Paradise

The garden is a secret paradise. The scents and sights of living things growing, unfurling delicate green leaves even in the brisk cold winter, is simply enrapturing. Several trees are dried-up and brittle, like mere skeletons of their once vibrant and green selves, but life is waiting patiently beneath the hard bark, ready to emerge when spring arrives.

My father gave me several stalks of lemon grass, and the moment I bent my head down to the slender shoots, I could smell the most delightful and fresh fragrance -- sweet, lemony, and so natural that bliss traveled down my body in shivers. Nature can create scents which no human can mimic.

As I was raking the leaves, I felt happy looking at the moist, rich, dark earth. The wet crimson leaves spread beneath the fir trees were more beautiful than any red carpet man could fashion. Several times, I stopped just to touch the smooth bark of a tree branch, or to feel the texture of a leaf.

I really feel that I can become friends with the trees in my garden. They are wise, and they would speak to me if I just listened.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!! I thought perhaps I would outgrow Christmas this year, but today I woke up as excited as any little child. I jumped out of bed and ran to greet my mother: I wanted her beautiful smile to be the first thing I saw on this special day. After all, beneath all the bright and shiny ornaments, the infectious consumerism, and the presents wrapped up in gold and red, Christmas is all about family and loved ones. My heart is overflowing with gratitude.
Thank you, everyone, for being such a wonderful part of my life!

Now I know -- I will always be a kid at Christmas. The magic will never fade away. =)

In This Serenity

Shimmmering so bright guiding light, divine. Flow along the sea of fading stardust.

Our voices ascend to the stars.

"In this Serenity"

To those of you who are still taking finals -- best of luck! To those of you who are done -- I hope you are enjoying the start of Christmas vacation!

As for me, I'm taking my history final in about four hours, and I'm sitting here looking over my notes with anxious energy and excitement over the thought of crossing the finish line. I still have my macroeconomics final tomorrow, so the final-final finish line is still over hill!

Christmas Break Personal Goals:

1) Catch up with leisure reading

2) Learn how to cook better from Daddy Chef

3) Get my 30 minutes of daily exercise

I'm keeping my goals simple and reasonable this break so that I may actually achieve them.

Question of the Day: When will Sather Gate return???

Quotes

These quotes were like a refreshing sip of dewdrops on this sunny Wednesday morning.

A. Powell Davies:
Life is just a chance to grow a soul.

Alice Walker:
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.

Bertrand Russell:
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

Buddha:
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

Elizabeth Drew:
The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

Henri Frederick Amiel:
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

Henry David Thoreau:
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius:
The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes:
It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.

Pearl S. Buck:
The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

Sophia Lyon Fahs:
Life becomes religious whenever we make it so: when some new light is seen, when some deeper appreciation is felt, when some larger outlook is gained, when some nobler purpose is formed, when some task is well done.

The Phantom of the Opera

On Wednesday, I got to see "The Phantom of the Opera" -- my very first musical! The experience was so dream-like: I felt like I had danced into some beautiful fairytale as soon as I emerged from the BART station and saw the Orpheum glittering brightly with golden lights and people chattering excitedly in their classy coats and finely pressed shirts. Everything was so beautiful, from the sparkling champagne glasses to the ornate chandeliers to the winding stairs which led higher and higher up the theater!

As for the musical itself, how can I ever express the torment of emotions that the singers stirred up within me? I especially pitied and was moved by the Phantom. So tormented and tortured, lonely and anguished -- my heart truly broke for him, and though I told myself I wouldn't cry, I couldn't help but shed some tears when he crumpled to the ground after Christine left.

Even a day later, I keep humming the tunes from the musical.

Love

It's true, isn't it?

Love always triumphs.

Kindness

I have pocketfuls of sunshine today, and stars in my hair. I love the freshness of morning. I love waking up to the fragrance of beautiful roses. I love a dash of irony in my cup of humor.

Yesterday I saw a simple-but-warms-your-heart-up act of kindness. A blind man was having trouble finding the railing up the stairs to Sproul Hall, and a woman stopped to guide him patiently. Another man paused to give him directions and describe where the building was relative to the stairs.

You know, when you're blind and the world is steeped in darkness, how valuable must a warm human touch feel! A human hand reaching out to you, and a kind voice that says, "Come, let me help you!".

It was definitely a feel-good moment, the type where bluebirds seem to sing and the world brightens up by ten -- no, a hundred -- shades.

A little bit of sunshine

I remember an incident not long ago when I told my mom I was down in the blues.

Her reply?

"Maybe you need some candies. Sometimes little girls have to have some candies".

Her advice, so impractical and child-like, made me smile.

The blues are only shadows. But the sunshine? It is warm and comforting and makes me dance.

I Like...

It seems so long ago when I bought this lace basket with the tiny napping bear.

I like...

Playing Mario Kart with my friends until my thumbs hurt and my skin feels blistered.

Sipping a mug of hot water with drops of fresh lemon.

The sigh of relief when I step from the cold blustery outside into a warm room.