soulscape

Tonight I went to the gym
And pushed and pulled on the iron machines
Weights swinging back and forth
The rhythmic clanging, the grunting,
The whirring of inventions that make
Us run in place, sweat pouring,
Torturous contraptions they are that
Make our faces contort
But in this obstacle course
Investments are made in blood and perspiration
And my heart is pumping to this moment
That my fingers stroke the keys to form these words
I’m hyped y’all
I’m excited y’all
Because it also happens to be now three days into
A new year
And this is the way to start
To push past your weaknesses
To strain, and claw, and breathe hard
The monster jumps up and gets in your face
But you strike him in the temple
And you let it be known
There’s no stopping you
Today
It’s like it’s said,
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper”
No weapon against me
But there is a God that forms the weapon in my hand
In my voice
This spirit within me
Because there is a different pushing and pulling
A different swinging back and forth
Rhythmic clanging, grunting
The whirring of your soul working
As you run in place, sweat pouring
Against torturous contraptions that
Make our faces contort
But in this obstacle course
Investments are made in prayers and thoughts
And my heart is pumping to this moment
That my fingers stroke the keys to form these words
I’m hyped y’all
I’m excited y’all
Because it is now three days into
A new year
And this is the way to start

My friend Stacey did one of these and myspace, so I thought I would do it too

IN THE YEAR 2008:

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
No, I’m enjoying my current job with Mosaic every much.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
Sure, I haven’t been in a relationship in a long time, and I think I’m ready.

3. New house?
Not likely.

4. What will you do different in ‘08?
Every year I want to grow bolder but wiser. This year, I want to specifically be bolder and wiser in all my relationships.

5. New Years resolution?
To get better with my finances and spend more time investing in people.

6. What will you NOT be doing in ‘08?
Looking back

7. Any trips planned?
Hopefully to Beijing during the Olympics. Maybe Seattle? Probably a couple other trips around the country related to Mosaic/Urban Poets.

8. Wedding plans?
Highly unlikely — still single.

9. Major thing on your calendar?
The Beijing trip should be a major 1-2 week trip. A couple of big conferences (Rethink Conference this month; Awaken 2008 in April; Origins in November). Mostly Mosaic/Urban Poets related.

10. What can’t you wait for?
I look forward to everytime I take stage with my fellow performers. I look forward to those real moments and real conversations with my friends.

11. What would you like to see happen different?
I would like to be able to open up more often, and more quickly. I realize I can have a shell around me with people I don’t know as well.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
I’m getting better but everyday I want to become more determined, more resourceful, more proactive, and less lazy.

13. What happened in ‘07 that you didn’t think would ever happen?
I never figured I would be walking through a vineyard under the full moon in Stellenbosch, an area renowned for its wineries, just outside Capetown in South Africa. That there would be lightning in the distance and close friends nearby. It was a beautiful end to my South Africa trip in ‘07. Like my friend Stacey, I probably never figured I would dance in front of 5,000 people in a multi-million dollar facility, during our trip to Willow Creek. I never figured I would get to work with such talented people, as the people I perform with from Mosaic.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
Nice is one thing. Real and honest is another.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in ‘07?
Maybe…I’ve recently started enjoying more vintage clothing lately. Moving away from the hip-hop/street styles.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
It’s been slowly improving this year.

18. Will you do charity work?
Almost all my dancing is volunteer work.

19. Will you go to bars?
Occasionally…although a drink can also be had in a nice restaurant, or in someone’s home.

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know?
Well I can definitely be nicer.

21. Do you expect ‘08 to be a good year for you?
Yes!

22. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
I feel like I’ve changed a lot in the past year! In fact I feel like a completely different person than three years ago when I returned to Los Angeles.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
Not this year.

24. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
I haven’t had anyone to kiss in many midnights, but who knows?

25. One wish for 2008?
That I have no regrets at the end of the year!

I still remember back to the grade school days, when at the beginning of every new year, it would take a while for me to get used to writing the date on my homework with the new year. There were always inevitably times that I would forget, cross out the old year that I had just written down, and write the new. And the new year written down would always look funny to me for a while.

Well here it is, another funny new year, 2008. Wow. We’re heading towards completing the first DECADE of this new millenium. That’s incredible — it doesn’t seem that long ago that we were worrying about the 2k problem. For you kids that don’t know what I’m referring to, back in the late 90’s, there was concern that computers around the world would crash once the year 2000 hit because software wasn’t designed to have a date year in the 2000’s. Anyway, maybe that does feel like it was a while ago. Strange how ten minutes can pass by so slowly, but then ten years can seem like it went by in a flash.

Anywho…here’s to an amazing 2008, for all of you.

How come all my bloggin’ nowadays seems to be about not being able to go to sleep? This is not the best way to start the new year, no sir. I tried…I lay down in bed around 2am, which is not that late considering it was New Year’s Eve, and of course I was at the requisite New Year’s Eve party. But now it’s just about 3am, and I had given up. I’m back up, lights on, and doing the one thing I could think of right now to occupy my mind — right, myspace.

Yes, I could be reading the Bible…or cleaning my room. But I’m here, where I seem to end up when I can’t sleep.

And yes, coffee makes me emotional. I should have known. I don’t drink much, but because it was New Year’s Eve and I wanted to have energy, I had a frappucino before going to church (Mosaic) at 6pm. I was jazzed during service, dancing like a fool during worship. But by the time I went out with friends to dinner afterwards, I was already fading. No! The night was just beginning!

So I had an iced coffee during dinner. Yes, caffeine does initially pep me up…but then…I start getting emotional. Maybe not outwardly, but my heart seems to get all raw. My heart seems to just sit outside my chest sometimes. Like tonight. And I’m not…normal.

And of course now it’s keeping me up. I’m sitting here feeling all sensitized and alert. What a way to start the new year. It was good earlier today. I went to the gym for the first time in a while, brought an mp3 player to listen to while working out, which got me going. While taking a shower after my (short) workout, I was feeling like I was literally washing away the old, preparing for a NEW DAY. I felt good.

It’s still going to be good. This is going to be a good year, like I think 2006 was a good year. There’s more goodness in store, I can feel it in my heart, which is hanging outside my chest.

I’m about a month behind in welcoming in 2006, at least here on my blog. But I succeeded in posting something up before February hit (about four and a half hours to spare). Why have I been neglecting this? Well, I don’t know, but it has been a melancholy month and a half since I last posted. As December wound down, I had to accept the fact that my job search was effectively on hiatus until the new year.

Back in September, when I finished the last of my undergraduate classes at UCLA, I had decided to work as a Production Assistant on a low-budget movie FOR FREE, just for the experience. I wasn’t in a hurry to start my job search at the time because I figured I had plenty of time. After all, in the past, my job searches had for the most part been quick and efficient. If you had told me I would still be looking as Christmas approached, I wouldn’t have believed you.

With my job search sputtering, I spent some time applying to a couple of grad schools for Creative Writing. In the end, I had applied to New York University and the University of Virginia. When January hit, I must admit I got a slow start on things. I think I had gotten lulled to sleep by the holidays. But by the second week, I had started sending out my resume again. I ended up interviewing for three different positions (in real estate, steel import/export, and for a non-profit union).

Now that I look back on it, perhaps I was meant to come back to the non-profit realm. After some frustrating months of searching and waiting, the non-profit gig kind of came together pretty quickly and smoothly. Today was my second day in the office, and I will say it’s a busy office with some interesting characters. In only my second day, I found myself sweating a little bit trying to keep pace with the workload. Interestingly enough, though, since it’s a union, they seem to be very insistent that we take hour-long lunches, two fifteen minute breaks, and that we leave promptly at 5:30pm. Now I can get used to that!

February will be a month of getting back into the swing of full-time life, of getting used to not having all the free time I’ve gotten used to. But I look ahead to March and see a busy and exciting month. March, and perhaps April, will be for a very specific reason one of the most important months this year.

Oh, another year past, and I know every single one of us is saying, “Didn’t 2004 just start?”

A year ago I was in Vegas, looking to call in the New Year for the first time in Sin City, and well, it was anti-climactic. I am not proud to say I was at the blackjack tables for the first few hours of 2004. At the very least I can say I accomplished one thing this past year — I got over my stubbornness and went back to school. It’s all relative I guess. I did accomplish a lot in my personal life, but hey, we Americans don’t count that kind of stuff

On a very different subject, I found myself watching tsunami video last night online. Since it’s so far away happening to non-Western countries and peoples, I don’t think most of us have really thought about it. Heck, I’ve only heard one of my friends mention it, and we mostly talked about the magnitude of the earthquake, not about the tsunamis and aftermath on the peoples of the region. But boy, when you watch these videos, and you see the water rushing ashore, tearing everything in its path asunder, and you see the people running for their lives, how can it not bring it closer to home? When I picture tsunami, I imagine this towering wall of water, unrealistically hovering hundreds of feet in the air. Well, it wasn’t like that, but you still see the power of nature. You are surprised to see the force with which these waves rush onto shore, ripping apart buildings. One particularly memorable video showed the waters rushing through a resort restaurant. You see two old men trying to hold onto each other in the waters, until another wave comes through and sweeps them away out of the camera’s view. You see the inside of the restaurant flooded with raging water, and you hear shattering glass all around you. I can imagine that many people caught in the early moments of this disaster must have felt that the world was coming to an end.

Well, not a very upbeat way to end 2004, but then, for hundreds of thousands of people in Asia, this is reality right now. Meanwhile, most of us will be delighting with friends and perhaps having a champagne toast at midnight tonight.

I will call in the New Year in LA this year, well, first Altadena, then in Chinatown. Hope everyone else has a safe time whereever you are.