we can....

play in the leaves....
:-)

Joshua report:
He's still in the hospital but they're pretty sure it's a viral infection and not the bacterial infection they were initially concerned about. He's breathing better but they still want to keep him overnight. I just talked to Andre and he said not to worry because Joshua is getting better.

I talked to Joshua for just a minute. He sounded terrible. It was heart wrenching to hear his small, sweet voice so raspy.

Thanks for praying.

my sis called me early this morning from the hospital. my nephew is having problems breathing. They've been in the hospital all night. They're not sure what it is but right now they're saying it's possible it could be something serious. It could be a serious case of croup or be a rare bacterial infection. If it's the latter, it's more serious. hopefully, it's not the latter.

please pray for him and my sis's family today!!

ugh, i have so much reading. it's "ugh" because I want to read it all but I know I have to skim a lot of it. it's such interesting stuff. right now i'm reading a book that's totally ripping apart the idea of "development". it's kind of funny because um, that's my major! excuse me, buddy!

like my advisor said in our first meeting, this school tries to "deconstruct" the concept of development our first semester, then kind of rebuilds it the second semester. maybe i'm cocky but that doesn't threaten me at all. i don't have this pie-in-the-sky idea about society's ability to help itself.

anyway, whoops...i realized my post on constant gardener might have given the impression that it's a "feel good" movie. warning: it's not. in fact, it's a very troubling movie.

my favorite prayer/meditation spot...

All these pics are the sights that I soak in as I jog on the dirt roads surrounding my campus. I wanted to put them up before the leaves all change.

I took these pics just last week and already this week a lot of trees are starting to turn their fall colors. (I hope to take lots of pics) I can't wait to see this area in all its beauty!

I love fall.

i was in class from 8:30 in the morning to 10pm today. dang.

my rump hurts...

Constant Gardener is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time!! Absolute must see! Not only is the plot realistic and beautifully woven, its cinematography is fresh and genuine. Not to mention the acting is incredible!

Anyway, can you tell I loved the movie?

note: I just read Ebert's review of the movie and for the most part I totally disagree with his take on the movie. See the movie first then read the review because he'll give you the wrong spin on it in my humble opinion.

haha...welcome to Vermont...

This is the car I drive around Brattleboro when I go off campus. haha A very nice fellow let's me borrow this car whenever I want. It doesn't have a muffler or power steering and is very temperamental. So it's always an adventure.

lovely downtown Brattleboro

another hippie bookstore

this is the view from our dining area! amazing...

part of our rugged campus :-)

Oh yeah, the homework is stacking up. Bring it on. This is going to be fun.

By the way, I've decided to study Russian to fulfill my language requirement here. So here I go once again, learning a language from ground zero. It's both exciting and daunting. What I'm both scared and excited about is learning to read a new alphabet. It's so amazing to be able to read a language with a script so different from your own.

I remember when I first read the word "ice cream" in Korean writing. I almost fell out of my chair!! "Oh my gosh! I just read that!!" It's an amazing experience. It gives you a different perspective on your own language.

Now Cyrillic script-that's a mixed bag. It's close enough to English that you think it's familiar but really many of the letters that look the same have a totally different sound. For example, the letter "p" in Russian sounds like the letter "r" in English. How confusing is that!

Thankfully, my goal at this point is just to familiarize myself with the language, so I can travel more easily in Central Asia and of course, fulfill my graduation requirements. I'm not trying to be an advanced speaker, so that kind of lifts the pressure off and just allows me to enjoy the process.

haha

Last night I got out of bed around 1am to tell my subwoofer loving next door dorm neighbor to please turn it off. It turns out this time that the rhythmic beats that were boom, boom, booming through the wall were actually her snores! haha I kept quietly knocking and then put my head against her door and realized that indeed she was snoring crazy loud. haha

Here at SIT people often ask me where I am from then always gasp and tell me how great San Diego is when I answer. You know, for some odd reason I've realized this slightly annoys me. I think it's because it happens again and again here. They start telling me about how great the weather is and about some touristy place they went to that I never go to. And I want to answer, "Yeah, yeah, yeah...it's overrated." haha

thoughts...

What if we physically reflected our emotional scars? Would I look around at this classroom of seemingly confident, mildly interested students and see a whole new truth?

People covered in scars. Some old and deep, others fresh and still bleeding? Then maybe I'd see them differently, with more empathy.

Maybe I'd look in the mirror and I'd gasp. If you could see the scars on my skin, there'd be no hiding.

Gotta love that group work, baby!

Yes, mission accomplished....very time consuming team presentation presented and finished!

"Every step that you take / Could be your biggest mistake / It could bend or it could break / But that’s the risk that you take."

Okay, at the prompting of a couple people I now have an AIM account, too. My id is the same as my msn messenger account. AIM seems less straight forward than MSN messenger but I guess I'll figure it out.

Well, I guess the honeymoon is over. Today I felt lonely. Lonely for my friends. Lonely because I'm tired of moving. But what can I say, at least at this point in my life-it's my fate to move frequently. But mostly I felt lonely because I'm tired of getting in impossible romantic relationships. *sigh* That also seems to be my fate. (*weak smile* cuz I know I'm being overly dramatic as usual)

Despite these inevitable feelings, I know good things are happening here and in many ways I couldn't have asked for a smoother transition.

One funny SIT cultural thing I've noticed here is that students generally don't complain that much or say anything negative for that matter. When my friends and I have started to share some of our negative feelings about the intensive Organizational Behavior class we're taking right now, we've ended up being really vague and looking at each other sheepishly.

I've also heard a couple people cut themselves off mid-sentence, "Oh...ah...I don't want to spread "bad energy"." I've never experienced this kind of implicit social pressure in a secular setting.

In fact, it's been my experience that at most academic institutions it's the favorite pass time of the students to complain about almost everything. So this is intriguing for me. I'm often analyzing what the roots of this mentality might be.

It's quite fascinating to be around a lot of humanistic do-gooders. It makes me think a lot about what really is the difference between them and I. We both have unusually strong senses of wrong and right, are willing to sacrifice the ease of Western life to help others and are passionate about speaking up on behalf of the oppressed/underserved.

After leaving a former peace corp volunteer's room that was covered with paraphernalia from Africa, I was struck by how much her passion was similar to a Christian missionary's passion. Just minus the Christian part. She's passionate about the people of Mozambique, passionate about seeing them succeed and planning on sacrificing to work with them.

So what's the difference between her and me? And all the others that are fighting for important causes here? Yeah, it goes back to what that guy brought up at orientation. "Where are we moving from and where are we going?" or said another way, "What's the problem and what can fix it?"

That's it. How her and I would answer this question-that's the difference between us. We might be doing a lot of the same things in our target countries but how we answer this question reveals how great the divide between us actually is.

If a person believes that corrupt social structures are the main problem, then working towards their end should be our goal. If lack of access to education and resources is at the heart of the problem, then once fair access is secured the problem will begin to dissolve.

Even though I believe in fighting for these issues, in my view the heart of the problem is always the state of the human heart and the only source of conclusive transformation is found in a restored relationship with our Maker.

Whew, anyway, I didn't mean to get into that right now. Especially being as I'm not in the state of mind to do the topic justice. Oh well.

In other news, amazingly there are a lot more Christians here than I thought there would be. We've been delighted to find each other and are trying to plan weekly prayer meetings to discuss issues like this.

okay good night....sorry this entry is all over the place...

Hey, if anybody uses msn messenger my new id is: "jatieness" if you want to add me. I used to use another id but found that so many of my Korean students were online that it was totally overwhelming each time I got on.

So maybe I'll use this one more often. Oh, I was so looking forward to blogging but somehow my blog time got away from me. Hopefully, soon....

haha...in the tradition of Calvin, "Academia, here I come!"

One of the school buildings on campus :-)

I wish you guys could see what I see everyday. It's so beautiful here on campus.
So far I totally love it here and every day I'm so thankful I made the choice to enroll in this program even though it was a really scary decision.

The more I learn about my program and classes the more excited I get! It's going to be busy but so good. Classes start Monday. Hopefully, I'll write more this weekend when I'm not totally exhausted.

I already have questions and thoughts that I'd like to hash out a bit. In one of our orientation sessions a student asked a question that I think resonated with all of us, "SIT talks a lot about "social change" but my question is change from what and to what end."

And I thought this is where everything gets sticky because the goal of positive social change depends on your view of "what is good". This is where the arguments begin and where finding common ground between varying worldviews becomes a fine art. Anyway, enough mumbly, barely processed ideas.....and off to bed!

Well, well. Here I am in rustic, rural Brattleboro. Brattleboro has a unique, artsy feel. But man, it's the polar opposite of LA.

The campus of SIT resembles the set of Anne of Green Gables with its rolling green fields and white old-style buildings. The campus really looks like that.

I've been meeting amazing people all day and I'm a little sick so I'm totally beat. The more I meet people here, the more I'm amazed by how much we're all so similar.

Apparently, this school is dominated by ENFPs...something like over 30% of the campus (according to the career development center on campus). haha Crazy. A whole campus of people with my personality type.

Sad news...I have zero cell phone coverage here! I spent 20 minutes on the phone with verizon trying to get a smidgen of coverage-no success! We'll see what I'm going to do about that.

Early tomorrow morning I'm leaving Sandy and taking a plane into the unknown.

I'm nervous.

All this time I've been saying good-bye and not thinking much about the place I'm actually going to. But tomorrow baby bird is being pushed out of the nest and......whooosh...

I'm on my own.

As I was jogging around Sandy's area here in Baltimore, I couldn't help thinking about what architecture expresses about an area. We live in the same country but I still stare around in wonder when I visit friends on the east coast.

In the case of Sandy's area there are "row houses" lining every street. Row houses are basically houses that share a wall and in Sandy's area whole streets of houses share walls. And as I jogged by porch after porch, I thought about how the architecture reflects a sense of community.

In my community development class at San Diego State we talked a lot about how the relationship between the community and city design is cyclical. For example, peoples that value community tend to build structures that promote interaction thus further continuing their emphasis on community.

This also got me thinking about a book that I haven't read but I'm often referring to. haha That's so "Joyce". Just imagine the profound intellectual contributions I could make if I actually thoroughly read the books I quoted.

Even though our teacher just summarized the premise of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community for class discussion, the ideas still had a lasting effect on me. It's like it just clicked together something that I had been thinking about and discussing with various friends for a long time. I remember in college Tristen and I went through this period of time when we were on this "community" soap box. Whenever we got a chance we'd go on long tirades about the lack of community in our generation and what we should all do about it.

Apparently, it's something we've all been thinking about because when this Harvard prof. who was previously unnoticed by the masses wrote an article on it, he was shocked by the out-pouring of response.

In this alarming and important study, Putnam, a professor of sociology at Harvard, charts the grievous deterioration over the past two generations of the organized ways in which people relate to one another and partake in civil life in the U.S.

Few people outside certain scholarly circles had heard the name Robert D. Putnam before 1995. But then this self-described "obscure academic" hit a nerve with a journal article called "Bowling Alone." Suddenly he found himself invited to Camp David, his picture in People magazine, and his thesis at the center of a raging debate.

In a nutshell, he argued that civil society was breaking down as Americans became more disconnected from their families, neighbors, communities, and the republic itself. The organizations that gave life to democracy were fraying. Bowling became his driving metaphor. Years ago, he wrote, thousands of people belonged to bowling leagues.

Today, however, they're more likely to bowl alone:
Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values--these and other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness.

And by the way, thanks for all your kind, encouraging comments on my last post! I have orientation Monday! Pray for me!

Okay, okay. I guess I'm finally going to talk about it but I'm not going to go into great detail right now. Sorry.

I'm moving to Vermont to go to SIT after all. After a lot of thought and hand-ringing this year, I've decided to get my MA in Sustainable Development at the same school I had deferred at a year ago. Ro's come to visit before I fly to Vermont Sept. 1st. We drove my stuff down last night from LA.

Here's a description of my program even though I'm sure you're perfectly clear on what Sustainable Development is-right? haha

SIT's Master of Arts in Sustainable Development prepares graduates for positions as consultants, project managers, and administrators in international and community based organizations whose efforts achieve a more equitable and sustainable use of the world's wealth and natural resources. The program provides a comprehensive education in issues of development, including competing theories and alternative approaches to practice, as it develops competencies in program planning, proposal writing, policy advocacy and training. Special attention is given to the role of nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations, and other civil society institutions as catalysts and providers of people-centered development programs and as actors influencing the formulation of public and corporate policies that affect the lives of their constituencies. As the graduate school of World Learning, a leading international development organization, SIT is uniquely qualified to prepare professionals with the capacity to help communities around the globe meet their needs and ensure their future.

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I'm watching "So you think you can dance?" right now and it's making me crazy! It's so intense! Ahhh!! And I don't think I've watched this much dancing before. (sad I know) It's reminding me so much of Sandy and our long discussions about the beauty of dance.

My last year in Korea I trained in Tae Kwon Do every morning because for me it was poetry in motion. (a sweet, devoted student got up every morning and taught me) Training my body in the discipline of Tae Kwon Doe was so worshipful. The first time I watched my gangly, shy students transform themselves into grace and precision in motion in a Tae Kwon Do presentation I was hooked.

I felt that again tonight as I watched the human body powerfully, gracefully convert passion and energy into dance. I have to say that Blake's performance in the lyrical dance routine was powerful. I loved that routine. That dance routine was a story of the passion and confusion of the beginning of a relationship. Loved it!

I'm voting for Snow and that other foreign guy...darn what's his name.

Sandy, you've got to watch this show! You'll love it!

So I'm temping at this trendy shoe company right now to make some extra cash before school starts. I've been assigned to help out dear old Dorothy with online orders that have gone awry.

It's funny how doing something so mundane can be made a little more meaningful when you like the person you're doing it for. Apparently, something has gone wrong with one of their programs and I've been hired to do Dorothy’s job temporarily. She's really stressed but still super sweet so I enjoy the work more cuz I'm helping her out.

So I'm copying and pasting letters to customers. Now that I've got the system kind of down it's getting repetitive. Thus I'm doing what Joyce always does when things get repetitive-quietly almost subconsciously entertain myself.

I've had some great fodder for this. Poor Mr. Wigglesworth-I had a fun time as I was preparing his email. Wouldn't it have been funny if I had sent out his email, "Dear Wiggles"? hehe Betcha he's never heard that before. Then there was Ms. Toppings...she got some toppings with her email. haha Oh man...this is pathetic but still entertaining...

Oh now don't fret....I'm not really writing that stuff just wishing I could for a good laugh.

turning randomly to psalms these words lept afresh into my heart...

O Lord, you have searched me and known me...
you know when I sit down or when I stand up...
you discern my thoughts from far away...
you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways..
even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely...

you know me-don't you, Lord? you really know me...thanks for loving all of me... *smile*

The New Have-It-All Myth
"Young women are shockingly naive about how easy it'll be to hop on and off the career track. Have we sold them an impossible dream?"

Taken from an interesting article, girls....read it here.

excuse me, adam, as I help myself to your food...

we've made it...

oh the meadows of Mt. Hood

beginning our 13 mile hike into our camping spot

follow me you slackers!

Warning: If you are going to read book 6 of Harry Potter or haven't finished yet, you might not want to read this.

I just finished it and I was shocked. I won't give away too much (or maybe I will) but I will say JK Rowling has proved herself to be very un-American in this book. (not that she is American) Americans tend to like neat endings and I think abhor the death of a major character.

At least I think this tends to be true with art forms that have become as commercialized as Harry Potter has. But wow, I guess she's sticking to her guns even if half the world is going to be up in arms at what she let happen in this book. Or at least I'm up in arms! I was so devastated but at the same time it makes the story deeper, more important.
***Harry Potter spoiler over**
Anyway, I've just recently gotten back from Oregon. It was an eventful and deeply meaningful trip. It was also great to be immersed in old friendships. I was around old timer friends 24/7 which was really refreshing.

I'm going to talk more about that but I'm waiting for the breath-taking pics of our camping trip on Mt. Hood. Unbelievable beauty...seriously calendar worthy!

And I have to admit I did seriously ask myself a couple times why I'm not a tree-hugging, REI clad, bike-riding, tattoo covered Portlander instead of a pollution breathing, car-imprisoned, bullet-dodging la-la lander. (Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit...maybe)

I just got back from spending the whole day with June and her fam at Disneyland. We were celebrating Jewel's 5th b-day. Really fun but roasting HOT.

Now I'm off to pack for my trip to Portland tomorrow. I'm going to hang out with my old college homies and take care of important family stuff. So please pray about that.

I can't believe I'm getting up at 4:30am! ahhhhhh!!!

Why or why didn't I know about this website when I lived in West LA. :-) I really needed it...
http://www.localhikes.com/

Just read part of an interview with Bono. Isn't it amazing that the leader of one of the most influential rock bands is a sincere believer? And not only that but he's seeking to make an impact on a global scale through advocating for Africa concerning AIDS and trade issues. Praise God for the interesting characters in unusual places that he raises up. Kind of reminds me of how God raised up Joseph in the time of famine.

Taken from: "Bono in Conversation" by Michka Assayas.
Interviewer: The son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: "Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you?" There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled… It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.

By the way, I'm reading Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life by Nouwen. So GOOD! Actually, I have a confession. I don't usually like devotional books. I often find them to be simplistic and mundane. But this baby, is good stuff. Something you can drink deeply from.

Just a few jewels...

"But real openness to each other also means a real closedness, because only he who can hold a secret can safely share his knowledge. When we do not protect with great care our own inner mystery, we will never be able to form community."

"No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations, of which we ourselves are often only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free friendship and love and evoke instead feelings of inadequacy and weakness."

Driving up to my driveway today I was greeted by salt and pepper colored flecks floating through the air. I sat there perplexed as my windshield was quickly covered with what turned out to be the ashes of a fire here in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Yeah, at first my roommate and I were a bit freaked out. But then after watching wealthy home owners with garden hoses on the news for a while, we decided it was far enough away that we didn't need to worry about it too much.

So don't worry...we're okay.

Apparently, Hermosa Beach has citywide free wireless. Because right now I'm sitting watching the suburbanite monsters try to drown each other in their cousin's pool while surfing the net.

Their cousin told me that Hermosa had 50,000 left over in their budget one year so they decided to give all of Hermosa Beach free wireless. Crazy. He says it's strongest at the beach. Right now I'm getting a low signal from his backyard but hey, it works.

Good thing that I just so happened to have my laptop in my car today. Otherwise I wouldn't have made this fun discovery. Now when I go biking from Manhattan Beach to Hermosa Beach, I'm going to strap my laptop on my back. ahh...maybe. :-)

But yeah, I'm nannying this summer. Thought it would be a fun summer job while I waited for school to start up again this fall. So far it is.....um....not exactly fun but how about an interesting social observation project.

Happy 4th of July everyone...

Yesterday I had the best time adventuring Palos Verdes and San Pedro with Bindu. We took a long ride along the coast in Palos Verdes and then ended the day at Shakespeare by the Sea, a live outdoor Shakespearean performance literally "by the sea". Great fun. If you live in the Los Angeles, you should check it out.
http://www.shakespearebythesea.org

Oh my gosh! It's July 1st! Whoa, time flies. In a couple days I will have been the US for a year. I'm not sure how I feel about that. To be honest, I still feel that I haven't completely acclimated back to American life. My internal frame of reference still tends to be Korea.

Well, I wasn't going to blog about that right now. I just wanted to post a portion of this article on blogging. It mentions that even though blogging is a huge movement, at the same many people don't really understand what blogging is. It tends to be one of those words people have heard but often don't really understand. I am frequently explaining to people what blogging is.

What a strange and amazing technological revolution we are apart of...

"It was Merriam-Webster Online's No. 1 word of 2004, and Fortune magazine named it the No. 1 tech trend for 2005. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November 2004 found that 8 million people say they have created one and almost one-third of Internet users say they read one. But it's still a mystery: Six-of-ten Internet users say they don't know what "blog" means.

A blog, according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer."

Bloggers write about their lives to keep friends and family up-to-date, talk about their industry, discuss hobbies or rant about their favorite reality TV show. But posting pictures of you at work, disclosing confidential information about your employer, or bad-mouthing your co-workers could get you in hot water for committing inappropriate behavior."

The greatest truth I know is what I feel when I look in my niece's eyes.

I'm so easily confused about my life, burdened by the loneliness and darkness I see around me. Life can often seem colorless and meandering.

But when I look in my niece's eyes, eyes that glow with a pure truth, my relativism and pessimism lift and out shines one singular truth-love without condition.

I've always been one to tie myself in intellectual knots and it's always been the profound truth of simple love that has lifted the superfluous fog of my limited human logic.

It's this love that makes everything make sense; it's this love that makes things matter. It's in the light of this pure child-like love that our own darkness is exposed and our deepest redemption found.

I've been busy from dawn till dusk this last week. I'm feeling kind of homeless as I'm in the process of moving to Palos Verdes for the summer but all my stuff is in 3 different locations in Los Angeles right now.

As June and I were about to leave to Barnes and Noble tonight she said, "aren't you going to change?" She was commenting on my interesting combination of somewhat formal shirt and workout pants. But hey, that's what happens when your clothes are all over LA and you go on a weekend trip to San Diego to hang out with "the fam" and "the old school".

Man, I feel like I've been inundated with superficiality lately. It's been hitting me on all fronts. Men, friends, random people sitting next to me...

The girl sitting next to me has been absolutely driving me crazy! I'm trying to concentrate on my taxes and she's gossiping about some poor girl. But the poor girl is not the only object of her annoying, shallow tirades. She is also, of course, talking about how smart she is and how that guy that hit on her was obviously "not smart enough" because he's from the South. Whatever that means!

This is what her words sounded like to me, "whinewhinewhinenegativitybrattybrainlesswhine! Andasldijgfijfosdigj!"

Annoying!!!! I seriously can't understand why people waste their time going on and on about such meaningless bull crap. Unfortunately, I feel like I've been hearing a lot of things like this lately and I'm starting to wonder if the stereotypes of LA are more true than I originally thought.

sorry...venting....

The count down has begun. I'm moving to the OC one week from tomorrow. Time has flown by. It's weird to be moving again. Part of me feels like it's going to be like moving to a totally new city. Hopefully that's not true because it's not like I'm severing all the connections I've made here on the Westside.

It's funny-my roommates and I have been spending ridiculous amounts of time talking and hanging out at our place. It's like we're subconsciously trying to squeeze in as much time as possible before we separate.

Right now I think I'm suffering from a bout of post-semester disorientation. In this past week alone I've had two dreams in which I've woken up panicked about some paper I need to finish or some missing document that's going to bring my grade down. Of course, later after struggling for a minute to separate fact from dream, I realize that the semester is over and everything is complete. I also have that common summer feeling of, "what do I do now?" But it's not like I don't have a lot to do or a lot of things to enjoy. It's just that rapid change from stressed to unstressed that leaves a person a bit thrown off.

I guess it doesn't help that my stupid international tax situation is looming over my head. (don’t worry I got an extension) I've finally got all the answers I need to file though. So if you ever live overseas for a long time and need some tax help you know who to ask.

There's something sad about this cat and mouse game we call the dating game.

Often when a guy first starts pursuing me, unbeknownst to him I pull into myself. I start seeing the situation as if I was outside myself-an invisible, objective outsider merely observing the situation.

Something about that vantage point frequently pushes me into a state of melancholy. Here are two humans trying to make it through a maze of motives, expectations, and baggage to actually reach each other. Ironically in the process of trying desperately to connect, they often push each other further away.

This out-of-body experience has been especially stark with a couple guys. As one particular guy was talking on and on about all his ex-girlfriends over dinner, I felt close to tears. Not because of his obvious lack of awareness, but because in his desire to connect with me he had pushed me away.

It's the observer in me that is most grieved by this because that observer knows that this guy's behavior is reflective of what we all do at times-a micro-example of the human experience. Seeking selfishly to be loved, we push the chance for genuine love aside.

The dating game frequently thrusts me into a somber, thoughtful state. I so often feel like just a pawn on some guy’s chessboard. He's looking to win the game of love and in the pursuit of love he misses me-the person right in front of him.

Today I feel good about being in America. Just had a great day. Since I finished my grad classes Wednesday, I've found my myself in a unexpected whirl wind of socializing. Thursday night I said good-bye to my Westside small group cuz I'm moving to the OC baby (I just said that cuz it rhymes not cuz I'm particularly excited). Then saw Star Wars III Friday night, which as thoroughly reported already was very good and a bit sad. Then today I got up kind of early for a Saturday and went biking from Venice to Hermosa Beach with my small group and it really was jolly good fun.

I have that great tired/high kind of feeling that you get after working out for a long time. It feels so good when you take a shower and drink a veggie juice drink. (huh? well at least it does for me)

I was thinking of chilling and watching Gardenstate. (it's about time!). But I'm getting super tired now. Anyway, I was going to talk about way more interesting things than just babbling on. I guess I was going to say that I can already tell that Gardenstate is going to instantly put me in a pensive probably slightly sad mood.

This sentence alone on the back of the DVD case already is the story of my life, "Twentysomething, Andrew Largeman (Joyce ****), returns home after nine long years. Now as he(she) tries to re-connect with his (her) past...."

Heard a very interesting discussion on Evangelical influence on students at Ivy League schools on NPR today.

To listen click here. To read the NY Times article click here.

This article and the interview brought to the surface a lot of things that I've been thinking about for a while concerning America's current culture wars. I would like to think out loud about it but it's such a sensitive issue even between Christians.

One thing I'll venture to say about it right now is that American culture wars take on a different taint when you come back to them after living overseas for a long time. I'm being kind of general and cryptic...maybe I'll try to discuss some of this stuff after my classes are over. (yeah! 2 more classes then I'm done for the semester!) But knowing me once the moment's over I won't go back to it.

Here's a snippet from the NY Times article to whet your appetite:
"The growing power and influence of evangelical Christians is manifest everywhere these days, from the best-seller lists to the White House, but in fact their share of the general population has not changed much in half a century. Most pollsters agree that people who identify themselves as white evangelical Christians make up about a quarter of the population, just as they have for decades.

What has changed is the class status of evangelical. In 1929, the theologian H. Richard Niebuhr described born-again Christianity as the "religion of the disinherited." But over the last 40 years, evangelicals have pulled steadily closer in income and education to mainline Protestants in the historically affluent establishment denominations. In the process they have overturned the old social pecking order in which "Episcopalian," for example, was a code word for upper class, and "fundamentalist" or "evangelical" shorthand for lower.

Evangelical Christians are now increasingly likely to be college graduates and in the top income brackets. Evangelical C.E.O.'s pray together on monthly conference calls, evangelical investment bankers study the Bible over lunch on Wall Street and deep-pocketed evangelical donors gather at golf courses for conferences restricted to those who give more than $200,000 annually to Christian causes.

Their growing wealth and education help explain the new influence of evangelicals in American culture and politics. Their buying power fuels the booming market for Christian books, music and films. Their rising income has paid for construction of vast mega-churches in suburbs across the country. Their charitable contributions finance dozens of mission agencies, religious broadcasters and international service groups."

What are your thoughts on this? Are we becoming more influential because our money and education has increased or is it something else?

If it is true that we as a community have become more affluent in the last couple decades are we using our greater spending power to expand the kingdom of God (ex. reaching out to communities that are more needy economically, socially, spiritually) or are we primarily using it for ourselves and our community (ex. megachurch buildings, bookstores)?

There are a lot of other things I'd like to ask your thoughts on but I've got to get back to studying....

Hilarious...

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html...

and healthy too...

Bingo!!!

In all my Central Asia research, I've found a "to drool for" website. (This is the kind of website I've been envisioning..somebody already thought of it. That's alright I still have a couple ideas up my sleeve that might come to fruition someday over the rainbow....)

http://www.oneworldjourneys.com/

A statement that broke my heart tonight:

"One man, Abdulla Abdullaugli, 28, asked to take a reporter's notebook and then wrote a statement in Russian: "This is not radical Islam, simply people who want to live like the rest of the world." (meaning this uprising is not really about Islam but about people who want out of their poverty)

-taken from this article on the recent Islamic uprising in Uzbekistan

"Conformity"
(A young girl posing for a picture outside Tiananmen Square)

An old forgotten and unkept part of the great wall

Fishing boats in frozen lake, Great Wall, China

I guess this template will do. I couldn't really find a template I was satisfied with.

Now I need to put up those links, so I have easy access again to all the people that I surf.

I've decided that today I’m going to post the first installment of my very own on-going online photography exhibit. I was driving on the 5 the other day and it struck me that I would like to see all my best work together in one album. So I'm going to post my favorite pics little by little then transfer them to a “favorites” album on my photopage. It would just be interesting for me to see all those scattered experiences together in one place.

I just love photography. I'm having a hard time even beginning to explain what I love about it. There have been times when my students have brought some of their pictures to me and I've just stared at a certain pic. They had caught something on film-a movement in mid-stride, a shadow, an angle that was just right. They had caught "it".

I remember one time in particular when my TA showed me his pics of India. I exclaimed after breathing them in, "Ramon, these are good! Are you into photography?" But he didn't know what I was talking about. He had no special interest in photography and was awestruck that I saw anything special in his pics. I remember his look of, "Are we talking about the same pictures?" But in many of his pics he had caught "it". The hilarious thing was that he felt like I was picking the most inconsequential ones.

Photography feels very similar to poetry for me. I understand and create both art forms from the same place and with the same philosophy.

Wow, I've never tried to explain my ideas on photography before. That was hard. I'll have to think more about it and try to write about it again in a more articulate fashion.

Oh man, I'd really like to write right now but right now I should be stressing out about my presentation on my research paper on Central Asia tomorrow. Which currently I'm not...which is a bad thing.

Joyce, read my lips:

very important presentation tomorrow, wake up early go to stressful crummy work then drive through an hour of traffic to a very important presentation with lots of big eyes looking up at you the so-called grad student stumbling over her words if you don't get going NOW!

Comprehende? comprende? Kapish?

study, study, study....joyce....no web-surfing for you....

I've been meaning to write out some of my thoughts on this. I've been curious to see what I would come up with when I sought to turn it into words as opposed to just fluffy thoughts whirling around in my head.

Qualities that attract me to a man:
-open to people, open to new ideas
-empathetic: can easily see things from someone else's point of view
-sensitive, emotional (not in a moody, unstable way but in the sense that they feel things deeply)
-talkative and curious
-simple (not materialistic or really into fashion)
-can relate to a lot of different kinds of people
-not a stranger to pain and weakness

Hmmm...this is interesting. I'm just writing whatever first comes to mind. I have to go to bed...

To be continued

To hide one lie, a thousand more lies must be told.
~Indian proverb taken from the grammar book I'm teaching out of
Can you find the nouns?

A writer is someone who has written today (something like that)
~quote of a famous novelist taken off a Starbucks cup

Speaking of grammar, unfortunately I'm really hating teaching right now. I guess I'm burnt out. Believe it or not, I just feel like I never want to teach again.

I'm in my own body but even I don't totally understand myself. It's almost like I've suddenly become someone else in this regard. Something in the past I would have done for free now instantly repulses me.

I kind of knew when I got back from Korea that I needed a break from ESL but when I moved to LA it seemed an ESL job would mesh best with my schedule. It seems working in these flaky, factory-like ESL jobs has pushed me over the edge. Yet I should give my current job some credit-in a lot of ways they have an excellent system and they truly care about teacher development. But the school is still a somewhat chaotic moneymaking machine and I just can't take that right now.

But even as I read over what I've written I can't help thinking how spoiled I am, so many in the world don't have the luxury of choosing a job they're passionate about.

Whenever I read about Handong, I always so strongly want to be there. To just be there. I can so easily go there in my heart and remember everything so clearly. It's like that world is more real than this one.

I can remember my office and the copy room. I remember my tired body typing at my computer before my first class. I loved that sacred time when the morning quietness was still unbroken by the sounds of students shuffling into their classes. Sandy would be across from me working quietly at her desk looking professional and beautiful as usual.

Part of me feels like if I went back everything would still be there as I left it and I could jump right into it like I had never been gone. But I know that's not really true.

I think we always feel that way about times in our lives that are a little like heaven. There are those times in our lives when we feel so happy, so contented and loved that they take on their own life in our consciousness. They're like an idealized painting that has transcended the restrictions of time and just lives on in your heart.

warning: I don't have internet access in my room anymore because something is wrong with our wireless router. So it is likely that I won't be writing as much as I usually do for a little while. The same goes for email. hmmmph...

We'll see if I can work in some thoughtful reflection at my university's library some time soon.

I'm here in the UCLA library dying to sort through all the mental turns I've taken these last ten days.

I like the solemn, sophisticated feel of this library. This is what a university library should look like-with its large multi-colored vaulted ceiling lined with antique hanging lights and huge bay windows flooding in gentle sunlight to illuminate sleepy students eyes.

I need to write but I think it is going to have to wait while I try to navigate through the labyrinth of UCLA's unfamiliar library system. I'm starting research on development issues in Central Asia. It's going to be fun-too bad the library closes at 5pm.

If you agree with the following statement then click this link and quickly sign your name to "the one" declaration. And if you're really cool you'll be put an ad like the one I have above my archives (yes, brad pitt and I are friends). You can find the code for the ad on "the one" website.

“WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing additional resources for basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the US budget. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all.”

Sorry for all these sudden tragic stories...

I was so saddened when I heard on the news today that an awesome warrior for human rights, Marla Ruzicka, died in a car bombing in Iraq. I read of her work in Iraq a year ago and promptly book marked the website of the non-profit she founded, CIVIC. CIVIC lobbies to get financial compensation for civilian casualties of war as well as bringing attention to the immense human cost of war. This beautiful warrior died at 28 pursuing this purpose.

Jake Faust, a guy that I was in a high school Christian camp with recently died. My sister told me tonight. I saw him a couple years ago after not seeing him for years. Even after all that time we still reminisced about all the fun we had at Agape High and the weird jokes camp jokes like, "sausage".

He died so tragically. He was shot by cops in his car. They had pulled him over and apparently they thought he was reaching for a gun.

I am and was when my sis told me-speechless. In truth, I barely knew Jake but I still feel his loss. It's still a great shock.

The older I get the more people I know from my childhood that have died in their 20's. The older I get the more people I know that have died. The older I get the more I realize how fragile life is. It truly can be taken away in a moment. A fragile string dangles our lives over eternity and it can so easily be broken.

It could have been me just as easily. What seemed like a normal night, a normal commute was actually the last ten minutes of his life.

Lord, be with his family...

I've been trying to think of a new name for my blog for a while. Well, here it is. I'm also looking for a new template. I think this one is just temporary while I spend ridiculous amounts of time searching for a new template.

hahahaha....oh yeah, the funny bunny move.

And by the way here's a really funny video called, "Baby's Got Bible" The sad thing is the person who posted it says it's things like this that keep him or her from taking religion seriously.

It was just a joke, whoever you are! oh well. It's still really funny.

While taking a nap today I dreamed that I had married a guy that I didn't really love. We peacefully coexisted but I knew that my heart was not passionate about him. In my dream I suddenly realized this with such strength. And I agonized in my dream about how I could have married a man I didn't love. I was desperately asking myself, "How am I going to get out of this?" Then all these things I had said in the past came back to me, "When I get married, there will be no turning back. That's why I need to be sure."

My next thought was how could my friends let me do this and then I flashed back to conversations with my friends where I had justified him. This was one of those dreams where in the dream you really think it's real.

I was so perplexed about how I got duped into this marriage that I woke up. And of course, I was so relieved. haha Dreams are so weird.

Wow. Where have I been? Have you ever noticed I tend to start my blogs with "wow"? Yeah, I've kind of noticed, so I try not to do it. It makes my entries seem like I've been out in a blizzard and I have some extraordinary tale to tell every time I come back inside. Can't you see me with snow in my hair complete with cherry red nose and rosy cheeks, "You guys won't believe this but..."

I went on another one of those weird emotional roller coasters this last week. I was laid off my job right in time for me to spend a week in San Diego for Easter. Getting laid off had a very cerebral effect on me. Suddenly, I had all these implications to sort through. I went way back and started once again reconsidering my MA not to mention a lot of ruminating on what part-time job I should pursue to pay my bills for the rest of this semester. This was all very draining and discouraging. I once again felt rootless.

I think the hardest part was hashing through the age-old debate within myself about my MA. Which MA is right for my personality, which is right for my calling, for missions...yada,yada,yada... (nerdy Bible college factoid: yada means "to know" or is one of the conjugations of "know' in Hebrew) I'm not even letting you in on all the complexities of my debates.

On top of this, some relationship issues came up that were promptly added to the soup that was brewing in my noggin. But I pretty much came full circle by the end of the week like I often do and ended with, "I guess I'm going to just keep on doing what I've been doing". Instead of the various alternatives I had been proposing in my mind such as the idea to become a Scottish highland dancer and travel India giving dance classes.

So I drove back to LA somewhat at peace leaving my storm of indecision in SD as I drove north. It also probably helped my peace of mind that by then I had some job offers to choose from.

By the way, basically what happened with my job is that they came to me and said that the student population was going down for April so they couldn't "have me" for April but they wanted me to come back in May. Crazy-eh? Yeah, I later told them I wasn't coming back cuz "homey don't play that way". I said those very words. Yeah, yup. Well, not really.

Thank the Lord that I got a job just after Easter break at a more reliable, more professional language school in Koreatown (which is an area in LA for those non-LAers). I'm starting Monday. :-) I can tell already the standards of professionalism are so much higher at this place, which is nice even for a part-time job.

Today I'm working on the African immigrant daycare project for the Community Development program I'm in. Yeah, I've been down here in SD all this week. I thought I would be bored out of mind but it's actually gone by pretty quickly. So it's about time that I busted a move on this project. I feel like I actually haven't done that much with it.

Hopefully, I'll be meeting my partner, Zuhra, tonight. So we can be more prepared for our presentation this Monday than we were last time. Most importantly though is that I really help her get this thing off the ground.

My head has been a whirl this week. Lots of drama going on at one time...I can't keep track of it all. Please say a prayer for me.

Went to Hollywood Presbyterian Church for the Good Friday service tonight. Their website catch phrase is "raising the cross over Hollywood". I thought they were just being metaphorical. So I was a bit surprised when the famous Hollywood sign on the hill was in direct view as I was driving up Gower Ave. to the church. As I drove towards the beautiful old stained glass church I realized from a distance it literally looks like the cross a top the church is hanging over the Hollywood sign.

I absolutely loved the services. I first went to the quiet contemplative communion service in a small candle lit chapel. Then we all moved solemnly over to the main sanctuary for "The Service of Gathering Darkness"

During this service we sang hymns, listened to a choir sing in Latin and then watched the passion story reenacted. And as Jesus grew closer to the cross more and more candles went out in the sanctuary until one last candle was carried out after Jesus was crucified. This to symbolize that the light of the world had died. Then the whole congregation walked out in darkness and silence.

It was emphasized that this is the first part of the service and the continuation will be on Sunday when we celebrate His resurrection.

I reveled in the seriousness and symbolism of that time. It was just what I needed. I probably would have shared more about the service tonight but my upstairs neighbors got in a HUGE fight while I was writing this entry and that has kind of kicked the inspiration out of me.

Been preoccupied lately. Really have some things that I'd like to write about. Hopefully I can do a little writing before I head down to SD for Easter.

I love Easter. It's so beautifully draped with profound theological meaning. The Passover of Egypt, the goat that was sent out of the temple carrying Israel's sins, the Old Testament symbol of the lamb culminating in one moment of history. The very center of God's redemptive plan being celebrated albeit watered down with bunny rabbits and eggs but still celebrated. I love this time of contemplating all the big words of systematic theology: depravity, justification, sanctification, atonement. All of these words dethroned and manifested in a poor, humble, outcast that was broken for me.

I'm officially done with this stinky paper I've been working on!!!! Yeah!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RO POTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jewliet smiles at the world and believes the world smiles back at her
She loves the world and really believes it loves her back

When I look into her brightest smile, her eyes alight with interest
I smile with her

but at times this same smile turns into a cry of fear deep inside of me

I never want her open embrace to be rejected
I never want her to see the world's smile turn into its deceptive grimace

In her world everyone is kind, happy and safe
I so desperately want that to be true

I never want that smile to fade from her face

The song I refered to in my March 6th entry is Switchfoot's This is Your Life.

I misquoted it slightly it actually is, "Don't close your eyes...this is your life. Is it everything you'd dream it would be?"

wanna listen...click here.

I'm going to get my back adjusted finally! I'm supposedly getting it done at the same place Cindy Crawford goes to (according to my chiropractor in SD).

I'm also seeing Hotel Rwanda tonight. I'm not looking forward to crying my eyes out and probably being traumatized for days but I think it's still important to see it.

I need God's presence so much right now. I haven't prayed nearly enough this week. I started my new part-time teaching job last Monday. I was rushing all around, getting up earlier than I'm used to. Lying in bed Tuesday or Wednesday it occured to me that I had totally fogotten to take time aside to commune with Him.

One morning while driving to work a song's lyrics worked their way into my sleepy consciousness. "Open your eyes....this who you are. Are you everything you dreamed you'd be?"

After I actually listened to what the singer was saying I was struck with the very words that had hit me so hard nearly two years ago on my 26th birthday. You are who you are today. You're no longer becoming, you are. Look at yourself in the mirror. Are you proud of what you've become, proud of what you do on a daily basis? Be who you want to be today. No more excuses.

These words came tumbling out onto to my brain on my 26th b-day. A searing realization from God and "a breaking" that still challenges me. Since this time I still ask myself this question as a kind of spiritual check-up, a challenge that helps me keep the weeds in my life in check.

I remember that day with a sad, resolute clarity. I was at Handong totally alone in the faculty apartments. This was a self-imposed solitude. I had purposely come back to Handong's deserted campus to work on my grad applications in silence. I had already celebrated my b-day with friends so I didn't care that I'd be alone on the actual day.

I woke up alone and sinned alone. I went on a walk in my usual rice fields. The sky was such a perfect crystal blue laced by autumn's remaining gold and red leaves as I gazed upwards. I remember I walked downed the hard, crusty mud road rimmed by tall, colorful trees and I was stumbling. Stumbling with sadness, with disappointment with myself.

I was 26 and I had become something I didn't want to be! I remember I came to the end of that trail and facing that perfect cloudless sky I burst out crying. My desparation and disappointment with myself tumbled out of my mouth in the form of, "This is not who I want to be! Help me!!!" I cried and I got on my knees.

On that 26th b-day, on that cold dirt road I realized with such searing clarity that there were sins in my life that I had to vicously up-root in order to be "the person I had dreamed I'd be".

From that moment on when I wanted to slip into old sins, old patterns I'd remind myself that who I am today is who I am. I'm proud to say that I can look in the mirror and know that there are no hidden sins in my life that I'm secretly nursing. I'm proud of who I am today.

Tonight in class one of my discussion partners totally guessed my Myers-Briggs personality type without even blinking. I asked him how he did that (he barely knows me) and he just said he has a special interest in Myers-Briggs. Whatever the case, I was impressed with his guesswork. So tonight I came back and looked up some descriptions of my personality type again.

Does this sound like me or what!!!
(taken from http://www.typelogic.com/enfp.html)

General: ENFPs are both "idea"-people and "people"-people, who see everyone and everything as part of an often bizarre cosmic whole. They want to both help (at least, their own definition of "help") and be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level. They are interested in new ideas on principle, but ultimately discard most of them for one reason or another.

Social/Personal Relationships: ENFPs have a great deal of zany charm, which can ingratiate them to the more stodgy types in spite of their unconventionality. They are outgoing, fun, and genuinely like people. As SOs/mates they are warm, affectionate (lots of PDA), and disconcertingly spontaneous. However, attention span in relationships can be short; ENFPs are easily intrigued and distracted by new friends and acquaintances, forgetting about the older ones for long stretches at a time. Less mature ENFPs may need to feel they are the center of attention all the time, to reassure them that everyone thinks they're a wonderful and fascinating person. (who me??)

ENFPs often have strong, if unconvential, convictions on various issues related to their Cosmic View. They usually try to use their social skills and contacts to persuade people gently of the rightness of these views; his sometimes results in their neglecting their nearest and dearest while flitting around trying to save the world. (hmmmm....ouch)

Work Environment: ENFPs are pleasant, easygoing, and usually fun to work with. They come up with great ideas, and are a major asset in brainstorming sessions. Follow through tends to be a problem, however; they tend to get bored quickly, especially if a newer, more interesting project comes along. They also tend to be procrastinators, both about meeting hard deadlines and about performing any small, uninteresting tasks that they've been assigned. ENFPs are at their most useful when working in a group w ith a J or two to take up the slack. (hahahahahahahahahahahaha)
ENFPs hate bureaucracy, both in principle and in practice; they will always make a point of launching one of their crusades against some aspect of it. ENFPs are friendly folks. Most are really enjoyable people. Some of the most soft-hearted people are ENFPs.

ENFPs have what some call a "silly switch." They can be intellectual, serious, all business for a while, but whenever they get the chance, they flip that switch and become CAPTAIN WILDCHILD, the scourge of the swimming pool, ticklers par excellence. Sometimes they may even appear intoxicated when the "switch" is flipped. (absolutely wrong in my case...asiofrhweiryoasfhoiwe!!!!!!!!!!!)

One study has shown that ENFPs are significantly overrepresented in psychodrama. Most have a natural propensity for role-playing and acting. (Jim Carey is an ENFP)

ENFPs like to tell funny stories, especially about their friends. This penchant may be why many are attracted to journalism. I kid one of my ENFP friends that if I want the sixth fleet to know something, I'll just tell him.

ENFPs are global learners. Close enough is satisfactory to the ENFP, which may unnerve more precise thinking types, especially with such things as piano practice ("three quarter notes or four ... what's the difference?") Amazingly, some ENFPs are adept at exacting disciplines such as mathematics.

Friends are what life is about to ENFPs, more so even than the other NFs. They hold up their end of the relationship, sometimes being victimized by less caring individuals. ENFPs are energized by being around people. Some have real difficulty being alone, especially on a regular basis.

One ENFP colleague, a social worker, had such tremendous interpersonal skills that she put her interviewers at ease during her own job interview. She had the ability to make strangers feel like old friends.

ENFPs sometimes can be blindsided by their secondary Feeling function. Hasty decisions based on deeply felt values may boil over with unpredictable results. More than one ENFP has abruptly quit a job in such a moment.

(Hey, I still want to hear any suggestions you have on "must see" movies)

Movies I need to see eventually:
(You're probably wondering where I've been. I don't know. I guess I have no excuse. :-)Anyway, this list is mostly for my use to help me remember because, of course, when it comes time to rent movies I always forget.)
Ray
The Aviator*
Bend it Like Beckham
Osama
Born into Brothels (documentary)
Westside Story
Super Size Me (documentary)
Bowling for Columbine (documentary)
Million Dollar Baby
The Motorcycle Diaries
Garden State
Hotel Rwanda
Bride and Prejudice*
Phantom of the Opera*
Finding Neverland
Vera Drake*
Shawshank Redemption

*optional

This is all I can remember right now. Do you have any other "must see" suggestions?

I'm constantly surrounded by newness. A new city, new roommates, a new work place, a new school, a new church. Sometimes I begin to forget what it feels like to be fully me, to fully fill my skin. I forget what it's like to be around people that laugh at my jokes, that get my humor.

I start feeling kind of hallow, a transparent ghost of my former self. My new life feels flimsy. It's like soft cement that's still taking shape and I find myself disappearing into the ambiguity of my life.

I smile and curtsy. I answer the familiar questions. We all nod with frozen smiles and contrived familiarity.

Later I'll look out the car window at the shadowy buildings of downtown LA with their tiny windows glowing like Christmas lights. I’m looking for something, perhaps longing for the warmth I see in those windows. Meanwhile I'm part shadow, part human-a somewhat formless being in the quiet corner of the backseat.

"A loving heart is the truest wisdom."

-insightful anonymous quote on a tea bag :-)

Damp, slightly chilled in my gram's linoleum lined house, pleasantly worn out from hours of hiking in the rain with my sis, clothed with the starchy feeling that wearing the same clothes 3 days in row gives you I ponder my meeting with Zuhra Ahmed.

Zuhra's brightly colored headscarf and clothes contrasted strangely with Starbuck's predictable, brownish decor. We talked a long time about her life as a refugee, her plan to open a childcare center for single African mothers in her small apartment. She's soft spoken, quiet, a seemingly opinionless Sudanese refugee in our Community Economic Development program but once you talk with her alone you learn the real story. She's sharp in her wit as well as in her observations.

Zuhra brought up over coffee today that our African-American marketing teacher had casually made some derogatory comments about Africa's poverty at the beginning of class yesterday. It hadn't occurred to me how this would sound to someone from Africa until she brought it up. I was slightly ashamed that I didn't give it a thought at the time.

"That lady talked negatively about Africa's villages...well, at least I know where I'm from." Zuhra waved proudly.

I smiled warmly at this comment which was somewhat inappropriate at that juncture but I couldn't help it. I liked her style, her vision, her perseverance in the face of memories and injustice I have no concept of.

Later she was drawing a family tree of sorts of Sudan's tribal/language groups. I saw the light in her eyes as she explained that Sudan has many tribes each speaking their own language but even each tribal language has clan offshoots that have their own dialect. But of course, she reminded me everyone in Sudan also speaks Arabic. She smiled as she told me she was a Kakwa, a minority group in Sudan.

As she was telling me with about her country I felt a penetrating emotion start welling up somewhere in my rib cage. Sudden emotion, empathy I 'spose hit me unexpectedly and hoped I wouldn't surprise Zuhra by breaking into tears out of the blue.

Watching her talk animatedly of the wars, the constant relocation of the African people my eyes traced the colorful embroidery on her sweater. The color rippled on and on...zipping in and out...contorting into various shapes like the African people. Torn down, ripped apart but constantly regrouping, colorful despite it all. And I fought off the urge to cry at the depravity of a continent constantly convulsing with war, poverty, and injustice.

Funny things Jewliet has said recently:
(Joshua says lots of funny stuff also but I can't remember any of it right now)

Jewl (4 and half...she won't let you forget the half) and Joshua (3 years old) in the car with auntie Joyce:

auntie Joyce: ah man, I forgot my laundry!
Jewliet: auntie Joyce why'd you say, "ah man!"
auntie Joyce: Because I forget things a lot.
Jewliet: me too (sympathetically)
auntie Joyce: haaahahahaa, you do? What have you forgotten?
Jewliet: I forget my toys....and I forgot my backpack on the cruise boat. (she went on a Disney cruise in Dec. with her family)
auntie Joyce: hahahaha...(more discussion about the cruise boats and lost backpacks)

Mommy and daddy's date night/baby-sitting duty for auntie Joyce...

Good night prayer time with Joshua and Jewliet:
Snippets of Jewliet's prayer...

Dear Jesus...
I love mommy and daddy.
I love Joshua.
I love myself... (stifled laughter from auntie Joyce)

I love the beautiful trees and the sky is very beautiful.
Amen

By the way, I'm also in a web-design class in addition to my grad classes. You know me I can't keep this web-design thing out of my system. So I found a web-design class at a community college kind of near my house. So far it's hilarious. It's like taking a web-design class taught by Bill Murray.

Here's an example:

Reading through syllabus...

Reading rote from syllabus, "3 absences equal an F."

Aside seriously to the class, "If you don't come to class, you can't use the computer and then you can't use the programs. Unless you have them at home but if you have them at home then don't come bother me in class."

Reading rote from syllabus, "Come to all classes."

Aside to the class, "Once you get the hang of the class you'll want to come anyway. And plus we're going to start making brownies during class and we'll work with gooey keyboards."

If anyone new walks into the class, he abruptly asks, "Who are you?!"

At one point one of the students confessed to him as he was walking around the computer's checking on work that they were "lost". To which he calmly replied, "Well, you're on 12432 Overland St., West LA City College." haha

He totally has that random, deadpan humor. Actually, now that I come to think of it he actually looks a little like Bill Murray, too.

I can't even capture how funny and random this guy is. The people in the class make the whole situation even more humorous. Most of them just sit there clueless what to do with this guy's random, straight-faced humor and that strikes me as even more hilarious.

Good news: Did well in my model lesson. Had fun with the students. Hopefully will start making some mooola! Went to a cool Mosaic small group and met some cool people. Finally, got a charger so I can now resurrect my sleeping cell phone.

BAD news: Received 2 parking tickets in the past two days!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH! Like I'm some millionaire that can afford to donate big bucks to LA county! RahhhhhhR!

I just got back from my 45 minutes to an hour commute back from school. So far I don't mind it too much except that it uses a lot of gas. I mostly space out listening to NPR or rocking out to star98.7. I am known for being privy to long drives alone with my thoughts and this commute is not proving to be an exception.

I went to an interview for a language institute job downtown this morning. I almost didn't make it there on time with the traffic being worse than I had anticipated not to mention missing a turn.

The director seemed nice and we got along quite well. I had to describe how I would teach various lessons. I need to get over this weird pride thing I have. I felt almost insulted at times by his questions. "Of course, I know that. Do you think I'm some nitwit ESL teacher? What kind of teachers do you have coming in here anyway?" Thankfully, I didn't say any of those things nor (amazingly) show them in my face.

He seemed very satisfied by my answers and said I seemed to know what I was talking about. Then I had to take a grammar and English usage quiz. Which once again I was secretly insulted by. I'm snobbishly happy to say that I aced it except for some tricky sentence graphing including "abbreviated adjective clauses".

I now have to give a sample lesson tomorrow with the director and curriculum coordinator watching. Hmmm...a little scary. Teaching in front of evaluative people is always unnerving. But on one hand I figure what do I have to lose. Just go in there and do what I know to do and if they don't like me "oh well" it's not like this is my dream job.

Joshua looking at himself in the mirror shyly. We laughed ourselves silly when he did this. It was so cute.

Joshua's B-day

I was cleaning up the files on my computer earlier and realized that I never posted some of these cute pics cuz they were on my sister's computer. So just thought I'd catch you up on some cute pics of Halloween and Joshua's B-day.

Had my first class yesterday. It was good. Intercultural Com. for Teachers. There were times when I felt like I was going to explode because I had had so many experiences concerning the case studies we were going through.

I didn't want to seem like the overeager know-it-all so I was trying to clamp my mouth shut because even when I clamp my mouth shut I still end up saying a lot. :-)

It was interesting to be in class again after being a teacher for a couple years. Remembering once again how scary teachers actually are. Not that my prof. is unkind but she is an authority figure that has power over me through grades. As a teacher I'm usually on the other end of that dynamic and I so easily forget what it feels like to be on the student side.

As for me, I always desperately want my teachers to like me but often feel that they don't for unsubstantiated reasons. I remember one student in Korea that came up to me with his friend after a couple classes and asked me with a sad face why I didn't like him. I was, of course, flabbergasted. "Not like you! Of course, I like you. Why would you think that?"

I think he shrugged his shoulders with a smile. I had confirmed that I liked him and that was enough for him. I remember being concerned about that especially because I knew exactly how he felt. *smile* Now here I am in the same situation. But I think I'll just deal with that child inside between me and God instead of asking my profs. if they like me. :-)

Oh yeah, the real reason I'm writing. Ever since I moved to the concrete jungle I've had the uncanny feeling that when I'm in my bathroom I smell chlorine. I wish I could say I smell it because I compulsively clean my bathroom. haha Yup, I think my shower water has a high percentage of chlorine and who knows what else. Yeah, so I can't get over the feeling that I'm taking toxic showers.

I have really sensitive skin so even if I move to a new city that has great water (like Portland) my skin usually gets irritated until it adjusts to the new water. But this time I suspect it's more than my skin adjusting it's that the water is nasty.

So I'm taking action. I've heard of filters for showers because some people argue even if you don't live in LA water has too much chlorine in it. And our skin absorbs more of it through showers than our drinking water. Does anybody know about good shower filters? Here's what I've found so far. Let me know if you know anything about this.

Off to class...

I'm standing on the edge of the eve of my first day of school and still savoring the sweetness of yesterday. Sandy's wedding has turned out to be a fountain of connections. Everyone I've met or hung out with in this last week has been somehow connected to her or her wedding.

Yesterday I went to church with James, one of the former groomsmen. I got his email only a couple hours before the night service he had asked me to go to. I had heard of Mosaic and had been inclined to think it wouldn't be my type of church.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. It did have the rock-star facade I had suspected but it had the substance to support it. A lot of churches mistakenly focus on outward appearances such as jamming worship and spitting, frantic speakers and overlook what really drives a church-substance. Substance shown in the preaching of the Word, substance in the lives of the people.

I've visited many churches in my short lifetime but I can't remember going to a church where the people were this welcoming. Of course, it probably helped that James and his friend Mark were introducing me to everyone they know which seemed like everyone. :-)

After church we went out to dinner with around 20 people from the church. One of the things striking things about the church is how diverse it is culturally and ethnically. You see everything from punks to professionals of any color walking around with big smiles on their faces.

Well, I don't want to jump the gun and say I'm making this my home church in LA. I'm going to pray about it and keep on going. But I'm excited about the prospect that God may have answered "yes" when I prayed, "Please God, this time can I find a home church right away?!" Usually, when I move to a new place it takes me forever to feel at home in a church.

Oh and by the way, check out some of the new links I've posted.

Probably because of the influence of the U2 concert frenzy I've been listening to U2 a lot lately. I love this song. His questioning, his pain and hope really resonate (I'm pretty sure he wrote this song after 9/11)...

Peace On Earth
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth

Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

It's already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt

Jesus could you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No-one cries like a mother cries

For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the colour in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth
They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger, than any big idea

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth

Jesus this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth?
This peace on Earth

Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth