and the heart of the alvinator.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2004 Copycat Check out Anthony's blog. All I say is what goes around...comes around...=P. Half an eprop for him. posted by alvin | Tuesday, July 27, 2004 Monday, July 26, 2004 Change/Transformation I went to HOC5 yesterday, as Yvonne came in from HK, and together with Calvin we had lunch at Denny's. btw...two strips of bacon, two sausages, three pancakes, hashbrowns and an omelette scramble is not good prior to playing bball. Hahaha. Anyways, the last time we hung out with Yvonne was a year ago, was when she came out from HK. Hanging out with friends I don't see very often, I was thinking about what has changed since I last saw her. It started me thinking... I was thinking about the past year, and how I have changed, how I have grown, how I have been transformed more into Christ's likeness. I have come to realize that it's such a slow, slow process. I'm impatient. One clear example of change takes me back to college. As many of my college friends would say now, I ran a very tight ship back in college fellowship. It led to a lot of legalism that it took me awhile to work through in my life. It took me to a crossroads to try to discern the core of my beliefs, and how they affect my actions. Bottom line, I feel more free to be myself. Most of it stems from being free from the expectations of people, and allowing myself to be myself. The idea of accepting more of who I am myself. Although, my words have been putting myself in more trouble than before (and thus...more apologies for words that I say hurt)...hehe...I have felt more comfortable expressing what I am feeling and thinking about. Sometimes I don't feel like I have changed much, or been transformed much. But I realize in the grand scheme of things, if I take some time to reflect, God continues to chip away, to refine, to transform me. I still have a super long way to go, and I'm glad that God guides me along this journey. posted by alvin | Monday, July 26, 2004 Friday, July 23, 2004 On Cheating So I decided to stop cheating. After talking with a friend about working out, and how she has a personal trainer, who teaches her about maximizing her workout, I decided to stop cheating. I invest a lot of time in the gym, and I don't see stellar results. She said that her trainer points out all the people in the gym who are doing exercises wrong, and comments how they haven't made progress even though they have been working out for awhile. So, I decided to maximize my own time, and not lean on the precor/elliptical machine, and not hold myself up on the stairmaster. Although in theory I burn more calories at a higher level, I cheat through leaning, holding myself up, so I don't maximize the workout. A trainer is too expensive for me (like $49 a session), so I guess I will need to learn stuff on my own...or ask friends who have trainers to teach me. posted by alvin | Friday, July 23, 2004 Monday, July 19, 2004 Birthday Shout Outs Lots of people with birthdays in July. Happy 27th birthday to Calvin. Calvin was my housemate back in college, and definitely a great friend. One of the most loyal guys you will ever meet. Quality guy. Happy 26th birthday to Gloria. Gloria and I went to high school together, and re-synced when I started going to RW. She is very good with e-mailing, and someone I consider fairly elegant. Fantastic voice and administratively gifted. Happy 26th birthday to Will. I met Will through RW, and we have been serving in the worship ministry together for awhile now. An avid Duke supporter, and basketball/surfing enthusiast, he is a student of pop culture (dominating Trivia Pursuit games). Good heart, good life, good example for his youth kids. Happy 25th birthday to Iris and Christine. I met Christine/Iris through the China Summer Program back in '02, a short-term missions trip with PESI. Both are extroverts, and are big party animals. They are willing to tell you like it is. Thanks to them for giving me pointers on being more fashionable, being more sensitive, and for teaching me how to club. posted by alvin | Monday, July 19, 2004 Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Passion I have been thinking about passion lately. Passion in all areas of life. It made me think about a RW bible study back at the Baylor House where Josh posed a question of what is your dream job. I wrote something along the lines of "a place where I can apply the skills I learned at school along with a place where I could be challenged professionally." I remember Lee saying, "That's a weird answer. I would not have expected that from you." Hahaha. Good stuff. Anyways, I was thinking why I feel somewhat bored in life deals with my not growing and improving my passions. The following is a list of things I'm passionate about. 1. God. 2. Personal growth. 3. Self-actualization. 4. Friendships/Deeper relationships with people (Deep conversations). 5. Challenge in different areas of life. 6. New experiences. 7. Mentoring. 8. Working Out/Basketball. 9. Analyzing/Understanding people (Psychology/sociology). 10. Studying. In looking over this list, I realized that I haven't been growing many of these things in life. Instead of focusing on these things, I sometimes just feel like I'm spinning my wheels, "existing" and numbing myself from actually pursuing these things more fervently. I find it hard to motivate myself these days. I fill my calendar with social activities, so I don't need to think about the deeper issues of life. =P. Anybody else do this? My philosophy through school was to always do enough to get by. I have always found ways through the schooling system, and put myself in positions to succeed that require the minimum of effort. I can provide you numerous examples of this through my educational career. One friend positioned it as "it shows you are smart that you know how to get by with minimal effort." Hahahahaha...thanks. =P. Anyways, it's time to stop being mediocre. It's time to stop being content with getting by with minimal effort. Pray for me. No more being a slacker. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 14, 2004 C2 From Coke's website: "Coca-Cola C2 brings all the great Coca-Cola taste with 1/2 the carbs and calories of regular Coca-Cola. The result is an exceptional and uniquely clean, crisp refreshment experience." I just finished my first can of C2. I drank it for a caffeine kick. Hmm...I would have to disagree about all the "great Coca-Cola taste." It doesn't taste like Coke, and frankly, it takes more like Diet Coke than anything else. Boo for C2...(maybe it will disappear like New Coke did, and Coca-Cola classic came back to life.) posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Thoughts on Shaq and Boozer Shaq is now headed to Miami, and Boozer signed the qualifying offer for Utah. Shaq The Miami Heat will now be the team to beat in the Eastern Conference. It's funny now that Shaq is re-teaming with Eddie Jones, of which both played in LA together before. What goes around comes around. Miami has up and coming rookie, Dwayne Wade and Jones to play with Shaq. I wonder now if Malone will go to San Antonio to team up with Duncan. Possibly. =P. The Lakers will be carried by Kobe, and in the center dominated West, the Lakers hope they can snatch up Divac from Sacramento. Sacramento, can let Divac go now that they have Brad Miller to play the center position. Anyways, the Lakers will not win the championship next year, nor will the Miami Heat. Shaq is not the dominant player he used to be, and frankly he is a very old 32. With people hanging off of him every game, he always takes a beating. Big men, especially Shaq always get beat up. Nobody in the eastern conference can cover him. He has extended his career going to the eastern conference too. Anyways, the window for the Kings has reopened, and the Spurs have a very good shot at the championship too. Boozer Hmm...let's just say trickster. Cleveland took a huge risk in not picking up the offer for Boozer. A "good-faith" agreement was in place, and now Cleveland loses him to free agency without any compensation. Sad, sad, sad. Cleveland should have picked up the offer, and worked with him to get a contract extension next year. If not, they should have traded him next year prior to the trade deadline so that he wouldn't walk away empty handed. His career will now be defined by this moment. Sad for a young man, to go away from his word, and seek out money. He would have an easier time teaming with Lebron to get deeper into the playoffs than with Utah. Boo for Boozer. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Wednesday, July 07, 2004 Gubo and Palanka and their foreign exchange friend Ding Yun. Anyways, I signed up for Chinese 50B at Mission College. I took Chinese 50A last year. They didn't offer CHN50B this past spring, and only have it for this fall. The class is fairly easy, and never meets for the total amount of time budgeted. It meets only on Monday night. Homework is very minimal. If you're interested in taking the class with me, go ahead and sign up through Mission College. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 07, 2004 Pics from Tahoe New album posted. Pics from Tahoe. posted by alvin | Wednesday, July 07, 2004 Tuesday, July 06, 2004 Thoughts from Tahoe... To preface everything, "what happened in tahoe, stays in tahoe." Overall, a real fun time. Very chill, but at the same time, very tiring. Lots of cards, Settlers, food, and of course, good laughs. The energy level from the weekend was extremely high. 2 eprops go to Mike Ho for organizing the trip. You can always count on Mike on coming through. On Sat., we went kayaking on Lake Tahoe. I was extremely fickle during this time, and wanted to go water skiing, but due to cost (over $150), I negged on water skiing, leaving Amy to Derick, and went kayaking with the rest of the group. Amy and Derick found a place that only charged $115 including boat, lessons, wetsuit, etc. I was happy with my kayaking decision though. It took me about 25 min. to catch up with the other group, since I got my kayak later than everyone else. After kayaking, we spent some time sitting in the hot tub, then, ate taco salad, played Settlers, cards, couch game, etc. On Sun. we went hiking at the Rubicon trail, one of Tahoe's most scenic hikes. Very beautiful place. We got back, spent some time in hot tub, played Settlers, ate dinner and then headed over to watch fireworks. The fireworks were awesome, best I have seen. A lot of variety, long fireworks set, and being among good friends. On Mon., woke up early to clean-up and pack, and took a long drive back home. Ate at Ikeda which is a great pie place in Auburn. Overall, good times. Tiring though. More like a trip than a vacation. Photos will come soon. Funny Inside Jokes: 1. Will saying to me, when I made a comment to Melanie. Will (to Alvin): "From 1 to appropriate, that comment is definitely a zero." 2. When playing "Screwy Louie" DaveS notes that "Melanie has the runs." 3. In the hot-tub, Amy, as she is adjusting to a more comfortable position starts undoing her bikini top says, "I'm getting more comfortable." Mike and I go, "Oh my ..."...Luckily, she was only retying it. Tahoe by the Numbers: 0: games of Settlers won by me 1: times that Marina and Mel flipped their 2-person kayak 2: number of kayaks a dog peed on when we were eating lunch 2: "couch games" lost by the guys (we think about cars.) 3: swimwear attire pieces in the shower that anthony complained about 3: times Melanie proclaimed, "I love SwitchFoot." 4: hours, it took to bake a lasagna on sun. night. lasagna tastes good at 2:15 a.m. 5: number of moans I heard when suggesting to take a group photo. 6: number of people we had in the 4 person hot-tub. (stop touching me..."hand check"...ooh...bubbles) 7: cars driven to tahoe (with total amount of peeps attending was 16...ahh the joys of flexibility) 8: hours taken to drive home (including lunch at ikeda and short shopping stint at Vacaville) 10: times i used the daves joke, "melanie has the runs." i get good mileage out of jokes. 12: obnoxious comments I made during the fireworks display 14: total hours of sleep for me this past weekend (fri., sat., sun.) 15: total money shots (photos) from the weekend 20: sketchy photos taken by mike 30: times filter was taken off by daves 70+: eggs consumed on this trip 108: eggs bought for the trip posted by alvin | Tuesday, July 06, 2004 Friday, July 02, 2004 4th of July I'll be heading to Tahoe with some RW peeps. Check out the place we will stay at: House. Should be a good and relaxing time. No official plans, but looks like water sports one day, and hiking the next...and I'll briefly come out of sabbatical to play Settlers. =P. I heard on the news this morning of the top places to watch fireworks. 1. New York 2. Boston 3. I don't remember (DC?) 4. I don't remember (Chicago?) 5. San Francisco, Lake Tahoe Woohoo...I have seen fireworks over SF before, and now I'll go to Tahoe to see them too. Have a safe 4th. =P. posted by alvin | Friday, July 02, 2004 Thursday, July 01, 2004 On work I have started to read "The Purpose Driven Life," by Rick Warren, and it started to get me thinking a bit about work. I used to be very idealistic towards work. Company this, company that. I used to be extremely dedicated to my company. Ahh...but rest assured that the Gen. X characteristic of cynicism started to kick-in. It all started at my first job. I learned about "Green Handcuffs (H-1 visa folks)," and the company's ability to hold employees during to visa issues. I remember waking up at 4 a.m. one day to make sure I could get to the tester at work. Ahh...so naive. As I transitioned to HP, and went through 3 rounds of layoffs, that also helped to open my eyes. HP was not known for their layoffs, but once the merger with Compaq occurred in '02, there was too much overlap, so people had to be laid off. Seeing my good co-workers get hammered, brought the layoff into perspective. I remember one manager saying, "HP doesn't owe you anything." I thought to myself..."yeah, that's exactly right." So, I went ahead and flipped that statement, "I don't owe anything to them." From then, I have kept things about work in perspective. Honestly, I have forgotten what it looks like to work hard...hehe. I actually cringe when I hear my friends saying they are putting in extra hours at work. I do get my work done, and frankly here at my current company, the motto of "Underworked and overpaid," still applies. I am very blessed. Anyways, the final perspective I offer is that of a person dying. The person never says, "I wish I could have worked more. Oh...I feel so bad for not finishing my project." So, I just encourage my readers to keep things in perspective. Work to live, not live to work. On that note, I guess I should get something done today. =P. posted by alvin | Thursday, July 01, 2004 |
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