wow, two days in a row

Yeah, believe me, I'm shocked too. I dunno, just feeling kinda thoughtful tonight. It's a good thoughtful though, not a bad thoughtful. People seem to be feeling down tonight. Lots of talk of feeling lost. Somehow in the midst of that, I'm feeling surprisingly hopeful. I feel like God is here. We're all lost, but God is here. Isn't that amazing? God is here. It's strange because I've been feeling kinda far away from God the last couple months, like my life is going, but I don't quite know where God is in the midst of that. But I keep living, praying, and looking. I see glimpses every once in a while. You know, those "wow!" moments. I love those. I guess tonight is one of those. Actually, I've been having a lot of them recently. It's awesome. I've been realizing that going through hard times helps you to see things so much clearer. I think that what the hard times I went through this last year has taught me the most is that God will never leave. So, He's here, and He's not going anywhere. Although we all feel lost, He's leading us someplace. So have hope! I've also been seeing how having experienced hard times really helps you to sympathize with, and encourage others. I pray that I will have more opportunity to do that.

Okay, completely different topic. So we had alumni bible study last night right? And we were studying Hebrews 2:5-18. Studying Hebrews is pretty hard, but really rewarding when you finally get something after hitting your head against it for a long time. It was awesome. Anyway, me and Jon had this really weird moment in Bible study. You know when you think of something really funny in Bible study. So I was reading "so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil" (part of Hebrews 2:14) and I was wondering "how does that work?" and all I saw in my head was the scene from the end of the third Matrix where Neo gets "injected" by Smith and that's how he destroys him. So I started laughing (the scene by the way did not help me to understand more how that whole thing works). But later, when sharing about why I was laughing, I was saying "how does that work?", and Jon goes, "Well, if you've seen the third Matrix movie . . ." I mean, it seems to me a very rational thing to think when reading that passage, I think that most people would think of the third matrix movie in that context (hmm, is that weird?), but I thought it was funny the way it happened.

Oh, another totally different topic . . . Ed told me tonight that he has become a fan of my blog, so I want to send a shout-out to Ed, my new fan. Much love to all my other loyal fans too! :)

it's been a while

I've been meaning to get to write in here for a while, but I never get to it. I was talking to Jon the other night about how he doesn't live "real life" anymore because all he does is blog or read and comment on other people's blogs. I guess I've been living too much "real life" so I don't get a chance to blog :). It's been good. I've gotten to babysit twice this week. I love it! Greg and Lauren are great, and it's teaching me a lot about responsibility and patience, and how to handle hard situations. I feel like I've been able to talk and hang out with a lot of people and that's been pretty encouraging too. I've been realizing how easy life is for me here. At times I wish I were doing something more exciting or crazy like Brian and Greg. Sometimes I wish that because when you're doing stuff like that, you tend to worry about yourself less, you think less about your problems and relationship issues because you're surrounded by so much need.

Somehow I feel like right now God wants me to be here, where I do kinda have to think about stuff. I think He wants me here especially for the relationships. I feel like I've been seeing just how important relationship is, to people, and to God. How much of a blessing it's been for me to get to keep in touch with so many people and grow in my friendships with them, and how much you're able to help and encourage others through your friendships with them. I am praying that I can be doing the most with where God has put me.

Will a.k.a. "If there's a Will, there's a way" (I hate myself)

I guess it's been a while since I posted at all, and it's been even longer since I've posted last about the interns. There's just one left. I'm sorry it's taken me so long, but here is the last installment of the eMi intern files. Maybe I've been saving the best for last ;). Anyway, it's all about Will. Will's the only one of us left in Colorado Springs. He's interning till December or something. Will's from Idaho, the closest one of all of us to Colorado Springs. He also worked at Noah's Ark rafting company as a rafting guide. He got us some awesome deals on white-water rafting.

Because he worked around there and knew people, he had friends coming to visit and he'd be going back and forth to guide on the weekends. Will was commenting to me one friday as we were walking to the Marian House (soup kitchen) that he was feeling a little funny about knowing other people around, like it was harder for him to really get into the "intern experience" because not everything was brand-new to him. I can kinda understand what he was talking about now. I feel like I'm kinda in a familiar place but doing very new things and it feels a little weird. I don't think that you missed out on very much though Will. It was really awesome to hang out with Will this summer. I feel like he is someone that I really would like to have gotten to know better. Even though he won't stand around at work and talk about it for hours while we're supposed to be working (he has a lot of integrity in his work), you can tell he really cares about what's going on for you. I would remember as he would walk by my desk to fill up his double gulp cup, he would ask me how things were going. It wasn't difficult to get into a serious conversation with him, because it's like he wasn't afraid to get under the surface, even though he didn't know you very well. Thanks Will. I also remember the first time we went rafting, we met up with a couple of his friends and I had one of the most encouraging conversations of the summer with one of his friends who I had just met. It was like God showing His goodness to me. Will is good people and Will knows good people.

I don't know if I should really put this down here cuz I am not sure Amanda knows yet, but if she doesn't, Will don't show her my blog. Anyway, Will is planning on proposing to his girlfriend Amanda very soon. He's working really hard to be able to afford a ring. And he's planning to invite all of us to his wedding (he better be at least!).

Okay, so from all this serious stuff I'm writing about Will, you must think that he's a pretty serious kind of guy. I don't know about that one. I guess he might be one of those complicated people because he can be completely serious, but be the least serious at the same time. We'll be having a serious discussion about something and then he'll make a terrible joke keeping a completely serious look on his face. Will is great a dry humor. Actually, I wouldn't say great because he must be funny only less than half the times he tries to be :). I miss his trying to tell jokes and getting to mock him because his jokes aren't funny.

Will lived with Ho-Jun this summer. I mean they were housemates, so he got some of the korean experience, however it seems that Will is lousy at korean. I think by the end of the summer Will knew exactly 4 korean words I think. 2 of which were kim-chee and bu-gol-gi. He would show off his korean knowledge by chanting "kim-chee bu-gol-gi kim-chee bu-gol-gi", and we'd all laugh at him. Good try Ho-Jun.

Anyway, I wanted to come up with a better nickname for Will. I didn't want to use the same one, so I used one to appeal to all those pun-lovers. The "Blue-Steel" nickname was all because Will tries to do the blue-steel pose for the camera pretty often, and I have to say is the best out of all of the interns at doing it. I don't know if that is saying much. I guess that's it. I think I must have left out a lot of stuff. I'm sorry Will if I have. It's what I get for procrastinating so long. I can write more later if something comes to me. It was good talking to you yesterday, and I wish you the best. Remember, invitations to the wedding . . .

what are the chances?

Usually I'm not so crazy about online quizzes, but this one turned out pretty well.

You're Hawaii!

When they first meet you, few people can tell whether you want to say hello or goodbye. Either way, most of them will end up saying that you're their favorite person to visit, if only they could afford the trip. But your soft and warm image is
belied by an explosive undercurrent in your personality than can leave you drenched with tears or boiling with anger for days on end. You are rather fond of using plants as clothing.


Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

ick

Man, today was the climax of my bad week. I got the most horrible cramps at work today. So bad the pain made me lightheaded and weak and I dropped a cup of hot water on the floor while a co-worker was talking to me. I wanted to die. Anyway, they made me go home cuz I was so out of it. I was really thankful, but then because of an accident on the freeway, I was stuck in LA traffic going less than 5 mph for an hour and a half. I was crying and swearing for most of it, and it sucked. Sigh, eventually I got back to Sharon's, and proceeded to pass out for 2 hours. I'm feeling a little better now. At least this explains why the rest of my week has been so bad, why I've been so tired/frustrated the last few days, and should also mean that the next few weeks should be nice.

stuff to think about

Today was a hard day. I felt anxious and a little annoyed all day, and then a lot of little things kept happening that really got to me. It's like you can take a few bad things, but when they all happen at once, it gets to you and you feel like you want to explode. So that's how today was for me. I decided then to go for a jog, cuz I thought I could take out my aggression that way and somehow get a better perspective on things. So I left, and I found that the sidewalk was closed on the route that I usually take, which made me a little more upset, and I just ended up jogging around the park. Actually, I jogged for a bit, but I ended up walking around the park.

I was so upset, and it just seemed that every different train of thought I started became negative. I was just angry about everything, and wanted to complain about everything in my life. Some random thought made me think of Jonah and how he disobeys God and complains to God about everything in his life. I can really relate to Jonah. Kinda sad, but it might be one of the characters in the bible that I am the most like. (I took a personality test once that told me that one of the people in the bible with my personality is Jonah, but that's a different story) Anyway, it made me think about how things are hard, and I don't necessarily WANT to be where God wants me to be because it's pretty painful; I mean for Jonah, the path that took him to prophesy to Ninevah could have been really hard, and maybe that's the reason he decided not to do it (probably isn't, but could have been). I guess it's pretty obvious what the right conclusion to that train of thought is, but sometimes it's really hard to convince yourself that where God wants you is the place you need to be even though it sucks. I prayed and asked God to help me to believe it, and help me to change the way I was seeing things.

It's amazing how my thoughts changed after that. I thought about how yesterday I feel like I was refreshed a little, getting a glimpse of God again after not really seeing Him for a while. I wanted to put more effort into making some changes in my life and aligning my life to be more like Jesus. I remembered how often opposition comes right after revelation, that these hard things may have been there to test my faith in the things God has been revealing to me. I also was able to remember God's amazing love for me, how He cares about the things going on in my life, so it's not like I really have to worry about where He puts me, because "He works everything out for the good of those who love Him and who are called by His purpose." It was really nice to walk in the park too. It's a pretty park, the wind was blowing (I love the wind) and I just felt at peace. Sigh. Thanks God.

I was thinking about something else today too. I was thinking about the people I hang out with, and have realized a trend. I have always seen either a group of all Christians or mostly Christians with one or two non-Christians, or a group where I'm pretty much the only Christian. I guess in all my experience this has been the case, not only the groups I hang out with, but also in groups my friends have described to me. I don't like either of these situations. In the first, there's always this tendency for Christians to be exclusive and get into the Christian culture and make other people feel uncomfortable. But in the other situation, I often feel like if I make decisions based on what I am convicted to do, people see me as thinking I'm too good for them. I don't have accountability and fellowship in those groups at all. Hmm, I guess it's pretty much just the tendency of Christians to hang out with Christians, and non-Christians to hang out with non-Christians, and the fact that no one really wants to mix. Often when a Christian mixes with a group of non-Christians, he tends to compromise a lot of his beliefs. It's interesting to think about. I love Christian people, and I love non-Christian people, I love hanging out with everybody. I don't really know why it has to be so difficult. I guess I don't have much more to share on this topic. I don't have too many clear answers. Just thought I'd throw it out there cuz I was thinking about it.

weekend

Okay, so I didn't take any pictures. I was not very motivated to because I left my camera in the van from the start of the trip because there was too much stuff to unload. It was pretty fun though. It wasn't the "getting away to nature" kind of trip I was expecting. You have to laugh at the southern california nature in comparison to most other places (I miss colorado and hawaii!). We couldn't swim in the lake because they used it as a drinking water source or something and so we couldn't pollute it although they didn't really regulate the kinds of boats going in it. Anyway, it was really hot, and overall an "okay" camping trip. One really cool thing though was that the stars were great. I couldn't even tell where the big dipper was cuz there were so many stars that I wouldn't normally see. It was beautiful! It made me really thankful, although at the time, the people I was walking with were trying to freak each other out and it was a little distracting.

Anyway, we got back today and I went to the first alumni bible study. It was awesome! There were only 4 people there, me, Rosey, Jon, and James. We studied Luke 7:24-35. I don't think I've ever studied that passage inductively before. I feel like it made me think about really cool things that I haven't thought about in a long time. Strange, but it feels like it's been forever since I really thought about grace. Such a fundamental idea in the Christian life, but when I thought about it again, it surprised me and seemed really new to me that our place in the kingdom of God has nothing to do with us, but only to do with the grace we're given from God. Then God showed me something really applicable to my life right now in his metaphor about the people of this generation. "They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep." -Luke 7:32. Jesus emphasizes the importance of rejoicing with others when they rejoice and mourning with others when they mourn. I thought about the way I've been feeling about
people lately (like what I posted on my last blog entry), and I definitely haven't been so sympathetic. I think especially about the mourning when others mourn thing. People have
People have been talking to me a lot lately about relationships they feel negatively about, that they're not happy about the way things are going. Whenever I hear them talk about that, it just makes me think of all the relationships in my life that I feel really crappy about.There are way too many, and it makes me sad, but I think for the wrong reasons. So I think I have been running away from those people, even though that's like the opposite of compassion. We talked in the bible study about how to deal with that, and we came to the conclusion that we need to be at a place where we've come to terms with the hard stuff that's going on in our lives, so that we are able to help others. Not that it's going away anytime soon, but we can't just keep pushing all that stuff on the side and not deal with it. At least we need to come to a place where we have a peace that God can and will take care of it. So I'm going to try to apply it, and not run away from the hard stuff.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good after that. God's really good about showing you what you need to know when you need to know it :).

tired

Today was really draining. I'm not quite sure why. I just got hit with this extreme fatigue tonight. Sigh . . . I opened a bank account this morning and was hit with the fact that I don't know where I'll be living in about a month and a half. My parents don't give me much room to forget that fact too. So I stepped up the job hunting today and applied for 8 more on monstertrak. Hopefully I'll find something soon. But when I was finally filling out the paperwork to get paid today at my temporary job, Karl (the office manager) was saying that if I'm still here in 3 months, he'll have to do something about insurance. They don't seem in a hurry to get rid of me. Although the situation is a little hectic, especially with the traffic, it seems like it's a place for me to be right now. I also realized this morning that I haven't really been giving things over to God. I've been letting them get me frustrated, but not really asking God about them. I tried today. I feel like I'm not sure again what it means to give something over to God, but that usually happens when you're trying to do that. We'll see what happens :).

I just feel kinda overwhelmed today, and I really don't understand why. It's not like I'm doing very much, but I have no energy to do stuff or talk to people, and I just feel like people only have negative things to talk about. People like to talk about what they see wrong with their lives and what they need. I guess my blog entry is mostly like that right now (funny huh?). I don't think it's bad in general. I think that we need to talk about the things we're not satisfied with, but I'm feeling like I need to be more thankful for stuff. When you're thankful, everything seems better.

So anyway, tomorrow I'm going to korean aerobics (bright and early) and run some errands, pack, then off camping. I don't know where we're going camping or really who we're going camping with (except Sharon and Ed and that the rest of them are from anime expo). It should be good though. I'm looking forward to some time with nature, taking in God's beauty. We are gonna get to go fishing! I also got the EIT review manual in the mail today, so we're taking that camping with us :). I'll try to take some pictures so I can share with everyone when I get back :).

stuff

Things have been confusing lately. I feel like I'm not doing enough and feeling like I'm doing too much at the same time. I've expressed this to a few people already. Today, I took some time to pray and read the bible. Usually times like that at least help me feel refreshed or more at peace, and somehow, I didn't really feel like I got anything out of it. It was awesome to get to pray for a lot of people more in-depth than I usually do, but as far as the unsettled feeling, it's still kinda there. On the other hand, after the time praying, it was easier to make a decision about what I was going to do today than it was before. I was stressed out about what I was going to do today cuz I thought I had a lot to do, but I decided that I didn't really. So today I decided to make dinner for Sharon's family. They've been so nice to me while I've been here that's why. So Sharon and I made tempura and beef donburi. It actually turned out really well. Tempura is a pain in the butt to cook though. Then we watched a movie, "Riding in Cars with Boys". It was really good. I was surprised because I thought it was going to be a crappy drama, but it's a really well made movie. Ed was over and being a trouble-maker(I told him I'd mention him in the blog, I might eventually write a profile about him), but it was still a good night.

Anyway, I guess what I'm wanting right now is just a little more ability to see God. I feel like when I was in Colorado, I didn't feel like I had these great personal interaction times with God, but I could see God so clearly in my life, in the ways things all turned out. I just feel like now I'm out of touch somehow, and I want things to mean more to me than they do. I've also only been back 2 weeks, and I always worry too much or become confused about things that aren't supposed to make me confused (i ALWAYS do this).

Lisa a.k.a. "W'all shington beauty" (hahahahaha . . . the nickname is all Dave's fault)

So, I got 2 more to go, and now it's Lisa's turn. Sorry it's taking me so long guys. I guess I'm getting slower and slower. I don't have the motivation that I did before, so you guys should get on my case more :).

Lisa's from Seattle, or around there somewhere and goes to UW along with 30 million other people. Okay, I'm exaggerating. She's another architecture major. We had too much of those this summer :). She's the only other intern from the "west side" (hahaha). Anyway, Lisa's really awesome. Because UW is on the quarter system, she came 2 weeks later than everyone else. She got here like one day before she had to leave for Honduras. She was feeling really sick that day too. She's a real trooper. I think that's something I really liked about her, it seemed like no matter what she was going through, she was able to take what was coming with a firm faith that God was going to get her through, and not only get her through, but bless her. She was often really excited about doing things and you'd never hear her complain.

Lisa also has an amazing faith. She loves to read and study the Bible. She works really hard to understand scripture deeply. It seems we had a lot of really deep thinkers among our intern group this summer. She also reads a lot of Christian literature. She reads so quickly, she pretty much inhales books. I love that. I wish I could do that. She also has a pretty healthy level of submission to authority. I think I lack that sometimes, and tend to have a rebellious streak because I really like to understand why I believe what I believe and why I am doing what I'm doing. She is good at submitting to authority, I think especially the authority of God.

Another thing about Lisa is that I think that she's a true introvert. She is very good about making sure she gets her alone time, whereas me and Jenni weren't so good about that :). It was good though because she encouraged(or forced) us to take breaks and spend some time with God. She has told me before that she is often bad about sharing things with other people, and that her relationships tend to be ones where other people share a lot with her and she listens and helps them, but she often doesn't share too much. Lisa is a really amazing listener though. She was really there for me when I was going through a lot of hard stuff this summer. She was always there to listen and support me. She left me a post-it note on my computer screen with a nice note and scripture. The verses were perfect for me too. I still have the post-it :). She would also send me "romantic" emails :) when I was saying I needed more romance in my life, and while Jenni called me "babe", Lisa called me "sweetie". It was really nice.

Let's not get the wrong idea here. Lisa has a boyfriend named Ben. It's kinda cool because Ben got an internship in Colorado Springs with Overseas International (is that right?) for the month of August, so he came down and we got to hang out with him a bunch too. This is a picture of Ben and Lisa. Something that was a little rough on me though was that they both liked puns waaaaaaaaay too much. Ben was a lot worse than Lisa, but she was pretty bad too. For being quiet and introverted, she had an extremely weird side too. I don't know how to explain it, but Lisa could get hyper and act pretty crazy. She also started using the contraction "w'all". I think it came from our teasing Dave about his southern accent and his saying "y'all", that she started using "w'all" to mean "we all". She'd send emails to all the interns asking "What're w'all doing tonight?" Although she did want breaks in our schedule, Lisa was good at planning our calendar. She'd bring "the list" (all the stuff we wanted to do this summer) to my desk, and we'd plan out weeks. It didnt' work so well, but she's a lot better at it than I am, so I think I was the weak link there.

Lisa was a great friend to me this summer. I hope that we will be able to keep in touch. She inspired me to seek strongly after God and not to compromise on your commitments to Him. She touched me through her encouragement and quiet faith, but also her ability to be excited and have fun.

bible study

Yesterday I went to Sharon's church and she had to help out at the youth service after the service we went to so she told me to go to the english ministry bible study and she would meet me after. The bible study was really good. It was about failure and we studied Luke 22:24-34 and 54-62. I don't ever remember reading that passage. I must have, but hmm.

So the thing that really struck me was that Jesus knew that Peter was going to betray him, and it was like he was saying "you're going to fail me, but after that, when you're restored, strengthen your brothers." (vs. 32). There's so much grace in that. Jesus doesn't take failure as seriously as we do sometimes it seems. He was going to restore Peter again and have faith in him and give him responsibility in His kingdom. I think Jesus sees failure more as an opportunity to learn and grow than some kind of dead end, which is how we see it at times. Gotta love how God can be in control even in the midst of our many failures.

keeping in touch

Today was kinda cool. I vowed to take a day off from driving because in just 4 days, I have gotten completely sick of LA traffic. So most of today was spent indoors and on the phone :). It was a nice keeping in touch day. I got to talk to Brian for a while, and then Brian's mom. Then I called Adam and Ivan. It was really good to talk to them and kinda weird at the same time because it's wei I finished my blog entry about Matthew. I think that was good, it helped me remember good times from the summer. Ho-Jun also called me to tell me he started taking Lindy lessons. Haha, look what I started :). I got to talk to Trudy (who is now engaged by the way), Brad (who's army unit is activated and will be going to Iraq in October), and Joel (who will hopefully be a CPA in 3 years). It's so crazy. So much keeping in touch today. It's good to see that there are so many people that I have known and cared about, and still care about. Praise God for them! But maybe tomorrow I'll make a vow to take a day off from using the phone :).

I also played some internet spades with Sharon. She finally said I was good enough to play rated games with her, so yeah, and we won our first three rated games, yay!

Tonight, Sharon's aunt, uncle, and cousin came over for dinner and we had Kal bi and lots of amazing korean side dishes. Man, I love korean food. I gotta start being more disciplined about the running though if I'm gonna keep eating so well :).

Overall, today was a good day, it reminded me of God's provision, His infinite love for me, and how He'll always give me exactly what I need. In the midst of things being really unsettled, I can know that everything will turn out great :). Thank you Jesus!

Matthew a.k.a. "M-dogg"

Wow, hmm, it seems like there's so much to write about Matthew and I don't know where to start. Matthew said that he was afraid to read what I'm going to write about him. I think he has something to be afraid of ;). One thing that struck me about Matthew right away was his insistence on being called Matthew. I have known a lot of Matthews in the past, and they've all gone by Matt, but not this one . . .

He's a really quiet guy. I guess people that know me well know that I tend to hang around quiet people (you can make your own guesses at why that is). Anyway, so Matthew's a pretty interesting person. He's really quiet, but when he gets to know you better, he's really quick to mock anything and everything you do. I'm not joking, Matthew is relentless with his "one-liners" as Dave calls them. I think that's one reason I got along with Matthew so well, we both love to mock things and people :). He's also a really good sport. Although he didn't let me teach him how to dance, he'll sing "Livin' La Vida Loca" at karaoke if you sign him up for it :). I wonder who did that . . . :)

Matthew's definitely an architect. He's such a perfectionist, his desk always has to be neat, he tends to be very punctual, he has to have everything prepared waaaaaaay ahead of time. We helped him to grow in patience this summer as we always seemed to take forever to decide what to do or even once we decided, we'd take forever to get all of us there. He has commented on his annoyance at this several times.

Matthew is also from Rhode Island. I still don't really understand why this is so funny, but oh well. Oh yeah, I remember, so he once told me this saying they say in Rhode Island: "I'm Rhode Island born and Rhode Island bred, and when I die, I'll be Rhode Island dead." Did I get it right, Matthew? :) Once when stopped at a stoplight, the guydriving behind him stopped, got out of his car, and took a picture of Matthew's License plate cuz I guess he hadn't seen a Rhode Island license plate before. Matthew says that most people in Rhode Island get their initials on their license plates because it's so small.

Matthew also loves sappy romantic comedies. He likes to say that he likes "chick flicks". He insisted that we had to go see "The Princess Diaries 2". They went to see it a couple days after I left Colorado. I can't decide yet if I'm glad that I missed it or not. He also likes country music. I still don't really understand his tie to country music, but yeah, it's like the only thing he listens to in his car. Because of the times I rode in his car, I got a lot more exposure to country this summer. I found myself listening to a country radio station on my way home from work today :). You were such a good influence on me, Matthew.

Okay, I have to start writing good things about Matthew now :). I just thought I'd get my mocking in, hmm, I'm sure there's a lot more bad things to write though . . . :)

So, seriously, something that really struck me about Matthew was his ability to reflect on situations and see the themes and lessons to take away from it. I think that it's because he thinks a lot, but doesn't always share what he's thinking. Then, when he has things more figured out and put together, he shares and blows everyone away. I used to think that when people were quiet, they didn't have much going on, and so, not much to say, but I know that's not true, and definitely not true with Matthew. I've been so blessed by the times that he's shared stuff (in speeches or just one-on-one).

He's really good at writing speeches, scrapbooking, and making movies of his experiences and think that his ability to see what God has done through those experiences really shows through those things. He helped me write my sharing about Honduras talk. I didn't get to hear him give his closing speech, but I got to read it before I left (seeing as he finished it a week ahead of time). It was really awesome, and it made me want to cry. I've also had the opportunity to make scrapbook pages with Matthew and marvel at his mastery at scrapbooking, as well as see him piece together a movie about his summer in a couple hours. He's amazing! (Sorry Jenni, don't worry, you're amazing too!) I guess another thing comes to mind when I think about that. Matthew is really artsy (well, not weird artsy, but surprisingly so for a guy). He appreciates pretty things, and knows what pretty things are. I really admire that. Here's a picture of the watermelon in which Matthew carved the state of Illinois for Jenni and Ho-Jun's last night. Notice the star indicating where Champaigne is. That really blew me away.

Matthew also has one of the greatest smiles ever. It's one of those contagious smiles. I don't think I ever told him that, but yeah. When I was feeling a little down sometimes, I'd be talking to him, and he never really knows what to say (because he's so quiet), but his smile would always make me want to smile too. So yeah, I really miss you, Matthew. I think I could use some of those smiles right now :).

So, I think that's it. One thing that's great is that I know Matthew will keep in touch. He's good about that, so even in writing this, I don't feel like it's really saying goodbye. I'll be praying for you, Matthew. Make sure you have some fun over there in Rhode Island, we won't be around to make sure you have lots of fun stuff to do ;).

life in so-cal

Sigh, so I'm back in southern california . . . yipee. I mean I'm not that sad about it, there are great things about being here: you can get almost every kind of food you'd want to eat (including hawaiian), there's great diversity (it's awesome to see such a mix of people), it's close to the ocean (although the beaches kinda suck), you're 45 minutes from pretty much anything, and lots of my friends are here. Okay, so it's sounding better. I also get to go swing dancing at a real swing club on thursday night. Hooray!!! Okay, I think I cheered myself up about being here even after driving through the LA smog and traffic.

Okay, on to other news, I need a name for my car. I came to the conclusion that it's too cute to have a boy's name, so that limits the options, but if you have any suggestions, you can comment or you can email me at iwannadance12345@yahoo.com.

Oh, I'm really proud of myself. The other night, I really wanted to put links in my blog, so what I did was looked at the html code that makes up my template and found where those other sidebar things are and added some code that made me a little Links section. Hey Brian, aren't you proud of me too? :) I still have to figure out how to make line breaks so I can put other links in it.

Started a job today. That whole thing is a little more complicated so I'm not going to write too much about that here. The people there are really nice though, and the first day was a good experience overall.

I guess that's some kind of update. Please help me out with some car name suggestions! :)

Dave "that movie was life changing" (that's a quote not a nickname)

Here we go Dave. Sorry it took so long, it seems settling in takes a little time. I'm still not very settled in seeing as I have to move again tomorrow. Anyway, I really want to continue writing about the rest of the interns, and it's Dave's turn. Dave left Colorado Springs the same day as I did so he's the next in line.

Dave's from Virginia. You wouldn't think that's a very important fact about him, but it IS important. So important in fact that he doesn't let you forget it. Dave is very proud of the state of Virginia and finds some way to say that it is better than anywhere else he has been. That's also amazing because he's been all over the world. His parents are both in the military so Dave has traveled a lot. Dave has a southern accent that he wants to get rid of because he thinks that there is a stereotype that people with southern accents are dumb. He's not so dumb though.

Dave just graduated from the University of Virginia (another place he's very proud of) in structural engineering. He is one of the 3 interns who have graduated. He will be joining the naval civil engineer corps in the spring. It was really cool having another structural engineering intern in the office. I could go bug him at his desk and talk to him about concrete and loading and fun things like that. It's kinda sad because I didn't get to spend that much time with Dave. He didn't come out with us too often. I wish I had gotten to know him better.

The thing that I liked most about Dave was that he is a really honest person. He isn't afraid to say no to someone, share how he feels about something, or tell it like it is even though it's not always something that people want to hear. I admire his straightforwardness. Dave became a Christian not too long ago. His family is traditionally Catholic and most of his best friends aren't Christian. He has had to struggle with not having much Christian community among the people closest to him. He is still struggling trying to figure out how to be a good witness to them. Dave is also trying to figure out what kind of church he wants to belong to (like me). He really wants to be able to reconcile his faith with the Catholic tradition he has grown up with, and wants to be a witness there as well. He knows he has a lot more to learn, and is very eager to learn things. He has a loves to study the bible in-depth, to think very deeply and critically about it. I also love that about him, that desire for wisdom and answers to deep questions.

Dave also loves extreme things. He has done marathons, other crazy races, and is very disciplined in his exercising. He wants to get to the top of each of the Seven Summits, the tallest peaks on the 7 continents. He's crazy but I believe he'll do it. Go Davey!

last day at eMi

hmm, today was my last day at eMi. It feels very strange making such a big change. I still haven't said most of my goodbyes because I'm going to hang out with the interns tonight and tomorrow they'll all see me off at the Omelette Parlor (it's half price on omelettes before 7 am).

We all went to play shuffleboard today at lunch and Will beat me 83-71. It was an awesome game though, a nail-biter. Then Will bought me a double gulp from 7-11. It is a very LARGE drink (1.9 liters). He thought it would look funny with little me drinking such a big drink (it's about 2 times the size of my head). I didn't even finish half of it.

I also got to take a nice walk with Danna for our last mentoring time and she prayed for me. I'm gonna miss her a lot. She's been an awesome mentor. Don't have much time to write. Jon's waiting for me so we can leave the office for the last time. I probably won't post for a little while, but I gotta remember to get profiles of the other interns up.

Thanks eMi, it's been fun!

comments

hey, i figured out how to let anyone post comments even if you're not a blogger user. Yay! So yeah, now it should work.

Adam a.k.a. "White Lightning"

Today was Adam's last day, and it's a good thing that we had a good talk last night about it being time to leave and saying goodbye and all that because this goodbye stung.

I guess the first thing to say about Adam is that he's a really caring, considerate guy. Adam was the first to respond to me when I first emailed the whole group of interns a couple months before coming here. When I had said that I had never been to Colorado before and I was worried about the weather, he assured me that I'd think it was beautiful, and I'd be okay. He also said he'd be praying for me. Even though I didn't know anything about Colorado or anyone here, I felt better about coming here knowing that Adam would be here. Then Adam was put on my project trip team. Last night he asked me if I thought there was a reason that we were placed on the teams that we went with. He was asking himself, "why Ho-Jun and Michelle?" I don't quite have an answer for you there Adam. But I can think of a lot of reasons though why God put Adam and Ho-Jun in my life and gave me that opportunity to get to know them better. Adam is also the kind of guy that when he drops you off at night, waits till you get into the house before he leaves. Me and Jenni were talking about that and we think it's awesome! This one night, Adam was dropping me off. The outside light wasn't on and I couldn't find the keyhole, so it took me like almost 5 minutes to get into the house. Adam waited, and he yelled to me to see if I was okay. Wow.

Adam's a really outdoorsy guy ;) (don't worry Adam, I'm not calling you cute). He loves backpacking (even in freezing cold weather), fly-fishing, hmm, pretty much everything outdoorsy. He has his own $100 water filter to filter water from streams when he's backpacking. He's a really good guy to have around if you're going camping, because it seems like he always knows what to do.

Another thing that I love about Adam is that he's up for anything. There are too many instances of this to really describe how it's true. Dancing, singing, dressing up, games, eating different foods. He's such a great sport. He danced with me a lot this summer too, and dancing with Adam is always a blast. He's got the waltz down and is catching on to Lindy. He also has this way of singing, where it's like he's not quite in the right key or melody, but it still sounds like the song. It's impossible to sing along with him though ;).

Adam's also very silly. He says the randomest things and tells the cornyest jokes. His expressions are often very exaggerated and it seems like he's always full of energy. The best way I think that I can describe his personality is when I say to someone "take it easy", I would mean "act like Adam". He's hilarious (I probably say that about everyone, but I really think that Adam's hilarious).

Adam has an incredible faith. I'm really inspired by it. It always seems like Adam has no worries, but it's because he trusts God with his life, with everything that is happening and will happen to him. Adam loves seeking after God, and intentionally makes time to listen, pray, and reflect. He can just sit for hours journaling about the things that God is doing in his life and the things he's experiencing. I am surprised because he's so silly that I wouldn't think that he would ponder things so deeply, but sometimes he'll just ask a really deep question and catch everyone off guard. He's the type of person that fills his life with things that remind him of God. Oftentimes when someone fills their lives with things that remind them of God, everything starts reminding them of God. That's what I see in Adam. He just lets everything take him back to God.

Oh, and he gave himself the nickname "White Lightning" while playing ping pong with me. Adam, you're great. Remember that we need to plan our intern reunion!

kinda quiet

I think today's the first day that it's really setting in that everyone's leaving. The office is so quiet (what I expected with Jenni gone :). Today, I was asking around at what everyone was doing for lunch. We had usually gone to the park every day to eat, but out of the 4 interns that were in the office today, 2 of them had mentoring lunches and Lisa wanted to go to the bank. I ended up eating at my desk and catching up on random information on the internet (Jon's cool India pictures, Jordy's blog).

I decided to look at George Bush and John Kerry's political agendas so that I could be a more inforned voter. I still don't know how that's going to work out (california or hawaii residency) but I want to vote this year. Not that I know anything or could make a good decision about stuff like this (remember when I voted for Nader freshman year? Everyone made fun of me). I don't ever really agree with anyone, so how am I supposed to make a decision on who to vote for? We'll see.

I was also reading "The Healing Path" some and was surprised to see that it was talking about being American Christians in a way that didn't piss me off. Yay! Sorry that I'm skipping around so much, but to me thinking about Christian America is directly related to thinking about American government. I don't really know what it means to be a Christian in America, and am constantly struggling with that. I still struggle with being in Colorado Springs and hearing so often the view that America is always right. Anyway, the book says:

"There is a shrill, chest-pounding demand among some that we must return to a "Christian America." The stridency and self-righteousness often associated with those views only seem to kindle a more intense "secular" response of disdain that insists Christianity return to the margins. The defensive world says, "Don'e impose your views on me." The angry church clamors back, "You are not only imposing your godless philosophies on me through the public schools and the media, but you are taking my freedoms away." The result is an intractable debate that further serves to divide and distract the church from living the gospel. What exactly are some Christians calling society to return to? No monolithic, singular Christian viewpoint has ever structured our society; pluralism has been the United States' foundation since its inception. And even if there once was a culture we associate with a more civilized, uniform, and predictable era, it is no more possible to restore that consensus than to click our ruby heels and suddenly return to Kansas. Instead our important task is to engage our culture."

It says more, but it's easier to end there. I gotta get back to work. I'm trying not to be frustrated about work here. Funny, but a lot of it feels meaningless too. I thought I came here to do work that would do something for God's kingdom. I haven't felt that way. I went to Honduras and saw the needs of the deaf community there, and was struck by God's love for them, and His desire to help them, so I was excited about helping with the project. It seems though that that project is a little stuck because the architect hasn't been in touch, and I don't know if I'll get any work done on it before I leave. Maybe I just have a bad attitude today, but it seems like people in the office just want interns around so that they can do busywork to make things look nice. I think people care too much about things looking nice.

cowboy weekend

This last weekend was lots of fun. It was kinda sad though because Ho-Jun and Jenni left, then Will went to the Carolinas for a wedding and to talk to his girlfriend's dad about marrying her (go Will!), Dave went to California to visit a friend, and Lisa's family was in town so she was hanging out with them. Only Matthew, Adam, and I were left.

Peter, Adam's roomie just got a new job scheduling worship at the world prayer center. It's quite a change from his engineering job. He starts on wednesday. Because of that, his friends decided to throw him a cowboy themed karaoke party. Peter really wants to be a cowboy, but he thinks that the only way he could be one is to marry into a ranching family or something. Who knows? :) Anyway, so on saturday (after I saw Jenni off at 5 in the morning) we went shopping for costumes to wear to the party. It was a lot of fun! I ended up getting a good deal on pants at Target, but that's a different story. It was kinda stressful to try to figure out what would make me look like a cowgirl. I don't know that there are many asian cowgirls out there. We realized it's all about accesories, and it was mostly the hat. I ended up just buying a hat at WalMart (boo), and I found a cool shirt (actually Matthew found it for me) at the Western Warehouse (it wasn't really a cowgirl shirt, but it was nice, cheap, and I'd wear it again). Then we went back to Peter's and dressed up. Matthew made Adam this aluminum foil belt buckle that said "1975 Rodeo Champ" on it. It was huge. I have a picture of Adam with his belt buckle, but it's blurry.

(By the way, Brian just gave me webspace to post pictures now so I don't have to deal with stupid buzznet.com that only lets me post 10 pictures a day. If you want to look at that gallery, it s at http://zakarov.suitejesus.com/friends/gallery/mich/ although most of the pictures will be linked to on the blog (but not all))

Anyway, after dressing up, we decided to go to a Japanese restaurant. Peter says it's the best Japanese restaurant in Colorado Springs. It was pretty good. It was the first time in a long time that I've had japanese food. Hooray for sushi! Peter paid for the meal . . . did I mention that Peter is awesome? We then headed for the party. It's kinda sad because Jenni left and she would take tons of pictures with her digital camera, and Matthew got sand in his at the sand dunes, so all the picture-taking was left to me. I didn't do such a great job, but at least we have some. Here are Matthew, Adam, and I at the party. I didn't sing much country (I don't know too much country), but Adam and I decided to dance to every song. It was so much fun. I got to polka, waltz, Lindy, and just do whatever. Here's a picture of Matthew and Adam being weird (I love that picture, It sort of captures how strange Adam can be at times). Here's a picture of me and Matthew. Jeni (a different one), she's Lisa's roomie for the summer, she has a karaoke business, so she DJ'd for the event. She's awesome. She also DJ'd for our other karaoke party last week.

Let's see, what else? Oh, so after the party, we decided to watch the movie, "The Man from Snowy River". It was a cowboy movie. It was interesting, not bad for a movie that was made in 1982, although the special effects were a little iffy.

On sunday, I went to New Life church with Adam. The service was pretty interesting because they were between studying two books of the bible, instead of a sermon, the pastor went over questions that people in the congregation have asked him and tried to answer them. There were questions about the nation of Israel, the rapture, women teaching, speaking in tongues. I mean, so many controversial Christian topics. I was a little overwhelmed after listening to that. I liked some things the pastor had to say, and disagreed with others. It was good because it challenged me to think about those things. I usually don't.

After church, Matthew and I decided to put together the scrapbook pages that Danna had allotted us in her scrapbook. She only gave us 2 pages, can you believe that? So, we put some of our pictures on a CD and took it to Walgreens to get them printed. I love crafts, but I have never done a scrapbook before. It was okay though, because Matthew has scrapbook experience :). We went to Peter's to do the scrapbook so Adam could "help". It was really fun! I have pictures of the finished product, but they're kinda bad because they're a little blurry and the flash leaves bad reflections on the pictures. Here's the first page, and here's the second page.

Then we decided to watch another movie. Matthew and I went to Blockbuster, and after being there for over half an hour, decide to get "The Muppet Movie". I think that was my fault. We went back to Peter's and found out that "The Muppet Movie" is horrible. Peter had the movie, "The Horse Whisperer" (another cowboy movie), so we decided to watch that instead. We must have put in the movie at like 10 pm, not realizing that it's 2 and a half hours long. I really liked the movie, although I'm a little bit tired today. Oh well, I only have another week and a half in the springs, so I gotta make use of the time I have left. Adam's also leaving this friday . . . more goodbyes. Sigh. Anyway, that's the end of my cowboy weekend. I learned that cowboys are pretty cool and I can understand the "Cowboy Take me Away" song by the Dixie Chicks now :). Although, when we went to Cowboys, the night club, no one was very friendly there. So maybe I don't like cowboys as much as I think I do. Hmm, I'm confused, though I really want to go horseback riding now :).