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| After many many years on Xanga...I've decided to move on...
http://banannawong.blogspot.com/
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Cherry Blossoms by Vanier, UBC Waves at Tower Beach, UBC
Arts County Fair 16, Thunderbird Stadium, UBC
One theme
keeps reiterating itself for me at UBC: life is what you make of it. Sure crap happens, and sure some people are more
privileged in one way or the other, with millions under their family name, but
at the end of the day, no matter which end of the stick you receive, it is
still yours to live. I feel that a
majority of my life has been spent envying other people, thinking how the grass
is greener on the other side. When I was
younger, it was things like not being put into piano lessons or being taught how
to swim by my parents. I had to initiative those. More recently now, it is my parent’s
inability to pay my tuition fees and living costs that I resent, having to
count on my own abilities to obtain scholarships, work and student loans. I would love to go travel and do all these
things in the summer, during the year, but unlike you, I can’t afford to. I know in
my heart and in my mind that the grass is always greener on the other side, for
everyone. Certinaly I know that my own
statements can be turned back to me, changing only the adjectives and
verbs. We all have our own wish lists.
The lesson I have been learning, is one of gratefulness and
contentment. The forgetting life is "all about me" because it is not. How selfish am to think it and to live like it. Accept it and just love it
- enjoy it and live it as God intended. Without
care to what other people have, exciting it may seem, but to relish the road
paved ahead especially for me.
Every once in a while, especially on
days like today when everyone else seems to be ‘doing’ it, I want to be like
everyone else, get drunk and be without a care in the world, for anyone, mostly
myself. But I can’t seem to do it, and I
realize that’s because that’s not me. I
remember this funny conversation I had with Alvina a while ago, she came up
with a great analogy. She was saying how
I always try to straighten my hair to get it to look like everyone else. Now my hair is naturally quite wavy, so even
when I straignten it with my hard core professional iron, it doesn’t stay
completely straight for very long without some serious efforts. Why can’t you just let your hair be wavy, she
asks? It is pretty that way.
And I think that’s the biggest lesson
I have learnt here, finally at the end of my four years, to let me hair be
wavy. Barbara, Jenni and I actually went to the Musuem of Anthropology
before going to Arts County today, pretty geeky eh? ButI got to see the “Dancing with AIDS in Malawi” display I have been really
wanted to see since March but haven't gotten the chance nor time to yet. We eventually went to
AFC, had our token cider, danced a bit, and left for dinner downtown, and was at
home before 10pm. And it’s
perfect. Here I am in front of my
computer, doing what I love to do, writing.
It’s not what everyone else is doing, but why does that matter
anyways? I had a good time. And it’s just…perfect, just like how my hair is wavy.
I certainly had a good time in the
past four years, though not always, and as I look back, I can see my own personal growth. It may not be exciting by some standards, the
kind of typical college years you see in the movies: I never got drunk, never
stayed up all night to finish a paper or cram for an exam, and never had
sex. But I made poor children laugh
playing drama games with them, listened to old people with problems sing in a
Christmas choir at an event friends organized, and got to learn about the world
under and with great professors and classmates, challenging not only my faith, but every core belief I hold as a human being. I got to go and live my dream and work in
parliament in Ottawa, I learned to live by myself and gained the confidence
that I can do it, and I even convinced people to pay me money to do stuff
(I’m hirable!). I met amazing people I will
remember for the rest of my life with hearts purer than my own (including cute asian
guys with intelligence in the social sciences, rare as they are, haha). I’m a geek and I studied lots, oh I studied
lots, and yet I know little, if anything at all, and it is a great realization.
I've also screwd up lots, like blowing scholarship on compulsive shopping. Become unwantonly angry at meaningless things. Hurt the people I love the most, like Aaron. There are a million billions examples, and they all stem from selfishness - haha oh gosh I can't help but to think of what Nietzsche would say to that, how 'slave morality' (i.e. Judeo-Christianity) has made us internalize our suffering, how this sense of guilt is not natural but restrictive. hehehe. But I know where I stand, and there are things I'm not proud of it.
I am not the same person who graduated
from high school four years ago, but I hope I am a little better: more kind, more hopeful, and more aware. And I wonder, hope, pray, to know what the
next four years will hold. I have no
idea at all. I only trust that my God will lead, as I believe he has thus far. Four years later when I am twenty-five, I
hope I can look back as I am now and not boast neither of the letters behind my name nor
the pages of my resume. Rather, of the
meaningful relationships I have established, of the beauty I have seen of the
world both near and far, and of the little parts in this grand story that I
have been privileged to been able to play. Maybe it won't be my x,y, and z list - going to Africa, going to my birthplace Hong Kong, getting my masters - but maybe, just like 4 ago, it will turn out even better, more than I can ask for or imagine.
There much to life I still have to 'figure out' but maybe figuring it out is not my task, rather just living. Maybe that's what made things so hard, my desire to control and to know. Life is as much as the journey as the destination, and the sooner I can lose grip on my wheel I can enjoy the colours as they begin to flood my eyes and the letters as they continue to fill the pages of my life.
A reminder:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I miss you.
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I cry and I want the hurt to stop
hurting
I cry, I cry, wanting to feel comfort
in the pain
I cry because the tears help keep me
human
Alive, alive, life involves both this
girl and woman
I run and I want to fly far away
from here
I run, I run, wanting to rest in
your open arms
I run because it keeps my spirit
awake
Alive, alive, love on earth involves
both give and take
I die and I want to kill my greedy selfish
self
I die, I die, wanting to dwell in
your goodness
I die because I believe my life is
organic
Alive, alive, love involves notes
sweet and melodic
I’m done and I want to go home now
I’m done, I’m done, wanting a place
to call mine
I’m done because I can’t run this
race alone
Alive, alive, life involves both
pink and black balloons.
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| A Perspective on Life's Worries Celebrate God all
day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to
all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not
against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He
could show up any minute! Don't
fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises
shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before
you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for
good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when
Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Summing
it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and
meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling,
gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things
to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from
me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes
everything work together, will work you into his most excellent
harmonies. (Phillippians 4:4-9, MSG)
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| Reading Break 2007
 
Vermilion Lakes, Banff Tunnel Mountain, Banff
 
The Ultimate Canadian experience: Winding road through the Rockies
CP train through in the mtns!
 
Lake Louise ski area How do/can people look good in ski clothes???
February 16: "We are pleased to inform you that we are offering you admission into a
graduate program at Queens University."
February 21:
"Dear Anna:
Congratulations! You have been conditionally successful in applying
to pursue a Master's degree in the School of Urban and Regional
Planning. We look forward to having you as a new member of the SURP community."
After coming back to Calgary from Banff, a few days in the mountains without laptops, cell phones and the rush of it all that accompanies wireless technology (literallly feeling wired all the time), I quickly scanned through my mountain of emails and came across these two. Beyond the initial skip of my heart, I came across the list of conditions that made my heart beat suddenly slow down...graduation. Such a silly thing really, of course they need proof that I will graduate, and of course this is a bit difficult when I am missing 3 credits to take in the summer...and won't technically convocate until November...
In many ways I wish this transition to graduate school or from university would be as smooth as the one from high school. Maybe that's the way God teaches us, giving us slowly and slowly hardier food to chew, stepping stones laid out further and further apart, like little children, slowly being weaned off our mother's milk. That's kinda how I feel anyways. I am still, as I am sure like all others in this stage of life: still looking, still applying, and still as slowly cooking as hearty stew, waiting for responses from the other end.
I like skiing but I'm not hardcore at it. Like most other sports that I (try) to play, I'm okay and I can keep up but I don't do anything crazy - no jumps off the side, unnecessarily dodging through trees, killer blacks. As always, I'm always nervous about the first run or the first few moments playing a sport and I didn't have good first runs on Louise. I realize I want to quit easily once things don't go my way. The whole, oh forget it, I'll-go-back-to-doing-something-I'm-good-at feeling. It's like that with the rest of my life too, I'll go back to the books, to Poli Sci, to what I am used to - human nature ain't it to fear change and the unknown.
I'm glad Aaron was there, and just his presence made me stick it out. It's the same deal how it is easier to keep up a workout routine or that diet when you have a buddy, someone to pull you up when you are down and vice versa. It's why God made community I suppose.
So I had a really good last run, even though it was mogol-y (?) and a bit icy in the beginning. It's a confidence matter really, you have to be confident enough to go over the bumps, don't lose heart when you catch a bit of air, and land firmly. It's also a faith matter, you have to believe that the snow beneath you will hold you up, that the groove marks made by those gone before you proves that you can do it, and that the snow will catch you even if you do fall.
With this whole "future" thing that I've been writing about ceaselessly (yes I am sick of it too), I guess it's the same deal. Just gotta go and catch the groove. It's really hard to get down a run without skiing down it you know. There was this one part where I was literally stuck on top of a big hole: steep, icy (you can see the glistening), trees to my immediate right and left. I slid down on my skiis for a few feet (making that awful "chhhrrrgg" sound) before I was like, forget it, just get up and go, whatever. And so I went, not without a few more tumbles and well...bruises. But it turned out, and that was a good last run. I hope these coming eight (?) weeks will be too, and that the rest of the time until Queen's (or elsewhere or elsewhat)...and I guess for the rest of this funny thing called life.
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