Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Spring is Here!
or is it? the past few days have been beautiful! since i don’t understand farenheit too well yet (i’m still functioning in celsius), i’ll explain the temperature in normal english terms. in the mornings, i can go outside and breathe without seeing my breath. so it’s that warm! it’s also been sunny, which is kinda rare for the grand rapids winter. it’s usually overcast, so whenever the sun comes out, it’s an event worth celebrating! our floor did just that. nathaniel, a buddy of mine, took my idea (without permission too!) and organized a study session on the sundeck. people from the entire beets-veenstra dorm were invited, and we had a solid group of around 15 people. it was pretty sweet sitting out in the sun with all your friends while studying. makes studying even more fun!
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Q & A on Favorite Bands
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Q. What are some of your favorite bands? A. Music is huge in my life, especially when you can use it to block out noisy distractions as you’re working on your homework. Believe me, there are plenty of noisy distractions in the dorms. Just the other day, some guy was playing a trumpet for fun in the hallway. I had a feeling that he couldn’t really play, but was just proud that he could make a somewhat musical noise. But that’s not the point. I’ll list some of my favorite bands below… | |
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The Sunday Routine
click to visit the mars hill church website
i’ve found a church now, and it’s called mars hill. it’s one of those megachurches with 3 services every sunday. they meet inside a rented shopping center, and the take up one of those really big department store spaces. the room is pretty cool. the stage is in the middle and the congregation sits around the stage. the place has not really been decorated, so it looks pretty industrial. you can see all the support beams in the ceilings. it’s a big change from my home church in hong kong, Emmanuel English Church. EEC is much much smaller, with a current Sunday attendance of around 100 people. i’ve grown up in small churches my entire life, so mars hill with its several-thousand-member congregation kinda blows me away.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Craziest Week To Date
spring is coming!
so i thought that i’d planned ahead for this. i guess i didn’t plan far enough. two midterm tests, three major papers, one week. yup, a lot of stuff to do in a week. i’m glad it’s over, i need the break! i won’t bore you to death with the details, im just proud that i’ve gotten through it. i feel good about all my work too, so that’s a bonus! aaah, beautiful weekend… they are so glorious. oh, but there’s more to my week. read on for tales of adventure and remarkable courage!
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Best Video: Airband 2006
click the image above and then select video to view the clip
i’m very proud and pleased to say that my group’s entry into Airband 2006 garnered the Best Video Award! props to ian and dan for pulling off a stunning editing job despite being under a time crunch. we get the $100 cash prize, and we’re planning to save it for future projects.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Driving, Videos, and Broken Ankles
once again, a lot has happened since my last post. first, i got a driver’s permit! that’s right, i can now drive, but only with a licensed adult. now i’m one step closer to transportation bliss. second, my roommate and i rearranged our room. now we have space for some small loveseats. we’re looking at some couches in nearby holland and we’re hoping to check them out this weekend. third . . .
Q & A on Where I’m From
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Q. Where are you from? A. I think every third-culture or multi-culture kid struggles with answering this question. Sometimes I say I’m from Hong Kong, other times from Canada, and occasionally California. You see, I was born in California on independence day. A year later, my family moved to Macau, which is a small island by Hong Kong. Two years later, we went to Canada. That’s where I spent my grade school years, and that’s also where I picked up my English. I think Canada had the biggest role in shaping me into who I am today. I lived in Toronto for five years, and then I moved to a small town in Alberta called Medicine Hat for two. After that, I was off to Hong Kong where I spent eight years adjusting to a new culture. I attended an international school based on the Canadian curriculum because my Chinese was too poor. There was no way I could adjust to the local school system in time. Then just recently, I came to Calvin. So now I’m back from where I started! That’s a really long answer for a simple question. Now you know why third/multi-cultural kids grin whenever you ask :-)
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
Semester Two Starts!
how i wish i could find time to play again… well, it’s been a CRAZY start to my second semester. it’s only by God’s grace that i’m still up to speed in all my classes. some poor planning made my first two weeks a bit hectic, but i’ve finally gotten some time to blog. intramural basketball, textbook problems, young life, and my new love, bramble. there’s a lot to write about, so read on!
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Short-term Missions
can short-term missions sometimes do more harm than good? according to the author of a prelude article i read, YES! that article hit me really hard since I was a veteran of two mission trips. one strong argument was that the money spent on sending people to third-world countries to build fences could be instead used to hire local people to build fences and more. i really understood that, because during my philippines mission trips several years ago, we did build a fence for a local church. in retrospect, the money i spent to fly there could have been donated to the church, and the church could have used that money to hire local workers to build more fences, or maybe even add walls to their church building. i began to see the authors argument…
Q & A on Dreadlocks
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Q. How do you wash your hair? Or do you wash at all? A. I can buy dread shampoo, and I used to. But now I use non-fragrance bar soap. I’m specific about non-fragrance because fragrance will stay in your hair. That results in scalp itch, and that’s no good. I can never use conditioner, because that would mess with my dreadlock tangles. Instead, my dreadwax actually conditions my hair for me. So when I was my hair, I just lather up the soap in my hands and rub it all over my scalp. When I’m done, I just rinse it off. I have to rinse for a long time because I don’t want any soap residue. That would cause scalp itch as well. After that, I whip my dreads around to get the water out, then I wrap it in a towel for several minutes before letting it down to air dry. When I have my hair down, it’s usually cause I’m letting it dry out. I don’t want to tie it up when it’s wet because then my dreads would get musty-smelling. Yuck…
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Friday, January 27, 2006
Freelance Business
so i’m looking into the freelance graphic design market here in Grand Rapids. i see a lot of opportunities in the city, and i want to take advantage of that. just recently i was at several restaurants looking at their menus. i noticed how bland they looked even though the restaurants were fairly classy. in hong kong, restaurants paid a lot of attention to menu design. restaurants here deserve better ones as well. and that’s just one example! i could go on and on… what i see is an open market that has space for freelance graphic designers like myself.
there’s just one slight problem…
Thursday, January 26, 2006
My Suitemates Return!
notice how their beds and desks are covered in newspaper by pranksters.
austin and ben just returned from uganda after a long 20+ hour plane trip. both are covered in lots of facial hair and look very tired. now i won’t be so lonely since ian’s in chicago! they tell me that the trip was very touching and experiencing poverty first-hand has changed their perspectives. austin tells me about how he almost broke down when they visited an orphanage filled with kids who were HIV-positive.
that reminds me of my mission trip to cambodia a while ago where we visited an orphanage filled with kids between the ages of 1 to 18. the sad part about that orphanage is that those kids will never be adopted because of corruption in the adoption system. they will stay in the orphanage until they are old enough to live by temselves. they work together as a self-sustaining community with plantations for food.
some pictures from the cambodia trip follow…
Interim Break is Here!
aaah, wonderful holiday :-) i’m so glad that we have a break between interim and spring semester. there is a ton of tiny tasks that needs completing and they accumulate over interim. meanwhile, interim is so busy that there isn’t time to finish them. now’s the time to do it all! time to get my driver’s permit, textbooks, finish scholarship applications, and clean up my room. speaking of my room, it’s empty at the moment. in fact, my entire suite is empty. my roommate just left for chicago to see his brother at moody bible college and my suitemates are still in africa. my suitemates are bound to return at any time though, so i must make good use of the time i have with myself. it’s nice to have some peace and quiet. this will be a good time to reconnect with myself and my inner spirit (sounds so new age, i know). no noise (almost everyone has left for interim break), no visitors… just me, myself, and i.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Beware of Church Shopping
this seems like such an important topic here at Calvin College. we’re surrounded by approximately 700 churches. that’s right, 700! Grand Rapids has the most churches per capita in America (i’m pretty sure about that one, but still, i may be wrong). it’s really easy to spend each week going from church to church with a group of friends. but is that really what Sundays are all about?
Eugene Peterson, Author of The Message Bible
so some of u may know about the january series at calvin college. it’s basically a series of talks by influential people from all over the world. well, one of the speakers calvin invited was Eugene Peterson. he’s the guy who wrote The Message Bible. i know several people back home in hong kong who read that translation. although i missed his january series talk, i was there for the open forum with Eugene Peterson held in the Calvin Theological Seminary. it was really neat hearing him talk about topics ranging from Blockbuster DVD membership cards to the intended usage of The Message Bible. the man had some pretty remarkable insights, and my roommate, ian, wrote down plenty of quotes. i’ll include some of them…
About Me
My life at Calvin College
Name:
Nehemiah Chu
Class of 2009
Hometown:
Hong Kong
Major: Rhetoric
Communications & Religion
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