Christian rap

Christian rap has been around for a while now, and to be quite frank, I don't know much about it. I don't listen to rap much, but what I will say is that it seems a great medium for putting a message across because it is so word-heavy you can pack a lot of meaning into the lyrics of one song. That said I don't think it would work in church. John Piper likes it though...

I was digging through some bits of paper looking for a password, and I came across a rap I wrote way back in my second year at uni. Some of the rhymes are a bit weak, but it's a bit better than I remember. What do you think? Do you agree with the words? Any bits that should say something different? What's your opinion of Christian rap as a whole? Do you have a favourite artist?

Anyway, comment away, here goes:

God is one God in persons three,
A holy trinity,
Perfectly relating to each other,
And God also wants for you and me,
To be,
In a relationship with Him for all eternity.

He created the world by His word,
All the beauty around more than we deserved,
For Him to give and to be served,
Friendship and harmony in Eden,
Humankind in perfect freedom,
In our perfection we could see Him,
And He provided for all our needing,
And it could have stayed this way.

But we rebelled against Him,
And decided to do our own thing,
Rather than acknowledge Him as King,
But because this is wrong we bring,
A curse on creation and humanity to ruination,
The wrong in the world results from this alienation,
And we deserve His punishment on us, eternal separation,
From the source of all good and are left only with the bad and His wrath in Hell eternal condemnation.

But God so loved the world that He sent His only Son,
Jesus, who mankind shunned,
Came to Earth as fully God and full man,
Lived a perfect life like none of the rest of us can,
But we put Him on a cross,
God's perfect plan, but at great cost,
He suffered for us God's wrath,
And gave up His life for us,
But that was not hope lost.
After three days He rose from the grave,
Conquering sin and Satan, us He saved,
And our sins He forgave,
And that's the best news because to sin we all are slaves.

And if you believe in Him,
Turning from your sin,
He'll forgive you and welcome you in,
But because He loves you that's the thing,
And why Christians sing,
Out of gratitude for His suffering,
that set us free from Hell and death,
That our final earthly breath,
Will not spell eternal pain,
But rather we will eternal life gain.

That's what Christianity is about,
And anything that denies these facts,
Is false and should not be passed about,
That you should not doubt,
From Genesis to Revelation,
The Bible is a proclamation of salvation to the nations,
from generation to generation.
How do I know this is true?
Because it says so in the Bible,
God's infallible word to me and you.

So do you think that you are perfect,
No wrongdoing to detect, correct? Don't even suspect?
None of us are without defect,
Life not directed by the One who demands our awe and respect,
Do these thoughts not affect you and make you circumspect?
Gain the whole world and lose your soul to what profit?
Think it's a trick?
No, the evidence for its truth is historic.
Do you believe that? You pick.

N.B. Best read in a rapping sort of rhythm - it makes it flow a little better.

Peking? No, but I had a jolly good look...

Unfortunately they changed the name of Peking to Beijing, which means the joke no longer works. But yes, I just got back from China.
The joke is from these old PG Tips adverts. Still some of the best adverts I've seen.

More about China itself to follow, I still need to organise my life:

Social networking IS a bit strange...

This is what Facebook & Twitter would be like if you took them literally:



I mean, poking especially - kinda weird when you think about it.

I'm alive, and exams are dead!

So, I finished my last exam of university this afternoon. It's a strange feeling, thinking that I have no more work to submit towards my degree. 4 years and now it's done. Weird.

The last two weeks have been really intense. I had four exams in five days in the first week, and between then and my exam last Wednesday I had been spending long hours in the Learning Grid. I don't think I've ever revised with this level of intensity and focus, although I'm sorry to say my discipline dropped off for this final exam, as I had nearly a week to prepare from Wednesday's. Nonetheless, the exams seem to have gone pretty well (maybe better than they have a right to), and God has been gracious. Moreover I also feel more satisfied with this year's work than previous years.

I've been keeping a spreadsheet of marks from my degree - incorporating all my previous module scores and my coursework marks from this year. We've had a much higher percentage of coursework this year, and it's gone very well (including a third year module I took to overCAT). I need roughly an average of 75% from this year to guarantee a 1st (although if you're close the exam board may decide to give you one if your projects are good) and with my coursework, it's basically left me needing to average 70% from my exams and Group Project. It's impossible to predict though, and I've made some conservative entries in my spreadsheet. We've had good feedback on the project, and I'm hopeful, but I'll know for sure on results day.

Regardless, God has been good throughout my time at university. I've not been proud of my workrate all the time, but God, thankfully, does not work on the basis of Karma - He gives graciously and according to His will - and I know I can trust that whatever the outcome, it will be with my best interest in view.


On a lighter note, I think my exams highlight was hearing the account of a (nameless-for-their-own-protection) fellow student who was writing in an exam and went into a daydream mid-sentence. On returning to the hear-and-now they discovered to their horror that they had written an obscenity directed at the lecturer in place of the rest of the sentence. In panic they scribbled it out and then went to hit ctrl+f to find if it had happened at any other points - then realised it was a paper exam...

Revision + Tired = ?

I had a moment just now where I can zoned out for a little bit as I'm feeling quite tired (cue bed soonish). Here's the last thing I wrote, about the difference between threads and processes. See if you can tell which bit was written after I zoned out:

All threads on one process have the same global data and stack and code. The only difference would be to either thing it doesn't really matter. Whereas more western language would be be able to get with it as our only language.

I'm not even sure where that all came from!

RIBA awards 2011

BBC News - In pictures: RIBA awards 2011

Some really cool buildings here, also testing a blogging extension for Chrome that I added this morning.

Now back to revision...

NSFR - Not Safe For Revision

One of the interesting things about revision is that online flash games suddenly become mind-blowingly interesting. I haven't actually spent much time at all on these two, but they're both potentially quite addictive:

Stick Cricket - Surrey edition
The original stick cricket has been around for ages, but this is a mod for Surrey that has a couple of nice features (such as batsmen changing ends):

Yeah, I'm pretty rubbish at it... (proof I haven't played much!)

Multitask
This game is hugely challenging - it starts off easily enough, but gets very hard, very quickly. The best I managed was 80 seconds - again cos I haven't been playing much, ok?

As you can see this game is about to go pear-shaped

So anyway, if you are looking for something to occupy your time with, go do something more useful. If you're looking to waste away your life, these are a great way to do it.