2008: An Epic Year Nearly in the Books

Boy I'll tell ya, each year seems to fly by faster and faster than the one before it. 2008 definitely lived up to that billing, seems like yesterday I was celebrating the beginning of the year at the Happiest Place on Earth.

When I was in elementary school, I couldn't wait to grow up and wanted the years to just roll on by as I couldn't wait to be a teenager, go to high school, drive, graduate high school, and go to college... get married and so on. Now it seems crazy, as I've done all those things (except the marriage part!), and in fact, I'm no longer a teen. Craziness indeed. Now that I'm all of 20 and in my second year of college, I'm wanting time to slow down just a pinch as I've got some pretty major, life-altering decisions to make in the coming months really... not the least of these is deciding on a career path.

Enough of that though, I don't want this post to be an "emo" reflection of transitions goin on in my life-- cause in all honesty I'm stoked to be at where I am now and can't wait for 2009.

Here's some firsts in 2008:

--getting my first job! (after more than a month of getting denials, got so lucky that I nabbed a second one and ended up working 30 consecutive days, most of them with 13-hour days!)

--living on my own, for real (cooking for myself, tending to a house, dealing with loud neighbors has been quite an adventure)

--being chauffeured by my sister (this was also an adventure, but tons of fun as my sister was finally able to 'legally' drive me around!)

--saying a (temporary) goodbye to Disneyland (as a long-time passholder, it was a shame to say goodbye to the Happiest Place on Earth, but it'll pay off as we're going to Disneyworld in June!)

--watchin Michael Phelps DOMINATE (that was something unreal to watch, and I loved every minute of it, definitely changed my perspective on extraordinary with the many 'phelpsian feats' I witnessed)

Anyway, 2008 (as hinted to in my title of this post) has been EPIC. So much has gone down from 2007 to now. A year ago, I was waffling in my decision-making if I wanted a second year at UCSB or to pack in and transfer down to UC San Diego. Thankfully, I got stuck in and invested time in unique relationships, most notably with "mah boys" that I'm living with now. A remarkable, epic transformation in fortunes followed suit as I surrounded myself with like-minded men and women pursuing an active relationship with Jesus Christ.

There could be much more to write down here, and one of my plans for 2009 is to have a weekly tracker of my top moments for the week, and keep a list of them for the month, and ultimately I'll my favorite moments of the year mapped out. Could potentially be interesting.

For now this will be my last blog of 2008, hopefully I'll be able to improve on my paltry 21 posts for the year in 2009.

God Bless and Happy New Year!!

Politically Correct?

So being a Christ-follower, I'm perpetually perturbed by the enduring push for "political correctness," aka obscene sugarcoating. This is of course referring to the recent drive in our society to drive out Christmas (our remembrance of Christ's birth) as the solitary reason for the season. However, this has gone away with recently as "Merry CHRISTmas" has been conveniently replaced with "Happy Holidays." For me, there only remains one place where "Merry Christmases" consistently rain down is at church-- this is great and all, but its sad to see that it isn't openly said everywhere.

Through the years, we've become much more accommodating of each others different groups, careful not to step on the toes of the opposition. Our government used to be blatantly racist, with such acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 (which I conveniently learned from my Asian studies class) and with Pres. Woodrow Wilson proclaiming "Birth of a Nation," produced by the Klan, was the greatest movie of all time.

It just amazes me how this country has shifted to try to accommodate every political and ethnic view that exists in the vast expanses of our borders. Well it's getting late, I'm sure I'll have more to blog about this subject soon...

In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

Fall Quarter is in the Books!

Ah, sometime I'm gonna get my act together and start blogging more often. Someday.

Anyway, I'm back home in San Diego for three whole weeks... which is beautiful! Although the weather is looking quite bleak as we've had rain for the past couple days and we're expecting some more. But we need it so I'm not complaining.

Fall quarter just blew by this year, I was up in SB for about 3 months, and it seems like yesterday when i was moving into my house. It's been a fun first quarter, cooking for myself hasn't been nearly as bad as I first feared, and living with my housemates has been a ton of fun.

School-wise, I've certainly had better days... I haven't got any grades back but I've got the feeling I got straight B's. That's not too terrible, but since my success of high school, I hold myself to higher standards. So we'll see, I know where I went wrong this quarter and will rectify my mistakes for Winter Quarter, where I pulled off a 4.0 last year--hopefully I can replicate it!!

Anyway, this is just a preview for what's to come, I've got some other things I'd like to blog about, and since I'm not buried in arduous work I should be able blog more frequently!

Cheers.