Saturday, January 30, 2010

Abundance


I cleaned out my desk today and found:

- 6 Gluesticks
- 7 Sharpies
- 8 Erasers
- 23 Highlighters
- 10 Red and blue pens
- 11 Black ballpoint pens
- 12 Black gel pens
- 8 pack of colored pens
- 1 6-colors-in-one pen
- 31 Pencils
- 11 Stabilo felt tip pens

...that all work perfectly fine. And all of this is in excess or in storage, meaning I don't actively use these everyday. That's pretty ridiculous.

I have to admit, I couldn't help by feel guilty having all of this knowing that there are kids out there who lack the basic necessities in school. I really don't know what to do with it all...

Anybody need/want some writing utensils? I am in abundance which means they are meant to be given away.

Friday, January 29, 2010

;D

Praise God!!!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

SNOW!

Wow, it is snowing pretty hard right now. It started about an hour ago and there's also a sheet of white covering the ground. The flakes are GINORMOUS too!

So. Beautiful.

BBQ Pork Bun

I received the cutest/funniest email today. Our fellowship is trying to sell BBQ Pork Buns as a fundraiser for World Vision's Haiti relief fund, and the event services responded asking "What is a pork bun?" Hehe! I forgot that not everyone is acquainted with traditional Asian baked goods.

Anyway, stop by the DUC between 11am-1pm on Friday to buy some pork buns.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Joining the Dark Side

by joining Twitter.

Actually, my marketing teacher recommended it. Right now, many companies are using social networking sites such as facebook and twitter to interact with customers. Since many people in the marketing industry are a bit older, they're looking for young talent that is familiar with these sites. "If you're applying for marketing jobs, put on your resume that you have a Twitter, seriously!"

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Bread

The last week of winter break my brother and I made our own bread from scratch. First we made white bread, then banana bread, and finally cinnamon raisin bread. They were all delicious and beautiful except for the banana bread which failed miserably.

Some pictures. I miss my brother *sigh*






First Day of Classes

... was AWESOME!

I started the day off with some deelicious Honey Bunches of Oats w/ Peaches and John 5. Daily Bread check.

First class was Environmental Ethics which is TOTALLY what I'm learning in this stage in life. I can't believe how perfectly it fit. I signed up for it needing an ethics class and businesses are now moving towards the Green trend, so I signed up for this. What I didn't plan was to have Urbana change my worldview this way and to have a class that complements what I'm learning now. Good classes check.

Also, I got to genuinely catch up with many friends today, so I am SO happy. I couldn't stop smiling all day. Relationships check.

I'm excited for classes and ready to take on this semester. Here we go!

Monday, January 18, 2010

From the ATL to the STL

I'm back! Had a wonderful and hilarious dinner and a movie with friends tonight. I feel welcomed back :) AND bought a Ken Ken 365 desk calendar on sale at Borders. Ken Ken is essentially Sudoku + small math problems inside. One time when looking through the New York Times for Sudoku, all I found was Ken Ken and since then I've been a huge fan. Now I have a year's worth of brain sharpening and entertaining puzzles.

On another note, hopefully I will be adjusted and ready to tackle academics by Tuesday. Winter Break was too fun.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Yay WashU

My brother's homeroom has a project where they have to make lasting change on one day in April. It's a bit ridiculous, but his homeroom teacher has narrowed it down to "Helping those in need." I suggested having a Fair Trade Fair, where there would be slideshows and keynote speakers informing his school on the importance of Fair Trade and how to get people out of slavery... helping those who can't help themselves. Hopefully after that, the school could purchase only Fair Trade produce for their cafeteria, or some other systematic change in the school. My brother kind of shot down the idea saying it probably wouldn't pass.

Then I receive an email from Chancellor Wrighton addressing the Strategic Plan for Sustainable Operations (read here). From a marketing point of view, this is great PR for Chancellor Wrighton and for WashU. But from a person who has been trying to learn more about justice and caring for God's creation, seeing all this systematic change actually happen is really amazing. Granted, WashU is not perfect at this (e.g. replacing our landscape every two weeks) and has many things to improve, but I am really proud of their vision and actually implementing change. I hope that one day my brother's school can learn from schools like WashU in contributing to being better stewards of God's creation.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

2010 Goals

As you may remember from my post on goals, I have yet to form my next goals.

A few weeks ago, I went to the chiropractor, and he told me, "Due to your bad posture, your right kidney is weaker than your left kidney, and your large intestine is stressed out." I've decided that among other things, a fitter and stronger body could help me with my bad posture. Also, after watching the last episode of Biggest Loser, I was extremely motivated to hit the gym. All this to say, my main goal for 2010 is to take care of my health.

Second main goal for the year is to do some more research on ethical consumption. I've already taken a step (spontaneously) to become a vegetarian, but now I'm intentionally taking the next step to becoming a humanitarian and living out justice in my everyday actions.

And... cut down on playing Sudoku.
-----------------------------------------
*edit*
And be bolder...

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Pet Peeve

One of my biggest driving pet peeves is when people want to change lanes and don't turn on their blinker before they do so. I'm actually okay with people not using their blinker at all, because they're just foolish. But it bugs me tremendously when people blink as they're turning, but not before.

If you don't communicate to other people what you want to do, how are they supposed to know what you want?

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Vegetarian Turned Humanitarian

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

That's a question I've been thinking about, and the answer is not humans.

At Urbana, Intervarsity's student missions conference, I was challenged to live justly. I have to admit, justice was a lofty concept that I didn't quite know how to do. To me, it is taking care of the refugee, widow and orphans, the oppressed in society, because that's part of how God defines justice. However, that's a hard thing to do daily as a student. The business track challenged me with a concept called ethical consumption.

Ethical consumption is the application of our moral values and ethical standards to our consumer habits.
- Everyday Justice by Julie Clawson

The things we buy, the food we eat, the beverages we drink and the clothes we wear can be linked to human trafficking and/or modern day slavery without us knowing. I want to be an intentional consumer. Granted, I still have much to learn and research, such as which products are produced ethically and justly. But this is the beginning of my adventure. Thankfully, being a vegetarian for half a year has helped me with being aware of what I eat.

Shift demand, don't boycott. I realize that being a vegetarian, or humanitarian, or whatever can't work if it is just one person. There needs to be a large enough of a population to shift demand to ethically made products. Will you join me in living justly?