eeeeee!

^ a la my darling Ms. Young :)

Happy happy joy joy! So, the love of my life (aka Mr. Zhang's girlfriend) got me a "Book of Happy" for my birthday, so I could write down things that make me happy or just happy things in general. I unfortunately found the notebook so cute already that I haven't ventured to fill it with my ugly handwriting LOL but I wanted to share 5 things here that are happy-fying things! So:

1. Sometimes, when I'm walking in the city with my iPod on and I'm listening to upbeat songs...I just feel like breaking out in dance and I can hardly contain myself as the most that I can do is just tap my feet and bob my head every once in a while. But I really wish sometimes my life were a movie (okay not really, I like my privacy kthx) JUST SO I can have music play in the background whenever I wanted and I could just break out into song/dance if I felt like it and it would be absolutely positively normal. For now, coming back to the privacy of my room, blasting music, and singing&dancing will have to do.

2. I LOVE YELLOW. I don't know if you've noticed, (it's 99.9% likely you have), I LOVE YELLOW. Yesterday, wearing a yellow dress to work put me in a really good mood. And on the way home, I saw yellow roses outside the Foggy Bottom metro station. And my bed is yellow! And I love my bed :) So yay!

2.5. I'm sure everyone has heard this by now, but it's such a cute song, I couldn't resist:

3. I think I've found something that I really want to do starting in the fall! (I'm pretty sure, but not 200% sure, so until then, you can just ask me personally about it haha) But basically, I think I've found an opportunity to volunteer and actually see a tangible impact on people's lives. When it comes to volunteering, I think it's always been a nice idea, and something I whole-heartedly wish I could do, but I just hadn't found the right niche/cause yet. But after visiting the DC branch today, I think this might be it! So, please pray for me, that I would relentlessly pursue it as I work out my various time commitments for this upcoming year, because I don't want to lose this kind of motivation come the school year! I always seem to look forward to the school year/a new semester with all these plans, and then I pursue them for a bit, but if things get difficult to work out time-wise or I just lose interest, the plans fall through, and I lose precious time! And time is a very, very important commodity.

4. I am a freaking nerd, and I'm not ashamed of it! I actually wish I were a little bit nerdier simply because I wish I had the motivation/concentration to read like 5 books a week LOL but anyway, I've been plowing through a book that my dad bought me called "A History of American Law" by Lawrence Friedman. It's about 568? pages chronicling exactly what it says - the history of American law - starting from the colonial period (when obvs the notion of "American" law wasn't really developed yet) up till fairly modern times. And while to some, it might sound like a snoozefest, it's actually REALLY INTERESTING. And if I could, I would love to just sit down and read it for like 5 hours straight. I'm about 1/6 through right now, but I can't wait to reach the end and get the full comprehensive view! But yeah, I am a nerd.

5. I LOVE hearing about what other people are passionate about - it makes me really happy to hear people go on and on about something in depth, whether it's early modern European history or basketball or life with Christ, as long as they are clearly animated and in love with what they're talking about, it's such an energizer! There is something impressive about depth, rather than breadth - though I marvel at the fact that my dad seems to know everything about everything, it's more that I marvel at the fact that he knows a lot about everything LOL I don't really like talking points or small talk probably for this reason - I like hearing about deep things, things that have required a lot of interest and study and thinking for that person to come to really enjoy. Of course, I have always been more about breadth in the name of "well-roundedness," so perhaps I am a hippo(crit), but I really hope I can be a depth kind of person to others soon! :)