I am a paper writing MACHINE. A freaking machine I tell you. In the past week I've written two papers, and now I'm working on my third. I'm unstoppable. MUAHAHAHAAHAHA.

Ok call me a nerd, but I'm actually enjoying the paper I'm currently writing. I'm really excited about my topic: NATURALISM. I know you dig it.

I have six red apples sitting on my desk. I plan on eating them. ALL OF THEM. IN ONE SITTING. It's going to be glorious. J/k. I won't eat them all at once. That's piggy.

My roommate is outside watching Prison Break. I love how ever since I started watching the show, I got three other people addicted.

Sometimes I love blogging too much.

Speaking of loving things too much, I think my Trident Tropical Splash gum has become a crutch for me. I didn't have any in my backpack today, and I was really drowsy all through Psych because I didn't have my gum to keep me awake. MY BRAIN NEEDS IT TO FUNCTION. For serious.

I also have two bananas on my desk. Did you know that bananas can be divided equally into three sections (lengthwise)? It's true. It just naturally splits that way. I always eat my bananas in thirds. There's no other way. Isn't nature great?

Speaking of nature, I should get back to my supercool essay about NATURALISM.

Keepin' it real

Ugh to unnecessary frustrations.

I need to be a social recluse. Lock myself in a closet and take away all forms of communication and interaction with people.

Thanksgiving break was short but still great fun. My cousin came up from D.C. and spent Thanksgiving with me, my sister, and my sister's bf. Here's the happy happy group...



We cooked a spanking good Thanksgiving dinner even though it was just the four of us. And nothing went wrong =]. Except for Ariane burning her fingers on the deep fryer, but that's a minor detail.



Serena deep frying spring rolls. We had a traditional American thanksgiving with turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes...the works. But we added a Chinese twist because seriously what's Thanksgiving without spring rolls?! It's the best part of the entire dinner.



Me, Ariane, and a partially eaten turkey.



We made a damn good apple pie also. Here we are soaking in the appley goodness.



Serena, me, and Ariane on Saturday night after watching the musical 42nd street. Definitely a good show.



Yeah, we know we're cool.


I got very little sleep this break. I thought I would catch up on sleep, but far from it I got five, six hours every night. Oh well. I did a lot of other stuff besides sleep though...

I played a lot of trivial pursuit, watched a lot of Prison Break, did a lot of catching up with Ariane, ate a lot of good food, and spent a lot of money (dammit).

Yes, I went Black Friday shopping. I hate shopping. But I make myself go because my desire for cheap stuff overpowers my hatred of shopping. I'm broke now.

Michael Scofield is staring at me with his intense, gray eyes commanding me to do my homework. And I can't say no to such a beautiful creature as himself, so off I go to write my paper. I'M SO SICK OF WRITING PAPERS.

Trying to do work is proving to be freaking hard. I just want to lie around, watch a movie, eat thanksgiving leftovers, sleep, and go play in the city. But I have a ten page pysch paper that needs to be finished by Monday. Hm. I'm on page one. Damn.

I've watched so much Prison Break in the last three days. About 11 hours.

My sister, sister's bf, cousin, and I are going to watch 42nd Street tonight. We got student rush tickets for $15. I'm freaking excited. Can never get enough theater. And it's always a good feeling knowing your ticket cost 1/5 the price of a normal ticket and your seat is just as good if not better =].

Thanks to all those who called (or sent emails because they left their phone in SJ) or mailed me stuff to wish me Happy Birthday. Those phone calls really did make me smile =]. It's always nice to know I have friends who care and take the time to call and send me mail. And to those who facebook wished me happy birthday, I'm still on my facebook fast so I can't read any of your posts. But my email Quarantine Summary is full of emails that say "so-and-so has written on your wall," so I still feel the love. Yeah, all messages I get from facebook are categorized as infected emails. No idea why.

So despite my birthday kind of sucking because my paper got erased, the two days before were fun. I saw Borat with Jenn and Phil on Friday. Hella funny movie. It's so un-PC. I love it. Anyone who's offended by it needs to suck it up because all the biases and stereotypes it pokes fun at are completely true. I also watched the Philadelphia Orchestra with Tim on Saturday night...eight dollar student rush tickets. It's always a good feeling knowing your seats were ten times cheaper than everyone else sitting around you. Kimmel Center is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of it.

I'm on pg.10 of my paper right now. And actually I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't so bad that the first six pages got erased because now that I rewrote them, they're much much better. I'm pretty sure my first draft was absolute shit. The only thing I can't recreate as well is my intro =/. Oh, my poor poor intro.

If you watch Prison Break, you'll appreciate this...



Tim made that for me. He got me addicted to the show, so I guess this makes up for it. I suppose it should motivate me...? hahahahaha thanks buddy.

I think I'm going to cry. No, that's a lie. I'm just extremely mad at myself. My entire paper (well all six pages of it) got deleted. And it's all my fault. I'm basically an idiot. Yesterday I was working on my paper from my USB flash drive, but after writing a paragraph I decided to take the flash drive out because my computer was on my lap, and it was getting in the way. So I copy the file from my flash drive to the hard drive and work on it directly from the computer. At the end of the day I have six pages, including my introduction which is the hardest part. So I decide to save it onto my flash drive. But instead of copying the paper from the hard drive onto my flash drive, I copy the old paper (which has one paragraph) from the flash drive onto my computer, and it completely replaces the six pages I had written.

I'm pretty miserable right now. But there's not much else I can do except suck it up and get writing. Urgh. Gonna be a long ass night...

I had such a random dream last night. It's not all that interesting, but I want to write, er type, it down before I forget. In my dream I was back at WHS, and I was distributing the Hatchet, like we do every Friday. Or was it every other Friday? Anyways, the entire dream I was in the E-building passing out newspapers, and I was having fun surprising all my teachers. Towards the end of the dream, we started running out of newspapers and I was freaking out because I had to work crazy fast to stuff the newspapers. And then I realized that I hadn't been told how many to give to each class, and then the dream got really stressful. And that's it. That was my dream. I don't know why I dreamed about that. I haven't thought about that class in so long. I do remember very vividly though having tons of fun on the Fridays that The Hatchet came out...wandering around campus with Jenn, distributing papers to all the classes with our friends and favorite teachers, and taking our nice slow time. Dang, I can remember everything clearly as if it was yesterday, but at the same time it seems so long ago. Man I talk like a 70 yr. old woman.

I'm going to completley write my 20 pg. paper this weekend. Er, attempt to write. Right, well good luck to me.

It's thunderstorming like crazy outside.

The rain falls horizontally, so taking a five minute walk is equivalent to taking a five minute swim.

I swear sometimes I think I'm invincible or something, like nothing can harm me.

I think I'm getting sick.

And I think it's because I don't sleep enough.

It was bound to catch up to me sooner or later. I would really like to fix this problem by sleeping more, but I can't ignore my homework. With two tests and two essays due in the next week and a half I don't have much room to slack.

Uhm. Suggestions?

Laundry is the bane of my existence.

This post is dedicated to Miss Paula Jean because she turns NINETEEN today. Let's meet JP...


Always a gangsta...



Never misses a chance to be scandalous...



Classy too...



A camerawhore by nature (I admit, I am her accomplice in this area)....



And she'll always be a kid at heart (even at this ripe, old age of nineteen)...




So what's my relationship with this gangsta, scandalous, classy, camera-whoring kid?


Well, we've been through some rough times...



Some happy times...



A hell of a lot of crazy times...(she tries to forget this night, but I won't let her) =]



And some special, shared moments that only we understand...



So strike a pose JP cuz it's your birfday!



Hope you're having tons of fun on this special day, and don't do anything I wouldn't do (whatever that means...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JP!

I'm really happy I got six hours of sleep last night. I think that just goes to show how little sleep I've been getting lately. Oh and I also took a half hour nap...by accident. I fell asleep at work.

I can't wait until Thanksgiving break. Just gotta push myself really hard the next week and a half and then I'll be able to eat, sleep, and buy cheap stuff to my heart's content. I'm excited.

World Sees Democrats' Win as Rejection of Bush

"In Paris, expatriates and French citizens alike packed the city's main American haunts to watch results, with some standing to cheer or boo as vote tabulations came in."

That article, particularly that sentence, says a lot about America. How come Americans don't care about other countries' elections?

It was pouring rain all day today. But I was happy as a lark because I was wearing my new rainboots, which kept my feet dry. I can't even begin to describe how terrific it is not to have your shoes soaked through and be forced to walk around in sopping wet socks. It's truly a wonderful thing.

Something interesting happened on Sunday after church. After service everyone was gathered in the backroom eating and talking. As people started to leave, I noticed a woman come in (probably in her 40s), take two hot dogs and a plate full of chips and just sit down and start eating ravenously. Now she stood out for a number of reasons. One, she was white, and my church is Korean. Two, she was dressed rather slovenly. She wore baggy sweats and a sweatshirt and her hair was dirty and unkempt. Three, she wasn't interacting with anyone. She just kept eating her food, and everyone else in the room carried on with their conversations, seemingly unaware of her presence.

When I was about to leave, I went back into the sanctuary to get my stuff, and I saw her wandering around among the pews. My immediate reaction was, "How sketchy. I hope she's not stealing people's stuff." Call me mean, call me cynical, call me whatever. But there's a reason why we lock the front doors of the church after service, so that while we fellowship in the backroom, no one from outside can just walk in and steal the worship equipment or people's personal belongings. So I'm there collecting my belongings, and the one thing I really don't want to happen, happens. She approaches me and asks for money saying that she and her kids haven't had a meal since Tuesday, there's no food in her house, she has no money, etc. I have no idea what to say. I feel bad because she looks like she does need help, but I don't agree with giving out cash to the needy. In my confusion, I turn around and trip over a pew (I know I'm graceful), which draws Joe's attention, and causes the woman to shift her attention to Joe and ask him for money. Huge sigh of relief from me. Joe handles the situation much better than I did (aka he doesn't trip over a pew) and sends her to the backroom to ask for Pastor Martin or Pastor Steve.

As Joe and I are loading his car with the worship stuff, the woman comes out from the church and asks Joe for a ride to the Commerce Bank, about five minutes from the church. Joe says no problem, and she gets in the car. On the ride over, Joe asks her a couple questions and she basically tells us her situation. She and her kids have no food, her kids are with her mom now who has no food either, her brother used to live with her but he now lives with his gf and they are barely getting by also. The one thing that stood out in my mind was when Joe asked her how she's getting by, and she said, "We're barely making it." Now to me, that doesn't answer the question. Is she on welfare? Has she had a job? Did she lose her job? How's she paying rent? How does she buy food at all? Are her kids in school? Now maybe I'm being insensitive again, but I interpreted her answer as a direct avoidance of the question because her story probably wasn't true. I beleived she really did need charity, but I was doubtful about her having kids, not eating since Tuesday...that stuff.

So Joe drops her off at the bank so that she can "withdraw [her] last five dollars," and we're on our way. Right after we drop her off, people from church call Joe and ask if we're ok. Then they explain that this woman has been to Jubilee many times before. In fact, every Sunday, she hits all the churches in the area for food and money. And this has been going on for a long time...months. What Pastor Steve told her was that she's welcome to attend service and have food afterwards, but we (being Jubilee or any individuals) won't give her money because she does this every week.

Now the whole time in the car with her I was feeling extremely awkward. I didn't know what to say to her. I wanted to beleive her and help her, but at the same time realistically I know that people lie and cheat for charity. I'm not denying that she needed it. I'm sure she did. But in these situations I never know what to say to the person. "No sorry I'm not going go give you money because who knows what you're going to do with it." Can't say that. But I don't want to give them money either. It's a conundrum. I know I'm very fortunate and am blessed with much more than a lot of people in this world. Whenever I pass a homeless person on the street I don't know what to do. I feel like I should give them a dollar because everything I have God gave me, and I'm called upon to help others. Then there's the argument that if you just give someone money you're not helping them get out of their situation. They're going to be complacent where they are because people like you are keeping them there by just handing them charity and not expecting them to lift themselves up. But when I see a homeless person often (maybe I'm being a pessimist) I don't see them getting out of their situation. That being the case, I might as well help them in the situation that they're in with a dollar or two.

When I was in China this summer my companions and I always attracted a lot of beggars on the street asking for money. And very often the older beggars would use young kids (2, 3 years old) to get money. They would stand from a distance and watch as their granddaughters/grandsons followed us, grabbed at our shirts, and whimpered for money. I never gave money to the kids because would the money really be going to feed them? They were just being used as bait. And if you gave money to one beggar about 50 others would gather around you in a matter of seconds. So the times I did give money I always did when there was only one or two who asked me. Yes, I did give money because seriously what the heck am I going to do with 10, 50 cents (Chinese money)? That's like 1/80 of an American dollar. But that's China, and China's different. There aren't beggars swarming the streets of Philadelphia.

Charity is a very tricky thing. Maybe I'm complicating it more than it has to be. Maybe it's just help who you can whenever you can. But I'm of the mindset that you should do just more than help them in the here and now. You want to help them now so that they won't need it in the future. Kind of like the quote, "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

On a completely unrelated note, last night as I was doing my homework in the living room I heard a mouse/mice scurrying around in the kitchen. And it wasn't just like scratch scratch scratch. It sounded like it was romping around in plastic bags or something. So I go into the kitchen, and bang around some cabinets and the noise stops. I was scared to go looking for it any further. I'm such a wuss. It's not that I'm terrified of mice. I just don't want them in my kitchen.

Since this entry is really long already, I might as well make it longer. I'm starting to feel the extreme consequences of procrastinating on my 20pg. paper. I'm banning myself from aim untili I finish the paper. This morning I started to feel really stressed. Not such big news since I'm a college student and it's expected that we're stressed right? Well, actually for me it is. Because this year I haven't been stressed at all. It's been pretty great. I've been plenty busy but not worried or stressed about anything in particular. This year is so different than last year. If I had this amount of work last year, you would find me in my room every night having spastic fits...which my apartment mates often did find. But this year my focus is entirely different. My ability to focus on schoolwork has decreased (heh), but I've refocused my life to bigger, better, more worthwhile things. Anyways, this is a tangent I can go into in another entry.

So this morning I was feeling really frazzled. I wasn't doing my job as a Chinese T.A. for first year students because it's really not that appealing. Listening to the audio tapes of first year students basically sucks, and having been a first year students I know that they dont care about the corrections. They dont read them. It's a waste of my time. But I told the teacher I would do it because when she asked me to be her TA I felt really flattered. I didn't have to seek her because she came to me first. And my immediate thought was, "What a good opportunity. I can put this on applications to internships, my resume, and she could write reccomendations for me too." So I signed up for the job. But this is also my fourth job. Yeah, don't ask; I don't know how I ended up with four jobs. It was going ok for awhile, but now that it's two weeks before thanksgiving break, it's seriously crunch time. I have my 20 pg paper due, a five page paper, and a second psych midterm among all my other homework.

And now I'm two weeks behind in listening to their audio tapes. I decided to catch up this morning, but I got really frustrated and mad all of a sudden. It was annoying. I didn't want to do it. I could be spending that time doing my homework. After all, I am a student. I was seriously just like, "fuck this shit" because I was sick of it. And then I took a step back and I was like, "whoa, what the hell am I doing?" Why am I trying to do so much? When did I become one of those people who did things just so that they looked impressive. One of the things I prided myself on in high school was doing extracurriculurs because I liked them. I did tennis because it was fun. I participated in Interact because I was freaking in love with it. I did theater because I had enjoyed it since elementary school. It was fun. End of story. Everything I did I did because I enjoyed it. It made high school worth it. But now here I am doing all this stuff, for what? Grad school? My resume? But am I really enjoying it? Not really. Then what the hell is the point?

And I realized this morning that I am trying so hard to control my life. I had a really good conversation with JP over the phone about this two nights ago. I know, the phone. It's crazy. It was the first time we talked since I left in August. Anyways, I try so hard to make sure everything turns out the way I want. But God already has a plan for my life. (shit, I don't know why I'm still blogging. I have a Rotaract meeting tonight in Philly. But I'm on a roll and I can't stop. I need to get this out). My life isn't just existing here w/o meaning. My life is connected to a higher purpose because I am in Christ. God has a more amazing plan for me than I could ever think, and yet here I am, little old me, trying to make sure everything turns out perfectly. Why worry? Learning to put my trust in God has been one of the reasons why I've been so stress free this year. It seems that recently though I started to get a little prideful, boasting in my own accomplishments as if I'm the architect of my life. And now the stress is settling in. I got to this point where I thought, "man I've come quite a ways from last year. I'm good. I got this." But even if I have come a long ways, that's still not my doing. I prayed to God, asked God, leaned on God for help. Asked Him to change me, to grow me in my relationship with Christ. But recently I got all prideful and thought dang, I got this college thing. I'm busy, but I'm not stressed. I got a handle on my schoolwork, my jobs, my friends. I am soooooooo good. How ridiculously naive of me. This morning it all kinda hit me at once. What a fool I've been.

If you knew you didn't have to worry about anything in your life because someone promised you a wonderful and meaningful life, greater than you yourself could ever concieve. If someone promised you MORE than life here on earth. If someone promised you eternal life and happiness. Wouldn't you welcome that gladly? Wouldn't you say, "oh freaking A sweet deal! Yeah, here's my life. Do with it what you want. I don't need to worry? Sounds good. Mold me how you like so that I can have that eternal happiness. Man you rock."
So why don't we do that? Why would I want to try and control my life knowing that what I do can never match up to what He does? It doesn't make sense. If you knew that just by consulting someone, would help you make the right decision then wouldn't you? If you knew that your life was being made exactly how it should be by someone and if all the dice were in their hand, wouldn't you go to them to make sure what you were doing was in accordance with their plan?
I haven't been doing that nearly enough. I've been jumping into things using my own judgement thinking I know what's best for me.

I prayed for a long time this morning. Emailed my Chinese prof from last year and told her dubuqi (sorry) but I can't be her TA anymore. I think God really spoke to me this morning. He always has a way of bringing us back to Him. I really thought I was getting good at this Christian thing. I go to God on Sundays, during QT, Bible study, and Friday fellowship. I pray to God in the morning, at night. But I don't integrate my QTs into every part of my day, every aspect of my life. I devote that time to God and then go along my merry way after that. Not saying that I don't learning anything. I do. QTs really do help me. They help me keep my life focused on what's right. I learn. I grow. It's great. I enjoy those times. I don't go to Him grudgingly. But I don't let God into all aspects of my life. I do it more than last year...and this is the idea I keep tripping up on. I think how much I've grown and though I'm not satisfied I think I'm at a good place. I'm not complacent because I still want to grow more and I'm asking questions, seeking out answers, but I think I'm better than I really am. I'm not doing a good job of conveying this idea but I'm very confident everyone who started reading this entry has stopped long before this point so now I'm just writing for myself. I don't know how else to clarify that because I'm not complacent with where I am. But at the same time I keep comparing myself to last year.

Going back to what I said earlier about trying to do too much...I remembered this morning that everything here is so fleeting. I have more than my accomplishments here. I'm promised so much more than this. Who am I trying to impress? Why am I trying to fill my resume with all these cool activities when none of it matters? Shit I feel another tangent. Uhm I definitely still want to go into this but I seriously have hella work. In short, prayer was powerful this morning. I should think about going to morning group prayer with IV. IT'S JUST SO EARLY. LIKE SEVEN FREAKING THIRTY AM.

I don't know how this entry progressed to this point. I just have so much teeming in my head that I had to get it out. And I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I just wanted to write. Er, type. I don't even know if I said everything I'm thinking. I might've painted an incomplete picture of all my thoughts. But I'm too lazy to read over it.

OH! One last thing. This is the first election that I can vote in, and sadly I'm not. Berate me. Do it. I deserve it. I'm an idiot and thought that if I had my absentee ballot postmarked by the seventh it was ok. But that's wrong. It has to be received by the seventh. Yeah, my bad. I'm a terrible person. I'm not rocking the vote. I'm quite sad actually. I really wanted to vote.

OK OK OK OK I'M DONE WITH THIS ENTRY

I finally got to see my sister this weekend. We cooked up a freaking awesome dinner in record time. Yep, we're pretty much amazing.

And I found out from her that my mom wants me to have a boyfriend. She's worried that I haven't had one yet....although apparently she knew about Patrick...? I dunno. My mom's strange. Oh and when she asked my sister how come I haven't had a boyfriend in college, my sister was like, "I dunno. Maybe she's lesbian." hahahahahaha what a jerk. I realized that I get a lot of satisfaction if someone can insult me intelligently or in a witty fashion. This isn't an open invitation for people to start firing insults at me like crazy. It was just an observation that if someone has a good insult I always laugh despite the nature of the comment.

*edited*
On another note, it's my birthday month and when Serena picked me up on Friday she brought it up and asked me, "You're going to be 20 right?" I was so shocked and insulted. Turning 19 seems old enough...I can't believe she thought I was going to be 20. How disgusting. I'm sure at this point I've insulted a whole host of people older than me. Sorry. I just hate getting older.

Drag ball tonight. I have a lot of work to do. Maybe I'll be a turd and stay in.

My facebook fast is going well.

But I've kind of started obsessive compulsively checking blogs.

And I definitely spend way too much time on AIM.

I think I'm going to have to put myself on an AIM fast until I finish my paper.

I'm terrible. I have to lock myself up in a cage in order to do work.

Man, what happened to me. I was so diligent in high school.

I miss these kids...











I picked really flattering pictures of them, I know.