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| Society tries to dictate the cadence to which we march. What I mean by that is that if there isn't a flurry of noise, action, or something going on it's seen as unproductive.
I have this couch at my apartment that is in my living room but that I rarely use. One of the freshmen then or sophomores now, was joking that I probably sit on the couch (since it faces toward the windows) and watch the sunset. While doing this of course I am thinking away with a cup of water in my hand cause everyone knows that water in the morning is apparently really good for you.
Truth be told although I love to sit and just think because I have to do that a lot for school, church, or whatever other responsibilities I have, I love even more just sitting in the moment of silence.
Some people can't stand silence, but I love and thrive in it. There's nothing else better than just sitting there just being caught up in the moment listening to the sounds of life around you.
I am not trying to sound like a pseudo transcendentalist by any means, but sometimes silence can be oh so golden.
Not just for prayers, but it's nice to just be able to sit there and just enjoy the moment not having to worry about anything. It's these little opportunities whenever they present themselves that I love to take full advantage of.
Whether this is at lunch just having to focus on nothing more than eating lunch or any other little chance there is, it's a nice thing to take advantage of.
I always figured that not just for how to approach people, but to approach life, there's a reason why we have two ears and one mouth anyhow.
We're suppose to listen twice as much as we speak.
Truth be told, I've been learning that sometimes absolute truth is not so hard to distinguish. Sometimes all we have to do is merely listen. | | |
| On Sunday morning while at service and throughout yesterday on the first Monday of the semester I realized one thing: I am a senior.
Being a senior sort of sinks in a funny way. For those of you at the UCs, school hasn't started yet but it's a weird feeling. Sort of like knowing that the ride is nearly over. No longer are you in the middle or bottom of the totem pole, but you've reached the top.
It's also really weird to come the realization yourself that the months will zoom by quickly and that for many of us there are no longer the options that college presents to us. College is funny because it's the one time during our lives that we are treated as adults or people with responsibility but yet can act like kids.
How many other times in our lives will we get a chance to go across the hall to talk to a friend at 3 AM in the morning, eat our heart out at dining hall, etc.
After being here in Syracuse for the past 3 years, I would say that my experience has been different strictly because of how my living arrangements have been. Freshman year I had a single and no roomie. By sophomore year I had moved off campus to a studio apartment by myself. By junior year I moved to an even better apartment but still no roomie.
But even yet I feel the strange sensation that comes with being a senior. There is a sense of electric excitement but yet the irony is you're not sure what you are excited about exactly because the future is always a big question for all of us.
Regardless it has sunk in that I am a senior. It's definitely a different feeling for sure. Maybe I will write more later on the matter. | | |
| When I first came home to the summer, the memory is still is fresh in my mind like it was yesterday. I was in the midst of my 14 hour drive from Denver driving earnestly to arrive home. Finally home was within my grasp.
This was after more than a month and a half after school ended, after my mission trip to New Orleans, and after driving across the country.
As I drove it was timed perfectly cause I was driving as the sun was starting to set and in my mind I couldn't help but think "This is why the drive was definitely worth it." The fact that I woke up 5 AM and drove straight only stopping to get gas was all worth the drive.
But time has passed yet again. I wasn't here for that long. Just about two months actually. But it's what I needed although this summer was different to say the least.
I leave California in the morning to drive off to the sunrise. The irony. The sunrise signals a new beginning while the sunset signals the end. But yet it seems switched around, or does it hold the inevitably of what's to come.
To be honest, I have no idea what the future will hold. All I know is that there are a lot of variables that can be plugged in at any time. Law school is definitely in the picture but the matter is now when and where.
People have been asking if I'm going to come back to California after I graduate. I'm in a strange spot because many things are so uncertain such as when I will be applying to law school, if I take a year off where to be, etc.
However but instead of feeling more anxious than not, I'm just going to let it ride out. It's not my will that dictates how matters turn out eventually anyhow. So all I can do my best. My best at everything that I do, giving all that I am and laying it all out on the line. I know that everything will work itself out because it's been planned and just needs to be done.
I am sad to leave, but I know that it's something that must be done. However, I have a hunch this year will be an interesting and fruitful year just like it always is. | | |
| Three years have passed on in college. About seventy five of summer has passed by already. And as I turn around to see what is on the horizon, everything seems very fuzzy. Not the way things had been left.
As an eighteen year old kid heading off to college, things weren't clear either but in a different way. The future horizon of college wasn't clear but there were absolutes that came with it. Or so I thought.
Friends. Circumstances. Home. Everything that I had left it to be.
Three years later, the slippery truth sinks in more and more, day by day.
Nothing gold can really stay.
Time whether one wants to or not, keeps on ticking. It's like the opportunity train. Once it leaves the station it's going with or without you. And hopefully you'll be on it to go for the ride.
Things can never go back to the way things used to be. Never can be the same. Never again can my friends and I just play ball without worries, spend time just enjoying each others company, or the things we used to be able to do.
The people that you love and keep close to most disappoint you the hardest. Not whether they want to or deliberately do so, but circumstances put people to do so sometimes. Everyone has to prepare for graduate school, work, or take care of business that pertains to the upcoming future now.
And it's not like they want to intentionally disappoint you, but people fall short because at the end of the day, with our lives at this point, the circumstances make it that much harder to keep it all together.
Don't get me wrong. I love my friends and I love home. But every time I come back, things progress whether I would want them to or not.
Nothing can stay the way they always have been. Nothing gold can stay.
In the darkest of days and sometimes in the deepest depths of solitude, the only thing consistent has been God and the fact I've had to rely on my faith.
If I didn't have that, then I think I would have gone insane a long long time ago.
Now with the question of the future looming and the LSAT just giving me quite a fight as of the moment, all one can do is have faith. Faith in a better day to come. Faith that this is all part of something greater within the will. Faith to accept whatever it is regardless of how things turn out or why they turn out a certain way.
Faith does not necessarily question. Faith can close its eyes and will just merely nod its head in agreement. | | |
| I have heard this quote so many times that it's etched into the depths of my mind.
I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much. -Mother Theresa
What God did during missions was not to tell me why I am continuously going through these hard times, but to show me a glimpse of what happens when I do submit wholeheartedly to him.
He can use me for great things.
I guess another perspective at looking at trials & tribulations according to the logic of that quote is that "Wow God trusts me a whole damn lot."
I quite honored that God trusts me this much. Not cause of anything I do, but it's all God.
Just like the many times that God used me during my missions trip, it is the same regardless wherever I go.
These past three years in school have been so hard, so challenging. While for many people they are the greatest years of ones life, unfortunately I can't say the same.
Syracuse is my desert; it is the place where I am tested. The silver lining is that I have grown so much while here though. I don't regret coming here to Syracuse at all cause it was God's will fulfilled to be done so.
But sometimes one does wonder, if things will lighten up. It's been pouring for so long that I wish just as Noah was given the opportunity to witness, I pray that I would see my rainbow soon.
I've heard also that God sends furious trials & tribulations our way when he is preparing us for something. I'm very excited about this and it gives me hope throughout these hard times.
It's crazy to think that God of this universe would have something extraordinary in store for me. Who am I you know? Who am I but a minuscule being in the grand scheme of things?
And yet God continues to break me and all I know for certain is that God want me to be broken oh so badly. God is very relentless when it comes to this.
So I will stand firm to the end accepting the circumstances that have come my way. In the way I handle these situations, is just another small way to bring honor to God.
Stirred maybe, but I say this emphatically. Not shaken in the least bit. HELL NO. | | |
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