footprints in my heart...

either given or received, what was the coolest thing?

i gave my lil brother an eye toy for ps2. it was the coolest gift! as well as the watch i picked out for my other brother from my parents.

meeh? i got my kickass snowboard! i bonded with her on the day after christmas up in snow summit. we went through some falls together, my board and i. and i even got her a little scratched up and sliced. but it's okay, she still loves me and i'll get her repaired.

what did you get or give that was great?

i met a new friend this year, one i never expected at all. at the scrc convention, my mom pointed her out to me and i brushed it off cuz i didn't know the significance. "maybe she'll be an acquaintance," i thought. i finally met her at a random youth ministry meeting that i wasn't planning to go to. i didn't even know it was that night. i just stopped by, cuz i followed michelle after another meeting. then i got "sucked" into it and it's been an awesome journey.

like i said in the last post, i think God's been sending me people this year to help me in my journey. we're all on different paths, in different parts of the path too. some are just starting, some are stumbling, some are in forks in the road. and it's nice when you see someone who's behind you, who looks up to you, not competing or trying to catch up, but just someone who says, "gosh, i want to be where s/he is at-that's a great place to be at". and it's important too, that you always have someone that you look up to, someone who's ahead of you in the journey. and it's especially nice when that person ahead of you isn't just leaving you in their dust. when they actually encourage you to keep going and challenge you to grow.

so back to my new friend... i think of her as one of those people in my life who's ahead of me, someone i strive to be more like. but it's funny, cuz the more and more we get to know each other, i guess i do the same for her too. i didn't realize that i could have such an impact on someone i look up to as well. we haven't had super long conversations and we haven't totally opened up about everything to each other, but the tidbits that we've shared, it's been nice. really nice. i'm glad to start the new year off with her in my life. thanx marianne.

i never really make these, i tend to do them during lent. it's basically making a promise or a sincere effort to better yourself and there wasn't anything huge and specific that i wanted to change, like quit smoking (i don't smoke) or go to the gym everyday (i'm too lazy & i've accepted that). it's usually just a small mindset of trying to do better. if anything, my resolutions would be to be on time. like my friend said, she's a recovering late-aholic and i can be too.

this year, i'm sorta making one. again, it's not something so big and obvious, but something i need to do. i realize that i have a lot of trust issues. trusting myself as well as others. sometimes i trust myself more than others, leading to my control freakiness. sometimes i don't trust others with my emotions or i'm too worried of what they'll think of me, so i don't trust that they'll love and accept me regardless. sometimes i don't trust myself to do the right thing because i've screwed up in the past. but i'm finding more and more lately that i can trust myself and that there are people i can trust. people who i thought didn't understand, actually do. like my mother. when i was a teenager or even in college, i thought she could never understand my problems-because of the cultural differences, the age, my perception that my parents just wanted me to be in a little box forever. but i recently opened up to her and she gave me sound advice while expressing times when she had to go through the same thing. i think i'll pick her brain and heart more often with my life issues.

i'm surprised when people i do things for actually do thoughtful things for me too. it's a wonderful surprise but i do need to trust that they care about me too and are willing to go out of their way for me. i need to trust in other people's capabilities. even if they do things differently, that's okay and the tasks will still get done.

i need to not worry so much about what other people think and continue to remind myself not to get swept up in their opinions and what they think i should do or how they think i should handle myself and the situations i get into. when i listen to people who react more combative than me i get into situations that i just don't normally get into (i'm not very confrontational, much less combative). i need to trust that i know myself well enough to do what is right for me. i can listen to people's advice, but i need to filter it and still do it my way. most often, their way is sooo not my way, how they handle things is not necessarily how i should handle things. cuz who gets to pay for the consequences when things go awry? me, not them, even if i followed their way. a longtime, wise friend of mine told me recently that i'm an intuitive person and that i know what i need to do. he was speaking in context of health and what my body needs, but i think he meant that as a whole as well-that i do know what's best for me. i realized then that i need to just trust my intuitions and that i'll know what to do at the right time for me. praying about it helps too. cuz most often, it's in His time, not mine. but i have to let Him work through me too.

this past year was tough in terms of friendships. there were people who i wanted to be friends with, friendships that are scarred, friends who have grown distant, friends who are just busy. especially after college, it's been much more difficult to cultivate them. but i guess i'm growing up and figuring out who will stick around and become family and who may just remain as acquaintances. and i'm learning that i can't please everyone and not everyone will like me. friends and acquaintances will come and go. in the end, there's just me and my family and those friends who have become family.

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i made a promise to myself in november 2002. that was a very rough year with lots and lots of fun, but no goodness. i made a decision: to cultivate good, solid relationships and focus on things that last in my life, not just on fleeting moments. i think i was thinking about it in the context of boyfriends and pleasure. but it defintely translates to everything in my life, especially the friendships. it's funny, cuz when i think about it, that's when all the challenges came about, after i made that decision. challenges with friendships as well as blessings with gl, who was raised building only solid relationships with people, not fleeting pleasures. i've also made new friends who are all about the building good relationships. i think God's trying to help me clean up my life, letting me know what parts i need to clean up and sweep away while giving me blessings of people who will strengthen me and help me to do that. thank you, Lord.

have a very merry CHRISTmas everyone!

yeah, i'm here at work. are you?

in no particular order:

1. finding the perfect gifts for the people you love
2. christmas music on kost
3. traffic being absolutely beautiful during the week due to people being on vacations!
4. good friends who have unconditional love
5. good times with new and old friends
6. family who's always there giving stern, but good advice
7. playing santa claus driving around town to visit friends you haven't seen in a long time
8. trading your gift to someone who appreciates it more during white elephant, even if you're trading for a box of cheer.
9. making little crafts to give away esp. with someone you have fun with
10. wrapping a gazzillion presents (yes, i actually love doing that. i worked at hallmark when i was in high school/college)

heheeh, we pretty much had the same list, so i just copied hers, except i was able to cross them off:

go to toys r us got gift at discovery store
go to a homey store bed, bath & beyond-went twice
go to best buy gotta go back to return crap i didn't need
buy another white elephant present
buy a send out christmas card
finish "creative" presents gl helped too!
wrap presents half done
have lunch w/ the best friends
find out where best friend lives
do laundry
get a carwash
exchange buy snowboarding pants
get waxalicious
manicure
get haircut
work
work out this'll never happen
sleep trying so hard to catch up!

payroll's closing today, so i gotta keep this short, but some high & low-lights from the weekend:

~ played white elephant/screw your neighbor: ended up with a cheer box! it was so much fun! i actually got a cd of tv sitcoms' tunes but traded it to someone who appreciated it more. but i left my cheer at the party! dang it, i was gonna give it to my mom who'd appreciate it too.

~ shopped with boyfriend, fought with boyfriend, shopped with myself the next day. :) much better!

~ made candy cane reindeers with boyfriend and had nice quiet fun together.

~ deacon art is in the hospital (add him to the prayer list), probably dying. he was telling my mom that he was talking to his wife who passed away a few years ago asking if she was coming to pick him up. he later received a christmas card from one of the parishioners with a picture of him and his wife, marie, at a party many years ago when they were still young. he says to my mom, "i guess that answers my question."

i'm sure you all know the game kris kringle or white elephant, even if you just call it gift exchange. last year was the first time i ever heard it called screw your neighbor. basic premise is that everyone brings a gift fit for anyone, regardless of gender. there's an order decided, like drawing numbers and the first person picks a gift and opens it. the 2nd person can either choose an unopened gift or can take the gift from the first person. and so on and so forth. the gifts can be taken only 3 times though. and the person who takes it for the 3rd time cannot have it taken away from them. the last person ultimately has the best pickin's cuz he/she gets to choose among all of the opened presents. there's also a variation of the game where you don't open your gift until the very end and then people can trade gifts with each other then.

so we played this game at a CHRISTmas party last year and it got sort of brutal. not mean-spirited or anything, but at the end of it, someone felt really jipped. it was funny cuz ironically, she was the one who was insisting on playing it where you open the gifts, specifically so that you can "screw your neighbor". and she felt like SHE was the one who ended up getting screwed. i didn't feel as bad for her, but for the person who brought the gift in. it was a well-intentioned gift, not meant to be a bad one. and it wasn't welcomed at all and sort of made-fun of. i thought the reaction to the gift was the mean part. i mean, even if you thought the gift wasn't all that, you'd still sorta try to be grateful, right? i would anyway. but it was a game and that's how it was played out.

why is it called white elephant anyway? *sigh* i had to research it and this is what i found:

The History of the White Elephant Gift Exchange
It was some time ago that a young man was invited to a gift exchange being thrown by some of his friends. He was somewhat hesitant about accepting the invitation, not really wanting to go to the trouble of finding a gift generic enough to be given to any one, none the less he sent in his RSVP and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

The day of the party he received a phone call from the host, she had forgotten to attach directions to the original invitation and was calling to make sure every one knew how to get there. The young man, some what distressed now realizing he had forgotten about the party, quickly wrote down the directions and headed out to find that perfect generic gift. The young man went every where, looked in every store, scanned every department store window, but found nothing he thought was suitable. Depressed he went home, what was he going to do.

Standing in his living room, with only an hour till the party, the young man thought maybe he had something just lying around, maybe he could find a gift here. He began to scan the room, trying to find something that would pass for a gift. His eyes paused for a moment on a bookshelf, there on the top was a small white ceramic elephant. The young mans mind raced, trying to think back as to where he had gotten it. Not coming up with any thing and with only 20 minutes to get to the party, he grabbed the elephant off of the shelf and quickly wrapped up in some scrap wrapping paper.

It was the ugliest wrapping job ever, he thought as he placed it on the table with all the others. It looked so out of place next to all the shiny wrapped packages with the pretty bows, maybe no one would notice he brought it, and he walked away, off to find the refreshments and friends.

Late into the evening the host called the group into a circle of chairs seated around the pile of gifts, she explained the instructions and passed around a hat out of which came a number written on a folded piece of paper. As numbers where called people chose gifts from the center of the circle, the biggest and prettiest one going first. When it was the hosts turn to go, she saw the present brought by the young man was still in the pile, and being a polite and gracious host she picked up the gift and began to unwrap the small package. As the elephant began to emerge whispers heard around the circle. The host began to laugh, "What a great idea! A gag gift. Who brought this?" The young man grateful for the excuse to his poorly chosen gift promptly raised his hand and began to weave an intricate lie about the tradition in his family known as the white elephant gift exchange. As the young man finished the story, he waits to see if his lie has been accepted. Slowly the people around him begin to snicker and laugh, and the young man breaths a sigh of relief, as the groups talks loudly about the new game.

As the night wore on, one by one each guest approached the young man, asking him to write down the rules of the game, excited to try it with there own family and friends. The young man thought about telling the very gracious host the truth, but decided that some things are better left for the imagination.

dang, so lack of preparation and thoughtlessness led to this tradition. greatttt. look, people, just be happy to spend time with friends and family and it's a time to show love and friendship in every deed we do. put effort in your presents. it's not obligatory, so try to give something nice. and if your receive a gift that isn't to your taste, be gracious about it cuz someone may have put some thought into it and you may hurt them by how you receive the gift. and if you're playing a game, have fun and keep it light! try not to screw your neighbor, and laugh a lot!

enjoy your holidays!

i get a whole bunch of email forwards just like all of you, but here's a really good one that after i deleted it, i went hunting for it just to share with all y'all:

This morning I heard a story on the radio of a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children. After many hours of looking at row after row of toys and everything else imaginable, and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the elevator doors opened and there was already a crowd in the car. She pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and stated, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot."

From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, "Don't worry we already crucified him." For the rest of the trip down the elevator it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Don't forget this year to keep the One who started this whole Christmas thing, in your every thought, deed, purchase, and word. If we all did that, just think of how different this whole world would be.

Wishing you all a Merry CHRISTmas!!!! May this Christmas be different from all your Christmases.

oh my gosh! so back in august, i had this awesome thought near my birthday (august 30). we were going to palm springs for a day and i figured we could go to the outlet and get some very early christmas shopping done. i was all proud of myself cuz i was able to get 3 people off my list.

it hit october and i made my shopping list with tentative gifts already written in. i had a nice plan and i didn't have to aimlessly wander throughout the mall. but did i carry that plan out? i think NOT!!! it would've been so nice if i stuck to that plan. but alas, i have not shopped for CHRISTmas since august!!! can you believe it?! i've got less than a week left and i've got most everyone to buy for still!!! aughhh! i was so good last year with only one person left a week before christmas. and this year, i've procrastinated till the very very end. oh goodness. i hear the parking lots are madness too. i could kill myself.

hmmm, maybe in-n-out gift certificates would be good for everyone....

seems like this holiday season isn't faring very well for people. some have had a loved one pass away, some have sick loved ones, some just need a little pick-me-up. if it happened any other time of year, it would still feel bad. but because it's the holiday season, i think the bad things just feel a bit worse. well, wherever you are in the spectrum of worry, sadness, loneliness, be thankful for what you do have.

courtesy of francia who's blog i can finally access again (yay, finally!):

lesson eighteen: gratitude

"o give thanks to the LORD, for HE is good." --psalm 106:1

from our first theme in prayer, praise, we move toward a related mood, giving thanks. praise is being awestruck and glorifying GOD for who GOD is.
thanks is being dumbfounded and grateful for what GOD has done for us.

the ancient israelites enjoyed a huge advantage over us in terms of feeling grateful. lacking technology and financial security, they knew they were
utterly dependent upon GOD
for their bread (if they had any bread), for shelter (if they had any shelter), for taking that next breath, for the sunshine and rain. we modern people are so smart, so self-sufficient--and especially in america, where
we prize independence above all else.

we think of gratitude as a feeling that you either have spontaneously, or you just don't have--and generally we don't.
we nurture grievances and file complaints.
advertisers incessantly lull us into a sense of dissatisfaction, so we will buy their products. even the season of thanksgiving becomes one more day of vacation, when the malls have sales and we gorge ourselves with a bit too much turkey and dressing.

perhaps our hardest lesson in prayer is to develop this counterintuitive sense of dependence.
i am not the master of my fate.
it's not all up to me. i don't "earn" what is genuinely good in life.
it is all a gift; all grace.

henri nouwen understood how gratitude takes practice:

"the discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to
acknowledge that all i am and have is given to me as a gift of love,
a gift to be celebrated with joy.

"gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.
i can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are steeped
in hurt and resentment.
it is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which
i can choose to be grateful when i am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness.
i can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly. i can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while i still hear words of revenge and grimaces of hatred...

"the choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. but each time i make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious...
acts of gratitude make one grateful."

the psalms, once again, are a mighty chorus of thanks to GOD. in fact, many of the psalms (such as 30, 34, 66, 126) were little worship services in which you would gather with family, neighbors, and friends, and tell the story of "what GOD has done for me." as a tangible expression of your gratitude, you would give an offering--your best sheep, the first wheat that ripened--as thanks to GOD.
to grow in gratitude, we will probably need to be sure our gratitude is tangible, involving our stuff, offered to GOD, shared with the poor.
and we will need to learn how to tell our story--to someone unsure about GOD, to someone who may be losing hope, to someone who's burdened by "earning" and toting the weight of the world on his or her shoulders.

so let us pray together, using psalm 118:21-28 (nsrv):

i thank YOU that YOU have answered me and become my salvation.
YOU are my GOD, and i will give thanks to YOU.
this is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. amen.

there are times
when you're completely surrounded by people
don't you feel just alone sometimes?
so you keep busy
and it feels great for awhile
but then it wears off
and you're back to where you were...

i need that song... when maria from the sound of music left and the kids were trying to cheer themselves up. but the little girl (gretl) goes, "why don't i feel betta?" yeah, i feel like that.

the weekend was incredibly busy and full of wonderful blessings as well as sorrows. we had been preparing so much for so many months and sunday was just the public "debut" of heaven sent. it was such a super wonderful mass, so upbeat and full of Spirit! the church was really packed actually, which is quite rare for st. paul. and we got a lot of praise from even the old folk. there was this one lady, who stopped me while i was running around doing last minute stuff. she must have been like 70 years old and she says to me, "oh i love it when the mass is like this! so upbeat!" imagine a little old lady just like the one on wedding singer who raps onstage. she was so cute!

my mom told me afterward that she overheard some other old people saying to our pastor, "father, is this still a catholic mass? it's so rocking!" i'm glad the congregation was very receptive and enjoyed the mass.

we even had an overabundance of food for the AfterEvent, and we had close to 100 kids there all throughout the games and activities. it was very satisfying and i couldn't help but tear up especially in the beginning of the mass when i saw the youth singing and their energy was just radiating! i knew we were doing great things for HIM and it was a wonderful feeling. but it's just the beginning, so i sure hope we can keep the energy up. as wonderful as it is, it's also exhausting!

okay, pet peeve: people who think they are just TOO cool, too old, too anything. aughh, remember being a teenager, and you were just tooo cool to do anything babyish or not cool? and unless you were in a church group already, church was just soo not cool. it was just an obligation. *sigh* sometimes i wanna slap some of these kids upside the head. but it's okay, they'll come to it in their own time. i sure didn't get it when i was that young. and some people who don't wanna play because they feel like they're too old. we had all kinds of ages in that group from 5th & 6th graders to freakin 26 yr olds rockin and playing games. it was seriously a great party! and some people were just anti because they felt so old. well, crap, if they're old, then what the heck am i?!

and the sorrows of the weekend: please pray for the comfort & healing of marianne and her family. they recently suffered the loss of their auntie. and a happy birthday to you my dear!

so i have my naturalization interview appointment today. i'm going to be a US citizen! it's funny, cuz it was never really a priority for me until i wanted to apply to the jet programme to teach english in japan. you have to be a citizen of the country you're applying from and i couldn't exactly go to the philippines just to apply to the program from there, y'know? it's funny, cuz i'm applying for citizenship just so i could leave the country for a year.

so here i am, carefully reviewing the lyrics to the star spangled banner cuz my silly mom keeps teasing me that they might make me sing! i sang it to her just to practice and i was doing the speed version and she told me that i better get the tune right or they'll fail me!

there's a 100 question citizenship test. some questions are stupidly easy, like how many states are there in the us? but some actually require research, like who said "Give me liberty or give me death"? goodness... bonus point to whoever gets it first. dude, and who is the chief justice of the supreme court right now? is it rehnquist? did i even spell that right? i don't think the average american even knows how many amendments there are to the constitution or even their own states' senators. gl didn't even know how many stripes are in the flag!

well, i guess i gotta keep studying... wish me luck!

i dunno if i blogged about this yet, so here it is...

a few of us started this youth ministry between beatitudes of our lord and st. paul of the cross. they've both been struggling to start a youth ministry all these years and i think it's finally come to something real and concrete. it was a slow growth, but definitely faster than we had initially thought! everything's been coming together so nicely for our first Youth Mass and AfterEvent. if you missed the message above on the header, here's the info:

Heaven Sent's First Youth Mass and AfterEvent
5pm @ St. Paul of the Cross, La Mirada
it's been wonderful to work with the kids all these months, from the choosing of the name, to designing our shirts, to getting the details together for the mass, and even the drama with the parents... it's been wonderful to see the growth of the group and i can't wait to see what else is in store for us. thank you Lord!

do you guys know keahiwai? when my friends and i went to hawaii in 2002, we, like all people who go to hawaii, fell in love with the music. keahiwai was one of the groups that we absolutely loved. that year, they had just come out with their first record "Local Girls" and they played Baby I and Promised Love all the time on kccnFM100. then they came out with their 2nd album "Satisfied" and they released Push and Falling. oh falling is such a beautiful song! even gl really liked it when he first heard it.

when i'm in a really sad or awful mood, just looking at their cd cover gives me hope. and when i listen to their songs, it's like ahhhhh! like breathing the fresh air of hawaii. and i feel happy again. or at least a little more laid back and relaxed. the spirit needs that. thank god for the aloha spirit!

you can listen to hawaiian music online if you like. just click on "on air broadcast" or "listen live" when you get onto the kccnFM100 site.

and for samples of keahiwai's music, click here. they've got all their songs and chords & lyrics too if you play the guitar. and the best site i've found to purchase hawaiian music is www.buyhawaiianmusic.com. please support them. they bring aloha to the world.

oh my gosh, everything hurts. my neck, my back, my shoulders. i feel like my entire bone structure is just all out of whack. got my ergonomic stuff here at work, and i removed the cpu from under the monitor cuz i felt like i was looking up and my neck was getting sore. i think it's better now, but still with the neck pain. maybe it's just stress. i did have an exam this past tuesday. i'm sure that contributed to it. and i got my test result yesterday and it was my 2nd to worst test. i was scared for that test too. i knew i didn't know the material too well. my grade was appropriate but not welcomed. so i sit here contemplating again, why oh why, didn't i just study just a little bit more in college. and why i'm not in grad school, and why i'm not where i think i ought to be. god, yesterday was just a bad day overall. had myself a nice good healthy cry though. i think my spirit needed it. i don't think i've cried that hard in a year. wow. there'd be months when i knew i needed to cry, but there wasn't anything to put me over that threshold to tears. yesterday started off with just a disappointment of not being able to go to disneyland and ended with my entire self-esteem crashing. i guess it's just one of those times.

ever had one of those days when everything just sucks? well, today is one of those days. i'm a pretty freakin cheery person usually, but this morning has just sucked and it's only 10 o'clock. aughhhh!!! traffic sucks, unexpected accidents and delays suck, missing out on disneyland sucks, getting to work late sucks, having a ton of work to do sucks.

everything just suck suck suckity suck sucks!!!!

crap, that just sounded like south park. remember that one south park movie when the kids went to that movie where they learned how to cuss and their mothers blamed canada? oh and saddam hussein was satan's bitch. or it was the other way around i guess. my goodness... the things i picked up in college. thanx for the good times.

*sigh* okay, i feel better.

okay i think i fixed the nemo picture below:

if you don't see this image, click here

remember my friday five? i got one fulfilled just last night! it was the best thanxgiving weekend present. my lana-bear called me last night and it was sooo wonderful to hear from her. since she transferred to usc we see each other only once or twice a year and i really missed her and her friendship. we had a fabulous big/lil sis relationship from alpha phi right from the start and i was really sad to have her leave. it's a wonderful friendship even out of the sorority, cuz even when we don't see each other often at all, we just pick right up where we left off, like we just saw each other yesterday. i love friendships like that.

at first i didn't even recognize her voice (nor her cell phone number) and i had to guess the familiar voice. and she gave me a clue that i wrote about her on my blog. after i guessed it, i asked her how she knew about my blog post. a little birdy told me, she says. well, thank you to the lil birdy she was IMing with. you've always tried to bring me and my friends closer and i truly appreciate it.

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in other news, i'm still pretty bummed these days about the m situation. i feel like a piece of my heart is broken. geez, like i broke up with someone. i called her to say happy thanxgiving and to thank her for her friendship, despite the situation these days. i just left a voice mail. but *sigh* oh well. even lana noticed that something was wrong. and we didn't even talk for very long and she picked up on it. i love our friendship. did i say that yet?

i went shopping with gl last week (no, not during the get-trampled-over sales of after-thanxgiving) and i realized something. i need more girlfriends. or dang it, just some other people to go shopping with. i think i missed m even more after that.

anyway, thanx to:
~ the lil birdy who told lana to call
~ lana, for calling
~ caroline, for being there to talk to
~ my family, who cooked or ordered great food
~ jei, giselle, marianne, theresa, glenn for being kick-ass leaders for the kids in HS
~ gl, for shopping with me even though the ratio of stores we visit, mine to his is like 5:1
~ my stronger immune system (both my brother and gl got throwing-up-too-sick-to-eat sick this weekend)