Blog: Entries Tagged With 'church'

It's hard to believe, but it's been a little over a year since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal. July 4th of last year was when we finished packing the last of our stuff into our cars and drove down from the Bay Area. This year on July 4th, we went over to the Camarillo Premium Outlets and caught the nighttime fireworks show there. I guess we'll have fireworks every year to remind us of our moving anniversary!

I already wrote a summary for our six month anniversary, so I'll just mention the highlights from this past year.

We've seen Priscilla's parents and my parents about once a month on average. Priscilla makes it a point to have us visit her parents every month, whereas things are a little less formalized with my parents - we saw them more frequently towards the beginning.

On hold are getting the gym room and master bedroom set up and making room in the garage for a second car, but I expect that we'll start in a few months. I've been prioritizing other things like infrastructure improvements and quality of life enhancements. On the infrastructure side, I had a plumber fix a valve that was causing us to not have hot water, got our sewer lateral replaced, roof vents installed, downspouts piped out to the street, and recently got our dishwasher fixed through our home warranty. For quality of life, we've gotten new furniture for the common areas and a daybed for Priscilla to use in the backyard. We got solar torches for the front and back, and we got the water fountain (included with the house) up and running. I also hired a company to clean and set up the hot tub, and I've been maintaining the water ever since. Having a hot tub is a luxury that we never imagined we'd have, but Priscilla makes time to enjoy it about once a week (I don't care for it).

We do a fair amount with our church. Our small group meets weekly for study, except the last week of the month in which there's a dinner outing (we usually skip those). We've been helping out with worship about once a month, including at the retreat last week. Speaking of which, this was our first retreat with this church. It was an all-church retreat at Pepperdine University, though we barely interacted with the other congregations (the main purpose of having all the congregations at the same retreat, we were told, is to save on costs). We enjoyed our time there except for the dorm housing; there's a certain level of comfort that we've come to prefer, and Priscilla had neck pain when sleeping there. In future years, maybe we'll take the commuter option (it seemed like a good number of attendees did). We enjoyed the food and the conversations over meals, and the preaching was great. One of the things the speaker said is that if you've done your Bible reading for the day and you haven't been moved, then go back and read again. Words to live by.

It also looks like I'll be helping to redesign the church website. Previous efforts had kind of fizzled out, and the English congregation's elder (we only have one, and he's also in my small group) had mentioned recruiting me for the website not long after Priscilla and I joined the group nearly a year ago, but only now did I get connected with the main guy in charge of the site, so I guess it hasn't really been a priority for the church. There seem to be some basic goals that we need to get consensus on, so we'll see.

Finally, I've been learning things across various domains, including trying to learn piano. I took lessons for perhaps a few months early in grade school, and I didn't have the interest or the discipline to make it very far. Since then, I would infrequently take a peek at my grandfather's old music books, and in high school, I learned how to play Canon in D using the lesson mode on my electronic keyboard. But I never really had a grasp of the basic fundamentals. So now I'm going exercise by exercise through my old primer books (the ones with illustrations for kids), and I also learned to play Minuet in G Major from a YouTube video. I wish I had realized as a kid that piano could be so fun. I'm still terrible at it, of course.

All in all, though things could always be better, I think we've had a meaningful year. My strength (and also weakness) is that I focus on one day at a time. I feel like I've mostly been purposeful with each day, but Priscilla has been challenging me to think about what my purpose looks like five and ten years from now. I think it's largely the same as what I'm doing now, but it's always good to keep one eye on the horizon.

We last visited the Bay Area in October for me to say goodbye to my coworkers and for us to see friends and family. We thoroughly enjoyed our time up there, but we thought it would be longer before we visited again. However, last week we found ourselves visiting again.

The main reason was to go to my uncle and aunt's place to retrieve our guitar and keyboard, which they had graciously let us store there during our move. Priscilla needed those to practice since we're starting to help out with worship at our church, with Good Friday being our first time serving in this way. We always had a feeling that we would reprise our roles playing piano (her) and drums (me) for worship after joining a new church.

So the previous Friday, after our morning gym session, we drove up the 101, stopping at our new halfway spot in Atascadero for a short break. We got to Mountain View in the afternoon and I joined up with Frank to go running. We ended up running 8 miles on the Stevens Creek Trail like old times.

We stayed up in the Bay for four days, which gave us plenty of time to see people and get stuff done. We stayed two nights with the Chans, having breakfast with them on Saturday, then two nights with the Leongs, having breakfast with them on Tuesday. We also caught up with the Yehs for a late-night hangout, did lunch with Albert and Ruth, dinners with both pairs of my uncles and aunts, and dinner with Tracy at Google. Plus talking to a lot of people at church for 3.5 hours until our voices were sore. Whew. Thankful for all the people we've gotten to know and their generosity in letting us crash at their houses (several families had previously offered).

We also had time to get the prongs on Priscilla's ring adjusted at Shane Co, and also hike Mission Peak on Monday. Hiking Mission Peak once a year has been our annual tradition, so we (I) thought it would be cool to do it again this year during our trip. Will we keep up this tradition going forward? I guess we'll see. Priscilla is as thrilled about it as I am about traveling in general.

We've also been busy helping parents, both remotely and in person. The cadence for now is to visit Priscilla's parents about once a month, and we saw them yesterday and fixed a lot of things around the condo.

Her dad's dementia is getting progressively worse, and during the last visit we helped them fill out and get notarized a Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive for each of them. We also bought her dad a medical ID bracelet which he lost within a day. We also ordered a bracelet with a tracker that's difficult to remove, so hopefully that will be better. There's the doorknob cover to prevent him from wandering that I mentioned in a previous post, and yesterday I installed a keyed lock for her mom's bedroom to help prevent her dad from going in there and taking things. He's also been breaking things around the condo because he can't figure out how they work. He seems to have clarity less than half the time, and usually when he talks, his communication is all over the place and nobody knows what he's trying to say. It's sad seeing him decline and not be able to do a lot of the things that he used to, but I have to remind myself that this happens to just about everyone as they age - whether it's our bodies or our minds breaking down. I myself have been having a lot more aches and pains in the last few months, so I'm getting to experience things through a new perspective.

Things are the most difficult for Priscilla's mom, of course. She feels like she's being driven crazy daily due to his actions and him frequently talking about seeing/hearing people in the condo. Priscilla and I have it easy, relatively speaking, though I'm sure that will slowly change as we start helping them more. We have to remember that we're here to love and support them, and this is what we signed up for when we decided to move back down.

I've been thinking a lot about purpose lately. It's now been four months since I left my job with Pure, and being free of a job has afforded me time to actually do things like think.

But kidding aside, in some senses I've been busier than ever. I've definitely had my hands full with fixing things around the house, doing things for parents, working out, researching health, relearning science concepts, and fellowshipping with people at church and in our small group.

I reckon that most of us won't find our "grand purpose" in lofty ideals like changing the world or becoming the top ranked in something. But, to loosely paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, we can all do a bit of good where we are, with what we have.

To say that life is more about finding purpose in the day-to-day rather than living out some "grand purpose" is helpful. But, for followers of Christ, I think that doesn't capture the whole picture. We are called to a higher purpose, and that is to glorify God and find joy in doing so. Our purpose should be the one that He has set for us. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So we continue to live each day - learning, laughing, and loving. Finding small doses of purpose in enjoying life and helping others do the same. All the while, allowing Christ to work in us and wanting the same for others. That, I submit, is our grand, glorious purpose.

It doesn't feel like it to me, but it's now been over six months since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal, and over three months since I left my job with Pure. Where does the time go?

This has been an eventful time for sure. We've seen my parents on 11 occasions, her parents on 5, and Aaron and his family on 8. The most recent time was just last Sunday when we saw my family to celebrate our nephew's 5th birthday. Wow, he's 5 already?? Time really does fly.

Back in August, we signed up for lifetime memberships at our local gym. We go 1-2 times per week, depending on Priscilla's schedule. I'm usually lifting while she goes to the Pilates/yoga and Zumba classes, though I might be going to Pilates/yoga with her more often (I've already gone once) since my back has been acting up and I need to strengthen my core. Gary from our church usually joins me at the gym biweekly since he gets every other Friday off from work.

We've committed to the church in Thousand Oaks that I previously mentioned, and we submitted membership applications in November. We're still waiting to be approved, as applications are supposed to be reviewed at the next elder meeting, but this is just a formality and we're already somewhat involved in church life. We visited four fellowship groups and ultimately joined one that has people similar to us in life stage. There are usually 8-10 people in the group and we meet weekly, with one week per month set aside for an outing to a restaurant (we haven't always gone to those). We value the discussions and getting to know people in the group.

Despite not having a job right now, I feel as busy as ever. Since 2013, I've been using a spreadsheet to track my notable daily activities, but last October I started also using Google Sheets to track a breakdown of my activities in five categories: Mind, Body, Spirit, Others (i.e. other people), and House. I don't always do something in each category every day, but it's a good goal to have. When I feel like time has gone by without much to show for it, I can look back at the sheet and remember that I did do meaningful things, even though each of them might've been fairly small. I've learned that life is less defined by grand acts and more by small but cumulative actions. I gave the sheet the title "The Next Right Thing," the name of a song from Frozen 2 - not a very memorable movie, but the song has a powerful message about just putting one foot in front of the other, especially when things are hard.

We've spent a good amount of time with family and friends (both new and old). We've met most of our immediate neighbors, though our relationships haven't developed past the quick hello on the street yet. We've gotten half of the house set up the way we want; the gym and master bedroom still need to be done. I've been brushing up on various topics like chemistry and biology, and every time I learn something, I put it on the sheet and highlight it for easy reference. Fitness has been okay, but there's still a lot of room for improvement and I still have my near-term goals that I want to hit. I haven't quite found my "grand purpose" and perhaps I never will, but I've been getting little doses of purpose in daily life. Maybe that's enough.

We also had a memorable time in November when evacuating due to the Mountain Fire (as I talked about in a previous post), and this month there have been a lot of wind-driven fires in SoCal, most notably the hugely destructive Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in LA. Challenging times ahead.

Speaking of challenging times, Priscilla's dad's dementia has been slowly getting worse. He seems somewhat okay during the day, but past the evening his clarity diminishes and he gets more confused - this apparently is known as sundowning. Priscilla's mom asked us to buy a door knob cover so that he can't leave the condo late at night; he had already wandered out twice. Two weeks ago, we stayed three nights at their place to help them with various things, and it was somewhat challenging. We're going to stay with them one night next week in order to help them with more things, including driving them to a doctor's appointment 45 minutes from their place. A sign of things to come, but this is what we knew we'd have to deal with when we decided to move down.

Overall, we're glad that we moved down and still glad that we settled down in Camarillo, even though it's an hour drive, give or take, to get to parents. It's nice to have a little bit of separation, and we like our house, neighborhood, and city. Retaining a bit of comfort will be critical when we find ourselves helping parents more. But we'll deal with that as it comes, one day at a time. Doing the next right thing.

We're not even a full week into November and already this month has turned out to be one for the books.

Last Friday, Priscilla and I visited my parents and then her parents. We stayed two nights at her parents' place so that we could drive them to the memorial service at CCAC for Priscilla's uncle William, since her dad can't drive anymore and her mom isn't comfortable driving far. It was a nice time seeing parents and the memorial was really touching. We didn't know Uncle William well, but we learned about his great faith and his love for others and desire to see them come to Christ. He had a quiet spirit but such a profound faith in the Lord. His words of "Be a Christian on the inside," as recounted by his granddaughter, were such an encouragement to us all.

On Sunday, we drove over to Hollywood and stayed at the Lexen Hotel. We joined Gina, Weber, their parents, and Gina's friend Sally at the Hollywood Bowl for the concert for David Foster's 75th birthday. A lot of the songs were too old for us to recognize, but it was cool to hear and learn that he had produced songs like Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," Celine Dion's "All By Myself," and Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up."

Fast forward to this morning when news broke that Donald Trump had won the presidential election in a landslide. I consider myself a moderate, and my views on various issues generally fall closer to the middle than towards either end of the political spectrum. That said, in terms of character and moral fiber, I think Harris would've been the better person by far to represent this country, and had I lived in a swing state, I probably would've voted for her out of fear for what Trump's presidency means for the country and for the world. I really hope that Trump will serve with integrity, humility, and fairness, and that he will submit to the perfect Judge who gave us the ultimate example of love.

With a Republican majority in the Supreme Court, Senate, and possibly the House, I'm concerned about issues like the environment. But regardless of who's in power, I think massive repercussions of climate change will be inevitable. Society is just not willing to make the drastic lifestyle changes needed to avert a crisis, and by many accounts it's already too late. As followers of Christ, we know that this world is temporary and will eventually pass away. The book of Revelation talks about hail and fire and a third of the earth being burned up - metaphors for climate disasters and nuclear warfare, perhaps? It saddens me how many people, some Christians included, don't seem to act like stewards when it comes to taking care of this world. Nonetheless, our ultimate hope must be in Christ, knowing that only what is done for Him will ultimately last.

And on that note, I'll finally mention that there's currently a wildfire blazing in parts of Ventura County including Camarillo Heights. We lost power this morning when the power company shut off power to tens of thousands of residents as a precautionary measure. The Mountain Fire, as it's now called, quickly grew to over 10,000 acres due to the strong winds that are expected to last until tomorrow afternoon. We had to leave around noon when the evacuation area expanded to our neighborhood. On the fire map, the fire boundary appears to be 2,000 feet from our house. Supposedly, many homes to the north have already burned, but that area seems a little more remote with more vegetation. Some of our neighbors stayed behind and one of them just texted a photo showing the sky lit up in orange behind the hill that's close to us. Power was restored around 3:30pm, which is encouraging. I have confidence in our fire crews and I know they're working tirelessly to contain the fire. We know that the Lord can (and does) give and take away, and that He is sovereign over all things. It's hard to not be anxious, though. And I don't think that anxiety will just go away. We just need to trust, and pray. In all things.

This past Friday was my last day with Pure. Since moving to SoCal, I've been fortunate to have been working remotely for 3 months. But alas, the company denied my manager's request for me to be permanently remote, as the executives have been pushing to have everybody back in the office and are apparently not granting any new requests for permanent remote positions. We knew that this would be the most likely outcome when I decided to move.

I could've stayed and made them fire me, but I didn't want to make life difficult for my manager, and I gathered that they probably would have fired me with cause due to non-compliance, so I left voluntarily. This means that I don't get severance or unemployment, but I do get 90 days to exercise my stock options. A dismissal with cause would've meant losing my options (as well as no severance or unemployment).

So for my final two days, I visited the office in order to see my coworkers one more time. Priscilla and I drove up Wednesday, this time taking the 101 because it's now the most direct route for us, and the drive wasn't too bad save for a couple places where there was construction.

I had lunch with some team members on both Thursday and Friday, and my manager arranged a farewell get-together with our combined team Thursday evening. Some team members even came into the office when they would normally be working from home, just so that they could say goodbye. It was great to hang out with people one last time, and people were really kind and encouraging. Our team has been the best part of working at Pure and we've always supported one another. I'm going to miss everyone but I hope to visit again.

When people would ask me how I'm feeling, I would say that I'm wistful but optimistic. I've been with the company over 11.5 years and have been part of its culture and growth. There's so much that I didn't get to do that I wish I'd had the time for, and there's so much more that I did get to do that I will treasure forever. I enjoyed the ski trips, holiday parties, board games with my team, foraging for leftover lunches with fellow-minded teammates, the fun antics, mentoring 8 people, and being part of the amazing work that my team has done to make the rest of engineering more productive.

At the same time, I've been feeling somewhat burned out for the past several years, feeling like the work that I do often doesn't really matter. I'm planning to take at least a few months off before thinking about finding another job. It will be nice to finally be able to sleep more, train more, and have time for all the things that I've been wanting to do. Work would often leave me drained by the end of the day, lacking the energy to do things requiring much effort. I have a lot of things that I want to do now that I have an extra 30 to 40 hours a week.

We're fortunate to have reached our goal for financial independence, largely thanks to my job at Pure, and we're incredibly grateful for that. I'm hoping that I will be intentional with how I use my time and that it will be not just for bettering myself but also serving others. I don't know for sure that I will actually want to find another job, but if I do, it will be because I want to rather than because I have to. If I do find another job, I'm hoping that it will be at some sort of Christian/humanitarian non-profit, ideally still doing software development, where I feel like I'm making more of an impact in people's lives. Regardless of what I end up doing, I hope that it will be purpose-driven. If it's not working at a job, then that time should be spent doing something even more purposeful.

While I was working on Friday, Priscilla hung out with old church friends. Saturday, she had lunch with old coworkers and then we brought dinner to my uncle and aunt. And yesterday we visited our old church, caught up with people there, had pho for lunch with Randy and Eva, and then brought dinner to my other uncle and aunt and picked up some stuff that we'd left at their place.

It also seems like we're entering the season of helping parents more. Priscilla's uncle passed away last week and the funeral will be at CCAC later this month. Priscilla's dad can't drive and her mom isn't comfortable driving that far, so we're going to be staying with them for two days so that we can all go to the funeral together. Eventually they will need more help more frequently. So part of living purposefully will mean being more involved in parents' lives, particularly through the hardest times.

We'll have a lot to figure out. But for the first time in a long while, it feels more manageable now.

For the second time in our lives, our new house is beginning to feel like our home.

It's been 1.5 months since we moved in, and we're taking our time getting settled so as to not feel overwhelmed. We're using the corner room for our sleeping quarters and for my office. Eventually, after we get a couple more home improvement things done in the master bedroom, we'll probably want to buy a bigger bed and start sleeping there.

So far we've spent a combined $17k on termite treatment and repairs, a water heater repair/repiping, sewer lateral replacement, and installation of roof vents. The outlets in three bedrooms need to be grounded and the master bedroom needs to be painted a color that doesn't burn the eyes. I also need to drywall over a couple outlets which were placed in a weird spot halfway up the wall in the gym room before we can have a full-length mirror put in there.

The first week in the house, we bought a washer and dryer and a dining table with 6 chairs. Next was a sectional sofa, 3 small bookcases, a large coffee table, and finally now a TV stand. I just finished building most of the TV stand and we finally set up our PlayStation 3 and watched a DVD that we had borrowed from the library - The Money Pit. My coworkers had mentioned it when I first mentioned buying a house. The movie was a little weird but had its moments. Our house is a bit of a money pit, but fortunately nothing like the house in the movie!

There are a lot of small things that need to be done for the house. I cut down one of the giant bird of paradise plants that was growing too tall next to the house, and I've been repairing various leaks which are present in half of the 13 irrigation zones. In a month, I'll have more time for these things. My company is not approving any new requests for people to be permanently remote, so I'm going to have to leave after September 28 when my 3-month transitional period comes to an end. I could refuse to leave and have them fire me, though if they fire me with cause then there would be no severance, but I'd rather leave on good terms and not make life difficult for my manager. I should be able to give 2 weeks notice on September 28 which would allow me to remain employed for the first two weeks of October. That way, my 90-day window for exercising stock options will extend into next year. I'd rather exercise them next year since we have too much income this year, though our stock has fallen $20 in the time that I could've exercised this year, so was that really the right call?

I've been working for 16 years, 11 of which have been at Pure, so I'm feeling overdue for a change. It's been good here overall, but lately I've been feeling like the work that I do doesn't really matter. I'm planning to take several months off before deciding whether to find a new job. I'm looking forward to having more time for the things that I want to do, and I'll also need to help Priscilla's parents understand their finances. We probably have enough to be financially independent, assuming the stock market doesn't crash, so I don't need a high-paying job anymore. If I do get another job, I'm hoping for it to be with a Christian non-profit where I feel like I'm making more of a difference in people's lives. But in whatever I ultimately decide to do, I hope that I can live with purpose.

Being down in SoCal has allowed us to see family more frequently. They came over the first week and helped us unload the pod, and Aaron came by one day to mount our TV and another day to bring my bike which I'd been storing at my parents' place. We visited Priscilla's parents during a weekend when we went to Arcadia to see Sharon who was visiting her daughter there. We got together with my parents and Aaron's family earlier this month to celebrate birthdays. And we'll be staying at Priscilla's parents' place again next week in order to keep her dad company while her mom is helping out at a church retreat during the week.

We've also visited a few churches, two of which are in Camarillo. But we feel the most comfortable at a church in Thousand Oaks due to the worship style being close to what we're used to and the people being similar to us demographically. Church community should not be constrained by demographics, but I can't say that they don't matter at all. We haven't committed definitively to the church yet, but we're hoping that it will be a place where we can grow, serve, and build deeper relationships.

There's no shortage of things to sink money, time, and effort into. Some of it is meaningful, some of it less so. We have a lot to figure out, but one step at a time. Do the next right thing.

This is going to sound silly to everyone (the wife included), but since I do a lot of Yelping, I also like to check in on Yelp for every place that I visit. Partly to rack up dukedoms (awarded to the person with the most check-ins to a place within a certain period of time), and partly to keep track of where I've been and how many times I've been there.

Upon moving away from the Bay Area, I collected the stats on my total check-ins to the places we've visited most frequently. They kind of provide a high-level snapshot of where we've been the most during the past 12 years. They are as follows:

Church:
CCIC: 616

Cities:
City of Mountain View: 1,839 (I checked in basically every day I went to the office)
City of Santa Clara: 639
City of Sunnyvale: 440
City of Cupertino: 68

Recreation and fitness:
Central Park: 445
San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail: 191
Rancho San Antonio: 105
UFC Gym: 53
Monte Bello OSP: 33
Mission Peak: 28

Restaurants:
Mediterranean Grill House: 99
El Pollo Loco: 43
Yiassoo: 30

Other commercial:
Mariposa Shopping Center: 188
Santa Clara Town Centre: 154
CVS: 115
Chase: 109
Sprouts: 95
Dollar Tree: 65
Safeway: 62
Home Depot Santa Clara: 50
Home Depot Sunnyvale: 35

It's only been 10 days since we left the Bay Area, but we're already starting to adjust to life down here in SoCal. We of course miss our friends and our old church, but hopefully absence will make the heart grow fonder and we'll keep in touch and have a sweet time with people when we visit.

We drove down July 4 and stayed a couple nights with my parents and a couple nights with Priscilla's parents. We then stayed 5 nights at the Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo, and now we're in an Airbnb in Santa Rosa Valley for a week, and then finally we'll be in another Airbnb in Camarillo Heights for 1.5 weeks. The idea was to be in town so that we could look at houses, but we're actually closing on a house in two days!

We liked the house in the west part of Camarillo Heights that I'd previously mentioned. We had an offer in the pipeline before our move, but the sellers wanted us to see the place in person to verify that we actually liked it. So we saw the place the day after our move and submitted a stronger offer that day (same price but even faster close), and the sellers accepted it the next day. They interestingly had no other offers. Our agent said that the market had slowed down, and it also helped us that the house was shown for just one weekend, with the next weekend being a holiday weekend. And another thing that probably helped was that the house was in a price valley - higher than most other houses here but lower than the really expensive houses that people with a lot of money can afford. But the market is picking up again now, so we bought at just the right time. We're grateful for God's providence, for our amazing agent who'd been sending us listings for nearly two months and finally found this place when it was off market, and for having enough funds from selling our Bay Area house to make a cash offer.

This new house basically checks all of our boxes except for walkability - there's a Ralphs a mile away but nothing else within reasonable walking distance. It's a single story house and is over 2,700 square feet, which will be ideal if we ever have parents living with us. The lack of stairs will be ideal in terms of mobility, for them as well as likely for us someday. Priscilla has her big kitchen and I have my gym room - the one bedroom that's on a slab foundation; the rest of the house is on a raised foundation. There are 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and also a 2-car garage. I wish the garage was slightly wider; one side of it has some cabinets that protrude a little into the space behind the garage door, and I think we can fit two cars and a couple bikes in there, but it's going to be a squeeze. Other than the garage, there's a lot of space everywhere since it's also a corner lot. The place has been kept pretty well and the backyard is nice. The plants are all on drip irrigation, and the backyard features a large patio, a patio cover, and a hot tub. I really like that the backyard is completely private, unlike most other houses that we've seen that have a neighboring house with a view into the backyard. Priscilla is planning to spend more time there compared to the backyard at our previous house.

God really paved the way for us to get this house. We weren't crazy about it due to the location, so we were committed to offering $45k under the asking price and not going above that. Our reasoning was that if it was God's will for us to have this place, then we would get it. And sure enough we did, and without anyone else bidding. Our hope is that we honor Him with this house and everything else that we've been given.

And now that the question of where we're going to live has been settled, we now need to find a good church to call home. Last Sunday we visited Priscilla's old church in Woodland Hills, and today we visited a church in Thousand Oaks that would be 18 minutes from our house. We talked with a few people today and they were very welcoming. And one couple and another guy also live in Camarillo! We'll probably check out a local Camarillo church next week. I think these are all good churches and great people, so it might be a difficult decision. But we trust that God will lead us to where He has planned, like He's done for everything else thus far.

Well, it finally happened. This afternoon, Priscilla and I moved out of our house and out of the Bay Area. I'd been living in this area for 16 years, and she'd been here for 12 after we got married.

This past week has been crazy with loading the pod, tidying up the house, and packing up our cars to conclude our move. Packing and loading was a huge ordeal, and suffice it to say that I should've had us hire movers at least to load the pod. We had such a stressful time doing everything ourselves, and Priscilla made me agree to let us hire movers when it comes time to unload the pod when we have a new house.

Saying goodbye is hard. During the past weeks, when people asked how we were feeling, I'd respond by saying that we were feeling mixed emotions and it's a bittersweet time. Today, however, there was no sweetness, only deep sorrow. Sorrow over leaving this house that we've been in for 10 of the last 12 years of our marriage, leaving our wonderful neighbors and neighborhood, leaving our church and the so many people we've gotten to know there, and leaving the Bay Area which we've come to love. I'm a pretty emotionally stoic person, and I think the last time I cried was when I moved up to the Bay Area and my dad had just left after staying with me for a week to help me get situated up here. But today I was sobbing involuntarily when getting the final things ready for us to leave the house for good. Priscilla, the less stoic one, was in tears as well. There's something about a sense of loss that really cuts to the soul.

Indeed, there's so much we're giving up as we begin this new chapter of our lives. The last chapter can be defined by growth and accumulation. It was our first years of working after college, building adult relationships for the first time, cultivating relationships in the church, and building a life together after marriage. Now we are starting over, venturing into the unknown both in terms of life events as well as community. The main reason we're moving down is to be closer to family, and our parents are getting to the point where they're going to need more help with things, and their health will only just eventually get worse. We've been fortunate to not have really had to deal with significant trials in this past stage of life, but the next stage will undoubtedly be marked by them.

But as Priscilla's coworker said to her, it is a privilege to be able to spend time with parents, whether they are healthy or otherwise. God has gotten us this far in life, He's given us strength and many mercies during this move, and He will guide us in the future from now until the rest of our lives. Our hope is that we honor Him in all that we do, in where we ultimately settle down, and in the relationships placed in our lives.

Call it... February frenzy and March madness?

Over the past couple months, it feels like I've done a lot and also not done a lot at the same time. Where does the time go?

After my large project wrapped up in November, my workload at work has been manageable. The first week of February, our business unit started requiring employees to come into the office four days a week. I'm typically a lot less productive in the office - there are so many distractions in the form of meetings, people asking for help, having to walk around to use the bathroom or get food, and overall just not having long blocks of focused time. Last week, I was so behind on interrupts that I decided to just take a WFH day so that I could focus, and I was able to close/dispatch 50 tickets in our triage queue. Granted, I ended up working some extra hours that day, but there's no way that I could achieve that level of focus in the office. Leadership really needs to understand that everybody works differently and that people, and thus the company, benefit from flexibility.

Since I have to be in the office, I make time to go running with Frank almost every week. We ran together sporadically before the pandemic, but starting at the beginning of 2023, we've been running together after work one or sometimes even two times a week, with each run averaging around 5 miles. It's a good way to stay accountable, though he already runs most days each week, unlike me.

Two Saturdays ago, I participated in the annual RealOptions Walk for Life 5k race. Our church participates every year, though most people do the walk instead of run. Thanks to the generosity of our church, our team raised over $19,500 to support the work of RealOptions. This was my fourth year doing the 5k and I ended up getting 1st place out of 65 runners this year, though my time of 21:34 was slightly worse than my time of 21:31 from last year. It just depends on who shows up - when I first participated in 2018, there were 8 people with a time under 20 minutes! I had been hoping to get a time under 21 minutes, and my personal goal is to be able to run a sub-20 minute 5k, so I have a long way to go.

The day after, Priscilla and I sang in the combined choir during the combined service at church. We had 6 people total from the English congregation joining the regular choir members from the Chinese congregation. I think this was a record turnout from the English side! We sang an arrangement of "Then Sings My Soul" by Mary McDonald, which is a little different from the traditional hymn. It was actually kind of fun, and it was awesome hearing how the four vocal parts came together in a beautiful composition. I was actually the one who suggested joining, as Priscilla was thinking that I wouldn't want to do it. I guess I'd be okay with doing something like this again - but not on a regular basis, Priscilla!

On the home improvement side, I've been working on replacing the old blinds in the spa room and gym room. I ordered some basic blinds (still not cheap at $230) from blinds.com and I've had to find bits of time on random evenings to get the brackets installed. One of the windows is not totally square and so one of the brackets isn't flush with the other one. Since the design of these blinds makes it so that they just sit inside the brackets without being tightened down, the entire assembly wobbles when pulling on the lift cord. I'm trying to see if I can get something to act as a shim to sit inside the bracket so that the headrail doesn't have as much room to move vertically.

We're leaving for Japan tomorrow and need to spend today packing and getting things ready. After we get back, we'll try to find a real estate agent to get information on selling our house. We're thinking of listing with Redfin due to the lower commissions. There are still a lot of things we need to fix including reglazing the showers, replacing a toilet, painting (definitely exterior and maybe interior as well), cleaning grout, cleaning patios and walkways, landscaping, finishing the drip irrigation, and more. So we might not even list our house until May or June. We just have to take it one day at a time.

Every year, our church participates in the RealOptions Walk for Life. It's a great way to raise money to support a faith-based pregnancy resource center, and to push one another to exercise!

The event is held annually at Martial Cottle Park in San Jose, and participants can either walk 2.4 miles or run a 5k. In addition to this year, I've participated in 2018 and 2020. Naturally, I sign up for the run. Priscilla prefers to walk with church friends. We had 15 registrations from our church this year, with 10 of those being families. Our church has gotten big, and we had a large turnout today. A lot of the kids are starting to get to the age where they're able to run a 5k, and we have some fast kids!

The primary goal of the Walk for Life is to fundraise for RealOptions. With over $16,000 raised, our church placed 3rd out of all groups signed up for the event. I don't like asking people for money, so Priscilla and I just donated $400 to ourselves (and more to others). But we set a goal of $1,000, recalling that in the past, there were people at church who wanted to support participants. We didn't ask anyone for donations, but 7 people donated to us! Most of the donations were made anonymously, but they were almost certainly from people at church, as the link to join/support our group has been in the church bulletin for the past few weeks. Our last donor gave $25 after the event and brought us to our exact $1,000 goal! Everyone else in our group got at least several donations, and most people got to their fundraising goal. We have a lot of generous people at church.

My training hasn't been ideal. The past several months have felt colder than usual, and there have been so many rainy days, many of them with heavy and prolonged rain. Atmospheric rivers have been dumping so much rain on us that half the state is no longer in a drought. So it's been hard to get outside and run, though that's partly just me making excuses.

During my last training run, I ran a 5k at a 7:01 pace at max effort. I always have a tendency to start too fast, especially when I'm with people and they sprint out of the gate. So for today's race, I knew that I had to start intentionally slower and gradually increase my pace so that I could save some fuel for the latter half. I started almost at the front of the group (64 runners in all), but quickly had 15 or so people sprint past me, many of whom were kids. But one by one, I started passing people as I maintained a mostly constant pace while people started slowing down. 0.5 miles in, I saw one guy stopped on the side of the path catching his breath - he definitely went all in way too soon!

There was one guy who stayed in the lead the whole time, way up ahead, and I knew I had no chance of catching up to him. Trailing him by a fair distance was a pack of three or so guys who seemed to be trying to keep up with each other. I knew I wouldn't be able to catch up to them while maintaining that pace for the whole race, so I let them get a little ahead while making sure I never lost sight of them. Towards the 2 or 2.5 mile point, I increased my pace a bit more and was able to pass two of the guys, who might've also been slowing down. I then hustled to catch up to the third guy, but we both full on sprinted at the end and I crossed the finish line a fraction of a second behind him. Interestingly, though I came in 3rd place by gun time, I came in 2nd place by chip time, and the final results were based on chip time. My official time was 21:31, putting my pace at 6:56. My times in 2018 and 2020 were 23:17 and 21:38, respectively, so it seems like I've improved. The winning time today was 21:09. It really depends on who shows up - in 2018, there were 8 runners with a time under 20 minutes, with the winning time being 18:06!

I guess I do like the competition of racing, but even more, I value self-improvement. I recently read an article about a "totally average runner," close to me in age, who trained until he was able to run a 5-minute mile. That's become a goal of mine, as the necessary progression seems like a worthwhile investment to pursue. It sounds crazy and I know there will be a ton of work involved, but I'm not getting any younger, and late is better than never.

And hopefully all the training will help me get an even better 5k time next year. Anyway, I'm glad that today we were able to have fun and support a good cause. But the work, for all of us, is never done.

This past Thanksgiving was pretty normal. Which, given how abnormal things have been since COVID, was a welcome change.

In both 2021 and 2020, we saw my parents and Priscilla's parents separately during our time in LA. I think the last time we all had Thanksgiving dinner together was in 2018 (though I apparently didn't blog about that - bad Anson).

We headed down around 7am on Thanksgiving Day and though there were a couple minor slowdowns along the way, traffic was pretty smooth overall. We rested a few hours at the condo before driving with Priscilla's parents over to my parents' place. We arrived a little late since we got stuck in a standstill due to an accident on the 118. Aaron's family was already there, and the kids look like they've grown a lot. Our niece wasn't shy this time and wanted to play with us right away. It's nice that she seems at ease with us now!

We had most of the traditional fixins for dinner. My dad and Aaron both made a turkey, and Priscilla's parents brought a chicken and a duck from Sam Woo BBQ. Unlike in some previous years, we didn't have dessert. Maybe my mom reminded my dad that people have blood sugar and gut issues.

We stayed a little long, but it was nice to see everyone interacting. Priscilla and I were pretty tired as we drove back to the condo with her parents that night. On both Friday and Saturday, we visited The Huntington, first with her mom and then with our old church friend Cindy. Adult tickets are normally $25 on weekdays and $29 on weekends, but I get free admission for myself and up to three guests with my Cultivist membership, which I have a 6-month free trial of due to getting the Capital One Venture X card. It's a decent card for travel, and Priscilla's already used it to book things for our trip to Japan which will be in February.

So back to The Huntington. It was really crowded on Friday (according to an employee there, Mother's Day and the day after Thanksgiving are the two busiest days), but there were far fewer people on Saturday. The gardens are immense and you can really spend a whole day walking around and taking it all in. The two nicest parts are the Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden. I really liked the water, bridges and buildings that create the atmosphere of a tiny village in the Chinese Garden. Between my two visits, I also saw some European art at one of the art galleries, and paid a short visit to the library. There wasn't much to see at the library, but they did have a Gutenberg Bible on display.

On Sunday, we went to CCAC and ran into Tim and his mom after the service. Tim gave us a tour of the new A/V room in the back of the upper level that he and his parents built out. It was really a sight to see - different stations for people to control camera feeds, audio, and the livestream, and a rack of servers that all the equipment is hooked up to. And most of the equipment was either donated or purchased at bargain prices.

After church, we had lunch at Galleria Market with Gina and Weber. It's always nice to catch up with old friends, even if we don't have the most exciting updates. Priscilla also caught up with Crescentia at Starbucks later that day while I was back at my parents' place catching up with work (bleh).

After a quick breakfast with my parents on Monday, it was time to head home. My mom of course packed us a lot of food to take back with us, including some amazing pot pie that my dad had made. The drive back was smooth pretty much all the way. So even with Thanksgiving travel being nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, Thanksgiving Day and the Monday after seem to be good days to make the drive.

And of course we had to get sick while traveling. That's pretty common for me, but this time both of us came down with a cold, with Priscilla showing minor symptoms about a day before me. The definitive symptoms started while we were driving back up, and we've been stuck at home with a minor cough and stuffiness ever since. And now it's supposed to be raining for the next three days straight, so no going outside for fresh air.

So the time in LA was nice. The days after, not so much!

This past weekend was our church retreat - the first in three years, retreat having been cancelled the previous two years due to the pandemic. It was our second time meeting at Sonoma State University, the last time being in 2019 for the all-church retreat.

The Chinese congregation didn't join this time due to COVID concerns. Regardless, there were a lot of people there because our church has gotten so big. Our program, which listed discussion group assignments, listed 200 names, not including children. 2019's program listed 186 names. There were probably around 100 children there this year, certainly more than last time because a lot of people at church have been having kids over the past few years.

The accommodations were mostly the same as last time. Each person had a room, typically shared with a roommate. Each room had its own bathroom and there were four rooms per suite. Dining and services were held at the student center a short walk away. The food was alright but I remember it being better last time. And I was bummed that the recreation center, which has a climbing wall and gym, was closed this time.

Overall, retreat was good but tiring. We ate with someone different for each meal, and we had more impromptu fellowship for an hour each night after the nighttime session. The schedule also kicked off early each morning. So it was hard to get sufficient sleep, and so during the free time hours on Saturday, Priscilla and I went back to our room and took a two hour nap.

Our guest speaker, Pastor Tranwei, covered the biblical narrative during each of the four sessions. It was cool how each message had the thematic consistency of God's work in the Garden of Eden, in Israel, in Christ, and finally in the new Heaven. Most of the material was pretty familiar, but there were some great nuggets of insight - for instance, in discussing how Satan tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world, Pastor Tranwei pointed out that it was because Jesus wants all the kingdoms of the world, that one day He will reign over them, and Satan was essentially telling Jesus to skip to the end and skip the cross. It's the same idea as in Matthew 16 when Jesus talks about being killed and raised to life, Peter rebukes Him and says that this shall not happen, and Jesus responds with "Get behind me, Satan."

The weekend was pretty busy and though we relished the opportunities to fellowship with a handful of people, we also felt a little overwhelmed being amidst so many unfamiliar faces. We feel that way at church as well. The English congregation was maybe 30 people when I first joined (I think that was in 2009), and we've become a somewhat large church over the years. I'm feeling like how I felt when I was attending GRX back in 2008 - i.e. only knowing a handful of people, mostly the people in my small groups, and feeling distant from the church body as a whole. Sometimes I don't see the point in corporate worship when I don't feel entirely part of the corporate body. But in those times, I have to remind myself that it's not about me, and that we are to be like Christ, who came to serve, not to be served.

This past Saturday I did the Spartan Stadion at Oracle Park in San Francisco with a few church people and their friends (10 people total including me). We got our entry for a mere $50 through Foster the City, a nonprofit that works to provide homes for foster children in the Bay Area. Each of us had to raise money for FTC, with the goal to raise $1000 per person.

I don't like asking people for money, but one of the church people graciously posted a message to our Facebook group with each participant's donation link for those who wanted to support the cause. A lot of people donated, though those using the donation link provided by FTC instead of setting up a Facebook fundraiser page (myself included) were unable to see how much money they had raised or even who had donated.

The race was easier than a typical Spartan Sprint, e.g. the penalty for a failed obstacle in a Stadion is only 15 burpees instead of the usual 30. There were other modifications that made the obstacles easier, like the Multi-Rig having just rings (no horizontal bar or dangling ropes), and the Atlas Carry having a 100lb pellet-filled ball instead of a 100lb stone (you get a better grip on the ball). This course was similar to the SF Stadion in 2019, with one of the main differences being that there was no Olympus (I was sad about that) and there was an obstacle I'd never seen before, Rolling Epic (it was probably the easiest obstacle on the course).

I was able to complete all the obstacles except the Spear Throw. I did not throw the spear hard enough and it crash-landed way short of the target. Sigh.

The most difficult obstacles were the Weighted Burpees and the Hercules Hoist. The Weighted Burpees involved a 55lb (less for women) weight that we had to lift over our heads 15 times. I had to start taking breaks after the first few reps. Clearly I need to spend time doing the clean and press at the gym. The Hercules Hoist was doable; I just had to use all my bodyweight and push off the barrier with my leg. And the Monkey Bars were pretty easy; this time I did it in the traditional way with palms facing forwards instead of using the opposing grip method. The opposing grip method made this obstacle a piece of cake during my Spartan Super, but I wanted to see if I could do it in a slightly harder way. The bars on this obstacle are spaced somewhat far apart, so I naturally got my hands to the same rung before reaching for the next rung. But I saw some videos of people reaching for the next rung, one after another, so next time I want to see if I can do that.

I didn't have trouble getting the sandbag on both of my shoulders during the Sandbag Carry this time; either the bag was lighter than what we had at my Super, or the training I've been doing with a 20lb rucksack is paying off. And the Rope Climb wasn't difficult; I stuck to using the S-hook and though my form was terrible, my legs more or less stayed supported the whole way up. I wonder if the rope here was also thicker than the one at the Super.

Some people in our group failed/skipped a few obstacles, and our group split the requisite burpees between each of us. I think that's not officially allowed, but meh. The open wave is whatever you make it, and the goal should be to challenge oneself. It was fun to do some camaraderie burpees, though having to do burpees after the Rope Climb and then do Weighted Burpees right after was not great, haha.

Nobody got major injuries. I didn't have any shoulder issues this time, but my right hip started aching during the latter half of the race, probably because of all the stairs. I've had minor hip issues, particularly on the left side where I think I've had a low level of chronic inflammation, so it was surprising that it was the right side that started acting up. It didn't hurt much and wasn't something to be too concerned about, but something to pay attention to. Getting old is such fun.

Priscilla likes traveling, even if it's for short trips, so we actually went up to SF Friday afternoon. We drove to Millbrae and took BART to SF. While I was doing the race, Priscilla met up with the wife of one of the other group members to hang out. They got to see us do a couple obstacles up close at two different areas located outside of Oracle Park. Beats paying $20 for a festival pass to be a spectator with a mediocre view!

Outside of the event, Priscilla and I saw the Macy's Christmas tree at Union Square, enjoyed downtime at our hotel, and walked along The Embarcadero from Oracle Park up to the Ferry Building, where we got a bite to eat at the farmers market at Ferry Plaza. SF has a lot of nice-looking parts, especially if you zoom out and see the surroundings as a whole. It's not all just the negatives that the news likes to focus on, like the smash-and-grab robberies that happened recently. We felt safe in all the places we went to.

Overall, I'm glad I did the Stadion, though I prefer the higher difficulty mountain type Spartan races. And I wish I had talked to everyone on the team; it felt a bit awkward since I didn't know a few people and we all seemed shy. But I had fun and it seemed like everyone else did too, and I'm glad that we supported a good cause. I'm looking forward to the Trifecta events that I'll be running with Daniel next year!

2020 has shaped up to be quite an eventful year. It seems like the coronavirus outbreak (a.k.a. COVID-19) is what's on everyone's mind these days. State and local governments and companies have taken drastic steps to limit transmission of the virus. This week alone, the outbreak was declared a pandemic by WHO, the NBA has suspended the basketball season, the three major US stock indexes touched into bear market territory, California governor Gavin Newsom banned gatherings of 250 people or more, President Trump imposed a 30-day travel ban for flights from Europe, and, just today, Santa Clara County closed all public schools for 3 weeks as Trump declared a national emergency.

Many tech companies have required their employees to work from home, and while Pure has made it optional, my manager mandated that our team work from home until further notice starting next week. My commute to work this week has been great; I guess it's going to get even better now. It's difficult for people at Priscilla's company to work from home due to the nature of their work, but it sounds like the company is seeing what can be done.

At church, youth ministry and Sunday School were cancelled. Yesterday the pastors decided that we'd continue having worship service while advising people to stay more than an arm's length from each other, but today they sent another email announcing that worship service will now only be available via streaming after the Santa Clara County Public Health Department issued a legal prohibition against gatherings of more than 100 people. It's amazing and frightening how many new developments there have been in just a few day's time.

On a societal level, frequent hand washing and social distancing has suddenly become the norm. And stockpiling seems to be increasing, with Costco and other stores quickly running out of toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, water and some food. There's especially been an insane level of toilet paper buying. Once some people started panic buying, others felt forced to as well. This is how runs on supplies happen.

Though some supplies are running out at some stores daily, so far we haven't seen real scarcity. But there have already been some reports of isolated instances of violence over things like toilet paper. I shudder to imagine how society might unravel if scarcity and joblessness increase. Businesses in industries including travel, food and retail are losing money, which affects how many people they can afford to hire. What's going on isn't economically sustainable, and it seems like a recession is all but inevitable at this point. Our renter's internship at a school is threatened by today's school closures, and she also just lost her waitressing job at a restaurant that has closed indefinitely. What will be the ripple effects of many people losing their jobs? It feels like we're teetering towards the end of the world, but I have to remember that many people/places have it much worse.

In my lifetime I have not seen a global response as strong as what is happening now. So far there have been 145,810 cases of the virus worldwide, with 5,436 deaths and 72,531 people recovered. In the US it's been 2,466 cases, 50 deaths and 41 recovered. The amount of tracking, the amount of up-to-the-minute updates on this pandemic is of a scale not seen before. Information spreads faster than ever, and perhaps that's a large reason why the response has been so dramatic. To put things in perspective, it's estimated that the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic saw 700 million-1.4 billion people infected, with 150,000-575,00 deaths. However, swine flu had a mortality rate of 0.02%, while WHO has estimated the coronavirus mortality rate at 3.4%, topping out at 14.8% for adults 80 and older. And since a viable vaccine could be many months away, I can understand why governments want to severely limit the spread of the virus. We don't want hospitals overwhelmed with critical cases like what's happening in Italy, we want to protect those who are most vulnerable, and we want to give researchers more time to develop a vaccine.

As Christians, our hope must be in God, not in the flawed institutions of this world. I know this, but living it out is hard. I still feel hopeless when my stock portfolio drops by another 7%, when I read about the permanent effects that the virus can have on the body, and when I think about how society could be on an unchangeable course headed towards major systemic problems. But as an article from The Gospel Coalition reminds us, "it takes the same amount of energy to worry as to pray. One leads to peace, the other to panic. Choose wisely."

Ever since moving to the Bay Area and joining RBF, Priscilla has always wanted to have an English choir at church. We have a Chinese choir, but nothing on the English side has materialized. Chalk it up perhaps to a lack of interest on the congregation's part, our pastors' seeming view that singing should be congregational, and the lack of somebody stepping up to lead.

Well that has changed over just the last three weeks. One of our more musically-inclined members, Stacy, used her influence to assemble a seasonal choir, with her leading/directing, to perform at this year's RBF Christmas party. And the pastors were ok with it. Nearly 30 people signed up, and Priscilla of course jumped on the opportunity, and she pretty much forced me to sign up with her. Anything for the wife...

There were three practices held, with the expectation that everybody would make at least two. The first was in late November, but we missed it because Priscilla was traveling in Orlando with Tracy at that time (and I didn't care to go to that practice by myself). The second was last Sunday after church, and the final practice was this afternoon after church. Our performance songs were "A Joyous Christmas" (a medley of "O Come, All Ye Faithful", "Angels We Have Heard On High", and "Joy to the World") and "Silent Night" in four-part harmony. We were also to lead the congregation in singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain", "The First Noel", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", with all of us singing just the melody. Vera, who was visiting for a couple weeks, got roped into playing piano for us after the original pianist got sick. That's what happens when you've got a heart for serving others and have mad skills.

Doing choir doesn't come easy for me. Reading music is not my forte, and I'm not really able to look at notes on sheet music and immediately turn that into musical notes (hence why for worship, I play drums). I'm only able to sing through a song after essentially memorizing the notes, using the relative positions of notes on the page as a guide. The first practice that we attended was rough for me, but I spent a lot of time afterwards working through the sheet music learning my part (I chose the tenor role). I even highlighted every one of my notes, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to pick them out in real-time with so much other stuff on the page. By the time the final practice rolled around this afternoon, I knew my part fairly well, and it seemed like everybody else was in the same boat. Stacy was great about giving us constant feedback about technique, style, and everything in between. She mentioned things like rounding out our vowels, singing more legato instead of staccato, and being mindful about crescendo and decrescendo to make our singing more dynamic. People incorporated her feedback well, and we all sounded undeniably better at the end of practice versus at the beginning.

Finally, this evening, we performed for the 150 or so people at the Christmas party. I think we sounded terrific, especially for having only three weeks of practice. The choir was split roughly 50-50 between guys and girls, and there were a few other guys in the tenor section. Where I messed up, they and the rest of the choir would carry the song, and it sounded... beautiful. I really enjoyed singing as part of a large group, hearing the sum of each individual's effort culminate in something collectively grand. I guess there was interest after all!

When Priscilla first signed me up, I thought the experience would be miserable for me (only slightly exaggerating). While it's still true that doing choir is not something I would pick for fun, I did enjoy the experience of seeing the fruition of the work put in, singing with others more musically gifted than myself who lifted me when I stumbled, and reaching a shared objective as a team. I daresay that I perhaps even had fun. No promises, but if we do another choir next year, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to signing up.

As usual, Priscilla and I visited LA for the Thanksgiving holiday. But unlike the previous few times when we went down, this time we drove instead of flying. Not having the Southwest Companion Pass this year was part of that decision.

We departed the Bay Area on Thanksgiving Day at 6:30am, hoping to beat most of the traffic. However, we found out halfway down I-5 that the highway was closed at the Grapevine mountain pass due to snow. We were previously made aware that this might happen, but I possibly didn't check traffic conditions the morning of and thought that any snow would've thawed by the time we got down there, and furthermore, Google Maps wasn't reporting the closure. When we saw highway signs indicating the closure, we started looking for detours. I thought that taking SR-58 through Bakersfield was the next best option. Google Maps was reporting that route as closed, but I couldn't find any information from Caltrans online for that route, so I decided that we should chance it and head that way anyway. That turned out to be a mistake, since we shortly after did see a road sign warning of SR-58's closure.

So we headed back to I-5 and hopped on SR-166 going west, hoping to take SR-33 south to get across the mountains. Alas, SR-33 was closed due to snow as well. So we ended up taking SR-166 all the way to the 101, and then the 101 down the rest of the way, encountering traffic jams along the way in Santa Barbara. Altogether, a 5-hour drive turned into 9.5 hours. Had we stayed on the 101 the whole time, the drive would've been closer to 6 hours. Next time if it's raining up in the Bay Area and is expected to be cold around the Grapevine, then we'll play it safe and stay on the 101.

Our time down in LA was eventful as well. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house with them and Aaron and Lauren's family. Priscilla's parents didn't join us, since they didn't want us driving on the highway at night in the rain in order to go pick them up. So instead we saw them the next day, bringing them lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner that my mom packed for us, and stayed at their condo for two nights. The first night at the condo, the ceiling above the kitchen started dripping water. We thought it might be due to the rain, but when the rain stopped, the dripping continued and then got worse. Priscilla's parents got the upstairs neighbors to agree to let us shut off the water (shared by both units) before everybody went to bed, and that stopped the dripping. Fortunately, the condo plumber/handyman was able to come the next day and found the issue to be a leaking fitting on the wall-mounted electric water heater for the upstairs unit. Replacing the fitting fixed the leak, and it looks like there shouldn't be much long-term damage to our unit.

On Sunday, Priscilla and I attended the second service at CCAC. Coincidentally, this was the last service ever at the Northridge location, as CCAC is moving to a new location in Granada Hills. Looks like that site used to be occupied by St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, and the buildings there are a good size. After the service, the pastors for the three congregations prayed, and we all took a church photo in the sanctuary, which was difficult because people were spilling out into the foyer. This was definitely a bittersweet moment for CCAC, but I'm excited to see how they will continue growing.

The rest of our time down in LA was more normal. It was good spending time with family and friends. And the drive back up on Monday took around 6 hours, with some extra time added due to a traffic jam on the 152 caused by a vehicle being on the side of the road. It was pouring rain at that time, of course.

December weather is fun.

Today was Jonathan's last day playing on the worship team with us, and it was a bittersweet time for me and Priscilla. It was great playing "Jesus Shall Reign" and "O The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus" with him today. He has his own unique style (and level of talent) that nobody else at church can replicate. It may very well be that we'll never do those songs at church again.

Jonathan joined the team in either 2009 or 2010. Before that, it was just me and Scott. Over the years, Jonathan and I have played together under every worship leader we've had: Scott, Uncle Raymond, Tim, the other Tim, Joe, Daniel and Brian, though he's had to play less frequently as a couple other pianists joined over the years. I've really admired him for his talent, his humbleness, and his words of godly wisdom over email and on our short-lived RBF worship blog.

I'm a little sad that I never got the chance to know him outside of worship at RBF, but perhaps there's still time for us to get together before he leaves. He is leaving at the end of next month to accept a professorship at my alma mater. We wish him well, and he will be sorely missed.

Another year has unceremoniously come and gone, and while 2016 was a prodigious year for us in terms of activity, the same cannot be said of my blogging habits.

So for the benefit of posterity (or, more likely, my future self), here are the highlights from 2016.

At the end of April, Priscilla and I went up to SF to celebrate our anniversary. We got free entry to the California Academy of Sciences, de Young and the Exploratorium, courtesy of our friends' Chase Private Client card. We stayed a night at the Grand Hyatt for free, courtesy of Priscilla's credit card rewards. And we rode Uber and Lyft for free due to a signup promotion. Not a bad deal for an anniversary weekend!

At the beginning of June, we went to Carmel to celebrate our birthdays. We hiked Point Lobos and stayed a night at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, again for free. We spent some time exploring Fisherman's Wharf the next day before returning home.

In mid-June, Sarah got married, so we drove down to LA and got to spend some time with family. Sarah got married at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which has a really beautiful building and campus. I got carpal tunnel that weekend, presumably triggered by the driving, but that cleared up after a couple weeks of wearing a brace and trying to not type much. The joys of getting old.

Our all-church retreat was at Redwood Christian Park in August. It was about the same as the last time we were there, except Priscilla and I were in a family cabin this time instead of in a suite. We hiked to the cross in the nearby hills, and even got to do rock climbing this time around. The rock climbing was difficult and I didn't see anybody make it to the top of the "medium" difficulty route. Our retreat speaker was Pastor Alton from Berean Mission Church, and his messages encouraged us to live as a steward, a disciple-maker, a child of God, and a pursuer of Christ.

After the retreat, when trying to look for productive things to fill my time with, I came across a fitness mobile game called "Zombies, Run!". Definitely more productive than sinking all my time into an MMORPG. I played it for a month and ultimately quit due to the game always restarting when being run in the background, but during that time I bought some gear for running including bluetooth headphones for listening to music. In October, I bought a heart rate monitor to use with Strava, as well as a yearly subscription of Strava Premium. I really like Strava's Beacon feature, which allows me to share my real-time location data with Priscilla, and the Heatmap, which shows my running and cycling activity as a colored heatmap. I've also been more motivated to rack up running badges on Strava, which are admittedly easier to get than cycling badges. Apparently, badges and points, even if they are virtual, are the key to my heart.

So in trying to maximize my Strava achievements, I've been trying to do more runs and hikes. In 2016, I went on a total of 29 hikes; Priscilla a couple times fewer. My favorite hike this year was Mount Diablo in September. The panoramic views from the top were amazing. I went with Priscilla and Tracy and we did a 15-mile hike, and they were pretty tired most of the way up, but we slogged through it and I later designed die-cast medals for them for making it to the top.

We drove down to LA for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Both were a good time of getting together with family and friends. We hiked with Victor and Sally during the Thanksgiving break, and ate with my Van Nuys friends and hung out with Raymond during the Christmas break.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, I bought new phones for myself and Priscilla. I got us both the ZTE Axon 7 Mini which, despite the name, is quite a large phone. This phone is better than our old ones in nearly every way, and we've enjoyed no longer having to deal with the frustrations of having a cheap smartphone.

During the rest of the holiday leading up to and following New Year's, I took the time to get housework done and look for contractors to help overhaul our front yard. I'd like to rip out the neglected plants we have and put in drip irrigation so that I can plant something that will be low-maintenance. With any luck, and a bit of money, we will have a nice looking front yard yet.

I have no doubt that the new year will be exciting and productive in its own capacity, but I'm hoping that it will be equally as restful. There is a saying that in the beginning of your life when you are young, you have energy and time, but no money. Then in the middle of your life, you have money and energy, but no time. Finally, towards the end of your life when you are old, you have time and money, but no energy. Well I'm clearly in the middle of my (anticipated) life, as I wish there were more hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I guess what I need is more downtime!

CCIC had our all-church retreat from August 9-11 at Redwood Christian Park in Boulder Creek. The guest speaker was supposed to be Pastor David from my home church in LA, but he was unable to make it due to being sick, and our very own Pastor Daniel was the surprise speaker instead. I'm sure he was a little surprised himself!

I enjoyed Pastor Daniel's sessions focusing on unity of the church body, how our salvation in Christ is the basis for unity with one another. We had some fun outdoor games, as well as pre-session games led by our fabulous emcee, Deborah.

The campus was beautiful, and for once, Priscilla and I received an upgraded room with bedding and our own bathroom! The first night, the English congregation met in one of the rooms onboard a recreation of Noah's ark- pretty cool. We spent some of our free time exploring the grounds and hiking- a few of us started on a hike, and the girls turned back early while the guys (me, Eddie and Richard) continued on till we reached our destination, a 6-foot wooden cross at a scenic point overlooking the forest below.

The food was alright, nothing over the top. At one point we had a rice porridge that was very bland. Still, I appreciated that the kitchen staff was trying to cater to our large group of Chinese people.

Overall, Priscilla and I had an enjoyable and restful time. I'm looking forward to the next retreat!

Well, it happened. Priscilla and I tied the knot on April 28. She's now.... my wife. Ewww.

The wedding went surprisingly well. Aaron and I got there around 7:30am to help set up tables and chairs. Stephanie was already there directing people (like her sons who had or were volunteered into helping), and Priscilla was already there with her makeup artist. Aaron and I later got suited up, Priscilla and I had a time of prayer alone, and Tom joined us for prayer afterward. We were ready before 11am, the start of the wedding, but the ceremony started maybe 15 minutes past the hour to allow stragglers to arrive. Nonetheless, we still managed to stay on or even ahead of schedule.

The ceremony went pretty much perfectly. Auntie Jean played flawlessly (as far as I could tell), Crescentia sang beautifully, Tom gave an excellent message about how our marriage should be a testament of God's love, and Priscilla only stumbled over one part of her vows, which everybody in the room had a good laugh over. Deborah and Aaron looked great, Natalie was adorable, our mothers did really well lighting the candles, and my dad even learned how to hug! Before we knew it, the ceremony was over, we walked down the aisle happily, came right back for pictures, and then it was time for food!

Unfortunately due to all the excitement, I didn't have much of an appetite. I also had to scarf down my food quickly so that we could go take pictures with each table, so I didn't get to fully enjoy the food. But many guests told me that the food was excellent. Roz, Lowell and crew (they had a lot of people helping in the kitchen and helping to serve guests) did an amazing job.

In addition to being the maid of honor, Deborah graciously accepted the role of MC for the reception. She and Aaron gave really touching and funny speeches. Audrey's four-tiered cake was amazing, though Priscilla and I got to eat only a bite of it. Heeman's floral arrangements looked amazing, and we were happy especially with the table centerpieces which were really beautiful and cost only $20 each. Finally, after the rest of the guests had left, my school friends stayed and helped clean up and break down tables and chairs. By the time Priscilla and I had left, there were still people in the kitchen, cleaning selflessly for what surely would've been a long time.

The day went so well and according to plan. I wish I could've talked with everybody in attendance, but time just wouldn't allow for that. Priscilla and I are blessed to have so many friends who truly love and support us, as well as our parents who argued strongly in favor of having a wedding this large and who helped pay for many of the costs, including the whole reception. Planning such a significant event certainly was stressful (definitely moreso for Priscilla) and at times I downright hated it, but I'm really glad we did it. I feel like the wedding in a small way honored our parents, even though much of it was their money, and our friends, even though we recruited many of them to help. It was so wonderful being served by so many of our friends, starting from a few months ago till now, which also helped keep our costs down. I'm really grateful for our friends, and I know it will be hard for Priscilla to leave them behind, but I hope that we can stay in touch with them as Priscilla and I begin this new chapter in our lives.

Priscilla and I decided sometime last month that she would be moving up to the Bay Area after we get married. Or more like, I made the decision because of the tech job opportunities up here and the fact that we'd be more financially stable in the short run if I were to keep my job. And she unreservedly agreed to leave her job, parents, thriving church, and the home she's known for 26 years to be with me. That's how selfless she is and how lucky I am to have her.

This weekend she came up to do apartment hunting, and we found a place we liked. On Friday I sifted through entries on Craigslist and PadMapper and found three viable leads. Of those, one never contacted me back, one sounded pissed off on the phone, and my top lead returned my call and sounded polite and sincere. So I went and checked out the latter's place and liked what I saw and liked the neighborhood. It's in the middle of Sunnyvale 1.8 miles from work, a real convenience. I returned with Priscilla on Saturday and she liked it too, so we paid the deposit and now the place will be ours!

The apartment is on the first floor in the back of a fourplex. It was touted as 700 square feet but feels more like 500. Cozy is the word. The bedroom seems a little bigger than my current one, the closet takes up the length of a whole wall, the bathroom is roomy enough and has ample sink space, and the living/dining room should be just big enough for a couch, coffee table, dining table and computer table. The only major downside is the kitchen has very little counter space, no built-in microwave and no dishwasher. But Priscilla will be the primary user of the kitchen and she thinks we can make it work.

The landlord, Tony, is a 77-year old Korean man who seems intelligent and looks very healthy and young for his age. He and his wife will celebrate their 50th anniversary this year! They seem personable and reasonable and are letting me move in in mid-April.

We're getting all this for $1200, which is not the best price, but reasonable given current market conditions. This is the first time I've gone with the first apartment/house I've seen, but I felt like it was right.

On Saturday we also saw Hunger Games with some church friends. Priscilla has been dying to see that movie after reading the books. I thought it has an interesting story and good CG, and I'll probably read the books at some point.

Priscilla wants to attend a church with a choir she can sing in, so we've been considering going to a new church since RBF has no English choir. On Sunday we checked out North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara. I visited four years ago but didn't remember much except that they had a choir and the message was powerful. But Priscilla and I found the church to be a little more traditional than we're used to, especially since she would like a choir that does more of a blend of traditional and contemporary.

The rest of the weekend was spent making lots of food! We made tacos on Saturday using rotisserie chicken, and Priscilla boiled the leftovers on Sunday to make soup. I made turkey and mushroom burgers. Priscilla wants me to be her guinea pig for her cooking when we get married. I don't think I'll mind in the very least.

Priscilla hit the cap in her vacation hours and was told she had to use some hours or forfeit them. Being an awesome girlfriend, she decided to drive up impromptu to visit me last weekend.

Friday night we went to my company's holiday party, where my company went all out on expenses (perhaps since this will be the last AST holiday party). There were four food stations- Japanese (sushi and California rolls), Mexican (tacos and fajitas), Italian (ravioli and pasta), and American (salmon and roast beef). There were some pretty sweet raffle prizes including a PS3, 55" flatscreen TV, netbooks, iPads and gift cards up to $500. There were also casino games where chips were redeemable for tickets for the final raffle.

Unfortunately there was a miscommunication, and everybody received the same number of tickets for the final raffle, regardless of how many chips they earned or whether they played casino games at all. Furthermore, all the good prizes had been raffled off in the previous raffle, where everybody had the same chance of winning. It was disappointing to find out, after the fact, that the casino games were purely for fun and had no bearing on peoples' chances to win prizes, and that aspect could've been handled better, but altogether Priscilla and I had a great time at the party.

But the real fun began on the drive home, when a wheel bearing on my car gave out (but I didn't know what was wrong at the time) and the car started shaking violently and became unable to drive straight. We were in a remote part of San Jose, 20 miles from home at midnight, and I felt it was too risky to try to make it home. Priscilla has AAA but she left her member card and all forms of ID at my house, so AAA couldn't help us out. I had to call my roommate to bring the card to us, but by the time he reached us we decided to ride home with him and return the next day.

So Priscilla drove me to my car on Saturday and we called AAA to have my car towed to a mechanic. I rode with the tow truck guy, a burly, entertaining guy named Wayne who told me that his favorite tow jobs are "PD impounds."

On Sunday Priscilla and I visited a sister church, CCIC South Valley, and met some cool people mostly in the same demographic as CCIC MV. Priscilla also cooked a lot of food (chicken for tacos, herb chicken breast and baked pasta) ahead of time so that we had more time to do other things, like start watching Autumn's Concerto, a hackneyed Taiwanese drama that she seems to like for some reason. ;)

This week the mechanic called me in and showed me the busted wheel bearing as well as an outer tie rod end that was in sloppy condition. The wheel bearing explains why I've been hearing a whirring noise while driving as well as why the tread on that tire kept wearing out abnormally quickly. The mechanic ended up replacing both wheel bearings and tie rod ends for $740, and he comped me coolant because the job was finished later (this morning) than promised and because my coolant reservoir was empty. I still have a coolant leak, but for now it's cheaper to use some Stop Leak, top off coolant and keep an eye on it than to isolate and fix the leak.

As customary, I spent my Thanksgiving in LA, where I was treated by my parents to an overabundance of good food. For Thanksgiving they made the usual- turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, ham, biscuits, etc. On all the other days they made a lot more- including turkey pot pie, crab, chicken stew and seafood soup. They also gave me a week's worth of food to take back to the Bay Area. My parents are awesome.

During the holiday weekend, Priscilla and I also celebrated our four year anniversary by hiking on the Escondido Canyon Trails (where there's a famed waterfall, which unfortunately wasn't much more than a trickle at that time of year), making shepherd's pie (more like Priscilla making it and me eating it), and having hot pot for dinner with her parents. The next day we worked on a jigsaw puzzle (we're really into those now for some reason) and watched "Batman: Under the Red Hood." The next day we visited Chi at HRock, her home church away from home, had tacos with a bunch of her friends, and visited her grandmother who recently got out of the ICU.

All in all, it was a fun, relaxing holiday weekend. Too short though.

Not too long ago, Chi moved up to Redding to attend a Christian school. Priscilla and I decided spur of the moment to visit Chi because we're such awesome friends.

Ok, honestly it was because I had previously volunteered to visit Chi, naively assuming that Redding wasn't much more than an hour's drive away. When I later found out it would actually take four hours to get there from Sunnyvale, I yelled at myself, but a promise was a promise. I decided I might as well make a roadtrip out of it, and use that as an excuse to make Priscilla visit me.

So I flew Priscilla up, and she and I made the 250 mile drive up to Redding. It was our first roadtrip with just the two of us. Priscilla made sandwiches. We stopped at a Walgreen's along the way to pick up water, and our cashier there totally looked like Vince Vaughn.

We got to Chi's place after dark. She's currently renting a rustic house on a huge lot surrounded by trees, and reachable via a dirt road. It was like a retreat spot.

On Sunday morning, we went to Chi's charismatic church, Bethel Church, which was quite an experience. To my disappointment, though, I didn't see any crazy happenings. The worship was great; Jeremy Riddle was leading it. But I didn't agree with some of the theology, like their proclamation that God would bring better jobs and more money, which sounded similar to the Prosperity Gospel.

Overall, it was a good weekend for old friends to catch up. Priscilla and I treated Chi out to dinner at Olive Garden, bought groceries and books for her, and gave her care packages from her friends back at CCAC. So yeah, we really are awesome friends. ;)

This weekend I had the pleasure of being down at Mission Springs Conference Center with 200 other people at the all-church CCIC retreat. Allen Tsai from CCAC was the speaker for our English Congregation. I had a lot of fun and got to know people in the English Congregation I don't usually interact with.

The conference/camp site was very nice. The cheapest cabin, where I stayed, had an indoor bathroom shared between four rooms, and even though the toilet was literally installed inside a closet, this was a step up from some other places I've been where the bathroom is a short distance away from the cabin. The indoor bathroom was a good convenience to have, as it was raining the whole weekend.

The staff at the conference center really tried to make sure all our needs were met. Every meal was tasty and came buffet style. I felt like I was on a cruise, eating more food than I probably needed to. In my free time I went on the zipline and scaled a rock climbing wall, speaking of which, I need to strengthen my weak fingers because I'm going climbing again in a week.

My only regret about the retreat was that I was always tired during the messages, maybe because of eating big meals, or from having to adjust to sleeping before midnight, so I didn't get as much out of the messages as I would've liked to.

Today marks my one-year anniversary of starting work at Applied Signal. I can't believe it was one year ago that I left home, moved up to the Bay Area, and became, more or less, independent. Time really flies. Is this what it's like to get old? Pretty soon I'll be in my mid-30's with a mortgage and 2.5 kids, wondering where all that time went.

So what have I done in the past year?

• Moved three times (was in corporate housing for a month, then in an apartment by myself for six months, and now a townhouse with two roommmates).
• Interviewed several software engineering applicants either on the phone or on-site. Became familiar with general interview format and hiring criteria, from the employer's standpoint. Recruited students at two UCLA technical career fairs. It's great to be on the other side of the table now.
• Improved my understanding of software engineering, C++, Linux, shell scripting, and various software development tools.
• Got my security clearance so that I can take on more types of work, yet still not really know the significance of what I'm working on.
• Gained about 15 pounds from lifting weights (I'm not as scrawny as before). Got into biking and recently running.
• Got to know some really great guys through my smallgroup Crossover, and I meet with them roughly bi-weekly. We usually meet over dinner at Google. Saying that I love the food there is an understatement.
• Accumulated in savings this year 5% of the cost of a down-payment on a house. Yeah, it's gonna be a while.
• Had a fair share of ups and downs with the girlfriend, but am cultivating what is mostly a positive relationship. Need to work harder on being God-centered, though.
• Gotten moderately better at cooking. Still a long way to go.
• Met some really cool people through work, church, and then some.
• A bunch of other stuff that I can't recall at the moment (told you I'm getting old).

Yeah. I'm really thankful for what I have. Life's been good.

Looks like I came back in one piece.

I went snowboarding with some CCIC people this past Saturday at Northstar at Tahoe. It was mad fun, though I probably set the record in our group for the most falls, falling every 10 seconds or so. Unknown to me, the slope we were going down was the easy slope, not the bunny slope. I found out on the second run. So I probably could kill the bunny slope now.

Nonetheless, I never thought snowboarding was so cardio-intensive! Every run down the hill left me wiped out. I guess that's how out of shape I am. Better incorporate some more cardio at the gym before I die of a heart attack.

The thing I had trouble with most was turning heel-side. I got around this mostly by turning toe-side until I was horizontal to the slope, then going back down with the opposite foot in front. It's called doing a "falling leaf" apparently. At least I did better than the first time I went, several years ago.

We stayed at the Silver Legacy in nearby Reno that night. Anticipating the huge appetite we would've worked up, Steve took us to buffet at the Eldorado. The selection was pretty big, and I ate a decent amount, but not as much as I had hoped. I can't seem to eat as much at buffets as I could in college. I guess I'm getting old.

California has been having some pretty cold weather these past few weeks. And it's most likely not going to end soon.

Cold weather usually doesn't bother me too much, but tonight I left work in the late hours of the night to find my car frozen, with the rain from this morning having turned into ice. My windshield was covered with a thin layer that I had to scrape off, and even then I had a hard time seeing through it while driving. Not the most ideal of conditions.

But perhaps most entertaining, was the discovery that my sliding door was frozen shut. But it did open a crack- just enough to make the door-open indicator stay on the whole drive back home. Once I got back, I gave my car a good garden hose thawing.

I'm sure people in places like the East Coast deal with these occurences all the time. Heck, maybe even people in the Bay Area. It is my first winter out of LA, after all.

The plus side of this cold weather, is that I'm going snowboarding in Tahoe this weekend with a bunch of CCIC people. I borrowed a lot of gear from a snowboard-holic friend, so I saved quite a bit of money, which I can then spend on better things like blowing it all at a seedy casino. ;)

I drove down to LA for Thanksgiving with Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena. We left the Bay Area around 5am on Thanksgiving Day, so traffic wasn't too bad. They wanted to return the following Tuesday, so I didn't really have a choice. At least the holiday travelers had dissipated by then. Along the way I also saw the moon in a rad orange light.

On Friday, I joined a bunch of CCAC people at a park in Jerry Woo's residential community for a confusing game of flag football, followed by a BBQ and playing Set at his house. I did pretty well at Set, I think because one of my teachers made us play it back in elementary school.

On Saturday, Priscilla did her third Slave Day. It wasn't anything big- just miniature golfing, gyros, buying flowers and writing cards for our moms, cleaning her room, and making food. I'm glad that we can have fun doing even the small things with each other. I'll do my second Slave Day soon, but I did take her to Catalina for our 6-month anniversary and Carmel for our 1.5 year anniversary- that better count for something!

This past weekend Priscilla made a spontaneous visit, having gotten a ride from Justin from Horizon and his brother Helicon who were visiting family in Fremont.

She joined me Saturday afternoon at Abundant Life Church for the final three hours of a conference by Rebecca Manley Pippert on the topic of sharing our faith. Becky was an awesome speaker and her inspirational stories and practical steps to evangelism really inspired me. Best of all, the conference costs were covered entirely by the church, making attendance free for all.

On Sunday we visited the Computer History Museum and watched a live demonstration of the Babbage Difference Engine #2, which is on loan to the museum until next year. Then we joined a tour for a short while and listened to a docent talk about IBM's origin as the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896, ENIAC, and the SAGE enemy aircraft tracking system.

The rest of the weekend we cooked, studied, and had fun just doing simple things. Nothing too crazy. We'll save that for Thanksgiving weekend.

The church I've been attending, Great Exchange Covenant Church (GrX), has, since its inception several years ago, not had a building to call its own. This has been a burden as we have to set up and pack up our equipment at the place we're renting every week, and a few months ago our equipment was actually stolen from our storage truck. The lack of our own building has also made it less effective for hosting ministries during the week.

Recently we entered into an agreement to lease and hopefully eventually purchase a building in a light industrial zone in Santa Clara. However, due to the zoning, we cannot assemble there unless we have a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) from the city. Last night we went before the Santa Clara City Planning Commission to try to make our case for getting the CUP.

I was encouraged to see somewhere around 200 (about a third of the total membership) from GrX at the hearing. We totally packed out the council chambers, which had a max occupancy of 150, and members of the fire department actually came and made some of us go out into the lobby. We definitely made an impression on the council with our presence.

Dalan Chan, our Operations Director, spoke on behalf of the church and made a case that we are a good use for the land in several different aspects. A short video was shown, 200 signed petitions and letters from businesses in favor of our CUP were referenced, and a long line of audience members spoke on behalf of the church. We had 13 people scheduled to speak, but I think the actual number who went up was three times that! There was a small handful of people, mostly from neighboring businesses, who spoke in opposition to our use of the building. The portion of the session regarding us lasted no less than three hours! It would've gone on even longer had the council not cut our line of speakers short.

The two things the council took issue with were our shortage of parking (we'd have too small of a parking lot if our projected growth held in a few year's time), and that "sensitive receptors," children and elderly, might be exposed to the kinds of chemicals that neighboring companies (now or any time in the future) would be permitted to use under the light industrial zoning laws. The council didn't make a decision on our CUP; instead, they voted unanimously to have their research staff look into these areas further for up to 90 days.

It was disappointing to not get the CUP outright, but I feel the council's concerns were legitimate. We had come up with solutions, but they currently are in the form of unimplemented plans and verbal agreements. Hopefully we can get things more formalized to adequately mitigate the council's concerns. GrX has so many paths for serving, and it's been encouraging to see so many people coming together for this common goal. I know that God has some great plans for this church.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with some of the guys from my fellowship for a time of sharing over dinner at Google. They meet every other Wednesday to share with each other how they're doing spiritually and whatnot. Drew works at Google so he gets us free dinner and we find a conference room. It was great fellowshipping with those guys and obviously there are some things better discussed when there aren't girls present. ;)

It was also my first time on the Google campus, and aside from getting questioned by a security guard on the way in, it was pretty cool getting to finally see the place.

Then last Friday I saw Iron Man with some of the same guys. I'd never gotten into the Iron Man story so I didn't really know what to expect. Fortunately that movie really rocked what little expecations I went in with. The storyline, character development and acting were superb. Robert Downey Jr. is one of the most colorful actors I've seen on the screen!

Wow, I haven't written anything here in almost a month. This past month has been busy, exciting and tiring. Here's a recap of what's happened:

Priscilla and Audrey drove up at the end of February to visit. They slept over Friday night and Sunday night and I made food for them that they didn't really like (cough, ingrates!). While Audrey was down in Monterey visiting a friend, Priscilla and I explored the Sunnyvale City Center, visited CCIC Mountain View, and stayed at home making food and listening to online broadcasts about relationships.

Work at AST is going well. I'm definitely keeping busy. Last week I even got to interview an applicant over the phone.

My replacement officemate is a guy named Dave. He's pretty chill, and we're always making fun of each other. Unfortunately the higher ups have seen fit to relocate him as well, which will make him the second officemate who's left me. I guess I have a knack at scaring people away...

AST has already started my application for a government security clearance, which is interesting because a lot of people don't have theirs started until they've been here several months. As part of the process I got my fingerprints taken. I guess I won't be robbing banks any time soon.

I've also visited a few churches but at this point I like Great Exchange (GrX) the best because the messages have really spoken to me. They have a dozen young adult small groups so I should be able to find one that fits me. This Sunday I had lunch with one of those groups at this Korean tofu house, and they paid for me (despite my protests). I'll check them out this Thursday; they meet at 7pm at one of the guys' apartment in Sunnyvale. I've also been going to Transformers, the young adult group that Steve and Shirley host at their place every other Sunday.

Other than that, I've been doing a smorgasbord routine of shopping for home furnishings and groceries, cooking, reading, web surfing, working out and eating with people. I've been pretty tired lately, but I think the main reason is that I still haven't gotten out of the college mentality of going to bed late. Once I force myself to get over that, I'll be in good shape.

After a two-week hiatus, the few but faithful CCAC English choir members met for practice once again.

This time we started a new song, and finished learning the whole thing in a record hour. You could say that it was an easy song, but I think that all the blood and sweat spent trying to learn "He's Been Faithful" has prepared us, both vocally and mentally, for anything down the line. Compared to "He's Been Faithful," any song is a breeze. But I think we're finally getting that one down, too.

Today was our first performance, in a sense, for our CCAC English Choir. We sang "There Is a Redeemer" and "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" during the prelude time when people were walking into the sanctuary. I'm somewhat glad that we didn't have to sing in the middle of the service, because more people present in the audience would be intimidating for a first run. The choir is small enough as it is- we don't need anybody getting scared off. ;p

But yeah, it went better than I expected, although we were far from perfect. But I can see the practice slowly working its magic. Singing harmony actually isn't so bad once you get used to it- it's just another way of... well, singing.

Today was the first real practice session for choir. It's a lot different from what I expected, though that's not saying much since I don't have much of a musical background. I just didn't think there'd be so much emphasis on singing.. harmony.

Tavi has me singing tenor, which is above my natural voice range. Singing harmony isn't easy, and Tavi's not making it any easier. He jumps into things without explaining much, and expects us to know what to do and how to do it. I was pretty discouraged, but on the other hand I often do the same thing- starting off on the hard road so that everything down the line becomes easier. I'm not giving up! Even though I suck. :)

I'm considering joining the CCAC English choir that Tavi is starting up. Yesterday was our kickoff meeting and about a dozen people showed up. I was expecting more, but it's really not about numbers.

Tavi is really cool and not quite the dictator I thought he was, now that I understand the reasoning behind his ways. ;p Seeing his wholehearted commitment to glorifying God in all that is done is encouraging, and he stated that he would rather us not be part of choir than go into it with the wrong hearts and attitudes. He also stresses arriving to practices early (on time, at the latest) but understands my circumstances as I will have classes in the Fall that will cause me to be late to practices, and he encouraged me to join anyway.

Spells Power! After months of planning and practicing, the CCAC children's VBS program culminated in two musical performances- one last night and one this morning. It was awesome to watch the kids on stage for an hour with their lines and dance moves mastered. I could imagine how much work went into rehearsing, planning, script writing, choreography, set design, video editing, and everything else that made the Power performance what I believe is the biggest show that CCAC has put on to date. The number and extent to which people were involved, even down to serving food and cleaning up after the 400-some people who ate, was really encouraging to see.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." -- 1 Corinthians 10:31

We had a party at my house to celebrate Stan's 20th birthday. Aaron made Korean barbecue ribs and Chi brought ice cream cake which melted because we put it in the refrigerator instead of the freezer. Altogether around 20 people came, including those who just dropped in for a few minutes like Deborah and Flora. After lunch we watched "Left Behind," got soaked from water balloons, shot a billion firecracker streamers at Stan, and a few guys and Chi (the self-proclaimed seeker of peace) started doing Fight Club in our living room.

I had a lot of fun. It seemed like everybody else did too. Happy birthday Stan!

Friday: Most of the college group showed up bright and early at 8 a.m. for Priscilla's graduation. Her parents treated everybody (16 people) to brunch at China Olive Buffet, and she and I spent the rest of the day watching White Chicks and Ong Bak and helping my mom cook.

Saturday: Priscilla and I made pizza at her house. To make a long story short, low-carb dough mix is healthier, but it makes pretty crappy dough. Still, I ate a lot of the "pizza," though considering it's me, that's not saying much.

Sunday: I got tricked into going to an "infosession" for volunteering to help with junior church. I thought I was going to get more info, but by going I effectively signed up. Ah well, it probably won't be too bad, and quite a few of the college people are helping. I spent most of the rest of the day picking out components for the computer I'm building for Priscilla's parents. I never knew shopping for parts required so much... research.

I just returned with my family from the 3-day CCAC Retreat at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Here are the main highlights:

• Our guest speaker Rick Holland preaching on 2 Peter chapter 1
• The amazing worship
• Enjoying the beautiful natural scenery with 280 CCAC people
• Rooming with David Wei, even though he snored a lot
• The food! It wasn't as much as I normally eat, but it was delicious and somehow very filling. I never thought I would enjoy eating ham again.
• Finding ways to serve, and seeing many of the youth and young adults serving was really encouraging
• Getting to know some new faces

This year we had a serving mentality that was arguably greater than at previous retreats. I had a great time, and I'm thankful to all the people who helped and to God for allowing things to go as well as they did.

Today was the first day of me being discipled by our Sojourners leader Steve. We had a great time of chilling at his house, talking over mouthfuls of food at Baja Fresh, and browsing the nearby Blockbuster for no reason. Some things we discussed were faith and the college group, sleeping and time management, and our girlfriends. Today is also Steve's 1-year anniversary with Shirley. :)

It was fun just talking and laughing about random stuff and sharing about what's been occupying our lives. I left his house feeling refreshed and encouraged. We're having discipleship meetings tentatively every Wednesday, though there is no set schedule or meeting place. Discipleship shouldn't be a burden, so we're keeping things lively. Some day we might just go watch a movie or hang out, or wash Steve's car, or any number of other things.

It's great to finally be discipled by somebody I look up to a lot. Steve's so much more mature than I am in almost every way (but he always knows how to have fun), but I do hope he gets a lot out of this discipleship, because even though it's usually the discipler teaching the disciplee, the impact shouldn't just be one-sided.

The annual CCAC Awana talent show was today, and Priscilla and I were helping out taking pictures and filming, respectively. I've forgotten how cute kids are. They can sing way off key, totally flub their lines, and forget what they're doing... and get away with it.

I wonder what I looked like doing those performances when I was that age. Maybe somebody has it on videotape. Then again, I don't know if I'd really want to see myself. ;p

Congratulations to Steve Chen, Tom Sugi, and John Zheng who graduated from the Master's Seminary today. Steve and Tom are such nerds, both graduating summa cum laude!

Today marked the 56th annual National Day of Prayer, the day designated by Congress when people of all religious backgrounds are asked to come together and pray.

About 70 people met at CCAC to worship and pray. It was a good time of fellowship, meeting new people, and interceding with the Lord on topics such as government, family, school, media, and military. The prayer portion lasted only 45 minutes, and I do wish it was much longer, because only a couple people from my group were able to pray before Pastor David interrupted and directed everybody to the next topic. And no, we weren't very verbose pray-ers.

Praying really isn't that bad after all. I really need to make it a regular discipline. Maybe I'll start coming out to weekly prayer meetings. Praying aloud is so much easier than praying in your head, because when you're speaking, you're much less likely to get distracted or lose your train of thought. And being with other people is encouraging.

The words from the Resolved conference still echo in my mind. I want to live a life that is pleasing to God, and make decisions that honor him. In so many ways I fall short of that. That is only human. But to be complacent is a sin.

In line with Jonathan Edwards' 70 resolutions, and in trying to live a God-centered life, I have composed a (somewhat shorter) list of key points that I think I need to work on most. I tried to be a little more specific than Edwards was, and I expect my list will change over time as need be. (But the one I'm posting here I won't modify)

Resolved...
1. never to stay up past 3am without an academic reason.
2. to as quickly as possible discard every impure sexual thought that enters my mind.
3. to read my Bible every day.
4. to pray every day. And not just those "rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub" prayers.
5. to be unashamed to address my shortcomings and faults.
6. to speak the truth.
7. to not praise God with hypocritic lips.
8. to be patient with everyone.
9. to treat my parents with the kind of love they show to me.
10. to repent sincerely when I break one of these resolutions, and to desire and strive for change.

The Resolved conference was... tiring. Uplifting. Fulfilling. Worth every minute.

This year I managed to not fall asleep too much, i.e. only during the first couple sessions, so I got so much more out of it than last year. The worship was once again phenominal. And I gained so much insight from speakers Rick Holland, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, C.J. Mahaney, and John Piper.

So much happened during the four days we were there, but I don't have time to write about it all, nor do I want this entry to turn into a 50-paragraph exposition. The most convicting thing I took away was from Steve Lawson's message on the cost of being Jesus' disciple, found in Luke 14:25-35. Jesus said that if we do not put everything before him, we are not following him. That really hit me in the gut.

Way too often I make earthly things my priority, leaving my spiritual life on the back burner. I claim Jesus as my Lord, but my actions don't reflect it! He must come before and guide the course for all else- before school, finances, work, the future, and even those people whom I hold most dear. Priscilla and I have enjoyed being together, but often we've found ourselves wondering how to put God first in this relationship. Now I think I know. Put God first in your own life, and everything else will naturally follow.

To sum it up: Resolved rocked my socks.

I'm leaving in a couple hours for the 4-day Resolved conference in Long Beach. I'm pretty excited- I know the conference will be a lot of fun. I really hope that I get a lot out of it, and not fall asleep during every session like I did last year. =(

I also hope that I'll have some time to do homework and study. I have two midterms next week, woohoo.

I got a ride out to Sojourners with Shirley again. Priscilla gave her testimony, and her friend Justin and his girlfriend Jacky came. They're really cool people. I hope they come back again; Priscilla can bribe them with music.

Today we had a Survivor/Fear Factor themed social arranged by our unofficial activities coordinator Aaron. Man, he's got some crazy fun ideas in that head of his. I can see why he's in charge of socials.

I was supposed to stay up to do homework, but I'm really out of it today, so I'm just going to sleep. I've been falling asleep in class every day this week. I'm going through somewhat of an emotional and physical rut. Hopefully sleeping early for once will help turn that around. Oh and catching up on homework over the weekend.

I had the opportunity yesterday with Priscilla, her mom, and around 15 people from MBCLA to visit Saddleback Church, the church founded by the famous pastor Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven Life), 75 miles away in Lake Forrest.

We began our visit with an architectural tour of the very nice campus, that looked more like a resort than a church with its rolling hills, giant palm trees, a water fountain bisecting the main stairway, an upscale cafe and plaza, and elegantly designed and multi-themed buildings. At first glance, one might be quick to denounce such luxuriousness as worldliness or a misuse of God's resources. But hearing of how Rick Warren believed that a church is not about buildings but about people, how they did not have a building to call their own for 15 years, and some pondering on my part helped me understand their intentions.

For a church that's grown so big (22,000+ members) and has six services plus dozens of ministries per week, a large campus is a must, complete with facilities for food and relaxation. Because let's face it- some people spending the whole day at church are bound to get hungry and tired. Something I found interesting is that Saddleback's main priority is reaching non-Christians: the unchurched and those with negative church experiences. To those people, the upscale (Orange County, need I say more?) and inviting atmosphere of the campus offers an immediate welcome to those already hesitant to set foot upon the grounds of a church. Members of the church are warm and welcoming, and are glad to volunteer their time serving in ministries of all kinds. In fact Saddleback has only a couple hundred paid staff, and several thousand volunteers.

We concluded the day with a visit to the huge worship center where pastor Doug Fields spoke on control of your life vs. faith in Christ. He was funny, animated, and his messsage really spoke to my heart. It was interesting to see that he used only a few verses from the Bible, and members were not expected to have their own Bibles (nor were Bibles provided). Prayer was also not much of a focus, with only one prayer said at the end of the service. But again, considering again the goal to reach non-Christians, these can be good methods to communicate the Gospel to them in a way that is not threatening and still meaningful and true. Our tour guide did say that Saddleback has individual ministries that delve more into specific ares of Bible study and life issues, but we didn't have time to check out any of them. Saddleback has been successful in leading thousands to Christ. My hope for them is that once they have found Christ, they will continue to grow in faith, maturity, and love. Seeing how people at Saddleback worship and serve was greatly encouraging to me.

I recently found out that Shirley, Steve's fiancee, works and lives close to UCLA, so I arranged with her to get a ride to Sojourners tonight. It was great conversing with her in the car, and finally being able to attend Sojourners during the school year. I just might keep coming back with her every week. And it's a win-win situation: my being in the car allows her to use the carpool lane and beat rush-hour traffic!

So I got back to school around 10:30 and started the EE 103 homework that I've been putting off (for semi-valid reasons), but I was soon distracted by phone calls from Priscilla and then Chi! Which wasn't a bad thing. My social life has really taken off in the past few months, but I don't want it to interfere (too much) with school. Not that I don't enjoy talking and hanging out with people. But it's important to find the right balance.

The plan today was for Priscilla to pick me up from school and the two of us head down to Chinese Bible Church, where her uncle Donald is the senior pastor. I had checked directions on Mapquest and knew we needed to go south on the 405 freeway and take the Santa Monica Blvd exit.

So there we were, cruising down the 405, and somehow both of us failed to spot the right exit. What we did spot was a junction sign that said Santa Monica, which we followed and found ourselves suddenly on the 10 freeway. We quickly got off and tried to get back to the 405 but couldn't find any on-ramp, so we ended up going south on Sepulveda Blvd which I knew intersected with Santa Monica Blvd. But since we were already unknowingly south of our destination, and I have a good sense of direction but a bad sense of distance (and no familiarity with the area), we just kept going... and going.

So faithfully following Sepulveda's curvature, we passed through Mar Vista and Culver City, Westchester and the famous LAX, and El Segundo. By this time we were half an hour late for church and were pretty sure that we had missed our destination, so we turned on a street trying to get back to the 405, and instead found ourselves at the end of the road at a place known as... the beach. Apparently the sight of the waves rolling onto the sandy shore was too captivating, and we realized that if we did manage to find our way to church, the church service would be almost over, so we decided to stay.

So the moral of the story is: a GPS unit is really useful to have in a car. And also that God (with his sense of humor and all) works in mysterious but wonderful ways. I don't think it was an accident that both of us missed the turnoff and that we ended up 20 miles off course at a beautiful beach with beautiful weather. I had my Purpose Driven Life book, so we finished our study right there and had a good time of spiritual discussion. I think we got more out of our discussion than we would've if we had made it to church.

So that wonderful winter vacation is finally over. It's been great hanging out with people almost every day, crashing (Christian) parties, strengthening relationships with friends and family, and growing in spiritual wisdom. Aside from having to wake up early once more, I'm (mostly) excited about starting a new school quarter. Still, I wish vacation had been longer, since for once I didn't spend all of it loafing around. I even managed to study for my next classes, albeit only two chapters when my goal was two books. We'll see how that goes.

Here's to a new year!

Merry Christmas! I hope everybody is having as good a time with friends and loved ones as I am. Here's a recap of the past three days:

Saturday: Went caroling at two retirement homes with Crescentia and Priscilla and members of MBCLA. Watched Home Alone and The Ring Two with Priscilla afterwards. I think I can safely call The Ring Two one of the worst movies I've seen.

We also experimented with cooking dinner and fortunately didn't set the kitchen on fire. We made a stir-fry melange of chicken, eggs, carrots, instant noodles, and tomatoes (my weird idea) and some bok choy (Priscilla's idea). I think the bok choy would've been better combined with everything else in the stir-fry. Nonetheless, everything came out edible. :O

Sunday: Went to MBCLA with Priscilla because they had some special Christmas program. They are SO musically gifted there. One of the songs sung by the choir was "Carol of the Bells," and they had people accompanying with actual bells. Most of the bell players had two bells of different notes, but the guy at the end had seven!

I finally got to talk to Priscilla's parents (actually just her mom) about the relationship. Finally we went to their annual family reunion where everybody was pretty talkative (contrary to what I've been told, ahem). Their family is really huge. I got to meet pretty much everybody but I don't remember half their names now. Oh well, maybe next year. ;)

Monday: Watched Rocky Balboa with Raymond, David, Max, and Yakov. I've never seen a Rocky film but I really enjoyed this one. We had a good time of hanging out and making fun of everyone and everything. Finally, I spent Christmas dinner with my family. We didn't do anything fancy this year, which I'm somewhat glad for.

Finally, in the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to share an animation which I found amusing. It's about the least known reindeer of all, Fabian, who never had a nose. True story.

This past (Halloween) Tuesday Priscilla kidnapped me and Christina from UCLA to go to CCAC for our annual [International] Fun Factory carnival. Even though I had a midterm to study for and got back to school very late, it was great helping out. Fun Factory is a great way for our church to reach out to the local community.

Priscilla and I were working at the monkey hula-hoop toss booth, and we were scheduled from 6-8 but apparently only Deborah signed up after us, so Priscilla ended up staying overtime while I walked around like a lazy guy and watched the magic show going on. Thanks Priscilla, you're a very fun friend! ;)

Today was interesting.

I've been in a mental, physical, and spiritual rut since school started. I've been excruciatingly busy, sleep-deprived, and since last week just out of it. I've also been going home every weekend, and customarily not studying well there, a great ingredient to add to the mix.

Today started pretty lousily. My brother and I were to drive to church separately from my parents, who had to leave early. Before she left, my mom woke us up, but we fell right back asleep. We would've missed church (or been very late) if it weren't for her calling 15 minutes before the starting time to ask us to bring something that she had forgotten. Needless to say, I was pretty tired, and I ended up nodding off during half of the sermon.

Adult sunday school went better. We are doing a seminar on spiritual warfare, and the topic was the breastplate of righteousness from the Armor of God section of Ephesians 8. The breastplate back in the day was also called the heart protector because of its obvious function.

In the same way metaphorically, God's breastplate is the strength we gain from his Word to protect our hearts from the snare of guilt that the devil brings. This is a big issue for me, as I always struggle with guilt from wrongdoings, as well as for not living the Christ-centered life I think I should be. I sometimes feel that God can't forgive and accept me because I am so wretched in his eyes. But my group leader said this kind of thinking is a slap to God's face. It is denying that his grace is sufficient to cover even our biggest sins.

In the afternoon I met with my discussion group to go over the first three chapters of the book we are studying - The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Unfortunately, due to unforseen constraints, the group has dwindled down to just me and Priscilla. But we had a good conversation, and from Chapter 3 I realized that my life is driven mostly by guilt.

I arrived home exhausted and couldn't help taking a nap. I awoke right before dinner, still fatigued, and feeling (overdue) illness creeping over me. I realized that, despite being behind in school, I had not done any work over the weekend, and now it'd be even harder because I was getting sick. I felt miserable.

But afterwards, as my mom was driving me back to school, I had a moment of clarity when everything I had heard that day sunk in and clicked. God really did know every detail of our lives, before we were ever created. I can stop worrying about how things will turn out because whatever it is I am going through, he has allowed it. My life is in the hands of someone who is vastly more powerful and wise than I will ever be. And he has accepted and chosen me. There is nothing that can separate me from his love.

After I realized this, I confessed my biggest struggle to my roommate and asked him to help keep me accountable. I will no longer allow guilt for things done in the past to interfere with how I live in the present. I thanked God for what he has done for me, and I asked him to give me a renewed sense of purpose. I still don't know his will for me, but going through life, going through school and doing my daily grind, have a new meaning.

Whatever we do, we should do it for his glory. It's not about me. It's all about God.

The college group from church is going on a camping trip from Friday to Sunday to Lake Lopez in San Luis Obispo. We're going to be camping out in tents and partaking in such activities as waterskiing. It'll be a lot of fun. I really should start packing though, it's almost midnight.

Over the weekend I and a handful of collegians, high-schoolers, and sponsors from my church joined 2500 other people at the 4-day Resolved conference in Pasadena. The conference was pretty heavy-duty, with sessions (some back-to-back) being in both the mornings and the evenings. We had nine speaking sessions from reputed names including John MacArthur, C.J. Mahaney, and Steve Lawson which covered various topics like genuine faith and sovereign grace. The worship preceding the speaking was upbeat and phenominal.

I didn't get as much out of the conference as I could've, the main reason being that I fell asleep in most of the speaking sessions. I hadn't gotten a good night's rest for a while, and the fact that we got between 4-6 hours of sleep each night did not help. That's not to say I didn't take anything away. On the contrary, I learned a good deal and had some good follow-up discussions with Joe and Steve, as well as fellowship with the other members of our group.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was seeing a girl that Stan invited, Nina, come to faith in Christ. She had been a non-devout Catholic who had problems with some aspects of her religion. Over this weekend God gave her so many signs, from Stan inviting her to the conference out of the blue (and paying for it), to the discussions she had with people, to the topics of the messages and the parallels that she shared with C.J. Mahaney, who used to be Catholic. She felt like the whole conference was directed straight at her. It was just awesome to see how God revealed himself to her and the awesome power and love He demonstrates in doing so.

All-in-all, Resolved was worth the $145 and the time that I could've spent getting my homework done. I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to make more of it.

Somebody <cough Priscilla> said that I don't update enough. Maaaybe she's right, but I've been very busy with school and other commitments. Besides, I update more than she does... meh!

Well this weekend I went on a retreat to Camp Seely in Arrowhead with Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian fellowship on campus. Dude, it was freaking freezing at night; it had to be below 40. The speaking was pretty good; the theme was reckless abandon, total surrender to God, which hit me (softly) on the head. As one of the staffers said to me, there are so many good things you can do in life, but oftentimes the good things are the worst enemy of the great things. Are you spending so much time doing good things that you neglect the great things? In the end, what's going to matter?

I can't say that the retreat was an overwhelming experience that changed my life, partly due to the state of torpor I've been in for a couple years now, but it's definitely helped me to evaluate myself. Small steps.

Well.. I've been back from Fresno for 4 days, but I've been putting off writing about it because I knew it would be a long entry. Yes, that's a warning, if you have a short attention span (like I do). ;)

First off, I'll say that I ate more unhealthy food those 5 days than I have in the last 5 years. Pizza, hamburger, croissant, sausage, ham, Snickers, punch - those were just a few. Add in only 2 cups of milk and no juice the whole 5 days and that says a lot.

But when your choices are Eat or Starve, you quickly modify your restrictions. (Ask the people on the TV show Survivor) I'm very grateful to Mr. Lu, who took charge of preparing all our meals and buying supplies. He even got up an hour earlier than everybody else to make breakfast!

From the very start, God was challenging us to get out of our comfort zones. Most of the people on our team I had either not talked to in a while or not talked to ever. We had also been expecting to work mostly with Hmong people, who aren't TOO different from Chinese people. Instead, upon arriving, we found out we would be doing a three-day Bible Club in a community consisting almost entirely of African Americans and Hispanics. Oh the shock!

So the first day, we drove to the neighborhood and walked around inviting kids to our outdoor Bible Club. I was surprised at how many came (almost all without parents)- we had about 30. (If some stranger came to my house and invited me out to some club, I would immediately assume their intentions are malicious) We had games with super soakers and water balloons (who doesn't love that in summer?), followed by songs, a memory verse, a mini-sermon, and a story about a boy named Ernesto. Oh, and lots of candy. Kids can't resist that.

The first and second days went pretty smoothly. It was encouraging to see some kids already waiting for us when we returned the second day. And on the third day, there were even more. We had 68 kids that day, and that was when things started getting a little chaotic. Kids naturally have short attention spans, so getting them to pay attention when it's hot and when all their friends are around gets difficult when there are a lot of them, especially with black kids, who aren't as reserved as Asians. ;) Ultimately though, I think we did alright, especially since we had no pre-preparation. We've done our part in sowing the seeds of faith. It's up to God to cause the growth.

Sometimes a little nudge is needed for somebody to take the first step. God upset our comfort bubbles by throwing us into uncomfortable situations. The result? Seeing the world with a new perspective. We worked well as a team and really bonded with each other. I think we interacted well with the kids too, and I hope the Bible Club was as wonderful to them as it was to us. I found myself growing in confidence as the days progressed. And surprisingly, not once did it seem difficult to talk to somebody, teammate or otherwise.

That was the bulk of what we did. I could go on and on about the other stuff, like serving food at the Poverello House, cleaning the storage room at World Impact that was aptly named The Dungeon, the pool party with Hmong teens, the basketball tournament with Bible Club kids, the black church we went to, or the hilarious games and discussion time we did as a team. But that would bore people to tears (assuming anybody got this far already), so I'll just give you a link to some pictures and wrap it up by saying that the Fresno trip was an AWESOME and UNFORGETTABLE experience, and I'm definitely signing up if they do it again next year.

Tomorrow morning my dad and I depart with about 15 others from church in route to Fresno for a short-term missions trip. I think it's going to be fun- we're serving with an organization called World Impact to minister to the local Hmong community. Even though this is not considered a "difficult" missions trip, it's my first. If you would, please pray for us in the following ways:

- health and energy (we have to wake up at 7:30 every day! I'm accustomed to getting up past 10...)
- that we would have good fellowship and encourage one another
- that we would be good examples of Christ's love, and that He would open their hearts to the Gospel
- that God will thwart the plans of the enemy

Guess I should finish packing and head to bed (it's almost 10).. gotta wake up super early tomorrow. Cya in 5 days!

Today I got a ride to a church called Lighthouse Community Church with some AACF'ers: David, Martin, and Dennis. The church is a little small, but they have a great pastor and great people. I think they have a lot of potential to grow and expand.

In the afternoon I watched What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra. That movie was just... weird. Borrowing elements from Hinduism/Buddhism, Christianity, and Greek mythology, it interwove them with its own fabrications into a synthetic, Hollywood-packaged idea of the afterlife that barely held its ground. In other words, it wasn't that great.

This morning I caught a ride to Grace Community Church (my second time) with 4 new people: Patrick, Jane, Adrianna, and Jay. I really enjoyed the Crossroads college ministry they have following the main sermon. It's like the format we have back at CCAC- two services, with smaller "sunday school" classes during the second. But with more people. MANY more people.

One of our neighbors came by tonight and brought some food she had taken home from Panda Express where she works. She gave me a whole box of fruits, which is especially great because Covel dining hall didn't have bananas during lunch OR dinner, and I don't take apples unless I can eat them on the walk back from class. So yeah, I was able to get my daily antioxidents after all. (Or perhaps I should stop being so lazy to eat apples)

Tonight I went to dinner at the Yook's place, where the Dongs gave a presentation on their work in Turkey to the Network and Horizon church groups. Dinner was good; I especially loved the rice and curry chicken. =)

The Dong's gave a great presentation. It was awesome hearing about and looking at some snowflake greetings cards from their craft ministry that pays economically disadvantaged women to make them. The cards looked nicer than the ones you normally buy in the store. I wanted to buy some but didn't really get a chance to. =(

Branching Out had their Senior Grad Party tonight, and Roger asserted that he would not go unless I went. So, not wanting him to miss this important and last event with the highschool group, I decided to go.

I actually had a really great time. It was nice to hear all the comments people made about the seniors and vice-versa, and it was reminiscent of last year. Oh, and I got free dinner (whereas underclassmen had to pay $10), and I had ROAST BEEF!

The retreat was alright. I got some more driving practice to and from Pepperdine University, located in Pacific Pallisades. The guest speakers there were Ray Ortlund and his wife Anne. The cafeteria food wasn't top notch, but wasn't terrible. =p

I would've had a lot more fun if I didn't have to do homework the whole time. Out of the four speaking sessions, I went to only one. I didn't enjoy any of the free time activities, including workshops. Essentially I didn't get much out of it. I feel like I wasted my parents' money by going, even though they wanted me to go. =(

Aaron, a fifth year student at UCLA, took me to the Mosaic morning service. The location of this service has been changed from the auditorium at Beverly Hills High School to the L.A. Entertainment Center. This is sorta better to me because the worship at the Beverly location was more Southern gospel-type, whereas that at the L.A. Entertainment Center is more contemporary. I can sing much less off-key to the latter.

I also had my first real taco today. After church some of us went to this hole-in-the-wall taco place. My taco was pretty good, though. And the place got an 'A' sanitation rating.

Last week Jermaine gave Allen, another person from AACF, my info and he emailed me asking if I wanted to come to the nighttime Mosaic service. So today I went with him and Cindy, whom I had met the first week at AACF, to the LA Entertainment Center in beautiful downtown where the service was held. The first thing I noticed there were the many multi-colored strobe lights whizzing around the room. The facility is normally used as a club!

But the songs were contemporary and those I've been accustomed to, and the message was great (and the pastor is the same guy who speaks regularly at the morning service in Beverly Hills). Altogether, everything seemed traditional and paralled my home church. They just started a cool six week series called "When God Walked Among Us" and I think I'll go back with Allen for at least five more weeks. =)

Jermaine from AACF took me to a church called Mosaic, which met in the auditorium of Beverly Hills High School. Man, that place was nice. The school campus puts Van Nuys High's to shame. Well, the majority of school campuses anywhere puts Van Nuys to shame. =(

Anyway, the sermon was pretty good, and the people there seemed really energetic, as evinced during the singing. The choir sang upbeat and gospel-style songs that I haven't heard before; moreover they sounded pretty professional, hence I didn't want to join in and ruin the songs, so I just listened. =0

I went to Venice-Santa Monica Free Methodist Church again. Andy's car was full, so I rode with the other driver, Tina. Also riding in the car was a guy named Kevin (a second-year I think I've talked with before at AACF), a girl named Tiffany (also a second-year), and a freshman Elaine whom I found out lives in Hedrick.

Both cars were packed full, and just one more person going to Venice might have resulted in somebody sitting in the trunk, which Tina claims some guy did in Andy's car before. ;)

I wasn't able to go to AACF this week, so I couldn't sign up for a ride to check out a new church. But Denise was more than happy to take me to NewSong. =)

The sermon there was pretty good. The neat thing was that the sermon was on a passage, Luke 16:1-15, that I had just read last night but didn't really understand. Coincidence? If so, then a lot of "coincidences" have been happening recently.

I've decided to go church hopping for a while to check out what all the different churchs have to offer. Andy from AACF took me to Venice-Santa Monica Free Methodist Church today. Two others were in his car: Jane, a senior, and Philip, a junior. I really enjoyed the service- the music was traditional but lively (gotta have them drums), and the pastor's message was really pertinent, and he managed to keep it entertaining at the same time. It's really a lot like church back home, only about 1/3 the size of the congregation. And mostly Japanese people, instead of Chinese. ;)

My math teacher explained the scoring to me and showed me why I got so many points off. So my grade stands, but I'll try to use this as a reminder to study extra for the next math test.

My dad picked me up and we went to church where he was helping with our International Fun Factory, the alternative-to-Halloween carnival we put on every year. I ran into a lot of old friends. Then I drove the car back home by myself, in the raining darkness. What made it worse was that I had half forgotten how to drive.

My mom was pretty happy to see me, and she had scrumptious food made just for me. After dinner she got started on alternating my new suit, while I finally got to use my new laptop. =) I spent most of the night migrating files onto it from my other two computers.

A guy named Felix took me to Grace Community Church today. Also riding with him were a guy named William and coincidentally, my Comp Sci discussion T.A. Tim Ma. The church congregation was HUGE. People told me that there are usually around 3000 people, per service. And there are two services!!

After the main service, we branched off to a college students/young adults fellowship during which the pastor began one of several messages in his series about marital relationships. He reminded us of the eternal perspective we are supposed to hold, and how marriage plays into that. Really great stuff.

At 10 o'clock last night, I was up waiting to watch all the lights go off per the schedule blackout. They did not. So I went to the lounge to see who was there, and I found a group of people in my chem class working some book problems, so I joined them. A bit before 12, I decided to go to sleep. As I was getting into bed, in my mind declaiming the power outage that never was, the lights suddenly went out.

Denise took me to church again; Sophonias didn't go because he had gone home to avoid the power outage. The sermon was really good, it was about the story of the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears; what made it really interesting was that the pastor put every detail into historical context to show the story's significance.

A girl from AACF named Denise drove Sophonias and me to NewSong today. We also met Jennifer, whom Denise was also taking to NewSong. I thought the music and the sermon were once again pretty good. The sermon was about Rahab, and the six points of a strong faith. At the end we found out that the first letters of the six points spelled "R-A-H-A-B-S" as the speaker noted, "We should all be Rahabs."

A girl named Ling who lives on our floor found us during brunch and dinner, and the three of us had fun just chatting over our food. Turns out she's from Singapore, and she speaks Mandarin. Though she claims her Mandarin isn't the best, it makes mine (which is pretty sorry anyway) seem like a dog trying to speak Latin. Wao da zhong wen bu tai hao.

Looks like I've found a church to go to. I emailed Roy from CCAC about churches in the area, and he referred me to a guy named Andy from AACF, and he referred me to Emily also from AAFC, and she drove me and two girls, Alison and Genevieve, to a church called NewSong LA in Culver City. NewSong LA is actually a new branch-off of NewSong Irvine, so they don't have their own facility but lease a big room in The Veterans Memorial Building senior center. The worship was different (a bunch of people singing in different keys- I think it was similar to the "gospel" music genre) but it was cool, and the sermon (it was about the story of Mary and Martha when Jesus came to their house) was a great reminder of what our perspective as Christians should be.

I also met two other girls from AACF at NewSong: Wendy and Connie. After church Emily, Alison, Genevieve, and I went to Best Buy for a while, and I played on an electronic keyboard and discovered that I forgot how to play Canon. Funny thing is that I just played it from start to finish with no problems three days ago in the Rieber lounge.

I had brunch at Rieber with Alison and Genevieve, and Connie joined us mid-brunch. Then one of their other friends showed up to join us right when we were finished eating. Needless to say, it was a fun day. Sophonias didn't go because he had to do his English homework, but he agreed to go next week (and if he doesn't, I'm gonna drag him the whole way). Wow, that's the most I've ever written for a blog entry. Ok... goodnight.