here's to the nights we felt alive

Friendships are so key in this life. Even Jesus, the human version of GOD, needed fellowship and found it within his twelve disciples. Friends make live worth living instead of just getting through. And sometimes you have those experiences where you just stop and realize how precious true friendship is.

This weekend was one of those experiences for me. On Saturday night, one of my dearest friends, Rachel, got engaged. Her fiance had the fantastic idea to organize all of her closest friends to be at his apartment to surprise her with an engagement party directly after the proposal. Looking around the room, it was amazing to see a group of us that first met each other in a bible study during freshmen year and I felt so blessed that we've all stayed friends throughout the years and have been able to see each other get engaged, get married, find jobs, and become 'grown-ups'.

The weekend continued...Sunday was the ADX Alumni get-together in San Francisco and sixteen alum were there! Someone mentioned, "wow--we all look so much older" and again it just caused me to wax nostalgic about first meeting these girls as a little freshman in college, unsure and skeptical about joining a sorority. I would never have guessed that so many of them would become lifelong friends. And again, I thanked God for the gift of friendship. And I know I can never thank Him enough.

A musical onion

Some of the most powerful music I've heard is when it is in it's most basic form: one person, one instrument. There's something about hearing a song stripped of everything except the most basic elements, where I feel like it's being played just for me. Well, last night after doing some web browsing, I came across a video of Imogen Heap performing one of her songs in a most unique way--using only her voice and some clapping, she created layer upon layer of the song as she went. I'd label it 'techno- acapella'. I was amazed at the simplicity and complexity of the song all at once. Instead of me rambling on, watch for yourself:

Bauer power

The new season of '24' has arrived, the wait is finally over....

burn out bright

Christmas has come and gone. So has New Year's Eve. So has our 4-day cruise. So has my two weeks of glorious vacation time.

Usually, after big events like these pass, I experience a "post-event" melancholy where I become sad and disappointed that it's over. I've found that this is rather useless, because then I tend to miss the full joy that the event brought in the first place.

However, it seems that for once I am actually content with all of the holidays and vacation coming to an end. I enjoyed every moment with family and friends over the last few weeks, but I must admit that I am relieved in a way to be done with all the hurry and flurry and look forward to getting back into the normal flow of things.

As for New Year's resolutions, I don't have a long list this year. Of course, I could definitely come up with a long list as I've done in the past, but I've realized that perhaps it would be more effective to have one main goal for myself that could apply to several areas of my life. In the last few days I've pondered what I really want to accomplish this year and the answer came to me in the lyrics of a new song off of the new Switchfoot album:

if we've only got one try
if we've only got one life
if time was never on our side
before i die i want to burn out bright




In essence, I want to start living more purposefully. I feel that I have been stagnent in my spiritual walk for too long and I'd like to take steps to change that---studying the Bible and praying consistently would be a good place to start. I want to take action in serving others and seek out opportunities where I can do so, instead of just sitting around and thinking about it. I want to be purposeful in my friendships, in figuring out what I want my next career move to be, and in constantly pursuing a stronger marriage. I don't want to get stuck in the mud of complacency, I want to be able to say that in 2007, I moved forward.