Contests and butts

I've been thinking about it and, well, our world makes everything into a contest and publicizes it in whatever way possible. College? Work? Sports? Understandable. But love? I guess love is sort of a contest. People want the best mate for themselves and are picky about who they choose and often come up with a list of criteria the other person has to meet blah blah etc. Shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are essentially contests on screen to screen out who is best fit for the other person. What I don't really understand though is how or why you would begin and end a relationship on national television. and then there are the who can eat the most hotdogs, who can burp the loudest, who can sing the highest contests. Heck, I bet there is a contest for who can pee the fastest, longest, furthest or whatever. I'm really thankful that getting to heaven is not a contest. I..would not do well.

I have been taking classes at the gym recently upon learning that they were free. First was body combat, then was crunch time, and I just came back from a Zumba dance aerobic class. and WHAT THE HECK dancing is so hard! There were multiple points in the class where we had to shake our butt and hips. I can shake hands, I can shake my head, I can shake my hair, but butt shaking is not a regular motion for me. I tried, I really did, but I have concluded that dancing and looking great is very difficult for me unless looking great means jerking back and forth in a spaz-like manner. I hope I am not scaring off any future husbands here by painting such an unflattering picture of myself. I have other talents though so...let us focus on that. haha.

Summer is passing by so rapidly. I need more time please.

Disappointment

It has been four months and this darnned ankle still won't heal. Please just hurry up :(

How I murdered my neighbor's goldfish

Just kidding, I did not kill my neighbor's goldfish. Well at least, not intentionally. They are on vacation this week and asked me to fish-sit. So I faithfully go feed them once a day after work (I don't want to overfeed them, they could die! Look it up) but yesterday when I went to look, one was missing. Their tank is a big plastic trashcan filled with water and it has these pretty lily pads in there. It's quite nice because the fish can swim real deep and hide or stay cool. Anyways, one fish is missing. So I look around the trash can thinking maybe he flopped out. Nothing there. Look around for birds but it's a no go. Finally I look deeper into the trash can turned fish tank and see a slight shimmer of scales. Crap. IS HE DEAD NO PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD. I somehow convince myself he's sleeping. Fish sleep right?

Went home, looked it up. Fish definitely sleep, though not sure if sleeping on their side, which this goldfish was, is normal. Went back a couple hours later hoping to see the little guy awake from his nap. I guess I didn't really fully convince myself he was sleeping though, because I took a fly swatter just in case I needed to fish (hah!) him out. He was sleeping alright, except for eternity. Dead and floating at the top :(. I didn't do it, I didn't kill him! I promise I did not neglect the fish. I'm thinking maybe the other one is a bully and took all the food. Or maybe he was just old and the time was right. Carried him on the fly swatter to our backyard compost pin and buried him. Rest in peace. I dread telling the neighbor's when they get back...their little daughter is going to think I am a killer of goldfish, and hence, a killer of all things good.

On another note I was watching jeopardy the other day and there was a guy named Van. Alex Trabek, when preparing for the commercial break, said "And when we come back, Van goes next." VAN GOGH. bahaha. Laughed out loud. Poor guy, he probably got it a lot growing up. Or maybe not because kids might not know who Van Gogh is. Something I learned about Van Gogh in Contemporary Art History class last week: Van Gogh most likely did not intentionally kill himself. He had episodes of manic depression where he would lash out in weird ways like cutting off his ear or swallowing paint. On this particular day he was painting in a field, had an episode, and shot himself. When it passed he gathered up all his stuff in the field, went back home, and died three days later. Poor Vincent. But he is now a legend in the art world so he will forever be remembered.

I'm looking for the rain after the sunshine

You always hear that after the rain, there will be sunshine. Sometimes it's used as a metaphor for after the bad times, the good will always come again. But does light need darkness in order to be light? Light could not be defined if it weren't for the knowledge of darkness. Scientifically, maybe, but when talking about God, it's not true. God's love, God's light, all that He is, preceded darkness, hate, sin. God just loves us, with or without the sin.

So I've always told myself that after the rain comes sunshine, as if the rain were a bad thing, the villain. Today reminded me that it can be the other way around too. Heat, sunshine, gives life and energy, but too much heat burns, scathes, can make things die. At this point it's the cooling rain that brings life, relief. After the heat wave this week so many plants turned yellow. They're panting, tired, and ready for a change. Then today the steady rain came to take them out of their misery. Hurrah, our grass won't die! Sunshine and rain, the good times and the bad, are all part of life. God has given each a role to restore parts of our life, even though we will not understand or even recognize it most of the time. Perhaps instead of saying to someone, "You're my sunshine after the rain," as a blessing, it should be "You're my rain after the sunshine."

Was feeling kind of down and tired this week and wrote a poem. The Title is "But,"It's kind of sad but hopeful at the same time. The hope comes from knowing that my hope is not in myself, in the people or the world. The hope is my hope that I will hope in Christ alone. "In Christ alone, my hope is found."

But,

You feel so far away
Like the light at the end of a tunnel, but
I’m on the other side
and I can’t move,
Move to be with you.

I want to be in Eden
Where it was all right in space and time,
And the world as we knew it
Stood still in its perfection.
This sadness weighs me down,
A shadow that has volume, shape, a life of its own, but
I can’t move it,
Move it from my side.

Why must I worry,
Why so downcast oh my soul?
I wish
I could be happy, but
If only it was so easy.
Is it so easy?

We were made to love you, but
sometimes it feels hard.
I can’t bring myself to open the book,
Your book.
A book of joy and pain and hope,
A book of You.

But, so many buts,
Excuses, lies, vicious lies
We tell ourselves.
We—a colony of lost people
Some are found but seem lost again,
Wandering blindly on a path that is marked but
Our heads are in the clouds,
Stormy clouds,
and we can’t see.

So I wait for the storm to pass
For the haziness to give way to light,
For my shadow companion to de-personify.
For these buts to be for me, not against me.
Waiting for:
I once was lost, but
now I’m found.
Was blind, but
Now I see.

I Started (Finished?) Writing a Song

I wrote my first song today, haha. Been planning it for a while but never really felt moved to write it. But I wrote it, and maybe one day I'll share it. I just wanted to let you, whoever it is that reads my blog, that I did it, maybe just to validate to someone other than myself that it really happened. There's no melody to it, just words, but for now that's fine.

Recently I've tried rolling down the windows and blasting music REALLY LOUD while driving. It makes me feel cool, even though it's really not that cool. It's kind of obnoxious isn't it? When I was little and I heard music REALLY LOUD coming from another person's car, I always thought that person was so cool, so daring. I know, it's dumb. But then when you're a kid don't you kind of think everything is cool? Braces? Cool! Pop tarts? Whoa! Shiny new jelly roll pens? Oober double whammy cool (Okay, I admit that's a little much)! I thought all those things were pretty poppin. Over the last week though, typical pop music on the radio can get pretty tiring. The same songs with mostly pointless lyrics that I guess are kind of interesting when you're in the mood. When I'm trying to think though, I don't want to be listening to Kesha's MyFirstKissWentAlittleLikeThis. *cue wet lip sound. AndTwist. Just..ugh. Stop. Other songs just sound like loud hazy annoying noise. So I've started listening to classical. I barely even notice it's there sometimes, but it allows me to think more, and when I pause to stop thinking (because I really can't multitask and think and listen at the same time), there's some nice, non-noisy music playing in the background. Maybe I should take that one step further and play this classical music REALLY LOUD with the windows down. This way I can sound intelligent but lame, still think, and be cool all at the same time. Triple whammy cool. Now that's cool.

I think I like parenthesis a little too much. (They're so friendly though, aren't they? Sorta like a hug, but for words. Ah, a word hug. Also, in this post I've said "double" and "triple whammy". "Quadruple whammy" just doesn't work though. When the sentences within parenthesis get too long it gets annoying. And this is getting to be too long now so must stop.)

EDIT//
Wow I just can't stop talking today can I? Where are all these words coming from, goodness. Sometimes, once in a blue moon (Is the moon really blue?) I like to reread old xanga posts just to relive past memories and look at how I used to write. Gotta say, I seem so much happier back then in my writing. I sound super perky and bubbly. And now...wow now I am such a debbie downer. Seriously, I'm always complaining and grumbling and being so gosh darn emo. If I was me in another body but still me in this one, I would walk up to myself and tell me to just stop making things so much harder than they need to be. I think it's okay to be sad, angry, frustrated, down in the dumps. But at some point you just gotta say oh heck, enough with the grumbling and worrying, and keep going. Stop wallowing. Wallowing stinks and worrying will just shorten your life span anyways. It would stink to be extinct (oh hayyy that rhymes) earlier than I need to be. If God cares about the lillies of the valley then how much more does he care about me, about us humans? A whole lot more! So thank you former, younger xanga self for cheering up present, older blogspot self. I really needed that. If you were another person I would give you a hug right now, but you're my past self and it would be weird to hug myself so..yes. Okay, lets stop. Okay. I am talking to myself now.

later kids.

I have this awful habit of responding, "oh really?" to things that people tell me. I'm waiting for someone to say, "yes, really. I just told you so." I will add this to my list of bad habits to get rid of. Oh really? Yes. Really.

Do you remember, the night we set out
Under the moonlight, the breeze was perfect
We were younger then, and naive for sure
But I made a promise to never leave you.

You spent a long night
We’ve kissed the devil
Though we knew that God was never far away
I tried my best for you, please believe that
Oh did I meet your expectations?

We fell asleep then woke,
Suddenly you’ll find
That we were gray and old
Where do these days go tumbling
Oh they disappear
On us.

There are a thousand words I wanna say
But I’ll save it all for morning
Well now I’m fine just laying here
With you
X2

We fell asleep then woke,
Suddenly you’ll find
That we were gray and old.

You didn’t change much darling
No, you didn’t age
At all.

-Jason Min