nous perseverons

1) brother! I haven’t seen my brother since March when I visited him in New York.

2) Wed night pre-Thanksgiving hot pot tradition

3) Free haircut!

4) Friends and community in Cleveland; the exciting life and work that I get to do

5) The opportunity to be well-fed and healthy (and the extravagance of having a whole turkey to one family)

6) Talking with my parents about our family’s history: we are Hakka, Shandong, and Guangxi ren (Han Chinese)

7) The love of Christ and the Spirit that dwells in me, changes me, and overpowers my resistance to change (like now)

8) Running around a tennis court with my dog Chester

9) The means to live and the daily bread I receive - He is gracious to provide even the smallest, menial things

10) Watching silly youtube videos/30 rock and cooking thanksgiving dinner with my brother

30 thoughts, musings about rockchester, ny:

1) I really think it gets dark here at 3:30pm.

2) WBER - independent radio. my favorite station in the world.

3) WDKX - independent black radio. amazing.

4) I love driving by the city skyline across our very small bridge

5) Scott Miller Salon - the only non-Asian place I trust with my hair, plus my haircut was free

6) Wegmans - it’s the best (I am still disdainful of Meijer and Whole Foods! It’s even better than Trader Joe’s!)

7) I might get reconnected with high school friends this weekend - actual friends from my high school, not the smattering of Asian Americans here

8) I haven’t seen my brother since March, and it’s great to have him back sleeping in the room next door. (It’s 2:23PM)

9) Chester and I take walks and we go to the tennis court at the park down the street so that he can run around with freedom. I don’t think he’s quite ready for the dog park because of his bad manners… even though we still take him.

10) I feel very disconnected from Rochester now. It’s very foreign to me. I only really know my house now as “home.” I feel very loyal to Cleveland, Ann Arbor, and even other cities like New York. This makes me feel a little sad.

11) My dad was looking at ads this morning and he saw a picture of Miley Cyrus. He said to me “she’s racist.” I agreed, because she made chinky eyes and didn’t apologize for it, but I asked him how he knew. He said, “I can just tell from the way she talks and says things.” I agreed. I said that I can tell from people’s eye contact what they really think of me and if they respect me or not. And then, I said that everyone from around here is racist then! He agreed, and then he said, “Everyone is racist. Even me. It’s a part of the sinful nature.” I think this is the first helpful conversation we’ve had about race in a while.

12) The reason why I really liked my stylist at Scott Miller is because she put me at ease, and I actually felt very respected. I thought of the time when I got my nails done for Phyllis’ wedding. I had the chance to talk very deeply with a 2nd gen beautiful Albanian woman, and we talked about this very thing. We said we can always tell. This makes me feel sad too.

13) There were a lot of scary, racist people at my school. One guy burned 3 crosses in front of someone’s house. And then he threw a brick through the window of an activist’s car.

14) My high school was atypical. We were strong in the social sciences, English, and music. We had an amazing jazz program and many of our students participated in state orchestras. We also had a lot of activists and politically involved people - Dems, Republicans and a good number of cynical Independents. There was some amount of healthy dialogue. I think this experience formed me as I went into college.

15) I really enjoyed the friends that I had at Penfield. Steve was really into sound engineering and had a full recording studio in his basement when he was in high school. My friends and I recorded a track called “P-Unit.” It was a freestyle battle.

16) The first time I ever visited a black church was here in Rochester. I went with my friends Steve and Phil and they played gospel music even though they were white people who were really into country (at the time.) That’s also when I first heard of Israel Houghton, Kirk Franklin, etc.

17) The only people that I see consistently when I return to ROC are the Yus, the Bartkowskis, and Sophia Lai. Amazing people.

18) My family has traditions for when my brother and I come home. We usually eat at Shiki, the best Japanese restaurant in Rochester, and we usually have hot pot the first night when everyone is together.

19) I like that people here do have Rochester pride. The Yu family told me about how they participated in this crazy city-wide scavenger-hunt, online-puzzle challenge.

20) Driving downtown last night made me feel sad. Everything is closing down.

21) I haven’t been to Java’s in a while - it’s next to the Eastman School of Music. The Spot is fun too, though these 15 year old boys tried to talk to me and my friend Leen once.

22) I haven’t had a garbage plate in years. Is it about time?

23) This is the cleanest my room has been in 24 years.

24) You can get anywhere in Rochester within 20 minutes.

25) My friends and I went down to Eastman a lot. We were in orchestra together, and I really loved driving down East Ave. I think it’s beautiful.

26) There’s some really funny art deco architecture downtown.

27) My town is half suburb, half rural. Everyone who lives in the burbs is squeezed into 1/2 of the town.

28) My high school’s boys soccer team won the State championship 2x in a row when I was a student there. I loved it.

29) Everything is changing a lot - I can’t keep up.

30) from one post-industrial city to the next - the sad economy and urban situation of rochester, ny

Julia Kuo in the NYT! It’s like a rainbow-y Miyazaki. The article is about traveler’s apps on the iphone.

“actually my favorite concept was a traveler/hiker meeting a baby bear in the woods

the traveler is using his iphone to look up “how to speak bear” and the baby bear is using his iphone to look up “how to eat humans”

This is very “oo-liao” (bored, useless), but since I got a fun haircut today, I thought about my hair history:

• 8th grade: went pixie short
• 9th grade: got a perm
• 10th grade: the “meg ryan” flipped out haircut
• 11-12th grade: short hair
• freshman year in college: blonde-ish highlights
• sophomore year: long, long hair - to short hair
• junior - senior: chin length
• graduation: asymmetrical haircut, blonde highlights, emo hair
• from that point, posh [spice] bob, A-line bob, layers, long hair with straight bangs, short hair with straight bangs… a $4 haircut in china, to a nice razor haircut in Rochester at my one, trusted salon - Scott Miller. I’m really enjoying it, though I feel like I’m wearing a wig… I can’t wait to experiment.

new haircut! it was free! no more bobs! hello new york!

Flashback Friday/Monday (Fonday?)

Taken at Michigan AIV/CCF’s annual senior send-off pie-in-the-face scholarship fundraiser (for Chapter Focus Week.) My small group helper and I are pieing Ivan, who mysteriously was “busy” for the previous year’s pie-in-the-face. (Ivan has been through 4 pie-in-the-faces with his 7 years of undergrad. This was after he finished his 6th.) He kept crying out “BUT I’M NOT LEAVING!!!” as we pied him with his favorite food. Yes, that is cooked ramen.

Flashback!

Just read a really beautiful letter from Theresa… single tear. Come back soon!

I serve alongside some really amazing leaders in Koinonia.

Really good to see friends from out of town… Manu, Mike, Theresa, Tiffany from DC yesterday, and Crystal from MN tomorrow! Liked making new ones too.

Yay! Yay! I’m taking a 3 credit Trinity Global Christianity course (one that wraps around Urbana.)