it's me

It's time to say good-bye.

I got this account in my first-year of undergrad, and the writings will stay here as an archive of four of my most life-changing years thus far. It's fun to read over some of my first posts because I laugh at my youthful innocence and idealism.

Something new, different, and exciting awaits me. Don't worry, my adventures will still be documented but just at a different location. Contact me for the new URL.

I have some great memories stored here. I hope you've enjoyed reading about them.

Good-bye. :)

how long have i been in this storm
so overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form
water's getting harder to tread
with these waves crashing over my head

if i could just see You
everything would be alright
if i'd see You
this darkness would turn to light

and i will walk on water
and You will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into Your eyes
i know everything will be alright
i know everything is alright

i know You didn't bring me out here to drown
so why am i ten feet under and upside-down
barely surviving has become my purpose
'cause i'm so used to living underneath the surface

if i could just see You
everything would be alright
if i'd see You
this darkness would turn to light

and i will walk on water
and You will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into Your eyes
i know everything will be alright
and i will walk on water
and You will catch me if i fall
and i will get lost into Your eyes
i know everything will be alright
i know everything is alright

everything's alright
yeah, everything's alright

i love this song.
how is it possible that jason wade never had any serious musical training?

anyway, it's been another long while since i've posted. a lot of things on my mind, but my laziness to type overtakes my want to inform--so that's it. haha

the news came over a week ago, and i've been meaning to blog about the insanity that is GETTING INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL, but it's been so crazy the past little while that i've put it off until NOW!

sometimes i wonder if i'm going to wake up from this dream soon. however, it's almost 2 weeks after i got the congratulatory email from UT and the reality of it all is settling into my mind now. i got the email last tuesday morning, and i spent the day randomly screaming around the house. the amount of elation i felt in those screaming moments simply erased months and years of stress, tears, and anxiety. i will not kid you, it has been no easy road. i wouldn't have been able to get to this point without amazing support from family and friends, but most of all, this would've never happened without all the God-moments i've encountered on this journey. i felt my calling, and He has not failed to sustain, guide, and provide for me.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!! people have asked me how i'm going to celebrate and spend the rest of my summer. my answer? just PLAY HARD!!!! hahaha, but yes, seriously, that's what i'm going to do. i'm trying to get as much playtime out of my system as i can before i start the wild ride of med school. i had my Caribbean cruise, joined ultimate frisbee and softball leagues, went hiking in niagara, watched "The Phantom of the Opera," and i will be spending july in asia (malaysia, hk, and shanghai). so far, lots of time has gone into hanging out with my family and seeing friends! dinners out, desserts at william's, gardening with my folks, girls' nights at sue's, spa visits (and wonderland and skydiving?! lol) with hannah, and there will only be more events to come. :) this is the kind of summer i've always wanted but have never been able to experience because of school and MCAT-prep.

in my down time, i run errands (lots of paperwork involved with registering for med school!), condo-hunt, and learn some Financial Planning 101.

all in all, summer '07 is going to be my best yet. :D

i came in at 18, and now i'm leaving at 22. words are not suffice for me to capture my sentiments regarding all that's happened during this 4-year journey. i wish i could somehow eloquently describe how i'm feeling about closing this chapter of my life, but none of my words are adequate. i'll try to explain what i can...

it's so sweet to say that i've overcome all the hurdles to get to this point. i've reached my destination; i am a winner. :) but it's also incredibly bitter to be leaving waterloo and the comforts i've created for myself here. it's hard for me to leave certain people with the knowledge that, outside of this waterloo context, my relationships with them are going to change drastically. i know we'll keep in touch, but it's not the same...

i came in totally unaware of just how much the next four years were going to change and mould me. i had no idea that i'd meet so many amazing people--people who've become some of my best friends. i had the high privilege of sharing life with beautiful women. together, we laughed, cried, learned to not take life too seriously, matured, endured hardships, and explored what it means to be women of godly character.

i have a lot of great memories here, and i'm always going to look back upon this time with fondness. waterloo, you've impacted my life in indescribable ways. i only hope that i've somehow positively influenced you too.

i have a difficult task before me: returning home. at least most of my friends live in toronto and the GTA, and i'll be seeing 3 of my past housemates every tuesday night. maybe it won't be so bad...

waterloo, i'm going to miss you deeply. four years have come and gone; tomorrow really has come too soon.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

yes. yes, i definitely did have the time of my life.

rejo1cing gave me Letters to a Young Poet for my 22nd birthday, and i absolutely love this book. his letters are beautifully written, deep with inspiration and rich in wisdom. his wording can be complex at times, and often, i have to read a section multiple times to catch the fullness of what he's trying to convey.

the following is one of my favourite passages thus far. i hope you'll take the time to read it, and you, too, can be astounded by the way rilke is able to articulate the unsaid happenings of the grieving heart.

You have had many great sadnesses, which passed. And you say that even this passing was hard for you and put you out of sorts. But, please, consider whether these great sadnesses have not rather gone right through the center of yourself? Whether much in you has not altered, whether you have not somewhere, at some point of your being, undergone a change while you were sad? Only those sadnesses are dangerous and bad which one carries about among people in order to drown them out; like sicknesses that are superficially and foolishly treated they simply withdraw and after a little pause break out and are life, are unlived, spurned, lost life, of which one may die. Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches, and yet a little way beyond the outworks of our divining, perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent.

I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing. For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more,--is already in our blood. And we do not learn what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered. We cannot say who has come, perhaps we shall never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters into us in this way in order to transform itself in us long before it happens. And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that other noisy and fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside. The more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours ...

So you must not be frightened ... if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question whence all this may be coming and whither it is bound? Since you know that you are in the midst of transitions and wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything morbid in your processes, just remember that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself of foreign matter; so one must just help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and break out with it, for that is its progress. In you ... so much is now happening; you must be patient as a sick man and confident as a convalescent; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are the doctor too, who has to watch over himself. But there are in every illness many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And this it is that you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now above all do.

Do not observe yourself too much. Do not draw too hasty conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen to you.

when i recall the periods i experienced the most heartache, moments when i felt myself crumbling and in utter anguish, i didn't take the time for solitude. i too often worked to dismiss the cause of my disappointment and sought ways to quickly bring myself back to happiness. maybe i drowned my sorrows out with people, and maybe i didn't let something new, some wisdom from my wounded experience, take residence in myself. that begs me to question what i've truly learned at all. my revelations from these past experiences could have been that much more had i taken the time to allow my heart's sickness chart its course and my body to purge itself. i had been too fearful of grief, trying to quickly pass through my difficult times in hopes that sadness would not be able to grip me.

i've realized that i'm too impatient; i rush through the motions of life and the sentiments of my heart. and even to that, rilke has a response:

There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being ... means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

excerpts from: Rilke, RM. Letters to a Young Poet. Trans. M.D. Herter Norton. New York: Norton, 1934.

To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so long, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is--solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate--?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things. Only in this sense, as the task of working at themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), might young people use the love that is given them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must save and gather for a long, long time still), is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives as yet scarcely suffice.

Rilke, RM. Letters to a Young Poet. New York: Norton, 1934.

i still have much to learn.

i'm not quite sure what to think about being 22 now. i look at that number and am actually a little frightened by it. i feel like that number suggests some sound maturity and marks a place where i should be comfortable in my own skin. it feels like i should be so much more than i am. very often, i forget that i classify as a woman because i still feel like a girl in so many ways. womanhood denotes an air of grace and wisdom, and i think i'm very far from that. i'm only starting to believe that i'm coming into my own, being confident of my strengths but not beating myself up over my shortcomings. i've been learning to accept all parts of myself yet know that i am a long way from where God purposes me to be.

i've gone through a lot of changes this past year. 21, i think, was a defining year, and i don't just say that because it is a typical milestone year. a number of hardships and unforeseen circumstances were thrown my way. i was stretched, tested, and stretched some more. but of course, in all things, there is a lesson to be learned. some of the things i discovered, i unfortunately had to figure out the hard way. however, out of all those ugly trials, beautiful things did emerge. friendships deepened, faith strengthened, and character moulded. part of me hopes that 22 will be free of difficulty and stress, but i realize that such a prayer would be incredibly foolish. an easy life is not a life worth living because wisdom comes through wounds. i don't think Rainer Maria Rilke could have said it any better: Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness.... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

a lot of things have been happening lately... mostly med school interviews and EOT events. i've already had both my interviews with U of T and McMaster, and i've been trying to keep a level head, but sometimes the anxiety and uncertainty get the best of me. a number of friends have heard back from programs they've applied to and they're ironing out the details of their next few months while i'm in this weird limbo. don't get me wrong, i am 100% happy for all of my accomplished friends who got accepted into the programs they wanted to get into. i just hope that i can join in on their relief, excitement, and joy soon. i'm so mentally prepared to leave UW, but if it turns out that i need to return for my M.Sc in kinesiology (my back-up plan), i have to trust that this is where God wants me to be and that He is setting me up for something better than i could've imagined.

sometimes i forget that this is my last term. i walk around campus totally taking everything for granted. for the most part, i act as if i'll see all my friends again after the summer holiday. i don't think i fully realize how much things are going to change, especially my relationships since they're going to be taken out of this waterloo context. i'm trying to cherish the little time i have left...!

it's been an awesome run, and it's now down to the wire. i'm cutting it really close now... more thoughts to come later.

elsie tagged me! here are the instructions:

-grab the nearest book
-turn to page 123
-read 4 lines down
-record the next 3 lines
-tag 3 people

'My old white one again, if I can mend it fit to be
seen; it got sadly torn last night,' said Meg, trying to
speak quite easily, but feeling very uncomfortable.

Alcott, L.M. Little Women. New York: Penguin Group, 1997.

i tag: jenn (chao), joanna, and benita.

yeah, unfortunately, this game wasn't as fun as i was hoping. this quote isn't all too exciting as a stand-alone quote. ah well, that's the luck of the draw!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

omgsh. i know this post is incredibly late, but (as if you haven't noticed) i've been super lazy with posting this term. i wonder why? haha, maybe with all the other snazzy features that my macbook is equipped with, i have been distracted. perhaps my preoccupation with the iLife suite, blogging no longer presents itself as an attractive procrastinating pastime. lol.

ANYWAY, late or not, i cannot pass up the opportunity to publicly announce my joy and excitement for their engagement and upcoming wedding! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

the best part of their engagement is that i, along with katie and benita, got to see the whole proposal! heeeheheheheheheheh!

so here's the story:

us four girls were dining at la mexicana when mark, with a single rose in hand, walked in and crashed our dinner. i wish i could've been in mark's shoes so that i could see our puzzled and confused faces. we were definitely not expecting him. i had this wee suspicion that mark might have trekked all the way out to propose, but i thought it was too early for an engagement because both mark and sue still plan on pursuing graduate studies. however, when the words, "suzanne, could you come here, please?" left his mouth, i started oh-my-goshing. those oh-my-goshes escalated when he pulled out a tiny box out of his pocket.

then the crazy chaos, that is girls' fanatic behaviour concerning wedding stuff, ensued. lol. i just remember me alternating between oh-my-goshes and silly giggles and benita's arms flailing. i had to yell at her to get her camera (sorry, benita!). haha, oh, what a scene we must've made.

so mark made his flowery speech, sue said, "yes," and katie, benita, and i clapped.

i was so overjoyed with the whole evening that you'd think it was i who had just gotten engaged or something. i guess i'm so ecstatic because sue's my first close girlfriend who's engaged, and i got to be present for the proposal. :) i can't wait for the wedding (tentatively, summer '09, sue tells me). i know it's going to be awesome, especially because we're all going to be celebrating the union of two people who know what it means to work through differences. in a time where people are driven by needs to gratify the self, their commitment to the relationship and each other is a beautiful thing. :)

so, once again, congratulations! i am so happy for you two. :)

after an email and a letter, let's just say that this has been a good week. :) yes, a very good week.

i am so stoked!