Before and after returing home

Hello hello,
Hope everyone is aware and accepting of how they are feeling right now.

I said that there was some interesting things (in my opinion) that happened before arriving home. Well, one of those interesting things started when I found a church one day in "the mansions". The mansions are bunch of large buildings containing two floors of stores selling food, watches, calling cards, electronics, and lots of other floors including rooms for low budget tourists and churches apparently too. It's a maze. One day trying to find a hostel in the mansions I heard African drums being played and decided to check it out. Turned out to be a Christian church. While listening to the service I felt a lot of resistance inside me. Me thinking " I don't agree with this and that" but then I decided that I wanted to understand, without having to agree, and also try to see if we shared some ideas. And we did.
Example: giving all your problems to Jesus is kind of like not focusing on your "problems", letting them go, though I try not to judge situations in life as "problems". Maybe that problem will help you or someone else tremendously.
I accepting to listen helped me to hear more clearly what was being said at the Church. That allowed me to take away some things, notably, to have some sacrifice in ones faith for the sake of discipline. This got me thinking that I wasn't making any sacrifices and with the "new to me" reason of self discipline I thought I could benefit from that. A day later I realized that abstaining from sex was the sacrifice for me. I've been learning over and over again that I don't want to get sexually involved with people unless I suspect that it is probable that we will be together for a while. That day I made a commitment to abstaining from sex, kissing and any other sexually arousing activities for the next 365 days. However, later that day I got into a situation where I was challenged on this commitment. I met a newly made friend in Hong Kong. I really feel it was a test. With this commitment I learned more about desire and how I try to use logic to convince myself that it is okej. The logic can be really false but because I want to satisfy the desire I will believe it and do what I want to do at that moment. I also found that I often don't want to resist the desire. I think that I could. I could leave the situation or not fuel the thoughts that tempt me but the real issue is my attitude towards the desire. I just want to fulfill it. I need to have my mind made up before hand and not let my false logic convince me. As well I think it helped my newly made friend. We talked a lot into the night and found out that she had been rushing into the sexual part of relationships which had resulted in her partners loosing interest in her. She didn't like this but had continued this situation because she would be overcome by her desire in the moment. So I suspect it was a learning process for her too. However, I did break the commitment in the end. We kissed. It occurred the next day in the early morning. But I feel like that is okej because I learned about desire through resisting for as long as I did and I'm going to continue this commitment even though it has been spoiled already. I feel like it will keep me from being proud.
Another interesting thing, in my opinion, occurred on the cargo ship crossing the pacific. The ride wasn't exactly what I was expecting: could forget I was at sea, many men on the crew weren't very happy with their job and didn't have much time, days went by really fast. I ended up watching some movies like Bruno, Whatever Works, Lord of War and JESUS. Bruno got me observing my thoughts and feelings towards homosexuality and I found that I wasn't as open as I thought I was. Still had a negative stigma. Not a real surprise. I'm constantly find ways in which I'm not open and I take this as a learning opportunity to help me open up. After watching Bruno I found a movie called JESUS in my room and decided to watch it. It seemed to speak to me. I felt a lot of energy and liked what he had to say about loveing thy neighbour and the way people treated him when others claimed he was the messiah. The energy I felt that night motivated me to leave my room where I then found one of the crew and ended up having an interesting conversation about afterlife. He believed if you are "good" you go to heaven and I also told him about my abstenance commitment. I also might have seen The Divine or perhaps it was just low fog or exhaust? Whatever Works and Lord of War showed me that interesting mainstream movies do exist. I found the arrogant genius character in Whatever Works and the ethical dilema in Lord of War interesting and insightful.
Arriving to Canada, specifically Prince Rupert, I found myself really interested in First Nations' culture, both modern and traditional, and also went through some thought observance. Basically, I was wearing a lungi in Prince Rupert which I assumed most people would think was a dress and I had thoughts that many people were judging me and considering to beat me up. However, when I talked and interacted with people more I realized that the judgements were mostly in my head. People may have been judging me but that doesn't really matter. Nobody beat me up (or even tried) and many people were really kind to me. Makes me suspect that we can easily take offence from misread and biased perception. To what degree do we create our own reality by the prejudgements and biasis we have. I suspect that the common "reality" is much more subjective than I (and perhaps many others) have often considered.
Now back in Summerland I'm finding myself engaging in interesting discussions about university education,credibility, responsibility, spirituality and religion, blind faith, choice and fate, 2012, teaching methods amoung other topics. It has been a refreshing experience to see the "other side" of topics that I haven't been exposed to in quite awhile and finding them valid in some ways. Testing my suspicions (faith or beliefs in other words). Maybe all the "signs" I've recieved are false and self created from a biased perspective. I've also had some typical and superficial conversations that make me feel like people don't understand me. As well I find myself feeling stressed with the lack of progress I've made on some practical and governmental tasks. Feeling overwhelmed and a resistance to feeling overwhelmed. I often felt overwhelmed before leaving Canada and I though I was over it. I'm trying to be aware of these thoughts and feelings and keep in mind I can choose how to react to them if I'm aware of them. That this is only my perception which may have a negative slant right now. I feel coming home will be a real learning experience to reprocess the things I've learned away. And to re-comfront my ego. I think it has more strength here in it's home turf, but I still suspect the light of presence will always prevail.

Still learning even at home.
I hope I'll be able to keep learning through all my time here on earth. Accept. Be humble. Listen.

Love