sidenote

Today in Network Security class, I learned that most "free proxies" are not to be trusted.

Since you are routing all your traffic through them, they can basically take anything going through, even append malicious code to send back to you, along with whatever webpage you are requesting.

So clear your cache if you have been using proxies, and stop using proxies.

aia

"In a sense, it was almost fitting that it rained in Osaka, the steady pattering dulling down the silent days and magnifying the neon nights. It’s been a while since we’ve been in a place where we had as much of a grasp on the native language as they did on ours, which was next to none. Most of the time, we were utterly lost. But every now and then, being lost is necessary."

strive

...and I don't want to be complacent. I don't want to be a runner who walks across the finish line, no, I want to be fighting until the end -- gasping for air.

I've been struck down a few times this past year, but my own passions and desires still remain. I still want to see AAIV communally united, TASC go deeper, and myself and the guys around me deeply root ourselves in the good soil.

Give me your strength, Father, because I'm unable to do anything without it.

what would you buy with your first paycheck?

...he asked.

Not really sure, to be honest. With gadgets and such, I'm decently content. I've done my fair splurging on my laptop, monitor, and camera this past summer. Clothes would not be the first thing I reach for.

I don't know.

Maybe a bike.
Maybe just a meal for my parents.
Plane tickets to NC?

sigh

9/365 - 11/365

playing catch-up today. fall is colorful :)

strange

I've been waking up between 9 and 9:30 for the past four weeks...

8/365

need to work on the clarity of the image...

also, i'm behind.

the fight

Fight to live, fight to believe, and fight to love.

We're creatures born with the likeness of God, with the knowledge of good and evil, but trapped in a body that slants to evil.

So fight everyday, because the battle goes on everyday.

7/365

I hope you find what you are looking for. 

6/365

5/365

4/365

you don't know me like that.

random musings

1. "Christ is Risen" by Matt Maher started playing today at the prayer room. Four years ago, I heard the song and immediately liked it. I wanted to play it with WCEC worship team for "Gospel Jam" coming up, which was a big youth group concert, essentially, with our sister churches. Anyway, Carolyn and I were at Northwestern, actually in EP, when I was telling her that I wanted to play this song. I remember playing the song in Claudia's apartment, and she said, "Okay, we can do it," in the definitive, yet casual way Carolyn speaks.

2. Maybe a few days before my grandmother passed away, she suddenly had the desire to sit at a desk and put her head down. She didn't want to be bedridden, but didn't have the energy to stand up either. So the alternative was a school desk. I remember she commented that she felt like a school girl again, sitting but head down on the desk. A woman in her 80s, lying on her desk, like a sleepy child at school.

3/365

2/365

pastor peter

"...the only way to overcome the unpredictability of your future is the power of promising. If forgiving is the only remedy for your painful past, promising is the only remedy for your uncertain future."

- Lewis Smedes

I heard this quote this past week at New Com (which, by the way, never fails to rip open my heart every time). 

a stranger's post

edit: this is not who i was referring to, but

http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/donald-glover-pens-candid-personal-notes-in-a-hotel-room

we're in this together, glover. this dude was at NU 3 days ago.

--


I believe that the desire to know God is within every one of us.

As I'm sitting in the library, ignoring my homework (and sidenote, my homework is seemingly becoming impossibly hard. Or maybe I'm just becoming ridiculously lazy), and I happened to come across a "stranger's" blog. I put stranger in quotes because I've met this person at NU, seen him, but never really had any interaction with him.

Needless to say, I didn't think much of him.

But this guy pours his heart out on his blog, from feeling subpar about school, being an inadequate boyfriend, and not meeting the mark as a son.

I'm not sure why but when I see someone else (especially a person I don't even know) cry out like that, it's humbling and so convicting.

I hate the culture of "Look at me, I've got my shit together." I'll be the first to admit that I perpetuate it myself.

I hate it because it rocks us to the core when things are off, when things are out of control. We fear to admit that we are actually capable of nothing and quietly try to handle things behind the scenes.

Why I do think this is so key?

The first step to being human is to be humble.

1/365

starting this, like mary did long ago...

thoughts

I always worry about when I post something to the world, is it constructive for the viewer? Form Facebook posts to even my personal blog posts, is there a reason why I would do it publicly and not privately?

Okay. Maybe I don't obsess over my actions so much to call it "always," but it definitely crosses my mind. Posts that scream "I'm holier than though," or even Facebook posts that imply "My life is interesting (too!)."

But I want scream and shout...and I do that by writing. I don't really know who reads this blog anymore, but I miss writing whatever the fuck I'm thinking.

Sadly, I can't do that completely (nor should anyone...a loose and unsettled mind is a dangerous thing).

here's my heart

O, take and seal it

skepticism (again)

To pay someone back, we do it through Venmo, for all the see.
To respond to someone, we write on their Facebook wall.
When we visit a new place, we check in on Foursquare.
We share our photos with our entire population of people who we once thought would be good to have as a Facebook friend.

When should private things should be private? Do we really need an audience for everything we do?