Looking back (2005)

I want start a tradition in my blog. I want to end each, single year with a Looking Back entry, like the one I had written a year ago. Humans, after all, are forgetful people—I am not excluded—and chronicling significant events of the past year through blogging will definitely emboss these seemingly insignificant embers of history into my brain.

And just how forgetful are we?

Forgetful to the superlative level. To illustrate: whenever the teacher asks, “What did we discuss yesterday?” I’d have to dig my brain’s dysfunctional memory card—what did we talk about last time? What? WHAAAAT?—and find it blank. But that’s a very shallow example, so here’s a deeper one: we hardly even remember the Lord’s goodness for the past year. We are so comparable to the Hebrews, God’s chosen people forgot God’s great miracles—like the Parting of the Red Sea—after only a few years. All they ever did was complain.

These are the events that have happened to me, events that the Lord has used to mold me into Christ-likeness, events that have taught me greater lessons than calculus:

1. Moving out of Kalayaan Dorm and transferring to Yakal

I've written about this a lot of times. It pained me to leave. I have developed such great friends in Kalayaan, and a greater fraction of the people I know in UP are my dormmates. What the Lord taught me was that nothing is permanent in this world, not even closeness or friendships or roommates.

Moving into Yakal wasn't that hard, but I needed an entire semester to adjust. The people treated me differently because they were not the same people I had used to live with in the first place.

2. From English to MBB

When I saw what Jef and Schubert were studying when we were still freshmen, I knew their course was interesting. It ocurred to me: why not shift to molecular biology? It was hard leaving English behind. I love literature, grammar, writing, and reading, but I also like learning new things, like DNA.

I asked the Lord about it. I studied His Word. I've always lifted it up in prayer: "Lord, what is it that you want for me?" After quite a lot of trials (which you will read about in the June 2004 archives), He brought me to MBB.

Not unto me, Lord, but to you be the glory!

3. Lance's grades are falling down

The Lord has also humbled me after I had shifted. You see, my head easily balloons with pride whenever I sense that I've accomplished something. Sometimes, it's not God who is glorified; it is my proud, sick, sinful ego.

So, good as God is, He burst that ballooning balloon. My grades during my freshman year were rather high. Apparently, I had a hard time in my first sem in MBB. There was just too much pressure and a lot of things to study. The sem ended with me so exhausted that I told my parents that I had to go home during the break. I did. And when I had reflected on how the Lord disciplined me because of my pride, I am so overwhelmed. He is just so merciful!

Now, I'm enjoying this sem better than the last.

4. My blog pretty much says it all

I am sorry because this is such a lame summary for so great and meaningful a year. But one cannot put everything in a capsule of an entry, can he?

All the honor and glory be to the Lord Almighty!