4 weeks

Later this week will mark my first month in Australia. It's the middle of my 4th week already. Time is flying by and I need to push my foot harder on the peddle. 

I find it important for me to be reading the Scripture at least once a day here, either in the morning or just before going to bed. In especially, Paul's letters scream at me because they are so relevant. They really take me to my heart, they reminds me that I am a soldier for God's cause and there is a spiritual battle or war going on and that I must be prepared and well-equipped. 

I am almost finishing Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and yes, I am on Day 40 and I think I will miss it. I will go back to it every once in a while and it helped me get through a lot of stuff for the past half year at least. 

I still remember telling Pam, my ex-worker, when I bought it, I joked that I was getting some self-help book. I read it before when I was a junior in college at Riverside, but I stopped reading it around 14 or 20 or something. Probably in the tens. The first and second moved me a lot back then, still do, it's empowering to know that God loves you, that you are unique and made for a purpose. 

PDL has really driven me in a sense, made me do things that I otherwise would not for God's cause. I surprise myself sometimes. One or two or even more were just illogical and so selfless that I don't get how I could otherwise. 

Life is, I think, like a lesson, and God is going to teach you things every step of the way especially if you are up and willing to take the lessons and learn. 

It's so important to be grounded because the world is very strong. That's why it's so important for me to read the Scripture everyday or a book to remind myself of my purpose in life. 

I watched the documentary, Enron: The Smartest guys in the room. It was really about how people consumed themselves with the world and turned everything upside down including the power crisis in California. How greed and money can take over. We just have to check ourselves every step of the way or we will just get lost (and not even know it until it's too late). We need to be humbled all the time. Of course, I can't imagine to be like them, I am not a business person, I am too nice, too pure (as some people say), too naive and my life has been teaching me that money is not a big deal. I just want to help people and improve the world. 

I do think about working for some aid organization like World Vision and AusAid every once in a while. Man. Should I? Is film for me? 

Scientists alarmed by ocean dead-zone growth

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dead zones where fish and most marine life can no longer survive are spreading across the continental shelves of the world's oceans at an alarming rate as oxygen vanishes from coastal waters, scientists reported Thursday.

The scientists place the problem on runoff of chemical fertilizers in rivers and fallout from burning fossil fuels, and they estimate there are now more than 400 dead zones along 95,000 square miles of the seas - an area more than half the size of California.

The number of those areas has nearly doubled every decade since the 1960s, said Robert J. Diaz, a biological oceanographer at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

"Dead zones were once rare, but now they're commonplace, and there are more of them in more places," he said.

Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, a marine ecologist at Sweden's Göteborg University, have just completed a global survey of the imperiled areas, and their report appears today in the journal Science.

The phenomenon that drives life away from so many coastal habitats is called hypoxia - the lack of enough oxygen in bottom waters for fish and other valuable marine life to thrive, the report notes.

The causes of hypoxia

Hypoxia is caused by tons of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilizers that run from farms and spill into the seas from rivers and streams as well as by fallout from power plants that burn fossil fuels.

The chemicals become prime nutrients that fertilize rich blooms of microscopic algae near the surface layers of coastal waters. The algae eventually die, sink to the bottom layers of the ocean and become food for masses of bacteria that decompose and consume the oxygen around them. The result is the dead zone, devoid of most marine life forms.

Read the rest of the article here.

Preventive steps can be taken, citing these examples:

• European nations along the Rhine agreed to halve discharged nitrogen levels, reducing the discharge into the North Sea.
• Planting new forests and grasslands will help soak up excess nitrogen, keeping it out of waterways.
• Requiring vehicles to reduce nitrogen emissions.
• Fostering alternative energy sources that are not based on burning fossil fuels.
• Better sewage treatment would reduce nutrient discharges to coastal waters.

NASA Dead-Zones from Space