Me and three kids I met the other day at the ski resort next door. (Their names are Blue, Yellow, and Red.) Cuties.

Yes, folks, it’s true.  Jack Dale has finally decided to have mercy upon us and give us an extended winter break.

WOOOOOWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Today, I stayed home all day in my pajamas and worked on college apps.

I also read this Princeton Review book called College Essays that Made a Difference.

I wore a giant ski jacket, put on two pairs of sweatpants, socks, and gloves, made a giant snow lounge chair, and read outside in the freezing weather for about a half hour.

It was so great.

Anyway, there’s this huge cherry blossom tree that happens to grow right over where I was reading, and sometimes water would drip down from the branches and fall on my face.  I probably should have moved, but I was too lazy to remake my snow chair, so I just stayed and kind of ignored it.

But as the snow continued to melt and drip all over my book, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  Instead of just going back inside, I climbed up and shook its branches really hard, as if I could make all the water go away at once and not have to deal with it anymore.

CONNECTION TIME!

And this.  reminded me of our new book: The Tree that Survived The Winter.  nyahahahaaa.

“[Mary Fahy] tells the story of a tree that awakens one spring morning to discover that she has survived the winter, but with many changes in her being and appearance. Overcoming feelings of anger, fear and abandonment, the tree comes to appreciate the abundance she has been given and finds ways to share this mystery with others. Finally, the tree understands the mystery of love and fidelity.” -Review from amazon

So, what if my tree woke up one spring morning and found out that some of her skinnier branches had broken off because of my shaking?   How would she feel if she discovered scratches along her trunk, when I had forgotten that I had gained several pounds and climbed the tree in my heavy snowboots?  (Sorry, tree.)  Would she be able to overcome all the crap I had given her while she was hibernating?

And now I should stop thinking about this because I haven’t even read the book yet and I don’t know what I’m talking about.

P.S./REMINDER/ALERT/WARNING/NOTICE!!!!!!!!

EVERYONE WHO TOOK A COPY OF BLUE LIKE JAZZ LAST MONTH!

PLEASE PAY $9 TO ANDREW KWON, JENNY SHIN, SARAH YANG, OR SUSIE AHN AS SOON AS YOU CAN! we are greatly in debt.  sorry pj.  :(

Lav, Sarah

hello all, hope you had a fantastic thanksgiving/black friday/and whatever. i didn’t (:  boring awkward thanksgiving dinner, nothing on black friday, and no whatevers

anyways….so the two new upcoming books are “beautiful boy” by david sheff, and “the tree that survived the winter” by mary fahy. pictures and info on the books:

Beautiful Boy: From as early as grade school, the world seemed to be on Nic Sheff’s string. Bright and athletic, he excelled in any setting and appeared destined for greatness. Yet as childhood exuberance faded into teenage angst, the precocious boy found himself going down a much different path. Seduced by the illicit world of drugs and alcohol, he quickly found himself caught in the clutches of addiction. Beautiful Boy is Nic’s story, but from the perspective of his father, David. Achingly honest, it chronicles the betrayal, pain, and terrifying question marks that haunt the loved ones of an addict. Many respond to addiction with a painful oath of silence, but David Sheff opens up personal wounds to reinforce that it is a disease, and must be treated as such. Most importantly, his journey provides those in similar situations with a commodity that they can never lose: hope –Dave Callanan

The Tree That Survived the Winter: Mary Fahy has written a tale aimed at persons who find themselves in a period of transition, or who are experiencing loss or new birth in their lives. She tells the story of a tree that awakens one spring morning to discover that she has survived the winter, but with many changes in her being and appearance. Overcoming feelings of anger, fear and abandonment, the tree comes to appreciate the abundance she has been given and finds ways to share this mystery with others. Finally, the tree understands the mystery of love and fidelity.

BTW, for those of you that might be flipping out about reading two books…”the tree that survived the winter” is a picture book and is just 64 pages. plus, “beautiful boy” is 326 pages. not outrageous, right?

please have both books read by the next discussion – sometime in february. plenty of time, right?

have a good week, and don’t procrastinate/watch iris instead of doing homework like me   just thought i’d give a bit of advice.

con amor…

-Andrew

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

“Ultimately, we do what we love to do…Because of sin, because I am self-addicted, living in the wreckage of the fall, my body, my heart, and my affections are prone to love things that kill me…Tony says that when people who follow Jesus love the right things, they help create God’s kingdom on earth, and that is something beautiful” (77).

And Tony does make the world sound so beautiful, when he puts it like that.  But it’s so hard to love the right things, even when we say we have God in our lives.
(And how do we even discern between loving the right things and the wrong things? Are there even such categories as things we should love and things we shouldn’t?  I might have taken this part the wrong way…I don’t know, I thought we were taught to love all things but here he talks about loving the “right things”…Heh maybe I’ll bring it up at the meeting.

“I found myself trying to love the right things without God’s help, and it was impossible…I could go through the motions for a while, but sooner or later my heart would testify to its true love: darkness.  Then I would get up and try again.  The cycle was dehumanizing.”

We are stuck in this endless cycle of
one. going to retreat/mission trip/etc. and having a personal spiritual high
two. coming home and swearing to do everything right and like Jesus and such
three. going through a couple weeks, months, maybe even days, of trying out this new Godly character
four. eventually giving up & giving in to daily imperfections
five. and then back to boring old life, lalala

Spiritual highs are powerful but they never seem to last long enough…It takes a lot of effort to change.

BLJ is a lot different from The Shack in that it tends to leave many concepts open-ended.  Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus met with Mack in each chapter and walked him through religious ideas and taught him what was right and what was wrong.  Instead, Donald Miller takes various ideas he picked up from his friends (he has a lot of interesting friends…) and puts them all down in this book, and he talks about his personal encounter with each thing and dissects it and talks about his feelings about it, but he never ties everything together.  There’s no specific objective or theme for learning in this book, it’s just random thoughts he decided to throw together, just like the subtitle: “Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality”.
Both books are completely different, yet I feel like I have still learned a lot and enjoyed both.  It’s interesting how Christianity Christian spirituality can be shared in so many different ways.

Whew…this looks long…I hope people read this.  hahaha if you read this all the way, I will give you a cookie…at the next meeting.  yes.

love, sarah yang

BTW– if anyone’s interested in being a guest writer and help out with updating this thing, let us know!  :D

back to the boooook!
*SPOILER ALERT* I’m on chapter 15… If you guys don’t want me to ruin anything for you, I recommend holding down F4 + CTRL… hehehe… catch up on your reading!
don miller, haha he’s hillarious. i absolutely LOVE the way he writes. at first i didn’t dig it too much, but it grew on me and now i LOVE this book! i feel like i’m peering into someone’s personal life! it’s like a journal, and being the nosy person that i am, this book was like love at first sight <3  hehehe i used to read my younger sister&brother’s journals back in the day… okay fine, i still do, but only because they read mine. anyway, this covers like everything in life, so it’s hard not to relate to the things he talks about. i reaaally like this booook! *thumbs up!*

I’m not going to write THAT much i’ll just put up quotes i liked!

wow, some of my stickies fell off because i slept with the book in my arms and i guess i tore it off in my sleep or something … -___-

• “They are lonely. I’m not talking about lonely for a lover or a friend. I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny little people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars.” (92)
• “I felt as though Jesus were gently holding my head so He could work the plank out of my eye.” (93) LOOK UP MATTHEW 7:3-5!! (this verse helped me out throughout missions and life in general)
• “There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) (100)
• “I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.” (101)

wow… i’m like quoting every page -___- this shows my love for this book… PJ! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TORE THIS INTO PIECES! I’M STILL VERY BITTER ABOUT THAT! D: well, i’ll end this with one more quote hehehe

• “I have a weakness for Canadian girls. I don’t know why, but when a Canadian girl asks me what I am thinking ‘aboat,’ I go nuts.” (140)

darn… i shouldn’t have gotten rid of my accent HAHA sorry for this crappy entry! tune in next week for better ones by susie, sarah, and jenny!

p.s. sorry! i got lazy and didn’t capitalize anything hehhhh

WATCH RUMORS ON THURSDAY, FRIDAY, AND SATURDAY AT ROBINSON! COME CHEER ON OUR TURKEY BOWL TEAM THIS SATURDAY AT KILMER! uhhh what else… EAT LOTS AND LOTS OF TURKEY!GET LOTS OF REST! BE SAFE! AND HAVE A SPLENDID THANKSGIVING WEEKEND WITH YOUR FAMILY NEXT WEEK! WOOOOO!

with love,

guest writer

SPOILER ALERT!  THIS IS ABOUT THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS SO IF YOU’RE NOT THERE YET THEN…READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK.  :)

Some of the parts I appreciated about Miller’s writing:

-He had a very materialistic perspective of life during his childhood, which kind of connects to how I saw things as a kid.  I feel like spent a lot more time than I would know just thinking about what I wanted next.  I remember waiting in the lobby to get picked up after preschool and watching TV with the other kids; everytime a Hot Wheels or Barbie commercial came on we would be all, “I WANT THAT!  I WANT THAT!  AHHHHFASDFGGA I WANT IT!”  And then we would talk about how great they were and put them on our Christmas/Birthday wish lists.  And when we got what we wanted we would play with them for a while and they would end up in the closet or under the bed somewhere, never to be seen again.  Until they were threatened to be put up for yard sale, and then we would scream and refuse and say we would love them all over again, but nooooo, they were thrown into black trash bags and put out on the street…Anyway.

-”I looked purposely as he opened a beer, the tiny can hiding itself in his big hand, the foam of it spilling over the can, his red lips slurping the excess, his tongue taking the taste from his mustache.  He was a brilliant machine of a thing.”

-I liked how he labeled his friends (“Tony the Beat Poet” and “Andrew the Protester”).  Idk it just made it a little more interesting to read.  It was different.

-”The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances…It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.”  I actually read about this in AP Gov for my summer assignment…Woll handbook, anyone?  But yeah.  The founding fathers were very cynical.  They thought the human race was stupid and incapable of making its own decisions.

-C.S. Lewis poem on p. 21.  YESSSS  :D

-”I am only saying that true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change would have to start with the individual.  I was the very problem I had been protesting.  i wanted to make a sign that read ‘I AM THE PROBLEM!‘” (20)  He finds so many life lessons in his everyday actions…I wish I had that kind of openness to learning new things and reflecting on my life.  I feel like I miss out on so much each day because I’m so busy running from one obligation to the next; I have no time to stop and reflect.

CHAPTERS 1-2 SPOILER OVER!

Sarah: “Say something interesting for the blog.”

Susie: “I think Where the Wild Things Are is very thought-provoking but it was not what I expected.  I expected it to be more like, cutesy, and like, happy and stuff, but it was like…children shouldn’t watch it, I don’t think.  I feel like if kids watch it they will be depressed.  Or angry… It was pretty good.”

Thanks for all those who came to our first book discussion! It was a little hectic at first.. but nonethless a good times discussing and sharing thoughts

We will be distributing out next book Blue Like Jazz next Sunday by the way!

SO. Our next goal is to fundraise! So far our ideas include bake sale and the thing where you go to a restaurant and you receive a percentage of their income (sorry I really don’t know anything about this!) But yeah. Leave some ideas and suggestions and what not. It’s a bit cold to do car wash.. so maybe we’ll save that one for the spring.

Also, a big thanks to Brian Suh for providing drinks and snacks! Woot!

Hope you guys have a fantabulous week, don’t forget to wash your hands, watch Glee, go listen to the Jonas Brothers, do your homework, and get ready for next months book!

Future Mrs. Jonas,

Jenny Shin

I used to have a gerbil.

This is not a gerbil.

*just a warning that his may be a spoiler to people who could possibly be further behind then i am (my opinion up til page48), btw, if you’re farther behind then i am, then you need to read your butt off this week*

i really like how Young writes, not just the suspense he weaves into the story and his ability to give you a feeling of familiarity with Mack’s family, but just the style of his writing. unlike the freaking Twilight series (no offense), which reads like an elementary school book, the Shack actually has a level of sophistication in its writing…i don’t feel stupid when i read it.

as for the actual events in the novel…my heart was beating like half a step faster when Josh and Kate flip over in the canoe, cause like, i knew Mack had left Missy alone. and when they couldn’t find her later i was like omg :O. then sarah yang called me to post on the blog, and FLIPPING TOLD ME THAT MISSY DIES. WHATTHEHEAVEN. i mean…there’s always the description on the back…but i didn’t read it…

as you can see, i’m very behind in the book. meaning i have to read about 40 pages a day. if ANYONE is further behind then i am, then GET READING. and don’t forget to sign up for next month if you want to read Blue Like Jazz.

oh, and jenny shin isn’t feeling well, so can you guys pray for her?

have a splendid week!!  -andrew

Hope you all had a good September. YAY ONLY NINE MONTHS OF SCHOOL LEFT <3
There have been a lot of cases of the swine flu around our area…  Even Fair Oaks Hospital has locked out all their under 18 volunteers from coming until they recieve the H1N1 vaccination.  Scary…BE CAREFUL EVERYONE!  ):

WASH YOUR HANDS AND COUGH INTO YOUR ELBOWS! AND CATCH YOUR BOOGERS WITH A TISSUE WHEN YOU SNEEZE SO NO-ONE WILL BE EXPOSED TO THEM/HAVE TO LOOK AT THEM.  And avoid physical contact with everyone you know.

“Saluting is good. Bowing is perfectly acceptable. So too, I think, is just saying hi.”

Anyway.

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.” In Donald Miller’s early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.

(http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blue-Like-Jazz/Donald-Miller/e/9780785263708)

Our book for November is going to be another recommendation from PJ– Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  woowoo!

Here’s how book club is going to work:

1) every first sunday of each month, one of us will annouce the book for the next month.  People who are interested in participating in discussion and getting a book MUST NOTIFY US BY THE SECOND SUNDAY. This includes old members and new members. Leave a comment to this entry with your full name and email address in the comment so we can find you later (:

2) so, we’ll have a new list of members for each month/book.  The second Sunday, we will compile a list of everyone who wants to participate, and forward it to PJ to order the books for us.  They should come in by the

3) Third Sunday, when we’ll distribute copies of the new book for the next month and have our meeting to discuss the current month’s book.

-Also.  We will make it required for everyone to pay/provide for their own copies if they cannot make it out to future fundraisers…

So yeah.  Tell any of your chingoos who you think would be interested in joining!  Remember we’re at www.jgbookclub.wordpress.com

THE SHACK/OCTOBER READERS: OUR MEETING TO DISCUSS WILL BE OCTOBER 18. Try to make time after church.  We won’t have small group on the third Sundays, so it shouldn’t be too hard.  Right? 

P.S. Ashley Pyon, Johnny Woo, and John Yu– you guys need to pick up your copies of The Shack! Come find me, Susie, Andrew, Jenny, or PJ whenever you can so we can get them to you.

Hope you all have a great week!

Sarah

We do not have a specific reading schedule so feel free to read at your own pace

However, October 18 is coming up before you know it! So read read read!

Please DON’T SKIP THE FOREWORD; it has crucial information that the story builds on and refers back to.

The next post will hopefully be about specific passages, but I will leave you with solely the above information for now.

Post comments, questions, insights, topics of interest!

Have great weeks at school!

Susie

Our October book will be The Shack by William P. Young.  We will meet October 18 to share what we read and start our next book for November.

October book.

November book list–coming soon…

Leave your suggestions for a name for the book club! Or else…it’s gonna be called Inklings and we will be stuck with a girly name that only Susie likes.  HAHA

Hope you have a great week

-Saaaraaaahhhh