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| Alright.... NEVER in my NEW COLLEGE life would i think that I'd abandon xanga....
Theres SO MANY weird things that i wanna blog about, but i feel like theres no more time for that!! And every 2 weeks or so that icome on.... i think there are only 3 consistent friends that EVEN blog nowadays (Carol, Letitia, Charlene... i applaud you three hahaha)
But today is a lil different because today I wrote a paper and did a hw packet in a matter of 2 days and I have a midterm coming up... so i need to BREATHE. I need to BREATHE before things start rushing all over me again....
I came into College with a lot of expectations. I just came back from a 9 week missions trip where God did some crazy things, and I expected God to do great things for me in Irvine as well!! I thought God would put me in a place where I can work his Magic and I will be touching people's lives and showing them a fresh look at their stale lives or something. I came in with A TON of expectations.
But whats been interesting is... God has been growing me a TON with STILLNESS as the center. and to LISTEN instead of Expect.
and its funny because, its taken me 8 weeks almost to learn this. I had expectations with my roommate... but when i let those expectations go, they pleasantly surprise me.
I have expectations for fellowship, but when I'm just confuzzled.... I learn to appreciate the people i meet, and i learn to love the things they are passionate for.
I want to find a discipler, I want someone to speak into my life.... but I become pleasantly surprised when a friend or a young peer gives me words of wisdom and encouragement. When I get to see the PEACE that they have with where they have been placed and how God has used it whether they know it or not.
and ABOVE ALL, I seriously expected to be an example of Jesus to those around me, but what I get instead are the realities of struggle, poverty, drinking, irresponsibility...
and for some reason when you just listen and seek it.... Jesus's example of love comes out of those things too!!
I'm seeriously lost at what God wants me to do. I havent really commited to anything, I dont know what I'm doing up here in Irvine, learning how to Budget has just shown me how much money I am wasting while being up here, and I just plain ole miss the people I know back at home.
But when you get a chance to just BREATHE and sit still for a second... you see that Jesus wants you exactly where you are and he takes great joy when YOU are taking joy in him...He loves it when you talk to him about your life and he loooves it when you open your heart and youare honest to him... because thats where he answers you.
Jesus may not give you a brand new car or a big new house, but he will change your heart. He answers your prayers everytime when your heart is opened to him.... not when you are expecting anything or doing anything.... but when you are listening for him.
Psalm 51:15-17
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
Alright with that being said... I'll let you know when something exciting REALLY happens to me... =)
actually... this is my pet cockroach... my roomies and i foudn him in the bathroom.... it scared the crap out of us.... but we captured him and put him in... a bottle of Patron... hence his name is Patron de San Marco:
and random lil kid picture of me and my cousins that i was looking at:
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| You know, I honestly dont know why I havent posted here in awhile.
Sometimes my mind feels like i need a place to release and express my thoughts and xanga has always been an excellent outlet!
Recently, I feel like I'm anxious about a lot of things. I am currently going through a transition from Community college in San Diego, to UC Irvine!!
Finally STARTING college!!!! hahaha
There are many exciting possibilities with next year!! My new Apartment mates have been making a huge effort in emailing me and IMing me.
They have been calling me about things that they have bought for the apt, and urging me to start moving out! San Diego friends have been randomly IMing me about KNOWING who my roommates are and how lucky I am to be living with them next year! (that has been a WTH surprise)
and here I am... just relishing life in San Diego!! I think I lack motivation and the thought of change is DEFINITELY exciting, but I dont want to do all the dirty financial work to enjoy it. Sometimes i just want time to PUSH me to that next place!
I need a bed and mattress but all i did was look at this link from my roommate: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20120563. AND LAZINESS GRIPS me!!
Financial Aid needs to get done still, paying the bills (and i havent even MOVED OUT yet) are unfinished and tying up loose end with people over lunches and dinners is currently still going on. My goodness!!!
And so... DURING these times of busyness and worries... One verse always takes away my worries:
Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasures are, there your heart will be also."
When you suffer.. thats when you trust God more. Plain and simple.
When you surrender to God, You come to a place where you see that surrendering isnt really surrender. Its about giving Him what is his already and having that ASSURANCE that he will make it Good and Eternal.
This summer has been amazing for me. I Went on a 9 week missions trip called VSET with a Navigators group and I learned about persevering in love as well as some training in discipleship.
ICA has given me a lot of tools and disciplines to practice and as always I'm learning more about the importance of translating the Gospel into the way I live my life.
The only anxious part of all this, is facing the world again... but this time around I know that seeking God will bring me back to a place where He can work in me and show me my blessings.
Matthew 6:31-33
31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
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| As the times change, and people drift apart and new interests arises... or when a fellowship remelds after a year, or if people have to move away.... I just want to praise God for is ability to unite us into One Body no matter where we are and who we are fellowshipping with.
My prayer is that.... The spirit continues to move and that God's glory can still be shown when things change.
That however the Spirit chooses to move and whomever the Spirit chooses to move among, we would all display the fruit of that Spirit's transformative ministry within and among us.
Because no matter how much any of us might like to claim that whatever we're into is something God is doing, God's Spirit doesn't and shouldn't inspire envy, anger, or cause dissension. Those things only come from the 'fruit' of fallible, sinful human beings.
God's Spirit will NEVER divide the Body of Christ. When the Spirit of God is truly at work, there is amazing unity amidst mind-boggling diversity.
And the fruit of the Spirit's true work is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness, and self-control.
When the Spirit is allowed to bring forth that fruit from all of us and each of us, there can only be a supernatural unity and PEACE, even though there are many different passions at work in the church.
I always get caught up in the happenings of church, and I pray I dont get caught up in distractions when God and the Holy Spirit want to do so much through our unity.
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| If you ever need a lego version of the bible, THIS is the website: http://www.thebricktestament.com/
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions: Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x LOOVE it!! I read this series before it became popular)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ()
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x Faave book of all time)
6 The Bible - (x ok THIS is my faave book of all time)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ()
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x Freshman year in highschool... good times)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x In terms of Satires... Read "Candide"... its better and shorter )
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ( psssh heck no...)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ()
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x )
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ( ooo i need to watch the movie and read this hahaha)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x Overrated hahaha)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (i deff wanna read this)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ()
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (is this the story of the disney movie where a frog rides a wagon??)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ()
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (x)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x LOOOVE IT. I just read it last year and its freaking awwwesome)
34 Emma - Jane Austen ()
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x )
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ( I have it, but I recently lost an urge to read ridiculously long, potentially boring books)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ()
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x I read this book in 5th grade and wrote a book report on it. My teacher was like... wth)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x Definitely overrated!!)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (x LOOOVE THIS BOOK)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ()
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (Ive been meaning to read this. I guess reading the synopsis on wikipedia doesnt count)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ()
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x )
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (x LOOOVE the movie more!! Reminds me of zorro everytime)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ()
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x I thought this book couldve been cooler)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce ()
76 The Inferno - Dante (x This book blew my mind)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ()
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x EXCELLENT classic)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (x)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (x Overrated hahaha)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x uhhh love this book)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( x)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ()
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (X LOOOVE THIS BOOK!! If you ever read the Redwall series, this book spawned it all)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (x epic!! but reaaallly long)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x Ive read like... all his books)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x I watched the movie with Liam Neelson first, which made me check out the book)
If i counted correctly... 38 out of a 100 of these ridiculous books. Beat that BBC!
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