making it

congratulations to all of you high school students who are done with finals!
you made it through! for those of you who are juniors and below, enjoy
your semester break. for those of you who are now second semester seniors
...come play with me. hue hue hue. seriously. or i will hunt you down until
you love me. anyway, for those of you whom i visited earlier this week,
i sincerely hope you were encouraged- i surely was by how you all welcomed
me and spared even a couple minutes aside from studying just to talk with
me. world, whachu know about this family? and to those that i failed to visit,
i haven't forgotten about you. i will find you. and then i will kil- i mean, love
you. lastly, a big shout-out: tiffsy, thank you so much for helping me under-
stand calculus! i am no longer paralyzed by integral problems! thank you!

sushi brain

today, caleb headbutted me. dem braincells.

dark knight rises

hahhahahahohohuuhuuhaha...i made a new card game.
and yet again, i find an excuse to spend time with the
people that i love, stranger or not. this one is not nearly
as complicated as "cards" and the concept is like a
combination of uno and big two. plagiarizing ftw.
i have yet to test this game on humans...other than me.
after a morning of revisions, "dishwasher" is complete!

rainy thursday

"what is she doing there?" i thought as i looked outside the window.
my parents were angry- i'm not sure whether at each other, at me, or at her-
and i asked them eagerly, "can i go out to meet with her?" they nodded "yes"
but looked at me with pity in their eyes like they knew something foreboding
and subconsciously, like i was expected to know it too. but like a child, i
ignored all suspicions and threw away all doubts and ran outside with my
blind faith. she was there, right in front of my eyes- i couldn't believe it. so,
i did the only thing i knew how to do- i crouched down from a distance of
about ten feet, flung my arms wide open, and called out with a smile, "cinny,
come here!" she was hiding behind a tree and as she slowly walked out, i
thought, "what if she's forgotten me? or what if she's become rabid and
vicious?" but my worries were quickly quelled when i saw that she
approached me as she always did- slow and with an emotionless face.
when she came within reachable distance, i grabbed her by the cheeks and
kissed her forehead. like always. i pet her soft fur and played with her ears.
then i kissed her wet nose and smelled her horrible breath- i didn't mind at
all- i was overwhelmed with happiness at this reunion. from that point on,
i knew it was a dream, i knew i was sleeping. but because of my stubborn-
ness, i wanted to stay in my dream. and because i stayed in my dream, what
happened next...happened. after i had kissed her several times, i wanted to
take her inside the house. but as i reached under her belly to pick her up, my
arm grazed her right hind leg and she flinched. immediately i knew some-
thing was wrong with her leg, because she would only flinch if she was hurt.
so i took a closer look and found that a part of her leg had been decaying to
the point where it was clearly thinner than her other three legs. i looked
back at my parents inside the house- they wouldn't look me in the eyes. and
we were all thinking the same thing. "this is it. the end of the line." but
foolishly, i said to her, "it's going to be alright. i'm going to fix you up!" it
began to sprinkle. she looked at me with shame in her eyes as if to say
"stop, john. i didn't come to ask for help." but foolishly, i ran back inside
to look for bandages and as i searched, all i could hear was the rain getting
louder, all i could think about were flashbacks of all the years we spent
together- i searched more vigorously as if i could somehow, through my
desperation save my best friend. i found no bandages, so i walked back
towards the glass sliding door thinking that i could at least take her in to
shelter her from the cold. but when i saw her again, i could not bring my-
self to move an inch further. standing at a distance of about ten feet away
from me, she stared solemnly, sadly, at my soul. and the rain revealed a
reality that i was not ready to receive. her fur was now wet and pressed
against her body- she was a skeleton. i could no longer hear the rain
though it was pouring and i could no longer hear myself speak, although
i was calling out her name. the only sound i heard, if such a scene could
look like a sound, was the word, "goodbye." and in an instant, her heart
gave in and her body collapsed. she died- and i wish the rain had lied-
because in the rain, she lied. i awoke and rain was falling from my eyes.

endureth

just keep loving them- even if you don't feel like doing it!
there's a difference between hypocrisy and self-discipline.
hypocrisy being the legalistic act of external obedience
while trying to hide your sinful intentions. and self-discipline
being obedient and acknowledging your brokenness in the fact
that loving them is a burden to you while pleading with God
to instead replace your heart with the joy of your salvation.
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i was going to blog about my late night thoughts, but i
felt like this was more important at the moment. also, instead
of just explaining my plan for this media fast, i think ima
just initiate it. recklessly loving? maybe, but fou fou personalities
can always find their own way to alter the unlovable things life.
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i do action rolls over my bed to open and close my window.

talk about motives

i need a break from break. my brain is craving food.
i'm going on a media fast- four hours per week.
discipleship, here we go! keep me in your prayers. 

what is this break

i am so hot right now...

a couple days ago, i went to danielle's house for bible study.
and, like always, we joked around about relationships and my love life...
danielle- "john, you are the heart breaker of efc east valley!"
me- "wait. what? how am i a heart breaker?"
danielle- "you dtr-ed with all of them! 'we're bros, right?' *fist bump"
me- "hey, that leaves no room for confusion! they know what's up."
danielle- "the problem though, john lee, is that you don't dtr multiple times in one night. you can't do that!
me- *pause "well...with this face of mine, i kinda have to."
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haha...look at that humility. oh, how i love the sarcasms.

learning music theory

so fly i can't even...

i think that if i collected all of my most profound thoughts that i have thought whilst driving or showering and put them into a scrapbook and then if i doodled on each thought as if one could possibly draw anything that resembles a paradox without using anecdotes in the margins so as to explain the vast complexity of such seemingly simple concepts and if someone were to stumble upon this hypothetical project of my never-hypothetical spare time and if that someone were to read my brilliant thoughts which would most likely be presented in run-on sentences much like this one because i find when i do think of things on such a deep level i tend to not pause- if and only if this were to ever happen do i think that i could pass off as being creative to someone.
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what have you done to me? i can't stop listening to this music! =3

simple gathering

friends on a morning walk

let me first start off by saying that winter retreat was truly great- i learned a
ton and was reminded of certain convictions that i had somewhat forgotten
during my first quarter of college. i really appreciate how pastor nick taught
us without sugarcoating or oversimplifying anything- although the way he
presented everything academically was difficult to keep up with note-taking
wise. but still, i found that as the retreat went on, i took less notes and tried
to simply listen. this time around, i had new friends from efc east valley!
or...they weren't new, but it was a new experience for me to interact with
another church as much as i did at winter retreat. and gbc played mafia with
us during the last night! games and fun aside, there have been two things
that i think God has been teaching me the most- though i'm sure He is
teaching me a thousand other things that i am unaware of. 1) the greatest
commandment. more specifically, loving God with all our heart and mind.
we are often taught to love God with everything- our entire being. but, and
this was discussed at retreat during small group time, conflict arises within
ourselves when what our heart feels does not align with what our minds
say. if you know me well, then you know that i rarely let my feelings get
the better of me and that i'm usually calm and collective. you also know
that when it comes to charismatics, i tend to shy away- reject even (i hope,
ihop, i hope not). you know that i delight in exegetical bible teaching.
but this tendency to seek knowledge and leave my feelings behind has
often caused me to not love God with all my heart and mind. i've come to
realize that although the heart and the mind are distinct, they were never
meant to be separate. what does this mean? it means that if we say we
love God with all our heart, but not all our mind, we don't really love God
with all our heart. same goes for the mind. so, it doesn't matter that you
feel good about God- even if you are happy- if you don't know who God
is or what the reason for your joy is, then your heart is not fully worshiping
Him. and then, for the thinker, like me, it doesn't matter how much you
know about God or the bible- if thinking about the character of God, for
example, if thinking about the goodness of God doesn't excite you or pull
on your "heartstrings," then your mind is not fully worshiping God.
naturally, our hearts don't always agree with our minds. but it is by His
grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit within us that our hearts and
minds can work together to produce such beautiful worship.