So Good to Me!

I started this blog to tell those of you back at home of all my adventures.  And while I've been updating the portion of my life abroad that details physical travelling, I haven't quite told you all my adventures...that is, the stories that aren't about me gallivanting around Australia. So here's a short update on what has happened to me in the past few weeks, spiritually.

These last two weeks have been tough for a variety of reasons. Honestly, I can't even begin to tell you about the pressures that weighed me down, the fears that shook my confidence, the thoughts on which I kept ruminating...partly because I don't know them all myself, mainly because they were innumerable. These thoughts/beliefs/ideas/lies/fears caused me to withdraw from community, and they became my excuse not to engage with school, work, and people. Coming back from spring break in mid-April, I've been facing one of the hardest trials/attacks this semester, and it not only reminded me of my humanness but how susceptible I have become to my fleshly desires and devilish temptations as well.

But even through this physical/spiritual/emotional battle, my God is a God that saves.  One of the greatest mysteries of living the Christian life is the deep understanding of joy regardless of circumstance.  That joy is not merely an emotional response, but rather something you choose into. That there is joy in suffering. That Paul constantly preached we must actually rejoice in our sufferings.  And that when we choose to have joy, we also develop perseverance, character, and hope. Oh, my God, how true is that verse! I think it's in Romans somewhere.

While the battle is certainly not over, the fact that the "joy of the Lord is my strength" helps me continue to persevere, all because I hope in Jesus as my Savior. And, in the end, He already won the war.

PS. This song has been on repeat these past few weeks, for reasons that'll become obvious as you listen to it. (I had to redirect you to my tumblr, because I can't seem to find this version on YouTube and can't figure out how to upload the mp3 here).


PPS. Have you ever wondered what it is about music that speaks to us in ways that words can't?

PPPS. If you want to know more, just ask me. =]

The Australian Big Apple

Hello all!

Here's a short post about my trip to Sydney the last week of March (wow I've been bad about updating).  I spent three days here in this city, and from the beginning I could tell the difference between the laid-back Melbourne lifestyle and the upbeat, ongoing Sydney culture.  People often liken it to New York city.

This is the group; it was one estrogen-filled getaway. We were also unprepared for this picture.

And the landmarks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House:

Then we spent a few hours at the Royal Botanical Gardens.  All those horror stories about spiders flashed through my mind when I laid my eyes on this guy, whose friends and relatives were actually over the park:

Saturday morning, a few of us went to the iconic Pancakes on the Rocks, where I had the Devil's Delight Pancakes: chocolate pancakes with strawberries, cream, chocolate ice cream, and drizzled with chocolate sauce sprinkled with powdered sugar. MMMM.

At night, we took a walk around the city along the harbour:

But not before checking out Hillsong United Church!

Ahhhh... such a wonderful place. I wish I could have spent more time there, but sadly school was beckoning me back to Melbourne.  Since I only had one class on Monday, I did get to prolong my weekend and spend some time with Jasmine!

This is a picture of the State Library of Victoria...it's insanely beautiful!

An infamous cobblestone alley called Hosier Lane, artists apply to do a project along this laneway.  To see more projects / learn more, you can check it out here.

Cheers, y'all!

Oh, and GOOD LUCK TO ALL MY CAL FRIENDS CURRENTLY STUDYING FOR FINALS. YOU'RE ALMOST DONE!

Brighter Days!

Arvo, readers! (means good afternoon, apparently)

As I've told you already, I haven't been getting around to updating / uploading. Truth is, I've been a little lazy to blog and a little out everything in general.  I'm not quite sure how to describe this funk I've been in lately, but hopefully these cloudy days will clear up soon (figuratively and literally speaking...the weather here has turned rainy and sad).

However, this morning I did wake up to a bright ray of sunshine (also literal!): letters and a wonderful present from a few friends at home!

Look at my happy face! God has blessed me indeed with you all.  He knows what I need when I don't and gives it to me when I need it and when I don't expect it.  Thanks for being willing to be used by Him, y'alls. Ahh wow, my heart at this moment is full of joy and thanksgiving because of you guys! Keep 'em coming, hehe. Love and miss you!

My Internship

Dear fellow adventurers,

This week has been quite hectic. Returning from New Zealand, I found a plethora of catchup homework, new projects, and unresolved situations from home (I forgot about Telebears!) awaiting me.  To be truthful, I'm a bit overwhelmed with all I have to do. So, I have yet to really update this blog. It'll be a while.

But I am writing because I am currently bored out of my mind. As of right now, I am sitting in my office learning a new program called Observer XT, which is the latest software in collecting and analyzing experimental and observational data. Sounds like fun, yeah? (By the way, Aussie's always say "yeah" after every question). Right now, I'm watching a video of a programmer watching a video of a baby boy interacting with another baby boy, and then watching the programmer create a coding scheme that analyzes the data.  All in preparation to take this programmer's place.  Except I won't be watching these toddlers, I'll be looking at the handwritten notes from past observers off of an Excel sheet.

What I'm doing kinda looks like this:

At first, my internship required me to fix an Excel sheet that, when printed out, was 1023 pages.  Now, it's requiring me to understand and learn an entirely new program that will fix the sheet itself.  Hopefully within the next few weeks I'll become an Observation XT master.

Apologies, I know this post was not at all adventurous, enthralling, or mind-blowing, and you read through it (either because you're as bored as I am, or were expecting some sort of grand twist at the end). So in attempt to salvage this post, I will say that I only have 6-8 weeks left until my study abroad time is over. 6-8 weeks!  More than halfway done... that's crazy.  I've learned so much, met tons of fascinatingly different people, stretched myself further than I thought possible, etched in my memory pictures of the most beautiful places on Earth, ate questionable items, went on adventures I've always wanted but never thought I could...and God has blessed me through it all.  But I don't think it went by too fast or too slow. And I think that, by the end of this semester, I'll be ready to go back and experience what life at home and Cal has for me, with fresh eyes.

But, I still have 6-8 more weeks! (I don't know when I'm coming home, since they don't give us our finals schedule until May).  So let the adventures continue!

Coming Soon!

My apologies to you readers (aka Jerms), I have been away! As should be while studying abroad. Three weekends ago I went to Sydney, and I spent these past two in the south island of New Zealand... I'll be actually updating soon!

March in Melbourne

Hello fellow travelers!  Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted…so much has been going on! I am also currently running on four hours of sleep in the last few days, so if I cease to make coherent sentences, well now you know why. (Note: I wrote this a few days ago but posted it just now)

A few weekends ago, I checked out the Moomba Festival celebrating the community of Melbourne city. The highlight: the Birdman Festival.  Contestants aim to fly across a river from a platform with their homemade hang-gliders, wings, and whatever costumes they feel like dressing up in.  Winners raise money and awareness for charities. Basically, they dress up in ridiculous outfits, get their fifteen seconds of fame, and fly off a platform into water, all for the sake of charity! I didn’t get any good pictures, because they were literally thousands of people there that day. We ended that festival with fireworks off the Yarra River!

Next, we hit up the Ice Lounge, which is pretty much what the name entails. It’s a room where everything is made of ice: furniture, cups, sculptures, walls.  The challenge is to spend the full 30 minutes in the room. Apparently most people can’t do it, and anymore than 30 minutes could subject you to hypothermia. The highlight: playing old kid games like Down by the Banks to pass the time. I don’t have pictures of this either; they wouldn’t allow us to take pictures inside.

Over last weekend, I spent time with a campus fellowship on a retreat about an hour and a half away from the city. It was a good time to get away and meet some fellow believers who went to Melbourne. Along being challenged with some very practical sermons, the group went on scavenger hunts, had first-year initiation, and explored the nearby beach. The highlight: trying Vegemite. 

It was sooo good.

Last Wednesday, I walked into the Unilodge ground floor, only to find our common area taken over by Aussie animals! I got to hold a baby crocodile and snake, but the highlight was carrying a baby hairy-nosed wombat named Chloe.  She was only a few months old, but weighed about a third of me.  Baby joeys like her are playful when young, but wombats tend to get very aggressive when older. If you hit one with your car, expect your bumper to be a goner.

Now, for the highlight of highlights: this past weekend’s mountaineering trip. Yes, that’s right, I joined the Mountaineering Club. We camped out at the Cathedral Ranges, which is a few good hours away from the city, for a few days to do some exploring of nature.  The last time I went camping was in Africa, so the whole setting up the tent and sitting around the campfire brought back some good memories.

The first morning, I went rogaining. It really has nothing to do with hair.  What happens is you have a map that looks like this,

and you basically make your way around the map trying to get as many points as you can in the allotted amount of time (for us, 3 hours). The hard part is that each location is at a very random spot like the middle of a forest, and there are no trails that lead to it.  Instead, you use the contour lines in the map to imagine what type of landscape they’re in, like a valley or mountain. Instead of signs, you use rivers, edges of the forest, crossroads or any natural landscape as markers. You can’t go straight to the location either, you have to go up to this river, then left 2 degrees south west until you hit this crossroad, then go directly west until you find it In other words, getting lost is inevitable. Following a compass that’s even one degree off means you won’t find it.  Instead of signs, you use rivers or crossroads.  After getting one of the locations, our team got lost in the forest for a good two hours trying to find our way around this:

We ended up being in the negative side of points, but I would like to point out that we were severely hampered by this unfortunate event at the beginning of the trek:

In the afternoon, we went outdoor rock climbing.  It took a good half hour of bouldering and climbing a mountain to get to the climbing site.  At one point, we had to climb a wall 20 feet high with nothing but a rope (we weren’t harnessed in). Each rope climb ranged in difficulty and height. There were definite moments of panic as I clung to the wall, looked down and saw hundreds of feet of rocky mountain below me, but as scary as this was, it was heaps fun!

                                                                                                            

On the last day, we went bushwalking, which is just the Aussie way of saying hiking. It was a good four hours of hiking along this ridge:

I’ve been on hikes before, but this was no ordinary hike -- it was pretty much all bouldering. According to Wikipedia, bouldering is "a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad so that a fall will not result in serious injury." Obviously, we went without that mat.  There was one specific place forever etched in my memory where the trail disappeared into a bundle of boulders and rocks that I had to slowly climb over slowly, being careful not to slip or fall over the cliff to my left.

Here’s a map (the trail in red) and description of what I climbed:

 Overall, this trip was the most exercise I’ve had in…ever.  But the scenery I explored was completely worth it. Looking back and knowing that I climbed/bouldered/hiked that is an amazing sensation. And the fact that this mountain was so massive and the scenery so intensely beautiful reminded me that there has to be something so much bigger and so much more glorious that created it.

Anyone up for an adventure like this with me?!