Saturday, March 24, 2012

Better than Average

Anyone who has read even a little into psych knows that we (people in general) have a very strong tendency to think really highly of ourselves. Like… our brain has adjusted to make ourselves see our reflections as more symmetrical and beautiful in real life. And when we make mistakes, it’s because it was a “bad day” and when other people make mistakes, it’s because they are weaker, less practiced, or just no good.
So… I’m going through this list (posted by Shannon… hooray!) but with some side commentary, because sometimes I don’t know if I’m being egoistic or if I’m actually right. Thanks Shannon for posting this though.
I know this is a really long post, but it’s probably also the best post to read if you really want to know me. No matter how much I talk about or spend time on math or badminton or school or whatever, at the end of the day, it all comes back to this stuff. Every night I reflect on my day, and usually it’s in regret of wasting so much time on such worthless causes. Sure I love playing with numbers and flying on courts, but that’s not really me. Me is what God put inside when I was born. Me is my love, thoughts, and friendships. Me is about Jesus. Also “me is” should be “I am”. Whatever.
1. You attend church regularly. It’s what is expected of you, and that’s what “good Christians” do. My church attendance is the worst from January to May because this is usually the peak of my annual depression cycle. On the other hand, I attend church because I want to learn the Word and worship with the body, not because I want to be a good Christian.
2. You give money to the church or to charities as long as it doesn’t mess with your standard of living. Actually, when I have money, I am completely willing to give it all to any church-affiliated cause. However, my money has no effect on how I eat, sleep, study, or play, so I still have to say this until my parents stop paying for me.
3. You tend to choose what is popular over what is right when you’re conflicted. You want to fit in at church and outside of church. You care more of what people think than what God thinks. I don’t care much for popularity that comes with a bad reputation in God’s kingdom. I’ve been pretty lucky to be acquainted mostly with people who would think well of the same things of which God would think well. Many people’s judgments mean nothing to me because they are incomplete, biased, and mostly irrational.
4. You don’t really want to be saved from your sin, but rather from the consequences of your sin. You don’t really believe that the life God can give you will be better than your old sinful life. Sometimes, I kind of enjoy the dramatic emotions of suffering for my sin when I persist in it, but at the worst times, I’m desperate to be saved. I have yet to be able to imagine life with God as exciting or wonderful because there is no risk or sin with which to battle. I mean, I know it’s wonderful, but just how long can we be satisfied? Eternity is a long time. I think I’ll have to suffer harsher consequences for my sin to understand.
5. You’re moved by stories about people who do radical things for God. But you don’t act since you think only the “extreme” Christians do these things. But God calls all of his followers to do radical things for Him. I am so unconfident about my own prayers that doing anything beyond silently bowing my head scares me way too much. But yes, I am very moved by even the slightest hint of God’s great love in anything or anyone.
6. You rarely share your faith with others. You don’t want to be rejected or make people feel uncomfortable by talking about private issues like religion. I dislike many social occasions. Crowds depress me only slightly more than the usual small group conversations. I often don’t even attempt to answer people’s questions because I know I can’t produce anything satisfactory. These are all basically excuses so I can stay away from sharing my faith.
7. You determine how “good” you are based on comparing yourself to others of the secular world. Like oh, at least I’m not as bad as the guy down the street. No. Sin is the same. I will rejoice, cry, fail, and die as much as a drunken prostitute will. We are all sinners, we all need Jesus.
8. You say you love Jesus but you only give him a part of your life. You’re not willing to let him control all aspects of your life. When I give Him control, I often look for him to improve the physical circumstances of life, like my body, or grades, or habits. I don’t want to use Him as my guarantee-win tool. I hope one day I will be able to let him control my heart.
9. You love God. But not with your heart, soul, and strength. You say you try, but total devotion is only possible for pastors and missionaries. I struggle with love for anyone.
10. You love others, but you don’t seek to love people as much as you love yourself, your love is mainly focused on people at love you back. It’s highly conditional and selective. My lame excuse is at least I don’t hate other people. There are many people I don’t respect very much, but I don’t hate them… but I certainly don’t love them. In the past couple of years, I have become apathetic to the majority of people.
11. You serve God, but there are limits to how far you will contribute your money, time, etc. Actually throughout the day, I frequently remember the mediocre efforts I am able to contribute to serving God, but it is usually limited to a “thank you God” and “help me God” between every other breath.
12. You think more about this world than eternity in heaven. Like I said above, I think about eternity quite often, but my actions reflect almost nothing of it. Once in a while, you might catch me saying “no one cares” or “it doesn’t matter.” It sounds like I’m being lazy, but I’m actually talking about Heaven.
13. You are thankful for your luxuries, rather than thinking of how you can give as much as possible to the poor. How do I do this? Someone please hook me up to an agency that will ship my wasted food, paper, AC, and clothing to Africa. I’m not sure how this works.
14. You do whatever is necessary to avoid feeling guilty. Most of the time, it is the bare minimum. Is this about the Asian mindset of always paying people back for their gifts and time? I think it’s dumb. If not, I don’t know what this is about, but I’m usually not a minimalist.
15. You are focused on controlling your own life and playing it safe. You don’t want to sacrifice and risk things for God. I wonder what I would focus on if my parents didn’t pressure me so much to earn strictly A’s.
16. You don’t live by faith. If you stopped believing in God, your life wouldn’t look much different. You have your whole life planned out; no need for God’s help. At present, my faith seems dormant in my actions and words, but for most people, this is because they didn’t know me before. Without God, I would probably be in intensive care, half bald, 38 bpm, if not dead. Had I somehow overcome those issues, I assure you that my wrists would be slit and the number of scars I have would double. There is an off chance that I would have drank and be … well I’d still be a virgin, but a defiled one. And I’d be really good at throwing up and pooing. Maybe I’d have a couple B’s. My lifestyle and intelligence have been totally shaped by God. I cannot live without Him, and He won’t let me live without Him.
17. You drink and swear less than average. You equate your partially sanitized lives with holiness. For the first part, thank goodness. For the second part, no. It is good not to drink and swear, but there is plenty of other sin for me to abuse.
Case in point, I’m lukewarm.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

90 Average

My dad told me that if I start borderlining my grades, I will have to quit badminton.
Hm.
96, 93, 92, 91, 90, 78, and 95.
Solid. hahaha...
Regardless of his state of ignorance (in both the technical and spiritual way), this threat poses a sore temptation. A very sore temptation indeed.

I've grown used to sore muscles and exploding sluggishness. I've done so many lunges that my quads won't scream for at least 250. I've ran so many sprints that I caught up to the front of the line... after starting 2 minutes after everyone else... and kept the pace for a mile. I've duck walked so many laps that I've actually come to... love it?
WALK LIKE A DUCK.
I miss having someone push me hard. Really hard.

10 miles this weekend. Hoping for more soon.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Countdown

My parents always told me that my birthday was special, not because they love me (they do, but that’s not why they told me) or think I’m the best. No… its just that my birthday happened to land on a series of interesting (mainly insignificant, nevertheless, interesting) coincidences.  


My birthday: March 21. Otherwise written as 3-21. 
First of all, 3-2-1 are consecutive strictly decreasing integers. That alone is pretty good. Equinoxes and solstices fall on either the 20th or 21st of March, June, September, or January.
My address: 993 is my house number. Those three digits add up to 21. Illinois has 21 electoral votes and was the 21st state to be admitted to the Union. (I discovered this while collecting state quarters…). In fact, it was admitted on December 3, 1818, also written as 12-3, which is 3-21 backwards. The state is 210 miles in width.
The only reason I’m writing this post is because I was running today and was thinking about this: Let A = 1, B = 2, C = 3… Y = 25, Z = 26. BEATRICE = 2 + 5 + 1 + 20 + 18 + 9 + 3 + 5 = 63. 63 is equal to 3 * 21.
In my excitement, I ran to tell my mom, and she told me that she arrived in both Japan and the United States on the 21st day of some month.
Choking with glee, I am now at my computer reading about the number 21. Here are more coincidences.
21 is a Fibonacci number (I can’t believe I didn’t see this before… btw. 3 is too!) and is the sum of 6 consecutive integers, 1+2+3+4+5+6. 6 is 3! and a perfect number (3+2+1). 3+2+1!!!
21 in base 4 is 111, which is yes, 3 1s. 
21 is also the legal drinking age, and in some cases, voting age, for many countries. There are 21 points in a badminton game and 3 games in a match.
21st century news right here.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Oh, sweet cornstalks forbid!

Oh the vast expanse of knowledge available at my dispense every day!
Some things I learned from badminton, week 1:

1. Anger is a very powerful emotion. Channeling anger into mindless efforts is healthy (in my case). When I can, I run a very long time - far, far away, preferably. When I can't, the floor is always ready to receive several push-ups, 100 in today's case, along with an abundance of lunges, 200 in today's case.

2. Everyone's backhand clear is weak! This is great news to me.

3. Channeling anger into a task that requires logical thinking quite possibly the stupidest thing I could do in regards to math team and badminton games.

4. Working hard is immensely satisfying after a prolonged period of not working hard. My body is short of reaping the benefits, as in my depression I have consummated two stomachs of food on a daily basis, but returning the Midwest to simply "hit around" with Elite Team is absolutely gratifying. Temporarily. Of course, this comes with 300 sets of footwork. But whatever. 400 next time.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Maturity.

The past week has led me to several (un)fortunate and thoughtful conclusions, all of which are due to something related to math. To my regret, I'm no good at math, at least not compared to IMSA students, and these minor epiphanies have led me to two things:
1. Well actually I have to apologize for my usage of the word "things". The word is vague and totally nondescript. I dislike it unless I'm trying to be secretive, as I should be on this blog, but have currently given up.
2. To become more depressed. And I just forgot the two things to which the two minor epiphanies led me.

Some things I have learned:

ICTM Regionals: I am a horrible person. My school makes me practice every morning at 6:50 for two months and I performed exceptionally poorly in everything I did that day. It was a deeply humbling experience, although I have two sleepless nights to blame. I did however, gain bloody and ripped jeans, a disfigured knee to contaminate with dirty badminton court floors, and a C+ in physics. Cool.

School: I knew after acknowledging my five borderline grades since week 1 of this semester that I should not be doing math team homework during class. Class, however, is stiflingly boring and repetitive, and math almost never is. Again, its a horrible shame that I am still no good.

NSML Conference: I am a horrible person. I have the highest score in my class for NSML and that I performed surprisingly well this past season (I totaled 53 points last year, but  I suppose its fair to take into account my annual winter depression; I totaled 114 points this year, out of 125). In my counter-ego's defense, I bombed #3 and have not been able to stop thinking about those two pooping questions since I promptly solved them after the contest. For tears.
In addition, I have several pleasant experiences from math team, a great majority of them stemming from the NSMLs, not state math team or ARML. Definitely not ARML.

Math class: Due to my extended annual depression, I have been making careless errors (in both math and life) without fail in each and every assessment. I was perfect once. Once. Still, despite my seemingly relentless streak of Bs, I can without hesitation assert that math class this year has always been my favorite class. It is not just because of the math, because if it was, I would also want to do the homework, which I have no motivation to do whatsoever. It is at least 20% (I'm rounding down so people don't think I'm a fan girl) because of our teacher. He is uncorrupted by marriage and children, and that is, without a doubt, the best attribute I have yet to find in a teacher of any subject, second to being an Asian American. I learn how to speak more in math class more than I ever learned in speech class, and I rarely participate. I prefer wallowing contently in numbers.

Also, since I will be turning 16 soon, I've decided to upgrade my blog to higher level language, which mostly means less emotional outpourings and definitely less adjectivial uses of the word "poo".