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. :(