overseas

Being here challenges me that everyday, I am a disciple of His and must not bow down to the ways of this world (both flesh and spiritual). It’s often in the small things that are most difficult… passing by spirit houses on the way to university, talking with students that have no idea whatsoever of a creator, sundays being counted as sacred only on Walk Street Bazaar. The long-term team here is amazing — one family, one couple, and three others that form an international team held in the grips of His grace on a daily basis. The love, hospitality and compassion they have for us and the students are simply mindblowing.

An unreached people group is not simply a group that has no access to the gospel… it’s a group where there are no people who know their language and culture and whom are there to speak it with them. It still doesn’t feel like I’m on m-, just that I am here… living, breathing, being, learning Thai, language, culture, Eastern… Jesus looked at the crowd and had compassion. I am praying I can do the same.

I constantly battle fear for the warfare that is here. I love doing this. It’s hard… but it brings me joy.

king

I’m currently at orientation for my trip this summer and in compeletely in awe of what a healer, Lord, provider, and comforter the God I serve and delight in is. See you in two months USA!

said unheard

there are only two more weeks that I’m here, fourteen days, until graduation and until new york city and until chicago and until florida and then thailand and then…. life. the days seem to be flashing before me and i’m not sure what to make of them. it’s like i’m watching a film of my own life — my own calculated responses and words to others, to myself, rising and waking and sleeping. where is there more? 

i used to feel so much more alive and open. free to live and free to let those around me be a part of my life, a part of what could affect me. there was a time when vulnerability and transparency were my favorite words and my automatic response to ‘how are you’s weren’t just ‘i’m good!’ i’m not sure exactly what changed or when it did, maybe the world and its ideals that everything needs to be exactly okay all of the time had something to do with it. a little bit.

//

maybe the key is to blog more. there are too many things said unheard…

currently

If i had a Twitter, I would be currently:

- working on my last problem set for 606

- figuring out email prayer updates for the Edge

- researching thai cuisine & traditional dress

- on blackboard downloading lectures

- writing solar sailing simulation in matlab

- looking up relient k lyrics with itunes open

- checking email — gmail open in background

- in duffield.

 

and who said multitasking was ineffective? :P

lost in a cloud

So I’m sitting here, working on my project for one of the phd level classes i’m taking about alternatives to spacecraft propulsion through solar sailing, and I’m listening to this song about the transfiguration by sufjan stevens and thinking about how good it is that God has come near.

 

the last lyrics of the song:
What he said to them, 
the voice of God: the most beloved son. 
Consider what he says to you, consider what’s to come. 
The prophecy was put to death, 
was put to death, and so will the Son. 
And keep your word, disguise the vision ’till the time has come. 

Lost in the cloud, a voice. Have no fear! We draw near! 
Lost in the cloud, a sign. Son of man! Turn your ear.  

phdizzle

It’s a sad day when I see An Extended Navier-Stokes and the Challenges of Relativistic Fluid Dynamics for Speed of Light Travel on aiaa.org, get excited, understand the proposal, and desire to contribute further to this topic.

Days like these I still wonder what I’m pursuing with my life. As a follower of Christ I believe that my ultimate pursuit is to glorify God and enjoy Him forevermore (WC). Yet what does that mean in a world of careers, ambitions, and goals? How does that translate to someone who is wholeheartedly implanted in the boroughs of Clark Hall where the physicists live? 

Then there’s the further question of being a woman in such fields, with conflicting desires of solving the energy crisis and taking care of (future) children. How do these desires not conflict??

.

Maybe it’s just the thought that I graduate in two months. May seems like a black hole from this view and I’m just sucked in… swoosh… swoosh….. gravity increases… time slows… radiation.. event horizon!!!…

 

._.

pressing on

because i need to hope that God is bigger than this.

 

 

 

ps. I accepted a job (and turned down MIT). but, LA-bound!

abort73

currently spinning — the war, thought i had died.

With President Obama’s rise to office this past month, a festering issue has united Christians non across the nation — abortion. At the Institute of Biblical studies a few weeks ago, several high school students gave an announcement about representatives from abort73 coming to Ithaca. This got me thinking a tad, in light of the election hooplah last fall (i.e. many Christians I know electing to vote for McCain over Obama because a female vp is the ‘lesser evil’ compared to abortion), i.e. single-issue voters.  

I don’t pretend to be copiously knowledgeable about such an issue — don’t get me wrong — I don’t agree with the slaughtering and grotesque procedures women choose to endure on the claims of a constitutional right, but if I am not picketing in front of Washington DC, does this make me less of a Christian? Do I claim to love Christ less because I see equally distrubing injustices in the slums, the homeless shelters, the nations? What good is it for someone so self-righteous to merely wave a finger in my face for not being superbly involved in an issue as this? As if the more times we yell, protest, stomp and judge, can save the wayward of our nation.

For if we could simply stop sin, or convince others to do what we’d like them to on pure wit and reason, what need is there for a Savior whom can change our hearts towards redemption? He is the only hope. Even with abortion.

songlist

I’ve always wanted to do this.. so here goes :D

 

How To Play:
Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first few lines (unless they reveal the song title) from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly. (Or just the song title and the show it’s from.)
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game post your own.

 

 

1. i’m so alive, i’m so enlightened, i can barely survive a night in my mind. i’ve got a plan, i’m gonna find out how boring i am, and have a good time.

2. it’s such a shame to let this go to waste, there’s a little time left here for saving face. we tried to put a bandage on these years, i know this isn’t what you want to hear

3. save yourself, ’cause the only thing that matters is that you get away from the pain and the thought of losing your mind. don’t blame yourself, it was everyone around you who made you act this way, there’s the stage and your chance to watch it go down.

4. o Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made, i see the stars, i hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed

5. the air is visible around you, rising up and off your lips in slow currents, and i watch as your face is framed in its slow currents, drifting curls, a trailing path, a long drag becomes a tress of blue and ash

6. there you go changing my plans again, there you go shifting my sands again, for reasons I don’t understand again, lately I don’t have a clue…

7. i’m gonna spend another night all by myself, like a loser on the outside looking in, no one cares if I disappear and don’t come back, cause the only friends I have are in my head

8. i hope this old train breaks down, then I could take a walk around, and, see what there is to see, and time is just a melody

9. here I am dying to say, i am desperate for your touch, i fall upon this desert ground and i am empty at your feet – will you break me now..

10. i’m keeping quiet till there’re no more sirens, lately it’s hard to keep the hinges on with all the noise, i’ll find my words when there is no one talking, the room is spinning I have got no choice…

11. I was born in Lil’ Rock, Had a childhood sweetheart, We were always hand in hand. I was hightop shoes and shirt tails, Suzy was in pig tails, I know I loved her even then

12. when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll…

13. Somebody said they saw you, the person you were kissing wasn’t me, and I would never ask you, I just kept it to myself, I don’t wanna know if you’re playin’ me, keep it on the low

14. as I survey the ground for ants, looking for a place to sit and read, i’m reminded of the streets of my hometown, how they’re much like this concrete that’s warm beneath my feet 

15. if that’s all you will be, you’ll be a waste of time, you’ve dreamed a thousand dreams, none seem to stick in your mind

16. Wonderful Savior, My heart belongs to Thee, I will remember always the blood You shed for me. Wonderful Savior, my heart will know Your worth, so I will embrace You always as I walk this earth

17. you were there, pulling thorns from your fingers, from all the foolish flowers placed in tender hands. And so I’m here, making sure there is not one left, on this hopeless little rose, I’ve been saving for you..

18. yesterday, is not quite what it could’ve been, as were most of all the days before. but I swear today with every breath I’m breathing in, I’ll be trying to make it so much more

19. God, is bigger than, the air i breathe, the world we’ll leave, God will save the day, and all will say..

20. …and I’m trying to make you sing, from inside where you believe, like it’s something that you need, like it means everything

21. i’m setting the stage for the things I love, and Im now the man I once couldnt be, nothing on earth could now ever move me, I now have the will and the strength a man needs

22. i have called you children, i have called you son. what is there to answer if i’m the only one. morning comes in paradise, morning comes in light, still i must obey still i must invite

23. on a day like this, i wanna crawl beneath a rock, a million miles beneath the noise, the commotion that never seems to stop

24. she has a fear of heights, the way you feel when you’re leaving on your first flight. she’s like a sinking stone, fading from the surface, but we are never alone. she’s on a tightrope, losing balance, yet something’s pulling her towards hope. i want to run to her, but I’ve already played that card…

25. friend, it’s getting late, we should be going. we’ve been sat here beneath these flickering neons for hours while I am cracking their cracking, you are deciphering me, for i am a mystery, I am a locked room in a tall tower..

—-

 

I’ll only do 25 since I need to pack for retreat =) Some of these songs I really like, some I haven’t listened to in decades. Have fun!

mornings

Sophomore year of college, I used to pull an all-nighter almost every week (Two physics problem sets due Friday plus small group late on Thursday night = allnighter!!). Yet, these days when I get less than 6 hours of sleep, the next morning feels like the living dead. 

 

:sighs:

 

Anyway, this coffee press that my dad got me for Christmas is surely going into good use :) Rwandan free-trade coffee never tasted better!