selah.

"selah", as i found out over the weekend, is an instruction to pause and reflect. an apt name for the place i stayed at over the weekend for the ucf retreat in florence, on the oregon coast. i had an awesome weekend... definitely up there among the best times i've had here so far. i made new friends, got to know friends i already knew better, laughed (hard), got laughed at, prayed, reflected, got enough sleep(!), visited new places, ate good food, didn't do any homework, enjoyed gorgeous weather, saw amazing scenery... i think we had it as good as it gets.

we went to the sand dunes... which i don't even know how to begin to describe - i'll post pictures soon (really.) we were jumping off this ledge unto a pretty steep slope, sledding down, running down, huffing back up... and then i jumped off the ledge and must've landed on a spot that someone had already landed on, so the sand was compacted and didn't give... it HURT. big time. but, thankfully, i'm still functional - my lower back hurts, especially when i sneeze, but it's bearable and much better than when i first landed. it was nice to be surrounded by people who cared and did what they could to make me feel better. =)

after the dunes (and an icepack and a few painkillers), we went to town and had ice-cream and caramel corn, and walked around for a bit. it had such a nice vacation-y, laid-back, beach-y feel to it... quaint little shops, boats bobbing in the dock, benches along the sidewalk with pretty plants growing next to them.

then we went to the beach... and it's the first time ever that i was freezing on the beach! i've always associated the beach with sunburn, swimsuits, warm sand, a gentle breeze that provided respite from the heat... but the wind was so strong! and cold! and no one was in swimsuits. and the sand wasn't warm. there was driftwood strewn all over the beach... reminded me of dinosaur fossils.it was pretty tho... in a very different way from the beaches in malaysia. there was a sense of desolation to it... wild abandonment. as opposed to the welcoming, calm balminess i associate with the beaches i've been to. but i liked it.

march the 8th marked half a year of me being here in eugene. i feel as if i've just now passed the mark of "settled in" and "made the transition"... it's been a process, and still is, but i feel as if i've passed a threshold. something new that i've learnt: nothing in life is permanent, but that shouldn't stop me from immersing myself in each and every person and experience i encounter. i think i've been holding back because i didn't want to get attached with the knowledge that i was gonna have to unattach myself soon. but. where's the fun in that?

snafuir (a.k.a. roadtrip) to california in two weeks, and mommy in florida in a month! makes the prospect of dead week and finals week much more bearable. mm hmm.