and the heart of the alvinator.
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Thursday, July 31, 2003 Water Bottle Clean-up I have packed up my water bottles, after 2 months of storage. I have accumulated over 200+. Does anybody need 200+ empty water bottles? posted by alvin | Thursday, July 31, 2003 Wednesday, July 30, 2003 "If You're Not the One" This song actually gets a lot of play time on the radio. I'm not sure the exact meaning of the song, and the situation in which the author wrote it. However, I guess the words where it talks about being "far away," I think it talks about both emotional and physical distance and the author expressing his hope that one day he will be together again with the girl. Without hope, life gets bland. =P. Anyways, leave me a comment if you like the lyrics. by Daniel Bedingfield If you're not the one then why does my soul feel glad today? If you're not the one then why does my hand fit yours this way? If you are not mine then why does your heart return my call If you are not mine would I have the strength to stand at all I never know what the future brings But I know you are here with me now We'll make it through And I hope you are the one I share my life with I don't want to run away but I can't take it, I don't understand If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am? Is there any way that I can stay in your arms? If I don't need you then why am I crying on my bed? If I don't need you then why does your name resound in my head? If you're not for me then why does this distance maim my life? If you're not for me then why do I dream of you as my wife? I don't know why you're so far away But I know that this much is true We'll make it through And I hope you are the one I share my life with And I wish that you could be the one I die with And I pray in you're the one I build my home with I hope I love you all my life I don't want to run away but I can't take it, I don't understand If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am Is there any way that I can stay in your arms? 'Cause I miss you, body and soul so strong that it takes my breath away And I breathe you into my heart and pray for the strength to stand today 'Cause I love you, whether it's wrong or right And though I can't be with you tonight And know my heart is by your side I don't want to run away but I can't take it, I don't understand If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am Is there any way that I can stay in your arms posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 30, 2003 Tuesday, July 29, 2003 Dinner with PESI folks We had a PESI get-together last night with 9 people showing up. It was a pretty good turnout. Eric, from my team, came out from Atlanta, and gave us an excuse to get together. Daphne, Iris, Abby, Christine, Will, Eric, Agnes, Krystal and myself. It was good time. Agnes makes some funny jokes and jokes about Kenneth quite a bit. They are a really great married couple, and then Randy and Krystal are also very cool. I love the PESI crew. posted by alvin | Tuesday, July 29, 2003 Monday, July 28, 2003 Young Adult Life Hmm...during Ellie's BBQ, an intense discussion concerning young adult life occurred. I am still processing (i'm an internal processor) some of the things that we discussed. I guess the bottom line is that as young adults, the two areas we struggle with are relationships (friendships and dating/courtship one), and career/vocation. I'll just touch upon the idea of relationships in this blog entry. Any young adult fellowship will struggle with this idea of relationships, but the key question comes down to how the fellowship tries to address this as a collective whole. And our conclusion..."we have no idea what would be best." Anyways, back in college, I tried to have pretty open dialogues with people concerning the topic of relationships, beit from the youth group to our own fellowship members since especially in Chinese churches, this issue is never discussed. I thought I knew a ton of stuff because I read through all these books about relationships...but man...I discovered that I don't know jack. But this topic for me can be talked into the ground just going around in circles with no conclusion or closure. To me, closure is pretty important. Anyways, within RW I thought we deal with it pretty maturely, as we basically supress it. This issue is very taboo in Christian circles, because when discussing among Christian bros/sis an inherent tension exists because the bros/sis that you discuss this area with are potentials. So, what to do. This idea of venue and providing a forum kept coming out, and not sure how this will pan out or occur. I think to really know more about this area of life...it's a matter of finding mentors who have been there before and can give guidance. As peers it's very difficult for any of us to feel comfortable leading others in study or discussion about principles/concepts about it. And then if we go to singles conferences to try to learn more, the stigma of it being a "hook-up" party already deters us. So, bottom line, I'm not sure what I envision for RW in terms of opening this "can of worms." However, after last night's discussion, I do hope that each of us can be more honest about our struggles and needs with one another...being more vulnerable and such. It's so tough...so risky. =P. posted by alvin | Monday, July 28, 2003 Interesting Brief on my division. briefing on my division at broadcom posted by alvin | Monday, July 28, 2003 Happy Birthday Shout outs to RW members Will (25) and Ellie (23). posted by alvin | Monday, July 28, 2003 Friday, July 25, 2003 Elephant Seals Weird dream last night. I dreampt I was at Ano Nuevo, seeing the elephant seals. A lot of them were in the water swimming, and surfers would be surfing in the water with them. There were so many seals that surfers, as they were taking waves, would run into them and fall off their surf boards. The surfers would be undeterred and get right back up and surf some more, but there would be so many seals that the aforementioned situation would occur over and over again. In an enclosed place, like some room where you could look out to the beach, the waves would come crashing in and some elephant seals would hang out there. During high tide, this place would get a lot of water, but during low tide, there would just be elephant seals hanging out. As I was walking around this place, I noticed a lot of baby elephant seals. I sorta' get trapped going down these stairs and some elephant seals got upset at me and started charging and attacking me. I couldn't find a place to escape. I woke up at that point. Not sure why I was dreaming about elephant seals though. =P. posted by alvin | Friday, July 25, 2003 Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Chicago trip pics posted posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Ministry Flows from Being I finally finished "Boundaries", and have started reading "The Making of a Leader" by Robert Clinton. Spencer and Jonathan got me this book for my b'day. I thought that statement, "ministry flows from being" was very encouraging, so I wanted to share that with my readers. There is a leadership development process that includes 6 steps. 1. Sovereign Foundations 2. Inner-Life Growth 3. Ministry Maturing 4. Life Maturing 5. Convergence 6. Afterglow Convergence is the stage where the leader's role matches his/her gift-mix and experience so that ministry is maximezed. The leader uses the best he has to offer and is freed from ministry from which he is not gifted or suited. The author talks a lot about leaders not hitting the point of convergence. When convergence occurs, the leader's potential is maximized. I think in my last entry about stagnancy, as I shared about inner-life growth and the struggles I feel with it, it is reassuring that the book also affirms my thoughts on it. I need to be more patient about letting God work through my inadequacies and grow me as an individual. In Phases 1-3, ministry activity or fruitfulness is not the focus. God is working in the leader. Many leaders don't recognize this and become frustrated. He wants to teach us how to minister out of what we are. I found this very reassuring and comforting. =P. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Friday, July 18, 2003 Stagnancy As defined by Webster's dictionary...stagnant: "Not moving or flowing; motionless." I have been thinking about the young adult life lately these days and have realized some stuff about myself. I have been feeling a bit stagnant, feeling restless, waiting for the next thing. This coupled with one of my core passions being growth puts some serious dissonance in my life. I do enjoy my job (who wouldn't when you're designing PC server reference boards and getting paid for it!!!!!), enjoy my fellowship/church, enjoy working out/playing bball, enjoy teaching sunday school, enjoy swing dancing, hanging out with friends, etc. These are all great things for me, but maybe I feel like there should be more. However, I think I have come to the conclusion that it's a matter of perspective and how I am viewing things. It really takes me back to the foot of the cross and revisiting the purpose of my existence here on earth (seeing and proclaiming God's glory in everything and everywhere I am). I guess, I am a pretty long term planner, and there are some definite long term goals I would like to accomplish, but I guess the time-line for these goals is where a lot of the restlessness comes from. Some advice I gave to other people in this stage is really to go deep with God and going deep with Him helps to keep the right perspective on life. Through my prayer time, God has been giving me a lot of peace and comfort as I have been submitting this idea of stagnancy to Him. As young adults, it's really easy to just exist, and existing is very easy and comfortable. Don't get me wrong...I like it when things are easy and comfortable, but then I always ask myself where's the challenge in things being easy? I have discovered a need to challenge myself more, spiritually, intellectually, socially, emotionally and physically. When I started swing dancing, it made me very excited as the learning curve was very steep, but these days, even though I still swing, the same type of "challenge" does not exist. Just this week at work, although I was taking margin data for the chips, I did this repetitively over a 2-day span...I got a little bored. I guess what I am saying is that I constantly need new refreshing stuff in my life to challenge me, to push me a little harder than before. That's why I enjoy traveling, because I see things I'm not used to seeing (opening my eyes to more of the world), and force myself to be more flexible than I usually am. Anyways, I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog, but I guess it is also time to start moving more proactively towards some of my long term goals. One tangible step for me to continue to explore this idea and concept of going to China will be taking chinese class this fall at mission college (this will only be my 2nd mandarin class, and I have forgot a lot from my first one). I feel I have finally overcome the 1.5 years of part-time grad school/full-time work intellectual burnout and am ready to hit the books as a dedicated student. I know I'm ready for school again because when I looked at the same class before about 6 months ago, I was daunted by the fact that the class was 15 weeks long. Now, I'm like...cool...let's do it. I'm leaning towards also taking a class on the "Psychology of Personal Growth". I have always liked Psychology, and "personal growth" is one of my passions. This will cut into my swing dancing/workout time, but I feel it's worth the sacrifice. posted by alvin | Friday, July 18, 2003 Happy belated b'day to Mary Ann and happy b'day to Calvin Happy belated b'day to Mary Ann who turned 24 yesterday, and happy b'day to Calvin, who officially turns 26 today. posted by alvin | Friday, July 18, 2003 Good Luck to Chung-Wei Chung-wei leaves for Finch tomorrow in Chicago. Slim and I prayed with him as we met as a small group for the final time. Good luck in school. posted by alvin | Friday, July 18, 2003 Thursday, July 17, 2003 New Album Added Ray/Raysa's wedding plus pics from Ontario (not LA...as Sojin always reminds me). posted by alvin | Thursday, July 17, 2003 Monday, July 14, 2003 Weekend Recap Had a good relaxing weekend. Started off with bowling with RW at palo alto bowl on fri. night. Now, the bowling cost like $15, and I didn't realize until later that we were only able to bowl from 8:30-10:30 p.m. I would have showed up on time if I knew we could bowl only to 10:30 p.m. Anyways, with my bowling game...I did take two bowling classes in college, and honestly, I'm not very good. Although I get occasionally lucky, it's difficult for me to sustain it over 10 frames. I have yet to bowl a game with no open frames. Ahh...overall very fun though. Mimi did this classic move (which now I will add to my practical joke library) where she switched with Jonathan to bowl each other's frames in different lanes. As Jonathan bowled normally on Mimi's behalf, Mimi goes and bowls two balls in the gutter on purpose to hurt Jonathan's score. Messed up man!!!!! Later as she was bowling...I yelled out her name to distract her, and she bowled that ball into the gutter. I told her, "What goes around comes around?"...hahahahaha. Anyways, we headed to Denny's afterwards (north on El camino...not south), people got lost...actually I got lost too. I had a good time laughing with Tilden, Mimi, Dave S and Lynn on our side of the table. The highlight of the night was Dave S explaining to us his coin-rolling abilities, where he takes different types of coins and meticulously puts them into rolls. He has spent many a hours doing this. Although he got a coin sorter last year for Christmas, he actually returned it to get credit to purchase a Playstation 2. We laughed because it was probably like $20 credit and he put in $200 of his own money to buy the Playstation. Hilarious. Go Dave. Anyways, I love laughing alongside RWers. I feel very accepted and loved at RW and feel like I can be goofy self. So, on Sat. I had to finish prepping Sunday School, so that took a lot of my time, but I was able to finish some laundry and then also head to the CBCSJ praise nite. I stopped also by work for 1.5 hrs. trying to set up the FSB logic analyzer. It was a good day. As the college group adviser, I really don't do much, and I sometimes feel bad about it (I think part of it is guilt). However, as I am reminded that I set some clear expectations and boundaries as to what I could do and offer, and they still wanted me as their adviser...I feel less guilty. However, I still need to be more proactive in building stronger relationships with the college students. I don't feel as connected as I think I should be. The topic for SS was biology (the origin of life?). It's quite challenging to put all the material together. The concept of teleology (a design suggests a designer exists), is so prevalent in the world. Back in Chicago, when I visited the Field Museum, I was taken so aback by the sheer amount of animal/plant species, and just how God orchestrated each one. He's da' bomb. Played bball with RW. People seem to be showing up later and later these days. I miss the times when PBC-YAF would join us, and we would have like 3 games going on at once. The good ol' days. We said goodbye to Stephanie who is now heading to NY to work. Ahh...the transitional life of young adults. Alright, so at night...I had dinner with Hanna. She kept laughing at me and kept saying how funny I was. Hmm...I don't think I try to be funny, it just comes off like that. I think my transitions through topics are very abrupt...I will work on more smooth transitions when I talk with people. After dinner I headed to SCU to do some reading since I needed to pick up Calvin from the airport. One thing I realized...man, i miss studying. =P. Although that sounds really nerdy...I guess I miss the intellectual challenge of learning new things. So, this brings me to taking classes at Mission College, (close by work for me) in fall. It's been about 1.5 years since I have finished grad school and had any type of formal learning...so I feel I have recovered adequately from working so hard in grad school to being able to take class now. I think I will take, "the psychology of personal growth," and "mandarin 50A". Anybody else interested? =P. Oh yeah, my swing dancing sabbatical has sorta' backfired. As Nicole has been organizing events, I feel as the #2 RW swing dance enthusiast, that I need to support her. Eh...maybe a sabbatical in August? posted by alvin | Monday, July 14, 2003 Thursday, July 10, 2003 Baseball Player Hits Mascot This article is freaking hilarious. http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0710/1579059.html You gotta' check out the video too. My favorite paragraph of the article: "As they jogged by, Simon swatted the Italian sausage, who went down in a heap. The giant hot dog stumbled over the sausage and also tumbled to the ground. The two women wearing the costumes were treated for scraped knees." "The giant hot dog stumbled over the sausage"...hahahahaha. posted by alvin | Thursday, July 10, 2003 Wednesday, July 09, 2003 July 4th recap I apologize for all my faithful readers. Work has definitely picked up and don't have as much time to blog. Leaving comments does help to encourage me to blog more though. =P. Anyways, for July 4th I headed out to Chicago for vacation. I actually had july 3rd off, and also took july 7th off. A couple thoughts. 1. i don't like crowds, and chicago can get pretty crowded (over 7 mil. population), especially at the "Taste" or watching fireworks at grant park. 2. people watching is an interesting pasttime. michigan ave. is a good place to people watch. 3. chicago is humid and hot. not as bad as when i was in china, but no air conditioning when sleeping is tough. 4. i tour a big city more efficiently on my own. =P. 5. i enjoy playing tourist, but like getting around the city like normal people (taking the subways, buses, walking, etc.), to see what life is really like and get a better sense of community. 6. when traveling, being flexible is very important. 7. it's nice to have friends who live in different places. I was able to sync up with alice, caroline, derick (from RW) and elaine (pesi) while in chicago. i met amy at parkwood church, who actually knows josh and spencer (from RW) from before, and then ellen at parkwood church also is friends with mike (from RW) from northwestern...small world. A couple things i did and saw in quick summary. shedd aquarium, adler planetarium, field museum, museum of science and industry, sears tower, buckingham fountain, grant park, northwestern (evanston campus), navy pier (3 times), wrigley field, united center, u.s. cellular park, soldier field, espn sportszone, gino's east for deep dish pizza, afro-carribean festival, old water tower, michigan ave. (magnificent mile), parkwood church, etc. probably a lot more that i did too, so look for my photo album to be posted shortly. Overall, a really fun time out there. Quite tired though. My flight was delayed coming back 2.5 hrs., so i arrived early tues. morning and got home about 2 a.m. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 09, 2003 |
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