Updates and Goals

It has been quite a long time since my last post. Almost two years in fact!There has been a reason for this long absence. I won't go into detail to refrain from making this post overly long, but here's a brief summary. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, you can just go over the bold colored words to get the gist of it =)
These last two years have been pretty difficult and very busy. They have been a mixture of extreme work, heartbreak, disappointment, failure, but also joy. Somehow, in all my busy-ness, I often lost focus on so many things, and I somewhat lost myself as well.


It's very strange and sad to look at the last posts I had written before disappearing from the blogging world and seeing that I wrote, both on here and in my personal journal, about goals and beliefs that I ended up disregarding since then. I let myself focus on the wrong things (e.g. finances, wrong friends, wrong things to feed myself with physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually). My hopes and expectations also did not quite turn out as I had planned. Relationships with certain people ended or did not go as I thought, studying abroad in South Africa and in Israel did not work out, and I did not do so well in some classes.

But these years haven't been all bad. I did have many fun and joyful times with others and I did stick to my values. In addition, by speaking with friends, I have found out that even with all this junk going on, God somehow worked through me to bless others!

I have often been the person who friends, coworkers, and supervisors have come to to share their struggles, pains, and secrets with. Many have told me that I have been a true friend to them when others have not, that I encouraged and inspired them through my hardships, and that they are so thankful to be friends with a person like me. I have realized that the deep, intentional and meaningful friendships I have made in the last six years or so during my time in Chicago, Portugal, and here in Azusa (California) are not normal to others. Therefore, some people are both taken aback and attracted to me because I genuinely care about them, pray for them and ask them how they are doing (and actually really want to know); I keep myself up to date on the important things going on in their lives, and I have deeper conversations with them than they are used to having. Hearing all of this from many different people has been a great encouragement to me. I didn't realize I had that affect on those around me and I am so thankful that God was able to work through me in that way, even when I felt at my lowest. He truly is amazing!

These years have also taught me that I am stronger than I think I am and than I used to be. I now know what I need and what choices not to make again and what is important for me to focus on.
Instead of waiting for things to change and get better I need to take initiative. It's going to be a longer process than I'd like it to be, but I think I will eventually be able to meet all of my goals.

My goals are to:
*be more intentional and take initiative in the friendships I know are important in my life
*become more motivated and caught up in my studies here at Azusa Pacific University
*go to doctors to figure out how to solve different health issues I have, find solutions and implement them, and start working out on a regular basis
*be more intentional in my relationship with God by having daily time of reading Scripture and prayer
*make sure to take time to do the things I love to do but that I have not done in way too long (such as writing, photography, decorating [I'm embarrassed to admit that my home, which I moved into in June, is still looking quite plain], swing dancing, and hiking). This reminds me, I need to start saving up so I can buy myself a proper camera to give myself as a graduation present in May 2014.
*enjoy life now and stop thinking about the future

I have had these goals for quite some time, but I haven't really taken much initiative towards them.
It is difficult to keep a good balance of everything that is important in life while going through college, but that is not an excuse for not trying.
So far, since the beginning of 2013, I have been pretty good with my first goal. It can be hard at times, but it's very rewarding.
Now I need to get to my other goals. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish all of them by the end of May. I feel like having them published on here will motivate me more to actually make sure that I get them done. 
Prayers will be much appreciated to support me in accomplishing my goals!
"Resetting" my life feels pretty good =)

P.S. I need to update this blog and I'd like your suggestions!
What would be a good new blog address? I don't want "thatweirdblondgirl" anymore. Can you believe I made that six years ago?!
I need some suggestions for new names. I haven't been able to come up with one that is not already taken. Thanks!

I've Discovered Yet Another Reason Why I Want To Teach

My first 18 years of my life I lived in Italy and never had any problems with my teeth. The dentist, in fact, told me my teeth were surprisingly perfect for never having gone to the dentist before.
Then I went to live in the States for two years where I mostly ate cafeteria food and whatever other kinds of food others made for me or gave me. After that, I had 8 cavities.
I went back to living in Europe for a year and had no problems. Then I came back to living in the States and now, I haven't even been here for a year yet, but, alas, after eating American food, I have a cavity again!
Oh, and let's not forget the fact that all my life every single time I've been in the States for a considerable amount of time I have gained more weight than normal.
Could there be a common denominator in all this?

My parents and my brother have been in the States since March and have been with me since Monday. My mom told me how it's been hard for them to eat some of the food here because everything's so sweet. Pasta sauce, pizza sauce, yogurt, meat sauces, ketchup, etc. are all sweet here in the States, but definitely not in Europe. And desserts, of course, are even sweeter.
What scares me is that, after a while, it all becomes normal to me and I'm able to eat most of it without thinking how overly sweet everything is. But the saddest thing of all is that most Americans have no idea how bad their food is for them because they've never had anything better to compare it to.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have had some good and healthy food here in the States. But most of it is really unhealthy, especially when it's not homemade.
I often wonder how Americans got to this point. With sugar and chemicals in everything and ridiculous serving sizes. I was really surprised when in, this past semester, in my Health class, after watching the documentary Super Size Me, we actually had a discussion on why Americans struggle with obesity. I couldn't believe how most people in my class needed to really think about what the causes of obesity are, had no idea that the U.S. is the country that struggles with obesity the most, and didn't know American serving sizes are not normal in the rest of the world. But I need to constantly remind myself here that most people have never been outside of this country and therefore do not take things for granted the way I do.
I just don't understand how someone could look at these serving sizes and think that this is healthy!
This first picture shows the American serving sizes at Starbucks. I don't drink coffee, but the other day I had a "Tall" Frappuccino (which is a blended iced coffee with some kind of cream or something in it) and after drinking only half of it I felt kind of sick and couldn't drink more. Now, as I said before, I'm not a coffee drinker, so my stomach's not used to it, just like it's not used to fast food and soda. But I think it's a good thing that I'm not used to having these food items since I already know they aren't healthy and they make me feel sick after I ingest them. But most Americans are used to these food items, to the point that 31 ounces (916ml) of iced tea or iced coffee doesn't seem like that big of a deal, it's just more of a "good thing," so how can that be bad?

Click to view bigger

And then there's the 44 ounce Super Big Gulp and the 64 ounce Double Gulp of soda which is something pretty normal to see people drinking. WHAT?!? And then we wonder why American dentists are so expensive, American children are becoming more and more obese, and American adults become so obese that they can't even walk. 44 ounces of soda has 533 calories and 64 ounces has 776 calories. And that's just a drink. 

   

Finally, check out the differences in American serving sizes from 20 years ago to today: 

I think it's obvious we have a problem here.

However, regardless of how we got here, which, at this point, we can't really do much about, we have to figure out how to not get any worse.
In the last few years through my personal experiences, classes I've taken, and conversations I've had with people, I've learned that every continent needs a certain value to be taught to it somehow. Europe needs hope, Africa needs integrity, North America needs moderation and they all need to learn responsibility. If we could help the people of each continent learn these values and instill them into their lives, they would definitely be able to solve the main struggles their different countries are facing today.

But how do we teach a whole nation to learn and live a specific value?
All of what I've just written in this post has been going through my mind lately and, last night, I finally came to the point of asking this question to myself. For a short while it seemed to me like there's no way I could actually do anything about this. It seems too big, too complicated, too revolutionary.
And then I realized something. I'm here in the States right now studying at Azusa Pacific University to become a teacher. Teachers aren't just boring people who go to school and teach subjects which kids don't care about like math, history, science, geography, grade papers, and go home. Teachers should be passionate people who should get kids excited about their future, who give them the tools to change the world, who teach them vital skills so that they can grow into the person God has created them to be. Teachers should teach students how to see things differently and acquire important values. This is what I strive to become in the future and this is how I can impact many children in helping our nation (and other countries) to become a better place.

The more I look at frustrating situations of the present, the more I want to learn how to be a better teacher and can't wait to be the teacher kids need to help them grow into the world-changers of tomorrow!

This Is Why I Go To APU

This is why I go to Azusa Pacific University...

For the community
The thing I love the most about APU is that, although it is much bigger than other Christian universities, it has great community. I had the support and help from SO many people this last year. Whenever I was in a bad place, whenever I just needed to sit with someone and cry, when I had meltdowns or really needed someone to help me out, I was always able to find someone who was there for me. The girls in my hall, my TCK friends, my fellow International Chapel Hospitality team members, other friends of mine, random people on campus, staff and professors...all these people have been there for me at some point and have been such a big blessing!
And this isn't just a feeling I have. My friend, who was actually the person who told me about this school, told me that when she had gone to visit a friend of hers at APU, she could definitely see the community on campus. And my mom (who just visited the campus with my dad, my brother, and I for the first time yesterday) told me that she loves the great community I have here.

The diversity
I haven't really been on many other school campuses, but I've heard that for being an expensive Christian school, we have a lot of diversity. Granted, we do indeed have a majority which are white girls whose education is being covered by their parents, but you can still find people who are different. You will often find someone walking around barefoot (like me, on occasion), there are a few people with dreads, there's a decent amount of black people, we have a lot of asians, and we also have a good number of latinos. Our chapels are all pretty different. Many of our speakers for the morning chapels come from all kinds of backgrounds and our worship bands are all pretty different. For morning chapel we often have gospel or contemporary worship, for Wednesday night chapel we have a more indie kind of worship band, our once-a-month Thursday night chapel is more meditative worship, and then Friday morning International chapel has worship in different languages (some examples are Spanish, Japanese, Zulu, Hebrew, etc). And our professors are also very different; I've had professors from the East Coast, from the Midwest, Californians, Latinos, TCK professors, etc.
Coming to the end of the year, I realize out that more than half of my friends are asian and that I'm actually the only white student worker at my job. I thought it was funny but cool that it took me so long to see this =)
Oh, and for my Spring Break, I staid with my friend at her family's house. They are Philippino and it was really interesting getting to know their culture and their food. We definitely had a lot of fun!

Internationality
I don't think I could survive in the States without having internationality around me! I love having friends from almost every continent of the world, professors who've grown up in the forests of the Philippines or lived and worked in East Africa, and having international chapel once every week for which I'm part of the hospitality team. The TCK retreats, which happen twice a semester, have also definitely been a breath of fresh air. It's nice to have a family I can be with that will understand me and with whom I can be myself and talk about things that normal American students can't really comprehend.

Scholarship
I am constantly amazed at how good my classes and professors are! I am definitely learning many new things that I've never heard of before and I've been challenged in many ways by my professors who are all brilliant and have studied at prestigious school like Princeton, Yale, Harvard, etc. I have had moments when I feel like my brain is having an overload of information, but hopefully I'm still being able to retain a lot of it.

God
I would not be here if it weren't for God. He is the one who has brought me here and He is the one who is taking care of me spiritually, emotionally, and physically. During this time at APU, He is slowly working in me, constantly providing for me, never leaving me, and helping me discover and define who I am. I am so thankful for everything He has given me and I cannot wait to better understand exactly how much He has been teaching me during this time here at APU.

Event On Human Trafficking

This past Saturday I volunteered at a human trafficking event we had on campus. The strange part of it for me was that it was a very fancy and expensive event at which many teen actors and their families came to support the teen actress who was the MC of the event. I guess, though strange, it was a good thing because now all of these teen actors and actresses are aware of what is going on in the States and around the world regarding human trafficking AND a lot of money was raised to go toward Worldteam Foundation and therefore all of their projects including their Restoration Home For Trafficked Victims in the San Gabriel area.

We heard many stories and a lot of information, but this is what really hit me:

There are between 100,000 and 300,000 children in the United States today who are being trafficked. But there are less than 100 beds in the country for children who are taken out. Therefore, most trafficked victims who are able to get out cannot go to restoration homes, but, instead, end up in juvenile detentions or foster homes, both of which obviously do not help in restoring them.

One woman (an American) who shared her story said that, as a teenager, she kept escaping the human traffic system (here in the United States), but would always end up being brought back to her pimp by the cops. After many failed attempts of getting out, she lost hope and saw the lost hope in all of the other girls' eyes. She told us "With no hope, why would any of us try to run away?" That was so heart-breaking to hear.

Maria Suarez shared her story of how, at the age of 16 she left Mexico and came to the States with the promise of a job so she could help her family. She was taken to an older man's house (he was in his 60s/70s), in Azusa (the city I now live in!), and told that she was going to be cleaning for him and that she would be picked up at the end of the day. Once the woman who had taken her there left the house, the old man locked the house and told her she was to never leave and that she was going to be his sex slave. He told her he had bought her for $200 and he was a witch who could read her mind and she was to do whatever she was told or he had the power to kill her parents back in Mexico. He beat her, stripped her down and would throw her outside in his lawn for everyone driving by to see her naked (and not help her), he raped her, and did many more terrible things to her. She wasn't able to ask anyone for help because she did not speak English and feared him terribly.
After five years of living this way, a neighbor came in and beat the man to death with the leg of a table and then told Maria to hide the weapon. Because of this and the fact that she didn't speak any English and was uneducated, she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of this man, without being able to defend herself and tell the truth.
In prison, Maria said she chose to use her time productively; she chose to become a better person. She learned how to speak English, she became a Christian, served as a mentor for younger prisoners, studied hard and acquired her high school GED credential, took college classes and conducted counseling and therapy groups. Because of her great conduct while in prison, she was pardoned by the governor of California and released after spending 22 years in prison. If I remember correctly, she's now been out for 6 years, has been running marathons, working with organizations against human trafficking, and is working as a social worker.
A shocking story, isn't it? 

Finally, one of my favorite quotes from the night which I wrote down is that trafficked victims "don't need spasms of compassion, but legs of endurance."

I'm still processing all that was said and I'm still trying to figure out in what way I can actively help all those who are being trafficked. Three hundred thousand children in just the United States! I feel like I can't do anything to help, especially because I'm poor and still in college. But I'm sure there's something I can do.

Waiting For Superman

This documentary really troubled me. I knew that education in the States is bad, but I had never realized exactly how bad it really is. It broke my heart to think of all the children who really do want to learn and all the parents who want their kids to have a better future and these dreams get shot down because of stupid teachers who don't care about their jobs and don't realize how important teaching really is.

After watching the documentary, the teaching program I'm in at APU (Liberal Studies K-8 Education program) had a discussion session in which we could ask questions to our program director, the principal of an elementary school in L.A., and two students who are part of Teach For America. The elementary school principal told us about one of his teachers who was a terrible teacher and under whom children weren't learning anything. The principal gave the teacher a negative review and the teacher got mad saying that he'd never gotten negative reviews before. The principal told the guy it was okay and that he was just going to have to teach with the help of another teacher who would help him get better. The helper came, but after a month or two, she said she couldn't work with this guy. So someone else was called to come help and worked with him for the rest of the school year, but the teacher failed. So the principal gave him another year to work with someone else to get better, but he failed again. The teacher actually went to the principal and told him, "It's no use for you to try to train me to be better, I've been teaching this way for years and I'm not going to change. But it's okay, just wait a few years and then I'll resign." The principal was not happy about this. He told us "That's not okay! I wasn't going to let him fool around for another few years letting all of his students go through his classes and come out not knowing anything!" So, he fired him. And the teacher went around telling everyone how terrible of a principal he was.

Watching the documentary and hearing this story and others made me so mad! And, as my fellow teaching majors said, all of this motivates us even more to get our teaching degrees to change things. Of course we're not going to be able to change everything, but we will have influence in our classrooms and on all of our students. That's enough influence for me.

Just Sit, Relax, and Soak It In

Our culture tells us to constantly think about the future. As a child, you are asked what you want to be when you grow up. As a Freshman in college who has just started classes, you're asked what you are going to do when you graduate (in four years). When you start dating someone seriously, you're asked when you'll get married. When you get married, you're asked when you will start having kids.

In the last few weeks, I have had to go to academic counseling (where you kind of plan out your next few years and decide what you are going to study next semester) and have had to look through classes, times, schedules, teachers, job shifts, housing, financial aid and everything else for next semester... but I'm only half way through this semester!

So, because of all this, I have been worrying about the places I want to go, the classes I want to take, and many other things about the next four years.
Then, the other day, I got together with one of my Freshman American girlfriends and told her about all the things I'm thinking of doing in the next few years while I'm here at APU. She looked at me and said "What is up with you TCKs! You're all insane over-achievers! Do you do it on purpose to make us Americans look stupid?!?" She was (somewhat) joking, but it still made me sit down and think about it when I got home. And then God made a light bulb go on while I looked at all the things that I'd like to do and all the work it would take to do them. I realized that I really am an insane over-achiever! (Though I'd like to think of it as an over-excitement for learning and taking advantage of this time I have here). But yeah, I need to relax and take it easy. I do need to take advantage of my time here, but I also need to be realistic and make sure to keep myself sane. And, most importantly, I need to make sure to enjoy myself.

I don't know what to think about all this. I thought I had given up on planning my whole future "long ago" (at the age of 18) when I realized that all the plans I had made were not going as I thought and I needed to leave things in God's hands. God's the one who knows everything and has better plans for me than I could ever have.

I feel like our culture is very contradicting. We talk about "living in the moment" but we also want to plan every single part of our lives. I personally don't think many people really live in the moment. Or, at least, they don't enjoy their life now. They keep thinking about the future. And, really, I should not be saying "they" because I am in this group, too.

It's obvious God tells us to enjoy and focus on the present. Psalms 118:24, Matt 6:34, and Ecc 3:11 are just some examples.
Let's take His advise. I'm pretty sure He knows what He's talking about ;-)