Wow o_o

I haven’t been on this baby in too long. The entire dashboard format changed. And now there’s this “QuickPress” thing that I’m updating from. Wowowowowow.

Unexpected surprise

A couple of my friends are making a J-drama like video for their final project for the core class that everyone in the EAP program is required to take. There’s a ramen shop scene so we went to the local ramen shop to shoot it. I’m the only one who can speak Japanese in the group, so I asked the owner if we could shoot in there and he said ok. We all ate dinner there, to express our gratitude.

While we were sitting there, I noticed that the owner was wearing a cross necklace. In Japan, it’s common to see people wearing crosses for fashion. I didn’t think too much about it until I saw a small porclein figure with Psalm 23 written on it.

I promptly asked the owner, “Ano… Christian desu ka?”

And he responded very matter-of-factly, “Ee, Christian desu yo.”

I told him that me and my other friend there were Christians but that none of my other friends there were Christian. He immediately said, “I have Bibles in English and Japanese. Can you ask if they want one?” So I did and they declined the offer, but I asked, “Is it ok for me to see one?” and he pulled one out of a huge box that he had. I guess that he hands them out to customers! So I was looking at it and he said, “You can have it.”

We had a short conversation about Christians in Japan. He gave the famous statistic that in all of Japan, only 1% are Christians. I told him that it’s rare for me to run into a Christian here but that at school, there were a lot. He then asked if he could play a couple of praise songs for us. So he whipped out his guitar and sang one song which I didn’t recognize but my friend did, then he played “What A Friend We Have in Jesus.”

He was telling me how there was an event for Christians (I forget what it was called @_@) and he was able to play a few songs and give a short message. When I commented, “Ee! Sugoi!” (Wow!) he said, “No, no… it’s God who’s great. I’m so small.” And when I told him that I went to ICU (a school that a lot of people know here… I guess it’s well-known?), he said, “Hallelujah!”

It was a very unexpected encounter with a Christian outside the context of church and school. Definitely going to hit up that ramen shop more often. The miso ramen was so good. All I could think about while I was talking to the ramen shop owner was being able to talk to him in Heaven! Imagine all the practice that I’ll get in Japanese then! Hahaha.

If anything, that totally made my day. Thank You, God.

Why am I in Japan?

A lot of people asked me why I wanted to go to Japan. My answer was always that I wanted to study abroad and I was learning Japanese, so it just made sense to come here. I also said that I really have a heart for the Japanese since less than 1% of their population’s Christian. I wanted to be a light in a very, very lost nation.

In a lot of ways, I don’t think that I understood my reasons. I just kind of said them because yeah, that’s what I felt and thought but no real action or thought was put behind it. I have about a month and a half left in Japan and it makes me sad to know that the only Japanese friends that I have are already Christian. That in it of itself is actually a great encouragement and to know that other people in KGK who are OYR (one year regulars) are trying to build relationships with the students at ICU to be a light as well.

But what am I doing?

This is like setting up for feeling condemned or “not good enough.” I feel as though I haven’t done too much to the glory of God in Japan thus far. I mean sure, I’ve tried plugging into TMEFC as soon as I could (which reminded me of how difficult it is to get plugged in when you live an hour away from church), as well as KGK (same reason as before) but aside from that, there’s nothing else really Christian-esey that I’ve done. I don’t want to examine my time here and evaulate myself on works either.

I don’t know where I’m getting with this entry. It’s like, I’m getting frustrated with myself because I’m not doing what I wanted to do but at the same time, I don’t want to turn Japan into this big project and then turn to the focus to myself and my objectives rather than on God’s glory & His gospel.

@_@;; 3 months really is too short of a time to study abroad. I feel like I’ve just gotten comfortable with this country and I’m slowly getting more and more fluent and right when everything feels settled, I’m going to go back to the States! !

But yes, speaking of Japanese, I have homework that I need to be working on…

@_@;;

See, when I promise posts, they never come. Hahaha. Writing’s spontaneous for me, which has its fun moments but it’s not so fun moments, when you stay up until 3 or 4 thinking about something or writing about something and then get only three or four hours of sleep. That’s when my habit of spontaneous writing isn’t so fun (the aftermath, anyway).

Anyway, I always feel like I have to say something profound (imagine me saying that with emphasis) or what not. But when I think about it, I feel silly.

I’ve been brushing my teeth three times a day lately. My teeth feel “fuzzy,” as Grace Mao would say, by the time that I get home so I brush ‘em. Then I eat dinner right afterwards. It’s 11:02 PM here and I haven’t eaten dinner yet because of an after school excursion today. So please excuse me while I brush my teeth, dry my hair, and make me some cup noodles.

Hello again.

Something that I’ve been wanting to blog about was the people that I’m meeting here in Japan. There’s an on-campus ministry called KGK. It’s the only Christian club/circle/ministry (haha whatever you prefer to call it) on campus that I know of. A couple of people there go to TMEFC (Tokyo Musashino Evangelical Free Church) so it’s nice to see people from church and then at Bible study (which I have yet to go to! My schedule’s been messy “/).

It’s interesting to see so many different… approaches, let’s say, to Christianity. The kinds of things that people focus on and the way people act and speak. Granted, I’m not saying that there are people who are sinning the “condemning” sins but it’s different from what I see at Lighthouse.

Having lived with someone who didn’t align with every single doctrine (hi Christine! <3), it’s something that I’m not unused to. (Yes I used double negatives. Forget the grammar, I’m going for style.) Hahaha I’m not saying that Christine was a bad Christian or anything! I can write a whole post on Christine if I had to. Am I embarrassing you enough yet, (ex)roommate? <3? Hahahaha I don’t even know if she reads this.

But anyway, I struggled a lot with pride when I first met these people. Upon first meeting them, my judgment radar was going out of control. I’ve tried to shut that thing down but as long as I’m still in this fleshly body, I don’t think that it can be shut down! Haha. But really, if anything, meeting these people, talking to them and seeing how they worship, pray, or interact with each other has indicted me of my own sinful heart and made me thankful that God would provide such a group of believers. They’ve been so loving and inclusive. Japanese people in generally are very polite and though they seem exclusive at first, it’s mostly because they’re shy or something of the sort. But seeing the KGK members and the folks at TMEFC has shown, more than anything, how universal the love of Christ is. It’s the only form of true, agape love and only believers can reflect it because of Christ’s righteousness in us.

It’s been something that’s been reassuring for me while I’m out here. I want to hang out with them more, though, so I think that I’m gonna be a creeper to some of them tomorrow… hahaha. We’re having a worship night and I somehow ended up being one of the people leading it? Like seriously, this guy named Yusuke told me to go to the Seabury Chapel after seventh period so I did, and they were singing so I sang too, and then they said that they’re going to sing on Friday night for Worship Night?! There’s a good group of us, though, so wheeeew. Haha, Yusuke, what’re you trying to pull?! Hhaaha.

Mkay, that’s all for now. I won’t promise a post that will follow soon after, in fear that I will end up not updating until I go back to the States or something. @_@;;

Good night!

Meh?

I’ve been pretty flaky with posting on here but the biggest reason why is because I haven’t been doing too hot spiritually. And out of my pride, I want to hide that. That’s why there’s usually something wrong if I’m not posting on blogs. For the most part, I blog a lot. Just not on my public ones. Hahahaha.

This past weekend has been good in that finally, after a couple of months of really struggling, everything just kind of came together. Now my head is filled with all these thoughts tangled into each other. I’m trying to sort through them and all arrange them neatly so that I know how to deal with it all. Haha.

As I sort through these thoughts, I’ll try to slowly add each one on here. I always make promises of posts and never follow up on ‘em. >_>; I think that once the pressure’s there to do it (even if it’s me who created the pressure), I end up not wanting to do it? Writing is a really organic process for me so this whole being forced to write dealio only works if I’m doing it for a grade. ;p

Anyway, just know that there’s much going on in my mind right now. And in a good way.

Taking things for granted

Perhaps it’s this way for everyone, but I’ve always heard people who travel a lot say that America was really the best place to live in the world. It’s culturally diverse, things are relatively cheap (after living in Japan for two weeks, I can write an entire post on this one), higher education is easily accessible, the weather’s beautiful (… if you live in the Bay Area or San Diego…)–

That’s what everyone’s always told me.

I accepted it as a fact and thought, “Yeah, that’s probably the case” but didn’t give it too much thought until I came to study abroad in Japan.

Things are very different here. All the romanticized ideas that I had about Japan (though I tried not to have any!) that I had picked up from Japanese pop culture and anime were immediately shattered and I started having a crisis. Really, I started crying when I came back home one day and my heart ached so much to be in Foster City with my family, where my mom would feed me, where my bed was big & my mattress was comfortable, where I had a car, where I could speak in my native tongue (English… haha) and everyone would understand me… these were things that I had taken for granted.

I had taken for granted that all of my foods were enriched with vitamins and minerals. I don’t even know what the dietary laws are here. There’s no FDA in Japan! There’s probably an equivalent of it but even if I went to their website, I wouldn’t understand what’s going on. I started feeling the severe effects of malnutrition my first week and a half here. It costs so much to buy an apple (a cheap one is 100 yen– that’s ~1 dollar) and a stinkin’ salad (though the one I bought at school today was only 160 yen ) and it’s expensive to eat out. I wanted to save money so I bought little and ate on a very sporadic schedule (also because I was so busy with school orientation) and at one point, I got dizzy and my heart started to palpitate. It was then that I began to reeeeally miss Vons, Taco Bell, california burritos and Yogurt World.

And it’s more than that. I had a car as soon as I got my driver’s license (my mom’s old old car, i.e. my dad’s old car) so I’ve been driving since (except during my freshman year). Everything in the States is pretty spread out so you really need a car. Or public transportation. I abhored the thought of public transportation because of all the germs, not having your personal space and having to wait all the time for the bus. In Japan, I have no choice. I have to walk for 10 minutes to the Shin-Ogota station, take the Oedo Line (subway) to get the Higashi-Nakano station, then transfer to the Chuo Line, get off at the Nakano station, then take the Sobu Line to the Musashi-Sakai station, which is where I have to wait for the 93 bus to take me to campus. And all this takes 1.25 hours on a good day, 2 hours on a bad day.

So, a really long, unnecessarily descriptive ramble I had going there but… more than anything, I took for granted the fellowship and good teaching I had at Lighthouse. I wrote about this on my xanga but I was really excited for the challenges that I knew would be difficult in Japan. But that was romanticized too. In my mind, I imagined being pent up in a small room (this part is true) and being on bended knee for hours, praying and praying, drawing strength on Him alone.

The real picture ended up being that of me being pent up in a small room, coming home after a school orientation and dinner with a bunch of people who are slightly buzzed and knocking out so that I can wake up at 6 AM the next day so I could get to campus by 8 AM.

It’s been spiritually difficult here. I didn’t have the foresight or wisdom to even begin to think about how difficult it would be. Granted, there are no excuses in terms of spending time in His Word and spending time with Him daily, regardless of my condition because more than anything, I need constant fellowship with God. I didn’t factor in any of the logistics and thought very linearly, that I would do A, then B, then C, then come home and eat a meal with my Bible open, enjoying physical and spiritual nourishment at the same time.

Church has also been difficult to find (but check out gmabroad.blogspot.com about my church post!), as have been fellow believers. I’ve clearly seen God’s hand in introducing to me ICU students (and a professor!) who are saved. Really, He’s been so gracious in a time of distress. I was willing to wait upon Him, to keep praying, to keep hoping. I was willing to struggle, if it meant that He would sanctify me through it, but He was so gracious in answering these prayers so quickly.

Anyway, if Japan’s taught me anything, it’s that I’ve taken everything for granted. And I’m sure that I’m taking things for granted in Japan right now too. Like the Suica card! Suica stands for Super Urban Intelligent Card. It has this integrated circuit technology in it (according ti wiki). I paid for my train route for the next three months on it (for a discounted price!) and all I do now is just swipe my Suica over the little sensor thingy.

Haha, ok, so I went from this semi-dramatic “I’m taking everything for granted” to this “I LOVE SUICA”… hah. Ok. The end. Haha.

That’s so ______!

What do you usually put in the blank?

Crazy? Ridiculous? Outrageous? Gay? Stupid? Retarded?

It seems like Christians all agree on what THE swear words are. You know what I’m talking about. The words that get bleeped out of songs. The words that you would never dare say in front of your pastor, parents, and professors. Even your friends.

But does it stop there?

I wrote a post my freshman year about substituting words that resemble swear words and how behind it, it was no different to use words that still carried the same meanings and origins just for the sake of being Christian. I don’t know how many of you guys remember that post (I know that David Ahn & Tia do. Hahaha.) but a lot of my thoughts about that have changed too (in ways that I will explain toward the end of this post).

This is something that I’ve been wanting to write about for a while now. I’ve been biding my time, wondering if I should just quietly talk to people about it instead of publically saying, “BLAH BLAH BLAH STOP IT D:” but it’s something that I’ve always wanted to talk about just to share my own convictions about this.

Freshman year, I remember that I was outside of Summit. I think that it was after campus EV and we were going to swipe the upperclassmen. I was talking to an upperclassmen brother and said in response to something he said, “That’s retarded.” He paused and then said with a smile, “You know, my friend lectured me the other day about using the word ‘retarded’ and why it’s really messed up to use it….” I knew where he was going with it. It was something that slipped; I usually didn’t say the word myself.

I have an autistic brother (highly functioning) and I grew up with hearing kids calling him retarded, upon which I forcefully corrected them. But I also know people (yes, plural) who are mentally retarded. My parents are part of an organization called FHFSN (Friends Helping Friends with Special Needs), an organization for parents, especially Korean/Asian parents, who have children with disabilities. I’ve helped out a bit while it was still in its fledgling stages and every year, I still go camping with them. Try saying “That’s so retarded” there and the parents will probably flog you around the camp fire and make you sleep with the bears.

It’s not just with the word “retarded.” I hear a lot of people, Christians included, using the word “gay.” Granted, homosexuality is a sin and isn’t something to be defended but all the while, how is it loving to homosexuals as people, to say in a condescending tone to someone, “You’re so gay”? By saying that, one is implying that the person whom is being called “gay” is not only homosexual but on a lower footing, or even a lower existence, than the person who is doing the name calling. As if homosexuals aren’t people. As if their sin is so much heavier than the normal person’s sin.

It can be any word. There’s a sister who chastised me every time I called someone “stupid.” And yes, I need that chastisement. I realize that I’m not the most qualified to write something like this because I can be abrasive with my words. Just to be funny. At the expense of other people, whether they’re mentally retarded or homosexual or really, just a bit slower than their peers. It’s something that I’m painfully aware of, yet so oblivious to when I’m around people I’m the most comfortable around or if I’m just trying to be funny to gain the applause (or laughs) of men.

When I came to realize that nonchalantly saying to people, “You’re so gay/retarded/stupid/[insert other word]” was actually out of a very, very sinful heart, the first thing I thought was, “Aw man, that really restricts my speech.” I no longer could add the spunk and flavor that I had added to my speech before. I wanted to, at other peoples’ expense, be liked by people and be known to have an attitude when I spoke.

In a nutshell:
“With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;” (James 3:9)

The “curse men” part of that doesn’t just have to refer to swearing at people or gossiping about them. It’s so legalistic to just set up rules and boundaries, saying that these words and activities are off limits because it’s unchristian to say or do them. So often, I ignore the heart issue and write a list of rules to follow. I did the same thing for thinking that substituting the word “freaking” for its more obscene cousin was an automatic no-no, in all circumstances, no exceptions. Rules and guidelines are good for general guidance, so I’m not saying that I hate them, but once one becomes reliant on them and forgets that the rules and guidelines are there to fight against a heart issue… that’s legalism.

I will write a separate entry about the whole thing about my view (kinda) changing on substituting toned down words for swear words. This was a pretty monster post in itself. I wonder if anyone will read through the entire thing. Haha.

Cross-posted to my xanga. (Check out Pastor Patrick’s wordpress entry about the tongue! Haha, it’s more concise than this entry and says a lot more. ;; )

BICD110 and the holiness of God

I took cell bio during summer session one (way more interesting than nutrition). I heard that it was a ridiculously difficult class so I began to loathe myself for ever choosing to take it. Now it’s one of my favorite classes. I seriously recommend it to anybody, but take it over summer with Brian Sato. Haha.

Anyway, on the first day of class, we watched this really intense video of all the functions in the cell. It was really fancy– all the 3-D molecular structures doing their thing. I was only able to make out some of the processes, like mRNA translation and… actually, that was the only thing that I was able to recognize. >_>;; (Thanks, molecular biology!)

We also ended the class on that video. I was able to recognize almost every single process that was shown (yay, thanks cell biology!) but I couldn’t help but get chills as I watched it. All I could think the whole time was, “My God is a great God.”

That’s a perk of being a science major. You see how things work so intricately, whether it be on a huge scale (like the biosphere or the universe) or on a tiny scale (like on an atomic level or the processes of a cell). And really, my soul can’t help but sing out, “How great Thou art, how great Thou art!”

I think that what really gave me the chills was seeing kinesin walking on a microtubule while carrying this huge load of cargo. Seriously, how do just mere proteins group together and literally walk down a laid down track in the cell, carrying one thing from one place to another?

And what I’m assuming was dimerization of I’m guessing two phosphorylated STATs (ok, so that probably just made non-science majors’ eyes glaze over)… so basically, it was these two yellow things floating aroung and when they were in close proximity to each other, they hugged and went into the nucleus. Haha. But seriously– how does that happen? How do lipid rafts form?

He created all of these things. Only He carries the title of “Creator.” My God is a great God.

(Here’s a link to the video, if you’re interested! There’s a little thing at the end of the little blurb that says, “Watch the Video.” Ahaha.)

Theoretical vs. Actual

One of the things that I hated about labs the most is when we had to calculate the theoretical value of yield that we would get and then calculate our actual yield. Then we would have to report when percent yield we got. In Chem 6BL, we were graded on how close we got to our theoretical yield. In the other labs, they understood that things don’t go ideally in the real world and thus, overlooked it.

I remember for one of the first ochem labs that we had, my percent yield was something like 1.08%. It might’ve been higher but it was something ridiculous. I was really frustrated because I had to then turn in my crystals but you could barely see it in the bag. It just looked like fine dust intermittently sprinkled on the inside. Needless to say, I didn’t get marked down for it but it was frustrating.

Often times, that’s how I view my walk. I get the percent yield of how Christian I am.

Percent yield = [(actual yield)/(theoretical yield)] x 100

So? What’s my percent yield? Something more ridiculously small than the 1.08% yield that I got?

What a legalist I’ve become, huh? For so long, and even now when I’m not careful, I get into the habit of thinking like that. That as a Christian, I must get to that 100% yield or else I’m condemned. There is no more condemnation in Christ but yet, I still think in a manner that’s so stuck in the world, about percent yields, about meeting benchmarks.

Finally, at some point, I realized that #1: I was condemning myself and #2: I am no longer condemned because of Christ’s work on the cross. It was probably the most liberated that I had felt since I got saved.

And it’s a truth that I cling to. It reminds me of this verse in a song that I love a lot. I’ll end on it.

When Satan tempts me to despair
and tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin

This the power of the cross!

Death is crushed to death

Life is mine to live

Won through Your selfless love!