The Bipolar Otaku

Hmm... It just occured to me a little while ago that I might know people who got hit by Katrina. Lockport isn't too far from New Orleans, but I'm not sure whether or not it was in the storm's path. Lockport, LA is the home of Holy Savior Parish, a parish who went both to Covecrest and Phoenix with us last June. The youth minister was an amazing 19-year-old named Sarah. I promised to pray for them before we parted ways in Phoenix.

Even though I'm not sure whether or not they got hit, I said a rosary for Holy Savior and everyone affected by the storm. Even if I've fallen out of the habit of praying the rosary for myself, I still feel the need to pray it for others.

Decent movie. I'm glad Wes Craven didn't decide to pull any supernatural stunts in the movie. It was more like a suspense/thriller, not exactly his typical horror genre. Like I said, decent movie, but was it really worth paying $9? Not that great...

It seems like I've been trying to finish these two anime series forever...

Anyway, I finally finished eps 1-26 of Kaleido Star. Visually, I think Gainax did a great job with this, though it really seems like they did a lot of shortcuts. For example, there are many many sequences which they really didn't "animate" per se, but simply made gigantic drawings and panned the camera around them. Also, considering this series was licensed in the US before production even started, I think they got rid of a lot of issues with English translation synchronizing with lip movement by simply doing away with as much lip movement as possible (a lot of interior monologues and such). It was a pretty decent series, though I don't really see how they could really keep it interesting after completing the "Legendary Great Maneuver" done in episode 26. Supposedly there was another season (eps 27-51) plus 2-3 OAVs, but they haven't been imported to the US yet.

Gunslinger Girl, as my first thoughts suggested, is a pretty grim series. Considering the bond between each girl and her supervisor is one created by artificially conditioning the girls in such a way that feels (to her) like love (for a big brother or father perhaps), some of the supervisors really psychologically abused their little sisters by treating them as nothing more than weapons or puppets. I found it rather sickening, really. An interesting series, but still rather disturbing.

Anyway, I had hoped that I'd be able to finish of Read or Die TV also, but I don't have the last disc. Netflix has shipped it to me, but I won't be able to be home to get it until 9/9. Bummer. It's a good series, but I'm starting to find the script writing rather cheesy. Oh well, just 3 more episodes to go.

I'm tired. The sleep I am getting, though natural, just doesn't seem to be enough. Maybe my allergies are just acting up and hence I'm suffering from some form of sleep apnea. Or maybe I'm not actually sleeping.

My ability to sleep is slowly returning. I wake up every 3-4 hours, but I can sometimes still manage to get back to sleep if I need to. Alarm clocks are capable of waking me up, too, though I often find myself waking up about 10 minutes before they go off.

Besides that, life is proceeding. The retreat this weekend was fun, informative, and worthwhile. I wish more of the Core could have been there, though.

Priesthood still seems like the right idea. I guess it's basically the same as when I get obsessed with some girl, right? This is just another manic obsession, isn't it? Or is it actually a calling? Can I think rationally by faith or have faith in my rationale?

Last night, when I got back from work, I managed to
take a 3 hour nap, waking up around 8pm. Then, around
1am, I went to sleep again, and actually slept for
about 5 hours! That's the most sleep I've had without
Seroquel for almost 2 years!

I am feeling a little tired right now, but it doesn't
feel like the same type of tired that I normally am.

Too bad I now have to drive for somewhere around 6-7
hours... I also need to find someone to give my $10
to. I've been putting that off for too long.

Okay, not really my style. But everyone else is doing, shouldn't I?

At work, everyone from my company is getting frustrated with our supplier. Everyone seems to have at least one particular issue, that isn't getting addressed, that gets them really riled up everytime it comes up. Everyone has had the supplier yelling back at them. Well, everyone except me.

I sit back and just continue to remind them of the things that need to get done. I don't let any of them get to me, mostly because I know that none of them are really affect me personally. I sometimes walk into the meeting room, sit at the head of the table, bang my fist on the table, and yell "Why the F*** isn't this done yet??!?"... but then I start laughing and everyone laughs with (or at?) me. One particular issue came up and they told me that it's getting addressed in such and such a way; I replied "Good, because if something wasn't being done, I'd really have to yell." My coworker told me "No you wouldn't..." I replied "Yeah I would! Well, at least I'll say I would. I should be yelling about something, shouldn't I?"

Yeah, seriously, one of these days, I'll yell. Hehehe...

I didn't take it again. I managed to get to sleep around midnight and wake up around 3am. Enough time to watch "13 Conversations About One Thing". Eh. Okay movie, I guess. It's 13 Conversations about happiness. I've had the DVD from Netflix for a while, but I've just been unable to actually get past the first 10 minutes. It has been a little too dialog-ish for me, but I should have known from the title. It doesn't really seem to offer any insight, either, except maybe that what goes around comes around. Maybe the psychological/sociological discussion they are trying to portray is a little too basic for someone with considerable personal experience in radical happiness and sadness in life.

Also watched Roman Holiday last night. Audrey is amazing! The ending, though... It's so sad. Those poor kids would probably spend the rest of their lives remember just that one day. But to watch him slowly stroll down the corridor, waiting for that moment where she'll come back out and yell for him... that'd be torturous.

My youth minister, in expectation of a Core team retreat this coming weekend, asked us (at least those of us who actually read out email) to do a Keirsey Temperment Sorter test. These were my results:

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are rare, making up between 20 and 25 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

The Four types of Idealists are:

Healers (INFP) | Counselors (INFJ) | Champions (ENFP) | Teachers (ENFJ)


Not surprising - a Healer Idealist. Naturally, I'd have to be an idealist to be a cynic... really goes hand in hand, doesn't it?

Last time I took the test a year ago, I got INTP, which by their titles is an Architect. Interesting change... But when I was in college, I was a INTJ, a Mastermind. Very interesting change... And very fitting every step of the way.

[Added]
Wait a minute... I just took a different version of the test, one closer to the original Jung theory.

Personality type results
EI: 12 out of 17
Extrovert |-------------------------------------------------| Introvert
|
70%
SN: 15 out of 17
Sensation |-------------------------------------------------| iNtuition
|
88%
TF: 12 out of 17
Thinking |-------------------------------------------------| Feeling
|
70%
JP: 9 out of 17
Judging |-------------------------------------------------| Perceiving
|
52%

Your Personality type is INFP

So, while I'm strongly introverted, intuitive, and feeling, I'm still teetering on the edge of judging and perceiving. According to Keirsey discriptions, I'm either a Healer Idealist or a Counselor Idealist. Both of them fit pretty closely, too. Strange...

"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."
(Mat 7:3-5)

I decided not to go downtown and give out food tonight. Instead of helping others, I figured that I needed to worry about helping myself first. I went to mass. I was going to go up and take communion, but the priest... he decided to point out how Pope Bene16 told everyone at World Youth Day last week, that those who aren't Catholic or aren't in a state of grace shouldn't come up for communion. Having committed some grave sins recently and already knowing that I wasn't supposed to go up, I didn't go up for communion. Instead, after mass, I went to the prist and received absolution. I figure I should be better off than I was before mass.

I didn't take my Seroquel last night, because I
figured even a quarter tablet would make me oversleep
today. I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep
(roughly from 3-5am). I'm still tired, though, but
then again, I was tired before we went downtown last night...

Why is it that I have such a guilt complex?

I went downtown with a couple guys from work. We walked around, ate dinner, bar hopped for a few hours. Good times. Well, no not really.

Here's a few things I noticed in my behavior tonight.
- I'm becoming sick of being generous. Knowing where to spot beggars, I avoided them as much as possible - walked on the other side of the sidewalk, other side of the street, avoided eye contact, etc. What makes this worse is knowing that I have $10 in my wallet, of someone else's money, that I'm obligated to give away, and would NOT do it.
- I'm faking my personality and hiding what I think. With these coworkers, I acted like most people would expect a "normal" person to act - make fun of everyone, cast doubt on other people, ogle the women, etc.
- I'm just a dirty old man. Enough said.
- I'm reverting to a cynic. All of the ideals that I thought I held now seem like shattered glass.
- I'm closing up. Part of me just wants to lock myself in my hotel room for the rest of my time here. Part of me also want to go do the Street Patrol thing again tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I will yet.
- I feel like everything I do is for the wrong reasons. Is everything I do for church or community service or whatever just for the social aspect???
- I started kitchen-sinking. Digging up some (luckily, not all) of my bad moments from my past.
- I'm scare to go to sleep. It seems like the times I've stayed up all night, it has usually been because I didn't want to sleep because of some slight depressive mood, and not sleeping made the second day even worse. I feel like doing it again.
- I'm falling into despair. I'm going to hell... what else is there to say? Sure, sins can be absolved, but will I ask for forgiveness?

I guess I did a few good things I did today:
- Helped some woman getting off the subway lift her luggage over the turnstiles.
- Prayed. Not enough, but some.
- I kept my mouth shut when I saw some woman kick a car and the guy got out to confront her. Granted, I didn't stand up to protect her, either (he was ready to get physically abusive), but I knew my coworkers were going to do that and luckily there was an undercover cop that told the driver to get back in his car.
- I decided not to drink away the sorrows. I only had one beer and one shot of whiskey.
- I told my coworker I'd rather not go to the titty bar.
Well... even in the good things, I see some bad.

Why did I develop such a guilt complex? Everything I do seems so wrong, and the burden of my own thoughts is going to stay with me for a long time. They say "Hate the sin, but love the sinner" and I can do that, unless the sinner is me. It feels like there is no room in my heart for me to forgive myself for anything.

So this, I think, is the end of my current discernment. I have an impediment and an irregularity, and I do not believe that I have yet displayed sufficient evidence that God has provided me with grace to overcome those impediments. I have to rationally consider this a sign that I am currently not prepared to enter life as a seminarian and a candidate for priesthood. I won't consider it impossible for sometime in the future, but for now, it won't happen. For now, a faithful layman I will remain. But, in the meantime, I will need to consider the charisms of priesthood that I found attractive, the aspects of the calling that I thought I felt, and what among those I can integrate into my life as a layman.

I also need to consider going back to therapy. I haven't been to a psychiatrist in months (April 14, and the only thing I did with him was reduce my dosage of Seroquel to 200mg, get a blood test, and set up an appointment which I cancelled because I was leaving town. I may not have said it, but my lack of writing about my doctors appointments were simply because I haven't had any! Since then, I have stopped taking lithium, stopped going to any form of therapy, and have reduced myself to 50-100mg of Seroquel (biting 200mg tablets into quarters, thirds, or halves, depending on how much time I have to sleep). There is an obvious possibility that that this medical change is related to my present circumstances, but who can tell for sure?

This search somehow linked someone to my blog on Saturday morning. Scary... and ironic.

I did a search for this myself. I guess I've heard of using carbon monoxide to poison yourself, but I figured people used a car to do it. People have been doing it with charcoal for years... I'm seeing articles from 1998 in Hong Kong, 2000 in Colorado, and I even found a nice How-To from the "Church of Euthanasia" on a website called SatanService.org. What the fuck?

God, I pray that in your infinite mercy and love, you may heal those who commit or think to commit such horrible acts of violence to themselves. And in this prayer, I include myself...

Here's the irony: I got home Saturday night, was listening to a CD in the car, pulled into my garage, let the engine run and wondered for a second if I could sleep there... But promptly shut the engine off and got out of the garage as quickly as I could. Why would I think that was even an option? Why would I want to die now? Things aren't that bad, are they? Here's the thing, I know that I didn't want to die... but I did want an easy way out.

Suicide is not an option, I know this. This is true for everyone, but especially true for me, considering that suicide is a grave sin, that I know it is a grave sin, that I think that I am free to make the choice to not commit the sin, that I believe all these things would pull me away from a state of grace during my death, that I believe there is a heaven and hell, that I would go to hell if I die without a state of grace, and that I do not want to burn for eternity... considering all that, suicide is not an option. My thoughts... they are just not right sometimes.

"Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you..."
(Gen 3:17-18)

I weeded my front garden today. Little prickers all over the place! I really ought to hire someone to do this instead.

So, tonight's wedding was very... um. Well, it was nice. It should have been more fun, but it replayed all of my traditional habits of being scared and lonely - hiding behind a camera, drinking heavily (coffee this time, not alcohol), dancing only with "safe" partners (ie married women), not leaving my little "safe" environment.

Most of my thoughts, now, are about starting a serious examination of self, trying to put down, in writing, what I really think I want and need. It won't be sufficient to jot down things here and there, but I think I actually need to schedule quiet time for me to do this. Set up an outline Saturday night, fill out the details Monday night, continue Tuesday night if I'm not finished, again Thursday and Friday if I have to.

For some reason, I thought that last year was going to be the last big year for weddings. If I remember correctly, I had 2 weddings in 1999, 5 in 2000, 5 in 2001, 6 in 2002, 4 in 2003, and 4 in 2004. Little did I realize that I've got 5 in 2005 also... This doesn't include all the weddings I couldn't make it to! I thought all my family and college friends would have been done over with by now, but no... These things are expensive! At least I've only had to stand up in 3 of them (two brothers and my big B in the fraternity.) so I've only had to pay for 3 tux rentals.

I got this from a priest, whom I had asked if he knew of any orders that MIGHT consider me.

I appreciate your honesty about your condition, and the honesty you have shown when talking with vocation directors. Although it is true that such terms as Bipolar II are recent, and people have always had some sorts of problems, there is the advantage today that better psychological knowledge can help see possible difficulties on a human level which would make following a vocation fully extremely difficult. Of course a vocation is supernatural in origin, but it has to be confirmed by God giving the right qualities and by the acceptance of a diocese or a community. So, it seems that many signs are pointing in a different direction for you.

This goes back to my previous theory - what if some forms of disease are truly blessings that help some of us really connect with God in ways that the non-ill can't?

In any case, I'm starting to think about Plan C, but I guess I should explain Plan A and Plan B. One of my friends told me about her pastor, a kooky but good priest with ADHD. He said that if the Abbey turned him down for seminary, he was going to buy a red sports car - "Plan B". My response to that was "Ooops! I already bought Plan B!" Plan B is what I live right now: a good job, expensive house, lots of stuff.

So Plan A is priesthood or religious life, and that just might not work out. I still have to sound out some more feelers and try; though I hope for the best, I'm expecting specific disappointment. Something will work out, but that's where Plan C comes in.

Plan C will be something else. It might be Plan B with lessons learned from Plan A. It might be something else entirely. I don't know yet, but I think it will take a lot of thinking and praying (and thinking and praying) to decide what to do next.

But I'm still not done with Plan A and I still need to work on Plan B.

Okay, 4 tires, 2 brake pads... how does that make 3 hours? Sheeesh...

So, based on my low, I knew I had to get out, and luckily I already had a plan. That Street Patrol thing - I already had all my sandwiches and juice and cookies prepared, in a backpack and ready to roll. So I went downtown, to St Patrick's, and met people.

There were several different groups there, and they split into two routes, a Yonge Street route and a Queen Street Route. I took the Yonge Street Route just because it was smaller. Besides, I think I've spent quite a bit of time on the southern part of that area so I wanted to see a little diffent part of the city.

This Yonge Route group consisted of two groups - about 80% were a Singles for Christ (SfC)/Couples for Christ (CfC) group and about 10% were a Francisican lay ministry - and two experienced leaders, and me - the odd man out (in a lot of different ways). However, being the odd man out, I became somewhat of a popular curiosity amongst the group. Being from Michigan, some of them had a lot of questions for me (wait a minute, just how did I end up there and find out about it?) and so I got to know some of them, which was really cool.

Coincidently enough, our route group was about 80% Filipino, even though I was basically the only one who couldn't speak Tagalog. It was also about 70% young women, which was nice (though I think many had boyfriends). The Franciscans were very interesting to talk to, and the one Filipina in their group introduced me to all the Filipinas in the SfC group. The Couples for Christ thing (and it's Singles subsidiary) is a lay movement that evidently started in the Phillipines and has been carried out to Filipinos around the world. Needless to say, I've never heard of it. But, they were all really cool and all really fun to talk with.

Oh yeah, the main point was we were there to give out food. I brought a dozen sandwiches (sliced bread with turkey and cheese slices), a dozen juice bottles, and a dozen cookies. Other people brought tuna, PB&J, ham, and whatever else, on sliced bread, kaiser rolls, italian bread, along with juice boxes, water bottles, cookies, bananas, apples, plums, and all sorts of different things. Next time I have to remember to bring more juice and water and fruit, those we actually ran out of first. Some people probably didn't "need" the food, but there was no judgement; if they wanted to accept it, they could have it. We generally only approached people who were sitting around in parks or at busy intersections or around chuches. I even recognized a couple of the homeless people that I had helped out before.

It was good. I'm absolutely glad I did it.

There was one down point here, where some guy on the streets told me "It's not about me and it's not about you. So you wear a Christian cross and you think you're all Christian. Go back to Buddha!" I responded by telling him. "God Bless You!" as I walked off. I spent the next two blocks praying for him. But I didn't let it bother me.

Anyway, back to the people I was with. While the majority of the group was from the eastern suburbs, I was staying in Brampton, and there were two others that coincidently were also living in Brampton, Leto and Emmy (coincidently my sister's name, but I never mentioned that). Coincidently, Emmy is planning on going to Michigan on Saturday and has some cousins there that she's going to visit. So... I spent a lot of time talking with her. She was asking where to go, what to do, when she's in Michigan. She asked about where to go for live music, so I told her to go to Fifth Avenue Ballroom, and if she wanted to go clubbing, what bars she could go to (ie, the Post in Anytown, MI). She told me where to go for Sushi (New Gen on Yonge street?). I told her to call me when she's in town, but she let someone else get my number... In any case, she was planning on going to MI wiht her aunt, father, and boyfriend, so it's not like she's available anyway.

I gave Leto a ride from the subway back to Mississauga, and let him buy me a sandwich at McD's. He and the rest of the SfC/CfC group were convincing me into helping them at a fundraiser walk here in Brampton on Sept 10. The fund raiser is to generate money for the homeless in the Phillipines. I told them (honestly) that I'd try to be there and that I'd try to help out. A couple of them (Leto and Weng) now have my phone number, so they can call me and let me know what's going on. The also told me they'd be sending my number on to the Michigan branch... hmm? We'll see.

I gotta point out, though, when I say "coincidently" four times in a post (three times in a single paragraph), I start wondering... There is this one speaker, that I keep hearing about in my parish, who always called them not "coincidences", but "God-instances". I kinda like thinking that way too.

Today was a good day. The highs far outweighed the lows, and for once, even the lows had possible good things that I could see. I hope and pray that they always do.

Today is a great day to just look back and do highs and lows.

The low point of today came at 7am. This involved a conference call with my boss and his boss to discuss the project assignments in our group. Since the re-org shuffle didn't take any account of what projects we were working on, instead of rearranging our supervisors by projects, we are instead rearranging projects by our supervisor. I was coincidentally assigned to the supervisor that had my project. However, the lead guy on my project, who has been dealing with it for over a year, was not asssigned to that supervisor, so he is no longer assigned to the project. I'm the new lead. Well, technically there's still a 6-week handoff window, but still, he doesn't have to follow the project into Belvidere.

I was upset. That's all there is to say about it. But, if I look at it from a different standpoint, a theoretical "God's Plan" view, it'll be good for my coworker to be home and not have to be in Belvidere for the next umpteen months, because has a wife and a son. I, on the other hand, may find something worthwhile for me in Illinois.

I was still upset. But they pay me to do a job, and as long as I'm working there, I'll do the job to the best of my ability.

I wrote this to my church buddies at the end of the day:
So, come October (and maybe after a nice vacation at
home), I'll be moving (ie changing hotel rooms) from
Toronto, Ontario to Cornfield, Illinois (also called
Belvidere by the locals). I think I'll get to spend
every other weekend at home. Whether this is going to
be a 3 month thing, a 6 month thing, a 2 year thing,
or an until-I-quit thing, I'm not sure. Good thing I
like corn.

That was my low.

My finding last night bothered me all day today. What's worse (or better?) is that I still want to pursue it, despite the obsticles that seem be popping up more and more often.

Is this a righteous stubbornness? Or simple pride? A trapped manic thought, perhaps? God help me...

But did you know today was a holiday? Happy Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary!!! Try singing that one in a song... Well, at least I went to mass today, despite my anxieties.

Well, I just came across something a bit more specific to my situation: Canon 1040-1042.

Can. 1040 Those aVected by any impediment, whether perpetual, which is called an irregularity, or simple, are prevented from receiving orders. The only impediments incurred, however, are those contained in the following canons.

Can. 1041 The following are irregular for receiving orders:

1/ a person who labors under some form of amentia or other psychic illness due to which, after experts have been consulted, he is judged unqualified to fulfill the ministry properly;

2/ a person who has committed the delict of apostasy, heresy, or schism;

3/ a person who has attempted marriage, even only civilly, while either impeded personally from entering marriage by a matrimonial bond, sacred orders, or a public perpetual vow of chastity, or with a woman bound by a valid marriage or restricted by the same type of vow;

4/ a person who has committed voluntary homicide or procured a completed abortion and all those who positively cooperated in either;

5/ a person who has mutilated himself or another gravely and maliciously or who has attempted suicide;

6/ a person who has placed an act of orders reserved to those in the order of episcopate or presbyterate while either lacking that order or prohibited from its exercise by some declared or imposed canonical penalty.

Can. 1042 The following are simply impeded from receiving orders:

1/ a man who has a wife, unless he is legitimately destined to the permanent diaconate;

2/ a person who exercises an office or administration forbidden to clerics according to the norm of cann. ? 285 and ? 286 for which he must render an account, until he becomes free by having relinquished the office or administration and rendered the account;

3/ a neophyte unless he has been proven sufficiently in the judgment of the ordinary.

This means what? Well, even if psychological testing shows that I am fit for the job, since I have attempted suicide, I am considered to have a perpetual impediment, or an irregularity. The only way around (per Canon 1047) this is a dispensation from an Ordinary (a bishop) or, maybe, only from the Holy See (the Pope himself).

The chances look slimmer and slimmer every time I learn more... Yet I still feel like I'm being called there. Maybe I really am delusional. Or maybe I'll have to fight to get a dispensation.

So, I never did find this young adult group that was supposed to be meeting at Edwards park. After sitting around for 20 minutes, watching for people that somehow looked like a group of young Christians (for starters - people who wore crosses) I decided to move on to Plan B - start shooting! Pictures, of course. Flowers, not people. After all, it was a fairly beautiful garden park, and not that horrible of a day, weather-wise.

There was also a huge group of photographers, the types that brought full tripods and camera bags that in some cases probably had more than $20k of equipment inside... There were so many that I actually thought of myself as the "other" photographer. And I think I heard some of them critiquing my shooting techniques. Whatever. They happened to leave about the same time as I did, so I finally asked what they were - a class? a club? They were all members of the Toronto Photography Meetup group, and one of them gave me a business card. They meet just about every Sunday.

So, I signed up. Maybe I'll be able to shoot with them another time.

Oh, and I'm working on uploading my pictures. Check my smug page.

This is the first Saturday I've worked up here. Work was... um... work. I got some stuff accomplished, but there was no sense of urgency for the supplier, and thus there was no sense of urgency for me.

After work, I tried to take my car in to get the tires changed. I was driving to Canadian Tire, where I asked them to gather, from another store since they only had 3, a full set of tires so that I could take it in and get them done. 40,034 miles and I finally blew a flat, just 2 miles short of the Canadian Tire. So I pulled over and grudgingly changed the tire. I was hoping to get there and have the tires fixed and still make it to 5pm mass, and by the time I put on the spare, it was 3:30. Then Canadian Tire had a huge line and not many people working, so it wasn't until 4:00 that I found out that they never picked up the tire from the other store! Which, of course, meant that I had plenty of time to make it to mass at St Anthony's, instead of rushing and hoping to make it. This answered the question of if I could go to Saturday evening mass or if I'd have to go to mass on my lunch hour tomorrow.

Anyway, when I got to St Anthony's, I found out that their Saturday mass was, in fact, their mass that they use LIFE TEEN music, so it was fun to at least sing the upbeat praise & worship songs that I knew, instead of the hymnal music that I'm no longer used to. I talked with one of the chorists afterward, complementing them, and I asked about their LIFE TEEN program, and it seemed like she wasn't sure if they actually use it or not. Maybe she isn't involved in the youth ministry part and didn't know? I don't know. Anyway...

Afterward, I got a call from Diane, driving back to Kansas City from a middle school ministry seminar. We talked for a while, but she kept getting cut off, especially when she got CLOSE to cell phone towers (go figure). Anyway, we were talking about the damage that is happening in the Church because parishes aren't adjusting to the changing society. Kind of goes along with a couple of conversations I had with some of the younger Core members, who both think someone needs to make a new ministry, like LIFE TEEN, but for the 18-25 crowd. It needs to happen, but those two need to start it. I'd like to help them start it, but I'm not around to help. Besides, I don't think I'm the right person for that ministry, I don't think I'm called to it. I think those two are, though.

I broke my pledge never to drive into the city again. However, it was a fairly pleasant drive, surprising considering it's normally a major headache at 5:30 in the evening. Maybe it's because I avoided all the major highway. I managed to make it all the way down to the docks off Queen's Quay in about an hour. However, I didn't actually park or stop for anything other than stop lights. Yeah, I've been driving for about 3 1/2 hours, with no particular destination in mind. Just driving around, getting lost and unlost.

As far as being in Toronto for an extended period of time, I decided to actually consider meeting people. I found some websites for Catholic young adults in the area, so on Sunday night, I'll be walking through Edwards Gardens and have dinner with some of them, and next Wednesday, I'll try to join them for a "Street Patrol" where they get together as a group and give away sandwiches to the needy downtown. It's an odd coincidence... I've seen them gathering for these Street Patrols at the footsteps of St Patrick's every time I've gone to mass there, but didn't realize until today why they were there. Also, there's some sort of coffeehouse thing going on Monday that I might try to go to. I still haven't decided where I'm going to go to mass on Sunday, though. Well, in any case, I'll probably only be out here until the end of September, but I think that it'll be more interesting than sitting in my hotel room or paying for movie tickets.

Driving home for just one night... Most people might
think it's crazy, but, so far, it was totally worth
the extra 500 miles.

First, after work, I stopped by my house to pick up
some things. Uneventful, but necessary.

Next, I went to a Thai restaurant for a late
lunch/early dinner, spent some time to talk to the
waitress. Pretty cool.

Then, my stomach got mad at me for the Thai food, so I
was driving in the slow lane looking for a bathroom to
stop at. Instead I found a man hitchhiking on M-59, so
I offered him a ride. His name is Bolt, and he is an
laid-off millwright, who used to work for the same
company I work. He was walking to a horseshoe
tournament from his house in Macomb Township to a park
in Sterling Heights - approximately a 12 mile walk -
in 98-degree muggy weather, hoping that he could win a
few dollars at this tournament (literally a few
dollars - he was expecting to win about $5). I told
him about my mission and gave him $20. I promised to
pray for him, both on his tournament and on getting a
job. I'm an awful long way from where I'm "supposed to
be", but I kinda feel that this alone was worth the
drive.

But that wasn't it. I went to my mom's house, so I got
to talk to her for a bit, as welll as use the time to
start asking around via email about bipolar vocational
possibilities.

Then I went to church for XLT, a praise & worship &
eucharistic adoration thing that our LIFE TEEN program
does. Very cool. This alone, too, was worth the drive.

Then several of us went out to Starbucks to wish well
a couple of the people leaving for World Youth Day in
Cologne, Germany. Also cool.

And after that, I was invite to see off one of the
college kids, who leaves for school on Thursday.
There, I talked to another Core member who wants to
start a new young adult ministry, so we will
(hopefully) start actually planning something instead
of just bouncing around ideas. Since I think this is
something our church is badly in need of, I think
this, too, was worth the drive.

Anyway, I guess that, tomorrow, we'll find out if it
will have been worth it from a business perspective...

Well, a manditory meeting was called for tomorrow morning back in Detroit, so I'm using this as an excuse to go home for the night and take part in a couple things with the church. Then, after the meeting, I'll check on a local supplier before coming back to the GTA.

Singing: Homeward boudnd... I wish I was... homeward bound...

I wonder... is my blog getting boring? Too one-sided or single-topic'ed, perhaps? Even the search hits are pretty boring these days. Well, sometimes boring is good.

I don't know how many times I'll make this mistake before learning my lesson... A decent night's sleep is necessary, not optional. That, and knowing that I might be gone for 3 whole weeks. Not good for my head.

Anyway, the 1-3 hours of sleep last night didn't treat me as bad as last time I pulled an all nighter, but it definitely had a notable depressive effect. The good thing is that instead of internalizing it entirely, I tried to reach out. I went to my mom's house, and luckily my brother/sister-in-law/niece were there. I tried to call one of my friends to just sit down for coffee and talk. When I got to church this afternoon, I didn't try to hide my depression (at least not to the my friends, even though I really wasn't able to put it into words).

The bad part was that all that time, I just felt... nothing. So I'd move on to the next thing, and felt more nothing. So I found myself continuing to isolate myself... I knew I was doing it because I was lonely.

However, I just tried to think about how I should do things and continued on that line. I normally greet people at church, so I tried to do it with the same enthusiasm... at least as much as I could muster without being fake. I not only volunteered to serve communion, but to carry the cross. In serving communion, I tried to keep a smile (though not very well). At certain points, though, I couldn't even bring myself to sing the songs... When I was finished helping out with something before mass, I even said out loud: "Why isn't this enough?"

But there was something that I found in the readings, the gospel, and the homily. The first reading was that Elijah found the voice of God, not in the heavy winds, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in a whisper. This seemd to tell me to listen to the silence. The gospel was Peter failing to follow Jesus to walk on water. Oh ye (me) of little faith. The homily told us that when we are unsure of our faith, to continue doing what we know is right. And the songs: "be not afraid", "all of you is enough for all of me"... So, after communion, when I had to, once again, isolate myself from everyone else (the cross carrier has to be somewhere else at that point in the mass), it somehow all pieced itself together in my mind: I was isolating myself because I felt lonely... because I needed to find out that I was never alone, and I could only learn that in the whisper of loneliness.

I did get to have coffee with my friend after mass. It was good to just sit down and talk face to face, which is something we haven't done in a while. After that, she went to go paint her new room and I went to crash a goingaway party that I wasn't officially invited to (which wasn't a big deal that I wasn't). There, I talked with our former pastor and some other parishoners. Basically, most of the discussion, even with the priest, was about the non-denominational churchs - the "seeker" churchs - that are springing up all over.

As far as other denominations (or non-denominations or whatever) go, I keep thinking about this verse: John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. "For he who is not against us is for us." (Mar 9:38-40) Sadly, many churches who follow Christ (or perhaps not the churches themselves, but certain individuals within those churches) put a lot of effort into attacking other churchs, and the Catholics may be the most attacked of all. None of that really seems to fit what I think Jesus was trying to say here.

Anyway... enough blogging. I gotta pack.

I'm a 28 year old single male, who lives alone, who
was in a college fraternity, who chooses to spend a
lot of time with teenagers, who is thinking about
becoming a Catholic priest, and who has a long
documented history of mental illness. None of those
things are actually bad, but just think of the
connotations that our current society has placed on
them... While I sat in the "Protecting God's Children"
seminar yesterday, I was thinking to myself: If I were
ever to get implicated in lawsuit for inappropriate
behavior, especially with a minor, I'd be considered
guilty long after I were proven innocent! And to be
quite clear, I would be innocent, because I would
never do anything like that. But still, I guess I need
to be extra careful, because with just one
misunderstanding, I'd pretty much be screwed for
life...

Yesterday, I had an interesting, fun, but extremely
tiring day. The morning was a workshop called
"Protecting God's Children", a requirement for all
volunteers working with children and teenagers in the
archdiocese. The afternoon was our parish's annual
golf outing and fundraiser for our youth group, where
I got to play photographer all day. The evening was a
pig roast where I used my laptop to show all the
pictures of the day. Then I got home and tried to
upload them all, but instead found that my laptop has
crashed. That's why I'm still up. *sigh*

As I was "enjoying" the 4 hour drive home this afternoon, I was asking myself if all my hesitations in proceeding with exploring priesthood and my hesitations to separate myself from my possessions and income and maybe even my sudden rekindled interest in a certain someone, if they were all just another effort to avoid following a path I think I'm called to. In other words, am I trying to save my current way of life even if it risks losing my soul?

Want to know the irony here? Today's Gospel from the lectionary:
Jesus said to his disciples,
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom."

Matthew 16:24-28

I talked with my pastor this afternoon. Basically, we came to two conclusions: 1) I should start sending out emails, letters, or phone calls, trying to find out if any religous orders will accept candidates with bipolar disorder; 2) I should take the risk in asking out the girl that's on my mind. They lead in separate directions, so why both? The first one has no commitments attached; it is simply fact finding. But the second one, well... I guess just because I feel strongly about it, and I'd probably be better off not looking back and just wondering if I should have done something.

Well, I pretty much already knew that I should be doing one of those two things, but instead I've just been floundering around doing nothing. The primary reasons for not doing either were the same in both cases: fear of rejection. However, in either case, I really should know that the reward would be worth the risk. I'm a wuss, but I've got to get over it. As for whether I'll end up in a seminary or in a relationship, I guess only God would know. But if I don't do anything, nothing will happen and my life will continue exactly as stagnantly as it has over the past couple of weeks.

I also talked about my frustrations about my work situation - how I continue in a job that I'm not absolutely happy with just because it pays well, and I only need a job that pays well because I have such bad control of my spending habits... and the most frustrating part of all is that I know that I'm the source of my own frustrations. I could ease up the tenstions a lot if I just sold my house, but then what? What about all my junk? Selling it... just too much of a hassle. So my lazyness further feeds my frustration.

Anyway, I gotta start doing something!

Yup, they're gone. All those pictures, gone. They are sending my HD back, which will remain my lost and only keepsake of those pictures.

I'm not sure what most of the pictures were, but there were probably several hundred of them. I guess I can only remember about a dozen of them at most - a handful of people, I guess, that I really thought were amazingly fun to be around at the time. Some of them I don't even get to talk to anymore, don't even know where they are or how to contact them. Well, if they really wanted to keep in contact, I guess they would have tried to keep in contact, too.

Yeah, they're gone, but they will be missed.

I got a report by about my old harddrive. The MFT is highly corrupted, so it's difficult to piece anything together. It's a 38.33 GB HD, and they found 3.047GB of recoverable data on it. Consider that I usually had only about 2GB of free space on that drive at any given point, 90% of what was on there appears to have been destroyed. Among the recoverable data was a folder for Thanksgiving (one of the first times I used that camera, I think), a new years party, some robotics pictures, and then 4 pictures from a retreat... So the rest of it - 2-4 weddings, 5-6 more retreats, several robotics competitions, and who knows what else - is probably completely gone. I'll have to give them a call tomorrow to find out if anything else is possible...

I've decided that Wednesdays, when I'm in the GTA, are an opportunity I should use to go downtown to St. Patrick's for the Our Lady of Perpetual Help devotional mass. So I went.

I also took the opportunity to look for people to help. To Bruce, I gave $20. To Justine, I gave $10. I passed at least 4 other people who looked like they were looking for money, and did nothing for the man who walked by the restaurant I was eating at, asking outdoor tables for spare change. I gotta find a different way of doing things.

Anyway, I should first admit that I'm a habitually nosy man. This has mixed results in Toronto because there are so many people not speaking English, or are speaking it with such an accent that it doesn't sound recognizable.

But when I was at dinner (a neo-asian place called Spring Rolls), there was a pair of women (possibly mother and daughter?) who were there eating too. They said, quite vocally, that they had nothing for the man asking for spare change... And then, not even a minute after that, the older one started saying "Jesus said..." Hmmm.. I thought that this might be interesting... I'm expecting something along the lines of 'What you don't do to the least of these brethren' or something related. "Jesus said, if you don't approach the kingdom of heaven like a child, you won't get in." very interesting... "So, I stopped going to mass, because, I don't want to sit here and get lectured by these people!" Huh? Wait, was she saying that you can only get into heaven by ignorance? I guess it brings a new meaning to "Ignorance is Bliss". I'm pretty sure that is not what Jesus meant.

So, I wonder to myself, should I be correcting people's misbeliefs? Granted, I might not know what to teach them correctly, anyway. Besides, I'd probably get one of those snobby "what do you know" attitudes in return... I tend to pull off a condescending manner of speaking to people no matter what I do. However, if I really thought I should be doing it, then I wouldn't let the attitude get to me.

I was writing an email to Mama P and talking about the frustrations of having a mental illness while trying to believe in God. But this particular fragment of the email chain has been something I've wanted to write about for a while, so I decided to post it here.

Here's something I found interesting. Recent studies
have been able to show that certain parts of the
temporal lobe seem to be the center of spiritual
thoughts. During prayer and meditation, they become
particularly active, and if electrical stimuli are
applied, patients often receive visions of Christ or
Mary or angels and other spiritual beings. While some
people try to use this as proof that spiritual matters
are nothing but delusions that the mind creates, many
others feel that if God really wanted us to understand
Him, this center could be one of the means God put in
place by which he could reveal himself to us.
Besides, I'd challenge any Darwin theorist to come up
with a reason why it would be advantageous for humans
to evolve a spiritual center in their brains, unless
of course there were needs for survival and fitness
which required spirtuality. Maybe such a challenge
would force them to believe that man truly cannot
survive by food alone, eh?

But besides that, although psychologists are very
limited in their ability to diagnose people that they
don't have access to (especially those who are dead!),
many of the commonly considered geniuses of history
have been thought to be either ADHD or bipolar...
Those two particular diseases of the mind seem to give
a particular edge in that they tend to make people who
have a lot of different interests and studies and who
think in intuitive leaps. While most of the names
given are of scientific and artistic genius (Einstein,
Galileo, DiVinci, Mozart, Beethoven, etc) I wonder
sometimes if several of the saints and doctors of the
church had suffered from things that are now
considered mental illness, particularly St Augustine
and others who grew out of troubled circumstances to
become However, I'm assuming most psychologists
would consider it inappropriate to try to find a
history of mental willness in religous figures (for
simple political coreectness - calling firm believers
delusional would likely start a massive upheaval) and
therefore, I doubt anyone has really devoted much time
to such thoughts. I'm certainly not trying to imply
that some of our great saints had a screw loose, were
not all there, were delusional, or suffered from any
other euphamisms of being "crazy", I certainly do
wonder if God had used certain "mental illnesses" as
another means by which he has revealed himself in the
world. Therefore, I also wonder if we lose
opportunities by the stigmas of illnesses. While I
don't consider myself a genius (especially not by
comparison to other noted geniuses), I do think that
my bipolar disorder has been one of the driving forces
behind many of my interests and talents, truly a
blessing, though definitely a burdensome one.

[added]
I thought about this a little further during mass tonight. I can't also ignore the great deal of harm that such people could bring also. For example, someone told me once that Martin Luther may have had obsessive-compulsive tendancies, and he (among others) decided that he understood the Christian faith better than 1500 years of Sacred Tradition that had been handed down directly from the Apostles and took it upon himself to edit the bible to back himself up. Again, I'm not necessarily saying that he did have mental illness. I'm just saying mental illness is a double-edged sword, I guess. Unfortunately one of the symptoms of many mental illnesses is delusions, and delusions can take many forms. Those who develop Messiah complexes, for example, probably can do more harm than good for proclaiming the faith.

So how can we tell the difference? I'm thinking humility is the key. Knowing that the individual has no intention on furthering their own aims, that they don't think they have been brought there to bring radical enlightening changes to what is already known, that they know that they are only human and - as such - susceptable to sin and error, that they believe they only intend to serve Christ with humility.

Since I was first introduced to Thai food about 8 years ago, it has become my single favorite cuisine. There's just something about the way they mix 80 billion flavors into each dish, meat wrapped in saltiness layered with sweetness all amplified by SPICE... yommmm.... Interesting thing about hot peppers, which is probably why I like hot food so much, is that unlike most flavorings, instead of activating a single or multiple tastebud centers (sweet, salt, bitter, etc), it aggrevates all of them at once. So basically, it can (if used carefully) amplify all the other flavors of whatever dish it's in. And from all that I've tasted, the Thai seem to have perfected that best. But still, anytime I see some random guy (usually upper 20's white guys, go figure...) walk in and say "Yeah, I can take it hot. I eat a lot of spicy food." I know that I'm going to have someone to laugh at pretty soon.

Sadly, despite the cultural diversity in Brampton, they may have wonderful Chinese, Indian, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, and other cultural cuisines, they don't have a single good Thai restaurant (at least not one that I've found). So, every time I get back home, I thrive on going to all my favorite Thai restaurants. So Friday, I went to Siam Cuisine for lunch (and left Tess - the Filipina who moved here from California whom my co-workers refer to as my "girlfriend" - a $12 tip for a $8 lunch, because she just totalled her car the day before) and Roxy's Bangkok Cuisine for dinner with my sister; Saturday, I ate my leftover Gang Garee from Roxy's... and today I went to Thai Delight.

Thai Delight just openned up near my house. I had heard that the manager from Pi's (my absolute favorite Thai restaurant ever, and incidently the only one of my fave's I didn't go to this weekend) had openned her own place somewhere on the east side, so I dropped in this place hoping it would be the place. It was. Pone (or is it Sone? I always confuse her and her twin sister, who now live in CA) recognized me instantly. After the first few bites she even came out and asked me how it compared, to which I gave my honest answers. So far, it's shaping up to be added to my list of favorites, which is especially good since it's only a few miles from my house. And the waitress there, a cute girl named Katrina, seemed to recognize that I'm Filipino also and seemed to like talking... :)

Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool to see Pone again... although the last time I talked to Pi, he was warning me about all these "Thai" restaurants that are openning up these days that aren't owned by Thai natives (a lot of Laotians, I think, though many of the waitresses end up being Filipino... don't know how that works out) and so they don't know the authentic tastes. I don't know what authentic tastes like either, but this one tasted pretty good.