my mind runneth over

paradigm shift

pinnyapple — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:16:54 +0000

i actually didn’t know what that meant until i wikipediaed it. something about a change of belief once a scientific theory has been proven otherwise…or something. so i’ve spent the whole week by myself pretty much, sitting in my room and doing crossword puzzles and reading the paper. not really getting much schoolwork done, but just being by myself plenty. i spent less than an hour in the quad total this week…something that hasn’t occured since the year began. Oh, actually i went to watch heroes, but that was with annie who was dealing w/ nic. I went in twice during the day, and spent a little time talking to jon, but he and i are virtually disconnected now as far as i see it. i’ll ask him how he’s doing and respond to common stimuli (lol wtf) but no more attempts to track him down and make him listen to me. much less make him talk to me. i don’t even care anymore, to be honest. as for nicole i haven’t talked to her in two or three weeks about anything substantial. i’m bitter, i guess. i know i’m bitter, but i really don’t feel like trying to mend anything at this point. i’d rather just overcome my bitterness by changing focus.

speaking of which, i’ve been trying (painfully) to figure out what i want to do after psychology, both in the sense of a second major and as a career. my head hurts from having stared at a computer for the last 3 hours straight. being by myself is killing my brain cells. anyways, after a few days of complaining to everyone that would listen (minus the aforementioned couple), i got the notion to look more into political science as a prereq for law school. and i know virtually nothing about law school, so i figured i would set myself on finding out more about it. i went on the uiuc pre-law advising site and read all about the curriculum, but i still don’t know what the life would be like both in law school and beyond. and unlike the structured guidelines that pre-med students follow, there’s nothing required of pre-law students. this freaks me out, but at the same time intrigues me, since i happen to be on a ‘try-things-you-normally-wouldn’t’ binge. so after talking this over with some other people and looking at the sorts of skills required of law students, i thought i’d go visit the pre-law advisor (with whom i made an appt.), visit the pre-law club (where i asked a student what i might do to find out more about law), and track down renee chacko (which i still need to do). then i planned out the rest of my 8 semesters w/ both a psych and a polisci curriculum, and i can graduate in 7 semesters if i want to, but i don’t know how i want to fit in a semester abroad, since i feel compelled to do that. I just really want to get away right now, and i explained to nathan lord that i’m tired of only serving the christian community (and predominantly IV at that), and not serving the non-christian community enough (or at all). I’ve gotten comfortable and disgruntled at myself for that, and I wanna do something out of the norm. i feel like at this point i’ve forgotten how to appreciate God because I don’t see him in my community much anymore. and i miss Him so much. but I don’t know how to connect with him on my own. and i want Him back more than anything, b/c my life is empty and meaningless and stupid without Him. i feel unworthy all the time now b/c I can’t focus on Jesus. and i have to say, i’m tired of my community. the only thing holding me to it is the fate of the freshmen…especially nathan and jeff…but i don’t know how i can help them when i can’t help myself at this point. i pray so much that they keep growing in Christ if i step down and leadership dwindles. b/c a big part of me just doesn’t wanna be so invested in IV anymore. I’m gonna be lonely, and I’m still going to need the fellowship and people to count on for my faith, but I need something new. Eric told me once that i’m never going to be content with any group i turn to unless i turn to God first, but I really need Him to make the first move for me right now. At the same time, I find myself becoming more like Rachel Mowery. I really look up to her, and i’m not sure how my next semester’s gonna look like without her. not to mention next year when sarah and rachel keung leave me too. tyler and jack and even jamaal will be gone too, and i think that’ll just make me shy away from IV even more. i’ll still have nathan to talk to, but there’s awkwardness there that i don’t think will ever go away. he’s great to talk to from afar, and i think that’s the only way i’ll ever be comfortable talking to him. unfortunately. i’m worried about next year for sure, but i feel that God’s gonna provide for me, in ways that i can’t fathom right now, and i can take some comfort in that. i need to learn to live with uncertainty although it’s the greatest thing that plagues me. Oh so, Rachel Mowery. Last night she and Christie (she’ll be leaving me too…and i just met her. sigh.) talked in my room for a few hours about boys and faith and i kept thinking ‘wow i love talking to people that share my values but aren’t caught up in the blandness and troubles of IV’. and Rachel is involved in stuff (maybe not as much as i’d like to be) and sees IV’s faults and turns from those, but still stays strong in her faith through other ways. And she’s so headstrong in her values and commitment, and I want to have that. I don’t want the goings-on of my life to dictate my every emotion. i need things to shake up my life, b/c every in it right now is so routine and therefore half-hearted and unfruitful, and i want dynamicism so i can see more movement. I felt it in Taiwan, and I want to feel it again. Here isn’t enough for me anymore. I keep looking to the far future, and what i’m going to end up doing and how i might change it now, and i’m getting restless and anxious. and that’s all i feel up to saying right now; i think i’m gonna go to bed. sarah’s gone this weekend and i’ve had even more time to myself. for a little bit of my pms-y week she bothered me with some of her mannerisms, but ultimately there were good times when i can’t think of anyone i’d rather room with right now.

in transit

pinnyapple — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:40:47 +0000

i have no idea where i’m at in my life right now. i feel like i’ve been sitting in a waiting room for something to happen for so long while everyone around me is getting their number called. Only I don’t know what number i have in my hand, so that complicates things. it’s like i’ve almost developed learned helplessness but it can’t be good if i just give up. everything i do now feels like obligation. i’m obligated to be an IV leader and member and do IV things, i’m obligated to act happy and social and sometimes i am, but the feeling’s always fleeting. i just came back from the quad and although i laughed so hard my throat dried out, sitting there i still felt empty. like a giant part of me is missing and it’s because i have a hole in me where i try to fill it with joy but it just leaks out after i stop filling it. and all the while i’m filling it i know it’s not going to stay. i keep speaking in metaphor. at curtis i just checked out and blamed it on being sick, and sat down on a bale of hay and waited. cause that’s all i can do now, to wait. greg and emily noticed and came back over to accompany me which i appreciated, but then i put on my front again and pretend to be alright, just sick and tired. i don’t really have to try to pretend to be happy, it just happens, so i wonder sometimes if i’m actually capable of naturally being happy, it’s just that this phantom of knowing it won’t last ruins that everything for me. so people don’t really notice that i’m depressed, because something in me keeps up the ruse of normality regardless of how i actually feel inside and away from other people. then we went to wendy’s in a car and i stared out the window and wondered silly suicidal thoughts like i sometimes trivially do, and it surprised me whenever someone would ask if i was alright. not sure what they were noticing, but they did…and it caught me off guard. i’m not sure what to make of their concern, or how to respond to it really when they do express concern. my first instinct is to just shrug it off and act like i have no idea what they’re talking about, but i wonder what would happen if i were to just tell them that, yes, i’m depressed and overall dissatisfied with my life and my friends, and that sometimes i wonder how the world would fare without me. And wonder what it would look like to make that a reality. But no one will ever know; not that i think they could do anything to help. It’d probably just alienate them from me and i’m sure it’s not as big a deal as i sometimes make it seem in my own mind. I’ll admit that I tend to self-pity, and there are far worse things to worry about. Like those lower on Maslow’s hiearchy of needs, blah blah, i still hold to my theory that dissatisfaction is proportionally equal in intensity though comes from different causes as you move up the pyramid. So there are those that are depressed because they have no food or shelter, and then there are those that are depressed because they’re like me and see no enjoyment in their lives (societally/spiritually, etc). So for the former the pain is more like a sharp, stinging pain, while mine is like the dull, throbbing pain that people experience. I’m becoming more numb as the days wear on, and just tolerating the responsibilities that i have to bear. Not ‘have to’ per se, but know I ought to. Like I said before, i feel like i’m temping for someone else’s life and trying not to screw it up until that person comes back. Actually it’s more like I’m temping at a job knowing that eventually i’m going to move on, but not knowing what catalyst or action i have to take to do so, meanwhile trying not to screw up my job now in case moving on takes longer than i’d expect. But i’m fed up with my life, and i don’t understand what about it makes me so unhappy.

H2O

pinnyapple — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:18:53 +0000

random thought:

buying and drinking bottled water is as impractical as buying and using batteries to power your TV or your computer. Why drink/use anything but tap water when you wouldn’t use batteries instead of your building’s power supply?

all i need

pinnyapple — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:13:35 +0000

So…time for some more random reflection. It seems like every time I do reflect, good revelations and epiphanies come out of it. And plus, it doesn’t hurt to exercise my vocabulary. Alright, so I’m still stuck at this point in my life where I don’t know what to do with myself and I need to figure out fast what it is that I’m good at and will enjoy doing for the majority of the rest of my life. And one thing that’s holding me back is the fact that I have so much else going on right now with school and people and leadership and sigh. So many papers are coming up for me. At least this week is supposed to be pretty stress-free, so I can lay low and work on those this week. Maybe I need an alone-time sabbatical somewhere that I can steal off to on campus. Hmm, what would be a good place? Allen library with the study-booths is an option…and ACES is always comfortable. The Union gets kind of loud and isn’t as nice of an option at night. I’ve never really studied at the main library before and I need to go do some research there anyways. Krannert’s an option still but that gets iffy at night too. Espresso Royale might be a good option for alone-time w/o getting totally alone. I think I’ll retreat there this week. Oh, and I do need to visit ISR sometime this week b/c I virtually promised Nathan I’d go visit them. Hmm…I wish I wasn’t so lonely. I wish I could get a lot more done by myself and still be happy while doing it. But usually I just feel like crap after spending a lot of time by myself and getting nothing done. And I can’t imagine relying too heavily on anyone that I’m around now, not even Sarah. Mostly because she’s got certain nuances that I can’t ignore and that bother me sometimes when I’m at my low. And I’m sure it’s the same way vice versa. I once thought that I was full of patience and kindness, but it’s been chipping away since the year began. I no longer have the ability to explain calmly and carefully what I think is wrong, and now it’s just a lot of provocation and confrontation or intolerance and annoyance. And it kind of scares me what I’m becoming, but I’m not sure what to do. I know I ought to look to God for that sense of grace and mercy but it’s getting harder and harder now because I can’t seem to find satisfaction in anything. And when I’m not rewarded like I want to be, I find it hard to be thankful. And I am a selfish, stupid human being and I deserve my comeuppance…but I don’t know when I’m going to change and my comeuppance is going to end. It’s hard to be hopeful where I am right now.

conflict resolution

pinnyapple — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:22:15 +0000

It’s been awhile since I last posted. I guess I just don’t feel like thinking sometimes, and to keep things simple as much as I can, otherwise I get too emotionally invested and then it’s just detrimental. But this last week was schoolish hell, what with 3 exams and a whole lot of sadness going on. There’s so much sadness now. People are so discontent with what we’ve got to deal with. Jon and Nicole are official now, and just being around them is awkward. I…can’t associate the two of them together w/o feeling weird. They were never…in the same social groupings that I put people in last year, and having the two of them together now is just odd. it doesn’t help that jon’s shutting off from other people a little more now, and nicole seems to not trust me. I mean, jon’s still good to me, probably because i’ve made myself be around him so much in the past that he’s receptive to changes in my behvaior. As for everyone else, he’s seemed to stop talking to and started being overly formal. sarah’s pretty scorned by the whole deal, and justly so. yinting’s being a little more neurotic and stubborn this year, and i honestly don’t know how to deal with her sometimes. or even how to defend her when other people complain. And i’m the kind of person that usually strives to promote good-feelings towards others in the group, but lately i just feel defeated and pooped. And i feel weaker and just overall disappointed. Oh, and nicole still never tells me anything about jon, which might be a lack of my own effort to make her talk to me. But what cut me pretty deep is that she never even mentioned rooming with me or considering me or anything, but went ahead and told me that she’s rooming with laura next year. I think that’s fine that they are, and I know i can find someone else…but just the fact that i got hit with that and that i was evidently never even factored into the equation hurts a lot. And there’s no way to bring that up…so I have no option but to suck it up and pretend it doesn’t matter. But I have to work with her for another year after this…so if things don’t get better then I’m not sure how this is going to work out. So now i’m not sure if we’re ever going to be close friends. I remember a time last year when nicole and i were tight and that we’d tell each other things about our lives and communicate like we were equals. But the difference now, i feel like could be because she considers herself older than me/the other girls…because she often states that she’s a junior technically, and the fact that she’s dating Jon seems to put her above the rest of us. This is all speculation about her behavior/distrust of the rest of us, but it makes some sense to me. Thus, I have no idea how I’m supposed to behave towards her…like just accept that she’s ‘older’ and that i ought to turn to her for guidance but not vice versa…or if i should state my position that we’re actually equals (even academically). For now i can’t seem to shake the former, and i can only reciprocate based on how she’s treating me. Which is silly, and it bothers me, but there doesn’t seem to be much that I can do. And two of my confidantes are now basically one unit of which I can’t share some things with one or the other and it’s throwing me out of whack. And Sarah and Yinting and Annie and Rachel M all feel the weirdness and it’s kind of hard to ignore cuz theyre both very…touchy people. I honestly feel like it’s an unhealthy relationship in regard to the people around them, but it’s nothing that can be brought up or solved. So…there’s just a lot in my life right now going on that I don’t understand and I don’t know how to understand/solve. There’s my social group and my social outlets, my position in IV next semester/year, the church i should be grounded in and how i should express my faith outside of IV, my career choices and what i should do with the rest of college, and how i ought to deal with my loneliness/singleness. I just feel like there’s a lot of WEIGHT on me right now. My life feels heavy, and I feel heavy, and the future looks heavy. If I knew where things were going, life would be much much easier for me right now. So now is probably just a really difficult time of trials…and it’s hard to see beyond it but i guess this whole thing is just a trial. And … if i turn to God, I’ll make it through. But I need to learn how to look to God. When I’m weak, it’s harder for me to know how God’s gonna work in my life. because things look/feel hopeless, and my own inadequacies reflect upon how powerful i think God is. it’s hard to stop looking at myself and to look at God as God. So I need the Lord to pull my gaze away from myself and towards Him. I see God as a God who fixes things like I would…and that I fix things like God would. This is totally inaccurate, but my mindset is so. So I need to learn that God does things in His own way, and though I may be completely inadequate and incompetent, God is omnipotent in every way possible. And He will turn things around and change my heart and my mind and bring me rest and peace if I surrender myself and my abilities to him. They’re not mine, but His. If I only knew what surrender looked like, and how I ought to get there. Lord, please pull me out of the mire.

i would walk 500 miles

pinnyapple — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:54:37 +0000

just wanted to try the photo addition function. my belly hurts.

so evidently i’ve lost the ability to tell when i’m gonna be on the rag soon. and that i keep getting emotional and moody for that reason. i THINK that i’m getting depressed cuz of what’s going on around me, but nope. it’s just my hormones out of whack. stupid hormones. so stupid. next time i need to cry i think i’m just gonna eat some chocolate and suck it up. and maybe punch a wall.

so i need to sort out some of my intentions and feelings and separate the two of those. there’s a certain boy, and i’ll just refer to him as E for convenience’s sake. so i feel like i’m trying to convince myself that E is a romantic possibility for me despite the fact that i’m not overtly attracted to him. I don’t even know if I need to be. Something about me right now just doesn’t remember what it ought to feel like when i really like a boy. and for some reason i still have this empty loneliness that i need to fill, but neither my heart nor my head are feeling particularly drawn towards E. But i think i’ve managed to brainwash myself into seeking out his face and his name wherever i might expect him. This is probably not good. He’s a funny guy, but at the same time i feel like i’m convincing myself that he’s funny, and that he’s cute, and that he’s … perhaps and JUST POSSIBLY someone that could grow on me. Gosh, this is so bad. But every other guy that i’ve ever liked I’ve known for months before actually admitting to myself that I liked him. And even still, I wouldn’t ever do anything about it. I barely know E besides what Nicole says about him, and I don’t even know how i’d get to know him better. I don’t know how he feels towards me, and whether i’d be compatible with him at all. but … no what? I’m bored, I really am, and I’m almost just on the verge of taking whatever I can get just to give it a test run. A test run. sigh, what IS that. what’s going on with ME? I’ve never felt…so…blase about my love life. My better judgment is telling me not to pursue anything or let myself be pursued and give in in case things go horribly wrong and i end up hurting him or myself or it’s all just a waste of time even. But i’m…SO BORED. is 19 years where i crack? Am i really just gonna give up and give in after all this time just to try it out? what happened to not wanting to date just anybody and wanting to date with the intent to find the RIGHT guy for LIFE. I…don’t…know E to make that call. I didn’t even consider E a week ago…and recent events have pushed me into making myself think that there could be something. just to take my mind off certain things and to explore other things. As for the other things, yea actually i’ve been able to stop thinking about what i shouldn’t care so much about and to redirect that attention to…bonding with some people without tension there from myself. (so vague, but i dont feel comfortable divulging too much info online) So…I don’t know what I’m going to do. About E. and if that goes away, how things might go back to the way they were from sad emo pin-ya last week. ugh. lame.

treasured all these things

pinnyapple — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:58:55 +0000

when it says that mary treasured all those things in her heart, the word ‘treasured’ is odd. if i were a mother and knew that my child was going to be the savior of the world, i think i’d be more ‘freaked out’, than ‘treasuring’ all those words. but that’s why she’s mary and i’m not. oO.

so it’s been a crazy week. i’ve been busy as heck, and there are a lot of things on my mind and off of it that shouldn’t be. maybe blogging will make me feel better. As for all my academic/technical things, they’re going great. God’s given me (i still feel…weird saying that. even though i know i mean it, saying that i’ve been blessed or whatever makes me feel so…pseudo-spiritual. *shrug*) well yea, i’ve been given the botox/God psyc 290 position (one of 3 spots, dangg), crisis nursery is letting me come every saturday with no more extra hassle, my convopartner is a dear, and classes are still easy. Oh, and small group is still good so far; people are still talking and for some reason I’m able to talk fluidly and …interestingly. Thank God for that. When I look at things like that, I feel very loved and taken care of. So honestly, I don’t understand my own discontent. I’m not entirely sure what it would take to make me happy. And I realize now, or rather more fully, how vulnerable and influenced my whole being is by what’s going on around me. Either it’s the weather, or my friends, or me accidentally bumping someone with my bike. And i’ve been left not really being sure how i’m supposed to feel. It’s almost like I’m controlling my life from the outside and only temporarily so, and that i’m just trying to keep from screwing things up until the real owner of this life comes back and then i can breathe. It’s one of the most … stressful things feeling like i need to keep hanging on, hanging on until some future point that i’m unaware of. I just wanna hand the controls to someone else more capable than i am. cuz i’m only doing a satisfactory job. like many things i’m my life, i’m only doing a maybe…above-average job. Like people from the outside look at my life and get the impression that i’m a good person, and that i’m relatively smart, relatively put-together, and that i ‘try’. but i am so not satisfied with myself. and how i’m gonna figure out what that is completely escaping me. i feel like i’m letting the world down and they don’t even know it, and i’m not ‘letting God down’, but that He knows i could be doing a better job. I know He’s not judging me, He’s just waiting to see if I start to get it right. And always feeling this is going to break me. My birthday was last week, and surprisingly…everybody in Allen IV threw me a surprise birthday party. and …i just didn’t really know how to respond. i mean, i was HAPPY, but through the smiles and hugs and laughter, there was something weighing down on my heart telling me that i didn’t deserve that, not really. Maybe no one else does, and probably no more than i do, and yes i would do that for them, but i want to deserve things. I want to be somebody that is worthy of being loved. and dangit, i ought to feel like that already, but it’s so hard for me sometimes. i just feel unworthy too often. if i knew what to do, and if i really already had the motivation to, i think things would’ve changed already. but the way things are, and the way they make me feel, it’s hard to. when people around me are at conflict, then i am at conflict with myself. and it’s silly. but i feel like i need to take it upon me to fix things. like…now…

boardom

pinnyapple — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:53:23 +0000

sarah’s not here, i skipped advertising cuz it’s flippin’ rainy outside, and i’ve organized all my dates/papers for the week. So now i’m just sitting here trying to figure out what to do. i wonder where everyone else is. this is gonna just be a basic ramble and we’ll see what happens. i might find a subject, and wander off on a tangent if i get bored. sooo. my small group. rachel keung, amy gray, rachel kaplan, and sarah showed up. i was kinda sad that bernice and diane didn’t come, but i’ll ask em about it later. but we DID schedule a sg dinner next tuesday before SG. I’m so proud and happy about the 2 freshmen that came. they’ve already got a really good grasp on bible study, and kept jumping in with thoughts and observations, and it made me feel all excited and fuzzy. and it went smoothly for me, i think. i was scared that i was gonna resort to umm-ing and uhh-ing when i lost my train of thought or wasn’t sure what to do next. but by the grace of God i managed to keep focused and such. besides the fact that i was too afraid to say ‘take off your shoes’ and just kept mumbling ‘sewws’ everytime they walked in…i’ll work on being more intentional about trivial things like that oO. but yea, even rachel keung kept saying that it went well. ahh i can only hope this is a beautiful beginning to an even more beautiful SG this year. *prays*. well i’d write about Jon and Nicole and Mikey or whatever but i really just don’t wanna think about that right now. it’s none of my business besides the fact that it makes me sad that things are so different…but whatever. things will even out i think. i hope and pray that things will even out. although i can’t help feeling jealous of nicole sometimes that she’s able to connect with those 2 guys in the way that i wish i could but evidently can’t. it might be my fault, or it might be some other underlying factor that i’m not consciously aware of. however, i’m sure part of it is me too. i’m intimidated by jon and can’t act normally around him, and i also just don’t know what to do about mikey. he frustrates me with his behavior and yet i just pity him. i just pity him. -_- sarah and i are getting along just dandily. i get lots of ‘words of affirmation’ from her mixed in with the joking insults and derogatory remarks she throws at me quite often. but i know she loves me so whatevs. ahhh i have a lot on my plate, what with IV SG leading, convopartners, crisis nursery, classes, KCSA, piano lessons, and maybe a PSYC 290. theoretically it’ll work out, but i feel like i’m already running places all the time. but i AM using mary kim’s bike now and that makes life a heck of a lot easier, although i still feel like i’m going to run someone over ever second i’m on that thing. lemme think how many hours that entails…1.5 of selfprep/SG, 1.25 of bible prep, 2 of one-on-one/team mtgs, 1 of convopartnership, 2.5 of crisis nursery/commuting, classes w/e, KCSA maybe 1 a week, piano lesson/practice around 1.5, psyc 290 around 6-7. so added up that’s…almost 18 hours a week. and i have about 10 hours of free time during the week before 5 pm. and after that, whatever. but that DOES mean that i’m packed in there. (oh crisis nursery is saturday, so minus 2.5). ehh. i think i can do it. i just want to have time for my SG members too. aish. i think i’m gonna make some paper flowers now to put on top of the microwave.

psych out

pinnyapple — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:25:03 +0000

i’m still tired. i can’t hold my eyes open very long, and i just feel like being alone. or i know i shouldn’t be alone, but i can’t bring myself to go find people. so i’m just sitting here typing up notes and doing reading that i normally wouldn’t do. i think i’m either crashing or pms-ing. i hope it’s the latter. if i don’t get out of this slump, my SG is gonna be in troubleee. speaking of which, i need to figure out when bible prep is. but yinting wrote all my invites for me (what a dear.) and i need to hand them out tomorrow. besides that, i’m pretty good. classes seem ridiculously easy. I don’t think i even need to show up to social psych or advertising. and maybe not even world music and ed psych…but i won’t risk it. actually i’m gonna try not to let myself fall into the skipping slump. i’d vow not to miss class, but i don’t know how hard this semester is gonna be yet…so we shall see. but i just want to get into the swing of things already. i wish this new-froshie thing would settle down already and that whoever is gonna be ‘one of us’ would be. but at the same time i can’t see many of the kids i’ve met so far fitting in with the quad-crowd. maybe nathan alderman but it runs in his blood i guess. and hardly; ryan wasn’t even around much. i’m not sure if i’ll be able to be around the quad so much if i want to really connect with my new SG members…gah this is gonna be hard. i wanted one girl that i could mentor this year, and Amy is a big girl who seems like she’ll probably have her own agenda, rachel seems like she’s scared of IV and has her own church group already, i haven’t even really met diane, and bernice is leaving at the end of the semester. oy. maybe someone will show up along the way. i can only pray so. or maybe He has something else in store for me. i dont know. but … hm at the moment i’m feeling kind of lonely. like i want a man-hug. but i’m not gonna think too hard about that. it’s just something that hits me every so often. man-hug. sigh. ok pin-ya, be happy, be happy. it’s my job to be happy right now. gah. i want to be happy.

body < heart

pinnyapple — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:31:10 +0000

i’m so tired right now. i guess walking a mile back from the sweet corn festival does that. but i wasn’t itchy…my legs are getting reaccustomed to walking again! woohoo. it’s been an intense three days. but i’ve got a pocketful of great evangelistic stories now. i can’t say how much i’ve been blessed these past few days have been. hoo boy i’m really tired. anyhow so i went and bought books from ibx people in front of the union on thursday and one of the people didn’t show up, so i ended up getting back to allen later than i had planned. but on the way into allen i saw aaron standing in the driveway, and i said hi and asked him if he was going someplace. and he said that he was going to praise team practice at church with jacob. so that prompted me to tell him about IV and the water tables and encourage him to check out fellowships. that was some divine appointment there. then yesterday at dinner i ate with a handful of new people, but then towards the end i went to get a knife for my peach and saw a girl sitting by herself and went to join her. turns out she’s from arizona and doesn’t know anybody, so (Daisy) had been by herself for a few days. I found out that she lives in LAR and is still exploring Christianity but wants to get into a fellowship. she doesn’t intend to stay past a year and actually transfer to UCSD next year (ha dunno if that will follow thru). Nerijus showed up and ate with us too and i learned a lot about her views on corporate religion and it actually reflects me a bit…with her desire for diversity and not wanting to be confined to only her church friends. So she told me she’d like to come to TCBC with me and maybe monday LG. I got her contact info and stuff and gave it to Brittany to follow-up with. Then that night i saw Sheng from cccyg at late nighter and went to talk to him even though i was pretty sure he wouldn’t really know me at all and want to talk…but he was surprisingly excited to see me. haha it was great. he told me he was looking into fellowships and that he was really enjoying UofI. So good to hear. so i invited him to urbana LG but realized he lives in Forbes so that’s in champaign so i called this morning to ask if he’d rather go to champaign LG and he’ll be calling me back. And today i saw michelle in the dining hall and i asked her about looking for fellowships and such, but she said no not yet. so i got her contact info and gave it to brittany too. I feel like i’m doing LAR more of a service than i am for allen. hahah. i am very jaded right now from NSO events, and walking a mile back was the last straw i think. but i had offered earlier to wash all the IV shirts so i just dropped that off in the washer. gah i’m so pooped. so for some bad news, it seems that hoyoon from our chapter tried to kill himself wednesday night. he was always a bit off i think, and i think if i had known him better i might have seen that tendency in him. from what i knew of him, he was the kind of guy who sensed when people were uncomfortable with him but didn’t know how to adjust his own behavior. but he had sat at our table that morning and seemed pretty normal…he even prayed with us and i was musing about how honest and i guess for him…’heartfelt’ his prayers were. they were odd but i admired him for really meaning his prayer. something must have triggered something that night i guess. but he’s in the hospital now and we’re not supposed to contact him. i guess this way he’ll be getting therapy and hopefully, i pray, be able to do alright soon. so…i’ve been meeting even more new people, and missing this Amy Gray girl that is never there when i knock, and i’m not here when she shows up. ha shoot. i’ll find her eventually. but for now i just wanna rest. cuz i need to seriously recharge my batteries before classes start…