Most people have probably been following the news regarding the economic downturn, the tightening credit market, and the $700 billion financial bailout drama…to some degree. And it seems like every single person and their grandmas, no matter how ill-informed they are (not saying that grandmas are ill-informed), have an opinion to offer regarding the entire economic mess that merely piles upon the already-ridiculously-large heap of opinions. It seems like most really have no clue as to what is going on.

I found it especially difficult to develop an objective understanding of the recent economic events with so much white noise interference (e.g. already-ridiculously-large heap of opinions). Besides, these are already some  relatively complex issues as they stand. However, after much browsing and reading, I have found two articles that I think may explain the current crisis in a clear and cohesive way.

   NY Times
    Lessons from a Crisis: When Trust Vanishes, Worry

   Newsweek
    Is This a Replay of 1929?

Of course, people may disagree with the views expressed in these articles. In response, I would say to take the argument up with those authors. I don’t pretend to know enough about the issues at hand to provide a meaningful debate. But do feel free to show me a better article.

There sure are a whole lotta Prii on the streets up here in the Bay Area. A couple of days ago, on my way to pick up a housemate from the Oakland Airport, I saw at least 16 Prii within a span of 20 minutes (the time it takes to get to the airport). That’s about a Prius sighting every 1 minute and 15 seconds. And that’s not including the first generation models, or the ones I might have missed while navigating the freeway.

I know people here are eco-friendly, but this is just kind of crazy. Still, the Prius is a cool car.

This past Sunday, I was invited to a BBQ with some of the Berkeley saints along with a number of college brothers. While others were cooking up some saliva inducing pork ribs, six of us played croquet. Brother Chuck, our host, totally cleared us all out in one fell swoop after he became poison. (In croquet, after you navigate through all the wickets and hit the final peg, your ball becomes “poison” and is able to eliminate all the balls it touches from the game.) Obviously, he had home court advantage.

The BBQ itself was delicious. There were some pretty good sausages, and we also had some honey-barbeque beans with real bacon and chunky pork bits. But the ribs. MmmMmm. The portions of the rib around the cartilage were so fatty that it melted in my mouth. It was yummzers.

Then the brothers had a brief meeting regarding the ushering at the Lord’s Day meetings (which was actually the main point of the BBQ). Afterwards, we went and played some volleyball. I was so engrossed in the game that I clotheslined myself on the support ropes when chasing a loose ball. That was an experience. My glasses, of course, went flying.

Last week, my family and I had ourselves a three-day mini-vacation. We took a 1 1/2 hour boat ride to Penghu, which is a small group of islands just off the west coast of Taiwan. Though we had various excursions (documenting photos can be found in the photo album), one of the main highlights was fishing for squid at night.

We went squid fishing our first evening. In order to do so, we took a boat to a big floating platform out in the middle of the ocean. By the time we arrived, it was already dark. Good thing the platform was all lit up (which was quite a site), otherwise some people might have fallen into the ocean. Mainly though, the lights acted to lure all the squid and whatnots to their doom. Muahahaha.

This was my third time ever really fishing for something (trying to catch little fish in a bucket using paper paddles doesn’t count). My record at the time was 0 for 2. I had never caught anything yet. Little did I know, I would haul in three squid in that one night.

You can tell it was quite exciting.

Afterwards, we had ourselves a little feast. Some of that night’s catch was prepared as sashimi, but some of it was also cooked. After partaking of both, I decided that I preferred the cooked squid. Don’t get me wrong. I like sashimi and the squid sashimi was very fresh (considering one of them had only squirted me with water as I reeled it in half an hour ago). But because it was so fresh, it was somewhat lukewarm. Personally, I like my sashimi cold, like how they serve it in Japanese restaurants.

Another highlight of the trip was riding a motorcycle around the main island. Learning how to ride the motorcycle was fun. It picks up pretty easy, kind of like riding a bike, but faster and heavier. It was a wonderful feeling to ride down an open road at full speed, feeling the breeze in your face and watching the beautiful landscape pass by.

This post may be a little bit late, but last Monday and Tuesday, I was helping out with a local childrens’ summer camp, teaching the little kids how to sing childrens’ hymns in English. It wasn’t too bad. Surprisingly, the kids picked up the songs pretty fast.

During the two-day camp, we also devoted a solid chunk of time to crafts each day. One of the childrens’ moms taught us how to make stuffed animals out of a pair of socks. It was quite fun. Below is my personal attempt at making my own stuffed animal. They kids thought it was pretty cool, but I’m still not quite sure what I made…

The above also means I figured out how to upload and post images in WordPress, despite the fact that the Image/Media Uploader is having problems.

Last week after the training ended, I spent the majority of my Sunday and Monday cleaning the house and boxing my belongings. As part of that process, I took some time to sort through my mail (snail mail, not e-mail), which had been allowed to accumulate throughout the term. Of course, during the weeks, I would take a look at anything that seemed important. But most of the time, I don’t receive anything in the mail except bank statements, credit card bills, and junk. If I know something is junk, I’ll toss it, but I usually just file everything else away in a drawer.

You wouldn’t think that it requires too much time to go through the mail. It should probably only take a few minutes right? Or not. With a large stack like the one I had, the minutes add up. I think I wasted between 1 to 2 hours working on it.

One issue of my hard labor was a collection of organized statements arranged neatly by account and date. (Yes. I just might have OCD.) A second issue was a small mound of torn-up credit card offers.

Sometimes I wonder if credit card companies have a thing against trees. Think about it. I get a notice that I’m preapproved for a credit card from the same bank/company every two weeks or so. (It’s like they don’t know when or how to stop.) And assuming I’m not the only person receiving those offers (which I believe is a very high probability), that’s about six pages of paper and two envelopes per month multiplied by the hundreds of thousands of people in the US. (I assume credit card companies want every single person to own a card, including your average toddler, so they can slap them with a hefty interest charge whenever they fail to make a payment on the $1,000 pacifier they bought with their Visa.) That’s a whole lot of wasted paper. And that’s just one credit card company.

At this rate, a small forest is probably dying every month.

I’ve flown back and forth from Taiwan so often that I think it’s become something of a routine to me. I probably could pack my belongings, drive to the airport, check-in my bags, pass through security, navigate the terminals, and board the plane all with my eyes closed. Actually…I couldn’t.

Anyways. What I’m saying is that these long international flights (13 hours in the air) just don’t faze me anymore. It used to be that making sure I have the right documents at the check-in counter and passing through security seemed like a big deal. Not anymore. I consider the entire process the equivalent of taking the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from Berkeley to San Francisco, except much, much more time intensive.

Ease does come with practice. I’ve even gotten better at occupying those 13 hours, so as to minimize the amount of time I’m sitting in my seat bored out of my mind with the unpleasant feeling of cotton mouth from the dry air and dozing off too often. In my recent travels, I’ve found that one thing really helps. Read the ministry and the Bible. Praying over hymns from the hymnal isn’t too shabby either.

On this past particular flight, I was quite cherished by Hymn #676, which goes:

“All they griefs by Him are ordered,
Needful is each one for thee;
All thy tears by Him are counted,
One too much there cannot be;
And if while they fall so quickly
Thou canst own His way is right,
Then each bitter tear of anguish
Precious is in Jesus’ sight.

Far too well they Savior loves thee
To allow thy life to be
One long, calm, unbroken summer-
One unruffled, stormless sea;
He would have thee fondly nestling
Closer to His loving breast,
He would have that day seem brighter
When alone is perfect rest.”

I outgrew my wardrobe.

Allow me to explain. Because of the strict dress code in the training, for the duration of these past two years, I have been storing the majority of my clothes at my aunt’s house. (She’s actually my mother’s cousin, but in the Chinese language, “aunt” pretty much refers to any female who is about your mother’s age.) But now that I’ve already graduated, I figure I better stop occupying all that closet space in her house.

So today, I went over there and moved all my clothes out of there…only to pile them all on my bed. As I was looking over them, this thought crossed my mind: “I don’t think I can wear most of these things anymore.” It was at that point, then, that I realized that I had outgrown my wardrobe. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up.

Okay. So usually, people will phase items in and out of their wardrobes gradually over time. Under normal circumstances, the wardrobe will grow with the person as they mature. But, because of the special circumstances in the training, my wardrobe was, in a sense, placed on hold. Looking at the items occupying my entire bed is like looking at a snapshot of a bygone era frozen in time. All in all, it’s quite fascinating.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all these clothes.

I’ve been telling myself that a lot. Now, I’m just waiting for it to really sink in.

I realize that I’ve graduated as an objective fact, but in terms of my experience, it’s somewhat surreal. It even seems that there’s a mental block that prevents me from considering too much all the implications related to being a graduate. I get the fuzzy feeling that I’m no longer bound by certain outward regulations, but there’s still somewhat of a disconnect in my head. I’m not saying that I don’t have the inward regulation of the law of the Spirit of life anymore, because I do and it’s quite active. My point is that I no longer have to show up to 11 roll calls in a day anymore. Which means the thought is no longer, “Oh. I have to be faster so I won’t get a tardy,” but more, “I need to be in the meetings on time and ready to exercise so as not to dampen, but help uplift the atmosphere of the meeting.”

Basically, what this all boils down to is that I now need a paradigm shift in my view of all things and matters.

Bugs in my wordpress files kept me from writing anything since my last post. For some  strange reason, the word editor box was just not clickable, which meant I could forget about typing anything. But now its fixed, ergo, this post.

Now, I’m in Berkeley, and it’s cold and rainy. I need to find out who’re available to hang out. Hard to do when people are at work or going to classes.