Veterans

The other day someone told me that his friend, after obtaining her doctorate in psychology, will be going to work for a veteran's association.

I sat in the car as he continued, saying how she would be moving in the next couple weeks. I wasn't really paying attention, though, to what he was saying afterwards. You see, I was stuck wondering why veterans needed psychologists. Was working with animals really that stressful? Or perhaps the psychologists are for the pets. Do animals need therapy, too?

And then I realized my mistake.

Updates and Things

Boy, have I been busy...I think this is the first time in a long time I didn't post in an entire month (ie: April has 0 posts.) While I am thinking about it, no, I did not get the job I mentioned in the post in March.

I've been working and filling out paperwork for roughly the last three weeks straight now. My body is aching and feeling sick. I haven't been getting much sleep.

Except for Thursday. Thursday was the first break in the train of work (and news, too-- all the news about Boston, the CA wildfire, etc. is really tiring me out, too) and for the first time in a very long time, I got to spend the day doing nothing. A day to just enjoy myself and take a step back-- it was a really cool experience. Unfortunately, now I'm a bit behind on my work....

I discovered this new internet site called BuzzFeed. Basically, it has funny or interesting pictures of things. For example,

People who messed up in an athletic event/competition:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-who-will-make-you-feel-better-about-your-complete-lac

Pictures of food that you can buy through Etsy (the Scrabble Pieces are my favorite):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hjupiter/18-etsy-foods-you-have-never-tried-but-want-to-96yn

And finally, I can't get this song un-stuck from my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpaS2v-r7cE ("Tonight", from West Side Story)

Ah, I suppose I should get back to work now...

March In One Post

First of all,

I apologize for the lack of posts. I've been really caught up in my work recently....but now that Easter is about to roll around, I've found some time to post.

Some random things that are going on in my life as I think of them:

(1) I had a job interview recently. I should find out later this week whether or not I'll get the job. I'm pretty excited.
(2) A miracle happened last Thursday. I had an 8am appointment so I set my alarm for 6:40. I woke up the next morning before my alarm; I looked at it and it said it was 5:17am. I figured I had an extra hour and a half of sleep to burn, but by some miracle I happened to turn on my phone...and my phone said it was 7:20. I sprang out of bed and barely made it to my appointment on time.
Later, I think I hit the time-zone button in my sleep and caused the alarm to pop back two hours.
(3) I watched Skyfall, the James bond movie that came out a while ago. I also saw The Prestige. Both very good plot lines. Very enjoyable.
(4) I found a $20 on the ground the other day. I asked around to see if it belonged to anyone, and it didn't, so I claimed it :) Made me happy for a little bit.
(5) Here's a picture of Great Falls, Montana.



Anyway, here are 10 songs running through my head, in no particular order:

1. Come Home - One Republic
2. Kyrie (Op. 16) - Louis Vierne
3. 50 Ways to Say Goodbye - Train
4. Crucifixus - Antonio Lotti
5. Young at Heart - Mr. Frank Sinatra
6. Home - Michael Buble
7. Love the Way You Lie (Pt. II) - Rihanna ft. Eminem (much, much better than the first one, I think) [the clean version, preferrably]
8. Girl on Fire - Alicia Keys
9. Sixteen Tons - T. E. Ford ("Sixteen tons-- What do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt")
10. Skyfall - Adele (I suppose that's because the opening credits scene of Skyfall was simply delightfully produced and arranged. A wonderful work, and while I haven't jumped on the Adele bandwagon yet, I think it was wonderfully fitting to the movie.)

Have a great Easter!

This.

This Week

This week hasn't exactly been the best.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning I was working from 8pm to 2am, at which point I decided to go to sleep...so I could wake up at 6:30am to finish my work (around 9:30, which is about the time the rest of my day starts). But I finished, so I can't complain much there.

Last night, I was doing laundry. I moved my clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, put in my dollar, and went back to my room to do a workout. The dry cycle took about an hour to finish, so I set a timer on my phone for an hour so that I could go to sleep as soon as it ended (around midnight). At 11:55 I went to go check on my clothes and saw that they had stopped spinning. I opened the door and reached in to grab my clothes and...they were still wet. I realized that while I'd paid for the dryer, I didn't actually start the machine. The money in the machine was gone (did somebody use it?) so I was stuck paying another dollar and waiting another hour.

But guess what? Laundry's done, work and paperwork are done, and I took a 2.5 hour nap today, so I am a happy camper.

Happy February and hope you had a nice Valentine's day!

First Post of 2013

I traveled for the new year this time around. I woke up at 5am for an 8:30am departure. I was rather tired, and I wanted the plane to get going, but after boarding we had to sit around for a while because there was a problem with the water on board and we had to get off the runway and go back to dock.

We probably sat in the plane for forty minutes before it took off. I had to catch an 11:15 bus when I left the airport (the one after 11:15 left at 1:15, and I didn't want to wait that long) so I was anxiously (and tiredly) looking at the on-flight TV screen, which was displaying the time.

I kept wondering why it wasn't changing when I realized that 737 wasn't the time but the aircraft I was on.

Have a great 2013!

Blog Updates

Hello everyone!

Happy blog birthday (Technically the blog was created on 12/28/08, but the first post didn't go up until 12/29/08)! 2008-2012-- that's 5 December's we've passed now, and boy are we looking good.

I wanted to share some blog updates with you:

1) I've reached 200 followers! Thank you all.
2) I've taken the liberty to delete a majority of the posts that I thought were tasteless, immature, or overall did not have very much merit. That did mean cutting down from almost 800 posts to around 300 (a rather painful cut, to be sure-- it's difficult to see your reflections of the last couple years deleted) but I think ATWC is much better now, so I'm pleased.
3) Finally, I've updated the Best Of to reflect the more recent posts.

Have a great 2013!

On The Newtown, CT Shooting

This is not meant as a consolation or an accusation. This is not meant as a way to blow off or condone the actions or deaths that occurred today. This is my sorting out and my reflections of what happened today, and my thoughts concerning the implications of my reflections.

            The shootings that happened earlier today, I think, affected our lives in a number of ways. First and foremost, I think it shattered our illusion of a perfect world. Especially since we’re so close to Christmas, we’re tempted to look at our glittery lights and shiny stars and believe that we have reached peace and perfection; we’re tempted to look at time off from work or school and anticipate dinner with the family and believe that, for at least a couple weeks, we’ll have some rest and quietude. However, the reality of human nature and of the fragile balance between life and death made its face known to us today. The world isn’t what we want it to be; when we take off the makeup, we see a face pocketed with scars and marked by bitterness. Secondly, today’s shootings bring us deep sadness. As President Obama said, “Our hearts are broken” and indeed they are; I don’t think anybody would ever condone such violent actions, but I think these deaths hit home especially hard because the victims are children. These deaths are saddening, they are confusing, and they are troubling.

Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the closing of his letter to the Church at Philippi, the apostle Paul emphatically tells the church to rejoice in all circumstances. In light of the recent shooting in Connecticut, we may find ourselves confused and troubled—how can we rejoice? Children died—children who will no longer be able to play at recess or find a spouse or have kids of their own. These children did nothing wrong—how can we rejoice at the fact that a man with guns and a corrupted mind took away something so precious and so delicate? The answer, I think, is simplistic in form but complicated to understand; I believe we can rejoice because, in essence, this shooting is insignificant in comparison to the omnipotence and omniscience of God.

I believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave, and, by doing so, conquered our sins and death. Jesus’s sacrifice reunited humanity with God once more. This belief is one of the strongest and most powerful tenants of the Christian faith—the intercession of God himself to fix man’s brokenness.

When we try to reconcile these two points, however—God’s love for mankind and the treachery of this incident—we reach a harsh conflict. Sure, God coming down to save us is great and all, but that happened years ago; these kids died today. Inflight of the recent sufferings we face, we are forced to ask ourselves and God, “So what?” Jesus is great and all, but an evil occurred that we all wish would have been avoided.

            Allow me to borrow an idea from C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce: in it, a character finds himself in Heaven, a place where everything is so vivid and so real that the grass digs into his feet when he tries to walk on it and his flesh is considered “ghostlike” in comparison to the world around him. The point, as we later find out, of the contrast is that Heaven is so much realer, so much larger, so much more fulfilling than Hell that if we took all the “loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies and itching’s” that it contains and “put into the scale against…Heaven”, Hell “would have no weight that could be registered at all”1.

1: As qtd. on pg. 538 of the Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, pub. Harper One, New York, 2002.

My point is this: As a Christian, I believe that Jesus’s Crucifixion and his Resurrection are a big deal—so big that, in comparison, the disheartening things of the world can take no root in the peace of God the apostle Paul mentions. I certainly hope not to minimize the scope and implications of what happened today; no one would take the death of anyone, much less that of child, and even less of so many people! Lightly, and I do not either. What I’m saying is that, from a Christian humanistic perspective, while it may be intuitive tube immersed in our confusion and sadness, to be so would be in direct opposition to the entire concept of the Redemption by Christ. Christ died so you could be liberated from sadness, not bewildered by it. Granted, I do not think that we should be willy-nilly and ignore the sufferings of those who are affected by this tragedy. On the other hand, I cite the example of Jesus when he visited the tomb of Lazarus:

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” [John11:33-36]

Jesus, too, wept at the death of his friend Lazarus—a real, genuine sadness. I think one of the greatest mysterious of the Incarnation is the humanity of God—Jesus didn’t dabble in our emotions of sadness but he soaked in it. Jesus didn’t seem sad; he wasn’t affected by sadness; Jesus was sad. There’s just so much power in the words the present Jews said: “See how he loved him!” I think that’s a truly wonderful phrase—it’s a testament to the humanity of Christ in that Christ was capable of sadness and great love. But see how Christ’s sadness did not come directly from the death of Lazarus; rather, it came from His love of Lazarus. Christ wept out of love, not out of sadness.

I think a similar idea holds for us: We may take part in the sadness but we are not—or, as Christians, cannot—be overcome by it. Think about it: Christ saved the world from sin! And, more importantly (this small part took me a very long time to realize), Christ saved you from sin, and the Cross and Blood cover all who seek their refuge, no matter the time. To be blunt, you won. Death is beaten; Satan is defeated; and you are freed from the evil desires of your body and of your mind. You are freed from the grip of sadness and despair; Christ has overpowered sin and death for you. This sadness we have is so small or insignificant in comparison to the Redemption that it cannot take hold of us. We can take part in it to empathize with others (as taught by Jesus, and in accordance with the command to be benefactors to the less fortunate), but sadness cannot take away the joys and the peace of God found in the wonders of the Savior.

To conclude from the Revelations of John, there will come a time when

God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” [Revelations 22:3b-4]

I believe that God will come back again to judge the living and the dead, and that includes those who were killed today and those who are responsible for such killing. I cannot judge the character of the kids or adults who were slain today; nor can I judge the actions or the morality of the perpetrator of today’s crimes. I trust in God’s omniscience to deal justice out accordingly to His standards, and I pray that I may refrain from passing mine. I believe God will come again to rule over the Earth and, as stated in the Book of Revelations, there will be no more sadness—there will only be the fullness and the glory of God so vivid and so real that everything else will be negligible in the light of God. Jesus Christ is coming again—there is nothing to fear, and we cannot be conquered by sadness. Rejoice! I say it again: rejoice.

Happy...November?

What month is it now, November?

It's been ages since I've last posted.

Everything's just gotten very very busy.

But let's start at the beginning.

1) I visited Pittsburgh, PA, for the first time. I only got to see the city at night, but it is rather stunning. Here is a picture from nearby Mt. Washington I took from my iPhone.

2) O Magnum Mysterium is a Christmas song composed by Morten Lauridsen (American, currently a professor of composition at USC), and here it is.



3) Recently, I posted about a "challenge" I had going that involved getting enough sleep. Well, rest assured (get it?), I've been getting ~7hrs/sleep every night, which has been doing wonders for my health. I highly recommend working out your schedule so that you're getting enough sleep every night; it gives you so much more energy and makes all that you do much more efficient.

I just wish I had some time to get some more workouts/exercise in. My lack of activity is starting to get to me.

Anyway, I'm still pretty busy but I wanted to quickly update this blog.

Have a great night, and I hope you had a safe and eventful Halloween.