Tanzania

Interesting thought from Rebecca in this post: here.

We were in class making clocks. Okay, so you need a circle to make a clock, no probs, there are compasses for such things, well that is if you are in a school in the West. We don’t have compasses so I found round things for the student teachers to trace around. They weren’t really big enough but I thought we could make do.

Well to save myself some embarrassment I really should have asked the students for their ideas first because after I had handed out the things for them to trace and given a detailed explanation of the problem they set to work – completely ignoring everything I had said.

I watched as they were folding paper. Hummm, I didn’t remember talking about using folded paper, but then I saw it. Did you know that if you fold a piece of paper several times, put a hole in either end and then use one pencil as the centre point of the circle in one hole and the other pencil to draw in the other hole you can move the folded paper and make a perfect circle? Well I didn’t. I was quite impressed though and told them so, to which they all laughed, not being able to believe I didn’t know that.

To make it worse I came home and told Patrick all about what I learned today. Well he listened patiently and then laughed. I asked why he was laughing and he answered by telling me about another 5 ways one could draw a circle with no compass or model to trace.

It is quite a clever little trick, really.
It kind of talks to what I mentioned after Christmas:

It's so interesting, living here in Africa for a short time to see the good and bad effects of westernism. In some ways it is fantastic to see an attempt to advance the education system of Tanz, and a goal to push the millions of students to a high level of education, and to increase the number of children able to attend High-school (a tiny amount at the moment). But, of course, it is also a danger as we will probably (unknowingly) impart some unhelpful parts of our culture onto them if we aren't not careful. - Dec 26

Its a great privilege to still be doing some work for The Joshua Foundation via the internet while here in New Zealand, as well. I have been working on some sponsorship cards for them, and doing other little graphic design bits.

Ascapapa

I haven't had much time at all on my hands these past few weeks. I am heading in towards the end of my Bachelor of Graphic Design, so the pressure is really on, plus the fact that I have had major issues with my computer the last week to keep me very busy.

A friend and I were talking about escapism the other day. He is interested in escapism in the area of computer games. He was thinking that because people in the world aren't happy, they use certain computer games to escape this world and enter another, where you can be whomever you want, and forget about this life for a moment. He knows people who literally work eat and play computer games. That is their life. He himself finds escapism through computer games an important part of his life, which help him maintain his sanity.
I heard someone say once, in an old recording somewhere online, (it was possibly Billy Graham) that escapism isn't a bad thing. In fact it seems to be a important part of the lives of all humans. We watch movies, read books, listen to music, play computer games, to take our minds off reality, amongst other thing. It can become a negative thing, especially when taken to the extreme. And what does escapism tell us about ourselves? This is a fundamental question which, I believe, points us towards the eternal.

Interesting thought

‘Why don’t you change these stones into bread. Because if you change these stones into bread the whole world will follow you.’

Satan makes a fallacious assumption. The fallacious assumption he makes is that if God would be our constant miracle maker materially, and satisfy all our intellectual needs, the whole world would turn and follow him. Time and Time again in history we learn that some of the most vile indecencies and criminal acts have not come from men and women whose stomachs were empty, but men and women whose stomachs were full. Learning and understanding, does not amount to goodness. See: Germany and the Holocaust.

Hobart Mauer
Prof at Harvard
‘For several decades we psychologists have looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus, and acclaimed our liberation from sin as epoch making, but at length have discovered that to be free from sin- that is to have the excuse of being sick, rather than sinful- is to court the danger of also becoming lost. This danger, I believe, is betoken by the wide spread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing. In becoming amoral, ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with, neurotics themselves, find ourselves asking who am I, what is my deepest destiny, and what does living really mean.’