Thoughts from the Woolgatherer

Being Selfless

2008-11-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

There was something interesting that I observed the other day. I wholeheartedly attended a police academy graduation this past Monday. Both Corporal Alvarez and Sergeant Medina of Biola Campus Safety had graduated from Level 3 Modular Training and about 8 of us from CS decided to attend the ceremony. The graduation itself was quick and civil, only lasting an hour long with no delays or anything within the time frame.

The time came for the pinning of the badges. As they were reading out each of the officers names they stated what careers that each of them were involved in before the academy. To my surprise most of the careers I heard read out were investment bankers, marketers, stock brokers, and other business related jobs. This came off quite a shock to me because I picture such jobs like these as being luxurious. One could live quite a comfortable life and not have to worry about personal finances. It made me wonder if these men and women were trying to seek something else in life, or if they found their previous careers to be rather unfulfilling for some odd reason. Regardless, it led me to have more respect for these men and women. To go into law enforcement, to risk their lives in order to make this city a better place is something you don't see quite often in people. What a way to be selfless.

People in General

2008-08-21T03:03:00.000-07:00

I think the study of people is rather fascinating. That's why I chose to be a Sociology major here at Biola, and because of that I've been able to dive in further to understand how a world of people can function in society, yet be so dysfunctional due to many reasons. A lot of the time I am a spectator. I like watching situations fold between two nations, ethnic groups, people, couples, friends, the list goes on. Do I benefit from this? Perhaps. Maybe by observing what happens to people somehow I realize it can apply to my life. Perhaps a lesson can be learned, or maybe things could be handled better. Whatever the situation may be it is a stepping stone in the right direction, or so it may seem. Over my 21 years of existence I feel like I've been able to understand people better and better as time goes on. Yet, it doesn't seem to be enough. There will always be misunderstandings, which leads to a downhill struggle amongst men. Misunderstandings can even lead to as big of thing as WAR. It's crazy but true. Anyways, enough of the broad spectrum.

Just recently, and even right now, I've been thinking about how many people I've seen come and go out of my life, some being for better or for worse in both areas. I can honestly say that three years ago before moving to Los Angeles I would not have seen the group of people that I have in my life right now back then, but then again who would. Every year there always seems to be change I've realized. Friendships fail, contact is lost when people move away, but is that really the way things should be? I've always wondered if change in the people surrounding you in your life is really a good thing in general? There will always be circumstances where changes like these are for the best i.e. those who serve as a bad influence, abusive, or even life threatening. But besides that should change really happen. I remember this past summer I had a falling out with a close friend, or used to be one at some point. Things were slowly heading downhill between us. I had realized that the friendship was not worth holding onto, and for them they just didn't seem to understand my perspective on things. They drew first blood in the whole ordeal by cutting off complete contact with me, but in reality I had wanted it to happen that way. It wasn't because I had wanted to say it was their fault for flipping out, but mainly it was to insure that things had come to an end definitely, which they did. Do I have any remorse for what I did? Actually I don't. Does that make me a cold heartless person? I think not. If anything I feel so much better after the whole situation. I feel like a big burden was taken off my shoulder leading me to feel like a totally different person, and I'm sure they feel the same way too. There was a friendship that was bringing me down that had to be eliminated with minimal damage. Simple as that. In the end we both came out as better people and now more than even I feel quite satisfied with those who surround me now. Therefore because of this situation changes in the people in your life can be a blessing, it just depends on what you're willing to sacrifice in the end.

Tripping Over Wires

2007-07-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well I've realized it's been quite a while since I've actually been here to update this blog. My bad. But now that I'm finally her I can post another casual update. So it's been almost 5 weeks now into the summer and time has really gone by quite fast, but at the same time this summer has been the most unpleasant of all summer I've ever experienced.

For the past 5 weeks I've been living in a small town in the Central Valley of California called Visalia. The reason why I'm living here of all places is because my parents are here in the California for the summer because they have to report to all their churches that support them in their ministry. On top of that, somebody from one of my parents supporting churches let us look after their house for the whole summer while they were going to be gone until September. This housing arrangement here in Visalia was a huge answer to prayer for my parents and it somewhat was an answer to prayer for me as well. I figured that if I lived here I could get a job easily and work over the summer to build up finances and so forth. Plus the town was in a good location because it was halfway between the Bay Area and LA, which meant I could go to both places conveniently. Those were my previous thoughts before coming here.

Well like I said before this summer has been quite unpleasant for the most part. One of the real major frustrations I've had since I arrived here in Visalia is not having a job. For the past month or so I have been going around the whole area applying at different locations at places that were hiring employees. Well, I followed up on a lot of job applications but doing that didn't seem to help my chances at all in landing a job. The job market right now throughout the country is terrible at the moment. I've talked to some of my friends in other locations recently and they're experienceing the same problems at the moment as well. Anyways it's been kind of a huge hardship because this summer I was hoping to land a job so I could have something to do and earn a little money, but so far it hasn't worked out like I had planned.

Another major difficulty that I've had this summer is that I've been sick on the side as well. Last semester I had been somewhat ill because my chronic illness was making a comeback on me. It was hard over the last two months of the semester because there were times where I felt pretty sick and in bad shape. Thankfully I've been able to see a specialist this summer and he's been somewhat able to help me with my recovery process. However I'm still not 100% well yet, but I'm looking to get better over the summer and hopefully be well enough when school comes.

Lastly it's been kind of lonely being with nobody I really know except for my parents. The weekend before last I went down to LA for a friends party where I got to see some of my friends again. It was nice because I really missed a lot of them. It was hard leaving there ofcourse but I managed to do it nonetheless.

So it's pretty much safe to say that I've been kind of a little depressed about the way this summer has been going to far and things not working out like I had originally hoped. However through all of the hardships I've faced so far I've realized that perhaps God has put me here for reason. If you would asked me last week how I like this town I'm in I would have probably said with exclaimation "I HATE IT!!" and then would have thrown something against the wall. However over the weekend I think God put a message in my heart and made me understand the reason why I am here in this town. I believe now that the purpose of this summer is to gain complete health again. For the past 8 years I've been living with Chrones Disease and it's been a major problem for me this past year. This summer by God's grace I've been able to see a doctor within the area who is very optimistic that I will fully recover if I go through a certain treatment. With the chance of this happening I can't complain about being here. Infact I think I'm in the best of all places. Though there are times where it seems like life couldn't possibly get any worse (like I had originally thought before), I've come to realize now through these experiences sometimes God has a message that he's trying to state. So I thank God for brining me here for that reason. Another answer to prayer also came into effect last week as I joined the college group of the church that I have been attending in the area. I've been able to meet some very beautiful people and so my lonely experience of being here is turning around to become unlonely. I'm very happy for this.

So yeah, I'm not sure how the rest of my summer is going to turn out. I'm still going to be hunting for jobs, but if I don't get one I'll consider it God's will that I don't get one. But for now I'll be looking to him for guidance for here on out. That's a good life lesson for that matter.

A Grave Injustice

2007-05-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

So I found out something pretty disturbing today. My philosophy teacher Greg Ten Elshof on Tuesday told everybody in the class that we could check to see what grade we were getting for the semester in the class by emailing a certain person about it. So I did just that right after class on Tuesday and this past evening the person wrote back and told me that I was getting a 57% in the class. A 57%!!!! This made me so angry because I was not informed at all earlier this semester that I was getting such a bad grade. What makes the situation even worse was that Ten Elshof had us do writing assignments for most of the classes this semester and the whole class and I did not get a single writing assignment back the whole semester. Apparently from the feedback I got from my grade I found out that the writing assignments were what costed me the most. Did I know this? NO, because I never got a single writing assignment back. This is a grave injustice. What makes things even worse is that the semester is about to end next week, and I have a final on Tuesday and that puts even more pressure on me to do well on it. If I fail this class I am going to be so miserable, and if I should fail I'm going to fight long and hard to appeal this class for being poorly managed. I'm dead serious.

Anyways, as you can imagine I'm not feeling so happy right now. This is just what I need right now right before the semester is about to end. I finally declare that I hate general ed. They always life a living hell for you and for what..to make somebody more well rounded. I do not believe in becoming well rounded.

The Feeling of Being at a Dead End

2007-05-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

I'm really frustrated right now, but then again that is what is in these entries usually. I'm frustrated right now at my ongoing health problems that I'm currently facing right now. This semester I've truly experienced what it is like to have health problems while being in college. It's not convenient I'll tell you that. I'm trying to get through a tough semester of work while my illness on the side keeps nagging me from doing things with 100% effort.

Earlier this semester I had to go to the hospital because of some pain that I was having in my abdomin. The doctors though at first I had appendicitis, which would have been pretty serious if I actually did have it. It turned out I had an infection in my intestinal area, which was related to my chronic illness I've had for the past 8 years. They treated me at the hospital and I thought that they had completely taken care of the situation, but a a few weeks ago the same pain came back. I finally decided to go see a specialist about my problem. He gave me a prescription for medication and to go get some tests done, but frankly I don't have the time to do any of those different things. It's really hard to take care of things like this without any family relatives around.

I wish somebody from my family was here to help me get through this situation. It's hard to take care of this by myself.

Answer to Prayer

2007-04-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

So it was about a week ago that my parents had called me to inform me that somebody from a church that supports them has donated their car for me to use for this summer and after. As you can imagine I was really happy to hear this news. God is so good all the time. The car is a Honda Civic 94 DX hatchback, which is great news because I really wanted a hatchback in the first place. My room mate has one currently and I love driving it around because it's got a great feel to it and it also can fit a lot of cargo in the back if I have a lot of stuff to transport, which I definitely will this summer when I move up to Visalia. So yes this is a huge answer to prayer. Now I just have to think about how I'm going to get the car down to LA before the semester is over since it's still up in the Bay Area currently.

Unhappy

2007-04-06T03:28:00.000-07:00

So I think I've pretty much been through one of the worst weeks of my life academically. I had three midterm exams this past week and I'm pretty sure I did badly on all of them. On Tuesday I had a 8 page midterm paper due for one of my sociology classes, and as you could imagine i stayed up the whole night to do it. I thought I did such a nice job and then after I turned it in I looked on the syllabus I realized I didn't meet all the guidelines for the midterm, so now I'm not sure how well I'm going to do after realizing that. On Wednesday I had two exams, one for Theology and one for Juvenile Delinquency. The Theology test was much harder than the previous test I took in the class, so I'm thinking I didn't too well on this one. For Juvenile Delinquency it's a much different story. I studied for it somewhat thinking that the test wasn't going to be that tough because I had the same professor last year for a different class and the midterm wasn't that tough as I recalled. I was screwed because the test was probably the most difficult test I've ever taken in my life, not to mention that the layout of the test was pretty stupid and convoluted. So I'm pretty much certain that I failed that test because I didn't know half the questions at all. I talked to some of my classmates about it and they told me that they were pretty sure they failed the test as well. I hope that the majority of the class fails the midterm just so that it shows how hard and dumb the test was.

On a different story, I got my philosophy midterm back finally after taking it two weeks ago. The teacher gave me a D on the exam. I was totally appalled because me and my room mate (who got a C- on it) studied very hard for that exam and I also felt that I answered the question very correctly as well.

Basically after this past week I feel like I'm trapped in a big black hole in all my courses. This semester was going so well and now I feel like I'm a total failure. I don't know what to do.

Another Monthly Report

2007-03-16T15:31:00.001-07:00

So it's been a month since my last update and I thought it was about time for another one. The past month has been nothing short of very busy. Who would ever think that only taking 13 units this semester would still make me feel like somebody who is taking 18. Through it all however I've been feeling very satisfied with what I have been doing this semester. Right now things seem to be clicking in most areas of my life, such as academics and time management, and through every corner of busyness in my life I've been findings ways to make my second year of college a great experience instead of being lazy all the time.

This past semester I think one of the best experiences I've had is working with Biola's on-campus news broadcast team known as EagleVision. If you ask me why I joined the group this semester I couldn't really give you a straight answer. I guess one of the reasons is because journalism kind of interested me during the middle part of last semester and instead of letting that interest go to waste I decided to give it a shot. Ever since I've joined the group I've had such a fun experience pretty much. It's been keeping me busy for one thing, but at the same time I feel like I'm finally learning something useful outside of my major. I'm not sure if it's something that will prove to be useful someday when I get out college, but the experience has definitely been worth it so far. I firmly believe that you should make the best out of college with the time you have. So far I think I've been successfully doing just that.

I'm not sure really how many people actually read this blog but I will still continue to update it simply because writing thoughts and currently events is fun for me.

Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own

2007-02-17T01:03:00.000-08:00

Tough, you think you’ve got the stuff
You’re telling me and anyone
You’re hard enough

You don’t have to put up a fight
You don’t have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

We fight all the time
You and I… that’s alright
We’re the same soul
I don’t need… I don’t need to hear you say
That if we weren’t so alike
You’d like me a whole lot more

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don’t have to go it alone

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

I know that we don’t talk
I’m sick of it all
Can - you - hear - me – when – I -
Sing, you’re the reason I sing
You’re the reason why the opera is in me…

Where are we now?
I’ve got to let you know
A house still doesn’t make a home
Don’t leave me here alone...

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own
Sometimes you can’t make it
The best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

A New Start

2007-02-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

A first full week of a new semester has finally concluded. I've realized now that so many uncertainties have risen as a result to the choices I've made within the past week. Uncertainties that cause me to be concerned about my well-being throughout the course of the semester.

Right now I'm signed up for 17 units this semester. I'm debating whether or not I really want to burden myself with that many credits. The previous three semester the maximum amount I've taken each semester has been 14 units. The class I really want to drop at the moment is Spanish because I've had a bad start to the course because I joined the class at the mid part of the week, and I still don't have the textbook because all of them are sold out at the bookstore. However I still have to take three semesters of Spanish in order to fulfill my language requirement, which I'm dreading greatly. A few options that I could pursue would be to take Spanish over JC this summer, since I will most likely be staying in the states instead of going back to Hong Kong. Like I said, so many things remain uncertain.

Another thing that has been on my mind lately is my involvement with LATE entertainment group. I regretingly signed a contract to be with them for the next semester, and now I'm not so sure I really want to be a part of it anymore. Being an actor for them was so much fun last semester, but now they're trying to go through the roof with my character from last season. A lot of the ideas they have expressed seem to be very overreaching, and not to mention the fact that the work on my part would be very abundant. Anyways, in short I'm not sure my commitment level with the group is very high anymore. When I signed the contract for this semester I didn't get a chance to discuss the ideas with my producers, which I really wish I could have done now. Now I'm paying the price for my mistake. I also think that LATE has a lot of gaps to fill before going big with any of their story ideas. Corruption within the group is a huge problem. Sure the group has it's share of dedicated people, however there is the other half of people that make the show run inefficiently, and this is mostly caused by laziness. For example, last season there were seven episodes of LATE total, and only the first two made it onto the website. The reason that the other five were not added was because the person who was responsible for putting shows up was slacking off. If LATE is to go the direction they want, they need to remove these people from the group and make the show run more efficiently.

So these have been my thoughts as of this past week. I can assure everybody that I have also had a lot of happy thoughts too, but I've written so much already for this past post that I don't feel like listing them. I'm not a person full of negative thoughts about everything. I've got a lot of them, but I'm also a person who looks at the positive things in life. Anyways, I rest my case.

Interterm 2007

2007-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I've been in LA for the past two weeks now because I've been a part of the interterm program at my school. Basically what this means is that I've been
taking a semester long class that is compiled into three weeks. This means lots of work to do each day, however I must say that I love doing this more than taking different classes at the same time through a semester. It helps you to focus on one subject at a time rather than many.

So I've gone through my share of boring times and absolutely fun times. I'd have to say that the most best highlight by far over these past two weeks was the birthday bash on the 12th of January. Yeah, it was my 20th birthday this year on the 11th, and it was extra special this time because I got to spend it with my friends that were either at school or live close by in the LA area. Here are some pictures from the memorable event.

(pictures taken by Helen Netramai)

The Four SPs

2006-11-25T01:31:00.001-08:00

Okay, so I was looking at my sister's live journal and I found this website where I can find out how many people in the U.S. have the same name as me. Here were the results.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
4
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Who would have ever thought that there are 4 other people with the same name as me. Now it's your turn...

Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T00:39:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I have finally joined blogspot. This is now officially my fourth blogger that I have joined. First it started out with Xanga, Myspace, Facebook (since you can put blogs on it now), and now this. What will I join next? Probably the next revolutionary web site. All eyes are open for that.

So today was Thanksgiving day here in the U.S., or should I say yesterday since it's already past midnight here now. It was truly a day to remember for me because it was the first Thanksgiving where I did not have turkey dinner at all. Instead, my relatives and I went to Black Angus and celebrated the day there. They had a turkey dinner all you can eat special at the place, so that's what my relatives got, but not me. If you know me well enough, you'll know that I am a person who loves his steak. Was I breaking tradition? Maybe, but who says that Thanksgiving is all about turkey, you know? After lunch today we went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean II. I saw it before already, but it was nice seeing it again. So yes, it was a very interesting and awesome Thanksgiving day. Steak and pirates.

Since it's Thanksgiving I've been thinking about what I'm most thankful for in my life presently. I've come to realize that I am thankful for a lot of things. First off, I'm thankful for having such a wonderful family. I've been given loving parents that have supported me my whole life and are helping me get through college. I have two older sisters that I can look up to, so I'm thankful for that as well. Second, I'm glad for all the friends that I have made since coming to university. It's hard for me to think that I've been at Biola for almost three semesters, but I can't believe how far I've come through it in almost every aspect. Lastly, I'd like to most importantly thank God for everything that he's done in my life. He has set the foundation for my life and the basis for my purpose and everything that I do in life. Without him I am nothing.