Welp,
Finished up my first year on University with a Cumulative GPA of 3.51. Not to bad, could have been worse. With how little effort I felt like putting in between working and knowing that I was not coming back the next year it was hard to care. But in the end I think I did allright.

Also been sick the last few days. Throwing up, achy, the whole 9 yards. Lots of ginger-ale, watching t.v., playing video games. Pamela and I figure it has to do with my body just shutting down.

Speaking of Pamela my wife to be - that is only 59 days away now. It's terrifying to think of how much it seems like we have left to get done. But overall I think it'll all work out fairly  nicely - although the RSVP deadline we asked people to meet is tomorrow and we are still waiting for 88! So that's a little disheartening. Kind of that 'hey it's the biggest even of my entire life and you can't take the time to say your coming' feeling. But I guess that's the nature of people.

Waiting on 3 or 4 job replies here for the summer. Fingers are definitely crossed for a position that Pamela and I both applied for in Elk Valley. But Pamela's really busy these days working for the Commissionaires AND the City of Lethbridge. I'll also be hearing back here soon about a position with Platinum Communications. So life is moving along, even though I'm o.k. if it takes a week or so to get there. I'm zonked!

Talk to ya'll later!

SO I AM DONE SCHOOL. It is a fantastic feeling. I can't tell if I feel fantastic because the ending of school co-incided with my finishing at McDonalds. So perhaps it's the no longer working in a greasy environment eating greasy food, or if it has to do with the knowledge that unless I am lead back here I don't have to worry about tests and studying again!

But overall feeling good. Can focus solely on the wedding now and the potential to work in Elk Vally. Fantastic.
dREW~ 

T

Things are so busy getting ready for weddings! :) But Pamela and I are doing o.k. we have our Photographer, reception, ceremony, caterers, honeymoon all booked. We're almost done the invitations and have our registry finished. We're feeling pretty good!

Aside from that I am just going a little bit insane with school, I just finished a paper for Philosophy of Mind in which I detailed how our language pre-disposes us towards Substance Dualism theory. Interesting and I enjoyed writing the paper, but it took a lot of time. I've got an insane packaging assignment due on tuesday for my New Media class, and two midterms next week. It just never seems like it is going to stop! But then I remember there is just 8 weeks left of school, which menas 16 school days for me and I'm all done which is great.

Speaking of being all done at this point it looks like I am not going to be going back to school next year. I think that Pamela and I are going to be taking the first year of our marriage to try to work, try and get a little bit established and maybe get some money in the bank. Actually have time to work on developing our community here! But yah later~
dREW~

G.K. Chesterton quote - "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

It's been a busy week, and you can pray for me if you like! Monday I worked until midnight, was up for school at 8:00 and did school until 4:20 after which I did Chiro and then Pamela came over and ended up being awake till midnight again. Then i worked a 6:00 a.m. shift on Wednesday and the rest of the day was filled with swimming and errands and stuff. Got to bed at a decent hour but still only got at most 9 hours of sleep and so haven't really 'caught up' and then another full day of school today before heading off to calgary tomorrow after a shift to do a bunch of wedding stuff. 

I think this feeling is called overwhelmed and my state is burnt out. It's o.k. I know it won't be forever but I'm really looking forward to this reading week and having some time to just relax, chill, not think, not reason, not carry...

I'll admit, I am a little bit surprised. Working for McDonalds isn't sucking out my soul, it's actually given me a boost.

I'm not sure if it's not having to worry about money as much, the fact that I work with some hilarious people, or that it's a job I've picked up in 3 shifts and thus feel confident and accomplished, but overall we're doin good.

First Day at Mcdonalds!
Welp, it's done and official, I've got the uniform, I've asked someone if they wanted 'fries with that' and I've used my 50% discount to have a 2 dollar meal. I'm a McDonalds employee.

Here's the layout of 'what you get' if your a McDonalds Employee.
$9.50 starting wage.
$.10 raise for each night available to work until midnight.

1 McDonalds Blue hat
2 McDonalds Blue shirts
2 McDonalds Black pants

Post Secondary Tuition assistance.
$.25 for every hour worked up to a maximum of 500 dollars.

So that's about it. It's honestly not to shabby given that I have a 4 minute walk to get to work (although kinda makes my bus pas a little pointless - that was 220 bucks I didn't need to spend) I'm getting the exact shifts that I want Mon-Wed-Fri mornings. The people are pretty cool.

So that's that, maybe post some pictures if I can get past the lump of pride... Talk to you all later.

Tesla - Electric Supercar - Neat Company

Tesla Motors

I'll have to supersize that...
So yeah, I've been hired at McDonalds... Not sure what job that I'm going to be doing, but as a university student who is getting married in the summer I needed to get a job thing going to get some money in that wedding fund.

Not sure how I'm feeling about working for a big terrible corporation. Feeling potentially a little dirty... will update you soon.

On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if all the things I learned about McDonalds in Sociology class. If nothing else I've always wanted to work in fast food a little bit and at a 7-11 a little bit.

So that's that, not sure how I feel! Later~
dREW~ 

I guess that I forgot to post on this topic. I'm actually engaged! :) It happened on January 12 at about 1:30 on a ski hill near where Pamela and I live. It maked the 2 years anniversary from the very first day that PAmela and I had ever hung out and it was the first time she had taken me snowboarding so it worked out well!

But yeah figured I'd put it out here for posterity! dREW~

a day in the life of a dREW~

Sometimes i just think it's neat to hear exactly all the things that went on in a persons life in one day. Here's my current day.

Slept in toll about 10:00 because I don't have school on Wednesdays.
Showered and got ready to take on the world.
Worked on wedding guest list stuff, engagement announcement pdf, and figureing out how to bus down to the chiropractor.
Sent out engagement pdf.
Talked with my buddy Tobin about some stuff.
Hopped on a bus to the university.
Hopped on a bus to the city centre.
Walked to the Chiropractors office.
Chatted with a native guy d-town waiting for the Chiro to open.
Went to Leister's music and played a mini-djembe for 15 minutes.
Walked back to Chiro they were open now and got adjusted.
Walked to City Centre to hop a bus to the university.
Waiting at the university right know to catch a bus at 3:47
will go home, read like a mad man until having to leave for 7:15 reservations at Dionysius for Rodger's b-day party.
Will come home, play WOW with the boys for a while OR go to Pamela's house for a bit to cuddle and discuss wedding stuff.
Come home, write in my journal, sleep.

So yeah that's a day in the life of the Newly engaged dREW~

Being tired and trying to figure out the philosophy of mind is not a good idea! But basically this is what I've gleaned from Jaegwon Kim's "Philosophy of Mind" Second edition.

Theres basically two ways to look at it and most other things fall under these. Physicalism which says that all mental processes happen in the physical (Has mass, effected by gravity, exists in time) realm. Then theres this Dualism thing, which I'm getting Mr. Kim isn't a fan of, which says that mentality exists seperately from physicality. 

So for Physicality we have this:
if X has a Mental Property (which we'll call M) and if X also has P (which is a physical property) Then it stands to reason that if X has P (physical property) then P has M (which is the mental property) So all Mental properties seem to emerge from physical properties, and the closer physical properties are together the closer then the mental properties of those physical objects will be. Whew - and believe me that's the simplified version.

When it comes to the Dualism part... I can't really say that I get it quite yet, although I feel like I agree with it more than I agree with Physicalism. I think it's probably b/c of my theological background that I'd like to think theres more than just this physical realm. But I'll keep ya'll updated if I discover some truth about Dualism


Aside from that I'm just ridiculous tired right know, pretty stressed out about school, and ready for some sleep!
dREW~

Pawn shops are such a rip off.

So I go into a few music stores in lethbridge here today, and it turns out that none of them buy brass instruments. Which is sad b/c in an effort to help clean out my parents basement of their children's things I took my old Trombone from high school and figured I'd sell it. Someone may as well be using it right? So I ask my mum about what we payed for it and she figured somewhere between 400 and 600 so I'm thinking to myself o.k. so if I get like 200 bucks I'm doing fine.

But as i said before no one seemed to be willing to buy it so I ended up at King of Trade of have their 'were sort of a music store but mostly a pawn shop' ideals and I figured I'd see what I could get for it. I get up to the counter and theres this young guy at the counter and I'm going huh... this might be a bad idea. So I present the case to the guy and watch in pain as he fails to open it on the first try, attempts to pry the horn out of the case w/o undoing the latches and can't figure out how to open the storage for the slide grease. Then he's like 'well, we don't usually buy these but I'll look it up in the book'. Let's look at that statement - we don't USUALLY do this... but we've got a book that will tell us the price... huh.

O.k. so after he manages to find the trombone section he says to me this "we need to send away all instruments for cleaning at st.johns (music store in town) and that costs $40.00 and the closes one I can find to yours we buy for about $100.00 so I can give you $60.00. I'll admit I was caught a little bit off guard, I expected something lowball like 100 or 150 but... 60 bucks? So I said to the guy "I was looking at the trombones that you are selling over there that are like mine and they are going for $300.00 so can't you give me like 100 bucks for it? You'd still be making 160 on it right?" and his reply "well no if we are going to make a profit we can't go higher than $60.00 because we have to pay for it to get cleaned, have to drive up to Calgary (no idea what that was about), pay for the utilities in this place, pay my salary, and blah blah blah" - finally I just said "that's fine, I'll just put it on kijiji - or freecycle I'd feel less ripped off" and left.

So if I were to take this lesson literally what does it mean? It means that the pawn shop business must be TERRIBLE to get ahead in. If you purchase something for 60 bucks and sell it for 300 making 240 dollars you will 'apparently' JUST barely make a profit - You know b/c of all the trips to calgary and utilities...?! But then i saw that on that street there were 6 pawn shops and thought to myself oh wait... there just a rip off and that's all there is to it.

Latest Fire Snake Spin

Little x-mas something.

So not the tightest video I've ever made but something fun to send out to people. Should be one of Pamela and My trip to Fernie soon!
dREW~

Classes are done!

Welp, that is the final test done and I'm now good to go! Anyway this holiday season is shaping up to be pretty awesome. I've got 4 snowboarding days planned so far between now and x-mas, and from there things are shaping up to be good.

So far looks like next semester will be tues and thurs classes only which is great, and aside from that having to find a job to support myself!

Anyway I'm going to do some relaxing now so we will talk to you all LATER!
dREW~