the wonderful Cross bids me come and die so that I may truly live.
i think i just have a simple proposition for this year now that the first month is pretty much gone...
Blog post 1: On the road to School.
Currently, I’ve kinda lost some track of time with Singapore already. I am so confused what time is it where because I’ve been to so many places. Day 1 away from home, I flew to Tokyo Narita and there was my fight ever flight delay. I never had a flight delay before, and to my horror, the flight out from Tokyo really sucked. Seats were cramped and though I sat in the front row, the “projector” screen was right ahead of me. I watched “ Eat, Pray, Love” but it left me semi-sedated all the time. 8 hours of leg killing brain splitting pain! And I missed the sights of the coast of San Francisco. However, one thing is for certain, I’m thankful that I have safely travelled over the biggest ocean in the world and now am in the States with no lost bags! Thank You God!
So you may be thinking that I am probably cold and miserable sleeping on the floors of LAX right now (btw, the place seems to be leaking everywhere). After standing in the queue for 3 hours (yes my queuing was longer than my flight), I managed to reach the counter to get my flights rescheduled. Many flights were cancelled due to the snow. I missed the 12.35 flight to LA, 1pm flight was cancelled and 2.20 flight was full. So I am STRANDED IN LOS ANGELES. Right now, instead of staying in Woodruff Hall, I’m in a place which costs 5 times as much and tomorrow I’ll be headed to Emory on my own, on the Marta and all! Woohoo, Delta compensated me with a night at the Westin Hotel. Don’t know how many stars, provided me with 18 USD for food. I think it’s a blessing in disguise, as I was scheduled to reach Emory at like 11pm with no linen and all since it’s all still with Jacq, so I got to sleep in a fluffy bed with 5 pillow (instead of my 2 in Woodruff), had a night bathtub shower and awesome heating facilities. In just a couple of hours I’ll be headed to Salt Lake City to transit and run to catch another flight to Atlanta, oh God, please lead me because I would really need to run to get to Atlanta.
The three hours queuing up was really frustrating. I see people complaining, people getting angry. I was pretty much just coping with my headache for travelling so much. I sat in the plane till my butt wanted to tear and then I stood for three hours after mentioning that to God. Haha, that was quite ironical. First thing that hit me in that line was once again that God has put me in a pause moment and I learnt that I’m quite a control freak. I don’t like not being in control, I was thinking about cutting lines, joining the rest of the merry men in complaining and making a fuss. There was a couple right behind me and I chatted with them a little, the wife was extremely angry because the queue was disappearing behind her while she was still in the queue. Logically speaking, that should infuriate me as well. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m cold and I have a headache. It gave me every right to complain. This totally reminded me of my car breakdown. I was talking to the husband and he was saying “What can we do, we’ve already queued for hours and are finally somewhere at the front of the queue. No point getting upset”. Wow. He made a whole load of sense but the wife was urging me to complain with her. I was a little torn in taking sides, so I decided to just joke it off when I was finally at the front of the queue. I went like “ALRIGHT. I AM NUMBER ONE!” and commented that this was like a marathon. 3 hours. I would have finished a half marathon in this time. I didn’t praise God or anything during this circumstance. And I guess this points out a very simple truth. We often rely on our own wit, our own cunning to get us somewhere and get things done. I mean, I could have foreseen a delay causing me to miss a flight and asked the Tokyo delta to change my ticket to a later one. But in hindsight, it was precisely because of the delay that I got a free night in the Westin. All in all, God turned my disaster into something great! Man, I got to learn how to trust God more man.
So now, i'm finally in salt lake city. waiting for my final flight to Atlanta! so happy that i see the word delayed and not cancelled. haha and shucks. im hungry again.
it is 2.15 am. I've had a 2 hour nap, woke up to a couple of good bye smses and man... the adrenaline is pretty amazing. the past 3 days has been a great time of catching up with people. i feel really loved to have people bring me breakfast (erina, shai and jency can cook! guys please contact me for their numbers) and am really some how so provided for with little things like socks + beanie + pouch + 10000 useful stuff to bring over to a foreign land. thanks guys for being the providence! i believe God will show much more there.
