I have a story to tell you.

Once upon a time, on a gorgeous July 31st morning, I was journaling in the kitchen while Dad was heating up a yummy Chinese-y breakfast on the stove.

"Ta-da!" Mom said, coming into the kitchen from the side door that led to the backyard. She held in her hand the longest string bean I've possibly ever seen in my life.

"What is that?" I asked, looking up from my journal.

"All her hard work," Dad said, without missing a beat. He grinned while Mom chuckled.

"What? I don't get it," I said.

"That's all it gave you?" Dad asked her, as he checked on the Chinese baos steaming in the pan.

"Yup," Mom replied. "It's from the seeds that Uncle Keon gave me."

"Wait...how long have you been growing the plant?" I asked.

"Um...well, since June I think."

"You've been growing that thing for two months and all it did was grow that one string bean??"

"It would've been nice to have a whole bunch of them," Mom said. She didn't really sound disappointed - in fact, she seemed unfazed by the whole thing, as if growing more than one bean would be the cherry on top.

"I told you, it's all her hard work," Dad said, handing me my breakfast.

I stared at the purple bao set before me. I had never eaten a purple bao before. This was quite unexpected. I was beginning to theorize that the food we ate reflected some indication of our family's weird behavior.

"So...what are you going to do with it?" I said, turning my gaze back to the elongated, home-grown vegetable.

"I'll cook it up next week," Mom said, starting to walk away.

"Dad, my bao is purple," I said. Dad shrugged.

I put the purple bao in my mouth, imagining what it would be like if I turned purple tomorrow, just like the girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

And we all lived happily eating taro baos ever after.

THE END

Alternate Ending: And then I found $5 on the floor.

If I had a Twitter, my status would say...

Disappointed again by the deficiency of God-fearing, Christ-driven, servant-leading men of my generation in my life.

I want a beautiful mind...and some beautiful cupcakes.

I find that it's a really beautiful thing to strive for the kind of mind that God had intended us to have.

When I'm constantly surrounded by movie trailers, magazines on racks, newspaper articles, tv commercials, strangers, co-workers, friends, family and more that try to influence me (intentionally or not) to look a certain way or act a certain way, there's a moment when the Holy Spirit whispers in the stillness that "It's okay not to be like that." I find that beautiful.

Lately instead of reading or listening to music I'll sit on the bus or train and just think. I've been feeling a strange kind of emptiness, and it feels wrong to fill it other kinds of words. So I'm trying to sit and listen, which is a pretty difficult thing to do in NYC. And then since I haven't been getting much sleep lately, I end up dozing off for a number of minutes without even realizing it. I hate that.

But it's interesting because every time I've always ended up being filled with such life in me by the time I get home, completely forgetting those moments of emptiness. Most of those times have been because I see Pam. I get so happy (giddy, even) just seeing her when she comes home or when we go home together or when we happen to be on the same bus (yeah, it's happened - so cool!). All the ways throughout my life that God has worked through her to give me life seems to resonate through her, whether she's in a good mood or not (most of the time she's real tired and doesn't want to talk). And I'm reminded of my fullness in Christ.

On a less serious but equally happy-intensifying note, I have a co-worker who bakes really yummy cupcakes from scratch. She sometimes brings some to work to share! They remind me of my dear old high school friend Andrea Kam. AKam, if you're reading this (although unlikely), I've been thinking about you!

Here's a half-eaten S'mores cupcake. I only realized/decided to take a picture to share with all of you halfway through, but this way you're also able to see the beautiful toasty graham cracker crust. And yes, that is a marshmallow-y yummy frosting.

And here's a pistachio cupcake. And I thought things couldn't get any better than a pistachio muffin. I was quite wrong. By the way, that frosting isn't whipped cream. I thought it was, but it's like a vanilla buttercream something frosting. SO GOOD.

My co-worker has also made a coconut banana chocolate cupcakes and oreo cupcakes, the oreo one being my very first of her cupcakes. Unfortunately I was engrossed in the actual consumption that subconciously I didn't want to share the beauty of the cupcakes with you until it rose to my conscious by the third cupcake. She put actual cookies in the oreo cupcake AND the crust, I might add. And the coconut banana one tastes a LOT better than it sounds. It was awesome.

Just so you know, she didn't make these every day in a week. This was over the course of June/July, so hopefully I've worked off all the cupcake-aftermath by now.

...probably not, though. So sad. But soooo goooood!

Finally.

After college in Binghamton for 3 years, I finally own a pair of rainboots for my senior year:

News-reading frenzy

Newspapers were never my friends.
Journalism was like a disease to me.

When I was in the first grade, we had to write a Current Events report due every Friday. It was a simple assignment: look through a newspaper or news magazine to find a story that interests you and summarize the five W's - who, what, where, when, why - in one or two paragraphs. Then hand it in. That's it. Simple, right?

I hated that assignment. I can't remember if I had a hard time figuring out the five W's or if it was boring to me, but I just know I struggled through those assignments. I actually remember getting into a lot of fits with my mom over them. She'd be cooking in the kitchen, and I'd be sitting at the table, flipping through the newspaper, cutting one out and then sprawling all over the chair, whining and complaining about how much I didn't like the news. Or, I'd write one word answers for the five W's like the info on a party invitation and then not show my mom, but then she'd ask to see it and tell me to do it over because Miss Puder wasn't going to accept it unless it was in paragraph form. Either way, I'd probably say 2/3 of the time in the midst of working on the assignment my mom would raise her voice at me and I'd get mad at her, burst out crying, and run downstairs to my dad to comfort me - which he did, every time. And then he'd patiently help me write a check-plus-worthy Current Events report.

Now that I think about it, whatever it was that turned me off from the news probably affected how I've viewed journalism up until recently. I never had any desire to read the newspaper, wasn't one to enjoy reporting facts, hated meeting hard deadlines and had no sense of adventure in trying to "find a story" when I could make up my own rules, write a story you couldn't find anywhere else except in my imagination, and could do it all in my own time on my own terms. That's probably the gist of what I thought of journalism.

But I've seen a slow but big change in my attitude towards journalism over these last few years: I've habitually watched the news with my parents whenever I'm home during a school break, I joined Binghamton's school newspaper, the Pipe Dream (and actually take the time to read it now), and I've made CNN and The New York Times as my internet homepages. But I think those seeds of change have catalyzed their expression particularly within the last few weeks because of my internship.

I thought commuting an hour and half to work and back home would drive me crazy this summer. But as I've discovered, it's a great opportunity to have 20-30 minute chunks of reading time. Sometimes I'll read my current book (which happens to be Get a Financial Life: Personal Financing in your Twenties and Thirties) or usually in the morning I'll read USA Today. Now granted, I wish I could read the whole paper, but a) I don't have enough time on the train/bus to read the whole thing, and b) Pam and I split the paper, so I only take the section that has the crossword puzzle in it :P Usually the crossword puzzle is in the Life Section, but often times (probably strategically done) the crossword puzzle can be found in the Money Section. So if USA Today was trying to get those crossword puzzlers to start reading the Money Section more, they've certainly succeeded with me.

At first I thought it would be a hard read - and yeah, sometimes I don't understand some of the numbers involved in things - but between reading a finance book, picking up on the politics of financial issues from The West Wing, and interning for a life insurance company, I've exponentially picked up on a lot of concepts and terms during this summer so far than I ever could have imagined. And the articles can be really interesting!

Anyway, it's a cool change to see in myself. I used to always be anti-math/finance or anything to do with numbers, but it's cool to see how God is stretching my mind and teaching me tons of things any normal person should be learning in a classroom - but instead I'm learning through the read-and-ask-people-questions method.

And on top of all of this, I'm improving my crossword-solving skills :]

Through Painted Deserts

Remember how in one of my previous blog posts I talked about how I was reading Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts and wasn't really feeling it? And I was already halfway through the book and kind of wanted to stop reading but at the same time still wanted to finish the book just to finish it?

So, I just finished Through Painted Deserts and I actually ended up liking it. Donald Miller wasn't as scatterbrained as I thought he was. I just skimmed through the more long-winded descriptions of things, but stopped to absorb more of the little nuggets of good reminders and insights that Pam had already underlined (haha, thanks Pam!).

What's interesting is that I chuckled a lot while reading the book. You know those moments when you're reading something or someone else is reading something and then whatever you read just made you literally laugh out loud? I had a bunch of those moments from this book. Donald Miller's dialogue is just so witty and the things they say were pretty funny. I truly believe it was the dialogue that was pulling through the rest of the book.

So in contrast to that, while I was reading Through Painted Deserts I was simultaneously reading Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages: For Singles as I believe I might have also mentioned in a previous blog. Now, by "reading simultaneously" I mean on a different occasion I'm reading a different book. On my commutes to and/or from (sometimes if I'm too sleepy I'll sleep, but only if I really can't keep my eyes open to read) my internship I'll carry one book with me, and then at home when I read right before I sleep (which I have to do almost every night), I'll read a different book.

Anyway, so I'm reading that book now, and I'm sorely disappointed. Maybe it's not meant to, but it doesn't have any deep insight or, "Ohhhhh, that's a good way of putting that" kind of moments. And besides that, I feel as though if I wasn't sure about rooting my relationships in God's truths first, this book would be feeding more off of my emotional needs rather than the security in my relationship with God first....do you know what I mean? The book is good, but I have a bunch of criticisms about it, and maybe it's just his writing style.

I know he tries to make a point that he's talking about how we express and receive love on an emotional level, but the true life story examples he uses and the way he explains how you find out what your or someone else's primary love language just makes it seem way too simple or black and white, and I really believe it's a little more complex than that. I did pull out some major ideas/concepts that are helpful to figure out my own primary love language, which was really hard to do. I'll tell you about how I figured that out in my next post :P

By the way, my reading goal for this summer was to read 6 books: 3 more "fun" books, and 3 spiritual formation/Christian kind of books. After Through Painted Deserts, I just need to finish one more book to reach my goal. And I'm halfway through reading the Love Languages book and simultaneously a book about learning how to have a plan your personal finances (yeah, that's right, I'm learning on my own how to plan financially), so I'm going to reach my goal! I've been making a summer reading goal for myself every year since I was...maybe in the 6th grade (some time in middle school)? But I've actually been falling way under my goal since...I think the 9th or 10th grade in high school. So this is exciting!

Okay, so all you people who don't like to read and think making summer reading goals is nerdy may not find it all that exciting. But I do, and that's all that matters :]

Vegetables, pictures, and lack of funny people.

I need more vegetables in my life.
That's all I really wanted to say about that.

I've also decided I should keep my camera on-hand a little more so that I could include pictures in my blog posts. Hopefully something interesting will come up.

Maybe I'll take some pictures during practice for the Joint-Church Praise & Prayer praise team practice (man, we gotta come up with a band name or something) tomorrow. I have to be admit that it was nice to sing with a band again. And apparently, Josh says the four of us vocalists (Joyce Cara Wong, Ben Ng, Boaz, and me) blend well together. I wouldn't know because we're so loud that I couldn't really hear us. But tomorrow we should be plugging in our headsets so hopefully that'll help. After practicing yesterday, I'm a lot more excited for the night :] Come out if you can! It's on Friday, July 9th, @ 6:30 pm. Invite people from your church. I'm excited to see God move through prayer and praise.

The other thing I've been thinking about this week is just how I really want to keep updating my Note the Quote blog, but since I sit around in a cubicle practically all day, I'm not surrounded by too many quoteable people. I miss updating the blog.

Here's an elementary school tidbit: I think I can name most, but maybe all the full names of my kindergarten classmates off the top of my head, without looking at a picture.
I think that's pretty cool.

Reminisce

Since we had so many new people at CCF on Friday, Pam had us introduce ourselves and share our favorite elementary school memory. It was terrible - I loved elementary school so much that it was so hard choosing just one of my favorite memories. It seems as though all my memories were good, even the times I cried because I was so sensitive.

I think I might randomly blog about my elementary school memories. They were good times and memories I'd like to record/remember and possibly read about later on. Plus, it might help me practice writing some stories :P

It was just me and parents eating dinner together one night last week. I don't know how we got onto this topic, but we ended up talking about what it was like raising me as a Pastor's kid (PK). I told them they did a really good job because I never really identified myself as a Pastor's kid - I never felt any pressure to do well in school, or to act differently than who I was. In fact, it made me feel special - at PaLM events especially because everyone who walked in the door would already know who I am without me having to tell them. It was like I was famous.

That's why one time Uncle Cliff (someone from my church) said that I was like royalty in the Chinese-American Christian realm. Haha.

Well, if I was Princess of the Chinese-American Christian realm, then I was Princess among the adults of my elementary school, P.S. 162, because my mom was like a queen. She was on the PTA since the year Sam had entered kindergarten, and stayed so involved in our school that she stayed on the PTA as a volunteer for at least another....2 or 3 years (?) after I (the youngest) had already graduated!

I loved that all the teachers knew who I was because of my mom's involvement or because they had my sisters as their students. It definitely made me feel special. I even knew the principal because of my mom.

I guess some might consider me a biter (am I using that term correctly?). Yes, it does make me feel special when people know me because of connections to my dad, my mom, or even my sister Pam. I'm proud to be associated with them. I never feel like I'm in their shadow, and I never try to use their reputation to build my own. To me it saves me the agony of hacking away at small talk when it comes to new people, desparately trying to tread the deep waters of keeping our conversation alive by searching for common ground.

As you can probably tell, I'm not one who particularly enjoys networking with strangers.

Man, just thinking about elementary school makes me smile. I can't wait to share more stories.

I'm going to tell you about my dream, but you have to promise not to laugh.

So when I write about the dream/talk about the dream out loud, it sounds a lot stupider than it felt. But trust me, it wasn't funny.

I actually don't remember most of it now because I actually had the dream about a day ago rather than when I woke up this morning, but the important part is still fresh in my mind.

So I think there were people everywhere in my house - except the rooms in my house were expanded to be a lot bigger than they really are right now. And I was socializing, making the rounds, but it wasn't my event. I don't even know what all those people were doing there. There were kids running around everywhere, and if I remember correctly, it was as if we were all waiting for something to happen. Nothing huge like a performance or rocket launch or anything, we were just waiting.

I think at some point I just stopped to talk to Michelle, who was with a handful of other people and a bunch of kids that I liked to play with (?? yeah I don't know). But something felt wrong with my mouth so I went to check it out in the bathroom (which, strangely enough, looks exactly the way the tiny thing looks now), thinking it was just something stuck between my teeth. But when as I looked in the mirror the bottom tooth in my mouth that's squished in crookedly by my other teeth suddenly felt loose - and when I touched it with my finger, it BROKE. Yeah, it was cracked and just broke off into my mouth. It wasn't anything like a loose tooth where the whole tooth pops out from the gums. There was still the very bottom of the tooth rooted in my mouth like it should be - but the big chunk of my tooth just broke.

Well, no surprise - I freaked.

I panicked and immediately tried to think of what food I ate that could've caused this, which made me panic even more because I didn't eat anything the whole day. I also panicked because it was another tooth problem to take care of that would totally be so expensive and telling my dad about this would make me feel so terrible. But I sucked it up and knew it would be worse if I just left it the way it was, so I quickly went to find my dad, trying to hide my panicked face for the guests as I weaved and bobbed through the crowd.

My eyes were ready to bring on the waterfalls by the time I found my dad, but as soon as I was getting ready to make up a good explanation, ALL my other teeth in my mouth broke off the same way the first one did. I'm serious. ALL of my teeth did. So it wasn't like all I had were my gums, but there were a the very bottoms of the teeth still in there. The teeth had just snapped off. And they all fell into my mouth. So I suddenly had my teeth rolling around on my tongue.

Yeah. You think reading about it sounds disgusting? Imagine how I real it felt in my dream to actually experience that.

And of course, I burst out crying but my dad didn't know why because I hadn't had the chance to explain anything yet, but I was already sobbing and couldn't speak. So when my very flustered dad asked me what was wrong, I couldn't say anything - only opened my mouth as best as I could and then spit out some of my teeth into my hand to show him what happened.

That's when I woke up.

I had gone to sleep at around 11:45/12 that night - it was now 1AM. Isn't that crazy? I can't remember the last time a dream literally woke me up AND it wasn't even close to the time I was supposed to get up yet. It was so weird.

My teeth did feel funny though, when I woke up. But I don't know what was making it feel like that. And my mom had the tv on a little too loud, which made the bass vibrate the floor, which translates to my box of a bed pretty easily to make my heart pound a little more. So maybe that contributed to it.

Maybe I'm subconsciously worried about going back to the dentist next week for the conclusion (it BETTER be) of my root canal. This whole root canal thing wasn't very pleasant - and it wasn't because of the actual procedure. Go figure.

Anyway, the end. That was a little more wordy than I had planned.