Just to name a few...

Okay. I know. I haven't posted in a REALLY long time.



Well, anyways.... My time has been consumed by school. College is super exciting and also scary. There are so many awesome new people to meet and so many awesome things to learn, think about and discuss. However, for me, I'm still at a place of uncertainty, and I guess that's what makes the whole experience just a little scary. I'm caught between two different paths and very unsure of which way to go. I feel frustrated with myself because I am unable to choose which direction I want to go, and I feel frustrated because I feel sometimes I have to live up to my own expectations and the expectations of others. But I don't want to feel this way anymore. I want to go and just try some new things. I want to honor God through the talents and gifts he has bestowed upon me. I want to continue to grow and mature as a person, to learn to love better, and to be willing to sacrifice my pre-conceived notions in favor of recognizing God's truth. And hopefully, to have some fun along the way.

On a somewhat happier note, here are some things that have made me very happy recently:

I watched this movie last night and was reminded of how absolutely amazing it truly is. Its a movie called "Spirited Away" by the Japanese master of animation Hayao Miyazaki. I love all of his films (at least the ones I've seen), but "Spirited Away" has a special place in my heart. In this film Miyazaki takes his audience to a "Alice in Wonderland" slash "Wizard of Oz" type of world inhabited by an assortment of strange yet beautiful landscapes and endearing characters. "Spirited Away" forces us to look at the world in a more mature way (just like its heroine Chihiro), but allows us to maintain our child-like wonder. I'm not a huge fan of anime, but Miyazaki's films are, to put it simply, masterpieces.

For a couple friends (we've had this stuck in our heads for two days!):

                            

Seriously, how awesome is Mr. Tilney? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please go read "Northanger Abbey." Do it. Do it NOW!! :)


I decided I'm going to re-read either "Lord of the Rings" or "The Hobbit" over interterm. So excited!!! I just have to survive the rest of this semester... ha.. ha... yeah... but I'm working on an video art project right now that I am excited about working on, so hopefully it will turn out well... if it does, maybe I'll post it on here. I just finished a stop-motion animation recently as well... and hopefully I can post that too. It was actually pretty difficult to do within the time constraints imposed upon me. I basically did all of it (except shoot the photos) in one straight 8 hour period in the computer lab at school. My eyes really hurt by the end of the day....

I've decided I'm a hippie at heart. I went to an awesome place on Friday with some friends called "The Lab." It's a bohemian-ish "anti-mall" down in Costa Mesa with a few boutiques and a cafe called "The Gypsy Den." Quite frankly, it awesome. I love funky clothes, indie-retro stuff, folk music (Cat Steven!) and Man, I am such a hippie....


While at "The Lab," my friends and I were reading some beautiful poetry. Blows my mind:

Men's curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement—
Driven by daemonic, chthonic
Powers. And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.

-T.S. Eliot from "The Dry Salvages"