Tuesday, October 16, 2012

another year older

Yesterday I turned 24. I remember when I was younger, I used to count down the days to my birthday. Now I feel like my birthdays just creep up on me and before I know it, I'm another year older.

Being in Reslife, I knew that I wouldn't be able to do much on my actual birthday, so I pretty much celebrated it over the weekend. Unfortunately I was on duty AND on call on Friday. Woot! So as you can guess, there wasn't much celebrating happening on Friday. The staff of Norton/Scott/Archer/Neilwood Gables (long name, I know) or NSANG for short, went on their staff retreat from Friday to Saturday so they needed two RAs to cover their buildings. Our staff was the only one that offered to help out. However, we only had one RA who was available to cover the building, so being the relationship builder that I am, I offered to be on duty and go on rounds, and be on call in case something came up. I'd like to mention that I was also on call for Taylor.
Anyway, the first building my RA and I went to was Neilwood Gables. First of all, there's no elevator in this building, so that was no bueno. Second, we had to walk up four flights of stairs, make sure the doors on the top floor were locked, and look through the keyhole. Could this be any more of a scene from a horror movie? I was genuinely scared something/someone was going to stare back at me. I had to do this for two more sets of rounds and being the scaredy cat that I am, it did not get less scarier. Oh and earlier that day, I received two packages from my aunt. She had initially sent all my packages to my Smith Hall address not knowing that I had moved, so she's still in the process of having everything resent to me. One of the packages consisted of instant Indian food and the other consisted of several packages of mini chocolate chip cookies. I honestly have no idea why my aunt decided to buy me these items, but I still appreciate that she remembered my birthday and took the time to send me something. To be honest though, I wasn't a huge fan of the cookies, but James liked them, so I'll probably make him eat the rest. The best part of this night was that James made me dinner for the first time :) He made me pineapple fried rice with spam which was actually pretty good. Although we both agreed that it may have tasted better than it actually was because we were both starving.

On Saturday, James and I went to a corn maze for the first time 'cause, let's be real, when are we ever gonna go to a corn maze again? Thanks to his wonderful sense of direction, we made it out in a little under 40 minutes. However, we're not 100% sure if we did it correctly. We entered the maze through the normal entrance, but somehow came out the kiddie maze exit. So we don't really know what happened, but the important part is we made it out alive without any help. There was also a greased pole that James was tempted to climb, but after watching numerous people fail to make it to the top, he thought he'd save himself some embarrassment and not climb it. While at the corn maze, we got a text from sugar plum fairy inviting us to her place to watch the Ohio state vs. Indiana football game. being the relationship builders that we are, we weren't going to pass up a fun time with friends :) We grabbed dinner at cane's (This was my very first time eating at cane's btw...shameful, I know), picked up Matt and Tara and headed to Danielle’s place. Andy joined us later. It was a fun night filled with cheers, groans of disappointments (the Buckeyes made a lot of stupid mistakes), mini apple pies, and kettle corn. I also got a care package from perfect pitch with Korean snacks, two books, and a letter that literally made me cry.

On Sunday, I had my Hall Council retreat which was wonderful because my E-board members are a hilarious bunch. After a one hour nap, James took me to Easton to buy me a bear from Build-a-Bear. Here's some context for y'all who need it. After I moved out of my apartment in San Diego, I moved back home to LA for two weeks before leaving for Ohio. A lot of my stuff were in trash bags, including my stuffed animals. my dad thought I was throwing my stuffed animals away so he donated them without telling me. Therefore, I’ve been slowly building up my collection again. Also, I had never bought anything from build-a-bear. It was one of those things that I wanted, but I was never going to buy it for myself. So, knowing all of this, James took me to Easton. However, when we got there around 6pm, it was closed. What mall store closes at 6pm on a Sunday? What a fail. Anyway, he said I could get a raincheck for that :) For dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant called Panda Inn on Bethel. From the outside it looked sort of sketchy, but the inside is super nice with lanterns hanging from the ceilings, a Chinese style bridge, and a small pond with fish. It was definitely the best Chinese food I had had during my time in Ohio and I’ll be going back for sure. we came back to my place after dinner and he let me open my present. I had noticed the pink gift bag with flowers earlier, but he said he was waiting for me to notice it and say something. I, however, thought he placed it there for a reason and was waiting for him to say something. We make quite the pair. Anyway, the present consisted of purple earrings and a purple bible. Here's some more context. First of all, my favorite color is purple. While he was in china, I jokingly asked him to get me something pretty. When he asked me what I wanted I said that I liked earrings and that my favorite color was purple. However, he couldn't find any purple earrings in china or at least any that he thought were pretty, which is why he bought me some for my birthday. As for the Bible, I have two bibles and I brought the smaller one with me when I moved out to Ohio. However, this bible has completely fallen apart. The cover and the pages are two separate pieces, and that's why he bought me the bible. According to him, I probably have the only purple bible in existence because it was really difficult to find. We ended our night by watching the artist and drinking wine. classy, I know.

Monday was my actual birthday. One of the first things I saw when I woke up was a text from my brother wishing me a happy birthday. Last year he failed to wish me a happy birthday on my actual birthday. When I called him out on it the next day, he sent me a text that said his happy birthday text was delayed due to technical difficulties. The other thing I saw when I woke up was a picture of the Taylor Tower bulletin board that was dedicated to me. Apparently I moved to Ohio from San Diego because of my fear of seagull poop and I had once held up the torch for the Statue of Liberty because Lady Liberty needed a break (courtesy of one of my super creative OAs). Later, I walked into my office to find it covered in streamers, post-its, and balloons (courtesy of my RA staff). It definitely put a smile on my face to say the least, but it also looked like my office got tipied. While in my office,I got a call from one of my OAs letting me know that I had a special delivery at the front desk. I walked out to find a vase of flowers from none other than Helen. I also got a lovely phone call from my mom at 10:37am PST and she sang me happy birthday. For those of you who don't know my mom, this is not out of the ordinary at all. When I told her that Earne had wished me a happy birthday first, she said she would've called/texted me first, but she had just woken up because she had gotten home at around 1am that morning after hanging out with her friends. I swear, the older that woman gets, the more she plays :P And then I don't remember how we got to the conversation of marriage, but she told me not to get married before 30. This was very different from the message she gave me while I was home for Labor Day weekend which was that I should crank out a cute, little baby soon. I dunno what she wants me to do. I told her that ideally I'd like to get married in my mid to late 20s, but we'll see what God has planned for me. And of course, she couldn't argue with that. My dad was the last of the three to wish me a happy birthday. He asked me how my day was, what I did for my birthday, etc., you know, the typical parent questions. Later that day, I had my staff meeting where my RAs sang me happy birthday and martin baked me homemade pumpkin cheesecake which was absolutely delicious!

All in all I had a wonderful birthday :) I'm grateful for all of the amazing people in my life who took the time to text me, call me, write on my Facebook wall, and/or send me something special. Also, I don't know if anyone else has felt/is feeling this, but after 21, I've stopped "feeling" like I was getting older. I mean, I know I'm getting older physically (I'm sure my students can vouch for me), but in terms of my spirit, energy, or whatever else you want to call it, I'm not really feeling it. I feel like the same child-like (not childish, there is a difference), positive, free-spirited gal I was back in college, and I'm okay with that :)

Sunday, October 7, 2012

a tale of two churches

Today I went to Rock City Church for the second time, but this time I went with James. We had agreed that he'd go to my service in the afternoon and then we'd go to his mass at night. Today's message at Rock City was titled "What about the many Christians who look nothing like your Christ?" The pastor shared his own story about when he was in 9th grade and brought a friend with him to church. For the sake of this story, let's call the friend Luke. Luke wasn't very popular and didn't have a lot of other friends so the pastor felt sorry for him which is why he invited him out to church. At the end of service one Sunday, Luke went up to the pastor and told him he had something to tell him, but said if he told him it would change their friendship. The pastor told Luke that he could tell him what he needed to tell him and that it wouldn't change anything. Then, Luke told him he was gay and the pastor said, "That changes everything."

According to the sermon, there are three main moments when it becomes easy for a Christian to become a barrier for those in pursuit of Christ: 1) When we forget who we were before Christ 2) When we reason that it's our job to change the world and 3) When the central focus of our lives is anything but Christ. All of these points stood out to me, but the second point resonated with me the most. When Christians feel that it's our responsibility to change the world, we justify violence/hatred against others. We think it's in our power to change the heart of others when the reality is that only God has the power to do that.

The pastor ended the sermon by emphasizing the importance of loving everyone regardless of their identities, backgrounds, experiences, etc. to be honest, hearing this was incredibly refreshing. I know that Christians don't have the best reputations. I mean, we carry signs that say people are going to hell because of their sexual orientation and other "sinful identities." I believe that the most important message in the bible is for us to love everyone. Unfortunately that message tends to get lost in the Christian community so I sincerely appreciated the pastor's message.

The service was held in one of the movie theaters at the Lennox so James and I grabbed lunch at Johnny Rockets and then watched Looper. I’d like to point out that it started raining and the weather channel app on my phone did not say anything about rain. Stupid Ohio weather! Anyway, my brain still hurts a little bit after watching Looper, but not as much as it did after inception. Looper was AMAZING! I don't want to give anything away, but there's so much more to the movie than the previews. I also might be a bit biased because I love any movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt :D after the movie we went to the Buck-I-Serv Winter kick off. I met the students who will be going on my trip, did the typical name learning icebreakers (did I mention that despite being in grad school for student affairs, I don't like icebreakers), watched a short film about Buck-I-Serv, and created a Buck-I-Serv contract for our group. Although I still don't really know what's going on with this trip, I know it's going to be great and I’m super excited! James and I had an hour to kill before the 9pm mass so we went to Kroger and ended up buying more than just pita bread, which was the only thing we actually needed to get.

The mass was at the Newman Center which just so happens to be right across the street from Taylor which was very convenient. Also, I’d just like to point out that I hadn't been to a Catholic mass since I was in elementary school and even then, I think it was like an informal Friday service. Luckily, James gave me the rundown and guided me through the service. It was different from what I'm used to. It was more "traditional," there were memorized responses/gestures that I didn't know, and the songs that were sung were not as upbeat. They were very minor things, but I was slightly self-conscious that people would notice that I wasn't saying any of the responses or doing any of the gestures. I really enjoyed the message because the priest talked about how God created man and woman in Genesis and they were complimentary. Therefore, they are equal. Just because god created man first doesn't mean that man has power over woman. In all of my years of going to church, no one has ever talked about that story in terms of the equality between men and women and I loved hearing it that way. So Catholic churches have communion every Sunday, which was fine because I had taken communion before multiple times. However, there were responses/gestures that went along with this too. James tried to explain it to me a few minutes before communion started and I started to get a little bit of anxiety so I decided to just stay in my seat, which was definitely the smart thing to do.

I don't think I've ever gone to two services in one day, especially two services at two different churches. Although the structures of the services were different, I loved the messages I received from both churches, and at the end of the day, the sermons that are preached are what matter the most to me.