My first award!

Thank you Furree Katt for awarding me the Versatile blogger award!!!

I now need to state seven facts about myself, and then award this to seven other people...

Seven facts about me!

1. I lived in Japan for quite a while, and can speak Japanese fluently.
2. I am only a teenager. (but I like to think I blog like an adult...)
3. I am a boy, and have an afro usually.
4. My favourite Christian book (there are too many normal books to choose from!) is "The reason for God" by Timothy Keller. He makes everything so clear for me!
5. My favourite colour is red.
6. I like to photoshop, (can't seem to make a good header though!), read, and play guitar.
7. I am more interested in writing this blog, than reading others, So I don't actually know who to give this award too!

As you may have seen in fact 7, I don't read many other blogs. So I hope I can change the rules, and just leave it at that. I hope you keep reading my blog, and learnt something new about me!

treebytheriver

Looking back, looking forward.

I remeber at the start of 2010 there was a big hype about how the next year would be. Would it be better, or worse than 2009? No one knew, but everyone hoped for the best. Now, at the end of this year, I think about the year to come. 2011.

A lot of people by now would be analysing what happened in their lives in 2010, and seeing if they had a good year or a bad one. For me, I don't look into the past, I look into myself right now. Am I more patient? More loving? Working harder? By answering these questions, I can see how the past year has made me grown. If I looked into the past I would probably see that I had more great times than bad times, and some significant events. But I wouldn't be able to see how they affected me. Even in times of suffering, I was probably still growing in faith, and other things.

What about looking to the future? To me, in the future there is only one thing that clearly stands out. That I will always have hope in something. I don't really bother to write a new year resolution, because it will probably definently fail. At least I have the assurance that I can always trust in God to get me through.

If someone asked me how I feel about the future, I would say that I am excited, but also scared, because of the uncertainty of life, but most of all, I am trusting in God to take care of me.

Thanks for reading my blog, and please comment if you do not agree with me, or were encouraged. I hope to get a page up about stuff about me, so keep looking!

treebytheriver

Writers Block - Oh No! Or is it...

I can't think of a topic to write about, that is long enough to be good, and deep enough to gratify my readers. The past hour I have been writing stuff, deleting it, and starting over again!

To give you an update, I will provide you things I have been thinking about, but in short summaries, and I might write more about them later.

Memories - The amazingness of the brain

I love my memories! They define who I am, and make me unique. The brain seems to be an impossible machine, that humans could never figure out. Whenever we have a breakthrough, more questions arise, and we go around in circles! Humans don't seem to understand half of what goes inside in their bodies, so I am glad that we have a creator who does know what is happening. Even though we know almost nothing a group of scientists are planning to use a memory eraser they invented to erase memories such as rape, or a witness of a murder. I hope I can share my thoughts on that some time soon, but I can't seem to gather my words properly. The only thing I will say is that I think it will be a disaster.

The deception in conversation

I love a good conversation with someone. But sometimes I feel like we are both hiding behind a barrier of lies. We will justify this barrier as for safety, so we don't get hurt incase the other person might think our ideas are stupid. We might also justify it as for the other persons sake. We don't want to burden them with our boring lectures on what we think about life. But, with this barrier, we are losing things as well. We can't identify the persons thoughts fully in the mist of lies, so we give up on trying to understand, which then leads us not being able to give encouragement to the person, which they might have really needed. I hope to also write more about this, but once I gather my thoughts more.

Men don't cry, and other things

I wish sometimes, I could just become so caught up in emotion that I would burst out in sobs, at a farewell, or a emotional moment, like after a amazing confession of faith, or a talk. But, this never seems to be the case. I blame society for this, because my mind has been so caught up in the "Men don't cry" slogan, that my mind keeps stopping me to do what I really want. It might be my fault though, because I let the society get in the way. I should just have a "I don't care what other people think, it doesn't matter" mindset. (Just to tell you, I have this mindset for fashion, and my talents, which is really good). I want to post this when I actually learn how to really ignore societies views. Then i might be able to tell you more.

I hope you liked my summaries. Follow my blog if you want to hear more, and I hope you enjoy!

Plus, if you have any ideas that you want my thoughts on, please comment, and I will gladly answer any of your questions.

Thanks for reading!

treebytheriver

Japanese Haiku

I wrote a haiku some time ago, and I'll share it with you. But first lets get some background information on the origins.

Japanese invented a very interesting form of poetry with very strict rules. The poet was only allowed 5 syllables in the first stanza, 7 syllables in the second, and another 5 in the last stanza. This form of poetry is called Haiku. A poet had to be very skillful in portraying their thoughts in a short sentence.

This is the haiku that I wrote.

ひまわりや Sunflowers
たいようめざして Growing taller everyday
のびのびと Reaching for the sky

Do you like it? I wanted to portray the feeling of optimism that sunflowers symbolize, always reaching for the sun. Even though it may be short, it still makes you think, doesn't it.

One poem that really struck me though, is even shorter. It was written by a Japanese, and I will try and translate it as best as I can.

せきをしてもひとり "Cough!" Still alone.

It might be too short for you to understand the message, but what I take from it is a very sad story. A man is in his silent house, he coughs, but there is no one to help him out, no one to say if he is OK, no one else but him in his misery. In a few words, the poet has given an example of a big human problem, loneliness.

Loneliness is a big issue for a lot of people. Many people might have lots of friends on Facebook, or at school, or at parties, but when they get home, do they have anyone who really cares for them?

I sometimes wish I had a friend I could talk to all the time, about any of my troubles, and that they would genuinely listen and care for me. This will always be a dream, because everyone has their own troubles they need to take care of, let alone their friends... Lucky I have God to talk to.

God won't leave me, or get annoyed at me for whining about life so much. God is suitably called the "wonderful counselor". That man in the short poem above, probably didn't have God in his life, which left a gaping hole. Nothing man made can ever fill that hole, except for God's love.

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you learn something new!

treebytheriver

Talking about the untalked things...

I described to someone what my blog was about, and I said that it was "saying stuff that you usually wouldn't say in a conversation because it is either too long, too deep, or just off topic". Although when I started this blog I didn't really have a clue about what my blog should be about, except for it to be something that I could share my thoughts in. Now that I can define the contents of my blog, it feels like I am one step further to actually writing something interesting!

One thing that annoys me but which I never get to talk about is the meaningless worksheets that make you do hard choices. Remember? The one that said you where stranded on a sinking boat and only could take 5 people out of 20 people on the lifeboat. The 20 people usually consisted of a baby, disabled person, old person, and other people you didn't really want to leave to die, and yourself.

What I hate about this is first, the exercise itself. There is about 1 in a million chance I will be on a sinking ship, that only has enough space in the lifeboat for 5 people, and then probably we will all go on it anyway, because we all won't die. Just imagine 20 people quietly sitting on a sinking boat, about to go underwater any minute, and discussing quietly why we think each of us should survive. It's crazy!

Secondly is the concept of the exercise. The only thing I got out of that, was that everyone is selfish, because we all chose ourselves. What else did we learn? Nothing, it was pointless.

I still don't get why they do such stupid exercises. I hope I can ask the guy who invented it, why he thought it would be useful...

One thing for me that was good from doing the sheets was that it reminded me that I was on a sinking ship. This world is sinking, it will not last. Unless we get on a lifeboat we will not survive. Luckily, there is enough space for everybody. We just have to acknowledge that we need help, not to struggle under the powerful hands of the one who will save us, and let him take us away from the sinking ship.

I'll bet you that isn't something that you would hear in a conversation! Anyway, I am glad i can share my thoughts with you.

Thanks for reading my blog! treebytheriver