what a strange day.

Alas.....it's an hour and 45 minutes since I've been 23 years old (24-25 in korean or lunar calendar -__-) and there's so much that I'm feeling/felt/happened. All these questions that I've been rolling around with and playing with in my head for so long are still there...but some are slowly being answered and figured out.

Ah, my head and thoughts are all in a mumble-jumble, so I hope that you, or whoever might be reading this, would humor me and follow along.

One of my 'resolutions' for the new 2012 year //// my birthday was to truly love other people- especially those who are around me. Everyone deals with the different kinds of people walking in and out of your life, and so do our relationships. Some happen to think it a waste of time trying to make good relationships and memories with those who may not even stay in your life for a long, significant amount of time....but I just happen to think otherwise.

My biggest struggle was being fair-minded, or i guess the better term would be open-minded; to others around me. Then one of the new year's first sermons I heard was about loving others like your brother and sister. Like your own kin. That's hard to do. If you sit down, apply your mind, and really think about what that's saying, it's really hard. I can't even begin to count how many times I hated/wanted to hate my own family. But with that said, ties stronger than blood and genetics pulls at the deeper parts of your soul, and thus; love overcomes that feeling of hatred and frustration. That's the kind of love you feel with a family. But Jesus wants us to love those around us as though we are loving our own kin.

I'm starting to feel the little bits and pieces of the kind of love that we are to show our own kin. The friends that God has placed in my life so recently have been becoming such a huge part of my life. The annoyances, little quirks of each person's personality shows and sure, sometimes even bothers/frustrates us; but, isn't it that our imperfections are what makes us human and thus more lovely? I'm amazed to find that I sometimes find myself shrugging little things off my shoulders that would have dragged me down to keep grudges in the past. It's becoming easier to love those people God placed around me; despite our differences in personality, opinions, ethics, even views on God.

***
Honestly, today wasn't the best birthday i've had. not even that, it just wasn't a good day.
I missed being at home, celebrating my birthday with my sister and close friends...i missed AMERICA......

So the lunch with all the teachers started off bad because we got lost and tempers and angers were running pretty high....the food wasn't that great.. my students were being particularly hyper today..I was running in and out of the bathroom because I was pretty sure I had food poisoning, and sure enough- during my korean class, the teacher had to end early because I was starting to turn redder than a beet. So..the boss runs me to the emergency room...get some IVs and shots and some drugs in me, come home early from work... sleep..and then have the door pounded down by my lovely girls so that they can at least let me have a proper birthday cake, despite my being sick and a downpour on their birthday plans for me.

So, all in all, today kind of...sucked?
But that last couple hours, especially after reading the card made me smile and helped me see the brighter side of all things.

The equations of life are messy and hard to figure out, and sure..most of the times we just wanna throw our hands up in the air in resignation. Someone smarter can do it better than I can. But then, after all the messy variables, come the equal sign. The lovely, simple, two straight-lined equal sign. Or, in some cases in the figure of 2 randomly placed people in my life, plus a freaking amazing, loving God.

Life's so beautiful and crazy and ironic. There's good and bad things happening together, because good can't exist without the bad. Just as light can't exist without darkness. The challenge of the century though, is are you going to count your unfortunate-incidents? Or your blessings?