Hello all.

Today I was checking my Yahoo Mail, and I realized that I had a Word of the Day folder. I had not opened this in a while. When I had been studying the SATs, I had subscribed to dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. It somewhat worked until I put a filter on the messages that referred them to a new folder dedicated to this very subscription. Anyway, I almost never looked at any of the Word of the Day’s since then. So I have 892 unread messages in that folder. I found that to be enough waste, so I unsubscribed. But if anybody is interested in any of the Dictionary.com Word of the Day’s dating back to 7/9/06, let me know.

A few years back, I also filtered incoming Facebook email notifications to another folder. That has 7454 messages.

Today I talked a lot of Chinese with some people from China. It was good practice.

Tomorrow I’ll be leading worship. I haven’t been on a worship team since summer.

I’m going to get a new phone soon. It’s going to be the same model. The main difference is that it won’t lag as much, and the #9 will be more sensitive. Wonderful. The lady selling us the phones reminded me of myself in my Cutco days.

Ha. When I started the job, I had been planning on sticking to it in college to some extent. I have since abandoned that dream.

I also realized today that I don’t have much money. Besides my stock account that I’m not allowed to withdraw from until I am 20, I haven’t been this poor since possibly middle school. What a thought. I’ll blame Bush for that, because he’s the scapegoat for everything anyway. Just kidding.

Another thing I’ve been learning about recently is the variety of churches in existence. It’s interesting to come back from college and hear what kind of churches my high school friends are settling down in. I’ve also learned that I’ve become more opinionated in such matters since leaving. That works in a good and bad way.

The other day I looked up a bunch of Weezer, and though I’ve always thought they were overrated and simplistic (Beverley Hills), I’m liking them. I like their early stuff.

That’s all for now. I’m leaving Monday for LA, and I’ll be back Thursday. Then I’ll have two more weeks of break. I scoff at you quarter system folk.

– Larry

Recently, a lot of my friends have been getting into relationships. Some of which are healthy, some of which are not. And I’ve been talking to them and listening to sermons and reading Bible passages on dating. It’s been a very interesting learning process. At first there were just so many differing opinions that I didn’t know what to think. But it’s slowly coming together.

We can spend all day bringing up passages about being unequally yoked and such, but I think sometimes we forget that we are here for God. Everything in life comes down to living for His glory. As John Piper puts it, at the end of time, marriage will be no more, but worship is still eternal. When people try to break everything down in a theological step-by-step “moral” way, they often forget that.

This is what I mean. God isn’t just a dude who made a bunch of rules for us to follow. He’s a best friend, and He’s Savior and Lord. And such a relationship has no formula. In fact, relationships as a whole are not formulaic or mathematical. When we love someone, we strive to please that person not just because it’s a duty but because we find joy in pleasing that person. When we love God, it is no different. It’s not an issue concerning how I can date without disobeying God or how I can date without screwing up my relationship with God. It’s about how I can glorify God through what I do. If 1 Corinthians tells us to glorify God through what we eat and drink, surely we can glorify God through how we date. And we do it for our joy.

I realize that you can’t force yourself to have joy. But when God is your #1, joy is only natural.

– Larry

Hey.

So I have returned. Let me tell you about my return. In my opinion, it was an adventure.

When I flew into Cornell in August, I chose to fly into Ithaca, because that is the city in which Cornell was located. I soon learned that it is in fact more expensive flying in and out of Ithaca than other larger cities nearby, even when taking into account the bus fares to and from those cities. Syracuse and Rochester were the two cities I could remember from those conversations. I decided to choose Rochester before much researching. Before I knew it, I had bought a plane ticket. It was under $400, round-trip. I was proud, for I had bought it pretty early on, and it was relatively cheap.

Alas, the clash began. I soon discovered that I had scheduled the wrong date. It cost $150 to fix the date. I had lost my earnings from flying out of Rochester. Too late to change now. I stuck with it. I soon discovered that essentially nobody flew out of Rochester. Everybody who flew home flew from Ithaca or Syracuse. Reason #1 would be that Syracuse is closer to Ithaca than Rochester is. Reason #2 would be that Cornell provides transportation to the Ithaca and Syracuse airports.

Transportation. Never fear, I thought. I boldly went online and bought a Greyhound ticket for $28. Not too bad. The flight was set at December 18, 5:09pm. The Greyhound was scheduled for 2:00, with an arrival time of 3:50pm. Good enough. As the day approached, I realized that the Greyhound bus station was a couple miles from campus. Not to worry, the city bus provides free transportation for first-year students. And I also realized that the Greyhound bus does not go to the Rochester airport. I needed a taxi to get from the Rochester bus station to the Rochester airport. (I came to realize later that Greyhound also provides transportation to the airport at a cheaper rate than a taxi) I called up a taxi and asked them to pick me up at 4pm. Affirmative. Now the trip began.

I woke up at 10am, did laundry and my final packings, and I was able to hit Bus #81 at 11:40 to Uris Library, #30 at 12:14 to the Commons, and #14 at 12:25 to the Ithaca Bus Station. Not bad. I was one and a half hours early, which leaved room for lunch. I bought a muffin and a coffeebread thing.

The Greyhound arrived at 2:40. That was bad. I had an interesting conversation with a student from Ithaca College that spanned from school to politics to religion. I eventually left him a John Piper tract. Meanwhile, I had called the taxi guy and told him that I was going to arrive around 4:30. I did. I was very much in a hurry now, because my flight was to leave at 5:09. I ran off the bus and found a bunch of taxis. One of them waved me over, and I asked if this was the one reserved for Larry. He said “yes” but I’m not sure if he heard my question. Nonetheless, I got in. Then I realized that I didn’t have any cash, so I rushed out to an ATM machine nearby. I got in the car, and the driver, seeing my hurried condition, drove at a relatively fast pace. During this car ride, I got a call from the taxi driver I called up earlier, and I realized I was in the wrong taxi, and the guy was still waiting at the bus station. I was too speechless to apologize, and he hung up before I got the chance to do so. I arrived at 4:55. The taxi cost $25.

I ran into the Northwest Airlines line. Luckily nobody was in line. Unluckily nobody was at the counter either. I waited there quite foolishly until 5:15. About this time, I was telling myself never to fly Northwest ever again. I was referred to a phone against the wall, where I could call a Northwest representative to try to reschedule another flight. The phone rang for about two minutes, and nobody picked up. Then I went around asking other airlines if they had any flights to the Bay Area that night. Delta, AirTran, and JetBlue said no, they’re full. I decided to call Northwest again. This time, someone picked up. He said they were full for the night, but they had open seats for 6:45am the next day. Because it was a one-day notice, and because it was the season for spending much money, the ticket cost about $900. They also had another flight for the afternoon of the next day for $600. Considering that I only have a $700 credit card limit, it wasn’t a smart move to purchase it. I went to the sofas, reminded myself that God was God, and I sat down.

Then I realized that I never asked United Airlines yet. Oh trusty United Airlines. I inquired, and they had a one-stop flight at 7:51pm. I was to stop in Washington, DC, then take a plane to San Francisco. The plane to San Francisco had one available seat that was worth about $400. One seat. Amazing. I took it.

The departure time of my second flight was half an hour ahead of the arrival time of my first flight. And the planes were in seperate terminals. That meant I had to rush. The first plane took off ten minutes late. During this plane flight, I came up with an idea that I really liked. I will not disclose that idea to the public.

The first plane flew faster than normal. I arrived in Washington with enough time to spare. I boarded the second plane and found myself next to none other than a Cornell student. He was an international student from Indonesia. We also talked a bit, but we both soon fell asleep. The second plane arrived around 1:30am, a little later than expected, but it didn’t matter anymore. I was in California. My dad picked me up, and we went home.

Lesson of the Day #1: God is God.

Lesson of the Day #2: Fly out of Syracuse.

– Larry

I think I get turned off by people who complain a lot. And a lot of people at Cornell complain. I also realize that I complain a lot. It’s something that ties us all together.  There is no conversation that I hear more often than the one below:

A: How’d you do on that test?
B: Not too good.
A: Haha don’t worry. I bombed it too.
B: That’s good to know. That lowers the mean for me.

Seriously, it seems like that’s all people care about. Doing well on tests relative to the class. Sometimes, I listen to these conversations, and they seem so pointless to me. Neither of the two seem to be paying attention to the other one’s complaints. They just taken turns complaining to each other.

Now, let’s say Person B continues to complain so much about the test that Person A eventually stops complaining because he feels bad for Person B. When they get their tests back, it is discovered that Person B actually did better than Person A did. This is a common scenario that I have witnessed (and taken part in) countless times. Not only will Person A realize that he was victim to the talk-myself-into-having-low-expectations-so-I-will-like-my-test-score strategy, but he will also feel like he had the right to complain more than Person A did. On the next test, he will be sure to complain more.

But stop right there. That’s exactly where we lost it. The thing is that neither of the two should complain in the first place, because they both got what they deserved.

Complaining, in many cases, is a form of self-pity. Complainers want others to know that they did not get what they wanted. In other words, they are announcing that they deserve more relative to their efforts. “Man I have to get at least a 3.5” is essentially “My efforts should be worth at least a 3.5.” What a prideful thing to imply. Especially if it’s not true.

When people say “Man I have to get at least a 3.5” though they know their inputed efforted won’t grant them a 3.5, they’re implying that they are better than they really are. On the other hand, when people say “Man I don’t think I can break 3.0” when they know they can easily do so, they are implying the unfairness in the system, because they deserve at least a 3.0. They’re telling everybody to look at how much they’re suffering. Essentially, they’re also implying that they are better than they really are.

I’m not saying that you cannot share test scores or GPAs. But there really is a point when the sharing becomes emotional pride swings. That’s the dangerous line.

And I’m a huge hypocrite while I write this.

So what?

I resolve to complain less. The purpose of my life isn’t to take tests anyway. Or to get a good job. Or to get rich. Oh no. There are better things to live for.

– Larry

Hello.

Motivated by influences such as Ben Hutton, I have decided to move on from Xanga and enter the realm of the sophisticated WordPress. So far it’s been good. I see potential in this site. I think I’ll start investing it more and more as the time flies by. Perhaps in the future, when I become filthy rich, I will register my own domain name.

I have finals tomorrow, Monday, and Wednesday. I am not studying for them. Therefore, I am currently not a good time manager.

I’m flying back to California on Thursday, December 18th. I wonder how people have changed. It’ll be exciting to see them all again.

That’s all for now. God bless ye merry gentlemen. And ladies.

– Larry