i totally hacked my way into the mv teachers facebook network. o.o. next thing to stalk: ucsd professors jk.

summertime! so far so good. vbs makes my mornings busy, but i do find myself with a lot of time in the afternoons and evenings. i havent gone crazy yet, mostly because every day God has (for lack of better words) called to me and spoken to me. you know what i mean? like i'm doing something, but im suddenly hit with the sense that i really need to stop whatever i'm doing and listen/pray a bit. what time consuming business, but time is what i have right now. and even if i didnt have it, i would make it. perhaps he always calls to me, but i only hear when i have time. in any case, if i was under house arrest with no visitors for the summer (what a nightmare), this would sustain me, that's how satisfying its been. this summer is not going to be one of flabbiness and forgetting about God between having fun and being bored. it's going to be a summer to enrich (yes, ENRICH) my relationship with God. a retreat of a sort, if you will. retreat from what, good question, but it doesnt matter. maybe retreat isnt the right word, because it implies that i'm facing away from God and moving backwards towards him in order to get away from the world. i shall rather turn around and call it an advance.


mental ipod: God gave (VBS)

hello again! end of the quarter, i can't believe it. end of the school year! end of my first year of college! nooooo...

it was a good year, much thanks to little spark, iv revelle dorm team, argo 5, the chem honors study group, the sea of nan, the son of neil, and the land of ly. and my daddy for his money. and especially to jesus, my love.

is college easier than high school? well, content-wise, usually not. but there's so much more time to do stuff and the workload is so much smaller that it seems much easier and less stressful. oh my gosh, i actually know what free time is now. jk, high school wasnt that bad except for senior year. AND the social life is much better if you live on-campus.

anyway, this week was supposed to be chill. but the LS end-of-year/senior-appreciation party and IV's dorm team appreciation banquet ARE ON THE SAME DAY AT THE SAME TIME on friday. so. what a hard decision, but i figured i see the LS people all the time anyway, and i really want to appreciate dorm team a lot. so DTAB it is. so i got myself involved and this week isn't so chill anymore. we're having skit practice at 11pm. that's my bedtime. so i guess i'm not sleeping much tonight. and i'm going to the beach for a bonfire at 8:30 with my LS small group. how tiring. AND i have/had free time 12pm-8:30pm. how unbalanced. i am not a night person. this is throwing me off. i feel like i'm preparing for an allnighter.

anyway. next week will be chill, unless i overbook again. i look forward to you, finals week.

and i will miss you, argo 543. what good times we had. taboo, uno, scrabble, hiding in the closet, sailor moon, study parties, pbj fests, violin lessons, jam sessions, massage parties, stalking, and the overall hub of LENN life. but next year! we'll make matthews A5 the next (dry) party spot. (cooking parties!)


mental ipod: even when (seven places)

ah, these past two days was like high school again, studying between classes, doing hw in class and turning it in incomplete, and locking myself up to get. stuff. done. but i have advanced to the level of ditching class to get stuff done. woohoo. i'm a floppy fish now, i can't think anymore. its supposed to be party time cuz i'm done done done but i'm just blank now.

hello, world. a few things.

i got a c+ on my last hum paper. acceptable, but not what i'm used to, and i'm quite confused because i was most confident about this essay. maybe the argument was so clear and strong in my head that i failed to put it down on paper correctly. or else the ta is extremely inconsistent with her grading. for some reason, my paper was in the hum director's office this time, as a sample paper. interesting, i wonder if there's a correlation. or was it because this was written after i decided to spend as much time as i wanted to with God, regardless of workload? perhaps. if that was the case, then it was a worthy sacrifice. i dunno.

so according to operative learning, this means that i should:
1) begin papers later and write it more last minute
2) lock myself in clics for the two days straight before the paper is due
3) feel like i dont know what i'm writing

ta's seem to like that better.

the grade is not what is getting to me, but the inconsistency with my previous grades. this is seriously two letter grades away from the average, and one full letter grade below my lowest ever. i am confused as heck. sharon is going to ruin my gpa. that's ok, but why oh why did you have to begin by giving me a good grade on the first essay.

anyway. apparently she felt like i didn't answer the prompt. which i knew i was doing, but the prompt didn't make sense any other way. i thought it had a logical fallacy, and i still think it has a logical fallacy that makes it unprovable. i guess next time i'll just say so. 


other news. today is sungod festival. relient k (and others) will be at ucsd, and i will see them tonight. whooo. sounds like a party. sounds fun. also sounds scary. note to self: do not walk around alone tonight and lock your door when you get back and do not leave the room. i hope my suitemates go party elsewhere tonight. i do not want to deal with drunk people today.

yess.... i also just got cleared to take the equivalent of phys2b/2cl at foothill college this summer, even though i dont have the right prereqs. i guess i have something to do this summer, then. hopefully it's enough.

so yes. outside of school, it's been rough. that hum paper i just finished complaining about is not typical, and class has actually been really good for me lately. but it's been rough in other areas, but i'm hanging in there. i feel bad because sometimes i think my friends can tell that i'm not as nice as i usually am. i do not mean to be cold or unresponsive, but sometimes i feel like i am. or is it the other way, and i feel like they're being cold? or maybe i just dont like myself too much sometimes, so i'm cold to myself? i think i'm confused, somewhat. sorry also to people back home, the phone calls have gotten fewer and fewer, but i dont feel like i have the energy for it. two lives is just too much. i dunno, maybe i feel socially drained.

God's been moving in my life.

so ever since spring break, i've been in some confusion about this divine healing business. long story, but it began with the leg growing out thing. i knew i wouldnt find peace until i brought myself to try to heal, but i couldnt bring myself to try because i didnt have that faith. it takes a little faith to say, God please heal this. it takes immensely more faith to say, in the name of jesus be healed. and fyi, the reason i even care about this is because God called me to divine healing some months ago. the whole, go into the health field and pray for healing thing.

anyway. i had lunch with soomin last week and i talked to her about it and she encouraged me so much. and she was sick. she encouraged me so much that i found it in me to ask her if i could pray for her. and so i found myself laying my hands on her and praying for her with another brother. hm. so we prayed and soomin said she felt something coming up.... but please do it again it's not quite gone. interesting.... so we did. and she said she felt 90% better, she'll let us know how she felt later, thanks. hm very interesting. and she told me later that it was gone gone gone. hmmmmmmmm........ exciting, but somehow i wasnt surprised.

also very interesting. the next day another friend asked that i pray for her grandpa who has many illnesses and is on the verge of death..... in la. the reason she asked me? because months ago i told her about God's calling. months ago. and it comes up today, how interesting. God, what are you doing? anyway. i prayed for her grandpa. i prayed in command form. and i was 100% sure he was going to be ok when i hung up the phone. i was sure enough to tell her that he was going to be ok. where did this faith come from??? small mustard seeds grow into big plants, don't they? i havent heard back since, which is a little concerning, but ...... we'll see.


mental playlist: only hope (caedmon's call)

long time no post. i've been spending far less time online because real life is cooler than internet life. here is some randomness.

i really like my classes this quarter. i have two science classes, one math class, and one humanities class! i am thoroughly enjoying using my left brain in three classes and hearing about my bff jesus in the other class. i never thought i would like history and lit/writing, but the hum series is pretty awesome. i would dare say that i'm learning more about God/Jesus in my hum class than i do in church. as much, at least. LIKE TODAYS LECTURE WAS REALLY COOL. when God brought the israelites out of egypt, he had each family sacrifice a lamb for the first passover. the lamb was roasted and eaten, and the blood of the lamb was placed on the doorpost to prevent the angel of death from entering the house to kill the firstborn in the last plague. the lamb was a sacrifice to save the people within the house. well. Jesus was killed immediately after passover. the last supper was a passover supper, and there he breaks bread and says this is his body, eat it. and he pours wine and says this is his blood, poured out for us. and then he walks on to his death as a sacrifice to save us people. Jesus is quite literally the passover lamb. THE CONNECTIONS, THE CONNECTIONS. it's so deep. AND i am quite enjoying the confessions of st augustine. he is so cool. he KNOWS God, for reals, and he is hecka in love with him.

where am i with God? what a touchy question. i am riddled with doubts everywhere, but my love and faith in jesus stands strong. i can trust w/o understanding.... i suppose that's what faith is.

i had pearl milk tea today ("can i have a regular PEARL milk tea?" "...... with boba?" -_-) and it was raining, and it felt like norcal, and i got a little homesick. i miss my da di di especially for some reason. i had a dream about you last night, kevin, haha.

that is all for now. i'm sad my freshman year is almost over.

check out all these earthquakes. i didnt feel all of them but i felt many. too many to count. no real big ones here, thank God. i would rather have a million small ones than one big one. although i seriously thought the building might start cracking during the first one. it was worse in the upper floors, i heard, cuz the building sways. anyway. it's interesting to think that the ground moves. and its very interesting to see it move.

anyway. the damage doesnt appear to be too bad, in mexico. thats good, but at least one person died and several houses burned or flooded. and i think there's ppl trapped. so. pray!

the 40 days.

2/19
Christ Died for You. So What?

I will live for you.
My life belongs to you.
And I want others to know this good news.
I will do my best to stop hurting you more.
I will love you and seek you all my days, with all my heart, to the best of my abilities.
You died out of love. I will love you back.
I will not take your death for granted,
But I will hold your blood more precious than my own.
You will be my God
And I will be your daughter.


2/21
When I hunger
When I thirst
When I long for something more
When I have so much in me I'm about to burst
God, let you be my all

When I'm empty
When I have nothing left
When all that's in me is away and gone
When I grow stagnant
God, let you by my all

Be my song
Be my music
Be my poem
Be my words
Be the only one that satisfies me, my all

I need nothing to worship you
I have nothing to worship you
I need no song
I need no words
Because you are my all

You are all I hunger for
No food is sweeter
No drink more satisfying
Than one taste of you
Than one glimpse of your glory,
   one touch of your hand


2/25
God
Can't focus
Restless
Unhappy
Irritable
More sin
More darkness

God
Hungry
for goodness
for you
for more
satisfaction
Joy

You took away my song,
How can I sing to you?
You took away my sins,
How can I not sing to you?

Backwards
Forwards
What do I do?
Song
Silence
I'm confused
Please understand

Yet your love
Your love is greater than all.
Yet where do I go
To express my response
To your love?
What do I do
To release my joy?

It bottles up
I'm bottled up
Can't talk
Can't sing
Can't offer you
   a song
Can't breathe


3/4 (read carefully.... do you see it?)
Beyond time and matter
Origin of human life
Ruler of the supernatural
Nothing can contain you

Creator of living things
Righteous Giver of breath
Universe-maker
Cosmos-creator
Inspirer of life
Free to give, free to take away
Infallible source of holiness
Eternal Judge
Death ceases in your presence

Redeemer of mankind
Infallible source of mercy
Savior of sinners
Eternal Judge became the judged
New life for the dead


3/25
You are music
You are silence
You are fellowship
You are solitude
You are people
You are nature
You are the worship I offer my Father

You are life
You are death
You are sweet
You are bitter
You are righteousness
You are sin
You are the death of my Jesus by which I live

You are holiness
You are mercy
You are conviction
You are love
You are fear
You are security
You are the mystery of the Holy Spirit inside of me

You are joy
You are sorrow
You are laughter
You are darkness
You are pleasure
You are pain
You are the life I live for my God


Lent is a time of dying to self, and I realized that a lot of what I called worship was actually playing for my own pleasure, righteous pleasure though it is. I died to it. I died to the emotional gratification, and I died to the self-expression.

Ok, let's talk about worship. I do not mean the way of life, but the specific act of consciously connecting with God emotionally and spiritually for the purpose of praising him. To think that music is the main route to this is so very narrow, I discovered. Churches are missing out on so much by placing the label "worship" on the musical parts of the service. The emotional and spiritual experience characteristic of that musical time is equally obtainable and equally rich in times of silence. In fact, I may even venture to say that silence is less distracting and more conducive to what you call (musical) worship than music is. Also, the word "worship" holds a corporal connotation when used in the "musical" sense. I also think this is a mistake. Yes, amazing worship happens when the Body is gathered as one, but amazing worship also happens in solitude, when it's just you and your God. Consider: music and silence, people and solitude. These are all equally legit dimensions of worship, but I feel that so many churchgoers are only really aware of the corporal, musical part of it, when in reality, that is only a small slice of it. It is by no means the only way to praise God. Therefore, there is no reason for me to be dependent on music as though it is the only way for me to worship God, even though it can definitely be a very powerful tool. I will use it like it's a powerful tool, but not the only tool.

something really strange happened today. you may have seen videos of people with one leg shorter than the other getting healed. like here. you can literally see it grow out. well i've seen it too. .... but i saw it in real life today. and not only, but MY OWN shorter left leg grew out today. i am testifying to you that my leg grew out by the power of the holy spirit, and i saw it with my very eyes, and it was not a hoax. dig that.

it was also brought to my attention that jesus doesnt tell us to pray for healing for the sick, but he tells us to heal the sick. chew on that.

also, it was brought to my attention that jesus never turned away any sick person. jesus never told any sick person that it was God's will for them to remain sick, for whatever ungraspable reason. he only healed. so what makes us say "if it is your will, please heal so and so"? chew on that.

home, home. mixed feelings here. that thing in the living room is a constant temptation. that thing with the keys and strings and a bunch of wood. i spend most my time elsewhere now. and if i walk by i have to constantly remind myself to control myself and pay attention, otherwise i'll sit down at the piano w/o thinking. 6 more days. the mess in the house is messing with my head again. conflict as usual. but its good to see everyone again. if only everyone else was on break too. but i have a good lineup of playdates (haha i've been working at a daycare for too long) so its good. i am determined to love my family by doing some much needed chores this week. and i am determined to love random people by baking random things for them. random specific people. and, for the first time, i am... schoolsick.

a little reflection about this quarter...
- is college harder than high school? the answer is now yes. the material is def harder/faster (at least for chem this quarter....), but no way is it anywhere near as stressful has high school was. yet. maybe because i'm not involved in 20 million things yet.
- running in the early morning is cool.
- sitting outside on the ledge with feet dangling is cool.
- waking up at 6 every weekday to hang out with God is cool. no distractions whatsoever. :] except maybe sleep.
- stonehenge is cool.
- study groups are fun and super helpful for intense classes. and i mean seriously studying.
- solitude/silence is cool.
- cs lewis is really cool.
- little spark is really cool.
- God is sooooo good.

some resolutions/suggestions for the future:
- go running (or work out some way) MORE THAN once a week.
- go to the cliffs to watch the sunset at least every other week.
- continue to wake up at 6 every weekday.
- touch the ocean at least once a quarter.
- keep on taking studying seriously. stay on top of things. dont procrasinate. you can handle 19 units again, elena.
- go to utc at least once a quarter (nnooooo i already failed this quarter...). going to church does not count.

quick update time.

never have i studied so hard for finals, but never have i ever been so relaxed during finals. this weather is so relaxing and awesome, i really wanna go to the beach but wahhh everyones studying. including me. when i'm not daydreaming about going to the beach that is. or sitting with my legs hanging off the balcony ledge and being happy. or sitting at stonehenge and being happy. or running through fields barefoot and being happy. or watching the sun set over the pacific ocean and being happy. or watching the sun rise behind trees and... being happy. :] this weather is so conducive to being happy. its warm and reminds me of summer, but it's not hot. so anyway. i'm studying like seriously, but never have i taken so much time to just sit and chill, even when i didnt study so seriously. i would fill my life with other things. but i've learned how cool it is to just sit and chill, and i think if we all learned to just take a break from life once a while and just be still, it would be well worth it.

also, i have learned how cool silence is. cs lewis said that heaven is either silence or music. i only knew the music part before but now i also know the silence part and it's equally beautiful. psalm 118:14, i believe it is, it says that the Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. he IS my song. i dont need to sing him a song or play him a song. he is my song. i think that's so beautiful.

in other news, i'm excited to go home next week. gasp. so soon. i really miss asian food.

i'm also super excited that my sister is visiting me at sd for half her spring break. :]]]]] eeeeeeeee!

i'm ALSO super excited that kevin got into ucsd as a ... human bio major??? haha. actually the part that i'm excited about is that he's coming here almost certainly.

i've also been getting many random nostalgic moments and flashbacks of childhood. when i walk through fields, i'm reminded of the fields at regnart elementary. when i smell flowers i'm reminded of walking home from school long long ago. or in my backyard long long ago. when i sit in lecture i'm reminded of sitting in my 5th grade classroom. when i walk down a hill i'm reminded of rolling down the hill at the back of far east chinese school. ah, everywhere! so much so that i'm .... rewatching sailor moon. lol.

so i havent been posting here as much lately, partly because i have less to say, and partly because i realized what a self-centered thing a blog is. i just talk about myself. man....

anyway, i just wanted to share that i am excited because i am about an hour away from completion on my last hum1 essay and because i might go to berkeley/sf at the end of spring break and it happens to work out perfectly because the day the trip is planned is the day i'm supposed to fly out of the bay area, but i fly with my roommate, who lives in... SAN FRANCISCO! and i keep saying i'll visit her so heres my chance. bwahaha.

so you may have heard about all the commotion at ucsd. or you might not have. to make a very long story short, basically some frat or something had a racially derogatory party and put ucsd in the name, and so unintentionally affiliated the university with the party, which caused big ruckus because it was racially offensive. the black student union (bsu) freaked out, and at the same time, some university sponsored radio station responded to the party in a more racially offensive way, and so funds for university radio stations have been suspended. and to make matters worse, we have a student run newspaper called the koala, which basically pokes (offensive) fun at anything and everything, so you can imagine what they did with this issue. and to make matters about 50 times worse, a noose was found hanging in geisel library, and those who werent yet worked up about this issue were suddenly very worked up because of this "act of racial terrorism." (the "criminal" later turned herself in and apparently it was not meant to be offensive at all; it was accidental) and so basically the whole university is freaking out and there have been protests and rallies and cancelled classes and i feel very bad for the chancellor who has to deal with all these angry people. many classes are cancelled today because of a protest against the fee hikes, but i can imagine how that can get out of hand with all the racial stuff going on. its gotten so bad that the university is allowing students to completely drop out this quarter and come back next quarter with no penalty. if you want real news stories, search ucsd under google news, or: Race Relations at UCSD

anyway. my opinion. i sympathize with the black students and everything, and i can see how the party was racially offensive and stuff, but i kind of think people are overreacting. maybe because i dont quite know what exactly happened, so i'm not as outraged as i should be, and i feel kind of bad for not sympathizing more. but from what i know, if i was a black student, i would say thats not cool, and leave it at that. i would not freak out. even with all the other stuff going on. honestly, the first thing i thought of when i heard of the noose was, how is that an act of terrorism? what if it's the product of a sad and lonely student with suicidal inclinations? that would be so sad. anyway. i think people are overreacting (or maybe i wouldnt say that if i came from a background that was more aware of the centuries of racial tensions in the us?), but i guess there's nothing i can do about that, and people truly are hurt and angry and offended, so how can i deal with it in a way that glorifies God? how can i love them?

i'm sorry i'm too overwhelmed by too many things right now. please forgive me if i dont get to your emails/fb messages/wall posts/comments/snail mail/phone calls/etc for a while. i am being bombarded by too many messages from too many people, not to mention God himself. my brain can't handle it.

i'm starting to get very prone to mood swings and taking offense and i generally feel less happy/satisfied in life. makes me wonder, does my joy in life come from music instead of God? i listed the things i felt like i lacked now after over a week w/o playing piano/guitar, and shockingly i realized it was the first four of the fruit of the spirit. a little alarming....... i shouldnt need music if the holy spirit is in me, but is it still a facilitator of .... community with him? or is what i think is the fruit of the spirit really just something from regular emotional purging? i overall feel more impurities in me, but i dont know if that's just me coming to realize them now, or are they new? whatever the case, playing music apparently is very closely linked with my overall resilience and happiness... wellbeing in general. but i'm going to learn how to be who i am in christ w/o the music. i feel like i'm dehydrated without the music.

so. yesterday i wanted to listen to music because i couldnt play it. and then my headphones broke. today i wanted to try to play violin because i cant play piano and guitar. and then the violin broke too. i'm serious. God is doing this to me on purpose. gosh i'm gonna cry. its only been 4 days. so i've taken to writing poetry because that is the only channel i have left. maybe i will post it up afterwards if he doesnt shred my notebook too. and i hope it's ok to sing. sigh just watch. i'm gonna lose my voice tomorrow. and i'm going to lose my notebook. but i guess he gives so he takes away too, blessed be the name of the LORD.


mental playlist (just cant stop it): satisfy (tenth avenue north), hold my heart (tenth avenue north), you are (tenth avenue north)

funny how all those SONGS happen to apply real well right now...

yesterday was ash wednesday, and i went to an ash wednesday mass. it was really cool. it was really moving. whatever josh may say about catholics not really being saved, i believe they are my brothers and sisters in christ. everything the priest/whoever said is pretty much something you might hear from a pastor at a protestant evangelical church, jokes and all. they know who jesus is, and they worship him for real. they understand the theology. they're real, and God was there. they believe in the application of faith to life. and many of the passages they looked at, and many of the things the priest said were exactly things that we've been going over recently at harbor, little spark, and small group. the only difference is they like to dress up and use candles and stuff. and a few other small things. it was cool. i was gonna go back for good friday/easter, but i realized that that's at the end of spring break. but i also realized that i unknowingly booked my flight back to sd for the sat before easter, allowing me to go to church on easter sunday. otherwise, if i fly back on sunday, i wouldnt be able to go to church. and i was disappointed that i would have to leave early, but now i'm glad. God is at work, haha, he's cool.

anyway. so ash wed is the beginning of lent, which i wasnt planning on observing this year because i couldnt think of anything to lent, until i went to mass and God told me what he wanted me to give up. i am sorry if it seems like i am announcing that i am fasting, which matthew condemns. but i am not doing this to seem super pious. i am not portraying myself as a suffering saint. i want to share with you what i realized has extreme but subtle potential to become an idol for me and many others.

i'm fasting from playing piano and guitar. but it's such a good medium or worship, i said. i use it as a tool to glorify you, God. and i do, i really do. how am i supposed to worship you, i wont be able to worship you! but God wants me to learn to worship without playing music. but God,  i have such emotional dependence on it, i'll go crazy if i dont play. (not kidding, i really dont function right without at least occasionally playing.) .................but that is exactly why he wants me to give it up. but God, what about spring break?????? what about it? .............

so to make that a little more coherent, despite my strong belief that music is a powerful facilitator and mode of worship (i mean really powerful), it also has great potential to become a god, due to our dependence on it. but it's so subtle because of the great tool it can be. it's just like food. food is a great facilitator of worship because it gives you strength to worship God and go about life and glorify him in everything. so why do people fast from food? so it's not a distraction, so when you feel the hunger you remember that God is the reason you're hungry, that he is worth more than food, that he is able to sustain you without food. so when i start getting a little spacey and depressed and not quite right, i'll remember that God is the reason i'm depriving myself, that he is worth more than music, that he can satisfy my emotional needs without music. i will seek him to satisfy me when i feel the hunger for music.

oh and also, i will attempt to fast from complaining as well. a lot of the time, i dont even mean it when i complain, so i dont know why i do it.

today i attended the best chem lecture ever.

he was like this is the equation relating this and this according to the balmer series of whatever lines. but nobody could explain it with classical mechanics!!!! and then he did a complicated derivation and arrived at the same simple equation and he's like IS THIS COOL, OR WHAT?? THIS. IS. THE. MOST. IMPORTANT. EQUATION. IN. QUANTUM. MECHANICS. and it really was really really cool because of the incredible mathematical relations found in nature. i saw God right there, behind how this math and chem tied together. and then some guy raised his hand and asked, can you explain why this equation is so significant? and the professor freaked out. "WHY IS THIS EQUATION SIGNIFICANT???????? ........................ JESUS!" and i was like YES, JESUS, THAT'S WHY IT'S SIGNIFICANT. and i got really excited cuz it's really cuz of jesus, how everything in nature ties together with such order like this, even though he probably meant it as a wtf sort of interjection. its undeniable! even my quirky chem professor keeps refering to the God/nature/whatever behind everything he talks about, how he/she/it gives us little hints in nature so we can come up with all this cool stuff in chemistry. yesyes, you cant get away from the fact that God's fingerprints are all over nature. :]]]]]]

just kidding we suddenly discovered very late last night that amtrak lax is not the same as the airport lax. and then we couldnt find a way to get from the station to ucla w/o over an hour of expensive public transportation through possibly shady areas of la. so. i'm still at ucsd. it's springtime here! seriously. the few trees that became bald over the "winter" are budding and i'm wearing shorts and my windows and doors are open and its very sunny and warm. i cannot imagine people at snow retreat right now. but... i was really looking forward to going to la. :[ some other time, i guess.......


mental playlist: big house (audio adrenaline)

1. i am going to ucla on monday to say hi to erica and wenny yay. :]

2. i am way ahead in my work. such as i'm writing this essay that's due next wed like 4 days in advance.

3. i am having a hard time picking my classes for next quarter. general chem, chem lab, and hum for sure. the linguistics class i really want to take conflicts with chem, and if i add another class it might be pushing it. but i really want to take physics. or i can take really easy classes that are fun that don't help me towards graduation at all except REALLY max out my unit cap for graduation and restrict me for the rest of my college career. unless i add a minor.

4. gosh, vegetables cost so much at ralph's.


mental playlist: God with us (mercyme)

they had this taiwanese street food imitation fest on library walk tonight. i miss taiwanese/chinese people/culture. it made me homesick. i heard a lot of taiwanese flavored mandarin today. i havent heard that in a long time and i realized that i really miss it. i miss the days of being able to randomly speak chinese when you cant think of the english word in time. i am finally beginning to realize the gap in mandarin speaking population numbers between cupertino and ucsd. i didnt know. you still see almost as many azns. wahhhh 我很想讲中文。maybe i should call home more.


klove: save a place for me (matthew west)

today is the beginning of week 6. i have breathed chem for the past 4 days. i am retiring from chem until week 9. life is a party again. :] but not that kind of party.

speaking of parties, i watched the superbowl today. first time in my life. i am so braindead. i didnt know who i was cheering for. if i knew who i was cheering for i woulda screamed more and maybe i would feel a little more satisfied than right now.


klove: friend of God (phillips craig and dean)

according to the definition of jazz music from my music class, jazz is pretty much anything you improvise. well in that case we sing to a sort of jazz music at church. and i play solo jazz piano all the time.

oh btw i blew the last dilemma like way out of proportion. i didnt cause conflict and destroy relationships and all that junk. haha.

is "legit" socal talk?

so i realized that since i got down here, i use "hecka" like way less. interesting. NOOOOO.

i am considering taking a bunch of part time quarters instead of graduating early.

ok i have to admit. my chem class is harder than physics was. but that's because all the book stuff is pretty much self-study. the lectures are there to take the book material to a whole deeper level. am i learning a lot? is it all just going in one ear and out the other? no idea. i'll decide after i finish this class if i actually learned it or not.

btw, i'm here writing about nothing because i'm too tired to put my full self in struggling to understand chem here. i have a midterm on monday and before then i have to go through every lecture he gave since the beginning of the quarter to try to understand them. we like procrastinating. good luck to my cramming.

meanwhile, japn is easy, hum is pretty easy (never thought i would say that), and mus is def easy.

i learned how to say "purple cow" in sign language. i can go to mv games now and cheer for our mascot guy with sign language. yesssss.

i will fear no evil/for my God is with me/ and if my God is with me/whom then shall i fear/whom then shall i fear? 

for i have been crucified with christ, and i no longer live, but christ lives in me.

for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.


dying to self suddenly takes on a  new meaning. i am going to bravely commit social suicide now because i'm dead already. it's in those times when God calls me to something that i don't want to do because i fear what others will think and what they will do to me, that God calls me to crucify myself, forget about myself, say "here goes nothing," and throw my life away for his sake. that's the only way i'll ever be able to obey him when he calls me to do those hard things. and i am not talking about doing something that will simply cause my neighbor to look at me funny for a day. or a week. or years. no, much riskier. like professor edwards said (he said something right for once), God is high risk and high profit. i am going to be a riskier person. i am going to cause conflict. i am going to cause gross misunderstandings. i am going to destroy relationships and preconceptions. but after the dust settles, hopefully everything will be made new and one more person will be won for the kingdom of God. here goes nothing.

so it's been busy. essay cramming earlier this week. I WROTE A COMPLETE ESSAY IN TWO DAYS. is that normal? i have no idea. too many people stayed up all night doing this, i dont get why. on the one hand i'm glad im not them, on the other hand, i feel really bad for them, and on the third hand, just being around them makes me feel like i pulled an allnighter myself.

so God showed me something that has me scared to death because i need to tell my dad something that will make him mad and a little nervous because ... of the content of the message. any prayers you can spare are greatly appreciated thanks. basically, telling him that God has bad news for him is like freaking scary. 1) the God part. 2) the bad news part. how the heck am i going to do this. oh and the bad news part might affect each one of you too. so pray hard that he'll listen.

also i'm superpraying for dean. and snow retreat.

also, i'm cramming chem. this guy is talking about free energy as a 4 variable function and using the partial derivatives to find the equilibrium constant of an acid/base solution. THERE YOU GO, 5 TERMS THAT DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER IN THE SAME SENTENCE. amazingly i just understood what i just said, sort of. yesterday i had a lapse while trying to read my textbook and i almost wanted to drop the honors series because i dont get what he's talking about. but no, i was falling asleep and not thinking straight. it's very fun to derive equations and graph 3d functions in chem class.

yesterday = cool. there was this interfellowship praise/prayer night. jk it was more of an interfellowship large group meeting with a theme on prayer. the speaker = awesome. he knows God. he said God used to wake him up every morning at 5 to pray, and he would pray for all sorts of things that spirit put on his heart, only to find out later that something happened because of his prayer, which did not come for no reason. for example he would pray for a person that God put on his heart only to find out that they had been in a car accident the night before. or strange things like that. or he would pray for his flight that day because God revealed something wrong with the plane only to have one engine burst into flames after hours of delay in boarding later the same day. very interesting. anyway. very Godsome. so i decided to set my alarm for 6am this morning, partly because i really need to work on my hum essay (yess i just wrote the intro) and partly because i wanted to follow this guy's example. funny, cuz i went to bed pretty late (for me) and when i dont get enough sleep i dont dream. well i was dreaming when my alarm went off 6 hours later. not only, but i was partly awake already, the state where you drift in and out. hm, well i had asked that if God wanted me to pray, he would wake me up before my alarm. and not only, but i was dreaming that for some reason my friend said to me "let's pray." and THEN my alarm went off the very next second. hm interesting. so i ended up praying for 45 min in bed. and then i got up and watched the sun rise (the same sun that i had watched set the day before!) and here i am pretending to do my essay. i have 145 words.

i believe in God. i realized a new facet of that word this past week. i believe in him. meaning i believe what he says even though he says some pretty weird things. if only you knew the strange things he told me. i trust what he says. i view life differently because i believe what he says. i view life differently because i believe in him.


mental playlist: the lost get found (brit nicole)

here i am trying to tell the complicated story of why i want to be a doctor of sorts in my JAPANESE essay. a foreign language class is not typically the place to explicitly bear witness about what God's done in your life. i have no idea how this is going to work. the sensei probably is not used to people talking about such things in her class. but the essay prompt asks the question so precisely that there's no way i can get away from the fact that it was GOD who called me to the profession i am aspiring to. good luck to me. this might come out strange because i'm limited in how well i can talk about abstract things in japanese, but we'll try.


mental playlist: remember me (mark schultz)

i'm back on facebook because i died. this is how i died at 11something pm on day 9. i had  just gotten into bed when people outside began screaming. that's not unusual, but it was especially commotional and it was 11something pm. so i got up to look, and apparently it was hailing. just about the whole floor was out being amazed by the weather and i wasnt protected cuz i just got out of bed, so i was careful to watch for jeannette, whom i knew was targetting me, and sandra, whom i knew was targetting jeannette, in case jeanneatte had died and i didnt know it. what i didnt know was that there are two sandras on the floor and i knew the wrong one. so it was really dumb, but this girl came up and hugged my suitemate who was standing next to me and made a motion as if to hug me too. except she killed me. IS THAT THE STUPIDEST WAY TO DIE OR WHAT, CUZ OF THE WEATHER.

anyway. i walked into the stairwell after class today and it wasnt raining, but then when i came out on the 5th floor, it was pouring.

and ucsd needs a better drainage system. you cant even avoid puddles when it rains hard cuz the entire ground becomes a puddle/river. better known as flooding. i have discovered how convenient flipflops are when it rains.


mental playlist: let it go (tenth avenue north) - i was getting stressed last night cuz i have a japanese essay and hum essay due next week on top of regular readings, but then for some reason when i woke up i had this song in my head. the chorus goes "you said let it go/you said let it go/you said life is waiting for the ones who lose control/you said you will be/everything i need/you said if i lose my life its then i'll find my soul." it was a good reminder to let go of school work.

retreat was awesome. it was only 30 people from ls, which is a huge change from afc sr, which pushes 150. for afc, we take up the entire campsite, which takes like 5 min to walk across, lodge to farthest cabin. i think. ok for winter retreat here, we shared the campsite with two other groups and the site was small enough to look across. btw, ben park from vc and now ucla was there with his church, which was the randomest thing ever. anyway.
1) they do something called one to ones, which is basically you have one person you eat with every meal time. the person changes, but you really get to know a few people pretty well that way. i recommend this to afc snow retreat.
2) the theme was the body of christ. there was a small group question once. how would you rank ls in terms of unity? most people ranked it pretty low. small as it is, we realize we're not as united as we should/could be. so we all realized this problem of ours.
3) the last night, we had something called body life, which is like open mic at afc sr, but the focus is on encouraging one another and being a body, and since we have so few people, we arranged everyone in a two layered square facing each other. that was awesome. we encouraged each other, rejoiced together, cried together, prayed for each other, and worshipped together. that was def one of the best fellowship experiences i have ever had in a group larger than 2. we realized we had a unity problem, and so we worked to fix it. and for one sheltered retreat night, it was fixed. hopefully itll stay fixed. anyway, i didnt get into much detail here, but if you ask me i will probably talk more. because of that night i know that  i did not make a mistake in choosing ls. i am so thankful.

i have disturbingly also been receiving more of what you might call prophetic messages than i care to receive. i used to pray that God wouldnt give  me the gift of prophecy because so many people are suspicious of it and i feel like i might ... well, be persecuted by my own brothers and sisters if i had it. i would like to think that hearing God tell me strange things is a special event that is happening only now for some reason, but it happens so much i'm not so sure. also, telling people stuff about them you really shouldnt have any right to know is pretty awkward and scary. ok, telling good news is easy. but confronting secret sin is not. i will stop there to protect the privacy of people. and in case you're wondering, ls/harbor is pretty conservative and they dont do anything near charismatic so i'm not imagining things because everyone else is doing it. i would like to hear everything God has to say about me, but not what he has to say about others. i dont want to be messenger. but then, the bible says you should use your spiritual gifts for the common good. like pastor eddie said, using your spiritual gifts only to benefit yourself is lame. "oh i have a cut. *heal* oh my tummy hurts. *heal*" lame. BUT REALLY REALLY REALLY ITS HARDER THAN IT SOUNDS when half the church doesnt accept them as legitly from the holy spirit and they think you're demon  possessed for healing people  or something (gasp, just like they did with jesus when he healed people). forever an obstacle for me. i dont know how to use my spiritual gifts for the common good because they're not widely accepted practices in the local churches i attend.

anyway enough ranting. i love ls.

assassins day 5: not much happened all day. didnt try to do much. but i did wear angie's boxers with nancy's tights lol. good thing cuz my killer is in my hum section, i am 90% sure. that is, nothing much happened until just now. i was doing japanese or something and the spirit of God called me in such an irresistible manner. i had to stop and heed his call. and he told me many things, including some very strange things that i wasnt sure was really him. i really thought i was making it up. i thought i was coming up with what i wanted to hear and putting it in the mouth of God. i thought i'd just had too much tea and was sleepy and dreaming. but in case it really was him, i didnt want to write it off. so i said, can i ask for a sign, God? he said sure. i said ok, this is going to break up all my illusions of God talking to me and make me realize i was just dreaming. i said, God, the next time i go outside, let me meet lauren and kill her. this was highly unlikely as i heard she's not around very much and what are the chances of both of us walking through the hall at the same time, right? how trivial of a thing, but why not. so i braced myself for my "revelation" to be shattered, and i prayed and worshipped some more because the spirit of God was on me in such a powerful manner. irresistible is the word. if i went out right then, i dont think i coulda functioned enough to recognize people and talk to them. and then God showed me that lylan would be supporting me as i killed lauren. i was like oh what bs, cuz i thought i was dreaming again. and then lylan really came in my door. well that gave me a little jolt, and a little faith that i really would meet lauren as i walked out, and everything i heard was truly from God. so i stood up and announced i was going out to kill lauren. nancy and lylan looked at me like i was crazy. do you have a plan? no. what are you gonna do? i dunno. ... but by that point i had complete faith that i really would see her. it must have seemed very dubious when i walked out. so i walked around the floor. stopped by the poster to read updated stories. heard the elevator ding at some lower floor and knew it was coming up. moved on to the next poster advertising a bonfire on jan 22 that i realized i might not be able to go to. heard the elevator ding again on this floor so i turned around and expected lauren to come out. and lauren really did come out. and i killed her. so that is how i killed my 5th target, which serves as a sign that that really was the spirit of God speaking to me and not the spirit of elena speaking to me. lauren gave me many tips about where to find my next target next week (cuz the game is on pause during the weekend). not only tips, but plans and backup plans as well. yay lauren. :] so i walked back into my room/suite and showed the incredulous nancy and lylan my new target slip. nancy asked how it happened, but i was too scared to say it was God.

anyway. the point of that story was  more to point toward God than to celebrate my 5th target. i still feel the residue of his presence making my fingers tingle and my heart warm. and boy, he's never spoken to me like he spoke to me tonight. it was so tangible, almost like speaking to a real person, except he didnt speak with words. and i didnt even seek him. and i am completely thoroughly in awe of him, of the things he told me about the future (dont ask; i wont say. it was a prophecy for me only), and the things he told me about the present, and just the feeling his presence elicits in my heart. my God is Real. i wish i could tell you what he told me so we can all go WHOAAA together when it really happens, but i'm not going to. it is not something you spread around, but something for me to treasure in my heart, something for me to look forward to, something to make me love and experience and appreciate the omnipotence of God more. God is so good.

assassins day 4: tried to stalk aaron to his hum section, but i failed cuz i waited outside but it turned out he wasnt in that class. but then when i went to lunch, he was there getting food, but you cant tag people waiting in line for food so i waited behind the screen til he came out and i finally killed him, yesss. and then i got my 4th target the same day cuz she was easy even tho i've never seen her in my life before. she didnt care about the game and i caught her in plaza too. i heard from whom i think is my predator that my 5th target isnt that into the game either, but i heard from other people that she was, i dunno. funny cuz right after i got the green slip from #4, i was reading the stories on the gotcha poster across the elevator and  laughing at what aaron wrote about his adventures of being my target (and i wrote a response haha), when #5 comes out from the elevator unprotected. IF ONLY I HAD BEEN MORE ON MY GUARD i woulda gotten her, but she saw me and dashed into her suite with her suitemates before i could react. unfortunately. but its ok, i will begin eating at distant cafe v more often to increase my chances of seeing her, as i heard that she works there.

assassins day 3: today was quite an epic day. number one, i killed my ra by the following method: walked up the stairs on the other side of the building so i could walk by her room, saw that her door was open, pretended to be visiting neilsons suite, which is right next to it, and saw that she was inside as i walked by. so inside the suite, i thought about how i could get her to either come out or invite me in, cuz her room is safe for her unless she invites you in. so. i said neilson, i'm going out the other door and i'm gonna come around and knock on this door and pretend to wait. dont open it. i will chat with angie as i "wait." ok. so i tried to do that except he opened the door anyway. because his suitemates were getting anxious at the knocking, he said. so now i was right back in the same suite and nowhere closer to getting angie. except now i had half the suite hanging around seeing what was going on, and on my side. so we decided that i would go and ask angie a question about something. so we went and i was like hey angie, i was just wondering if you had any more of those scheduler thingys from the piece o' time event earlier this week? shes like oh yeah yeah, come on in, and turns around and starts digging in her drawers. so i killed her. AHAHAHHAHA i cant believe i killed her. now the whole floor knows cuz she put it on her fb status. and on the floor poster where you can write your stories. AND she gave me her boxers for friday's safety cuz she was like NO, IF MY KILLER DIES, THEN I DIED FOR NOTHING. yes friday's safety is to wear your underwear on the outside, which i wasnt gonna do. but now.... EXCITING EVENT NUMBER TWO: so i found out who my next target is, and after lunch, i just so happened to be standing by the stairs again, and i saw him come out of his suite and go towards the garbage chute. he didnt appear to have an i love argo 5 sign (the safety for today) so i started walking towards him. he came back around and started back towards his suite. i closed the gap and he got suspicious. so i jumped forward to tag him but he started running so i started chasing him but he was faster and i fell cuz i was running faster than was possible lol (and now i have a piece of the floor on my jeans, yes). since the building is arranged as a square around a courtyard, he ran around the entire building, and i yelled for my friends to block him from the other side cuz they were still by the stairs. but he just ran right through them and down the stairs. I WAS THISSSS CLOSE I'M SO MAD. and now he knows i'm after him so he's gonna avoid me. or be safe. i didnt get much work done today cuz i was scheming or fuming about aaron the whole time i wasnt in class. like i went into the common room to "do my chem" while watching his suite door. saw him come out and tried to kill him again but he had a sign. and then my little birdie told me he was going to karate at 6 and was currently suiting up, so i was like yes, maybe he wont have his sign. so i stood outside his suite door by the laundry, but i didnt have a good view of his door and i wasnt sure which stairs he would take. finally i decided that since he knows i'm after him, he's gonna go the way that doesnt go by my door. so i went downstairs and waited in ambush by the stairs/elevator. i waited for 15 min until 6pm but he never came, so i think either he got tipped off that i was there or he just happened to go the other way. i'm still so mad about losing him. AND i think i have a very good guess who is after me due to another little birdie and a random group of girls "walking by my suite" and coming in to say hi while i was "working" (working as a stalker more like) in the common room.

today i dominated the discussion in hum section. i am beginning to think that i like hum section (i'm such a traitor to myself). we talk about some difficult passages and concepts (difficult meaning troubling) and i def do not know the answers and sometimes i dont even know what i think about it. but i can introduce ideas that maybe a nonchristian wouldnt think of, or ideas that maybe a nonchristian wouldnt have enough background to think of. there are many things that i would like to say to defend God and to give others a little clearer of a glimpse of the real God that i dont say, because i dont want to dominate the discussion and i dont want to appear to think i know it all because i dont. i will leave some of the revelation of God to God himself. in the meantime i find it very interesting to discuss the real God with nonchristians. sometimes you cant even talk about the real God to christians because they have a rosy picture of him being love love love all love. thats not the real God. the real God is holy holy holy. for the most part, the discussion paints an accurate picture of God, so in many ways i think these nonchristians are getting a better picture of God than many christians already think they have, because we read the bible and talk about the difficult stuff in section, stuff that sometimes christians are afraid to talk about because it doesnt fit our preconceptions of who God is, that christians are afraid to investigate because we're secretly afraid that if we dig too deep we'll find something that will break down our faith. and yes it will break down our faith in what we thought was God but really isnt. how come God destroys all the canaanites? thats not very fair or moral, they say. and no, its not very fair or moral. i dont think God is a fair or moral God, but so many christians do, and so many nonchristians have the same false idea, but this class is breaking those lies down. God is just. the bible never says he's fair, but he's just for sure. and you cannot put God under the same moral standards as humans because he's God and not just a human. he creates life so he has the right to destroy it as well. and so many christians never dig as deep as to figure this out because they think they know it all. but that pretty image they have in their heads of what they think is God is not the living God. this class also makes everyone aware that this God is not one that you can easily fathom. in many ways he doesnt make sense to us, and this class highlights it so well because everyone puzzles over the same questions and nobody has answers. and nobody should have all the answers or our God is a manmade god.

on the other hand, i am looking forward to the time when God's love is highlighted in this class as well. God might be holy holy holy, but let's not forget that he's love too. that shall be next quarter when we read the new testament. or possibly sooner?


mental playlist: hallelujah (tenth avenue north)

assassins day 2: it's called gotcha here. the game i mean. nothing much happened today. i carried a borrowed teddy bear in my pillowcase which still has its mysterious bloodstain on it. oh yes so i was walking back from class and my target came up from behind and started talking to me and nancy. but she was holding her stuffed animal in a pillowcase so i couldnt tag her. she told us she was going to a meeting and proceeded to head into the why not here lounge. hmmm... so i decided to come back in half an hour, hope the meeting was still happening, hope she let down her guard and put down her thing, and tag her. so i came back in half an hour with an entourage of people to seem normal, walked into the lounge and pretended to be normal, but she wasnt there. snooped around nearby while pretending to be normal but to no avail. i had waited too long before going back. i thought it'd be too suspicious if i came right back after leaving her... but yeah. i also find myself doing a variety of other stalkerish behavior such as counting windows to find out which one's hers and sitting in the hallway while talking on the phone so i can watch her door. i'm totally normal.

and then i played uno cuz my brain burned out and it felt like finals week.

assassins day 1: i wore a newspaper hat around campus all day, and tried not to laugh at myself the whole time. people looked at me funny lol. esp in my japanese tutorial, which is only like 10 ppl lol. also, i got my first target even tho i've never seen her in my life before, thanks to some awesome stalker skillz and secret informers. jk it wasnt that exciting, i just happened to be sitting in the hall with people who knew what she looked like as she walked by. and she happened to walk into my suite haha. but my next target is formidable prey. a very special person who is likely to be protected all day. i cannot reveal who it is on this public blog. yet. i need to set her up or something, which is possible due to the alliances i have already formed. mwahahaha this is war.

my floor is playing assassins beginning at 12:01 am, monday, jan 11, which is in one hour and 6 min. so i deactivated my facebook. good luck getting in touch with me. email or cell.

today was so relaxing. :] tomorrow i will brace myself for hum and walking around in a hat all day due to assassins.


mental playlist: satisfy (tenth avenue north)
ps tenth avenue north contains half an azn and part of a native american.

as annoying as this essay was to write, i have somehow managed to thoroughly convince myself that God in no way lied when he said that they would die on the day they ate of the fruit. in fact i have convinced myself better than before, somehow. in fact i am learning a lot just by reading what i wrote, which do not appear to be my own ideas anymore (credit to God... not some person who is helping me plagarize, lol). what a thoroughly depressing essay this is turning out to be, though. complete death as a result of one action. morbid as hell haha. literally. if i didnt already feel that life is meaningless outside of jesus, and if i didnt know jesus, i REALLY would find it meaningless now. who is the source of life and everything good? God. what is most damaged by their actions? their relationship with God, their father, the source of life and everything good. so what's left? some remnant of physical life. whats crucial to physical life? food and having babies. what becomes extremely difficult after the fall? obtaining food and having babies. and what happens after you struggle to eat and have babies in pain all your physical life? you die physically too. wonderful, i have successfully convinced you all of the meaninglessness of this life too. BUT NEVER FORGET JESUS, THE REVERSAL OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL. haha God is too good. unfortunately i must leave jesus out of this essay and leave it unresolved. they will just have to seek the answer themselves.

enough jawing about hum. im going to tough it out.

actually today wasnt so bad. we talked about God, not the background of the bible. which means we begin treating the bible as literature, which means we pretend its true. indeed, the prof gave a pretty good summary of God as portrayed in genesis, esp in contrast to other mesopotamian creation/garden/flood stories and their gods. it was very moving to be explicitly reminded of the characteristics of the God i love in a public research university lecture. haha i was like GOD, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT YOU!!! which is pretty cool, haha. similar situation in section today. maybe this class wont be so bad?


mental playlist: hold my heart (tenth avenue north)

i just read through the entire book of genesis in three days, including annotations. it's so interesting to read it all straight through, cuz you see how exactly God's promise to abraham is carried on through his descendants. it all ties together in a way that you dont really see when you read it over a period of weeks. and i actually decided i like the version we read for class better than niv, so maybe i'll just read the class version for devos instead of trying to figure out what niv is saying. its nrsv, new revised standard version.

on the one hand, i have so much to say in this essay that i really wanna write it. on the other hand, i dont feel like getting myself too heavily involved in controversial topics and i have no idea how i'm supposed to make this understandable and coherent and sense-ful to a nonchristian, without seeming too out-there.

i'm beginning to feel the sting of persecution a little in humanities. to make it short, i do not feel like my beliefs are respected. i dont care if we read it and remain silent about whether it's of divine origin or not, but i do not appreciate the professor going out of his way to say, by the way, please keep in mind that this is made by men. by the way, the bible HAS a history (but no, it's not really historically accurate). by the way, the bible has many many contradictions in it. yes, it puts doubts in my head, and those doubts probably will accumulate over the next three weeks, but it is definitely not what i learned about the accuracy of the bible from my humanities teacher last year, who, by the way, is also not christian in any sense of the word. therefore i doubt the truth of what the professor is telling me, but it does not mean that things he say don't carry any weight at all. also i think i found a content mistake in one of the things he gave us to read, so i doubt the accuracy of that also. BUT that does not prevent any of this from sinking into my head. i am not yet EATEN by doubts, but i have a good deal more of it floating around, going in all directions, directed at all things. many things i thought i knew, i dont know anymore. i used to believe in archeology and history and all that, and i dont know how much i still believe in them. i used to believe my professors, i dont know how much i still believe in them. i used to believe the bible was quite literal, but i dont know how literal i really think it is anymore. i used to believe the bible was word for word correct, but i dont know how to explain apparently discrepancies between geneologies anymore. or are those discrepancies even there, or are the annotations lying to me? i have no idea, but to some degree i can make it not matter. it does not jeopardize my faith in jesus or the truth of God's word. although i have heard of people who lose their faith from the hum series. or it can purify and strengthen my faith in the end. but i dunno, its only been 3 days and i already feel weakened. if this is what it does to the old testament, i dont know how i'm going to be able to read the new testament in hum 2. pray for  me. i think this quarter is going to be spiritually very eventful. more than just because humanities.


itunes: lift us up to fall (tenth avenue north)

20 hum discussion sections this quarter, one down, 19 to go. its gonna be tough. oh wait maybe itll be better after we finish with the bible in 3 weeks. it was God's blessing that i got put into the "God did not lie" group for the essay prompt. otherwise i would seriously... not be able to contribute at all. as it is, i dominated the discussion. they werent talking. but really, somehow i'm no where near as articulate when i'm in a group of strangers than when im with one person i know well. i could not defend my position as i would have liked, and as i will write in my essay. i am going to own this essay. too bad it's not graded.


mental playlist: to God alone (aaron shust) - that's my prayer.

okay what the heck. i'm reading this new oxford annotated bible with the apocrypha and the footnotes are very interesting. i disagree with a good portion of it. i begin to see how reading the bible without considering it the Word of God is potentially poisonous. AND THE STUPID PROMPT FOR THE FIRST ESSAY.

"Genesis 3 introduces the serpent as 'more crafty than any other wild animal,' yet the snake only tells the truth to Eve, exposing God's lie about the tree of knowledge." Argue for or against this view.

wow. 1) i find it highly insulting to even suggest that God would lie. 2) the lie it is referring to is that adam would die when he ate it. well hello, he did die, even if it wasnt immediately. this is so obvious to me that i cannot begin to imagine why anyone would put such a noncontroversial topic as an essay prompt. but i suppose if you pretend "God" was the name of some man (which is apparently what we're doing here), this could be a controversial topic. i forgot how annoying it is to study the bible from people who don't believe in it.

i need to remember that i'm not just reading a text for class, but that this is God's word. its harder than it sounds.

first of all it feels like spring here. tshirt weather. very fun.

i am actually kind of looking forward to hum now cuz we get to read part of the old testament and sophocles. sounds very interesting. and i'm supposed to finish reading the book of genesis by friday. well i was reading genesis over break anyway haha. ahead already. the writing sounds a bit intimidating tho. but i think i'll enjoy the reading. we're reading out of the new revised standard version which, imo, is similar to nlt in terms of understandability. i can speed read. :]

the reputation of my current chem prof is far lower than that of dr hoeger from last quarter, but i think i like him better actually. he focuses so much more on fundamental concepts. he didnt introduce himself or do greensheet or anything, he just started lecturing. it was disorganized, sure, but he truly does know chem very well. i dunno i feel like with him, i will understand. with hoeger, i feel like i only got a surface understanding. and yes, he kind of did assume that we had a strong background in calc and physics, which many of us dont, and somehow he managed to speak very advanced stuff while emphasizing fundamental concepts. and it was hard to understand at points, but it was ok. a little like stark + birdsong in one. a little like when they start talking about stuff they know is over your head, outside of the curriculum. a little like when i get a taste of quantum physics/astrophysics. apparently we're going over chapters 12 and 13 again. i guess that gives us an advantage cuz we did up to chapter 14 last quarter? i will probably get owned anyway, but i think i will thoroughly enjoy this class. just like physics honors with birdsong, but this goes far deeper. he was talking about mixing gases and how that affects the variables and degrees of freedom and somehow he managed to simultaneously talk about index of refraction!!! amazing. i was so excited when he did that. this guy knows what he's talking about, and he talks to us like we're chemists.