photocopier is dead. On February 15th, at approximately 1:45 PM, in the process of copying an inductive study, the 'faithful' copying machine chewed, burned, and lost its last paper. The sound it last emitted was that of a chipmunk in a blender. 'Rattle, sputter, rattle, sputter, SQUEAL!!' In an attempt to even warm up, the poor, decrepit machine just choked and sputtered its last. No one is sure how much it will be missed, but we know is that it's in a better place.... the junkyard."

A Eulogy to the Photocopier,
by Damien M. Gula


Jokesters, loudmouths, and clowns alike have joined the party at the Rogers Memorial Library today. It never fails that I always have interesting crowds in here whenever I work a long shift. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I like to have fun too. As a librarian, I have to try to maintain that balance between having fun and keeping a repeatable quiet for the other patrons.

This library went from the mourning of the copier to Matt Deprez showing an entire table his MacMillan impersonation and how to hardcore dance. Somewhere in this mix, I was asked to show them how to skank (the official dance of ska). After they left, I was left with Jen and Kat from the PA crew (normally consisting of the Pusey brothers, Kat King, Joy Mc, Karen, Jen Kramer, and whoever else is brave and patient enough to tolerate their antics). Some how we started talking about sibling rivalry when I made a comment about about teasing and diarrhea both building character.... then apologizing that joking being in bad taste... what a mistake.

Today's experiment: . . . . . . . failure.

Mixed Blessings Day:

Yes, you guessed it: today is Valentine's Day. I send out my best wishes to the couples that I respect and wish common sense on those I don't. I know that this blessing may sound bitter, but it is not. I have good intentions with my blessing. You see, by the couples I respect, I mean the couples that I believe are following a godly path and aren't being stupid about it all. As for the common sense part, I wish that these couples would see that there is more to life than the other person and that having extremities intertwined for hours on end does NOT make you deeply in love.

In the past, I have viewed Valentines day as an over commercialized holiday to make each helplessly coupled chump spend mounds of money on candies, flowers, cards, and occasionally jewelry, to try to show their "undying love" to someone special. On the flip side, this holiday make the single person feel like trash because of their state of terminal singleness is being rubbed in their face. This is like laughing in the face of a cancer patient, jumping up and down and screaming, "you're gunna die! Yay! You're gunna die!" It is because of this type of thinking that this day usually pisses me off...

My perspective has changed.

I have come to understand, in my 3 years of singleness, that life is more than dating and that love is a truly amazing thing. I don't mean the over used "love" but the true, pure, and godly kinds of love. It is such love, sent from God and transferred as reminders through friends, that has brought me to where I am.

I could be bitter today, but I choose not to be. There are many people who are doing really special things for the people they care about, which is cool (and also begs the question, "Why not do something special everyday?"), but it does make a single person feel out of the loop. I can say that I have not had the best luck with relationships in my life. I've had a grand total of two and both of them bombed, each for different reasons. I never understood at the time why I was being let go or God's purpose in letting it happen, but I understand now. I valued the relationship over the friendship and that was wrong. God has shown me my faults and also given me comfort in His wisdom, love, and knowledge of my future.

I understand now.

You will not see me showering affection on any one person today. You will not catch me on one knee with a flower. You will not see me declare "love" to any particular person today. (Disclaimer: I do think that these things are cool in their place and when delivered with the right maturity and motive... Some day you may see me doing any one of these) Love is so much more than these things. What you will see me doing today is the unexpected. You will see that I have a focus. You may not see what this unexpected thing is or where my focus is, nor do I want you to. It is between me and who I choose to attribute my undying love to



Jesus Christ.

Stupidity:

This morning sucks. For the past week in Ingersoll House, we have had NO hot showers. Now if you're a polar bear or just plain sick, you'd enjoy this. I don't. I enjoy a hot shower and have come to realize the blessing when I do manage to get one, but this is nuts. What is even more sick than this that someone with a serious deficiency of brain cells decided that it was so "tropical" in our bathroom that they opened the window! It is not exactly the Caribbean here! It is winter in New Brunswick, you don't go outside if you don?t have 30 layers of clothes on.

You don't do this to me when A) I'm lacking a few hours of sleep and B) I've just woken up. I am not a morning person. As you could probably tell, this is being written, you guessed it, in the morning. I figured that while I am stinking cranky, I will write and vent my frustration. I hope that you may get some twisted pleasure at my expense and that you will pray that tomorrow I may have a warm shower.

The Theory of the Root of Modern day Nazis and the Root of Evil:

*Disclaimer: This is just a theory, none of the elements of this rant have any truth to it*

Do you ever wonder about the "blue-light special"? Why is it a blue light? Why not red, yellow, black, or green? This light is the trademark of the department store K-Mart and have brought much "financial savings" to consumer America. The question is this: are these featured items really necessary to every day life? To answer this question, no. Nor is the blue light special intended to serve all of life's purposes. The blue light is a subliminal racial statement. Think about it. Why the blue light? Why not another color? It is because the modern day bigwigs have roots with Hitler's Fascist regime known as the Nazis. Hitler was trying to invoke through genocide the Arian race (tall, blonde hair, BLUE eyes). The same thing can be said, minus the genocide, about K-mart:

The corporation says, "Here is a product that is brought to you by the white man. This is not brought to you by the red, yellow, black, or green lights (man), but by the perfection of the blue light, the perfection of the white man."

With this being said, we can rule that K-mart is a racist corporation with subliminal propaganda to all ages, genders, generations, and races. Though it is intended to imply white supremacy to all.

However, we must ask about the mastermind behind such a smudge on the face of freedom. I propose that it is none other than Martha Stewart. We have already seen the recent trials due to stock trading with insider info, but what is not seen if her corner on the market of all industries. In conjunction with Microsoft, Martha Stewart has produced there line of life controlling products, code named: MS-Life. We all know of Microsoft's evil, so we won't get into that. With Martha, look at the name on her products: Martha Stewart Everyday. And her magazine and television show: Martha Steward Living. What is being said is this: "You cannot live unless you a 'Martha Stewart living'." You may ask, "How does this connect with K-mart?" I will tell you. Martha Stewart features her products in K-mart and basks in the blue light. By connecting all of these together, we can find that Martha Stewart is racist and promotes modern naziism... therefore, Martha Stewart is the root of all evil.

The Assembly:

It is pretty much a given what I am going to be sharing with you in this Blog because most of you are students at Bethany Bible College. However, for the viewers at home and for my purposes, I intend to rant on this topic with extreme prejudice.

I love my school and I love to know that is going on. However, when it is something that you have to be carried to, kicking and screaming, it's not worth it. Granted, no one literally kicks and screams, but there is the obvious complaining.

The highest hope for students on such days is that they "miss the signs" or "don't hear a word about it". I tried that approach. Not today, but have in the past. I think it was the last assembly that we had, I really had no clue that it was going on... until someone was being dragged down the hall... you guessed it... kicking and screaming... I kinda shrugged it off thinking that they were just moody about class. That is, until about 4 o'clock I get a knock on the door...

*Knock, knock, knock*

"Hey there guys."

It's Brewer... which I must say is the raddest Dorm parent (resident director) that I could ask for. At this point, Brad and I were in the middle of a game of Halo.

"You know that there is a campus assembly today?" Dumbfounded I return the question, "What time does it start at?" "Oh, about 20 minutes ago." Crap. Caught red handed... or could I even say red handed because there was no former knowledge of the presence of an assembly.

Today's assemble was SUPPOSED (I give this word all caps to accentuate the intensity of what was supposed to happen) address issues regarding the latest BBC dismissals. Not that I was in for the gossip, I just would have liked one of our dear members of the disciplinary committee to have the guts to stand up and admit that as a student body and a campus (faculty included) we have failed to keep some of our brothers and sisters in spiritual accountability. I know that these issues are personal choices, but we must recognize our responsibility as Christians and students that we have to one another. A good friend of mine once said, "A friend is a friend when you need one.... and a jerk when you need one too." Maybe we need to cut the crap of meetings, be "jerks", and confront one another instead of letting each other stumble because of "uncomfortable" confrontations.

The Amazingest Amazing:

YEs, I know that my heading it not grammatically correct, but unless you've been there, you'll just have to accept it.

Tonight was the amazing! I love this feeling! No I'm not in some sloppy "like" relationship... but something much more. Tonight a went out of the comfort zone of the Bethany Bubble to a place uncommon to most.... prison.

On a normal day, I wouldn't venture into the unknown, with several other peers and did prison ministry. Wow. Eye opening! During this time, I was about to help lead worship, do a drama skit with Sasha, which led into my testamony. I shared my life story in a short span of time and then waited until the end. It was at that time that we each broke off with the prisoners and gave them a copy of the gospel of John. I got to talk with Richard. He's 19 years old and his birthday is in September...he's a few months younger than I am! We had an awesome conversation and I'd go so far as to say it was a divine appointment... I was able to lead him to the joy I have found in Jesus Christ... take one and praise Him, another soul is saved.

The Modern Day Socrates

I do not claim to know everything. I understand that I know little and at any time could be intellectually bashed by most of my peers. However, I have an edge, a soap box if you will, that most of them do not. Like the market place of Athens was for Paul, the library of Bethany Bible College is for me. It is my forum where I can reason with the common people of this college and share my thoughts, ire, and ideas with a small crowd. Needless to say, I feel philosophical today. Today's topic for in the commons of the BBC library was useless classes:

Meaningless, meaningless, some of these classes are meaningless. Like the chasing after a syllabus at 3 am! I tell you that Physical education and the busy work for Introduction to Christian Education are meaningless!

(stepping off the soap box and turn less Ecclesiastical)

Busy work sucks. I've spent almost two years here and have written close to a novel in the amount of work I've done and most of this work was in Intro to CE. I think I spent most of my one hour shift this morning explaining how much mental anguish, sweat, and tears were spent in paying for credits in such classes like Intro to CE, Phys. Ed., and Fundamentals of Clapping (Music). Honestly, I could find a better way to spend my money and get more educational value out of it.

As a philosopher though, I suppose that I must sum all of this up into an ethical, philosophical statement. Here goes nothing:

"To partake in the activity of complaining about such wasted hours is to throw a jug of milk at a moving train. By throwing a complaint at the unstoppable force of human imagination, you will take your plea further than you could walk it."

Ok, so maybe it doesn't make sense, but you can't tell me that the mental image of seeing a jug (or bag) of milk colliding with a freight train didn't make you forget about the torment of useless classes.

Song of the day: Eulogy by Five Iron Frenzy

"And good-bye to everything, sayanora everyone. They are tired, write the eulogy. And I saw them as they passed, it was like a milestone cast far into the deep blue sea...... If Jesus Christ is truth, then I am mostly lies. If Jesus Christ is love, then I have failed to try. If Jesus Christ is life, then please, just let me die, let.... this..... die...."

Another Weekend Thriller:

Faithful bloggian, I am again away for another weekend. I would like to keep you up to date, but it will have to wait until I can paste this file into the text field.

It is currently Saturday 4:53 PM and I am at the Green residence, my second home-away-from home. I loves the Greens, I'm truly blessed to be Brent's roommate and be connected to such a fun-loving, Godly family. Now that I have sung sufficient praise, I'll tell you what I?m up to, have been up to, and will continue to do.

Thursday/Friday:

A sigh of relief and oh man that hurts.... it is Friday and I am in pain. Last night, I had the closest experience to pain and death that I have ever had in my life.... in other words, I went snow boarding. I think I spent the first hour and a half of our four hour trip consecutively falling. I think that there was once that I almost snapped my right leg in half. However, let me back up a few steps. I have never been on a slope in my life. I was expecting to go and rent some "snow-blades" or ski and learn simple stuff. Nice try, not gunna happen. You see, my "natural skis" (big feet) were too big to fit the boots into the bindings on the snow blades or skis. At first, I thought that the dude was raggin? on my cuz Brent had just been at the counter. So there I was, thinking that Brent had told the guy how nervous I was and was giving me a hard time.... wrong again. No skis or snow blades were big enough to fit my natural skis. At this point, I'm freaking out thinking, "Ok, so I spent $15 to sit in a ski lodge for 4 hours?" My last ditch effort was to attempt snow boarding. I have never felt so awkward in my life. I'm not talking awkward as in the type of awkward you feel when you tell one of your close friends of the fairer gender that you have feeling for them, but the type of unnatural awkwardness of inverted gravity. I felt so weird trying to balance myself on this thin board. My first thought was, "Not a problem, I'll go with the flow and learn, I mean come on, I've PLAYED the snow boarding games, piece of cake." I was so wrong. First off, connect into the board, manage to stand up and fall immediately on my face. This cycle repeats for a while. I felt a great sense of accomplishment when I finally was able to hold on to the little handle thing that pulls you up the bunny hill, without falling over. The problem with this was that as soon as I got up there , I'd fall over. "I'm too top heavy for this!", I screamed inside my head. At this point I sat down at the top of the hill... until Jetchick showed up. What I didn't realize is that Dude has 4 years of ski instruction under his belt and I've only got about 45 minutes of standing and falling until mine. I think that it was the most humbled and embarrassed that I'd ever felt in my life! He didn't seem to think so though. Somehow, I managed to do better at snow boarding than he has. Of course, this is after he gave me a pep talk and put up with my whining and tears. I learned to stop. Not only stop, but steer. In a semi-pissed tone he says, "Let me guess, you're one of those people that picks up things easy, right? How long did it take you to pick up the bass?" Sheepishly, I answer, "A week." At this he yells, "Get your butt back up that hill, we're going down again." Each time I went down was a time that I fell less and therefore, had to get up less. After a few runs, Katie came over with Jonnie Sherwood. Somehow, after a few runs down the bunny hill, Katie convinces me that the real hill would be fun. Here is where more falling and almost death come in:

the ski-lift.

Getting on the lift was a trial enough. At first, Jetchick say, "All you gotta do is just stay on your board and let the lift pick you up off the ground." Simple enough, right? Wrong! I think just about every story that I've heard about first trips skiing or snow boarding, the person tells how they fall off the ski lift. Well, I never made it on the first try. The guy even slowed it down and what do I do? Oh, just catch up leg under the lift and had it drag me a few feet. No harm done, only to my pride. I stand up and see a whole line of people and I think mischievously to myself "you can make this situation either humiliating or hilarious." So I get back up, wave to the crowd and say "It's alright! I'm fine, I'll be here all night!" I manage to get on the lift the next try and start freaking out..... I am many feet in the air and there is nothing but air... and a small lap bar. I am freaking out and Jetchick is doing his best to keep me calm... Meanwhile, Katie and Jonnie are in the lift behind me singing to me "Damie-on, Damie-on, you are great, Damie-on! You fall over, but get back up, you are cool and do neat stuff. Damie-on, oh Damie-on!... " and so the song continued...the WHOLE WAY UP THE LIFT! I felt so encouraged by it. Even though it was majorly silly, I was touched that they cared enough to encourage me instead of make fun of me...(thanx guys)... So make it down the hill, falling many times and having trouble getting up a few...but I made it down the first time.... I go down twice more! Oh man! I started getting better! I actually enjoyed myself! Woh, I had a great time!

But as for Friday morning, I was in pain. It hurt to move. I struggled through my routine and classes and work. At 2:30, I was ready to be done, but I had one last class to attend. I was so bored. On a cool note, I ended up delivering a customized container of white Skittles to K8e. It was funny to see her reaction to it. Not only did I customize the container, but also also filled it with her favorite mint Skittles: the white ones. During class, we passed notes and had a grand old time talking back and forth through a piece of paper. It was funny the first time I got it because it said: "Damien: 26 Western St., Stairs Hall #205, back row, blue shirt, white computer." so I responded to the letter and sent it to "Katie: 26 Western ST., Stairs Hall #205, second to last row, Black shirt, white Skittles, pink mittens".... good times.

Saturday:

Friday's predicament of pain and stiffness continued into this morning! I seriously could not move, it took alot to get me out of bed! However, I managed to get up, go through my daily routine and get some eats. Not a whole lot has happened today, just kinda chillin out at the Green's phat, placiale estate. Again I state my earlier praise, this place rocks socks! I had waffles this morning! I adore waffles... anyway, on a sweet note for the day, I was able to start and finish my next inductive's highlighting! WOOOOHHHOOOO! Points for me! So, now that I am on my high horse, I'm going to save the universe.... I'm playing Halo.

*after the Halo break*

Just sitting around chilling right now... and I'm thinking... that activity normally gets me into trouble. I know that this is gunna sound really lame, but I truly miss some people right now. Friends, family...you know the drill.... but for now, I sit and wait and pray.

Sunday:

I again restate my same claim as I did last Sunday: I really don't enjoy going to the church here. It isn't that I'm opposed to church, its just that this one is a bit dead. One this that I enjoy about it is that the pastor reminds me of Vicceni from the Princess Bride! I was waiting all sermon long for him the scream out in one of his tangents of excitement "Inconceivable!" Anywho, not a whole lot more to write about. I am going to enjoy some home-cooked lunch and my last hours of freedom.

Damien out
"See ya starside!"