Aha, another chance to look at my day in retrospect, to judge my actions and critique my life, and last but not the least, spread some more poetry. I went to class this morning after a long internal debate. It was pretty useful so i was glad i went. I did some work in the afternoon but did very little work in the evening cos i gave in to temptation and played warcraft and watched "West Wing". I hope it does not happen again. Went to Bible study. The passage was kind of long so I had a lot to say but no time to say it. So frustrating, I wish there was a bible club i could join where people could afford to go deep into the bible and be controversial. Oh yes, i know where i can find that; Catalina. Hippee. Cant wait to get there. I have been feeling quite mischevious today. My roomate has had to take the brunt of my mood. I played 2 tricks on him and a trick on another. I spoke to my brother today who urged me to call my parents more. I am terrible when it comes to keeping in touch with people i cant see. I guess i am more of "out of sight, out of mind person". We took Staff photos for the freshman facebook today. My dorm did the 'Seven deadly sins', I portrayed wrath. I really hope i dont scare my freshmen away. I might have to damage control the first week. Below is one my favorite poems. "The river merchant's wife" by Li Po. It was translated by Ezra Pound.

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

I wasted the whole day. I did absolutely no work today. I spent all the time playing games and hanging out. But I don’t feel bad about it at all. I guess I probably needed a weekend like this. I would probably regret this during the week but as at now I feel good. Church was pretty good. Its amazing how many people come to Christ at Abundant life. Toda, pastor Paul spoke about which direction he wants the church to go and how we should give more money to support the church. Even though it was not an evangelical message, about 5 people came to Christ. I truly believe that this church is blessed. If I leave the bay area, I think I will miss that more than anything. I found Pastor Zac Poonen’s website and I am listening to his sermons on Genesis right now. I really like Pastor Zac, almost more than Pastor Paul. Spoke to my sister and a friend about relationships earlier. They are so confusing, relationships I mean. Especially when you want a relationship, there is nothing more confusing than that. If it was not hardwired into our DNA, I think we would all give up on relationships. But as Kahlil Gibran said, sorrow and happiness are different sides of the same coin. Without the difficulties in relationships, we might not cherish them as much as they need to be. I think I will end here and go to bed. I don’t want to feel wretched tomorrow morning. Let me end with a haiku

Freedom, a mirror
For in it is where we see
Who we truly are

Woke up too early this morning. It was like 9;25am which was a good 20 minutes before my usual wake up time. Too make things worse, Ryan decisively won the Catan game i organized (he sitting next to me and made me write this). No one apart from me seemed to realise how dangerous he was (except for Greg). Well he won and thats that, but lets say, its not gonna happen again. Ryan and the other guys are trying to convince me to play for money in catan, but I dont think its gonna happen, unless its an official catan tournament where you have to win more than one game. I found some poetry that i wrote last year, brought back some good memories. In keeping with tradition, i will post one of the poems which i titled the busy bee.

The busy bee finds a flower
Red, embroided, a lover's gift
He doves for the nectar.
Sweet and nutritious
His motions, disturbs the pollen
they fall, unto the stigma
Life continues

The busy bee find his home
he does a dance
He goes in, makes his food
Honey, sweet and rich
Saves it for harder times
the sweet honey, attacts a bear
it eats, satisfied

Nature is beautiful
But ever stopped to ask?
Why the bear takes the honey?
It did not make it
Did not pay for it
But the bee can't complain much
maybe a sting or two
Just that, makes more honey.

Man i feel terrible. I have this flu for 3 days now and it doesn't seem like it wants to go away. It all started friday night when i went to see Troy. I guess it was because i had a hard week and the stress probably supressed my immune system. All the heavy physical activities i did on saturday didn't help either. Talking about saturday, that was a good day. Woke up on the wrong side of bed at 8:30 and got to dig up a sand box. Now the last time i did something like this was in high school when we woke up early on certain saturday mornings to do community service projects. The similarity was uncanny and took me to the land of nostalgia. I played soccer in the afternoon which we won despite the fact that we had no subs. Playing the whole game was definetely bad for me, so i struggled back to my room and promptly collapsed into bed. I woke up for church this morning but i chose to be in bad mood the whole day(I did wake up in the evening and eat some food before going to bed at 12). It was kind of fun, i have not been so negative in a long while. The best part was i could blame it all on the flu. I do plan on going to see 50 first dates tonight with Ashni and maybe John, and then collapsing into bed. I will go to Vaden tomorrow. I will end with a quote from 'The prophet: On work'

"And I say that Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is in vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love, you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God."

I was going to end here but i feel its better if i had some more

"And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn for your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a houe with affection,
even as if your bleoved were to dwell in thta house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the furit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching."

Kahlil Gibran

Thank God for his redeeming mercy and faithfulness. Today, i heard an awesome talk at IV. Great message. I guess it made me realise that in a lot of ways I was too image concious, especially concerning my faith. I realised that I was too concerned about doing the right thing or the christian thing so as not to cause others to question my faith. This limited the freedom that i had in Christ and also made me defensive about Christianity. Today's message made me realise that it was ok to be a "foolish Christian". I decided to stop shaping my behavior and trust God to do that. So if you see me behaving wierder than usual, no that i am just being myself and not holding back. I must say that if feels great to be free. I am so excited about RAing next year. I will go beserk. Yay for Cardenal. I will end with a quote from the "Prophet"(my favorite poem) by Kahlil Gibran.

"But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears."