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such lovely jagged lines.

Monday, August 2, 2004

Though the last three weeks have been glorious ones, it is the last three days that consume me at the moment. So many contrasting feelings in such a short amount of time. I feel like I've been repeatedly falling—or is it jumping?—into boiling water and then pulled back out. Even now though, I'm glad God allows that kind of thing.

One major highlight was Ravinia festivaling with Andrew and the crew. The CSO was performing Beethoven's 5th and some concertos. It was grand. There really are few things I'd rather be doing on a summer night.

We played some excellent rounds of Would You Rather on the ride home. One thing that intrigues me was the group's answer to "Would you rather have three very close friends at all times in your life, or would you rather have all your life issues solved?" Everyone besides me chose to have the three friends—but why? I would most certainly rather be lonely and at peace than befriended yet with horrible problems. Then again, maybe I am wrong; or worse, maybe I deceive myself.

Later, I took a week off of work to volunteer at my church as a small group leader for vacation Bible school. I am grateful for the natural gratification one receives from working with children. I am also grateful for the free lesson in developmental psychology. It is a wonderful, glorious thing to help with the kidlets. It's also somewhat depressing. When working with children, one has the chance to observe basic human interaction from the absolute third person. It makes you wonder.

One child was a steady, low-voiced, and notably astute girl, and soon after meeting her, I could expect nothing but ingenuity and success in everything she did. Her thoughts on God displayed a strangely high level of maturity. She finished her own crafts quickly and then helped the other children with theirs. She patiently waited her turn as everyone else screamed and squabbled. A child to remember.

Another child was distant, consumed, and so stubborn it was scary. Wanting bitterly to be in another group, she would not walk or even stand up when we were all moving to the next room (she had to be carried). Refusing to join in the activities, she sat alone by the door, and no amount of polite invitation or outright begging could get her to come back. We couldn't even get her to talk. It was the moment she started pounding her head against the door that I had nothing more to say. A child to feel sorry for; a child for whom one despairs, from a distance.

Does it surprise you to know that these two girls are sisters? Before this, I had always assumed that it was a mostly a child's surroundings and family that affected her mental growth. Maybe there's something else, eh? Maybe we as humans are "responsible" for more in our character than we think. Of course, there may be some other mystery behind this particular example that would skew the reliability of my brilliant findings. Nevertheless, the VBS was a good one, with a rightful balance of fun times and learning about God, and I'm glad I participated.

I didn't put much into 4-H this year. One project. Some would probably laugh in scorn to hear that I did it on cascading style sheets. It's ok though, because I won >D. I had been planning to also enter into painting and CG art, but neither projects left the house due to my printer deciding to self-destruct. They do tend to do that, don't they?

Last week, we had Tara and Kari over and we played Zelda OT, SSB, GoldenEye, AND MarioKart. Wow we are productive. We went to Paula's bday party afterwards, at which I probably spent half the time DDRing. I felt hotter than I'd been all summer ^^;;.

Andy: WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE DDR
Andy: IT RUINS THE MIND-MUSHING FATTENING POINT OF GAMING!

XD hilarious. In other news, I'm thankful I had the opportunity to set stuff up for the two weddings my quartet played for this week; however, it was a very stressful and draining process, more due to my own pessimistic nature than to anything else. It was a lot of phone calls, emails, waiting, asking for favors, mindless agonizing; and, it was a little bit of disappointment. Of course, all of this was temporarily dispelled in the first wedding when I saw my dear violist friend Jessica walking down the aisle looking so perfect, to a groom who seemed so perfect for her.

It was so amazing.

Later that night, I went to Anna's bday/ex-HQ party, which was really nice. I was excited to see Anna again, as well as some people there who I hadn't seen in years, such as Brooks, with whom I was sharing my future goals. I was talking about my college major choices, then getting kind of like, "I'm probably not gonna enjoy school that much, no matter what major I get into, so I might as well do whatever." To my surprise, he looked shocked and exclaimed, "That's a terrible attitude to have!" I think he is right; but actually, I do love school in general; it's the thinking ahead which gets tiring. Even so, I've been encouraged to continue looking into my different options. Ah... I'm going to miss Anna so much when I go back to HQ.

The second wedding also went well, but what's worth mentioning is that I am SO grateful first of all for the members of my family, who forgive and accept me even after I act all retarded and ill-tempered, and also for Mrs. Lam without whom I could not have made it through these weddings.

After that, Weien and I met with eupho-Josh to play hymns again for the first time in a long while. It was very relaxing... and just like the old days ^__^.

Anyway... I have been rapidly developing a passion for Blaise Pascal and his writings. I picked up his book, "Pens�es", specifically to heal my mind, and as I read it, it has done that which I'd hoped, and much more. I am IN LOVE with the deep, spiritual thinking, and I have laughed out loud more than once when coming across some of his so blatantly true observations on human behavior and life. In the latter he reminds me of Machiavelli, and in the former, C. S. Lewis.

One of my favorite pieces so far is the one in which he begins, "All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life" (an interesting thought in itself). He notes that "we depart from the theatre with our hearts so filled with all the beauty and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of its innocence, that we are quite ready to receive its first impressions, or rather to seek an opportunity of awakening them in the heart of another, in order that we may receive the same pleasures and the same sacrifices which we have seen so well represented in the theatre." So lucid the writing, so convicting the content. Gah.

Another piece acutely summed up my thoughts on good writing: "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas those who have good taste, and who seeing a book expect to find a man, are quite surprised to find an author." This is exactly why I sometimes come away enlightened from blogs that admittedly display a horrible grasp on grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and other compositional skills. Being able to clearly see a man behind the words makes fishing through bad writing more than worthwhile. I considered posting an example of this here, but it occurred to me that it would be kinda mean, so, eh, you'll just have to imagine it ^^.

Ahhhh, more on Pascal once I read more of the book. And this, unlike Kill Bill, I do recommend to anyone, though it may be an uncomfortably dense read for some of you. Please note that I personally found the first three pages the most difficult to comprehend, so make sure you keep on going.

Plugs to Ashley, Paula, Xander, Vicky, Weien, Kash, Ka-chan. Thanks to Kash and Paula for the uber long responses ^^. That made my day. It is really interesting to hear so much of what you're thinking.

Kash, it looks like I'm still going to be on the Binge Blog Diet for a while ;). By HQ, I'm referring to iblp headquarters where I work in web development four days a week. The garlics are just another variety of small gif images which people "adopt" and put on their sites because it's so obviously cool to have a row of cute shiny bouncy things running across your page! Anyway, I appreciate your comment on my needless thought. Those same questions have plagued me. I've found that it makes things easier when I begin new lines of thought with, "In this particular reality...", however, you are right. While the questions are not necessarily wrong, sometimes it's so much more productive to give it a rest and, like you say, trust in God's direction for our lives.

Paula, you're an artistic and writing genius yourself! Bah! And I still think you should type up your testimony because I'd love to see it. The suffix -sama is a Japanese term of utmost respect, used for someone who displays a high level of leetness. I'm sure you'd agree about the usage of the suffix XD yay for Tara! Another thing, I totally understand how you feel about 4-H... it is true that one should give her all or nothing at all. And all that was not gibberish. I'm glad that you acknowledge God.

Some final thoughts, just in case you thought this entry was too short:
1. Don't mistake vice for personality; evil should never be honored!
2. I am glad that dirty dishes in the sink look nasty, else I would never wash them!

6:17 AM

Comments

Posted by sunnie at August 3, 2004 11:13 AM

Posted by Weien at August 4, 2004 1:24 AM

Posted by Shiowei at August 6, 2004 8:37 AM

Posted by paula at August 15, 2004 8:29 AM

Posted by Kash at August 16, 2004 11:58 AM

"Would you rather get shot or chopped? Fine, would you rather get chopped in the leg, or chopped in the brain?" –Weien

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