And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?- Mark 8:36

I’ve walked many paths, like a lost man, looking for love and looking for reputation, I looked and broke many branches

walking in the woods, shivering in cold and loneliness

I thought i wanted riches, and gold enough to build my mother a house, a car to drive and to shine

I thought i wanted a man that could fulfill all my needs, hold my hand, and never let go

I thought i wanted to trade my soul for false illusions and dreams

I thought i wanted to become something great in the world

so that i could be happy

so that i could be satisfied

so that i could win perfection

but i met one God that fulfilled my all.

Jesus Christ covered my all. I am hidden under His wings.

People change, like rocks and trees, and snow, and well seasons

People’s preferences change, they think they really want something, someone

but those preferences change

because people grow, learn, fall, and walk

But who they are remain the same, ingrained with the same personality, imprints, core

sleepyhead changes to cashews of blues

behind your eyes

It is so easy to judge, but so hard to love.

I keep making the mistake of judging. But forget to keep looking at the huge chunk in my eye. Maybe that is what the dream was about, the huge hole in my eye, realizing it’s as big as my eye.

Last night’s dream: It was a really ugly picture of myself. I kept showing people that weird hole in my eye and almost squeezed it out, my own eyeball.

Paper dress I made!

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NKJV)

For the last few days I couldn’t sleep well, thinking about fundraising for my study/service trip, as well as all the complications of saying goodbye, albeit only 4 months, yet, traveling is complicated. I finally turned in my application for a China Visa, paying 30 bucks more for the travel agent to do it for me—Thus avoiding parking, driving, LA traffic, and lines. EW. I got 2 visa photos taken at Photo Fun on Main and Garfield. Cost me 10.99. The sign said 13.99, but I said it was too expensive, I said, 10 dollars, she said in her broken Chinese “okay okay, fine fine”.

I’ve been thinking lately that I make things BIGGER than they are. I stress out about small assignments, I don’t procrastinate, and then I’m left with TIME…and then I think, if only I knew how to over-manage, I would be a little more relaxed. Sometimes thinking ahead can be a liability, not an asset.

Yes, I am a travel diva. I’m so tired from calling travel agents. Tickets to Beijing, then to Taiwan, then to LAX. $1940, cha- ching ching. Big money, for a small no money person like a student graduate.

I’ve probably traveled enough to tell you how it is, but really, I’m no expert. I’m not like Up In the Air kinda dude, but I do want that “premium” VIP lounge card. Last time when I went to Switzerland, I learned not to get too happy about an 800 roundtrip ticket, because I ended up paying much more for missing my flight. Anything can happen, really. I swear. ANYTHING. That is the fun part about traveling. And I LOVE IT.

I’ve slept at train stations, airports, on random jackets, and traveling and getting lost. You definitely need some sass so you don’t get mugged or look lost. Even if you’re lost, you must look like a local. Somehow, this is easier if you are in Asia obviously. Bargain the hell out, be sassy, or get cheated to pay foreign price. I’m a little anxious looking for the right price, when in the end, there’s a certain skill of buying it right away so the price doesn’t rise. Like yeast or some crazy monster in the ocean.

I love and hate chinese travel agents. They are also very sassy. And they don’t really care to persuade you.

Just in case you’re wondering where I get my blog entry titles- usually from random sayings and songs.

(Huntington Library on a rainy and lovely day)

Now Listening to Death Cab For Cutie- A Movie Script Ending

Find thy passion, and thy will live without societal restrictions

which chooses to bind and tear

though the compounds of safety and freedom are like two siblings, so different, yet, so complementary

I can’t but define my state of mind- between love and fear

salt and sugar, bitterness and sweetness, goodbyes and hellos

future and past,

and then just when im writing,

i halt and remember

Now and present. Instead of either or, I’ve chosen the best of both, I’ll live now and remember not to fret

the stops I didn’t take, or the stops I will take

and embrace the stop I’m at now.

Frights and terrors, colors and spinning, noise and peace, they are but a fragment of my imagination

what if i chose, simply to be. letting all circumstances float like marshmallows wavering

not hitting me on the head, but brushing past

like unicorns and lovely kewpies flying past, one by one, one by one.

List of news: booking flight to China ASAP, just finished my online class test, awaiting a text, staring at my calendar in dismay, too many people to pray for, Sugar and Spice Art and Fashion Show, new relationships, Ten Thousand Villages, and prepping for graduation and China. Many calls to make. BUT, I’m going to take a nice relaxing bath.

Some things I want to do before the end of June:

1. Play cello on the streets of Pasadena

2. Visit the beaches in LA

3. Hang out with my family & friends

4. Write thank you notes to all my close friends

5. Do what I gotta do, say what I gotta say with no regrets

“How much I think, I can seriously think the whole day and just DROWN in peoples’ and the worlds’ sorrows. I feel like I’m melting away into the snow.

My thoughts, I am unable to share. I know that they will understand, but they are in it, how can they? How can they fully comprehend my thoughts? I cannot them either. So life it is.”- Rebekka back in March

Fallen catastrophe. Hidden lives. Steel of remaining CD-r.

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

³ he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, ^[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

This is a poem by my friend in Taiwan- love it!  (Mary Lindsay)

Faceless
Is the name of her pain.
Faceless
Is the form of the dark
That kisses her hair
And leaves her heart bare,
Open,
Vulnerable.
Faceless
Stops her in her tracks.
Faceless
Makes her tremble in fear.
What she can’t see,
Is all that she sees,
So she’s down on her knees,

Screaming . . .

Because there’s no face there.
A head without eyes,
And yet it sees her.
A head without a mouth,
Yet it whispers her name.
A head without a nose,
Yet it picks up her scent.
And knows where she went;
It follows.
Faceless-
Like a villain out of a nightmare.
Faceless
Traps her in a corner,
Where she cries just like a child
And wishes for the days
When Faceless
Would have a face,
And she would know
Just what she’s facing
Instead of a haunting
Image of
Herself,
Faceless.

“So maybe you’re wondering what this means. Basically, it’s up to the reader to interpret it according to their own life and personal feelings, but to me, it’s a description of the pain we all go through. We are so familiar with it, yet we cannot understand it. It’s like an image of ourselves without a face; something we know, yet something that is haunting, horrifying; something we cannot comprehend.

Maybe you are your own worst enemy, or maybe it’s something different. Whatever it is, it’s always something we cannot understand that hurts us. Even if it is the person we think we know the most.”- Mary Lindsay