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)