I'm back.

Today's lunch. Shanghainese noodles mixed with soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and mommy's green beans.

Of all the classes I'm taking, I can't believe I'm walking on such a thin line trying not to fail Aerobics. This means I'm going to remove the two egg crates from my bed and strategically rearrange my room... again.

Something so profound that I heard from a pretty awesome girl, "I am not my grades." And it's true.

Curt

I'm home. It's my little retreat. I've been really busy. I let my days pass me by. I wake up later than I planned to the night before. I literally run to class. I run around doing little things. I go to large group because I do. I go to church because I do. I don't like how I'm doing.

Great aunt #13 asked me if I'm stressed/tired at school. I say yes. She insists I take some kind of supplement of hers. I decline. She looks worried. I assure her I'm not terribly stressed or tired. She puts her hands together and tells me to pray when I do. I laugh. She says for real yo.

An unpublished post from 6/28/08

Can't you see that I'm not okay. Am I not pleading desperately enough? Have I ever even pleaded with you at all? I'm fucking confused and fucking angry. At myself and at you. Why have you forsaken me? Supposedly, you haven't and you never will, but what the hell is going on and why do I feel like this.

I decided to publish it today, 2/21/09.

How quickly I forget.

My smart teeth are growing in.

I was eating a kiwi last night and felt a pain in the very back of my top teeth. Wisdom tooth?! Kiwi?!

Five days ago, I started waking up at 5:15 in the morning to go to 6 o'clock prayer meetings at church. I've been doing this everyday, except for Wednesday, and I think it's satisfying, maybe even exceeding what I've been looking for in church. Not many people show up, but I love that I can always count on three of my brothers to be there and pray with and for me. This is what it's supposed to be like. It's a beautiful thing.

Even after saying that, I'm not sure how long I can keep this up for, especially if we continue when work starts. We finish up around 7:15 every morning and find a place that opens early enough to eat breakfast. (Today, I made banana pancakes for us.) Then at 8:15, we try to figure out what to do for the rest of the day, partly because if they let me go home, I will go back to sleep and not sleep at night. You wouldn't believe how much longer the day feels when you're up so early. I feel like every moment I'm awake is spent trying to stay awake. I do that by surrounding myself with people, which doesn't leave much room for me-time. Maybe I'm supposed to discipline myself to sleep earlier (9 PM in order to get 8 hours) or maybe I've been too sleep spoiled and should just suck it up.

I've made no progress in reading. I read half of Blue Like Jazz before I gave it away to my brother. Mike lent me Jesus Without Religion. I've also got three books from the library that I haven't touched.

Confession time. I steal from InterVarsity =( Last fall's New Student Outreach had Marion and I pack and deliver care packages with these zoo animal gummy snacks in them. Well, we delivered most of them, but the remaining 10-15 brown bags never made it out the door. Ashamed and haunted by the presence of the brown bags, we stuffed them in the cupboard below the microwave for the remainder of the school year. In May, we were cleaning out the cupboard and decided to keep the care packages and use them next semester. Then I saw the expiration date on the gummy snacks. June 23, 2008. What a waste it would be to just throw them out! So I've been eating stolen gummy snacks.

Hey, big spender.

I've been spending "mad" money lately. All on what? FOOD. I've got to stop eating out so much.

On Friday night after our usual post-fellowship dinner, everybody shot-not'd choosing a movie to borrow ($1 per night at Waldbaum's!), so Wing and I went and reluctantly borrowed Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I believe it's a parody of Walk the Line, which is based on Johnny Cash's life. Jenna Fischer and Ed Helms, Pam and Andy from The Office, have roles in it. It's one of those movies that aren't meant to be taken seriously, so much so that it's hard not to laugh all throughout the movie. Glorious, glorious humor.

Since Kelly, Joanne, and Cindy left for the other side of the world last week, I've been hanging out with a bunch of guys, often times being the only girl in the group. It's interesting and a lot of fun. Don't worry, I've lived and learned; my heart's guarded! :)

I'm going to start reading Blue Like Jazz tonight and am including this sentence in this post so that I can track how long it takes for me to complete it.

Lo siento.

1) To my 5 readers, especially Matthew Handsome ;) Tuttle, I'm sorry if I got your hopes up with this blog. I blog only when I'm in the mood to, and that's not everyday.

2) Copied and pasted from an e-mail.
I don't know if I told all of you, but my mom has been sleeping in my room since I've been home from school because she doesn't want to sleep in the same bed as my dad. I used that as somewhat of an excuse for not doing my quiet times or praying at night because that made it "harder." I'd have to get up and move to another room in my house (lol at me). So last night, I got out of bed, went downstairs to the living room, and started writing in my journal. Then I prayed. I confessed every sin that I could think of out loud and everything I had gone through that I was mad at God for. It absolutely boggled my mind why God would let those things happen and why they happened to me. Those things and the fact that I never said anything to Him about them put more distance between us. I asked for Him to heal me from all of this countless times. Then I started reading 1 John and guess what it was about? Walking in darkness versus walking in light. How fitting. It was exactly what I needed. This was it. It was the QT that I've been dreading to do for God knows how long.

I think I was dreading it for so long because I was scared of what might happen after. I was scared because what if I go before God and I confront all the sin and all the messiness and nothing happens? What if He doesn't answer me? Last night, I realized that that's what I was scared of this whole time. Now we can keep praying that I continue to talk to God and consistently set apart a time to spend time with Him. I don't know if that was the hardest part of it all, but it was pretty damn hard for me to get to where I was last night.

3) That was an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to Cindy, Kelly, and Joanne. In that e-mail was the most I've ever shared with them and I'm excited that our friendships are starting to mean more.

4) This is why I love Joanne:
At church, the day before Joanne leaves to China, the last time I will see her until next summer.
Meir: Please don't leave tomorrow.
Joanne: Aw, don't worry, I'll send you an e-mail!
Meir: ONE e-mail?
This is where we burst into laughter because we both know she's serious.

5) I hope to see you soon.

What do you think about everyday?

So far, a whole day spent at home.

I woke up at 10 o'clock this morning and instead of going back to sleep like I usually do, I got out of bed. It's funny how it worked out because for the past week, I'd wake up around the same time after 8 hours of sleep , think about getting out of bed, and I'd shut my eyes soon after. Today, it felt easy, even natural getting out of bed after only 4 hours of sleep. Late last night, I changed my Mozilla homepage from google.com to nytimes.com and read off my laptop in bed until 5 AM.

After I put my laundry in the wash, I climbed back into my bed and continued doing useless things on my laptop. I started thinking about school again. Something that I think about everyday is what I'm doing in college and what I'm doing after that. I'm so reluctant to choose a major because I know it can make me miserable. Technically, I am declared as an Accounting major, but I might as well still be labeled "undeclared." What's the problem? I haven't found my purpose yet, what I should be working towards in school, nor have I found something I'm interested in studying. It's easy. If I knew what my purpose were, I would choose a major that would prepare me for it and it wouldn't matter if I didn't absolutely love the school work because I'd know I'd be working towards something that is right for me. If I found something I love learning about, I wouldn't worry about the career aspect of it because I'd have faith that that'd be taken care of. But I know the answers to neither, and what I'm afraid of is making a decision that will make me unhappy 2-3 years from now. I want to enjoy working, not dread it. I hear a lot of "Do what you love," and I'd love to know what I love doing. I also hear a lot of "You have plenty of time." Older people keep telling me that and I wish they would stop lying.

The second load of laundry is beckoning me.