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Thursday, May 30, 2002 You know what? I'm proud to be Chinese. I'm a pretty hard person to offend. But you know what does get offensive? Absolutely out-of-place and racist comments by ignorant people. When I was in elementary school people used to make "jokes" about my how my "face looked it was run over by a semi." Two comments by an unnamed person today said that I had a "flat, pancake-like face." Some people never grow up. ^ Top | 4:44 PM | | | 
More Published Stuff Check out the second published Dawn article: Cheap Ways to Give Gifts. 
^ Top | 4:32 PM | | |
Changing the World It's been a busy day... after work we all went to the Brown Jug to eat pizza. We (all the PIRGIM kids I work with) are so idealistic--actually, I think most college students are in general. What happens to people when they get older? Most "real" adults have lost their idealism, their desire or will to change the world. Yet here we are: Duncan, who wants to work on public policy; Caroline, who wants to work in AmeriCorps, Teach for America, for something similar, at least for a couple of years; Wendy, who wants to be a comedian; Anika, who wants to be an actress (and not just on a whim--she's majoring in theatre performance)... and then there's me, who wants to spread God's love to the world and use music to connect with people and bring hope and healing (which I honestly believe it can do). You know what? I want to keep my idealism. I can change the world, but not by myself... almost every major movement was started by students. We have to work together, because we can do so much.... and we have to keep trying. Sure, we'll fail. We'll get discouraged. "Reality" will roar its ugly head. But the Christian life especially is supposed to be one of excitement, of risk-taking, and changing hearts one person at a time. Reality is what we make it. ^ Top | 1:16 AM | | |
Tuesday, May 28, 2002 From an Email I Got Today In the news... John Zuccarini of Pennsylvania is one of those online citizens who pollute the digital air. After buying up over 5,500 addresses of misspellings of popular sites, he sold gambling and porno ads in them. Some even played toward kids by using close misspellings of the Cartoon Network (15 variations) and Britney Spears (41 variations). His sites were created using "mousetrappings" so that once you clicked on it, several popups would come up with ads for his porno and gambling affiliates. You can't get away from it because as soon as you close one down another is created. Some have as many as 32 windows popping up one right after the other. He has been making close to one million US dollars a year from his pop up practices. The Federal Trade Commission checked Mr. Zuccarini's file and found that he had been sued 63 times in the last two years, lost 53 cases and had to return nearly 200 domain names to the rightful owner of the domain copyright. The good news is that yesterday he was slapped with a two million dollar fine! ^ Top | 5:07 PM | | |
Sunday, May 26, 2002 Comments The comments feature has been temporarily disabled. It will be back soon.... ^ Top | 8:17 PM | | |
Saturday, May 25, 2002 Quote of the Day "We are under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God, or we can write the great American novel. But the only way one can brush against the hem of the Lord, or hope to be a part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control." --Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water ^ Top | 9:10 PM | | |
Friday, May 24, 2002 Quote of the Day "Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult." --Charlotte Whitton ^ Top | 6:27 PM | | |
The Internet So I just discovered something interesting... how to find out what computers people log in from. Isn't the internet wonderful? Or should that be scary? ^ Top | 3:01 PM | | |
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 From 850 Words of Relevant The end of the final "X-Files" episode, David Duchovny's character, Agent Fox Mulder--who's been searching for the truth the entire series--is asked "what truth is it you want to believe?" His answer: "that the dead are not lost to us. That we'll see them again. That there's something greater than us. Greater than the aliens." He then picks up a pendant in the shape of a cross, looks at it and says, "Maybe there is hope after all".... ^ Top | 4:08 PM | | |
Imagine Dawn Jumping Up and Down I was just published!!! Check out Relevant Magazine or the direct link to the article. It's the Star Wars review, published under the name Dawn Xiana Moon. Swwweeeeeet!!!!!! ^ Top | 3:47 PM | | |
Tuesday, May 21, 2002 A Fun Elephant From my friend Thor: 
^ Top | 12:18 AM | | |
Monday, May 20, 2002 More on Star Wars Pure speculation... from the available evidence I think that Sethidious (the Jedi who ordered the clones and supposedly died 10 years before the events in Episode II) is actually alive and somehow became Darth Sidious, aka Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. We all know that Palpatine is powerful, powerful enough to kept the Jedi in the dark about his true nature as a Sith Lord. Even Anakin thinks he's a "good man." If you read the books, you learn that the Jedi have the ability to transfer their energies into another body (similar to how Yoda and Obi-Wan become blue ghosts--take the same process and transfer the energy instead to a living organism), which is how Palpatine keeps himself alive--he clones himself and takes over the body of his clone, because otherwise the strain from using the dark side of the Force in such quantity would have degenerated his body beyond repair. Notice how Palpatine always looks wrinkled and worn--it's an effect of the Force. Thus, my guess is that he is Sethidious and took over the body of Palpatine--as an evil character he would feel no moral constraints against effectively killing the original inhabitor. It'll be interesting to see how far off my guess is. ^ Top | 11:43 PM | | |
Sunday, May 19, 2002 Attacked by the Clones A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. Star Wars was about creating a mythology, about confronting the ideas of good and evil, and exploring deeper truths. It was about telling a story, an epic. Somewhere along the way, George Lucas lost sight of his original vision and caved in to marketing pressures and the urge to show off his technical wizardry. Don’t get me wrong, Attack of the Clones was much better than Episode I, which catered to boys under 13. However, the new movie made another mistake: it catered to teeny-bopper girls. Since the majority of Star Wars fans are male, it was clear even from the “Love” trailer for Episode II that Lucas was trying to reach the young female crowd. Hey, why not increase the audience? Cast Natalie Portman to get all the guys into the theater (and as many of my guy friends have commented, “Who cares if she can’t act? [Which I hear she is actually able to do, though it hasn’t come forward in any of the Star Wars films….] She’s hot!!”) and cast Hayden Christensen and integrate a sappy romance to get all the girls. Ok, we all knew the love story had to get in there somewhere, but come on--rolling around in fields? I think Lucas explored every romantic cliché there is: flowery fields, the intimate moment by the fireplace… not to mention the horrible lines: “I’ve been dying a little bit each day,” “The sand is rough and coarse, but you, you’re everything soft.” Good grief. And I’m a girl! Frankly, Lucas needs to learn how to hand the reins over to other people. He once knew, but I think he’s forgotten--he wrote and directed Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV) himself but allowed Irvin Kershner to direct Empire Strikes Back and Richard Marquand to direct Return of the Jedi. He also hired Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan (a University of Michigan alum!) to write the scripts. Most people would agree that Empire and Return are much better than A New Hope… and Lucas wrote and directed Episodes I and II as well. Hmm. Not only was the script clichéd, but capable actors looked like they were acting, which is obviously not the point. Overall the cast was dry, almost monotone--which works for one or two characters, but not for an entire cast. Since it was a cast-wide problem, I’m more inclined to blame the director than the actors. The other main problem with the movie was the overabundance of CGI. Computer graphics are nice, but when every scene is obviously CGI the film loses a sense of reality, verisimilitude. Maybe it’s time to go back to some models instead… too many scenes had that slick computer graphics texture. I imagine this was difficult for the actors as well, since most of the time all they had to react to was a blue screen. However, the saving grace of the movie was Yoda. Yoda rocked! One minute he’s hobbling around on a crutch, the next he’s flying in the air and twirling his lightsaber in a way you could never imagine possible. Wow. It’s worth sitting through the movie again just to see him fight Count Dooku. That was the coolest scene I’ve ever seen in my life. If you haven’t seen this you definitely need to check it out! Overall, the movie was better than I feared it would be but worse than I hoped it would be. I have high expectations from Star Wars, gleaned from years of reading the books and watching the movies… hopefully Episode III will redeem the first trilogy. I’m crossing my fingers. ^ Top | 11:58 PM | | |
Thursday, May 16, 2002 The Big Night! Alrighty kids, tonight's the big night--yup, it's time for Episode II. Random fact: Projections estimate that 2.6 million people will be skipping work today to see Star Wars, which will cost businesses as much as $319 million. Yikes. And to quote from the article: "...with technology and computer companies taking a particularly large hit because of their geek-heavy payrolls." LOL. And for those of you who would rather skip ahead to Episode III, here's a nice link. Full reviews will follow after I see the movie tonight. See you at the theater! ^ Top | 4:14 PM | | |
Wednesday, May 15, 2002 Thought of the Day My job as an artist is to be aware, to feel as deeply as possible. The best way I can describe writing songs is that it's like hearing a conversation on the other side of the world. I'm just trying to hear a few words, to get enough so that I can put the story together. --David Crowder ^ Top | 5:55 PM | | |
Monday, May 13, 2002 Thought of the Day There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with little hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it. --C.S. Lewis ^ Top | 10:03 PM | | |
College Life There's some truth to this: When I first started college, the professor came in and said, "Good morning" to all of us. When we echoed it back to him, he said, "Ah, you're Freshmen." He explained: "When you walk in and say good morning and they say good morning back, they're freshmen. When they put their newspapers down and open their books, they're sophomores. When they look up so they can see the instructor over the tops of the newspapers, they're juniors. When they put their feet up on the desks and keep reading, they're seniors. And when you walk in and say good morning and they write it down, they're graduate students." ^ Top | 9:57 PM | | |
Sunday, May 12, 2002 Happy Mother's Day! Parents can be hard to get along with and it's sometimes easy to forget everything that they do for us. For example, my mom used to cart me back and forth from play rehearsals, music lessons (at one point I had three a week--piano, flute, and voice), ice skating lessons, dance lessons, and anything else I happened to be doing... plus she paid for all of those, and I'm sure if you add up all the money my parents spent on various Dawn activities the number would get pretty scary. She bought me a new flute that cost more than she'd intended to spend even though we didn't have a ton of money because it sounded incredible and back when I was a senior in high school I thought I was going to major in flute performance. She convinced me to audition for one of my first plays and made me stick with piano because she knew that deep down I loved it although I hated to practice. And boy did I give her a hard time--but now I'm so grateful that I didn't quit. When I was little and got scared because of crazy movies or my overactive imagination she could make the monsters go away. This is pretty cheesy, but my mom is awesome and I don't always give her credit. Mom--thanks for everything. ^ Top | 9:02 PM | | |
Friday, May 10, 2002 Thought of the Day It has in a way become the cop out of this generation, proof is irrelevant, all science has become today is a creator of truth, it's own truth, and God help anyone who gets in the way. --Calum Chamberlain ^ Top | 6:09 PM | | |
Star Wars Hype My brother bought a block of tickets to see Star Wars on opening night! Sweet. I'm definitely going. The official website has some pretty fun photos, not just scenes from the movie but behind-the-scenes shots. So I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the movie will be better than the first one; however, I'm not one of those people that hopes the movie will open with Jar Jar's demise. I didn't think he was the best character ever, but he was definitely amusing in a C-3PO annoying kind of way. At any rate, the pictures I've seen look amazing.... ^ Top | 5:55 PM | | |
Tuesday, May 07, 2002 Spring Plans I'm sitting in the middle of Espresso Royale and wondering what I'm going to do with myself... I have to find a place to live for the spring and another job since there's only so much to do at UMS. However, I'm not worried... I figure God will work everything out somehow or another. I'm also working on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that will be performed outdoors. It'll be a reprisial of the production we did last spring, but this year we'll be performing both in June and September with two casts; I'm assistant directing the fairies and will play a fairy and Hippolyta (what you'll see depends on which performance you go to). The funny part about the whole thing is that last year after performances and tech week in 30 degree weather (not fun when running around in skimpy little fairy costumes) and pouring rain most of us said that we'd never do an outdoor show again... and most of us are back this year. Are we just a little masochistic? ^ Top | 3:49 PM | | |
Sunday, May 05, 2002 Back from the UP It's nice to come back to warm weather--while I was at Cedar Campus it actually snowed (more than once!). Yay for Michigan. Although I wasn't exactly thrilled about going--I would have rather stayed home, to be perfectly honest--it was definitely a good week for me. Hard, but good. The best part about the week was just getting to know everyone who went from our chapter--spending a week away from the pressures of school and homework was definitely condusive to growth in relationships. I spent a lot of free time playing crazy four-handed piano improvs with a guy named Patrick ("Let's do a Schoenberg!" aka "Let's hit random notes that aren't in the same key!" and "Let's do Phillip Glass!" aka "Let's play lots of notes really fast on top of each other!"). He's an amazing pianist and--here's the crazy part--has never taken lessons. Wow. And on to the tough part of the week... facing the issues that God brought to the forefront: cynicism, skepticism, pride, and placing my worth in "doing" vs. "being". I base my worth on performance, how people view me, the titles I hold, the lines on my resume, etc., which becomes depressing when I'm not performing well; and all this even though I know that I should find my value in the fact that I'm God's child and he loves me no matter what, whether I perform well or fail. Seeing myself through God's eyes is freeing, but it's hard to let go of my performance mentality. I also learned something about the value of honesty, both before God and others, as well. Everyone that went has definitely been stretched. It's a difficult process, but ultimately a good one. ^ Top | 9:16 PM | | |
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