Hello, Goodbye.

oh dear oh dear. It’s not that I don’t have anything to blog about. It’s not even that I don’t have time or that I’m busy. I’m just getting lazier. I find myself talking to myself/GOD more than blogging, which is really just fine in my opinion, or I’d rather take out the good old pen and journal and jot down incomprehensible blurbs rather than trying to string everything together on the laptop. Seriously, laziness is such a drug.

Anyway, here’s something I thought about like, a week ago. I categorize my friends. Which is the strangest thing to say, I know, but it’s absolutely true. There’s the friends that you go shopping with, the ones that you ask for help with homework, the ones that you go to concerts with, or the church friends, or the party friends, the friends that you tell all your gossip to, or spill all your problems to, or the backup friends (that sounds horrible.).. but then I realized that I don’t have a category for the friends that I can just talk to. I’m not talking about I-need-help-because-I-have-problems kind of talking, but the friends that I can seriously just call up at night and have absolutely nothing to talk about. And usually, those kinds of people fall into the category of “boyfriend.” But why? Why does it have to be that romantic other that you can just call up everyday for the sake of calling? I’ve realized that nowadays, everytime someone calls me, the first thing I ask is “Why did you call?”, completely disregarding the possibility that hey, maybe she just called to talk.

But nobody seems to do that nowadays. There always has to be a reason. Everything has to move forward. Nobody has time to just, talk. Well, I’m sure we all do actually, we’re just too lazy to attempt to keep a conversation going. Too much effort. Sooo, I’ve decided to put a challenge for myself. I’m going to have a fullout conversation with a different person every few days. And it’ll be a person that I really haven’t talked to in a while. Or maybe I’ll just take the time to ask some people “How are you?” instead of “Why’d you call?” I wonder if people even remember how to say “how are you” and how to answer with something other than “Not much” or “good.” See, that’s why online conversations always end. And once again, nobody wants to take the effort to continue conversations.

Well anyway, it’d do alot of good for me. It’s worth a try. 8DD

What if I had danced in the hail?

I’m the kind of girl who questions every single choice that I make, who hesitates before being spontaneous, who could run and run and fool everyone by making it seem as if I’m running to somewhere, when in reality, I have absolutely no idea where I’m going. And one huge thing that always takes over my thoughts is “what if?” What if I had done something differently, if I had said something more, if I had gone out of my way to talk to that lonely girl over there. I replay conversations in my head, wondering if I had said the right thing, if I could’ve said something differently. I imagine different scenarios. And every single time, it occurs to me that I can’t change anything. That I’ve already done what I did- so what’s the use of going through it again? Perhaps it comforts me. Maybe I’m convinced that at some point, I’ll get sick of myself and stop and go back and do whatever I was too afraid to do before. But of course it never happens- I just keep on what-if-ing every single thing that I do. Doesn’t get me very far, I know.

Last friday night, I went to a Chris Tomlin concert. It was supposed to be at seven, but it got postponed to nine because of… a tornado warning. Oh yes. So right when my group got there, it started POURING like it never had before; I’ve never even seen this kind of weather before. And to make it even more intense, the concert was outdoors. Of course, there was a roof on top of us, but here we were on the very side of the amphitheater, with the wind blowing in our direction and bringing with it rain and hail. We had to struggle just to get out the umbrella- the umbrella that was supposed to shelter eight of us. Of course that failed. So here I was, drenched with not an inch of me dry. That’s when my friend just pulled me out from under the umbrella and maniacally laughed, twirling around and yelling about how amazing it was. I was shocked speechless for a few seconds, before I started to join in with her laughter. She was right. This outrageous weather was amazing. And now I don’t have to sit and wonder, what if I had braved the weather today and let myself go crazy? Because hey, guess what- I did. There’s noone to judge me but God.

The concert started in a different way. There was a huge screen at the front, and the entire place was completely black except for three white words on that screen: Quiet your hearts. The entire audience was still, with some fidgeting and whispers every here and there, but we were still. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t raining. It was just… silence. And it’s very rare that you can sit in that kind of silence, with no distraction of noise, of loudness. It was Good Friday. The friday that all hell broke loose (and partied too soon might I add). The friday that Jesus became sin for us so that we could be righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), that the only alive man on earth became dead just for us. Unimaginable… but it still happened. Ohgosh, that was an awesome night.

Who Am I?

When I’m home alone, I completely strip away my poised, dignified facade. I blast my music the loudest it can go, belt out the lyrics, dance around my house with no care of the world. I slam on the piano, make up tunes, string words into nonsensical phrases. I try out outrageous clothes and strut down the stairs, I take out the ice cream and make humongous sundaes, I go crazy… and it feels great.

But then I wonder, is THIS who I am? Or is the way I act when I’m around people who I am? Do my friends shape my personality? Is that fear of being judged the one that judges the way I act? Is that fake? Am I fake? What if I act different around different people- who then AM i? I don’t really know- I’ve always struggled with my identity ever since sixth grade, since I’m the type of person to change who I am according to the group I’m with, just so that I could be accepted. But it’s been getting better, since I’ve started to stick up for what I believe in, rather than stupidly laughing at everything that everyone says. But still…

It seems strange to think that the way you act when you’re alone is who you are, because then that’d imply that the person that everyone knows you as is WRONG. So then, who IS that person when you’re alone? Maybe it’s just you on an extreme level, since all your barriers for acting crazy are gone, you know? Well, I don’t know. It’s just interesting. It’s also interesting how other people think of me differently than how I think of myself. For instance, a lot of people think of me as a bouncy, happy girl. Which for the most part, I am. The last thing they’d think label me as though, is deep. And I don’t think of myself as deep either, but at the same time, I’m not a brainless girl who doesn’t question the things around me, you know? And when people get to know me and realize that there’s more underneath that happy, bouncy cover, they’re surprised. Why though?

Anyway, today was a very, very, very beautiful day. It’s really too bad that I woke up at eleven and wasted away the whole morning. I hate that feeling of unproductivity. Then I had a piano recital from two until six, and such a beautiful day feels even more wasted. Especially since I played horribly. When I’m at a recital, I get unusually antsy, and by the time I get up there to perform, I’m pretty much wasted and I can’t focus on playing a piano anymore. It’s bad. But on a better note- yesterday, our youth group reached a miraculous number of 105 youths. THERE’S something to praise about.

Dancing in a Burning Room

Ohmygosh. Seriously one of the best dances I’ve ever seen. I nearly started crying from the emotion that the dancers portrayed. And when it was over, I sat there for a second, trying to take it in, then I watched it another two times. It’s a very lyrical, sensual dance, but it’s beautiful.

Wade Robson (amazing, by the way) as choreographer, Ben Susak and Pam Chu as dancers. Kate and Joshua performed a shorter version of this on So You Think You Can Dance, but I think this version has a MUCH greater effect. There’s just something about it, how we can connect to such honest motions. The girl’s expression of being exposed, the man’s expression of need, meshed together into one brutal image of love. How much it can hurt, how hard you have to work for it, how much trust there needs to be to hold two complex people together… how it can hold in the end. Whether it’s because we’re too tired of fighting or because love really did survive, I don’t know. But wow, this dance was touching to the core.

The song’s called Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer. It fits perfectly; love- such a fiery emotion, yet we somehow willingly dance our way through.