Now on to the Holidays ...

Finally, finally; every piece of work on my list is done! Now I get to clean, pack, and prepare to go home for Christmas!

The past couple of weeks were of course quite painstaking. First, after the orchestra concert I studied my butt off for the world music culture exam, which was held on the 7th. Thank God it was a rather easy exam to prepare for. The professor gave us a detailed outline of what to study, and we had a long time to write the exam. So I'm not worried about this subject at all - I can probably get an A. After the exam in the morning of the 7th, I jumped to bed to take a nap, and restored energy for hard-core working on my jazz history paper, which was due on the next day (8th!!). Since I had been occupied with other aspects of my school work previously, I didn't really commence working on it, other than reading a few articles and listening to recordings, until the afternoon of the 7th. It sucked since I had to do research AND write a paper (luckily it wasn't a long paper) in a 24-hour span! I only slept for 3 hours that day, and the sleep was divided into three portions. How pathetic was that! I needed to sleep since my brain was dysfunctional, but I couldn't sleep for long since I was still panicking for not having enough time to finish my paper. So finally, I finished it 45 minutes before the absolute deadline, and to my surprise, I got a B on it, which really boosted my overall course mark up. Praise the Lord!

After the paper was the preparation for the percussion olympics and the jazz history exam. Well, I went to a party and had a beer on the night I handed in my paper, and I stayed out pretty late since I wanted to relax. I had the best poutine ever in downtown. That morning I hit bed at 3:30am and didn't regain consciousness until well into the afternoon. Anyways, percussion olympics. I wanted to opt out of the olympics because I had to study for exams, but my professor urged me to still be part of it by preparing something easy. And so, I prepared a couple of etudes and a few excerpts which I was fairly familiar with. The olympics (on the 11th) was really fun. The most fun parts were the trivial questions (with goodies and prizes!) and the obstacle course. Thank you V for organizing it!

Following the olympics was the jazz exam. Wow I never knew how to study for it, and I never knew how much I needed to study. I couldn't concentrate in the morning of the exam date (13th at 8:30am) because of lack of sleep and not sleeping well. I had pretty terrible dreams that night. I managed to finish the exam within the short time limit ... but boy I know why I'm not a historian. I passed the exam, AND the course. Praise the Lord!!! I'm now one step closer to graduation! I was afraid if I failed the course I wouldn't be able to graduate ... but hey "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

I played in church celebrations in the weekend. It wasn't hard; just time consuming. Plus I (and some others) had to move the timpani back and forth between the two church campuses, and in and out of UBC. It was troublesome. Oh well, for the goodness of the Gospel! Hopefully the music ministry in VCAC will develop even more adequately in the future.

So, something else happened in the past two weeks too. Things have been fluctuating between us, and within both of us. I won't get into details here now since it's a rather serious matter. All I can say is, God is great; His grace is amazing. He has forgiven me utterly my wrongs, trusted me wholeheartedly, protected me from danger, and listened to my prayers. He has the absolute authority over everything, and that I can do nothing but to obey Him. I pray for self-submission to God, staying faithful to God, and His grace showering upon you.