Ohana means family.

I know, it's been ages since I've posted ... at least I've worked harder on the boy's blog.

Recently we went down to the States for a family reunion with my mom's side of the family. As the extended family members are spread out all over North America, it is rare that a big group of us can get together. Most of my cousins were there. Today, some cousins who couldn't make it to the reunion came and visited us here. I think my family is pretty darn awesome.

Here's an example: My uncle, who is now retired, has spent many years researching the lives of missionaries to China from China Inland Mission. He's written a book that highlights a number of missionaries who were not well-known, but who served the Lord faithfully in a land far from their homes. Really, these missionaries who brought the word of God to the Chinese people carried a legacy with them that continues today among Chinese worldwide. I've read some of the stories and am amazed by the faith these men and women had. I mean, I *am* Chinese and I still can't really imagine picking up my life in Canada and moving to Asia. These folks learned, in some cases, several dialects in order to minister to the local people. If it weren't for my uncle and his painstaking research through extremely old books, letters, and records, we might never know of the work these missionaries did. Pretty cool, eh?

20 years

Dear Spud (your stomach isn't the size of a chickpea any longer, so I'm going with Spud),

You might be wondering why the title of this post is "20 years" and not "almost 2 months", which is your age. Well, that's because I'm going to tell you about your grandfather in this post. As it happens, today marks 20 years since your grandpa (gohng-gohng) passed away. Mommy was only 10 years old at the time, so you'll have to forgive me if my memories are a little jumbled and vague. Maybe one day when you are bigger, your grandma (poh-poh) will be able to tell you more.

Mommy was very sad yesterday upon realizing that it was Father's Day, because it would have been so nice to celebrate with your gohng-gohng. Alas, God called him home much earlier than any of us wanted. I think he would have been proud to have a grandson, and I imagine that he would have delighted in getting to know you.

Grandpa was a man devoted to God and to his family. He was a lot like your own dad, in fact - very social with many friends, enjoyed cooking, very family oriented. Mommy still remembers when he would make treats like green onion pancakes. (Daddy hates these - but mommy will teach you to love them!) Grandpa was the sort of guy who knew someone no matter where he went, and could make conversation with just about anyone. He served as an elder at church for many years, even when mommy and kow-fu (?) were young, and he taught Sunday School to people who later taught mommy in Sunday school.

Mommy hears you fussing right now so I'll keep this short. I wish you had had the opportunity to meet your gohng-gohng. Maybe you already did in heaven? I'm not really sure how that all works, but one day our God will make it all clear. In the meantime, I praise the Lord for how He has blessed our family in these 20 years, and I'm looking forward to telling you more about your grandpa soon.

Back to the grind

It's been a rough week back at work... I'm so tired. But as tired as I am, I'm grateful that at least I am not back at university. Sometimes people assume that I loved school, probably because I was there for so long. Those people even assume that I worked hard at school. I think I can hear my family laughing right now. Shush, family! Haha.

In an effort to be a little more cheery, I'm going to tell you some of the things I enjoyed about university:

1. The buildup to first year. At the time, lots of church folk were attending university and I was excited to eat lunch with them, to experience "free stuff week", to be one of the cool older folk, to study in the bowels of Koerner... um yeah. None of that really happened for me. Free stuff week? Not all it was chalked up to be. Lunch plans were sparse, and I was never cool. Oh and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I studied downstairs at Koerner. In short, blown expectations - but at least I enjoyed the anticipation.

2. Learning that science was not for me. Of course, I had to complete an entire degree to find this out, but hey, what's four or five years out of my life!

3. Figuring out how to bus everywhere, including at least four routes that would take me home. If only there had been a u-pass from the very beginning.

4. Having some classes with friends, including Anatomy and Molecular Biology with a couple of good friends (Drosophila!) and Immunology with my godbrother (what were we thinking!) and, um, maybe that's it. I had a lot of fun in those classes, possibly because I wasn't paying a lot of attention. (See? Science just isn't my cup of tea.)

5. Planning my wedding during my last year of school while also working 16-24 hours per week, yes, at school. I'm good at the multi-tasking.

6. Working at a campus job - seriously, if students out there need money, find a campus job. You're there anyway, you might as well work and earn far more than minimum wage. I paid my way through school by working on campus every summer and, of course, living at home. Thanks Mom :)

7. The campus in September. So lovely. Green grass, sunny days, not having to wear a jacket... too bad it all becomes crummy and wet come October.

8. Graduating - twice - and getting the heck out of there!

Once in a while when I'm bored

Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but once in a while I randomly Google people from my past. I'm not that old, so "past" often refers to elementary school friends, since I didn't go to the same high school as any of them. (And yes, I have Googled myself with both last names... with nothing shocking as a result. Phew!) On other occasions I've Googled people I vaguely knew in high school.

It's a bit voyeuristic to do this, I know... but I've often wondered what happened to so-and-so and what they are up to these days. Here's what I've discovered:

I looked up a girl who was a really good friend of mine all through elementary school. As it turns out, she owns her own talent agency now and she manages some famous folk. At least, I think they are famous, I only known a few of them. I always thought she would be a model, actually... she's beautiful. As it turns out, her sister is a model (and a PhD candidate!)

Another girl is actually famous - she's a comedian. Websites describe her as a 28-year-old Jewish lesbian living in the US.. and she was featured in TIME (magazine or .com, I'm not sure.) At the end of one of her shows, she strips naked. This sounds really odd, I'm sure, since I am only pulling out bits and pieces of information from the great internets... but anyway. I'm not surprised that she is a comedian since I always thought she was hilarious. Oh, and she won a comedy festival award - how awesome. Unfortunately my only other memory of her is going to her Bat Mitzvah. There was a lot of Hebrew. I understood nothing.

One guy from elementary school is now the executive chef of a local Asian fusion restaurant. At least I think it's him, it's been a long time since I was in grade 7. I have to say, that's a pretty cool job to have. I've never been to this restaurant, so I could be wrong that it's Asian fusion. It's definitely some sort of Asian food. I don't remember much about this guy at all, except that he had fairly dark skin for a Chinese guy. What a weird feature to remember.

On high school folk... I always remembered this one guy's name since it was unique. (As an aside, it is almost impossible to accurately Google Chinese people as our names are so darn common.) He was in grade 11 or 12 when I was in grade 8. Probably grade 12. Anyway as it turns out he works for the Canucks now in some sort of security or administrative role. Very cool. I wonder if he'll get me free tickets if I mention that I went to the same high school as him.

So... now I feel like a total stalker...

88 keys to my life

My mom is a piano teacher and has been one for as long as I can remember. I started piano lessons around age 5 and so I have some great piano-related memories. Our house was always filled with music and/or noise, depending on what student was playing at the time. I can still remember the day we got the grand piano - I was only about 5 and I was mesmerized by the piano movers and their ability to carry this giant piano. My mom tells me that when I was really young, I would sit by the fireplace in our old house, peering around the piano to watch her students during their lessons. I recall once, some kid and his parents came over for dinner or something, and my brother and I were playing with this kid when he hurled a toy car at the piano. The dent is still there. I remember that my brother used to play piano too, that is, until it turned out he completely sucked at piano, and hated it too. He once said that he wouldn't mind inheriting one of the pianos, so he could burn it. Some of my closest friends were my mom's students and we used to play every Saturday - I was always the leader, of course.

I was the one who insisted on taking piano lessons, and what's even crazier, I insisted on continuing them. My mom used to say to me all the time, "If you aren't going to practice, why don't you just quit?" and instead of taking the opportunity to quit like most kids might, I would say "No! I don't want to quit!" and then I would step up the practicing. You see, my mom wasn't my piano teacher. Instead, I had a very frightening piano teacher. I'll call her Mrs. T. She was all sorts of awesome, but so, so scary. I never cried in front of her although I recall many occasions when I would get into the car and start crying right away. (Never one to reveal my vulnerabilities, of course!) Mrs. T told me stories about how when she was a student in Hong Kong, she took lessons in her teacher's 5th floor apartment, and when she didn't play well, he would throw the books out the window and she would have to retrieve them and walk back up the stairs each time. I suppose she was trying to say that no matter how much she yelled, at least I wasn't climbing 5 flights of stairs several times each lesson. Sometimes Mrs. T didn't yell, she just got quiet - which was even scarier. She wasn't the type of teacher to give out trophies or plaques or even smiley face stickers - but she was an excellent teacher. She didn't have a lot of students, and the ones she did have - let's just say I felt completely inferior compared to them. We used to have master classes, where we would have to play a song in front of several peers and then critique each other. Nerve-wracking. And let's not even get into piano competitions. Even today, the mention of "Kiwanis" makes me a little nervous.

When I was young, I was very diligent about practicing. Okay - maybe not "very" - but definitely diligent. When I was preparing for my Grade 10 piano exam, I practiced about 3 hours a day. Of course, I was only about 11 or 12, and had nothing better to do anyway.... I always told my mom that my ultimate goal was to get my A.R.C.T. diploma and have it hanging on the wall. I was prepared to do everything I could to get my hands on that diploma. This included taking every theory exam known to mankind. Have I told you about me and music theory? We don't get along. My poor mom taught me most of my music theory in group classes and I admit, I was terribly lazy. On Saturday mornings, about 15 minutes before class, you would find me holed up in my room, hastily finishing (or pretending to finish) the week's homework. I would skip portions that I didn't think I could do in time, and sometimes, SOMETIMES, I would feign total surprise that I hadn't finished my work. What do you mean there were 10 pages assigned? I clearly heard you say there were only 2 pages of homework. I knew that my mom wouldn't yell at me in front of the other students, and since I was the youngest, the other students couldn't really criticize me either. I aimed for a bare pass on every exam starting from Grade 4 Harmony and up. My crowning moment was when I achieved a 63 in Grade 5 History after having barely cracked open the textbook for Grade 5 History, and studying only from another girl's meticulous notes.

I finished my A.R.C.T. around age 14 or 15 in school... and my teacher gave me the option to continue lessons. She talked about how I could expand my repertoire now that I was finished with exams. For a little while, I did continue with lessons. But I fell into the teenage trap of comparing myself to friends who had given up piano long ago, who didn't have to spend their evenings and weekends practicing piano ... and so I gave it up. At the time, I was still involved in church worship team ministry, and figured I could keep up piano to some degree through worship.

I never really wanted to lead worship, preferring to play piano instead. One day, however, I was encouraged by my team leader to take over the reins of leading for at least a few occasions. I never felt comfortable leading - I'm pretty sure I was extremely nervous... I don't remember all of the details, but I recall specifically that after one occasion, someone told me that my worship leading was not bad, but I had forgotten to include an opening prayer or a closing prayer, and that really was a big negative. I probably took his comments more personally than they were intended, but from that time on I lost my passion for worship team. I didn't want to lead, and I wasn't even that interested in playing piano any more. I felt like I was a terrible worship leader and so really, why bother leading or participating at all. (I know, I know - oversensitive much?)

Eventually, I became a youth group sponsor and didn't have time to be on worship team any more, so I took the opportunity to leave. I rarely played piano after quitting worship team - I only really played when I felt a whim to do so (again, rare) or when I was asked to play for a wedding. And then I got married and moved out, and didn't even have a piano after that. (Which made practicing for weddings somewhat challenging.)

Now that we are moving to a house that could actually accommodate a piano, I find myself wondering if maybe one day, I'll have a piano again. I miss being able to play and I worry that my skills have declined past the point of no return. I miss being able to play well. I don't think it's in the budget to spend several thousand on a piano right now (since I would *never* just buy some cheapy piano) nor do I really have the time to practice. Certainly not three hours a day! You might suggest that I wait until I have kids that are old enough to learn - but, just like my mom, I won't force my kids to learn - I would prefer they choose to learn themselves, after having heard their mother play a beautiful melody from the depths of her memory. Um, yeah... we'll see.

If I had a piano in front of me right now, I'd start by playing some scales. Technique first, songs later. It's how I always learned to practice. I miss the routine of piano.

It's still my party

It's my birthday again and I am approaching the age at which I don't feel like telling people how old I am for fear that they will say "Wow, I thought you were MUCH older", which would be offensive, or "Wow, I thought you were younger than that", which would make me feel unaccomplished.

So far, an excellent birthday. Hubby sent me two dozen of my favourite roses (some things never change) and yesterday we went to the Canucks game, where in a game I thought would never end, we won. (I guess that is a little different from last year.) Ah, nothing beats Canuck playoff atmosphere. There was a tailgate party outside where free hot dogs were being given out as well as samples of some weird energy drink. We had already eaten so I didn't partake in the hot dog affair. I really regretted this in or around the second overtime, when the food stands were all closed and my hunger rushed back. By the third overtime, people near me with obviously superior energy levels and possibly fuller tummies were still chanting "M-V-P" at Luongo... while my chant was "I wanna go! I wanna eat!"

In any event, towels were waved, voices were lost, and we won the game just after it was officially my birthday. Both Trevor and I can celebrate our birthdays properly now.

I don't have much to reflect on or anything this year. It's been three years since we were engaged, so that means we are almost at our two year anniversary. Life is good. I can't complain. The hubby cooks for me and really, can one ask for more than that? I think not. Work is going well except that sometimes I hate my job. But I don't really. It's just that I hate having to think so hard ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY. Heh.

Praise God for the many blessings he has given me!

Remember

I had a fabulous post written but then I somehow deleted it and couldn't get it back. Sigh!!

I wanted to show you all some of my memories of 2006, as outlined in pictures.... I'll just start again, I suppose. But it won't be as cool :(

1. January allowed us to welcome our newest cell group member, Kiyah, who was at this time one week old:


2. In April, I celebrated another burfday... my... 19th ;)



3. Also in April, two of our cell groupies got baptized:



4. In May, I spent a week in Campbell River, where it is incredibly beautiful:



5. In July, we had to say goodbye to PJ - we miss all of you muchly:



6. In August, we went to San Fran for a week to celebrate the Yam's wedding and to enjoy time with the "family":





7. Over Labour Day weekend, we renewed our tradition of camping annually:



8. In September, I got to wear (uncomfy) legal robes for the first time:



9. In October we went to Mexico for another wedding and some touristy stuff:




2006 also came with much news and exciting stuff - friends getting engaged, friends learning of new babies on the way, friends moving away from home (boo!), you know, I'm hitting that age group where all of this stuff starts to happen.

2006 also brought challenges and difficult times. Recognizing that life is not always sugar and candy and fairytales, let me share these lyrics with you from a song by Kim Hill

Holy, You are still holy,
Even when the darkness surrounds my life
Sovereign, You are still sovereign
Even when confusion has blinded my eyes
Lord I don't deserve Your kind affection
When my unbelief has kept me from Your touch
I want my life to be a pure reflection of Your love

CHORUS:
And so I come into Your chambers
And I dance at Your feet Lord
You are my saviour, and I'm at Your mercy
All that has been in my life up to now
It belongs to You
You are still holy

Holy, You are still holy
Even though I don't understand Your ways
Sovereign You will be sovereign
Even when my circumstances don't change
Lord I don't deserve Your tender patience
When my unbelief has kept me from Your truth
I want my life to be a sweet devotion to You

May 2007 be a year where we learn to make our lives a sweet devotion to our Father.