Black and Silver....

Our refrigerator really died on us after the repairman trying to save it. He figured it was the motor causing the problem, and would cost like 300 to change the motor so we may as well just get a new refrigerator. I was kinda annoyed about that so I went to the shop and complained to the owner, knowing he would probably just ignore me...

Well...he said I just had a bad luck with a refrigerator which was only one year old when I got it. It happens in life he said, and he was really sorry about that. He was willing to cut me a deal with a new one for 400 without tax and delivery fee if I pay cash. I was thinking....yeah...new one...I am not so sure about that....and I am not so sure if the deal was indeed a deal since he looks like he is from Vietnam (Ok...my racist nature coming out again....I know...it's bad...). Nevertheless I bought it because I was too annoyed of not having a refrigerator to use at home and didn't know where to put everything....oh...and also I liked how he talked....the attitude was quite nice :P

So now I am sitting here waiting for the delivery of our new black refrigerator. In front of me I am looking at the new TV stand Billy just put together last night. Every thing on the TV stand is a combination of black or silver. The vacuum cleaner standing right next to the TV is also black and silver....so are our floor lamp and nice looking trash can....I just suddenly realized I am slowly approaching my dream of having a very futuristic looking living environment. I used to want to make my own place very metallic and cold tone. I think I am half way there but with some nice shades of purple, red, green at home. I think the contrast is good now. :)

Here are some photos of how the TV stand was put together step by step....1st is how the stand looks like with only TV hanging there.

The 1st tier is for one of the speakers, and later on for receivers of the wireless mouse and keyboard....

The 2nd tire is for our DVD and cable stuff....

Here is how it looks like with the computer.....PS II is still sitting somewhere not on the stand yet...

Wed is not a day to sleep in.....

I think I should put in my calendar to wake up early on all Weds. It seems like every Wed there would always be something that wakes me up early, and I did not escape the fate this morning either. Hades started walking around trying to wake me up before 7, and just when he gave up the gardener came to cut the grass. When Billy was about to leave he found out our refrigerator was not working...so I just decided to get up...no point trying so hard after so many distractions..

Our manager San Tiego came to check out the outlets for me. We tried several times and found out the refrigerator is actually the thing causing the switch to jump. Whatever we plug in other than the refrigerator would work just fine... thus San Tiego concluded something must be wrong or short with the fridge.

So I called the repair place where we bought the fridge from. The earliest time they can come is 1, which will probably make me have to cancel one of my students. sighs...Let's hope nothing terribly bad is going on with it....ar....everything just have to break at the same time like mom always says....

Love at 1st sight....

Guests of the TW talk show were talking about "love at 1st sight" today. I guess that is something which is hard for me to understand. I tend to get my eyes caught on someone after meeting few times and then I would continue my "observation phase" for a while. I just don't think anyone can be trusted and understood during a short period of time, certainly not the 1st time.

The comments on "love at 1st sight" from the show was interesting though. One of the guest (朱衛茵, who was married to 李宗盛 before and is a sister of a big shot pastor 朱植深 in TW) stated we often reflect ourselves on to other people we meet. The reason why we are not able to trust and fall in love at 1st sight is because we do not trust ourselves. People who do not trust themselves to pour out all they have and love someone fully usually hesitate to accept love from others. The situation may come from previous hurt and experiences so one learns to watch out and be careful when it comes to any kinda relationships.

I just thought that was interesting and inspiring. Indeed it is very hard for me to step into anything which I have learned with previous failing results even only through other people's experiences....and yet sometimes I would feel "oh well....fxxk it....I would just do it anyway and see what happens...life is short..." Again that shows my contradictory nature toward dealing with anything in life. I can be super analytical, but at the same time very 任性 when making decisions. (Ho-Ching often told me I was the most 任性 friend she ever had....very amusing...)

This show was so interesting I wish I taped it for my friends to watch. (especially those who cannot ever get over relationship issues....believe me there are plenty of them...) I was broadcasting it on line to Nancy while I was watching it. I think both of us had fun. Miss Chu concluded there are 4 things which better match in a relationship, and I guess she learned it from her previous failing marriage. (...which she did not blame completely on the 3rd person alone. She understood there were problems they did not solve before the 3rd person had a chance to interfere. )

Ok.....here are the 4 things. 1. Religion (I guess most people nowadays don't think this is imp, but it does affect how people think in many aspects.) 2. Race (I totally agree cultural differences make a huge difference.....but it does not seem that imp to people nowadays especially in US.) 3. Values (Don't think I need to go into this much.. It's basically everything...) 4. Honestly (ok....matching honestly is very difficult to achieve....tough lesson right here...what to say and what not to say? it's always the question...)

Why would people want to get together and go through all those troubles? Don't ask me....cuz I always wonder about that myself....I still remember asking my parents at younger age "How can you two stand facing the same person everyday throughout your life time?" It's still a big puzzle for me even till today....

I really hate seeing dentists....

My tooth had been bothering me since middle of last week. My gum was all swollen middle of the night one day and I thought I was just having one of those "fire gas big" days. I started to realize I was probably having tooth problem during weekend and thought I would better take care of it before the wedding and our trip.

I had great trouble deciding which dentist to go because of the insurance plan from Billy's company. I ended up going to this DDS called Thomas Wu because he was the only one who I was able to find some rating and comments on line from the list. Last night I only slept three hours due to the fact I decided to go see a dentist this morning. I was just so stressed over this.

I really don't know why I hate dentists so much....maybe because I have terrible teeth ever since I was a kid. Past experience really piled up to an extend that I would choose not to see any dentist unless I am already in pain...and yes....that is often too late....

It turned out to be the tooth that is hurting needs root canal, and the weird thing is I thought that was already done to the tooth back in TW. Of course the doc said it was not done properly and not all nerves were pulled out, and it seems like that is always the case when something is done in TW....very interesting indeed....

The cost of doing root canal for one tooth is 550 and the cost to crown it is 600. Can you imagine that is how much a crappy tooth would cost? I wonder how much will the insurance cover....hopefully at least half of that. I wonder how many of my other teeth are also messed up. It will probably take me several months to fix them all.

I only got my 1st treatment today and hopefully by next Mon the whole process before crowning can be done. The tooth is hurting even more than before because of the root canal procedure. I am really getting annoyed about this. I still hate seeing dentists even though the doc got all excited knowing I am a musician and can't stop chatting with me cuz he plays violin too...(I don't know how he expects me to answer while he was working on my tooth...)

What do we need to have teeth so they can always get cavities? (I brushed my teeth too...and I didn't eat so many candies when I was a kid....why? why? why?) Man I wish I can just pull the tooth out.....I HATE SEEING DENTISTS!!!!!!!

Doesn't feel like Sat....

Today is Sat, and it does not feel like Sat cuz everything was actually quite relaxing. We went to Macy's to get a few things. Billy finally got his "silver technology" sandals from Kenneth Cole and they look quite comfy. I got my make up remover in preparation for the wedding. I had enough pain trying to clean up my face after the studio shots I have to make sure it does not happen again.

We watched Ocean's 13 with Billy's parents. The movie was only ok but then I got to see both Andy Garcia and Al Pacino in the movie. I think Al is really getting too old for me, but Andy Garcia is still very cute (even though bigger now, the eyes are still charming.....). I think this movie is getting kinda boring since it's basically the same kinda story for the 3rd time now.

After movie Billy's parents went to eat and we were going home cuz I was not hungry at all. Out of the blue Billy suggested in going to Ralph's and see if we can find anything to make food at home. Yeah....like....I can cook....

We got 70+ dollar worth of food and played around with the food after we got home. Here are the photos....

The 1st one is salad Billy mixed. The color is quite nice huh? Billy used ranch dressing and I had my raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I like my raspberry dressing cuz of its sweet and yet not too sweet taste. 2nd photo is spaghetti sauce I cooked with ground beef, mushrooms and canned tomato sauce. It looks like Ma-Po-tofu to me. The third one is corn soup I cooked with a can of cream corn and milk + eggs. The 4th pic is how the spaghetti looks like on our bar with the wine and our bar stools.

Billy also cooked steak with our oven. There looks like neon light inside of the oven huh? cool color right there. So you see how much food we came up with? That is just for the 2 of us....kinda crazy. Of course we didn't finish everything but I am still very stuffed right now. (About 2 hours after we ate....) I totally admire people who "like" cooking. I wonder how many of the moms actually enjoy doing it?

Oh....by the way...we also got our wedding rehearsal time set up with Almansor. We were lucky enough to book our time Sat at 10 in the morning. We will be able to rehearse at the venue and have a lunch at uncle Frank's afterwards....everything worked out well :)

On Motives, Actions, Character, Piety, Virtues....

I was reading the story of Balaam this morning, and on the "life lesson" section all of those listed above were discussed. I thought it is so true that actions don't always represent one's motive, and motive does not always present well with one's action. It is indeed very hard to tell what is the motive behind one's actions at times....but God knows.

Lewis Smedes says character is what we truly are, compared to what we seem to be. I guess we can "seem to be" many things and yet all of those are pretended. Piety is our relationship with God where as character is the quality of each person. I guess everything is all inter-related. Relationship with anyone can always be pretended but then character really shows if one observes long enough.

"Virtue" means "excellence" in ancient Greek. It is interesting to learn the ancient Greeks had four cardinal virtues--discernment, courage, temperance, and justice. Those virtues can also help defining one's character.

"Discernment" is imp cuz unless you can tell what is going on around you with situations, you will always make wrong decisions. Courage is the power to do well under tough conditions. "It is having the character to do well when things are tempting" says Smedes. "Temperance" means being in charge of one's own life. "To manage, to control, to be able to orchestrate all the stuff that is going on inside" is basically what temperance lets one do. "Justice" is one's determination to be fair always, not depending who you are dealing with.

It's obvious finding someone with noble characters is very difficult if you really think about what the virtues are. I guess the ancient Greeks were quite wise, yeah?

There are still good people around who are faithful

Dorcas wrote me an e-mail today. She moved back to HK since 2006 I think....kinda miss her even though I did not hang out with her much except through tours. She was in a tour with Sammi (鄭秀文) recently and shared with me the pictures. I did not know Sammi is a Christian and thought she just recently converted....but Dorcas told me otherwise. Here is what she wrote me after I asked her....

"According to her sharing, she converted some 10 yrs ago but
was not really a committed Christian until these couple of years
going thru some difficult times in life, she has a much closer
walk with the Lord and studying bible with a group of Christian
artists. She sang "I will follow Him" in concert and she shared
if the Him is the "Lord" or "上帝" then He is the one that gives
me the strength and courage to move on. She did not "bai bai"
during the Chinese incense burning ritual and I told her I prayed
for her on every show even we don't bai bai. She said she won't
bai bai because she's a Christian and we both give thanks to the
Lord back stage and on the celebration dinner too even in front
of many non-Christian which is quite amazing. However, she does
need a lot of prayer to support her especially when she is so famous
in Hong Kong, there is lots of attack from the other side of the spirit.
One day during rehearsal while she was going to sing "I will follow him"
on a very high stage, she almost fell off the stage due to some
technical problem and we all prayed very hard that God will protect her
and save her from this accident. She's ok now, only left some bruise on
her upper arm.

Anyway, the 8 shows was really fun.

Dorcas"

I guess through all those crappy ministry experiences I still got to meet some cool people. There are still honest and faithful musicians and artists who do what they do and remain a good servant of God through their career.

I guess being a good Christian is more a down to earth everyday kinda thing rather then putting up "big and holy" shows for people. I totally appreciates those who can come down from the stage and do the most ordinary things helping out those in need. I think it's much better than trying to climb up the stage and does things which will not last long other then fulfilling one's desire of fame.

Anyway...I was glad to hear from Dorcas and hopefully she will be able to come to the wedding after their shows with Sammi.