July 7, 2005

Today, I found something my brother wrote a bit over a month before he turned 6.
   [front] Kevin's wash list. I wash a Lego. I wash a Bionicle. I wash a flower. I wash a hot weele
   [back] I wash a Llnle [journal]. Kevin
Soon afterwards he learned how to spell "wish."
I am glad to know that these days, he is satisfied with what he already has.

Also... Recently I typed "twi" in the Chrome omnibar, in attempt to visit Twitter.com, only to press Enter as if on auto-pilot. This is how I found the "Twilight Addict Support Group (Twi Anon)" on Facebook.

Thank Goodness for Recycling

Today, I looked through a ton of high school papers and ended up with a heavy pile of recyclable material. Throughout college, I became further and further from materialistic. This is made easier since my room has always been rather empty. I have never really accumulated much. Still, I have little need for over 90% of the objects I own.
When I was small, I started a sticker collection, a coin collection, and a small eraser collection. I logged a couple hundred hours on some Pokémon games, including Crystal and Sapphire Version. My middle school friends went to some sort of anniversary event in Chicago and brought me back a special Celebi and Dragonite. After my little brother secretly overwrote the game to play on his own, I was so frustrated.
My jewelry was treasure: pearls, silver and gold.
When I received certificates, report cards and standardized test scores from school, I often saved them. If my name appeared on an orchestra or recital program, the program was worth keeping. If an object was of no significance to other people but affirmed my successes, I wanted to keep the paper in order to look back on it later, because it was worth the space.
What is a paper that says you did something well, or a particularly delicate necklace? What is a few pixels that mean something in a made-up world, or a perfect transcript? These things should be appreciated for all their value, whether accompanying a quiet nostalgic afternoon or encouraging further learning. They are a part of a lovely time and place of the past.
But it feels good to move on.

A Two Decades' Brief Checklist

Through preparation, experience and reflection, life is incredibly more multidimensional than these points can portray. But these goals lightly reflect my priorities and dreams for the future. They vary from absolutely important to barely of importance at all. Some are reminders for preservation rather than demands for growth or achievement.

1. Become more sure that Jesus died on the cross for us (and assurance of salvation)
2. Always be a role model for my brother
3. Take care of my parents whenever they need me
4. Pray for my family to know of God's love
5. Help teach school in the countryside of Susong
6. Be cheerful
7. Learn the Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody, Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 23 No. 5, the rest of Chopin's Ballades
8. Buy a grand piano, a paper cutter, camcorder
9. and a Highlander for my father
10. Finish my movie
11. Write a lot of letters to people
12. Finish reading the Bible, The Pilgrim's Progress, all of C.S. Lewis's books, and much more
13. Spend a lot of time away from technology
14. Consistently count past 5 correctly
15. Sleep more than 8 hours a night
16. Hopefully get married. Hopefully have two children.
17. Find even more hipster music to enjoy
18. Go to a Killers concert
19. Understand the scope of my father's knowledge about physics and superconductors
20. Pray for my family and friends
21. Learn to cook from my mother... no recipes
22. Always put myself last
23. Keep writing in my journal
24. Become a civil engineer
25. Write a song
26. Do missions in East Asia
27. Learn more about disaster relief and mitigation
28. Love every person, with Jesus as my role model

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Peter: ugh studying preregistering not fun
Charles: i dont do halloweenzies
Emily: stuff
June: hm i think i will be a nazi zombie
Parker: I am unsure, but I have all the supplies to be a hobo (He bought a shopping cart at a thrift store for $3.50.)

I love you.

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world. ― Frederick Buechner

What a precious day.

This one and every day afterwards.
Never forget that every day, we can celebrate about something.
I really hope you have a good night.

Love always,
epsieanniihsct

Want to play debt ceiling chicken?

Making fun of your own side by pretending to be the other.

Congressman Pace (D-FL) said:
congressman dunn's largest campaign contributor is nambla
congressman dunn once saw a kitty in the middle of the road and passed by it. then he reversed and ran over it again.
congressman dunn was kicked out of the KKK for being too racist
congressman dunn is a rogue
congressman dunn is a ruffian
congressman dunn is a carrot
congressman dunn has two different families that dont know about the other
congressman dunn is against the legalization of fun
congressman dunn
congressman dunn is legally illiterate
congressman dunn is a death eater
congressman dunn runs an underground dolphin extermination operation
congressman dunn was actually the one that released those compromising photos of congressman downing to the public
congressman dunn believes only the siths deal in absolutes
congressman dunn's favorite author is stephanie meyer
the only kind of happy ending congressman dunn knows is the kind you have to pay extra for
congressman dunn used to be congresswoman dunn
congressman dunn was sad bachmann won the straw poll because shes too liberal
congressman dunn sued rushdie for stealing the name of his journal
congressman dunn thought the rock was only an average movie
congressman dunn's hero is jarjar binks
congressman dunn bought out michael vicks share of his dogfighting ring

Congressman Dunn (R-FL) said:
congressman ryan pace (d-fl) is terrible at bargaining
congressman pace is bought and paid for by china and the church of satan
congressman pace keeps 12 year old pages in his office
hes unamerican and doesnt respect that the bible is the real constitution
so of course he is
congressman pace keeps 12 year old pages in his office
congressman pace saw a starving orphan in africa and stood laughing at it until it died
congressman pace is a scoundrel
congressman pace is a rapscallion
congressman pace is a brigand
congressman pace is a waffle
congressman pace switched his car insurance to geico and ended up paying more
congressman pace voted for a bill that allowed congress to steal candy from small children
congressman pace doesn't like ovaltine
congressman pace fought on sauron's side in that big war
congressman pace shot jay gatsby
congressman pace thinks that greedo shot first
congressman pace thinks he can simply walk into mordor
congressman pace read anne frank's diary and thought it had a happy ending
congressman pace got confused and thought osama bin laden ran a 7-11
congressman pace voted against the bill of rights
congressman pace cheered for the iceberg in titanic
congressman pace commissioned dante to design his 9 floored, circular house
congressman pace doesn't like morgan freeman's voice
congressman pace thinks emma watson is only mildly attractive
congressman pace played basketball with kim jong il and lost
congressman pace actually thinks the beatles are a terrible band
congressman pace can feel love, but only towards hillary clinton

I said:
congressman pace campaigned against susan g komen for the cure because he thought it was a corporation

I'd like to think I tried, but next time I won't fail.

For security purposes, this story is going to have a lot of one-letter initials. Some of which overlap with each other, adding necessary ambiguity.
The drive was a success. Obeying our Tomtom set on the American Richard voice, I felt safe. This safety derived from a conversation my parents had about this particular voice. Richard sounds like a computer version of President Obama, and we tend to vote for Democrats. My iPod naturally played a variety of obscure music: Black Hills by gardens & villa, Ritual Union by Little Dragon, I Can Change by LCD Soundsystem... P jokes that I won't like any music on YouTube that has more than a 1,000 views.
The unpaved road wasn't bad. The sun was bright, the roads were dry, and the cars were few. Soon, I found the correct mailbox.
Then I became very confused.
On the right side of the mailbox was a large trailer-but-garage-shaped structure with a smaller trailer along its side. Behind that was a two-story home. I didn't know if P lived in the little trailer, the garage, or the house. After cautiously stepping into the lawn, I strolled towards the garage and along its perimeter. Nothing. R stayed on the phone with me. By the time I almost finished walking around the garage, I saw a lady.
"Hello! Do you know where P would be?" I think I asked this.
"He lives over there. [point]"
"Thank you. I really didn't want to walk on your property but I didn't know how else I would find him," I explained.
"It's okay. You just scared me," she replied. Later, I found out from P that this lady has shot trespassers. Oh my.
On the left and ultimately correct side of the mailbox, I drove up a nearby driveway, only to find a llama (which I thought was a huge alpaca because I did not realize P had llamas), another two-story house, many small barns, a small Volkswagon, a grey truck with one Mexican man in it who didn't know where P would be, and a group of Mexicans sitting around. Hesitating for a few seconds, I then pulled out of the driveway, and parked along the road across from the mailbox and driveway.
I knew I was in the right place, so I walked down the driveway once more. Did P live in one of these little barn things, or did he live in the tall house? "R, I'll call you back."
"Hi, do you know if P lives here?" I asked a Mm, who stood up and seemed to know very fluent English.
"No sorry, we're new here too." The Mm asked another Mm something in Spanish, and they spoke quickly.
"It's okay." What am I doing here? I wondered. "Do you speak Spanish?" I added, even though it was pretty clear that they did.
"Yeah. Do you?"
"A little bit!"
"How did you learn it?"
"From high school." I learned some in middle school too, but that would take more explanation, and high school was the most immediate answer that my mind recalled.
The Mm smiled. "Did they teach you well?"
"No." I am completely honest.
A knock on the barn closest to the llama did not produce any indication of human activity. It looked like the barn acted as a storage shed.
A ring of the doorbell produced the response of a barking dog from the inside, but nothing more. I stepped off the front porch, deducing that P probably didn't live in a house with girl's shoes near the front door, not realizing that he has a sister.
I walked back into the van, locking all doors. My last resort would be to call P, but this task took a while. Here is a summary.
Phone call #1:
me: Hi J! Do you have A's number? J: Sure. I'll... call you back... It's ----------.
Phone call #2: no answer
Phone call #3:
me: Hi Z. Do you know where A is? Z: Yeah, she's here. me thinking: Of course she is. That's why I called you.
They told me to call A.
Phone call #4: After looking, A told me to call G. I didn't have G's number but I knew someone who does.
Phone call #5: no answer
Phone call #6:
me: Hi! A's phone seems to be turned off. Ohh! She is on a plane. [Has conversation with A/J's mom. Decides I will just go back to civilization.]
I left.

It's been a while

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
13. I'm slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
22. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

There is only one person God has treated worse than he deserved. - John Piper

This post is pretty good, but maybe not helpful for everyone. It's basically about the way young women should probably think about dating.

Moo

Am I imagining this, or did the NOAA favicon become brighter?

I made a mistake. On Google+, when I remembered that Picasa keeps all these Blogger pictures, I deleted all of them. Unfortunately, this means that none of the pictures show up here anymore unless I upload them again. The title picture and my avatar is back up, but besides that, there are far too many to restore. So I am not going to do it. Sigh.
But I don't think this will be a problem because if you really want to see little children sitting on recyclable chairs, for example, just let me know and I will email some to you, if I still have them in my computer.
Everything is so connected! awiuafwoagnljsdaf

I found this on Twitter recently:
Dannon The Dannon Company
6 Retweets
Today is Cow Appreciation Day, so go and give a cow a hug. Without them, there would be no Dannon yogurt. #moo

These are two of my favorite moments from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins:
"Do you really mean to say that you don't feel any interest in what we are going to do?" he asked. "Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination than a cow!"
"A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake," said the lawyer.

"'First, the inner hall,'" Betteredge wrote. "Impossible to furnish that, sir, as it was furnished last year--to begin with."
"Why?"
"Because there was a stuffed buzzard, Mr. Jennings, in the hall last year. When the family left, the buzzard was put away with the other things. When the buzzard was put away--he burst."
"We will except the buzzard then."
Betteredge took a note of the exception. "'The inner hall to be furnished again, as furnished last year. A burst buzzard alone excepted.' Please to go on, Mr. Jennings."