Toy Story 3

I really liked what Pixar did with Toy Story 3. Hopefully Disney will take a hint from Pixar and see that you can make good sequels to children's movies and still make money. It made me want to dig up my old toys too. LEGOs and GIJoe, here I come!

Reading Lists & Impatience

At this point in time, I’m trudging through Robert Jordan’s Wheel of time series. I say trudging because while I thoroughly enjoy the books, every single one of them are extremely long. I’m 177 pages into book 8 (The Path of Daggers), and I’m not even close to being 1/3 of the way through the darn book! I have 495 pages left, and this one is relatively short compared to other books (Crossroads of Twilight is about 150 pages longer than Path of Daggers). While I want (and will) finish this series, there are TONS of other books and/or series that I want to read right now, namely book 5 in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon series, The Burning Land. So while I wait, here are some books I will be reading in the not-so-near future.

• The Burning Land- Bernard Cornwell
• Next- Michael Crichton
• Stone of Tears- Terry Goodkind
• Hood- Stephen R. Lawhead
• A Game of Thrones- George R.R. Martin
• Mistborn- Brandon Sanderson
• Academ’s Fury- Jim Butcher
• East of Eden- John Steinbeck
• Blue Like Jazz- Donald Miller
• The Shack- William P. Young
• The Air I Breathe: Worship as a Way of Life- Louie Giglio
• The Complex Infrastructure Known as the Female Mind: According to Relient K- Mark Nichols

Patience is not one of my virtues… *sigh* I’m working on it. The funny thing is that I’ll probably be sad when I finish the Wheel of Time series.

P.S: Christopher Paolini, when in the heck is book 4 of the Inheritance cycle coming out!?

A New Semester

For those of you who do not know me, I go to a Christian university in San Diego, California. We as students are required to attend a chapel service three days a week. In the past I have dreaded going because I’d generally have to wake up an hour or two before I needed to, and to be quite honest, I do not enjoy some of the student worshp leaders or speakers. But since I’m required to go to 36 a semester, I go as much as necessary.

This semester however, I have my conducting class before chapel on Mondays and Wednesdays. This will make it easier for me to resist missing so many chapel opportunites.

I decided to start the semester off right by going to the first chapel today. I am very glad that I did. They held a traditional Weslyan covenant service. A lot of the songs that our director of Spiritual Development played were some of my favorites, or that I simply connected with the words we were singing. Here’s the actual covenant prayer that we said:

“I give myself completely to you, God. Assign me to my place in your creation. Let me suffer for you. Give me the work you would have me do. Give me many tasks or have me step aside while you call others. Put me forward or humble me. give me riches or let me live in poverty. I freely give all that I am to you. And now, holy God, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. May this covenant made on earth continue for all eternity. Amen.”

A verse from Ecclesiastes (3:11) also hit me this morning.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

I am really excited about this semester as I am taking some interesting/fun courses. I’m taking Cultural Anthropology, Beginning Conducting, Piano III, Church Music Administration, & German II. Plus I have my private lessons and performing groups (Concert Band, Jazz Band, & Concert Choir).