things that give me a strange feeling

-when it sounds like it's raining outside, but it's only the wind blowing and the leaves scratching the window panes

-when you search your name (or your friend's name) on google and see the lives of other people with the same name, and how those people have grown into someone successful. and wondering if that person could be you.

-going through the entirety of monday believing it was tuesday (then realizing that it actually is tuesday, what the heck?)

-going 60 mph on a 45 mph road and seeing a policeman on the side of the street

-waking up from a dream and realizing that the radio talkshow host is talking about the same thing that you dreamed about

-listening to a voicemail from eons ago and thinking that it was from today because it's still applicable

-meeting someone who's basically the same as your best friend, or ex

-watching a dog chase its freaking tail

-meeting someone and believing for a genuine second that he has no flaws (this hasn't happened yet but i'd imagine it'd give me a strange feeling)

bittersweet poetry

the soul, is what we likened to.

its flight to the moon and back again

and its pit stops in pink pastures and

stuffy autos on martian philadelphia.

and the heart, is what we avoided.

awkward look-aways in the craters

a thousand confirmations in the savanna grass

and in the car, which passed.

so the trip was short.

back on earth,

i don't remember anything except

that i swear it happened.

that wasn't supposed to make any sense to you; it was just for my own reflection. cryptic messages, let's go. anyways, i started this joint private blog with a friend of mine, where we record every single day and all of our feelings and etc. it's wonderful. but that means i'm ditching this blog for the infinitieth time. heh.

a brief death note

I can write about death all I want, read about it in every book I open. But no matter how much I try to reach into the depths of those five letters, no matter how much I research about it in encyclopedias, no matter how many grievous poems I read or obituaries I look up or discussions I have with my friends, I will never actually feel that pain until it happens, to me. It's like that scene from Good Will Hunting.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

So I'm going to stop acting as if I know you, as if I know your intentions. I'm going to stop criticizing in my head, thinking of all the things you should be doing, and start to listen, to sympathize instead. Because what do I know? I've never felt so utterly depressed that I decided to hide a knife in my drawer to make me feel alive. I don't know what it means to be traumatized by a broken family or a death of a close friend. It's all so unreal, all so distant, all so separate from this safe little bubble that I've been so fortunate to stay inside. Sure, I hear stories. But what do I know?

I'll tell you what I do understand though, and that's that any one of you could leave me at any second. That even though death hasn't happened in my life yet, it's going to. That none of us are going to stay here forever, that there's no guarantee that we're all going to make it to college and beyond. So here's to some loving, that absolutely everyone deserves. It's not worth it to be mean.

our calling to the world

If your neighbor's house was burning, you'd go and try to help, wouldn't you?

Or if you saw a kid stuck under a car, you'd try to get him out from under, wouldn't you?

My sentiments exactly.

It's like a river of hot lava.*

It's like a huge river of hot lava, flowing in massive currents, with metallic crocodiles viciously swimming around. You and the rest of the world just killed Jesus, so you're running and running, until you find this river of lava. And all these people are jumping, trying to jump across this 30 feet wide river, to escape their guilt, to get away from what they just did. You see people all around, jumping five feet and dying, jumping six feet and dying, jumping ten feet and dying. You see Michael Phelps, and he jumps 18 feet, but he still dies. No matter how far people try to jump, they still die. And so you decide to jump to your fate too. And it's like God suddenly built a bridge under your feet, right before you could die. You obviously don't deserve it. You deserve to die; you just killed God's son for goodness sake.

And yet, God's grace still saved you. This is beyond any love you've ever seen, past all the anger and revenge plaguing the world. He kept you from falling into the lava, so that you could walk on the bridge to the other side and join Him. You don't deserve it. Nobody deserves it. So, you complain about how God isn't fair? How it's unjust for Him to save only Christians and not Muslims or all the other good people of the world? Well, if God were to be fair, then we'd all go to hell, every single one of us, for the sins that we've committed. But He is merciful...

So God's built this bridge for you. But there's still something you're not good at- maybe you have a speech impediment, maybe you think you're ugly, maybe you're shy, maybe you're blind. So you ask God, please, please get rid of this feature. Make me better. But why? That's like trying to jump on this bridge that God's already made for you; why are you still trying to jump when you can just walk across? Why do you need to be pretty, when you're already on the bridge, when God's already saved your life? You can stop jumping now. Because from here-on out, it's all God. All your talent, it's made possible by God.

Oh, praise God! How wonderful it is, His mercy!

*Analogy heard from Joyce Zou :)

my mother and I

Usually at dinner, I gorge myself with the Chinese food and finish it in about ten minutes, then rush back into my cave of a room to sit down and do productive things (or something along those lines). But today, I sat at the dinner table for a good hour, just talking to my mom. And it was nice, because I didn't cry once, which is actually a pretty big step in my life, since I tend to cry a lot around my mom (she just makes me very emotional, what can I say).

I talked about my future and how my life would basically end after I got a child, since I'd be too busy taking care of the darn thing to travel anywhere or do something amazing like change the world. I'd have to find some permanent job at age 30 and raise a family, even with so much life left. Then I realized that I probably offended her, because she was one of those women who got married at 20 and had a child at 21 or 22. But she looked at me and smiled, and said that it was the most honorable thing that she's ever done, and we had that cheesy mother-daughter moment for a few split seconds. Moms can get really cheesy (insert senior ads), but it's not like they show the tearful and overdramatic mother-daughter relationships in movies for no reason.

Then she asked me if she thought I'd marry a white guy or an Asian guy, and we had fun with that. I doubt you care, but I have never even contemplated a white husband until recently. It is not my fault! The Asian ideal guy has been imprinted in me ever since I came to this Asian-infested city. It's actually slightly sad; whenever I go to camp, the first guys I see are Asian. But I think that this infatuation for Asian guys has finally expired, because I am so sick of them. The thought of a white husband no longer makes me raise my eyebrow with confusion (probably because I don't have a bad image of one yet). Aye. Who cares though. I will never be able to escape Asians. It's in me. Forever.

We talked about her CEOs and their speeches, and then we talked about a guy who skipped his entire high school years, then we talked about people changing in college, then we talked about college essays, then we talked about all my friends... and it felt so wonderful. It felt so nostalgic. I'm going to miss my mother so much; she's basically the reason that I was able to get through physics, the reason I was able to get through my breakup, the reason I sing songs to myself and appreciate the small things in life and manage to break out in a smile every day. I've never met someone so level-headed and loving. So here's to you, mom. Only you could get that excited about buying pants for my brother or random salmon dip from Whole Foods.

I'm a rockstar no matter what online games tell me

Right, so it's been a good month (and a half?) since I've been here. I blame it on the laptop spontaneously deciding to be a teenage female drama queen, deciding to try drugs while on her period, then crashing. Goodbye various important documents and a few hundred of my favorite songs; farewell!

I don't remember what I'm supposed to use this thing for anymore. I don't know who I'm talking to either. I do feel comfortable in this little room I've isolated myself in. It's too loud outside. Too many people.

I'd rather sit and play Hit Machine on OMGPOP. Yes. Oh freaking yes. It's basically FFR, which is DDR for the fingers. I don't know why I think that I'm playing the piano when I'm hitting these keys on the keyboard, and I don't know why I act like I'm playing a ridiculously amazing drum solo or strumming along on my banjo, when I only get 50% accuracies (which means I only manage to correctly "tap" half of the notes). But man, the fantasies sure do take me far. I close my eyes (maybe that's why I'm only tapping half of the notes) and tap tap away on my keyboard, hey look I'm a jazz pianist, oh wait now I'm a rockstar and everybody loves me, wow I did not know I could play guitar and bass at the same time, look at me go! Oh, wow, I actually hit that note, there's so much color on my screen oh my gosh I'm blinded by my awesomeness!

And then I realize that I'm still in front of my computer, wasting time playing some game on OMGPOP...

But yes. That is how I've been wasting my time for the past month while I've been gone. I wish I could say that I won some kind of online award (actually, that'd probably be sad), but I don't think I've even improved much (still talking about Hit Machine). Well, I did. I improved from a 50% accuracy to a 75% accuracy. But that's still failing. So I guess I should go find something better to do.

Okay, so remember how we all used to post on our xangas these short little blurbs of every single thing that's happening in our lives (or was that just me)? Yeah, that's coming:

• Homecoming is quickly approaching, and I suppose it's still pretty exciting despite the fact that the entire nation of China (and Taiwan) decided to tag along.
• My common app essay is about how much of a wuss I am (aka i-like-to-cry-even-during-inappropriate-times)
• I found a notebook that me and three other friends used to pass around and write in in 8th grade. Its name was "Le Fanton," derived from Fanta. It was really silly, and it's embarrassing to read my entries in it, but I suppose I will feel the same way years from now while reading back on this stupid blog post.
• The first issue of the school magazine looks amazing. It is my baby that I managed to get without being pregnant or having sex with .. paper? Okay, I guess I didn't have to elaborate on that one.
• I am going to an interactive zombie apocalypse on the Sunday after homecoming. They give us guns, and we get to shoot the live zombies that come at us. I don't actually know how that works; will something actually shoot out of our guns, so that when they feel it, they'll pretend to drop dead? I hope it's a dart gun. I don't want to go. I'm still scared, even after that terrible Netherworld fiasco last year. But I have to go since I volunteered to write the article... what the heck?!
• The whole interactive thing seems to be the hot thing these days. Google docs is also interactive and it is the best thing ever invented. I wonder if they'll make movies interactive too. I really would like to go into Inception, kick out the Juno girl, and sit in Joseph Gordon-Levitt's lap. Oh, and the whole getting stuck in a dream thing would be cool too, I guess.
• School's hard but I don't care
• This is getting a bit long.

Right, so I'm so glad that you are just as obsessed about me as I am about myself. Okay, bye. What? Do I usually say bye at the end of posts? Wow, I feel like I'm in 8th grade again, writing on a xanga. It's a wonderful feeling.

So... school starts tomorrow.

I don't think it'll hit me that I'm a senior until it's all over.

But I guess that's okay.

Good night, everyone.

:o)

Oh, and happy birthday Alice, Rebecca, me, Donna, and Anna.

August birthdays for the win. I love it when we all grow up together.

college = fear

College is getting to me.

And it's not even that I don't know where to apply, or that I won't have enough financial aid, or even that I don't think that I'll get in anywhere; it's that I'm afraid that I'm going to get into a wonderful college and pay lots of money and come out still not knowing what I'm doing with my life. And then I'll end up in some mediocre-paying job that I'll hate. Either that, or I just won't make money, because none of my interests are practical enough (nor am I spectacular enough) to make anything out of it. I'm afraid that my college education will be a waste because I won't know how to use it. I'm afraid that I'm not as smart or talented as everyone somehow thinks I am. I'm afraid that I'll be too afraid to disappoint my parents (or society) to not do something traditional. Some cubicle job, or some job with prestige. I'm afraid that this fear is going to stop me from doing something great, if I can even achieve something great.

I am so scared, and I feel like I'm back at square one all over again. Where'd all my confidence go?

my lengthy adventure on friday the 13th

Warning: this is super lengthy with a lot of my random opinions.

You know where I woke up? In the little tunnel of the neighborhood playground, the one where you have to crawl through to get to the other side. Well. Yesterday night, at around three am. I decided to go outside and see if I could catch any meteors. Unfortunately, the street lamps were blinding, and my backyard was creeping with loud critters and frightening noises, so I decided to give it ten minutes before I went back inside. The door happened to be locked. I don't know how that happened, but all I knew was that I could not get back in my house at 3:10 am. So I went to the playground, laid on the bench for an hour, got restless, and moved to the tunnel of the playground. And I slept there until 6:30, when I woke up extremely cold and gross. My excuse is that I wanted to live the life of a hobo for a night.

Nature is very loud. It hisses at you, and it coughs up every unnatural noise that could very well make you piss in your pants. I lay there frozen in that tunnel, pulling my shirt over my legs and bunched in a ball, listening to that strange and eerie sound of some unknown animal. It might have been a sick deer. And I listened to the croaking crickets (crickets croak?!) and the buzzing frogs, and that's when I knew I was getting tired. Then the owls started whooping, and the birds started hooting, and so I burrowed my head into the hard plastic and tried to make it go away. What an exhausting night.

Then I got out of the tunnel at 7 am because a sick man started coughing near the playground, and I wanted to avoid all human contact as possible, so I jumped out of there and walked away as calmly as possible. And I went to my backyard and sat there until my parents left the house at 8:30.

You know, benches are not comfortable at all. I always thought they looked alright, especially when I saw the homeless all bundled up and cozy. What a joke. It's mid-August, and I still felt so cold out there. And no, I did not get to see any meteors, because I was trying to fall asleep. It's such a strange sensation, to think about all the normal things you did during the day [eat at waffle house, make some money, watch a movie, drink beverages from mcdonalds], and then find yourself sleeping on a bench at three in the morning. But it was okay for me because I knew I could just go back to my bed in the morning. Homeless people have to live every day knowing that there is nowhere to go. It's not like they have a go-to bench, or a more homey plank of wood. It's not like it's a temporary one-night thing.

And I hate it when people think it's their fault. Admittedly, some are to blame, but as I was thinking about my views last night in the cold, I finally realized who I am and what political categories I fall into. I'm morally conservative but fiscally liberal. There. I decided that that's that. I am not going to be swayed anymore. I don't believe in legalized abortion or legalized gay marriage (sue me, but that's what my God commands), but I'm for taxing the wealthy more than the poor. Ah, screw it all though. I hate politics. Sure, I support the government, but I don't know why everyone needs to be so torn up- even Christians. Let me copy and paste something I wrote:

what if we just didn't care about politics? i'm not saying to ignore it, of course, but why do you think it's important to focus on politics when there's still so much to fix about ourselves? we protest gay marriages while divorcing at the same rate that non-christians divorce at, we oppose the government and its secrecy while reveling in our own slander and greed, we ridicule abortion while holding hate in our hearts; why are we focusing so much on the laws of the land and the actions of others when we are in desperate need of fixing ourselves? I feel like Jesus talked more about our hypocrisies than he did against the government; he never talked of things like liberalism and conservatism, and he never straight out bashed Caesar. our job is to be the body of CHRIST, his people- not a nation. admittedly, i do believe that we should have federal laws against abortion, but i don't believe in all this energy that's being used to so adamantly protest this and that law, because i really don't think that's our purpose, especially when there's bigger problems (even down the street) than politics, starting with ourselves. abortion and homosexuality are clearly sins, but that doesn't mean that the government needs to be involved with it all. lying is a sin, as is adultery, and worshiping any other god, but the government does not make laws about those. i just feel like all this talk about politics is unnecessary, because honestly, we've got to look at ourselves.

So now that I've made my spiel about politics, let's move on, haha. I don't even know who's reading this. I feel like blogs died and revived in tumblr form. Which is really addicting, by the way. I can't get enough of it. Anyways though. As I was sitting in my own backyard waiting to go inside, I couldn't help but to think, gee, knowledge comes with so much responsibility. When you grow up and gain experience, everyone just expects you to take responsibility after learning of the things of this world, of the good things and bad things. If I were a kid and had found myself locked outside, my mom would've understood, because hey, I was just a kid. But at sixteen years old? My mother would've thrown a fit. You know better than that.

That's the same with religion though. I ran across this quote the other day:

"How much do you have to hate someone to not share your faith?"

And it's true. Because if you really realize the seriousness of heaven and hell, and that your best friend could very well be eternally damned, then why wouldn't you share your faith? Screw the whole "i-don't-want-to-offend-him" mindset; who cares? This life is temporary. If you really believed that the person sitting next to you in school or on the bus could go to hell, why wouldn't you try to save them? I wish we all didn't feel it so necessary to not be offensive. The beauty of it is that the quote was said by an atheist and outspoken opponent against organized religion:

"how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"

I'm not going to pretend anymore. I know I can't control anyone, but as a Christian, the least I could do is share my faith, not stand aside and pretend to be okay with other choices. It's not that I'm intolerant, or that I hate you, or anything like that. It's a sincere belief in my religion and in my God, and a desire to bring you along with the ride.

Because I do need to stop acting like everything's okay. Christians shouldn't be of the world. We should be aliens.

And there it is.