I miss studying.

Don't get me wrong, I love art school! It's just I haven't studied anything for so long that I kind of miss it. Especially anatomy. I miss studying it the night before and then going into exams and knowing the answers, even if it is only for the one hour after I read the material. (I don't remember anything from university anymore. Like nothing. What's chlorophyll again? Omg).

Anyways I wish I updated this more. DAH.

So I'm taking a photography class and our second assignment is fun stuff. It's about taking shots of the city, and although the weather sucks these days, I think I'll be able to find some good places to shoot if I rummage around dt. Does anybody know anywhere to go? The only place I can think of is china town. Like the literal plan in my head right now is to go to china town, take a picture of a bunch of exotic fruit and then I'll probably just stand there for 20 minutes not knowing what to do next.



I took this pic cause when I...I...I don't know, there must be a word for people who like to take pictures of things that they shouldn't take pictures of but like to but know it's sort of stereotypical yet not but at the same time cool but not really cool too.



Random stoplight.

There are a whole lot of things I wish right now too:

- I wish I had self-discipline in every area of my life. Especially physically. Last week I downloaded a 30-minute work out video in hopes to exercise, but I ended up watching the whole thing lying on my bed eating massive amounts of dduk.
- I wish I had a new macbook pro. OH my gosh I wish this badly. As I'm taking more pictures with my new camera, and learning how to do things with adobe programs, I'm realizing how slow my comp is and it makes me angerrr angerr.
- I wish my brother would talk to me again...
- I wish I knew exactly what I was doing with my life. I feel like every time I get a sense of direction, God only shows me the little bit that I need to press on the next few months. (Maybe he's trying to teach me something *nudge nudge* Reliance on God and not self persay? *nudge nudge*)
- I wish I could express to people how I feel and what I think in considerate and mature ways
- I wish I was going to Korea this summer!!! If Ashley ends up going and Susan and Ashley end up playing together in Korea, I'm gonna be saddened.


Tomorrow is KCF Vball tournament!! I hope to go and cheer for old Westerners!

I haven't had a week this tough for so long.
I learned in the past week, parts of myself, my family, and ultimately of God that I had not known before. But it was so hard. I don't want to get too much into it but yea.


On another note I just realized I have a paranoia with journals and notebooks.
I love having new journals but I hate not finishing them yet I am lazy.
I also tend to start new beautiful notebooks and journals for so many specific things.

Here is the list I just made:

1. Small black moleskine-like notebook for Bible study notes & Sunday sermons
2. Ehwa Notebook for Prayer Requests and Answered Prayers matched side by side (including the dates they were prayed for and answered...just started this)
3. Grey Notebook for thoughts
4. Memory Pad for Korean Vocabulary
5. Yellow Drawing Pad for drawings that I can easily slip the paper out of
6. Diary Planner thing that I do not use consistently on a day to day basis. I used a paper planner for 7 years until I got to university and suddenly the system didn't work for me. I use the computer or just write down to do lists. Yet I am in complete denial and still try to do it
7. Actual black moleskine for Bible verses to memorize & important lines/Christian sayings (which I can't find at the moment)
8. ..."Online blogs"
9. Other random notebooks that I started for "thoughts" because I couldn't find my grey one at the time.


I have this massive feeling of guilt right now. I want to like put all of those things together into ONE BIG NOTEBOOK but I feel like people would look at it and in turn read my embarassing and "heartfelt" thoughts while they laugh at me. Somebody tell me what to do. Do I finish all of these and then embark on my 'ONE BIG NOTEBOOK' plan?

BTW. My trypophobia is starting to really get to me more and more. I don't want this ...this..disease!!!

I also feel guilty that I never post pictures anymore. I am lazy major.

Three updates. A blessing. WGSTMT. & A Haiku.

Life is majorly cool.

God makes life so majorly cool.

1. It's almost the end of January and I can say that the first month of 2009 has been exciting! I made the decision last month to apply really really late to one-year college foundation arts programs and I ended up getting into George Brown! So I've been taking some pretty neat classes, meeting some pretty neat people while I'm at it. It's been so fun. I love the difference between going to school now and before. I don't feel any pressure at all with my classes. I think it's because I have a purpose now going to art school, and I know God is in the center of this decision and actually getting in here! I don't know, it's like grades don't matter because I made my own decision to be here sort of thing? I wish I could explain better!


2. I'm moving oh so soon to North York finally with my brother. I feel like we're going to fight a lot but I think we're gonna get closer too. The neat thing about it all is that we're sharing the rent with Joyful Church because the basement is going to be used for our EM office. I have a feeling people are going to be over all the time, every day...every..night. Haha, it's okay though because I think I'm going to learn what it means to be true community.


3. I'm so happy because God is slowly answering prayers! Daniel and Esther (the cutest brother and sister pair i've seen ever) finally decided to step up and join the missions team. I'm excited to see how God is going to lead us and teach us how to be true leaders, and just the things we can bring to the table. So far some ideas that are up in the air are leading seminars on topics like sustainability, HIV/AIDS, homeless people at church, going to do innercity missions in the city of Toronto or maybe the States, volunteering at various nonprofit organizations in Toronto, and going to URBANA 2009 (that one is so not in the air, it WILL happen).


:)
I've been applying like mad to all these jobs because I need to make money for rent. It's been going pretty bad till today! I finally got an interview today! I was so happy I jumped for joy. (harhar).


What God Said To Me Today.
"I understand your heart."
I went to morning prayer today and you know when you are praying but then you end up talking outloud to yourself as if you were God. Okay not that you are God, but as if he was speaking to you through you? Anyways he was saying all these things but then he said these words. And I got really taken aback. You know those words that you needed to hear and when you hear them, that very instant tears come to your eyes? It was like that and it was amazing. I feel so much closer to him. It's like he's telling me to stop trying and to just be.


Haiku Time.

I ate some kimchi.
It was with dduk man doo gook.
I am korean.

He's moving. He's moving.

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about how 'this wait will mean something this time."
All I can say is how God MOVES. How he is moving so strongly in my life right now.

Sometimes we pray prayers of desperation. Prayers lifted up with so little strength, that we think the floodgates of heaven will barely open up into our lives. Yet I have experienced that God listens with that kind of ear that one listens with when they're trying to hear in on a conversation in the next room. I know now how much he desires to pour out blessings and blessings and His own Spirit into our lives. SO MUCH.

I came back from a retreat a few days. I cannot explain how much God moved in peoples' lives during that retreat. People were saved. Prophecy was told. Spiritual gifts were opened up. It was such an amazing time of revelation, growth, and prayer. I am falling so deeply in love with my church family. I see in them the potential to grow and do crazy awesome things for God's kingdom so so much now. I know that God has amazing things in store for each and every one of us in 2009. I am so honoured and blessed to be a part of that.

In my own life, I never realized how confused I was. How much sin was dwelling and creeping into my life. "I AM JUSTIFIED BEFORE THE LORD. NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING I HAVE DONE. BUT BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST'S BLOOD COVERS ME. WHEN GOD SEES ME HE SEES ME JUSTIFIED." Justified means "Just as if I have not sinned". This is an amazing truth. We live and Satan tells us "how can you raise your hands in worship, how can you go before God when last night I saw you doing this. Thinking these things". NO. God sees us as if we have not sinned, and if we realize and embrace this awesome truth, we will know that that there is this living SPIRIT within us. A Spirit that came to life when we first believed.

God is first. Anything is second.

There is so much prayer being answered in my life right now.
Change in people around me.
Specifically what I am to do in the future.
God is slowly providing me with skills and my own ministry team.
I know that God is going to provide me with everything I need to do good for His Kingdom.

I am so excited to live right now.
I am so excited for people's lives to change around me.
For the things God has in store for his people!

Yet this is a spiritual battleground.
We must fight and flee with prayer. With the meditation of God's Word. DAILY.
Discipline! I need you now.
I am a soldier saluting my King, my beloved.

Book Reebews.

I know I already posted these on FB, but I want to keep a mental track of digital ..posty..things. I need to sleep.

"I wrote this big schpeal ...shpeal..um shee-peal. *cough* about how amazing this book was. And I erased it because I guess I just had one thing to say: Lisa Hong was so much challenged to her core by this book that it made her feel very uncomfortable and slightly sweaty on the forehead".
Random awesome quotes:

"I heard about a group of massage therapists who spend their days washing and massaging the tired feet of homeless folks."

"As long as we uncritically manage the collateral damage of the market economy, the world can continue to produce victims."

"Tithes, tax-exempt donations, and short-term mission trips, while they accomplish some good, can also function as outlets that allow us to appease our consciences and still remain a safe distance from the poor."

"The early Christians used to write that when they did not have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community would fast until everyone could share a meal together."

Here's an excessively long one:

"When I was a youth leader, one of the high school kids who had "given his life to Jesus" got busted only a few weeks later for having acid in school. I remember asking in disappointment. "What happened, bro? What went wrong?" He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I got bored." Bored? God forgive us for all those we have lost because we made the gospel boring. I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it's because we don't dare them, not because we don't entertain them. It's because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what are they to do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?"

And one last one...

"Human suffering has the power to move even kings to feel again."

*shudder* I think I made ungodly sounds when I read that last one. He was talking about the influence of Rizpah. (Who is Rizpah?) Rizpah be like the mama you never had. Okay I don't know why I'm talking like this now. I feel like I am getting weirder every day. I am 22 and still a psycho. According to my simplistic mathematical calculations, if this rate of weirdness continues, I shall be impossible to communicate with by the time I am 30. (But you are already impossible to communicate with, some of you say). I hate you. No wait no I didn't mean that. sigh.

p.s. Mad props to Ji-hae who recommended this book to me. I called you during your work hours when I was at Chapters so you could recommend me a book. And you did. And now I feel uncomfortable from reading it. Thanks. "

"When Esther recommended me to read this book, I knew I had to read it asap. So I ordered it on Amazon as soon as I could. I just finished it and it was beautiful. It was frustrating. I think there are a lot of themes in this book that I seemed to separate myself from, but I kept realizing that in so many ways Sarah in this book is me. And the frustration that God must feel has to be ten thousand times greater than the frustration I felt every time she left Michael.

Basically this book was a ficitional (Christian fiction...what? ew? no no trust me it's not ew) retelling of the book of Hosea. The book of Hosea is about how God calls Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. And it is a reflection of the numerous times Israel ran away from God, but God kept going to take them back.

It's hard to say in words what I'm feeling right now. We run away so many times for so many reasons. We think our sin is greater than God's love. We are ashamed and fear the judgment of other people. We are afraid to truly fall in love with God, and let him fall in love with us. Yet all of these things never make God stop loving us and pursuing us. He is so beautiful.

The exciting part of it all is that God is real. And this amazing unbelievable love is real. I just realized this a few minutes ago and got 'shy' again. Does this occur with anyone else? The sudden realization that you are alone in your room with God Almighty and he loves you like crazy and you love him too? (And then you giggle like a small girl with your hand over your mouth).

Man sometimes life feels dull, like it's a movie that no one watches. I love these very moments of my life when it switches. Life is real. Death is real. And God is real. I love that."


Yes so I think I am bound for another picturesque update. We shall see soon!

This wait will mean something this time.

In the midst of my confusion. God has spoken into my heart about who I am, yet every time I find enough courage to come to the foot of the cross, I run away three seconds after he has spoken because I am such a coward. 'I need time to think', 'I need time to meditate'. I say so many things these days to so many people yet I am not sure which of them are really true.
I want my life to paint beautiful pictures. I want and I want. I want so much and I can say these things till the point where my tongue is dry, but nothing will make it become a reality until the hand of God moves in my life. Giving up control and giving up my heart is the hardest battle yet. It makes me suffer a little inside when I realize that God has only targeted the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the parts of me that are still hidden. The dark parts that require healing and restoration. Life outside my inner world is second in this battle. We can say, I can say all these things, but they mean nothing if life is not transformed. I know that they all mean nothing if the real God is not genuinely moving in my life. I am slowly beginning to realize in my heart (finally) that this life is not for show to anybody else but Jesus Christ. What I accomplish, who I love, what I take seriously and apply literally from the Word is meaningful not because I have done anything or know anything or feel anything, or because I have done any of these with other people, community or whatnot...it's meaningful because God is. It's not my battle to win, I'm learning. It's not my relationship to lead, I'm learning. It's not my power, nor my knowledge, nor my effort, nor my desire, nor my fire or even my actions, I'm learning. "I" and "Me" must be taken out and replaced, I'm learning. In everything, in everything, till the parts where I thought were the hardest to give up (or the easiest) become laughter because they actually don't mean much at all- in comparison to God's great glory. I need my heart to be changed. Nothing that I write matters if that's not changed. Gosh.

On another note, for some reason I want to post the fifth stanza of one of my favourite poems. It's by T.S. Eliot and it's called "Hollow Men"

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow.

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow.

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang bit a whimper.

Scrumptious blog.

I have finally found the time to update!
How happy am I!

So here is a video.




And here is me and my promised analysis of how guys sometimes fail at relational issues or rather guys in lisa's life issues.

So yes it's been a long time (for some reason ever since I read this sentence outloud, I hear that Aaliyah song..um anyways), that I've liked a guy or have been 'involved' with a guy. So with this fresh objective perspective back into my life of meaningless boy-relations, I have targeted a BOY WITH ISSUES #1. So here we go!

BOY WITH ISSUES #1.

This type of boy/man believes that he is the sheezybreezy. As in he thinks he is the best kind of boyfriend or guy to like ever. He may not express this verbally but when you reject him in the face, he displays facial expressions of disbelief. These expressions read as 'how could you reject me? i am the sheezybreezy'. This type of boy/man has a lot of pride in himself, so if you hurt his pride, he will pretend one of the following things:
1. he never really did like you in the first place
2. you are not the kind of girl he thought you were
3. you are a female dog
4. you must be further ignored because he does not have the abilities to be friends with a girl who does not also think he is the sheezybreezy.
Don't worry though. Eventually this kind of boy/man realizes that he is not the sheezybreezy and you can be friends again. Or he may end up finding a girlfriend who will succumb to his beliefs that he really IS the sheezymabreezy. But hey who knows, maybe to her he is! The end.

***disclaimer: i am not actually bitter about these types of guys or any guys i've "been with", i think they're all great in their own ways, i'm just mean. that's all. mean but not bitter. i hope that makes sense. i have to go make cookies now.