Recap of the summer

So I have about 2 weeks left until stuff for USC begins to start up again, so I thought I would reflect on this summer so far and give you some highlights:

- starting it off with a week in Lake Arrowhead, totally alone, as a personal retreat of-sorts and it was amazing. Even though the ride up there cost me about 5 years of my life (free tip: don't drive up a mountain late at night with really bad fog - it's absolutely terrifying)

- been raising more support and almost to my goal so please pray that I will reach my goal by Aug. 12th!!

- I've been able to meet up with a few of the girls in my small group from this past year and even found out that one of them turned from being a vegan to an all-out carnivore because, as she says, "being a vegan was just too hard" so now I don't have to look up vegan cookie recipes anymore!!

- I've seen Harry Potter 7.2 (twice and it was great), Midnight in Paris (surprisingly fun and good), X-Men: First Class (twice, really liked it!), Bridesmaids (ehhh, had some really funny parts but the raunchiness factor was a bit too much) and Pirates 4 (ehh, it was entertaining but nothing to write home about)

- went surfing once and it was amazing and fantastic and all sorts of wonderful. I hadn't been in almost a year due to my stupid RA coming back and being all unpredictable and I went with 2 good friends of mine and it was absolutely lovely. I couldn't stop smiling because it felt so great to get back out there and enjoy the waves!! Surfing is seriously becoming my favorite sport. I love Volleyball and all, and it's a heck of a lot easier to include people with a volleyball, and surfing is a somewhat expensive sport for all the equipment that is involved, but holy cow it is crazy fun and exhilarating, like woah. My dad loves the fact that I am getting more and more into it and he even got me a wetsuit! So now all I need is a board, so I'll be searching craigslist for that :)

- went to a beach bonfire for one of our fellow staffers, celebrating her 10 years being in California and with USC Christian Challenge :)

- attended the Hollywood Bowl and the theme was "Michael Feinstein and the singing stars of television" and while the host, Michael Feinstein, was a bit of a tool, the guests (Florence Henderson, aka Momma Brady, Cheyenne Jackson, Wayne Brady and my personal favorite, Dick Van Dyke!!!!) I love the HB, simply love it, I think it is bar none one of the coolest and most fun things to do in LA, to hear music under the stars :)

- Caught up with "Bones" season 5, now I just need to watch some season 6 and find out what happens next!

- had some good crying moments with God over my RA

- worked on assignments for my boss

- slept!!

And now the summer is officially over because tomorrow is USC's move-in day!!! So I'm hoping to get a chance to meet and get to know some new folks and help some of the older ones move in too :)

Psalm 111 en francais

Louez tous l'Eternel!
Je mettrai tout mon cœur à louer l'Eternel
dans l'assemblée, dans le conseil des justes.

2 L'Eternel accomplit des œuvres admirables,
elles sont méditées par tous ceux qui les aiment.


3 Ses actes manifestent sa gloire et sa splendeur.
Pour toute éternité, subsiste sa justice.


4 Il veut qu'on se souvienne de toutes ses merveilles.
Oui, l'Eternel est bon et il fait grâce.


5 Il pourvoit aux besoins de ceux qui le révèrent.
Il se souvient toujours de son alliance.


6 Il a manifesté sa puissance à son peuple en agissant pour lui
quand il lui a donné le pays d'autres peuples.


7 Tout ce qu'il fait témoigne qu'il est fidèle et juste,
tous ses commandements sont dignes de confiance,


8 ils sont bien établis pour toute éternité,
fondés sur la justice et la fidélité.


9 Il envoie le salut pour délivrer son peuple,
il conclut avec lui une alliance éternelle.
C'est un Dieu saint et redoutable.


10 La clé de la sagesse, c'est de révérer l'Eternel.
Ceux qui s'y tiennent ont une saine intelligence.
Qui observe ses lois est vraiment avisé.
Sa louange subsiste jusqu'en l'éternité.

There is just something so beautiful about reading and speaking God's Word in French! I know I am biased because I love French, but still, the Bible is beautiful anyways, and then you go and put it in a beautiful language and the beautifulness gets squared. (Maybe that's not entirely scientifically accurate, but you get the idea :)

I ordered a French Bible my senior year of college and I love reading it and going to my favorite verses in English and then seeing how they're different in French, much like different translations will hit you differently, the different language is simply that, another translation, and some of the verses in French hit me harder in French than in English. Plus, the French is just so delightful :) Vive la France!


Ahhhh, La Tour Eiffel :)


and of course, this character is everyone's perception of french people, esp the french language! I can't tell you how many times whenever I tell people I speak french they automatically go "French? like 'hhhhee hhhhee hhhhon hhhhon!' " imitating this french chef and I have to say, "no, not quite like that..." every time, like in the tv show "Friends" when Phoebe tries to teach Joey how to speak French and he crashes and burns horribly :)

Harry Potter, I love you

Ok, so the last time I posted it was a mere three days before the end of Potter, and now I have already seen it twice (in one weekend no less, yes I am that much of a nerd) and I loved it. Some of my friends didn't like it because it deviated from the book but I liked it. I think the deviations keep it fresh in our minds as we won't know completely what to expect when we watch the final product on screen.

Why did I watch it twice in one weekend you ask? Well, the 17th was my mom's birthday so we took most of the family and some family friends to see it together. The only problem is that we went to a high-class theater in Pasadena, one that, let's just say the younger crowd doesn't frequent because the tickets are too expensive. So the crowds there are generally older and don't get as excited during movies. So I watched it with my friend Lindsay on opening night (fellow Potter enthusiast and also fellow staffer with me at USC Christian Challenge :) and we saw it at LA Live in downtown and the crowds there were a ton more fun, as I expected. There were clappings, hootin' and hollerin' and some sniffles in the theater that night. It was awesome. Yours truly cried a couple times, and at the same parts of the film both times I saw it. It was epic and action-packed but still packed an emotional wallop too. It was sad to say goodbye to some of my favorite characters over the years but it had to end at some time right? And whatta way to end it!!

Below is a link to pictures of the main Harry Potter stars with every premiere of each film, going back to 2011 all the way until this movie came out. They all look so cute in the beginning!! Such a great casting job...

http://www.empireonline.com/features/harry-potter-premieres

Now there is nothing to look forward to - no book, no movie, they're all done. So now all that's left is to re-read and re-watch the books and movies, which isn't a huge deal because they're just so darn readable :)

Thank you Harry Potter for being a great and engaging story. It was great growing with you for the last 10+ years!

IT'S COMING!!!

It is finally coming. The end. The final goodbye. The last hurrah if you will. I'm talking, of course, about Harry Potter. As it is the 12th of July we only have THREE more days until we finally get to see in movie form what we already know from the books (if you've read them) or what we've always hoped would happen if we've only seen the movies.

I have seen all the movies and read all the books and I tend to re-read them at random times and out of order. For instance, during July 4th weekend I was in Lake Arrowhead at my parent's cabin and they had Potter books 2 & 3 there so I re-read book 3 and I remember why it's one of my favorites. All the action, intrigue, revelations, etc. Actually, I love books 3 and 6 the best, the movies too for that matter. I mean, really, how amazing a feat is it to create an entire world with a different vocabulary and have it be so enticing to such a huge population??

I was writing some thank you notes the other day and I flipped my computer to youtube to put on some background music and I see a line at the top of the screen - "click here to see the Harry Potter world premiere live in London" ummm, WHAT?? So I click it and get to see Trafalgar Square transformed into a red carpet premiere with thousands upon thousands of fans waiting for even a hint of a glimpse of someone related to the movies to walk by. Some of the London-ers had been camping out for 3 days. That, my friends, is Star Wars mega-fan territory. I wouldn't personally do it, but hey, all the more power to them for doing so! But it was fun to watch for a while as I was writing notes and see the stars in their "normal" attire (normal is relative of course, b/c while they weren't in wizarding robes, they were also all gussied up for the event, so, yeah).

But just THREE DAYS people!! I just got my movie tickets, yes, I know I am late, but I still got tickets and thankfully the theater I'm going to doesn't have assigned seating, so as long as me and my equally-obsessed-with-all-things-Potter-friend Lindsay get there early, we should be fine. Plus, there are only 2 of us, we don't need to worry or coordinate with 10 people (which would be darn fun though, but alas a lot of our Potter friends are out of state right now).

So without further ado, I present you with the trailer for HP7.2, which, judging from the advance reviews, is gonna be a doozy:

http://youtu.be/I_kDb-pRCds

oh, did I mention that I'm seeing it twice opening weekend? Once on opening night of course, couldn't miss that, and again with family on Sunday for my mom's birthday :)

Things I like right now :)

Ok, so I thought I'd let you know what I love right now:

1) the tv show "Bones," which I used to make fun of actually because I called it "Law & Order:SVU lite" because it uses more humor and not as much demented-ness as SVU. I love my SVU and it's gritty drama, but I have to say, Bones is equally as fun to watch and the characters are the ones that really make the show. The two main characters, Booth and Bones, are great, but so are the other peripheral ones! They are so fun to watch as they interact together and they have real stories behind them to make me want to keep watching. Thank you Hart Hanson for a creative and fun show!



2) Tangled, the newest Disney film which also happens to be their 50th film and I think there's a reason they had this come out after Princess and the Frog because it is obviously a better film. Now, I know not everyone loves this movie, I don't really expect people to love every film I do (case in point, the movie Death Becomes Her, I love it and always have and people either haven't heard of it or it's too wacky for them...)



http://youtu.be/9oWhovB02Hg
This is a video of the entire studio lip-synching to the last song of the movie and this seriously makes Disney look like the most fun place to work, I mean, I know it's not, but it still makes it seem awesome :)

http://youtu.be/GaJqdSNFB4s
this is a video that the production assistants made that re-makes the first song of the film, and my friend Heather is the blond one!!

3) BOBA TEA!!!
This is definitely a new thing, because I used to vehemently hate boba, I thought it was an unholy union of drink + tapioca because who really wants to chew their drink right? But about a year ago I tried it again and I wasn't horrified, so then I didn't hate it anymore. Then I tried it again this past spring, and really liked it, then I had it more and more and my favorite flavor is thai tea boba, oh MAN it's good!!

Whew!!!!

Well the semester is officially over for USC and while it was a crazy finish, what with end of year events, it was all fun but stinkin' tiring!! We had our last Life group meeting where we ate at Jacks n Joe, a new pancake shop literally across the street from USC. While I am not the biggest pancake fan, I had heard many good things about this place so I decided to give it a whirl.



I was not disappointed! I had the Jack's Banana Pancakes ("3 banana pancakes topped with walnuts - pretend like it's the weekend now") and they were incredibly delicious!! I couldn't finish mine, mostly because their 3 pancakes are stinkin' HUGE, but that suited me just fine because that just meant that I could take them home and have them again! Such yumminess :)

Then we also had our celebrations for the Discipleship Team (DT - mostly for underclassmen who want to focus on the basics of the Christian walk) and the Ministry Team (MT - upperclassmen who wanted more training in how to help others come to know Christ). For the former we had a pool party which was quite fun, as most of the students got in the pool and went crazy! For the latter, we went to a family-fun place where we all played 2 rounds of laser tag (my team won both times...naturally) and go-karting with some mini-golf thrown in for good measure!


Austin gettin' ready to rev up!!


Melinda had quite the good time racing everyone :)

Finally, last but not least, was our end of year celebration honoring our senior students and all of Christian Challenge is invited! This year we went to Pizza Place California which always holds a special place in my heart because that's also where we went my first two years of school, so I have fond memories of that restaurant! Everyone got dressed up too and there were cries of "ooooo!!" and "that's such a pretty dress!" coming from the girls all night :) The guys didn't look too bad either, with their suits and ties, and it was just fun all around!!


picture with some of the classy ladies :)


and now some of the gentlemen...


followed by a photo of my Life group (Charlene, Rebekah, Lauren, myself and Alex). Taylor and Kaila couldn't make it, but it was still a fun time :)

And then, once everything was over, I took a week by myself and went to Lake Arrowhead where my parents graciously allowed me to use their cabin the whole time. It. Was. Amazing, and just what the doctor ordered!! I almost killed myself getting there because it was so stinkin' foggy on the way up, but Jesus got me through it! I was praying to Him literally every other second. Other than that lovely start, the week was glorious and I made 2 dishes that lasted me the whole week (spaghetti bolognese and tuna pasta salad) and I simply read, studied the Word, took long walks with God (when the weather permitted) and worked on some things. It was so great!! And I was apprehensive about spending a whole week alone because while I am an introvert, that doesn't mean that I don't like people! But it was a good week and sometimes I'd go into the village and walk around just so I could be near people :)

And with that, we're all caught up!! Summer Christian Challenge started last week and will continue throughout the summer, so there is that plus other projects to be working on!

I hope this finds you well and I'll be posting shortly! (really!)

Solus Veritas

"Solus Veritas" means "one truth" in Latin. The reason I bring this up is that tonight at USC we are having an event called The Veritas Forum. It started at Harvard in 1992 and has since expanded to universities all across the nation and even globe! It is basically an academic look at Christianity. Officially "Veritas Forums are university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life. We seek to inspire the shapers of tomorrow's culture to connect their hardest questions with the person and story of Jesus Christ."

"The Veritas Forum was started at Harvard in 1992 by a group of students, faculty, and ministers, led by Kelly Monroe Kullberg, as a response to an emptiness on campus. Universities, they perceived, had stopped addressing the most important questions of life: “What does it mean to be human? Why is there evil and suffering? Is there any meaning in death?” These questions cannot be avoided: in fact, an ongoing UCLA study shows that over 50% of entering freshmen hope to explore and define their beliefs during college. Yet the classroom rarely allows students to engage questions of meaning, purpose or faith.

And, in marginalizing such questions, universities fail to provide students room to develop a coherent worldview, making it difficult for many to integrate their academic knowledge with their lives. Veritas steps into this void, creating a space where people of all religious and cultural backgrounds are welcomed to explore ideas. Veritas encourages students to pursue Truth, connect their academic and vocational life to Christ, and emerge with clarity and hopeful vision for our world." (from veritas.org)

The topics range from "A thinking person's quest for meaning" and "What does it mean to be good? Two scholars, Christian and Secular, share their views" or "Does religion make a difference in academic life? Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Atheist perspectives."

The one tonight is "Same Evidence, Different Conclusions: Why? Is 'objective belief' an oxymoron?" featuring Oxford math professor John Lennox. He is in the same vein as C.S. Lewis because he offers a completely rational, logical and accessible view from Christianity. He has debated many prominent atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He also has about four degrees after his name, because one Masters and PhD isn't enough :)

Prof. Lennox was also at Stanford, Berkley and UCLA this week, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, and I heard from the National Veritas regional coordinator (who also happened to be on the planning team with me for the very first Veritas Forum at USC in 2004 - small world!) that Lennox knocked the ball outta the park all three days! Stanford had 450, Berkely had 800 and UCLA had 1,000 and still had to turn away 200!!! I don't think USC will get 1000, but oh my gosh!! These are questions that people want answers to that are not getting them answered in the classrooms!!

This is the first time Veritas has been at USC in five years, because the last Veritas Forum we had was when I was a senior in college and I was its director! We had it 3 years in a row, from 2004-2006, but after that it never got off the ground. This year we are just doing a one-day event, as opposed to the three-day venture it has been in the past. I LOVE Veritas because it shows a different side to Christianity that people don't normally think about, namely, that there is a purely logical and rational side to it. So many times I feel people take me down a few intellectual pegs when they find out I am a believer in Christ because "that's just hogwash/a crutch to make you feel better/no scientific evidence for it, etc" when really, I have checked out a lot of the major world religions and Christianity is the one that makes the most logical sense to me. There is an abundance of not only scientific, but also historical and archeological evidence for it, not to mention it makes the most sense philosophically to me for those deep questions that people have about the world. If you would like to chat further about that I am totally open, I have had many theological discussions with my friends where we talk about our specific worldviews and what led us to adopt them and they're just that, discussions.

I have heard it many times from speakers that people haven't rejected God, they have simply rejected their concept of Him. In my experience my friends that don't think anything of God have a skewed view of Him, mixed from bad experiences in the past, the media and their friends. That is why I love Veritas because it shows people that Christianity can indeed be logical because all the speakers we get have PhDs, so you know they're a smart bunch!

Our goal is NOT that everyone would convert to Christianity at all, but rather, that seekers, agnostics, atheists, other worldview holders would walk out of the event with a more favorable view of God and Jesus Christ. If someone comes to the event and they could care less about Jesus because He is an irrational fairy tale, yet they leave thinking there might be more to this Jesus guy, then that is a win in my mind! The purpose is not making everyone believe what we believe, but to introduce the topic of Christ into the deep, hard questions of life and see how He fits in. It is meant to be a discussion, not a lecture, and everyone from Christians to Jews to Muslims to Buddhists to atheists are all welcome to come and ask questions. I am so happy for this event to come back to USC!!

Below is a link to a 2 min preview of the topic "Same evidence, different conclusions, why?"

http://johnlennox.org/index.php/en/resource/same_evidence_different_conclusions_how/