Who I am

June walked into his dad's room and turned on the computer. As the computer struggled to load, June went through the post in his head, happy that he actually planned something beforehand. The familiar background trudged its way to the main screen and displayed its options. The pointer poked at Mozilla Firefox until it reluctantly gave way to the home page. The pointer then commanded the "Bookmarks" option to show its contents. "Bookmarks" surrendered and the pointer slapped the Power Blogger's page onto the screen.
"I haven't done anything with the computer except for research and such. Let's read the other posts first," thought June. As he read Monday through Friday June's brow furrowed. He read the word "religion".
Uh oh.
It was time to take up his Sword and rush into battle.

I'm not fond of this topic when I see it on here. It turned into an all-out war the last time we talked about it and neither side won. In fact, all we gained was a really bad bellyache in the pits of our stomachs. I've kept quiet about this but under these circumstances, I don't care anymore. So I shall pose a question:
"Why did you care so much that we included God into our topic?"
I thought this blog was a blog in which a person could write about anything he/she chose to write about. Apparently I thought wrong. Indeed, what happened to the freedom of post? Why did Caroline meet so much resistance when she wrote about one experience? Why can't we just read, move on, and keep it to yourself? Why are you "compelled" to argue against a post? Do we have to start another forest fire?
Before I start my actual post, I'd like to clear a few things up: Christianity is NOT a religion. Due to popular belief, it has been an assumption that Christianity is cooped up with the rest of the religions. Well, it's not. It's a mutual relationship established by your own choices. And on that depressing note on with the post.

I was browsing through my songs, all 130 of them. I have a 30Gb video iPod and I have to say, I'm making much use of the 30Gb it can dish out. Scrolling down, I came upon the artist, Relient K. I haven't listened to them in ages and I only had one song by them, "Getting Into You". I remembered I used to be obsessed with that song, so much that I printed out the tabs and learned it on the guitar. An empty vibe came from the Relient K section of my library so I felt that I needed to get more songs. Time to rip from YouTube!
I browsed through the more popular songs performed by Relient K and I found one peculiar song labled, "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been". Curious, I clicked on the link. I have to tell you, I was blown away by the guitar and the lyrics. Check it out:

It struck me pretty hard. So here is a little testimony (if you will call it).
I wasn't always the nice Korean guy who occasionally poked fun at his friends. In fact, I was a total jerk. Looking at my past, I was a complete psychopath who had this sick and twisted mind. I probably cursed more than any of you guys put together, I bullied people (yes I actually did. I have two victims to the crime that you can ask to verify) and I spazzed over my grades. I didn't recognize the human emotion. If I hurt someone, I would tell myself that everything was okay and the person would get over it eventually if I apologized enough. Emphasis on TOTAL JERK. A quiet, sweet Asian on the outside and a storm on the inside. I was constantly asking myself why I was so unhappy with myself. I had awesome grades, I was fairly decent in sports, and I had friends. Why am I so unhappy???
I sank into a state of acceptance. I sank into a state in which I accepted that I was imperfect and that I would probably never amount to anything. My grades were high but I wanted to go higher. It almost became an obsession. I wanted to excel in sports and give my parents a reason to show me off to the other parents. I wanted to fill the void of being imperfect. I was being weighed down by the monotonous cycle of life that never seemed to end.
Christianity did not play a part in my life at all back then either. I was dang near atheist actually. God was a superhero, Satan was the super villain. They fought over me, an insignificant zit on the face of the earth. I went, sat down, listened to the praise team play, slept during the sermon, and went home to play video games. "What is the point of listening to God when He never listens to me?" was what I thought. They told me how great He was and I would stare back with an empty expression. But it grew on me. I began to believe a little bit but with the wrong mentality. I only called out to Him whenever I was in trouble and then forgot Him whenever I got what I wanted. I was a hypocrite.
All of that changed when I went to a program called,"Lake Yale". It was a Christian retreat that I was dragged into. I had to spend 3 whole days at a mediocre camp infested with bugs that swarmed around the lights at night and food that made the greasiest Big Mac look appetizing.
We trudged through two days of heartfelt sermons that poked at my consciousness. I could tell something was either very wrong or very right. "Why are all these strangers so united? I mean, they've only met for a day or two and they act like they have been friends forever. What's going on?" Some of them even tried to make friends with me but I would have none of it. I always kept the brick wall between me and other people.
On the last day, the atmosphere in the auditorium was very different. The lights were dimmed, music was playing, and everyone on-stage had a very serious look on their faces. We sat down and we listened. I wanted to go to sleep but something told me to listen closely. With nothing better to do, I focused on the sermon. I don't remember too much of what it was about (sorry >.<) but I do remember at the end there was a part where if you wanted to, you could go up to the front of the stage and pray. My legs moved on their own and I was almost powerless to stop them. Every fiber of my being told me,"Go back! You don't need any of this crap!" but I kept on going. Before I knew it, I was at my destination. I knelt down and prayed. At first I felt nothing at all. I was waiting for the pastor to come to me, pray, and get it over with. But then I heard in an unfamiliar voice,"June, what am I going to do with you?" The pastor finally came to me as I was figuring out what I just heard. He asked me,"What are you doing here?" That was a great question! I didn't know! But for some odd reason, I wanted to say,"I want to be saved." Before I knew it, I said it. He nodded and told me how the angels were dancing over me in heaven and how God was celebrating. I thought this was pretty absurd but I accepted it and let him pray for me. That was the first time in my life that I ever felt like I was someone important; someone who was cared for by a God I refused to acknowledge. God could have given up on me, left me to die, but He was always running after me. He is a God who never leaves your side. He is a God who is quick to forgive. Do you know what speaking in tongue is? It is a state in which you are connected with God and you are speaking in a language that you and God can only understand. All of it is unconsciously done. When we finished prayer, I continued to pray without the pastor. When I was done, I heard myself babble the last words of my prayer in incoherent words. "What the heck did I just say?" It was a two years later when someone told me it was a gift. The transformation I admit was slow but I transformed into a totally different guy. It was after that, I vowed to never use a curse word ever again. After God came into my life, I began to see everything differently. After God came into my life, I took up guitar for the sake of God. After God came into my life, I began to recognize people as people. He defined who I am today. So even if there is nothing on the other side of life or God is just an imaginary friend that people made up, I don't care. If He changed me this much, God is something worth believing in. I never want to go back to the life I once lived.
And so, I want to tell you one more thing. Asking me to not talk about God is like telling me to stop breathing. I will respect everyone's decision to believe what they want but if the urge to post about God comes up, please don't flame me or reply with a post trying to pick an unintentional (or possibly intentional) fight. I don't want to cause any friction between us and hopefully we can all remain friends on this awesome blog we call The Power Bloggers.
Thanks for hearing me out.

-June
(whew I let myself go on this post)

Really not that excited about life.

Things that caught my attention today...

• The fact that I could absolutely not follow the second chapter of The Great Gatsby. It probably had to do with the fact that all I was simply moving my lines across the lines and picking up about ten percent of the words.
• The amazing iPod application that allows you to find the resistance of a resister by scrolling to each corresponding band color. It was amazing! We used it in to do our lab more quickly.
• Getting better at the pencil spinning that my favorite cousin has unsuccessful tried to teach me for more than half a year.
• I have the weirdest Valentines' Day surprise ever.
• Ryan has good reason to hate _ _ _ _ _... I think.
• Yeah Ryan, your name popped up again.
• I did really badly on this quiz. The worst I've ever done on a history quiz this school year. Wooh.
• It's getting warmer!
• There were all these little birds in the courtyard yesterday after school. I could imagine Jack putting them over a fire and eating them up like popcorn.
• Standing inside the house, it was 58 degrees Fahrenheit this morning.
• The Spanish exam is going to be really really really impossible.

-Kejing

Religion- 'Nuff Said.

I began writing this post on Monday, after reading what Brianna posted. After reading what she wrote, I felt compelled to write, if not in response, then along the same lines.

Religion. It's an eight letter that evokes just about every possible feeling. It can stir the coarse sands of contempt and at the same time inspire the greatest senses of achievement. In some of my constituents is a very important part of their life. In others, such as myself, it is little more than a word and a theme in history. My religious constituents tell me how great it is to believe in a god and know that there is an afterlife.

Do I function differently? Am I not as whole, not as enriched as my friends? Do I not share many of the same feelings they share? They explain the sense of fullness they feel after coming in contact with their holy spirit as if it's something I'm missing out on; however, I am very familiar with this sensation: it is the same feeling when I make a connection that was not explained to me, particularly in the field of biology. When I made the connection between the immunosuppressant chemotherapy drugs and how and why Neulasta (pegfilgrastim- the white cell booster drug) work. I feel exhilarated and a sense of awe fills me when I learn about immunology. Who is to tell me that this isn't the same feeling as presence of their gods is in their souls?

I don't believe that whatever your personal beliefs are, you're right and what you think will happen will come true, anymore. I don't believe that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Satanists, or any other religion, except atheism, is right. For the sake of peace and, more frankly, my ear, I will not go after my friends and tell them, systematically, why I do not believe in whatever they have the rights to belive in. I will not tell them that they are misguided or that they are wrong. I will tell them, straight up, that I do not believe in what they believe. Much like my contituents, if you feel any compulsion toward atheism, and want to talk to someone about it, I am here to talk.

Finally, I want to make it clear that I don't harbor any feelings of distrust, contempt, or any other "negative" feeling towards any of my religious friends. Now that I have made myself clear, I should hope that you will respect my choice not to believe in any god and not comment to this post with offerings of council should I change my mind. I'm quite sure I won't, but if I do (god forbid) then I think it's something my deity and I can workout together. Furthermore, flame responses because you disagree with me will not be tolerated. I have come with nothing more than peace and an explanation of my beliefs and how they may be not so far off from your own.

Peace.
- Jonathan

I Think I Plagiarized Myself

Okay, I'm going to be honest. I'm way too tired to even pretend to write a post right now, so I'll just give you something else instead. I'm not saying it's not my fault, or that I have a good excuse. I basically watched far too much Lost today and didn't get around to my homework until much later than I intended.

Anyway, I spent most of my homework time today making this pretty good power point for BC so I'll just share information, how would you like that!?

For example, did you know that each slice of a curve has a slant height that can be found with the distance formula using the two endpoints of the slice? No!? Well now you do, and here's proof!


Wow, that's pretty awesome huh? It's pretty much a really great powerpoint, I'm glad I spent so much time on it. It shows through in the final product.

In physics today we were listening to Taper Jean Girl by Kings of Leon, and apparently some people find that song/ KOL's earlier music obnoxious. One of these somebody's was Gennaro, and believe me, was I ever shocked that he'd find something I liked obnoxious.

Watch more Yahoo! Music videos on AOL Video

Watch more Yahoo! Music videos on AOL Video

Personally I love both the old and the new, but I could see someone liking neither. For some reason I've just been thinking of that alot today. Until next time I guess.

-Viv

oh, trevor

Hello Everyone! Happy Tuesday! Happy February 3rd! Happy ten weeks!! And a very happy birthday to Caroline!!

So I am chilling with my sister. Watching a reality TV dating show. It has to be hard to be on this show. I literally just watched this guy tell both of these twin sisters that he loves them. How can anyone find love on a show like this??? Why would even think that it's possible??? I don't think that dating shows can ever work.

I am having so much trouble working. I just can not concentrate for some reason. Every time I try to work on something, including this post, my mind just drifts.

I've also been sleeping way more than usual and I am still so tired.

I left my house today at 6:30 and didn't get back until 10:00. My parents never called or asked me where I was. Could it be that there is actually going to be some type of benefit for me now that I am turning 18? My mother also informed me that as soon as we have moved we are going to have a party for my 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18th birthdays. That way it will make up for missing my birthday all of those years and forgetting last year. This year they definitely have not forgotten. Which seems unfortunate now.

Luckily, my best friend has offered to plan my birthday for me. She knows I hate making decisions and says I will not have to decide anything. IT IS AWESOME!! I am so excited to see what she will come up with.

I have so much to do and I am so tired. . . So I suppose I am going to go and do that.

-Lacey

Yep, A Religion Post

It's long, but I hope you take the time to read it.

I'm the kind of person who dwells on things. I don't mean like regrets. I don't regret anything I do, because it's already been done and there's no going back. I don't mean like grudges either. I'm generally quick to forgive, I remember but I forgive. Yesterday, in church, my Sunday school teacher asked me what I pondered and thought about deeply. It was on the spot and I could only answer with words "life" and "my beliefs". Which is true. I think about what is going on in life, how I can fix things, worry about people, think about what will happen next. And I often look over what I believe to see if everything still holds true and if I'm living up to everything I believe in. And this long introduction leads me to my point.

I know none of you can forget about the controversial post on religion we had months ago. After it was over I didn't give much thought to it, just relived to see it end. Then, when Catherine posted in September, it was brought back into my mind when she said, "Jonathan told me to avoid the topic of religion..." And I've thought about it since then. It seems ridiculous, but like I said, I dwell on things. And I've waited for time to pass, because I've wanted to say something about that post, but not too soon.

The post would obviously bother me because I am a Christian, but I was OK with it. We all believe in different things, and whatever makes us happy is what we should believe in. What gave me a real unsettling feeling that lasted days afterwards, were those comments. People were against Jonathan, people supported Jonathan, and argument after argument was presented. I felt it was stupid and uncalled for. I was annoyed with the fact that we were supposed to be friends and yet here we were defending our position as if we were fighting the worst of enemies. People were mean too, and that was the least called for thing ever. And all those "anonymous" comments from people who wanted to get involved but didn't want people to know, that was ridiculous also. It made it worse because people we didn't even know were throwing out mean and harsh comments.

And my point in saying this is that there shouldn't be an avoidance in religion or any topic really (I'm sure that politics would bring up another controversy) . I would like think that we have enough respect for each other to listen to others beliefs and try to understand them. To my friends that believe in God, it hurts when people dismiss what you believe in as a joke, I know, but you know it's going to happen and there's no point in fighting. You can only correct when people say a false stereotype of you or your beliefs and move on. To my atheist friends, sometimes it'll feel like we're throwing our religion in your face. It's not our intentions. We find happiness in them, and we just want to share it with our friends. If it's ever too much, just say something and I'm sure we'd be happy to pull back.

I think we're all just trying to live our lives to the best of our ability. We have to understand that others are too. Don't forget that, guys. Understanding is what being a friend is all about.

-Brianna

PS I LOVE talking about religion, if you couldn't guess. So if you're every up for a discussion, not a debate, a discussion, I'm totally game.

Everyone Looks So Good From Here

Hello there, Blue Powerblogger here!

Yesterday I had pretty much one of the most awesome days ever. My birthday is on Tuesday, so I did some pre-birthday shopping and got my hair cut. But that wasn't even the exciting part. I got to sing with a band at a local club!!! 

So on Monday, I went to voice lessons as usual. I've been working on some songs and stuff with the guy that has voice lessons before me. Let's call him Tyler. When I walked in to voice lessons, he asked me, "hey, are you coming to the show on Saturday?" (his band was playing at a local music venue that evening). I told him I planned on it, and he replied, "so do you wanna sing onstage with us?" I was speechless for a minute, and then I finally said some form of "uh...sure...yeah..." Needless to say, I wasn't prepared for that shock! 

Friday, I got to meet the rest of the band for band practice. The guitar player, "Nick", was really nice. He made small talk in order to make me feel more comfortable and ended up helping me out a lot the night of the show. The bassist, "Ben", seemed nice, too, but I didn't really get to interact with him much. The drummer, though, was a little standoff-ish. Don't get me wrong, he is one of the most talented drummers I have ever heard, but he seemed like the one guy in the band who was like "we don't need this random chick in our band!" But who knows, maybe he will lighten up a bit. Anyways, we practiced in this tiny room and my eardrums pretty much almost exploded! My ears were ringing the entire night!

Saturday was the day of the show. My friend and I got to the club when the doors opened. Two other bands played first-"Drama Party" and "Mayday Cried the Captain". They were both kinda weird, but still pretty good. The club itself was strange to me, though. There were all these young kids smoking and half the people there were either drunk or high. It was just really sketchy. But my band played third in the lineup, and I was set to sing with them on the last song. When they started playing the final song, I thought I heard my cue so I jumped onstage. Unfortunately, I went on too early. The thing was, I was supposed to sing during this one verse at the end of the song, but I didn't know that they played it earlier in the song, too! Luckily, it didn't really sound out of place; I just looked a little out of place!

Afterwards, I felt really bad about coming in at the wrong time. I told Nick that I was really sorry, and he just brushed it off, saying that it wasn't that bad and that I was just nervous and to not worry about it. When I went to apologize to Tyler, he told me that I did awesome and gave me one of the best hugs ever! It was soooooo cute! And he reassured me that I would be singing with them again.

So pretty much, I've had eight years taken off my life because of secondhand smoke, I've seen more sketchy people in one place than I have in a whole lifetime, and I sang at a club for the first time and messed it up. But it's all ok, because the band is awesome and the night was crazy fun!

And listen to "Everyone Looks So Good From Here" by Underoath..."It's so easy when it's pulling me under...I swear I've slipped right through the cracks in the floor"

Until next week, 

-Caroline