'ohana

She did not leave for home. She stayed with Rachel in her room, listening to a life's story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad. She heard of her birth father, Kenji; her grandfather, Henry, and grandmother, Dorothy; learned of Rachel's hanai aunt, Haleola; Uncle Pono and Catherine and Sarah and Leilani and the rest of Rachel's cherished 'ohana. She learned what 'ohana meant, and that he was part of it. She began to understand that non of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.

- moloka'i

christmas cheer!

Buddy: Sounds like somebody needs to sing a Christmas Carol.
Jovie: No way.
Buddy: The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.
Jovie: Thanks, but I don't sing.
Buddy: Oh, well, it's just like talking, except longer and louder, and you move your voice up and down.
Jovie: I *can* sing, I just choose *not* to sing. Especially in front of other people.
Buddy: If you can sing alone, you sing in front of other people. There's no difference.
Jovie: Actually, there's a BIG difference.
Buddy: No there's not. Wait...
[Starts singing loud and off-key]
Buddy: I'm singing/I'm in a store/and I'm siiiiiingiiiiing!/I'm in a store/and I'm siiiiiingiiiiing!
Gimbel's Manager: HEY! There's no singin' in the North Pole!
Buddy: Yes there is!
Gimbel's Manager: No there's not!
Buddy: We sing all the time!
Gimbel's Manager: No you don't!
Buddy: Especially when we build toys!
[Back to Jovie]
Buddy: See?

- elf

psalm 46:1-3;10

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
Even though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though its waters roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with its swelling.

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

picks

lists lists, i love lists. music music, i love music. so i'm combining them. yippee! here's a list of my current favorite songs.

Like You'll Never See Me Again by Alicia Keys
i love the way the song begins... with this piano-music boxesque [yes i made up that word] sound. the whole song is a good balance of tenderness and soul. the music video is perfect. go watch it!

By Picadilly Station I Sat Down and Wept by Tracey Thorn
first thing i said to myself when i encountered this song -- so emo!. hahaha. i love tracey thorn's voice, and this is such a tracey thorn song, one that only she can sing. i dare not even sing along. i just sit back, imagine the scene and feel the pain she describes. it's like a movie.

Gravel Lines by Amy Seeley
piano piano piano. the song is very... fragile, delicate, beautiful. it causes everything to transform into a dramatic slow motion scene. yes, it has that effect on me. lol.

Summer Song by Wavorly
i just recently discovered Wavorly [thanks to hg]. their album beyond rawks, an interesting and eventful trip from beginning to end haha. this song stood out because it was both romantic and intense. and i'm a sucker for romance & intensity. haha.

Don't Talk About This Love by Nikola Rachelle
Nikola Rachelle is a very recent discovery for me. she's the sister of natasha bedingfield (unwritten) & daniel bedingfield (if you're not the one). major talent running through that family, goshers. i'm sure God said, "behold, the bedingfield children will have awesome vocal chords", and it came to be! hahaha. there's a hint of natasha in her voice, and yet it's still distinct. this song evokes a lot of emotion... too much at times, it's like a punch to the gut.

Your Cheating Heart by Jon Foreman (Switchfoot)
Jon Foreman is just plain cool in my book. i'm fascinated with people like him. haha. and his voice is quite unique. i'm a fan of his solo stuff. this isn't his original song obviously, but his raw and stripped down version has to be the best of all. well, if it were up to me that is. haha.

wonder

And I can't help but wonder what it is you do
You help heal the pain, and the thoughts of the truth
You're a question to the universe, a wonder to the world
And somehow, when I'm with you, I never get burned

Caught in a trap of what we're taught to believe
When night overcomes day, life's so hard to preceve
And the clock keeps on ticking through night-shattered skies
Where the stars are all broken, and so are all the ties
But the one thing remaining is you
When I'm broken and bleeding, you pull me right through

And I can't help but wonder what it is you do
You help heal the pain, and the thoughts of the truth
You're a question to the universe, a wonder to the world
And somehow, when I'm with you, I never get burned

- wonder by megan mccauley

HILARIOUS METAPHORS

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their
collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school
essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of
teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a
guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse
without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated
because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge
at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city
and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having
left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka
at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was
the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap,
only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are won't to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,
either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a
land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender
leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells,
as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

too much

i wonder if anyone has ever complained about being over-loved. like, you're giving me too much love, i can't take it anymore!

anywhooo...

cutenessessessss

you may think, what the heck is the purpose of this cute black piggy... aside from being all cute and stuff...


to hold my cellyphone of course!!! hahaha

they also come in white, but i opted to just get the keychain version... too cute!




look at that cute little pink flower

I HAD A YEERO!

i donno why i always do this to myself. saturday night, i always tell myself that i have to go to bed early because sunday is church day and busy day... waking up at 7:15ish in the morning, possibly doing some sort of random family/friends hanging out for lunch and maybe extending to the afternoon, or an event transpires on a sunday afternoon... naps are a luxury. i didn't have one today =\ i'm almost ready to hit the bed. golly. yes, i realize that i am not speaking in sentences. who cares, i'm doing a free flow write. and i will use lots of ... and more ... HA. so that whole add on another hour thing because of the fall back time, wow, i didn't feel that at all. probably because i slept late that nite (morning when the time fell back). yes, i do remember, 'coz i was awake when the clock on the computer changed haha. so it was 2am, but then it became 1am. i don't think i was ever awake for that. haha. so i finally got to go to the famed greek cuisina on 4th... downtown ptown babeh. man, i was so full, just with the appetizers alone. i couldn't finish my gyro (yeero). and i kept singing I NEED A YEERO! get it? instead of I NEED A HERO! har har har. my feet hurt, i was in heels the whole dayng day. what else? i had some really good tofu from chinese takeout for dinner. hmmm, oh and i watched a marathon of Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC. i love that show. now my back hurts, sunday's almost over, and another week begins. man, time flies by. does it mean i'm having fun? i think i am (= hee hee hee.

outtawack

my sleep pattern has been messed up. golly. so the other night, i ended up sleeping at 4am. it didn't help that i had tea in the evening, which happened to be a lot stronger than i usually have. so after i stopped myself from im-ing, i made myself go to bed... without putting on nick at nite of course. haha. the episode of george lopez must've been more entertaining that usual, i was actually awake through the episode, unlike the usual of me falling asleep already around that time... i just usually put the tv on sleep, so it won't be on the whole night or anything. but no, i watched through the two episodes of fresh prince as well. it came to the point that the sleep timer had expired, turning off my tv. i was still awake. so i read moloka'i. usually i fall asleep when i read anything. instead i was engrossed in the book. so i read for another hour. next thing i knew it was 4am. i ended up waking up at 10:45, with a slight headache, just in time to get ready to meet up with priya. we saw the bee movie, which was funny btw. then i come home. oh and i had to pick up with movie called unhitched to watch it. after dinner, i pop it in my computer, turn off the lights [for the movie theater effect]. i made a mistake of watching it from my bed, under the covers. somehow i found myself pausing in the middle of it... and next thing i knew, it was an hour later. i had fallen asleep. gaaahhh. that nap cost me my sleep yet again. i hate waking up late >_< it's looking more like oregon out there today. last night was nice - i mean nice with the fog and stuff. it looked very cool. i started listening to "sleigh ride" on relient k's myspace. gosh, i really want it to be christmas already. other than that, i have to study for this assessment that i have to take to qualify for the next step of technical interviews. i applied for an entry-level .net programmer position. they've sent me a link to take an online test which contains topics such as general programming things, object oriented concepts, and math word problems. golly, i hate word problems. i need to get crackin' on the books, 'coz honestly, i don't remember a thing. do i even remember how to study? haha.

nachos

i stumbled upon a website that had a list of foods vegans do not eat. the list consisted of the obvious things, steak, bacon, butter, etc. it also included nachos on the list. i scroll down and someone very smart left a comment asking why vegans can't eat nachos.

then i laughed heartily.

waves

"Years before, Rachel had read in a magazine how an ocean wave might begin as a small ripple in the aftermath of an earthquake in China, then roll across the breadth of the Pacific, gathering force and momentum until it reached Hawai'i's halo of coral reefs, which slowed it and pushed it to the surface. So each time she rode a wave, she decided, she was riding a piece of China or Japan or Samoa..."

- Moloka'i

gravel lines

what do you expect from me?
after these takes
after this
what do you dream in the afternoon?
i'll never know
what's in your head

out past the cars on the railways
out past the city's finery
we see our breath and connection
underneath these gravel lines

you, you stole a page from the blanks
how do you weigh all of our fears?
typical, isn't it typical
for someone like me to invite you in

we took a drive in the country
your photographs were never mine
slapped in the face by the questions
posed by gravel lines


- amy seeley

God'sgreat love

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits -
who forgives all your sings
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love....


psalm 103:1-5,8