*ana ana*
ana
ana
bo
bana
fee
fi
fo
fana...
oh ana

let's weigh the pro's and con's
(are there really any pro's?)
but the cons don't seem like cons to you
the cons are what eat you away
eat you away til you become nothing
but you are not nothing
but the blue dragonfly...
the blue dragonfly has cast a spell on you
your eyes are blinded by the sparkle from their wings

so pretty
so charming
so captivating

what has it done to you?
it tells you the ugly is beautiful
the beautiful is ugly

the truth is ugly.
the truth is beautiful.

what is the truth? reality?
our eyes... the lies... the mirror lies...

the blue dragonfly
must die.
the shackles on your mind
must be broken.
the lies - oh the lies -
why does the dragonfly taunt the blind?

*spring is in the air*
for those of you not from north america, one of the greatest things about spring is it's PLAYOFF TIME. and being a true maple leaf, i'm talking about the NHL playoffs. and being a true maple leaf from the west coast, i am currently on cloud 9 as the vancouver canucks beat the living daylights out of the most unworthy of opponents, the st.louis blues.

i think the monumentous significance of this win must be stressed: this will be the first time in 8 years that the canucks have moved past the first round. during the 2002/2003 season, vancouver exceeded all my expectations by coming in fourth in the western conference and narrowly missed being the northwest division champs, being only one point behind colorado. i have to mention, however, we still won more games than them, AND they just got their butts kicked by minnesota, who won the series 4-3. we were second during regular season in goal scoring, falling only 5 goals short of detroit. our captain, markus naslund, is second leading goal scorer in the league; and he and todd bertuzzi hold the top two spots in powerplay goals. we fought back from being down 3-1 in a best-of-7 series, and i'm so proud of my team.

vancouver will move on to play the underdogs, the minnesota wild. we were tied 2-2-1 in regular season, so this should be interesting. first game of semi-finals is friday. man, i wish i had cable...

*messed*

my page is getting so messed up!!! the template seems to be changing by itself! what's going on?!anyone has any clue why the background pic dissappeared, why i can't seem to change the size of the squares, why my comments thing disappeared...??

*entertaining angels*

i met an angel today. she wasn't your typical blonde little girl in a white dress and feathery wings. she was fourteen years old, and her breath stunk of alcohol. "i love jesus!" she says. how does one who has been raped by her father and abondoned by her drug addict mother love jesus? she goes into town on thursdays to get drunk and look for boys because she hates her life. she has never known real love in her life. and on saturdays she goes to youth group, and cries when she hears stories of jesus. then, she knows real love in her spirit, even when her mind doesn't know it. then, she feels the touch of the holy spirit. then, she experiences the reality of God's love when he heals her from sickness.

and tonight, she gave her heart to jesus, her sweet father in heaven, because her earthly father took hers and broke it.

this angel i met tonight, she has the face a an innocent cherubim, but she is plagued by so much darkness, sometimes that face doesn't , can't, shine through.

please pray for her. pray for the powers of darkness to be pushed back and that the chains that bind her will be broken. pray that she will come to her father in heaven everyday, and ask for his forgiveness, and joy, and peace. please pray for this precious angel to be manifested one day into the true likeness of her created purpose, by the power of the holy spirit.

*day eleven*

acutally not much to report on yet today.... perth is gorgeous dahling... so laid back. it's my kinda town!! the ywam base here is really cool too. i'm staying at their guest house (for $20 aud for 3 nights, including brekky & supper!!) and it's the quaintest little victorian house, complete with creaky hardwood floors, high ceilings, and old skool lights and doorbells.... i'm off to the markets today, hopefully not blowing too much money... and spending time with my sweetheart jesus at the park... gonna be a good day!!

tonight, i'm going out with the ywam folks to do some outreach around town, which should be awesome. and hoepfully i'll get to hook up with ruth as well.... that girl is hard to reach!

i probably won't be able to update until i get back to hk, so leave your comments, tips on how to fix this annoying template, and general snarky comments...

*day nine*

it's only 30 minutes into my last day in sydney and i already wish it was over.

amazing how a split second can completely change your perception of something. one little decision to do something now instead of later, takes me to a moment that might not have been, and a glimpse of something i was never meant to see, and it's all changed. it's like i was looking through one of those coin-operated view finders looking out to a beautiful picturesque shoreline, and a little slip on the footstool and the whole thing gets turned around - and now i'm looking at the slimy stone wall covered with the filth that pollutes the seemingly idyllic waterfront.

there are strongholds of the prince of darkness that absolutely confounds me as to its thoroughness in infiltrating God's army of light. why? i have had about 3 seconds to think about what i was just exposed to, so my thoughts are a little unprocessed at the moment, but i'm beginning to get a grip on why these things are revealed to me. it's not the first time, and i should think it would not be the last.

life is never as idyllic as it appears.

*day six*

the circus training over, i've now made my way to sydney to visit my relatives. let me just say that the world of circus training is very very surreal. i wasn't even really circus training, but just being in the same environment as people who aspire to be professional aerial artists, or baton twirlers (yes people still do that, except nowadays it's much cooler with fire and nifty twisty bodies) is kinda wild. people actually DO circus for a living.... woah.

anyway, NICA (the australian national institute of circus arts) were our hosts for this week, and at the end of the training, they took us ratty bunch of social workers out to dinner at a posh restaurant at the newly built federation square in downtown melbourne. this incredible theatre and museum complex has futuristic, industrial, glass mosaic-style architecture. anyway, i felt like someone important having dinner here and NOT having to pay.... hahaha.

so here i am now in a cozy little suburb of sydney called eastwood, which is apparent next to the hills suburb where hillsong church is. but I CAN'T GO because my aunt and uncle whom i'm staying with go to an anglican church nearby where she plays the organ, and i think it would be a bit of an insult if i say i'm going to another church... pooh. i come all the way to australia and i can't go to hillsong. oh well. i don't mind really, becuase i have bigger things on my agenda tomorrow. namely: going to see koala bears!! oooh wait til i get my hands on those little furballs...!!!

hey, is ANYONE reading this???? derek??????

*day two*

let me update you on where i am and what exactly i'm doing. i am part of a 5-day training presented jointly by cirque du monde (a leg of cirque du soleil; based in montreal) and the national institute of circus arts here in melbourne, australia. this training is provided for circus trainers and social workers alike who are using circus as tool to draw the community together, to reach out to at-risk youth, and to spark that fire of imagination and creativity in young people. there are about 20 folks here from all over southeast asia (and beyond): 2 people from an NGO (non-government organization. read: charity) in singapore; 2 ladies working with displaced youth in mongolia; a french speaking scot who has made connections with a grassroots circus family in goa, india; an american who's lived in asia for 15 years and now works with an NGO in bangkok, thailand working with orphans; 4 people from broken hill, australia who are working with the aboriginal community; an oxfam staff who started the partnership aboriginal program in broken hill; an aussie lady who works with survivors of sexual abuse; a russian acrobat; and of course the 2 french canadians who are running the training, emmanuel and michel. oh, and me and my coworker from KELY.

so here i am, on a funky university campus, in the middle of funky st.kilda in melbourne, learning not just circus tricks, but understanding the phenomenonal effect that the circus has on people lingering on the fringe of society. it blows my mind sometimes when i think about it. i love being taken out of my comfort zone (now in hong kong) and being challenged in the way i perceive the world, people, coomunities, and how they work. i love being able to get a glimpse of the lives of people from places so far removed from where i've been (and sometimes i think i've seen a lot, but then i come to a place like this....) and having that wire fence of my mind stretched even further.

you know, for years after i graduated from university, all i wanted to do was travel. i worked my butt off for 2 years, most of the time juggling (oh such irony) at least 2 or 3 jobs with the hopes of saving enough money to travel the world. but in the process i forgot something. i forgot that my life is not, and can never really be, planned by ME. i forgot that there are plans and ways and thoughts that are higher than my own. and the whole time i was miserable without knowing it, becuase i was going against what the Holy Spirit was trying to reveal to me. i never got anywhere. for 2 years, i stayed in vancouver.

but as soon as i let go, i mean REALLY let go, of my own plans, and my own pride, the Lord took me through the wringer and made me more whole in the process. and in the process, in the last 2.5 years since i've really allowed God to unveil HIS plans in my life, He's brought me to hong kong, the philippines, thailand, new zealand, india, hawaii, china, and now australia. isn't He amazing?

the canopy of God's plans is so wide and high and deep and long - i don't ever want to let myself get into that cramped little box of what I think is real or possible. when i release my grip on what i WANT, and really dig deep and see what i NEED, i find the sweetness of my JESUS who hung on the cross, and the blood that poured from his side is what releases me from my own chains. i love him, and i give my whole life to him.

who is the lover of your soul?

testl';
l;l

l

*in transit*

hanging out in kuala lumpur en route to melbourne... seems a little surreal after a super classy wedding reception with robert & amy strachan. i'll try to get the pictures up on my photos link when i get back to hk. unfortunately my camera battery died after the church ceremony, so no reception photos... unless i get them scanned.

there are many things on my mind and many moments from the past few days i would love to get down in writing, but it seems a little awkward still to be meditating and processing thoughts in front of a computer.... i've never been comfortable with technology. it'll take me awhile to get used to this. but i promised people (especially while i'm away) to update this so y'all know what i'm up to with those cirque du soleil freaks..... wahhhh. i get in at 6:45am and training begins at 9am!!

hmmm... i really don't know if anyone is reading this.... maybe i shoudl TELL people huh....

*paranoid android*

since i have nothing better to do, i will try to do what i can to make this thing vaguely presentable... but at this point since no one knows of its existence besides derek, i could just ramble and write pointless things to while away the minutes slow..ly....ti...ck..ing.....by...........................................................................................

I'M SO BORED!!!

but only 1 more day til bob & amy's wedding and 2 days til i go to the land down undah! yesterday i received a total of 6 face masks, 1 pack of wetnaps, and a pair of gloves from 2 different people who want me to be "safe" on my trip. i thought i was leaving hongkong... this thing, this ARS ('severe' and 'acute' are redundant, so i'm calling it by a more proper acronym) is NOT the plague! people need to stop treating it like it is.

oh, and i also received 1 request to import a cat.

is this world going insane?

*like a virgin*

so this is my virgin attempt at baring my my thoughts to the world. please be gentle...

since i am at a loss for what to write, i'll take the journal-writing advice of my gr.3 teacher mrs.watson (whom i hated) and just... write. let whatever may come out flow.... so i've always thought that this kind of thing was more for the narcissistic type. you know, those people who like external validation for their existence... but my dear friend derek has finally convinced me that this would be a good way to keep my friends in canada (and all over the world) in the loop, seeing as i'm half a world away. plus i saw this thing on someone else's page where you can track your friends around the globe. THAT was really cool. and i suppose we all have a little narcissism in us all.

speechless....