The Volleyball Tournament aka Galbi Buffet

BBC had its annual volleyball tournament yesterday. The games were competitive and even my team had some bad records throughout the summer practices, did surprisingly better. Fortunate for us, we had Austin and Jon Jdsn joining our team so that Jung Uk's burden (apparently, he's our only hitter and setter) could be divided to them. Everyone played their best yesterday despite our (excluding the staffs) athletic ineptness, although we did not win any prizes. The freshman team became the champion (with Daniel's unbelievable feat in returning spikes). Almost everyone was bitter with the freshman team because they stacked their team in the middle of the tournament (which is somewhat dirty, if not illegal, IMO). However, I'm contented with my prize: galbi (mmm... yummy). It's a Korean style bbq ribs which are sliced across the ribs and marinated with this wonderful (somehow remained secret to me) sauce that nothing can go wrong with galbi. However, I made a terrible mistake by drinking coke after eating the galbi and was inundated by uneasy and sick feeling in my stomach. That made me more cautious about drinking sodas after or during buffet in the future. And because of that, I could not enjoy the Chinese buffet at Tin Tin restaurant that we went to after the volleyball tournament, although I managed to stuff myself with some oysters, crab legs and shrimps. Mmmm....

Finally I got to watch Cars today. I'm not really into cars (especially race cars), but almost everyone that I talked to told me that it was really good, so I thought that I should give it a try. And I did not regret that decision. Perhaps this is the first time I mentioned in this blog that I really appreciate heartrending movies, and Cars is definitely one of those movies that reached into me and moved my sentiment. It's a very typical Disney movie with predictable storyline, but yet it leaves significant influences to its audience. It starts off with a rookie (and of course, immature) Mr. "One-man-show" race car (Lightning McQueen) who only cared about winning the Piston Cup and did not care if he had true friends. A misfortunate event happened to him and he detoured into a small sleepy and abandoned town Route 66 of Radiator Springs where he was forced to do community service in the town to fix the road that he damaged on his way there. And our hero-to-be was subjected to many humbling moments by befriending the rusty cars, the cars which he did not want to have anything to do with before. There, he learned many driving tricks which most ignorant race cars were ignorant of and he got to see the infamous champion of the Piston Cup for 3 times - the Hudson Hornett - showing off his "turn left if you want to turn right" stunt, which led Lightning McQueen to take the lead of the race. However, the most heartfelt scene of the movie was when McQueen finally realized that there are more important things than trophies which caused him to relinquish his championship to aid a crushed car to finish his race. He finally discovered that life is about the journey, and not the finishing line.

It is easier to know what McQueen realized than realizing it. This message is not alien to me; however, I am still looking only at the finishing line. Very often after I crossed the line, I could not feel completely accomplished and was left with insatiable feeling. And yet each time whenever I'm in a race or a trip, I failed to enjoy the journey. Perhaps this is attributed to my impatience that made me only look forward to the results. Maybe I am over-competitive. Or maybe I am just lazy that I want to get over with anything that I do as quickly as possible. Whatever it is, I must remember to take deep breaths, sit back and appreciate things around me once in a while, instead of only using them as stepping stones towards my goal. Although deep down in my heart I wanted to give up my trophy for a more meaningful cause, I don't think that I could. That's why I am ashamed of myself at times.

The Return of Elansargelmir

Gosh! It had been a month since I logged on here. It's not that I went far away from civilization and got deprived of the internet. It was sheer slothfulness that I did not bother logging on. Many exciting and horrible things happened for the past month, but none of those events got scribbled down here. Well, I guess that I will just have to briefly (yes, briefly) summarize the major highlights of my life in the month of July.

I guess the most significant thing that actually happened to me was realizing that I had not been actually praying sincerely throughout my life. There were times when I earnestly prayed for God's aid, but most of the nights, I just prayed out of obligation and not a sincere heart. After attending the summer BBI prayer class conducted by Hae Chin Jdsn, I realized my prayed life was not going anywhere at all, and in fact, I wasn't even praying. There was no intimacy or "connection" with God during my prayers. My mind got easily distracted with worldly thoughts during my prayer time. From the prayer class, I've learned that I should pray with my heart, and not my mind, for my mind is part of the soul barrier that hinders me from connecting to God. That left me puzzled for days, however, I finally began to understand what it meant by praying with my heart without the distraction from the mind. After a few weeks for trying hard to pray that way, I began to "feel" the connection with God during my prayers. Perhaps it could be a psychological effect, but at least now I do not pray because I have, but because I want to. Now I hope that my prayer life can slowly gain its momentum and not does not backslide over time (knowing how lazy I can get after a while).

Last Saturday (July 31st), Brandeis-Wellesley ABSK group went on a semi-hike trip at White Mountain, New Hampshire. And finally I had the opportunity to walk along the Franconia Flume and seeing the famous Kissing Bridge myself (although I've seen a nicer picture of the bridge in the fall). The flume water was really cold and potable (well, I've seen Joe Jdsn and Daniel drank the water and nothing bad happened to them). It would be funny if I could store some water of the flume in a unique bottle and frame it up on my room wall. Nah, just kidding. The hike wasn't extreme at all (somehow I wished it was), and we spent most of the time ooh and ahh-ing at the beauty of the nature and take pictures. In fact, it was less than 2 miles hike (err... walk?). But the place was really refreshing and enjoyable (and I was liberated from DOTA for a day. YAY!). We also took a tramp up to Cannon Mountain, although we spent less than 30 minutes there. The view from the mid mountain was simply amazing and breathtaking: to have the best view of the mountain, I had to hold my breath while standing on the edge of the steep cliff so that I would not fall (hey, the view was really superb). We could have gone to the top of White Mountain (which I heard is far nicer than Cannon Mountain); however, the train trip to get up there costs $57 per person :/ Oh well, I got to learn to be content with what I had. A refreshing and cool trip in the middle of the scorching summer. And the best part of the trip was dinner! Oh yeah, we had this Red Apple Buffet (the world's best buffet restaurant in the world, so says the website that advertises it) that serves Chinese, Japanese, Italian and American buffet for a price that is cheaper than $11: $10.99 :D The food was really good for a buffet, and perhaps the best buffet in the world that I had for that day. The most unfortunate event of that day was the death of my Nautica backpack (that had served me faithfully for the last 4 years) during the hike. One of the straps got ripped off (I've foreseen this, but I didn't expect it to snap that soon). Now I hope that the new North Face backpack that I ordered online will arrive soon before I have to start using plastic bags to carry my things around.

For the past week, the weather got so hot that I had to take 4 showers in a day and still feel all sweaty and sticky after that. And I spent so much money buying gatorades and cold sodas to keep myself refreshed, but I am thankful that JPA gave us our fall allowance ahead of time so that I can use it on refreshments. And I've just bought my plane ticket to Chicago recently, which added more to my expenditure. Argh. Got to find new sources of income soon :/