Internetless but full of joy

North Bay is a quiet town, but the people here are super nice. I find myself saying hi and chatting with people on the street while walking home, because most people do actually say hi back if you try to make eye contact. I am super glad that I get to enjoy Spring here, and I am looking forward to possibly some canoeing and hiking trips on the weekends as well.

I am currently attending a local Baptist church here and heard an awesome sermon on Christ’s headship over the church and the significance of marriage. Another post on the sermon, and bible study will be up soon after I flush out some of my thoughts and after I get my internet.

I also met a teacher at the church who offers to drive me to the grocery store this weekend, so I won’t starve. She also invited me to one of their ladies’ gathering in a coffee shop. Surprisingly, I felt super comfortable and at home with a group of ladies chatting about their young toddlers and husbands and I didn’t want to join the college group instead. Wow, I am getting old. =P

So, other than the fact that I will spend the first weekend in Canada Internetless, I love it here and I am full of JOY! As much as I love the serenity of North Bay, I am gaining a deeper appreciation for bigger cities and honestly, I actually miss the noise and pollution in Toronto.

An Inciting Incident

“A general rule in creating stories is that characters don’t want to change. They must be forced to change. Nobody wakes up and starts chasing a bad guy or dismantling a bomb unless something forces them to do so.” “Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve avoided having a clear ambition is because the second you stand up and point toward a horizon, you realize how much there is to lose. It’s always been this way.”
“James Scott Bell says an inciting incident is a doorway through which the protagonist cannot return.
- Don Miller

The thing about inciting incident is that 9 out of 10 times, they just happen to us. At least for me, I don’t look around for inspirations to become a better friend or student, I stay put as long as I can until something happens to me, mostly bad things that force me to change for the better.

But the funny part about inciting incident is that life doesn’t always turn out like the movies. We don’t overcome one particular challenge and find all our issues and problems resolved and we live happily ever after. Every victory leads to more challenges and and more inciting incidents that force us to change. If I thought getting into PT program solved all my identity problems, I was in for a rude awakening. If I would be silly enough to think that getting my dream job would solve all my problems, then someone should smack me on the face.

The point of it all isn’t about winning or losing or watching our dream being realized, but the point of it all is about the process, the TRANSFORMATION of our characters, to become more like Christ.

reminiscence

I rarely reminiscent or revisit past memories, because there’s always something more exciting in the future and I’ve learned to embrace changes because I’ve learned the hard way that nothing stay the same. However, as I get older, things start to change and I start to remember good memories in the past. How much I miss my high school lunch times or cramming for exams in Gerstein library or praying for revival on U of T campus. Since I’ve rushed through so much of my life and never learned to slow down and enjoy the presence, I feel like past memories are coming back to haunt me with such intense force like I am being hit head on by a trunk on a highway and I am left with so much numbness and bruising, I can’t even begin to put myself together.
OkAY! I am just kidding, it’s not that bad. =P

For the first time, I am intentionally preparing myself to anticipate future changes. The first one is saying goodbye to Kccf and the grad group. I honestly should have invested more time in it, but last night’s grad event made me realize how short life is, and how little time we have with each person who happen to cross our path. They are here today and gone tomorrow.

The second one is preparing for the end of the PT program. Luckily, I have a few months to be prepared for it, so I won’t be shocked when it finally hits me.

Leaving China: At the age of 12, leaving China was not something I anticipated. Everything all happened so quickly. My cousin cried, my classmates cried or at least all the girls in my class cried haha. My relatives all cried when we departed Beijing. I guess I didn’t have time to realize what was all happening to me until I got to my own room in an apartment that my dad rented, I cried for an entire night and used up a box of Kleenex. When my parents ask me why I was crying, I said, “I was sad because there was nothing in the room except a bed.” oh Silly me.

Middle school graduation: I remember distinctively at my middle school graduation dance, everyone started to cry as soon as they started playing the last song. We ride on the school bus all the way back to be picked up by our parents and some girls were bawling like crazy. I didn’t feel anything, it was like I was emotionless and people probably thought so too. Once I got into my parents’ car and the car door slammed shut, I cried like a baby.

I am so slow sometimes. =)
Honestly, what makes this upcoming farewell harder than ever is that I have to say goodbye to my childhood: no more laughing on the ground for 30 min and not remembering why I started to laugh in the first place, I can’t be so focused on school as if the world evolved around it, I can’t skip and dance while walking on the side walk or make snow angel by myself, I can’t keep my cellphone on silent for a month during exam time and have 20 miss calls, can’t tell people the only two countries I can identify on the map is China and Canada (which is still true by the way) and I can’t be forgettful and use “I am carol” as an excuse anymore, lastly I can’t deliberately laugh only at people but never with people anymore.

I skipped the famous season of rebellion, adolescence and now I have no choice but to enter adulthood. It’s so hard to say goodbye to my childhood that stretched out way too long.

Moving, changes and life

The first time I went back to home in China to visit in Grade 10, I had tears in my eyes as I walk across the familiar neighborhood that I grew up in. Only the scent in the air stayed the same all those years, everything else changed. The people in the city changed dramatically, even social interactions and common courtesy changed as well. For 12 years, I thought life was defined by the kind of life I lived in China. Then, everything changed. As my life changed, so did my hometown. It has traces of my childhood life, only traces.

Changes seem to define my life. Nothing ever stay the same. I don’t even stay the same.

Even Toronto doesn’t stay the same. I felt like a country girl when I went back to visit this weekend. Why do people have to walk so fast or have I slowed down to match with the Kingston pace?

Freedom

I think a lot of personal, relational, business or even international conflicts occur because one party demands to control the other party. There are a lot of political/international conflicts brewing on the world stage currently. (I certainly hope they will not explode into anything bigger than merely tongue-lashing and calling names of the opposite party, because it would be the commoners like us that would suffer the consequences of politicians’ mistakes.)

I think freedom is a breathtaking word. It’s something that millions fought for with their blood and sweat, whether to be free from foreign invasion or dictatorship government or to be free from slavery. We are constantly fighting for a different kind of freedom daily on a micro-level: the freedom to choose the type of lifestyle that we want to lead regardless of our parents’ desire and wish, the freedom to worship God in the first place or the freedom to worship God in a way we feel more comfortable.

What does it mean to be free in Christ? What does it look like to be a slave for Christ rather than the world? I think it starts with having an open mind. I think it starts with embracing people from different walks of life and different life styles. I think it starts with allowing people to be themselves without judging them.

First, we can start with freeing ourselves from other people’s expectations/perception of us, so that we can be our real selves again.

Distance

Distance can bring people apart. Facebook, skype, emails, gchat or msn are nothing compared to a good face-to-face conversation. I wish I can be in multiple geographic locations at once, because good and long-lasting friendships can nurture our souls.

fav. crew, fav. routine

So yes, Jabbawockeez and Beatfreakz and Questcrew are awesome and amazing dance crews on American Best Dance Crew Show, but my fav. Crew of all time has to be Kaba Modern.
This is first routine that made them famous without much flare of a story etc, but the technical dance side is so clean and so in sync. I love their awesome work!

I miss my grandma

I don’t know why but I really miss my grandma today. She had a stroke as a result of diabetes 10 years back shortly after we left China. When the time came for me to pick a medical research topic during the summer in undergrad, I jumped at the topic related to diabetes. Even though, all I did was killing rats as animal models for a summer, I felt that in a small way, I could do something about her condition or at least for other people with diabetes in the future.

Then, during the middle of my physical therapy program, she painfully passed away. I wasn’t even there to watch her go.

This past summer, my grandpa came to visit and watching him made me sadder. However, at the same time, I am in awe of the sacrifice he had made for her. The chief editor of a local radio station would spend a decade of his retired life taking care of his wife diligently even though she couldn’t even remember anything for the past 60 years.

I pray that I may see them in Heaven one day.

I suppose true love looks more like what my grandpa did for my grandma as suppose to all the flashy celebrity gossips on the cover of magazines.

manifest the glory of God that is within us

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

I want to offer my best to God, but I am really really lazy. I want to go to the beach and just enjoy the sunshine, but here I am stuck here to study =)

Act out of fear or faith? I choose faith with trembling hands. I’ve got my own “disabilities”, my own weaknesses. Everyone has a barrier that they need to overcome on a daily basis. I’ve got tons of them. Can it be that with the thorn in my flesh, I can be strong in Him even though I am weak?

2 Corinthians 12
7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I admire the strength of this woman with physical disability. ( Bilateral below knee amputations)

I need God-time.

I’ve grown up in Christian circles, leading fellowship in high schools and in universities. Outside of classroom, I was always surrounded by Christians who constantly talked about God. As much as I love God, these people loved God more, and sometimes I feel so suffocated by their love for God that I want to talk about other things: The new store opened down the street, or the weather, just ordinary random stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I was leading groups and fellowships and attending at least three different bible study groups each week. I loved being surrounded by Christians who don’t think I am weird that I love reading the bible on a regular basis and talking to God. But there were times, I was sick of it because I was soo immersed in that culture too.

Nowadays, I crave for a good long conversation about God (for friendship sake, not under the constraint of bible study groups or fellowship time) and I look around and find almost no one to talk to, either because I am too busy or they are too busy but mostly because I am too busy with school. Back in the day, on top of a good 3-4 bible study/fellowship time per week, I also did devo time with my suitemate when we eat dinner or lunch everyday. I LOVED IT! We learned a bit more about God each day. I wish I have the same amount of time to do all of that.

I wonder which situation is better: to be sometimes bored of God because I am constantly bombarded by God’s presence through my own quiet time and other people, or be starving for God’s presence because I am so busy and I lack the constant/daily support of other Christians, who are also in the same season of life as me.

The bottom line is, I need God-time. I want to talk about God and everything related to God and nothing else if that’s ever possible. I am OCD about God. =P That’s a good place to be, except I just need more God-time.