Part Of The Crew, Part Of The Ship

well, so much for today's main duty! due to technical difficulties [lack of photographs] on the client's end, i am unable to progress in my foray into the wonderful world of web development. i know, you're all crying hot tears with me. for those who follow my facebook profile, you may already know that i've been recently suffering from a serious lack of motivation and willpower to get this site done. this little setback isn't helping that. now i get to think and blog and try to get a head start on writing for sunday.

speaking of writing, i find that i have a hard time writing sermons on any day but saturday. i don't know if it's just out of habit because of my persistent procrastination [forgive the alliteration] or if it's some other mental block, but i can't focus on writing if the deadline isn't imminent. i know, it's friday and i've got to preach this sermon on sunday morning, but for some reason it seems that my id does not consider '2 days away' to be imminent enough to motivate the rest of my psyche.

see what i did there? if all else fails, blame freud.

i think the question for tomorrow regarding motivation/inspiration will be whether or not i'm able to get the sermon done in time to celebrate brian's birthday at 'the shout! house' tomorrow night. my guess would be: probably not. it generally takes me about 5-12 hours to write a full sermon, depending on how much preparation [a.k.a. reading the text over and over and reading commentaries slash listening to sermons on the text over and over] i've done throughout the week. at this point, i think i've got a fair handle on where i'm going. it's the last sermon for this particular series, which is ephesians 2, the podcasts of which can be heard here.

so now i've got myself thinking about preaching: what it's meant to me in the last 2 years of being able to preach at least once a month, what it's going to be like not preaching for a long time, what i'm going to do in place of preaching to maintain that area of my life's disciplines, etc. i suppose the timing of this blog relaunch is fortunate, as i could always use this as a place to dump various thoughts. though i doubt i'll ever do so in the form of a full-out sermon with points and stories and what-not. i think that once we're at our new church and everything, i'll be okay with it. the more i preach, the less qualified i realize i am.

nic keeps telling me that i should go to seminary, and it's not like i disagree that i would benefit from a seminary degree [especially from wscal], it's more that i feel like it's something that's very out of reach for me. i know that i could save money and get there, or get financial aid and make it happen, but i think the ultimate question is whether or not it's something i actually have a desire to do. as for right now, with everything in my life pointing the direction it is, with my heart being inclined the direction that it is, i really think that it's just not for me. it could be for me, if we were in a parallel universe where i wasn't dead-set on hong kong, but i don't think it's in the cards.

this ice-cream is called 'mint cookie crunch' but there isn't anything crunchy about it at all.

i can't wait for the class i'm in to be over. it's incredibly dull, and i've hardly learned anything that couldn't be ascertained from a cursory glance at wikipedia [actually i've learned quite a bit more from wikipedia than the book on certain topics]. my next class seems interesting, as i'll be getting into my major classes about teaching english language learners. i'm most excited for the classes with an emphasis on diverse cultures, as hong kong is full of that, and the stuff that will make me a better teacher than i was when i taught last time.

really though, i think i was a fine teacher but a lousy language centre worker. as a regular n.e.t. in hong kong, you don't have to deal with the things that made me look 'bad' as a centre teacher. the most notable of these is the fact that the children in my class have to be there, whereas in a centre their parents are paying for them to be there. that may not seem like a big deal, but when your boss is telling you that you essentially have to lie [tell kids' parents that their kids are really doing just swell and improving greatly when they're total rubbish students that don't want to be there or unmotivated brats that don't need the course] that's when it becomes an issue. keeping the kids in the class is more important than academic integrity and actual learning.

it bothers me that chrome's spell-checker is telling me that 'centre' is spelled incorrectly, despite the fact that the origin words 'centre' and 'centrum' both put the 'r' first. granted, according to the online etymology dictionary [the trustworthiness of which i have yet to test], 'center' is older. but in hong kong, where they speak the queen's english, they say 'centre'. nitpicky? yes i am. that's about all for now. maybe i'll get some enchiladas tonight.