Newark Liberty Int'l (EWR) to Chicago O'Hare International (ORD)
Departure (EWR): December 26, 12:40 PM EST
Arrival (ORD): December 26, 2:10 PM CST


hehe =]

12.20 -- 12.25 // florida with golfing brother
12.22 // fcr documentation due
12.26 // cornellians taste the midwest
12.27 -- 1.01 // urbana... this is gonna be crazy.
1.02 // cornellians leave
1.03 -- 1.06 // winter.camp
1.08 // return to ithaca



hm. i feel like i need preemptive sleep/energy/extrovertedness for this break o_O

for my freshman writing seminar last year, i took a collaborative writing class that looked at a lot of democratic documents and the things they promise in the united states.... especially when society has evolved into what it is today. we looked at what this "american dream" looks like for the urban poor, for the marginalized, for the minorities.

last night, i watched the pursuit of happyness. and i thought about the same things.

for those of you who haven't heard of it, it's inspired by the life story of an african american man (played by will smith) chris gardner who's at a dead end sales job and is trying to support his son in the 1980's. but it's just that... a movie. when the lights turn back on at the end of those 114 minutes, we're still sitting in the middle of a mega-million dollar theatre in suburbia chicago, getting back in our SUV's to drive back to our safe neighborhoods.

i've never had to worry if i had somewhere to sleep at night. or food to eat the next day. or less than $21 in my total savings account.

*sigh*

are movies like this really a call to justice? or is it just a feel good movie that people can walk away from with some sort of false security that the system really works for the marginalized. for every success story we see, there are hundreds more that don't get out of the rut -- that end up working during the day and staying in shelters at night.

there's this one scene where one of the shelters that the main character and his son stay at is at a church. and he's hugging his son and worshipping while the choir is singing and swaying to the music and... i don't know. i wonder what he's thinking.. i wonder what anyone in that position would be thinking. "God, why'd this have to happen? God, why did my only son and i have to sleep on the floor of a men's bathroom in a subway station last night? God... where are you now?"

.
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or maybe i'm just thinking too much and should shut up and start working on my air force documentation.

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/12/06/ohgizmo-holiday-giveaway-1200-worth-of-stuff-and-counting/

free contest?

and now i'm officially a failure.
because i have to retake the math class i failed* this semester.


* = failing as in, i did slightly below mean. which means it's not good enough for my major. which means i either drop out of school and go bum on 115th street with charles, or... retake the class.




urgh.

// edit
in the past 60+ hours,
six cups of coffee,
two energy drinks,
four cups of tea,
six hours fo sleep,
one final paper,
and three finals,


... and i'm done!!....
k i'm gonna go crash now.

I wanna stand up, I wanna let go
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't
I wanna shine on in the hearts of men
I wanna mean it from the back of my broken hand
// the killers.


i just rewatched the latest invisible children podcast. it's tugs rips at my heart to see how this generation of kids can influence this world on an issue of social justice like the child abductions in uganda. and perhaps even more, why this christian generation isn't also at the forefronts of issues of justice given the fact that we know the hope that His coming kingdom provides. like k. prayed in sg a few months ago... hope without God is no hope at all.

we had this amazing message at church today about what emmanuel means, and how the concept of God being with us doesn't end when christmas does. that Jesus promises his spirit to us, who is still with us. and what it means to bring light to dark places.

which got me thinking... -- life in engineering physics is a pretty dark one. i mean, here are 40+ of the brightest kids in the nation using their brains busting out all these solutions to problems in engineering ... -- what would it look like to be working towards solutions in justice.

... or even more so, to bring a gospel of hope to the darkest areas of academia to press this generation to care.

here's a list of sites i started checking daily after last semester,
learn about what's going on in your world.

www.news.yahoo.com
www.sojo.org
www.hrw.org
www.invisiblechildren.com

... i think it just hit that the semester's nearly over.

anyway,
songs that have been spinning all semester (subject to change).
dark blue // jack's mannequin
forget december // something corporate
bruised // jack's mannequin
joyful joyful // charlie hall
the stand // hillsong united
stars and boulevards // augustana
god of wrath // dcb
gravity // the fold
huo huan jian // jay chou (yeah.. the song from fearless. i know... its so addicting!)
a million ways // ok go
take me in // shane e.
oh my god // jars of clay


currently playing -- forget december on repeat.
// ...these words are tainted with years of jaded

// a note to the XY's of our generation --

my good friend e. wrote something on xanga the other day that really resonated with me, and got me thinking about the roles of guys and girls in not only my own life, but in general. in short, earlier today, one of my oh so mature hallmates came into our room after the linear algebra final exam (which i might've just failed..) and shot a nerfgun at my head. so in turn, i took the gun and locked our door, causing him to make a ruckus in the hallway trying to get in. later, when the head RA comes in, he just gawks in the hallway and says nothing as i'm caught off guard fending questions as to why we were so loud during finals week.

i really do wonder if this is how God created xx/xy relations to be. sometimes i can't help but feeling tired of having to take the responsibility when sometimes all i want is for the guy to perhaps step it up and take the fall sometimes. it's an odd reversal of the roles that were suited for our original creation. maybe that's why those sappy movies appeal to so many girls where the guy is all valient and fights for the girl's honor and punches injustice in the face.

so xys. please step up? :/




.
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anyway. the other day before primal prayz, i was invited to attend a coah (campus on a hill, an organization to unite all the fellowships on campus) meeting to plan for a campus-wide conference next semester about the sovereignty of God and the concept of His glory. it was literally so mindblowing -- sitting at a roundtable with 12 other leaders from the exec teams of the five major fellowships on this campus (and the pastor of the korean church.. it was like a united nations mtg haha) to try and cut out this half-baked sort of gospel that's been circulating on these grounds. in the 2+ hours we tried to map out the conference, we ended up going back to the idea of leaders repenting first -- of how the prophets would not only repent for their own sins, but those of the nation.

one of the passages we looked at was jer 2:13.

i wonder what it'd look like if we saw sin the way God sees it in the verses before that.

every once in a while (especially when there are huge gatherings of them at u of i and they paste photos all over facebook), i wonder what it would have been like if i went to there. with the comfort zone.

and part of me wonders why i long for comfort so much. maybe it's because during high school, i didn't experience what God meant when he called his church one body until senior year. maybe it's because it's this ambiguous sort of home that we all have inside of us. maybe.

but i do wonder.

// what would it have been like?
i wouldn't have to worry about this urban planning burden, because i wouldn't have met charles or simeon who urged and prayed and showed patience and grace for me to go to new york. i wouldn't have have met joel, the first guy i met who was engineer turned staff worker. there wouldn't be problems within the sophomore class right now in terms of stepping up for the freshmen even though we're all so exhausted from serving because i'd probably be going to a ginormous fellowship where i'd be coddled for a good couple of years. i wouldn't have gotten so harshly rebuked by the people in my class both last year and this -- about how i often don't let people in close enough to hurt me.. or love me.. how i'm often too bitter to find hope in hope, how i'm way too insecure in who i am that i forget who God is in me.

i wouldn't be listening to my roommate warbling to ben folds right now.
i wouldn't be getting mad at praise team every week to have my patience tested -- to know that it's an intentional act of showing grace.
i wouldn't have spent all of yesterday cooking, leaving ice cream and butter on the ledge because we didn't have access to a fridge, or mashing and cutting for felly dinner.
i wouldn't have been with my former suitemate, chasing cans of cream of mushroom down the ECE hallways, cracking up from laughter, then seeing off to her sorority date night knowing i'd see her at church the next day.



it's hard to remember that God has us in such intentional circumstances in our lives for His intentions.



^ i'm most thankful for this one. i'm ridiculously thankful for this sg for being so patient and grace-extending and talkative (most of the time.. haha). for d. (hey.. we spell OG.. haha) and our 4+ hour long weekly conversations that were supposed to be about sg, but evolved into fellowship, social justice, and frolicking. for my freshman who hasn't grown up in the church and is refinding her faith.. and simply has no concept of this rigid church legalism that i have and teaches me what intentional community means.

at least this semester... this is why i'm here.

oh what the next will hold...

you know those days where you feel like you can't say anything right to encourage the people around you, and the mistakes seem to pour out before you can stop or control yourself, and you end up bagging all of your self worth and curling up in bed trying to run away from the world?


weeks like these i feel about this . . . big.