so much

too much has happened in the past few days.

Thursday. Dinner at my house with Sun, Shiau, Yu, Han, Fei family. Was a bit awkward with the girls not knowing each other. Jeff came by. Jeff and Eddie stayed late, was planning on going to Black Friday...ended up going to sleep.

Friday. Bought a bluetooth speaker. Dinner at WCEC. College group didn't do much except icebreakers. Went to Allen's that night to celebrate my 21st birthday. Probably had around 5-6 shots total. (I had 1 beer and 7 shots, but I don't think they were full shots.) I was definitely more tipsy than I ever was. But it wasn't bad. We played mafia, killer, water pong. Eric was there too. He drove me home.

Saturday. My birthday. Didn't do much. Got iPhone that day so just played around with it. Went to Mr. Lin's college dinner, talked a lot to girl who was a teacher in China. Not the conversation I imagined. Celebrated birthday there again.

Sunday. Church. Didn't do anything afterwards. I think I played with my phone and chatted with people. Facetimed Mary. Definitely good to catch up with her.

Monday. Errands. Went to Jia's at night briefly.

Tuesday. Fly back. Interview with IMC was rough. Good to be back in Hinman.

while trying to remember the address to pick up Brenda at, I realized I couldn't remember the street that Allison lived on. (Brenda lives on the same street as her.)

Time.

to do over thanksgiving

-start eecs130 project
-read BTree assignment
-catch up with friends and family

-be rested

-laptop issues?
-speakers

security

Today, my pastor said that he didn't believe in 401K. Yes, he believed in saving. But when you are 65 and just taking the rest of your life easy?

"No, I will serve my God the time He has designated for me on this Earth. No more, no less."

confessing

In our short discipleship, one of the most important lessons that I got out of my time with Chris Nho was the power of corporate confession.

I don't think AAIV or Asian churches in general do much confession, because we are too afraid to tarnish our perfect image. As the family that has it together, as parents with the kids that went to great college and continued on to have "great" jobs (I put "great" in quotes, because really the only great jobs is something that makes over 100K. Let's just be real here. The number may be even higher depending on the Asian family).

Even as second generation Asian-American Christians, we don't want to ruin our Christian image to others. We want to be see as that mature guy or holy girl.

No one wants to admit that they are sinners. Of course, we procrastinate, we don't reach out enough, etc etc. Yes, we are quick to admit these. And that's great. Sin is sin. But there are easy-to-admit sins in my book, and hard-to-admit ones. And the hard-to-admit ones we keep inside of us. We forget about it. We tell ourselves that it doesn't even matter anymore. Maybe we even undermine the depth of our sin.

Yet, this is so against the Gospel.

In the parable of the Alabastar Jar , Simon, the Pharisee, says this:

“If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

In fact, he is correct in saying that this woman is a sinner. It is because she is a sinner that she so desperately wants forgiveness from Jesus. But the problem isn't that the woman is a sinner. It's that Simon doesn't realize that he is just as wretched as that woman. He simply doesn't have confidence to confess his sins like the woman with the alabaster jar is doing.

And until we can bring forth our sin before Jesus, we can't receive grace. As Andy Bilhorn says, "Grace isn't call grace until sin is called sin."

So what did Chris do?

He told me about an experience he had at Manna. He was going through some troubles with sin that lets just say I have yet to encounter. And he confessed at Manna. It wasn't a confessional Manna, but he confessed to those who were there that day.

Public confession means that you completely acknowledge that you are a sinner. You are not trying to hide behind some Christian mask and make yourself look better than others (like the Pharisee was), but you acknowledge your place. Only then are we truly "Unashamed."

And the beauty of confession in public? It's a churches/fellowships way of displaying the Gospel. We don't snicker at others confessions, we don't spread rumors, we don't love them less. No, if anything we love them more for being so vulnerable. We embrace robbers, we embrace porn addicts, we embrace cheaters. We embrace you. Not because of what you've done, but because of WHO you are in Christ Jesus.

So to those who read, I confess that I am not the holy man you might think I am.
I confess that I've stolen many things. I confess that I've cheated on tests and projects. I confess I'm addicted to pornography and masturbation. I confess that I am a sexist and a racist. I confess that I am a sinner.

The only thing that's good in me is Jesus

"invalidated"

This word is being passed around a lot recently. I don't want to undermine the meaning of it at all.


"Invalidating...
...my ability to lead"
...my faith"
...me as a student"

homebound

Rarely am I homesick of college, but right now I really can't wait to go home for Thanksgiving.

The idea of being with family, without schoolwork seems so refreshing right now.

6 more days.

stress

why are systems classes so hard? (or why am i so dumb?)

i just throw time at these projects with no progress.

and this isn't even the hardest systems class. next qtr i'll have PL and Networking...

God, get me through this week.

Next week, thanksgiving @ home.

in a hotel

Tonight, I sleep in the Palmer House Hilton in the Loop.

I was going to post (again) about my mind's most recent thoughts about this whole gospel talk within AAIV, but I release it from my mind tonight. Being alone in a hotel (or being on my own in general) is quite foreign to me.

I walked out of the Hotel onto Monroe/State with high expectations of I don't even know what. Sight-seeing, I guess? On a Sunday night, where everything is closed.

I walked North one block and realized I didn't feel safe, and walked one block south to return. Went back to my room, realized I forgot contact case/solution, so I walked back out to the 24/7 7-11 store. Witnessed a homeless black man yell at the Indian employee to "go back to his country." Indian employee called the police immediately after the black man made some threats, and the black man left. He apologized to me (for witnessing this in his store, I suppose), and I told him, that there was no need, I'm sorry that you had to deal with that. Walked back to hotel, realized I forgot my room card in my room, asked the British-accented black front-desk man, and he kindly conjured a new room card for me.

It sounds like an eventful night, but...not really. It's too quiet in this hotel room. This bed is foreign to me, and the 40' TV screams, "Watch me!"

I have an interviews (or really, interviews) with Etherios tomorrow, so they kindly gave me a hotel for the night before. Quite honestly, I don't know much about the company, but this is quite a "2nd round interview" after only a phone interview, which I barely remember.

This only reminds me that my pending future of as a single, working adult will be much different than what I am used to.

In other news, this weekend was filled with interesting events. I'm glad college challenges me in more ways than I'd like to be challenged.

Pastor Peter spoke on Luke 6 @ Focus on how suffering is when our idols die.

So much on my mind, but I am too lazy to write. I think I'll try to catch a sunrise tomorrow morning. I'm pretty good at waking up early when I sleep in a foreign bed.

1am to 5:30am sleep? We shall see...

i'm so forgetful, but You always remind me
You're the only one who brings me peace.

i don't understand.

help me understand.

got a part-time offer at RECSOLU with option of summer internship.

They are a startup in Chicago.

Debating whether to take classes and work now.

But this is my first job offer since AstraZeneca...