Ray's World

One year...

2010-05-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

It has been a year, and this is for you Mom...

Proud of your boy
I'll make you proud of your boy
Believe me, bad as I've been, Ma
You're in for a pleasant surprise

I've wasted time
I've wasted me
So say I'm slow for my age
A late bloomer, Okay, I agree

That I've been one rotten kid
Some son, some pride and some joy
But I'll get over these lousin' up
Messin' up, screwin' up times

You'll see, Ma, now comes the better part
Someone's gonna make good
Cross his stupid heart
Make good and finally make you
Proud of your boy

Tell me that I've been a louse and loafer
You won't get a fight here, no ma'am
Say I'm a goldbrick, a good-off, no good
But that couldn't be all that I am

Water flows under the bridge
Let it pass, let it go
There's no good reason that you should believe me
Not yet, I know, but

Someday and soon
I'll make you proud of your boy
Though I can't make myself taller
Or smatter or handsome or wise

I'll do my best, what else can I do?
Since I wasn't born perfect like Dad or you
Mom, I will try to
Try hard to make you
Proud of your boy

Thanks for the childhood memories...

2009-11-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

6 months later...

2009-11-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

Still missing you... Love you Mom!

So you think...

2009-09-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

Those are some cool moves... Ellen always makes me laugh!

This will be my goal...

2009-09-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

Living in the now

2009-08-28T23:38:00.000-07:00

I would never expect such kind of "dancing" can be this inspiring and touching...

It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.

Happiness is NOWHERE. Some see it as Happiness is NO WHERE. While others see Happiness is NOW HERE.

You can’t change the past, and you can ruin a perfectly good present, by worrying about the future.

Happy Birthday my dearest Mom. You are always loved and missed.

2009-07-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

How can I (and you!) forget?

2009-06-04T17:42:00.001-07:00

Lately I have been thinking what I fear the most is I would "forget" what I deem most important in life. I noticed I am not as emotional as a month ago as days go by. I have to keep reminding myself it cannot be due to my "forgeting" my Mom. When people asked me to forget about the past and keep looking ahead, I was close to the point of being offended. Yes we have to look to the future but we definitely cannot afford to forget the past.

The same thing goes with what happened 20 years ago. People start to justify by saying look at what China has achieved these 20 years and we should just let go of the past. Ok people got richer and the country looks fancier with the Olympics and being the world factory and whatnot. But are people smarter? Are people freer? The fear tactics and the silent treatments still disgust me. Sorry this is no 60s or 70s when the cultural revolutionary mentality still worked. We have the internet and records of the past that are widely available. A country as big as China with no guts to face history and even trying to blindfold and silence people with lies is just cowardy and should have no place in the world stage. Just thinking about such a country likely being the next world superpower is simply bone chilling.

蔡子強, a professor from my alma mater puts it well:
"一個怯懦得無法面對自己過去、面對自己歷史的民族，它將不會有足夠的力量，去巍然聳立於天地之間，面對未來。A faint-hearted nation that cannot face its past and its history will not have enough strength to stand tall in this world to face the future."

No, I won't forget. I just can't.

Lessons learned and a world changed

2009-06-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

It was hard coming back to the States and I felt I was dropped into an entirely different world with the loss of certain influence in life now. A month has gone by but hardly did a day pass without my missing and thinking about Mom. No words can express how much gratitude and love I have for her. Each day there is new admiration and appreciation for her as I contemplate over her examplary life.

~ I have learned that Mom really enjoyed and loved life. She always opened herself to new ideas and exposed us to them as well. She studied hair-styling, make-up, driving, English, dancing, computers even late in her life. She found ways to put those skills into use and bless people around her.
~ I have come to realize that Mom has set high standards on herself. She always did things for a good reason, sometimes without others' understanding. She has been constantly finding ways to battle her illness and alleviate her stress without letting others know too much about it. She is such a trooper and she never gave up.
~ I have witnessed Mom treasured her friendship and it was amazing to see the outpouring of care and love from others during the past few weeks. And now I know just a few words of comfort from others did help and have great impact in lessening someone's pain.
~ I found myself truly blessed growing up in a wonderful home in Hong Kong. Mom and Dad had made such huge sacrifice to settle in here and provided us with fantastic environment to learn and grow.
~ I have noticed lately how insignificant many of the things in life are to me now and I really can't sweat the small stuff all the time. After all love does equal happiness, and I mean longlasting, long-term happiness, nothing else.

From now on I will no longer have the previlege of using the word "Mom" to address someone on earth and the word hence has become a sacred term to me. As I put up pictures of Mom around the house, a sense of bliss and peace naturally was flowing all around. The most important thing I have learned is I love my Mom with all my heart and she does love me too. No, I did not learn that, I do know she loves me. That's all it matters.

A Letter to Mom

2009-05-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

Dearest Mom,

It has been 10 days since you have moved on but I still want to wish you a happy Mother's Day today. Your name is May and May 1st will never be the same. Though we are now apart and I missed you terribly, I am sure you are at peace and watching over us from above. You can be rest assured that you have left behind a legacy and touched so many lives on earth, particularly mine. You have given me life and saved mine numerous times. I still remember when I was battling with severe asthma and paying frequent visits to the hospital, your patience and perseverance gave me strength and support to make it through those unbearable days. How much I wish I could give it back to you, even just a little, when you were in the hospital bed. I wanted to turn back the clock and relive our lives together. Everywhere I go these days in Hong Kong bring back memories and experience with you in that particular place. Just a few months ago I was thrilled to have you visit and travel the Western US and Canada as a family for Doris' reception as well. Though it was exhausting for all of us and I am sure you were worn out even more, I had the time of my life and I hope the same for you. As I witnessed your fighting the fight in the past couple weeks, your courage and endurance were simply awespiring. Your last words, smiles, and even one single grip on my hand mean so much to me. And it was incredible that you even saved your precious breathe and energy to chat with your friends and even cracked jokes! No wonder Auntie Lau said you are one cute mom and a great friend. It will be hard for me to go back to the States and not listening to your voice any more through your regular weekly phone calls. I really want to say thank you for calling me faithfully every week and even almost daily later on. Your constant support in everything I do gave me tremendous strength to overcome any obstacles in front of me. All the credits in any success in my life definitely go to you, Mom.

Of course dad is missing you but I am glad we have been talking a lot these past few weeks and I learned so much through his experience and wisdom. I wish I had done that more often when you were around. But don't worry, he and all of us are in good hands through many caring relatives and friends. Even little/old BB has been nice and behaving well. She missed you. You are definitely missed by many more.

Mom, you are my best friend on earth and you have helped me to be a better person. I have learned so much, even more so in these few weeks, through your deeds and words. I see God in you. I now vow to be more caring to the family and people around me, strive to do my best in all my endeavors, and paying it forward to serve my fellow men to honor what you have done for us.

I love you Mom and I cannot wait to be reunited with you in the near future. God be with you till we meet again.

Your son,
Raymond

Remembering Mom...

2009-05-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

Christmas is...

2008-12-26T22:45:00.000-08:00

~white (but not the bumpy icy tricky road condition between Eugene & Portland)!!!~time for friends and family.
~presents.~time off doing nothing but eat, sleep, watching or reading whatever I want.
~Time to reflect and plan for the new year ahead.Have a happy holiday and wonderful new year!

Appreciation

2008-11-29T21:29:00.000-08:00

First of all I can't be happier about the gas price these days! It's less than half of what it was only a few months ago (just compare that to a couple blog entries back). Great news for my upcoming trips for the holiday. Also I stupidly locked my keys in the car again and luckily found someone with AAA membership to call for help. I'm still one month short of being able to switch my insurance agent and I will switch to AAA for sure when the time comes.

Since last year I realized the so called Black Friday is getting pointless since one can get lots of deals online as well so I don't see why one would brave the coldness, darkness, and sleep deprivation just to save a few bucks. It's shocklingly sad that something like the Walmart trampling would happen here in the USA. I'm a humanist that any similar incidents in the past like the deaths caused by pilgrimage in Islamic Mecca, partying in Lan Kwai Fong a few years back in Hong Kong, and now the "doorbusters" in NYC are simply beyond my understanding. Nothing should take priority over a human life. People really are paying a heavy price for lessons on becoming truly civilized. Ironically I did check out a few items yesterday way after the "early bird doorbuster" whatchamacallit hours. As I was waiting in line to pay I was glad what I saw was the huge turnout of customers were doing their holiday shopping in an orderly manner. The lady behind me in line needed a lift for her bulky merchandize that I was more than happy to give her a hand. And she explained it was for upgrading her mom's bathroom and she was happy about it. So I'm not against the holiday shopping season at all as long as people are making each other happy. But I do think they need to do away the "doorbuster" concept as it will probably bring back bad memories from now on.

Anyway once in a while I like to do a video post with clips I enjoy. These two songs are my favorite lately and Ne-yo and Thicke's albums are the ones I love the most this year.

And the Muppet Show is my favorite show of all time. I still vividly remember how crazily I would LROF as I watched the show as a kid. If you wonder why I use the Swedish chef as my profile pic check these out. They are silly funny but I never get tired watching them and have a great laugh. LOL!

Gratified...

2008-11-28T00:53:00.000-08:00

After a sumptuous meal, I feel the need to post this supposedly corny list of things I am thankful for. Here they are...

~My family and their well being, including our little shitzu BB at home, as there have been miracles in this past year and I feel truly blessed in this regard the most.

~My relatively stable job and my amazing class of students. I am really lucked out having such a great class now and I have overcome quite a lot and turned things around when some of my colleagues were openly working against me. Now we are like a dream team. Patience and thick skin do pay off!

~My slightly complicated upbringing and background have proven to be an advantage in many ways. It is kind of funny when many native mandarin speakers including my colleagues find out I am from Hong Kong they would compliment my decent Putonghua (which also is a backhanded compliment stating HKers' mandarin sucks!) I would find myself truly grateful for my parents' having lived in Beijing/Tianjin for a long time and forced us to use mandarin at home when we were little (whether we obeyed or not is another story). I can also relate to people from Indonesia (parents' birthplace and I have lived there for a summer), the Philippines (mission experience), Macau (mission), Japan (minor in Japanese Studies in college), Spanish speaking countries (Spanish in college and lots of spanish speaking students when I taught English), and now Germany and France (trying to learn the languages and be fluent someday). Also when my colleagues are whining about our next topic in the curriculum being medicine and health these days, I am the only one all excited because of my college degree in biology with medical experience. This also comes in handy when I am asked to do translation/interpretation on specialized and advanced subjects.

~All the relationships I have had with people, be it personal or professional, enjoyable or hurting, I truly have gained and learned a ton how to be a better person. Once in a while I would convince myself that I really am not a likable person because of past experiences, but during these past couple years I have learned to let go of a lot of the unnecessary baggage and things that I am now able to enjoy people and things a lot more. I do have true appreciation for genuinely nice and friendly people nevertheless.

~Being able to live and work in this country has been challenging but inspiring. There is no better place in my opinion that presents more opportunities and room for my growth and satisfaction for achieving my potentials.

~My desire for learning and knowledge fortunately haven't subsided since I left school. I am still finding ways to learn new things and ideas.

~My new apartment, car, and all my material possessions. I love the space now I am enjoying along with the ability to travel whenever and wherever I want. I also constantly find myself occupied with the gadgets I play with, i.e. my HDTV, computer/internet, iPods/Zune, etc. Technology rocks!

~My health and even my life is one of the most precious gifts that I could ask for. Learning from the experiences of others around me all I can say is never take a day for granted.

As we are approaching the last month of the year, I am already setting my eyes on next year for new goals: places I plan to visit, major purchases I will be making, projects intended to be finished, and new skills ready to be acquired. I am excited. Once again I can't wait for the family trip before the new year ensues though.

Finally... end of hiatus...

2008-11-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

I don't even know why it has been almost 4 months since I last blogged, be it being busy or lazy, I'm just summing it up here the happenings all at once...

Went back to HK twice(!!!) for my own/mom's birthdays as well as Doris' wedding, both were fun and it was surprisingly nice to meet the new family as well as relatives/friends/acquaintances not seen for so long. Things went smooth and memorable... paid off my car!!! Now already setting my eyes on a new one... saw Alicia Keys in concert for my first HK trip... have been reading "The Year of Living Biblically" which is an amazing read... China did host an impressive Olympics, can the "success" last and be extended to other areas? Stay tuned... moved to my new place and it's 3-4 times as big and loving it, not so much the commute in the morning though, and I miss the old place somehow esp. the pool... halloween party at my new place planned for a handful but a dozen people showed up with one whole pizza left over which became my lunch/dinner for the entire week... Nathan visited in July, Emily and then Scott in September, Cindy in October, anyone next? I'm taking reservations now and I've got room (and board)... students are doing great, as long as my lunatic supervisor doesn't meddle with us/them (is she reading this?)... presented on psycholinguistics for the school. I don't know about the audience but at least I learned a lot myself during preparation and I did get good feedback... Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Enchanted, Pochahontas, Godspell, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pippin...) came to perform within five minute drive from my apartment! I was mesmerized by his talent and the singers he brought with... excited about the new President but not so thrilled about the bickering between the LDS and the Prop 8 opponents... really looking forward to the break and the trips in Christmas/New Year...

Those were included in the red pockets/laisees I gave them...

After the banquet.

It's an illusion... the big birds couldn't touch my lunch (with Cassandra and Cindy) because of the glass window.

And we saw something like this... a wild otter enjoying crab in the ocean! Lunch time for all of us...

That's about it. A happy birthday shoutout to Anthony and dad! And I think this is too cute not to put up.

Happy birth... month!

2008-07-04T23:30:00.001-07:00

July is the month of birthdays, or birthmonth to me. It seems all the coolest and the greatest minds were born this month! At her birthday lunch today at Maggiano's Paige made a comment that people in October must be very happy... go figure... LOL!!!

Anyways, shoutouts to the following: Nate (you are actually a couple days off July but I still include you, you know why), Paige, Amy, Jordan, Caroline, Sophia, Justin, Moon, Mom, the US of A, and last but not least myself... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Dad, happy days!

2008-06-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

I could hardly believe my eyes when I finished fueling up my car with gas today... almost $70 (average around $40 in the past)!!! With gas price reaching $5/gallon now it is almost impossible to imagine how much it cost back then just less than 7 years ago when I came to the States... less than a dollar (pre-911)! So with inflation almost out of control these days I was just talking with a friend that one's financial strategy now is not just how much one can save but how much more one can earn to offset the increasing living costs.

Nevertheless I am glad to say I am at peace and I feel loved this past week. I am thankful and indebted to the couple people who helped me through the challenging days especially from work. You know who you are. :)

Finally my shout to dad for a happy Father's Day! I'll make up for the meal I missed when I'm back soon...

Dies ist noch nicht vorbei... this is not over yet...

2008-06-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

About 4 months ago I planned to take the German class as for my personal interest and possibly ideas for my own language teaching. Now I am so glad I did and finished by taking the final with NO studying because I skipped the last couple of classes while Doris was in town and I was way too exhausted after a day's work for the past couple of weeks. I think I did quite good regardless of some of the words I already forgot. Tonight we celebrated afterwards with a dinner at a German restaurant. The food was just ok but the ambience and comradarie was wonderful. Basically every single student loved the class and is coming back for second semester if one can. I think it is quite an achievement the teacher has accomplished with such diverse students. Everyone was reminiscing the creative and fun sketches we did. They kept commenting how good an actor I was but my response was I hated acting to begin with but now I have grown to be quite fond of it! And the teacher has totally inspired me to be a better teacher and I even told her that. The funny thing I learned tonight is that she is dating a young guy who is a DLI graduate of Chinese and we chatted quite a bit.

On a totally different note, what would happened if you were to put some of the funniest things on TV together, such as SNL, the Office, Steve Carell, Deal or No Deal, and even the Japanese? Check these out... and I think Kristen Wiig is absolutely brilliant who makes me laugh and cry at the same time... What makes it even funnier is that they really are speaking Japanese! And don't forget I minored Japanese Studies in college!

Laughing matter aside, let's not forget what happened 19 years ago today... And as a german classmate who is an army veteran told me, he is optimistic about the change the Olympics will bring to Communist China. Everyone's fingers crossed...

B-R-E-A-K

2008-06-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

I've been longing to update and post on the blog but it seems my mind always races way ahead of my body and fingers to put thoughts into words and actions. So I'm gonna "photo-blog" some of the things that happened in the past couple weeks.

I had my much deserved break after I almost had a mental breakdown myself because of stress from work, or to be more specific from certain people at work. My sister was in town so we got to travel to LA and visited Hearst Castle on the way. We literally bought the last pair of available tickets to the tour!
The next day we took a tour of the NBC Studio in Burbank, which is right behind the Hollywood sign. As a TV buff myself it was way fun to visit a running TV studio again. I have taken a similar tour of NBC in NYC before but this one is more fun and intimate with a smaller group but way cheaper at the same time. The most impressive thing when we were visiting Jay Leno's set was while we were looking at Jay's nice car the guide/page said most people wear different clothes but drive the same car to work, Jay does the opposite! And when we were visiting the Access Hollywood set we noticed there were a group of reporters quite a distance away seemed like interviewing a celebrity. It was David Cook! He just won the little show called American Idol the night before. The funniest thing was the people in our group were in their middle ages and quite clueless about the show and they asked what the buzz was all about. Then a staff came through and told us to watch behind his back, and as people were expecting some sort of equipment was making its way through then here came Cook! We totally could have asked him for pictures or autographs (and sell them on ebay) as there was no one around him but an assistant, however our group seemed indifferent about it and so we kept our cool and moved on... In the afternoon we were super lucky that we were able to get into the Tonight Show and got great seats in the house! So we saw Leno, the First Lady Laura and her daughter Jenna Bush, and once again Cook. The poor David looked exhausted but genuinely nice.Waiting in line to get in to the Tonight Show. With Doris on the bottom left...

Cook-leno
by greateggs

The following day we were back and were able to see lots of whales on our whale watching excursion!After Doris left I saw both Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well as Iron Man over the memorial weekend. I like both movies but the former has a wacky ending while the latter a predicatable plot. I prefer the Indy film just because of the nostalgia and the comradarie it brings back. Watching it is just like taking the disney ride again.
Final thought of the day:

Do I want to be feared or loved? Um... easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.

-Michael Scott from the Office

Ok back to work!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

2008-05-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

Prank

2008-05-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

One of the best pranks on the phone...

Angry Chinese?

2008-05-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

I almost became one myself because of totally different reasons (read on for explanations below). With the approaching of the olympics in less than 100 days as well as the chain of events lately such as the torch relays, deporting Danish sculptor Galschiot of the "Pillar of Shame" from Hong Kong (how fit the title it is for such action by the HK, and possibly PRC governments), and protests for different causes in all corners of the world, China is under unprecedented scrutiny as a host of such a worldwide event. I've read a few insightful and interesting articles including the Economist and the National Geographic. I just want to say both China and its people (counting myself in) really need to learn to be good hosts to the world despite all the "oppositions". This is the price of presenting oneself a prominent role on the world stage. It seems the nation as a whole has already partially failed the test by overreacting to the "negative press" from the West and the zealous Chinese citizens trying to silence any voices not supportive of the Chinese Olympics or the PRC's Tibetan policies. Bear in mind almost every single Olympic host countries have taken their shares of criticism and the success pretty much lies in how poised and mature the countries acted politics-wise. Imagine how "excited" many of the Westerners, especially the French, would be to come visit China now for the Olympics without worrying being "attacked".

Back to more personal issues. These past couple days I have been very bothered and troubled by certain behaviors of one particular mainland Chinese colleague but after much thought, I realized I have gained insights from those Chinese articles that instead of being an angry Chinese myself, I just need to keep on carrying out my duties 100% to stay blameless on my part and not to lose my cool. And there sure is a price to pay for being in a leadership position that one is proned to criticism, whether constructive or not. And I am a true believer of Karma that you reap what you sow, as can be seen in the fact that a few "troublemakers" in our department are gone now...

Potpourri...

2008-04-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

It is almost like a potpourri of very interesting events today that I have to write something about it.

Things have been going very well for the new class (at least I think) today until some communication problems popped up among the colleagues. Without naming names and specifications (I have learned my hard lesson from my blog here) some people's Chinese old school cultural revolutionary mentality totally drives me nuts. Being Chinese myself, I really can't stand many of our "mainland comrades" of their self-centered "biggest gains with the least effort" type of attitude at work. I was treated like their best friend if their benefits/rewards are at stake but I would be shown a "bad face" when I am asking someone to carry out their responsibilities. I feel like a work environment of "everyone eating from the same pot" is encouraging and nurturing this kind of work ethics that I despise the most. The biggest home to this school of thought once again is the PRC government that its people are being fed with propaganda of such kind subconsciously. It goes along with my puzzlement that why the independence of Tibet is such a taboo and evil thing. Why is Dalai Lama treated like a demon? The tactics of vilifying the person that voices a different opinion of yours is so typical of the communist word games that it takes simple logic and education to counter the arguments. I wonder how many people have really studied the history of Tibet. I admit I haven't until these past few weeks to realize what a beautiful culture and religion is being jeopardized in the name of economic prosperity. If displaying my love/heart for China on my MSN messenger means I am a supporter of such irrational ideology of many Chinese, sorry, I DON'T LOVE CHINA (no offense to many of my friends with the display on their MSN). I know I probably would be labelled as a traitor but I don't feel like I am not patriotic at all. I think many people do get the concepts mixed up.

While I was still upset about this, I am glad I got to attend my German class right after work. What a huge contrast it was to see my lovely teacher and classmates all contribute to the party today. Many of us did not just bring the minimum amount of food but it turned out to be a huuuuuge feast in class! And I was thrilled that my German sketch performance with my cute partner worked out great that I got compliments on my acting. I never thought I would be a good actor but I start to develop a fondness to it. Anyways it's a great class because everyone was very into what they are doing and bring out more than a 100%. I keep thinking if every single person of the billion strong population in China can do something like this without being selfish, how much nicer the world would become. And here is the evidence of the pretty dessert my classmates made. And I could not help to take the cupcake with the word "lehrer" which means "teacher" in German...
And the last thing is a very good college friend of mine whom I reconnected with through facebook and talked on the phone for 1.5 hours (which is extremely rare in my case) agreed with me that the "magic of facebook" has worked wonders on strengthening our friendships and relationships, even crossing the boundaries of places and times.

Gute Nacht!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2008-04-27T22:18:00.001-07:00

Stumbled on a show by John Bytheway on BYUTV. He actually is my favorite LDS speaker even though he is not a GA of the church and most of his talks are targeted for the teenagers. I actually met him in person and got to have a quick word with him at the LDSBA convention a couple years back. He's very insightful, inspirational, and funny at the same time. His most recent quote that I like from the show is

"it's better to be respected than it is to be popular, because popularity ends on yearbook day, but respect lasts forever."

Speaking of being popular/respected, the thought hit me hard yesterday. I never was the "popular" guy in school, at work, or even among my circle of friends. I used to be very paranoid at this which worsened my shyness in front of other people. I realized I have come to be rather comfortable at being myself in the past couple of years and rather be a more respectable person than being popular. Yesterday at the chinese speech contest with all the colleagues around that I am not familiar with I did not really care I hardly knew most of them and did not bother to force myself to mingle with them either. Through life experience I know it is rather an uncomfortable feeling not being part of a clique or the "in" group. Now I have learned to just walk away or ignore those who are not interested in or respect me. I really need to please myself before I can please others. Surprisingly yesterday what I enjoyed most was during the return trip of 2+ hour bus ride, I got to talk to a former student of mine and we shared many amazing, but sometimes saddening, or even shocking stories (in Chinese!). It's so comforting to see the growth of the students and we have mutual respect of each other. And I actually have the utmost repect to all of my students for the intense study they have to undertake on top of their hardships in life that they are going through. I'd really prefer spending time on sharing with and even learning things from the students than the mindless social games and the office politics.

As for my current students, week 1 has gone by rather smoothly. I am relieved that for the first quiz all but 2 met the high bar we set at 95 points while the other 2 still scored 85+. They also performed well with the week-end performance I designed which was inspired by my own German class that I am taking. I am learning a great deal on leadership skill as well. Not that I am a power control freak but I find communication skills with colleagues, students, and even myself are crucial and useful. I am striving to be a much more effective and organized person after all.

Go with the flux...

2008-04-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

I'm well known as a (late)night person which explains why I often look sleepy and tired. It comes from our family habits and traditions back home since the city never sleeps and I often enjoy the "freedom" that we can still do whatever we want without sun rays. As one grows older I realize the drawbacks of sleep deprivation and the risk of fighting against the nature of our "bio-clock". I read from different sources lately on the correlation of sleep/light and diabetes along with cancers. The picture above shows the "light pollution" which pretty much coincides with distribution of the world energy consumption. Studies show that the "brighter"/more developed the area is the more incidents of cancers can be found. One suggestion is people should use more natural light rather than man-made light at night. This really is a wake up call to many of us. When the world begins to focus on environmental issues people should also think more about making our own bodies to be in tuned with the nature as well.

And quotes/thoughts for the day:

"Most of us do not accept, or even believe in, the continual flux of life. However strange this may seem, once we truly accept this at a physical level, we will not need to search for certainty... As you tackle the tribulations of life, insight helps you refrain from taking yourself, your challenges, and life itself too seriously, because you will know that no matter what situation you are in, good or bad, it will change. This insight into the changing nature of the world will give you equanimity and joy" (p 60).
-Kamal Sarma in Mental Resilience: The Power of Clarity (New World Library)

"Every obstacle is just an invitation to relax."

A new day... and say...

2008-04-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

Friday was quite a big day for me mostly due to the incoming new students and my new responsibilities. I felt like I had learned a lot more on this particular day than any other since I came to work. Despite a few kinks with the Smartboard (I guess it is not so smart after all) the day went down quite well and fast. I seemed to have gotten the good draw of a group of experienced and bright students while having a nice team of colleagues that the meeting I had to hold ran smoothly as well. As long as we keep the high hopes with the current motivation to work well together this team looks very promising. And the biggest reward for myself toward the end of the day is that I got my new HDTV! Yeehaw!!!

And of course I have been following the Olympic controversy. I am not going to deliberate my opinions too much again here (I'm scared of death threats and such...) but I just want to say there are too many people maybe unintentionally upholding double standards. On one hand they say such an event should not "involve politics" but on the other hand they would protest against other countries' attitude and opinions towards the occasion. Haven't their protests become part of the politics per se? I actually find the current Olympic theme of "One World, One Dream" a chilling idea as it resembles the ideology of tyrants past and present. The intolerance of different voices and opinions would only make the current sitation worse which is something the Chinese, especially the CCP needs to learn if the nation is to present itself as a real power on the world stage. My conclusion for everyone is this song which has been a favorite of mine in the last few days...

This week...

2008-04-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

I love sumptuous brunch on a weekend...
I love Mariah Carey's and BYU Vocal Point's new CDs...
I love watching news lately (world economy, olympic controversy, US presidential campaign, etc.)...
I love the freedom that I enjoy these days in choosing when, where, what, and how I watch movie and TV shows (DVDs, Comcast on demand, Netflix, Azureus, internet)...
I love being reconnected with so many long time acquaintances in the virtual world...
I love attending school and learning a new language with virtually no pressure...
I love seeing the funny and adorable wild sea otters float and sunbathe in the ocean while the mommy seal teaches the suckling baby seal how to swim and survive... (click and enlarge the image to see those cutey creatures in the sea)
I love the lovely spring/summer weather in Cali...
I love the opportunity to travel with my fam all over again this summer...
I love my new smaller but comfy office...
I love my old students and the fact that I failed to take pictures with them two days in a row due to a colleague's "magic touch" on my camera that it kept dying on me...
I love having more say in my work and teaching now and the anticipation of the new students coming in tomorrow... stay tuned...

On being a polyglot...

2008-04-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

New disclaimer:

I actually am happy this blog is categorized as high school reading level. Considering English not being my 1st language I do think it is quite an achievement! Hehe...

More than once people asked me how many languages I speak and usually the answer they get is either a "blah" meaning nothing at all or I completely avoid answering it. The reasons are:
1. it is hard to define what it means to "know" or to be able to "speak" a language;
2. I really don't know because I have exposure to many but nowhere close to being fluent enough to fully communicate with others;
3. and of course I don't want to sound cocky as I really am a humble and a nice person! ;)

My goal in life is to learn as many languages as I can because I think that is the best way to learn about a culture. Of course it is not possible to be fluent in more than a handful but I enjoy the stimulation a language offers in reshaping my thinking about cultures and the world. Here it is all my encounters and experience with different languages if you really want to know:
Cantonese: Of course it is my native and I feel the urge to defend it whenever people think it is not a real language but a dialect. Personally I think it is way more fun and colorful than the dry and dull Mandarin. My goal is to teach Cantonese at the college level again someday.
English: I was fascinated by it since I was little as I thought it was cool to be able to speak a language so different from my own and communicative to the entire world. I was fortunate to attend a semi-international elementary school but had a tough time handling all subjects in English. I hated the teachers so much that eventually switched to a regular Chinese governement/public school which was then way too easy for me. My English skills soared and was perfected during the year as an exchange student at the University of Utah. Defintely the best year of my college life.
Mandarin: Had no problem understanding since both parents speak it with my older bro. I refused to speak it at home when I was young however as I thought it was "uncool" that none of my peers spoke it at the time. Who would have thunk (I think this word is "cool" as well btw) I would be a teacher of this "uncool" language now?
Indonesian: I was left living in Indonesia for 3 months alone with my Indonesian relatives at the age of 8 in the name of curing my health problems. Had ton of fun to begin with that most of my relatives there spoke limited Chinese which forced me to pick up Indonesian at light speed. After 3 months I'd had enough of living away from my family and I had no desire of receiving Indonesian education (I don't think I would enjoy being converted into Islam) that I demanded to be sent back home. But now I'm amazed at times how much I still remember after all these years with that brief exposure to the language and the culture.
Sign Language: Thanks to Berinda, Brother Yuen, and Sister Fung that I picked up CSL (technically HKSL) at church as there was a need for interpreters for the deaf members. It was really an eye opener to learn the signs and interacted with the deaf communities in Hong Kong and later Macau on my mission. They are the nicest and the most humble people I have ever met. Even the visit to the deaf school in Quanzhou China with the YAs made me want to give back and do something for them again in the near future.
Italian: Took a year course during freshman year. It was my last choice of foreign language class but I felt I had to learn a new language to keep me sane from the boring biology classes. The Italian Diction class I took at the U of U was super fun but I keep wondering why I had the guts to take that class with everyone else being senior vocal majors. I did somehow mysteriously get an "A" in the end!
Japanese: I was one class shy of being a Japanese minor in college but just wanted to know more so that I know what I was eating or watching while enjoying my favorite Japanese snacks or the crazy Japanese TV shows.
Spanish: One year at the U and one year at CUHK. The two teachers at the U were wonderful while the one at CU was a total slacker. The good thing is I don't have to worry about not having exposure to it now being in a state where Spanish is pretty much the 2nd language. Many of my students are of Latino descent as well.
Tagalog: Did not really learn it formally but the fellow Filippino missionaries taught me quite a bit. Learned the lines for ice-breaking so the Filippinas would really open up when I approached them. It was amazing to get to know these people who have always been a part of Hong Kong culture but often neglected by the locals.
French: Took a summer intensive course at the Y. The American teacher was actually a classmate of mine but I learned more about language teaching than the language per se. He has very creative and organized teaching skills that I later integrated into my own teaching. I love how things are pronounced... tres beau...
Hebrew: I wanted to take the intensive summer course at the Y as well but felt it was way too intensive than I expected that I dropped out after a week. The teacher was very experienced but the methodology was too traditional for me. I am glad he still recognized me and said hi to me afterwards without sounding mad...
Korean: In preparation for the Asian tour with the YAs, I studied a bit of Korean on my own that I wanted to fully experience the culture. I memorized a few lines in Korean that I fooled most of the group that I spoke Korean! But I am so proud with the help of a Korean classmate that I ran the entire Korean supertitles of the show on my own not really knowing how to read Korean!
German: It has been a little over 2 months since class started but my intension is more on language teaching observation rathan than really learning the language per se. The experience so far has been very enjoyable and I even want to visit Germany now because of the things I have learned. I'd better go back to study for the test tomorrow now! Tschus!

Warum? Porque? どうして? Why? 为什么？點解？

2008-03-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

I am not discontent with life. I am not in a bad mood. But I just feel like I can't help asking these questions today...Why does putting together a show for the world still matter when there are lots of crap going on in the country? Why do Chinese leaders since Mao till today still like to scream into the microphone like there is no sound system at all? Why are the Tibetans angry? Why do the Taiwanese seem to be happy for their election yesterday? Why is there no real election in China? Why does Hong Kong have to wait for universal suffrage? Why am I buying 90% of stuff made in China no matter where I go in the world?Why is this company still making tons of green while being sued by many? Why am I not rich? Why do I/we feel so helpless sometimes? Well, enough questions for the day and I am going back to watch Jeopardy now to answer the questions I can handle... :)

Tetris!!!

2008-03-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

A little bit of story about this legendary game of our time. An assignment for one of my computer classes back in college was to program a well-known game using Visual Basics. A guy in our team who was a total overacheiver decided to work on Tetris and I almost fainted when I heard the idea because it sounded overwhelming for us to do so. If we were that good we could probably make lots of money just doing that! But anyways he took up like 80% of the project while my other Pakistani classmate and I did the rest. The end product did not work perfectly and I guess the other teams in class might have thought we were some freaking geeks. Not me! Anyways I saw this amazing project by the Swiss'.And I totally admire the Japanese wacky but creative sense of humor as usual...

My organizational behavior (MOB)

2008-03-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ended up not going to bed as early as I wanted to so this morning I was off to a weird start. First I felt bloated probably because of the worsened metabolism of the sugar intake from last night as reported by 60 minutes of the effect of sleep deprivation. I literally gained a few pounds over one night just because of the fries, a Carl's Junior Teriyaki burger (which was yummy!), and my fav peanut butter cookie! Yeah so much for my indulgence on gluttony. Then since I didn't have early morning class until 10 I moved a lot slower on my way to my car for work. As I was trying to grab a bottle of water from the trunk my car key slipped off of its key chain and without thinking I pulled out the key from the key hole, dropped it in the trunk, grabbed the bottle, and closed the trunk... Oh wait a minute! That means my key is now in the trunk and I have no way to get into the car. What was I thinking (or the lack of it)? Once again I can blame it on my sleep deprived dysfunctional brain. I was thinking if I should call my insurance company for the auto service to help me out. Then I decided to give it a try to locate my spare key. It has actually mysteriously disappeared for a good few months and I have no clue where it was. I flipped my drawers, desks, and closet over to look for it and at the same time I gave my supervisor a head's up that I might end up missing work for the morning. My neighbors could see me running back and forth a couple times between the apartment and the car for using the wrong keys attempting to pop the car doors open. I then regret my total lack of organizational skills that my drawers and closets are plain messy war zones that it was difficult to reach in, let alone finding the spare key comparable to finding a needle in a haystack. Miraculously I had a great feeling when I saw a tupperware box that I put some of my bookmarks and memorable show ticket stubs (I know how random and dorky it sounds) that the key was gonna be there. Tuh-duh! When I saw it it felt like I had struck gold! In no time I was back in the office and my supervisor was quite amazed (and relieved) that I was back this soon.

Now my next goal is to "establish a house of order"!!!

Go with the flow...

2008-03-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Wanted to write but have been either preoccupied with things or distracted by stuff at home and at work. So these are some of the happenings and random thoughts since my last post...

~I have been quite frustrated lately at work for things I have little or no control of. My boss noticed that and gave me a "heart-to-heart" talk which kind of helped. There are even things I do not agree with her but I really appreciate her taking the initiative for such a move. At least she has been honest with me and very vocal about what is on her mind. I should not have let the negativity creep into my work and should have found a better way to channel my frustrations. Now as I look back why should we even sweat these seemingly small things, it is not like these are do-or-die situations. Sometimes we just need to step back and chill a bit. And I still remember a great Sister Wooley said on my mission that "the absence of stress is death" that we actually need to learn how to deal with it. And I think there is no "perfect" job in this world and that is why we are hired to solve problems and theoretically make the world better. If you want to have everything goes your way, be your own boss. But even that is not quite true just by looking at how tough it is my dad has been working...

~I love being a student. Back in school I even wondered what the point of going to join the work force after graduation is. Now I absolutely enjoy the stress-free hours after work without worrying homework, papers, or tests. Now I often dread to go to my German class after work because I am exhausted by late afternoon. But once class has started I would be totally into everything and thoroughly enjoy learning in the classroom. One great thing about going to college in America is that students are from all over and with very diverse background. We have a couple grandpas, a girl who was born in Germany, an MLI from the Russian school sitting next to me, and classmates from Turkey, Peru, Mexico, and Austria. And let alone our outstanding teacher that I feel like learning more about teaching skills from her as opposed to the subject matter per se. And I have done lots of reflection on being a good (language) learner/student as well. Ausgezeichnet!

~On the news: the protests and turmoil in Tibet is another letdown for me about China. It is not the violence or whatever issue the people are fighting that gets on my nerves but the way the government and the "official media" handle the case which once again to me is pathetic. I don't think labeling the protesters as "terrorists" with such and such conspiracy is news that is reliable. The mainland Chinese official media's tone of "all is well" and the mentality of sweeping everything under the rug have never changed. That is the problem of a country run by one single political party which holds all power and is so afraid of any force that would seize any part of it from them. All they care is "face" and put on a "good show" to the world, e.g. the Olympics. Such mentality also exists among many of my colleagues who are mostly from the mainland as it is evident from some of the ridiculous "professional presentations" I was presented with in the past few weeks. I regret being forced to join in the applause afterwards as everybody did so. Going back to the Olympics, as there have been talks on boycotting the Games, I probably would be an advocate myself if things do not improve or get worse. Having been involved in certain Beijing Olympics related projects myself, now I am not thrilled at all about it as there are more importants things we should be dealing with in the country first. The other day I was presenting the "Fuwa" - the mascots for the Beijing Games to the students, my students burst out laughing... at me because of my sarcasm and cynicism showed in my tones and "fake laughs". I know, I have changed quite a bit as a person.

~Just saw a report on sleep deprivation on 60 minutes. On top of the well-known facts of increased chance of accidents on the road and decrease of productivity and memory, it has been linked with obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. Sleeping has been an issue for me for a looooong time and I guess I'd better hit the sack right away now!

On Idol...

2008-03-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

I confess that I do watch Idol but over the years none of the contestants has really impressed me... until this guy showed up.If David doesn't win it all I think the show is rigged! :)

Nostalgia

2008-03-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

Went to a "dim sum" restaurant in Gilroy a week ago as I craved for food from home. Then I was reminded of how much I missed the days when we were thrilled at and anticipating for the approaching of those "dim sum" carts toward our tables at the restaurants when we were kids. It is now replaced with the diners checking from a list at the table which is a lot less fun. It is sad more and more of the unique "Hong Kong culture" is lost or abandoned, whether intentionally or not.

On the same note, a legend of the Hong Kong show business has passed on. Lydia Shum is quite a symbolic figure of the pride and spirit of Hong Kong. Watching lots of TV as a kid, I grew up watching her and admired her uplifting spirit and energy. A true entertainer and inspiring person that is larger than life indeed.

Lost...

2008-02-24T01:09:00.000-08:00

After this skit, I like Huckabee now. Quite smart and funny. If I were to vote he could have been the one just based on this.

Happy times...

2008-02-13T23:45:00.000-08:00

I'm an uncle! These out-of-the-world super adorable twins are actually my cousin's. And happy 40th anniversary, mom and dad!

When everything turns red...

2008-02-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

First of all don't get me wrong, this is not meant to be China-bashing being Chinese myself but I think we do need to be honest with ourselves when it comes to certain important issues.

Back in high school my least favorite subject was Chinese history and I totally sucked at it. It is not that I hated the subject but it was the way it was presented was totally uninspiring and dull. These days I have been studying quite a bit and have taken a good look and thinking about what have happened especially in the past 50 or so years in the "motherland". I am fascinated at the turn of the events but at the same time many of the things are plain depressing.
Maoist cult, the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, June-Fourth, corruption, pollution, human rights, SARS, Darfur, AIDS, economic disparity, religious freedom, news censorship, industrial hazards, peasant uprising... the list goes on and on that all the problems past and present cannot be covered under the disguise of "economic prosperity and social stability". I just hope everyone can take the courage to face the naked truth of what really is going on and what matters most to both individuals and the nation as a whole. I applaud Spielberg for his courage to use his power and influence to step up and tell the truth. Even my favorite grocery store Trader Joe's is doing something about it. It just gives me chills to see the big red Communist China become the next superpower while it preserves many of its irrational mentality, ideology, and behavior from the past. All we can do is to keep our fingers crossed things can improve when people are enlightened, especially with the free flow of information on the internet and the advancement of technology...

鼠年新春行大運。。。

2008-02-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

You drive me crazy...

2008-02-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

I'm in a relatively good mood now (see below for explanation) and so I got something quite funny here...

I stumbled on this Pizza Hut commercial from Hong Kong...
And then I see a connection with this one...

So hilarious!!! Ok I started my German class today. On top of learning a new European language in preparation for my dream vacation to Europe, I am more interested in learning how to be a better language teacher from a student's perspective. I highly recommend every language teacher to do so especially when they are teaching. Now I have more sympathy on my poor students in class. I didn't expect to be this nervous going back into the classroom and start learning a foreign language from scratch. It's a huge class with 40 students but quite fun nevertheless. I might start writing something in German in the near future...

Speaking of language learning I found this amazing and I am going to introduce it to my students tomorrow. Serious!
Take anything you want! Take anything you want! It's stuck in my head now! Gosh!

I have a bad case of DIARHHEA!!! :D

Alright, the reason I'm happy today is a "bad case" on my work issue has been resolved. What happened is the USCIS totally messed up with my work document that I almost lost my job last week. Very scary. I am glad my employer stepped up and get some "big dog" involved and get it fixed in a short time. The lesson learned is that I used to think paper work especially in the bureacracy context is a bad bad thing but now I realize proper record keeping and documentation is crucial and sometimes can save one's life. So now whenever I fill out a seemingly important form or any significant document I receive I immediately make a (some times several) copy/ies of it. It is exactly the copies of a certain document and letter that saved me. Whew, what a close call it was. Anyways I am happy now and I can go to bed and have a good sleep...

Hasta la vista, baby! Or auf Wiedersehen! :)

Praise to the Man

2008-01-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

Having been dealing with quite a few life and death matters lately, namely suicidal friend, family member with serious illness, and even the death of Heath Ledger, this is the one that I am finally comfortable with. Thanks to Tiffany who informed me within an hour of the news (from Hong Kong!) President Hinckley finally rested in peace and reunited with his wife. What a remarkable man of God he is. He became prophet right before I came to the US (Salt Lake City, Utah to be exact) and since then I had the privilege to sing in front of him (and right behind him) on a few occasions. I met a few of his grandchildren and one of them even told me a bit about his life and his love of all the people that he served. I was so amazed with his achievements that I finished reading his biography in less than a month (a record for me at the time) and voluntarily wrote a paper on him for an institute class that I sat in. His biggest influence on me was this conference talk that I still clearly remember I read on the first day of December 1999 which gave me the much needed conviction to do well on the most memorable month of my mission in Hong Kong. His extraordinary ability in summing up the history of mankind in beautiful words and his eloquence totally left me in awe.

This is another nice news article on his achievements.

May God bless us with a sense of our place in history and . . . our need to stand tall and walk with resolution in a manner becoming the Saints of the Most High. ~Gordon B. Hinckley

What home means...

2008-01-08T06:14:00.000-08:00

It's over a month into the new year already and the year of the "rat" is even approaching and I have wanted to update the blog but when it comes to writing I never did as often as I wanted. Now I have to "backblog" about my home vacation...

At home I have not been "productive" at all. Well, that's exactly the point of "home country leave". Being home without really having to work has given me plenty of opportunity, space, and time to think and reflect on a lot of things.

~Being home means real good food for me, with the following being some of my favs:Real sweet and sour pork... it's supposed to be crispy outside with tender meat inside...

I've loved this eggplant dish since I was little and never get tired of it...

Love this waffle... it's just peanut butter and sugar in it but addicting... one of the culprits for my few extra pounds gained...

And of course nothing beats mom's cooking!

~China to many people is very "prosperous" now but at the same time things get quite out of hand that people are losing their mind thinking they are mighty powerful with their rising RMB and all the money in the world. They seriously need to enrich their thinking, culture, and especially morals. Just the other day I was stupidly waiting in line shopping when all these people jumping in front of me without even blinking of an eye. The propaganda of being "civilized" can still be seen everywhere but when will they actually learn? I used to be quite excited and enthusiastic about the coming of the Chinese Olympics, but now I don't care that much any more. You will not believe what they sell in the Chinese version of Costco there until you enlarge the picture... don't if you have a weak heart...

~I bought "Baby" (ironically she's 11 years old now) a bed and the first thing she did was to pee on it!!! I'm glad she loved the bed and she's so funny that she seems to recognize me after all these years and begged me to hold her and let her sleep on my lap once in a while... awwwwww...
~Celebrated Doris' birthday in Macau and I wish I knew the place as good as when I did back in the ol' mission days. It was great traveling with the fam esp. mom and dad who deserve a much needed break.
~Didn't plan to visit with people other than my fam but somehow I managed to meet with quite a few looooong time friends.Thanks Covi, Samily, Sangel, Wallace, Ah Dak, Ben, Gigi, Kenny, Lauren, Tiffany, Venus, Circle, "Horse King", Boris, Andrew, Jeremy, Michael, Julie, Ming, and Jacky, it was fun to catch up with all of you again.

~I've read A LOT during this trip, from Harry Potter to finance to health to music and even politics. I'd better speed up my reading because there are so much out there to read and learn but so little time I have...

Speaking of reading and learning, I am going back to school tomorrow!!! No, I'm not ready for PhD yet as I even dread writing on my blog, let alone writing up a dissertation. I'm just taking a German class at the community college right across where I live. How convenient (and cheap as I am CA resident now). I'm excited.

Starting anew...

2008-01-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

Here comes another new year and I'm not even quite sure what exactly I have accomplished this past year. Without going into the specifics 2008 will be a significant one: with my academic, career, financial, health, relationship, and travel goals set.

And I am definitely glad that I've made it home in time for the new year. Flying Cathay is definitely the best choice as I ended up taking both seats by the window all by myself during the long 14+ hour flight. I for sure hate flying long distance getting stuck in between other passengers. The coolest thing on the flight is the interactive entertainment. I'm always an advocate and a fan of iTV and here it is that I pretty much sacrificed my sleep hours for the movies and shows I watched.
I played a few rounds of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"...
and even learned a few phrases in my ancestral language -- Indonesian. You gotta love and embrace technology these days!

And I also have to mention an awesome movie I saw before I left -- Lars and the Real Girl. The idea is crazy (both figuratively and literally) but the plot is just warm and touching and shows what true humanity means.

And for some reason this song has been stuck in my head lately.

Have yourself a merry little christmas...

2007-12-23T19:33:00.000-08:00

I'm bad at writing Christmas cards to each and single one of you out there, but I do want to say "Merry Christmas and happy new year to y'all!!!" (along with the best voice and nicest sound on the planet... I think).

Holiday Mood

2007-12-22T00:08:00.000-08:00

All the students are gone, the work place has gone back to quietness, and it's funny how human psychology works: when the students were around and work was abound, I often dread going to school and wonder how much longer I could last without going insane; right before they left for home, myself preparing as well, I already missed the fun times (sometimes not so fun times) in the classroom already. Better enjoy and relax NOW before I have to drag myself back to work in a month.
I actually enjoy the all quiet and almost uneventful Christmas here, rather than the parties, feasts, gift exchanges, etc. which are sometimes a little too much for me to handle. It's Christmas, i.e. Christ's festival according to etymology (I still identify myself as a linguist!), after all we may be better off spending time on reflecting and contemplating what HE really means to us and what we can do to others to be more like and become closer to HIM. And I'm glad I'm going home after Christmas which gives me more time and space to regroup and get organized for the beginning of a new year.

A couple posts ago I promised myself to express thanks to people that matter to and have great impact on me. As I happened to get in touch with a few former teachers and professors of mine at the Y these past few days, I am going to reflect and write a few anecdotes on them. There are six particular teachers/professors that I truly appreciate at the Y.I met my thesis chair Dr. Eggington almost by accident. I felt like taking a religious class at the Y and I decided to take a D&C class and sort of randomly chose a section 2 weeks into one semester. Dr. E was the instructor and surprisingly he was so kind to give me a 1-on-1 tutorial to make up the classes that I missed. Then we started talking as we realized we are in the same department and in no time he became my mentor, my boss for my research work, assisted me in obtaining scholarships, hooked me up with another professor for TA work, and eventually played a key role in helping me finished the thesis, passed the oral defense, and graduated. He is such a typical nice Australian dude with a very similar work style and philosophy as mine: slightly unorganized by multitasking a million things but have a very clear priority set for what matters most.

As for the other professor Dr. E hooked me up with, it was Dr. Dallin Oaks. No, he's not the apostle but his son. It was another random acquaintance that I was in Dr. E's office when he came in and said he was looking for a TA and I couldn't believe I had the courage to recommend myself there on the spot when I didn't quite have a clue who he was and what I was getting into. Since then I had tutored four sections of a total of about 360 students of mostly English and English Language majors on English linguistics while not being a native English speaker myself! I was quite nervous to begin with and I was horrified to substitute for Dr. O when he was not around but it turned out to be such a great learning and teaching experience that I felt like I've got more out of it than most of my graduate courses. It solidified my love for linguistics as a subject.

Both Dr. Christensen and Dr. Bourgerie in the Chinese department have given me ton of opportunities to work and gain experience on Chinese teaching and translation work both on campus and off. Dr. C often talks to me on a personal level while Dr. B on a professional level.

Dr. Anderson was rather intimidating when I first met him, and to be honest, maybe it's his bow tie. I'm so blessed to be hired to teach at the English Language Center to gain insight on the art of language teaching while having a blast with the fellow teachers and the great students from around the world. I will never forget I was really amazed that I could somehow communicate and teach the level zero community English class when some of the students almost did not speak a word of English. I also loved one of my grammar class so much that I treated them all to a buffet meal after the last day of school. How can one not love them when they gave me a standing ovation to welcome me into the classroom as they found out I passed my thesis oral defense! And Dr. A at one point tried to help me from losing my job because of my change of work status.

The last amazing teacher and friend of mine is Sister/Mrs./Dr. Tinney. I was not excited about an ESL advanced academic writing class I had to take as an international student. But Sister T was very serious but at the same time easy about the class that I did enjoy it. She talked to me a lot out of class and shared her personal stories in words and in a book she published. She offered to let me attend the LDS Book Association Convention several years in a row that I thoroughly enjoyed and received many goodies from it. I was pleasantly surprised she took her time out of her busy PhD work schedule to attend and cheer for my thesis oral defense. I'm glad I passed and otherwise it would be so embarrassing and disappointing to both her and myself.

I feel strongly about putting these on record which probably do not mean much to anyone else and I doubt it if anyone is still reading up to this point. Nevertheless I cannot help but still am in awe that these mentors would go out of their ways to help students succeed and many of them have become personal friends. Having one or a couple in life is a miracle itself, let alone having half a dozen. This is what I cherish most while attending the one and only BYU. A BIG THANK YOU to you all!

Surviving China

2007-12-17T00:42:00.000-08:00

I confess that I am a Survivor fan. I have pretty much watched every episode of the past 15 seasons, except the second half of Palau I think. At one point, I thought the show was losing originality and good cast that I thought I would lose interest but I was sure glad to find out they finally came to China for the latest season and it turned out to be quite interesting.

Out of all things, I usually enjoy the food challenge and the final reunion show the most. Seriously I think I would not be able to go through any of the challenges myself easily. But this Chinese food challenge would have been a piece of cake for me. Maybe not the turtle part. I have even had Balut once. Thanks to Sister Malana and Sister Gellor on my mission. I only drank the content of it and could not down the fetus with feathers and the beak. It did taste like chicken soup and was not bad. But if it was a million bucks on the line I would have no problem eating the whole thing. Ha! And the so-called "thousand year old egg" is a myth to most non-Chinese. I was talking about it with my students the other day and it is actually a fermentation process caused by alkaine that turns the egg black, not because of age and mold. I never find it disgusting and it is so true that taste is a cultural habit and a nurture thing. It's funny finally a Mormon won this time but I did not root for him at all! I was betting on Amanda since almost all past winners had high EQ and she seemed to have it all. Thanks to Todd's calling her out in the last second (accidentally or not) and Todd's better performance facing the jury she lost. He deserves it though. And the whole season is available at www.cbs.com if you want to watch it now!

In the news...

2007-12-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

I'm soooo relieved having finally done with projects under pressing deadlines and now can be prepared for the upcoming holidays both mentally and physically. While working in front of the computer a lot, I've been following the news quite a bit mostly during breaks in between work sessions (and more often the breaks lasted longer than the work sessions...)

First of all, finding out Mr. Tung to be receiving an honorary degree from my Alma Mater was really disturbing and even enraging. People say give him a break as he is old or the protesters should not have ruined the ceremony. You give me a break! He was not young when he stepped in as the first Chief Executive of the SAR to begin with and look at what he has done to HK. Does the so-called "contribution to the smooth transition" offset the cost of lives he is responsible for (the magic number 85,000, SARS, messing with the legal system, to name a few)? I actually applaud the students and graduates who voiced their opinion on that day. As for "ruining" the ceremony, who's the culprit? The party who honored a criminal, or the students who just disagree and ask for justice? If I were one of the parents, I would be more upset of his presence than to the protesters. His patronizing tone totally bugged me as h/well. Now I feel for the graduates at the Y when Cheney came. The issue was the students had no say of who the honoree would be and that could potentially spoil the fun of graduation. Lately I feel like academic credentials and titles often times do not mean anything anyways. Not that they are bad per se, but often times the system which grants them is not without flaws. My first hand experience is quite a few colleagues at work boast their such and such PhD degrees from so and so Ivy League schools but the way they run things are just horrifying. I can't help questioning how come I almost died getting a Master's while these maniacs get their PhD's with no common sense.

I'm glad than Anson Chan won the election in HK and she seems to be one of the rare "colonial leftovers" that is actually sane and makes sense with the clear conscience of what is right and wrong. Thanks to YouTube that it only takes a few clicks to take one back to 1989 and see the passion of HKers and mainlanders. People have changed a lot and they seem to have lost values and morals. Along with that I find political elections in general to be more interesting than I used to. I used to stay from anything political but I guess now as one grows up, or gets older to be exact, things seem to matter and relate to life more. 2008 will definitely be a much anticipated year with interesting outcome.

Enough of "serious" stuff. Has anyone seen this? People should know that I'm a die-hard Gene Kelly guy and who would have thought Usher would do something like this?It's almost exactly like the original except in the ending he's supposed to be giving his umbrella to the cop (See? I know the movie well!) but I like his stylized rendition of such a classic.

Holiday Season

2007-12-02T01:33:00.000-08:00

It's December already! Holiday season has begun and for me this year is marked by this movie. "Enchanted" is the second movie I ever watched in the movie theater ended with applause from the enthused audience in the theater (the first one being this one). Almost every plot was predictable but the production and acting are very fun and enjoyable that people totally are entertained by Disney poking fun at themselves. Amy Adams totally shines and stands out in the show.

It's very very rare that I get to talk to every single person from my family on the phone the same day while I'm over here in the US (well, Doris through MSN but I guess that still counts). I'm so glad mom brought up the idea that these days even though the internet has virtually connected the whole world but people actually communicated less. People spend more time in front of the monitor screens more often than really talking to people. I did a google search on the word "addiction" because of work (we are teaching about "drug addiction" in class) and surprisingly in China the top searches are all about internet addiction. I think people in China are in desperate need to fill their apparently empty social and spiritual lives on the internet. Of course I'm sort of isolated here in this part of the world the computer has been a major way of communication for me but I do not consider online communication the replacement of real life communications. And I have learned the hard way more than once not to take things on the web too seriously. Anyways, I can never say enough that I am truly grateful for my family's unwavering support and freedom provided these many years.

Thanksgiving leftover...

2007-11-27T23:21:00.000-08:00

While many people are still going through their thanksgiving feast leftovers, I don't have that kind of worries because I didn't even have any solid plans for the holiday, and it turned out to be a peaceful, quiet, and even inspiring one for me. I didn't have turkey (but roast chicken instead), feast, or any specific celebration per se. The reason is that there were so many things going on at home, at work, and in personal life that I didn't make any plans as it's not celebrated back home anyways. That's also why this blog went on a hiatus for a couple weeks. But somehow I managed to read a great classic book Chicken Soup for the Soul which got me into A LOT of thinking, and I guess I was well fed in a different way and hence the following thoughts.

I was pleased to see Nate's quote on "the greatest things in life aren't things". It's getting out of hand here in America that a holiday supposed to be giving thanks is becoming all about feasts and black friday shopping. Even though I admit I was tempted to wait in line at the wee hours on black friday morning because of the great deals, I came to realize it's not worth it to sacrifice my precious rest hours and even my health just to save a hundred bucks. Now I can easily earn that same amount of money or even more with the same amount of time and energy wasted. I came to realize I should focus on the spirit of the giving part, not just lip service of "oh, how blessed I am and how poor all those people in the world around us are" kind of attitude. It should mean we are in a position to give, not to get so as not turning thanksgiving into a holiday of "giftgetting". I made a decision to begin with doing a few things to the people that I will ever be indebted for. First it's my family, especially under such challenging circumstances, I need to put them in the first place. Then for the next few days I will put either into words or actions to a few people that I've always wanted to express my gratitude to. I know there are a handful of people who are reading this and please bear with me some of the details in the coming days about the things I am going to write which may not mean much to anyone else but are really personal and meaningful to me in many ways.

The Chicken Soup book reminded me of this quote from Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society:

All of us are walking around with some kind of birthday card we would like to give -- some personal expression of joy, creativity or aliveness that we are binding under our shirt... Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)!

Happy belated birthday, dad and Anthony! Hang in there! :)

It's all about COMMUNICATION!!!

2007-11-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

Have been heavily involved with a couple work related projects that I'm devoting my whole holiday weekend to them. And I realize lately that whether work is enjoyable or successful or not depends a lot on communication. I'm learning this the hard way again that unfortunately some of the people I am now working with are not good communicators at all. They delegate work without clear instructions or what is expected of me that I have to make a lot of guesses amidst confusions. Hence my students and the work suffer. I recall the experience of a couple of the so-called "miracle companionships" (named by others, not myself!) on my mission that things went amazingly well only when we got along and communicated well. It tended to attract good things to happen. I guess that is what happened with my former teaching team that we "attracted" good students or what actually happened was bringing out the best of them if the teachers work well together. When there is no communication, bad things are bound to happen.

On a totally different note, these are what I call real talents:
I'm obssessed with Wade Robson's choreography lately.

And this has been my favorite song the past month.

My apartment rocked (not in a good way)!!!

2007-10-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

More than ten years ago one night I was working late into the wee hours in front of my dorm room desk at the U of U. Then came a quick shake of the entire room. I jerked my head around and saw my roommate still sleeping soundly. The next day I asked him if he felt it and of course the answer was "no". Later it was confirmed as a real earthquake of a magnitude of about 3. That was my only experience with earthquakes.

Again tonight I was sitting in front of my desk watching some trashy Hong Kong TV shows. Then came the shakes. I thought it was my body's muscle spasms due to lack of sleep. It was first a kind of small geyser eruption type of movements followed by a couple more seconds of my desk shifting and even the house was rocking. It was short and abrupt but had it lasted longer I would have freaked and run out of the house. I just experienced mock quakes from an earthquake simulator at the Tech Museum in San Jose a few weeks ago with my fam and little did I know I would feel the real thing first hand originated from the San Jose area. It's a magnitude 5.6!!!

No-no teachers, weightwatchers, and money matters...

2007-10-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

For some reason, thoughts about my teaching filled my mind this morning (noon, or afternoon to be exact) when I woke up. Students from my "dream classes" out of the many I've taught came to mind: one from my Cantonese class, one my community English class for TESOL practicum, one English grammar class at the ELC, and my current but former team's Chinese class. I already "miss" these students of my former team even though I'm still teaching them. It's a pleasant surprise to see them thrive, especially the ones who everyone including themselves thought were low achievers. The class leader who was so behind on everything before is much more relaxed now and shocked the class today by answering a rather complicated question. I felt like I was prompted to ask him and it was funny to see the other students' jaws drop when he answered it perfectly. I have such a good rapport with these wonderful classes that working with them is more fun than work. And the best compliment I get from these students would be "Time flies!" which means the class is enjoyable. I became very reflective of my teaching these days trying to look at teaching from the students' perspectives. I strive to avoid things I dislike about my own teachers. I've learned from the few great teachers I've had (my thesis chair, my English TA boss, my first Japanese, Spanish, and French teachers, and many of my dance teachers) that they never patronize me or talk in a condescending tone which unfortunately many other of my teachers or current fellow teachers do. I actually looked forward to the classes with teachers I liked. I hate it when teachers or people talk to me like I'm a dumb-dumb. I think that's the first no-no rule for me.
I'm pleased to report that I've lost six pounds over the past month and many might find it surprising that I do have a bit of a weight problem. The thing is that it does not quite show but on my face and the scale only. I used to only pay more attention to what I eat. But to lose weight is more a simple math problem. One needs to lose more than the intake. So my workout and swimming do pay off in spite of my occasional indulgence in soda and chips! And another thing is I sometimes park further from where I need to be on purpose. It's partly because I dislike parallel parking and it is a good excuse for me to walk a bit more. People think I am weird when they ride with me that I park so far away from the perfect parking spot. :)
The last thing or question I want to bring up is why things keep popping up every time I think I can have a little extra money or savings? Like car breakdown or some government documentation fees or insurance down payment and stuff. Just like today I got called by this stupid new insurance company that I thought I saved money on but was told they had to raise the premium because of miscalculations. So I had to call my old insurer to reinstate my policy but it requires a down payment. What a hassle (say the last word fast and you would know what word I REALLY meant to say ;p)! The lesson learned is NEVER jump into any commitment where money is involved!

HP Quote...

2007-10-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day: It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. ~Albus Dumbledore

P.S. Yes, I'm finally reading Harry Potter... better late than never!!! ;p

Mighty Mormons Marie and Mitt

2007-10-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

I hate to use such a tacky title, but this is really how I feel about these two. They both appear on CNN.com today for different reasons. One took a fall.While the other confused "Obama" with "Osama".I just read a feature story of Romney on Newsweek and I think he is a decent candidate but with a slim chance winning the election. Nevertheless, these two are real so-called "troopers" (referring to Osmond in DWTS). These are the high-profile people who practice their religion with their actions, not with their lips. They even shy away from mentioning their beliefs when it is not necessary. It is not because of shame but actions speak a lot louder than words. I think often times people who profess they belong to such and such religion are actually doing a disservice to whatever or whoever they believe in because their actions do not quite match what they preach. This applies to any religion (or the lack thereof).

Anyways, I saw one of the coolest things in life this past weekend. As a former biology major I always love animals of most kinds, especially the ones in the ocean. Seeing humpback whales (not one, but three!!!), dolphins, otters, sea lions swimming wild and free in the ocean totally made all the dizziness, freeze, starvation, and wait worthwhile and made me appreciate life even more.Not much can be seen here but underneath the waves in the middle actually are three whales swimming. I was too cold and dizzy to take the snapshot at the right moment...I did see something like this though...

Vacation... or not...

2007-10-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

For a brief moment a couple nights ago I felt exactly like that salmon that all the effort and planning for my vacation had come to a tragic end. My grandma's passing away totally changed our plans unexpectedly. Fortunately with people's help my family was able to scramble air tickets at the last minute so that my mom can attend the funeral. It means the sudden end of my vacation but well, that's life. My time with fam was short but fun and beautiful. I'm already thinking ahead for the next one!!!

Treasures...

2007-10-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

After all the moves and changes at work, I've been very moody these days but I never showed it (I'm professional!:p) that I don't think my students or colleagues could tell. I'm glad my students took the news well nevertheless.

These "treasures" found in YouTube totally helped in lightening things up for me...
I can't believe my eyes as I found this show because I was in the audience at the time and I was in awe... And Anita and Leslie have both "moved on"...

Muppets "live"!!! I'm luvin' it!!!

More, but Not Merrier

2007-10-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

The article above pretty much affirmed and elaborated in a nice way what I said and believe about the virtual social network online. Very well put.

Yesterday was pretty much spent in Silicon Valley / San Jose. The Wincestor House was... weird, as advertised. And we accidentally discovered a very hip and upscale shopping area known as Santana Row, which is comparable to Beverly Hills.I took this picture sitting on a really comfy couch in the middle of the road!

And I finally saw wild otters in the ocean today! Not one but three!!!

Thought of the day: If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Mixed...

2007-10-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

This is quite laughable but it does ring true to how I felt for the past week at work. After all the frustrating waiting, negotiating, delaying, discussing, promoting, demoting, gossipping, all the way up to today's eventual moving of my office, all I can say is it's rather disappointing what has happened at work and I really despise bureaucracy and sticking to the norms for no reason. At one point I was so angry to the changes that I wanted to quit and I felt so underappreciated for all the things I have done. This is not the first time things have gone this way in my life. To make things worse, I was really disappoionted that none of the students from the graduating class got to talk to me or even say bye yesterday despite my taking time off to attend their graduation ceremony. I can't really blame anyone as I had to leave early because of class but I thought I could at least talk to a few of them. Oh well, everyone has to move on, I guess. I'm fine now but I hope history won't repeat as I will be sort of leaving another group of students that I even like better starting next week.

I'm not in desperate despair though. I can't be happier hanging out with my family now that I get to eat a lot better, sleep a lot more, and show my family around whenever I get off work. My work schedule these days have been very cooperative and sort of flexible as my boss is very understanding that she allows me to maximize my time spent on my family's visit. I can't wait to travel in 10 days! And I will be watching Dancing with the Stars live!!!

One year... more randomness... and happy moon!

2007-09-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly one year since I am here landed on this job. What a year.

In hindsight, I realized I've grown to be very comfortable at teaching now. Even while teaching at the Y and for the first few months here, there were still frequent panic moments right before I stepped into the classroom. "What am I gonna do?", "How would they react?", "When should I say what?", and things like that kept flashing through my mind. I am always this extremely shy person that I recall when my cousins found out I'm a teacher now that they were as shocked as I myself was at the time. I guess only through experience had I got the hang of how to teach in spite of not feeling prepared, lack of organized materials, and even a bad vibe in class. It's actually a lot of mental and psychological work. If I have things mapped and planned out in mind and always think about the desired outcome, I'm already off to a good start.

Talking about thoughts and mind, I watched this very interesting movie based on a self-help book "The Secret". It reminds me of the book "Drawing the Powers of Heaven". I kind of agree what the movie says that our mind is limitless and it can bring about many goods. We need to nourish it with good thoughts and stop feeding it with "junks" and all the negativity. I'm amazed not too long ago I was just thinking that people who whine and complain tend to "attract" more bad things that happen to them. And I find people who are uplifting and positive attractive. That's probably what a "bright person" really means. Anyways, I think this is only the first step, thoughts need to be converted to actions in order to become "things", not like what the movie implies things will happen without actions.

I just heard from a few of my former students, one from Columbia, a couple from Mexico, and one from Peru. It is so good to see the progress they have made in their lives. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing my students change and grow in a positive way whether I have anything to do with that.

Going back to last week, our students just took their much dreaded big tests and they anxiously waited for their results. Quite sadly, still half of the class failed and much to our surprise, most of them failed two and a couple of them even all three tests that it's alarmingly unusual. I was nervous and almost afraid to go back to the classroom as I didn't quite know how they would react to the news. So the first thing I did was to offer a few words of comfort and encouragement as best I could. I was so glad they took it well and school went on as usual. There were still laughter and jokes in class. Quite a few of them seemed to work even harder than before. Not until the end of the week did we realize we made a mistake in scoring and most of them actually passed the tests they usually did well on. Everyone was ecstatic as we found out right before the weekend, and so we had a good one.

Last but not least, have a happy mid-autmn/moon festival!

Rambling in/on Chinese...

2007-09-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

After having been "immersed" in teaching Mandarin Chinese with all the mandarin speakers around for the past year, I came to the realization of these thoughts on the language:

~Cantonese IS Chinese! It's sad that people equate Mandarin as Chinese solely based on the number of speakers and the enforcement of the "official language" by the CPC government. There are many Mandarin teachers who keep saying Cantonese is "just" a dialect. I can't be more frustrated whenever I hear this. All we need to do is just to trace back a couple centuries ago and see how close the language then is to today's Mandarin.
~Chronologically Cantonese has a longer and richer history than today's Mandarin, e.g. I realized from teaching that Cantonese still uses the more formal and older form of negations "無" and "未" as opposed to the less formal and later inventions in modern Chinese equivalent of "沒有" and "還沒有".
~Cantonese and Mandarin have technically developed into two separate languages that neither one is necessarily better than the other. They just evolve under different cultures and environments. One can hardly find a native speaker of either being able to speak the other without some sort of, or often times heavy, accent.
~As much as I find simplified Chinese convenient to write, I still prefer traditional Chinese. It makes better sense semantically and is easier to read because of the disambiguation. And aesthetically it is needed to do calligraphy.
~The UN's abandonment of traditional Chinese is a rumor on the net as I suspected but the UN did make a choice to use simplified now simply because of political motivation as it recognizes China as its member nation, not Taiwan, or Hong Kong (part of China already).
~Unfortunately Cantonese is on the verge of being marginalized and I blame it on many speakers' sloppy use of it, especially in HK. People tend to simply "mix" it with English words, while not having a good English command, thus producing a pidgin-like language nowadays. And I see it as a sign of lack of eloquence and vocabulary. It would be just sad the death of Cantonese is due to the speakers lack of effort to refine their native tongue.
~One strength of Chinese, regardless of dialects, is its resilience that it can integrate foreign vocabulary by using Chinese itself, in which Mandarin speakers are doing a way better job than the Hongkongers.

I love Cantonese not only because it's my mother tongue but also due to its culture and "craziness" in retrospect. Its decline means the decline of a culture, I mean the culture of Hong Kong, which is vastly different than that of Mainland. While the assimilation is unavoidable after the turnover, it will simply be phased out if nothing is done on preserving what we have now. It will be tragic for me.

6 years

2007-09-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

She's MY dreamgirl with an angelic voice. =)

And six years... since I came here... when it all happened... but moving on... and looking forward...

Shots...

2007-09-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

Was very sick when I was little. Visited the doctor so often that doctors, nurses, hospital beds, medicine, and even needles were no strangers to me. I was so used to needles that I was not afraid of the pain and blood associated with them at all. But now I took three shots in the past three days for my physical (one for TB test, one for vaccination, and one for blood test) that I really was nervous. The last one I took today I could tell I was sweating even though I could hardly feel the pain until after it's done. Weird.

And "摩爾門經"? Oh my...

Who am I?

2007-09-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

No more silly personality tests that girls like to do. A colleague of mine reintroduced me to this Myers-Brigg's 16 personality test. This one is more scientifically based that we even used it in teaching to understand our students. I am definitely an INFP. Check out my personality profile!

And I realized my world view has changed quite a bit in the past year which might be surprising to some people who know me. I think this is a good description nevertheless that I am more a postmodernist now.

You scored as Cultural Creative, Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

94%

Postmodernist

75%

Idealist

69%

Existentialist

63%

Materialist

56%

Romanticist

50%

Modernist

44%

Fundamentalist

31%

What is Your World View?
created with QuizFarm.com

More shows...

2007-09-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

I could hardly believe I found this show which used to be a favorite of mine on TV. This was from like 15 years or so ago and way before the reality TV craze. And I always dreamed of being in the Crystal Maze myself. The slightly creepy but wacky host and the always changing games were great fun. Would I be good at games mental, mystery, physical, or skill?

And I accidentally saw this on TV featuring the smartest Mormon ever (at least many people and I think), the Jeopardy-made-millionaire Ken Jennings.

Heavenly...

2007-09-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Honestly I am not the biggest fan of Pavarotti, but I found these interesting renditions amazing.

For some strange reason I really like this quote from the strange movie the Weather Man:
Robert Spritzel: David, sacrifice is... to get anything of value, you have to sacrifice.
Dave Spritz: I know that dad, but I think that if we continue down this road, it's gonna be too detrimental for the kids. It's just too hard.
Robert Spritzel: Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. "Easy" doesn't enter into grown-up life.

Connections

2007-09-03T01:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a year since I started this blog, and it has been an interesting one. My transition from a student into a US federal employee, relocation from UT to CA, moving on from the old DELL laptop to this new one, and all the accompanying changes can't have been better. No complaints.

During this week of class break plus the long weekend, I have lots of opportunity to really play around on the internet. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, (Just read an article about him on Newsweek. What a smarty. He's already a millionaire at 23.) I found Facebook a really great tool since I started using it a couple years ago. In the past week I was able to reconnect with quite a few high school and mission friends that I have totally lost touch with. A few thoughts on using Facebook though:
1. I don't really consider all the connections as friends. They are more like acquaintences because a lot of them are just connected with me with absolutely no interactions.
2. I hesitate using the Top Friends application as I always remember a good friend of mine once said he never ranked his friends. To be honest I don't really consider those Top Friends requests as from my "top friends" as I still yet hear anything from them personally. I just see the application as pointless.
3. Talking about applications, I found a lot of the applications annoying and I prefer a "cleaner" page with real communications that people really put thoughts into their own words and mean what they say. Just my opinion.
So what does "friend" mean anyway? Oh, well I guess I'm taking all these a little too seriously.
And I saw this live on TV (I don't know if I am considered lucky or not), I was puzzled and shocked at the time, but little did I know it would have become the talk of the country and on YouTube! Hilarious though.Poor girl. It's so ironic that she's the perfect person to be asked such a question because it's likely she's among those 1/5 of the "US Americans" and "such as". And the conclusion that my friend and I came to is that beauty pagent is a BEAUTY pagent. We can't really expect more from it. And she should have just said "World peace" like Sandra Bullock did in Miss Congeniality. LOL.

Tech faux pas...

2007-08-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

For some unknown reasons, I had a strange vibe last night that today was going to be a weird day. Now I believe in my intuition even more than before.

We were going out for a farewell lunch for a former-classmate-present-colleague. It took a few trys to start the car as usual as it has been happening for a couple tmonths. We found a great parking spot in downtown but my car's engine kept running even AFTER I pulled out the car key! This was the 2nd time it behaved like this and I thought my solution last time was to drive a little bit more and the problem would go away... it didn't work this time. Then came the burning smell, and the smoke as we checked the engine. I couldn't even shut the window or lock the car because they are all electronic. Good thing this is downtown Monterey so I wasn't concerned about the safety of the car at all. We just kept going for lunch while I tried to call the insurance company to have the car towed. Then my cell phone didn't work. It would stay connect for about 30 seconds and then shut down. I tried my best to stay cool in front of everybody so as not to ruin their lunch. Well, to make the long story short I was able to get the car towed right after we finished lunch but I was forced to take a half-day leave but fortunately it is our class break so it's not a big deal. I am still waiting for the car dealer's call and I don't know when I'll get my car back at this moment. And my cell phone is totally fine after the fiasco that I guess it just can't handle stress. My lesson learned is a backup plan is ALWAYS needed whenever technology is involved that you never know when it would fail you. I moaned in pain every time I have to pay my insurance bill but I was so thankful for it today. And thanks to Xinyi for her cell phone while mine just wouldn't cooperate.

Wow, I'm so long-winded.

Ok, change of topic. I'm such a slow reader that often the movie of the book would have already come out before I'm even half way through reading it. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Da Vinci Code... now even for a non-fiction 1421. I learned about this book when I was invited to attend the Speech Day of my high school. I found it strange as the speaker was so enthused about the book and I checked it out briefly from our school library. The theory proposed by Gavin Mensies was Zheng He, the Chinese navigator reached America about a century before Columbus did. He suggested Zheng even circumnavigated the whole world. Now I found this PBS produced documentary in our school library that I could know what he talked about in one seating without reading hundreds of pages from the book. It's quite fascinating to see the journey but strangely the poor Mensies was ripped apart by the interviewer and scholars because of lack of "scolarly evidence" to support his view. Well, who knows? Weren't Galileo, Newton, and many more of the great minds mocked in the first hand?

Relaxing...

2007-08-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

With the students gone for a week for classbreak, I am expecting a very relaxing work week. I watched Hairspray over the weekend without much expectation as I've seen the show on Broadway and I found the movie trailer a little awkward and John Travolta just looked ridiculous. Boy, was I in for a nice surprise! I LOVED the movie! It's even better than the live show probably because it totally clarified what is going on in the story for me and all the cast acted and sang superbly. The theater wasn't even half full because it is almost the final week of the show but the audience was laughing, cheering, and even clapping in the end! I have never experienced anything like this in a movie theater. I just could not help having a big smile throughout the whole time.

They are soldiers...

2007-08-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

Just watched another awesome movie...I always like this kind of movie storytelling about survival in the extreme circumstances. As I watched this one, I kept thinking about my students. Sometimes we take it for granted that there are thousands of people risking their lives to protect ours and fight for cause they deem worth dying for. And this mentality of sacrificing for higher cause is something where HK or even China lacks. People there nowadays confuse patriotism with being submissive to the government or political powers. It's just sad. Going back to the movie, I totally admire Christian Bale and Steve Zahn's performances. Very convincing. And there's an oddly interesting quote toward the end by Dieter (Bale): When something is empty, fill it. When something is full, empty it. When you have an itch, scratch it. Hmmmmm...

Talking about the military. I had my close encounter of what they go through last week. There was a gas leak somewhere else on campus and I was in the middle of teaching. All of a sudden there was a guy screaming with maddening voice and my first thought was there could be a student upset by his failing of his test (half of the class did not pass because of its difficulty). Then it turned out a cop banged on our door for evacuation and all my students jumped to their feet and put their caps on. I had a second of panic moment and did not quite know what to do. Everyone ran to the door and one student just asked me to follow suit. I guess I must have looked stupid at the time. I sense that they are so well trained that they are highly alert whenever they hear anything like an order or command and it is just an automatic reflex for them to jump into action.

On a totally different note, even though I am not an avid dancer at all but I'm hooked with the show "So You Think You Can Dance" because this is the only reality show that the contestants do have real talents. I got tickets to the finale but I can't go because of work! Grrrrrrrgh!

And I can't wait to see Survivor China! I'm such a geek!

Shows

2007-08-16T23:56:00.000-07:00

Watched a few more interesting shows lately.

The Constant GardenerReally liked it. Reminds me of Blood Diamond. I find both the African continent and its people gorgeous and beautiful. It's my lifetime goal to go visit and do humanitarian work there.

Evan AlmighyPredictable but funny. Steve Carell is my current favorite comedian. He is not as wild and over-the-top as Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. I was surprised by a couple lines from the movies that struck me:
~Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
~Change the world through the ARK: Acts of Random Kindness!

The Office (UK & US)Thanks to Netflix that I am able to watch both the UK and the US version of the Office with just a couple clicks. I just saw Season 1 of the US version and barely started with the UK version. At this point I prefer the American version as I can relate to it more and understand the humor and jokes better. Steve's character creates such discomfort that makes you cringe but laugh out loud at the same time. The characters' occasionally looking into the camera is the funniest part to me. It's a wonder to see "The Office" phenomenon spread to France and Germany as well with their own takes on the mockumentary of the office culture.

幸福... Happiness...

2007-08-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

Came across this cute little story that I used in my class as the vocab fits perfectly with what we just taught. As soon as the students understood they let out a "sigh of sympathy" --- oh...

小猪问妈妈幸福在哪里，妈妈说幸福就在自己的尾巴上。于是小猪开始用嘴咬它的小尾巴，却总也咬不到，它沮丧的告诉妈妈自己抓不住幸福，妈妈笑笑说：傻孩子，只要你一直往前走，幸福就会一直跟着你的……

Little piggy asked his mom where happiness is, and mom said happiness is right there on his tail. Therefore piggy began to bite his little tail but with no success. He desperately told mom he could not catch happiness. Mom said with a smile, "You silly, as long as you keep walking forward, happiness will always follow you..."

Learning...

2007-08-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Lately have been reading and learning a lot more from areas I am not familiar with but find very interesting once I started getting into those. Things like US politics, immigration issues, environmental issues, modern Chinese history, world economy, and even Middle East conflicts. I always hear about the dispute between Israel and Palestine but find it very puzzling and I'm clueless about what actually is going on. Little did I know it has a lot to do with the cultural and historical clashes between the Arabs and the Jews. Anyways I've been reading all these partially for work (course material and OPI practice with the advanced students), the rest is just leisure reading, especially from free magazines like Businessweek, the Economist, Forbes, etc. that I got from my unused air mileages.

Talking about the students again, once in a while I would have totally blanked out class periods because of various reasons. One happened the 2nd day of this 2nd semester last Thursday. The students just barely learned the long list of vocabulary but apparently haven't digested them all. And I was not aware of what the previous teacher has done and I just taught at usual pace and it was a disastrous class. One slower student just gave up and the atmosphere just went downhill from that point. Everything that could go wrong did. Problems with the computer, stumbling on reading in pinyin to the students, students losing concentration because of the difficulty in the materials, failing of group work, etc. It truly was a test of everyone's patience.

One more extremely interesting but strange and almost kind of creepy incident was at the immersion activity a couple weeks ago. A higher rank student from the other class was introduced to me because he used to live in Hong Kong and his parents are natives form there. We found out he's just one year older than I am and we lived in the same community back in HK and attended the same kindergarten!!! We may have rubbed shoulders there. Crazy.

On learning a new lingo...

2007-07-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

My new computer has been having issues but I'm glad at this point they are all resolved. First the DVD drive stopped working, then the CD drive, and last night the browser would not open if I begin with my blog site... I guess this is the flop side to technology. No more surprise please!

Today our class officially finished the first semester with the last final test. The oral interviews were dragging long but I could not help listening in awe to these Americans who have only learned Mandarin for 5 months. They definitely speak better than many Hong Kong Chinese! And I love them to death as they are so fun to teach but they take learning seriously at the same time.

Many people ask the secret to mastering a foreign language, through this experience of teaching with encouraging results from both "low acheivers" and "high achievers" my conclusion for effective language learning without too much of the theories from the academia includes the following factors:
~courage to take risks: mistakes are your best teachers!
~determination to work hard: you need to put in your effort to lay a foundation of knowledge to be built on.
~good rapport: working with fellow learners and teachers as friends definitely help ease the nerve and you can always swap ideas and tricks to do better.
~multiple resources: references, internet, software, media, and even background knowledge and experience just make things easier that one can relate to or associate with.
~open mindedness: just be aware of the many different ways of expressing thoughts and ideas with different languages.
~passion to learn: the more opportunity one finds to use the language, only the better will one get.
~sense to culture: I realize when I learn a new language, it opens a door to a whole new world to me. One good illustration is that I used to detest and frown on anything written in simplified Chinese. But once I get used to it, there are million more books that I can enjoy, and look where it has brought me... landing at this wonderful job. :)

Update

2007-07-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Another couple weeks. Or even another year has passed. Birthday does not mean as much for me now but I still managed to take a trip to Vegas, West Grand Canyon in Arizona, and San Diego last weekend. These are the places I always enjoy or long to go. Quite an experience. We drove a total of about 1600 miles in 4 days but it was very enjoyable. Stayed at Planet Hollywood in Vegas the first day and I had my free birthday seafood buffet at Todai. The seafood platter I created was way better than a birthday cake!Then we were headed to my much anticipated West Grand Canyon and experienced the Skywalk.It was smaller than we expected but the view was spectacular and it did feel scary when I took the first step onto the middle of the glass floor with 4000 feet deep of Grand Canyon clear below. I wish they had built a complete glass platform instead of a U-shape walkway with only a tiny path of trasparent glass. We chose to stay at the cabin there in the ranch for the night. It was shockingly barren and primitive when we arrived at the "cowboy town" but it turned out to be a nice, peaceful, and quiet stay in contrast to the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle we are always in. We even befriended a local native Hualapai tribe member that he taught us how to toss horseshoes, throw axes, and even play with guns. He also told us a little bit about his background and the area. My friend said the horsewagon ride was even more fun than Skywalk. I would not mind doing this kind of living in the wild more often.Horse wagon ride towards Grand CanyonPlaying with a gun!Being a silly and stupid cowboy...Sunrise looking out from our cabin.We also drove pass the Hoover Dam en route to Grand Canyon.
San Diego is rather cool and hip with its rich and diverse culture.Historic building in Balboa Park
Our last event for the trip was the Wild Animal Park. I love animals. Especially those from Africa! How can this be possible?! I did see both zebras and giraffes at the zoo which is waaaayyyy coooool.

Getting hi-teched...

2007-07-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

I found technology more and more amazing each day. The DVD drive has been having problems on my new laptop and I've been working on that for the past week with technicians from Dell over the last week. You know these days much of the IT service is outsourced to India from the US and so what happened was a bunch of tech guys remotely accessed my computer from India (cuz I could tell from their names). It's so crazy watching some invisible guy working on my computer through the internet. Their conclusion after a whole week of investigating on my system is that I need a new drive that they will send me a new one. I'm glad I get the problem fixed without taking the computer anywhere or even leaving my desk at all.

I'm also addicted to YouTube these days that I found so many lost gems and hidden treasures like my favorite cartoons from childhood, tv shows from around the world, and lots of hilarious stuff. If you download the latest version of Real Player you can even save them onto your own computer! Here are some of my new founds:

I think I saw this quite a while ago but it still looks better than many shows you pay to watch now!

I was so glad I was referred to this that I never got to read the books even though I have them. It is even more interesting to see and hear first hand with Patten what was actually going on the few years before the handover.

When I first listened to this girl sing, I didn't quite like it, but as I saw her on different episodes I was mesmerized by her grace and poise. She's just a heaven-sent angel.

I think I saw this documentary in the theater when I was very little. Sky is the limit of what humans can do.

I saw this dog on another tv show and I guess there are times people can learn from dogs...

Last but not least this is my favorite cartoon of all time! So funny, random, and hip at the time. It's like the asian version of the Simpsons. I used to rush home after school to watch it to get good laughs.

Ok, enough idly sitting and watching stuff. I'd better go out do something more active to shed off my extra few pounds...

My latest slide show!

2007-07-08T20:28:00.001-07:00

Wonders

2007-07-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

I like today's date. 7 has always been my favorite number.

I've been quite occupied by what I considered as errants but something can't live without: figuring out the new computer, fixing the internet connection (I do have internet withdrawal syndromes), fixing my car, someone's birthday, and some important legal paper work (no, I'm not suing or being sued by someone). Amidst all this madness I was able to experience and enjoy some of the natural or man-made wonders in the area.

We had our first class outing about a week ago and the weather was perfect. After the "Chinese" lunch at a restaurant we headed to the beach for a few games. Had a great time. It's incredible to see these soldiers playing Chinese kid games!
Last weekend I finally made it to the well known Hearst Castle. The media magnate millionaire William Hearst made his dream of building a European style castle dwelling come true by working with the bold female architect Julie Morgan. (I finished reading a children book of her biography at the giftshop!) Owning over 250,000 acres of land, he constructed a castle spanning over 100 acres with 165 rooms and two humongous swimming pools. I would die to swim in those!

Then we checked out the Point Lobos Reservation on July 4th and the view is so stunningly beautiful and it was surprisingly calm and quiet except for the sound of the waves and the occasional noise from the wild seals.That is the remains of a whale the fisherman caught years ago!

Time to upgrade!

2007-06-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

To my surprise my new laptop arrived almost a full week ealier than I expected! I am typing at this very moment on it and I am so thrilled! I was excited to experiment with Windows Vista. It is pretty nice with rather cool graphics and it does run like Macs. Good thing I have experience with Macs at BYU, especially while working at the ELC. There are still million things to explore on how to make it work more efficiently and smoothly for me.
At the same time, after more than four years with my old Dell Laptop, I'm laying it to rest. It's funny that it seems to realize what I was going to do that for the past couple days it "behaved" quite nicely that I was able to do what I needed to with it. I guess no more 30-minute machine booting and a full day of turning computer on and off just to get windows running properly from now on. I actually probably will miss the experience with this "little guy" which both gave me so many headaches and helped me with my achievements, most notably my MA thesis and provided me with endless hours of entertainment, i.e. all sorts of fun downloads, ha!
My last piece of news is that the big project I was involved with lately has finally come to an end. I did NOT get the job. I was one of the (up to five, I don't know how many) finalists being considered to be a guide for mandarin.about.com, I'm happy to have got this far though (I sound like an American Idol!) and honestly I did not put my fullest effort in it because I knew I would probably have trouble working for them due to my current circumstances. It was a nice learning experience nevertheless and I learned more about what I am capable of doing now and in the future. Thanks Nate for the opportunity!

Shocking and sad...

2007-06-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

I'm still quite shocked and sad to find out the passing and loss of a friend. Even though I would not claim to be anything near as a close friend, all I can say is this guy is a nice and almost innocent man through our brief acquaintance on our church mission in Hong Kong. He actually works pretty close to where I am at in California and I was planning to get in touch with him and meet up. Well, I guess it is too late and I wish him and his family well and peace.

Life is too short! Don't procrastinate!

Word game

2007-06-18T20:44:00.001-07:00

I watched Babel over the weekend and I loved it. I think it deserves the Oscar for Best Picture way more than the Departed or even Crash. It does resemble Crash but I enjoyed the international cultural crash and conflicts caused by communication breakdown in this one a lot more. Babel is more believable than the melodrama and sensationalism in Crash. I love the Mexican baby sitter's acting.

I'm 1/5 into reading the over 1000 pages of a report on the "June 4th Incident". Our teaching materials also touch on the crazy events in modern Chinese history such as the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, and the educated youth going into the countryside. I'm glad to be a linguist which helps me realize the power of words and language. Some people can use it to kill people physically or mentally or spiritually. I found these couple sayings particularly interesting from the book:

“文革”十年是無政府主義，改革是無主義政府；
"Cultural Revolution" was ideology without government, (Chinese) reformation is government without ideology;
“文革”十年是十年動亂，改革十年是十年亂動。
"Cultural Revolution" was ten years of turmoil, (Chinese) reformation is ten years of random movements.
~民運學生 Students in the pro-democratic movement

一個革命政黨，就怕聼不到人民的聲音，最可怕的是鴉雀無聲。
A revolutionary political party is afraid of not being able to hear people's voice. What is the scariest is dead silence.
~鄧小平 Deng Xiaoping.

Did Deng put his words into action? Maybe he did (in the opposite way: having people study his "sacred" words like Mao's instead of listening to people's voice). I just hope people either in China or anywhere in the world now enjoying the benefits from the vibrant Chinese economy would think about if there is something more important than wealth and the so-called "social stability". Is the sacrifice of truth worth it?

Ok, I'm stepping down from my soapbox now.

Backup!

2007-06-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

I am so relieved after messing up three, yes THREE! of my portable storage devices (two flash drives and my PaiPod!) that I somehow managed to retrieve or rediscover my precious pictures. I think I have more than one too many lessons learned the hard way: NEVER UNPLUGGED YOUR DRIVES WHEN THEY ARE NOT READY!!!

These are some of my favorite pictures over the years that I was able to salvage:
I love this picture that my family is trapped in this rather scary looking ride in hindsight!

One of the countless birthday pictures we took when we were little. I was soooo tiny!

With Patrick, Victor, and another HKYA (can't remember his name). I was in the Hong Kong Young Ambassadors (I guess I am destined to be a YA no matter where I go!) program before heading to Utah as an exchange student. Does Victor look like a pop star? He is Kelly Chan's brother! And I guess he is still (struggling to be) a pop singer in HK...

Here is the infamous picture... guys wearing sequins! It is the Encore Showchoir of the Salt Lake Institute. My leg was literally shaking as we'd been in that pose for half an hour or so. Those poor girls in the back kept falling and screaming while we were taking the picture!

The Salt Lake Institute Concert Choir (SLICC)

Singing at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. See who those people at the bottom are? One of them is President Hinckley!

This was my favorite baptism on my mission. It was one of those miracle baptisms in a short time out of nowhere. I GQed the man on the street and he was a communist member who turned down our invitation but he brought his wife to church and she was baptized in a week that she was so happy with her newly found religion. Too bad the magnificent chapel is no longer a church anymore (see my post on the Sun Yat-Sen Museum).

Macau the wonderland!

The crazy mission choir. I almost died doing it.

Graduating from the Chinese U of HK with my college buddies.

Swinging with Emily at a dancesport competition at the Y. We went pretty far and almost reached the semi-final but we got eliminated because we went to the dance floor late as I was busy talking with a friend that we missed the announcement! It was fun though and look at how our outfit matched!

Closing ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Games. I think everyone should at least experience the Olympics once in their lifetime!

Singing for the Beijing Olympic Committee members' visit to Salt Lake City with Benji and Becca. The Chinese girl in the front represents Beijing and the Child of Light on the right performed at the ceremonies for the Salt Lake Games in 2002.

This is real! It's Stephen Chow to my left as I interpreted for him when he was promoting his Kung Fu Hustle at the Sundance Film Festival. I got to hang out with him for two days and he really is a funny guy but in a more subtle manner. On the right is the PR lady Alison and on the far left is a new director from Beijing Lu Chuan who was the first Mainland Chinese director ever winning the Golden Horse in Taiwan. I interpreted for him as well and he is an extremely nice gentleman. It was such a lifetime eye-opening experience.

Becoming Californian?

2007-06-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

You Are 60% California

You're fairly Californian. Unless you're really from California, you should be stoked!

How California Are You?

You've spotted a celebrity at your local Starbucks.
The quickest part of your commute is pulling out of your driveway.
You can't remember if pot is legal or not.
Half the women you know have had some "work done"
The only way you'll afford a house is by winning the lotto.
You're a raw foodist, fruitarian, or vegan.
You can't remember the last time you saw someone smoke indoors.
Your four food groups are Mexican, Thai, Japanese, and Vietnamese.
You know a baby with two mommies... or two daddies.
It's been years since you've seen snow.
You have a psychotherapist... and so does your dog.
You "just know" a lot of Spanish words.
If there's a sprinkling of rain, you complain to everyone about the bad weather. You've partied in Tijuana.
When driving, stop signs are totally optional.
If something is more than two blocks away, there's no way you're walking there.
The Terminator is your governor.
Your favorite tv show has been interrupted by a police chase.
You'd never step foot in McDonalds. In N Out is where you go.
You know you can never been too rich or too thin.
You can't imagine a place colder than San Francisco.
If a small earthquake wakes you up at night, there's a good chance you'll roll over and go back to sleep.
You go to the beach, but you don't go in the water.
You know someone with headshots.
Your condo costs more than you'll make in ten years.

You Should Learn Spanish

For you, learning a language is about career advancement and communication.
Knowing Spanish will bring you tons of possiblities for jobs and travel. Bárbaro!

What Language Should You Learn?

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISTP)

Your personality type is reserved, methodical, spirited, and intense.

Only about 6% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 8% of all men
You are Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?
But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

Silly me...

2007-06-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

I've never embarrassed myself that bad as a teacher, but on Friday there was truly a classic moment in the classroom. I was trying to explain the translation of a Chinese sentence using the "把A看成是B" grammar construction to a student. So I made an attempt to do a "literal translation" into English, which went "I looked at her as..." while I even put an emphasis on the word "as". Not until then I realized the sudden silence in the room and the students' looks of shock on their face. Only after about 5 seconds I realized what I said and the whole room erupted into huge laughs and I had no choice but to laugh at myself! I made them promise they did not record what I said. Well, you gotta love these guys.

More silly humor I found...
~Don't take life too seriously; no one gets out alive.
~Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
~Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
~I'm not a complete idiot - some parts are missing.
~Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
~God must love stupid people; he made so many.
~Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
~Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
~A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three thousand times the memory.
~Procrastinate now!

We will never forget...

2007-06-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

18 years ago. I was still in middle school. I just joined the LDS church. But that was a summer people (should) never forget. At least I haven't yet. While September 11th is the day no Americans would ever forget, June 4th should be the same for all Chinese or even the world to know that an even worse kind of terrorism was in full swing. One killing its own kind. My hats off to those who risked or even sacrificed their lives to simply voice their opinions on what is right and what is evil.

More movies...

2007-05-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

I wanted to see Spiderman 3 when it came out while I was in HK/Japan and I finally got to see it tonight. Contrary to what my former classmate friend said, this one is AWESOME! Even though personally I think the visuals and graphics are not as stunning as the previous one (esp. visuals like the train sequence from the last one), I love the plot of this triquel. It touched on things like friendship, relationship, family, personal choice, forgiveness, love/hate, ego/pride, etc. I love the idea of the evil extraterrestial parasite turning into evil if a person allows its symbiosis to grow. What does this black power mean? At the end the movie almost sounds like a church movie that Peter Parker goes, "Whatever comes our way, whatever battle we have raging inside us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It's the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what's right."
I forgot to mention another movie I watched that I really like during my trip -- Blood Diamond. I just love movies that make you think but entertaining at the same time.

Tap dance number

2007-05-25T23:19:00.001-07:00

I'm taking hip hop tap again this summer, yay! And this is one of the coolest tap numbers I've seen...

Readjustments...

2007-05-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I messed up my computer yesterday or the computer is messing me up now. I was in a panic mode this morning that my computer died. I actually had a bad vibe yesterday that I should have all my files backed up as the machine was showing signs of retirement. Last time when my thumb drive storage device died I was lucky enough to follow my gut feelings to back up my files the day before and otherwise the YA supertitles that I had been working on would have been gone. This time I barely lucked out again that after a half day of "resuscitation" I finally got my computer going and now I face the formidable project of backing up ALL my files before I get a new computer of my own. Not too long ago I was asked "What is your biggest fear?" (in the context of relationships though, I will leave that for later in the future) and I can honestly say my biggest fear at this point is the day my computer dies without backing up any of my files. Now my question is if I should get a new PC laptop (most compatible), a desktop (the cheapest), or a Mac Powerbook (most stable)?

Anyways, on Thursday I had guest #2 come visit Monterey and I showed Wan and her family around a bit.With Wan at 17-mile Drive

Friday was Language Day for our school and I was responsible for part of the cultural display. I liked the festive atmosphere at school. And it was fun to talk to little kids about our culture. Hidden inside a gold piece toy were regular chocolates and those little girls said "Chinese candy is so delicious!" and I had to refrain from laughing out loud. What I actually enjoyed the most was the Indonesian display as I told them about my Indonesian heritage the Indonesian instructors treated me like family! They are some of the nicest people I met.
With the Indonesian teachers in front of the Bali display

This Captain "Tian" totally impressed me with his fluent Chinese, Indonesian, and Japanese!

This has nothing to do with Language Day. I just made Pad Thai on my own tonight and it's been a long while since I last cooked a real meal! Not bad, huh?

Back!

2007-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's been three days since I got back. It's always a little hard to leave home and head straight back to work. It's good I get busy right away and my depression period is shortened to it's minimum. It's so rad that my students all clapped when I stepped into the classroom as a gesture of welcoming back! So touched! Sniff... :)

This is the list of "accomplishments" of my trip back to HK/China/Japan:
~Had a 5-day trip to Japan and totally enjoyed the food, shopping, rides at Universal Studio, and even the culturally shocking Japanese hot springs with my family;
~Helped the YAs with their supertitles and visit to my high school and loved their performances;
~Got my new HKID and US visa;
~Visited with my elementary/high school friends, with a couple of them seen the first time in over a decade!
~received traditional Chinese medical treatment: super bitter soup, acupuncture (over 40 needles in 3 weeks, oooooouch!), and cupping, and it's working!
~watched about 10 movies (DVDS, and movies-in-flight) with Dreamgirls, Freedom Writers, and Little Miss Sunshine being my favorites;
~read the book "The Mormon Way of Doing Business" which was a great read;
~visited HKIE and Bishop/Dr. Alan Cheung;
~visited Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum formerly known as Kom Tong Hall, Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Shatin, Lantau Island with the new cable car and attractions, Lamma with the YAs, and Southern China with the family;
~ate lots of lots of real, great, and authentic(!) food: Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, local HK style, Taiwanese, Thai...
~acquired lots of Chinese teaching related materials, etc., etc

What a trip!!!

Hidden Treasures

2007-05-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

Less than 20 hours to go... sigh...

Whenever people asked me what are the must-sees in Hong Kong before, I was never quite sure how to respond. Now I have a better idea, especially if you are genuinely into what the real Hong Kong culture is...

There are more than one SoHo areas that have popped up in Hong Kong. The one in Central is filled with international restaurants and pubs.

Krispy Kreme is here too! I realized they have more flavors here and they are not bad at all. There are already three stores in HK now.

Close to the escalator area of course is Kom Tong, now known as Dr. Sun Yat Sen Museum. It's a great museum for learning more about modern history of China.

The portrait of Jesus Christ at the entrance is now replaced by a statue of Dr. Sun.
It means most to me of course because this is where I grew up in the Church, served my mission, had my first car accident...
...and I was baptized in this very place!!!

Another nice place to visit is the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Shatin. I learned a great deal myself through my first visit. And the huge museum was close to empty on a Friday afternoon when I visited!

The Three Matters of Life

2007-05-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Read this article the other day and liked it.

人生的三件事 The Three Matters of Life

人世間的事情看起來很紛雜，沒頭緒。但是，如果我們細細的把它分門別類，其實人生只有三件事：「自己的事」、「別人的事」、「老天爺的事」。
Things in this world seem to be complicated and have no solution. However, if we carefully categorize them, there are in fact only three matters in life: "your own business", "other's business", and "God's business".

「自己的事」當然是指跟自己生活息息相關的任何一件事，如：上班、吃飯、睡覺、心情等，自己所能安排的事；「別人的事」是指與自己不相干的事，如：老王愛自誇、老張愛打牌等，操之在別人，屬於他人管轄的事；「老天爺的事」是指天災、人禍、地震、海嘯、命運等，操之在天，屬於老天爺管轄的事。
"Your own business" of course refers to anything that relates to your life, such as work, food, sleep, feelings, etc. which are things that one controls; "other's business" means things irrelevant to you, like "Will loves to brag", "Jack loves poker", etc. which are maneuvered by others; "God's business" are natural disasters, tragedy of man, earthquakes, tsunami, fate, and so on. They are governed by heavens and God.

然而，人煩惱的根源往往是「忘了自己的事」、「愛管別人的事」、「擔心老天爺的事」。打個比喻：忘記反省自己、忘記自己的本分；愛說別人的閒話、愛管別人的閒事；工作怕發生危險，出門怕發生意外等不可預測的事。
Nevertheless, the roots of trouble of man often are "forgetting your own business", "enjoying other's business", "worrying about God's business". Here are some examples: forgetting to evaluate yourself and your responsibility; enjoying gossiping about others and overstepping into others' lives; and worrying about the unpredictables like the danger at work and the possibility of accidents when one travels.

人生的這三件事往往是我們煩惱的根源，如何平衡好這三件事在我們生活中所起的作用是非常重要的。
These three matters of life are often the root of our troubles, so it is crucial for us how to balance these three acts in our lives.

我覺得應該做到「打理好自己的事」，「不多管別人的閒事」（非指遇到殺人放火的事不管），「操之在天的事要樂天知命，順應隨緣」。
I think we should "manage our own business", "ignore others' business" (not meaning ignoring crimes like murder and arsenal), and "things governed by the heavens should be taken as they are".

煩惱經常是自找的，如果你不給自己煩惱，別人永遠不可能給你煩惱，放不下心中的事，才是煩惱的原因。當自己為了甚麼事情煩惱的時候，先釐清是「自己的事」、「別人的事」、還是「老天爺的事」，就知道怎麼處理了，也就能很快的把憂鬱的心情，調適過來了。
Troubles are often self fulfilled. If you do not give yourself troubles, others cannot force them upon you. The real cause of troubles is that you cannot let go. Whenever you are troubled, you need to first distinguish if it is "your own business", "other's business", or "God's business". Once you know how to handle it, then you can easily and promptly readjust from your blues.

文／晨晨 Written by Chenchen and translated by Raymond Pai

More adventure...

2007-05-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

I was away in mainland for another couple days. Before that I attended the Young Ambassadors' fireside at Homantin. It was like a mini-reunion! In addition to the YAs, Chad and Sue (Boothe) were there which was a pleasant surprise!
Their singing was phenomenal and I personally think they did way better than we did 2 years ago. My singing was ok that year but what went behind the scene was a nightmare... Anyways, it was all like yesterday and sometimes I even imagined if I could relive that experience all over again. It was even a bit difficult bidding farewell again and I have no clue when if I even get to see any of them ever again...
I was gonna get all the YAs from 05 for a snapshot but after the fireside the hall was as chaotic as most firesides at HMT afterwards as usual that the closest thing I got was this: a shot with Chloe with the Boothe's and the Barrington's in the background. Ha! :)

On Monday, I was a bit nervous to reapply for my US work visa but it went a lot easier and smoother than I expected. What's funny was there were 2 singers/movie stars right in front and beside of me in line. Charlie Yeung (楊采妮) was right in the front and Rebecca Pan (潘迪華) was a few more spots ahead but next to me often because of the winding line. Charlie was really pretty without heavy makeup unlike what I saw in Japan that many girls were so "artificial" almost to the point of scary. People in line were "forced" to eavesdrop about their exchanging complains about the hassle of applying for a visa. They are superstars but still had to suffer waiting in line as everybody else. Charlie was turned away once because of her wrong photo size and incomplete address. The staff even pronounced her address out loud over the speaker! As for my case, the consulate was nice enough to chat with me about my job and even asked me to teach him mandarin. I guess my case was approved right away.

The Road Home/Abroad...

2007-05-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

It's already been two weeks since I came home, time does fly! Here's a brief picture recap of the events and more to come...

~This is the first time we traveled as a family again in about 15 years. Japan is such a literally neat place and a nice change from living in the always hustling and bustling Hong Kong. I wasn't too into the "cute" culture of Japan before that I always thought people were always living in their dreams as I learned as a minor in Japanese Studies as an undergrad. It's not too bad of a thing after all. People strife to maintain order and natural beauty in all places. Things are way cheaper than I expected because of the economy downfall earlier. The trip included Nagoya, Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, and Wakayama which is the southern suburb of Honshu.

This is actually one of my favorite pictures. It's not me and the Buddhist monk at the Kiyomizudera (Clear Water) Temple was chanting the whole time as he asked for donations.

I was thrilled to visit Universal Studio in Osaka and I'm a ride fanatic. We hopped in the Spiderman rider the day Spiderman 3 came out! It's the best ride of all time! And I think I'm as ugly in the picture as that big lizard from Jurassic Park on my head...

My fam in Japanese robes after visiting the hot spring at the hotel. The hot spring experience was such a cultural shock for me and I'm still recovering from it... It did feel good afterwards though...

I think "bidet" (toilet seat equipped with "seat warmer", "washer", and even "dryer" is one of the greatest Japanese inventions. But this is my first time seeing and using one with a sink on top which you can wash your hand right after you flush using whatever water it comes out on top!

I revisited my alma mater high school for the Young Ambassadors' visit. After all the corresponding and arrangements I'm so glad things turned out fantastic. It's surreal to see the YA's perform on that tiny stage in the school hall of my high school. As Principal Liliana put it, "it's a dream come true!" I wish I had something like this when I attended SGSS over a decade ago.

Randy's giving a presentation on singing at one of the workshops afterwards. The other two workshops are on dancing and acting. The students and teachers totally enjoyed it and I heard nothing but great things from them. Some of them said they had never experenced something like this in their lives.

I hanged out a bit with the cast with a trip to Lamma Island. Here it is me and Meredith (one of the Chinese speakers in the cast who is a Taiwanese RM), Sterling (we auditioned the same year singing the same song and his brother was my mission companion!), Stacia (we were in the same tap class), Peter (a 3-year YA veteran), and Chloe (YA in my year) at an Indian restaurant. It's both awkward but fun to reunite with all the YA friends. Fond memories. Good times...

I also just saw the new BYUTV documentary on our YA Chinese tour 2 years ago and I'm in it again! You can check it out here (look for the program titled "Children of the Dragon" -- by the way, I handpicked that song!) It will be rebroadcast at the following times:
# Sunday, May 13, at 3am
# Monday, May 14, at 7 & 10pm
# Wednesday, May 16, at 3pm
# Thursday, May 31, at 6 & 9pm

HOME

2007-04-22T10:14:00.001-07:00

My favorite song of all time-
"Home"

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

More Quotes...

2007-04-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

INSANITY is doing things the SAME way and expecting DIFFERENT results.
~Barry Bounous (my former vocal coach)

Higher Order Learning in the Foreign Language Classroom
- Didactic lectures, extensive coverage of content, and mindless drill combine with student passivity to perpetuate the lower-order thinking and learning that students have come to associate with school. When students do not actively think their way to conclusions, when they do not discuss their thinking with other students or the professor, when they do not entertain a variety of points of view, analyze concepts, theories or explanations from their own points of view, actively question the meaning and implications of what they learn, compare what they learn with what their experiences suggest, tackle non-routine problems, examine assumptions, or gather evidence, they do not acheice higher-order learning. These students [...] gain little knowledge or insight. Their ability to mature intellectually, their capacity and motivation to learn is stunted.
~Richard Paul
(Amen, Amen! This applies not only to teaching language but any subjects. There are so many teachers not doing what teaching supposed to be. We need to teach students HOW to learn instead of WHAT to learn!)

Freedom isn't a neighborhood; it isn't an afterhour alleyway; it certainly isn't a private club... It's an attitude about yourself that you carry with you wherever you go... The essence of freedom lies in living it.

History repeated... only worse

2007-04-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

Even before the killer is identified and the motivation understood in today's tragedy in Virginia, I just can't help thinking why people haven't learned their lessons that weapons have to be banned on campus and under more stringent regulations? Can you imagine people owning guns with their own free will in Hong Kong? How come there are always more and more violent campus shootings in America? What about media? Ringing a bell yet?

In the backyard...

2007-04-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

Just watched "Happy Times" (幸福時光) by Zhang Yimou. I did not have high hopes and the first half was as I expected to be typical Chinese humor and to be honest I am often bugged by the Chinese pragmatism and nonstop arguing and yelling on screen. I really enjoy the second half however as the plot focuses on the relationship between the old man and the girl. The old man's action is not as ridiculous and the girl's acting is great. My favorite part is almost at the very end of the movie when the gangs were "recording" the letter while the cassette player was actually playing. It's hilarious and just classic.

Sometimes there are treasures that you are not aware of right in your backyard. I was getting paper work done on campus for my annual leave and I stumbled across these remnants of the Berlin Wall and it's quite amazing to behold.

Also Monterey is also the place where everything about California began. The first California Constitution was signed here and the city hall where it all happened is minutes away from my house.

The well known bear on the Californian flag!

Happenings

2007-04-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

My dated and almost vintage DELL laptop has finally given up on IE7 and I can no longer access any secured websites (which require passwords) or even use messengers. So I'm ditching IE!

So from now on you probably won't see me around on MSN or YIM for a while. This blog or my email probably are the best ways to get in touch with me in cyberspace now. Anyways, I switched to Firefox and I am loving it. It works even faster and smoother than IE.

Last Friday I had one of the most memorable teaching experiences of all time. We were going through routine grammar drills and it was the last class of Friday. I was getting tired of the text book exercises myself so I asked the class if they felt the same. Of course the response was a unanimous "yes" (whey did they ever say they were NOT tired anyways?) I decided to do an impromptu game activity "Big Wind Blows". For you Hongkongers you know what I am talking about. The class sits in a circle and one person stands in the middle and gives a statement. If the statement is true to anyone in the group those people are "blown by the big wind" and they have to find a new seat competing with the person in the middle. The person that is left without a seat becomes the new spokesperson and so on. We were learning the Chinese perfective so it is a nice game to practice through playing. Well, they made quite a scene and lots of noise in the game. It was almost funny to see these soldiers in uniform in action (pun intended) during the game. But boy, didn't we all have fun. We were so loud that it concerned our department chair and the MLI that they stopped by and checked on what we were doing. By the time the dept chair got here we were done playing and all she saw was a messy classroom while the class was trying to catch a breath and working on their grammar again. I was both embarrassed but proud by the scene! I felt like I had my "Dead Poets Society" moment of my life! :)

Another random quote of the day:
Whatever product you're putting out, make it the best product you can make. Whatever your job is, [try] to challenge yourself every day.
~Ellen DeGeneres

Random Quotes

2007-04-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.
~ Persian messenger from the movie "300"

Pain is temporary but the film (outcome) is permanent.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Apprentice Season 6

The world is fast learning that of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
~ Booker T. Washington

Completely random...

2007-04-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

Can't believe it's already April and I've started counting down towards my annual leave (which means trip home and travel and eat and play, woahoo!) These past couple weeks these following things either happened or somehow ended up in my thoughts...

~ I thought I would never really liked the weather here in Monterey as it was often gloomy, humid, and cold when I first arrived. But when it's warm and sunny and approaching summer, weather in Cali is REAL NICE! We often just decide to have class out in the sun and now I'm used to the humidity here as well.

~ I can't be happier about the place I live! It has actually been quite a hassle when they are doing the huge remodeling work around my building, and it's hard to even find a way in and out of my apartment while they are repaving the ground. It happened a couple times utilities were interrupted (sorry Victor about the water the day you were here!) but Diane told me they would give me a $300 credit for my rent that I was quite happy. And then a few days later they even decided to give me a month of rent free! Quite a few people told me I've been paying a little too much for my rent but I absolutely love my place with its excellent location and facilities. Despite the "inconvenience" I pretty much got my air ticket home paid for without doing anything and the ground work didn't really affect me that much since I'm out of the house most of the time during the day. So people, it's a place you LIVE and you gotta love it first and it will pay back! :)

~ This probably sound pretty lame but I thought I'd post it here anyways. The website HumanForSale has been up quite a while but I stumbled across it again and I figured my current price is $1,625,038. The sad thing is I'm still cheaper than most houses in this area... but the good news is that I'm still "smarter" than 89.67% of all people according to the Am I Dumb web site... no worries, I'm not taking these seriously, um, maybe I'll change my mind when I'm worth more...

~ I have put up the counter and the stats for this page and I found it very intriguing. I always wonder who have been visiting my site (or stalking me, whatever you may call it), I don't mean to spy on people but it is quite fun to guess who those people are (you!) At least I know when they come visit and where they are from. Feel free to leave me a word or two!

~ I came across this definition of "unconditional love": you love someone no matter what and the other person does not have to love you back. It's simple and straightforward enough but it just dawned on me now. If Christ has unconditional love for everyone and we are commanded to emulate Him, I doubt if I have achieved 1% of what we are required to do... sigh...

~ At last, more pictures I (or others) took for fun in the past month...
Lake Tahoe is heaven-like...

A 100-year old Rolls Royce!!!

Another old car (with an old man) in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, NV

Everything in America has to be ranked #1 somehow...

Upon entering the Valley of Death...

I was very close to the lowest point in America!

6 months!

2007-03-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

I just realized I've hit my 6-month mark of living in Monterey and working at the DLI. I have not much to complain and I'm loving my job, especially my students. They are such fun and awesome people.

It's already more than a month into Chinese new year but I came across this list of tips for a Powerful Chinese New Year that I really like. It's a great reminder that I need to take better care of myself (esp. before my trip home!!!)

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.
3. Buy a TIVO, tape your late night shows, and get more sleep. (Or use BT, Worthy, right?)
4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement: My purpose is to___________ today.
5. Live with the 3 E's: Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy.
6. Watch more movies, play more games, and read more books than you did in 2006. (I like the idea!!!)
7. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong, and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
9. Dream more while you are awake. (I thought I have been doing that too much...)
10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less foods that are manufactured in plants.
11. Drink green tea and plenty of water and eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds, and walnuts.
12. Try to make at least 3 people smile each day.
13. Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk, and let new and flowing energy into your life. (No wonder I keep feeling my energy is low... it has been sucked by all the trash in my house!)
14. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts, or things you cannot control. Instead, invest your energy in the positive present moment.
15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime. (I do like algebra though...)
16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card. (The reality is I have all three meals with more than one maxed out charge card...)
17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away.
18. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
20. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does. (Really? Are you serious?)
21. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
22. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
23. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
24. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special. (Where can I find fancy lingerie for me? I'm a newbie to this area...)
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"
27. Forgive everyone everything.
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time time. (Ok, I'll find time to give time time...)
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch. (I don't want my friends touch me when I'm sick though...)
32. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful, or joyful.
33. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
34. The best is yet to come.
35. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.
36. Do the right thing.
37. Call your mother and father often. (Or have them call you often in my case...)
38. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished____________.
39. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
40. Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass. (This one is for Amy, ha!)

Weekends

2007-03-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a fun couple of weeks and I can't believe I survived a more than 2000 mile drive for the past couple of weekends. Let's see...
With Joanne upon (re)entering Chinatown

Live lobster! Look at Joanne's face!

Dead now but delicious!

Gei Gei and Joanne came down to San Francisco to handle some personal business and visited me by the way and they became my first official visitors here in Monterey!!!So I drove up to San Francisco to pick them up. It was pretty late at night when I got there because of bad traffic but we managed to have a nice but pricey dinner in Chinatown.

17-mile Drive in Pebble Beach... breathtaking view!

I love this restaurant... Bahama Billy's in Carmel

Then it was my turn to return to Provo last weekend to run my own errands and we (re)visited Aspen Grove and Sundance...
Just goofing around on the mountains...

I got my own lift in Sundance!

Avriel scared the crap out of me (pun intended!) when he found this and threw it on the floor!

Ok, we played a little fear factor there and obviously I was the winner!