the beginning of the rest of my lif.. 2 years

first day of [grad] school tomorrow!!

maybe i'm way too old for this but i miss the years when my mom would have to wake me up several times in the morning to get ready for school.. sometimes she'd lay out my clothes on my bed so i wouldn't even have to think about what i'm pulling over my head - or whether my top and bottom matched. in elementary school, me and my sister would pick out hair ties for my mom to put in our hair while we ate breakfast. and then, if we weren't being sent off to the bus stop, we'd be rolling into the minivan on our way to school. of course, if it were the beginning of the school year, our new backpacks would be filled with folders, notebooks, binder paper and sharpened pencils and a new box of crayons to stock my desk with. oh yes, and lunch. my mom always made my lunch for me :D

fast forward 15 years. first day of school.. i scrounged around my room for a blank notebook unused because i slept through most of the psych 1 class i'd originally intended it for. found a few pens and pencils and stuffed them into the front pocket of my backpack. lunch? ehh. i'll probably just stop at in n out before class. no back to school clothes shopping. no cute folders with smiley pikachus on the cover. no ride to school....

don't get me wrong - i'm sUper excited about going back to school.. in davis of all places! all the events that led to me getting the (emailed) acceptance letter to grad school has been a crazy god blessing in every single aspect. i really can't be any more happy = ] a part of me just misses being a stinky kid at home.. coming in and out of the house knowing my mom's always gonna be there.

rats. i believe this is what people call .homesickness.

nevertheless, SUPER excited for tomorrow!!!

faith and salmon

i think this is an appropriate follow-up post to my (lack of) exercising entry:

last night after work, i decided to go pick up some salmon roulettes (sUper delicious with a great price) for dinner at trader joe's. (luckily i was able to find parking at the folsom blvd location before the slough of vehicles that followed closely behind me)

after entering the store, i made a straight beeline towards the frozen seafood section and grabbed 2 packs of salmon. ..not that they ever run out of anything, because that is the awesomeness that is TJs ^_< afterwards, i went to check out what frozen desserts i could potentially fortify my evening meal with when i was approached by this big beefy looking dude. at first i thought he was just gonna grab a box of mochi ice cream but instead he looked at me a little surprised and said, "heyy weren't you just at gold's gym??" oh mann.. i nearly died with surprise first of all because going to the gym is not something i would subject myself to. ever. and second, do i look like i go to the gym?! i have a coworker who calls me .veal. purely because of my lack of muscle tone. hahaa so instead of raising one eyebrow and saying ::what?! you kidding me?!!:: i laughed politely and mentioned that he'd mistaken me for someone else.

walking away, my first thought was dang, that was weird. later i decided it was probably the best compliment i could ever receive.. someone thinks i work out!! as ironic as that sounds, i like it. unfortunately, logic set in pretty quickly and realized that he probably just saw another asian girl and decided we were all the same person.

excellent.

haha i guess i should also mention that due to craziness of schedule and other sorts of things i do, i haven't turned on my wii fit in about a month. >_<


another reason why i have no time for physical activity is due to the following:


people keep telling me to put these up for sale, which honestly doesn't sound too bad at this moment with tuition and all >_< but i think one of the reasons why i love making these little monster dudes is because i love giving them away.. i really wouldn't know how to put a price on them because the sum of all the materials is seriously less than $2. and for some people, relaxation and de-stressing means working out (HA), reading, doing laundry.. for me, it's making yards of fleece come alive = ] so... instead of setting up an etsy shop or self advertising, i think i'll just keep them for myself until someone worthy of monster possession comes along.

also... i've been thinking a lot more about missions lately.. maybe because it's been such a huge point at dccc and acacia this summer ^_< but really thinking about the little talents that god's blessed me with and how that all works in the whole scheme of matthew 28:16. i'm beginning to really believe that this mentality i have of what life should be like has so much been bent by a culture that has gone so far from what god originally set out for us. i mean, when someone can't stand to throw away food because of .starving kids in africa. do you really believe that? that child slavery and human trafficking occur across the ocean and maybe even in your neighboring city? that water is a scarcity elsewhere and something as common as diarrhea after mcdonald's can mean death for millions of individuals? a lot of times when i think about it really hard, i get really cynical and frustrated over why these terrible things exist. i mean, using john 9 to explain suffering really doesn't do it for me when innocence is sacrificed so crudely. how will god's glory be revealed in all this?? and yet we are called to continually serve the weak, and the poor, and the orphans, and the hungry.. with the spirit of god and the strength of his love.. that's big!

so what about wanting to finish a master's program or working a full time job or wanting to raise a family in a home with a super awesome kitchen? i don't think these are necessarily dreams that come solely from the american culture rather than a desire that god's implanted in me. the difference is how i live this life to give him all the glory. and that's how i started thinking of how i can also contribute to this global operation carrying out god's love to others. mm.. i don't have any answers right now but i'm getting more and more excited to see how god would reveal his heart to me.



where a little faith's enough to see mountains lift and move.
how cool is that?!

so much good stuff!

crazies! i was featured on the front page of the sacramento bee today for my monster making skills.

FYIs for the DIYers

By Carlos Alcalá
calcala@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Aug. 31, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1D

Deborah Lee was a senior at the University of California, Davis, when she sewed a little monster doll and took photos to show friends how she did it.

She was going to use her brother-in-law's online photo album Web site – mixbook.com – when he asked whether she'd heard of Instructables.

She became hooked.

At www.instructables.com, do-it-yourselfers share their expertise on everything from making fresh mozzarella to making bookshelves from cardboard, from tapping a watermelon for its juice to making your own audio speakers.

That makes it the do-it-yourself counterpart to blogging, YouTube, Wikipedia and the many other parts of Web 2.0 that enable people to put their individual stamps on the broader consciousness.

Such efforts have changed all media as newspapers and TV embraced citizen participation in providing content. In a salute to average experts like Lee, The Bee is publishing her step-by-step instructions on how to make a monster friend.

Instructables is as much for sharing your own work as for picking up tips, said Instructables chief executive Eric Wilhelm, who co-founded the site in 2006 with a bunch of high-tech engineers in the Bay Area.

"I'm always on the (Instructables) Web site," said Lee, who works in the nutrition department at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento. "There are always really good ideas on there. Some people are really creative."

Lee is modest about her efforts, but she is among the creative. She contributed (under the screen name cuteaznprincesss) a simple way to make the monster dolls.

Instructables, which gets 4 million unique visits per month, featured her idea. More than 100 users complimented the project, and some showed photos of how they'd followed it.

"Someone made it out of a sock, which is kind of gross," Lee said.

She also provided instructions for making a decorated shoe rack from a fruit box because, she wrote, "not many of us own a Carrie Bradshaw-sized closet with walls devoted exclusively for our humble collection of footwear."

Lee has made three of them for her tiny east Sacramento apartment.

The uses for Instructables are myriad.

However, this report was not produced with the aid of the Instructables project titled, "Write a creative nonfiction article in 10 difficult steps."

so hilarious..

it hurts.

ughh.. this is precisely the reason why i choose not to exert myself in strenuous physical activity. especially in public.

as i type, my biceps quiver. as i lift a forkful of tilapia to my mouth to re-stimulate ATP synthesis in my muscles, my arms falter. i turn my head up and down from keyboard to screen and i feel as though my nerves are being pinched in 7 different places down my spine. twelve hours from now, i'm going to be sitting stiff-necked at my desk thinking ::why on earth did you ever think working out was gonna be a good thing?!?:: ..at least when a patient tells me he has pains in his rear, i will be able to sympathize completely (give or take 50 years)

and get this. after the class, miss instructor bounces her way over to me, not to introduce herself (this was my first time attending) but to let me know that she was very amused watching my attempts at vsksasana and shirsasana. dkflgnlskdh.

nevertheless, paul says

you yourselves are god's temple and god's spirit live in you. if anyone destroys god's temple, god will destroy him! 1 cor 3:16

oooh yikes! so what is a girl like me to do when In n Out runs and custard buns strike!? i mean, i can still rely on the vestiges of my fast metabolism but nutrition nerds all know that peaks around the age of 21.... which i am not..... >_< and surely god would not call us to obey a command so biologically unattainable right?? no. he wouldn't. and that is why he created the nintendowii. or at least, created genius japanese men and women to create the wii :D what better way to stay in shape and thwart the settlement of adipose tissue in the nether-regions than doing yoga and playing tennis all in the confines of my own home?? i fully resolve to .work out. at least an hour a week (shut up, i'm taking small steps) and bring my wii age down at least to the 30s. whoo! so exciting. of course, i won't be able to start until after i recover from this horribly excruciating pain....... how glorious the day will be when

the lord jesus christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform [my] lowly body so that it will be like his glorious body! phil 3:20

whoa talk about taking scripture out of context! hehe :D in conclusion, no matter what method you choose, this body that we've been given is holy. both inside and out. i think it's just as important to sculpt the heart mind as it is to maintain a healthy exterior.

thank you for reading this philosophical thought piece by yours truly.

track 8

though i have not seen him
my heart knows him well

i love that! ..but how well does my heart really know him?
that's my prayer tonight. that while he has searched me and knows me, i might do the same for my christ.

the progression of my illness, as told by my medicine cabinet.

since the first bloom of the season and the first cut of newly sprouted grass, these allergens have been attacking my immune system like silent ninjas on the prowl for pokemon (or whatever else they prowl around for..) fortunately, it's never been as bad as what i've observed in some unlucky people. instead of prescriptions, i just make sure i have a roll of toilet paper at bedside to catch my morning flow of snot. lovely picture isn't it? :D

just about three days ago however, something flared up and i went home from work with a sudden onset of fever and other sorts of weird symptoms. since then, i've tried several different remedies but to no avail, my nose has still made itself unavailable to me and i sometimes feel like someone's giving me a really bad head massage. instinct tells me it will eventually go away but i'm starting to consider whether or not i should get myself checked out.

following is a short photojournalism piece i've put together detailing the journey of sickness:

at first, before any sort of real symptoms occured, i had just been taking my normal vitamins (like any good nutrition graduate would...) i've got my one a days for women, a multivitamin, the occasional vitamin e, and of course, vitamin c - as shown in the suspicious looking ziploc bag. every time i go home to visit, my mom always gives me another ziploc bag of vitamins. i do believe this is her way of saying .i love you. too bad vitamin c can only help you so much....

that's when my medicine cabinet really started to grow. over the last few days, i've been taking these items in a variety of combinations. i started out with allergy meds exclusively but after the fever scare, i purchased tylenol cold. seeing that nothing was improving, i found a benedryl that included allergy aNd cold medicine. amazing, right?! no. try taking that at the beginning of an 8-hour shift. oh man. i'm surprised i didn't get any screaming nurse/patient calls for missing meals >_< the worst part of all is sleeping. lying in a supine position completely renders my nose useless, making for very uncomfortable and sleepless nights...

i haven't yet, but i'm considering if it'd swim well with the benedry that's currently coursing through my veins. soo tempting... i'm also wondering what's more potent: one sleep-inducing gel cap, or a swig of keystone light. hrmm. just kidding. this was also a parting gift from my mom. except the six-pack was intended for cooking chicken. i can't stand the taste of beer.

i remember the last time i took these pills, i went straight to sleep. unlike dr. house, it doesn't make me irritable, cynical, genius, and hot - that already comes naturally. kidding.

meh i hate being sick. i hardly ever get sick, but when i do it's like pirates taking over the ship. wait.. too soon? hehee anyways, i hope you'll join me in cheering for my immunoglobins for a successful win. here's probably a good place for me to insert an analogy to the recent rockets defeat but then i'd just be kidding myself in thinking i know anything about basketball >_<

does anyone know of a good general practice doctor in sacramento? ..and while i'm at it, i'm also looking for a dentist, an eye doctor, and a good chinese take-out restaurant. thanks!

an evening bike ride in east sac.

this evening, i braved my seasonal allergies and nasal congestion and ventured for a bike ride down M street. after finding out about the death of 2 rats in the bike room of my house, i hadn't gone near my bike in months. luckily the rats were disposed of and i had someone else sanitize my bike before hopping on = ]

biking down M street is one of my favorite routes. M street happens to bisect the fabulous forties right through the middle, allowing me to create elaborate stories of the type of people who live in the houses and the kind of magical creatures they keep in their basements as i bike through. mm.. just kidding about the magical creatures. i thought it might add more to the storybook feel of my vignette...

starting at 36th street, i turn the corner onto the street that i frequently walk through on my way to work (that is, weather permitting. or rather, when i feel ambitious enough to save the earth 0.3 miles at a time) past 40th street is when things start to get exciting. on one corner on the right lies my absolute favorite house. watching disney movies and reading fairytales growing up, i've never envisioned myself living as a princess in a castle. i mean.. for one, my bunny would get lost in a second! as expansive and elaborate as it may seem, i think there's just something flat and rigid about them. don't get me wrong though.. if you were to give me a castle at your expense, i'd take it! hahaa i think i like the faraway cottages tucked within birch trees and rose gardens the best. that's exactly what this house on the corner reminds me of. even before i reach the front of the house, i can hear a bubbling water fountain behind the rustic wooden fence that guards the maze of vines. in the front, there's a turret type structure with a rusty weathervane on top and a rounded doorway leading into the foyer. sO cute! to make things even more whimsical, the house is a subtle shade of rose with dark wooden trims and shutters. i love it!

as i bike further, i see neighbors crossing the street to greet each other on perfectly manicured lawns. this is what i love in a neighborhood.. friendly people, kids kicking their balls out of bounds into the street, little puppies running too close to the spokes of my tires.. i especially love smiling and saying hi to the little grandmas and grandpas standing in their garden watering the same plant for what seems like hours.

two blocks down, there's another house on the corner where i swear, quasimodo must be hiding out in the attic. its tall slabs of grayness and melting window panes remind me of old byzantine cathedrals. hrmm.. come to think of it, did they even have cathedrals during the byzantine empire? i may very well be screwing up historical fact.. ehh that's what it looks like to me = ]

another block, another amazing house. this one in particular looks like it's thomas kinkade reincarnate. completely nestled in delicate trees and flower sprays, it's tOtally cute. amazingly, its next door neighbor seems too have been plucked from a hilltop in tuscany. not that i've ever been there before, but it totally seems like a house you'd see in a barilla pasta sauce commercial. in fact, i think andrea bocelli is singing in the backyard. wait, no. someone's just trying to pass me on their roller blades.

impressively, i finally made my way home without a single mosquito bite.. but a mind swirling with thoughts of the lives that go on behind those stained glass windows and wrought-iron fences. are the kiddies building a 3d puzzle in the living room? the parents sharing a glass of wine and the day's activities together? i'm definitely a little too idyllic for my own good, dreaming about the making of a princess in the upstairs room.. oh well >_<

i wonder, does having fairytale dreams just set someone up for disappointment? there's a fine line between optimism and idealistic expectations. obviously reality strikes and cinderella finds herself back in her disheveled rags, but the moral of the story is that patience and goodwill beats the striking clock and prince charming returns afterall! ; ]

..i believe this is what they call a hopeless romantic -___-"