I don't know whats been keeping me away from writing in this blog, maybe its been the sheer fatigue from having six tournaments in a row, or maybe it was the obsession in the amount of fun that I was having every day at practice and at tournaments with the team, but all I know is that I feel the obligation to write about what this season has been all about.
Two weeks ago, at the UPA New Jersey State Championships, Watchung Hills took second place with a 11-15 loss to Columbia. For years, my dream been to place first at States. It's hard to believe that in my four years of high school ultimate, I have never achieved it. With my senior year of school coming to an end, I have finally realized that I no longer have that chance to finally take that dream.
That leaves me to the question of, "what does ultimate frisbee mean to me now?". For the longest time I have had no second thoughts about doing that extra sprint, lifting that extra weight, and injuring myself at every tournament, because it was for my team. But recently I have lost my motivation for anything, whether it be working out or even simply finishing my homework after school.
But I remind myself that graduation means nothing. No matter where I go, Rutgers or NYU or wherever, I will still be a part of Warrior Ultimate. That is my reason for my thirst now to be an even better ultimate player. When people ask me where I played, I will proudly say "Watchung Hills". Whatever team I play on, Watchung Hills will be represented.
So yeah, I know its a little late, and I apologize for being so, but I think I can finally say a proper good bye to Warrior Ultimate, because I know in truth that it doesn't matter if I'm out on the field or I'm out somewhere miles away, I will still be a part of Warrior Ultimate.
Peace out from your captain
Brian Li Warrior Ultimate Captain 07-09 Rookie of the Year 2006 MVP 2008
Spring Break is almost over. I don't know why I haven't updated since like Winter Retreat, but I guess it goes to show that I can only write about times that are either really good or really bad. And since then, things have been, well, normal. I haven't really had any problems with maintaining my school life and my life for God, even though Ultimate has started and I've been working my butt off like crazy.
So, updates on life since my last update? Well, I got into the New Brunswick Rutgers Business school, so most of my college worries are over. As for now I just have to wait for housing and placement test stuff. I feel bad for a lot of people who didn't get into the college of their choices, but God has plans for us, wherever we go. I know God has really shown me the way to live my life these past couple of months and I have to say that although physically, things haven't been getting much easier, with my AP teachers piling homework on us, mentally and spiritually, things have been really lightening up for me. Even though I've contracted a very lethal strand of senioritis, I can still muster up my strength and do the work without complaints. (Although I will have to say that the quality of my work is usually sub par to terrible)
Today, as usual, I parked in the area that I wasn't supposed to and came late to E1 service. Instead of skipping out and going to Starbucks instead of E2 or whatever, I decided to sit in on Dave and Andrew's class for Men's Discipleship. One thing that I have noticed about church recently, is that its become more real. One of my "concerns" about YG a while ago was how everyone seemed to close up who they were to the community and hid their problems and struggles under a mask. Since Winter Retreat, these walls and barriers have been breaking down more and more with time through things such as team accounting, testimony nights, and open discussions such as the one I witnessed today in Men's Discipleship. It's really a sight when you see some of the friends you've known for a while just come before Christ and lay down all their burdens and troubles. You'd never guess that the people you talk to all the time had such problems and struggles in their life.
So thats my life for right now. Easier? Not really. Better? Definitely. I won't be at Youth Group or Church starting April 1st to the 18th because of out of state Ultimate tournaments, so just a small prayer request for me and my team. Hope that we'll do well and that I keep God as my first priority the entire time.
Haha okay, not sure how to end this post so... I'll do it the traditional way xD
This past weekend I went to the RCCC Winter Retreat. For the past couple of weeks, I've been having a lot of struggles at home and within myself. I couldn't find any purpose in the work I was doing, and I was lacking motivation to continue the tedious and mundane life I had been living. Not only that, but I was having an identity crisis with myself, due to the fact that my personalities were completely split between school and church. I had no idea which of these personalities were actually mine, so I struggled with the task of choosing between my "clean cut" look at church or the cynical and uncaring facade that I used in school. Was I that afraid of man that I had to create a completely new personality for myself?
Practicing for the Praise Team for retreat was putting an even heavier mental weight on me. I'm not sure why I even offered to be vocals for the Praise Team during retreat in the first place, but I'd like to think that God had plans for me, and I responded to Him, "fine, whatever". During praise practice 2 nights before the retreat, I was having a difficult time singing loudly. I wasn't sure why I couldn't but it was definitely dragging the rest of the team down because nobody could hear me. I felt like such a burden to the entire team, so I left that night on a low note.
Me and Wes got to the retreat like an hour early, so we helped Jeff by labeling Beechtree and stuff like that. When Amos and Shao got here, we began to set up and practice shortly after, only to find that the bass pedal and cymbals were missing. Luckily, everything fell through pretty well and we were able to practice. I don't know what it was about singing up there that made me feel so refreshed and unburdened, but after singing, I felt as if God had taken all my problems and worries and thrown them away.
Dean Kershner was our speaker for that weekend, which was great because everytime he's spoken in the past I've gotten something out of it. He spoke about not fearing man, and not falling into sin and temptation in order to appease to the ways of life today. God really speaks to you in specific ways, because I can clearly relate everything Dean said that night to my own life. I guess I've been so afraid of standing alone at school that I've had to change myself in order to fit in. Why should I be so concerned of what people think about me when God is the only one whose judgement matters?
My room/small group was a lot of fun. I had Wes, Dave Lee, Andrew Yuen, Kyle Chan, and... John Paul, haha. Our counselor was Jiayi, who was pretty new to the youth group, but not new to our church. He was really chill and our small group had some pretty good discussions. We didn't really get much sleep that night because a lot of us had homework to do and we ended up staying up until around 2 or 3 before finally checking out.
The next day consisted of workshops and a lot of free time. My workshops were What Really Matters, and Be the Gospel. After those two were over, we headed over to the jam room and played a lot of guitar and singing and stuff. It was pretty fun, but everyone was kind of scattered in random groups, haha, and we ended up playing Jason Mraz at least like 50 times, because that was the only song that everyone knew. The rest of the time there consisted of making fun of Sheena with Wes and Amos. When other people were done with basketball or football, I noticed how rancid the boys hallway smelled. There were literally puddles of muddy water in the hallway and wet shoes scattered here and there. Little did I know it was going to smell like that for the rest of the weekend.
Afterwards, it was time for praise team to practice again. We practiced through dinner, and managed to grab a small plate of food right before the main session started. After small groups we practiced Dancing Generation in hopes of playing it later on that night, and ended up delaying the rest of the kids from coming into the auditorium. Testimony night was really touching this year. Its really amazing to see some people come forward to Christ and lay down some of their deepest and darkest secrets and struggles before Him. I know left everything behind for Him that night. For those of you who heard my testimony that night, I'd just like to say that it is through the love and encouragement of my brothers and sisters in Christ that I was able to get through such struggles. I'd ask you to try to keep the things I said to yourselves, but then again, I don't fear man anymore so whatever, haha.
Unfortunately, we went a bit over the time limit that night and we weren't able to play Dancing Generation, so we headed back to our rooms feeling pretty disappointed. That night, I couldn't really sleep that well because John kept on snoring. Halfway through the night I decided that I couldn't take it anymore so I tried to throw a pillow at him. Unfortunately, I missed and hit Jiayi in the face.
After explaining to Jiayi what exactly hit him in the face last night, we started our last and final session. It was a little strange topic to end the retreat on, but at least we got to play Dancing Generation at the end. It was amazing, everyone (okay thats a lie) was jumping, and I finally got all the energy that I had the night before out. Afterwards, we took the seniors and retreat picture, and its just really sad to think that this will be my last retreat, and that I didn't even go to the one last year. Its really sad that I took the past couple years of my life for granted, because this retreat has been one of the best things thats happened to me.
It makes me sad to think about how fast it ended, but God has truly blessed me with this amazing opportunity to serve Him.
Man, its already the beginning of February and I STILL don't have the right to say that I'm in college. I've gotten into Stony Brook and Penn State (University Park), so I'm not exactly worried about my future. I'm probably going to get rejected from UC Irvine, so that's not an option either. What's pissing me off is that I still haven't gotten into Rutgers when I've gotten into a college that's even better. The reason I want to go to Rutgers so badly is because I don't want to make the adjustment to a different area, and I haven't even visited to Stony Brook or Penn State yet. I'm looking forward to being able to hang out with my friends who graduated last year again, since a lot of them go to Rutgers, but how can I say that when I don't even know if I'm going to get in?
So right now I'm just waiting until the end of this month, because that is supposedly when I find out. In the meantime, I've realized that I started slacking off WAYYY too early and I might have a C final semester average in one of my J classes. So yeah, I screwed up big time on that one, but its not like I can do anything about it since second semester doesn't really count. Nothing else really matters to me now except working out and waiting for ultimate to start, so I've just been punishing myself with the weights frequently.
I'm not sure how I'm going to spend my second semester. I'm probably going to spend it doing exactly what I did 1st semester and continue slacking off, cause I've still been getting Bs and stuff on tests and quizzes. But I know for sure that I'm going to spend nearly 90% of my attention on Ultimate. This is my last year, and I'm going to go all out until I collapse.
I've got a long weekend coming up, which includes the Winter Retreat. Unfortunately, I'm not as excited as everyone else is. I'm looking forward to getting back with God a bit and being able to cast away a lot of my worries, but thats about it. I had a pretty bad time at the last retreat I went to two years ago, but I'm pretty sure this one will be better.
So over the past two days, I've gotten a total of 6 hours of sleep. Overworked from studying for midterms, I've developed a sleeping problem that makes me restless for at least an hour or two before I can actually fall asleep. It's 3:08 AM right now, and its just given me time to collect myself and wonder whats been going wrong with me for the past couple of weeks, because I am lacking motivation to do anything. What purpose do I have to do anything anymore? Although I've mustered enough strength to get through the first semester of school, I don't know how well I'll be able to keep that up second semester now that I've gotten into college. But thats besides the point. The reason I lack motivation is because I lack purpose. Its not even about school, its about everything in general.
Recently I've felt like God has just taken a step back and left me alone. Now I know He wouldn't do such a thing, but not being able to feel His presence has just made me half-assed about everything. Why do I have to keep up being a good person? It's quite evident in my heart and mind that I'm just an asshole, even if I can suppress it while I'm around my friends. What mattered to me doesn't seem that much important anymore. Even at church or talking with some of my church friends I feel no motivation to control my irrational and aggressive behavior.
Why do I continue to study and deprive myself of sleep? Is it because I want to gain knowledge? No, its because studying, although extremely tedious and painful, is the only thing that removes me from the complications that have been going on in my house. I don't study and attempt to do well in biology because I want to score a 5 on the AP test. I do well because my sense of pride got the better of me and made me refuse to be one of the lower averages in the class.
So many things, I don't know why I've been doing them. I'm just living life without any sense or direction right now, and I don't know where God is. I haven't gone to Sunday service in a long time because I have been just so exhausted and I have no time to study anyways. My church friends either don't care at all or care too much, so I've just been passive to them altogether. I need to get back on track of things because not having a purpose is dangerous in this shitty life.
