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.

I guess it’s been about a year since my last entry. Not that I didn’t want to write a few entries in the interim months. Something had broken on the site, and when I found out, I just didn’t have the time nor the willpower to fix it. But now that I’m on my extended winter break, which by the way is 7 weeks long, I figured I had time to kill. And kill time I did. What you now see is the result: Death of Time = revival of this blog.

In the process of refamiliarizing myself with the blog layout, I discovered that a number of the links on my blogroll led to dead or long-abandoned blogs. It seems to me that this cessation of blogging is a widespread phenomenon among college graduates, reflecting, perhaps, on the lack of free time in post-collegiate society.

Or maybe, people are just finding better ways to waste time and I’m not in the know.

Ok…I’m actually only 23 still…but my dad just told me that according to the way Taiwanese people count age, I’m supposed to be 25 this year. I’m kind of sceptical of the Taiwanese age counting system though. Everyone begins life with one year to the count. So once you pop out, you’re already one year old. Apparently, it also doesn’t really matter what day and month of the year your date of birth is; everybody moves on to the next age once the year changes.

But yeah. Even just toying with the thought that I’m 25 in Taiwanese years feels odd. That kind of freaks me out just thinking about it. I’m glad that I’m really only 23. I don’t know if I’m ready to be two years older. In fact, sometimes I get weirded out looking in the mirror and realizing I’m actually an adult now. Yeah. I know. Weird.

So…I figured now since my first term has ended…and since I’ve stopped my weekly emails regarding my time in the training…I need another outlet to write about life…ergo…this entry…which should be the first of many during this term break…and did I mention it’s 7 weeks long? Yea. I just had to bold that.

Now…you might be wondering…why is the title of this post “Stuffed Dead Pig Intestines”? At least this would be something I would wonder if I was reading this blog. Well, to satisfy your curiousity and mine (if I wasn’t the one writing this blog), the logical answer is that one of the things I learned how to do yesterday was to stuff sausages. And of course, “Stuffed Dead Pig Intestines” engenders much more of a reaction than mere “Sausages.”

On the one hand, the making of sausages is an interesting technique; on the other hand, it seems somewhat obscene to be stuffing peices of ground dead pig into the ground dead pig’s own intestines. But in the end…all that really matters is that these sausages will taste pretty darn good. Yup. These are the kind of things you pick up on the side when all you do in Taiwan is act as your parent’s shadows.

So I’m a trainee in the Full Time Training now. Now, many of you may expect you to begin posting my training experiences on this site. But, sorry to disappoint you, that won’t be the case. I’m already writing an weekly emails on that topic, so it would be too redudant for me to write the same thing twice. Thus, if you really want to know what’s going on, you can ask me to include you on the mailing list.

Instead, I will use this blog for the next two years to just document and record some of my random thoughts. I don’t have any right now to use as an example, but I’ll come up with some things eventually. I think.

Oh. I jus came up with something. The other day, I revisited my old high school. And when I saw the restrooms, I was reminded of something I did approximately during my senior year in HS. One day after school, when most people had left (I forgot why I was still waiting around), I saw a gimp pigeon. I knew it was a gimp pigeon b/c when I tried chasing it, it just did a kind of retarded jump/hop/flop (from now on, juhlop). So for no reason whatsoever, I just decided to chase it into the girl’s restroom. I opened the door ajar and borrowed one of those sheep-dog herding methods to make the gimp pigeon juhlop into the restroom. Then I closed the door and went home.

Now here’s the funny thing. The next day, while we were in the middle of class (I think 2nd or 3rd period), all of a sudden, we hear this girl screaming her head off. I guess she met the gimp pigeon in one of the stalls. Apparently it was juhloping around.

The End.

So I was with Cando, Debby, and Brian yesterday at the Concord mall, and we were heading towards H&M, b/c they had some type of sale thing going. Along the way, I notice one of the stores is Victoria’s Secret, which is a pretty common sight in most malls. And the thought comes to me, it would be really funny to open new retail stores directly across from every Victoria’s Secret in every mall and call it Victor’s Secret. Maybe the tagline will be, “A new type of store, for a new type of man.”

Now the store idea by itself isn’t that unique. However, while I was sitting on a bench in the changing room waiting for Cando and Debs to finish trying out items, I remarked to Brian, “I wonder if it’s kind of awkward for the women inside to know that two guys are just chillin’ right outside the changing stall doors.” Then all of a sudden, my mind did a mental somersault, and reversed the situation. What if I was in the changing stall and there were a row of girls just sitting right outside? Then somewhere in the distance, someone flipped on a switch and the lightbulb turned on. What if…what if the women would sit there and comment on any man after they try on a new peice of clothing…thumbs up or thumbs down?

But I have to attend my Lord’s Table (Sunday morning church meeting) now…so…

To be continued…

I’m eating a salad right now…out of a pot. Yes. Salad in a pot. And not a small pot, mind you, but a pot 9.25 inches in diameter. I know. Your first reaction is: typical Jon insanity. But, behind the madness is good, solid rationality. Salad in a pot is what happens when you order an Intermezzo salad. They put so much in that to-go box that lettuce literally flys out when you open it. A normal bowl could never contain this salad. In fact, a LARGE normal bowl wouldn’t do the job either. Thus, a pot.

It’s all perfectly reasonable once you hear the underlying story. As if with most things. Problem is, hardly anyone makes the effort to discover the underlying story. Most people are too busy or they are too much biased by their preconceived notions. Sometimes though, it might behoove one to take the time to stop and go beyond what is on the surface. But don’t read too much into things either. This time, it’s simply a salad in a pot.

At the beginning of the summer, I had a number of projects on my mind that I wanted to finish before I left for the FTTA. I wanted to implement a new blogsite, finish reading the Old Testament, read all the books on the “Suggested Reading” list for the FTTA, and create a digital story/scrapbook. But now with only one month left, I realized the only thing I have any results to show for is this blog, and even then, it’s not fully finished; there’s still a number of design elements I want to incorporate.

Instead, I end up squandering most of my time on computer games or watching movies. But then, after a full day of work, I really don’t feel up to anything that requires mental exertion. The addiction of computer games after a long day comes from the fact that you can just sit down and mindlessly click on the screen, and vegetate. The same goes for movies. Passive entertainment. The opium of the masses. Yes…bring on the opium.

Except…that’s a really sad way to live. Lord, grant me, according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit into my inner man. Operate in me the willing and the working, that I would cooperate to remain in touch with You, to have a habitual fellowship with You, and to be under Your constant infusion by walking according to the spirit.