3/30

practices.

there was a church event in between practices--

good performances.

more practice towards the evening. 

got macaroons for a birthday present

and got to eat them for the first time. 

pretty awesome stuff.

thankful.

3/29

morning service,

breakfast with small group-centered kids.


no work,

got some sleep.


good friday service,

good message on life that looks upon the cross.


after service,

another surprise birthday congratulations.


dinner with the praise team,


then night with the guys.


oh, and Michigan beats Kansas in the NCAA tournament to head to the Elite Eight.

how awesome is that.


thankful.

thankful.

3/28

left work having done a satisfactory amount of work.

waiting for me in the building lobby were

friends. 

I stared at them for a split second,

not registering that they're really my friends.

I've never had a surprise anything for my birthday,

and it really meant a lot. 

thankful. 

3/27

more work with testing at work.

after work,

I was treated to an opera.

for someone who's never been to a musical or an opera,

it was a great experience.

the theatre was huge.

thankful.

3/26

team's in the process of releasing--

this week will mostly be testing. 

ate dinner with a church hoobae after work. 

talk revolved around faith--

how things that didn't work the way we thought

becomes blessings. 

thankful.

3/25

had a mild case of the mondays,

feeling really tired until a little after lunch.

did get some work done though.


after work,

met with church people for dinner and talked.

talking a lot these days,

mostly on the topic of future dreams?


thankful.

3/24

sunday service,

once again we are challenged to spread the gospel to those around us. 

met with church people after service and ate dinner.

after, we started talking,

and the talk went on for a long time.

interesting conversation in which I was able to find out something new about myself. 

thankful.

3/23

college praise team didn't have practice

since next week friday is a church-wide service,

but we all met and had some bonding time.


the Michigan basketball team got into the Sweet Sixteen

(round of 16 for the NCAA championship tournament).

didn't get to watch the game,

but now there's another game to look forward to.


the young adult praise team leader

lent me one of his electric guitars to use for church.

I'll do my best to become better.


thankful.

3/22

I guess I finished the week of work well--

committed all the code I had to check in,

and they all seem to be working fine.


church after work.

got really tired towards the end of service,

but dinner after it really got the energy back.


bought myself a mechanical keyboard a couple of days ago--

thought that since my profession involves a lot of time typing,

it's justifiable to get myself a high quality keyboard.

and wow, it does feel great.

makes me want to keep typing things.

makes really loud clicking noises though;

I would only be able to use this if I am the only one around the computer.


thankful.

good luck, bad luck, who knows?

http://josephwalla.com/the-rejection-book-good-luck-bad-luck-who-knows

thought it was an interesting written description of the virtues of having a long-term perspective.

3/21

I guess I'm still going through the growing pains of adjusting to the new team.

keep getting stuck on following the server workflow, 

but as it always was with other teams, 

I'll get used to it. 

went to our small group's prayer meeting,

bringing them food to eat. 

spent a good time talking with small group people.

patience. I've been forgetting about that. 

have to start holding it more to my heart. 

thankful.

3/20

got a little tired towards the end of the work day,

but the outside air lifted them away as soon as I got off work.


my good friend came back from Korea after a couple of months,

and we met for dinner,

talking about how things were.


finished the game I started playing yesterday,

figured that I might as well finish it quickly rather than have it drag on.


thankful.

3/19

went home after work,

played some video games.

actually, a lot of video games.

once in a while is fine, I guess.


the cashiers at a Japanese market that I frequent for groceries

have been speaking Japanese to me.

since I can still at least understand numbers,

I didn't bother telling them I don't speak the language--

just handed them the amount,

did a slight bow,

and left.

I guess it's alright to feel slightly entertained by it.


thankful.

3/18

work is starting to stack up--

code freeze is this friday,

and I have a lot to get done by then.


ate dinner with a praise team member,

talked mostly about living away from home.

closer to goal of grabbing food with every member.


thankful.

3/17

church,

I didn't feel tired at all--

I guess the sleep in the bus did count for something.

went to dinner with '89 friends after service.

worked on web work once I got home,

while catching up with tv shows.


thankful.

3/16

rode the first bus to boston in the morning

and arrived there around lunchtime.

had a good time with friends,

but I ended up falling asleep for a big chunk of the day.

I guess I was pretty tired.

nevertheless, it's always good to meet friends.

waiting for the bus back home.

thankful.

3/15

morning service,

work,

then friday service after work.

late dinner with church people after work. 

day trip to Boston tomorrow. 

will be tiring, but worth it.

thankful.

3/14

Pi Day.

only later did I realize it was also white day.



there was a farewell outing for one of the directors in the firm.

he's been around the firm for a long time,

and that was visible through the big turnout to the outing.



after that, I met a church hoobae

and talked and shared QT over tea--

it was a praise team "mission,"

and I think it was a good idea.


thankful.

3/13

was overall tired for most of the day,

but I got by.

met up with a coworker friend after work.

original intention was to give him something he left at work,

but it eventually led to a conversation about faith. 

we talked about it once in a while during lunch breaks,

but I guess this was the first time we talked about it for a long time. 

thankful.

looney tunes

one of the first cartoon series I watched after leaving Korea.

they were pretty musical-ly,

and I can say I got familiar with a lot of classical music through these.

just passed by one while surfing the web

and took the time to watch and reminisce.

3/12

been getting a lot of work done this week,

but I had to scrap most of them before ending the day.

did get familiarized with a lot of things through it though.


second attempt at getting the bass repaired--

I noticed as I walked home today

that there was a guitar/bass shop right across the street from home

that sold only the church bass' brand.

gave it a shot.

made it in time,

but you know that saying that goes something like

broken things work fine in the presence of a repairman?

yeah, that happened.

the repairman made a valid point that we might just have used a bad cable

(which I believe we actually didn't try to check),

and I had to just bring it back to church.

at least it means it's not broken.


weather's been warming up.

hope this keeps up.


thankful.

3/11

I was given the responsibility to repair the bass guitar at church;

I had brought it home,

and after work, I picked it up and brought it to the guitar center.

it appears that the repairman leaves a couple of hours before closing,

meaning that I will have to carry this back tomorrow or sometime soon. 

the house internet stopped working since yesterday for some reason.

because of that, 

roommate and I had nothing to do,

so we went out for a walk.

weather was not cold, 

so it was a good walk.

thankful.

3/10

had announced a '89ers gathering that was supposed to happen after service,

but no one was around for it--

pushing it to a future date.

somehow ended up with a very interesting group 

that was made up of people who were walking home in the same direction.

ate dinner and drank coffee.

livelier conversation than would have been expected. 

thankful.

3/9

ate brunch,

for what I believe is the first time.

rest of the day was practice.

talked to Brother on the phone for the first time in a while,

since now our working hours overlap.

good long conversation.


thankful.

3/8

there was a meeting about internet security at work.

now that I can understand better how these penetrations/exploits work,

I do get the desire to learn more about it.


church after work.

singing praise has been very enjoyable for the past few weeks.


thankful.

3/7

more test case coding during work.

met a church hoobae for dinner--

it's like this week is a week to make amends for my lack of socializing in the last few weeks.

did some finishing touches on the web work I got yesterday once I got back home.


thankful.

3/6

spent the day writing unit tests for the code I've worked on for the past couple of days.

it's actually been a while since I had to write testing code--

previous teams had relied on testers and regression scripts to test new code.


day was panning out to be a quiet day

until I got a call from hoobae who needed work on a website.

worked on that for the rest of the evening.


thankful.

3/5

work was alright,

just rested at home,

did fall asleep for a bit after eating dinner. 

watched "Wreck-it Ralph",

a Disney movie.

it's always amazing how these

Disney/Pixar animation films 

get me to the brink of tears. 

also had a good helping of 

reminiscing the games and candies I enjoyed 

back when I was a kid. 

special flashback thanks to a 

doughnut side character named Wynchel, 

named after Winchell Doughnuts, 

the only doughnut chain in Saipan. 

thankful. 

3/4

ate lunch at the desk

but had a coffee break after work.

met some church hoobaes for dinner after work,

and talked about the struggles they are going through. 

I'll do my best to be of any help-- 

I guess comforting their stomachs is a start.


thankful.

3/3

ate dinner with a couple of church people.

apparently it was "samgyupsal" day,

so we ate just that.

went back home after then 

pored through some code. 

thankful.

3/2

practice starting in the afternoon,

ate dinner with the praise team members after practice.

more practice until near midnight,

after which I went straight home.


read Luke 7 and 8 before heading out to the day of practices,

and the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus' feet

was very moving.

when the pharisee who saw the woman washing Jesus' feet

wondered in thought whether Jesus is able to know that she is a sinful woman,

Jesus reads his mind and replies with an analogy of two debtors.

when agreed upon that the debtor with the bigger debt will be more thankful  when the debt is forgiven,

Jesus explains how the woman,

who acknowledges her sins,

is able to show her thanks through the washing of feet,

while the pharisee,

who we can dare construe as self-righteous by seeing how he judged the woman,

is unable to show that level of thankfulness.


thankful.

3/1

first,

a big, great thank you to those who fought for what became my freedom this very day.

worked,

then church.

after service,

met people from my old acappella club who came to visit.

though we were all walking different paths, we were still like family.

thankful.

2/28

got work done, 

had japanese-inspired pasta for dinner

and had a good conversation over coffee. 

thankful.