We’re in the process of combining some of our life-insurance policies, so I had to participate in a relatively simple physical today. Part of it involved drawing blood samples so that they can run some diagnostic tests back in the lab. I think when I was younger, I would look away and clench my eyes together hard when I knew I was about to be poked with a needle. But over time, I somehow developed the habit of staring the needle down instead…like “I dare you to poke me.” To be honest, it also makes me feel a little bit more macho.

Actually, keeping my eyes open is a lot more interesting. It’s somewhat fascinating to watch as the piece of metal pierces the skin, and then begin to see, after a few seconds of delay, the deep redness of my life gushing out into a test tube. It’s surreal. And, it’s a good thing my veins are pretty prominent; makes it easier for the needle to find its mark without any of that unnecessary prodding and poking around.

As a byproduct of the physical, I also discovered my measurements: 39.5″ – 33″ – 40.5″.

My “d” key does not work anymore. asfjkl;asfjkl;asfjkl; Yes, that sequence does not include any “d’s” on purpose. Do you know how annoying it is not to have that key available? Actually, I really don’t think you do (unless it’s happened to you before). If it was a “z,” I think I could live with that. Maybe even a “b.” But a “d”?! C’mon now. Approximately half of all words in the English language end with either an “e,” “t,” “d,” or “s.” And think of all those verbs out there after they’ve been put into the past tense. Plus, if you’re trying to take notes for the training, imagine how many times you have to type “God” or “Lord.” Yeah…it gets pretty annoying.

But I can’t just give up on typing just b/c of one missing letter (although this post would read pretty badly if all the “d’s” disappeared). So I improvise. When I type, in place of hitting the “d” key, I now hit “Ctlr+v” instead. Yeah. Pretty lame. It really puts a crimp in my typing speed, but you just kind of have to make-do with what you’ve got.

Sigh. It really is time to get a new laptop. I’m thinking maybe a Lenovo ThinkPad X200, what’d you think?

I came home today after the meeting, went to my room, and immediately realized something was off. The small corner of the room that I had designated for dirty clothes was dirty clothes-less. After a hurried descent down the stairs, I confirmed what I suspected…my mom had done the laundry for me. I don’t understand why she does that (okay, maybe I have a guess; I’ll develop that thought later in this post though). I always tell her not to do my laundry because I plan on taking care of it myself, but I keep finding my neat pile of dirty clothes disappearing all the time.

I then scamper back upstairs to see what other damage was done. It turns out she had also ironed my clothes…but somehow managed to iron the collared shirt and pair of pants that had already been worn and that had been specifically set for the wash. Now, it’s not that I’m ungrateful and don’t appreciate my mom trying to do these things for me, I do appreciate it…especially ironing, since that does take up a decent amount of time. But I have a system for my laundry when I’m living out of a duffel-bag/suitcase, and when someone doesn’t know the system yet tries to help, it causes some problems…like neatly-pressed dirty clothes. (Yes, I also realize that there’s a high possibility that I may just be a bit of a control freak.)

Now while I was mulling over this, half-annoyed, in the shower, I think I got some idea of why my mom keeps on doing my laundry uninvited. Since her children have all grown up and are now relatively self-reliant, it might be that she feels she’s not needed anymore (which is not true; we still need her as our mom, just not so much when it comes to doing my laundry) and her washing/ironing my clothes is a way to maintain her feeling of worth as a mom. I guess if that’s true, then it’s an indictment of how terrible a son I am in not adequately communicating my appreciation of her. I’m also thinking that there must be some kinks that need to be worked out in the transition that takes place with the mother-child dynamic as the children become adults, but then again, maybe mothers will just always continue to view their sons as their little boys…even when they’re now twenty-six years old.

Perhaps I should just let my mom continue doing my laundry if it makes her happy.

…and leave detailed charts and signs delineating my system.

This is one of those posts where I really don’t have the subject planned out from the get-go. I do feel like I need to put something down in words, yet at the same time, I’m not exactly sure what that something is…and even then, I don’t know if I can be so free with my thoughts. So instead, I just start typing and see what eventually comes out. (That’s also why I came up with the subject header after I finished the post. [btw. I wrote that parenthesis as if I were already done with the post. But I’m not and neither did I come up with the heading yet. I also wonder if this parenthesis within the parenthesis has now absolutely confounded you.] )

I guess I could write about my day and how I spent a good chunk of it (in addition to even larger chunk yesterday) with my family at another car dealership. (Conclusions: 1) Car price negotiations are annoying. 2) My sister now has a 3rd gen Prius. Yes. We like Prii. 3) Car price negotiations are still annoying.)

Or I could write about how I attended my sister’s graduation from the Full-Time Training earlier in the day. They had a pretty sweet song they sung at the beginning and came with a surround-sound effect. (Note to self: get the music.) And about how the content of their presentation was also pretty good. (I was planning on listing the points that I thought were awesome, but as soon as I started typing them out, I realized that I would also need to provide a good amount of background explanation [i.e. pearls and gates], which I really don’t feel like doing right now.) This time around though, I don’t think I greeted as many people at the graduation as I normally do. Maybe b/c I just stayed in my sister’s corner.

Or I could write about how my laptop fan sounds really bad. Right now it’s going GRAAAK…spin…GRAAAK…spin…GRAAAK. Yeah, pretty fail attempt at onomatopoeia. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that it was chewing up the inside of my laptop. (It’s not. I think it just needs some grease on the bearing.) But I’ll probably just buy another laptop, since this one is 4 years old anyway, and somewhat falling apart (though still very functional).

Or I could just stop writing b/c I don’t feel like any of these items are really matching what’s brewing in me right now.

Yeah.

I yelled at myself quite a bit on the drive down to Socal today. I also entertained the idea of slapping myself silly, but decided against it. Most of the verbal self-abuse came immediately after I caught myself spacing out for seconds or two at a time. Those few seconds of drifting off scare the heck out of me…especially when you’re barreling down the freeway and all your brother’s boxes are loaded up in the back adding to the forward momentum.

Note to self: When you’re going to be driving by yourself for a good distance, it’s not a good idea to only have 4.5 hours of sleep. It makes you so ridiculously tired on the road…like today.

For example, although I had only been on the road for an hour, by the time I reached the I-5, I realized I desperately needed to make a stop ASAP. I swung into the first McDonald’s I saw and ordered an iced-coffee and a bite to eat. It turns out that in the few minutes I was waiting for my order, I somehow managed to doze off…which was pretty bad, considering I still had a long ways to go on the road. So, after finishing my crispy chicken club sandwich (which was delicious at the time), I took a 30 minute nap right there at the table. (By the way, it was interesting that when I woke up, there was a completely new set of people eating at the tables surrounding mine.) I think that mini-nap combined with the sugar-loaded coffee helped quite a bit, seeing as I’m still here writing this entry.

Oh. And maybe the yelling too.

“God’s will doth make the bitter sweet,
And all is well when it is done;
Unless His will doth hallow it,
The glory of all joy is gone.”

 
This is to serve as a preemptive reminder to myself for later down the line, both in the way of comfort and as a straight, sober word.

I recently had a talk with a good friend. And the topic of our conversation mainly centered on me being in a pickle (or if you would, a plight, a predicament, or just plain doo doo). Now, in the course of our conversation, my friend pointed out that I had been a bit undisciplined in the matter (which I readily acknowledged), and suggested I exercise some self-discipline.

Normally, I consider myself relatively well-disciplined, but having thought about it some more just now, I might be somewhat self-deluded. To be more accurate, I probably should say that I’m well-disciplined when it really counts. Yes, it’s somewhat ambiguous as to what “really counts,” and it also leaves a lot to be desired for the remaining occasions. And even with that, there will be times that I know in my head that something really counts (like having a daily personal time with the Lord in the morning), but somehow there’s a disconnect so that it doesn’t get into my active consciousness.

This may account for why I’ll complete work assignments in a good and timely way, yet I’ll let a number of weeks pass by before I get around to uncluttering my desk. And then there are those times where I’ll just give in to my impulses, like getting a second (or third) helping of tender, mouth-watering brisket even when my stomach is warning me “That’s too much.”

Sometimes an urge is hard to resist…but at some point, for the sake of not digging myself into a bigger hole, I guess I just really need to set myself and exercise some self-discipline.

Ah, if things were only that easy.

(On second thought: It’d probably work better to take each potential impulse-resisting moment as an opportunity to turn to the Lord and allow Him to come into the matter.)

Right after the senior graduations at the end of the semester, we (meaning me, a good number of students, and some other serving ones) hopped onto our red-eye flight bound for the Midwest. I’ve been there for the past two weeks touring six different states. Yeah, that’s about 37+ hours of driving. I would post a map of the route we took, but I don’t have the energy and time to do that right now. I had a very good time out there with the students visiting the saints in the different localities, but I’m not planning to get into that for this post.

After getting back late this past Friday night, I got all of Saturday to unwind (which was very, very nice and necessary), before I had to leave again Lord’s Day afternoon to drive up here to Alliance Redwoods (Occidental, CA) for the five day God-ordained Way Training. I’m enjoying the brothers’ speaking in the lessons here…but part of me kind of wants to be in Berkeley right now.

Two nights ago, my brother and I went to visit my cousin in Sunnyvale; she had just given birth to a baby boy about a month earlier. His name is Wilbur, and he pretty much slept through the whole three hours we were there. He did eventually wake up at the end to nurse though.

Because my cousin’s husband is a vegetarian (probably more vegan, but I’m not sure), we went out to a Chinese-style vegan restaurant for dinner…which means all the ingredients used to prepare our meal were 100% plant based. Yes. That means no meat. *shock!* Now, a couple years ago, I would have been highly skeptical of a meatless dinner, but I think I’ve been in the Bay Area long enough that I’ve acclimated to the notion of eating only vegetables in a meal…so long as it’s only once in a while.

But what really amazes me is how creative these vegan restaurants get in their preparation and presentation of the food. A lot of times (or at least with the restaurants I’ve tried), the food is really, really good. As in, you-almost-don’t-feel-you’re-missing-out-on-meat good. Sometimes, the dishes even have components that look like real meat. For example, one of the items we ordered was fried rice. When I looked at my plate, I almost did a double take, b/c I could have sworn (not that I swear, but if I did) that there were pieces of chopped ham mixed in. That couldn’t possibly be true, so after a closer look, I verified that it was indeed tofu masquerading as ham. Even so, it sure fooled me for a moment.

Which brings in another question: Why dress plant-based foods up like meat if the point is not to eat meat in the first place (aside from health reasons)?

Long coordination is over. Students’ finals are over. The weather is beautiful. Summer is officially here! Yay!

When I first penned the post title, it reminded me of MC Hammer. But I wasn’t sure how to get something like “Oh. Oh oh. Oh. Stop. Summer Time!” to work. So I didn’t try.

I love how they decided to place graduations a week after finals’ week. That means people will still be around, but they won’t be preoccupied with studying. Which means more people to play with. Awesome!

And the weather. I love the weather. It makes me want to do things like play basketball…with the Berkeley locals in Peoples’ Park. And lounging outside the nearby cafes, enjoying the cool evening breeze. Ah, this is the life.