Hurricane Sandy

By: Gabriela Yareliz

So… this is me. Trying to finish off as much frozen food as I can before Hurricane Sandy hits. They are closing the mass transit system down, so there will be no transportation, hence no school. (They still haven’t officially announced it, but I will do it for them.) So I am trapped in the middle of Manhattan not far from the ocean on all sides. GREAAAAAAATTT. This afternoon, I am going to a self-defense class and then returning home to keep amassing my cans. Yesterday, my friend and I went out, and the shelves were bare. We got some stuff, including some pathetic scented candles and water. No flashlights left. It is the NYU students hoarding all the flashlights. I know it.

Please PRAY for us. This storm is a category one, yet it is a unique and strange little psycho creature. It is taking a left hook and entering through Long Island.

Halloween (which I don’t celebrate), for the strange law students dressing up as Jersey Shore characters, is ruined. Yes, I am talking to you.

Anyway, here comes Sandy. I literally have to go, and eat some defrosted and cooked food before I head out to find more food that won’t “perish.”

Peace and love. And PRAY.

God is in control.

-Gabriela

Student of the Year: Siddharth Malhotra

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I thought Student of the Year, Karan Johar’s new film, was going to be lame–that was until I saw Siddharth Malhotra’s face.

                                           

Amazing.

I am Gabriela, and I approve this movie.

Extravagance

By: Ellen G. White

To Meet the Demands of Fashion—In our day, people talk of the dark ages, and boast of progress. But with this progress wickedness and crime do not decrease. We deplore the absence of natural simplicity, and the increase of artificial display. Health, strength, beauty, and long life, which were common in the so-called “Dark Ages,” are rare now. Nearly everything desirable is sacrificed to meet the demands of fashionable life. – {Te 147.1}
A large share of the Christian world have no right to call themselves Christians. Their habits, their extravagance, and general treatment of their own bodies, are violations of physical law, and contrary to the Bible. They are working out for themselves, in their course of life, physical suffering, and mental and moral feebleness. – {Te 147.2}

Daniel loved, feared, and obeyed God. Yet he did not flee away from the world to avoid its corrupting influence. In the providence of God he was to be in the world yet not of the world. With all the temptations and fascinations of court life surrounding him, he stood in the integrity of his soul, firm as a rock in his adherence to principle. He made God his strength and was not forsaken of Him in his time of greatest need.—Testimonies for the Church 4:569, 570. – {Te 190.3}

Indifference

By: Gabriela Yareliz

People wonder why there is so much suffering in the world. They ask God to do something about it, and as I read in Dwight K. Nelson’s book, Pursuing the Passion of Jesus, he did do something about it. He made you. He put you here. It is up to us to be God’s hands and feet. This video is so powerful. It is part of the reason I came to law school in the first place. One doesn’t literally have to be an advocate to make a difference, however.

We can all give love. It all starts with extending your hand out to someone who is broken. Our streets are filled with these people. One doesn’t even need to go far.

Will you be an a part of the body, and say “Lord, I will go”?

Food and religion

By: Ellen G. White

An Important Place in Our Salvation—Those who are not health reformers treat themselves unfairly and unwisely. By the indulgence of appetite they do themselves fearful injury. Some may think that the question of diet is not important enough to be included in the question of religion. But such make a great mistake. God’s word declares, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” The subject of temperance, in all its bearings, has an important place in the working out of our salvation.—Evangelism, 265. – {Te 162.6}
If men and women perseveringly live in accordance with the laws of life and of health, they will realize the blessed results of an entire health reform.—The Signs of the Times, January 6, 1876. – {Te 163.1}

Margaret Atwood: Part II

“I’m not used to girls, or familiar with their customs. I feel awkward around them, I don’t know what to say. I know the unspoken rules of boys, but with girls I sense that I am always on the verge of some unforeseen, calamitous blunder.”-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

“Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert out existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

At the very least we want a witness. We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.” -Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”-Margaret Atwood

“In my dreams of this city I am always lost.”-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (17)

“You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.”— Margaret Atwood

Vindication

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Remember your Jr.High crush? Yup, he was popular, and you were a geeky girl with acne and bangs you were trying to grow out. He didn’t see you. In fact he ran from you. Well, guess what? Sometimes life is sweet. You run across a picture of that person today, and let’s just say the fates are reversed. He got worse with time, and you got better. Life vindicates you sometimes. Look who is running now 😉

Yes. Yes. Yes.