* tiny but powerful *

Current Music:: Faith Hill - "Cry"
Hey look -- June is ending. Yikes. That means I should write some updates about the past week before I forget it all.

I'll break my tendency toward chronology and start with this past weekend. We had a big Strauss party on Saturday. Well, "big" in the sense that we listened to many Strauss waltzes and polkas for hours on end. Attendance-wise it only involved the 3 choreographers plus Graham, who had previously expressed interest in experiencing Strauss-ness but ended up leaving soon after we finished with the polka "callbacks." Jeremy, Kari, and I narrowed things down to 2 polkas (a fast one and a moderately slow one) and 3 waltzes (one of which was used in 1999), which all warrant another listen when we're not quite as saturated with Strauss. Jeremy also wants to explore some different versions of the final batch of waltzes, so that'll be part of the next decision-making step.

Saturday night involved some nice quiet alone time (as previously mentioned), and then some good talk time with Justin. He came over to the apartment fairly late after playing some basketball with his friends, and we ended up talking until we both fell asleep. Yay for good conversations with trusted friends.

Unfortunately I didn't make it to church on Sunday, but I had already planned on not returning to Kids Community just yet anyway (next week, maybe!). I wanted to go home to see my mom who had recently gotten home from the hospital. So after making one final clean of the apartment with the vacuum I borrowed from home, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in Castro Valley. My mom, my aunt, and I went for a relaxing walk at Lake Chabot -- I'm proud of my mom for finding the energy and motivation to get out and exercise a little! Then we met up with my dad and brother, and we came all the way back to Palo Alto for dinner at Windy's. Yummm. Afterward they came with me back to the apartment to watch the video of this year's Viennese Ball, because the dinner conversation revealed that my family still hadn't seen the waltz competition, and my aunt hadn't seen the Opening Ceremonies. I still find it unnatural and somewhat disquieting to watch myself dance, and with some people I think dancing feels smoother than it looks, but it was mildly amusing to see it all again anyway. After that, our family had a bit of a long and difficult discussion (which made me glad I didn't have a long drive the night before returning to work), but I'm really proud of how everyone showed love, respect, and strength. Things are still rough, but I'm incredibly thankful for the progress we're seeing. I love you all.

I guess that leaves me with Waltz Week (and Weekend). Hm, where should I begin?

It would probably bore you all if I were to rehash a detailed play-by-play, so I'll just try to share some highlights. It was fun to have Justin around for the Weekend evening dances, and the organizational stuff got off to a great start since our Team this year was so cool. My main responsibilities for the week (aside from general clean-up) were coordinating refreshments and opening/closing up Elliott Program Center's room + sound system each day (the other main dance space on campus, since there were two classes offered in each time slot). Partnering Joan Walton for the Role Reveral class was a lot of fun -- Joan is awesome and nice and funny, so I'm super glad I got the chance to work with her and get to know her. In Richard's Mazurka Quadrille class, I learned most of the Dawn Mazurka as a lead since the class was short on guys, but for the "real" performance at Friday's session I went back to following (with Jeremy as my partner). I also danced lead for a couple days in the morning Cross-step Variations class, which was fun and rewarding. I was really happy to finally learn the Metamora Waltz choreography on Tuesday afternoon, since I'd missed its debut while I was in Spain (no one had gotten around to teaching it to me), and I think the Metamora has become one of my favorite things from Waltz Week despite memories of a couple bittersweet incidents. In the midst of all that I spent a couple mornings visiting home and/or the hospital, which made for a lot of driving and a tired Tina, but it was fine. Tuesday night was the half-dance/half-concert of performances by Danse Libre and Radical Vintage -- the highlight from that night was definitely getting asked to dance by some random guy in Danse Libre who later ended up asking me for the last waltz, and he told me that I should audition for Danse Libre. He said, "How do you feel about joining a dance group? We're actively recruiting, and I definitely think you should audition!" That was flattering, since it came from someone who couldn't have been biased by being my friend, and the dances were a lot of fun because he was a great lead. Wednesday night I think we were pretty successful in creating a white-colored, European-esque atmosphere for Bal Blanc (you should have seen all the white-colored food we managed to find... the most interesting part was trying to separate all the powdered donuts that had sort of clumped together in the bags). Thursday night was a night off (yay), and Friday afternoon was fun because we had everyone together in one room, and different classes performed stuff they had learned. I managed to learn all of the Viennese Waltz choreography in one day (the afternoon that I didn't have to partner Role Reversal because a different teacher was teaching it), but I ended up with a random partner with whom I had to backlead almost all of it (and was highly unsuccessful in the part that even Jeremy had said was slightly hard to lead, because it involves pauses and rotation reversals. Ah well). The Dawn Mazurka went well, which made me happy since it had gone less well during Big Dance (this time, our set stayed intact *and* I didn't end up with a different partner at the end!). And then Friday night was the Waltz Ball, which I've already written about. Overall, despite some rough patches (as Kari put it), I'm glad I did Waltz Week this year. I learned a lot, and I had a lot of fun moments. I've definitely come a long way as a dancer in the past year.

HAHAHAHA -- my old supervisor's boss from 2 summers ago, who works in the cubicle next to me, is playing Strauss on his computer -- he's trying to get me to dance! Help!

The IT people finally fixed everything while I was gone last week, so my computer is properly hooked up and I have a phone and email and everything. Actually, I was really amused to see that the email program (Lotus Notes, which is far inferior to Eudora in my opinion) had all my settings stored from last summer, including my stationery and my old signature. It's definitely not the same computer hardware at all, but since they gave me the same user ID as last summer, my theory is that there must be some stuff stored on the general server for each user ID, and evidently mine hadn't been deleted before it was reactivated. I was especially amused to see all the backlogged company email I've been receiving. I have emails starting from the beginning of May, which was before I even accepted my internship offer, and then also a random email from November 2002, which wasn't any time I was in communication with AB at all. Weird, but oh well.

I am *so* tired today. It's going to be hard to get through the rest of the day, especially since I don't have any labwork to do and I'm just sitting at the computer doing sequence analysis. But I'm looking forward to getting some semblance of a routine back in my life. I am totally a creature of habit. I don't like change, and once I actually develop a favorite I rarely change my mind. For example, I'm excited that I get to drive the Volvo for the next few weeks while my dad and brother go on a road trip. It's the car I learned to drive on, and I drove it all through high school and half of sophomore year at Stanford before my brother started driving and took belligerent control over it. I think I would be content driving this particular Volvo for the rest of my life. Anyway, I should probably take a nap before I pick up Jeff Lee from the airport tonight.

Sometimes God works miracles in installments.

I am going home to see my mommy today. :)

Worship is the best cure for a bad mood. Seriously.

Tonight I went to campus around sunset to check my mail and then journal for awhile in the Quad. I really love dusk; it is by far my favorite time of day. The temperature was perfect, the sky was beautiful, and the air was peaceful. I realized that this past week, with being so busy for Waltz Week, my quiet time consistency definitely suffered -- at a time when it was even more important than usual. I'm sure that contributed to the suckiness of my week. So I definitely intend to rectify that as immediately as I can. Really, each day can be a toss-up, but God is constant. I know that in my head but I don't remind myself of it enough.

I did a lot of thinking tonight, and even though I came away with some conclusions that are emotionally difficult, I feel a marked (and renewed, in some cases) sense of assurance. I reflected on some of my recent feelings and reactions, and I came up with some explanations that can't act as excuses but make me realize that they're not unfounded. I saw some patterns in issues that have shown up as problems with more than one person. It's good to realize what may be merely situational or circumstantial, and what may be actual inherent differences in personality, values, and cultural upbringing.

My brain is still going...

What do I do now that I have time to do mindless things? ...a quiz that I found on Connie's xanga. It's pretty hokey, but hey, all quizzes are hokey.

You are Proverbs.

Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I think this is interesting since the verse I quote the most (which was the most personally significant for me from freshman year) is from Proverbs. Proverbs 3:5-6, to be exact. It's the one I have on my response to the "member's info: survey" on the Testimony webpage.

Boo to being conditioned to wake up before 9:00. Booo.

Waltz Week is over, at last.

I was actually really surprised by how good a time I had at the Waltz Ball tonight. It was the most tension-free and enjoyable night of dancing I've had all week, hands down. I finally got to wear my blue dress (the one I got last summer but hadn't had occasion to wear, because I ended up not going to Junior Formal or any of the SYR-type dances this year; it's also the one piece of clothing I have that matches perfectly the bracelets that Kari and I wear all the time)! I actually felt pretty, which doesn't happen often. I was also exceedingly tired, but the thought that it would be the last time we had to set up refreshments and clean up Roble gave me that last shot of adrenalin to get me through the night. I sat out more dances than usual, but not because I was sad or uncomfortable -- I was just really tired and preferred watching from time to time, and the ones I did dance were really good. I danced the first dance (a cross-step) with Richard, which was a good way to start off the evening, especially since he was having fun experimenting with new steps and transitions. My second dance was actually one of my favorite dances of the night -- I led a slow triple-step swing with a girl from Waltz Week who was a beginning swing dancer, but I could feel her becoming more confident over the course of the dance, and we were just partnering really well -- it was awesome. And *so* many Opening people were there tonight: Erica, Walter, George, Brian, Rebecca, and Megan, in addition to me, Kari, Jeremy, and Becky -- plus some older-generation Opening people like Neal, Mike, and Lily. It was a little sad that we didn't have the whole Team together for the last event, though, which prompted Kari to remark that it's really the boys who keep flaking. :-P We were only half-joking, because the only reason there was room for Eric and Graham on the Team this year was because Dave and Jeff (from last year's Waltz Week Team, which Richard had wanted to reconstruct for this year's event) bailed on us -- and then it was the boys again who weren't there tonight. Oh well; they had other places to be. (I don't actually mean they were flakes at all; the Team worked wonderfully together this year.) Justin arrived early enough to help me set up (thanks Moo!), then he left briefly to have dinner with Jenny (from Tmony, not dance), and after that both he and I stayed till the end. Thanks for the last few dances, Justin. :) (The last dance was a closing *charleston* -- sheesh! But we one-stepped to it, which was much better.) Thanks also to Brian for being my partner for all the choreographed/special dances (or "special," like that weird one I tried to lead...boy, that was interesting) -- we had a wonderful zweifacher, Bohemian National Polka, and Metamora Waltz (which I'm happy I got to dance with a good friend). Edo also attempted to lead me through the last portion of the Maxixe, and that was rather interesting since I had missed the lesson on it (the only reason I did okay was because I'd seen it performed during the closing session this afternoon). Despite how nice the unexpected atmosphere of freedom was at tonight's dance, a lot of me was sort of just waiting for the night to end. The week has just been exhausting, and I know at least Katherine was sharing my sentiments (we were rejoicing over it being the last set of refreshments we'd have to worry about). I couldn't even really sit outside in the Roble courtyard without being reminded of certain things from last year's Waltz Week, but the cool air and good company (and rest for my right calf) was worth it. Clean-up took a little less than an hour (during which my nose randomly started bleeding profusely, which was very odd, and very annoying), and then I spent a little while talking with Justin, and now I'm back here.

Now it's time to start recovering. We might be having a Strauss listening-party tomorrow.

Justin is coming to the Waltz Ball tonight. Yay! He might not stay till the end, though, and I might not feel like it either, so maybe we'll go find some other way to amuse ourselves (depending on how the night goes). We'll see.

My right thigh and calf are noticeably sore, but my left leg is completely fine. This is very weird.

Current Music:: Vertical Horizon - "Finding Me"
(It's almost scary how appropriate the lyrics to this song were for last night. Like, the whole song. Wow. But at least I think I've made some progress.)

Kari's out watching the double feature at the Stanford Theater, so it's kind of nice to have the apartment to myself for a quiet evening. I think I'm probably going to turn in fairly early, if I can get my brain to stop cranking itself. I've been really drained this week, which is why I'm glad Waltz Week had a night off, since it gets hard to take care of large groups of people when you don't feel like you've been taking care of yourself. I'm not even looking forward to tomorrow night's closing Waltz Ball, but maybe I'll change my mind about it once I'm there, or something.

I switched cars with my dad tonight, so now I have the family minivan. He's going to take care of getting the estimate on the car damage and straightening things out with the other driver, since the stationwagon is technically his, which is fine with me because I'm never assertive enough and have a tendency to let myself get walked over. I am a little sore/stiff, but I can't tell whether it's because of the rear-ending (it was a moderate impact since I had already nearly come to a complete stop) or because I've already been sore from dancing so much for the past seven straight days. It doesn't help that I have existing back problems, but I don't think I'm feeling anything new (don't freak out, Dad). We'll see in a couple days' time, I guess.

At some point I will write a summary entry about Waltz Week and Weekend, when I have the time to run things through in my head. I know it sounds like it's been a bad week (and it has, in some respects), but there have also been a lot of good things that I just haven't written about here. So that'll come later. Don't worry, all in all I'm still glad to have participated, helped organize, and partnered Waltz Week this year. Quite different than what I experienced last year, that's for sure.

---
Oh so much for nothing
But nothing means so much
I know it's touching
But I've been out of touch...

I just got back from seeing my mom at the hospital. She's doing a lot better than I would have expected. There's still a long way to go, though.

I'm rather glad there's no dance tonight.

I'm with Justin on the cosmic joke thing. I think there must be one on me. I got rear-ended on the way back to Stanford today. I was driving on Embarcadero when someone further ahead in my lane was making a left turn, so our lane slowed down, but the person behind me didn't. So that was fun. This is turning out to be a great week.

I wish it were over. Everything makes me want to cry.

I think I found my reality check tonight. A proper kick-start, anyway. Well, on with life.

My mom is back in the hospital. We could really use your prayers again.

Waltz Weekend was good. Waltz Week starts tomorrow and I hope it will be good despite any wrenches I may have to throw in other people's plans. That's about all I can manage right now.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." - Psalm 23:4

As projected, I'm back from work early. I definitely need a nap if I'm going to survive the first night of Waltz Weekend tonight. My supervisor at work today told me that I've done a good job and that he was impressed that I finished sequencing the whole DNA panel (twice; once for two different domain regions) in less than two weeks (even with 3 out of the 10 days being half days). So work is off to a good start this summer. :)

Happy Birthday, Jelli!

Kari and Eric and I had oh-so-much fun cleaning the kitchen tonight. My goodness, I am not kidding when I say the kitchen was absolutely disgusting. I'm a little annoyed that the girls from whom we're renting left it so dirty, but from the looks of things it looks like they actually live that way. Yech. We threw out a ton of gross stuff that they'd left in the fridge, rewashed all the utensils and the drying rack (which had a ton of grime on the bottom), and completely wiped down EVERYTHING. Eric even hacked off huge chunks of ice that had frosted over in the freezer. The apartment was also in dire need of vacuuming when I first got here. So far I've only gotten to the entryway and the living room and Kari's room, so my bedroom is next (once I clear the floor of my boxes). I am so much happier now that things are clean! I'll be even happier once I get my room organized! I'm such a neat freak.

We also had a blast grocery shopping tonight. We now have eatable food. Go us!

Blogworthy::

1) Kari is back!!! She drove up from Las Vegas yesterday -- the poor girl was exhausted when she got back. The apartment is so much nicer with her in it! YAY :-D

2) Eric is arriving today! He's on the Waltz Week/Weekend Team, too, so he'll be staying in our apartment until Jeff Lee gets back from out of town next Tuesday. (WW Team = me, Kari, Eric, Graham, Becky, Katherine, and Kathleen.)

3) I met my goal for the week already! I finished running the DNA panel yesterday (well, I finished setting it up; the machine took until 7am this morning to process all the samples). So today I've been working on analyzing the sequences. It's kind of annoying because I.T. is taking forever to get my computer set up (I now have one, but I don't have a user account and it's not hooked to the network), so I have to do weird transfer things between the lab computers (which have internet), my supervisor's computer (which has a CD burner), and my desk computer (which has the sequencing analysis software) in order to get work done. Oh well -- yay for being ahead of schedule!

4) Today is only a half day of work, since our first Waltz Team meeting is at 3:00pm. Tomorrow will probably only be a half day, too, since I don't want to be pooped out when Waltz Weekend stuff starts in the evening.

5) I've gotten something like 400 hits on my blog since last night, because the "10 most recently published blogs" section of the Blogger.com homepage has been stuck on 8:14pm, and I happened to be one of those 10. Actually, right now it's stuck on 4:46pm, but for some reason I'm still getting a ton of referrals from Blogger.com. Sorry to all of you coming from there -- I'm probably not terribly interesting to people who don't know me.

Why is it that Cal people (on average) make such a bigger deal out of the rivalry thing than Stanford people do? This is a phenomenon that I have observed consistently over the past three years. I don't get it.

Current Music:: Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5
A year ago tonight, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra performed in Carnegie Hall. This was our closing piece. We were exhausted that night (due to a mistake on Karla's part for making us rehearse so long in the afternoon), but the performance itself was indescribably invigorating. What an unforgettable experience! :)

On the subject of music, I forgot to blog about my cousin Amanda's clarinet recital and my brother's band concert. I'm very proud of both of them; Amanda moved up to 1st chair clarinet by the end of the year, and my brother held the Principle Flute position all year! Tim also got the Outstanding Musician Award at the band concert (and he had a lot of solos that night; I was very sad to have missed it since I was visiting my mom at the hospital), which means both he and I got that award our junior and senior years of high school. Yay for music running in the family!

Darn, I forgot about the Germany time difference this time!

Happy Birthday, Theo!

People here at work were going out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant and invited me to go with them, so I went, and I ate a lot. Are ya'll happy now? :-P

The real point of this post was to show you guys what my fortune cookie said. For some reason it made me laugh a lot. Here it is, with exact punctuation::

"Man who thinks first, will have good fortune."

My computer is up and I figured out how to dial into the Stanford network with my modem! The online instructions were great. Now I (and Kari via my computer) will have free internet access for the summer -- yay! No more stupid AOL like last summer. Hopefully I will remember to send out an email to everyone with our summer contact info, but if I manage to miss you or you get impatient, email me directly and ask for it. My cell phone is the same as always.

All my boxes and suitcases here are overwhelming me. I don't have the motivation to unpack. I'm pretty beat after today at work; I didn't get back to the apartment until close to 7:00. I was so tired that I didn't even feel like eating. But Graham made me go grocery shopping (as in, he literally walked me down the street to Safeway. It's pretty cool that Safeway is so close). It's kind of nice being in the apartment for a couple days alone before Kari gets back from visiting her mom and sister in Vegas. Moving in is always easier one at a time. It'll be weird getting used to sleeping here, though. I hope I don't get too freaked out tonight. Actually, I'll probably be too tired to get freaked out.

Well...back to digging out the basic necessities from my boxes. Oh, and sheets. I need those to sleep on.

Current "Music":: [the hum of lots of computers and PCR/sequencing machines]
Robert and Heidi are back! Yay! They were the other two interns in the MMB/HID department last summer (and Heidi was here my first summer, too), so it'll be like good ol' times. I also finally received my security badge today (well, I'd had the little card that lets me into buildings, but their ID-card printer wasn't working when I got badged last Monday) -- and I actually don't look like an idiot in my ID picture! Woohoo!

In the Tina's-Stupid-Moments News, I almost forgot to turn in my timecard today. In fact, I didn't remember until after the noon deadline and my supervisor was already in a lunch meeting, but luckily the people in the West Valley Staffing office (Applied Biosystems hires interns through an on-site temp agency) know me and like me, so they accepted mine late. Ah, the perks of knowing the right people. ;)

Work is going to be pretty busy this week. I really want to finish amplifying and sequencing this whole fungal DNA panel before I take next week off for Waltz Week, so then I don't have to worry about my products degrading or otherwise going bad and messing up my data. Then when I get back the following week, I can start analyzing all the DNA sequences. Whee. Actually, this project has been pretty interesting since I'm the only one working on it and I get control over each next step. The later stages are similar to what I did in previous summers, but this summer I'm actually working on the project phases that precede that kind of work, so it's cool to see it all fit together. If all goes well, I might actually see this whole project from beginning to finish (well, as "finished" as you can get before doing all the validation work) -- that would be really cool.

The other thermal cycler is still being used. Gr -- it's annoying when I'm on a roll and something slows me down. The most efficient use of time is to always have something running while setting up the next step. Oh well, time to update my lab notebook (which is difficult since I still don't have a computer).

Happy Birthday, Kari!!!
I love you! :)

First installment of the move: complete. After I discerned which boxes I need for the summer (out of all the boxes that have been mostly untouched since I moved out of Mirrielees), there was surprisingly little of it. Leaving behind textbooks and old binders cuts down on a lot of my junk, and I'm also not bringing the random belongings that are only useful during the school year. Everything fit into the back half of the minivan, which meant that my grandmother and my cousin could come with me and my dad to help unload and see where I'm living for the summer. It took the four of us less than half an hour to get my stuff out of the car and into my bedroom. So that was nice. Now all I have left to move is basically whatever I had taken with me to Spain (which is the only stuff I've been using since I got back).

We ended up having one of our typical extended family dinner outings for Father's Day. That was fun, but I didn't get back until recently, so I'll be spending one last night here, and then driving the rest of my stuff with me to work in the morning and finishing my move after I get off work.

However, I am bummed that I didn't make it over to the Stanford graduation at all. :( I'm really sorry, Annie and Megan! And congratulations to everyone in the Class of 2003! Things were just too hectic over here. And I didn't get to see Justin tonight, but that's okay because he has a friend out in Livermore who showed him around tonight and I'll see him soon enough for Waltz Weekend anyway.

I gave my dad a picture frame that says "dad" with a pair of stick figures carved into the bottom part, containing an old polaroid photo I found of the two of us at a "Father-Daughter dance" from when I was in elementary school. That was so long ago! I think it might have been a Valentine's Day thing because we were sitting in front of a decorated heart backdrop. My dad is awesome. :) I'm especially proud of the way he's been strong through all the difficult times recently. I love you, Dad!

Happy Father's Day!

Current Music:: Mark Schultz - "Remember Me"
Today was Theo's surprise birthday party. His birthday (turning 21!) is actually on Tuesday, but he's leaving for Germany tomorrow, so Woo and Jo planned a small-ish get-together for his church friends (plus me, though I guess I could be considered loosely associated with his church). We each made pages for a big scrapbook that Jo compiled very beautifully. I had a lot of fun putting his pages together -- when I was done, I realized that all the pictures I used were from 1) an orchestra trip, 2) somewhere in Europe, or 3) both. Actually, the only non-Europe picture was from his actual birthday last year, when we were in New York City the night before the SSO played in Carnegie Hall. I didn't even use any pictures from the good ol' Castro Valley days. We've really been in school together forever!

The surprise part itself at the beginning was hilarious. Theo recognized Wootae's car outside so he thought it was only Wootae in his room, but when he walked in through the bedroom door, we (about six of us, including two people hiding underneath the bedcovers) jumped out at him and made him scream (well, I guess it was more of a shout). Tee hee -- it was funny. He didn't have any idea we were going to be there! We had an enjoyable time hanging out and eating a yummy dinner that his parents prepared. I really like Theo's parents. :) They each spent a significant amount of time tonight just talking with me and catching up with how I'm doing. I always feel so cared for by them. Theo's mom (I call her Auntie Olwen) is especially funny, because she's one of the few adults outside of my family who speaks to me in Chinese. It's fun. Actually, the whole gathering was punctuated by random Chinese outbursts (poor Wootae was the only non-Chinese person there, but I guess he's used to that since East Bay Alliance is a predominantly Chinese church). That was surprisingly fun because these days I'm not often around people my age who speak my language. In fact, I was surprisingly comfortable with today's group of people, even though I just had all this inner turmoil about conflicting selves in the past couple days. It used to be that I would be uncomfortable around groups like this (that is, all Asian people who've had a long history with one another but not me) -- but my comfort level seems to have flipped itself inside out with respect to people I know from home. It's very odd. But I enjoyed tonight. :) It was good to see Theo again before he leaves again for the whole summer. He loved the scrapbook -- yay! :)

Oh, I forgot to tell the pool story! So, the original plan was to blindfold Theo and walk him into the pool (sound familiar, Bry? ;-) ). But the guys kept stalling and putting it off so we didn't even leave on the excursion until about 9:30pm. (I personally thought it was way too cold to do it that late! But alas. And what is up with the summer weather?!) Then Wootae and Jon decided it would be fun to drive him around to various places (blindfolded the whole time) and take group pictures -- a scavenger hunt of sorts, but not really -- before arriving at the pool as a final destination. So we drove around Palomares to a couple places like Wootae's old house and the Rec Center, and then stopped by Independent Elementary (where Theo went to school) and the CVHS senior parking lot. However, the car that had Theo in it decided on the brilliant idea to drive around indirectly, in an attempt to disorient him from figuring out where we were bringing him ... and they were a little too successful. Theo has a problem with motion sickness -- they should have known that! Fortunately it didn't get bad enough for him to actually throw up, but he did get rather nauseated by the time we reached CVHS. So we stole Theo into our car (Jo was driving) for the way back to Palomares, and he needed us to pull over for a bit because he really wasn't feeling well. We felt so bad that we decided to ditch the plan and tell Theo everything (about pushing him into the pool). To our surprise, he said he still wanted to jump in! So we came up with a new plan: put Jon and Woo on either side of Theo for the blindfolded "picture", and then all of us standing behind them would push all THREE of them into the pool (Theo being in on the plan, of course!). This all played out beautifully, except for the fact that Wootae had his palm pilot in his pocket which we didn't know about (whereas, we'd had the foresight to confiscate their cell phones). So that part sucked, but other than that it was really very funny. All in all it was a very fun evening spent with people I don't see very often. I'm glad it also served as kind of a going-away party for Theo before he leaves again.

Tomorrow includes the following:: Stanford Class of 2003 Commencement, moving into my summer apartment (as much as possible), and Father's Day. I have yet to figure out in which order those are going to occur, or whether I'll even be able to make the Stanford graduation. I'll probably have to miss at least the actual commencement ceremony in the Stanford Stadium since it's at 9:30am and it wouldn't make sense for me to go over to Stanford before I've loaded as much as I can into my car for the first moving load. I'd like to try to attend the diploma ceremonies for Annie and/or Megan (especially Annie, since she's really leaving Stanford; Megan is co-terming) -- but even that might not happen, since moving is so unpredictable. I feel bad about enlisting my dad for manual labor on Father's Day, but he's offered to help and I don't have anyone else I could call on and I know from experience (from moving into Mirrielees last September) that there's a huge difference between one-person and more-than-one-person moving. We'll see what works out. Maybe I can return to the East Bay for dinner with my dad, and maybe even stop by Livermore to help Justin move into his summer residence after he arrives from driving up from LA.

Doh -- I missed the pre-midnight timestamp by five minutes. Booo.

Current Music:: Vanessa Carlton - "A Thousand Miles"
The radio is still playing this song a lot. I associate it with last summer -- I heard it a lot in the car and in the lab, and particularly when I was around Kari. Good song.

Slightly old news: On Wednesday I was asked to partner one of Joan Walton's classes for Waltz Week. So now it's all straightened out -- I'll be partnering the afternoon Role Reversal class. That should be fun. It means that I can't attend Monica and Ryan's "Exhibition Viennese Waltz," since it's during the same time slot, but I'm sure I'll be able to get someone to show me what gets taught (since all my friends are people who already know role reversal and they probably won't go to the one I'm partnering).

Today was a long day at work. That's what happens when you have to work around the timing of experiment runs -- and you can't exactly leave behind an experiment if the products need to be stored at -15 degrees, especially if it's a Friday and you won't be returning until three days later. Staying later, however, means better traffic. Traffic yesterday sucked. I just barely made it to CVHS in time for the beginning of the graduation ceremony.

I still don't know what to do with a lot of what came up for me last night, but at least I'm feeling better. I guess I tend to retreat back into my Stanford-me existence (whatever that really is right now). Not terribly productive, but defense mechanisms are like that.

Current Music:: Sarah McLachlan - "I Will Remember You"
Someone sang this song at my brother's graduation tonight. I was in the group that performed it at my graduation, too. I hadn't been back to a Castro Valley graduation ceremony since my own in 2000. (Both of the past two years, I've had an SSO commitment -- in 2001 we were recording the CUE soundtrack at Skywalker Ranch, and in 2002 we were madly rehearsing during the couple post-finals days before leaving for the SSO Tour.) In fact, it's the first graduation ceremony I've ever attended and watched from the bleachers. Every year from 6th through 12th grade, I was on the field because the orchestra and band always played the processional, national anthem, and recessional. So tonight was a first. And it triggered a whole bunch of emotions.

I practically saw my own graduation play out in my mind, in parallel to what was going on in front of me in real life. I was tugged back and forth between the world from 2000 and the world in 2003, where I was incredibly happy to see my brother graduate. I watched the speeches and the musical performances, remembering what ours were like. I saw my brother's name under the list of people "Graduating with Highest Honors - 4.0 and above." I stood on the side, wishing I could express to him how amazing I think he is and how deeply glad I am that he's mine. The card I had for him contained my attempt.

The field rush after they'd received their diplomas had its share of emotional tug-of-war. My mom and brother saw each other for the first time since the day she first went to the hospital. And I saw a handful of people I was formerly close friends with. So many people from my graduating class were there. It seemed like everyone had a little brother or sister graduating tonight. I saw a smattering of alumni ranging from '98-'02, but the Class of 2000 definitely seemed the most highly represented. Among the I people saw (or heard were there) were:: Meg O'Neill, Anupa Reddy, Monica Tirado, Chris Jarvis, Anna Morozovsky, Lindsey Holmes, Cassie Torrez, Victor Elias, Eric Severson, and others whose names are escaping me at the moment. I also saw a few teachers, but didn't get to talk to any of them (except a little with Ms. Tierney, my Advanced Freshman Science teacher, who was also standing near the side fence).

This is only one thread of what was going on inside me tonight. I have a lot to process through (my journal will get a lot of it. So will my driving hours). I wasn't kidding when I said I feel as if I experienced almost every possible emotion while I was at the graduation. Excited, frustrated, proud, anxious, nostalgic, jealous, happy, wistful, embarrassed, worried, surprised, uncomfortable, relieved, sad, defensive, pleased, and conflicted -- just to name a few off the top of my head, in no particular order.

Being plunged back into my high school world so suddenly was a rude awakening. Castro Valley memories tend to be more painful than enjoyable, at least in recent history. Why do I have so much trouble reconciling the Castro Valley me and the Stanford me together into just a whole Me? Why is it so hard to live out and put into effect what God taught me while I was in Spain?

Yeah. Journal time. I don't think I can sleep anyway.

I just found out that my 3rd grade teacher passed away this month. I remember she gave me an award for Best Handwriting. She also gave me advanced math problems. The picture in the newspaper article looks exactly like how I remember her.

The one emotion that I would especially like to record from this night is that I am proud. I am so proud of my brother. Most people have no idea how strong he really is and how much he's had to go through this past year. But I see, and I know. And I'm proud that he made it. A lot of people got recognized for various things tonight, but sometimes the most amazing people go silent and unnoticed. Congratulations, Tim. You can face what's coming up, too -- I know you can. Don't give up, and don't shut me out, okay? I think you're more amazing than anyone else in the Class of 2003.

If it's possible to experience every emotion (except romantic love) over the course of three hours, I think I did tonight. If not, then I got pretty darn close.

I would write more, but my hands need to thaw. And I'm going to shower and eat before getting together with Meg tonight, since it may be the only time we can see each other all summer.

And on continues the emotional rollercoaster. "Rollercoaster" is inaccurate because it implies being in a series of points. I think I'm everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I just have to say that the radio station in the lab here is playing *great* music today. Maybe I'm just in the mood for 101.3 or something. In any case, it makes it more bearable to wait for my e-gels to finish running.

(I still don't have a computer or a phone or a permanent cubicle at work, so I've had to use the lab computers for Microsoft Office/internet/printer access. But at least I have an official lab notebook now! I also stupidly left my cell phone at home today, so don't expect to reach me with it until sometime later tonight.)

Today I had lunch with Gavan! :)
Tonight I said goodbye to good friends. :(
Tomorrow I'm going to my brother's GRADUATION!!! :-D Yay for Tim!
Now it is definitely time for sleep.

Current Music:: Lincoln Brewster - "All I Really Want"
Work was pretty good today. The Hazard Communication safety training was really boring, as expected, but at least I'm done with it now. It looks like I'm going to be much more independent this summer. I already started labwork this morning, and I kind of have a project to myself this time around. The transition back into AB work has been much easier this year than last year, for some reason -- I already feel as though I nearly have all the procedures and concepts back into the "accessible habit" area of my brain. Maybe it's just because of having that extra summer of experience and building understanding. Anyway, my main project this summer incorporates a lot of the concepts and procedures I used the past two summers, as well as a couple new assays (which I started learning this morning). The actual topic area is less interesting than last summer (bacteria is less interesting than DNA forensics), but some of the background reading I've been doing for my project has re-fired my motivation to do more reading evolution and apologetics this summer. The one that I'm slowly working through right now (scientific journal articles are painfully dense, if you've don't already know that firsthand) is about using ribosomal RNA sequence variations to develop a genotypic phylogeny and evolutionary history, even going way back to branching off Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya (the first two make up "prokaryotes" even though they're now considered very different domains). So it sort of brings up the whole "origin of life" issue (at least, it did in my mind). I've been reminded a lot recently of something that I came into college looking for (especially since I wanted to be a Bioengineering major at the time):: reconciling science and Christianity. I've done a lot of learning in each of those areas, but I haven't really gone down to the nitty-gritty of reconciling the two together for myself to any sort of satisfactory degree. Even if I don't stay a ChemE major, I'll still always be a science-y person at heart. So that's definitely something I want to focus on this summer.

This song (see above) really makes me want to learn to play the guitar better. I have so many music plans for the summer! I'm hoping to be able to play through chamber music for fun again, like last summer, if I can find the right people to do it. Oh, and I heard Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" on the way to work today. Ah...the YOSAC memories. It's been a long time since then. Anyone else out there remember Dr. Klein and all those Tuesday night rehearsals?

Justin said he was reading through my blog archives from last summer, so I went and did that too. It's so weird to read all of it! Things change and people change (or don't), and so much happens in so little time. I'm a sucker for self-reflection on these things...

Current Music:: Rockapella - "People Change"
It's been a long day, but a good one. Work was short, since they're not really ready for me -- I don't yet have cubicle space or lab bench space. I left around 2:30 today. The orientation was boring but much shorter than in years past, so that was a nice surprise. I still have a HazCom (Hazards Communication) training session to go to tomorrow afternoon, but I'll survive. It was nice to see everyone I've worked with for the past two summers -- I walked in the door, and practically everyone I passed by said, "Hi Tina!" Actually, several of the responses went like this:: 1) *squeal*; 2) "TINA!!!"; 3) *hug*; 4) "Are you back for the summer???"; 5) "Mike has you? He's so lucky!" Hahaha -- so that was gratifying. ;) My new supervisor is Mike Tanner in the MMB Group (Molecular Microbiology), who coincidentally is sitting in the cubicle that I occupied last summer. I have no idea where they're going to put me, much less *when* they'll be able to put me there once they figure it out, because they're in the process of rearranging a whole bunch of office space and trying to clear out some of the clutter. Same thing with the labs; they're redo-ing one of the rooms, so everyone is cramped into less space for the time being. I'll probably be a lab bench nomad. That's okay -- I've gotten good at being nomadic lately.

After work, I headed to Stanford since I had a handful of errands to take care of:: sending mail, paying the renewal fee for Tmony PO Box, dropping off Twain reimbursements, picking up lots of Tmony boxes (full of Tmony junk) from Justin's room, and picking up all my kitchen stuff (and random things I left behind) from where I used to live in Mirrielees. Then, Justin and I had a very enjoyable dinner at Windy's (definitely my favorite Chinese restaurant in the Stanford area) and stopped by Graham's place to mooch a little storage space for a couple Tmony boxes until I can move into my summer apartment this coming weekend.

So yes, I had quite a nice day, despite having had to get up so early. But now it's time for bed. G'night all.

Off to my first day of work (well, first day of my third summer at Applied Biosystems). I wonder what the San Mateo Bridge commute is like these days. About to find out, I guess.

Current Music:: Big Daddy Weave - "Audience of One"
We had our joint Core meeting this afternoon -- old Core, interim Core, and new Core (only missing Bryan, *sniff sniff*). Welcome to Jenny and Jeff (returning member from 2001-2002) to next year's Core! I'm excited about next year. :) But I will dearly miss this year's Core...thanks for an awesome year, you guys.

I also bestowed cupcakes (baked this morning) upon various people (in particular, a certain birthday boy). That was fun.

I start work tomorrow. That means I should go to bed soon. I have to sit through many hours of orientation again (for the third summer in a row). I've been rather tired lately, so I hope I can survive the transition into working full time. But I'll only be working less than two weeks before I take a week (plus a day) off for staffing the Waltz Week and Weekend Teams. I'm a little anxious about working with a new department subgroup this summer, but at least I'll still be in the same building with my old supervisor and everyone I know. With all the complications that make up my life right now, I'm glad I'm returning to a workplace where I'm relatively comfortable and familiar with things.

Upon arriving home, I was met with some encouraging news. God is amazing. Just amazing.

"I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy." - Psalm 116:1

-----
What could I bring
To honor Your majesty?
What song could I sing
That could move the heart of royalty?
When all that I have
Is this life that You've given me
So Lord let me live for You
My song with humility.

Happy Birthday, Graham! :)

Ooh. Time to pray and thank God for some things. :) It starts small, but that's enough for us for now.

Chinese markets are so fishy smelling.

Things are rough right now. I wish I knew where this was all going. Actually, no I don't. I just want to know what I should be doing. I'm not falling apart, but I am tired. And feeling defeated. And rather jumpy.

Blogger is finally letting me publish again. Finally.

I am really tired. Last night was trying.

Erin just called me from Arizona! She's getting BAPTIZED tomorrow!!! I am so happy for her! And I miss her sooo much! She's going to be in Missouri all summer so I won't get to see her until September which will have been a whole *year* since I last saw her. I can't wait!

Obviously, I am not at Friday Night Waltz right now. Part of me wants to be there, but part of me is relieved that I'm not. Anyway, please keep praying for my family... my mom is home from the hospital now.

I was originally going to visit CVHS today (it's a minimum day; last day of classes before finals start). But as much as I'd like to see my old teachers, I don't feel like I have the energy to answer all the questions about school I would inevitably meet if I were to go. So I'm going to be a dork and not go. There aren't really any more students there that I know and would like to see anyway, so there's no real motivation to make the visit before the Class of 2003 graduates. So, I'm not going.

I'm also still undecided about Friday Night Waltz tonight. I just don't know.

I think it's time to write some more in my journal. Poor thing has been sadly neglected more or less since I got back from Spain.

(Blogger is being stupid right now anyway. Who knows when I'll actually be able to publish these last two recent posts.)

"God's generally a lot more reliable when you ask him to strengthen you in a Godly task." - Eric Lowe

One of my wisest friends.

Current Music:: Amy Grant - "Somewhere Down the Road"
Somewhere down the road
There'll be answers to the questions
Somewhere down the road
Though we cannot see it now
And somewhere down the road
You will find mighty arms reaching for you
And they will hold the answers
At the end of the road.

-----
What a crazy past few days. Thank you to all of you who have been wonderful with support and hugs and prayers. Emotionally, I've been doing surprisingly well (all considering), and I know I couldn't be without my wonderful friends and my amazing dad.

Post-Jammix last night was indeed long. But a lot of good things come from hard things. I'm lucky, too, you know.

Family stuff is nowhere near settled yet. Each day is a toss-up. There's still a lot waiting happen in the next few days, next week, next month.

"But I will sing of your strength,
in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
my refuge in times of trouble." - Psalm 59:16

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRYAN!!
Luckily, I was smart and sent you an email before I went to bed, because I knew that (given Berlin's time difference) it would be nearing the end of your birthday by the time I woke up today. ;)