Tomorrow’s August. Yeah, I know, big revelation right? But it does show how much of the summer is already behind us. Although it’s been only about a little over a month since the summer solstice, the days have already started becoming noticeably shorter. (Technically summer began on June 21st, which is the date of the summer solstice, but since I’m in Berkeley, summer began for me when the school semester finished in late May. And c’mon, the summer solstice is also known as Midsummer, which any reasonable person would figure to mean that it marks the middle of the summer, except that it doesn’t.)

But that’s just how things are. The days will continue getting shorter and shorter, until they start getting longer and longer, and then the cycle repeats. To think that it’s already been a year since summer ended last year, and that it’ll be another year until the next summer begins. Shocking, huh.

In other news, my forearms and scapula are apparently too tight, so my chiropractor gave me this one exercise where I straighten my arms downward at a 45 degree angle and pretend I’m pushing against two walls. As of now, doing the exercise makes my forearms feel all tingly and my fingers numb.

I love free concerts in the park!

Went out to grab some quick Thai food for lunch today, and discovered a blues band playing in the nearby Transamerica Redwood Park! How cool is that? So I found a place to sit in an adjoining section where I could listen in while eating, but then moved to better seating directly in front of the musicians after finishing up my food. The lead singer had a pretty rich voice and played the sax (sweet!), supported by an electric guitar, a bass guitar, and, of course, the drums. And though they seemed pretty up there in age (they looked to be in the vicinity of their 60’s), they were pretty darn good. And it gets better. Partway through, a harmonica jumps in! That was a real treat. Listening to them inspired me to pick up my own harmonica again. It’s too bad that I only could sit in for two songs before I decided it was time to get back to work. But finding that random little gem definitely put a bounce in my step and brought a smile to my face.

On the downside, I lost my Clipper Card (public transit pass) after work. Boo. And I was dreading all the hoops that I thought I’d have to jump through to get a replacement, let alone recoup the original balance loaded on the lost card. But it turns out that they’ve made it just as easy as reporting a lost credit card; you just log-in, click a few buttons, and then you’re done. The lost card is blocked, the balance is retained, and a new card gets shipped within five business days. After this experience, I now have a warm fuzzy feeling towards Clipper Card management. Okay, maybe not really, but kudos to whoever was in charge of setting up that system. It works.

Oh, and this came to me this morning:

Every new day’s a new start.
Lord, again we’re coming to You.
Lord, could You ever break through within us
If, Lord, we gave You a part?

O Lord, we can’t do it on our own.
O Lord Jesus! How we need You!
Win us, woo us, to Thyself, Lord,
That we’d ever stay, Lord, with You.

I just vacuumed a bug off my wall. Awesome, quick, clean, and painless. Forget the fly swatter or the futility of a waving palm; hand-held vacuums are the way to go.

Sometimes, it’s just nice to leave everyone in the living room and quietly step out onto the back porch by yourself. And while standing outside, in that solitude, to allow the shoulders to drop and to breathe in deeply of the crisp night air, savoring the subtle fragrances in the gentle breeze. In the quiet calm of the night, the cares and burdens ever pressing down are felt even more keenly, but with each exhale, “Lord Jesus.” …… “O Lord Jesus.” ……”Lord Jesus.”

And before anyone notices that you’ve been gone, you’ve already rejoined the group.

I’m hungryyy.

This may very well be the result of eating only a fistful of Romaine, one tomato, one cob of corn, and a bowl of cherries for dinner. The question is, go to sleep hungry or eat something and have the food just weigh on me in my belly while I’m trying to sleep. And if the second option, what to eat? Hmm.

Oh! That’s right, I have a box of Thin Mints stashed in the bottom left cabinet of my desk. I’ve had it there since the beginning of March, yet I’ve only consumed 2-3 cookies so far. Yum, Thin Mints. Yes, that should do the trick–appease my stomach while avoiding the bloating. Hoarded foodstuffs do come in handy!

Today was one of those great days. The first half started with some good fellowship with the brothers in the morning, followed by a pleasant hall cleaning with a delicious grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup brunch. And then I spent the majority of my afternoon trekking around Berkeley, poking my head into different places/stores, snapping photos, and thoroughly enjoying myself. It’s pretty awesome how there’s so many nifty little things you can find if you just pause and allow yourself some time to closely look around. And especially with the campus, you can find some fresh perspectives that you normally miss when rushing to and fro from class.

I think that’s the same with a lot of things in life. We’re so busy with the task on hand or with getting to the next destination, that we don’t or aren’t able to fully take in nor appreciate our surroundings, and sometimes end up oblivious to all the other “minor” (or so we think) things taking place around us. I guess that’s why they (the always mysterious, anonymous “they”) say it’s helpful to stop once in a while, take a step back, and observe/consider what’s going on, before rolling up your shirt cuffs and wading back into fray.

It seems to me that I sit around quite a bit with not much going on around me. Good thing I have reading material readily accessible in a click…and a swipe…and four more presses. I can almost feel my brain cells growing again as I redevelop my ability to read things (in the secular realm) other than news articles, market reports, and op eds.

Current secular selection: Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War
(I’ve temporarily put The Brothers Karamazov on hold. I figured Part II was a place as good as any for a pause.)

Current ministry selection: Authority and Submission

Two quotes I enjoyed this morning from excerpts taken from The Conclusion of the New Testament, Msg. 31:

Christ, as a Minister of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, ministers heaven (which is not only a place but also a condition of life) into us, so that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth as He did while He was here.

The supply we need comes from the Christ who is both the Lord in the heavens and the Spirit within us. He is interceding for us, caring for us. Now we may experience Him in all His functions as the ascended One. In particular, as the heavenly Minister He transmits what we need from God the Father, who is the source, into our spirit to supply and sustain us.

What we need to live a heavenly life on earth, He directly supplies to us straight from the source.

Sitting in coordination is great. It’s always exciting to see the schedule for Kick-off Week, and it’s even more exciting to see so many students actively involved! I wish I could participate in all the activities, but alas, I have certain responsibilities to attend to. Booooo. I hope someone brings a camcorder and gets everything on film again, especially for the Amazing Race (Berkeley/Oakland edition). Sadly, I’ve yet to edit and put together the video raws from last year’s Kick-off. I love how the Amazing Race this year is advertised as a journey that will not only take you through land, but also fire, water, and air. I guess I’ll just have to experience it vicariously through the students’ stories, FB photos, and hopefully someone’s video feed.

What else? Today, I also managed to get myself to Off the Grid. It’s located in North Berkeley around Shattuck and Rose, right across from Safeway. I’ve seen it for about a month or so now, but every single time, I could only drive past, staring longingly at all the wonderful food trucks. But today…aha!…today, I finally found time to go. And man, was that little section of a blocked off street hopping. I reveled in the energy and excitement that was in the atmosphere, as people sat around chowing down with friends or waited in line to get their hands on mouth-watering foods. And though the lines seemed pretty long, it actually only took me about 20 or so minutes to get my food, which isn’t too bad a wait. The entire time I was there, I had a huge grin plastered on my face. Being there at Off the Grid was definitely a happy thing. But because I wanted to make the aforementioned coordination, I had to leave as soon as I got my food, which is a pity, because a huge part of the experience is just eating there in the midst of all that hustle and bustle. Well, next time. And yes, there will be a next time, because I aim to try something from every single food truck.

Things I want to incorporate into my schedule:

• Wake up at 6:20am and run for 40 minutes, Monday through Friday
• Sleep before midnight (so that I can do the above)
• Go climbing more often or play ball in Peoples’ Park (possibly I can slate this for Saturdays)
• Read or listen to more of the Bible/ministry on my BART commutes

Obviously, I’ve been lacking in exercise…and…mmm…in sleep. Until I can nail down the second bullet of getting to bed on time, I don’t know how likely it will be for the first item to ever be realized (actually I do know: highly unlikely). It’d be pretty awesome if I could put in some running every morning before getting ready for work, but that’s going to take a sheer amount of the exercise of my will to choose it. Brutal. At least if I start in the summer, it should be a little easier to get going, since the cold winter mornings provide quite a bit of counter-incentive to remain under the warm, warm covers.

If nothing else, the third and fourth bullets are very doable. But again, it’s also back to the matter of choosing. When I get on the BART on the way back from work, instead of flipping through Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov on iBooks or breeding more species on Pocket Frogs, I could switch one app over to my iSilo and read the Epistle to the Hebrews or Authority and Submission. (As a side note, it’s quite sad to find that it’s taken me a whole month to merely reach Part II of The Brothers Karamazov. Especially for someone who used to tear through through three books per week in high school, I feel like I fail at reading now. Lame. Again, too many competing options available.)

So yeah, choosing. A lot of things in life boil down to that. Most can agree on what things are beneficial, and some may even want it, but in the end, the catalyst in the conversion from airy dreams to reality lies in the choices we make.

As I get older and older, it gets harder and harder to blog in a consistent way. Seems like the opportunity costs are greater than before; for any one thing I choose to do, there’s a multitude more of things that I won’t be able to do. And that trend will probably continue as more years pass by. <– What an understatement.

The logical solution would be to prioritize what’s important and squeeze the value out of every single minute so that you could do as many things as possible. But here’s the rub — when you do end up having a huge chunks of free time to spare, like I did this past weekend, you find yourself feeling apathetic to everything. The sick irony of it all. At least some productivity somehow finagled it’s way in to help me redeem my time. I cleared some clutter in my room, making space for the boxes I moved up from SoCal that were sitting in the living room (discovering my photo albums along the way–is that how I looked two weeks old?), took my car to the wash, and even got some exercise, compliments of the tennis courts across the street. By golly, the weather on the Lord’s day sure was perfect for that.

Also….(at this point, I would like to warn you that the following thoughts have only a very tenuous connection with the thoughts before, even though I use a conjunction to begin this sentence), is it just me or do the news these days just have a knack of annoying the heck out of its readers? The more and more I read about the wranglings over the debt ceiling, the more and more upset I get; it makes me want to go do some sense-slapping-around on Capitol Hill. Yes, it’s more than likely that I don’t see the full picture and the details of all that’s taking place behind the scenes, but it just seems like our government is run by stubborn, petulant two-year olds (no offense to any two-year olds out there) who’ve never heard the story of the two goats trying to cross the bridge at the same time.

And here’s the tenuous linking thread–with all the time our Congressmen spend in their partisan bickering, they could have made some real progress in addressing the multivarious problems our nation is facing. Or maybe that’s just naivete and wishful thinking. Here’s a quote from one of the news articles: “‘Nobody can bring themselves to believe that these people in Washington are that dumb. But the scary thought is maybe they are,’ said George Feiger, CEO of Contango Capital Advisors in San Francisco. ‘If there is no deal, there will be a huge move up in long-term bond yields.'”

On a positive note, the uncertainty related to the debt ceiling caused the stock market to tank today, allowing me to get a decent buy on an index fund.