oks.. so today was a not so special day.. that is... until i get this one msg from my dear brother. he said:

"VICKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ME OFF TO WORLDS
sweet deal eh?
and guess wut?
1 week for tounament.... and another week after is dad is going to bring me and mom to hong kong to go shopping"

SO not fair! i wanna go!!! but guess what? apparently i have school... stupid school! ALWAYS gets in the way of things! *sigh*.. on the up side? i'll have the WHOLE house to me. but the down side? i wanna go to hk!! *sigh* anways.. i was writting my super long huge note, in THE notebook. and if you dont know about it then consider yourself informed. and if you dont get it, then dont worry about it. cuz it probably doesnt concern you... now why does that word look so funny to me? hm... how DO you spell probably? anways.. whatever. i got this email from someone wise. that know i needed to read it. here.

The Fisherman Story
Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought, as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body.

But the appalling thing was his face -- lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face... I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning."

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. "No, thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag.

When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.

When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind." I told him he was welcome to come again.

And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up to do this for us.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!" Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice, but oh, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him, from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!"
My friend changed my mind. "I ran short of pots," she explained," and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden."

She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. "He won't mind starting in this small body." lf this happened long ago - and now, in God's garden, how tall and lovely his soul must stand.

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (Samuel 16:7b)

so the summary? TO SEE TRUE BEAUTY, LOOK INWARD!!! SEIZE THE DAY!!! and its kinda weird.. i never got an email that said that to me... hm... but yeah.. the story was very touching. oh! and for those of us stuck in this horid place known as "school" *shudders* this mite apply to you. haha

25 WAYS TO TELL THAT THE SEMESTER IS DRAGGIN' ON TOO LONG
1. Shaving becomes more and more optional by the day.
2. You get more sleep in class than you do in your bed.
3. You can no longer distinguish your bank balance from your GPA.
4. You actually think, "If I were diagnosed with Pneumonia, I could get a doctor's note excusing me from finals!"
5. You can't say the word "Lab" without qualifying it with some kind of profanity.
6. You spend more time calculating the lowest possible mark you can afford to get on your final exam than you spend studying for it.
7. You only wash dirty dishes when they outweigh you.
8. The tomatoes in your fridge have become sentiment.
9. The first thought you have when you wake up is "20 more hours and I can go back to sleep!"
10. MasterCard is now master over you!
11. You forget to pay rent, hydro and phone bills. But you'll do anything to ensure cable (and internet) isn't disconnected.
12. Your concept of cleaning the toilet is "Aim for the stain"!
13. Those "Train At Home For A Better Career" commercials seem like a viable alternative to your course of study.
14. Being a stand up Comedian seems like a viable alternative to your course of study.
15. Being a Professional wrestler seems like a viable alternative to your course of study.
16. Your IQ exceeds your body weight. But you're just as stupid as you've always been.
17. "Tearing your hair out" used to be a figure of speech.
18. Just about anything constitutes a healthy meal provided that you drink it with milk.
19. You are briefly convinced that your inability to get dates is actually a blessing because you don't have time for it.
20. 3 meals in one day is special occasion.
21. You memorize acronyms you learned in class and use them regularly. But have no idea what they mean.
22. You can't remember a concept you learned last semester, but you can quote word-for-word an episode of the Simpsons you saw two years ago.
23. "Catching the news" means watching Sportsdesk while eating breakfast.
24. The only thing that keeps you from causing your roommate serious physical harm is the fact that the Hydro is in his name.
25.You begin to remember high school as the best years of your life - in other words, you've become delusional
26. Lists like this actually describe your life.

and thats all i hafta say.. unless you guys want the "he said, she said" like omg. thats hilarious. that seriously made my day like a couple days ago.. and i should have it still... key word? should. haha.