Aura and I had a great time yesterday at dinner and at Starbucks talking and sharing about our views. Of course we got distracted and talked about other stuff as well, but on the whole, I was really excited about our sharing. The one thing I got out of the first chapter is that we are made by God and FOR God. It made me think about my purpose in life. God created me for His purpose. And it brings up the point of obedience to His will and His purpose. I personally think obedience is my biggest challenge. I am disobedient a lot of times. Ask my parents! If I cant even do what my parents ask, what more our Father in heaven? I realize I resist and I force my own way through, rather than listen to God. I guess I want to be in control of my own life. Which contradicts what Christian living is all about. I find myself being able to give up SOME parts of my life, but there are other areas which I just want to handle myself. Thus the daily struggle.
Today wasnt so bad. I had a nice morning, working at the office and chatting with Dave at the same time. And my students this afternoon werent too bad! AMAZING! I got one student, Minami and easier set of books than she has now, and I see her smiling during lessons, and saying, wow this is easy, can I do more? And I'm so glad I made the decision to drop her back a level.
I have one student who is driving me crazy. I cant really describe why she is driving me crazy except she is very annoying. She annoys the girls at the counter in the school as well.
Chiilin is out of the country, and there are a ton of things to do while he is away. But Sping break is coming up too, and the girls and I want to go to the beach, and to Universal Studios. I am so excited about that. It's part of Charisse's birthday celebrations. I havent been to Universal studios ever since my family went there for vacation years ago!
It's late, I gotta get to bed. Goodnight!

I'm tired of being strong. I'm tired of being by myself. I'm tired of waiting for God to bring someone into my life, maybe I should just go ahead and deal with it myself. Waiting doesnt seem to do me any good. I know I'm having a pity party, but I really dont care right now.

I thought today would NEVER END! I started work at 9 am and didnt get done till 8 pm, and I barely had a lunch break. My lunch break was eating in my car while driving to La Habra to teach. McDonalds to the rescue!
The nicest thing happened this afternoon, and totally made my day. My student Amanda wrote me a note that said something like, I really like you and I'm very glad you are my teacher, and thank you for your patience, and the best thing, is she said, I'm going to try my hardest to practise! I'm like awwwww youre so sweet!! And it totally made my day!
My boss will be out of town for 3 weeks, so I will be on my own at the office. I'm asking for a lot of prayer because I want to prove that I can manage, and I dont want to mess up! So there is stress involved in this, and I also want to prove to myself that I can do this. Sometimes the musician in me is stronger than the administrator side of me. Help!!!
I thought I got the day off tomorrow, but I have to go in to work because I need to get some things learnt and done before Chilin leaves. So there goes my day off! Oh well, more money I guess, and that's a good thing!
So it is goodnight for now because I am beat, and I need to get some zzz's in!

God definitely has a sense of humor. Or He is really trying to teach me something! I now have to work with a girl whom I did not have a good first impression of. In fact, it's been really hard to even have to have any contact with her. But now I will have to share the office with her. It was very hard to accept it, and very hard to give up my "territory". But I know it was wrong of me to have ill thoughts of her to begin with, and I guess I am looking forward to getting to know her better in the days to come. I do have to say Thank you to God for waiting this long before having us work together. If it had been any earlier, I would have resisted it a lot more. As it is, it is easier to accept this change at this point of my working life.
I have been hearing a lot about the book "A Purpose Driven Life", and today I finally got it. Aura and I were talking about tonight at dinner, and she said, hey, how would you like to read the book and we can be accountability partners, and discuss our thoughts on the chapters? You have no idea how happy I was to hear that. I have been praying for an accountability partner for a while. It's hard to find someone here to share my thoughts with, and I'm glad God put it in Aura's heart to ask me.
The weekend was very nice. There was a recording session for the kids at Joy Partners, and it was a very educational and interesting experience. Some kids sang great, but the younger ones were a little out of tune. I learnt how to fix it so we dont really hear the out of tuneness. But the kids were great, they were so much fun to watch. Most of them cant speak Chinese, and there was a Chinese verse of a song they had to sing, so all of them had to learn to sing the words in Chinese. Of course if you asked them to speak it in Chinese, they wouldnt get the tones right, but they can sing it really well! The younger kids especially were very enthusiastic. Chilin said I had to learn this because I might take over this one day. I'm excited about that.
Saw something really funny today. I was driving to work, and I saw kids getting out of school. Some were cycling, some were walking. There were 2 guys who sat down on a slope right by the road I was driving on. I saw them as I was stopped at a red light. But just before my light turned green, I saw that they sprinklers had suddenly come on where the 2 guys sat, and they both jumped up at the same time because they were getting wet. It was really really funny.
My dad signed my guestbook today, and signed it as Eddy GC Lim. I wonder why he didnt just say "dad"?

My friend Shanthini just wrote to me saying she's into Scientology and she's even going to Italy to meet with her "counselor". She's taking a course in it too, and when she is done, she gets a certificate. She's very attracted to it, even though she knows it's wrong. To all who read this, please pray for her. I am very afraid for her right now. Pray for God's intervention in this. This cant be good

Someone said something really nice to me today. Dave Malone works for my boss Chilin, and I see him sometimes. He is African American (he calls himself a Black guy) and a very interesting person to talk to. When he comes in the door, he goes, WASSUP, WASSUP??!!! with a great big smile. He always says he's in love with this particular girl, but she doesnt like him that way at all. So that's been the topic of our conversations for forever. I just tell him that's the way the cookie crumbles! He teases me all the time about trying to get me hooked up with Tom Cruise. I just laugh, and say, I'm still waiting for Tom to call me. Today, he comes in the office and we were chatting, and he was teasing me, and then he says, You know, you are a wonderful and beautiful young lady. Dont sell yourself short. You should reach for the stars, and expect the best guy in your life. Never expect anything less. And I thought that was the nicest thing he could have said to me. If you knew Dave, he doesnt say things like that unless he means it. And he even told Chilin that I was doing a fantastic job, even when I messed up. I thanked him yesterday for covering my butt when I made mistakes, and he said, you know, youre' doing a fine job, dont worry about it. And he tried to make me feel better about myself. Dave says it like it is, and I appreciate that about him.
I'm glad tomorrow is Friday because I have the morning off!!! I can sleep in, and enjoy the time off! Maybe I'll go watch the Passion, because I still havent seen it! I must be the only one who hasnt! Or maybe I will just stay at home and relax. Or I could go out in the sun and enjoy the sunshine! Who knows, the possibilities are endless!

Guys. That was the topic at the dinner table tonight. Charisse, Aura, Blessing and I went to Friday's for dinner, and we talked about guys and marriage and dating. All the girl stuff. It was very good to hear and hash out the opinions we had. We all decided that though we live a very fulfilled life in Christ, there is still an innate desire for a man in our lives.
We are all singles in our little group, and during dinner tonight, we made a promise, if and when we have significant others, we will still spend time with each other like we do now, and we will not talk about our significant others while it's our time to hang out. I think it's a great idea. Too many girls forget their friends when they start dating, and I've had that happen to me a few times already when my friends at school started dating. It was really hard for me to be excited about their new relationships when it took away what little time we had to hang out together.
I want to get married someday. I hope that someday is soon. I cannot deny that though I like my life right now, I still have a desire for a relationship. There was always a desire, but when I was in school, I didnt have time to deal with it. But now that I'm out of school and have more time to myself, the desire has come back and come back a lot stronger too. Sigh.
I would write a lot more, but it's really late. I may come back to this topic again another time. Watch out for it!

It was David Pott's birthday on Saturday. (Dave is Jeff's dad), and so we went to a restaurant for dinner, and we waited 1 hr 15 mins for our table. It was the longest wait for dinner I've ever had. The only good thing was that they had a great huge barrel of peanuts which we could dip into and get as much nuts as we want. I think I filled up on that before the dinner, because I couldnt finish my dinner! The place was called Bandits and it was a western kinda place. I got yummy ribs!
Becky and I had a good time on Sunday. We just hung out and talked and I really had a great time opening up to her. And I watched my show! Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I love that show. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside!
And then, the worst thing happened when I went home. The exit off the highway that I take to go home was closed. And I had to get off the next exit, and I got totally lost. It was so so foggy I couldnt hardly see 10 feet ahead of me, and I was hopelessly lost. I drove around for about 20 mins before I found a gas station and stopped and asked for directions. It was really scary for a while, and I was so tired I was about to fall asleep at the wheel. As a matter of fact, I was chewing gum and drinking water and singing at the top of my lungs to keep myself awake. And to get lost like that when I was SO close to home really ticked me off. I'm just glad I got home safely.
I am so so tired, I'm going to bed. Oh, good news. I lost 10 pounds! I weighed myself today and I was so pumped! I think I'm going to try to keep it up. I have to fit into the bridesmaid dress Lisa picked out!

Ok, so the one day we want to go to the beach, what happens? It's dreary and cold!!! We were four upset girls this morning!! So they decided to go to South Coast mall, which was a very upper end kinda mall. Think Versace and Prada and Burberry's. We were actually dressed for the beach, so we were a little underdressed. We walked into a Burberry's boutique, and we heard this sales lady talking to a customer who was trying on jackets. The sales lady said, well, this one you have on is seven ninety five, and this other one is six ninety five. We didnt think she was talking about it being seven dollars and ninety five cents! We felt like Julia Roberts did in Pretty Woman when she walked into a boutique in Beverly Hills, and the saleslady said, I'm sorry we cant help you. So we walked out pretty quickly too. South Coast was a really huge mall, and we were taking turns and going to different parts of the mall, and we were still not done.
We went to this makeup store called Shepora's and I got a free consultation! I got makeup put on me and in all honesty, it didnt look like I had anything on except shimmer because she used shimmer makeup. On one hand, I think it's nice that I look natural, but on the other hand, why would I want to spend all this time putting on makeup to look like I dont have any makeup on? So I'm thinking, if I do put makeup on, I'd better at least look like I have something on.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

Motoko and I finally went out yesterday night. We both got done at about 8.30 pm and decided that we could both do with some food. My student Emry (God bless her!) made me some really really really good Indonesian noodles. And I just had to take a bite of it because I was starving. And it was SO good I told Motoko to try it. And her eyes got big, and she said, This is SO good! And so we scrounged around for forks and literally gobbled all of it. But we were still hungry after that, so we went to look for food, but most places were already closed. Only Niko Niko was opened, and we had the rest of our meal there. It was really nice to hang out with her, I think she's cool. We stood at the parking lot chatting after that, and we literally watched as the fog came rolling in around us. It was eeiry.
The weather here has been very nice. It's been in the 80s these past few days, and it's nice to wear short sleeves and skirts again. I should try to get more skirts. I just havent found ones that I liked yet I guess! Or I'm too lazy to go look for them. Jeans are so much more fun, but I think, now that I have an image to upkeep, I better start dressing more professionally!
Charisse, Aura and I are going to beach tomorrow morning! It will be fun, and my arms and legs need to see the light! They are So pale that if you didnt look at my face, you wouldnt have known they belonged to an Asian. I'm looking forward to it because I think it will be nice to be out in the sunshine. It's just wrong to be cooped up inside when the sun is shining like that!
I've given up rice, and most carbohydrates, and I've lost a little weight. About 5-6 pounds so far, and I think I will keep going with that diet. A parent commented on it today, and it made me feel so good. I want to keep going and lose more weight, because I feel so much more confident without the excess. I think when I meet God I will ask Him why I had to go through this weight thing and not my sisters. I hate that this will be a constant struggle. Sigh.
I am going to bed now because I have to get up extra early tomorrow because we are going to the BEACH! Toodles!

It's mum's birthday today, and I managed to call her tonight to wish her a happy birthday. It was too bad that the reception on my phone wasnt good, so our conversation got cut off. I need to call her more often. I hardly ever get to talk to her. Happy Birthday, Mummy!!! She said she would come over here to babysit my kids, but I have to get a husband first. So pray hard for me, mum!!
Faith's birthday was on Monday, so Happy Birthday Faith!!!! And Ai's birthday is on Sunday, so Happy Birthday Ai!!!!!
I'll write more tomorrow, I'm so tired I'm falling asleep here. Goodnight!

I meant to write about the snow-capped mountains a few days ago but I forgot, so here it is. The mountains are snow-capped!!! They are so pretty, especially when you can see them on a clear day. I wish the snow would come down here some, but that's ok, I'm content to see them on the mountains.
I just got back from having dinner with Florence, the pastor's wife. I volunteer for her at Joy Partners. She invited me and my boss Chilin over for dinner, and Chilin brought along his younger daughter Mendie and his mom. It was fun. I watched the cartoon Hamtaro with Mendie. At first I thought it was really lame, but then I got into it, and I actually found some of it funny. We had one of the best ice-cream for dessert. And HUGE strawberries. I'm serious, they were so huge, they looked like mutant strawberries. But they were oh so sweet. Usually big strawberries are sour, but these werent.
I talked to Stephanie yesterday, and she's going to Mexico for the summer kinda like an internship I think. I am so proud of her that she has the desire to go there to minister to the children. I keep telling her we have people here in CA who need ministering, so she should come here instead, but she says the children in Mexico need her more. And I have to agree to that.
I love Stephanie. She's been there for me through thick and thin, and we met because I didnt understand why she made a certain choice, and when that choice went bad, I went over to console her, and that's how we became close. She was the one who taught me how to drive, so I blame her for my penchant for speeding. ;) We've had some really good times together. I spent a Thanksgiving with her and her family, and we went shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and it was an experience I will never forget. We got up at 5 am to go shopping at 6 am, and there was a line a mile long at Bass Pro. We didnt even need to walk, we were just being pushed along by the sea of people around us. But it was a really fun day, though it was tiring.
Steph cooked for me a lot, and she made the best chocolate covered pretzels. One time she made this summer squash dish which had beans in it. They were some beans that looked pink, so they looked like piglets. I said, oh there are beans, and she said, you dont like beans? I said, well, they're ok, I eat them, but they arent my favorite (FYI, I HATE peas.) But when I tried it, it was good, and I swore up and down that I liked it, but she told people I hated it because there were beans in it. It's been a standing joke since.
There's so much more to say about Steph, but it'll take days. I miss hanging out with her. She was my neighbor when I was in Bolivar, and it was so easy to walk across the parking lot to her apartment. I miss you, Steph!!! And I'm really happy for you for the opportunity God's given you to go to Mexico.
Ok, tomorrow is an early day, so I'm going to bed! Goodnight y'all!

I dont think I'm very good at administrative work. I've made mistakes, and I feel really bad. I hope I get better at it. I dont want my boss to think I was slacking off. Being a musician and doing administrative work require different parts of the brain I think!
These past few months have been a reality check for me. I've had difficulty with finances these few months, and I think I will have them for another few months before I can recover my losses. But I cling on to the promise that God will take care of me. He takes care of the sparrows in the sky and the flowers of the fields, I know He will take care of me. I guess on my part, better finance management is in order. I wish it would rain $20s from the sky, it would totally make my life a lot easier. Not to mention the rest of the country.
I slept too late last night and paid for it today. So tonight I am going to bed early, so I can actually last the whole of tomorrow! Goodnight, y'all

I saw a pair of pants that I really really liked. Only problem was that it cost $58. I cant really justify buying a pair of pants that expensive, especially when payday is a few days away. I guess I should get it for the quality, and it is a very nice pair too, but I probably dont just want one, I might want one in another color too. We'll see. Maybe I'll feel up to shopping after I get paid in a few days.
Tonight was DDR night again, and it was pretty fun. We watched part of a movie about soccer. It's a British movie and for the life of me, I cant remember what the title is. It's something to do with Beckham. That's all I remember. I'm getting better at DDR, and it's really very fun. Great exercise too.
Charisse has a dog named Princess. I think she likes me. She jumped on me and wouldnt get off. I guess it's because I was scratching her the whole time. Kinda like Baober.
Ate 2 bars of chocolate today. Yum. I guess I've used up my quota of chocolate this week. Sigh.

Tammie signed my guestbook, and after reading it, it brought back a lot of memories of my friendship with her. She was about the last person I saw as I left Bolivar for LA. She stayed up with me the night before helping me pack, and came back early the next morning to make sure I was ok and to send me off. She has 3 young kids, and she brought all of them along just so she could say goodbye to me. She and I have had some very interesting adventures! We traveled to Texas and Oklahoma together. 11 hours on the road. And we went to Silver Dollar City with her kids because she had an extra ticket to go, and I saw the Christmas lights there for the first time. And of course we went shopping. It's a standing joke that I always tell her she dresses older than she really is. She calls me her fashion consultant. I like that title!! She's really cool, and she's a great accompanist and a wonderful friend to have. I miss you, Tammie!!!
I went to Oceanside on Sat to visit with Dawne. She was my Resident Director when I lived in Leslie Hall. She and I became friends because we were so much closer in age. Anyway, she lives in Kansas City now, and I hadnt seen her in a year or so before Saturday. We spent the day catching up, and hanging out on the pier. And then we had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place called Colimas. I ordered a supreme Quesadilla and it was the hugest quesadilla I've ever seen. it came in 3 parts and I couldnt even finish one part. I gave it away to Dawne, who tried fish tacos for the first time. So to all my friends in Bolivar, I cant wait to see you in LA!! (hint hint!!)
Today it did nothing but be cold and rain. Compared to the winters I've had the past few years, I guess this is mild. I have a student today, her name is Kari, and she is the nicest kid. She's always smiling, she always does her homework, and she's very well mannered and polite as well. I wish all my kids were like her!! My adult student Stacy brought along her daughter Jessica tonight for her lesson. Jessica sat on the floor and entertained herself by coloring and drawing. She is the cutest thing, and so petite.
That's about it. It wasnt a stressful Monday, which is really good, because I dont really like Mondays.