Perspective

July 30, 2010

The last two weeks have been insane.  My internship with GAP is getting exponentially stressful as the entire team is preparing for our fundraising event, scheduled to occur at the end of August.  Today, the three of us hit up LA "Beach Cities" to ask small boutique stores for in-kind donations.  This was the second time that we had gone around together; last week, we hit up the Melrose and Larchmont area.

It was extremely daunting at first to go around random stores asking for donations, but what really surprised me was this: everyone was extremely nice.  And by everyone, I mean literally everyone.  The places that said "we can't donate this year" were even apologetic.  Some gave us donations on the spot.  Even when we walked into a restaurant that was extremely busy, they paused and listened.

Today, a few of the stores told us something that our stressed-out team really needed to hear: "Thank you for doing this.  Somebody needs to do this, and you guys are making a difference."

And I thought that we were going to be shunned for being intrusive.


As I conveyed to the team as we ended the exhausting day, it's really nice to know that people are generally nice and do care for something more than just profit.  Even in such a huge city as LA, where people are thought to be disconnected, people still care.

I found that as I got caught up more and more into the whole planning the fundraising business, the actual cause of my efforts was long forgotten.  Last week, when the LA team went out to canvas for the first time, I came home absolutely exhausted to find this on CNN that put everything back to perspective.  That news story is exactly why GAP was founded, and why I am working hard on this event.  The voice of the mother in the 911 call is disturbingly calm, but I can't imagine how helpless she felt from this condition that penetrates entire families to the core.  We're looking to prevent such incidents that might and do occur around the world with regards to children with autism, to help educate and aid families through raising a child with such a difficult condition.

Again, I am forced to face the realities of autism every Monday and Wednesday when I teach at my parttime job at the Learning Center: one student in my classroom of seventeen has autism, and everyday is a struggle for us.  On good days, I can get him to write me a couple of sentences for Journal in 3.5 hours.  On bad days, he initiates arguments with other students who are still too young to understand.  Everyday, other students complain nonstop, "how come he doesn't have to do anything?!?".  Yet, there is something that sets him apart beautifully from the other kids.  Something pure and genuine.

Perspective.  It's really all about perspective.  Depending on the perspective, my internship can be a huge, stressful event.  Or it can be a tiny, small step - my little contribution to a cause that affects so many individuals all around the globe.

Secrets

July 26, 2010

Everyone has their share of secrets.  I guess I can't really blame them for this secret I was burdened with, but I can't help but feel sad.

I'm so, so sorry that we are able to be here and you are not.  I keep thinking, how different would life have been if you had lived?

Your presence is dearly missed.

I'm so sorry.  I honestly think that I've never felt so sad in my life.

Dream

July 20, 2010

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2010/07/dreams-gaussian-blur-and-prepubescent-boys/

I really needed this today, especially after a rather difficult spiritual conversation with a friend just two hours ago.

Visa, Sickness & the Bucket List

July 16, 2010

I finally got cracking down to applying for my visa for the UK today, and it was the biggest pain in the butt!  If it weren't for Penn Abroad's detailed step-by-step instructions, I really would have forgotten a bunch of documents.  I think it's quite ridiculous how there is an online application, and then an in-person interview, two different paper applications, and then a bunch of documents to attach to prove claims that I made in the applications.

I thought, "there's gotta be an easier way to do this."  I wonder if in the future everything would be so computerized that visas would be very simple.  But then again, how would all these documents overcome the cultural and systematic differences between nations?  I even had difficulty with the whole date-first-and-then-month ordeal.  Better get used to it, I suppose.  Although I filled out most of the initial work today, I still have to take care of a bunch of stuff before finally sending off the visa application packet in the mail - visiting the bank, taking a passport picture, going in person for an interview - ahhh!  I'm just crossing my fingers that all of these stuff can get processed in time - I'm a bit anxious because I've lost time trying to get my CAS number from Cardiff (it got lost in transition - twice - and I finally received it last night, as opposed to a month and a half ago).

On another point, I have been feeling sickly for the past (almost) month now.  It's really getting ridiculous.  I hate feeling this way constantly.  The worst part is that I have no idea what's wrong!!  At first, I thought I had the flu, and then it turned out not to be the flu.  I was just constantly dizzy and feeling faint - all the time.  I thought I was starting to get better, and then yesterday, I woke up with an inflamed throat and canker sores all over my gums and tongue.  It's gotten to a point where I cannot do work at all - after a brief internship meeting in the morning today, I returned home and slept until late into the afternoon because I just could not work any longer.

I visited the doctor last week and took a blood test, so hopefully those results will come in with a diagnosis on the problem.

A couple friends and I have been recently talking about creating a Bucket List, and so I began to brainstorm some stuff.  This list is by no means complete, and I'll update it as I think of more things...but here it is for now.

Elisa's Bucket List (so far) - in no particular order

1.   Fall in love & never, ever let go.

2.   Go to an H.O.T. concert

3.   Go on a short-term mission

4.   Go skydiving

5.   Hike the Half-Dome

6.   Fish a shark

7.   Learn to swim

8.   Go swimming with dolphins

9.   Watch a solar eclipse with someone special

10.                 Go on a road trip

11.                 Donate to a university in the form of a scholarship

12.                 Open a bakery

13.                 Travel around Europe

14.                 Visit a pyramid

15.                 Go to the Great Wall of China

16.                 Have children

17.                 Cook a Thanksgiving meal

18.                 Finish the BBC 100 book list

19.                 Be in a musical

20.                 Play the piano at a church

21.                 Study abroad

22.                 Pet a baby tiger

It's kind of pleasant to know that #21 will be crossed off at the end of this year! :)

Food for the Soul

July 7, 2010

I grabbed these three books at B&N a few days ago, and got them for less than $15!  (I can't remember the exact price).  They had their "Buy 2 BN Classics, Get 1 Free" deal going on, and I have BN membership so I was able to get the brand new copies for relatively cheap.  I am going to start Bleak House very soon and hopefully get around to the other two books, too.  It's been absolutely exhausting nowadays - the job at the learning center is getting more hectic than ever, and my internships are starting to pick up speed as well!

My trip to Westside Pavilion that resulted in my buying of these three novels resulted in a few revelations: 1) the parking in Westside Pavilion, although free, SUCKS.  That parking lot is SO confusing.  I got lost trying to look for my car even though I made sure I remembered the way I entered the mall and the parking level & number...and then while trying to get out of the parking lot, I went the wrong way in a turn (there were NO signs whatsoever) and then I had to back all the way back with all these cars waiting and...it just sucked.  2) Friends are like wine, even the ones you weren't that close to back then.  3) I need to be around people that like reading.

I met up with an old high school friend that is leaving to join the U.S. military tomorrow - we had tried to meet up, like, five times in the past three weeks but something always prevented it from happening (mostly due to my really bad memory and my recent sickness).  Although we didn't really do much during our short meeting, it was meaningful.  It's so nice to just meet up, not do anything and just catch-up with life.  Childhood friends - the people that knew me before college - have a way of touching a completely different side of me.  They know me in such a different level.  I just can't explain it.  There's less pretense, more realness.

In my little trip to BN with him, we enjoyed short conversations and shared book recommendations.  We discovered that we both adored Les Miserables and enjoyed Dickens.  We talked about Orwell, Voltaire, books that made us think, book that we thought were lacking.  I think these types of conversations feed my soul.  I need more of that in my life.

4th of July Cleaning

I'm having an extremely relaxing 4th of July weekend so far, but that's mostly due to the fact that I got sick on Friday with some weird stomach flu type thing that got me feeling exhausted and dizzy all day and all night for the past three days.

My mom, being the mom that she is, went through this crazy frenzy today, flipping the house up-side-down in an attempt to trash unnecessary items that have been clogging up the place for years now.

I decided to finally relent to her wishes and took on the massive task that I had avoided in years - cleaning out my desk drawers.

This shows how terrible my first drawer looked before the clean-out began   --->

The other drawers were as bad, if not worse.  I don't know how I ever let it get to this point, but I found some interesting memories while exploring through the junk.  I found many movie ticket studs, an old high school schedule, various random memos...once again I thought, "wow, how quickly things change..."

And after about two hours of organizing and throwing out stuff...my desk looked like this:

And the first drawer turned into something more useful and appropriate for my life at this time:

A place for my early morning scramble with make-up!

People are still setting off fireworks right now, and it's making me jump constantly.  I wonder what our security guards are doing right now...they never seem to be there when these things happen (or maybe they're out celebrating themselves...)