Mild melancholy.

On Sunday evening I came home to an extremely messy apartment that would normally stress me out, but instead I rolled up my sleeves and was excited to get started.  There were a number of reasons for this:  one being that it was a project I could start, work hard on, see to completion and delight in the fruits of my labor; while the other being that I was in a funky state of mind since the weekend and didn't know why or what had caused it.  I was ready to clean up whatever mess my brain and heart had accumulated from the external stimuli of the weekend.

Something on Saturday night acted like a straw that broke this camel's back.  I realized it wasn't really the content or events of the end of the year banquet itself that I attended that spurred this on, but rather a question that Pam Lee had posed to me in a conversation we were having.  She explained some of her plans for the future and asked me how I've been dealing with moving away from family and friends and the realities of them moving on with their lives without me (sort of).  In the moment she asked, it didn't really bring anything new to light - I had been mentally aware that leaving community behind was going to be my reality and is simply a part of life.  But it wasn't until later on that night as I was recalling that moment when I realized how much I needed to look in the mirror and face the reality of what I really felt.  In what seemed like a flash of a moment, I was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness but didn't really understand where this was all coming from. 

So strangely enough, my attempt to internally process during my cleaning endeavors was not very helpful.  I focused, I cleaned, I reviewed, but couldn't really figure out anything significant.  But then again, now that I think about it, I don't think I was actually looking very hard.  

My internal diagnoses weren't really getting me anywhere beyond mixed feelings of sadness and I was still in this sad daze on Monday, so it was good to just talk to someone...which ended up being Nathan.  Talking about it helped me not just identify a little bit of what I've been feeling, but helped tie those feelings in with the patterns I've been experiencing all year, particularly with my overall temptation to feel like a failure and be full of regret.

It wasn't just that I was going to miss some key people in my life - it was this sense of not having closure and not having time to make it happen.  It's as if I was reading a sentence at the bottom of the page of a book, turning the page expecting to finish the sentence, only to find that the page is blank.  That's how I feel about these last few weeks in Binghamton.  There are still tasks to complete, and it didn't seem to be prime time for creating closure.

I've been feeling helpless, useless, sometimes frustrated with myself and sometimes frustrated with others.  I'm stuck in limbo, floating around until something hits me.

But I started this post a few days ago and things seemed to be turning around a little bit.  Now that I've identified this feeling of lack of closure, I can focus on trying to come up with ways I need to create that closure for myself.  As I share my thoughts and feelings with others they've helped remind me that it's okay to make mistakes, it's not my job to "fix" everybody and everything, and that the weight of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I am reminded of that freedom I have in Christ and how I can trust the One who loves the people in my community more than I do.

Relentless.

I've decided that a way that could help me take sabbath is by coming up with creative ways to take them and then post them here on my blog to share about my experiences here with you.

During my post-breakdown/forced recovery on Tuesday (when I tried to go to sleep early but couldn't sleep - I hate when that happens), I was talking with Sarah and she gave me the idea of spending my sabbath rearranging my room.

I loved the idea - so I ran with it.  Here's what my room looked like before:

The process was definitely restful.  I knew it would be good because it was a project I could start and finish and enjoy the fruits of my labor.  I watched a couple of episodes of Friends (I've never really watched too many episodes before - more on that in a different post), listened to some music, and ruminated over some TED talks (this one is particularly good!).

And here's what my room looks like now:

Photos don't really do it justice, so I hope you can tell the difference.  If not, that means if you're one of my friends, you should come visit so you can see for yourself!  If you're an acquaintance and we don't really talk, you should stop vicariously getting to know me via cyberspace and actually say hi because I would love to get to know you better.  And if you're a complete stranger, you should just get over it because you shouldn't be stalking me.

It's interesting timing because I'm going to participate in World Vision's Relentless Act:s, and the first week is  the challenge of recreating our physical environments - I didn't realize.  But maybe this act of sabbath is a good way to prep for Lent.  I was thinking of using that week to decorate my room during that week of Lent so that I'll be aware of important issues.  I'm excited to see how I will encounter God in this way and what He'll say to me.  You should do it with me so we can talk about it!

Anyway, praise God for an awesome sabbath.  Now I have a new space to diligently do my work and actively rest to renew my strength and remember who I am in Christ.

Hello! My name is Not A True English Major.

I was planning for a while to make this post a rant about how I feel alone in the English Major world here, and how I can't seem to connect with English Majors on a social level that I'd like...

And then I'd be all harsh on myself about how I don't meet the "good" English Major standard, how I read so slow or don't have time to read more books, or don't have time to write stories or poems, or how I process things slow, or how I need huge blocks of time in order to really get anything done because I get nothing done when I only have 1 or 2 hour slivers of time...

But then I was going to rant about how I was having a semi-crisis of identity because I have no drive or passion to work hard and discipline myself to do all I could to strengthen my more easy-to-spot potential (writing, singing, baking, etc.)...

And then I was going to go into this whole ordeal about how I really don't want to look for jobs or consider grad school in the future because I don't think any of those things fit where I am right now and how I want to just explore life and my potential and the places where God can take me if I were to actually spend time doing the things He actually made me to enjoy doing...

Which would transform into a rant about how I hate how everyone asks me what I plan to do with my life or puts a downer on my optimistic outlook that I could find a job I actually enjoy doing, or how I know that I know I don't have to have this clear-cut straight path but it's so difficult to feel okay with that because of the pressure our society puts on us....

But now all I want to say is...best friends and cleaning/organizing things are two of the best therapeutic gifts from God.

Writer's Throwback!

Dying to Live
Looking back on my yesterdays
As a child at heart and frame
I was sapling,
Frail and weak
Fell apart at a gentle touch of a “no”
Crumbled within when a head turned away
And every time it happened,
I died just a little
While I tucked my enervated heart a little deeper inside
To hide in shame as it recovered from its failures,
To try and fill in what was drained.

Renewing is never easy.

Pulling myself together,
Getting back up
Is always hard, especially when I’m pushed down
Over and over again.
Picking up the pieces and starting with a fresh beginning
Is always easier said than done.

But it helps.

Each time I’ve staggered and tripped
Been knocked over and collapsed to the ground
Broken by the storms of life
Abandoned by those whom I thought cared,
I died just a little
To myself,
Slowly learning again to give up a little bit more of me
To make room for something so much better for me
Someone so much greater than me
To turn the doorknobs of my heart,
Opening the doors a little wider
Allowing me to see a little more
More of the bigger picture
That I had not seen before.

Being turned down from anything
By anyone
Slaps me against the cheek
Lands me on the ground
Slams the door in my face
And opens a window not too far,
Letting in a breeze that cools my temper
And shines a new light upon me
That draws in new strength and hope
As I die to myself to live for others.

I am becoming a tree,
With my thick trunk enduring longer through every storm,
Every shower,
Every drizzle,
And rooting myself deeper
Whenever I’m turned down or away,
Into the soil of what is more important in life
As someone older at heart and frame,
Looking forward to new tomorrows.

So I came across this when I was cleaning my room a little bit. It was in one of my old notebooks that I'd carry around with me everywhere. Something that shocked me a little (which really shouldn't have) was how many poems I used to write when I was younger. Most of them, such as this one, may seem a little on the too-emo side, but at least I wrote. I liked writing. That was what surprised me, I guess. I had forgotten how much I used to just...write.

Reading some of my old poems/writings and some other small social-image-issues that have come up numerous times this summer made me realize how much I'm strangely inconsistent with how I respond to people's opinions. When it comes to how I respond to my physical image, I'm extremely resistent to ideas such as losing weight for the sake of losing weight, painting my nails, getting tanned, or plucking my eyebrows. And I don't care what people think. But when it comes to other things - like my writing - I've let my fear of what other people would think so much that I've practically stopped doing it altogether, even to a point where I don't do it for myself.

Isn't that weird? Aren't I weird?

I still get lots of ideas of random things - possible story lines, character traits, poems when I'm passionate, blog posts, or ideas for other things - but for some reason I've fallen out of the habit of picking up my pen or typing on my computer, and fallen into the habit of thinking, "Well, that's a stupid idea," or, "No one would like reading about that." It's really quite terrible for me if you think about it. A writer that doesn't passionately write anymore?

I've even told myself I would get into the habit of freewriting furiously every morning after spending some quiet time with God so that I'd at least be writing something. But I've been telling myself that for years now. I probably just need a little push in the right direction.

Thankfully, I've been working on a new song this summer. The idea came up one night when I got really frustrated about some of my relationships with people and not really knowing what to do about it, but at same time knowing exactly what to do about it. Wow, that's confusing. Maybe when I'm done I'll post it up. I'm pretty much done, I just need to let it sit for a few days to make sure there aren't any little things I don't like and may want to change. That usually happens in the chorus...not my favorite section because it's where it gets tricky with sounding cliche or like some other song that already exists. I'm a verse kind of girl.

Okay, that was a longer post than anticipated. I would've had a post about my wonderful family vacation that I just returned from a few days ago, but my computer is being difficult again and has been under construction (backing up video files onto my bigger harddrive and taking forever because it keeps shutting down and stopping the process in the middle of the night) for the past couple of weeks. Lame, I know. Believe me, my dad and I are very frustrated with it. I hope it finishes soon...I'm returning to campus soon!

My house is a mess and it's driving me insane.

Yesterday I was signing a card for my dad's birthday, but in the middle of writing in it, my dad came home from picking up ice cream for dessert, and I had to run around to find some place to keep writing so he wouldn't see me.

Sad part? I ran around the whole house looking for a surface to write on besides the kitchen table (because he would come in through that way), and I couldn't find one. Yeah, that's right. There was absolutely no surface in my bedroom or my living room or study room for me to write a birthday card. Every surface was covered with books and just plain stuff. It was frustrating.

So I can be messy. It happens. I don't have time to put things away or can't find a place for them, so stuff gets left around unorganized and unkept. It's understandable. But what I can't stand is when there's just so much of it that it'll take days to go through it, and 3/4 of the stuff isn't even your own. I really don't like cleaning up other people's mess because I'm always afraid I'll toss something they want. What I can't stand is if you can't spend like a half an hour putting stuff away where they belong, or a couple of hours reorganizing or rearranging things to put them away neatly. And believe me, you can't do that in my house.

That's the way my house has always been. And I hate it.

I was given full on hope that changing bedrooms with my parents would give me my own space. A space just like my dorm room at school that I could have control over, that I could call my room. But as our room-switch operation date got pushed from the week I got home from school to the week I get back from Urbana, my hope has been sinking and it is sinking fast. I fear it's not going to get done, or I fear it'll take the whole winter break to do it, which I already have very little of.

My house is a haphazard, a place I don't particularly like inviting friends over to because it's so messy and old. I have to be careful walking up and down the stairs because there's stuff on it, and carrying things around my house is dangerous because I might trip over towers of books and CDs or boxes of stuff. Our piano has become another shelf, and the piano bench is Sam's pseudo-desk. My desk area has become storage space for my stuff and Pam's, and the floor of our bedroom has become Pam's space for stuff. I can't reach my desk anymore.

I do not care what color paint my (and Pam's) new room will be. I am not looking forward to the actual process of switching bedrooms, but I certainly will be the happiest camper when I can finally find a place of refuge and peace in this house.

forget the money, babysitting these kids are priceless.

so my job this summer is babysitting these adorables for several hours for many many days. and oh man, has it been a huge blessing. the kids are samuel (4yrs) & isaiah (20mnths) tsai, who also have an older brother named joshua (7yrs), but i haven't babysat him yet because he's still been in school.

talking with auntie karen tsai, their mom, has been pretty awesome. we've been talking about a lot of different things that really made me admire their family all the more, especially how dedicated to God they are.
and their family is sooo cute! she was sharing with me how she and uncle john met, how they both love singing and how her kids love music. i thought it was cute how she said her kids love to sing but don't like singing in public. samuel (in the picture above) is kind of quirky to strangers. he's really really quiet. his mom told me how during his first time at pre-school his teacher said that he was really quiet and wouldn't say a word, only nodding yes or shaking his head no and saying nothing else to his teacher or anyone else in his class for...drum roll please...SEVEN MONTHS! unbelievable. it took him a while to warm up to them. it took me a day :]

now this one, isaiah, is such a cute one. he's a pretty good baby, too. auntie karen said that he's usually very clingy to her when around strangers, but as soon as i walked into their house, he was fine with me! i guess he and i clicked. he didn't cry or whine or anything at all when i first took him away from his mom to the park. today was my third time babysitting them and he was a bit crabby but he eventually warmed up again. and when his mom left he only cried for like, five minutes. then i carried him around for a bit and he stayed quiet in my arms. i think he likes me :]

and he speaks pretty well for an almost-two-year-old. he can definitely say 'mommy' really well, as well as 'ball' and 'please' (although it sounds more like 'bees'!), and on the first day i babysat them, samuel and i were playing this matching cards game of pictures from the Museum of Modern Art (i know, such a cultured kid :P), and isaiah was putting our cards back into the box every time we put our pairs down for go fish, when i totally thought i heard him say, "MoMa." i'm so serious. and then today, my phone rang while auntie karen was feeding isaiah his lunch (yogurt & oatmeal mixed together. [insert sarcastic "yum" here]), and auntie karen said, "oh, that's your ringtone?" and isaiah shouts, "ringtone!" and starts wiggling and bopping to my ringtone music. sooooo cute!

auntie karen was telling me in the car on the way to my house how predictable isaiah's sleep time is. once you put him on his bed, he'll have his hands all ready to pray (so cute), and then right after they pray, uncle john or auntie karen will usually try to sing to him, but he's so tired so he just rolls onto his stomach, lifts his head up, and waves goodbye. isn't that so adorable?

okay okay i've ranted enough about these awesome kids and their awesome family. here i'll tell you something about today. i babysat from 9-4 and came home and helped pam make dinner and afterwards i helped pam pack at least seven garbage bags into our car, full of STUFF from our closet. and believe me, people. this was a HUGE breakthrough. if you know my mom and if you've seen my house, you know that my mom is a huge pack-rat. and for YEARS she'll keep stuff and claim that she'll get around to cleaning it out and blah blah blah but NEVER does. so pam and i last week got fed up with our messy house and decided to do our own extreme house makeover, especially since some of the navajos will be staying with us in our house. we started with the living room, since for father's day everyone from both sides of our family were going to be there. we tossed everything into my parents' room (because we cleaned up all of our stuff...the mess was all of my mom's stuff) and she pretty much had to go through all the stuff. the living room was so different! and then today, pam took a stab at one of our closets and pulled out EVERYTHING in it and dumped our stuff into our room and mom's stuff into the living room so that the pile was so big that we could not avoid it before going to sleep. want to get a picture of how much stuff my mom keeps? pam didn't take a before picture of the closet, but here, i'll give you an idea. here's just some highlights of what we packed away into the car to give away:

• the stroller that carried all three of us chan girls when we were babies
• my graduation dress...from my kindergarten graduation
• my $5 denim hat that i asked my parents to get for me at a street fair (that actually started my love for hats)...when i was about 11 years old
• the chan girls' yellow booster seat
• my lamb chops playground figurines set
• the orange capri pants that i couldn't fit into anymore in the eighth grade

yeah. i know. just add tons of clothes and other stuff and there you have it: all the contents of one of our closets. and guess what? i thought we had given all of this stuff away like, years ago. it's pretty sad. but today, today was a happy day. my mom is making progress and not getting mad at us for doing this. that's good. she always gets a little ticked off in the beginning but then warms up to it. i take orders from pam like a dog. it's her who took charge, so she definitely deserves all the credit for this extreme makeover. i'm so proud of her and glad she got this going. i was tired of all this mess and looking at other people's houses and saying things like, "i wish my house was as clean as this."

now i can go to sleep smiling :D