it's the weekend again!

yay! this week's been pretty fun :) so TCA auditions are over! sad. they were fun..we had 19 pple try out for worship!! so adam n i formed 4 bands..1 contemporary, 2 acoustic, one special music with a cello! it's really cool. i'm super excited for this year!!!!!
it's gonna be so awesome. can't wait!!! :) we're gonna meet them all on mon n tell them about our expectations n time commitment..finally..we're gettin started! we offered a 100bucks prize for whoever comes up with the best brochure for us! which makes me feel really bad. cuz we have to reject the rest! i'm too soft hearted like that. adam (my co-director) was like, we're paying them $100! we shouldn't feel bad! haha.

so my wing n our brother wing has been playin stick 'em..it's like catching. haha. only college level. like we get the name of someone else, and we're supposed to catch that person n get another name, and so on. but i didn't have time to really go stalk my target. besides, i didn't knw him. he looked like every other big, bald guy on campus. haha. and today this middle eastern band came to perform. was pretty cool music..sounded indian.

ooh and my Q & A article got published in The Echo, our sch newspaper..yay! it's all so incredibly exciting. i dunno how to attach it, so i'll just put it all here. haha.
it was an interview with Fouad Masri, this Lebanese pastor who founded the Crescent Project, which reaches out to Muslims. it was so cool to interview him!! had a tape recorder n all! like a real reporter!! ahahaha.

How was life growing up in Beirut, Lebanon?

I grew up during the Lebanese War. It was a struggle. We didn’t know which nights we were going to spend in the basements. They’d fight for two weeks, and stop. So you’d go to school, start your business, clean up the mess and three weeks later, they’d fight again.

What do you miss about Lebanon?
I miss the weather and its four seasons. I miss the Lebanese fun and fellowship and the beautiful countryside.

You studied in America and went back to Lebanon. Why did you come back in 1993 to start the Crescent Project?
Muslims in North America have the freedom to read the Bible, but I had Arab Christian friends who were not reaching out to their people. The idea was to focus on a practical and personal engagement, for one Christian to talk to one Muslim. Christians should take baby steps to pray, reach out to one Muslim and give a Bible to a friend.

What made you go from a bachelor's degree in communications to a master’s degree in Islamic studies?
I wanted to know how we were training our missionaries. Sadly, even after September 11, (2001) very few missionaries take training before they go overseas. That’s where the struggle has been. Their training is on Islam, not on culture, theology or witnessing.

Why are you so passionate about reaching out to Muslims?
Muslims want to know God, but they don’t have the information. I feel like somebody should tell them. The joys of seeing a Muslim love and follow Jesus makes me pleased that the Lord used me.

What do you think is the greatest difference and similarity between Christians and Muslims?
The most common similarity and difference is Jesus. Muslims say that he is a prophet, but they don’t consider his teachings or his life. It’s not hard to change their mindset, because many of them are spiritually hungry. That’s the beauty about Christian ministry. We take the gospel to them, show them the love of Christ and leave the results to God.

Any practical advice on how to reach out to Muslims?
Pray for the Muslim world. Get involved, trained and educated. Go on a mission trip to meet and engage with Muslims.

What is your greatest dream?
My dream is that one day, every Muslim will have his or her own personal Bible.

What do you have to say to those interested in going into ministry?
Make sure you have a burden for certain people groups or activities. Pray that God will give you a strategy.

Any last words?
Matthew 24:14: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in (the whole world) as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
It’s a great verse to know Christ promised that people will hear about him.

yay :)

Rescued

so this weekend was a pretty good one..bogged down with tremendous loads of hw, but managed to finish it all! yay me.
ooh and happy birthday to me! hahaha. so on fri at midnight, meaning saturday, the girls on my wing n some other friends surprised me by barging into my room with a cake n singing happy birthday to me :) it was a nice start to my bdae :) then cartoon, sung ah n i shopped online till like 2am. hahahaha. i love shopping online. didn't buy anything though. something's wrong with my cred card. think i went over the limit. heh. 300bucks.

anw..sat was fun. had lunch with an old friend (well i guess not so old since i've only been here a yr plus) and watched part of the football game. we won! finally. haha. the campus was swarming with parents..cuz it's parents weekend :( and the funny thing was, taylor had all these posters saying we're the 1st college in some category in the midwest. but we're first only cuz the other two in front of us moved to another category. so it was kinda funny.

went go-kart racing.. was pretty fun!! then hung out with pple at open house..talked to luke's family! his bro is so cute! at least his bro talks to him. not like mine!! ooh and i got a package frm my parents! guess where it's from! an organic shop! ahahahah.
mummieee sent fruits, organic cheesecake, juice, etc. hahahaha. now waiting for more packages frm other pple! :)

sun was fun. went to korean church w a korean professor who teaches spanish. went with paul n sung ah..helped sung ah with kids ministry. those korean american kiddos are SOOOOO cute!!! omg. so we did worship songs, jumping arnd and doing actions. ahahaha. can't believe i actually did that. they are wayyy adorable though. :) then had wondeful korean food..and played some games cuz it's some kinda festival. mooncake festival? got back to taylor pretty late though. hardly had any time to finish hw.

today was crazy day! my day went from 9am all the way to 9pm NONSTOP. don't even have time for lunch. had time for dinner cuz i had a meeting over dinner. heh. i must stop being so busy. had 2 presentations to give, which went pretty well. a paper to turn in, an exam, which was pretty easy. then had to interview Fouad Masri, this pastor of Muslim ministry, for an article for The Echo, our sch newspaper. it was fun. i like this. he was a really nice guy. and he'd been to singapore before! he's from lebanon, but lives in indiana now..he's like super passionate about muslim ministry. it's awesome.
so tca auditions was eventful. we had pple audition for drama, some girls came in n sang and played piano. n some guys played guit..i love auditioning pple. it's like they're singing to u. ahahah. cute guy..on a guitar..singing a song to me.. helloooo! like my ideal husband! hahahaha. anw yup! tmr's gonna be busy too. oh well! such is life :)
just watched the PREMIERE of heroes season 2!! AAAHHH! love it. and prison break season 3! i love mondays!

blehh

still kinda sick-ish. not very happy about that!! aaaahh.. been trying to eat healthy n sleep lots and drink lots of water. but it's still like that! for 3 days alrdy! sigh. anw i love the kinda new hillsong cd..savior king!! it's just awesome like that.

so..really excited for TCA!!! aaahhh!!! more pple signed up!!! it made my sitting at the DC for 2 hours every dinner worth it :)
we have tons of worship leaders..singers..pianists..guitarists trying out. but no drummer!!! aaahhh. will have to go find one. i would do it, but simply don't have time. anw..psyched for auditions!!!! YAY.

went to the dentist after all. on thursday early morning. like at the crack of dawn. uggghhhh. so a girl from my wing drove me 20mins to the dentist..i filled out the forms..sat on the dentist's chair..terrified to death..no mummy by my side!! but it went ok.. he was really nice..talked to distract me from my fear, which i'm sure was painfully obvious. heh. and he had to inject me with anesthesia to numb my mouth!! i was like, it this really necessary??? aaahhh. and then my eyes remained closed for the remainder of the time. sounded like a huge construction crew was working on my mouth, the way he drilled and drilled!! was kinda painful. and the right side of my mouth was numb for a few hrs. but i'm fine now. thank God! it was a good time cuz i had a nice, one way conversation with God..haha.

watched the premiere of beauty and the geek season 4 ystdy!! it rocks!!! soo excited. haha. so..i've got tons of hw this weekend..gonna finish it NOW so i can enjoy my bdae! kinda weird. feel like i dun really care that it's my bdae anymore. but oh well. we're gonna go go-kart racing attempt no. 2 tmrw! yay :)

In Your Freedom

I LOVE THIS SONG!!! love it to death. the lyrics, the music, everything.

~I have nothing more than all You offer me
There is nothing else that's of worth to me..


In Your freedom I will live
I offer devotion~

just wanted to say that. :)
plus the filling in my tooth came out while i was chomping on green peas. curse those darned hard green peas. now i feel all uncomfortable cuz there's a hole in my tooth and i think i'm feverish n blehh. and the stupid dentist is booked till next freaking thursday. and it costs a whopping US$200 for everything. aaarrrggghh. i'm gonna have to endure this thru my bdae. things like that always happen to me. why. plus parents weekend is on my bdae. what could be worse than celeb ur bdae without family n seeing all these other happy families around u?????


ok so that was emo-fied. but i just came back from sitting at the DC for 2 hours at our TCA booth, aswering qns for pple.. and luke came and sat with me almost the entire time. he's such a great friend. feel much better now.

yay for hardworking me

on a really EXCITING note, i wrote an article for our sch's weekly newspaper, The Echo, and it got PUBLISHED, FRONT PAGE. AAAAHHHHH!! this is all so incredibly exhilarating. i so wanna become a journalist!! i love all my media classes!!! love em!!

so..been advertising for TCA to recruit pple (especially freshmen) to come..hope it works. oh God please let there be enough interested pple!! my co-director, adam, and i are like such newbies at this..we totally don't know what we're doing!! all i can do is keep praying that God will send pple our way so we'll have a good, effective ministry!! kinda anxious/nervous. cuz tmr's signups for auditions. really really really hope pple come!! aaahhhh.

this weekend was our wing retreat. went to our PA's house in ohio. omg, i thought indiana was ulu enough. her house is seriously in the middle of cornfields. like literally. it was kinda cool though. serene, peaceful. we sat around the bonfire at night in her HUGE backyard. their have so much land..it's like 1000 times the size of my teeny backyard at home. it was a pretty good time of bonding with the girls..shared alot of things in the open..had s'mores around the fire..shared about our fav undies and our VC (visual crush) ahahaha. it was entertaining. i'm really glad i'm on this wing with all these awesome girls :)

hardly got any sleep though. so still tired. and i actually spent sat night DOING HW. made me feel like such a loser. but a hardworking, diligent loser. hahaha. seriously. had 3 papers to finish by mon, tons and tons of reading to finish, a huge presentation to work on, more TCA advertising to do...omg. craziness. felt gd to get it almost done. got distracted along the way by pple visiting. heh.

today, my peaceful sleep got interrupted at the insane time of 7am in the freaking morning. girls were running up and down the hallway shouting 'ringdown!' so...taylor has this tradition. and it's crazy that we actually have a NAME for the tradition,cuz it means it happens quite often. ringdown means a girl on our wing just got engaged and we all kinda sit in a circle and sing until the girl comes forth and we find out who she is. this is naturally followed by shrieks and yells of astonishment and excitement. so..yeah..the girl that got engaged is freakin MY AGE. she's a sophomore too!! and they got tog only like last yr!

that is all too much for me to take in. why would anyone wanna commit so soon?? and be held down for life at such a young age?? it's so hard to be happy for pple like this cuz i'm all like..ur making a huge mistake! but of cuz i try to be all excited and happy too. cuz it's their decision. and they prob thought it thru well n all. heh. oh well. plus taylor has like quite a high divorce rate i think. for pple who get married/engaged during college. u would think pple learn frm the mistakes of others, but no.

for blue blue skies

omg been so tremendously busy this week. and will be next week. and the week after next. feel like i've hardly gotten any sleep. really think i'm overcommitted. but i dun wanna drop anything! will persevere on and see how.

so this week is Spiritual Renewal Week. i feel like i need to be spiritually renewed. heh. the speaker was Ps. Alistair Begg..he was pretty good. his challenge to us really struck me. he told us to keep our eyes on the finishing line, don't be distracted by things around u. think i've been really distracted lately. just with classes and meetings and stuff i'm involved in..so many things to plan! no time for myself. i think i even have more meetings than classes. haha. next few weeks is gonna be crazy..tons of stuff to do for TCA..recruiting pple, advertising to churches..on top of everything else i have to do for class. OMG. i keep asking myself what did i get myself into???? God give me strength to do all these.

so today was really embarrassing. in my one class, i totally cried! so paiseh can. it's personal foundations (for christian ed)..and we're doing this book called Desiring God by john piper, which some of us think is really...weird. just the things that he says and all. so i was sharing on prayer and how we can always depend on God to provide for our needs..and then i just started talking about how i found out about the earthquake in Indonesia, then i read about tsunami warnings in Singapore, then i got really scared and called my mum to ask how everything is..and i thought i was fine. like she assured me everything was fine.. so i didn't think about it again. although i did pray for God's protection over s'pore. but suddenly in class i just started crying when i talked about that!! so mortifying. and not the little sniffles crying, but like tears streaming down my face, hardly able to talk kind of crying. aaaahhhh.

u know what. i realize something about myself. (ok maybe i already knew this) i'm not a very open person naturally. so when i do share stuff that's on my heart, i totally cry! like almost everytime! cannot stand it. crying's like a sign of weakness or something. plus i cannot talk properly when i cry. heh. arghhhh.

peeks

slip n slide down our hallway! :)

me and sung ah on the sofa in the hallway. our wing's theme is beauty and the beast! the painting thing behind us is supposed to be the rose. haha.

roomies! on the stairs.

wing girls at tin lizzy's

us and megan, our PA (personnel assistant)!

cool train

Give or take

this weekend was pretty cool! compared to normal upland life. ahaha.
had a poster painting partyyy to paint our TCA and other banners..ours looks pretty cool. yay! :)
had a wing dinner with girls on my floor..then outing to Tin lizzy's with some guys from the brother floor..the place was so cute!! it's like a quaint little antique ice cream place with an old jukebox and quaint antique games! loved it. got to know some guys frm our brother floor. they're cool. one guy lived in s'pore before! yay. but it was like 7 yrs ago. haha.

went to ivanhoe's after that. another ice cream place. obviously i didn't eat anymore ice cream. hung out and talked. really loudly. haha. ok and pple keep trying to set me up with the korean guys..cuz they're asian. haha seriously man. watched a movie after that..then went open housing. visiting friends in other dorms.

sat was supposed to go go-kart racing! but it rained. so we ended up shopping! which was better for me anyway. totally needed shoes. got so many cute superhero shirts for 13bucks! guess what we had for dinner. steak n shake. meaning more ice cream.

today went to this methodist church which was like 5 mins away by car..lasted one hour. haha. kinda nice in the sense that it's short and nearby, but obviously not good for long term spiritual life. sigh. the pastor preached by explaining every verse one by one. it was kinda weird. SIGH. tired of church-hopping. think i might settle for one which i found pretty ok. not wonderful, but not bad for indiana standards. had kenyan food for dinner! kind of. it reminded me of chinese food somehow. haha. went to ivanhoe's after that again. ice cream again. omg this weekend is fattening weekend. but eating is always a good way of bonding with pple :)

so my wing girls just had a Slip 'n' Slide..we taped trash bags to the floor down our hallway, put soap and water all over it, and ran and slid down the hallway. hahahaha. super fun. i banged my knee though. and now there's soap all over the bathroom and on the carpet in the hallway. and i learnt that... american girls are pretty wild. heh. but i love being in olson. so much more fun than gerig!!! makes me happy. :)

give us clean hands

love that song.
'O God let us be a generation that seeks..seeks Your face, O God of Jacob'
we're gonna sing it for TWO (taylor world outreach) chapel..and i'm gonna be playin acoustic guit! (to advertise for TCA - taylor christian artists) kinda scary yet exciting :) so excited! can't wait to audition pple and get the bands togetherrrr!!! :)

talking abt exciting stuff..i dropped a class!!! intro to astronomy. thank God! good riddance. it was awfully boring. so now i'm taking 13 pathetic credits!! (12 is the minimum. i got 13 just in case. the extra one is a guitar class) it's all wonderfully exciting. cuz now i'll be super free to take on other stuff and be involved in things arnd campus! how cool is that! so now i'm actually quite busy..not with sch work though. haha. let's see.. gonna be in charge of TCA..secretary for ISS (int'l students)..part of AAA (asian awareness assoc)..on the committee for MLK (martin luther king) day..on the committee for planning Women's conference..gonna do Airband too!! super excited. this is what sch should be like! less academic stuff, more fun stuff :)

but on a side note, it's stressful to be like at the top leadership position. cuz like me and my co-directors are like top TOP of TCA..meaning if we screw things up, our heads are on the chopping board and no one else can cover for us. kinda stressful cuz we're both new to this!! and i basically still have no idea what to do. well i know, but i don't really know HOW to do it!
so note to self - from now on take positions that are not top TOP! but like 2nd top or something. haha.

anw today was a good day. one class got cancelled. kinda enjoying my media communication classes. taking 3 media classes and one christian ed class. pretty cool. they're definitely taking me out of my comfort zone..but that's always good :) had a cookout at the lake..met a bunch of new ethnic students..was fun :) met new pple from like the middle east..which is always cool. haha. someone taught me how to say 'i love u' in arabic..but i forgot. it was hard.

went to the prayer chapel with my wing girls tonight..it was really good. just a time of worship, prayer for each other..communion with the Lord..made me realize how much i miss my Jesus time..have to go back to doing that. :)

long weekend

our welcome sign for the international/mk freshmen!!!

our 'where you're from' sign frm orientation

worship team!

taylor football team. yeahhh!!

me n girls frm my wing all decked out in yellow TU shirts. sch spirit!!!

i love long weekends. all this time and nothing to do. still worried about hard classes this sem..but too lazy to do any reading. blehh. today went to church early in the morn with some girls on my wing. hardly gettin any sleep nowadays. the church service was held in a high school cafeteria. heh. it's small. the service wasn't that bad..but i'm kinda picky about worship..and it was kinda fast. even the slow songs were like..weirdly fast. didn't really like that. the people were super nice though. greeted us and everything..even gave us cookies to take back to the dorm. and amish bread! it was my first time trying it. it's good :)

anw..gettin to know the girls on my wing better now..i'm making an effort! it's awkward at first but we're making progress! they're really nice and fun. we hung out at the elementary sch playground on fri..went to Taylor's 1st football game of the year against Anderson U on sat.. it was FUN!! i finally understand football!! kinda!! so exciting!! was cheering and yelling and all. and got a tan sitting in the sun. but after half time i got bored. can't stand watching sports for too long. haha. besides, we were losing. as usual.

OH. and fall out boy are COMING!! to chicago!! i SO have to find someone to go with me. preferably someone who has a car!!
AAAAHHHH!!! they're on a tour..called the young wild things.. i think. with gym class heroes, cute is what we aim for, and plain white T's.. AWESOMENESS. i have to go. have to. need to. must. go.