* tiny but powerful *

Last post of September:: ...basically consists of me telling you that I'm still too busy to blog. Sorry. :P I have so much to tell! But problem sets, reading, and Tmony rehearsal prep await me. Oh, and sleep too. I'm still recovering from those two all-nighters in a row last week. Soon I will be settled into the year, I promise! Call and/or visit me if you're around. :)

:o)

I made it to Sunday! It has been a seriously PACKED week and a half.

Happy Birthday, Jo!! :)

(yeah, that's all I have time for nowadays.)

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!! :)

See Kari's journal for her entry from this morning. All of that second paragraph basically also applies to me. So I'm gonna cheat and use her writing to hold you over. Muahaha.

Sunday. I need to make it to Sunday.

Halfway there! I feel like I've been running a marathon since last Wednesday morning...

But even though things are crazily busy, things are going well. Details to come. God is awesome. Testimony is going to rock this O-Show, so come on out!

ORIENTATION A CAPPELLA SHOW!
Tuesday, Sept. 24 -- 7:30pm @ MemAud

AUDITION FOR TESTIMONY A CAPPELLA!
Auditions: Wed. and Thurs. evenings, 6:00-10:00pm
Signups in White Plaza, all week 10:00am-4:00pm

No, I have not disappeared off the face of the earth. I've just been really, really, really busy. But I'm back on campus with good internet connection now, so I can actually send emails without wanting to kill my computer. I'm also back in The World of The Perpetually Online (on AIM) so you can...well, I'm never actually at my computer, really, but you can leave me a message if you want. Messages are exciting, just like blog comments which never happen anymore. :)

I am so incredibly frustrated with my connection right now it's not even funny. Webmail takes forever and a half to load, and I just want to send my emails and be done with it! GR, I hate things that get in the way of my productivity. I give up on sending email -- I'll wait till tomorrow when I can do it from a computer cluster or something. Anyway, today was really busy but I got a lot done. Checked mail, went to banks, sent email, reserved Tmony banner space, dropped off a Twain check, found wedding music at the Music Library, shopped for a bike at the campus bike shop, and then cleaned the apartment for two hours. I then decided that I'd reward myself with a break to go to the VA dance. It was fun, but less people were there (only me and Graham, because Erin, big Tina, and George were all busy), and I was having a really hard time being social. I still danced and talked to people, but it took a lot more effort. I just sorta felt funny. I think I'm just really not ready for the year to start. Anyway I'm going to continue my packing so I can start moving stuff into Mirrielees first thing tomorrow. I'll be picking up Bryan and Jason at SFO airport mid-day. And then in the evening begins meetings/rehearsals galore. Wish me luck! Cell phone is the best way to reach me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMMY!!! :o)
I miss you dearly!! I can't wait to see you in January after you're done gallivanting across the world. You were the best freshman roommate ever. Here's to Rinc 202! *BIG HUG*

OK, so Monday Night Dance did happen after all, thanks to Evan's initiative (Neal was busy with staffing duties). It was fun. I took pictures. I had some particularly nice waltzes. I was also sort of tired. And I was sad that summer dancing is ending.

Today had its good parts and its bad parts. The morning quickly got on my nerves after I overslept (thus missing my chance to visit orchestra during 1st period at CVHS) and then made my way over to the high school only to find out that they would refuse to let me on campus as a visitor until AFTER school was out. Not even during break and lunch. I was seriously irritated. I'm not, like, going to break into classrooms with a circus show. I just wanted to say hi to a few of my old teachers, all of whom are always happy to see me. I decided that I would sneak onto campus anyway during lunchtime, because lunch hour is chaos and they wouldn't know the difference since I can park in the half-vacated senior parking lot instead of by the main office.

In the meantime, I went to Eden Hospital to visit my dad before his scheduled procedure for the morning. My mom met me there, too, and we sat with him as he waited for his doctor to arrive. Both the colonoscopy and enteroscopy didn't show any blood, though, so they really don't know what's wrong yet. I also went back to the hospital after lunch period to wait with my dad through an x-ray procedure, but those results still hadn't come in when I left the hospital in the evening. I hope the people at UCSF will be able to figure out what's up.

At CVHS I was able to visit Mr. Mitchell (I had him for AP Stat, but now he teaches AP Calc), Mr. Fottrell (Honors Physics), Mr. Goldstein (AP US History), Ms. Lepell (Matt's Brit Lit teacher), and Mr. Weston (Matt's Physics teacher, before Honors existed). When I went back to the high school after school was out for the day, I caught Mr. Weston in Mr. Fottrell's room, and the three of us ended up having a whole lot of fun with an oscilloscope, a keyboard, and a Fourier transform computer program. We were exploring the physics of why certain notes sound good together, based on having common overtone harmonics (e.g. the third harmonic frequency of an A is the same as the second harmonic of an E). I don't have the energy to explain it all here right now, but it's really interesting stuff that I love telling people about. I actually wrote about this for one of my Stanford application short essays. Today was great because for the first time a long time, I was having fun with something academic because it related to something I'm passionate about (music) ... and I was reminded of what my academic passion used to feel like before I got burned out on school. It was a glimpse into the past, doing the "going beyond expectations" thing with my teachers who knew the Tina who actually did well in school. That was good for me.

Sunday was a really good day, too, in between the worrying about my dad and trying to contact my mom to figure out when I could catch visiting hours at the hospital to see my dad when he wasn't undergoing some sort of procedure. I ended up waiting until after dinner to go back to Castro Valley. Church was really awesome -- I hope to write about what I learned from the message in a later post. In the afternoon, the summer dance crew all went out to the Stanford Theatre to see a double feature of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers movies: "Top Hat" and "Swing Time." Some of us starting dancing in the aisles after the second movie, while the organ guy was playing. And then we went out for Thai food for dinner just down the street on University, which was interesting because I'm not a Thai food person, but I split an dish with Erin that was plain enough to please me. ;) It was a great outing to commemorate all the dances and friendship we've shared this summer. Here are some pictures George took on his digital camera. I have some on real film that I'll put up in my photo repository once I get them developed and if I ever get my butt in gear to borrow someone's scanner.

Saturday, similarly, was also full of good times. I slept in, had a leisurely morning; went to the Castro Valley Fall Festival at the Village with my dad, my grandmother, and my cousin Amanda; watched a little more of the home videos from my preschool years; and went contradancing with Graham, Karl, and Felix. Erin was supposed to come, too, but she got busy at the last minute. :( The contra dance was great fun, as it was last time, and it was cool to have Karl and Felix there as newcomers. They both picked things up pretty quickly. I wore this really cool red shirt with flowy wavey sleeves that I found at the Fall Festival earlier that afternoon (I was actually looking for a fun dance skirt but I couldn't find one and came across this instead) -- it was SO much fun to dance in! Especially for contradancing because you do stuff that involves holding out your arms in various positions, and my sleeves got all twirly and flappy. Graham said they "looked like wings." Whee! :) And I got lots of compliments about how the color looks on me. I think I have a new favorite dance shirt. ;)

I didn't find out about my dad being in the hospital until after I got back from the contradance. And now I think I've filled in the holes between my previous blogs. I'm all blogged out for the moment, and I have a million things to do tomorrow, so goodnight. Thanks for all of your support during this time, everyone -- I appreciate it.

Hi. I'm really busy so this has to be quick. Just wanted to update about my dad. He's still in the hospital, but he's doing as well as can be expected and is in good spirits. The bleeding has stopped for now, but after three procedures they still haven't been able to see where the bleeding originated from, so he's going to be referred to UCSF for further diagnosis. If all goes well tonight (i.e. he starts eating solid foods and doesn't starting bleeding again), he might be coming home within a day or two.

I'm off to the hospital again, and then back to Menlo Park for packing. No Monday Night Dance tonight. :( Call my cell if you need me because my internet access is not very reliable.

Please, please pray for my dad. He's in the hospital again with the same bleeding ulcer as last Thanksgiving. He's being transferred to the ICU soon, and they're going to do some sort of diagnostic/corrective procedure at a yet-to-be-determined time tomorrow. Please pray for quick healing, and for peace my family. I'm going to proceed with my day tomorrow as planned, until I can figure out when to visit him after the procedure happens.

Sleep is good. I feel better this morning. Last night, halfway through watching a video with my family, I kind of had a weird nauseated feeling in my chest, which made me curl up on the couch and sorta listen to the rest of the video in half-consciousness until I fell completely asleep and my parents had to poke at me a million times before I dragged myself up to bed. I'm better now.

The video, by the way, was not a movie. I was too lazy to go down to Blockbuster. So my dad dug out an old home video! From when my brother was just born, and I was three years old. Oh my goodness, I was an odd child. ;) Back then I still babbled on in Chinese, because I didn't really know English yet, so it was really funny to hear my young self say all the things that little kids say...but in Chinese. I saw myself play with a little toy piano -- and evidently I already knew how to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star! This was definitely before I started piano lessons, but my dad informed me that he was my first piano teacher. ;) My brother was such a cute baby! Over the time span that the video covered, my brother learned to crawl. My brother (now) was cheering for himself as he saw little Timmy (that's what we all called him) learn how to back himself down the stairs. We were in our old house on the other side of Castro Valley, when we'd just moved in and there was barely any furniture. My parents looked really young back then -- not that they look really old now, but they looked younger than they actually were when they had me and my brother. Evidently, raising us has aged them considerably. :P I think one of my favorite parts of what I saw (which wasn't very much since I ended up being incapacitated fairly soon) was when our babysitter was helping my brother sit up and wave to my dad who was videotaping, and I was sitting next to Timmy, and I was looking at him and at myself, and I said (in Chinese): "I am taller than little brother. {pause. look.} My legs are longer than little brother! {pause. stretch out arms.} My arms are longer than little brother!" Hahahaha. Oh boy. That was great fun. I want to watch the parts that I missed, today before I leave home. Maybe I'll watch the chronologically-next tape, too, so I can see myself start piano. :)

It's weird to think that I'm done with my summer job now. I was sad to leave yesterday. More sad than glad, even though most everyone else I know couldn't wait to be done with work. I really enjoyed working there this summer, and I really love the people I worked with. I feel like I know them so well, since I was there last summer too. I'm going to miss them. :( And I think part of it was a symbolic sadness, because if yesterday was my last day of work then summer is REALLY ending. REALLY soon. And I don't want it to. I've had a great summer -- this is the least stressed I've been in years. Even last summer, I was still coordinating the Jenny Lin Concert and taking Chem 35 at Stanford (YECH. But at least I met Erin because of it!). Right now the coming school year is like this impending doom that's looming over my shoulder. You know, I finally got an email from the ChemE department a few days ago, about declaring my major -- FOUR months after I clicked the little button on Axess requesting to declare, mind you. But anyway, that kind of freaked me out. I'm really going to declare. Do I know what I'm doing? No. I'm really starting the upper division half of my college career? Crap.

In any case, though, my junior year is fast approaching. I now have 4 days to pack up, uproot myself from the apartment (where I actually had felt very settled into), replant myself in Mirrielees, and take a running start into the year. It's a new year -- I'll have to keep reminding myself of that.

Bye bye, Applied Biosystems. :(

Awww, the people here at work are so sweet!! When I got to work this morning, Ines had left a gift on my chair -- a book, titled "Into His Arms: Seeing Jesus Through Children's Eyes," along with a cute little card she wrote me: "Tina! You are a child of God. Plant your feet on the Rock today. With such a strong foundation, you will find the power to stand up to anything. (Psalm 62:2.) Love, Ines." She told me as I was opening it, "That's for when if you're ever feeling a little down... you know where to go for a hug." That was so thoughtful, and definitely something I needed to hear as I approach the beginning of this school year. And then, right before lunch, Bob (my supervisor) and Lori (Bob's boss) came to give me a gift, too: a beautiful little potted plant of miniature red roses, and a "mug & tea infuser." Both very useful for next year! The tea infuser is so cool -- it's this little net thingy (for tea leaves) with several arms at the top so you can set it on top of a mug of hot water to make tea. And I'll have to find the perfect spot for my plant in our Mirrielees apartment. :o)

I just had lunch with Gavan today, since it was our last chance to before we won't consistently be in the same area anymore. We've had lunch together three times this summer since when he started his job just minutes away from where I work, and all three times we've gone to the same Chinese restaurant. Ah well. It's a good restaurant! ;)

Oh and everyone loved the brownies. :D

Tee hee. I love giving surprise gifts. I baked brownies last night and wrapped them in cute little packages for my co-workers today. I just finished sneaking around the building putting them on people's chairs while they were gone from their cubicles. Tee hee!

Long day. Leaving now.

This is rather funny. Some lady just came by my cubicle to give me a free Applied Biosystems t-shirt. It's a size Large. That always happens with me for free t-shirts. Do you have any idea what a Large t-shirt looks like on me? Well, I guess I'll use it as a night shirt. Or maybe my dad would want it. My brother wouldn't wear it because it's a tacky color. ;) (It's the same bright blue color as the Outdoor School sweatshirts, for you CV people.)

Today was my first morning in a long time that I haven't blogged right when I got to work. Busy busy. Yesterday's shortened day was unfortunate. I'll take a couple minutes out now before my hot-drink-of-the-morning break. (I only like coffee when mixed with copious amounts of hot chocolate.) I started to make a To-Do list for myself this morning and it is really long. So much to get done!

I have thoughts about various things I read yesterday relating to September 11. Will write later, I hope.

Today everyone at work is going out to a farewell lunch for me and another girl who's leaving to return to college (she wasn't an intern; she worked as a temp for this past year, I think). That should be fun. I need to go buy film. I should've borrowed my dad's digital camera last weekend but I forgot. So I borrowed Erin's camera because I realized I haven't taken any pictures of people at work all summer! This is because of my camera fiasco on tour. I have such bad luck with asking people to take pictures for me with my camera. Don't worry, Erin, I'm not going on any boats so your camera won't end up at the bottom of a river.

Today was kind of odd. There was a power outage at work, which resulted in everyone leaving a couple hours early. Earlier in the day, four of our company buildings on the other side of the street had power outages for some then-unknown reason. Then, at 2:15pm, while I was in the middle of doing work on my computer, all the lights went off and the fire alarm started blaring at the same time. Quite startling. So we evacuated the building and stood around in the parking lot for nearly an hour, waiting for the fire department to finish searching the building even though we were pretty sure it was the power outage that tripped the fire alarm. Apparently the other 4 buildings that didn't have power earlier in the day had something to do with the San Mateo power grid. The power people said that they'd need to shut off power to all the other buildings in order to restore power to the original buildings. This was planned for 5:00pm (which, incidentally, no one had notified us about). Evidently, somehow it happened at 2:15pm. Why you would do such a thing in the middle of a workday is beyond me. They said the power would come back on in half an hour, but still would need go back off at 5:00 as originally planned. Everyone in my building decided to leave. So I did too. That power outage was very inconvenient. Since all our experiments are done on machines, everyone's work was ruined. And I lost precious time that I need to finish all my work by the end of the week. Sigh, maybe I'll just go in early tomorrow.

A year ago last night, I was preparing for a presentation I was supposed to give the next morning for Sophomore College, about a chapter in "Made to Measure" on different materials used for fuel and power. Professor John Bravman had been proceeding with his course material for our seminar, "Building the Future: Invention and Innovation with Materials," -- and on the morning September 10, we discussed (among other things) the structural engineering of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Little did we know that the next time we met for class, the twin towers would no longer be standing.

I remember that morning so vividly (as I'm sure many people do), and yet it seems so much of a blur. I had awoken early in order to practice my oral presentation a few more times before heading down to breakfast. I opened Eudora to check my email. There, in my inbox, sat an email with the subject: "Pray for Peace." It was from someone whom I didn't know, sent to a fellowship to which I didn't belong but hadn't removed myself from its email list. It read:

"I witnessed one of the twin towers collapse right before my eyes from outside of my apartment. Then, I heard the other one collapse as well. As you may already know, this is a devastating time for many of us... I just arrived in NY from LA this morning.. and, I am just shocked by that fact. Pray for NY. Pray for D.C. Pray for the plane that just crashed in Pennsylvania. Pray for all those who have suffered. Pray for this country. Pray for peace.

I am speechless right now... It is still difficult for me to grasp the reality of this morning.. Pray for us in New York. And, wherever you are, please stay at home. Be safe.

May God be with us, ---"

I must have read this email at least 5 times, each time becoming increasingly confused. Twin towers?--I thought--we just talked about the twin towers yesterday. What is he saying?? I didn't understand. My roommate was still sleeping, so I couldn't ask her if she knew what the heck this was all about. Finally it occurred to me to check online for news stories. From there, I found page after page of a horror story unfolding before me on the computer screen.

*knock*, *knock*.

It was Wendy, one of the SA's for my class. She was coming to inform me that Professor Bravman was cancelling class because he had a lot of friends in the World Trade Center... and she trailed off as I nodded in understanding. A few other doors in my hall (the 3rd floor of Adams) opened, and we all asked in low voices under our breaths, "did you hear what happened?" and knew the answer from each other's eyes. Shortly thereafter, an email was sent out saying that Sophomore College was shutting down for the day.

Everything after that seems blurry and clear at the same time. I have snapshot memories of being in certain places and doing certain things. Watching TV in the Adams lounge with other SoCo-ers; waiting anxiously to hear from James (at NYU) and Anna (at GWU) about whether they were okay; hearing about bomb scare on campus and subsequent evacuation of Green and Hoover; my mom cancelling lunch plans with me because it was decided better not to drive across any bridges; the memorial service in MemChu; a day of fasting; watching the Presidential Address with my SoCo class at Bravman's house; the midnight prayer vigil; praying with Jim -- a lot.

I don't know how the others in my class feel, but I have a strong association of September 11 with the other eleven people who were in Bravman's class with me, and our two SA's and our professor. We weren't together 24/7, but we went through it together. We weren't all the best of friends, but we sat and watched the news together, and we sat and talked about what happened together, and we went out and did normal things and tried to concentrate on normal life together.

Thank you, guys. Jim, Kris, Truc, Paul, Alex, Wendy, Jessica, Naomi, Betsy, Monica, Bobby, Amish, Katie, and Prof. Bravman...all of you. You all are all over the country (and maybe the world) today, but I will remember how we were together a year ago.

PS- New poll (down a bit to the left). Quote page updated. "More Links" updated.

Work was stressful today. I messed up my big long experiment from yesterday by using the wrong buffer because I misunderstood the chart my supervisor's boss gave me. And then I miscalculated some other things. I feel like such an idiot. I still have a lot of backlogged data to put into my lab notebook before I leave at the end of this week. Now I'm going to have to try and redo this panel. Ugh, I hate making stupid mistakes. What sucks is that there's so much lag time between when you make the mistake to when you realize your data looks wrong (i.e. after a whole day's worth of work). Bad bad bad.

But I ended up going to the VA dance again, and Big Tina finally came, and I'm really glad I went. It destressed me a bit. Doing something nice for other people - which also happens to be something fun for yourself - is a good way to see past your own stresses. All the old people at the VA are so nice and they're so appreciative of us coming there to dance and talk with them. Oh - and the weather was so beautiful tonight. Wonderful cool air and pretty sky.

Movie last night:: "An American in Paris."
Erin's pet peeve about the movie:: Smushing-face kisses. (1951 movie musical...haha.)
People who came:: Graham, Neal, Evan.
Person who wandered down the street in the wrong direction:: Neal.
Party pooper:: George. (He didn't want to come because he'd seen the movie before. Psh.)
Person who did NOT need the sugar in the cookies:: Erin.
Poor girl with stuffy nose & sneezes:: Erin. :(
Location of MND:: Paloma lounge. Bad carpet.
Level of tina's leading ability:: Blah. :P
Zweifacher partner:: Graham. Pivots! Yay!
State of tina's back this morning:: Much better.

Uggg. I just got out of lab after standing the same spot for over two and a half hours. My lower back is tired, and it's not looking forward to driving home. :P But at least I do get to leave soon, since I got here early today. Tina is going to need to do some back stretches--but at my apartment, where I won't look weird to people walking by my cubicle.

Long R&D meeting this morning. As usual, I guess. The meeting is always scheduled for 10:00-11:00am, but they always start late and end around noon. But at least it's a small group of people (about 6 of us) and I learn a lot from hearing how other people's research is going. I presented good data today and was actually able to present conclusions about it instead of saying "I'm in the middle of running this panel so I can only show you what I have so far", so that was good. It's nice to feel productive and useful.

Musical/dance movie with the MND crew before the actual dancing tonight. Should be fun. :)

I would like to congratulate my wonderfully crazy roommate Erin on finally giving in and setting up a blog. If you click the link, you will see that her blog is all PURPLE. Just like my blog is all BLUE. All summer I kept telling her that her favorite color is purple (her bedsheets are purple and she has lots of purple things) but she kept denying it. A couple weeks ago she stopped her self-delusion and admitted that she guesses purple is her color (I think this was after her mom sent her a purple purse). HAHA! I KNEW IT ABOUT THE PURPLE!!!!

Quoting Erin Cazel {ecazel@Stanford.EDU}:
yeah yeah, woman... so you're right about the purple. Sheesh! =P
It's fine if you set up a link from my blog to yours. This way I can
purple-infiltrate the entire world! Muaha ha haaaa! {devious laughter}

love,
``E
--

O.o

Ooh.
Happy Birthday, Kris!!

At work early again! Erin and Tina and I got up SUPER early this morning to go out for a roommate breakfast at Hobee's. We were out the door by 6:50am. Aren't you proud of us?? As I dragged myself out of bed at 6:15, I noted that it felt just like getting up for high school: the sky was still dark, the bathroom lights felt way too bright, and it was freezing. Ah, the memories. ;) We got to Hobee's just as they opened, and each had the infamous coffeecake as part of our breakfasts. We laughed about our summer dance experiences and shared about our hopes for the coming year. What a great way to start the day. They'll probably be reading this (since we talked about the crazy blogging phenomenon that's taking over the world), so thank you girls for a fun time this morning and a wonderful summer together. I love you! *muah*

I did, however, forget that we always have our R&D Monday morning meetings to which Lori brings in some sort of breakfast. Oh well.

It turns out that Michi and her husband actually did go to Friday Night Waltz on Friday! They were only there for the beginning lesson, though, and then they left before I got there. Originally they were going to stay, if my parents were coming, but since my parents ended up not making it, Michi and her husband decided to go to their weekly Friday dance event in Sunnyvale instead. They enjoyed the FNW lesson, though, so I'm really glad! Apparently Joan taught the waltz polka, which for some odd reason she called the "two step," which Michi said was "the most exercise we've gotten in a long time!" Haha! Friday Night Waltz was fun for me too, but I'll write about it later because I need to get my data together for the R&D meeting.

JuKa828 (9:55:43 PM): SQUISH
TPiglette (9:55:49 PM): haha moo!
JuKa828 (9:56:34 PM): squishing u is a highlight of my days
TPiglette (9:56:48 PM): hey! =P

God blessed me with a wonderful day yesterday. I had brunch with Deborah Groody, my one and only violin teacher of my entire CV orchestra career, whom I hadn't seen in over a year. It was so great to see her again! We talked about lots of stuff and caught each other up on what we're doing with our lives now. She stopped teaching about a year ago, which is sad but her daytime job necessitated it. I was reminded of the fact that she really saw me grow up; I started violin with her halfway through sixth grade. It's funny but she basically saw me through all of my life's crushes! She gave me some really interesting insight into my relationship with Matt, as she saw it from an adult's viewpoint and the only "grownup" friend who I ever really confided in. She played a huge role in shaping who I was as a musician and as a person. I would say that she was the one who taught me my musicianship. I mean, I learned the facts and the rules and the details from endless years of piano theory, but Deborah showed me by example--just by who she was and what shined through in her eyes--how to love music and style and genre and interpretation and its art and its connection to everyday life. I cherish who she was in my life and who she'll always be to me.

After meeting with Deborah, I drove up to UC Berkeley to visit some high school friends. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Debora (Lee), because I called her as I was leaving Castro Valley for Berkeley, and she was on her way out to leave Berkeley to come back to Castro Valley! So we must've ended up passing each other on the freeway. :( Maybe I'll be able to catch her next week sometime. Anyway, while I was up in Berkeley, I was able to visit Chris Park, JoEllen (Theo's sister), Wendy, and Shaila. Each successive visit got longer in time-length. Chris, Jo, and Wendy are all freshmen (they're a part of that group I wrote about on Friday), so I FINALLY saw what Berkeley dorms look like! I hadn't actually been in any before, because I didn't make it up to Berkeley the first year (the whole thing of getting adjusted to *my* freshman year, after all), so by the time I actually visited Debora and Shaila in Berkeley, they'd both moved into apartments for sophomore year. Chris and Jo live in Unit 1 (Jo lives on the 8th floor and has an incredible view of the bay and the GG bridge!), and Wendy is in Unit 3. [Oh oh oh--something REALLY random happened when I was on my way to see Wendy. I was heading into Unit 3, and I looked up from the sidewalk to see some guy who looked really familiar...but I was like, nah...and then I made eye contact with him, and we kinda scrutinized each other as I was walking by until he finally said, "Hey, Tina?!?" And then this other girl in the group he was standing around with, who'd had her back turned to me, touched my arm and said "HEY!!!" It was TED AND SUSIE!!!! From Stanford!! Susie's back for HPAC training and was up in Berkeley for the day visiting high school friends too! That was SO RANDOM that I ran into them!!] Wendy is in a triple, so her corner room is set up pretty nicely and actually reminds me of Stanford dorms. It's always very settling to hang out with Wendy; I can never really describe why. We decided to go over to Durant Square to a PMT place (but I got a green tea milkshake, like I did when FCS took Testimony to the same place after the Spring Concert--mmm!) and walk around campus for a bit to enjoy the nice afternoon. I got reacquainted with my Berkeley geography, which is good.

God really answered some of my heart's troubles, from Friday's blog, yesterday. I just had a really great time visiting Chris, Jo, and Wendy, and talking with each of them. I was reminded that even though I may not have had that sort of group in high school, what I have with these people *is* really valuable. I think part of my blah-ness on Friday was because I was also feeling kind of left out, since I am quite good friends with a lot of them (if I wasn't, I dont think I would've been affected by seeing pictures of their group, y'know?), and I was wishing that I could have that connection with them. But God really showed me that they still care about me and are excited to see me and welcome me into things when I am around. I would've even had a lot of others of them to visit if not so many of them had gone back to CV for the weekend! They really are my friends, too.

It was like God was telling me that it's okay that my relationships are different. It doesn't make mine any less meaningful or special. And the fact that my relationships from high school aren't like that doesn't mean it's my fault. It just has to do with who we happened to be and how we interacted as a group, when we were a group. Every group has a different dynamic, and I can't expect that I can find what Wendy's group has within my own, at least not in exactly the same way and the aspects that appealed to me. After all, it's not like I'm seeing other people in my grade have something that I wish I'd had with them. I don't see it at all with people from my class. We were different. And that's okay. God was telling me, it's okay. And I also feel like he was telling me that it's okay that I don't find group identities. It's part of who he made me, that I'm better with people one-on-one and developing really meaningful relationships in that way. That's when I can give my best to people. And that's okay too.

What was probably my favorite part of the day, though (if I was forced to choose a favorite), was visiting Shaila at her new apartment. That was my longest visit by quite a margin. We talked and caught up for almost 2 hours. And it was so awesome. We were actually having real conversation, not just doing the formalities. And God showed me that I *do* have ties to people who grew up with me, people who know where I'm coming from. It was just so great... little things like... being able to refer to someone that neither of us really were close to, but just the fact that we *could* refer to them in passing about something meant we were from the same community of people. And being able to get back into talking about our fears and our hopes, even though during the school year we don't keep in touch so well. The way we understand them can be so much deeper than our college friends, at least in a different way, because we know each other's histories -- we were a part of each other's histories.

CE Chien (6:58:30 PM): wow, that was a HUGE answer from God. ;-)

No kidding. :o)

It was so random, too. (Right. "Random.") I hadn't really planned the visit to Berkeley; I just sorta toyed with the thought late Friday, since summer weekends are running out. When I went, I hadn't even connected it to what I had written about. I was just following up on promises to visit before I started school.

And the day didn't even end there. ;) I went home to have dinner with my family. It was a short visit, but great all the same. I think I would have felt like something was missing from my weekend if I hadn't seen them. I decided not to go swing dancing (again), and instead came back to the apartment to journal for awhile and spend some quiet time with God and go to bed early for church the next morning. All in all, it was one of the best days I've had in awhile.

God answers.

:)

Explanation to come, but my journal takes precedence.

(PS: Custard tarts are yummy. Mmm.)

My mom is sick. So my parents aren't coming after all. :'(

I'm feeling better.

Dancing tonight. :)

Maybe I'm just not good with people.

I have a lot on my mind. Enough that I'm going to spend my lunch break trying to write about it (don't worry, I'm still eating). I'm just going to write stream of consciousness so a lot of this may not make sense, but I'm never going to sort through what's going on in my head if I don't get it out and have it stare me in the face. Who knows, maybe one of you can point out where I'm being stupid or inconsistent. Unfortunately, feelings never promise to be consistent. At least if I think about them I can deal with them accordingly.

I think a lot of me still hasn't reconciled my high school phase of life with my college phase of life. Yesterday I was looking through a friend's online pictures of their senior year activities (someone who graduated from CVHS in June). It's a painful reminder of what I didn't have in high school. The Class of 2002 had such a cohesive group of friends. I was looking at their pictures--people I know from orchestra and badminton--people who I haven't been able to keep up a "group" connection with because, well, duh, I graduated. I'll stop being vague. I'm talking about Wendy's group of friends: Wendy, Jo, Jelli, Carol, Marian, Chris, Greg, Everett, Will, etc. etc. They've hung out together and stayed a group for as long as I've known them. Me? The people I hung out with in high school pretty much changed from year to year. My friends were all still my friends, but the people whom I was closest to kept changing. The only constant was Matt. But each year was different, too, especially my senior year when he was in college already. I always look back and wish that I had a group of people I could refer to as "my high school friends". I do still have friends from high school, but they don't even remotely resemble a group. The group I hung out with senior year pretty much disintegrated after last summer. Maybe "split" is a better word. But even that group didn't have roots for me -- true, I'd been friends with them individually since middle school, but we weren't a group. I had no group identity in high school. When Matt left for college and my best friend from junior year found her own group of friends whom I couldn't connect to because I was busy rushing off to take classes at UC Berkeley after lunch -- that was hard. Really hard. Senior year was my toughest year of high school, by far. I was more than ready to go off to college, because I felt like I wouldn't really be leaving anything behind. And yet at the same time I was losing passion for the things I used to find fascinating to study. If I had known better, I would've taken a year off before going to college. Maybe I wouldn't be where I am today. That's a whole other can of worms, though, in which what I feel constantly battles with what I know in my head.

Practically all (or so it seems) of Wendy's group of friends (for lack of a better reference term) is at UC Berkeley now. They do a lot together, I'm sure. Some of them are roommates with each other. Half of them were in a Bible study together for the past year. Would I have wanted that, going into college? First of all, even if I had, I wouldn't have had any people that would really have applied to. Second of all, I'm not so sure I would. I remember one of the things I looked forward to the most about Stanford is that no one would know me. Of course, that was scary too. But it was amazing freeing. Only Theo was coming to college with me. I had very little reliable ties to home going into Stanford. My senior year's group kept in touch, but there were some strained friendships because half of us were in serious long-term dating relationships, of which my own was beginning to have problems for the first time in nearly three years. So I was elated about going to someplace where I didn't have a reputation. No image. No box outside of which if I stepped, everyone gasped in shock. But maybe I was happy about that because I had no other choice. What was the alternative? Wish for something I didn't have?

And then I also can't help but notice that the C/O 2002 group is all Asian. Literally. You know, that's probably what brought them together in the first place. Each grade in CV had their own "Asian group". Except mine. Our "Asian group" disintegrated by the time we got to high school. I don't know what happened. Even in middle school we started splitting off into different groups. I do remember in sixth grade when the majority of my best friends were still Asian. I can't pinpoint an exact event or time period or anything that caused our parting. But I remember noticing that we were the only class in all the ones surrounding us that hadn't hung onto the "Asian group." There were remnants, and some of us had ties to the other grades' Asian groups, but it definitely was different. Was that good? BIG question. One I haven't figured out an answer to. I know for a fact that it has shaped who I am, though. Some of my best friends are still Asian, but some are not. I've found myself subconsciously uncomfortable in crowds of predominantly Asian-American people (actual culturely Asian crowds are a different story). I don't know. I am so confused.

I wonder what it would have been like to feel secure in a group of friends. Sometimes, I think I still wonder. I often feel that I make close friends in many different areas of my life but not many of them know each other. One-on-one with people I can feel secure and known, but in groups I feel lost. I wish I had something concrete to go back to in Castro Valley. Something common with which I can share with my friends from my own grade. I do have some, but it feels somehow flat...fragmented...not as meaningful as what other people have.

I look at what that group of friends has with each other, and I get pulled back into my high school "mode". It strikes me that as soon as something like this draws me back, I have to remind myself who I've become at Stanford. And then as much as I wish to look back and reach out for what might remain, I realize how distant it all is. My life is at Stanford now. I have only strings left of high school. My tapestry is here. Or is it? Why do I maintain such a separation? Again, maybe because I have no other choice. I'm mostly happy with how things are. But sometimes I look back and wonder. Sometimes I wish Matt and I were still friends. We're not *not* friends, but we've barely talked at all for a year and a half. He's more or less decided he doesn't want to have much to do with me, because "we're both different people now". It makes me sad. I'd like to think there was something permanent about who we were, independent of our dating relationship, that made us so close. And what of the others? I'm thankful for Meg and Shaila, whom I still talk to. But why didn't any of my other relationships last? Not just after high school, but during.

Most of the time I'm pretty good at burying these things and I don't them bother me, but every once in a while they pop out.

I think I have a lot of issues.

God? I need Your help.

--
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
- Jeremiah 29:11

It's Friday already. Short weeks are good. Guitar is fun. (I still suck.) Graham is good at the mandolin. Victor Borge is funny and amazing. I'm worried about my brother. My parents are coming to waltz tonight! Work is busy. First-level product review happened yesterday ---> really long meeting with marketing people. I stumbled across blogs of younger CV people (Classes of '02 and '03). I'm feeling weird about high school memories.

I got in the door today! Woohoo!

I've actually been here for about 45 minutes (another one of those weird mornings where I realized I was ready to leave early), but I just spent about half an hour being amused by my supervisor's boss. She works in the cubicle next to mine, and she's one of my favorite people at work. This morning, as I was turning on my computer, I heard her talking to the person in the cubicle on the other side of her (Michi! another one of my favorite people at work), squealing, "My daughter asked me if she could go to a DANCE!!! School just *started*!!" Hahaha! So I went over to see what this was all about. Lori's daughter is 11 (Amanda's age!) and she just started middle school. I just let Lori go on about her daughter for a little while, telling me and Michi about her flute lessons and her science class that has too many boys and her wanting to wear nailpolish to school. It was fun. It's weird to think that I'm not *really* that much older than Michelle. Eight years?...that's not that long. Then again, I started violin when I was 11, and it feels like I've been playing forever. But Lori even described Michelle's flute teacher as being "young, probably more or less my age"...later clarifying that she actually meant somewhere in his mid-to-late-20's. That could easily be another 8-year age difference! Time is such a funny thing.

TPiglette (10:34:37 PM): hi, woo?
Phunybone (10:34:47 PM): tinar!

Aww...my boys still call me that! All three of them (the CV ones), even if we haven't talked in awhile. :o)

FAQ #1: “How is work?”

Work is going well. Today, in particular, was very busy. I had to finish testing a panel of DNA extractions to test the reliability of our new quantitation kit, because someone else needs the PCR machine tomorrow. What that meant is that I had to set up 3 runs today, each of which takes nearly 2 hours. I just got the last one going, and it’ll be done by the time I get back tomorrow morning.

FAQ #2: “What do you do at work?”

I basically do a lot of lab work, data analysis, and upkeep of my lab notebook. I’m working with the same supervisor as last summer, but he got transferred from the MMB group (Molecular Microbiology) to the HID group (Human Identification). I’m using a lot of the same technology concepts, as well as a few new assays that I took a training class for this summer, to use on different applications: namely, human DNA instead of plant/bacterial DNA. I’ve been helping out on Bob’s current project by doing some of the validation studies for a new product, and also helping Lori (Bob’s boss) with a few things on her projects. My main work is on the development of two new kits that detect and quantify the amount of DNA in a given sample (for use in forensics) -- one of them detects all human DNA, and the other detects male DNA (by having a target sequence on the Y chromosome). Even though it’s my second summer internship at this company, I’ve still been learning a lot because I feel like I understand things a lot better this summer (as a result of both having been exposed to it before and having taken college biology classes last year). And I really love the people I work with. (Applied Biosystems is located in Foster City, which is about 20-25 minutes north of Stanford.)

FAQ #3: “When are you working till?”

Through the end of next week: Sept. 13. Wow, I just realized that that’ll be Friday the 13th. Hrm. :P

*And no, I am not performing nefarious evil-doings at work. My badge still won’t let me in the doors, though.

My security badge isn't working. This is a problem...

Something that makes me oddly happy:: Clean jar lids.
Yeah, okay, so I'm weird. But I love it when I open a jar and the inside of the lid and the rim aren't all sticky and yucky and messy. I noticed this again this morning when I was putting jam on my toast. Yay for clean lids!

YAY people are talking to me! :D

The VA dance tonight was quite fun. Less people there, but bigger band with a more varied repertoire and cool people to meet. Only George and Graham were there with me tonight, because Erin and Big Tina couldn't come. Next week, hopefully! One man there, Jack (the one from Castro Valley whom I met last week), is actually a very good dancer. He wanted to dance the rhumba and bolero and west coast swing with me, but I didn't know those dances! And thus my following abilities were definitely put to the test tonight! I think I did okay. :) Oh yes, and what was probably the highlight of the evening: Graham hula dancing. :D OK so maybe it wasn't *the* highlight but it was one of them. Sorry for laughing, Graham. ;) I think you're cool for trying it, I promise!

Last night's MND was a shock: we had too MANY girls!! The scale has tipped too far! At first there was only one boy (muahaha now Neal knows how I felt) but eventually 3 others showed up, so we averaged around 1-2 extra girls. ONE of these days we're going to get gender balance, dangit! But at least a gender imbalance with a good turnout (10 people!) is acceptable. ;)

It occurs to me (again) that I wish I could see myself dance. I think this would help me improve tremendously.

The impending crisis with Brenna's future roommate ended up working out quite well. I learned that Lindsay is actually the girl who will be the other CCC intern this coming year - so this apartment is going to stay a very Crusade-y apartment, indeed! She was able to fit most of her stuff neatly in the living room, including a coffee table (which is *very* exciting, I tell you), and she will be staying elsewhere until the 15th or so, which means there will only be several days overlap at the most. Our apartment is roomy enough that it can sustain a fourth person for that short interim, so it's all looking good.

I just received the first SSO email for the coming year, since I'm still on the list. Reading that email and knowing that I won't be a part of all that next year was much harder than I expected it would be.

Sigh.

I find myself notably unmotivated to blog on the weekends. Strange.

Actually, this weekend it has a lot to do with the fact that I switched internet providers. I cancelled the other account I had because I didn't want to pay for the month of September since I'll be moving onto campus in a couple weeks, and then I signed up for another one of those free-first-month deals which I'm only going to use 2 weeks of. My new connection, though, is PAINFULLY slow. It's driving me nuts. So I do very little online while I'm at the apartment now. Things will mostly wait until I get to work during the daytimes.

This morning, I am quite awake after getting probably too much sleep this weekend. I've been sleeping a LOT. It's very weird. I took long afternoon naps both Saturday (at home) and Sunday (here). Part of that, I'm sure, is the fact that the hot muggy weather makes me lethargic. But anyway, this morning was novel because I think it's the first time since before I started my internship that I actually slept in at the apartment. On weekdays, I always get up early to go to work; on Saturdays, my only day to sleep in, I'm always at home; and then on Sundays, we've been going to early service to help with Kids Community.

I don't really have anything planned for today, which is nice. Actually, I had very little planned for this entire weekend, which has been very nice indeed. I went home on Friday after work, as has become my routine, and watched a movie with my parents, which also has become routine. This week we watched Joy Luck Club, which was a very good movie and really interesting to watch with my parents. I won't elaborate here, but culture is quite fascinating. Saturday, I ended up just lounging around the house and taking the aforementioned long nap. I stayed at home for a leisurely dinner this time instead of rushing off to go swing dancing at the Doghouse, because I decided I didn't want to stay out really late and then get up super early for church, like I did last week. Instead, I talked to Eric on the phone for half an hour after I got home and then went to bed early (despite the nap!). Sunday (yesterday) was relaxing and enjoyable: Kids Community, church, lunch with Erin at a Taiwanese restaurant in Cupertino Village, stop by a Chinese bakery (custard tarts - yum!), re-reading the first ODE chapter, watching Billy Elliot, talking on the phone with Jason (yay!), and finishing "The Castle in the Attic" (a children's fiction book that I stumbled across in my room while I was home and decided to lose myself in and then couldn't put it down - reading for fun? wow).

Oh, I do have one plan for tonight: Monday Night Dance. I'm looking forward to it. :)

Other quick updates::
- On Thursday night, Kris and I were the Brownie Fairies. It was fun.
- I am VERY IRRITATED with the CD production company.
- With Kids Community yesterday, I got relocated to the Nursery for the day because they needed to shift volunteers around a bit. Babies are SO adorable. We had four 11-month-olds and two 5-month-old babies. So much fun! Lots of baby spit.
- Due to some miscommunication, the girl who will be moving into this room as Brenna's roommate for the next year is actually HERE in the area now and wants to move in. This is a problem.

I can't believe it's September already. Who's not ready for the year to start? *waves arm frantically*