Vision and Weakness

What a blessing last week has been. It's been three days since I've come back from Vision Conference. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go when my friend told me about it two months ago. But I am so glad that I went.

The conference featured two amazing pastors, Rick James and Peter Ahn. Rick James blessed us with biblical context which we could apply to our every day lives. Peter Ahn wasn't afraid to show his transparency and shared with us personal stories that rocked our souls. He also shared a lesson in evangelism that answered so many of my questions about the topic. It seemed like both pastors somehow directly answered questions everyone was holding in their hearts which I find to be mind blowing. Every plenary that the pastors spoke at left me amazed at how questions I've long had have been answered.

What's the most important thing I can take out of this conference?

It's that I shouldn't be afraid to be broken and weak. I shouldn't be afraid to rely on God for the times I'm down. I've been a very independent person. Whenever I face an obstacle in my path, I only use my own power to hurdle it. I've only relied on God a few times and those were things that weren't in my control.

There's so much that I've experienced and learned at Vision Conference that I cannot possibly put them down in one blog entry.

The lone bad thing about conference was the lack of campus representation. Most of the people at the conference were there with people from their college campus. There were three people from Syracuse there. I'm all for going back next year at the moment. But I hope more Cuse people will be there next year. Gotta start up a Syracuse group there.

More Highlights and Anticipations

Unlike last year, my end to the year wasn't so memorable. It's not like it was bad by any means, but I don't have the same emotional high as last year. I'm still teetering on whether I should make a resolutions list this year or not. Hopefully I'll get an answer as I type this out.

Highlights of 2011 include:

• Getting into VPA.
• Seeing Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy.
• Got my learner permit (about time).
• KCS 2011 retreat.
• Got into the Shift Dance Crew.
• Ddukboogies '11.
• Going to Stony Brook for spring break.
• Working at the summer day camp at my church over the summer.
• "The Rapture" (it was nice for jokes and giggles).
• Living in an apartment this semester.
• Cutting off a small chunk of my left index finger on the last day of finals.

It's not that noticeable from far away, but you can (well at least I can) see it when you look closely.

The list of highlights have sure extended from what I had last year. Then again, having a blog and a new Facebook timeline helps in keeping track of the events that transpired. I'm probably still missing things. But as I said last year, if I don't remember it, then it does not merit being a highlight.

Well the new year is here and I'm still adamant on not having resolutions. I still stand by what I've been saying. I don't need a specific day to announce to myself how to improve my own well being.

Instead, I'll do...(drum rolls please)...another list! I'll list out things I'm looking forward to this year.

• Vision Conference in three days.
• A whole bunch of movies (The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-man, Snow White and the Huntsman (yep), The Hunger Games).
• World of Dance: New York (they are moving to a new venue this year. Goodbye hot and stuffy Brooklyn Tech auditorium).
• Spring semester (I have a feeling it's going to be a fun semester).
• Hopefully a summer internship.
• Hopefully my driver's license this summer.
• December 21, 2012 (I love it when doomsday predictions don't pan out).

May more things spring up as the year goes on.

Tweets and Prejudice

Follow me, please!

I've always hated on Twitter from afar for being Facebook with only 140 character statuses. But, I've never tried it...so how can I judge it so much? I read this article and decided to give it a chance.

Timeline and Math

It's sad how we lose touch with people who we used to share laughs with everyday. I've updated my Facebook to the new timeline last week and I finally decided to scroll through the early years of having Facebook.

One of the first posts I saw was a status update. December 13, 2008: "GOT ACCEPTED INTO COLLEGE! Syracuse '13!" Almost every comment was some sort of congratulations, except for one person. Let's call him Jeambon in this post (which is his last name. I love his last name). We used to have math together senior year (and I'm sure we had more classes together before that but my memory is failing me). We used to talk all the time in class and laughed at each other when we failed, or near-failed, our quizzes and exams. It was senior year, grades didn't matter anymore. Well his comment said "don't fail math now". Just reading that now makes me miss all the laughs we had together in high school. Now we don't even talk anymore. Honestly, I completely forgot about Jeambon until I re-read this status.

Nostalgia washed over me as I looked at pictures from the last day of classes to prom to pies on pi day. I used to wish for high school to end as soon as possible. Looking back, it's easy to miss those days.

I wonder what I'll be thinking fives years from now. Oh and thank you Facebook for this timeline even if it means more breaches in our privacy.

Choices and Chance

I went to watch a movie today and came across the oh-so common dilemma.

"Hmm. Popcorn or nachos? I want something salty and buttery. But I also want something cheesy."

I'm an advocate for coin flipping. I'm sure everyone has flipped a coin to decide between two choices or at least seen a coin flip. Why flip coins? Well, here's two reasons:

1. Hypothetically, it's a fair 50/50 chance.
2. You'll know the outcome before the coin has even landed.

Hope I threw you off on the second one there. Subconsciously, we know which of two options we want more. We might not be aware of it, but deep down we know. This is where flipping coins come into play. Let's say heads is popcorn and tails is nachos. The moment I saw the coin in the air, I hoped it would land on heads. I knew what I wanted despite the outcome of the coin flip. I've been in situations when I flipped a coin and was dissatisfied with the result. I would think to myself "Ok, best 2 out of 3". In those situations, we know clearly what we want. When you're disappointed or have a negative feeling about what the coin landed on, just do the opposite. Do the other option. It's what your heart desires.

The coin landed on tails, but I got popcorn regardless.

Exhibits and Mountains

Welcome to Pixel Portal. An exhibit on the Digital Revolution and its impact on graphic design.

This is the project I have been locking myself up in the Warehouse to do for the past two weeks. There are two things about this project. One, it made me love and hate group projects all at once. Two, it costs more than a college student would be ever willing to spend. Printing alone is pricey. That doesn't even factor in materials that needed to be bought to make this (and all the rough models before it).

These are pictures I took on my barely-acceptable 2 megapixel phone camera. My group took better pictures the next day with actual lighting and better cameras.

The outside of our exhibit. It's 4 feet by feet. 2 feet high. Forgot the actual scale of the exhibit. The "T" and "S" in the upper left corner is not part of our exhibit. That's just from the calendar behind the wall.

That's a portion of our "timeline wall" with dates and contents popping in and out of the wall.

The front of a kiosk we have in the exhibit that shows iconic figures in the Digital Revolution (like Steve Jobs and April Greiman). That is also a silhouette cutout of me checking out the touch screens we have on the table kiosks.

Another view.

A look at the other side of the "timeline wall".

The "timeline wall" was the death of my group. It was a pain to make as well as assemble. But in the end, it got finished and it didn't look half bad. The finishing of this project was like reaching the summit of a mountain that I have been climbing for over a month. Now all that's left to do is go back down the mountain.

Hallucinations and Time

Have you ever been so tired that you hallucinated?

First time I started hallucinating because of the lack of sleep was earlier this semester. When I don't get enough sleep, I normally just nap after my classes or just not go to class. But, I've been pushing myself this semester. I can say I've missed no more than three classes this entire semester. I can't even nap after classes right now because of all the work I have to get done for these last two weeks. Anyways, back to my first hallucination. It was actually hysterical now that I look back at it. I remember seeing the Words With Friends screen every time I looked at a blank wall. I had to blink a few times for the screen to disappear.

These hallucinations have occurred a few more times in the weeks to follow but they were all minor and went away quickly. While I sat there in class today listening to my professor explain what music was in his own words, my eyes started to droop. However, I had to stay awake because there's only five of us in this class and you simply just can't fall asleep when everyone in the room is gathered at one table. In my efforts to try to stay awake with my eyes growing heavier by the second, I started visualizing everything in purple. Blank pieces of paper would turn purple for a few seconds before the purple literally slid off the page.

With that being said, I'm extremely glad to be home right now. It's 4:27 AM. I've been working at the Warehouse since 1:30 PM. I left around 7 to make it to family group for our last FG meeting to exchange gifts. I left around 9 to go back to the Warehouse. After what seemed like an eternity, the time read 1:57 AM. At this point, my group was freaking out because our project did not go as we planned.

I remember this point in time vividly (partially because it just happened). The time read 1:57 AM on my phone. We stared at our project for what seemed like a couple of minutes. After some hair-pulling and pleas to go home and think of a solution tomorrow, I finally suggested an idea that ran well with the group. We started to fix up our project when I took out my phone again.

"WHAT?! It's 2:51? It was 1:57 ten minutes ago!"

In our exhaustion, we lost the ability to track time. I can't wait until Thursday is over. I'm going to be the happiest person on campus. Fun fun fun.