Term break - busy with what?

The 3-week term break will soon be over. What have I done?

First, I got my home and bedding (sort of) ready to house 2 friends, Amy and Coral, who spent the holidays with me. Since I haven't hosted anyone at my home for a long time, they became my guinea-pig house guests. I'm sure they suffered somewhat.

In front of my current home.

They joined two local tours. In between and after the tours, I played tour guide for a couple of days, and that was fun.

The San Gabriel Mission District

Disney Concert Hall

LA Downtown

Naples, Long Beach

Naples, Long Beach

During the past two weeks, mom required more health assistance than before. And so that was like doing a part-time job. Thankfully, Amy and Coral took time to visit mom with me. (Mom seemed to benefit from the visits. I was told by the nurse and another friend that mom ran in the apartment with a walker!)

All wearing glasses and, noted by mom, all women!

I also planned for a 2-day getaway with 3 other friends to Palm Springs. That was pretty relaxing.

Outside the visitor center at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

In front of a Methodist church on Sunday

A corner of the interestingly decorated hotel suite

The hotel comes with resort facility, which includes a swimming pool, indoor and outdoor spas.

Food & atmosphere in PS downtown were great.

Starbucks fans anytime!

Oh... almost forgot to mention. My landline and DSL were out of commission for almost a week. On our way back from PS, AT&T called and told me that my phone line's working again. I didn't know that they work on Sunday!


The above picture is the first AT&T guy investigating outside my house what the problem was. Though he looked cool way up the pole, he couldn't fix the problem and another guy had to be sent.

Barack Obama & Rick Warren

Barack Obama chose Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration on Jan 20.

I don't know politics, but I think it's wise to pray for Warren's speech, his true-godly influence, and continue to pray for Obama. I read an interview of Obama's religious faith by Cathleen Falsani done a while back in 2004. My impression is that he was honest about it, but if he's spiritually at the same place as he was then, he needs some prayers to understand what the Gospel means.

*Picture from publicradio.org

Mom with pt, nurse, and dad's pics

Since it's term break, I can spend more time with mom and observe how dementia's affecting her.

Mom speaks English well with little accent, although she has a limited amount of vocabulary. However, when you ask her whether she speaks English or not, she'll say "no" without thinking. (Like if you ask her whether any part of body hurts, her first response would be "no" unless she's in pain at that moment.) Yet, she'll respond in English when you speak English with her, and likewise in Chinese when you speak Chinese with her.

Sophia, the physical therapist who doesn't speak Chinese, went to pay mom a visit and helped her deal with the arthritic pain due probably to the rainy wintry season. Mom looked her in the eye and told her in a clear voice with perfect English & American accent, "I do not speak English." And then she continued to respond in English for the most part of the conversation with Sophia.

The other evening, a male nurse paid mom a visit. The nurse checked the strength of mom's hands by asking mom to hold and squeeze his. Mom didn't understand at first. After a while, she managed to hold one of the nurse's hand but felt embarrassed to squeeze. Instead, she turned to me and commented with awe, "his hands are so big and warm!"

The nurse came tonight. After meeting him only once, mom surprised me by saying that she remembered to have seen him before. I checked on mom's exceptional memory after he left. She spurted out these two words, "肥佬！"

I brought an old photo album of pictures taken in 1988 to mom. Some of the pictures have mom and dad in them. Mom pointed at dad's picture and uttered, "衰佬！“

$1000

Thank You (Chinese Subtitles) by Ray Boltz on youtube:



Recently, I was triggered to reflect upon my passion to share about Jesus with other people. Of course, what I'm going to write in the following is NOT from the Bible, and absolutely nonsense. But .... just hypothetically, if you'll get $1000 each time you bring a person to Christ, will it make any difference in the way you invest your time and energy in sharing about Jesus Christ with people around you? Will you think of more ideas, do more ...etc.? If your answers to these questions are yes, perhaps you don't really believe the even worthier and longer-lasting blessings that God has installed for you.

神是很公平的

这是我在这两天的领受：

神是很公平的。”Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written， ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’“ (Romans 12:19).

我信圣经记的："人种的是甚么，收的也是什么。" "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for(B) whatever one sows, that will he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

我也信圣经的 “怜恤人的人有福了， 因为他们必蒙怜恤。”"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy" (Matthew 5:7)

Heart warming

"TeacherGrace圣诞节快乐.想你呵." Even a simple email takes my heart right back to Anhui.

Be a happy person

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

Philippians 4:4 (ESV Bible)

Happiness: It Really Is Contagious (audio or text) by Allison Aubrey.

If the result of the recent study by researchers at Harvard University and UCSD is credible: a friend living close by a happy person has a 25% higher chance of becoming happy, a spouse 8%, a next-door neighbor 34%, and the entire social network up to "3 degrees," then one has a very good reason to choose to live every day happily not grumpily.

But can one really choose? Yes. The Bible verse above implies so and says how, as Christians are exhorted (or "commanded," with the grammar and syntax of the original language, I was told) to rejoice always.

This is my struggle or lesson of the week.

群众压力

... 我终于开了 facebook account...不过有不少广告。当 search 自己的名字，发觉有很多跟我 first name, last name 一样的， 有BB, 连狗也有！

原来国內流行“校内网”, 与Facebook 有点象。我用英文名字想注册，它回应说要用“真实”姓名。