Total utter exhaustion. And desperation. Father, I need You.

The SSO retreat was so much fun! But we rehearsed sooo much. Over the course of a day and a half, we rehearsed for a total of 11 HOURS - goodness! It was very productive rehearsing, though. I think our Halloween Concert is going to be a blast! :) PLEASE COME!! :)

We had some free time before dinner on Saturday at the retreat, so I led a small group of people wandering aimlessly through the forest... haha, just kidding! I did lead them on a short walk, though, past the upper village (if you've been an ENH counselor before you'll know what I mean) and down to the little creek where we skipped rocks for awhile. I still suck at skipping rocks, despite my brother's and Matt's attempts to teach me. Anyway, it was so nice to be out in nature again. I really miss being an Outdoor School counselor. This year perhaps I'll go back during Spring Break...

It was also nice to have Daylight Savings Time end the night we were there. An extra hour of sleep! Yay! I actually slept for almost 10 hours - can you believe it? I totally needed it, too, because during rehearsals on Saturday, I was like falling asleep while playing... =P I'm kidding, but only sort of! During the long rests, I was definitely nodding off and I kept missing entrances. So bad. :( I took a brief nap after dinner (as in, I fell asleep with my head down on one of the tables), and later that night we had a campfire up at the amphitheatre and roasted marshmallows and had some good hang-out time. Unfortunately, people started telling a whole slew of really bad sex jokes, so at that point I decided to leave. Jim and I had some good sharing & prayer time, though, which was really nice outside in the wilderness.

The next day we ended rehearsal a little earlier than planned (because everyone was so exhausted!) so we played Mafia while we were waiting for the bus to arrive. Tee hee. That game is so much fun. And no Bryan, I was not Mafia at all during those rounds. =P

Okay. Long night ahead of me...we've got dress rehearsal for the Halloween concert (complete with skit practices...hee hee hee), and then the violins and viola sections have to meet to be given our Stanford Fund letter writing assignments. Oh poo...

Nappy time.

The orchestra members are supposed to dress up for the Halloween concert. Any costume ideas/suggestions?

Just got back from a wonderful evening. :) Had dinner with Tmony people and ... LITON! Yup, he's back at Stanford to visit for the weekend. Even though we didn't get to know each other until the end of the year last year, it's still really good to see him. Then after dinner, I wrote a whole BUNCH of checks for the Twain account, because after an ordeal straightening things out with the old Twain treasurer, we FINALLY have checks now. Then, I went to Jammix with Eric, Kari, Liton, Megan, and Gavan. :) :) (Jammix is a big social dance event that happens roughly once a month.) That was lots of fun - my first experience at like a real dance! So far I only know swing and cross-step waltz significantly well from Social Dance I, but Kari and Liton (re-)taught me basic salsa and cha-cha. I'm really looking forward to learning more dances in Social Dance. :) Anyway, so I had a great time tonight. I even danced some swing with Kari. ;) And Eric and I bumped into a lot of people during the waltzes. Ha. ;) Just kidding - we actually held up pretty well, I think.

Anyway, now I get to pack before I head off to bed. I'll be gone all weekend at a retreat with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. And, you're not gonna believe this - guess where it is??? CAMP LOMA MAR!! Yep, the same place as Outdoor School! Isn't that weird?? There's probably gonna be major mental discord for me, because to me, Camp Loma Mar = lots of little 6th-graders running around. Instead, I'll be there with 70 SSO members. More mature? ...we'll see. ;)

We're going to be doing SO MUCH rehearsing at the retreat. The plan is to spend all of Saturday rehearsing the Mahler Symphony No. 5, which we're performing on Dec. 1, and then spend all of Sunday rehearsing the 8 or 9 pieces we've barely even looked at yet that we're performing at the HALLOWEEN concert in 5 days!! Eeek! It should be really fun, though ... our concert program includes: Korsakow's Flight of the Bumblebee, Stravinsky's Firebird, Copland's Rodeo, Khachaturian's Sabre Dance, and quite a few more. I can't believe we're preparing an entire concert's worth of music in less than a week. Anyway, YOU SHOULD COME TO THE CONCERT!!! There'll be a costume contest, and the winner gets to conduct our finale!! Isn't that cool??? ;) So, since I know you ALL want to how you can be present at this absolutely must-see event, here are the details:

Stanford Symphony Orchestra presents...

HALLOWEEN CONCERT

Wednesday, October 31, 2001 - 8:00pm
Dinkelspiel Auditorium
$8 General / $4 Student

COME! :o)

Anyway, so I'll be gone from Saturday morning until Sunday evening, at which point I'll return for a 3-hour Tmony rehearsal. By 9:30 on Sunday, I am going to be all rehearsed out. =P I'll have my cell phone with me if you need to reach me and want to try calling it, but since we'll be out in the wilderness I doubt I'll be getting any good reception.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

LITON IS HERE!! ON CAMPUS!! YAY!! :)

Wow. I am so glad the week is over. That was a really yucky physics problem set. I am sooo tired.

Updates: Last Saturday, Testimony performed in our first gig - we sang "My Jesus, I Love Thee" in a wedding in San Francisco. The wedding was joining two Testimony alumni - how cute is that??! :) It was a very touching ceremony, and the performance went well, so it was all good. We had fun playing around in the back chapel room, singing random hymns and making stuff up and just having general musical hilarity. Then most of us stayed in the city to have dinner. All in all it was a great day. :)

Oh yeah - so by Saturday, my stomachache was all gone!! (Good thing, seeing as we walked around a lot.) I still don't know exactly what it was, but it's gone so oh well. That was really an unpleasant experience during midterms week.

Hm. So I already mentioned how we surprised Chris for his birthday. What I haven't mentioned is that there was ANOTHER surprise the actual night of his birthday ... hehehehe! :) :) DAVID and MEG drove up from UCSD!!!!! David is one of Chris's best friends from high school, who happens to be one of Meg's best friends at UCSD, who happens to be one of my best friends from high school. How WEIRD is that!!! We all realized the connections during winter quarter last year. Anyway, David spontaneously decided that morning to drive ALL THE WAY up here, and to my delight he brought Meggy with him!!!! It was sooo funny watching Chris's reaction. We put a pillowcase over David's head and brought him to the door. Chris really flipped out. HEEHEE! And then, their other friend from high school, Adrian (who goes to UCSC and was already planning to come visit), arrived, and there was great merriment that night. Don't worry Chris, we won't mention the near-fatal wounds... ;)

Hee hee ... on the way up from San Diego, Meg called my room and proceeded to leave a really cryptic message: "Hi Tina, uh, this is Meg. The, um... person I'm with... lost the, um... an important piece of paper. So please call me back, because I need to... ask you for, um... some advice. Okay, bye." Translation: David lost the directions. The cryptic-ness was in case Chris happened to be in my room with me, which was entirely possible. Smart Meggy. It was funny. ;)

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY, CHRIS WALLIS!!!!

hee hee hee. A group of us from "old" Rinc just went and surprised Chris with cake and presents for his birthday!! I even got the raspberry cake right and everything!! YEA for surprises!!!! =D sooo much fun :o)

[ps: and look! I know how to make font bigger *and* make it bold now!! wee!]

Steve is such a punk! ;)

Feeling better today! Stupid Cowell's phone lines were busy ALL DAY ... I was on hold for 15 minutes both times I called, and I finally gave up. I barely notice any pain when I'm sitting, and walking is much more bearable now. YAY! Thank you all for your concern and prayers. :)

Classes today were alright. It was interesting riding my bike in a skirt. (I'm still scared to wear pants. =P) Then after lunch, I gave Bryan a ride to the Stanford Shopping Center so he could chop off his Asian-fro ... ;) ... hehehe. And during the interim, I went grocery shopping at Safeway. Yay for Safeway!

GUESS WHAT!??! I JUST TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO MAKE MY WEBPAGE ON MY STANFORD WEBSPACE!!!!! Steve showed me a how-to document, and I just sat down for an hour today and figured out how to do it!!!! Of course, it's as simple as heck, but I don't care!!! I did it!!!! WEEEE! Go see it!! http://www.stanford.edu/~piglette

:) :) :)

Report: WBC count is high. Have to go to Cowell again tomorrow. :(

Well, Tina has not been a happy camper lately. Tuesday afternoon, I woke up from my nap with a yucky stomachache ... and it STILL hasn't gone away!! I went to Cowell Student Health yesterday at 5:30 (right before my 7:00 bio midterm), and they couldn't quite figure out what it was but said it might be gastritis. (That's such an ugly word.) Anyway, while I was there, they gave me this "concoction" with lidocaine and an antacid in it. It didn't really do much, except make my tongue numb for about 5 minutes. So then I went off to my Bio midterm, which was hard but not too terrible, and then back to Stern to hear the St. Lawrence String Quartet (who was absolutely amazing), and then back to Twain for our weekly house meeting. I hung out with Bryan upstairs for awhile, and we reveled in the glory of that which is soundtrack music. ;) ;) But when I returned to my room after midnight, I found a rather unpleasant surprise. I was breaking out in hives ALL over my thighs!! Yechhhch. That was rather distressing. My suspicion was that I was having an allergic reaction to something in the medicine that Cowell gave me. So I took some Benadryl, put on some anti-itch cream, and went to bed hoping it would be gone when I woke up. Which it mostly was ... except that this morning, when I changed into a pair of pants, I started breaking out again!! This time, not just on my thighs, but all over my knees and calves too. Not to mention that my stomach was still hurting pretty badly. (I skipped Social Dance class this morning.) So I called in to Cowell to make another appt., and the nurse said it was probably because the pants were making my legs warm and causing friction and aggravating the allergic reaction. Anyway, so I went to Cowell again at 1:45 today (missing my E25 lecture...sigh), and saw a different doctor, who told me to start taking my allergy medication (Zyrtec) again, gave me a prescription for Zantac, and ordered some blood tests for me. She's supposed to call me back this evening with the results. Sighhh... :( In the meantime, it still hurts to walk or do anything that jars my abdomen. Although, today the pain is less intense when I'm sitting down, at least. Blah - I want this to go away!! And, it seems that I'm allergic to lidocaine. Boo to lidocaine!! =P

Tummy hurts. :( Still! :(

Yesterday I had lunch with EMILY!! We sat and chatted out on the grass near Tresidder, and it was a beautiful day, and that was the happy part of my day. :)
Then I had a physics midterm. Poop. =P It was pretty yucky. I'm really realizing how much a difference your high school background makes in college. At least, when you only have two weeks to absorb the material before your first midterm, it makes a difference. Just gotta keep truckin'...
I was going to go to part of the Biology review session for half an hour before my Physics midterm, but I got there and found out that the TA's were only doing a Q-and-A session - they didn't have any problems prepared for us. So, since it was hot and stuffy and crowded beyond belief in the room, I decided to go out to The Oval and have some quiet time before my exam. That was really nice. But then the exam itself was yech, so the rest of the night I was feeling pretty yech. Didn't have time to dwell on it though, because I still have a lot ahead of me this week. Last night I had to finish my E25 problem set due today (and the stupid sequencing website kept giving me errors ALL NIGHT), and then there's still the Biology midterm tomorrow night.

I think my daddy's coming home today! I think - I haven't talked to him since last week, and the flight plans were still tentative when I asked my mom over the weekend. Please pray that he'll have a safe flight home.

So I'm finally done with classes for the day. I am so tired. Maybe I should nap. But I have a lot of studying to do, and there's SSO rehearsal tonight. At least the first half is sectionals. Sectionals are fun. Oh, guess what, CV people? THEO is Principle 2nd this year!! So it feels all natural again to be in a section with him leading it. ;) AND we're using bowings from a professional symphony, so there's no longer the problem of him having schizophrenic bowings!! Haha. ;)

Oh yeah and you know what else is weird?? Get this: the guy who lives in Theo's old room and the girl who lives in my old room ... are both in Testimony this year!! Yup, Justin and Connie! Isn't that a strange coincidence?? And since they keep the phone numbers the same for the rooms, I'll never have problems remembering Justin's and Connie's phone numbers. ;) And the other day I was in Justin's room doing physics, and when I first walked in it was pretty trippy because I'm used to envisioning the room differently! But I'm getting used to it. :)

I think I finally straightened out things this morning with the Stanford Federal Credit Union, trying to update the Twain House account. There was an existing account from last year, so it was a hassle to get things switched over, but things are fairly in place now.

Quote from my E25 professor today: "The daughters and granddaughters get bolder and bolder and bolder. That's what cancer is in a nutshell."
LOL - use your imagination. ;)

Wow. This "Beautiful" song by Joydrop is appearing everywhere I look. It was quoted in Meg's profile last week, it was sung by the Harmonics (one of the Stanford a cappella groups) show today (which I wasn't there for but Eric says they sang it), and Debora just quoted it in her blog. Has this been a sudden recent hit? Now, perhaps one of these days I will actually hear it! =P

By the way, thanks to Debora and Bryan for linking to me in their blogs. I would do the same, except that I don't know how. So, I am going to be really boring. Go visit their blogs :) which are located at:
Debora - http://twylite.blogspot.com
Bryan - http://bryguy.blogspot.com
Chances are, you only know one of these two people (Debora if you're from CV, Bryan if you're at Stanford). Hmm, incidentally, these are also the same two people who inspired me to start my own weblog, if you read wayyy back to my very first post. Hi Debs and Bry! :)

Guess what??! Emmy called me today!! And we're going to have lunch together tomorrow! I'm so excited!! I miss being her roommate. :( It sucks living halfway across campus from each other. I LOVE YOU EM!!

"Pairing of fragments derived from the same starting DNA molecules, termed reannealing, will also occur, however, present day cloning vectors have in-built systems to overcome this." <--- You'd think that a Molecular Biology & Biotechnology TEXTBOOK would be proofread for run-on sentences!! Ooh! How annoying!!

Good news: Jim just informed me that the E25 problem set is due Tuesday, not Monday. I did not know this because after the crazy crazy Wednesday I had last week, I got back from 11-o'clock Bio on Thursday and totally crashed - slept through lunch *and* E25 at 1:15. Wow, I really hope not all my Wednesdays are like that. It shouldn't be, now that Tmony rehearsals have been moved to Thursday nights.

The listening party Friday night was lots of fun. So much great music out there! :) I went home yesterday for the afternoon/evening. It was good to see my mommy and brother. I surprised my brother, tee hee. :) Unfortunately, I was so tired that I ended up sleeping half the time I was home, but it was good to be home anyway. And my aunt, uncle, and family friend came over to play Mah Jong with my mom, so it was fun to watch them for awhile. I got back to campus around 9:45pm, at which point Eric and I headed over to meet Kari and Megan at Swing Dance on the Quad (which is being put on for Homecoming this weekend). Bryan decided not to come - party pooper! ;) Jeff and Steve were there too, and it was so much fun! Dancing is great. :) We also had fun making fun of the band for changing tempos all the time, but they're actually really good. It's just hard to swing dance to slow music! Anyway, that was a fun way to end the night. I have a lot of work ahead of me today, though. Got to finish the E25 problem set and prepare for my Physics midterm, both of which are happening tomorrow. I'm scared! :( Because of Tmony rehearsal tonight, I have to miss the physics review session. And then since I'm taking the physics midterm tomorrow night, I'll be missing the biology review session for the biology midterm on Wednesday. How sucky! :(
Well, I'm off to church now. Church is good.

This is for one of my best friends:

"Hold on to Jesus
Cling to His love
Rest deep in His mercy
Whenever things get rough
Don't lose sight of His goodness
And don't ever doubt this truth
That when you hold on to Jesus
He's holding on to you

Hear me dear Jesus
Rock this little one to sleep
Keep her close when she's scared
And give her grace when she is weak
I know she'll stumble
But I know she'll make it through
If you hold to her just like
You said You'd do
Hold her Jesus -
And she'll hold on tight to You."

- Erin O'Donnell, "Hold On To Jesus"

(well...you know what it should be, but if I change it...well, yeah.)

Wow. That was a pretty yucky physics problem set. We had a big fat physics party in Varun's room last night, and then today in my room. (Sound familar, Theo Wootae & David? =P) At least it's all turned in now.
Thank God it's Friday. No kidding.
Unfortunately, I still have a ton to do this weekend. Our first E25 problem set is due Monday; Physics (early session) midterm is Monday night; and Biology midterm is Wednesday night. Classes started two and a half weeks ago and we're already doing midterms!! Goodness.

I might go home tomorrow. I miss my family. My daddy's in Hong Kong, though, at least until mid-next week. He's not sure when he's coming back because he wants to wait and see if anything drastic happens in response to the Afghanistan attacks. Sigh. :( My mom is so cute, I was talking to her the other night and she was all excited about making curtains for my and my brother's rooms that match our bedding. Oh, and...my brother deserves a BIG FATTY CONGRATULATIONS on all the funds raised by the CVHS American Red Cross Club!! Over the last three weeks, they've been collecting donations and selling American Pride pins, all the proceeds of which go to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. They collected $314.14!!!! How AWESOME is that! GO TIM (+ associated ARC people)!! That's my brother!! =D You guys rock. :o)

Tonight we're having a "listening party" for Testimony, where we all bring ideas for potential new songs to sing this coming year. And then we all listen to the songs other people brought. Hence, the "listening party." I know, profound, huh. ;) Before that, I'm going to visit a large group meeting of Fellowship in Christ at Stanford. I'm still sort of trying to decide what fellowship I want to stay committed to during my next three years here at Stanford. The two main options for me are IVCF (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) and FiCS. The other two, Cornerstone and Campus Crusade for Christ, meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays respectively, which are direct conflicts with orchestra rehearsals. Anyway, we'll see where God leads me. I'm looking forward to tonight. :)

Well, it's been a looooong day. I had physics & chemistry & biology lectures before noon, a being-locked-out-of-my-room adventure, biology & physics sections after lunch, a Testimony alto sectional, a fun dinner with fellow Tmony discussing underwear (haha), InterVarsity Christian Fellowship meeting, Testimony full group rehearsal, a brief hiatus for the Twain house meeting during which I was elected dorm treasurer (yay!), and then bike ride race against Bryan back to Braun Music Building for the rest of Tmony rehearsal. WHEW!!

Perhaps I will expand on some of that later. Now: Physics 51 problem set calls. =P

Here's the lyrics to the song ZOEgirl performed tonight that reminds me of last year. If you can't figure out why, then, boy, you must be really behind in my life. =P "Heartache," as one of the performers said, is a really accurate word to describe it. Anyway, this is a great song:

ZOEgirl - "Give Me One Reason"

"Give me one reason to live without Him
Give me one reason to walk away
I know you don't understand this feeling
How can I show
That He is the reason I have to let you go

I've tried so hard to change your mind
I always thought that you'd understand the reasons why
Why I don't want to do the things that I used to do
Now that my heart and soul belongs to God and God alone

Still every night's a fight to make it through
I can't deny I'm still in love with you
But how can you expect me to
Walk with Him and give myself to you

Boy, I still long for your embrace
But what I've found in God, oh, it could never be replaced
Still I pray for the chance,
As you slip through my hands, you'll come around
But your heart's so far away from the words I'm trying to say

Wish I could hold you both and still be true
But there's only one thing left for me to do
Baby, I love you
But I can't stay with you unless you love Him too

I've found a path that I've gotta take
No turning back, back to the old ways
Got a chance to take
Sacrifice to make
Whatever it takes I won't turn away

Give me one reason to live without Him
Give me one reason to walk away
I know you don't understand this feeling
How can I show
That He is the reason I have to let you go."

The Avalon concert was absolutely INCREDIBLE!! Oh my. I'm still beaming!! First off, Joy Williams and ZOEgirl opened the show, both of whom were great themselves. Joy's last song was "I Believe In You," a very popular one on KLOVE this summer. I knew two of the five ZOEgirl songs, but they were all really REALLY good. And, let me tell you, they had spectacular choreography. Very sharp and synchronized moves!! And then, their second to last song, called "Give Me One Reason," really hit me hard. I can totally relate to what the song is about -- in fact, it's exactly what I was going through exactly one year ago. I'll quote the lyrics in a later post, when I find them somewhere.

Anyway ... Avalon was SO GOOD!! They are easily my favorite music artists right now. The songs they performed tonight included all of my favorites from their new album (Oxygen): Undeniably You, Wonder Why, The Best Thing, Come and Fill My Heart, I Don't Want To Go, The Glory, Make It Last Forever, and, of course, Oxygen (which really isn't the best number on the CD). They also performed some classic numbers from older albums, like Picture Perfect, Knocking On Heaven's Door, and Adonai. And guess what they sang for the encore?? That's right -- "Testify to Love"!!!! Hee hee hee, and how appropriate that both Eric and Gavan were at the concert with me! ((Oh yeah. Stanford people who came with me: Eric, Bryan, Megan, Gavan, and Jim. CV people who were also there: Wendy, JoEllen, Chris Park, Amy Huang, Jenny Woo, and Akemi.)) The music tonight was such a blessing, as were all of the testimonies and messages given by the artists. Gosh, I really love all of that music!! Especially Avalon!! AHH! :) :) :)

It was super cool that the concert was in Castro Valley, too! At Neighborhood Church, in fact, where the Jenny Lin Summer Youth Concert is held every summer. Wow. That was a really great concert. Unfortunately, I was not able to get their autographs. :( For two reasons: 1) I forgot to bring my copy of the Oxygen album with me (as opposed to most everyone else who bought one at the concert). 2) Old Tmony people had to get back to campus to sing for a (supposed) birthday party...but that ended up falling through, so it turns out we *could* have stayed. Phooey. :( But oh well, the rest of the night was great enough to make up for it. :)

So: Joy Williams, ZOEgirl, and Avalon. What mature, admirable Christ-followers, using their musical gifts to glorify God. That was an absolutely amazing concert. Wow. Wow! :) :) :)

From All-Campus Praise last night:
"Heaven forbid / That I refuse the pain and miss the grace / That you have for me in this place... / Heaven forbid / That my life be lived for passing things / And lives I touch remain the same... // Heaven forbid / That I miss the truth / Heaven forbid / That I waste my youth / Do not permit the enemy / To have the victory / Over me / Heaven forbid // Heaven forbid / That I be a study of showmanship / And not become your workmanship... / Heaven forbid / That I carelessly sow convenient seeds / And convince myself you're using me... / When I begin to wander away / I beg you, Lord, compel me to stay."

Highlight:: *Heaven forbid that I be a study of showmanship, and not become Your workmanship.*

Amen.

Please join me in prayer.
" 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.'
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord."
- Isaiah 2:3-5

It occurs to me that most of you don't know the names of all the Tmony people I'll be referring to this year. So, Testimony A Cappella 2001-02 consists of the following wonderful individuals:

Sopranos:
Kari Doyle (soph)
Megan Donahue (jr)
Connie Chan (fr)
Kristen Del Rio (fr)

Altos:
Katherine Vu (fr)
Chi-En Chien (fr)
Wenfei Xie (fr)
Tina Wong (soph) <--- This is me. ;)

Tenors:
Steven Ngai (jr) a.k.a. The Director
Gavan Kwan (grad)
Jeff Russell (fr)

Basses:
Eric Lowe (soph) *
Bryan Lung (soph) *
Justin Kao (fr)
Jason Sierra (fr)

* = my boys! (2 of 3) ;) (missing only my Chris Wallis. Chris, wanna join Testimony? ;) Hehehehehe.)

I just had the most wonderful two days!! Last night (Friday), Testimony A Cappella had our overnight retreat at a nearby church in Palo Alto, where we had use of their youth fellowship/recreation room. It was great fun to play foosball and air hockey, but I stayed away from the ping pong table. ;) I also had absolutely no interest in the let's-blow-up-a-lot-of-stuff game, but that's no surprise. After Bryan joined us after his fellowship meeting ended around 9pm, we had some praise and worship time. Two of the freshmen, Jeff and Chi-En, can play the guitar, so that was really awesome. Then, Kari had the idea of having everyone sing what they auditioned with, including the old members. It was a lot of fun to hear people sing by themselves. I think my personal favorite was the self-duet of "A Whole New World." :) :) I'm serious! :) While I myself was singing, I stumbled on the lyrics like 4 times even though it's a praise song that I normally know inside out, but oh well, I just suck like that. =P We never got around to playing Taboo, which would have been a blast I'm sure, but we just didn't have enough time to do everything. We spent the rest of the night playing "Fishbowl," which is a get-to-know-you game where each person comes up with a question or two to put in the "fishbowl" (in this case, a blue cup), and you pick out a question and go around the circle having everyone answer the question. There some really funny light-hearted questions ("What animal does the person sitting on your left look the most like?" ... I was deemed mouse-looking, in case you were wondering) as well as some good serious ones that let us really get to know everyone else in the group a lot better. God really blessed our time together last night, and I know He brought the group of 15 of us together for a reason. I'm feeling great about Testimony. :) :)

Well, while we were busy being blessed by each other's presence, we also managed to stay up too late. ;) (Oh, but it was worth it!) Bryan and I were planning on going on the infamous (Stanford tradition) San Francisco scavenger hunt with our dorm, Twain, but we overslept by one full hour until 7:52am ... 22 minutes after we were supposed to be back at Stanford and leaving for the Caltrain station! Needless to say, we missed the Twain posse. We decided we'd still go up to SF and walk around on our own, on the off-chance we'd run into our scavenger hunt groups somewhere, and if not, we'd just have our own fun until meeting with the rest of Twain at Venture Frogs for dinner. We went on a "Twain-people scavenger hunt," if you will. ;) Unfortunately, we even missed the 10:30am train we were shooting for, due to parking problems, so we didn't leave Palo Alto until 11:30. We arrived in SF shortly after 12:30, and proceeded to walk northward toward Pier 39. Along the way, we ran into a team of current Rinconada residents--including Michelle (my friend from SUMaC 1999)!! That was so random! But very cool :) We pointed them in the right direction towards Fisherman's Wharf. ;) Then, Bryan and I walked through Chinatown and laughed at all the smelly dried seafood and various other weird foods you only find in Chinese streetside stands. We stopped at a small noodle-/soup-type restaurant and had a very authentic yummy Chinese lunch. :) :) It was so funny because the waiter there spoke both Cantonese and Mandarin, so Bryan and I each spoke to the waiter in our respective dialects. The waiter kept switching languages to talk to us two. And then Bryan and I would talk to each other in English. Hehehehe, great fun. ;) Bryan, being the Bottomless Pit Number Two that he is, ordered a second dish after he finished his first, which made for a very long lunch stop. But it's all good because we were able to have a great conversation about all sorts of things. Which wasn't just limited to lunchtime, seeing as we spent the whole day walking around San Francisco together, but there's nothing like sharing a meal with someone who also shares your culture. Oh, the quirks that only a fellow Chinese-American can appreciate . . . ;) After lunch, we walked all the way up to Pier 39, where we briefly ran into my roommate's scavenger hunt team. And Bryan and I had fun in the magnet store for awhile. Hee hee hee. Magnets, magnets, everywhere! We also saw many other Stanford groups walking around consulting their lists, which was amusing. Then, we walked ALL the way back down to the restaurant to meet up with the rest of the Twainites for dinner. And then we walked ALL the way back to the Caltrain station (with a quick stop at Old Navy to add something non-blue to Bryan's wardrobe). Actually, correction: after stopping at Old Navy, we JOGGED all the way back to the Caltrain station. This was interesting because I was not wearing the appropriate shoes for such an activity. Can we say: "Slap-slap-slap-slap!" (sound of Tina's canvas shoes on the pavement). And then: "pant-pant-pant-pant" (sound of Tina getting tired trying to keep up with Bryan). Anyway, we were on foot going EVERYWHERE today! Boy we're gonna be sore tomorrow. But we did it! Go us!! :)

Alright. 'Tis time to sleep right now. More to come later.
Let's end with some interesting quotes from the Tmony retreat:

"Get ready for HERD-TO-HERD combat????" - Kari
"I have no legs!! I have no legs!!" - Tina
"But you express your happiness *vertically*!" - Tina to Eric
"I think Bryan Lung is the most attractive member of Testimony." - Kari ... "OW!" - Bryan
"But that's ANTI-CLOCKWISE!" - Jeff
"Bryan, we can both fit in that sleeping bag, can't we? Especially now that you've taken your pants off." - Kari

(hahahaha)

HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY MEGGY!!!!!!!! :) :) :)
*i love you!* :o)

(I wish I knew how to make font bigger on this thing!! hmph!)

*oooooooooohhhhhhh*
Orchestra is sooooooooo cool this year!!!!!!! Our winds & brass are incredible AND we have FOURTEEN CELLOS! (celli, yeah yeah, that never sounds right. =P) Can you believe that?!??!!
We just read through the entire Mahler Symphony No. 5!
When we get this down--and I know we will--it is going to be SO AWESOME!!!!!

teehehehehe and guess what else
We're playing our traditional Halloween concert on Halloween night!!
You gotta come--Stanford tradition!!!
EVERYONE dresses up--including US! And the winner of the costume contest gets to conduct the SSO for our last piece!!!!! hehehehehehehe. ;)
COME COME COME! Okay so I know that's like a month away so I'll do my shameless plugs later. ;)

I AM SO PSYCHED!! See what orchestra does to me??? (Most of you already know this.) :) :) :)

We just had our first official Testimony meeting of the year. =D We didn't actually get around to singing, but it was a wonderful time of fellowship and getting to know the new freshmen. (I'm the only new non-freshman member.) We played an icebreaker game and one round of Mafia--hehehehehe. I TOTALLY sniffed out Bryan and Eric, who were 2 of the 4 Mafia!! Sorry boys, I know you two too well. That's what you get for being my boys. ;o) Hehehe that was SO GOOD! I don't care if I was beat out at the end--that was so worth it! hahahahaha. Okay, enough of that. We went over our mission and purpose as a group, talked about expectations for the upcoming year, and tried really hard to figure out times for rehearsal that all 15 of us could make it to. That was tough but I think we came to a mediocre solution for the quarter. (If you ever want to see a random pattern of line segments, go see Steve . . .) I'm so excited about being in Testimony!! :) :) :)

"Wandering the dark
Lost in the confusion
I thought I was losing my mind for sure
I searched with all my heart
Looking for direction
Something to believe in
And there You were
And You were reaching down to me
You were everything I needed
I'm so glad You found me, Lord

I smile when I think about
The way You've turned my life around
I smile when I think about
The happiness in You I've found
I'm so amazed at what Your love has done
And when I think the best is yet to come
I smile!"

- Russ Lee, "I Smile"

This was in one of my friend's profiles:

"I asked God to send me his friends...He sent you.
I asked God to take away my pain. God said, No. It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.
I asked God to make my blemishes disappear. God said, No. Your spirit is whole, your body is only temporary.
I asked God to grant me patience. God said, No. Patience is a by-product of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is earned.
I asked God to give me happiness. God said, No. I give you blessings. Happiness is up to you.
I asked God to spare me pain. God said, No. Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.
I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, No. You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, No. I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things.
I asked God to help me LOVE others as much as He loves me. God said...Ahh..., finally! You have the idea."

:o)