birthday weekend

all-danced out from the hoedown at the retreat. i actually did some square dancing. and it was actually fun! :) playing spoons in the dark

our asian version of the nativity story. ian (the guy in the middle) was baby Jesus. haha

roasting hotdogs around the campfire. love fires.

worship team on sunday morning. we were all pretty much dead from no sleep last night

pretending to be drunk. haha

hanging out with random guy at random bridge.

hoodies

around the campfire

in the car on the way to get yellow n pink hairdye at walmart (can't wait to streak my hair!!) and see 'Eagle Eye' in theatres!!! it just came out today! and it was awesome. everyone shld go see it. sooo intense.

cartoon's camera aiming skills are poor, as u can see.

andrew's imitation of my evil rocker face

GANGSTA friday!!!

mark n me. singaporeans!

sad faces

awesome jump shot. cartoon, sam, me

gangster faces

ooh i love kimbab!

tryna look cool outside the souphouse

love cartoon's gangster outfit :)

happy gangsters

susan chasing us out of the kitchen cuz we were useless. haha

bored waiting for kimbab to be ready

this weekend was really fun. hanging out on friday..retreat from saturday till today...even though i'm not a fan of camping, it was fun roasting hotdogs n marshmallows by the fire, worshipping arnd the fire, going for walks in the woods, sleeping in the bus, climbing trees, square dancing at the hoedown, hanging out with awesome people :)

i'm 21! one life, live it :)

Another sleepless week

these are my friends. ahaha. on emo friday. they're pretty awesome emos.

me and dan. he doesn't normally look like this. he should though. haha.

they made me wear a pink tiara n earrings for my party.

ooh yummy birthday cheesecake at the souphouse. oh the guy on the right is from SGP too!!! but he lives in HK now

sean, me, alana. random photo from asian dinner. love my ex roomie's face :)

seriously! even on my birthday week..so much stuff to do! but it's been cool :)
ISS (international students) GOT INTO AIRBAND!!!!!! aaahhh!!! Airband's this totally hyped up awesome campus wide dancing/lip syncing performance competition. if that makes sense. haha. it's my first time in it!!! past 2 years gerig didn't get in, then my wing didn't get in. i'm SO EXCITEDDD!!! airband's in 2 weeks. we must practice hard!!! even if i'm kinda sick of listening to our circle of life/be prepared/just can't wait to be king medley and running through the dance moves in my head. me, capri, dorothy and dallace waited till like 2am on tue night for the results..and we heard screaming all over olson, so we checked email, and WE GOT IN!!! omg can't wait. will take pics next time. our face paint was rockin'. i love being a zebra! get to be all black/white :)

also stayed up most nights trying to finish my audio broadcast project for scriptwriting. not too happy with the end result, but it's over. my midterm in specialized reporting is over today too!! it's the WEEKEND!! party time.

someone interviewed me for her intercultural class this week..was kinda weird to be interviewed for a change, instead of interviewing people. haha. didn't really get a chance to workout :( cuz been so busy. although we got stuff done FAST ystdy at our Echo newspaper meeting! hannah and i got done with editing stories and layout by 9pm!!! (cuz she wanted to rush to watch the office) it's a new record. and the newspaper looked pretty cool today! we got color pictures..cuz it's our Green issue.
all in all, today's a very happy day. and it's GANGSTA FRIDAYYY. :)))

happy pics

MY NEW PURPLE PHONE!!! :)

lovin it

pretending to talk on my awesome phone. i've been addicted to it

presents frm friends! mooncake.. and a box of games/cards from the dawgz back home!

and of course..my very awesome and very black wallet n watch frm very awesome pple at home :) i've been using them and they're still in good condition!

:)))

today my friends threw me a surprise birthday party :)

i was pretty surprised. don't know why but i'm just not good at figuring out surprises. haha. but i was so touched..so sweet of them to do this!!! so i got up early today to paint the set for Airband..we're doing a medley of songs from The Lion King, so we painted the bongo drums and xylophone that we made outta cardboard, painted our sunset backdrop and made our rock for simba to stand on. everything looks pretty good, if i do say so myself. haha. watched like 10 mins of the football game (which we of course lost) while eating lunch.

then andrew drove me n cartoon to go get me a CELL PHONE!! yes i have a phone after 2 years! i'm now contactable!!! :) so excited. it's all nice and purple too! motorola verizon. it flips open too! SO HAPPY! i finally get a new phone after like 5 years of the same lao pok phone. haha. too bad can't use this at home though. they don't use sim cards here apparently.

so we went to the souphouse, where everyone like jumped out at me and yelled 'surprise' when i walked in!! i was like, OMG what is this. can't believe they did it for me!! pple cooked asian food (stir fry, jap soup, chicken rice, satay) oh made my day. and susan gave me a mooncake. haha. they made me wear a pink tiara and pink diamond clip on earrings too. but awww..i'm so touched so many pple turned up!! :) yummy choc cheesecake too.

on a side note, Brother Yun, who wrote the book Heavenly Man, came to speak to my sch. it was pretty cool. he's been thru so much! he got sent to prison in china, where the guards crushed his legs, but one day God just told him to walk out of prison, and that's exactly what he did. no one stopped him. isn't that incredible??? his testmony is just so awesome.
also, this weekend's parents weekend. so tons of old pple around. good side - free food all around ystdy. cotton candy, popcorn, some greasy calorie-infested pancake called lion's ears, all that yummy stuff.
we had Orphan's Night again. haha. for all those whose parents didn't come. games, food, fun. oh how i love it here :)

MY FIRST PUBLISHED WORK!!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

ok guess what???????

so i'm taking this class, Freelance Writing, at school, and the professor is super intimidating but extremely experience and well-connected. so he had us write 3 devotionals for class, and apparently he liked mine so much that he showed them all to an EDITOR of an online newspaper called The Aboite Independent!! and the editor thought they were (quote) 'marvelous' (aaahh!!)
so he wants to PUBLISH them during the next few weeks!!! isn't that INSANE?? so unexpected too!! not one, not two, but all three!! my prof just did that without telling me!!!!!!! :)
and i dun get paid for it, but hey. awesome exposure!!!! soooooo psyched! can't believe it!!!! :))))))

GOD IS SO GOOD.

on a side note, i realized i like having stuff/work to do. keeps me alive n alert n feeling useful. i should do something this summer instead of slacking around.

orientation/retreat

erika, me, elise. waiting around for the freshmen to arrive at orientation

wing retreat! all of us in a dogpile

juniors!!

all the wing girls with dark hair

we tried to do a pyramid. i was one of those at the bottom. painful

freshmen arriving at orientation n signing in!

holding welcoming signs at the roadside

at the cookout

games at the ksac during orientation. the girl in red, holding the ball is juoae! the cutest little korean girl.

we had a world map displaying where we all came from :)

every week is busier than the last

this week i was so swamped, people complained they never got to see me :( but at least the weekend is here!!

worked on 3 articles simultaneously plus a broadcast project for class. so i spent most of my time tracking people down and interviewing them. i think i've interviewed like almost every important person on campus. from the president to the provost to all kinds of professors and deans. and they're all really nice! even though they're impossible to track down since they're so busy. worked for a long time on thursday night for the newspaper. till i got a splitting headache. if i ever say i wanna be a journalist again, please remind me how tough it is.

so i've been working on a story about the 50th anniversary of our student union (front page of the newspaper!!), a story on students here who don't have English as their first language, chapel auditions and a faculty instrumental recital. exciting stuff huh. i guess i do feel a sense of pride when i see my work in the newspaper :)
this week was Spiritual Renewal Week, so we had a speaker come - Colin Smith. he was really good. spoke about romans 8 and how come we can be confident of God's blessings for us.

my roomie and i finally went to walmart and got a couch! but it's the kind that we must fix ourselves. so technically we have a box in our room. not a couch. need to fix it soon.
worship night/bonfire on thursday!
i love fridays. i have only one class + it means the weekend's here.
interviewed 2 music professors for my broadcast scriptwriting project. went for their faculty recital. almost fell asleep. but it's over and done with!
then went to watch 'Traitor' in the cinema with a bunch of pple to reward myself for working so hard this week! :) it was a pretty good, intense movie. went on forever till like midnight.

today was our second Taylor football game! we lost this time :( oh well. we were winning at halftime, but...yeah.
had a surprise bdae party for ian. only it didn't really work cuz he turned up early. so only a few of us were there. but at least he was surprised! we took turns hitting a pinata and got tons of candy. yum.

gonna go practice playing guitar/djembe (drums) later! for our ministry of the arts audition tomorrow. hope we get in.
quite excited for church tmr. i really like IWU church!

weekend daze

the weekend's almost over. sad. wing retreat was FUN! went to indianapolis and stayed in a girl's home. it was like a mansion. huge. with a huge backyard where we had our bonfire and had s'mores. shared embarrassing stories..testimonies..had worship.. all that nice bonding stuff. stayed up pretty late playing games and talking. and eating. omg. everyone always eats so much during retreats. it's cuz the food's RIGHT THERE. and u just have this compulsive urge to stuff your face.
went shopping at a new outlet mall on sat..found this awesome eatery called Noodle Company!! wonderful asian noodles. made me very happy :) glad i got to know the girls on my wing better.

super tired. but drove to the TAYLOR VS ANDERSON U first football game of the season!!!!! it was freaking long. but exciting. 3 hours we stood there and cheered. but it was oh-so-worth it. cuz WE WON!! for the first time in SIX whole years!! so proud of the guys :) and i'm starting to understand it better too! we got 4 touchdowns!!! woot woot.

also celebrated 4 pples bdaes today! sam, andrew, sarah and dallace! had a partyy at the souphouse. with kimbab and cake and all. and practiced our first airband dance! we're doing a lion king medley. dancing to 'circle of life', 'be prepared' and 'just can't wait to be king'. exciteddd.

anyway. today i had a revelation. or rather, last night. so i was contemplating not going to church today since i spent the whole weekend not doing homework and not getting much sleep. but then..i pondered over it..and i realized.

how can church be optional?

it has never been optional for me at home. the thought of skipping church to stay home and catch up on my rest would NEVER even cross my mind at home. so how come it's different here? i've been going to church whenever i like for the past 2 years here. if i'm tired or i've been out all sat, i'll skip church. if there's tons of hw waiting for me and i just don't feel like getting up early, i'll skip church. i've used sundays to sleep in countless times. but that is going to change!! I am going to church regularly from now on!! I'm not optional to God, why should He be optional to me? it doesn't help that lots of pple at Taylor skip church whenever they feel like it. and it's not for me to judge. but all i'm saying is.. i will make an effort to go every week. doesn't matter if i feel like it or not. God's faithfulness has never failed me.
today's sermon was really good too. i was completely captivated. learning point: I want to renew my first love. AND I want to take all these little gods in my life (things that i treasure) and use them to serve THE God above.

EXCITED

i don't know why but i'm incredibly excited. for everything! :)
finished editing and doing the layout for the newspaper tonight. such hard work! especially when our staff writers dont really know what they're doing! but i'm beginning to get the hang of it. and i just found out i get paid US$200 for my newspaper job and $250 for my coordinator of ethnic scholars job for this semester! not alot of cash, but i wasn't doing it for the money anyway. its just a nice bonus :)

we had a cookout at Taylor lake for ethnic students yesterday..was pretty fun!! got to meet new freshmen. sooo many asian americans this year. like tons! someone told me there lives a HUGE species of fish in the lake. Taylor's very own loch ness monster. disgusting. i'm never going swimming there. fo shizzle!! haha. and then i watched the 2 hour premiere of ANTM with a bunch of girls on my wing!!! ohhh so many shows to watch! i love being in america!

so..today was a good day. one cancelled class, one prof sick..so i virtually had no class. and i have only one class tmr! and then my wing is going on a retreat!! to miriam's house in indianapolis (THE CITY!!). can't wait! we're gonna roam the city n go shopping! and have bonfires and eat s'mores! and of course, girl talk. and then Taylor's infamous football game against Anderson U on sat!! like i said, exciteddd :)

Makes me happy

so glad today's over. was the longest day ever. but wow. i'm learning SO MUCH from my freelance writing class! am totally in awe of my prof. he's like, the coolest person. ever.
here's a list of his credentials:
-he's written and published 51 books
-he's got more than 1000 devotions published! (who does that!!)
-he WROTE THE SCRIPT for the movies armageddon and mask of zorro!!!!! omg. i'm so glad i get to learn from him!!!!!

and he was so encouraging today too. cuz we had to read our devotionals aloud in class. and he gave feedback. can't wait to send mine in and hopefully get published!! if there's any prof i wanna have a 3 1/2 hour class with, it's definitely him. i've never known anyone who has sooo many stories to tell. he's been through so much. he was in world war 2, where his army mate stepped on a grenade and blew half his face up. omg. the experiences he tells us...i'm like wow. and he recites all these books, poems and stories from memory and acts them out dramatically. really interesting guy. feel like i learn more from 3 1/2 hours with him than the whole of last semester!

i got to have thai food on sat! faith cooked and invited us over to her apartment :) and ooh. my first drive-in movie experience on sun. was a brother-sister wing event, so i got to know some of the guys on our bro wing. was pretty fun! although superrr freezing cuz it was at night and the movie was outdoors. watched 'drillbit taylor'..kinda stupid but kinda funny too.

currently obsessed with marie digby's acoustic version of 'umbrella'.
ecstatic that prison break premiered on mon!! (awesome 2 hour premiere. SARA'S ALIVE!!!) plus gossip girl. plus one tree hill. and america's next top model's coming today. aaaahhhh. so many shows, so little time. getting hooked on the office too!!