miracle of life

i spent the last week in the newborn nursery, mostly examining healthy newborn babies for screening, and also attending some deliveries when extra hands were needed.

it was my first time witnessing birth. the "miracle of life." to be honest, its all pretty odd. I'm sure the labor process is really hard, but the actually delivery happens so quickly. In both vaginal and c-section births, it takes only a few seconds between when the head to emerges to when the whole baby pops out. And even though you know she's pregnant, I still get that feeling of "whoa! where did that baby COME from?"

you know what was the most striking to me? being there to witness a parent's first interaction with their new child. To see grown men pretend not to cry, or fumble with words because they are so overwhelmed with how much they are suddenly ready to love this child. (Mom's are usually preoccupied with other things, like breathing a sigh of relief or getting sewn back together...)

And the other was - the idea of bring a new person into existence. Like in the medical chart, there is absolutely nothing of course; and when presenting the babies, describing them as 5 hours old, or day of life (DOL) 2. And the nurses in the newborn nursery often play with the children by saying "welcome to the world!"

songs i like series, post 1

what kind of music do you like? is a question i've been getting often recently. i want to answer with something that is representative of what i enjoy, but also who i am. in the end, my mind always fixates on a few songs that i really love. while i like a lot of music for the way it sounds, in the end the songs i love are for what they have to say.

so i thought i'd post periodically about songs that i love and why.

samson - by regina spektor

lyrics:

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the morning light, the mornin' light
And he kissed me 'til the morning light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

to me the song imagines that samson's and delilah's love, while broken was still true in its own way- the way he loved her, despite her lies, flaws and betrayal. even after she had cut his hair, "he told me that i'd done alright, and kissed me til the morning light."

while the higher call was for samson to leave delilah and return to God, what if he hadn't? what if he had just continued to love her? maybe he wouldn't have brought the philistine temple columns down, maybe he wouldn't have made any dent in history, biblical or otherwise. would it have been okay to simply ask to be human, rather than great?

again, to me this song is about acknowledgement. acknowledging that maybe sometimes the things that we give up to follow God or "do the right thing," are not inherently bad. While the "right" choice may be clear, it is not always easy; and certainly not always black and white.

what the what?

just finished reading What is the What by Dave Eggers,

its the fictionalized biography of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee who was a kid when the civil war in Sudan broke out. In the preface, he writes that while "I was very young when some of the events in the book took place, and as a result we simply had to pronounce What is the What a novel. ... However it should be noted that all of the major events in the book are true." who knows how much is real and how much isn't, but certainly the heart of the story is centered in very true events.

It's taken me a few months to read with a slow draw in, but once I hit a point, I was pretty hooked. Last week I hit one passage in the book that made me fall in love with it. For these two pages, I could declare among my favorite books. Certainly its only in the context of the other 600 pages, that these pages matter. After experiencing one personal devastation after another, he speaks about trying to find trying to find comfort in God and prayer. "These authors, for whom I have great respect, still do not seem to know the doubts that one might have in the angriest corners of one's soul. Too often the tell me to answer my doubts with prayer, which seems very much like addressing one's hunger by thinking of food." There is something about the acknowledgement that as much as we try and hope to believe in God's greater good and purpose, to be comforted by wise words about the hope of resurrection after death - it is not always enough, sometimes not even close. i think it is the acknowledgement of the depth of the struggle, that speaks to the true depth of the faith.

He ends this section with this line, which I just spoke of incredible inner strength. "Achor Achor has been worried about me, but he has seen me improve. He knows I have been here before, that I have approached the precipice of self-termination and have walked away."

our nature

definitions -

the basic constitution of a person, who we are at the core

one's natural instincts

your default response, what you do before you think about it.

just something i've been thinking about. what are our true natures? how much control do we have over who we are and who we become? i supposed i maintain the idea that it is the choices that we make shape our future selves. each choice, each action changes you a little.

and lastly - where is the balance between accepting/loving who you are and hoping for a better version of yourself.

please

please say honestly, you won't give up on me.

and i shall believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYht-Fpvu4g

this random thing

JP did a while ago, and for some reason I just felt like trying it.

It was one of those facebook tag other people chain things~

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image. (i picked only the first or last image on the page)
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3 (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).
d. Save the image and post it on this note.

1. Pope John Paul & Mother Theresa MA14546175-0002, 2. Orange (365/340), 3. Mhhhh the sweetest candy cupcake from Crumbs., 4. Tahiti Lime, 5. When Waves Collide, 6. 082 - Mar 23 - Journaling, 7. Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) - Run for the Cure, 8. Seeking the truth, 9. Thoughtful Gorilla

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Theresa
2. What is your favorite color? orange
3. What is your favorite food? chocolate - i think its the one food i have the most reoccurring cravings for.
4. Favorite drink? limeade
5. Dream vacation? hawaii
6. Favorite hobby? journaling
7. What you want to be when you grow up? i put in oncologist and got pictures of dogs/pets. so then i put in "cure cancer." haha.
8. What do you love most in life? seeking truth
9. One word to describe you? thoughtful.

school ties

just randomly watched this movie today. I remember Mr. Foster always using the story for examples and illustrations in AP English. I don't know why I like this particular moment, when everyone is mad at Brendan Fraser for not telling them he was Jewish/pretending he wasn't. You lied to us! they say. His response is:

i didn't lie to you. i lied to my father. i lied to myself.

conscious consumer

incomplete thoughts: there's a phrase that says you vote with your money.

it's true! where you put your money determines what businesses thrive and which don't. and in a way, buying products supports the system by which it was designed, produced, marketed. i was thinking about it, just because especially when we were in taiwan - my dad would always ask me after i bought something, where was it made?

its weird, even though I've always known this to be true, I don't think about it when I buy things. I just buy things that I like. And now that I've started trying to pay more attention, it's not easy! It's easier to buy something in order to support something (a business, or Taiwan for instance). To decide NOT to buy something is a lot harder -- I keep thinking, but i really like/want it! I supposed, I'm just not in the habit of thinking that way. But I don't think most people are; and that simply perpetuates the less than ethic business practices that allow companies to produce things faster and cheaper.

race for hope!

Caught the running bug!

Some friends from the cloister at the NIH just signed for Race for Hope in DC, a 5k on May 2 to raise money for the National Brain Tumor Society!

Just wanted to put out my support/donation link to see if anyone reading this would like to donate to my run! :D

Or even sign up to run with me!!

cherry blossom 10 miler

It was this weekend! 3 months of training culminated in a gorgeous day for a run, and an awesome team of cloister friends to run with. and if you're reading this, I'm sure the next thing you want to know was my time! so while training, made a remodified goal of 80 min rather than 75 like my crazy new years plan. Although, the year is not OVER yet, so there is still time for me to make that goal....

ran in 81:56, so didn't make the under 80 goal either, but my time was not bad! I'm not overly ecstatic about my time, I think I could have done better - spent most of the first 5-6 miles weaving through people since I was seeded in the last wave (didn't have a pace time entered when I signed up). Will try to avoid that for the next race... (the next race?!). Honestly kind of jealous of the guys who ran the race and made it in 78/79 min (my goal!) and didn't even train. sigh on being a girl...

but in better perspective - ran 8:12 splits, WAY faster than I ever imagined I could have run 3 months ago. and placed #855/8813 women - top 10%! :D