Her

All it takes is her handwriting,
and it makes me giddy.

All it takes is her smile,
and it gives me goosebumps.

All it takes is her kiss,
and it makes my legs weak.

All it takes is her happiness,
and my heart swells with glee.

All it takes is
Her.

Paging Doctors Pham and Sun

Hello all,

For those who have been following my blog faithfully, I give many thanks.  You guys motivate me and encourage me to continue writing for the sake of writing, than just to appease the academic needs of courses.  If you haven't seen Pham's blog yet, it is thephamtommenace.wordpress.com.  Hopefully you guys will give him the same support that you showed me, and support a young and new blogger.

With the two of us going off to medical school this coming fall, we decided to collaborate on a blogging project.  This project will encompass the two of our experiences in different medical schools, and an account of how faith has played into our application processes.  Hopefully, this will help guide the rising Christian (and non-Christian) Pre-Meds get a sense of this mysterious, tedious, and daunting application process.

We will each be bringing in our own experiences, as well as our own writing styles, culminated into a reading that will be not only informative but also enjoyable.  Cheers!

You can find the blog at: phamsunanddelilah.wordpress.com

Post-Graduation...Post

Graduation was precisely how I envisioned it.  When I expect nice weather, it rains; therefore, when I brought a poncho to commencement so as to prepare for the rain, it is 80 degrees with bright sun the entire commencement ceremony.  As I sat next to close friends, fellow seniors and lifelong companions, I watch as people left and right take off their thick, stifling, hot robes in order to get even the slightest bit of cool breeze in the air.  So much for formality and ceremony.  But, at the end of the day, all that is just pomp and circumstance.

Pardon the pun.

One of the purest and most touching moments for me during the graduation, was the talk of Elie Wiesel.  Aside from being amazed at his number of honorary degrees (apparently over 100), one line stood out to me.  "We should celebrate, not denigrate our fellow man."  Is this not what Jesus called us to do in the first place?  We're called, by Jesus, to "Love thy neighbors as thy love thyself."  And believe me, we love ourselves, alright.  I guess what this showed me, is that under the tightest of scrutiny, and philosophy or ethics in the raw, humanity is yearning for an elusive concept trifecta: conciliation, collaboration, and celebration.  It has only reinforced my drive to follow in Jesus' footsteps, and do my best to spread the ministry that has changed my life for the better.

I don't view graduation as a door closing on a era of my life that has now past, but rather, a series of multiple doors that have now opened.  I find myself at an important stage of my life, not because my future career has been determined, but rather, I have realized a little more of how God plans to use me to spread His Word, and be a sign for His Kingdom.

It is an exciting time for us, seniors, now alumni.  We will be travelling into the "real world", with a very real opportunity to spread the effect we've had from God bringing us all to WashU when we were but wee high school seniors.  Let us conciliate with those who may have wronged us in the past, collaborate with those who have gone through the last four years with us, and celebrate the new opportunities that now stand in front of us.

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Psalm 119:105
[Father God], Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

The Big Triple Digits

Hello all!  It's been a blessing, really, blogging and sharing the crazy things that are floating inside my head.  Some of you have been following me since I first started, others, joining as my blogging has progressed and grown with me.  There have been ups and downs, periods where I would blog pretty much every day, and periods of where months would go by, and I wouldn't even know what to write.

I feel obliged to give a longer, more thought out post, when it comes to my 100th post, so it was fitting that it came during a time when my other obligations have been taken care of already.  So enjoy, this one took quite a bit of time of revising and revisiting, so hopefully it turned out okay.  Cheers.

Angels and Demons

It’s sometimes lonely thinking about what I am, or rather, what I’ve become.  Perhaps I’ve been like this for a while.  It was a weird realization of who I am, but when I got a chance to actually look at a true mirror, I saw what I most feared.  My name?  Stromnikos.  They say my name came from the word for electricity, for the violent nature of my temper, the power of my anger and wrath.  But isn’t that how they name all demons?  The very nature that dictates why people who wrong me, well, people tend to avoid that.  But I digress.

It’s not hard to see why people find it difficult to get close to me; fear of being shocked and hurt would deter even the bravest and most stubborn of souls.  But, I find comfort in the few people that I value, for them, it seems like the thunderclouds only make life that much more exciting…like some sick version of Stormchasers.  At any rate, my life is at a more or less standstill.  I hang out with the people who enjoy my company, I don’t go out of my way to mess with people, and we’re all good.  Living the demon life.  Until, that is, I met her.

It’s been said hundreds and thousands of times that Love makes people do stupid things.  But that’s “people”.  Not demons.  Others say that Love is, in actuality, a demon that corrupts and overwhelms a person’s otherwise rational judgment.  That couldn’t be true, since demons don’t mess with other demons; whose side is Love on anyway?  She’s beautiful, I tell myself.  The way she talks makes even this icy heart of mine melt just a little.  The way she smiles warms up everyone else in the room.  The way she cares, well, almost raises a sense of guilt when I turn around and mess with a helpless soul.  But only people do stupid things, right?

One day I found myself talking to this angel.  She smiles sweetly at me, staring straight to my core, through the spiky exterior, through the intimidating glares, and through the defensive thunderclouds that used to be so reliable.  My name’s Castella, what’s yours?  As if the Earth stood still and Father Time decided to take a lunch break, I found myself, surprisingly, at a loss for words. 

I prided myself in demonic wit, in biting satire (literally), and in silly parody humor that would probably offend anyone who wasn’t in on the actual joke.  So why can’t I seem to talk back?  Stro…m…niiikosss.  It literally took forever to get those words out of my mouth.

Stromneeekos?  Cute! Maybe we can spend more time together later?  Bye!  And just like that, she blew open my world.

As the time went on, we spent more time together, my demonic friends gave me grief that I was totally losing my reputation, that I wasn’t worthy of my name anymore…but strangely, I didn’t care.  If Castella thought I was fine the way I was, then I was fine the way I was.  I found myself caring.  I found myself being nice, I found myself restraining every urge to using those thunderclouds.  It was as if…dare I say, trying to impress this angel?  What have I become?

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.  I mean, angels and demons are about as different as black and white.  There couldn’t have been a closer match of polar opposites.  But somewhere deep inside me, I don’t feel like a demon, but rather…a person.

Is it worth pursuing?  Humanity, that is.  I feel like a frog on the bottom off a well, looking upward at the possibilities above, unable to reach it on my own power, unwilling to leave the comforts of the depths.  It’s been an incredible journey…and now that I’ve gotten a taste, I can never truly go back.