Practicing for Thanksgiving

Alright, so I love Korean bbq as much as the next girl (or guy), but I think I'm finding that twice in two weeks is a little much.  Still, hanging out with the roomies was worth the severe nausea later that night...actually, it was the boba smoothie that totally did me over.  Either I'm turning lactose intolerant or I left it out too long without drinking out 'cause nausea hit me pretty hard last night. Meh...oh well.

In other news, I'm flying home tomorrow for T-day and that means I get to see my sister and my nephew for the first time!  Excitement! :)

A matter of perspective

"Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet."
- George Eliot

Contrast that with this:

"I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed...When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory in through our Lord Jesus Christ" (my emphasis).
- 1 Corinthians 15:50-52, 54-57

Oh the irony....

"Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.  I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

...And yes, this was quoted on my "quotations of the day" app.

Quote of the Day

"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau

***

In other news, congratulations to Lindsey and Benny!  I doubt you guys will see this anytime soon (if ever), but your wedding was beautiful, and I'm super excited for you to start on this new chapter of life! :)

...

Today my roommate woke me up with a mini panda in my hand. MLIA.

Friends and Food :)

This weekend proved to be ridiculously (in a good way) eventful.  Saturday morning saw me dragged out of bed at 7:30 to accompany a certain unnamed roommate *coughcoughJessicacoughcough* to Santa Monica pier to stand in line to get wristbands for a secret show by Ingrid Michaelson.  Admittedly, I was pretty grumpy at first...okay, so it was more like more the first hour until I fully woke up, but I will say that it was definitely worth the pain of an early morning.  More on that in a second.  Anyhow, we took a short stroll through the Farmers' Market that's set up there every Saturday.  Sad to say, even though I've been in LA for 4 years, I've never been before.

From there, we hurried back so that I could get back in time to leave for dim sum at Elite for a bit of a class reunion.  Good food + great friends + excellent fellowship = love.  Yeah...I miss hanging out with you bunch of crazies....hehehe...Then we trekked out to a Tea Station and was (verbally) accosted by an old Chinese man who thought we were a bunch of 15 year olds...Granted, the difference between 15 and 22 is probably negligible to him, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

Still on Saturday, later that night we went back to Santa Monica for the show.  I've never actually been to any type of show in LA before (shameful, I know), so it was a new experience for me.  It was also extra interesting because it was actually held inside an Apple store.  Ingrid Michaelson is unfairly talented with a beautiful voice, but I often found myself studying the bass/cajon/tambourine player more than anything.  Yes, I still harbor secret aspirations of making a living as a musician.  Ahh...one can dream, no?

Anyhow, Sunday night we went out for Korean BBQ (which I must say it was my first time going in months).  I forgot how immensely gross I feel after stuffing my face with an obscene amount of meat.  But, it was, like always, simply amazing and I satisfied a craving I didn't even know I had.  As Jenny put it, one word: yum. :) Afterwards, we went to I <3 Boba (seriously, it's a heart), which is apparently the place to go nowadays after kbbq.  How anybody has room to fit anything in their stomach after kbbq, I have no idea, but somehow I managed it.  The smoothie itself was excellent, great consistency, but the boba was disappointing. Not enough elasticity.  But overall, definitely a place I'd like to return to sometime again.

And there we have it.  Two days full of friends and food.  Fun times. :)

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

- Philip K. Dick

I have no idea who Philip K. Dick is, but I came upon this quote as I was reading through the "Quotes of the Day" application on my Google desktop. After an initial, brief and thoughtful nod, I moved on to the next quote only to return almost immediately to the one above. I read it through again, then again, and again.  I couldn't help but think of all the delusions people are only too willing to immerse themselves. It begins from the moment we gain comprehension as a young child, and, for many, persists 'til the end of our days.

I never quite understood the whole hurrah behind telling kids stories about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny. We tell them what to look forward to during these important dates: presents from a jolly old man and chocolate and candy left by a rabbit. We indulge them for these certain "holidays" because, after all, they deserve to be kids, do they not?

But what are we doing in truth but lying? What are we doing but casting confusion to these impressionable young minds? I often laugh that my older brothers ruined Santa Claus for me because they never allowed me to believe he truly existed. It was never stated quite as explicitly as that, but when one grows up with siblings ten years your senior, everyone takes for granted not to partake in those "childish" stories anymore. That, and as the youngest of four, I didn't take ridicule very well and strove, in all things, to match my elders (even if it meant sleeping right next to the closet mirror thought it terrified me half to death...*coughcough thanks, sis...coughcough*). That also meant that I wouldn't deign to be so childish as to think Santa Claus is real. In hindsight, I thank them for being honest with me.

But even so, I remember being confused in school when December rolled around and songs about Santa Claus and his faithful reindeer chimed in the malls. I remember very clearly wondering why it was that everyone was making such a big deal out of this "Santa Claus" character when Christmas was supposed to be a celebration in memory of Christ's birth. How can these two very different things both be the image of Christmas? 

Sometimes I think we take for granted the fact that kids are kids. We simultaneously underestimate their skills of comprehension as well as overestimate their ability to filter reality from fiction. We tell them fun stories with the thought that they should enjoy their childhood and childhood is only fun with presents and candy and games. Yet I think very few would take the time to explain that such-and-such is actually just a story. Not real. Instead, we have parents purposefully lying to their children when they try to fool them into thinking that Santa Claus really exists or the Tooth Fairy really replaces that lost tooth with money. (Perhaps I was a tad bit practical even at the tender age of eight, but I recall thinking it would be less of a bother for my mom to just pull out that loose tooth and exchange it for money then and there than it would be to wait for that darned thing to come out by itself...). I think it's fine to have fun with the stories, but I think it is wrong to lie to your child. Kids will find out one day that Santa Claus was actually just a mythologized historical figure. They will find out that the money they find under their pillow got their by way of a parent sneaking into their room after they fell asleep. They will find that their parents had been lying to them for years.

And yes, I know I'm being a tad melodramatic, but I have to wonder whether we take this seriously enough. Perhaps as adults we have forgotten the purity of trust that exists in a child's heart, and we forget also the incisive pain of having that beautiful trust betrayed. The truth about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny seems a small matter to us, but it's a whole world destroyed for them. And it's not just the fictional world that comes crashing down, but also the world in which their parents are utterly reliable. Losing ignorance is one thing, a good thing in fact; losing innocence is another matter entirely.

I think that Philip Dick's quote was meant to be somewhat cynical--a lament for the loss of innocence, if you will. In other words, reality is that which is disappointing, that which is bleak, that which is far less than the fairytale happily-ever-after.

But rejoice, oh Christian! For our reality is that which, even if no one else in the world believes in it, will never go away.  Paul says that if the resurrection of Christ was not in fact true history and "if in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19).  If Christ did not rise from the dead, our situation as Christians is far more lamentable than the deceived child, for we would have been living our lives for a false religion.  But Paul follows this up by reminding us that "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead" (1 Cor 15:20, my emphasis). As such, our faith is not based on myth or legend, but in the person and work of the God-man Jesus Christ; therefore our reality in this life and the hope that we can have for the future is secure.  We have not been deceived.

Pumpkin seeds...yum!

Last week we carved pumpkins at Pepperdine GOC. Today (well, technically yesterday I suppose) I finally plucked up the courage to roast them.  They'd actually been sitting wrapped in a paper tower and growing somewhat moldy when I finally unwrapped them.  Oops.  Anyhow, after several hours (days...) of soaking in salt water and several cycles of rinsing, I boiled them in more salt water (just for good measure) and then laid them out to dry overnight.  This morning, I coated the seeds in butter, salt, garlic powder, and black pepper and then spread them in a single layer on a pizza platter (we don't have a cookie sheet).  45 minutes of baking later and out comes piping hot, nice and crunchy pumpkin seeds. I think they turned out rather well myself. :) Anyhow, I'm kind of tempted to buy another pumpkin just so I can gut it and roast more pumpkin seeds now. Hehe...

A Blog?!

I am not a good journal/diary person. I never have been. In the twenty-two years of my lifetime, I think I've attempted to begin at least ten different journals.  Of those ten plus journals, I don't think any of them have more than three entries.  So why in the world am I trying to start a blog now?  To be honest?  I have no idea.  But...I like to write, and there are too many moments in life that are forgotten that I think shouldn't be forgotten. So I suppose that's what this is all about.  A highlight reel, if you will, of the smallest moments, but which are also often the sweetest and most memorable ones of all.