A Garden

Baby took a picture of moi. Madrina is proud of his 3-year-old skills.

I am diseased... with a cold.  It's no fun.


However, I am very proud to say that I went for my every-other-day run today after I had been awake for a few hours.  It was very rewarding, for the first time in a long time I didn't stop to take a break!

So awesome.  I love when my body makes progress. 

My goal is to prepare myself for my two-week daily program that I am going to embark on next month.  It's gonna be sweet, I can't wait.  Well, actually, I can. Until my body is ready for it.


There's this song that is a gorgeous song, it's called Garden by the fabulous Matt Maher.  I'm actually listening to it right now.  Singing is painful for my throat because of my cold, but I must say that little life is better than no life.  Plus, I believe that this song is a perfect representation of life and how I'm looking at it right now.

I watched Eat, Pray, Love.  Gotta say, it was enjoyable.  It makes me want to read the book, but I'm too afraid to add it to my list of books to read due to the fact that I procrastinate on ideas...really badly.  Actually, I'll add it.  Who cares if it takes forever to get to it.  At least it'll be on my list, and then one day I'll get to it.

Currently Reading:
-The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
-The Letter to the Romans - a bible study book
-Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love - Edward Sri
-P.S. I Love You - Cecelia Ahern
-The Way - Josemaria Escriva

Want to Read:
-Because God is Real - Peter Kreeft
-Rediscover Catholicism - Matthew Kelly
-The Shack - Paul Young
-The Rhythm of Life - Matthew Kelly
-Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
-Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
-Stuck in the Middle - Virginia Smith

I'm currently procrastinating.  I told myself that I'd complete my CV tonight and show my dad.  Sigh, best get to it if I want a future with food in my stomach and clothes on my body..

~Esa Cita

Word of the Day

My favorite bible verse for the longest time has been Romans 8:18.  To me, it is a verse for warriors, for superstars, not for the faint of heart.  Today I read in a book about the next verse and how this special word was used in the original translation.

Apokaradokia – “eager expectation”

“…it describes the attitude of a man who scans the horizon with head thrust forward, eagerly searching the distance for the first signs of the dawn break of glory.  To Paul, life was not a weary, defeated waiting; it was a throbbing vivid expectation.”

“Nonetheless, the Christian does not live only in the world; he also lives in Christ.  He does not see only the world; he looks beyond it to God.”

“…the keynote of the Christian life is always hope and never despair.  The Christian waits, not for death, but for life.”

 So cool, soo cool.

~Esa Cita

Christmas

Fact: I read a whole book for FUN in a day and a half.  That NEVER happens, and hasn't since I was a tween.  Crazy junk. This winter break is a cool one let me tell ya actually.

According to Plan

Good ole' Florida, I miss ye.

This morning I woke up to a text from one of my lifelong friends saying good morning and asking me what the agenda was for today.  I answered getting two of my brothers their presents, running, and yell at Paul. 

Life has a different plan.  I did none of those things so far. The first because my brothers have needed the drivable car today, the second because I needed to clean, and the third because I was just kidding.

Instead, I spent about 2.5 hours cleaning the kitchen chairs with a sponge, pledge spray, and a knife; along with the past few days doing endless loads of laundry, cleaning, and more cleaning.  My mother has high expectations of cleanliness, and this is among the celebrations where we go all out on the clean house thing.

Christmas celebrations will be taking place tomorrow and the next with about half of my big fat immediate Cuban family.  My uncle's family will be staying at our house: a family of 8 and our family of 9.  That's 17 people and two bathrooms, and only 6 of us are over the age of 18.  We're experts at these things lemme tell ya!!

So back to the not going to plan topic.  After not doing what I planned, I snuck into my room and watched Along Came Polly on my laptop to enjoy more free-spirited attitude.  This is probably one of my favorite quotes from Polly:

Polly: Hi, Reuben. It's Polly Prince.
Reuben:   Oh, hey, Polly! How's it going? Good.

Polly:   I'm just calling to say that, um, I'm free tomorrow night if you want to get together.
Reuben:   Yeah, I would love to get together. That'd be great.  Should I, um-- Should I pick a restaurant or—

Polly: Oh, no, no. You know what? I should probably just check

my schedule, see if I can even do it.

Reuben: Okay. I'm...Did you say you were free?

Polly: Yeah, no, I'm actually not sure. But okay, I'll talk to you later.

Good stuff, good stuff.

"It's not about what happened in the past, or what you think might happen in the future. It's about the ride, for [bleep] sake. There is no point in going through all this crap, if you're are not going to enjoy the ride. And you know what... when you least expect something great might come along. Something better then you even planned for."

Last night I discovered that something I was really looking forward to in my life may not work out.  After an hour or two of grumbling about the house, I came to the consensus with myself that all I can do is be proactive, make a back-up plan or two, and just go with the flow.  And while I don't believe that everything in life can be particularly enjoyed like the quote says, I do believe that there's a greater interior plan beyond the exterior "crap"...and in that I can "enjoy" things, or rather attempt to live a life in love.

Time to be productive. Too-dah-loo.


~Esa Cita

Chilly days

Good Stuff.

Teachers. Need. To. Post. Grades.

I've been checking everyday....and I am very proud to say that I only checked twice today. I cannot say the same about the past two days.  I have two more classes left that still need to be posted...come on professors, your due dates are PAST already!!!!!!!!

So unfair.

So, impatience aside, I am happy to say that I am almost done with all my Christmas shopping as of today!  This year I decided to get everyone in my immediate family gifts, something I never do but shall because this semester has put me in an overall  generous/loving mood. Cool stuff, cool stuff.


Dangit, I just realized I didn't have dinner tonight.  I'm pretty hungry, so I'm gonna go.  Nightnight!

Esa Cita

It is finished.

Christmas Celebrations

I am ALLL done!

Let me tell you, that felt like the longest few days ever.

Without fail, Finals Week has shown to be a drama-filled week of mostly academic stress.

Last night as I was cramming for my last final I came to the point where I realized I needed to complain to Ana.  So I did. "I'm sick and my throat is killing me I'm angry and I've had this killer headache for 7 hours. Complain complain." Luckily, I have a compassionate friend who was in her compassionate mood...

Thennnnnnnn, I woke up this morning and as I was brushing my teeth, my sick self decided to gag and throw up.  Second time that it's happened this year.  Random fact: I haven't really legitly thrown up since I was twelve-years old.  So it was weird for me. Yes, you're welcome for sharing.

However, just as it usually goes....after I took my last final this morning, life seems to have been quite lovely of a time.  After finishing my final I went up to my professor, told him I was finished and that I wasn't going to take his extra optional exam.  He said "oh you're not? That's okay."  I then told him to have a good break...and then all hell (or heaven) broke loose.  He SMILED BACK AT ME with this face that was UNKNOWN to me and said "aw you have a good break too!"

That, my friends, has got to have been my favorite part of today.

This dude has not smiled ONCE the entire semester...in fact, after months of him frowning I eventually assumed it was the way that his face looked.  So seeing him smile such a nice, genuinely happy smile was CRAZY to me.  He's one of the professors that I respect the most at Mason, and his class has been one of my favorite in college, totally a plus.  I walked out of the class with this little joy in my heart like as if I was a really really cool kid....and out into.... snow!

So good.  So good.

I just found out that I got 15 out of 15 on my International Relations Theory final. Good, so good. :)

Now I'm gonna go do something slightly productive, like read.  :)

Ahh, winter break.  :)

~Esa Cita

"Tie my handlebars to the stars so I stay on track"

It's not like this yet.

It snowed yesterday for about 20 minutes.


Coolio, very coolio.

Needless to say, the chilliness has been infiltrating the premises.

As the next week approaches, I have a few Advent preparations that I shall be doing to be ready for baby Jesus.  Since I'm a student and FINALS WEEK begins Tuesday, I want my gifts to baby Jesus to be academically orientated.

First: no music coming from the internet allowed.  All music I play while studying or doing anything must have been already downloaded and not require internet connection.

Second: blog and twitter must go bye-bye until my last final. Must focus, and this has been a good internet distraction.

Third: prayer. Gotta get on that more everyday, and of course for the rest of my life. ;)

Lately, I have been challenged in my patience in handling certain situations.  I'm not a fan of it, but God's giving me the opportunity to stay strong with patience.  God is so good.

If the bombs go off, the sun will still be shining 
Because we've heard it said that 
Every mushroom cloud has a silver lining .

Last night was Ruthie's birthday celebration at Champps.  Yummy food, yummy people! 
Just kidding, humans really aren't yummy.  I just wanted to use the same adjective.
Good times, great people.  I was happy to be with my discipler as she celebrated her one-year anniversary of being 21. :)

Well, I will now sign off until Thursday. Good bye dearest blog!

~Esa Cita

Last Day

I had a nice day today....but what was nicest was the fact that:

I got accepted to go on an alternative spring break to Princeville, ILLINOIS for a faith formation trip from March 13th-19th!!!



I'm SO excited.

Not only do I get to continue the awesome learning time that I've had in this Catholic Philosophy class that I took this semester, but I will be the closest I've been to my friends from high school since I left the midwest!

Not that being near my friends is the main reason I wanted to go...but when you haven't seen the people you went to high school with since the summer after graduation....it's perfect reason to be ELATED.  Even if I don't see them, it'll be so sweet to know that I'll be in the Midwest again.


 Last day of classes today....sigh. The semester is over!  Another college semester gone...and a new chapter begins. :)  Life is good.

After a complicated rushed episode of running around for my extra credit assignment (many complications and much sweat for 3 pieces of paper...sillysilly!) and going from one friend's apartment to another, I eventually made my way to Mass and the Christmas Party!!!  I got to wear my red dress that I wore senior year at the Christmas Ball for my high school and sit with lovely ladies from bible study and fabulous Patricia.   Those were some good bread rolls and cheesecake, and I must say the balls of butter made me smile.

 I had other news but alas....I forgot.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll blog about it later.
  Now time to study some economics.  Holy hour in a few hours!
~Esa Cita ♥

Today

My lil' man.

Today, today, today.

Today I was given the opportunity to achieve something I haven't achieved before: I wrote a 12-page final in one day from blank to end.  This has never been done before.  Granted I had the research and all the ideas set up in my head for a few weeks now, but when it comes to actually saying things that aren't just words about my day my my brain just flips out and will not accomplish within the day.

But today, it did.

Unfortunately, all other unimportant things such as a balanced meals, breathing, and order had to take the back burner. :( Wah.  Don't like doing that.

But this accomplishment will be remembered along with the future birth of my first child one day and my graduation from college.  Don't know how I did that, I'm way too slow a writer to ever be able to do that in real life.

So what did I do today? Went to Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with some of the fam, went to my favorite class in the world, paper-writing at Starbucks, class with my favorite Ukrainian professor in the world, food break, more paper-writing, go home, paper-writing at home, FINISH.

I took a nice extra long shower, and was about to jump into bed and pat myself in the back for a job done...until I realized that I have an extra credit assignment due tomorrow that I told myself I'd do....

So I'll be up for a lil bit more.  Just wanted to get on and do something non-work related.

Soon and very soon. :)

Christmas Party tomorrow night!

~Esa Cita ♥

Dear Distracted Student,

What a stud.

Here's a bit of "Boom, Roasted" 
for the Distracted Student 


(a.k.a. Me)






By St. Josemaria Escriva, taken from his "Study" Chapter of The Way:

There is no excuse for those who could be scholars and are not. (332)

You pray, you mortify yourself, you labor at a thousand apostolic activities...but you don't study.  You are useless then, unless you change your ways.

Study--any professional development --is a serious obligation for us. (334)

An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer. (335)

If you are to serve God with your mind, to study is a grave obligation for you. (336)

You frequent the sacraments, you pray, you are chaste, but you don't study.  Don't tell me you're good; you're only "goodish." (337)

Study. Study in earnest.  If you are to be salt and light, you need knowledge, capability.

Or do you imagine that an idle and lazy life will entitle you to receive infused knowledge? (340)

To be idle is something inconceivable in a man who has apostolic spirit. (358)

Add a supernatural motive to our ordinary professional work and you will have sanctified it. (359)

~Esa Cita ♥

Cold Dedos.

My little cold fingers are quite cold.

As silly a statement as that sounds, that is probably one of the most frustrating things that I come across in the warm indoors while trying to get work done.  When I have cold fingers, I cannot work.  I cannot read, I cannot type...and I become captivated by the need to hold hot mugs, search out my good ole' fingerless gloves, or find any way to warm those little digits.

So much work for those 10 phalanges of mine...all for the greater cause of getting work done and not curling up in my bed to stay warm.

As much as I'd like to talk about myself and how I gave my blue fingerless gloves to a best friend last winter for Christmas so that he could look like Ash Ketchum, perhaps it'd be cooler to tell you about where I went last night.

Actually, my head hurts, I'm tired, and my fingers are warmer.  I think I'll just log off and get back to my work.  Alas, it's the last week of classes and I have my McDonalds final due tomorrow.  

Soon and very soon, I am going to be all through with the Fall Semester of 2010.

~Esa Cita

Why Girls Are Awesome

Sometimes, we have these great hair chains.




















Bam.
Need I say more?


~Esa Cita ♥

first purple candle down...2 more to go.

I'm sitting at my dining room table once again.....distracted from another final paper. This time, I'm writing about McDonaldization! Yahhooo! After I turn in this paper, I'll be finished with the class...and then I can focus on the rest of my classes. So cool. School's awesome, just really really time-consuming.

Last night I went Christmas carolling with some cool peeps.

It was pretty tight, I miss doing that. Some houses weren't very receptive to it....but honestly Christmas spirit and preparation for the real meaning of Christmas are quite lost in our society so.....they just need to suck it up. ;)

I started doing some applications this week, which has been making me think about my future a lot. It's really cool for me to think about my future...and kinda scary. I'm not ready to be a grown up...I'm too much of a kid at heart. Oh well. I can just be like my dad...who pretty much is a kid that just finished his career and earns money for his kids.

The second purple candle gets lit tomorrow! And it's Saint Nicholas' feast day Monday. Growing up, we've always had a lot of candy and celebrating and Christmas plays and all that junk on Saint Nick's day. I can't wait. I'm making cupcakes tomorrow for it.

~Esa Cita

Blog Song

Dada's Birthday!




The song on my blog is called "C.S. Lewis Song."


Why?

Because it's based on a ballin' C.S. Lewis quote.

“If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world”

I adore the song by Brooke Fraser song so much. :)

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here
If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary,
then of course I'll feel nude when to where I'm destined I'm compared

It's one of the most comforting things to read when the world just gets you down. It's so nice to know that there's so much more to daily life and what we do, to know that we were made for more than what we look like on the outside.

~Esa Cita

This Week.

My beh-beh

This week has been awesome to me... butttt, the schoolwork has been crazy on me. My final paper is due in a few hours, and I'm still working on it. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep since Saturday. I'm going to sleep in later on today. The people that don't go to my study spots haven't seen me much.

Happy December 1st! I've been waiting for this day for a long time. I turn in my first final today, and it's the day I decided to pamper myself after I turn it in.
Rewards=necessities.

I'm living on coca-cola, kindness from friends and family, purposely wearing non-sloppy clothes, little sleep, and daily Mass. I shall make it through!!!!!


~Esa Cita