rise above

Most of my experiences with spiritual battle come from revisiting my (pre-christian) past.
Jeez...they never end. Is it that hard to erase such memories?

When I was in my weird almost-emo/rebel phase, I used to really like this song by Skye Sweetnam called "Fallen Through." It's about continuously falling into someone's trap, again and again, no matter how much you've tried to shove him out of your life.

Seeps in underneath the door
Sinks in and stains the floor
I don't know what to feel
Takes so long for these wounds to heal
Tell me it's not really real

Pretend she's singing about satan and how much he throws all the insecurities of a reckless past back in your face. That is what it feels like. Like poison bubbling in my chest, being pumped through my veins and shaking me up. It's that bad.

This is what I pray for in the new year: for my past to become a useless weapon to satan. Instead of being torn up every time I'm reminded of who I was, I want to be moved even more by the evidence of God's grace. I want to see how powerful it really is, how easily it can overcome the weaker power of satan's ploys. How it turned my life around 180 degrees in this past year, and how it will continue to change me in the present and future.

2011 ready!

year wrap-up

Who You love, I'll love; how You serve, I'll serve.
-Chris Tomlin

I want to say that 2010 has been the most influential year in my life, by far. I have never gone through so many ups and downs in such a small amount of time.

God is good. These are the highlights from this year:

January
• My parents let me go to winter retreat, and I went with high expectations. None of them were met, and I was so disappointed. I asked myself why this was, why I kept trying so hard to accept Christ, but I just could not. The Sunday morning before we left for home, our church was going to take communion. "If you take it and you are not a believer, you are bringing judgment onto yourself," P. Andrew said, and told us to go up by row. I felt panic; I knew everyone in my row was going to go and that I would be the only one left. I thought everyone would see that I still had not accepted Christ and feel pity for me. Then a thought came to mind: "Why do you always feel so judged? You are so insecure! But if you give your heart to Jesus, He will give you security. The judgment will wash away." I decided to accept Christ and take part in communion. It was out of fear and confusion and not wanting to feel judged, but I told myself it was now or never that I would take this leap of faith.
• Afterwards, I was going to just pretend like nothing happened and keep to myself because my mind was in such disarray about what had happened. But my life group leaders (JSA and Helen) noticed.. and they asked me about it. God used them to keep me accountable.

March
• My faith was so weak, and I did not want to get baptized. Also, I knew that if I were going to, it would be out of selfish motives. I told myself I would get baptized in December instead, to prove to myself that I was doing it not because I loved my life group (lovebeta) but because I loved God. However, Helen encouraged me to take baptism class anyway. I went through crazy spiritual battles but in the end she convinced me to get baptized, asking me, "Why not? If you do it now, satan will have lost you completely."

May
• I lost my relationship with God because He did not give me something I had prayed so hard for. Furthermore, only one sister (Angela) of four from the beginning of summer break was still keeping me accountable on a consistent and personal basis. I was so bitter, but now I am eternally grateful that God kept using her to reach out to me for the rest of the summer. She became the only string left that held me on to God. If it weren't for this, I would have fallen completely away.

September
• By the time school started up again, I was in a deep depression.. One night, I could not sleep at all because I was so filled with suicidal thoughts. Finally after six hours, I got out of bed and just started praying to God because I did not know what else to do. It was a miracle; He placed peace inside my heart and told me I had a purpose- to live out His will. I did not repent for this summer that night or for a while afterwards but He took me back anyway.
• Through reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller and through my new life group (GLU), I finally came to terms with what the gospel was, and how it applied to my life. It changed everything. Thank You Jesus.

November
• There was so much internal conflict I had with my life group.. I was having so much fun but there was no Christ love dwelling in us. I held my bitterness in until I could not stand it anymore, and I confessed to Angela and Katie, both of whom told me to seek the pastors' advice. I ended up talking to P. Seth, who told me that I needed to do a 180 in my expectations because lovebeta and GLU were such opposite extremes. He said just because God used my freshman year life group to stir up a passion for the Word, every life group wasn't going to be centered around the same thing. "I think this one is going to teach you about compassion," he told me. He was right.
• I admitted these struggles to my life group leader (Jessica) as well. Later, our life group came together and decided we needed to make some changes, beginning with prayer and intercession. And wow...God is so faithful - Matthew 18:19.

December
• God broke me in three different ways, showing me that
1- I lack intimacy and love for Him (IPT showed me how prayer led to a personal relationship; 12/6 entry)
2- I am unwilling to lay down my insecurities in order to serve others (12/12 sunday celebration; P. Seth; my GLU parents Jessica and Daron).
3- I had been slowly using the gospel more just as joy in my heart and not as much a means of taking action (spiritual battle; story of Lydia).


Perseverence must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4

I have been so blessed! Praise the Lord Jesus! :)

the lost sheep

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:12-14

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” Luke 15:4-6

Both my discipler and my life group leader constantly remind me of this parable, and I had such a good conversation with a brother about it last night.. God, please drill it into me! Every time I walk into life group, I have to remember that it's not about what I want out of it. Last year, I was so inconceivably lost. But He knows our hearts more than we do; He gave me everything I needed through my life group and I didn't even know it. I was clueless, yet I got incredibly blessed.

God, this year I've been very careless. I've been so unfaithful. Will you still use me in my life group for what's left of this school year? Not as one of the lost, but to serve those who are.. Teach me how to sacrifice my comfort and expectations and be used to help them grow. Teach me how to give, and how to give freely.

Our God is the kind who leaves the 99 that remain and goes after the one. Let's not just pray for ourselves, but for the lost.

grow

I was thinking about you, thinking about me. Thinking about us, what we gonna be?
-Sam Tsui & Christina Grimmie (Nelly cover)

Why do all my inspirations come from songs? Hahaha. As I was listening to this cover, I thought about the depth of attachment that comes with loving a person, particularly in an intimate relationship. How, when the relationship is over, it feels like the whole world has suddenly decided to move on without you, birds singing and trees dancing with a sunny backdrop outside your window, ignoring you while you're alone in your enclosed, dark, miserable room, weeping to pieces. And nobody cares. And you don't want anybody to care except that one person. Yet one of you refuses to mend the relationship, so that brokenness just covers you and you're too upset to fight back.

Is that how you feel when you are away from God?

Not at all. I feel apathy. Exhaustion. Guilt.

What kind of relationship do I have with God then? The best way to describe it: give-and-take. The interactions I have with Him, they're just like a relationship with a roommate you don't know all too well. These are the issues I have:
1. Compromise
"Can I take a break from reading the Bible today please? I'll do it next week. I'm just too tired."
"Sure. Instead, how about we.."
"Actually can I just take a break from You?"
"All right, I'll wait for your return."
2. Sporadic sharing
"MY LIFE SUCKS. GOD PLEASE HELP ME. DO SOMETHING PLEASE."
"Okay, well can you at least try to.."
"I wish my schedule would just work out! I wish he would just LOOK at me! I wish my friend understood my.."
"Ahhh okay okay, calm down, I'm listening."
3. Confrontation
"God I know I haven't been hanging out with You lately. I'm sorry. I repent for.."
"Wow, great. I forgive you. Can you do this for me?"
"Um, I'm sorry, I think I'll do something else. I like doing that better."
4. Ignorance
"Wow I'm learning so much right now! I'm so blessed! With You, I can do anything!"
"Hahaha, yeah."
"I know with Your strength, I'll be able to overcome any obstacles! Let them come. Except don't let Your challenges interfere with this, this, and this, okay?"
"Actually, I wish you could give that up for Me."
"No, that will take away from my joy. Never mind, forget I asked!"
5. Debt
"You've been so good to me. I've been a jerk."
"Yes, I know."
"I owe you. Let me make it up to you by going to church more often."
"Um..."
6. Intimacy?
"Do You think we're close?"
"Well, do you love Me?"
"I think so. Sure!"

If this give-and-take relationship continues, how will I ever know God's heart? What are we going to be? The song says, when you don't give away all your love, you lose everything. And P. Seth once explained, love is not just emotional attachment but commitment. Love is not just a feeling but something that pushes you to become better, more compassionate, for someone else. And only by the power of the gospel will I ever learn to foster that kind of love, to take up my cross and lay down my life, everyday.

I wish I could be that willing, that thirsty for God. I want to live for Him that way.

survey: change

“How important is God in your life? Please use this scale to indicate. 10 means “very important” and 1 means “not at all important.”

Source: World Values Surveys and European Values Study, 1981‐2007.



"However, there has been an increase in the percentage of people who 'often' think about the meaning and purpose of life."

I see a pattern. Do you?

redemption

but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin."
John 8:1-11

Dang. Awesome message right there.
Can you imagine these teachers and Pharisees, all haughty-like, dragging a poor woman through the crowd and presenting her to Jesus, trying to both shame her and discredit Him at the same time? How sinless and proud those men must have felt? How mortified the woman must have been? And Jesus staring at them and then casually bending down to write on the ground, with all temptation to just roll His eyes and reply, "Are you kidding me..."

Then neither do I condemn you, He says. The only one without sin. The turning point.

melting pot

Can I apologize if I've been rude to you lately? Will you forgive me so I can see your smile again?

I looked through my livejournal blog from last year, which details raw emotions fluctuating stronger than a y=10sin(10x) graph. I went to beginning of November, 2009, and was so amazed by how much I resisted God's outreaching hand, relying solely on emotions and past experiences as if there were only one way of letting Him take me in.

November 9, 2009
What kind of experience or feeling is that, of being saved? I don't think I have been saved yet because there isn't one particular moment or day that strikes me as when You truly took me by the hand and mended my wounds when I was at my lowest, not that I really had terrible traumas since knowing You...yet (never I hope).

Yesterday I talked to Pastor Seth, and he pointed out to me the narrow path I was walking on and told me about perspectives. God wants to help solve my problems. We have the same solutions in mind but for me, there are only few ways to get there from the lessons of my broken past and out of what I know. For Him, there are a billion, infinite ways to get there... out of what He knows. I only know how to serve Him through my experiences, through what I learned from my freshman year. But now He's showing me other ways to love and other ways to serve, routes I never imagined would lead to giving Him glory but do, all the same. I was shocked, the limitlessness of God once something completely non-comprehensible but now being shown in a sliver through His work in our lives. Isn't this amazing?

1 Peter 4:10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms.

I'm sorry for being frustrated with you, for not taking into consideration that you're trying your best to serve God too, just in a completely different way than I know. So let us all try to teach each other the best of what we know, through which we will know God's heart all the more :).

courage

PTL. Sin of fear slowly getting conquered, piece by piece, trial by trial. I've never in my life done or wanted to do what I got to do today, and I've also never felt that brave. The aftermath was overwhelming, butterflies-in-my-stomach, shuddering-like-it's-the-dead-of-winter kind of nervousness and relief. Courage only God can give.

Afterwards, He told me,

It is not about your reputation, your relationships with others, your life group, your church, your contributions, your work ethic, your intelligence, your creativity, your past, your future, your flaws, your emotions, your pain, your money, your education, or even why you are who you are. Most of these things are important in the process of things. Some of them you do need to work on. But how many times do I have to tell you? You are not reaching out in order to build relationships. You are not contributing for the sake of contributing. These things should be part of the process, not the goal. Instead, you should be doing all these things for my glory, and mine alone.. For if you struggle or collapse in one area, it does no good to yell at me as you have in the past, but it does all the wonders in the world to thank me for the trial, then courageously ask for my help.

this is so beautiful :)

Words I Couldn't Say - Leighton Meester (country cover)


In a book, in a box, in the closet
In a line, in a song I once heard
In a moment on a front porch late one June
In a breath inside a whisper beneath the moon

There it was at the tips of my fingers
There it was on the tip of my tongue
There you were and I had never been that far
There it was the whole world wrapped inside my arms
And I let it all slip away

What do I do now that you're gone?
No back up plan, no second chance
And no one else to blame
All I can hear in the silence that remains
Are the words I couldn't say

There's a rain that will never stop falling
There's a wall that I tried to take down
What I should have said just wouldn't pass my lips
So I held back and now we've come to this
And it's too late now.

I'm aware of what the real message is, but for me, the song resonates with the lack of confidence I have in praying out loud.. What are you so afraid of? The opportunity God is asking for to speak through you is given only once in that one instance, that one specific moment in time. There is no going back to relive it, and you can only try again in the future, in another setting. In a similar way,

1 Corinthians 14:16-17 If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand say "Amen" to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying? You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified.

The unspoken words of the past will never exist except in your regret. There is no second chance.. Thus, in the words of Taylor Swift, speak now. :)

my november guest

Robert Frost, 1915.

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

The best part about this poem.. is not the nature or the personification of sorrow, but the speaker's transformation, upon finally receiving the ability to love that which he once always found so difficult to love.

FAVORITE books.

Here you go!

1. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

I don't know ANYONE who didn't like Catcher in the Rye. I thought it was funny and terribly depressing at the same time. It's about a boy who gets kicked out of boarding school for the billionth time and just wanders around, finding things for himself to do in a very whimsical and, at times, passive-aggressive way.





2. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

I wrote one of my umich application essays on this novel because it is SO GOOD. It's so honest and endearing, detailing a very lively family lifestyle headed by an intellectual but destructive alcoholic father.







3. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

The reason why I really, really like it while a lot of people don't is probably because it's kind of girly and doesn't have any particularly engaging direction. It's a coming-of-age novel about a fourteen-year-old girl somewhat tracing her deceased mother's footsteps. I love the way she thinks because it's so much like my own thought process.. I think I've gushed about beekeeping too before :).




4. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Honestly, I probably wouldn't have liked The Great Gatsby if we hadn't dissected it in high school. But I'm so glad we did because there is a heck lot of symbolism and talk about the American dream, which can get really sentimental and deep. I'm sure most of you have already read it for school though!




5. Le Petit Prince, Antoine Saint-Exupery

AHH. I love the complex simplicity of this book. It's so cute but it's crazy deep. Read ittt :) If you can read French, I'll let you borrow my copy!







6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

I think I just really like historical coming-of-age stories. And symbolism of trees :) This novel also talks a lot about the American dream too, and the early 1900s American education system, both of which are SUPER interesting, in all seriousness.

scratching the surface

Like You spilled Your blood, I spill my heart as an offering.
-Hillsong

I really got broken at this past retreat. Always when that happens, I get stubborn. Most of the time I get angry or irritated at God, and myself. This time I'm so sad.. I've realized that I relish this handful of relationships in my life that have become tainted with satan's work. I love these people, and I love their approval and being on good terms with them so much yet I can't keep on this way with them because satan has indirectly used each of them to hurt my relationship with God.

Are you willing to sacrifice human relationships for a stronger relationship with God? At one time I thought this wasn't possible, because doesn't God want you to build relationships and love people? But an older sister told me, loving someone doesn't mean becoming best friends with them, or hanging out with them often, as Christ-centered as it may be. Loving someone sometimes means confronting the fact that the person is causing you to idolize and sin, and it means sacrificing that relationship with him or her for the glory of God. Even if neither of you have done anything particularly wrong to each other, satan's messed with your feelings and your motives, and the consequences all wound your heart.

So the only way to let God heal your heart, is to let go...

thoughts of a dining hall substitute greeter

I am so tired.
I just saw him, whom I replaced, and he laughed
You're still early!
I have time-related stress.
The hallway is empty
Occasional man in a suit, woman confused
Where is the bathroom?
It is down that hall - which hall?
I don't know.. I'm not familiar.. That one?
A boy smiles as he shakes his dreadlocks
At a girl who fumbles (with her card)
Down it goes, she picks it up
Two older men amble past with hasty words
One alumni I know, from high school, doesn't remember me
Asks me if I live here
I say no.
She is the queen of the world, a fashion blogger
I watch her pass by three times.
Someone else: Sorry my card doesn't work.
I typed in the ID wrong.
Another boy comes, relief because he is normal
Chatting on the phone, so casual
I eavesdrop and hear, I have to go
Call me if you ever need prayer, or to talk.
I smile at him and he smiles at my cross.
Then no one comes for ten minutes
So I draw on my hand
A moon, quotes, the words,
Do you need prayer?
Do you mind?
Hi, hello, how are you? Good. Thank you.
These are the words they say
But which ones are real? Which ones are fake?
Some laugh confidently, some whisper their gratitude
At the girl who swipes their card
In a cap, zoning out, drawing on her hand
The two hours run past quickly
She sighs in relief as the next shift comes in
A new greeter.
A big deal.

shades of gold

It seems that even if I've "forgiven" people, God, and events, I still hold onto the memories for a long time afterwards not out of spite, but out of a reluctance to let go of a feeling I've held onto for so long.

My life group leader pointed this out to me, when she asked why the heck I was holding onto a job that proved useless, something I signed up for during the summer only out of bitterness towards God. I don't need it financially, and I don't need it to build character, because honestly, the only character-building I've gotten out of it was to how to serve food at a faster pace. I'm incredibly grateful to my co-workers, both the generous and irritable, but it's not a job worth anything more than a constant reminder of the frustrations of my past summer.

And I can't believe how good Bible study has been, the stories told so vivid that I am often reminded throughout my days of the lessons they teach. Am I going to let God touch this area of my life? Why must I have to be directly affected to be moved by Him? Am I only talking to this person out of obligation or out of a genuine desire to love? And furthermore, God recently pushed me out of all my comforts to apply for alternative spring break, and I went for it, solely for the motivation of pleasing Him. But then, when I started praying for revival yet at the same time worried that it might mean God would take that opportunity away, I got so confused about whether I was doing for Him anymore.. After all, I don't know about my chances of going on an ASB trip but it was the very opportunity I thought He had pushed me into going for in the first place. At what point in time did it too become tainted with selfish motives, like all the events of this past summer, another issue added to a long list of things I didn't want to let Him touch anymore?

In this way, either you keep holding onto these selfish treasures forever, or you surrender everything for His better plans, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). And it's so easy to believe, something you're so confident about, but why can't you go ahead and do it, taking that leap of faith?

1 thessalonians 2:4

We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.

Either way is exhausting.

light

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."
-Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

"Did you know he wasn't like the others?"
I didn't.
"Did you know how much room he was taking up in your thoughts?"
Yes.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Pray?
She frowned down at me with coldness, her pale, bony hands reaching for the thick folder that contained all my files, like hundreds of private journal entries organized into perfect charts and comment boxes. I was afraid they would all slide out in one, graceful mess, but her grip was firm, and the folder landed neatly on her lap. Slap.
"Next week," she told me, hastily jotting something down on a post-it and sticking it on the inside of the folder. She licked a finger and turned a page, licked her finger, turned another page. "We'll try light therapy, since your brain has seemed to adapt too quickly to the..."
"Uh, no," I said very quietly, shaking my head. "I think I'll be okay."
"Excuse me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "You haven't been reacting to the melatonin, and according to what you've recently reported back, your mind has not been in any condition to--"
"No," I said again, this time a little louder. As if she knew, so quickly and certainly, that I was unstable. As if she knew any of the things I never told her and exactly what I needed, like she was some kind of prophet or mind reader. "I'm okay. I'm fine."
"Your mother won't allow it," my therapist rolled her eyes and shuffled the rest of the files in a cabinet drawer beneath her desk, stuffing mine in. "We did everything to get that person out of your life, and now we need to remove him from your mind."
"That's not possible. I don't want that."
"You should want it," she walked around her desk and grabbed my wrist so hard, I prepared myself for a fracture. "It's the only way you'll be able to live a normal life."
I stared down at her hand and then into her stern face, the glassy eyes behind her old-fashioned wire rimmed glasses. A normal life, I repeated to myself as she dragged me out the door and smiled, distracted, at the receptionist who rushed to minimize several windows on her monitor.
"Set up an appointment for her in the next week, for light therapy. Goodbye now," was all my therapist said, noticing barely and releasing her grip on my arm to pat my head. The receptionist nodded and started click-clacking noisily on her computer.
"Is your wrist all right?" she whispered as my therapist retreated back to her office. "I don't believe Patricia was in one of her better moods today.. Would you like some ice for that?"
I turned to her slowly, raising my arm halfway and staring into her worried eyes. I was tired, hungry, and, most importantly, distracted by my thoughts of that person. A normal life. Like anyone wanted one of those. "Okay. Can I get it to go?"

the people you meet

It is just so crazy..
When older sisters tell me about these people they meet in college, who become their friends and change their lives. And then eventually I meet them, and they are so different than what I expected. But as time goes on, they too change my life, or become my lifegroup leader, or leave before I have a chance to say more than a few words to them, thanking them for everything.

balloons, sylvia plath

I'm really not a big fan of poetry, but Sylvia Plath's stands out so much.

(1963)
Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish---
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.

security

最爱还是你，这是我的决定。-唐禹哲
(I have decided that the one I love most is you. -Danson Tang)

I'm always wondering, sometimes too much, when I first people, why God is putting that person into my life. Right now, the strongest example would probably be lifegroup. Why is that person I really wanted to get to know not in it? Why wasn't I put with someone I can't stand even though I deserve it (what a relief!)? Why all these people who are new? And I guess lifegroup is supposed to be awkward at first this way, mysterious and uncertain, but it was much easier than I had prepared myself for. I've stumbled around so long at church, scared to be myself yet at the same time feeling judged for portraying someone I'm not, ready to give up. But God's love pulled me through, and for the first time, I have nothing to hold back. I've never felt so secure.

I have to admit that I purposely signed up for and did certain things in order to excuse myself from a lot of church events this semester. But God immediately called me out in the beginning, convincing me to readjust my priorities and be even more committed. So I go for this strong commitment, eventually discovering with patience how it connects with my newfound sense of security, and then suddenly He switches gears with a "oh by the way, here are some time conflicts...oh and some relational issues...and white lies you need to tell, just to shake things up."

What does that mean?!?! It means I either have to compromise my commitment, or sacrifice my outside responsibilities. And God knows, I'd rather give up my commitment to church than give up those other obligations, even if I'm doing all of them for myself and other people, in a situation where their opinions come first and God's comes second. Maybe my perspective is just off, and God really wants to work through and test me outside of dependency on church after building me up all this while. But decisions need to made, all the time, and time walks all over you if you don't walk with it.

novelette, teaser 2

Super out of context, hehe. (unrevised and cut)

"He actually waved at me, and it was the first time I had seen him all semester. I seriously couldn't stop smiling, I was that relieved we were okay. Then, while I was walking with this goofy grin on my face, I totally forgot what my room number was. I felt like a dork."
"Relief is all you need sometimes," I said, looking up from the potato I was peeling, and Risa laughed before rolling her eyes.
"Very true, until your professor gives you a dirty look for being three minutes late."
"You really forgot where you were going?" I thought she had meant it as an expression, emphasizing the dream world she so often lived in and told her stories through.
Risa nodded, throwing a piece of cabbage at me. "Yep, I did. I sure did."

It was a nice day for a picnic, the sky completely covered by wispy clouds but not enough to completely block out the sunlight. Risa was lying down on the grass towards the edge of the field, laughing and repeatedly insisting the six-year-olds around her to listen up. Lock was helping Mary carry food out from the cafeteria inside the building, the squeaky back door propped open by Walker, the janitor. Parents were just starting to arrive, and the ones who were already here whispered quietly to each other a few feet away from the big tent and field where their kids were running around or already eating.
A little girl came up to me, asking if I could help her open her juice bottle. As I took off the cap and handed over the bottle, I couldn't help but realize the days were starting to get chilly; summer was slowly coming to an end and college was crawling in just around the corner. I immediately felt alarmed, wondering if I still had time to buy school supplies, if my dormmate and I were going to get along okay, if classes were going to be overwhelming. One of the staff workers came then, running with a cell phone in her hands, looking alarmed.
"Emma!" she called. "Is Emma here? I have a doctor on the line."
My mind rapidly returning to the present, I stood up slowly while Lock and Mary both turned around to stare at me from the food table. The little girl's juice cap fell from my lap, and she reached under the table to retrieve it.
The staff worker sprinted over, running her hands through her tangled hair. "It's the doctor, it's your grandfather, he's in the hospital," she whispered, her words tumbling out so fast I could hardly catch up. "They said it wasn't an emergency but they needed for you--"
"I got it," I said as she pressed the phone into my hand, even more worried than I was. "Thanks."

* * *

By the time I got back from the hospital, two and a half hours later, there were still three or four children sitting around, their parents absorbed in a deep conversation. Risa was cleaning up the arts&crafts table but she noticed me just standing there and strode over. "How do you feel?" she asked, putting down a bucket of sanitizer, and I gazed across the field, emptied of the children we had worked with all summer and instead littered with juice boxes and aluminum foil. Coy robins flew down from nowhere, timidly poking at bread crust and fluttering off when the squirrels came.
I considered how to answer this, because the past three hours had been a huge blur.
"Are you still worried? A little tired?"
"I guess I'm relieved," I said simply, and she broke into a satisfied smile, her arms coming around my shoulder. I didn't say anything and she didn't either. She sat us down and we stayed like that for a while, and when Lock looked on from sweeping the sidewalks, a little anxious, she smiled at him too to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. After a few minutes, I said, "I feel like if I nodded off now, I could sleep forever. There's just too much to think about." And there was. But if anything, I did know that the world wasn't going to end right away, with this summer slowly coming full circle to completion. Everything was returning back to the way it had been, the changes that had come leaving without a trace, noted only in our new smiles and memories.
"I'm glad, though," Risa said, and then she winked at me. She tousled my hair as if she were my mother, or an older sister, letting me know she was going back to work, and then leaned over to retrieve her bucket. "Relief is all you need sometimes, after all."

writing a story

Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything, and everybody believed in you?
-Taylor Swift

In his book A Million Miles in A Thousand Years, Don Miller says a lot of interesting things but it’s more like a guide to how to write a good story rather than anything particularly inspirational or moving. I was kind of disappointed, although there’s this one thing he brought up about story-writing that made me nod enthusiastically in agreement. He says

But stories are only partly told by writers. They are also told by the characters themselves. Any writer will tell you characters do what they want.
If I wanted my character to advance the plot by confronting another character, the character wouldn’t necessarily obey me. I’d put my fingers on the keyboard, but my character, who was supposed to go to Kansas, would end up in Mexico, sitting on a beach drinking a margarita. I’d delete whatever dumb thing the character did and start over, only to have him grab the pen again and start talking nonsense to some girl in a bikini.
And as I worked on the novel, as my character did what he wanted and ruined my story, it reminded me of life in certain ways…I could see God sitting at his computer, staring blankly at his screen as I asked him to write in some money and some sex and some comfort.
So as I was writing my novel, and as my character did what he wanted, I became more and more aware that somebody was writing me…[And] after thirty years of [not] having anything like to a desire, the Writer who is not me told me I was to find my father.
I told God no, but he [kept coming] back to me and asked me if I really believed he could write a better story—and if I did, why didn’t I trust him?
I didn’t have an answer to that question. Why didn’t I trust God? I believed he was the Writer who was not me and he could writer a better story than I could, but I did not trust him.

I can relate to this so much, with how every story I write always ending up straying away from the plots I want, because the main character and I end up disagreeing so much. This may or may not seem weird to non-writers, but story-writing is intertwined with life, and here’s how I would explain it with a piece of mine.

There used to be a person I liked, and I don’t know if I still like him because I don’t struggle with it as much as I used to. But he became an inspiration in my life, and he was more religious than I, so I let him write my story. Everyone told me to seek God, I didn’t know how to on my own, and he was there to help, so naturally I put my world into his hands. I trusted he could write my story better than anyone else, even better than God could. God never sat down with me and pointed out flaws, suggesting revisions and laughing at my terrible jokes. It was too hard to let God write it anyway because I was never sure if I was listening to Him or to my own ambitions. It’s different with a real person.

So I let him write it, and after a while, a little too late, I realized he wasn’t very good. In fact, he was pretty terrible at it and you can never be satisfied when another person is controlling and suggesting things for you to do anyway. I had gotten confused too because along the way, I started convincing myself that this is what God wanted; that God was writing my story through the person I liked because I had associated the two of them with each other too closely. It was so discouraging that I threw all my so-called spiritual experiences into a trashcan and held the pen to my own story. I let God play the secondary character instead of the writer and I cut the other person out completely for a while.

That’s when I decided more than ever that I wanted to start over. I want to let God write my story for me, but I don’t trust Him enough just yet to let him do so. Sometimes I do hesitantly hand over the pen, but He always ends up writing for me something I don’t want, so I stubbornly take it back. You know those people who are always walking around, staring at objects and making decisions while asking themselves, “What would Jesus do? Would Jesus do this? Would He do that?” I think that’s where the gospel really influences lives, where God finds room to write.

I walk around asking myself, “What would Jesus do? Can I just do that later?” I'm waiting for God to change me, but I'm making Him wait for me to change.

Broken In (a song)

So you don't mean what you say
When you promise to take me up high
Watch the airplanes
Carve a hole in the sky

And you don't ask why I cried
Or why I act like I've said too much
Don't know when I lie
You don't care what I do with my eyes

But I'm okay, I won't let you down
I've promised more things than I can count
Let's make it easy, say with two grins
We're broken in, and not breaking down

Maybe God kept things to himself
When he said I'd be just fine
Well there's a cork in my hand
And the carpet's soaked with wine

It's never you on the other end
I'm always waiting in line
But it's okay, I'll figure it out
Just broken in, and not breaking down

And it's okay if you're a little late
You've already come around
So I will wait, I promise you,
Until I'm broken down.

make & believe: a testimony

I'm sitting in my apartment and we opened a window earlier while we were cooking and now it's really, really cold. I don't remember September being so cold here last year, so I didn't bring a lot of jackets or warm clothes.
Add to that homesickness for the first time since fifth grade, 2-4 hours of sleep in the past few days, and seasonal depression which typically makes me as weepy and emotional as a post-partum first-time mom, and you've got yourself a good idea of how I'm feeling inside and out.

For these depressive episodes, I'm always thinking along the lines of, "I want to be a good person but I just can't." I want to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, whatever, but when things don't turn out right, I pretend something bigger got in the way. I blame it on exhaustion or hunger or PMS or my (tentative) partial hearing impairment, then go about thinking it's not really my fault, I didn't want it that way. It's my tiredness's fault. It's the bed's fault. It's the weather's fault. Because when I come around to blaming myself, I feel like a complete failure.

I guess that's where the whole sinner concept springs up and appeals to me, a piece of oddly given and twisted comfort. It's not my fault I'm a bad person.. I was just born that way. I can't change the way I am, something else has to affect and change me. Someone had to die for me.

God knows this more than I do, and it was so awkward to explain how my summer was at our class meeting yesterday night in the midst of all my weepiness and exhaustion. Because who really knows if I have any faith, or if it's just a psychological illusion? How do these things happen, and how do they present themselves? During the summer, I slowly destroyed almost everything spiritual that I built up freshman year because of a turn of events for the worse. There became a wall separating faith and real life, and logical reality struck me in the face. I didn't want to go back to Ann Arbor or church and I didn't want to hear another word about how great God is. "How is your relationship with God?" people still asked, and most of the time I lied. It's good. I'm feeling lost but I'm trying. I'm right on track with Bible study. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was just that I knew He was there but I didn't feel the need to pray or read the Bible anymore. I felt so strong and liberated and comfortable, and I never stopped to think I would be in any sort of trouble.

So it was almost creepy the way one day's short car ride back to campus as well as failed expectations broke through the denial I had built up in the past four months. Suddenly I found myself breaking down at 4 in the morning, not wanting to live anymore, then finally forced to run to God because I had no one else to turn to. And in the midst of defeat through prayer, despite all the rebellion and angst of this past summer, God led me back to him, and for that moment I knew I was safe.

A mustard seed of faith can move mountains, and then give you back your hope. God didn't cure the emotional train wreck in me to let me know what I was missing. Rather, it was the one thing I needed in order to be reminded again of His presence, that I can turn to Him in my darkest, sorriest hour and He'll listen. I'm not good, not fine at all, but I know I'm in the hands of someone who is.

permission to speak freely

However, most people at this particular church had been members for life. Nobody had ever asked them to step out of their pews before. To them, you went to church three times a week, and that was how you found Jesus and built your mansion up in heaven. My dad was the one getting paid to care for people. Why in the world would he ask them to do the same without getting paid for it?
His challenging the status quo did not sit well with some of the congregation. After a few months of tension and secret meetings, my dad was asked to resign his position at one of the church’s monthly business meetings.
And they didn’t ask kindly either. An avalanche of insults and lies tumbled down on my family and on another pastor in the church who supported my dad.
Things got ugly.
My mom started to cry.
People started yelling.
Filled with teenage impulsivity, I stood up. I was done not saying things in church.

Being a teenage girl and trying to preach (sorry, teach) unity to a Very Traditional Southern Baptist Church as they’re in the middle of splitting isn’t the best way to have a message received. The rage the church members were projecting on me floated across the sanctuary to the second row and burned up my face. I turned a Bloody-Mary mix red, a combination of anger and embarrassment.
Nobody said a word, but it was crystal clear I needed to leave. After regaining the feeling in my legs, I stormed out, slamming the heavy wooden door behind me. That night, I felt like not only had people abandoned us, but we had been abandoned by God. I wrote a letter to Him, addressing Him as “Nobody,” about the faith I was about to leave behind.
http://amzn.to/9xwIJ9

I sooooooooooooo want to read this. So much in fact that I've stuck it onto my 2010 reading list in place of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings because although I'm sure the latter is a very complicated and sentimental first memoir of six, I just couldn't get past the first page. And this book.. sounds so much more interesting.

Sometimes, I secretly wish I didn't like books. At least not enough for them to seep like spilled juice through the seams of my life.

make & believe: fall 2010

So much adding and dropping and last-minute tearing apart and gluing back together but this is it. I think.
Thank you Jess and my parents for encouraging me to go forward with Political Science, despite my having no background whatsoever in the field. Thank you Chester for exuberantly letting me know that Biology 101 is "easy," and for then telling me about it--it actually sounds interesting (anything about the environment, I'm down). Thank you Brent for signing up for Political Science and Statistics with me, then backing out of both, then showing me a better Statistics lecture you added instead, for which there was exactly one seat available, which I got (and shrieked and jumped and spazzed over). Thank you English, although you sound like you're about to kill me (again) this time with your poetic meters, just because you have become the anchor to all my indecisiveness.
I won't mind getting killed by what's in store this semester, as long as I try my best to nearly kill myself first. It's merely just the beginning, anyhow.

warheads & a teaser

Do you remember the nights we'd stay up just laughing, smiling for hours at anything?
-We The Kings

Today, I had Warheads for the first time in over ten years.

The last time I remember having them was when we still lived in Farmington Hills, my little kid neighbors and I biking around, pretending to be the Spice Girls (I was always Posh), and running down to the river to see who can fit the most lemon warheads into their mouths. Red nail polish and tingly tongues later, we'd skitter back home in fits of giggles.

I hadn't seen them since (and I've looked and looked), so it was crazy when I read that you can find them at Walgreens (where I rarely go), and they were actually there. Same five flavors, same rarity of blue raspberry, same red wrapper for the black cherry. I didn't remember how sour they could get though, or how quickly it passed, but I'm still saving the wrappers although I don't remember why I used to do that. Something about wishes or prizes maybe.

My sister didn't have the fortune of growing up with them, so I gave her one today and recorded it. For the first, initial second, she had the look of oh-this-isn't-so-bad on her face--then shrieking and stiffening and crying entailed. But I told her it would get sweet so it miraculously stayed in her mouth, although she told me she will never dare to eat another one again. Oh well, can't blame her.

Anyway, I've been working on a novelette with my advisor so here's the teaser!
“You Christians are so stiff-necked,” he muttered, bending down to pick up some crushed cups on the floor. “Don’t do nothin’ but sit around like a bunch of prudes.”
“It’s not like that,” I said, annoyed.
“Pretty intolerant bunch.”
“We reach out to as many people as we can.”
“Bet your church is all-Asian though.”
I stared at him. “It isn’t intentional, it just happens—”
“Yeah, well, nothing questionable you do is intentional, eh?” He glanced into a bottle of orange juice and tossed it away; it was still half full. “You know there’s a church in Brooklyn that serves prostitutes and drug dealers. You should try going there.”
“Grandpa! What are you trying to say?”
He pulled in his lower lip and stared up into the ceiling. “Exactly what I mean. Intolerant.” He motioned at the overturned table, the empty bowls, the stained carpet. “Clean that up.” And with a final grunt, he made his way down the hallway, kicking abandoned cups aside before he disappeared completely out of sight.
(PS Things get better.)

make & believe: the moon

Tonight I played Wii Tennis with a 7-year-old (more or less my sister's ex-boyfriend/arranged marriage prospect), and it was one of the best Wii matches I've ever had. He was SO good.

Asian parties are the reason why my parents go to Ann Arbor so often; I think maybe 90% of their Michigan friends live there. Which is fine with me, because I get to practice driving on these 50-minute trips. Sliding into the driver's seat for the drive home with every window and mirror initially fogged up, yet with the highway lights so bright and beautiful, I think it's absolutely tragic, beyond lives lost, when I hear about people falling asleep at the wheel late at night. But maybe that's just the amateur driver in me, eying the speedometer and every car around me like a hawk, still unused to the perils of merging and changing lanes.

I love doing a lot of thinking when I'm on the road (although sometimes it makes me miss signs and react late to traffic lights heh heh), and tonight I was thinking about what one of my friends recently asked me. It was a weird question; she asked, "Why did you wear that moon necklace for so long if your name has a sun in it?" (Just so you know, Cecilia means "blind" but my Chinese name means "sunrise.") I don't think she meant that necklaces were supposed to represent names; it just seemed ironic to her.

For the longest time, I had an unexplainable obsession with the moon. If I ever do get a tattoo, the first I'd get would be of the outline of a crescent moon. It's hard to find pretty crescent necklaces, and when I finally did find one in Shanghai, I wore it all the time as a constant reminder of how much I love where I'm from, as well as the powerful presence of the moon in my past. Little kids wished on the first star they see every night; I accidentally wished on Venus (it looks like a star ok), and then I wished on the moon when I couldn't find a star. Sometimes when it was too cloudy at night, I got anxious. Sometimes when it's only four or five in the evening, you can already spot the moon, and I got so giddy I couldn't keep it to myself.

"Where's the moon now? Is it hiding?" I looked up above the highway lights and, sure enough, there it was. You can't stare into a pitch black night and not search desperately for that well-known spot of white, especially if you know that it should be there. Over the years, it's become my guidance and my reassurance, the North Star to my own goals and dreams. For a brief period of time, my moon was replaced by a cross, and then by nothing when I realized I no longer needed physical representation of things already so deeply etched into my heart. When I was in the Bahamas, I saw the perfect sun necklace but I was terrible at bargaining. Then again the sun isn't the same though; it shines in a sea of its own light. I thought getting a sun could maybe represent the beginning of a new era, but if you hold onto it forever, there's going to be a heck long of a beginning with no middle or end.

Just like how my name means sunrise, I'm constantly getting excited about starting things and choosing the initial steps, but that enthusiasm often drains out and I'll need pushes and shoves to get through to the process, and then to the result. I need guidance and supervision probably much more than the average person, or I'll wander off into the pitch black unknown. And ironically for what it means to me, I need the moon to keep me grounded.

a world of chances

I've got a world of chances for you. I've got a world of chances, chances that you're burning through.
-Demi Lovato & John Mayer

I was at the library in my hometown, for the first time in seven years.
It felt strange not gliding through the Dewey Decimal system, searching for the cleanest copy of an often over-read textbook. That's how most of them were--marked to the brim with little notes and highlights, as if past medical students before me could not afford to waste a minute or even a second to take their noses out of the book and search for a piece of paper to write things down. I was probably the only one who did take the time, neatly scribbling down on a clean sheet anything necessary or that seemed to stand out in particular. And perhaps those extra minutes I put in to do so piled up enough to explain why I was near failing.

Classic - Fiction, was where I stood now, glancing at the hundreds of red-marked novels each trying to stand out on its own. It had been so long since I read a book for leisure, and I knew what I needed to find but I couldn't even remember if these books were alphabetized by title or author. Or number? I shook my head, smiling at the last idea. A librarian wheeled by, and I smiled at her.

"Looking for something, my dear?" she asked, her red hair in streaks of gray and her fingers running over the smooth cold metal of the book cart she was pushing.
"Oh no--oh, well, I'm looking for a Maya Angelou book?"
She came over, glancing at the shelves. "That's on the other side. It's alphabetized by author's last name."
Just what I needed to know. "Thanks, that helps a lot."
The librarian walked me to the other side, mouthing names on book spines and making sure I was following, when she randomly stopped and held up a crooked finger.
"Hold on," she said, pausing and looking me up and down. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"No, I don't think so."
"You look awfully familiar. Perhaps you go to a church nearby?"
"A church?" I repeated, staring up at one of the high shelves, a home for the Little Women series. "No, I don't go to church."
"Oh--but you did?"
"No. Well only a very long time ago."
"And--oh! You had at least a few stories published in the town newspaper."

I smiled at her, a confused smile, while she handed me Maya Angelou's first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The last time I ever got involved in any community activity was when I was sixteen, volunteering enthusiastically for the local newspaper that had published my childish stories from when I was twelve to fourteen. But writing had been a hobby then, something my parents believed was never important enough and would always come second to any life milestone or career path. Every time I mentioned another friend who said he would buy my book if I ever were to publish one, they simply smiled and asked me to pass the potatoes.
"It's an unstable job market for writers," was my mother's attempt to comfort me when I had to leave my volunteer job at the newspaper to focus on college applications and senior exams.
"No one reads for fun anymore," my dad supplied before they sent me off to college, handing over brand-new biology textbooks still wrapped in plastic from Amazon. "If you want to publish something, try a textbook."

My parents were both scientists, escaping into the realms of subatomic matter and evolution and not giving a second chance to unanswered religious prayers, even less of a first chance to dreams. I flipped open the worn copy of the memoir-novel, knowing my life and circumstances were nothing like Maya's; if anything, they were only the faded version of a struggle for identity. And identity I had found, in the bottom 50% of my med school class with textbooks for friends. It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't so terrible either.
"It was a long time ago," I said again to the librarian, already giving a small wave to leave. She might have remembered me because of my hair; it's always been the same odd shade of brown loosely poofing behind my ears and falling in my face, which was covered in half by big glasses. The very hair that took up school pictures for the yearbook and headshots next to my published newspaper stories. Or she might have remembered because of my flowery dress, similar to the dozens I had worn to the big local church in the early years of my childhood and the late of my parents' faith. I did not usually go out like this now but I was feeling particularly insecure on this day, hiding behind my hair. I was almost embarrassed to look like a med student for fear of others questioning my unscientific reading choices.
The librarian nodded. "If you ever publish a novel, I'll be sure to buy one," she told me kindly, her words almost an echo of my old friends'. And then she left, her cart making a squeaking noise as it disappeared completely into mountains of books on rusty shelves.

I thumbed through the memoir, then closed it to glance again at the front cover. It was a picture of a crow, or a black bird of some kind, with a background of red and a deep yellow sun at the bottom left corner. It looked mysterious and symbolic enough, but as time passed on, I was already beginning to feel that world slipping away from me, a world with hidden meanings behind literary language and characters full of promise and dreams.

In the same way, I slipped the book out of my hands and back onto the shelf. It would be safer there, unread and unspoken of until I find it again next time, on my own. I ran my fingers through my hair until all the loose strands were tied together in one, tight knot, and then, past glances staring and unstaring, I let myself go.

make & believe: the turning point

"Could you open the Coke bottles for me?" I asked, and while the man walked back toward the kitchen, I dropped the Red Rose snuff in my bag and zipped it up.
I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how guilt had dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a picture of the black Mary. I do not mean a picture of just any black Mary. I mean the identical, very same, exact one as my mother's. She stared at me from the labels of a dozen jars of honey. Black Madonna Honey, they said.
I looked at the honey jars, at the amber lights swimming inside them, and made myself breathe slowly.
I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.
I thought about the bees that had come to my room at night, how they'd been part of it all. And the voice I'd heard the day before, saying, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open, speaking as plain and clear as the woman in navy speaking to her daughter.
"Here's your Coca-Cola," the bow-tied man was saying.
I pointed to the honey jars. "Where did you get those?"
-Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

This is the turning point in the book, and I would explain the context and summary behind it, but it would just take too long, almost as long as the Wikipedia summary. Although if you care, the Amazon review does quite a good job: http://amzn.to/buWtZ2.

In my senior year of high school, I got to do beekeeping with some of my friends for an elaborate science project. Literally covered in an unappealing white suit from head to toe with a screen in front of your face for sight, I wouldn't say it was the coolest of experiences. But we got to work with hundreds, thousands of honeybees kept in bee hives that looked much like filing cabinets.

And at the end of the day, the man in charge would take us to the parking lot, ask us to remove our astronaut spacesuits, and reveal a tray of pieces of honeycomb with pure, non-processed, bee-made honey on them. There lasted an initial, few seconds while I pondered whether or not it was safe to put a piece of honeycomb in my mouth as its cleanliness and disinfected-of-wild-animals-ness was questionable, but then I would pop one in anyway. It was waxy and so sweet it almost made me wince and although I (guiltily) couldn't tell the difference from this honey to the processed, manufactured kind in a bear bottle, I never gained a more glorious respect for honeybees that day. It was like I'd been so consumed in my industrial, GMO-lathered world that I had forgotten there were other species out there, not wanting to attack you or be cuddled, but actually working to produce staple food and take care of one another in peace. Miraculously, without having to plant factories and destroy the ozone layer as they do so.

I wonder how many turning points there are going to be before a heavy one actually throws itself onto your back and can't get seizured off until you do something for it. How many until you get sick of your routine, scheduled-to-the-minute, philosophical how-how-why-why ass and finally hear the world screaming at you, in the same tone it yells at Gulf Oil spills and McDonald's double cheeseburgers.

You probably won't figure it out if you try too hard to listen. The world is just weird that way. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

All I Need (a song)

This is a song I wrote recently, the first I've written in a while. It wasn't meant to be so emo. But the tune is coming along, measure by measure. Happiness.

You're still alive
Well what a surprise
Years of dreaming just came back in tides

This time it's harder
We'll start from the end
And walk in reverse until it begins

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Goodbye, hello, goodbye

How long's it been
Where do we start
To collect our thoughts before we fall apart

But there's too much to say
Nothing comes out
When it's just you and me
I'm humbled easily

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Goodbye, hello, goodbye

Well my oh my
This just won't do
Swallow your smile and tell me the truth

Show me what I couldn't see
Pick up my pride and have faith in me
That's all I ask for, that's all I need
But with you, I'm too scared to concede

You had the world
I had a dime
You gave me strength
And as much as I tried
Every effort fell through at my feet
Hello, goodbye, goodbye.

the blender (she grew up)

She grew up on a side of the road
Keeping a comfortable distance
Free as a weed
Said sometimes love slips away.
Don't you know we're all alone now?
I'm content with loneliness.
PARAMORE, CARRIE UNDERWOOD, LADY ANTEBELLUM

We grow where there is room for us
Inelegantly and without my consent
A terrible mistake.
But nothing really matters
Life is just this way, broken
And it's okay to be unsure.
MIRANDA JULY

make & believe: used books

I ordered my first used book on Amazon a few days ago. Just like having never ordered before from Subway, I see ordering used books the same way I see having to choose every ingredient on your sub: more complicated and messy than it (probably) actually is.

But I decided to go ahead and get a used book because if it were newly bought it would be around $130 and I had found one for less than $20 (excuse the grammar). Ah-mazing, right?

Then an issue came up. Yesterday I got a package in the mail from the seller and it was the wrong book. Instead of Comparative Politics Today, it was Let's Weigh the Evidence. A book about which version of the Bible was the best or something. WOW. Of all the wrong genres of books to send me. Not only did I get hindsight bias, I thought God was punishing me for being an anti-religious, unforgiving brat these past months, even though "which Bible is the most accurate?" had nothing to do with "are you going to end up in hell?" The seller had awesome ratings, so I couldn't believe my bad luck.

Now an ordinary religious person would perhaps at this point pray and pray and hope and pray, please please that they would not have to send the book back or demand a refund, or that their actual book is still coming. Of course an ordinary person like me did none of these things, so I just emailed the dude and went to sleep.

Today I got the right book in the mail, and it was in better condition than I hoped for. I guess the seller did deserve a decent rating after all for that. The ordinary religious person would now be running around shouting, "Hallelujah! My prayer was answered! PTL!" at this point. But because nothing encouraged me to pray to begin with, I feel that if anything, this event only further chucked my faith into oblivion and irrelevance. What a world, really.

Be careful buying used books.

make & believe: mornings

After some soul-searching, which involves staying up late and waking up early to write things and chug vitamin water I find in the fridge, I've only achieved one newfound discovery about myself and that is that I am turning into a morning person.

Not really, but I definitely wish I were. Lack of internal assessments and indie films to edit,screw up,repeat means that I can no longer function late at night too well. Well that's all right. Caffeine is for the mornings anyway (which is irrelevant, because I am staying away from caffeine indefinitely).

Never understood why people wake up at 6 in the morning.. just to jog. Why not save your energy for work? If unemployed, why not jog later? No one is really around at 8. No one is even really around at 6 in the evening (okay, more cars are but why does it matter?). I've asked myself to try this at least once this summer--to not wake up at 8 but rather at 6 to soul-search around my neighborhood instead of, heaven forbid, in my bedroom scribbling away in a notebook. I haven't succeeded yet, because I can't sleep until at least 1, and I need my hours.

So for the first half of today, I wake up, cook, and write while listening to my sister's blasting of Hannah Montana's newest single. Quite plain, but the rest of the day will be unusual. And it's not bad, really. The single.


(Maybe the lyrics are.)

One more week until the Bahamas. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

the blender (after all)

After all this time
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation;
And watch me run with it
With all the strength that you could lend.
LIFEHOUSE, RELIENT K

We are afraid
What the universe is for and why
It is here
Hopelessly boring and endlessly fascinating,
Would you like to stay forever?
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
DOUGLAS ADAMS, ALBERT EINSTEIN, JOHN GREEN, MULAN

make & believe: a lovely conversation

Dentist: So you're in college? Where do you go?
Me: I go to U of M.
Dentist: Wow, what do you go there for? (What kind of question is that? I go there for an education, thank you very much.)
Me: Um, I'm an English major?
Dentist: Huh. Which campus?
Me: Ann Arbor.
Dentist: ..Oh. I thought you were going to say Dearborn.

WOW. I think next time I'll say Harvard.

comfort (3/4)

(unrevised)

Mom called me ten minutes before Stats class; we were going to take an exam today and I was cramming like mad since I had been up all night comforting my roommate Daisy, who had recently got into some kind of big fight with her best friend or boyfriend or somebody. My recollection of details on such a topic would have been clearer if I were
1) not overcaffeinated
2) to have gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before
3) not studying for statistics.
Unfortunately I was none of the three, and I ignored the phone call as I flipped pages in my lecture notes, nearly tearing the bind off. A few seconds later, I got a text message from Mom so I opened it. It said: "CALL BACK IMMEDIATELY. Thanks :)."

"I have an exam in nine minutes," I snapped when she answered, without looking up from the formula for how to calculate standard deviation.
"Wonderful! I called to wish you good luck," was her cheerful reply.
"Mom, you don't even know my major, let alone the dates I have exams."
"You're a film major," she said easily, and I was too distracted to correct her this time. "But anyhoo, Allie darl', I have great news! I've decided to visit you this weekend! Being cooped up alone in this ol' Chicago hole has really drained my youthfulness, and I need to get out!"
My mind was cloudy and half studying my notes and all, but it definitely managed to catch and process this absurd new information pretty quickly. "Really--visit me? You're pretty funny." I checked my watch. Six minutes.
"Am I? It must be because of my new psychiatrist! He's got quite the sense of humor. How 'bout you pick me up at eleven in the morning at JFK this Friday?"
By the specifics of her ramble, it was clear that Mom had already booked a plane ticket and, due to her recent obsession with being in control of her own life for once, was probably already all packed up as well. I closed my notebook and sighed, defeated. There was no reason to deny that she was more excited to see Ella than me. This past Monday, she nearly choked while popping her pills when I told her over Skype that I might have found the girl. Or woman. Whatever.
"Fine," I said, deciding that I would deal with the worries of how to pay for a cab to take me all the way to JFK and back, later. "See you then."
"Yippee, I'm so excited! Love you!" Mom yelled before I snapped my phone shut and set it on silent just in time for class. The hallways were getting crammed as students filed out of the lecture halls, and it was a miracle that I could still hear myself think.
"Sixty-three, ninty-five, ninty-nine point seven," I whispered to myself. "Ella Moy, The Stirrer...Dad."

The good thing with taking exams though, is that it isn't like in the movies when the sleep-deprived, troubled character gets too distracted by personal issues and ends up failing. Instead, the stuff on the test is all you can think about while you take it, and it's only afterward when all the problems of the world catch up to you.

the remedy

He looked at me and said these words: "You are cured."
He was the same person who threw a truck at my heart and told me to drive it while I was down, fake-heaving, asking for one more minute, one more chance, one more shot at cleaning myself up but-may-I-first-take-a-break after years on break.

And I glanced at him in return and said, "How?"
Because my future was no different from the dirty clothes in my bedroom, behind a closed door. Hanging on a chair, under the bed, in plain sight, on my desk on top of my Bible to hide it from my atheist parents. I want to be a teacher, a lawyer, a federal forensic science research associate with an emphasis in phonetics. I want three kids, but I want the least of my worries to be money, which will either result in a strike through the possibility of becoming a teacher or convincing two of them to avoid college. Or not having three kids. But then I remember that all kids have dads, and hopefully theirs will stay. And speaking of teachers, who talk a lot, I need to talk more, and write less, or I might as well become a mute struggling writer who loves writing until I end up on the streets with not a dime, much less three kids to raise.
I fear forgetting to pay my rent, when I haven't even moved into my apartment.
I fear that break sucks all the productivity I have in me, and maybe that's why every time I transition to the next step--middle school, high school, college--I don't know what to make of my summer to prepare and end up making the biggest mistakes my first year. Then I don't know what to do with myself after the first year, before the second year, so I flip a coin, heads for change, tails for change.

And that's when he pointed to the trash can of my mistakes and said, "I can show you how to learn."
The trash can is under my desk, on its side, contents half-spilled out. I can pick up my clothes, I can throw them in the laundry basket, but the trash can is too dirty to touch. Sometimes I'll have to resort to throwing things away in another room's bin, which my parents oversee. Other times, I don't want to get up so I'll just throw them in the lopsided trash can with an overhand instead of an underhand, because I forget, and that's why I miss so often. And even if I make it in, the trash can is still lopsided and I can see everything in it without having to walk up to it and peer down.

After all these years, I still didn't know how to learn. You pick it up, it falls back down. You try to ignore it, and it shrieks for your attention. You do learn, but you don't get how you got there, and that right there is the problem. You can't just go to sleep in a sea of your clothes and wake up to find them washed, dried, and folded neatly at your feet. You can't get rid of your trash if the trash bin is on its side. You can't live with your parents forever. You just can't.

So I said in reply, "I'd like that."
And then: change. He didn't tell me to clean my room. He didn't ask me to uncover the Bible or find my missing sock, and he didn't advise me that forensic science with an emphasis in phonetics is not the best path for a person of my eccentricities. He left my trash can alone, and I didn't think to pick it up. But I knew then what I never knew before, and that was that I was cured.

comfort (2/4)

There's an especially bizarre small cafe in New York's Lower East Side, where the abandoned little brokendown houses once occupied by immigrants meets the newly renovated store buildings and more cheerful graffiti-slathered alleys. The cafe is called The Stirrer, and it's the last recorded place where an alleged Ella Moy linked to Chicago worked, according to our family lawyer. I had already gone to a law firm and a night club looking for an Ella Moy but the law firm said she quit almost two years ago and the night club's Ella Moy, a bartender, was patient with me but had no idea what I was talking about.

Inside, dim Christmas lights lined the ceiling, and the geometric walls were painted either red, purple, or yellow. Purposely mismatched but equally leveled chairs and tables sat next to each other in what appeared to be a strategic mess, and all the baristas wore sleek brown uniforms and hats shaped like teacups.

I had gone there twice although chickened out both times on asking for Ella Moy because the people there seemed so hostile. The coffee and pastries were surprisingly good for a rundown cafe in a rundown neighborhood, but this time, I promised that I would request not for a vanilla latte but a person.

The stone-faced cashier with unbrushed brown hair greeted me sourly at the counter. I said, "Um hi.. I'm looking for someone named Ella Moy. I think she might, um, work here?"
She made a face at me. "What do you need her for?" she asked suspiciously.
"Uh," I said, expecting a vague, passing answer. "I just need to ask her something?"
The cashier stared at me for a few silent seconds before she, without turning her head, yelled: "Vana!"
"Okay!" A blonde woman in her mid-twenties immediately ran out from behind the Employee Only door, panicky. "What's the matter?"
"This girl wants to see Moy," the cashier said, pointing at me, and they both gave me the once over, twice.
"What's it about?" Vana asked, gesturing us to move away from the counter. The man behind me took a step forward to order, clearing his throat.
"Well," I said, thinking that I might as well tell the truth. "Apparently my father was supposed to meet her a year ago, but he passed away. So they sent me here to see her."
"Ah huh," Vana crossed her arms and ran her tongue across her teeth. "Who's that?"
"My dad?" I repeated, and she just smirked at me. "Um, his name is William Parkley?"
"Oh...ohh! Billy?!" Vana exclaimed in a high tone, dropping her arms. "Noo! He's dead?"
"Do you know him?"
"Billy Parkley, I know him," Vana told me, suddenly nodding intently and putting a hand to her mouth. "A good man. Wow, I'm sorry for that. What happened, eh?"
"It was a motorcycle accident," I said, turning towards the purple wall next to us. "How did you know him?"
"What a pity." Vana just frowned at me. "Okay, I tell Ella. She'll meet you come next Sunday."
"Well, okay," I said slowly. I didn't know what else to say as Vana was already teetering off in her 6-inch brown alligator skin stilettos. The sour cashier turned to look at her.
"Billy Parkley's daughter," Vana told her, and the cashier raised her head towards me, surprised. "And guess what? He's passed."
"For real?" was the shocked reply. Vana nodded gravely, smiling wistfully at me, before disappearing back through the door she ran out from.

I took one last look at the mismatched colors of the cafe, and then I left.