i am now a UCLA graduate

and just like that, it's over.

after a lovely week at tahoe, resting in the Lord, having good times hanging out with sophie and jeremiah, i come back to find that i didn't get into the minor. I was done...

i just texted brandon saying that i feel like i got shafted 2 quarters of my "college experience", but it is fitting. It feels right; the Lord has his own plan and it rarely goes with mine. and at this moment, i don't know where i'm going to be next month... i am going to give myself a month to find a job in la. if not, then i think i'm going to remain at home for the time being. i feel like i could enter into a season of rest and focused time of intimacy with the Lord. the first two days felt like a small glimpse of what could be.

i don't know, this is just a weird feeling. i mean, i love learning, i love going to class, i love knowledge and all i've ever known is school. and until my next two years of grad school, it's over. maybe it's not as bad because i've been thinking about graduation for the past year, ever since the whole crazy stay-in-china thang. haha. god i have no idea what you're doing... haha. but i'm sure it will beautiful :) it always is.

i feel like although my schooling feels like it's ended, there are still many things that aren't done in la... supernatural on campus, the people at ucla, it just doesn't seem done yet. Jesus, please make the path clear and obvious :)

i am excited for 2 weeks of break. it will be so good for my soul.

obligatory finals post, perhaps the last one

life is so uncertain. i don't know why i'm not freaking out. actually i do, because i know that you're going to take care of it :) it's a lovely feeling not stressing out about the future and just enjoying moment by moment. Thank you for that gift, Jesus :)

like i've said before, this quarter has probably been my most studious yet. probably a combination of living in the apartments, having been gone for a year, and not having the car these past couple of weeks so i can't go random places without a ride. blessing in disguise :P no matter how much i complain, Lord i know you know much better how I work. thank you for waking me up to study, for giving me alertness and a good brain to memorize stuff. i would really like to get all A's this quarter though :) for your glory. and it'd be nice to finish ucla strong. or u can just help me get in the accounting minor :P

Jesus, i'm awaiting the job that you have for me too. nothing has really happened so far but i know that's perfect timing because i wouldn't be able to commit to anything yet anyway. I'm just amazed how you work everything out, always exactly right. it's so nice to know you're in control :)

even with things concerning my heart right now, Lord, i'm trusting that my heart is distracted by one person so it won't be distracted with many. i mean, it's weird logic, but it works. i'm still holding out though Lord, and i know he's gonna be pretty amazing stuff :)

thank you Lord for a relatively warm apartment. haha even though it's cold as hell out there, it's not that bad in here. better than norcal home :P

thank you Lord for the tahoe trip to look forward to, time to just hang out with You and be with You and dance with You :) i'm excited to dance. and to dream. and just overall to spend time with you again. i know i haven't been very good with that, at least not in the "traditional" sense of spending time with you. i really want to get back into the Word. and I'd like another version of the Word that i can borrow. can you hook me up please? there's a lot of things that I'm sure you want to teach me and that i'm excited to learn too. many books to read, many hours to sleep, many conversations to be had. and maybe i shall ski.. perhaps.. :)

thank you Lord for a heart that feels, that is not TOO jaded, for your protection Lord. i know that if i had done things my own way, my heart would be in so much worse of a state. but you have been faithful and literally, kept the bois away :)

it's crunch time. 15 more hours for the hardest final. Jesus, i just need a little more focus and understanding. i really want to do well... if not, as long as you have the jobs lined up for me, that's fine too :P

i love you. bring daddy back home soon~
i love the way you move. i love the way you love me. i love the way you whisper my name. i love the way you love, period.

when she cries

its been a restful time being at home. for the first time, i didn't overschedule myself; in fact i just sorta hung out at home for most of the time besides seeing some church kids for a bit. i guess i'm learning how to value my family more.

in the midst of just spending time doing nothing, sleeping a lot, exercising and eating good food, there were several moments that i realized how being at home brought out the root of many of the heart issues. i mean, i could be completely over-analyzing many of this, but at home there's no bs. there's no sparing of feelings. things are just as they are. people don't beat around the bush. (people meaning my bros :P ) and so much of a mask that i put up during my other times just comes crashing down. it's true that people see who you really are when you're at home... they know when you're putting on a mask.

anyway, back to bondages. i've been seeing that much of my life is controlled and mastered by OBLIGATIONS. i keep thinking it's the whole asian christian daughter thing...

here's to lists:

obligated to be:

-good christian (reading the bible, praying, going to church [not so much anymore :p ], praying for revival and healing, spend time with the Holy Spirit to hear his voice more)

-good daughter (looking out for parents, more specifically, feeling pressure to graduate early to save mom money. thing is, even though they say that pressure is not there, their actions and words CLEARLY speak otherwise...)

-good Chinese (learn the language, keep the culture/customs alive for future generations especially since my bros don't care as much)

-good student (straight A's which leads to wonderful job）

-good employee (self-motivated, dedicated, attention to detail, loyal to company? [boss says that's old-fashioned])

-good sister (don't really know what this looks like... but the pressure is still there)

-good woman of God (submissive to future husband, learn to cook/clean/sew all that womenly stuff though i don't know if that's exactly credible either, might just be societal pressure)

-good friend (be there when people need you to be, drop everything to help your friends, good listener, strive to be the go-to person, discern when to be a listener and when to give advice)

i guess the one that popped up most during this weekend was the family one and not even for the above reason. i'm such an idealist... i always strive for that, even in what the fam looks like. i want everyone to drop everything for family first too. tension that i encountered was, what does it look like to put God first in that? i mean how can you argue with, i don't want to go to this family outing, i want to spend it with God? you can't argue against that and that's frustrating. it's like playing the God card... religion card.. whatever. it's just frustrating when that happens.

anyway. topic was thought up of because in a family where emotions are rarely talked about or shown, today, my mom cried. i thought about how weird it was for me to be comforting her, reversal of roles and all. but i was glad that she trusted me enough to let go, even if it was for a little bit. i hope she has a shoulder to cry on when she needs to (Jesus, this is your cue :) )

watched glee for the first time today (watched like 6 episodes). thought of you when quinn asked her dad to just let her crawl on his lap and be the little girl again. i miss you still. a lot. come home soon.

small consolation

i feel a little better that the interview status for jobs say "not invited" and not straight up "REJECTED WE DON'T WANT YOU". *sigh*

trying to trust You.

Today,

I lost a little hope. I questioned your timing, wondered why I'm still here and where I"m supposed to be going.

I questioned, today, whether you have heard and will answer my prayers. If you are, then please help me wait. I am quite terrible at that. And today, I was a product of the microwave, instant culture. I can not suffer for long, I've found, if you're not there to support me, to remind me and whisper in my ear that You're still here, Your word still stands, Your promises are still true.

I'm tired of holding on Jesus. Help.

Tears.

once in a while, i see something or someone or something happens that reminds me of you. The other day, I was watching a video from several years ago made by some church friends and you randomly popped up in the background. Tears kept coming for the rest of the video.

I wonder to myself if my faith is for nothing; everything seems to contradict with the Lord has told me about you. I want to believe; actually, I do believe. But once in a while, when I dwell in the circumstances too long, I get discouraged and question the Lord's timing and sovereignty.

For the sake of your dignity, I wish you didn't have to go through this humbling experience. But for the sake of our family, for your relationship with the Lord, for the sake of your spiritual well-being, I know that this is necessary. And yet it hurts. The process hurts. It hurts because whenever I think of you for too long or pray for you, my eyes tear up and my heart aches so much. I miss your presence, I miss your voice, I miss our times together, I miss sitting in your lap and just listening to you breathe. I even miss our arguments that show our shared stubbornness, your weirdness, your quirky sense of humor. I miss being embarrassed when you say something stupid in front of my friends and I roll my eyes. I miss the times when I don't even have to say anything and I just want you to hug me because I know that without saying anything you already understand what's going on. I miss the postcards you used to send me. I miss your really good spicy chicken wings. I miss you telling stories of me when I was a baby, how I always chose you over everyone else.

If only you had heeded the Father's warnings early on. If only you had maintained a soft heart towards His calling. But I also realize that your mentality and attitude towards Him is the same as yours towards your own father. And your earthly father was, unfortunately, terrible example of who God is as a father. The Lord is revolutionizing your view of Him. He's going to ravish your heart, ravish your mind until you are completely and utterly in love with Him. You're going to experience his love in a way that will blow your intellectual mind away. All those years in Sunday school, in church, all those years of head-knowledge will be blown away as you encounter the abounding and endless love of Your Lover. You will know so intimately His love for you. And it will naturally pour out of you into every area of your life. Your marriage, your relationships, your friendships, your view of the world, everything. There will be restoration. There will be dancing instead of mourning.

And on that day, I will know that all this pain was worth it. And on that day, I will cry tears of joy instead of tears of hurt. And I'm believing with all my heart that that day will come soon. Lord I'm holding on to what You've promised me. Even when the door looks shut, I know that victory is coming soon.

I can't believe it's been three years already. It's been a whole year since I have heard your voice. The memories are already starting to fade. I miss you so.

Lord, bring breakthrough. Humble his heart. Encounter him in a way that is undeniably you. I know You love him more than I could ever. He is, after all, Your creation, Your beloved, Your son.

I await for the prodigal to come home with open arms.

frustrated...

Lord, I know I should have more mercy, I know I should be more forgiving, I know I should be more understanding, I know I should more patient. She's hurting, she's going through a rough time, she has nobody to turn too, but therein lies my frustration. She DOES have someone to turn to, but she chooses not to, because of face, because of 面子, because of this stupid Chinese cultural stronghold that prevents her from being honest and transparent with what's going on. Lord, I hate "face"，I hate "saving face", I hate what that entire concept has done to make things worse. God, I know you are by her side, this is a battle that is already won, but then, why is it so frustrating!?!

this is purely a rant, a chance for me to write down stuff so I don't explode and regurgitate this on some poor soul. I guess, you my readers, are the poor souls :)

Lord, have mercy on me.

Happiness is...

eating free coffee cake and not feeling guilty about it :)
running how far i wanted to run and not stopping :)
spending lunch breaks lying on the grass enjoying the sun and the Son :)
walking home for work and knowing i can stop anywhere and stand there for a while :)
eating sophie's cake with tons of frosting for breakfast :)
home-made smoothies everydayyyy :)
watching sermons from bethel allllll day :)
dancing crazily when no one is watching :)
watching stephen chow be... stephen chow :)
seeing GOD stir things up in people :)
answered prayers!!!! :)
seeing the next generation get soooo rocked by GOD :)
being at a woman of GOd's wedding, knowing that we had prayed for her husband sooo much earlier in her life :)
talking to mom about how dorky brandon is :)
running through sprinklers and not caring :)
random encouraging texts from people whom I love and love me :)
jamming :)
cooking and not burning anything!! :)
hearing GOd's voice clearly 1000% w/o a doubt :D

when I'm content in Jesus and with what He's doing through me and in me~

Life is beautiful.

trying to be a college kid

so i'm staying up solely because i can :) it's great to be in college, making your own schedule and dealing with the consequences of your own actions (aka i'm gonna feel really tired tomorrow and not want to go to work).

update on the life:
-done with my first and last community college classes. learned more in one class than in 36 at ucla. man... don't want to admit it but the prof was from usc...
-living with sophie min is a new adventure everyday. i never know what to expect and it makes everyday interesting. sometimes i just want to be in her prescence to see what she'll say/do/think aloud/sing next. it's only confirmed my suspicions that she's an amazing, wonderful, woman of God. the man who marries her will be extremely lucky.
-living in an apartment is AMAZING. i loveeee it. it's so much better than the dorms. it's so nice to be able to have a carpeted apartment. i can do sit-ups on the floor now and not be grossed out. simple joys of life.
-starting to go running regularly again. it's so funny how running only three days in a row will jog your muscle memory. today it was so much easier to run the same distance as i ran three days ago.
-gonna take a week vacation starting this saturday. plan to have lots of good God-time, hang out with the fam, and not go on facebook. hopefully that will last the entire week :)
-learning how to cook. failing a lot (burnt veggies, really sweet/salty veggies, overcooked meats, soggy rice), but also some good #2 attempts :) i can't wait to go home and bring back baking material; i think it's so much harder to fail when it comes to baking...
-working full time is not as bad as i thought. days start going back a lot faster but it's nice to not have to think about work after work :) unlike school which is pretty much neverending.

random thoughts:
-I don't miss China. But it's weird. I know i'm going to go back. sneaky how God snuck this whole "life-long missionary" thing on me...
-Felt like I never left the States when I came back. no culture shock at all. except when i was at smc and realized how DIVERSE Los Angeles was. craziness. no mexicanos en chino!!!
-i like talking about china. hahaha today mi boss said i was "Beijinger". ya right, i wish. but it's really funny teaching my latino co-workers random phrases in Cantonese and Mandarin.
-i'm losing my chinese. and slowly gaining my korean. will be so screwed if i end up taking classical chinese in the fall and then korean in the winter/spring (ATTEMPT 2!!! will be so much better than attempt 1. i speak it out in faith.)
-even though I'm not an amazing writer, it's sooooo therapuetical for me to type/write things down. helps me process stuff.
-me having a car = me offering everyone rides. i think i've driven to the airport at least 8 timesthis past summer. no wonder my mom wants me to leave the car in norcal :)
-i still have no idea what i'm going to do with the rest of my life, specifically after i graduate. and for some weird reason (read:GOD) i'm not worried about it.
-God is really really crazy good. ask me more about it :) too much to write here.

woohoo! it's 2:45am. but i'm crashing, getting old. i couldn't even finish a whole diddy riese's cookies 2 days ago :( sadddddd. taste buds are growing up with me.

oh yah it was great turning 21. pc fam loves me so, even after being gone for a whole year. drank some wine. don't like the taste of alcohol found out. as well as several other discoveries... haha :) oh man.. only in pc...

gonna go fall asleep on my fav couch. it's tons more comfy than the mattress i sleep on. gonna miss it when i move out in a couple of days...

much love :)
~b3rn

For the record.

I really miss you, daddy.

oh chinese government...

blocked twitter, hotmail, and flickr anddd blogspot in preparation of 6/4. what i still have yet to understand is what they're exactly afraid off, the university students nowadays are in no condition to do a repeat of 6/4 20 years ago, most are concerned only of the impending doom of not having a job when they graduate. i think this article sums it up nicely, most would rather take it out at a rock concert than at a public demonstration.

You make all things beautiful

and you don't need my help to do that.

Oh Lord, in reflection of this past year, it's so true. You've shown me over and over and over again that it's not me but You. Especially these past couple of months, it's by your grace that i'm where i am right now and not somewhere so far away from you. or maybe I am far from you, but I don't feel like it because i know you're always with me.

Last night, a supposed night of debauchery and evilness full of lewdness and the like, turned out to be somewhat of a breakthrough and a time of contentment for me. When I decided to go out clubbing, my first prayers were GOD　help me not do anything stupid. To stand up for you, be a light. Oh but it was so EASY, I was so surprised, to just be me, to just be with You, to just enjoy life. I didn't have to struggled on my knees for long or with my conscious or with the image of what others thought of me. Lord there was a special freedom that you gave me last night, freedom to just be me and I LOVED it. to dance like crazy because i enjoy dancing even though there were so many watching although i probably looked incredibly silly and not "sexy" as i suppose girls should look. to dance because i love moving to the music, to go all out, to "lose inhibition" without alcohol, a bigger complement than she would ever know she gave me, to enjoy HK food, a small taste of home (even though they didn't have redbean bing) in a land far away, and it was FUN. oh it was so fun.

i've decided that i want to dance all out when i get the chance, whether in a worship service or in a club. i hope i have more chances in worship services. God i love this ability to move the body that you created.

Lord in my inability to do anything right and my constant selfish attitude these past couple of months, you're still moving. I don't know how or why and I'm definitely not worthy, but i guess that's not the point right?i never was, no matter how much I do or how much I'm doing right by you, You blessing me and You moving was never contigent on that. and now i'm EXPERIENCING that, not just knowing and Lord i hope i don't have to experience this much longer. I'm ready to move on, I hope i can move on, I don't want to be this self-centered for the rest of my life or at least constantly choosing to be self-centered as I've been. Lord I want to pour out what You've given me. I want to be rest though and really learn what means, to rest in You and not strive, not work out of my own power.

God i don't trust my feelings still. Though music does manipulate it, when it comes down to it, my actions reflect so much more of my words. And action is still the hardest thing to continue, to persevere in.

Last revelation: I'm still afraid of getting hurt. And any kind of relationship has a huge risk of that, and my desire is to run from anything that has risk. Never been a risk-taker, in stocks, money, or my heart. I guess that's why i hurt so many, run away from so many people, it's easier to deal with myself n You Lord, I know you're perfect and that youll never hurt me. but these PEOPLE, i can't ever guarentee that, they hurt me without even knowing it, or maybe they do. what if they don't like me? what if they don't like me as much as i like them? what if they think ______ of me? o Lord why is it so important what other people think? why can't i ever just be content with you?

im going to get hurt. that's part of life. the question is how i'm going to deal with it. Lord, if being close to people will ultimately lead back to you, then I'm ready for it. bring it on, but you know how much i can deal with.

okay, that was the second last to revelation, another one i just want to say: for those friendships that I feel that they "need" me, that without me their life would be a little less, God i gotta be honest, i like that power. i'm still power-hungry. I'm still control-hungry. and having that tiny bit of control and influence in their life, i like it . but then more of me, means less of You.

shame. guilt. i messed up Lord. and i know i'm going to mess up again today, probably consciously. and yet you knew this and still chose to love me. i dont' think i'll ever understand why you choose to love a flawed people who will most likely hurt you many times. and yet you still choose to love courageously and boldly. i WANT to be able to do that Lord. somehow...

still so long to go Lord. so long...

judging and stealing n stuff

what is this need to feel superior to others where as soon as I see someone/something, I automatically assign blame or judgment on them? I obviously think I'm God or something.

Lord please change my heart and eyes to see as You do. to see that judging them is to decide something that is out of my hands, and that i as Your creation, have no right to decide something about another one of Your creations. After all, i didn't create them.

i think i don't fear you enough. the concept of stealing your glory does not rattle me as much as it should.
---
i'm really seeing the effects of not having a busy life. having too much free time is NOT a good thing. or maybe i just need to not ever have access to the internet -_-' the amount of time i waste on this is ridiculous.

i hate it when my emotions overrule the truths in my life.

ineedyousomuch,idontevenknowit.

just some thoughts

lately i've been struggling with staying in China. not physically; physically i love this place and i enjoy being here. but mentally, i've been in LA, specifically daydreaming about my last few months and what i hope to accomplish and what i want to do. it's been hard. i'm a daydreamer by nature; well more a planner, but that planning mentality often turns into daydreaming because i can't plan every single second with certainty and so i just start to imagine things.

i was talking to my lovely friend Jay (thanks for always listening to me rant and talk about ... my life... :) ) who has always been a great sounding board for how i think life should be and will be, even if he does laugh at most of them (i.e. me having kids in a couple years, yes i guess that is a bit laughable, especially since i might need to put them on a leash [they actually do that in china, i just saw it today] so that i won't lose them) about why i've been unable to concentrate on my studies. usually i love studying chinese and i wish i had more time in a day to do so, but lately, especially today and yesterday (i know my life is so exciting, things can change so quickly!) it's just been hard. i think that in addition to the fact that i hate writing essays in general has led to me being a butt and procrastinating and procrastinating. in case you were wondering, i still haven't started on this essay, which was due last week but yah.

anyway, point being, i was telling him bout how i miss la. but the thing is, i don't really miss ucla, the campus. i miss the people. and still, i talk enough to some people (not everyone i want to or nearly as much as i'd like) that i don't miss them and i'm sure they don't miss me that much. and at any given time of the day, i can just chat with them via aim/gchat whatever (shoot jay i'm starting to sound like you -_-')

i think the reason why i've been thinking about la so much is cause i want to move on. i was telling jay also that this sort of feeling happened senior year (it had a name back then, senioritis), right before i left for china last year, and it's happening again now. it's a season of change that i KNOW for sure is coming, not like other seasons in my life where things come and go, but this, i know the DATE of when i'm coming back (6/19) and all i keep thinking is.. 41 more days, 40 more days.

and for some reason, things just become less important here. i can't focus on the things here when i'm always thinking about the future. and that's the thing, i'm finding myself living more and more in the future or the past, and almost rarely in the present. and that scares me :-/

i don't know how to live in the present.

i don't even know what it means to do so.

and above all, i know a huge part of it has to do with my relationship with the big G. not going so well. but not sure why either. actually, maybe i just need a huge slice of humble pie. God derno what's going on :-/

meaningless

dangit. it's starting again, i can feel it. where everything becomes with an "i don't care" attitude. i can tell cause i slept 18 hours today and missed all my classes cause i just didn't feel like going. 6 more weeks to go. i feel like this every time something in my life ends, like when i was just about to go to china last year, like when i was about to finish high school and move out. things just don't matter anymore and i just want to jump as soon as possible to the next stage.

argh. i suck at being patient Lord and "enjoying the process" has never been a strong point for me. help me out here, i don't want to mentally already be at LA when i still have so much time here. i need a kick in the butt and some hard-core discipline, in all areas of life right now. i don't want to be a fluctuating, up and down, independable, dothingsonlywhenshefeelslikeit, kind of person .

i am not a fan of feelings. they can't be trusted -_-'

So what have i REally been doing this past year in beijing??

Haha okay well it's a lot more than this, but my past 4 months have completely been devoted to this and so I might as well start from the beginning (mind you, this is a very very long explanation):

So, around October/November of last year, I was talking to God about how I was really loving beijing/china in general, sort of in an unexplainable manner. As in, if you had asked me to pinpoint a particular reason, i wouldn't be able to tell you. all i knew was that several months early, during the summer, i had not felt like that. but at that time, if you had said that i was staying in china for the rest of my life, i would have been okay with it. (i know, crazy huh? that's God for ya)

Anyway, one day i was doing devos and this random crazy thought flew across my mind that maybe I should apply for the school of management at beida (the school i'm studying abroad at ) and then i could stay here for another 4 years and REALLY improve my chinese, at the same time i could learn how to do business stuff in chinese (accounting/finance/marketing/human resources) which is what I had planned to do in the States with an accounting minor. I mean, I had wanted to stay in China, so why not get a degree here while I'm at it?

At this point, most people said something along the lines of "but you'd be wasting 3 years of ucla education!!" i guess it depends on what you think "waste" is then, because my time at ucla, making the friends I did, learning the things I did, having the experience that I had had, I wouldn't consider a single moment of that "a waste".

Other people said, “UCLA degree makes it so much easier for you to get a job!" well, that was true, but with the way the economy is going now, it doesn't matter where you graduated from really. and at that point, and even now, i know your degree is not the only thing that gets you a job. i had had an offer to work at one of the top four accounting firms in beijing before the beginning of this crisis, and none of that had anything to do with UCLA. when it comes to connections and hookups, i have the Ultimate one :) so, wasn't really worrying about that either.

anyway, these were the reasons i sent my brothers (feel free to skim!)
Reasons
Logistically:
-future plan has always concerned business, in Guanghua, i'll learn more about business than at UCLA where my major is now linguistics
-China has been in my future for a while now, meaning that I really need to learn the language. the majority of these classes are in Chinese, not English. additionally, becuase i already took many accounting/math/science classes at UCLA in english, the main focus will be for me to learn the language
-must apply in person and since i'm already here, it would make sense for me to apply now (in march for next year's admission)
-i'm already staying in the most coveted international dorms which are impossible to get otherwise, if i choose to stay, i already am settled in this dorm, without needing to look elsewhere
-if i go back to the states, i will forget a lot of my chinese (small reason but important nonetheless) and i feel like this year will have been a waste, in terms of language improvement
-currently applying for an internship at a Big4 accounting firm, deloitte, where i know the partner and she's pulling strings for me; an internship is required for guanghua
-i really do not feel any qualms about leaving ucla

Spiritually:
-feel like God's put China in my heart, different confirmations during the summer and thus far in just adapting to Beijing well, praying for the city and its people in a way that I didn't in the states
-when i left UCLA, there were many times that i felt that my UCLA season was over; even in my time spent here this far, my relationship with God has grown exponentially in seeing what I learned during my time in UCLA in action (stuff I learned about ministry, from PC, about house churches, about intimacy with God, about worship)

Financially:
-4 years in Guanghua = 1 year at UCLA. crazy but true, including 4 years of tuition and housing; 26000rmb(tuition)+3600rmb(rent) for 4 years is about $17411 which is about $60 less than what parents have paid (on average) my first 2 years at ucla
-also because the money is spread out to be paid in 4 years instead 1, interest can be accumulated (in CD's maybe?) for like another ~$600? (need to check my math on this)
-dad had me save $5000 to help pay for college, this will cover food and all other misc. fees for 4 years more than enough
-when i applied for a job tutoring english, they offered me 130rmb/hr which is about $20/hr; tutoring english on weekends and some on weekdays for 8 hours is about 1000 rmb, easily covering 3 months rent


Conclusion: This is really an option that I'm considering, I haven't made any conclusions yet, and I will be praying and fasting for this throughout December. I definitely value any insight you have and I really want to mom and dad to bless this decision, maybe even to the point where if they don't bless it, then I won't do it (thoughts?). I realize that this is... slightly crazy and risky and weird and all that, but prayerfully going through this.

I also know that if this is wha tGod wants, everything my friends said, is basically null. God will open the doors and establish the contacts needed (like the deloitte partner that i "happened" to meet) and He alone is in charge of my future. he has been faithful and will continue to do so. he will provide a job for me, and where he sends me, i will go. soo maybe this is where he's sending me? i guess that's what i'm trying to figure out. i also know that mom/dad is the biggest hurdle and that if God does change their hearts, then i will take that as my confirmation.

------------------
11/22/08
What God has done since:
So, I talked to another of my UCLA friends and he reminded me that I had originally planned to graduate earlier. I totally had forgotten about this option and so I did some planning and if all goes well, I can graduate this summer by taking Session A and C and then come back to China with a UCLA degree. Praise God that i can get the cake and eat it too :)

Also, I talked to a few friends who had already got into Guanghua and they were telling me about the entrance exams which are one of the craziest thing a Chinese students go through. The test is on Chinese history, overview of China, math, and chinese language (all these in chinese) and English. I was freaking out and really really rethinking this whole thing becuase i hate history and there's no way i can memorize 2000 yrs of Chinese history in Chinese too. Anyway, what ended up happening is that i found out that they JUST changed it this year where they removed both the chinese overview and the chinese history section out of the test!!! praise GOD!!!!!!

So God's totally opening doors and paving the way for this right now it seems, i'm no longer stressing about the test at all and just focusing on what i'm doing right now. granted, there's still a lot of obstacles even with these things straightened out; there are many probably issues that may come up: ALL my units from China have to transfer, and the clases that i need to be offered HVAE to be offered either session A or C otherwise i can't graduate. and, without my parents blessings this is still a no-go. so yah, that's where i am.

-------

phew. anyway that's like half of it. basically the other half is, parents totally backed the idea, i had tons of great tutors through connections of friends of friends [God or odd], studied my butt off (no really, i ACTUALLY studied) for about 2 months, took the test which was freaking hard, and didn't get in.

haha sorry for the anticlimatical ending, but no i didn't get in and no i do not regret a single minute of studying nor do i wish i could have done it all over again. for whatever reason, God has me where I am now. throughout the process, i saw so much of God's faithfulness in providing me rest when I needed it, tutors when i needed it, and most important of all, a peace knowing that whatever the outcome, my life would continue to be in His hands.

so what now? I have no idea :) I can barely see 3 months ahead of me but I have full confidence that it will only be another interesting and wonderful adventure with my Daddy as i keep learning about more of who He is and His amazing love.

anyway, definitely props to you if you read the whole thing, definitely let me know if you want to hear more about this or other things :D sometime later I'll probably post pictures of what i've been up to since (probably around finals, knowing me). i also apologize for whatever atrocious grammar errors i have made, my english is definitely not as good as it used to be ^^

below is a picture of my roommate and one of my biggest cheerleaders throughout this whole thing :D and some of the eap-ers who took me out to italian food after the test to celebrate :D


love you jody, michelle, junia and adi~

random comparison

so i was talking to a friend today about appearing too "christian"/ religious to other people and afterwards i was talking to God about it and questions came up:

The message is offensive, but does the messenger have to be?

Just like with some homosexual people (weird comparison), everyone KNOWS i'm a freak, a weirdo, a Jesus-freak who believes in an almighty unseen God, but does that mean I should flaunt it? It's part of who I am. but then does loving people include shoving this part of yourself into other people's faces? or does it mean that "tolerance" and "acceptance of differences" is so prevalent in today's society that you just hold yourself back, so you don't offend anyone?

or is this like one of those things that God's still teaching me, that it's different with each situation and i can't have an overall equation to apply to each of this situations in life?

dangit. this relationship thing is hard. this listening thing is hard. this communication thing is hard. SHOOTS :( relationships are difficult. even a relationship with a perfect Being.

Questions

When?

not now later i don't know soon maybe next week be patient stop asking i'll do it perhaps when i'm ready on my terms sometime is it urgent do i have to do it why can't you ask someone else i'm busy yesterday today and tomorrow probably the day after that too so maybe just

never

That's okay, I'll be waiting. I've been waiting.

Why?

i love this guy

he has the most interesting posts

things the bible says:
They love to sit at the head table of church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.'

Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.

If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from God is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.

http://branthansen.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cae3d53ef01116885969f970c-320wi hmmm interesting...

Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings— meetings, meetings, meetings—I can't stand one more!

Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You've worn me out!I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning.

When you put on your next prayer-performance, I'll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up.

Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings so I don't have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless.

Let me be content with sufficient food, sufficient clothing & a modest home. Keep me from a deliberate determination to be rich.

amazing grace

You saw me broken
You saw me battered
You saw me filthy
You saw me shattered
You saw me wicked
You saw me lying
You saw me failing
You saw me trying
You saw me angry
You saw me jealous
You saw me prideful
You saw me selfish
You saw me wandering
You saw me lustful
You saw me striving
Worshiping idols

You said I want her, I love her, she’s the one for me
I choose her, I know her, my blood has made her clean
She is my true love, bring her to me.

~from eileen's blog

DANGIT.

why did i install twitter NOW. -_-' no fb => twitter replacement => another test of self control. dangit.

way to prove me wrong.

you ever see someone and then totally misjudge them, think supermean thoughts "to" them, and then find out that you were COMPLETELY wrong about them and if anything they were totally on your side?

yah, just happened. dang -_-'

way to prove me wrong God. AGAIN. :p

sooo i don't have fb anymore, i finally did the smart thing and gave my lovely trustworthy friend name ishita, who I KNOW won't screw with my fb :), my password which means there's no way i can sneak onto it and waste 3+ hours when i should be studying (happened on saturday!) instead... i'm gonna blog i guess cuase there's only so many things you can blog about till you feel stupid that you're blogging multiple times a day...

ANYWAY, need to give the brain a rest before it finally erupts and scatters chinese vocab and pinyin and grammar all over the place. so i'm going to type about whatever comes to mind and right now it's about the things i've learned about myself throughout this studying process here:

1. the worst place for me to study is in a library. there are WAY too many ways to procrastinate there such as reading the books around me, which usually takes a good 4-5 hours and then the day is over -_-'
2. 2nd worst place to study is my place. mostly b/c i'm usually studying on the bed and it's SOO comfortable but then i get MAJOR butt soreness for sitting here for longer than 2 hours -_-' i can see how ppl get bed sores on hospital beds.
3. 3rd worst place to study is in my "living room"/ common area, whateveryou call it, mostly b/c i either get into wonderfully distracting conversations with my roommate about bois, school, and life in general, OR i eat. which is the reason why i now have a double chin *TEAR* which is also why my first to-do list when this test is over is EXERCISE.
4. any place with internet is bad. that's too obvious. case in point... now. even w/o fb, there are still wonderfully random distracting things on the world wide web such as youku (source for unlimited free videos), wikipedia (for learning lots of useless crap), cnn (yah you can spend a good hour reading random news articles), stupid sites like fml -_-' [thanks jeffung], and EVEN chinese sites when i'm feeling SUPER adventurous.
5. the best place i've found, is a classroom, where there are uncomfortable chairs, other people being nerdy with you, and where you can basically lose track of time if you never look at the clock. in china, b/c there's SOOO many frickin ppl on this campus and the local chinese students' dorm is half the size of the ones at ucla, everyone studies at the library or classrooms.

so yes. in the words of michelle, time to get the n3rd on!

p.s. i really miss california and everyone there. today was the first reallllly nice day of sprinig, aka actual blue skies and MAN i missed janns' steps :(

not again.

no devil, you have no right to touch any of the HOly One's children.

you WILL lose this war. she is the Lord's and the Lord desires her and LOVES her. she is his.

for you Seung :)
I don’t want to be like a Pharisee that has lots of knowledge but no daily encounter with Christ, nor do I want to be like the early church that had lots of daily encounters but no written Word of God to authenticate those encounters. The truth is that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life, so it is my desire is to walk in the truth of God’s Word while I experience daily encounters with the Holy Spirit. I do not want to teach someone what they should believe. I want everyone to believe what the Holy Spirit teaches them.
~taken from samuel's blog ^^

"Good Morning, Holy Spirit"

wow i feel so jipped. haha or maybe it just took until now that i would get it. after reading "Good morning Holy Spirit", i'm like.. seriously? i could have had this??? all this time?!? and the flippin church never told me that?

so jipped.

from the journal:
i'm using a new color b/c i feel like it's a new beginning. As of now, I recognize the HOly Spirit fully as God, not any lesser, and my best firned + counselor who has basically been working in my entire life but i never recognized you fully. After reading benny Hinn's "Good morning holy spirit", i want to recognize you always, please be patient w/ me as i learn to distinguish and hear your voice, it's still all very new. I just wish i didn't have to wait so long -_-" but thx H/S everything's start to make more sense, really if I'm living by you, there is no desire to gratify or even think of the sinful nature and desires. it's cool :)

wow, i'm such a newbie.

p.s. daddy, i miss you. a lot.

the process

im really enjoying getting close to God. I dont really like hear him or feel him, but i feel like im learning about a guy that ive seen my whole life, but somehow just started to get to know him

yah, that's how it feels like it sometimes...

mi hija, te amo

letting that wash over me

Travelling in China Part 1: read the guidebook carefully, but you can't believe everything you read

so after several weeks of traveling all over china, i'm safely in hong kong, albeit 3 days early, having fully experienced 春运　chun yun, aka "don't ever even think about traveling around china during chinese new year".

we originally wanted to go to tibet, but that got thrown out the window when we found out you have to go with a tour group.

then we wanted to go to thailand, by bus, through myamar/vietnam but that got thrown out the window too when we realized neither of us could speak enough vietnamese or burmese to get us through those countries.

so decided just to go to haerbin for the awesome light festival.

i got a hint of how travelling would be like around chinese new year (think travelling during christmas, thanksgiving, and new years in the states combined~) when i tried to buy tickets to haerbin. they said they would start selling tickets at 9am, but by 9am 2 whole trains were already sold out (how that worked, all i can say is TIC [this is china] (read "guanxi"aka through connections) ) anyway, one of my friends ended up getting tickets and took awesome pictures here


first picture of the trip taken of sarah, my travel buddy, whose apple rolled on the floor of the bus, but decided she was hungry and used hand sanitizer to clean it :P

anyway, so we took a 48-hour train ride from bj to kunming (top right corner to bottom left corner of the middle kingdom) where i travelled w/ 2 of sarah's polish buddies who were in her oral chinese class. the beds were super cramped and i couldn't fully sit up (i know, even relatively short asian girls like me can't sit up...) so i laid on my back and read for most of the time, resulting in much butt-soreness.


a girl that sarah and i saw during a potty break at the gas station. she was playing with a blonde-hair barbie and was probably super surprised when she saw sarah. i told sarah she prob thought she was a life-sized barbie :)

after arriving in kunming, we got suckered by a security guard who had connections (nobody's safe in china) and got cheated maybe Y100 more (about 13 bucks US) for a bus to dali. but it's okay :) ppl gotta make a living somehow and lots worse could have happened.


translated into "The world's most amazing dinosaur village", this random town we passed had murals of dinosaurs on the face of every building facing the highway we were on

once we got to dali, we couldn't find the hostel. after asking some policemen, we figured out that we were in the wrong dali. if i had read the lonely planet more closely, i would've seen (which i did later while waiting for the bus to the correct place) that there's a new dali and old dali... and we were in the wrong dali. by then it was dark, we were tired, the bus didn't come, so we just took a cab ride to the right dali...

finally arrived in old dali, walked around for about 20 minutes but couldn't find our hostel... found an english sign that said "sandwiches, coffee, and free internet acess" and i ordered my first western meal in a veryyyy long time, oily fries and all:

yah baby, my lovely fried chicken burger.

sarah was the more asian one and decided to get fried rice, which she said still tasted relatively american.

bustin' out the chopsticks~

anyway, so as soon as we got to dali, this old guy started following us, telling us in his broken, heavily-accented english to follow us to his hostel. but we already booked one, and he looked shady so we ignored him. after spending a good hr and 1/2 in the restaurant w/ my greasy fries and sarah's american style rice, we continued our trek, only to find that he had been waiting outside...


Dali 大理 city gate

anyway, following the address in lonelyplanet, we continued our search for this mysterious hostel. as we walked across the cobbled sidewalks of dali lugging our luggage, this guy kept following us. by now it was like 11pm and there were no streetlights and i was praying hard. haha :) after another 20 minutes he had shut up about his hostel but was still following us, even though it was really obvious that we were not staying at any of his hostel recommendations.

but he still followed us... just silently, occasionally inspecting his fingernails.



cows in dali. soooo random...

so finally, sarah and i just picked a random hostel and checked in, partly to get rid of this guy, but mostly because we were beat and wanted to sleep in a bed. our $3 "bed" was actually a cloth set up on top of a mattress, camping-style, 8 to a "room". we went back downstairs to pay, and the guy was still there... just standing INSIDE the hostel.


dali is a quaint little town situated between mountains and lakes

by this time, i was like... well we're already in a hostel. maybe he just has nothing else to do but to follow random foreign looking girls. the owners of the hostel were trying to convince him to leave but he just kept standing there. thinking that the best thing to do was to ignore him, i started surfing the web and doing my own thing. i mean the worst that could happen was that he would be waiting in the morning for us... and hopefully he won't freeze to death. sarah and i guilt-tripped and probably freaked vince out when we told him about the guy :P (sorry)

anyway, the next morning, he was gone.


sarah and i tandem-biked the surrounding fields which was really fun because we got really lost and kept biking in and out of these really cute villages and every time we passed a whole bunch of guys who though they were really cool, they would scream out, "HELOOOOOO" haha which i think was the only phrase in english they knew. it was great, we got hello-ed at a lot. and we got fire-crackered at　too~ 哈哈

sarah joked that she should just ni hao them every time they hello-ed her. they would probably freak out that a waiguoren (foreigner) knew how to speak their language.

but couldn't find any of the restaurants listed in lonelyplanet. strike2.

anyway, tandem biking is awesome and it was fun just biking around the country-side, enjoying the 6th largest freshwater lake in china and the wonderful clean air.

we hired horses to go up the mountain to find the cable cars that the lonelyplanet specifically stated were supposed to be amazing. cept they don't exist anymore. strike3. from then on, we sorta just didn't use the guidebook.

anyway, after a day of hitting up mountains and lakes and enjoying the fresh air, we moved on to lijiang, a town similar to dali. we left that night and while on the bus, God surprised me with a breath-taking view of the stars. oh mannnn it was so mind-blowing, but there was no way the camera could capture it. so yah, you'll have to take my word for it. the stars in yunnan during the winter are amazing.

of course, lonelyplanet didn't say anything about that :)

best time to blog is....

the night before your hardest final.

yes, my procrastinating habits have not been left in the u.s., they have faithfully followed me halfway across the world... drat.

plus, i slept 16 hours last night, but that's because i'm sick and trying to get better. but anyway, i thought i should blog about thoughts on this semester before my upcoming AWESOME trip around china where i'll be hiking mountains and valleys and roughing it with my limited 中文 (chinese) and ultimately, reuniting with the fam "down under" (relative to Beijing anyway) in my HK homeland. i'm leaving on saturday for a 3 day train ride to kunming, yunnan; on which, i will hopefully be STUDYING a lot :) haha yes, i did say study, but we shall see, as my plans never go as i imagine.

iceskating on top of the lake at our school. definitely one of the cooler new experiences :D:D:D this will also be my traveling buddy, sarah from south... dekota. which sad to say, i don't really know where that is. (so californian -_-')

anyway, in 2 days, i will officially have finished a semester of schooling, and all i can say is, i don't know how berkeley kids do it. it is so flippin LONG. additionally, chinese people don't celebrate thanksgiving or christmas, so i had a total of... 3 days of break in these 18 weeks of school. UGH. way too long. i miss america.

things i miss about america right now:
-the air. ohh i miss the clean fresh air of california, with the blue skies (which surprisingly, frequently show their face here, just with a layer of ucky brown stuff)
-running outside. only reason i can't here is... see #1. i mean i still remember the 7-10th grade pe where we ran in the freezing cold at 7:30am so it's doable.
-american holidays. chinese people need more holidays -_-' i remember in high school where we had like a week break every 2 months; here, that just doesn't exist :(
-cheese. and milk. and nuts. ooo i miss nuts so much :( they are sooo expensive here, hence i've asked everyone who has gone back to the states to bring back lotsss of cashews and honey roasted peanuts and peanut butter for me :)

me at an indian buffet restaurant :) i miss mi indian friends!!! and indian people in general! there's only one indian here at the university so far who i've seen.

but really, when it comes down to it, I AM LOVING IT HERE. :) the abovementioned is definitely the minority of my experience here and it's weird, but i really can't put it to words why i love it here so much. here as in china, but i mean after this travelling experience around china, i only expect to love it even MORE. cause right now, my view of china is basically beijing. man, i can't even begin to describe all the
awesome things i'm learning here, from the language, to the culture, to seeing all the insane amazing wondrous things that God's doing here, to making new friends and trying new things and getting outside of my bubble. it's awesome and i totally realize why people recommend everyone in college to study abroad. only because it is TRULy awesome; you learn so much about yourself, about the things that you have believed your whole life, etc. etc.

really though, you're supposed to have that experience when you go to college. for whatever reason, probably because 40 people from my high school went to ucla, i didn't. i didnt break out, didn't branch out, didn't try many new things. not that i regret it, the past 2 years i wouldn't trade for any other. but being here in china, the only person here from ucla, something about that. not that i'm really reinventing myself like i had envisioned when i went to ucla, but just finding out more about myself.

what's really funny, is that everything i just wrote, i wrote in chinese for one of my classes :) woohoo.

so thoughts about this semester, besides the fact that God has blessed me BAJILLIONS and shown me more and more who i am and what it means to follow him everyday, he's also shown me what he's doing here in china and it BLOWS my mind... God's so in control it's rediculous :) anyway, my chinese has improved (it better!) but definitely not doing as well as i hoped in the making chinese friends department. i definitely love the ones i have though :) i lovee beida, i love beijing, i love china, i love chinese, i love the chinese people; i might stay longer than i had planned, how much longer, i won't be sure of yet until the end of may.

christmas and new years were definitely weird here, there is no "christmas season" although it's amazing how they publically play carols and other songs about Jesus being King of Kings all over China, whereas 9 years ago no one even knew what christmas was. and of course, i had class on christmas, which i skipped, not really because i wanted to but cause it just so happened that i slept through my alarm, like any other day. good thing my roommate was totally up for throwing a party with me :) woohoo another first :) and then cooking (SUCCESSFULLY!!) rice krispies, punch, smores, hot dogs, sphegetti (haha mel and sofa that reminded me of camping days :) ) . twas fun :)

new years was weird, not being with the fam and all the wvcac ppl at auntie louisa's, instead went to a praise night, quite an interesting way to bring in the new year. there were pastors praying in every language for the world, for china, for beijing, for the church. proud to say that i understood a total of... 2 1/2 languages. sad that i understood more of the mandarin one than the cantonese one... oyy...
my friend, christian, playing his songs at a bar, one of my "new experiences" here in china :) bars are not as scary as i thought they would be :)

as you can probably tell, my english hasn't been doing too well, sometimes i leave words out and don't realize it unless i reread things. oh well :) uhm so yah i guess that's the update. it's flippin cold here, but thanks to my down jacket, i've been surviving pretty well. everyone's starting to go crazy with chinese new year coming up, and i'm excited to see how china will celebrate it. i'm guessing it'll be christmas, new years, and thanksgiving combined together in the states so it'll definitely be worthwhile.

mm lessee... not very homesick, but then again, that usually hits around the second year from my experience :) i do reminisce often, usually when i'm sitting on my bed, away from chinese people and sounds, facebooking and seeing what other people are up to halfway around the world. but i've come to realize that no matter what, even if i was back at la or in san jose, things change and there will never be another 2006 or 2007 or now a 2008. all my memories are just those, memories. when my friend came to visit me in beijing, he said that things aren't the same at la as i remembered, life still goes on. and when i look at lynbrook seniors prepping for their proms and think back to my proms, that was the past. i think about walking over to the girls' apartment and hanging out there all night with no agenda, talking about boys, God, life, whatevers, that was also the past. i think about hanging out with brandon and talking about God's craziness, listening to benson's wise advice about life, talking to mom about everything and nothing, sitting on my daddy's lap and crying over something stupid, reading the san jose mercury, watching saturday morning cartoons, that was the past.

and yet they are all so close, all i have to do is close my eyes.