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Showing posts from 2015

Revelations

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During the drive up to Napa yesterday, Sherry and I saw something incredible. We had been on the 5 for several hours, zooming down the California-drought yellow bush-lined freeway, and had just gotten onto the 55-mph limit CA-12 West highway. While I was disappointed by the considerably decreased speed limit and the intermittently one-lane road, I was also extremely fascinated by the scenery. Here I was, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the glorious way the mid-afternoon winter sun shone on the body of water to my left, when all of a sudden I glanced over at Sherry to make commentary--what we both saw next was something I'll remember for a long time coming. Ahead, a little to the right, a huge swarm of small black birds--and I mean SWARM--was flying all together, and suddenly, flocks began to come out of that swarm. One after another, these flocks pirouetted out of the group in S-shapes, like a hurdle of ballet dancers breaking into their choreographed formation. Each flock exited neatly

Love Songs

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I feel that a humongous chunk of my life is missing from this blog. The last post was from June--maybe even May--after I started my (no longer) new job. Now, three--four, maybe even five--months later, I feel also at a loss for words to describe those months. I had started a post several weeks ago, and an hour into writing, got distracted and left that window open on my computer for two weeks, only to finally close it out later, admitting defeat to laziness in tandem with busy-ness. It isn't that I've forgotten details about my monthlong travels through Asia or my weeklong experience at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times. It's that, after so much time has passed, all of wanderlust-ful, awe-inspired ooh's and ahh's of travel and all of the magical, heartwarming moments of camp have passed. While I can still imagine particular encounters and occurrences, it's hard to trigger or evoke the precise emotions I felt or expressions with which I reacted--the very things

Lessons Learned

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After having used a MacBook instead of my PC for the past three weeks, returning to the latter seems strangely foreign. And I'm pretty sure that, from lack of usage, several of my keys have gone "numb." I know no other way to concisely describe it--these keys are now much harder to press (it is taking an insane amount of effort to type all of the s 's and periods hereby) than they have ever been. And I keep pressing the "ALT" button, thinking it's the "Command" one when really, I mean to go three keys over to "CTRL." When I first started using the Mac for work, I told myself that I would never lose sight of my Toshiba. But alas, my fingers have lost the familiarity. Still, my loyalty to and preference for PC remains (for now). Prior to finally starting this, I was thinking up a storm--lighting, thunder, and all--of ideas, anecdotes, and jokes to share. You would have been delighted--because obviously, my posts could evoke nothing ot

A Nice, Warm, Sunny Day

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"Please let tomorrow be a nice, warm, sunny day. In Jesus's name we pray, Amen." That's how I ended every prayer, every night when I was a child. And almost every day turned out to be a "nice, warm, sunny" one, so I thought God must have been real. At some point, I got suspicious, so from time to time, I purposely skipped that part (and felt guilty about it because I wasn't doing the world the favor of asking for good weather); and for the most part, each of those days still turned out to be exactly the way I otherwise prayed. Down the road, I wised up and realized that in Southern California, the bulk of the year consists of "nice, warm, sunny days." This anecdote does not represent my shift away from prayer. It's just something that crossed my mind earlier while hoping for good running weather for tomorrow's La Jolla Half Marathon. We have to be at the shuttle to get to Del Mar by 5:30 a.m. yet I am still awake, attending to my ur

Life and Lemons, revisited

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Original "Life and Lemons" post (February '13) Follow-up "Lemons" post (March '13) Now, what happens when there are no more lemons, when you're standing in the middle of the hill and nothing is tumbling from the top, while everything at the bottom has gone bad? You could stay put and await another harvest, as I suggested in the conclusion of the original post; or you could walk on over to another hill, pick another fruit, and move on. In the latter case, you must still heed limits and satisfaction, and pick wisely. But let's address the concern that must be looming in your mind: what if lemons start rolling down that first hill like no tomorrow once you get to this other one? If there are limes rolling down this hill but you've never made lime-ade, what do you do? You could, of course, return to the comfort of sunflower yellow lemons and follow the originally prescribed methods. Alternatively, you have discovered another hill which present

Lessons and Doings

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Timing is everything. The best and most perfect things can happen, but even the wrong day of the week can demolish all of that. It doesn't necessarily mean that the happiness from said best and perfect occurrences will be sucked away, but it does mean that plans won't be, well, as planned. And you just have to be okay with that and accept that if the timing is right, things will fall back into place, and perhaps the level of happiness will even be magnified. In the meantime, explore and do what you love. Do what you love. I've heard so many times that if you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life. I'd like to confirm the semi-truth of that statement. I've been unemployed for the first time since high school for the past two months, and have never been more content with my life. Granted, when I see the disparities between my W-2s and my bank statements, my heart does a free-fall--a plummet, actually--into an abyss of disbelief. And then I get