Road to Connoisseurship

When i say i fancy becoming a wine connoisseur, i say it only to mean that i love learning something new whenever i go visit the Napa Valley. There is one painful disadvantage though - i fail to bring any valid i.d. and there goes a not so sweet bye-bye. Even at 25 getting my nose into wine tasting, i still get to be mistaken as the 12-year-old Emily being dragged along by the avid traveler-mother. i'm not happy at all.

And about my interest in wines...

So whenever i go to dinner gatherings especially with my very clanish family, when wine is served, i always go for the red wine. One of my sweet aunts whom i've just visited at the new wine country, having offered everyone wine, was about to hand me a glass of white wine (i think it was the Pinot Gis) because she said we ladies enjoy drinking it more than red. When that polite offer came to me, i showed gratitude but told her i'd also want a glass of red wine after.

But hey, worry not. I'm not the girl trying to impress the bullies (like, "hey look mom, i'm drinking wine"). I drink red wine because i know it's good for me. It's good for my heart, my blood and it has a good amount of anti-oxidants. Period.

Same goes when i go to a B.B. King Blues concert watching an 81-year-old performing even though i can't help but catch myself yawning in the middle of it once in a while. Same as how i love Bob Dylan though i didn't fall in love with his music the first time i heard it (but i fell in love with his poetry!). Same, also, as when i go even to museums where the smelly old rugs get to my nerves, almost killing me due to my bad allergies.

All because "i know it's good for me".

But there are more i-know-it's-good-for-me's that are far too much harder to do than these. You know, like things you want to do that you don't get to do, and things you don't want to do that you end up doing? That sort of thing. Like in the morning, the first thing that i want to do is pray but then it has never been that easy getting my half-awake-half-dreaming self on its knees. So i end up in a snooze.

So i'd like to say that one thing i can never forget was when someone said (was it Andrew Murray?): "the more you find it hard to pray, the more you should pray". In response to this i don't want to say, "because it's good for me". Saying this will be an understatement. In this i want to elaborate no more. Because all i know is that prayer, plus faith, plus the will of God, can move mountains.