I AM ASIAN.

I know that some of you have wondered for years whether or not I'm truly Asian. I think I proved it this Saturday. I had my friends Elaine, Gina and Paul over for a Chinese food feast. Here's what we had:

Drinks:
Apple soda
Lychee soda
Apple wine-Thanks Gina and Paul!

Appetizers:
Green onion pancakes

Main Course:
Pork Dumplings-we made it together. None of those frozen stuff.
Chinese Brocolli with oyster sauce
Celery with bamboo marinated in chili oil
Chinese pickles
Chili cucumber salad

Dessert:
Peanut Butter rice balls
Sesame rice balls (note to self...not popluar to the westerners. According to Gina and Elaine, it taste like bacon.)

After dinner, we played Schnapps. It's a card game where you can shout "Taking it like a sucka!" It's so much fun. But of course, it got more and more crazy as we all drank the wine. We learned that Elaine cries when she laughs, but only her left eye tears up. Gina gets sleepy. I get embarrassed. And Paul, well, the wine wasn't strong enough to effect him in any way.

Over all, the night turned out better than expected! My mother will be so proud. She even prayed for me after getting the recipe from her the other night. It was so precious. Now that I know how to make it and that people actually enjoyed it, I can proceed to make it more often! You might just be the next lucky chosen one! :)

So, I think I've convinced those three that I'm Chinese/Taiwanese/Asian. Slowly, I'm embracing my culture. I'm taking baby steps. This is a good thing.

Meet My New Toy.

This is Spud Trooper. Isn't he so cute or what?!

LIFE IS SWEET!

Sometimes a small gesture can make your day! Sometimes you just need a little picker upper to encourage you on. Sometimes you just want to know how lucky you are to be at the place your working at. Sometimes those little things are ways God reminds you that you are very special to Him. Those "sometimes" are so crucial in life, especially mine. It makes life so much sweeter!

Last Friday, I had to go to a board member's office to get a check signed. Before I left, my co-worker, Dianne, asked me to asked Lindsay, the secretary at the office, if they have any youth books. I followed her orders but was wondering why I would be asking for youth books from a legal secretary. I didn't question Dianne. I just went and followed directions.

I was very shocked when I found out what this board member did exactly. He's a lawyer. He's the lawyer for John and Staci Eldrege, Beth Moore. Rob Bell, and John Maxwell just to name a few. I was in total shock when I was taken to the back. There were just books after books after books! Lindsay just kept handing me books for Dianne and when I told her that I love John Eldrege, she gave me two hardcover books! And then she told me that I can just go back there and grab books whenever I wanted. I was kind of in a state of shock to find out how big this lawyer was and yet he's so down to earth and serves on the board of Open Doors. It was pretty amazing.

When I got back to the office, I was on cloud nine! It was just a great end to the week! It's those little things makes my day and life so much better! It was what I needed after feeling lousy for the week. It was that picker upper that I needed to keep doing my job. I felt so lucky and honored to be working there. All those connections! If you want a book or two by any of those authors mentioned, please let me know and I'll try my best to get them for you!

LOVE/HATE: DISNEYLAND!

I love that place.
I love the atmosphere.
I love the BREAD BOWLS!
I love people watching.
I love the fireworks.
I LOVE BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!
I love it when it's decorated for Christmas.
I love their peppermint ice cream during Christmas.
I love It's a Small World and Haunted Mansion during Christmas.
I love Dole Whip.
I love walking around Downtown Disney.
I love the AMC at Downtown Disney. You pay student price with your annual pass. :)

I love the Peter Pan ride.

BUT...
I DON'T love it when people invade your space in line.
I DON'T love it when it's crowded and every line is a billion hours long.
I DON'T love it when people hold up the line to the parking structure by asking questions about the park with the parking attendants. They are the parking attendants for crying out loud, not guest service!
I DON'T love Tortilla Joe's at Downtown Disney. The food is gross. The service is bad. It's way over priced. Don't go there. If you do, don't let me know about it.

Overall, it's still the Happiest place in Orange County. :) For some strange reason, I'm not tired of it even after having a pass for 10 years now. To me, it's still a magical place. I think it's pretty awesome.

Hey Gina! 2 for 2. Not bad, huh? :)

HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD

First of all, I just want to dedicate this blog entry to Gina. Gina: This one is just for you! :)

Yesterday night, my friend Archana and I talked via computer thru Google Talk. She lives in Sydney, Australia and we talked for free! My parents and I talk through Skype. With Skype, you need to prepaid for your service. $10 goes a long way! It's been 6 months and I still have $5.00 left on the account. The best part with Skype is that if my parents are online, we can talk for free and they live on the other side of the planet! It's pretty amazing how technology has transformed. I can't even imagine living any other way.

Well, here's a little update from me. The audit is over. It really wasn't bad at all. Thank you for all those who prayed for me. It was totally a breeze. Now I just have a ton of filing to do again. Those auditors ask for a bunch of things that needed to be pulled out and now there's a huge stack. Fun!

Anyway, on to better things. Last weekend I went to see Zodiac and Amazing Grace. Both were great movies. Zodiac is more on the creepy side and Amazing Grace on the heart-warming side. Even though they are on the opposite spectrum, they were well directed and well written. This past Friday, I saw 300. Ummmmmm, yeah, LOVED IT! It's definitely going to be part of my movie collection. I would buy Amazing Grace too. Zodiac is just a little too eerie to own.

Yesterday, we threw a shower to Dana. Yup, Dana Pearson is getting married in less than a month! Her best friend, Beth and Rahime did a beautiful job planning this special event. It was right out of a Martha Stewart magazine. We had enough food to feed a small country. The whole thing was just so beautiful.

Anyway, I guess I should get back to work now. Ever since the auditors left, I haven't been wanting to work. Strange.....

THE AUDIT.

This is my first audit. So far so good. I filed literally ALL day long today. I brought the papers home on Friday and didn't get to them until Sunday afternoon. I started at 5 and didn't stop till 11pm and it still wasn't done. I was basically frustrated because I couldn't match up anything. It was really irritating. But the most amazing part of this whole ordeal was how God answered my prayers. I woke up this morning praying that God will somehow magically do a miracle and help it all make sense to me and He came through. With the help of Dianne, my favorite cubicle mate and the best co-worker ever, we filed away the impossible pile away. Right after we filed, I received the list of entries that they wanted to check. Two of them were the last two I just filed away. The last two I matched up. I still had the binder opened to that page. I was pretty amazed.

When little things like that happens, it reminds me how God cares even if it's a really small matter. I love that.

CHECK OUT THE SCORE!

My highest ever! I'm ranked 54! I've never been ranked before on this ride!

What a great end to such a fun night!