click here for my current blog! needed to get rid of the 2-commenting system.

God Luck

back at work today.

hey, anyone have a good idea on how to keep my knee dry while taking a shower? i've been duct taping (yes, duct tape is the cure-all for everything) a plastic bag to my knee, but peeling duct tape off my skin after a shower is not too pleasant.

i'm totally off crutches now. yay!

yesterday at church, my parents gave me a card from a little girl from church (who i don't think i even know. i think her parents gave it to mine). the card reads "Karen I hope you......... Get well soon! and Happy Valentine's Day! God Luck!" yes, God Luck. :) and then she drew little people and wrote "hi!" and "hello!" next to them. SO CUTE. i need to find her next week so i can thank her.

yes, call me disgusting. i have watched 31 episodes of 24 in the past three days (thurs, fri and sat), and i am finally fully caught up. of course, i probably don't remember any of it because i had no time to process everything, but at least i can watch with the rest of the world now, and not be afraid to read people's blogs in fear of spoilers (jean already did all of that for me, thanks.) couple of thoughts on 24. one, i'm tired of moles. it's totally overdone. please stop with it, it's not even surprising anymore. the other thing is president logan is an idiot. it's so painful to watch him, and all he does is blame other people for his stupidity.

i noticed that instead of going back into my old scars, the doctor cut new holes in me. that gives me a total of 9 scars on my right knee!! 5 from the first two, 3 from this last one, and 1 from elementary school when i fell at church and cut my knee so deep that i needed stitches. i now have a total of 12 scars between my left and right knees and 13 total scars from my knees and below. wow, thinking about it, i'm thankful to otherwise be healthy. thanks God.

in other news, michelle kwan dropped out of the olympics. kind of sad since this was her last chance at the gold, but i think it was a long shot for her to win it anyway.

and, aren't you glad that someone like dick cheney, who accidentally shot his hunting friend, is our vice president? kind of reminds me of the dan quayle "tomatoe" incident. ;)

i think i've set a new record. finished season 4 yesterday - so basically i watched the entire season in 2 days. season 5 will begin soon :)

the winter olympics have just started, and they're currently showing a special on all the US skiiers. i'm seriously wincing watching them go down these huge hills, and cringing when they show a skiier bail. i cannot watch skiing anymore. it makes my stomach churn. ugh.

i can get around without my crutches now, although with a big limp. bearing weight is not a problem, just range of motion is. i can't believe i have to work on my range of motion again. blah. and i won't get my stitches out for another 10 days because, yet again, i couldn't get an earlier appointment.

okay, i need to leave the house. my eyeballs need a break. and it's beautiful outside.

jean comes over while i'm watching 24.

she turns her head and looks at the tv.

jean: hey, that's the evil guy!
me: hey! i didn't KNOW THAT!
olivia: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

thanks jean.

*edit*

jean: sigh. i can't believe michelle and tony are never coming back.
me: JEAN!!! SHHHHHHHH!!!!!

jean is not allowed to talk anymore.

guess how many episodes i watched yesterday?

11. :) i was aiming for 12 except my eyes couldn't stay open any longer.

would have been more, but i didn't start until after pt & lunch, and took a three hour break when maria, joy, and andrea came over. caught glimpses of the cal-stanfurd game (maria, joy, and andrea kept making me switch the channel off the game)... go bears! nice game. cal is now in sole possesion of second place in pac-10.

no matter how late i sleep, i wake up at 7:30. for once, i don't want to wake up so early! i'm going to need a mid-afternoon nap - i stayed up pretty late watching 24.

just came back from the doctors. didn't understand a word he (not my actual doctor, but some other one) said about what they did to my knee, all i understood was that structurally everything looked good, but something about lots of inflammation and tissue in my knee and ... i don't know. the rest was over my head. i asked him some questions that he couldn't really answer since he wasn't the one who performed the surgery. great. and i don't see my actual doctor until march. it was supposed to be a month from today, except the earliest appt they had available for me was march 28! that's the one frustrating thing about going to a well-known surgeon. anyway, for now the scheduler double-booked me for early march (actually on my birthday, of all days) but he said that the appointment is not guaranteed, since i'm the second person in that time slot.

okay... more 24! more than halfway done now.

went to PT this morning. they didn't really do much, it almost felt like a waste of a PT session covered by insurance. my PT tried to do some exercises with me except my scars started bleeding, and the blood ran down my leg, onto the table i was sitting on and onto my shirt. so we stopped. fun.

why does the weather always have to be beautiful when i'm trapped indoors? it's gorgeous today. 75 degrees in the beginning of february. gotta love california.

i'm well-stocked on food, thanks to lots of people. can't wait to eat gourmet chef john's food :) my stomach was happy yesterday since i could actually hold down food and liquids. i feel totally dehydrated, though. been drinking water like a camel.

okay! back to 24! i'm starting to think i'm a little over-ambitious - trying to watch all of season 4 and the 7 hours of season 5 in the next three days. think i can do it? :) sad how the only thing i'm ambitious about in my life is watching 24. haha.

i'm alive and well...

i'm back from the hospital, alive and well ("...i'm alive and well, your Spirit is within me, because You died and rose again" - one of my favorite worship songs.) i'm super, super groggy, but not nauseous so far, praise God. they doped me up on the same anti-nausea stuff as my second surgery since I told them that was the only thing that has worked on me. so i got the patch behind my ear and four bottles into my IV, and so far, it seems to work well. although surgery was scheduled for 9:30am, i actually didn't go in until a little after 11. left around 3ish, so i don't know if my surgery took longer than expected or it took me forever to wake up. in my previous two surgeries, they shook me awake, so it was a little different waking up naturally. but it looks like the doctor just cleaned out my knee, although i don't know how much was actually in there. they gave me pictures and some videos. anyone want to see the videos? i think i'll stay away from them. want me to upload them? hehehe. maybe someone can tell what's going on in the pics/videos.

i'm pretty mobile, can bear some weight on my knee, although i teeter around since i'm so dizzy. there's still some pain, especially when i try to use my muscles (ie lifting my leg on its own) but obviously nothing compared to my first surgery. hope to shed the crutches by the end of this week. i'm supposed to start on PT tomorrow. tomorrow?? didn't expect that. i need to call and make an appt.

thanks everyone SO much for all your emails, calls, visits, soon-to-be-visits, and prayers. now... on to 24, assuming i can stay awake! YAY!

my boss took us out to dinner at alexander's tonight because he got promoted from sr. director to VP. our group also got renamed from sales operations to business operations. what change does this mean to me? nothing, except that i now report to a VP. too bad his promotion doesn't trickle down to raises for us. needless to say, though, my stomach is fully satisfied as probably my last meal for the next 24+ hours. and i have a 11:50pm "snack" for tonight. "snack" = half a prime rib. :)

tomorrow i go off to the hospital again. the surgery is set for 9:20 am, so i have to be at the hospital at 7:20am. eegads that's early, even for me. but at least my surgery is early.

it should hopefully be a minor surgery, so long as the doctor doesn't find anything funky when he goes in my knee. but i really covet your prayers, because:

-this is the third time someone is cutting open my scars and going into my knee in less than nine months. i don't know how much more intrusion my knee can handle.

-i have a really bad reaction to anesthesia. i throw up all day, even when they give me anti-nausea medicine in my iv. after the first surgery on my right knee, my stomach tried to throw up even though it was empty - no food and not even water. so i was dry-heaving pretty badly. and that prevents me from eating, drinking, or being able to take my pain medication all day. (and no, i didn't get any of those fancy ice machines or tubes that feed your knee pain medication. i was sent home with a bottle of vicodin and an ace bandage. so i really roughed it that first night with absolutely no pain killers in my body. i was in total misery. but this time should be much more minor, so it will not be anywhere near as bad as my first one.)

-i have lived with constant knee pain for a year now. i know several people have mentioned to me, "a third surgery? but you look fine, you're not limping." what most people don't know because i haven't really vocalized it is that i really am in pain. constant pain. sitting, standing, sleeping, driving, stairs, everything hurts. it's really at the point where sometimes i have to do these actions on my left leg only to remind myself what a "normal" knee should feel like. "normal" in quotes, because it's not like my left knee is 100% either. gee, you'd think i'm in my fifties or something. :)

-even though my doctor will be cleaning out my knee, the scar tissue could always grow back. it grew back with a vengeance after my second surgery, and it could grow back after this one. it's a different doctor than the one who did my first two, so hopefully it'll make some kind of a difference.

anyway, if you can remember, i'd really appreciate your prayers. even though i know to trust in God's purpose and plan for everything, i still have that little nag in the back of my head that's been hard to shake off that's filled with doubt and anxiousness that all my pain will just come back a few weeks after the surgery just like last time. thanks to everyone already for coming up to pray for me, offering to come visit and/or cook/bring me food, and for praying alongside me as i have gone through my entire knee saga this past year. i'm truly blessed.

p.s. - so long as i'm awake and not vomiting, new lost tomorrow night! usual lost crew welcome to watch with me :) maybe you guys can hold the barf bag for me. :) :) mary - NO BURRITOS ALLOWED. and i can't wait to start 24 season 4! woooohooo! bring it on.

for your pleasure

found a site that can host my videos. so without further ado... i hope jono doesn't kill me...

ever wanted to know what the real man inside of jono is like? ever wanted to hear what taiwanese sounds like? ever wanted to hear an asian man try to sing in a scottish accent? watch all of that and more!




notice how olivia was totally unfazed the entire time? unfortunately, my taiwanese is not good enough to know if jt's translations are actually accurate :)

and just for fun, a video from our spain 2005 trip at the bullring in seville. not too sure what the guys were trying to do... yeah they're kinda weird.




**note: the picture below is what joy & andrea really wanted them to do**

i was talking to sanj and somehow got on the topic of my coworker, who i know goes to the same church as her. so i ask her if she knows him, to which she says there's two people with that name at grx and that she knows one of them and gabe knows the other.

so i ask my coworker, (yes, we im each other even though our cubes look directly into each others.) and his response:

[10:57] peter: yeah there are
[10:57] peter: one is korean and smart (mit)
[10:57] me: what are you then?
[10:57] peter: one is chinese and dumb (davis)
[10:57] peter: but i do sports ministry
[10:57] peter: so i'm the athletic one
[10:57] peter: haha
[10:58] peter: he leads a redwood city small group
[10:59] me: so one's the small group leader and smart
[10:59] me: and one's the sports ministry and dumb
[10:59] me: nice
[10:59] me: love it
[10:59] me: love the stereotypes
[10:59] peter: yup
[10:59] peter: korean vs. chinese

awesome. way to propagate the stereotypes. not sure what the "korean vs. chinese" is supposed to mean though. does he mean koreans are supposed to be smarter?! i think not.

by the way, peter is taiwanese. he's one of those taiwanese who says he's chinese. apparently, his parents don't lecture him about being taiwanese like my parents do.

**
i was checking my medical claims online to make sure everything was okay. and this is what i discovered:

1) currently, my insurance denied my third MRI. crap. i hope that gets fixed. i don't know why it was denied. the forms online and the hard copies that my insurance company mails me are so disorganized, that they're impossible to decipher. i sure know i'm not going to pay that $2k, so it'd better get cleared up and fixed.
2) my physical therapist charged my insurance for a session that i paid for in full. (because i thought i had used up my 20 sessions. did i miscount somehow? good thing i have all my receipts.) they got paid by my insurance, so i want my money back. all claims after that by them were denied. and why the heck is my pt clinic trying to claim from my insurance when i paid for those sessions in full?
3) i have a freakish amount of medical claims. They show 16 claims per page online, and i have 4 pages. all from last year.
4) i really don't like our medical insurance. my company used to use united healthcare and for some reason, a few years ago, switched to great west (yeah, who?). they claim great west is better, but we know they basically went for the lowest bidder. great west has been the hugest pain to deal with - thank goodness for our HR who helps mediate because their customer service is completely incompetent. and i'm not the only one with problems, lots of my coworkers have had problems too.

but in the grand scheme of things, i shouldn't complain. i have health insurance, period. that is already a blessing. i always live in my own little bubble of a world, and then God has to pull me out of it and put things in perspective for me. it's like the Tim Keller sermon that my small group listened to on forgiving grace. we have trouble forgiving the people around us for the smallest of things - and often, though we claim we forgive them, our attitude around them (ie snapping at them, acting colder towards them, etc) really shows that we haven't. yet we've been forgiven of all our sins by Christ. always and forever. so how can we go around, forgiven of all wrongdoings we've done, yet not forgive others? Keller referenced the parable about the unmerciful servant, and i was sitting there, thinking to myself "i'm totally not that person. i never hold grudges, it's just built into my personality. i don't need a lesson on forgiveness." boy, was i wrong. wow. how's that for some perspective.

ok, if you can't tell, i'm totally just typing whatever comes to mind. not sure how i ended up on this topic from an IM conversation about two guys with the same name. haha.

mandarin vs. taiwanese

growing up, i didn't know there was a difference between mandarin and taiwanese. my parents never taught me or my brothers taiwanese (i swear the sole reason of that was so that they could communicate to each other without the kids understanding) and i was a pathetic third-grade chinese school drop-out. so all the way up to middle school, i thought it was all the same language. believe me, i was shocked when i found out that my parents were really speaking two different languages my entire life. but by high school, i could pretty much differentiate one from the other, except for foods, which i still sometimes mix up.

nowadays, it's always weird for me to hear taiwanese spoken in public - like my ears immediately perk up because it's not very common. for example, i was at target picking up yet another prescription for vicodin (i think i have a lifetime supply of that stuff from all my surgeries. come to think of it, i probably didn't need to fill this prescription. oh well, it was only $5 anyway.) and this elderly couple comes up to the counter seeking to fufill a prescription. the pharmacist told them they'd have to order it since they don't have it in stock, but apparently the man wanted the medicine immediately. he asked "would lahngs or watahgleen have this medicine?" (i loved how he kept calling walgreens "watergreen") anyway, the pharmacist said she didn't know, they may, so he could go check. so the elderly man turned to the woman he was with, and starts speaking frantically in taiwanese to her because the target pharmacy was about to close. of course, i didn't understand what the heck he was saying, but at least i immediately picked up that he was speaking taiwanese! hey, for me, that's pretty good.

by the way, i should thank the US government for not accepting taiwanese as a language when my dad immigrated to the US. my dad told me the taiwanese translation of our last name is ku. and... if that were the case, my initials would have been kkk. :o great, just watch, people are going to google kkk and be pointed to my blog now.

question for all you taiwanese people: when people ask you what you are, do you say chinese or taiwanese? i used to say chinese until my parents heard me and started lecturing me about how i'm taiwanese. so now i have to say taiwanese. but really, i'd like to say american. of course, some certain friends, ahem, thought i was cantonese. cantonese? go figure.

national credit investigation

so my dad called me today, telling me that someone from a national credit investigation called me at my parent's home and needed me to call him back. he left his name, mr. williams, and a 1-800 phone number. it sounded kind of fishy to me, but i wanted to call back, just to make sure, but prepared not to give any of my personal information out until i could confirm just who this was.

so i call back, and even though it was a 1-800 phone number, a live person picked up immediately. i told them i was looking for a mr. williams, to which the guy asked me for a reference number. i didn't have one, so i just gave him my name. he searched, and was like, "oh okay. i found you. your middle initial is c?" i was like "uhh. no." so he responded "hm. okay, i can't find anything else with that name. is your phone number xxxx?" that's one of my parent's phone numbers, so i said "yes." he said, "okay. then this is you. so the reason i'm calling you is because we towed your 1993 Chevy truck..."

HAHAHAHA. i immediately interrupted him. "um, i don't own a chevy truck. never have, and never will."

end of conversation. i hung up. i didn't even get to the point to check whether this inquiry was legit or not. awesome. could you see me driving a chevy pickup truck?

i'm so excited about not having to work on saturday, that i forget that i'm not actually supposed to work on saturdays. and my all day 9am-6pm meeting got reduced back to the normal 2 hours for this month because our CEO is out of town. woohoo! i don't know what to do with myself tomorrow. what a feeling. i think i'll sleep in (well, sleep in as much as i can. i naturally wake up around 7:30 nowadays. i even wake up before my alarm clock now, always right before it's about to go off.). oh wait. i have worship practice in the morning. darn. oh, i mean... uh, yay! i get to praise God! :)

i didn't like lost that much on wednesday. and i especially didn't like watching charlie in diapers on wednesday. what a disturbing image.

is it wrong that i'm actually looking forward to my surgery, only because i'll get a couple days off of work? (well, and will get to watch all of season 4 of 24 and catch up on season 5. yes, i'm an ambitious tv-watching couch potato. not like i will be able to do anything else, anyway.) this month has been brutal, i have to work this weekend and go in the office on saturday, and even though quarter ends this sunday, next week will be even worse since we start our forecasting cycle, including a new, all day 9am-6pm meeting. i'll finally get a break when, yes, i take three days off for my surgery. it's funny how God can use a knee surgery to give me some rest that i really need. got to find more excuses (other than surgeries & weddings!) to take some of my 5+ weeks of PTO off. i'll definitely need to take at least 2 weeks off this year so i don't go over our 7-week accrual max. who wants to vacation with me this year? :)

p.s.
click here. o & jono finally have something up for their wedding!

**edit**
WOOOOOHOOOOOOO! for the first time EVER for a quarter-end in the four years i've worked here, there's a high chance i won't have to come in on Saturday!! Thank you, Chinese New Year!! (only because all of our stuff is in Asia, and Asia is shut down for the weekend, so we can close our revenue numbers on Friday. not because we get it off to observe the holiday).

more pics

wow, i can't believe it took me more than 1.5 years to discover i have an SD card reader built into my work laptop. and i discovered it by accident, too. but thanks to the newfound reader, i can now upload pictures during what has unfortunately become frequent late-night quarter-end meetings at work.

went to sing karaoke with a bunch of canaan people on friday night for a few hours of pure entertainment. the highlight of my night, hands down, was red, red wine. i don't know what happened - it started out jt & jono singing "normally," (as normal as those two could get) but somehow it evolved to jono singing with a scottish accent and jt translating the song into taiwanese. i wish i could show videos, because it was SO awesome. jt's taiwanese translations were on the money. it would have made all our taiwanese parents proud. a definite classic.



on saturday, went with some folks to the baseball as america exhibit at the oakland museum. i thought it would be just a regular baseball exhibit on the history of the sport, and that not many people would be interested in it. boy, was i wrong. the place was PACKED. they even assigned you times to when you could enter the exhibit. unfortunately, no pictures whatsoever were allowed, so we didn't get any shots inside the museum. the exhibition was actually pretty comprehensive - had all sorts of memorabilia and other baseball-related paraphernalia. the highlights for me included the honus wagner baseball card (it was really small - maybe the most expensive piece of cardboard the size of a stamp ever), THE doubleday baseball (there was a guy next to us who couldn't get over the fact that it was THE doubleday ball. he stared at it for a long time and even lost his wife in the process), and the contract making the trade of babe ruth from boston to new york for $25k official.

last weekend, spent most of saturday with the saratoga girls, starting with breakfast at country gourmet in sunnyvale, to chronicles, to dinner at ev's place.

our dinner... good stuff.


that sunday, went to alice & tomio's baby shower (unfortunately tomio couldn't make his own baby shower).

guess what's in the diaper?



guess what's in the bowl?



yay for baby miyai!


this past sunday, i FINALLY got to meet austin! can't believe it took me 21 months to finally meet him. what a cutie pie. and jean was NOT kidding when she told us about his screeching.

here he is trying to eat jam with a spoon. unfortunately, i missed the shot of him when he gave up with the spoon and just tried to stick his entire face into the little jam container.



and last, but not least: no one can beat me. i'm the speed scrabble queen!
really, "tiiaauueets" is a real word! okay, in reality i gave up in the middle when all i had were 5 e's, 2 u's, 2 a's, 2 i's, 2 t's, and an x. i picked up most of the consonants at the very end, after i had already given up.

okay, i uploaded a whole bunch of pictures.

day with saratoga girls
alice & tomio baby shower
karaoke fun
baseball museum
esther's bday
austin

man. even uploading all these pics didn't last me through the entire meeting. hope i can get out within an hour...

feb 8

feb 8. please, if you can, pray that this is the last time anything goes into my knee!!

i long for the day when i can walk, sit, stand, drive, and the one that has plagued me the absolute most, go up and down stairs without pain. it's almost been an entire year since i've been able to do any of that.

last night, i got out of work late, and was driving home around 8 when i get a call from alinna.

al: hey, where are you?
me: i just left work. on my way home. where are you?
al: uhh at your place. it's dark here. where is everyone?
me: i'm almost home. what are you doing there?
al: i'm here to watch alias.
me: what??
al: isn't alias on tonight?
me: uh... it doesn't start back up until march, AND it's on wednesday nights after lost!

hahaha. wow, look what the married world has done to her. she has lost track of alias! i remember back in the day when it used to be the one and only show our household could NOT miss of the week.

kiddo??

forgot to mention - when i was at the doctor's office at stanford yesterday, an eldery man was trying to get through the exit door, except that he was on crutches and was having a difficult time opening the door. i was in the middle of checking in and saw him, so i ran over to help open the door for him. his response? "thanks, kiddo." what's up with me and "kiddo?" do i look like a kiddo or something? at least this guy was older... and not um, only 2 years older than me like a certain someone else, so i guess he can call me that. i guess. although "kiddo" is definitely not one of my favorite nicknames. :)

also, finished reading rich mullin's biography, An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, for like the third or fourth time. wow. that's my reaction everytime i read it. andy talked about the book in his post a little, but for me, what really gets me everytime is his frankness about his life. his humility. his view on life and on God. all of it just blows me away. anyway, i think it's time the book blesses someone else. actually, one of the doctors yesterday saw the book and asked me about it. i tried to lend/give it away to him, but he wouldn't take it... so anyone interested in reading it? i'll pass it along or give it away if you'll give it to someone else when you're done.

next up: if alinna ever remembers to give it to me (like how i can never remember to pull down one of my four calendars in my cube to give to her), The Ragamuffin Gospel.

new lost tonight! woohoo. come join the lost/alias (once alias starts up again) party at our house! maybe we should start a 24 party too once i catch up with season 5.

#3, and 5 weird habbits

guess it'll be #3 into my knee. wow. how many people can say they've had 6 surgeries (3 on right knee, one on left knee, one on fourth right toe when i dislocated it, one on my eyes because my eyelashes were growing inward and scarring my cornea) by the time they're 27? :) my poor parents, i must give them a heart attack every time i tell them i'm going to do something somewhat adventerous. i'm thankful that it's nothing more than lots of scar tissue that needs to be cleaned out. at least i know what's wrong, which is more than what my first doctor, who wouldn't even admit anything was wrong with me, could say. and now... NOW i can watch all of season 4 of 24. :) :) :)

so off of this subject and onto another. just for fun, 5 weird habits.

1) i always go to bed lying flat on my back. but somehow, oftentimes, i wake up with my legs folded up and in the air. kind of hard to explain, but maybe these pictures can help. yes, i'm really underneath that blanket :) when i do wake up, both my legs have completely lost their feeling due to lack of blood flow. the curse of being super-flexible.

2) i don't like to showers with my contacts on. i think it started in college when i did NOT want to see the conditions of the shower stalls i was taking showers in. especially since cal had coed bathrooms. ::shudder:: incidentally, since i was in clark kerr, one of the oldest (and hecka far!) dorms, every time someone flushed the toilet, all the water in the shower would turn scalding hot. it eventually became second nature to all of us, that as soon as you heard a flush, to dodge to the side in the shower. it was like a whole dance act. and if you heard a scream, then you knew someone didn't dodge in time.

3) when i'm at work, i like to eat lunch later. usually close to 1pm. there are several reasons:
-the later you go, the fewer hours of work you have after lunch
-i usually have a lot of work in the morning (esp during quarter end) that i need to get done before taking lunch
-our cafeteria is SUPER crowded between 12 and 1. you waste a lot of time in lines. curses of free meals provided by your employer ;)

4) I love watching sports, especially football. okay, maybe this isn't a weird habit (well, maybe girls think it is), and most people know this about me already. but i always get questions about how i became a big football fan. my answer is i'm not so sure - i think i can attribute it to my one of my brothers (he was a huge sports fan in general) and growing up during the niners glory years. heck, even my mom watched the niners with us on sundays after church. (another story: one time i was at the stanford mall with my mom - i think it was when i was at home during a break in college. we ate lunch at a restaurant where there was a woman sitting at the table right next to us. we ate most of our lunch while the woman was just sitting there, when finally a man walked up to her and sat down with her. i didn't notice or look much, but my mom looks over and suddenly whispers to me: "hey... that's jerry rice and his wife!" i turn to look, and sure enough it is. awesome. my mom recognized him first!) another trivia fact: i performed during a halftime show at a niners game in high school.

5) even though i'm a light sleeper, and i have trouble falling asleep anywhere but in my own bed, for some reason i fall asleep during practically every movie i watch. especially if it's rented or we're watching a movie at someone's house. doesn't matter how good the movie is, there's a very high chance you'll catch me snoozing during one point or another. i still can't figure out why that is, but it kind of sucks because i usually miss big plot points of the movie.

okay maybe those weren't so weird. i guess i'm more normal than i thought.

one last thing. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my roommate! i don't know what i would do without her. when i had my first knee surgery, this was the girl who did everything for me. get stuff for me, bring me food, even help me wash my hair in the sink (since i couldn't take a shower). what a true servant of God. yay!

the cutest puppy alive

okay, so i may be biased, but you tell me what you think!

introducing... shau poo!


anyway, i uploaded more pics. see them all (including more pics of the cutest puppy on earth) on my smugmug. a couple more:


Huge rainbow in front of my house one day.

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." Genesis 9:13




saratoga gals at new years eve dinner



jean & shau poo



jenie bops & shau poo... and olivia barely hanging onto shau pi. shau pi is one big puppy.



happy new year! we hit the canaan party after our dinner with high school friends.



olivia. need i say more?
btw, i thought that hat scarf thing was my best find at the store. i would have gotten it except that it was $60. as cool as it is, it's definitely not worth $60!

at jeremy & mandy's farewell, there was tons of food leftover.

but folks, this wasn't all the leftover food. this was the food leftover that bob alone was taking home! i think he was a little hungry. uhhh... or something. ;)



guys with jeremy & mandy: once the other guys discovered all the food bob was taking, they all climbed aboard. can you tell which guys are single and which are not? (hint: look at the size of the leftovers they're bringing home ;)

i'm so thankful to God for my cell group. love worshipping with you, love praying with you, love struggling to become more like Christ with you.

ahhh! no one talk about the 24 season premier on their blog, please! i need to catch up. still waiting to start season 4.

finally saw chronicles of narnia with jean, ev and o yestesrday. in general i thought it was good, simply because of the power of the message behind it. as many people have probably mentioned, i couldn't help thinking that it was attempting to be LOTR during the battle scenes (i swear there was an orc in there somewhere), but in the bigger story, those scenes are not all that important anyway. also, when the audience is first introduced to aslan, and everyone including lucy, edmund, susan, and peter bow down before he comes out of his tent, i couldn't help thinking of the verse in Romans (based off of Isaiah): "'As surely as I live', says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me, every tongue will confess to God.'" can't wait until we see that day :)

by the way, am i the only person working tomorrow? why do i feel like every person and their mother get tomorrow off except for me? :(

**edit**



hope the 24 premier was better than that :) by the way, every time i hear the 24 music - especially the music they play while showing "the following takes place..." i'm totally reminded of my first right knee surgery. seriously, 24 will forever equate to knee operation to me. (i don't know, it may have to do with the fact that i watched seasons 1-3 in nine days straight after the surgery. ;)

BFOTB

in true gilmore girls fashion, that's what i am and that's what you should call me until june 24. bfotb. and when people (including jono) start asking olivia details about her wedding, i'll put up my hand and say "excuse me! what am i? BFOTB!" HAHAHAHA. i'm sure o (& jono) would love that.

best quote from Lost yestesrday:
mr. eko (to charlie): climb the tree!
charlie: what if i don't? are you going to beat me with your Jesus stick?

what in the world was that black smoke thing? was that the monster (since the last time we saw the smoke it was the supposed monster) or was it something else? i didn't hear the gears and clanking like we did when locke refused to run away (by the way, locke wasn't afraid of the monster either that time, but it didn't go away like it did with mr. eko. so i wonder if those two were the same thing?). and i don't know about anyone else, but as touching as it was that mr. eko found his brother, i still thought it was creepy that he was hugging a rotted corspe. thanks to bob, click here to see screen shots of images shown in the smoke (but passed by too fast for anyone to see live). start with "ekoVsMonsterBrother.jpg." anyway, so glad lost is back.

and i haven't watched scrubs in a while, but hilarious. i could not stop laughing on tuesday. it's so ridiculous it just cracks me up.

i'm also quite behind on movies - still haven't watched chronicles, king kong, harry potter, basically any of the big blockbusters... has anyone not seen any of these? i have still have some $5.50 tickets!

okay, this entire post is about tv shows and movies. nice and superficial :)

by the way, i'm finally ready to admit that i'm a walking health disaster. between allergies, eczema, injuries, freak accidents, and more, i can not thank God enough for health insurance and the fact that i'm still (kind of) in one piece. i think i need a doctor to follow me around 24 hours/day. hahahaha.

soooo... being the extremely coordinated person that i am, i had quite the spill last night. i had to work late (as i will probably have to do for many nights for the rest of january - so i decided to hold off on watching 24, as hard as it is) but wanted to get a quick workout in before logging in from home to do some more work. so i ran inside my house, changed really quickly, and then ran back out. i didn't bother to turn the lights on in my garage, and so of course, as i take a step down, i step on a shoe, roll over it and tumble from my house down the step onto my garage floor/car. in the process, because i now instinctively throw out my left leg to support myself instead of my right, i managed to twist my left knee as well as slam the back of my right thigh against the corner of the concrete step.

the back of my right thigh still really hurts today. i can't even sit. actually when i was in bed last night, i tried to sleep on my side so that i wouldn't put any pressure on it and it still hurt. but no bruise yet. thankfully, i think my knee is okay, it just hurt a lot for the next half hour or so. but i can definitely feel that bruise developing. ouch. what else is new in karen's life :)

oh, and i saw a commercial last night for end of the spear, a movie about the story of the tribe who murdered jim elliot & the other 4 missionaries who were trying to witness to them. anyone interested in checking it out? i think it said it opens jan 20, although probably not in many theaters. (as a sidenote - olivia and i were talking last night about how elisabeth elliot's books are a little too... affectionate? is that the right word? for us. just kind of over the top. kind of like how i tried to do a study by kay arthur once and read "my beloved" one too many times that i couldn't take it anymore and never finished it.)

goodbye 2005, hello 2006

guess what was the first song we sang in service today?

blessed be Your name.

thank you God for the reminder & affirmation. what perfect timing He has in everything!

besides that, guess what Hanlin lent to me today?

24, season 4! woohoo! Now the great debate. Do i start it now, in attempt to finish it by the season 5 premier in one week? it's quarter end at work, so i'd have very limited time to watch it. plus, i don't want to get sucked into staying up late and watching it into the wee hours of the night - i definitely need my brain to be fully functioning at work these next couple of weeks. or... the second option: do i just record season 5 until i catch up and wait to see if i need another knee surgery, and just watch season 4 then? if i do that, then i can watch it practically all at once like i did with seasons 1-3. i mean this time i won't be a freak and work the day after my surgery (like i did after my second one. that didn't work out so great. my doctor told me i could do it, but obviously i couldn't.) so i'd have a couple of days to watch it all. hmmm. can't decide.

also, lost finally starts up after a very long 6-week hiatus! i'm ready to welcome back the lost brigade to our house! hope to see everyone on wednesday. :) unfortunately, alias doesn't start up again until march (i still wonder how they're going to tie up the entire show in a couple of months?? at least it's getting good again!).

many thanks to olivia, who left her guitar at our place (since mine has been on loan for the past year). i had some very needed personal worship time - something of which i hope to do more this year. it's been so long. i think it's time to get my guitar back :) it misses me. the other thing i need to do more of is be more consistent in prayer. to really make it my lifeline.

on top of that, my deaconship term at canaan has finally come to an end. what an adventurous two years it has been, and little did I know when i first started it what God would be leading me & our church through. it's definitely had it's bumps along the way, but at the same time, it's been encouraging to see the cell groups grow, and to see how other ministries are starting to use the cell group structure to be more purposeful in all that we do. but, as i've told many people, i need a break. i've been praying about where to serve and where God wants me to be (continue leading a cell group? stay on worship team? serve in other ministries where people have been asking me to help out?), but for now, i think i will take a break for the rest of january as i pass off my duties, settle back down, and pray.

there's a lot more going on in my head, but i'll leave that between me & God. but I'm ready to welcome 2006... and i hope you're all around to join me in the ride!

Blessed be Your Name

people who hang around me a lot know that i always have a song stuck in my head. in fact, i tend to sing whatever the particular song-of-the-day-is so incessantly that the people who are around me end up getting it stuck in their heads as well :)

today was no different as i couldn't stop singing "blessed be Your name" all day. in fact, while i was driving to jeremy & mandy's farewell tonight, i randomly hit a different CD in my car CD changer, and lo and behold, the song came on as i was arriving at church. well, during the farewell, both mandy & jeremy gave their testimonies, talking about their impending departure to HK and the struggles they have gone through in the process. mandy talked about Job 1:21 - "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." - the same verse that Matt Redman based the song off of.

As i was driving home, the song came on in my car again. And as i sang the song for the umpteenth time of the day, God showed me that this was what 2005 was about for me. It was about Him giving and taking away in my life. and though it was a tough year for me, in the end, all i can do is praise the Lord. i was originally going to go into more details, but i think i will leave it at this.

blessed be the name of the Lord.

i dislike texas more and more each year. i never, ever, thought i'd be rooting so hard for sc, but that's what i was doing yesterday. no thanks to texas. darn you sc for screwing up!!

yesterday's mri took way longer than i thought. i told my boss i'd be back in less than an hour based on my previous two MRIs but ended up coming back 2.5 hours later and very late to a meeting. oops. it was annoying because they told me to make sure i was very prompt because of the injection, so i was, and then i had to wait for more than half an hour before they even took me in. after which, they gave me the injection and then told me to go exercise for 15-20 minutes. i was like what the... why couldn't you have injected me before you made me wait 30 minutes? anyway, it was a nice day, so i just took a walk outside around the area. kind of nice to have time to myself, get some fresh air, do some praying. i think i may have scared a few people sitting in their cars since i kept walking past them in the parking lot. on top of that, i didn't have my watch on, so i couldn't tell what time it was. so i kept peering into random cars to see if any of them had an analog clock so i could see the time. they must have thought i was some weird stalker girl.

it's also always a little disconcerting, signing your life away on a piece of paper saying that possible side effects to the dye could include, although very rare, death. but it's all good. God's brought me here today alive, and that's all that counts :) Next up: find out what needs to be done next on my knee. Can't believe it's almost been the one-year anniversary of the accident.

i just got another calendar as a gift from my coworker. i now have 4 calendars in my cube, all gifts. AWESOME. (if anyone needs a calendar, let me know).

third time's a charm?

getting a third MRI tomorrow. i called the place to make an appointment and the guy was like, "why are you getting another one?!" i was like uhhh... because they told me to. and he responded "why can't they just use the one you got in September?" i was like september? i didn't get an MRI in september. anyway we went through this whole conversation where i insisted i didn't get one in september - i mean come on, i would know when i got MRIs done, and besides the fact, i was out of the country for most of that month. finally he was like, oh whoops. july. why can't they use the one from july?! i was like dude. i had another surgery since then.

anyway. long story short, i'm getting another MRI tomorrow. this time they're injecting some dye or something into my knee. more shots. hope it's not as painful as the time my first doctor tried to numb my scars. that was probably the most painful out of the billion shots i've had this past year.

things i learned this weekend

can't believe all the holidays & vacations are over... and it's back to work tomorrow :( some things i learned this weekend:

-baby clothes are the most fun things to shop for. can more of my married friends please get pregnant (alinna, eva, maria, amy, etc)? so cute and so fun!
-crock pots are the best invention ever. throw stuff in, program it, and then by night time, dinner is ready. yum.
-rainy days just make me want to curl up in a ball and crawl into bed. except that currently i'm physically incapable of rolling up into a ball. one day i would like the ability to roll up into a ball again.
-i think it's really true what they say about the weather and injuries. my knee has been bothering me SO much this weekend. i can't sit still, drive, stand, walk... everything bothers me so much. auuuugh.
-i don't have the energy to work out in the morning. i barely lasted half an hour on the precor and only 10 minutes on the bike before i threw in the towel. evening workouts suit me much better.
-karen & dave's new puppy is the CUTEST thing ever! just like a little puppy stuffed animal! i'll post pics later.

that's all i can think of for now. back to work... and... quarter end tomorrow. boo. :(

day 3

misery is going to end soon. one more hour and then i'm outta here. been staring at nothing for the past few hours.

on another note... i have accumulated ~$350 in gift certificates to fry's. what should i get?

and, my coworker gets 50% off to coach... it's not like i'm a huge coach fan, so i don't need or want anything from there in particular. anyone want something?

don't even ask me about all my other gift cards. i have some gift cards that are 2-3 years old. anyone want to eat at the cheescake factory with me? i'll pay ;)

day 2

lalalalalalalala. when i start blogging every day... then you know that i don't have much to do.

costco is stinking crowded. reminded me yet again how much i dislike crowds. and shopping. so crowded shopping = a big NO in my book.

currently watching: Lost, season 1. finally got it back from my coworker. rewatching the season finale, on the lookout for more clues. it at least gives me something to do.

pics galore

okay... here we go. uploaded all my pictures from the past week - amazingly, there were a lot. and since work is slow during shutdown, here we go!

in chronological order:

Tuesday, Dec. 20
celebrated olivia's 26th birthday at cascal.

here, see olivia excitedly blow out her candle




afterwards, headed to the renaissance household where we made a gingerbread house.

the foundation of the house. can you guess what house this was modeled off of?




andrea made graves for the pets




the completed house!




shally, joy, andrea & i have some fun




Wed, Dec. 21 - Fri, Dec. 23
Went to Vegas to watch Cal play in the Vegas bowl!

we had lunch at the aladdin (where we stayed) buffet. gina and i saw the desserts and just couldn't help ourselves




me, mel, and ma in front of the bellagio fountains & paris




the cal football team on the field after we won




go bears!




took us forever to get back due to traffic, so we ended up having a midnight dinner in paris. despite the time, eric still ordered a whole rack of ribs




Sunday, December 25
After Christmas service, went to Tapicoa Express & lunch with some old school canaan people

silly old canaan gals




That evening, went to dinner with the other orphaned saratoga gals at Spiedo in San Mateo

the animal magents i gave them




olivia almost choked jean




Monday, December 26
alinna & hideyo get married! it was a long day, from getting to the church early to set up, to jetting straight to mayflower to help set up the reception, to discovering mayflower wasn't ready for us yet and still had lunch patrons, to the 2 hour reception, to the 4 hour banquet that followed immediately. phew!

bride & groom before the ceremony




look at the pimpin' ring bearer with the two flower girls




alinna & papa walk down the aisle





the head table




our table with the couple. hip, hip, hideyo! gooooooooooooo alinna!




peter, the good sport, went and stole some big cupcakes for us




their wedding favors




Tuesday, December 27
stuck in the office during company shutdown. but discovered that my coworker found something i've been searching for forever at a flea market in berkeley. seriously, this stuff rocks, but is almost impossible to find nowadays (errr maybe cuz it's carcinogenic or something). awesome! our ant chalk supply was running low.




okay, lots more pictures on my smugmug. go check them out.

olivia's bday
gingerbread house
vegas bowl
christmas service & dinner
alinna & hideyo's wedding