The sad little girl of me...

Wow... I'm just reading over some old entries from my journal dating the first two weeks of me in China this time around. It's kinda insane.... the first 14 some pages are just me... talking about my life and describing people and just being very.. bookish. Slash depressed. And I'm like reading it and reading it... talking about my first Sunday here. I reread some funny first impressions here. But I did neglect to say anything about a boy who would later become much a part of my future. Haha. That's probably cause I'm pretty sure I thought he was crazy.. actually I don't think I've told him this, but he really annoyed me at first. Taylor like totally didn't listen to me while I was explaining this game, a game very important to me because it reminded me of many many days and nights of playing it back at home, as an obsession. So I got really frustrated and was forced to play one of those Beijinger games that totally do not compare with my Minnesotan traditions. Haha.

My very first day in Beijing I spent crying. Literally. I can now walk the streets of wudoakou and almost chuckle... cause over a year ago I was walking in the same place, literally lost and sobbing. The second day was church. And I very meticulously put together my outfit to make a good, yet appropriate statement of who I was. I noted exactly what I was gonna wear in my journal. My journal by the way... was so much a drug to me those first two weeks. I wrote every waking moment on the 15 hour plane ride and once in China... I wrote walking, eating, talking, and on the ching gui. It was constant. It got to a point where I knew it wasn't in fact healthy for me. Because I was completely soaked into my world of writing that I could scarcely think without writing it out in my mind. But that day at church happened to be the day where the youth played worship for the church. So I got to sit down and observe my new youth group basically. Haha. Sounds creepy, eh? At that point I was really excited to meet everyone... but once the time came I was so much ready to just go home and cry. I wanted to my old youth group and friends back. So badly. But it just.. amazes me to look back at this moment. I had the choice to either go with these strange people and meet them... or go home. And in myself I was so inclined to go home, just shut myself in and never come out. Or find internet quick (which we didn't have which challenged my happiness further). But it was the personality and the exact words of my best friend that pushed me on... At that moment all I was thinking was I want my friends back. And that if only I had Debbie or Joanna or Corey with me I would be totally fine. But it dawned on me that I knew exactly what Debbie would say to me if she were there. And how she would encourage me, how she would reason it out and also that she would throw in some sort of random and ridiculous reason that had nothing to do with the actual situation, something like performing chimmey chonga's or teaching boys the real meaning or valentines day. It just.. astounds me that a girl whom has been my best friend through my worst times and brought me out to my best, has rubbed off on my and affected me so much that my decisions were affected by her even when she wasn't there to say anything. In fact she was millions of miles away. But her character, perseverance and optimism stuck with me.. enabling me to set out to meet these China people. And it's something... that to this day I thank her for.

But anyways.... I'm equally amazed at the few spotlights of hope I find in my first journal here. Most of my writing is complaining about Chinese people, or how the youth group here was so much less cool than mine back home, or just how I plain missed people even though it had only been a week since I saw them. But once in a while... I'd write about the beauty of a woman's heart. Like when my mom and I worked very hard together to buy, prepare and display a masterpiece of something as home-like as spaghetti. I like thinking back to that night... I was never in a good mood those days and was quite bitchy actually, but that time with my mom where our womanly desires to prepare and serve a meal that was both beautiful and comforting... was a good one. One of the few, outside of talking to friends online. It's moments like those where we both came so alive in something so simple as creating a piece of warmth outside of all the loneliness we all felt in being there, without a home, without friends or family and without American food. I think.. it was just really beautiful. And increased my pride in being a woman. 

Other times a sign of life could be seen in my writings when I'd mention a revelation on who God is that wasn't angry or bitter. Like talking about how I yearned for God to restore my life and give my hearts passions, hopes and comforts. These times were few considering I was angry and no where near ready to open my heart to Him... but He still found me.

I don't really know what possessed me to write all that... but it's just a glimpse of my past year. That's two weeks out of the past 13 months. I have to admit the past year has been the most rocky, challenging and honestly the crappiest 13 months of my life. And though it's easier now it's not always better, to be honest. But hey... like the times where I got to write about cooking with my mom or finding God... there's always glimpses of hope.

"Surely there is a future and hope is not far off"

So tonight as I was preparing for my new tutoring job, I got a wee bit distracted by a lost passion of mine. Humans. I'm supremely interested in humans in more ways than one. Psycologically, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Progressing into my junior year (Crazy! I know!) as I am, I have been asked quite frequently..... "Anna, what are you going to do?" or "What do you want to do with your life" or even "what do you want to be when you grow up." (I kind of have a problem with that phrase... because when are you ever considered "up". People constantly grow and change. The last change is death which leads to eternity. For some, myself included, that will be in the changeless presence of our Father forever and ever amen) My answer usually is... 'I don't know' or along the lines of such. 'I have no clue,' 'you tell me,''I don't know ask God,' etc etc etc... I am by no means writing this blog to share with all of you my new insight into my future. I'm not going to say I've decided to be anything. At all. But instead I'll just chatter in about some things I'm interested in.... The problem is that I'm interested in much... passionate about little that can be easily catagorized into a single job description. The pressure of the future weighs heavily upon my generation, just as much as it was for yours, but for some of us the options are both endless and narrow. Endless options, but narrow visions. Hard to find that one gleaming major or passion in between, believe me.

One thing let me lay straight before I begin... I am in no way going to expect to find a man, settle down, live off his income, babysit for the rest of my life and retire on whatever is left after the college savings have been shuffled out. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get married, have kids etc etc etc... but I'm not going to base my future on something, anything, and especially not something assumed. I'm not going to say "when I get married....." but it's a more of "if I get married...." Paul says himself it's better to be single. All the same... I'd love to have someone always there. Either way... if it's God leading, then I'll trust Him. If it happens great, if not, I'll have a much greater opportunity to impact or change or whatever.

It's hard to even start... I'm interested in subjects ranging from delivering animals (pointedly tigers) from extinction to interior design. What I usually say is that all I really know of what I want to do is help people. Though tigers aren't people, I'm also very interested in animals. 

I feel like the artist inside me would kick me inside if I were to shut him up, not that he was ever to loud to begin with. He's more of... a secretive man. Still to reveal what exactly he can do. But not ever exploring that... that may be a mistake. If I were to do something artistic.. well I'm not sure if there's much I'm truly passionate about within that area let alone good at... but it's something that gives me feelings of life. Something I'd hate to lose. Though it may not bene the career for me.. I hope it will always be a part of me. If anything it'd most likely be somewhere in the lines of design. I enjoy that. Fashion design is fun... but life? Maybe no. The biggest hope in this section would most likely be interior design. I thinks it's rather fun, but you never know if that'lll actually work out. Could be fun though. Then again... with all my siblings doing things along the lines of art... I'd much rather branch out. Speaking of which....

Something that has drawn me to medicine and the human body isn't just that it highly interested me by just being... both interesting and intreguing, but also something completely different from what most anyone has ever done in my family. I also have a few pressures from certain family members to become a doctor, per say. Though this area interested me supremely and would work out well for my hunger for individualism and knowledge, I don't think it'd be something I'd feel passionate about to study for ages and then practice for ever. I don't know. It's interesting and fun... but also a lot of work and time. I'd do something along these lines only because A) interesting B) very helpful for impacting many places. When I look in my future... I think what would be most fulfilling would be serving the world for God, helping other humans and providing for the needs of the needy. That's what I'd like. 

Other things I'm interested in but am too tired to expound on to my full capacity are... work with urban teens, I like to write, M work, nursing, pediatrics, living off Andrews cash ;), counseling, nature photographer (random, only because it'd be fun) etc etc. Basically you can narrow it down to a few words urban, kids/teens, medicine, design, God, animals, counseling and overseas. I don't want to settle in suburbville destined to diaper change and cook, though I wouldn't mind those along with whatever my life is doing. I want to be doing something. Something at all.

Basically I can't say exactly the job that I want. Basically I can't name the place I want to be. Basically I have no idea what's going on. What I do know... I want my life to be full of passion. If I'm passionate about healing suddenly, I'll pursue that. Animals? I'll pursue that (though not likely, maybe as a side thing, who knows) I want to make difference in peoples lives. I don't need a nobel prize, I don't need a prestigious medical certificate, but serving, following my passion and God's, serving, that's what I want. I'd love to be overseas serving, but I don't would like to not be constantly moving or alone. I don't want to be lonely. But then again.. He provides. Whatever happens to me... if I submerge into a jungle or wined up on the streets of a city serving teenagers, I hope that I'll be following God given passions, skills and direction. That's my plan. And I still have yet so much growing to be grown. Honestly, I'm no where near ready to decide what to do with my life, I still am deciding who I am and what I believe in (give a break to those my age, it's tough)

Wow that was long... wish me luck! I have my entire life ahead of me.. excepting the past 16 years of course....