today...

...was a GREAT day :)

you'll come

Let Your glory fall as You respond to us.

Spirit, rain, flood into our thirsty hearts again.

You'll come.

I have decided, I have resolved to wait upon You, Lord.

My rock and redeemer, shield and reward

I'll wait upon You, Lord.

Recently, I've been caught up watching this Korean drama (really out of character for me, actually, because I'm really not a huge fan of kdramas) called "My Girlfriend is a Gumiho" (gumiho = nine-tailed fox found in Korean folklore), and honestly, I started watching it because I liked the main guy, Lee Seung Gi (squeal). But the real scene-stealer has turned out to be the main girl, Shin Min Ah, and while I think I've always liked her to a certain extent because of her past work, she has really been driving me nuts with her cuteness overload in this drama! She's got the most sincere and realistic facial expressions, as well as super duper cute dimples. When she smiles all of a sudden, her whole FACE just lights up, and she claps her hands in glee in a way that makes the joy contagious. (She also has the long flowy Pocahontas hair that I've always wanted!) I'm sure people wouldn't say she's the prettiest Korean actress ever, but I really admire her character - innocent yet frank - and her acting...and the fact that she gets to fake-date Lee Seung Gi with matching couple rings and all! (LOL)

She even makes the fobby peace signs non-cringe-worthy because it doesn't look like she's trying so hard to be cute! ♥

As a girl, I admit that it would be super nice to look like her and be able to act like her character (she's not half-bad in real life either!) but recently, a lot of verses in the Bible have been speaking to me even more clearly about how I should strive to become a stronger woman of God instead.

1 Peter 3:4 - [Your beauty] should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

Proverbs 21:19 - Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

Proverbs 31:25-26 - She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

Psalm 119:73 - Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.

1 Corinthians 7:34 - An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit.

They've been making me step back to reassess myself, to reassess my heart before I enter this year. To be honest, my mind has been feeling really fuzzy the past 2-3 weeks to the point where I'm starting to feel almost anxious about returning back to school; I don't know if I'm prepared, and I don't know if I've fully solidified the lessons from this past year into strengths. Am I finally ready to surrender and run singlemindedly towards the ultimate prize of Christ? I want to say yes, I am. Or at least I'll keep trying, because that's what I've decided, that's what I've resolved.

Because surely as the sun will rise, surely as the seasons come and go, surely as I will wander from the path and sin - He will come, and wash over me with grace and love. And He'll sometimes have to remind me yet again that my heart, my body, my spirit is His alone. But the important part is, He'll come. He calls me His beloved, His child - who am I to desire to be anyone else?

what i'll miss about the quad

So now that I am an upperclassman, I am leaving the Quad for a bigger, better place (with a kitchen!!!) called Mayer Hall. But reflecting upon all the awesome possum times I had in this little patch of "college-y-ness" over the past two years...I am getting REALLY nostalgic and sad and part of me really just wants to move back into the Quad (but not really, so don't kick me out yet, Jenn). Anyhoos...

I will REALLY miss being greeted by this returning home from class or from church or from just anywhere in general...and having Lyn's right there for a quick brunch/lunch/early dinner...and jaywalking...and making a MAD dash to Houston Hall on Saturday mornings around 8:07 AM hoping I'm not late to OFlow...and feeling like I'm home whenever I swipe into Lower Quad Gate.

I won't miss the size of my freshman year dorm room (See that small rug? It was 2 feet wide. See that sink? Yeah, you can't wash dishes properly at ALL.) but I will miss the hardwood floors because I love using my Swiffer to clean my room :)

I will miss snow in the Quad because I firmly believe that it's the prettiest there and it just feels like a huge snowball fight battlefield (ironically, we always have them elsewhere haha)

I will miss walking back from McDonald's with the 2012 Quad Crew and bumming around in the Magee Suite, having tea parties, and even just throwing snow in each other's faces at like 1 in the morning.

I will miss living like 30 seconds away from the lady on my left and 5 minutes away from the lady on my right :( sighs T_T

I WILL MISS TREES AND BENCHES AND BRICK COLLEGE-Y-NESS in the springtime/early falltime sighs.

There are other things, like passive-aggressive notes in the bathrooms about picking up hair in the shower after you use it, resourceful-ly cooked Korean food in the Magee Suite, random study holes like Provost Tower library, walking from Upper Quad to Lower Quad inside through all the dorms because it's raining/too cold outside, talking outside on any random bench like the ones on top of McClelland Hall, the closeness to like EVERYTHING especially classes/church (just not the DP and most restaurants haha), etc etc etc.

So dear Quad peoples who are staying another year, pweese invite me to chill! Though I'll definitely miss out on the day-to-day Quad-ness, hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in droplets here and there throughout the year as a visitor.

Good times, good times. And many more good times ahead!!

imissyouimissyouimissyouimissyouimissyou

There.

I said it.

(8 days until Penn.)

beware of self-awareness

At the suggestion of an older brother, I started reading the "My Utmost for His Highest" devotional daily and it's been pretty good so far. Sometimes, it feels a little rebuke-y, why-can't-you-lay-down-your-life-for-Christ?!?! -ish, but generally, I like it because it gives me something to think about for the day.

Today's shook me up more than usual because of the word (2 words?) "self-pity." It says that "self-pity is satanic." I was taken aback, because though I've always known that it's bad and always heard from my parents that I have too much of it, it was odd to hear straight up - that it's satanic. And I've always wondered: where does self-pity even come from? Well, I suggest you read the message on your own, but it basically says that it originates in self-awareness.

...um. And how exactly does that relate?

According to a super reliable source called Wikipedia, (created for lazy people like me,) "self-awareness is the awareness of self as separate from the thoughts that are occurring at any point in time...[it] gives one the option or choice to choose thoughts being thought rather than simply thinking the thoughts that are stimulated from the accumulative events leading up to the circumstances of the moment." So, going back to the reading, the second-to-last paragraph is what made me think, because those are all traps that I've fallen into during my faith walk. It reads:

"A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer."

Interesting. During my sophomore year, I was continually looking for a way to rest, a way to gather my thoughts and figure things out once and for all, and yet every time I thought I had found sanctuary - in breaks, in visits home, in my bed - I was always more disturbed. Why? Because I was constantly taking a step back and looking at my life, willing it to change through my frantic thoughts. I kept separating myself from the situation in my mind and I wanted to think out a solution, but there wasn't one to be found. I had no rest, no matter how hard I tried to hoard my time so I could have time to "rest."

But finding rest is pretty straight-forward, says Chambers: "Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute."

So, where else do I turn but to Jesus to find sweet rest? "I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that He loves us," says the song. Being at peace with the knowledge that He is there, has been there, and will always be there - that's what I need in these days leading up to my journey back to Penn.

jumbalaya

Lots of thoughts:

I don't know if I'll be posting the summer series I had planned on posting, simply because I've found that it's become a bit too personal to make public, so if anyone really wants to read it, perhaps I will take email requests or something when I'm finished haha But also, I need more time than I had originally anticipated, and I don't want to put my blog on hold just because I can't update the story. So yeah.

I head back to Penn in exactly 10 days...or I guess 9 very soon. That's so ridiculous. I'm going to need some major prayerful preparation since I very much want this year to be MUCH better than last year!

There are some people who make me want to be a better person. There are others who help me to remember who I am and what I'm capable of. And yet there are others who bring out the worst in me and make me forget how fearfully and wonderfully I was made by God. Why is that? I really hope I'm not that kind of person for someone else.

Korean rap is so hard. My tongue gets all tied up and I feel like I'm speaking nonsense. I don't know how my brother does it. And I really want to go NRB-ing when I get back to Philly! (Any takers?)

Speaking of Korean, I got a "Loving Muslims Through Prayer" pamphlet from my church two Sundays ago, and basically it is a prayer booklet that you use for 30 days to pray for 30 different Muslim countries. And originally, I was excited and thought it was a great idea, but to be honest, I've been too chicken to actually open it up and start off my 30 days simply because the whole booklet is written in Korean, except for a) the title of the pamphlet and b) the countries' names, (not that I can't read Korean, but it just takes me absolutely forever to wade through a page.) But I guess those are basically the two things that matter the most, right?

God is always teaching me how sovereign He is, and how though I am so so so so so SMALL and just another dot on the mural of humanity, He has a plan that He wants to realize through me and He WILL make it happen as long as I am willing and obedient. As it says in Proverbs 16:4, "The LORD works out everything for his own ends - even the wicked for a day of disaster."

I'm thinking of discontinuing four.six.eight before its end date - I don't really update it all that much and I'm worried that it will become a breeding ground for poorly-written emoness...and there's no reason I can't post up interesting photos on this blog. We'll see.

We were out buying sneakers for my brother today, and honestly, I think Nike high tops are really cool. But what I kept saying to him was, I really don't think it's my style. Sighs, I'm just not legit gangsta enough...:(

Must get crackin' on the list of work I've made for myself...I'm so busy inside my mind but not busy in person...must be because I'm always out of the house for most of the day running errands with my madre (we have a guest arriving this Saturday and staying until 9/6) and then I come home and all I want to do is vegetate.

The bottom line is, I'm not one of the boys.

I wonder what Bangladesh is like...but I don't know if I'll have a chance to visit within the next 5 years.

I love driving!

bum-cation

So this year, the family decided to forego Spain (map 1) due to schedule conflicts and head over to Bedford, Pennsylvania (map 2) to spend some quality time together and bum, bum, bum. Why Bedford? Why Pennsylvania? Why not the beach? I do not know...but it turned out to be pretty relaxing and fun in its own right.

We headed over to historic Bedford Springs Resort, the "summer White House" of President James Buchanan and favorite getaway of the elite back in the 1800s. It became pretty much defunct by the 1980s due to a terrible flood but got renovated around 2003 and became what it is today. (Yes, there was an intro video for the place on one of the hotel TV channels, haha)

We spent our arrival day looking around the building, which was full of historic decor (old guest books, hats and photos.)

Day 2 (late morning/early afternoon) - Pool

Twas a pretty good substitute for the beach, I suppose.

Day 2 (late afternoon) - Golf

I do not know how to golf, but I did get to drive the cart! I mean, I did try out some swings...but I am basically the biggest noob at golf...ever. -_- I suppose that despite my general dislike for golf (I always found it absolutely boring to watch on TV and I'm not a huge fan of putt-putt), I can kinda sorta see the appeal of the sport, especially if I were any good at it.

Day 3 (early afternoon) - Perusing "downtown" Bedford antique/random stuff stores. Apparently these magnets are a parody on "Life is Good" and I found them pretty funny, especially the one in the upper left-hand corner with the distressed wife and the snoring husband hahaha.

Day 3 (late afternoon) - Cooking class! We got to see a "real" kitchen and interact with "real" chefs :) It was pretty cool, but I really could never be a legit chef (again, no upper body strength to flip things in super hot pans...)

Day 4 (late morning) - My mom and I went to the spa at Bedford Springs :) I got "only" a pedicure done, so I guess I didn't experience a full-out spa experience, but even so, it was really nice - they gave us free food in the lounge area, I got to read the Bible some and listen to good music before heading in, and we even got to see a wedding ceremony in a nearby garden area!

Day 5 (late morning/early afternoon) - I finally got to go KAYAKING! I've been meaning to go for a WHILE, and I almost went in the Potomac with some friends while we were in DC, but the rental place was closed the day we had planned to go, and it never worked out thereafter :( And we had actually planned to go on day 4 when we visited Shawnee State Park, but that also got postponed because rentals were done for the day when we arrived. But nevertheless, when we DID get to go, it was super fun and I got to have my Pocahontas moment!!! (you know, humming "Just around the river bend" and letting my hair fly in the wind very unattractively.)

Day 5 (mid-afternoon) - We visited Old Bedford Village, a preservation-y site of what "downtown" Bedford used to look like back in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. If you've ever been to Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, it's kind of like the Plymouth Plantation thing they've got going on over there...but yeah. It was pretty random, but my dad loves history, so we decided to make a trip before driving back home.

We met some quirky people who told us a bit about the village and the various restored buildings, and unlike Plymouth, where the actors actually act and pretend like they've never seen a camera before or they have no idea it's the 21st century, these people were just very matter-of-fact about the clashing between the centuries in the replication.

Last but not least, I got to see a HORSE! Actually, I got to see TWO horses, but I liked this one's haircut better :) Pretty chic bangs for a horse, don't you think? hahaha We almost went horseback riding, but the site was about an hour's drive away, so I had to be content with just seeing horses up close and personal.

Anyhoos, that was our pretty short, random trip to The-Middle-of-Nowhere, PA, and though I am glad to be back home to Korean food and my own room again haha, it was good family time and good old "American" vacationing time too. It's amazing how there are little pockets of interesting places to see all around America...we kind of take it for granted, huh?

turtle love

Just wanted to share a cute picture :)

Also, nice try, but no one got the 10 points...she's actually from here.

Hope to write soon!!

♥ Sarah

untitled: introduction

Summer vignette series 2010 begins today! Hopefully, I'll be able to finish this just like I did last summer - only by the grace of God! But...I have a big paper due next Wednesday, so to keep myself from blogging/writing something other than my paper until then, I just wanted to get this first post out of the way. The series is untitled so far - I had a title, but it sounded too emo and not reflective (haha pun, if you knew what I was considering) of what the series was going to turn out to be, so for now, it will remain title-less. And I'm a bit rusty, so please forgive any traces of lame-ness/poor writing skillz haha

And as always, (for anyone who stumbles upon this), all writing is original so no reproduction/distribution without my permission! (You know, just to be paranoid and safe -_-)

10 points if you guess where the main character is from :)

-----

Introduction

Clickity-clackity. Clickity-clackity.
Whirrrrrrr.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Whirrrrrrr.

The noise was deafening. She could feel herself half-dozing off as she absentmindedly made 50 copies of 20-page packets of approximately 7,500 words for this week’s slew of meetings. She could hardly hear the soft-and-silky voice of what’s-her-name-again-indie-singer crooning at her through her iPod headphones. The smell of fresh ink on warm paper filled her nostrils, reminding her of the smell she got when she walked into Staples every fall when it came time to buy new school supplies - a favorite pastime that she pretended to engage in every time she visited the supply room to grab a new notepad or a box of black Skilcraft pens.

She wasn’t sure if she liked her job or not. To her great unexpected disappointment, she wasn’t able to land the advertising gig that she had been banking on for all of April. In May, when she finally heard back from a small advocacy-oriented non-profit in need of a social media-savvy marketing intern, she gladly accepted the position within two hours of receiving their email. At first, it sounded relatively interesting - they told her she would be writing blog entries, networking with similar organizations and perhaps even aiding in the development of a new campaign. When she arrived, it was a completely different story: the blog was already an unpopular read since it mostly consisted of one of the supervisors posting up pictures of her with eco-friendly shoes, shirts, bracelets, nose rings, light bulbs, toilet paper; “networking” really meant stalking the other organizations’ websites, plugging information into an Excel spreadsheet and not being able to actually make any phone calls; her ideas for the campaign were met with a that’s-cute-pat-pat smile. Thus, she found herself making copies and running around doing whatever oddball job they had for her. And she wasn’t even getting compensated.

On the upside, she was getting a first-hand look at what it really meant to rally up small voices to amplify one big voice for a specific cause. She was learning that marketing wasn’t just about having clever (read: manipulative) ideas, but it also required a significant amount of research. She felt like everyone in the office was genuinely interested in what they were advocating for, and this inspired her to find her own cause. She got free bagels in the morning. Lastly, she was in New York City - a city she had been dying to explore since she was seven years old.

She lived in a cozy apartment with two other roommates. The three of them saved as much money as possible by eating at home when they could, although they would dare to indulge themselves on the weekends. They all loved making sauce-less pasta with peas, mozzarella and butter, and watching a sappy movie on Lifetime every once in a while. One of them had a boyfriend; one of them had a boyfriend until a few weeks ago when he admitted (and this roommate was shocked at herself for not noticing earlier) that he was gay.

Derek had emailed her earlier that morning. Or rather, not her directly, but he had put her on his list of people to email while he was on a mission trip to Louisiana for six weeks this summer. It was strange to her, reading updates on the supposedly “crazy” things “God” was doing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and now the devastating oil spill, as well as scanning the list of “prayer requests” he jotted down in earnest. “I covet your prayers very much,” he had written at the end. She didn’t know exactly what that meant, so she felt bad that she wasn’t able to help in this arena. She did send him a check for $25 to support him - anything more would have seemed overboard, considering the fragile state of their friendship/relationship, but every once in a while, she caught herself feeling the urge to actually pray for him. Yet how did one go about doing such a foreign ritual anyway?

She pushed away these sudden thoughts of Derek and his summer escapades. It wasn’t healthy, always having her thoughts return to him and his well-being. But hearing from him every week for the past three weeks, however impersonal it was, still opened up simultaneous feelings of affection and hurt mingled with regret and disappointment - the emotional wave was a bit addictive, and she found herself deliberately riding on it from time to time. Toward dangerous territory.

The copy machine finally came to an end with its printing, purring to a content lull of near silence. The entire room definitely smelled like Eau de Staples. She picked up the stack of papers that emanated heat in her arms and walked back to her cubicle to slip each 20-page packet into a pristine laminated-cover folder, being careful not to leave any obscene thumbprints.

She heard a light tap behind her. She swirled around in her horrendously uncomfortable chair to face the legal intern from four cubicles down and around-the-corner.

“Hiya stranger.” He smiled - rather, grinned - unabashedly.
“Hi.”
“I picked up some coffee from downstairs, was wondering if you’d want a free soy latte - I hate soy milk, but they made a mistake, so yeah, I’ve been wandering around to see if anyone would take it.” He stuck out a standard tall white cup with a brown biodegradable sleeve - the biodegradable part was important to the organization, especially Queen Eco-Blogger three cubicles to the right.
“Um, sure, thanks.” She accepted it and took a quick sip. It was still scorching hot.
“No problem!” He popped out as quickly as he came in.

She set the latte on her desk and waited for the clock to tick until 5 PM.

© 2010 by Sarah R.

the voice of wisdom

So often, I look back on these past two years and I think of how much time and love certain people have poured into me, listening to me complain via Gchat at 2 am or vent over dinner about all my little woes and anxieties. And each time I've paused to say, "I'm sorry I'm just like...word-vomiting at you" or "I know this is so much to take in, sorry," I've always been answered, "No, it's okay, don't worry," when I'm sure some of the time, it wasn't okay. It must have been so frustrating to listen to me talk about the same things over and over and over again (because if something hasn't been resolved, I have a tendency to just repeat myself until I can "talk out" a solution); it must have been frustrating to have 2-3 hours of their time eaten up because I just couldn't stop talking; it must have been frustrating to have to listen and not be able to say what was on their hearts; it must have been frustrating just to have another prayer request to slap onto the list of a ton they have from other people and for themselves already.

But I'm blown away each time when they just take it in, let me talk, and moreover, lend the wisdom I need in these situations I struggle with. So many times, I think I'm able to handle things, I think I know my way around, and I can almost predict what they're going to say, what sort of Bible verse they're going to throw at me. (In fact, I even pissed one person off once because I was so adamant that I knew exactly what they were going to say to me, so what was even the point in talking?) But in the end, I'm just being a prideful noob who merely thinks she's seeing things from all angles and drawing the best conclusions when actually, she's being close-minded and not thinking WWJD. I can see why God didn't create our faith to just be worked out on our own, but worked out in the midst of fellowship, as we spur one another onto good deeds and love. There are some brothers and sisters that I've talked to who just stun me with the depth of their faith and the ferocity of their love for God and the insight from their walks. But there are also others who might be difficult to appreciate or take seriously at times, and yet, God pokes my judgmental heart and uses them in His own mysterious ways to edify me and grow me in an unprecedented way.

So, even though this was short, I guess the point is, I just want to thank whoever reads this (especially the certain people who have already identified themselves as victims of my word-vomits -_-) for being so patient with me and for being so obedient to Him and allowing yourself to be used in a powerful way in my life.

Sanks the deals deng ♥