randomly found

May, 12th 2008, 17:00 (California time)

I am on the plane, on my way home. Just finished lunch. It was a pretty decent Japanese meal and I liked the cold noodle as well as the rice cracker. My tummy hurts a bit and I have no clue why because the food was not spicy at all (ehmmm, Japanese food, for org Manado? It won’t ever be considered spicy, I suppose). Now I am eating the dessert. Ben and Jerry’s chocolate brownie. It couldn’t be better, just parfait! Ben and Jerry’s is my fave ice cream and chocolate brownie is my fave ice cream flavor. It would have been even more parfait if they have given me a slightly larger cup (of ice cream).hehehe. ini namanya dikasih hati mau jantung^^

Yesterday I went to church with aunt Honie and my cousin Jenny. I was a bit lazy to go and actually planed to just sleep until mid day ( I was so jet lagged even though the time difference between Ohio and California is only 3 hours). I am glad that I listened to my gut! I went to a church called Saddleback Church. It’s a non-denominational church that focuses its mission on putting Jesus’ teaching into actions. The preacher was so powerful in delivering God’s message and I’ll talk about it in my next post.

I am on the plane now. Sitting at the very end of the plane but it’s nice since I don’t have anyone sitting next to me. I can wide spread my legs and put my messy stuff next to me. I actually planned to read a book I just bought yesterday. What inspired me to write this is my cousin Jenny. We spent the night when I arrived at her home talking- from school to Barack Obama, not forgetting our plan to watch the Olympic together, also about pre-medical stuff, and ended up talking about boys (she started, not me, okay?!lol). Frankly speaking, I was hesitating to talk about this issue at the beginning. But I don’t want to ruin the nice heart to heart conversation that is already built. And she was really insisting, wanted to listen to my, fi so called, love story. So I decided to talk, although I knew she would not understand it as the way I do. And yes it was not only my prediction or ‘sok tau-ness’. She was born and grew up in the states. Her way of thinking is unquestionably American. But I could tell that she respects my point of views. Then she talked about her stories. I smiled a lot, we laughed often.

I told her my parable “I am like a bird. I like to fly free and high. Sometimes I fall and it hurts my wings. But that’s okay. It's the process of learning. Otherwise I won’t ever be able to improve my flying skill. But, if I knew that there’s a danger, like a storm for instance, ahead of me and I might die if I flew that high, why should I dare to fly? When I fly high enough, if I fell, my wings might hurt but I would still be able to fly again after a short while. But if I flew really.. really high.. and I fell.. it might kill me. Or if I don’t die, I might break my wings permanently and would not be able to fly again. Forever. It’s different if I did not know that there was a storm coming to struck me. But if I knew ahead that there would be a big storm, there’s no reason for me to take such risk!”

And yes, it’s not as simple as what I just did. I ordered a pineapple juice even though I am allergic to it. I like the fresh taste of pineapple although it means I have to let my tongue suffer from itchiness. Between a bird and its wings, there’s a more critical consequence. What is a bird without its wings? What is a bird if it cannot fly? An old proverb says ‘A man without ambition is like a bird without its wings’.