It’s the long weekend, and I’m stuck doing homework. How deflating is that!

Yesterday, I travelled to Toronto to see Shaker again. This time, they were performing at the Horseshoe Tavern, which is a happening place for artists on the verge of fame and fortune and glamour.

We (Andrea, Hannah, Randy) were a bit early, so we caught a bit of the band before them. I already forgot what they were called.. nothing special. Shaker came on for an hour-plus set, and I was standing right beside a speaker. So the music was so loud that I could feel every beat of the bass drum, and every time John (the bassist) played a note. Needless to say, my right ear was not in the best shape after they were done!

The set itself was really good; they played songs off of their original EP, and new ones that they will likely record this summer. They’re on the verge of a record deal with a label started by the guys from Live (which partially explains where those guys went after their last album…). The crowd was really into it (especially two drunk dancers! Ha! What a riot they were), and that’s when you know that they put on a good show.

It turns out that there were some big shots at the concert. Some of the guys from Boy (alright.. not so big) were there hanging out, and a rep from Universal (huge!!) was there. Apparently, the guy goes around taking pictures of people. So he’d go from place to place with a big expensive camera and click. Like going to New York to photograph U2 when they were shooting the video for All Because Of You on a flatbed truck moving through the city in the middle of the day! What a job!!!

While we were driving back, we stopped by a McDonald’s along the 401. I recently took up an initiative to treat my body better (by avoiding garbage foods), so I inclined to not get anything (although I was stupendously hungry). Rob Butcher, Shaker’s drummer (and also the drummer with the Embassy band) started doing it and I thought it was a good idea. It was at the McDonald’s that I realized how nuts Randy is! Randy is 24, an amazing guitarist (he was in the Embassy band before he had to work on Mondays), and a huge Pumpkins fan (+points for him!), but he’s also apparently an ADHD 12-year old kid inside!! Ahhh fun times.

I didn’t get home until around 3am, at which time I immediately went for my bed. Today was quite a mellow day, bumming around and watching TV. I watched some quality hockey for the first time in ages (London vs. Rimouski, if you must know), and then Laura and Erica came over!

Now I visit Laura on a weekly basis (as I have lunch at her apartment on Thursdays). Erica, however, has not been seen around these parts in a bajillion years; she went to Cambridge with the rest of the architects and, hence, disappeared 🙁 So it was really cool to hang out with them for a while. Much of the conversations had to do with weddings, so I felt a bit out of place. Ah well. Good times! I’ll see them at church in like 9 hours.

9 hours?! Shoot that doesn’t leave me much time to sleep. I should go.

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What a great last couple of days!

Starting on Thursday, I began a blitz on The Story We Find Ourselves In, which I began reading last Monday. I was around 60 pages in, but I ripped it apart over the course of the next two or three days and finished it off. This was my second time reading through it and I think that I got more from it this time around. The same could be said for the second time I read A New Kind of Christian, the first book in the series, so I’m glad to have taken the time to re-read the books again.

The two books have introduced so many new concepts and perspectives in my faith and, without going into too much detail (I can’t spoil the rest of the story for Jasmine, who is reading it for the first time), they spend a lot of time discussing very important – and controversial – aspects of Christianity: views on other religions, the Christian way of life, creation vs. evolution, judgement, heaven, and so on. The ideas that they present are so far from conventional and reading them was like taking a breath of fresh air.

On Saturday, I went back to St. Paul’s to hang out. A lot of things were happening: Shanna was up for the weekend, Keith was assembling his new computer (and I still believe it was needless for him to have gotten it but…), and Graeme & Co. were drinking vodka shots with a whole clove of garlic in them (gross!). I’m pretty sure they tried other things that were equally repulsive. We went out to a local watering hole and, surprisingly, we got into a discussion about religion. With a number of professed atheists or agnostics, we talked about Jesus, Judaism, and evolution, among other things.

I realized later that a lot of what I said came from the two McLaren books that I recently finished re-reading. It’s like what I just read became what I believed. But they aren’t.. at least, I don’t think they are. I’m not sure what angle I feel most comfortable taking right now, but the one that McLaren uses makes a lot of sense to me so, maybe I’m buying into it moreso than others. I think I’ll need to contemplate on these issues more. Talking about it will really help, too.

Enter Sunday. Jasmine randomly came to visit because Elevation was having an evening service, and I bet she missed Cynthia. It was so nice to see her again; I miss having good conversations with her in person. We chatted like it was the good ol’ days, and everything just felt so.. right. I think that I have adjusted to the displacement, and so things are good.. really good. We talked about the books, and I’m really excited to begin the third (and final) book of the series with her. It will be so nice to bounce ideas and questions off of her while they are still fresh in my mind. And like I said before, it’s my hope that through conversation, there will come understanding.

Anyhow, I’m dog tired, so I think I’m headed back to sleep.