greetings from NYC

today has been a really good day. despite the possibility of being a horrible day, as i recently heard some difficult news, God was able to make it into something beautiful. some things in this world are no longer my responsibility, and never again will be. some things have nothing to do with me. some of you may think i speak in riddles, while others see directly through the thinly veiled transparency.

im in NYC right now visiting an amazing friend, helena fu, aka moby, fu schnickens, etc. last night she convinced her brother, patrick (aka gogo), and i to do something i have not done since my other sisters, the ones i share genes with, got ahold of me. as moby puts it, hurricane helena has hit. :)

let see. today we got up late, and her dad fixed us lunch. mmmmm. gooood food. and then we went into the city and checked out the flagship apple store in soho (i learned today that 'soho' stands for 'south of some street starting with an h' -- just for you non new yorkers), where the above photo was taken.

then we found some zagat rated restaurant with a coffee house type atmosphere. we had fondue. i brought my laptop and was able to work some more on a poem i started last night. it is now in decent shape, though i want to work on it more. so now i present to you the slide. comments always appreciated. :)

after that, we waited in line for an hour to get rush tickets to baz lurmans newest project, the broadway musical la boheme. they were giving out 28 tickets total, and helena and i were numbers 26 and 27 in line. for $21.25 each, we had second row orchestra seats. amazing. my first broadway show, and it was even an italian opera! good thing for decently translated subtitles.

long day, short day. good day. i also decided to post an older poem of mine that i had thought better of. but as i said, some things arent my responsibility anymore, so ill post it. as the poem above, this one is very real. i hope someone can learn from my life and therein bypass a little death. this ones called go away.

today i was looking for a certain verse, and did a search in my concordance for every instance of the word 'wait' in the Bible. the new international version gets 92 hits, and here is the one that stuck out most:

psalm 27
(13) I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living
(14) Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

patience. the LORD will do all things in His time. you cannot force it. you must wait.

as a quick side note, i didnt remember for sure that i had quoted the end of the count of monte cristo before in my blog. now, when you do a google search for "wait and hope" (quotation marks included), my blog comes up as the first entry! awesome

Entry posted by byscuits at 12:49 AM | Comments (1)

the realLife

so we finished another short film for the real Life ministry. it is called, coincidentally, the realLife its a take off of reality tv shows. watch it once, watch it twice, lemme know what yall think of it.

Entry posted by byscuits at 01:35 PM | Comments (1)

3 ways

if you ask Me again My reply still will stand I AM who I AM and I love whether or not you believe Me

yeah, its from waterdeep too.

these past couple of days have been really rough for me. some things from my past relationship have come up, and its been hard dealing with it. i tried to rely on my own strength for a while at first, then quickly gave that up. had a decent time of prayer 2 days ago, but things were still rough. things still bothered me. until recently, i never Understood regret and brokenness. for 24 years, i remained relatively innocent.

so all this stuff kinda came back a couple of days ago, and i was struggling with a lot of issues surrounding it. had a good time of prayer 2 days ago, then a good bible study last night. and then when i went to sleep last night, i had more dreams than i recall in a long time. maybe it was just cause i kept getting woken up in the night. but God used them to His glory.

one of my dreams from last night was that my boss called back about my job, and that they wanted me back at the end of february. so i woke up this morning, thinking i should email my boss. but as i went by my computer, God told me not to check email. He wanted me to spent time with Him. so, after a short breakfast of oreos and milk, i went back to my room, and got my Bible. i put on the waterdeep cd 'sink or swim', and just started listening to it and meditating on God and things from these past couple of days. there were several lyrics that stood out to me, and i thought, ooh ooh, i should write those down to put in my blog. but i decided to stick with the time with God. i read more of 1 timothy, and prayed. during this whole time, God really filled me. i saw yet again and Understood a little more the importance of listening to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit.

after prayer, i started thinking about all the gunk that had plauged me for the past couple of days. and while i know that gunk will come back again, and i will have to deal with it more, right then it seemed very far away. and then the lyrics quoted above played. "I love whether or not you believe Me." no matter how i may feel about mistakes or regret, it doesnt matter. God still loves me. He wouldnt have put me through all these things, if He didnt already have something planned. something to draw me closer to Him. something better. when i focussed on God, the problems of the world were dim in the light of His Truth.

so i sit down at my computer. i go through my email. the newest email, sent at 12:18pm, was from my boss. it said to call him. my clock said 12:24pm. so i call him up, and apparently there is a short term contract available till the end of april. he said that it wasnt yet a done deal till the paperwork was all pushed through. i asked him when that might be done. he said, "well, could be as early as a week or two, and could start as late as the beginning of march." iiiiiiiinteresting. if i had checked my email earlier, i would have already sent out to email to him, asking him the status. he would have replied just in the way he sent me the email, but this way God showed Himself. i was patient, and God showed Himself.

last night, i was thinking of some of the good things in my past relationship that i really missed. one of the biggest is a big long hug. thats not something i can get from a female friend. too many complications. and its not something i can really get from a guy friend. too weird. and my family isnt around to be able to do it either. so i had decided that it just wasnt possible. i would have to go without.

but like i said, i had several dreams last night. the last one i had before waking was me in a walmart. i was shopping for contact solution, of all things. i havent worn those in like 5 years. but i was looking though that section of wally world, and someone who worked there came by (yeah, this is an oddly realistic dream) to ask me if i was looking for anything in particular. i told her what i was looking for, and she stood next to me to help me look. then she just sort of turned to face me, and wrapped her arms around me. it was a big really long hug, and i hugged back. closed my eyes, and hugged back. a dream hasnt felt that real in a long time.

so, this morning has been eventful. God showed himself in 3 ways to me. showed how real He is. showed how He cares and provides for me in ways i didnt even consider possible. its been a good day.

He is always there. times of trouble or times of blessing. always there.

Entry posted by byscuits at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

on our way to crazy

Oh, college was hard for me and my friends
We all felt like little kids but they said we couldn't act that way
I knew I was supposed to change
But changing's hard and it was easier just to play video games
What did we have to lose? What did we have to lose?

those lyrics are from the new waterdeep album, a group i can never get enough of.

i was terrified earlier today. for the first time i can remember since childhood, i was really scared. i know saying this will be transparent as all get-out, but whatever. i recently discovered that there was something that i did not want to lose. i got an email, and upon first read, i thought it was news that that something was lost. my heart started to beat fast, and my mouth opened. dumb stare at the computer screen. read twice. read five times. finally confirmed that i read it wrong. at least i think i did. calmed down a bit, and went on with my morning.

there was a new episode of smallville last week, and at the end, it features mad world by gary jules, which is a song i chose to put on this years edition of five in a carload. goooood stuff. excellent episode. that show just keeps getting better and better.

Almost no one slides on purpose
No one sells their soul for free
-waterdeep

Entry posted by byscuits at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

break

well, it looks like ive got around a 3 week break before my contract at fidelity might get renewed. i think im gonna go see moby in nyc sometime next week. thatll be a blast. i got to hang out with her and fslee when she came into town for a couple of days. it was a good surprise.

i wrote a poem yesterday about Someone, called go away. and theres another one i wrote too. as always, i love to hear comments back.

i made a statement last night hanging out with some peeps. it was something like, "the quality of a woman is directly proportional to the modesty of her dress." i hold very strongly to that perspective. the more i am around, the more i see it to be true. i have never seen it to be false, as far as i can remember. if someone dresses immodestly, its usually because they are looking for affirmation or attention from a guy, which never goes very far. basically, to me, it means stay away, stay far far away.

what do you guys think? are there similar things like that for guys that tell their quality?

Entry posted by byscuits at 04:00 PM | Comments (2)

quick entry

i got back a couple of days ago from my trip to east asia, and am finally getting around to posting an update here. the trip was amazing, and i cant wait to go back for a longer period of time. but before i can do that, ive got to finish up school.

also havent heard back about my contract at fidelity. apparently they dont make these decisions very quickly. oh well. i can finally play some video games. thats why im up till 5 am this morning. :)

fufu is back from italy, and i get to hang out with her tomorrow night. im totally stoked. its been at least 6 months since she took off, and shes back in boston for a couple of days. such a nice surprise.

i also did a lot of writing on this trip, and tried my hand at some psalm type writings. my prayers have sometimes been coming out a bit like poetry, so ill post one in a day or two. some of the writing ive done recently will never be posted here, because i dont want any people to be upset about some of the things that are written. and some are just really personal. if you are really interested, drop me an email or an IM and i can send you some of them.

the two that i have posted already are called the next track and i wonder.

the next track is written about an experience on a road trip a couple of years back. i looked back, smiled, and decided to put words to the memory. i like the result, but i might do some work on it in the future.

i wonder may be my favorite thing ive written in a while. i broke up with my first serious girlfriend at the beginning of this past september, and its taken me a while to feel like im fully over the whole thing. now that i have reached that stage (do you ever really get over a Someone?), i decided to write about something nice that i remember from it. here is an excerpt:

nothing more than
memories
put into words
a lament
for things that once
might have been

i think thats the part i like best. lemme know what yall think.

it has been good to see a lot of you again now that i made it back to boston, but i now have a whole crew i miss from east asia. but such is life. enjoy the good parts of where you are at, and look forward to the future when you may enjoy another part of life. but never dwell on the future or the past. its the present where life is.

Entry posted by byscuits at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)