Indictment of Boys

I had to rush back from basketball class so that I wouldn’t lose the heat of my emotion before getting it down on paper—or rather, on screen. Let me say one thing. I. Hate. Boys. Let me also say, I refuse to use the word “men” in place of boys, not because I think you don’t deserve to be called men, but because it gives me a sliver of hope that you still have time to grow and mature and change. Now, I don’t hate boys as a general species. I must continue on with my thought.

I hate boys who: think they’re really cool. Doesn’t it just sound lame? “Yeah man, I’m really cool.” It’s infuriating. It’s ten times worse than knowing you aren’t God’s gift to woman-kind but pretending you are, hoping that some poor girl will be too blind or too desperate to notice. I hate that too. I take it as an insult to my intelligence that you don’t think I won’t notice the façade. Honestly, I don’t want someone who acts tough. I want a guy who is tough. Don’t think I can’t tell the difference.

Moving on. I hate boys who don’t wait for screens when they’re being set, or who point at the spot they want the pick, then fail to run their defender off of it. Why ask for it if you aren’t going to use it? I hate boys who can’t shoot a lay-up without ten pump fakes. I hate when they nod and raise their eyebrows at me as though I’m supposed to read their minds; I don’t even know their name. I hate boys who don’t notice the flash of irritation crossing my face. I know it isn’t because you don’t care how I feel. But it never occurred to you that you could do something irritating in the first place. If you understood that, I’m sure you’d take precautions not to annoy me and this would be a moot point. I stay out of your way, you stay out of mine.

I hate that in these moments of seething frustration, I don’t call myself a feminist; I probably never will. I do take into consideration that every woman’s definition of feminism is different, and that many of my good friends and favorite professors would classify themselves as such. But in light of my own definition, I prefer to pursue what I believe to be the Biblical picture of womanhood and go from there. So yeah, whatever Amazonian tendencies I have within me are being suppressed.

Back to what I hate. I hate boys who only notice the girls who are fashionable and flirtatious and plastered in makeup—the girls who throw themselves at anything with a hint of testosterone. I hate the boys who are blind to the women who love the Lord and are chasing after Him instead. On the other hand, I do appreciate the boys who love God so much that they’re oblivious to the female species in general. Or the boys who are patient enough to let many girls pass by while they wait for God to show them who to pursue. I don’t wish that girl was me. I just appreciate that they don’t waste their time on other girls who are frivolous or superficial.

I hate that someday, a man will walk in to my life—one who passionately loves the Lord and His Word, who possesses great integrity of character, whose intelligence is coupled with godly wisdom, who is strong enough to protect me and gentle enough to lead me, who will recognize my flaws and still see the value that God has given me—and he will dispel my bitter hatred for the fallen-ness of his race. I guess I don’t really hate him. Or I won’t when I meet him. What I hate is that my own fallen-ness makes me despise the creation that God deemed “very good.”

I’m not angry any more. The moment has come and gone in a few short paragraphs. I don’t often give vent to my feelings in writing. Perhaps it’s a symptom of the anxiety and stress in my life. Or maybe it’s the PMS monster taking voice within me. I don’t mean to sound like I’m ready to devour the next male that comes into close proximity. It’s the heat of the moment that comes from playing basketball with boys when you haven’t had enough sleep and nothing to eat.

Malandrian awkwardness

My friend Shirly likes to remind me of the day she met me—sitting in the hallway of Sutherland, against the wall, on the verge of tears. I had a difficult first week of college. The registration process was complicated and nearly gave me ulcers. And when I finally did register for classes, I looked at my first semester schedule and realized that I didn’t want to be a Mass Communications-Journalism major after all. That’s where Shirly met me, waiting in line to become an English major, stressing over whether or not I was doing the right thing or not.

One of the things I’ve discovered in recent weeks is that I’m glad I’m an English major. My situation at Biola is unique. I feel like I have a foot in every department. For example, everyone at Biola must take 30 units of Bible—the equivalent of a minor in Biblical studies—in order to graduate. We have access to some of the greatest Christian thinkers and teachers of our time (including many from Talbot Seminary who teach at Biola as well).

At the same time, I’m finishing up my minor in Business, so I’ve had a wide range of professors from the Crowell School of Business at Biola, from accounting to administration to marketing to management information systems. Because I still want to pursue magazine writing, I’ve been working with the journalism department’s The Point Magazine as a writer, senior copy editor, and now managing editor. This semester, I’m taking a class they’re offering on Magazine and Freelance writing.

My varied interests (and 30-something AP credits) allow me the opportunity to interact with professors and students in Journalism, Business, Theology, and English, each with its own type of personality and atmosphere. Despite feeling a little schizophrenic now and then, I really enjoy stretching myself between these three or four departments at Biola. But now more than ever I’m thankful that I can call the English department home (figuratively, anyways).

Some of the journalism professors are too intense—too high energy and deadline oriented—for me. They're very good at what they do, but my tolerance for stress and pressure is too low for me survive as a full-fledged journalism student. I have liked a lot of my business professors and I think they’ve liked me. But the students in the Business department are not very personable. Or maybe I just get the sense that I’m something of an outsider amongst them, since I’m only a minor.

The English department, on the other hand, fits me like a glove. I love that our classes are small enough to discuss literature around a conference table. I love that the English students want to do everything from editing magazines to teaching English in the inner-city to writing captivating works of fiction. I love that we girls are good enough friends to nickname ourselves the LitWits, or that the boys don’t care if they’re the only male in their classes. And we aren't afraid to embrace our nerdiness.

I love the diversity of the English department—from the hyperactive, dramatic Shakespearean Dr. Kleist to the poet Professor Davidson. I love Dr. Van Zandt’s passion for American literature and Feminist literature, Dr. Smitht’s quiet Victorian brilliance, and Buck’s dry sarcasm and sense of irony. And I love that the professors in our department seem to know and like each other.

I love Kathy, our department secretary, who shares peanut M&M’s with us when we pass by her office. I love that our professors really know us, encourage us, and even invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They meet with us over coffee to talk about life in general, or let us harass them in their offices just for fun. I especially appreciate how laid-back they are in general.

Speaking of professors, one of the great joys of my semester is Dr. Malandra, an extremely tall, incredibly intelligent (think Cornell), and unexpectedly witty professor, who I have for Contemporary Literary Theory right now. He may be a soft-spoken, gentle giant with a strange interest in Asian (particularly Japanese) culture, but his wonderful awkwardness—and the lively banter of my classmates—makes a naturally dryer subject very entertaining, not to mention, bearable.

Ariel has decided that in honor of his greatness and our study of complicated philosophical and literary theories, we must name one after him. We have yet to lay down the terms of said theory, but we decided to name it, “Malandrian awkwardness.” I guess it doesn’t really matter what the theory is, he just deserves to have his own.

Yesterday's musings

We were on our way to have a late dinner at Sam Woo’s. The Chinese restaurants in Rowland Heights are the only nearby eating places we know will be open past nine in the evening. They don’t really start getting busy until eight; we Chinese like to eat late. I’m not sure why we decided to take the van—it’s way too big to park in the compact spaces outside the restaurant—but we did.

As we were driving down the 60 freeway, my dad and I were discussing my future. He always laughs at me during these kinds of conversations, shaking his head and grinning at me in amusement.

“Lynnette’s list of goals is simple: I want to do EVERYTHING,” he’ll say jokingly. This night was no different. It’s partially because my list of things I want to do in my lifetime is so long that I probably need two or three more lifetimes to complete them. Or maybe it’s because the goals keep changing and morphing, or evolving into something bigger and better—and often more expensive.

In response, I punched my dad in the arm before turning to my mom and asking her if there were things still left on her list of lifetime goals. My mom paused thoughtfully for a minute before slowly replying.

“I’ve always wanted to learn to play the piano. After Garrett moves out of the house, I think I’m going to take your old books and try to teach myself,” she said.

I’ve been thinking a lot about goals lately. The last chapter I read for my Magazine and Free-lance writing class talked about setting goals, both long-term and short-term, for ourselves to help us develop as writers.

When my mom was a student at Biola, she came up with a list of things she wanted to do during her life. For example, she made it her goal to go on a missions trip, which she did in the summer before her fifth year in college. She promised herself that she’d read through the Bible at least once and she’s made it through three or four times now.

My mom always wanted to go to seminary; she attended Dallas Theological Seminary and graduated from Talbot as the salutatorian of her class, earning a Master’s degree in Biblical Studies. The only left uncompleted on her list was learning to play the piano. It seemed ironic to me that she worked hard so that she could send her two kids for almost ten years of piano lessons.

What makes my mom’s list of goals so interesting is the things she chose to leave off of it. For instance, being a Biola student, “meeting and marrying the man of my dreams” (or at least, getting her ring by spring) should have definitely been on her list. Or going to Africa and changing the world as a nurse on the Missions field. They may not have been huge dreams, but the things that my mom chose to put on her list were very concrete, very achievable goals.

Sometimes I think my own goals are too abstract, too nebulous, or too unrealistic. Perhaps I make the mistake of conflating my goals with my dreams. How much should my goals reflect those fantasies that seem so far out of reach?

I have made a lot of mistakes in the past, setting my goals too high or placing unrealistic expectations for myself, and then wonder why I’m always so sorely disappointed. I’ve become afraid of failure, afraid of disappointment, afraid to even set goals lest because I don’t want to risk it.

I think over time, I have become so fearful that I won’t even dream big dreams. And I hate that. I hate that I take for granted the gifts and interests God has given me or the dreams He has placed in my heart. I hate that I limit what He can do with my life—His power and wisdom and sovereignty.

I feel like I’ve trained myself to live in these two different worlds. On the one hand, I live in a world that is overly realistic, cynical even, and practical to a fault. I want to anticipate the worst and plan against it, instead of hoping for the best. I refuse to try something if I’m not convinced that I can succeed at it.

Then the alternative me (which I have suppressed until recently) lives in the clouds, in the world of my imagination. This “other” Lynnette dreams big—too big for her own good—and is almost content to do nothing but sit around and day dream.

How does one achieve a sense of balance? How do I set realistic goals for myself, aimed at moving my life in the direction of those dreams? How do I join these two sides of myself before I begin to suffer from split personality disorder? More importantly, how do I plan and set practical goals for myself without limiting what God wants to do with my life or where He wants to take me?

I take comfort in my mom’s story. Yes, she wrote up a list of goals and pursued them. And yes, she wasn’t afraid to chase after things that seemed impractical, expensive, or out of the ordinary (like going to seminary).

But at the same time, she could have never predicted that she would join the Air Force as an officer in the Nurse Corp. She never dreamed she’d marry my dad and work as his office manager.

She couldn’t have guessed that she would be the mother of two children, or that Garrett and I would both choose to go to the same college that God called her to some 30 years ago. She always tells me that she has no regrets.

God gave her dreams when she was in college, and God exchanged those dreams for new ones—for an even greater reality that she calls her life. I have no idea what God has in store for us, but I know it’s good—because He is good—so I’m excited and eager to find out.

Adorable Ian

“Buh-bye Ian,” I cooed, “Say goodbye to jie jie, ok? Buh-bye!”

I bent over his adorable smiling face as he wiggled and writhed on the carpet, his mother struggling to pull his pants back up after changing his diaper. I blew a kiss to him, saying “I love you Ian! Bye!”

To my surprise, Ian looked at me and without hesitation took his chubby little hand, put it to his mouth, and blew me a kiss of his own. As I straightened up and walked towards the door, he continued to smile and wave at me as I left the nursery.

…

Every last Sunday of the month, I am scheduled to help teach the two year-old Sunday School class for the first morning service. My main job is usually to do puzzles with them, help them scribble pictures, or feed them goldfish and animal crackers. Sometimes, we teach them a Bible lesson, or Auntie Ellen comes around and reads them a Bible story.

Having worked in the nursery for about six years now, I have seen a wide range of kids. We have children who speak English, Mandarin, or Cantonese. Many of them are already beginning to be bilingual.

Some of the children are easygoing and will play with just about anyone. Others spend the entire time crying because they suffer from separation anxiety. They are extremely quiet and only speak in a whisper, and or they never stop babbling on or singing at the top of their lungs. Some sit still the whole hour and a half, and some are so hyperactive I wish I could tether them to something and let them run around in that small circumference.

Yesterday, I got to meet two-and-a-half year old Ian for the first time. Ian carries with him a certain fascination for me. He isn’t particularly different from all of the other children I’ve babysat in the past, but what makes him special is that he was an orphan. The couple from my church decided to go to China to adopt him; he has been in California for about a month now.

We have a small handful of adopted children at our church—all of them from China. But working with Ian is my first real experience with them. There are things that are very particular to his adjustment to life here that I find extremely interesting.

For instance, the temperature in the nursery was comfortable, but Ian began to sweat because he was wearing a bright blue bomber hat and navy blue hoodie sweatshirt. We wanted to take them off so that he would be more comfortable, but as soon as we did, he began fighting and crying.

His dad explained to me that, in the orphanage, he never owned his own clothes. Everything they had was communal. He’s afraid that if he lets us take his hat or his jacket off, he won’t ever get them back.

There are other things peculiar to Ian’s situation as well—not speaking very much or very often, wanting to go out in the mornings because it means that people won’t enter and leave the house without him, or having a mortal fear of western-style toilets because they are really large and completely foreign to him. He must also transition from Mandarin to Cantonese (which his mom and siblings speak) and English (his dad’s language of choice).

Like many young orphans, he has so-called “abandonment issues.” But it’s exciting to see that he seems to have accepted his entire adopted family as his own, and hopefully someday he’ll come to accept his church family too.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adoption lately, because of the recent adoptions that I have contact with, and because of several of my friends who have personal experience with it. Watching the evidence of Ian’s transition to life with his adopted family in a country far from where he was born has made a deep impression on me.

It reminds me of our own adoption as sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. We have already been given his name (Christian means “Little Christ” after all); we have already been given new identities as those proclaimed holy and righteous in God’s sight.

At the same time, we are not yet perfectly righteous or holy like Christ—we must continually work to become what we have already been declared, just as Ian must adjust to his new identity and relationship with the adopted family that has legally and literally declared him one of their own.

The picture of adoption is a great reflection of the amazing grace and love that God bestows on sinful, rebellious, merit-less humans like us, choosing each of us to become His son or His daughter, with all of the blessings that come with membership in His family.

Attack of the Purple Prose

Today’s lesson in Magazine and Freelance writing was “purple prose.” Professor Mosqueda, who is co-teaching the class with Dr. Longinow, explained to us that purple prose refers to a “passage written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery that it breaks the flow and draws attention to itself.” Purple prose is writing that is “pretentious, and gaudy.” Prof. Mosqueda went on to say that the main purpose of writing is to communicate, and so we must strive to clearly communicate what we want to say with honesty and integrity. He wants us to be “clear, concrete, and specific.”

Which brings me to the point. I’ve spent the last couple days trying to read three different essays by Jacques Derrida. I’m not trying to pick on him particularly, but he is the one I’m reading right now, so he is my victim of choice. He is, at least in my mind—along with nearly every other literary critic or philosopher we’ve read this semester—the opposite of clear, concrete, and specific. I realize that deconstructionists won’t appreciate the binary opposition I’ve just created. Regardless, he seems to dance around what he’s really trying to say.

I understand that part of deconstruction is a de-centering, an acknowledgement that there nothing around which he can gravitate and thus no way of “getting to the point.” But to me, Derrida’s extended syntax, ostentatious verbosity, and circular argumentation are cumbersome and aggravating for me as a reader (that was the worst sentence I could come up with).

What frustrates me is that he simply refuses to say exactly what he means. They all do. Of course, I don’t expect philosophers to simplify everything into easy laymen’s vocabulary. I recognize that the terms they choose—the language they use—is as much a part of their ideological agenda as the actual ideas themselves. But as an amateur writer, I’m starting to worry that their way of articulating their ideas is beginning to rub off on me.

I love the craftsmanship of writing. I love learning about technique, and how we use those tools of the trade to help us say what we want or need to say. It’s a great mix of intuition and ingenuity: knowing what sounds good and working hard to get it just right. I like to think that I’ve matured enough to avoid things like purple prose, but I can’t help but wonder if I have the talent and guts to make it as a writer.

Rain and Restlessness

Tonight, Professor Harmon let us out of class an hour and a half early (because the next assignment we have to do is really intense). Upon my return to the apartment, I proceeded to sit on the living room couch with my literary theory textbook and try—hopelessly—to understand Derrida.

Around nine, I began to hear yelling and pounding on doors; it was a fire drill. Fortunately, it was a short exercise, and John (our RC) had a gargantuan bucket of Red Vines to comfort us as we stood out in the damp, chilling cold. As soon as I made it back into our wonderfully heated apartment, my roommate Janelle walked in.

I was so proud of myself: I cooked dumplings to go along with our reheated chow mein. During our dinner, I confessed to Janelle that I was feeling restless. I haven’t felt like this in a long time—living in the apartment with Janelle, Meli, and Ariel has been like a dream for me. Or, at least, the fulfillment of one of my old dreams.

Let me briefly explain. When I was in junior high, I read through the entire Anne of Green Gables series. In the fourth book, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne is a university student. She and three of her friends live in a small cottage, where they sit by their fireplace in the evening to read together, or do household chores together, or get into scrapes together.

This past summer, I reread all eight of the books through again. This dream of mine, of living with my good girlfriends and just sharing life together, has never left me. And reading it a second time rekindled the dream for me. But it never occurred to me that I would be here, now, living with three of my closest girlfriends at Biola, enjoying apartment life together.

So, for the last several weeks, despite my hectic, stressful course-load, I’ve been very thankful for the way God has blessed me this semester. But today, for some inexplicable reason, I felt very restless and discontent.

I think it might have been the light rain and dreary gray clouds overhead today that put me in such a strange mood. Or perhaps it was meeting up with my professor and talking to her about my plans and ambitions for the future—how much they’ve changed since I’ve entered college. Thinking about all of the possibilities and uncertainties still before me can be daunting.

Sometimes, I think I mistake restlessness as an itch to travel. But I just went to Hong Kong this summer, and I know that my family is planning a vacation for Spring Break this year (we haven’t traveled anywhere in a long time). I just finished the application for Biola London, too, so traveling is in the very near future for me, so that doesn’t seem like a reasonable cause for discontent.

Another possible—but highly unlikely—reason may be that I’m feeling a lack of romance in my life. Frankly speaking, I have very little interest in boys (except of the popstar persuasion) right now, and I don’t have time even if I was interested. But despite the romance of living in an apartment with the girls, I feel very keenly the lack of romance in my life.

I believe that God is in control of my love life—He has planned for me the right person, the right time, and the right way. I’m not looking for my Gilbert (another Anne reference for those of you who didn’t catch it) because I trust that the Lord will bring him to me. But I’m still a normal female with normal female inclinations. So maybe what I’m feeling is a little post-Valentine’s Day depression.

Ultimately, I know that I have to live my life one day at a time and trust God with the rest. I know that I must learn to find my contentment in my relationship with God—in who He is—before I can be a content traveler, writer, editor, entrepreneur, girlfriend, wife, mother, friend, or follower of Jesus Christ. Whether it rains or not.

Preparing for the future

Part of being a student is figuring yourself out. What type of learner am I—visual, audio, or touch? Do I work best with a planned schedule or do I work best under pressure (i.e. Am I a procrastinator)? Music or no music? Crouched seriously at a desk or lounging comfortably on a couch?

One thing I’ve learned about my own study preferences is that I can always use a change of scenery—placing myself in a new environment, outside of the comforts and distractions of my own room, always helps me concentrate on the work before me.

I guess I wonder why I’ve become like this. I think to myself, “Lynnette, you have a comfortable, spacious, friendly apartment and studious roommates. You have the dining room table, the living room couches, your desk, your bed, and plenty of floor space that you could occupy with your books and laptop. Why must you go out to study?”

Honestly, it frustrates me. I’m sitting here at the Lollicup on Wilshire and Harbor, typing away at my keyboard, headphones in each ear, listening to Danson Tang sing to me in Mandarin about how much he loves me. In the two and a half hours I’ve been here, I’ve completed nearly three assignments, whereas the hour or so I spent in the apartment—my homework laid out in front of me—was absolutely unproductive.

Perhaps I developed this habit in high school. Each day my friends and I would choose a Starbuck’s, Diedrich’s, or other café to camp out and do our homework. We interspersed tiny bits of socializing with our studies, enjoying each other’s company and urging each other on. But I don’t really need anyone with me to talk to or fend off loneliness; the only thing I think about when I work is what I have before me. But I have trouble focusing if I don’t have someone sitting next to me doing their own work. Hence, my mother is sitting next to me absorbed in reading her own book. We haven’t spoken to each other in over an hour.

Relocating myself also gives me a sense of urgency, the rationale being that since I took the time, energy, and gas to drive myself somewhere out of the way, I must get some work done to make it worth my trouble. It’s the idea of intentionally going somewhere to focus solely on my work. Plus, my bed isn’t in close proximity calling my name and beckoning me to take solace in its soft warmth.

Finally, the silliest reason that I have for coming out to study: I really enjoy the ambient noise and relaxed atmosphere of a café. I like the feeling of other people sitting around me, plucking away at their own computers, flipping through magazines, or discussing the latest celebrity gossip. I enjoy imagining that someday, I’ll be an itinerant authoress, needing only my laptop, my brain, and a nice cup of coffee to do my work. There’s a seductive sophistication in that image. I guess I figure I might as well practice now.

Sign, Signifier, Signified

My right arm shoots up mechanically to grab a tight hold of the handle as my dad begins to slowly merge onto the freeway. I know Dad’s a good driver, and I’m not really worried. But it’s an automatic reaction.

The reflection of headlights in my rearview mirror blind me as cars approach, whizzing past us. Mom sits in the back seat of our Camry, trying to explain to me the conversation she had with my little brother on the way home from church.

“Garrett was telling me about his favorite raptor.”
“Uh…do you mean rapture?” my dad suggests. “High school Sunday School is going through Revelations and the End Times.”
“Raptor….rapture…” my mother muses confusedly.
Suddenly it dawns on me.
“Oh! Rapper! Garrett told you about his favorite RAPPER!”

This semester I'm taking a class on Contemporary Literary Theory, where rather than discussing actual works of literature, we talk about how we talk about literature. We cover things like semiotics (linguistics) and the different approaches or methods we can use to read works of literature and poetry. Of course, these theories influence more areas outside the realm of literature—science, art, philosophy, anthropology, sociology…the list goes on and on. Most of the time, I find the essays we read for this class rather dry and frustratingly inaccessible.

The ideas we study are interesting enough, and because of the particular mix of students we have in our class, discussions with our professor are often amusing and lively, whether we understand the essays or not. What fascinates me most is the power of language. The power it has to shape our worldviews, our perspectives, how we read and learn and know. Language shapes our very being.

I often come back to N. Scott Momaday’s words: “In a certain sense we are all made of words...our most essential being consists in language. It is the element in which we think and dream and act, in which we live our lives.”

I keep coming back to this because I sense the truth of these words, at least in my own life. My whole world is language and words, written and unwritten—the realm of thoughts and ideas and feelings and emotions. More concretely, I feel like all I do is read and write, read and write. If I’m not doing that, I’m talking about reading or writing.

Back to the topic of language. Much of our discussion has been about the origins and structure of language. Saussure’s concept of the sign and the signifier, how all of our words are defined in relation to other words, and so on and so forth. Within a sentence, we change one word and the entire meaning is transformed. Like raptor, or rapture, or rapper.

My fascination with language has grown exponentially since I began to be interested in taking Chinese classes. My friend Ricky was teaching us about certain Chinese words—their meanings and their characters. The Chinese language makes a lot of sense, and it makes me wonder about how this language, with its complex system of tones and characters, came into existence and developed.

For instance, take the simple phrase “Hello” in Chinese: nǐ hǎo. When broken up into its two characters, it translates “you good.” “Goodbye” is zài jiàn, or literally, “see again” or more specifically, “see you again.” Tóng xué translates “same class” or classmates. China is zhōng guó—“middle country” or kingdom. This is because the Chinese always believed that they were at the center of the world, the center of the universe.

The most interesting one I learned was hǎo, meaning “good.” Ricky explained that the character for the word hǎo is a combination of the character for female and the character for child . The total effect is that when a mother and her child are together, it is good, or hǎo. Needless to say, if I were not an English major and a Business minor, perhaps I would have enjoyed studying linguistics.

Trials and Thanksgivings

Today my thoughts are a jumbled mess of stories floating around in my head. I’ll start from last night. I had my first mini-meltdown of the semester. First, some background: I’ve been fighting off that horrible, overwhelming feeling of stress—the panic that creeps into my mind and takes hold of my heart. It comes on especially when it seems like no matter how much work I do or how disciplined I am—it just isn’t enough.

After my two hour web-site development class, I grit my chattering teeth and made my way over to the library to do research for my Magazine and Freelance writing class. I had spent the last several days trying to come up with ideas to pitch to various magazines, but I must have had brain constipation because nothing fantastic came out.

I spent about an hour looking through a huge stack of magazines in the reading room (which, by the way, is so silent it makes me nervous) before heading to the reference desk to inquire about the whereabouts of the Gale Directory to look up economic data on our magazines.

To my great consternation, I embarked on a wild goose chase for the Gale Directory with a fellow classmate. When we finally hunted down the allusive directory, we discovered that they were not helpful at all. Angry and annoyed at all the time I just wasted, I decided to leave the library and head back to the apartment.

On returning to my room, a flood of tears rushed upon me and I cried uncontrollably. I think the frustration that I had been suppressing for the last three weeks finally caught up to me. Crying can be cathartic. I was so upset that any attempts at doing homework would have been futile.

Here is where my ode begins. My roommates Janelle and Ariel came to comfort me; Ariel heated up a Hot Pocket for me (It was 11 pm and I hadn’t eaten since noon), Janelle let me talk it all out. Because I was so anxious, she recommended that I go to bed and wake up early to finish my work.

I had my doubts about whether or not I could wake up that early, so Ariel volunteered to wake up at six in the morning with me to make sure that I made it out of bed and finished my work. I thank God for the huge blessing that she is in my life. Ariel cared so much about me that, even though she didn’t have class until noon, she willingly helped me wake up before dawn.

Needless to say, I finished my assignment this morning and made it (albeit a little late) to my 7:30 am meeting. Praise God for a wonderful editor-in-chief who brings bagels and orange juice to staff meetings.

Today has been full of laughter and encouragement. During my British mysteries class, we had just finished discussing sexual promiscuity in Dicken’s Bleak House when my friend burst into the class wearing an “I Love Lucy’s” wig and three mismatched layers of clothing.

She confessed her love for her fiancée then handed him a huge, red, heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates and a giant, heart-shaped, singing balloon. The best part, though, was the look on my professor’s face—an amusing combination of confusion and horror.

Speaking of professors, my literary theory professor prayed for us before dismissing us from class, and I realized how much I appreciate that the professors at Biola pray for us. I know that they pray for us on their own time, but I really love hearing them open or close class with prayer.

I think it gives us insight into how they live out their Christian lives even as our professors. We get a short glimpse of their own personal interaction with God: how they come before Him, how they view Him, and how they are seeking His will. The words of their prayer sometimes have more power than anything they say to us during the class period.

I really praise God for my professors, for their passion for their fields of interest, and for their love and care for us. They are such a reservoir of Biblical and practical wisdom, as well a huge source of encouragement for me personally. My professors (ironically) really help me get through some of these difficult times in my life.

Time to Celebrate

I’ve had exciting news to share with people all day. I called my mom and she said, “We ought to celebrate!” I told my classmates and their response was pretty much the same—we need to celebrate! No, I’m not getting married. I don’t even have a Valentine this year (I don’t care what they say—Derrida does NOT count as a hot date).

The thing that I was so thrilled to tell everyone was that…drum roll please…last night I actually cooked dumplings and did my own laundry. And I did it all without mortally wounding myself, burning the kitchen down, shrinking my clothes, or turning my whites a lovely shade of pink.

Such mundane things to cheer about, you may think, but for me, this is progress. Sadly, as skilled as I may be in a number of different academic areas, being able to write a good essay or understand concepts in marketing does not prepare you for life’s domestic responsibilities.

Perhaps I have been spoiled too long, opting to bury myself in academic studies in lieu of learning things like cooking, laundry, or grocery shopping. I’m thankful that I live with girls who have had a lot of experience living on their own and who are willing to be very patient with me; they rejoice even in my small triumphs.

Mom always says that when you’re thrown into a situation where you have to do something—you’ll learn really fast. Sometimes I think I put these little things off because I’m scared of making mistakes, scared of proving to everyone how incompetent I really am. I stick to the things that I already know I excel at.

But a lot of this semester is about facing my fears and taking courage in who God is. Whether it be adjusting to apartment life, dealing with clients and talking to strangers, or applying to study abroad in a foreign country (well, they still speak English in London, so it isn’t THAT foreign), the small fears that I face now will help me to trust God to get me through the bigger obstacles that I may encounter later in life.

Dr. Longinow described these little challenges as our “bear” and our “lion,” like those that David faced before he took on Goliath. I can definitely relate to the analogy, because there are a lot of other bigger fears that I anticipate running up against, things that will stretch my faith and my character—things like searching for internships, putting myself out there as a freelance writer, the possibility of traveling to pursue a job or more education, someday marrying (hopefully) and starting my own family.

The possibilities are endless. There are so many uncertainties that are bound to come up in my life that I must face head-on. I feel that if I can learn to trust God in these smaller things—these things that I fear— while I’m in college, perhaps I will have the courage to let Him take me to great places to do great things. The “little-ness” of my faith is the only thing that hinders God from showing His “big-ness” in my life.

It's Greek, I mean, Chinese, to me!

Yesterday was the first session of the Beginning Mandarin class offered at my church. Totally different from what I was expecting, but not an unpleasant difference. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting—a more formal setting perhaps?

We met in the third grade Sunday school class, to the left of the kitchen still hot with the scent of friend noodles and to the right of the Library, where the children are conducting their own version of Beginner’s Mandarin. Only, I think they pick up things faster than the adult class.

I happened to be the youngest person in the class, along with my friend Grace, who is two years older than myself. Our other classmates were all women, all middle-aged and older. Most of them already speak at Cantonese, if not some Mandarin.

I grew up hearing the Cantonese and Toisan dialects at home and with my relatives, but despite my voracious consumption of Taiwanese dramas and Mandopop music, Mandarin is really a very foreign language for me. We’re using pinyin, too, which is very new to me.

We started out with the four tones of Mandarin, which was challenging enough for one day. I never realized how difficult it is to tell them apart, and to use them for syllables other than ma (depending on how you say it, “ma” could mean mother, horse, to feel numb, or to scold).

Our teachers, Auntie Janet, Auntie Sharon, and Auntie Nan are all very patient with us. Even though they all have a great sense of humor, they never laugh at us for our mistakes (saying “You smell me” instead of “You ask me” is pretty amusing if you ask me—no pun intended).

We split into two groups based on our level of fluency. After butchering the tones, my group moved on to basic conversation like, “How are you?” and “Have you eaten yet?” along with the appropriate responses. We even tried our hand at a simple poem. You wouldn’t believe how un-poetic it sounded after we got through with it, though.

Regardless of how bad I might sound at the moment, I’m still very determined to learn and practice and continue learning Chinese. I used to balk at the idea of studying such a difficult language. But it’s more fun than I thought.

Apartment Life

Living in an apartment for the first time has been quite an adventure. Albeit, I’ve only lived in Lido for two weeks, but I already call this place home. I don’t think it’s just the new location on the opposite end of campus (or really, across the street from campus), or having to prepare my own food. It isn’t even the exciting prospect of not having to share a bathroom with thirty other girls. The move into the apartment has really been a change of perspective. Being here makes me feel like I’m beginning to take the first baby steps towards real adulthood. Of course, I still have a long way to go before I can really exercise my independence and allow God to take me anywhere He pleases in the world.

I’ll admit that I entertained some major misgivings about moving between semesters. I felt like I just got used to living with my Fall semester roommate, and all of a sudden, I was putting myself in a position where I would have to adjust to three new roommates. But on the way home from our excursion to Wal-mart, Michael’s, and Bobaloca today, I told my apartment-mates Ariel and Meli that I think living with them (along with our fourth roommate Janelle) has been such a huge blessing this semester.

There’s never a dull moment in this apartment. Whether we’re eating a random assortment of edible items at the dinner table, gathered around one of our laptops watching Lego Beowulf on YouTube, or curled up on the carpet of one of our bedrooms talking about life in general, we seem to always enjoy our time together. Often times, the apartment will hum with the sound of the TV in the living room, where Meli and Janelle are reading, while Ariel contorts her body and reads on her bed, and I type on my computer and listen to music through my headphones. All of a sudden, one of the girls will burst into our room to tell us something interesting that happened that day, or complain about having too much to read.

There’s something so beautiful about living our lives together, sharing both our stage of life and what we bring to it, working together, laughing together, praying for each other, helping each other deal with our struggles and frustrations. And even though we’re all very dedicated to our studies, we all seem to take a special delight and pleasure in being English majors, in embracing our nerdiness, embracing our love for literature and writing.

And we always have fun. For instance, today, Ariel and I got overly excited about making connections between the critical literary theories of Roland Barthes and the short story "Shrodinger’s Cat" (by Ursula Le Guin) that we read two semesters ago. Last night, we watched Janelle don a snow coat and five or six scarves, then walk around to our neighboring apartments to “beg” for some ice cubes. We even have a bulletin board dedicated to anything that one of us says that is particularly random, strange, hilarious, or grossly out-of-context.

It reminds me of Anne in Anne of Windy Poplars, who shares a small cottage with three other girls while they are in the university, living, studying, and working together. That picture of the girls, sitting around a warm crackling fire reading, or getting into mischief together, has always been something of a dream of mine. I feel like I’m finally getting a small taste of that reality. Except we have a pomegranate-scented candle for a fire and we gather around the TV to watch LOST.

Gong hay fat choy! Sun nin fai lok!

Today is Chinese New Year. I sat down at my computer to check my email and noticed that my friend James was online. I double-clicked his screen name, waited for his window to pop up, and typed “Sun nin fai lok!” which translates into “Happy New Year!” In response, James typed back “Lay see dow loy,” which roughly meant, “Give me money.”

I laughed, not because it was such a strange response, but because it brought back childhood memories of celebrating Chinese New Year, digging into my drawer to find a red t-shirt, eating handfuls of Chinese candies, and singing “Gong hai fat choy!” (which means “Congratulations and be prosperous”) to any unfortunate victim who crossed my path.

I remember trying to put on my cutest, puppy-eyed expression, preparing myself to walk shyly up to my relatives and say “Sun nin fai lok” and “Gong hai fat choy” in as accurate a Chinese accent as I could, so that when I held out my hands in front of me, they’d place the precious little red envelopes into my palms and wish me a happy new year. To us little Chinese kids, Chinese New Year meant eating as much good food as we could and sucking up to as many generous relatives as we could.

But this year, Chinese New Year feels like it’s passing me by, fading into the background of my frenetic life—a life that’s consumed by books, presentations, deadlines, meetings, and applications. Or maybe it’s because I’m at Biola; my new year’s greetings were met by many a blank stare. Either way, I feel a bit sad and very nostalgic.

The best I could do this year was put on my Asian-inspired earrings and dream of a delicious Chinese feast. I’m so ashamed to call myself Chinese sometimes. My cultural pendulum swings between being too Americanized and being scared to become, for lack of a more PC term, “fobby.”

I’ve never regretting being American-born. There’s an independence and freedom that I would never have experienced if I were more “Chinese” than I am now. Other than playing an instrument and earning decent grades, I’ve always gone against the stereotype: I played basketball in high school, I never had a curfew, I turned down UCLA, Berkeley, and USC, and I majored in English rather than engineering or biology (even with both my parents in the medical field).

But part of me feels a strong pull toward Chinese culture—a need to reclaim parts of who I am that I never really took as my own. Some day, I would love to study both Cantonese and Mandarin, to live overseas and re-absorb some of my cultural heritage. It’s funny how new dreams crop up into our hearts and minds without us noticing or expecting them.

Goal for the day

My goal for today: Every time I felt stress and anxiety beginning to creep up on me, I would stop, tell myself to put on a positive attitude, thank God for all of the good things He has given me, and then ask Him to help me to trust Him to get me through my day.

I think in a lot of ways, I fell short of my goal, especially towards the end of today. I hate feeling like I’m always behind, always playing catch up. Especially when you have a very intelligent, studious, and disciplined roommate, it can be discouraging to see how much work you still have left to do while she continues to get farther and farther ahead.

But I’m trying to train myself to transform how I think about things. When I get frustrated and undisciplined, I try to adjust my perspective, reminding myself that I need to enjoy learning, that I need to be excited about the skills I’m developing or the experiences that I gain from hands-on projects. I hope that having a better outlook will make my work more efficient and less miserable.

It’s hard, sometimes, to learn to glorify God in my schoolwork. Don’t get me wrong. I love school, I love learning, I love my professors, I love my classes and reading and the college lifestyle. But sometimes, the burden of deadlines and exams is just too cumbersome for me. I’ve come to realize that my threshold for stress is very low, and my ability to accumulate “stressfulness” is unlimited.

I was thinking about how much has changed since my freshman year. I met with my advisor, Professor Davidson, to discuss traveling abroad and approving my classes and such. I sat facing the window diagonally away from his desk—the same spot I always sit in. The same spot I sat in when I first met with him as freshman, fidgety, self-conscious, and unsure. Time has flown by without me hardly noticing. It sometimes seems like an odd day dream, the kind that feels so vivid yet still doesn’t seem real at all. In a lot of ways, I think back to the girl I was when I was a freshman. That Lynnette is more like an old friend, simultaneously familiar and distant.

I think I’ve changed and grown in a lot of ways. The old Lynnette would let herself succumb to the pressure and have a good cry. Or call home to complain. She would never consider changing her perspective and attitude. She would rarely stop to pray. Lynnette is thankful for how God is growing and changing her. But she still has a lot of growing up to do.

Walking home...

Everyday after classes, I embark on an arduous trek from my classroom to the outskirts of campus, walk along Biola Ave. until I reach Bora, where play a dangerous game of Frogger to reach the other side of the street, and enjoy the quiet residential neighborhood until I reach Lido apartment.

The last few days, on my way back from class, as I have been soaking up the sun or avoiding puddles from the rainy day before, an interesting sound has caught my attention. The sound of a preacher, slightly hollow and echo-y as if his voice was reverberating off the rafters of an ancient cathedral or high-ceilinged church, but strangely muted and muffled.

When I turn to look for the source of the odd sound, I find someone sitting in their car, windows rolled up, engrossed in the sermon issuing out of their car stereos, unsuspecting of any observant passerby. Sometimes they’re snacking on a bagel or taking notes with their Bibles propped up on their steering wheel.
Perhaps with the onslaught of chapel makeups, Biola students must use any down time they can scavenge. But the image that comes to mind is the passage in Matthew 6 where Jesus warns His disciples:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven….When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Matt. 6:1, 5-6).

The Christian walk practiced in this way is such a beautiful thing. Not showy, not overly self-conscious, not ostentatious. Of course, there is a corporate, public aspect of our relationship with Christ and with the church, but that flows out of the personal, often private part of our relationship with the Lord.

What irks me is the kind of fabricated, formulaic Christianity that falls into legalism. The Christianity that says, “You’re a good Christian if you read your Bible every day and pray a certain number of hours and only enjoy reading commentaries and so on and so forth.”

Even worse than that is the Christianity that tries to rebel against the perceived hypocrisy of the church, swinging to the other extreme and telling Believers, especially young believers, that the most important part of being a Christian is being “authentic.”

Authentic—while the intention may be honorable—in most cases just means lazy. To feel and experience God without any discipline or accountability means conforming too much with today’s postmodern, secular culture. In our attempt to be "real" we lose everything we stand for.

Ultimately, we experience God’s work in our lives when we study His Word, His written revelation to us, and conform our lives to the pattern that He has set for us, exercising the spiritual disciplines that Believers throughout the centuries have exercised in their own personal and corporate Christian lives, and trusting God with our growth and maturity.

Back to my previous point. Seeing my fellow students sitting in their cars—listening to God’s Word being preached, unaware of others watching them—gave me a great sense of satisfaction and encouragement.

It’s in the secret, still, quiet places that we hear God’s voice most clearly, directing us to how He wants us to work out our salvation, in our inner lives, in our relationships within the Church, and in our interactions with non-Believers.

To be unconcerned with the opinions of others, to be inattentive to our image and focused primarily on how we live out our Christian lives, is a freedom that we as Believers must cling to if we are to impact the world for the Gospel.