i drove to work today, which i realized may have not been the best thing halfway there since i was mostly braking with my left leg. i can push the pedals fine, but it's the movement from one pedal to the other that's hard. my knee is kinda swollen, and there's a lot of pressure in it, so i'm sure there's fluid in there. once it goes away or gets drained, i think it'll be much better.

my mom told me i'm not allowed to go skiing again. :( i think she was half-joking. i hope. or i hope she forgets by next year :) actually i'm thinking that i do need to ease off a little - maybe i'll go sky diving instead. KIDDING. (well, only partially kidding).

i was talking to jean and i was telling her how i should have gotten injured six months later so that i could be her pt patient. to which she replied, "no way! i'd NEVER take you, you're a bad patient!" thanks jean.

i just came back from the orthopedic doctor, which was pretty useless. i basically paid $10 to hear him tell me "ice your knee and take advil" which is what i've been doing. he did take an xray, nothing broken, which i already knew. he said i could make an appt to get an MRI right now or wait two weeks to see the knee after most of the fluid has drained and see if it heals on its own. i opted for the latter since i'm hoping it'll heal on its own and i don't want to pay $1k for an MRI unless it's necessary. one MRI was enough - you can't move for 30 minutes straight - talk about uncomfortable. so... yeah. i forgot how hard it is to get around on crutches. or maybe it was easier when i was at berkeley? i can't do anything on my own. get food, go shopping, even go to a meeting. and i don't have a handicap placard like i did when i was at cal, so i can't even park close by. time to build up those arm muscles again!

i'm back from tahoe! we beat the snow storm home, and had perfect weather on saturday. partly cloudy, 40 degrees, and it snowed the night before, so great snow!

uploaded my pics, so let's play a game of guess who:


whose ear is this?



who almost fell into the back of the car trying to grab something?



who got to ride a sled down the mountain?




here are the answers:
1. JT - a bunch of us took friday off so we headed up to tahoe early. we ate lunch at taco bell because some people had a huge craving for nacho cheese.

2. joy - i forgot what she was trying to grab, but she literally almost fell into the back. i caught her as she came back to the seat.

3. me - uh yeah. i think i'm done with adventurous sports for a while. at least this time i got to ride in a sled. i was at the very top of the mountain at heavenly, so it was quite a long ride. the ski patrol skied me down for part of it, then a ski mobile came and took me down another part, then the ski patrol took over again and skied me down the rest. i now have matching busted knees. yes, i hurt my right knee this time. don't know what it is... i'll have to go to the doctor tomorrow. i don't know what happened, all i remember is i made a sharp turn and face planted spread eagle. luckily a stranger was right next to me (even though a bunch of canaan people were behind me, this guy was literally right next to me) because i think i was really screaming in pain - so he popped off my skis for me. my left knee is fine, but my right knee is pretty messed up. can't put any pressure on it at all and can't bend it past 90 degrees. i really really really hope it's just a sprain because i do not want to go through a surgery again. but maybe this is God's way of forcing me to slow down :)

well i got to know the ski patrol & medics real well since i sat in the first aid lodge for a good 3.5 hours, and got to see all sorts of injuries come in (head injury, busted shoulder, ankle, knee, hip, cut on forehead with a bloody face to name a few).

anyway, that's the story. i hope i have no more of these stories to tell because my body can't take much more :) click here to see all the pictures from the ski trip, including a chronicle of the ski patrol wrapping me up in the sled to take me down the mountain. all the slopes shots are by andrea since she had my camera for the day.

not only can white men not jump (see Anderson in the slam dunk contest on saturday. he couldn't even catch the ball to attempt a dunk!), but i guess they can't dance either. this is hilarious.

my ideal saturday

today was so great. i woke up naturally with NO meetings, practices, or anything else in the morning. had lunch with my parents, ran some errands, took an afternoon nap, ate dinner, and watched phoenix almost sweep the NBA all-star competition (that dunk bounced off the backboard then off nash's head by stoudemire was pretty sweet! too bad he didn't win to complete the sweep.) while running on the treadmill. and it's only 8pm - still have a whole night ahead of me. what a great day... it was just what i needed. and i still have monday off, and a three-day work week since i'm taking friday off to go to tahoe. thanks to all the snow this weekend and the upcoming snow this week, it's going to be sweet on saturday. partly cloudy according to the weather forecast, and awesome snow. i can't wait!

some stimulating information, thanks to peter. demographic information on a city used for jury selection.

first, cupertino. i bolded what i thought was interesting.

ZIP: 95014
POST OFFICE: Cupertino
COUNTY: Santa Clara
STATE: CA
JURSEL SOCIAL-GROUP: Urban Affluent & Upper Middle Class
JURSEL CLUSTER-NAME: Sophisticated Urban Fringe Couples
JURSEL CLUSTER-CODE: 07
Percentage of US Households: 1.12%
Predominant Adult Age Range: 55-64, 65+
Key Education Level: College Graduates
Predominant Employment: Professional
Key Housing Type: Owners, Single Unit
Lifestyle Preferences: Use a household cleaning service, Have a passport, Have tax sheltered annuities, Watch The X-Files, Read Byte
Socio-Economic Rank: Affluent (5)
Ethnic Diversity: White, Asian
DMA-CODE 807
DMA-NAME: San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
MSA-CODE: 7400
MSA-NAME: San Jose, CA PMSA

ahahahhaa. watch the x-files?! use a household cleaning service?? i wish i had one!

then... i had peter check out my good ol' hometown of saratoga. this is even more entertaining:

ZIP: 95070
POST OFFICE: Saratoga
COUNTY: Santa Clara
STATE: CA
JURSEL SOCIAL-GROUP: Suburban Wealthy & Affluent
JURSEL CLUSTER-NAME: Elite Super-Rich Families
JURSEL CLUSTER-CODE: 01
Percentage of US Households: 1.18%
Predominant Adult Age Range: 45-54, 55-64
Key Education Level: College Graduates
Predominant Employment: Professional
Key Housing Type: Owners, Single Unit
Lifestyle Preferences: Played tennis 20+ times last year, Traveled to E. Europe last 3 years, Have $200,000+ homeowners' insurance, Watch Wall Street Week, Read Architectural Digest Socio-Economic Rank: Elite (1)
Ethnic Diversity: White, Asian
DMA-CODE 807
DMA-NAME: San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
MSA-CODE: 7400
MSA-NAME: San Jose, CA PMSA

whoa baby, elite super-rich families? played tennis 20+ times last year? well, at least i've gotten 1 out of the 20 done with ;)

[11:49:15] peter: hahahhahah!
[11:49:23] peter: wow, this is the most elite cross section of america
[11:49:36] peter: even more elite then some of the manhattan zip codes i inputed

that's some interesting information. there's a lot of conclusions you can draw from this, but i don't want to get into all of it now. i'll just leave it as interesting information for you all to read.

btw, anyone want to vacation anywhere but ny? drew, you and peter lost your chance with you rejected eva, me, and o when i visited the east coast in sept. too bad. and anyway, why don't you guys ever visit norcal? time for you to experience the elite lifestyle! ;)

i'm looking forward to a three-day weekend - i really need it.

as much as i would have loved to go to wcc (some of the workshops look really interesting), it's only february and i'm totally burnt out.

i remember one time two years ago FNL did a section on spiritual gifts, and during one of our meetings we broke up into groups by our main spiritual gift - and i remember one of the topics my group (administration) talked about is how we feel like everyone at church expects us to plan everything. to organize everything. to be in charge of everything. granted, i'm just tired emotionally, spiritually, and physically (my forearm is sore from playing tennis for two hours straight :), because a lot has been going on these past two months, but still. this weekend is a much welcomed break. no plans, no events, no meetings, nothing that i have to organize. i don't know when was the last saturday when this was the case.

lots to be praying for. God is teaching me how to pray more purposefully, how to be more devoted in prayer. what a discipline, but the rewards can be great :)

anyway, yes my right forearm hurts so much from playing tennis on saturday. i hadn't played in five years (all i remember is the last time i played was with eric & o during the summer at berkeley. it was so stinking hot that all i wanted to do was stand in the shade, so we made eric run all over the court.) it's amazing i could even hit the ball over the net. i don't remember my forearm ever being this sore from playing tennis or from other activities, but i have a feeling it's due to some form of RSI and sitting in front of a computer and keyboard and mouse for 9+ hours/day for the past three years.

i'm ready to go on vacation. who wants to go somewhere? and i mean actually go since a bunch of us have talked about going for more than two years, but never end up going anywhere. i'm back up to more than five weeks of PTO!

i swear, eric is the only guy i'll ever know to admittedly say this over and over again:

[17:42:19] eric: i dont have balls karen!

he needs encouragement! encourage him to go for the girl - alinna, he needs your help. i think we go through this with eric every time a girl comes into the picture... girls like bold guys, not wimpy guys. eric, stop being a wimp!

maybe this story will entertain you - or maybe some of you can sympathize with me:

so there's this coworker of mine - we're not in the same group - she's in operations, but because she handles one of the products i handle, i work with her daily - mostly me asking her about supply, die, and binning issues.

anyway so last week, i called her as usual to ask about the usual stuff. so i'm not sure how our conversation diverged - i think she changed the subject because she knew she was going to get in trouble again - but she suddenly asked if i had a boyfriend. i told her no, which i soon learned was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. she got really excited and she started asking me for my picture, to which of course i said NO. she told me she wanted to hook me up with a friend, and again i told her NO. in fact, i said NO so many times, my coworkers started asking me in the middle of my conversation what the heck we were talking about. anyway she kept insisting, and i kept saying NO. she told me, "no, really! he's a nice guy. i told my husband if we don't work out, i'm going to go after him!" mind you, my coworker is basically a fob in her early 40's. so of course my immediate reaction was "EW. NO thank you!!" so basically the rest of our conversation revolved around her asking for my picture and me saying NO. she told me that every time i call her (which is usually at least a couple times a day) she's going to ask me until i give in. luckily, since it's chinese new year this week, it's been slower than usual on that end, so i haven't had to talk to her much. i hope that by next week she'll have forgotten our conversation and will stop bugging me. after i got off the phone, all my coworkers asked me what i was talking about since all they could hear me say was "NO! NO! NO!" after i told them what happened they busted up laughing and threatened to send her my picture. i have such great supportive coworkers.

i'm kind of scared she'll pop by my cube one day with a camera, but thankfully i don't think she'd go that far. i hope.

i went to bed at 10pm last night. i also went to bed at 10:30 on friday night. yes, i'm an old geezer. although on thurs night & sat night i was up past 1am. and i actually didn't intend to fall asleep at 10pm last night - i got into bed at 9 with the intention to read for a while, but at 10pm i just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, and i turned off the lights and fell asleep. it sure felt good, though. i naturally woke up at 7am and felt fully rested, with a full hour+ before needing to get ready for work.

so at work i've been ditching some meetings, er... i mean, purposefully missing them to do other work because i already have enough meetings as it is to attend and i usually just sit at those other meetings and do other work on my laptop anyway. well, yeah... now i kind of regret it. because now i need information that i probably would have had had i gone to those meetings to do a file that i need to present at another meeting. oops. oh well, time to look for those meeting notes that i've been ignoring every week. you know, i'm starting to think meetings are overrated. who needs 'em anyway? we should have a ditch meetings week (kind of like senior ditch day in high school, except for a whole week). that would be awesome. too bad i don't think that'd fly too well with management. ;)

yes, please also note that i know how to spell my own name.

God is throwing me a major curveball. and He's teaching me a big lesson on faith. I'm the type who likes to have everything in control, to know exactly what's happening, and to have a plan for every last detail (in the myers-briggs personality type, i'm a very strong J) . I thought i was getting there until last night, and now everything is up in the air again. I feel like this is out of my hands and a time for me to learn what trust means, and it sure gives me a new perspective on Hebrews 11:1. I'm sure of what I hope for in our fellowships, I'm not certain on how we're getting there. But I'm certain of God knowing how we're getting there, even though it is unseen to me. That last part is the most difficult part for me, and i can feel this knot of anxiousness in my stomach. Talking to pdan and some deacons last night helped quell some of that - i'm thankful for their insight and encouragement. I think I just need some time to sort this out in my mind, and with God. It was a sudden blindsided hit last night, and my mind is overwhelmed by trying to process it all, trying to have a plan, trying to figure out how to communicate everything to everyone, trying to determine if we even need to change anything. i wish i could be like evie in out of this world, point my fingers together and freeze time. that would be awesome :) then again, i'd be half-alien. anyway, i'm being stretched. that is for sure.

um i think someone hijacked my comments. please note that i know how to spell "hyuntwins".