Thinking about D. January 30, 2008

One night when I was on vacation earlier this month, I thought about my friend D.  I actually had a dream about her.   D. and I met when I first started working at the Med Center.  We became good friends after a few months and she even joined the bible study group that I started at work.  She’s Catholic by marriage but she believed in Jesus.  We became such close friends that we hung out outside of work.  I went to her home a few times and our spouses met a few time also.  She would even call me every morning asking for specific prayer requests as I got ready for work.  Even when I transfered to the Cancer Center, our phone calls were more frequent.  I also gave her a book on Christians who are married to non-Christians to help strength her walk with God and to work on her marriage with her husband since he’s not a believer yet. 

Now, it’s been 1 year since I last talked to her.  Her family had to make a sudden move to SF where her husband had to relocate.  I tried contacting her a few times since she’s now at the UCSF but it saddens me that I hadn’t heard a response back.  It’s like we were never friends.  I’m sure that she’s busy but how hard is it to send a quick email back?

On Sunday, Daniel preached on the authenticity on our relationship with Christ and how one way to identify that is by the fruits of our labor.  Honestly, I am afraid that when I get to meet Jesus face to face that he would shun me from His Kingdom because it seems to me that I have no fruit on my tree.  Not to say, that D. is the only fruit that I’m working on but sometimes I just don’t see any direct fruit. 

D., I miss you and our friendship. I know that sometimes we get so blog down in life that we forget to keep in contact with people even though they’re in our hearts.  I pray that your relationship with God will strengthen and that you would find a good Christian support group at work and outside of work.  I pray that you will find a home church (if you hadn’t already) where you can freely worship and serve our loving Father.  I pray for your marriage and your family that our Lord will be the center of that.  May your husband coming to know our loving Lord and Savior and may he be the great leadership example for your kids.  I love you!

New Year and new semester January 24, 2008

My typical work day starts off with me checking on my emails and reading my friends’ blogs.  Two individuals blogs struck to me this morning that I wanted to share my thoughts with also.

School.  It’s been day two and I feel bittersweet about it.  When school was out,  I was excited to go back and even made new resolutions this year to strive to do better -to give up my old habits of being lazy and keep up with my readings.  Last night was the first test.  Instead of coming home to study, I just vegged out in front of the TV and watch American Idol.  After the 10 o’clock news, I lay on the side of the couch and then fell asleep.  When I briefly woke up, I saw that it was 11:35pm, so I washed up and went to my comfy bed.  Honestly, the only class that I truly need this semester is my Cantonese class to fulfill my foreign language requirements.  So, why am I stressing myself out by added two additional classes?  Cuz’ I’m crazy!  The Chinese in me who’s into bargain hunting and finding good deals told me to do so.  See, this semester, I have free tutition and so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take more classes for FREE!  I have 3 classes and I even want to add one more.  Sichan suggested that I shouldn’t add more because I already have so much to do outside of work and school.  I need to invest more time in the upkeeping of our home and my ministry at church.

Which leads to another resolution for this year:  time management.  For those of you who know me well, know that I am never on time!!  This year, I’m making a more conscious effort to be on time.  I’ve been verbally talked to at work to be on time, which doesn’t make any sense since no one is one time at work.  We all come in late and most of us make up our time yet I’m the one who gets picked on.  I mean, shouldn’t we all lead by example?  I know that instead of me venting and pouting on why I don’t agree about it, I am choosing to be Christ-like example at work.  I was 10 minutes early today!  So proud of myself!!!  But I need to focus on my other areas too…like for instance, some friends invited me over for lunch this past monday.  Sichan had to work so he couldn’t nudge me to be more conscious to being on time so that morning, so I went to the gym (1 hr later than I wanted to), went to get some blood drawn for my hypothyrodism, then went to my mom’s to do laundry and shower, then got to our friend’s place 1/2 hr LATE!  I felt so embarrased since everyone was waiting on me to start lunch and our friend even called me to see where I was at.  So, I appologize to my pals for being late! 

Today, I happened to stumble on an acquaintances’ post and decided to borrow this from them.  This was originally taken from SlackerManager.com. (Thanks Viv and Pete!)

HOW TO ALWAYS BE ON TIME
by Rob Crawford

How can you transform yourself from an “always late” goof to an “always on-time” hero?

1. Expect delays en route. There WILL be an 18-wheeler overturned on the other side of the highway that will cause everyone on your side to slow down and gawk. Give yourself much more time than you need to get there.

2. Aim to arrive five to fifteen minutes early. Bring a book to read, hand-held video game to play, or toenail clippers to use in case you arrive early enough that you have a chunk of valuable time.

3. Give yourself permission to end phone calls, random conversations, or dragging-on meetings that threaten your chances of being on-time for another commitment. Practice saying, “Being on time for my next meeting is more important to me than communicating with you anymore today. Goodbye.” This is not rude. (But being late is rude.)

4. Don’t try to squeeze in one more phone call or one more game of Minesweeper before departing for your meeting — better to leave early and arrive on-time with a relaxed frame of mind. Then, you can play Minesweeper on your Palm Pilot while you wait for all the late people to arrive.

5. Schedule all meetings in your office. Then, you don’t even need a calendar. When people start streaming in, you can assume it’s time for another meeting. You’ll always be the first one there.

6. Never let your gas tank get below 1/4 full. Having to stop for gas could make you late. Running out of gas could make you really, really late.

7. Don’t schedule commitments back-to-back. Give yourself 15-60 minutes between commitments to account for over-extended meetings, and to give yourself time to set-up your fantasy baseball team’s lineup before your next meeting.

Happy New Years! January 9, 2008

This is belated but: Happy New Years everyone!!!  Hope you had a great New Years day and I pray that God will show you more of His love and blessings to you this new year.  May we be more deligent into studying His word and spending more quiet time with Him.

As I reflect back on this site, I’m encourage to create new cards and post pictures of my attempt work of art.   This is a stamping site, but I’m ashamed that I probably only created less than 5 cards in 2007.  Some I didn’t even send it out yet..belated Christmas cards.  I thought that I had sent them out already but last night realized that they were still on my coffee table.  So, look foward to seeing some exciting new cards soon!