biuuuuuuuuuuu (whale sound)

this is what i imagine heaven to be like..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMK8mb6bGx0&feature=related
i like how the song in the video mimics whale calls. i thought that was neat.

i'm looking forward to going back to the marine lab again. this video reminded me why i was taking the marine mammals class :) i hope i can do something like that video at some point in my life. There's just so many cool parts of the world. That video was in french polynesia. It reminded me of my roommate last semester from papua new guinea around the same area. the oceans there are still pristine and visibility is so high (you can see the ground in that video! crazy.. lucky if you can see 5 feet ahead of you in the marine lab waters..)

~2 weeks later, 6 days late

'ello =)

I'll start my clarifying the second half of the subject title. I'm 6 days late wishing Michelle Kwak an AMAZING HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I don't doubt that you Michelle are getting some beautiful God-taught lessons everyday, but I hope that this past week has proven to be especially lovely. =) When you get the time, please update us on your adventures!

The ~2 weeks later part is not as happy, but still important. It's been almost 2 weeks since I lost my camera with pictures since my spring break on it. I realized that it was missing after I ran to catch a train and panicked at first, but then decided to try something different, aka let God know my worries and not worry. The train suddenly stopped and stayed like that for another 20 min. causing me to be late for class. I started complaining to God saying, "what is going on? 2 bad things in a row? And what's with the lost camera? Is learning to pull the zipper of the front pocket of my backpack all the way down really worth my losing the camera?" It wasn't until later as I walked to the building where my class was held that I realized how blessed and, at the same time, how spoiled I was. The fact that I could complain about a lost camera implied that I wasn't worried about what I was going to eat for lunch (a Doener, yum) or where I was going to sleep. That's a blessing, which I take for granted. Another thing I take for granted is that I don't have back-to-back problems like losing things and getting stuck on public transportation all the time. For some reason I expect life to go smoothly and to get perhaps a few small bumps along the way. So I guess this camera-losing business gave me a better lesson that I had thought.

I was supposed to start my Berlin project a while ago, but only recently began working on it. This project is part of my Berlin Lit/Culture class. We're supposed to pick a topic and then research and do interviews with ppl in Berlin. I picked the Social welfare system (didn't realize beforehand how big a topic it'd be). It's hard work trying to read up on this stuff esp. since reading things in a foreign language usually makes me fall asleep. What was even harder for me though was to gather enough courage to talk to random people at the Jobcenter, where people come to register as unemployed and get help looking for jobs. There were a lot of people who didn't want to talk, which I can understand, but it makes asking the next time just a bit harder. After I got back on Thursday from a trip to a few institutions for my project, I asked my host mom what she thought about it. She seemed flustered but gave me a bit of her opinion. Later when I went back into the kitchen, she asked me why in the world did I pick such a hard and complex topic to which she didn't even know how to respond? Why not something easy like the church I attend (during this conversation my host sister's pretty much echoing her mom)? I told her I got the idea after watching one of the plays we had to read. She then started calling me such a child and asking if I could even grasp the topic. I let her know that I intended to keep going, esp. since I was in the middle of it already. She then let me off with the words, "Then keep on torturing yourself." Aiya, why am I such a weak person? I felt so discouraged from this conversation and hurt again. I don't like how sensitive I am to some things. My sister told me to either really get over it or, if I can't, bring it up with my host mom. Since I feel like it's just german culture to be so straight forward and because I'm a wuss and don't want to rock the boat, I didn't really consider option 2. That means I'll have to deal with these sensitivity issues. Sigh, I wish I were a rock sometimes. Or, even better, never lose sight of the fact that my value lies with God.

Today's sermon was on passion and how we might learn what our God-given passion is. The passage used was from the beginning of Nehemiah where he broke and wept after hearing of the condition of Jerusalem, and after that fasted and prayed until that critical conversation with King Artaex...(sthg). The speaker said Nehemiah's reaction was the point when his desires intersected with God's and that's when Nehemiah discovered his passion (to rebuild the city of Jerusalem). One of the indicators brought up as to how we'd realize what our passion is, is to ask ourselves what makes us cry/laugh/angry? There were other points, but this one was what stood out to me. What makes me sad though is that I don't think I know what my passion is. I don't really know what exactly stirs me. I want God to reveal this to me while I'm still here.

marine lab = black hole :D

i can't escape the marine lab!!
so it looks like i'll probably be staying at the marine lab for the 2nd summer session too haha (july 6-aug7). it's true what they say that most people who go to the marine lab will come back. the one class i ever wanted to take at duke was marine mammals (only available in summer session 2). so i was wait listed on this class for a long time, and then i decided to take myself off the waitlist and try to relax for the rest of summer, but the marine lab admin doesnt work w/ aces so i just found out few days ago that i got in the class. now i have to reapply for financial aid (after withdrawing my application.. hope they let me do it) but yeah, it looks like i might be here yet another month.. still havent made my mind up yet 100%...

this session is going great though. i'm not particularly interested in the class i'm taking, but it's not too difficult and i guess we're doing an interesting lab and we occassionally get to relax and enjoy nature as a class. last night we canoed over to carrot island again and walked around the water with underwater lights to look at things and collect samples for various labs. dr. dan taught us how to catch flounder with our bare hands (supercool) and we saw sting rays, crabs, fish, all sorts of things. everything is cool at night. we saw fiddler crabs aggregated in the thousands.. we probably killed 100s of them just by walking but it's impossible not to step on them.

tomorrow night we're going on a night time neuse river hike to look for animals in the brakish water. there are alligators and poisonous snakes there so it should be a fun experience. on saturday we're going to okracoke (sp?) island which is kinda touristy just for fun. i'm gonna miss the people here. i've mostly been hanging out with people that were here in the spring semester. watching movies, playing 4 square, etc..

all my decisions about classes and going into summer sessions have been so last minute. i was almost certain i wouldnt be here first session, and gave up completely to go to 2nd session (though i still got in?) but i guess on this track, i should theoretically be able to take 2 classes of my own choice second semester senior year because i'll have my requirements pretty much done.. all without ever overloading during a semester :) i feel accomplished.

i think taking marine mammals will be a good experience also to test if it's something i would really do in the future. were i to go to grad school, it would probably be somewhere in the field of behavioral ecology & conservation of predatory marine mammals (idealy killer whales) it'd be nice to be exposed to a class like this which i hear from all the professors here is a rare experience. All of this will have to be weighed in with whether or not i want to go into some sort of full-time ministry. good advice i got from joe ho and allison at rockbridge was that i should walk down the paths as if i'm going, and see what God does. They encouraged me that it's still very early. For now I think the game plan is to go through next year ready to apply to be on IV staff, but at the same time taking the GREs and looking for grad schools and exploring options in ministry that aren't IV related. I talked with Dr. Dan recently about the personal statement i had to write and from reading what i wrote he said that i'm not ready for grad school, and i should consider taking a year off to work at a whale research center or something. i feel like if i were at any other previous state of my life, this would've been devestating to hear, but i actually felt relieved when he told me this. it reminded me that i'm still young, and i still have a lot of time to figure things out. there is less pressure to make life decisions on a whim.

3...2...1 the last Chapter

Chapter 10 is titled "How Can I Know?" It was short but got its point across. How much we intellectually know about God doesn't say anything about our relationship with Him; it's really got to do with the heart, something which I have trouble with sometimes with certain truths. For example, in my head I know my value lies in God alone, but this isn't always fully incorporated into my heart knowledge as can be seen when I gauge my value according to other people's opinions or my image. This chapter, however, deals with mainly taking that first step into a relationship with the LORD. The uniqueness of Christianity was brought up again in that God (the "initiator", as the author wrote) reveals Himself to us first and thus begins "communication." Sending His Son into the context of this world, which we are more familiar with, was all part of His plan of revealing Himself (clearly). We're not the ones who take the first step and act on our own in the hopes of figuring out this almighty Being. God promises that He'll make Himself known, as long as the person seeks Him and is open. I rejoice in the fact that God loved us first and reaches out to us. =D

Random news:
-I got excited during home group on Friday because I met Canadians for the first time here. XP They were actually here for just a visit; they're studying graphic design in Weimar for a year, which I find almost unimaginable because I've been there and that place is super tiny. The city part of the town seems like it can be crossed in 10 min. Really nice girls. Too bad they're gone already.
-Went to the Jewish Museum and one of my favorite exhibits was one called "Fallen Leaves" by Daniel Libeskind. The floor is covered with over 10,000 metal faces and is dedicated to the innocent victims of war and violence. You're supposed to interact with it and step on them. You realize soon enough it's impossible to not make a sound when you go through. One way to interpret this is that WE are just as important a part of the exhibit because without us, no one would hear these faces, so it's like we're waking up the memories of those before.

-Today I saw through my window a rainbow that was visible throughout the storm. :)

ch 9

wow, this is the 2nd to last chapter! it's about sexuality, mainly homosexuality. i think basically the author was talking about how too much emphasis is put on the debate about whether homosexuality is genetic or behavioral, but it really doesnt matter because it shouldn't define a person either way. It's sad how many misconceptions there are that all Christians are homophobic people. and our society today pretty much outcasts you if you express any form of "homophobia" or intolerance. I feel like that in itself is a form of intolerance too.. homophobaphobia? anyways, i def agree with the author that that debate is getting us nowhere and that it's not the defining character of a person.

I feel like just as God gives each of us strengths and different measures of faith, it's the same with weaknesses. We still atleast have the choice to want to grow closer to God. Especially in today's society, it's hard to reconcile homosexuality with sin atleast publicly. if you call it a sin, you're outcasted, but i feel the bible is clear on this issue. i feel like there's a more socially accepted but sorta similar example: it's a well known fact that boys are more sexually driven than girls. you can even look at it scientifically with testosterone levels. if you give girls testosterone, they have more sexual desire. I guess people try to see homosexuality the same way.. it's just how they're born.. just part of their biology. It doesnt make it ok for guys to go around womanizing every girl they see though. Guys, just like girls still have to live for something greater. We have that choice no matter what is in our dna or chemical environment.

semi-update

I am unfortunately NOT caught up with the reading, but I decided I'd just write a short update. So...and now my mind is not working. Alrighty, so the 50 summer program kids (duke and rutgers) arrived last weekend, and I got to meet some of them while we did a 6-hr. bike tour of Berlin. It was a very nice surprise to see Tomi at our reststop at a Biergarten. :) I had no idea she'd be coming. It looks like the summer program doesn't coincide very well with our semester program schedule, so I'll have to be very intentional to see her again.

I recently have felt really weird around my host mom. After spraining my ankle kind of badly from basektball Tuesday night, I got home knowing that my host mom had worked all day and wouldn't want to talk, but I thought she'd probably still respond if I asked a question. Seeing that she was still up, I called her name, but all she did was start to close her door. I thought, maybe she didn't hear me, so I called out again, and she just shut her door all the way. I felt kind of abandoned after that, but knew there was nothing else I could do. The next day she actually seemed kind of annoyed that I'd hurt myself, but wrote down numbers for me to call to make an appointment. Things seemed to be fine for the next few days, but then yesterday she gave me a lecture about how I'd get sick from sitting in my room all day and that it's not a smart thing to do. I don't know why this should really affect me so much, but I think the sequence of events put together made me even more emotionally sensitive. I thought I'd already be used to this bluntness after almost 5 months, since I get to experience this a lot from my host sister, but somehow I'm not. Part of the reason might be that I forget where my value lies (in God).
Oy, this post seems very unorganized.

I don't have too many interesting recent pictures, but here's one of a lion pulling at a piece of meat that I saw up close at the Zoo on Friday. It's sad how these big cats got such small cage areas. We hypothesized optimistically that they were just in these cages for feeding.

ch 8 wars

I thought this chapter was really really interesting. I was recently in a conversation with a nonchristian about how the old testament God could be the same as the one described in the new testament. There was a really troubling passage in 1 samuel where God commands for a village to be destroyed, no one spared, not even women, children, and livestock. throughout the whole conversation all i could think about was how much i wished i had read the old testament. i think i realized just how little i knew about the old testament there. it sparked a lot of questions in myself also.

i really like how the author talks about the "bigger picture" perspective and how warfare is shifted from a physical warfare to a spiritual warfare and how this is something God planned (seen in the so many prophesies about Jesus' life and purpose). i feel like it's still something that's difficult to interpret though especially in our modern world where there are still so many wars made on the basis of religion. in some ways i feel like we've been "spoiled" in this post-Jesus era where love is seen in the highest regard. I wonder what the mindset of the people before Jesus was. How did they see God? wars? judgement? What does it feel like to still await a savior? I feel like the early church had no problem reconciling Jesus' life as the one sent by the same God of the old testment. It must've made a lot more sense to them.

in other news, we just finished our first week at the marine lab. i'm still waiting for my roommate to arrive. my roommate is supposed to be pen-yuan for those of you who know him. He's the nicest guy ever and he lived across from me back in the southgate times. i feel like i've been so lucky in terms of roommates at the marine lab. and it's pretty cool that i got to live in a single for a week (just like last semester when my roommate came late from papua new guinea). Class is going pretty good. our professor has a really untraditional teaching method. there's very little structure and we learn mostly by trying things out and making self-discoveries. it's pretty cool i guess. we're working on experiments that will eventually get legitly published in scientific journals too, so we all get to be co-authors. Last night we canoed to carrot island nearby and collected animals. It was fun, we waded around the low tide and netted up blue crabs, learned to catch fish with our hands and cool stuff like that. The waters are so different at night. fish are not afraid to bump into you, your flashlight is a thing of fascination to the animals, and little crabs run around the shore in the millions. it is sad to think about a world where almost no one will ever get to experience nature like this.