Uploaded pics from LA and memorial day bbq at Canaan.

btw, seminary student and future pastor andrew hyun sure better be glad he's on the East Coast and not over here with all the smack he's talking. He's just jealous he didn't get to live in Saratoga with the rest of us.

food for thought:
"Sometimes it concerns me, the number of people who can quote my songs, or they can quote the songs of serveral different people, but they can't quote the Scriptures - as if anything a musician might have to say would be worth listening to. Really, I mean, what musicians do is they put together chords, and rhythms, and melodies. So if you want entertainment, I suggest Christian entertainment, becuase I think it's good. But if you want spiritual nourishment, I suggest you go to church or read your Bible..." -Rich Mullins

Since I do want to live past June 6 (the next time I see o), I feel like I should put a disclaimer on my previous post: although I said olivia and I *talked* about the things I mentioned below, it doesn't necessarily mean she actually *did* those things. So there's my disclaimer.

Just got back from LA - I had a great time. In my short two days there, some memorable moments:

- randomly running into Saratoga HS friends, carrie and matt, at CPK in Westwood at 10pm on Fri night

- having breakfast with mike, kim, christy, and bobby at some random Carrow's in Montebello (the halfway point between all of us). btw, alinna and I learned that apparently all of our friends have lives. We tried to gather as many people as we could for breakfast, but with no luck. I did have the chance to use o's quote, "don't be holy! just ditch out!" to a few of them, but they didn't take my advice. I mean, if you had to choose between medical missions in Mexico, and seeing me and alinna, which would you choose?

- sandra and gabe's wedding. I have to say, this was one wedding I really enjoyed and had a blast at. Despite the fact that it was overcast and 60 degrees (the ceremony was outside), the ceremony was beautiful, and the banquet entertaining. HUGE props to gabe, who, up to Saturday, I had never even heard sing before. Even better was that he was brave enough to do it during the ceremony, and not the banquet. I have to give more props to gabe because he doesn't normally sing, yet he was still willing to do so, not really caring how he sounded. The wedding was fairly small compared to most weddings I've attended (maybe 150 ppl?), but it made it that much more personal, and I really had a great time at the banquet. The only one tiny downside to the banquet is what yvonne, michael, and i deemed as the paparazzi, who kept blocking our front table view of the dance floor and everything going on. Truly, I was blessed to see their love for one another and committment to not only their own relationship with each other, but also their relationship with God. sanj & gabe did a really good job - huge congrats to them!!

- visiting reni & maurice. It's always good to see reni, and like always when we get together, we never stop laughing. To quote maurice, "some things just never change." :)

- having dinner with shrie, sung, bobby, and jeremy. Spending time with old friends is always a blessing.

- driving back up from LA safely. Gotta hand it to speedy alinnaz. We tried to see how far we could drive with the gas light on before we would chicken out and fill up the tank. The answer is about 40 miles - the light went on somewhere along highway 152, and we drove through the rest of 152, 101, and 85 before we exited Saratoga-Sunnyvale and filled up. Yes, her tank is 18 gallons, and yes, we filled up 17.889 gallons. Shoot, that was a close one. And, including the gas stop, we still got home in 4.5 hours. Our new record! Alinna also decided to try to see just how fast her Volvo could go. She hit 110 mph before I started screaming for her to hit the brakes. I have this aversion for speed I guess. She wanted to keep going.

The best thing is, tomorrow is one of the very few days of the month I get to sleep in. wooohoo! I'll upload pics from the weekend later.

i have the most interesting conversations with olivia... about her peeing in a cup, her parading around in a swimsuit all day, and to quote her "don't be holy! just ditch out!" and now she's threatening me... "karen. i'm going to tell you who wins american idol!" HOW MEAN! the powers she has over me b/c she's on the east coast... on top of that, she claims she's going to start a blog she'll call "revenge" just to get back at me for this post. yeah right. i DARE her to.

I got a call from Amy yesterday, telling me that our piano teacher, who taught me for 12 years, passed away on Monday morning. I've basically only had 2 piano teachers my whole life - one from when I was 4-6 years old, and Mary Lewinski from when I was 6 until I graduated from high school. Mary was the one who pretty much cultivated any piano playing skills I may have to this day. She always challenged me when I was too lazy to practice (or more like I forced myself to practice for fear of getting yelled at :) and she always knew how to pick the right pieces for me to play that would display whatever talent I have as well as making it fun and enjoyable for me. Seriously, the love and appreciation I have for the instrument, and the great enjoyment I get from playing, I owe to her. I guess as a hidden blessing, I had already taken this Friday off to drive down to LA in the afternoon, so I am able to attend her memorial service Friday morning. Funny, I was talking to my parents, and my mom was telling me how she and my dad were *just* talking about Mrs. Lewinski on Monday, wondering how she was doing.

On different note, I'll be heading down to LA this weekend for sandra and gabe's wedding. I still remember that one fine day in Berkeley at the main stacks, studying for our Stat 135 midterm (the horrors of that class. the worst part is they took it out of the ieor curriculum the year after us!) when we first met gabe. who knew it would result in a marriage of the two. I have many AACF and IEOR memories of sanj, way too much to tell here. and those countless hours i spent in lab with both sanj and gabe (well more like we watched sanj sleep in lab ;) working on our gazillion projects and case studies in the basement of Etcheverry we called home. it's awesome to see how God has blessed their relationship and the ways He continues to grow them as a couple.

I've also uploaded some new pics from some bridal showers, weddings, and other things. On Sunday, I had the chance to volunteer with bob, crystal, jen, and jerry at the Third Day/Michael W Smith concert, selling merchandise. It was tiring, but I still had fun. AND we got a free concert and CD out of it. :) nice.

During spring break of my senior year in college, I went down to South-central LA with Campus Crusade for a program called Urban Immersion. Basically, we spent the entire week in the projects, working with the kids that lived there, and learning about urban ministry. I tell you, that was probably one of THE most exhausting weeks of my life. Those kids really drained all the energy out of me. In fact, it was after that week that I almost fell asleep at the wheel driving back up to berkeley, as well as ended up on highway 99 instead of highway 5. But as the week passed, God really taught me some things. The biggest lesson I learned was the need for these kids to have someone continually mentor and work with them, not just a group of college folks bombarding them with "Jesus loves you!" for a week and then leave. These kids needed love. A lot of them probably do not even have the capacity to understand what agape - unconditional - love is. Many came from broken families, and half of them were related to each other in a half-sister's uncle's cousin kind of way. So when I moved back home after graduating from Cal, one of the things I wanted to do was find a ministry that I could consistently volunteer with. I emailed a few places, but didn't get any responses back, and then I kind of forgot about it. A few months ago, I started emailing places again, trying to find some opportunities. The problem is that I get out of work too late to volunteer at most places on weekdays, and the ones I contacted didn't have anything consistent for me to volunteer at on weekends. I know I haven't looked too hard, and I'm sure there is something out there, I just need to find it. I need to be kept accountable about finding something, otherwise I'll never get around to it. Heck, almost 2 years have passed already. Anyone else interested in volunteering? :)

Hmm why am I thinking about this now? Probably because I'm in charge of finding a community outreach event for FNL at the end of June... and I have yet to do so. Ooops. If anyone knows of opportunites, let me know! I already tried CityTeam, to no avail.

oh NO! i did a bad thing...i accidentally gave away the ending of the season finale of alias to cachu. :( i thought he had watched it already, but apparently, he's only at the beginning of season 2. sorry caleb! i'm going to keep my mouth shut about it from now on.

"God is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He's continually working out His ultimate perfection for you." -Oswald Chambers

hmm... not sure how much i'll use this. we'll see. for now, it exists as an avenue to spill out my random thoughts.