* tiny but powerful *

This news article did not make me happy this morning.

For good measure, here's the interview with Dr. Francis Collins (director of the National Human Genome Research Institute) that Justin linked to earlier this year, from "The Question of God" PBS series.

Also, in response to the first article, Jeff Russell sent me to this discussion of issues that emerged from Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga's "When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible." (Side note: Some of you may remember when Alvin Plantinga came to speak at Stanford two years ago.)

You can probably tell how *I* prefer to deal with the issue of science and religion. :-P

Happy Birthday, David Hsu!

Thoughts from DL tonight:
- The Scottish pieces...need polishing. Among other things.
- I'm bad at charleston.
- Charleston + tango = SIGH.
- Why can't I escape Edo??
- Mike cannot be my tango partner. I can't last more than 3 seconds without laughing.
- At least I can waltz...

We spent the last 20 minutes of Music class today taking and then discussing this "personality test". You can imagine the kind of comments and controversy it spawned. Aiya...

I'm also thankful for...
- having another great random roommate this year
- The River
- having a car, with which to get around and to help other people get around
- weekly hangouts with Kari on Wednesday nights
- bops
- Opening being in the good hands of BMW
- Joan generously loaning me two dresses for DL
- bop-star!

We've discovered that Chloe is terrified of balloons. It's pretty hilarious. The night before Thanksgiving (after my brother's party), he said he heard Chloe barking loudly at something in the middle of the night. He went downstairs to see what was the matter... and it was a drooping helium balloon that had floated into the kitchen near her doggy bed. Sooo funny! The next day, we retested his theory by lining the front hallway with no-longer-floating balloons. When we called to her to come out and play, she wouldn't dare run through the balloons! Hahahaha. Poor Chloe. No balloons on her birthday, I guess. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In honor of the occasion, I'm going to make a Thankful list, like the ones I used to post here on this blog -- and I hope to start doing that more regularly again. Maybe it'll be a good way to get myself blogging more often again, too. It's good to remember to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18). Anyway, since I haven't written in so long, I'm just going to put down anything that comes to mind from recent memory, in no particular order. The list, of course, will in no way be exhaustive. God is so good that I can't even remember all the blessings. :)

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done." - Psalm 105:1

I am thankful for...
- MY BROTHER!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIM! :-D
- the rest of my family too :)
- successfully surprising Tim last night
- seeing so many of my brother's HS friends all in one place to celebrate with him
- that he really enjoyed and appreciated the party
- looking through my Thankful lists from last November and enjoying all the memories
- funny quotes that make me laugh...recorded for all posterity on my quote page (updated!)
- my favorite Thanksgiving foods: mashed potatoes and PUMPKIN PIE
- my brother's party + cooking for Thanksgiving finally making this house feel more homey
- my BLUE room!
- finally finding blue fabrics for my Victorian gown
- my favorite flower
- paper extensions
- girldates with Chi-En
- drive-by hugs from Eric on IM
- Kari designing and sketching a Ragtime-era dress for me
- "Before the Throne of God Above"
- David Jones, who is an insightful, wise, learned, well-spoken, and humble teacher
- Mozart's Requiem sounding *amazing* in MemChu
- so many people coming to see me in the USingers concert -- dance friends, RUF friends, old Tmony friends, my family, my roommate, and even my old AB supervisor
- emails from people who couldn't make it but wanted to wish me well
- Advil working when I need it!
- usually USingers concerts average an audience of 250-300...but something like *800* people came to hear the Requiem! Whoa! (ran out of tickets and programs and apparently the line stretched out into the middle of the Quad!)
- our USingers director being so pleased! "An excellent concert - really, really first-rate. Definitely the best concert I've done with you all in the time that I've been director of this group."
- Ragtime Ball = OVER. OVER OVER OVER.
- laughing hysterically at Bryan for *completely* missing me during DL's performance because he didn't recognize me wearing pink! HAHAHA
- Bryan actually coming to Ragtime!
- RUF retreat
- David realizing we had a *quartet* in my car on the way back from retreat (4 voice parts over 4 different Tmony generations!)
- only getting slightly lost in SF that time
- reflecting on how much RUF has grown over the past year (in size and otherwise)
- seeing Testimony carry on its legacy at Stanford, and feeling affirmed that God didn't intend me to be part of that this year
- email from a Tmony member's mom who just wanted to comment that the website looks great
- email from a friend who visited the Tmony website: "i was really, really blessed and moved by your testimony. thanks so much for sharing so openly about what God's been showing you and growing you to know of him in college. it really encouraged me and i really liked the clarity in the way you communicated your testimony."
- thinking back on all the things God's been growing me in in the past year

That's about all I can muster for now, but I'm sure there's plenty that I'm missing, so maybe I'll add more as I think of them later this weekend. I hope you all have been able to reflect on the blessings in *your* lives, too. :)

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." - James 1:17

Tonight is going to be my first night at the Bellingham house (in my BLUE room!)... I need to find bedsheets...

TEEHEE for surprising my brother tonight for his birthday!!! :-D

I finally got my first full night's sleep in a long time. To celebrate, I figured I'd do something else that I haven't done in a long time: write in this blog. And also laundry.

It's been a stressful couple of weeks, though I really can't complain that much because I've been through worse midterm seasons and I know a lot of people who had (and are still having) it much worse than I. But it was still hard. Paper-writing, basically, is the bane of my existence. (It used to be ochem.) At least my other exams are over, and now I have another week before another music paper is due. =P

I know I've been rather vague about my blahness lately, but I was really touched to wake up this morning to find a handful of messages from people who said they're praying for me. Thanks, guys. There's just a lot on my mind these days. Plus, back pain peaked for me over the weekend, and it kept me from sleeping much/well on Saturday night. It's still flaring up off and on, but it's better than a couple days ago. I know, I know - I should see a doctor.

Danse Libre has been going well. We had our first performance on Oct. 30th, and on the whole I think it went quite well, despite feeling only mediocre about my personal performance. I didn't forget any choreography or make any big mistakes, but I kept noticing little details that I really wanted to fix but couldn't risk actually fixing for fear of messing up something bigger. I'm just really bad with "firsts", and there were a lot of firsts for me that night: dancing in Roble under stage lighting, dancing the Esmeralda in my Victorian dress (we hadn't run it at rehearsal before we changed out of costume), and just performing with DL in general (very different than performing with Opening). Our second performance on Nov. 6th for the Alumni Dance Concert went *much* better for me personally. Just the familiarity of having gone through it before made a HUGE difference. I was able to dance without being overwhelmed by how new everything was. Also, many thanks to Lily for doing my hair with all her Victorian accessories (and without hairspray!).

Friday Night Waltz was fun - good to be back after missing the October one for Testimony auditions. I went to the 8:00 lesson and finally learned the Scotch Reel formally. Kari had taught me the sequence of steps a couple years ago after I got back from Spain, but I'd never physically danced it with a set before. So now I actually know it! That made me happy.

Even though I decided last weekend that I'd be staying at The River, I wasn't able to live out that decision just yet, because RUF had already been asked to lead worship at Grace this past Sunday. It was much more low-key than what we did last spring on Mother's Day, so this time it was just me, David Jones, David Scudder, and Rob. My second experience doing *that* was also quite different (I felt really weird about it last May). Maybe it's from having done worship longer in the RUF context, so I've grown in how I approach worship-leading from a heart and mind perspective. In any case, I think it went well.

I'm really happy with how small group is going, too. Last week I was finally able to stay till the end without rushing off to WCS (sad as it is that WCS is over). I'm enjoying growing more comfortable with the other girls, and I love how Mindi leads the study. We had a fun "coffee break" a couple days ago and that was good for getting to know each other better without feeling pressured for time.

I was also going to write about USingers (yay) and Ragtime (BLARG), but I'm a little blogged out now. Maybe more later. Take care, everyone.