Outtatown - A Summary

The Good:
- The clichés: learned a lot, got a new perspective, etc.
- Gained a lot of leadership experience and skills
- Learned to take different roles than I am used to
- Became more comfortable in different social situations (ex. small talk with strangers, large groups)
- Got better at challenging; specifically others
- Made some new friends
- I have a few connections in South Africa
- God became more practical
- Had lots of fun in many different ways
- Maybe a good story or two

The Bad:
- An inescapable community of 37 is too large for me
- I felt stereotyped and boxed in during parts of the year
- Certain issues were consistently talked about but never dealt with
- I did not connect with most people properly

The Ugly:
- Hygiene

Money:
- Spent $426.12 on food and entertainment first semester
- Spent $824.70 on various things in second semester (Approx. Rand 6597.70)
- Total of $1250.82 personal money during Outtatown

Pietermaritzburg

Yesturday I abseiled (repeled) 100+ metres into a waterfall. It was pretty awesome! Sort of like being in a huricane. One guy described it as being that one scene in The Guardian.

Highlights of the Highlife

This week has been pretty sweet. I've really enjoyed the time that I've spent with my host family and all the things that we've been able to do this week. These are some of the best:

Petting a baby lion
Going 230m below the surface of the earth
Paying half for all food and drink
Bowling a 195
Learning cricket
Preaching on a train
Holding $250,000 of gold in my hands
Chatting late into the night
Eating lamb and boerworst
Feeding an ostrich
Releasing my inner rhythm
Going on my first inverted roller coaster (and not throwing up)
The last dinner

I like where I am

I'm in Pretoria. Staying with an Afrikaans family which seem to be quite wealthy. They are very friendly and I'm really enjoying sitting around and chatting with them. We had a ridiculously good lunch today and that was after the swim in their pool. I had a beer out in the 30ish degree weather as the meat cooked. It was a braai for lunch which is a traditional South African BBQ. Awesome.

Earlier today we saw a giraffe which was pretty cool. I'm also enjoying the fact that I wake up at 7 in the morning and I'm ready to go. I'm not sure if that is the heat or the 9:30 bedtimes I've been having. I've burned my nose pretty good and the top of my head feels like it got too much sun but that's a trade I'm willing to take.

Tomorrow morning we are going on something called the gospel train. Apparently it is a group of black commuters who all meet in the same car to sing worship songs and have a service. We have a song prepared and I get to deliver the word. Should be a lot of fun!

I have internet for this week so there might be another update or two but after that it will be when I can.

To the Outtatown Site 3 Population

This is the post that is supposed to answer what I said to Outtatown people on that Thursday evening. I started writing a much better blog earlier but frankly I'm not in the mood to finish it. I've had some problems with the last of my packing and I just really want to get to bed. But, I promised that I would answer it somehow so here is what I'm willing to give you...for now.

I told you that I would not miss you. Frankly, I didn't. I told some funny stories of times we had together and some of your names might be known by some folks here but I'm not dying to get back to you. Don't take that personally because I'm not dying to get to anyone right now. If it makes anyone feels better, I pretty much neglected a lot of my better friends here because I generally needed a break from people over Christmas.

Later today I will see you all again. I'm thinking that the airport is going to be pretty crazy. There is going to be a lot of "how's it going?" and "how was your Christmas?". It's going to get old for me after the second time but I'll do it all 37 times with a smile on my face because that's what you do for your friends. Plus, I do not think people would quite understand if I went to plan B: to make a written FAQ of my last five weeks.

Until we meet again...

7 Days til the GREATEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE

The last time that phrase was used it was for high school grad. Now in truth I had a good time at my grad and I would even do it again if I could but the one thing I could do without is the lead up. Ladner has a bit of a tradition of making a little too big of a deal of its only graduation ceremony, I can't imagine many other schools bring in the bag pipes, but the real problem was the girls. Some had dates lined up in grade 10 and most had their magical day all planned out. Luckily, within my group of friends, the girls were pretty tame. No gradzillas but there were enough cameras to synthesize that euphoric feeling.

Grad was not the greatest day of my life and it wasn't even the greatest day of my life up to that point. It represented a period of my life, provided a little symbolism and an excuse for some to dress up. It was fun.

In seven days I board a plan for Toronto, later that evening London and the next day Johannesburg. I'll be the furthest I've been from home, truly overseas for the first time and I'll experience the longest period away from my family. On the other hand it is 24 degrees there right now.

There's been a fair amount of lead up. I haven't seen anyone from Outtatown in a while but most of their facebook statuses have something to do with Africa. I'm assuming the airport is going to be a good time because I can imagine a few of them popping a blood vessel in anticipation (you can't really blame them if they live in the prairies).

I'm excited. I've told a lot of people that it's going to be fun, not just as an easy way to end the conversation but because I actually believe it too. I'm just not sure if it's going to be the greatest day of my life. I haven't gotten super excited for it yet and I won't until we actually get there. Then if it's good, maybe I'll let it be the greatest three months of my life...so far.

One thing I do want from those three months - brokenness. In myself and if I may be so bold as to ask it for those I am traveling with. I believe that is the most valuable thing that will happen during those three months. Now I just have to go in with open arms and a more open heart.

This is a very good map of our travels, probably made by but definitely taken from my friend's blog.

P.S. I have also updated my calender for the next three months. If you want to know specific places I will be, check that out.

Speaker 7 - Blain(e)?

Blain/Blaine is a pretty crazy guy. Apparently the story goes something like this. Blain was Nathan's youth pastor. One day Nathan calls up Blain and says that something big is up and that he needs to talk. On the other end Blain says, "Can this wait a bit, I'm just doing my wife right now". I heard this from Patty so take it for what it's worth.

All and all, that's a pretty good picture of a few day impression of Blain. He says what he wants and is fairly rediculous but the guy loves God and there're multipul ways he proves it. He was the speaker for guys week and I'm disapointed that I didn't try to talk to him one on one.

Because Blain was the speaker for guys week most of the stuff he talked about is probably not fitting for me to reitterate verbatem in here. I'll tell you the PG stuff.

One cool piece of advice was that the most important thing that you can do as a newly married guy, is to make your wife your standard of beauty. Other than that we did the classic make a list of questions you want to ask the girls and they answered them and we answered theirs. Overal it wasn't helpful at all, at least not with understanding girls but it did leave me with a very large question. The questions is this:

Is it possible to have strong platonic intergender relationships?

I had never thought about it too much until this point but it was expressed, as if it were fact by the women leaders, that it is irrisponsible for a guy to try and go deeper with a girl unless he likes her, otherwise he is leader her on. I don't have the ability to go into depth here but my first reaction was actual anger which really surprised me because most things don't affect me that strongly. I have some strong opinions about the above question but before I get into them, what are yours?

Speaker 6 - Nathan

Nathan was my favourite speaker. He combined a good amount of personal stories with intellectual discussion and yet he was our most relevant speaker. Nathan talked about idols.

Now idols can be a lot of things but there are some basic guidelines. An idol is anything that we let judge us or set conditions for our self worth. It is a perceived center of value, pleasure or power. Anything that we use to give us power, anything we use to make a standard of value or anything we use to escape from pain, is an idol.

I'm just reading something I wrote in my journal. It's fairly personal so don't use it against me.

"My biggest problem is either the fact that I want to be a hero or that I don't have enough boldness. Can being a hero be an idol? What do I gain from it? Honor, praise, love. Is it just that they each have such a high tolerance level? I don't feel like I'm getting a diminishing return. Am I being set up for a fall? But I don't really care about those things, they are just what I gain. I want to be a hero because I feel it is right, because I would want someone to do the same for me. Is that God then?
What about boldness? I gain perceived safety from cowardice. The idol would be whispering something like 'why do it, you don't have to'. I guess the idol would be apathy.
I'm not sure about this whole exercise because I don't agree with too many of societies standards. I don't care if people think I am good looking or smart or athletic, at least not as much as I used to. The main thing I do deal with is identity. Maybe that's the only thing everyone deals with. We are all just trying to find who we are. To be known."

Nathan also gave me one of my favourite jokes during Outtatown. It would be told by an African and it goes like this. To know if you should marry a girl or not, tweak your girlfriends thighs when you leave for work and when you return and they're still jiggling, you've found a good wife.

Speaker 5 - Tara

I don't have much on Tara. It's probably because I didn't like her very much or at least didn't really respect her as a speaker. She was living a pretty impressive life, but it depends on what impresses you.

The main thing that I gained from Tara was culture shock. Knowledge about culture shock that is. She gave us a very nice emotional time line and a quick run down of the five stages of culture shock. It was all quite informative but at the time I thought it was all well and good, for someone else. Now I've never really been in another culture (unless you want to get picky with the definition of that word and before you say it I know that every person carries their own culture) but I have proven to be quiet adaptable when the time comes and as long as they give me time, I'll eat most things. Change doesn't really bother me but then again I've never been in change that is all that threatening to me.

My point is that I didn't think it was useful but because it was such a nice visual, I wrote down the time line. I wish I could tell you that looking back on it now is causing me to have an epiphany that would make this post more exciting but I was right and wrong. I was wrong because I went through the stages of culture shock when I first starting outtatown. My expectations were unrealistic and it had been a while since I forced myself to make friends, I went in all wrong. I got shocked and it took until the canoe trip (4 or 5 days) for me to realize that. But then I adapted and things got better. I love it when I can be right too.

Another cool thing that we talked about was the difference between Passive and Active speech. The difference between "you broke a dish" and "a dish broke". Westerners usually use the active but many other people use the passive. I love stuff like this because it is crazy how much meaning is floating around 3 or 4 words and how easy it is to miss it. I really hope I can find some good examples of stuff like this in South Africa.

Speaker 4 - Pierre Gilbert

Pierre, like Sugar Ray, is a CMU prof who visited us for one day. I'd like to say that he talked about two things, ultimate truth and then spiritual warfare, but I'm not sure what was spiritual warfare and what was a recipe for bacon. I'm going to stick to ultimate truth.

We talked about Postmodernism. About how one guy said that "I define postmodern as incredulity towards metanarratives". Which is pretty much a skepticism to all major ways of viewing the world. We got into the basic flaw of that system in that it tries to remove absolutes by stating an absolute and talked about how we really only use Postmodern thought in unimportant matters (For example, not in crime). We then hit on the hidden truths that A) No one is beyond the reach of God and B) we are free.

Now I liked Pierre because he was funny and we had a good chat after the session over some lunch but his session was pretty weak. I feel that our hidden truths were made by a Sunday school teacher and I'm not sure if I even agree with B. C S Lewis says that "I was not born to be free--I was born to adore and obey" and I agree more with him than Pierre.

In the chat that we had afterward, I was talking to Pierre about the truth of the Bible - specifically creation. He told me about this guy named John Bottero who is a world expert on Assyrians and their culture. Now this Bottero fellow apparently says that the Hebrew creation story is so advanced for it's time period relative to the neighbouring cultures that either Moses got it from Aliens or it might actually be true. I thought that was pretty cool so I wrote the name down and forgot about it until now. Well, I just spent 30 minutes researching Jean Bottero because John Bottero is an auctioneer and I've found nothing that supports Peirre's claim. I've found nothing to the affect that Bottero was even a Christian, maybe even the opposite as his book "Birth of God" seems to dictate at first glance.

I don't know if someone got the wrong information somewhere but I'm skeptical if this Bottero thing is actually what Peirre thinks it is. If you happen to know something about this or have better luck than I do researching it, let me know.

Speaker 3 - Sugar Ray

His name is not actually Sugar Ray. It's a nickname but one that I don't know the origins of. All I know is that Patty calls him Sugar Ray, that's good enough for me.

Ray spoke on poverty. Because I had taken the Introduction to International Development at CMU which should have been taught my Ray if he wasn't on his sabbatical, I knew the basic layout of his session. First, we defined what poor was. Second, we found an example of someone we knew who we thought was poor. Third, we got into wealth or capital.

For the third part, we wrote out five things that we considered valuable wealth. Later we put them into five categories. Natural, Human, Financial, Physical and Social. The five are as follows:

Natural capital: Environmental resources (e.g., land, water, biodiversity)
Human capital: Skills, knowledge, health, ability to labor and to pursue livelihood strategies
Financial capital: Savings, livestock, supplies of credit, remittances
Physical capital: Basic infrastructure (e.g., transport, energy, market access, communication, irrigation facilities)
Social capital: Membership of groups, networks, access to wider institutions of society

I had one social, one financial and three human. That doesn't surprise me because that's where my priorities are. We also talked about a wild card sixth category of Spiritual capital. All this brings up the questions of where you put your faith. As you can see, I put my faith mostly in myself and within a few of my equally financially blessed friends. If Ray had not brought up Spiritual capital it would have never crossed my mind.

Where is your faith placed?

Speaker 2 - Craig

I should probably stop starting these ridiculously late at night. It's not a good situation. On the other hand,

Craig was our second speaker and he was a historian. I found it interesting that he was a Christian and a historian and so I played close attention to his sessions. He gave us some interesting stuff but I'm going to focus on his reasons why the Bible was true. I remember three major points.

He talked about positive and negative sources and showed us some of the writings by roman historians during the time of the Bible, which 'prove' parts of Christianity.
He explained that all of the authors of the Bible did not know that they were writing the Bible at the time.
He showed us that the Bible is not sanitized. The good is in with the bad which is very unusual for any mythological or religious book. He proved the Bible is honest.

My first question is whether honesty is enough to be truth. If something is honest, is it therefore true? My first thought is that it is not. If I wanted to, I could tell a number of embarrassing stories which aren't true and tell them like they are for the purpose of making people think I am honest. In a way you can say I am honest but really the only good thing about me is that I'm smart enough to use short term lost for long term gain.

(Side note. I had an interesting conversation with a number of people about the difference between honesty and truth. I think the best line was that honesty is something within and truth is something outside of oneself; honesty is the act of making yourself able to receive the gift of truth.)

A counterpoint to that last issue is the idea that why would the writers of the Bible want to make something honest but not true if they didn't even know they were writing anything that would become so famous. In essence they were just scribes who wanted to get the story recorded. Unfortunately I have to get a little cynical here and wonder about the people who put the Bible together. Now I know a little about this but exactly that, a little. Could it not be possible that those who composed the Bible choose from a multitude of writings, those which worked the best? Could some truth be lost in the first Cannon? I've never read 1st and 2nd Maccabees but maybe they've got some stuff that doesn't really agree with the rest. Well, I'm starting to get into areas that I don't want to go this early in the morning so I will stop but the questions do not.

Speaker 1 - Gerry

I have three pages of notes on Gerry. As you can probably guess, that is mostly due to the fact that he was the first speaker and not much else. Before I start it is interesting to note that on the first page at the bottom someone has written:

Joshua,
thank you
Josh, you have a very nice
note book.

Now my first guess was that Albanian boy I saved from a dragon finally found me because the printing is so messy and obviously came from a disfigered hand but it might also be that the writing chooses to be anonymous so I will pursue it no more...unless you have information on who I should be saying you're welcome to.

I digress, Gerry talked about communicating the gospel in terms of people's specific cultures. He gave us a three step system:
Know unchanging word, know changing world
Know the changing people and their changing world
Take unchanging word to the changing people living a changing world

Something that I have thought about to a fair extent is this whole question of being able to relate to people. One of the most amazing things about Jesus, if you think that he was just a human being, is how amazing he is at being exactly what a specific person needs at a specific time. To the lady at the well, he saw through her and brought truth into her life. For Peter, he had to call him the devil yet my guess is that it was the best good for Peter at the time. Peter seems like the type where you needed to just set them straight every once in a while. To Zacchaeus, Jesus was friendly and inviting and my guess is that if Jesus would have had a place, they would have eaten there instead.

Jesus' ability to be anything to anyone is quite spectacular to me. I'm not sure if this is what Gerry meant by his sessions but it is the thoughts that came up for me. How am I living my life to be more like Jesus in this way? How am I trying to understand and relate to those who think and live and feel differently than I do?

Finally, there are two quotes that came up during the sessions. I don't remember who either of the authors were.

God has called us to live a daring and impossible kind of life which necessitates faith in the kind of God who does the impossible.

Don't go to church, be the church.

Vancouver

So I'm in Vancouver right now.  I've been here since Monday.  We are in the Ivanhoe.  We will be here until Sunday and then we go to Chilliwack.  

Tonight I walked around the downtown east side.  I met some prostitutes and one guy who was pretty convinced that "they" were going to kill us.  I tried to give a rose to two different women but they both were pretty scared of me.  I met another guy who told me to love George Bush and that we should nuke the Muslims.  My internet has been inconsistent so I'll try to tell some stories when I can.  Right now I'm about to learn a game called 3 13.

I'll let you know if there is some time when you can visit me or if I'll be back in Ladner.  We have some free weekends but apparently they might now be very free, so I'm not sure what the situation is right now.  Hopefully I can see some of you soon.

It takes tears to build a community

I've quite enjoyed my first 29 days of Outtatown. One of my biggest worries was that most of the people on my site would be immature. Interestingly enough, there are about 6 or 7 people who are older than myself and no one ridiculous. I was worried that it would get cliquey. There are groups of friends but nothing unreasonable; actually quite good. I was also worried that people would be just in it for the fun. This one will take a little more to explain.

During one of our first sessions, Jerry our speaker had just finished telling us about himself and wanted to know a little about each of us. My understanding of the situation was to give your name, where you were from and maybe why you did Outtatown. Well the first guy asked what we were supposted to say and Jerry said, "Just tell me a little about yourself" and so he did. By the time everyone was done, we had gone over the time for that entire session. We had shared some pretty personal stuff and there was even a tear or two. I was shocked. This was our second day together.

Just recenlty we had a guy named Nathan talk to us. His big thing was idols. Without getting too much into the details he talked for a day and a half and then in our last session he got us all together in a big circle. He said he had said too much and now it was our time to talk. It was a little uncomfortable for 2 mintues, until the girl next to me spoke. About half the site shared what seemed like the most important events of their lives. I think the tissue box pasted by me five or six times. Even in the silence, it felt good.

I watched people and saw bits of their soul pour out from their mouths and eyes. It was honest and real, with 38 people in the room. It's the type of moment that defines a group.

Plunging into the Urban

From Tuesday night to Friday we stayed at the Vineyard church in Winnipeg. It is located at 782 Main Street. It's the rough part of town.

Wednesday we participated in something called The Amazing Race. It was really well organized and run. We had a little baggy full of clues and a number of different tasks to accomplish. When we started I told my team that I loved winning and well, they didn't disappoint. But that's not the point of that day. We got to talk to some people who have devoted their lives. One guy runs community housing for the scum of the street. These people have to pass a screening but we're talking a step above drug dealers. The part that I found the most amazing is that he has two little kids. He told us one story about how one of the guys came home late, drunk out of his mind and his 5 year old son answered the door. We asked him about it and he said that he just trusts the Lord to keep his kids safe. That struck me pretty hard.

We also heard about this sweet pastor. Basically this guy took his neighbourhood seriously and starting bringing the battle back to the streets. He, with the help of some other guys, ran the drug and sex trade out. Basically they recorded license plates of the Johns and addresses of the drug houses and gave them to the news and posted them online. Before long, the neighbourhood turned around because this one guy brought illumiation to the dark places. I don't know but I imagine that this pastor would be getting death threats at the very least. I loved how much risk this guy was taking but more so, how simple is was to actually do something, without any violence or evil at all.

We also met another pastor who's church is in a high traffic prostitution traffic area. The parts that I remember were these two. The average age to start prostitution is 13 or 14. Most of the girls are safer on the streets being picked up by strangers than they are at home.

My favourite part of the day was when we were walking around and we started to hang out with some native kids. These guys were smoking and drinking beer and I probably would have just walked past them without saying a word but another guy from a different group started talking to them and we all started walking together. Now, there is a long story to go with this and if you want to hear it let me know but the most important part is that I become friends with the head guy. His name was Mike. Now Mike is a reasonable dude but he doesn't like his neighbourhood. He told me that he wanted to get a gun and kill some people. He was serious. He also liked to laugh and have a good time. I think the moment we bonded was when I started to lay down some sick beats for his lyrical rhythm. That's right. The white kid beatboxed while the native told it like it is. That right there, that was very good.

The other two days were spend doing service projects and while they were good, they were nothing compared to the epicness of Wednesday. Other than two amazingly awkward conversations where I got this one guys name wrong like four times, it was good. I seriously think that Wednesday October 8th, 2008 might just be one of the greatest days of my life.

Kill Girls, Kill Girls, Kill...SO HARD

My average day looks sort of like this:

8:30am - Wake up (shower every second day)
8:45am - Breakfast
9:30am - Session 1 (5 minute break at 10:30)

11:30am - Quiet time
12:30pm - Lunch

1:30pm - Session 2 (5 minute break at 2:30)

3:30pm - Free time

5:00pm - Dinner

7:00pm - Community event

9:00pm - Snack

1:30am to 4:00am - Bedtime

The rest of my time is filled with random things. There are some things that I've been doing differently though. I'm drinking a lot more water, which is giving me a lot more energy. A friend of mine told me this last year but I didn't believe him, but now I do. Usually I want to fall asleep about 16 times during a session but then I just take a drink of water and it tides me over for those next 108 seconds. I'm also eating salad at least once a day. It hasn't gotten me a girlfriend yet but I'm pretty sure most of the girls are impressed. I'm a big fan of the raspberry vinaigrette. Other than that, I'm sort of feeling the media fast I'm on but I do get to see a movie every once in a while. The Transporter was pretty disappointing.

Free time is being filled with quite a few things. We have a copy of Settlers here and I'm 2-2 so far. It's only the original but it's still lots of fun.

I won this one

We also played Risk 2210 and we dressed up like nerds for it. Good times.

Too bad you can't see the socks tucked into my pants

I also made a kite with some other people. We used sticks, duck tape, and a large clear garbage bag. It didn't fly, at all.

The Kite Crew

I've played a lot of cribbage and some poker and rook. The evenings go late supplied by our plethora of assorted hot drinks. The talks are good. We played a game of dodge ball. It was girls verses guys. We had a cheer; it's the title.

We find out our small groups tonight. I'm pretty pumped for that. Things are going to get deeper.

I originally wrote this post a while ago but I didn't have a picture for the risk game. I still don't have a picture but I felt like I should post this anyways. Hopefully there will be a picture eventually.

My Adventure (to find better titles)

I've been on the Outtatown program for 10 days.

When I went to CMU last year the basic simile that I used was that it's like relationships on crack; if that is true then Outtatown is like some high grade speed that even John Travolta couldn't handle. Most of this is because everyone is expecting to be friends with everyone else and it's crazy how good of a motivator that can be. Normally it is seen as strange to say hi to a stranger but you would have to be an outcast to not be able to get to know people on a program like this. I really like that. Makes things a lot easier for me.

The start has been a little different than I expected. I would explain but that would either take too long or you wouldn't know me well enough to understand. But now things are becoming more like I thought they would. I'm starting to get ridiculous and I'm really enjoying getting to know the other people.


We are at a place called Wilderness Edge Retreat center in Pinawa. It is a small town with really tame deer. I tried to get a Google map or earth image of the area but I do not know how to do that on this computer. We were here for the first few days and then we went on a 3 day canoe trip at Manitoba Pioneer Camp (which is in Ontario) and now we are back again. We will be situated here for about two more weeks until we head back to Winnipeg for an Urban Plunge.

Yesterday I got my hair cut by about 12 people. I wanted it shorter and I thought the best people for the job would be the four who had a combined two and a half hair cuts of experience between them. With another eight for moral support and comic relief, the deed was done. I figure it was a community building experience.



Other than that my day consists of meals, sessions, random sports, a game of crib and maybe a movie. O and staying up until 1:30am every night.

A Time to Pack

I'm getting ready to leave my province. This isn't the first time that I've done this retinue, it's the second. I did however, learn a few things. This time I will not bring needless books, unwanted tee-shirts and impersonal nick-knacks. This time I'm traveling efficient. Mostly because I have to, all my stuff needs to tavel with me, but even the laundry soap is going in an airtight zip lock bag. I don't want to bore you with the particulars but I'm going to make a list of what I'm bringing. Mostly because I need to make a list of what I'm bringing but also, in the case that I forget something, you can remind me of how important it is. Ex. I almost forgot to get the thermos, and it would have been a very sad fall with only terere.

Yerba Mate (1kg Cruise and whatever is left of the Lemon-Mint), Guampa, Bombillia, Thermos
Bohnanza, Crib, Cards (2 decks), Phase Ten, Poker Chips, Rook
Water bottle (1L), Headlamp, Sunglasses (my old transitions), Sunscreen, Bug spray
Change (1 roll $1, 2 roll $.25), Laundry Soap
Backpack (65 liters (yes, actually 65 liters)), Zip Lock Bags, Dry Sack
Watch (I found a McDonald's one and I'm still seeing if I can make it work, might just need a new battery)
Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss (even thought I probably will not use it, unless I need a very thin rope of some kind)
Towel, Soap, Shampoo
Sleeping Bag, Mattress (the small one that rolls up)
Pens, Paper (the CMU thing), Journal (different from a diary, very different)
Bible, Books (various)
Passport, wavier forms
Work gloves, Shoes (%100 Gore-Tex, %100 waterproof)
ipod
Clothes
I'm not planning on taking a camera or an alarm clock because I figure other people will have them and it doesn't matter if my soul is stolen so long as I can sleep past 9.

The rest of my stuff is up for grabs. My sister already has my computer and Eric has dibs on Game cube stuff but if you want some Archie comics to read, you probably know where the keys are.

Tonight

Tonight I have Polio and Typhoid Fever.

I'm going to bed early.