la -- good times. who knew that karen and i could accomplish so much in 2 days? and really ...who knew that the volvo could break the back to the future barrier and then some? i'm amazed. 4.5 hours from la to mountain view -- eat that, suckers! this asian girl can't drive well, but she sure can get going.

so it is wicked late, and normal teachers have been sleeping for a couple of hours now at least ... but here i am, dregging the last bits of life out of me before i leave eastside forever. how do i explain how i'm really feeling?

i stole a book from sharon's this weekend, a book i've heard a lot about. it's called the sacred romance. several years back, one of my project sisters lisa told me about it. before i started to snicker about it being in the same vein as an elizabeth elliot book (sorry to the fans, ie ev and laineylo) ... it's really about having a love relationship with Jesus ... a relationship that really comes from the heart. the deepest part of your heart. i've only read a couple of pages (before i dashed out of the door with toast in one hand and a handful of papers in the other this morning ... late for school ... AGAIN) ... buuuuuut, so far, it's got my attention.

i don't know what my deal is ... but for the last couple of months, i've felt broken, and i'm not talking in a holy way. just in a dysfunctional "why aren't i growing in my relationship with Jesus" kind of way. disconnected. and i think this book, the sacred romance, as hokey as it sounds, has really resonated with where i am in my life right now.

admittedly, this has been the hardest year of my young life ... which just goes to show you how little adversity i have truly suffered. but it's still tough for a peon like me, and i don't want to get started on this again. but there's so much that has happened to me to change me. i am so much more fearful ... and not God-fearing, but fearing failure and fearing disappointing my colleagues, my students, my school. in some ways, i do feel like a shell of my former self. i find myself so ... unjoyful and trudge-y because i am so weighed down and held captive by the worries of the world. i have more white hairs, i'm anxious, i have little joy. and i certainly haven't been looking for it in the right place.

i can see that my walk is suffering, but i seek instant remedies and fix-its ... i call it the instant-noodle syndrome that my students so often suffer from when they don't get or find exactly what they want immediately. so i keep trying ... thinking if i am just a little bit more faithful, then my walk will get better. life will be better. i wont' be so whiney and a million other things that i can't stand about myself right now. but i have to say ... having exerted a fair amount of human effort and half-hearted praying, i'm not seeing too much movement. if anything, i feel more challenged to not drop the ball completely and run away from eastside altogether, even with only two weeks to go.

this isn't to say that there aren't glimmers in my life ... small pearls that make me tear up ... and remind me of His goodness. case in point: i come in this morning quaking in my shoes b/c one colleague is wicked pissed off at me right now ... but i find this note on my desk from two of my favorite students -- anthony and robert. i should probably enforced stronger boundaries and not let kids rummage around my desk but really ... mi casa es su casa ... come one, come all. and they had taken a scrap of a post-it and wrote "thank you alinna! from anthony and robert!" and took my cat crayola mini-stamper and stamped the whole thing with kitties. i almost cried.

but of course i digress. so far ... what i get out of this book makes sense to me. no matter what my efforts are ... i still feel jaded and weary of this journey. but get this ...

"for above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart. it cannot be lived primarily as a set of principles or ethics. it cannot be managed with steps and programs. it cannot be lived exclusively as a moral code leading to righteousness. in response to a religious expert who asked him what he must to do obtain real life, Jesus asked a question in return:

'What is written in the Law? ... How do you read it?'
He answered: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
'You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.' (Luke 10:26-28)

The truth of the gospel is intended to free us to love God and others with our whole heart. When we ignore this heart aspect of our faith and try to live out our religion solely as correct doctrine or ethics, our passion is crippled, or perverted, and the divorce of our soul from the heart purposes of God toward us is deepened ...

Our heart is the key to the Christian life."

i'm not sure quite how i got here, but i live Jesus in my head. but when was the last time that He was really in my heart?

let's be honest -- it's just a couple of dudes writing a better than average book ... but it ain't the Gospel. i know that. but at least there is a name for this gnawing hunger and vague dissatisfaction i have felt with my life in the last couple of months. some call it a quarter life crisis (a la john mayer) ... but i do feel disconnected from my heart and pray more eagerly that i would be shed of all earthly bondage (aka 8th grade/eastside hoopla) and live in freedom ... and live with heart.

what i've just said could be mistaken as intensely deep. or you could be smarter and recognize it as the ramblings of an overtired young teacher trying to make sense of what is happening to her and trying to avoid becoming another statistic and first-year victim of THE SYSTEM. i don't know. i really don't.

but i don't want to live a half-life like lord voldemort. i don't.

i want to live with joy -- because of my Savior.

and after this lengthy bit, the irony of it is this: now i have to finish the grading i haven't yet. speaking of the devil.