Still Learning

The jasmine and bougainvillea I bonsai-ed are coming along beautifully. I think I prefer smaller trees. That has nothing to do with this post, though.

I'm still learning from my parents. I saw two characteristics over this past weekend that I guess I've always known, but for some reason hit me with more force this time.

My mom is an optimist. Not the blind kind, but the kind that takes lemons and makes lemonade. The active kind that pursues good out of the "bad." She's facing serious tests right now, mainly dealing with uncertainty and personal challenges, but she doesn't break. She calls them "opportunities" and "the perfect chance to prove what I've been believing."

This picture was taken 30 mins after getting out of the car, arriving home from a 3-day camping trip in the Uintahs. We had driven ("He" had driven, rather) for 4 hours to get home and everyone was very tired. It was 90ish degrees outside. I sat inside the air-conditioned house drinking water and eating cookies, thinking how it was so nice to be able to rest, when I looked out the window to see dad watering the garden (this is after he put away all the camping gear). Then I remembered that before our camping trip, he had been camping with the scouts for the week before that, and he had been the hiking advisor so did a total of 50+ miles hiking with little boys over the course of 4 days. Then I remembered that before that he went with a friend to climb Lone Peak - backpack in 7 miles, then climb the 700-foot vertical face of the peak. I recalled him saying that over the past 10 day period he had showered twice, even after all that physical exertion. He wasn't resting in his room or showering under cool water or even eating cookies before dinner... he was outside watering the garden, and teaching me something about priorities and work ethic.

Needless to say, my parents raised me well and are still teaching me by example the things that I should do. I guess no matter how old I am, I will always keep learning if I but keep my eyes open.

A Little Autumn

Things have been a bit melancholy around the house this week, and I'm thinking it's because of the impending change in seasons. I've always felt that Orange County doesn't have much of an Autumn, just a lot of hot, dry Santa Ana winds followed by an immediate jump into the cool monotony of an OC winter. But it seems like this year we might be graced with something like Fall, a little Autumn to top off our summer.

Things are winding down around our place as well: Prophet, our pregnant praying mantis, has gone missing for a few days now. She's probably off spinning one of those mantis webs for the eggs. Ally, our new Southern Alligator lizard, is spending more and more time hiding in her corner under the bark chips - I think she feels hibernation right around the corner. Our hoa giấy (bougainvillea) is just about to drop it's last bunch of flowers and all the other plants are slowing any sign of growth to a halt as the days get shorter and sunlight becomes a scarcity. The ash tree is about to drop it's leaves and I think our banana tree is done sprouting for the year. The mornings are overcast, days are cloudy and evenings return to overcast as we tilt oh so slowly from the sun. My wife mentions that she's feeling a little down lately, perhaps because her moods happen to follow the sun more than the moon. It's as if the lush, green, sun-drenched, ocean-lined "OC" that the media perpetuates is going to sleep for awhile, probably planning to wake back up around the time Ally does.

But I like it. I'm always too hot in the summer and this weather is perfect for riding my bike to and from work. For some reason, the cloudiness and unshakable gray of winter here seems to rejuvenate me from the oppressive summer sun. I should be deep asleep now, but I feel more energetic in this cool weather. Things at work are picking up - who would have thought last year when I was hired as a Vietnamese specialist that I would be doing graphic design and database management now, in addition to my actual "job" - but I've decided that I'm not going to come home exhausted anymore because it seems to wear on my wife's morale. She's having a hard enough time with the weather right now, the least I can do is not make it worse by bringing work home. We just finished a great General Conference and Stake Conference and I'm feeling pretty enlightened despite the dreary backdrop. I've always kind of blossomed this time of year; especially now amidst the melancholy season I'm feeling more alive than ever.

Good thing God made my wife blossom in the summer and me in the winter or else we'd be in trouble. If we were both feeling down, who would cheer us both up? That's the magic about marriage - two individuals who are willing and able to lift the other up during the Falls of their life... even if it's only a little Autumn.

What I'm doing instead of blogging

A few weeks ago, I decided that my wife is more important than my blog, and my wife decided that I'm more important than Goong, so we've now been spending our free time with each other and friends instead of sitting at home with the computer (I guess that's what we get for having two computers). At home, I've reinvested myself in the garden, since all my plants will die in this heat if they don't have constant water. I haven't posted about my garden for awhile, but it's gone through a gradual transformation, which I've tried to capture in photos and have posted on Flickr (click here for complete slideshow, or click image for a few photos).

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What I'm really excited about is my wife's new bike. We're amateur cyclists now. We've found out that we both love to bike and it's good for us too, so why not do it together? Plus, since we both hate riding on the sidewalk (or the road for that matter), we've been searching for little bike paths in our area and have been surprised to find so many. Here's a few pictures of our latest journeys, including this morning.

Remedial Life Lessons 101

Well, I learned a lot during my little break. First and foremost, I'm not a machine. Part of the reason that I took a break from blogging was to focus on other areas, mostly my church responsibilities. The first week was great, I think I had something going on every night of the week. But, as a bona fide human being, I failed miserably in the subsequent weeks - a classic case of burnout. The lesson I must learn (actually, this is one of those "relearn" situations where I've been through these exact experiences a hundred times but I think that this time it will somehow be different) is that I'm not a machine, I'm not made to do just one thing all the time, nor can I keep up the intense pace I like for the entire duration of a project or calling. I shouldn't run faster than I am able (Mosiah 4:27), because I just end up crumpled on the ground doing nothing, just lying there feeling guilty about what I should be doing. Back in the day when I was young I could stay up all night and come swooping to the rescue of any situation at the drop of a hat and keep the kitchen clean at the same time. But I'm an old man now, I'm married and old and way slower than I used to be. This transformation happened faster than I expected and I'm still adjusting, which is part of my problem. The other part of the problem is that I think I'm a superhero who assumes that he has to do everything himself or else it won't be done right. Dốt quá! So now I'm trying to take those high-school disillusions of invincibility that somehow survived four years of college and dissolve them out of my mind for good. Then maybe I might be able to do things right. Maybe.


Another lesson I learned in the past month is that I need a hobby to balance out my responsibilities as an old married man. The work I take part in everyday (work, church, community orgs) doesn't count as my hobby anymore - it needs to be something that relaxes my mind and gives me time to refocus on life. So when I "went off" blogging (my predominant hobby at the time) it was pretty hilarious how crazy I went. I fell into a hobby-finding craze and just recently recovered. Trying to convert my sun-drenched west porch into a pleasant garden experience has been an ongoing project since last year, and I've found great joy in expanding it slowly over the past few spring months. Now I have a small forest garden on the east porch, too, along with my herb garden and homemade (aka jimmy-rigged) Japanese arch. But having so much time at home because I was done blogging and too burnt out to visit more people from my church allowed me to concoct crazy plans for making an open terrarium with desert plants, which turned into tropical plants, which turned into half-desert half-tropical, which turned into a lizard and frog and snake cage, which promptly turned into nothing after considerable "counsel" from my wife. Next I had several web projects surface in my head, which I beat down quickly (blogging vs web design - big difference). I won't bore with all the potential hobbies I've entertained in the last 3 weeks, but I will say this: I'm not a machine, and I definitely need a hobby to provide balance in my life. I return to blogging under new guidelines, mainly to moderate how much time I spend on this thing. It should be more enjoyable that way anyway.



Probably the coolest thing I did while on break was go to the Huntington, which has a very cool Japanese garden portion. Here's some pics:


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Also, I'm trying out remote blogging from an email account that allows me to send raw html emails. Unfortunately the email is tagged with an ad at the bottom, which I deleted here but I won't be deleting while in Vietnam.

My brain's too small for blogging!

The last few days I've had thousands of things swimming around my head that I want to put down in blog form. Ok, not quite thousands but sometimes I feel like it. So, I'll do a roundup of what's been on my mind. This is what I call a weak-sauce attempt at being a blogger:

• First of all, Triết posted a great analysis of the improving/declining relationship paradox between Vietnamese Americans and Vietnamese in Vietnam. It sparked a lovely banter between us, which resulted in some great perspectives being raised and dissected. Instead of blogging it on my own, I'll just "blog ké" with his: A Tale of Two Peoples. Update: another good discussion I'm a part of can be found at OnlyBlue.org.
  
• I've started uploading videos - ok, only ONE video - to Google video instead of trying to stream my own. I like the flexibility of doing my own, but trying to encode and script and stream my own flash videos when Google can do it all for me is like trying to make and kneed and bake my own pizza crust when I can buy one that's already done. Oh wait, I do that too. Anyway, here's my first video, or just view it right here.
  
  
• Mitt Romney - I posted a while ago about him, and I've tried to save my breath whenever I feel like asking myself (on the blog, of course) "Is he serious?" Evidently, I'm not the only one thinking this, and it happens to be a somewhat-famous someone who's asking the same question. See Orson Scott Card's view of Romney as President (which I actually find quite entertaining, and a decent analysis of the whole "Mormon" issue)
• I've been planning a post on my garden - spring sure does wonderful things to those ugly plants out back. Ugly during the winter. But not as ugly as Utah, at least mine stay green. The jasmine is bursting with white flowers and filling the air with its sweet fragrance, the blueberries are actually turning blue (which I thought wouldn't happen because I didn't think bees flew up to the second story), my first try at quế, tía tô, kinh giới (Vietnamese herbs) are growing like weeds (see guys, we were right!), and the banana tree just sprouted another leaf. Ah, spring... here are other posts about my garden.
• My mommy just started her blog, which she is totally stoked about. She's a writer, so this should be a cool blog once she gets a good base of posts. Go, mom!
• Much has been happening in Vietnam as of late. I can't put it all here, but here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. This is a copy-and-pasted version of the article made on Google documents, which deals with the democracy movement currently taking place there. It's a good read.
• Last month, a news story resurfaced about a handful of Chinese nationals - supposedly spies - who were accused of passing US defense secrets to the Chinese government. I don't know about that... the articles I read sounded too much like something from the movies. Police tapping phones, installing mini cameras in peoples' houses, arresting them right as they approached the terminal at LAX on the way to China... it's hard for me to believe the charges fully, especially considering the current mentality of America towards terrorism and China's rising economic dominance in the global market. See what you think: it happened in Anaheim, so here's the first article from 2005 from the local newspaper and the next from 2006. Also, another site with more detailed info and a whole gaggle of news stories.
  
• I started a post on immigration, since the issue is getting hotter with the presidential election nearing and Jim Gilchrist losing his Minute Men to "hijackers," but it's turning out to something more like a senior thesis than a blog post. I'll see what happens. In the meantime, here's an interesting article about illegal immigrants, namely American citizens in Mexico who refuse to learn Spanish, assimilate or even watch soccer.
• And last, something I feel necessary to address since it's such earth-shattering news: The Virginia Tech shooting. I'm sure anyone reading this will know more than I about the shooting, but along with the sorrow that is felt in connection to this incident, there is pent-up anger and even hate. The first thing I thought when I heard it was an Asian gunmen was "Oh, please don't be Vietnamese." If you thought something similar to this, then you already know that it is because once the ethnicity is named, that community becomes the first target of any hate crimes, violence or retaliation. I fell across a blog post today that compiles many articles addressing this very topic: it's ironic that it's called "Angry Asian Man."
  

That's all for now.

I have a Testimony... of antioxidants

Ok, I know they don't look like blueberries, but they are. Before they turn blue, that is. I've been growing this little bush since last fall in hopes that I can have some fresh blueberries to eat with my breakfast. I started eating blueberries about two years ago, when my wife and I bought a big bag of them at Costco for some reason, but that reason did not use all of them so I had to eat the rest. These little blueberries changed my life. Or at least they changed my breakfast. I haven't paid a penny for my cereal for the last 4 years. How? Basically all the old bác I know who get food from the food bank but don't like cereal - they give it to me. Every month I get at least 6 boxes! And I eat about that much, too, since I have cereal every morning. In case anyone's interested, I also have a fridge full of cheese, another food that does not agree with most Vietnamese palates or digestive systems. Then I got poor, so I opted for raisins which are also found at Costco but for 1/4 of the price of blueberries. A trusted source (i.e. the chart on the back of the blueberry bag) informed me that next to the very berries I was holding in my hand, raisins have the highest amount of antioxidants. I figured that must be a good thing, so I've been eating raisins in my cereal ever since. I guess I got desperate after two years of plain "Crispy Hexagons" or "Crispy Rice" or "Tastee O's" and blueberries or raisins have fulfilled that need ever since.

Here's the cool thing. Even though sometimes my wife tells me I'm crazy about health stuff, I had no "health" motive in putting blueberries and raisins in my food. I just needed some variety in my life and in my cereal. But after several months of berry-raisin-eating, which happened to be the winter months that get me sick every year, I looked back realized that I hadn't even had a cold through that whole time period. I firmly believe in the power of the mind for healing the body, so I thought that this might just be the placebo effect, since blueberries are so high in "antioxidants" which are supposed to be healthy. But I didn't even care about that, I was just eating them for the taste. However, I just passed it off as coincidence, and went on my way. Now, two full years later, I have not had so much as a coughing spell and that's including the stress-filled graduate-marriage-car-stolen- new-job-wife-in-vietnam-general-election season late last year. So my conclusion: blueberries and raisins are a part of your balanced diet and will help you stay healthy (it probably helps that I ride my bike everyday and eat fruit like a monkey). I did my homework and I guess over time our insides "oxidize" and the "antioxidants" fight it. So I see it as keeping my innards from rusting.

Is the seed of faith enough?

For the last several months, I've been reading the New Testament for my scripture study and... oh, actually I think I read this in institute: Alma's perfect comparison of the word of God to a seed. Nurture it and it grows and yields fruit, neglect it and it withers and dies. (Alma 32:28-43)

I've seen Alma's comparison firsthand as I struggle with our little "garden" in our "back yard". Some plants have flourished and some have just died. The lesson Alma teaches strikes a chord in my mind because of the experiences I've had watching plants grow and watching plants die. But what about the time when our children don't plant seeds anymore? I doubt elementary school teachers will have time to plant seeds in class (don't pardon the pun) when there's continual pressure from the State to produce higher-achieving students under lower budgets. The growth process will become a subject taught out of a book rather than from hands-on experience, especially since less school children will ever need that skill to "succeed in the real world." At that point in time, will the seed-faith comparison be sufficient to open one's mind to a deeper level of understanding of faith? I suppose there will always be people who plant seeds since so much of our existence depends on it, but that industry is distancing the practice of planting seeds and the actual consumption of the product (probably to hide the conditions under which produce workers work) and the need or interest in planting one's own seeds is waning in tandem. SO... _{(deep breath)}... the only people left who know about planting are produce workers and farmers-market types who will always remain marginal because it's meant to be a marginal industry. Perhaps those are the ones who will deserve a deepened understanding of the Word, as Christ himself spend most of his time with the downtrodden and "sinners" (publicans who collected tax for the Romans and who were definitely marginalized). This crowd might be more receptive to the Word, as the good soil receives and nourishes the seed.

Phew, that's a lot of blabbing. It's just been on my mind a lot lately. What's the next parable that will knock people off their feet when they hear it? Even Christ's disciples were flabbergasted when he taught the parable of the sower for the first time. "And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?" (Matthew 13:10) What comparison will bring a gospel principle out of the abstract and into practicality? Or, is the time for parables over? Is the dispensation of the fulness of time an era of finding one's own guiding light through scripture study, fasting and prayer? Is the focus leaving what has been taught and moving towards what can be taught on a personal basis under the tutelage of the Spirit? Whatever it is, I hope I'm on the right boat to find it. But I guess hoping isn't enough, huh?


btw, here's some pics of our garden in February, after two days of 70^o weather: