Long Time No Blog

Hi Guys and Gals

It's been quite awhile since I sat down to update this blog. Well, here's a summary of what happened to me for the past 2 weeks (not that I think I can remember well enough):

Signs of Fall start to come

- Carlisle rain gets more frequent
- Temp drops to 5 Celcius at night, but still fluctuates

Last Day of 1st half of Semester (12th Oct 2007)

- 1 Chem exam on last day before Fall Pause
- Finished off 2 drafts of papers (Bio and another about Reuters)

13th Oct 2007

- Tried out Chinese restaurant (China Palace), not that great.

Fall Pause (14 - 16th Oct 2007): NYC

Did quite a bit of stuff: Visit Aunt Virginia, watched Darjeeling express (takes some exercise to make sense of it), visited Empire State Building, ate Malaysian food, get lost in Subway, NYC river yellow taxi tour, sleep in dingy hostel room.

This is a student hostel room. Fits 1 person.
Visit my Facebook if you'd like to see photos.

Started School on 17th Oct

- Week felt short (only 3 days long), yet long (due to work?)

Today:

Worked breakfast and lunch shifts
Went for a warm gathering in basement, held by a Chinese-speaking church from Harrisburg
Need to do up Reuters paper draft.
Study for Chem quiz
Study for Math test
Go to Church
Prepare for mock-trial, Monday

So in short: I haven't had the time to sit down and slack. Wish I could, but that's life I guess. Being born a cow in the morning isn't fun...my Aunt comments I am destined to a life of hard work. Not that I am bothered anyway.

Well, enough about my life, I actually wanted to share a thought that I have been holding for quite awhile.

The Horoscopic Picture of Life

I guess everyone here is familiar with the horoscopes right? The western one that has Gemini, Capricorn etc...well each of them has a symbol right?

When I was young, I knew I was supposed to be 'Aquarius'. Everyone had the 'cool signs' (Ares ram, Leo lion, Taurus bull), and I had a 'horoscopic identity crisis'. Sometimes the sign was just plain old water, maybe a jar was added to add some 'ancient-ness' , and even some had cartoon characters poring the jug to save the sign from its ignoble status of just being water.

The ubiquitous horoscope, from ivenus.com
Although I didn't feel good about having an 'uncool sign', I liked what it says about fellow Aquarians and one of my BFFs is an aquarian too. But it doesn't matter now, horoscopes are vague and wedding statistics do not support zodiac matches.

What strikes me is how we find meaning, and base our lives on the pictures we hold about ourselves. We focus symbols that are supposed to represent us, especially when it is something given to us not under our direct control. Examples range from school badges, army insignia, company logos, and horoscopes.

Then the question to everyone is: What's your picture of yourself? Or for Christians, is God in that picture?

Well, I am not here to encourage selfishness and focusing on glorifying our self-image. More like does it reflect reality? If we don't have a realistic picture of our purpose on Earth, we might find ourselves leading a contradictory or questonable lifestyle.

So what's so important about God in this? He's real, and He cares about you.

Just another short thought:

From 21 years of waking up, I find the first person I would think of when I wake up is: myself. Think about it, when you open your eyes it's 'I am awake' or something like that. Of course we may be dreaming and the last line of your wacky dream flies off as your eyes open. If you didn't think you were awake, you would probably just stone there...with a blank mind. (I may be proven wrong haha)

Well, I've gotta go now and sleep for church tomorrow. It's been a long day and it's my pleasure to type here for you guys.

Good Hunting
Joshua

Life/Lie

Hi Guys

Just a random thought I had...would the following statement make sense?

- To live life is to lie with a 'F'

No one likes being lied to, and yet we lie to each other on a constant basis. Some cite is as a survival instinct, while others do not think it is such a big problem. Lies are pretty general in nature and truthfully, are convenient ways to sin. Part of the dreaded 'comfortable sin' contingent, that silently catches us off guard.

That could bring us to another question:

The word 'right' in the moral sense. Would it be possible to have a lie 'right'? Of course this would conjure a whole torrent of debate and I don't have the capacity to craft one anyway. It is in these ambiguous situations that we should seek some direction.

In the Christian view, lying is to be avoided, as it leads to deceit. I do not doubt that Biblical figures have lied before. I admit here that none of us are free from lies as long as we live on this Earth. Even I lie. At times it may seem foolish to stick to telling the truth...that's where we need wisdom.

It doesn't mean we can freely state 'I asked God for wisdom' and act like how we would want to. Asking for wisdom is not just some effortless prayer to the sky above either. It also involves a commitment to reinforce one's theological foundations (study the Bible, ask questions to others...etc), and also ultimately being responsible of one's choices.

Quite a sticky situation right? Man I need to read more.

Joshua