February 2012
30 posts
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David Foster Wallace, from writer's almanac
Today is the birthday of novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace (books by this author), born in Ithaca, New York (1962), author of Infinite Jest (1996), which became a best-seller even though it was more than 1,000 pages long, with 100 pages of footnotes. Wallace, who had battled devastating depression his whole life, committed suicide in 2008. His unfinished novel, The Pale King, was...
My stories happen inside.
Crashing waves. All silent.
Lightning storms.
Guns.
Pills.
Dark.
Huge deserts.
The simple pleasure of warm tea and sugar after a hot shower.
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Taking the initiative against daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to...
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Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
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How we Love by Ingrid Michaelson
I knew a man who was afraid to love To lay his heart on the bathroom rug He drank his coffee in the same old mug And sat in silence ‘til the world fell numb Until the day when a girl came by She had eyes like the rising tide He felt a sharpness deep inside The kind of ache that can’t be satisfied We hate the rain when it fills up our shoes But how we love when it washes our cars We...
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January 2012
5 posts
Augustine.
Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that the Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life...
Things that I've been learning through serving in...
You cannot immediately punch someone when they disagree with you. Especially if they are a boy. You must put away your high pride and be willing to sit on the ground, ponder for a minute or two the possibility that you could be wrong.
Talking with the person and hearing their voice over the phone is ALWAYS better than texting.
PRAY PRAY PRAY. LOVE GOD. Plan ahead.
I am not a physically active...
At the moment, dearest one, it doesn’t make sense.
But here are the things that you must acquire.
Butterfly tattoos. Paste them on your wrists, the back of your neck, and on your collar bone, just where Cary Grant would like to kiss it.
Sparklers. Let the night light up and run around with life bursting at the seams. Full of the possibility of love.
Apple Cider. To toast in the night with...
To Marina (excerpt)
by Kenneth Koch
Let’s take a walk Into the world Where if our shoes get white With snow, is it snow, Marina, Is it snow or light? Let’s take a walk Every detail is everything in its place (Aristotle). Literature is a cup And we are the malted. The time is a glass. A June bug comes And a carpenter spits on a plane, the flowers ruffle ear rings. I am so...
December 2011
3 posts
may i just say rawr?
today. the first things i ate were a square of chocolate and three slices of costco pizza slathered in siracha sauce.
I got home…and felt disgusting. So after an hour I made myself a Thai inspired salad.
Diced tomatoes, cabbage, white onion, and mint. All this was sprinkled with an epic sauce of crushed chili, garlic, sugar, doused with lemon and fish sauce. MAGIC.
And I later added some...
List of stuff before going back to work
Poor man’s pho = Maruchan cup of noodles. 59 Cents and full of MSG. MMMMM…
My food….is like my personality. Or so I like to think. A lot of BLOOD RED tomatoes. Hot spiciness, and bitter tea. And at times the sweet doughiness of the cookie indulgence.
A big honkin cup of earl greys can always cheer up my day.
Oliver Twist is a fun book to read
November 2011
7 posts
Favorite flowers...
Peonies
Roses
Tulips
Gardenias
Orchids
Freesia
Sun Flowers
Baby Breath…
English Roses
So, it has been exactly one month since you have left. The house and the people inside of it are settling into the rhythm of you not being part of our pattern.
It still brings tears to my eyes that I did not get to see you one last time. To here your mumbling voice or even to make you laugh by asking you to pray for a good husband. I still remember kneeling on the rubber mat, praying in English...
Time wakens a longing more poignant than all the longing caused by the division of lovers in space, for there is no road back into its country. Our bodies were not made for that journey; only the imagination can venture upon it; and the setting out, the road, and the arrival is all imagination . Our memories of a place no matter how fond we were of it, are little more than a confusion of lights on...
Random
Turkey cooking…. and organizing programs
Gas is so expensive
Huge pile of clothes on my floor, MUST ORGANIZE AND DO LAUNDRYYYY
Shopping by yourself is ok, but you get tired at the end and make bad choices…WHERE ARE YOUR STYLISH AND PRACTICAL FRIENDS WHEN YOU NEED THEM? (Youjin, Ally, Eunie, etc.)
LACMA is fun.
Be. Still.
You should wander into the sunshine and eat lunch…
...
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Simply Lit
by Malena Morling
Often toward evening, after another day, after another year of days, in the half dark on the way home I stop at the food store and waiting in line I begin to wonder about people—I wonder if they also wonder about how strange it is that we are here on the earth. And how in order to live we all must sleep. And how we have beds for this (unless we are...
October 2011
10 posts
Henry James to Edith Wharton
“Your letters come into my damp desert here even as the odour of promiscuous spices …might be wafted to some compromised oasis from a caravan of the Arabian nights.”
To read: Petersburg by Bely; Beryl Markham
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Today I tried.
There’s that part of you that will keep certain memories locked away. But, life is meant to be shared…
I didn’t immediately go home today. I went to the park across from my aunt’s house and swung on the swings. The whole park was empty except for a few people and their dogs. A woman with a cute canine walked by and said hello. It was a grey day, and the sand was warm. My...
5AM Oct. 22nd
No one is prepared for someone else to die..
Grandpa just did. I woke up because I heard mom crying hysterically. She doesn’t cry often. 5am. So I wake up…and proceed to call Cau 2, he is groggy from sleep.. Ut khoi is awake in australia. Chi Ha picks up in New york…and she has to tell Di thu. Chi Ha asks what happened, if anyone was there, why? And…I don’t know...
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youth group conversations.
Lesson: The good Samaritan
Main point: Crossing boundaries
One of the applications: Support a missionary through letters
When I read this out loud to the kids, I paused and said…
“Oooo, that sounds cool, would you guys like to—”
Kyle: “NOPE. we don’t want to meet a real live missionary.”
my response: “Well I’m a missionary so HA!”
...
My love affair with the 5NB
So last week, it was a water cooler. This week it’s a flat tire. Right around the same area too.
Thank you God, that….I was kept safe, that I pulled over just in the nick of time to not hurt anyone. Thank you that I have a dad that selflessly leaves everything in his office to go find me and change my tire.
He didn’t complain
He did it because he’s my dad.
And he knew...