ok so i realized that this weblog kinda just "hang gays" a lot..

i've too much in here and dont feel like deleting it. so new xanga:

www.xanga.com/swim_nat_swim

new xanga symbolizes the new me. hopefully now i've become wiser and mature than i first was. new stage of my life. renewed love for God. may what i speak and write and do be witness to God's glory.

dont worry im still nat. the crazy swimmer. thumper lover. the loud and obnoxious one. just a new focus in life. that's all :)

-nat

wow. amazing. i am swept away. by Him. by His Love, His Joy, His Grace, His Mercy, and most importantly, His Peace.

thursday was amazing. really. no way around it. interested? ask me.

today was great. literally. tiff invited me to this Hong Chi Rehab type of thing for mentally handicapped/down syndrome/something like that center all the way in tai po. it was really cool. these ppl are so talented. and the tour guy. he was the senior manager or sth and you could just feel the joy he has with working with these ppl. there's a training center for them, to get to do different things like cooking/baking/selling stuff/giving change/making bags, and serving ppl at real restaurants. i thought the coolest thing was the hotel section. it was really like a real hotel and the trainees there were concentrating so hard on their work. they were so meticulous in changing the bed, arranging the furniture, the bathroom, i was so ashamed of myself. im serious. we as the senior class should spend a month here. for college training.

then there was the "little houses" with the children. the children live in a real house setting with four girls and four boys. there's a couple who are their "parents" and a lady that does the cooking and some of the cleaning and babysitting. the kids have chores and the managing ppl try to set it up so that it's as home-like as possible. it's really cool. im serious.

we also visited 2 other factories with mentally handicapped adults who work and get paid and their work is amazing. it's really cool. it'll be such an experience to be able to volunteer at one of these places.

i was exhausted after all that visiting but nonetheless "wowed" at the things that are going on right now to help these ppl to be independent. so i went home to sleep instead of watching hte bball games (btw. GREAT JOB ICS BOYS!!!) and woke up to crash ms. petty's homeroom party. and we saw neverland afterwards. it was GOOD.

-nat

ps. prayers for yvette, who was so wise and mature in her faith. "whenever i think of jesus' pain on the cross, nothing hurts anymore".

pps. prayers for kim and her brother gabriel and her pastor. who are in aceh, indonesia as im typing this.

i've always hated the markets in hong kong.. bad experiences. not to mention the ever-wet dirty floor.. but today.. after congee w/ my parents. i was to tag along so i could carry some of hte "soong" they were getting for the hot pot dinner tonight.

we went to get the eggs first. peach colored ovals. some with speckles and some larger and some smaller. "mom. how do you choose good eggs?" "i dont choose" and the old man is picking out the eggs and putting them into the bag. then we head towards the vegetable stands downstairs. rows of carefully arranged vegetables stacked on top of each other, a multitude of colors, bright green lettuce, orange carrots, white carrots, red peppers, strawberries, oranges, grapes, bananas, so much. i couldnt take it all in. how i wished that i had a camera. my daddy went to look for beef. and from far away i could smell the faint aroma of raw beef and pork.

last came the fish market. i always hated it. not only because it was dirty and wet and perpetually stank, but because you see life dying all around you. the merchants whacking the fish to make it loose consciousness, then gutting it, scraping its scales off and chopping without mercy the poor fish into pieces, before dumping the corpse into a white plastic bag of a coffin. the first stall was the last one on the way out. blood was every where, bright red blood, all over the already chopped fish, the knife, the wooden board, the water, everywhere. the barbarity of it. and then i finally stepped out into civilization. and the bleak ferocios winter wind blew around me, somehow, the world had lost its color. and for a split second i wanted so much to be back in the market with all its wonderful mosaic despite of all its vices.

-nat

so i was digging up my chaucer project for a certain junior. and i found this.

so. are people born innately evil?

"lord of the flies", "wuthering heights", objection 4 in "case for faith", the bible.

since im supposed to come up with a personal statement for my part in the debate. here's what i believe and like to believe.

i believe that people are born with the capacity to do evil. whether we do it or not is another thing. and i dont believe in this "age of accountability". can a child tell right from wrong? black and white? i think sometimes it is so much easier for children to tell from black and white. there is no gray line. but as you grow up.. there are justifications and complicates that widen that gray line. some ppl are lucky enuf to keep that gray line skinny. others, like me. are confused and the gray line is growing day by day. "no it's not willy's fault he was an adulterer. he was lonely and sad and had no one to turn to." and "virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; and vice sometimes by action dignified".

back to age of accoutability. i believe it is so much easier for children to tell from right and wrong. and whether they let their evil nature out and act upon their desires is another thing. i dont think there's an age of accountability. everything was so simple back then. "it's bad to lie. it's bad to smoke. and it's bad to hurt other people." everyone matures at different ages. frankly. im more mature than my brother now and when i was still 14. does this maturity have anything to do with age of accountability? where they can tell right from wrong? is the age of accountability "can they tell right from wrong from their maturity" or "can they tell right from wrong"?

i like to believe that kids go to heaven. becasue jesus himself said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

that is why we become the children of God when we believe. we become pure in heart and mind and soul.

im getting out of hand. this is so incohesive. i gotta work on this more before the debate. i ll change this around a bit when i finally get my thoughts in line with one another.

-nat