Author Archives: The Yellow Forest

05.31.12
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What is Clear?

Awhile back, I asked God to make things clear on the direction he would want me to go.  I wanted it to be clear, to know that it was His leading and not my own.

These past few weeks have been tough, been wrestling a lot with different situations, thoughts, ideas, and emotions.  So far nothing has been clear.  I haven’t been getting a sense of the direction I should be taking – I haven’t heard Him.

This morning, a random date popped into my head.  The date was clear.  That was the clearest thing in my head in awhile.  Is that a sign?  Is that God speaking or is it my subconscious making things up?  So then I asked God to make it clear if that was Him.  It’s funny though because I guess I never defined what “clear” meant in my head.  What makes something clear?  If that date was clear, but I’m still wondering if that’s God, then it isn’t very clear!  Or, I just don’t know what my definition of clear is.

What puts someone over the edge?  How long do I wait?  Am I supposed to be taking a leap of faith?  I don’t know.  I don’t know.

I still don’t know.  It’s not clear enough.  =

05.29.12
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It Has Been Opened.

I’ve begun to open more and more of Pandora’s box.  It’s a bit liberating.  It’s a bit crazy.

As I dig and dig, it has become very apparent that something I extremely value is trust.  It takes me a lot to trust and when I get to that point and the trust gets broken – it rubs me the wrong way.  It was interesting.  I was asked if something ever happened that made me value trust so much.  Was I betrayed or wronged in the past?  Did something major happen?  Nothing I can think of off the top of my head.  I think I try to be a trustworthy person and when it isn’t reciprocated, it’s not to my liking.  Maybe it’s because I’m a private person.  Who knows…?

I’m tired.  I’m tired of it all.  Tired of it everyday.  I have to pump myself up everyday.

I’m revisiting my options.  I’m trying to discern.  I’m looking for direction.  I’m learning to trust.  I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know when something is going to happen.

Fighting the good fight doesn’t work anymore.  It’s not worth it.

I went to the beach today.  Just sat there, prayed, read through James.  There was some pretty good stuff in there.  I think I will re-read it again.

As I was leaving, this girl started talking to me.  I must have had the talk to me sign on.  However, it wasn’t weird this time and it was actually a nice conversation and I actually felt more happy and positive after talking to her even though it wasn’t about anything.  She was new to the area and was asking about what other places there were to walk around.  We small talked about what she liked to do.  I thought about asking her to come to church but I didn’t.  I figure I’ll save that for later.  I told her I would go have boba with her sometime.  She doesn’t know anyone.  Maybe she can become a part of Exodus.

05.29.12
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move along move along

Today was actually kind of relaxing which was nice.  I did “nothing” for a good part of the day.  It was so restful.  I haven’t had time to do that in a LONG time.  It was nice to that Memorial Day off.

However, the week begins again so let’s rock and roll.

Try to keep things moving.  Try to seek God’s word for things that are going on in my life instead of Google.  Pray more for other people.  Try to stay positive.  Try to keep chugging along.

[When everything is wrong, we move along

(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along
Along, along, along

When all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through]
-All American Rejects

05.28.12
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Inadequate

A lot of things go through my mind…

A lot of things go through my mind all the time…

I’ve been feeling quite inadequate lately…

Inadequate as a friend, inadequate as a person, inadequate as a follower of Christ, just inadequate.

Inadequate when I’m not at home.

There are things to be done, but I’m unable to do them.  Why are things so hard?  Why?

Makes me incredibly lame as a person.

05.26.12
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Sick Cycle Carousel

I’m not sure about much these days.  =

I don’t know what I want.  I don’t know what God wants.

I don’t know what to do.  I think I’m after something but I’m holding myself back.  It’s getting so confusing that it’s all a blur and everything is just unclear.  It’s like a glimmer of hope, following a string, that leads to nowhere.

I’m slowly opening pandora’s box.

[So when will this end? It goes on and on
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won’t stop
Till I step down from this

Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle, yeah
Sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle yeah]
-LIFEHOUSE

I just don’t want to deal with any of it anymore.

I know, nobody said it was easy.

05.23.12
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Maximizing Your Potential

It’s late, it’s late.  However, I’m up because I am MAXIMIZING MY POTENTIAL! lol.  =P

I was over at C. place reading these papers she had that someone gave her a long time ago about how to “maximize your potential”.  There were 5 steps:  Vision, Daily Action, Sustaining Energy, Gratitude, and I can’t remember the last one haha.  However, the one about sustaining energy was one of the ones that kind of stuck out to me.  It was about taking action because a lot of the times when you feel bogged down and feel like you don’t have the strength or energy to do something – you can choose to do nothing and soak in your lack of energy or motivation or get up and move because once you start moving, you will have that energy.  (Wow that was a long sentence)

Sometimes I find myself not taking action and I know this and it’s hard for me.  But since I was inspired by what I read, I decided to take some more action this evening.

Oh yeah and I have a new goal which is to try to be more positive – which is hard because I’m negative Nancy.  See, even that statement itself is negative.  It’s all about perspective and how you choose to view things, so I’m going to TRY to be more positive and see what happens in life.

05.20.12
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Back to Life

Back to reality.

I’m glad to be back where there is fresh air, where there are western style toilets, and where I can sleep in my own bed.

It’s been great to hang out with all my friends again.

It was great to go on a run.

I’m a little sick.

I’m not really jet lagged…surprisingly.  We’ll see if I can wake up in the morning.

Not looking forward to the daily grind though.  =

05.15.12
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Taiwan Day 4

I’ve lost count of the days.

Today was a good day.  :)

Started off the morning at the Taroko Gorge.  We strapped on our safety helmets and walked around for about an hour.  The view was beautiful and awesome.  We were surrounded by tall lush mountains and marble rocks – in between, the Liwu (sp?) river sliced through.  As I was standing there, I was able to just marvel at God’s beautiful creation.  I’m not one to like the forest/wilderness but standing there and just taking it all in – it was beautiful and amazing.  The photos from the camera do not capture the beauty of the place.  It was nice.  I was also able to drink some iced coffee made from the mountain spring water.  It tasted normal.  Ha.

Oh yes, prior to that, a couple somehow got their important things (I’m assuming passports) stuck in the safe deposit box in the hotel.  They couldn’t get it open forever.  Finally they did – I’m assuming the hotel has a way to mass “reset” “reboot” it.

Anyway, then we had lunch at some restaurant.  This was a better lunch than most places.  The fried dumpling (guo tieh?) was the best I’ve tasted.  We also had seafood salad, chinese hamburger, green onion pancake, shrimp spinach soup, drunken chicken, fish, asparagus, watermelon, and pumpkin taro mochi.

Then we were off to shop at a bunch of little dessert/goodie shops – mostly mochi, pineapple cake (popular from Taiwan), and various candies.  I saw a shop and was able to get a 2nd boba of the trip.  However, I was so freaking full I couldn’t drink it all.  It wasn’t as good as 50-lan.  However, it was so freaking cheap.  It was the size of a large in the states and it was less than $1.  Crazy.

Hopped on a train to head to the hotel.  Hotel Royal Chiao Hsi.  This has been the best hotel so far.  This hotel is so freaking cool and it’s so pretty.  It’s got 4 outdoor hot springs where you have to get naked – that I did not participate it.  It’s got a water therapy pool, jacuzzi, and swimming pool area.  Doctor Fish – have you heard of that before?  I got the dead skin eaten off my feet by fish…lol.  Sounds nasty.  I was so afraid to put my feet into the water.  And it was so unbearable that I couldn’t leave my feet in for more than 10 seconds at the beginning.  It felt so weird having fish biting you!!  And it was so freaking ticklish I almost died.  Finally, after awhile and many tries, I was able to leave my feet in.

Oh yeah, talk about weight loss problems.  So, I hadn’t tried on my swimsuit in a long time because I don’t really go swimming because I don’t like water.  So when I put it on so we could go to the pool/jacuzzi, I realized that it didn’t fit because it was too big.  Fail.  And so the only alternative was a sports bra I had.  I have never worn anything besides a tankini top before.  It was the first time I ever just wore a sports bra out.  It was weird and I was so self conscious.  Plus that part of my body is like a totally different person’s body because the color is so different lol.

Anyway, back to the hotel.  It has 3 ping pong tables, 2 pool tables, foosball, all these computers, reading areas with bean bags, and more.  It’s gym is pretty nice and you can even rent gym shoes lol in case you forgot yours.  And each room says what time it was disinfected!!!  Crazy.  Today, I would have actually been able to use the gym but I after the first day in Taipei, we had to only bring 4 days of clothes for the tour part and so I didn’t bring any gym clothes.

Dinner – I was weary about having a dinner buffet.  I don’t really like buffets that much in general so I was already not really excited about it.  Turns out this is one of the best buffets I have had.  The reason why it was good was not only because the food tasted good but that they had so many different kinds of fancy things in small portions.  It was high quality food in small portions so you could get a taste.  They had escargot in brandy sauce, hainan chicken, rib eye steak, sashimi, lamb in red wine sauce, fish mousse with green tea jelly (I didn’t try this), and so much more.  The fruit was good, the dessert was fancy, and all around a great experience.

Now I am really sleepy.  The end.

Oh yes.  Observation:  Taiwan has a lot of random steps everywhere, sometimes down and sometimes up, I almost ate it – only 3 times.  :)

05.14.12
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Taiwan Day 3

Yeah, I need to work on my titles.

Every night at dinner, I want to pass out.  I get so tired and then start feeling sick.  That happened again today, but I got a second wind which is how I am still awake right now.  I also stepped and almost slipped on someone’s vomit.  It was so disgusting and then the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to throw up.  ::gag:: literally.

Anyhow.

I am now realizing that most of this tour is visiting the indigenous tribes of Taiwan.  Normally, I would actually find learning and hearing about these cultures quite interesting, but since I can’t understand half the things people are saying – it is less interesting.

Our first stop this morning was for about 10 minutes at the Tropic of Cancer.  Nothing too exciting to look at.  Snapped a few pictures.  Done.

Fataan Wetland in Hualien (I think)
This was our next stop where we learned about the Amis people.  These people are quite interesting as they are a matriarchal society, where women dominate.  Men get married off, not women.  If the guy goes and gets married, and him and his wife have a lot of kids, but they don’t have any girls, the wife can force a divorce. The way the guy finds out is actually quite interesting.  Every night, when the man sleeps, he puts up his sword somewhere.  If the woman decides to “divorce” him or kick him out, she will wrap all his belongings and his sword and toss it outside the front door.  If the man wakes up and sees that his sword is gone, he knows that he has been kicked out.

We spent some time learning about how they fish, which they create some crazy contraption made out of bamboo, sticks, and some leaves.  They just leave it in the water and they can catch 3 kinds of creatures.  One section will catch fish without scales, one with scales, and one for shrimp and other smaller animals.

The village they live in also contains tons and tons of different plants – reminded me of the hunger games.  The lady knows all the different plants there are and which ones can be eaten and which ones can’t.  We ate a meal with a lot of these random veggies that grow only in that village.  I didn’t know what half the stuff was.  All of the vegetables we ate were picked fresh that morning from the village.  They don’t go to the “supermarket”.

Then we also got to “make” mochi.  They had a gigantic mortar and pestle and we got to take turns pounding the crap out of some sticky rice.  A dip in some peanut crumb stuff and yum!  They also had a wasabi mayo dip that F. might like.  :)  It looked and sounded strange, but people said it was good!

Taroko National Forest – Taroko Gorge
Our next stop was heading up into the Taroko National Forest.  I had no idea this was the type of tour we were taking!  Another tribe comes from here, I think it is called the Taroko people.  Anyway, we didn’t do too much here today – I think we’re doing more in the morning.  I’m actually staying at a hotel in the forest now.  There are all kinds of crazy creatures here – I haven’t seen too many ones in real life – just the video they showed.  Oh yeah!  The noise of the cicadas here is crazy loud.  It’s so loud!!  I did see a lot of different butterflies and 3 really really large nasty spiders!  Large like the size of my hand large – not kidding.  Tomorrow we will be sporting some helmets and walking around and sightseeing.

There’s a pool and Jacuzzi on the rooftop of this hotel – it’s pretty nice.  The view of the stars is beautiful.   I was just starting up at the stars and was reminded of God’s magnificence and how He is everywhere – even here in Taiwan.  :)

Let’s see – other random things.  There are dogs everywhere!  Most of them have collars and they just chill there.  So calm and harmless.  They don’t even care about the people walking around them.  I have 5 large mosquito bites on my left knee – some mosquito had a field day.  How’s that American blood taste?  I miss hearing and speaking English.  When I see non-asian people, I want to talk to them – but I don’t.  The weather is gross but not as gross as it was when I was in HK and Japan.  You still sweat doing nothing here lol but not as much.  I get to come home with a luggage full of sweaty clothes – gross!

I guess I should sleep now.  Peace.