Joy

The subject of the sermon this week was joy. It came up again during prayer this morning when I (as a result of another not really relevant thought) came to think, what exactly brings joy to my life? I started thinking about the past few days since I came back to Berkeley. Nothing really struck me as a particularly poignant moment of joy - just bits of random interesting moments and just time passing by. I feel like these days are just passing by too fast for me to really reflect or remember what happened. Things just happen, and time goes on.

It's not that I'm not happy or anything - it's more like even when I'm experiencing happy moments, time seems to go by so fast that I don't remember experiencing them. Or I have to think really hard to come up with an example of a moment when I was feeling joyful. And I had a lot of trouble this morning thinking of a joyful moment. Just a lot of "oh, that's nice I guess" moments.

Today went by rather fast again. Morning prayer, tabling with Yvonne and Slam, cleaning up tabling, a nap (which got interrupted by phone calls from Ryan and a moving service), a really good talk with a friend, meeting new freshmen/transfers while getting ice cream at Ici's, stopping by Ryan/Mark/James' apartment and having delicious WHITE SAUCE pasta, freaking out after Mark tried to pull up an eye damage clip from Invader Zim, and then now... Today was a good day, now that I think about it. Even though during it I wasn't entirely conscious of how good/bad it was, and had trouble thinking of joyful moments from the past.

I let a lot of random baggage plague my thoughts today in the midst of everything that happened, and they prevented me from realizing just how good of a day it was till now. Maybe not the best day I ever experienced or anything like that, but these are the kind of days I ought to live for. Even now I still have some doubts lingering in my head... but I just going to say screw it, I'm thankful for today. I think that's good enough for a joyful moment.

New Year Rising

This week has been such a drastic change of pace from the past 3 months of summer that right now I don't really have much to say. I have a lot of hope for this new semester though. Let it be a good one.

...

Ryan L: fine fix my laptop charger
: it sucks
: it won't even charge anymore
: and my resume's on there
: and
: i can't apply for a job without it
: and
: i'm too lazy to write a new one
: b/c the other one was adequate
: and
: yeah i ran out of things to say

SOLDERING SUCCESS!!!

FINALLY FIXED MY PS2! (it was having that annoying power problem where you had to move the power cable around in its socket to get the power to work)

Of course, I got a small second degree burn on my finger from accidentally scraping over melted solder for less than a second... but it was worth it. I guess.

Now to get a swap magic and a flip top... :D

Edit: Oh, and today when I got lost trying to find a Radioshack to buy the soldering tools and went into a Coldstone to ask for directions, the gay guy working there commented on my Tintin shirt. Hooray!... I guess.

I hate jetlag.

Brushing my teeth at 4 in the morning. -_-

Actually, I can't tell anymore if this is jetlag or me just being stubborn. I need to stop remaking top personal whatever lists in the middle of the night.

As if the things I like define me.

Trip

Random thought: It feels like summer started a long time ago but is passing by too quickly.

I am home! It feels weird being home again. Home is much more privatized compared to my grandmother's house, which has people calling the phone line every other hour and twice as many people around on a given basis. Although part of that is because people kept visiting because my family was in town.

Aside from the day of my cousin's wedding and the trips to Bandung and Indramayu (which I'll mention... later), life in Indonesia kinda followed a predictable daily pattern.

1. Wake up at 4/5 in the morning to the sound of people singing/chanting? on loudspeakers coming from a nearby mosque.
2. Apply anti-mosquito lotion. Put fabric softener in pants because apparently it wards off mosquitoes. I don't know if it actually worked.
3. Eat breakfast - which typically consisted of some combination of fried bananas, Kraft cheddar cheese (that stuff is goooood.), rice, KFC because my brother is too picky to eat home-made food, assorted meat or cheese filled buns from a nearby bakery, and on certain days pastels, croquettes, and risoles, Indonesian pastries. Take vitamins.
4. Go back to the room and wait for our car ride to whichever place we would be going today. Take a shower in the morning on some days, followed by reapplying anti-mosquito lotion. Otherwise, read book or manga.
5. Car ride to (pick one) - restaurant/relative's house/family friend's house/Plaza Indonesia/tailor/family owned apartment.
6. Go back home and nap. Or read book or manga.
7. Reapply anti-mosquito lotion.
8. Car ride to another restaurant/relative's house for dinner or eat dinner at home.
9. Back home, shower and sleep before midnight.
10. Rinse and repeat.

Shortened version: a lot of anti-mosquitoing, a lot of eating, and a lot of reading/sleeping. It was pretty nice at first, but a bit tiresome towards the end of the trip. I dislike routine even though it's kinda necessary.

The trip to Bandung which I mentioned during the last post... we stayed in a really nice hotel. The people there messed up our reservation so they gave my uncle and aunt the presidential suite and my family the attached family suite, which really surprised me. First hotel room I've ever stayed in with TWO stories (although the stairs were kinda steep). The second floor only had two beds... but still. It was huge.

We didn't actually do anything in Bandung besides stay in the hotel, though, cause my brother got sick with some kind of stomach flu which I got the day after. As soon as we got to a restaurant there we had to go back to the hotel. Brother threw up. x_x

Indramayu - my mom's hometown - was nice. A lot more rural compared to industrialized Jakarta. It's small village consisting of a couple of main streets along which everyone lives, and a lot of families there work in the same building where they live. As in, the building would be divided into a front part (business) and back part (house). It felt weird eating at my mom's friend's restaurant and getting a glimpse of the rest of the house when I went to the restroom.

The trip there wasn't so nice. 3.5 hour drive turned into 6 hours cause traffic was so bad. At some point we moved from toll road (freeway) to just road (the main/only? road between where we were coming from and Indramayu), which consisted of only two lanes in both directions. Two lane congested traffic with mostly trucks and double decker buses = at a couple of points we would be stuck not moving for several minutes. On the main road. Several buses and trucks got fed up enough to the point that they actually crossed over to the lane of OPPOSING TRAFFIC to try and cut off everyone else at some later point. We passed by several of them pulled over by highway cops. Seriously, crazy drivers. Driving back wasn't so bad, though.

Oh, and I neglected to mention Hong Kong. We only stayed there for two nights (on the way to Indo), and spent most of the first day sleeping cause we were really tired. Didn't really see enough to do Hong Kong justice. But we did visit a street market at night though, where I bought three Tintin shirts. I LOVE TINTIN! (uh... pictures later?)

Sidenote, if you've never heard of Tintin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin
Sidesidenote: what the crap Steven Spielberg's making a Tintin movie for next year???

I'm finding it a lot harder to find things to write about the trip now that it's over. During it I kept finding things that would make me go "I could write about this!" but then I'd forget or not feel like it later on. Actually, I wound up thinking about a lot of things during the trip... a lot of things not really suitable for this blog though. Ask me in person and I might be willing to talk more.