Life Post Lebanon...

I haven't updated my blog since I took my journey to Lebanon. Doing really well aren't I? Well to sum up that experience, well there are really no words to describe how amazing, not only the country is, but the people are. A few words, if I really had to find some, to sum up my trip there are: Amazing, Exhilarating, Belonging, Joy, Love, and Passion. I want to return to Lebanon every year and spend time with the country that is not only a part of me, but that in which I am in Love with.

So my plans after coming back from Lebanon were to apply to Grad School there and move in January 2010. Yeah you read that right, last month. Well while enveloped in the entire application process, my friend Leo told me Apple was hiring and that I should apply with him. I said, "Umm no, Ive applied to Apple since 2004 in CA and I never once got a call back." He kept on me and convinced me that I had nothing to lose. I thought to myself, whatever I have Lebanon, so why not? I applied to Apple and then went back to my application process for Grad School not concerned with making a decision between the two because I knew Apple wasn't an option.

While on a vacation to visit my family in CA, I got a call, actually a job offer. I got offered the job at Apple. No God!! Why do you have to make this so difficult for me right now?? (Sidenote: If you know me well, you know that I have always fantasized about my dream job working for Apple Corporate and traveling the world talking about a product I love and believe in.) And here was my opportunity. The rest is history.....

So here I am now, I just celebrated my 25th birthday (ugh 25 sounded sooo old when I was 16 and now I'm actually 25!) in NYC and 4 days later on Valentines Day celebrated my 1 year anniversary living in NYC. I made it! One year? Seriously, I can't believe I have been here for a year. Once making it in NYC you can truly make it anywhere. Let me tell you why. NYC is amazing and it's full of passion and life, but it kicks your butt. You get worn out and are constantly tired. I feel like God must feel like that about us. So worn out and tired by our stupid decisions all the time that always gets us into trouble and he has to try frantically to get our attention so we can realize that stuff outside Love and Relationships don't really matter that much. Yet He is so in Love with us that it is worth it. He will take the emotional and physical abuse. Tired and worn from trying to get our attention, but love us nonetheless. That's how I feel about NYC. I'm going 100 miles per hour. Wake up get on the hour subway ride to work. The subway smells different everyday, so days less foul than others. Then walk to work. Stand on my feet for 9 hours at work helping customers and educating them about amazing products. Then get back on the subway for an hour, when all I really want is my bed, and deal with the craziness inside. Then walk to my apt and walk up the million fights of stairs to my apt. I can't even tell you the plethora of stairs I tackle a day! Throw in snow blizzards and cold weather and that adds the cherry on top. NYC exhausts me, but I love it so much that it's worth it.

That's where I am at now. Working full time for Apple, for a company I believe in and absolutely love, living with amazing roommates who motivate me and inspire me everyday, have amazing friends that I've met at my job that are like my family, I feel God present in so many places and people in the city, I have an amazing community of people at NYCI that join me in living out and fighting for the Revolution and Love that Jesus started so long ago and I am in the most vivacious city in the world.

So there it is my current situation. I no longer look at the future, or live in the past. I live in the beautiful moments I have in the present and I find so much joy in every single minute I have.

Book of the month I just finished that you HAVE to read: The Shack by WM Paul
Young. It is such an amazing book. It keeps you on your toes. The end of each chapter doesn't allow to stop there, you have to read just ONE more chapter to see what happens cause you HAVE to know! I finished it in 3 days. Check it out, I promise it will change your heart, engage you and inspire you in the least!!!


I will be updating this regularly now, so stay tuned.....