beside the fact that queen was possibly the best musical group EVER, there is truth to their lyrics.

for the past month or so i’ve been living the vision of life defined by the queen song “bicycle race.” i must first admit that i am not a mosier (one who tends to mosey from class to class, store to store, life event to life event). at christmas, if i have to enter the mall, i know exactly what i want to get and where i need to go to get it. it’s quite simple. i don’t understand people who mosey from shop to shop. just get what you need and LEAVE!!! (not that i’m harboring any bitterness) same at high school. i knew where my classes where and i got there as quickly as possible. none of this “socializing” in between classes…we have more important things to do! moral of the story: i’m not a mosier (i don’t know if i spelled that right).

soooo…i walk fast. i walk really fast. in fact, in order to walk faster i lean forward to create a more aerodynamic mass. what i don’t understand is why we were created this way…it would be so much more efficient if we were more aerodynamically created. whatever. so i move fast.

recently, i’ve been noticing that i’ve maxed out my walking speed. bummer, right? not for the student who lives close by!! i postulated that if i were to somehow replace my legs with wheels, i could move at least double, if not triple the speed limit of legs.

my hypothesis was proven this morning as i made it to work from my room in 6 minutes, rather than the normal 10 minutes. granted, 6 minutes is 1 minute more than the desired half of 10, however there are other factors to be considered. i saw one of my friends (one of the messiah tennis starts who won the number 5 spot single’s championship this past sunday, woot, woot!) and biked (i biked, he walked) w/ him to his class, which is not in the direct path of work for me. with this in mind, it is not irresponsible to estimate that it would only take me, say, 1 or 2 minutes to get to work from my room. 1 or 2 is much less than half or 1/3 of 10…so barring further testing, my hypothesis has been proven.

so if you see a red blur pass you by on campus, chances are it’s me flirting with the sound barrier. i will leave you with the words of the famous philosopher Freddie Mercury,

i want to ride my bicycle
i want to ride my bike
i want to ride my bicycle
i want to ride it where i like

congrats to the messiah college men’s tennis team for yet another commonwealth conference championship! three years in a row is an accomplishment worth celebrating!

follow the men’s tennis team at this website.

good luck this weekend with your individual matches…and the upcoming national championship!!

what is it about the human mind that causes us to become paralyzed in the face of large tasks? it’s that time of the semester when everything is piling up and i just don’t care to do anything anymore. don’t get me wrong, i care enough to stress out and have stomach aches. but i just don’t care enough to actually do something about it.

in hebrew class, basically all semester, we had daunting homework assignments that were basically endless. so what has consistently been my answer? i just don’t do any of it!

same with at work. i have a huge stack of things to sort through and file. what’s my solution? i find a small task that can be immediately completed and ignore the stack of processed trees on my desk.

my room is in similar disarray. how do i calm myself about this disorganization in my living quarters? i shove piles of papers and books to areas of the floor that have somehow escaped my creative filing system.

it’s this consistent stream that has me curious. i think it is partly because of the human desire for instant gratification. if i can’t finish a task within the given time slot, then i’ll move to a task that can be done immediately. it’s my desire to cross something…anything…off my to do list that drives my actions. eventually a day will come when there aren’t any small tasks to be done. what happens then?!

so how many weeks of classes left?

today’s the day the democratic presidential candidates come to messiah college!!!! i’m freakin’ out here!!!! messiah is a happenin’ place right now!

check out the site that messiah college’s very own scott trobaugh and matt brandt designed and implemented:

http://www.messiah.edu/compassion_forum/

check out the photos here (a few of which i took):

http://www.messiah.edu/compassion_forum/photos/saturday/

so what are you doing at 8 pm tonight? the correct answer is watching the compassion forum on cnn. don’t have cable tv? you can stream it off the cnn website (i think). or…you can try sneaking on campus and going to the watch party in the union…or on the campus tv station. so basically if you can find a tv on campus you’re in. bottom line…you have no excuse!!!

my hebrew professor here at messiah college brings little nuggets of humor to class every day. in order to understand where i’m going w/ this, i’ll have to teach you a little hebrew (very little…in fact i don’t know how to type hebrew, so it’s going to get confusing).

there are many words for god in the hebrew bible. the name that is considered most holy, however is god’s name. because any good jew would never utter the name of god, only the consonants are known (not to get into the whole issue that the original hebrew bible had no vowels…but that’s another issue). in “americanized” order, it would be spelled YHWH (for the bible savvy out there, this is also known as the tetragrammaton). this is where it gets interesting. because no jew uttered the name of god and only the consonants were written, we can only speculate as to the pronunciation of god’s name. cool, hun?

traditionally, we (being those who aren’t reverent enough to refrain from speaking god’s name) have simply added a few vowels and named god YAHWEH (which is not technically biblical). in order for this to be funny, i need to explain another thing about hebrew. the “w” that we see there, really isn’t a “w” in hebrew. it can also function as a “v” or as the vowel letters “o” or “u”. so if you play around w/ god’s name (it’s not any more sacrilegious than assigning “a” and “e” to his name), you can come up w/ YOHOOH. so god’s name could be pronounced like the now famous chocolate drink yoohoo. now you’re informed. let’s continue.

all this to say that i got a yoohoo last night at the c-store. it was wonderful, but i couldn’t help but notice a few things by reflecting on the chocolaty goodness that stood proudly before me.

first of all, i need to learn to take breaks and “play.” this world is too stressful to deny myself the freedom to return to my childhood. in a world that demands perfection and production, we need to pause for a minute and take a sip from our yoohoos. sorry mr. research paper. you’re going to have to wait.

secondly, we’re almost done. once the sad reality hit me that my final sip of yoohoo had come, it struck me that in less than 5 weeks, i will be done w/ the semester. this is an unusual positive note as i am generally a “glass half empty” guy. it occurred to me, however, that just as my yoohoo was completely bone dry, so will my junior year in a few weeks. much to celebrate about this! may the YOHOOH above grant this yahoo at the computer wisdom in these last few weeks!

so wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, it might serve you well to stop, drop, and drink a yoohoo (which can be conveniently found on campus at the c-store). enjoy!

here are some photos from the spring break backpacking trip…long overdue. they’re courtesy of a friend’s website posting…so i guess i’m stealing them for the purposes of blogging. it happens.

the freakin’ awesome leadership group!

me…drinking something warm!

sweet pancakes on our rest day courtesy of rachel (left), ryan (middle), rita (not pictured), and andy (the hand in the left corner)!

the ladies

the gents