4 reasons why you should attend the 327 stem cell drive
There’s a need right now that you can help with. The OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network needs more registrants, especially Chinese registrants. What is this network? It’s a network of Canadians who have registered to potentially be donors for patients who need a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, a lifesaving procedure. For this procedure, patients must be carefully matched with the correct donor so that the transplant will go smoothly. It’s a lot more complicated than a blood transfusion where things like ethnicity can greatly increase the chance of finding a proper donor. Right now, there’s a huge shortage of Chinese people in this network despite the fact that Chinese make up the 3rd largest ethnicity in Canada, only behind the English & French.
So how can you help? Attend one of the four “327″ drives happening in Vancouver and Toronto on Saturday, March 27 between 11am & 5pm. Don’t live in one of these cities or can’t make it that day? No problem, you can do it online as well here. What does registering involve? Hardly anything, just a bit of your time and a few of your cheek cells. If you attend the drive, you’ll fill out some forms and they’ll take a cotton swab of your cheeks to register your DNA. If you do it at home online, you’ll fill out the forms online, you’ll get a cheek swabbing kit a few weeks later, you swab your cheeks, and send it back to them. And that’s that, you’re registered!
So what are you waiting for? Go next Saturday or do it online! I did it a few years ago and it was very easy. And you don’t have to be Chinese (there’s just a shortage of Chinese registrants), they don’t discriminate. If that’s not enough to get you to register, I’ve provided a list of 4 reasons why you should register:
- You could potentially save a life. How often can you say you’ve taken the first steps to potentially saving somebody’s life? Unless you work in medicine, are a police officer, fireperson, or paramedic, likely not often. So here’s your chance to be as close to a superhero as possible. You could also find a genetically modified spider to bite you, but that’s a lot harder than attending this drive.
- All the cool people are doing it. I’ve done it already, one of the coolest people ever. But if that’s not enough, Patrick Chan (you know, Canada’s reigning men’s figure skating champion?) is endorsing this too. Now, don’t you want to be like Patrick Chan and I?
- You could get a ride my new car. There’s 1 location in Vancouver and 3 locations in Toronto that this drive is being held at. For those of you in the GTA and can’t get to one of the 3 locations, I’m willing to drive you there in my new car! So no excuses of “I can’t get there.” Plus who wouldn’t want to get a chauffeured by yours truly?
- Because you can. Too many times in our lives, we don’t do things, even things that benefit others, because we can’t. We don’t have the time. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the resources. Well, this is something you can do. It’ll just take a fraction of your time but the potential benefits for others are enormous. None of the other reasons really matter except this one. Do it because you can.
new site, new beginnings
Hello and welcome to the all new jonchant.com! So I finally got around to buying my own domain and webspace in January And now, a month later, I have finally tweaked wordpress around enough to my liking and present to you my all new and improved blog! Hope you all like it!
Now I finally have someplace to share all my photos! Alas, the free photo services just didn’t cut it for me. Either having limited disk quotas or limited resolutions, none of the free services on the web were up to my liking. With the freedom I have now with no space or bandwidth limitations, I’m free to share as many and as large of photos as I want! Only thing is, I need find a good photo management system or make one myself first (which is highly unlikely). So, hopefully in the coming weeks and months, I’ll slowly get my photo collection online to share with the world.
Feel free to comment and suggest anything for my website!
in her net
I’ve got a confession to make: I love the internet. I absolutely do. It’s the greatest thing ever. I don’t know what I’d do without it. Really, I don’t. There’s just so many things that are possible with it: communication, entertainment, purchases, music, the list goes on. Here are a few things I love about it.
Communication. Things like facebook and MSN messenger are great. You’re able to communicate with people around the world. Distance is no longer an obstacle. Don’t forget about e-mail and blogs as well. Simply awesome. I’ll admit, I hated facebook when it first came out. I joined initially because a friend told me it was great. Truth be told, it sucked when I first joined. There were only 3 Canadian universities on facebook when I first joined and no features. Except poking, the most useless facebook function ever. No photos, no videos, no cool apps. It was basically an online popularity contest. But I have to admit, over time, facebook has become an excellent communication tool. Catch with old friends you haven’t seen in years, plan events and parties easily, share your pictures and videos with friends effortlessly. Good stuff.
Purchases. Get anything and everything from the internet. No longer are you bound to buying what’s close by. If you can find it on the net, you can buy. How very convenient! I especially love buying a lot of my music online now through iTunes. I’ll still buy CDs whenever I find a good deal, but iTunes is great. Not only is it cheaper, but often times, if I pre-order, I get bonus tracks that aren’t released on the CDs. Sweet!
Entertainment. With sites like youtube, how can you go wrong for entertaining yourself. Who know how many countless hours I’ve spent watching stuff on there. I love it. Not only can you entertain yourself, but you can also discover new things. One thing I never thought I’d use the internet for is discovering new music talents. I’ve always found out about new artists through the radio and friends. But now I’m discovering cool artists by just browsing the net. My personal favourite right now is Jennifer Chung. A sweet girl from Cali with an amazing voice and songwriting skills to match. Here’s my favourite song of hers:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zar6Lx9-Riw]
Speaking of entertainment, check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Joss Whedon + Neil Patrick Harris + comedy + musical = awesomeness. Seriously, check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
Now, unfortunately, it isn’t all good. With all this freedom opened up with the internet, it’s also given voices to people who frankly shouldn’t be talking. Hate groups and hate websites are unfortunately on the net. So are disgusting things like child pornography. I’m pretty sure this stuff only makes up a very small sliver of the internet, but it still saddens/angers me that people would put stuff up like that.
Back to the good stuff. There are many more communication tools that I haven’t mentioned, but there is one I’d like to highlight before I end this post: twitter. For those of you don’t know what twitter is, it’s basically a tool where you can post short messages about what you’re doing at that moment. Friends can subscribe to your feed and be in the know about your doings. It’s suppose to let people know what you’re doing in between blog posts. Now I’ve received a few invites for this over the last few months, but I’m still skeptical, seems like it’s a pretty thin line between twittering and stalking. Do I really want people knowing what I do on a hourly basis? Do I want to know what others are doing on an hourly basis? I just don’t know. What do you think?
something more…
It’s been a really long time since I’ve even touched this blog. Surprisingly, people have still come and visited over the last 7 months, even though there has been nothing new to read. Well, now you have something new to read!
So, two things: my online presence is back, and there’ll be some minor changes. This blog will be a little less random. No more “Today I…” or “I did this today…”. Each entry will have some substance, even if it’s not huge. It’s not that my blog’s been totally random, I think I’ve contributed a few worthwhile reads, but some entries have been pretty useless. So, no more of those. Plus, no more of “it’s been a while…” (this entry will be the last time I ever say anything remotely like that, I promise).
Why this change? Well, I guess it comes down to the title of my blog: “none live for themselves” This isn’t a blog to just serve myself and act as a record of my doings, but hopefully it somehow benefits you, the reader, in some small way. Whether you laugh or smile because of something written here or you think longer about a certain subject or (by some small chance) you learn something new, I hope these pages of my ramblings in cyberspace won’t just be another way for you to waste your time, but it actually adds a bit of substance to your life, no matter how tiny.
So stay tuned for something more…
—————————
preview to my next entry:
“If at the end of the day, there’s someone out there who
has a better day because of us…
then we’ve succeeded.”
bonus points to those who can guess what it’s about!
a tribute
This is a tribute to somebody I barely knew for an hour today. He was full of life and seemed to have fun no matter what. He seemed like a great friend to those close to him and very friendly. Unfortunately, he was struck and killed by a car this afternoon.
His name was “Joff” I believe and he was a very playful dog. He belonged to the lady that rented out our canoes this afternoon at Green Lake and it was so much fun playing fetch with him before heading out on our canoes. Even after we went out on the lake and river, he followed us along the banks and even got in the water a few times to chase some ducks. It was so fun watching him. Unfortunately, as we passed under a bridge on the river, he ran out onto the highway and was struck by a car.
So this is for you Joff. I’m sure you brought lots of joy to everyone like you did to me today. Though you will probably never read this, my deepest condolances to you, his owner.
wisdom from a nine year old
I attend this small group every other Saturday that is basically made up of university students mainly from SCBC (one other person & I are the exceptions). We meet at our leaders’ beautiful condo down at the lakefront. The leaders are actually really good family friends and it’s kind of cool how I got connected to this small group. But that’s another story for another day. Our leaders have two young children, a daughter in grade 7 and a nine (I think) year old son. This past Saturday night, the other uni students and I had the pleasure of being their son’s audience as he practiced his speech for his compitition today. Hmmm…I wonder how it went? Anyways, I was blown away by the depth and wisdom he showed through his speech. Here’s a couple (as direct as possible) quotes:
“Good friends can motivate you to do good like when you should be working on a project but would rather play, he can remind you to work.”
“Friends can inspire you to show the fruits of the spirit such as love, kindness, patience…”
“Pray for the bully as well because he may not have any friends…as it says in Matthew 5:44, ‘But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’”
Wow. I don’t think I even knew what the fruits of the spirit were when I was nine.
Though it was only about 2 minutes in length, it was so inspiring and a great reminder of how important friends are.
Children will never cease to amaze me.
jehovah jireh
Just a quick background before I get into this post.
So, for U of T Chinese Christian Fellowship’s winter retreat this year, we’ve faced some challenges in the past couple of months, the biggest one being financial. There were very few places we could hold our retreat on the weekend we wanted (that being next weekend) and one of the places that we could do it was very expensive. So it basically came down to faith. Would we have faith that God would provide another place if we cancelled from this one (Fair Havens) or would we have faith God will provide the funds for Fair Havens? We (the committee) felt we should have faith that God would provide the funds. So, after some estimations and budgeting, it turns out that the retreat will cost about $110/person, way too expensive. So, in faith, we decided to only charge $85/person and that God would provide the rest of the money through other means. Now, the retreat is only a week away and we still needed to raise over $1000. Then tonight happened. Here’s the email I sent to the rest of the committee earlier tonight:
Oh man…words can not describe the joy I have right now. I haven’t been able to stop smiling and laughing for the past 10 minutes. All I can say, is hallelujah, praise the Lord, for He is good and He provides!
So, I come home from Kowloon tonight and I’m just unpacking everything from my bag, cleaning up and getting things organized. I take out the offering box and notice a sealed TD Canada Trust deposit envelope [on] top of the money. There’s a small yellow post it on the envelope with the simple words: “UTCCF: God told me to give this to you.“ So I’m like, ok, cool, some offering, probably a significant amount since it’s in an envelope, maybe even as much as $100. So I open it up. What do I see? A hundred dollar bill, whoa. So I take it out, but it’s not the only bill in there, actually this is a pretty thick wad of cash. So I start counting, “1, 2, 3…” and I don’t stop counting until I get up to 15 hundred dollar bills!!!! That’s right, $1500 sitting there!
So yeah, that’s why I haven’t been able to stop smiling or laughing, my heart is doing flips right now! What a mighty God we serve and see how he supplies
themes, trains, & tcelebrations (the ‘t’ is silent, couldn’t think up of another ‘t’ word, so i made one up)
As you may have noticed, I’ve changed the look of my blog recently. This was more for practical reasons than aesthetics. I loved the old theme, but the blog column was too narrow, I couldn’t put pictures in the middle of text effectively, so I changed it to this one. Hope ya like it.
Just got back into TO from Leamington this evening. Nothing too eventful, same train ride as always. Last night was good though: attended Steve’s & Vicki’s after wedding celebration last night. Good times. 
Really cool to see them last night. Can’t believe Steve’s all grown up and married now. But yeah, it’s really cool to see how they’ve been brought together. Even though I don’t know them as well as I did when I was in high school, you could just sense that they were made for each other. Saw a slides how of their wedding in Mexico. Absolutely gorgeous.
Though I doubt you’ll read this: Steve, Vicki, congratulations! May God bless your marriage and your life together as husband and wife!
warm fuzzies
- when you have your first drink of the day and the way you can feel it just travel through and coat your insides
- getting a phone call from a good friend
- a good piece of stinky cheese
- putting on a warm pair of worn-in jeans fresh from the dryer
- hot chocolate with some good friends
- getting mail, real mail, not credit card bills or junk mail, like a letter or postcard from a friend, or like a signed John Mayer photo (that I got yesterday)
- a good piece of meat
- seeing people you care about experience happyness (yes, I know that’s spelled wrong, see if you can figure out why)
What gives you the warm fuzzies?
lest we forget
Yesterday was Remembrance Day. The day where most people in Canada wear a poppy and hopefully take a moment out of their busy schedules to remember those who fell in war.
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
Myself, I was on the TTC heading up to AFC for a meeting at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. I did take a moment to remember those who died for the sake our freedom, though it wasn’t quite the same when you’re on a streetcar heading to the subway station.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Thank you to all the veterans who sacrificed themselves for us and for people from other countries. Thank you to all soldiers who are serving our country today. Thank you.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
When will it end?
a warm hug on a cold day
Is there anything better than a hot chocolate on a chilly day? I don’t think it gets any better than that…especially when you add a splash of Bailey’s, sip it slowly with some good friends, and listen to some Coldplay. mmmm…creamy goodness.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
hey hey hey, goodbye!
This one goes out to all the leafs' fans
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKh6gb_1uY]
up 2 games!!!
Yay Habs! What a game! Double overtime! I can't believe we blew the 3-0 lead, but at least we got the win and that's all that matters in the playoffs. Wooooo!
Put up another section on the blog. I put up the slideshow from the grad dinner and some of the videos I took. I'll be putting up more videos in the future.
Speaking of grad dinner, what a great night that was on Friday. Good times, good times. Still trying to process that I won't be seeing some of these grads for a while once they leave…can't believe it's been 4 years of uni already. Well, just got to make the best of time left with them…congratulation grads!
I love my roots!
If you haven't heard yet, Leamington is officially (according to money sense magazine) the best place to live in Canada!!! That's right, little ol' tomato town is where people should live! Booyah! Take that TO! heh heh, well, not really, I don't have anything against Toronto, ('cept maybe the Leafs…) but it's pretty cool that my hometown is held in such high regard. Now whenever people ask me where I'm from, instead of saying, "Leamington, a small town by Windsor," I can now say, "Leamington, the best place to live in Canada!" I likes the sound of that.
Another thing 'bout my roots, you all know Cindy Klassen right? Canada's most decorated Olympian ever? Well, she's from a Mennonite Brethern background, just like me! woohoo! What brought up this roots pride in me? Well, when I was back home for Easter this weekend, there was an old Macleans magazine from March sitting in my room and I read an article about her and her success at the Torino games. Nothing out of the ordinary in the article except that they actually mentioned (and quoted) how she was raised up in an MB church & high school and how she said her faith is the main reason for everything she does. Thought that was pretty cool seeing as most mainstream media wouldn't bother to mention those quotes because it doesn't really tell an interesting enough story (to them). I don't remember reading, hearing, or seeing any news coverage about her faith during the Olympics, only stuff about the expectations and her success. So, great job Macleans and great job Cindy!
Just want to end off with a sweet comic I read yesterday. The reason for the season:
jumping on the bandwagon
Yes, it’s true. I’ve decided to jump onto the bandwagon and start a blog. Actually, I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now. Actually (again), I wanted to actually start up my own website with my own domain name and everything, but that required me to actually learn things like php and rss and all that web coding goodness. Since I don’t have the time to learn all that right now, wordpress & myphotoalbum will suffice. Maybe sometime in the near future I might actually make my own website…maybe
Well, today was Good Friday and it seems that every year, this seems to get more and more ordinary for me, like I’m getting use to the reason why we celebrate Easter. It’s not a good thing, in fact it’s pretty dangerous, ’cause I know that this weekend is the single most important reason why I believe what I believe and that I shouldn’t minimize it. But I guess after 22 years of Easter weekends, it’s started to become routine for me. *sigh* God, please help me to never minimize your great gift of salvation.
On a totally different note, Starfield’s new CD is coming out May 16! Woohoo! Just downloaded the EP with 2 songs from the new album and an acoustic version of “Filled with Your Glory” off of iTunes. It sounds SWEEET!!! Debating whether or not I should spend $23 to pre-order an autographed cd or just wait till it comes out and spend like $10 on it off iTunes. I’ll prolly get the autographed cd… Check it out!
