Ice Storm

A huge winter storm is working its way through St. Louis today, starting with freezing rain covering the city in a layer of ice. Classes were canceled for the first time since 1983. Tomorrow is rumored to bring 11 inches of snow. I hope classes are canceled tomorrow too!

Fireworks

"You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July
Cause baby you're a firework"
- Katy Perry

In the first time in 30 years, WashU had a fireworks show, this time to launch the WashU Lunar New Year Festival. Some friends and I got a pretty decent view from inside the top floor of the library as we avoided the cold. Here's the picture from inside.

At the moment, I'm really digging Katy Perry's Firework song. In a way, it's upping the ante from "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine." God, please ignite my light.

Sculpture Park and Magic House

The fun thing about being a second semester senior "riding off into the sunset" (as my professor says) is that I am only taking 12 credit hours and have Fridays off! Today we went on an epic day trip around the city of Kirkwood, MO. First, we wandered Laumeier Sculpture park trying to interpret the meaning of the art pieces as ridiculously as possible. Next, we drove over to the Magic House and played amongst the children as we explored science in fun ways. Finally we hit up Red Mango for the most delicious frozen yogurt in St. Louis, and got some Chick-fil-a from West County Mall. T'was a good day to say the least :)

Burning sky

The sunset was unbelievably red tonight that it looked like it was burning. This photo does not do justice to show the beauty and glory of the sunset.

Energy

Over the weekend, my baby (car) ran out of battery twice. When trying to turn on the ignition, the poor thing was crying out to me saying "Ughhhh I'm dyyyyinnnggg." Yep, just like that. We were able to jump start it, a new skill that I've picked up this week. The auto repair man said it wasn't the alternator, but just a very old battery. The battery has been replaced, so it is full of energy and running great now.

Is there a saying out there that a car is like its owner? Well, there should be. Over the course of this week, I've been feeling particularly low on energy and haven't been able to function to the best of my ability. It affects my cognitive functioning, preventing me from being able to process my thoughts in conversation and in strategy (spades, etc). My guess is it is a combination of lack of sleep and an unbalanced diet. I need to replace my battery... this routine is not healthy for me and it isn't glorifying God.

Perm

Diana and Kevin had a bet that if she gained 7 lbs, then she could perm his hair. The messed up scale in his bathroom said she gained 7, but it turns out it was just 2 lb haha. Anyway, he "lost" the bet, so we permed his hair using a salon kit.

Lesson of the day: Accountability can be fun :)

Uber Fail

Using the leftover cheese platter from tonight's floor programing, I cooked my first homemade mac-n-cheese. The recipe called for olive oil, flour, milk and cheese, but I don't think I made the sauce properly. The texture of the sauce is very clumpy and grainy with a strong flavor of olive oil. Instead of heating the olive oil and flour on medium heat, I put it on high, and instead of slowly mixing in the milk, I dumped it all in. That's probably why the texture of the sauce was so repulsive. Uber fail...

Lesson of the day: Don't rush processes that need time.

Soil

Our community service event for DSP rush was filling these plastic bins with soil for future seedlings at the greenhouses in Forest Park. It was really random, but really fun.

This reminded me of the parable of the sower in Mark 4, where the sower plants seeds that grow differently depending on the type of soil that it lands in. I have to remember that my duty is to sow seeds and hope for the best, but ultimately God decides what type of soil is in a person's heart at the time.

Settlers of Catan

In the last week or so, my friends and I have played Settlers of Catan every night. My favorite past time is playing board games, especially Settlers. What I love about this game is not just the strategic planning needed, but also the negotiating of resources.

The better you are at politicking, the better you fare. If you ruthlessly seek revenge and make moves to spite the other players, the less people like you and are more likely to gain up on you. On the other hand, the more gracious you seem to others, the more generous they will be to you in your negotiations. So in a way, winning is all about how you play the game.

Guide

Michele came to visit! We lived together the summer after my freshman year. I love this girl for many reasons. 1) She helped me get through a low point in my life. 2) She proves that nothing is impossible.

At large group tonight, the speaker spoke on how God is like a mute guide on our journey in life. He brings us places, but may or may not explain where we're there. He'll also tell us just enough so that we can take another step. "Revelation is the gift of obedience." I must obey what God tells me to do, and he will reveal more afterward. I need to obey God in starting this GIG, and trust that he will help me along the way.

Snow Fall

SNOWWW! A beautiful 11 inches of snow fell last night and covered our campus in a thick blanket of powdery goodness.

Mingling

New rushees walked around aimlessly while trying not to look awkward in a sea of new faces. I love it. We had our first rush event for DSP this afternoon called Meet the Chapter. I wonder how much being in the working world is like being at today's Meet the Chapter. If you think about it, both scenarios have strangers wandering around trying to introduce themselves and make connections with each other. Therefore, DSP is training us to become better business people by having this rush event! Brilliant.

First Day of the Last Semester

Classes started today! What I've learned as a seasoned student is that God blesses me with good grades the most when I put furthering His Kingdom before getting good grades. The more I turn down people in order to study, the worse grades I make. And its the semesters when I'm in over my head that God swoops down and showers me with grace. He stretches time for me so that I can finish things in time, and he helps draw out my memory during exams. So what does that mean for me this semester? Prioritize relationships.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I feel like MLK Jr. is the modern day David - a man after His heart. If I got anything out of reading the Old Testament, it is that God is a God of justice and restoring things back to the way they should be.

Tonight was the 24th anniversary of WashU's Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration, held in Graham Chapel. It was an evening filled with accomplished African-American students and staff paying tribute to the fight against inequality.

One of our fellow students mentioned that her dad is from Jamaica and her mom is from India, and if it weren't for Martin Luther King Jr., her parents' interracial marriage could not happen and she wouldn't standing in front of us tonight. Also, if it weren't for MLK Jr., she would not be blessed with the many opportunities that led her to study at WashU with us. Mm so real.

Sleeping Disorder Clinic

Went to see the King's Speech at Chase Plaza tonight. Chase Plaza is an amazing venue with marbled floors and large columns and chandeliers. They even offered us mints as we were leaving the theater. I felt so unworthy to be there.

As for the King's Speech, I liked that even though King George VI has such a stutter, he was able to deliver the words that his country needed to hear. You know who that reminds me of? Moses. You know what that means for me? No excuses.

As for this random picture of the day, there happens to be the WashU Sleep Disorder Clinic at Chase Plaza too, which I didn't even know existed. All you insomniacs out there, perhaps you could check it out.

RA Prom

Tonight we had our RA prom at the Magic House in Kirkwood. The food was fantastic and the DJ was great. Overall, a great night, especially with bonding with the staff at Bailey's Chocolate Bar afterward.

People are moving back on campus, and almost half my floor is back already! That means second semester is right around the corner, and I'm really excited.

You know, I almost feel like an elderly person. We learned in psychology that senior citizens tend to focus the rest of their life enjoying the close relationships that they already have and invest less time building new ones. Freshman year, I almost judged the seniors for not reaching out to the freshmen enough because they spent their efforts on their existing relationships. Now, I totally understand where they're coming from.

Sizeism and Lookism

Full day of RA training today. There were a few new terms discussed today that I hadn't really thought about before.

Sizeism and Lookism. Sizeism is the discrimination towards people who are too skinny/fat and too short/tall. Lookism is the discrimination towards others based on their appearance.

For example, one could assume that the people in the picture above are 1. wealthy and 2. really smart. However, they could be here on student loans and actually be in a lot of debt. In addition, they could just be random people from St. Louis walking on WashU's campus and not have almost-ivy education. This is an example of lookism.

Turns out, I'm very prone to lookism. Whoops. Need to work on that!

Unplugged

I had a realization tonight while unplugging my Christmas lights that decorate my suite. The lights will go out if I unplug the cord. Similarly, if one of these light bulbs broke off from the cord, it wouldn't shine its light.

This instantly reminded me of John 15, where Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Only if we remain in him can we bear fruit. If a branch breaks off the vine, it is removing itself from its source of life.

I have this tendency to try to further the Kingdom of God on my own without God. Silly, right? All I am doing is trying to be that light bulb that glows wherever it is placed, but if I am not plugged in to the source of power, how can I shine?

Sauces

As some of you know, I really love sauces. Sometimes, I'll actually love a food because of the sauce. For example, I eat steak because there is A1 sauce. I eat sushi not for the fish but for the wasabi and soy sauce. The same goes for oysters and the lemony cocktail sauce.

That is why I love Five Guys more than In-N-Out. Don't get me wrong, In-N-Out is fantastic and I truly love it. However, Five Guys has A1 sauce. Therefore, Five Guys > In-N-Out.

Family Photo

Since I'm leaving tomorrow, we decided to take our family photo today.

This morning it was announced that schools were canceled today, only to be followed with another day of no school tomorrow. As you can imagine, my 15 year old brother was ecstatic. I'm glad I got to spend more time with him at home this break.

Going back to school tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about the upcoming semester. Pray for a safe travels!

Snow and Ice

As I mentioned in the last post, there was a snow storm that passed through Atlanta last night, leaving at least four inches of snow covered by a layer of ice. My brother and I were planning to make a snow Totoro, but the ice was too hard to work with. However, we busted out the sled and slid down the road in front of our house. We were whooping and hollering so the neighbors, who are accountants, came out and joined in on the fun. It was really encouraging to see that adults can have fun sledding too.

We also made dinner tonight for the family because we're learning how to cook dishes other than baked goods. Our meal was fishball soup, miso salmon, mango salad, and zucchini bread. The fishball soup was a little too peppery, the miso salmon was not cooked all the way, and the avocado in the mango salad was nearly expired. However, it was still edible and delicious, and we learned our lesson for the next time!

I'm sad, tomorrow will be my last whole day at home before I head back to school. It has been a great winter break spent with the family, and I'll definitely miss hanging out with my brother. At the same time, I'm really excited for next semester! It'll be my last, and hopefully it'll be great.

Kamehameha

Remember way back when we had great cartoons on tv? I watched Doug, Hey Arnold, Pokemon, and Dragon Ball Z just to name a few. Well, while flipping through HBO, my brother and I found Dragon Ball Z, the movie! Memories of following Goku on his adventure to search for the seven Dragon Balls came flooding back. Yet, I hardly remembered the names and faces of the actual characters, so we were constantly googling images of the original characters. For example, Lucy Liu played Chi Chi, Goku's girlfriend, and Yun-Fat Chow played Master Roshi, but neither looked like the original cartoon characters.

After the movie, we did some light painting with a 20 second shutter speed and a flashlight. Today's photo collage is a sequence of a Kamehameha as a tribute to Dragon Ball Z.

Oh, there is also a big winter snow storm that is making its way through Georgia right now. I love how in the South, the whole city shuts down when it snows - schools are closed, companies cancel work, events end earlier, etc. Anyway, expect to see some snow photos tomorrow.

I wake up in the morning with a... chicken biscuit!

Chick-fil-a is launching a new product: the spicy chicken biscuit. If you're an avid fan of Chick-fil-a like I am, you probably woke up early to pick up your free spicy chicken biscuit this past week before the official launch of the product.

Personally, I'm still more of an original chicken biscuit type of gal, but that's because I'm more averse to spicy foods. It definitely has a buffalo kick to the flavor, which compliments the biscuit rather well. Overall, I'd say it is a great product for spicy-lovers and an average product for the rest of us.

Building Up (A Chair)

The theme of today seems to be "building up" in many respects.

1) Building a chair: My brother and I bought a new computer chair from Ikea, which needs to be assembled. Josh, the potential engineer of the family quickly built the chair in approximately 15 minutes. Check out the hilarious Ikea instruction manual figurine. Gotta love the Swedish.

2) Rebuilding my photo editing skills: The simple 3-photo collage took me two hours to put together. It has been a year and a half since I've worked with a photo editing program. Yeah, it's been too long. I had to rebuild my editing abilities starting in Paint, which severely limits what I can do. Thank God that I remembered I had a different version of photoshop.

3) Rebuilding my photography skills: I haven't really shot in over a year. Last October, my Canon 30D broke at our Intervaristy's Fall Conference. I just got my Nikon D90 for Christmas a couple weeks ago. My photo skills have gotten rusty in this past year. Hopefully this project 365 will bring me back up to pace and beyond!

Project 365 attempt #2

A few years ago, I attempted Project 365, a plan to take a picture each day for a year. That kind of failed miserably, but it was still interesting to look back on most of the year in photos.

One of my friends that I met at Chinese Missions Conference many years back successfully did his project 365, and I love his work! Throughout the year, I could see his photo skills improve and I got to read what was going on in his life and how that tied in with the picture. I think this format will make be a better blogger overall. So here we go!



Being the easily-influenced-by-advertising-person that I am, after watching one of those credit card commercials where the dad watches his child reading a book under a tent, I decided to make a blanket fort with my brother.

We tied a string from the top of his lighthouse to the top rack of his closet, then another string from the tv cabinet to the middle of the original string. Then we threw on two sheets to make the cover of the fort.

Given that the white string is only about 2mm thick, it is virtually invisible and we often find ourselves walking into it ahahaha. After many incidents of knocking ourselves backwards, we decided to put up some hangers and yellow paper as CAUTION signs.

These past few days we've been having sleepovers and talking about our childhood and catching up on life. This blanket fort has brought us closer in many ways. So thank you credit card company whose name I forgot for giving me the idea of building this fort and giving me this opportunity to bond with my 15 year old brother.

One Semester

And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
- Chris Tomlin "Our God"

This song shall be my anthem for this next semester. One more semester left in college, one more semester to make the most of my relationships with people. One semester is enough for our God to do big things, because he is that powerful.

Carrying a Name

Kristi Yamaguchi's brick in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park (Passion Day 4)

Remember her? I actually don't. But her name precedes my memory of her - Kristi Yamaguchi, one of America's top female figure skaters.

What Louie Giglio was saying for the last main session at Passion was the way we carry a name. In the world that we live in, when we get excited about a product or person, we talk about it and carry the name. In turn, that product or person becomes famous. Facebook, Coach, Nike, Abercrombie and Fitch, Sephora, Macy's, Target, Madonna, Glee, Brad Pitt, Kristi Yamaguchi, etc are all big names.

Louie's invitation for us is to be even more excited about God and carrying Jesus' name to campus than we are about other names. There are enough people talking about the hottest things right now. The campus doesn't need more of that, it needs more of Jesus!

We run with passion for your name we run - "Chosen Generation" by Chris Tomlin

Inheritance

One red bowl= Feeding one child for a year (Passion Day 3)

"We will inherit the earth and everything in it. So why waste your time trying to obtain it now? Your time is limited." - John Piper (paraphrased)

This was quite convicting. I often find myself in a place where people ask me for a ride to places, but I come up with excuses so that I don't have to waste my gas, money, or time. I try hoarding my resources that I'll be receiving later anyway, silly. I lost sight that 1) God blessed me with a car to be used for caring for others 2) Gas, money and time are also resources that he's left for me to steward for his Kingdom.

What really hit me was the Matthew 25 passage that Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." I haven't been treating other people as if they were Jesus. Time for a change.

Strongholds

Towels donated to the homeless of Atlanta (Passion Day 2)

Beth Moore spoke about the mind this morning in Romans 12:2. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Repentance is defined as changing the mind, which ultimately changes behavior.

What really spoke out to me was when she defined strongholds (2 Cor 10:3-5 defeating strongholds and taking captive every thought to obey Christ) as anything other than Christ that has a mastery/power/strong hold on your mind so that you can't control. This is bondage.

At Intervaristy conferences, I struggled with the concept of bondage and needing to be freed. To be honest, it was fairly vague until Beth clarified it as a stronghold today, and now it is so obvious! Ask me what that is and I might just tell you. But we must free our minds from strongholds and take captive our thoughts for Christ in order to hear God.

1/1/11

Today is one, one, one one.
One is the beginning. New. A fresh start.
Today is the beginning, of a new fresh start. Today is 1/1/11.
- Passion 2011 Day 1

I'm finally able to attend Passion Conference, held in (almost) my backyard in Downtown Atlanta. They presented us with the quote above, saying that that's a lot of one's, and God tends to like numbers (he named a whole book after it). So today must mean something special. It is a day where we can start anew with a blank slate. But we shouldn't bring the old, old, old, into the new, new, new.

Then, what is it that I want for this year?

1. Be faithful.
In marriage, when you say, "I do," you're also saying, "I don't" to billions of others.
When you say, "I do," to Jesus, you should also be saying, "I don't," to others.
- Louie Giglio.
To be honest, I've been an adulterer lately--moreso nowadays when I have HBO at my fingertips. I get caught up in what the media preaches - love, sex, money and success. I need to prove through my actions that Jesus is more than enough for me.

2. Partner with God
It's funny (and sad) how much I desire to further the Kingdom of God, yet try to do it without Him. I think of people that I want to reach out to and different ways of bringing characteristics of heaven to earth, but often forget to do it with God. Passion has reminded me that God is the one with all the power and the ability to bring the dead to life.

More to come.