housing

Housing is SUCH a pain. Such such such a pain. It also sucks being a frosh. But that's okay. Because now I have a room and I know where I'm living next year and it's definitely bigger than the room I have now (wider by at least 2 feet haha). And I'm living in the same hall as C.Li again. So that's all good and dandy.

Now I can just cruise through my day. Finally.

Welcome to the hall.

flowing over

Today, for the first time in a long time, I got to learn new choreography with the Overflowers. (For those that don't know, Overflow is the amazing dance ministry at GCC.) It was kind of bittersweet, looking back, especially since I'm working with JYL...and this could potentially be the second-to-last dance I'm ever going to learn from him. So sad.

But honestly, as we were walking out, I looked back on my quite stressful and tiring day today, and I said, "Overflow is my break from life."

Mr. Lee replied, "Overflow is my life."

And though I laughed it off, I came back and I thought about it. It's true. That rush of adrenaline, joy, and peace you get after worshiping God with your body - it's kind of something worth living for. 

And so, for the first time since I've gotten my hot pink flamboyant t-shirt, I know what it means when it says: "I live to overflow." 

it's okay, really.

Things are going to be okay. Just fine.

That's the beauty of being Christian - once we step back and cast our burdens upon God, He fills us up with a sense of peace. And then we can re-collect our scattered, frazzled minds and realize that all that freaking out was for naught.

tired tired tired

It's only 12:55 am and I'm dead tired. I am so tired and so stressed and so bummed out by my own bumbling and stupidity and lack of foresight and dedication. And this is such a pointlessly venting-y entry. Sorry for the negativity. But seriously. I just fail in so many aspects at this point.

morning prayer

I'd like to take this moment to reflect upon how I redeemed myself from last week.

What happened last week: I planned to go to morning prayer with CLi and JLee, but I completely failed at waking up. Com-plete-ly failed, because I totally missed CLi's phone call and her knocks at my door. 

I have to admit, that I did wake up at 6:40 am when JLee conveniently called me, instead of at 6:00 am (the original plan). But I did get up, I did get ready in 20 minutes, and I did show up to morning prayer albeit 10 minutes late. 

But I did pray, which felt really good in the morning, and I ate breakfast with people I don't normally get to see, which was also really good.

I think I should go out to Wednesday morning prayers regularly from now on. But we'll see how disciplined I am.

academic stress over dress?

The weather here is bitterly cold. And when I say bitterly, I mean that the weather must really be pissed off or something because there is a thorn in the wind's side and it is COLD.

So, every morning I try to don the most amount of layers as humanly possible without looking like the giant Michelin tire dude and walk outside. And it kind of works, because my body isn't that cold. But my face, oh yes indeed, is very cold. As soon as I walk into a building, I have to stand around for a bit to let my face defrost. 

But oh boy. There is definitely a difference between my success layering and my failure layering, because I walked into my Communications 125 recitation yesterday, and let me tell you. These people are well-dressed. Like no other. They might as well be fashion design majors. And it's understandable, because don't some Comm majors go into the fashion (magazine) industry? I don't know. But yeah. They made me feel grungy. Usually I'm the one criticizing people's (unavoidably poor) fashion choices. But no. I am going to have to up the fashionista in me (while still being cold-conscious) so that I can look good while being warm. Is that possible? 

And yes, of course, the objective of taking a Comm class is not to pay more attention to what I'm wearing - it's not like I don't do that enough already - but yeah. I'm really weird. I guess analyze these symptoms as part of my sociology class: the need to dress well in order to be taken seriously in a classroom or professional setting...? Or just plain old peer pressure, ha.

On that note, out of my 4 humanities classes (plus Spanish) - communications/sociology/psychology/English - I think I like sociology the best. For now. Because I'm an ENFJ. But we'll see. The other three have the whole semester to redeem themselves :)

the 21st century male

warning: may not be very politically correct. 

So a friend of mine in high school recently came to me with some grievances. He said that there was this kid that was constantly pestering/mocking/judging him by asking if or commenting that he was gay. (note: this friend is most definitely straight.) And because this kid has been keeping up the annoyances, it has started to take a toll on his peace of mind. What to do? he asked. 

Now let me just put it out there that I don't particularly feel comfortable with or approve of the homosexual lifestyle, for personal reasons. It's the same thing as people who are tired of blacks or African-Americans (or whatever politically-correct term people prefer to use these days) "playing the race card" or Jewish people "playing the Holocaust card" or Christian people "playing the righteous card." But seriously, the whole using-"gay"-as-a-funny-snide-adjective is getting old. Especially to someone who is not so. And especially when used in an adamant context that gives away that you believe that person is gay when actually he is not.

I'll be the first to admit that I have used it in the past to refer to a situation or person that is not sitting right with me, but then again, aren't all disapproving words derogatory in a way? (e.g. "retarded", "lame", "stupid") I'll also be the first to admit that I've had my fair share of being wholly misjudged. In high school, I was asked at least three times if I was lesbian. And that was unsettling and hurtful to me at first, because I definitely am not; seriously, if you ever ask for my life story, I've had way too many crushes (on guys obviously) over the years. But why be unsettled and hurt? The only reason why I should be is if I actually am but I've been trying to hide it from the world. There are only two kinds of people that are self-confident in this situation: those who are homosexual and don't care what the world thinks of them and those who are heterosexual and know this fact through and through. I am the latter, so I don't care what anyone thinks or says to me any more. And I didn't think my friend should either.

The thing about people who persistently ask things like that is that they're a) uneducated and ignorant, b) lacking a real sense of humor, and/or c) uncomfortable with some aspect of their victims' characters/behaviors in relation to their own. And by c), I mean that anything that gives away "too much" embracing of "feminine" interests/norms is either bothersome or just plain confusing. 

But in the 21st century - quite different from even the 20th century - men can go about being attracted to women, becoming doctors and lawyers and businessmen, and playing (or at least watching) macho sports and action movies while simultaneously taking care of some household duties, making sure they are dressed well, and enjoying good literature. In fact, having a heightened sense of their "feminine" side is more advantageous to the new renaissance man of modern day. 

Same thing applies to women: women who are matronly, appearance-conscious, and masters of the kitchen now strive to also be well-informed political participants and activists, sports fanatics, video game enthusiasts, and math-and-science experts so that they can be taken more seriously by the still male-dominant societies of today. Surely not all women need to love high heels and bake cakes, and just because a woman likes to take charge and throw out intelligent ideas and improvements doesn't mean that she must be a lesbian. 

The thing is, we're starting to blur the lines between traditionally male and female roles. Being homosexual doesn't necessarily mean this; to me, it means embracing the opposite gender roles in the body into which you were born. So these things are two totally different concepts. But why can't some youth just get this?

So come on, you manly math majors who have no time for frivolous things like the classics, cooking, and fashion. You're one step behind if you're just going to think like that. 

phone call fail

So, writing for the DP means having to contact sources for information that will be included in your articles. Well, I suck at making phone calls and interviewing people over the phone. Even if I make a list of questions, I always seem to suck at asking them or there are those awkward pauses as I frantically write and think of what to say next. And of course, there's the asking the wrong question or asking a stupid, already-answered question. (This happened with an econ professor.) FAIL.

I really hope this hones my phone/interview communication skills because as of right now...I am mad terrified. :)

editing addiction

I am quite addicted to iMovie. It's like the most amazing thing ever. It allows n00bs like me to make decently-edited video/movies using the pictures and videos I have. How awesome is that? But now, as all humans do, I am getting greedy and ambitious and I want legit movie-editing software. Unfortunately, according to a reliable source, they're generally mad expensive, so what can I do? I'll just have to tinker with what I have for free on my Mac : )

So addicting. Then again, maybe it's only addicting to freaks like me that like to make/edit things. Ha.

no peaches in georgia

My 4-day trip to my beloved South was mega-tiring, but still awesome. As soon as I saw the ATL and all the Peachtree-named roads surrounding it pop up in the airplane window diagonally across from me, I got this irrepressible surge of happiness boil up inside. 

The weather kind of sucked, I admit, but it was definitely warm - I walked around without a coat/jacket every day - highs being like 56-59 degrees F. 

So, here's the layout of my 4-day weekend: (feel free to skip)

- Kristin picked me up at the airport, the only airport of which I actually know the layout (even though people say it's the most complicated one, ha)

- We went back to her place, settled in, played Rock Band 2 a bit.

- Headed out to the Avenues, which is sort of like one of those huge street mall-y types (like the Forum, for those who live in GA).

- Had lunch at Red Robin; I saw someone I knew there, but I couldn't figure out if she knew me. Awkward.

- Looked around and ended up at B&N where we looked at the "What Your Birthday Means" book. 

- Went back to Jillian's place, watched our friends-graduation DVD, watched "A Walk to Remember" because it's possibly the best chick flick ever.

- Went back to Kristin's place for dinner, played Rock Band 2 while waiting for pizza, but then all my other friends snuck into the basement while I was belting out a song and surprised me (first surprise of my life)

- Ate and played Cranium. Of course, Kristin/Jillian won because they have a psychic connection.

- Went to Chipotle (AH I missed Chipotle. Thank goodness they're making one at Penn.) with the Adloos/Jeff.

- Visited Dylan at the hospital and chatted with him/his parents. I haven't been in a hospital since my brother was born; it was a bit odd.

- Had coffee with Eric.

- Dinner with Kristin; watched "The Dark Knight" with Kristin/Jillian while keeping my face covered with a pillow for the parts involving knives...ha. I'll probably have to re-watch it later on.

- Church in the morning - it was my first experience at a megachurch. The kids' section (K-5) was like a freaking Christian Chuck E. Cheese's. And the older kids' section looked like a jazz club, with a full-out rockin' stage for the praise band and everything. And for the adults, 10 minutes before service, they had like an Entertainment Weekly/rollercoaster ride introduction video-like presentation to cover what's going on at the church and the different ministries. Crazy. But yet, despite the hugeness, it didn't feel all that commercialized or anything. I could see why people would be drawn to such churches. It was definitely a good experience.

- Toodles to Kristin, who headed off to Tech because their school started yesterday. Lame.

- Ice-skating with the GHPers. We were missing quite a fair amount of regular attenders. But it was still very nice! I had really old, smelly skates though...

- Coffee with Catiko. We ran into two of my high school acquaintances and that was mad awkward, so we had to sit outside.

- Dinner with a family friend. Kani House has changed! 

- Back to Shubhi's house. We took like a full hour trying to decide/find a movie to watch, and we finally settled on "Step Brothers." It was inappropriate, but still funny in some spots.

- Trip to Northview to visit teachers - we barely had enough time to talk to everyone because they all had to be rushed off to a faculty meeting. Lame. And Shubhi's car couldn't start for like 7 minutes; was quite funny.

- Lunch at Panera (Panera!) with orch dorks. My little kiddos have grown up so much! Crazy.

- Mall of GA with Shubhi - there wasn't much to find, so we literally were in there for an hour before coming out. And we covered the ENTIRE mall too. haha Financial crisis, indeed.

- "Little Miss Sunshine" in our sleepy afternoon state. Cute movie.

- Dad came to pick me up to head off to the airport, but before that, we went to Chick-Fil-A to pick up my dinner. YES. 

- Airport to airplane. The people next to me REALLY hit it off and talked the entire flight about everything, namely politics and religion. I couldn't help eavesdrop on their conversation about religion, because the man was not-too-religious and made fun of evangelists on the plane; he was talking about his 2-year-old daughter and how he had to choose between letting her follow Buddhism (his wife's religion) and Christianity (his kind-of-not-so-much adopted religion.) The woman was a Unitarian reverend(?I think) but she was also pretty liberal in the sense that she respected all religions and thought everything should be taught in schools (the Bible, Koran, etc. etc.) But yeah. That's for another day.

- Back home in Jersey to the biting cold.

SO. If you skipped all that:

People I Saw: best girl friends, best guy friends, GHP camp friends, school orchestra friends, family friends, high school teachers.

Places I Visited: Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the Avenues, Emory Crawford Long Hospital, the Forum, Atlanta Ice Forum, Northview High School, Mall of Georgia.

Cars I Rode: Kristin's, Jillian's, Milad's, Eric's, Spark's, Catiko's, Catherine's, Shubhi's, Dad's rental car. (Thanks, everyone!) 

Food: Red Robin burger, Hawaiian pizza, cupcakes, Belgian waffles, Chipotle, pulled-pork sandwiches, chocolate-chip muffins, homemade Indian food, Kani House, Panera, Chick-Fil-A.

Sweet Tea Count: 2 (sad.)

Games of Choice: Rock Band 2 and Cranium

Movies: A Walk to Remember, The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, Little Miss Sunshine

Airplane Buddies: A sleeping couple on the way there; an eccentric pair of talkative, white-wine-inhaling New Yorkers on the way back.

Firsts: Airplane trip totally by myself, surprise gathering, megachurch experience, heading back to high school as a graduate.

Georgia on my mind.