Last summer we took Amtrak from 30th Street Station to D. C. for a mini-vacation. The man in front of us in line stared at us, long and hard, squinting his eyes before he motioned for us to come closer. I don't remember his name, but he was deaf, mute, and almost blind, and he was headed to D.C. for a national Deaf/Blind conference. He drew us a picture showing how excited he was to be riding the "bullet-train" and made the "whooosh!" noise as he did the train-motion with his hand. I felt like crying and wanted to hug him and offer him to join us on the bullet-train. But he couldn't hear me when he turned around.
A few nights ago on the 6 subway uptown there was a blind man in front of me to my left and a homeless man to my right. When I first spotted the white cane I panicked like I always do, looking around to make sure no one gets in his way. There were people rushing in while the automated voice requested "Stand clear of the closing doors, please," and a few bumped into the blind man. I got mad at those idiots who weren't more careful, and sad because there wasn't anything I could do. Then I felt bad because of course these people didn't shove him on purpose. They just really wanted to get on the train to head home from a long day's work.
This especial concern for the blind bothers me. Is it pity or compassion? I dislike pity, a lot. I might even say that I despise it. But compassion is different. I'd like to think of myself as a compassionate person, but who's to say, really? And what do I do with this compassion?
Not much point to this post, but I liked the memory of the bullet-train man. I forget his name, but his face was priceless. Though he was scrunching his face and standing a bit close for comfort, he just wanted to discern who he was sharing the amazing bullet-train experience with. So open with his joy. It was encouraging and humbling.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
over and over and over again
oops i fell.
I've reverted back to the melodramatic mood swings of high school. How lame. I blame it on being at home, where I don't really do anything besides go to church on the weekend, shop a lot, watch t.v., and do a million family activities. Not that it's bad, it just causes my mindset to become static. And once I'm feeling static, I think too much and it's pretty ridiculous what I can come up with. Maybe it's PMS. Sorry was that gross?
A really terrible thing about this weird restless mood is that I'm getting mad at people about nothing. Literally- nothing. And I don't tell them. Well there's nothing to say if there's nothing to be mad at. I also feel pretty unhappy- even though I'm not. How can you feel an emotion when you're really not? Maybe I'm bored. I'm just in a pissy mood. Horrible. I really think and hope this is PMS, even though it's no real justification for being stupid and pissy.
I went to New York yesterday and finally got back to reading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis on the train ride back home. It's written as a series of letters sent by an official of hell, Screwtape, addressed to his nephew Wormwood of how to fight the 'Enemy' in attaining the souls of people on Earth. This chapter was .. good. Here are some chunks:
'My dear Wormwood,
...
Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered. Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours... But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.
You have here a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in tis defence. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels. He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even a day, he would not refuse. He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman; and he would be relieved almost to the pitch of disappointment if for one half-hour in that day the Enemy said 'Now you may go and amuse yourself'. Now if he thinks about his assumption for a moment, even he is bound to realise that he is actually in this situation every day. When I speak of preserving this assumption in his mind, therefore, the last thing I mean you to do is furnish him with arguments in its defence. There aren't any. Your task is purely negative. Don't let his thoughts come anywhere near it. Wrap a darkness about it, and in the center of that darkness let his sense of ownership-in-Time lie silent, uninspected, and operative.'
What I desire to do and be are so vastly different from what I do and am now. I can't wait to get things rolling. But I don't know what those things are. Wow I'm really emotional. It must be PMS.
I've reverted back to the melodramatic mood swings of high school. How lame. I blame it on being at home, where I don't really do anything besides go to church on the weekend, shop a lot, watch t.v., and do a million family activities. Not that it's bad, it just causes my mindset to become static. And once I'm feeling static, I think too much and it's pretty ridiculous what I can come up with. Maybe it's PMS. Sorry was that gross?
A really terrible thing about this weird restless mood is that I'm getting mad at people about nothing. Literally- nothing. And I don't tell them. Well there's nothing to say if there's nothing to be mad at. I also feel pretty unhappy- even though I'm not. How can you feel an emotion when you're really not? Maybe I'm bored. I'm just in a pissy mood. Horrible. I really think and hope this is PMS, even though it's no real justification for being stupid and pissy.
I went to New York yesterday and finally got back to reading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis on the train ride back home. It's written as a series of letters sent by an official of hell, Screwtape, addressed to his nephew Wormwood of how to fight the 'Enemy' in attaining the souls of people on Earth. This chapter was .. good. Here are some chunks:
'My dear Wormwood,
...
Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered. Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours... But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.
You have here a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in tis defence. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels. He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even a day, he would not refuse. He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman; and he would be relieved almost to the pitch of disappointment if for one half-hour in that day the Enemy said 'Now you may go and amuse yourself'. Now if he thinks about his assumption for a moment, even he is bound to realise that he is actually in this situation every day. When I speak of preserving this assumption in his mind, therefore, the last thing I mean you to do is furnish him with arguments in its defence. There aren't any. Your task is purely negative. Don't let his thoughts come anywhere near it. Wrap a darkness about it, and in the center of that darkness let his sense of ownership-in-Time lie silent, uninspected, and operative.'
What I desire to do and be are so vastly different from what I do and am now. I can't wait to get things rolling. But I don't know what those things are. Wow I'm really emotional. It must be PMS.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
if you could do it over..
.. would you?
I entered senior year with the intent of making the best of everything. To serve my family group to my fullest. To spend crucial time with my friends. To visit Sophie any free moment. To study ahead of time. To work out and eat healthier. To go head-first into my thesis. Ah. My thesis.
When I entered as a freshman, the thesis seemed like such a daunting task. I think it was freshman year, or maybe sophomore year, when I was alone in the computer lab with one other girl who started crying hysterically when she finally printed out her thesis. It freaked me out- but then again I thought I understood why she would feel that way. I blogged about it on my xanga, and I remember saying that she must've been overwhelmed with all these different emotions.
And now I'm a senior, finishing up my own thesis. Well, more like creating-in-the-last-minute. It's Saturday night/Sunday morning, and the paper that is to be the culmination of my four years of academics at Bryn Mawr College is due on Tuesday.
Procrastination is a bitch. Not so much that I'm overly stressed out and pressured to get it done-- that hasn't set in quite yet. But this is obviously not going to be up to par with what I had originally expected from myself. Yea, it's only a paper. But I came into the year actually excited to write it. It started out much more personal than just a paper. But over the course of the semester it turned into the bane of my existence.
I'm tired of procrastinating- in everything. After next week I have only one more semester to make the best of things. That's so weird. I still feel like I'm 17, and I look it too, but in fact I'm turning 22 on Monday and in a week I'll be half done with my last year of my undergraduate studies.
But there's a lot to look forward to after this. I got one more semester with my family group, my friends, to take advantage of the short carride to see Sophie, to do my work. I'm not so sure about working out, but maybe the coming-Jamaica trip will get me to the gym. Maybe I'll better some relationships. Maybe I'll write a children's book. maybe.
I'll probably look at this post when I'm not delirious or sonicflood and think, "wtf." oops. It's 5am.
I entered senior year with the intent of making the best of everything. To serve my family group to my fullest. To spend crucial time with my friends. To visit Sophie any free moment. To study ahead of time. To work out and eat healthier. To go head-first into my thesis. Ah. My thesis.
When I entered as a freshman, the thesis seemed like such a daunting task. I think it was freshman year, or maybe sophomore year, when I was alone in the computer lab with one other girl who started crying hysterically when she finally printed out her thesis. It freaked me out- but then again I thought I understood why she would feel that way. I blogged about it on my xanga, and I remember saying that she must've been overwhelmed with all these different emotions.
And now I'm a senior, finishing up my own thesis. Well, more like creating-in-the-last-minute. It's Saturday night/Sunday morning, and the paper that is to be the culmination of my four years of academics at Bryn Mawr College is due on Tuesday.
Procrastination is a bitch. Not so much that I'm overly stressed out and pressured to get it done-- that hasn't set in quite yet. But this is obviously not going to be up to par with what I had originally expected from myself. Yea, it's only a paper. But I came into the year actually excited to write it. It started out much more personal than just a paper. But over the course of the semester it turned into the bane of my existence.
I'm tired of procrastinating- in everything. After next week I have only one more semester to make the best of things. That's so weird. I still feel like I'm 17, and I look it too, but in fact I'm turning 22 on Monday and in a week I'll be half done with my last year of my undergraduate studies.
But there's a lot to look forward to after this. I got one more semester with my family group, my friends, to take advantage of the short carride to see Sophie, to do my work. I'm not so sure about working out, but maybe the coming-Jamaica trip will get me to the gym. Maybe I'll better some relationships. Maybe I'll write a children's book. maybe.
I'll probably look at this post when I'm not delirious or sonicflood and think, "wtf." oops. It's 5am.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
i witnessed the unthinkable today.
Driving back from Penn, I pulled up onto North Merion Avenue and approached Wyndham to park. There was a white BMW X5 coming towards me, and a golden lab was sticking his head out the window. The car was going slow, thank God, but somehow the dog fell out of the car. He jutted his upper body too far out the window, I guess, and gravity took over and he fell out, hitting his back on a street sign pole and rolling onto the ground.
And I watched the whole thing happen. I braked to a stop and just watched it happen in horror.
The weird thing is, when I saw the dog with his body out the window, I seriously thought, "dude. I hope it doesn't fall out." And it did. It totally fell out of the car.
The lady didn't realize what had happened until she saw my face, I think. Cuz she was madd delayed in her response. She stopped the car and jetted out of her car to make sure the dog was okay. It was kinda sad to watch. but I stayed there in the middle of the street, with two other cars behind me. When I finally felt like it was safe to move up I made eye-contact with the driver and she looked so guilty. Like she knew we were judging her for letting her dog fall out of the car.
The funny part is, the dog was just confused and seemed like it was playing it off. Like a person who falls on his face as he's walking and just gets up and acts nonchalantly like nothing happened. Except it was a dog.
and it's December. crazy.
And I watched the whole thing happen. I braked to a stop and just watched it happen in horror.
The weird thing is, when I saw the dog with his body out the window, I seriously thought, "dude. I hope it doesn't fall out." And it did. It totally fell out of the car.
The lady didn't realize what had happened until she saw my face, I think. Cuz she was madd delayed in her response. She stopped the car and jetted out of her car to make sure the dog was okay. It was kinda sad to watch. but I stayed there in the middle of the street, with two other cars behind me. When I finally felt like it was safe to move up I made eye-contact with the driver and she looked so guilty. Like she knew we were judging her for letting her dog fall out of the car.
The funny part is, the dog was just confused and seemed like it was playing it off. Like a person who falls on his face as he's walking and just gets up and acts nonchalantly like nothing happened. Except it was a dog.
and it's December. crazy.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
what?
It's Halloween and only the capies and capie-like girls are dressed up going to class. I just wore my Dr. Seuss tshirt, gapkids zipup, jeans, and a Villanova cap to class. And I stayed awake for ALL of ecology- which was pretty amazing, considering that I haven't been conscious for all of class for about 2 weeks or so.
---
Okay. I just deleted the rest of this post. It was ... frustrating. Just a ranting along the lines of "What is wrong with this world. I look at the news and all I feel is upset and sad." :(
Senior year is not pleasant. High school senior year was a call to paaaarrrttayyyyy!!!! But this is different. Academically, you're wrapping up all of the things you learned- or whatever- through a thesis. And trying to finish up your graduation requirements. Life-ly, you're looking for jobs. Your friends are sad because the job hunt is hard and no one wants a girl from a liberal arts school in the suburbs if they can have someone from say, Wharton, which is 20 minutes away. freakin Wharton. Some friends that are older begin getting married, having kids. Other friends the same age are already engaged or finding that guy or girl that makes their world complete (haha ew). And you're not dating or engaged or married. or jubilantly pregnant. You're nearing the ultimate end of childhood-- even though you're legally an adult at 18 and completely totally independent by 21, you're still liable to be under the financial and responsible care of your parents until you graduate. But once out of school, you have to work. Or get married.
With all that said, it's not terrible. It's pretty intense and scary. I don't feel prepared at all for the world. I did not pick up any practical skills useful for the workplace while at Bryn Mawr. I suck at Excel, don't know how to make something into a PDF, suck at economics, can't solve equations. The most impressive thing on my resume is my stint at EXPLO- indicating that I like teaching and beat out a lot of other applicants for that position two summers ago. But not everyone knows what EXPLO is.
But I'm okay. Maybe because the biggest source of stress is my thesis- it's just a paper ultimately. I'm goin to continue to freak out about it, but I won't die because of it. I say that now but in 2 weeks it'll be a different story. ..
Don't really know what this post is about. But I will end with this:
My hair's grown out a lot.
---
Okay. I just deleted the rest of this post. It was ... frustrating. Just a ranting along the lines of "What is wrong with this world. I look at the news and all I feel is upset and sad." :(
Senior year is not pleasant. High school senior year was a call to paaaarrrttayyyyy!!!! But this is different. Academically, you're wrapping up all of the things you learned- or whatever- through a thesis. And trying to finish up your graduation requirements. Life-ly, you're looking for jobs. Your friends are sad because the job hunt is hard and no one wants a girl from a liberal arts school in the suburbs if they can have someone from say, Wharton, which is 20 minutes away. freakin Wharton. Some friends that are older begin getting married, having kids. Other friends the same age are already engaged or finding that guy or girl that makes their world complete (haha ew). And you're not dating or engaged or married. or jubilantly pregnant. You're nearing the ultimate end of childhood-- even though you're legally an adult at 18 and completely totally independent by 21, you're still liable to be under the financial and responsible care of your parents until you graduate. But once out of school, you have to work. Or get married.
With all that said, it's not terrible. It's pretty intense and scary. I don't feel prepared at all for the world. I did not pick up any practical skills useful for the workplace while at Bryn Mawr. I suck at Excel, don't know how to make something into a PDF, suck at economics, can't solve equations. The most impressive thing on my resume is my stint at EXPLO- indicating that I like teaching and beat out a lot of other applicants for that position two summers ago. But not everyone knows what EXPLO is.
But I'm okay. Maybe because the biggest source of stress is my thesis- it's just a paper ultimately. I'm goin to continue to freak out about it, but I won't die because of it. I say that now but in 2 weeks it'll be a different story. ..
Don't really know what this post is about. But I will end with this:
My hair's grown out a lot.
Friday, September 28, 2007
strong and lonely
A few summers ago I went to the mall with my dad and looked for sunglasses. We were in the sunglasses section of Macy's for 45 minutes before I decided I didn't like any of them. He's the type to look at an item for 3 seconds and buy it on the spot, so the wait and my indecisiveness drove him a little crazy.
He called me today asking if I was okay- if I was lonely. I'd mentioned to my mom during lunch today that I've been feeling a bit lonesome because of work and responsibility and not being with my friends as much as I'd like to, and I guess she told my dad because he called sounding sorry for me. I couldn't help laughing when he asked whether a boyfriend would make me feel better.
"What's your style? Any preferences?"
I don't know.
"Come on Soyeonah. You know- that's your problem! You're so picky that you don't even know what you want!"
Okay..
"I know I've been telling you to be expensive and picky, but I give you permission now to loosen up. You can lower your standards. Remember when you dragged me to the mall to buy sunglasses??? You can't do that anymore- you need to know what you want!"
Okay. haha
"Seriously. Appa will come to your school and we can have a date, get some beers, watch a movie, talk about love, your youth, and whatever."
hahahaha okay appa.
"You're what- 22? You got 8 more years to go. You'll be fine. You're a strong girl- you don't need a boy right this second. But what do you want?"
... He can't be shorter than I am.
"he he he he he. Okay. That might be kind of hard, but I'll try my best."
I guess I really am the one most likely to have an arranged marriage.
I guess the point of this post is that parents are pretty great. They annoy and bother you 90% of the time, but all they really want is your happiness. My parents apparently are so eager for me to be happy, and not lonely, that they'll get the guy for me.
I'm actually kinda nervous that my parents are going to ask me to email some Korean dude in the near future. They've already done that to my cousin. They think what they did for her (not to her) was so great. hahahahaha
He called me today asking if I was okay- if I was lonely. I'd mentioned to my mom during lunch today that I've been feeling a bit lonesome because of work and responsibility and not being with my friends as much as I'd like to, and I guess she told my dad because he called sounding sorry for me. I couldn't help laughing when he asked whether a boyfriend would make me feel better.
"What's your style? Any preferences?"
I don't know.
"Come on Soyeonah. You know- that's your problem! You're so picky that you don't even know what you want!"
Okay..
"I know I've been telling you to be expensive and picky, but I give you permission now to loosen up. You can lower your standards. Remember when you dragged me to the mall to buy sunglasses??? You can't do that anymore- you need to know what you want!"
Okay. haha
"Seriously. Appa will come to your school and we can have a date, get some beers, watch a movie, talk about love, your youth, and whatever."
hahahaha okay appa.
"You're what- 22? You got 8 more years to go. You'll be fine. You're a strong girl- you don't need a boy right this second. But what do you want?"
... He can't be shorter than I am.
"he he he he he. Okay. That might be kind of hard, but I'll try my best."
I guess I really am the one most likely to have an arranged marriage.
I guess the point of this post is that parents are pretty great. They annoy and bother you 90% of the time, but all they really want is your happiness. My parents apparently are so eager for me to be happy, and not lonely, that they'll get the guy for me.
I'm actually kinda nervous that my parents are going to ask me to email some Korean dude in the near future. They've already done that to my cousin. They think what they did for her (not to her) was so great. hahahahaha
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
faith
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for...
By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did... By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death... By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family... By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went... By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise...
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Hebrews 11.
By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did... By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death... By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family... By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went... By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise...
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Hebrews 11.
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