For what it's worth

Wellesley in the spring is so beautiful, you forget what winter...

Sun, 19 May 2013 01:06:18 -0400

Wellesley in the spring is so beautiful, you forget what winter feels like, how cold it was. I can still remember what the November air tastes like. There were still a lot of nights of emptiness. That taste clung to me late April, heavy boots dragging my feet down, questions and crises. But something has happened since then, gradually, then all at once. Maybe it’s a recipe: mix an afternoon with friends on Boston Common with short sleeve weather, add an indie pop playlist and an iced chai tea latte, and top with a prayer for joy. Maybe not, maybe it’s all chance. In the mail today I received a letter from myself at this time a year ago: “I hope you’ve found happiness.” I think I have. Which, in my typical neurotic fashion, worries me — did I pack it in with me in my carry-on? Will it follow me home? Am I even going home or am I leaving home?

Maybe by the end of first year, I was already supposed to have all the answers, five, ten year plan set, supposed to be secure in my identity, and able to write out the meaning of life on an index card. But the even very first question, where to now, still stands, hanging. Some cobwebs have grown on it, but I dug it out again yesterday with that song, though things and times and I have changed, listening to it as the bus passed once more by the glorious Boston skyline at night.

I wasn’t really ready to leave. There are so many places I haven’t been to yet; it was just last week that I discovered Schneider and I can never discover it again, and only yesterday that I found out the doors to the glass science center staircases are open and you can climb it four flights to nowhere and look over Wellesley. And there were too many goodbyes this week, that’s how you know it’s been good, when the goodbyes are too hard. I have to remember that I’ll be back really soon. Incipit Vita Nova, says the forgotten Latin motto hidden inside Wellesley’s crest, here begins new life. New life, this whole year, spring semester particularly, this summer, to new adventures, daily.

incipit vita nova

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:14:00 -0400

incipit vita nova

dark though it is, this week

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:01:00 -0400

They say your first Marathon Monday is the one you remember forever. For our class of 2016, that will always be true.

It started Sunday night, as we were winding down from the weekend and preparing for this long awaited Marathon Monday. We planned what time to get to the street, what we’d write on our signs, what we’d wear. Wellesley that morning was buzzing with excitement. By the time we all made it to the Wellesley Scream Tunnel, it was about 10:30, and who would know the events happening later that day? There we were, holding our signs, proud to be Wellesley students, proud of each face that came by, slowly trickling in at first with those who swept right past us like wind, then quickly, then in clumps, in costumes. We cheered until our voices were hoarse, laughing and wiping sweat off our cheeks and hands from the runners. I kept watch out for two guys running from BCEC and the buildOn team, neither of which I saw. But I made eye contact, gave high fives to so many, and there was so much joy.

By that afternoon, I was exhausted from having extroverted too much in the morning and retreated to the living room to prepare for Tuesday’s presentation and Wednesday’s exam. I could still hear cheers in the distance when the texts came, when the tweets came. “Explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line.” Went back to my work. More buzzwords: bombs. IEDs. Deaths. Injuries. Amputations. Medical tents. Fires. Suspicious packages. And every minute, something more was falling apart. And then the pictures came out. The blood made it real. And the background made it real, streets I’d walked on a few days ago, stores we’d passed by, rejoicing in the weather, the beauty of spring and life. And then the video. The first video, the man down. Then more. Lost limbs at a marathon. Then more. Then people around breaking down. Then tears. Then hugs. Then silence.

Calls and texts came in, and I’m so grateful to everyone who took the time to check up on and pray for me and Wellesley and Boston. I was grateful to be safe. And yet a little guilty—sitting at the back of my mind, always a question to God in tragedies, why do I get to live, and not them? And, too, a little fear, that I’d considered going to the finishing line that day. And all my concerns were shut down and taken over when one of our friends was still in Boston, right near the finish line. Slowly we learned about Wellesley and BCEC runners who were safe, who were close and shocked but safe, but we still hadn’t heard from a few friends who were in the city, and there were no calls going out or in, only silent texts (and no comforting ones from the nonchalant parents), only looks from one pair of red swollen eyes to the other. Then we learned of more scares at JFK, at Harvard, at BU, and we headed to the dining hall for a nervous dinner.

We had been looking forward to Macklemore all year long. It was Macklemore, after all. We were planning to line up much earlier, but it wasn’t until 6 that we saw the line forming outside and rushed there. Even standing, then sitting on the pavement, waiting, eventually everyone we were waiting for from Boston came back; we kept waiting, even that was a chord of dissonance. Hours later, after waiting and a poor opening and more waiting, even as Macklemore came on, maybe our minds were elsewhere. “Thrift Shop” brought us back to Thursday night’s party, which seemed like ages and ages ago. He was a fantastic performer, and took our minds away from Boston for a while. Singing love is patient, love is kind over and over with a full crowd of people brought me back, not just to Boston but to the world, to justice and to love and around again. And he gave tribute to the victims and the survivors and their families in his closing song, “Irish Celebration.” We felt better. And at the same time, not at all. Besides the ringing in my ear from the concert, there were these lines,

limbs left along twenty six miles
at mile 13 we shared smiles, shook hands
at the concert tonight,
were not our shouts of joy also cries of desperation?

It was all very real and very surreal at the same time. A lot of thinking that night, a lot of crying on the inside, a lot of dissonance, of feeling so close and yet so disconnected, of trying to process.

The next three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, went by quickly as I drowned out the events with school and work and extracurriculars. The sun shone these days, too light for our heavy hearts. These days on campus were quiet. Too quiet. We winced at passing jokes and phrases, like “that was the bomb,” the classic “the bomb dot com,” the all-too-frequent-and-casual “I’m gonna die.” Thursday in World Politics class we hid some of our pain behind discussions of terrorism and racial profiling in academia, with only hints of emotion. But there were still periods in between classes and shifts, between meals, laying on my bed, reading more of the news, of anger at racism and false conclusions, of names and faces revealed (of, did I see this face pass by that morning), of speeches and letters, of trying to make sense of things by music, playing and listening to “Oceans,” of wordless prayers. Of being struck by Bostonians’ generosity and compassion—people who ran away from the bombs and to the hospital to give blood—of pride for this new home of mine, of wordless prayers.

By Thursday night, I’d finished the week’s overwhelming pile of work. I headed off to Harvard for a dinner and then a small group until about nine, then out to froyo until ten. It looked like I, like we, were recovering. Back to normal life. I was planning on taking the T, the red line and the MIT bus back to Wellesley. Instead a friend offered to drive me back to Wellesley, and since it would save me a bit of hassle, I thanked him and took the ride. Back at Wellesley, I gathered with friends per usual on weekday nights just to talk and chill. Then someone came in—“Did you hear about the MIT shooting?” And then texts came in. And tweets. And it felt like Monday again. Then pictures. Then videos.

And then sitting on my bed again, trying to process the proximity, texting friends frantically. Then realizing — I almost took the T at 10. For the 10:40 bus at Kendall, too close to its previous stop on Vassar. By building 32. I would’ve gotten to MIT sometime between 10 and 10:40. Shots were fired at 10:20. Then it became all too real. (“We don’t talk about that anymore, Alice.”)

But as it went down on Monday, I was safe, and in brokenness and gratitude, I continued to follow Twitter and live news feeds. More frantic texts. More thanks to those from Michigan who checked in. It meant the world. The roommate and I watched, read, shared news until two in the morning. Buzz words: shots. Police down. Police dead. Hijacks. Bombs. Hand grenades. IEDs. Run. Suspects. Chase. Was this related to the Marathon? We didn’t know. Were they the same people at MIT? At 7/11? We didn’t know. At any rate, they were moving west, Boston, Cambridge, to Watertown, westward toward my safe bubble of Wellesley. We turned off our computers and our phones, turned to trust. We went to sleep with the promise that things would be better in the morning.

I didn’t sleep well that night (was that last night? seems like ages ago). Nightmares of a Wellesley girl in critical condition. Waking up from that mess, asking to myself, that didn’t really happen, did it, at 7 a.m. Checked my email first thing for emergency alerts, and nothing except that MIT had closed, which made sense. I went to get ready for my classes. Then the emergency call and text and 8:36, when some classes had already begun, that Wellesley was closed for the day. People asked to leave and stay in their dorms. Buildings locked. A quiet stir. Silence suspended in the air. We’d really rather not have the day off.

The remainder of the morning was filling in on the events between three and eight, too much that happened but too little that happened at the same time. One brother died, but more had unfolded. The concept of Boston on lockdown and images of a ghost-town scared me, and as everything canceled, like a sleepover at BU I was supposed to go to, the air filled with uncertainty, more fear. More prayers. God of this city. Even though I walk through the valley. Our afternoon went by with love in our community, as love is the only thing to carry through so much confusion. We distracted ourselves with chick flicks and TV shows throughout the afternoon, watching while refreshing our news sources, not even knowing what to look for, but looking for something. We called too many pizza places looking for one to deliver, giving us something to do for at least an hour.

And this evening as we were too many episodes into a new season of a show, news came in, good news at first, Boston no longer on lockdown. And quickly after, not so much: “More gunshots heard in Watertown.” Silence. Turn off the show. Turn on the police scanner. Computers and phones freezing because too many people were watching. Pregnant silences between voices on the police scanner. Boat. Blood. Eyes peeled, we were addicted to the news. They were getting closer and were hopeful and we were terrified but at least we were together. We went downstairs to the TV room, on the way seeing the new storm unfold outside, weather to match the situation, hearing news of deaths by tornado in the midwest, then learning about the 7.0 Chengdu earthquake, and then smoke coming from the main dorm kitchen, too much tension in one room, you could see it in the lines on our faces, engraved deeper and deeper in that one long hour.

“They got him.” What? We all looked at each other, did we hear that right? Confirmations came in on twitter, on Facebook. We’d been holding our breath for four days. You could hear the exhales. You could hear the new lightness in our steps. We listened to the press conference, and thanked God for the police. To all the responders, thank you, thank you, thank you. There was some closure. Closure that, too, we knew, was the beginning of a long investigation. Questions remain: mainly, why? But closure to us, for safety, and rejoicing, for us, which in turn brought us back to sadness, for them, for “it can’t bring them back, but…” Prayers again, and this time, differently. Tonight was perhaps the first time we, from Michigan, Texas (and oh, Texas), South Carolina, Mexico, Rhode Island, Hawaii, really claimed Boston as ours.

Now it’s raining. The rain, it is our release; it is crying our sadness and our relief. It is washing away the blood stands at Copley, on Vassar, in Watertown. It is watering the earth that will hold Martin, Lingzi, Krystle, and Sean. It is raining in Boston tonight. But tonight, in this place, in this city, we are finally safe, we are finally home.

for life

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:24:00 -0400

limbs left along twenty six miles

at mile 13 we shared smiles, shook hands

at the concert tonight,

were not our shouts of joy also cries of desperation?

You are a beautiful human being. Wonderfully and fearfully made, don't ever forget or doubt it. <3

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:52:06 -0400

What if my heart is not yet ready to be as light as spring?

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:39:53 -0400

What if my heart is not yet ready to be as light as spring?

"He has made everything beautiful in its time."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:37:29 -0400

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

- Ecclesiastes 3:11

Wellesley by sunset

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 18:47:22 -0400

Wellesley by sunset

life was really beautiful today

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 22:00:18 -0400

life was really beautiful today

poem for coffeehouse 03.29.13 this is for my immigrant parents my father is sitting at a table. he...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 21:30:13 -0400

poem for coffeehouse 03.29.13

this is for my immigrant parents

my father is sitting at a table. he does not speak. dust is collecting on the forms he does not touch. a video of new american citizens flashes across the screen, they are laughing. tonight, the night before his naturalization, my father is practicing his smile. my sister is teaching him the pledge of allegiance. he does not speak.

twelve years ago we got a phone call that would change our lives, a late night infomercial from one of dad’s friends, advertising the promise of the American dream, so we dropped everything and flew ourselves, shipping handling fees and all, trusting old white men to have built a land where golden gate bridges and statues of liberty were erected in every city, where we’d living in skyscraper apartment buildings, where the sun would never be missing—or so we thought—when we landed in detroit. in december.

and now, through surburbia and snow, what about the culture i’ve lost, nothing more to say on a phone across the world than an hello, goodbye, xin nian kuai le? and what of my mother, the first of her village to graduate high school, then college, mother, did you ever imagine yourself here, forced to go back to community college, again, having to ask your daughter to translate your textbooks? father, did you ever imagine yourself working in a basement? did you ever wonder if it was worth it? was i, was my sister, were we ever enough to make it worth it? had they have known, would they have sent their baby girl to first grade with those who would pull her hair and laugh at her eyes, mocked her accent as she whispers, ipledgeallegiancetotheflagoftheunitedstatesofamericaandtotherepublicforwhichitstandsonenationundergodindivisiblewithlibertyandjusticeforall.

so yeah, these last twelve years have been quite the dream, if dreaming means playing the great American sport of battered pride as my parents walk down the aisles of grocery stores, pledging allegiance to themselves to at least learn the word for corn, for peas, if dreaming is sitting baffled at PTA meetings, if dreaming is being laughed at in the back of the DMV—if dreaming can even happen on my princess bed of a used mattresses held up off the cold floor by the cinder blocks of kings

and yeah, being a kid in america was fun, if fun is when your sofa cushion pennies and tooth fairy dollars are saved in leftover funfetti boxes for your college tuition, if fun is when your ESL teacher tells you, i know how hard it is to learn a language, i took french in college, if fun is practicing the pledge of allegiance, letter by painstaking letter, copied onto the back sides of a used college-ruled notebook, other hand on my newly tattooed heart, by moonlight, until, under it, i drifted off to sleep.

so you would think it was all a dream, had it not been for the nights, year after year, woken up by the fears and tears and “why did we move here”s? the shouts!, eyes closed, your family is a crowd, have you ever so scared as when you realized the sound was coming from your own mouth? has it ever been so loud

it’s silent? silenced like the lives of japanese americans, japanese american babies sentenced to silence as they were saying the pledge of allegiance, silenced in the land of the free and the home of the brave, silenced, for being asian, twenty minutes from my house, vincent chin was silenced by the great american sport of a swinging bat, one, two, three, four, and racism whistles out out of the park, and the batters get to run home, safe and silent. no one dare cheer. no, in our silence, listen to our pipe dreams playing requiems on a organ, listen to the bells toll.

the bells tolled for these Americans, and the new cheerful bells tolled at my dad’s naturalization, as if he were not yet natural, they tolled when we became Americans, as if we were not already, as if we were not all ready as the school bells tolled for my hand on my American tattooed heart, as they told me what it means and what it takes to be an American, I am an American.

so this is for the immigrant parents, the restaurant waitresses, the dry cleaners, all of them Americans, this is for the individuals who could never live up to what an asian nor what an american was supposed to be, we are all just supposed to be trying to learn how to live, and to look for a place to call home, to be. some of us are still looking for a pen to start writing our stories. so this is for stories of mothers who came before mine, in search of a better story for their babies, for the first time they stepped foot on this one-way street called America, did they know this land? a land of dreams, it seemed, that closed its doors on us for too many years, but the doors will be closed no more. we will not be silent, for I too sing America, and I speak out loud, and sing it proud, and say, I pledge allegiance to this goddamn country, and to the people who together stand, one voice among many, indivisible with solidarity and racial justice for all.

Some days you just don’t feel like dancing. My South Bronx...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:11:25 -0400

Some days you just don’t feel like dancing. My South Bronx baby Tessa knows that, so we colored instead. She’s a genius. And Rachel, her heart is gold, even if you get bullied, even if you get hit, I love you and Jesus loves you. Adriana, Michael, Anyessel, there is a place for you in this world.

Some nights you do feel like dancing. Andy Mineo and other rappers tonight at CCNY, interspersed with spoken word by our director Jonathan Walton. Dancing despite knowing all the oppression in this world knowing that He came to break every chain. Praise for the 15 or so CCNY students who came to love God for the first time tonight.

And praise for a delayed wake-up time tomorrow from 6:30 to 7 a.m.!

This morning we watched Nefarious. Watch it. So many emotions...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:37:07 -0400

This morning we watched Nefarious. Watch it. So many emotions throughout the room—confusion, anger, tears, joy at redemption. For me, it was mostly anger. Anger for the ten year olds who were living these half lives. Anger at the men who created so much demand. Anger at God. And anger, selfishly, for not even being able to feel their pain, but to in a way trivialize it by empathizing.

But Isaiah 61. To bind up the broken hearted. To proclaim freedom for the captives. To release from darkness for the prisoners.

A new meaning to knocking, knocking on the door of heaven, crying, crying for this generation, praying for your name to be heard in all of this earth.

So this afternoon, we acted in a small way, to change the system that allows trafficking to prosper. Headed to the South Bronx to hold an after school camp—a preview of the free summer camp they would be holding this summer. I loved it. From the minute the kids arrived to the end where little Yasmine hugged me through the gates. So filled. So much love.

Azul, who was three, drew blue skies with chalk despite the heavy sky and heavy life. Yasmin, six, wrote “I love you.” She told me she saw Jesus when she was younger, in a castle. He loves her still. Jeromire’s coat was too thin for this cold first day of spring, I could give him all the love I had to keep him warm. Alejandra, it’s really just one s’more per person. Fareek, I see through your trouble making, your pure and innocent heart. Bethany, at 17, blue contacts over her brown eyes, bless you and your ten siblings. And all the parents and children who had a s’more for the first time, your faces of delight will always be priceless.

So much life. We’ll be back tomorrow, there are no certainties in tomorrows, but if we never see these kids again, they’ve heard and seen the love of God.

This is for David, who broke up with his girlfriend and lost the...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:42:22 -0400

This is for David, who broke up with his girlfriend and lost the only place he had to live, this is for Scott with nothing but the Kissinger book on China, this is for Olaf, with his full and blessed and global life, who found his gray-haired self on a bench, this is for the other David, who was there just because uptown was more “profitable.”

This is a city of dreamers, still. All of us are trying to survive and not lose ourselves in the process. Today on the streets of 72nd and Broadway, just next to grand apartment high rises, there were God’s children without homes, without dignity.

We don’t ask for easy days here. 7am morning prayer. I am sustained on prayer. In response to a guy who asked about getting extra food to eat after meals was the question, “have any of you actually ever been hungry?” Facing your own privilege, and discovering the amount of it, is very hard.

In the afternoon, we split up into groups throughout Manhattan on a scavenger hunt for local, fair trade, and organic food because we don’t want to be part of the system that allows slavery and cheap labor to prosper. We also don’t want to be sent out to seek out the homeless like items on a scavenger hunt. But as we looked for food, God showed us the need for people who were really, really looking for food. This is the ministry of reconciliation. This is the work of the God of justice.

Psalm 94 says that God’s response to oppression is love, and His love will hold us up.

A building we passed by had on it engraved, “do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.”

For all the disbelievers of justice, for all the pessimists, for all those who have become cynics by age—justice is real, and change is possible—hope, hope, hope.

This time last year, I left New York with the hope that I’d be...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:22:39 -0400

This time last year, I left New York with the hope that I’d be back soon. This picture is 7th & 28th. Not 116th. Today, this isn’t the New York I knew. It feels like Detroit, it sounds like Detroit. This is East Harlem, this is brokenness, but this is promise.

I wrote my last poetry paper about Langston Hughes’ description of the African American experience in Harlem. I see that life here—hurt and injustice, all the time, but music and dance, all the time. I also wrote in the paper that “the promise of heaven is greater than the prospect of the American dream.” That was true, for the poem “Deferred,” but that came to take over my heart too. But there is a new dream here, and it’s called justice, and it’s God’s vision. We’re called to be here not to live and let live, but live with purpose.

“This community doesn’t need us, it needs Jesus.”

We began the week with a prayer walk, because God has given us the power of intercession, the “dignity of causality.” Believe, too, that miles away from East Harlem, you too can give strength to the fifty or so servants of God here and the people here in the projects. I’m so glad to be talking about racial issues, socioeconomic inequality, and systemic injustice outside of Wellesley. This is real. This is purpose.

We pray this before we leave any session:

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen.

After this insane week of midterms, New Hampshire treated us to...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:31:00 -0400

After this insane week of midterms, New Hampshire treated us to starry nights, the scent of pine, and the promising grandeur of mountains. College retreat, faith seeking understanding: “Where is your faith?” “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” “Who do you say I am?”

Learning things like, taking up your cross is a daily commitment. That the Christian faith isn’t the depth or goodness of our own faith, but the faith we put in God. That I am not perfect, but my savior is.

Even though I rested a lot at retreat, my soul was tired, tired from meeting people and sharing pieces and introducing myself. Thank God for naps. I know I am emptied to be filled again, and filled to be emptied again.

This morning, heading out to New York on what seems like sunrise, floating in streams of traffic, packed in subways across skylined rivers, life is busy, busy, busy. A man standing on the street with a sign that said, “Help the homeless mission.” A literal sign.

I’m not totally sure what I’m doing on this trip. I’m not sure whether to call it a trip, a project, a journey. People aren’t projects. What does homeless ministry even mean? The homeless aren’t just homeless. They’re people.

We can only understand things to the limits of our language. Like we can only know God’s love as much as we have been loved, multiplied by the size of our imagination. God is greater than all things.

So I’m trusting that God will provide on this trip. I don’t know anyone. I don’t know what we’ll be eating. I don’t know what our schedule is like. I don’t know what I can do, as powerless as Moses before he trusted. I’m scared, and maybe not as independent and spontaneous as I’d like to think. But trust, trust that everything has purpose. Please pray. A praise song for this busy sunrise morning.

daily existential crises

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:59:05 -0500

how is life so much and so little at the same time

march

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 02:44:44 -0500

Nights like this, I’m trying to write some poetry into my life. And life just doesn’t seem to rhyme; the syllables won’t flow. Some nights it doesn’t work out, when the old strength of your stories feels newly silenced. This silence, it sounds like the distant melody in your mind when your headphones are on, but your music is off.

Some things I need to do while here at Wellesley, besides the graduation list: borrow records from the beautiful WZLY station, start a spoken word collective, record our oral histories. I’m sitting here typing a transcript of an interview for a news article, and it’s a little bit of someone’s story, but not all. How beautiful are stories, how beautiful is truth, and honesty. How ironic it is that I want to hear people’s life stories so badly, and yet am so afraid to tell my own.

I think I’ll start posting on here again. These days, I don’t know if it’s the late nights or the craziness or the growing trust, I’ve been having really great conversations. It’s about time I open up and speak my mind. Even without poetic phrasings. Even when paragraphs are unrelated. Even on trivial matters or streams of consciousness like this one. Even, dare I say, when thoughts are not thought all the way through. Maybe living life full doesn’t mean filling it up. Maybe living intentionally doesn’t mean living without adventure, and certainly not without mistakes.

So here’s to building bridges over rivers we never knew. Here’s to living radically, daringly, lovingly. Here’s to us.

"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call..."

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:47:00 -0500

“And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”

- “Late Fragment” by Raymond Carver

The cutest.

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:12:00 -0500

The cutest.

101 in 1001

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 02:45:00 -0500

It’s been over two years since this post and I can tell how much has changed by how much my goals have—some for the betters, others not so much. I wish I were still as adventurous, or maybe the word is unburdened. It looks like I have just a few days to finish this (and start a new list). Life.

thespiritwithinme:

New Years.

Goals. But I always forget about these things…

1001 Days from now is approximately my 19th birthday. That works out well. How things have changed in a year…I can’t even imagine 1001 days.

Explore

1. Take a long exposure shot under the stars.

~~2. Go to college & move.~~

~~3. Go to a program.~~

~~4. Get a license/car.~~

~~5. Attend a wedding.~~

~~6. Attend a poetry slam.~~

~~7. Fly.~~

~~8. Run into the ocean.~~

~~9. Go out of the country.~~

~~10. Walk in high heels in a big city.~~

11. Go to TED.

~~12. Attend a candlelighting service.~~

~~13. Eat in 10 new restaurants.~~

~~14. Drive through a drive through.~~

~~15. http://www.postcrossing.com/~~

Inspire

~~16. Lend money on Kiva.~~

17. Donate blood.

~~18. Serious talk with the sister.~~

~~19. Perform poetry.~~

~~20. Perform music onstage.~~

~~21. Donate clothing.~~

~~22. Write a “How to”~~

~~23. Give a speech.~~

~~24. Send someone chicken noodle soup.~~

~~25. Interview someone homeless.~~

26. Give 10 “Just Because” gifts.

Create

27. Make/use a darkroom (shoot in film).

~~28. Photoshoot with a stranger.~~

29. Come up with 5 original recipes.

30. http://4amproject.org

~~31. Completely (paint and) decorate a room.~~

32. Reach Blip #1000.

~~33. Win a contest.~~

~~34. Make a portfolio.~~

~~35. Complete the photo wall.~~

~~36. Take polaroids.~~

37. Compose a song.

38. http://sh1ft.org/projects/index.php/category/26things/

39. Make a documenstory.

~~40. Post a non-film youtube video.~~

41. Do an instructable.

~~42. Get business cards.~~

~~43. Take self portraits.~~

~~44. Make a website layout.~~

~~45. Make professional typography.~~

~~46. Sell something online.~~

Enjoy

~~47. Do something extravagant/outrageous for 18^th birthday.~~

48. Camp in the backyard.

~~49. Do http://5000questionsur.livejournal.com and/or http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/07/13/50-questions-that-will-free-your-mind/~~

~~50. See a musician/band live.~~

~~51. Buy an external flash and some lights.~~

~~52. Buy a 24-70. (or 28-75)~~

~~53. Buy a black backdrop.~~

~~54. Buy studio lights.~~

~~55. Get a typewriter.~~

~~56. Get my ears pierced.~~

~~57. Get a new hairstyle.~~

~~58. Get a two-piece.~~

~~59. Get nails done professionally.~~

~~60. Go on a real date.~~

~~61. Buy something from Etsy.~~

~~62. Play euchre.~~

Learn

~~63. Choose a major.~~

64. Understand football.

~~65. Get a credit card.~~

~~66. Manage money wisely.~~

~~67. Save $1000.~~

~~68. Buy Nothing (except essentials) Month.~~

69. Learn to sew.

70. Double axel.

~~71. Practice piano.~~

~~72. Learn progressions.~~

~~73. Take dance.~~

~~74. Take a photography class/workshop.~~

~~75. Read 50 books.~~

~~76. Read the dictionary.~~

~~77. Do laundry by hand.~~

Grow

~~78. Get a name change.~~

~~79. Get a new job.~~

~~80. Freelance/editorial work~~

81. Get contacts, just because.

~~82. Register to vote.~~

~~83. Register to donate organs.~~

~~84. Be able to run a 5K without dying.~~

~~85. Get a check-up.~~

~~86. Sleep before midnight for a week.~~

~~87. Take yoga.~~

~~88. Get wisdom teeth removed.~~

~~89. Get clear skin.~~

~~90. Floss every day for six months.~~

~~91. Do gymnastics once.~~

~~92. You know…exercise!?~~

Believe

~~93. Fast.~~

~~94. Remember to tithe.~~

95. Don’t complain for a week.

~~96. Write a devotions “book.”~~

~~97. Go on a missions trip.~~

~~98. Finish reading the Bible through.~~

~~99. Keep up with quiet time.~~

~~100. Memorize 100 verses.~~

~~101. Disciple and be discipled.~~

I like to think I can do everything. But you never know!