quarter is finally over, and i have to say... that was probably the most stressful quarter end, ever. my weekend basically consisted of: on saturday - work all morning/afternoon, praise band practice, joy's bday "surprise" at jt's (where i ended up working the whole night); on sunday - church, an attempt to nap, but ended up working the whole afternoon instead, dinner at andrea's (thanks! that was good food), but again, where i ended up working the entire night, and then back to the office around 11:30pm and finally left after 1am.

at andrea's, mike brought over his old school super nintendo, so they ended up playing old school games the whole night. i even managed to squeeze in some games in between working :) sure brings back lots of old memories... especially street fighter 2. i used to watch my brother play that game every day. All you can!

things i learned over the weekend: i am very irritable when i am that stressed, and lose all patience with people. sigh. something i need to work on. that my commute to/from work could really be less than 7 minutes (! vs my usual 20+ minutes) when there is no traffic. and finally... that donut wheel is really a happening place at 1:30am. that place was packed when i drove past it home.

there are some other things on mind, but i have to sort it out. i've barely had time to breathe, so i pray that things can settle down for me. i really need a break.

i enjoy: staying home indoors on a rainy day, drinking hot chocolate, and reading, watching tv, or playing on the game cube seri left at our place.
i don't enjoy: going to work, walking in between buildings in cold weather, and staying late on a rainy day.

i enjoy: discovering that my car's winshield wipers slow down their wiping speed when i brake (what a smart car!)
i don't enjoy: trying to learn how to use my winshield wipers while it's raining and discovering that no matter what setting i put it on, it seems to be stuck at one speed (except when i brake. what a not-so-smart car.)

i enjoy: my fairly new work laptop, which sure beats my old one that liked to black out on me randomly, wouldn't shut completely, and couldn't support wireless since the PCIMA slots broke.
i don't enjoy: gouging my knee out when i accidentally knelt (well, more like dropped my knee) on the laptop's plug. it hurt SO freaking bad. i bent the plug, and although miracuously my pants didn't tear, when i rolled up the pant leg, i found a nice deep (thankfully though, not too big) gash in my knee.

i enjoy: weekends.
i don't enjoy: working all morning/afternoon on saturday and until midnight on sunday (like i'll have to this weekend). especially if it's raining.

i enjoy: starting to plan Road Trip 2005 (cross-country, baby!) and the opportunity to fellowship with my gals. will probably be the last time before, ahem, certain ones get hitched.
i don't enjoy: nothing on this one. unless... i can't get the time off work. but i won't think about that. besides, 5 weeks of PTO and counting!

i enjoy: blogging
i don't enjoy: forgetting what i was going to blog as i try to log onto blogger. the site has been soooooooooo slow.

ok... that's all i have for now.

my verse of the week:
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I'm so glad that God can use my weaknesses, because I sure have a lot of them.

finally uploaded pictures from ted & anna's wedding:

take me to the pictures!

some highlights:

the happy couple:




thanks to reni & maurice's always generous hospitality, a bunch of us were able to stay at her place. she even created an, um, intimate bed for mike & bob:




at the wedding, something didn't look quite right with one of the groomsmen:




the wedding party (minus sarah, who wouldn't stand still for a long period of time):




p.dan and sarah... one of the cutest babies and flower girls ever:




since there was a few hours in between the ceremony and reception, a bunch of us went to shao mai, where, lo and behold, we happened to run into some busboys that we know:





p.dan stylin' with the ladies at the reception:




and last, but not least... since there were five of us, we rented a full-sized car. who knew we would get this big boat of a car - so big that three of us could sit in the back seat without touching each other - not even at the shoulders:



gotta love the big american cars. go chevy impala!


and finally, pictures from our 12+ hr blackout... to us, this is what our house looked like all night:




had we had electricty, it probably would have looked like this (thanks to my strong camera flash):



the end.

oh, and i have to add, go bears!

my brain's capacity is severely being tested this week, and will be next week. severely. i think i'm going to kill all my brain cells by end of next week...

i think this picture speaks for itself. i wasn't there when this happened, but when eric sent it to me, i busted up laughing out loud. at work.

sigh. i am SO BUMMED. that was definitely a winnable game, and we played better offensively and defensively. if only special teams wasn't a part of football. :( look at the stats - we totally dominated SC and Rodgers was on fire!! and now... we have to, gulp, root for sc to win out, and our bears to win out so that we can make it to the rose bowl. definitely a hard-fought game by the bears. defense surprised me at how well they played... if it just weren't for those muffed punts, punt returns, and kick attempts! argh. sigh. i'm going to go wallow in my sorrow now.

I'M SO PROUD OF MY GIRLS:

karen (10:27:03 AM): are you ready to go out and watch some football? :-) :-)
eva (10:29:47 AM): go bears
eva (10:29:49 AM): woohoo!
eva (10:29:50 AM): yup
eva (10:29:56 AM): we're going to espnzone later
eva (10:30:00 AM): to watch the game
karen (10:30:05 AM): really???
karen (10:30:09 AM): i'm so proud of you!!!
karen (10:30:12 AM): is eric taking you?
eva (10:30:18 AM): no
eva (10:30:20 AM): he's studying
eva (10:30:26 AM): but olivia, ev, and i are gonna go

They're going... all on their own!! (even though olivia claims she's going to bring her laptop write her paper. psch.) i'm still in shock. what an improvement over the time a bunch of us watched the insight bowl together (an exciting shootout of a game) and eva and olivia ended up playing scrabble the entire time. I'm beaming with pride right now. hahaha.

HAHAHA. this email totally made my day.

from eva's fiance, eric:

hey karen, is cal going to beat sc? go trojans or go bears? i'm sure it'll be a good game.... i'm really glad you're a true football/sports fan because it provides a great example for all the baltimore girls here.....keep up the good work in making football fans of eva and olivia...

I think eric huang is in love... eric h's reaction to the email i recieved:
[18:57:44] eric: man
[18:58:05] eric: i can see o and jono drawing instead

o, eva, ev - you girls had better watch the game on Saturday! I already tried to make them watch the oregon st. game last week since it was a rare opportunity that cal was on national tv. they watched some wedding show instead :( although i think they did flip to the game for a little bit.

And eric tai... say it with me.... Go Bears!

[19:11:44] eric: haha...dude....eva is one lucky girl
[19:12:59] eric: would it be weird to visit baltimore for eric?

couple of things:

- it's been a while since I've experienced an extended power outage. Thanks to some private construction crew, the entire city of Cupertino experienced it for more than 12 hours on Friday. Who knew one little construction crew from some random company could shut down an entire city for that long? That's a little scary. driving around at night was pretty dangerous since stoplights were completley out (not even blinking) so a lot of cars couldn't tell where there were intersections and drove right through them. but we're safe, we threw away the nastiness in our freezer and fridge that we deemed potentially life-killing (seriously amazing what a freezer smells like after 12 hours of no electricty), and got to use the 100 candles that we have been given as gifts over our lifespan.

- what about them bears? 3 weeks off scared me a little bit, and considering oregon state has had our number for the last 5 years, i was a little nervous. But dang, did you people see the first 3 minutes of the game? wow. this is definitely one exciting team to watch... can't wait for this saturday. Sure to be a great matchup! can't believe ABC regionalized the darn game, it's one of the best matchups of the day. Sorry eric and all you people who chose to leave California for who knows why.

- yesterday, somehow, our brilliant IT dept managed to delete microsoft office off every person's computer on our floor. no joke. i was sitting in front of my computer, working, when a popup window appeared, and after about 10 minutes, microsoft office disappeared. it was eventually reinstalled on everyone's computer, but i lost all my settings, all the macros i had recorded in excel, any personalization I had done in any microsoft office program. GRRR. it had to be our floor that they decided to run an experiement on first.

okay that's it. just chugging along at work as best i can until the weekend. cheer on the bears this saturday!

been very busy with work, although i won't bore you with the details. suffice it to say, i am very, very tired this morning. my eyes hurt, my body is sore, and i could barely wake up in the morning.

i will eventually get the pics up from our weekend in LA and ted/anna's wedding. i have too much going on right now. but reni & maurice rock for letting us all stay at their place. and we rented the biggest boat of a car ever. mike rocks for driving us around all weekend in it :) hm i might as well finish and say amy and andrea rock for being my roommates for the weekend and um... bob rocks... for, hm... sharing sleeping quarters, shall i say (you will understand when i get my pics up) with mike. i think i covered all the people i traveled with for the weekend.

did anyone watch the presidential debates last night? i missed the live version, but came home in time to see the replay on KRON at 10. thanks, KRON. what'd you all think? there were obvious themes that each president was stressing about his opponent (seriously, how many times did you hear president bush say "mixed messages"?) but supposedly kerry is seen as the "winner." kerry is obviously a better orator (bush is horrible at public speaking! hemming, hawing, stumbling over his words, short choppy sentences), but i don't know. i think my first step is to re-register under my new address, which i haven't done yet (i know, bad me. but i'll do it). otherwise i have to trek to mountain view to vote.

lastly, i will finish with GO BEARS! it's been a long time since they've played a game. gotta get past orgeon state unscathed so that we will be undefeated when we go play and beat USC next week :)