Doctor's Visit

Went to see the doctor today. Yep, I'm still sick. But now, I'm armed with $50 worth of drugs.

Febreeze and Insect Repellent

Since summer camp one year back in high school, I knew that I couldn't use insect repellent. My first try was a bit traumatic. It started getting dark, the place was known to have mosquitos, so I pulled out my insect repellent that I got at the drug store.

I sprayed it on my right forearm and there was a burning like nothing I've ever felt. I panicked, ran around in circles for a couple of revolutions, realized that there was a bathroom just five feet away, and washed my arm under the sink with the cool, refreshing water. I deduced from the experience, that I'm an insect.

Just the other night, Alinna got her first bottle of Febreeze and went Febreeze-crazy. Now, though I've been sick, after she was done, I started coughing to no end. Yes, I'm an odor. It tried to eliminate me.

Feels Like Home

After nearly two years of living in our apartment, we now have wireless internet (courtesy of Dong's wifi hub) and a sofa (many thanks to John and Eddie for helping me move it in).

Slowly, our place is looking less like a college apartment. I had to grow up eventually I guess.

Summer School Update and My Transportation Adventures in LA

So, I'm in the fourth week of my five week intensive at the Pasadena campus of Fuller. I didn't have to use any strong arm tactics to force first or second year students out of the class. I just needed some good ol' flaky seminary students to not show up for the first few classes to make it in. Yahoo!

I've been flying into Burbank on Mondays and coming back home on Thursdays. The last few weeks have been pretty hectic so sorry to all in Southern California whom I haven't seen. This last week, I came back home on Thursday, spoke at a retreat from Friday to Sunday, drove back home late Sunday night, and flew out of San Jose on Monday to go back to Pasadena and take my midterm. Alinna's been great.

I thought that was it, but there was plenty more adventure left. I had a later than usual flight out of San Jose. 2:15PM. I knew it was going to be a little tight, but I figured, "An hour flight, get into Burbank at around 3:15PM, class doesn't start til 5PM so that gives me an hour and 45 minutes to get to Pasadena from Burbank using Metro. Yes, I may be the only Asian-American to have ever used public transportation in LA.

The flight was a little more than 45 minutes late. We take off a little past 3PM and I know I'm in trouble now. We arrive in the airport at 4PM. I run out to the bus stop which is a healthy distance away from the drop off station and wait there for maybe ten minutes. I'm really glad that the first bus that shows up is not only the bus I want to take but is also the rapid version of it (it skips over a number of stops). I make my one and only transfer in Los Feliz. It's 4:30PM. A bus is right there waiting, but I don't know if it's the bus I want to take. It's not time to go on an LA Metro expedition. I wait... for another 15 minutes. Again a rapid bus comes by but I'm looking at the clock and it's 4:45. At this point I know I'm going to be late, it's just a matter of how late I'm going to be.

The bus drops me off at Colorado and Los Robles about two and a half blocks from the Fuller campus at 5:20PM and I run for it. As I'm running, out of the corner of my eye I see something white. I think nothing of it until I notice that my backpack feels funny. The big zipper, the one keeping my clothes in was wide open. I look in and notice that my socks are missing. "I guess that was the white thing. Oh well." I zip it up, keep on going, and get into the classroom at 5:27PM out of breath. I hunch over, put my hands on my knees as my professor sorts through his papers to find the midterm prompt, and I work at getting back my breath.

The midterm is an hour long. Class started at 5PM. And it was 5:27PM. I seriously had flashbacks to my Bio 1A midterm at Cal. Except this time, I was in grad school and eight years older. Well, that and the fact that I didn't oversleep this time around, didn't almost get hit by a car on my way to class, and got a time extension on my midterm. The professor was really nice told me to catch my breath, wait until 5:30 to take the midterm, and that he'd give me the full hour from there to take the exam while the others would go on their hour long dinner break.

The midterm went fine and I capped off the day with some good comfort food... $1.20 tacos from the taco truck on Fair Oaks and California.

Summer School Issues

Though I've graduated, I'm still a couple of classes shy. Literally, two classes shy. I'll take one during the fall, but I still need to take one in the summer... in Pasadena. I registered for the class but I got put on the waiting list. "Not a big deal," I thought, coming from my Cal experience. It's for my major, I'm a third year student, and I need it to graduate. Somebody else will get bumped out. Or so I thought. Apparently, it doesn't work that way in seminary. I got a notice a week ago saying that I got dropped out of the class... two weeks before the first day of class.

I've already bought 5 round-trip tickets to Burbank (because the class is on Monday and Wednesday nights, I'm flying in on Monday and flying back on Thursday so that I can be home on the weekends). I bought the books for the class. Yes, I was freaking out.

Now, one week later, I'm back on the waiting list, #1 on the waiting list to be precise and I've been told to just show up on the first day (this coming Monday) with no guarantee that I'll be admitted into the class. Yes, I'm officially in enrollment limbo.

I'm wondering if I should use some un-Christ-like strong arm tactics like staring one of the students down at the beginning of class saying, "I believe you're in my seat" or erasing one of the student's names from the enrollment confirmation sheet that gets passed around during the first class session.

Pet Peeve at Peet's

Just a random pet peeve I have while working at Peet's.

I hate it when people don't look at me when they make their order.

Example #1: The classic cell phone case. Person comes into the store talking on their cell phone and intersperse their order while talking on the phone. "Yeah, I know... that's what I said... and I can't believe that blah blah blah... medium latte non-fat milk... and so went over to him and said... blahblahblah." What makes me especially angry is when their order is really really long and finicky, say their order really quickly, and they do this. What makes me even more angry is when their order is really really long and finicky, say their order really quickly, do this, and make a big stink when their order isn't completely perfect. What's especially egregious is when they do this with a bluetooth headset on, I try to ask them for their order, and they shush me/glare at me/put their index finger up in front of my face to silence me.

Example #2: The talking to their friend in line case. Person comes into the store with a friend and they're talking... this is fine. It's their turn to order and they're still talking to their friend. Their shoulder is facing the register while they're talking to their friend. Person again, intersperses their order while talking to their friend. All additions to the cell phone person apply here as well.

Example #3: The ADD guy. Person is ready to place his order but moves his head around the room like R2D2 while making his order.

All this to say, I still really enjoy working there and I like the people I'm around.

Graduation... the Aftermath

Yes, I am now a Divine Master*.

Many thanks to all who came to celebrate this momentous occasion with me. Much love and thanks to Alinna for setting everything up on Saturday and hanging with me the whole time.

In Berkeley-like fashion, I've now walked but still have assignments due this week. A friend of mine, Jeff, who also walked was smart and turned in all his assignments early so that he'd have no clouds over his head during graduation day and the subsequent days thereafter. I now wish I was smart.

Thanks to Mark and his large mug, I think I must have drank five or six pints of the beer on Saturday. The result? Nothing. Fast-forward to today, at Peets, I kept sipping 1/8 cups of coffee throughout the day. The result? Feeling swirly and disoriented while stumbling out the door to go home.

* Pending passing grades in summer courses.

Kenya, the Supermarket, and Grace

This last week, I've had the privilege of having a guest over from Kenya. Just a quick run-down, we met in a Jesus-conference in Malaysia because he lost his small group. Our small group adopted him for an afternoon, we exchanged email addresses, I got his regular updates, he came to the United States (in Washington state), and he ended up coming here to the Bay Area for a week. If he didn't lose his small group back in September, we probably wouldn't have met and he probably wouldn't have come here to the Bay Area. Crazy how God works sometimes.

Anyway, it's been a real blast having him over, hearing his story, hearing about what he does back home, and just hanging out. For the first couple of days, he just kind of tagged along wherever I went including the supermarket.

I never thought that I'd feel embarassed in a supermarket. We didn't even go into a Costco (because Alinna and I don't have a membership). He and I went to Safeway. I was all fine. Parked the car in the lot. Got out. Walked in through the automatic door. Then, as I walked into the store and saw the wide selection of food available, I suddenly felt embarassed of the excess in America.

He didn't do or say anything to make me feel embarassed at all. He just kept on smiling, talking with me about his family and what he's been doing since he came into the United States 4 weeks ago. But still I wanted to go through as few aisles as possible in the shortest amount of time (for this reason I decided not to get Doritos even though I had a coupon that would get me two bags for $3). I power-walked through the aisles, went through the checkout counter, got even more embarassed when the person at the register announced my total at a decibel level that seemed like it would rival a Rolling Stones concert, pushed the cart out the store, and finally I picked up my eyes and looked at him again.

The whole experience (which I repeated again with him at Albertsons and Smart & Final later in the week) really reminded me of the privilege I have as an American and brought new life to the times I've prayed before a meal thanking God for the food He provided.

A Couple of Quick Stories from Peet's

The afternoon rush (somewhere around 3PM) isn't very pleasant. Every other person is on their cell phone, nobody really looks at anybody else, the optimism of a new day is gone, and rudeness abounds everywhere, probably including Peet's workers like yours truly.

I ring this lady up. "Iced coffee, butter croissant, iced vanilla latte." Thirty seconds later, I give her her iced coffee and croissant. She looks at the iced coffee (which is what it sounds like, ice plus coffee) and says, "I can't drink that! Take that away! I didn't want that. I want an iced coffee, you know like a frappucino or something. Throw that away because I won't drink that."

I point out that we serve those too, but that they're different from iced coffees. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I think what you're talking about is our freddos. As you can see, it's different from our iced coff..."

She cuts me off. "I don't want that. You can't make me buy that. I don't want it."

By this time, there's a queue of people waiting to order something. This lady has already paid for everything. I do some quick thinking, I figure out a way on the register to make it so that she pays the difference between a freddo and an iced coffee on a clean order. And she's finally on her way.


Another story from the other day. A couple of South Asian ladies are roaming the middle part of the store. There's nothing in the middle of the store. On one far end are the drinks. On the other far end are the coffee beans. The middle of the store might as well be the DMZ, there's usually nothing there, at least for customers.

I'm crossing this DMZ to go and help somebody with a coffee bean order but I notice the two South Asian ladies. I don't stop but keep on going by.

"I want some of these samples." One of the South Asian ladies flags me down and points to a sample snack tray with empty sample cups and a few crumbs strewn here and there. Apparently, there had been chocolate covered toffee things out for sampling earlier that day.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have any more of those for sampling today." I look around the area and find some biscotti that were labeled for sampling. I also notice one of my co-workers walking toward the coffee bean customer I was originally going to serve. "But we do have these biscotti to sample."

"Fine, we'll have some of those." I cut up the biscotti, put the bite-sized pieces into new cups, and the take one of the cups each.

With bite-sized biscotti in hand, one chimes in, "Do you have anything else?"

I see that there are also some chocolate eggs (probably from Easter) set aside for sampling too. "We have these as well."

"Fine, we'll have some of those too."

I ask, "Can I help you with anything else?" while glancing over to drinks section to make a hint.

"No. Our husbands come here every morning for coffee (which is likely a lie because I work most mornings and I there aren't any age appropriate South Asian men ordering coffee on a consistent basis). I, we, don't like Peets. I like Starbucks much better. Your coffee here is too strong."

And both women with both hands having a sample, walk out the door.

What's Next?

Today, while I was working, I started talking to one of my co-workers, Gisele. Among other things, we got talking about how I'm graduating this June (I don't remember if I've posted this yet, but I'm walking this early June... though I still have 3 classes to go).

She asked the natural question, "So what's next?"

My answer to everybody who's asked me this question over the last month has been the same, "Keep doing what I'm doing right now."

Seems kinda anticlimactic I know, but it's the truth. The three classes left aren't really all that relevant. They're more an addendum to my seminary career than anything else... an expensive, time-consuming, fly back and forth from San Jose to Burbank 5 times during the month of August addendum, but an addendum nevertheless.

I'm planning on continuing to work at Baylight part-time and Peet's part-time. I know that underlying the what's next question is the assumption and the expectation that with the piece of paper in my hand known as the Masters of Divinity, something would change, I would be upgraded somehow. It's the primary reason why most people get more schooling... to initiate a change, to move on up like the Jeffersons.

And thinking back on the last three years, I guess that's happened to me albeit in less dramatic fashion. For one, I'm working in a church I like. Yes, that started a year ago, a year before I graduate and have documentation that I'm qualified in some way or another to work in a church. Two, I'm enjoying the pace of my life right now and the purposefulness I feel on an almost daily basis. Working at Peet's doesn't require an M.Div but it does give me a forum to put the things I've learned in school into practice. And for that, I'm grateful and lucky. And three, well, I can't think of a three right now. Rather, I had one but it just fluttered away. Besides, this post is getting long even for my tastes.