Last weekend I organized a retreat for the Campus Christian Ministries club on campus. I have been active as the vice president for the last year and I don’t really remember how I ended up as the coordinator for this event but I definitely put my all into it. I don’t want to talk about how great I was for everything, because that is not the truth, but I do really want to reflect on what happened.
There was a lot of last minute cancellations. From people I had asked to lead. Their reasons were completely understandable and valid, for sure, and I have absolutely have no hard feelings about that. However, it did certainly result in a lot of anxiety on my end about what to do. I ended up writing Bible studies last minute and I was really worried that because of that, it wasn’t going to end up well. We ended up having twelve girls in all at the retreat and they have changed my aspect on life. Talking with them made me realize so much more about my faith and my community. Throughout our Bible studies, we focused on a couple verses. My favorite one was definitely this one: And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25 If I’m going to be perfectly honest, this verse is really, really, really hard to listen to. It is so easy to talk bad about people. Way, way, way easier than encouraging someone or spurring them on to love. It is so much easier to complain about what someone did or said than to tell someone what they are good at or encouraging them. We talked about this a lot. Why is this such a hard Bible verse to listen to? All it requires is being nice and encouraging others. Sure, it might be easy when it is to your friends and famiy. But think of the lady who cut you off while driving or the one who gave you a nasty look in the grocery store. What about the guy you can’t stand in your class or the girl who is dating the guy you wish you could be with? I wish I had an answer to all this but I don’t think I ever will. However, I have challenged myself to say more affirmations and to compliment as much as I can. So often I keep these things in my mind and I don’t even have a reason for that. So hey. You’re doing swell today. You’re alive. You’re loved.
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Here’s another braggy “I live in New York” post. Sorry (but really I’m not).
On Saturday, February 7th , two of my friends and I decided to go to Brooklyn. The night before I had made a random comment that the Brooklyn Bridge was on my bucketlist. My friend, who is a Long Island native, had never done it either. Then my other friend who is from Massachusetts (she’s my New York adventurer, we've done a lot of crazy things in the last few months) decided to come as well. Being college students, we happily slept in until 11:30am that Saturday and then got into the city around 1:30pm. Our original plan was to walk one way and then take the Subway back. Spoiler alert, that didn’t happen. We walked along Park Avenue and walked past Union Square. We reached the Brooklyn Bridge and Sarah had to pee (which if you know Sarah, that’s not a surprise at all) so we ended up sitting at Starbucks for like an hour because of how long the bathroom line was. When we started on the Brooklyn Bridge, we almost got ran over by a group of a couple hundred Mennenites. They were walking down and we were trying to get to the other side because we were in the bike lane and getting angry looks from bikers. But I guess a group of Mennenites were touring NYC and so we almost got ran over. That was fun. The Brooklyn Bridge was insanely beautiful. I had those moments of “I’m OBSESSED WITH NEW YORK” basically the entire time. My snapchat was full of videos of the beauty. Then I got the most amazing videos of Sarah falling on the ice. She’s okay (as she stated adorably in the video) and I think it’s one of my favorite memories from that trip. Later, Becca got ran into by a bicycle. That was funny. Now she’s terrified of bikes. Hilarious. After we finished the Brooklyn Bridge, we realized how close we were to Battery Park. We ended up walking there and I saw a squirrel really up close and that made me really happy. We went at sunset, so it was insanely beautiful to see Lady Liberty with the sun setting behind here. By this point, it was dinner time and the three of us were starving and exhausted. So instead of taking the Subway back to Grand Central, we ended up deciding to walk to Union Square to see if we could find a cute vegan or similar style of restaurant. We wanted to avoid a chain restaurant so we basically kept looking for places to eat. But of course, when you aren’t looking for cute small restaurants you find a thousand. When you are looking for a cute small restaurants, there are none to be found. We looked for a good hour of walking around aimlessly. I also managed to get us a wee bit lost on our way to Union Square. We actually ran into some of my friends from school along fourth avenue which was absolutely insaaaaane. Honestly, at that point we were so exhausted that we kind of thought we were delusional. At one point, Becca tried to sit down on the sidewalk and it resulted in me and Sarah screaming at her to not sit down. It was probably rather comical to watch us yell at her that if she sat down, she would never get up again. Pretty sure everyone who saw us thought we were drunk, even though we were really just tired, hungry and exhausted. We stopped in a Pret A Manger where I got a latte and some fruit and we sat for twenty minutes before venturing back out to find some place for dinner. After a good long time of searching for a place, we found a salad place that was amazing. We sat there for literally an hour. We then ventured back to Grand Central and managed to get back to our dorm rooms in one piece. We clocked in at 17 miles and believe me, we definitely felt it the next day. But I definitely think that the best adventures are with good friends and when they’re relatively last minute plans. This is definitely one of my favorite memories from New York this semester. So hey, moral of the story, be up for random 17 mile adventures. You'll have a leg hangover the next day, but it will be SO worth it. The semester is over. It seems like the last four months have sped by so fast. Being back in Hawai’I for the first time since I left in mid-August is also extremely strange. Part of me feels like I never left, the other part realizes that things won’t ever be the same as they were before I left. The last four months have changed me – in a good way. I’ve had so many experiences I don’t think I ever would have had otherwise. As a celebratory hoorah at finishing this semester, here’s a look back to my adventures in New York City. I went to a baseball game. A Yankees and Red Sox game. Not too bad. Found a cute little tree in Central Park and made my friend take pictures of me. Had amazing hot coco at a little hole-in-the-wall place. Saw Something Rotten on Broadway and then went next door to eat pizza in what used to be a church. Went apple picking for the first time ever!!!! Took my brother to the top of the rock when he came to visit. Yeah, kinda freaked out at how beautiful this place is. Fell in love with Central Park in the fall. Did the touristy thing and took a picture on the red stairs. And one of my friends and I did a treat yourself day. Got front row seats to Finding Neverland on Broadway by rush tickets. These pictures are only a small portion of what I’ve done these past weeks. I went to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, saw Radio City at Christmas time, went to both the Bryant Park Christmas village and the Union Square Christmas village, found paths in Central Park, gone shopping, and so so so many other things. It’s been an amazing adventure. I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming semester. (Oh, and yes I do school occasionally.) Okay, I’m not going to pretend that I’m not obsessed with Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. I totally am. I love having my friends at the touch of my fingertips, especially when some of my closest friends are going to school miles away. I like seeing my sister’s snapchats of my nephew who is getting older every day. I like keeping updated with Broadway things on Twitter. So this is not me saying social media is horrible because it’s definitely an amazing thing. But think about it. How often are we concerned with the way people see our lives? I don’t like snapchatting when I don’t have makeup on. I don’t want people to see the days where I don’t want to shower. Yet we always like to post the times that are great. It’s like a little “HEY LOOK AT ME I’M DOING SOMETHING COOL”. I know that when I’m in New York City, I love snapchatting what I’m doing. I’m as guilty as the next person. But why are we focused on bragging what our lives our like? Heaven knows I’m not always going to NYC and getting front row tickets to Broadway shows or going to Yankees games or going to the Top of the Rock. Some days I only leave my room for class. Some days I have a zit the size of Kansas on my forehead. Sometimes I feel like the devil ran me over with a car. That’s reality. On social media, we’re also publicizing everything. There’s so many times that we post a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #bae #favoriteperson #noonegetsmelikeher and suddenly there’s World War III. Why? Because someone who is also a close friend of ours has gotten jealous that THAT person got an appreciation post but they didn’t. Yikes. Or you make up an excuse that you can’t go somewhere, like maybe a friend invites you to a party that you know you’re not going to have fun at so you tell them you have to do homework. An hour later, you’re snapchatting that you’re with another friend having the time of your life. Whoops. Personally, I need to remember that life goes by fast and I don’t want to spend it all behind a screen. Our generation needs to learn how to unplug. Take a day away from social media and your phone and see what you learn. Today was a day that I decided against doing the homework that is lining itself up on my calendar and instead write a blog post. Something I haven’t even thought about doing for a while. But here I am, alas I am not dead! Life is an adventure. Two months have passed since my last post, where I was mentioning how terrified I was to start college. Now I am sitting in my dorm room, wearing a sweater and jeans (something I could never do in Hawai’i) and drinking a cup of hot chocolate (which has recently become my love). A lot has changed since I was sitting in my room with shorts and a tank top on, dying because of the 96 degree weather. Here’s a few thoughts about my life as of recently.
As the day until I move into my dorm room gets closer to 1, I realize just how under prepared I am. Sure, I’ve been thinking about going to an actual on-campus college for the past year (probably longer, actually) but now that it’s only two weeks away, I am terrified. I’ve made lists, I’ve organized my room, and I’ve started making piles. But despite all this, I don’t feel ready to move to a new state. This is normal for first time college-goers, I am assuming.
But I feel like I’m about to get dropped into the middle of the ocean with a life jacket and I’m going to have to figure out how to get back to land – all on my own. It is exactly 4,961 miles from my house to my college in New York which is a 9+ hour flight. Terrifying much? Yes, I am very excited to be twenty minutes outside of New York City and to be on my own. But this is new territory for me. I can’t go home over the weekend and I have to subtract 6 hours whenever I want to talk to home. Another thing is that I don’t get to do dorm shopping until the day I move into my dorm. I don’t get to do it over a period of time, but instead it is in bulk because shipping from Hawaii is ridiculous. I only get to spend a day with my dad before he goes home. And I’m going to have to prepare to be in actual classrooms for only the second time in my life (#homeschoolerprobs). I do not regret my choice to go to a college so far away. I know the experiences I will have will be one of a kind. I know that I will meet amazing people who will hopefully be my friends for a long time. I will get to know the city as well as I know my neighborhood now. So even though I realize I am nowhere near ready, I know that it’s time. I might not be ready to share a bathroom with twenty other girls, but I’m going to have to be ready for what God has in store for me. Whatever that happens to be. |