Change of Plans...

Well, I was originally gonna write something tomorrow since I was going to be at Cafe Night tonight for CCM, but I'm feeling kind of ill and decided to stay in. It's probably a good way to start off this entry actually...

This morning, Jonny Chue and I decided to do WOMP, or the Westwood Organized Mega Project. For those of you who don't know, Westwood is the city right outside of UCLA that we visit every now and then. WOMP was another UCLA volunteer community event, much like the big event day we had near the beginning of the school year. This time, of course, we actually worked instead of watching the waves roll upon the beach shore...

Well, to start off the day, they provided us with breakfast and a few speeches given by leaders of the project. By the time we actually started to work, Jonny Chue and I were assigned Christmas light duty. Jonny would hold the ladder while I would use my pliers and cut away at the Christmas lights that were left in the trees along Westwood boulevard. We did that for about an hour thirty, then followed it up with trash duty and the put away of all the materials.

To thank us, the organizers of the event gave us things like a shirt, a cap, a movie ticket, and lunch. Well, due to such a mass amount of people that were busy doing grimy work, they set up a station for us to wash our hands and what not. Yet, this was simply two buckets full of hot water and soap that everybody used. In hindsight, I think I should have walked back to the dorms and actually washed my hands before I had my lunch...

Well, I had a sandwich and a few cookies. I don't know if it was the food being bad and/or a lack of proper sanitation, but I'm not feeling too well right now. Thus, I decided to play it safe and stay in the dorms and rest rather than go to Cafe Night, unfortunately, which is like a mass collection of performances by CCM students. Hopefully they all did well and what not, and hopefully I'll be better soon enough. This is the first time since fall quarter that I've actually taken a nap haha.

But yeah, enough with the course of the day. The main thing that I actually wanna talk about was the WOMP event itself. All and all, it sounds like a good idea. I mean, UCLA students are giving back to the community by doing tasks such as painting, trash duty, and general maintenance. But, we didn't even do that much honest to goodness. The event went from 7:30 to 1:00, yet we only worked for about 2 and a half since the rest of the time was food/speeches. Of course, during the entire event there was a lot of photography going on, which means this was probably more of a publicity event rather than an effective community service project.

Overall, yes, we did get stuff done, that is granted. But, the main question is, how effective was it? Did we really make a difference in the community, or was it just a show to say that we did? Of course, I'm typically the skeptical one that says this was more for show than making a difference... When the day is done and we look at what we did, it really wasn't that much. Maybe one street looks nicer, sure, but that's about it...

Maybe it's just a pet peeve, but stuff that's just for show tends to bug me. Iono, maybe it's all those years at Valley that made me so disinclined to this. I mean, it just seems so two faced... We're supposed to be making a difference in our community and yet we just do a little bit for two hours, get a ton of pictures, then go home feeling better about ourselves.

Like I said in my first post (somewhat), all these events are starting to get to me. I feel like I'm doing more physically, such as CCM, Church, Bible Study, Homeless Ministry, and the events every now and then. Yet, I feel like I'm just doing them because I feel like I should and for nothing more. At this point people may service isn't about you (or me in this case haha), and I would agree, but that isn't exactly what I'm saying. Hum, it's hard to put in words, but I feel like all these acts are simply part of a routine, not something I feel called to do sometimes.

This reminds me back of Smith's class and the idea of routine and prayer. He talked to us about just developing a routine of praying (not a routine prayer) so that way it starts to become natural. Malek also talked about this a lot, but in different aspects of life. I don't know, I almost feel like I'm a general exception to most rules, and in this case the routines that I do seem to stay naturally at routines. They don't become things I want to do, so to speak, but simply things I feel like I should do. And yeah, I think that's definitely not the best of mindset to have for an extended period of time...

I'm sorry, my mind doesn't seem to be connecting the pieces as well as it usually does, but I guess the main idea I just wanna leave people with is simply how much of life is a routine. Granted, for some things in life you need to make it a routine to get it incorporated, but things shouldn't stay that way. Sure, they are there things that are routine, but you shouldn't do them just because they are part of your routine but because you want to. It's all weird, and I feel like I'm going to confuse somebody if I keep going on, so I think I'll call this done and hopefully make more sense next time. Haha, farewell...