* tiny but powerful *

My family needs prayer now more than ever. I didn't think we'd ever get to this point. Please, please pray.

I probably won't make it to the Swingtime show today. I'm sorry, Kari.

Current Music:: Faith Hill - "Cry"
Sometimes, observing current drama going on for other people can uncover old wounds and poke at corners that possibly had never healed in the first place.

I sat through 3 hours of in-house draws last night (Kari's, mine, and Chi-En's, in that order). The results are as follows:
- Kari in Trancos 309, currently with Ssonia
- me in Okada 210, currently with Ming
- Chi-En in Arroyo 202, happily on her desired floor and with her desired roommate
Kari and I submitted our reassignment petition today. Our best hope is to try to get me reassigned into Trancos, where Ssonia said she'd be willing to switch with me so Kari and I could room together. Getting into Okada is harder and more complicated because of the ethnic priority (which is probably why we got split up in the first place). At this point I'm not so much worried as just annoyed that we got screwed over because of the office's mistake. Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the summer when they work through the waiting list reassignments.

The end of the year is upon us. Errand-type activities (and dance classes) have been taking up most of my time recently. The past couple days were full of the draw drama, filling out forms, and a couple trips to the Housing Assignment Services office. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were long late-night meetings for Testimony to discuss end-of-the-year feedback and Core to start the decision process for choosing next year's Core. Today I went to an a cappella officers meeting for next year's Orientation Show, and then made an unsuccessful attempt to get my pre-employment drug screening done (they sent me to a site that doesn't process drug screens, so I have to go somewhere else next Monday). I've also been taking care of Twain finances (yup, even now, because we have money in our account that can be used for reunion parties and whatnot) as well as my own (entering backlogged receipts and statements into Quicken...fun, fun). Next week Kari and I will be straightening out the rental details with our summer apartment sublet, and I'll get to help her demonstrate her dance reconstruction (Hesitation Waltz!) for Period Movement. Next Tuesday is also the End-of-Quarter Showing followed by a Jammix, which will be fun.

It was fun to start learning the hustle in Social 2 this week. That's probably the one dance so far I've felt is the most difficult to switch back and forth between leading and following. They feel so different! Since I was actually more or less starting from scratch for this dance (as opposed to lindy or waltz, where I already knew the basics of leading), it's been difficult to learn the variations just by flipping perspectives in my head when I'm dancing follow. Both days this week, there were too many guys during the first half of class so I had to dance follow to balance it out, but then I had to switch to lead for the latter half of class when, for some odd reason, the imbalance shifted toward having too many girls. I'm making do with the time I manage to snag as a lead, though. Leading hustle is fun. :)

I AM SO MAD AT THE HOUSING ASSIGNMENT PEOPLE. They SPLIT UP me and Kari!!! I got assigned to Okada, and Kari's in Trancos! We didn't realize this until we got different in-house draw emails last night, since my assignment wasn't posted anywhere (since I don't live on campus) and it's not available for me through Axess because I'm not a registered student this quarter. I went to try to clear up the mistake this morning, and they admitted that we were wrongly split up, but all they can do is offer to let us file a petition to be reassigned together if vacancies open up sometime during the summer. This means that we have to go through in-house draw in our current assignments, which means that even if we get reassigned somewhere, we won't necessarily get to room together and/or we could get stuck with a sucky room. At this point I don't care about a sucky room, I just want to room with Kari! GRRR. We're seniors, too, so we would've had good priority for in-house draws. I can't believe this happened! ARRRGH.

Current Music:: Testimony A Cappella - "Let Me Show You the Way"
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." - 2 Corinthians 1:3

Current Music:: Fusion - "China in Your Hand"
Nine years ago tomorrow, Jenny Lin was killed by someone who broke into her house (two blocks away from me) when she was home alone. The murderer cornered her in the master bedroom and stabbed her 14 times, coincidentally (or not) three days after her 14th birthday. He still has not been caught. In fact, the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries last Monday.

Today was the 9th annual memorial service in Jenny's memory. It was held at the Friendship Court, a paved, lighted, and gardened area outside the music rooms at Canyon Middle School, built a couple years ago by the Jenny Lin Foundation. The short ceremony included a couple musical pieces, an address by Jenny's father, and a prayer in Jenny's memory. It was good to see her parents again; I've grown close to them over the years I've helped out with the Foundation events (including the summer concert that many of you have heard me talk about).

The reception afterward was quite interesting. There were a handful of current CVHS kids present, as well as Matt Wong and Andy Tung, who were both seniors in orchestra when I was a freshman. Matt, Andy, and I spent a lot of time chatting with Ms. Shoptaw, whom we all had had for 8th Grade Advanced English. Other than that, I spent most of the time trying to avoid getting interviewed by the various TV station reporters combing the area. This was achieved the most successfully by following Matt around, because he actually has a valid reason for not being interviewed -- he's working at Sandia labs and for general confidentiality reasons he's been asked not to participate in any interviews or appear on TV. Poor Andy got nabbed several times, but it's better that it was him, because he knew Jenny better than I did (since Jenny was two years older than me, and only one year younger than him; so Jenny and I hadn't had a chance yet to be in an orchestra together).

So I mostly managed to avoid getting interviewed...until Jelli (Matt Wong's youngest sister) grabbed me for an interview with a reporter from the local SPANISH CHANNEL! I can't believe her!!! I wasn't even anywhere near the guy, but she came and found me and brought me over, because she wanted me to do it instead of the other CVHS people. EEP! I was so nervous! He actually asked me several questions in English first, and then only did a really short portion in Spanish. I think I sounded really dumb. I got through like one and a half sentences before I started to stutter and pause. I hate interviews. I hate talking in front of people! And TV people is worse! My goodness, I still can't believe that happened. Anyway, so I'll be on the 11:00 news on Channel 14 tonight. I hope they have editing tools that minimize my evident stupidity. Sigh. At least I'll only look stupid to Spanish-speaking people who don't know me, which is less intimidating than getting put on Channel 2 or something.

The Jenny Lin Foundation women (mostly mothers of my friends, including Matt/Jelli's mom) are trying to convince me to play in the Summer Concert again this summer. I told them I doubt it, since I'm living near Stanford, but they still want me to participate by just going once a week and/or joining in toward the end of the rehearsal phase. I'll consider it, but I think that I would just feel very out of place and old. Most of the people I know in the CV music program have graduated by now, and very few alumni come back and play. It seems to mean a lot to Mrs. Lin, though, so I'll think about it. (Pat Lee is also under the impression that if I'm around I can somehow induce the Student Coordinators to make decisions and take action, but I'd rather not get my hands in too much of that or else I'll never get out again.)

I had to up the courage to start telling people that I'm about to change my major. It's hard to avoid at these kinds of events where I run into everyone who always wants to know how school is going, and this is one of the contexts where I have a fairly substantial reputation. It was scary, to be honest. These are all the people who knew the Tina who went into college wanting to be engineering and pre-med. But the Jenny Lin Foundation mothers are also the people by whom I feel very supported, and even aside from them I was mostly surrounded by people who are involved in CV music. So those ways it was probably one of the easiest places (out of everyone who knows me at home) to start. All the adults I told seemed to think it was a great idea for me. It was harder with the students (or ex-students, in Matt and Andy's case), for some reason. Andy was ChemE in college himself, and Matt was CS, and they're both in the working world now. I felt a little bit like, "Yeah, I know, I can't make it to where you guys are," but then I caught myself and tried to remind myself that's an inaccurate way to look at it. I'm wondering if it'll be easier or harder to tell people who are closer to my age and who knew me better. (Matt and Andy are 3 years older, and almost all the other kids there were at least 3 years younger than me.) I guess I'll find out when the time comes.

Other interesting things of late::
- Jeff Lee and I (and Jonathan, in between his turns playing in a croquet game) played badminton at Spring Retreat! I miss badminton so much. It was good to see that I haven't lost my skill entirely.
- I finally met Spud and Bonnie's new daughter! (Spud and Bonnie are the head staff of Crusade.) Her name is Sarah, and she is SO ADORABLE. SO, SO adorable. She's so little, and fair-skinned, and her hair is practically white-blond and her eyes are so bright blue. And she smiles so much!!
- Kari and I will be living in Trancos next year. (Nope, our 1463 draw number couldn't get us into any of the Manzanita dorms, or even Okada. We thought we'd at least be able to count on Okada.) The draw was so messed up this year! Boooo.
- At least we'll be living near a whole bunch of people also on east campus, though. Chi-En and Adam are in Arroyo, Jenn and Jenny are in Twain, Sanghyup is in Okada, and Bryan is in Mirrielees again. I haven't really heard much from non-Tmony people yet.
- It was quite eye-opening to visit Canyon Middle School today -- I hadn't been back since they remodeled parts of the music rooms. Everything looks so different now. Whiteboards finally, instead of the old gross chalkboards -- wow! ;)
- I am evidently 91% Bay Area, according to the "How Bay Area Are You?" quiz floating around. I've also seen a Castro Valley one somewhere, but I didn't click the link before I lost it (has anyone else seen it around?). I actually thought the Bay Area one asked good questions. You guys should take it and tell me what you get. ;)
- On Sunday, several of my kids in Kids Community spent almost the first half hour *quacking*. Like, the noise that Donald Duck makes. I'm not kidding. It was very odd. Then they kept quacking AT me, and running away laughing hysterically. Kids are so weird sometimes. ;)

Current Music:: Chantal Kreviazuk - "Time"
I just got back from the Crusade Spring Retreat. I had a wonderful time. It had an impact on me that I wasn't quite expecting. Sometimes you can come away from things like retreats with a really excited fervor about a cause or a particular emotional experience, which is good in some ways. But the past day I had with Crusade has left me more with an excitement that feels *real*. Almost a deeper excitement that's more reserved because it feels like it's just the beginning of something lasting. It's not an emotional excitement (though the past day definitely had its share of emotional moments for me).

Crusade only had less than one full day together, but the leadership team did a great job of making the most out of our time. We spent the afternoon with games/swimming/hanging out, had a BBQ dinner, and then in the evening we reflected on/shared what we're thankful for from the year, talked about what the Crusade movement is about, put on some silly group skits, and honored our graduating senior leaders (yay for Annie, Jess, and Jeff Lee!). This morning included more worship and group discussion about vision for next year and what we can do to make Crusade more what it's meant to be. Sometime over the course of the retreat, I really felt like the vision for Crusade became *real* to me. Not through a whole lot of fancy talk, but because...observing a lot of people's character unfold through their sharing of ideas helped me start to reconnect to the spirit of Crusade as a whole, which I never really got the chance to do this year.

I think Eric's right that what makes Crusade special is its relational dynamic. I experienced that this weekend. And I'm excited for what next year is going to look like. It's kind of the same thing as with Testimony -- I really have no idea what to expect for next year, both personally and with respect to the group. But what I've seen so far suggests that God is up to something cool, and despite my fears of the unknown I'm really excited to see what He has in store for us. My experience at this year's Spring Retreat was significantly different than last year's, and I can't even begin to imagine where I'll be one year from now. I think Crusade will have an important role to play in getting me there.

Current Music:: Rockapella - "People Change"
More quick updates. Relay For Life was an interesting adventure in terms of the mic situation, but otherwise went pretty well. Since I didn't get to leave Stanford that night until 7:45, I didn't arrive at the CVHS Concerto Concert until 8:30... just in time to see the end-of-the-year awards begin. So I missed all the music; poo. In other more general news, I seem to be having more intense conversations with a number of people than the time I've spent sleeping in the past couple days, or something. Today, I'm going to Kids Community and 2nd service at The River, as usual, and then going on the Crusade Spring Retreat in Hillsborough (near San Mateo, I think). Yup, driving all over the East/South Bay this weekend. I'll be back in Castro Valley sometime Monday afternoon. Bye!

I'm heading back to Stanford later today for Period Movement (if I get there early enough), dinner with Megan for prayer buddies, a Steering Committee meeting, and visiting my old Bible study (which I haven't been able to do yet since I've been back from Spain) for the last time we'll have with Christine. I'm really sad that she's leaving the Crusade staff in a month. :( She's been my Bible study leader for my entire time in Crusade, and she's definitely the staff member who I know the best and who has been the most influential in my life for over a year. I'm really going to miss her next year, and I can't imagine what Crusade will be like without her. I'm sad that that whole decision took place while I was gone, so I didn't even get to cherish the last couple months she'll be around. I hope I'll get to hang out with her a little before she and BV (her husband) take off. Anyway, I'm probably staying overnight on campus yet again, since Testimony's last gig of the year is early tomorrow evening -- we're singing a half-hour set at Relay For Life.

"Wheels I guess are turning
Somewhere inside my head
I know that this is
Deeper than you get."
- Vertical Horizon, "Finding Me"

There's a lot going on. Here are some quick updates.

- Spring Show was awesome. Toyon turned out to be a great venue, a lot of people came, Kari's testimony was powerful, the music went well, the skits were cute, and it was just a lot of fun. The two dress rehearsals leading up to it were amazing in and of themselves, too, and we were so blessed with generous help from Tmony alumni. God is doing awesome things with Testimony, and I feel so privileged to be a part of it. (I could talk way more about this, but there's too much.)
- A Testimony quartet (me, Kari, Eric, and Gavan) sang the Star-Spangled Banner for a Special Olympics tennis tournament on Sunday morning -- really early in the morning, but a good experience.
- My kids at Kids Community are so wonderful. I don't know if it's fair to call this volunteering, because I think I'm more blessed through it than they are!
- Sixteen TSF letters have come and gone. I did them all myself, for once.
- Current song obsession:: Fusion - "China in Your Hand"

Mostly everything else that's been going on can't be detailed by events or short updates. I'd like to put out a prayer request for my family, though -- please pray for strength, patience, discernment, and faith -- all four of us need it. I'm not terribly motivated to write more, so I'll end this here. Sorry my blogging consistency has been flagging.

Wow, sorry -- no, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've sort of fallen off the face of the online world, though -- I don't check email that regularly, and when I do it's mainly to 1) delete junk mail, or 2) take care of business. I'm still more or less a nomad around Stanford these days, and the rest of this week is going to be no exception. Once I leave home this afternoon, I won't be back until at least after Testimony's Spring Show on Friday, because we have nighttime rehearsals both tonight and tomorrow night and I know I'm going to be too tired to drive afterward. But I'm excited about our show! We have the privilege of having Berkeley's For Christ's Sake open for us again, like last year. Come see lots of free a cappella! :-D

Testimony A Cappella presents...
****Temptimony Island****
Three Months. $10,000. Fifteen Singers. One Island.

Friday, May 16 @ 9pm
Toyon Lounge

FREE Admission and FREE FOOD!!



Now that I've done my shameless plugging, let's see how much of the past week I can catch up on on here. :)

[ Big Dance -- May 9-10, 2003 ]
Last Friday-Saturday was Stanford's annual Big Dance. That was pretty a 21-hour day at Roble for me (and Kari was there even longer -- and we were matching all day! The 2003 Viennese Ball t-shirt + Express jeans + matching blue beaded bracelets that I brought back from Germany. Tee hee!). I was helping set up for the dance starting around 10am, helping Kari with some of her facilities duties and also helping the decorations committee finish making signs and putting things up. Decorations highlights:: painting most of the "BIG DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION" sign (that was this year's theme), and having an exceedingly difficult time trying to string the ceiling decorations. (See the first picture out of Brian's Big Dance pictures for an idea of what we were doing. Shortly after that picture was taken, we proceeded to get not one, but TWO items stuck in the next chandelier. I believe they and their accompanying pieces of string are still hanging in the dance studio because we have no idea how to get them down.) Facilities "adventure":: finding out less than two hours before the dance was supposed to start that the distro (sp?) wasn't working and wasn't going to work any time in the near future, practically giving poor Kari a stress attack that we wouldn't have electrical power for the courtyard lights and swing band equipment. But, thankfully, everything came together and the dance began at 9pm, leaving a good number of us pooped out in the staff room for almost an entire hour before venturing to join the dancing.

The night was full of great performances and wonderful dancing. I got to see Kari perform with Swingtime! She's so awesome! :-D A small group of us surprised her with cardboard letters that spelled out "G-O K-A-R-I-!" I was the exclamation point!!! Hee hee! I was also particularly impressed with Double or Nothing's performance, and all of the other groups were really amazing too, as usual. Both Brian and Graham got some good pictures of various things that happened throughout the night.

My brother came for a couple hours! He brought two of his friends who also know a little dance, too. All three of them were picking up stuff I was teaching them really quickly. It was so much fun to have Tim there! Eric's sister, Kim, and Graham's sister, Lacey, were also in town for Big Dance, so we joked that it was like the dance of the siblings. It was fun to see Lacey again! (We lived diagonally across the hall from each other in Rinc freshman year, but since she's been in Oregon taking this year off I haven't seen her much since *last* year's Big Dance.) While my brother was there we spent most of our time in the swing room, so I missed a lot of the country/contra-dancing in the main studio, but I did get to dance a fun one with Eric.

There were four competitions throughout the night:: Hyperspeed Hustle, Red-Light/Green-Light Waltzing, Role-Reversal Swing, and Fun Noodle Polka Relay. I was a judge for the Waltz and Polka competitions, which actually didn't turn out to be very much judging at all (judges were mostly useless in the Red-Light/Green-Light one because the MC was calling everyone out from the mic, and then in the Polka competition we served as the poles around which they had to make a turn back toward their team, which basically meant getting whacked by the fun noodle as they passed by -- Brian got a great picture of Kari trying to avoid getting hit!). Graham and I entered the Role-Reversal Swing, but we got tapped out right before the finals. Kari actually told me later that she didn't want to tap us out, which is nice to know, but at the time I was just really relieved not to be in the finals -- everyone up there was so good! Almost all of them are in swing performance groups. So I was glad not to be put on the spot. It was fun to enter, though.

I was really dying by the time 5am rolled around. My back was sooo tired (stupid back problems, but at least it's better now). And I was so sleepy that I'm surprised that I made it all the way through the end of the night. My brain wasn't working very well, though, which was evident when I tried to dance the Dawn Mazurka. Our set mildly fell apart at one point (causing me to end up with a different partner), and in general I wasn't alert enough to remember the transitions between sections very well. But we made it through, and I'm glad I got the chance to do it. Afterward I wasn't brave enough to try the Scotch Reel, even though Kari had taught it to me. Maybe next time.

Poor Graham practically had to prop me up for the last waltzes, but I sort of woke up partway through the dances. I think I mustered up a last burst of energy because I knew it was about to be over. The Gang of 13 got well-deserved recognition for doing such a great job of putting on Big Dance. Yay for all my friends on Gang of 13! Especially yay for Kari! :D

[ the rest of the weekend ]
I unfortunately didn't really get to sleep very much on Saturday after the dance. I stuck around Roble for about an hour to help clean up, but my back was really killing me and it was freezing cold, so I left with Justin to take a nap on his futon until I had to visit a possible summer apartment at 10am. Later in the afternoon I went to the Spring Faire with Graham, Lacey, their mom, and Hugo, where I was delighted to run into Emily and Jess! I gave Emily the candy I brought her from Spain and she was so excited! :-D It was a beautiful day outside, and I got to see what morris dancing is. Then I drove home to meet my family and relatives to go out for our traditional Mother's Day dinner gathering. By the end of the night I was so exhausted that I collapsed into bed as soon as we got home.

Sunday consisted of church and Testimony. It was my first time back at Kids Community! It was so awesome to see my kids again. They remembered me! And Julia wanted to play with my hair, like usual. It was nice to see that I hadn't lost my touch with the kids. They're so wonderful! :o) Oh yeah -- by far the funniest thing that happened that morning went something like this::

Jim (the teacher): "Can I have your attention please?"
*the kids vaguely look up*
Jim: "Okay. You may not park in the white zone. The green zone is only for a limited period of time, and you may never stop in the red zone. The yellow zone is for loading only. *pause* Any questions?"
*complete silence*
Jim: "Okay."
*Jeremiah raises his hand*
Jim: "Do you have a question, Jeremiah?"
Jeremiah: "Yeah. What are you TALKING about???"
Everyone: "Yeah!" - "What ARE you talking about?" - "Yeah...I don't get it..."

I was trying so desperately not to ruin the order that he had just created, by totally bursting out laughing. It was SO FUNNY! Okay. Ahem. :)

[ Rockapella concert -- May 13, 2003 ]
Last night, Justin and Gavan and I went to a Rockapella concert in Hayward! They were performing at Chabot College, the community college where I took most of my extraneous classes during high school. They were sooo amazing. I can't believe how full they sounded with just five people (and one was percussing!). I'm glad I saw them in concert after already being involved in a cappella because I have such a greater appreciate for what they do. They performed "Change in My Life" (which is like the Harmonics' signature song; Kari and I got to sing it with summer a cappella last summer), as well as their other claims to fame, "Carmen San Diego" and the Folgers commercial song. Justin was saying that it was a shame that 1) we didn't have Testimony rehearsal right afterward, and 2) not all of Testimony was there with us, because it totally energized us and inspired us for our upcoming show this Friday. It's a good thing that I didn't have to go back to Stanford, though, because when I met up with my family to go out to a late dinner for my mom's birthday, I was pretty pooped.

[ other stuff so far this week ]
My time at Stanford pretty much revolves around Testimony and dance. I've been going to the Tues/Thurs. dance classes with Kari. I'm really enjoying spending a lot of time with her -- I think we're still sort of making up for lost time while I was gone. And we have so much to look forward to for the coming summer and next year. In Social 1 and Social 2, I've mostly been dancing follow because there are always too many guys, but every once in awhile I nab Kari as a partner so I can try leading some of the new variations. Period Movement has been interesting, too -- it takes concentration to put myself in a different dance mode. Even Testimony is involving dance stuff (haha...like it doesn't normally), because we're learning new choreography for the show. I'm excited about show! In other not-so-fun news, Steering Committee has TSF letters due next week. Boo to TSF. :P I'm super glad that I don't have classes to deal with right now. So I'm doing the best I can to help out everyone else who does have classes. In some ways I'm still Kari's minion. ;)

[ the rest of this week... ]
...will mostly be more of the same stuff. Lots of show prep, lots of dancing, lots of housing searching, etc. etc. But things are going well, and I'm just riding the rush before things settle down next week. It's good to be back for all of this.

Hope to see you at our show! And please pray for us if you can. :)

Happy Birthday, Mom! :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!

Busy busy. But it's a fun busy, with no stress! Yay! Today:: botched attempt to visit summer housing possibility, Big Dance Live Ad, Social 2, Period Movement, and CVHS' production of Fiddler on the Roof. (Housing will be visited on Saturday, hopefully; dance stuff was fun as always; and the musical was *really* impressive! And I saw my AP Spanish and AP Stat teachers and the new orchestra director.) Tomorrow:: helping Kari, who's the Facilities Co-chair for Gang of 13, set up Roble for Big Dance (a.k.a. being Kari's minion. Literally. In the program, I am listed under a header that says "Kari's Minions." I'm not kidding) and then dancing from 9pm-6am! And my brother is really coming (and bringing some of his friends, too)! Let's see if I make it all the way through the whole night this year. I hope so, since Richard Powers expects me to perform the Dawn Mazurka (at "dawn", or roughly 5:30am) that he just taught to the Period Movement class. Anyway, I won't be back in CV until Saturday afternoon sometime. So much driving these days...but it's worth it. And things should settle down after Spring Show. Now it's time to sleep as much as possible before Big Dance!

Kari made an interesting observation yesterday: it was through planning Eric's birthday surprise two years ago that we started to become friends. And look at us now. :)

Happy Birthday, Lacey!

I've been sort of a nomad around Stanford these past few days. Tomorrow I will actually be at home for the whole day! But anyway, yesterday was full of birthday stuff for Eric. :) And today I went with Kari to all her dance classes. It was great to dance on a real dance floor again! And whenever I'm not with Kari, you'll probably find me eating with Justin. Anyway, I spent the night in Kari's room last night, since Eric's birthday dance was really late and I knew I wanted to stop by Social 2 today (as it turned out, I went to Social 1 too; for both classes I ended up being a gender balancer) and I have Testimony rehearsal tonight too. That'll start in a little over an hour, so I'm going to head over to Mirrielees to visit my former roommates from the past 2 years. Then I'm driving home tonight after rehearsal. There are still a lot of people (i.e. non-Tmony and non-dance) I've yet to see, but I'll be back on Thursday and Friday (being a minion for Big Dance) as well as practically all of next week (after all, the last 5 days before a show = "hell week") so I'm sure I'll run into more of you soon. Bye for now!

It's been so nice to see people again. :) Saturday's concert at Berkeley was awesome. FCS sang their arrangement of "Only Hope"! And Ben and Ben sang in the Worship Medley again! Testimony did wonderfully with their new songs, too -- two more weeks before Spring Show, and we're set. ;) There was also a small CV reunion, since Wendy, Jo, Theo, Akemi (visiting from Davis), Everett, and Shaila all showed up. Afterward, we went to Durant Square for food, where we continued last year's tradition of bothering the public with our random singing. It was a lot of fun to meet the new members in FCS and have dinner with both groups together, too. I'm so glad I arranged my Spain trip so that I could be back in time for the show!

Sunday was even more full than Saturday. I got up early enough to go to the 9:00 service at The River in San Jose, then met Steering Committee (old + new) for dim sum in Cupertino, then Kari and I went back to campus for Tmony rehearsal, then I spent then Graham and I walked around campus and into downtown PA for dinner, and then walked back to Okada to hang out in Justin's room until I totally pooped out. Let's see... it was great to hear Pastor Keith again at church; the Steering brunch was fun, especially since I was the only one at my table who spoke Cantonese; Tmony rehearsal was a little tiring on my voice (3 hours of singing after 6 weeks of no singing, and I'm a soprano now :P) but it was really awesome to be back with the group; and friends are fun!

Oh yeah -- I also went to see my brother's friends' dance class thing on Saturday morning! I was only there for half an hour, and they were working on the waltz. (They're also doing tango, salsa, cha-cha, and maybe more that I haven't heard about.) The living room was pretty small so they had to split into two groups in order to practice. It was...cute. ;) If you think Opening rehearsals ever got chaotic...um, well, this was interesting. ;) It was definitely cute to see all these kids my brother's age learning to dance, though! Their waltz music was some sort of Strauss medley (I know this because there was a short section of The Blue Danube, except the tempo seemed hyperspeed compared to what we used in Opening this year). Good ol' Strauss. Kari and Jeremy and I will be getting to know his waltzes and polkas pretty soon...

Anyway, I'll be at Stanford quite a lot during these next two weeks, prepping and rehearsing for Testimony's Spring Show. And I'll be crashing various dance classes. So I'm sure I'll run into most of you fairly soon. I have my cell phone back, so you can call me again! Yay!

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIC!!! :o)

And an announcement...

Berkeley's Only Christian A Cappella Group
FOR CHRIST'S SAKE
Presents
With Special Guests...
Stanford's Only Christian A Cappella Group TESTIMONY

A Spring Concert
This Saturday, 3May03, 7-9pm, 145 Dwinelle

Yes, it's FREE (and it's a HUGE room) so bring YOUR friends!

Come enjoy the only two Christian a cappella groups West of the Mississippi
(minus a few groups in states near the Mississippi) praise God!
Also, meet Daron from Berkeley's Mosaic, who will be sharing with us the amazing way he came to know Christ.

I'm BACK! My flight got in around 7pm last night. It took 22 hours from the time I arrived at the Madrid airport to the time I left SFO (including 5 hours at the Munich airport and the 12-hour flight from Munich to SF), but I'm finally home. I don't feel much jet-lag right now, actually, but we'll see how I feel tonight when my body thinks it's 3 or 4 in the morning. Now I'm off to watch my brother's dance class (a whole bunch of his friends are learning choreographies for someone's cotillion), get my hair cut (don't worry, I'm just trimming it!), have dim sum with my family (CHINESE FOOD!), and take BART to Berkeley for the rest of the night (a cappella-y goodness!). It's good to be home. :)