Dead Man Living

Praise God! I've survived what was possibly the hardest week of my winter quarter, maybe even of my entire time at Stanford. Break it down:

- 2 labs (one of which took 20+ hours, which I ended up not completing :/)
- 4 problem sets (one for each techie class)
- 1 paper (this was paper #2/4 for a 1 unit class :/x 999)
- 3 midterms (two were worth %20 of my entire grade, the other %30)

Soo, basically, life was a living h-e-double hockey sticks (minus the eternal darkness, void of God's love). I'm pretty sure I bombed all my tests and messed up on all my problem sets. On the plus side, the fact that I'm alive is a huuge testament to the power of God hahahaha.

At any rate, academics are cool, I guess, but the reason for the title of the post is two-fold. Prior to this past week, I had been challenged to think about life, love, and God, three of my favorite things but three of the hardest things to talk about in relation to my life. It was a Friday night and I was having dinner with the worship leader for IV. She was challenging me to think about myself (something I have trouble with) and see the areas that I did not want to look at. The more I thought about...It was at that moment that I realized I didn't believe that God loved me. My heart broke and I was about to cry, me, a grown up 20 year old, sitting at a public restaurant. I realized that I couldn't bring myself to trust God with my whole heart; sure my future is secure in him, but why do I feel like such a failure in school regardless of how hard I study? Sure, all things are possible through God, but why did he give me such a passion for music and so many signs showing me music in my future when I feel like I have no chance as a musician? Sure, the spirit of God is an endless spring of peace and joy, but why do I feel thirsty all the time? I was shocked at these revelations; they all pointed out something that I had hidden inside of me, but was totally unaware of: I didn't believe Jesus loved me.

This harsh truth burned inside of me for a few days, totally consuming my every thought. How did I get to this point? Why do I feel this way when I know the truth? That night, I sat in the darkness, trying to trace the origin of this lie of the enemy, when I realized that this mistrust had stemmed from relationship with another lover. I had lost all faith and trust in the beauty that is Love as a result of a hard relationship, and I was still being haunted by the lies that had surrounded me back when I had abandoned God. I literally felt like my spirit had died within me, and that I had nothing left to live for. But, God is good, all the time, ofsho! The next morning, I woke up with Psalms on my heart. I hopped from my bunk down to my desk, and without contacts/glasses, squinted my way through Psalms 31. And it was such a beautiful miracle. Some verses that spoke out to me:

Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth. Psalm 31: 5

I will be glad and rejoice in your love,
for you saw my affliction
and knew the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7

For I hear the slander of many;
there is terror on every side;
they conspire against me
and plot to take my life.

But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, "You are my God." Psalm 31:13-14

Let your face shine on your servant;
save me in your unfailing love. Psalm 31:16

Mm, the Word is so good. Then, on Sunday, as the children sang "Jesus Loves Me" during the service, I was reminded again of how good and how powerful God is.

Jesus loves me, this I know,

For the Bible tells me so,

Little ones to him belong,

They are weak, but he is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so :)

I am little and I am weak, but my God, he is strong and best of all, he loves me.

King and Tully vs Porkchop

Today's post's title refers to the two methods of ground transportation that I've used from Norcal to Socal (and vice versa). King and Tully are the cross streets for the popular Viet Socal Experience bus, which was absolutely wonderful. Their cramped seats coupled with the notorious overbooking issues that the management has been having adds to the pleasant overall ambience of the bus. Other perks include a $3 lunch from the Indie Chinese cook next door, a mobile potty in the back, and TWO movies, both dubbed in Vietnamese! All this for the grand total of $40 one way.


Aish. Anyways, I'm sitting here at the Music Library on my shift, earning money for doing nothing/homework, and I decided to post something interesting. I was looking around in the My Documents folder on the ML's computer when I discovered an old MC blog post that I typed also at the Music Library. I just wanted to post something of remote interest and since I'd rather not delve into the details of how I am constantly working 24/8 all day everyday nonstop getting owned by Stanford University aka Voluntary Prison, I'll let you read something comical that reflects the pure innocence of my lost days as a youth :)

WHY I NEVER WANT TO RIDE ANOTHER PUBLIC BUS EVER AGAIN

11.18.2006

Sexy Greyhound

This is the story of my bus trip down to Socal:

Mikey, Amos, and I were supposed to leave Stanford via a cheap and fast Vietnamese Bus that Connie suggested. The bus left San Jose around 8:30 AM, so I told everyone the night before to finish packing, sleep, and then wake up around 7 so we could leave Stanford by 7:45 latest. Both Amos and I were ready to go by 7:30, but Mikey didn’t even wake up until 7:50. In addition, he didn’t even pack yet, so we ended up leaving around 8:05 AM. We also got lost (duh, I’m in the car hehe) trying to get there so we ended up getting to the stop around 8:50 AM. I was soooo pissed at being late that I started punching cement walls hehe. Mikey then suggested that we take the Greyhound bus, even though it would be more expensive and we’d end up in Socal much later than expected. By this point, I didn’t care anymore, so I just went with his plan. We arrived at the Greyhound super early, so we decided to chill at the Starbucks across the street (They had free Wifi Internet). 30 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave, we started waiting in line, but by that time, there was a massive line already waiting to board the bus. Since there were three of us, and only two seaters on the bus, we decided to sit in the very back of the bus, because there were 3 seats together. By the time we got there though, someone had taken one of the seats. Since we were almost the last ones on the bus, all the front seats were taken, so I sat next to the person already sitting on the bus while Mikey sat next to the toilet and Amos sat in the row ahead of us. The person I sat next to was this chubby black girl who reeked of something deathly and dressed very scantily. 10 minutes into the trip, she turns to me and asks, “Are you Asian?” I said of course, which set up her next line: “I’ve never kissed an Asian before. Do you want to kiss me?” She puckered her lips and started moving in for the kill. I was madly shaking my head and trying to get as far away from her as possible. Then she just started giving me these seducing stares, so I tried to break the tension by introducing myself and asking her for her name. She replied that her name was Porkchop and she showed me a tattoo of her name on her neck. I asked her why her name was Porkchop, and she replied (and I quote): “Oh, because my Pimp Ho’s name is Chop chop, so all of his Ho’s names have chop in them.” I suddenly realized that I was sitting next to a prostitute. Up to this point, I had never even seen a prostitute, let alone talk to one. I busted out my DS Lite and tried to ignore her, but she tried to grab my DS after I took it out! She thought it was an iPod and wanted to listen to it, but I had to explain to her that it was a NDSL and you can’t listen to music with it (although I hacked it so you can hehe). She then started poking the moles on my arm and saying, “I have moles too, you want to see them?” Although I was shaking my head, she started showing me these moles and semi-undressing herself. After awhile, she really started to undress herself. She pulled her shirt really really high up and unbuckled her belt, draping the belt across my legs. The she started to caress my hair, softly purring, “Everything is just fine.” Her pimp ho was sitting next to Amos, so he had a really hard time too hehe. On top of that, we had a homeless bum sit in front of us, and he would not stop talking about all this random nonsense

11/26

The Crazy Asian Bus

This is the story of my bus trip back up to Stanford University:

I get the San Gabriel on Sunday morning at around 9:30 AM, all ready to get on the Vietnamese bus early and find good seats. The bus comes around 10:00 AM and I’m like the sixth person to get on the bus. Amos, Mike fan, Connie, and myself all find good seats (2 on the left, 2 on the right of the same row on the bus) and we just chill. About 10 minutes into boarding, this crazy asian lady comes yelling at Mike Fan, who I’m sitting next to, saying that he stole her seat blah blah blah. Apparently, she made a reservation over the phone and reserved Mikey’s seat. Problem was, the bus was originally seated by a first come, first serve basis, AND we called 4 times earlier and never received a reservation. The first asian lady, defeated, sat down in the row behind us and didn’t yell at us anymore after we argued for about 5 minutes. Problem was, she took ANOTHER asian lady’s reserved seat, so that asian lady started yelling at Mikey too. She was a BEAST; her voice was soo frkn loud and she had a very nasally voice. She started yelling at Mikey, at me, at Amos and Connie, and then at the Bus manager. Then our parents came onto the bus and started arguing and yelling at the Bus manager and at that lady. The arguing went on for more than one and a half hours. The bus manager was a frkn sneaky C; he tried to make Mikey and I sit on the floor and in return we didn’t have to pay any fare. Problem was, that was illegal, so the bus driver would kick us out if we did, and then we’d be stuck. Mikey knew this, so he didn’t take the bait, and then the manager started trying different tactics. Pretty soon, the second crazy asian lady started rallying the entire bus against us, because they were pissed and just wanted to leave. Everybody started yelling at us and chanting stupid things like, GET OFF THE BUS, or PLEASE LEAVE NOW. It was absolutely ridiculous. Finally, we bargained that we would fit one more person to sit next to Amos and Connie in return for a discounted bus fare. Connie ended up taking my seat and Amos, Mikey, and I just shared 2 seats together. The bus ride ended up taking more than 12 hours and by that time, my butt was super sore. Getting off the bus was ridiculous too. This crazy asian old guy started pushing Amos and trying to get out of the bus. Finally, after the guy started FONDLING Amos’ butt, Amos was like, Bie ji (Don’t push), only to set the guy off like a bomb. He just exploded at Amos and looked pretty frkn scary. Man, I’m never taking another public bus again.