* tiny but powerful *

A year ago today, Bryan Lung challenged me to a blogging marathon. This year, Bryan appears to be rather busy, but I'm going to blog anyway. It was interesting looking at my December 2001 blog archives. It's been...quite a year since then. The portion of 2002 that belonged to sophomore year really sucked, but after that it got better.

Exactly a year ago was also when I changed my blog template to look like this (minus the exact colors) -- I added the comment system, the counter, the poll (which is currently out of commission), the cell spacing, the Piglet icons, and the various things in the left column, all on January 1, 2002. No changes for this year, unfortunately. I'm happy with the blue-ness of it all, and the fact that NO one else has a blog that looks like mine (I started blogging back when there were only 4 uber-simple templates available, one of which I tweaked, and the originals have long since disappeared from the selection page).

Last night was SO much fun. I went out to a Japanese restaurant with Theo, Wootae, David, and Andy, as planned. I hadn't seen Woo and Andy in *forever*. It was fun to hang out with the boys I went through all 7 years of orchestra growing up with. (I guess for Theo, it was 9 years of orchestra, and Andy and I went to the same elementary school...but as a group we met in the 6th grade.) Just sitting in the car listening to the four of them joke around with each other was oddly comforting -- it was nice to realize that I still know their voices and speaking mannerisms like the back of my hand. We caught up with what everyone is involved with in college now (David and Woo are at UCLA, and Andy is at UCSD), and our different musical exploits, and our churches/fellowships, and our living situations. David and Andy had a "dinner for two". ;) I guess we all must look slightly older now, but they all really just look the same to me. They're the same boys. And I miss orchestra with them. Speaking of orchestra, though, we had some more orchestra people of the slightly-younger sort join our get-together when we returned to my house for games and a movie. Wendy and Marian came over (it's quite funny how so many of us live in Palomares), and so did Jo (Theo's sister) and Kenneth, who aren't exactly orchestra people but we all know each other from church and family ties. Josh and Joe (also from East Bay Alliance, but not CV people) stopped by briefly, too. My mom did her amazing-hostess thing and fed us lots of snacks and drinks and dessert. We originally intended just to watch a movie, but we got distracted for a couple hours by some card games, my guitar, all the food, and an Audrey Hepburn movie playing on TV. "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" finally began around midnight. It was really wonderful to hang out with everyone again. I commented, though, that I was glad Theo was there because otherwise I usually feel outnumbered by the UC-ness of high school gatherings (Wendy and Jo are at Berkeley now, and Kenneth is a senior at Davis). It's definitely been awhile since we've gotten this particular combination of people together -- usually we clump by the different school years, or by current college, or by home church. I think it was also the last time some people would be seeing each other before school starts, so it was nice for that purpose too. (David and Wootae are leaving soon for the college retreat for Bread of Life Church in LA... small world, huh?) Pictures are here.

I suppose I should write about Testimony's Christmas Show and Winter Tour while it's still 2002, hm?

:: [ Christmas Show 2002 -- Dec. 7 ] ::
In the words of Blung, "we turn back the pages to December 7, 2002, the night of Testimony's Christmas show, A Star-Struck Christmas." Actually, let's turn back the pages even further than that. Reflecting back on our Christmas show this year, I can only say that God has his hand in our show preparations from the very very beginning. Even early in the quarter, I was amazed at how quickly the new group was learning music and polishing it for performances. We had two dorm shows and even a senior home gig as early as November. I am so glad that this year's Testimony seems to be grounded in prayer (though, of course, there's always room for improvement) -- I'm certain we couldn't have pulled off Fall Quarter so well otherwise. I had had a bad feeling about Christmas show ever since we realized its horrible timing; with Thanksgiving being so late in November, there was no choice but to schedule the show for the weekend between Dead Week and Finals Week. (Christmas shows do NOT happen before Thanksgiving.) But God really helped us through it as we started preparations super early (you name it: memorizing songs and show order, skit writing and rehearsing, teaching choreography, poster and flyer design) and asked for prayer support from all the campus fellowships. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I feel so amazingly blessed to be working with this year's Core leadership; I feel like all our strengths complement each other so well, and I never feel so unified and supported as when I'm with these three people. Thanks, guys -- I don't know how my first year directing would be without you. My first show as director was amazing, and it was all thanks to God's gracious provision and blessings. Seriously...going into the weekend, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous, and how did I feel about the show? Of course I was nervous, but honestly I couldn't really have asked for things to be much better. I feel like we prepared to the best of our ability and we'd given up the show to God in prayer and in our hearts. I think we handled "Hell Week" well; I was able to rehearse ALL of our songs during the first two rehearsals after Thanksgiving, which gave me great peace of mind about not having the group back together until 2 days before show. Dress rehearsal night went just about as insanely long as other dress rehearsals have gone (read: late late into the night), but I can honestly say that I didn't feel stressed out by it. My overly-optimistic goal of being done by midnight (hey, it's good to shoot for something, right?) was certainly not met, but coming out of the rehearsal I felt much less tired than if any of our last year's dress rehearsals had ended that early. Here's a huge thanks to all the alumni who helped us out that night, giving feedback about balance and staging and everything. ALL of last year's tenor section, plus a tenor from the year before, came over to Manzanita to stick it out with us till the end -- go TENORS: Steve, Jeff, Gavan, and Joon!
      I bet you were wondering when I'd start talking about the actual show night. ;) To start off, we couldn't have gotten the Kimball side of Manzanita Dining Hall all set up in time without the generous help of many friends who were called upon at the last minute. (Special thanks to Qi, Graham, and Jeremy, Kari's/my dance friends who were *super* with helping out!) We realized several days before the show that there was a Ramadan dinner function scheduled for the Castano/Lantana side, and there's NEVER anything else going on in Manzanita in the weekends -- until this year. So that meant that we couldn't move all the chairs into the Kimball side and all the tables into the other side until the dinner was finished. But God was faithful with everything, of course, and all the last minute complications were smoothed out with enough time for us to settle down and start the show with a calm frame of mind. And as we entered the stage (following a great opening set by Talisman), I can honestly say that I wasn't worried at all about how the show was going to flow. With all our early planning and rehearsing, I felt confident in the group's ability to pull off a smooth show -- and what a great show it was! I knew the skits were hilarious to us, but I had no idea that the audience would like them so much; remembering show order went along without a hitch; and although our music wasn't at its absolute best (I think we sang better during dress rehearsal), nothing went awry and I was quite pleased with how we sounded. Chi-En's testimony, in my opinion, went very well...she didn't sound nervous and she engaged well with the audience. We had an amazing audience turnout, too -- the room was packed! -- and we were pleasantly surprised with a standing ovation at the end of the show! We were shocked and didn't quite know how to react, so we just stood there and smiled like dorks until the applause died down and we could continue with our closing song. And as Bryan said, whatever happened that night was all God's doing...I heard stories of people who really felt touched that night, people who were moved not just by our voices but by something God did in that room. I agree wholeheartedly -- just the mere acts of what we were doing on stage wasn't remarkable enough to illicit that kind of a response from the audience. God really filled that room that night, and I can only hope that the evening meant more to people than just another a cappella show. I cannot tell you how psyched the show left me -- I was on an emotional high from it for days afterward, and I know for a fact that it helped me get through the first couple days of finals (inconveniently SO soon after the show).

:: [ Winter Tour 2002 -- Dec. 13-21 ] ::

{blog in progress, check back later for update}

After a bit of scrambling, I was able to scrounge enough old spare computer accessories -- monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. -- to hook up my school computer here at home (and even get online via AOL). This means that I was finally able to:: 1) retrieve the installation files for Noteworthy Composer for our home computer, 2) access my Quicken files, and 3) access important information held in my Eudora folders. A corrollary to #1 is that I've been able to start arranging! Woohoo!

The second day at the Chinese doctor was less painful, but everything still hurts.

I didn't have to go today, though! Because I refused to, since I'll be getting together with some old CVHS orchestra friends (and I didn't want to have the uncomfortable patch of Chinese herbs tied to my back). Tonight will be dinner with my boys (Theo, Wootae, & David, plus Andy), and then Wendy's joining us for a movie at my house. I'm very much looking forward to the evening.

I am feeling the culture clash. Big time.

I hurt more now. :( A lot. :(

Happy Birthday, Wendy and Tiffany!! :)
Does anyone else think it's odd that the two penguin fanatics I know have the SAME BIRTHDAY? ;)

-----

Tiffany, Aaron, Uncle Clark, and Auntie Yolanda left to go home to New York in the afternoon. They fly standby because Uncle Clark works for TWA (which I think now belongs to...American?), so it felt like a familiar story when I heard about their alternate plans in case they couldn't get on their flight as standby (poor Bryan has had some really incredible airport experiences). Last night we weren't even sure they even had a chance of making it home, since the JFK airport was closed temporarily due to storms. But I guess everything went well today. I already miss little Aaron...he seemed to stick to me wherever I went the last few days, so the house feels really quiet now. On the bright side, I finally get to sleep in a bed!

On the note of the health of my back (see, that was related to the comment about the bed), it's still not in very good shape. My parents are insisting that I go to an orthopedic therapist/Chinese herb medicinist (?) for at least the next three days -- the one my dad went to when he was having back problems right before his surgery. My mom is going to take me there tomorrow (well I guess according to the timestamp that would be today). I'm not really sure what to expect, but my dad said it made a huge difference for him, so I guess we'll see what happens.

And speaking of my dad, a lot of people have been asking how he is, so thanks for your concern. My dad is home and recovering quite well. He even got released from the hospital a day early (so that was my excitement about him coming home the same day I returned from tour), and he's eating more-or-less normally now -- enough to enjoy Christmas dinner with everyone. And last night I even saw him rolling around on the ground playing with Aaron, so I think his surgery wound is healing well too. We're still waiting on some news from his doctors, but all in all everything is good so far.

Testimony Core had a very long meeting (read: that was an understatement) online last night, but we emerged triumphant with a nearly-finalized song set for Spring Show. The decision involved choosing new repertoire, including a few songs for which we'll be creating new arrangements. So hopefully I'll be able to use the remaining time on winter break to work on my arrangements, and contribute ideas to the arrangements being headed up by other people. It's been awhile since I successfully completed an arrangement, so I'm excited to get started on these songs that hold so much significance for me.

The plan for the weekend includes:: more sleep, getting together with family friends we haven't seen in a long time (Sophia is back from Boston!), arranging, playing violin/piano/GUITAR!, and seeing friends who will soon be on vacation or otherwise occupied up until I have to back to Stanford. The old orchestra gang is planning something fun for Dec. 30th, so I can't wait to see Woo and Andy and everyone (and Theo and David too, of course)! Oh yes, and I promise I really do plan on writing about the huge Testimony things, too. I just need to reserve a large chunk of time to do it, because I have so much to say.

At the mall I ran into:: Diana and Rida Chow, Pam, Monica, Becky Guyon, Everett and Leona Chan, Devin, and Shaila and Sandhya. What a small world. ;)

I was supposed to have jury duty today, but the automated instructions from the Hayward courthouse phone recording last night said that my summons-group didn't need to report for the morning roll call, and we were supposed to call back between 11am-12noon to check whether we needed to report in at 1:00pm. The instructions this morning said we didn't need to report for the afternoon roll call either, so there goes my jury duty for a year! I thought I was finally going to see how this all works, but I guess not. Oh well -- I'm not great with new situations anyway. Now... to shop, or not to shop? I hate big crowds and I'm not a big shopper, but if there's any time to do shopping it would be now, I suppose.

CE Chien (11:50:33 PM): my gosh. i'm going to have my wedding on the planet of naboo.

Meet my littlest cousin, Aaron Eng::

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We had SO MANY relatives in the house today! Aunts and uncles from both sides of the family, and so many cousins! Both my parents have their look-alikes/act-alikes in the house! My dad's younger brother TOTALLY looks like him right now, because he's wearing an outfit that my dad would wear, and he's also parading around the house with a videocamera. And my mom's younger sister TOTALLY sounds like her, especially when they laugh! It's SO FUNNY! The house was so full of people, it was wonderful! Four full families, plus another aunt, and another cousin, and a set of grandparents. Some people have left now, but we've still got about half of them here. Mmmm and we're having pumpkin pie and milk tea for dessert!! Yummm.

Family: what a wonderful reminder of God's greatest gift to us. Jesus came to give us relationship with God, and to exemplify what all relationships should be about.

May the Lord bless you and keep you all, and may He show his amazing, faithful, and redeeming love in your life, too. :)

My family is on a movie craze. We just finished watching a movie for the third night in a row. Tonight's was "Lilo and Stitch", and the previous two nights were "Minority Report" (we watched it twice because it was hard to catch everything the first time!). Since getting back from tour, I've been really unmotivated to do anything other than bum around the house. I think I'm sort of in my brain-dead mode. The only time I've left the house (except to drive my dad places) was on Sunday when I went out to see Meggy, who's back from Paris!! Shaila and I went over to her house, and we watched "A Walk to Remember" with all the appropriate girly reactions. (I am SO in love with the song "Only Hope"...and it's even a waltz!! I really want to dance to it sometime!) It was so fun to see Meg and Shai again! What was hilarious was that we were all almost completely matching. Shaila and I were both wearing black shoes, medium blue jeans, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a black coat; Meg was almost the same too except for a black sweater. Meg showed us a few rolls of her pictures from Europe, but there were still many rolls she hadn't gotten back yet, so I'll have to see the rest of them some other time.

Home life isn't exactly normal -- we have relatives visiting from New York for the week (so I'm still sleeping downstairs in a sleeping bag), but it's all worth it because I'm having so much fun with my new baby cousin! He's actually nearly two-years-old now, but it's the first time I've met him, and Aaron is ADORABLE. He's just now learning to talk (mostly in Cantonese) so it's really cute to hear all his new words. He calls me "ah jeh!", and his current obsession is spinning around (slowly in place) in the front hall and then collapsing in laughter. I'll post some pictures here once I've downloaded them from my camera!

Yup, that's right... my parents got me a digital camera for Christmas, but they gave it to me early so I could take pictures with it on tour! Yay for pictures! I took a TON over the course of the week, and one of my main projects for the past few days was setting up my photo-hosting account on pbase (thanks for your help, Tim!). So, I am pleased to announce the launch of my real photo repository (the link on the left column has been updated, but if it's not working the site address is http://www.pbase.com/tpiglette). I've uploaded the pictures my brother took of Christmas show, too, as well as various random ones I'd had on my Stanford webspace. Click around and enjoy the pictures! (I hope to collect some old ones from last year's Tmony and summer dance people, too.)

No time yet to write about Christmas show and winter tour. Over the weekend, hopefully. :)

Tour is over! I'm home! And exhausted! Jenny just got picked up! Relatives are here! MY DAD IS HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL!!!!!! :D So much is going on! Call me! :)

Testimony is leaving campus this morning for the rest of our winter tour. Our first gig last night at Stevenson House (the senior home where we performed for SOCS) went really well. Our next gig is the Stanford Hospital, today after lunch, before we head to Castro Valley, and then Rancho Palos Verdes later in the week. I'm so excited! I would sound more excited too, except I'm tired from cleaning and packing last night. ;)

There are so many things I wanted to blog about before tour got underway, but that's not going to happen. So we'll see how good of a job I can do keeping up my journal on tour (yeah, right) and how good my memory is in about a week. We'll be staying at my house from tonight till Wednesday morning, so I might come back to post our Castro Valley schedule here, for any of you who might want to catch us sing! Otherwise, I'll talk to most of you when I get home after tour on Saturday Dec. 21. Happy Winter Break!

I feel like someone let all the air out of me.

Blah.

At least the Core meeting should cheer me up.

Ahhhhhhh, I'm done! Pchem sucked. A lot. But I'm done!

I think I may have just completed my best quarter at Stanford so far.

Elaboration will be forthcoming. Overall gist:: God is good. :)

Early to bed again. I was telling Karl and Felix today as we were biking back from the 131 final that it's ironic that I've been getting consistently more sleep during finals week than during the rest of the quarter, ever. Oh well, it's a good thing. Part of it is that my back has been killing me this week. Well, not really, so Mom and Dad please don't freak out. :) Tonight's studying was pretty strained. Our study family is really tired. And I shall leave you with another quote.

"China looks like a chicken." - Felix
"Really?" - Phil
"Yeah." - Felix
"Okay." - Phil
*pause*
"Yeah, a chicken without legs." - Felix

Ochem was...okay. I hope. It wasn't an impossible exam; it was just really long and somewhat tricky. I felt like I was as prepared as I really could have been. I'm really mad at myself, though, for not filling in some preliminary stuff the first time I went through the test. For a few problems, I thought through the question and decided I would come back to reevaluate and fill things in then, but at the end I got stuck on a mechanism problem and the end of the time period took me by surprise, so I left some things blank that I really could have gotten partial credit on. Boo to me. :( Overall, though, I think there's a possibility that I did well enough to hit the mean. I really, really, really hope I did.

3 down, 1 to go. Tomorrow's is going to be the hardest one.

I miss the violin.

Why this is hitting me now, I have no clue. It's hitting me hard, though.

I think I'm having an identity crisis.

I slept in late this morning, after a fun night at Late-Night with Bryan, Kari, Justin, and Adam, to unwind after my two exams. We spent probably like an hour just quoting lines from our skits and laughing hysterically at them all over again. ;) Then I finally watched a few episodes of the real Celebrity Jeopardy over at Justin's room (nope, I hadn't seen them before). Today I've been studying ochem all day over at Castano. We'll be meeting up for more studying after a dinner break. Things are definitely getting to that all-too-familiar stage of "everything is funny".

Tina: "Do you guys want to meet back up after dinner?"
*long pause*
Tina: "Guys?"
Chris: "Sure, I'd be up for that."
*both look at Karl*
*more pause*
*Karl looks up at us, says nothing, and returns to his notes*
Tina: "Karl?"
*Karl looks up again*
Karl: "Oh. I thought it was a rhetorical question."

Math was WAY harder than I thought it would be. SO much harder than the midterms. Ugh. For like 2 hours I completely blanked on how to find the particular solution to a system of ODE's. I mean, what the heck?? I've been doing this all quarter!!! I eventually remembered how to do it, but not solidly enough to figure out the hard problems. Sigh. I hope I scrounged enough points to hang on to my A in that class. I really needed this to be my good class.

I am so tired. And we're just getting started...the likely-impossible exams are yet to come. :(

2 down, 2 to go.

ChemE went well. :) I finished early, though even then I was still one of the last people left. We definitely studied the right stuff last night. :)

1 down, 3 to go! Time to do lots of ODE problems.

TPiglette (7:32:52 AM): I take it you are up ;-)
Auto response from Fefoofix (7:32:52 AM): weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

A ChemE textbook, copyright 1965::
"Let the difference between these temperatures, Tr - T, be called error. Clearly, the larger this error, the less we are satisfied with the present state of affairs and vice versa."

Hahahahaha. Sleep didn't help; that's still funny!!!

I am going to bed early tonight. And then I am going to wake up early, take a shower, read some more about control theory, and go take this ChemE exam. Math didn't get much of my attention today, but I think I'll be okay with the 6 hours between exams tomorrow. So I am actually going to get nearly a full night's sleep tonight. Those of you who know me know how utterly weird this is. See, my study family has a good influence on me. Oh yeah! :) (By the end of our studying tonight I was pretty delirious. Everything somehow became funny.)

Show went soooo well! God is sooo amazing and SO faithful! I have so much on my mind that I want to share but I really have to go study now! I have two finals tomorrow: ChemE (which is actually just a third midterm) and Math. Booo! :( But at least I slept a lot last night: 11 hours! I figured that I'll really need it for my 8:30am ChemE exam tomorrow morning...enough to skip church completely today. I'll have to update later about show, but for now, thank you to all of you who came!! Your presence and support means a lot to me! :) Alright, time to study control theory and ODE phase portraits. But that's okay because I'm so happy from last night's show!! :D

I am SO EXCITED ABOUT SHOW TONIGHT!!! :D

PLEASE COME!

Change of plans:: girldate dinner. :)

God is good. Always.

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." - 1 Corinthians 15:58.

Don't worry, I'm alive. (I know it isn't often when I go more than a day without blogging.) So, I finally finished the last class-day of the quarter. I turned in my last problem set in my 9:00 class, went to all 4 of my lectures today, spent some time in the chem library, and attended the ChemE review session from 4:00-5:00. I am pooped. Back isn't happy either. Perhaps I will nap. Must be happy for dress rehearsal at 8:00! :)

I just discovered Kristin's Livejournal! And this whole time I thought she was merely ignoring her Blogger site. Oh well, at least now I know. I really miss all my friends who are abroad.

Tonight is my last Crusade meeting until March. :( Next quarter (until Viennese Ball), I won't be able to miss the first half hour of Opening rehearsals like I had permission to for this quarter. I've known this for awhile, but it hadn't hit me that my last large group meeting was so soon.

Today I am very very tired. There is a random Jammix tonight, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna go. Opening rehearsal already conflicts with half of it, so I might just stop by on my way back to Mirrielees, but it depends on what terms my math problem set and I are on by then. Speaking of Opening...tonight should be interesting, after two weeks of no practice. :P

Since some of you have been asking, yeah my back has still been hurting. It's pretty much a day-by-day thing, or even hour-to-hour. This morning's classes weren't so good. Overall, it's not as bad as the worst it got last month, but it's all averaging about the same. At this point I'm just sort of resigned to living with it.

I think it's time to pray.

Well, tonight's caroling was an interesting adventure. No one from any of the other a cappella groups were able to join us, so it ended up being about a quartet and a half of Testimony people for most of the time (i.e. me, Kari, Justin, Uchenna, Gavan, and Ssonia). Megan, Annie, and Ming (non-Tmony) showed up with Steve (blindfolded for his birthday celebration) around the time which should have been the end of our caroling. We kept going for quite awhile though, even though there weren't many people there listening to us, because we were just having fun sightreading music and singing old arrangements and making up new ones. There was this one man there, named Jeff, who sat and listened to us for a long time, and I think he's actually going to come to our show on Saturday! How random, but cool! Caroling is such a rewarding experience; I love it when passersby stop for a moment and leave with smiles on their faces. Granted we didn't sound very nice tonight (whoo boy :P) but with some practice we'll be ready to do this for a whole week on tour! Seriously, it was a great "appetizer" for tour and it really motivated me to look forward to that week with Testimony. It reminded me of how great it was last year to sing for people just to brighten their days and show them how God's love can be shared through the amazing gift of music. Our tour schedule for this year is slowly shaping up as I'm getting in contact with people to arrange singing gigs, and it's surprising to see how appreciative people are that we want to sing for them. The upcoming tour -- and preparing for this Saturday's show -- are great reminders of why I sing with Testimony and why I believe so much in what we do.

I'm just sort of living day by day at this point, just finishing what I need to for the current hour and making mental (or literal) notes on my constant to-do list. Classes are barreling on, even though I wish we had a *real* "Dead Week" so I could study the comprehensive material instead of having more new stuff thrown at me. I'm not going to freak myself out about finals yet, though. This quarter I actually have a fortunate finals schedule. My harder finals are later in the week, and 24 hours apart (as opposed to the Mon. night/Tues. afternoon/Wed. morning string of exams I had last fall). I do have two finals on Monday, but they're the easier ones, so I'm glad for that.

I'm trying really hard not to let the stress of the week get me down, for many reasons. It's important not only to me but also for the people around me. Unfortunately, it might mean that I'll have to shut out a lot of the world as I squeeze out maximum productivity with my time, but I want the time I do spend with people to be more beneficial than detrimental. If I am being grumpy to you, please tell me to go pray, okay? :)

BOOO to scheduling conflicts. SERIOUSLY. :(

1) There is a Ramadan dinner scheduled for Saturday night in MANZANITA. It goes from 5:30-7:30, and they probably won't be cleared out until 7:45. We needed to start setting up at 7:00! This is not good! We'll need to recruit lots of help in order to move all the tables to the Lantana side and all the chairs into the Kimball side quickly enough. :(

2) Bio42, Chem173, and E50 are all offered in the same time slot next quarter. I'd hoped to take two of the three, but now I can't! Bio42 will win out, since I really need to retake that class. But I really need to take those other classes too. :(

3) ChemE120A has two weeks of Tuesday night lectures from 7-10pm. This is a problem for Tmony rehearsal...

No more conflicts, please! :(

So. Here we are, Dead Week. It's also supposed to be "Hell Week" for Testimony (i.e. the week of show) but I'm trying not to let it be that. We've been trying to prepare early so as not to stress out the group during Dead Week. (Dead Week is such a misnomer.) We'll still be having extra rehearsals tonight and Thursday, in addition to dress rehearsal on Friday night, but our usual Tuesday rehearsal is going to be replaced with an joint-a-cappella caroling trip in downtown Palo Alto with whoever of the other Stanford a cappella groups can make it. I also have all my usual problem sets due (pchem Wed., math Thurs., and ChemE Fri.) plus a presentation to prepare for Chinese. Boo to having problem sets due 3 days before finals. :( And Opening is still going full swing, because we can't afford to lose any more time -- we already had the past 3 rehearsals cancelled due to Big Game and Thanksgiving. And then there's Tmony tour details still in the process of being planned. But, I can do it, right? Just need to rely on God's strength and faithfulness. :)

I'm back! :) Problem sets, here I come.

It was so wonderful to see David again! We went down to Starbucks and chatted there until they kicked us out. Basic conclusion of the night: we're getting old. ;) On the way back up towards home, Wendy called me back with perfect timing for us to swing by her house (she lives a block away from me). It was too bad that we couldn't get in contact with her for the coffee outing, but she had a good time visiting with people her year at Carol's house, and in the end David and I were able to see her too, so it was all good. Wendy's sister Judy was home too, so the four of us hung out and joked around like old times. It was sooo good to spend time with them. I think I'm going to have a silly smile on my face until I fall asleep. :o) In other news, my church plans for tomorrow morning have changed; I won't be going down to The River as I'd originally thought. Instead, I'm going to go to East Bay Alliance (Theo and Wendy's church; also where I briefly considered my "home church" for awhile when I was actually home in CV long enough to necessitate going consistently to a church other than The River) and talk with the pastor about the possibility of Testimony singing for them at Sunday service in two weeks when we'll be on winter tour in the East Bay. I can't believe that's only two weeks away! Just have to get through finals...

[PS: Let's see if David actually comes to read this like he said he would. Hi, David! ;) (Say hi in my comment box!) ]