Life

Life. It can be amazing and awesome in one moment. Terrible, dark, and crappy in the next. But you already knew that. Everyone knows this. It's a fact of life that our lives are like roller-coasters but only usually we cannot see what is in front of us or what is going to happen no matter how much we would like to know. And really, we don't know when the ride will stop. But what we do know is who is in our cart with us, experiencing life with us and sometimes we get to choose who we want next to us. But often, we need have to accept what comes our ways and learn to deal with the uncertainty of life.

At the beginning of the year, I thought that it was going to be one of the best years of my life. I was in second year at school, taking classes I would much rather be taking, I was living back at home developing a better relationship with my family, becoming closer friends with people I already knew (while knowing that I would make a couple new friends along the way). But also, I got the opportunity to be on a worship team at both my school, a regional campus for church, and for my young adults group. Furthermore, I was also asked to join as a leader for my young adults group. To  me, my year was going to be great.

But as of recently, a couple of these amazing things have since disintegrated from my life without me wanting them to. And this has left me surprised, hurt, but mostly confused. Confused as to how all of this has happened but also confused as to why God allowed such things to happen. My life was starting off to be really great this year and then it was as if someone pulled the rug from beneath me.

I have noticed though that when we are in hard times, we tend to reflect on our lives. Now I was not reflecting on how I allowed bad things to happen to me because I did not actively played a part to my demise, however I have been reflecting this week as to why God would allow me to be stepping down from certain things. And really I don't know why things happen, but I always believe that things happen for a reason.

Maybe the reason was that in the near future I will be needed to help lead a different group and in order for that to happen I would need more time. And maybe the only way for more time to be created is if I was forced to step down from things. I honestly do not know. But I do know that it is better to try to see either a positive or that there is a positive outcome eventually than to sit and mope all day. Pity parties can be great, but they're always enjoyed alone.

So keep your chin up (couldn't help but include this cliche) and talk to someone if something is going on. But know that life won't always be good but it won't always be bad. Sometimes we get caught up in believing that the world we live in is always dark but know that there are people who care for you who want to help you in life. And there is always that special someone who loves you (even if it's your mom).

How will you look at life? Trying to see the positive even if it's hard to see? Or will you live in the gloomy darkness?

#LifeOfRyan

One Person

Wow has it actually been two months since the last time I've blog? Oh yes it has... quite unfortunate really. However I have been really busy sooooo whatever.

Every year I try to think of something that I will spend the year improving on (call it a New Years resolution if you will but I start mine in the school year and it's more personal. Plus, I actually follow through with it). This year I wanted to pour into people's lives more, connect deeper with friends, create lasting new friendships, that kind of stuff. And I've noticed how one person can make such a big difference in people's lives.

I know, I know! It sounds SUPER cliche but it's really true. I've listened to stories from people how one person really messed up their lives. Through betrayal, mistrust, deceit, wrongdoings, lies; the receiver builds up walls and learns that other people like them are out to hurt and harm and are only there to do more damage. Some people believe have coped by emotionally detaching themselves but still allowing the pain to enter their lives. While others cut people out of their lives, never to make contact with them again. And it baffles me how much damage a single person has on another human being, and the impact it has.

I find that it can get discouraging to think about, about how hurt and broken people are. I often wonder if I'm doing more harm to others than good and I try my best but is it really what they need?

There is a girl that I know, and she is very busy, always helping out other people and being there for other girls who look up to here. But when combining all of this with school, I know that she gets overwhelmed and so I decided to take her on a date and I told her the day and time and I picked her up. And I could see the relief in her eyes that someone was taking her out and just being with her. I felt so uplifted knowing that I was helping out somebody else become relieved from the stress from their own life, even if it wasn't for an hour. And I realized that as much as one person can cause great damage, and other can help to rebuild the carnage.

One person can make you cry your eyes out all night due to a broken heart, broken promise, or even a hurtful word. And yet one person can make you stay up all night thinking about them, wondering if they are thinking about you. They can make you giddy and goofy and bring out the best in you.

It takes one person to challenge you to be the best person that you are, and if they know you well enough, they will know just how to motivate you. To love you too much to let you settle for you are when they know you can be better.

It takes one person to show love and make sure that a person feels accepted. I have a story about this actually. I went to a highly charismatic church service in Calgary and I felt like God was telling me to not say anything to this girl that I didn't know but only to hug her. I felt like this was really weird but I was convicted and convinced that it was God and so I went to her (I told her I was giving her a hug cause I didn't want her to think it was anything else) and I hugged her. I could tell that she really needed a hug because she was crying so much (my shoulder was quite damp actually) and she told me how all week she just wanted a hug because it was a busy week for her. All it took was me giving her a hug to make her week an amazing week!

It takes one person to say hi to make someone's day
It takes one person to open a door for someone else

All it takes is one person. So even though the idea of helping out everybody can be daunting, all it takes is a simple act. Or as Even Almighty put it, an Act of Random Kindness (ARK). And that can help people go through their day or their week.

So how are you going to help others? How are you going to show someone that you care? All it takes is one person, and they can make such a difference.

#LifeOfRyan

First Day of School (Matthew 6:25-27; 31-34)

So by now, most of you are aware that today was the first day of school. For some, it's nerve racking especially if you're a freshman and you don't know very many (if any) people; you may even be scared cause this is your graduating you and that you actually have a lot of pressure to succeed so that you can get a career or maybe even continue on with school in a higher level. For some, it was a time to re-connect with friends you haven't seen or maybe even talked to, during the summer months. Nonetheless, the first day can be busy for all.

For me, today was a little odd. Don't get me wrong, I was so excited to see some friends again and spend so much time with them and talking to them and even making friends with the freshmen. But yet I find myself realizing that as much as I had a lot of fun being at school last year (the memories, the people, the experiences), and this year will not be like last year. My classes, for one, are of a higher level (which isn't really surprising because I'm no longer in my first year, so naturally I would be taking classes that are harder. Otherwise I'd be a freshmen forever which I don't really find appealing). But also, the most difficult change that I'm finding is that I no longer live in residence.

Some of you may think that no longer living in residence would be the best thing in the world, I mean no more roommates, no more small rooms, no more residence rules to follow, and a little bit cheaper. Trust me, all of those things are great things which I am very happy about. But it's not too much fun to take a 70min transit ride everyday, there and back, to school. Plus, it'd be harder for homework because I am so far away from the library at the school, which leads me to a big fear of mine. What happens if I go all the way to school and forgot to sign out books that I need to study?!?!? That would be TERRIBLE!! And as silly as it may sound, I am actually dreading that experience and can see myself, in that situation, curled up in fetal position in the corner of my room rocking back and forth. Muttering under my breath "what have I done?"

But enough of that dramatic stuff, it is definitely difficult to transition from a residence student to a student that lives with their parents in their house. I mean I forgot to even pack my lunch today cause I was so used to not ever doing that! What am I going to forget next, my essay? But not only do I need to balance between being at school and being at home, but I have to do enough homework here to be with friends, but also make sure my parents don't think I never want to be with them.

So much to think about, so many worries, so many people to be concerned about. And yet throughout all of my worries and your worries that you probably have (your list could be even bigger than mine) I am reminded about what the Bible says in Matthew 6:25-27; 31-34

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

These words are comforting because as much as I'm worrying about how this year will look and work out. I know that I should stop worrying and rest in the fact that God is bigger than those problems.

What are your worries? Is God bigger than them?

#LifeOfRyan

Testimonies

Everyone has a testimony whether you know it or not cause a testimony is really just a story of your life and how you got to be the person you are today. For some people it is difficult to share their testimony because of how vulnerable you have to be in order to share it, whereas some may find it easy to share. Personally, I'm at a place where I believe that I've been put through a lot for the purpose of sharing how I was able to get through life which makes it easy for me to share. That being said, I still find it hard to share with close friends of mine because I see them so often.

This past Thursday I was given the opportunity to share my testimony with two other great guys for a group of friends that meets officially once a week. And as I was thinking about testimonies all week I started wondering if testimony was one of those christian-ese words that we use that non-Christians don't quite understand. So for my non-Christian readers and those who are Christian but aren't sure what testimonies really are here you go:

In it's basic form, a testimony is really the story of your life. However people don't really have time to sit down and listen to you describe every detail about your life that you can remember so testimonies are more of a condensed story of your life that describes major factors that have influenced you into being the person you are today. For Christian's, this includes when you accepted Jesus into your life and when that actually effected you (for me I accepted Jesus when I was around 3 cause I was afraid of going into hell, but it wasn't under grade 8 when I went on a mission's trip to Vancouver that I realized what being a Christian really looked like and that was when I fully made the decision).

Some Christians make the mistake of describing testimonies as a story of all the horrible things you have had to go through and how you have overcome those obstacles or still are. The problem with this thinking is that there are many people who have not had to go through things in their lives but that doesn't mean they don't have a testimony or that theirs isn't as powerful. I find that someone who has the testimony that is basically "I accepted Jesus into my heart, I've had some self-esteem problems growing up (or other issue that people can face) but I have been able to get through that with God" is very inspirational to me and I look up to those people because they had the strength to stay with God throughout their lives. Similarly, people who's testimony are similar to mine where they've gone through a lot of problems and addictions I respect because they have experienced a lot of life and chose to turn back to God to help them get through it.

Testimonies (as you may have guessed) requires you to really know who you are now and what you were like before and how you were able to change from your before to now. This requires self-reflection and introspection as to who are you right now.

I would encourage everyone (Christian and non-Christian) to share their testimony with at least one person that you trust because this helps you to be real with someone else instead of continuing to wear a mask to hide who you are everyday. But also, the more you share it and think about your testimony, the more aware you are about yourself which is always beneficial. So who are you going to share your testimony with?

Ps: sorry for not writing this sooner, I've been busy with always doing something so I haven't had the time to getting around to writing. Hopefully I will be better this week

#LifeOfRyan

Personalizing Songs

Songs are great! They help us with the ability to express how we are feeling and can sympathize with us. They encourage us to uncontrollably dance and they can comfort us in the midst of pain. No matter where you are in life or what mood you are in, music and songs are there for us.

It is no mystery to anyone that songs actually convey meaning and the lyrics that a song has holds this meaning. (However I find it completely disappointing and annoying even when a music beat is great and I love it but the lyrics and the meaning behind the lyrics are either terrible, or just gross to my ears) Sometimes it is these lyrics that we can sympathize with the most in a song because they verbalize how we internally feel. And as much as there are songs out there that are awesome even with their intended interpretation, I find that I enjoy personalizing a song by giving a song a different meaning (not change the lyrics at all but just give the lyrics a different meaning so that the song becomes more personal for me). I have done this lately for a couple songs of which I shall share.

What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction: there are probably a lot of you who are not a fan of One Direction but just hear me out! I may have One Direction Infection but I find that I enjoy this particular song when I put my own spin on it. When I was a kid I had a lot of self-esteem issues and I found what I liked about the song was that the girl in the song was being reassured in a sense that she is beautiful. But my interpretation does not stop there! I like to envision God singing this song (especially the chorus really) to not only this girl but to everyone, wondering why they don't know that they are beautiful because He made them beautiful!

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift: This song is such a great song with an amazing beat, not gonna lie. When this song came out though I was going through a lot of personal trials and without even thinking about changing the meaning of the song, I just naturally did in my head. To me (sometimes not all the time), this song is talking about my relationship that I have with the sin in my life that I like to keep going back to. And how even though this sin keeps coming back and I keep falling for their tricks every time I am NEVER EVER going back with it. Very quickly this song became a liberation song for me, which is pretty cool for me to think about!

Another benefit that I find with personalizing songs (this one is really for the musically talented) is that this actually helps me with writing my own music because I begin to realize what is internally going on with me. Personalizing songs is like a way to self-reflect because it tells you how you are thinking and feeling in that moment which is great for writing music really!

So try to personalize songs out there and let me know what you think and your experience with it is!

#LifeOfRyan

Standards

From the girl who has a list of 186 things that a guy has to complete before she can even consider going out with him, to the guy who only has one golden rule: can she make me a sandwich? Everyone has their own personal standards, a sort of moral ethics that one uses like a net to weed out people. Otherwise, we would go on dates with any and probably every human being that we see (regardless of their gender).

I find that standards are incredibly helpful when it comes to dating and also a necessity that everyone needs to put serious thought, effort, and time into. 

When someone wants to be in a relationship it's easy to just try to put yourself out there and go out with the first person who will. But then you turn into a fish surrounded by hooks because the people that you would attract will do more harm than good to you. Whereas if you had a set of standards that you knew, that you took the time and effort into creating then you would look for someone who actually meets those criteria. And if your standards are meaningful then you will be looking for meaningful people. It's like you get what you put out (and by putting out you're really just making a set of standards that you follow). But not only do standards help you get someone who is worth your time, but standards can make you a better person yourself.

Have you ever heard of the phrase: Be the person you want to marry (you can replace marry with date if you would like)? Well it means exactly that really, you should have all the qualities that you are looking for. For guys this could mean if you want a girl (or a guy depending on your orientation) who is faithful to you and doesn't go around looking at porn then you can't be looking at porn yourself. For girls this could mean that if you want a guy (or a girl) who doesn't flirt with others or shows off parts of their bodies then you need to not be flirtatious and be careful with exposing yourself.

All this being said: I would feel like a complete hypocrite if I didn't share with you my personal standards that I came up with to show you that I too have standards that I follow when looking to date or marry someone (I've even ranked them in order from least importance to most importance cause I'm a nerd like that). So without further adue here is my list and why it is important to me (going from least importance to most):

3. Maintains activity (likes doing things regularly). This is because I like chilling but even when I chill I'm doing something like watching a movie or writing this blog or even playing the piano. My chilling is really me doing things that I like doing. I am not interested in someone who chooses to actually do nothing and can do nothing all day cause that is boring to me and wasteful of a great day!

2. Respects themselves and others (especially family)[this includes their bodies and other's bodies]. This means to me that I will not be dating someone who smokes anything, likes to over drink, enjoys watching adult movies, and things of the like because that isn't respecting their bodies and it is not respecting others. I know a couple people who smoke weed or sheesha and tell me that it is completely fine, but to me it is not. You are putting harmful stuff in your body and therefor I will never date them. This standard also means that they need to respect their family, not like them but respect them.

And finally number 1. On fire for God and Jesus!!! This is huge for me because my faith is huge to me! I don't want to be with someone who doesn't have the same passion (or greater) passion for God or Jesus than I do. And to me, going to church once a week is not on fire.

So I feel like I should wrap up before this begins to sound like I am really just posting my bio for an online dating site. But anyways that is my view on standards and my standards that I have. Don't be mistake though, just because I have standards doesn't mean I'm good with dating right now, having these standards makes me want to get ride of somethings in my life because right now I am not convinced I would date myself if I kept these standards.

So do you have standards? If so what are they?

#LifeOfRyan

Lord Of The Rings Rant

So before you LOTR nerds get all excited thinking that for some reason I will take this blog to discuss how "awesome" these movies are. I won't. I'm not a fan of the LOTR series and I probably will never be a fan. But for some reason when I mention that I do not like the series it's as if I'm calling their mother a  whole (if you catch my drift). I don't understand why people take great offence to my dislike of the movies, and then they try to tell me about all the "great" things about them to try to convince me to change my mind. As if I haven't already seen the movies, I've obviously watched the movies it's why I don't like them to begin with. It's also why I can't really say I don't like Twilight because I've never seen it (although I have no interest in watching them or reading them). And beyond just watching the LOTR movies my dad made me watch the extended versions as a marathon........ so you can obviously trust that when I say I don't like them. I don't like them. Stop trying to convert me, it won't happen.

Let me share with you the top three reasons why I don't like the LOTR series:

1. Frodo smiles three times in the whole first trilogy. To me, this is depressing, I enjoy smiling and laughing (don't be deceived I do enjoy epic and very serious movies and shows one of my top favorite shows right now is Hannibal). But for me if you can go through a whole movie (the second movie in LOTR) and have the main character never smile then why should I watch it? There is no break from the seriousness of the movie. Even Shakespeare knew that having a play continuously serious would be dull and boring after a while and included comic reliefs whereas LOTR decides to just ignore all of that and bore me to death.

2. There is so much fighting in the whole movie that I forget quite often as to why they are fighting. It seems like everywhere they go they have to kill something or someone. Lets go to the forest - kill orgers. Lets go to the city - kill people. Lets go to another wizard - kill him. It's so repetative and dull so very quickly I loose interest because I can't remember why they have to be killing so many people.

3. They walked everywhere. I wouldn't be bothered by the fact that they walked majority of the way except for the fact that there were in exsistance huge creatures that looked like elephants that could carry them a significant part of the way, or even the birds! They could have flown to the eye! And even if they couldn't be flown all the way to the eye I am sure they could have been flown a significant distance so that they were pretty close! Then BAM! Two of the LOTR movies would have been cut and Frodo would have gotten rid of the ring in the first movie.

Now don't get me wrong, I recognize how epic the series can be and I like the undertone Christian message but I just personally find the movies to be dull because of the overuse of battles. What movies are popular that you just don't like? Why?

#LifeOfRyan

Awkward Prayers and Moodiness

Wow am I ever late on writing this one, but my excuse is that my Aunt from New Zealand is over so I've been spending time with her cause I see her every two years. So for all of you who have been impatiently waiting for my next blog... shame on you!

Anyway, you know what can be awkward? Prayer requests. For some people you have no idea why this is awkward but for people like me this can be bad unless I go last. I shall proceed to enlighten you as to why this is. So for prayer requests you go around in a circle and say what you would like prayer for about you or concerning you and in the end everyone prays for you and its awesome. However more than once have I said that I wanted prayer for something minor (like a couple weeks ago I said that I've been sneezing a lot and I'm not sure whether it's a cold or an allergy problem but I would like it to go away (which I still have oddly enough). This to be was a valid prayer request because it was annoying me greatly. But then the person next to me told us how she had something wrong with her throat and how it could be like larangytis or something (a lot worse than my sneezing). And then another person asks for prayer for their chest cause they are having issues and it's starting to hurt. And now I'm sitting there feeling like a jerk because I want prayer for my little sniffles and they have legitimate concerns that they are bringing up. And therefore it is awkward.

You know what else is awkward (not really awkward really but more of weird)? I am a moody person who is a guy. I know, I know. You're probably trying to tell me how all guys are not in tuned with their emotions and can't express them at all how are you able to break free from that curse? Well I have no idea actually. But what I do know is that it sucks at times and I have a slight appreciation for women more who have to go through that in pregnancy and in periods (at least I believe you become moody, either that or you just get pissed off easily, haven't quite figured it out yet).

For all you guys out there reading this and are trying to figure out what it's like to be moody, trust me it's not fun. For example: my emotions tend to go through waves and I cannot stop it and I feel like I don't have too much control over them (although I'm learning how to better manage them but I shall share that later). I go through periods of feeling so awesome in my life and then poof the next day and for following days I don't and I have no idea why but it just happens. Sometimes my mood will change during the day too. Believe it or not a song can actually change my mood for the rest of the day, or even something someone said that wasn't quite right or even what they didn't say.

You guys may be sitting reading this and thinking that it's overwhelming and you know what? It is. And the weird thing is is that I cannot think of a single guy who is moody as well. Probably because we just all assume guys not never be moody and we leave that for the girls to untangle. But people need to remember that there are guys out there (like me [I'm assuming there are others like me, yes]) who can be moody, and have a lot of similar issues that we just push off to being strictly feminine.

Anyway, I said I would share how I am able to cope with my moodiness. Well for me I find that when I realize that I'm in a bad mood, I need to center myself with God. Just last week I was just in a down moment and I had no idea why or what got me there but I just wasn't feeling great a lot. I wound up going to an arts worship service and that really helped me connect with God and help restore joy back into my life. So I'm starting to see that my moodiness could just be me running low on joy. Is that the case with you?

#LifeOfRyan
Ps: does anyone know how long colds are suppose to last cause I feel like I've had mine for a while

Driving in Calgary

So I don't know if this is just Calgary but I am very annoyed at the lines that divide the lanes on some of the roads here. As fellow drivers you may know what my problem is..... you can still see past dotted lines!!!! I freaken hate this!! Because now when I drive on a busy highway in Calgary, I'm watching the speed limit and the fellow drivers and trying to watch out for the super slow drivers and the just I'm-so-terrible-at-driving-I-look-like-I'm-actually-drunk-driving-but-I'm-sober drivers, and I'm trying to sing as loud as I can to the songs that I'm playing so that I feel like an accomplished performer for knowing every word to the song (except for one verse, not sure why but there always seems to be a verse or a line in a song that I actually don't really know) and on top of all that I have to guess as to which lines on the road I'm suppose to follow?? I do not accept this fallacy of construction!!

On Friday it was pouring rain out as I was driving and because it was past 10pm it was pretty dark out too so I was already having a tough time seeing. But as a naive driver in Calgary, I just assumed that was going to be it for all the things hindering my driving. However as I'm on Shaganappi Drive past John Laurie, I see that I'm left of a faint dotted line and I just assumed that the dotted line was faint because it was dark out and raining. However I thought it was a little peculiar for me to be in the far right hand lane and yet I'm so far away from the right side of the road. I soon realized that there was a more visible dotted line that was actually underneath my vehicle and that I was in fact in two lanes this whole time!! This does not fly with me! I don't want to second guess if I'm in the correct lane or if I'm in a lane that used to exist. I feel like if we are going to get ride of lanes to expand the road then we should paint over the lines so that no one thinks that they are suppose to follow those lines. What's worse is that I'm seeing more and more of these "ghost lines" on other roads, common Calgary! Clean up your roads!!

If the road conditions weren't bad enough our drivers can be even worse. I'm not sure what it is but every time when there is the first snowfall it's like everyone goes into a panic and forgets how to drive in snow. Common!! We did this last year! And the year before that....and the year before that! Like it's not that hard to figure out! But every year people decide to drive 30 below the speed limit even if the snow isn't really that bad, and I've never seen a time where the OOO is more applicable (if you don't know what the triple "o"s are then ask someone else not me).

Calgary also seems to be the home of stupidly aggressive drivers. I mean I can be aggressive don't get me wrong but I can will pass someone if they're too slow for me instead of inching up their butt. Just yesterday I was driving home from work and this guy is pretty closely up my butt so I decide to slow it down so that he can get the message to stop what he's doing. But he doesn't. He actually inches closer to me which makes me more scared. So I slow down even more so now I'm doing 40km/hr in a 60km/hr zone which is now pretty slow. The guy didn't even honk at me (which I was fully prepared for because if I was him I'd be pissed off) he just inched closer and closer to me. By this time I turned off that road so as to continue my journey home.

One time I even saw someone do 60 in a 30 zone (which is illegal for all you non-Canadians) and then drive past a stop sign that other people were at waiting for each other's turns. So the guy did two illegal things in less than 10min. That would be a time where I wished the police were there. But I don't want the police everywhere because then I would get a lot of speeding tickets, I just want them to catch the other speeders.

So what are some of your crazy driving stories?

#LifeOfRyan

Forgetting People's Names

First let me start off with a big sorry for not posting sooner, I've been uber busy lately which is a new thing for me so it's taken a while for me to write this blog. However I should be posting another blog on Tuesday like planned (unless my life decides to go all Armageddon busy on me then posting Tuesday will not happen).

Anywho back to this blog, I am quite sure that you have an idea of what today's blog will be about seen as it's in the title. Nonetheless, I feel like I still need to describe the situation so that you may feel the intensity of emotion that I feel towards these situations.

You've bumped into someone you know at a park (it's a lovely sunny day in case that matters to you) and when I say that you know them I really mean that you've been introduced to them once before. For some reason however you actually remember their name and you take pride in yourself until they admit that they don't remember your name..... what do you do?

Now some people would think that there isn't a problem and that you can just admit that you remember their name but those people would be mistaken (naive maybe even). Once you admit that you know someone's name if they don't remember yours you have caused an awkward situation even if you are the only person who knows that it is awkward, it doesn't change the fact that it is.

To make things worse (this happens to me all the time) once I naively admit that I know their name the other person not only recognizes that the situation is awkward but they like to spell it out by saying "well that's awkward". I would LOVE (I hope you can sense my sarcasm) to tell those people that you don't need to spell out awkward situations, I already know that the situation is awkward I don't need some weirdo to make it more obvious for me! I know what awkward is! I went through puberty and through junior high (granted I was home-schooled for junior high but my point remains) and those things can be really awkward. So even though you think you're being funny for pointing out an awkward situation with your pet turtle you should know that you're not. You're annoying. Get it straight. The rest of us are trying to either elliviate awkward situations or move on from them which can be hard to do if you make that situation worse.

Now you may be asking "Ryan, how do I avoid this awkward situation waiting to happen if I know their name," well smart reader the answer is simple: pretend like you can't remember their name. I do it all the time, it's perfect because it makes the other person feel better about forgetting your name and it doesn't create an awkward situation. And the benefit that you get out of it would be that you now know that this person may not be worth your time if they can't remember your name (granted this depends on how long your previous encounter was and how long ago it was but if your encounter was the day before and you were talking for like 5hrs straight then they should know your name). Also, when pretending to forget someone's name it's best if you actually pick a name for them that has some similarity to their real name, because that shows them that you were really interested in remembering their name without it being awkward (unless they think you're super annoying and weird and never want to talk to you then the very fact that you are talking to them and trying to remember their name is an awkward situation [in this situation it's best to do some self-reflections and try to see if a particular person doesn't want to talk to you, and remember it's find if they don't, they obviously weren't good enough for you]).

Do you already have strategies for people who forget your name or do you just create awkward situations for fun? (it's ok if you like making situations awkward, sometimes I will purposely tell someone that I remember their name even if they don't just to see how they react, it's usually fun to watch) Let me know what you guys do!

#LifeOfRyan

Friends... They Come and They Go

You know what I hate? Spitting out Spits at a baseball game, you know the sunflower seeds and you're supposed to spit out the seeds. I can never do it right it always just hangs out of my mouth in a gob of spit/drool and then I just look like my IQ went down by 86. And yet somehow there are people who are able to spit wonderfully cause they can spit out those seeds without the drool and I have no idea how they do that (they can even spit without drool without the spits and that really throws me for a loop).

You know what I also hate? Friends leaving your side. It happens to everyone it seems and yet people don't really like talking about it I find. I've experienced this a lot in my life it seems as I have taken a some-what nomadic personality over the years. By this I mean I never really become attached to a certain place personally because either I will leave for reasons or everyone I cared about leaves me. It has become a sort of defense mechanism but throughout my long long life of wisdom (at a ripe age of 19) I have noticed that I am not the only one with these kinds of defense mechanisms so as not to get hurt. However people don't like to talk about these defense systems that they have in their lives often because that would mean that they would have to actually drop their guard and be real with someone else. The thing is though, we need to be real with people more often.

I have never met a person in my entire life (granted you may have had a completely opposite experience from me but I doubt it) who didn't want to talk to me just because I was real with them. There were times where I was honest about who I am with people and that pushed people away but they always appreciated me being real with them. For example, I have had a couple people no longer want to be my friend anymore (even very close friends of mine) because I told them that I was gay however they all recognized how hard that would have been for me to tell them the truth. Hopefully this example isn't one of those things that only makes sense to me and to no one else.

In the end of the day, everyone knows what it is like to no longer be friends with someone that you genuinely had a friendship with and we all had to learn to move on from said friendship. This past week I went through the toughest experience of no longer being friends with someone. This person (lets call him Ted) was very close to me and he and I hung out a whole lot in the past year talking and chilling out. I have never met someone who was more like me than Ted. However through events that are not even known to me, Ted decided that he needed some space from me for a bit cause we hung out every day. Being a good friend I backed off, however that was in January and he had yet to make an effort to reach out to me. I would text Ted about every month just to see how things were going with him but eventually he would just no longer reply.

I'm sharing this story because this past week I realized that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on in the relationship and continuously texting Ted even though he obviously did not want to be my friend anymore. And so I deleted him from my Facebook, Instagram, and removed his contact info from my phone. It was hard cause I didn't want to move on cause he was a great friend, however I had to realize that I was putting far more effort into the friendship than I was receiving.

One thing I learned this year was that with friendships, people change (including you believe it or not), and it's fine if your friends change too. But friendship isn't just you pouring into their lives, its a relationship that has you pouring into them and them pouring into you. And if you are not being poured into, then you need to seriously reconsider that friendship (now I'm not saying ditch that friend on the spot cause there can be a reason why they are not pouring into you [they're busy, going through emotional stuff..] so it's always good to ask and talk with the person about how you feel).

I encourage you guys this week to really think about your friendships that you have, are there friends that aren't really your friends?

#LifeOfRyan

Gullibleness

Being gullible sucks. Like completely cause you believe a fair bit of what people tell you even if it's a ridiculous claim. I don't even know why I believe half the things I do but trust me when I say I have a lot of stories of how gullible I can be. I mean who would believe that girl's middle name was Wolverine after the X-men character? I would completely.

One of the first gullible stories that I can remember though was when I was in grade 10 and I was on the bus from school. Being a loner kid I had no one to talk to so if you can't talk to anyone then the obvious next best thing is to listen to people talk obviously (not that I was a major creeper listening in on people's conversations or anything but I kinda was). Anyway, there was this group of guys that were joking around with each other and then one pulls out this random fact "did you know the word gullible is not in the Webster dictionary?" When I heard this I was stunned! How could Webster neglect a word such as gullible? Why would he not include that word? Did he just get lazy? Was he a gullible person and resented the word so much that he decided not to put the word gullible in the dictionary? I honestly had no idea why Webster would not include the word gullible but I had to see for myself if gullible was in fact not in the dictionary.

So when I got home, the first thing I did was go straight to the dictionary (which completely confused my mom cause I rarely even looked at a dictionary). To my surprise, gullible was in fact in the dictionary and this guy on the bus was mistaken and I wondered if he was aware of his mistake (I thought that he should probably know that gullible is in the dictionary and he is actually lying to people). Naturally though my mom inquired about what I was doing with the dictionary so I explained what I had heard on the bus. After hearing the story she actually said "Ryan you did not look up gullible in the dictionary did you?" this really surprised me! Did she not hear the story I just told her? Nonetheless she proceeded to tell me that it was all a joke that someone who follows through with the joke believing it is true is a gullible person. I will probably never forget this experience in my life. So if four years ago, you made this joke to your friend taking the 181 bus in Calgary then thank you for ruining my life (just joking my life would have been ruined by someone else if it weren't for you).

But I believe and I fall for so many tricks, like even yesterday I told someone that I really want to be on the Ellen show and I know that one day I will be there and she will interview me. To which he told me that the Ellen show was being cancelled and there was only going to be three more seasons left. This news freaked me out and I rushed to search this up on Google, however he was laughing a fair bit and from that I could tell that he pulled a funny one on me.

I even fall for the tap on the shoulder trick every time. You know the one where you tap someone's shoulder where you are not just to see them turn around and not see anyone. Yeah I always fall for it and people just love it. It's like I'm the perfect candidate for jokes, although I'm partially worried that once I have my own money that I will fall for a lot of scams but hopefully I develop that part of my brain before getting more money. 

So what about you guys? What hilarious stories do you have because you had a gullible moment?

#LifeOfRyan

Loneliness

Hello and welcome to another blog from myself, trust me when I say that I do spend a lot of time trying to think of what I will be "talking" about next with you guys and I try really hard to think of funny stories but the only funny thing I could really think of were the things the kids in the sports classes I teach say but I'm not sure if that would take up a whole blog post or not. Therefor I have decided to wait until even MORE funny things spill out of their little mouths so that I can share their silliness with you guys. But for now, a serious topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately: loneliness.

Everyone here on earth has experienced a form of loneliness in one way or another, we are not strangers to the feelings, however we often neglect that piece of information and insist that no one really knows how we feel. For example, when I was lonely I didn't want to admit that to people it was almost as if I wanted it to be my own little secret. Ironically this further isolates myself from others because no one knows how I truly feel. But if I (and everyone else that is dealing with it) were more open and honest with ourselves and others and let people know that we are lonely I'm sure people would want to help us out.

For me personally, loneliness comes in the form of being single in a Christian University College. For all you of you people who don't have the joys of knowing what it's like to go to a Christian University or College, I will tell you a little bit of what happens inside. Unlike most universities, people will actually go to a Christian University or College for the sole purpose to find someone to marry (believe it or not, it's true) and this is why the students nickname our school as a Bridal College (instead of Bible College, it's a funny joke so you should probably laugh). This means that all around me are people dating, people proposing, and people marrying. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see people you know fall in love and talk about a future marriage and seeing other people get married but it comes to a point where it's almost like I wasn't invited to the party, the dating-marriage party. I am Ryan and I like to party (Hot Rod reference anyone?).

I mean I already have a hard time with dating to begin with but now at school it's like there is this added pressure to seriously pursue being in a relationship that is very serious. It gets to the point where it becomes hard being single because it constantly reminds you of how alone you are and how everyone else can find someone to be in a relationship with but you can't (and I don't know about you but that last thought is like a sucker punch to the gonads for me).

I went to a young adult service a couple weeks ago talking about relationships and being single and not only did I find that it perfect fit with what I wanted to hear about but I learned things. I learned how to deal with being single. I learned that I need to realize how fortunate I really am for being single because I don't know if you noticed this but when you're in a relationship you actually have another person to think about and care for (don't get me wrong I like having another person to think about but it is less effort to not have another person). But more importantly I realized again at the truth that there is someone out there for me, and I would rather be single until I meet them than date every person I see before them.

What about you guys? How do you deal with loneliness in your lives and what does that look like for you?

#LifeOfRyan

(Oh and I don't want anyone think I'm a jerk because of my 'not thinking of others' line cause I really am not a jerk)

Weird Phrases

Wow am I a jerk or what? I totally did not write a blog on Monday like usual, better late than never right? Well nonetheless, I am truely sorry for those of you who were upset and emotionally scarred by my non-posting of a blog.

I was thinking though yesterday that people say a lot of weird things, have you ever noticed how people tend to have like a phrase that they like to say or is that just me? For instance, I say "awks my socks" when I've done something weird. I don't even notice that I say that anymore it just naturally comes out as if this was normal every-day talking, but I realized yesterday when I said it that no one else actually says that cause it's actually weird. And here I was trying to create a saying that was cool cause it rhymed.... fail.

I do have a lot of these things that I say that no one else would ever think of saying like: friggy stix, sweet stix (I guess I just like the word stix), I have even said 'what the flip-flops' before. But everyone who talks to me enough knows that I like to use a certain phrase often, and it's not that I particularly like it, it's just that it applies in my life so often I feel. This phrase is "hold the phone". Like I said before I'm not quite sure why I use that phrase so often but I do. I fully realized that I use that phrase so much when multiple friend groups around me started teasing me about saying that (including my brothers).

What's worse is when I'm hanging with someone I don't really know and all of the sudden I'm talking about something I'm passionate about and then I start using "Ryan-ese" (I coined that term myself believe it or not, it just refers to all the weird things that I say). The other person either laughs at every other word I say just because it's forgein to them (which is weird because we don't laugh at like people who are speaking Manderan because we don't know what they're saying but I guess it's socially acceptable to laugh at what I say), or they look at me as if I'm an alien speaking a different language (this reaction makes more sense to me in my opinion however I am speaking English even if you don't believe so, therefore I don't really like this response that I get).

I probably get these weird catch phrases from my mom cause, if any of you know her you would know that she says weird things at times. At one point I started writing all the one-liners she would come up with on the spot in a day-to-day bases just so that I could publish them in a book. Surprisingly my mom didn't like that idea because she didn't understand that what she said was funny but they really were.

So instead of dragging out this blog post so that I can actually appear as if I have a lot to say on this topic I will finish up here for today. So what about you guys? What things do you say that other's think is weird, or is this just a problem that my mother and I have?

#LifeOfRyan

More Fun Job Stories

So for those of you guys who are avid readers (not quite sure if avid is the right word seen as this is like my fifth post I think) you would know that I have had a bad history with acquiring jobs which have found me going to an acting/modeling agency by mistake (which was a huge scammy place, but I mean why wouldn't they want me just look at me! Well I mean if you see me or my selfies then you would know that I'm not an ugly person so modeling would only make sense). But anyways, that's not my point... not really.

This past week I have been so privileged to acquiring a job, however I would like to share what happened and how I felt through the whole thing.  And yes it is a funny story (at least for me it's funny, it'd be awkward if this story turns into one of those jokes you tell to your friends and no one laughs at it but you; I'm sure it won't because I'm sure there's someone here that I don't know that actually read theses stories about my life and plus this is on a computer so if you don't laugh then I won't know).

Anywhoooo, on Tuesday I received a phone call from this recreation center saying that they were interested in hiring me for a summer camp, I was super excited about working there however they wouldn't start until the end of June and I finish my school year tomorrow (I know, be jealous of me that I start early) so I told them that I would call them back on whether I would be able to work there or not. The next day I went to a Cineplex theater for an interview about a position there.

Don't ask me what position I applied for, not because I'm embarrassed or anything but because I don't know, like actually I just saw online that they had a position open for something and that I was qualified so I applied so I have no idea what the job really was. Anyway I went into the interview feeling pretty confident in myself (maybe too confident I guess cause I do have those moments). And the lady interviewing me looked over my resume (which I think is weird, why do people look over your resume while you're there? Did they not read it online? Is this the first time that they're reading up on me?) and asked me a couple questions starting with my previous employment. And all that went over well, I would answer the question and throw in a joke, she would laugh, I would feel confident, and the cycle would continue. But then she asked about a previous experience that I did not mean to put on my resume.

This will be a detour as to why this piece of information (that I will not tell you yet) was on my resume just so that you are aware as to why. So when I was in grade 9, my dad pretty much got me a job working at the community center by our house however I needed to hand in a resume for official purposes. So my dad helped me out and that summer I went on a missions trip to Vancouver (for those of you who don't know what that is, I went to Vancouver with my church group helping out people there) and so my dad put that on my resume thinking that it would look like I take more initiative and help out the greater community (which is true, but I don't actually do anything currently....).

Anyway so I thought that I deleted that part of my resume simply because I didn't think that secular people would really appreciate what I did back in grade 8. However the lady at Cineplex asked me to talk about my missions trip experience and I was greatly unsure as to how to go about this. And I think I even asked myself out loud as to how that information got onto there... But anyway I ask and it turns out the lady was Christian and she wanted to do a missions trip with her children but her youngest was 11 months (which I told her was understandable that she didn't go on the trip seen as her child would probably be crying and screaming for attention a lot [did not say this to her don't worry; also, kinda cool that I have parenthesis in parenthesis {this is like inception o_O}]).

After discussing about my past, the lady decides to test me on the company policy (which if you know me, or even read my blog, I don't really look that kind of stuff up) and so she asked what I would do if a customer buys popcorn and drops it. I told her that I would get someone else to clean it up (kind of a jerk answer really, being the new guy and already telling people what to do) and then apologize to whoever dropped and tell them that we don't to refills cause I don't wanna pay for their popcorn. As to which the lady corrects me that they do actually give free refills (I then corrected myself and changed my story so that I could give a refill knowing this knowledge). Long story short, I got the job which I was glad about.

However, I then decide to call back the recreation center saying that I would not work for them. And if you have not called back a company because you wanted a different job, let me tell you, it sucks. It's like breaking up with someone: my palms started sweating and I got really nervous and the whole time I wished that the lady on the other end would not pick up the phone so that I could leave a quick voice message and be done with. I was so scared. Luckily I left a voice message so as to alleviate all awkwardness.

However after doing so I found out that they were looking for people to hire for different positions before the camp started which is the only reason why I turned them down which made me feel horrible because I desperately wanted the recreation job back. So I turned from the douche ex-boyfriend to the annoying ex-boyfriend that desperately wants you back: I called and left a message asking for the summer camp job IF I could work in other positions before camp started (I felt horrible for being this demanding but I needed to). Luckily I actually got a job before camp started so in the end my 'ex-boyfriend' status turn into a 'back in the relationship' status and it felt wonderful!

I hope you actually enjoyed this and that this wasn't just me laughing at myself as I was reading this. It's fine if you didn't find it funny, but I am actually really hoping that you do... like real bad... if you find this funny then my confidence goes back up as I explained with my job interview. But it's fine if you don't boost my confidence, that's what Instagram is for with all those hashtags so that random people like my face and my humorous quote that goes with it. Enjoy your week

#LifeOfRyan

Vanilla vs. Chocolate

So throughout this week I was trying to figure out what I could possibly talk about when my friend texted me letting me know about a topic that I should talk about. Vanilla vs. Chocolate ice cream.

I know what you're thinking "Ryan this is stupid why should I care", I'll tell you why: your taste buds are at risk! And in my 15 seconds of researching the web, I am not alone in debating about this topic.

Obviously, chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla there is no arguing that point. However I have a friend who has shown me that there are people out there that actually prefer vanilla ice cream. I would like to tell you people something: your taste buds are broken and you need help! Chocolate is the way to go! It taste a lot better in your mouth than plain old ice cream! If your trying to be healthier in choosing vanilla then go drink milk, it tastes pretty much the same, their both white, and milk is wayyyyy better for you than vanilla ice cream. I do not understand why anyone would choose to want to eat plain ice cream, I mean whenever I get vanilla ice cream what do I do? I put CHOCOLATE syrup on it obviously because I want to taste something deliciously awesome!

This brings me to my next point that I would like to make. For desserts like cake people put syrups on them to enhance the flavor. I bet that you've had chocolate syrup because everyone knows that it tastes amazing, but how many people put vanilla syrup on it? For my vanilla ice cream I try to make it better by putting chocolate syrup on it but when someone gets chocolate ice cream, I have never heard of someone asking: "Umm excuse me? Sorry but could I get some vanilla syrup on my ice cream?" NO! You know why? Cause no one puts vanilla syrup on anything including ice cream! Why would we not have vanilla syrup if why have chocolate syrup? Because chocolate is obviously better than ice cream!

Now you may be tempted to produce the argument that ice cream is different than the syrup but you know what? You would be very silly for thinking such a thing! Why? Because both are dessert-type-thingys and therefore they are both in the same category. It's like saying that I only like the color purple on t-shirts, but when it's on other pieces of clothing I think the color purple is distasteful and ugly. People don't say that because that's weird, if you like the color purple on t-shirts then you will probably like the same color purple for other clothes. If chocolate syrup is better then vanilla syrup then chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream. It's just logical!

But I do know that there are poor unfortunate souls who are stuck believing that vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate. For you people, I recommend counseling sessions and therapy because obviously you were hit in the face with chocolate ice cream as a baby and now have a subconscious aversion to it. You need to be healed and to get past this in your life. Do not worry, I will continue to be your friend/ blogger-person-type-friend but I cannot support this lifestyle that you choose to live. You should repent and turn away for this lifestyle that you are indulging in.

Please leave comments as to how your therapy goes, I would love to know how much I am helping you people see the light!

#LifeOfRyan

Serious Note

So I was trying to find another funny story that happened to me recently (so that I would have something to talk/write to you guys about). But I couldn't find anything (sorry guys I guess sometimes I'm not always funny) but seen as the title to the blog is #LifeOfRyan, I realized that I do have serious moments in my life. So I thought it would make sense to write about something serious every once and a while and see what feedback I get from you guys. Plus, as far as you know, I could be making up these funny stories about my life and so as proof that I'm not making them up, I don't have funny story to share about my stupidity.

But then what shall I talk about? Well this week a bunch of friends and I were talking about a very important topic that has been hot on the press for a while. Hot on the press.... I feel like people don't really say that, I may have gotten that saying wrong but nonetheless I'm sure you know what I mean. Anywho.... everyone, get your oven mitts on cause this topic is hot (like hotter than me ;) ) the topic is homosexuality and religion.

A lot of people are all up in arms about this topic: "is it a sin?" "is it natural?" "is there a 'cure?'" "do they have a mating call?" Ok well maybe the last question no one asks cause it's a pretty stupid question but the other questions are legitamate questions that people have been asking regarding homosexuality. To make things even more confusing, everyone seems to have a different idea regarding homosexualtiy - including Christians! 

Yes even Christians are in disagreement about whether homosexuality is ok, natural, and whether it should be accepted. The Bible holds a couple different verses about this topic, for the sake of time, my writing, and out of sheer boredom at times, I will not list or discuss about all the different verses. However, when you first read the verses it seems pretty compelling as to the fact that homosexuality is a sin, however there are Christians (I myself am included) that believe that if you really look into the cultural context and original writing that you will find that it is not a sin.

Make no mistake, I am not here to talk to you about how I am completely right and people who think homosexuality is a sin are bigots (because I don't think they all are). But I would like to share how there are different perspectives and that we should not take someone else's opinion for face value. One thing I do not like are people who will believe something for no reason. Once I asked someone why they thought homosexuality was wrong and their answer was "because my pastor said so". That my friends (or fellow readers not sure what to call you really) is an ignorant opinion because then your pastor could tell you to be like the Talibans and you would believe that he is right.

Further, I would say that gay people should be allowed to marry and have children legally, I see nothing wrong with that. I personally do not see how two people of the same gender affects your marriage (unless seeing too people of the same gender marry turns you on and then your spouse thinks you're cheating on them and then divorces you, then I can see how that affects your marriage). But on the flip side, I don't see why gay people need to have every church in Canada allow them to get married, we are all entitled to our own opinions and values and even if you don't agree the with "Church's" position you should at least respect it. Besides there are enough churches that practice gay weddings.

What's your opinion? What do you think? Is homosexuality a sin? Should we allowed gay marriage and them having children or ban it altogether? Do you think it's natural or learned? Let me know what you think!

#LifeOfRyan

Jobs

I've been trying very hard to acquire a summer job lately and I have noticed that it is very very very very difficult to do so with no previous experience. I've been so many turn downs from people that I'm thankful that I'm a confident person or I would take everything personal and become unhealthily depressed I'm sure. I have also noticed that there is a common theme in most of the turn-downs from jobs that I have received  that I am inexperienced. No shiffftttt!!!!! (not really feeling comfortable on swearing online, my mother probably reads this) Of course I am inexperienced in the jobs! I've only worked at two places in my life, camp and a janitorial job. So of course I would have no experience with retail or cafes or hospitals (besides I didn't do so well with Bio 30 so the hospital not accepting me is more understandable). My bottom point is, getting a job is brutally hard and if anyone out there is hiring.... I would love to have a summer job!

Two weeks ago though, I had a very interesting encounter with a job interview where I had to turn them down (I know what you're thinking "Why would he turn down a job if he wants one? Obviously he's not taking getting a job seriously" but you're wrong, I have a complete valid reason behind not accepting this job). Anyway so I was online looking for a job when I recalled that friend of mine told me I could go on Kijiji for jobs because that's where she found her's. I am desperate and so I decided that I would check out Kijiji and see what jobs I can find online. Luckily there was a job that sounded like I would help around with events at certain vendors, in the city, a couple times a month. The pay seemed like it was pretty decent and so I thought it would be a great job if I had a second job near where I lived so that I wasn't only working 3 times a month. I called the company and talked to them about the add that I found on Kijiji and the lovely lady on the phone was talking to me about the job (word for word from Kijiji pretty much) and assured me that I did not need any previous experience. This news excited me!!! It sounded like I could actually be getting a job here, like finally!!! However I was so excited I was not really listening to what the lady on the phone was saying, especially when she mentioned acting. I just politely arranged an interview and forgot about what she said about acting.

So I take the transit to the building and I walk in, I check the board with all the various room numbers and look for number 160 (because that is the room that I thought the lady on the phone said) however there was no room 160. This meant that I started to freak out wondering if I was even in the right building! Luckily there was a young guy in a cane (not sure why he had a cane if he was young but he was limping so I guess it made sense for him to have a cane) and this young man got into the elevator and asked if I was going up. I told him sure why not. This response struck him as odd (that was word for word what I said so I think it's fair to say that that response would surprise anyone) and he asked what I was doing here. I replied and told him how I believed that I was here for a job interview (I started loosing confidence that I was even in the right place). The young man told me that I should probably know if I have a job interview before leaving for it and that I should probably bring my resume if I hoped to ever get hired (hey I'm new to this getting a job thing so it's understandable that I didn't bring a resume).

After being questioned by this young man with a cane and an Irish accent (forgot to mention that before) I decided that I should make polite conversation and ask him what he was doing here. He told me how he was applying for a job that worked a couple times a month at convention centers and he can serve alcohol (this started to sound like my job) and he was pretty excited because apparently this was an acting job (this confused me greatly because I forgot what the lady on the phone said). The man told me he was going to room 420 in case I was interested in applying myself, I stayed by the elevator instead and called in the company so I could figure out where my interview was (I had about 2 min to get there and I still wasn't sure if I was in the right building). The lady tells me to go to room 420 (this is the same room as the guy with the cane and I'm still not sure how I got room 160 from 420 cause they do NOT sound the same at all).

First thing I notice in the room are two life-sized Oscar awards in front of me and on the walls there were stars and camera reels. I started to get a feel that this place wasn't so much about event but about acting. The lady behind the desk asked me to fill out a piece of paper and the questions seemed pretty normal until they started asking about my drama experience. This first question was simply "What have you done with drama" of which I put: high school classes, church production, and college class (which I thought this would look pretty pathetic). Then there was a check box asking if I wanted to star in movies, tv, or commercials (this really confused me because I was unsure how this fit into events but I checked it anyway); next was a check box asking if I wanted to be a background person for a movie, tv, or commercial (of which I decided to check because who wouldn't want to do this); last question was if I was ok with doing live events at convention centers doing more live performing (this is where I figured the events fit into the acting so I checked the box).

So I go into the interview after filling out the form and I decide to be super friendly to the lady because I didn't have a resume (if I decided that I wanted the job then I should try to make up for the fact that I am not fully prepared), which worked cause she seemed to fall for my charm (who wouldn't). She then proceeded to ask me if I have done set designing so I told her about my college class (this was the only question she had about my acting career in the whole interview). I then find out that this was an acting agency and that they hire people for acting and modeling positions (this surprised me because I have no idea how I really got into this predicament and why I was even there to begin with). She proceeded to explain how they were going to take my picture after the interview and take my dimensions if I chose to join their team however this was going to cost me. All in all, she told me that I had to pay them about $100 upfront for advertisement (which I don't have which is why I'm looking for a job), I would work very infrequent (3 times a month would apparently be lucky), I could start off being paid $11/hr but they could ask me for 20% of it for their cut.

When I worked all that math in my head I realized that I would no longer be making a great deal of money. To further my skepticism of this agency, I was shown a catalog of the guys that work for them for acting but also modeling. And I have to say, most of the guys I saw were not blessed by God with the ability to be a model (at least that's what their pictures look like). This cause my heart to break because these guys hoped to be models but this agency scammed them into believing a lie, the lie that they looked as good as models out there and that they can make the same kind of money.

At the end of the day, I turned them down, I could not work for them, especially knowing that they were pretty much scamming people. But I guess that's what you get when you job search on Kijiji. Hopefully I will have better luck in the future with getting a job and actually find a place to work this summer cause I really do need something to keep me busy throughout the summer and make me money.

Intro

Hello, not too sure who I am writing this out to but I feel like I should introduce myself to whomever you may be (extra points for being grammatically correct... I think). I am Ryan, and I go to Ambrose University College studying to be a psychologist because I like to help people. Besides helping people I also enjoy making people laugh, which apparently comes naturally to me as people like to point out. I have a tendency to not pay attention to my surroundings and this results in funny stories of my life. I was sitting in a Tim Hortons on Sunday with a group of friends and they encouraged me to start a blog about my life because other people need to be informed about my stupidity I guess. Something about knowing that they aren't the stupidest person out there maybe, just knowing that somewhere out there, someone is worse than them (me). To maintain my theme of humorous stories of my life, I would like to share with you about a recent one that my friends have thoroughly laughed at.

About two weeks ago I was in my Cultural Anthropology class and we were talking about sexuality in other cultures (scandalous I know but I was able to persevere). Anyway I had a nagging question in the back of my mind that I couldn't get out, however I felt that people would laugh at me if I asked it. I'm not sure why I thought people would laugh, probably because I knew deep down it was a stupid question, however I was deeply concerned for people that were experiencing this tragedy. In class we learned about female circumcision where overseas they pretty much sow together a woman's vagina so that she doesn't have sex before marriage and that sex becomes very painful for them (obviously females are the sexual animals here, lets all be honest). However upon hearing this news, this deeply disturbed me, and not in the way that you might expect. I was confused as to how these females would pee. My ignorance lead me to believe that if a woman's vagina was sowed together, then she couldn't have sex or pee because the opening was now closed. This caused me to wonder what would happen to that urine.

I started then believing that the urine would store up on the other side of the surgically closed vagina until there was enough pressure to burst the seems. I thought this would result in even more pain for my female companions across the globe and I shuddered at this thought. Imagine how awkward it would be to walk even, every step you take you would feel that urine sploshing around, waiting to build up enough until the seems could not handle the pressure. Eventually I decided that I needed to ask the question, I needed to know how we could save these women, I needed to know how they peed.

I turned to my friend sitting next to me in class and told her I had a question but I wasn't sure if I should ask it in class, this resulted in me confiding in her about what I believed about female circumcision. She tried to contain her laughter, and this made me even more confused. To me, this was a legitimate issue. We needed to save these females!

After class she decided to explain to me the flaws in my thinking. It started off with her asking if I ever took Bio 30 in class? What does that have to do with anything? I told her I did take it but I found that it wasn't interesting, didn't pay attention, and didn't do so well in it. From there she explained that women, unlike men, do not have two holes like I have previously believed. Apparently there's a third that's hidden! And this hole is where the urine exits so the females can still pee if their vagina is sowed closed. This started my embarrassment.

Because we were talking about such a weird topic and there were other females surrounding us, people decided to cue in on our conversation eventually. Funny how people will ignore anything that you say but if you talk about a vagina everyone will zero in on you... Next thing I know, I'm being questioned for my legitimacy of not knowing that females had three holes. I mean give a guy a break! It's not like I can check anytime that I want to make sure that there are three holes, therefore it is foolish for these females to just assume that I know about their anatomy  And then, one decides to ask if I knew where periods come from.... Why should I know!? It's not like I am about to have a period, I'm not even dating a girl! All I need to know about periods is if a female close to me is going to kill me because she is having her period. Beyond that, I see no purpose for that knowledge. Needless to say the girls in my class were surprised about my ignorance I am sure.

However I would like to end off saying that I do know where periods come from now... not that I was thinking about that a lot after the conversation and I remembered by Bio classes about that topic, but I now know. I should come back next week with a new funny story, so if you liked this story, share this with friends.