9 arrested in U.K. Terror Plot: A ninth suspect has been arrested in Birmingham, England on allegations of involvement in a terrorism plot after eight other suspects were corralled by police in pre-dawn raids.
In other words, "Police broke into people's homes and made arrests in the middle of the night because they might have been terrorists/enemies of the state."
Yep, I moved to Abbotsford yesterday. Anyone who wants to hang out and still reads this, drop me a line! I have an open schedule for the first time in 12 months!
Funny story. Yesterday Kendall tells me that our Mazda Precidia was sputtering when she drove it that morning. I figure, fine, it's time to change the oil. Later that evening, I go to Castrol. As I'm driving, no problem at all - it drives as fine as it normally does. As soon as the oil is done, I start up the car and it's all sputtery and whatnot. Stalls. I start it again, pull it out onto the road, and the gas is sporadic and weak. I pull off to the side of the road and the car breaks down irreparably.
Okay, that's not the funny part. Here it is: I call Kendall to come pick me up with her car. At the exact moment I ask her, she accidentally drives over a sharp curb and punctures her tire. Well, it's a little low, but it's still driving okay, so she comes and picks me up. The moment I get in the car, we notice a bumping, very flat feeling. We look, the tire is totally dead. We pull into the first parking spot we see. Fortunately, it's right in front of a tire shop. Unfortunately, the shop is closed. Fortunately, we call Kendall's dad to come pick us up. Unfortunately, I'm doing an overnight shift in Richmond in a couple hours.
At this point, we both just threw our hands up in the air and said, "Screw it." We could have been extremely irritated with all these events - we didn't know what to do, we were both feeling a little under the weather beforehand during the day anyway, and we both had hard days at work. But we realized that all this was way too much of a coincidence - it's not every day both of our cars break down at the exact same moment, stranding us both together.
It was good to remember that no matter what happens, in the end, everything is in God's hands. We decided to just walk over to an expensive restaraunt across the street while waiting for Kendall's dad to come pick us up, generally feeling a little silly and giggly, and making minor spectacles of ourselves at the restaraunt. We just realized that there's nothing we can do, and stressing about it is counterproductive and, well, destructive. Everything happens according to God's will, and when we recognized that, we had an unmistakable peace that covered over all the stress and anxiety of the situation. I'm glad God loves me, because it tells me that as long as I'm in line with His will, He's taking complete care of me, and these silly little mishaps and situations are nothing threatening when He's got my back.
With no stress to add to the night, I managed to borrow Kendall's dad's car to go to work. Everything worked out.
I have a veritably insurmountable desire to post, and basically every time I'm not online, I have a plethora of things to talk about. As many of you livejournalers are aware, though, these objects worthy of mention seem to disappear the moment you sit down at the computer to talk about them. So, you rack your brain trying to think of something else to express, because you've already sat down and you're not going to waste the opportunity.
Today, though, instead of trying to think of sub-par fillers of events, thoughts, ideas, or passionate rants, I'm simply going to apologize. I forgot what I wanted to talk about. Sorry!
A number of things in my life right now not really noteworthy, but still now being noted:
1. I am now a Clinical Instructor of the most prestigious and infamous new system in the field of ABA in Canada, the first-ever 24-hour, round the clock, teaching home for one client. I've also had previous experience with this client, which makes me feel much smarter than everyone else that just got hired on. As soon as enough funding is given by the gov't, I've already been recommended for the next-up-the-ladder position, the Clinical Case Manager (sort of like being a Corporal). In fact, I feel militarily officiantant and importantacious. It's a nice feeling that I'm sharing on Livejournal because I don't think anyone that reads this is in the field and therefore thinks I'm being obnoxious and arrogant!
My last post from a couple days ago may have gone unnoticed, and I'm actually really grateful for that. Hopefully, since before that I hadn't posted since December 05, everyone has stopped reading my journal. On the other hand, replies to my post are usually pretty pleasant. I know I'm being hopelessly contradictory, but I guess what I really want is for as few people as possible to actually be reading my journal, and for those who DO read it to post comments frequently. If I ever get irritated with the system like I did before, I'll just start a new journal with a new username, so no one knows who I am. Except my wife. Heh heh... I have a wife. Still not over that!
I realized just now that I'll probably only ever feel like posting when I'm in a really strange, introspective and yet slightly silly mood. Thus, this will only reveal an aspect of myself that I'm usually not. Well, whatever. I should go write a paper now.
Well, my last post was on December 14th, and it was about King Kong. The post before that entailed my recent engagement to Kendall Hansen, who, as of the 19th of this month, became Kendall Neufeld. Weird, but pretty awesome.
I don't specifically know why I haven't updated since 2005, but I'm feeling kinda lucky right now. Who knows, maybe this'll be of some benefit to me or others. Why not, right?
I guess of all the things that've happened to me this past year, my wedding to Kendall is probably the most significant. Heh heh... what else to say right now? My brothers were my groomsmen. Adam Hansen has scabies. Gross. Check out my friends page and read my brother's comics, or go here: http://www.sticksandstonescomic.com
I proposed to her last weekend, at a young adults retreat at our church. It was great.
It's been tough going this past week, just with certain circumstances that will be unnamed online, but the situation seems to be leveling out now (or maybe I'm just being optimistic).
Anyway, though there's obviously many more details, events, and feelings surrounding these momentous happenings in my life, I'm sorta tired of explaining it all. Though writing it all on livejournal would save me the obligation to relay it all to each person who asks, I'm really just too lazy. So, perhaps another day I'll get it all out on here.
One thing, though: I am ridiculously happy! This is the best time of my life!
Kendall is sitting on the couch, watching boxing on TV, next to her dad, who's actually enjoying watching the boxing. Kendall's actually just waiting for me to finish up on the computer. Heh heh. Ah well.
A couple thoughts.
1. It seems like there are two kinds of people who use livejournal. The ones who's posts I read are the ones who talk about their day, or whatever. Structured prose. Even poetry, to an extent. But then there's people online who just spit out their thoughts in the strangest manner imaginable. It's intentionally unstructured, nonsensical, and, uh, another word to complete the thought. These journal entries I have a lot of difficulty reading, and especially enjoying.
Hey, no problem. They're not writing it for me to enjoy; they're writing it for them to write, to get their thoughts out, whatever. So I'm definitely not complaining. I'm just making a small observation, noticing the patterns in the entry posts of my friends that I actually read, and those I skip.
2. Why do people reject God, call an intimate relationship with him shallow (lumping that with the frequent shallowness of youth groups and other Christian functions), and then be filled with so much pain and unhappiness that it pours out of them, uncontained, almost like a black joy? They are empty, and dissatisfied with their lives, and yet they're isolating themselves from the only thing that can fill that void. It's true, we Christians are really terrible at representing God. But God doesn't need to be represented. People can just have a relationship with him! That's all that's really necessary! That's all that's needed to fulfill them! In the meantime, we Christians will eventually, slowly, clean up our act and stop alienating the wounded.
I have a somewhat mechanical hierarchy of anti-priorities - meaning that I often do not have time to check my email, I almost never have time to check my livejournal friends list, and I absolutely never have time to actually WRITE in here. Needless to say, this here is an exception.
Interesting things have been happening to me lately. Sort of. Well, not really.
The child I work with in Abbotsford, including the child's mother and the senior instructor of that team, all went and met with Randy White, the conservative MP of Abbotsford (Clayburn or something). I've always had a sort of respect for him, and at times fondness. Sort of like the political celebrity I look up to, not that I really know anything about him. Anyway, we were able to meet with him! I was pretty excited. He's a great guy. We were meeting with him because we're trying to push for medicare to expand to include treatment for autism. Unfortunately, autistic people today are being treated as second class citizens today, because the government is not spending healthcare money on treatment for them, for really no reason at all other than ignorance. Anyway, we brought a petition to Randy White, of multiple signatures, for him to bring to parliament and hopefully change this. Autistic people CAN be treated, and the success rate for them to be cured of autism is unbelievably high. As long as they're treated with ABA therapy, which is what I do. Anyway, Randy White. Awesome guy, totally into it, and he's gonna pull strings to make this work as well as possible.
In other news, tailgaters are still prevalent in society, and still idiots. Why do they think that by tailing you, that will make the person IN FRONT OF YOU go faster? Fools.
School's nice. Easy, I think. We'll see, as the weeks progress.
Not that I'm lazy, mind you. It's just that nothing's changing in my life. I'm working 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. I get up from 5-6:30 every morning. I just got a raise, and next month I'm getting another one. I'm making enough! It's a great feeling to not be stressed about money.
My car, on the other hand, is making increasingly strange and irritating noises. I took it in to Mr Lube the other day, lost 500 dollars on fluids of varying purposes. I need to fix my CV joint, and change my rims. That shouldn't cost me too much.
My team in Abbotsford, with the autistic kid I work with, has just hired on my longtime friend and chum, Ryan Moore! It'll be cool to start working with him; I've known him longer than anyone else I can remember - about on par with my brothers, in fact. Weird. So yeah, this'll be cool. Also potentially being hired on the team is the coolest black guy I know (as well as the uncoolest black guy I know, heh heh) Harry Mooney. Everyone in Abbotsford knows Harry, so I don't need to elaborate. So yeah, he might be working with us. That'd be awesome. If you read this, Harry, we need to do the Daily Ham again. Seriously, that was the pinnacle of awesomeness.
Aside from that... I start school next month. I'll be working less, making less, and learning more! Woo hoo. I just hope that at that point I'll be able to make enough to put myself through school. I'm sure I'll be able to. No student loans, though. Bad, scary. Hate em.
Providence! I got a sweet car that's easily worth 2000 dollars, marked up at 1500 obo. And I got it for 1000! Amazing! It's a Dodge Shadow, with absolutely nothing wrong with it! So much better than my crappy beater LeBaron! Woohoo! I'm so excited!
Now all I hafta pick up on is this job. I'm sorta down a grand, and that doesn't help at all.
My mom graduated today, and our whole family celebrated at my parents' house at about 5:30. We had Chinese food, as we always do at family celebrations (my subtle dissuasions were in vain). Near the end of the night, I had to drive my brothers home (as usual... my subtle dissuasions were in vain). I used my mom's car, because I didn't want to waste the gas on mine. I came back, and used my mom's computer for a little bit before heading out to my place in Surrey. I left at about 1045.
About a quarter of the way down the freeway, my engine started making strange noises... the 'hum' was louder and higher-pitched, and I could almost hear a rattling noise. Now, if you know anything about cars, and even if you don't, you know that a rattling noise coming from the engine is NOT A GOOD THING.
About half a minute later, something under my hood made a sound roughly akin to a cannon being set off. Boom. Smoke appears instantly, surrounding my car on all sides. I swear loudly. I pull off to the shoulder - luckily, since it was about 11 at night, no cars were around. As soon as I slow down to about 20 kmh, the car dies completely.
I call my dad in panic, and my parents come in about 15 minutes. Since I had my four-way lights on for that amount of time, my car's battery then dies (tomorrow morning I was gonna spend 100 bucks on a new battery. Good timing.) Eventually we get it running - terribly - and I limp it back to my parents' place. I'm spending the night here now, and that's why I'm still up - on the internet - at quarter to 1.
Tomorrow morning I was gonna get a battery and hand out resumes in Surrey... I guess it's better this happened to me tonight than tomorrow. But repairs would cost more than the car is worth... which means I'm gonna hafta shop for a new one. My dad may be able to help me on Saturday.
Sheesh... I knew this was gonna happen, but I was putting off doing repairs because I didn't wanna spend the money. Man...
So here I am, down 2 jobs and 1 car. My parents are leaving on Sunday to Mexico for 2 weeks, too, so that won't REALLY help. But maybe I'll have a new car by Saturday night.
I'm on a financially unstable cliff-face right now. The edge is crumbling away, sorta like in those cartoons, and if I don't find a way to safety soon, like in the next month or two, I'm gonna fall and crash and my future is screwed. Or else, I can find more jobs and more hours, and my savings will BOOST, and I'll live long and prosper! So things could go either way for me right now. It's in the hands of God.
Okay, so over the past few days I've been accumulating 'things' I thought were worthwhile mentioning on here. I've forgotten most of them, so instead you are all invited to hear me list off irrelevancies off the top of my head. Woot!
I worked for my dad on Saturday for 10 hours, which is much better than what I was scheduled for originally, 2 hours - coming to a total of 16 bucks. That was rescheduled, however, so I made 100 clams from working side by side with my padre. Not necessarily something I would wanna do 5 days a week - as I said, it was a 10-hour day, and my dad doesn't do 4 10-hour days as opposed to 5 8-hour days. He does 5 10-hour days. Actually, I think 6. He's insane, and I'm sore.
I consolidated my position as a therapist for a family in Cloverdale today, by going to a team meeting. So there's my morning work for the summer, and I don't need to worry about quitting before they want me to - it's pre-arranged to be just for the summer, so I can attend classroom courses in the fall during those mornings.
All that is for naught if I don't find myself an evening job for AT LEAST 3 nights a week. I'm looking for a 7-10 shift. Lately I've been ridiculously busy, going from one job to another, with about half as much time driving as I do working. Today I have some time off because I had a couple meetings and no actual SHIFTS.
Oh yeah, I'm living out of my tiny little suite right now... it's fun, though I'm never there except to sleep. Still, it's exciting. Well, not actually EXCITING, more... exuberating. Heh heh...
Oh, and I picked up my course - Old Testament Survey. It's so interesting! Seriously! I'm probably the only person who would enjoy this course, but I think it's fascinating. I seriously had to force myself to put the textbook down last night to go to bed.
On that note, I should head home. I'm at Kendall's (and I probably will be every day, as she lives just 10 minutes away from me!), partially to use the internet (check my email, etc.). Mostly to see her, though, of course.
Bright side: I finally moved in all my furniture to my new apartment, and I'm 99% ready to live there. I just need to take a few more little things from my house, and screw my bed together again, and I'll be totally settled. Yay! So exciting!
Dark Side: My computer has been ravaged by the evils of the Sith. Nothing's working, except livejournal and a couple other browsers. It's VERY ANNOYING, especially since I won't have internet at my new place anyway, and this is my last chance to finish up with the net for a while - wrap up loose ends and whatnot. So yeah, irritating.
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